Layer 232 . . . Welcome To The Real World

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The Guardian had a curious "Advertisement Promotion" in it yesterday, a four-page spread called "Welcome to the Real World", wrapped around the Family section of the newspaper - for want of a better place.

It's there in the paper to draw attention to a DVD that was given away yesterday, and the front page of this 'promotion' says, "The world is changing, but our education system is not keeping pace. A new hard-hitting film calls for a fresh approach to learning."

As you probably know, Oxzen is very keen on fresh approaches to learning. Haven't had time to watch the DVD as yet, but will get round to it today. Be assured the next blog will reveal all.

In the meantime, here's a bit more blurb for you:

"The world is changing rapidly, but our education system is not keeping pace with these changes . . .

Young people need an education rich with opportunities for practical and vocational training, alongside traditional academic study. As Dr Cream Wright, (Cream?) global chief of education for Unicef says in a new film, "Schools fail to prepare young people for contemporary society, for the realities of the world we live in and, more significantly, for the emerging issues of our time".

The film We Are The People We've Been Waiting For, inspired and guided by Oscar-winning producer Lord Puttnam, looks at where the education system is going wrong and how we can address the issues that are of vital importance to everyone."

David Puttnam is definitely one of the good guys, so the film is probably well worth watching.

Have a look at this 'advertorial' -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/we-are-the-people/welcome-to-the-real-world
http://www.guardian.co.uk/we-are-the-people 

And it's on the Internet!

http://www.wearethepeoplemovie.com/....................................................

So what else has been happening in The Real World?

Simon Jenkins wrote another superb column that gets to the real heart of the matter as far as the banking disaster is concerned. Everyone needs to get their heads round this piece of reality.

Name, shame, blame the bankers, if you like. But they're the wrong target

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/26/name-shame-bankers-wrong-target

Who said bankers "just don't get it"? They get it absolutely. Bankers are doing what they pay themselves to do, make money. They are performing what economists from Adam Smith to Karl Marx regarded as capitalism's sacred ritual, profiting by rigging markets and shedding risk. Like all professions, their first responsibility is to their peer group and their second to their shareholders. It is not their job to run the country, only sometimes to ruin it.

The banking community came a cropper last year but manoeuvred itself out of trouble by deploying the oldest trick in the book: claiming that the government needed them even more than they needed it. They were "too big to fail".

Ministers and regulators bought the gambit hook, line and sinker. They all hollered that bonuses were "ludicrous" (Darling), that banks had "lost sight of basic British values" (Brown) and were "antisocial" (Lord Turner). But it was all mouth. For them to accuse the banks of behaving obscenely might be a brief buzz, but what are a few insults to a banker on a roll?

It was not the banks that do not get it, but those on whom the public relies to guard its interests: Brown, Darling, Myners, King, Turner, the Treasury and the Financial Services Authority. The bankers this past year have played a blinder. Next month they will give themselves large bonuses while the nation troops to the dole office. They merit the order of the golden fleece, first class.

Then came today's report from the latest Hercules sent by Alistair Darling to clean the City's Augean stables, Sir David Walker of Goldman Sachs. He predictably concluded that nothing more than a feather duster was needed. He seemed to think that his fellow bankers would decamp en masse to Monaco if so much as rapped over the knuckles. So what?

As if that were not galling enough for the taxpayer, the supreme court – asked to adjudicate on the racketeering of banks towards overdraft customers – stepped forward to pat them on the head. The judges said it seemed fine to them and went off to make daisy chains in Parliament Square.

Nobody but a fool believes that a free market in anything, left to its own devices, will tend to perfect competition. Economic history attests that it tends to monopoly. That is why it must be regulated. Such regulation, in every sphere of economic life, is democracy's most onerous but essential responsibility. In the case of British banking in 2008, the government's clear duty was to ensure that marketplace discipline curbed the emergence of a debt bubble and that no residual liability, let alone one for some £1.3 trillion, should fall on the state.

Last year was a tragic failure of that responsibility and not one person in authority has accepted blame. The best-told stories might be of millionaire salaries, fancy derivatives, subprimes and sports cars; but what mattered was the denouement, saddling every man, woman and child in Britain with unprecedented levels of lifetime debt. This will be paid for in unemployment and higher taxation in the short term, and in a lower standard of living for the foreseeable future. The bank crash was a national disaster, the economic equivalent of Munich and appeasement.

Ministers have spent the past year propping up toxic debt, but not the British economy, which lurched deep into recession. They did nothing to help it, apart from brief and bizarre assistance to the car market. This was at a time when governments across the world were racing to prop up consumer demand, successfully speeding recovery. It was as if Britain was a one-industry town, that of banking.

Darling and his colleagues were clearly out of their depth. Public money was being spent on an unprecedented scale, with no one in charge knowing where it was going. Where were the public auditors? Still no one has explained the meaning of the much-parroted phrase, too big to fail. A failed bank may be a terrible thing, but then so is an economy crippled by long-term debt service. Which is worse? Why did nobody ever ask?

I find it simply incredible that a chancellor can take over a trillion pounds of public money, some of it in secret, without giving a remotely plausible account of why it was risked as it was, rather than in boosting consumer demand. At present the Chilcot inquiry is asking past ministers and officials why they went to war in Iraq. The reason is that war kills people. What happened to the banks last year did not kill people, but in every other sense it was a seismic event in the history of Britain's political economy. It was a true collapse in political authority. I wonder when someone will stop abusing bankers and fix on those really to blame.

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The other Big Event of last week to catch up with is the start of the Chilcot Inquiry - the Iraq Inquiry. Simon Jenkins, again, injects a dose of reality:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/24/blair-chilcot-inquiry-parliament-iraq

We want Blair's head. But Chilcot won't give it to us

Britain's political community, bored at having to wait six months for an election, is baying for blood. The nation may lack bread, but at least it can have a circus.

It even has a star Christian, Tony Blair, who got us into the mess. The cry is for him to die, and die horribly. The camera must toy with his face in the dock, zooming in on the dripping brow, the writhing body language, the phoney meekness and the mendacity. Damned as a war criminal, Blair must be hung, drawn and quartered and his head impaled on a spike at Temple Bar. He must be Chamberlain after Munich, Eden after Suez. There must be nothing left of him but a puddle of sweat.

The same goes for the rest of them, Gordon Brown, the cabinet, John Scarlett, Alastair Campbell, civil servants, generals, bag carriers and tea ladies. Kill them all. The amphitheatre is packed with MPs and journalists, salivating as the gore runs into the sand. Not Nero in all his pomp staged a show like this one.

What else is Chilcot about? We know the truth. The report can be written in a sentence. Tony Blair went to war in Iraq because he lacked the guts to stand up to George Bush, say the invasion was not justified by facts or law, and refuse to join him in Baghdad. Despite being told to his face by Hans Blix that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, he deceived the cabinet and parliament and took his nation to war.

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Morrisey and Zen

Morrisey was on Desert Island Discs today, and he was reasonably interesting - though most of what he said we already knew. His choice of music was less than inspirational.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00p068y

For his luxury he chose a bed, which was original. He reckons he prefers to be on his own for most of the time, and says that going to bed is the highlight of everyone's day.

Kirsty was obviously a fan in her youth.


Commenting on his manner and his attitude, she said, "I don't want to use the word Zen . . . but at 50 you seem less spikey, more reflective and thoughtful, and at ease with yourself."

Which is an interesting, inaccurate and very common interpretation of what Zen is about.

Zen is really concerned with helping us to see through to the reality of things, and having seen reality we may well be motivated to become more energised, more challenging , and less 'laid back' if we feel moved to try to do something about the condition of the world.

See also:

http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2008/04/layer-14-zen-buddhism-breaking-chain.html
http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2008/04/layer-18-nature-of-reality-redefining.html
http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2008/04/layer-20-fully-evolved-humans.html
http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2008/04/layer-12-spiritual-intelligence.html
http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2008/04/layer-23-zen-abd-art-of-everything.html
http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2008/04/layer-24-chopping-wood-carrying-water.html
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Layer 203 . . . Education, Getting Real . . . and Catching Them Young

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Getting Real

Heard recently on the radio - Jonathan Aitken confessing that prior to being thrown into prison he was "puffed up with too much self-centredness, self-importance and pride". It was always clear to all Aitken-haters that this was the case, but it seems that prior to his prison-induced epiphany and his apparent redemption Mr Aitken was completely oblivious to his condition.

The condition he talks about - self-centredness, self-importance and pride - we commonly think of as egocentricity, which is the condition Zen tries to address. Watching last week's programme on Boris and Dave made you very aware that the whole point of places like Eton and Oxbridge is to inculcate egocentricity, self-importance, pride, etc, and thinking about the change in Aitken's character and his new self-awareness it makes you wonder whether the people who run those places and the parents who send their kids there to be indoctrinated and bigged-up should be considered as child abusers.

Even the act of allowing Eton to be run by cabals of senior students, who emotionally and sometimes physically abuse 'fags' - whether or not this still happens officially - is tantamount to complicity in abuse. And yet Eton continues to stand at the pinnacle of our school system, with student places there impossible to obtain unless you're a very wealthy individual who puts your child's name down for admission the moment he's born.

Aitken actually had one hell of a childhood - especially regarding his physical health - http://en.wikipedia.org./wiki/Jonathan_Aitken The last thing he needed was to be sent to a school that specialises in abusing pupils by filling their heads and their hearts with notions of superiority and elitism.

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Catch Them Young - Drop-outs at five?

At the other end of the educational, social and political spectrum we have on the front page of Guardian Education this week a story about a unit for badly behaved Foundation stage kids that's been set up in a centre for vocational training.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/oct/13/primary-children-vocational-education 

“Many projects seek to identify potential school drop-outs early, and the latest targets five-year-olds. But should we be labelling children so young?”

“In a big, open warehouse space inside a smart, black glass and blue-framed building on a new industrial estate . . . This is Vox 4 Tots, and its creators believe it's the country's first vocational education scheme for pupils as young as five. With about 1,000 primary-age pupils now permanently excluded from schools each year, the programme aims to use early intervention to nip behavioural problems in the bud."

How can we take this stuff seriously? Vocational training for 5 year olds? Please! The dictionary says 'vocational' training is to do with a specific occupation, trade or profession! And aren't we supposed to be in an era where generic, non-specific skills, aptitudes and attitudes are meant to equip young people for a life in which they'll move between many different occupations and trades, if not professions?

As for the idea of “nipping behavioural problems in the bud” – YOU DON'T NIP BEHAVIOURAL PROBLEMS IN THE BUD, YOU MUPPETS! What you do is create serious places of learning where the social, emotional and spiritual intelligences can be properly developed year on year.

Each week, 12 pupils will spend a day here, learning a range of vocational skills including construction, hairdressing and catering.

As if!

The thinking is that if children are unable to settle at school and are badly behaved or can't communicate with classmates, there are probably deeper issues that need resolving. One of the jobs of the staff here is to give the children space to express themselves. "From our side, it's giving these little ones self-esteem, self-confidence, to start engaging them so they can begin to read and write," Ladapo says.

Hello Guardian! Planet Earth to Guardian! Of course there are fucking deeper issues here that need “resolving”, you dimwits! So how come mainstream schools can't “give the children space to express themselves”, can't build their self-esteem and self-confidence, etc? Surely that's what decent schools are supposed to do?

Away from the melee, she produces some of the notes she's received about her new charges: "Challenging – needs constant reminders about tasks and accepted behaviour; poor social skills; little respect for females both in class and at break; fights and chews his T-shirt; doesn't feel the need to be in school."

Er – doesn't most of that that sound like most young children, in most deprived areas? Maybe we should close down most Foundation stage classes and send most of the kids to industrial estates for vocational training.

Vox 4 Tots was conceived after local headteachers called a meeting to discuss how they could cater for this small but significant number of pupils who simply did not cope with school. Some failed to connect with teachers or other pupils, some threw tantrums when asked to sit still and work. Ladapo, who was already running this vocational centre, teaching construction skills and catering to secondary pupils who came in three days a week, suggested the younger ones should come to her.

The headteachers discussed how they could cater for them? You cater for them by making sure the bloody schools are fit for purpose, and making sure teachers and support staff are doing the right things to develop social, emotional and spiritual intelligence!!! It's not rocket science, and its not brick-laying and cake-making either, as useful as those basic skills may be, one day.

She says she has always harboured this dream – by the time those big, awkward-looking teenage boys outside the door arrive, it's too late to really help them, she argues. This way, they can catch them young. Each child will spend time each week with a counsellor, and in time, parents may get involved, too. Ladapo would like eventually to work with whole families, rather than just with these tiny children.

Well it's too much to expect the bloody schools to do that stuff, isn't it!!

"What we try to do is to give them ambition," Ladapo explains. "You know that thing – I want to be a fireman, I want to do cooking. It's instilling goals for life. It's the same as we do with the older ones. We make it clear what they have to do to get to where they want to be, to get an apprenticeship."

And mainstream schools can't do this either?

The older children who attend the centre learn a range of construction and catering skills. Ladapo confesses she has had to exercise a little more creativity when setting up activities for the younger ones. The hairdryers in the little salon are toy ones that work but don't heat up too much; the catering room is equipped with brightly coloured plastic ovens and cooking implements. Everything has had to be inspected to ensure it is safe to be used by a five-year-old. "We've been carrying out risk assessments on plastic bricks," Ladapo laughs.

Ho ho. Sounds like a typical “home corner”? I guess schools no longer have them.

Despite these restrictions, the children will do real practical tasks. The construction students will make toys for them to paint and take home; cakes will be prepared to be baked in the centre's main kitchen, and the tutors who supervise the older boys will teach them to make little brick walls.

Ahhh! Little brick walls! That'll do the trick.

But there are questions about the wisdom of such programmes. Professor Alan Smithers of the University of Buckingham, a leading expert on vocational education, thinks it may give the wrong impression of what vocational courses are for. "One of the problems with vocational education in this country is that it tends to be used to occupy the less brainy, or the children who are otherwise difficult. And that seems to me to be the wrong emphasis," he says.

Brainy? This professor still talks about brainy, less-brainy and non-brainy?

"The real engine behind it should be employers, designing something they want. It should be for young people who have practical skills and want the chance to use them. My feeling is that we should address these social and behavioural problems by concentrating on teaching these children to sit and to listen and take their turns in conversations, and to respect other people, rather than sending them off to something vocational."

Well said, professor. Innovative stuff. And we definitely want employers to take charge of the school curriculum.

There's a wider question, too, about whether removing children from the classroom when they have only just started school might reinforce their negative images of themselves.

Well, yes!

Does Claire like school? " I like school," she says, breaking off to look at five-year-old Brad, who is in her class at school. "But he don't. He thinks school's boring." Brad, who looks as if he didn't sleep much last night and has dark shadows under his eyes, slumps forward with a wordless sigh so that his forehead rests on the desk. Then Sam, six, pipes up: "I like school, but I'm coming here because I've been a little bit naughty. I don't know what I do wrong – maybe I'm bored."

Seems pretty likely to me. Anyone in favour of non-boring schools?

Ladapo is distressed by this: "It makes me sad that they told Brad he was coming here because he was naughty," she says. "I do think if you label a kid for long enough he'll become the label."

Quite right. They should have told him he was going there to learn to be a bricklayer or a pâtissier. Proper, positive labels.
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