I have always been fiddling with the idea of whether to write in English or Spanish. I guess I decided Spanish because I know more Spanish speeakers which were more likely to read my blabbing. But I think I am going to mix languages now, while I devise a way of creating 2 blogs in one or two versions of the same one or a magic tool which detects your language by scanning your pupils.
Anyway, leaving projects behind (as usual) I got something fantastic in the radio this morning. Twas in the BBC Radio 4′s program Today and it was a sentence that went like this:
Academies, which are supported by public money but do not follow Council’s guidelines in what to teach started as a way of improving the quality of secondary education.
That kind of shocked me. I have always known that Education standards in the UK, same as in Spain and other progressive countries, is falling dramatically. What I heard in the radio was, in short, that Blair goverment had found a way of improving those standards again. Basically, allowing some schools to go off the Goverment lead in the curriculum.
That sounds creepy and silly. First there is an acceptance that whatever the Goverment is trying to teach is not good enough. No matter if it is because the subjects are insufficient, or the methods unfit, the fact is that secondary educaition standards in the UK were falling. That is a good thing.
But, … alas! There is also a solution. Let the schools teach what the think is appropiate. It seems reasonable. Instead of a bunch of Goverment paid theoretical pedagogues and advisors deciding what is cool to study, let the teachers and school headmaster do it. That’s great! Why didn’t we thought about it earlier? Probably because you were to busy trying to find ways of numbing society so you can steal whatever you want.
Now the problem comes just after that. If we have a problem and we have a solution, which seems to be working, why do not we apply that solution (cut the Goverment guidelines) in all schools? I guess the answer to that question lays in the how much the Goverment needs to indoctrinate the society. When the Goverment spends huge amounts of money en deciding what people should learn and how they should learn it, something is wrong…
No wonder it has been the new Goverment the one allowing any school to cut loose from the Goverment if they think is better for their pupils. Hooray!
There is also the thing of Tony’s Biography published today in which he says that he never thought G. Brown would be a good Prime Minister. Apparently he appinted him as result of a promise so G. Brown would back him up in some policies when he was Chancellor. It is amazing how, just to get some policies approved, one person can put in jeopardy a whole country and be happy about it. Thanks, Tony!!!
Still, G. Brown is the only Prime Minister that has only lost elections, hehehe. He’s never won one, since he was appointed. Way to go, Gordon!
Nice post. Keep up the good work!
Lovely to read Shakespeare’s language from you… You’ve got a good prose in English too!
About education… I am not completely sure that the government chooses a curriculum based in “indoctrination”. I want to believe that we are a tiny bit away from the Big Brother society still! And those new schools that the coalition government are trying to push forward (what are they called? I can’t remember, but you know which ones.. those that would be run by parents and teachers, away from government power) I am not sure how successful they’ll be, because although most parents want the best for their kids, at the same time, they don’t know how to run a school, or how to teach… And how would they be funded? How would these schools be maintained?
It is true that the education standards are “well bad” (lol) and listening to your average 14-year-old speaking makes me cringe. They can’t express themselves without saying “like”, “alrite”, “man”, “mate” and they simply lack the vocabulary to put a simple sentence together. And I still don’t believe that for the 30th year running (or so) pupils in secondary education are getting better and better grades at their GCSE and A Levels exams. It is not their fault, of course, because they will learn what they’ve been asked to. However, are those exams getting easier? I believe they are.
A lot of people argue that most graduates (and we are talking graduates: young men and women who have finished an university degree) are having so many problems trying to get work because their basic skills are almost non-existent. A lot of them struggle to spell correctly, they fail to grasp the meaning of a text after reading it, they can’t communicate properly… A disgrace. But I wonder, how did they finish a degree without those skills? How did they even manage to get into a graduate course? How were they allowed to finish school? Are schools “inflating” their results just for pure self-promotion?
This is a very interesting subject, and I believe I will get even more passionate about it when I have children in school-age!
If you write in English I believe you expect an answer in English aswell (are we all doing an exam?? :p )
Well, my point of view…Lauren is the girl I have been teaching spanish to, she is 12 and I met her when she was 9. She is very clever, and a good girl, but if she gets bored you have lost her…so basically you can get from her whatever you want if you keep her motivated. She went to school in Spain when she was 7 till she was 8 (a school year and a half) and now she is back to the Scottish system…what she told me is that in spain she learnt more, she was asked to do homework and she had exams. In UK she is bored. Her level now, after the spanish experience, is higher than her classmates (she took advanced maths in a separated room because what the rest of the class was doing was so easy for her, in Scotland)She is not asked to do any homework at all, and she doesnt have exams…she said to me she liked the spanish school more than the british one “because the scottish one is so easy and boring” And she is under the Scottish system, which is better than the English one as far as I know…
No se de que va el rollo muy bien pero en el podcast de humor que escucho estaban diciendo que cualquier grupo de personas podra formar su propio colegio y recibir ayudas. Eso da pie a que el dia de manyana se oigan (y pasen) muchisimas burradas…a ver si se dan cuenta…