A few weeks ago we wrote what we thought was an innocuous article for Tes about why we were concerned that a headline focus on a knowledge-rich curriculum was not meeting the needs of pupils in the modern world.

Yet soon after publication, we were informed by friends of the Twitterstorm it had provoked - and were sent plenty of screenshots of some of the comments it had elicited.

However, as we looked through these comments we weren’t entirely sure it was the article that had prompted the vehement debate as few of the tweets referred to much of the content beyond the headline.

Why certainty is more concerning than doubt

What struck us from the examples were how easily a polarised spat can arise and take shape and, following on from that, how important it is we teach our children that, along with the benefits of the media-rich world they now experience, there are responsibilities and pitfalls.

In the case of our recent article, we were perplexed by the certainty that some commentators displayed about their viewpoint - something that resonated immediately with both of us.

We have known each other for many years, working closely for some of them, yet writing a book together has revealed subtle differences of views between us - as well as stimulating ideas for future discussion.

So it was as we interviewed over a hundred witnesses and used their answers to write About Our Schools: Improving on previous best.

Often, we were each uncertain in our own thinking and baffled or intrigued as to what the right answer or solution might be.

The need for nuance

However, we were both cautious about our witnesses who seemed confidently certain about what was right - in some cases about almost everything - and we were more attracted to those who admitted to some provisional uncertainty.

We see those who want to continue to see education as a never-ending battle between progressives and traditionalists as seeming to fall into the trap of creating false polarities.

Yet, with the notion of creating a wider definition of an expression of knowledge that we were outlining in our article, we were immediately cast almost equally as supporters or detractors of what many call a “knowledge-rich” curriculum, depending upon who was reading.

We were saying that the curriculum would be richer for a deeper consideration than at present of how knowledge works and the way it can be used to bring benefit to children’s lives.

That this debate occurred and revealed this polarised nature of education is something we adults driving education forward should stop and think about.

As part of our teaching of children, we want them to recognise their capacity for understanding their own prejudices when it comes to deliberation and making judgements and decisions either singly or as a group.

They will need to know the difference between intuitive and analytic reasoning and the part each plays in the process.

Knowing what to do in a range of circumstances is a very different sort of knowledge from being knowledgeable in a specific discipline. It is a key to wisdom.

Yet on Twitter all of this seemed to be forgotten as some people put forward their view, and dismissed ours, with a certainty that clearly ignored any attempt at analysis, deliberation, and recognition of nuance that is so important.

The big picture 

It also made us reflect on how much easier and therefore more dangerous it is for politicians and policymakers to make decisions at the macro-level, because it allows the decision-maker to consider generalities so far as consequences are concerned.

However, those making decisions at the micro-level - doctors and consultants in health; parents and carers in the family; heads, teachers and teaching assistants in schools - are keenly aware of the impact of their decisions on the individual.

As such, their decision-making is consequentially complex because of its immediacy.

Those decisions, though, need to be made on the basis of secure consideration, especially in aspects of schooling that are contentious.

Hence the good teacher builds an informed perspective through engagement with research, deep reading and productive debate, welcoming different perspectives as a vehicle for testing and modifying previous certainty.

This is one reason why we believe the Chartered College of Teaching should be a powerful force for good, linking the work of subject and other specialist professional organisations to the work of the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors and the Education Endowment Foundation’s agenda.

This would place the teaching profession as the driving force of improving and developing practice, supported by all the wisdom of the wider community from universities to families, to inspectors, to businesses, employers and politicians.

Further narrowing of education’s focus

But at present, one of our current challenges is that much of the “certainty” of how the system should develop has been driven by an increasingly centralised political agenda that pays limited heed to research or teachers’ informed expertise.

The recent Schools White Paper, while positively urging collaboration, pointed to a yet more centralised schooling agenda in terms of the initial and ongoing professional development of teachers, tighter inspection and curriculum focus.

Success is defined through a very limited set of metrics within a distorted accountability system.

Furthermore, an essentially norm-referenced test and exam system allows an agreed pass rate regardless of how pupils perform against stated criteria. This ensures there are winners and losers in a market-driven system.

What’s more, the “mutant algorithm” blamed for the results in 2020 led to calls for the retreat to “normal” practice as soon as possible, without recognition that similar algorithms are used annually but hidden behind the sham of fairness.

We were both Chief Education Officers who saw rapidly increasing annual results in tests and exams in those schools in our care and we were always pleased young people in our schools had better life chances as a consequence of their results.

But we were always uncomfortable in knowing that, as we saw the rise, others must fall.

After all, there is built-in systemic certainty through inspection that uses the suspect data from tests and exams as the bases for hypotheses about school quality and confidently asserts that the proportion of good schools is rising.

How else might we recognise success?

Yet there are many schools deemed less than “good” in inspections or that don’t achieve the level of grades the system deems worthy of respect who are achieving greatness in other ways.

They may represent an oasis of calm in their pupils’ disrupted lives, be staffed by dedicated staff, show extraordinary sensitivity in organising food banks, toiletry and clothing exchanges or simply by giving off those fleeting signals that give children the respect that they are known, appreciated and supported.

Of course, they need more to function effectively as adults but without those essentials, it will be harder.

At present, though, our system seems unable to recognise fully the value in this, or even acknowledge it is part of what school is about.

This is why we argue in our book that we need a national consensus on the purposes for schooling.

Amazingly in England, we have nothing in legislation or in statute that describes what we want for our children.

We think that building a consensus would be worth the effort, involving a whole range of people and especially teachers and children in our schools.

Those purposes would describe what attributes, outlooks, knowledge and skills we want our children to take with them as they leave school, along with the sorts of childhood and youth we would want them to experience.

In agreeing on those purposes we might debate, argue, challenge and question but we could reach a consensus.

For our young to believe that our society shares a common view of our hopes for their future is surely better than their sensing the adults they know are polarised in their views on the point of their education.

We need a new age that’s no longer dominated by market competition that brings as many failures as successes and leads to ever more centralised national prescription, but that instead focuses on hope, ambition and collaborative partnerships.

That’s why we believe that the time is right to debate and be explicit about the aims and purposes of schooling - and considering why we might have different viewpoints might be a good starting point.

Tim Brighouse and Mick Waters have each spent a lifetime working in the school system as teachers and in high-profile leadership positions. Their new book, About Our Schools: Improving on previous best (Crown House Publishing, 2022), is out now. All royalties will be donated to Barnardo’s and The Compassionate Education Foundation