[Politics] White working class failure

[WATFORD zero]

I'm pleased there is so much thoughful comment on this thread. And I'm glad it hasn'y (yet) been taken down due to trolling.

I like to think that it proves there's more thoughtful and intelligent posters on NSC than idiots

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

The Tideway minibus still had something like "Tideway School and Sixth Form" on it when I was there. The sixth form had very much gone by then (along with about 1500 pupils after the school in Peacehaven opened), because nobody in their right mind would want to do their A-Levels at Tideway.

Many many years before, my dad passed his 11+ and got sent to the local secondary modern anyway due to "lack of space". A few years later my mum lucked into going to a Comprehensive which had been converted from a Secondary Modern by replacing the sign outside, and nothing else.

I came across a statistic once about the proportion of people who went to Secondary Moderns compared to how many university students had been to them (before Comprehensives were brought in), which was something ridiculous like 80% compared to about 5% (yes I have made those numbers up, it was a while ago). They're just a bad idea which consigned thousands of people to the scrap heap for no good reason, and in some areas continue to do so.

One thing that streams through the decades like a purple vein through a drunkard's nose is the lack of concern for the state school pupil. Of any sort. Grammar, secondary mod? Who cares where the cattle send their kids.

The grammars were a respite for the middle classes. This clearly persisted into the 80s. My son got into a grammar not because he passed the exams (he failed the maths) but because he had a pushy middle class father called 'Dr' somethingorother.

Chatting with Mrs T about this today. Everyone finds a way to survive. For the likes of Das Reich, he has a lifetime of experience. Chose this, result. Mates, experiences, survival, all, is fine. So if things work out, and we are a bit weak minded, we get cocky and think we have the upper hand for insight.

Of course there are may ways to skin a cat and in the long term, your descendents' survival depends on the strength of the tribe.

The likes of Das Reich may not have noticed but the tribe is fast becoming the whole of the human race. Yes, rather a lot of work needed for the Ethiopians, Iraquis, and, let's face it, the French to get up to speed, but, well, if you've been abroad. . . . or even down the shops....

The white working class need to shape up a bit, I suspect. Not letting you kid who has passed the eleven plus go to the grammar because 'it isn't for people like us' and 'no you ain't going to univesity, you'll get a job' is.....child abuse. Fact.

We do need to move on and, hopefully, we are.

 

[WATFORD zero]

Another thing that I don't think has been mentioned on here.

People who are prepared to emigrate, leaving family, friends, culture and everything else they know have, by that very act, shown that they are prepared to make hard decisions and will work hard to try and achieve their ambitions. It's not really a surprise if that ambition is then instilled in their children.

 

[Baldseagull]

There are many factors, but I have read a few studies that point to Teacher expectation as having a significant effect on student achievement. Maybe having the chav mum, living on an estate full of non working single parents is affecting teachers expectations of what that student can achieve more than the circumstances themselves being the major limiting factor.

 

[midnight_rendezvous]

There are many factors, but I have read a few studies that point to Teacher expectation as having a significant effect on student achievement. Maybe having the chav mum, living on an estate full of non working single parents is affecting teachers expectations of what that student can achieve more than the circumstances themselves being the major limiting factor.

Whilst there is some truth (self-fulfilling prophecy etc) it's a very simplistic way of framing it as it implies that teacher expectations are based on social factors instead of early assessment data. When children come into an EYFS setting, they perform a baseline assessment and then strategies are put in place in order to help them reach Early Learning Goals (or ELG). Whether they achieve that or not depends on future assessment expectations at primary level. The issue is, children who have less support at home (especially in early reading, fine motor skills and speech) are less likely to achieve ELG and, statistically, schools in more deprived areas have a much lower % of children achieving ELG. I doubt however that this is because of teacher expectations and far more to do with parental engagement at home.

 

[Baldseagull]

Whilst there is some truth (self-fulfilling prophecy etc) it's a very simplistic way of framing it as it implies that teacher expectations are based on social factors instead of early assessment data. When children come into an EYFS setting, they perform a baseline assessment and then strategies are put in place in order to help them reach Early Learning Goals (or ELG). Whether they achieve that or not depends on future assessment expectations at primary level. The issue is, children who have less support at home (especially in early reading, fine motor skills and speech) are less likely to achieve ELG and, statistically, schools in more deprived areas have a much lower % of children achieving ELG. I doubt however that this is because of teacher expectations and far more to do with parental engagement at home.

One of the studies I saw actually placed kids with teachers that didn't know them and told the teachers that the groups that had been assessed as "low", for want of a better term were, "high" and vice versa, the finding was that the kids closely matched the achievement levels that the teachers had been told they should reach, the "high" kids under achieved, and the "low" kids over achieved compared to their official assessment. I have got some shit to do today, but I will try and find it later.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Another thing that I don't think has been mentioned on here.

People who are prepared to emigrate, leaving family, friends, culture and everything else they know have, by that very act, shown that they are prepared to make hard decisions and will work hard to try and achieve their ambitions. It's not really a surprise if that ambition is then instilled in their children.

Yep. We see it here with second gen Indian kids hot housed into medicine, laws etc. When I lived in Canafa it was the Chinese kids. In the UK it hasn't come off so well for many West Indian kids attributable, I suspect, to the absent father and single mum phenomenon (which has its roots in slavery). There are other groups that haven't thrived owing to primitive religious and cultural outlooks that have kept them in insular bubbles, not mixing with society at large. Unfortunately the 'indiginous' population has been content to let 'them' stay in their virtual ghettos because it means 'we' don't have to mix with them. Hugely worse in the US though where some places are almost completely ethnically zoned. And before it sounds like I'm veering towards making a racist assessment, there are far more white working class ghettos than ghettos of any other group. The power is with the upper class and to some extent the middle class. Unfortunately 'we' (if I put on my acquired middle class cat, disregarding my roots for a moment' in the middle are content, if not exactly happy, to turn away from white sink estates as easily as we turn away from south asion ghettos in the north west and parts of yorkshire, dismissing them as a necessary and unfortunate consequence of our competitive and largely successful capitalist society, and convincing ourselves that 'they' may be poor and ignorant, with no books in the house (except yesterdays 'Sun', or a bible or the Quran) but they are mostly harmless and probably happy, and of course they do do all the jobs that the rest of us won't.

 

[mejonaNO12 aka riskit]

Slightly harsh thread title. He might not even move to Arsenal.

 

[midnight_rendezvous]

One of the studies I saw actually placed kids with teachers that didn't know them and told the teachers that the groups that had been assessed as "low", for want of a better term were, "high" and vice versa, the finding was that the kids closely matched the achievement levels that the teachers had been told they should reach, the "high" kids under achieved, and the "low" kids over achieved compared to their official assessment. I have got some shit to do today, but I will try and find it later.

I would be very interested in reading it. Was it done over a lesson? A week? Half-term? Term? I’m not saying it won’t happen but, as a teacher, I question how and why a professional wouldn’t make their own judgements on a child’s attainment after doing their own formative and summative assessment and adapt their provision accordingly.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

how much is down to an inherently racist media who push divisive agendas?

I don't believe the media is inherently racist, but totally agree that their "job" is to push divisive agendas