Today A pamphlet came through my door for the conservative party. I was flicking through it and I noticed that one of their main policies was to increase discipline in schools and to forcibly exclude more disruptive pupils.

Ever since I left school with poor grades I have been asking myself the question
“does education work?”
something iv never actually sat down to write about.

Before I went to school (and im going here by what my my mum’s told me,.. I must have been about 3 approaching 4 and too young to remember) I, like every other kid, was tested on my academic, verbal and visual abilities by I presume to be a specialist/psychologist type person.
One thing I was asked to do was draw a face. A task to make sure kids knew where everything was and we could put it all in the right place.
My reply to this was “I don’t draw faces, I only draw monsters” and so the woman was like “ok then, draw a monster” and so I drew a monster and she was like “ but, It’s only got one eye!” and im like “yeh, of course it has….its a monster!”

My mum always told me that I started speaking early and that I was stringing sentences together whilst most kids were still saying simple words. I don’t just put this down to the way I am, I think it also had a lot to do with the way my mother would talk to me when I was younger. She has never been any good at small talk, she found talking to an infant pretty difficult conventionally so she would talk to me like an adult, Like she would any normal person.
It’s natural that children have an instinct for consuming knowledge as soon as they start to communicate, a good reason for them always asking “what that?” and “why?” that’s something you get with most children as they start to speak anyway. My dad has never been any good at responding to this type of verbal. I watch my parent’s with my sister’s 4 year old son whom is out of control. My dad who is very playful with him, but has a short fuse can be overly disciplinary, but still can’t seem to control him or make him think about acting in a more civilized way.
And my mum who isn’t able to play but can calm him down and get him thinking and talking in minuets. I start to wonder if disruptiveness is a product of under stimulation, I think about my very conservative father and the conservative political party’s policy to exclude disruptive children from schools. It a real shame but my dad has always condemned my mum for being too soft on me. I guess a lot of people just see it very black and white.

Going back the tests I had before I started school. Apparently my mum was told that there was absolutely no problem with me, I was in the top 10% for intellect in my age group and that I was most certain to go on to university (this was forecasted with me being just 4 years old)
When I did start school I started to have problems from the very beginning. I had problems with learning to read, there were times when they thought I would never read. My spelling was so bad most people couldn’t read what I had written. By this time I was into writing stories. I would dictate them to my grandmother. They were always fictional, about monsters and adventures. The school never got to see these though…I had to go to special needs lessons and I remember a big fat teacher…(her name escapes me) sitting me down and sounding out the vowels “anny apple, elly elephant, oscer orange” (like I cared about that when I was into fiction). This was about the time when I was put into “misinterpret and group together all those who don’t conform to our institutional learning styles, call them dyslexics, teach them like dummies and think its helping them understand” kinda thing was starting to happen.

I was soon transferring onto middle school and by this time undoubtedly in the bottom 10% and still not learning to spell or read properly and continued with barley any progression through the years. I had lots tests by child psychologists, I was taken out of many normal lessons and put into special needs groups where they dumbed down and worsened my learning into a point where I was going to be statemented. This means considered not fit for public education and having to go to a special school for children with learning disabilities. But my parents wouldn’t have this and so I managed to stay on in public schooling.

When I finished middle school there was the natural transition from my middle school to kings of Wessex, which was from a school for ages 13-16. I managed to stop my special needs classes because they were making me worse. From then on everyone was split into ability groups and of course I was in the bottom for most of them. I started to catch up slightly. It wasn’t anything significant but I wouldn’t ever voice my opinion on things, when something had to be written about I always had trouble knowing what to write. As opinionated as I am, I came across as a pretty thoughtless person. It wasn’t until after school I started to see through it all. At the time I was just utterly under stimulated. I remember my English lessons and to put it into perspective…I was in the very bottom group for English and as far as Im aware IM the only one out of the group who went into higher education. I think the rest are labourers now. So there’s me, In the bottom group for English and this was right up until the end of school. I remember the poetry, oh dear how awful It was…I mean poetry now is one of my favourite things but when I think about the poetry we learned about in school no wonder I hated it and wasn’t putting any thought into it, I mean it was so bad I wouldn’t even call it poetry…books full of respected poets and the stuff was all obvious cliché superficial drivel . What else was there? Shakespeare….why learn it? I mean get with the times...they wonder why kids aren’t working when they teach things like Shakespeare. The other things that gets me is the patronising attitude that many teachers have. Most kids are inspired by something as they approach their teens, and due to pop culture and conformity a lot of them are interested in similar things, which makes it easier for you to teach most of them- in that way I mean help them expand. But idea shouldn’t be what you teach the kids but how you can stimulate them to think and write…this seems easy in something like English…a lot of kids would much rather write about a subject they like, even if its Brittany Spears or sigman freud it doesn’t really matter If you can get them to intelligently discuss, write and think about a particular subject they are interested in their abilities will expand so much more than making everyone learn set guidelines and some Shakespeare that no one care about. English lessons could be more discussion based where the teacher would help them to write about their chosen subject and discuss it with the class. But not so, because form my experience most teachers are patronising enough to be “just doing their job” and working concerned with teaching the kids along the guide lines of the national curriculum and remaining ignorant and close minded to the kids own driven interests.
So that was school. And Id just passed my end of year exams, somehow…but I was slowly starting to reach my full potential….this didn’t really happen until I left school and started becoming interested in words, reading, society, poetry, politics, philosophy,…stuff that I was actually interested in meant I learnt so so much more on my own I started to see how school closed me in from all of these ideas because it was all about controlling your opinion, what you say, how you say it, what you research. Its such a shame…There was this program I saw on TV the other day, I can’t remember what it was but it had a small section on home schooling and the woman who taught her kids at home had very much the same views as I do. I remember her saying “the current education system doesn’t take into account that everyone is different” this is absolutely true. It then went on to a guy talking about how kids need the social interaction and engagement that school provides, this is also ultimately true and just as an important part of the learning process. It went on to interview mothers about what they thought about home schooling and if they would do it themselves. They all said naturally that they wouldn’t find the time, It also takes a certain person with an understanding of child psychology to really teach someone to their full potential. With this in mind…It seems something needs to be done to change the way we think about educating children. The disciplinary out of date, traditionalist system isn’t working. I still think everyone has the want to think and learn in some way and the disruptiveness is largely due to under-stimulation combined with poor parenting and excelled with poor teaching of pupils that in ways that provoke now thinking or motivation.
This is a major problem because its all about setting standards, achieving goals, uniformities, conformities, standing in line, ticking boxes, zero tolerance.
And in my view it shouldn’t be about any of these things. There are far more peaceful and rewarding ways of engaging with kids about where they fit into society. Treating them like thinking human beings in one way, smaller class sizes is another, and the use of teachers who really get the best of children would really help. But this cant happen unless there is a serious change to the way we treat people. I think basic up-to-day morals, psychology and human understand should be taught in schools form the very beginning. This should go onto a dramatic change in the way teachers are taught about educating and a change in the way academic work is graded and the way exams and coursework is marked. In academic subjects you get into a university based on the points and examination grades you have achieved. This is no indication of your capacity to learn and understand, it only shows indication of your ability to remember and dictate information.

They way art and design coursework is marked is also a major problem. In the UK, A- level art is all about doing work in other artists styles…that’s pretty much all it is…while this does admittedly work for some, the ones who are naturally more free and expressive with their art find it very condemning, this is a big shame because these are they type of people who are more likely to become artists. Yet in education their work gets put down by patronizing teachers who know nothing and see following the “correct” way of the curriculum as the only right while not doing the work asked, or doing it in a different way as a wrong… it seems absolutely no thought gets put into is as to why someone mite have done it differently. Why cant there be a system where you are awarded on how much you put into the work and your engagement with the expression of art, then everyone gets a fair chance no matter weather you like enjoy doing art in the styles of other painters or you like to do self indulgent artwork and don’t really think about other artists…as long as you are putting your heart into what your doing, learning and expanding in your own way...why should there be a problem if you don’t get a box ticket for not doing a particular task.
This goes with anything. It shouldn’t be about ticking boxes….that’s not learning, that’s not education…its submission to authority

This is the problem iv had with art all along. I used to draw pretty pictures, people said I had skills…I when though a spout of depression and ended up doing some mussed up stuff…I cant draw neatly anymore even if I tried…Scribbling has much more substance to me, I love what im doing, IM finding out so much more about myself, I cant be bothered to do anything their way anymore, Ive found my own…I actually study graphics but have a very subversive fine art approach to it . I need a piece of paper in this world to get the job I want

That’s my approach, everyone’s different. Sometimes I think I seem to realize this more than my teachers.
Sometimes I think they do realize this, well some of them anyway…the course im on is actually pretty good, the teachers are sound…they aren’t patronizing like the ones in school but when it comes to marking…they still have to tick those stupid boxes..its all form filling and grades based on tasks completed, they can’t seem to help it. Im not the type of artist/design/thinker that does well when it comes making sure boxes get ticked.
Why are we all being oppressed by this system?, ok maybe it works for some but it seems it only works for academic information types and everyone else doesn’t get a fair deal.