I am terrible at the French language. I could never get the verb conjugations into my head, and trying to do that is one of only three memories I have of the entire learning experience from Year 7 to the start of the exams. Somehow I managed to end up in the top class for everything, including French. I found it really stressful and asked to be moved down to the middle group, and the teachers agreed — but as soon as I did, I found nobody, students certainly and it felt like also the teacher, was even trying in the middle group. While it stopped me being stressed, I ended up with a GCSE grade D in French, my joint-worst with R.E. (guess who wondered into the New Age section of Waterstones and decided Wicca was a lot more interesting than the Bible, while still a student in a Catholic school with mandatory Mass attendance and R.E. lessons).
For university I went to Aberystwyth[1]; I never even considered applying to Oxford or Cambridge, because Oxbridge is the best-of-the-best. When I graduated and got a job which happened to be in Cambridge, all my new friends assumed I was a fellow Cam grad, and I rapidly developed a regret I hadn't even tried to get in[2]. I might still have failed if I had tried, but I didn’t even try.
I enjoyed learning German at school for the one year I was allowed to (hence moving to Berlin a few years ago), and like your general resentment, I resented having French GCSE forced on me when I sucked so much at it. And the R.E. lessons, too.
[0] A Catholic baptism because the best local school was Catholic.
[1] Owing to a misunderstanding, a friend said they had a lot of fun there when they were a student, but it turned out they were talking about the town and visiting friends as their university was a completely different one.
[2] Thanks to a convoluted series of events, I can technically say I studied in Cambridge university as part of my degree; but this is because my industrial year job sent me on a training course in the William Gates building. This is also how I was in New Hall despite my beard and it being a women-only hall.
This happens today because shoes and bags aren’t part of the uniform. Other than the colour requirements. That was a source of bullying for myself and others.
I see that too here in Ireland. Uniforms (and meals) should be included with education. Everyone should have at least all the materials they need.
This was one of the ideas behind the OLPC laptop - it was supposed to be a standard tool and end up cheaper than printing and shipping physical books. Didn’t work out, but beget netbooks, chromebooks and other low end laptops, which are kind of great for kids.
A) It didn't solve the issue, people looked at other signifiers such as jewellery or shoes instead (or if the uniform required "a white polo" then they'd have a name brand polo instead).
B) It forced the parent to buy (in some cases) expensive Uniform(s) (because you can't have just 1 and kids grow quickly too).
For the second point I was fortunate enough to have really good grades when tested, so I was allowed to go to a more prestigious school that required a tie and blazer.
The total cost for everything was more than my Mum received in cash for an entire year. If it wasn't for my granddad stepping in I wouldn't have been able to go to the school on those grounds alone.
(EDIT: just so I'm clear, Mum got about 48~ gbp per week but rent was paid directly by the Government)
we are nothing but smarter chimps. our basic psychology is tribalistic one with a strong dominance hierarchy. we are constantly looking for anything to put out selves above others and are constantly looking for social signals of dominance.
If you are going to test a school, your tests must be differential. If you don't test at the beginning and end of the course, you'll only measure noise.
Not all children have access to this kind of role model. And even if they do, it's not a guarantee, just a more favorable probability.
School is so strained that it can't be this system by itself. Good teachers help, but they're transitory, and typically not available after hours. And very few care in the same way a parent, grandparent, relative, or adoptive family would as they're not as deeply invested.
Other children can be horrible influences that can make a child depressed, angry, lose faith in themselves, and take up bad habits. Kids need to be shielded and told that the pain they experience is temporary, that life holds promise, and that the problems they face can be overcome.
It's a very hard and important problem.
But as others have mentioned that has quite a bit of historical baggage, and of course children and parents would both hate it.
It's only hindsight that teaches us valuable lessons about this kind of stuff, sadly.
I wasn't offering better options, I was just opining a lost youth and denigrating a terrible education system.
But it was "free".
Is it though? Sounds like it was actually exclusionary in your case.
I believe that Finland has no homework and yet has some of the highest PISA scores.
https://finland.fi/life-society/the-truth-about-finnish-scho...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Finland/comments/99l5ke/is_that_tru...
That's exactly backwards from how it should be funded but is the sad result of trying to implement "market based" solutions to sociological and historical problems.
What’s the better alternative? No schooling seems like it would be wildly worse for all of students, families, and society.
Over the long term? The frequency and size of the checks their alumni write them. It's good signal that the alumnus likes the school well enough wish to do so and was prepared to be successful enough to be able to.
This only measures economic success, which is only a single dimension of educational success. It also fosters inequality, as schools with better outcomes from other factors (such as rich parents) will receive more resources as the ones that fail for factors the school system can’t control (such as, surprise, poverty).
Evidently you believe that the purpose of school is enforcing equality? How exactly does that work in a way that doesn’t result in at best failure and at worst an Harrison Bergeron hellscape?
By that logic, Jeff Bezos would be an amazing human being. I believe we can agree he isn't.
> Not to mention donating to the school is charitable, which is another nice trait for people to have.
Donating to the school in your catchment area will increase the sale value of your property, and improve the school for your kids and your neighbors. That's not charitable. What would be nice is donating the same amount to the least privileged schools in your city/county/state. A donation that benefits your own kids? Seriously?
> Evidently you believe that the purpose of school is enforcing equality?
Evidently you confuse equality of opportunities (which I do support) with equality of outcomes (which I don't). Overall, the more unequal a society gets, the less democratic it becomes.
You know what a proxy is. Please don't straw-man it's against the guidelines and not very interesting besides. One can always pick out individual exceptions. "My grandfather smoked two packs a day his whole life and never got lung cancer," doesn't refute that smoking is correlated with lung cancer.
> That's not charitable
Your highest obligations of charity are to yourself, your spouse, and your children. Once those obligations are met I agree that it's good to donate to your wider community. It's uncharitable to neglect your family for the dopamine hit of virtue signaling.
> least privileged schools in your city/county/state
It's observably true that poor school quality in the USA isn't due to a lack of funding. California's school system is proof.
> Evidently you confuse equality of opportunities (which I do support) with equality of outcomes (which I don't). Overall, the more unequal a society gets, the less democratic it becomes.
I don't confuse them, I consider them both equally impossible. Equality of opportunity is impossible because in large part one's opportunities are the result of the decisions one's parents made, beginning with choosing to procreate together. It's a heresy against the tabula rasa dogma to say so, and yet it moves.
As for a society being more or less democratic, that's a grave oversimplification. First, there are no extant democracies. We have constitutional monarchies, federal republics, and so on. Second, the extent to which democratic decision making is beneficial is very much a consequence of scale and locality. It makes sense for the citizens of a county to popularly elect the Sheriff that will police them. Paradoxically, a larger pool of electors is actually less democratic. If the citizens of the entire country voted on who was to be sheriff for the county, then the citizens of that county effectively have no vote at all over their own affairs.
That’s not charity. That’s self interest, specially if I can save on taxes while I increase the value of my property.
> It's observably true that poor school quality in the USA isn't due to a lack of funding. California's school system is proof.
There’s a multitude of reasons for school failure that are unrelated to funding - violence, poverty, discrimination, etc. Supporting those in need is always more important than supporting those who don’t need support.
> Equality of opportunity is impossible because in large part one's opportunities are the result of the decisions one's parents made,
And we should work towards not allowing that to reduce the opportunities for those who lack that privilege.
> beginning with choosing to procreate together.
I don’t see how genetics are involved here. It’s been proven many times it has little relation with academic success. Growing up in a favourable environment to learning is a much more powerful predictor.
> As for a society being more or less democratic, that's a grave oversimplification.
When you have people who can fund successful electoral campaigns you get people who effectively can vote multiple times, by convincing more people to vote for their candidates. You also get people who can influence the elected officials because they know that, if they don’t favour the people who got them elected, they’ll make someone else be elected.
One important role of public universal schooling is to form an informed electorate that can operate a democracy. If the last few years didn’t teach us we have been failing at that, I can’t imagine what will.
> Second, the extent to which democratic decision making is beneficial is very much a consequence of scale and locality.
I’m not sure why you brought this up. There are local authorities at various levels, but that has no impact on the argument I was making. All levels can be influenced with the right amount of money.
You are evidently using a definition of charity that’s somehow related to the tax code. From context it should be clear that by charity I meant our obligation to love our fellow humans. And a person who neglects his own family to provide for another is doing evil not good. Get your own house in order first.
> Supporting those in need is always more important than supporting those who don’t need support.
This is a surprising claim. If you also find this exchange interesting please elaborate. I’d agree that it’s true in some cases, but universally? Ought parents always give away all their resources except what is required for their family’s basic subsistence?
> I don’t see how genetics are involved here. It’s been proven many times it has little relation with academic success. Growing up in a favourable environment to learning is a much more powerful predictor.
The tabula rasa position has been thoroughly discredited. That said, growing up in a favorable environment for learning is also very much dependent on one’s parents’ mating strategy. Please construe that broadly: where they choose to settle, etc.
> One important role of public universal schooling is to form an informed electorate that can operate a democracy. If the last few years didn’t teach us we have been failing at that, I can’t imagine what will.
On this we agree. I believe I articulated my position on why that might be. What’s yours?
I never suggested that. I suggested it’d be more charitable to use the money set aside for charity in a way that benefits others. You don’t benefit your family and say it was charity.
> I believe I articulated my position on why that might be.
If you agree with that, then you agree it’s our job to maximise the number of functional well informed members of our society in order to have solid democracies. If we condemn a large part of the population to sub-par education, we get the flawed democracies we’ve seen flourishing in the past couple years.
Why not? What’s wrong with your family also benefitting when you give to your community?
Donating to your alma mater in no way exclusively benefits your family. It also provides scholarships for example. All of the most well endowed schools are very much looking for otherwise disadvantaged persons.
I grew up in the UK (in "deprived" areas, to a single parent with no income other than jobseekers allowance and some childcare from the state) and I can formerly attest that my "free education" was atrocious.
I am not sure if there was a negative feedback loop involved: School funding was determined by efficacy. How do you measure efficacy of a school? Well, test results... which people from this kind of background will not have good ones.
Another issue that perhaps is not thought much about is that 'Homework' for impoverished people is very difficult, in my case I didn't have a place to actually sit and work (no dining table, we ate on our laps). But Homework is a necessary part of education.
Add to the fact that socio-economic factors do filter into the school; things like gangs and in-groups.
Worried about gangs and gang colours: uniform
Uniforms cost money. Money people don't have.
By the time you get to the age where you're allowed to work (or go to university)- you take what you can get to get out of poverty; which is not going to be further education.
In my experience school is a temporary prison for children so that their parents can go to work, I definitely didn't learn the things I know from school. I learned them from my mum and school regurgitated them at me ad infinitum in a boring classroom in a small building surrounded by prison bars.
I do not miss free school. I strongly resent that it was ever forced on me.