Some idiot gassing on about the need for slightly less elite schools for the increasingly sidelined petty-bourgeoisie and labour aristocracy. (He doesn't put it that way himself :-)
It's from the Guardian of course:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/26/selective-education-grammar-schools?
My comment:
If a school system isn't designed to raise the average standard of education/knowledge/joy of learning/solidarity, then it's going to reproduce all the old crap. Socialize our youngsters into well-off or destitute psychopaths, on class lines.
The British system is "designed" (ha-bloody-ha) - no, let's say structured - to ease the rich and powerful into rich and powerful positions, to let the would-be social climbers tear each other to pieces as they fight their way up the foothills through jungle and swamp, and to consign the wage-slaves and the poor to the factories and streets. At any price. Particularly at the cost of education/knowledge/joy of learning/solidarity and culture.
O Brave New World!
I was able to go to university because of a local government grant, not because of the school I went to. While there I decided I would only go into teaching as a last resort if half my brain went home. Since then things have got much much worse.
Britain is a democracy by the skin of its teeth, and the enamel is wearing away fast. The class divide is very visible once more, and class hatred is returning. Healthy signs for our future!
But the necessary change and renewal will owe next to nothing to our - sorry their - schools and universities. And the little owed will be in spite of and not because of the educational policies of servile governments that divide their time between licking the spittle and licking the boots of capital - when their heads aren't stuck up its arse.
No comments:
Post a Comment