Originally posted by greenilex
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I read that as 'ineffectual' and did agree -
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There's bound to have come about a standardised hierarchy of educational subjects worldwide - that's globalisation for you!Originally posted by teamsaint View PostWell yes, I do kind of agree, as does sport in these highly paid days, for the top earners.
But as one teacher said to one of my sons, " Well you always have your music ", ( subtext, " if all else fails".It didn't, actually.)
Ken Robinson on how the arts rank in the education system
But something strikes you when you move to America and travel around the world: Every education system on Earth has the same hierarchy of subjects. Every one. Doesn't matter where you go. You'd think it would be otherwise, but it isn't. At the top are mathematics and languages, then the humanities, and at the bottom are the arts. Everywhere on Earth. And in pretty much every system too, there's a hierarchy within the arts. Art and music are normally given a higher status in schools than drama and dance. There isn't an education system on the planet that teaches dance everyday to children the way we teach them mathematics. Why? Why not? I think this is rather important. I think math is very important, but so is dance. Children dance all the time if they're allowed to, we all do. We all have bodies, don't we? Did I miss a meeting?
I suspect, in fact have seen, that the better smarter independent schools tend to try to channel their students into areas for which they are best suited these days, ( subject to an extent to the ideal of medicine at Oxbridge if at all possible, , or if not..... and so on.....) but outside of this, the old hierarchy of occupations , which doesn't of course necessarily relate to pay, still has a strong hold. And of course the better Independent schools have the resources to allow really great opportunities to help develop those talents . EG, IIRC, over 60% of chart singles are now recorded by those educated privately.
It's a simplification, but always worth bearing in mind, IMO.
Probably off topic now.....
People are right when they balk at populist criticism of the education system of the 1960's-80s for having emphasised individual creativity, but possibly for the wrong reasons? Children were being raised in preparation for a new world in which technology would replace long working hours, leaving leasure time to be creatively filled. The problem was (and is) that capitalism doesn't work that way: it needs units of production - people to you and me - to make profits from; and preferably people who can be disciplined to the production line, whether that be the manufacturing line or the call centre line; not creative, self-realised people in the Maslowian sense of people who question the conformist expectations imposed by the unequal power structure, and are enabled to optimise their own potential, offering creative solutions to social and other problems befitting a less wasteful, less hierarchical, more just and inclusive world, and not having had their inner resourcefulness nurtured to consumerist-driven up the greasy pole aspirationism, knowing that apologists for the present system and those growing rich from it did not alliow for this. What really p*ssed off the enemies of the more liberal educational methods that once prioritised creativity over unit-measured productivity was that those children who might otherwise have been able to benefit from the individual-as-part-of-group-cooperative rolled out through the curriculum as espoused by MrGG was that, far from the Mao-suited uniformity they would like to have foisted onto what they could have you believing to be the "social engineers" in education and social planning more generally, the results in terms of shaping a more rounded humanity could have led to a very different version of the socialism they despised, and a pretty much irreversable one at that.Last edited by Serial_Apologist; 08-08-17, 16:41.Comment
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Good isn't it!!! Do you suppose that's what Jesus really meant when he told the sick man to take up his bed and walk?Originally posted by ahinton View PostComment
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When the police arrived they had 'done a runner'.
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When they saw the police they were soon 'on their toes'.Comment
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Well that's completely wrong, as far as this country is concerned.Originally posted by teamsaint View PostComment
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Indeed. Here they don't even teach the state's own language(s) properly.Originally posted by jean View PostComment
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You mean Welsh?
I don't think they're doing too badly with that.Comment
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You make a credible point.Originally posted by Bryn View Post
I am struck occasionally over how some foreign sportsmen and women often speak better English than many of those born and brought up here.
Something is clearly wrong somewhere whether our teachers are 'wot's to blame' or not ?Comment
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I've just been reading about a Welsh speaker in Lampeter being told to stop talking that "foreign muck" to her baby. I suppose if the comment had been made to an immigrant from the EU the comment would not have made the news but be par for the course in our delightful post-Brexit Britain.Originally posted by jean View PostComment
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At least three grammatical errors in that sentence alone, Scotty. You're an example to us all.Originally posted by P. G. Tipps View PostComment
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A case of "don't do as I do, do as I say", perhaps?...Originally posted by Richard Barrett View PostComment
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I always wince when the past tense of 'wreak' is given as in 'the havoc wreaked by Hurricane Irma....' (the News just now).
But I think it's correct.
What happened to 'wrought' though...?"...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
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... I haven't researched (resought?) this in detail - but I think that 'wreaked' is the normal past for 'wreak' [ = in the sense of : cause or effect (harm, damage, etc )]Originally posted by Caliban View Post
'Wrought' is of course the past for 'work' (wrought iron).
My old OED for 'havoc' prefers 'make havoc' or 'play havoc', but 'work havoc' and 'wreak havoc' exist -
The following provides some background, tho' I'm not sure all the readings are to be taken as totally reliable -
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