State schools admit they do not push gifted pupils because they don’t want to promote ‘elitism’
As many as three-quarters of state schools are failing to push their brightest pupils because teachers are reluctant to promote ‘elitism’, an Ofsted study says today.
Many teachers are not convinced of the importance of providing more challenging tasks for their gifted and talented pupils.
Bright youngsters told inspectors they were forced to ask for harder work. Others were resentful at being dragooned into ‘mentoring’ weaker pupils.
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The study, by Professor Alan Smithers and Dr Pamela Robinson of Buckingham University, said it was ‘a nonsense’ that specialist science schools were barred from selecting pupils according to their ability in science.
Harrison Bergeron would not approve. Wesley Mouch would approve.
7 Responses to “Brave New World of anti-elitism”
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What makes this unlike the pressure to practice “mainstreaming” of the less-able kids?
Ellsworth Toohey also. This is disgusting. But I’m sure John Dewey and Rousseau would be simply ecstatic.
“The mere absorption of facts and truths is so exclusively an individual affair that it tends very naturally to pass into selfishness. There is no obvious social motive for the acquirement of mere learning, there is no clear social gain in success thereat.” – John Dewey
Why should we be so shocked that, after a century of basing our educational curricula on the words of this man, that people have actually begun to practice what he preached?
I have spent the last five months learning that actual history is not actually taught in school. I have basically spent it reading voraciously to educate myself about politics, economics, history, and philosophy. The scary part is, I have also spent it learning that all things considered, I was one of the lucky students. I was one of the ones that actually knew how to read, write and spell because I learned it all before I even got to school. I was one of the ones who did get placed in gifted programs. I was one of the ones who actually had fairly good teachers who did teach at an above average level. I was the kid who spent hours at a time reading in the library, and thus actually acquired a world-view with some basis in fact and reality.
There are many people out there who don’t know what money is. There is probably an astonishing amount of people who, thanks to “look-say,” “creative spelling,” and “creative writing” do not actually know how to read, write or spell and thus avoid the written word like the plague. There are many, many people out there who do not really know a d*mn thing about history or politics. There’s barely anyone who understands how the thoughts and words of 19th century dead philosophers have infiltrated their ideology and world-view, because nobody bothered to tell them that a) ideas matter, and b) you’re going to get your ideas from somewhere, and if you don’t put your world-view together yourself then someone else will quite happily put it together for you.
Least common denominator.
This is pretty much standard in Germany by now. In Austria it’s heading for the same direction. They’re now trying to “reform” our school system to be more like the university (and thus trying to eliminate the rule that a student has to repeat a class if he fails in a subject), while in Germany there have been talks of abandoning grades. Yep, no more A, B, C, D or F (or 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 here), because such things create performance society, a meritocracy, and we can’t have that in the new USSR.
There is only one way to make everyone equal, and that is to reduce all to the level of the weakest.
This is something I plan to write about, because it makes me incandescent with rage.
<fume>
Jim
I’m reminded of a nasty short story by Kurt Vonnegut called Harrison Bergeron.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron
> I’m reminded of a nasty short story by Kurt Vonnegut called Harrison Bergeron.
Now, I wonder why that might be…
The equality of socialist ideology, drag all down to the bottom, then everyone suffers and dies equally.