UK education system- not meritocratic shocker

[KernKätzchen]

Sort of. Rich kids are going to do better because of their background,
but it's not just pounds and pence. It's that feeling of confidence in yourself or simply just realising the value of an education. It's having "middle class" attitudes even if the money isn't there.

Of course it is. It's spending the money on books and piano lessons and second-hand meccano sets for your kids when you can't afford a car or a video player or new clothes for yourself (my parents did - and I am immensely grateful for it). Having said that, money makes everything so much easier on the most practical level - that should be obvious to anyone who's ever gone without it. That's why poor kids who live in cramped, noisy council houses and have to share their bedrooms with two other siblings simply don't do as well: imagine trying to get your homework done in that environment.
Also, the other big practical money thing that nobody seems to want to address: once you get to university, it is actually impossible to live on a student loan in Britain. I knew someone who tried and he ended up skipping lunch every day just to save pennies. You either have to sponge off your parents (which is where the wealth factor comes in), take out another loan and get into more debt, or work during term-time (which obviously compromises your studying time and therefore your results). Interestingly, Oxford University bans people from doing part-time work during term: not a massive problem as most of its students fall into the sponging category and therefore don't have to.

 

[matt b]

*sigh*
It's not really something I can prove, to be honest. Although from my own experience and that of my peers, I would say there is truth in that. .

i'm not saying there isn't any truth in what you're saying, but you seem to be under estimating the role of class, regardless of family attitudes.

basing ideas solely on personal experience does have its flaws you know



its class war!

 

[swears]

Agreed. But I think class as an idea is about more than just money.
You can be rich trash or a broke aristocrat. It's a mindset as much as a bank balance.

 

[don_quixote]

Interestingly, Oxford University bans people from doing part-time work during term: not a massive problem as most of its students fall into the sponging category and therefore don't have to.

they're also rich enough to offer the most generous bursaries, assured accomodation and hence have drop out rates that match this. those that drop out is exam failure or illness in the vast majority of cases.

unless youre counting this as sponging. in which case i agree.

 

[doll steak]

Swears: "But I think class as an idea is about more than just money.
You can be rich trash or a broke aristocrat. It's a mindset as much as a bank balance."

Yeah - lenin was no factory worker and even Marx was pretty bourgeois in his background. This doens't mean that the way out of poverty though, is through thinking differently, through some self-help manual to sloughing off your origins. The problem with opportunity isn't just that not everyone has equal access to it, but that the values of specific opportunities themselves depend on your social origins, your sympathies, etc. That's what so awful about these new academies. In coventry Bob Edmiston the Evangelical used-car-salesman is sponsoring one, and has ordered the school to devote the whole of every other friday to enacting a mock stock-market trading floor. For the majority of the (mostly poor) kids who make up the school's current intake, this is offering them the "opportunity" to have their real interests hidden from them. Instead they'll learn to cheer the side that's screwing them over. They should be teaching these kids about the miners' strike.

 

[swears]

....For the majority of the (mostly poor) kids who make up the school's current intake, this is offering them the "opportunity" to have their real interests hidden from them. Instead they'll learn to cheer the side that's screwing them over. They should be teaching these kids about the miners' strike.

I think they should be teaching them (as far as is possible) without any political bias. Let them make up their own minds.

 

[sherief]

I think they should be teaching them (as far as is possible) without any political bias. Let them make up their own minds.

To play devil's advocate, when do we draw the line about "political biases"? What about learning about the Nazis?

 

[swears]

To play devil's advocate, when do we draw the line about "political biases"? What about learning about the Nazis?

I think there are a lot of valid points to be made on either side of the whole pro/anti Thatcher debate. Less so involving Hitler.

 

[sherief]

I think there are a lot of valid points to be made on either side of the whole pro/anti Thatcher debate. Less so involving Hitler.

Sure, but Hitler was just a reductio there. I'm simply saying that the idea of "we report, you decide" is often decieving... Of course we don't want the wrong interpetations to be given out as dogma, but I think there should be a place for recognition of ideology in education--keep it honest, if not riskier...

 

[matt b]

I think they should be teaching them (as far as is possible) without any political bias. Let them make up their own minds.

mmmm. v. difficult. i find it better to be honest about your bias(es). then let students decide.

 

[KernKätzchen]

they're also rich enough to offer the most generous bursaries, assured accomodation and hence have drop out rates that match this. those that drop out is exam failure or illness in the vast majority of cases.

unless youre counting this as sponging. in which case i agree.

True, they do offer generous bursaries, which arguably makes it better for people on low incomes, from a financial point of view, to attend Oxford than another, less wealthy university. I wouldn't count it as 'sponging' (although people do abuse the system): they're only doing what the government should do. There's also the fact that Oxford terms are shorter than other universities', so you don't need quite as much money to make it through each one and of course, you can work in the holidays. However, the fact remains that despite the best efforts of the university, bright, state-school-educated teenagers from lower income families still tend not to apply to Oxford for a variety of reasons, some of which have already been touched upon: lack of self-confidence compared with people in the public school system, lack of family precedents, lower expectations placed upon them by family, school and peers, fear that they won't fit into the social scene, plus the way the middle class and well-off tend to do better out of the education system from the very start. Until the government attempts to address this at a grass-roots level (sorry, horrible local government terminology there), which is going to have to involve some degree of wealth redistribution imho, nothing is going to change.

 

[swears]

It seems that a lot of petit-bourgeois kids like myself are being shoveled through the university system simply to make it seem more egalaterian. most of my mates have finished uni recently, with nothing to show for it except a 2:2 and mountain of debt.
If you even suggest that maybe university isn't for everyone, they accuse you of being some sort of old-school Tory toff. Better a smart working class kid gets a place than a -ahem- less academically inclined suburbanite like me.

 

[gek-opel]

KernKätzchen: what will really piss you off is that said Oxford Bursaries end up going 50% of the time to the wealthy ex-public school kids, overdrawn from their cocaine expenses anyway...

Also: interesting point Swears--- what precisely IS the point of feeding an ever increasing number of people through a system from which the majority will gain little (by which I mean in terms of feeding intellectual curiosity or advancing their careers)....? Surely a system whereby LESS went, but were more efficiently selected so as to give the maximum benefit to those with the greatest potential would be better (tho difficult as ever to filter out wealthy backgrounds from this). For those who do not either need to attend University, or have no desire to genuinely explore some area of knowledge (and even at the "elite" institutions this is a large number of the students) would it not be better to give them proper careers experience/advice? Or would this lead immediately to a return to an unmeritocratic system which impedes social mobility? Given the current Gini figures (on inequality) has pumping the masses through university done anything to create a fairer society? Does the university "experience" alone justify the debt burden on individuals entering pretty much the same jobs as they would have done before?

 

[don_quixote]

overdrawn from cocaine expenses isn't the worst of it. it's the familes who have been screwing the system inheritantly throughout the ages. the retired millionaire parents who know how to somehow fake a low-income so their daughter doesnt have to pay fees, and not content with that, they also devour the bursary funds so they can have skiing holidays, horses, shopping sprees etc.

 

[corneilius]

Education reinforces dysfunctional psychology.

Carl Rogesr PROOVED that we can learn much more than we are taught, especially if the learning is self directed. He also stated that teaching at best is a distraction from learning, and at worst a political tool of conditioning.

Homeschooling also proves this.

It's no surprise when you consider that the compulsory education system was designed to create dependent insecure people who would provide no competition to the banking/industrial elites.

The core psychology of it is this - you take a young child away from their parents, before they have grounded their own sense of self, force them to carry out pretty pointless tasks, for which they get approval if they do the tasks, dissaproval if they fail. By the age of 7/8 the child is addicted to the process or they are labelled as 'difficult'. The education system was modelled on the Hindu caste systems education, a rote learning with plenty of punishment, that kept the caste system in place, for millenia, in spite of it's obvious horrors.

The proof is in how we allow our governments to do the most horrendous things, and still return to the voting booth, in the belief that governance is complicated, far too complicated for us to handle and that it is best left in the hands of those who KNOW..... sigh ....!

For more info try

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com

or google home schooling (currently 50,000 families in UK, and 2 million in the US are homeschooling one or more children)

 

[matt b]

Carl Rogesr PROOVED that we can learn much more than we are taught, especially if the learning is self directed.

poor spelling D-.

must try harder.

relevance to thread?

 

[swears]

Just kill yourself at age 18. That way, it doesn't matter if you fucked up/were fucked by school.

 

[corneilius]

relevance schmellivance!

poor spelling D-.

must try harder.

relevance to thread?

relevance to thread - if one does not know the how, who and why of the 'complusory education system' then one is limited to discussing it in terms defined by those who run it thus one may well discuss the merits of this way or that way, or the latest 'innovations' yet one can never free oneself from it's intentional though hidden paradigm, which is part of the way it works ...... the fact is that it is a designed method of reinforcing dysfunction much more than it is a method of facillitating intelligence, creativity or well-being. - a wolf in sheeps clothing so to speak.

As to trying harder, go (*&^% yerself, (humourously of course! - I never had the strength to say that to those who used to say what you wrote to me daily, so I'm just catching up.)

Why not take a look at Gatto's work on this and THEN come back to me with your thoughts?

 

[corneilius]

Just kill yourself at age 18. That way, it doesn't matter if you fucked up/were fucked by school.

What age are you? It's never too late!

 

[swears]

What age are you? It's never too late!

Nearly 23, so I could go out in my prime. I'll take out a hefty loan and blow it on a good time first, though.