DT1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 15 Apr 2008
- Posts: 1,116
27 January 2011
19:1290439Peter, I agree totally with both of your posts. Yes, things aren't perfect and we need reform but looking to the past is not the answer.
I have to clear up a number of points: The National Curriculum does not belong to Labour, first implimented in 1989 (I think) it was one of Mrs Thatcher's. I experienced it in my secondary education and you are right Barry, it did exclude aspects and figures of history that I have since found very interesting. Friends of mine, who attended public school, recieved a far more rounded experience of History (as a subject) at this point because public schools don't have to follow the National Curriculum. The cynic in me would say that this is social engineering at it's crudest.
Teachers do and always have corrected spelling and grammar. If there are some that don't, then this is down to their own craziness and not a policy across the profession. Incidentally in many countries reading isn't taught until at least 6 or 7. Sweden has far more success in literacy with this method, however Mr Gove suggests we should start measuring levels at 6 (for league tables) an age that in some countries the children haven't even been taught the skill.
Children ARE taught in ability groups for academic subjects, the task would be almost impossible otherwise, however they are not necessarily streamed. Streaming denies strengths and weaknesses in subjects, as does the grammar school system. I agree with certain aspects and commend the good work that the Grammar Schools do, but when we really look at the underpinning psychological principles, we have to look to Cyril Burt, who is academically regarded as a fraudster. Additionally if we agree with the concept intelligence is set, then we cannot expect schools to improve as set out by Mr Gove's latest white paper.
Discipline ultimately comes down to parental support. If the language of physical pain is how we respond then we have already lost the right to tell them not to inflict pain or disruption on others. Some children are the result of beating over reasoning at home, do you think this makes them the well behaved ones at school?
27 January 2011
19:2690443What an interesting thread, now I have had chance to catch up with it. I totally support the teaching of proper spelling and grammar and wish very much that those had not been undermined so badly by successive trends. One thing I would add is that education is about so much more than exams and pass marks and caning (I still bear the marks from the rosary crucifix wielded by the nuns....) but is about growing and developing as well. They are far from mutually exclusive, and in fact impact on each other so crucially that I am concerned to see so little being made of it - not on this thread in particular but buy "specialists" and "experts".
Without doing the "in my day" thing too heavily, in my day (!) education was a drive towards understanding and knowing, a journey of discovery and a route towards invention and interpretation. That mindset drove me to learn Hebrew for no better reason than it was fun and interesting and enabled me to translate things that I thought bore greater scrutiny, it drove me to read endlessly and created in me a thirst for words and books that has lasted, it made me happy to find things out and develop discussions and arguments. All of which is why I despise Gove et all for messing about with tuition fees and degrading higher education for academics.
Guest 700- Registered: 11 Jun 2010
- Posts: 2,868
27 January 2011
19:3590446When I was 5, I went to a very old fashioned private school for a short time - we repeated maths tables and spelling by rote, over and over, and for years I could do any multiplication easily, but one day the boy I sat next to there, in my early school days, asked me to write something in in his exercise book, which I obligingly did, and was caned in front of the whole class, didn't do it again, I think this was a bit severe at the time !! I was a very quiet shy child...
Did not stay there very long... next school I attended I was way ahead of all the others of my age !!
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Lincolnshire Born and Bred
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
27 January 2011
20:0790458I was privately educated at St Edmunds in Canterbury. We were regularly subjected to corporal punishment for various offences including grammatical errors. I can't honestly say it did me any harm but, of all the commandments, it teaches the eleventh: thou shalt not get caught.
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
27 January 2011
20:1090461Guest 694- Registered: 22 Mar 2010
- Posts: 778
27 January 2011
21:2090487wow.. wasnt expecting all this talking about canes...
27 January 2011
21:2690489It's the underbelly of the British.......given the slightest excuse they will rattle on about corporal punishment, oo-er missus, for hours! The bluebloods keep the Misses Whiplash in business!
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
28 January 2011
00:2290503Teachers are supposed to teach children, not hit them!
