I first met David Gribble (Grib) in 1987. He had just edited and published a wonderful book, That's All Folks, a series of reminisces and reflections of former pupils at Dartington Hall School, where he was a teacher, and a friend and ally of children from 1963-87. With his wife, Lynette, we shared a meal at Diwana Bhel Poori House in London. I remember discussing the aftermath of the 1984-5 Miners' Strike and the '86 Baker Act, as it became known, introduced as it was with the words, "People need once more to be educated to know their place"; and our shared fears for the future of education and young people in the UK and beyond. More I remember his sparkling eyes as he spoke about what children deserve and need as they grow up, and what they are capable of, given the right environment. So too his wonderful sense of humour, infectious smile and adorable giggle.
Quoting Michael Young in That's All Folks, who was in turn quoting Bertrand Russell, "The man who has reverence will not think it is duty to mould the young. He feels in all that lives, and most of all in children, something sacred, indefinable, unlimited, something individual and strangely precious, the growing principle of life, an embodied fragment of the dumb striving of the world." Grib felt, thought, taught and wrote with this as his context.
I have read everything Grib has published on education, including Real Education, which was Book of the Week in the Times Educational Supplement on 3rd July 1998. He had combed the world for what he called "real education". He found some fascinating examples of schools set up by individual teachers or groups of parents committed to respond to children's real interests and needs, and aiming to provide an education in human relationships, responsibilities and creativity, as well as academic development. He demonstrated that there was a life beyond the juggernaut of a national curriculum and assessment and league tables, which grew out of the Baker Act.
I worked with Grib on the development of articles. I have also talked directly to many people he taught. I have thought about his insight and sense of purpose. He was, and rests now amongst the finest educators I have known and read. Within that, for me, he was and is the most enlightened, and I often think of him as I visit classrooms across the world, ruing the lack of real education on offer, but drawing inspiration from his never-ending sense of hope that things can be different.
John Shotton
October 2020