February 26, 2010

Hey! Teacher! Leave Them Kids Alone

It is high time, I think, that we looked at education in the developed world.

(I took the liberty of liberating the image below from  Taking Liberties which is a favourite haunt of mine).

 
"And with this finger, children, you can caress his prostate. A vital tip for boys and girls alike".

Very late in my life I realised that my 14 years at school were utterly wasted. I learnt nothing of value, not really. I learnt how to read, which was lucky, because I happened to love reading. Before I was 10 years old I was reading at 16 year old level. About fifteen years ago I trained as a literacy tutor. It was a voluntary thing, and I would visit people in their homes to teach them basic reading skills. My evaluation (when I had completed the training) confirmed that I read at an 18 year old level. I met some wonderful folks who had been fooling their families, and their employers for years, and it was very satisfying and fulfilling to know that you had offered genuine help to someone who needed these basic, vital skills. One who had, for various reasons, never been taught to read and write properly at school. Once you know what to look for you can spot someone with literacy problems in seconds. Just to put this into perspective, over 65% of children leave school with a reading age of 12 or lower. And for most, this is enough for them to lead happy and productive lives. Sort of.

Imagine though, just how much more successful these people could be if they left with a reading age of 16 or 18?

That concept will have to remain firmly in your imagination, because our kids are getting progressively dumber. It is by design. It is deliberately engineered. And, in my opinion, it should lead to the arrest and incarceration of every education minister for the last fifty years.

Let me explain.

(I am quoting chunks of a brilliant book by The Antiterrorist. His research is second to none. I will give details of the book at the end of the piece).

Shortly after Prussia had taken a severe kicking by Napoleon, they decided to set up a compulsory education system. The year was 1819 and they set up a tiered education system. Those selected for political office were sent to Acadamie and represented around half of one percent of all schoolchildren. Those destined to assist the policy-makers (engineers, architects, lawyers and doctors), around 5.5%, were educated at Realschulen, and the remaining 94%, who were to be taught very little, apart from "Harmony, obedience, and freedom from stressful thinking", were sent to Volkschulen. Essentially they were trained to do as they were told by the other 6%. Have a look at education today, and you will find that almost nothing has changed.

In fact, read this quote from Medford Evans and George R. Clark, written in 1944:

"In every society where there is a ruling class there is one kind of education for rulers and another for the ruled. Vocational training, which confines itself to teaching skills, tends to limit the individual's interest in general social problems and to discourage intelligent participation in political life. As such, it is the ideal education for the servants of the ruling class. It is sharply distinguished from a vital program of liberal education such as that which provides a broad general training for rulers....The real issue is a political rather than an academic one: how widely available should a liberal education be? There is no more radical and democratic idea afloat than that of providing a liberal education for everyone".

We leave school as drones, fit for almost nothing. We are selected for employment based on the few skills we picked up, or showed a competence at, and from there we are advised which careers we should follow. Only rarely do the very bright kids get a shot at something different. Most of us are taught just enough to ensure that we avoid critical thinking. That job goes to those that can afford a private education. We are the cattle, the droids, the unthinkers, here only to ensure that the rulers are served, and served well.

The answer, is, of course, home-schooling. Have you noticed a tendency of late for a) more parents to opt for home-schooling and b) the governments resistance to this new desire of parents who, after all, only want to do what most parents do: prepare their offspring for a happy, healthy, successful life? The Ministry of (un)Education insist that children must go to school with other children, and that they must interact with their peers.

Not so, says David W. Kirkpatrick of the Heartland Institute:

"A 1960 study for the Smithsonian Institution by Harold McCurdy concluded that genius is more likely to develop among children who spend more time with their parents and other adults, spend less time with their peers, and have freedom to work out their fantasies. McCurdy also suggested the public school system tends to do the reverse and restrict the development of geniuses".

Before you rush to blame your parents, remember that public schooling is an attractive thing for them. The kids are out of the way for the day, and someone else is responsible for them. This leaves them free to work, rest and play during the week. It's a good deal for them. The teachers too, are blameless. They are taught how and what to teach. They are merely following orders. Churn out as many as you can with a few certificates so that they can enter society and become useful and productive. For those that misbehave, gaol awaits, ensuring many thousands of public sector jobs. For those that cannot grasp that basic stuff, and leave with no papers, there are hundreds of thousands of menial, low paid jobs to be done. It's a win-win for all concerned. Meanwhile, the elite are being educated properly at the best schools in the land.

Ed Balls, and his minions, have decided that your five year old child needs to know about sex. Not just heterosexual practises, but every deviation known to man, hence the caption under the picture. Your children need to be taught that black kids, asian kids, muslims, jews, and christians are all exactly the same. Except we are not. We are from diverse cultures and we are a pot pourri nation. Your children must be taught to avoid offending the over-sensitive, that bullying is bad, conformity is good, and that their papers will ensure happiness. But the most heinous thing they are indoctrinated with, in my opinion, is that whatever goes wrong in their lives, they are not responsible for it. Someone else is to blame. Games are restricted to those that can be played while being covered head to toe in cotton wool, and risks must be avoided at all costs. Until very recently, I believed this to be a bad thing. Now that I look at the education of our prime cattle herd from the governments standpoint, it all makes sense. We don't want, or need, individual animals going off the reservation. We need them to do and die. We need taxes, goddammit, and a steady flow at that. If kids start to leave school with ideas above their station, that funding is in jeopardy. They may just find out that life, as they know it, is an illusion.

This is a huge subject. What you learn at school pretty much determines the outcome of the rest of your life. I will need to revisit the subject to open out the debate, but I hope that I have laid out the fundamentals here. I hope that I have adequately explained why the system we have is engineered, and why it absolutely must continue to dumb our kids down. A nation of 61 million people, all with the ability to think, to rationalise, and to weigh up every situation they come across with no help from the authorities, must be avoided at all costs. It cannot be allowed to happen. And they ensure that it does not. Our dependency on them is critical for the illusion to continue.

This piece is an amalgam of information from The Antiterrorist's Handbook and some of my own observations. 

I fully recommend buying the book and studying its contents. The tagline on the back says "Thinking for yourself is the new black". I could not agree more. You can visit here to buy the book: The Antiterrorist.

As always, you are most welcome to dump your thoughts in the comments section.

CR.

18 comments:

Uncle Marvo said...

It is a part of something called PSHE, which is an acronym for New Labour Government Propaganda and therefore should be NLGP, but they decided aginst that one because

a) it was too obvious and
b) it looked like it had Lesbian and Gay in it.

Teachers mainly ignore what they are supposed to teach because they recognise it for what it is.

Captain Ranty said...

Thing is Marv, having attended dozens of Parents Evenings over the last twenty years, I know that too few teachers give a damn. There are rare ones that care about my children, and do their best with the tools they have, but sadly, I find that the majority are nine to fivers. Get in, do as little as possible, and get out. The kids are almost a nuisance to to them.

Their education is pretty much irrelevant.

CR.

Uncle Marvo said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Uncle Marvo said...

Without (so many) typos ...

I go to parent's evenings too. My kids are very lucky with their schools.

I also know far too many skoolteachers and all the ones I know are better than average. So their pupils are lucky too.

I know of these "other" places though. I drive through them, but I don't stop. That doesn't mean that I want my money to go into a big bucket so my kids end up as disadvantaged as the rest, in a socialism stylee, because it

DOESN'T
FUCKING
WORK.

See "History" for examples.

Drag up the bad.
Keep up the good.

Anonymous said...

Ok Squire

So how are you going to remove the public schools? Thereby taking on the armed forces who use them to educate their children when they are away. No UK government is capable of doing this short of the revolution.

Captain Ranty said...

Anon,

Beyond home schooling, where the parents determine what their kids learn, I have no other solutions.

I don't think there is a magic bullet, and no-one is looking for one. The system does what it is supposed to do: it spews out millions of kids without (too much) ambition, unable to think sensibly, and they are totally unaware of the real world and how to succeed in it.

In school, 2 + 2 may equal 4, but very often, out here, it is 3, or 5.

I suppose the real answer is to radically overhaul the school curriculum. Teach different subjects, better.

The first step would be to clone the methods used and the subjects taught at the schools for the elite. If it works for them, it will work for the masses.

CR.

Uncle Marvo said...

Clone the methods:

First step, have an entrance exam. If the kid fails, it's out.

Hm.

Second step, pay the teacher a shitload of cash.

Hm.

I see a pattern emerging.

We are not born equal, you know that Ranty. We are born equal in the sight of God, and given aspirations each according to our abilities.

Earn your money. Your kids are your first priority. If you have any spare, then that's maybe useful to help other kids. Anyone who tries to take their share BEFORE I've dealt with what's mine is on a sticky and dangerous wicket.

"Other" kids MAY be disadvantaged because their mothers are any of the following do NOT deserve what I have managed to earn for MY kids:

benefit spongers
stupid
slags
cunts
etc

That's why I won't vote Labour.

JMHO

Captain Ranty said...

Marv,

I know that we do not live in a fair world, jam-packed with sunshine and lollipops.

I also know that the levels of stupidity in our society are not solely down to genetics. A large lump of it is down to shitty teaching methods, and fucking targets. The target is all, and if it means dumping slower kids along the way, then so be it. Collateral damage. Anticipated blood on the carpet.

I do not doubt for a second that we have far too many "Wayne & Waynetta" type families, but I am now starting to wonder if that isn't by design as well?

This is a fucked up country in a fucked up world.

CR.

Uncle Marvo said...

My world is full of sunshine and lollipops. And bunnies.

One day they will catch me, but until then ...

Don't know about you, but if you wander around here on a daytime when the market's open, Wayne and Waynetta are rife.

I don't think it's by design. When I was a young Marvo, there were few Waynes and fewer Waynettas.

Only one of the many schools I went to even HAD a special bus. We were taught, and then the next lot were taught, and so on.

But because there is a new world vision, everything must chage. Bugger whether it was broken or not.

Control freaks, the pack of them. And you DO NOT HAVE TO DO WHAT THEY SAY, because neither you nor they can point me towards anything that says you do. Just man made "laws" made in isolation by unelected people.

Fuck them. With the splintered axe handle etc etc.

microdave said...

The first thing that needs to be done is to get rid of the PC bollocks which strangles everything these days. Stop government interfering in the day to day running of schools. Allow the good teachers to TEACH, and encourage kids to find out things for themselves, not blindly follow rules. Let the kids take some risks, instead of molly codling them.

I have to consider myself lucky that I was educated in the 60's and early 70's, before too much rot set in. I nearly blew the chemistry lab up once, and the metalwork teacher used to leave ME in charge if he wanted to nip off for a fag...

In short, turn the clock back.... It may not have been perfect then, but it was a damn sight better than what we have now.

Anonymous said...

Having made my crust for the past 10 years tutoring privately, mathematics, the dumbing down of your kids has been something I have tried to point out to people time and time again.

For example, I recently gave a highly rated math student the same test I took at her age, the last "O" level.... (I say last, as, as far as I'm aware, they are still taken by UK schools abroad, in places like Singapore, so why not the UK? Ask yourself that.... anyway, the test....), and she was unable to even make a dent. Topics I had covered were no longer on the syllabus, even at A level in some cases.

But of course, tests aren't getting easier are they. No, of course, not.

Bullshit. You're kidding yourselves if you believe that.

So, if they're getting easier, with topics now not being covered, ask yourself, what exactly are they doing all day? Why is it, that teachers are unable to, as I've been told, time and time again, "finish the syllabus."? When we covered more topics in less time? Not to mention, going into a test without learning the stuff needed, is like taking a driving test with the steering wheel missing, surely.....

Don't get me started on how the grading figures are fiddled either.... go grab a cumulative frequency graph and figure it out...

And that's not to say students aren't hard working, but please, don't confuse quantity with quality. Spending hours and hours spewing out nothing but facts, is not the same as spending hours and hours figuring out a problem or debate.

I'm afraid unless you are able to get into a private school, the whole thing is largely a waste of time. I used to think differently, now I don't. They seem to be still teaching in old fashioned ways. No GCSE's for them, no O Levels or IB exams all round for them... You're not being taught anything, so to speak. Although, that's not perfect either. You just get a better shot at learning what you need to keep your "position" at the head of the table....

On a related note, there was an interesting piece on the Vine Show, radio 2, today, regarding homeschooling and how it was basically at fault leading to the death of a young girl from various abuses. Not the failure of social services. No, home schoolers.

Check it out, listen to the anti homeschooling is bullshit spouted by the guest commentator....

I don't remember seeing all judges and heads of police tarred with the same brush as those engaging in inappropriate actions with children last week, when the case of Hollie Grieg was bubbling under.

But of course, kids are much safer at school where the teachers can have sex with them over "200 times" at age 12, as another new item was reported in the news bulletin before the program.... or nurseries, where the supposed carers are getting them to behave inappropriatly so that they have stuff to circulate amongst their sick friends.... yeah, so much safer.

Finally, on this point, If it's not safe for the kids to be home schooled, why is it safe for them to be at home at all?

How long before you need a licence to have kids?

"1984, JB? You're mad, it'll never happen. The people won't stand for it!"

So, where the fuck are you then? I'm waiting.... 'cos they're coming for your kids. I take that back. They're already here. Well done.

I'm seething. Can't you tell?

JB

LazyCookPete said...

Hey microdave, that sounds like my physics teacher! Could be the same guy. Same era too.

The ruling class education only prepares them for that specific life - an even narrower spectrum than the other end of the scale. Take away their servants and 'the governed' and they will all have to learn to wipe their own arses. If the law of natural selection took over, the chinless ones would go down very fast.

Anonymous said...

Sadly JB you confirmed everything I had thought was going on in schools which makes our family's decision to pull our 12 year old out of a nulab academy the correct one.

subrosa said...

I'm perhaps one of the oldest here. We were well taught in the 3xRs in primary, but when it came to secondary girls were very obviously just that - secondary.

University wasn't for many (only those whose parents could afford it) and girls were certainly never encouraged to aim that high. We were encouraged to continue onto teacher training. That was what was considered the pinnacle of success for females.

My school was one of the top academies in Scotland and yet they had already started the social engineering. It is still regarded as 'high quality' because it ticks all the boxes required today.

Since the 50s so much money has been ploughed into education and the results show no improvement. That's what disappoints me today. Children have lost the excitement of learning.

What makes a good teacher? Someone who likes your child? For me the results make a good teacher and the manner with which they respect each child's abilities.

Auch I could rant on. Sorry to bore you all.

Must get the settee nearest the TV for the rugby. :)

microdave said...

"What makes a good teacher?"

I can't honestly remember many of mine, but one I do was our French teacher Bill Haddon. He was in his 60's, and would only take so much from unruly pupils before unleashing almighty retribution!

But he was a damn good teacher, who realised that sometimes the class simply weren't interested, and rather than keep pressing on, he would change the subject completely - usually recounting some tales of his wartime experiences.

He was also rather good on the hockey field, as my badly bruised shin once demonstrated.

When he reached retirement age we had a whip round and bought him a bottle of plonk. At the end of his last lesson one of us walked up to present it to him. Bearing in mind the political situation at the time his quick fire remark was fitting: "Ah, a petrol bomb!"

Sadly, I doubt there are many like him nowadays....

Barry the Jackal said...

Anonymous - Yes, Home educators have known for a while that the gov't were going to try using the verdict on the Khyra Ishaq trial to justify the HE elements of the highly unpopular, controversial, poorly evidenced, ideologically driven CSF Bill currently being shoehorned through. Of course, I hope all reading here will see through the spin, see that where the gov't points the finger of blame is the last place to look. Be aware for example that Birmingham City Council are alleged to have spent £800 a day on a PR man to spin the blame away from them. Be aware that existing legislation used properly would have saved her life. Be aware of the long list of people who saw the girl and failed to act. Be aware that concerns were raised before she was pulled from school. We don't have a TV so I've not seen the BBC's coverage but I'm told it has gleefully pushed the Labour line that this is an HE issue. It's not. If anyone is interested let me know and would be happy to provide some good articles on this.

Also, CR - "home schooling, where the parents determine what their kids learn". Many home educating familes follow an autonomous approach where the child leads the way in their education, using structured or unstructured methods as best suits their learning style and their interests at that time, with parents acting as facilitators and sharing their thoughts and skills as well as those of people in their area. When the potential of that hits you, there's no looking back! Try: John Holt, John Taylor Gatto, Alan Thomas, Jan Fortune-Wood (Doing It Their Way), and others. Again, would be delighted to provide more food for thought on this topic.

Sorry if that all sounds excessively defensive, but I suspect this is largely a receptive audience!

Barry

James Higham said...

This week I'm getting into this theme after sovereignty and it's a huge one. The way education has been blighted in so many ways needs taking apart but what can be done? These people are the new teachers and it's an incestuous thing.

Lion of England said...

I wonder how many will stand against Mr
Scrotum and his pervert band?