British education - is it really so bad ?

[cegorach]

FRAGONY - are you from the UK ? Are you going to discuss the topic ?

If not - go to your cave, thank you.

[Fragony]

We don't have caves in the Netherlands, didn't you know??

[Banquo's Ghost]

Gentlemen, we have an interesting topic posted for debate.

Let's concentrate on that rather than pot-shots at each other.

Thank you kindly.

[cegorach]

Gentlemen, we have an interesting topic posted for debate.

Let's concentrate on that rather than pot-shots at each other.

Thank you kindly.

Please delete all the off-topic posts before another troll appears to ask about polar bears, global warming, Bush, Putin or anything else which is not about the British education.

Thanks.

[macsen rufus]

his British classmates were interested only in shopping and partying.

there, I think, is the core of the problem in this case. Britain still has a heavy streak of anti-intellectualism. I'm afraid the know-nothings are in the majority and want to drag everyone down to their level. I've been out of school for more decades than I care to recall now, but seeing my friends' kids is depressing - how little they know, how stunted their thinking and short-sighted their goals.

Although the problems show up in education, I don't think they're purely educational problems. It's all to do with an atomised society, easy affluence, lack of understanding of consequences, lack of compassion, it's all "rights" and no "responsibilities", our kids are getting older but they aren't growing up.

Oh dear, that was bit of a Daily Mail moment, I must sit down a little til I recover

Or put another way:

"Luxury! In my day we had to live in a paper bag in the middle of the motorway, lick road clean for us breakfast, then we'd go to work down the pit and pay for the privilege. But tell that to kids today ...."

[Tribesman]

Or is it an usual Daily Mail nonsense.

Possibly , when there are things like...Maybe it's because they get everything on a plate, because there was no communism there and there's no real poverty, they don't need to worry about their future.
...in it it is a good clue as to the spin .
Newcastle Eh , that was the place that lost almost all of its industry right , the place where due to rampant poverty and people trying to get out of the place to find a future the government would sell a houses to people for 50 pence if they promised that they would actually live in Newcastle and stay there .

[Rodion Romanovich]

I especially agree about the part about testing effort rather than knowledge, which seems common in all of western Europe. If you're really good (because you learnt it earlier, or have talent), but didn't have to work hard to produce the correct answer, you're punished for it. That's not really fair because a lot of people with good brains have other disadvantages, like not that easy finding a mate to reproduce with, or being able to show his/her social skills when applying for a job (being able to show them, and having them, are different things). Why should they be deprived of their one strength and given less help to improve themselves further, than the people at school that won't improve anyway no matter how much help they're given? It's those less successful at school that get all the help that go and take all high-wage jobs and good-looking women for wives anyway. Having decent brains is painful enough as it is, there's no need for school to add insult to injury and reppress intelligent people for their intelligence. At least not, unless you also start punishing and restraining good-looking and charming people at parties, or restraining people who talk loud and have an easy to convincing others that they have social skill (even if they often haven't) at job interviews, but that isn't going to happen.

[Bijo]

[quote]there, I think, is the core of the problem in this case. Britain still has a heavy streak of anti-intellectualism. I'm afraid the know-nothings are in the majority and want to drag everyone down to their level. I've been out of school for more decades than I care to recall now, but seeing my friends' kids is depressing - how little they know, how stunted their thinking and short-sighted their goals.

Although the problems show up in education, I don't think they're purely educational problems. It's all to do with an atomised society, easy affluence, lack of understanding of consequences, lack of compassion, it's all "rights" and no "responsibilities", our kids are getting older but they aren't growing up.[quote]
Seems true enough. I would like to add that anti-intellectualism is something that has always been there regarding mankind. The majority of humans is average, usually simpletons, with lack of morality, lack of wisdom, judgment, intellect, and so forth, and they heavily operate on ego, emotions, and desires, which would make matters worse, as these dominant traits could easily prevent the previously mentioned higher traits from swelling up.

However I must say just because a person has "received education" -- rather called schooling -- and this person is above the rest it does not mean this person is intellectual. It just shows a good student or learner who is reasonably smart, and smarter than the aaaaverage bear....?


@Rodion Romanovich
From what I have seen it seems education is designed indeed to aid the average and the stupid and to neglect the intelligent. What you mentioned about intelligent people having certain problems -- usually socio-emotional -- isn't always true though it seems to occur often. It it just about power, majority, and the likes, and the minority is suffering for it.

[econ21]

International tests of science and maths tend to put UK schools as roughly equal to US ones in performance and both somewhat below those of most other OECD countries. Poland has not participated in any of these tests, except the Second IEA Science round, where it outperformed the UK by around 10%. So I find it plausible that Polish schools might be thought better than UK schools.

On the Daily Mail report, I did wonder whether Poland has a more "traditional" and knowledge-based curriculum than the UK. For example, I doubt British geography lessons would focus on things like where Kenya is or what is its capital. They would focus on the processes of soil erosion or other such topics. Some people I know whose kids move from foreign schools to UK ones have reported the level of maths taught is lower than in their countries, but again the curriculum may differ. I was looking at the Maths Standard Attainment Tests for 11 year olds and they were almost like IQ problem-solving tests, rather than routine algebra and numerical calculations that might be expected in Japan or China.

Teaching in a UK university, I have not noticed a tendency for British students to be outperformed by other Europeans - quite the contrary, although there is of course a big language disadvantage. I find British students tend to be very good at the "essay-based" questions, whereas European students sometimes struggle with that format. Culturally, the UK seems less inclined towards the maths and science that tends to be what is internationally tested.

There are also probably issues about British school children not being very switched on school - perhaps particularly boys. But on the other hand those that do make it to the university I teach at are very hardworking and well motivated (although they do tend to see education very instrumentally as the route to a high paying job rather than as intellectually interesting in itself.)

There's been a lot of debate about whether UK education has improved or declined. But some innovations - like the Standard Attainment Tests, like the literacy and numeracy hours - do seem to be improvements. And my impression is that at university, British students are well equipped to keep pace with subjects that do tend to advance fairly rapidly over time. Specifically, economics, the discipline I teach, has advanced a lot since the 1960s, so that what must be taught for an undergraduate degree is at a higher level than what was taught 20 years ago. I've heard mathematicians express an opposite concern - that their first year entrants are no longer as well equipped as a few decades ago - so it may vary by subject.

[rory_20_uk]

Luckily there are still enough schools mainly, but not exclusively in the Private sector who are elitist and do spend more time stretching the abilities of their pupils rather than pretending that all can somehow get to the same level without in any way stressing them.

There is only the need for a few highly qualified people in percentage terms to fill the top posts in the country for the country to continue functioning. The rest can continue to be political pawns for the Commons - where did most of the Front Bench and Opposition Bench go to school? Generally Private / Grammer and then on to Oxbridge - as will happen to their kids.

[Husar]

Grat Post Rodion Romanovich.

Also why would someone(excluding geologists) want to know all the rivers of all countries?

[cegorach]

Grat Post Rodion Romanovich.

Also why would someone(excluding geologists) want to know all the rivers of all countries?

NOONE says ALL, but a number of them would be all you need - can you imagine someone who isn't expected to know where for example Nile is ?

It is all about the general knowledge we gain when learning in schools - if that decreases in time the democracy will be a farce...