On 2007-02-08 00:55:46 +0000, "Clive George" said:

"Andy Hall" wrote in message ...
On 2007-02-07 13:44:27 +0000, "Clive George" said:

"Andy Hall" wrote in message ...

I'm not really arguing against your choice of local school, I'm only
arguing with the implied premise that grammar is necessarily better.

I think that it's a question of suitability.

Somehow people seem to confuse a school focussed on delivering a good
education to those
with a strong academic ability as being "better" and one which focusses
on those with skills
in other areas as "not as good".

That's part of the problem. However what also happened in practice is
the one which focussed on those with skills in other areas suffered in
other areas - funding, ability to get good teachers for example. The
former should never have happened, but did, and the latter is
unfortunately harder to get round.

Then the question is what constitutes a good teacher. Again, one who
is academically able is probably best suited to teaching academic
subjects, whereas one with more practical skills is probably better
suited to that. Neither is a better teacher than the other.

My definition is different to that - it's one who can teach the kids.
Academic/practical ability are in fact less important than social
skills here.

Clearly both are required. Social skills are a pre-requisite but
will not compensate for a lack of ability or interest in the subject.
Kids can spot a phony quicker than anything. However, the social
skills aspect is more important for the primary school environment
where teachers are generally covering a multitude of subjects than it
is at secondary level where they are generally teaching one or a small
number.




The other fatal flaw is that segregation at age 11/12 is rather
inflexible - there are many cases of people ending up in an unsuitable
school because eg they developed at different ages to others.

Very easily solved by having the facility to transfer at 13 and 15.
One also has to asked what "developed" means. It can mean someone who
struggles in practical subjects that they would like to do but lack the
aptitude just as much as those who would like to study advanced
Calculus but don't have a mathematical ability.

What I mean is some kids get clever/learn how to work at different ages
to others. The fixed exam time doesn't help with this.

That is part of the education of life. Unfortunately the real world
of work doesn't accept people developing arbitrarily. There are
checks, balances and measurements which have to be achieved and
deliverables at certain times. That is one of the most important
aspects of life and one that is better learned early rather than later.





The outcome was therefore to socially engineer an arrangement where
everybody could be seen to get
the same, whether it was suitable or not with the net result of a loss
of more than a generation of opportunity
in most areas. Thus education falls short based on trying to be all
things to all men and not achieving excellence
in any of them.

The comprehensive system wasn't the failure its detractors make it out
to be. It wasn't the inclusion of all which caused the problem they're
seeing, it was other factors.

It was really all of these.


This is apparent because a lot of schools have made a success of it -
whether streamed internally or not. (the latter did come as a surprise
to me, but apparently it can be made to work - it may just require
effort which people aren't prepared to put in.)

Because it is social engineering for its own sake which goes against
human nature and requirements and doesn't achieve excellence in what it
does, in comparison with separated and appropriate provisioning which
does.

Disagree. It wasn't necessarily social engineering for its own sake. It
was recognising that there is a problem with segregated provisioning
and attempting to solve it.

Except that there is no problem with segregated provisioning, only with
the perception that some forms of education were "better" than others.

Social engineering to make sure that everybody is seen to be getting
the same, when that is patent nonsense is a huge disservice.



That problem still exists, even though you prefer to deny it.

The only problem is that segregated provisioning isn't universally available.


Thing is, despite your claims that a segregated system is inherently
better, real life shows you're wrong.

In fact it doesn't. The decline in standards in both the academic
and practical spheres is ample evidence that only mediocrity is
produced by a one size fits all system.

If one looks at the education systems of many other countries one finds
that it is common to have a range of secondary school choices suited to
pupil aptitudes available.