Education

[pwa]

It's the system,it's flawed.

Well you have to come up with a different one then. Fewer holidays and longer days so that there is more school time? Or less work done and less stuff learned?

[reohn2]

It's the system,it's flawed.

Well you have to come up with a different one then. Fewer holidays and longer days so that there is more school time? Or less work done and less stuff learned?

Less workload on teachers(smaller class sizes)means more money put into education,smaller schools where there's no anonymity and everyone knows everyone else,where kids and teachers feel valued.
You and I both know teachers are over worked,underappreciated and under paid ,that's why they're leaving the profession in droves and why few are considering teaching as a profession.
More money means more taxes but if we want top quality teachers and education,education needs the resourses ploughing into it,the end 'product' is better educated kids and better teaching and teachers.
Freddie will be along shortly claiming we can't afford to teach the riff raff as well as the cream,and that the best education should be reserved for those kids who are able to jump through the 11+ hoop,I don't have the same opinion,and I suspect neither do you or Mrs PWA.

[pwa]

But whatever the resources, the goal is still to create independent learners. And kids will not become independent learners if they only learn when they have a teacher in front of them.

[georgew]

It's the system,it's flawed.

Well you have to come up with a different one then. Fewer holidays and longer days so that there is more school time? Or less work done and less stuff learned?

Well.....it doesn't work that way.

We already know that reducing working time may result in increased production and that to suggest that more hours equals more learning is misleadingly simplistic.

[pwa]

It's the system,it's flawed.

Well you have to come up with a different one then. Fewer holidays and longer days so that there is more school time? Or less work done and less stuff learned?

Well.....it doesn't work that way.

We already know that reducing working time may result in increased production and that to suggest that more hours equals more learning is misleadingly simplistic.

That isn't really the thrust of what I'm saying, and I personally think keeping kids in school longer is a bad idea. They go to school, get shown some new ideas, then they go home and work with those ideas on their own. That is how it is meant to work. Two complementary phases of learning.

[Carlton green]

It's the system,it's flawed.

Well you have to come up with a different one then. Fewer holidays and longer days so that there is more school time? Or less work done and less stuff learned?

Well.....it doesn't work that way.

We already know that reducing working time may result in increased production and that to suggest that more hours equals more learning is misleadingly simplistic.

The funny thing is that once I stopped going to school I started to be happier and to learn better. One day at the Technical College and four at work really suited me - in fact it was the best experience of education that I’ve ever had. We all have a pace at which we can assimilate knowledge but unfortunately the education system as is doesn’t accommodate that sufficiently.

What length the optimum school or working week is is something that I don’t know, but as it will vary between individuals one size fits all will have to do. My suspicion is that four focused days of work are more efficient than five, but I’m also fairly sure that if we all changed to that way of doing things then we’d soon discover it was flawed too.

[reohn2]

But whatever the resources, the goal is still to create independent learners. And kids will not become independent learners if they only learn when they have a teacher in front of them.

Think outside the present box,all work and no play makes Jack/Jackie a dull boy/girl.
Put the right conditions in place and more kids will want to learn and learn faster if they're not bored and fed up,Georgew has it right.
If kids want to learn it won't be because they're doing homework,I believe it to be a contrick to prepare them for longer working hours.
A couple of examples:-
I used to share work with a chap who worked long hours and 7 days a week,to watch him work was pitiful as he was completely burned out ,slow and lethargic to watch.He simply couldn't see how to get off the treadmill hamster wheel he'd built for himself,his struture work,work,work.

Another freind of mine confeded in me that she and the three others working there could never get out of the office before 7pm anps there was so much work to do.I told her her office was workjng shorthanded and as long as they kept working over without pay their boss would keep piling them up with work.
I listen to a program on R4 some time ago where the owner of a UK firm had sold it to a Swiss firm,on the agreement he'd be taken on as manager,but he had spend a month in their Swiss office.He was completely amazed at the production of the Swiss and even more amazdd that they came in at 9am on the dot and left at 5pm,his office in the UK was a who could get in earliest and leave latest,tryign to look busy to please him.

It's symptomatic of the UK way,we work the longest hours in Europe(and IMO things will only worsen outside the EU),and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if our children spend more time in school and have more homework than European children too.

[Cugel]

But whatever the resources, the goal is still to create independent learners. And kids will not become independent learners if they only learn when they have a teacher in front of them.

Think outside the present box,all work and no play makes Jack/Jackie a dull boy/girl.
Put the right conditions in place and more kids will want to learn and learn faster if they're not bored and fed up,Georgew has it right.
If kids want to learn it won't be because they're doing homework,I believe it to be a contrick to prepare them for longer working hours.
A couple of examples:-
I used to share work with a chap who worked long hours and 7 days a week,to watch him work was pitiful as he was completely burned out ,slow and lethargic to watch.He simply couldn't see how to get off the treadmill hamster wheel he'd built for himself,his struture work,work,work.

Another freind of mine confeded in me that she and the three others working there could never get out of the office before 7pm anps there was so much work to do.I told her her office was workjng shorthanded and as long as they kept working over without pay their boss would keep piling them up with work.
I listen to a program on R4 some time ago where the owner of a UK firm had sold it to a Swiss firm,on the agreement he'd be taken on as manager,but he had spend a month in their Swiss office.He was completely amazed at the production of the Swiss and even more amazdd that they came in at 9am on the dot and left at 5pm,his office in the UK was a who could get in earliest and leave latest,tryign to look busy to please him.

It's symptomatic of the UK way,we work the longest hours in Europe(and IMO things will only worsen outside the EU),and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if our children spend more time in school and have more homework than European children too.

My own feeling is that many British institutions are infected with bad traditions of "managers and the managed".

At school, the biggest brake on learning for us pupils was the tedious authoritarian overlay of many of the teachers, who were uninterested in questions or anything much other than issuing their orders about what we should and shouldn't do. Rote learning was also far too prevalent, as this seemed to be their idea of how best to pass exams, the sole objective of our education, they seemed to think. We educated ourselves, about all sort, in various fashions.

Those teachers who were interested in teaching us to think and then do out of our own motivation and understanding were few; and contrasted markedly with the authoritarian variety.

Off to uni and what a contrast! Learn yourself with a bit of help from a lecturer or tutor but no rote learning. I believe that's changed since my day at uni, mind. My academic friends bemoan the advent of exam result-based "learning" to universities, at the expense of all other kinds of learning, particularly learning how to think, research and formulate coherent ideas not provided ready-potted in a some textbook. Universities are now a business, flogging very expensive chits of paper that say "educated". The label is now enough, apparently. No one need actually have learnt anything much. As long as they pay.

Work was equally infested with authoritarian types, many of them jumped-up and with no skills of their own. Thinking and alternative means of achieving supposed objectives not allowed! Do what I say, not what I do was also prevalent. The terrible traditions of the British managerial classes, with their sole and single ability of climbing a greasy pole by buttering-up those above. Tedious; ineffective; disaffecting to the "managed". And still out there.

Cugel

[Vorpal]

The averages say nothing of the few remaining grammar schools in Lincolnshire. I imagine if you compared solely the grammars in Lincs to the comprehensives in other counties then the results would come out rather differently and in favour of the grammars.

According to the available information, not so.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/educ ... 73886.html
https://www.dur.ac.uk/news/newsitem/?itemno=34136

The apparent advantage of grammar schools is due to the resources and advantages already available to those who succeed.

[pwa]

But whatever the resources, the goal is still to create independent learners. And kids will not become independent learners if they only learn when they have a teacher in front of them.

Think outside the present box,all work and no play makes Jack/Jackie a dull boy/girl.
Put the right conditions in place and more kids will want to learn and learn faster if they're not bored and fed up,Georgew has it right.
If kids want to learn it won't be because they're doing homework,I believe it to be a contrick to prepare them for longer working hours.
A couple of examples:-
I used to share work with a chap who worked long hours and 7 days a week,to watch him work was pitiful as he was completely burned out ,slow and lethargic to watch.He simply couldn't see how to get off the treadmill hamster wheel he'd built for himself,his struture work,work,work.

Another freind of mine confeded in me that she and the three others working there could never get out of the office before 7pm anps there was so much work to do.I told her her office was workjng shorthanded and as long as they kept working over without pay their boss would keep piling them up with work.
I listen to a program on R4 some time ago where the owner of a UK firm had sold it to a Swiss firm,on the agreement he'd be taken on as manager,but he had spend a month in their Swiss office.He was completely amazed at the production of the Swiss and even more amazdd that they came in at 9am on the dot and left at 5pm,his office in the UK was a who could get in earliest and leave latest,tryign to look busy to please him.

It's symptomatic of the UK way,we work the longest hours in Europe(and IMO things will only worsen outside the EU),and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if our children spend more time in school and have more homework than European children too.

Just to give you some rough figures to work with, I checked what my own wife's school tells parents about how much homework their kids should be doing, and it rises as the kids go through school. For the first couple of years (Year 7 and they can expect to be doing 40 minutes a day. School ends at 3.30. By the sixth form they will be doing a couple of hours a day, though by that time they have free periods on some days. And when they go to Uni they will be on their own and expected to be able to get stuck in to hours of work with nobody looking over their shoulder. How do we prepare kids for independent working if we don't let them do it?

[Vorpal]

Kids learn all the time. The best way for them to learn is stuff that they are engaged with, through play, going places, creating things, speaking other languages, etc.

I'm not aware of any evidence that shows homework helps kids learn better. What homework mostly does is reinforce things they have already learned, so that they remember it better.

[reohn2]

[
Just to give you some rough figures to work with, I checked what my own wife's school tells parents about how much homework their kids should be doing, and it rises as the kids go through school. For the first couple of years (Year 7 and they can expect to be doing 40 minutes a day. School ends at 3.30. By the sixth form they will be doing a couple of hours a day, though by that time they have free periods on some days. And when they go to Uni they will be on their own and expected to be able to get stuck in to hours of work with nobody looking over their shoulder. How do we prepare kids for independent working if we don't let them do it?

Univresity students are adults,and should be treated as such.
Children OTOH should be taught with close supervision by train and qualified teachers who know their job and aren't overworked with large class sizes in huge schools designed for their economics rather than quality education.
YVMV mine won't, we have a multi tiered system of education for the those that can afford it and those who can't,whether that be post code schooling,or those parents who can afford private tutors,or those parents who can afford to send their children to private schools.
The system is biased grossly to the those with money,and IMO we're failing children by not providing equal opportunities for our children.
No doubt some may claim all children aren't equal and I agree with that but all children aren't being treated equally,and twochours overtime every night isn't the answer to the problem.

[pwa]

[
Just to give you some rough figures to work with, I checked what my own wife's school tells parents about how much homework their kids should be doing, and it rises as the kids go through school. For the first couple of years (Year 7 and they can expect to be doing 40 minutes a day. School ends at 3.30. By the sixth form they will be doing a couple of hours a day, though by that time they have free periods on some days. And when they go to Uni they will be on their own and expected to be able to get stuck in to hours of work with nobody looking over their shoulder. How do we prepare kids for independent working if we don't let them do it?

Univresity students are adults,and should be treated as such.
Children OTOH should be taught with close supervision by train and qualified teachers who know their job and aren't overworked with large class sizes in huge schools designed for their economics rather than quality education.
YVMV mine won't, we have a multi tiered system of education for the those that can afford it and those who can't,whether that be post code schooling,or those parents who can afford private tutors,or those parents who can afford to send their children to private schools.
The system is biased grossly to the those with money,and IMO we're failing children by not providing equal opportunities for our children.
No doubt some may claim all children aren't equal and I agree with that but all children aren't being treated equally,and twochours overtime every night isn't the answer to the problem.

The system I outlined doesn't have young kids doing two hours a night. Forty minutes for kids at 13, for example, rising as they go through school. By the sixth form they have two hours work per school day to do on their own, but by that time they also have free periods during the working day in which they can get some of that done, so they don't have to take all of it home as homework. The idea is that they become increasingly self-reliant, preparing them for life after school.

[pete75]

The system I outlined doesn't have young kids doing two hours a night. Forty minutes for kids at 13, for example, rising as they go through school. By the sixth form they have two hours work per school day to do on their own, but by that time they also have free periods during the working day in which they can get some of that done, so they don't have to take all of it home as homework. The idea is that they become increasingly self-reliant, preparing them for life after school.

Most schools succeed in preparing children from poorer backgrounds for their working life. The kids are bored and would rather be elsewhere doing something else. Exactly how they'll feel in the crap jobs most of them will be forced to take. if they can't get a job it doesn't matter because the long school holidays will have prepared them for unemployment. A win-win for our wonderful education system.

[Vorpal]

Univresity students are adults,and should be treated as such.
Children OTOH should be taught with close supervision by train and qualified teachers who know their job and aren't overworked with large class sizes in huge schools designed for their economics rather than quality education.

Actually, I think it would benefit most kids to be treated a little more like adults. A few years ago, we moved Mini V to a private school that has a Montessori based system. They aren't fully Montessori, but there are a couple of key things that mean it works *much* better for her than a traditional classroom environment.

Like adults, the kids are given goals, things to work with, projects to do, etc. and spend little time sitting in a classroom having stuff explained to them. They only do this when a new topic is introduced, then they work with or on it in their own ways, with guidance and help from a teacher, afterwards. This recognises that kids learn and work differently, and doesn't require that each does stuff the same as the next. The other important thing they do, is when a child is working, they do not interrupt to make them do the next subject, or whatever.

For her, the most important thing is that about half of her school day, she organises for herself, with the goals of completing certain things by certain days. They don't even always check that the kids have done every assigned exercise. Because the important thing is not that Mini V has done 20 long division problems, but that she knows how to do long division.

But this goes back to class size. Because that kind of system won't work with one teacher to look after 30 kids. Mini V's school group, which is year 7 - 9 together is about 60 kids with 8 teachers. They have 5 group leaders who help the kids organise their day, and provide information for general school topics, then they have 3 specialists in arts & crafts, maths/science/technology, health & physical education. There is also one other person who who helps them with cooking & recipes, (the kids cook hot lunch every day for each other in smaller groups on a 2 week rotation).