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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: What stops you from joining the Green Party?
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
But you forget that those responsible for this are by and large beneficiaries of the private system, and either think the solution is to replicate cut-price versions of the public schools, or have really no interest in the quality of education dished out to the oiks. They have to preserve their privilege some how.
Another problem is those on the left who want all children to be educated in the same schools not because it would provide a better education, but because of their own sociological ideology. I suspect they would happily see our global ranking fall to the level of Mexico, Brazil or Indonesia, just so long as everyone is in the same boat.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
Been reading the Daily Mail again have we? For goodness' sake, how many supporters of the extreme left are there in the whole country, let alone among teachers, or - even fewer - among educational administrators?
I think those of us concerned about present educational policy just want all our children to have the chance of a decent education, not to be experimented on. 'Free' schools under the control of Fuerher Gove, employing unqualified teachers - I ask you!
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Brian: You're all individuals!
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Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
'Free' schools under the control of Fuerher Gove, employing unqualified teachers - I ask you!
Whilst we're attributing dictatorship to our political masters, can I just ask you one more time if you agree with the UN declaration that: quote:
"parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children."
And, to repeat myself from earlier, (sorry to be tedious: quote:
are you saying that parents ought or ought not to be free to make alternative provision for their children's education to the one the state prescribes? Is this a fundamental right of parents or not?
A lot hangs on this, it seems to me.
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
I think those of us concerned about present educational policy just want all our children to have the chance of a decent education, not to be experimented on.
Agreed. And we want to be able to choose the best place to do that - whether that be at school (free, private, public or LEA) or at home - without being experimented on.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Whilst we're attributing dictatorship to our political masters, can I just ask you one more time if you agree with the UN declaration that: [QUOTE] "parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children."
If that means that parents have the right to substitute their own educational ideas (possibly including creationism - though not a great danger in the UK I think - or other forms of indoctrination) I would think the right of the children to a proper education would trump that. But other things being equal, yes.
quote:
And, to repeat myself from earlier, (sorry to be tedious: are you saying that parents ought or ought not to be free to make alternative provision for their children's education to the one the state prescribes? Is this a fundamental right of parents or not? A lot hangs on this, it seems to me.
With the caveat above, yes, they should be free. But an equitable provision would ensure that they have no need to go outside the state system. What is immoral is that privilege buys privilege.
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Brian: You're all individuals!
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Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
I think those of us concerned about present educational policy just want all our children to have the chance of a decent education, not to be experimented on.
Agreed. And we want to be able to choose the best place to do that - whether that be at school (free, private, public or LEA) or at home - without being experimented on.
Unfortunately, when your local school is turned into an 'academy' overnight, in the face of parental and staff protests, that is exactly what happens.
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Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
![[Confused]](confused.gif) Our parents and staff voted overwhelmingly in favour of our kids' school becoming an academy.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
Well, if it works for you, fine. But there are many examples of academy status being forced on schools, by power-crazed head teachers or wealthy backers or the Secretary of State. And not much the poor punters can do about it, especially as the LEAs have been virtually disbanded.
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Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Councillors. being elected, represent parents.
...
So teachers, as subject experts, have checks and balances from grass roots rather than government politicians with axes to grind.
In what way are Councillors more representative than government politicians, who are also elected?
Because they are c,loser to the grass roots than central government and because they runh (or used to run) the schools.
BTW It was a tory government that drew up this mix in 1944 and reiterated in 1988.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
Thank you for your responses, Angloid.
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Whilst we're attributing dictatorship to our political masters, can I just ask you one more time if you agree with the UN declaration that: [QUOTE] "parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children."
If that means that parents have the right to substitute their own educational ideas (possibly including creationism - though not a great danger in the UK I think - or other forms of indoctrination) I would think the right of the children to a proper education would trump that. But other things being equal, yes.
But here's the rub: what constitutes a "proper" education? Is there any view-from-nowhere neutral account that would help is determine that?
Also, it still doesn't get us away from the right to be wrong. Neither of us - I think - would agree that an YECism approach is correct. But don't parents have a natural right to teach their children this if they themselves really believe it? As a Catholic, I don't want the state telling me I can't bring my children up to believe that sex outside marriage is wrong, for example. I don't think I have to prove I'm "right" about that or to ensure the state's compliance with it to retain and exercise my right to teach it to my children. Surely I have the right to be wrong about this. I don't see how else the natural rights of perents to bring their children as they see fit - within reason - can be protected.
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
quote:
And, to repeat myself from earlier, (sorry to be tedious: are you saying that parents ought or ought not to be free to make alternative provision for their children's education to the one the state prescribes? Is this a fundamental right of parents or not? A lot hangs on this, it seems to me.
With the caveat above, yes, they should be free.
Thank you.
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
If that means that parents have the right to substitute their own educational ideas (possibly including creationism - though not a great danger in the UK I think - or other forms of indoctrination) I would think the right of the children to a proper education would trump that. But other things being equal, yes.
In most cases with which I am familiar, the parents are not wanting to substitute their own educational ideas in the sense of teaching young earth mythology as science, but are wanting to substitute their own educational ideas in the sense of not approving of the teaching methods and philosophies used in the public schools (at least in the specific case of their own child(ren).)
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
But here's the rub: what constitutes a "proper" education? Is there any view-from-nowhere neutral account that would help is determine that?
Also, it still doesn't get us away from the right to be wrong. Neither of us - I think - would agree that an YECism approach is correct. But don't parents have a natural right to teach their children this if they themselves really believe it? As a Catholic, I don't want the state telling me I can't bring my children up to believe that sex outside marriage is wrong, for example. I don't think I have to prove I'm "right" about that or to ensure the state's compliance with it to retain and exercise my right to teach it to my children. Surely I have the right to be wrong about this. I don't see how else the natural rights of perents to bring their children as they see fit - within reason - can be protected.
[QUOTE]
But nobody (I hope) would argue that the parents' right to bring up their children usurps their duty to protect them from harm, to see that they are fed and clothed, etc. There are many horrific examples of parents who have treated their children cruelly. How can they have the right to inflict on them an inferior or defective education? At some stage the state, or other authority, must step in and decide that the parents' treatment amounts to abuse.You use the phrase 'within reason', so clearly accept that there are limits.
Equally of course the state has a duty to ensure the provision of education. As the recent case of Malala Yousafzai in Pakistan highlights.
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Brian: You're all individuals!
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Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Whilst we're attributing dictatorship to our political masters, can I just ask you one more time if you agree with the UN declaration that: [QUOTE] "parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children."
If that means that parents have the right to substitute their own educational ideas (possibly including creationism - though not a great danger in the UK I think - or other forms of indoctrination) I would think the right of the children to a proper education would trump that. But other things being equal, yes.
I thought Michael Gove (pbuh) had specifically banned the teaching of creationism in school, or am I wrong?
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
I thought Michael Gove (pbuh) had specifically banned the teaching of creationism in school, or am I wrong?
I can't keep track with all Gove's inconsistencies and changes of policy. I believe he has said something on those lines, but [a] he has allowed academies and free schools to opt out of the national curriculum, and [b] I don't know if he can dictate what home-schoolers teach or don't teach their children. But creationism is not a major issue in Britain so it probably doesn't matter very much.
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Brian: You're all individuals!
Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
How can [parents] have the right to inflict on them an inferior or defective education? At some stage the state, or other authority, must step in and decide that the parents' treatment amounts to abuse.
But who has the right to decide what constitutes a "harmful" education? Government? Then what happens if the Dawkins Atheist People's Party gets into power and decrees that teaching children religion is "harmful" and "abusive"? Or if the Fundigelical Christian Alliance wins an election and bans everyone from teaching evolution? Or when the Green Party gets in and takes any kids who aren't taught to recycle everything into care?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
How can [parents] have the right to inflict on them an inferior or defective education? At some stage the state, or other authority, must step in and decide that the parents' treatment amounts to abuse.
But who has the right to decide what constitutes a "harmful" education? Government? Then what happens if the Dawkins Atheist People's Party gets into power and decrees that teaching children religion is "harmful" and "abusive"? Or if the Fundigelical Christian Alliance wins an election and bans everyone from teaching evolution? Or when the Green Party gets in and takes any kids who aren't taught to recycle everything into care?
I was thinking about the trade union rallies and anti-cuts protests that I've seen in London. Often parent protestors bring their children along to make it a day out. Presumably this could be said to be 'harmful' and ought to be banned?
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
I was thinking about the trade union rallies and anti-cuts protests that I've seen in London. Often parent protestors bring their children along to make it a day out. Presumably this could be said to be 'harmful' and ought to be banned?
Also a good example.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
I thought Michael Gove (pbuh) had specifically banned the teaching of creationism in school, or am I wrong?
I can't keep track with all Gove's inconsistencies and changes of policy. I believe he has said something on those lines, but [a] he has allowed academies and free schools to opt out of the national curriculum, and [b] I don't know if he can dictate what home-schoolers teach or don't teach their children. But creationism is not a major issue in Britain so it probably doesn't matter very much.
The homeschoolers I know have to follow the national curriculum and are OFSTEDed like anyone else.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
Unless you believe in the infallibility of whatever government happens to be in power, the only answer to the dilemma is democracy. We trust government to make just laws and the police etc to uphold them. Unjust laws of whatever kind will be resisted, either by demonstrations, disobedience or the ballot box.
It's interesting that most of the people complaining on this thread about state power don't seem to object to the diktats of the present government.
But is any of this relevant to the Green Party?
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Brian: You're all individuals!
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Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
Well, yes, because they seem to want to extend further the reach of the government's diktat into the realm of education, which I think is a Bad Thing™.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
As a Catholic, I don't want the state telling me I can't bring my children up to believe that sex outside marriage is wrong, for example.
PSHME teachers (I dabbled in this for most of my 35 years in teaching) don't teach 'wrong' or 'right' but introduce students to a range of views.
Education is not indoctrination nor even instruction.
It is about giving students the tools to think for themselves.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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Cod
Shipmate
# 2643
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
I thought Michael Gove (pbuh) had specifically banned the teaching of creationism in school, or am I wrong?
I can't keep track with all Gove's inconsistencies and changes of policy. I believe he has said something on those lines, but [a] he has allowed academies and free schools to opt out of the national curriculum, and [b] I don't know if he can dictate what home-schoolers teach or don't teach their children. But creationism is not a major issue in Britain so it probably doesn't matter very much.
Then why is it being raised as an issue on this thread?
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"I fart in your general direction."
M Barnier
Posts: 4229 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Apr 2002
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Cod
Shipmate
# 2643
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Leo, your trust in "experts" is, um, incredible and perhaps even touching.
So, presumably, you don't trust your doctor nor your priest. Not believe the Holy Father to be infallible.
I don't think very many people defer to teachers' opinions on what should be taught to the same extent as people defer to, for example, their doctors, lawyers, accountants, builders, electricians, and so on.
I suggest that teachers' expertise is in how to teach children. What should be taught is another matter entirely. It would be a bit like leaving what laws should be passed up to lawyers. The UN declaration clearly and rightly allows parents to exercise their own judgment on the subject of education unless it falls below some minimum standard. Quite rightly, this will somewhat less than the optimum posited by any particular ideologue.
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"I fart in your general direction."
M Barnier
Posts: 4229 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Apr 2002
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Cod
Shipmate
# 2643
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
As a Catholic, I don't want the state telling me I can't bring my children up to believe that sex outside marriage is wrong, for example.
PSHME teachers (I dabbled in this for most of my 35 years in teaching) don't teach 'wrong' or 'right' but introduce students to a range of views.
Education is not indoctrination nor even instruction.
It is about giving students the tools to think for themselves.
I asked Mrs Cod, a teacher, and she immediately disagreed. She says it involves instruction too.
How can one expect to defer to the wisdom of the teaching profession to the same extent when they can't agree amongst themselves.
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"I fart in your general direction."
M Barnier
Posts: 4229 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Apr 2002
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Teaching a class of children and performing brain surgery aren't really comparable, are they?
No, brains are rarely wilfully uncooperative when undergoing surgery.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
Unless you believe in the infallibility of whatever government happens to be in power, the only answer to the dilemma is democracy.
I think the dilemma becomes more acute if education is centralised. If education policy is entirely determined by Body X - whether that be the Government, the LEA, or the teaching profession - it matters very much that Body X is fallible. If multiple agents are involved, then they can act as checks and balances on each other.
quote:
It's interesting that most of the people complaining on this thread about state power don't seem to object to the diktats of the present government.
I find Gove weirdly contradictory. On the one hand he talks a lot about setting teachers free through academies and free schools (a Good Thing on my view).
At the same time he seems to want to set out in great detail Exactly How School Ought To Be Done, which turns out to be Exactly How It Was When He Was A Little Boy. Now I share his prejudices about education, but I also think that setting teachers free implies they should be free to set up the aforementioned ultra-liberal Summerhill-type establishments if they so wish.
To say nothing of his total disregard for consultation and his apparent reluctance to work with the teaching profession instead of against it ...
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Leo, your trust in "experts" is, um, incredible and perhaps even touching.
So, presumably, you don't trust your doctor nor your priest. Not believe the Holy Father to be infallible.
No, none of them. Not to the extent you're demanding we trust teachers.
I don't trust my doctor completely because occasionally I'll ask for a second opinion, or even ignore what he says if I think it's crap. And it should be bloody clear from my posts to this site that I don't trust priests or popes any more than I do any other Christian.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
There are many horrific examples of parents who have treated their children cruelly. How can they have the right to inflict on them an inferior or defective education? At some stage the state, or other authority, must step in and decide that the parents' treatment amounts to abuse.
Sure, and if there's evidence that parents aren't providing an adequate education for their children, the state should begin an investigation, just as it should investigate when presented with evidence of physical abuse, sexual abuse, or anything else.
But we don't have routine inspections of families' kitchens to make sure that their children are getting their five-a-day, we don't inspect their bookshelves to ensure that a range of appropriate reading material is present, and we don't perform routine intimate examinations of children to check whether anyone has sexually abused them.
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
So, presumably, you don't trust your doctor nor your priest. Not believe the Holy Father to be infallible.
Without presuming to speak for Chesterbelloc, I certainly don't trust my doctor unquestioningly. I am inclined to believe him, but if he says something that doesn't sound right to me, I'll ask him to justify his opinion, and if he can't, I don't see a particular reason to believe him.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Plique-à-jour
Shipmate
# 17717
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Posted
The idea that parents become competent to make decisions about education by virtue of having had children seems to me to fall into the same category as the old patriarchal assumption that any man, no matter how patently thick, becomes the fount of all wisdom as soon as he becomes the 'head' of a 'household'.
In some cases, the fact of their having had children is, in itself, an indication of poor decision-making. Then you have the vast swathes of people who resent anyone with an education, and will encourage their children to give teachers a hard time. People trapped by circumstances who had children in order to exert the same authority once exerted upon them. People who deny their children the chance to become thinking adults. These people are better qualified to make decisions about education than anyone? Sure.
[ 15. August 2013, 21:02: Message edited by: Plique-à-jour ]
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Posts: 333 | From: United Kingdom | Registered: Jun 2013
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
So, presumably, you don't trust your doctor nor your priest. Not believe the Holy Father to be infallible.
Without presuming to speak for Chesterbelloc, I certainly don't trust my doctor unquestioningly. I am inclined to believe him, but if he says something that doesn't sound right to me, I'll ask him to justify his opinion, and if he can't, I don't see a particular reason to believe him.
Likewise. And I don't unquestioningly trust my priest either, even though he is a man of good will and generally sound judgement, and is furthermore blessed with the supernatural gifts of faith and holy orders. Also, I believe the Pope is infallible on every occasion on which the Church teaches he is - on other occasions he can be a wrong as the next fellow.
Once again, I feel it's necessary to point our that there are natural rights which parents have other their children which mean that they have the right to be wrong (as far as other people re concerned) about certain things with regard to their upbringing: rights which it would be wrong of the state to violate, even if such interference might in the abstract be in the better interests of those children. Do you not see that, leo?
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Plique-à-jour:
The idea that parents become competent to make decisions about education by virtue of having had children seems to me to fall into the same category as the old patriarchal assumption that any man, no matter how patently thick, becomes the fount of all wisdom as soon as he becomes the 'head' of a 'household'.
In the matter of education, I would have said they are qualified by virtue of having gone through the system themselves.
AIUI, the strong public pressure against the tripartite system that eventually led to its abandonment arose because too many voting adults felt they'd been let down by the system as children, even though those at the top thought it was marvellous.
quote:
In some cases, the fact of their having had children is, in itself, an indication of poor decision-making. Then you have the vast swathes of people who resent anyone with an education, and will encourage their children to give teachers a hard time. People trapped by circumstances who had children in order to exert the same authority once exerted upon them. People who deny their children the chance to become thinking adults. These people are better qualified to make decisions about education than anyone? Sure.
Nobody is saying that parents should be the sole arbiters with no checks and balances at all.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Plique-à-jour
Shipmate
# 17717
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
In the matter of education, I would have said they are qualified by virtue of having gone through the system themselves.
I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by this.
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
AIUI, the strong public pressure against the tripartite system that eventually led to its abandonment arose because too many voting adults felt they'd been let down by the system as children, even though those at the top thought it was marvellous.
It was destroyed by a perfect combination of Establishment unease and thick people's resentment. Before the comprehensive system, many minor 'public' schools were genuinely inferior to state grammar schools, and losing out to them in the marketplace. Labour obligingly eliminated the competition. Now, if you're born poor and clever you might as well kill yourself, such are the odds of your not being buried alive by the culture's profound hatred of the exceptional. The tripartite system is generally criticised by privately-educated middle class people to whom it looked beastly from the outside, and resentful 'unacademic' people who don't want anyone to enjoy what they can't. I am a leftist, but I haven't heard Michael Gove say anything I could honestly object to yet. I know too many people, myself included, who arrived at college with two years before university to get over breakdowns and crises induced by an educational culture of standardisation and mediocrity, where the bully who beat you for being a 'boff' was simply explaining the undertow of the whole system to you, whichever party was in power: don't become individuated.
I'd have loved to go to school and be asked to memorise poetry! I'd have loved being taught about the real books I was already reading at home instead of the stuff assigned to my age group. I'd have loved any of my ability to have counted for something. As it was, I escaped from the system. Millions don't.
[ 17. August 2013, 00:13: Message edited by: Plique-à-jour ]
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Posts: 333 | From: United Kingdom | Registered: Jun 2013
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Ricardus
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# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Plique-à-jour:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
In the matter of education, I would have said they are qualified by virtue of having gone through the system themselves.
I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by this.
I meant something like: assuming that Japanese and South Korean education is as pressurised as its reputation (I've never been to either country), one could reasonably ask what right parents have to put their children under such pressure. And the answer, I think, is that they've been under such pressure themselves and think it's worth it.
quote:
It [the Tripartite system] was destroyed by a perfect combination of Establishment unease and thick people's resentment.
I wasn't particularly intending a debate on the merits of the Tripartite system. I have heard plenty of people who say they benefited from grammar schools - including myself; I went to one of the few remaining grammar schools in England, and although my local comp was OK, I had friends from sink estates who really would have been buggered at their local school). But, grammar school pupils only represented about 25% of the total.
I have never, ever heard of anyone saying they benefited from going to a secondary modern. I have heard plenty of people complaining they went to a secondary modern and their future prospects were severely hampered on the basis of a single test they did at the age of eleven. Now you may consider (as above) that those who went to secondary moderns are just 'thick people', but they also represented the majority of secondary school pupils when the Tripartite System was in place.
In other words, though like most government policies abolition was a product of political engineering, in this case the political engineering seems to have been supported by a groundswell of people who had been through the system and knew what it was like.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Angloid
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# 159
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Posted
What is this 'tripartite' system of which you speak? I can only assume it refers to the 1944 Act's 'grammar, technical and secondary modern' system. In which case I don't think it ever happened, did it, except in a few areas?
For the majority of children before the 1960s, they were shunted off to 'bog standard' (or worse) 'Secondary Modern' schools. There was not even any fair system for allocating grammar school places; in some towns, it might have been 20%, in others, maybe 5% or 10%. The Sec Mods were for preparing the working class to be the 20th century equivalent of 'hewers of wood and drawers of water.' Many of them did much better than that of course, but what they didn't and couldn't do was show the possibilities that children could aspire to. That was something the comprehensive schools did, and many of them continue to do, very well.
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Brian: You're all individuals!
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Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Curiosity killed ...
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Posted
Having worked in comprehensive schools, including one that had an overall rating of outstanding at its last Ofsted inspection, it's obvious that most people on this thread have not seen good comprehensive education in action.
That particular school is in an area of deprivation - similar levels to inner cities. Teaching is setted within broad streams, but those sets and streams were regularly (at least termly) assessed and considered, with students moving between those sets and streams as needed.
At GCSE options are considered in streams:
- an academic stream that aims at something like 14 GCSEs in academic subjects including triple science;
- a less academic stream with fewer GCSEs (10?) and options for some vocational subjects;
- a vocational stream with core GCSEs and options for a number of vocational courses (often at the local further education college)
- some years a large enough cohort had such severe learning difficulties a curriculum was put together for this group to provide them with the best education possible - core subjects (English, maths, IT, science) and life skills. (We had 15 students identified as this academically weak one year and geared up for the next year with an additional stream in place to find that we only had 4 or 5 who needed that level of support and a separate group wasn't required. That also points up how difficult it is to assess in advance from primary school information and how students cope with the changes to secondary schools.);
- a small cohort with behaviour difficulties, who were provided with core subjects in school alongside work experience and a college course (like bricklaying or motor vehicles)
Now this was a few years ago, and the plans were to include all vocational courses in house, so I'm not sure how much of this still exists, but I suspect the main three strands and additional support is in place.
Within that town, all the secondary schools worked together to offer at least one additional GCSE, such as photography, jointly. All schools timetabled these subjects for the same time and students could opt to attend this additional subject at a different schools, if there were spare places.
There was also a system of programmed movement of students. Instead of permanently excluding, for example, the three leaders of a gang, the school would negotiate with others within the town to move two of those students to different schools, often in exchange for another pupil, to try and improve the behaviour issues with minimum disruption to the education of the students concerned.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Angloid
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# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Having worked in comprehensive schools, including one that had an overall rating of outstanding at its last Ofsted inspection, it's obvious that most people on this thread have not seen good comprehensive education in action.
That's clearly the case. It's a long time since I worked as a teacher in a comprehensive, but my experience chimes with Curiosity killed..'s. Similarly it was a school serving an area of social deprivation but would have (had OFSTED existed in those days) been given an 'outstanding' rating (despite my contribution helping to pull down the average). Children of all abilities related well to one another and all could see the realistic possibility of achieving excellence in one field or another.
This school is now closed, after struggling for years under mediocre leadership. It became perhaps an example of a 'bog-standard' comprehensive with little interest in achieving excellence for anyone. Nobody is saying that all such schools are perfect, or the best that can be achieved. But at their best they encourage and stretch far more children than the unimaginative sec moderns or spoon-feeding conformist grammar schools of the 1950s.
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Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Cod
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# 2643
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Posted
FWIW, if the PISA surveys are anything to go by, those Japanese and Korean parents are wasting a fair amount of energy. Finnish and Dutch children do as well as the Koreans, while the Japanese do no better than a good many systems. FWIW, Canada, Australia and NZ are also considered very high performers, and I wouldn't say the expectations of children here are particularly exacting. I often wonder why the UK (a long way down the list) doesn't ever copy its Commonwealth brethren, considering how culturally similar they are.
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M Barnier
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Leorning Cniht
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# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
That's clearly the case. It's a long time since I worked as a teacher in a comprehensive, but my experience chimes with Curiosity killed..'s. [..] But at their best they encourage and stretch far more children than the unimaginative sec moderns or spoon-feeding conformist grammar schools of the 1950s.
I agree, although I'd say that most of the benefit was due to advances in educational practice over the rote learning common in the 50s, rather than the comprehensiveness of the school itself.
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Angloid
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# 159
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Posted
Yes and no. The temptation for a school with a selective intake to 'coast' must be very strong indeed.
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Leorning Cniht
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# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
Yes and no. The temptation for a school with a selective intake to 'coast' must be very strong indeed.
Stronger than the temptation to think "these ones are doing OK, so we'll pay all our attention to the children who might, with enough effort, scrape 5 A-C grades"?
I suppose it's possible that the temptation to not differentiate properly is stronger in a school with a narrower ability bite, because it's easier to get away with it, but I don't think any remotely local school can possibly have that narrow a range of abilities in its intake, however selective it is. Even if you select the upper decile, you still have a wide range of abilities.
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Jane R
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# 331
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Posted
Cod: quote:
I suggest that teachers' expertise is in how to teach children. What should be taught is another matter entirely.
But what should be taught is (or should be) informed by expert knowledge on how to teach, as the recent controversy over the new maths curriculum for England has demonstrated. What children are capable of learning is dependent on how old they are and what they already know. Also teachers at secondary school level, which I assume is what you're talking about, are expected to have expertise in their academic subjects as well as knowing how to teach, so it is not entirely unreasonable to suggest that their opinions on curriculum content may be valuable. At primary level one of the big issues is teaching reading; but again, how to teach is determined by what you're teaching. The all-singing, all-dancing Jolly Phonics scheme has a plethora of activities designed to increase children's phonological awareness and help them learn the sounds that go with different combinations of letters; all of which would be totally useless to someone learning to read Mandarin or Yi or some other language that uses a non-alphabetic writing system, where phonological awareness will be no help to you at all.
Even at university level some researchers have talked about threshold concepts that change your understanding of a subject (e.g. sampling distribution in statistics; Newton's second law of motion in physics; opportunity cost in economics).
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Cod
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# 2643
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Posted
Jane,
How children are to be taught in schools is, in my view, entirely the province of teachers. They are the ones trained to do it and should be trusted to get on with the job. The phonics versus whole-language debate is an example of what I think is an unfortunate politicisation of the teacher's role; it should not be for the likes of Boris Johnson to take up a position on the matter any more than it is to pressure the NHS into prescribing powdered rhino horn instead of Viagra. I am unqualified to know how best to teach a child to read in the classroom, and have not the first idea which methods work best for whichever children - including my own. The same goes for debates over the most suitable age to introduce children to subjects like history, geography, languages, science, and matching up subject material to appropriate age groups; the same goes for debates such as group work versus individual work, exams versus assessment, and so on. My impression is that UK teachers repeatedly get told to change what they do with the changing of the political tides. What seems to me more sensible is that the Gvt puts its resources into upskilling teachers instead of ensuring they do what they are told.
What children are taught, by contrast, must be the subject of legitimate political debate. It will inform their values, their ability to support themselves and others economically, and their all-round knowledge generally: education is part of the process by which children are integrated into society in general or their particular bit of it. While I appreciate the boundaries between the "what" and the "how" are fuzzy, it strikes me as quite wrong that teachers should determine what is taught, because it takes this process out of political debate generally and puts it in the hands of one particular group. I don't read your post as suggesting this, but it strikes me that some here might advocate such a viewpoint.
I will say as an aside that - at primary level at least - the teaching profession here seems to have decided to teach nothing other than endless English, maths, and bits and pieces. My 8-year old daughter can't tell the time, can find just about nowhere on a map other than Australia and NZ, nor does she know which way is north, hasn't heard of Captain Cook, the land wars, the Romans or indeed anything about history at all, nor any science other than what she reads at home. She is considered bright enough, halfway up her class in a well-regarded school, in a high performing national education system. She is just not being taught facts. While I do trust that her teachers are getting it right, I can't help but wonder sometimes.
Of couse the teaching profession should be consulted on curriculum material. Teachers are better placed than anyone else to say that proposed curriculum material simply won't work, or alternatively, to say how it could be made to work. The Gove curriculum was actually an example of that in process, leastways in a very badly-handled fashion.
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"I fart in your general direction."
M Barnier
Posts: 4229 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Apr 2002
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
Of couse the teaching profession should be consulted on curriculum material. Teachers are better placed than anyone else to say that proposed curriculum material simply won't work, or alternatively, to say how it could be made to work. The Gove curriculum was actually an example of that in process, leastways in a very badly-handled fashion.
The Gove curriculum is being lambasted because of the lack of consultation and listening to experts. It has ensured the teaching profession is now working together in a way it wasn't before and has produced bodies such as the Headteachers' Roundtable which produced alternative national curriculum suggestions for consultation as they saw the way the Government proposals were not meeting the needs of all students, educational experts criticised it for concentrating on teaching facts not understanding.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Cod
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# 2643
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Posted
Well quite. The curriculum was hastily cobbled together and heavily criticised as a result. However, it was perfectly proper for a politician to propose curriculum material and for it to be critiqued. To say the whole thing should have been "left to experts" is wrong.
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"I fart in your general direction."
M Barnier
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
I often wonder why the UK (a long way down the list) doesn't ever copy its Commonwealth brethren, considering how culturally similar they are.
"A long way down the list"? We're ranked sixth in the world.
As for our Commonwealth brethren, New Zealand is eighth, Canada tenth and Australia thirteenth. So maybe they should be thinking about copying us...
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Mudfrog
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# 8116
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Posted
Sorry, but what has all this got to do with not joining the Green party?
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G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Cod
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# 2643
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
I often wonder why the UK (a long way down the list) doesn't ever copy its Commonwealth brethren, considering how culturally similar they are.
"A long way down the list"? We're ranked sixth in the world.
As for our Commonwealth brethren, New Zealand is eighth, Canada tenth and Australia thirteenth. So maybe they should be thinking about copying us...
I was referring to the PISA rankings which (unlike Pearson) assess only educational attainment.
Here. (Canada 9th, NZ 12th, Aus 14th, UK 27th, Ireland, US 30th).
Even if Pearson is taken into account, there is no reason why the UK shouldn't swap notes with systems level with it.
Tales of dreadful UK schools are legion down here btw.
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"I fart in your general direction."
M Barnier
Posts: 4229 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Apr 2002
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Cod
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# 2643
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Sorry, but what has all this got to do with not joining the Green party?
Shh!
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"I fart in your general direction."
M Barnier
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