Is primary education threatened by authoritarianism?
"Schools are not in danger of subversion by 1970s ideologues," asserts today's review of primary education in England. The real risk, we are warned, comes from an "authoritarian mindset" which may threaten our very democracy.
This is a report written by educationalists and academics who clearly want to wrestle control of our children's schooling back from what they call "top-down control and edict".
"The principle that it is not for government or government agencies to tell teachers how to teach, abandoned in 1997, should be reinstated," the report panel argues. In short, politicians should butt out of the classroom.
The review regards national tests, national teaching strategies, inspection, centrally-determined teacher training and ring-fenced finance as "suspect", creating, it is argued, a "state theory of learning".
Instead, the authors want "professional empowerment, mutual accountability and proper respect for research and experience".
Today's report is really calling for a shift in power: away from the centre to the local, from Whitehall to the white board. "[F]or the responsibilities... to be re-balanced," as the panel puts it.
Throughout the 1980s and 90s, government voices railed against "leftie" teachers and their "trendy" methods, which, it was argued, were partly responsible for the lack of discipline among young people. Schools became an ideological battleground with influential right-wing academics convincing key policy makers that dangerous Marxist extremists had occupied the staff room. Central government increasingly took control.
Today's report, with its stark warnings of "authoritarian mindset", "the disenfranchising of local voice" and "the rise of unelected and unaccountable groups taking key decisions behind closed doors" hints at a totalitarian ideology now at work in primary education.
When it comes to policy in our schools, "education appears to mirror the wider problems recorded by those who see British democracy in retreat," it suggests. Warming to its theme, the report accuses government of stifling free debate with "the use of myth and derision to... discredit alternative views".
Crikey! No surprise perhaps that government ministers have effectively responded to the review with a "thanks but no thanks". It is not just that they are being painted as latter-day Stalins, crushing any opposition. They are the ones who get it in the neck when children leave primary school unable to read or add up. They are the ones who have to justify the huge increases in spending on primary education.
The problem for central government - and this is going to be even more acutely felt if the Conservatives win the next election - is that, if you are the minister, whether or not you believe in both localism and light-touch regulation, it is you that can be horribly exposed when things go wrong.
No education secretary can stand up in the House of Commons and say: "Yes, I did read in the newspapers about that school where none of Year 6 could count up to twenty. Nothing to do with me. It's down to local teachers and, without the inspectors, I couldn't know about it anyway."
That's not to say that centralised authority backed up with tough accountability is the answer. Innovation and expertise may not flourish under the dead weight of "top-down control and edict".
Perhaps the most telling phrase in today's review reads: "The report unequivocally supports both public accountability and the raising of standards, but..." The education debate really begins with whatever follows that "but".
I'm 
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"Is primary education threatened by authoritarianism?"
Yes along with smoking, drinking, not having ID cards, referendum on EU, fast food and any technology that produces CO2
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Authoritarianism did not begin in 1997. Tony Blair may have been the willing apprentice to Thatcher but it was she and her government that started the top down thing. What needs to be understood is that education is not isolated from society and popular culture and that it cannot overcome some of the powerful anti education forces they generate.
However it cannot help for qualified teachers (so despised by Thatcher - lefties who have excessive holidays) for so much of their day being straightjacketed by the details of the national curriculum and the absurd volume of paperwork they have to complete. If small class sizes and engendering a sense of enthusiasm through play and creativity in the first years can be implemented it should be tried. Few are satisfied with current results.
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Central government managing education down to classroom level is a "Hitler had the right idea, he made the trains run on time anyway" question. The politicians in charge of education probably don't know much about how it's done and should be guided by those who do. It's all right to set goals and measurements from the top, but the process of achieving the goals should be designed lower down by those who know how. Central government rejecting this report by education experts is a very bad signal. But I don't think the Tories will do anything differently except for selling off school playgrounds and playing fields faster. Maybe redirect new school builds to out-of-town greenfield sites on cheap land and encourage business sponsorship of school activities.
It's come to a pretty pass if education standards are considered unsatisfactory by the boss of Tesco. What does he want, the Find-The-Barcode Toss-Twist throw taught in P.E.?
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In one sense, it has become authoritarian and we should try to move away from that. The only way round it though is to have a compromise.
Teachers should be free to teach they want, but there must be a system in place to ensure that the education of children works.
Teaching imo should be more about teaching children to think rather than memorise information. Until we get to the situation where we are taught to use our brains properly, then I fear for my soon to be child's education in this country
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Before compulsory state education only those interested in being educated went to school. This did not exclude the majority although often their poverty restricted their attendance as they had to pay.
The idea of compulsory state education came about from the rational view that everyone should be able to read, write and reckon. However, from the very beginning there was always a small minority that did not want to know. So, since it was state education and it was compulsory an entire structure was erected to pursue those who did not want to know and enforce their attendance. Then once they were in attendance the responsibilty fell on the teacher to open their eyes. This was not always possible so overall standards slipped in the output.
This defect within the methodology of the state has now ended up distorting the entire education system with centralised management, targets, and, worst of all, the degradation of the pedagogic professions.
What is the point in insisting that a teacher have a degree and an education diploma and then force them to obey a set of rules and standards dictated from above? If the government has not got confidence in its teaching professionals to do the job then why do they inisist on all this training? The same applies to social workers and across all the professions. They are just not valued any more as government has the first, middle and last word all the time. In my experience if you do not allow the people trained to do the job, experienced in doing the job to do the job then they become dispirited and disinterested.
Is it any wonder that teachers leave the profession? They are not valued as teachers: all that is expected of them is to salute when the flag is raised. Where is the professionalism in that?
It is time for a change in the school-room. there should be more teaching, more education, fewer tests, more teachers, smaller classes and more time spent on the reluctant or the incapable. I do not believe this need cost us any more money. In fact, fewer external inputs might permit the teacher to do what he or she trained to do; namely teach the children.
If a child does not want to learn then find it something else to do: the child will come round in the end. An example is in the third Duke of Bridgewater who was deemed difficult and uneducatable: he went on to initiate the building of canals that stimulated the industrial revolution. He was not stupid by any means.
Education is not an industry; it is a controlled relationship that needs to be professionally managed. It cannot be run from Whitehall. It can only be run locally. Schools need to be smaller, classes need to be smaller, teachers more numerous and the failing children given more time.
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Politicians seem to treat the classroom as a black box. Certain inputs from the outside – curriculum requirements, management rules, tests and more tests and so on - are fed into the box. Some outputs are supposed to follow: pupils who are more knowledgeable and competent, better exam results etc. Target setting; constant testing, initiatives to improve school planning and management; and more frequent and thorough inspection are all said to improve education. But the sum of all these reforms often doesn’t up to an effective policy (or the hoped for outcomes) because something is missing.
Learning is driven by what teachers and pupils do in classrooms. Teachers have to manage complicated and demanding situations, channeling the personal, emotional, and social pressures of a group of 30 or more youngsters in order to help them learn immediately and become better learners in the future. Standards can be raised only if teachers can tackle this task more effectively. What is missing from the efforts alluded to above is any direct help for teachers with this task.
The above is a summary of the introduction to ‘Inside the Black Box’, an influential research report into what actually does work inside the classroom - that focuses on the value of formative assessment. Worth reading by anyone with a an interest in education.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_6952/is_n2_v80/ai_n28723313/
One problem with politicians (of all parties) is they feel an overriding need to be seen doing things (they also appear to think that they are experts on just about anything), hence initiatives are announced, targets set, curriculum changes announced, Parliament grinds out increasing numbers of Acts, reports, white papers and the like with the result that teachers (and doctors and police etc) are buffeted this way and that, workloads and bureaucratic demands increased, all at the expense of those they are meant to serve.
It would be nice if an education secretary appeared that said I’m going to roll back targets, bureaucracy and paperwork and then sit back and let teachers get on with what they know best – teaching. And I’ll keep my bright ideas to myself, after all I’m just a politician, what do I know?
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"In short, politicians should butt out of the classroom."
I'll agree with that.
Why train teachers to teach, then have some politician tell them how to do it?
A few years ago, my sister taught a class of autistic children. She and each set of parents discussed and arrived at a set of objectives for their children. All written up, it was sent back to her from the headmaster to include "specific percentages". She asked if she was to be given an assistant who would count the number of times and thereby tick boxes to arrive at "specific percentages". The answer was of course, no. She was just to judge roughly whether these specific numbers had been attained.... All because someone far removed from the classroom needed some numbers.
A couple of years ago she showed me the reports that had to be filled in for children entering Primary one from their feeder baby schools. 2 pages of a whole load of, for the most part, meaningless jargon.
I truly despair.
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This is a hugely difficult but important issue.
The Tories for many years focused on policy devoid of quality outcomes. Labour responded with reductive testing without a vision.
Added to the mix is the undeliverable promise of Choice, a false mantra of both parties for over 20 years - they really mean you only have a right to express a preference. Also many schools operate in areas of increasing mono-multiculturalism (lots of different cultures but little integration), that is being encouraged by both parties enthusiasm for religious schools. Add in the private school 'money buying privilege' theme and you have a fundamentally flawed education system and overheated 'debate'.
The vested interest and cramping ideologies have made education in this country as politicised as healthcare is in the US.
We need a new compact between politicians (local and national), parents, academics and children. A non political one that puts a more effective, stimulating, fully rounded, properly funded, moral and civically inclusive education at the centre of everyone's childhood.
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All this and not a word about the REAL problem in blinkered education - Madrasas. Caledonian Comment
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"The principle that it is not for government or government agencies to tell teachers how to teach, abandoned in 1997, should be reinstated"
I'm no fan of Tony Blair, but suggesting '97 as the moment this trend started is nonsense. The record of the labour government in this regard has been mixed - centralising via target-setting, but also trying to encourage specialist schools and others to operate outwith local authority control.
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Very good question, Mark. Have you ever noticed that all controversial government sponsored institutions tend to be corrupt? That's why there's so much fighting over educational control. Getting politics out of education should be the first thing to do then provide an excellent education to all children throughout their lives. What would really work is teaching children what they want to learn in addition to everything else. That would be a brilliant education. Follow the child not the teacher!
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It's all part of the "Nanny State" - crikey, I never thought I'd use that term - abhorrent really but that is what it's become. It seeks to manage every part of our lives, stealing the functions from people who probably know better locally: educators, academics in Education; in Health, substituting medics suitably trained and equipped to manage with MBA upstarts, accountants and politicians. It seeks to reduce everything to bureaucracy: standardisation, hierarchies, rules, procedures, monitoring by remote control but incompetent to interpret the readings.
Now, too many interests are protected to do much about it. Of course we need standards and consistency but shouldn't we trust the implementation to the local, assuming the right people can be found? That's what local government was once about: implementing legislation rather than being just slaves to centralisation.
Possibly there's a case for centralising functions existing as part of the national infrastructure: transport, energy, water... but government has seen fit to privatise most of those, overseen by largely ineffective "watchdogs".
Basically, central government has taken on far too much. Its grand visions might be fine but the scope of individuals' intelligence working in concert seems to be lacking. That's why lessons are always being learned in times of catastrophic failure (e.g. Social Services), they say, but nothing actually improves.
Devolve the responsibilities and delegate authority.
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There's only one way to remove the politicians from education - privatise it. I suspect most posters here will not want this solution.
Otherwise, the government will be paying for education and will, like those that pay the piper, be calling the tune. And rightly too, otherwise the taxpayers cash will be spent with no accountability. The best we can reasonably expect if for politicians not to interfere too much.
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"Schools are not in danger of subversion by 1970s ideologues,"
Yes they are. Most educationalists are misinfoirmed about the nature of intelligence and the process of learning. It's largely genetic, and behaviour can only be shaped.
The real risk, we are warned, comes from an "authoritarian mindset" which may threaten our very democracy.
No, that might just save us (as I've explained elewhere in SF and NN blogs over many months). With below replacement level fertility brought about by decades of anarchism (as Liberal-Democracy), unless this is terminated, we'll just get dumber and dumber. 'Education, Education, Education' has in fact surrreptitiously accelerated dysgenic fertility just as 'immigration, immigration, immigration' has, and most people reading this will not have a clue how and why.
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Have to say I'm on the side of the Government on this. Having had experience of one teacher who was later sacked for incompetence and another who was the poster-boy of the anarchic left I don't really trust teachers to police themselves.
There is an argument that Government should only get involved when things go wrong, but given both the fact school helps define a persons future and it can be awhile before it is apparent something is wrong I would rather not take the risk.
Maybe lessen the burden of tests and reports but I wouldn't go to far in the other direction.
One other thing, people say that politicians are untrustworthy, say what people want hear, etc. But politicians are accountable to us, alot of supposedly trustworthy bodies like the media and teachers aren't. I trust a politician more.
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Since it IS parents who are in law responsible for their children receiving a suitable education not a government minister why not let schools answer to them? I think you'll find Year 6 students unable to count up to 20 far less likely under such a system. Parent have next to no influence on how their children's school is run despite being uniquely placed to spot problems as they arise.
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#3, I was sure it was Mussolini who made the trains run on time?
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#16, that's possibly the most sensible suggestion regarding education that I have ever heard. Of course, getting politicians to agree to this would be like asking turkeys to vote for Christmas, so it'll happen when Satan skates to work.
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OLD HABITS DIE HARD
Khadrim (#15) "Have to say I'm on the side of the Government on this. Having had experience of one teacher who was later sacked for incompetence and another who was the poster-boy of the anarchic left I don't really trust teachers to police themselves."
Anarchism is right-wing, not left-wing. The left-wing builds states and authority cf. Democratic-Centralism aka Stalinism. The right-wing erodes states (via Human Rights and individual freedom) and authority cf the Conservatives, neocons and New Left - New Labour.
Anarchists/Trotskyites were hand in glove with The Conservatives in that they helped to erode the state and get rid of Old Labour. Many people didn't see that. They still don't/can't. Why?
Just remember, National Socialism like Stalinism was statist and Left-Wing. It ran a Command Economy, it was a nation buider like the People's Republic of China today (which has a Stalinist constitution). Statism is being eroded in the UK, and has been for decades. The USA played a hand in that, in pursuit of free-markets. Stalinist bodies, like the Civil Service (police, army, schools etc) have been undermined for decades - today the excuse is Lisbon and its NUTS - but in reality it's just deregulation (anarchism) which is good for making money out of gullible consumers. Islam is a threat to all that, not only because it's anti-usury, but also because many Islamic states were either Soviet Republics not too long ago, or were backed by the USSR or Germany.
Old (and good socialist) habits, die hard. If Liberal-Democracy doesn't die, it's propagators surely will - demographically :-(
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#13 Sage_Vals suggested privatisation of education . Yes just like the utilities are privatised and the majority foreign owned. Still there could be a toothless overseer 'Ofed' to make sure they don't make too much profit. Just think you could have the choice of French , German or even Saudi school systems for your offspring. By the way with nearly GBP 250billion PFI's in existence ( which do not appear on the governments books , making the economy look better than it really is , gosh is it worse than we think ) - a large portion of which are educational then privatisation of education seems to have started already .
There are sectors which are best left to professionals to administer ; The Armed Forces ( Soldiers don't need MPs telling them how to use firearms etc. ); Health - Doctors and Nurses know how to care for patients ; Education - politicians , with their isolated viewpoint in MP land , are the last persons a teacher needs to instruct them how to achieve a rapport with their pupils ( a very necessary requirement so that all feel included) .
It is time to take politics out of education and strive to undo the attitudes of the past 30 years which has encouraged the pursuit of self , self and more self so much so that total disrespect for others is very much ingrained in large numbers of our society.
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Cut out this testing madness for a start! Teachers are under a huge amount of pressure to achieve improvement in scores, year on year. No wonder they teach children to memorise informaton. If the children don't get the results the teacher is branded as failing-ridiculous.
Respect teachers-goes for government, parents and children alike. I know of one parent who threatened to beat a teacher up because she wouldn't move the son to the same spelling group as his friend. I know another who endured a hate campaign from a father, culminating in her needing body guards at parents evening. Not inner city schools, rural communities, 1 north, 1 south. Parents are manipulated by their children to bully the teacher so the child gets what it wants.
Make parents accept responsibility for their children's behaviour. Behaviour management is not the province of teachers, they are not unpaid childminders. Every parent needs to be accountable for their child's behaviour.
Slim down the national curriculum, let teachers teach.
Teachers really care about their students-they are highly trained professionals. Anyone who thinks they have it easy should try it. The amount of legislation and new initiatives they have to comply with is unbelievable. They are derided for teaching appallingly, yet successive governments roll out one after another and expect it to happen immediately.
For those calling to let the child chose-weren't there schools like this in the 60's and 70's?
Recent initiatives have been child centred education and 'every child matters', yet these are impossible to manage with demands for ever improving results. A national framework is a good idea-the national curriculum is not. Take the national curriculum away and you'd be surprised at how much children enjoy their lessons and learn as a result.
The report is good, but I sincerely doubt that any government will heed it-when has any government asked teachers for advice, then followed it?! It's a real shame, but I think it will end up gathering dust in a broom cupboard somewhere!
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Dear Tigerjayj,
Child centered classrooms do work with a capable teacher. It's much harder to regulate 30 different agendas than sitting in front of a regulated,every one on the same page classroom. Why would you hold back one brilliant child in math if he/she's already jumped to abstract concepts. It makes no sense to hold a child back, twiddling his/her thumbs while the rest of the class catches up. Childrens abilities are different. We should honor that and let children work at their own level with the goal being that they will graduate with a well processed set of skills. If teacher directed education works so well why are graduation rates so low? Prisons are full of people who can't read or write. Helping students overcome their academic deficiencies in a non judgemental, shame free environment makes a lot more sense to me than scratching our heads for 20 plus years wondering why education is no longer relevant in some student's lives.
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Tigerjayj (#21) "Cut out this testing madness for a start! Teachers are under a huge amount of pressure to achieve improvement in scores, year on year. No wonder they teach children to memorise informaton. If the children don't get the results the teacher is branded as failing-ridiculous."
No. SATs are done at 7, 11, 14 and 15. They are central to the National Curriculum and are just national progress assessments which tell staff and pupils what level they are at. Some anarchists want rid these Performance Indicators because of what they reveal, namely that education is a matter of selection of ability, and group differences emerge with age/maturation, i.e there are mean sex and ethnic group differences and these are politically inconvenient truths for free-market anarchists. Many people in education are naive when it comes to the nature and limits of learning (shaping). This runs deeper than many credit.
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I imagine that unfortunately a lot of teaching in this country is poor.
But why? I would hate to think that it is because there is a lack of bright young post-grads with a real sense of vocation that wish to enter the profession. I don't think it is!
Perhaps it's the training? A few years ago I took a PGCE course and was tremendously excited by the prospect. However... the content of the course was seriously disheartening. The year primarily consisted of how to translate the latest QCA document into practice. No exploration of questions such as 'Why are we teaching our children in the first place?' 'What are we hoping to gain through our education system?' 'How can we best help our children to observe, think about and draw their own conclusions on the world they live in?' When such questions were brought up by peers there would be caution in discussing them or, at best, a 'well it would be great if we could explore these questions but the course doesn't offer the time because we need to ensure that trainee teachers are meeting the targets re. teaching standards' approach.
The overall teaching of this country is perhaps poor, but it is not because of the teachers themselves. The training they receive is far too central government targets and standards driven. As long as the PGCE remains as it is there will always be bright promising exciting prospective teachers who are given no room to shape their own teaching or at worst simply become disinterested... and simply join other professions.
One key part of educational change should be a serious review and change of the PGCE itself.
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Authoritarianism is a threat to EVERYTHING in a "civilised" World.
I remember well the "multicultural" notions which ....though well intended...quitely..and then more stridently censored debate of any kind in this country..
we have Islam4UK website which freely declares it's intentions to bring Sharia Law to the UK....and uses language which is patently racist and inflamatory.....no response from our "Keepers of multicultural sensitivity" has yet to be heard.
Or indeed...any response from our Legal system...even though it is a breach of our Laws.
Whilst people get excercised about the BNP being given air time...I have not doubt that should they say ANYTHING out of line....our Legal chaps will crawl all over them.
Authoritarian principles underpin ALL of these "Parties"..."Religious Groups"
That education should be affected should come as no surprise....it is positively standard practice in Islamic schooling...it has to be to ensure the obedience of the masses to "The Message".
So the example of the "multicultural" experiment demonstrates clearly how notions which develop into an authoritarian dogma can not only affect education......but our whole civilised society.
Give the education system back to those who can actually teach...and then let them do so...with all the regional variations that will bring with it....but also ensure there are National Standards which ALL schools MUST meet.
Get rid of the tick box mentality...and start teaching.
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Clamdip-child centred education is what teachers practise all the time-I know-I am a teacher-sough after because of my strange ability to deal with classes with behaviour difficulties. I know aboutvaluing every child and helping them achieve their best and not holding them back.
My issue is with successive governments, parents etc constantly deriding teachers instead of respecting and valuing the job they do. This is the attitude that absolutely has to change.
Jaded Jean-as a teacher I am fully aware of SATS testing requirements-the ones you mention are the nationally reported results-these are sent away to mark. There are other annual SATS tests for all the 'in-between' years, marked and moderated by the staff, which schools use to track progress. In addition, children are tested each term to check progress, not to mention ongoing in-househalf termly and weekly tests to measure progress against targets for each child. Parents understand levels, and schools report these every on a regular basis.
I threw out the Numeracy strategy with one maths group I had-8/9 year olds working at level 1. No number bonds, so how on earth could they cope with year 4 maths. I devised my own programme for all these children, and they did very well. The inspector who watched my lessons was complimentary and agreed that the National curriculum and associated strategies are not a legal requirement, but a teacher has to show evidence of planning, evaluation and progression as a replacement for it.
'every child matters' was one of my favourite initiatives-exactly what teaching is about, but at odds with National Curriculum and SATS.
I take it from your comments that you are not a teacher, Jaded Jean? Perhaps you should try it-100 hours a week to make sure you do right by the children you teach.
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The Cambridge Report is to be welcomed, if only for its refreshingly frank appraisal of the negative effect of government policy over several decades. It is well worth serious study, rather than the knee jerk reaction of the government.
It is typical of recent governments of both major parties that they reject the carefully reasoned, evidence based arguments of experts, but fall over themselves to implement measures in response to campaigns in the popular press, often based on prejudice, distortion and even downright lies.
The failure of the New Labour government, first elected in 1997, in several other areas, as well as education, is the result of this populist tendency.
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Tigerjayj @ 26
Thank you.
I did my teacher training in the 70s. One of the very first things I was taught was that the child is more important than the subject you teach. And as such you start fom the child - not the material.
Indeed I knew of one probationary maths teacher(secondary) who, precisely because she could not do this, was "fired".
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WilliamJonesEIC (#24) "A few years ago I took a PGCE course and was tremendously excited by the prospect. However... the content of the course was seriously disheartening. The year primarily consisted of how to translate the latest QCA document into practice. No exploration of questions such as 'Why are we teaching our children in the first place?' 'What are we hoping to gain through our education system?' 'How can we best help our children to observe, think about and draw their own conclusions on the world they live in?'"
Say you did a course in medicine, engineering, accountancy etc - you'd learn how to deliver services not argue or discuss why you were tasked with delivering the services. So too with education. The task of teaching is basically to get children to behave in ways which are practically useful in society. Subversives/anarchists believe otherwise. It is not always easy to spot subversive/anarchistic behaviour... even in oneself.
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nottoonear (#28) "One of the very first things I was taught was that the child is more important than the subject you teach. And as such you start fom the child - not the material.
Indeed I knew of one probationary maths teacher(secondary) who, precisely because she could not do this, was "fired"."
You were badly (wrongly) taught (by subversives), and the probationer was rightly failed. Imagine the same principle being applied in the training of doctors etc!
Even in (science) PhD's (and most post-doc work) the task is one of learning to do as one is told. This is because education is an operant behaviour selection and shaping process.
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stanilic
There is no such thing as compulsary state education in the UK. If there was then home education and private schooling would be illegal. It is only education that is compulsary, not state education.
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"This is a report written by educationalists and academics who clearly want to wrestle control of our children's schooling back from what they call "top-down control and edict"."
A report written by anarchists. See Neoconservativism. See Credit Crunch.
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JJ @ 30
"Imagine the same principle being applied in the training of doctors etc!"
Are you saying the doctor doesn't start with the patient?
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ANARCHISM OR FREEDOM
From Badman's (2009) report into Home Education:
"This poses a further problem for local authorities charged with a statutory duty under section 3.6 437 (1) Education Act 1996 in that they are required to intervene:
“If it appears to a local education authority that a child of compulsory school age in their area is not receiving suitable education, either by regular attendance at school or otherwise, they shall serve a notice in writing on the parent requiring him to satisfy them within the period specified in the notice that the child is receiving such education”.
Additionally local authorities have a duty7 which requires them to:
….. make arrangements to enable them to establish (so far as it is possible to do so) the identities of children in their area who are of compulsory school age but—
(a) are not registered pupils at a school, and
(b) are not receiving suitable education otherwise than at a school."
See footnote 6 of the report on the above page for context....it may surprise you.
There are about 20,000 in Home Education.
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nottoonear (#33) "Are you saying the doctor doesn't start with the patient?"
Doctors start with a biological (usually intact/living) human animal. They are effectively biological engineers. This is what they understand as 'a patient'. You do not appear to be trained in any of the medical or para-medical professions.
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Dear TigerJayj,
On this point I wholeheartedly agree with you. There are some real nutcase parents out there that make teacher's lives awful. The job is already hard enough and then you have to deal with some drug crazed parent trying to embroil you in their psychodrama. I had one parent who made a gun finger and pointed it at my head. I'm pretty sure he was part of a Russian mafia drug cartel or the one the FBI later caught. Then there was the born again Christian who stole my Betta fish out of the classroom and threatened to call the ASPCA because she believed the children were feeding it too many treats. She was ordered to return my fish but it wasn't the same fish. I was so upset that I gave the fish away. It still upsets me to this day. Yes, teachers have it really rough that's why I don't teach anymore. Too many crazy parents. Also, in America, Teaching is all form and no substance.
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Funny, isn't it, that now the arch meddlers are on their way out the cry for less meddling ratchets up?
If the state (i.e you and I) pays for education then the state has every right to ensure it is getting value for money. 'Value for money' in this context means the kids get educated - not merely taught how to pass exams nor stuffed with PC versions of history nor have science replaced by 'Watermelon' agitprop.
By all means take politics out of education. Perhaps we could start with the educationalists, trainers and teachers before we take away the taxpayers' right to demand quality services for ever increasing taxes?
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Well from my perspective the problem lies less with the schools and central government than it does the LEA. For most parents the LEA is the most impenetrable and unchalleangable authority they will come across. Not only that but the last Treasury spending review showed that, for secondary education at least the LEA spent more of the pupil per capita budget on running themselves than the head teachers saw to run the schools.
If local is to truly mean local where there can be real dialogue and influence between heads and parents then much more of the money must find its way directly to the schools. Then they, the governors and parents can decide how best decide how to address local needs rather than another tier of bureaucrats intervening and taking decisions and leaving everyone else to live with the consequences. If the LEA add so much value to the classroom experience of our kids I am sure the heads, governers etc will recommend paying for their services rather than say hire more front line staff at the school! I won't hold my breath for that one to happen though.
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JJ @ 35
"Doctors start with a biological (usually intact/living) human animal. They are effectively biological engineers. This is what they understand as 'a patient'."
Teachers start with a human animal. This is what they understand as a child/pupil/student.
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There is something rather odd about discussing a book which is not yet available (except from Amazon's Market Place) and costs £35.00. Of course it is easy for a journalist to pick out the juicy quotes and miss the nuances either from a pre publication copy, or from the publisher puff for the book.
Doing things this way enables everyone to ride their own hobby horse often having little experience of the issues in hand. My own hobby horses, having been an active active school governor of a 'white (mostly) working class' primary school in de-industrialised Manchester is to urge what I know works. Hire and manage a dedicated and creative staff, deliverer in an imaginative way the National Curriculum and more, within a wider context of SHEEP from 'Every Child Matters', though both basic skills and cross curriculum activities, and yes.... giving frequent and regular evaluative personal feed back and direction, with as much personalisation (tutoring, individual small group attention, counselling) as you can afford from the main line budget and what you can get from other sources. To do this you do need to keep some records!!! Of course it helps to have a strong ethos (the school is a faith school in the liberal protestant tradition,... hard work, mutual respect and a touch of spirituality (like GB?)
The NC is not written by Mr Gradgrind and if its opportunities for imagination and creativity and dare I say it, social action, are not taken up, then it is the teachers' fault. Highlights of my experience of these were creative writing...stories written by Y6 (well spelt and expressed), large scale art work posters on the fencing of the local Health Centre to mark its opening - Y4 ...and a a letter to the local press about drug users needles found in the area Y5.
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LYSENKOISTS AND ALCHEMISTS
nottoonear (#39) No, sadly most teachers have been misled into believing that they can turn lead into gold. Doctors etc are more clued up in that respect. Teachers are unwitting anarchists cf. The Institute of Education etc.
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Honestly, I don't know any teachers who aren't dedicated. What undedicated person would continue to teach under the difficult situations found in many schools and classrooms? It's not dedication or creativity teachers lack its the persistent meddling of the government to destroy education so that students don't know history, the Constitution, their rights. This is the true threat. Everyone looks at the details instead of the whole picture. For the past 40 years or more there has been an attack on culture, education, values. Its done so that people won't have strong affiliations to their own institutions like their church or family. Eventually the government will replace everything. If this weren't true then why are your politicians forever caught up in new scandals, corruption to the nth degree, playing both sides in war. If you destabilise a country, you can sieze control of it. Today Pakistan, tommorrow Russia. The scenario plays over and over again. Flood a country with drugs, infiltrate government institutions political systems and educational institutions, destroy the currency.....etc. and so on ad nauseum until you achieve a New World Order.
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An insightful review and article - it is clear flawed education policies are failing our nation. However this review/article also needs to be linked with other headlines too. Take a look at http://poweromics.blogspot.com/2009/10/education-flawed-policies-failing-our.html for instance.
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JJ @ 41.
I do not know what most teachers believe. I don't turn children into anything. No teacher controls all that a student learns: fortunately.
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Many years ago I was offered a post teaching piano in a music school. Wages were superb and I got to do what I love best, teach children music. A dream job I thought, but....
All teachers were expected to teach their instrument to a group of children (picture a class of piano keyboards facing the front like rows of desks in a classroom). Ok, I said, but what about individuality and one-to-one teaching? 'oh no, that doesn't happen here-we expect all our teachers to teach in the Yamaha method'. Having never heard of this, I asked what that was-basically every child learns EXACTLY the same thing at the same time at the same speed. In essence, no room for individuality of expression, interpretation or feeling. A class of piano playing clones.
I refused, saying I didn't think it was appropriate to teach every child in exactly the same way, no matter what the subject, and as every child is unique, the same piece played by 20 different children would sound like 20 different pieces according to their personalities, strengths and weaknesses. The method the school expected was never going to turn out musicians who could play with sensitivity and feeling unless it was written on the page. A true musician feels the music in their soul, and communicates their own feelings to others by the way they play.
In essence this is the danger of teaching to tests-the individual child gets lost as a statistic. There are very few people who excel at everything, and good teachers, vocational teachers, build on a child's strengths to help the child overcome their weaknesses. Often a child's passion can offer a 'way in' via a different path to conquer a weaker subject. One child I knew had no problem with maths in science and geography, but struggled in his regular maths class with the same thing. I just rephrased his questions in terms which he considered relevant, rather than abstract in a book. Therein lies the value of 'topic' teaching.
Now of course, older teachers are retiring early or leaving early-being replaced by more and more NQT's and in my mind, this is a very sad loss. Straight out of uni, they have all the latest ideas and strategies, but the experience of older teachers to support them is missing. Thing is, NQT's are much cheaper, and less likely to argue against the system, so we now have schools with an unbalanced staff. Again, a sign of the times I think.
And the government also dictates that no matter how good and experienced a teacher is, they now have to have an additional qualification to become a deputy head or head teacher. There is now a problem where these posts are filled by less experienced people just because they have a certificate that says they can do it!
Our education system has gone quite, quite mad. And all because it's a popular electioneering tool.
The government won't take this seriously, anymore than the next one. It means admitting that teachers actually know what they're talking about-like that's going to happen!
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Dear TigerJayj,
Wow! You're a bit of a night owl aren't you? I digress. Anyways, exactly my point. Why would there be so many ridiculous hoops for teachers to jump through? The only sensible reason I can manage to think of is that they really don't want teachers. In America, I think it's worse. You must pass two trivia tests called the CBEST and the CSET. (Stupid, ridiculous questions like what word describes "tent government" in Japanese.) Then an American Constitution class eventhough I'm a citizen. Then a years teacher training involving 80-120 hours of unpaid teaching. Then a RICA test and another test plus an additional unpaid 5 week summer internship. Its ridiculous. Its not like they pay teachers anymore because they've passed through all of their hoops and then to add insult upon injury they let everyone else through the back door. Go Figure! I think that's why a lot of teachers just show up for their paycheck because to them its just another government smoke and mirrors scam.
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Although consistency of standards is to be welcomed, provided those standards are at a decent level, a lack of flexibility would seem to encourage forced memorisation of facts and methods to achieve better exam results rather than thinking and truly understanding and appreciating the subject.
It seems logical to allow good teachers to teach children in the best way for each child, after all we don't all learn things the same way.
However, with such trust and reliance on teachers, we also need to be sure to encourage capable people to enter the profession and ensure standards are maintained, after all, if a teacher is substandard, reliance on them is likely to produce flawed results.
I would also suggest that declaring every child should achieve certain standards is a somewhat debatable ethos, surely effort should be spread in such a way as to maximise the overall level of education, so devoting an excessive amount of time to those who are not motivated to attend at the expense of others who want to learn and are held back and not stretched through waiting for others to catch up is wasteful.
In some ways, the efforts of parents assisting their child's education can actually reduce the education they receive at school.
Surely the decision process should be based on how much is gained from an additional hour of teaching, not just trying to push everyone to a notional "average".
Give teachers freedom to teach, on the understanding they do it well and produce results. & don't forget the role and responsibilities of parents.
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nottoonear (#45) "I do not know what most teachers believe. I don't turn children into anything. No teacher controls all that a student learns: fortunately."
Teaching is not about 'learning' and 'knowing'. It is about behaviour management and change. The work of many teachers these days is ineffective because so few of them have been employed to do the job required of them.
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JadedJean - the garbage you speak has no bound, and it appears to have no off switch.
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leanomist (#50) When people can, with confidence, refer to 70 odd years of behavioural science and genetics as 'garbage', one should be very concerned that we have a major social problem on our hands. What I, and others like me, say, is just basic science these days, and yet people like yourself appear not to see this for some odd reason. I suggest you have been betwitched by your intensional language just as those who write anarchistic reports on the education of children have.
The wealth of empirical data that we can not chnage behaviour, just sslect and shape it, is now all but conclusive, so when people like yourself describe what I post as 'garbage' or want it censored (i.e switched off) in favour of what they have to peddle (especially in the current economic climate which I have said is demonstrably a direct consequence of this denial/subversion), people should, I suggest, be very concerned.
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WHY EDUCATION IS AUTHORITARIAN
It's authoritarian because it is supposedly delivered by people who know better.
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errata (#51) "The wealth of empirical data is that we can not change behaviour, just select and shape it, is now all but conclusive"
This is true in education, 'therapy' and offender 'rehabilitation'. It is why, for example, Narey (ex CEO of the ill-named NOMS) for example, is now advising that some children are taken away from some parents very early in their lives. There is an almost universal Lysenkoism across the 'caring' professions which is in fact 180 degrees at odds with teh empirical evidence, namely a) we can not raise intelligence by education (because it's almost all genetic) b) we can not cure most psychological disorders (because they are largely genetic) and c) we can not reduce recidivism (because offending behaviour is largely driven by genetic factors). There needs to be a massive change in how lay people (and many wayward 'professionals') think and talk about behaviour. This extends to economics.
We change populations by changing the gene pool, and shaping behaviours expresed by genes, not by changing 'hearts and minds'.
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JJ @ 53
"... we can not raise intelligence by education (because it's almost all genetic)"
Who here has proposed that teachers are trying to raise intelligence?
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nottoonear (#54) It's insidious and tacit, for most unwitting. Large numbers tacitly assume this when they try to 'raise standards' (this is only done by actually lowering standards in fact). They talk of potential etc. This is what closing the 'achievement gap', HeadStart, SureStart, Aiming High, SEAL, Brain-Gym etc has all been about, but many don't see this because they have such a muddled grasp of 'learning'. Lysenkoism has been euphemised. One just needs to see how Jensen, Cattell, Herrnstein, Murray, Lynn, Rushton and many others have been treated over the years to see that there is a major problem. If you don't know this you don't know what has been going on for decades. It is known as 'the liberal conspiracy'. It is, at root anarchistic, or Trotskyite, as I have covered elsewhere at length. Trotyskism serves the free-market. It is anti-statism. It's why he and his brood were purged from the USSR in the late 20s and 30s. They then took root in the USA and UK. Today you know them as Neocons (which include both the Conservative, Liberal-Democrat and New Labour movements). Just remember, the original Bolsheviks were put into Russia in 1917 by the Germans to topple the Tsar to get Russia out of WWI. They were just deployed as anarchists. WWII was originally a war against them (The Comintern), supposedly to save both Europe and the USSR...from anarchism aka free-market capitalism.
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"At 09:17am on 18 Oct 2009, leanomist wrote:
JadedJean - the garbage you speak has no bound, and it appears to have no off switch."
Very true!
As a parent of 2 children, both state educated, here are my views.
The government funds education with tax payers money and is held accountable for any failings, so has to control the education system.
Most children are ready for formal learning at the age of 5, though some may need more encouragement from their parents.
Literacy and numeracy are the most important subjects at primary school as they provide the tools for further learning.
Homework should not be given to primary school children as they are usually unlikely to do it without some input from their parents, therefore children without supportive parents will be at a disadvantage.
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When friends of mine who are teachers primary school teachers tell stories of six and seven year olds vomiting and crying hrough the pressure of exams and the stigma of not being smart enough to pass them - my head screams child abuse - teachers should be there to foster curiosity and encourage learning and self discovery not to tell someone who has a different view point or opinion that they are wrong/naughty or disruptive.
Why is someone in western culture only intelegent if they have an education, I can think of several high profile business people (Sir Alan Sugar, Richard Branson to name two) who left school with little or no qualifications are they thick!
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Dear Reaper_of_Souls,
I understand what you mean regarding unmotivated children but in my experience most children are eager to learn. I've found when students resist learning its due to the fact that they have large "gaps" in their skill set or suffer from learning disabilities. Most children want to please their parents, teachers etc, but if they lack certain skills they are living in thier own, private world of shame. This is something education, in its present, one size fits all form isn't good at rectifying. Understanding what concepts a child misunderstood or missed altogether is really what teaching should be about so that all children can reach their own sense of accomplishment and feel empowered.
In every classroom, in every school district there will always be the one child that is better, smarter, prettier etc. but how does that help a struggling child? In my fantasy world, all teachers would be child psychologists, child educational therapists and tutors all rolled into one. Many teachers are very dedicated and try their best but the job can be really overwhelming trying to meet the needs of all of the children in their class. Then as JadedJane states, "Teaching is not about knowing" and learning" On this point I totally agree with her. Its about behavior modification and "crowd control". I don't think parents really have a clue about the challenges that teachers face.
I once worked in an inner city, gang infested area of Los Angeles where one boy witnessed his own father murdered in his driveway or the other one whose father was killed by a gang, his stepfather was in prison and his uncle had recently been accused of beating his own child to death. So you can imagine the working conditions many teachers are under and still manage to get their job done. To me, teaching is about processing a child's emotions and working with them at their level, hoping to intill some sense of accomplishment and competence.
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This is how the man behind the CAT (US CogAT) was treated. Those discussing issues like the present one haven't got a clue - people like Fisher, Spearman, Pearson, Cattell like J M Keynes, Julius Huxley and Neville Chamberlain were all eugenicists and would, like Keynes have been rooting for Hitler in the 1930s. Doesn't that make some folk here stop and think that something might be very very wrong with the liberal-democracies today?
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clam dip (#59) "To me, teaching is about processing a child's emotions and working with them at their level, hoping to instill some sense of accomplishment and competence."
It's not, at least not for normal kids, some SEN maybe. Emotions are just behaviours emitted by/under the control of an older part of the brain (paleocortex and paleostriatum) which are just a cruder way of handling the world. More human behaviours are those emitted and controlled by higher cortex and strital etc structures. These are not instilled but nurtured There is considerable diversity in ability, hence the spread in SATs and CATs. The staff-pupil ratios (determined by finding etc) make individual selection and shaping almost impossible in schools, but it is a process of a) emission of rates of behaviours driven by genes and inheritance b) shaping those behaviours down lines which are apposite, and c) controlling/diverting other behaviours. Most teachers behave like witches and warlocks in that they wrongly think they are dealing with minds rather than classes of behaviours. Individual differences both in native abilities, rates of maturation and the sheer numbers they manage, make the job extremely foggy for even the best teachers. They have my sympathy. The entire population before the C19th was not much more than that of London today, and we are losing people at the higher end of the ability distribution all the time through the low birth rate and daft sex equality politics... FACT.
We are in the middle of a self-destructive storm and most folk don't see it.
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51 - JadedJean - the garbage you speak has no bound, and it appears to have no off switch ... so why don't you start your own blog rather than ramming/spamming your garbage here.
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Yes, primary Education is threatened by authoritarianism, and by blatant stupidity.
These 'Educators ' can't even communicate in everyday language. They have to contrive their own language of 'educationalists'.
But, even more than the damage wrought by these so-called professionals
is the damage from closing hundreds upon hundreds of our smaller primary schools.These local schools were where the teachers were really in touch with individual children in their care and they could be held accountable for their own professional achievements.
What is more, the loss to the close sense of belonging and of community that was lost with the closures of these national assets is irredeemable.
That utter vandalism was perpetrated in the name of 'economics' and 'professionalism'. Even now it should be reversed.
John C.
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DELUSION
leanomist (#62) so why don't you start your own blog? "
Have you read and understood the title of the main article, and have you understood the drivers of the current socio-economic crisis? The answer to both is no. The appropriate thing for you (and others like you) to try to do would be to accept criticism, pay attention and try to learn. However, expecting you (and thsoe like you) to face up to the fact that you have a serious problem which is incorrigible, is I know, unreasonable. Can any other readers grasp why that is so? See Axis II, Cluster B of DSM-IV for a hint.
There, alas, is a very long, well documented, history to this pattern of cultrually destructive behaviour - i.e it's a couple of thousand years old. The usual way nation states have tried to handle it has been via mass expulsions. That is now proscribed by UN and EU FCHR articles.
Clever eh?
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JJ @ 55
-Steven Pinker put that ideal in today’s language in The Blank Slate, writing that “Equality is not the empirical claim that all groups of humans are interchangeable; it is the moral principle that individuals should not be judged or constrained by the average properties of their group.”-
We are agreed on this?
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The thing that amuses me about JadedJean is that all the conditions he/she accuses others of possessing are actually what he/she is suffering from.
Physician heal thyself!
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55 JJ
More bad history and poor political analysis.
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64 - failed to answer the question yet again ... now where have we seen that before - Oh, I know - all the time. take a look below for instance.
I think you'll find that not only is point 3 evident again, but points 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 in http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/stephanieflanders/2009/08/qe_more_to_do.html#P85023144 are all evident (and highly relevant) in all JadedJean's posts still ...
... and posts 367/368 are also relevant again http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/stephanieflanders/2009/08/qe_more_to_do.html#P85051971 http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/stephanieflanders/2009/08/qe_more_to_do.html#P85052382
To claim yourself to be an expert in behavioural science (or any other kind of science for the matter) is frankly a joke from what I have read of your posts. If you are an expert at anything, why don't you tell people who you are and tell everyone about the papers/books you have written ... arrrh ... because you're not. QED.
David Clift BSc MSc
Future 500 Leader
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I, for one appreciate JadedJeans input. It's a clinical approach but she makes some valid points. I think it would help if teachers better understood brain function when dealing with their students. I find her contributions very interesting especially the paleocortex and paliostratum bit. If Teachers can pull all of this information together to better help a child then its valuable.
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Post 64 - JadedJean - just realised the only answers you give are to questions you pose yourself, but then immediately answer for other people ... to try to put people down and to bully them into your way of thinking. How sad you are. How ineffective you are. If you knew anything about behavioural science surely you would know there are far more effective ways of making sure people listen to way you have to say. Clearly you do not - which tells us everything.
David Clift BSc MSc
Future 500 Leader
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JadedJean
Can you please elaborate on losing people at the higher end of the ability spectrum due to daft sexual equality policies?
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
l4eanomist (#70) "to try to put people down and to bully them into your way of thinking"
No - I educate people who are able to listen and learn. This invariably hurts where it is worthwhile.
Many behaviour scentists work for the military where their job is to help people to kill other people or to extract information under duress. They are usually 'not very nice people' in the view of those one the receiving end. See denazification programme after WWII in lieu of 100,000 sumamry executions? You are lucky you are getting this feedback/education for free. Stop whining.
PS. Degrees are not worth very much anymore now that half the population goes to university and the population has gone dysgenic.
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clamdip (#71) "Can you please elaborate on losing people at the higher end of the ability spectrum due to daft sexual equality policies?"
By educating the brighter half of the female population as 'equals' (they are not, as there are twice the number of males with IQ of 120 as there are females sue to the more conservative female range and lower mean by about 5 points in g), they delay motherhood a number of years. This reduces the birth rate in this section of the population (differential fertility). The last cohort figures indicated 1/3 female graduates remained childless. With more children being born in the lower half of the population accordingly, the population slowly dumbs down (dysgenic fertility), about 3 points a generation it is estimated. That means that at the higher end of the distribution, over 5 generations there may have been something like a 60% loss in the 130+ band and higher and that estimate (by Herrnstein) was done in the 80s before 'education, education, education' really took off! This is old hat, but it's subject to political correctnes censure by those who either don't understand it because they have a problem grasping class concepts and demography or because it suits their purposes to pretend it is not true. Sometimes such posts are modrated. Why?
When you see Muslims and other groups discriminating between the sexex, there is some sense to it demographically, and economically.
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stanilic (#66) "The thing that amuses me about JadedJean is that all the conditions he/she accuses others of possessing are actually what he/she is suffering from."
False. Get yourself an education in logic. Tu quoque is a fallacy. Find out why. You're a self-confessed anarchist.
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So who is to authorise the authority over primary education?
JJ @ 61 Are you suggesting forced pregnancies on high IQ women?
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75 JJ
This has nothing to do with `tu quoque': it is an observation on your abusive behaviour. The slightest question that does not fit your preferred argument ends in you making references to the mental condition of the questioner. I have to remind you that you are not capable of making a psychological diagnosis of another individual from what they write. Furthermore I suggest that you have no psychological qualifications whatsoever but are using this method to intimidate people who disagree with your opinions.
Furthermore to emphasise the point I made in Message 66; your reference to my anti-government philosophy in this context is of itself a `tu quoque' fallacy.
As I have advised you previously JadedJean; invest in a mirror and use it!
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The 1970 ideologs are infact todays autoritarian mindset woking for the establishment of a parliamentary soddem and gomoccracy complete with 5 duck houses 4 calling birds 3 french hens 2 turtle doves and a party in an o pair tree.
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73JJ
How has the population of the UK become dysgenic? Can you explain in detail in your own words without making any references to other internet sites?
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People with inteligence just do stupid things in a more inteligent way
Isaac Newton bought shares in the south sea bubble
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Oh my God,
Mark Easton has the best and funniest blog on the BBC!
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JJ, I enjoy your input too, you seem both well informed and generous.
thanks.
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Dear SpartacusmartyrAAAs,
I'll take that as a compliment. What South Seas bubble might that have been.........? Coconuts?
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nottoonear (#76) "JJ @ 61 Are you suggesting forced pregnancies on high IQ women?"
In liberal (anarchistic) democracies that can not be done. Singapore tried to address this via tax incentives and clubs for graduates. Lots of Singaporeans regared their government as fascist as a consequence! It's been a problem across the liberal-democracies for decades. I'm just being empirical and pragmatic, pointing out the dire consequences in the longg run, some of which we are seeing today in the States. There are things one can do to make it worse, and we have, alas, been doing that here. I find it very hard to believe that New Labour is not aware of the way this works. I terefore fear it serves an agenda.
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stanilic (#76) "it is an observation on your abusive behaviour"
It's not a very observant observation though is it? You don't appear to have noticed that I only abuse abusive verbal behaviour! You have a classic scotoma there. I fear it may be incorrigible because you can't see it.
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stanilic (#79) See #74. I have gone through this is great deatil many times elsewhere. Low-skiled immigraton, with high TFRs doesn't help the problem caused by education, education, education, female emancipation and welfare benefits for the underclass. Anarchism of your sort is a major contributor.
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JadedJean
What about a brilliantly gifted male student who is emotionally immature?
How would you describe his brain function?
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83. At 8:02pm on 18 Oct 2009, clamdip wrote:
Dear SpartacusmartyrAAAs,
I'll take that as a compliment. What South Seas bubble might that have been.........? Coconuts?
----------------------------------------------------------------
Clamdip,i doubt it was coconuts [a valuable catch crop] , but it may have been some kind of millenium dome project to celebrate the aniversary of a local cargo cult ,afterwards sir Isaac was reticent about the matter ,wishing he had researched the matter by going out and sitting under a coconut tree till one fell on his head prompting a second thought, as it is the south sea company[and millenium dome company ]remains to this day a secret so great were it to get out .......it would make a lot of inteligent people look like fools.
Of course i'm not trying to sujest that all intellygent people are fools only those in pollytricks and banking
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88.......who found a method of passing inteligence tests without possessing any active inteligence beyond thay of a barbary ape
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Post 85 - what rubbish - post 77 is quite right, along with the many other people who have posted exactly the same thing (too many to mention here, but includes post 70 above and the following below).
I think you'll find points 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 in http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/stephanieflanders/2009/08/qe_more_to_do.html#P85023144 are all evident (and highly relevant) in all JadedJean's posts still ...
... and posts 367/368 are also relevant again http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/stephanieflanders/2009/08/qe_more_to_do.html#P85051971 http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/stephanieflanders/2009/08/qe_more_to_do.html#P85052382
David Clift BSc MSc
Future 500 Leader
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JJ
myself @ 65; Do you agree with this moral principle?
or JJ @ 74; Are you suggesting women with high IQs should have their education cut short?
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clamdip (#87) "What about a brilliantly gifted male student who is emotionally immature? How would you describe his brain function"
What I have been referring to is population level data, demographics.
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leanomist (#90) "Post 85 - what rubbish - post 77 is quite right, along with the many other people who have posted exactly the same thing (too many to mention here, but includes post 70 above and the following below)."
I am aware that you and some other people are incapable of grasping what you are being told simply because you don't like it. I remind you that this does not render any of what I say false.
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nottoonear (#91) "JJ @ 74; Are you suggesting women with high IQs should have their education cut short?"
I am not saying what should or should not be done. I am saying what has been, is, and will continue to happen under these circumstances.
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Postscript (#94) It is not just very intelligent women either (although those going to university in the 60s would only have been from the top 5-10% or so of their cohort). In some respects all that's the issue now is the rate of this problem. The logic dictates that 'education, education, education' can only have increased the rate.
Note that the Muslim and Othodox Jewish world does not educate its females...
Did anyone look at footnote 6 as I suggested?
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Postscript (#95) Here is the consequence for the USA. Some describe this as rubbish, but such people are extremely ill-informed as this was published in feb 2007 some time after some of us were doing the rounds with the formula. Some things pop up in some of the most unlikely places.....
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South Sea Bubble-a blast from my history lessons in the 70's! Wasn't it the original stock crash?
Re behaviour-to teach effectively a teacher has to get past very bad behaviour and attitude first, in many cases. The 'nature/nurture argument will continue ad infinitum with each side having validity. What is wrong is 1 disruptive child ruining learning opportunities for 29 others. The teacher has very little they can do, and is still blamed for sailing the children in the class.
Parents MUST accept that they are responsible for their offspring. Teaching a child to respect their elders and others begins at home and should only be supported in school. Too often teachers are expected to teach a child what should be taught by their parents. This even includes things like eating with a knife and fork!
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I'm a Playworker ( Multi award winning, I might add as their is no character limit ) and playworkers work with children aged three to eleven. We work in Out of School Clubs, Holiday Clubs and even in some schools.
We always joke amongst ourselves that we can spot a teacher a mile off. We see them often as we usually work with children as they come out of school, or before they go in to school for the day if there is a breakfast club available. Teachers are trained to structure, structure, structure... I've met some fantastic teachers who can cope with an overly full classroom of pupils and motivate them and encourage them to join in, but at the end of the day, the structure is the problem.
I have worked with children who at school have daily report cards and usually a reputation that precedes them, as usually all of the school staff know them as a "problem child". Yet, when they attend our settings, they are the most polite, helpful children there. The difference is plainly obvious. Usually these children are violent towards other pupils in school and even teachers and other staff members. With us however, during our usual fire drill tests, they are the first to grab hold of a three or four year olds hand and help them to get outside calmly. Without prompting. It's amazing.
I put it down to our lack of structure. "Play is child driven" as they say. We don't put activities out, or force people to take part. They do anything they want, with our encouragement and help. We encourage children to be themselves and be confident in themselves, and it works. They flourish and learn through play. Yet in a class room, they are forced to conform and abide by the set curriculum and pupils who learn just a little slower than say another child are often left behind. This is one of the reasons a startling amount of children leave primary education unable to read.
The recent debate about scrapping formal was a fantastic idea. Children would do better spending time with Playworkers until they start a formal education. They can learn English, Maths and life skills while in a safe environment that encourages and supports them while they are in their comfort zone, giving them a chance to gain a personality and think for themselves.
Playwork is a massive field, no way near limited to the examples I've pointed out here. We also train in some cases for years to work especially with children with "Special Educational Needs", although I dislike this term personally as all children have needs.
In playwork children are respected as equals and given choice. This is something that lacks extremely in some schools I've had the misfortune to visit or work in. Children "kick off" because they feel they are being pressured and forced in to something, they might not feel comfortable doing. This is not always met with support, a shoulder to cry on or more encouragement. Sometimes this child is branded as problematic and forgotten.
In my professional and personal opinion formal lessons should be scrapped until children are mentally capable of dealing with the pressure and have spend plenty of time in a comfortable, safe setting such as a playwork setting.
Being more radical then the report, I think the formal education age should raise to eight or ten. This would have massive ramifications, including University entry. I am currently at University and twenty years old. I have worked out there in the real world before coming to University and I see eighteen year olds coming straight from college, no idea what the real world is like. University should be more like America, where older students attend, who are physically, mentally and ready to handle the extreme pressure that comes with the workload, as well as potentially having to work your way through university with a part time job.
I don't think the report went far enough with Primary education. The entire system should be re-examined and factor in the large number of Playworkers the country already has and even ships abroad to work with their children.
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Tigerjayj (#97) "Re behaviour-to teach effectively a teacher has to get past very bad behaviour and attitude first, in many cases."
How do they do that clever-clogs, if the expressed behaviour is genetic?
"The 'nature/nurture argument will continue ad infinitum with each side having validity."
Only because people like you don't know when to listen. We now know that behaviour is largely genetic, it's just that people like you don't know.
"What is wrong is 1 disruptive child ruining learning opportunities for 29 others. The teacher has very little they can do, and is still blamed for sailing the children in the class."
If ADHD hits 5% of kids, that's 1/20 or at least one per class. If they are not in Special Schools, what chance do teachers have. It's genetic.
"Parents MUST accept that they are responsible for their offspring. Teaching a child to respect their elders and others begins at home and should only be supported in school. Too often teachers are expected to teach a child what should be taught by their parents. This even includes things like eating with a knife and fork!"
How do parents with the mental age no better than their kids, handle such kids? How do you get people who are not genetically equipped to behave responsibly behave so? Gene therapy? Not in a liberal-democracy.
You're not taking this in are you? Most of what you read about education is rubbish. It's at odds with what we know from hard science. Too many people 'argue from ignorance', not enough people study what's worthwhile. Life is short - listen to what you are being told.
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It's not necessarily all down to genetics; it's as much to do with a cultural shift. There's the chav/benefit class culture in particular, which is an "underclass" which is (generally) unemployable, but breeds like crazy in comparison with the middle and upper classes. Their children aren't encouraged in school by their parents, many of their kids emerge with no qualifications at all (despite the best efforts of the education system - they could be going to a top local school where many kids get A*s and still end up at the bottom of the class), and in many cases end up just as unemployable as their parents. Thus, over the generations, this culture increases in size, resulting in a dumbing down. Their actual genetics might not prevent them from having high intelligence, but the culture does.
Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum, there's a "geek" culture. These people tend to be highly employable, and their kids tend to be top of the class. However, they are far less likely to have multiple children, if any. They're far more likely to end up being well-off but single. This mostly applies to the "western world", since in other parts of the world, those in this culture are likely to be subject to an arranged marriage.
If you need some evidence on why this is, compare the number of men vs women studying university Computing, or Physics, or Engineering, against the numbers in Psychology or Sociology. This isn't because women are in any way prevented from studying "hard science" type subjects, either, or that men are prevented from taking social sciences. There are other, far more complex issues involved there.
So, this can all happen without bringing genetic limits on intelligence into it - one culture encourages education but has no kids, the other culture has tons of kids but don't encourage education. The effects of liberal/concervativism are lower than you'd expect, it's not necessarily a problem caused by some political power, it's more of a fundamental problem with geek/chav cultures. To solve this, you need to make some massive changes to both, very different, cultures.
Eventually you'll hit issues with genetics, of course - some kids WILL have poor genetics preventing them from learning, and inevitably fall into the chav culture.
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# 59. clamdip
I would agree in many ways with your comments about the desirability of a multi-faceted child focused approach to teaching. In may ways this was almost 2nd nature to the teaching as a vocation rather than a "career" mentality which is often at the heart of good education.
It may well be that in some cases portraying teaching as a career and trying to emphasise financial rewards as an inducement to enter the profession is counter productive.
A lot of the psychology and empathising with individual needs is the product of experience and intuition, things that by their very nature do not entirely fit with over formalised and structured systems which limit the ability to adapt as is required.
I would however tend to disagree with your belief that children are all motivated to learn. This may well be the initial natural condition and prevalent in younger children, but social pressure and limited expectations also have a significant influence on children rejecting education, often attempting to portray education as a negative.
Of course the roots of this may well be transmitted from parents and communities to their children who belittle education as a defensive measure to dismiss their own failures in the sphere.
Breaking down the barriers caused by such conditioning would seem to be desirable.
It may well be that in such communities their is a genetic disadvantage, but the social conditioning only serves to reinforce the difficulties.
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Dear Reaper_of_Souls,
Choice has a lot to do with the motivation issue. You can pose what you need accomplished by giving two choices, Then switching the order. At least then the child is making his/her own decision and feels that they have some control and responsibility over their own life, eventhough the choices are controlled. In my experience, delivery is very important. I once invited Queen Elizabeth to our class tea party ( A parent) Eventhough the children knew her as Sophia's mother there was a point when all reality was lost and for a time the distinction between the real Queen Elizabeth and Sophia's mom was blurred. Children's imaginations are so powerful that they believed Queen Elizabeth actually came to class. A child is motivated when he/she can find a "buy-in" factor. It's the teachers's job to always find creative ways to help children express themselves. If children become emotionally involved in their learning their motivation increases.
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Tigerjayj,
I agree. I think a lot has to do with drug addicted parents. They're so preoccupied with drugs, it takes their attention away from their kids. A very large percentage of families are involved in selling and distributing drugs. It's a real scourge as far as I'm concerned.
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# 103
Dear Clamdip,
All very true, but potentially easier at a younger age when "buy in factors" may be easier to create and have less other factors to overcome.
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#100
Certainly in the UK birth rates are highest amongst what would be often seen as the least educated.
Whether for genetic or social reasons this creates its own challenges and if not countered represents a threat on a social and economic level.
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There is a Chinese proverb "I hear and I forget. I see and I remember.
I do and I understand." which, in my opinion, heightens the argument that teaching is a skill that cannot be taught especially at primary level. As R_O_S summarises at 101 much has to do with making teaching a vocational choice because of reward rather than desire.
As with most things in life the more you attempt to bridle in skills the greater their potential to become elusive. Teaching kids can never be without pressure because there will always be moments when you wish to, or have to, check out your students. But the skill of the teacher is to defeat that pressure until it is desirable for the charges to know.
Intuitive teachers do not need measuring devices for their children but they know their parents and the authorities do. We have messed education up because we have not understood the components of learning and ministers have failed to collect the best advice they can find.
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Dear SpartacusmartyrAAA,
And who might those polytricksters and bankers be washing their green leaves through huge commercial coconut trees shaded under a London dome?
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Dear SpartacusmartyrAAAs,
You mean monkeys not apes. There is an important difference. They prefer bananas not coconuts.
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Is society threatened by poor maths/stats?
Education debate is always undermined by poor maths and stats skills. Any Questions last week was dominated by the panellists experiences with their own children (sample of 1 or 2) and their own prejudices.
People mis-use stats (Jaded Jeans, #99 says expressed behaviour is dominated by genetics. This may be so but that does not stop nurture having an influence - the genetic behaviour is best predictor but parents still have responsibilities to exert control and there is plenty of evidence that people can be trained)
Today's item on the the split between areas with graduates is also alarming. How did this get published? did none of the BBC staff ask the challenging questions - "If you have a degree then where do you choose to live? If you do not have a degree then where can you afford to live? The area does not dictate how many people have degrees but the degree you have dictates where you can afford to live!
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Dear Reaper_of_Souls,
There are a lot more things older kids must contend with these days. So much distraction. Can we blame them for that? I really feel sorry for kids growing up today. Life is just so hectic. You just want to hug these kids until they calm down and relax. Calmate!
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The issue of good primary education is crucial to the future well-being of the UK. If good basic education is not achieved at a young age it is almost impossible to catch up later.
To those who suggest that good maths skills are not vital to someone who may be heading for a manual job, I say, well they still need to balance the weekly household budget, and not go nuts on credit cards .... and maybe having better skills will help them rise above their expectations.
The problem with govt control is that it is all "big picture" and leaves no room for individualism and inspiration in the classroom. To much teaching to the test (at all levels) leaves many students working towards the next credit, not towards a genuine and lasting understanding of the subject. The original 3Rs were "reading, reckoning and rhetoric". Rhetoric - thinking through, arguing and presenting a point of view seems to be irrelevent in todays statistic-based world. People just accept the view put to them in a textbook or on TV or worse online.
The ins and outs of which govt started the decline, and whether or not they had good intentions now serves no purpose. The system needs to be fixed.
I propose paying teachers much much more to encourage excellent applicants, and even encourage 40somethings to retrain for a new life in the classroom.
Also redirect some of the "consultantcy" fees for the inspectors etc back into the classroom.
A big problem of course is that the govt doesn't have the spare money necessary to make it work .... but our chidren's education is fundamental.
Another problem is that we now seem to expect teachers to fully educate our offspring. If they can't read then it's the school's fault. If a family doesn't help the child at home through games and play to develop their minds then no amount of teaching changes will help them. This is a totally seperate issue - the problem that many of the children who can't read have terrible domestic situations and no real role models. This cannot be resolved by chnges in teaching policy.
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98 robert
"In my professional and personal opinion formal lessons should be scrapped until children are mentally capable of dealing with the pressure and have spend plenty of time in a comfortable, safe setting such as a playwork setting."
I agree entirely. It is all too structured too young.
I live in Rome where they have state kindergarten from 3-6 and then start regular school. There are no formal lessons until age 6, and it is not the job of kindergarten to teach the little kids to read and write.
My 3 (nearly 4) year old son is in a mixed age class of 3,4 and 5 years where the primary aim is socialisation and fun. He loves school.
I'll admit when I first saw how the primary ed worked here in Italy I was shocked - after British kids are sitting tests and achieving goals at 5 years ..... but then I realised that I don't know any Italians who can't read, and the general levels of delinquency inthe country are waaaaay lower thna in the UK.
Let the children play.
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Matt_birchall (#109) "Is society threatened by poor maths/stats?"
Yes, it is threatened by declining numeracy (it's an aspect of dysgenesis and differential fertility), and most peole are hopeless at reasoning statistically.
"Education debate is always undermined by poor maths and stats skills."
It's still a feminized profession, even he males - it's high verbal.
"Any Questions last week was dominated by the panellists experiences with their own children (sample of 1 or 2) and their own prejudices."
As is discussion of most things these days. It's all 'debate' high verbals. Most education research is rubbish these days. Most education initiatives are nonsense these days too. Too many people have rubbish degrees too. We are in a bad way educationally.
"People misuse stats (Jaded Jeans, #99 says expressed behaviour is dominated by genetics. This may be so but that does not stop nurture having an influence - the genetic behaviour is best predictor but parents still have responsibilities to exert control and there is plenty of evidence that people can be trained)"
Not so, and it's getting worse. Many (even educable) parents mistakenly think they know best simply because they have their own kids! Many parents can not be trained, they have no respect and are highly irresponsible. Hence the proposal to take some kids away from a small number of them. ASBOs don't work.
We are in a bad way. People won't be told. Being told anything firmly is 'offensive'.
We live in engineered anarchistic times. That's liberal-democracy. It's good for the markets....or at least, it was.... How many are listening even now?
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# 109. Matt_birchall wrote:
"Today's item on the the split between areas with graduates is also alarming. How did this get published? did none of the BBC staff ask the challenging questions - "If you have a degree then where do you choose to live? If you do not have a degree then where can you afford to live? The area does not dictate how many people have degrees but the degree you have dictates where you can afford to live!"
Its the usual mistake of claiming causality because of a correlation, it happens time and time again with surveys and lazy statistical interpretation.
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#110 Clamdip & #112 RomeStu
I agree very much with what appears to be the sentiment, children being in the right mindset can help them to learn so much easier. Feeling comfortable and secure, with less other distractions preying on their mind can only serve to make them more receptive to learning.
(I know I always used to put more emphasis on being in the right mental state when going into exams, rather than doing last minute cramming that can increase panic and limit thought processes).
And has been expressed previously, different people learn in different ways, a restrictive approach can often prevent the right angle being adopted to paint an appropriate picture to get the "light bulb moment" when the underlying principle is grasped. Often this involves relating a subject to someone's personal experience giving them a way of perceiving the matter rather than it being entirely abstract.
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Reaper_of_Souls (#115) People talk a load of nonsense when talking about 'mental states' you know. Do you know why yet (see intensional idioms of propositional attitude, the vernacular of our irrational folk-psychology which is cognitive)? Apart from Skinner, listen to what Quine said back at the former's retirement party. This is the only stuff that ever really works (behind the talk of psychology).
If more people understood this they would cringe when they wrote as you do above. But they don't, so we are getting into ever deeper do-do.
Watch/hear people 'argue' and try to defend the indefensible - i.e their status quo.
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Jaded Jean-thank you for the 'compliment' of 'clever clogs' - although your tone suggests you were insulting me-not to mention your ensuing tirade at #99 directed at me personally.
It seems that you think I'm stupid, but I don't know you, have never met you, so how on earth do you know how I think?!
Have you ever taught in a classroom? Have you ever seen the results of a child's environment on their behaviour?
Genetics may play a part in a child's behaviour and ability to learn, but so many children are products of their environment.
Try teaching a child of 8 addicted to heroin.
Try teaching a child whose only meal each day is a school dinner
Try teaching a child who spends all day terrified to go home
Try teaching a child who is bullied by others when they try to learn
Try teaching a child who is frightened of failing
Try teaching a child who throws a desk at you when asked to sit down.
Try teaching a child raised to hate authority
Try teaching a child who has been left to raise themselves
Try teaching a child who only has TV and a computer for social interaction at home
Blaming all behaviour on genetics is short sighted. It may be part of the problem but not all of it.
Many parents and peer groups don't value education or respect teachers, and many children start a school day so full of a primal behaviour (fear, anger. etc) that any kind of learning cannot take place until this is overcome.
Sadly, for many children, the only place they feel safe, loved and cared for is school.
If I didn't know how to manage behaviour I wouldn't be sought after to teach so called 'difficult' classes.
I have no idea what it is that I do which has led to this. I just love and respect every child I have ever taught as my own, regardless of ability.
And there are thousands of teachers out there that do the same. They feel the excitement of seeing a child achieve, irrespective of that child's ability. I guess that's the vocational element.
Jaded Jean, you may make valid points, but your tantrums and tirades overshadow what you say, and devalue your comments. You seem to get very angry and personal when you assume people don't accept your way of thinking. I've seen this on other blogs too.
Blogs are places for discussion, not aggression. Is your behaviour genetic? Insulting people is not a good way to air your views. Perhaps you would be kind enough to post your qualification and experience? After all, on here you are a behavioural scientist, and on others you are a money expert, or political genius.
What exactly do you do apart from post tirades?!
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IRcutekitten (#100) "Their actual genetics might not prevent them from having high intelligence, but the culture does."
Given that the dysgenics syllogism is actually premised on the high heritability of 'g' (for intelligence it's ~.8, the rest being down to injury to genetic expression, i.e non-shared environment), why do you say that? It appears you have not fully understood this.
You change a population by changing the gene pool. You can not 'instill' behaviours, you can only shape those emitted, i.e genetically expressed.
Most people don't think carefully enough about this. It is really quite subtle, but simple. It will shock some when the penny drops. Many will be very 'depressed'. In fact, it washes away decades of post-WWII anarchistic teaching...and much else besides.
Incidentally the crime-rate has gone in one direction since the mid 40s. Upwards.
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#116 JJ
On the issue of me mentioning mental states above.
I speak from personal experience (from both sides of the learning experience) rather than on the basis of convoluted academic studies.
Ivory towers academia is often divorced from the real world, especially the kind of studies you apparently seem to favour, conducted with a distinct lack of objectivity to promote certain agendas.
I know what has worked for me in the past, from both a learning and a teaching perspective.
[As to psychology and "folk psychology", I never bothered taking the option to take the subject when I had it, if you could read people, it always seemed like stating the obvious and dressing it up in theories and technical language].
Perhaps people would consider it worth engaging in discussion with you if you didn't just launch into what Tiger classifies as "tirades", often dressing up the underlying motives with the kind of academic language often used in an attempt to intimidate and distract from the substance of the argument.
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Tigerjayj (#117) "It seems that you think I'm stupid, but I don't know you, have never met you, so how on earth do you know how I think?!"
I am telling you that your posts are stupid. That is not the same thing as saying that you are stupid. However, if you continue to post lots more like that, I may well change that assessment.
Look up narcissistic rage. Your post was a tirade. Mine was constructive, i.e. educational criticism. From the way you post, it is clear to me that you do not understand the nature of 'learning'. This is sadly characteristic of most teachers today. That is why there have been efforts in recent times to make teachers subject to regular Performance Management. Even that is misguided as teh criteria are not objective.
"And there are thousands of teachers out there that do the same."
As I say, the vast majority of teachers out there do not understand what the learning process is, and what limits it. They have been badly taught, if taught at all. The only useful work in 'learning' is the work from the EAB, and that is highly cognisant that behaviour plasticity is driven and limited by genetic expression. Not a lot of peole know that, but you have to remember it was Herrnstein's area after Skinner....
You are wrong. Try to learn not dig yourself in deeper.
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Reaper_of_Souls (#119) "Ivory towers academia is often divorced from the real world, especially the kind of studies you apparently seem to favour, conducted with a distinct lack of objectivity to promote certain agendas."
Really? Might this explain why you understand so little about behaviour?
I suggest you take a look at the evidence, then look up Leitch Review, and PISA. Then look at the economy. Notice anything that you have not?
Not only do you not know what I am referring to, you don't know what you are talking about - and you even say so in your post but don't see that. How revealing is that to others?
That's a good part of the problem which we are now struggling to deal with these days. It's Narcissistic, solipsistic, arrogance (over-confidence) a lack of understanding of behaviour. The teaching profession, ironically, also attracts vociferous narcissists and unwitting Lysenkoists, people who are really not very good allocentrically, natural wreckers/anarchists.
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Messages 85 & 86
JadedJean
I don't know what you mean by `anarchism of my sort'? But since you also accuse me of being brain injured as well then I wouldn't; would I?
How do you define `low skilled immigration'? Most mass immigration tends to be of people seeking an opportunity in another country as the opportunities in their own country are minimal. This means the first generation of immigrants make sacrifices so that their children can get the fullest opportunity in the adopted country. Knowing several immigrant communities I can vouch for that: but then being brain damaged as you say my lived-experience is of no consequence.
What I will agree is a problem with immigration is ghettoisation where an immigrant community retreats into itself and adopts a lifestyle similar to the one they sort to escape from. This can be broken down in part through an exposure to educational opportunity. There are always conservative values, and these are to be respected, but no parent would stand in the way of their child getting a superior education which is still available in this country despite all the centralised dogmatic practises of the corporate state.
I appreciate that many things are not right in this country. For a start there is one violent, bullying debater on these message boards who is totally unable to stand up in argument against the actual specialists in subjects he/she asserts superior knowledge and reverts to ad hominem insults as a consequence. However, I quite like it here and want to make things work in a non-dogmatic way.
In my view we should rely on the teachers to improve education. There need to be smaller classes and more, better teachers. Better teaching will stem directly from less bureaucratic intervention in the classroom which will provide the teacher with more time to spend on the children, particularly those experiencing difficulties.
Back in the mid-Nineties those of us in manufacturing had largely discarded the methodology of targets and bonuses as these were counter-productive. We were horrified that these values which we had discarded were now to be adopted within the public sector. We knew it wouldn't work; a fact which is now apparent.
The solutions are in our own hands and we need to get the grubby hands of the state and a generation of failed political control-freaks away from our schools. It is all quite simple: so simple that even this brain-damaged person can see the solution.
We don't need Big Ideas, we don't need Big Solutions, we don't need the Big State: this was the Blair idea and it has failed dismally. The illusion is over and it all turns back to the little people to provide the answers; and we can. Given the facility and goodwill, education can succeed as can our economy if only the real problems are addressed. Blaming immigrants as you seem to do for some collapse in our genetic formula is just absurd and quite plainly scapegoating.
But then , JadedJean, this is your formula: Big State, Big Ideas, Big Solutions all imposed from above. It would be unfair to T. Blair to say you are as mad as he is; as you are madder. He was just some stupid social-democrat with delusions of grandeur: when he speaks one hears the braying of a jack-ass. When you speak JJ, I hear the scrunch of broken glass beneath the heels of the jackboot.
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Here's the problem: we have a major problem with bad behaviour and dysgenesis across the liberal-democracies, all of which is reflected in the state of the economy in two of their leading lights (USA and UK). Some of us know what is driving this and have been warning of which nation would fall first and why. This is all documented. Many of those who resist being told what the problems are do not understand the role which they unwittingly play in this, and so, when it's pointed out to them, they deny it, or are offended. They often respond with rage.
If we are going to have any hope of getting out of the mess we have made for ourselves, a lot of people are going to have to come to terms with teh fact that they are radically wrong. This, alas, is highly improbable given the nature of the lack of insight. Watch the video, if sceptical, reead the report, and follow the other links provided in the archive, they tell a story. ETS know a thing or two about education. Far more than most posters or writers here. Yet they learned what they reported in feb 2007 from elsewhere.....
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Narcissist... JJ... do you have a mirror handy?
Strangely enough I don't consider reading reports of little relevance to me to be a useful application of my time.
I tend to have the ability to experience things, to observe and to analyse.
If understanding behaviour is being able to predict people's actual responses (rather than what they say their responses will be) when faced with a situation, I have more than a little real world experience.
My views on a lot of academia were formed long ago, from first hand experience with people devoting vast amounts of time to empirical studies based on flawed premises or going round in circles to eventually state the obvious.
Most subsequent "studies" have served to reinforce the cynicism with which I view them (generally looking for motivation through who's funding them and who has something to gain from the "findings").
As previously stated, personal experience of what has worked for me(and what hasn't) in the past provides me with certain perspectives (all be it based on a limited sample), but its always gratifying to see people utilising skills you've taught them years before.
But then I wonder why I'm even bothering to try to justify the basis of my views to you, someone who I generally find quite objectionable and who's opinion of me is quite frankly irrelevant.
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121 JJ
This video was made by ETS. Wasn't this the same ETS which messed up the SATS last year?
Sorry: failed propaganda!
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stanilic (#126) No, that was ETS(Europe). They did not mess up the SATs. They were contracted to manage the marking of SATs. Might New Labour have contracted ETS(Europe) to facilitate the demise of KS3 SATs? There is a long history to this. In my view, New Labour doesn't like what the SATs reveal - i.e the failure of their initiatives.
SATs are IQ proxies. They reinforce all the points about group mean attainment which I have been making in these blogs.
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Postscript (#127) Did you notice the Credit Crunch which followed in the autumn? It's been in the news quite a lot recently.....
Instantiation: let anarchists and narcissists hoist themselves with their own petards. That how Behaviour Analysts explicate.
See this blogs title and first paragraph.
You've now seen the problem explicated/instantiated. The problem is that these people won't be told. They are verbally fluent, but deluded. It's a feminized-brain thing in my view.
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127JJ
Thank you for the guide around the educational corporate sector. I doubt if New Labour has the brain to arrange anything let alone the piece of black propaganda that you propose.
I do not agree with IQ tests as these are culturally distorting: but then as you have advised previously I have a damaged head.
I am wondering how far parents know what is actually going on with SATS. The original idea was that it measured the teachers' performance but somehow it has been turned around to measure the school and its pupils. No doubt this is another own-goal scored by the political class who are too ignorant to stand up to the corporate educationalists who are selling them snake-oil.
In the real world of jobs and all that boring grown-up stuff; the only capabilities that an individual requires is the ability to read, write and reckon. With those skills in place they can go on to filling all the gaps in their head with whatever they like which might include standard deviations as well. To my damaged mind it seems too many pupils leaving school do not possess those basic but very necessary skills. But then I suppose we at least know the standard deviation: aren't statistics wonderful? To my simple, damaged mind it all looks over-complicated, potentially judgemental and quite intimidating. I reckon it all costs a bomb as well. No wonder parents are worried.
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stanilic (#129) "The original idea was that it measured the teachers' performance but somehow it has been turned around to measure the school and its pupils"
No, SATs are standardised tests created by the NAA/QCA designed to assess what LEVELS kids have attained at Key Stages of the National Curriculum.
New Labour has abused them (as have the Conservatives) to break up state education in favour of privatisation just as they have used other means to break up other public services. New Labour is anarchistic, as are the other two parties. Liberal-Democracy is anarchistic (libertarian).
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128 JJ
I had hoped you were staying off the mumbo-jumbo for five minutes. Ah well, all good things come to an end!
Just think for a moment the Credit Crunch and the consequent recession (or is it turning into a slump?) was due to the intelligent getting too clever and concluding that debts were secure when they weren't. Looking back on the days before the tidal wave hit is to recall complete and utter madness: large corporations manned by the academically brilliant who had no conception that they needed to turn a profit, product being churned out to sit in expensive warehouses, fuel at a crazy price hoisted by speculators, and governments also crammed full of the academically brilliant obliviously unaware as to what was actually going on.
A treason of clerks springs to mind as a fitting description!
Since you clever people have wrecked the world; perhaps you should move over and lets us stupid, brain-damaged people get near enough to fix it.
Narcisissists of the world unite!
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re 118. JadedJean:
It's not that i've missed your point. However, it's not just a matter of nature (genetics), it's also a matter of nurture, especially the values which are passed on from parent to child. Just as a christian parent is likely to raise their child to be a christian, and a muslim parent may raise their child to be muslim, so might a chav parent raise their child to be a chav. This is basically what Richard Dawkins (in "The Selfish Gene") called a "meme". In particular, the more children the parent has, the faster the meme spreads throughout society.
I'm not denying that genetics will come into it. Of course it will. However, having a subculture of being deliberately stupid (cuz bein smart aint cool) and living on handouts from the state isn't good for society.
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130 JJ
Ah! Kids: so Leftie, so down with the 'hood, eh! I prefer to use the word `children' but then I am old-fashioned and brain damaged. I can remember skool (whoops!) before it became the mechanistic monster it now is. I can even recall education! Before your time, eh, sweetie?
You know what puzzles me is that none of it has led to a better society except for the apparat who have syphoned off most of the money.
You scream the word `anarchist' as it it were a political slogan. This is meaningless as how can New Labour and Liberal-Democracy be anarchistic as they both require government as a pre-requisite. Anarchists challenge the need for government for the simple reason that government is chaos. If you have any doubt about that then look about you. In my view if people are left alone to follow their best devices, the majority will do just that and society would be better and calmer. It is people like you with your Big Ideas, Big Organisations and Big Government who are the real problem.
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IRcutekitten (#132) "It's not that i've missed your point. However, it's not just a matter of nature (genetics), it's also a matter of nurture, especially the values which are passed on from parent to child."
You have completely missed the point. I am counting on this pervasive ignorance to make an important point. What behaviour genetics research has shown is that shared-environment is not what matters. What matters is genes. Cognitive behaviour (and even personality) is largely the expression of what's inherited, i.e how genes express. The remainder is non-shared environment, that is, hypoxia, physical damage etc etc which post-conception impacts upon genetic expression.
One does not improve the quality of agricultural yield by talking to crops or livestock.
Now do you see how you have missed the point?
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THE COGNITIVE ELITE
stanilic (#131) "the Credit Crunch and the consequent recession (or is it turning into a slump?) was due to the intelligent getting too clever and concluding that debts were secure when they weren't."
I remind you, once again, of the critically relevant demographics (#5)
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Dear Tigerjayj,
Post #117. Thank you for your post. It's so well expressed. It's comforting to know that other teachers have dealt with similiar experiences. Most of the public really have no clue about the behaviors teachers face on a daily basis.
Dear Reaper_of_Souls,
I don't know what JadedJean would say about this but doesn't relaxing have to do with Alpha brain waves as opposed to Beta wave functioning?
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135 JJ
Scapegoating again!
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stanilic (#133) "You know what puzzles me is that none of it has led to a better society except for the apparat who have syphoned off most of the money."
That is the anarchists. You seem anarchists don't want a Civil Service or Public Sector, They want individualism, aka Private Sector entrepreneurs. They are pro business, aka corporations, unfettered by the fascist, or nazi re-tape regulation, which actually curbs the excesses of naked capitalism.
Anarchists= neocons = Conservatives and New Labour. It is all about promoting the free-market making out it is pro-individualism. This is how your type have thrown away a once great nation.
Didn't you know how you were being used as a useful-idiot?
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AUTHORITARIANISM, THE FAMILY AND THE STATE
stanilic (#137) "Scapegoating again!
Goldman Sachs, Lehman, Madoff ring any bells?
Here's a little light reading on your intellectual heritage.
Anyone ever wondered why Islam suddenly came into the frame as 'terrorists' now that Bishops and the Cathholic Church have been well and truly bashed?
The evil ones just moved on to attack the fastest growing group of gentiles, narked that these moralists are very anti-interest/debt and pro-family/state.
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ALIENS ACT 1905
Are there any 'conspiracy theories' about predators and their prey, or the behaviour of bees and ants? Or is that legitimately a matter of non-conscious, group cooperation and competition for resources in the struggle for life (see the full title of Darwin's mangum opus, and don't expect it to be banned by the PC watchdog).
Who pays for all those Discovery and History propaganda programmes which seem to be on 24/7, and where do they find the wailing actors/witnesses 70 years on? Why does Ed Balls want it in our schools, and why does he say it was New Labour's best investment (Jewish Chronicle 1st Oct)
Anarchists - who'd 'ave 'em? (Financial Services?)
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Teaching needs to return to basics and be better managed. Parliament and especially the Labour Party and the Lib Dems are dominated by teachers and lecturers. We are not getting value for money from the Education budget and a return to the standards of the 1960's would be a massive improvement! Anyone heard the story of the Emperors new clothes!
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isn't the concept of education guilty of being authoritarian to begin with?
I don't think they should worry about democracy going out of the window that happened the very second the MP's dipped into the taxpayers money!
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Education is only one of the victims of overall increased authoritarianism in the UK. In fact it becomes one of the major propaganda machines in an environment where once democratic principles give way to Government OF the people and not by or for them. Such governance would obviously not want an education system that teaches people to think or know, it requires control and what better way to begin and maintain this process than the education system? Add to this the control of the media by the same people that control politics and you have what is happening to the UK and US now, nations being directed into authoritarian states by an elite ruling business class. It's been in process for a few hundred years and is currently close to being achieved under our noses. Wake up people...soon!
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