He begins by setting the environment. He insisted upon utter silence, quick-fire questions with even quicker answers and instituted a highly competitive atmosphere wherein students had both individual and class targets to reach. The more liberal-minded balked a little at the change in teaching style but went along with it, but the most telling change happened with Robert: a disaffected loner who found the tight structure and strong boundaries unequivocal and easy to follow.
At first the class did really, really well. As the competitive work ethic kicked in, homework was handed in on time, punctuality and absence improved. Even more so as the wave spread to other classes and more teachers were persuaded (by their students!) to have a go at the 'experiment'. Students were pitted against students, fights broke out during recess against any gainsayers of the new 'system' and Robert became a thug. An enforcer who, now having fully assimilated the new way of working, was determined that it, and his new-found role, would continue.
Work was completed to deadline, classroom behaviour was exemplary and teachers were racing to deliver more and more content to their knowledge-hungry classes. Criticism held no traction in a system that was seemingly so successful.
Except that it wasn't. Over time the teachers discovered that marks were good when work was fact-based and answers were brief. Extended essays, requiring deep, concentrated thought were less successful. People began to drop out as the pressure for targets got to them, fear and resentment - even amongst the teachers - grew. Not to spoil the story for anyone wanting to read it, the experiment didn't end well.
Interestingly, "The Wave" is based on a true story. A teacher actually did create a classroom experiment that lost control and went badly wrong. The books itself was for some years banned in Australia as of course, some students wanted to try the story's story out for themselves.
I began teaching at the end of the seventies when child-centred education was still the prevailing direction of travel. There were great inequalities of provision across the country and to some extent the National Curriculum was welcome. Schools could and did get away with blue murder. School inspections were a rareity, departmental schemes of work were mostly non-existent and I could make up a lesson on my way upstairs to the classroom. There was little in the way of check and balance. However successive governments began to splash around in the bathwater and threaten the babes within.
After the National Curriculum came the Key Stage 2 Strategy, then the Key Stage 3 Strategy. Again, it started well and Blunkett was well-meaning. Literacy and Numeracy did begin to improve and teachers were (mostly) able to identify what a lesson was for and where it was meant to develop. Soon all subjects became part of the all-encompassing Strategy. Co-ordinators were trained to train their staff to offer learning objectives, outcomes and three-part lessons (Intro, Main and Plenary), Levels were introduced and half-termly standardising meetings arranged. 'Learning' walks were later instituted by Senior Managers in order to ensure consistency of style and structure less they be Ofstedded down. Oh yes, Ofsted. Well every oppression needs a Stasi.
Data is now crunched so that individuals and classes can be set targets, interventions made with parents in the case of underachievement, concentrations of effort given to those at the cusp of an exam, often taken out of 'softer' lessons so they can cram for subjects that matter more. I have known schools publish spreadsheets by pinning them to corridor noticeboards for all to see those who are achieving and those who... aren't. Children are stressed, teachers are buckling under pressure and leaving the system which in itself is disintegrating into forced academy marriages which syphon off much needed funds meant for kids, only to line the pockets of chief executives and superheads.
The thing is, our standards are slipping. PISA tests tell the sad tale of our stagnation. The old teaching guard looks askance at their younger pure-bred colleagues who can spot a level 5 sentence at 50 yards and shake their heads at having to offer a recapping plenary of quick fire questions to overcrowded serried ranks of pupils, all hands up. The oldies remember what it was like to read an entire book to a class, instead of interrogating paragraphs for form and purpose. They are saddened at the lack of empathy and understanding of issues, which is less important than being able to identify a modal for some test or other.
Sounds familiar? This wave shows no sign of abating.
Emphasis on 'chunking up' (I kid you not, it's part of the new teacher-speak) learning into bite-size bits offers nothing to hungry minds trying to make some sort of holistic sense of their life. Ignorance about the world and how it works is rife. If you don't believe me ask a child what a county is.
Should a Muslim youngster ever be approached by a dodgy post on some social media or other the full weight of Prevent descends like a ton of bricks, labelling, suppressing discussion rejecting the efficacy of just intelligently talking things through. And where is this likely to end? Well, recently a council in York has placed members of anti-fracking groups on their Prevent list along with Islamic Terrorists and Far Right activists. Paranoia taken to extremes, insinuating itself into all our systems - including ones that may, just may, contribute to saving our planet.
We need to confront our issues with confidence and intelligence. We are told we are entering a 'post-truth' society, where the truth and facts become secondary to the manipulation of emotion and opinion. This may have always been a factor within politics but the internet and the virulence of fakery in its many guises has amplified the tendency.
We need our children to become learners and thinkers again. Urgently. For we need a citizenry who can differentiate between fact and fiction, who can understand the importance of good sources of information and who can interpret and interrogate. Goodness knows we need ideas and thinkers - visionaries - who can be enabled to choose sound leaders that can help us to develop civilised ways of being. Ever more so because we are told that the machines are coming. How will humanity play out then?
However, since outright shallowness is the prevailing feature of our current education system, an anti-intellectual thuggery has developed which has to spawned or allowed equally shallow charismatics to emerge as leaders able to exploit this state-led ignorance and insecurity to line their pockets and groom their vanity.
But who has the vision and courage to make the necessary changes? Possibly no one soon, since we are all to be made dumb.
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