Dancing with eyes wide open : On the role of nostalgia in education

Nostalgia rightly elicits suspicion, even derision, for to give oneself up to longing for something from the past runs the risk of compromising one’s capacity to act effectively in the present. But this does not make nostalgia, by definition, either sentimentally reactionary or wistfully unreflective. On the contrary, in the education context and elsewhere, it can be the exact opposite, though its influence, which is legitimate, particularly when articulated through the optic of tradition, needs to be constrained and justified by good argument and, where relevant, sound empirical research.

Forwealldothisbecauseitisimpossibleentirelytoescapetheinfluenceofthepast.Itis justthatwearenotsufficientlyawareofhowmostoftheideasweholddear-notonlyabout education,butaboutlifeingeneral-gobackaverylongway,andoftensofarbackthatwe have lost touch with their origins, especially when they feature strongly in our personal and collectiveassumptiveworlds.Iamtalkinghereaboutaformofreceivedwisdomoraculture held in common that we habitually, but selectively, draw on.And I am acknowledging too, as Freudsupposes,thatweunconsciouslyandunavoidablylivethroughsetsofrepressedmeanings created a very long time ago, mostly during childhood, which we can only hope currently to modifypartially,andalwaysslowlyandwithgreateffort.
It is not just then that we all keep reinventing the past; it is also the case that the past relentlesslyinterpenetratesthepresent,afactthatpartiallyexplainswhyitisverydifficultto writedownorspeakagenuinelyoriginalthoughtoreventodefinewhatonemightlooklike.It alsoaccountsfortheauthoritythataspectsofthepasthaveonourthoughtsandactions,though thekeyquestionneitheraskednoransweredenoughiswhycertainselectionsfromhistoryparticularnostalgicmomentsandsources-exertagreaterandpersistentholdoneducation policymakersthanothers.Thegrammarschoolquestion,towhichIalludedbrieflyamoment ago,isanextremebuthighlyrelevantcaseofthis,whichiswhyIwilldiscussitmorethoroughly towardstheendofthisarticle.
In drawing attention to these three educational traditions, I am entirely unconcerned on this occasion to evaluate either their singular or relative merits, being anxious rather to elucidatetheirbroadnatures,includingcrucially,afterHobsbawm,thevaluesandpracticesthey nostalgically embody, and to signal the need to enquire about the credibility of the evidence eachdrawsontoinfluencepublicdebate.Forcriss-crossingeachofthesewell-knowntraditions, and most other ones operating in the education context, are sets of assumptions about the nature of curriculum knowledge, the purposes of schooling, the psychology of learning, and whatcountsaseffectivepedagogy,eachofwhicharticulateswithnostalgicallyinflectedanswers tokeyquestions:Shouldallpupilsbeinitiatedintotheprinciplesandproceduresofparticular high-statusdisciplinesofpublicenquiry?Shouldschoolsofferaliberalorspecialisteducation,or amixtureofthetwo?Shouldformaleducationberegardedasacontinuouslifelongprocessor shoulditberestrictedtotheearlypartofpeople'slives?Whatkindofpedagogicrelationships fosterhigh-qualityoutcomes?Whatarethebestwaysofgroupingpupilsforlearning?Andwhen, how,andwhyisitbettertolearncollaborativelyratherthanonone'sown,andviceversa?The fact that three of these questions are about values suggests that good answers to them will dependonsuperiorphilosophicalreflection;andthefactthattheothersarecharacteristically empiricalpointstowardstheneedforanswerstothemtobefoundviasoundenquiriesofa social scientific kind.So, while the sorts of educational traditions I have identified are likely to continue to flourish, and rightly to feature strongly in people's nostalgic reflections about education,theymust(toquoteAnthonyGiddens)'moreandmorebecontemplated,defended, siftedthrough,inrelationtotheawarenessthatthereexistsavarietyofwaysofdoingthings' (Giddens,1994:83).

Eyes wide open or half shut?
Grasping the different ways particular educational traditions retain or struggle to maintain influencethroughnostalgicevocationrevealsalotaboutthefluctuatingstateofdebateaboutthe directionandcontentofnationalpolicyforschooling.Indeed,suchnostalgiaisanintegralpart, evenanecessaryelement,ofwhatthisprocessisallabout.Moreover,itisnotsomethingpolicy formulators canchoosetooptoutof.On the contrary, attempts to get away from nostalgia in education policy deliberation nearly always require those involved to hurry towards new versionsofit.
However, I need to be careful in what I write here, because supporters of non-selective schooling similarly need open-mindedly to look at the research findings about the success or otherwise of their preferred organizational tradition and the values and ways of teaching it privileges.Do comprehensives provide diverse and inclusive curricula?Are their public examinationresultsallthattheyshouldbe?Isthequalityofteachingthatgoesoninthemofthe bestkind?Aregirlsdisadvantagedinco-educationalcomprehensives?Ofcoursesuchquestions can be asked about any system of schooling, which is why both egalitarians (who favour the common school) and meritocrats (who advocate academic selection) have a shared duty to thinkcriticallyaboutthetraditionstheynostalgicallyespouse,includingbeingself-awareoftheir ideological inclinations, asking even if these compromise their willingness sometimes to look sincerelyattheevidencethatmakessuspecttheirrespectivepreferences.NeithertheLeftnor theRightpossessesamonopolyoftruthaboutanything,whichmeanseachisrequiredtolook hard at the evidence that both supports and queries the policies they respectively advocate abouttheorganizationofsecondaryschooling,andwhichtheytoooftenchampionnostalgically inwaysthatareinsufficientlyself-critical.