Posted by Ben @ February 4th, 2010 5:05 am. Filed under: I'm Keeping The Whole Class Back,Oh Yeah? Let's See You Write A Better Petition!,Won't Somebody Please Think Of The Children? — Tags: Lorraine Hounsome —
There’s the argument that school is becoming too dumbed down. There’s also the argument that school is becoming too complicated and hard. Invariably these arguments always seem to come from the same people.
Fortunately the esteemed Miss Hounsome is only making one of these arguments. Unfortunately, she’s a dunderheaded cheese goblin.
by Lorraine HounsomeOnly teach Primary school children the basics. Forget about I.T, R.E, ART, HISTORY ETC. Teach them English, Maths and Science and only that. When they start to attend secondary school in the first couple of years they can then start to learn other subjects. Teachers are having to spread the school day very thin due to many other lessons.
Hell, why even bother teaching Maths or Science? Any sums they’ll ever need to do in their pathetically short, sheltered lives can be solved using a simple calculator, and they’ll never really need any of that scientific gobbledy-gook. I mean, almost everything I know about science I learnt from watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, and I learnt what mitosis is from Sabrina the Teenage Witch. And if Twitter and Facebook are any indication, kids today aren’t retaining anything they’re learning in English classes anyway so you may as well scrap those as well.
So, y’know. Let’s just rename schools to Nap Centres and let the kids sleep all day. That way they won’t have to worry their little heads about anything.
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The reason for this petition is because many of the children leaving primary schools can’t read or write. However, they can use a computer and draw.
I see it as just helping the teachers and children out. What’s wrong with that?????
So your logic is to shift things in entirely the other direction so that they can read and write, but can’t use a computer or draw. Seems to me you want to try and find some kind of middle ground which, if my education is anything to go by, plenty of schools seems to be doing just fine.
Or maybe the parents could take an active involvement in their children’s educations as well rather than just shuttling them off to school and letting them get on with it. But perhaps in today’s busy world asking the parents to do a little bit of parenting is too much to ask for.
The reason children can use computers and the elderly can’t is that children were brought up on them. If we don’t teach IT to children then we, as a country, are royally fucked.
I mean, if my experience is anything to go by the lessons themselves are pretty worthless, but the more time spent in front of computers, the better. And all different kinds of computers would be better still.
I really do get what your saying.
However, When they get to eleven that’s when they have the lessons on these subjects.
If you read some of the ofsted reports some of the schools (NOT ALL) are doing bad in English, maths and science. Yet they are wining awards for healthy eating etc..
I do think I.T is important as I was brought up on it with many of the other subjects. If a school is doing bad in the main subjects they should take away R.E etc. and concentrate on the basic ones.
So because some schools aren’t doing well with English, Maths and Science, all schools should teach English, Maths and Science exclusively until the kids reach a certain age? I’m sorry Lorraine, but that’s pretty damned stupid.
Yes Ben.
They are the most important subjects and ALL the schools should be getting great grades in those subjects.
My primary school focused on those 3 main subjects, yes there were other subjects but these were learnt through the basic subjects.
When we all left to attend secondary, we were at such a high level in maths to then take GCSE MATHS in the third year, not year five and ace them.
Well bully for you, Lorraine. I’m sure when Andrew and I are sitting here picking holes in the wafer-thin layer of polystyrene you’ve used to prop up your poorly-thought out plan for educational reform that involves taking out all of the lessons kids may actually find interesting enough to keep them in school and stunting their I.T skills drastically, you can take solace in the fact that you were, at age 14, able to do slightly more complicated mathematical problems than other kids your age. I mean hey, those kids were probably wasting their time learning about World History or the many different crackpot religions that exist on our crappy little blue marble. And Heaven forfend they take an interest in the Performing Arts. We wouldn’t want kids wasting their time learning the guitar or the piano when they can memorize the first 50 digits of Pi, am I right?
Here’s the long and the short of it, Krabappel – Even putting aside the severe stunting of kids’ IT skills your masterful suggestion would cause, Maths, Science and English are all terminally boring classes for kids. They’re the reason kids hate school. Now we all recognise that they are, at their core, absolutely essential. But kids don’t get that. Glod, no. That’s why you take the boring peanuts of English, Science and Maths and wrap them in the caramel, nougat and chocolate of Drama, Music and, yes, even History and Geography. Because what right-minded eight year-old wouldn’t want to hear about massive, bloody wars or how the Hell Volcanoes work, am I right? That’s the stuff that keeps school interesting.
Kids ain’t computers. You can’t just uninstall the games and cram their heads full of data and expect them to run more efficiently. People don’t work that way, and that goes doubly for children. You feed ‘em with just peanuts, they’re going to go out and find other ways of getting the chocolate.
I agree with you with regards to “that’s the stuff that keeps school interesting”.
But the teachers if they are worth there weight in gold can make any subject interesting.
With reference to learning the guitar, they don’t tend to teach that in primary anyway. So ner ner. 
Only secondary and even then the comments above saying parents should be more involved is a must.
By the way as much as we both have totally different opinions, I think this website is a great idea.
But the teachers if they are worth there weight in gold can make any subject interesting.
Do you know anything about kids? Let me tell you something about peanuts – you can salt ‘em, honey-roast ‘em, do whatever you want with ‘em. But that the end of the day they’re still peanuts, and as nourishing as they may be nobody can be satisfied with peanuts alone.
With reference to learning the guitar, they don’t tend to teach that in primary anyway. So ner ner.
My primary school did. In fact they taught a lot of instruments. I tried to learn the guitar, failed, and took up the piano instead. My sister learnt to play the cello. Boom!
By the way as much as we both have totally different opinions, I think this website is a great idea.
At last! Something we can all agree on! 
PaulPower reckons:
One of my friends has argued that there’s not much point in teaching science until kids have the necessary mathematical background anyway. Whether this is a good idea or not, I don’t know.
Either way, this petiton seems like a bad idea.
February 4, 2010 at 7:14 pm