comments on education

photo taken at Scotland St. School Museum, Glasgow

Both from the Independent. Now I have only glanced at this years Big Brother, haven’t got into it at all, mainly because any small snatches I’ve seen seemed shallow beyond belief. However some interesting points are made in this article: Big Brother and the Failed Generation Grampian may have the greatest success in those league tables (really though? I’m slightly gobsmacked) but the attitudes to learning described are rife up here too…

…and then Jill sent me this letter, also published in the Independent (on letters page here but will not stay there  long so have copied it below) from a teacher which makes interesting reading and tallies more of what I’ve seen:

We are neglecting those children who find school ‘just too much’

Sir: I have spent much of the last 27 years teaching and working with those “poor wretches for whom school is just too much” (Comment; Peter Inson, 1 August).

In my experience this group not only consists of the disaffected and excluded but also large numbers of looked-after children, those with learning difficulties and disabilities and increasingly boys.

A successful education system should cater for all children not just, as it would seem, able girls; and exactly what are we teaching our girls? Is education really about sitting quietly and regurgitating reams of neatly presented information?

There are, of course, plenty of children who come out of the school system with the required proof of achievement, but at what cost? How many young people leave school with a sense of regret or loss? How many feel that they have really benefited from the experience not just the result? Education should be about instilling a love of learning, a thirst for knowledge and an enthusiasm for extending that knowledge. All children start off wanting to learn. What do we do to them along the way?

We need to provide an education that can be valued by all and values all. There is an explicit expectation that all children should progress at the same speed and reach all milestones at the same time. Increasingly any child who does not do this must have a problem.

I know a little boy who is just four. Already his mother is told that he cannot concentrate, he dislikes sitting still, he has poor social skills, his language development is slow, possibly he has ADHD, maybe she should consider ritalin

This is a child who plays for hours with his favourite toys, loves stories, questions constantly, loves running down the beach finding all sorts of interesting things, sleeps well. Already it is evident that school is a miserable place for him. I fear he too will become another of those “poor wretches”.

Shame on us.

CAROL RUBINSTEIN, PETERBOROUGH

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