Gove : Bring Back 'Old Fashioned' Punishments

[Guest]

Could you produce some hard evidence to back that up, please? (Or is this just your personal impression based on your own kids, or on nothing much in particular?). Many more students went on to do A levels and from there to Universitycourses than ever did under the Tories. Even allowing for some grade deflation (which I agree did happen) it does not suggest that standards plummeted compared with the previous 18 years of Tory rule.

 

At least children born in Labour's time in office gained the right to a free nursery school place at age 3 and 4. More than Thatcher ever did for them.

 

It didn't take me long to find this:

 

Literacy and numeracy standards in the UK have shown no improvement at all in the last three years with the result that our 15-year-olds are now three years behind those in the world’s best education system - Shanghai in China - in maths.

 

This is the conclusion of the 2012 PISA tests - of 15-year-olds in 65 different countries in maths, reading and science - which also appear to show that pumping far more resources into education, as the UK has done, has failed to pay off.

 

The figures show that the UK is 26th in maths out of 65 countries, 23rd in reading and 20th in science - remarkably similar positions to those in the last tests in 2009 when we were 27th, 26th and 20th respectively

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/going-backwards-uk-literacy-and-numeracy-standards-slip-down-international-rankings-8979588.html

 

As for more kids going to university during Labours time, its true they did, but so many were doing "hobby courses" that are next to useless.

[ivanava]

Could you produce some hard evidence to back that up, please? (Or is this just your personal impression based on your own kids, or on nothing much in particular?). Many more students went on to do A levels and from there to Universitycourses than ever did under the Tories. Even allowing for some grade deflation (which I agree did happen) it does not suggest that standards plummeted compared with the previous 18 years of Tory rule.

 

At least children born in Labour's time in office gained the right to a free nursery school place at age 3 and 4. More than Thatcher ever did for them.

 

 

And many left uni with a Micky mouse degree and no job to go into, so sending more to uni really didn't do many of them a favour.

[salsafan]

I was military school educated in the 1960's you dare not mess about or back chat any of the teachers or you were in big trouble you had to do as you were told or else,they would think nothing about giving you a kicking it taught me respect that's for sure,its respect that a lot of young kids don't seem to have nowadays,I don't think beating kids up is a good idea but they need a ridged format to stick to.the thing I can remember most is the feeling of letting your mates down if you failed at something it was like you were all in it together comradeship,they never had corporal punishment or anything like that it was just installed into you from get go respect...

 

That was how I felt too in my first job. You need to earn respect, and you need to learn respect too. Of what you can offer to the world and be a useful citizen. There is an awful lot of "me me me", and the school system allow an individual to "be that hero" of themselves and in that search of "independence". But in reality, you can actually see when a child is struggling and when he is not. Close monitoring of their progress will show you this effect.

 

School to me is about working hard at your strengths, and also at your weaknesses too. Not to let you rebel and not work harder when you found out that you are weak at something. This is what most people call building a character. We know that we all have our own strengths and our own weaknesses, but not many people actually make it in their life time to utilise this and actually make something of themselves.

 

In our current culture as it is, we celebrate that "individuality" and none of this cooperation and empathy any more. We use and we abuse. We do not share, or care, and try to support someone if when they are down. We trod on them instead. That is how the society is now different, and how can you blame the educational system for what it is when the previous generation is now governing on what they did not like before them rather than to continue the workable method as before ? All this kind of political chat and whatnots is just really a personal psychological effect, which someone had from their childhood to this generation now, and the future of the kids suffer for this foolishness.

[aliceBB]

It didn't take me long to find this:

Literacy and numeracy standards in the UK have shown no improvement at all in the last three years with the result that our 15-year-olds are now three years behind those in the world’s best education system - Shanghai in China - in maths.

 

This is the conclusion of the 2012 PISA tests - of 15-year-olds in 65 different countries in maths, reading and science - which also appear to show that pumping far more resources into education, as the UK has done, has failed to pay off.

 

The figures show that the UK is 26th in maths out of 65 countries, 23rd in reading and 20th in science - remarkably similar positions to those in the last tests in 2009 when we were 27th, 26th and 20th respectively

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/going-backwards-uk-literacy-and-numeracy-standards-slip-down-international-rankings-8979588.html

So what exactly is it that you believe the Tories are doing which is going to produce a meteoric rise in the UK's performance in these international tables?

 

As for more kids going to university during Labours time, its true they did, but so many were doing "hobby courses" that are next to useless

Don't believe everything your read in the Daily Fail. There have always been H Ed courses which are more rigorous and those which are less so. Calling the former polytechnics 'universities' didn't help. But competition amongst state school pupils for places in the redbrick universities and Oxbridge has climbed year on year. An example : there are are now 54 applicants each year for each of the 10 places available to read Joint Hons. English Literature and Philosophy at Durham, of whom 24 will typically gain four A or A* grades at A level. So, 240 applicants who could all excel in that degree; they can only pick 10. When my sister applied here in 1982, she got in to do a similarly academic degree with far lower A level grades and hardly any competition - the university admissions tutor told her (and her form tutor) that there were roughly the right number of suitably qualified applicants each year for the places available. I saw the same trend repeat itself over the years as I tutored 6th formers doing UCAS applications. How do you account for that?

 

As a student landlord, I've also noticed a far greater seriousness developing over the years amongst our tenants - the Newcastle University drop out rate used to be near enough 20% (which was ridiculous) - since fees were introduced, that has dropped to virtually none. The calibre of university students is definitely on the up - very difficult to pin it down to any one cause, of course. But if you take into account the fact that state school pupils represent more of the student population that they ever used to, it is hard to say with any credibility that Labour 'dragged down' standards for 18-20 year olds.

[salsafan]

Could you produce some hard evidence to back that up, please? (Or is this just your personal impression based on your own kids, or on nothing much in particular?). Many more students went on to do A levels and from there to University courses than ever did under the Tories. Even allowing for some grade deflation (which I agree did happen) it does not suggest that standards plummeted compared with the previous 18 years of Tory rule.

 

At least children born in Labour's time in office gained the right to a free nursery school place at age 3 and 4. More than Thatcher ever did for them.

But what happens after that? We can feel good about our political stats but we fail the children and even the adults when the changing economy and the world of the industry changes after that too ? Why are we not more like Germany whereby we won't fail the kids or the adults ?

 

To be honest with you, sometimes I see these political chats and these tiny small wins here and there as quite BS. Apologise for the strong French.

 

Why are there quotas for certain degrees and so forth if there are no works lined up after that? Where do children go ? Where do these young adults go ? Once you step out of university, you are then left on your own and fight again in the working global economy and its workforce too. That is why nobody really revere an education any more. As you can be in the same company, and an older person with less qualification than you do can be your subordinate, even with less educational background. There are no actual standards either in an actual company any more. Which makes it less meritocratic.

[aliceBB]

Why are we not more like Germany whereby we won't fail the kids or the adults ?

 

 

So you would advocate a return to selective education, sorting children out at age 12/13 into Technical, Practical and Grammar streams?

 

And I'm not sure the people of the former East Germany would agree that the W German education system has transformed their lives and opened up myriad opportunities for them.

[salsafan]

It didn't take me long to find this:

So what exactly is it that you believe the Tories are doing which is going to produce a meteoric rise in the UK's performance in these international tables?

Changing the syllabuses of the A level papers and then revised the way that it was worded and then add confusion to the paper format itself, and also confusing students is not a good start. This did not happen under the Conservative government. What I thought was a good standard for me then became a joke when I realised that even my own working and standards were less of my peers across the globe in SE Asia. Of which their standards are kept and they were introduced when they were a part of the British Commonwealth. We let mediocrity come into society. I do not understand why it has to be an "either" "or" situation. Why the standard cannot be kept up, rather than to shift that educational distributive curve towards the lower end of the spectrum and decrease the level of learning ? I happen to be in the year when they changed O-level into "GCSE". I almost cried when it happened. Compared to my siblings, they still refer me to the dumber member of the family. In truth when I read their old exam papers, it truly was of a higher standard. It really was.

 

Now that I am teaching my nephew some of the old methods on maths alone, he cannot for the life of him understand what it is that I am trying to teach him. His words are "I do not understand you. This is not how teacher showed it to us in school." (WHAT?)

 

Don't believe everything your read in the Daily Fail. There have always been H Ed courses which are more rigorous and those which are less so. Calling the former polytechnics 'universities' didn't help. But competition amongst state school pupils for places in the redbrick universities and Oxbridge has climbed year on year. An example : there are are now 54 applicants each year for each place to read Joint Hons. English Literature and Philosophy at Durham, of whom 24 will typically gain four A grades at A level. When my sister applied here in 1982, she got in to do a similarly academic degree with far lower A level grades and hardly any competition - the university admissions tutor told her (and her form tutor) that there were roughly the right number of suitably qualified applicants each year for the places available. I saw the same trend repeat itself over the years as I tutored 6th formers doing UCAS applications. How do you account for that?

 

As a student landlord, I've also noticed a far greater seriousness developing over the years amongst our tenants - the drop out rate used to be 20% (which was ridiculous) - since fees, that has dropped to virtually none.

IF there are more students fighting for Oxbridge, have you ever thought about WHY people want to go to Oxbridge? Do you not think that Oxbridge has a strong university to company relationships, and that there are a lot of investments and serious research that goes on in these kind of universities which still uphold that "elite" of educational standard and research ?

 

Out of so many universities across the globe, there are only a handful of university who managed to uphold this kind of traditional setup, and they are indeed looked after and revered so much more by the industry itself. On the other hand, there are more R&D departments now created within universities themselves which have the elitist of intelligent individuals who continue to teach the next generation via apprenticeship instead.

 

To be honest, a lot of blue chip companies just want a candidate to have a degree, and even when you enter the workforce, they will still train you. Rather than for a student to choose the subject which they are keen on and to make a career out of. As this is no longer the method.

[aliceBB]

Changing the syllabuses of the A level papers and then revised the way that it was worded and then add confusion to the paper format itself, and also confusing students is a good start. This did not happen under the Conservative government.

 

Sorry, run that past us again?

[salsafan]

So you would advocate a return to selective education, sorting children out at age 12/13 into Technical, Practical and Grammar streams?

 

And I'm not sure the people of the former East Germany would agree that the W German education system has transformed their lives and opened up myriad opportunities for them.

I do not know the historical background before. But judging on what you wrote, and if I understand you correctly, are you saying that the educational system before was categorised based on the natural skillsets of the individual ?

 

What I do believe though is that, the person's strength should indeed be supported, but in doing so, they should also realise that there is another aspect of life to their own strengths, which is their weakness.

 

A technically minded individual should indeed be in a very technical job. There are different level of technicalities even when in a job. The truly technical ones should actually belonged to the person who is capable of this. If their skills are great, then they too should become an actual team leader of a technical department. This is whereby a truly technical personnel will slip up on the human resources aspect of his role, and cannot actually build relationships as successfully as someone who has more empathy skills naturally. This is his weakness. That is why he must learn to overcome this aspect as well. Overall, I see people as having both strengths and weaknesses. I do understand that a person's well-being is based on if they can use 60 to 70 % of their own strengths in a job, than less of this. So as to not allow them to burn out. The individual must also realise that they have to overcome their own weaknesses too and overcome this aspect when it does come up within their own job.

 

---------- Post added 03-02-2014 at 15:43 ----------

 

So you would advocate a return to selective education, sorting children out at age 12/13 into Technical, Practical and Grammar streams?

 

And I'm not sure the people of the former East Germany would agree that the W German education system has transformed their lives and opened up myriad opportunities for them.

 

And are you saying that acting stupid, losing your sense of values, being obtuse and ignorant in this country. Being "freer than free". Living a mediocre life is actually fulfilling too ?

[aliceBB]

And are you saying that acting stupid, losing your sense of values, being obtuse and ignorant in this country. Being "freer than free". Living a mediocre life is actually fulfilling too ?

 

I'm sorry, I really have no idea what you are trying to say/ask.