Is compulsory education being “dumbed down”?

Question

In a teaching placement I undertook in a secondary school, I was appalled at some of the methods used to get students to remember simple things, i.e. inverted comma(s). It wasn’t that long ago when they were called their proper name: quotation marks and/or an apostrophe.

In that same school, students were being spoon-fed by their teachers as to what to write exactly to obtain higher marks on their exams.

How can we combat the "dumbing down" of our education system?

Answer 1

Sometimes, it seems I spend most of my time on these pages ranting about the state of the world. Be it religion, multi-cultural integration, gay adoption, or Tony ******* Blair, it seems I am never short of things to whinge about. And even when I am, I post an email inbox clearout- then whinge about the inadequate quality of ‘jokes’ that are posted to me.

This time, I want to focus my whinge on something which I read last week whilst having a browse on the internet. I’ll give you a brief synopsis of the article I read:

"One in five British children cannot find the UK on a map of the world, according to a new report. The study also claims that one in 10 children cannot name a single continent. National Geographic Kids magazine questioned more than 1,000 six to 14-year-olds to mark its UK launch."

Am I the only person shocked by this? My geography is pretty bad but I have always been able to place the country I live in! My parents bought me an atlas when I was a kid, along with an encyclopaedia, a dictionary and a thesaurus.

It would seem to me that the government have prioritised literacy and numeracy to the point where things like geography and history are squashed to the margins of time-allocation. What the government says goes, in modern education. This is because if you don't meet their literacy and numeracy standards, you get zapped. Kids are not more stupid or bad. The education system is. Blame it, not them.

Blame the system for the fact that kids can recite word for word and move for move an Eminem or 50-cent tune. They know precisely how much and when the latest Nike trainer will be out in the shops. They can recognise a CID car in traffic. If you attempt to tell them off, expletives that would make a sailor blush will come out of the most angelic and young looking of kids. The slatternly mothers will wobble down to the police station on a regular basis to loudly insist that their innocent devil's spawn didn't really knife another kid other a phone, the opposite sex or a 'dirty look'. They will kill you for coming out of your house to tell them to keep the noise down and move away from outside your own home. Many people, particularly the vulnerable never feel safe to venture out after dark. I myself am afraid that I will become involved in something with the roaming gangs that converge in our streets at night - I am afraid I would end up having to kill or seriously maim some kid just to defend myself. I never want to be in that situation. I hope parents and teachers alike will get their acts together and start teaching the rabble what’s really important otherwise this country will go to hell.

And I can't believe more Scots know London is the English capital than English kids! This seems truly astounding. I wonder how many English kids can name the capital of Scotland? The situation is truly worrying, and does beg the question, what exactly IS being taught in our schools. It does provoke me into thinking their may be something even suspicious about this.

In 1979, 95% of the 16 year old school leavers in the UK could not write One Million in numbers, could not file in alphabetical order, or do simple arithmetic - they could use a calculator but didn't know what it was doing to come up with the answer. Spelling and English grammar was dreadful!

They thought Grimsby was inland [once the largest fishing port in the UK] and that Harrogate was south of London. That was 27 years ago and now they are the parents of today's school leavers. Their level of awareness was non-existent in most cases so if they don't know where they live now - that was entirely predictable.

Now perhaps someone will believe me when I say you would be forgiven for thinking there was a campaign to under educate? After all it's much easier to manage the uneducated masses than give them knowledge and make them think for themselves.

Being English is RACIST. This is what Labour, the BBC and Commission for Racial Equality have created. It does not come as any surprise that English children have no English identity. England is the only democratic society on Earth ruled by foreigners and that is a fact. We English are attacked from all sides and from within. Our government sides with any other country other than England. I envy the Irish, French and Spanish. Their governments fight tooth and nail for their countries but our government is total ****.

England (or should I say the English) no longer exists. What does it say on your passport? It says you are British.

Any one in the UK, European Union & a lot of other countries can vote in our elections - Local & National.

The identity of the 'English' person has been stripped away. No wonder children who live in 'England' do not know where it is, a lot of children do not even know who they are.

The situation is even worse in basic science; there are many people who do not know why it gets dark at night or why there are seasons. And these people (according to various surveys) are the teachers! There is a well-known diagram, found in almost every elementary physics textbook that is always wrongly drawn. Publishers, writers (and science-teachers) resist every attempt to correct it, to "avoid confusing the children". So much for the 'noble profession' of teaching. It is very worrying that we live in a technology-based society, and yet scientists are poorly paid - and seen as nerdy. As a result, science teaching is often forced upon the unqualified, as an unwelcome task.

England has always led the way, perhaps we can now serve as a lesson to other states, by showing how dangerous the PC crew are, and what standing by and doing nothing can do to once proud and glorious country.

How many parents buy their kids X Boxes and the like, just to keep them quiet? How many parents sit and read WITH their kids? It's a sad state of affairs.

And it all seems to point to Brussels bureaucrats slowly enveloping our country into the United States of Europe.

Let’s face the facts, Tony Blair has sold this country, it no longer exists. This Scottish Prime Minister has ensured that the English no longer have any sense of identity (unlike the Scots, Welsh and Irish who are encouraged to be patriotic and proud of their heritage). Being English is racist nowadays. And it seems that the failure to educate English children in English schools about England could indeed have far more sinister roots than we at first imagined.

England has already been zapped from the political map- how long before any sign of Englishness has been totally eradicated?

Self-esteem is more important than skills these days. Of course, you and I know that the harder you work and the better you do increases your self-esteem, but those who make policy in the schools believe in telling kids they can do anything without thinking giving them the power to do it is necessary.

These kids are not stupid, but administrations have lowered the standards to such a degree that they insist on passing kids on who can't read or who were absent most of the year.

I am immensely proud to be English. We are a wonderful nation. I am equally proud to be British.

I am NOT a ‘European’.

What do we have in common with these people? Our heritages are totally different, even the languages we speak are vast and different. In some cases, we hold contradictory values and morals.

The fact of the matter is that we have far more in common with the USA and Australia than these niggling, annoying little countries in Europe which constantly seem to be trying to feed off us.

Answer 2

I don't know how old the kids are but I'm quite impressed at the teaching my daughter gets off at her school.
When I was at school we'd get things like: This lacks imagination and a -z mark. Humiliated, I never went back and asked for help.
sure, my daughter comes home with her French project. It has a list of things to look out for as guidelines. We find them helpful and she uses them. She does far more than the list requires, but she knows that she has the basics.
My other daughter came home with an essay. Instead of just giving her a bad mark, her teacher told her to take it home and redo and told her why. My daughter came home and discussed it with me. She wasn't in the least upset - saw it as a challenge and followed it through.
Well, yes, maybe it is spoon feeding her. But I know that my daughter is being stretched to the best of her ability and I would far rather that than being given the kind of teaching I had at school.
And by the way: some of my teaching must have stuck. Inverted commas, apostrophes and quotation marks are all different things.

Answer 3

'Inverted commas' and "quotation marks" are not the same thing.

The term inverted commas has been around for a long time, certainly since I was at school 17 years ago.

As long as the government publishes league tables and has targets then teachers will always feel pressured into helping children achieve better grades.

Answer 4

Thanks for the question. I am also against the spoon and feeding system.
To change this system, we have to change the curricum in the highest level. But in the classroom practice, you can just engage in the project work, group work, problem solving types of works, and something innovative works and ask the question in the similar way otheriwise you have to face with backwash effect.

Answer 5

One problem is that nowadays everybody is upposed to pass. Remember there is no failure now only deferred success! If qualifications and education were no longer one size fits all I think this dumbing down would stop.

Answer 6

What a silly question?? Of course its not being dumbed down,....people just have different words for things nowadays...its changed from when I was at high school and that was only 5 years ago, its like anything, its change, doesn't make it a bad thing!

Answer 7

Home educate! My son is thriving on being home educated than he ever did in school!