Layer 488 . . . Top Boys, Dealers, Secateurs, Pavements, Cities, Teenagers, Gangs, Psychopaths, Intelligences, Profits, Crimes and Hackney

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Reclaim The Pavements

You can say what you like about capitalism, globalisation, bankers and the like, but my pet hate at the moment is people who let their trees and shrubs grow unchecked and thereby block our pavements - sidewalks if you prefer. Even partial blocking is intolerable.

I was thinking about this yesterday, and had a sudden realisation. Why wait for the local Council to take these idiots to task and send them a warning letter? We're supposed to be a Big Society, aren't we? Clearly direct action is the answer.

Therefore I'm proposing a Reclaim The Pavements movement, whose members carry a pair of secateurs in their pocket or their bag and simply snip off the bits that grow across boundary walls and fences, which annoy passers-by.

To begin with, it shouldn't be necessary to do a wholesale pruning job. Just taking  off a few bits of privet or buddleia or whatever ought to send the right message to the idle sod who can't be bothered to keep their garden in check, especially if the debris is left lying on the ground as a mark of shame. Seeing the cuttings and the debris (and the snipped shrubs) would also give encouragement to fellow RTP activists, who would know they're not alone.

But what if the offender is shameless, or has gone away, or is too old and feeble and poor to do the pruning themselves? In that case, I reckon we should carry a standard supermarket plastic bag and fill it with snippings, prior to disposing of the bag in a dustbin or recycling bin - or possibly just leaving the bag in the offender's garden.

Job done.

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Top Boy

Last night saw the start of a new series on Channel 4 -

A thrilling and raw four-part drama about young lives lived on the edge in east London - an honest and gripping rendition of inner-city drug and gang culture

It's worth taking a look at the Top Boy website, and maybe watching it on 4oD if you missed it.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/top-boy

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/oct/30/top-boy-reviewed-by-hackney-residents-panel

Personally I find this kind of stuff almost unwatchable - like a hyped-up and even nastier version of EastEnders - but it's better to have writers and programme makers dealing with these sorts of subjects than just ignoring them. Entertainment it isn't. (I feel the same way about "We Need To Talk About Kevin" - it's important to think about psychopaths and the nature of evil, but I personally don't want to see the film.)

There's plenty of evil on show in Top Boy. One of the nastier highlights concerned the use of a pair of secateurs to cut off the finger of a rival drug dealer in order to demonstrate to a drug supplier (baron!) that the new boy on the block is capable of such snipping - such ruthless and psychopathic violence. There were plenty of guns and knives on show and in use as well.

I guess the point of Top Boy is to show how young kids become corrupted and ruined by gang culture. We already know well enough that gang culture exists, and gangs run the trade in drugs in our cities and towns. We certainly need to do a lot more to protect the children in our neighbourhoods - to give them decent supervision, support and housing would be a start. To lift their lives out of poverty would also help.

By themselves, however, these things are not enough. There's a brand new block of flats near where I live, which is now populated by at least a couple of dozen teenagers and their families. I see these kids hanging about on the streets. Yesterday one of them actually lifted his bike from the position where it was lying on the pavement to allow me to walk past their group. "All right, boss?"  he said as I passed. "Thanks," I said.

Politeness, respect, consideration, civility. To recognise you're blocking the pavement, and then do something about it.

We need to talk about the Kevins of this world - the psychopaths as well as the mere teenagers - and we need to address their actual needs, if our societies are to function and thrive. There's no point in just telling  them what to do - it's in the nature of a 'normal' teenager to be a rebel and a non-conformist. It's in the nature of a psychopath to just do whatever they're going to do, regardless of the feelings or wellbeing of those they damage.

Psychopaths clearly have no 'better nature' - they have no capacity for empathy, and their concern is only for themselves. They seek only power, pleasure and personal gain. With teenagers it's different, and they're capable of developing personal, social, emotional and spiritual intelligence, if we only care to show them how . . . if we only know how to educate them. Preferably beginning a long way before they even get to teen age. How come we're not doing it? - or not doing it well enough, in the majority of cases.

As for Hackney - bottom of the bloody 'league table' for the speedy adoption of kids according to news bulletins yesterday - Top Boy could be yet more bad publicity. [Is it necessarily a bad thing to take time over the proper placement of kids with adoptive parents? Maybe the 'bottom' in this case could actually be the top? I speak as someone who likes to take time to do things properly and thoroughly.]

Although an article in Sunday's Observer which pre-viewed Top Boy banged on about Hackney, it wasn't particularly noticeable from the actual programme that it was set in Hackney. The estates and the streets could have been in almost any of our cities or districts - obviously the poorer parts.

For those of us who live in Hackney, we won't recognise, for the most part, the characters and the activities depicted in Top Boy. Day to Day life in most parts of Clapton, Dalston, De Beauvoir, Stoke Newington, Stamford Hill, etc, is decent, civilised, courteous and polite. People of all backgrounds, skin colour, religions and ethnicities don't just 'tolerate' one another - they enjoy living together and befriending one another, even when life is hard and it's a struggle to survive.

That said, I fear for what may happen in the years ahead, as council budgets are squeezed ever harder, as provision for the poor and the needy becomes ever scarcer. I still have strong memories of life under the Tories last time around, as mass unemployment hit the poorer communities that already had little enough, and people found it ever harder to buy decent food, clothes and household items. People who have nothing have nothing to lose - as Bob Dylan reminded us all those years ago.

Last time around teenagers found new ways of making money - such as mugging, 'steaming', and stealing car stereos. There was also a huge increase in tried and tested ways of getting money, such as burglary and shoplifting. In recent years these forms of criminal activity have seen a marked decline - in Hackney and elsewhere.

Meanwhile corporate kleptocracy increases at a phenominal rate. Yesterday Barclays announced massive multi-billion pound profits for the year so far. And this is a bank that contributed hugely to the financial crisis that's still continuing. What's more, the profits announced yesterday weren't from merchant banking - from the banks' casino operations. These are  profits from the 'High Street' - from ordinary punters, like you and me. Do they think that people still don't realise they're being ripped off by the City, by the banking cartel? Those profits are OUR money. As are all their bale-out funds, which saved the entire financial system from collapse.

The only people they're not making profits from are the already-rich (who do their banking differently, let's say) and from those who have no money to begin with.

More of this in the next blog.

Incidentally - the main fault with Top Boy is that the actors - as good as they are - all look too nice. They look like decent, pleasant, intelligent individuals - which of course is exactly what they are. Just like the majority of people out on the streets - like those who cleaned up Clarence Road after the riot. Just like the majority of those who took part in the Pembury/Clarence Road riot, in fact, and haven't been involved in violence or wrong-doing since the riot took place.
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Layer 459 . . . Work, Education, Management Culture, Creativity, Collaboration and Character

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BBC2  - The British At Work

Unfortunately it's not just Brits who got sucked into fuckwit work culture and management culture. It's been a worldwide phenomenon - working ever-longer hours under management that's either Hitlerian, Machiavellian or David Brentian. Possibly all three simultaneously, depending on whether management thinks your 'performance' is OK or not.

The good thing about working in a public service not-for-profit 'professional' environment used to be that you were treated as an intelligent being who didn't need to be 'motivated' - you did more and gave more than you should, simply because you were there to serve others. Very sadly this is, by and large, no longer the case. Nowadays management consultants and business schools have convinced senior management everywhere that target-setting and payment by results should be applied to the 'workforce'. Nowadays everyone has to be micro-managed and performance-managed to death.

Throw into this mix management by email, by text, and by 'bonus' culture, and you have total alienation, stress, anxiety, loss of morale, illness and breakdown.

Work-life balance? Don't be stupid.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zg047

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zvf3f#synopsis

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Here are some quotes from an essential article in Guardian Education:

Let's look at all the evidence from top educators abroad

Michael Gove is keen to see what we have to learn from education systems internationally, but the lessons may not be as straightforward as he thinks, says Valerie Hannon

"Recently Michael Gove has stressed the importance of comparing education systems internationally, as seen in the OECD's Pisa studies, and of learning from the most successful nations. But what should our response be?

"The education secretary enthuses about Andreas Schleicher, of the OECD, calling him the "most important man in English education" for the insights his work confers. Schleicher's analysis, according to Gove, shows, first, that "we [England] are falling further and further behind other nations"; and second, that the key to success is "to recruit the best possible people into teaching and provide them with high-quality training and professional development". This is true – as far as it goes. But it is a partial analysis.

"What have successful systems to tell us about the issues we face today? Schleicher's work demonstrates compellingly that demand for the competencies 20th-century school systems were good at imparting (routine cognitive and manual skills) is falling sharply among employers across the world. He shows that 21st-century systems need to prepare young people with the skills to undertake non-routine analytic and, especially, non-routine interactive tasks. Schleicher's conclusion is: "The skills that are easiest to teach and test are also easiest to digitise, automate and outsource."

"The implication of these findings is that systems need to prepare students "to deal with more rapid change than ever before … for jobs that have not yet been created … using technologies that have not yet been invented". This is about learning how to learn, and new ways of thinking that involve creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving and decision-making. It is in sharp contrast to an emphasis on the capacity to reproduce facts." 

The really outrageous aspect to all this good sense is that 'progressive' educators have been saying these things since the early 20th century, and others like Dryden & Vos (The New Learning Revolution) have been banging on about it in more recent years - to no good effect in dopey old England.

"For this is the perspective being adopted by the world's leading systems. Rather than relying on past achievements, they are reconceiving how they approach the future. Take Finland – always at or near the top of the Pisa rankings. The director of the Finnish board of education has described how their system has identified the key competencies for lifelong learning, and is setting about transforming their system to ensure they're acquired. Critically, this entails enabling learners to "undertake meaningful problem-based inquiry, which might be multi-disciplinary, supported by blended teaching methods and hybrid resources". The Finns aren't giving up on acquiring knowledge. They just know it's not enough.

"Then there's South Korea, another "top performing" system. Perceived as exam-driven, cramming its students, Korea is set to change. Exploring the work of its very best schools has revealed that they focus on providing concentrated time for some subjects (rather than shallow drip-feed); on personalising learning; on evaluating creativity; and on experience-based learning. South Korea is basing its innovation agenda on the "three C's": creativity, collaboration and character.

"And finally, take one of the most improved cities in the world in terms of education performance – New York City. Gove recently hosted the former chancellor of the NYC school system, praising the rapid progress made by the city. What he omitted, however, was that NYC has acknowledged its current set of school improvement initiatives is inadequate to deal with the challenges young people face. So it has a launched an Innovation Zone, comprising a distributed network of schools, specifically to test and refine new approaches to learning and teaching that are more personalised and emphasise higher-level skills.

"So yes, let's join the global education community seeking out the best ways to make learning engaging and relevant to young people in the digital age. But let's do it with open minds, and attention to all the evidence."

Valerie Hannon is a board director of the Innovation Unit

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Layer 446 . . . Genius, JMK, Hating Liberals, Understanding Economics, Friedman, Will Hutton, Elephant Mothers and Education

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John Maynard Keynes was a liberal, and was a member of the British Liberal party.

Right wing and neo-conservative Americans hate all liberals, for reasons it's important for the world to understand.

JMK was a genius who received worldwide recognition for his work in economics - and yet very few of us have even heard of him, let alone educated to know about his work so that we understand his ideas even at a very basic level.

This is a level of ignorance we should be ashamed of. It's like having no knowledge of science whatsoever - like not even knowing that water can both evaporate and freeze depending on its temperature; like not knowing that matter is composed of atoms and molecules; like not knowing that micro-organisms can cause sickness and death.

The right-wing economic theories of Keynes-haters like Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman have caused social devastation, sickness and death on a massive scale, but very few of us understand why.

Keynes was a political and ideological individual in that he wished to rid the world of the evils of poverty, unemployment, ignorance, greed, hyper-inflation, extreme inequality and unfettered capitalism. These are goals which are shared by all true liberals and socialists, who also understand that government of the people by the people and for the people has a massive role to play in putting the needs of "society" into political policy and practical action.

All true conservatives, like Hayek and Friedman (and Bush, Palin, George Osborne, oligarchs, bankers and the majority of financiers) hate the idea of being governed by the will of the people - hate the idea of collective action to end poverty and social injustice, hate the idea of regulating the activities of the rich and the super-rich.

Barak Obama is hated by American conservatives and Republicans because he's regarded as a liberal or even a socialist - since he advocates tackling poverty and extreme inequality, and wishes to re-regulate capitalism for the benefit of the people as a whole. He's hated because he expresses disgust at a world in which most people are undereducated and unnecessarily impoverished whilst a small elite live in conditions of unnecessary and unimaginable wealth and luxury. Obama wishes to 'spread our wealth a little more fairly'.

Conservatives do not. Conservatives love speculation, casino capitalism and financial bubbles because these things enable them to get even richer - at the expense of the poorer and the more ignorant sections of society. Conservatives hate the very idea of taxation and will do everything possible to avoid paying their share of it. Conservatives love the idea of a 'flat tax' which means that everyone pays (roughly) the same amount of tax, regardless of their abilty to pay.

So what did Keynes discover, and what did he say? Hands up everyone who hasn't a clue! Yes - you there at the back! Before jumping to Keynes' 'The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money', consider these quotes -

Ideas shape the course of history.

It is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.

It would not be foolish to contemplate the possibility of a far greater progress still.

Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.

For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still.

A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind.

Americans are apt to be unduly interested in discovering what average opinion believes average opinion to be.

Education: the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the indifferent by the incompetent.

I do not know which makes a man more conservative - to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past.

I work for a Government I despise for ends I think criminal.

If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid.

Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.

Most men love money and security more, and creation and construction less, as they get older.

Nothing mattered except states of mind, chiefly our own.

Successful investing is anticipating the anticipations of others.

The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that still carries any reward.

The biggest problem is not to let people accept new ideas, but to let them forget the old ones.

The day is not far off when the economic problem will take the back seat where it belongs, and the arena of the heart and the head will be occupied or reoccupied, by our real problems - the problems of life and of human relations, of creation and behavior and religion.

The decadent international but individualistic capitalism in the hands of which we found ourselves after the war is not a success. It is not intelligent. It is not beautiful. It is not just. It is not virtuous. And it doesn't deliver the goods.

The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.

The disruptive powers of excessive national fecundity may have played a greater part in bursting the bonds of convention than either the power of ideas or the errors of autocracy.

The importance of money flows from it being a link between the present and the future.

The social object of skilled investment should be to defeat the dark forces of time and ignorance which envelope our future.

Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assaults of thoughts on the unthinking.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_General_Theory_of_Employment,_Interest_and_Money

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That's probably enough Keynes and economics for today. Tomorrow we can consider the fact that Chicago-school Friedmanite economics has, for very obvious reasons, come to dominate political and economic discourse throughout the world - to the extent that a whole generation of politicians like Blair, Brown, Osborne, Cameron and Clegg have grown up in lectures and seminars where their tutors have deliberately set out to discredit Keynes and indoctrinate the ideas of Friedman and Hayek. Most of the civil service leadership and a new generation of political "special advisors" also seem to have taken MBAs which were mainly or totally free-market Friedmanite Chicago-school in their approach. And you don't get your MBA unless you subscribe to the globalisation/trickle-down/free-market/deregulation/small-governernment/low-taxes bullshit.

Homework for today is to read up on John Maynard Keynes from a variety of sources, eg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Maynard_Keynes

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/keynes_john_maynard.shtml

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUkeynes.htm

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Those wishing to read around this subject should also have a look at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/sep/15/politics


http://www.davidhilfiker.com/docs/Economics/The%20Shock%20Doctrine%20-%20summary.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine

http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/the-book

http://www.scribd.com/doc/16090536/Klein-The-Shock-Doctrine-2007-Synopsis

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Ignorance is an evil weed, which dictators may cultivate among their dupes, but which no democracy can afford among its citizens.
William Beveridge

Scratch a pessimist and you find often a defender of privilege.
William Beveridge

The object of government in peace and in war is not the glory of rulers or of races, but the happiness of common man.
William Beveridge

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Will Hutton

It's impossible to overstate the need to read Will's book, The State We're In. Here's a man who never abandoned his allegiance to Keynesianism even during the dark days of Thatcherite triumphalism and the pre-bust days of neo-conservatism.

His last three or four pieces in the Observer are also well worth looking at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/16/will-hutton-bankers-bonuses

Bringing the bankers to heel must start right here, right now

Big Finance has to be brought under control or outrageous bonuses will still be paid and there will be another crisis

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jan/23/ten-ideas-for-better-britain

Ten ideas for a better Britain

Here are ten challenges for the Labour party to rediscover its radical edge

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/30/will-hutton-davos-world-economic-reform


Where are the leaders who will reform the world's economy?

The world financial system needs a radical overhaul, though last week's cosy Davos conference suggested otherwise

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In this week's column Will raises some really key issues which are as much about education and schools as they are about economics, society and finance, insofar as they deal with innovation, creative thinking and imagination.

Don't be blinded by the web. The world is actually stagnating

If we want to step up the pace of invention, there has to be a huge shift in the way we think

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/feb/13/will-hutton-innovation-must-be-encouraged

Western policymakers were bullied by the financial oligarchs into believing that the market is magic. Thus banking could become a deregulated global market, privileged ahead of all other forms of economic activity. Innovation was left to look after itself. What were seen to matter were lower regulations, lower taxes and reduced worker entitlements – not using the state to build the ecosystem in which innovation, experimentation and investment flourish as had been done through the early part of the 20th century, even until the free market revolution.

If we want to step up the pace of invention, there has to be a huge shift in the way we think.

This is a huge ask. For 30 years or more the consensus has been that governments necessarily and always fail – and only markets succeed. But reality is beginning to intrude. Even the coalition government, wedded to the old-time religion, is finding that if it wants a growth strategy it has to do what used to be prohibited – design markets and build institutions that innovate.

An innovation strategy is being devised. Invention and innovation, we are discovering, are much too important to be left to the tender mercies of markets.

What Will doesn't emphasise, and what's hugely important, is that our education system nowadays doesn't even set out to help young people develop the skills that they, and we, desperately need. Our schools concentrate almost entirely on coaching children to pass tests and exams. Parents hire tutors to cram their kids to get better grades - even in piano and guitar playing. Grades are currency - the wealth of youth with which they purchase places at colleges and universities.

Meanwhile they're failing to develop the more crucial life skills - critical thinking, imagination, creativity, innovation, communication, team-working, and so on.

Of course we can't (and shouldn't) mark and grade and categorise these higher aspects of learning, which need continuous practice and encouragement from birth if they're to flourish.

The Chinese, the Finns, the Danes and a few others have understood the importance of a type of education that releases young people to develop their full potential. We have not. We once led the world in progressive education, but the conservative counter-revolution long ago killed off all innovation and progressive thinking in most of our schools.

We're now a stupid country led by stupid people and brainwashed by a mainly stupid media into thinking stupidly about children and education. How long will it be before people wake up and see the truth? How long before children are allowed to have a proper childhood and grow up as fully developed human beings?

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The human race needs elephant mothers, not tiger mothers

Where is the appreciation that we are social animals in Amy Chua's competitive approach to parenting?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/feb/13/tiger-mothers-parenting-children

by Peter Singer

Many years ago, my wife and I were driving somewhere with our three young daughters in the  back, when one of them suddenly asked: "Would you rather that we were clever or that we were happy?"

I was reminded of that moment last month when I read Amy Chua's Wall Street Journal article, Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior," which sparked more than 4,000 comments on wsj.com and over 100,000 comments on Facebook. The article was a promotional piece for Chua's book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, which has become an instant bestseller.

Chua's thesis is that, when compared with Americans, Chinese children tend to be successful because they have "tiger mothers," whereas western mothers are pussycats, or worse. Chua's daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to watch television, play computer games, sleep over at a friend's home, or be in a school play. They had to spend hours every day practising the piano or violin. They were expected to be the top student in every subject except gym and drama.

Chinese mothers, according to Chua, believe that children, once they get past the toddler stage, need to be told in no uncertain terms when they have not met the high standards their parents expect of them. (Chua says that she knows Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish, and Ghanaian mothers who are "Chinese" in their approach, as well as some ethnic-Chinese mothers who are not.) Their egos should be strong enough to take it.

Stanley Sue, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis, has studied suicide, which is particularly common among Asian-American women (in other ethnic groups, more males commit suicide than females). He believes that family pressure is a significant factor.

Chua would reply that reaching a high level of achievement brings great satisfaction, and that the only way to do it is through hard work. Perhaps, but can't children be encouraged to do things because they are intrinsically worthwhile, rather than because of fear of parental disapproval?

Chua's focus is unrelentingly on solitary activities in the home, with no encouragement of group activities, or of concern for others, either in school or in the wider community.

Tigers lead solitary lives, except for mothers with their cubs. We, by contrast, are social animals. So are elephants, and elephant mothers do not focus only on the wellbeing of their own offspring. Together, they protect and take care of all the young in their herd, running a kind of daycare centre.

If we all think only of our own interests, we are headed for collective disaster – just look at what we are doing to our planet's climate. When it comes to raising our children, we need fewer tigers and more elephants.

Copyright: Project Syndicate 1995–2011

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I agree with all of the above - I'm 100% behind the idea that we should educate children to become socially, emotionally and spiritually intelligent - but again it's important to stress the disastrous effect of indoctrinating young people into believing that competitive grade-getting is more important than learning to be creative, imaginative, innovative and critical thinkers.

Children also need guidance in setting their own learning directions and agendas, and encouragement to look within and think critically about what's there - to overcome negative and destructive ego-states.

Ego-driven hyper-competitive people like Amy Chua need to read some Chinese philosophy and try to cultivate some wisdom instead of mere academic attainment. They also need to be charged with being abusive to children.

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Layer 425 . . . Education, Facts, Knowledge, Feelings, Gove, Gradgrind, Idiocy, Pedagogy, Ritalin, Curriculum, Intelligences, Zen and Lifelong Learning.

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"Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!"

Thomas Gradgrind-Gove - Hard Times

http://www.fidnet.com/~dap1955/dickens/hardtimes.html

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Prescriptions of Ritalin as a controlling drug for UK children are currently running at 600,000 per year. A pundit on the Today (R4) programme thought that there's no problem with this -  if the end result is that there's an "increase in educational performance". No need to discuss what we mean by "educational performance" of course - we all know and agree that it simply means improved test and exam results in pursuit of arbitrary targets and league table scores.

So there we have it - there's no need to concern ourselves with moral, ethical, social and psychological issues - just focus on the child's ability and willingness to "settle down", become more passive, submit to traditional schooling and cramming for tests, and just say alleluyah for hitting the test and exam targets.

The presenters on our flagship news programmes allow their pet pundits to get away with this stuff. No wonder we're such a fucking dumb nation.

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Confirmation, finally - as if it were needed - that Michael Gove is completely and utterly stupid. He's also an elitist and an evil bastard. He's demanding that the National Curriculum be reduced to a focus on "facts and knowledge".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9367000/9367626.stm

This man presumably has access to the huge body of work which tells us that Gradgrindism ("Teach these boys and girls nothing but facts") is not only futile, not only alienating, not only pointless, not only ridiculous - it's also counterproductive in the 21st Century in a huge number of ways. He's either not read about, or doesn't understand, the need for a New Learning Revolution.

The sole point of Gradgrindism is to sort out the academic goats from the non-academic sheep, and determine which of our children will go to university (if indeed that's what they want to do) and which of them will go to the elite universities. It has no other purpose.

It doesn't serve the needs of commerce and industry, which need individuals with imagination and creativity, and people with their social and emotional intelligences working effectively. 

It doesn't meet the needs of society in general, which also needs all of the above.

It doesn't meet the needs of individuals - to become rounded people who are capable of reaching their full potential, to become lifelong learners who enjoy learning for its own sake, to become active citizens, to become fully evolved human beings, etc.

It's profoundly depressing that an arrogant and ignorant little jerk like Gove is now calling all the shots in English education.

http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2008/04/layer-20-fully-evolved-humans.html

http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2008/05/layer-44-eyes-and-ears-of-community.html

http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2008/05/layer-48-eevnin-stannad-standards-evil.html

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Chapter II — Murdering The Innocents

THOMAS GRADGRIND, sir. A man of realities. A man of facts and calculations. A man who proceeds upon the principle that two and two are four, and nothing over, and who is not to be talked into allowing for anything over. Thomas Gradgrind, sir — peremptorily Thomas — Thomas Gradgrind. With a rule and a pair of scales, and the multiplication table always in his pocket, sir, ready to weigh and measure any parcel of human nature, and tell you exactly what it comes to. It is a mere question of figures, a case of simple arithmetic. You might hope to get some other nonsensical belief into the head of George Gradgrind, or Augustus Gradgrind, or John Gradgrind, or Joseph Gradgrind (all supposititious, non-existent persons), but into the head of Thomas Gradgrind - no, sir!

In such terms Mr Gradgrind always mentally introduced himself, whether to his private circle of acquaintance, or to the public in general. In such terms, no doubt, substituting the words ‘boys and girls,’ for ‘sir,’ Thomas Gradgrind now presented Thomas Gradgrind to the little pitchers before him, who were to be filled so full of facts.

Indeed, as he eagerly sparkled at them from the cellarage before mentioned, he seemed a kind of cannon loaded to the muzzle with facts, and prepared to blow them clean out of the regions of childhood at one discharge. He seemed a galvanizing apparatus, too, charged with a grim mechanical substitute for the tender young imaginations that were to be stormed away.

‘Girl number twenty,’ said Mr Gradgrind, squarely pointing with his square forefinger, ‘I don’t know that girl. Who is that girl?’

‘Sissy Jupe, sir,’ explained number twenty, blushing, standing up, and curtseying.

‘Sissy is not a name,’ said Mr Gradgrind. ‘Don’t call yourself Sissy. Call yourself Cecilia.’

http://www.online-literature.com/dickens/hardtimes/2/

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I had an interesting chat with my son. He's very certain that when it comes to decisions and actions we should always trust our instincts. He's very against doing what anyone else suggests or advises.

He thinks we should all be in touch with our instincts, and prioritise them above the demands and wishes of those around us - our families, our society and the prevailing culture.

Leonard Cohen, of course, said, "I don't trust my inner feelings . . . Inner feelings come and go."

To this, my son says - when your feelings change, you should change with them. And deal with the consequences. (I'm sure Len would agree with him about that - his essential point about not trusting inner feelings was to do with the impermanence of the things we associate with 'love'.)

I think I know what my son's getting at. Ultimately we all need to develop a Zen attitude of spontaneity, authenticity, acting-without-acting, living without fear or anxiety, seeing each life experience as a positive from which we can learn something and from which we can continue to develop ourselves. Ultimately we must look within ourselves for our direction and our decisions, and not allow ourselves to be directed by others or by the prevailing culture - as long as our decisions and our actions don't harm others unnecessarily and inappropriately.

Where I disagree with him is in his referring to what I'd call a Zen attitude and a Zen life as simply 'following our feelings' or 'trusting our instincts'. This blog has discussed at length, in previous Layers, the importance of developing a distinctive 'instinctual intelligence', and also the need to become, through meditation, fully aware of our true selves - our personal intelligence. It's also focused on the need to develop other intelligences, which I've referred to as 'spiritual intelligence' (intuition, etc) and 'social intelligence' (empathy, etc.) If all of those intelligences are working well and working collaboratively, together with our intellect, then we can also become 'emotionally intelligent' and become more able to control our destructive emotions.

It's not mere pedantry or a matter of semantics to clarify and separate out these various intelligences, and to see 'instinctual intelligence' as simply a component of our whole psyche, so that someone who acts 'spontaneously' solely on the basis of 'instinct' is seen to be acting without the benefit and input of all of his/her intelligences. In essence our hard-wired instinctual intelligence just prepares us for flight, fight, freeze and sex. (Although various skills, such as driving and playing a musical instrument, can also become more or less 'instinctual'.)

Words matter. Concepts matter. Intelligences matters. Developing (and using) all of our intelligences matters very much indeed. But don't expect Michael Gove and the coalition government to understand any of that.

What a pity that their pal Anthony Seldon can't help them to see the uselessness of an Education Secretary and an education system that value "largely worthless pieces of paper" and very little else.


Charles Dickens satirised the living daylights out of a school system that killed children's curiosity and reduced children to being passive memorisers of so-called facts and knowledge - and that was way back in the 19th Century, before computers and the Internet were even imagined. The ridiculous Gove still doesn't, and won't ever, get it. The man is an absolute joke.
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Layer 416 . . . The Ashes, Test Match Cricket, Night Owls, Digital Lives, Tiredness, Energy, The Winter of our Disconnect, and the Gift of Time

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'And gentlemen in England now a-bed shall think themselves accursed they were not here'.

So here I am pouring a glass of best malt whisky and breaking open a box of chocolate brazils - by way of middle of the night celebrations. It's all over now. An Ashes victory by three games to one - all three victories by an innings and plenty.

I've never been a massive sports fan, and could never understand the nutters who stay up all night listening to Test Match Special during Ashes series Down Under. So how come I've recently spent hours in the middle of the night following the Over By Over reports on the Guardian website whilst listening to TMS on the Radio 5 site? What's been so special about this team and this series?

I spent some time yesterday looking forward to a good night's sleep tonight - following  the swift removal of the remaining three Aussie wickets before midnight London time. First of all, however, there were the previous day's highlights to enjoy on ITV4 between 10.00 and 11.00 pm. Extremely enjoyable. Now for the main course - the final climax and the final celebrations . . .

Imagine the wretched feeling then - waking up at well past midnight, and realising that I'd fallen asleep and missed it all! The moment of victory! The excitement and the joy! The post-match comments and plaudits! What an idiot!

Except . . . wait! This is amazing! It's been raining in Sydney and play's been held up! Plus - the tail enders have been hanging around and are still in there, still holding on. Thank heavens for those much derided Aussies - Smith, Siddle, Hilfenhaus and Beer.

Then down they went, one after the other - Siddle caught by Anderson, after slogging into the outfield; Hilfenhaus caught behind; Beer getting his stumps smashed down by Tremlett - the perfect ending to a winter-long saga.

Truly a moment to savour. And I wasn't joking in the last blog when I said that Australia is fortunate to have been well and truly beaten by a clearly superior side, and not just pipped by a bunch of equally ordinary players. The Aussie commentators have rightly been able to concentrate on the brilliance of the English, making only passing references to the defeated Australians, relatively speaking.

Most of the English team were interviewed afterwards. How different, and how pleasant, they are - compared to the England footballers. The horrors of Rooney, Gerrard, Terry, Ferdinand et al. (Walcott is the exception - and he wasn't picked for the World Cup Finals. Remember Rooney cursing the English fans as he left the pitch following a diabolical and shambolic performance by both him and the team?) I could go on, as usual, about the importance of intelligence, but I won't.

Swann spoke intelligently about the dangers of hubris, the need to stay grounded, and so on. Strauss made a lighthearted comment about being personally responsible for the victory thanks to  passing on batting tips to Cook. (An antidote to the crass Pietersen comment about how it was him wot won it?)

I felt sorry for Trott - out for a duck in the Test in which his side scored a record total for a single innings by an England team in Australia, with no further opportunities in the series to redeem himself. Collingwood was also a slightly sad figure.

Interestingly Pietersen wasn't on the interview parade. Has he been advised to keep his stupid big mouth shut? Or has he finally worked that one out for himself?

So is cricket the new rock n roll? Er - no. But those of us who are currently enjoying the brilliance of this particular team would seem to have a lot to look forward to. Victory in the World Cup next year - the 50 overs one-day form of the game - would be the perfect follow-up to two consecutive Ashes victories, and the World 20-20 victory in South Africa last year.

Test match cricket may be a minority sport these days, enjoyed mainly by the likes of night owls, retired colonels and the Barmy Army, but it surely deserves better than to have its highlights broadcast at 10.00pm on ITV4 - a TV channel whose rubbish programmes are not even listed in proper newspapers.

The people who run the game should be held responsible for it becoming a minority sport, thanks to selling the broadcast rights to Sky Sports - a minority channel watched only by a few hundred thousand hard-core sports nuts.

Access is vital. I feel sorry for the kids of today, who have no chance of spending lazy summer days with their families watching enthralling Test matches (and Test series) unfold on open-access terrestial television. Maybe the majority of them would do so whilst multi-tasking on Nintendo thumb-twiddlers, and whilst updating Facebook pages on laptops and smartphones, but so what? Some of us also multi-task by making cups of tea, glancing at newspapers and pouring tots of whisky. This is the beauty of Test Match cricket - it's part of your daily life, whether on radio or TV, and not a substitute for it. Day or night.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/jan/07/ashes-england-australia

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/jan/07/the-ashes-2010-11-england-australia


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This week's Book of the Week on Radio 4 has been one of the best. A necessary, original and important book.

The Winter of Our Disconnect

By Susan Maushart. How one mother imposed techno-silence on three angry teenagers for six months

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00x79zh

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/lifestyle/the-winter-of-their-disconnect-how-susan-maushart-and-her-family-lived-without-technology-for-six-months/story-e6frf00i-1225866993954

"There were lots of reasons why we pulled the plug on our electronic media ... or, I should say, why I did, because heaven knows my children would have sooner volunteered to go without food, water or hair products. At ages 14, 15 and 18, my daughters and my son don't use media. They inhabit media. And they do so exactly as fish inhabit a pond. Gracefully. Unblinkingly. And utterly without consciousness or curiosity as to how they got there.

They don't remember a time before email, or instant messaging, or Google. Even the media of their own childhood - VHS and dial-up, Nintendo 64 and "cordful" phones - they regard as relics, as quaint as inkwells.

They collectively refer to civilisation pre-high-definition flatscreen as "the black and white days".

The most arresting points made by today's extract from the book were about the tiredness brought on by relentless and excessive digital multi-tasking on the part of teenagers (and others), and how much better we become as people when we're not tired and have plenty of mental and physical energy. The point was also well made that time without access to digital media is potentially time available for reflection and meditation, which are also vital for living well.

It's a question of balance . . .
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Layer 383 . . . Finding Your Passion, Ken Robinson, Education, Natural Talents, Happiness, Bildung, Denmark Again, and Human Dignity

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Ken Robinson was on Saturday Live on Radio 4 this morning, talking about his new book.

Thankfully he keeps insisting we think about our undiscovered natural talents, and the sheer waste of millions of people who dislike the work they do because they've never been able to figure out what they're really good at doing, what they really enjoy doing, and the special talent that's hidden within.

Thankfully he keeps on pointing out  that our education system is modelled on the industrial systems of the 19th Century, and is unfit for the 21st.

It's a system that's intended to produce conformity and uniformity. People can't find out what they're good at - only what they're not good at.

Sir Ken's new book is called "The Element - How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything."
http://sirkenrobinson.com/skr/the-element

He went on to say that our education system is preoccupied only with certain types of ability.

"Every country in the world is trying to figure out where to go with education."

There was also discussion about "the happiness question", which is being widely considered here and elsewhere. Is happiness our ultimate goal? What are the conditions under which people are likely to feel most fulfilled? Methinks Oxzen has been here many times before.

A guy called Mathew Rickard   -  a Tibetan Buddhist - is apparently the happiest person in the world - as measured by brainwaves that can indicate levels of peace and contentment.

According to Ken Robinson we need an education system that recognises talents by customising the system for the real needs of learners.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Element-Finding-Passion-Changes-Everything/dp/1846141966

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The really infuriating thing is that Sir Ken and his committee of enquiry pretty much said all of this more than 10 years ago, in "All Our Futures - Creativity, Culture and Education", and was totally ignored by politicians and bureaucrats, who simply continue to ignore anything that goes against their dull and counterproductive obsession with academic attainment.

 http://www.cypni.org.uk/downloads/alloutfutures.pdf

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Happiness index to gauge Britain's national mood
Despite 'nervousness', David Cameron wants measure of wellbeing to steer government policy 

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/nov/14/happiness-index-britain-national-mood

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What philosophy tells us about the happiness index
 

Thinkers from Bentham to Heidegger saw measuring happiness as more than just a box-ticking exercise
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/15/happiness-index-philosophy

Aristotle recognised that, unlike some other branches of philosophical enquiry, ethics is not an exact science.

In the 18th century, Immanuel Kant made this point even more strongly: of course we all desire happiness, said Kant, but we do not know what it is or how it will be achieved. Anyone who has pursued something in the hope that it will make her or him happy – whether this be a career path, a relationship, or a holiday – only to find it disappointing, and even a source of stress and anxiety, will know what Kant was talking about.

However, the government's plan to measure happiness raises a further and perhaps more profound philosophical question: regardless of whether this is possible in practice, is it the best way of thinking, even in principle, about what it is to live a good human life?

The essence of technology, argued Heidegger, lies in the idea that life is something to be controlled and mastered . . . Heidegger linked the accelerating domination of technology in the 20th century with the idea that modern humanity faces a spiritual crisis. According to this view, utilitarian approaches to ethics in general, and attempts to measure and regulate happiness in particular, are symptoms of this crisis rather than solutions to it.
 

Perhaps the wisest people are those who . . . recognise that happiness cannot be engineered, for it comes and goes, more like a gift that is given than a commodity that is produced.

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Can a happiness index really measure our wellbeing? See how we compare to the rest of Europe

Can you really create a happiness index? As the government gets set to give it a go, see how the national wellbeing accounts score each country

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/nov/15/happiness-index-wellbeing-nef

Denmark is top!

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Measuring happiness, the French way

French national statistics office produces guidelines on measuring well-being as precursor to national happiness index

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/17/france-happiness-index

Crucially, it was easier to measure unhappiness, so the French team focussed on assessing those who felt they were missing out.

"You can't measure happiness, it's impossible, people don't have the same preferences for what makes them happy," said Stéfan Lollivier, director of social studies at Insee. "But you can measure the fraction of people who are dissatisfied, who think they are unhappy, and the proportion of people who are missing out on happiness or feel excluded from it."
 

The figures showed single-parent families were the most likely to miss out on happiness. More than one French person in five had gone through a period of "poverty" in their lives - not just financial poverty but an overall lack of wellbeing.

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I've managed to find an almost-interesting article by Peter Mortimore. Dull writing style, but important subject matter.

The Nordic countries could teach us about teamwork in education

English, Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish policy researchers could learn a lot from each other if we followed the example of the Nordic countries

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/oct/05/education-policy-nordic-countries

The Unicef survey of children's national conditions, like the "happiness" scale drawn up by researchers at York University, firmly places the Nordics among the best and the UK among the worst. And an OECD analysis of "earnings mobility" and "income inequality" show that Nordic countries are high on the former and low on the latter – in direct contrast to UK figures.

Our politicians, of all parties, appear fascinated by Nordic education although, up to now, it has been Sweden's policy of school choice rather than the impressive success of Finnish comprehensives on which they have focused. If only they could free themselves from their ideologies and switch their interests, they would learn a great deal about how to improve the academic success of all pupils in all schools.
 

In comparison with the UK, the Nordic countries generally have more land, but far fewer people. They are a little richer, but more equal. They traditionally also spend more on education than the UK. In terms of values, they are committed to the idea of bildung – a difficult-to-translate German word often taken to mean the formation of a child within an education milieu that aspires to liberty and human dignity as well as academic prowess.

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What on earth is Gove up to now?

Teachers need emotional as well as academic intelligence, says Gove

• Minister insists recruits should be from 'top tier'
• Education white paper promises training change
 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/nov/19/teachers-emotional-intelligence-michael-gove

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Gore Vidal tells this apparently true story about happiness:

Harold MacMillan was dining with the De Gaulles. He asked Madame what she was hoping for in her retirement years.

"A penis", she replied.

Seeing the perplexed look on Harold's face, Charles leans over and says, "What Madame means is, 'appiness."
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Layer 373 . . . More Legacy Thoughts, Churchill, Education, Zephaniah and China

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21. Become a lifelong learner, develop all six intellgences on a daily basis, and become the best person you can be. Combat laziness and inertia. Learn to respect yourself and others. Don't worry about or strive to win the admiration, respect and affection of others. As with happiness and love, these things will come to you if they find you worthy.

22. Understand the difference between education and attainment, between learning and enlightenment, between knowledge and understanding.

23. Develop an understanding of human values and virtues, and make them central to your life.

24. Whenever possible promote and pursue truth, justice, freedom, fairness and equality. Support those who take a stand on these issues and principles.

25. Avoid excess, nihilism, waste, greed, idleness, meanness, cruelty, indifference, ignorance, deceit, exploitation, passivity and aggression.

26. Learn to be assertive, and walk the fine line between passivity and aggression. Also learn the value of 'non-attachment'.

27. Be aware that you will reap whatever you sow. Understand the circularity of karma.

28. Learn the value of intuition and empathy, of instinct, of sensory awareness, of intellect, of passion. Learn the value and also the limitations of each of these, and learn to differentiate between them. Learn the difference between productive passions and destructive emotions.

29. Understand that love, creativity and imagination are virtues that depend on the interplay of all six intelligences.

30. Understand that time is precious, and to be time-rich is more valuable than being materially wealthy.

31. Learn how to communicate effectively.

32. Learn how to listen to the voices of others, and show respect for other voices even when you disagree with them.

33. Learn who is worth listening to, but also try to understand the voices of your opponents and enemies.

34. Learn how to appreciate the natural world, and learn from it.

35. Learn about leadership and followership, both of which require us to speak truth to power, and a willingness to be constructively critical.

36. Be aware that some things will knock you down that you don't even see coming. Be alert.

37. It's life's difficulties and challenges that cause learning to take place, and ultimately lead to wisdom and enlightenment. Burying your head in the sand is not an option.

38. Learn from the past. Don't dwell in it.

39. Live in the present - to the full. Don't ignore it or let it pass you by.

40. Embrace the future - don't fear it.

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Winston Churchill

Thanks to the journalists' strike yesterday I found myself listening to a programme on the radio that was in part about Winston Churchill's upbringing and education.

In short, Churchill "failed" at school. He was easily bored and hated traditional 'academic' approaches to teaching and learning.

Note - there was no consideration of whether the school had failed Churchill.

The programme went on to say that Churchill possessed a very fine 'instinctual' intelligence. What this may be is a capacity to pick up things quickly from real life, and to pay attention only to those things in real life that are intinsically interesting and stimulating.

It's likely that people who have excellent instinctual intelligence are also good at 'lateral thinking'. They're able to 'think outside the box', see the hidden or possible connections between things, and have a lively imagination. They're creative and original thinkers.

It's as outrageous now as it was in Churchill's time to fail to recognise and to provide for pupils with good instinctual intelligence who hate traditional didactic approaches to schooling.

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Benjamin Zephaniah

Dr Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah (born 15 April 1958, Birmingham, England) is a British Jamaican Rastafarian writer and dub poet. He is a well-known figure in contemporary English literature, and was included in The Times list of Britain's top 50 post-war writers. - Wikipedia

                             

BZ was on Radio 4's Loose Ends this morning. He's another educational 'failure', another creative thinker and writer, and another fiery 'instinctual' learner. He's dyslexic and still has problems with reading. He finished school at the age of 13, still illiterate, having hated school throughout.

Dr Z talked about his love of China, where he spends several weeks every summer - part of the time learning martial arts at Shaolin. He says China is "the most misunderstood country".

He likes visiting different countries just to get out of his own comfort zone and as a challenge to his present thinking.

Coincidentally there was an interview on the Today programme this morning with several Chinese students who are studying at the LSE.  Wonderfully articulate, they explained why they endorse the Chinese political system, whereby communities send delegates to speak and act on their behalf on local, regional and national councils.

They were dismissive of our so-called democracy whereby we're persuaded by advertising, propaganda and broadcasting to vote for 'representatives' who have no accountability other than through the ballot box. Once in Parliament or on the local council these people can just do their own thing, become subservient to a rogue Prime Minister, for example, and even switch parties if they feel like it.

The students also spoke about value systems, about enjoyment of life, and about the idea of 'the collective' being far more important to Chinese people than 'individualism'. The Chinese are far more inclined to think in terms of the 'we' rather than 'me'. They justify decisions in terms of the benefits to communities, rather than personal gain. Sounds a bit like socialism.

In the next few years we're likely to see and hear increasing belligerence coming from America towards China. We mock, ridicule, belittle and disrespect the Chinese at our peril. We're so fucking convinced of our superiority - both in terms of our culture and our political system. Also in terms of our 'freedom' and our wealth. There's so much to consider about China, its future role in the world, its relationship with and support for the developing world, and its approach to economics and education, for example. Far more than Oxzen can manage at the moment.

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Layer 342 . . . Cambridge, the Ebb Tide, the Great Wave, Art, Education, Suicide, Apprenticeships and Arsenal

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And so to Cambridge. Such a strange town. So historic and academic, and yet so twee. So busy, and yet so boring.

The worst thing about Cambridge is the lack of pubs. Almost a complete lack of pubs. Why?

If you persevere in tramping around the whole of the town centre you might eventually come across a fine looking pub with a sign outside it advertising the fact that the local newspaper reckons it's the best pub in Cambridge. When you go inside, however, you notice a good range of real ales BUT ALSO very poor ventilation, a lingering stink of cooking, and horrible loud music. At which point, if you have any sense, you walk out. The Mitre truly sucks. Pity poor Cambridge if that's the best of its pubs.

Fortunately there's an excellent tapas bar nearby, with a decent, spacious interior and excellent welcoming staff. The food is good too, and they served the best draught Peroni I've ever tasted, which means it's very good indeed.

Apparently La Tasca is a nationwide chain. I really must get out more.

http://www.latasca.co.uk/cambridge/gallery/1851
http://www.latasca.co.uk/cambridge/gallery/1846

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The Fitzwilliam Museum's not really my kind of place, but it had one exhibition in just one smallish room that was totally wonderful - "Gifts of the Ebb Tide: Japan and the Sea in Ukiyo-e Prints."

The only print on show which was on loan from elsewhere was the famous Great Wave by Hokusai, which belongs to the British Museum. It's an image that draws you back to it constantly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokusai

The rest of the prints in the exhibition were owned by the Fitzwilliam museum - the majority of them being prints by Hiroshige. Pretty amazing they are too.

http://www.google.co.uk/images?q=hiroshige&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=g7ttTLroKdO6jAe-q9n7CA&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CDMQsAQwAA&biw=1440&bih=625

It's interesting that Monet, reckoned by many to be France's greatest-ever artist, chose to fill his house in Giverney with Japanese prints, and literally nothing else in the way of art. Can't have a much higher recommendation than that.

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It's 'A' level results time and university clearing time, and almost back to school time.

I'm starting to think that there are two kinds of  people in this country. Those who give a damn about real education and its benefits, and those who don't. Those who realise that our education system isn't fit for purpose, and those who don't.

Then there's a sub category of people who realise that our education system sucks but haven't much of a clue what to do about it. There's a further sub category of people who think they have a clue or two, but haven't really.

This means that the number of people who a) care about education, and b) truly understand what needs to happen to it in order to improve it and make the system fit for the 21st Century, amounts to less than 0.001% of the population, at most.

Sadly none of them are politicians or journalists - the people who are elected to make decisions on behalf of we, the people, and those who are paid to write opinions which are then broadcast through the media in order to influence 'public opinion'. No wonder we're a nation of over-examined and under-educated fuckwits.

In the Guardian recently we find Priyamvada Gopal, who teaches postcolonial studies at Cambridge University, apparently, who says,

University mustn't again be the rich's hereditary domain

Corralling the young into vocational factory farms or apprenticeships splits further the educated elite from those who service it

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/19/university-education-is-a-right-for-all

"Restricting access to higher education, in conjunction with vicious attacks on the support base of schools, wages and housing, only accelerates the drive towards absolute economic segregation.

A mature democracy thrives by widening access to higher education. Corralling young people into vocational factory farms does not equal progress. Life is not a television show where gruff millionaires airily dismiss formal education and magically transform eager young things into corporate high-flyers. What is masquerading as the good old-fashioned common sense of apprenticeships and skills over higher education is really the politics of dismissing the intelligence and abilities of ordinary people. We must fight hard to retain common ownership of education and have a real discussion about the role we want it to play in our lives and society."

Common ownership? What kind of a fantasy land is she living in? Our education system is directed by, managed by and constrained by a small number of politicians, bureaucrats and professionals who are UTTERLY CONVINCED that our education system, (which is mainly geared up to creating elites through examinations, and a system through which those so-called elites did very well themselves) is still for the best in the best of all worlds.

To imagine that regular people have any stake in our education system, let alone 'ownership', is pure fantasy. Nobody, but nobody, does well out of an education system that is 99% geared up for so-called 'academic' excellence and ignores the development of other intelligences as well as the need for critical thinking, creativity and use of the imagination. I may have said this somewhere before.

The system doesn't even help young people learn how to become autonomous learners - they need to find that out for themselves. As for developing a love of learning for its own sake . . .

"We must fight hard to . . . have a real discussion about the role we want [education] to play in our lives and society."

Who's involved in that fight then? It seems we have to fight hard to even have a discussion about real education. As for actually doing anything about it . . .

The Cambridge Review of Primary education has been and gone, and how many people even noticed its publication? It's pathetic. Practically nobody cares about the real learning needs of children and young people, or has any idea what they might be, or any idea about how schools (academies!), colleges and universities should go about meeting those needs.

We don't need education to "play a role" in 'our' lives and 'our' society. Whose society would that be, then?

 We need education to meet the real learning needs of people of all ages, actually, and to help with the development of all of our intelligences - not just the academic and the intellectual. We need education to help our people to find out who they really are, and to discover a personal pathway towards greater enlightenment and a proper way to live their lives. Naturally this would involve changing a great many things in our society - things that conservatives, including New Labour, including the majority of the bourgeoisie for that matter, are desperate to 'conserve'.

A few comments from CIF:

Tybo

The problem is class based. Because the Universities in the UK were associated as much with class privilige as with academic excellence, people without degrees were looked down on and not accorded the respect that they should have been.

That is an ongoing problem. But the answer is not to make everyone do dumbed down degrees. The answer is to raise the status and respect we have for people who achieve things outside of university and academia.

KingCnutCase

Countries such as Germany and South Korera manage to run thriving apprenticeship systems without tying themselves into paroxysms of progressive angst about the 'fairness' of university education vs vocational education.

They don't stuff 3rd rate educational establishments to the gills with gullible teenagers on debt-funded media studies and golf course management courses. They put people on proper vocational courses that lead to decent, well paid jobs in proper trades.

But it's ok 'cos our economy is so much more successful than theirs isnt it? Oh, hang on....

Bluejil

The whole of the system needs changing, starting at the primary level and with a curriculum that meets the needs of a 21st century society. Sadly, I do not see a vision of modern, viable education in the current government, but they sure will feel the affects of their delusions in ten, twenty years time when a great deal of the population is uneducated and unskilled and unable to find employment anywhere on the planet.

More from Tybo

I did mostly arts oriented things (very mixed at Keele) but what shocked me was that whilst my [non-university] squatting mates in Norwich were avidly reading Kerouac and Ken Keysey, Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Braughtigen, when I did an American Studies class nobody else had read any American writers at all. Not a single fellow student.

The tutor treated me like I was Christ reborn - it was such a shock to him to find a student studying American literature who was actually interested in it.

95% of the students had not read a book since whatever they had been set for their A level English. They were there because going there was what you did to get a better job. Not because they had a scintilla of interest in what they were studying.

I hate to think what it must be like now.

Phoenixflabskin

As a number of posters have already noted, the fundamental problem is silly middle-class left-wing snobs like the author. The upper ranks of the Labour Party, and newspapers like this, seem to be stuffed with them.

Unwilling to countenance the idea that their own precious ones might not get a 'proper professional career', they then have to assuage their left-wing guilt by making sure that all the poor 'working-class' people have the same 'opportunity'. So you end up with an army of people with little or no academic inclination earning honours degrees in Sociology of Batwoman and Lesbotic Yoga from the University of Bootle, and if they're lucky and they know the right people ending up as Transgender Awareness Seminar Facilitators for the local council, or if they're not lucky end up on the dole with a mountain of debt, while proper useful jobs like sparks and plumbing get done by immigrants.

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An article by Julia Margo had the title "Learning New Ropes" in the newspaper, but on the website appeared as:

A way out of the mancession

A-levels and university are no guarantee of a job. Particularly for men, an apprenticeship is better

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/19/apprenticeship-unemployment-gender-gap

Some time ago a friend who had lost his City job confessed he had considered killing himself. I was appalled but not surprised: while men are being hit harder by the recession than women they are also seem to be showing less resilience in dealing with unemployment and economic insecurity.

[How the hell do we expect people to be personally & emotionally resilient when they've never had much of an opportunity to find out who they are, or develop much in the way of personal, emotional and spiritual intelligence?]

Academic qualifications appear to offer them little protection against unemployment . . .

Research by Mind has shown that up to one in seven men who become unemployed will develop a depressive illness within six months; two-thirds of men under 35 were out of work when they killed themselves.

This trend alone is enough for some to claim that a "crisis of masculinity" is on the horizon. But suggestions of a deeper, potentially seismic shift in our society should make politicians sit up and listen.

The emerging knowledge economy demands a new, softer skill set – empathy, sociability, confidence, resourcefulness. Women are perceived as being better at soft skills, and now they count for more. In the course of just over a decade, Demos research found, these skills became central to life chances: for those who turned 30 in 2000, such character capabilities had become 33 times more important in determining earnings.

[Softer?!! For 'character capabilities' read personal, social, emotional and spiritual intelligences.]

But character can't be taught in the classroom.

[No it can't - which is to say that you cannot learn "character" in the way you can be didactically taught maths and science - not that those things are best taught didactically anyway. However, classrooms ARE the best places for developing "character" - those other intelligences - providing teachers know what to do and how to organise learning so as to facilitate those sorts of essential development.]

If this issue in the classroom isn't addressed, boys, with a skill set that seems to become less valued by the day, will continue on the path to asbos rather than A-levels.

So what can be done? Interestingly there may be a genuine solution. Demos research shows that boys and young men can substantially boost employability, income and wellbeing by doing apprenticeships from age 16 instead of, or as well as, A-levels.

[So that's alright then - we can start work on 'developing character' from the age of 16, or as soon as young people move beyond GCSE.]

Boys who took apprenticeships were more confident, happy and skilled by the time they were 30 than their non-apprentice contemporaries.

Society needs to get over this obsession with A-levels as the gold standard if we want to give boys the chance to succeed in this new job environment. Rigging A-levels won't help. They need training to help them operate in the workplace, not qualifications that prepare them to fail.

[She calls it 'training'. Like you do with dogs. Especially dogs who "operate in the workplace", presumably.]

So here's someone who sees at least part of the problem, but in spite of her very privileged position as acting director of Demos - the leading so-called left wing so-called think tank - and presumably the 'beneficiary' of an 'elite' education herself - has very little clue about how to frame the problem adequately, let alone any real idea about how to transform our attitude and our approach to education from the Nursery onwards in order to make it fit for purpose.

Just another example of how far we have to go in order to promote any real change in how we do things on this island.

Julia - you're fired!

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Football Matters

Interesting news this week that Arsenal have decided to work with their supporters to encourage fans to buy part-shares and so gradually move the club towards becoming a supporter-owned community club, similar to Barcelona and Real Madrid, and most of the German clubs.

Arsenal step back from era of rich owners and offer fans a voice

• Club's approach is enlightened compared with debt-laden rivals
• What is the social value of the beautiful game?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/david-conn-inside-sport-blog/2010/aug/18/arsenal-kroenke-usmanov-owners-fanshare

Arsenal  supporters will be invited today to buy shares in their club in affordable slices of the £10,250, which is the current prohibitive price of just one. The Arsenal Supporters Trust hopes that its scheme, Arsenal Fanshare, five years in the planning, will enable supporters to slowly build a meaningful stake and voice, and help preserve Arsenal as the only major Premier League club not owned by a single rich individual.

"Custodianship" is the trust's cherished theme; the principle that a football club exists for its supporters, not for speculators to exploit by buying up shares. Arsenal Fanshare allows ordinary supporters to make monthly contributions, from a minimum of £10 to a maximum £1,000, which will be pooled towards buying shares when they become available.

Remarkably, Arsenal Fanshare is enthusiastically backed by the club itself, as a means of encouraging fans to be participate and be "engaged", which is emerging as a core principle at Arsenal and the more enlightened professional clubs. The contrast with the open warfare between fans and absolute owners at debt-laden Manchester United and Liverpool could hardly be more marked.

"In the club's relationship with supporters, the important thing is that fans are valued and nurtured, not exploited," Ivan Gazidis, Arsenal's chief executive, says. "That's not only good for the club's soul; it is also ultimately good for the club overall, because engagement with our fans helps us to be healthier, more vibrant and successful."

"The aim is to increase supporter ownership and influence," Tim Payton, the spokesman for the trust, says. "The vast majority of our members and, we believe, most Arsenal fans, favour supporter involvement in the club and have no appetite for private ownership by a single individual, and certainly not for excessive debt. This is an opportunity for supporters to gain a voice, for a relatively modest contribution, and it should be a model for other clubs too."

Had the idea of mutual, democratic ownership been conceived, and the iconic examples of supporter-owned Barcelona and the Bundesliga clubs been understood 30 years ago, before the Premier League's pay-TV and commercial revolution, fans clubbing together might have had a chance of buying their clubs outright, even one as distinguished as Arsenal.

Arsenal offer 'fanshares' to dampen fears of takeover

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/aug/18/arsenal-shares-fanshare-supporters-trust

The sports minister, Hugh Robertson, told the Guardian yesterday: "This proposal at Arsenal is enlightened and forward-looking. Clearly it is for individual clubs to decide, but this is a model I'd like to see other teams explore."

Arsenal hail new model of top-flight club ownership

• Campaign for democratic involvement led by Supporters Direct

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/aug/18/arsenal-new-model-club-ownership

Previous comments about Arsenal here:

http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2010/02/layer-257-philosophy-and-economics-of.html

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Layer 246 . . . Bright Blue and Another Education Debate – Part 2

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Continuing from yesterday's Layer (245)  .   .   .   .   .   .   .

So what was last night's meeting (at bright blue) on about?

Here's what Dr Seldon had to say for himself:

Our education system currently concentrates on teaching children how to pass tests and exams - relentlessly coaching them - in what are virtually factory schools. Very little active learning takes place - it's mainly about passive memorisation.

Parents and schools need to work together to combat the top-down (political and bureaucratic) drivers of the system. We should be taking our inspiration from Harvard's multiple intelligences model. Intelligences can be arranged in pairs -

logical . . . . . linguistic

personal . . . . . social

spiritual . . . . .  moral

creative . . . . . kinaesthetic (physical)

We need to nurture all 8 of these 'aptitudes'.(?)

The time for a monolithic system of State education has passed.

When Dr Seldon became the head of Wellington School five years ago there was no wellbeing agenda or multiple intelligences approach. Thanks to the introduction of these things the school has improved dramatically, in all aspects of children's achievement, happiness and wellbeing.

He says his parents and children 'love' the 8-intelligences model.

He believes teacher training is very important and we need to teach young teachers to think!

He's proud to be a theist who is 'enchanted' by art, poetry and nature.

Dr Seldon claimed that States such as China are relentlessly persisting with an education system that's essentially about "hammering facts into children". This is odd since there is documented evidence that China has switched to a completely new paradigm for teaching and learning - in line with what can be called the Dryden and Vos model - whilst it's Britain and America that persist with trying to hammer in the facts and making academic attainment the be-all and end-all.

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Meanwhile, Toby Young declared that he's "wary" of concepts like multiple intelligences and any distractions that allow children to 'opt out' of traditional academic subjects. (!)

Mr Young is certain that children need above all a subject-based and knowledge-based curriculum.

In answer to the question 'What is education for?' Young is quite clear that the purpose of schools should be to go on driving up 'academic standards'.

He believes we've been 'dumbing down' by offering kids "economy-driven, utilitarian, skills-based learning" and "lowering the bar with utilitarian Diplomas". He says the 'drift from subject-based learning' is failing children. Children in State schools are no longer developing the ability to think critically and analytically about the world. This is due to the current 'tyranny of liberalism'. Children need a fairly narrow academic curriculum.

He gave as an example of what should be happening a Charter school in East Los Angeles - the Renaissance Art Academy, whose children are taught to make 'intelligent free choices'.

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Anthony Seldon supports the idea that people like Toby Young should be able to set up their 'own' schools. Universities had had to introduce their own screening exams because teachers in both independent and State schools have learned how to teach and coach to the tests and to successfully cram kids for exams. Teachers are now merely technicians, and the targets culture has bent and distorted what goes on in schools - not in the true interests of children.

He pointed out that people like Digby Jones are very unhappy since employers are saying that schools are failing in many ways to prepare children for adult life and the world of work.

Children are generally far from happy. Exclusions are rising. Violence is escalating.

Seldon believes that all schools should be privatised, and a voucher system introduced. Schools should be able to please themselves what they offer - be it academic or artistic or sporting achievement, etc. Parents should have a choice as to the type of schools their children attend.

Teaching tricks and techniques to pass exams is simply not enough.

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Toby Young says the State now needs to fund overcapacity and create surplus places in order for there to be genuine choice on offer.

Far too much money is wasted on Local Authorities. More should be spent on setting up Free Schools.

Young is concerned, however, about the possibility of schools being set up by people he regards as nutters, crazy, outlandish, etc. He mentioned Steiner schools, which of course would be considered nutty by him since the Steiner ethos is all about offering more choice and empowering children with regard to the studies and skills they prioritise. Also the emphasis they put on social, emotional and spiritual intelligence.

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To his credit Dr Seldon said immediately that Steiner schools do a superb job. They are 'fantastic'.

He also said he supports the International Baccalaureat, and that GCSEs and A Levels are bad exams. Our current examination system is aimed at giving examiners what they want, and not allowing pupils to have genuine individual responses to books, poems and plays like MacBeth.

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Toby Young evidently has a problem with epistemological relativism and wants to challenge it. Hmmmmmm. He also has a bee in his bonnet with films like The Matrix and Avatar.

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Anthony Seldon thinks we should be opening children's hearts and minds by offering them lessons in philosophy and thinking skills, which is what happens at Wellington. Children need to become independent thinkers.

He says State education has done great things, but "that era is now over". We now need to trust and to empower children and parents. Schools should be places that foster a spirit of genuine enquiry and where there is delight and a driving curiosity.

He is encouraged by shadow minister Gove saying the next (Tory) government will reduce the influence of Local Authorities.

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Toby Young believes that schools such as the Mossbourne Academy in Hackney are giving their kids the best life chances by putting them through a 'demanding academic curriculum' and having very high expectations.

Naturally he didn't consider to what extent Mossbourne's greater academic success is coming about partly through a rigorous screening of the children who apply for places.

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A lady from Montserrat, who considers that children in this country do not listen to their teachers and that discipline is what is needed, asked the two speakers to sum up in a sentence what education is really about. She herself thinks its purpose is to restore in man the image of his Maker.

Toby Young thinks it's to liberate children from the tyranny of the State. (The tyranny of TY is infinitely preferable.)

Anthony Seldon thinks it's to build a better society.

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If you can be bothered, you can eventually catch all of the above on video on  Bright Blue's website:

http://brightblueonline.com/events.htm

Already on there is the previous debate - "Does Inequality Matter?" - which took place on January 12th 2010 when the speakers were Theresa May and Polly Toynbee.

Anthony Seldon's recent interview on the Today programme is here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/listen_again/newsid_8515000/8515877.stm
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