The 2015 Popularity Contest (aka UK General Election )

[EFCNIK]

Sorry mate, you are entirely wrong - the majority of socialists believe what they believe for the good of many not the individual - if they were just jealous it would be far easier to take the individualistic approach to life and shift to the right, n'est pas?

I think it's easier for them to look down on people with money and 'fight the good fight'. It's much easier arguing a case from a left wing perspective. They've spent years mud slinging and have falsely asserted themselves as 'for the good of the people'. It's absolute bollocks. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being successful and if you were lucky enough to be born into money, well that's just the luck of the draw. Just as it is that you weren't born in the slums of Africa. Imagine if it was all the same eh? How dull would the world be. I think you assume that if you put socialism in place then everyone would be equally able to live. Again, as a country we've fought it for decades and thank goodness. I can't think of one place where socialism is in place where people are actually equal.

Well equal in poverty maybe.

 

[Milk]

Has anybody seen this [Poor language removed]? How dumb do these people think we are?

You would have thought they would have chosen a British road FFS .......... Having a German one says it all really.

Vote Looney

 

[Bruce Wayne]

But I don't consider myself fortunate. I just followed an educational pathway that is open to all.

There have been countless studies in recent times highlighting the role of conscientiousness in success in life, whether academically or professionally. As you say, I believe the opportunities are out there, but if people don't have the right mentality, then it's always going to be hard to capitalise on them.

It has nothing to do with poverty as so many from a poor background do manage to succeed. The thing is, no one seems to have thought it a good idea over the years to look at what it is about those people and see what separates them from the people that don't succeed. It's clearly not money as they generally come from similar backgrounds.

 

[The Cowboy]

I don't know your background mate, but if you're anything like me, you're fortunate to break through - it's easy to say it's open to all having broken through, but the reality is very different for those trying to do so, or more importantly having the ability but not finding the opportunity.

I can hand-on-heart state there is nothing fortuitous about my career path, pretty much the contrary as I rather blindly wandered from one institution to the next with very little independent thought. The only bit which I suppose was fortuitous was the fact I did well in my GCSEs.

My issue with the education system in this country is not the raising of the standard to Grammar School level, but identifying the skills of the 'practically-minded but not academic' students to give them the best chance post-GCSEs. There were loads of lads in my year thick as two short planks in the classroom but showed great application in CDT/woodwork, car maintenance etc. There is no real further education path for them.

 

[The Cowboy]

You would have thought they would have chosen a British road FFS .......... Having a German one says it all really.

Vote Looney

It's a photograph. The location is utterly irrelevant. It's this kind of scraping-the-barrel sniping that particularly annoys me about the campaign period.

(and yes, I'd say the same thing if it was a Labour poster too)

 

[Bruce Wayne]

I can hand-on-heart state there is nothing fortuitous about my career path, pretty much the contrary as I rather blindly wandered from one institution to the next with very little independent thought. The only bit which I suppose was fortuitous was the fact I did well in my GCSEs.

My issue with the education system in this country is not the raising of the standard to Grammar School level, but identifying the skills of the 'practically-minded but not academic' students to give them the best chance post-GCSEs. There were loads of lads in my year thick as two short planks in the classroom but showed great application in CDT/woodwork, car maintenance etc. There is no real further education path for them.

I wonder at times if the schooling was designed for an age that doesn't really exist any more. Of course, there was a time when you'd go to school, then university, and that would largely be your lot in terms of education. You'd stay in one career, maybe even one job for your entire life and things wouldn't change much.

Those days are long gone though, and people not only move jobs much more frequently these days, but it's also quite probable that you'll be changing careers throughout your lifetime. As the saying goes, it isn't the strongest that survive but the most adaptable to change, and change is something that's happening incredibly quickly.

We have more access to knowledge and information now than ever before, but I wonder if we do enough to provide youngsters with the belief that this knowledge can change their lives, and the skills to find and digest the knowledge. I wonder if schools should be less about teaching kids what to learn but more about teaching them how to learn.

I appreciate it's inevitably bias, but you read lots of stories in the press about teaching to the test and so on and it doesn't suggest a great deal of independence is allowed for in the curriculum.

Ted Fischer works for the World Health Organisation and he's studied all of this kind of thing in a whole host of cultures around the world. Maybe some lessons in his work.

 

[Milk]

It's a photograph. The location is utterly irrelevant. It's this kind of scraping-the-barrel sniping that particularly annoys me about the campaign period.

(and yes, I'd say the same thing if it was a Labour poster too)

Wrong ...... it is not just a photograph, it is a portrait that the Tories want to project of a long, straight smooth road with a slight rise in it (as nothing ever runs smoothly) if they are re-elected.
By using a German road (it immediately looks "Foreign"), it imparts the message that they are Merkel's lapdog.
We are in a multimedia age now so every image will be interpreted and spun to hell.

Vote Looney

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Wrong ...... it is not just a photograph, it is a portrait that the Tories want to project of a long, straight smooth road with a slight rise in it (as nothing ever runs smoothly) if they are re-elected.
By using a German road (it immediately looks "Foreign"), it imparts the message that they are Merkel's lapdog.
We are in a multimedia age now so every image will be interpreted and spun to hell.

Vote Looney

Good grief, you look at that image and think that?

 

[Joey66]

It's a photograph. The location is utterly irrelevant. It's this kind of scraping-the-barrel sniping that particularly annoys me about the campaign period.

(and yes, I'd say the same thing if it was a Labour poster too)

The road to hell under the Tories!

 

[The Cowboy]

I wonder at times if the schooling was designed for an age that doesn't really exist any more. Of course, there was a time when you'd go to school, then university, and that would largely be your lot in terms of education. You'd stay in one career, maybe even one job for your entire life and things wouldn't change much.

Those days are long gone though, and people not only move jobs much more frequently these days, but it's also quite probable that you'll be changing careers throughout your lifetime. As the saying goes, it isn't the strongest that survive but the most adaptable to change, and change is something that's happening incredibly quickly.

We have more access to knowledge and information now than ever before, but I wonder if we do enough to provide youngsters with the belief that this knowledge can change their lives, and the skills to find and digest the knowledge. I wonder if schools should be less about teaching kids what to learn but more about teaching them how to learn.

I appreciate it's inevitably bias, but you read lots of stories in the press about teaching to the test and so on and it doesn't suggest a great deal of independence is allowed for in the curriculum.

Ted Fischer works for the World Health Organisation and he's studied all of this kind of thing in a whole host of cultures around the world. Maybe some lessons in his work.

Yep. Scrap exams and make everything coursework-based with everything referenced. Knowing stuff parrot-fashion is irrelevant these days, it should be about how you interpret the information out there and determine which is the most salient.

 

[chicoazul]

Improve education in this country by firstly decapitating Gove just to be sure he doesn't try and move back in anything relating to education and secondly never ever voting the Tories into power.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Yep. Scrap exams and make everything coursework-based with everything referenced. Knowing stuff parrot-fashion is irrelevant these days, it should be about how you interpret the information out there and determine which is the most salient.

The thing is, I don't think it's a schooling thing as much as it is a societal thing. There's almost a perception that schools are the place you go to learn stuff, therefore almost absolving anyone else of the responsibility.

I mean how many kids these days are given responsibility (and freedom) to do stuff? As a society we seem to have created this fear of the boogyman so that children are suffocated by their helicopter parents. Failure is, and has always been, one of the best ways to learn things, but you've got to be trying stuff out in order to know that.

I think if you have the right attitude in life, then you'll succeed regardless of your circumstances (which, lets face it, in Britain are pretty good whatever your background). Of course others may have an easier route, but I reckon you'd do well enough. Getting that attitude isn't just the role of schools but of society as a whole (starting with the parents).

Only yesterday I read a paper saying how strong an indicator parenting in the first three years of life was to future academic (and life) successes. That was regardless of background/wealth. I know Clint will say that children shouldn't be punished for having bad parents, and I do honestly empathise with that, but wonder if as a society we do enough to encourage responsible parenting (or sex in the first place if you like). Has the welfare state absolved people of parental responsibility?

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Improve education in this country by firstly decapitating Gove just to be sure he doesn't try and move back in anything relating to education and secondly never ever voting the Tories into power.

Trying to have a sensible discussion here mate

 

[chicoazul]

Trying to have a sensible discussion here mate

That was a sensible suggestion mate. I advocate it 100%.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

That was a sensible suggestion mate. I advocate it 100%.

Surely if you dislike the Tories, allowing people that aren't the Tories to run some schools is something you'd be in favour of?