Archives for: August 2006
21/08/06
Can I have an A* please Miss?
So another bumper crop of English ‘A’ level and GCSE results has been announced. ‘A’ levels are becoming more like ‘O’ levels of yesteryear in terms of difficulty. As a result, from what I’ve heard, Universities now spend a year teaching students to spell and count so that they can understand their timetables and get to lectures on time.
Evaluate your child's reading readiness.
The whole system is being dumbed down and Government Ministers, teachers unions and parents are all dressing up in the emperors new clothes to congratulate each other on ever improving exam results. These exams are now virtually impossible to fail.
Its a natural consequence of making the following three changes to the old system:
- Making exam boards market their ‘products’ to schools forcing them to avoid making exams too hard for fear of loosing ‘customers’.
- Judging teachers on the performance of their pupils in exams. (this has some merit but needs to be tweaked). They are now tempted to help pupils with course work and in some cases pupils are allowed to have 2 .... yes 2!!!!! attempts at some pieces of course work.
- Increasing the amount of course work and allowing any pupil with half a brain to complete them and gain full marks with the help of their mates, teachers, parents and the next door neighbours cat.
Education ministers and civil service official know exactly what is happening, but years of pressure, a lack of honesty and ideas has led them to ‘game’ the system in order to produce the results parents have demanded for decades. Parents now have what they think they asked for. Johnny and Sally each have 6 meaningless A grades at A level each! The problem is that so do all their neighbours kids.
Take a FREE online Brainbench Skills Test.
The system is supposed to grade people according to merit. The possibility of abject failure is supposed to be a component of any natural system, otherwise kids don’t learn the value and joy of achieving and competing through their own efforts, since these apparent achievements are acquired too easily.
Technorati Tags: A Level, GCSE, exam
17/08/06
12:46:55 pm, Categories: Culture, 408 words Severing the bond
In his article The future of foreskins", Daniel S. Brenner puts forward the argument that circumcision helped bind him to his male offspring. He uses the concurrent trends for fewer circumcisions and more births by c-section, to illustrate what he sees as a growing disconnection between parents and children.
I think he is confusing ritual of circumcision and the physical pain experienced during childbirth. By treating two intrinsically different human experiences as though they were identical he seeks to confuse the issue. Although circumcision involves both parent and child, only the child experiences physical discomfort. This procedure is not, nor has it ever been necessary for the survival of male children.
On the other hand, natural childbirth was until recently an unavoidable and painful experience which both mother and child had to undergo. Surely Brenner must be aware that as society becomes increasingly agnostic. Religious rituals such as circumcision will become less common. However the rate of natural childbirth is declining for very different reasons. I have no medical qualifications or experience, but I believe that mothers are now far less inclined to want to experience the pain in natural childbirth involved. An additional factor might be the caution of medical staff, who might during a difficult births opt for c-section as a safer alternative over natural delivery.
Mr Brenner describes going ahead with the procedure himself, despite admitting that he was aware of the possible undesirable consequences for his twin sons. He describes removing performing the "cut" and experiencing "an unparalleled sense of connection to and responsibility for life. The birth was pure wonder. The circumcision was primal and mysterious, connecting me to flesh and blood in a violent and careful moment of father-love."
At this point I think he hits the nail on the head so to speak. He is performing this ritual for the spiritual or emotional benefit it provides to himself. This ritual has no place in modern society, its time to leave such practices behind and live in a more conscious manner. I would suggest that he try spending time with and getting to know his sons as they grow up like the majority of modern fathers. Chopping bits off them is not a prerequisite for a close or fullfilling relationship.
Personalized Children's Books
Technorati Tags:
circumcision, Daniel S Brenner, natural childbirth
14/08/06
Black British Islamic terrorists
One of the things that struck me as strange about the arrests related to the arrests of terrorist suspects in the UK, was the alleged involvement of black British (afro-Caribbean). These particular suspects are described in the press as converts. Exactly what makes these men identify so much with a alien culture and religion that they appear willing to sacrifice their lives for people with whom they have little in common, apart from faith.
Its always struck me as odd that black people are so quick to fight battles on behalf of others.
The Arab league have consistently supported and defended the murderous activities of the Sudanese government at the UN, even though that governments policies have amounted to genocide against the black African population of Sudan.
These Africans are the victims of arab facists in Dafur.
This is the same Arab league which has consistently condemned the policy of the Israeli government in the Lebanon. Their actions show that they place lessor value on the lives of black people than those of their fellows Arabs, yet those black people who are willing to blow themselves and others up for the sake of Islam appear not to be able to see these contradictions.
Technorati Tags:
british islamic terrorists, british terrorists
