It's Your Time You're Wasting: Is our education system making us an "island of strangers"?
This week, Martin and I wade into murky waters: are schools teaching the kind of knowledge that connects us to one another, or are they, however unintentionally, contributing to the sense many young people have of being strangers in a strange land?
For those of you who prefer audio only - and who could you blame you? - here’s a link to the podcast. And for them as prefers to read words, see below.
In a diverse nation like ours, and I celebrate that, these rules become even more important. Without them, we risk becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together.
Kier Starmer, 12 May 2025
From Matthew Arnold’s plea for the “best that has been thought and said,” to E.D. Hirsch’s ‘cultural literacy,’ there’s a longstanding belief that education isn’t just about facts, but about the stories we share. Stories that root us, bind us, help us recognise each other. But is this cultural glue holding?
Cultural literacy
Cultural literacy, as defined by E.D. Hirsch Jr, is the shared bank of knowledge that enables citizens to communicate, connect, and participate meaningfully in public life. It’s not about elitism or nostalgia; it’s about fluency. Knowing what the Magna Carta is, why the Blitz matters, or where Shakespeare’s phrases come from isn’t just a party trick, it’s a way of understanding the cultural code that binds a society together. These reference points form a kind of civic shorthand: they allow people to understand allusions, interpret meaning, and feel part of a larger story. Not because these things are inherently superior, but because they’re shared. They’re part ofour cultural map.
But maps, like memories, can fade. If we stop teaching the coordinates - if students graduate without a sense of historical sequence, literary tradition, or shared symbols - we don’t just lose facts. We lose the ability to locate ourselves and each other in the cultural landscape. In their place, we risk fragmentation: different groups speaking different dialects of the national story, unable to understand or even hear one another.
Michael Young reframes this idea through a different lens. For him, what matters isn’t just the capacity to belong, but the capacity to act. His concept of powerful knowledge isn’t simply about shared cultural references; it’s about giving students epistemic access to disciplines that transform their ability to think, speak, and intervene in the world. It’s knowledge that liberates, that empowers because it’s structured, abstract, and generative.
So we’re left with a crucial question. Are we equipping young people to feel rooted in a culture? Or are we arming them with the tools to shape that culture themselves? Ideally, of course, we’d do both. But in practice, are we offering either?
Curriculum as cultural infrastructure
What do children actually learn in school? The Policy Exchange report Lessons from the Past offers some interesting insights.
Most schools (85%) cover key historical events like the Norman Conquest and the World Wars.
99% teach the Atlantic slave trade. 89% teach the British Empire. But fewer than 20% of schools teach Agincourt, Trafalgar or Waterloo.
GCSE and A-Level courses are narrow, circling endlessly around the Tudors and Nazi Germany.
83% of schools have tried to diversify or decolonise their history curriculum, but many admit that this effort risks replacing one partial narrative with another.
The report’s solution? That all students studying history at GCSE should take a broad, chronological course covering key events in British history from the Norman Conquest to the end of the 20th century. The idea is to ensure that every pupil has a common grasp of the nation’s historical trajectory not just isolated episodes or themes.
This emphasis on a shared historical foundation speaks to a broader anxiety: that without a common narrative, we risk cultural incoherence. But what should that narrative be? And who gets to decide which stories are central? These questions haunt every attempt to design a national curriculum. They are especially charged when it comes to history, where the tension between inclusion and tradition becomes most acute.
An Island of Strangers?
Starmer’s words, that, “we risk becoming an island of strangers,” have been condemned for their echo - unconscious or otherwise - of Enoch Powell’s infamous ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, but that’s almost certainly unfair. Starmer’s comment came in the context of advocating for rules that support social cohesion in a diverse nation, not to stoke resentment. His choice of phrase, however, unintentionally touches a cultural nerve: the fear that we no longer share a common story.
That fear isn’t new. It echoes a century-old anxiety about fragmentation, one that Henrietta Marshall tried to answer in 1905 with Our Island Story. Marshall’s book, once a staple of school history, painted a romantic (if sanitised) portrait of British identity. A century later, in 2005, the right-leaning think tank Civitas republished the book, complete with a foreword by then backbencher (and future Education Secretary) Michael Gove. In it, Gove wrote:
“This book should be in every primary school in the land. Unlike so many history books for children, Our Island Story paints a rich and colourful picture of the past. It was written to inspire as much as inform. It does not pretend to be a deeply analytical or multi-perspectival account of our history. But it captures many of the things that are best about our national character. It celebrates the progress of liberty and democracy, our long struggle for parliamentary government, and the inspiring men and women who have made Britain a beacon of decency and hope to others.”
Gove admired the book’s accessible narrative and unapologetic patriotism. In line with his broader curriculum reforms, he saw it as a means of restoring a shared cultural identity and moral clarity—an antidote, perhaps, to what he saw as the relativism and fragmentation of modern education.
But this stance was, and remains, deeply contested. For critics, Our Island Story epitomises a narrow and nostalgic version of the past—one that marginalises inconvenient truths and excludes many of the people who helped shape the country. If history is the story we tell about who we are and how we got here, then who gets left out of that story matters.
Writers like David Olusoga in Black and British and Sathnam Sanghera in Empireland have challenged these traditional narratives, not just by adding missing voices, but by reframing the entire arc of the national story. They argue that Britain cannot be understood without confronting its imperial entanglements: the economic foundations of slavery and conquest, the migration patterns it created, the ideologies it embedded. Empire didn’t just happen “over there.” It happened here, in our streets, our institutions, our inherited assumptions.
Olusoga’s work in particular reveals how Black history is not a modern addition to Britain’s story but a thread running through it from Roman Britain to the present day. Sanghera calls this the “Empire-shaped hole” in our national memory: a silence so loud that it distorts everything around it. It seems reasonable to suggest that in order to feel connected by history we must be included in it.
The Power of Ignorance
This isn’t just a matter of historical record, it’s a matter of cultural belonging. If the stories we tell about the past exclude large swathes of the population, then the present becomes harder to navigate, and the future harder to share. History, after all, is not just about what happened, but about what gets remembered, retold, and understood. And that understanding depends on more than just language. It depends on shared references, cultural grammar, and the ability to locate yourself in the story.
One of the cultural experiences we all share is school. Regardless of postcode or background, the vast majority of us pass through the same gates, sit the same exams, and absorb some version - however patchy - of a national curriculum. In theory, this should result in a shared understanding of how the world works: a common cultural toolkit, forged through common educational rites. But in practice, that promise often goes unfulfilled.
As YouTuber EmanRTM reveals, vocabulary without shared understanding is like a dictionary without grammar: it might list the words, but it can’t make meaning. You can speak English fluently and still be culturally illiterate, adrift in a society whose references, histories, and assumptions remain out of reach. Shared language alone isn’t enough. Without context, without a shared cultural syntax, communication collapses into noise.
EmanRTM’s videos explore how people can be linguistically fluent yet socially disconnected. He demonstrates the way language can mask ignorance, and how certain cultural conversations rely not just on knowing the words, but on recognising the meanings behind them. His channel exposes a hidden curriculum: the unspoken knowledge you need to truly belong. It’s a powerful reminder that education isn’t just about what’s taught in lessons, but about the tacit understandings that shape who gets heard, and who gets left out of the conversation.
“I Feel Like a Stranger in My Own Country”
This erosion of shared cultural understanding doesn’t just affect individual identity, it has societal consequences. When people no longer recognise the stories or values around them, disconnection sets in. And that disconnection is measurable. Luke Tryl’s 2025 report for More in Common, Social Cohesion: A Snapshot, paints a bleak picture: nearly half of Britons feel disconnected. That number jumps to 66% for those struggling financially. The young trust less. The poor feel shut out. And it’s not just about immigration or identity politics. It’s about economic insecurity, digital echo chambers, and a political class that often seems more interested in culture war than cultural glue. The This Place Matters initiative, a collaboration between More in Common, Citizens UK, and UCL, is one promising effort to rebuild those bonds. But education has to be part of that effort too.
Geography and inequality: The postcode lottery
The Sutton Trust’s Opportunity Index lays bare the brutal geography of disadvantage in England. Every one of the top 20 constituencies for opportunity is in London. Despite high levels of poverty in parts of the capital, London schools consistently outperform those elsewhere. In East Ham, for instance, pupils eligible for free school meals are 30 percentage points more likely to achieve a pass in GCSE English and maths than their counterparts in Newcastle Central and West. They are also more than three times as likely to go on to university by the age of 22 and, by the age of 28, that gap has widened into income: disadvantaged young people from Newcastle earn, on average, £7,000 less per year than those from East Ham.
East Ham and Newcastle Central and West present two starkly different socio-economic landscapes. East Ham, in the London Borough of Newham, is one of the most ethnically diverse areas in the UK, with large South Asian communities and a high proportion of young residents, over 60% are under the age of 40. Despite its cultural vibrancy, the area faces significant economic challenges: unemployment stands at 9.9%, nearly triple the national average, and many households are economically inactive or reliant on shared living arrangements due to housing pressure. In contrast, Newcastle Central and West has a less diverse population and a slightly older demographic profile, with an average age close to the national figure. Unemployment is also high - around 5.3% - but still markedly lower than East Ham. This highlights how proximity to London’s economic opportunities can mitigate, although not erase, structural disadvantage.
Meanwhile, in Birmingham, there are some of the most promising pockets of social mobility outside London - most notably in Perry Barr, which ranks 23rd nationally - but the overall picture is far from uniform. In areas such as Hodge Hill and Northfield, outcomes for pupils eligible for free school meals fall well below national averages. These constituencies struggle not only with lower GCSE attainment but also with weaker progression into higher education and significantly reduced earnings by the age of 28. In a single city, the postcode lottery is starkly visible: where one part of Birmingham offers a springboard to success, another risks becoming a cul-de-sac of lost potential.
This isn’t simply a matter of chance or individual effort. It reflects the cumulative impact of systemic advantages that have taken root in these areas over time. Disadvantaged pupils in areas like London outperform peers elsewhere due to a combination of targeted strategies: sustained investment in high-quality teaching, early years education provision, fairer school admissions, and evidence-based interventions like tutoring. These have been reinforced by expanded free school meal access and restored pupil premium funding, creating inclusive, well-supported school environments where high expectations and effective teaching are the norm.
Together, these factors have created an ecosystem in which disadvantaged pupils are more likely to succeed, not despite the system, but because it has been purposefully engineered to support them. In places like London and Perry Barr, outcomes have been lifted not by luck, but by design. The contrast with other parts of the country, where such scaffolding is patchier or absent, highlights a stark truth: policy and place still shape destiny.
But if the system matters, so too does the substance. Educational outcomes are not just influenced by how schools are run but by what they actually teach. And here, a different kind of challenge emerges: when it comes to curriculum, are we choosing coherence, or simply coverage?
Coherence in a plural nation
Perhaps the biggest tension in all this is between inclusion and coherence. In trying to teach everything, have we ended up teaching nothing well? If every school tells a different story, what happens to the shared narrative that holds us together?
We’re not arguing for a monoculture. But we are arguing for a culture. One that’s plural, but not fragmented. Diverse, but not incoherent. And above all, one that helps young people understand not just where they’re going, but where they came from and who they’re going with because if education is meant to prepare young people for the future, then should it first offer them a story in which they recognise themselves?
Thank you for this. K-5 teacher in the US. I started to respond, got carried away, and lost the response. So here's the short version:
-Yes, cultural literacy and a.shated literature base is priceless. But the limited and extensive (hyped?) focus on the Hitlers over the Agamemnons is a problem. For one thing, recent history is highly biased as taught, and we take time better spent on solid skill building and knowledge acquisitiin to reach it. Far better to curate more intelligently, and with less commitment to polical and social agendas, and with more attention to quality. And beauty. And ethics.
In my lost post, I babbled on about American idiomatic speech, American love of popular culture, and relative valuation and cavernous gaps in knowledge and understanding, even among peers and colleagues.
Did you know that American quarters now can have two heads? George Washington, then some Mexican woman I never heard of, or Maya Angelou on the back. At least I recognize Maya. I bet most Mexican Americans don't, though. Maybe most Americans don't. And I would bet more than a debased US quarter that 99.xx have no idea who the Mexican woman is.
On the topic of debasement, we now have generations of parents and teachers who have sprung from the same devolving system that we are relying on to educate an ever eroding populace. Poor us.
It's a howl some days. Yesterday, a very young male teacher told a couple of us veterans that he will not be back. In his first year, they threw him into a K/1 split classroom with 25. He's going back to work at Starbucks. Better to figure it out early rather than being the frog in the pot like some of us, I said. The 40-year veteran teacher did not understand the reference.
American English is full of it. Chock-a-block with strange, amusing and confounding idiomatic phrases. In another example, I remarked to my principal that we are merely kicking the can down the road via our policies, methods and curricula. She neither knew nor could infer the meaning. I translated, and of course she disagreed.
It is a given that increased marketing-based language in the environment will influence the lexicon. Given the shared-language communication disconnects, it makes sense that literate US parents are increasingly opting for classical-leaning, independent options. Better founding myths of old empires than the tinny, shallow and almost comical stuff now in circulation. There are reasons for Maya Angelou and Rosa Parks, and the Mexican woman. Inez, was it? Never heard of her. God Bless them all. But most people couldn't pick them out of a lineup.
Did you know there is no US coin with Herman Melville on it? I can't make heads or tails of that.
Thanks! That goes straight into my collection of links together with the Sutton Trust report this Sunday morning.
I’m still unsure of what to do with your initial summery posts or if I’ll add examples of this from elsewhere in the world … It’s after all a global phenomena right now, not just a US one.