By Anon
This is not true for most children when they are at school.
The typical school is like a weird sort of zoo – where all the animals are placed together in the one large cage.
According to The Economist: “It is probably not a good idea to put two animals with high dominance scores in the same enclosure.”
Similarly, it is not a good idea put someone like Prince Charles into a school like Gordonstoun.
“A prison sentence,” was how Charles described Gordonstoun. “Colditz with kilts.”
“Like penal servitude,” agreed William Boyd, a Gordonstoun contemporary of Charles. “I happen to know, from his own lips, that Prince Charles utterly detested it.”
Ideally, children have a choice of schools and education styles.
My town used to have several small schools.
Now, sadly, there is only one giant school.
New curriculum swings back to an out of date teaching style – FT
It is surely silly to have kids memorising huge quantities of dates and facts and figures, when such information is now available online.
Neil Carberry, director of employment and skills at the Confederation of British Industry, says that the UK government’s emphasis on rote learning might not be the best way to prepare pupils for employment.
According to Stephen Heppell, an education adviser to governments around the world:
“Schools should prepare pupils to interpret data and understand uncertainties.
“We need kids that can make things and do things, and that won’t happen by giving them a heap of facts.”
New curriculum swings back to an out of date teaching style – FT
“There is no systematic use of the internet…
“Teachers still stand up in front of pupils and read out from their own lesson plans; kids still turn up to classrooms, sit behind desks and listen, taking notes..”
In the UK, 19.8% of school pupils have special educational needs
The EU average is 4%
Photo by Bert Hardy
Why does one child succeed in life, and another one ‘fail’?
In How Children Succeed, Paul Tough writes that what matters most is character skills.
These are skills such as self confidence, optimism, perseverance, curiosity, conscientiousness, and self-control.
In other words, emotional intelligence, as taught by good parents, good mentors and good private schools, is what matters.
Both rich children and poor children can lack emotional intelligence.
“Suniya Luthar, a psychologist at Columbia University found significant psychological problems at the high end of the income spectrum… These problems arise most often in those high-income homes where children feel simultaneously a great pressure to achieve and an emotional distance from their parents…”
‘How Children Succeed’ — Q&A with Paul Tough
Bill Brandt