What is the purpose of education?

First topic message reminder :

“Why, mummy?” “What’s that for, daddy?” How many parents feel like tearing their hair out when confronted by an endless stream of questions from a toddler, yet at the same time knowing they must satisfy the child’s natural curiosity? But what happens to that enquiring mind? How many adults question what's going on around them? Shouldn’t an important purpose of education be to prolong the natural curiosity of the child into adulthood?

I remember two teachers in particular from my schooldays. There was a brutal English teacher, who would hit you if you made the same spelling mistake twice. At least I don’t make many spelling mistakes. On the positive side, I remember a brilliant History teacher who taught you to question everything. He started by giving us the same news story as reported in ‘The Daily Mail’ and ‘The Guardian’, asking us to account for the differences, then he did the same with articles written by different historians on the same topic. He produced photographs (I remember in particular an Edwardian alley scene) and asked us to look for the unwitting testimony in them. His idea of education was to continually ask the question “Why?”

Writing in his blog, Mark Berthelemy has argued that schools today take children - who are literally "born learners" - and educate the ability to learn out of them, by forcing them through the sausage-machine that is our "education system". Lou McGill asks: “How can we expect people to be creative, if we expect them all to achieve certain set targets, and disparage certain areas of learning as less important than others?” Berthelemy went on to say that education should be “about encouraging the creative minds we're born with, and developing them - not stifling them”, and “looking out for injustice and not accepting it”.
http://www.learningconversations.co.uk/main/index.php/2011/02/09/what-is-the-purpose-of?blog=5

In the latter part of the nineteenth century, teachers were remunerated under a scheme known as “payment by results”, which politicians boasted would either be efficient or cheap. One inherent weakness in that arrangement was that teachers only taught children to the level of passing the test and failed to develop their full potential. But have we reverted to that system of teaching now? The introduction of the National Curriculum in 1988 brought with it a plethora of tests as children moved from one level to another. At a recent debate to launch Compass’ e-book ‘Education For the Good Society’, Leicester University lecturer Dr. Katy Layton-Jones spoke of the emergence of "a terrified generation" who had been brought up on education for the test and were frightened to engage with ideas.
http://www.compassonline.org.uk/news/item.asp?n=13891

Josie Fraser, a social and educational technologist, has argued that a fundamental purpose of education should be “to acknowledge the inevitability of change, celebrate the value of life as a thing in process, and promote an awareness of other ways of doing things - of discoveries yet to be made and solutions yet to be invented". She continued: “The purpose of education should be to expand expectations, not to confine them - to support our learners in understanding the impact they can have on their world".
http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6075468

Others will argue that the purpose of education is to provide what the economy needs. Some of us will reply that the best thing for the country is if as many people as possible achieve their potential and at the same time create something. Berthelemy concludes that the purpose of education in our current society is to become better than other people, but that instead it should be about achieving our individual potential. It should be about helping each other to find out what we are good at, and developing those skills/gifts/talents. Not to be better than someone else, but to be as good as we can get.

I wish something like that had been prominently displayed in my grammar school - education might have turned out to be a much more positive experience

For centuries, education was the preserve of the Privileged, notably among the Clergy. Two main arguments supported this, the tenet that Knowledge is Power (and therefore to be closely guarded), and the belief that an Education would simply encourage the vassals to get ideas above their station. To a certain extent, such attitudes remain even today, but the main reason for the lamentable state of British education is that successive governments of all complexions have meddled with the process, and are still cheerfully re-writing the curriculum with every change of administration.

The modern notion of equal opportunity takes no account of Society's need for different abilities at different strata, resulting in over-qualified Graduates at the same time as there are misfits apparently incapable of simply turning up for work.

Queen Victoria once said that “education can be overdone, making people selfish”. Right-wing historian and bigot Dr David Starkey thinks that parents should have to pay to send their children to school (no doubt the ultimate Tory dream once they’ve turned all state schools into ‘free’ schools), even though he came from a poor background and never paid a penny for his education. Now we have this from Michael Gove:-


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The Tories don’t want everyone educated to the full extent of their ability. They want obedient, non-unionised workers, people just clever enough to do the work and just dumb enough to accept low pay. Intelligent people might question the great con that the Tories perform on the public, getting 30-40% of people to support policies which benefit only 1% of us.

Another manifestation of the Tory mistrust of education can be seen in its attitude to public libraries. Up to 493 of them are being closed, privatised or run by volunteers. Opening times have been reduced and the number of mobile libraries has fallen by 34%.

Don’t you just love living under a Tory-dominated government?   

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/coalition-cuts-now-targeting-well-3707174#ixzz34tlYBTeS

I still favour the cock-up theory to explain government decisions on Education. None of the principal characters seem clever enough to support a conspiracy.

Gideon Osborne avoided being tested on his times-tables when the youngest of the panel, seven-year-old Sam Raddings, asked Mr Osborne what seven times eight is.

"I've made it a rule in life not to answer a whole load of maths questions," came the swift response from Mr Osborne.




http://news.sky.com/story/1293968/osborne-i-could-have-done-more-for-economy

Either very cleverly avoiding making an embarrassing public mistake, or very stupidly making himself look like a Chancellor who can't do maths

Osborne wouldn't be the first Tory chancellor to be in that predicament. John Major failed the bus conductor's arithmetic test, and apparently Norman Lamont couldn't tell the difference between the number 3 and the number 5.

In the meantime, the Tories try to rubbish Ed Balls, who has lectured in economics at Harvard University, while the Bullingdon Broadcasting Corporation puts on a programme questioning if Labour can be trusted to run the economy.

Is there anything which the Tories haven't ruined in the last four and a half years?  


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Same picture wherever you look - I think we are genuinely witnessing the end of an era - the era when England was a fair and (almost) democratic country

The Tories have ruined everything for the normal working class folks and the disabled folks and made it all better for rich folk and high earners, they just look after their own basically do they not.

The struggle for an existence, Stu, is universal and in reality is not exclusive to "The Poor".

Witness the current uproar (fomented by the gutter Press) about immigrants, which includes such undesirables as Doctors and Nurses from wog countries coming here to deny work to (unqualified and unwilling) Brits. See also those greedy employees demanding a fortnight's holiday paid at the same rate as the other 50 weeks which will "bankrupt British employers".

What an ungrateful lot we all are!

Interesting developments on the employment front indeed - had a little giggle on the way to CAB this morning

On a more sober note - something I read lately (don't ask for a reference) about medical staff gives food for thought - and not pleasant. Apparently (so I read) young people in Africa and the like who want to train as doctors and nurses are compelled (because there is little alternative) to undergo training that makes them saleable in England and other Western developed countries, rather that learning the skills relevant to nursing, doctoring and managing viable public health systems in their own countries - meaning that when there is an outbreak of an illness like Ebola there aren't enough trained medical staff on the ground to provide proper health care because they're all abroad in countries like ours that can't 'afford' to train enough doctors and nurses to meet out own needs.

A rather unpleasant and indirect form of colonialism, I thought

The "brain-drain" began a long time ago, and was originally coined to describe NHS-trained staff who found that they could earn three times as much in the USA.

It defies logic to criticise any skilled worker who sells their services to the highest bidder.

Tell me OW, surely you went for the highest paid job did you not?

It defies logic to criticise any skilled worker who sells their services to the highest bidder

Perhaps, though, it also defies logic for a poorer country with a shortage of medical staff to deliberately train aspiring doctors and nurses or skills which will find the readiest market in a richer country that could well afford to train it's own medical person,el?

That boatlady is natural is it not to get foreign staff to go and train their staff for them in their country.

(standard.co.uk)

Why is it that the education secretary Nicky Gormless always looks as if she has just been caught with her hand in the till or amazed that anyone was mad enough to give her a ministerial position...?

Because she's amazed that anyone was mad enough to give her a ministerial position?

When you turn off your TV after (or during) a Nicky Morgan interview, you can still see her stare!  

I understand that Morgan wants children to be tested at a younger and younger age.....


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Maybe the test should also seek to assess the perception of the candidate, eg :

Study the weird look on Ms Morgan's face . What do you believe has caused this?

(a) She has had a frog put down her blouse.

(b) The Mayor of London has just made an indecent offer to her.

(c) She has been sharing certain substances with Mr Osborne.

(d) She is a gormless yet self-important nonentity.

( e) She has just seen Mr Cameron with a ham sandwich.

(f) All of the above.

( Extra marks will be given for photographic evidence )

We get an insight into what education does by viewing some of the popular quiz shows, not infrequently featuring some teacher. It soon becomes clear - particularly with what passes for a primary teacher- that they are completely thick. It makes one wonder what they can possibly pass on to children. Some people think that we should abandon rote learning and teach children to think. Ha ha ha. That requires a teacher who knows how.

British education might have been tailor-made to perpetuate a Class System.

British education might have been tailor-made to perpetuate a Class System......... if what?

Perhaps that's why pupils are arranged in classes and why we have masters in schools.

For the ones at the back make that THE class system then.

A school visit to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam to see Rembrandt's 'Night Watch'......


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CYq_SHvWcAAy2kg.jpg

Dumbing down has clearly succeeded!  

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Alternatively they were texting Mum to say : " We came to Amsterdam, the European centre of sin and debauchery, but all we saw was some crummy painting with people wearing dodgy gear..."

The youth of today - why can't they be perfect like we were...?

There are so many aspects regarding education that makes it a facinating subject

I feel the demands on education should be to attempt to teach a person to have an interesting, happy and gainful life along with the ability to get along with others, based on the potencial of the individual concerned.

Easily said rather difficult to obtain.

I feel the first step as matters stand is to ban all religious teaching in any school, those who want to persue a religion can do so by attending the appropriate church, etc; and taught by the parents.

With regard to the use of calculators etc; as long as the matter in question is not compromised then it can only save time which is important.

One of the biggest problems with formal education is the fact that children develope at different stages, even siblings etc;

I am aware that attempts are made to segregate the advanced from the less well advanced, however, I feel the manner used does not take into consideration that one child can be at a more advanced stage for different reasons than others and in both cases can cause the child problems etc.

I suppose that looking at education in a general manner all education of any nature is benificial, or is it?.

If a person is in a position to take advantage of all that our present system offers and spends several years obtaining several qualifications and eventually uses none of them, is that person more important than another who through lack of opportunity takes up a job as a bin man [ a bin man collects and disposes of all the, or helps to, rubbish and waste that man creates] in the first place it is a waste and the latter essential waste disposal.

Another consideration being, there are still tribes that have no means of formal education that lead a more pleasant and enjoyable life than most of the rest of the world.

I have to split my posts up because they often just disappear which is frustrating.

To see how complicated education is and the benifit or otherwise it offers you only have to look at the behaviour of our elected representatives, thieves and liars and abusers of all discripitions have been exposed amongst their midst and yet many have received the best [ at face value] education available.

Recent pictures and details of the present people attending a university does not harbour well for the future if the same applies to them all.

I do not know if one is born with common sense or if one can aquire it along the way, however, I do know that without it any education can be a waste of time.

"... if one is born with common sense or if one can aquire it along the way..."

It's all about both 'nature' and 'nurture', according to Francis Galton...but ultimately nature is the determining factor...

.... and whether one is perhaps being tested by the Almighty.
"I have to split my posts up because they often just disappear".

No because of mankinds inability to make things perfect, unlike the perfection of God.

After hearing that Nicky Morgan is to visit their school, a group of teachers arrange a game of hopscotch..........  


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I think she may be more irritating to them than the slimy Gove was

Thatcher had little respect for the Teaching profession, and her successors have each thought they knew more about Education than the people employed to administer it. They can't even settle on a job title; Secretary of State for Education and Science; Secretary of State for Education; Secretary of State for Education and Employment; Secretary of State for Education and Skills - choose one. The Department for Education and the post of Secretary of State for Education were recreated in 2010. Responsibility for higher and adult education remains with the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, Sajid Javid.