I remember clearly my English lit teacher telling me she wasn’t trying to teach me Shakespeare, she was trying to teach me to think like Shakespeare. I have loved Shakespeare ( and poetry of all sorts) ever since.
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As a schoolboy I doubt I would have had a clue what she meant but suspect I would have recalled it in adulthood & been able to use the idea to good effect for myself &, hopefully, others that came into contact with me.
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Driving the children to school one morning, the radio was talking about the UK leaving Europe (aka Brexit) and my daughter asking if we lived in the UK; when I said yes my daughter then asked when we’ll have to move house. Always made me laugh.
On another note, my wife, with a masters degree and a PhD, thought Belgium was in France. Nothing to do with her lack of education but more a reflection of her parents complete lack of interest of anything happening outside of their small road in Maidstone, Kent. My wife’s parents are most probably the same aged as many of those complaining about the state of education on this forum!
If people do show a lack of interest or knowledge, don’t blame them, but more the generation that decided on the educational policy at the time they were in school. I work in education and have a very in-depth understanding that it is my generation that must be blamed for the foibles of my daughter’s education. I won’t blame them!
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That is straying into politics, as it aptly describes many government ministers!
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My point was that I’m not certain I would have known at that age, and that knowing who Prince Philip is has nothing to do with schooling (referencing thread title).
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Anything to do with Hercules Poirot?!
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I will say to the OP (and anyone else) that for most people, appearing on TV, particularly in a pressurised situation like a quiz show, is extremely stressful. Someone I know, whose general knowledge (and knowledge generally) is second to one, once appeared on Mastermind and got a shamefully low score.
He later explained that he was so terrified sitting in that chair, with nice old Magnus asking him questions, that his head just emptied. He couldn’t remember anything, even in his specialist subject, which he’d swotted up on for weeks beforehand.
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Ha, ha. Very possible - she loves murder mysteries!
Or the other famous sleuth written by a Belge, Maigret.
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Sounds like my O levels.
Was, IB, was. He died but maybe this news has not reached you?
(Pulling leg)
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Yer killin’ me, Kev. First belly-laugh of the day …
Thanks.
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Reminds me of Simon Reeve.
Doing the “around the world” reporting travelogue similar to what’s done so well in the past on the telly.
Although, I’ve always felt his delivery wasn’t objective enough to be interesting or educational - more like “ I’m in a funny country and look at all these funny people”.
That can’t bode well being a youngish role model for the younger folk.
Judging people; their knowledge or education by their appearance on a quiz show strikes me as just about wrong on every level it is possible to be wrong on. There are zero inferences to be drawn. Perhaps some prejudices to be expressed.
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I think it’s too easy to blame parents or the education system outright.
Someone could be educated in a poor school or have disinterested parents but still endeavour to learn by socialising, living or simply becoming more interested in later life, ie, post school years.
The topic of general knowledge always favours the older generation because it is knowLedge that is picked up through experience mostly, not formalised schooling.
From a personal perspective, I am a big believer in travel and life experiences as education. Knowing where Belgium is may be great for the game show format, but is a piece og knowledge that is easily picked up in a conversation, unlike other forms of knowledge.
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Having spent my entire career working in education (6 years as a classroom teacher, 5 years as a deputy headteacher, 10 years as a headteacher, 10 years as a local education authority music adviser and school improvement officer), I would say that the problem is caused by government pressure. The system now is teach what can be tested, test it, congratulate schools in which children do well in tests/threaten schools in which children do not do well in tests. The system now is wholly geared to outcome rather than process. Children are not encouraged to learn from experience or through making mistakes and as for music education, it is no longer a priority in schools. It is so very sad but I can’t see the system changing in the foreseeable future.
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Spot on, our skools teach to a curriclium, and leave our pupils to pick up whatever knowledge they can outside.
Without wishing to stray to far into politics , I think we are well and truly defecating on our younger people in lots of ways , if Richard wishes to delete this , I am quite happy.
Our education system has something of the Gradgrind about it , and where holes appear in our youngsters lack of knowledge , it is often knowledge that gets picked up later in life.
My experience of education (private school 40 years ago) and state school for my daughter now in sixth form is that it has changed a lot! My education was extremely traditional - we seemed to spend long ball aching years learning about things like the bronze age and flint arrows before we even got into the 20th century and learned about the Battle of Britain and the Spitfire (much more interesting!) What I did get was a thorough grounding in literature across all types from Chaucer (yuk!) through Shakespeare into William Blake, Thomas Hardy etc. I was given a pretty solid grounding in physics, chemistry, geography and certainly found the latter very interesting as I started exploring the landscape as a fell walker/climber. Musical education was exclusively rooted in classical without any mention that blues, jazz, rock had ever existed - ludicrous!
In my daughter’s case I’m afraid too often I felt that books were chosen for her syllabus because of a political/racial agenda. I challenged the head of english on this after she studied three books on the jewish holocaust (in English) in succession!! I pointed out that the English department’s job was to open the doors to the kingdom of the English language and encourage her to fall in love with as broad a range of books as possible, not to spend their time discussing the rights and wrongs of the holocaust!!
She also seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time having lessons on transgender issues, suicide, self-harming, sexual identity, drugs, racial equality etc. A colleague at work was extremely angry that his 13 year old daughter came down the stairs one evening with blood pouring from her arms. It transpired that this previously completely balanced girl had earlier that day attended a lesson on self harm and had that evening for the first time ever decided to try it…
My own view is that racial equality and sexual health and avoidance of drugs are all important issues but may in fact be best learned at home. I certainly think an inordinate amount of time seemed to be spent on such things in state secondary nowadays.
Her musical and scientific education seemed pretty good and at least her musical education included jazz, blues, rock, punk etc.
What neither my education or my daughter’s did was equip us with useful life skills - things like:
- Basic car maintenance - changing oil, fuses, fan belts, speakers
- Basic house maintenance - how to paint a door or replace a light fitting etc
- Basic financial advice - importance of compound interest, savings, pensions, mortgages, the property market etc.
My experience was that the standard of teachers was generally high at my daughter’s state comprehensive. My 1980’s english private school was much more variable and extreme. Teachers were either brutal sadists with psychotic tempers, boring old farts who couldn’t even engage themselves in their subject or absolutely compelling and brilliant thespian geniuses who had a lifelong influence on us and became heroes to our generation.
I do think that my education gave me a better level of respect for authority, tradition, culture. The technology of social media seems to be stopping my daughter and her generation from appreciating culture in the same way. As a teenager my heroes were people like space shuttle pilots, mountaineers, musicians and actors. As a teenager her heroes seem to be an array of social media influencers and vacuous bimbo’s on reality TV shows. That makes me sad although I suspect it’s more to do with the media than schools.
Last summer one Saturday I asked my daughter and her friend if they wanted to accompany us to Stonehenge and then for a pub lunch. Speaking personally I would have jumped at the chance of this as a 16/17yr old - heck I was so fascinated by Stonehenge that I was reading books about it back then!! They both looked at me blankly and said - “Why on earth would we want to go and look at a pile of old rocks?” I rest my case - at least in terms of culture!!
Jonathan
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Hi Jonathan , that’s a pretty damning indictment of our system and curriculum.
Your comments about certain types of teachers , remind me of the forces skool I attended for three years, but with a dash of the military thrown in.
Best wishes
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The reality is that these things are not learned at home though and almost never are. If schools didn’t do it no-one will.
Blaming a lesson/book on self-harm strikes me as ludicrous. It’s a complex issue and triggered by trauma not education.
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