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hypnotist
Joined: 04 Dec 2004
Location: I wish I were a sock
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 Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 2:19 am Post subject: |
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It happened under the Tories as well as Labour - the farcical rules about having to contract services out to the absolute lowest bidders, the gutting of LEA power (some to the schools which could then compete with each other to a limited extent, but most of it to central Government), the abolition of Polytechnics. All Tory policies. Note that I believe New Labour's education policies have been unrelentingly right-wing too.
The real fall of teachers as respected members of society began under her, I believe.
| Richard F. Gombrich wrote: |
Lawyers, doctors and teachers are "professionals" in the sense that they profess a "calling", analogous to a religious calling, to promote a general good, be it justice, health or education. To carry out their work requires both expertise and an ethical commitment. They get paid for their work, but it is virtually impossible for outsiders to evaluate it, so one of their commitments is not to overcharge. They take responsibility for exercising their judgment in the interest of their clients. The public, though suspicious of lawyers, has generally been inclined to trust the professions and to allow them to regulate their own affairs through professional councils.
For Thatcherism, this is all cant and hogwash. The professions are interest groups, just like other interest groups, and interest means only one thing, economic interest. If doctors want money to be spent on health, that is just because they want to get richer. Words like responsibility, judgment and trust are just a smokescreen. Just as the government must act in the economy to see that business interests have what is nowadays called "a level playing field", it must unmask the pretensions of these so-called "professional" interest groups and level the playing field to ensure that doctors have no more privileges than, say, butchers.
In her belief that only the economy is real, the rest is just rationalization, Mrs Thatcher echoed Marx's distinction between base and superstructure. The irony goes far deeper than that identified by the Times leader: Britain's most right-wing Prime Minister was also the most Marxist. Les extremes se touchent.
This belief that in the end only money counts has led our rulers into a logical fallacy which explains many of the disasters that have befallen our education system. If the economy is all that is real, everything has its price, which means that everything, or at least everything that matters, can be quantified. Moreover, only quantity can be accurately measured and hence evaluated by bureaucrats. If something cannot be measured, it is literally of no account. |
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgadkw/position/gombrich/uk-higher-education.html
(A fantastic speech - and extremely illuminating, particularly when considering just how far Blairism embraces Thatcherism).
Anyway, the concept of choice in school education is largely illusory. There are good schools and bad schools, and there are good teachers and bad teachers, but the causal link between them isn't quite as strong as many would like to believe (and in some cases, it works in the other direction). Reputations are difficult things and seldom match the truth. Besides which, schools simply can't expand quickly. The fabric of many schools, grossly underfunded for decades, often cannot cope with even a small increase in the number of pupils. And how to tell whether a school is currently good or not? Pupils stay there for years. It's not like going out for dinner, and deciding whether to patronise the same restaurant again the following week. The voucher system rewards the most mobile, the most vocal and the most influential, no less than the current catchment area system does.
It's laughable to claim "poor kids had a chance of a good education through the grammar school system". A FEW did, joining their middle-class peers in the grammar school. Most of them were left to rot in the secondary moderns - just as dire than some of the worst comps today - and worse, with a feeling of failure that haunted them for a long time (how many people do you know who failed the 11+?). Sadly, you're correct that the current system does still reward middle class wealth. It just costs the middle class more in order to exploit it.
The problem with the exam system is not the exams per se. True, it's easy to pass a GCSE these days, but what does an E in GCSE maths get you? It at least recognises some achievement (and I believe that's a good thing, by the way), but let's face it - without an A*-C you're not heading for the sixth form. So what's happening? See the quote above. "Everything that matters, can be quantified". That means exam results. That means stopping any kind of holistic or knowledge-based teaching, and concentrating on what the students need to pass exams. This kind of rote learning (hell, those of you teaching in Korea must know this well enough) is extremely tough to build on. So on the one hand we have students not really knowing the things they need for university, because they're not helpful to schools in hitting their exam result targets. On the other hand, we send FAR MORE people to university these days. Of course the average quality is going to suffer! Again, I don't NECESSARILY see this as a bad thing. Improving the education level of the population is extremely important. But of course, some of this should be done in schools and not universities. That means getting away from the fixation on results. And that means trusting teachers.
But they're all characterised as extreme lefties and in reality, given almost no discretion in their professional lives. |
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bigverne
Joined: 12 May 2004
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| Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 2:25 am Post subject: |
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A-level results have shown a dramatic improvement in recent years. The percentage gaining grades A-C has risen sharply from 46.4% in 1992 to 69% in 2004 while those passing (achieving grades A-E) has climbed from 79% in 1992 to 96% in 2004. The proportion of A grades has almost doubled from 12.8% in 1992 to 22.4% in 2004, while the proportion gaining B grades has increased from 16.3% to 23.4% in the same period.
Dr Robert Coe from the CEM Centre has compared A-level results with actual changes in achievement by using the International Test of Developed Abilities (ITDA) which includes maths, verbal and non-verbal elements.54 In all six subjects studied, attainment fell steadily. In mathematics, the average ITDA score was 72.3% in 1988, while by 1998 it had dropped to 59.3%. At the same time the average A-level score for this subject increased from 3.78 to 5.69. In English Literature, the ITDA score dropped from 57% to 51.5% between 1988 and 1998 while the average A-level grade increased from 4.59 to 5.96. In Biology, the ITDA fell from 63.7 to 53.4 in the same period, and the average A-level grade increased from 4.33 to 5.24. Similar trends were found in history, French and geography. (A-level grades are coded as follows: A=10, B=8, C=6, D=4, E=2, N=0 and U= -2.)
The evidence suggests that actual attainments have fallen while A-level grades have risen. Dr Coe estimates the extent of A-level grade inflation between 1988 and 1998 for students with the same ITDA score of 60%. He concludes that: �A fair summary would be to say that A-level candidates across a range of subjects achieved over a grade higher in 1998 than candidates of the same ability had done in 1988�.
Similar research has been carried out by the Engineering Council into the achievements of students taking A-level mathematics.
It used a diagnostic test designed by Coventry University, consisting of 50 multiple-choice questions taken by 600 students per year. In 1991 those with a grade B at A-level scored 40.5/50. In 1998 they scored 36.8/50. At grade C the gap was from 39.9 in 1991 to 32.1 in 1998. As the report comments, the score of 32.1 in 1998 was 2.3 marks lower than the N grade in the same year. It concluded that there is �clear evidence� of a �decline over time in the competency of students with the same A-level grade�.
Professor Tymms has demonstrated that some A-level subjects are easier than others and that they should therefore, not be given equal weight. By using what he calls the �50% Framework�, which rests on the assumption that previous achievement predicts about 50% of subsequent variation in results, comparisons are made between the grades awarded to pupils in different A-level subjects and their GCSE results. He found that pupils with a grade B at GCSE in history, economics, geography, English, sociology and business studies went on to score, on average, a grade C in the same subjects at A-level. In contrast, those with a B grade at GCSE in maths, computing, German, French, chemistry, physics and biology were likely to gain a grade D at A-level. The concern is that �more and more people are drifting away from the severely graded subjects into the others�.
To sum up: on the basis of the independent evidence there is reason to be sceptical that the increases in A-level examination results reflect an equivalent rise in real standards. Rather, the data suggest that standards across-the-board at may have actually fallen while results have surged, and that many increasingly popular A-level courses are less demanding than other more traditional subjects.
http://www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/educationBriefingApr05.pdf |
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bigverne
Joined: 12 May 2004
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| Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 2:42 am Post subject: |
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| A FEW did, joining their middle-class peers in the grammar school. Most of them were left to rot in the secondary moderns - just as dire than some of the worst comps today - and worse, with a feeling of failure that haunted them for a long time |
Grammar schools clearly worked. The problem was that there were not enough of them. Grammar schools should have been expanded, along with technical and other schools. Moreover, I think you are overstating this 'feeling of failure' that is so often used by opponents of the grammar system. Guess what, failure is a part of life, and sooner or later, children will have to deal with it. I don't believe that after failing the 11+ children should be written off. There should be a 13+ and 16+ for attending grammar schools and top sixth form colleges.
Instead, we now have a system where children are screened from any failure or challenge and are given the illusion that they are achieving something when they are not. Many leave university with worthless degrees, still lacking the basic skills to find them a job.
What educationalists really can't stand is inequality, and any idea that come children are brighter and more hardworking than others. I think it is also interesting to note that Northern Ireland, which still maintains a wholly selective system, produces, on average, the best educated children in the UK.
Between 1967 and 1999, the percentage of pupils at secondary modern schools achieving 5-plus A*-C GCSEs (or equivalent) rose at 6 times the rate of those at comprehensive schools. Indeed, pupils in today�s secondary modern schools are achieving twice the percentage of 5-plus A*-Cs as did the whole of the maintained sector � grammar schools and all � in 1967 (Fred Naylor in Grammar Schools in the Twenty-First Century, NGSA, 2001).
It is notable, too, that the results from LEAs deemed wholly selective are above the national average, while the results from wholly comprehensive LEAs are below average.
The comprehensive system enforces mediocrity, shuns excellence and condemns millions of working class children to illiteracy and poor life chances. All in the name of 'equality'. |
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hypnotist
Joined: 04 Dec 2004
Location: I wish I were a sock
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| Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 2:54 am Post subject: |
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I've no qualms with the evidence your right-wing think tanks are producing. I'm just disagreeing with the conclusions they're drawing.
I'm not arguing overall competence has increased along with the exam results. Far from it. I'm arguing that the fixation with exam results has led to teaching being aimed at getting good results rather than imparting knowedge. But the right wingers don't like that idea, since they're typically the ones who believe everything has to be measured - it's not good if that obsession with measurement is one of the prime causes in the fall of competence. Much easier to blame the measurement itself.
By the way, there's evidence that standards are rising, too (albeit not as quickly as exam results). See the report you quoted, particularly relating to Year 6. |
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bigverne
Joined: 12 May 2004
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| Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 3:29 am Post subject: |
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| I'm arguing that the fixation with exam results has led to teaching being aimed at getting good results rather than imparting knowedge. |
The idea that teaching should be about imparting knowledge (something I very much agree with) has been replaced with 'progressive' ideas about raising children's self-esteem, and teaching them non specific 'transferable skills' over the last 30 or so years.
I don't see this left-right wing thing as particularly useful when it comes to education. The real battle is between those that believe in a traditional education system that imparts knowledge, teaches good values and discipline, and a 'progressive' system that focuses on the emotional development of children, the learning of 'skills' and a shunning of competition and academic excellence.
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| But the right wingers don't like that idea, since they're typically the ones who believe everything has to be measured |
The reason now that there is more emphasis on exam results is because more children are taking the top exams. Also, testing was entrenched when it became obvious that years of 'progressive' teaching was creating a nation of illiterates. Thus, to assuage parents fears, children needed to be tested to give parents evidence of increasing standards. When children failed to meet these standards, the standards were promptly lowered, giving the illusion of progress, or grossly inflating what small progress had been achieved. The failed teaching methods remained however. So, testing does not grow out of a right wing belief that everything has to be measured, but the failure of an overwhelming left wing educational establishment, at universities and in government, to admit to the failures of years of progressive teaching methods.
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| it's not good if that obsession with measurement is one of the prime causes in the fall of competence. |
That's entirely the wrong way around. Falling competence, created by years of progressive teaching methods, and presided over by both Labour and Tory governments, had to be masked by lowering standards and making exams easier.
What we need is less, albeit more rigorous exams, that give students, and universities a clear indication of their abilities. We also need a return to traditional teaching methods, and a syllabus that stretches the brightest. This will mean that we will have to accept that more students will fail, and also that we abandon the arbitrary and ludicrous goal of 50% of young people attending university, despite a total lack of evidence that the degrees they are taking will help them to get better jobs or earn more money. |
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hypnotist
Joined: 04 Dec 2004
Location: I wish I were a sock
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| Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 3:29 am Post subject: |
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| bigverne wrote: |
| Grammar schools clearly worked. The problem was that there were not enough of them. |
They only worked (for those who attended them) BECAUSE of the limited numbers of them. They got the best teachers and the most resources. Their buildings were in better locations and were better maintained.
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| Grammar schools should have been expanded, along with technical and other schools. |
The system that the Butler act intended to put into place would have had equal numbers of technical, grammar and modern school places (more or less). It didn't happen in reality - in the 50s, only 5% of children were in technical schools. 70% were in secondary moderns.
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| Moreover, I think you are overstating this 'feeling of failure' that is so often used by opponents of the grammar system. Guess what, failure is a part of life, and sooner or later, children will have to deal with it. I don't believe that after failing the 11+ children should be written off. There should be a 13+ and 16+ for attending grammar schools and top sixth form colleges. |
Failure is indeed a part of life, but the 11+ was arbitrary, unfair and sexist. It more or less defined the entire life path of the children and there was a real and clear sense of failure amongst children who failed it. Belittle it all you want - I'll ask again, how many people do you know who failed it? I know some people - retired now - who still feel / rue the affects of failing the 11+.
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| Instead, we now have a system where children are screened from any failure or challenge and are given the illusion that they are achieving something when they are not. Many leave university with worthless degrees, still lacking the basic skills to find them a job. |
Actually many of them ARE achieving something. Whilst you may well hold your nose in the air and see no achievement in a child going from a G to an F grade in an GCSE, for me (and indeed for them) that is a credit to the education system. By the way, people who get Fs in GCSE generally don't go to university...
"Worthless degrees" is another argument entirely.
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| What educationalists really can't stand is inequality, and any idea that come children are brighter and more hardworking than others. I think it is also interesting to note that Northern Ireland, which still maintains a wholly selective system, produces, on average, the best educated children in the UK. |
Do you KNOW any educationalists?! That statement is pure bollocks.
How are you measuring the level of education in NI, by the way? With GCSEs that you're trying to completely discredit? 
Many people in England comment that examination results in Northern Ireland are better than their own. There are two points to be made about examination results.
First people here are unaware that this superiority only applies to global scores, that is, to Northern Ireland as a whole, compared with England as a whole. For example, statistics show 54.6% of Northern Ireland children achieve 5+ A*-C GCSE Grades and only 46.3 % of English children do so. (1988 results). When we break those global results down our superiority begins to dissolve.
Second people over here who look at our results assume that the superiority is due to our selective system. Of course many factors besides the system affect educational outcomes, and to assume that the Northern Ireland system accounts for the difference in scores is also to assume that both countries are identical on all the other factors.
[...]
[T]he Northern Ireland local education authorities are slotted into the top 25 English local authorities, and do not occupy the top five places. Also highly significant to the present discussion is the number of English comprehensive systems that come above the Northern Ireland selective systems.
http://www.casenet.org.uk/mcca.html
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| It is notable, too, that the results from LEAs deemed wholly selective are above the national average, while the results from wholly comprehensive LEAs are below average. |
[T]he merits of selective versus comprehensive schooling in England cannot be adequately addressed by cross-sectional comparisons between EAs. A longitudinal approach is required, whereby the effects of reorganisation from a selective to a comprehensive system can be observed as the process unfolds over several years. Also, the EA is not the appropriate unit for analysis; one would expect the reorganisation process to have its main effects on specific clusters of schools within certain communities.
http://www.scre.ac.uk/spotlight/spotlight3.html
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| The comprehensive system enforces mediocrity, shuns excellence and condemns millions of working class children to illiteracy and poor life chances. All in the name of 'equality'. |
It has not worked out as well as many hoped, I cannot deny that. And yet for me and my ilk, equality of opportunity is an incredibly important concept. Comprehensive schools went some small way towards providing that. Many are good schools. And what you say about shunning excellence is far from my experience, and that of many of my university friends. |
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Gwangjuboy
Joined: 08 Jul 2003
Location: England
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| Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 3:41 am Post subject: |
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| hypnotist wrote: |
| That means stopping any kind of holistic or knowledge-based teaching, and concentrating on what the students need to pass exams. This kind of rote learning (hell, those of you teaching in Korea must know this well enough) is extremely tough to build on. So on the one hand we have students not really knowing the things they need for university, because they're not helpful to schools in hitting their exam result targets. On the other hand, we send FAR MORE people to university these days. Of course the average quality is going to suffer! Again, I don't NECESSARILY see this as a bad thing. Improving the education level of the population is extremely important. But of course, some of this should be done in schools and not universities. That means getting away from the fixation on results. And that means trusting teachers. |
I think parents should shoulder some of the responsibility for filling that void too. I have met children on a council estate where I used to live and many of them have had their lives blighted by disruption. Unfortunately, as well as this disruption many of the children lack any intellectual curiosity because their parents (some cases just one) have failed to develop it. I found it quite sad to exchange conversations with them on some intellectually stimulating level only to find a lack of any meaningful reciprocation. (for example, I might ask them about other countries, cities, or animals) |
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bigverne
Joined: 12 May 2004
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| Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 3:46 am Post subject: |
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| Whilst you may well hold your nose in the air and see no achievement in a child going from a G to an F grade in an GCSE |
A G (is there such a grade?) to an F is still a fail, no matter how you want to dress it up. This is half the problem. Lieing to children that they have achieved something when they have not. We wouldn't want to damage anyone's self-esteem now would we?
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| for me (and indeed for them) that is a credit to the education system |
I wouldn't call any fail a credit to the education system, especially when the slight improvement from one fail grade to another is probably the result of easier exams and not improved teaching.
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| It more or less defined the entire life path of the children and there was a real and clear sense of failure amongst children who failed it. |
So, what do you have against a 13+, or a 16+ giving 'late developers' more chances to study at grammar schools.
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| How are you measuring the level of education in NI, by the way? With GCSEs that you're trying to completely discredit? |
GCSE are a poor measure of ability, when you consider that you can make so many mistakes and still get a 'C' grade. However, they can still be used to compare abilities, and if one group is scoring significantly higher than another, we can make an assumption that the education they are receiving is better.
As you quoted;
First people here are unaware that this superiority only applies to global scores, that is, to Northern Ireland as a whole, compared with England as a whole.
But that's the point I was making. Pupils in N.Ireland which has a wholly selective system, achieve better results than in pupils in England. What you state does nothing to discredit that. Now, the progressives have the eyes on dismantling the selective system in N.Ireland, not to increase standards, but for purely ideological reasons. |
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hypnotist
Joined: 04 Dec 2004
Location: I wish I were a sock
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| Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 4:12 am Post subject: |
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| bigverne wrote: |
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| Whilst you may well hold your nose in the air and see no achievement in a child going from a G to an F grade in an GCSE |
A G (is there such a grade?) to an F is still a fail, no matter how you want to dress it up. This is half the problem. Lieing to children that they have achieved something when they have not. We wouldn't want to damage anyone's self-esteem now would we? |
You are prepared to debate the finer points of GCSEs with me, and yet you're not even aware what grades can be awarded in said exam?
Why is it a fail? You see, this is why your earlier statement that educationalists don't believe some children are brighter than others is wrong. Quite the opposite. If for some pupils an F really is the best they can aim for, there's still a lot of good to be done by pushing them to that level rather than just handing them a letter saying 'fail' for a qualification they have no chance of achieving in the first place.
Children know very well where they are in the pecking order. They can still be encouraged to make some achievements at school. You seem to prefer them being down t'pit.
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| I wouldn't call any fail a credit to the education system, especially when the slight improvement from one fail grade to another is probably the result of easier exams and not improved teaching. |
You wouldn't call it a credit to the education system if the level of knowledge and achievement of a child is raised? Then what WOULD you call a credit? Not letting them take any exam, because they're too stupid?
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| So, what do you have against a 13+, or a 16+ giving 'late developers' more chances to study at grammar schools. |
I dislike the nature of grammar schools, which is to take an unfair proportion of resources in order to educate an overwhelmingly middle-class intake.
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| GCSE are a poor measure of ability, when you consider that you can make so many mistakes and still get a 'C' grade. However, they can still be used to compare abilities, and if one group is scoring significantly higher than another, we can make an assumption that the education they are receiving is better. |
The numbers between NI and England are NOT significant, though. And we CAN'T make that assumption. That's the point of the Scottish report I quoted later.
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| But that's the point I was making. Pupils in N.Ireland which has a wholly selective system, achieve better results than in pupils in England. What you state does nothing to discredit that. Now, the progressives have the eyes on dismantling the selective system in N.Ireland, not to increase standards, but for purely ideological reasons. |
Of course it discredits it. It shows that
- Some EAs with a wholly comprehensive system do better than NI EAs
- It's invalid to compare EAs in any case, since the differences are so small compared to those between schools
- There's no evidence that the better performance in NI is directly related to their wholly selective system
They're dismantling the selective system because it works to benefit the middle-class, just as it did when it existed in England. |
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hypnotist
Joined: 04 Dec 2004
Location: I wish I were a sock
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| Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 4:14 am Post subject: |
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| Gwangjuboy wrote: |
| I think parents should shoulder some of the responsibility for filling that void too. I have met children on a council estate where I used to live and many of them have had their lives blighted by disruption. Unfortunately, as well as this disruption many of the children lack any intellectual curiosity because their parents (some cases just one) have failed to develop it. I found it quite sad to exchange conversations with them on some intellectually stimulating level only to find a lack of any meaningful reciprocation. (for example, I might ask them about other countries, cities, or animals) |
I completely agree. Completely. |
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hypnotist
Joined: 04 Dec 2004
Location: I wish I were a sock
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| Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 4:39 am Post subject: |
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| bigverne wrote: |
| The idea that teaching should be about imparting knowledge (something I very much agree with) has been replaced with 'progressive' ideas about raising children's self-esteem, and teaching them non specific 'transferable skills' over the last 30 or so years. |
These so-called "transferable skills" were demanded by industry for a long time. They were also important in widening the reach of exams such as the A Level. Allowing pupils to think for themselves was a laudable aim behind these policies. Sadly it's replaced one kind of rote learning with another, less useful form.
| Quote: |
| I don't see this left-right wing thing as particularly useful when it comes to education. The real battle is between those that believe in a traditional education system that imparts knowledge, teaches good values and discipline, and a 'progressive' system that focuses on the emotional development of children, the learning of 'skills' and a shunning of competition and academic excellence. |
There are real differences between the left and the right in terms of schools' position in society, attitudes towards teachers and so on. Educational theory isn't best looked at as a left/right issue though, sure.
Your two sides of the battle are highly, highly simplistic and exist mainly in the minds of right-wing think tanks. Why did you put skills in inverted commas, by the way? And why do you think "teaching good values and discipline" is different to "focusing on the emotional development"?
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| The reason now that there is more emphasis on exam results is because more children are taking the top exams. Also, testing was entrenched when it became obvious that years of 'progressive' teaching was creating a nation of illiterates. Thus, to assuage parents fears, children needed to be tested to give parents evidence of increasing standards. |
I've already described the ideological reasons behind the growth of result-culture. Talk of "a nation of illiterates" is just scaremongering - the rate has been around 99% for years. Testing was put into place because teachers weren't trusted, just as testing in hospitals was put into place because doctors weren't trusted.
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| When children failed to meet these standards, the standards were promptly lowered, giving the illusion of progress, or grossly inflating what small progress had been achieved. |
"Promptly lowered"? Even if it did happen, it certainly wasn't prompt. I agree that the rise in results does not match a rise in the overall level of competence. I sincerely doubt that there was a centrally-driven policy of grade inflation, however.
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| The failed teaching methods remained however. |
Teaching methods have changed massively even in the relatively short time since I was at school. This simply isn't true.
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| So, testing does not grow out of a right wing belief that everything has to be measured, but the failure of an overwhelming left wing educational establishment, at universities and in government, to admit to the failures of years of progressive teaching methods. |
Utter rubbish. I won't deny that some progressive teaching methods were a catestrophic failure, but that's emphatically not why the (right-wing) government of the 80s started to ramp up testing. Again, it wasn't just schools that this affected - it was across the public sector.
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it's not good if that obsession with measurement is
one of the prime causes in the fall of competence. |
That's entirely the wrong way around. Falling competence, created by years of progressive teaching methods, and presided over by both Labour and Tory governments, had to be masked by lowering standards and making exams easier. |
No, it's the right way round. Schools increasingly taught how to pass exams rather than the subjects themselves. They'd refuse to enter pupils who might bring down their place in the league tables.
I have an open mind as to whether overall standards have risen or fallen. Not for any particular sector of society, but overall. The secondary moderns failed many. So did the comprehensives. It's rarer these days you'll meet someone who's functionally illiterate - then again, he'd be far more likely to be in prison.
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| What we need is less, albeit more rigorous exams |
I think you mean 'fewer' - I wouldn't usually nitpick but the seeming self-contradiction of your words confused me for a few seconds...
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| that give students, and universities a clear indication of their abilities. We also need a return to traditional teaching methods, and a syllabus that stretches the brightest. This will mean that we will have to accept that more students will fail, and also that we abandon the arbitrary and ludicrous goal of 50% of young people attending university, despite a total lack of evidence that the degrees they are taking will help them to get better jobs or earn more money. |
Traditional teaching methods are unproven in terms of supplying functional people to today's workplace. The needs now are very different to the needs then, however much right-wingers may want us to return to the 1950s (or 1850s in some cases....). We don't have to accept failure, and we can celebrate success whilst being realistic about its implications. People don't have to go to university just to earn more money or get a better job. People should be encouraged to want to learn. There's no reason 50% of people couldn't study at a higher level (not necessarily university, but then the 50% figure doesn't refer to university anyway, but rather to "higher education"). In Scotland, participation among school leavers is already around the 50% mark. |
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bigverne
Joined: 12 May 2004
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| Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 4:43 am Post subject: |
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| You wouldn't call it a credit to the education system if the level of knowledge and achievement of a child is raised? |
If their level of knowledge and achievement had been raised then yes, it would be a credit to the education system. However, due to grade inflation and the dumbing down of exams, that is often in doubt.
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| They can still be encouraged to make some achievements at school. |
Sure, they can, and not only in academic subjects. However, they should not be molly coddled when they fail, even though this dreaded word has now been purged from the education system. Whether you get 80% or 90% of the exam wrong, you have still failed.
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| I dislike the nature of grammar schools, which is to take an unfair proportion of resources in order to educate an overwhelmingly middle-class intake. |
I'm not sure about 'overwhelmingly', but at least it gives many children from poorer backgrounds the chance of an excellent education. What we have now is a system based almost entirely on wealth, and if you are poor and live in an inner city, you are basically shafted. The grammar school system selected based on wealth to a certain degree, in that middle class parents have the resources to coach their kids to pass the 11+. The system we have now is far more biased towards the wealthy. In fact, a recent report in the Guardian (no less) demonstrated that there was in fact more social mobility in the 1950s, when the grammar system was widespread, than there is now. Yet, some still continue with this failed ideological crusade.
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| They're dismantling the selective system because it works to benefit the middle-class, just as it did when it existed in England. |
So, you admit that it's all about class warfare. The grammar system favours those children whose parents care most about their kids education. Those parents happen to be mostly, but not exclusively, middle class. What exactly do you have against the middle classes?
The only criteria for disbanding grammar schools should be, whether it raises educational standards, but as the proponents of comprehensives admit themselves, it is about ideology. Disgracefully, many of the most ardent anti-grammar campaigners are members of the Labour party who benefited themselves from a grammar education, or those who send their kids to selective or private schools. |
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bigverne
Joined: 12 May 2004
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| Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 5:06 am Post subject: |
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| Why did you put skills in inverted commas, by the way? |
Because these skills are often meaningless and sometimes take the place of real learning. I am talking about highly subjective skills of 'empathy' and 'team work' that are given increasing emphasis over individual academic attainment and facts.
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| And why do you think "teaching good values and discipline" is different to "focusing on the emotional development"? |
One refers to teaching children respect, honesty, and manners and punishing children when they misbehave. The other seeks to allow children to decide on their own values (called 'values clarification' in educationspeak) and concentrates on children's self esteeem. One system emphasizes the authority of the teacher, the other undermines it.
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| Teaching methods have changed massively even in the relatively short time since I was at school. |
Perhaps, yet many failed progressive teaching methods persist. To give one example, the phonics based approach to reading is still not used in many schools despite the fact that it is far superior to other methods used. Why? 'Progressive' ideology that shuns the learning of grammar and the sound of words because it inteferes with children's 'creativity'.
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| The needs now are very different to the needs then |
Not really. What businesses and employers want are people who are numerate and literate to a high degree, have a good grasp of IT and perhaps fluency in a modern language. Now, students are dropping languages and employers constantly complain of workers who cannot spell or do basic maths. You could have a return to traditional teaching methods and still teach relevant subjects that employers need. This is something that the education system is now failing to do largely because of failed left-wing ideologies and a collapse in discipline (something which is indicative of a general problem in society, although progressive attitudes to teaching have not helped) in the classroom, which severely limits the ability of teachers to teach. Yet, for many in the educational establishment, discipline is a dirty, anachronistic word. |
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The Bobster
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 9:14 am Post subject: |
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| endofthewor1d wrote: |
| i it would likely cause me to start giggling in class. |
Giggling? In class? WHO gave you permission to do that?
You, sir, are in the corner for 10 minutes holding a dictionary over your head. Yes, THIS is how The Bobster rules his 6-year-old kindie classes ... and you'd better pay attention, buster keaton, or I'll do the same for you.
Damn straight. |
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jinglejangle
Joined: 19 Feb 2005
Location: Far far far away.
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| Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 1:23 pm Post subject: |
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| I just want to know how many times a teacher in that school gets to use the F-word at his students before losing his job. |
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