The language used in education shapes policy, practice, and perceptions. Edge’s series asks, What's in a Word? and scrutinises the impact of the terminology we commonly employ.
February seemed a good month to consider one word that we don’t hear too often in the education sector: ‘Love’. In Rewriting Social Care: Challenging and changing language and practice for a better, brighter future (2025), Bryony Shannon explores the power of words which dominate a sector, the missing words and how language can change the story and practice of a sector. She describes how so many words we use are transactional, industrialized, individualised, rather than relational and about community, reciprocity and interdependence. There are three contexts in education for the word ‘love’ that I’ve been thinking about.
The first that has been really bugging me since I read Bryony’s book is how much of what she says about the words we use and don’t use applies to education. Sammy Wright's Exam Factory (2024) describes this transactional and ‘machine-like’ mentality where there’s one thing that matters above everything else - the measurable end result - rather than the educational process. Sammy and Bryony’s message from their different standpoints is that the system isn’t working for anyone. Both social care and education are, at their heart, relational. Feeling loved at school - accepted, listened to, known, understood, trusted - is the basic foundation of the ability to learn, deal with failure, achieve, grow and thrive.
I am amazed at the depth and breadth of knowledge my children have from school, compared to the things I learned back in the 1980s. Of course that knowledge is vital, but its value is limited if your child feels forgotten and lost in the system, or if trust and connection is so low that they aren’t even going in each day. Education is a complex ecosystem of relationships between teachers, learners, parents, carers and communities. It’s why a culture of oracy can make such a difference across a school, building trust and connection, helping solve conflicts, making sure people feel listened to and that their voice matters, feeling loved. The role of love in education becomes even more complex when schools, colleges and universities are moving away from their role 'in loco parentis' to support children's independence and ability to thrive as adults.
If we don't talk about love, belonging and connection in education we risk missing the vital role of educators throughout a learning life. This is especially important when unemployment for young people is worsening, the world of work shaped by technology and AI is increasingly uncertain, and children's views of themselves and their place in the world need to be more strongly rooted than ever. These are the questions we need to know the answer to about every child in school: Do you feel loved here? Do you feel welcome? Do you feel like you belong? Do you feel you can be yourself? At a recent meeting, one of the leaders in a charity for children with disabilities told the story of a consultation meeting with children on their experience of a mainstream school, when she asked, “Is there any question that we haven’t asked you that we should have?” One of the children had an answer: “You haven’t asked us how we feel when we’re there.”
The second context for love in education, beyond the words we use, is how we view the act of teaching. Paulo Freire said, ‘Education is an act of love’. We hear so much about ‘retention crisis’ and ‘recruitment challenges’, but remarkably little about teaching as a vocation. One of the things I’ve heard often since joining Voice 21 is how a culture of oracy in the classroom helps teachers to rediscover the joy of teaching, by connecting with students and helping children to connect with their learning through talk. When I worked in the criminal justice sector I observed the corrosive impact when whole professions feel denied agency and expertise, stripping away that driving force (and intrinsic reward) of doing a job that you feel you were meant for. Maybe when teaching is viewed as an ‘act of love’, we’ll have the teachers we need to address education’s deepest challenges.
The third context for love in education which has been on my mind is the question of values. I wonder if our education system has lost sight of Plato’s words, “The object of education is to teach children to love what is beautiful”. Beyond rich knowledge and underpinning skills, is the vital role of education to instil love for your neighbour, community and a sense of belonging to something bigger than yourself, which helps shape the core values that connect us to each other. I know a few people my age who stayed in touch with a teacher from school. All these years on I still exchange letters (proper old school!) with my former RE and English teacher. When writing this I began to think, why her and not another teacher? She was quirky, funny and kind and I remember a few things from her lessons, but the most important thing she helped with, I think, was embracing difference in others, and the belief that you can be - and love - yourself.
Over the last couple of weeks I have visited three Voice 21 Oracy Schools including two Oracy Centres of Excellence. Spending a few hours in the junior school in a particularly economically disadvantaged area, full of talk, connection and belonging, the head teacher described a question talked about across the school: ‘What is wealth?’ A conversation which focuses on the combined strengths of the multiple languages spoken, the vibrant area they live in (there are lots of trips out into town) and the rich commonalities between the traditions of families across the school. In a secondary school at the other end of the country, one of the students proudly pointed out a beautiful world map with an array of pins and a little summary of a particular family’s connection to that country.
In another school, which is an alternative provision, I heard from young people about how their teachers always tell the students when they make them proud. I left each school with an overwhelming sense of a place where every child felt their story mattered and that they were loved.
The core challenges we have in the education system, for both children and teachers, is not the transactional one of school attendance or retention, it’s the relational one of belonging and how children and teachers feel at school. My hope for the next era of education is that we talk a lot more about love – love of teaching and learning, feeling loved at school and how we educate the next generation to love – themselves and each other.
Written by
Dr Kate Paradine, CEO Voice 21. Visiting Fellow at Southampton University. Co-founder of National Women’s Justice Coalition.
Next time: Ann-Marie Bathmaker examines the standing of vocational education and training in relation to ‘academic’ education in 'Parity of Esteem'