Problems with British Education | Peter Hitchens
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- Опубликовано: 11 окт 2024
- Peter Hitchens describes the importance of teaching the correct techniques in education, while also noting how leftist ideologies are being taught in all levels of education.
Watch the full video here: • Peter Hitchens | Cold ...
Peter Hitchens is a British journalist, author, and broadcaster. He currently writes for the Mail on Sunday, where he is a columnist and occasional foreign correspondent. He regularly engages with a great many topics in public debate on major television & radio networks and at universities around the world.
Peter has just completed his tenth book, a critique of the modern British education system. His past works include The Abolition of Britain and The Rage Against God.
A former Trotskyist, he partly attributes his return to Christian faith to his experience of socialism in practice, which he witnessed during his years reporting in Eastern Europe and later from Moscow during the collapse of the Soviet Union.
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Peter Hitchens:
Twitter: / clarkemicah
Peter's blog: hitchensblog.m...
The problem is fairly simple. We’ve teamed up children from single parent households with teachers that never learn how to behaviour manage. A generation of poorly behaved kids, with parents who didn’t learn a thing, taught by 25 year olds who are scared of them.
Very well put.
Basically, not even taught. The 'teacher' is just some minder who tries to avoid accusations of child abuse.
Much of it is liberal individualist attitudes (well that's why there's so many single parents to begin with). Too many parents that believe their children can't do anything wrong and can't be punished.
single parent households aren't the only block of demographics of student misbehavior. Trust me. It is far, far more widespread than that.
@@kloewe6069 Fathering? Including the dad's that are there physically but not psychologically?
It’s because we constantly have to deal with ‘the message’ in school. People don’t even learn how to pronounce English correctly and the popular culture doesn’t help matters by celebrating people who likewise cannot pronounce many English words correctly and have appalling grammar and diction even those from private schools now.
Absolutely. Social media hasn't helped in that regard, though I have often used it myself.
The biggest problem in education isn't the shutting of grammar schools it is the acceptance of poor attitudes and behaviour.
Very well said - absolutely right 😞
Absolutely correct. It's what the government wants, an uneducated, illiterate public who can be controlled like sheep
You can well behaved egalitarian non thinking people you know.
Peters right we teach people what to think not how to think.
The argument for the grammar schools was that they had a much fairer selection method.
They then set the standard for the rest of academia.
And the terrible way the schools handle those poor behaviours.
The biggest problem that faces any reform in education is that of the teaching staff. I am a teacher in his late fifties and I can say with confidence that the majority of my colleagues under the age of forty are so indoctrinated in left-wing ideology that even if you reformed the system, those within it would not only fail to implement it, but would also do everything to undermine it.
Sad but I don't doubt you, all our previously trusted institutions are compromised now
Sad to hear.
Sounds a bit like the staff of the BBC who are so blind to their own bias that they cannot see that this alone will eventually see them out of a job. The TV licence fee is for unbiased and impartial output, not the nonsense we are getting from them.
This is why Blair wanted the youth to go to uni ,to get a far left indoctrination.
@@allseeingotto2912 I can't agree Otto because that assumes that the idiot had a plan plus a vision for the future and frankly that was always beyond the intellect of that clown :)
I'm convinced that the dumbing down in our education system, and almost everywhere in culture /entertainment is by design. I may be wrong, but it's what I truly believe.
Yes, definitely. China want American kids to use Tiktok to undermine American performance. Don’t China have a time-limit on social media for young people? I seem to recall that.
After discovering the hard way how useless my GCSEs are and how inadequate much of my education has been, even at a supposedly high standard secondary school, I am inclined to agree.
It is, read the original versions of books like Alice in Wonderland it is much better written and at a higher level then modern drivel.
Totally agree with Mr. Hutchins. This dumbing down is everywhere not just the U.K. The question is…. WHO exactly is orchestrating this decline and WHY ????
It's my firm opinion that good teachers teach students HOW to think, not WHAT to think. As we all know, that is a big part of the problem in not just the UK but in many Western Countries.
The closing of the Grammars was the destruction of meritocracy.
Exactly, which the left claim to be so enthusiastic about but do everything to suppress.
Can't wait for Peter Hitchens' new book! Also, he is absolutely correct about foreign languages. I remember teaching myself French conjugations, for example, and it has stood me in good stead for any other language I have pursued.
Taught what to think, not how to think. Or brainwash.
This is a very interesting conversation. I know that schools (especially the public schools) in the USA have been increasingly dumbed down for the past 5 or 6 decades at least, and now they don't teach many facts, mostly opinions and feelings and how to be a socio-political activist. Dissenting opinions are systematically and vigorously punished and silenced at all levels of school now (including colleges and universities). I wasn't aware that this is also happening in England. That's a shame. Which countries still have academically rigorous classical education for the masses?
In Australia there are affordable Christian schools which do a pretty decent job. Generally a few thousand per term but well worth it (and I'm not even religious, just a former teacher haha).
@@harryradley One doesnt have to be 'religeous' to be a Christian.!
@@rogerwoodhouse7945 I think I understand your point, I just decided it was worth pointing out that I was recommending Christian schools purely on the basis of educational merit, not faith or personal morality etc.
@@harryradley decent private schools still exist in the US too. The key part he added at the end was "for the masses"
@@harryradley I hope you understand my point Harry.Most Christians I know go about their lives quietly .Enen attend church! I would never describe them as 'religeous' Some ( a lot) of people immediately assume one must be 'religeous' if you attend church even ocasionally.
I am no fan of Hitchens but I totally agree with his view on the current state of secondry education however, it goes beyond that to the vast expansion in university education which has also led to a complete devaluation of the value of degees generally. When 50% of young people have a degree (however trivial the subject) then an employer who wants people to flip burgers is going to demand that candidates have a degree which strangely has the effect of worsening the circumstances of those who don't have one. I suspect that this situation is all too common across the Western economies.
With regard to British Grammar Schools, which I attended, yes they were a brilliant thing of their time and social environment. However, what made them work back then was working class parents saw them as a route by which their children would have a better life than them through education and opportunities and as a result pushed their children to achieve. That probably illuminates the main problem that teachers will tell you about in education today, an almost total lack of parental involvement in their childrens education and behaviour both in and outside school.
I am sure you are right regarding degrees. Even my degree in physics from a top university (1981-1984) has been of little use. A degree in gender or media studies would be even worse. The higher education system is a con, it exists to employ university staff. They teach abstract subjects. In practice most students would be better off getting a job, or doing a vocational training such as a degree in hotel management or accountancy. That is the German system and it works well there.
@@StillAliveAndKicking_ Hi from Germany. The thing is, we separate children at the age of ten into different school systems. Gymnasium, the most demanding one, prepares you to go to university. And, at least before Bologna, you used to learn a lot of theory during no less than 5 years before you got your Diplom and were employable.
I am afraid that the standards of education are lower now too, but today it is still unthinkable in Germany that the CEO of any company is not a PhD.
@@StillAliveAndKicking_ The vast expansion of the university sector under Blair was an absolute disaster and has ended up as you say just providing an easy life, substantial pensions for academic staff and little value at all to students. That said, there is both a place for 'academic' universities as places for knowledge devoid of commercial profit and for students following specific career paths.
The thing that I object to most is the idea that was foisted onto young people that "With a degree your lifetime earnings will be greater than without". I was born in 1945 and this would have been true of my generation where probably fewer than 8% went to university. The basic laws of supply and demand tell us that something that is in short supply commands a price premium, the same law says that when 50% have a degree, rarity value changes to commodity value, this has become a Ponzi scheme.
You start with 'you are no fan of hitchens'. What is it you are not a fan of specifically?
You need to be a fan.....
I home school my daughter and she is THRIVING. I would never put my child in school. Prehistoric system, at best.
I think one of the few benefits of lockdown was the validation of home-schooling.
Mr. Hitchens' recollection of a moment of pure joy at 5:05 is just wonderful.
I read and watch as many of his works as I can find the time to and always find then insightful. He may very well disagree with this, and I may be well off the mark, but he increasingly reminds me of an Old Testament prophet - speaking a truth that most, to their peril, ignore. If he ever came to my area of Canada for any speaking engagement, I would love to attend.
I think I once saw him compared to the prophet Jeremiah, a comparison I suspect he would wholeheartedly reject. But you do see the similar theme of one man pleading with a nation to change path and repeatedly being ignored.
@@Musicienne-DAB1995 I wholeheartedly agree.
Peter Hitchesn should talk about Technical education which in Britain compaares badly with other European countries ! He needs to look at this enormous failure in Britain!
A good point Alan. The 1944 education Act was for a tripartite system the incorporated Technical Schools. 319 of these were built but they fizzled out and turned into Technical Colleges. We had one in Langhorn Drive in Twickenham. When it opened in the late 1940s it had an intake of eleven year olds.
@@GuyLegge Yes this was sheer stupidity to not continue with both technical schools and Tech colleges !
I may be wrong, but I think he has mentioned this in at least one column.
I saw these attitudes at University. Modern students eschew classical standards and only want to argue, assert and avoid when it comes to their socio-political ideas and their 'opponents' views. Truth, beauty, knowledge and discipline are virtues the modern student must deny because they cannot surmount the challenge of their own intellectual awakening. Rather than try to climb any one of these mountains, the modern 'academic' makes a project out of smashing the mountain, therefore justifying their vandalism as some form of emancipation from classical ideals and goals they deem 'regressive', 'classist', 'patriarchal' or 'bourgeois'.
There's an old rule you don't discuss religion or politics. Well why not? Dissenters are thought to be rocking the boat. But if you can't discuss something it suggests freedom of speech is being shut down. Only those with something to hide would do this.
I coincidentally learnt a few days ago that the term "grammar school" refers to the medaeval Trivium: Grammar, Rhetoric, Dialectic, which in turn is the foundation for a humanistic Studium. Since study is nothing other than the rigorous pursuit of a facultative intellectual curiosity, it's only right that school life provides training for this, and in the way that Hitchens outlines.
Just walk around a school and see the drivel of pupil’s work the teachers put up on the walls to see how far standards have fallen.
I went to a Grammar school. Hitchens is absolutely right in my opinion.
I didn't, and I still think he is right. As I grow older, I see just how useless my GCSEs are, and I have less and less inclination to complete a degree.
The education system, media, government policy and even companies are going hand in hand. Hopeless situation. I believe Hitchens lost all hope and he is right because there isn't any. I predicted this since the 1990s (Blair era) but everybody seemed happy with the changes taking place. Sad .. and now hopeless
Write a dissenting comment on Facebook and here on RUclips and get evidence for Mr Hitchens's hypothesis literally spelt out before your eyes.
Especially in the age of celebrity fan cults. I have often been on the receiving end of abuse for not following the accepted line, including abuse from both sides.
Most of the previous scientists were in more than one field because the methodology of educational attainment was strong and tidy, and now it is like taking a flower from every orchard without real quality.
IMO The tory doctrine of parental choice was supposed to make parents want to fight to raise the standards at the school they chose - instead it facilitated the flight of aspirational parents.
The role of State schools is not to educate but to pursue the hidden curriculum of ensuring the masses accept a subservient role in a power regime that can be complained about but not changed, whilst allowing a few through to manage but not change the status quo. As such, it works well - unfortunately.
What holds schools back are a few things 1. Less parents at home during the child's earlier years educating them in the foundations (because they are working), this leads to children without proper foundations when they start school and even SEN disabilities from slow starts. 2. Fewer teachers and TAs properly trained in how to handle disruptive, SEN children who unfortunately are not able to get into the limited SEN schools leading to disruption of other schools and children's education. 3. An ineffective curriculum which tries to teach too much in too little time, when focus on core subjects is all that's necessary. 4. Political dogmatic teaching, most teaching focuses on literature or poems which are political or dark (such and such is depressed/suicidal - I have read this in primary school texts being taught), when they should be positive and neutral or old as few places teach Dickens or Agatha Christie or Jane Austin (reading this would teach good prose) etc. 5. Lack of discipline; children may respect parents but not educators and you just need a handful who lack respect for an entire class to fall into ruin. (If parents wish to continue this trend traditional methods of ensuring discipline might need to return). 6. Parents are failing to keep sick children off from school, leading to teachers and TAs and other children becoming sick. 7. Parents are failing to apply nutritional meal planning to children, this might seem odd to the reader but I specialised in food psychology, educational psychology, sporting psychology and high performance coaching as well as work as an English teacher. I see children who at lunch time have a lunchbox with just chocolate and sweets, no fruits, no sandwiches, no balanced low GI food which could improve a child's learning performance. Knowledge which older generations took for granted. - - - So what are we missing in summary a) home schooling from a younger age. b) education on discipline and respecting others, c) course content being focused, taught for appropriate intervals and with positive, neutral material, d) discipline options or behavioural effective management available to teachers beyond praising children - actual effective methods. e) a stay at home parent to adequately look after children including nutritional planning as being a parent is a really hard job, harder then anything salaried as it is also voluntary and good results are not made through divided attentions. f) effective ways to integrate overseas children for whom English is a 2nd or 3rd language and they struggle g) having adequate resources so that SEN children can receive separate, targeted education effective to their level where they are not disrupting other children. We really need to see the problems for what they are and not shy from something because someone gets upset to say their child needs special help or is the problem and instead implement solutions. or, if we are happy to leave this as a teacher problem to solve, pay them double the average salary so that they feel it is worth sticking at the job - a teacher should be on 60k a year.
My old run down comprehensive school is now up the top of the league table and exclusively Asian.
I would also like to see a more critical look at the history in textbooks because in the US there are lot of historical errors in both history and history of science text books.
I recall reading about some inner-city schools in the USA, and apparently the children are using outdated textbooks. I don't know whether that is still the case, but it was only a few years ago that I saw such information. I've heard quite a few negative things about Common Core; again, as a non-American, I can only speculate.
I blame the loss of 'rigour' in our education system for the standard of politicians that the UK has had to endure over the last 30 years or so.
So do I!
In an apocryphal tale of the first meeting between Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, "Hepburn said, "I fear I may be too tall for you, Mr. Tracy" or possibly "You know, Mr. Tracy, I'm afraid I'm a bit too tall for you." In one version, Tracy supposedly replied, "Don't worry, I'll cut you down to my size." In another, Joseph L. Mankiewicz reportedly said, "Don't worry, Kate, he'll cut you down to size.""
My point is not whether the conversation actually took place, but that it illustrates the tear-education-down-to-Grade-5-level that has been perpetrated in the cause of soothing envious feelings. The bulldozing of the playing field has culminated in SoShall JustUs WokeryPokery, but, imo, the degradation began with "every opinion counts".
First of all school has aways been about socialisation. The problem isn't that this is continuing it is to do with confronting the reality that a puple's school performance is a function of much more than the school and the teachers. Discussing the interwoven and complex issues which lead to puple success is beyond a comment such as this but anyone with any insight to education knows that the issues are too complex for the school and tachers to handle alone. Thereofore the the government school system they takes the eay way out which is to dilute the school and teachers' contribution to the puples' education. Don't teach the kids arithmetic tables, don't worry about spelling too much etc etc. Life will teach the kids what they need to know!!
I went to the Queen's Boys' Secondary Modern School, Corporation Road, Wisbech, Cambs.
Grammars were unpopular because as is the case now, parents would send children to private schools and then get them into grammar schools because they were free private schools. Limiting the positions for actual poor kids defeating the point of the schools.
When school leavers can turn up at university and they can't write in cursive the education system is broken. Kids are taught about the rainbow serpent but not about Sturt or Flinders. It's an appalling excuse for an education.
The UK has a socialised health service and socialised education system both of which are of the lowest standard possible. No excellence, no world class standards.
Where do you place Eton and equivalent UK universities on your scale?
The UK's socialised health service ranks 13th in the world index of healthcare innovation. The facts do not correlate with your assertion that they are the lowest standard possible.
First I am NOT critical of grammar schools.
.
Whilst in general I am sympathetic to PH views on this one I am quite sure he is wrong.
wrt to education I mean.
In general the local concils offered to pay for grammar school places for those who 'passed' the 11 plus.
Others could take an exam and pay fees to gain entry.
Comprehensive schools entry was much fairer and they ought to have taught to grammar school standards ; filtering students by ability say after two years.
Unfortunately what happened was the 'all must pass' outlook arrived or 'no one must fail' and as a conseqence comprehensive education was undermined.
Even so the better run ones did perform quite well with entry to rigorous tertiary education.
Anything goes today and the decline of the nation is clear to very many..
Not eough sadly.
i think dont fix whats not broken and just make better with what we have
What if what we have is woefully deficient?
The problem with grammar schools is that they discriminated against children from disadvantaged families, and late developers. Posh families can afford to give their children a richer environment in terms of stimuli such as music and language lessons. Late developers include children born during the summer holiday who are a year younger than the oldest students in their class. At that age a year makes a huge difference. I was born in July and considered dim by my teachers when I was 11, I went on to get top A levels, a first in physics and a PhD from Cambridge. Whilst I agree that subjects have been dumbed down over the last 50 years, I disagree that foreign languages require rigorous learning of grammar. I have met countless people with good exam grades in a foreign language who cannot speak it. The aim must be to develop speaking and listening skills as per the Dutch system for example. (How come grammer schools never came anywhere near matching the Dutch success in languages?) I think one of the biggest criticism of schools is that a huge proportion of students are indoctrinated into a simplistic woke ideology with no appreciation for the real world, and the achievements of Western civilisation. I experienced the forerunner of this in the sixties and seventies, and frankly it harmed my life. Another criticism is the size of classes, with 30 typical. A friend gave up teaching as it was crowd control. That is how it was 50 years ago too. Only when I was in a small class of ten did I take an interest in the lessons.
Lastly, I do wish he would learn to articulate clearly, rather than mumbling in a rather pompous and often hard to understand voice. I don’t know why he gets so much air time, though I guess he appeals to the “It was better in my time” brigade.
Yeah people get too misty eyed about the 'good old' grammer school system - there was a huge barrier to poor kids in the cost of the school uniform and sports kit which would be months worth of the household wages for typical working class families. If you passed the exam but didn't have the uniform you couldn't go. My dad was able to take up his place thanks to generous grandparents chipping in and then sustain himself by collecting replacement items from lost property. Sue Townsend the author of Adrian Mole was kept out - fwiw wikipedia says she failed the 11+ exam but she's said in interview that it was the cost of uniform.
There was supposed to be a tripartite school system but only the top tier (grammar) and bottom tier (secondary modern) were ever really implemented. The system never worked as planned before being demolished in most areas.
How did grammar schools discriminate against the disadvantaged?
@@SamOwenI Simple. Someone from a disadvantaged background grew up with a lack of stimuli, so they do worse at tests. Someone in a posh family had language lessons, music lessons, skating lessons, and oddly enough they did well in the eleven plus. The eleven plus is a way of increasing disparity.
@@StillAliveAndKicking_ I think even if the idea that children from wealthier families perform better in exams than those from poorer families because of extra-curriculars is true, there is value in giving the most academically gifted children a different education to the less gifted. Similar to how you would use different styles to teach your own children based on need and gifts.
@@SamOwenI The problem with that is the assumption that you can separate out the “most academically gifted” at age eleven, and then condemn the “thickos” to a sub standard education. As I said, there is for example a big disparity in ability due to age, some being one year older than others, and at that age that makes a big difference to academic results as proven by research. Why? Because the brain develops rapidly in the young. The question is why send them to separate schools at such a young age, thereby defining their path in life from age eleven. In my view the problem with state education is mainly large classes of 30+ students. There must also be something fundamentally wrong when we are turning out young people obsessed with left wing identity politics, and that has to be due to the schools.
Too many foreigners.
The irony is that these foreigners are often coming from countries with more rigorous schooling. Germany has a notable foreign population, yet has kept schools similar to those described by Hitchens.
Always been a big fan of Peter he’s been consistently miserable
Don’t worry Peter
We have Russell Brand to educate and save us now 🤦♂️😂😂😂😞
Seek and ye shall find. You can’t educate a bigot. Why is education always the key. Let’s bring it back to good parenting and a strong self drive to better yourself that is lost in an overly comfortable and sinful society. Our society misses the mark in ordering the hierarchy of goodness and therefore life is losing meaning. Even finding someone to have a good conversation with is impossible. So many people are comfortable, closed and feeble.
Once again this shows how wrong it is for us to idolise and try to emulate the USA.
I went to a nurmal skool and terned out justt as clevor as anyboby else.
Peter get your teeth seen to please, blowing my ear drums.
The biggest problem of our education system is that the state is involved. Education, like any other service (that does not rely on force - such as the military or police), should be provided by the private sector, with no state involvement whatsoever. The state should not have anything to do with something as crucial as the education of our children.
I needed state education, my parents were too poor to pay for a private school.
@@rogerking2888 like 90% of the rest of us.
No, state education has its place. Grammar schools and direct grant schools were products of the state, and in many cases outperformed private schools.
Religious studies shouldn’t be a core subject, we should be spared the musings of unbelievers that see religion instead of faith and treat it all as the same. What can a corpse tell us about how to live? Secular humanism is it’s own faith of sorts albeit hollow and this mono culture is culling others the more it’s pushed, it’s reasons to help and even tolerate others because of a hole in their heart filled with thoughts and convoluted notions.
True to current conservative ideology, no facts or insights are offered only whining and vague platitudes served in the confines of social media to an audience receptive to generic complaining. Peter is mumbling half of his empty sentences having the poor diction characteristic of elitist upper class circles always finishing their hollow phrases with mmm mm blabla well u knpw howmm it mmus bla. Tragic.
This garbled nonsense is so sad coming from Peter Hitchens. He goes to pieces on education and the motor car.
@M W No! I won't. I'll wait until his oft mentiioned book on the dumbing down of exams appears first. I suspect it isn't yet in existence having got itself into trouble.
hitchins is a classic example we teach latin and classics and the vermeer of intelligance but not logic or understanding of anything, they learn exceptionalism and there rite to rule and influance
Oh dear, oh dear. Your comment is a classic example of what Hitchens is talking about. It made me wince to read it.
PEOPLE who understand and obey but are incapable of thinking@@gelbsucht947
Please tell me this is satire? Surely you're not seriously criticizing the quality of an accomplished writer's education, while employing such horrid spelling and grammar?
@@gelbsucht947 I hope that the five spelling mistakes in his sentence were deliberate, a bit tongue in cheek so to speak. Or shud eye say tung in cheke.
@@christopherblanchard2099 🤣
This guy needs to learn to stop mumbling. He's either too loud or too soft and it makes it too hard to follow
Interesting. English isn't my first language but I have no problems understanding him at all...
Qq young. I would have to have the volume up high to hear him and then he has a sudden very loud 2 words and then goes down too far in volume. It's just annoying
I once made the mistake of buying an audio book by him, not realising he had narrated it himself! I had to abandon it. The monotonous mumbling was intolerable!