[Politics] White working class failure

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I was in the last year under the old £3000 a year system. In the first part of my career (I may still be in it, not sure) I pay more per month than people on the current system.

While I'm here, when I was in the last year of my GCSEs, the head of English walked into the class and announced "We're mixing up the classes. Everybody who's definitely getting a C, or who definitely won't be getting a C, will go in one class. Everybody who's borderline will be in a class with me." We spent the rest of the year listening to a supply teacher tell us about his holidays.

It was only when I went to university that I realised that pretty much anybody could have got straight As in their GCSEs if they were actually trying. I'm pretty sure most of the people in the top maths set at my school were on the foundation paper, so couldn't get more than a C even if they got 100% (the time I sat a foundation paper without realising or anybody telling me is neither here nor there).

I thought you were older.

Even with loans, going to uni is always the best choice. As long as the degree is decent, obviously. George Michael Studies.....well, you decide

Still....controversial, now....making polys unis, and bringing in metrics, TEF and measuring student satisfaction has, on the whole, been....a GOOD thing.

Some of the gormless wankers who 'taught' me at uni in the 70s....and staff who worked from 10-4, with a round of golf that started at eleven to break up the monotony....never raised a grant, never published....FFS, now that was a mess.

 

[Sid in the Sharknado]

I thought you were older.

Even with loans, going to uni is always the best choice. As long as the degree is decent, obviously. George Michael Studies.....well, you decide

Still....controversial, now....making polys unis, and bringing in metrics, TEF and measuring student satisfaction has, on the whole, been....a GOOD thing.

Some of the gormless wankers who 'taught' me at uni in the 70s....and staff who worked from 10-4, with a round of golf that started at eleven to break up the monotony....never raised a grant, never published....FFS, now that was a mess.

Given the choice between "too many" people going to uni, or a huge number of people not having the option because there aren't enough places, I'd take the former every time. I think the patronising line of thinking that somebody needs to dig roads or work in factories (or call centres nowadays) means that large sections of the population horribly underachieving isn't viewed as a major issue.

I have the impression that there's never been a great deal of overlap between people with a real interest in educating students, and people interested in working at university.

 

[BadFish]

Strangely this thread has not gone into the pit............................can't think why

Any ideas

Doesn't need to.

Just needs a thread ban for the three posters trying to drag it there.

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[Klaas]

This comes as no surprise to me:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-57558746

White working class have been at the bottom of the achievement pile for many years. Especially boys.

I'm old enought to remember growing up when it was expected that I 'know my place'. Getting into grammar school was life or death. I was lucky. At university I was the only person I knew there on a grant of any sort (I was on a full grant). I have one old mate from uni days (who is the son of a diplomat, but, like me a bit peculiar). The rest of them were alien. I somehow got a PhD place in Canada and nobody could understand my regional (Brighton) accent, so I had to learn to speek queen's English just to get by. But Canada is relatively classless and it was only 4 years away from the UK that 'saved me' (from never forgetting 'my place'). When I came back to the UK I was able to stare down middle class arrogance (from the young medics doing their MD training). I managed to blag a lectureship and my career has been quite good. But boy do I get abreactions from some of the middle classes. Fear is the main abreaction . My football and music...my 'attitude' rub them up the wrong way. A lot of it is just me but the class 'press' has always been there.

I feel that things are manyfold better now than in the 70s, but today's data speak for themselves. I'd be very happy indeed to see some positive intervention. When I was a kid I knew kids who passed the 11 plus but were sent by their parents to the secondary modern school because 'that sort of thing isn't for us'. Shocking. In fact my first wife was one. Things are better, but having large swathes of the population struggling and feeling neglected while being told they are 'lucky' is the root cause of all sorts of our recent and current problems, I suspect.

Others care to share their experience?

This is an interesting thread H and some of the personal accounts have been both sad an inspiring.
Comments on, say, 'self responsibility' or 'absent fathers' have been entirely lacking and the discussion hasn't veered pitward because of it. I think that in itself is a small example of WP. Bizarrely, all the posters who would normally be dragging it down that path, have now started to arrive to crow about this point.

 

[The Clamp]

Educate the working class just enough to earn money and pay tax.
Send the upper classes to public school to meet the right people so they can procure wealth and avoid paying tax.
The middle class can choose but make sure they are taxed out of any meaningful social mobility.
Give them a national lottery so the working classes can demonstrate why they are not to be trusted with large amounts of money.

 

[Chicken Run]

Educate the working class just enough to earn money and pay tax.
Send the upper classes to public school to meet the right people so they can procure wealth and avoid paying tax.
The middle class can choose but make sure they are taxed out of any meaningful social mobility.
Give them a national lottery so the working classes can demonstrate why they are not to be trusted with large amounts of money.

View attachment 137949

You’ve forgotten all the work shy sitting at home all day claiming ben’s?


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[The Clamp]

You’ve forgotten all the work shy sitting at home all day claiming ben’s?


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How could I forget Ppf/Das Reich? He’s my favourite little unemployed Nazi

 

[Baker lite]

Doesn't need to.

Just needs a thread ban for the three posters trying to drag it there.

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That’s the spirit, try and stifle debate....


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[BadFish]

That’s the spirit, try and stifle debate....


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Exactly what you three pigeons are doing (and do on so many threads).

Hijack the thread with your nonsense, drag it into the bear pit to end the debate.

Rinse and repeat.

Tiresome is not the word.

 

[Pretty pink fairy]

Doesn't need to.

Just needs a thread ban for the three posters trying to drag it there.

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Are you a advocate for cancel culture then people are allowed their opinion aren't they
Regards
DF

 

[BadFish]

Are you a advocate for cancel culture then people are allowed their opinion aren't they
Regards
DF

It depends if those opinions end up stifling a decent discussion.

Or if those offering the opinion can form a coherent sentence

 

[BBassic]

It depends if those opinions end up stifling a decent discussion.

Or if those offering the opinion can form a coherent sentence

Punctuation is leftist propaganda.

 

[Pretty pink fairy]

It depends if those opinions end up stifling a decent discussion.

Or if those offering the opinion can form a coherent sentence

Regards
DF

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Given the choice between "too many" people going to uni, or a huge number of people not having the option because there aren't enough places, I'd take the former every time. I think the patronising line of thinking that somebody needs to dig roads or work in factories (or call centres nowadays) means that large sections of the population horribly underachieving isn't viewed as a major issue.

I have the impression that there's never been a great deal of overlap between people with a real interest in educating students, and people interested in working at university.

There is a reason for that. Our system of 'measurement' (appraisal, call it what you will) is based on our research. Until very recently (I know of one exception) promotion to professor was based exclusively on grant income and in 'impact factor' of journals in which the person publishes. The same criteria are used for getting the job in the first place. The result is that unis are stacked with people who regard teaching as a nuisance. I don't put myself in that category but my (research) career has suffered as a consequence (of my 'old school' academic attitudes).

The former polys are different and very few people there have any sort of research impact. A former student of mine walked into a lectureship at a former poly after getting her PhD and was quickly promoted to senior lecturerer. She is the only one of my former students who did not publish anything from her PhD (or indeed anything ever). However, what I have seen of former poly teaching isn't good. The staff simply don't have the expertise. I am talking 'on average' here; there are of course some departments in some institutions that have excellent teaching.

Finally, what constitutes 'good' teaching? Unfortunately the government's assessment process (that determines how much money each uni gets from HMG) is very dependent on 'student feedback' (National Student Survey). There is a focus on 'student satisfaction'. To get good marks staff are expected to be nice to students at all times, always be constructive, and to award high marks. Students love high marks. Need I say more?

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

This is an interesting thread H and some of the personal accounts have been both sad an inspiring.
Comments on, say, 'self responsibility' or 'absent fathers' have been entirely lacking and the discussion hasn't veered pitward because of it. I think that in itself is a small example of WP. Bizarrely, all the posters who would normally be dragging it down that path, have now started to arrive to crow about this point.

Indeed. This would have been impossible ten years ago. Another example of the evolving civility that I maintain has always operated (not everyone, not at all times, but in the main) with the trajectory of the centre of gravity unmistakably onwards and upwards.

Yes, there are some very saddening posts. People denied an education by their parents, in particular.

I'm off for a hernia op in an hour and NSC has done a good job of taking my mind off the prospect

All the best

 

[Klaas]

Indeed. This would have been impossible ten years ago. Another example of the evolving civility that I maintain has always operated (not everyone, not at all times, but in the main) with the trajectory of the centre of gravity unmistakably onwards and upwards.

Yes, there are some very saddening posts. People denied an education by their parents, in particular.

I'm off for a hernia op in an hour and NSC has done a good job of taking my mind off the prospect

All the best

All the best to you, see you on the breakdancing floor soon.

 

[Baldseagull]

Just deep sadness that this will probably be reduced to the normal race issues within a page or two because one of the headline phrases involves "white privilege". It's a bit more complex than that.

Nowadays educational ghettos don't form around Grammer or Sec Modern but around the property market and gentrification. The better middle class teachers will teach in schools with the more likely to succeed (and, at least ostensibly) better behaved kids. Who all live in nice houses, whatever their skin colour.

Even then it can vary, and change quickly within an area. My kids' original primary got a new head who focussed in on trying to improve the lot of people who, in truth, she looked down on. Suddenly the place was full of kids with SEN statements or who had been expelled from somewhere else (or both). So all the bright kids left

Don't know if it is still the case, but during my spell as a governer of a primary school, statemented kids attracted extra funding, it was near impossible to run the school on the funds without a number of statemented kids. Heads have to either tap up the parents all the time for cash, attempt to get a large number of kids statemented, or both.

 

[LamieRobertson]

Indeed. This would have been impossible ten years ago. Another example of the evolving civility that I maintain has always operated (not everyone, not at all times, but in the main) with the trajectory of the centre of gravity unmistakably onwards and upwards.

Yes, there are some very saddening posts. People denied an education by their parents, in particular.

I'm off for a hernia op in an hour and NSC has done a good job of taking my mind off the prospect

All the best

All the best Harry

 

[LamieRobertson]

Are you a advocate for cancel culture then people are allowed their opinion aren't they
Regards
DF

Blimey you’ve got all modern with using those type of phrases

 

[essbee1]

Indeed. This would have been impossible ten years ago. Another example of the evolving civility that I maintain has always operated (not everyone, not at all times, but in the main) with the trajectory of the centre of gravity unmistakably onwards and upwards.

Yes, there are some very saddening posts. People denied an education by their parents, in particular.

I'm off for a hernia op in an hour and NSC has done a good job of taking my mind off the prospect

All the best

Hope the op goes well Harry.