Are children too dependent on technology?

Far sighted Josef -well not that far, could be this year or next and this counties population is being kept completely in the dark. And people kept on meeting and talking and buying and selling and marrying and having children until that fateful day arrived and they said –why did we not prepare for this time ? But it was too late.

Ian you have a point in your mention of chemical effects on the brain . Having worked in hospitals and observed people in various stages of illness I have found that human beings have an unique ability, which depends entirely on the personality of the person, when they think they cant take any more to “give up ” on life and stop fighting and quickly go into physical decline and die ,its a type of self-inflicted but hidden suicide . Not only have I noticed this but nurses as well . I on the other hand am a “fighter ” otherwise I would be long gone but it took me many years to realise everybody is not the same as me. I watched people deteriorate just by thinking –I cant take it anymore whereas an animal caught in a trap would bite its leg off to get free . You MUST keep your mind active , the human brain is still not totally understood there are people born with only half a brain and lead normal lives because the brains nervous system has the ability to make new connections neurally . I saw a brain X-ray of one person and was aghast that they could act normally but as you say if you go into a state of neutral you go into a state of trance like the Tibetan monks ,that happened to me 35 years ago when in an Indian restaurant with my wife and two friends everything went black but it wasnt a faint or anything like it , I was still sitting there , my wife woke me shouting at me, I dont think it lasted long , I told my doctor but he understood it and told me not to worry. To me the brain is the conscious organic part of a human being but not the total of human awareness you might not agree but we are more than the sum of our parts.

I also went to a Grammar school and back up malcolm all the way . “poor parenting ” ? you can add in Political Correctness that comes before the three “R,s ” . Question like are you sure you are a male/female and so on come before the 2X table , thats once they can talk English that makes sense , thank God getting the belt and strict teaching actually TAUGHT me not propagandized me.

Duncan: that’s not true – in any way. If you can prove it, then post the definitive links, otherwise it’s wiser not to repeat it.

On the second point ‘getting the belt’ is unlikely to have taught you much other than to avoid school. You are somewhat obsessed with what you imagine is happening in Primary Education. You are sadly misinformed, however, and the real problems in Primary education are eluding you completely.

Ian, you have opened up a discussion that could lead to accusations of elitism, denial of equality, and so on, but I firmly believe appropriate education should be targeted. We are not equal – some are more academic, some more practical, some more intelligent some more willing to learn and put in the hard work and sacrifices, some less so. Grammar schools provided initially for those seemingly more receptive to an academic education; they also attracted staff appropriate to dispense that kind of curriculum. I would hope that a similar situation could pertain at what were then secondary modern schools – tailored to the aspirations of their intake. To succeed in a hard world, as a country we need to be properly educated.

In my layman’s eyes, looking back, both systems were flawed. There seemed little opportunity to transfer pupils between grammar and secondary when late development occurred, or when grammar school pupils struggled out of their depth. There should also be the means to give particular lessons, when appropriate, to either type of pupil in either type of school when the pupil showed a particular aptitude for one or more subjects. One solution might be to have both schools on the same site or in the same building, nominally but with easy interchangeability of resources. That may be what comprehensives (and academies) try to do.

“Selective” education, which I think is, or should be, selective in the ability of students not their background, happens in further education. Our universities are graded, as are the colleges, to ability and interest. Vocational training, apprenticeships, job training, etc. should help those who are not suited to the academic or college offering.

Duncan touched on hard work, long hours and discipline. I am inclined to be a little lazy but my school’s aspiration for good ‘O’ and ‘A’ level results, followed by a high success at university entrance, meant that we were pushed to do our work diligently. As we find out later in life, for most of us there is no substitute for hard work.

Here endeth…….

I don’t think a single thing you’ve said could invite “accusations of elitism, denial of equality” or anything else; I think you’ve posted an eloquent and very even-handed account of the British education system over the past 60 years. There’s also a lot of Psychology research which supports your conviction that “appropriate education should be targeted.”.

Historically, I believe the system was flawed in its emphasis on cultural education as opposed to STEM, which was partly because the Grammar system was based on the public school model, which itself was designed specifically to enhance class differences. Sadly, the Grammar schools then started to build on the very class divide that created social issues throughout the 1930s and the Grammar school teaching staff saw themselves as inherently superior. They were, in fact, academically better qualified than Secondary Moderns (except for PE staff) but that difference was keenly felt and contributed, I suspect, in no small way to the creation of the Comprehensive school.

But this is all history. I think your concerns are more with the present and things have changed. There is a feeling that school days are still too short, school terms too erratic (and too short) and many schools failing to prepare their students for HE. I wrote a short article on this some time ago:

“Statistically, throughout England and Wales, more than one fifth of lessons aren’t delivered by someone qualified in the subject. That means, in reality, that the teacher who does deliver the lesson material is often either simply ‘minding’ the class or ‘muddling through’. Either way, they’re being paid simply for standing in front of the class.

Now, that statistic doesn’t take into account the 55% absence rate among staff that’s been rising slightly, year-on-year, and in most schools they employ substitute staff to cope with these absences. The social and interpersonal dynamics in teaching mean it’s all but impossible for a substitute teacher to do anything with the class in terms of actual teaching, so they end up ‘minding’ the class. In other words, they’re paid for simply standing in front of a class.

This becomes more of an issue when you take into account in-service training. Almost all staff are given time off for in-service training – and much of it is compulsory, such as GCSE standardisation meetings, and so on. In that event, all their classes are covered by substitute staff, who are paid for simply standing in front of a class.

The percentage of FTE (Full Time Equivalent) teachers with QTS (Qualified Teacher Status) has been steadily falling for some years. From the Government’s own statistics “Secondary schools employ the majority of the 20,300 FTE teachers without QTS; 11.5 thousand (57 per cent). Primary schools employ 5.9 thousand teachers without QTS (29 per cent) and the remainder work in special schools or are employed directly by local authorities.”

Now, the situation is that when those who are attempting to elevate the quality of teaching visit or assess these people they can’t effectively do anything, since they’re employed in the full awareness that they’re not holding QTS. So in that instance “There’s little to no check on the quality of what they deliver”.

If we then examine the average, fully subject-qualified teacher standing in front of their class one might imagine that they deliver a lesson that excites, enthuses, stimulates and educates every time they do. Sadly, the reality is anything but. Part of that has to do with the ways in which schools are organised; Secondary schools, for instance, often work under a structure which actively denies children and staff the opportunities to receive and deliver high quality education. There are many reasons for this, but the outcome is the same: a poorer quality education than the children deserve.

In England children in Secondary schools pupils on average spend between six and six and a half hours per day in school. But let’s look at that. If we take the timetable of a school rated as ‘Good’. then we see it has 6 x 50 minutes periods (lessons) per day. Which sounds reasonably encouraging, because we can assume the kids are getting at least 5 hours education per day. You might notice that’s down significantly from the 6.5 hours they spend actually in school.

So then we look at the actual lessons. In a typical day at least one lesson will be delivered by a sub. Yes – work might be set by the teacher who’s missing, while the sub is paid for simply standing in front of the class, but it’s not the same as being taught.

So now we’re down to 4 hours 10 mins. But in Secondary schools children move from room to room and, in the larger schools, that takes time. Allowing for a minimum transition time between each of the 6 scheduled lessons, it can eat up around 40 minutes per day, simply moving along corridors, lining up outside classrooms, waiting for lessons starts and so on.

So now we’re down to 3 hours 30 mins in actual lessons being taught.

Bu that’s not the end of it. Far from it, as the teacher in each classroom has to ensure an orderly start to the lesson, deal with the minutiae of taking a register, missing books, absences, sorting out homework and stopping the children who enjoy challenging staff from disrupting the class for everyone else. All that easily adds another 30 – 45 mins per day onto the non-teaching bit.

So now we’re down to under 3 hours of actual taught lessons and I haven’t even started on fire drills, games lessons, PE lessons, potential disruption and so on.

Once we finally get into the classroom where we can actually learn something the teacher has to arrange the lesson to allow for the 30 or so individuals of varying ability they have to teach. So how is the quality monitored?

Well, there’s actually no universal agreement as to what makes a high quality lesson. There are a lot of terms thrown around. of course, buyt they’re often fairly meaningless when examined in the real-world context. Since there’s no agreement, OFSTED and others have drawn up ‘recommendations’, but all too often those are simply book-keeping measures which don’t even start to deal with quality of teaching.
The sad thing is that excellent teachers do exist, but all too often they’re driven out of the job by the increasing pressures to maintain the books.

Thank you Alfa I can quote other schools as well I am not lying ,I will shorten this as when I added to it it was blocked but if anybody says I am lying why block the TRUTH -WHICH ?

Thanks, Alfa. Yes – I’m aware of this, which seems to be a growing trend on the part of some parents who seem anxious that their children might suffer gender confusion. But this is squarely aimed at parents whose children have already expressed interest in gender identity, which some do. A growing number of adults have also written extensively about their own issues, and have pushed for early intervention by local authorities whom, I suspect, are simply trying to avoid upsetting parents. But it’s a long way from what Duncan was suggesting.

Which by blocking my reply can you see why Ian still thinks I am lying ? what I couldn’t post was in the newspapers , it was talked about , discussed very vigorously and a enormous Majority were against it , you know what I am, talking about . I will not accept somebody saying I am lying when I cannot reply because of politics and I dont mean Tory or Labour.

Its controversial Patrick and some wont like it or accept it involving Scotland , but its real. its true. and it was publicized in the Scottish newspapers but not seemingly in the English ones hence the disbelief. I am still hesitating as I am sure some are going to take offense.

There’ll be no offence taken by me, I can assure you on that front, Duncan. But I am involved with the UK education system at a national level and I can assure you that when you say pre-primary school children are asked “are you sure you are a male/female and so on (edit) before the 2X table , thats once they can talk English that makes sense ” I believe you’re simply wrong. In the case to which Alpha linked it was parents being asked to comment and they were free to refuse t comment if they so wished. But you have to understand that Local authorities are merely reacting to the growing pressure and emerging evidence from those who have changed genders and attempting to ensure they ‘get it right’. I have never accused you of lying, either; that’s not something you would do, but people often misunderstand how the Education processes work and newspapers like the DFM are only too quick to post their caricatures of the process.

Sadly, I’ve long believed that Education is actually too important to be left in the hands of local authorities and certainly not the DFM…

Ian it was 3 year olds , I ask you -THREE year olds upwards -toddlers who would be questioned on their sex even though it was physically obvious what sex they were and they were going to set up non-certificated “advisors ” (female ) to question them , all because of minority pressure and I mean ,at most, 6 % of the population . It caused a “storm ” in Scotland , and if NS wants to keep the SNP in power they should drop it like a hot brick . In other places it has caused intense trouble for those children of a weak mind later in life needing psychiatric help. I will ask a question , which parents of very young children , if this was proposed in England would agree with it that it is a “good idea ” and should be introduced ? I don’t care what other people or minorities do but once that impinges on the majority thats a different story. I may remind you the other PC idea of taking children’s welfare out of Scottish parents hands by appointing a government “Guardian ” so that parents ability to bring up their children or even look after them would be hit by draconian measures of permanently removing the child even for slight non-compliance , I see this was dropped due to protests from parents , who for the record were mostly female .

I still haven’t seen a link which establishes the veracity of what you;re saying, Duncan. But, again, you;’re making several points in one sentence, so can we look at each of them?

You argue this is because of minority pressure, but using your same yardstick we’d presumably seek to abolish all disabled facilities, since they only form a minority of the population. But you also make unsupported allegations. You say “In other places it has caused intense trouble for those children of a weak mind later in life needing psychiatric help” so please post a link to the evidence for that.

When you say “ I don’t care what other people or minorities do but once that impinges on the majority that’s a different story.” we’re back to disabled facilities again. They’re a minority, so surely there should be no disabled seating on trains, etc?

A further point was when you said taking children’s welfare out of Scottish parents hands by appointing a government “Guardian ” so that parents ability to bring up their children or even look after them would be hit by draconian measures of permanently removing the child even for slight non-compliance can you provide any evidence for that? I don’t think you can, because early intervention is a doctrine that’s been proposed many,. many times, and has some merit, in fact.

To continue, you forget that no child can be permanently removed from its parents other than through the independent judiciary. Even temporary removal is subject to very strict regulation, and the rights of parents are thoroughly safeguarded at every tune. However, some parents do a lot of damage to their children through crass stupidity and a host of other reasons. Are you arguing, then, that parents who routinely abuse their children in countless ways should not be subject to scrutiny? Who will protect the child, if not the parent?

Has some merit Ian ?, on that note I have no more to say on the subject as we are light years apart on our views , brainwashing babies due to pressure from a small minority is not my idea of an ideal society.

You see, Duncan, you’re not prepared to discuss the detail or read the research that supports some ideas but you are prepared to post things which bear no relation to reality and for which you have no supporting evidence. So again – when you say “brainwashing babies due to pressure from a small minority either provide links to reliable sources to support your accusations (‘Brain washing’ is illegal, BTW) and inform the police or I would invite you to withdraw your comments.

Duncan: this is a balanced article which you might find interesting:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19426002-100-teenagers-trapped-in-the-wrong-body/

I thought you got me wrong Ian , my problem,as I have pointed out on many occasions isn’t genuine cases , although you do know gender reconstruction is a serious legal issue and requires two doctors and months of visits to a psychiatrist/psychologist as , if they get it wrong they are in big trouble. My problem is that what was/maybe going to happen in Scotland was that the type of persons going round Primary schools would be Lesbians with a fixed political correct agenda who being part of the L+G communities act in a forceful measure to “pronounce ” young children as-the wrong body for that child,s mind . This causes uncertainty in young minds lasting into adulthood and may I remind you we are talking about approx 6 % of the population , why should the rest of young children be interrogated like this? you want real life – Fife Scotland – two lesbians tortured and killed a boy child , in the newspapers , over a long period he died slowly , broken bones, starvation, made to eat his own excreta and worse , like treated like a dog , put in a cage . The witches were jailed but they had the brass neck to say they were innocent , even the social workers and the social work department were criticized by the judge in the High Court . Genuine cases – no problem.

That was a terrible case, Duncan, and is a rare example of genuine evil. But I hope you’re not trying to compare the inhuman, sadistic actions of mentally damaged abusers with the actions of those who genuinely seek to try to make life better for all children? Sadly, child torture and murder are not as rare as we might hope, but I really don’t see a link between these malign individuals and what happens to children in schools.

I’d also suggest that your image of ”would be Lesbians with a fixed political correct agenda who being part of the L+G communities act in a forceful measure to “pronounce ” young children as-the wrong body” visiting infant schools is a flawed one. Under very strong UK law those who even visit schools are taken very seriously and those allowed to talk to classes and have contact with them are vetted carefully.

Furthermore, Head teachers are responsible, along with Governors, for what happens in these instances and they would want to be reassured that what they were approving wouldn’t land them in trouble.

So while I agree that it’s not appropriate to have potential murderers and abusers interrogating infants, this is not what was proposed in Scotland, nor is it what’s happening in other areas.

But you make an interesting point about the effects on young minds of almost anything. There’s a great deal of carefully researched evidence that indicates very young children assimilate a great deal more than most people think. In one sense it’s exactly why parents need to be so careful, and the question that most good parents ask is not ‘Have I damaged my children’ but ‘how badly?’. Children survive despite their parents, and some children have parents that really work hard to ensure their offspring are nurtured in a loving environment. But I believe bad parenting is the number one cause of social problems today, and the concept of the traditional nuclear family has changed drastically over the past few years.

I would say that we all agree about the history of the system from that lucid and detailed account, John. The real problem is why are we currently not achieving as we ought?

The national picture is a little worrying: essentially the system favours girls (detailed work, a lot of writing, etc.) but more worryingly over the past 30 years boys have become more and more disenchanted with education in general. And in many places teachers are not regarded well by the pupils. There’s no ‘natural’ acknowledgement of the teacher’s status, and that bring a whole raft of problems.

Malcolm touched on one consequence of this, briefly. I’d be interested in hearing more.

Ian why was it when I brought up this subject a while back I was heavily condemned ? I said due to teaching methods in this politically correct age boys are being ignored or made to become cooks or waiters to fit in with “service industry ” Britain . While in my day male occupations like engineering /science/maths/etc were at the fore . Its like a servile class is being manipulatingly raised like in Victorian times except for jobs that don’t interest boys now, no wonder boys are rebelling , what next -daily “medicine ” of valium to “calm them down ” forcefully administered by strong arm “medical monitors ” in jack-boots 1984 style . Get subjects that interest boys like mechanics etc .

There are really two points there, Duncan. The first being what you deem ‘Politically correct’ and the second being how you perceive the Education strategy and its potential outcomes.

Political correctness is a term largely coined by the US media and is almost exclusively used pejoratively. There’s no general agreement, either, of what constitutes Political correctness, so it’s used as a tool with which to belittle ideas people don’t like. From my own perspective I always feel when people resort to its use they’ve already lost the argument.

The second aspect is that you have a worrying perspective on gender: you talk about “male occupations like engineering /science/maths” which, to be frank, I find denigrating to the huge numbers of girls doing sterling work in those very disciplines. Should Madame Curie have stuck to cooking and toilet cleaning? There are incredibly few occupations which can be categorised as Male or Female, as our female fighter pilots would tell you.

And should males be forced into female occupations ? I am all for evenhandedness but what we have now is Positive Discrimination against males , Ian the Feminists even admit to it, demand it, and have got , even if a female doesn’t come up to the ability to perform a job she is chosen over a male just to “make up the numbers ” it isn’t only men who are complaining against that many females see the injustice in it. -“incredibly few jobs women cant do that men can”- you cant be serious Ian ? or is it because we are living in a service industry society ? Ask women if the majority of them want to do heavy manual laboring jobs rather than sit in an office .

News to me, duncan. My children of both sexes were never forced into jobs. A daughter is happy doing a combined supervisory / manual job and wanted to be a car mechanic. A female friend is a panel beater. There is, I would agree, a wish to see apparent discrimination removed from what women earn in equivalent jobs, and what they can aspire to and this leads to an over-reaction. So insisting we have 50% of women on boards – company or public – and to aim for equal numbers of MPs, regardless of ability, is where it all goes wrong. And as many younger women will leave work when they raise a family it is understandable that companies are more wary of investing heavily in expensive training when they are more likely to lose them than they are men.

Duncan: if you’re going to quote what I say, please ensure you do actually quote it and not simply make it up. I did not say there were “incredibly few jobs women cant do that men can”. I said “There are incredibly few occupations which can be categorised as Male or Female” which is quite different.

But let’s deal with the first point. “Should males be forced into female occupations?”. Are you alleging that’s what’s happening? Please provide a link to the evidence. You then say “what we have now is Positive Discrimination against males“. Again, please provide evidence.

But there’s another point, here: if an occupation is male-dominated, why should females not be given the opportunities to compete? Let’s look, for instance, at two occupations: Surgery and Comedy.

In Surgery females comprise only 11% of the total number of consultant surgeons. Why d’you imagine that is, Duncan? In probability terms alone they should make up at least 40%. This might explain some of it:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-34406443

Given surgical appointments panels are often male-dominated, perhaps there’s a need for females to enjoy a degree of positive discrimination. Interestingly, comedy has the same issue. It’s extremely hard for female comics to get bookings, yet some female comics are outstanding. The BBC addressed this by forcing shows to include at least one woman on each panel show. Why should that be necessary, Duncan?

Hmmm this escalated quickly 😲

Differing opinions are of course welcomed, but please try to keep comments friendly. Thank you!

As someone who has spent his working life teaching males and females and working with male and female staff, I am strongly in favour of equal opportunities. Yes women have children and may want a career break but that’s something we need to live with. Maybe the fundamental problem is when we put people before money.

For me, achievement is more about realising ambitions than accumulating wealth. Using this criterion, my most successful PhD student went on to run a new academy that cost about £50m to build and seems to be doing well according to recent reports. I am very proud of her. A year or so after the building opened I had the opportunity to see the facilities and chat with some of the staff. I do wonder how the academy will maintain some of the facilities because technology soon becomes dated and is costly to replace.

As an interesting aside, I did a vacation job for a small company that had a machine shop. The owner told me that he would not appoint anyone who was left-handed, explaining that their lathes and other equipment was designed with right-handed people in mind. That’s a good enough reason for discrimination but I don’t accept that anyone should be denied opportunity simply because of their sex.

One challenge that school teachers don’t have is children changing sex. One of our male graduates came back as a woman to do a PhD and one of my colleagues had a sex change. I’m happy with my gender but would suggest that anyone making the change might be well advised to move to a different institution. 🙂

I’m left handed and it has never stopped me working with machinery. One drawback, though, was in cheque books. When I used a fountain pen the side of my (left) hand tended to wipe across the damp ink, smudging it and also leaving a blue smear on the heel of my hand. Discriminatory? No – most banks will supply cheque books with the stubs on the right – although I only discovered this when the internet arrived and answered everything. .

Gender changing is certainly becoming a very hot topic:

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/feminism/2016/10/would-you-let-your-child-change-their-gender

and I do know of two cases at least, in Primary schools where this has happened. And there’s a curious thing too: the children at both schools were reported as having found no problems whatsoever, but their parents were a different matter. Interestingly, most of the issues seemed to stem from the men and the most severe from the least educated.

I did not know that, Ian, but I learn a lot from Which? Convo. Maybe we should leave it there because there are more common challenges in school education. 🙂

I agree with your comments, Wavechange. Motivation seems to be the key both for the educators and the pupils. The modernisation of the classroom experience has been a quiet revolution but perhaps it has not always achieved its potential in improving useful engagement and interaction. I know so many people who left teaching in the 1980’s and -90’s for more lucrative careers in other fields, although that was not always the motive that precipitated the move as the occupation itself was becoming increasingly unrewarding, and I feel that education has lost a great deal of talent.

Ian raised the question of the esteem in which teachers are held. I remember John Major at some point in his premiership grasping that point and saying how the teachers should once again be serious figureheads in their communities, be proud to live in the areas where their schools were based, and be respected by their community. I can’t remember how he said that would be achieved but I am sure it hasn’t come to pass.

Finally, there is a little cartoon in the current Private Eye which neatly parodies the gender assignment furore. It shows two toddlers in a sandpit and one says to the other “What do you want to be when you grow up? Boy or girl?”. As Wordsworth wrote over two hundred years ago, “The child is father of the man”.

I agree with most of what has been said, here. I was particularly interested in your thought, Wave, that children might learn more from younger staff. In general, that does seem to be the case, but I’ve never been quite sure exactly why. The comments about subject partitioning are also extremely relevant today, possibly more so than at any time in the past.

We live in a rapidly changing world and a world in which knowledge transcends traditional subject boundaries and compartmentalisation can be seen as an almost primitive attempt to segregate learning experiences. There have been some attempts to introduce thematic cross fertilisation within schools (it already happens – by force of circumstance – in Primary education) but problems have been encountered.

One issue, perhaps surprisingly, is the varying levels of literacy amongst secondary staff. I well remember dealing with a Physics teacher at a Comprehensive whose ability to form a coherent English sentence was severely limited. But there’s also significant resistance at the staff level from teachers of different subjects, despite a great deal of research pointing to the very obvious fact that relating mathematical concepts to historical events, for example, such as sieges, not only enhances interest n the concept but also aids retention of the ideas.

In many ways there’s a crisis looming in Education, and it has to be addressed in some radical ways. But that’s not going to be easy and will take a lot of political courage. In one quite good comprehensive school only one person – the Head of Music – knew what E=Mc2 was, outside of the Science faculty.

Thanks for keeping this fascinating Conversation going. Although I worked in HE, I have been fascinated by what happens in schools and particularly the challenges of moving into HE, either as school leavers or becoming mature students.

Seriously, you’re spot on with needing to learn from history. And equally adroit with that perceptive observation about the loss of VIth forms at schools. But in fact, I suspect the entire system needs a radical overhaul.

I suspect we need much larger schools: about 3000 seems to be an optimum size for various reasons, and we are moving towards the larger model. I also suspect we need to look at the abandoned idea of the ‘Middle school’ – the 10 – 14 year age group. When I use the term ‘school’, by the way, I’m only talking about a collection of pupils. not a building. I see no real reason, for instance, why we can’t educate children from 3 – 18 in the same local group of buildings, although I can anticipate many of the objections.

But the major problem, the biggest issue of all, is the children who have no interest in learning. In developmental terms that’s almost an oxymoron. Yet classes in all schools are held back and seriously disadvantaged by a tiny minority of disruptive children. There are myriad issues, both psychological and environmental why these children become as they do, but they exert a disproportionate strain on any school they attend, diverting resources, damaging the education of other children and bringing schools themselves into disrepute. Mostly, they can be contained by sound teaching, but that varies from teacher to teacher, and some cannot cope.

Successive Governments have shied away from tackling the issue at the earliest opportunity but it remains a major problem and one for which radical action is sorely needed.

If you examine the other countries’ systems you will find three things: longer school days, shorter holidays and a much higher status for teaching. In Japan, for instance, the sensei is widely respected and generally they themselves respond, becoming almost obsessive in their desire to do things well for their students.

But if we want to improve the system here we have to change the length of school days and holidays at the very least. And the Government needs to remove itself from the entire Education arena. Teaching should be the province of teachers – not politicians .

Another test of the effectiveness of our education system is how well it produces the minds and aptitudes the country needs for the occupations that will make it prosper. I don’t know how that is measured but anecdotal evidence suggests that we have failed in that for decades. Of course, in the next ten years we are also going to need a lot of construction workers but I am not sure that is being addressed either.

I have no objection to the processes of education being entirely determined by teachers so long as politicians determine the allocation of resources and monitor the results of the national investment.

I planned to retire when I was 60 but my decision was helped by the decline in opportunity for academics to run the show. In my experience, teaching is increasingly run as a business, with decisions being taken by administrators. That is a common complaint from many who have been in HE for twenty years or more. I don’t know to what extent this problem is shared by those involved in schoolteaching.

I would prefer administrators and politicians making decisions about education to have moved from a successful career in teaching.

I won’t comment, Duncan, because I believe your basic premise is entirely unsubstantiated and that to argue the point would not be good for this Conversation.

Duncan: why are the two issues mutually exclusive? This topic is about education here – but if there were a topic on human rights in Saudi, I’m sure we’d all contribute. It’s simply not of immediate relevance in here.

Of course all children are influenced – by many things. The most significant, however, are parents, followed by peers once they attain the ages of 11 – 12. I suspect you vastly overestimate the influence schools wield.

But there are a number of points you make for which you have no evidence. When you say “I wasn’t subjected to political /social pressure to “think a certain way ” for all the heavy hand of teaching I got it certainly was left to me to mentally come to my own point of view of politics and society the essential concept behind conditioning or ‘Brainwashing’ is that the subject is unaware of the conditioning. So you might have been conditioned to say everything you’re now saying. The crucial point is how would you know otherwise?

But you still haven’t answered any of the questions I asked you.

Ian-My problem in life is that I was born too aware both inwardly and outwardly and social conditioning I got was at home not at schools which should be 100 % neutral but the primary schools are not where young minds can be “developed ” and “social training ” takes place . Behind this are pressure groups who decide a shires education policy to instill children into thinking in a certain way , this is completely open they don’t even deny it minority groups force education departments into doing what they want even if that is the will of the minority . I know there are different schooling methods downloaded from the States but that is social programming if truth be told. My next door neighbour when I had a flat sent their son to an “exclusive ” school not one of higher learning but of social conditioning.

I think this has gone way off topic, so all I can say is that my schooling, that of my children, and of our grandchildren shows absolutely no sign of “social engineering”, whatever that might mean. How do you assess the school your neighbour’s son went to as socially engineering their pupils? I suppose educational establishments that prepare students for careers in particular sectors will help them with the necessary skills – the diplomatic service would need diplomacy as a skill no doubt, something not inherent in many people’s make up in my experience.

Sorry. Duncan; until and unless you can provide some objective evidence I can’t continue this.
Malcolm: indeed. The major influence on children is their parents. Ordinary schools pale by comparison.

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There are a couple of points, really. This was talking about early childhood – not mature females. And it was research which confirms what has been noted before: that children are susceptible to varying influences when extremely young.

There’s a different psycho-social expectation for boys in our society and, although you’re right about this being US-centric, many social trends there are mirrored here, to an extent. But even in our own family, where we have some decidedly extremely high-achieving females, they’ve often told us how they felt, when they were much younger, that boys were superior.

If you read the original research as well as the BBC report, you’ll see how the findings were arrived at. Once again we come back to parenting. We did not get our boys guns or cowboy outfits when they were young; and we never opted for the blue colour scheme. It always surprised me just how many of our relatives thought we were being ‘unkind’ by not playing to the gender stereotyping that’s so rampant among companies providing for infants.