UKIP go from strength to strength

[Peck of Arabia]

Diversity 'key to London GCSE success'

Bloomin' foreigners coming to our country and improving our GCSE results. *shakesfist*

From the article "being a recent immigrant or being of non-White British ethnicity has a very substantial positive effect on progress through school" as the children of immigrants typically have "high aspirations and ambitions, and place greater hopes in the education system than the locals do."


That's interesting; what do we do to White British, or indigenous non-White British kids to beat the high aspirations, ambitions and hope in the education system out of them?

 

[Domen]

Bloomin' foreigners coming to our country and improving our GCSE results. (...)

From the article "being a recent immigrant or being of non-White British ethnicity has a very substantial positive effect on progress through school" as the children of immigrants typically have "high aspirations and ambitions, and place greater hopes in the education system than the locals do."

Oh, nice!

Spoiler :

Link to video.

 

[Takhisis]

'Indigenous'? Sorry, if he's born in the UK he's indigenous alright.

 

[useless]

Basically Quackers is more concerned about white english people then he is about any non-white english people.

 

[Traitorfish]

I'm beginning to think that you, Quackers, have a very strange celebrity crush on Nigel Farage.

It's like an obsession at this point.

UKIP c.2016, artist's impression:

It just shows further the hatred the left have for the indigenous in this country.

Nonsense, I carry no anti-Welsh prejudices whatosever.

 

[Takhisis]

So there's degrees of Englishness.

 

[Truronian]

From the article "being a recent immigrant or being of non-White British ethnicity has a very substantial positive effect on progress through school" as the children of immigrants typically have "high aspirations and ambitions, and place greater hopes in the education system than the locals do."


That's interesting; what do we do to White British, or indigenous non-White British kids to beat the high aspirations, ambitions and hope in the education system out of them?

Well, people have written much about this. In short: it's not really anything to do with being white, so much as it is to do with British culture. There is an anti-education bent with in society which manifests in many ways. Bullying (both overt and subtle) of intelligent kids, pride in ignorance (loads of people readily admit to being terrible at maths, for example) and the defamation of teachers and schools (read today's Daily Mail headline for an example).

So much has been said in this thread (mainly by one person) about the importance of preserving British culture, but I think that ignores the fact that some elements of British culture suck. Our attitude towards education is a good example of one such element.

 

[Flying Pig]

I think it might also be that there's a perhaps unhealthy obsession with academic achievement in some (particularly Asian) cultures - an article on the BBC yesterday noted that the overwhelming majority of primary school children in urban China are short-sighted, mostly because they spend very little time outside at school and often spend their afternoons studying or with private tutors. I also think 'pride in ignorance' is often a manifestation of modesty - you say things like 'I'm not great at maths so I may be wrong, but I think you've added that up incorrectly'. Whether that in itself discourages people to shine I don't know, but the fact that the Japanese and Scandinavians do so well at school leads me to think that it doesn't.

I will definitely speak up for that side of British education which says that test scores aren't the be-all-and-end-all - British schools have historically focussed on turning out what teachers love to call 'well-rounded adults'. That means that playing sports, being able to get involved in extra-curricular activities, having the opportunities to learn skills like leadership and just generally socialising are all important parts of education, and if that means that exam results suffer slightly then so be it.

 

[Truronian]

I think it might also be that there's a perhaps unhealthy obsession with academic achievement in some (particularly Asian) cultures - an article on the BBC yesterday noted that the overwhelming majority of primary school children in urban China are short-sighted, mostly because they spend very little time outside at school and often spend their afternoons studying or with private tutors. I also think 'pride in ignorance' is often a manifestation of modesty - you say things like 'I'm not great at maths so I may be wrong, but I think you've added that up incorrectly'. Whether that in itself discourages people to shine I don't know, but the fact that the Japanese and Scandinavians do so well at school leads me to think that it doesn't.

'Pride in ignorance' is perhaps an overly vitriolic choice of expression.

The 'I'm bad at maths' thing is a personal bug bear of mine. I'm not talking people being modest here, but people who are genuinely bad at maths mentioning it frequently. I perhaps get it a lot as a maths teacher, but more often than not the first thing people say to me when I tell them my job is "I'm terrible at maths". This is also probably the most common thing said at parents evenings. It creates a self-perpetuating cycle of people claiming to be bad at maths, and then their children claiming the same and so on. You don't get this to nearly the same extent abroad (or so I'm told by colleagues who have worked elsewhere).

Your points about China are certainly valid: I don't view the education system in place there as better than our own for the very reasons you mention. Nevertheless, taking on board some of the cultural faith in education that such countries have would do the UK the world of good.

I will definitely speak up for that side of British education which says that test scores aren't the be-all-and-end-all - British schools have historically focussed on turning out what teachers love to call 'well-rounded adults'. That means that playing sports, being able to get involved in extra-curricular activities, having the opportunities to learn skills like leadership and just generally socialising are all important parts of education, and if that means that exam results suffer slightly then so be it.

Other countries do this as well. It's the definition of well-rounded that differs. I don't think that side of education and test results conflict in the way that you imply... in fact I think the better in preparing kids for future life the better they will do when tested.

 

[Flying Pig]

I think that depends what the tests are measuring. Certainly there are things which can't be tested. To give an obvious example, being able to find facts and work out solutions to problems is often is often only a useful skill if you can put those solutions across and convince other people of them. The stereotype of 'bright but useless' university graduates isn't an entirely unfounded one.

 

[ParkCungHee]

I also think 'pride in ignorance' is often a manifestation of modesty - you say things like 'I'm not great at maths so I may be wrong, but I think you've added that up incorrectly'. Whether that in itself discourages people to shine I don't know, but the fact that the Japanese and Scandinavians do so well at school leads me to think that it doesn't.

In this case, I'll agree. I know actual mathematicians who will say they're bad at math.

 

[gay_Aleks]

If we assume UKIP is Stalin, would that make Front Nationale in France Mao Zedong or something?

 

[Quackers]

 

[Arakhor]

What, specifically, do you find funny about that tweet?

 

[Traitorfish]

It's dated to the 12th, i.e. a day late.

The whole Remembrance celebration is a creepyass blood-cult, anyway. Back when I was a kid, I thought it was supposed to be a mournful thing. Result of being raised in a progressive Catholic environment, I guess, big on reflective silences, not so big on warfare. I thought it was supposed to be, fundamentally, about how war is a bad thing, But it turns out it's the opposite! That it's a big nationalist circlejerk, a big morbid celebration of tanks and blood and murdered young men, didn't they get blown into low-grade dog food so very bravely, now let's go and do it all over again for the ten thousandth evil, murderous, unforgivably stupid time.

It's messed up, I'm telling you. Best to leave it to weirdos like the BNP, let them celebrate it when they like. I don't want any part of that madness.

 

[Flying Pig]

I really don't like the quite cynical playing up of Remembrance as a 'patriotic' holiday, nor as as something to bash people over the head with - the clue's in the name, it's supposed to be about remembering how lucky we are. Recently I've struggled with the whole notion of the poppy: it's been so co-opted by right-wing politics that to wear a red poppy feels like playing their game, as if you're going to have your photo on a BNP facebook page captioned 'VETERANS SUPPORT BRITISH VALUES WHILE IMMIGRANTS DO HORRIBLE THINGS'. I'd like to wear a white poppy but that's equally been taken over as a symbol of what you might call 'extreme pacifism', and wearing no poppy feels wrong: one wants to stand out from the remarkably large number of people who seem to take no notice. On one level, mind, I'm glad that so many people don't see Remembrance Day as anything to get particularly excited about; the generation growing up now, by and large, is far enough removed from the reality of war that the people being commemorated are abstract to them. That can only be a good thing.

 

[Quackers]

For the Remembrance Sunday in my local town we hung, drawn and quartered some immigrants and then sang songs glorifying war and hoping for even bloodier future wars.

 

[Traitorfish]

I really don't like the quite cynical playing up of Remembrance as a 'patriotic' holiday, nor as as something to bash people over the head with - the clue's in the name, it's supposed to be about remembering how lucky we are.

You'd think the clue would be that it commemorates an armistice, the mutual conclusion of fighting. Not a declaration, not a victory, just people ceasing to kill each other. That's supposed to invoke a sense of relief and, gradually, mournfulness, not chest-beating. The evolution of the commemorations from a pacifistic memorial into a nationalistic, militaristic celebration is perverse on so many levels, it's honestly hard for me to find a redeeming angle to it.

Recently I've struggled with the whole notion of the poppy: it's been so co-opted by right-wing politics that to wear a red poppy feels like playing their game, as if you're going to have your photo on a BNP facebook page captioned 'VETERANS SUPPORT BRITISH VALUES WHILE IMMIGRANTS DO HORRIBLE THINGS'. I'd like to wear a white poppy but that's equally been taken over as a symbol of what you might call 'extreme pacifism', and wearing no poppy feels wrong: one wants to stand out from the remarkably large number of people who seem to take no notice. On one level, mind, I'm glad that so many people don't see Remembrance Day as anything to get particularly excited about; the generation growing up now, by and large, is far enough removed from the reality of war that the people being commemorated are abstract to them. That can only be a good thing.

That's an interesting point. I tend to think of the white poppy as a natural alternative, but you're right, the association with avowedly anti-military elements of the left is going to make it a hard swallow for some people, not because they're bloodthirsty militarists, but just because for all the confident proclamations of radicals (and I'll cop to this one), a lot of people have a more complex relationship with the military than can be easily encompassed in neat Marxist schematics.

(There is also the black poppy, which commemorates mutineers, deserters and general shirkers, but unfortunately, like most anarchist symbolism, the only people who have the slightest clue what it means are other anarchists.)

 

[Arakhor]

It's dated to the 12th, i.e. a day late.

That would be it then.

 

[Tee Kay]

How about a pink poppy as a compromise. Surely that has no controversial connotation, says TK, tempting fate.