Ebenezer Scrooge’s famous description of Christmas in Charles Dicken’s “Christmas Carol” could be rolled out as headlines for much of what we are being promised by politicians in Election 2019. Not just in the pledges being made for education (actually quite restrained so far) but the colossal promises being made to pensioners, the NHS and public services, nationalization, broadband, tree-planting etc. etc. would have been greeted with a considerable rhubarb from Scrooge.
More worrying for me is the reduction of politics to crude materialism, a political Black Friday, and the absence of serious concern for social and moral issues both in the UK and internationally. Even the BREXIT debate all too quickly is reduced to a balance sheet of economic benefits and costs rather than a consideration of the UK’s position in the world and our capacity to make it a better place.
But there is some hope. While Extinction Rebellion has some lessons to learn in managing public opinion the sight of so many young people (and not so young) protesting throughout the world to bring urgent attention to the environmental calamity, now facing my grandchildren and yours, has been truly uplifting.
As educationalists, this is our challenge in 2020 and beyond, to go beyond the short-term materialism of election manifestos and Christmas soon to be cast-off presents, and pursue the real purpose of education. It is time to reject humbug and remember why we became teachers.
