The Monarchy

[Damocles]

Without getting off topic (which is where this tit for tat was heading) if you look at the uptake at GCSE/A Level and beyond for subjects such as The Classics, foreign languages, philosophy, history, they’ve been in sharp decline for several years. It’s mainly due to the way subjects are now weighted at GCSE level - if it’s not part of the government’s all so important 5 GCSE A-C, including Maths and English, it’s very likely to bite the dust, so to speak. This means that pupils are driven to what will see the school succeed in the league tables. Universities are now equally under absurd pressure to provide data for how many of their courses lead to employment, ergo, the so-called “soft” courses, which won’t necessarily lead to immediate work are culled.

This, in turn, leads to pupils who are being taught courses that will get them a job, but which won’t nurture their ability to critically debate. Part of my languages degree was spent discussing, analysing and debating various aspects of French and German history, politics and economics. This often led into long, coffee-fuelled nights of discussions about our French/German/UK/World society. We were actively encouraged by our professors to have these long, often unfinished conversations. And they played an integral part in those conversations. Now, universities are increasingly little more than module ticking, money driven institutions. There are exceptions - we have some of the world’s greatest universities. But, on the whole, we’re a society that’s being increasingly pigeon-holed and told what we need to do and what we need to get from life.

Taken at an even younger level, my current Year 6 pupils are doing very little at the moment other than maths, reading and writing - it’ll get them through their SATs, it’ll ensure my school keeps its head above the Ofsted parapet - but it’s not the rounded, questioning education I want to give.

Have a read of Frank Furedi's book “where have all the intellectuals gone?” - he’s not my cup of tea politically, but he makes some excellent points about where we’re heading, intellectually, and the impact it’s having and the impact it’s likely to have. Which, in a very roundabout way, leads me to my point on the monarchy!

Absolutely on the money. 100%. I'm currently at a top 10 university in the country for my field and 90% of my degree is jumping through hoops, boxes to tick and filling of quotas. Never was I once encouraged to question, read around, find out more about a subject and this has been the case all throughout my school career. It has simply been, 'this will be on the exam, the information is here, remember it, and there you go.'

From reception we are coached for sats in year 2, then again for sats in year 6, then entrance exams, then year 9 sats, two years of GCSE's, two years of A levels, I'm approaching my 8th consecutive summer of June exams. I think coached is the way to put it. You only have to look at the now frankly huge number of children at school who are having out of hours tuition in addition to their education. This trend started just as I left primary school and now it seems an epidemic.

I think as a society we are lazy. That is the parents job. A good parent will give a child an inquisitive mind and with some help and genuine enthusiasm with their homework, will get them through any exam that they are given up until they are able to motivate themselves, or not, for GCSE's and beyond.

A slight tangent to the thread I'll admit but a point definitely worth making.

I'd say this is pretty much as close to an antithesis of my university experience as you could get.

We could barely get through a lecture without things getting derailed. We had to approach one person in particular to request that they leave questions till the end of the lecture so we could make better progress. Lecturers were forever telling us where we could do explorative or further reading into the subject (generally in expensive books I couldn't afford). I remember arguing for a solid 30 miniutes with my maths lecturer about whether zero counts as a natural number, which for all intents and purposes was irrelevant to getting a good grade. My course mates in general, questioned everything and accepted nothing at face value (almost to the point of being annoyingly pedantic). The last lecture of every module HAD to cover material that wasn't on the exam but was designed to be interesting and get students to think creatively about the topic.

Interested to the point of being an annoying pedant is pretty much how I'd sum up University too.

You can see why I enjoyed it :)

 

[AltrinchamBlue]

To damo

I understand your point, and I think in a lot of ways it proves what I am saying. You talk of the teacher moderating these discussions and as such, endorsing them. All I am trying to get across is that this type of thing is almost always shot down and discouraged, at least for me, and I think that because I'm still in education it is probably quite representative of the system as a whole at the moment. I would understand if this was the case at, for example, Coventry poly (May not even exist but you take my point), but I am paying 9 grand a year for a supposed national leader in the field (chemistry) and am encourage to do as little 'extra curricular' for want of a better word and simply memorise the content of lectures to regurgitate in exams. Doesn't take a genius to tell that this does not correlate with 'intelligence'.

To sky blue

That sounds idyllic to me. It really does. That is what I applied to university for. You didn't say when or where or what you studied, guessing some kind of maths, my point is simply that at my university, things couldn't be further from this and I'm certain everyone is less well off for the experience.

 

[AltrinchamBlue]

Without getting off topic (which is where this tit for tat was heading) if you look at the uptake at GCSE/A Level and beyond for subjects such as The Classics, foreign languages, philosophy, history, they’ve been in sharp decline for several years. It’s mainly due to the way subjects are now weighted at GCSE level - if it’s not part of the government’s all so important 5 GCSE A-C, including Maths and English, it’s very likely to bite the dust, so to speak. This means that pupils are driven to what will see the school succeed in the league tables. Universities are now equally under absurd pressure to provide data for how many of their courses lead to employment, ergo, the so-called “soft” courses, which won’t necessarily lead to immediate work are culled.

This, in turn, leads to pupils who are being taught courses that will get them a job, but which won’t nurture their ability to critically debate. Part of my languages degree was spent discussing, analysing and debating various aspects of French and German history, politics and economics. This often led into long, coffee-fuelled nights of discussions about our French/German/UK/World society. We were actively encouraged by our professors to have these long, often unfinished conversations. And they played an integral part in those conversations. Now, universities are increasingly little more than module ticking, money driven institutions. There are exceptions - we have some of the world’s greatest universities. But, on the whole, we’re a society that’s being increasingly pigeon-holed and told what we need to do and what we need to get from life.

Taken at an even younger level, my current Year 6 pupils are doing very little at the moment other than maths, reading and writing - it’ll get them through their SATs, it’ll ensure my school keeps its head above the Ofsted parapet - but it’s not the rounded, questioning education I want to give.

Have a read of Frank Furedi's book “where have all the intellectuals gone?” - he’s not my cup of tea politically, but he makes some excellent points about where we’re heading, intellectually, and the impact it’s having and the impact it’s likely to have. Which, in a very roundabout way, leads me to my point on the monarchy!

Absolutely on the money. 100%. I'm currently at a top 10 university in the country for my field and 90% of my degree is jumping through hoops, boxes to tick and filling of quotas. Never was I once encouraged to question, read around, find out more about a subject and this has been the case all throughout my school career. It has simply been, 'this will be on the exam, the information is here, remember it, and there you go.'

From reception we are coached for sats in year 2, then again for sats in year 6, then entrance exams, then year 9 sats, two years of GCSE's, two years of A levels, I'm approaching my 8th consecutive summer of June exams. I think coached is the way to put it. You only have to look at the now frankly huge number of children at school who are having out of hours tuition in addition to their education. This trend started just as I left primary school and now it seems an epidemic.

I think as a society we are lazy. That is the parents job. A good parent will give a child an inquisitive mind and with some help and genuine enthusiasm with their homework, will get them through any exam that they are given up until they are able to motivate themselves, or not, for GCSE's and beyond.

A slight tangent to the thread I'll admit but a point definitely worth making.

Maybe you lot just had shit teachers?

I've never not being asked to read around a subject or engage in lively debate in lectures. In fact in one class we went on for about 30 minutes debating the usefulness of a very specific and almost irrelevant part of database design, whilst the teacher acted as a moderator and challenged any points that needed clarifying, despite the fact his lecture just went out of the window. My academic life which continues to this day has always been intellectually stimulating and challenging.

Just a point to both you and johnnytapia, when you guys are talking about we are a society as lazy, perpetually under-educated morons with crap parents you meant other people right? People who aren't you, coincidentally.

And just to take you up on this point damo, i don't make any correlation between uneducated and lazy. Some of the laziest people I know are the smartest, most witty and engaging people you could ever hope to meet, vice versa, my friend that has recently received a 2:1 in French studies at oxford is literally unable to fathom the idea of differing points of view when it comes to politics etc. No correlation was intended or implied.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

I reckon being Monarch today is pretty dull in the main. Too much protocol, responsibility and convention. Spending much of your waking hours pretending you're interested in other people's lives and visiting Eco-farms in the West Country. No thanks.

A thousand years ago it must have been a truly great calling. Unfettered power and much less restriction on your behaviour. Bring objectionable was seen as a strength.

Although on balance the food was pretty shite and without the miracle of consumer capitalism you were usually dead by fifty, King or not.

 

[SkyBlueFlux]

To damo

I understand your point, and I think in a lot of ways it proves what I am saying. You talk of the teacher moderating these discussions and as such, endorsing them. All I am trying to get across is that this type of thing is almost always shot down and discouraged, at least for me, and I think that because I'm still in education it is probably quite representative of the system as a whole at the moment. I would understand if this was the case at, for example, Coventry poly (May not even exist but you take my point), but I am paying 9 grand a year for a supposed national leader in the field (chemistry) and am encourage to do as little 'extra curricular' for want of a better word and simply memorise the content of lectures to regurgitate in exams. Doesn't take a genius to tell that this does not correlate with 'intelligence'.

To sky blue

That sounds idyllic to me. It really does. That is what I applied to university for. You didn't say when or where or what you studied, guessing some kind of maths, my point is simply that at my university, things couldn't be further from this and I'm certain everyone is less well off for the experience.

You should challenge it if you don't like the way your course works, universities are a breeding ground for rebellion so you'll no doubt gather some support. I did mathematical physics at Edinburgh, but I don't think this is really a course specific issue. Critical and analytical thinking are a corner stone of most degrees. You should never be asked to swallow what you're given, rather you should be convinced of it or question it.

Interested to the point of being an annoying pedant is pretty much how I'd sum up University too.

You can see why I enjoyed it :)

I reckon you were that guy who sat at the back and criticised the lecturer whenever he wrote a 'p' that looked too much like 'rho'.

In fairness though, I missed a lecture once and spent the entire of the next one wondering where all this momentum had suddenly come from.

 

[Damocles]

In fairness though, I missed a lecture once and spent the entire of the next one wondering where all this momentum had suddenly come from.

Dunno mate. Was your class mainly consisting of really fat sprinters?

 

[SkyBlueFlux]

In fairness though, I missed a lecture once and spent the entire of the next one wondering where all this momentum had suddenly come from.

Dunno mate. Was your class mainly consisting of really fat sprinters?

No, just fat people and lots of stairs.

 

[stony]

I reckon being Monarch today is pretty dull in the main. Too much protocol, responsibility and convention. Spending much of your waking hours pretending you're interested in other people's lives and visiting Eco-farms in the West Country. No thanks.

I think the majority of the royal family love the protocol and the convention. If you gave them the choice of giving it up and leading normal anonymous lives, how many of them do you think would take you up on it?
I think even Princess Anne, who seems to be the most grounded of the royals would baulk at the thought of losing the luxuries and respect her title gives her.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

I reckon being Monarch today is pretty dull in the main. Too much protocol, responsibility and convention. Spending much of your waking hours pretending you're interested in other people's lives and visiting Eco-farms in the West Country. No thanks.

I think the majority of the royal family love the protocol and the convention. If you gave them the choice of giving it up and leading normal anonymous lives, how many of them do you think would take you up on it?
I think even Princess Anne, who seems to be the most grounded of the royals would baulk at the thought of losing the luxuries and respect her title gives her.

I completely agree. Few people enjoy surrendering status. I was talking from a personal point of view. I'd find much of the 'job' to be utterly tedious