Bethan Marshall: What Buffy teaches us about US education

I have just completed my midweek indulgence of American TV. I watch a lot of US drama, including The West Wing on Sunday night when I hanker after the job of CJ Cregg, chief press officer at the White House. My mid-week viewing includes The Simpsons, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Smallville: Superman, the Early Years.

You would not consider these to be school-based dramas, but they are. Perhaps such a classification is my feeble excuse for indulging a desire to watch television (the other is usually that I teach media studies), but school-based they all are. And in their odd way they tell us something about the US education system. For how we depict our schooling, when not really paying it much attention, can be almost as revealing as a programme designed to help us understand it. What emerges is what we take for granted. As such it exposes underlying assumptions about how we educate and what we think school is for.

So what do these shows tell us? Perhaps the most interesting is the delicate balance in American society between the collective ideal at the heart of their democracy and their belief in individualism. This is most superficially displayed in the fact that no children wear school uniform, with the exception of those attending the same prep school as the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Will Smith (OK, so I watch that one too). Significantly, this is a private school and Smith is admired for his subversive wearing of the blazer with the lining on the outside.

To understand why public (ie state) schools do not impose uniforms, you need to refer to a discussion on The West Wing. Here, uniforms were deemed unconstitutional because no one could be denied an education for refusing to conform to a dress code. The collective ideal of the state provision of schooling goes hand in hand with the individual's right to choose and, in a sense, with their freedom of expression.

This elevates the debate slightly above what it deserves and, as a parent, I find the lack of argument and attendant anxiety about what is worn to school a merciful relief. Yet our desire to regiment our children does tell us something about how we see the average adolescent. Here again, the contrast in American television is revealing. One of the most striking features of US school life appears to be the degree of choice and autonomy given to the students.

Their option system is considerably more flexible. They take numerous courses, rather than study subjects, and extra- curricular activities abound. In the United States the students are in charge, or, as with sporting endeavour, seen as part of the wider community. That suggests a view of education that is participative rather than something that is done to you. School is a place that prepares you to be an enterprising citizen, rather than simply somewhere to accumulate knowledge.

Again, this is an over-idealised view. The classroom itself is often depicted as tedious and irrelevant, with teachers as fair game for baiting, or in the case of Buffy, biting. Yet beneath this surface a different ethos pervades and this is most clearly seen in the way that achievement is perceived. Once more it speaks of that subtle tension between the individual and their role in a democratic society.

Grades and scores and the pressure to succeed, or avoid failure, loom large in the discussions of the American student on TV. There is, however, never any suggestion that Lisa Simpson, a preternaturally gifted student, will catch stupidity off her less able peers. Willow, in Buffy, is evidently extremely clever, but the idea that she should attend different classes to Xander would be unthinkable.

The American classroom is mixed ability. Talk and discussion rule the day. All students are entitled to the same opportunity and are expected to collaborate with peers; the individual is responsible for how much they achieve. This is democracy, American style, in action. Of course, these are fictional accounts and the reality is often different, but the unconscious messages are of New World promise. What would a similar skim through our TV schedules reveal about us?

The writer is lecturer in education at King's College London

education@independent.co.uk