Education

absorbentgnome

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Caaaaardiff, but.
My friend lectures students studying religion at degree level in Cardiff. He wonders why the hell some of them are there because they can barely spell let alone construct sentences. Most of them in the year he tutors can't even write an essay properly.

So what the hell's gone wrong? What's this new-fangled phonetic system they're gonna try out? What's wrong with the old fashioned way? Is poor teaching letting down your kids? What about disruptive behaviour and apathy? Should we bring back the cane?
 
Its the national curriculum - its boring and uninteresting and finding a teacher able to fire up students imaginations with it is a rare thing.

Give teachers more power over what they teach and they'd be more interested - make it fun, interactive, interesting, exiting - i had an amazing teacher at primary school and all other teachers since just couldn't compare. She actually went on to win primary school teacher of the year - miss witt - she was amazing, i loved her.

Education needs a re-think!

Steiner schools have got the right idea!
 
When I went to school in Carmarthenshire in Wales there were some very good teachers and some rubbish ones. I thought my school was pretty normal - well it was. But now I realise that I was actually very lucky.
My girlfriend is from London and we had a conversation out what subjects could be taken for A-level or GCSE and it turned out that in her school which was a *good* school you could not study separate sciences or choose any of the subjects that I had chosen when I was in school.

So there must be a lot of able kids that are simply let down by the whole education system, simply because of where they live, poor standards and poor discipline.
 
wtf? i spelled all that right! whats wrong with it!

edit - you can't possibly mean "exiting" ie "exciting"

its a fucking typo! gimme a break and tell me what YOU think about the education system in britain, smarty pants :P
 
CariFairy said:
What the fuck are you implying? I spelled all that right. What's wrong with it?

You can't possibly mean "exiting", i.e. "exciting" - it's a fucking typographical error. Give me a break and tell me what you think about the education system in Britain, smarty pants. :P
<anal pedant>Apostrophes (and other punctuation).</anal pedant>

I think the problem runs a lot deeper than teachers being unengaging and the curriculum having been dumbed down.
 
The education system totaly achieves it purpose, in producing robots. The whole system seems to lack creativity and forces you to have to focus on subjects you have no interest in learning. I mean science in schools today is still teaching things that those higher in science no to be just wrong. And religious studies? Your progress in school will be good as long as you can regurgatate information at the appropraite moment. This system is not helping us when we are young to develop much ousite of "the box". Unfortunately I see no way out of it unless there is suddenly a huge shift in the way a lot of people think. I mean if the adults of the world can still justify killing where is the hope of the young learning whats "right" and "wrong".
 
Sephira said:
The education system totaly achieves it purpose, in producing robots. The whole system seems to lack creativity and forces you to have to focus on subjects you have no interest in learning. I mean science in schools today is still teaching things that those higher in science no to be just wrong. And religious studies? Your progress in school will be good as long as you can regurgatate information at the appropraite moment. This system is not helping us when we are young to develop much ousite of "the box". Unfortunately I see no way out of it unless there is suddenly a huge shift in the way a lot of people think. I mean if the adults of the world can still justify killing where is the hope of the young learning whats "right" and "wrong".

The 'inside-the-box' learning you are referring to just seems to be necessary. You can't individually teach everyone, and you have to teach from somewhere. People are not being taught to be 'robots' - everyone is individual, such as yourself and can make decisions for themselves. The aim is to give the best possible start in life to everyone, give them the basic knowledge and give them the knowhow to intelligently think for themselves. Sadly that ideal can never be the case, but the best we can do to achieve that is my ideal (imo).
 
turkeyphant said:
<anal pedant>Apostrophes (and other punctuation).</anal pedant>

I think the problem runs a lot deeper than teachers being unengaging and the curriculum having been dumbed down.

Look "mate", :P this forum is one area of my life where i don't expect to be judged by anal people.

S'not allowed.

My spelling - my fucking business!

Sometimes when i'm writing (especially involving issues) i get this strange idea that its WHAT i'm writing thats important. Funny that.

Or is what i write shit too :P

x

Edit: So, what are the deeper running problems you speak of?
 
Hi CariFairy,

Glad to see you didn't take any offence. :Smile3: Sorry for being a dick and not adding value to the thread, but the fact is that I have no direct experience with the British education system.

What I can say is that in many other countries people who can't tell the difference between a personal pronoun + copula/verb (it's) and a possessive pronoun/possessive adjective (its) in their native language are not allowed to touch a keyboard for a living.
On the other hand, in English-speaking countries they become senior managers in investment banks.

I'm not exaggerating, I know a lot of foreigners that are simply shocked by how liberal spelling in this country is. But hey, spelling correctly is not the only skill one might have, right? Plus, isn't tolerance and diversity a wonderful thing?

(I guess this puts me squarely in the proverbial glass house)

:ismile:
 
Sephira said:
The education system totaly achieves it purpose, in producing robots. The whole system seems to lack creativity and forces you to have to focus on subjects you have no interest in learning. I mean science in schools today is still teaching things that those higher in science no to be just wrong. And religious studies? Your progress in school will be good as long as you can regurgatate information at the appropraite moment. This system is not helping us when we are young to develop much ousite of "the box". Unfortunately I see no way out of it unless there is suddenly a huge shift in the way a lot of people think. I mean if the adults of the world can still justify killing where is the hope of the young learning whats "right" and "wrong".

Too right Seph,

Somehow the meaning of the education system has been sublimated by an underlying agenda to leave kids as confused about themselves as they are about the world they live in. Not to say there arent good intentions and good teachers out there left - it's just they are increasingly in short supply. I've always wondered why on earth there hasnt been a class at school that carries on through the years that explores what it means to be human. Rather than an education, it increasingly looks to me like an indoctrinal system which like you say produces little robots. After going to school in a dysfunctional system, marred by a dysfunctional world, whilst growing up in a dysfunction social environment it's little surprise we end up dysfunctional.

All that said, there were a few gems in my education of whom I would not tar with the same brush. I had a maths teacher who brought his guitar in to sing us songs about pythagorus's theorum - he was great, someone to fondly remember in my continued dysfunction.

Peace

xfrog
 
julian said:
Hi CariFairy,

Glad to see you didn't take any offence. :Smile3: Sorry for being a dick and not adding value to the thread, but the fact is that I have no direct experience with the British education system.

What I can say is that in many other countries people who can't tell the difference between a personal pronoun + copula/verb (it's) and a possessive pronoun/possessive adjective (its) in their native language are not allowed to touch a keyboard for a living.
On the other hand, in English-speaking countries they become senior managers in investment banks.

I'm not exaggerating, I know a lot of foreigners that are simply shocked by how liberal spelling in this country is. But hey, spelling correctly is not the only skill one might have, right? Plus, isn't tolerance and diversity a wonderful thing?

(I guess this puts me squarely in the proverbial glass house)

:ismile:

If i was writing an essay, i would be able to do it correctly, word for word, with punctuation, without a spellcheck.

Being anal about my spelling on psy-forum is like wearing a suit to a casual evening at the pub.

My 2p - end of.

:Smile3:
 
Did anyone see the "Unteachables" programmes on tele recently? It was about a bunch of difficult and disruptive kids who were constantly in trouble, and who were learning nothing at their existing schools. They were brought together, on an experimental programme, to try to make them into people who could actually gain something from education.

The Headmaster of their "new" school was a dickhead. But... they had an English teacher called Phil who was a genius. He was utterly brilliant at his job, and has rightly IMHO won awards. I was massively impressed. From a background where the kids had been right little shits, he got them performing Macbeth to cows in less than three weeks!!!! Yes, you did read that right. They all loved him to bits, and my guess is that they would have walked over hot coals for him by the end - as he would for them.

Shit, I would too, and I was just a viewer. He's the sort of guy who should be listened to. He should be involved in teaching teachers, setting curriculums, inventing new teaching techniques etc etc.

The bottom line for me is that it's not the national curriculum that's so much at fault, as the methodology of teaching itself. If a teacher is truly interested in the students, and if he truly cares about them, incredible results can be obtained.

It's just a very great pity that there aren't more teachers who fall into that category.

Hugs,

Barclay

P.S. I'm not blaming teachers generally. I'm just commenting on my own experience, and my observations.
 
Barclay (Dark Angel) said:
Did anyone see the "Unteachables" programmes on tele recently? It was about a bunch of difficult and disruptive kids who were constantly in trouble, and who were learning nothing at their existing schools. They were brought together, on an experimental programme, to try to make them into people who could actually gain something from education.

The Headmaster of their "new" school was a dickhead. But... they had an English teacher called Phil who was a genius. He was utterly brilliant at his job, and has rightly IMHO won awards. I was massively impressed. From a background where the kids had been right little shits, he got them performing Macbeth to cows in less than three weeks!!!! Yes, you did read that right. They all loved him to bits, and my guess is that they would have walked over hot coals for him by the end - as he would for them.

Shit, I would too, and I was just a viewer. He's the sort of guy who should be listened to. He should be involved in teaching teachers, setting curriculums, inventing new teaching techniques etc etc.

The bottom line for me is that it's not the national curriculum that's so much at fault, as the methodology of teaching itself. If a teacher is truly interested in the students, and if he truly cares about them, incredible results can be obtained.

It's just a very great pity that there aren't more teachers who fall into that category.

Hugs,

Barclay

P.S. I'm not blaming teachers generally. I'm just commenting on my own experience, and my observations.

:iyes:

Theres not enough love from teacher to student and visa versa. This is most deffinately a key hole in the education system, right on Barclay. If we did have people like the guy mentioned above, as barclay said, being the people working on the ciriculum (whether nationally or just locally) and introducing new teaching methods based on exploring the students own abailities rather than dictating what is, then we would have a whole different way of learning.
 
Heh apart from fembots and manbots, I don't really see these 'robots' that are alleged to come out of the education system. Everyone comes out as an individual. Is there really one person you have ever met in life and thought 'robot'? I can't really think of one, and anyone that comes close that I can think of, I don't really know as a person, so therefore cannot judge.

Perhaps planetfrog and sephira, you think they're robots because you've never met these people. Disassociation is easy. Its easy to blame objects you've never met.

I just feel that somehow in our sea of political correctness and safety we've lost our direction a bit. Taken the fun out, by accident. Idealists are taking over - over reason, science, rational thought and our freedoms.

We've come so far to be able to enjoy the delights the modern age has offered us. Let's not ruin all this effort and hard work with irrational and somewhat fundamentalist behaviour. After all, the next generation learn from us.
 
From the POV of the UK government – and the big corporations which largely control it – it makes sense to use a state education system to reduce the ability of Britons to “think outside the box†- and it's dangerous when you look at it from the POV of civil rights. A generation unable to think "outside the box" is a generation without the tools to resist a slow deterioration in civil liberties - as is already happening.



That's why chavs exist, after all - they're sell-outs, unwilling and ill-equipped to make the mental effort to recognise that blindly following fashions set by big business doesn't make them more popular - it simply makes them a more easily used cog in a corporate machine. They're humans trained to act like computerised sheep. In fact, they're so well-trained that, in many cases, anything other than what they've been taught is viewed as propaganda or fanaticism.
 
absorbentgnome said:
Is there really one person you have ever met in life and thought 'robot'?

:ilol: ... yes (c:

Its not so much a judgement as a position. Nearly everyone I know (including myself) was a robot at one time or another, a function of their environment. Luckily a few I know have completely broken away and helped other to do so (normally slowly but helping none the less). everyone still has some robot actions but self education and conditioning can help you notice what they are and to "reprogram" your programming.
 
tavdy79 said:
From the POV of the UK government – and the big corporations which largely control it – it makes sense to use a state education system to reduce the ability of Britons to “think outside the box” - and it's dangerous when you look at it from the POV of civil rights. A generation unable to think "outside the box" is a generation without the tools to resist a slow deterioration in civil liberties - as is already happening.

Also, it is in the Government's interest to get people to think 'outside-the-box'. Our economy is based to a large extent on services and technology. This requires people who create and innovate. My opinion is that poor decisions have led to a partial failure of the education system, rather than a deliberate drive to create sheep. The Government is partly judged on its financial success.

tavdy79 said:
That's why chavs exist, after all - they're sell-outs, unwilling and ill-equipped to make the mental effort to recognise that blindly following fashions set by big business doesn't make them more popular - it simply makes them a more easily used cog in a corporate machine. They're humans trained to act like computerised sheep. In fact, they're so well-trained that, in many cases, anything other than what they've been taught is viewed as propaganda or fanaticism.

I completely agree. It's a shame that trainers can be more interesting than creativity.
 
Sephira said:
:ilol: ... yes (c:

Its not so much a judgement as a position. Nearly everyone I know (including myself) was a robot at one time or another, a function of their environment. Luckily a few I know have completely broken away and helped other to do so (normally slowly but helping none the less). everyone still has some robot actions but self education and conditioning can help you notice what they are and to "reprogram" your programming.

That sounds to me more like growing up, becoming more aware of your environment and its actions on you, and you on it. Becoming more aware of the products you buy (or don't). To the information you listen to (or don't). The people you listen to (or don't). A continuous learning which each and every one of us goes through on the path to becoming an adaptive individual.

Anyway, what changes would you like to see to prevent this 'robotic' behaviour?

Personally, I do not have enough knowledge to try to pinpoint problems let alone brew up any solutions. But I'm interested in people's opinions on the matter, hence the reason for this thread :Smile3:
 
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