EDUCATION AND CULTURE Thursday, Nov 29 2007

Ethnic minority children are now learning the three Rs quicker than white children in the UK. This is a significant improvement from a decade ago, when ethnic minority children were way behind.
One obvious reason for this is that education is more than learning. Vital to the process is the ‘culture’ in which you are being educated. Contrary to popular opinion, a form of education IS geared to differences in cultural inheritance of different ethnic groups.
This point isn’t widely accepted because it goes against political correctness and the idea that we are all equal. Yet the reality is, we may well be equal in intellectual terms, but we ARE different in cultural ones.
This point was shown many years ago when immigrants to the US had to take an IQ test on Ellis Island. The idea was soon shelved when various ‘cultures’ performed abysmally in such tests.
It soon became clear that the IQ test being used was inadvertently geared to US culture. Indeed, devised by Americans, how could it have been anything else?
And so, too, with education. Now that this fact-that-mustn’t-be-a-fact is catered for regardless, we are seeing the benefits of such a process. The only problem is, however, the ‘system’ now seems to be against white children.
Has anyone ever heard of balance?

© Anthony North, November 2007

Have you clicked Diary of a Writer on Blogroll? Meet me, up close and personal.
Click Tony On, on Blogroll, for my current affairs blog.
If you like fiction, click Fiction Page on Blogroll for my short stories.

No Responses »

 

DEFINING EDUCATION Monday, Nov 19 2007

David Cameron is going for the popular vote by saying all six year olds in the UK should be able to read. This is a PR stunt of callous proportions, for the simple fact is no education system ever has, or ever could, achieve this.
Unfortunately, there is a proportion of society that just does not do well with education. Throughout most of history, society has catered for this sizeable chunk of any society through jobs that do not require significant education.

Now these people are being failed.

With a consistent policy from all parties of making education a pre-requisite for employment, this element of society is falling by the wayside, a neglected class that doesn’t seem to fit in the modern world.
Further to this, such educational requirements ignore another important element of education and society. It is a simple reality that some people are better suited to education than others.

On average, some 10% of a population fit into this top category …

… and in the past they formed the professional middleclass. Such a concept is now shunned, and in typical social engineering, education no longer allows these people to excel.
The upshot of all this is that education and politics is presently failing society at the top and bottom levels in educational terms. Typically left liberal in persuasion, the end result will no doubt be an equal society. But it will be equal only in its failures.

© Anthony North, November 2007

Have you clicked Diary of a Writer on Blogroll? Meet me, up close and personal.
Click Tony On, on Blogroll, for my current affairs blog.
If you like fiction, click Fiction Page on Blogroll for my short stories.

9 Responses »

 

CHILDREN OF THE WORLD? Saturday, Jul 28 2007

A new study has advised that children in the UK will sit in front of a TV or computer screen for 7 hours a day when not at school. Dairy Farmers of Britain carried out the survey to show how our young are becoming disconnected from ‘outdoors.’
There are many reasons for this, other than technology. ‘Outside’ is now viewed as far more dangerous than it really is by parents and authorities. After all, killers stalk ‘out there’, and heaven forbid the poor mite may have an accident.

Socialisation

We are all to blame for this state of affairs, so it is no good just blaming the child. Yes, of course they will be happy with this slothful life. However, there is a greater danger to all this that is usually ignored.
A child grows up to be a sociable adult through close contact with his peers and society. This important educational process is now being eroded, leaving children with a new means of contact.

Hi-tech

Through hi-tech, the new friends are often distant, and full socialization does not take place. A friend is a brief image on a screen, a few words in text. Can full socialization be taught in such a way?
And yet another problem is that friends are no longer local but global. In one way this is good, the child having access throughout the planet. But is it possible to truly understand yourself if no sense of your place enters your world?

© Anthony North, July 2007

Have you clicked Diary of a Writer on Blogroll? Meet me, up close and personal.
Click Tony On, on Blogroll, for my current affairs blog.
If you like fiction, click Fiction Page on Blogroll for my short stories.

No Responses »

 

KNOW YOUR HISTORY Sunday, Jul 22 2007

Ofsted have advised that the study of history in UK schools is shunned. Up to 70% of pupils drop the subject before GCSE. Further, it is a trend that has been gathering steam for some time.
Hence, the previous generation also shunned history, resulting in a new generation of teachers who discarded the subject before age 14. As such, even those kids who are interested in history can have teachers without the ability to teach it.

Britain’s Past

Why have we got to this state of affairs? Why is history seen as such as bore? Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that we’re told we should be a forward-looking country, rather than wallowing in the past.
As to that past, political correctness has labeled it as the world of arrogant, nasty Brits stomping all over the world, creating empires and oppression. This may be right, to a point, but if the UK was that bad, why do most of the former colonies volunteer to be in the Commonwealth?

The reality is …

Yes, much nastiness occurred in the past, and it applies to more countries than the UK. But rarely is it pointed out that Britain is also responsible for modern democracy, the presumption of innocence, capitalism, and most of the other benefits the modern world enjoys.
History is perhaps shunned most of all because of the hatred of the British past by a liberal elite who think that all good stems from them. This is incorrect. Why, even legalization of homosexuality and equal rights for women came before ‘political correctness’ was invented.

© Anthony North, July 2007

Have you clicked Diary of a Writer on Blogroll? Meet me, up close and personal.
Click Tony On, on Blogroll, for my current affairs blog.

5 Responses »

 

THE SECONDARY SCHOOL LOTTERY Thursday, Mar 1 2007

Over the next few days British kids will learn which secondary school they are allowed to go to. This from a government that said education will be about choice. The choice, it seems, is between a few remarkable schools and a majority that put fear into a parent. How did it get this bad?

The problem arose in the 1970s when it was decided to scrap the Grammar school. Thought too elitist, it had to go – ideology demanded it. But the beauty of the Grammar school was that it allowed an excellent school in every area, open to all who could pass the 11+ exam, with a further chance of getting there before education was complete.

 What the liberal decimation of education could not grasp is the fact that, in a free society, schools of excellence will appear no matter what a government does. If they ban them, then certain schools will be marked out by society through the rich moving to catchment areas.

This is what has happened. Now, it is only the rich that get to the good schools, where in the old days it was wealth AND academic merit. Hence, there is now no control over the good schools, or the increasing number of schools that put fear into the parent.

© Anthony North, March 2007

See Beyond the Blog (News page) for my latest posts elsewhere.

No Responses »

 

NO ONE WANTS A BRIGHT SPARK Sunday, Feb 25 2007

The job market is becoming biased towards lesser academic degrees. Dumbing down rules, and our managers are becoming mediocre. The system works like this – according to the graduate careers mag RealWorld.

 Typically, an employer is looking for a high degree, but does not know how to compare the value of a particular course. Hence, arts and social science graduates are more likely to be employed with a high degree than a science graduate with a lesser score but much more valid education.

I’ve been convinced for years that the way society and business works nowadays is to employ staff who are not able to use the initiative that was once required. The central reason is that computing no longer allows free thinking in the workplace. Whereas once the machine was an extension of the person, the person has now become an appendage of the machine.

It now seems that the initial workers who were turned into appendages have become the employers. And like a machine, they can evaluate scores, but do not have the wisdom to evaluate the knowledge behind the result.

Forget The Terminator. The Age of the Machine is with us. And it’s subtle.

© Anthony North, Feb 2007

See Beyond the Blog (News page) for details of my latest posts elsewhere.

No Responses »