shouting at the moon about early education

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

this summarises what has been well known for some time - that we start formal education with kids far too soon and disrupt the natural learning brain by boring it to death and starving it of active experience ... but it does not fit the heavy 'more pedagogy' careerism of the education professionals or the uninformed bigootry of the Gove tendency and adoration of the 3Rs .... Finland starts much later and outreads us by miles ... and we make far more disrupted and disruptive young males by tying them to chairs at 4 & 5 .... and give them an enduring sense of failure and opposition by forcing reading on them too early ...

[Bryn]

Bring back John Holt, Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner!

[teamsaint]

Great post Jazzer.
The cognitive dissonance regarding the gap betwenn the effort put in to increasingly early formal education and some of our woeful outcomes at 16 is extraordinary.

But then again, it depends what outcomes some people really want.
As long as the top 10% get the opportunities, and the rest keep spending...........

[Serial_Apologist]

Teamsaint's right.

We can't have too much of the wrong kind of questioning. As long as a certain sort of obedience that keeps those further down the line in perpetual search of capitalist nirvana is instilled by means of early hyper-education, the later antisocialism and policing it are deemed worth it in terms of costs, literal and other.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

S-A's right too.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

taint me tiz the


EVIDENCE

[MrGongGong]

Bring back John Holt, Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner!

Absolutely
When I (as a non trained teacher who works in schools much of the time on music projects) mention How Children Fail particularly the bits about how teachers give out subliminal (or not so) "answers" (which only some children pick up) many teachers look puzzled as if this was somehow a NEW idea

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Absolutely
When I (as a non trained teacher who works in schools much of the time on music projects) mention How Children Fail particularly the bits about how teachers give out subliminal (or not so) "answers" (which only some children pick up) many teachers look puzzled as if this was somehow a NEW idea

I've long considered that the National Curriculum has had a negative effect on the well-being of children, particularly the ever increasing number of targets. Some schools are so target driven that they neglect to talk to their pupils, other than in relation to their topics/marks/outcomes. They have just become tickbox victims. Those piloting the NC are now in their mid-30s, and I remember them being a particularly difficult lot to teach, followed by increased drug and social problems when in their 20s.

[mercia]

off-topic but what do you think of this ? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28399266
I guess it's just yet another opportunity for taking those obligatory photos that now record almost every day of one's life for posterity

and do you know the book referred to - Everyone's a Winner: Life in our Congratulatory Culture by Joel Best ?

[pilamenon]

off-topic but what do you think of this ? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28399266
I guess it's just yet another opportunity for taking those obligatory photos that now record almost every day of one's life for posterity

and do you know the book referred to - Everyone's a Winner: Life in our Congratulatory Culture by Joel Best ?

Joel Best has it about right, I think. What a load of nonsense. Combination of two very bad and interlinked influences - American values transposed yet again to the UK + rampant commercialism.

[gurnemanz]

I'm reminded of this one from my PGCE teacher training 1971



+ lectures on the subject from Ian Lister.