Tuesday, August 21, 2007
The wonders of education with young people.
Oh I begin to wonder the value of education with young people. I think that maybe the time and money has been badly spent. New Labour promised education, education, education but what for I ask? I am not alone for wondering the value of further education and in particular university education. There is a flow of thought that suggests that if you school people long enough they will become educated. This is a dream, and a very silly dream at that.
People need to have life skills, ones that help them succeed in work and their everyday lives. This is not some classical education involving dead languages but skills that are used in the workplace or home. This is what used to be called common sense and growing up but is now awarded a National Vocational Qualification. This nonsense continues and these little princesses are now special, they need - in their parents eyes - to go to university. That way their little madams will succeed in society. This way their little daughter will gain good employment not through diligence or experience but a university grade that has been awarded from study that is very often not related to employment in the real world.
This is money and time wasted when what we want is on-the-job training - giving people the skills to work professionally in todays world.
Children play with train sets in their childhoods. They accept arrivals into their stations, allocate platforms, place departure routes through conflicting points and send their trains out on time. Fine, everybody is happy. Nowadays these princesses go to university and have not played with their train sets but have passed important exams. They then gain employment and have little or no on-the-job training and struggle to perform basic work tasks that any playful child with a train set could master.
So there we are, little Amy is on her station holding a coach for 45 minutes, for a connecting coach which has no connecting passengers for a waiting service, watches it arrive, does nothing and neglects to dispatch the delayed service. For this she offers no explanation or apology as she is new on the job. I rest my case and most of the non-university educated public understand just how little these little madams have to offer industry.
Oh I begin to wonder the value of education with young people. I think that maybe the time and money has been badly spent. New Labour promised education, education, education but what for I ask? I am not alone for wondering the value of further education and in particular university education. There is a flow of thought that suggests that if you school people long enough they will become educated. This is a dream, and a very silly dream at that.
People need to have life skills, ones that help them succeed in work and their everyday lives. This is not some classical education involving dead languages but skills that are used in the workplace or home. This is what used to be called common sense and growing up but is now awarded a National Vocational Qualification. This nonsense continues and these little princesses are now special, they need - in their parents eyes - to go to university. That way their little madams will succeed in society. This way their little daughter will gain good employment not through diligence or experience but a university grade that has been awarded from study that is very often not related to employment in the real world.
This is money and time wasted when what we want is on-the-job training - giving people the skills to work professionally in todays world.
Children play with train sets in their childhoods. They accept arrivals into their stations, allocate platforms, place departure routes through conflicting points and send their trains out on time. Fine, everybody is happy. Nowadays these princesses go to university and have not played with their train sets but have passed important exams. They then gain employment and have little or no on-the-job training and struggle to perform basic work tasks that any playful child with a train set could master.
So there we are, little Amy is on her station holding a coach for 45 minutes, for a connecting coach which has no connecting passengers for a waiting service, watches it arrive, does nothing and neglects to dispatch the delayed service. For this she offers no explanation or apology as she is new on the job. I rest my case and most of the non-university educated public understand just how little these little madams have to offer industry.
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ooooooooh that is true
..."They then gain employment and have little or no on-the-job training and struggle to perform basic work tasks that any playful child with a train set could master..."
when i was 14 i started in a hair salon as a saturday girl...i left school at 15 (not legally) and started full time in the salon and trained on the job...nowadays the guy who was training me still does my hair...he says no one trains through working on the shop floor anymore, they have to go to college and get an NVQ but this means they are not easily employable as they think when they have left college they are qualified but they cannot cope with a full busy salon day they need about a year on the job as a trainee to be competent but they do not want to do that! the thin is that on the job they trained constantly had to do the same thing repeatedly but on the NVQ they do something once supervised and pass write down what they did and it is checked off as completed and they pass that module but they are not fully competent in it...also my friends husband is a structural engineer and he says there are kids coming into his industry lately who cant even do the right mathematics for the job...but these kids have all the paper qualifications...its a whole stupid system these days i agree..okay i am 30 and i think that everything has gone to pot...the school system is a mess, the work is easier and easier, all this new idea of 'play to learn' is all they do from nursery to teens is play 'educational games and as a result are totally uneducated anyway...when i was a kid we had to learn in school not play..maths was maths tough tshit if you didnt think it was fun it wasnt supposed to be it was supposed to be difficult make u think stimulate your brain now its all maths games...my daughters year group are still on 2x tables aged 10! i took her out i am home educating...yes im doing a degree but am not one of those nitwits i have been a hairdressing assistant for 3 years, i was a cleaner, i worked in a kitchen doing prep and pot wash, i worked on a pig and dairy farm milking cows and mucking out pigs, i worked in an office as a support worker and i went to college to study theatre now i am studying english literature and home schooling my daughters.....my sister just got a degree in criminology and she cant even get a job anyway....shes a stripper at moment....
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..."They then gain employment and have little or no on-the-job training and struggle to perform basic work tasks that any playful child with a train set could master..."
when i was 14 i started in a hair salon as a saturday girl...i left school at 15 (not legally) and started full time in the salon and trained on the job...nowadays the guy who was training me still does my hair...he says no one trains through working on the shop floor anymore, they have to go to college and get an NVQ but this means they are not easily employable as they think when they have left college they are qualified but they cannot cope with a full busy salon day they need about a year on the job as a trainee to be competent but they do not want to do that! the thin is that on the job they trained constantly had to do the same thing repeatedly but on the NVQ they do something once supervised and pass write down what they did and it is checked off as completed and they pass that module but they are not fully competent in it...also my friends husband is a structural engineer and he says there are kids coming into his industry lately who cant even do the right mathematics for the job...but these kids have all the paper qualifications...its a whole stupid system these days i agree..okay i am 30 and i think that everything has gone to pot...the school system is a mess, the work is easier and easier, all this new idea of 'play to learn' is all they do from nursery to teens is play 'educational games and as a result are totally uneducated anyway...when i was a kid we had to learn in school not play..maths was maths tough tshit if you didnt think it was fun it wasnt supposed to be it was supposed to be difficult make u think stimulate your brain now its all maths games...my daughters year group are still on 2x tables aged 10! i took her out i am home educating...yes im doing a degree but am not one of those nitwits i have been a hairdressing assistant for 3 years, i was a cleaner, i worked in a kitchen doing prep and pot wash, i worked on a pig and dairy farm milking cows and mucking out pigs, i worked in an office as a support worker and i went to college to study theatre now i am studying english literature and home schooling my daughters.....my sister just got a degree in criminology and she cant even get a job anyway....shes a stripper at moment....
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