I read this rather clear and yet short piece, on the 'corruption of the curriculum' and it's a damning indictment of Educational policy and tinkering with teaching practice, learning 'styles' and course content.
It states the following :
It states the following :
"The school curriculum has been corrupted by political interference, according to a new report from independent think-tank Civitas. The traditional subject areas have been hi-jacked to promote fashionable causes such as gender awareness, the environment and anti-racism, while teachers are expected to help to achieve the government's social goals instead of imparting a body of academic knowledge to their students."
The article then outlines in concise language some of the 'corruptions' and their adverse effects.
The describe 'educational apartheid' (subjects excluded for some students based on income and class), 'history without dates' (without a coherent narrative), a policy of behavioural change that reduces
It's well worth a read, and I would like to put it in context, "join-the-dots" so to speak. To go further. To clarify.
After all, it was issued by Civitas, who are pretty much a right wing think tank, and why would I be impressed by what ever spewed forth from such an establishment. So I gotta put that right. I am not at all impressed, because the article itself is tinkering, and while it makes a critique that has some substance, it fails (as intended) to set things in context.
Has anyone mentioned to you that it is known, and proven, that State Education was initially instigated by intensive and long-term lobbying from business?
After all, it was issued by Civitas, who are pretty much a right wing think tank, and why would I be impressed by what ever spewed forth from such an establishment. So I gotta put that right. I am not at all impressed, because the article itself is tinkering, and while it makes a critique that has some substance, it fails (as intended) to set things in context.
Has anyone mentioned to you that it is known, and proven, that State Education was initially instigated by intensive and long-term lobbying from business?
"Perhaps the greatest of school's illusions is that the institution was launched by a group of kindly men and women who wanted to help the children of ordinary families—to level the playing field, so to speak."
It was of course, presented as philanthropy, the trojan horse of modern social engineering effected by the use of wealth, by stealth. And yes some people really did believe they were genuine seeking to help others and to help 'mankind'.
In fact there was close to a century of lobbying at local, national and international levels of Industrial Society, and a huge, vast amount of money was spent over that time in this project to introduce Compulsion Schooling for all children.
"The real makers of modern schooling were leaders of the new American industrialist class, men like:
The primary driver was of this project was the power and control of business, mostly the coal business, which with coal being the first fossil fuel, has a certain resonance with corporate power play within Governance by the petroleum industry. that we know today ... the coal and steel business was or became the central power in 'Civilisation' and one of the most aggressive in terms of 'expansion' (globalisation) and in terms of infiltrating Governance. The project to compel all children into education started in the 1750s.
And what has happened is that for a while it worked, as all training does, then some people started to see through the system, and found ways to use it as the basis for real learning outside the system, and began to resist the indoctrination and worse, actively self organise.
Power cannot allow that. For two reasons.
!. To many power players is dangerous if they are all equals. There has to be manageable limits.
2. "If some 'poor' people learn to do what we are doing, we are out of business. So let us 'educate' them such that they cannot really learn, but can remember what they have been told, and they'll confuse memorising for learning. And we will set the psychological limit within the education SYSTEM, the systemic process does the work, not merely the curriculum."
The curriculum can be tinkered with, both by Power and by those Power allows, within limits and under their watchful eyes.
The article I quoted is complaining about the tinkering, and not the system. It prefers the 'traditional tinkering'. That's as far as it goes.
Not impressive.
The SYSTEM must remain, even as it's façade is ever changing as either genuine empathic understanding emerges (they can't fool all the people all of the time) which Power will always seek to co-opt, by systematising whatever emerges organically, thus neutering any potential threat to Power it might represent.
Any right winger knows this. Well,the ones who dictate policy. Who ever they are..
This is partly why John Taylor Gatto says we must disestablish the SYSTEM, retaining the infrastructure and applying and modifying those infrastructure so that they can be used as places of self motivated learning, where the full person is allowed to grow, as such to truly meet the needs of the children, and indeed of all of us, as natural learners.
"After a long life, and thirty years in the public school trenches, I've concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress our genius only because we haven't yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves."
Self motivated, self organised. Self Governing. Common Sense. Biologically mandated.
The article is a brief overview of a book, by Frank Furedi...
'The Corruption of the Curriculum' by Frank Furedi, Shirley Lawes, Michele Ledda, Chris McGovern, Simon Patterson, David Perks and Alex Standish is published by Civitas, 77 Great Peter Street, London SW1P 2EZ
Kindest regards
Corneilius
Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe
