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TimR-J
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« on: 15:11:04, 24-09-2007 » |
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Gordo's been making much of the parable of the talents in his speech today. So much so that he's decided on a complete revamp of education: 300,000 primary school pupils get one-to-one tuition in literacy; another 300,000 get the same in maths. Sport gets a guaranteed 5 hours of the weekly school timetable per pupil. And there will be "time for arts and music".
Hmm, hardly the sort of ironclad commitment that makes the heart sing...
Second class talents, anyone?
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richard barrett
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« Reply #1 on: 15:34:47, 24-09-2007 » |
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hardly the sort of ironclad commitment that makes the heart sing...
Actually it's bollox, isn't it? The lack of a guarantee of time for "arts and music" is just there to cover up for the fact that most schools wouldn't have the resources to use that time. Why is sport considered so very very important? It isn't as if we Brits are any good at it. |
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #2 on: 15:57:20, 24-09-2007 » |
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Why is sport considered so very very important? It isn't as if we Brits are any good at it.
I wonder if it's something to do with the obesity problem...  |
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Swan_Knight
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« Reply #3 on: 16:17:43, 24-09-2007 » |
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I'm no fan of sport, but even I know that the British are useless at it.
Then again, they (we) do seem to have a fetish about things we're no good at.
And the big haggis who now holds our fate in his clammy hands is anxious to grease up to the mythical users of the Clapham omnibus, hence this 'commitment' to sport and his urging us to deface our gardens with union flags.
Whereas, the correct way to go about things would be to ban all competitive sports and soap operas and trashy magazines and give the public a permanent diet of high culture on all available tv channels.
That way, it would be a case of either switch off, or learn.
And if operate on the premise that people tend to ultimately accept what they're given, I think the majority would choose to watch and learn.
Gordon, though, doesn't understand this; or, if he does, he's too pusillanimous to give it a try.
Iron Chancellor? Wet blanket, more like.
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...so flatterten lachend die Locken....
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time_is_now
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« Reply #4 on: 17:54:53, 24-09-2007 » |
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Glad to see you're so strongly opposed to the nanny state, S-K!  Just remind me on what basis you're entitled to judge what other people should be fed on TV, and how you'd argue against someone else coming along to dictate that you should be fed a diet of wall-to-wall Big Brother and The X Factor. Remember: people tend to ultimately accept what they're given ... |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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sambeckett
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« Reply #5 on: 18:15:38, 24-09-2007 » |
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Most schools don't have the equipment to teach music, or staff with the experience to teach it. This is especially true of primary education in this country, and a great shame as maybe a better music education at this level would lead to more pupils (and schools!) choosing to take it seriously later on in education. The music curriculum reads as if it were designed to put children off music, and in most places it is not even implemented. But as S_K points out, where 'audience figures' (or I suppose, GCSE results, etc) for such things are seen to be too low for the government to pay them much attention there is little hope for any improvement. |
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What's empirical about sound? You can't write an article about it in die Reihe, that's for sure.
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #6 on: 18:25:54, 24-09-2007 » |
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Well, wall-to-wall reality TV, soap operas, light comedies, and the like, are undoubtedly provided for by satellite. Isn't the point of public service broadcasting to provide something that these other channels don't provide?
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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Swan_Knight
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« Reply #7 on: 19:07:16, 24-09-2007 » |
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Glad to see you're so strongly opposed to the nanny state, S-K! Just remind me on what basis you're entitled to judge what other people should be fed on TV, and how you'd argue against someone else coming along to dictate that you should be fed a diet of wall-to-wall Big Brother and The X Factor. Remember: people tend to ultimately accept what they're given ... But I'm not an elected politician and have no aspirations to be so. And, anyway, for most of my lifetime, the public HAS been fed a diet of garbage by the TV channels, both terrestrial and satellite, though things have got a lot worse in recent years, following Thatcherite deregulation measures, which the Blair/Brown government seem happy not to tamper with. You'll admit, I hope, that things have come to a pretty pass when the leader of a once avowedly Socialist party, which still claims to represent the interests of the less fortunate, starts preaching bread and circuses. |
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...so flatterten lachend die Locken....
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perfect wagnerite
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« Reply #8 on: 19:34:24, 24-09-2007 » |
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Well, wall-to-wall reality TV, soap operas, light comedies, and the like, are undoubtedly provided for by satellite. Isn't the point of public service broadcasting to provide something that these other channels don't provide?
Hear hear!! Turning to the obsession with sport, I can see how irresistible it is to the New Labour mind to combine easy populism with the public school ethic But, more seriously, Richard is absolutely right. In my experience as parent and ex-school governor, the obsession with testing and SATS has not only driven art and music off the curriculum, but also much of the humanities, and the teaching of both English and modern languages at primary level is a joke. It's interesting that in France, formal teaching starts later but by the age of 11, pupils appear to be way ahead in terms of both the breadth and depth of knowledge. I think there is within this country (and certainly within New Labour) a profound anti-intellectualism that balks at the idea that education should go beyond the economically-necessary basics; give them the facts, and nothing but, and bore the pants of them for all of Year 6 by revising for SATS, leaving them woefully ill-prepared for secondary school (and then do the same in year 9 and year 11). I often thought that, whether consciously or not, Government's view of education was one of children sitting compliantly in uniform behind desks, as preparation for a life of sitting compliantly in uniform behind desks ... As a school governor, I used to despair of arguing the case for a broader curriculum - including music, the arts and the humanities - to my electorate, the parents. "What use is that in life?" was the reply I usually got, meaning "How will that help him/her get a job, a house and a nice shiny 4x4?" It's not just that there's no time for these things, there's apparently not much will. The idea that education should be a broadening and liberating experience seems to have got lost along the way, and seems to play no part in Gordon Brown's vision of life. |
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At every one of these [classical] concerts in England you will find rows of weary people who are there, not because they really like classical music, but because they think they ought to like it. (Shaw, Don Juan in Hell)
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ahinton
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« Reply #9 on: 19:45:49, 24-09-2007 » |
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Well, wall-to-wall reality TV, soap operas, light comedies, and the like, are undoubtedly provided for by satellite. Isn't the point of public service broadcasting to provide something that these other channels don't provide?
Hear hear!! Turning to the obsession with sport, I can see how irresistible it is to the New Labour mind to combine easy populism with the public school ethic But, more seriously, Richard is absolutely right. In my experience as parent and ex-school governor, the obsession with testing and SATS has not only driven art and music off the curriculum, but also much of the humanities, and the teaching of both English and modern languages at primary level is a joke. It's interesting that in France, formal teaching starts later but by the age of 11, pupils appear to be way ahead in terms of both the breadth and depth of knowledge. I think there is within this country (and certainly within New Labour) a profound anti-intellectualism that balks at the idea that education should go beyond the economically-necessary basics; give them the facts, and nothing but, and bore the pants of them for all of Year 6 by revising for SATS, leaving them woefully ill-prepared for secondary school (and then do the same in year 9 and year 11). I often thought that, whether consciously or not, Government's view of education was one of children sitting compliantly in uniform behind desks, as preparation for a life of sitting compliantly in uniform behind desks ... As a school governor, I used to despair of arguing the case for a broader curriculum - including music, the arts and the humanities - to my electorate, the parents. "What use is that in life?" was the reply I usually got, meaning "How will that help him/her get a job, a house and a nice shiny 4x4?" It's not just that there's no time for these things, there's apparently not much will. The idea that education should be a broadening and liberating experience seems to have got lost along the way, and seems to play no part in Gordon Brown's vision of life. I'm sad to say that most of what you write here is very much to the point. Should we bring back the grammar schools? I don't know - if so, however, you'd have to find enough suitably qualified, experienced and motivated teachers first. The only thing that struck me as really odd in your post here is the apparent ease with which you appeared to find no problem in putting "Gordon Brown" and "vision" in the same sentence; considerably more articulate than his predecessor he undoubtedly is, but "vision"? - tell that to the marines! (or, better still, to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan)... Best, Alistair |
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #10 on: 19:57:07, 24-09-2007 » |
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Should we bring back the grammar schools? I don't know - if so, however, you'd have to find enough suitably qualified, experienced and motivated teachers first. To attract the best people to the profession, they would have to be paid better, which brings us once more back to the issue of taxation and public spending. New Labour have for at least the last decade-and-a-half tried to pretend that they can make things better whilst retaining Thatcherite levels of taxation and spending. The results are there for all to see, in all fields of life. (by the way, in no sense would I endorse the return of the 11-plus and grammar school system) |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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Tony Watson
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« Reply #11 on: 20:07:23, 24-09-2007 » |
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Why is sport considered so very very important? It isn't as if we Brits are any good at it.
This government put so much effort into getting the Olympics for London, it would seem odd if it then regarded sport at school as unimportant. But historically, I think our national obsession with sport stems from its introduction into public schools in the 19th century as a means of occupying boarders and improving discipline. Other schools saw this as an ideal to aspire to and it's why so many of the sports played around the world (football, cricket, tennis, rugby, boxing - Queensbury rules, etc) originated in Britain. Personally, I'm with Kipling's view of them as "flannelled fools and muddied oafs". |
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #12 on: 20:15:29, 24-09-2007 » |
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Turning to the obsession with sport, I can see how irresistible it is to the New Labour mind to combine easy populism with the public school ethic In many ways that's the most succinct and acute characterisation of New Labour, and the British culture they have bequeathed, that I have read for some time. |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #13 on: 20:34:54, 24-09-2007 » |
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"But perhaps his most impressive anti-crime announcement was his promise that £620m of unclaimed assets in dormant bank accounts will be used to build new youth centres across the country, giving young people somewhere to go and something to do." Like this maybe?  |
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aaron cassidy
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« Reply #14 on: 20:43:39, 24-09-2007 » |
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Why is sport considered so very very important? It isn't as if we Brits are any good at it.
I wonder if it's something to do with the obesity problem... I'd suggest that perhaps having time set aside during the school day for exercise might, um, help that obesity problem. I'm the lone voice on this side of this particular issue here, it seems, but I completely and wholeheartedly support promoting athletic activity in schools. I'd like to see the same 5 hrs directly committed to music and art, of course, but I'd think the argument against supporting exercise for children & youth is pretty untenable. And, speaking of untenable arguments .... you're not very good at sport as a nation? That's a completely ridiculous comment. You have one of the top 2-3 football leagues in the world (in fact, your second-tier league is better than most, and even the third-tier league (despite its bizarrely inaccurate name) is better than many leagues, internationally), and have been among the top teams in the world in a whole slew of different sports. And I just had a little gander at the medal counts from the last few olympics, and you were 10th in both 2000 and 2004. Ehem. |
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