Friday 21 January 2011

Opposing change

Everything changes. This is true of flowers and trees, people, societies and political institutions. It is really no more than the nature of the world; even if we do nothing at all, things change of their own accord. They decay, fall apart, mutate into other different things. Those who oppose this sort of change in society and politics are often called conservatives or, in a more pejorative way, reactionaries.

I have been reflecting upon this since Michael Gove announced the latest revamping of the national Curriculum. For a Conservative, he has certainly shown himself eager to change things. (Although his latest ideas suggest that his idea of change is really moving back to the way things were in schools during the 1950s, which is sound Conservative doctrine indeed!) The way that hospitals are run, schools, the police, army, Inland revenue; all our institutions are constantly in a state of flux. Many of us get a little irritable about change, particularly as we get older. There is however one group of people who seem to oppose any and every change to do with their own chosen pastime or lifestyle. These are home educators. It does not matter what is being suggested or by whom it is put forward; you can guarantee that home educators are against it. Change might be taking place in all other aspects of life in modern Britain, but as far as home educators are concerned, any change involving the law or regulations connected with their own practice is bound to be a bad thing.

I have encountered this sort of blind devotion to maintaining the status quo in other groups. Fox hunters for instance have always been convinced that any sort of change to the law about their own hobby would be an unwarrantable intrusion into their private affairs. Members of gun clubs too always seem to find new laws infringing upon their civil liberties. These characters, like home educators, seem to have a Panglossian view of life; that this is the best of all possible worlds and that any change is bound to be for the worse. It is the same attitude which led many Tories to oppose the Great Reform Act in 1832 and I can understand how they feel. I dislike change and new things myself. One observes that in Wales, consultations are now taking place with home educating parents and local authorities with a view to changing the way that home education is regulated in that country. Already, the murmurs of discontent have started and are likely to grow louder in the future. The battle cry is, 'Why change anything? this is the best possible system that human ingenuity could devise!' This has been the rallying call of reactionaries and Conservatives through the ages and the aim is always to stop things changing.

I shall be interested to see what happens in Wales. Somebody emailed me this morning, suggesting that the exercise in Wales has been encouraged from Westminster and is an attempt to see if a new system could be tried in Wales before being introduced to England. I have no idea if this is true, but it is, I suppose, certainly possible.

14 comments:

  1. Makes a change from Scotland, I suppose. Guess the Scottish parliament got fed up with being the UK's testbed.

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  2. Old Webb says-These are home educators. It does not matter what is being suggested or by whom it is put forward; you can guarantee that home educators are against it

    Home educators are not against change a number of home educators put forward all sorts of ideas in which we can be helped such as funding but that change was rejected not by us but by government!
    or lets have change in the way local LA treat home educators with real respect but this change is often rejected by LA's! yes lets have change Webb but on our terms!

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  3. Change might be taking place in all other aspects of life in modern Britain, but as far as home educators are concerned, any change involving the law or regulations connected with their own practice is bound to be a bad thing.

    You can only get real change about home education if you win over home educators The trouble with the last Labour government and why it lost over home education was it thought it couls just stream roll though change like you do in a class room! its very dangerous to force though change you also had the problem that the people wanting change do not really like home education and the reason LA's Balls do not like home education is because we will not do as we are told you can not control us! if you can not control a section of people this is very dangerous for government it knows this will spread wghich it will do this year with increased unrest over cost of living and youth not having work 0ne in five 16 to 24 have no work! this will lead to mass unrest!

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  4. 'You can only get real change about home education if you win over home educators '

    Interesting idea. Does this mean that one can only get real change about firearms by winning over pistol shooters? Or that real change can only take place with the law of theft if we win over thieves? I don't get this at all. When a law was passed forbidding the hunting of foxes with dogs, nobody felt it necessary to try to win over fox hunters beforehand! What actually is the difference?

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  5. 'Or that real change can only take place with the law of theft if we win over thieves?'

    That is a most insulting analogy.

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  6. old Webb says-When a law was passed forbidding the hunting of foxes with dogs, nobody felt it necessary to try to win over fox hunters beforehand!

    You can ignore the people the new law is going to affect but it will come at a price! you ride rough shot over to many people it will come back to bite you! far better to bring people with you by passing sensible laws not forcing things though all the time Many senior Tory M.P,s are unhappy about this ban so who knows in the future fox hunting with dogs may will be brought back?

    Just look at the poll tax this was passed in law but with in 2 years it was got rid of to be replaced by the council tax! poll tax was driven though riding rough shot over many people who pointed out it would not work Margaret Thatcher was brought down over it! Thatcher was like you could not see how what harm she was doing it finshed her! Poll tax was her baby and it destroyed her!

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  7. 'Or that real change can only take place with the law of theft if we win over thieves?'

    That is a most insulting analogy.'

    Not at all. It was suggested that a change in the way that an activity could be regulated could only take place if you win over those affected by the new regulation or law. This is a very odd idea. Various groups are affected by new regulations all the time, with little effort being made to win them over. Why should home educators be a special case? Are you really asserting that before the law requiring drivers to wear seat belts was introduced, it should have been necessary to win over drivers? Or that outlawing smacking should only happen if we can win over all those who beat their children?

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  8. "Change might be taking place in all other aspects of life in modern Britain, but as far as home educators are concerned, any change involving the law or regulations connected with their own practice is bound to be a bad thing."

    This may have something to do with government's track record of change in this area. So far their suggested changes (for which legislation has actually been prepared) would have been negative for some home educators and neutral at best for others. I cannot think of one planned change that would have been positive for any home educators (I don't count Badman's more positive suggestions about support because they didn't get off the starting line), so why would we expect anything different this time?

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  9. 'So far their suggested changes (for which legislation has actually been prepared'

    Could you tell us a little more about this?

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  10. Schedule 1, etc

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  11. 'Why should home educators be a special case? Are you really asserting that before the law requiring drivers to wear seat belts was introduced, it should have been necessary to win over drivers? Or that outlawing smacking should only happen if we can win over all those who beat their children?'

    Of course governments only attempt legislative change when the time is right, when they've made the argument and they think they can carry all the interest groups with them. There will always be a minority who oppose changes but governments always try to win the argument first.

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  12. 'Are you really asserting that before the law requiring drivers to wear seat belts was introduced, it should have been necessary to win over drivers?'

    Of course it was. That's exactly what happened. Apart from a small minority, the public was ready for the change.

    Has the government made sufficient headway with the HE community that only a small minority oppose change? I don't think so.

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  13. 'Of course it was. That's exactly what happened. Apart from a small minority, the public was ready for the change.

    Has the government made sufficient headway with the HE community that only a small minority oppose change? I don't think so.'

    If I understand you correctly, you seem to be saying that no law should be passed to regulate or forbid a practice until the majority of those engaging in the practice agree with the new law. So the laws against insider trading were unjust, because most in the City did not want them. The law against fox hunting was also unfair on the same grounds. If we adopt this approach and only pass laws which those who will be affected agree with, then we will logically have to consult and win over rapists before tightening up the law on rape. This seems a little odd. What do others think?

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  14. No, you don't understand me correctly. Or, at least, you probably do, you just need a new blog post subject...

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