Thursday, 26 March 2009

‘Educating’ The New Generation….

The dumbing-down bandwagon rolls on, as NuLab realise that there’s still a few areas of the national curriculum that they can still utterly ruin before the Tories get in:
Children will no longer study the Second World War and Queen Victoria, but instead learn about Twitter and blogging under radical plans to overhaul primary school teaching.
I guess they are pinning their hopes on the new generation producing a far better Derek Draper for their next attempt to get into power…
The new draft curriculum commissioned by the Government claims that pupils can do without learning about the battle against Nazism and the rise and fall of the British Empire.

In a move which will horrify many parents, it would see children focus on internet tools such as Wikipedia and podcasting, as well as innovations such as blogging and Twitter, which allows users to post instant minute-by-minute updates about their lives.
History…? Waste of time.

Gotta be down wif da kidz. Innit…?
The proposals to shake-up primary school teaching were drawn up by Sir Jim Rose, Britain's former schools inspector, and will be published next month.

In the leaked copy seen by the Guardian newspaper, he lays out plans to replace the traditional 13 subjects with just six.

It would completely overhaul the education of five- to 11-year-olds, stripping away hundreds of criteria for their knowledge of history, geography, language and science, and instead give teachers would be given unprecedented freedom over which areas they cover.
Because that isn’t going to end in tears, is it? But what are the six subject remaining from this bonfire of the values?

Well, you could have guessed:
The revamped curriculum also contains environmental lessons and 'physical health and wellbeing' which were previously not part of the curriculum.
Heh!
Critics suggested the proposals sidelined the joy of reading in favour of computers.

Teresa Cremin, president of the UK Literacy Associations said: 'Our main concern is that there is no emphasis on reading for pleasure or the enjoyment of literacy.'
Because NuLab doesn’t want people reading for pleasure in the future, Teresa.

That way lies madness independent thought. And that won’t elect another Labour government in the future, will it?
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9 comments:

  1. Anonymous26 March 2009 at 08:12

    Don't forget the lessons about 'Human Rights' too. From conversation with many young people it seems clear that even recent history, about the 60's and 70's, is viewed as almost fiction.

    I have argued many times that without knowledge of the past how can 'we' learn from previous mistakes or even understand the society and world we inhabit today.

    Utterly depressing to think how dumb our society really is today and how much dumber it is going to get.

    ReplyDelete
  2. North Northwester26 March 2009 at 08:16

    So 'history' in the sense of what happened in the past will go all the way back to last night's reality TV? My colleagues at work already have about a fifty year grasp of British history and that from an, ahem, particular perspective.
    Who controls the past controls the present. Who controls the present controls the future.

    Day Three in Heaven, and already Jade is being asked to leave...

    And on a lighter note, Tin Pan Alley and the plastic surgeons of LA seem to have come up with a long-term cure for jihadist terror...See me after school

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous26 March 2009 at 08:25

    The really cute thing about this is...

    Who will be teaching who.

    I'm 35 and don't know what the hell Twitter is actually for. If I was 7 I would probs thnk it the greatest invention since the steam engine not that I'd know about that obviously.

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  4. Henry North London 2.026 March 2009 at 09:07

    They dont want people to learn history and see that things are repeating themselves or they would be lynched

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous26 March 2009 at 09:34

    "I have argued many times that without knowledge of the past how can 'we' learn from previous mistakes or even understand the society and world we inhabit today."

    That's the point. Socialists want drones, not articulate educated individuals. Drones who will repeat the mantras drummed into them at school.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous26 March 2009 at 11:31

    In Primary School?

    One part of Government screams

    "Oooh, the intertubes is full of paedophiles..."

    Another says

    "let's go play on the intertubes..."

    WTF are they thinking?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous26 March 2009 at 14:37

    The revamped curriculum also contains environmental lessons and 'physical health and wellbeing' which were previously not part of the curriculum.

    So what is with Biology/Geography for the environment, and P.T and biology lessons for the "Physical health and..."

    Computer/electronics, whatever for "Twattering", or whatever?

    HEL! What next? Seperate lessons for subtraction and addition?

    "You can not talk about electronics here, this is the physics class"?

    Von Brandenburg-Preußen.

    ReplyDelete
  8. JuliaM26 March 2009 at 17:18

    "I have argued many times that without knowledge of the past how can 'we' learn from previous mistakes..."

    As Henry and Rob say, they don't want us learning from previous mistakes. Or learning at all, it seems...

    "I'm 35 and don't know what the hell Twitter is actually for."

    I'm a bit older, and I know what it's ostensibly for. But I can't, for the life of me, figure out its purpose...

    "What next? Seperate lessons for subtraction and addition?"

    Better not give them ideas...

    ReplyDelete
  9. DJ26 March 2009 at 20:36

    Hmmmm.... what are the odds that 'physical health and wellbeing' is just a euphemism for teaching Junior all about felching & golden showers?

    ReplyDelete