Corana exposed the Tradio Tzar

This week, the government’s Behaviour Tzar and cheerleader of one tribe of #edutwitter seems to have had a meltdown in front of his 72K followers. (Updated version)

The Emporer’s New Clothes  – Wikipedia

Picking on the very affordances of technology that propelled him into the big time, Tom Bennett has claimed that #edtech hasn’t/isn’t/won’t change the way we teach and learn. 

It’s not that Bennett is just wrong, it’s that he has exposed the raw egoism and arrogance at the heart of his approach to the education debate. Perhaps we are seeing the exposure of a certain type of social media fuelled personality. And it’s not just Tom that’s losing it.

Photo from New York Times article

Whether it’s Madonna, free from her publicists, sending messages from her bath, or celebrities warbling into their phones;  with noone to tell them they are not as talented as they think they are, we are finding out who the truly greats are – those with class and talent. 

Without the writers, editors, producers and creatives that have made them look good, people who have had privileged access to  mass media platforms are now on more of a level footing with the rest of us mere mortals. Families in Kent reversioning Les Mis anthems are showing us more intelligence, humour, empathy and creativity than those paid big money to front daytime TV.

Politico muppets like Toby Young  (who has always been a nasty piece of work) have become increasingly desperate to grab attention – waving the limp vestiges of their humanity – claiming to have the answers to complex questions. 

It’s not that Toby wasn’t right that the Covid crisis isn’t going to force us to make hard choices about saving lives, it’s just that we can’t trust the eugenicist-leaning, misogynist who has always cared more about getting column inches and airtime than moving the debate forward to improve our society.

Which brings us back to Tom Bennett. Let me be clear – I don’t like him. It’s not personal – I don’t know him. I don’t like him because he has made a professional choice to use his platform to squash challenges to his interests, and damage the complex debate of how to educate our children: in a way that I think puts him with the Toby Youngs and Piers Morgans of the world. It’s not what he says that bothers me. It’s how he says it and how he treats those who disagree with him. 

In the silly world of ProgVsTrad, I would not be not on the same side as Tom, but I have huge respect for many who would gather under the Trad banner with him. These people do the hard work in schools, reflect on their practice rigorously, and repeatedly show themselves open to debate. I’m not going to give a list – but it is hard not to respect people like Michael Fordham, for example. 

Of course there should be a debate and disagreement – even strong feelings – but it’s clear to most of us who can do this by showing humility and interest in actually helping others. 

What Tom Bennett has consistently done is to play ‘the game’ to associate himself with Gibb and the small group at the centre of the current government’s education cabal – by saying what ever they want to hear…and whipping up false and discourse killing baiting contests to prevent proper reflection on the work we do in schools.

Of course, he is not the only one to do this, and this is perhaps a historical constant. There  are plenty of wombles on the Prog end of the spectrum, of course. But, in this age of social media, they are not at the end of a ministerial leash. 

As those ministers are now doing the grown-up work of saving lives, and the PR teams at the DfE are busy elsewhere – we can see what people like Tom are like without their friends at Westminster to protect them. And it is not a pretty sight.

Briefly – On to the substance of Tom’s tweets. I know the UK #edtech world pretty well, and I have never heard anyone say that tech can or should replace the human relationship between a teacher and a learner. In fact, even the great satan in the trad’s bestiary – Sir Ken Robinson says that this human contact is the fundamental element of education. The affordances of technology to support learning are real – and, while there are serious issues we should all be talking about (such as the claiming of our classrooms by VC data pirates – read Audrey Watters people!)

Instead, Tom is picking on the very people trying to hold our schools together. The fragility of our education system has been exposed by this crisis and, while much of the edtech being used is a pure substitution on the SAMR model, it is all that many schools have when face-to-face is not possible. 

I’m not here to defend the #edtech world, or to argue for or against any pedagogy. But, when #edutwitter big hitters are deadcatting by making ridiculous claims against #edtech, we should turn off in the same way we do from the sight of Eamonn Holmes spouting conspiracy theories. 

SO, maybe this crisis, awful as it is (and will be for a while to come) will help us reclaim and reframe Twitter, taking the attention from the demagogues and extremists. Optimistic? Yes. Will we make mistakes as we move forward, Yes. Is it time to stop listening to Tom Bennett? Hell, yeah!

Finally – for those who only read this far because of the title of this post… 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8r-tXRLazs