Briefly, for American reader(s... lol), the national curriculum is a regimented set of guidelines which dictate what is taught at what age across the country. This means - in theory - that all children get the same education, and know the same things. Sounds... logical I think you'll agree. We'll see, anyway.
So, yes, kids are being taught that domestic violence is wrong. Sounds like a fairly reasonable idea on paper, yet if you actually think about it, it paints a sorry fucking picture of our society if we need to educate future generations that abuse is wrong. Surely that's an inherent and socialised train of thought. I don't seem to remember ever being taught that 'beating up a child' is wrong, yet I seem to know that: probably because I wasn't brought up by wolves, or by people with soup for brains. I just find it astonishing that this kind of thing, which is only necessitated by immorality and disgusting behaviour of the minority - supersedes the education of why it's wrong. It's all well and good to tell a child "This is wrong. You don't do this", but if we're entrusting them with these kind of ideas, there needs to be a communication of the rationale, too. I hate the patronising kind of teaching we do in this country. Children will respond if you treat them as they want to be treated: like adults. I appreciate that it's a difficult thing to impart to a 5-year old, but like I say, it shouldn't be necessary.
It's the kind of proof I have waited for all of these years: that the British education system is fundamentally flawed by condescension and talentless teachers who teach the test. In year 9 I was told that plants drink water. In year 10 I was taught about osmosis. In year 12 I was taught that everything I had been taught in year 9 was wrong. It makes no sense at all: if you feel children are unqualified or unable to understand information, don't teach it at all, and especially don't teach it incorrectly. I would have said misinformation is more damaging than no information at all. We now reach a cross-roads for the future of the British education system: to our left we have understanding and societal integration; and to our right we have information. Homosexuality isn't taught in schools, particularly, nor is alternative culture, nor atheistic principles, nor compassion. Yet we feel that without tackling these issues we can foreshadow and prevent bigotry. "Bigotry is wrong": why? Teach them the why, not the how.
We can phase out this kind of disgusting, despicable behaviour if we teach children the fundamentals of a co-operative society, not just that A is right, and B is wrong.
So, that's my first problem with British education, my second is the national curriculum. Phased in around the late '80's it was meant to bring cohesion and cogency to the education of children en masse. The product of this hilariously mis-planned idiocy is that now children have an education in sweet-fuck all. Adolescents are 'taught the test', useless information like R.E. instead of 'how the economy works'; they come out with little to no practical knowledge which could aid them in the real world. Most of the things I learnt were researched and expounded upon by my own want; bless the internet and libraries. Things like mythology for English, things like philosophy for politics, things like history of ideology for my functioning in society. These things are neglected for pointless information on osmosis, on homoeostasis, Pythagoras' theorem, how to bake a cake, how to do needle-point, how to conduct a beep-test. Pointless and arbitrarily crafted information to spoon-feed to children to get them through their pathetically constructed exams; "marks for showing your working out". It's no wonder we have a disaffected generation entirely disenfranchised and apathetic to the economy, to their government, to the state of the world and to poverty and the like. There is no general knowledge anymore, no care for old music, or AD history, people don't know the Mayans, or their own lineage. Take this harrowing statistic, story:
"One in 20 Scottish children think Adolf Hitler was Germany's national football coach, while six percent believe the Holocaust was a celebration at the end of World War II, according to a new poll.
One in five also mixed up Hitler's propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels with Anne Frank, the young Jewish girl who wrote a diary of her time hiding from the Nazis in an attic."
That's where we are.
With the national curriculum.
What does that tell you?
It goes on:
"13.5 percent [of 9-15 year olds] thought he invented gravity in 1650 and seven percent thought he coached Germany's football team."
Please don't think I am kidding, because I am deadly serious. This is what 20 years of Conservative/Labour inbreeding has brought us to. This is the alleged nadir of knowledge. We're paraded around as these fonts of knowledge, smarter than we were 300 years ago, 200 years ago, 2000 years ago: are we? In relative terms do you genuinely believe we rationalise information more adeptly than our primitive forefathers? I sincerely doubt that. It's time for the infighting to stop, and for this country to realise it has made its own bed, and now it is time to lie in it and dribble itself to eternal sleep.
The whole system needs total and complete overhaul; it needs to be revolutionised and modernised, it needs to be facilitated by people who have been through this system, not by those who designed it. It's a sad, sorry fucking day when our average politician is in his late 40's. No offence to anyone in their late 40's, but you aren't of the generation that needs fixing. You guys are alright.
Let me move on to post-compulsory education, before I blow a vein. Fuck knows which one. Presumably the jugular. Thanks GCSE science, that's some top-notch anatomical knowledge I've got there.
When I say post-compulsory education I do, of course, mean university. Not college. I don't care about college. College was a joke. The problem I have with university is that it is taught by people 300 million times smarter and more experienced than the students; and these vocational professions - including pHd's - do not include a 'how to teach' caveat. They're all wonderful people, I am sure, but they are not taught the rudiments of communicating complex information to a class of average intelligence students. If our school system worked then perhaps we would not be at this impasse, but we are, and we have to work with that. There's no order, no system in place to facilitate a median of information: this leads to disinterest and apathy. People cannot engage with that which they do not understand.
There needs to be something in place which either educates the educators at how to communicate complexity simply, or there needs to be regimented lesson planning. Not a national curriculum, hell no, but something which facilitates an improvement. There is this whole 'go to university' drive by the government, but it is a neglected sector. It's fiscally well off, but logistically flawed in most elements: fees that cripple current students, or put-off would-be attendees; poor or no communication between the government and universities; and a system of education woefully neglected. It makes me sad to think there is such a gulf between university and school education. You go from total spoon-feeding, with bibs included, to wholly independent study. No wonder you get languorous students moping around the corridors looking dazed and confused. There is no preparation, no foresight; there is no education about education, and people drop out because of it.
Come on, world, wake the hell up. Please.
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