The decision to go private was helped along by two earlier bad experiences with the State Education System: I was disappointed at my young daughters ignorance of her times tables during her spell in Primary School. Imagine my shock when, at a Parents Evening, her elderly teacher told me that she was "no longer allowed to teach times tables". How the hell are our children expected to go through life? Counting on their B****y fingers?
Of course, it goes without saying, they were taught at home.
Later on, in Junior School, daughter came home and told us that the old (stern, respected, no-nonsense) Head Master had retired, to be replaced with a young 'touchy/feely' bloke to whom the children had all taken an instant dislike. (They saw through him immediately. It took us parents a bit longer). His first act was to rearrange the furniture so that the children all sat round interfering with each other, copying each other's answers, and kicking each other under the table. The ones with their backs to the board had to screw their heads off constantly to see what was going on. What a great idea!
The old-fashioned Private Grammar School we chose for her secondary education had all the desks facing the front, as they had in my day. If parents can choose their children's schools, they can make their own minds up, but in Africa, with the pupils facing the front, one teacher can educate 150 in one class - under a tree, probably. And get a better result than some of our own poor deluded teachers get with the vast sums poured into their training.
Huh!
Friday, November 5, 2010
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Education, education, education
Where have I heard that before?
I was pleased to hear a government advisor repeat, yesterday, that it should be pupils and parents who choose their education or that of their children. Emphatically, NOT government, local authorities, or, worst of all, teachers.
I have to ask, "What was wrong with my education?". It was MY generation (and the one before it) that built Concorde (an astonishing collaboration itself) and put a man on the moon: Without much aid from computers, at that! All done with slide rules and log tables.
My first computer - a Sinclair Spectrum with booster - with 32 kbytes had three times the RAM of the computers used to help design Concorde and control the moon landing module.
When we saw how dire the local secondary schools were - the state choice for our child - my dear wife went out and got a job to pay for a private schooling. During the sales pitch to the assembled parents (this is mid-80s) the Head said "We know what you want from us, and we will have to give you what you want so that we can all pay our mortgages" (or words to that effect). As a result, said child was given the sort of education that was given to me by the state thirty years earlier, was given a sound base of maths, physics, chemistry, and languages, and went on to obtain an Honours Degree in aeronautical engineering. This would NOT (COULD not) have happened had she gone to the local-authority-run state school, for the simple reason that said school didn't do physics as a separate subject.
Sad, isn't it? All those children let down by the state and militant teachers.
Funny how "Power to the People" has been turned on it's head by the Socialists, isn't it? What they really mean is "Power to the State".
I was pleased to hear a government advisor repeat, yesterday, that it should be pupils and parents who choose their education or that of their children. Emphatically, NOT government, local authorities, or, worst of all, teachers.
I have to ask, "What was wrong with my education?". It was MY generation (and the one before it) that built Concorde (an astonishing collaboration itself) and put a man on the moon: Without much aid from computers, at that! All done with slide rules and log tables.
My first computer - a Sinclair Spectrum with booster - with 32 kbytes had three times the RAM of the computers used to help design Concorde and control the moon landing module.
When we saw how dire the local secondary schools were - the state choice for our child - my dear wife went out and got a job to pay for a private schooling. During the sales pitch to the assembled parents (this is mid-80s) the Head said "We know what you want from us, and we will have to give you what you want so that we can all pay our mortgages" (or words to that effect). As a result, said child was given the sort of education that was given to me by the state thirty years earlier, was given a sound base of maths, physics, chemistry, and languages, and went on to obtain an Honours Degree in aeronautical engineering. This would NOT (COULD not) have happened had she gone to the local-authority-run state school, for the simple reason that said school didn't do physics as a separate subject.
Sad, isn't it? All those children let down by the state and militant teachers.
Funny how "Power to the People" has been turned on it's head by the Socialists, isn't it? What they really mean is "Power to the State".
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