Prioritising Education

[bruise]

it would be interesting to redesing education from the ground up.

the big thing i'd change is Sec School - if kids this age should be hearded together, i can't see any argument why it should be in such huge numbers. why have the developed so differently from Primary. if there was ever a rationale it has surely disappeared now. it's bringing out the worst in a difficult age group

a lot of kids are feral - even those who do attend school.

I appreciate that many here are upset about the capitalist, but this thread is about whether or not adult education is more important than normal education and whether or not we should withdraw the right to education if the family is not interested in cooperating with education.

yeh, but it's a bonkers OP so people choose to talk about other things. get over it.

maybe read about 'Summerhill' - a real world experiment along the lines you seem to be arguing.

 

[Azrael]

If primary and secondary education is prioritised you won't need to repair the damage with adult education.

There will always be those who fall through the gaps, and adult education should have sufficient funds and resources to help them; but if the number of poorly-educated adults is cut there'll be more resources for those who need them.

I have no problem with education equipping children for an adult economic life; in a capitalist society it offers children the greatest chance of future happiness. Reintroduce a tripartite system. For children who are suited to practical skills, technical schools; for academia, grammars; and for those who don't do well at either, secondary moderns to do the best they can. (And this applies regardless of economic class. Bright working class kids at uni and less-bright middle class kids at secondary moderns: all for it.)

Abolish coursework (and the attendant mass-cheating), employ effective traditional methods (phonics etc) and a few rigorous examinations. Clear out hoop-jumping, statistics and national curriculums, and let local institutions do as much as possible.

Wean the state off education, clear out the ruinous egalitarianism and creeping sectarianism, and we might get back to some actual learning.

 

[Azrael]

... but i dont believe education should be giving for just putting people in the work force it should be to enrich people lives

The two are often mutually inclusive.

 

[Gmart]

This thread came to me as an idea when i learnt of someone who was a prostitute but she wanted to get a normal job and so tried very hard to do so.

However this proved impossible with her bills to pay etc. She had flunked out of school completely originally of course. And now found herself in a poverty trap. It got me thinking that this poverty trap should be a priority for a government to address, so that people can have a second chance.

Similarily:

Teachers have to put up with a lot of pupils who have NO interest being at school. This being the case these pupils are better off at home with their parents UNLESS the parents believe in education and tell the children they MUST go to school. Otherwise they should NOT be forced back to school by the state. Empowerment of parents you see!!

I'm sorry that some consider this thread 'Bonkers', but i consider these issues to be important.

 

[nino_savatte]

I do not accept that education is just FOR capitalism.

Learning to read and write are basics no matter what the system, while whether we give people the chance to rebuild their lives or not is why i feel that Adult Education should be prioritised (it's English, so i'll use it ).

The education system, as it is currently organised, exists to provide know-how for the workplace. It doesn't exist to impart knowledge or anything like it.

I think more money should be given to Adult Ed but not at the expense of formative education. If anything the money should be taken from defence and tax cut bribes and channelled straight into the education system.

Some funding for the arts wouldn't go amiss either.

 

[tbaldwin]

The education system, as it is currently organised, exists to provide know-how for the workplace. It doesn't exist to impart knowledge or anything like it.

.

Sounds like your anti education? What happened leave School at 14 did you.

 

[JHE]

There will always be those who fall through the gaps, and adult education should have sufficient funds and resources to help them; but if the number of poorly-educated adults is cut there'll be more resources for those who need them.

You seem to have an odd view of adult education - as something just for the poorly educated. It shouldn't be like that and hasn't been - though I'm sorry to say it may be moving a bit in that direction.

 

[Azrael]

You seem to have an odd view of adult education - as something just for the poorly educated. It shouldn't be like that and hasn't been - though I'm sorry to say it may be moving a bit in that direction.

Well the original post talked about adult education for "people who had flunked school and deserve a second chance in life", and related it to childhood education, so I assumed we were discussing it in that context.

Speaking anecdotally, I was in adult education for three years and the majority of students were people who had missed out on their qualifications first time around. There were also, of course, people who did courses out of personal interest, or for other reasons, but they were in the minority.

What IYO should adult education be about? (Ideally speaking.)

 

[JHE]

What IYO should adult education be about? (Ideally speaking.)

Both for those who did badly at school (or never got the chance of going to school) and for lots of other people to study whatever they want.

On the face of it, London is excellently provided with an extraordinary range of courses. Just look at Floodlight.

http://www.floodlight.co.uk/pls/courses/fl_home.pg_home

Unfortunately, the trend of policy is to cut back on funding of 'hobby courses'. With no subsidy or less subsidy, students have to pay a lot more or courses will close. According to the TES, many courses are closing.

The rationale is that the money should be devoted to those with the greatest need (in need of basic skills teaching) and be geared to getting people vocationally qualified.

The policy misses out the importance that adult education has for many people, including people who are not very well off. It shouldn't all be about what used to be called remedial education and bits of paper for the job market.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Sounds like your anti education? What happened leave School at 14 did you.

Sounds like you didn't read what he wrote.

 

[tbaldwin]

Sounds like you didn't read what he wrote.

Good advice usually.

 

[Epicurus]

The education system, as it is currently organised, exists to provide know-how for the workplace. It doesn't exist to impart knowledge or anything like it.

If the above it correct then it is even a worse state than I thought as almost every employer I hear talking about education says schools and NOT equipping students for todays workplace

 

[Gmart]

All the more reason for change!!

 

[nino_savatte]

Sounds like your anti education? What happened leave School at 14 did you.

No, far from it and that's a typically reductive 'analysis' from you.

If you're going to pose a question, as you have done with your last sentence, it is normally customary to end with a question mark. Oh, and the word "school" doesn't need a capital "s" either.

 

[nino_savatte]

If the above it correct then it is even a worse state than I thought as almost every employer I hear talking about education says schools and NOT equipping students for todays workplace

School provides social experiences that help one cope with the workplace. It is supposed to provide the so-called three "Rs" but I have encountered many students who seemed to have avoided writing and reading.

 

[nino_savatte]

Sounds like you didn't read what he wrote.

What's new? That's baldy for you.

 

[Gmart]

Does anyone here have anything against teachers being allowed to refuse to teach children who don't want to be there?

 

[phildwyer]

Does anyone here have anything against teachers being allowed to refuse to teach children who don't want to be there?

Yes. Children aren't fully rational and cannot be trusted with decisions of this nature.

 

[.r.u.i.n.e.d]

That's bollocks. Ok, children aren't fully rational, but then neither are adults, and so adults can't be trusted to make childrens decisions about what's worth learning for them.

It's only when children choose for themselves to learn that a teacher will be a teacher and not just a childminder masquerading as a teacher. It's the minimum any teacher should have to expect that everyone they're teaching chose to be there.

Bollocks to it. Compulsory education doesn't work. Tear it up and throw it in the bin.

 

[Azrael]

Thing is it does work. When done right. It's not very nice, but it is probably necessary.

What's the alternative? A great many children simply don't want to learn. Should we let them have their way and stay ignorant? That strikes me as a lot crueler than forcing them to learn the basics of mathematics and literacy. Children don't want to do many other sensible things; should they have their way on that also?

Unless we are to say children have their majority, we have to accept that they cannot decide what is good for them and what is not.

 

[JHE]

Thing is it does work. When done right. It's not very nice, but it is probably necessary.

Yes, it works, more or less.

I'm not sure that you're right to say it's not very nice. I suspect most children find it nice.

What's the alternative? A great many children simply don't want to learn. Should we let them have their way and stay ignorant? That strikes me as a lot crueler than forcing them to learn the basics of mathematics and literacy. Children don't want to do many other sensible things; should they have their way on that also?

Unless we are to say children have their majority, we have to accept that they cannot decide what is good for them and what is not.

Yes.

There is an alternative - though it's one that (thankfully) has bugger all chance of being implemented: we could make schooling optional. The result would be that many more people remained illiterate and innumerate. These unfortunates would not be evenly spread across society. They would mainly be from the worst off sections of the working class and sub-working class.

The libertarians who propose abolishing compulsory education are, in many cases, egalitarians - but the effect of their libertarianism would be to increase social inequality and subordination.

 

[nino_savatte]

Does anyone here have anything against teachers being allowed to refuse to teach children who don't want to be there?

Well, those children are disruptive and ruin the learing experience for those who want to learn.

I was one of those weird kids: I actually liked school.

 

[bluestreak]

i also have a problem with teachers refusing to teach kids that don't want to be there.

i do understand that disruptive kids make it hard to teach, and get in the way of those that do. i sympathise fully with those teachers who would want disruptive kids removed or excluded. having a smidgen of teaching experience i understand how hard it is.

however, by refusing to teach kids that are problematic we are, in essence, allowing the kid to make an uniformed decision about their adult life.

when i went into teaching i wanted to be teaching the kids who think there's no point. it's them that need teaching most of all. the education system is too inflexible IME for these kids to be included. either they're abandoned or the blameless kids suffer.

but if we can, within the education system, find new ways of engaging them, with the help of social psychologists, flexible education courses, smaller fucking classes, more focused education (by which i don't just mean streaming or differentiation etc. then we should.

there are some schools and some teachers and some educationalists who are looking at this, but the over-riding poliitcal system of our time isn't allowing anything to be done that really gets to grips with the problems of social exclusion and the effects on education - there is little profit there. better to force teachers to teach classes with disruptive kids (fuck it, even the good kids don't need much education anyway to do filing when they leave uni) or to kick the kids out altogether (we can stick 'em on vocational training schemes when they wind up in the criminal system).

 

[nino_savatte]

i also have a problem with teachers refusing to teach kids that don't want to be there.

i do understand that disruptive kids make it hard to teach, and get in the way of those that do. i sympathise fully with those teachers who would want disruptive kids removed or excluded. having a smidgen of teaching experience i understand how hard it is.

however, by refusing to teach kids that are problematic we are, in essence, allowing the kid to make an uniformed decision about their adult life.

when i went into teaching i wanted to be teaching the kids who think there's no point. it's them that need teaching most of all. the education system is too inflexible IME for these kids to be included. either they're abandoned or the blameless kids suffer.

but if we can, within the education system, find new ways of engaging them, with the help of social psychologists, flexible education courses, smaller fucking classes, more focused education (by which i don't just mean streaming or differentiation etc. then we should.

there are some schools and some teachers and some educationalists who are looking at this, but the over-riding poliitcal system of our time isn't allowing anything to be done that really gets to grips with the problems of social exclusion and the effects on education - there is little profit there. better to force teachers to teach classes with disruptive kids (fuck it, even the good kids don't need much education anyway to do filing when they leave uni) or to kick the kids out altogether (we can stick 'em on vocational training schemes when they wind up in the criminal system).

I agree and you've hit upon something else here: class sizes. In my last teaching job at an FE college, I had a class of 48 and it was only whittled down to 30 when another teacher agreed to take a few of them many months later.

 

[.r.u.i.n.e.d]

Yes, it works, more or less.

There is an alternative - though it's one that (thankfully) has bugger all chance of being implemented: we could make schooling optional. The result would be that many more people remained illiterate and innumerate. These unfortunates would not be evenly spread across society. They would mainly be from the worst off sections of the working class and sub-working class.

The libertarians who propose abolishing compulsory education are, in many cases, egalitarians - but the effect of their libertarianism would be to increase social inequality and subordination.

To say it works at the moment is just to be in complete denial.

I don't think what you say about abolishing compulsory education is true
- I reckon children who don't want to learn don't learn anyway, whether they attend or not.

Probably the effect of allowing children not to attend is that, first the schools would improve, since the teachers would have much more natural authority, and at some point many of those who chose not to attend might well decide to go after all, having discovered that there's not that much to do elsewhere, And at the point at which they choose to attend, they'd be much more likely to succeed.

It does work when it's done right.

You don't seem to realise what a chilling statement that is.
I suspect your idea of "working" is quite different from mine.
So I don't think I agree.
But even if it were true, - then you're in the position of arguing that as adults we have the right to subject children to any amount of rubbish education, basically experimenting on them to find out what "works", on the very flimsy pretext that if we could only get it right, it would work.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Does anyone here have anything against teachers being allowed to refuse to teach children who don't want to be there?

Doing this just shifts the problem to either "support units" (if they exist in that LEA area) or onto FE institutions, which are increasingly becoming "dumping grounds" for disruptive, mardy and occasionally downright violent teens who've been ejected from the secondary education system. The real joke is that quite a bit of money gets pumped into the secondary sector with regard to dealing with distruptive pupils, as against fuck-all for same into the FE sector.

 

[nino_savatte]

Doing this just shifts the problem to either "support units" (if they exist in that LEA area) or onto FE institutions, which are increasingly becoming "dumping grounds" for disruptive, mardy and occasionally downright violent teens who've been ejected from the secondary education system. The real joke is that quite a bit of money gets pumped into the secondary sector with regard to dealing with distruptive pupils, as against fuck-all for same into the FE sector.

Just to pick up on what you're saying here about FE institutions being used as "dumping grounds" for unruly pupils; this use of the FE sector as an alternative to secondary education has led to innumerable problems in terms of discipline, staffing and resources. When I took my Post-16 PGCE, I did not expect to teach groups of mouthy, violent 14 year olds (mouthy, violent 16 to 19 year olds, sure). In fact, strictly speaking, I wasn't supposed to teach anyone under the age of 16 but many FE teachers are expected to by their college managers. It's all about funding, really, and colleges get less funding for A level courses, say, than schools with dedicated 6th form centres, yet they are still expected to clean up the mess that schools either can't or won't deal with.

 

[tbaldwin]

I was one of those weird kids: I actually liked school.

So did i but i guess that it was for completely different reasons!

 

[bluestreak]

I agree and you've hit upon something else here: class sizes. In my last teaching job at an FE college, I had a class of 48 and it was only whittled down to 30 when another teacher agreed to take a few of them many months later.

48

kinell.


i honestly believe from my limited experience in the education sector that class sizes are one of the things that would make the most difference. teachers at the moment simply don't have the time to give enough attention to kids. so many are ignored quite accidentally, or worse, deliberately, because to help them get through the lesson would require ignoring the majority of kids. it's heartbreaking. we need more teachers, more classrooms, more trained high quality TAs (and not jsut enthusiastic parents who haven't had an education themself). but all of these things cost money.

 

[nino_savatte]

48

kinell.


i honestly believe from my limited experience in the education sector that class sizes are one of the things that would make the most difference. teachers at the moment simply don't have the time to give enough attention to kids. so many are ignored quite accidentally, or worse, deliberately, because to help them get through the lesson would require ignoring the majority of kids. it's heartbreaking. we need more teachers, more classrooms, more trained high quality TAs (and not jsut enthusiastic parents who haven't had an education themself). but all of these things cost money.

I was teaching on an A Level media studies course, so you can imagine the chaos when it came to doing more practical work.

Something needs to be done about the FE sector though. It's desperate for proper funding and proper recognition. We could also do with sweeping away some of the corporationist elements too.