It was ages ago, but I wrote once about Blair’s failed education reforms. Obviously, the Education Bill is in the news at the moment, but this isn’t about that.
“Sheena” has commented on that post and I thought I would bring the debate to the front of the blog so that it can be continued. Read her comment.
And then my reply:
If we fail to stream we waste the advanced learners (as is happening now) and we fail those who cannot keep up.
It is simply cruel to try and suit all the children all of the time — it won’t/doesn’t work.
In the example you gave, Bart should have been dealt with differently (if we’re really going to use the Simpsons here!). Children who are in the bottom set absolutely should not be expected to “catch up”. They’re only going to be at school for a limited period of time so there’s no point in teaching them complex algebra and calculus — far better that they have the skills necessary to carry out their day-to-day life.
Consider, for example, an imaginary person who’s only experience of homework is being eternally frustrated. It is unimaginable, I would suggest, for anyone who has never struggled with mental tasks. But if you can, imagine that no matter what you do there is a fog between the realisation you see others having and the realisation which is eternally beyond your grasp. If you have enough self-control not to stamp your feet, you’ll still have a rage at your own stupidity (no matter whether that’s how we’d describe it).
And then, whenever in the future, mathematics comes into every day living, that frustration will come back. A lot of the time this will be because vast amounts of time were wasted learning about long-shore drift, Newton’s laws, what a mole is, who was assassinated before the First World War and who Macbeth is (answers to these in the comments receive a brownie point which can be exchanged for nothing).
To be honest, I shake my head at this sort of irresponsible education.
On another subject (sort of), there’s little made of the absolute and concrete fact that Grammar/Comprehensive education did not discriminate along class-lines. For some reason, quite beyond me, socialists claim that selection by ability is somehow separating people of different classes. The comments to the last post not only show at least one example that disproves that, but it is also counter-intuitive. Think politicians, don’t rely on the soundbite!
March 17th, 2006 at 6:15 pm
Indeed, when grammar schools were the norm, there were far more state school children going to Oxbridge.
March 18th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
I’m a product of a grammar school. If I went to a comprehensive there would have been no way I would have gone to University (I was the first in my extended family). The area I came from had a 50/50 comp/grammar split. I do find the fact that it’s not PC to believe in a meritocratic system quite strange.
The knock on effect is that the comps in my old area have some of (and the actual) lowest scores in the country for GCSE results. There’s a blog article here: http://birchington.blogspot.com/2006/03/secret-history.html
The school in question is next to an area extremely high in poverty.
March 18th, 2006 at 3:59 pm
Guys,
We’re still talking about education and streaming.
This whole education argument seems to me to be cyclic.
1) Each child needs to have educational choice so their abilities are best served.
2) Society must serve children’s abilities by providing the right educational choices for all.
3) What are the best educational choices for children? Goto 1.
The loop being that the children are forced to choose only from what we, our society, decide they are allowed. They are too young to decide for themselves and too numerous for their wishes to be granted equally.
Children are being judged simultaneously as individuals and conformists and being told it is their choice, which has got to be a little confusing. It is not real choice.
Excel! But not so much that others are discouraged.
Stand out! But not so much that others are ignored.
Be yourself! But not so much that others can know who you are.
Does our inability to decide what and how to teach our children indicate that we lack a coherent cultural identity? Early education must at least prepare people to live in their own society. Perhaps the problem is that we cannot teach our children what we do not know.