“Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!”
This article was first written for The Scottish Union for Education – Newsletter No81 where it was only published in part. Here is the full version.
Few sights can be more uplifting for the soul than seeing children playing happily, their smiling faces engrossed in the moment. But in 2024, is this joyful sight as common as it used to be? To put it simply; are children as happy as they once were?
As an opinion piece, please forgive my generalisations. I appreciate there are always exceptions to the rule. So, I'd like to start by caveating what I'm about to say with the fact there are still many very happy and bright children set to lead fulfilled and productive lives. I meet fantastic young people every day. Moreover, there also needs to be acknowledgement that many reading this will look back on their school days with mixed feelings. Not everything in the past was rosy.
However, it is my anecdotal experience from over 20 years teaching in secondary schools that, on average, children aren't as happy as used to be. The reasons for this are many, complex, involve big picture thinking and discussing some uncomfortable truths.
Daily onslaught
So, what has changed in recent years? Let’s start with the content of information disseminated and unpick a typical week’s experiences for an average Yr10 student.
· MONDAY- MORNING TUTOR TIME: Teacher reads key points from a guardian news article about racism which leads to the introduction of the concept of Critical Race Theory, delivered by some staff as fact. PERIOD 3 GEOGRAPHY: Learning about anthropometric global warming where the science is settled (97% of scientists apparently agree?), it’s primarily man’s fault and the students need to take responsibility for the failure of their elders.
· TUESDAY- MORNING TUTOR TIME: Students shown a Stonewall video on LGBTQ+ Role Models followed by a discussion which is steered to require all students to affirm they are supportive because indifference is as akin to bigotry. PERIOD 2 SOCIOLOGY: Content delivered on the work of Heidensohn on female conformity in male dominated patriarchal societies.
· WEDNESDAY- OFF TIMETABLE PSHE DAY: A mix of sessions, some delivered by outside organisations on; Knife crime, Sexting, Rape culture (see my previous article) and a session on careers.
· THURSDAY- MORNING TUTOR TIME: Session on Global Citizenship UNESCO. (Go to any school’s website, look up their values and goals and you will find the words global citizen.) PERIOD 5 ECONOMICS: Financial markets and monetary policy – focus on Keynesian Economics without the balance of also explaining The Austrian School of Economics.
· FRIDAY- MORNING TUTOR TIME: Yr10 Assembly on Mental Health – Body Image also including information on Sextortion. PERIOD 3 DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY - Environmental, social and economic design. Learn about carbon footprint with students using a carbon footprint calculator which inevitably tells them to eat less meat, turn the heating down and fly less or they’re a bad person.
This is just a fraction of the content disseminated to students. I’ve included links to existing curriculum content and resources used by teachers to substantiate my example.
Students barely experience a day at school where they are not subjected to some form of agenda-pushing narrative. It is an onslaught of negative messages and fear propaganda. It would depress the majority of adults if they were subjected to this barrage of negativity day after day! Does the 14-year-old brain really need to be grappling all these concepts? I believe it is our moral duty as teachers to protect, not expose.
A feeling of self-worth is a major factor determining happiness. According to the American Psychological Association, self-worth can be defined as “an individual's evaluation of himself or herself as a valuable, capable human being deserving of respect and consideration.” Is the current messaging at school affecting children’s self-worth? Do students feel a sense of worthwhile achievement frequently enough? David Graeber identified unhappiness and feeling a lack of self-worth in his book Bullshit Jobs. Although I didn’t agree with one of his solutions, Universal Basic Income, he was insightful with his analysis and one can’t help but wonder if a similar phenomenon is happening in education. There is no doubt a large percentage of the curriculum is considered ‘bullshit’ by students, and many staff.
I now challenge any teacher of more than 10 years’ experience to deny that a dumbing down is happening? Ignoring GCSE and A level results which are “adjusted” each year, average reading ages are falling, average levels of attendance are falling, and levels of poor behaviour are increasing. Anecdotally I have noticed a big reduction in students listening skills, attention spans and ability to critically analyse information. In addition to this, feedback from employers is evermore damming on young people’s suitability for the workplace.
In 2022 a national research partnership involving the Centre for Education and Youth and Sheffield Hallam University, led by Ipsos MORI found in terms of reading age distribution:
A quarter of 15-year-olds have a reading age of 12 or below
One in five pupils aged 15 have a reading age of 11 or below
1 in 10 pupils have a reading age of 9 and below
In my opinion these large numbers of students with comprehension difficulties are going to have their self-worth significantly affected, and in turn happiness levels. Ignorance is not bliss in this instance.
What’s the point Sir?
Average attendance figures are declining. This tells us the current system is just not working for vast swathes of students - they are just checking out.
It’s frustrating that the hypocritically expedient blame the pandemic for falling attendance levels. Whilst it’s true that attendance figures have declined since the pandemic, the downward trend had set in long beforehand with the pandemic just speeding things up. The small number of us who pointed this out at the time were universally ridiculed. Out of 16,783 primary schools and 3,444 secondary schools in the UK, I can only recall one headteacher publicly criticising school closures, Mike Fairclough, who has since been forced to resign.
Increased levels of poor behaviour in the classroom are another symptom of children not being happy at school. In my anecdotal experience, there has been a change in the types of poor behaviour displayed in class. There is less of the ‘jack-the-lad tomfoolery’, and more of a dishonest, deliberately obnoxious rudeness, indicating a moral decline. Students are also displaying more narcissistic behaviour and lying far more than they used too.
State sanctioned chemical abuse
Eric Hoffer insightfully said; “every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business and eventually degenerates into a racket.” Has ADHD been highjacked and become a racket?
Helping the disadvantaged is basic humanity and the people who work in these areas of education are some of our best. My concern is how we now care for disruptive students displaying behavioural issues. I believe we are too quick to label them with ADHD, and consequently too quick to medicate them. This growing form of control is extremely relevant to the conversation because long term happiness is rarely found with the use of a drug. These solutions may appease parents of any blame and be a quick fix in the classroom by zombifying the child, but who benefits in the long run? As far as I can see, it’s a gravy train for CAMHS Psychologists, the drug companies and their shareholders.
The recent discovery that depression is not actually caused by chemical imbalance, consequently rendering the years of medicated treatments unnecessary, with any benefits now being put down to a placebo effect, is surely cause enough to re-examine ADHD treatments? It baffles me that known solutions to help hyperactive students, such as a diet of good quality non-processed food, regular exercise (particularly in the morning), and a disciplined approach to learning with firm boundaries, are not put in place before we fill our young people full of chemicals.
Stealthily captured system
Is the education system itself making students unhappier? This observation will trigger those who’s self-interests depend on what the system has become, but I believe it is the root cause of why children are not as happy as they used to be. I have reached the conclusion that education systems around the western world have been captured by Communitarian Global Governance. The majority of people, even those at the highest levels of the system, do not yet know it due to a lack of understanding of what communitarianism is. It’s these complicit ‘useful idiot’ school leaders and teachers implementing ‘change’ who I blame most because they have failed young people. They have been conned and their egos will not allow them to admit it.
To grasp communitarianism, you have to think big and laterally. Whilst fascism and communism are nationalist, communitarianism is globalist. It can best be described as a mix of ideologies from the political right and left, so to understand it you first have to dispense with the old right vs left paradigm. It blends corporatism and communism, necessitating the merger of state through public-private-partnerships with favoured corporations and their investors who become the beneficiaries. You may have more recently heard it referred to in the guise of ‘Stakeholder Capitalism’. NGOs are used to drive policies decided by self-appointed elites operating above national governments. It is fascistic at the top, the control mechanism is technocracy, and collectivism for the masses under the pretext of community or ‘common good’.
Education policies are now decided at global levels by un-elected officials and driven locally through NGOs and think tanks. One example of this is how the new guidance on teaching sex education came into place. The UN released the International technical guidance on sexuality education , with the UK Government then releasing Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Health Education . Schools then import lesson content from organisations like, TES (owned by corporate investors Onex) and before you know it, your child is being told there are 72 genders, they can change their pronouns and are involved in discussions about practices such as felching. Were you ever consulted about this? No. Classic communitarian governance, they know what’s better for your child than you do because it’s for the greater good.
In 2006, Tony Blair launched the “respect agenda”, and repeatedly in his speeches, referred to the New Labour mantra, “rights have to be paired with responsibilities”. This is one of the core tenets of communitarian thinking where inalienable rights are no more. Then came David Cameron’s “Big Society” followed by Boris Johnson’s “Levelling Up Program” and Kier Starmer will bring in Labour’s rebranded version. These are all vehicles to funnel funding to NGOs and ‘locally’ implement global communitarian policies. Why have we seen such a huge rise in the number of NGOs and think tanks in the last 20 years? Classic communitarian governance, red or blue it doesn’t matter.
Why is this relevant to children’s happiness you might ask? I believe that the decent towards this collectivist system is oppressive, causing homogenisation and creating school environments which are quite frankly boring, soulless, stripped of maverick teachers, and unappealing for large numbers of students.
The technocracy aspect, the control mechanism, is significant. Most schools now are run by spineless technocrats who establish ‘partnerships’ with outside providers to solve management problems, including behaviour management. This is another example of how it works: The UN advocates for an increased use of digitalisation to help achieve Sustainable Development Goal 4 Quality Education. Think tank strategic partner The WEF disseminates Catalysing Education to all national educational think tanks, the chosen one for the UK is the Education Endowment Foundation (funded £137million by the UK taxpayer) who in turn advises schools to implement solutions like Satchel One, who also get the sweetener of being able to gather, analyse and sell on huge amounts of data. Satchel One monitors students’ progress in terms of homework and positive/negative behaviour points via an app on their phone. It’s entry level Chinese style social credit system, oppressively controlling and sorry to say it again, classic communitarian governance. Bring back ‘fear of god’, all is forgiven!
Can the last teacher to leave please turn out the lights! Oh, don’t worry AI will do it for you.
Teachers are leaving the profession in droves and the numbers starting teacher training courses are plummeting. This is an indicator that teachers aren’t happy. If they’re not happy how can their students be? Moreover, the numbers of lessons now taught by non-specialists is enormous. If the teacher isn’t passionate and knowledgeable about the subject how can that possibly translate to the students.
Reports from the National Foundation for Educational Research on Teacher Labour Market in England and UNESCO’s Global Report on Teachers indicate that this is not just a UK crisis but a global one. It’s difficult not to conclude that this is more than incompetence, rather a deliberately manifested situation. All the big (global) educational think tanks are pushing for A.I. teaching alongside digital learning IDs as a way to achieve the UN’s SDG 4. To implement A.I teaching they need homogenisation of the sector by creating what they call a Concrete Global Common Curriculum.
It’s the classic Hegelian dialectic, create a problem, then offer a solution you wanted in the first place. They know most teachers and school leaders are very sceptical about A.I. teaching, due to it’s potential to dumb down and dehumanise. But if the situation is desperate and schools are full of weak technocrats, they’re more lightly to welcome it. Once it has been introduced it can be normalised. It is my view that A.I teaching will only suit a very small band of students, leading to the rest becoming more disenchanted and unhappy.
The UK Government has invested £2 million into public body The Oak National Academy. This was established to support teachers with high-quality curriculum online resources, and create new teaching tools using AI – marking the first step towards providing every teacher with a personalised AI lesson-planning assistant. Can you see where this is going? And the teaching unions, who are also captured and full of ‘change agents’,………….tumble weed!
The Khan Academy is the more advanced US version which has AI powered teaching assistant apps. It’s primarily funded by………………you’ve guessed it………………….…everyone’s favourite benevolent philanthropists……………..…..The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.
Sorry, the short-term outlook is bleak
There is still a lot I haven’t explored; screen time, social media, Social Emotional Learning (Excellent article on SEL by Kate Mason), parents asleep at the wheel, the attack on the traditional family unit, ultra-processed food, and the increased cost of living, all of which impact children’s happiness levels.
Sadly, this juggernaut is not turning around anytime soon. History tells us that these collectivist systems will ultimately fail. How long it will take I can’t say, but in real time we are witnessing untold damage to young people. As parents we must take responsibility to prioritise the happiness of our children. We cannot trust the state, institutions, schools and teachers to do it. We must shield them from the sinister agendas outlined above and have those difficult conversations giving them the knowledge we’ve gained in recent years and the tools needed to navigate this sea of distractions.
Thankfully, parents are STILL the biggest influence on THEIR children and we must make that count. Remember those forwarding the agenda can’t live up to their own rules, so it is essential to keep reminding them that ‘equality and inclusivity’ also includes us, therefore they must not discriminate.
Publicly calling out any oppressive impositions is crucial because it gives others the strength to also speak out. I keep banging on about communitarianism in spite of the ridicule, because I believe it is imposed subversively, and never talked about in the public lexicon or by the media. Therefore, the more of us that recognise it, the more people will reject it, causing it to fail faster.
Dark sarcasm
During many a happy teacher training night out, as a bit of a joke, a colleague would often ask the DJ to play Pink Floyds ‘Another brick in the wall’. We listened to that great guitar riff and sang along as if we were going to be the generation that changed the system. We didn’t. But boy have those lyrics become even more prophetic?
They got the meat bit wrong though!
Thank you for taking the time to read and consider what I have to say.
References:
Pink Floyd - Another Brick In The Wall (HQ) - YouTube
‘Pervasive and relentless’ racism on the rise in Europe, survey finds | Race | The Guardian
Stonewall | School Role Models - YouTube
AQA | GCSE | Sociology | Appendix B: texts and summaries
Scottish Union for Education - Newsletter No6 (substack.com)
Learning to live together in peace through Global Citizenship Education - YouTube
AQA | Teaching guide: financial markets and monetary policy
Mental health assemblies - Peer Education Project (PEP) | Mental Health Foundation
Letter from the Head Teacher | Educational Diversity (eddiversity.com)
AQA | Design and Technology | Subject content | Designing and making principles
What next for children’s reading? - CfEY
Depression Is Not Caused by Chemical Imbalance in the Brain | Psychology Today United Kingdom
Using Digital Technology to Improve Learning | EEF (educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk)
Team Satchel | Satchel One - The Powerful Learning Platform
Teacher Labour Market in England Annual Report 2024 - NFER
Global report on teachers: addressing teacher shortages and transforming the profession | UNESCO
The Future of Learning: Delivering Tech-Enabled Quality Education for Britain (institute.global)
New support for teachers powered by Artificial Intelligence - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Oak National Academy (thenational.academy)
Khanmigo for learners: Always-available tutor, powered by AI
Australia's homeschooled children and the Global Education Transformation (substack.com)
As a parent, I was asked to attend the school because my son was described as 'disruptive'. I asked what he had done and was informed that he asked too many questions and would argue with the staff. His favourite subjects were electronics and computer science. They said he did not seem interested in those subjects and I had to tell them that this was because they were teaching stuff he had learned when he was 8 years old. I pulled my son out of school when he was 13. That was in 1985. They were wasting his time and he had told them so.
Frankly, with the internet freely available to all households, I am amazed that any parent sends their children to any school these days. Home schooling is the answer to all the concerns you have raised in your comprehensive article and I am fairly certain that we are being nudged towards that solution by the Chief Prison Warders anyway!