THE recent publication of “Lessons in organising: What trade unionists can learn from the war on teachers” raises very many questions about the politics of education. 

How does a Marxist analysis help us to understand the underlying issues: education for “domestication” or education for social transformation? Learning that prepares people to take their allotted places within the existing social order or learning that equips people to engage in collective struggles for progressive social change?  And how can transformative approaches to learning be developed most effectively? 

These questions are just as relevant to debates about trade union and community education, in the current context.

Gramsci’s writings are particularly helpful here, building upon his own experiences of workers’ education through the Factory Council Movement in Turin, after the first world war. He was clear about the importance of providing knowledge and skills, enabling workers to cope within the existing social order. 

But this was absolutely not enough. 

Education had to be understood as part of a wider battle of ideas as well, reinforcing or challenging the generally accepted “common sense” ideas that represented the norm within capitalist societies.  Ruling ideas were very pervasive, he explained, but they could be challenged — and they had to be challenged. Another world IS possible, to use a more contemporary response to the mantra that there’s no alternative to capitalism.

The Brazilian educator Paulo Freire drew upon Gramsci’s ideas, as he developed his own approaches to adult literacy and community education more generally – although he explained that it had only been in later life that he had really recognised his debts to Gramsci’s thinking. 

Like Gramsci, Freire emphasised the importance of the battle of ideas, enabling the oppressed to get the oppressor out of their own heads, understanding the root causes of their oppression and working with others for progressive social change. 

He was also concerned with the ways in which learners develop critical consciousness, through engaging in processes of questioning, rather than having their heads filled with facts.

Paulo Freire’s ideas have been widely popularised – and widely misinterpreted. His emphasis on the importance of respecting learners’ own experiences has been particularly misconstrued in the current context, with the prevalence of populist ideas, undervaluing the importance of theoretical knowledge and questioning the relevance of professionalism more generally. 

Paulo Freire himself was very clear that while the role of the teacher was to start from learners’ own experiences and concerns, this was no more than the basis for moving on to engage them in processes of dialogue and critical reflection. 

There are parallels here with the educationalist Vygotsky’s approach to learning. His concept of “the zone of proximal development” focuses on the space between what a child is able to do unaided and what a child is able to do with support, whether this support comes from an adult or from a more capable peer. 

This approach can be applied to adults in different settings; trade unionists and community activists being supported and stretched to increase their knowledge, capabilities and skills. Like Freire, Vygotsky’s writings imply the need for an active, dialogic approach to learning, neither the imposition of rote learning from above, nor populist passivity, on the other. 

These types of issues have run through debates on education, including adult and community education, over time. Was this about the promotion of “useful knowledge” to enable learners to cope with the world as they found it, or was this about going beyond this — to promote “really useful knowledge,” to enable learners to work for progressive social change? 

There are parallels here with the notion of going “beyond functionalism,” Unite’s approach to going beyond the provision of learning to enable reps to function effectively in their role – moving on to provide political education in addition, as the basis for collective strategies for change. 

The need for going beyond functionalism seems more important than ever as educational provision becomes increasingly marketised.  

It is not just schools that have been facing increasing pressures to compete with each other to meet employers’ requirements. So have universities and colleges.  

Lifelong learning has been subjected to similar pressures, in addition, with learners increasingly responsible for investing in their own education and training. 

Meanwhile the spaces for becoming socially mobile through acquiring educational qualifications have been shrinking in parallel, including the spaces for acquiring less vocationally oriented, but more prestigious forms of qualifications, at Britain’s elite universities. 

This all emphasises the importance of political education across the life course, starting from people’s immediate concerns as the basis for developing the knowledge and skills and the critical thinking that movements for social transformation so urgently require. 

There are excellent examples upon which to build, as recent discussions at the Marx Memorial Library have been demonstrating, bringing those involved in trade union education together to share their experiences and ideas for the future. 

These types of initiatives are essential, increasing understanding of the politics of education, developing transformative approaches to education for the future. 

See:
Paulo Freire (1972) Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Paulo Freire (1996) Pedagogy of Hope
Antonio Gramsci (1968 edition) The Modern Prince and Other Writings
Gavain Little, Ellie Sharp, Howard Stevenson and David Wilson (2023) Lessons in Organising: What trade unionists can learn from the War on Teachers
L Vygotsky (1978) Mind in Society