That’s a bit young to be teaching in a school isn’t it? 
7 Likes
Went to Alton Towers with a school a few years ago. The guy loading a group onto one of the river rafts wouldn’t believe that the teacher wasn’t one of the kids 
2 Likes
Standards seem to have drastically improved in teaching. I did well enough to to get to a reasonable Uni - smattering of A, B, Cs. One of four kids in my year from school to get that far. But I could have done so much better. Partly me being a twat, but also the teaching. It’s absolutely no coincidence that I did better in the subjects with younger more energetic teachers. There were too many old, jaded teachers counting down the years to retirement and not giving a fuck about the kids.
When I think back to some of the lessons, I’m sure that it would not be tolerated today.
Similar story here. Let down by school in some subjects to be honest.
I was part of a group that passed O Level maths a year early, right at the time where it transitioned into GCSE’s. There were over 20 of us and from memory nearly all of us passed with some doung very well. That teacher sadly fell ill and we were taken up by another who taught us Statistics for our final year. Wasn’t great but got through. I then tried A Level maths and basically all of that group comprised of the same crowd that had passed our O level exam early. 6 months out we had a mock exam and not one of us passed. Not a single one. That included the two cleverest kids in the school and apparently that was all our fault.
Similar story with Physics which I know find an absolutely enthralling subject but on this occasion it was turned into the most boring and dull topics you could think possible. Paint drying was probably more interesting. Again we all struggled.
Other subjects were better and I’m happy to say the school is preforming far better now.
Yeah looked into it. They are pretty pricey. You lot are going to have to up your contributions 
It’s not my intention to be condescending, but Christ this is frustrating and also quite indicative of why progress is so slow.
Instead of lamenting efforts to address work based racial discrimination because working class white people suffer discrimination too, wouldn’t it be better to celebrate workplaces trying not to be discriminatory on the basis that this benefits everyone. A workplace that is taking steps to remove unconscious bias from employment processes is going to address all forms of discrimination.
I’m certain that there are people in society who benefit from pitting marginalised groups against each other, but that’s not the way it needs to be. Working class white kids have got more in common with black kids than they have with the fucking pricks who run UKIP.
On unconscious bias training, I’m not aware that the point is ever to ‘stop people being racist’. The whole concept of unconscious bias is based on the idea that there is a subconscious racism that we can’t control - our tendency, thanks to our evolutionary past, to favour people who look and act like us. The intention on unconscious bias programs is to consider how we build things like recruitment processes to eliminate that bias from selection. This can be as simple as not knowing the name of the candidates you are selecting so if you see ‘Peter Smith’ and ‘Patel Singh’ on the applications you are not going to subconsciously favour the former.
It’s really not a controversial thing.
Reminds me of the bit Stewart Lee does about Richard Littlejohn kicking off about calling the victims of the Ipswich murders ‘prostitutes’ rather than ‘women who worked as prostitutes’. Apparently Littlejohn, decided that during the investigation and with the families still grieving, he’d launch a campaign via his column to demand that the accurate term was prostitute, not the version that the police were using as a means of cushioning the blow for the families.
There is striving for accuracy, and there is just being obstinate and unpleasant for the sake of it. I’ll call people whatever they want to called. It genuinely doesn’t matter to me. For that person it is the difference between feeling included or not.
I’ve had the conversation before with the pronouns thing. People think it’s ridiculous to have to say I’m him/her, but for fucks sake - it’s two seconds of time and effort. And you’d kick off about that and make someone feel unwelcome? Really.
1 Like
And yet you’ve repeatedly referred to Eddie Izzard recently as “he/him”…
I do agree with your point and it can be hard to slip out of a habbit or a conception that you’ve held for some time that may need to be revisited due to some recent change that you may not be aware of. I am all for inclusivity as well. What I’m not for is exclusivity and this was the principal concern with the gender neutral drafting of the maternity bill. It was unnecessary to use gender neutral drafting (pregnant person) in that respect because only women can currently carry a foetus in their womb. It was exclusionary towards women to deliberately avoid using a perfectly permissible gender noun (woman/her/she) in the drafting of legislation which specifically (and by law) can only apply to them. They understandably felt pretty upset about the prospect that instead of referring to the individual as woman/her/she the legislation was drafted to say “pregnant person”. I’m unfamiliar with all of the changes that have now been made but certainly the word “mother” is now going to be used when previously it was conspicuously absent.
If anyone wanted to explore this further here’s a link to the interesting case of Freddy McConnell. Mr McConnell is a trans man. He gave birth to a son and the registrar listed him as the “mother” on the birth certificate. He applied for judicial review for him to be named as “father” on the birth certificate, which was refused at first instance and then refused again at the Court of Appeal last year
He did then apply to the Supreme Court to appeal this decision but permission was refused on the grounds it raised no arguable point of law. He suggested last year that he was going to take the matter further to the European Court of Human Rights and I don’t know if he has set that in motion.
Does Eddie Izzard prefer something else? Last I heard him (?) on the subject, he described himself as a hetrosexual man who likes wearing women’s clothes?
Yeah, I’m not in favour of legislation of the same result can be achieved through just politeness and civility.
‘Thanks for welcoming me at midwifery. Could I politely request you don’t refer to me as ‘mother’ when discussing the child. I prefer the term ‘host’ (or whatever)’
‘OK. Sure. No worries. Take a seat’
It’s really not hard. And I don’t think anyone would genuinely be such an absolute arse to refuse such a trivial request in reality.
1 Like
I agree with that. But drafting legislation isn’t the same as a chat between two people where what might be considered legally correct language is unimportant.
Eddie Izzard now identifies as she/ her I think. Announced it a couple of months ago.
Indeed, but she’s apparently not too fussed about it if people mess up. As always, it will be about whether there was any intention to offend.
Still, with Mascot, I say ban the transphobe!
1 Like
Teachers HATED the introduction of OFSTED. One of the best things that ever happened but badly implemented. Much improved now though.
As for me, I might come across as a bit of a fool but did very well at GCSE and A Level. Went to work instead of uni (which did not please my parents) but then how many forum members know how to build a laser smoke detector, understand oxygen depletion calorimetry and is happy to pull a calf out of mum when she’s having trouble? It was a mad job even by my standards. Probably why I have mad standards.
I’ll leave this here. That person (he she they their) is the mother, that’s science and biology. That person can’t be the father. They can’t be the father as they had a womb at the point of birth making them the mother. I go back to can I identify as being black. Ludicrous. Correctly so.
If phrases/words are changed in the above case, would a woman who wants to be called mother then have to request that, and is that fair on them?
That’s all well and good but can you tell your indicative pluperfect from your aorist passive? 
2 Likes
I’ll be honest here, google mode.
1 Like
2 Likes
I don’t disagree. My point was limited to the sphere of academia as career choice. Part of the reason is that it’s a career choice many don’t aspire (many PhD positions struggle to fill the roles with British candidates).
Many of the upper middle class do medicine, law or a path that gets them working in the city of London. While those with real money do degrees in subjects like the classics knowing they are safe jobwise/lifewise irrespective of their degree. You look at parliament and it’s something like 130 MPs went to Oxford or Cambridge. Many of which studied History, Philosophy, English or simply Politics. The kinds of subjects difficult to justify doing if you come from a poor background.
Massive reform is needed in the education sector. There are numerous subjects where a degree is not needed. They are effectively career training courses. An example you can now do a degree in hairdressing. Whilst there is undoubtedly expertise and skills to do that job. Is it really something some kids should be paying £9000 a year to study over 4 years? Something in the past would have been done by a community college for free in 1 year.
We are increasingly living in a world where you need a degree for almost any job (going to uni becomes an expectation). With most kids coming out of Uni with debt sizable to a small mortgage. It’s a tax for life. For me that’s just wrong.
Universities are exploiting kids, and the Government are too. Another example is forensic science. Off the back of TV shows, there are hundreds of courses at UK universities…the sad thing is in total there are only 4000 forensic scientists in total in the UK. Your chances of getting a job after you qualify next to nil.
Universities should not be a capitalist way of making money. They should serve the country by meeting societies needs. The UK should not have to use migration to fill skills gaps. It’s nuts.
When you look at it through that lens the argument for making university free to all becomes clear. This then naturally helps diversity and helps society by directing by the UKs needs. Students from poor backgrounds are better off because they enter careers where there is a demand and therefore better wages.
7 Likes
Absolutely; a prime example being medicine - we have insufficient capacity to train enough doctors to satisfy our needs.
Not to worry, you can always do an MA on the Beatles instead.
2 Likes
I thought we had plenty of capacity but we simply don’t make it attractive and/or accessible enough? Same with training nurses.
1 Like