The Rt. Hon. Graham Stuart MP
Chair of the Education Select Committee
Chair of the Education Select Committee
12th
March 2013
Dear Graham,
As you prepare for your
discussions with Michael Gove tomorrow you might find the insights contained in
this letter useful. I’m a specialist in
online discussion forums (I run workshops
and give advice on how to make them work well and I’m an FRSA researching and
writing on mass
online discussion and 21st century enlightenment). I’m also a
lecturer in education and have particular expertise in education discussion
forums.
You may remember that I first
contacted you in the early days of this government during the Ofsted enquiry because
I had been trying to explore positive ways forward for Ofsted on the TES
discussion forum. I had been very
shocked to find that when I did this I was immediately subjected to severe
cyberbullying, the systematic deletion of my posts, other inappropriate
moderator intervention and substantial personal attacks which went beyond that
forum and were clearly designed to discredit me so to a level where my opinion
would be meaningless. I was concerned
that your enquiry would struggle to reach the quality of conclusion it should
have attained as constructive debate appeared to be being actively
prevented. My MP, Tony Cunningham,
persuaded you to view some of the issues on the forum with him. TES rejected my offers to help them improve
their discussion forums and have instead chosen to threaten me with legal
action and ban me from their sites.
You may also remember that I
raised specific concerns about Ofsted at the Westminster Education Forum you
spoke at after that review. You advised me
to speak to the Ofsted directorate about these issues. Richard Brooks (the director present) readily
accepted this request in public, however
his attitude was completely different when I followed this up. I found that there was no place where I could
have intelligent discussion about the future of Ofsted.
In response to this I started to
work hard on developing small education discussion forums which were run by
individuals for the purpose of free speech.
The first major progress was made on linkedin.com where there are many
such forums and there is no anonymity. It
was, for example, possible to systematically explore the intellectual
foundations and the practical rationale for Michael Gove’s reforms and to discover
that they were not robust. Eventually it
became possible to transfer this quality of discussion onto a forum where
anonymity was allowed. That forum was
the ‘Local Schools Network’ which is lightly and impartially moderated by four
labour campaigners.
It was interesting to see key
characters around Gove participating in this forum. They simply couldn’t cope with the quality of
discussion and found their ignorance exposed by the high quality participants
and impartial moderation.
During Easter Recess last year a
new character suddenly appeared on the Local Schools Network forum under the
pseudonym of ‘Ricky Tarr’. Ricky Tarr
could access any information on education at lightning speed. He always knew Michael Gove’s views precisely
and thought them entirely rational. He
never had to qualify his descriptions of them with caveats such as ‘I think’ he
means. This was a very different
behaviour pattern to all other posters.
Despite careful observation I never found any reason to suspect that
this was anyone other than Michael Gove.
We chatted at length for many months before he posted that he somebody
called ‘Rick’ from the DFE and disappeared.
His posts were at first abusive and derogatory but they rapidly improved
because on a properly moderated forum such behaviour only discredits the
poster. Here
is a link to just one of the many conversations I and others had with ‘Ricky
Tarr’ on the Local Schools Network.
I was eventually able to properly
explore the issues associated with Ofsted in the properly moderated forums and,
together with expert regulators from outside education and the Liberal
Democrats, have been able to develop the policy
insights I’d been unable to attain while conversation was prevented.
It became much more difficult to
‘manage’ cyberspace during 2011, the year of the Arab Spring. This happened because ordinary people became
hyperconnected and were able to converse in real time through multiple
devices. They also became empowered with
platforms which enabled them to set up and moderate their own discussions.
The world is changing very
rapidly. At present I can’t see it
changing in favour of those who wish to control the thoughts and views of
others. We seem, thankfully, to be
moving rapidly in the other direction.
We need to prepare to positively manage the consequences of this. In state education there is further to move
than in many areas of society.
I hope this letter is of some use
to you and you committee. Please don’t
hesitate to contact me if you have any further questions or if I can help you
in any other way.
Yours sincerely,
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