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In my view: Show, do not just tell...
By David Drever, Convenor, GTC Scotland
The forthcoming Scottish general election finds us living in interesting times. The Westminster coalition is cutting fast and deep; the Scottish government has set an austerity budget; and local authorities have a three-year programme of spending reductions that will impact deeply on education services.
Few areas of our personal and professional lives will be unaffected by the decisions being made by our local and national politicians. All the more reason for us to look long and hard at what is on offer at the ballot box in the May election - and make our choice accordingly.
Much more enjoyable than the real thing will be the mock elections that will go on in classrooms across the country as our pupils harangue, cajole and entertain their classmates in an attempt to win their vote.
While it is an exercise in democracy that accords with our current aspirations for citizenship within the curriculum, it is only part of the story. There is an increasing awareness that democracy in the classroom and school should be less a question of passive observation and more a matter of active participation. This could well be a challenge in an educational culture where dominant hierarchies have long been the established order. This national trait was mordantly observed by the Aberdonian Scots poet Alexander Scott - himself a brilliant teacher in the Scottish Literature Department of Glasgow University - in a series of brief aphorisms on Scottish character. The relevant one for our profession is: "Scotch Education - Ah tellt ye! Ah tellt ye!".
If we want young people who think for themselves, act confidently and participate actively in civil society then we should create the space and structures for this to happen in our classrooms and schools. That indeed would be a participative democracy!
To return to the gloomy prospects of my opening, I'll give you another Alex Scott wry aphorism that catches the mood: "Scotch Optimism - Through a gless, darkly. Scotch Pessimism - nae gless".