Double standards in public life

13

Comments

  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    edited April 16
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Gee D wrote: »
    Moo - I keep forgetting that your Supreme Court is now much more political than our High Court.
    I might question the “now” part. The Supreme Court has always been political.

    I accept that - but the party political nature (to this outsider) seems much more pronounced now than before.

    There have been 3 very party political appointments to our High Court. The first (Justice Piddington) realised what had been done and having accepted appointment then resigned before being sworn in. Justice Evatt resigned after a half-dozen years to return to politics; his appointment could also been justified on merit.

    Justice McTiernan was appointed at the same time as Evatt. He really should not have been appointed, and knew it. By the time he retired, he was still not the best lawyer on the bench, but was an excellent judge. He lived in the same suburb where I grew up (and have for the last 40 years), and was very kind to me.

    ETA - it is generally easier to disguise a conservative appointment as being on merit.
  • cgichardcgichard Shipmate
    it's the quality of the other students.
    Much the same point as I was making up-thread.
  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    Subjective rather than objective
  • cgichardcgichard Shipmate
    Sojourner wrote: »
    Subjective rather than objective
    Agreed, but how many posts would remain on the Ship if the subjective were totally outlawed?
  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    Who cares, and more to the point, who brought up “outlawing” posts?

  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    If there is one thing that pisses me off as regards kids’ schooling as the idea of shielding one’s precious spawn from “ undesirable” other kids ( you might like to go upthread to read the comment).

    You should have seen ( and heard) some of the bitches at the gulag ( la di da convent boarding school I was immured in in the 60s) . They would not have been out of place in the 80s soapie “Prisoner”.
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Gee D I accept that - but the party political nature (to this outsider) seems much more pronounced now than before.

    I'm not sure whether this impression stands up to closer examination. From what I recollect, liberally minded commentators have invariably criticised Republican nominees to the Supreme Court as mediocre lawyers and only advanced for their reactionary conservatism. On the other hand, the Warren court, which had a very pronounced ideology that frequently thwarted much more conservative values being expressed in elections and was the most activist of post-war courts, is regarded by those same critics as a paragon of how the court should act. Packing the court is a time-honoured practice, though not always producing the results anticipated, as in the case of Warren himself, which, I seem to remember, Eisenhower regarded as his biggest political mistake. As to the behaviour of the various federal courts in relation to Trump's attempts to overturn the election result, they do not appear to have acted in a partisan manner.

    I should add that I make these remarks as an admirer of the Warren Court, but am well aware it was ideologically biased, and am not sure it should be effectively legislating on matters elected politicians are unwilling to address.

  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    You are so right about the ‘undesirable’ other kids @Sojourner.

    My sons made lifelong friends of kids who many would put in the ‘undesirable’ bracket.
  • The reports thing is more than a little unusual.

    I'm not sure why you think that bullying is dealt with effectively at private schools.

    The Reports thing was dreadful. Apparently the previous head had decreed they were too subjective and it was fairer to have pupils state what they felt they had learned over the year. IME a pointless exercise since these "Documents of Attainment" were heavily policed and any adverse student comments were expunged.

    Bullying - private vs state? The experience of my children was that it was taken seriously and, if it occurred, dealt with at their private prep school. In contrast, while their state comprehensive had an impressive policy, in practice bullying was endemic and either went unchecked or was treated in such a ham-fisted way it made matters worse.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    My experience was the opposite. I think when you know about how a school deals with bullying you know how that school deals with it and nothing you can generalise to other comparable schools.
  • Boogie wrote: »
    You are so right about the ‘undesirable’ other kids @Sojourner.

    My sons made lifelong friends of kids who many would put in the ‘undesirable’ bracket.

    I was in a whole school of them! There's been a few casualties in the intervening more years than I care to think about, but a surprising number of us seem to have turned out OK.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Kwesi wrote: »
    Gee D I accept that - but the party political nature (to this outsider) seems much more pronounced now than before.

    I'm not sure whether this impression stands up to closer examination. From what I recollect, liberally minded commentators have invariably criticised Republican nominees to the Supreme Court as mediocre lawyers and only advanced for their reactionary conservatism. On the other hand, the Warren court, which had a very pronounced ideology that frequently thwarted much more conservative values being expressed in elections and was the most activist of post-war courts, is regarded by those same critics as a paragon of how the court should act.

    That's what I was getting at - it's an approach based upon the Court in action rather than a prediction based upon the party in government.
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    edited April 16
    .

  • My state primary and comp both tried to deal with bullying, which isn't always easy, particularly when it's teenagers. One of the bullies was eventually moved on and ended up at the local private school (make of that what you will). I think the discrepancy is more primary/secondary than state/private and most of all well managed/poorly managed. And, once again my wife's experience of bullying at her private school was awful.
  • Penny SPenny S Shipmate
    I was at a private school and then at a state school. After the continous bullying at the first, where the unspoken ethos was "what happens at school stays at school" and the spoken one, by staff, was "no sneaking", I dreaded going to the Technical school with my private school voice and the common girls from the whole of SE Kent. The Tech girls were not bullies. Revealed on Friends Reunited was a depth of staff bullying at the private school.
    In one instance, a boarder decided to cut her hair in a fringe. Matron took against this, and cut it down to nothing. The girl got a day girl to post a letter to her mother in France. Mother came over and demanded to see her daughter, to be told that she could not as her daughter did not have an exeat. That school would not have had an even halfway decent bullying policy.
    The junior head had a terrible attitude to my mother going in about what I had had done. She turned me away when I went for plaster to deal with a bleeding ear because she wouldn't have anything to do with a sneak. (Had second thoughts afterwards, but really!)
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    it's the quality of the other students.

    Great quote, but could be read in at least 2 different ways.

    To my mind it's less about other students not having the same level of politeness and moral standards as people of one's own class.

    And more about wanting for one's children a class of intelligent and motivated fellow-students.

    The worst schools are day-prisons for teenagers who don't want to learn. And the younger pupils copy that attitude, if they don't get it bullied into them.

  • Marvin the MartianMarvin the Martian Admin Emeritus
    Russ wrote: »
    To my mind it's less about other students not having the same level of politeness and moral standards as people of one's own class.

    And more about wanting for one's children a class of intelligent and motivated fellow-students.

    It's both. But mostly the latter, which is why I favour segregation by ability over segregation by wealth.
    The worst schools are day-prisons for teenagers who don't want to learn. And the younger pupils copy that attitude, if they don't get it bullied into them.

    Quite so.
  • Russ wrote: »
    The worst schools are day-prisons for teenagers who don't want to learn. And the younger pupils copy that attitude, if they don't get it bullied into them.

    School pupils, particularly teenagers, do not easily separate in to groups who "want to learn" and "don't want to learn". Most kids want to learn, at some level, but vary in the amount of nonsense they're willing to put up with along the way. And what different people regard as "nonsense" varies.

    My neighbour's kids were telling me recently about their Geography class. They had a good teacher, enjoyed the classes, and most people in their class were prompt at handing in homework, participated in class, and so on. They don't know everyone's grades, of course, but their class generally seemed to be doing well. Then that teacher stopped work (maternity leave) and was replaced by a substitute, who was not in any way engaging, and did nothing but bark instructions at the kids. Now lots of kids aren't doing the homework, and almost nobody participates in class.

    My neighbour's kids are responsible kids - they're still doing the work - but their classes are both boring and crap: it's hard to blame the kids that have given up.

  • RussRuss Shipmate
    My neighbour's kids were telling me recently about their Geography class.. .. My neighbour's kids are responsible kids - they're still doing the work - but their classes are both boring and crap: it's hard to blame the kids that have given up.

    Sounds like you might agree with the proposition that there are crap teachers that a school would be better off without.

    But are resistant to the notion that there could be crap pupils that a school is better off without.

    Ethos and culture matter. Contrary to the materialists who try to reduce everything to financial resources.

    Good schools have a culture that this is a good place; we are privileged to be here. We have been given much; much is expected of us.

    Bad schools have a culture that nobody is too crap to come here and being here is compulsory.
  • CJCfarwestCJCfarwest Shipmate
    No one should ever be writing off any child as “crap”

    Ever.
  • AnselminaAnselmina Shipmate
    edited April 19
    Russ wrote: »


    Good schools have a culture that this is a good place; we are privileged to be here. We have been given much; much is expected of us.

    Rees Mogg certainly believes that Comprehensive school 'plant pots' should be kept out of Parliament; that it's the destiny of public/private school boys to run the country by virtue of their superior education and by inference their superior talents. Presumably, because attendance of such a school naturally endows one with all the best qualities, of which he himself is a fine example.

    Are Britain's public schools regarded as 'good schools', for example for the purpose of preparing individuals for government?
  • GarethMoonGarethMoon Shipmate
    CJCfarwest wrote: »
    No one should ever be writing off any child as “crap”

    Ever.

    Not even by a classmate who has to put up with being made fun of for wanting to learn rather than be distracted by them, fed up of being punched or having dicks drawn on their belongings, etc etc?
  • GarethMoonGarethMoon Shipmate
    edited April 19
    Anselmina wrote: »
    Are Britain's public schools regarded as 'good schools', for example for the purpose of preparing individuals for government?

    Let's see...
    - Winning popularity contests
    - Buckets of (over) self confidence
    - Public Speaking & debate
    - Ability to convince someone you know what you are talking about when you don't
    - Getting someone else to tell you what you should have known in above
    - Shouting over your opponent
    - Being able to shut off enough emotionally and compartmentalise one's life* so you don't have to think of the individuals who will be worse off due to your decisions that you think are right on a large scale.
    - Like above the ability not to get flustered or overwhelmed at the thought of spending trillions, bankrupting a nation, starting a war etc etc

    * "Okwonga's "mask" – Watkins's "coldness" – is one thing that many old Etonians can agree on. Actor Damian Lewis said in 2016: "You go through something which, at that age, defines you and your ability to cope. There's a sudden lack of intimacy with a parent, and your ability to get through that defines you emotionally for the rest of your life." His belief that Eton enables pupils to "compartmentalise their emotional life so successfully that they can go straight to the top" may explain that extraordinary proportion of our political leaders who went there."
    * https://bbc.com/culture/article/20210413-the-school-that-rules-britain
  • Russ wrote: »
    Sounds like you might agree with the proposition that there are crap teachers that a school would be better off without.

    But are resistant to the notion that there could be crap pupils that a school is better off without.

    There are crap teachers, and crap pupils. But:

    1. There are a lot of teachers. Not all of them can be the best. The best teachers tend to get hired for permanent jobs (because they're the best applicant!); teachers who are available as subs tend to be the ones who haven't been able to get a full-time job (this isn't always true - some haven't been applying for full-time jobs for whatever reason).

    2. Yes, some pupils are harder to teach than others. They take more resources, more work, and are difficult to manage. But they're still kids, and have just as much right to an education as the "nice" ones.

    3. Trends have come and gone for the extent to which you try to include your "problem" pupils in mainstream education vs shuffling them off into a corner. Public schools don't have this problem - they are free to wash their hands of any pupil who looks like they're more trouble than they're worth.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    My wife was a sub teacher for about a year when we moved to California. Her prefered profession was librarian but none of the local libraries was hiring at the time. She did have an education endorsement so she subbed for the year. She subbed in three different school districts. She loved working with kids--still loves working with them. Initially, she had difficulties being a new sub and the kids were wanting to test her, but once they understood her and she them, they all settled into a pattern.
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    Public schools don't have this problem - they are free to wash their hands of any pupil who looks like they're more trouble than they're worth.

    True. (I take it that by public schools you mean private schools. A privately-run school that isn't part of the government system has such a freedom regardless of the social class of its intake).

    And the proposition is that having that freedom results in a better education for all the other pupils.
    Trends have come and gone for the extent to which you try to include your "problem" pupils in mainstream education vs shuffling them off into a corner.
    I believe you. What is it about education that makes it prone to faddish theories ?
    But they're still kids, and have just as much right to an education as the "nice" ones.
    I think the age group we're talking about are in transition from being kids to being young adults.

    And they have a right to an education if they want it enough to co-operate with the process. But they don't have a right to impede anyone else's education.
    There are a lot of teachers. Not all of them can be the best.
    That's true too. Not sure if we'd expect a normal distribution...
  • Russ wrote: »
    And they have a right to an education if they want it enough to co-operate with the process.

    All children should have an education that meets their needs. Some children are easy to educate. Others are more complicated - whether or not a particular child is labeled as having "special needs" or not, each child deserves our best effort.

    Telling a child "screw you - this is a school for round pegs, and it's up to you to make yourself round" does not serve that child's needs.
  • PendragonPendragon Shipmate
    @Russ I think that the fact that everyone has done it, and got their own opinions about what they learnt, and what the intervening generations have learnt (certainly UK education secretaries have often been on the older side), which they can impose on people when they get into power.

    It also helps that of the people on the receiving end, very few of them will be able to vote whilst you are still in the job. (Only teachers and parents if they can understand how good or bad it is, and some final year secondary students.) If it's the people running the academy chain, you're screwed as they don't have to listen to anyone, and don't seem to care about the actual impact of draconian policies on their pupils, especially as regards mental health, or the ridiculous cost of uniform.

    We are very lucky that the Dragonlets' school has an ethos of promoting both good community and effort, but they are still engaging with us as to finding ways to manage sensory issues. It's a single form entry (RC) primary, and has a significant number of EOSL pupils, albeit probably fewer than the other local schools, but gets some of the best results in the city.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    EOSL??? If I look it up I get:

    Acronym Definition
    EOSL Electro-Optical Systems Laboratory (Georgia Tech Research Institute)
    EOSL End of Service Life
    EOSL Earth Observation Systems Laboratory (University of Alberta, Canada)
    EOSL Earth Observation Sciences Ltd
    EOSL First Emirates Open Source Lab (Zayed University; United Arab Emirates)

    None of these seems to be what you were getting at.

    All children should have an education that meets their needs. Some children are easy to educate. Others are more complicated - whether or not a particular child is labeled as having "special needs" or not, each child deserves our best effort.

    Telling a child "screw you - this is a school for round pegs, and it's up to you to make yourself round" does not serve that child's needs.

    The problem with that is that a teacher standing up in front of the class has no say in its make-up. The class will probably contain a wide range of children, most of which are in or close to the round peg category. But there may well be a half dozen who are not round but a variety of shapes. Very hard for the teacher.
  • Gee D wrote: »
    EOSL??? If I look it up I get:
    Perhaps ESOL (English to Speakers of Other Languages)?

    Kids who speak something else at home.


  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    That's a possibility we'd not thought of. Good creative thinking.
  • PendragonPendragon Shipmate
    Yes, English as another language. The dangers of typing one handed past my bedtime! There are a lot of people from Eastern Europe and South Asia around here.
  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    Just as many here too
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Russ wrote: »
    And they have a right to an education if they want it enough to co-operate with the process.

    All children should have an education that meets their needs. Some children are easy to educate. Others are more complicated - whether or not a particular child is labeled as having "special needs" or not, each child deserves our best effort.

    Telling a child "screw you - this is a school for round pegs, and it's up to you to make yourself round" does not serve that child's needs.

    Education ultimately is about meeting society's needs. Yes, there are special needs students that have to be taken into account and there have been many programs developed to address those concerns. I had a son who went to Alternative High School because he had difficulty with formalized learning. I have a grandson who has High Spectrum Disorder and his school district is addressing those issues. But ultimately education is about meeting the needs of society. What the students are learning now is much different than what I learned as a student because society needs a different level of competency than over 60 years ago
  • chrisstileschrisstiles Shipmate
    edited April 20
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    But ultimately education is about meeting the needs of society.

    In the longer term, whether or not a society is seen as fair is important for garnering continued support for its existence. That too is one of the needs of society.
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    ... But ultimately education is about meeting the needs of society. ...
    @Gramps49 words can hardly describe how deeply I disagree with that statement. It is tantamount to saying that each child, and therefore each adult, gets his or her value and significance as a person from what they deliver to 'society' or by implication, the State. The National Socialists and Joseph Stalin would have thought that. Both in their different languages would have regarded any other view as an outmoded bourgeois delusion.

  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    Russ wrote: »
    And they have a right to an education if they want it enough to co-operate with the process.

    All children should have an education that meets their needs. Some children are easy to educate. Others are more complicated - whether or not a particular child is labeled as having "special needs" or not, each child deserves our best effort.

    Telling a child "screw you - this is a school for round pegs, and it's up to you to make yourself round" does not serve that child's needs.

    Education ultimately is about meeting society's needs. Yes, there are special needs students that have to be taken into account and there have been many programs developed to address those concerns. I had a son who went to Alternative High School because he had difficulty with formalized learning. I have a grandson who has High Spectrum Disorder and his school district is addressing those issues. But ultimately education is about meeting the needs of society. What the students are learning now is much different than what I learned as a student because society needs a different level of competency than over 60 years ago

    I must disagree.

    Education should - must - be about preparing tomorrow's adults for life and equipping them with the skills, both practical and cognitive, to enable them to meet the challenges of an ever-changing society.

    If what goes on in schools is restricted to meeting the needs of society it isn't education, rather it is limited teaching-to-the-test that cannot be other than unsuccessful for both the student and society.

    Education in schools should enable students to carry on educating themselves throughout their post-school life. The fact that at the moment it doesn't do that for so many limits the capacity of societies/countries to make the best use of the talents within the population. It entrenches harmful divisions between rich and poor: worse, it weakens the resilience of society to adapt to a changing world. At bottom, it is just wasteful.
  • QuestorQuestor Shipmate
    Education is like many things in life, if you can afford it, you can get better. This is true of health, legal representation, housing and education.
    In an ideal world we would all have the same but how to achieve this?
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Questor wrote: »
    Education is like many things in life, if you can afford it, you can get better. This is true of health, legal representation, housing and education.
    In an ideal world we would all have the same but how to achieve this?

    Decide as a society that we want to.
  • tclunetclune Shipmate
    Enoch wrote: »
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    ... But ultimately education is about meeting the needs of society. ...
    @Gramps49 words can hardly describe how deeply I disagree with that statement. It is tantamount to saying that each child, and therefore each adult, gets his or her value and significance as a person from what they deliver to 'society' or by implication, the State.

    Not at all. Public education is funded by all of us for the benefit of all of us. The assumption is that people are better able to take on the burdens of citizenship if they are literate. We don't tax ourselves to fulfill the inner yearnings of children -- they can work on fulfilling their heart's desires themselves. In the last few decades, educators have spewed a lot of swill about self-actualization as being the purpose of public education, but educators as a whole have never been the intellectual heavyweights of society.
  • ForthviewForthview Shipmate
    Even if we decide that we want to equalise things,it doesn't easily work out in practice.
    I go back again to the German Democratic Republic and 'die Stunde Null' (zero hour) where all were declared equal working class ,irrespective of agricultural ,factory or 'intellectual' office and management work. Everything belong to' the people'. All children had the right to go to the same type of school. Rents on properties were the same as they had been in 1937 and no-one was ,in theory, any better or worse than anyone else.
    A job was found for everyone. By amalgamating all the political parties into one Socialist Unity Party it did away with public political spats and even the newspapers only provided 'good' news for all.
    This was indeed a Socialist Paradise,but somewhere something went wrong !!
  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    Well of course it did

    The people were subdued under the iron fist of a totalitarian government with control maintained by means of terror by the Stasi
  • ForthviewForthview Shipmate
    That is what Ithought also .
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    tclune wrote: »
    Public education is funded by all of us for the benefit of all of us. The assumption is that people are better able to take on the burdens of citizenship if they are literate. We don't tax ourselves to fulfill the inner yearnings of children -- they can work on fulfilling their heart's desires themselves. In the last few decades, educators have spewed a lot of swill about self-actualization as being the purpose of public education, but educators as a whole have never been the intellectual heavyweights of society.
    The traditional view of education - going back through non-heavyweights like Newman to non-heavyweights like Aristotle and Plato - has not seen a conflict between self-actualisation and taking on the burden of citizenship. The traditional view of the burden of citizenship has always been that citizens must be self-actualised (the term is new, but the general concept is old): people who are not self-actualised may be subjects but not citizens. That's why the traditional view of education is called liberal education: education suited to free people who can govern themselves not subjects of an external power.

    The all of us who benefit from public education include the people educated: it is not there to divide people into those who receive public education and those who benefit from those others' public education.
  • tclunetclune Shipmate
    Dafyd wrote: »
    The traditional view of education - going back through non-heavyweights like Newman to non-heavyweights like Aristotle and Plato - has not seen a conflict between self-actualisation and taking on the burden of citizenship. The traditional view of the burden of citizenship has always been that citizens must be self-actualised (the term is new, but the general concept is old): people who are not self-actualised may be subjects but not citizens.

    I guess we read The Republic quite differently.
  • One of the lessons we learn from the ancients is not just that every citizen's vote has the same worth, regardless of wealth, profession or education, but that every citizen has the same right to vote on decisions that can topple a man, however great his reputation or high his connections (for example the votes ostracising Xanthippus and Aristides), although there has always been the danger of a charismatic populist. It could be argued that Boris Johnson is the UK's Themistocles.
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    I can't say I see any great contradiction between education benefiting society and education benefiting the educated person. To me it's a fairly obvious opportunity for a win-win situation. Yet various posters seem to think it's very important to declare a victor.
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    tclune wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    The traditional view of education - going back through non-heavyweights like Newman to non-heavyweights like Aristotle and Plato - has not seen a conflict between self-actualisation and taking on the burden of citizenship. The traditional view of the burden of citizenship has always been that citizens must be self-actualised (the term is new, but the general concept is old): people who are not self-actualised may be subjects but not citizens.
    I guess we read The Republic quite differently.
    Plato starts out with the apparent goal of educating a class of people who can bear the burden of citizenship to rule the city. He argues however that they will only be fit to rule the city if they are philosophers who can bear the vision of the good, which is to say that they are self-actualised. The city-state will be in harmony if and only if the souls of the rulers are in harmony.

    Now, Plato isn't a democrat or an egalitarian, which complicates matters a bit: he thinks some people just aren't capable of being properly educated. And he also has a different idea of what self-actualisation involves from just about all modern thinkers, which is probably related to his anti-egalitarianism. But the fundamental structure of his argument is that in so far as someone is educated to benefit the city they are also educated to benefit themselves. The city-state and the soul are mirrors of each other.
  • tclunetclune Shipmate
    orfeo wrote: »
    I can't say I see any great contradiction between education benefiting society and education benefiting the educated person. To me it's a fairly obvious opportunity for a win-win situation. Yet various posters seem to think it's very important to declare a victor.

    I guess we know different people. In my experience, about as many people find that they were stifled by education as felt that they were elevated by it. You can invoke some form of the true Scotsman argument here if you like, or you can acknowledge that public education does not serve two masters.
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    Not sure how one can be stifled by education as such, rather than stifled by the institutionalised environment that one has to endure in order to gain a formal education.
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