In fact rote learnng is almost certainly the most inefficient form of learning there is and is best used for only restricted purposes, such as tables.

Gove seems obsessed with dragging education down to the clumsy level of rote-learning, possibly due to a yearning for the halycon school days of his youth.

I think his idea of focusing more on languages is sensible and shows surprising awareness of reality by his usual standards. However, the devil is in the detail; what’s the betting that “learning foreign languages” will mean repeating the phrase “I would like two strawberry ice creams” in Mandarin 300 times?

From the man who totally supported the war on Iraq, a friend of Zion, wrote Celsius 7/7, loved Tony Blair and cried when Thatcher resigned.
A true neo con hero of the right – although not hugely popular with Tory grassroots.
I’m surprised he hasn’t researched the identity of his birth mother, the possibility she might just be American and a Republican would truly be the icing on his cake. .

@ 3

From the man who totally supported the war on Iraq, a friend of Zion, wrote Celsius 7/7, loved Tony Blair and cried when Thatcher resigned.

What has this got to do with the fact that, despite throwing massive resources at our stultified education system over the last fifteen years, we are still producing thousands of school leavers who cannot read and write adequately?

If he can sort that, I don’t care if he’s an Elvis impersonator and President of the Flat Earth Society…………

[4] ‘What has this got to do with the fact that, despite throwing massive resources at our stultified education system over the last fifteen years, we are still producing thousands of school leavers who cannot read and write adequately?’ – agree that must be the starting point.

I do not understand why children spend 10 years of their life in education yet still fail to meet basic standards in literacy or arithmetic.

Forcing poetry on small children could only be redeemed if the poetry included the complete works of John Cooper Clarke. Especially the powerful “Beasley Street”, at least as relevant today as when Clarke wrote it over thirty years ago:

Text
Video

The problem is having a National Curriculum. The problem is having centralised control of what everyone learns. Break that central power and then we can have diversity and choice, so those who would benefit from an academic approach can have that, and those who will gain next to nothing from this can have something else more useful and enjoyable to them.

There is a difference between the state and society. Education is a job for society, not the state.

Barrie J re comment 3:

You spent your entire 5 lines playing the man not the ball:

“Iraq, Zion, Tony Blair, Thatcher, Republican” …… and made reference to him having been adopted as a child.

Congratulations – You win the prize for this year’s feeblest comment.

Until we see what actually winds up in the curriculum, I’m going to keep my powder dry as Gove seems to have a habit of making even the simplest ideas sound horribly pretentious.

If by ‘reciting poetry’ what he actually means is exposing five years old to nursery rhymes or classic kids poetry, i.e. Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear and dear old Spike then things will likely turn out reasonably well.

I can’t speak for every child but my daughter has dyslexia but always found poetry easier to get on with than prose – one of the things that really irritated me when my daughter was at primary school was just how dreadfully dull, earnest and unimaginative the standard school reading books were.

If teachers can take Gove’s daft pronouncement and turn into an opportunity to reintroduce a bit of playful silliness into the classroom then things may turn out for the best.

@ 7 Trooper Thompson

“The problem is having a National Curriculum. The problem is having centralised control of what everyone learns. Break that central power and then we can have diversity and choice, so those who would benefit from an academic approach can have that, and those who will gain next to nothing from this can have something else more useful and enjoyable to them. ”

How much control are you relinquishing here? Because without a state curriculum, parents would have free reign to fuck up their children’s childhoods by, say, sending them to a school that ignores English, maths, science and the rest to spend six hours a day teaching that Jehovah/Allah/the FSM is the one true god. Or that replaces science with lessons on holisticism, astrology and auras. Or that indoctrinates them into communism. And so on.

I agree that there’s a risk of using a one-size-fits-all approach, and this probably is more likely to happen with centralized control. But it seems to me that you could get rid of this by changing the curriculum rather than scrapping it and throwing the baby out with the bathwater. And I should also point out that nobody knows whether a child will benefit from an academic approach when they turn up on their first day of school, aged 5.

@ Chaise

Because without a state curriculum, parents would have free reign to fuck up their children’s childhoods by, say, sending them to a school that ignores English, maths, science and the rest to spend six hours a day teaching that Jehovah/Allah/the FSM is the one true god.

True, if you are irreligious. But at least other parents would be sending their children somewhere else and you would have, overall, a balanced outcome.

At the moment, it could be argued, the unavoidable state curriculum messes up our children’s childhoods by filling their heads with nonsense about the dangers of global warming, the equivalent merit of sexual orientation, the beneficence of diversity and the absolute truth of moral relativism.

As a progressive, you will probably have no problem with children being indoctrinated into the tenets of such a creed, but surely you will permit parents with different views the freedom to choose another educational path for their kids?

@ 11 pagar

“True, if you are irreligious.”

Or a member of another religion, or a member of the religion in question who nonetheless feels that children’s educational time should not be co-opted for indoctrination – and that children should develop useful skills while at school.

“But at least other parents would be sending their children somewhere else and you would have, overall, a balanced outcome.”

If we simply locked up one person, chosen at random, for each crime committed, we would have, overall, a balanced outcome.

That wouldn’t be fair on the innocents jailed, however. And the laissez-faire, mother-knows-best approach to education wouldn’t be fair on the children who were comprehensively failed by the system in the name of parent choice.

“At the moment, it could be argued, the unavoidable state curriculum messes up our children’s childhoods by filling their heads with nonsense about the dangers of global warming, the equivalent merit of sexual orientation, the beneficence of diversity and the absolute truth of moral relativism.”

Well, global warming comes under “science”; we shouldn’t lie about the facts to children just because some people don’t like those facts. Ditto evolution.

The other three are subjective and I for one would sacrifice their role in education if that’s what we need to bring about overall change. Does the curriculum actually teach moral relativism as an absolute truth? I rather doubt it. It certainly didn’t 12 years ago.

“As a progressive, you will probably have no problem with children being indoctrinated into the tenets of such a creed, but surely you will permit parents with different views the freedom to choose another educational path for their kids?”

See above, and no. “Freedom to indoctrinate your child” is on a level with “freedom to punch people in the face” or “freedom to keep slaves”. There is a person involved other than the parent. People demanding absolute parent choice based on “freedom” tend to studiously ignore that fact.

(Oh, and nice try suggesting I’m probably into teaching moral relativism as an absolute truth. I’m not insulting your intelligence, so why insult mine?)

In fact rote learnng is almost certainly the most inefficient form of learning there is and is best used for only restricted purposes, such as tables.

I’m not sure there’s any better way to learn poetry though is there? And having a mental store of poetry really is an unalloyed good. I can only ever remember snatches of poetry from all over the place, but I’m deeply envious of those people who can remember reams of the stuff.

@ 13 Tim J

“I’m not sure there’s any better way to learn poetry though is there?”

Depends what you mean. Doubtless it’s the best way to learn specific poems. It’s not a good way to learn about *poetry*, though, or to encourage kids to develop an enthusiasm about the subject.

I’d prefer to teach children about the forms and techniques used in poetry, from sonnets and iambic pentameter to blank verse and more avant-garde “learn the rules so you can break them” stuff. They could learn about metaphor and pathetic fallacy, and Romanticism and so on, and about how poems are used to express ideas, drive home a point, and paint pictures with words. They could try their hand at their own compositions.

“And having a mental store of poetry really is an unalloyed good. I can only ever remember snatches of poetry from all over the place, but I’m deeply envious of those people who can remember reams of the stuff.”

Having a personal databank of poems is pretty cool, but I think it takes a backseat to understanding and exploring the subject, with the hope of inspiring kids to take an interest. Of course, you can have both if you can find room in the day.

The draft programmes of study are now published for anyone who wants to see them. They seem pretty reasonable to me at first glance. I am a bit dismayed by all the people who see to think learning poetry by heart is some sort of cruelty, though. It is after all only a small part of the programme, and would anyone really mind if their child came home having learned to recite baa baa black sheep or incey wincey spider? Why?

@ 11 Pagar:

Chaise criticises schools that teach “that Jehovah/Allah/the FSM is the one true god”. You say “but at least other parents would be sending their children somewhere else and you would have, overall, a balanced outcome.”

No. Overall, you’d have sectarianism.

@ pagar again

“the equivalent merit of sexual orientation, the beneficence of diversity and the absolute truth of moral relativism.”

In fact, you’re contradicting yourself. Schools can’t possibly be teaching that diversity and homosexuality are good things while maintaining the principle of moral relativism. It doesn’t add up. And that’s before I even get into the contradiction of saying “moral relativism is an absolute truth”…

I’d prefer to teach children about the forms and techniques used in poetry, from sonnets and iambic pentameter to blank verse and more avant-garde “learn the rules so you can break them” stuff. They could learn about metaphor and pathetic fallacy, and Romanticism and so on, and about how poems are used to express ideas, drive home a point, and paint pictures with words.

What, at 5?

There’s a serious point buried within all of this. It’s much easier to learn how poems are constructed if you know lots of poems already. As Unity says, I don’t think this has to be learning Locksely Hall in its entirety either. For example, a good way to start talking about the deliberate breaking of the poetic form is Spike Milligan’s limerick

There was a young man from Tralee
Who was stung on the lip by a wasp
When asked if it hurt
He said no, not at all
It can do it again if it likes.

But that only works if the kids already know loads of limericks, so the form is familiar. And the best way to be familiar with poetry is to learn poems.

And on we go into my bugbear. Because this all works with history too. Teaching history obviously needs to be more than a Gradgrindian trawl through dates and battles. But abandoning the learning of facts altogether in favour of a thematic empathetic approach is pretty damn unhelpful.

Linkwhoring here (those of you who don’t want spoilers as to the J, look away now):

http://www.attainmagazine.co.uk/parents/the-pursuit-of-knowledge/

@ 12 Chaise

If we simply locked up one person, chosen at random, for each crime committed, we would have, overall, a balanced outcome.

The most outrageous straw man I have seen in a while!!!

Well, global warming comes under “science”; we shouldn’t lie about the facts to children just because some people don’t like those facts.

Agreed.

However, as you know, the GW science is far from settled (and it won’t be just because you jump up and down and say it is) and telling children that we can stop polar bears from drowning if we put the telly on standby and that we can avoid global meltdown if we build some windmills is just lying to them, in my view.

“Freedom to indoctrinate your child” is on a level with “freedom to punch people in the face” or “freedom to keep slaves”. There is a person involved other than the parent.

Yes there is. And the state is also involved and of course it knows best, doesn’t it?

There are many theories of what constitutes “indoctrination” but I am least happy when the material fed to children comes from a curriculum devised by governments (who have a vested interest in the type of adult opinions that develop).

For example, no primary school reading book features a group of children without there being some element of ethnic diversity among them and this is an unambiguous furtherance of the government’s multi-racial, multi-cultural policies. I am generally on board with such policies but I cannot agree with the manipulation of educational materials to have them reinforced in malleable minds.

Similarly, there is a thinly veiled equality agenda in state education. See the OP.

Children with Special Educational Needs have different cognitive processes than their counterparts. This doesn’t mean that they’re not clever; rather, their style of learning is different to what is ‘expected’ of them.

The progressive agenda makes it impossible for a child to be stupid (and I’m betting that word will soon be on the prohibited list) or even to be less intelligent than another child because the notion of “equality” is at it’s core.

The crux of this issue is whether the state should have proprietorial rights over the children born within its borders- in particular the right to compel them to attend schools of its choosing and receive the education that it dictates.

You will be unsurprised that I believe it doesn’t.

@ 18 Tim J

There was a young man from Peru
Whose limericks stopped at line two.

“What, at 5? ”

No, obviously. And like I said, I can see room for learning poems as well. But you said, of rote learning, “I’m not sure there’s any better way to learn poetry though is there?”. Which I strongly disagree with. It’s a poor use of time (and a great way to make children resent the information you’re trying to teach) to focus on rote-learning once kids are old enough to have an edge on their critical faculties.

Chaise: But on the other hand a single uniform curriculum also has dangers, since there is substantial variation in children – in how they learn, in what their interests are, at what ages they will want to learn various things, and so on. … and our current system basically disregards all that and says “you will learn this thing at this time in this way whether you like it or not”. (This is not a criticism of the teachers who are doing what they can within a bad system)

And I should also point out that nobody knows whether a child will benefit from an academic approach when they turn up on their first day of school, aged 5.

If we’re talking about a statistical anonymous child, this is true. If we’re talking about a specific child then I think it will be fairly obvious to people who know them well.

People demanding absolute parent choice based on “freedom” tend to studiously ignore that fact.

I’m very much in favour of allowing children to make the decisions about what they learn {1}. The curriculum-based approach does basically the exact opposite, though.

{1} Yes, yes, basic knowledge of literacy and maths is important. They can be picked up naturally as part of anything more interesting.

@ Chaise

Schools can’t possibly be teaching that diversity and homosexuality are good things while maintaining the principle of moral relativism.

Of course they can.

The concept of diversity is founded on moral relativism as is the promotion of tolerance for homosexuality.

Only the sworn enemies of the progressive consensus- racism, sexism etc are exempt from the all pervading, meta-ethical moral relativism.

@pagar #20:

However, as you know, the GW science is far from settled

At the relevant level – at GCSE and A-level – it is. That GW is happening, and that mankind has at least a majority share in the causation, is clear. That, for GW reasons as well as pretty obvious economic reasons, we must wean ourselves off fossil fuels, is also clear.

@pagar #23:

What do you mean by “moral relativism”?

” It’s a poor use of time (and a great way to make children resent the information you’re trying to teach)”

This is just not true. I can sincerely say that the part of my education that I value above all else is the large stretches of Shakespeare that I got to heart. The study of characterisation in Macbeth? Use of metaphor in Lear? It was all dross, mostly wrong and really tedious, just stuff to regurgitate to pass exams. But the words themselves are alive to me every day and change everything, like education should.

” But on the other hand a single uniform curriculum also has dangers, since there is substantial variation in children – in how they learn, in what their interests are, at what ages they will want to learn various things, and so on. … and our current system basically disregards all that and says “you will learn this thing at this time in this way whether you like it or not”. ”

But this is the tendency that Gove is redressing. So where is the applause?

@ 20 pagar

“The most outrageous straw man I have seen in a while!!!”

If by “outrageous straw man” you mean “pleasingly apt analogy”. Or if not, kindly explain why.

“Agreed.

However, as you know, the GW science is far from settled (and it won’t be just because you jump up and down and say it is) and telling children that we can stop polar bears from drowning if we put the telly on standby and that we can avoid global meltdown if we build some windmills is just lying to them, in my view.”

What we should teach them is what we know based on scientific knowlege so far. So obviously it shouldn’t include things that are conjecture. I’m not an expert on climate change, so personally I’ll go along with the view of most of the scientific community, pending further discovery.

“Yes there is. And the state is also involved and of course it knows best, doesn’t it? ”

I knew we’d get this sooner or later. I don’t know what the state knows, but I do know that spending a career studying education makes you better qualified to make educational decisions than does the act of getting pregnant, or the act of getting someone else pregnant. And state policies tend towards moderation, whereas individual parents may not.

“There are many theories of what constitutes “indoctrination” but I am least happy when the material fed to children comes from a curriculum devised by governments (who have a vested interest in the type of adult opinions that develop). ”

Really. Well, I’m least happy when the material fed to children comes from people who have no idea what they’re talking about and want to inculcate political beliefs on issues they are horribly ignorant about. Which will inevitably include some parents.

“For example, no primary school reading book features a group of children without there being some element of ethnic diversity among them and this is an unambiguous furtherance of the government’s multi-racial, multi-cultural policies.”

Source please.

“I am generally on board with such policies but I cannot agree with the manipulation of educational materials to have them reinforced in malleable minds.”

What’s your alternative on this specific issue? Should we not have any ethnic minorities in school books? Should we choose school books so their characters perfectly match the UK’s current ethnic mix? Honest question, because I suspect any combination of books could be described as chasing racial policy by someone with an axe to grind.

“Similarly, there is a thinly veiled equality agenda in state education. See the OP.

[“Children with Special Educational Needs have different cognitive processes than their counterparts. This doesn’t mean that they’re not clever; rather, their style of learning is different to what is ‘expected’ of them.”]

The progressive agenda makes it impossible for a child to be stupid (and I’m betting that word will soon be on the prohibited list) or even to be less intelligent than another child because the notion of “equality” is at it’s core.”

You need better justification for that than the quote above. Because having special needs DOESN’T mean you’re stupid, y’see. It could mean that you have dyslexia. Currently your whole opinion on the matter appears to be based on ignorance of what “special needs” refers to.

“The crux of this issue is whether the state should have proprietorial rights over the children born within its borders- in particular the right to compel them to attend schools of its choosing and receive the education that it dictates.

You will be unsurprised that I believe it doesn’t.”

You’ve just painted one side of a false dichotomy. I don’t think either the state or parents should have full control over children’s upbringing.

@ 22 cim

“But on the other hand a single uniform curriculum also has dangers, since there is substantial variation in children – in how they learn, in what their interests are, at what ages they will want to learn various things, and so on. … and our current system basically disregards all that and says “you will learn this thing at this time in this way whether you like it or not”. (This is not a criticism of the teachers who are doing what they can within a bad system)”

That’s only if you decide a national curriculum should be inflexible. I don’t think it should. It currently isn’t, although quite possibly it’s not flexible enough.

“If we’re talking about a statistical anonymous child, this is true. If we’re talking about a specific child then I think it will be fairly obvious to people who know them well.”

Really? So children have never blossomed intellectually after age 5? Sorry, but I know too many late bloomers to agree with deciding a child’s future so solidly on their first day of school.

“I’m very much in favour of allowing children to make the decisions about what they learn {1}. The curriculum-based approach does basically the exact opposite, though.”

Whereas total parental freedom does the same, only worse. I think you’re deliberately turning a blind eye here.

@ 23 pagar

“Of course they can.

The concept of diversity is founded on moral relativism as is the promotion of tolerance for homosexuality.

Only the sworn enemies of the progressive consensus- racism, sexism etc are exempt from the all pervading, meta-ethical moral relativism.”

Uh, so there are issues considered to outrank moral relativism under this fantasy version of school you’re constructing?

I thought you said it was taught as an absolute truth?

Logic fail.

27/Torquil: If I thought that any of Gove’s proposals would lead to meaningful change in that direction, then I would be cheering them. But:
“By age nine, pupils should know their times tables up to 12×12.”

“for instance, there will be a list of words that all children should be able to spell by the end of primary school.”

“Pupils will be taught to read fluently through systematic phonics.”

All seems like more of the same prescription of what shall be learned, when it shall be learned, and how it shall be learned to me. The detailed documents are similar.

And 12×12? Knowing up to 10×10 is incredibly useful (9×9 would be sufficient, but the 10s are so easy they might as well go in) – written long multiplication is a gigantic chain of single-digit multiplications, so if you don’t have to stop to calculate at each step in the chain, you can do the whole multiplication pretty quickly.

11×11 and 12×12 are useless for that. I can’t think of a single circumstance where knowing them is helpful for either mental or written arithmetic outside of the exact memorised sum.

@ 26 Torquil

“This is just not true. I can sincerely say that the part of my education that I value above all else is the large stretches of Shakespeare that I got to heart. The study of characterisation in Macbeth? Use of metaphor in Lear? It was all dross, mostly wrong and really tedious, just stuff to regurgitate to pass exams. But the words themselves are alive to me every day and change everything, like education should.”

Two things:

1) You are an anecdote.

2) “What I enjoyed the most” =/= “what most benefited me educationally”, for all that making education fun is a good thing. The point of textual analysis is that it is broad-ranging – you can apply the ideas used for Chaucer when you’re watching Apocalypse Now – and encourages independent critical thinking. The main thing I took away from English was a learned habit to *analyse* things instead of just accepting them at face value.

@ Robin

That GW is happening, and that mankind has at least a majority share in the causation, is clear.

Oh dear, here we go again……

That, for GW reasons as well as pretty obvious economic reasons, we must wean ourselves off fossil fuels, is also clear.

Not to me, it’s not. There are sufficient fossil fuels to last us for any foreseeable future I can think of.

World oil reserves are about 1.3 trillion barrels- enough to last for more than forty thousand years at current consumption rates. And that’s before we start to talk about the 5 trillion barrels of shale oil.

Admittedly it is becoming increasingly expensive to extract, but we are not running out.

What do you mean by “moral relativism”?

The belief that nothing anyone does is right or wrong, in an ethical sense, and that all behaviour, even where there is a coercive element, should be tolerated.

“The point of textual analysis is that it is broad-ranging – you can apply the ideas used for Chaucer when you’re watching Apocalypse Now – and encourages independent critical thinking. ”

Based on what? Anecdote, that’s what. There is no evidence for your claims at all. And who thinks the ‘textual analysis’ they learned at school has had any broader benefit for them? Honestly. Do you? It is unlikely because schools teach it very badly and most of what they teach is just wrong. They don’t care because all they have to do is get the kids through the exams at which point they forget all about all the palaver.

@ 34 Torquil

“Based on what? Anecdote, that’s what. There is no evidence for your claims at all.”

Um, what? If you need a source for the fact that things like metaphor, pathetic fallacy, character-as-device and so on exist in both Shakespeare and Apocalypse Now, I can only suggest you read some Shakespeare and watch Apocalypse Now.

Seriously, what evidence are you expecting? Want me to grind down Hamlet and show you 3.6 units of juxtaposition?

“And who thinks the ‘textual analysis’ they learned at school has had any broader benefit for them? Honestly. Do you?”

I do, yes.

“It is unlikely because schools teach it very badly and most of what they teach is just wrong.”

Ah, generalisation. Some schools no doubt teach it badly. Others no doubt teach it very well indeed.

How did you arrive at your conclusion that most of what they teach is wrong?

“They don’t care because all they have to do is get the kids through the exams at which point they forget all about all the palaver.”

This IS a problem, albeit one where removing the problem creates a new problem.

“Seriously, what evidence are you expecting?”

Evidence for the claim you made that current teaching practice encourages ‘independent critical thinking’. I you have none, you are arguing from personal anecdote (which is ironic, since you seem not to be thinking independently and critically about the education you received).

“How did you arrive at your conclusion that most of what they teach is wrong?”

By asking the obvious questions. Everybody in the UK has to study the skills you describe for at least five years. If the teaching is effective we would expect a nation of independent critical thinkers, no?. Do we think that is what we have? Isn’t it fair to say that independent critical thinkers are more likely to vote, to be active in politics, to steer clear of the Daily Mail and the Desmond/Cowell media juggernauts? What are the trends?

Pagar says.

“The progressive agenda makes it impossible for a child to be stupid (and I’m betting that word will soon be on the prohibited list) or even to be less intelligent than another child because the notion of “equality” is at it’s core.”

Chaise says

“You need better justification for that than the quote above.”

OK then, some questions for you.

Do you accept that some children are born with less intelligence than others?

Not talking here about children that they have special educational needs, dyslexia, ADHD or any of the other euphemisms currently popular but do you accept that some children are born, relative to their peers, stupid?

And do you believe that children who are not equally clever should be educated according to their abilities or do you believe the stupid ones should be given extra help and resources to make them more equal?

@ 36

“Evidence for the claim you made that current teaching practice encourages ‘independent critical thinking’.”

Oh, ok. No, you’re right, I don’t have a study assessing the effect of such teaching practices on critical thinking. I don’t know if such a study exists. However, it does make a hell of a lot of logical and intuitive sense: most mental skills seem to improve with practice, so if you encourage people to approach things critically, you should expect them to develop their critical skills.

You thus far seem to have assumed that rote-learning a text helps you remember that text. Notice how I didn’t demand sources for that, as it makes obvious sense?

“I you have none, you are arguing from personal anecdote (which is ironic, since you seem not to be thinking independently and critically about the education you received).”

Believe it or not, it’s possible to think independently and critically without agreeing with Torquil Macneil.

“By asking the obvious questions. Everybody in the UK has to study the skills you describe for at least five years.”

Do they? That’s changed since my (fairly recent) day, then. For me this started in Year 7 and stopped being compulsory at Year 10.

“If the teaching is effective we would expect a nation of independent critical thinkers, no?. Do we think that is what we have?”

No. This is perfection fallacy. What you would expect is a nation where critical faculties had improved, ASSUMING that no counter-trends had depressed the number.

“Isn’t it fair to say that independent critical thinkers are more likely to vote, to be active in politics…”

No. It could be true but it’s not a fair assumption.

“…to steer clear of the Daily Mail and the Desmond/Cowell media juggernauts? What are the trends?”

You tell me. If you’re going to draw conclusions from them then you need to be controlling for other variables, though. A crappy tabloid’s sales might increase because it drops its price, or gets a celebrity columnist, for example.

@ 37 pagar

“Do you accept that some children are born with less intelligence than others?

Not talking here about children that they have special educational needs, dyslexia, ADHD or any of the other euphemisms currently popular but do you accept that some children are born, relative to their peers, stupid? ”

Yes, obviously. In other news, the sky is often blue, 2+2=4, and the Earth goes around the Sun.

“And do you believe that children who are not equally clever should be educated according to their abilities or do you believe the stupid ones should be given extra help and resources to make them more equal?”

These aren’t, in fact, mutually exclusive, so I don’t know why you’re presenting them as an either/or option. But if I were to adopt one as a slogan it would be the first one.

@pagr #33:

World oil reserves are about 1.3 trillion barrels- enough to last for more than forty thousand years at current consumption rates.

Since world crude oil consumption is of the order of 86m barrels per day, or 31bn per year, your math is a little off.

And that’s before we start to talk about the 5 trillion barrels of shale oil.

Admittedly it is becoming increasingly expensive to extract, but we are not running out.

Expensive in cash terms, which will increasingly affect our economies; and expensive in energy terms, so those 5bn barrels are actually equivalent to far less when the energy needed to produce it is taken into account. Even the most easily extracted shale oil (Canadian oil sands) has an EROEI of only somewhere between 1.5 and c5, depending on precisely how it is calculated. At an EROEI of 1.5, 5trn bbls is equivalent to only 1.67trn bbls. If it drops below 1, of course, then it doesn’t provide any net energy at all.

Chaise: Really? So children have never blossomed intellectually after age 5?

I think you’re seriously misunderstanding what I’m trying to say here. I’m saying that _at the age of 5_ it will be obvious if _at the age of 5_ a school style of learning is suited to them. That says nothing about whether or not it would be better at the age of 7. But that’s fine – arrangements can be reassessed at age 7 if so.

That’s only if you decide a national curriculum should be inflexible. I don’t think it should. It currently isn’t, although quite possibly it’s not flexible enough.

Have you read the proposed draft curricula? (Which, the conservatives are telling us, and which may be true, are an improvement on the current situation…) It’s pretty rigidly defined, year by year, as to what a child should have learned by the end of that year. It allows for going faster in certain areas – but it does not allow for going slower in other areas to compensate, which is no real flexibility.

Someone who would “naturally” learn to read at 8 and then rapidly catch up with those who “naturally” learned at 4 is not going to be best suited by being stuck at age 5 into a system which requires them to have a particular level of reading ability at every age “or else”. The current setup basically requires every child to learn in every area at equal to or faster than the median rate…

So this child who would learn to read later than average (but without difficulty, and without impact on their later life) is instead being required by the school system to spend effort on learning it now, at greater personal difficulty, so taking away from time they could have spent learning other things that would come more easily to them. (Which I think will leave them on average behind where they could have been in a flexible system)

Whereas total parental freedom does the same, only worse. I think you’re deliberately turning a blind eye here.

I was never arguing that parents should have total control any more than I was arguing that the state should have total control. I was arguing that if the child’s rights and opinions were important, that the child should have at least some control over the direction of their own education.

Parents and state both need to provide checks on each other to support this: the parents have a legal responsibility to ensure that their child is educated; the state therefore has a responsibility to ensure that they are doing and also to provide mechanisms to make it easy for them to do so. At the moment I think the state is failing in its role by only providing suitable mechanisms for the education of some children (specifically, those who learn the 3 Rs at or above the median rate, and who are psychologically suited to a busy and regulated school environment)

Now, admittedly, on the current budget or anything in that order of magnitude, I think the state is inevitably going to fail. A proper education system needs to be strongly tailored to the individual learning requirements of each learner, which probably requires at least a tripling of staffing levels, maybe more (which will require quite a bit more than a tripling of the budget).

@pagar #33 contd:

What do you mean by “moral relativism”?

The belief that nothing anyone does is right or wrong, in an ethical sense, and that all behaviour, even where there is a coercive element, should be tolerated.

That looks more like normative moral relativism than the metaethical relativism you were claiming a little upthread – and perhaps you could give an example of this teaching? My daughter is in year 9 at present, and hasn’t yet got to that part of the syllabus.

@ cim

“I think you’re seriously misunderstanding what I’m trying to say here. I’m saying that _at the age of 5_ it will be obvious if _at the age of 5_ a school style of learning is suited to them. That says nothing about whether or not it would be better at the age of 7. But that’s fine – arrangements can be reassessed at age 7 if so.”

You’re right, I have misunderstood you. Apologies. Trooper seemed to be saying that parents should be allowed to declare that their 5-year-old wasn’t academic and hence send them into an non-academic education career. I was pointing out the danger of this as a specific example of the problems with the “parents know everything” fallacy.

“Have you read the proposed draft curricula?”

No. I agree with your analysis. Schooling isn’t currently (prior to these proposals coming into effect) completely inflexible, is the point I’m making. There are (or were, perhaps I’m out of date) ways of teaching kids based on needs. Special classes for special-needs kids; streamed classes in secondary schools. Like I say, it’s possible this doesn’t go nearly far enough.

“I was never arguing that parents should have total control any more than I was arguing that the state should have total control.”

Fair enough. You seemed to be arguing with my support for a state curriculum vs total parent choice by naming problems with the current state curriculum that would in many ways be worse if the rules were removed. Hence my interpretation of what you were saying.

“I was arguing that if the child’s rights and opinions were important, that the child should have at least some control over the direction of their own education.”

Agreed.

“Parents and state both need to provide checks on each other to support this: the parents have a legal responsibility to ensure that their child is educated; the state therefore has a responsibility to ensure that they are doing and also to provide mechanisms to make it easy for them to do so. At the moment I think the state is failing in its role by only providing suitable mechanisms for the education of some children (specifically, those who learn the 3 Rs at or above the median rate, and who are psychologically suited to a busy and regulated school environment)”

If so, this probably goes back to targets. The problem with any form of incentive scheme is that you incentivise people to do well under the scheme, which is very unlikely to be the same thing as doing what you need them to do.

Although removing targets creates its own problems. It’s not an easy fix.

“Now, admittedly, on the current budget or anything in that order of magnitude, I think the state is inevitably going to fail. A proper education system needs to be strongly tailored to the individual learning requirements of each learner, which probably requires at least a tripling of staffing levels, maybe more (which will require quite a bit more than a tripling of the budget).”

As much as triple? I’m surprised. Personally, I have no problem with a lot more money going into education, though. Creates jobs, too.

43/Chaise: There are (or were, perhaps I’m out of date) ways of teaching kids based on needs

To an extent, yes, but nowhere near enough even back then (and it’s got less flexible over the last 20 years).

Streaming is I think more an administrative convenience than actually in the interests of the children, though, since it makes it very difficult to rise to a higher set later (you’d have to do a lot of intensive catching up)

as much as triple?

Well, I’m thinking that five minutes of individual attention out of every hour should probably be considered an approximate minimum standard (with equivalent ratios for activities done as small groups, or whole-class discussions, or whatever). So, allowing for some overheads, that’s roughly a teacher:pupil ratio of 1:10. Current ratios are closer to 1:30, so that’s about tripled.

Would require about a 40% increase in total government spending, I think, to fund it, assuming no cuts elsewhere, but it is basically the fundamental problem with the current system. Since politicians can’t fix that, rearranging the details of the curriculum at least lets them feel like they’re doing something.

@ 44 cim

“Streaming is I think more an administrative convenience than actually in the interests of the children, though, since it makes it very difficult to rise to a higher set later (you’d have to do a lot of intensive catching up)”

Don’t know about an admin convenience. Without streaming, you could just organise each year into classes anyway without scheduling problems when one pupil was good at maths but bad at English, and without parents griping about their kid not being in top set. But you’re right about it being restrictive, based on my experience. At my secondary (Year 7-11), once you were out of Year 7 there was basically zero chance of moving set. And for everything that was streamed but wasn’t maths or science, they just used your English set, which seemed born of convenience rather than effectiveness.

“Well, I’m thinking that five minutes of individual attention out of every hour should probably be considered an approximate minimum standard (with equivalent ratios for activities done as small groups, or whole-class discussions, or whatever). So, allowing for some overheads, that’s roughly a teacher:pupil ratio of 1:10. Current ratios are closer to 1:30, so that’s about tripled.”

Interesting. I was thinking along the lines of using traditional streaming, but with smaller class sizes (say 20:1) and people divided into sets per subject, plus out-of-hours voluntary classes for those trying to move up.

“Would require about a 40% increase in total government spending, I think, to fund it, assuming no cuts elsewhere, but it is basically the fundamental problem with the current system. Since politicians can’t fix that, rearranging the details of the curriculum at least lets them feel like they’re doing something.”

I expect you’re right.

re my #40:

World oil reserves are about 1.3 trillion barrels- enough to last for more than forty thousand years at current consumption rates.

Since world crude oil consumption is of the order of 86m barrels per day, or 31bn per year, your math is a little off.

Just to emphasise – “a little off” is in this case 3 orders of magnitude off; 40 years instead of 40,000 (1.3 * 10^12/3.1 *10^10). You may have assumed that a trillion bbls was one million billion bbls – it isn’t, it’s only one thousand billion – because it’s Americans who are counting them.

In the light of that mistake, you may want to reconsider your position on how scarce oil actually is; in particular cheap oil, which is on its way to rivalling hens-teeth.