Teaching and the cock-eyed attitude to it.

Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.
Jacques Barzun, quoted in The Guardian.

If you pay pathetic salaries you get what you ask for. A young lad I know, 12, left his publically-funded primary school unable to spell and with indifferent grammar. The school had been praised as being one of the best in his county. This was no inner-city deprived area, but in the well-heeled commuter belt. The school was overcrowded, classes were far too big, and the teachers had insufficient time to devote to non-achievers. The school was underfunded because tax is, of course, a dirty word. No tax, no funding.

As soon as conservatives get into office they tinker, cut and privatise. This applies on both sides of the Atlantic. Sensible Epicureans believe that education is one of the most precious things we can impart to the next generation. Every child should have an equal start, and this means that every school should be properly – and publically – funded properly, and the best and most motivated people hired to teach. Those who are obsessed with paying no taxes and who have no respect for teachers and education should be requested to stop standing in the path of civilisation

2 Comments

  1. This time I can’t restrain myself, which I usually do, from saying how emphatically I agree witht Epicurus on unfair funding of public education. The American system of local property tax-based funding of public education underpins and perpetuates second rate education for the poor, and society at large reaps the whirlwind.

  2. Bravo, Dan! A cousin of mine is leaving education before her normal retirement. She has won all sorts of awards, and has been parachuted into schools to improve them on several occasions. A stellar teacher and a good administrator. But she says she can no longer continue under a government determined to privatize, and to reduce “education” to he simple rote learning of times tables and dates of kings. Conservatives often have privileged educations, but deny real education to less lucky children. Shame on them!

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