What are you basing that on, Igor?

JonB wrote:

Escape wrote:

The Pedants' Thread of Grammar Naziism You can spell Nazism thus. Looks wrong, though.

Strictly speaking I don't think Nazism is the correct word at all, since it designates a specific political movement. Fascism might be a better, since it's a looser term, and you could argue there's a certain nationalism about arguing for the 'correctness' of a language, but totalitarianism would probably be preferable.

I mean, if you're going to be pedantic...

Lexicondemnation

Every recent attempt (within the last 25 years) to measure the relative literacy standards of the UK against other industrialised nations in the world or even against its own standards from previous generations has shown, without fail, that the UK is in serious decline. It is a culturally-rooted problem as much as it is about the poor state of education and the solution is a wholesale change in cultural attitudes and educational priorities. Reversing the last half-century or more of declining support for the arts, literature, libraries, cultural heritage etc etc would be a good place to start. Literacy and numeracy skills would improve immediately even if you simply put music back at the centre of the educational curriculum, for instance.

Anyhow it's one of those banging-your-head-against-a-brick-wall arguments that I'm fed of having. Many much greater, brighter and more influential people than me have been doing the same for years now. This country is in a sorry, sorry state and has been for generations. That's why so many of its best and brightest have fled for other countries who can actually offer them the opportunity to flourish and where they actually feel appreciated.

Against its own standards from previous generations? So what's with the continual upwards trend in exam results?

Yossarian wrote:

Against its own standards from previous generations? So what's with the continual upwards trend in exam results?

Have you compared an exam paper from 25 years ago with a 2013 equivalent?

igorgetmeabrain wrote:

Yossarian wrote:

Against its own standards from previous generations? So what's with the continual upwards trend in exam results?

Have you compared an exam paper from 25 years ago with a 2013 equivalent?

Have you compared the breadth of knowledge and skills that students learn today compared to 25 years ago. Whilst literacy and numeracy are vital building blocks in education, they are not the be-all and end-all. The range and content of our curriculum vastly surpasses most of those countries that out-perform us on this fairly rickety measure. 

PISA is massively flawed. Off the top of my head I recall that China's rating is based on Shanghai only. The UK is based on children studying 4 different curriculum offerings. Singapore excludes any child with a low IQ. Their toddlers are sent to evening classes.  Lots of countries exclude children with learning difficulties, we include them. Lots of the high-performing Asian countries provide education that is little more than a factory education. . Korean kids spend twice as many hours in education; suicide rates in 10-30 year old Koreans is huge. 

Funny that if you take a completely different measure, we have the 6th best education system in the developed world.  

The last time we had an Education Secretary with any professional, first hand knowledge of education was Estelle Morris back in 2001. For years we've been peddled this cack that Sweden is the pinnacle of education, but their free-school, open-office nonsense is failing.

Are we getting worse or are others getting better? Also, I saw clip about South Korean school kids, the ones really trying get up at 6, in school for about 8, finish at 4, the off to night school from 5 to 11, home for food and home work, in bed for 2, up again at 6 to start all over again.

Fuck that shit.

In the 10 years I've been teaching I've notice a stark decline in the basic literacy of the year 7s who come through our doors, yet the reported number of level 5 (basically; fluent competent, writers etc.) pupils has increase...perhaps this has something. To do with the fact that primary school teachers can internally assess and set their final levels without needing to externally assess and moderate.

Spock wrote:

In the 10 years I've been teaching I've notice a stark decline in the basic literacy of the year 7s who come through our doors, yet the reported number of level 5 (basically; fluent competent, writers etc.) pupils has increase...perhaps this has something. To do with the fact that primary school teachers can internally assess and set their final levels without needing to externally assess and moderate.

Or it could be down to our rising levels of inequality.

We've just been downgraded by OFSTED because our Pupil Premium kids didn't do as well as the rest of the kids. Yep, because spending an additional £900 on a kid for extra tuition, a laptop and books is going to sort their home issues out and turn them into model students. 

I wouldn't wish an OFSTED inspection on my worst enemy. Worst two days of my life.

Spock wrote:

@stopharage, I feel you pain mate. Schools need to be judge but the current system is wank.  We're over due for ours by a month so the whole place has been at defcon 4, waiting for the call. The whole pupil premium thing is a load of dick too. A teacher is judged by their results, their peers,league tables, the kids, the parents, their line manager and ofsted, the latter of which spend less than 12 hours in a school over the course of three years to condemn or venerate the place. They're judging orchards by a few apples. Hope your last few week goes a bit better

B-

I understand the argument that literacy and numeracy isn't the be-all, though I agree only in the sense that it should fall within a wider set of skills which are also equally important to the educational curriculum. One should not obsessively focus on literacy and numeracy whilst completely ignoring the development of critical thinking skills and so forth. I do think that it is vital that children leave secondary education equipped to the best of their ability with all of these skills (and plenty more besides). After all what are a solid grasp of literacy and numeracy but the vital tools which allow you to understand and manage the world around you effectively and to communicate intelligently with it? These are the amongst the most basic tools which open the doors to further learning and development beyond school, regardless of what path your future career may take.

What's perhaps most worrying is the number of kids that are turning up for the first year of academic university degrees without the ability to put forward a coherent and logical argument, or even to string together a paragraph's-worth of meaningful sentences. My music college have been forced (since a few years ago) to recruit additional staff whose role it is purely to teach the rudimentary skills that should have been (and used to be) developed throughout both primary and secondary education. Without this 'catch-up' tuition - which is compulsory for all of these first year undergraduates - it seems that they generally have absolutely no idea how to go about researching a subject, structuring an essay, citing sources or (most worryingly of all) writing in intelligible English which observes basic rules of grammar and punctuation. That's before one even begins to address the appalling state of music education these days, which mean that they also arrived equally ill-versed in the rudiments of music theory, despite having reached (mostly in private tuition outside of school) an extremely high performance standard on their chosen instrument.

I think there's a strong argument to make that this "fall in standards" (change in standards is closer to the truth imo) isn't down to the education system alone, but my phone is not the place to make this argument.

Basically, kids are still, like, well smart. Smarter than ever, some would say. But they're developing different skills 'cos why spell when you have spellcheck? Why remember facts you can Google? Etc. (basics of that line)

Found out earlier today that one of my younger cousins - approaching her GCSE's - is quite literally being taught to memorise essays she can regurgitate at will. She's trying to remember the damn things word by word! All because the teacher is desperately trying to hit certain targets that those children are going to struggle to meet. Rather than teach them and have them - and her - "fail" if they can't pick it up fast enough, she's trying to coach them through it at the expense of actual learning.

Disgusting practice.

Deep.