To Kill a Mocking
Gove?
He awakes with a splutter. I am amazed he has been out that
long. Maybe he always sleeps suspended by shackles and he doesn’t find it too
uncomfortable? Maybe being suspended by chains is part of his nightly erotic
games? Looking at him, you wouldn’t think weird, kinky shit as being completely
out of the question. Still, when I searched him, there was nothing
incriminating or embarrassing on his person. Including his phone; not a single
questionable text. Whiter than white, so he appears. Still, you don’t have to
be a sexual deviant or an upper-class thug to be a nasty Tory. It probably
helps, but it’s by no means a definite pre-requisite.
“What’s going on? Where am I?” he asks.
“Welcome, Mr Gove!” I begin, trying my best to sound like
the theatrical ring-master of some circus of horrors. “I am one of many
disgruntled teachers and I wanted to guarantee a personal consultation.
However, being no doubt conceived as wholly insignificant in education and
ridiculously radical in politics, I felt confident that the only way to
establish a tête-à-tête was through a good, old, traditional
kidnapping. I trust you’re not too uncomfortable?”
More spluttering. Then some incoherent, stuttering
involving cursing and questioning: “What? Where? Fucking… What?” Et cetera, et
cetera.
“Come now, Mr Gove. That’s not very eloquent. Why
don’t you use your fine English education to express yourself in a more
effective manner?” I don’t think he hears my taunting over his confused ranting
but the comment is for my amusement anyway.
A minute or two passes until his yelling subsides.
“I’ll ask again,” he says, once he has calmed down.
“What is going on? What do you want?”
“And I’ll tell you again.
You are here to discuss your attitude to education. I want to have an
opportunity to express my discontent and I want you to take heed to what I have
to say.”
“Really?” There is a smile
coming to his face, an establishing of confidence. “And you think the way to
convince me to your rationale is by kidnapping me and chaining me to a wall?
After you’ve already declared yourself as too insignificant and radical?”
“Well, if nothing else, I
have your undivided attention right now. Do I not?”
He considers my point for
a second. “I suppose you do. Whoever you are, you have my ear. It could not be
less sympathetic, which I think is fair enough considering the circumstances,
but you have my ear, none the less.”
“Politicians, ideologues,
countrymen, lend me your ears! Bit of a bastardisation of Shakespeare for you.”
“Julius Caesar.”
“Indeed! Excellent
recollection! Is that not the pinnacle of intellect, right there?!”
His response is a sigh.
“I don’t know where to
start, Mr Gove-”
“- Superb,” He snaps in,
“You kidnap the Minister of Education to rant at him and you have nothing
prepared? What must your lessons be like? Do you always ‘wing it’?”
“Rant? Rant at you? No, Mr
Gove, this will not be a rant. It will be a dialogue. What can you learn from
being talked at by someone that has things to say which you consider to be nothing
but nonsense? I get the feeling that you would like teachers to tirelessly yet
tiringly lecture students as a method for learning but I am not so inclined.
Are you aware of the banking method, Mr Gove?”
“I am the Education
Minister, not a moron.”
“You say that as if the
two are mutually exclusive, Mr Gove. The banking method follows the logic that
you deposit information into the learner’s mind and then you expect to get that
information paid out later.”
He grunts, then shuffles.
Perhaps those chains are beginning to cause discomfort.
“It seems that education
has made good gains by moving away from that sort of attitude, Mr Gove. It
seems to be that attitude that you want to return to, Mr Gove. Dates, capital
cities, quotes, times-tables by rote. Limited knowledge development; instead,
simply fact retention.”
“Facts are important.
Memory is important. We are turning into an ignorant nation where we expect the
internet to know everything for us. Our minds are becoming lazy. The thing
about banks is that they produce interest. Knowledge and skills will still be
developed but basic facts need to be known.”
“Children still learn
facts, Mr Gove. As you’ve just pointed out, we’re not in an either-or
situation. You’re merely moving the emphasis. Moving it, in my opinion,
backwards.”
“There’s nothing wrong
with the past.”
“Spoken like a true
conservative!”
“The truth is, where once
our education system was something to be proud of, it is now an international
laughing stock. We need to get back to the top.”
“Whatever the state of our
education, we don’t go forwards by going backwards. Your nostalgia for an
education system that was never what your idealised memory recalls is to the
detriment for the country.”
“So, says the political
radical.”
“I’m not happy with the
state of education, either, Mr Gove. We’re overworked and underappreciated.
We’ve driven by results over well-being. Risks and innovations are second to
regimentation and regulation. And your response is disrespect for the
profession executed through a ‘no one can do any worse, so let’s let everyone
have a go at education’ approach. ‘Free schools’ and ‘Troops to Teachers’ –
you’re making a mockery out of our vocation!
“You’re changing the
syllabi of subjects based on nothing but bias and prejudice. Treating those in
teaching with disdain because you know they hold disdain for you. This is the
thing, Mr Gove: I don’t think you really understand or care about education. I
think your motivation is based on your instinctual prejudices rather than information.
I think your changes are based on evidence that you have selected because it
fits the changes you want to make.”
“And I think the same
accusation could be directed at you in relation to your prejudice to me.”
“I think you long for a
time that has passed. You revere World War One and British classics. Both feet
planted in the past and your head firmly planted in the sand.”
“And let me tell you what
my prejudices think of you – after all, you said this was a dialogue. I think
you’re some dreary-eyed dreamer that thinks learning should let people simply
‘discover themselves’ and that regimentation and structure are always
inherently bad. That reviewing and acknowledgement of an intellectual hierarchy
brings misery instead of a striving to reach the top and do better. I believe
that you believe tradition and culture are nonsense and that you have some sort
of post-modern tolerance for all ideas, ironically excepting those that don’t
fit with yours. Ideas like mine. There is nothing wrong with being proud of
this country’s past –”
“- I want to be proud of
this country’s future!”
“- and I will see these
changes come in and – on this you can be sure – the children of this nation
will learn something. Your romantic ideals of education are pathetic! What does
your great ideology lead to? A moral mess that can justify a political
kidnapping! Your view on education has thereby just condoned terrorism.
Education is my domain and I shall rule it as I see fit!”
“Fair enough, Mr Gove,
fair enough. But let me raise some points to you. First, this isn’t reality. In
the spirit of post-modernism, let me declare this to be a short story serving
as an imagined dialogue of where two ideologies, irreconcilable, clash to no
satisfactory conclusion. It’s venting through fantasy. My morality could never
allow it as a reality because while I feel that even if you knew me you
wouldn’t value me as a human being, I feel compelled to treat you with a
modicum of respect. That minute amount that would only allow me to imagine,
rather than commit, this terrorist act.”
“What are you doing?” His
asking is in a panic, though he can see the liquid coming out of the petrol
can, though he can smell its gasoline smell.
“Second, if I can refer us
back to Shakespeare and Julius Caesar. And Macbeth. And of his many other
tragedies. The rulers of domains, in their arrogance and self-belief, do not
foresee their certain demise. You’re probably foreseeing a Tory victory
out-right in the near future. You’re probably expecting to see it, be at the
heart of it and then who-knows where you’ll take education next? How far
further into the depths of the Dark Ages? Maybe the Tories will win, maybe they
won’t. I think my personal preference is pretty clear.”
I strike a match, sparks
fracture and flicker into burning flame.
“You see, I knew the
dialogue would be fruitful as an intellectual pursuit but would ultimately be
left with no resolution. Ultimately, the teacher’s responsibility – just like
everyone else’s responsibility – is to act. Perhaps not like this, but there is
a need to do something.”
“Don’t…” he says, with a
stamp of authority.
“So, in this tragedy we
call life, Mr Gove, the question is do I do this? Do you make it to the next
election? Does my moral messiness lead me to the ultimate form of terrorism –
killing in the name of politics? Propaganda by the deed? What do we think, Mr
Gove – does everything you have worked for, so to speak, go up in flames?”
He’s yelling, screaming in
denial at the possibility of what is to come. I hold the match between thumb
and finger, ready to flick. I raise the match to my lips ready to extinguish.
Which do I do?
Which do I do?
