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Truly Educated?
Arguably, the most explosive critique of the modern English education in the past fifty years.
Appalling standards, children allowed to swear in class, qualifications that don't qualify anyone for anything, more education reports than you can shake a stick at, universal dumbing down, and teachers who self-destruct - just a few of the things that have emerged from the British education system in recent years.
Written by a teacher, lecturer and education researcher of thirty-five years standing, Truly Educated? is a no-holds-barred review of how the education system in England has betrayed millions of people. It's for parents who really care for the future of their children, for MPs who want a more effective perspective, and for teachers who aren't afraid to face the truth.
It's also for the "betrayed" - those who have been turned out of the education-machine with sub-standard knowledge and skills - and that's virtually all of us!
After one hundred and fifty years of spending uncountable billions on education, writing enough reports to fill the Albert Hall, and holding countless commissions of enquiry, we are still turning out so-called graduates who need remedial training from their employers, tradesmen who cannot cope with more than the basics, and around a third of eleven year olds who cannot read, write or perform maths to the required standard for their age.
A reasonably educated Victorian working man could probably out-read even an A Level candidate of the twenty-first century. Well educated children of the 1930s could run rings around their equivalent age-group today. What we expected of children in the 1950s was considerably more demanding than today's pitiful expectations.
There is no point trying to allocate blame for our failures, for we are all to blame. But don't think that this is only about the UK - most of the disasters have also afflicted other nations, and the answers may well be similar.
Truly Educated? illustrates how the problems of British education extend back to Victorian times and how Government intervention has produced a Frankenstein of an education system that has handicapped generations of young people.
Truly Educated? is for anyone who is prepared to think honestly about what we have done with our education system, and who has the moral courage not to shy from the hard decisions that are now necessary.
Appalling standards, children allowed to swear in class, qualifications that don't qualify anyone for anything, more education reports than you can shake a stick at, universal dumbing down, and teachers who self-destruct - just a few of the things that have emerged from the British education system in recent years.
Written by a teacher, lecturer and education researcher of thirty-five years standing, Truly Educated? is a no-holds-barred review of how the education system in England has betrayed millions of people. It's for parents who really care for the future of their children, for MPs who want a more effective perspective, and for teachers who aren't afraid to face the truth.
It's also for the "betrayed" - those who have been turned out of the education-machine with sub-standard knowledge and skills - and that's virtually all of us!
After one hundred and fifty years of spending uncountable billions on education, writing enough reports to fill the Albert Hall, and holding countless commissions of enquiry, we are still turning out so-called graduates who need remedial training from their employers, tradesmen who cannot cope with more than the basics, and around a third of eleven year olds who cannot read, write or perform maths to the required standard for their age.
A reasonably educated Victorian working man could probably out-read even an A Level candidate of the twenty-first century. Well educated children of the 1930s could run rings around their equivalent age-group today. What we expected of children in the 1950s was considerably more demanding than today's pitiful expectations.
There is no point trying to allocate blame for our failures, for we are all to blame. But don't think that this is only about the UK - most of the disasters have also afflicted other nations, and the answers may well be similar.
Truly Educated? illustrates how the problems of British education extend back to Victorian times and how Government intervention has produced a Frankenstein of an education system that has handicapped generations of young people.
Truly Educated? is for anyone who is prepared to think honestly about what we have done with our education system, and who has the moral courage not to shy from the hard decisions that are now necessary.
225 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 27, 2011
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