Slavery and the British Public School

Richard Ennals

  There are unresolved issues around slavery which are central to the British psyche, at least for the middle classes who see themselves as potentially the ruling classes. 

Public schools have advertised “Be a student here and become a born leader”. Parents still argue the case for sending their children to private education in order to secure them a competitive advantage. In an individualised society, advantage for one is at the expense of others. So much for democracy and equality of opportunity.

 British public schools had the task of preparing students to attend the old universities, and to rule the colonies. The régime of team sports, deferred gratification and cold showers was seen as building the necessary character for future rulers. 

Enduring a period of suffering could be justified if the ends were achieved. Thus students endured bullying, corporal punishment, sexual abuse, and separation from their families in order to make the grade. They were convinced that the experience had done them no harm, and proceeded to inflict it on their children.

Schools funded by donations from public spirited slave traders, in Bristol, Liverpool and London, reflected the aspirations of these determined adventurers that their children should be able to become gentlemen. Attending school was a form of middle passage, a painful but necessary transition.

 British public schools separated children from their parents at an early age, and took on themselves the right to punish, in loco parentis. This separation freed the parents to travel or live as they pleased, but at the expense of fracturing normal family relationships. During their formative years, public school students rarely encountered normal family or interpersonal relations. 

British independent schools still seek to cultivate the illusion of superiority. They preserve the hierarchical model of society which sustained slavery, selling social status at commercial rates.

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Meeting with Kofi Mawuli Klu 4.pm at the Carib Youth Centre, Camberwell on Wednesday 21 November 2007 Citizenship Initiatives The aim of the meeting was to discuss issues and developments following on from the Cross Community Forum held at Kingston University on July 12 2007 Action points emanating from the discussion between Urszula Basini and Kofi MawuluKlu. 

1. Black Boys into Primary Education.

                  There are very few young men from the African-Caribbean Community attending the Initial teacher raining course at the School of Education at Kingston University.  This is reciprocated in the country.  This is an area of concern as many young boys from the African Diaspora are not in touch with positive black role models either in the family life not at school resulting in underachievement.  These young people need support to actively engage with society and to actively engage in educational opportunities in secondary and higher education levels.  The youth community would welcome some learning programmes (short courses) on Global Citizenship, with visits to the School of Education to attend some lectures with a view to what the School of Education has to offer.  This would lead onto encouragement to join undergraduate courses in Initial Teacher Education in order to become primary school teachers.  Members of the School of Education staff (e.g. UB) would visit local schools in Camberwell, Brixton, Stockwell, Balham etc to talk to sixth formers about the possibilities of teaching in primary schools as a career.  New graduates could be encouraged to devote some of their early years of work to teaching in primary schools. 2        International Linking of Wineba School of Education, Ghana with KUSEWineba School of Education is a recently formed SOE in Ghana.  A member of the cross community dialogue meeting that were held at Kingston University has been appointed as the administrator of the new school of education and is keen to develop links with Kingston University with a view to developing Global Citizenship Courses.  It is also an opportunity for student exchange.  KUSE has a successful exchange system with Uganda, RSA and Kerala, India.  As this is a growth area, Ghana would be a welcome venue..  UB waiting for contact with Ghana to further develop this link. 3        Community Co-educators scheme.This scheme looks at education of adults in the community to support their children in classrooms both at primary and secondary levels.  Parents in the community would like more involvement in their children’s schooling; they would like to help the children with home work.  They would like to attend some courses to gain qualifications in order to do this.  KUSE might be able to provide such credit bearing courses that could accumulate to further qualifications such as degrees.  This would be positive way into encouraging the African Carribbean community into Higher Education.  UB to talk to CEWC and CPD to ascertain poaaibilities 4        Research into developing Global Citizenship Education in a village school in Ghana..  This proposal is made by Kofi Mawuli Klu as a suggestion for a Masters in Education Programme at the School of Education.  UB to find out the possibilities and fees for this. Urszula Basini 21November 2007.  Camberwell
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Dialogue on Slavery and Citizenship

Richard Ennals

Aspects of our past are often too difficult for us to face in explicit form. Straightforward data are not available for conventional analysis. We need to find other approaches. The Council for Education in World Citizenship (CEWC) and John Wiley publishers are working together on the project “From Slavery to Citizenship” (Ennals 2007). This includes consideration of current manifestations of slavery, and exploration of underlying questions of control and participation.

The slave trade, including the Transatlantic Slave Trade, involved buying and selling human beings, in order to derive profit from their labour. This contradicts modern understandings of human rights. It was seen as justified at the time, in terms of property rights, where human beings were regarded as property. By talking about business, and market forces, it was possible to disguise what was being done to other human beings. Disguises slip over time, but we can identify consistent patterns of denial.

In the UK in the eighteenth century the appeal of easy profit was hard to resist. The South Sea Company attracted investment from the royal family, leading politicians, writers and society figures. The core business was provision of slaves to the Spanish Empire, under an exclusive licence. Few investors were well informed. The bubble burst. Today, some initiatives regarding the legacy of the Slave Trade are to be financed by funds generated from the National Lottery. Adam Smith, Enlightenment philosopher and exponent of the principles of capitalism, opposed both slavery and lotteries.

The Transatlantic Slave Trade involved many countries, including the UK, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Netherlands, Germany, USA, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Lithuania. For each today there is a distinctive silence.

There are many “silences” to be “broken”. It will not be a matter of simple “full disclosure”. Opening a process of dialogue can enable communication between the different communities in our current multicultural society. The impact of slavery can be detected at many levels of knowledge: explicitly, implicitly and tacitly. The dialogue is vital for our future citizenship.

Kingston University and CEWC are hosting a Cross-Community Network Group, committed to breaking the silences on slavery and citizenship. It is clear that the key is dialogue, rather than simple analysis of explicit data. It is a matter of process, which can acquire its own dynamic.

The Dialogue Seminar Method (Göranzon, Hammarén and Ennals 2005) offers a way forward. Participants reflect on chosen texts, or other impulses, then share their reflections, gaining access to individual and collective tacit knowledge by indirect means, and by recourse to analogical thinking. In most organisations the key asset is the knowledge of the members, and explicit codified knowledge represents merely the tip of the iceberg. The problems come from below the surface.

There is a complication. As Edward Said has noted (Said 1993), great works of European literature tend to have neglected consideration of contemporary slavery and the slave trade. Denial and silence are not new. Henrik Ibsen concentrated on exposing silence, but slavery and the slave trade escaped his explicit attention. Now it is clear that the slave trade had helped to finance the prosperity of the middle classes who enjoyed Ibsen, as well as fuelling the early Industrial Revolution in England (Williams 1944). Complacency disguised dark secrets (Thomas 1997). Not everything changes.

At the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology, the Dialogue Seminar Method is the basis of a doctoral course. In the next phase of teaching, where we address Ibsen’s theatre, following rules, and analogical thinking, “From Slavery to Citizenship” provides a potential focus for a new dialogue which crosses community boundaries, and takes a fresh look at both the past and the present.

It may come as no surprise that one of our first ports of call may be Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”, and a visit to Prospero’s island, overseen by a lover of books, but dealing with fundamental issues of human nature.

References

Ennals R. From Slavery to Citizenship. John Wiley, Chichester 2007 (in preparation).

Göranzon B., Hammarén M. and Ennals R. (eds.). Dialogue, Skill and Tacit Knowledge. John Wiley, Chichester 2005.

Said E. Culture and Imperialism. Chatto and Windus, London 1993.

Thomas H. The Slave Trade. Simon and Schuster, New York 1997.

Williams E. Capitalism and Slavery. Andre Deutsch, London 1944.

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We have reached a point in our history where technology has developed beyond the ability of human society to manage it. We have always had wars and terrorism but now we also have the ability to destroy all higher forms of life. Our economic development is not sustainable and resources are being depleted in an unplanned manner while population growth continues. Poverty, disease and illiteracy are widespread. Climate change alone threatens destabilisation through floods, fire, starvation and drought, and even our oxygen supply is under threat. 

To overcome these problems our focus needs to be global. National and commercial interests cannot be trusted to provide an answer. Education alone will not solve the problems, but the right kind of education is essential if these problems are to be addressed meaningfully.

Young people are the future, and need to have not only knowledge about democracy, human rights, global and national institutions, but need to be given the skills, confidence and experience to be able to take action, to feel empowered. There needs to be dialogue between teachers and students, partly through the medium of school councils, on what decisions students should take in schools, so preparing them for adult life. They should be given the framework in which they can affect and educate their local community. They should be given the opportunity to communicate with students around the world.

Citizenship is now in the curriculum. The government wants to “put the world into world class education” and address racism and sectarian conflict in our society. We need to have the psychology of citizens rather than slaves, and be able to cooperatively work out the way forward. All aspects of the curriculum should have a global dimension. The wider the perspective, the greater the wisdom, the more possibility there is for limiting disaster.

I end with three quotes from Chris Waller of the Association of Citizenship Teaching

1. “The greatest challenge for us is to decide whether as a society we really want an education system that stifles the learning environment in order to fulfil the aims of the reporting system or whether we want a system that young learners enjoy because it helps them to consider tomorrow’s problems today.”
2. “Addressing issues such as sustainability and cultural diversity are more important than better grades in maths and English to the future of this country”.
3. “We need to equip children, young people and adults for life in a global society and work in a global economy”.

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Citizenship in Education

We have reached a point in our history where technology has developed beyond the ability of human society to manage it. We have always had wars and terrorism but now we also have the ability to destroy all higher forms of life. Our economic development is not sustainable and resources are being depleted in an unplanned manner while population growth continues. Poverty, disease and illiteracy are widespread. Climate change alone threatens destabilisation through floods, fire, starvation and drought, and even our oxygen supply is under threat.

To overcome these problems our focus needs to be global. National and commercial interests cannot be trusted to provide an answer. Education alone will not solve the problems, but the right kind of education is essential if these problems are to be addressed meaningfully.

Young people are the future, and need to have not only knowledge about democracy, human rights, global and national institutions, but need to be given the skills, confidence and experience to be able to take action, to feel empowered. There needs to be dialogue between teachers and students, partly through the medium of school councils, on what decisions students should take in schools, so preparing them for adult life. They should be given the framework in which they can affect and educate their local community. They should be given the opportunity to communicate with students around the world.

Citizenship is now in the curriculum. The government wants to “put the world into world class education” and address racism and sectarian conflict in our society. We need to have the psychology of citizens rather than slaves, and be able to cooperatively work out the way forward. All aspects of the curriculum should have a global dimension. The wider the perspective, the greater the wisdom, the more possibility there is for limiting disaster.

I end with three quotes from Chris Waller of the Association of Citizenship Teaching

1. “The greatest challenge for us is to decide whether as a society we really want an education system that stifles the learning environment in order to fulfil the aims of the reporting system or whether we want a system that young learners enjoy because it helps them to consider tomorrow’s problems today.”
2. “Addressing issues such as sustainability and cultural diversity are more important than better grades in maths and English to the future of this country”.
3. “We need to equip children, young people and adults for life in a global society and work in a global economy”.

(more…)