Which of these is more suitable for children?

This:


Or this:


Yet Venezuelan TV has decided that Baywatch is more suitable, saying that The Simpsons have flouted a regulation that prohibits "messages that go against the whole education of boys, girls and adolescents".

So what exactly is Baywatch teaching young boys and girls? Apart from how to run in slow motion and play with themselves?

ASBOs have failed. Rather than deterrents, they have become badges of honour among young thugs. So what is the government's response? To roll them out over young potentials as well:

So they just haven't learnt from their mistakes, have they? Handing out "baby ASBOs" to even younger children - especially those who haven't even done anything very bad at all.

The name of the scheme that is to to deal with this just sums up Labour's entire style of government: Family Intervention Projects. Why do they feel that they have the right to intervene in out lives?

When this comes alongside the proposal to put young children who "exhibit behaviour indicating they may become criminals in later life" on the DNA database. I mean, WTF? Since when has being a behaving badly ever been a good enough reason for your DNA to be added to their Big Brother database?

Have we finally abandoned the idea of innocent until proven guilty? Do you no longer actually have to commit a crime before you can be convicted for it?

Baby ASBOs and adding disruptive children's details to the DNA database will not prevent them feom becoming criminals, but the opposite - pushing them in to a life of crime, since that seems to be what is expected of them!

A government-backed report had just declared that:

Maybe it would create a "fairer" system. But it would also create a system that was made to fail. And fail miserably.

The comprehensive - aka no selection - educational system is the reason that "[a]lmost half of leading companies failed to find suitable graduates to fill vacancies last year despite record numbers of students leaving university" and that "[l]eading universities complained this month they have to give new students crash courses in literacy and numeracy - and even extend degree courses by a year - because many leave school lacking basic skills."

No selection - externally or internally - means that children don't get the education they need, as different children have different intelligence levels and speed of learning, and as such need to be grouped together in order to raise the effectiveness of their teaching and learning. This sort of system wouldn't do anything to help the children themselves, but in fact ruin their education. This is unfair on them.

Thus, ending selection in education may be "fairer", but it certainly isn't fair. On anyone.

Rather than the educational conscription proposed by the government that myself and the others [such as Fabian Tassano, Surreptitious Evil, and Devil's Kitchen] who write the Educational Conscription group blog are constantly arguing against, it has now been suggested that children should have the opportunity to leave school at 14 - by the head of the UK's biggest education authority, no less.

His point is that, very simply, some children are not academically gifted and are not suited to classroom teaching and learning - and as such would benefit far more from apprenticeships.

The response of the NUT that the earnings of those who stay on and get qualifications is "much higher" than those who have "simply left school very early and gone on to do some very specific training." Yes, it may well be. But those who leave school at 14 will not be the kind of people who benefit from classroom learning or those who are likely to be suited to do the jobs that require high qualifications. They are the people essential to our society - plumbers, electricians, builders etc. - without whom our modern society is screwed. That the NUT believe that qualifications are essential and required in order to live a useful and productive life betrays their love of the testing regime.

Not everyone can have high qualifications and great high paid jobs. And not everyone is suited to them. It's a simple fact of life.

However, at the very least, children shouldn't be allowed to leave school at 14 unless they have an apprenticeship to go to. I'm not entirely convinced by the idea that children should be able to leave school so early, but it is certainly far better than forcing them to stay there for longer. At least they then have the choice to make, the choice which this government seems determined to take away from 16-18 year olds.

Cross-posted at Educational Conscription. Please go there to comment on this post.

Soon there's going to be no time left in schools for actual education, as ministers are to announce this week that every child is to have "five hours of cultural learning and activity every week" during the school day. Add this to be extra PE time schools are also supposed to give, and the amount of time for actual teaching and learning will suffer massively from the lack of time they actually get.

Even though school tables keep showing better results, and the annual increase in GCSE and A-level results, Britain is dropping in comparison with other countries:

This decline can at least partly be put down to just the "tyranny of the testing regime" which has sprouted massively during the last decade. Tests and targets don't foster good teaching or a good education system. So even with billions of pounds being thrown at the problem, bugger all has really been achieved by it - and in fact the opposite in comparison with other countries.

What this latest education gimmick that Labour will introduce shows that they don't really care about actual education and learning - which is the real point of school - but about making change for changes sake. Children don't need five hours of "cultural learning and activity" every week, but they do need more actual education and teaching. And it is just this lack of teaching that gives them their arguments for educational conscription.

Source: The Guardian, The Times, BBC, The Telegraph

The government wants to indoctrinate children as young as five on the "dangers" of alcohol.

Why do children as young as five need to be taught about alcohol at all? They won't have drank more than a sip, if any, at that age. What is the point of teaching them about it? There is none. The only intention possible is to indoctrinate these children into considering that alcohol is bad. Also, are these "safe drinking levels" that these kids are going to be indoctrinated on going to be real levels or just guesses?

We all consider indoctrination to be bad, right? So how could this be deemed acceptable at all! I have no problem with teaching children that alcohol can be bad, but it must be a balanced picture, including alcohol's position in society, and health benefits in small amounts.

Instead of telling them that alcohol is bad, tell secondary school children what constant abuse of alcohol can do to your body. Getting drunk isn't in itself a bad thing - but doing it every day is, and that is what they should be told - the truth, not a convenient lie.

Source: The Telegraph

Says - rather surprisingly - the head of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. And Tom Mullarky is absolutely right. Especially with this line:

Humans learn through pain. If it hurts, you soon learn not to do it again. Those who are wrapped in cotton wool as children have no idea about looking after themselves, and have less understanding of the real world and how dangerous it can be.

Children are reckless because they haven't learn about pain and how they can hurt themselves. If they get the chance to hurt themselves, they learn through their experiences, by doing. They learn that it hurts if they fall of their bike, for example. They learn how to look after themselves.

If we wrap children in cotton wool and bubble wrap, they - and we - suffer in the long term. Like Tom Mullarky, I think that it is a "positive necessity" that children have the chance to play and hurt themselves.

For further reading on Health and Safety, try reading the posts from Wardman Wire's Health and Safety Month.

Source: The Telegraph

In addition to my diatribe yesterday on educational conscription, something has just occured to me - this law will apply only in England. Only English children will have to stay in school until 18. Only English children will be deprived of their liberties and their freedom.

As such, when this law comes before Parliament, not one MP for a Scottish or Welsh constituency had better vote. This does not apply in their constsituencies, so I do not want to see them force two years of extra schooling onto English children but not those in Scotland and Wales.

That they even could do it illustrates the issues with our current devolution system.

Cross-posted at Educational Conscription.

Regular readers will know that I don't normally swear [mainly because I just could never match the peerless swearblogging of Devil's Kitchen or Mr Eugenides as you can see here], but this warrants a good number of swear words.

Oh, for fuck's sake. What is it with this stupid fucking government that makes them think that making delinquents stay in school for two years longer will actually help them in any way? I mean, the kids who leave school at sixteen tend to be the same little shits who hold everyone else back by mucking around in class. They're the non-academically gifted kids who just don't want to stay in school for longer, but want to go and do something useful to them and their future.

This idea is a fucking stupid one, thought up by a bunch of statist cunts who think two more years of compulsory schooling will make up for their failings in their last eleven. Bollocks will it. All it will do is hold back those who do want to work, as the twats who piss around in class will still be there disrupting everyone else. When those bastards left after GCSEs, school became far better as those who were left had chosen to do so, and so put in more work and pissed around in class less.

Frankly, there are no benefits to making kids stay in school until they are eighteen. At all. All it will do is cause mass truancy, and then criminalise those truants for having the gall to decide what is best for them!

But ah you say, "under the plans pupils would not have to continue with academic lessons but would be required to receive training." But who the fuck going to provide this training? What is it going to be in? What purpose is it to have? How are you going to make them attend? The practical problems in this are fucking immense - and I certainly wouldn't trust any government - and certainly not this bunch of cunts - to implement such a scheme with any real thought to the practical considerations.

Apprenticeships and training for school-leavers already exist. Companies take on apprentices and train them up already. The difference is that the apprentices they have have chosen - at least to a far greater degree - to go into this trade. Thus, those who want to stay in school already can and do - after all, it's free unlike university. And those who want to get into a trade can and do so as well. And the ones who don't will just be a distraction to those in school and just lower the educational standard on the country or just be useless little shits if forced into an apprenticeship.

When it comes down to it, not everyone can do a skilled job anyway. It simply isn't possible. Someone needs to clean the streets and the toilets, stock the supermarket shelves, and wait tables, etc. after all. Every single job has to be done by someone. The best way to get 16-18 year-olds to get off their fat lazy arses and either get a job or stay in school is to cut their dole. Say they can only get half or even not a single fucking penny until they are 18.

Conscripting 16-18 year-olds into longer educational is a seriously fucking stupid idea. Instead of pumping money into educating them when they don't want to learn anything, put it into adult education for when they have decided that they're fed up of doing a shit job and do want to learn. When it comes down to it, you can't physically make every 16-18 year-old stay in school. it's not possible, and is just absurd to even suggest, yet alone include in the Queen's Speech!

So, Blinky Balls and Cyclops Brown, and the other authoritarian statist cunts in the government - fuck off. Just fuck right off.

For more on this subject, visit the group blog Educational Conscription.

Anti cyber-bullying campaign:

How can you stop cyber-bullying? You can't. It is no more possible than stopping the other kind of bullying. And all that the government has done is pass the buck to schools. What can they do?! This isn't something that is happening in an arena which schools can control. It is on the internet - governments can't control the internet, and schools certainly can't.

Just passing the buck on this issue straight to schools and teachers is idiotic and a waste of time. They can't stop verbal or physical bullying - and that happens within the school grounds! Teachers don't have the authority to control the actions of their school kids outside of the classroom, and it is precisely this kind of authority interference which makes bullying worse.

We can't stop cyber-bullying or any other kind, but neither does that mean we shouldn't try. The adverts are a good idea, and a way to actually bring to mind the effects that it can have on those who are subjected to it. And there isn't really much else that they can do other than give advice to those affected.

The cyberbullying campaign website is here.

Source: BBC, The Times

Lunatics running the asylum? No, even more absurd - school children writing their own tests.

What the hell? Let's read that again: "Pupils should mark their own classwork and decide what their school tests should cover". What? Why?

This is quite possibly the most stupid thing I have ever read. Have they actually thought it through? Obviously not.

Our education system is in enough trouble as it is right now, which the dumbing down of GCSEs and A-levels to extent where more a than a quarter of A-levels are As, and nearly one in five GCSE grades are A or A*. SO this idea really isn't going to improve confidence in the education system at all. In fact, if it ever comes into practice we might as well just give everyone an A and get it over with.

Can the idiots who devised this even remember being at school or even in education at all? Have they completely forgotten the simple fact that all school children will do anything not to work - or at least work hard. If it is the pupils themselves who pick the exam questions, A-level maths will consist of questions on the level of 2 + 2 = ?.

The QCA report said that:
That ignores the very simple fact I mentioned above - school children don't want to work. I always found this sort of "self-assessment" of work as pointless and certainly not constructive. It doesn't help to pretty much waste time going through old work - it is far more useful to get it marked and appropriate feedback written on it. The teacher then knows what areas need work. But trying to "engage learners with the quality of their work" like this is never going to work. Ever.

The dumbing down of education needs to stop and be reversed - this is going in very much the wrong direction. It truly does take us to within one step of rubber-stamping all exam papers with an A.

Source: The Telegraph

Children don't get enough exercise.

I can't say that I am overly surprised at this. Playing outside has become a luxury denied to many children through fears of accident, crime or of paedophiles. Computer games have replaced riding your bike, playing football, "It", and the like. And parents even drive their kids to school every day.

But I am shocked that the study revealed that "children averaged just 17 minutes of moderate exercise, and two minutes of "vigorous" exercise a day." How is it so low? Do they do nothing with themselves all day? Kids are supposed to be active, not couch potatoes. Being a kid is the only time you get to run around all day, and they should make the most of it.

When I was eleven, we'd play outside all the time we could, pretty much just coming in for meals and sleep during the summer. Whilst we weren't "active" all that time, we were for much of it. If something is not done, this generation of kids will grow up fat, lazy, and mollycoddled. Parents need to learn to relax their grip around their children and their activities, and kids need to be encouraged to get outside and play! Go ride your bike, play football, etc. Don't just sit inside and play on your computer.

Sources: The Telegraph, BBC

Gender is not the real classroom divide, claims Equal Opportunities Commission:

In fact, they say that instead of helping to narrow to gap
So, predictably, it's class [and race] that is the source of all inequality:
Except, really, it's not because of their class or race that certain kids fall behind, it is either because they are not as intelligent as others or because they don't put the work in.

Class, race, and gender are not the real classroom divides. Ability and application are. This may be reflected along gender, race, and class lines, because they don't exist because of them. They are a symptom, not a cause. Instead of trying to focus on one group, however defined, it would be far better to encourage all school children to work harder, and to encourage their parents to encourage them as well.

General ability and the extent to which that is applied to school work are the divides within the classroom. Nothing else causes them, but they can be seen as areas where extra work needs to be done in order for them to reach their potential. It's not because they are working class, male, or black that are low in the class, but because they either don't have the ability and/or aren't applying it.

Source: The Times

This is never going to work. It can't work, because it is based on a false premise. Faith schools don't "foster(ing) understanding between different religions and promot[e] integration and community cohesion" but the precise opposite.

I dislike faith schools. All faith schools, whatever religion they are based in. There is no doubt that they promote - most likely unconsciously - a segregationist view of the world, 'them' and 'us'. However, I don't mind parents choosing to send their children to a faith school - so long as they pay for it. Taxpayer's money should not go towards any faith school.

There can be no doubt that religious schools do foster a lack of understanding of other religions and cultures. Most modern organised religions deem that they are "the one true path" and that every other religion in the world is wrong, and this in undoubtedly going to come over in some sense at least through the education they give. It is segregation - only people of a particular faith go to a faith school. It means that there is little or no mixing of children of different [nominal] faiths at the age in which it is most important that they do.

Religion/faith is a personal thing. It requires a personal devotion to and acceptance of a creed and certain supernatural being(s). It should not be forced onto kids, and certainly shouldn't be paid for by the taxpayer. If you follow a religion and want your children to do so as well, then you should be prepared to either pay for that education, or give it yourself or through your religious institution.

Britain is a secular country, with only 53% of the population even calling themselves "Christian", let alone actually going to Church at all. This should - must - be reflected in the state education system. Religion should not form part of any over-arching structure in a school, any more so than race should. No school that accepts state funding should be able to belong to any faith or have an educational doctrine based in one. This does not mean that teachers shouldn't be religious. The best teacher I had, for five years [Years 9-13], was a devout Christian, and is now actually an Assistant Pastor. But he left his religiousness at the door whilst he taught.

Religious schools are the bane of any multi-cultural society, and must not be funded by the state.

Source: The Times

How important is family? It seems that for the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, is remarkably blasé about his own:

So it appears that the man who is supposed to be telling us how to manage our families is pretty much neglecting his own.

Maybe Ed Balls should put down a few of the balls he is juggling. Having both he and his wife attending Cabinet is most certainly not going to be ideal for their family situation, and considering the amount of time that a political career requires, to have both of them doing it must cause a lack of time for their children. Since Balls' ministerial brief includes Children and Families, it seems ironic that he and his wife must be, considering their inevitable workload, pretty much neglecting theirs.

Source: The Guardian

School children are to be "tagged":

This is just yet another step along the way towards a surveillance state. Tracking where your children are through technology in their clothes sounds like a good idea, because then you'll never lose them, always know where they are etc. But it is just one small step away from implanting tracking devices in bodies at birth, and thus it always being known where you are.

What sort of world are we living in where constant tracking can be seen as a good thing? The implications for privacy are enormous. Those who argue that if you don't do anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about are just fooling themselves. The idea of tagging the elderly has been raised before, and now the idea of tagging kids. Nest they'll be after the rest of us.

I don't want Big Brother knowing where I am all day every day. Why would they want to know, and what good would it do them? What is the real point of them? The very small benefits they may bring in "security" mean nothing against the invasion of privacy that accompanies it.

Sources: The Telegraph, The Guardian