Has Our Benefits Culture Eradicated Hunger (to learn)

ash28

Itismehonest wrote: »

Unfortunately, I think it probably has.

Kids in Pakistan & parts of Africa will risk being killed or maimed to get an education & elsewhere will walk many miles to & from school (often in addition to carrying out their fairly onerous daily household chores) all because they believe education is the route to a better life than their current existence. It requires real effort & hunger to learn for many to fulfil their schooling.

Here education is too often looked on as a boring waste of time because not working = getting paid anyway. Children who don't want to be at school misbehave & get rewarded with exclusion. D'uh.

We gradually become a "3rd world country" while those that were 50 years ago will gradually overtake us.

I don't think it's quite that simple though....we struggled with our son in education.....it wasn't that he didn't have a work ethic, he did and a strong one but he wasn't really interested in school and we had to force, cajole and bribe him to work at school. All he wanted to do was work.

At 16/17 he couldn't see past next week let alone the next 10 or 20 years. He didn't want to go on benefits he wanted to go to work. Benefits were the last thing on his mind.

Are standards falling - yes I think they are based on my own education (I'm in my 50s), my children's education and my grandson's education.

When our son was in the run up to his GCSEs (he's 33 now), I had a friend who was a maths teacher and I asked her if she could let us borrow some past papers for him to practice with. She let us have the 3 levels of paper, and the first 2 levels of exam paper shocked me rigid.....I could do the majority of the work in my head....it was only the higher paper where I really needed a pen and paper.......

The lower level paper was something I would have expected from a child in the last year of primary school.....I'm guessing it's still the same now.

Loughton_Monkey

ash28 wrote: »

.....When our son was in the run up to his GCSEs (he's 33 now), I had a friend who was a maths teacher and I asked her if she could let us borrow some past papers for him to practice with. She let us have the 3 levels of paper, and the first 2 levels of exam paper shocked me rigid.....I could do the majority of the work in my head....it was only the higher paper where I really needed a pen and paper.........

I know what you mean. The BBC website recently published some GCSE Maths questions, and I whizzed through them getting absolutely gobsmacked. I reckon that after 1 year at grammar school, aged 12, I would have easily got an A*.

A couple of years ago, also on BBC, they did a whole article about the Chinese exam [maths] for university entrance. They gave the same questions to some eminent UK university professors who were universally flummoxed.

I have no experience of schools these days, but if it is still 'non streamed' then I think that's half the problem. It seems as though the Nanny State considers it very politically incorrect to educate kids in different classes based upon ability. If that still applies [????] I can think of no greater barrier to good education than having half a dozen exceptionally bright and dilligent pupils trying to learn when they go at the speed and difficulty required for half a dozen slobs in the same class, bordering on ADHD, being cuddled by so-called 'teaching assistants'.

Itismehonest

ash28 wrote: »

I don't think it's quite that simple though....we struggled with our son in education.....it wasn't that he didn't have a work ethic, he did and a strong one but he wasn't really interested in school and we had to force, cajole and bribe him to work at school. All he wanted to do was work.

At 16/17 he couldn't see past next week let alone the next 10 or 20 years. He didn't want to go on benefits he wanted to go to work. Benefits were the last thing on his mind.

Are standards falling - yes I think they are based on my own education (I'm in my 50s), my children's education and my grandson's education.

When our son was in the run up to his GCSEs (he's 33 now), I had a friend who was a maths teacher and I asked her if she could let us borrow some past papers for him to practice with. She let us have the 3 levels of paper, and the first 2 levels of exam paper shocked me rigid.....I could do the majority of the work in my head....it was only the higher paper where I really needed a pen and paper.......

The lower level paper was something I would have expected from a child in the last year of primary school.....I'm guessing it's still the same now.

No, not everyone wants to go on benefits but the fact that everyone can tends to make us all, at the very least, a little complacent about the alternative if we don't have regular paid employment.

I obviously don't know your son so don't know but it sounds like he suffered from the One Size Fits All education system that has progressively made things worse over recent decades.

SAHD_Jim

The_White_Horse wrote: »

the amount of times that i have had to correct my children's teachers is ridiculous (yes, i'm aware i don't use caps on here, but that is a choice i make for speed). teachers should be correcting bad grammar.

I think you mean "the number of times".

If you are going to embark in the usual tiresome anecdotal teacher bashing, at least have the decency to understand basic grammar yourself.

Carl31

The importance of education should come from parents
its OK to blame schools, governments etc... but the information is there for taking, nowadays easier than ever. I can pick up my phone now and find something out in seconds that it would have taken a trip to the library to do 20 years ago. Teachers are only presenting this information in an easy to digest manner
Fact is, schools still churn out some educated children, so they must be doing something right, the problem is a lot of children are not getting encouragement, weekends are full of guilt driven treats as the parents dont see their children all week
As i pointed out in Rinoas thread, some kids are born, are into childcare until 5, then to school, see their parents maybe an hour or 2 Monday to Friday, who's telling them the importance of education? who's instilling values and importance? a 17 year old childcare assistant certainly wont be. My values on life are what my parents told me, not what i was taught at school, school just allowed me to work towards those values

Pennywise

I am genuinely shocked at how bad the teaching is these days and how little teaching they get, having just gone through the primary school years with my young son.

They suffered a dreadful year with the teacher who was supposed to be in charge of Literacy/English for the school. She was utterly hopeless. My lad who was a good all rounder went backwards with his English in her year. She completely demotivated most of the class by her negativity. She was constantly wanting the kids to write poems and stories, and when they did, she'd just chuck them back if she didn't think they were good enough - I've got a book full of crossed out pages - no constructive comments at all - just comments like, "boring, try again", and "that's not a poem, it's an essay" and the like. It gave him a massive inferiority complex about his writing & reading.

His handwriting has always been poor, something I first brought up with his year 1 teacher, and again every year since, but was constantly fobbed off by comments like "it's fine, you should see some of the others". I kept asking for advice as to how it could be improved, what exercises we could use, etc., but they just weren't interested.

You keep hearing of teachers and schools wanting parental support/input, but they only want it on their terms, when they want it, what they want it for, etc.

Don't get me started on just how little actual "teaching" they do. They think nothing of cancelling an academic lesson to practice for a dance record, singing presentation, or whatever. Not to mention the virtual close down after the Spring bank holiday when barely anything gets done because they're too busy winding down for summer, preparing for sports days, etc.

The_White_Horse

SAHD_Jim wrote: »

I think you mean "the number of times".

If you are going to embark in the usual tiresome anecdotal teacher bashing, at least have the decency to understand basic grammar yourself.

first - it wasn't anecdotal

second - the quantity was so high, it was uncountable.

third - i typed it out in a number of seconds and didn't pay much attention to the grammar

fourth - i don't care - it isn't my job to be a grammar nazi. it is the so called teacher's.

fifth - my complaint was nothing to do with grammar - it was to do with spelling.

silverwhistle

SAHD_Jim wrote: »

If you are going to embark in the usual tiresome anecdotal teacher bashing, at least have the decency to understand basic grammar yourself.

I have to admit I read the post you are referring to and the thought "chav" did indeed occur to me.. The general rule I apply in these cases is ignore anyone who is so lazy as to avoid punctuation and slack of thought to use the term 'lefties'. The latter rule I find particularly reliable.

LydiaJ

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

I have no experience of schools these days, but if it is still 'non streamed' then I think that's half the problem.

It isn't. At least not in the schools I know about. In my son's school, maths is in sets right from year 7, and most other subjects where it might be helpful are in sets from year 8. Subjects such as drama, art and ICT, where mixed ability classes are more helpful for genuinely educational reasons, remain mixed, of course. Meanwhile, at my daughter's primary school, they move about for different subjects, with different tables doing work of different standards in English and maths.

Pennywise wrote: »

I am genuinely shocked at how bad the teaching is these days and how little teaching they get, having just gone through the primary school years with my young son.

They suffered a dreadful year ...

Your son's experience is shocking, and I'm not surprised you're upset about it. I hope you are able to find ways to help him recover from what has happened, and that something is done to prevent this person from having an equally damaging effect on anybody else.

However, not all teachers are like that. My kids have had generally competent teachers throughout primary school, and now that my daughter's in year 5, she has an absolutely stunning teacher whose handling of the class is an inspiration to hear about. Teaching is like most other jobs - there are a few in the profession who are outstanding, lots who are good, a fair number who are not so good and a few who are truly atrocious. Teachers, in common with most people, tend to resent being judged en masse on the basis of one bad example (or even several of them).

Itismehonest

I don't think it's fair to lay all the blame with teachers. As LydiaJ says, they're no different from any other section of society - some good, some not.

The education system itself has also been a problem. The competition between schools to achieve target grades (even if the children retain little or nothing of what they've learned) has become, it seems, more important than equipping children for life.

Then there is the parental problem.
If what we read is true - for instance, kids turning up to school in nappies because they haven't been toilet trained - it's down to parents.
Those parents who don't bother & expect the State system to do everything for them are often the same people who expect the the State to provide everything for them, too.