We don need no educashun....?

Kids are going back to school for the sake of their education and mental health and a raft of other reasons.

I'm not challenging this, but I would like to comment on the rationale of this policy.

Not so long ago, generations of kids in the UK had little or no education. Schools/universities were for the privileged. Kids were sent out to work on farms and in factories at a young age, unable to read and write. Even when there was a concerted drive to educate, which spawned the Education Act of 1870, education for the majority ended at fourteen.

Are we to assume that for centuries folk were messed up for the rest of their lives because of being uneducated?

A balancing thought I'd add is that I have personal experience of missing important fundamentals of learning. I went to a Grammar School in 1957. It was a good school which produced among others a British Prime Minister. After six weeks, we sat an exam to grade us. I was stuck at home with Asian 'flu for five of those weeks and was graded as a 'D' pupil. At the end of the year, I was in the top ten of the entire year of 150. I started the next term in a class that studied Latin. As a 'D' pupil I hadn't been taught Latin; the top classes had. I NEVER got to grips with the language and only passed 'O' level GCE because I learnt 600 lines of Virgil English translation by heart.

So I know that missing out on the basics of education is very damaging. That has been my experience.

I've always thought that education is not just about teaching subjects, but also prepares us for the big wide world. So, how concerned should we be that the education of kids has been interrupted for about a year?

(I have little doubt that this thread will have few replies and will quickly slip off the first page - like most of my threads. Don't really care. It helps to put my rambling thoughts in some semblance of order. :-) )

Maggie to blame again.

you used to be able to leave school with very little in the way of qualifications and get a career that would still allow you to live well.
these days those jobs are much rarer. low paying jobs these days don't even pay enough to live on, companies rely on governments to top up their wages to something a person can survive on.
if is essentially a tax rebate for businesses that is masquerading as a handout to the poor.

The education system is the single biggest system of social constraint outside of the prison system

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Originally Posted by light up the darkness

The education system is the single biggest system of social constraint outside of the prison system

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I'm not sure whether you're advocating for education or not there?

My fiancé is a teacher. The good that schools do is far beyond just Pythagoras

Social mobility and education is the biggest factor why poor stay poor and the rich stay rich.

The CV pandemic has posed the question "what are schools for"? Given that much learning is neither constrained by time or space and that education is "what you remember after you have forgotten everything you learned in the classroom", schools' role in society is changing. WFH and LFH will become a flexible norm with schools acting as centres for training, sporting activities and enrichment activities for example. Universities are already trying to get to grips with the existential threat of online learning replacing campus-based learning. It's educashun Jim, but not as we know it.

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Originally Posted by Rjk

you used to be able to leave school with very little in the way of qualifications and get a career that would still allow you to live well.
these days those jobs are much rarer. low paying jobs these days don't even pay enough to live on, companies rely on governments to top up their wages to something a person can survive on.
if is essentially a tax rebate for businesses that is masquerading as a handout to the poor.

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Jobs that used to require applicants to merely have 'O' levels seem to require degrees these days.
By the time someone starts a job after uni these days many of us (although not me personally) had already bought a property courtesy of a mortgage on a reasonably priced house.

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Originally Posted by light up the darkness

The education system is the single biggest system of social constraint outside of the prison system

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Presumably, if you believe that, you also believe that people who get an education, work hard all their lives to better themselves and manage to put savings aside as well, should have all their money taken off them by the state and given to people who leave school early, sit around all day doing bog all and sponge off the rest of the population by claiming every benefit going under the sun. God help us all.

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Originally Posted by dml1954

Presumably, if you believe that, you also believe that people who get an education, work hard all their lives to better themselves and manage to put savings aside as well, should have all their money taken off them by the state and given to people who leave school early, sit around all day doing bog all and sponge off the rest of the population by claiming every benefit going under the sun. God help us all.

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But isn't that what happens anyway? The educated workers pay a huge wedge of Income Tax, VAT, National Insurance Contributions, Inheritance Tax etc etc which goes into the pot from which the low income/unemployed groups are paid their benefits.

(Damn. I completely forgot you are a troll spouting garbage to produce an effect.)

I think that the degrees youngsters get now are devalued by the number of them that are handed out each year. Universities used to be snetres of excellence but when you start calling places like Llandaff Tech a university I think you may well invent a new qualification that people can get at 16 or 18.

As another poster said, time was when you would go out at 16 and get a job, work your way up and with diligence and motivation you could be the things you wanted to be in life. now we have graduates serving me in KFC. It seems pointless, not to mention the debt they accrue in the process.

That said, we are where we are, and I don't know the solution any more than anyone else.

By the way Cyclops, both my parents were born in the first decade of the last century and they finished school at 12, not 14. :hehe:

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Originally Posted by Taunton Blue Genie

Jobs that used to require applicants to merely have 'O' levels seem to require degrees these days.
By the time someone starts a job after uni these days many of us (although not me personally) had already bought a property courtesy of a mortgage on a reasonably priced house.

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That's because modern degrees from a "University" which used to be a polytechnic or a 24 hour petrol garage aren't really worth an 'O' level. Our degrees used to be more highly regarded than American ones, but that's reversed now.
Blair wanted everyone to be able to get a degree, (???). Well now they can but the degree they get is meaningless.

I think you only have to look at the titles of some of them and you can make your own judgement.

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Originally Posted by RonnieBird

That's because modern degrees from a "University" which used to be a polytechnic or a 24 hour petrol garage aren't really worth an 'O' level. Our degrees used to be more highly regarded than American ones, but that's reversed now.
Blair wanted everyone to be able to get a degree, (???). Well now they can but the degree they get is meaningless.

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Meaningless is a bit strong. Not all education is about career prospects or monetary value, it's also about creating a more rounded individual, which does lead to benefits in employment, better life choices and a more rounded society.

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Originally Posted by Tuerto

Meaningless is a bit strong. Not all education is about career prospects or monetary value, it's also about creating a more rounded individual, which does lead to benefits in employment, better life choices and a more rounded society.

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I agree. For example a young (wo)man needs a degree to apply to be an officer in the Armed Forces, but it doesn't have to be in a subject close to the field he/she wants to work in. It is used as a measure of his/her ability to absorb and retain information and to problem recognise and problem solve.
The trainers do the rest. (Not purple adidas thought:hehe:)

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Originally Posted by xsnaggle

I agree. For example a young (wo)man needs a degree to apply to be an officer in the Armed Forces, but it doesn't have to be in a subject close to the field he/she wants to work in. It is used as a measure of his/her ability to absorb and retain information and to problem recognise and problem solve.
The trainers do the rest. (Not purple adidas thought:hehe:)

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Agreed, well said, apart from the purple trainers bit :hehe:

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Originally Posted by Cyclops

A balancing thought I'd add is that I have personal experience of missing important fundamentals of learning. I went to a Grammar School in 1957. It was a good school which produced among others a British Prime Minister. After six weeks, we sat an exam to grade us. I was stuck at home with Asian 'flu for five of those weeks and was graded as a 'D' pupil. At the end of the year, I was in the top ten of the entire year of 150. I started the next term in a class that studied Latin. As a 'D' pupil I hadn't been taught Latin; the top classes had. I NEVER got to grips with the language and only passed 'O' level GCE because I learnt 600 lines of Virgil English translation by heart.

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Not Virgil's Aeneid Book 5 by any chance ?

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Originally Posted by xsnaggle

By the way Cyclops, both my parents were born in the first decade of the last century and they finished school at 12, not 14. :hehe:

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It happened. Dad finished school before his 14th birthday. There's a note in the school logbook "25 July 1918. Sam xxxxxxxxx has been granted three months leave of absence from school from July 24.’ Probably to help with the harvest - or shoot some rabbits.
Mum, on the other hand went to a High School.

I've often thought it would be a great series of magazine/TV articles/shows to contrast the lives of two sets of grandparents. My paternal grandmother was the illegitimate daughter of a woman who had at least four children out of wedlock. Her husband started school when he was seven and he was a ploughboy, aged 12. His brother was a ploughboy, aged 8. On my maternal side, my grandparents met at Southampton University and my great aunts were married to knights of the realm and someone decorated with an OBE.

Needless to say, I'm really mixed up. If I'm threatened, I'm torn between diplomacy and stabbing the offender with a pitchfork.

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Originally Posted by Enoch Mort

Not Virgil's Aeneid Book 5 by any chance ?

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All I remember is Charon, the boatman on the River Styx.
Now Julius Caesar, I could cope with.
The only benefit I've had from this is when using Latin botanical names.
I gave up Latin when the master conjugated the Latin word for Republic. Those who know me, and can conjugate that word, will get the joke (on me) :hehe:

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Originally Posted by Cyclops

All I remember is Charon, the boatman on the River Styx.
Now Julius Caesar, I could cope with.
The only benefit I've had from this is when using Latin botanical names.
I gave up Latin when the master conjugated the Latin word for Republic. Those who know me, and can conjugate that word, will get the joke (on me) :hehe:

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Charon crops up in book 6 of the Aeneid. I did Caesar's De Bello Gallico as well. I think you mean declined, verbs are conjugated. I can still remember how to decline Res Publica as so much learning by rote was involved in Latin that it is drilled into my skull even after all these years.

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Originally Posted by Enoch Mort

Charon crops up in book 6 of the Aeneid. I did Caesar's De Bello Gallico as well. I think you mean declined, verbs are conjugated. I can still remember how to decline Res Publica as so much learning by rote was involved in Latin that it is drilled into my skull even after all these years.

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It was the third person singular bit that brought a smirk to the master's face, and a titter from the lads when he told me to stand and decline res publica....:hehe:

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Originally Posted by dml1954

Presumably, if you believe that, you also believe that people who get an education, work hard all their lives to better themselves and manage to put savings aside as well, should have all their money taken off them by the state and given to people who leave school early, sit around all day doing bog all and sponge off the rest of the population by claiming every benefit going under the sun. God help us all.

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You managed to spin that in an untended direction.

There are many functions of education. The question for me is this. Are schools as they are currently formatted (that is with a subject based curriculum which is largely arbitrary outside of reading, writing and arithmetic) the best way of addressing the the things which society values which include;
* Transmission of Culture. Education instills and transmits social norms values and beliefs into the next generation.
* Social integration.
* Career Selection.
* Techniques of Learning Skills.
* Socialization.
* Rational Thinking.
* Adjustment in Society.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cyclops

Kids are going back to school for the sake of their education and mental health and a raft of other reasons.

I'm not challenging this, but I would like to comment on the rationale of this policy.

Not so long ago, generations of kids in the UK had little or no education. Schools/universities were for the privileged. Kids were sent out to work on farms and in factories at a young age, unable to read and write. Even when there was a concerted drive to educate, which spawned the Education Act of 1870, education for the majority ended at fourteen.

Are we to assume that for centuries folk were messed up for the rest of their lives because of being uneducated?

A balancing thought I'd add is that I have personal experience of missing important fundamentals of learning. I went to a Grammar School in 1957. It was a good school which produced among others a British Prime Minister. After six weeks, we sat an exam to grade us. I was stuck at home with Asian 'flu for five of those weeks and was graded as a 'D' pupil. At the end of the year, I was in the top ten of the entire year of 150. I started the next term in a class that studied Latin. As a 'D' pupil I hadn't been taught Latin; the top classes had. I NEVER got to grips with the language and only passed 'O' level GCE because I learnt 600 lines of Virgil English translation by heart.

So I know that missing out on the basics of education is very damaging. That has been my experience.

I've always thought that education is not just about teaching subjects, but also prepares us for the big wide world. So, how concerned should we be that the education of kids has been interrupted for about a year?

(I have little doubt that this thread will have few replies and will quickly slip off the first page - like most of my threads. Don't really care. It helps to put my rambling thoughts in some semblance of order. :-) )

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Life has changed a bit since kids were sent to farm or down the mines in 1840....lots are suffering at the moment and unfortunately trying to take their own lives.

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Originally Posted by light up the darkness

You managed to spin that in an untended direction.

There are many functions of education. The question for me is this. Are schools as they are currently formatted (that is with a subject based curriculum which is largely arbitrary outside of reading, writing and arithmetic) the best way of addressing the the things which society values which include;
* Transmission of Culture. Education instills and transmits social norms values and beliefs into the next generation.
* Social integration.
* Career Selection.
* Techniques of Learning Skills.
* Socialization.
* Rational Thinking.
* Adjustment in Society.

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Here's a video that was sent to me recently that I found really interesting in regards to how we educate children.

https://youtu.be/zDZFcDGpL4U

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Originally Posted by Heisenberg

Here's a video that was sent to me recently that I found really interesting in regards to how we educate children.

https://youtu.be/zDZFcDGpL4U

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That was Ace! Just sent it to my mother as evidence as to why i was kicked out of school at fifteen :hehe:

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Originally Posted by Tuerto

That was Ace! Just sent it to my mother as evidence as to why i was kicked out of school at fifteen :hehe:

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:hehe:

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Originally Posted by Heisenberg

Here's a video that was sent to me recently that I found really interesting in regards to how we educate children.

https://youtu.be/zDZFcDGpL4U

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Very good. :thumbup:

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Originally Posted by RonnieBird

That's because modern degrees from a "University" which used to be a polytechnic or a 24 hour petrol garage aren't really worth an 'O' level. Our degrees used to be more highly regarded than American ones, but that's reversed now.
Blair wanted everyone to be able to get a degree, (???). Well now they can but the degree they get is meaningless.

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It's a characteristic of a number of advanced countries that have increasingly sent higher numbers of students to university in recent decades.

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Originally Posted by Taunton Blue Genie

It's a characteristic of a number of advanced countries that have increasingly sent higher numbers of students to university in recent decades.

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I think the western world will eventually be overrun with sports scientists.

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Originally Posted by splott parker

I think the western world will eventually be overrun with sports scientists.

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At least they should be fit enough to overrun.

Christ, when I left school you could be as thick as s**t and still get a job, slightly intelligent - white collar, thick - blue collar. Everybody could get a job.

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Originally Posted by Cleve van Leef

Christ, when I left school you could be as thick as s**t and still get a job, slightly intelligent - white collar, thick - blue collar. Everybody could get a job.

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It's a pity that such a system existed as countries such as German realised that intelligent and well-educated people were sorely needed in areas of employment that we considered to be need to be blue collar and inferior.

In Finland

http://9gag.com/gag/aQqoD5K?ref=fbp

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Originally Posted by Heisenberg

Here's a video that was sent to me recently that I found really interesting in regards to how we educate children.

https://youtu.be/zDZFcDGpL4U

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Very good Thank you for sharing this. He poses some big questions. The kind that no politician want to address.
The ones that suffer the most as a result are the young people in the system

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Originally Posted by Taunton Blue Genie

It's a characteristic of a number of advanced countries that have increasingly sent higher numbers of students to university in recent decades.

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Do you think we're an advanced country now then ?

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Originally Posted by RonnieBird

Do you think we're an advanced country now then ?

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The IMF does.

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Originally Posted by Taunton Blue Genie

The IMF does.

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I have visited 65 countries myself but one doesn't want to be too subjective by basing one's opinions merely on one's own selective sample, of course.

Yours

One