I always assumed that decaffeinated coffee contained no caffeine at all. Turns out that isn’t the case.
Often it is significantly reduced but the different processes of decaffeinating, different beans, different coffee types and even different brewing methods can affect how much caffeine is in your cup of decaffeinated coffee.
Counter - There are lots of subjects where the bar for the knowledge obtained to be practically useful is quite high, and at below that it can be dangerous for people to think they can use that knowledge in the real world. Just look at how often Kopstar is told he is wrong when describing legal matters, and then think about how people might interact with the Police after a term of “law” as a 15 year old.
I say this as someone who constantly engages with people telling me about some misunderstood or misremembered FACT about my field of study that is making them make shitty decisions with their health and/or fitness (and sometimes wallet).
I’m all in favour of a root and branch reassessment of what the goal of teaching any subject is and whether the current curriculum achieves that. For instance, one of the compulsory GCSEs we had to take was called Craft Design and Technology. When explained with a 1 sentence description it makes sense as one of the most applicable subjects to the job market (understanding phases of a project, each with different goals and deliverables, project management and timelines, exploration of creativity to solve a problem), but in practice it doesnt work like that. For us it was essentially a glorified woodwork/home Ec class, but with so much portfolio development (taught by people with no interest in teaching you those things) there wasn’t the time to develop the practical hands on skills I’d like to have got from a woodwork class. It was a lose-lose. Any new subject you add to the curriculum has to make sure it is taught in a way that avoids that problem.
And who the fuck do you want from your school teaching a parenting class? My local school was exception in terms of GCSE and A level results and was full of teachers who were brilliant at teaching their subjects (my history class was pretty much as Kopstar said it should be), but most of them were disasters as people and had kids who hated them.
Yes, a little knowledge can certainly be a dangerous thing, as they say.
However, whilst most of us will have been given a grounding as to what is “right” or “wrong”, and most of us will have an inherent sense of that, I do think it would be beneficial for children to be taught about basics of what is considered to not just be morally questionable but also criminally wrong. It sounds ludicrous but teaching basic criminal law relating to theft, fraud, rape, harassment, coercive behaviour, trespass, aiding in the commission of an offence, implied fiduciary duties etc is much needed.
Also basic groundings in contract law, employment rights, teach kids about the welfare system, writing cvs, job applications, apprenticeships, other avenues of learning, property law, rights of tenants and landlords etc, obligations of local authorities, etc. Not just the basic rules but enough to help them identify wrong doing generally and how to hold people to account. Teach people techniques to help people resolve disputes. Give them the skills.
Sex education shouldn’t just be about contraception etc, but needs to include parenting skills, financial management, basic health education, first aid, all of this.
This is a good point.
In addition, how do you decide on parenting curriculum? There are some parental practices that I (personally) think are wrong although they are done with good intentions. But who gets to decide that?
I think you have to teach a range of non-abusive techniques. So much of what responsible parents learn is only after they’ve had children. Most of our learning is literally on the job in real time and much of it is learning from mistakes. Always important that there is no one-size fits all approach. Different strategies work for different kids and for different parents.
I think what is important is to give people the skills to try something that means they are less likely to simply resort to a physical intervention that will invariably be on the abusive spectrum. Every parent knows what it’s like to feel utterly exasperated with their kids, I’m sure many of us have just wanted to throttle the little shits at some point, what is important is to have the skills to recognise that in the moment and respond constructively/healthily rather than have your (the parent’s) outlet be something that is abusive.
Here lies the fundamental difference between what you guys are talking about and reality. School is no longer about preparing pupils for life and giving them skills. It’s not even about them achieving grades for themselves. What schools care about is how the grades of certain subjects make their school look and where it sits in whatever league tables are being used to rank schools. It’s about turning kids into stats in the pursuit of funding.
My wife is a teacher in a creative subject and those subjects are very much seen as secondary and treated as such. Under staffed, overly structured, no focus on how kids may apply those skills in developing a career for themselves. Just get the levels of progression required with the threat of axing subjects entirely if the numbers don’t go up again for the 15th year in a row.
There’s a reason life skills like finance and law aren’t taught in schools. There is no benefit to the ruling classes for working and middle class kids to be taught how these things work. What they want at the end of a kids education is someone who is ready to go out into the world with the thought that if they slog away for the next 60 years they’ll progress up some ladder and that is the mark of a successful life. If you taught kids how to manage money, about savings, mortgages, investing and entrepreneurship and painted them of a picture of a future that wasn’t just about being a drone that works to make someone else rich, then they’d be a lot less young adults lining up to work for the people deciding “what is best for them” to learn in schools.
The entire system is broken and that is confirmed to me every time my wife’s school refer to the kids grades as “her results” rather than “their results”. It’s not about kids and preparing them for life, it’s about ranking schools and creating a workforce.
I read this - now I’m brewing a coffee. Fully caffeinated one at that.
We’ve all misunderstood what this thread is about. Maybe we need a parenting thread 
I don’t feel it’s about being misunderstood. but rather, that a school system made for all children doesn’t work for all children. Some kids have learning disabilities, and most kids are proficient at a portion of the curriculum. But basics like language, mathematics and arts seem to be uniform in our school system until the age of 10-11 years of age. Our son has already taken to reading at an elevated level, but he struggles with concentration in a classroom situation and at 7 years old we’re already seeing signs of challenges he’s going to face as he gets older when it comes to attention span and trying to learn things he’s really not interested in.
we have a fairly decent education system here and kids still fall through the cracks constantly
Parents have a responsibility to fill in the gaps when it comes to their child’s education. it’s not a babysitting service, teaching is a very challenging job.
Fair points but in terms of law education I do want to mention a simple logical fallacy - most common law countries work on the principle of ignorantia juris non excusat or ignorance of the law is no excuse.
But think about how impractical this is. Certain things which are naturally obvious like don’t randomly murder are all well and good but what about vicarious liability. If I hire someone and in the course of doing my work say they drive recklessly and kill someone there’s a strong case to be made that as the ‘master’ I’m liable to pay damages. That’s not sometjing that was immediately obvious to me.
But it’s also more than that. If the cops show up at your door and take you in for questioning, what are your rights? What should you do? These are not things I was taught at least.
True, unfortunately.
That’s not the point I am making. My point is more the danger people can get themselves into by thinking they know what they’re what they’re doing when really all they have 6 30 minutes classes from 10 years ago taught to them by someone who didnt know what they were talking about and to whom you never paying more than half of your attention.
I think that is a great point, but I don’t think it is really a counter argument. You are describing the reality the incentives for the schools is to operate out of self-interest, which is not necessarily the same thing as providing the best education to the students. That is an additional reason why maybe kids are not getting the education they could/should be getting, but isn’t a reason to avoid reconsidering the curriculum. If anything, it is additional justification for a rethink by the DoE on how schools operate and what they teach.
With that said though, I think your point is critically important. It’s always important to understand the incentives that actually exist in the real world and how they might not be geared towards providing the outcome you think something should be operating to work towards. While people may put forward things like mission statements to illustrate what they exist to do, ultimately incentives are biggest factor in what outcomes are pursued, and in reality they are often at odds with things like mission statements.
Think about what the situation would be if it were otherwise?!
I meant impractical in that kids don’t grow up learning the law not that ignorance of the law should be an excuse. I have to say though the maxim makes more sense in civil code countries than common law ones where finding caselaw is a whole profession in itself.
Anyway my relevant addition to this thread…I always thought Donald Glover of Community and This is America fame was the son of Danny Glover of I’m too old for this shit fame. Only recently found out I was wrong.
I get what you’re saying but that would hold true for everything right? I mean it may not be as harmful if the shabby education is in art but what about biology (someone doing first aid wrong or self treating based on shitty knowledge) or religious studies (inadvertently insulting another person again based on crappy knowledge or understanding). The problem there isn’t so much the subject being taught as it is badly trained teachers or equally likely uninterested students.
Oh I 100% agree the entire system needs a rethink. Top to bottom and inside and out. What we have now simply isn’t fit for purpose and often pits the interests of schools directly against the interests of students, particularly those whose interests and strengths lie in the non-core academic subjects.
Apologies if my ramblings came across as suggesting that shouldn’t happen. It absolutely should but it’s in the interests of the ruling class for education to be geared around churning out employees rather than well rounded young people with an understanding of the way the world works.
I always thought Toto missed the rains down in Africa, but found out only a couple of years ago that they blessed the rains.
That song is played on repeat in some random place in the Namib desert.
Is that true or is it a joke I’m not understanding 