The hedumacation system in modern Britain

mixed_biscuits

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they are careerist drones! half of them only ever talk about what bloody car theyre going to get when theyre rich. YUK

Hahah - yeah, well there are the careerist drones and the 'careerist drones.' The latter are preferred!

There is a problem with being too much of a drone and academic people-pleaser: to borrow hundredmillion's idiom, you can become an unquestioning servant of the dominant ideology. Hey, but with Learning Objectives so pointedly provided for every lesson, the Man will never be able to sneak anything by us - right, kids?! ;)
 
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Gavin

booty bass intellectual
to borrow hundredmillion's idiom, you can become an unquestioning servant of the dominant ideology.

Yes, but doesn't inculcating an attitude of "doing well at the job that they have been given" simply turn students into these drones? I think the passive voice in that phrase is telling. "Whatever you are made to do, do it and LIKE IT." I'm reminded of Zizek's parable of the "postmodern" father who doesn't simply force his child to go to Grandma's house, but guilts him into "wanting" to go -- "You know how much your grandmother loves you, don't you want to go see her?"

I do understand the frustration with "self-regarding underachievers" -- it's annoying when the work one puts in to teaching a course goes unheeded and unacknowledged, and even scorned by students who are perfectly capable of doing the work, and there's no doubt strains of apathy tied up with it. Still, some of those students, while frustrating at times, were the most interesting thinkers (especially on my campus, a very conformist state university in the rural U.S. midwest -- oops, the topic says 'Britain').

And I think I learned something by smoking in my room and talking crap (not listening to Herbaliser though, ha! Maybe Autechre?). Maybe not in terms of testable abilities, but a certain mode of critical thinking and skepticism... I don't know, maybe that was already there and lead to all the smoking and crap-talking once I got to college.
 

mixed_biscuits

_________________________
Yes, but doesn't inculcating an attitude of "doing well at the job that they have been given" simply turn students into these drones? I think the passive voice in that phrase is telling. "Whatever you are made to do, do it and LIKE IT."

Heh, I think what I would be trying to encourage is the ability to delay gratification and knuckle down. I am quite open with students in explaining that any field has its share of wonders but, at the same time, requires of its aspiring experts periods of self-denial - when you might have to commit to long periods of difficult practice and blunt (self-) evaluation, whether it be ploughing through differential equations or a long Balzac in the original French or internalising scales at the piano.

Obviously, I wouldn't want students to turn into easily manipulated drones, so my advice for a student would simply be, when confronted with a possible project:

1) Ask yourself: in YOUR opinion, is there value to doing this?

2) Ask yourself: is what is required of me reasonable, morally and practically?

3) Ask yourself: am I prepared to get down to the work and finish the job?

If all three check out (imho many PhDs fail at no.1, which impacts on no.3 once you hit the second year!), then you just gotta get down to it!

One problem is that it is often hard to work out 1) before doing a lot of 3) and even after finishing 3), 2) might be a tough one to answer. And so, to an extent, the teacher must be trusted.

Still, some of those students, while frustrating at times, were the most interesting thinkers (especially on my campus, a very conformist state university in the rural U.S. midwest -- oops, the topic says 'Britain').

Absolutely agree - and I dare say that often the tediousness of many lectures, unimaginative essay titles and general lack of interest of many tutors in their charges' progress leads to a lack of application and a diminished sense of involvement in the intellectual life of the institution.

It is a pity that much potential is 'lost' through lack of application - creative, interesting, possibly new thinking should prove its mettle by tussling with the best that has been thought thus far and, if surviving intact, should be recorded, so that others may benefit. That's what academia's for.

Maybe not in terms of testable abilities, but a certain mode of critical thinking and skepticism... I don't know, maybe that was already there and lead to all the smoking and crap-talking once I got to college.

Haha - probably! ;)
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Yes, but doesn't inculcating an attitude of "doing well at the job that they have been given" simply turn students into these drones? I think the passive voice in that phrase is telling. "Whatever you are made to do, do it and LIKE IT."

But this is - or should be - completely irrelevant at the university level, and (ideally) even at A-level: no-one's made you study the subject ("given you the job"), you chose it yourself!
If you don't like it, it's your own fault for not choosing better in the first place.
 

Gavin

booty bass intellectual
But this is - or should be - completely irrelevant at the university level, and (ideally) even at A-level: no-one's made you study the subject ("given you the job"), you chose it yourself!

Well, I am not entirely familiar with the British university system, but in the states college is basically compulsory for the middle class (though they pay through the nose), and as the secondary schools get shittier and colleges lower admittance standards because they are broke, college increasingly turns into High School 2. Most of my students aren't there out of choice (although many want to go to college, this was already guaranteed for them), and most have no idea what they are doing or why. They are just putting in their time, same as high school. Many have never really written a paper, almost none have ever done anything close to academic research, many do not even read the textbooks.

And can't you use the "you chose this job yourself" argument in any number of situations in our "free employment" economy? I've "chosen" many jobs I haven't particularly liked or desired, but I did them because I had to. Luckily no one was demanding I enjoy it!

If you don't like it, it's your own fault for not choosing better in the first place.

This sort of smells of neoliberal fetishization of the individual where your fate is completely determined by your own choices... like you could slip into castigating "welfare mothers" for being poor because they are lazy at any minute. You must be very happy in your program!
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
This sort of smells of noliberal fetishization of the individual where your fate is completely determined by your own choices... like you could slip into castigating "welfare mothers" for being poor because they are lazy at any minute. You must be very happy in your program!


Oh come on: who but the craziest hardline anarcho-libertarian - the sort of person who stockpiles their basement with bottled water, canned food and ammunition - would seriously claim this? I could equally well rant about the tendency of many leftists to imagine that we're all mindless zombie automata without free will or personal responsibility, helplessly wandering here and there according to the will of big business, media and government. Which is quite clearly complete tosh, as well. As ever, the truth lies somewhere between the two extremes: yes, we're all products of our environment and we're all born with different levels of advantage which we can do nothing about; but at the same time we still have free will and the choice to live one way or another.

Back to the topic at hand, I said you only have yourself to blame if you take up a degree (at a UK university) that you're not interested in, unless you've been seriously pressured into it by your parents, or something. If you do it because you think it'll be 'a laugh', or because 'Eng Lit chicks are hot', then I can hardly see how it's anyone else's fault if you don't exactly excel at it.

(Edit: I'm not sure what "welfare mothers" have to do with this - they aren't poor (at least in the UK) precisely because they get benefits. I'm not saying this is a bad thing - it's certainly preferable to having hoards of destitute women and kids all over the place, obviously - but then, people would probably be a bit more careful about not having kids they can't support if there wasn't any welfare, wouldn't they?)
 
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What if you take up a degree or A-Level in a subject you want to learn about, only to find that all that is on offer or required is memorisation of facts/formulae, original thought is not encouraged, nor required nor rewarded?
Sometimes the subject is interesting but the curriculum / teaching aims leave a lot to be desired.

This was definitely my experience of A-levels.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
What if you take up a degree or A-Level in a subject you want to learn about, only to find that all that is on offer or required is memorisation of facts/formulae, original thought is not encouraged, nor required nor rewarded?
Sometimes the subject is interesting but the curriculum / teaching aims leave a lot to be desired.

This was definitely my experience of A-levels.

Yeah, I guess this is always a risk - as I said, "...this is - or should be - completely irrelevant...".
I've found myself that my PhD has been a lot less interesting than I thought it would be, but then, perhaps I should have done a bit more research about what a PhD in my field entails before signing up for one.
 

mixed_biscuits

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What if you take up a degree or A-Level in a subject you want to learn about, only to find that all that is on offer or required is memorisation of facts/formulae, original thought is not encouraged, nor required nor rewarded?

Ask your prof for extra, more interesting work or do some off your own back? Find out why you need a stockpile of facts? Change subjects? Do S-Levels too? Campaign to have the system changed?

Or just eat it and plough through the courses anyway. :D
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Yes, but doesn't inculcating an attitude of "doing well at the job that they have been given" simply turn students into these drones?
I think the point is less about doing well at the job you've been given than about developing the self discipline to sit down and do the hard or tedious stuff that has to be done for whatever reason, so that whether you eventually decide to overthrow the state by armed rebellion or to make fat stacks of cash as an investment banker you can actually go out and do it rather than rapidly losing interest and following the path of least resistance.
 

don_quixote

Trent End
i dont enjoy my degree, but that's because i think the exams are an ass and it's really badly taught (and i probably should have heeded the warnings about the subject).

i loved a-levels.
 

don_quixote

Trent End
actually no, it's not that i should have heeded the warnings, it's their fault not mine. i need to stop blaming myself when i've been let down.
 

vimothy

yurp
This sort of smells of neoliberal fetishization of the individual where your fate is completely determined by your own choices... like you could slip into castigating "welfare mothers" for being poor because they are lazy at any minute. You must be very happy in your program!

Aaarararrrarraggghghgghghh!
 

vimothy

yurp
And can't you use the "you chose this job yourself" argument in any number of situations in our "free employment" economy? I've "chosen" many jobs I haven't particularly liked or desired, but I did them because I had to. Luckily no one was demanding I enjoy it!

Your choice is poverty or make a positive contribution to society and earn a living from that. It's the same choice for everybody pretty much throughout history. Nobody said you will enjoy it!
 
What to do about poor/pointless courses:

Mixed Biscuits

Ask your prof for extra, more interesting work or do some off your own back? Find out why you need a stockpile of facts? Change subjects? Do S-Levels too? Campaign to have the system changed?

Or just eat it and plough through the courses anyway

Well yeah... in fact what I did was get angry and disillusioned and mess it all up, and I got round to learning stuff by myself a few years later but with no qualifications at the end of it.

You are right but I think it's very hard for a 15-17 year old to come to that line of thinking and very unlikely they are going to be able to change anything about the education system from their position.

I was trying to put forward the idea that it's a shame so many syllabuses (syllabi?) just teach you how to pass the exam and not much more, and really it's letting down everyone.
Yes you can easily get a qualification if you can be bothered to do some simple work but you don't actually learn about the subject much. You can go off and learn about it in your own time but you won't be rewarded with any recognised qualifications.
So you can learn in a shallow memorising way and get a qualification and maybe a job.
Or you can learn more deeply and not get a qualification and find it harder to get a job.
(yes, you could do both but what a twisted system!)

If you are an employer, you have no way to know how much someone really understands about a subject by looking at their exam results because so little real understanding is required to get good grades at GCSEs and A Levels. You can just see if they are a good "knuckle down"-er.

OK I'm exaggerating for effect, some courses are probably very good. These were my feelings when I was at school.... and it's not just me making excuses for being thick.... i was one of the top students at my school before I got tired of it all.
 

Gavin

booty bass intellectual
Your choice is poverty or make a positive contribution to society and earn a living from that. It's the same choice for everybody pretty much throughout history. Nobody said you will enjoy it!

Poverty as a choice! We really do live in the best of all possible worlds!
 

vimothy

yurp
Poverty as a choice! We really do live in the best of all possible worlds!

Poverty would probably be the default option. Making a living and surviving is the choice, the active solution. Even hunter gatherers are faced with the possibility of either bumming around all day or going out and getting some food.

Society shouldn't need to solve your problems for you
 

Pulchritude

Active member
I’m currently sitting my A Levels and the whole system, where I have to abdicate my own opinion for the sake of complying with the curriculum, really riles me. I remember that, when preparing for GCSE History and English exams, I was specifically told not to specify my own opinion and simply be as impartial as possible when answering essay questions. Although I have been given more freedom whilst studying A Level History and English Lit. for the past two years, I’ve found that my peers have become so used to the complacency of being totally neutral that, when asked to offer their opinion on an issue, they’re indecisive and not used to it.

As for the people in this thread who are teachers, I have a lot of respect for you. I would never, ever dream of becoming a teacher, having witnessed what kids get away with classrooms these days; and I’ve spent the past seven years in an inoffensive, well-behaved Grammar School!

I was trying to put forward the idea that it's a shame so many syllabuses (syllabi?) just teach you how to pass the exam and not much more, and really it's letting down everyone.
Yes you can easily get a qualification if you can be bothered to do some simple work but you don't actually learn about the subject much. You can go off and learn about it in your own time but you won't be rewarded with any recognised qualifications.
So you can learn in a shallow memorising way and get a qualification and maybe a job.
Or you can learn more deeply and not get a qualification and find it harder to get a job.
(yes, you could do both but what a twisted system!)
I agree. The system is so formulaic and it seems that the stock learning of facts is all that is needed to get high grades, which I also believe is a predominant reason explaining why, for want of a better term, absolute idiots can get good grades. There's no need for higher intelligence or genuine passion for a subject. As you've also said, my reasons for thinking this do not stem from me being an embittered poor-achiever,as I'm far from it, but just a total disillusionment with the system which has caused me to wonder why I should even be bothering at all.
 

mixed_biscuits

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I’ve found that my peers have become so used to the complacency of being totally neutral that, when asked to offer their opinion on an issue, they’re indecisive and not used to it.

Yeah, this state of affairs isn't helped by most teachers' wish to 'empower' their students by flaccidly accepting everything that they say, meaning that every classroom 'debate' proceeds in an indistinct, superficial manner, as discussion jumps from one vaguely relevant, unstructured point to another.

OR there is meaty debate and it does end up somewhere interesting but inevitably miles away from the pot-at-the-end-of-the-rainbow that is the 'learning objective,' whereupon new discoveries have to be discarded to toe the curriculum line.

The prevailing flaccidity of opinion has also come about because teachers themselves (and certainly the teacher trainers that I've known) think that demonstrating strong or clear-cut views on anything, excepting the odd socially-acceptable 'strong' (parroted) views that are occasionally 'legitimised' by mass repetition eg. 'STOP THE WAR!,' is a sign of a closed mind or too muscular a flexing of one's authority.
 
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