Keith,
During my Ph.D. residency, in education, I was
exposed to a number of visiting scholars from Britain: Open University,
University of Bristol, and so on, so I am a little bit familiar with British
education. As well, I consume in my reading a number of British writers
who use British data, as support for their perspectives.
My response to the article you posted was: so
what? It is pretty descriptive and doesn't help me understand very
much. The historical perspective is the last 10 years, and I don't need to
cite chapter and verse on the nature of those 10 years in British
education. The greatest travesty, in my view, is the abstraction of those
kids in the 40 per cent failure cohort.
I read the article as being written in code,
justifying a further assault on public education in Britain. The target in
this case, obliquely, is another assault on the capacity of teachers to be
'objective' in setting standards in their assessment of student's progress, in
meeting the needs of the new economy, effectively putting in play a call for the
privatization of teacher assessment technologies, thus compromising that most
fundamental aspect of teacher professionalism, the assessment of their
students. There are similar pressures in the United States, and as we have
often mentioned, Blair's 'third way' is quite sympatico with King George's royal
decrees. The past 10 years, in Britain, have included debates concerning
school-based management. Local governance sounds like a good idea,
right? Well, what's the status of that reform? How about policy talk
to remove educators from managing the schools and replace them with the textbook
new professionalism of an MBA graduate. Again, there are similar pressures
in America.
On a side note. I noticed the article
indicated that test results among 11-year olds have been improving. Blair
hired a Canadian academic, Dr. Michael Fullan, Dean of the
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto, to
advise his government on assessment and accountability issues. Given the
fact that the numbers [if that's what matters in education] are being
ratcheted in a direction that makes professional politicians salivate, it sounds
like Michael has had some impact. I also sense his influence in some of
the forthcoming policy initiatives mentioned in the article. This is not
the place for me to speak my critique of Michael's reformist
limitations.
Bob
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 5:23
PM
Subject: [Futurework] Coming of age in
new times
I feel more than a little rueful that a recent
report by the National Commission of Education in has "officially" stated
something that I've spent quite a lot of time writing about on the Net in
recent years -- the woeful inadequacy of post-puberty education for a
considerable proportion of our children. Although this particularly applies to
England I judge that a similar report could be written about America, both
countries where state education is predominant. However, although secondary
schools on the Continent don't seem to be so badly affected (though they have
other sorts of education-to-work problems which are equally serious), the same
basic problem remains.
The world of adults appear to be in a conspiracy
against the young in order to prevent them growing up and competing for
jobs.
This conspiracy against the young is not new, of course. It goes
back to the Middle Ages and seven-year apprenticeships, journeymen and guilds.
But, using the handy device of state education and legislation in all
developed countries in raising the school-leaving age, then the practice has
continued. And then on top of that, professional protective practices have
grown apace. Whenever a new skill or pursuit is invented then there is usually
only a brief windown of opportunity for youngsters to get into them before
they themselves -- now adult -- start imposing examinations that must be
passed.
The situation affecting post-puberty boys is considerably more
serious than for girls. For one thing girls tend to marry boys who are older
than themselves, and for another, the job structure in modern times is
changing away from typically muscular and physical jobs and towards
managerial-type jobs for which females' brains are more suitable. Another
factor which has not been realised until fairly recently is that the human
species is patrilocal -- that is that post-puberty boys tend to stay put in
the locality in which they are born while girls are more exploratory. In
hunter-gatherer societies this instinct is obvious, as anthropologists report.
During the industrial revolution when the community nature of society broke
down completely, this was not so obvious. But, once again in modern times,
with increased opportunities and mobility, it is the teenager girls and young
women who are much more prepared to leave their home town and get education
and jobs elsewhere. The corollary of this is a pohenomenon which is already
becoming serious is several developed countries such as Japan, Italy and
England (1.5 million here), is that a large surplus of unmarried men are now
staying in the parental home -- and, in fact, exploiting their parents to a
consdierable extent.
The report referred to below talks of 40% of young
people are being failed by our schools. More accurately, schools are probably
failing 60% of the boys and 20% of the girls. But whether that's so or not,
one result of this is that, in modern times, almost all the crime is due to
15-25 year-olds males. This has been growing so steadily over the last
century, and is so prevalent that we somehow accept this as somehow
'normal'. Well, there is no reason why this behaviour should be normal
at all. Yes, boys are more vigorously aggressive and physical in their
behaviour before puberty, and they are the natural warriors when defending
territory but I cannot see why post-puberty males rather than females should
be more intrinsically given to vandalism and crimes of violence against their
own society.
But modern girls, while they may not be given to crimes
against society in the same way as male teenagers, are now capable of shocking
their parents and adults in different ways. The recent film, Thirteen,
largely scripted and acted by teenage girls is apparently, causing tremendous
shock in America. It is shocking not only because girls are being shown to be
sexually exploratory in a much more aggressive way than boys (who more usually
become exploratory via predation by older men), but that it is happening to
middle-class girls. This is what is sending a tremor throughout middle-class
America. How far this trend will go, and how this is related to modern trends
in jobs and credentialism I don't feel qualified to judge or to write about
here and now. For the time being I follow merely with a report (rather than a
review) on the the film -- all the more significant because it was largely
written by a teenager girl rather than the normal adult film
reviewer.
Keith Hudson
<<<< 'SECONDARY SCHOOLS FAIL 40% OF THEIR
PUPILS'
Richard Garner Education Editor
Secondary schools in
the UK are still failing 40 per cent of their pupils, says a study published
today.
The report by the National Commission on Education says that
almost 39 per cent of youngsters in Britain leave full-time education without
a worthwhile qualification; in France and Germany that figure is only 20 per
cent.
It also says those youngsters, who leave school without A* to C
grade GCSE passes, could benefit from top-class vocational
education.
Ten years ago, the commission produced a devastating
critique of Britain's education performance after a review of schools'
performance, following an inquiry led by the former head of the Government's
statistical service Sir Claus Moser.
The follow-up report, chaired by
Sir John Cassels, the director of the commission, says: "Time appears to have
been wasted in clinging to a singularly narrow British conception of what
constitutes a good education.
"Action is badly needed to reverse both
the disaffection of young teenagers, as evidenced by truancy, exclusion and
under-performance, and the stubbornly high incidence of young people who do
poorly in their GCSE's and drop out of education at 16 or soon
after."
But the report also says that "compared with 10 years ago ...
education and training in the UK are serving more people better". It adds that
there have been significant improvements in literacy and numeracy, between
1996 and 2002, for 11-year-olds.
One of the recommendations from the
earlier report was that all children should receive nursery education from the
age of three and today's report says: "By January 2002, 96 per cent of three
and four-year-olds were engaged in some form of early years education." And it
also shows improved GCSE passes. "Between 1996 and 2002 there was an eight per
cent improvement [to 51.2 per cent] in the number of 16-year-olds gaining five
or more A* to C grade passes at GCSE." But it adds that "the gap in
achievement is widening".
The inquiry into 14 to 19 education being
carried out by the former chief schools inspector Mike Tomlinson is also
expected to order a shake-up of vocational education to put it on an equal
footing with the academic curriculum. It will make its final report next
summer.
Independent -- 12 December 2003 >>>>
<<<< THIRTEEN -- KNOW WHAT I MEAN?
Nothing has been
glossed over; nothing toned down -- that's why adults are horrified by the new
film Thirteen. But it's also why Peaches Geldof, 14, who saw it at home
( she's too young to see it in the cinema), admires it so much
From
first-time director Catherine Hardwicke and her teenage muse and co-writer,
Nikki Reed, comes Thirteen, a raw, revealing and honest account of
adolescence in the present day.
I.first watched this film at home, and
when it was over I felt a mixture of emotions. I was in awe that someone could
capture teenage life so perfectly on film, and I was amazed to see that what
actually happens in real life has been so honestly portrayed. Because that's
what this film is -- real and brutally honest. Nothing has been glossed over,
and nothing has been tamed or toned down.
But what is most shocking
about Thirteen? The opening scene is definitely intended to be
disturbing. It shows two pretty 13-year-old girls, high on sniffing an
aerosol, repeatedly punching each other until one is nearly unconscious, and
laughing wildly as they do it. Or is it the scene when the two young teens,
tarted up and horny, set out to seduce their 25-year-old
maleneighbour?
To me what's really shocking about Thirteen is
what happens to the heroine, Tracy {played by Evan Rachel Wood). Her mind and
emotions have been completely taken over by the media. The glossy teen
magazines show off sexy, enviably skinny young girls in tight, low-rider jeans
and tank tops which show off their sparkling belly rings.
Meeting the
need to fit into the harsh and exclusive teenage world around her, she has
become self-obsessed, a follower and an outsider in her own home. She has
become her own worst enemy.
Thirteen won Hardwicke the
director's award at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, and I think
it was well-deserved. It is based on the real experiences of its star, Nikki
Reed (Evie), who co-wrote it with Hardwicke when she was 13 (she is now l5).
Hardwicke formed a friendship with Reed, and as Reed reached her teenage
years, her friend noticed a dramatic change.
"I was off the dial,
angry, mean," says Reed. Hardwicke suggested they write a screen-play
together, as a form of therapy. But what was originally supposed to start off
as a teen rom-com turned into something entirely different.
The teenage
girls Thirteen features are not working-class hooligans from the ghetto forced
into a life of drugs and petty crime. They are nice, clever girls from
perectly normal LA homes. It is the fact that the film is mainly
autobiographical that disturbs me the most. The harsh truth is that a lot of
teenagers go through drugs, sex, shop-lifting and violence.
So what
does it mean to be 13 right now? Being 13 means following the media-fuelled
expectations to be cool, sexy, beautiful and independent. Hardwicke explores
this terriory with passion and truth. In Thirteen, using a grainy,
home-made, film-making quality to capture the high angst and madness of modern
adolescence, Hardwicke dives unashamedly into a previously unexplored area of
film-making.
Thirteen's basic storyline centres around the
transformation of the innocent. Barbie-loving Tracy from Nice Girl to Bad
Girl. Tracy starts off as just another pleasant, normal girl. She loves her
teddy bears and wears her hair in bunches, but when she enters the
hyper-sexualised world of junior high school, she realises that she is not a
little girl anymore. She is in awe of the hottest chick in school, Evie, and
sets about trying to be accepted into Evie's elite clique.
She uses
shoplifting as an opportunity to do this. Like many other teens today, she has
the wrong look, friends, attitude and "lifestyle". But, through the guidance
of Evie, she discovers how to do the make-up, hair, wear the right clothes and
get the piercings that will bring about her acceptance.
She learns how
to flirt and become wanted by boys. She reinvents herself into the ultimate
modern teenager, the person she most wants to be, Evie. The way she changes
from good to bad almost overnight is one of the more unbelievable aspects of
the storyline.
Evie is a terrible influence on the easily led and naive
Tracy. Because of Evie, Tracy loses her closeness with her loving and
hard-working mother (Oscar-winner Holly Hunter). She starts failing at school,
and she becomes a drug abuser despite her hatred for her mother's ex-cocaine
addict boyfriend (Jeremy Sisto).
She embarks on a drug-induced voyage
of self-discovery and self-destruction, with Evie as her guide. And the
further Tracy dives into the whirlwind world of premature adulthood, the worse
off she becomes.
Even though Evie is outwardly confident, inside she is
actually just a needy, emotionally insecure little girl. And in fact, Tracy,
though she seems to be a follower, is the stronger person.
A lot of
people in America, especially parents, have been horrified by the film. This
is because of the harsh reality that is teenage modem life. Today a lot of
teenagers, even if their parents (especially if their parents) don't want them
to, will try drugs. They will have underage sex. They will wear tight,
sexually provocative clothes and have piercings.
In the year 2003 these
have become the outward symbols of a generation that is desperately trying to
find its place in society. Parents will be shocked at the bleak picture this
stark and honest film paints and the fact that modem teenage life is never,
ever easy.
Sunday Telegraph -- 7 December
2003 >>>>
Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>
|