Showing posts with label education failure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education failure. Show all posts
3.01.2010
Weaponizing Mozart
· How Britain is using classical music as a form of social control.
http://reason.com/archives/2010/02/24/weoponizing-mozart
We’re already the kings of CCTV. An estimated 20 per cent of the world’s CCTV cameras are in the UK, a remarkable achievement for an island that occupies only 0.2 per cent of the world’s inhabitable landmass.
A few years ago some local authorities introduced the Mosquito, a gadget that emits a noise that sounds like a faint buzz to people over the age of 20 but which is so high-pitched, so piercing, and so unbearable to the delicate ear drums of anyone under 20 that they cannot remain in earshot. It’s designed to drive away unruly youth from public spaces, yet is so brutally indiscriminate that it also drives away good kids, terrifies toddlers, and wakes sleeping babies.
Police in the West of England recently started using super-bright halogen lights to temporarily blind misbehaving youngsters. From helicopters, the cops beam the spotlights at youths drinking or loitering in parks, in the hope that they will become so bamboozled that (when they recover their eyesight) they will stagger home.
[...]
Britain might not make steel anymore, or cars, or pop music worth listening to, but, boy, are we world-beaters when it comes to tyranny. And now classical music, which was once taught to young people as a way of elevating their minds and tingling their souls, is being mined for its potential as a deterrent against bad behavior.
In January it was revealed that West Park School, in Derby in the midlands of England, was “subjecting” (its words) badly behaved children to Mozart and others. In “special detentions,” the children are forced to endure two hours of classical music both as a relaxant (the headmaster claims it calms them down) and as a deterrent against future bad behavior (apparently the number of disruptive pupils has fallen by 60 per cent since the detentions were introduced.)
ne news report says some of the children who have endured this Mozart authoritarianism now find classical music unbearable. As one critical commentator said, they will probably “go into adulthood associating great music—the most bewitchingly lovely sounds on Earth—with a punitive slap on the chops.” This is what passes for education in Britain today: teaching kids to think “Danger!” whenever they hear Mozart’s Requiem or some other piece of musical genius.
The classical music detentions at West Park School are only the latest experiment in using and abusing some of humanity’s greatest cultural achievements to reprimand youth.
Read more...
http://reason.com/archives/2010/02/24/weoponizing-mozart
In recent years Britain has become the Willy Wonka of social control, churning out increasingly creepy, bizarre, and fantastic methods for policing the populace. But our weaponization of classical music—where Mozart, Beethoven, and other greats have been turned into tools of state repression—marks a new low.
by Brendan O'Neill
We’re already the kings of CCTV. An estimated 20 per cent of the world’s CCTV cameras are in the UK, a remarkable achievement for an island that occupies only 0.2 per cent of the world’s inhabitable landmass.
A few years ago some local authorities introduced the Mosquito, a gadget that emits a noise that sounds like a faint buzz to people over the age of 20 but which is so high-pitched, so piercing, and so unbearable to the delicate ear drums of anyone under 20 that they cannot remain in earshot. It’s designed to drive away unruly youth from public spaces, yet is so brutally indiscriminate that it also drives away good kids, terrifies toddlers, and wakes sleeping babies.
Police in the West of England recently started using super-bright halogen lights to temporarily blind misbehaving youngsters. From helicopters, the cops beam the spotlights at youths drinking or loitering in parks, in the hope that they will become so bamboozled that (when they recover their eyesight) they will stagger home.
[...]
Britain might not make steel anymore, or cars, or pop music worth listening to, but, boy, are we world-beaters when it comes to tyranny. And now classical music, which was once taught to young people as a way of elevating their minds and tingling their souls, is being mined for its potential as a deterrent against bad behavior.
In January it was revealed that West Park School, in Derby in the midlands of England, was “subjecting” (its words) badly behaved children to Mozart and others. In “special detentions,” the children are forced to endure two hours of classical music both as a relaxant (the headmaster claims it calms them down) and as a deterrent against future bad behavior (apparently the number of disruptive pupils has fallen by 60 per cent since the detentions were introduced.)
ne news report says some of the children who have endured this Mozart authoritarianism now find classical music unbearable. As one critical commentator said, they will probably “go into adulthood associating great music—the most bewitchingly lovely sounds on Earth—with a punitive slap on the chops.” This is what passes for education in Britain today: teaching kids to think “Danger!” whenever they hear Mozart’s Requiem or some other piece of musical genius.
The classical music detentions at West Park School are only the latest experiment in using and abusing some of humanity’s greatest cultural achievements to reprimand youth.
Read more...
2.04.2010
North Carolina Schools May Cut Chunk Out of U.S. History Lessons
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,584758,00.html
State education leaders say this may help students learn about more recent history in greater depth.
[...]
Under the proposed change, the ninth-graders would take a course called global studies, focusing in part on issues such as the environment. The 10th grade still would study civics and economics, but 11th-graders would take U.S. history only from 1877 onward.
"The answer isn't to throw out fundamental portions of U.S. history," said Mike Belter, a U.S. history teacher and social studies director. "This is not preparing our kids to have a deep historical perspective that can be used to analyze modern events for themselves."
Read more...
He may be the president who governed during the Civil War, freeing the slaves, but under a new curriculum proposal for North Carolina high schools, U.S. history would begin years after President Lincoln, with the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877.
State education leaders say this may help students learn about more recent history in greater depth.
[...]
Under the proposed change, the ninth-graders would take a course called global studies, focusing in part on issues such as the environment. The 10th grade still would study civics and economics, but 11th-graders would take U.S. history only from 1877 onward.
"The answer isn't to throw out fundamental portions of U.S. history," said Mike Belter, a U.S. history teacher and social studies director. "This is not preparing our kids to have a deep historical perspective that can be used to analyze modern events for themselves."
1.04.2010
Rethinking Education as the Practice of Freedom
· Paulo Freire: The Promise of Critical Pedagogy.
http://www.freireproject.org/
"For Freire literacy was not a means to prepare students for the world of subordinated labor or 'careers,' but a preparation for a self-managed life. And self-management could only occur when people have fulfilled three goals of education: self-reflection, that is, realizing the famous poetic phrase, 'know thyself,' which is an understanding of the world in which they live, in its economic, political and, equally important, its psychological dimensions. Specifically 'critical' pedagogy helps the learner become aware of the forces that have hitherto ruled their lives and especially shaped their consciousness. The third goal is to help set the conditions for producing a new life, a new set of arrangements where power has been, at least in tendency, transferred to those who literally make the social world by transforming nature and themselves."
http://www.freireproject.org/
10.23.2009
7.09.2009
U.S. Society Ignoring Serious Boy Problems
http://www.livescience.com/culture/090701-boys-issues.html
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While both boys and girls face issues — in school and out — the problems affecting boys are serious and have not been properly addressed by policy makers, according to a new review article by psychologist Judith Kleinfeld. Among the results: high rates of functional illiteracy and a troublingly high suicide rate that's become even more pronounced in recent years compared to the rate among girls.
[...]
Kleinfeld finds that, compared with girls, American boys have lower literacy rates, lower grades, less engagement during school and higher drop-out rates. Boys also have higher rates of suicide, arrests and premature death.
[...]
One of the most urgent issues, says Kleinfeld, is boys' writing. She looked at scores from the National Tests of Educational Progress, and found that boys' scores are far below those of girls. For 12th grade students, about 26 percent of boys had scores at the "below basic" writing level, while only 11 percent of girls were in this category. The situation is similar for younger boys. In 8th grade, 17 percent of males scored below basic while just 7 percent of females scored at this level.
Read more...[...]
Kleinfeld finds that, compared with girls, American boys have lower literacy rates, lower grades, less engagement during school and higher drop-out rates. Boys also have higher rates of suicide, arrests and premature death.
[...]
One of the most urgent issues, says Kleinfeld, is boys' writing. She looked at scores from the National Tests of Educational Progress, and found that boys' scores are far below those of girls. For 12th grade students, about 26 percent of boys had scores at the "below basic" writing level, while only 11 percent of girls were in this category. The situation is similar for younger boys. In 8th grade, 17 percent of males scored below basic while just 7 percent of females scored at this level.
4.03.2009
A masterclass in bribery: pay your school kids
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6024983.ece
If we are serious about helping poor children to get better grades, perhaps we should ditch our hang-ups and try cash incentives. [!!!!!!!]
[This is capitalism at its best.....]
[This is capitalism at its best.....]
If you get to the end of this article, I'll give you £5. Actually, I won't give just anyone £5 - only if you're poor and uneducated, because I think you lot need a bribe to do something worthy.
Insulting? Yes. Effective? Maybe. A radical approach to poverty that is sweeping American primary schools and health clinics? Yes. A missed trick for Britain? Certainly.
This week the scores of England's primary schools were revealed, showing that a quarter of children leave them without mastering the basics in English and maths - mostly those from poorer families. No one is quite sure what to do about it. More than a decade of laudable investment in teachers, and endless fiddling with the curriculum hasn't helped those kids, who now have little hope of catching up.
The most pioneering American economists would take one look and offer a simple solution: pay kids for doing well. At least seven major pilot schemes have started in the past two years, on thousands of young children in the poorest parts of Washington, New York, Chicago, and Dallas. In another big pilot study in New York, the Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, is paying thousands of poor women to be better mothers.
[But this came out on MSNBC in April 2007...]
Parents Buying Off Kids For Good Behavior.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18140247/
Experts caution against bribery, urge rewards that make sense. [So, who's right?]
4.02.2009
Half of primary pupils fail to master English and maths
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article6018146.ece
Tens of thousands of children are being taught in schools where less than 50 per cent of pupils are mastering the basics in English and maths before they leave, league tables published yesterday show.
Although overall attainment in the national curriculum tests for 11-year-olds was up slightly last summer, the results show that the rate of progress has slowed, with schools now having to work harder for smaller gains.
The proportion of 11-year-olds reaching Level 4 in English edged up one percentage point to 81 per cent, and in maths by two percentage points to 79 per cent. In science 88 per cent of children achieved a Level 4 pass, the same as last year.
Level 4 is the standard considered necessary to have a chance of doing well at secondary school, but only 2 per cent of schools — 329 out of more than 14,500 — managed to get all pupils up to that standard in all three subjects.
More than 160,000 11-year-olds — a quarter of the total — left primary school last year without reaching this standard in English and maths.
The results for boys were even worse, with 30 per cent failing to reach Level 4 in English and maths. However, for maths alone, boys did better, with 79 per cent gaining Level 4, against 78 per cent of girls.
[Although this is british news, illiteracy and dumbing-down is a world wide pandemic and a problem that is not getting the attention it deserves.]
El Parlament aprueba una declaración de apoyo a los rectores y el plan Bolonia
http://www.elperiodico.com/default.asp?idpublicacio_PK=46&idioma=CAS&idnoticia_PK=600399&idseccio_PK=1008
Los grupos parlamentarios consensuaron ayer una declaración institucional de apoyo a los rectores de las universidades para la aplicación del plan Bolonia. En el texto aprobado por unanimidad se apela a mantener la normalidad académica, ante las movilizaciones de parte de los estudiantes.
Los partidos defienden que el diálogo y la concertación son "las únicas vías que permiten canalizar las legítimas aspiraciones de todos los miembros de la comunidad universitaria" y que el plan Bolonia es una oportunidad para construir un sistema universitario de más calidad.
[Pero el parlamento este no se supone que ha de representar a la gente? O tal vez solo sigan órdenes de sus amos, los jefazos de la industria y las finanzas....lacayos! Esto es política y de la buena.....]
Los grupos parlamentarios consensuaron ayer una declaración institucional de apoyo a los rectores de las universidades para la aplicación del plan Bolonia. En el texto aprobado por unanimidad se apela a mantener la normalidad académica, ante las movilizaciones de parte de los estudiantes.
Los partidos defienden que el diálogo y la concertación son "las únicas vías que permiten canalizar las legítimas aspiraciones de todos los miembros de la comunidad universitaria" y que el plan Bolonia es una oportunidad para construir un sistema universitario de más calidad.
[Pero el parlamento este no se supone que ha de representar a la gente? O tal vez solo sigan órdenes de sus amos, los jefazos de la industria y las finanzas....lacayos! Esto es política y de la buena.....]
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