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in trainers or mobile phones. The Forest Schoolprogramme, which provides young children withopportunities to experience both structured andfreer activities in woodland settings, has beenincreasingly adopted by UK schools and nurseries.Such initiatives should be a mandatory element ofthe curriculum for every child.A holistic perspective on nature,education and societyIt is high time we took on board in the way welive individually and collectively, and the way weconstrue education – which is personal inductioninto and development for both the possibilitiesand the constraints that life offers – that humanbeings and the natural world are inextricablybound up together in a two-way relationship.For environmental sustainability and humanequitability to be possible, the natural world mustbe regarded as a common good shared betweenall peoples – and other species – wherever theymay be. The local environment contributes tolocal communality and its particular culture,and bestows a sense of individual identity andbelonging. As well as the fundamental supplysource for basic needs for food, water, clothingand shelter, the natural world is the supremesource of personal inspiration, challenge andrepose. Education that truly promotes environmentalsustainability will embrace all thesematters, matters that lie at the heart of the valuesof a Good Society.Education for the good society | 33
7. Schools fordemocracyMichael FieldingCompass’s articulation of what it means by‘Education for the Good Society’ includes aninsistence that we pay attention to personaldevelopment and the ability to exercise democraticcontrol. ‘Education is, therefore, a fundamentaldemocratic issue.’ In part this entails‘greater local accountability, a stronger voicefor professionals organised in communities ofpractice and the development of inter-dependentrelations between educators and their students’(see Chapter 1). It is this last injunction – thedevelopment of inter-dependent relationsbetween educators and their students – I wishto explore and extend here. Unless we take thismore seriously and interpret it more radically thefuture of local accountability and professionalcommunities of practice will be compromised.Indeed, unless schools themselves become morefully democratic institutions, unless democracyshapes the way we live and learn together, wewill fail to achieve our wider democratic aspirationsand continue to perpetuate the presumptionof privilege and the smiling face of unguentcondescension that so disgracefully disfigure ourcurrent political arrangements.Beyond student voice to democraticcommunityFirst off, it is important to remind ourselves ofthe nature of the interdependence we are advocatinghere and the practical difference it makesto what goes on in schools and other sites offormal education. One way in to this is to reflecton the latest phase of student voice work that hasflourished in the last 20 years or so. In its mostrecent manifestations it has included a remarkableflowering of activity, for example:• peer support – activities that suggest youngpeople benefit socially and academicallyfrom listening to each other’s voices whetherindividually (e.g. buddying, coaching,mentoring and peer teaching) or morecollectively (e.g. through prefects, studentleaders and class and schools councils)• student–teacher learning partnerships – inwhich students are given responsibility forworking alongside teachers and other adultsin a developmental capacity (e.g. throughstudent-led learning walks, students asco-researchers and lead researchers, Studentsas Learning Partners, student ambassadorsand student lead learners)• student evaluation of staff or school –activities in which students express theirviews on a range of matters, sometimes aftercollecting and interpreting data, either onindividual members of staff, school teamsor departments, the school as a learningcommunity, or the wider community towhich the students belong (e.g. students asobservers, governors, informants in teacherconsultation about effective teaching andlearning, and key informants in the processesof external inspection and accountability;students on staff appointment panels; studentfocus groups and surveys; junior leadershipteams; and student action teams identifyingkey community issues to be addressed).Listening to the voices of young people, includingvery young children, is now something that isnot merely espoused, but actively advocatedby government departments and their satelliteorganisations. There has also been very substantialgrass-roots interest in student voice from staffin schools and from young people themselves.In many respects this might seem surprising,since these kinds of developments appear tooutstrip their equivalent explorations in the moreadventurous decades of the 1960s and 1970s.However, if we reflect on the slide from publicservice to private profit, from engaged citizento querulous consumer, another reading of therise and rise of student voice begins to emerge.In what I call the ‘high performance’ neo-liberalmarket perspective young people are seen asconsumers or customers who are required toconstantly re-invent themselves in an unendingpursuit of material and instrumental gain. At acollective level, high performance schools seetheir main task as maximising their position incompetitive league tables by producing better34 | www.compassonline.org.uk
Page 1 and 2: Educationfor theGoodSocietyThe valu
Page 3 and 4: Acknowledgements:Compass would like
Page 5 and 6: ContributorsLisa Nandy is Labour MP
Page 7 and 8: IntroductionEducation for the Good
Page 9 and 10: 1 This article has been developedou
Page 11 and 12: 8 See Ann Hodgson, Ken Spoursand Ma
Page 13 and 14: 13 The most comprehensiverecent res
Page 15 and 16: 1 See for example B. Simon, ‘Cane
Page 17 and 18: 10 J. Martin, Making Socialists: Ma
Page 19 and 20: the poorest homes (as measured by e
Page 21 and 22: 1 In 2008, 15 per cent ofacademies
Page 23 and 24: 1 Angela McRobbie, The Aftermathof
Page 25 and 26: 8 Christine Skelton, Schooling theB
Page 27 and 28: 1 See www.education.gov.uk/b0065507
Page 29 and 30: 13 Barbara Fredrickson, ‘Therole
Page 31 and 32: 6. Education forsustainabilityTeres
Page 33: well as cognitively. Real understan
Page 37 and 38: and joyful relations between person
Page 39 and 40: 8 Wilfred Carr and AnthonyHartnett,
Page 41 and 42: 1 Winston Churchill, quoted inNIACE
Page 43 and 44: 9 See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/ed
Page 45 and 46: 1 The Learning Age: A Renaissancefo
Page 47 and 48: nities, and not have the public-pri
Page 49 and 50: 4 Engineering flexibility: a system
Page 51 and 52: other countries to require their re
Page 53 and 54: 6. Remember that many of the outcom
Page 55 and 56: 2 Adrian Elliott, State SchoolsSinc
Page 57 and 58: 4 Peter Hyman, ‘Fear on the front
Page 59 and 60: 12. Rethinking thecomprehensive ide
Page 61 and 62: training, be part of a local system
Page 64: About CompassCompass is the democra

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