Drawing on a lifetime’s experience and research in education, Frank Coffield brings together some of his previously published papers to assess the impact of a wide range of national educational policies and to examine the role of the state in public education.
He concludes that damage has been done to education by political parties of both right and left and that damage will not be reversed until: further, vocational and adult education receive the same levels of commitment and resource as other sectors; serious steps are taken to tackle Britain’s unacceptable levels of poverty; and the powers of the state are reduced.
Among the unresolved challenges highlighted are: the plight of young people from deprived estates; their tactics in dealing with unemployment; the task of improving learning, schools, inspection, and system governance; the failure to increase productivity being blamed solely on education; and the dysfunctional and undemocratic political framework on which education reform is forced to depend.
An essential read for anyone in education, this provocative criticism of our past and current educational 'system' provides an accessible as well as a humorous critique of educational policy and politics.
1. Introduction; PART 1 Juvenile delinquency; 2. A Glasgow Gang Observed; 3. Entrée and Exit; PART 2 Youth unemployment; 4. How young people try to survive being unemployed; 5. Is there work after the MSC?; PART 3 The world of work and Further Education; 6. Britain’s continuing failure to train: the birth pangs of a new policy; 7. Resistance is fertile: the demands the Further Education sector must make of the next government; PART 4 Enhancing education; 8. Breaking the Consensus: lifelong learning as social control; 9. Learning Styles: time to move on; 10. Coffield’s learning or teaching styles questionnaire (CLOTS 2008)™; 11. Rolling out ‘good’, ‘best’ and ‘excellent’ practice. What next? Perfect practice?; 12. If there’s no such thing as ‘best practice’, how can we improve teaching?; 13. Running ever faster down the wrong road: An alternative future for education and skills; PART 5 Improving education systems; 14. Government policy is no longer the solution; 15. Why the McKinsey reports will not improve school systems; 16. From exam factories to communities of discovery: The democratic route; 17. Will the leopard change its spots? A new model of inspection for Ofsted; 18. The music in the word ‘education’; 19. Final Comments
Biography
Frank Coffield has been Professor of Education at the universities of Durham, Newcastle and UCL Institute of Education at the university of London.
'Frank Coffield’s Creative Art of Troublemaking is suffused with a lifetime’s passion for education and for those whom education serves least well; with scepticism - and occasional well-deserved contempt - towards the grandiloquent fumblings of policy makers; with proper and urgent questioning of the role and power of the state in public education; and, in generous measure, with experience, wisdom and wit. And though it ranges far and wide across our education system, this book is welcome for its particular focus on the neglected field of further, vocational and adult education.'
- Professor Robin Alexander, University of Cambridge
'This collection of articles provides a compelling voyage through half a century of teaching, learning and research. It should be read by former and future students and tutors alike, as it reminds us that there is no democracy without democratic schools and colleges and vice versa. Democratic education has been ignored for too long, while being used as a political plaything by decision makers who have lost touch with how learning takes place in the real world.'
- Reiner Siebert, Fachdozent, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany.
