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What topics do you find interesting? [message #54894]

Tue, 02 December 2008 06:14

yusime

Likes it here

Location: United States
Registered: April 2008
Messages: 195

I ask because come January 20th Democrats will have control of both the House, Senate, and the Presidency. My point is without the Republican party and Religious Right in power there will be very little new information about them, and politics is a major source of interest for me. So I'm just asking to gain an understanding of some of the different topics of curiosity people have here. I already know the most basic intrest people here have, so I'm just asking for more genreal areas of information.

Thanks for taking time to read. Smile

He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake since for him a spinal cord would suffice. Albert Einstein

Re: What topics do you find interesting? [message #54898 is a reply to message #54894]

Tue, 02 December 2008 11:08

acam

On fire!

Location: UK
Registered: July 2007
Messages: 1849

I would like fewer people to be 'poor'. I think a society that brings children up in poverty is morally deficient. (About a third of children in the UK are brought up in poverty.)

I would like civil liberties to be better protected. (In the UK you can now be locked up, incommunicado, for 28 days without recourse if some of the great and good sign the warrant. You may yet get that in the US!)

I would like to see health care organised so that no-one lacks medical care because they are unable to afford it. (It is most unusual to find a good National Health Service dentist in the UK among medical specialities.)

I would like state schools to be better funded. (Children in the state sector get a much cheaper education in the UK than privately educated children.)

I would like central government to make a serious effort to see that there is paid work for everyone that wants it. (And if there isn't the work the unemployment pay should be enough to live on.)

Is that enough?

Love,
Anthony

UK state education [message #54907 is a reply to message #54898]

Tue, 02 December 2008 22:46

Nigel

On fire!

Location: England
Registered: November 2003
Messages: 1756

Anthony wrote:
>I would like state schools to be better funded.<

I should like to see UK state education at such a high level that independent school become redundant. [My standpoint is that I was educated well in the state system, but I taught in the independent sector.]

Hugs
N

[Updated on: Tue, 02 December 2008 22:47]

I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.

…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.

Education [message #54910 is a reply to message #54907]

Tue, 02 December 2008 23:08

saben

On fire!

Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537

I would like to see an education system funded by the government where necessary but not provided by the government.

I HATE universal, centralised education schemes with a passion. One size does NOT fit all. The teacher's union in Australia does a great job of implementing glass ceilings to cap teacher salaries. The curriculum boards do a great job of ensuring the education system is really only useful for those progressing onto University (and then only through testing).

If I was Prime Minister for a day effective immediately all schools would have full autonomy on matters of: firing and hiring, teacher salaries, class sizes, extra-curricular activities and curriculum.

Of course we need to make sure that students and their parents can choose freely between different state schools (in some places there are geographical restrictions). But the absolute best way forward for education is a move to a more free-market model where funding provided by the government follows the students.

Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway

Re: UK state education [message #54928 is a reply to message #54907]

Wed, 03 December 2008 14:15

acam

On fire!

Location: UK
Registered: July 2007
Messages: 1849

And my viewpoint, Nigel, is that I was educated privately and taught in the state sector! But I was never a full-time school teacher.

Most of my teaching was done in evening classes for adults, so I had no problems of motivation.

And there was then no problem of having to go into debt to pay for university. We would have thought that terrible and, I think it would have put a lot of people off. One just didn't get into debt in those days.

Love,
Anthony

Re: Education [message #54930 is a reply to message #54910]

Wed, 03 December 2008 14:31

acam

On fire!

Location: UK
Registered: July 2007
Messages: 1849

Yes, Saben, I think on the same lines. All the **really** good schools I know are independent and state schools are so vulnerable to changes in staff or to Ministry of Education whims.

In Bristol the Local Education Authority was so bad for so long that when I came here there were only two state secondary schools that even reached the national average in O-level and A-level results. One was a CofE school that selected its pupils and the other was the one where I became a governor.

That was 15 years ago and nothing has changed. Those two schools are still the only two that reach the national average. The LEA staff still contains a rump of diehard PC class warriors who would channel all the money for new buildings, etc to the schools in the sink estates. When they agreed to build a new gymnasium for the school where I was governor (can you imagine a school of 1300 pupils without a gymnasium? The school hall was built for a school of 600 boys!) they proposed to build a smaller building than the one they had just finished for a school of 1000 pupils in the South of Bristol. It was also smaller than the DfES guidelines. We had to fight to get one up to the guidelines and we didn't get one as big as the smaller school.

The council's attitude was well expressed by one councillor (he was Mayor at the time) when he said "Over my dead body we build a new school at Stoke Lodge! Those buggers are rich enough to go private."

Love,
Anthony

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