Education

Sophisticated Interactive Cheating Learning

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Only in the bizarre (as in anachronistic, educationally limiting and often damaging, economically draining and environmentally indefensible) world of mass schooling in the 21st century would looking something up on the Internet be considered cheating. To quote Stephen Crowne, Chief Executive, Becta,

“Equipping our current and future generations with the necessary skills to compete in a digital world is crucial to our future. Through innovative programmes such as Home Access, Becta is driving this development.  We can see in schools and colleges across Britain how the use of technology breeds greater success for students and teachers alike.”

Quite.

Or from a Microsoft Word document (No! Don’t laugh!) linked from the DCSF site, but without any indication what it is or who created it or when it was created (No! Don’t laugh!) ….

Gone are the days when young people spend endless school days poring over dusty textbooks. Learning is now interactive, sophisticated, and engaging.

Ho hum!

Aptitude and Ability

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Last weekend threw up an interesting contrast. On Radio Three’s Private Passions available on iPlayer (until 6th December) Bill Bailey described his schooling (the independent King Edward’s School, Bath) where his talents were recognised and encouraged. On the other hand since her first audition for the X Factor:

one felt that Stacey Solomon had somewhere along the line been failed by the school system. Is the King Solomon High School (motto: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, who am I? If not now, when?” Ethics of the Fathers, 1:14) really meeting the requirements of Section 7 of the Education Act 1996? If you delegate the education of a child to the mass schooling system do you have any redress when that system fails the child. As Ms Solomon enters the X Factor semi-finals (and, one hopes, ultimate victory) one can only wonder at the countless other children who have been failed by such a piss poor system. If only there were some form of education otherwise than by schooling….

Governmental visitors

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Whilst all are welcome to come and browse here, should tax payers be subsidising government browsing?
govvisist

More worrying is the Windows/Internet Explorer 6 thing. Do these people know nothing about security?

Of course the [W:IP address] 195.92.40.49 is generic and could be from anywhere within gov.uk. Let’s hope they enjoyed, and were educated by, the silliness.

See also:
FreeBorn John

Spy Blog (Watching Them, Watching Us)

The curious case of the missing "Badman" page

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Question:

What do you get when you subtract….

This Google.co.uk search

from…

an identical Google.com search?

Answer:
The Dark Lord Badman’s Guide to Home Education – Arranging An Inspection

Remainder:

Missing page
Missing page

Update 28th July 2009:
This piece had a lot of visitors yesterday (but not a single comment ;-)) most of whom were from the UK. A couple of visitors from [W:Google] itself passed through – probably in response to this link.

Of course Google searches are dynamic things and this page itself is now appearing in the .com listing. So for the record here is a picture of the original listings.

Google search listings
Google search listings

Update 2nd August: Curiouser and curiouser.

Back to basics: education otherwise than by mass schooling after Badman

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Now that the dust has started to settle on the initial indignant ranting of the home educators it may be safe to pop above the parapet and float a few random thoughts….

The response to the Badman report should be on two discrete fronts, the civil liberties issues and the education issues, with each branch being argued separately.

One needs to acknowledge the limited world view of the professional educators. They went to school. They went to university. They went back to school. Any ideas that are outside this scenario can be difficult for them to grasp. Showing workings and adding labels to an illustrative diagram often helps.

The Badman report is a huge leap backwards to where we were decades ago so perhaps we should retrace our steps a few decades and find some other educational path to follow; one that does not lead to the odious home education model that is so common today.

Perhaps a starting point might be the description of various forms of education defined by Combs with Prosser and Ahmed in 1973 which included:

Informal education: the truly lifelong process whereby every individual acquires attitudes, values, skills and knowledge from daily experience and the educative influences and resources in his or her environment – from family and neighbours, from work and play, from the market place, the library and the mass media.

Which itself followed on from a 1972 [W:UNESCO] report called “Learning To Be” which raised the notion that…

education should enable each person to be able to solve his own problems, make his own decisions and shoulder his own responsibilities.

Learning To Be was adopted as one of The Four Pillars in Education for the 21st century (1996 – hence the ugly web site ;-). Etc. Etc. It would be far easier to defend from such extant heights than from the piddling [W:molehill] that is home education.

Someone should thank [W:Gordon Brown] for his vociferous support in a speech about education on the 5th May 2009 (my emphasis):

An alternative approach would be a significantly increased top-down role for government in the education system, local authorities running every school to meet centrally-set targets and regulations. I reject this approach. It would stifle innovation, deny teachers and school leaders the freedom they need to drive change. It would cut parents out of any role in improving education standards.

Bear in mind that the government’s response to the petition regarding the review said:

One of the key principles underpinning The Children’s Plan published by the Department for Children, Schools and Families is that the government does not bring up children – parents do.

Laughing out loud at those who suggest that a child’s safety and or well being are best monitored by professionals in a formal environment is really bad form.

On the other hand laughing at the home educators, and their posturing that has so successfully landed them in this pickle, is quite acceptable.

Why home education sucks (Part 735/B)

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Apparently it is Open season on home education (whatever that is) which tells us something of the bizarre parallel universe in which home educators (whoever they are) seem to live – ever the hapless victims of oppression and discrimination. In their topsy turvy universe everything is painted in the darkest colours possible. Children do not just go to school they are “sacrificed… to daily incarceration” Home educators constantly decry the use of propaganda by the state whilst creating their own version of the [W:Black Legend] and the Big Lie; of course their version is not propaganda, their version is the truth for they have a secret gift that will lead them to a promised land.

Not satisfied with turning education into a quasi-religous cult the home educators are now conspiring with the state to turn the current freedom of parents to choose how they wish to educate their children (as enshrined in Section 7 of the Education Act) into a dichotomy between School or Home Education. This is their most sinister and pernicious act.

While presenting themselves as victims of the heavy handed state they seem to have missed the irony that they can cite the Human Rights Act to defend themselves and use the Freedom Of Information Act to gather information from officialdom. I wouldn’t be surprised if the evil/nazi/pinko/leftist/commie/fascist (delete as appropriate) government starts forcing them and their children to roam the countryside – freely.

How many people are put off educating their children otherwise than at school by all this home education nonsense? Someone should set up a database to monitor the situation.