Private versus State Education

[Palinka (RIP)]

Former British Prime Minister, Sir John Major (who left school at 16 with three "O Levels" (for non-English (I do actually mean English, in this case, since a different system is in place in Scotland) Board members, this is a very poor result), has stated the he is "...shocked at how the privately educated elite has tightened its grip on power...". With 70% of the British Cabinet being privately educated, despite only 7% of the UK population being privately educated, he does have a point (which makes quite a change for the man previously known as Britain's most wishy-washy P.M.).

[mistah willies]

Terribly sorry, but being on the other side of the pond, when I hear talk about British Schooling, all I have is this for a reference: Pink Floyd's insightful and incisive condemnation of public school... At least for back in the 80's. Hopefully things have changed for the better.

[Palinka (RIP)]

Your mistake is an easy one to make. In Britain a Public School is a school belonging to the elite echelons of the private school system.
What you call a public school, we call a state school. It's rather confusing to those not involved...

[Fabricsoftner]

Public or private, academia, as it is today, needs to be entirely done away with and rethought. The current grading system is lame and outdated.

[Frankennietzsche]

You all need to be educated by the state...or should I say, RE-educated.

To the gulags with the lot of you!

[Mr. Viking]

everybody I met at university who were privately educated seemed to be in split mind about it. Half the time they would be embarrassed and half the time they would go on about the "scum" and so on who didn't go to proper schools. I know my dad was privately educated, and though he seems to pay little regard to that he does seem to know a lot of rich folk.

To add to the confusion, I went to a grammar school. Most parts of the UK no longer use the high school-grammar school system, and I was one of the last years in northern Ireland when there was an official system of them. A grammar school is state funded, as is a high school, but it received more funding and generally educated to a higher academic standard, with fewer vocational subjects. All children sat an exam aged eleven and grammar schools would accept pupils based on the grades. I thought it was the heyday of free education in the UK, though some claimed that it still discriminated against poorer communities.

The more I think about it though, the more I feel everybody should get the same basic education.

[mistah willies]

The more I think about it though, the more I feel everybody should get the same basic education.

Very strong distillation, young man. That is the peat of the matter.

Here's some flavoring:

Public or private, academia, as it is today, needs to be entirely done away with and rethought. The current grading system is lame and outdated.

Yup.

The industrialized workforce preparation "education" has been outdated for a while. Why is it that those who fail at standardized testing may fall through the cracks, when they might be someone who "thinks outside the box" like a true inventor?

My brain hurts.

a DRINK is indicated.



.

[Mr. Viking]

As digression, grading is needed at a basic level to make sure the pupils have learned how to read and write. Don't see the point in grading business studies or drama though, because those skills are proven in the real world. I think a lot of subjects don't need grading, and are graded in order to have a sorting system for higher education, which I'm not sure is working fairly or effectively

[mistah willies]

It's been a bone of contention that some kids are pushed through high school over here and graduating without knowing much more than basic math, or even knowing how to read. Colleges look for good athletes, and these young folks end up playing, but the professional league is their target; not filling their mental tool box.

Speaking of college, unless one is heading into law or medicine or other professions, then the average person might benefit more from trade school. Learn an honest trade, then become journeyman, and finally become a master craftsman at your trade.

Perhaps the best thing to learn is the ability to learn, to adapt to a rapidly changing economic landscape, to never stop learning.

There is no such thing as job security anymore.

As far as those who do not test well, perhaps such standardized tests weed out the unique thinkers, for they are not standardized thinkers.

In that group one will find the creative folks, the dreamers, the inventors, the explorers, the world changers...

We should encourage the ones who may work to make the world a better place for the rest of us, for us all.



Or, DRINK! That's my own antidote



.

[Fabricsoftner]

The Case Against Grades by Alfie Kohn.

[ThirstyDrunk]

I'm uneducated.

[OtisCampbell]

I haven't read any of this thread, but I'm positive that private is better.

[Fabricsoftner]

“The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas.”

[Frankennietzsche]

Ooooh...this is starting to sound like Class Conflict.

[OtisCampbell]

I attended an upscale private university in the southeastern United States. I graduated with honors.

I like to get drunk with just about anyone and I am drunk right now. And THAT is what matters, my friends.

Cheers!