Sir Chris Woodhead Blog: The trouble is wist does not get you far in life
Fifty years ago, on the morning of Winston Churchill’s funeral, I was cycling on the A25 between Dorking and Reigate when I was overtaken by another cyclist. He was a bit older than me and significantly fitter. I had covered sixty or so miles and was already pretty tired. I tried to keep up with him, but when he turned left up Reigate hill and I carried on towards Godstone I stopped panting and gave a big sigh of relief.
Some of us, perhaps most, are not very ambitious. We want to get on in the world, but we are not really prepared to make the sacrifices ambition demands. Some of us are seriously determined to get to the top, and, for better or for worse, we will do what it takes. Others, like me, have ambition, or, in my case, did have ambition, but for reasons which are always very hard, if not impossible, to fathom, never achieve the necessary focus. It might be internal, in that one simply does not have the single minded dedication, it might be that the winds of fate simply blow too strong, or it might, of course, be both.
Churchill’s life is a classic example of what I am trying to say. He had the ambition, but, if it had not been for the rise of Nazi Germany, would he have been buried with the pomp and circumstance of a state funeral?
If I had really wanted to be a top cyclist, I would have hung on to the back wheel of my companion that January day. I would have turned the pedals until I collapsed in the gutter. I would have struggled home determined to go out the next day and ride harder and faster. Instead, I drifted slowly back home the easy way, collapsed on my bed and leafed through the pages of that long defunct magazine, Cycling and Mopeds, gazing wistfully at photographs of my heroes. Ray Booty, crouched over his handlebars as he became the first man to crack the four hour barrier for a hundred mile time trial; Beryl Burton, the phenomenal woman cyclist who could beat most of the men; and the rest. The trouble is, wist does not get you far in life. You need the inner strength, and you need the luck.
Michael Gove used to like to talk about how education should allow children to be the author of their own life stories. This was one of the few things that he said during his time in charge of the nation’s schools with which I disagreed. Education can open eyes and doors. It can, to this degree, change lives. But what a 16 or an 18 year old does with his or her life cannot be determined by the education that they received. Their lives unfold on the tramlines of their personality, though, as George Eliot reminds us in The Mill on the Floss, ‘the tragedy of our lives is not created entirely from within’. Personality, the vicissitudes of fate, and, a pretty weak third, education. Gove would still be Secretary of State for Education if it were not for the vicissitudes of fate.
As the weeks grind interminably on towards the May election, we are going to be hearing a lot about how the different parties intend to ensure that our schools transform lives. If there were to be more honesty in the world of politics, some of what they might say might have some sense. My fundamental problem, though, is with the utopian dream which underpins the political rhetoric.
Schools can teach children to read. They can widen experience and help them understand something of the magic of the world. More mundanely, they can ensure that when 16 year olds go for a job interview they turn up on time. Why don’t our politicians concentrate on what is achievable in education? Why do they continue to dream dreams, which anyone who reflects on the reality of their life knows to be nonsensical?
Professor Sir Chris Woodhead was formerly Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Schools from 1994 until 2000. He is author of Class Wars and A Desolation of Learning. His areas of expertise are education and leadership, accountability and the drive to raise standards; his research interest currently is the involvement of the private sector in raising educational standards. He retired at the end of 2013 from the chairmanship of Cognita, the international schools company he established in 2004.