Should private schools help state schools?

spire · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by redcogs

you might consider that quality of life issues (including schooling) were important also.

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Of course.

I understand the huntin', shootin' and fishin' is glorious too.

ankev1 · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Canrider

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Canrider, "beating" is an over-emotive word for a training shoe across the backside and you know it is.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
If they were actually proposing asking strangers to beat (and I use the word advisedly) their children with implements, I stand fully behind my comment that this represents them trying to shift responsibility for dealing with their failures as parents elsewhere.

I say this as someone who was smacked as a child and who doesn't reckon it did him any harm. But, I was smacked rarely and by my parents, not by a virtual stranger who had nothing in particular bound up in protecting and nurturing me.

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You either had an experience of school which was radically different to mine or you are spinning to try to strengthen your case. Let's assume you are a gentleman and so it is the former.

My teachers were not "virtual strangers etc", they were caring, skilled professionals who built up good working relationships with their classes and on the few occasions on which I did get the training shoe it was most definitely from someone who was bound up with protecting and nurturing me.

But, given that there is so little common ground in our experiences of the education system there isn't much point in continuing the debate as you simply won't recognise that to which I refer.

redcogs · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">

My primary school class had 44 happy kids in it. Our teachers had no trouble controlling us as discipline was not a dirty word and they also had no trouble teaching us i.e. they were no-nonsense professionals. If it could be done then it could almost certainly be done now.
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Yeah thats right ankev', thats why the pupil teacher ratios in 'public school' system are so appallingly high! Because the toffs want whats best for their Cuthberts they insist on one teacher to 40 odd kids per class (hysterical laughter on/off).

please look up to the stars.. ***

Canrider · May 2007

It doesn't actually matter all that much, ankev. If I had a kid, I wouldn't permit anyone but myself to smack them, on the grounds that I wouldn't trust them not to go overboard in the heat of the moment, no matter how caring, close or 'professional' they were.

It's interesting that you claim that all your teachers were caring, protecting, nurturing professionals. I give thanks some of the teachers I had weren't allowed to beat their students, I can think of a couple who probably would have caused fatalities..

You still haven't addressed my more substantive point regarding offering to help versus demanding changes without lifting a finger (or a shoe*), I note.

*Honestly, a shoe?!? Didn't want to risk wearing their poor widdle hands out, was that it?

"We will never win until the oil runs out or they invent hover cars - but then they may land on us." -- lardarse rider

redcogs · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
You either had an experience of school which was radically different to mine or you are spinning to try to strengthen your case. Let's assume you are a gentleman and so it is the former.

My teachers were not "virtual strangers etc", they were caring, skilled professionals who built up good working relationships with their classes and on the few occasions on which I did get the training shoe it was most definitely from someone who was bound up with protecting and nurturing me.

But, given that there is so little common ground in our experiences of the education system there isn't much point in continuing the debate as you simply won't recognise that to which I refer.
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You can't get out of it that easy ankev'. i'm in my mid 50s, and like you, grew up in the industrial north of England, in a hard area. The 1950s teaching ethos was very different to now, i'd argue they were much worse then, still being informed by some of the more brutal aspects remaining from the later Victorian period.

i wasn't believe it or not, a particularly naughty or difficult kid, maybe a bit silly from time to time, but not seriously or deliberately disruptive. i was first corporally punished at 5 years old with a wooden ruler over the back of the hand. That happened several times. At 7 i was taken onto the stage in front of the entire school assembly and publicly slippered for talking. i can still remember the sense of humiliation and pain..

These are not good things to do to a child, they are damaging and leave scars. One of the best things ever to happen in education was the leaving of routine physical punishment behind.

If any teacher (or any other adult) ever laid a finger on my kids i would consider it to be nothing less than bullying assault.

please look up to the stars.. ***

Unknown · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Canrider

*Honestly, a shoe?!? Didn't want to risk wearing their poor widdle hands out, was that it?

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Cue a whole lot of posts along the lines of, "A shoe, that's nothing. We were caned/birched/flogged with rhino whips............."

Canrider · May 2007

"And when we got home our Mum an' Dad would kill un an' dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah"
But in all seriousness, anyone who's so 'tough' they need to beat a child with an implement, I question why they don't apparently possess the courage to use their bare hands. It wouldn't be (gasp) fear of personal injury and pain, would it?

"We will never win until the oil runs out or they invent hover cars - but then they may land on us." -- lardarse rider

Unknown · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Canrider

"And when we got home our Mum an' Dad would kill un an' dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah"
But in all seriousness, anyone who's so 'tough' they need to beat a child with an implement, I question why they don't apparently possess the courage to use their bare hands. It wouldn't be (gasp) fear of personal injury and pain, would it?

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It's a Health and Safety issue because there's a danger of repetitive strain injury. It's far safer to use a cat o'nine tails.

ankev1 · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Canrider

You still haven't addressed my more substantive point regarding offering to help versus demanding changes without lifting a finger (or a shoe*), I note.

*Honestly, a shoe?!? Didn't want to risk wearing their poor widdle hands out, was that it?
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I think it's a good thing if parents offer to help. OTH I can see if they would feel a bit miffed if the state needed their help having (mis)spent so much money on education. Isn't there an implication of failure on the part of the state if parents' help is needed? Everbody seems to agree that the modern education system is a mess. It definitely used to be better because kids used to pass exams at higher levels of attainment (cf the A level scandal). This deterioration is almost certainly not the fault of parents, one has to suspect that it is the fault of politicians interfering in education and "experts" being arrogant enough to use children as guinea pigs (cf the phonetic spelling scandal and other "progressive" ideas). If parents are expected to help I think they have a right to demand change in return as opposed to propping up yet another example of state failure.

Simon L2 · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by zimzum42

It's about time the government stopped having anything whatsoever to do with education at all, save for setting a single set of standardized exam papers, and the necessary curriculum for them.

That is more than enough for them to meddle with.

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much more than more than enough. It's the standardized exams and curricula that are ruining education

Simon L2 · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by spire

Parents who send their children to private school are already paying twice: once for the that school and again (through taxation) for the state place they don't use.

It's outrageous to suggest the schools don't deserve charitable status. Every kid at private school saves the government money.

And parents deserve tax-relief on the fees they pay; if they got it, more people would be able to afford private education.
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I disagree (and, yes, the kid does go to private school). It's our choice. If we want to make it we should pay for it. And the tax-exemption thing is daft. These schools are businesses. Why shouldn't they pay rates on the buildings?

ankev1 · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Simon L2

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by spire

Parents who send their children to private school are already paying twice: once for the that school and again (through taxation) for the state place they don't use.

It's outrageous to suggest the schools don't deserve charitable status. Every kid at private school saves the government money.

And parents deserve tax-relief on the fees they pay; if they got it, more people would be able to afford private education.
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I disagree (and, yes, the kid does go to private school). It's our choice. If we want to make it we should pay for it. And the tax-exemption thing is daft. These schools are businesses. Why shouldn't they pay rates on the buildings?
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As a UK taxpayer who is unlikely to ever have anything to do with private schools, I can't get too upset about tax and rate exemption because I recognise that in producing relatively well educated people they are doing something which the state largely fails to do and in the long run is likely to be of benefit to the country (although I can see that you could say the latter bit about other commercial concerns for which I wouldn't be happy to see tax breaks).

Canrider · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">This deterioration is almost certainly not the fault of parents,<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
I disagree. I think the parents shoulder similar amounts of blame to your 'interfering politicians and experts' (I like how you figure any change must necessarily be an interference, as if the politicians are sitting around saying "let's see how we can screw up the next generation, this'll be fun!").

There's no 'expected to help' this is, again, something you've read into what I've said without fully comprehending what I'm trying to get at. The situation we have currently is one where parents either whinge and moan about how 'the government needs to fix the education system' without being willing to do anything to help effect that change, or alternately remove their children from the state system and educate them privately, again selfishly refusing to do anything to improve the system, just buying their own offspring out of it.

What's needed is an attitude where education of the next generation is everyone's collective responsibility, not something you can write off your responsibility for by signing your tax forms every year.

"We will never win until the oil runs out or they invent hover cars - but then they may land on us." -- lardarse rider

Gary Askwith · May 2007

Here, here Canrider..[:)]

Economic Growth; as dead as a Yangtze River dolphin....

redcogs · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
What's needed is an attitude where education of the next generation is everyone's collective responsibility, not something you can write off your responsibility for by signing your tax forms every year.

"We will never win until the oil runs out or they invent hover cars - but then they may land on us." -- lardarse rider
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Nice one Canrider.. But the concept of 'collective' seems to be quite alien here - perhaps someone should establish a little business selling bottles of 'collective spirit', simply to attract the right wing shyte individualists!

please look up to the stars.. ***

Unknown · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by redcogs

- perhaps someone should establish a little business selling bottles of 'collective spirit', simply to attract the right wing shyte individualists!

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Who could sell it to gullible lefties. [:)]

mjones · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Canrider

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">This deterioration is almost certainly not the fault of parents,<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
I disagree. I think the parents shoulder similar amounts of blame to your 'interfering politicians and experts' (I like how you figure any change must necessarily be an interference, as if the politicians are sitting around saying "let's see how we can screw up the next generation, this'll be fun!").

There's no 'expected to help' this is, again, something you've read into what I've said without fully comprehending what I'm trying to get at. The situation we have currently is one where parents either whinge and moan about how 'the government needs to fix the education system' without being willing to do anything to help effect that change, or alternately remove their children from the state system and educate them privately, again selfishly refusing to do anything to improve the system, just buying their own offspring out of it.

What's needed is an attitude where education of the next generation is everyone's collective responsibility, not something you can write off your responsibility for by signing your tax forms every year.

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Canrider, while I agree that parental support and involvement in education is essential to the success of a school, I think you are ignoring the practical limits to what an individual can be expected to do to improve a school, especially when it is dragged down by a large number of other parents who are not supportive. In the end a child only has one chance at education, so how far can you reasonably expect people like rae, for example, to jeopardise that education for a vain, idealistic, struggle?

Yes, we do all have wider responsibility for society; however we are still individuals and must take individual responsibility for our own actions and our own children. So redcogs and rae each have more responsibility for their own children than they do for each other's children or anyone else's children. They have each made choices about what is in the best interests of their own children's education, something I'd regard as their parental duty, not something reprehensible and selfish.

Choice is important. I would prefer it if the vast majority of people chose to use the state education system; however if a significant number of people choose not to, then I see that as a failing of the education system, not a failing on the part of those parents who are putting their children's education first.

Similarly, I would also prefer it if most people chose to send their chidren to a local school; however if people choose not to, then that is again a failing of the school, not of those individual parents who want the best for their children.

Chosing not to use the state sector is a symptom, not a cause, but you, and redcogs, and gillan etc seem to prefer to restrict that choice rather than to deal with the underlying problems.

mjones · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by redcogs
...

But the concept of 'collective' seems to be quite alien here - perhaps someone should establish a little business selling bottles of 'collective spirit', simply to attract the right wing shyte individualists!

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'Alien'? Good choice of word redcogs! You see, this may come as a shock, but we aren't actually all part of the Nestene consciousness!

spire · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Simon L2

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by spire

Parents who send their children to private school are already paying twice: once for the that school and again (through taxation) for the state place they don't use.

It's outrageous to suggest the schools don't deserve charitable status. Every kid at private school saves the government money.

And parents deserve tax-relief on the fees they pay; if they got it, more people would be able to afford private education.
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I disagree (and, yes, the kid does go to private school). It's our choice. If we want to make it we should pay for it. And the tax-exemption thing is daft. These schools are businesses. Why shouldn't they pay rates on the buildings?
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Well, you're alright Jack. But what about the folk that can't quite afford it, but could with tax relief?

And if the tax relief costs less than the government spends per head on state education, everybody wins.

Pizzaman · May 2007

Given the choice, I think that anyone with children would prefer to send them to excellent state schools rather than fee-paying private schools (hence the oversubscription of grammar schools). It has nothing to do with being a right wing shyte individualist, it is all about making sure your children have an education that is not interrupted and destroyed by the two or three children in their class who have dicipline problems and to whom the teachers are forced to give all of their attention.

My friends sometimes ask me (because I am doing my final PGCE school placement) whether the 'bad' kids threaten me etc. and the answer is 'no'. Having said that, I have seen some excellent teaching and even these experienced, high quality, dedicated teachers have no choice sometimes but to waste time getting the disruptive children to shut up and get on with it. Meanwhile, the children who try to get on are ignored. What must these children be thinking? They are learning that the best way to get attention is to disrupt the class. All of this is in an excellent school with a great discipline record!

I think the ethos maybe different in private schools. If you create sufficient trouble, you are simply kicked out. That threat is very real. Children in normal state schools know that it is nigh on impossible to get kicked out, unless perhaps you kill someone. They know this because it is frequently all over the Press, and they have seen others get away with extreme behaviour since they got there.

If you want a flavour of this, look at the TES 'staffroom' forum. It consists of teachers asking each other for help with nasty situations.

http://www.tes.co.uk/section/staffroom/ ... readPage=1

Read the OP's blog entry, and ask yourself, would I want my child in that class?

redcogs · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
however we are still individuals and must take individual responsibility for our own actions and our own children. So redcogs and rae each have more responsibility for their own children than they do for each other's children or anyone else's children.
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Why? Please explain why we are not all responsible for all children? The way we behave in society, whether we only look after our immediate biological family, or whether we regard people other than biological relatives as our responsibility is largely determined by the prevailing culture.

As you know, capitalism generates a me me me culture, which sits rather nicely with the fat bank balance and the pull up the ladder mentality, but do try thinking outside the empty box. It is possible to imagine a society that encourages collective responsibilty for all children - that urge is very strongly within us all, but is submerged in a society that places personal accumulation above collective nurturing. Think about how you feel about poor Madeleine McCann and her parents. You and i both know that we would do anything to help in that dreadful situation.

Your individualism needs urgently revising.

please look up to the stars.. ***

mjones · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by redcogs

Why? Please explain why we are not all responsible for all children? The way we behave in society, whether we only look after our immediate biological family, or whether we regard people other than biological relatives as our responsibility is largely determined by the prevailing culture.

As you know, capitalism generates a me me me culture, which sits rather nicely with the fat bank balance and the pull up the ladder mentality, but do try thinking outside the empty box. It is possible to imagine a society that encourages collective responsibilty for all children - that urge is very strongly within us all, but is submerged in a society that places personal accumulation above collective nurturing. Think about how you feel about poor Madeleine McCann and her parents. You and i both know that we would do anything to help in that dreadful situation.

Your individualism needs urgently revising.

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Nonsense. Your last statement illustrates the point. Those parents are out searching for their daughter, you and I are not. They have the greater responsibility and you know it; just as you have the greater responsibility for your own child.

redcogs · May 2007

Rubbish. i am willing to bet that hundreds if not thousands of people all over that area of Portugal will be doing their very best to help, regardless of biology. We would be if we were there wouldn't we? The geographical difficulties are obvious and another matter.

please look up to the stars.. ***

Unknown · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by redcogs

It is possible to imagine a society that encourages collective responsibilty for all children - <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Including the 40 children left to their fates in an inferior school as you used your economic muscle to buy a house in the catchment area of a better school?

redcogs · May 2007

i refer you to the responses already made on this matter Patrick. You might want to address the issue of whether our attitudes are determined by the culture we develop in?

please look up to the stars.. ***

mjones · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by redcogs

Rubbish. i am willing to bet that hundreds if not thousands of people all over that area of Portugal will be doing their very best to help, regardless of biology. We would be if we were there wouldn't we? The geographical difficulties are obvious and another matter.

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Yes of course people are helping and we'd all do the same in similar circumstances. But you continue to miss the point, utterly, totally and completely. A parent's responsibility to their own children is greater than their responsibility to other people's. That isn't simply my opinion, or right-wing dogma, it is actually what society accepts and what the law says. It shouldn't even be controversial.

It doesn't mean you have no responsibility to other people, simply that your responsibility to yourself and your own children is greater. That is how the world works- we are mammals, not ants or bees. You know that to be the case, yet you seem to insist on an abstract concept of responsibility that has no connection with reality.

gillan1969 · May 2007

mjones

i think the doping analgy works[:)]

whilst obviously money helps in cycling, you can buy a cheap bike, read some training guff on t'internet and off you go...i.e. obree

that is the level playing field...doping i.e. a 'false' improvement method changes that

the starting point in education should be the same education for all i.e. level playing field..

private education is the the equaivalent of doping[:)]

eton being a good course of epo and HGH

a local grammer, say, some amphetamines or nandrolone

local comp...water, good nutrition and rest

[:)][:)][:)]

www.squadraporcini.com

Fab Foodie · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by gillan1969

mjones

local comp...water, good nutrition and rest

[:)][:)][:)]

www.squadraporcini.com
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Assuming a good local comp, unfortunately too many are "coke, chips and late-nights"

The pessimists of this world are rarely disappointed....
Fab's TCR1

Unknown · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by mjones

That is how the world works- we are mammals, not ants or bees. You know that to be the case, yet you seem to insist on an abstract concept of responsibility that has no connection with reality.
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I dunno, redders has taken brisk action to ensure a better education for his child than the 40 unfortunates left behind. They probably don't even know what a cello is.

redcogs · May 2007

To tease the issue out a little mjones, consider this non abstract circumstance. Babies are unknowingly mixed up on the maternity wing, and a mother of twins takes home her own child, and the child of another, and never becomes aware of it.

Wouldn't those twins develop within that family and be regarded naturally and properly as 'family', even though they were not?

Where now your implied assertion that biological relationship is most important and that we "have more responsibility for our own children"?

please look up to the stars.. ***

Should private schools help state schools?

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