Despotic tyranny ruined my life

[davywavy]

I don't know if you caught this one; A-level Modern History students complaining that their final exam was 'too hard' because it contained the question “How far do you agree that Hitler’s role 1933-45 was one of despotic tyranny?”.
Their complaint isn't about it being a badly worded question despite 'despot' and 'tyrant' being somewhat tautologous, but because they actually didn't know what despot or tyrant actually meant. A facebook group to protest about the question ("Despotic tyranny ruined my life") has over 1,600 members which, when you consider that 6,000 people took the exam, suggests that a quarter or more of 18 year old history students - people with a self-declared interest in the subject, who might want to study history at university and then get a job presenting Time Team - have a vocabulary which didn't include what I would consider fairly basic governmental terms for pretty much the entirety of recorded human history.

I can see them now; the massed ranks of students in the exam hall, pens a-quiver and eager of neuron to display their hard-gained knowledge. Then, the words "Turn your papers over now". A rustling fills the room followed by...silence. There, spitefully inserted into an A-Level history question about Hitler, the word 'Despot'. Their formerly gleaming eyes dull into glazed incomprehension. As one, their mouths fall open like so many fish and thin trickles of drool begin to collect in their laps. Once-pristine knuckles sprout thick hair and slip to rest upon the ground.

I'm hardly the sharpest tool in the box (my academic record speaks for itself in its unremitting mediocrity) but if I hadn't known what a Despot was when I was 18, I wouldn't have joined groups to complain about it; I'd've kept it damn quiet. I'd've been embarrassed. Perhaps I'd've thought that this gap in my knowledge was at least in part my own responsibility. I didn't even study History to that level, and I think there was little chance of my being asked about the despotic tyranny of Hydrogen over the periodic table in my Chemistry final.

I know some of you lot out there are teachers - what the devil? Can you shed any light on this for me?

Updated from cavalorn: Nice to see groups appearing expressing a contrary position.

Comments

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it's a breadth of experience thing; I picked up a lot from general reading, which perhaps this bunch of kids haven't because as that additional knowledge isn't tested it isn't considered important enough to retain?

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I do wonder if the relentless stream of tests that kids are put through isn't helpful. I remember English, in particular, being fun, right up to GCSEs. We had to read books, write stories, and weren't tested much. I can imagine that always cramming for the next standardized tests isn't helping anyone.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

The more time passes, the more proud I am that I can say I never once voted for the steaming pile of imbeciles who pass as our government.

One thing about education which strikes me is that the Swedish and Danish education systems consistently top the standards across Europe, so I'm at least vaguely optimistic (If not outright hopeful) about the scandinavian-style reforms suggested for after the next election.
Neither Sweden nor Denmark, apparently, formally test their students before the age of 16, so less jumping through hoops all round.

[pond823.livejournal.com]

Hey Dave, Sasha here your friendly neighborhood anarchist here :)

So are you ok with Swedish & Danish style tax systems too? We'll need them to pay for the their kind of education system. (Which by the way is great BTW, I have a fantastically well educated Danish girlfriend)

Anyway, I'm sure the only reason I knew what a despot was at 18 was because of D&D too, which implies our education system has always been broken. It's also a terribly worded question that would definitely have got my goat when I was 18.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

A quick dekko at compariative tax rates horrifies me; the tax take in notoriously tax-happy Sweden appears to be only about 5% more of GDP than it is in this country thanks to various schemes like higher business rates and council taxes in this country to hide true costs. Indeed, if I lived in either Sweden or Denmark it appears I'd be paying less total tax for a better service. Do I have a problem with paying less for better results? Do I heckers, like.

Unfortunately, the amount of money put into a system is no guarantor of effectiveness. The system itself appears to be at fault, not the spend on it. That's one thing that winds me up pretty effectively; the claim that public services will improve as an automatic effect of raising taxes. I'd've hoped the last decade would have put paid to that particular calumny, but it still lingers in some places.

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

A couple years back The Economist suggested that getting better teachers (http://xinkaishi.typepad.com/a_new_start/2007/10/economist-educa.html) might help quite a bit.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Nonsense! Everyone knows that the only solution to any problem is higher taxes.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

However, pressing on, according to the UN, the best education system in the world is the South Korean one. I know next to nothing about what they do, but it strikes me that whatever it is, we should be doing more of it.
At the same time, If I lived in South Korea I'd be paying 40% less tax than I do here (as would everyone). I'll plump for that solution, if I may.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

This is a good article about education policy - worth reading: http://xinkaishi.typepad.com/a_new_start/2007/10/economist-educa.html

[pond823.livejournal.com]

It is interesting. I fear the biggest problem we face in the UK is a cultural problem. Teachers are seen as 2nd class. Both my parents were teachers (yes, I'm a cliche, lol), my mother finished her career as the head of one of the top performing infant & junior schools in L.B. of Haringay, no mean feat.

Her life long desire to help people improve themselves meant it was her first and only career choice. She got OU degrees in Astrophysics, Geology, History, Sociology & Literature. My dad became a teacher after being a graphic designer for years and did so, again, because he wanted to give something back. My dad now helps out 3 times a week at an autistic and special needs school, on Broadwater farm council estate, for free and thinks it's the best work he has ever done.

I not as talented as them and yet in on my 30th birthday when I was half the age of my mother, my salary was 5k short theirs combined. Years of running the profession down and the subtle beating of greed into me has meant I too view the profession with distaste. I wish I were less shallow.

So, the think tank missed an important point in my mind and it's step one. Remind Britain that teachers are the life blood of our future and should be held up against the emergency service & doctors.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Not all teachers are seen as second class - a friend of mine is a housemaster at Harrow, and he's seen as anything but second class by his pupils and their parents; then again, I do think that people are more likely to value things they pay for.

That said, the she-David is a Red-Flag waving, internationale-singing pinko and she informs me that on her trips to Cuba she was amazed by the respect with which teachers are held. The description reminds me of an early Victorian print I have somewhere about the place of a schoolmaster (in cape and mortarboard) being bowed to in the street by children and their parents alike.

I think a large part of the problem is that somewhere along the line we've disengaged education from aspiration - as someone says in another comment, kids want to be celebrities and education is often seen as an optional extra. I think there are many reasons for this - target driven (rather than education driven) education, comprehensive education and a lack of options of schools condemning a generation or two of smart, poor kids to a rotten education, plus the unemployment figures (I did a post about this about 3 before this one if you want more details) meaning that for many there is no correlation between going to school and getting paid employment.

I'm sure there are more reasons.

[pond823.livejournal.com]

I think I have another one. I've worked at Endemol, Sky and C4 and while being shut away in the IT team doesn't expose you to everything there, I certainly saw an amazing disconnection in the upper middle class production staff.

They shaped the views, aspirations and morals of a generation and didn't know. They'd complain bitterly about teens today, about all the things we agree are wrong without stopping to consider if they should make yet another Big Brother or talent contest. These are the new teachers and they couldn't care less.

They are surprisingly a lot like the traders I worked with in the city, in utter denial that they should or could have any guiding influence on their social environments. They retreat to fortress Englishman's home is his castle in Surrey but still think the starving peasants outside should have the same value judgments as them. If ever the term Ivory Tower was applicable then it is to them. And these, these were the nice ones. The nasty ones, the ones really climbing to the top, were the wolves that would shoot all the chickens and store them in their great big freezers in Zurich.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I have to wonder how much of the TV commissioning behaviour is down to the internet and the fracturing of the advertising market; I was watching some Poirot and the old granada Sherlock Holmes over the weekend and I was downright astonished by the production standards; I'd say the only time we see anything of that standard now is in joint productions like ROME.
Big brother is very cheap to make and lots of people watch it, so it's good TV as far as C4 are concerned.