andrewducker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
andrewducker) wrote2016-08-08 12:00 pm
andrewducker) wrote2016-08-08 12:00 pm
Entry tags:
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- comics,
- cthulhu,
- dancing,
- depression,
- disease,
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- edinburgh,
- education,
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Interesting Links for 08-08-2016
- Minds turned to ash - burnout is more than working too hard
- (tags: depression psychology work stress )
- The Wild Cards Are Coming... to Television
- I loved the first dozen of these when I was younger.
(tags: GeorgeRRMartin tv books ) - How David Malki's art on Squirrel Girl was made
- (tags: art history comics )
- Dancing On The Ceiling - Dancing In 80's Movies Tribute
- (tags: movies dancing )
- Most white Americans still deliberately ignorant about race
- (tags: racism usa )
- Facebook Is Not a Technology Company
- (tags: facebook socialnetworking advertising )
- Who wins? Cthulhu or the Emperor of Mankind from Warhammer 40K?
- (tags: cthulhu games questions )
- This is now my favourite rap about tea
- (tags: drinking music video funny )
- It's official – Seinfield has been right about 'double-dippers' all along
- (tags: disease food )
- Japan's Emperor Akihito hints at wish to abdicate
- (tags: japan monarchy )
- Grammar schools make education inequality worse, really aren't the answer
- (tags: Education uk politics )
- Edinburgh Festival begins with spectacular light show
- (tags: edinburgh light time geology history prehistory )
no subject
I was lucky enough to grow up in an area with grammar schools. Despite growing up in poverty (happy to qualify that) I passed my 11+. Myself and a girl who had also passed were, reportedly, 'bumped' to make room for the children of two local council higher-uppers as it was deemed that - coming from a poor background - we were less likely to thrive on the opportunity.
Our headmaster disagreed and informed my parents. While I was not privy to the actions that were undertaken, both of us got our places. To those people on the board who were making decisions about whether or not I should have had a place or not I would extend a hearty, "fuck you!" :)
It produces other questions such as how much "social engineering" decisions had preceded it or have been made since. As the article makes plain: grammar schools are dominated by the children of the educated and middle classes. This is not necessarily the by product of an unfair process but perhaps more to do with coming from a social background that VALUES education and sees it as the enabler it is.
My own experience of childhood poverty was that education was not valued by the families around us. In many respects, it was like Terry Pratchett's 'crab bucket' where ambition, achievement and having any horizon above unemployment was summarily derided. Only in that setting could a child be name-called 'professor' as an insult - as I was.
Grammar schools seem to be a reaction to a problem, rather than this cause.
Or perhaps the grammar schools are a reaction to a cause which is about appealing to middle class voters, rather than about addressing the crippling social inequality and attitudes found at the bottom.
Hm.
no subject