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The disturbing certainty of Michael Gove – Is He A Monster? Anthony Horowitz in The Spectator

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An important and illuminating interview with the Secretary of State for Education, conducted by Anthony Horowitz.

I wish I’d seen this piece before last night’s Orion authors’ party. It would have been good to have a few minutes chatting to Horowitz about it.

Previously a Gove admirer and apologist, Horowitz finishes the interview thinking the man might be a monster.

It’s a longish piece and this is just the conclusion:

We are nearing the end of my allotted time and here is the impression that I have of a man for whom I have always had a very high regard. He is brilliant and erudite, doing an almost impossible job and doing it with passion and commitment. And yet it is just possible that the minister is a monster. I would not normally use such a word of a secretary of state but I am only picking up on something he said himself. Referring to the teachers who inspired him as a boy, he remarked, laughing: ‘There’s a direct relationship between the opportunities that I’ve enjoyed and their influence. They might now, like Victor Frankenstein, hold their head in horror and think “What have we created…?”’

It was the only moment of revelation in our encounter that struck me as truly insightful, the only awareness of the amount of power he wields. He assures me that he consults much more extensively than people believe, but continues: ‘One of the things that I think is a challenge here is that there isn’t a monolithic view within the teaching profession — about anything. It’s a bit like saying authors believe x or journalists believe x. There are some vocal people within the profession who might appear to be the dominant voices but by definition they can’t be representative: no one’s elected them.’ But actually there is one monolithic view that is out there and which will brook no argument. It is Gove’s.

My American friends are shocked by how much power one politician can have over a whole generation of children and even Gove agrees. ‘I do think that education secretaries do have too much power.’ (Even so, he has allotted himself around 50 new powers since he took office.) ‘But part of what I want to do is to ensure that lots of things that were fixed or arranged or decided in the Department for Education and its quangos are now decided in schools. And that’s the big change.’

His vision should be uplifting but I cannot say that I particularly enjoyed my encounter with Michael Gove. It’s very strange. I have argued with so many teachers and other authors that he is a wholly benevolent man, a reformer who is actually improving the lives of children across the country. Even now, that opinion has not changed. But nobody can be as certain as he is. Nobody can be right all the time. It’s his single-mindedness that troubles me, and so for all his quips, his humanity, his courtesy and his eloquence, I leave with the faint worry that, after all, I am the one who’s wrong.

via The disturbing certainty of Michael Gove » The Spectator.

Father & Son, Anthony and Nicholas Horowitz, Interviewed by Mr Porter

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At 58, Mr Anthony Horowitz, who was awarded an OBE for services to literature this year, is one of the UK’s most prolific and successful authors and screenwriters. He is the creator of the Alex Rider teen spy series and of the long-running TV series Foyle’s War. He also wrote The House of Silk, the first new Sherlock Holmes novel approved by the Conan Doyle Estate. His eldest son, Mr Nicholas Horowitz, is 25, graduated with a first in history from Edinburgh University and is about to start a course on the financial side of film-making. Here, father and son talk to MR PORTER about how the younger Mr Horowitz’s sporting prowess has influenced his dad’s work, and the joy of a new white shirt.

via MESSRS ANTHONY AND NICHOLAS HOROWITZ | THE INTERVIEW | The Journal | MR PORTER.

Anthony Horowitz Says He Admires Gove… Really? Welcome to the Blob, Anthony

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Anthony Horowitz was interviewed in Saturday’s UK Times.
Given that the online piece is only accessible to subscribers, I have selected several quotes, with brief commentary.

He says early on in the interview, with reference to the much-publicised letter to The Times signed by a host of children’s authors and experts in early childhood:

“I thought the letter was weak and unhelpful,” he said. “Of course we all want to do better for our kids, but that doesn’t mean Michael Gove doesn’t. Nobody on the Left seems to want to give him any credit for wanting to help the situation.They endlessly demonise him. But I admire him because he’s actually doing something, not sitting there doing what the letter suggested — consult, have committees, hear what the teachers and the children have to say — which are synonymous with doing absolutely nothing.”

Hardly a position that will endear him to the majority of his fellow authors. But Horowitz has never minded being a maverick, and actually, when you take into account the things he says in the remainder of the feature, he is not as supportive of Gove as that first quote indicates.

Immediately afterwards, he is saying:

“There are far too many expectations now of children. They must get A stars and go to university and compete and perform from the day they arrive at school. Actually it’s all nonsense. Adults muddle through without constantly being graded and children should too. I feel sorry for kids who are constantly expected to perform and shine for parents and politicians who do neither.”

And then, before long he is sounding even less in sympathy with Gove:

Education, he said, should be a process of self-discovery rather than an endless round of tests. “It’s about enlarging your interests and stirring your curiosity, not coming away waving a piece of paper after endless cramming and resits. It must be soul-destroying for teachers and children knowing that all adults seem to care about is boosting national targets and statistics that have no meaning. It’s communist.”

He even takes Gove to task over specific policy:

In Horowitz’s view, the Education Secretary has gone too far in wanting children to read only Middlemarch rather than Twilight. “They need a bit of everything. What matters is that children have the time, leisure and enthusiasm to read, even if it is about vampires.
“Alan Johnson kindly said children shouldn’t read Pride and Prejudice, they should read me. Michael Gove has taken the opposite view and is trying to force great literature down kids through his new curriculum. That’s insane . . . When I was 7, was I reading Thackeray? No, I was reading Tintin. I have visited almost every country he goes to except Tibet and the Moon. It was Tintin who inspired me to write.”

And then, echoing David Almond’s distaste for media’s negative portrayal of children and teenagers:

Horowitz, who has two grown-up boys of his own, worries that adults spend too much time denigrating teenagers. “I go round many schools to talk to children and they are fantastic — more pleasant and generous in spirit than our generation.
“Social networking has given them more sociability and a cohesion we never had. We all buried ourselves in our private lives and lost touch with each other. The younger generation is so much more aware of each other’s successes and difficulties. When a friend of mine died his house was filled with teenagers who wanted to comfort his son.”
There is, in his view, too much angst about the modern world. “We have got in a complete tizzy about pornography and it needs to stop. Every child will not be destroyed by looking at porn on the internet. Yes, there are some very nasty things online but the internet’s force for good is considerably greater and children learn to discriminate.”

It all adds up to someone who sounds very much to be more in the camp of the Times letter’s signatories rather than in that of the man he purports to admire.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/books/childrensbooks/article3887109.ece