The UK Education Secretary has deemed that only British texts are worth studying, dropping classics like 'Of Mice and Men' because it is taught too much and is American

http://www.bbc.com/news/education-27563466

English literature should apply to all books etc written in the English language, should it not? I'm all for a shake up but to dismiss books written overseas is just stupid, discounting a lot of great literature for the sake of patriotism is just stupid imho. What does dakka think?

I find this rather amusing.

I would understand if it was about some of the more recent American texts like the Twilight series but older literature? Wut? Seems really narrow-minded to me, looks like someone's forgotten that the British Empire died quite a few decades ago...

Michael Gove is an idiot. You won't find many in the UK who think otherwise, save for Toby "How to lose friends and alienate people" Young who wants to have Gove's babies.

I dunno what to make of this really. I mean, it's not exactly a bad thing to say, "lets have more books being discussed that are about more local issues by more local authors."

On the other hand, can you really get better than To Kill a Mockingbird for discussing so many different issues in the same book?


I'm Scottish, so a fairly huge part of our curriculum was based very much around Scottish literature. - It helped that Robert Burns had very strong ties to the local area.

It's not quite how its represented in the article.

Under the previous regime there was a move to eliminate much of the schools indigenous literary content with exception of a mandatory nod to Shakespeare . This was alongside a dumbing down and selective attention of the history curriculum.

Studying the UK's past and works from those times was seen as 'colonial' or just failing to be multi-cultural enough.
Including American classics instead of the likes of Dickens helped with the policy of de-anglicisation, which in turn aided long term government goals.

 Compel wrote:

I'm Scottish, so a fairly huge part of our curriculum was based very much around Scottish literature. - It helped that Robert Burns had very strong ties to the local area.

There is a wide gulf between New Labour's approach to Scottish and English identity and culture. One was to be actively encouraged, the other passively discouraged.
Scotland wont be affected by the reforms, because Scotland wasn't subjected to the same style of dogmatisation.

 Flashman wrote:
Michael Gove is an idiot. You won't find many in the UK who think otherwise, save for Toby "How to lose friends and alienate people" Young who wants to have Gove's babies.

Actually I find it funny I totally got your quote as a joke on 'how to win friends and influence people'. Bits of it seem really good too and very helpful.

What comes to mind when I hear this is the same I felt when I heard the Nazis from world war II considered there to be Jew Science and considered it inferior to their own science. The problem with this is of course that they're so arrogant that they're only relying on their own ideas instead of all forms of thought which is really restricting. Their rival nations instead were relying on all forms of thought and that put them at a disadvantage. In my physics class I heard the top scientists that had been captured from the Nazis were in disbelief that we actually developed nukes and managed to use them on japan. This is something they themselves thought they could not do.

This will only have the effect of hurting british people if this person wishes to restrict them so much.

 Orlanth wrote:
Under the previous regime there was a move to eliminate much of the schools indigenous literary content with exception of a mandatory nod to Shakespeare . This was alongside a dumbing down and selective attention of the history curriculum.

Studying the UK's past and works from those times was seen as 'colonial' or just failing to be multi-cultural enough.
Including American classics instead of the likes of Dickens helped with the policy of de-anglicisation, which in turn aided long term government goals.

Why does this sound like a UKIP talking point?

 Ahtman wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
Under the previous regime there was a move to eliminate much of the schools indigenous literary content with exception of a mandatory nod to Shakespeare . This was alongside a dumbing down and selective attention of the history curriculum.

Studying the UK's past and works from those times was seen as 'colonial' or just failing to be multi-cultural enough.
Including American classics instead of the likes of Dickens helped with the policy of de-anglicisation, which in turn aided long term government goals.

Why does this sound like a UKIP talking point?

It isn't, perhaps it should be. Actually fixing this is clear Tory policy.

The main changes are coming with the history curriculum which are to be announced in August. We know little about what is changing but teachers have already been told that history curricula will have to cover at least 200 years. This is to counter the current curricula which encourages schools to only teach modern history, again it is believed this was so as to not foster a sense of historical national cultural identity to get in the way of a modern trendy one.

Also nowhere in the DfE changes is Steinbeck or Harper Lee taken off any lists of approved literature, the OCR examination board did this themselves. DfE guidelines call for UK based authors to be included as part of the mandatory curricula, taking American authors off is not quite the same thing. It certainly isn't a ban. The BBC are being typically dishonest about this, but then its still New Labour at the core so no surprise there.
The DfE under the current government are trying to deprogram the literature and history curricula. The changes are intended to include British culture and history that is often 'overlooked'.

I can understand your incredulity Ahtman, in the US if a school didn teach US culture and history let alone not fly the stars and stripes people would quickly see something is wrong. The UK has many schools that do the equivalent, and people react with disbelief when it is mentioned, or think it extremism to do so.
Youmay want to vist the link in the Op and read some of the comments, some came from recent students giving witness that they didn't study UK literature and history at schools and wished they had the opportunity to do so.

 Orlanth wrote:
It's not quite how its represented in the article.

Under the previous regime there was a move to eliminate much of the schools indigenous literary content with exception of a mandatory nod to Shakespeare . This was alongside a dumbing down and selective attention of the history curriculum.

Studying the UK's past and works from those times was seen as 'colonial' or just failing to be multi-cultural enough.
Including American classics instead of the likes of Dickens helped with the policy of de-anglicisation, which in turn aided long term government goals.

In california we recently had a push to get rid of half the white teachers in all schools so Latin kids can learn better.
wel also tried to include Ebonics in the SAT.

The schools I've worked in/attended have always drawn a distinction between British and American literature, but it's always been a muddy dividing line. It's never been clear if they meant authors who were born in the respective nation, who were immigrants who just wrote there, or who emigrated elsewhere. Or all of the above, which means there are several authors who are eligible for inclusion in either class.

I think that if you've got a British literature class, then you might justify excluding authors who haven't been involved in the UK at all. But in a general English class, then I think all works in the English language (or by English speaking authors) should be eligible for inclusion.

I went through the English schooling system a decade or so ago. We did Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet pre-GCSE, and then for GCSE did Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men', and Friel's 'Translations'.

Nothing wrong with either, although the fact that we did the slave trade in history at the same time as 'Translations' and the way both were taught gave you the most peculiar feeling that you were meant to be ashamed to be English.

There's nothing wrong with American literature in essence, although I can't say I've ever read any that particularly stood out to me as magnificent, be it Steinbeck or Fitzgerald. Would be nice to see some Wilde or something else interesting in the curriculum though.

I did my GCSE on 'Mice and Men' and 'A View from the Bridge' both of them will probably be stuck with me for my lifetime.

I hate the way you guys spell things.

Books I remember from School, Scottish Higher and Standard Grades:

Of Mice And Men, with of course, a focus on the references to Robert Burns 'To a Mouse.' - It makes sense, really.
Macbeth (Well, duh)
Romeo and Juliet
Othello
To Kill a Mockingbird
A Catcher in the Rye

And possibly a few odd choices...
Flour Babies
Brighton Rock(!)
Flowers for Algernon


Plus, of course, plenty of Scots poetry, mostly by Burns but some more recent ones too. I also remember doing 'Dulce Et Decorum Est' and other related poems.

 poppa G wrote:
I hate the way you guys spell things.

You mean like doughnut?

I did the Red Pony and Grapes of Wrath but I went to school during the eighties
Romeo and Juliet in 10th
Couple more books I can't remember

I'm Scottish and went to school in Scotland (funnily that, eh?) and we never really covered Burns poetry all that much. I'm quite glad as I can't stand it. We did go through about 3 or 4 Shakespeare plays though. I'd also like to state for our international audience that the Scottish Education system isn't a nationalist hotbed.

I don't think this is a bad idea as such. It really depends on what they choose to go with. More Orwell i'd say! Covered Animal Farm, but I think that's done in quite a few schools. I don't really remember enjoying "Of Mice and Men" that much, certainly enjoyed "To kill a mockingbird".

 poppa G wrote:
I hate the way you guys spell things.

Correctly, aye?

For Standard Grades I remember doing MacBeth (For the Play) and Of Mice and Men
In 4th year We did The Crucible and Frankenstein and I remember for Poetry doing "The Road Less Travelled" by Robert Frost
In Higher wed did "The Butcher Boy" and "A Doll's House"

So a mix of of English, American with some Irish and Danish mixed in

For History for Int 2 we did: Birth of the Welfare state, Immigrants and Exiles (Scottish & Irish emigration around the world) and the Road to WW2, out teacher also wanted to do the Race Equality stuff (Like Martin Luther King Jr) But the department head shot it down as we didn't have enough time to cover it enough for it to be useful in our exam
The higher course my school offered revolved around Road to War (again) and the Reunification of Germany

 Flashman wrote:
Michael Gove is an idiot.

Never a truer word was spoken.

Apparently he used to be a wargamer...

Do you want to play a game?

 Orlanth wrote:
[ The changes are intended to include British culture and history that is often 'overlooked'.

I did history up to higher and we were taught far more English history than Scottish history. In fact the only Scottish history that I remember was the second Jacobite rebellion and a bit about Malcolm Canmore and even that was only a handful of lessons before standard grade (which wasn't even examined).

I would really like to see a definition of 'British' culture, after all in order to teach something it really needs to be defined.

 Ketara wrote:
I went through the English schooling system a decade or so ago. We did Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet pre-GCSE, and then for GCSE did Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men', and Friel's 'Translations'.

Nothing wrong with either, although the fact that we did the slave trade in history at the same time as 'Translations' and the way both were taught gave you the most peculiar feeling that you were meant to be ashamed to be English.

That pretty much sums up the indoctrination. Makes you want to be part of the New Britain that eschews its past.

 Medium of Death wrote:
I'm Scottish and went to school in Scotland (funnily that, eh?) and we never really covered Burns poetry all that much. I'm quite glad as I can't stand it. We did go through about 3 or 4 Shakespeare plays though. I'd also like to state for our international audience that the Scottish Education system isn't a nationalist hotbed.

The distinction is designed to foster devolution not seperatism. For New Britain to work, English culture has to be trod on, in favour of multi-culturalism, Scottish culture doesnt as its already multicultural enough by espcousing a distinction. This appears to be working, I read last week in the press that of the schools that had held debates on Scottish independence every one had chosen to stay with the UK. I am not sure about the sourcing of the aforementioned comment, and thus cant comment further on that. However Wee Eck reduced the vioting age to 16 because he believes he will get a vibrant youth movement that is easy to instill nationalist fervour in, I wonder if he likes what he gets.

English culture trod on? Can you explain that further?

Alex Salmond is a horrible little man that really would drive Scotland to independence regardless of the outcome. He just wants his name down in History. In the event that it does happen, hopefully the SNP and himself will be a footnote. I hope his reduction of the voting age for the referendum does bite him in the arse because it's a devious move. He should have lowered the voting age entirely, rather than for this one issue.

 Medium of Death wrote:
He should have lowered the voting age entirely, rather than for this one issue.

I don't think he can, I believe it is up to the electoral commission to do things like that and they are under Westminster control.

I would take Alex Salmond over 'Dave' any day of the week for any task.

Interesting that Gove focuses particular criticism on Of Mice and Men, a book about inequality and prejudice set in a period of depression and unemployment.

 Palindrome wrote:

 Medium of Death wrote:
He should have lowered the voting age entirely, rather than for this one issue.

I don't think he can, I believe it is up to the electoral commission to do things like that and they are under Westminster control.

I would take Alex Salmond over 'Dave' any day of the week for any task.

It's might be difficult but I doubt it would be outwith the realms of possibility.

I'd choose him over Mr Cameron. Doesn't mean I like him though!

I've voted for the SNP before as I like alot of the stuff they are doing, I just don't particularly like their leadership and the path they've taken us on with independence.

The re-joining the EU/having some connections with Britain farce that is still to be properly clarified is a source of major annoyance to me. I wouldn't mind if they said we are going to join Europe and take on the Euro. I really wouldn't care. Britain had to bail out European countries anyway, despite not being part of the Currency Union so I doubt it will make much difference.

Thank goodness. The reason why is stupid but stupid people have tried worse things.

Salmond may not be that great an option but he's definitely a better option than Lamont, Davidson or Rennie. and definitely better than David "I don't have a vote so I won't debate anybody but let me lecture you about it" Cameron

Completely agree. Best of a bad bunch. To be fair I think Alex Salmond should be debating the leader of the No campaign not the PM. This shouldn't be a case of Scotland vs The ConservativeS (which it kind of is anyway).

 Medium of Death wrote:
Completely agree. Best of a bad bunch. To be fair I think Alex Salmond should be debating the leader of the No campaign not the PM. This shouldn't be a case of Scotland vs The ConservativeS (which it kind of is anyway).

it should be between the heads of the Yes and No campaigns, Salmond just being the SNP leader and consequently First Minister

Who's front running the Yes campaign if it isn't Salmond?

 Medium of Death wrote:
Who's front running the Yes campaign if it isn't Salmond?

Technically there is someone else, but as the Scottish Parliament has been given authority to run the ballot it has become the Alex Salmond show. I think this is deliberate, Salmond is egotistical in the extreme and give him enough rope and he will hang himself, and by giving the Scottish parliament control over the process they cant complain if they lose and demand a re-run. There has been very little input from Westminster into the campaign, which is fair and logical, its for Scots to decide. The only thing i remember happening was a change of the ballot wording. The orginal wording was 'Do you agree that Scotland should become and independent nation?' this was quite rightly considered a leading question and thus unfair. So it was changed to IIRC "Should..."

Anyway maybe we should get back on topic.

i remember To Kill a Mockingbird from school, but then we also did a number of books many of them British writers.

The great thing about literature is that each generation and culture answers the same questions in their own distinct ways. A firm grounding in your own is important, but once you begin broadening your reading pool you can see the essence of what it is to be human. I have no problem with cycling these two novels to the wayside- in all honesty, I've never taught either in 8 years teaching English in the United States.

I've found Frankenstein to generally be higher interest and address many of the same themes.

 Ketara wrote:
I went through the English schooling system a decade or so ago. We did Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet pre-GCSE, and then for GCSE did Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men', and Friel's 'Translations'.

I finished school in 2007.

We did Shakespeare, naturally. The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet and perhaps a couple others that I don't recall. Lord of the Flies (ugh). And the Crucible.

At the time, I was really into the Lord of the Rings (the books, the films, the SBG game by GW) and I was really disappointed that we'd never studied Tolkien in school. Told my Year 11 teacher that and it turned out she was a Tolkien fan herself.

And we really out to have studied George Orwell's 1984. It perfectly predicted modern politics.

 Medium of Death wrote:


I've voted for the SNP before as I like alot of the stuff they are doing, I just don't particularly like their leadership and the path they've taken us on with independence.

The re-joining the EU/having some connections with Britain farce that is still to be properly clarified is a source of major annoyance to me. I wouldn't mind if they said we are going to join Europe and take on the Euro. I really wouldn't care. Britain had to bail out European countries anyway, despite not being part of the Currency Union so I doubt it will make much difference.

I really don't get Salmond.

An "Independent" Scotland + Currency Union with the UK = / = true Independence.

And I think it would be quite insulting to Scottish voters in the event that they voted for Independence, but monetary control remained with Westminster and the Bank of England - what would at that point be a foreign country.

Either go for full Independence and establish your own currency, surrender your newly won Independence to the EU by adopting the Euro, or don't bother.

 poppa G wrote:
I hate the way you guys spell things.

Blame the French. Or more specifically the Normans.

There are, in my opinion, a number of books that are more relevant to modern British life, that are by British authors, that should be included in the Secondary syllabus. I'd like to see:

'1984' by George Orwell
'Down and Out in Paris and London' by George Orwell
'A Passage to India' by E. M. Forster
'Trainspotting' by Irvine Welsh
'Heart of Darkness' by Joseph Conrad (technically a Polish emigre, but I'm inclined to think that would add an interesting dimension to his inclusion)
'A Clockwork Orange' by Anthony Burgess.
Also, something by Tolkein and maybe ' From Hell' by Alan Moore.

Well, I finished my English GCSEs a year ago. We did Macbeth, A View From the Bridge, and Wuthering Heights. We managed to avoid Of Mice and Men, and To Kill a Mockingbird.

To be completely honest, I really don't care about this. I found the exams I did in English to be completely useless anyway, the text we were analysing played little part in it. That said, I could see an argument against including too much American literature on the grounds that you people don't speak English, like, proper, like what I does.

This is great news. If it means that one more schoolkid doesn't have to suffer the trauma of enduring The Great Gatsby, then more power to Gove's elbow!

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
This is great news. If it means that one more schoolkid doesn't have to suffer the trauma of enduring The Great Gatsby, then more power to Gove's elbow!

This I can agree with. Its bad enough we subject ourselves to such horror. Doing so to the children of other countries should be an act of war!

 LordofHats wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
This is great news. If it means that one more schoolkid doesn't have to suffer the trauma of enduring The Great Gatsby, then more power to Gove's elbow!

This I can agree with. Its bad enough we subject ourselves to such horror. Doing so to the children of other countries should be an act of war!

It is an act of war! Consider yourself lucky that your country spends $600 billion a year on its military

Well with gak like the Atlas Shrugged floating around we kind of have too

When I was at school we did a lot of foreign literature including Spanish, French and Latin (sometimes in the original language, for language classes of course) as well as American.

Foreign literature can give you an eye into a different time or culture. Great literature is great literature wherever it was written.

Michael Gove is widely regarded as a fool.

 warspawned wrote:
The UK Education Secretary has deemed that only British texts are worth studying, dropping classics like 'Of Mice and Men' because it is taught too much and is American

http://www.bbc.com/news/education-27563466

English literature should apply to all books etc written in the English language, should it not? I'm all for a shake up but to dismiss books written overseas is just stupid, discounting a lot of great literature for the sake of patriotism is just stupid imho. What does dakka think?

That's a shame. Some of our stuff is gooder than other stuffs, though.

Tinfoil hat on, American literature would be ok. If it was translated into English(yanks can't spell).
Gove is an idiot, no doubt about that.
As for Salmond, every time I see him I imagine him on a plate with an apple in his mouth.

Color and flavor shouldn't have a U in it!

Stop the madness!

 kronk wrote:
Color and flavor shouldn't have a U in it!

Stop the madness!

Well phonetically they should have a U rather than an O so at least we are better than you unwashed heathens.

 Palindrome wrote:

 kronk wrote:
Color and flavor shouldn't have a U in it!

Stop the madness!

Well phonetically they should have a U rather than an O so at least we are better than you unwashed heathens.

You're just jealous because you know unwashed heathens have more fun

Okay, seriously, that cannot be right. Have they forgotten Lovecraft was American. What have they done? The horror, the unspeakable horror!

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Okay, seriously, that cannot be right. Have they forgotten Lovecraft was American. What have they done? The horror, the unspeakable horror!

So don't speak of it.

 LordofHats wrote:

You're just jealous because you know unwashed heathens have more fun

Stinky fun and thats no fun at all.

 kronk wrote:

 warspawned wrote:
The UK Education Secretary has deemed that only British texts are worth studying, dropping classics like 'Of Mice and Men' because it is taught too much and is American

http://www.bbc.com/news/education-27563466

English literature should apply to all books etc written in the English language, should it not? I'm all for a shake up but to dismiss books written overseas is just stupid, discounting a lot of great literature for the sake of patriotism is just stupid imho. What does dakka think?

That's a shame. Some of our stuff is gooder than other stuffs, though.

Yep, crazy as it might sound, I would put the complete collection of Calvin & Hobbes at the same level as many of the traditional "greats."

 loki old fart wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Okay, seriously, that cannot be right. Have they forgotten Lovecraft was American. What have they done? The horror, the unspeakable horror!

So don't speak of it.

Speaking of unspeakable horror, it is all that Lovecraft ever spoke about, AFAIK .

Gove is such a fething moron. How anyone can think he is suitable to be in charge of anything never mind something as important as eduction I will never know.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Speaking of unspeakable horror, it is all that Lovecraft ever spoke about, AFAIK .

We can't talk about Lovecraft as he was a filthy American writer, and thus not worth our time.

Cannot believe I forgot this one we went over as Junior year. "All Quiet on the Western Front". Those damn boots of Kemmerich. Harsh living make simple creature comfort go far.

At my highschool (in the US) we read shakespeare, asimov, bradbury, a bunch of US literature and poems and some german stuff.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

And we really out to have studied George Orwell's 1984. It perfectly predicted modern politics.

The purpose of a deliberate narrowing of the literature curriculum was to de-anglicise; this in turn was for party political ends. These political ends would not be served if that book was on the curriculum, we are coming very close to 1984 in many ways.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

I really don't get Salmond.
An "Independent" Scotland + Currency Union with the UK = / = true Independence.
And I think it would be quite insulting to Scottish voters in the event that they voted for Independence, but monetary control remained with Westminster and the Bank of England - what would at that point be a foreign country.

To give Salmond some credit he knows what he is doing there, fortunately others can see it too.
An independent Scotland with monetary Union would be a country tied to an economy roughly nine times its size. Bad thing for independence? No, not for Salmond. What it would enable Salmond to do is to borrow massively, and while borrowing is excessive already this is nothing compared to what it could be. I am talking Iceland levels of borrowing. Scotland could borrow several times its GDP as Iceland did, roll in the good times and President Salmond gets reelected. Scotland would appear to do very well under the bubble, which in turn would kick off the Welsh for independence, but that's a side issue.
However the bubble will burst, just like it did for Iceland. However for the SNP this is no bad thing because with currency union the UK would guarantee Scotlands debt. Both countries would be bankrupted, but Scotland would ber able to default, rely on oil and claw back something in about five years. And will have thev benefits of the infrastructure Salmond orders built in ther meantime.

Now you might say 'borrowing safeguards' however when has that ever stopped a frivolous government, furthermore you can compound that because the person doing the borrowing is the sovereign leader of another country, the most anyone could do would be to complain, you wouldnt be able to stop anything. This assumes that the borrowing isn't concealed to begin with, by parseing it through banks.

It is not for me to say whether Salmond would be a bad or good thing for Scotland, he is tough enough to defend Scottish interests. Look how he recently took on the EU.
But what I can say is that we would be very foolish indeed to trust him with a joint bank account with the UK, especailly as much of his 'international' rhetoric is belligerent. If Salmond is willing to threaten to cut off Norway from international shipping, illegally I might add, and Salmond has no especial beef with Norway. What might he do to a 'partner' UK he has no love for and can screw over. Salmond is very clearly Anglo-phobic, from witness of those who have met him. He is however savvy enough not to show this face in public often. To him an economic plan that benefits Scotland in the short term, get him two terms in power and bankrupts England is a win-win-win.

From an English point of view Salmond cannot be trusted, and currency union is a complete non starter. Thankfully the position of the HM Treasury is broadly comperable, and I suspect for similar reasons.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

Either go for full Independence and establish your own currency, surrender your newly won Independence to the EU by adopting the Euro, or don't bother.

That is part of two of Salmond's hissy fits that he tries to whitewash off as 'project fear'.
- Scotland will have to go through the application process to join the EU. France has already formally confirmed this, and can veto Scotland's application. Spain has already started that it will veto Scotlands application. The SNP want Scots to believe this is UK pressure and part of 'project fear', however any look on the subject of Gibraltar will tell you Spain and the UK are not in a cooperative mood. Spain will veto because if Scotland joins the EU the Basques will be emboldened and want their own independence. Thius for Spains own benefit the application must fail.
- If Scotland joins as a new member state is must join the Euro. Currency union with the UK is one way out of that. But.....

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 poppa G wrote:
I hate the way you guys spell things.

Blame the French. Or more specifically the Normans.

Normans weren't French. the French for Viking is Les Normands. England was conquered by the Vikings several times, and compeltelt conquered twice, the most recently in 1066. England was never conquered by France.
Most Frenchies know enough of Dark Age history not to try this one.

 Orlanth wrote:

The purpose of a deliberate narrowing of the literature curriculum was to de-anglicise; this in turn was for party political ends

I think your need to get yourself a new tin foil hat, yours is starting to get a bit worn.

 Palindrome wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

The purpose of a deliberate narrowing of the literature curriculum was to de-anglicise; this in turn was for party political ends

I think your need to get yourself a new tin foil hat, yours is starting to get a bit worn.

I don't honestly have one. The curriculum is open to dogmatisation, most notably through English Literature and History.

Gove has not banned the American authors, that was what the OCR is saying. The OCR drew up their list and reported those as the titles they choose to replace to add in the required volumes of British authors. Read the OP's link carefully.
The OCR source did say Gove hates 'Of Mice and Men' so what, dfirst we dojt know if thats true second we don't know if that relevant. The book was never disapprooved. Here is all the guidelines set out to do.

Department for Education wrote:
Scope of study
GCSE specifications in English literature should require students to study the following content:

Detailed study
Students should study a range of high quality, intellectually challenging, and substantial whole texts in detail. These must include:
 at least one play by Shakespeare
 at least one 19th century novel
 a selection of poetry since 1789, including representative Romantic poetry
 fiction or drama from the British Isles from 1914 onwards.
All works should have been originally written in English.
Within the range of texts above, the emphasis should be on deepening students’ understanding. The texts should be chosen with the key aim of providing students with knowledge to support both current and future study.
To broaden their knowledge of literature, and enhance their critical and comparative understanding, students should read widely within the range above to prepare them for ‘unseen’ texts in the examination. These unseen texts may or may not be by authors whose works students have studied as set texts.

Reading comprehension and reading critically
 literal and inferential comprehension: understanding a word, phrase or sentence in context; exploring aspects of plot, characterisation, events and settings; distinguishing between what is stated explicitly and what is implied; explaining motivation, sequence of events, and the relationship between actions or events
 critical reading: identifying the theme and distinguishing between themes; supporting a point of view by referring to evidence in the text; recognising the possibility of and evaluating different responses to a text; using understanding of writers’ social, historical and cultural contexts to inform evaluation; making an informed personal response that derives from analysis and evaluation of the text
 evaluation of a writer’s choice of vocabulary, grammatical and structural features: analysing and evaluating how language (including figurative language), structure, form and presentation contribute to quality and impact; using linguistic and literary terminology for such evaluation (such as, but not restricted to, phrase, metaphor, meter, irony and persona, synecdoche, pathetic fallacy)
 comparing texts: comparing and contrasting texts studied, referring where relevant to theme, characterisation, context (where known), style and literary quality; comparing two texts critically with respect to the above.4
Writing
 producing clear and coherent text: writing effectively about literature for a range of purposes such as: to describe, explain, summarise, argue, analyse and evaluate; discussing and maintaining a point of view; selecting and emphasising key points; using relevant quotation and using detailed textual references
 accurate Standard English: accurate spelling, punctuation and grammar.

You see nothing there about withdrawing Steinbeck or Harper Lee, the list above requires inclusive content, not explusive content. Most English Literatuire courses will cover more works than just four.
So why would the OCR complain? Because they don't like the changes and are being disingeuous about their critique. The OCR high ups were appointed under New Labour and are New Labour to the core.


Instead of shouting tin foil tin foil, perhaps you should think a little and remove the blinkers. 'Tin foil' is a good retort to those who think the guvment puts cameras in toilets, and extra flouride in the water. Those who say that they school curriculum has been ideologically compromised do so with clarity and realism. Every demagogue knows that you should start early to get the most out of the populace. It is also pointless trying to say it cant happen here.
These are extreme examples, but are also reasions to be mindful, Uk culture has been deliberately underfocused over the last decade, and a study of the History and Literature curriicula from UK schools from the last fifteen years shows a disturbing pattern which Gove is trying to counter and Exam board grandees appointed under the Blair years are trying hard to lampoon. I wonder why.




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 Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:

For History for Int 2 we did: Birth of the Welfare state, Immigrants and Exiles (Scottish & Irish emigration around the world) and the Road to WW2, out teacher also wanted to do the Race Equality stuff (Like Martin Luther King Jr) But the department head shot it down as we didn't have enough time to cover it enough for it to be useful in our exam

For Example.

 Orlanth wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 poppa G wrote:
I hate the way you guys spell things.

Blame the French. Or more specifically the Normans.

Normans weren't French. the French for Viking is Les Normands. England was conquered by the Vikings several times, and compeltelt conquered twice, the most recently in 1066. England was never conquered by France.
Most Frenchies know enough of Dark Age history not to try this one.

I know that. But they did speak medieval French (or a bastardised form of it) and the Norman invasion imported parts of the French language into England.

Hence I was joking "Blame the French for our weird spelling".

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 poppa G wrote:
I hate the way you guys spell things.

Blame the French. Or more specifically the Normans.

Normans weren't French. the French for Viking is Les Normands. England was conquered by the Vikings several times, and compeltelt conquered twice, the most recently in 1066. England was never conquered by France.
Most Frenchies know enough of Dark Age history not to try this one.

I know that. But they did speak medieval French (or a bastardised form of it) and the Norman invasion imported parts of the French language into England.

Hence I was joking "Blame the French for our weird spelling".

Ok, point taken. Yes there is Ferench influence in our language, but also so much else that it isn't really a problem. Nordic and Celtic languages make up English alongside the French and Latin. This is a good thing as it gives English it's exceptionally broad and expressive vocabulary. Now we just need to stop those Yanks from fething it up too much.

 kronk wrote:
Color and flavor shouldn't have a U in it!

Stop the madness!

The proper spelling on 'Colours' has 7 letters in it, making it a doddle to use in advertising
As for the 'u', I don't think we used it half the time when the US was getting set up. We just standardised on different formats.

 Orlanth wrote:

Instead of shouting tin foil tin foil, perhaps you should think a little and remove the blinkers.

I don't have any blinkers on, I simply am not eager to draw conclusions from dubious evidence. You still haven't explained exactly what 'UK culture' is either, without doing so you can hardly claim that it is being eroded on ideological grounds, assuming that is what 'New Labour' was doing in the first place.

 Orlanth wrote:
the French for Viking is Les Normands.

I thought the French for Viking was Viking.
Not trying to pretend “French people invaded England”, because I sincerely doubt projecting the French and English identity as we know them currently on entities from the Middle Ages that have little and less to do with them makes any sense, though.

 Palindrome wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

Instead of shouting tin foil tin foil, perhaps you should think a little and remove the blinkers.

I don't have any blinkers on, I simply am not eager to draw conclusions from dubious evidence. You still haven't explained exactly what 'UK culture' is either, without doing so you can hardly claim that it is being eroded on ideological grounds, assuming that is what 'New Labour' was doing in the first place.

Well that is a logical non-sequitor. It's equally difficult to describe 'French Culture' or 'US culture' per se without being trite. You could still tell if French culture or US culture were not being taught or accessed in their respective schools though.

As for revision on ideological grounds, the evidence is all around you. Here is some sourced just from this thread:
1. The OCR has chosen removed American literature from its curriculum as its means of complying with DfE guidelines, not Gove, but blamed Gove anyway. This is dishonest and politically motivated.
2. The OCR and similar examination boards are expected to review schools choices from the curricula available.
3. A history curricula consisting entirely on multiculturalism ethnic history and the events (mistakes) that led to the second world war must have been approved by an examinations board, which is expected to see that the curricula is not biased or politically leading.
4. There are cases of school curricula being eroded for ideological grounds going through the courts.

Of course the list goes on, but I wanted to just keep to what you can reference or infer from right here.
My evidence is not dubious, what is dubious is blaming the Education Secretary for not teaching 'Of Mice and Men'. The DfE guidelines are clear, linked were provided and the actually relevant text copied to this thread. Nowhere were American authors unapproved of, nowhere were they banned or discouraged.
You still jumped on the 'Gove is an idiot for withdrawing American authors' bandwagon without reading or thinking, and then critique the facts presented after someone does.
Sorry the blinkers are definitely there, none so blind as those who refuse to see.

Albatross wrote:There are, in my opinion, a number of books that are more relevant to modern British life, that are by British authors, that should be included in the Secondary syllabus. I'd like to see:

'Trainspotting' by Irvine Welsh

'A Clockwork Orange' by Anthony Burgess.

and maybe ' From Hell' by Alan Moore.

Yeah good luck with that, anything with even the smallest amount of graphic sex/violence/substance abuse etc is considered 'inappropriate' to be read by schoolchildren by those-that-think-they-know-best, in case the unsavoury content doth corrupt their teenage children's innocent a pure minds.

Those books would never get a look in simply because the f-word occurs in amounts > 0

Despite the fact that I remember my teenage years essentially being a blur of watching other people indulge in graphic sex, violence and substance
abuse (not so much for me, I am was an abject coward and not very good with the ladies...)

 Orlanth wrote:

You could still tell if French culture or US culture were not being taught or accessed in their respective schools though.

How? If you want something taught you need to define what it is you are teaching. In this particular case the teaching of specific books is to develop a students understanding of the English language, to give an insight into creative writing and other such things. it is not to teach students how to be 'British', aside from anything else there is no such thing as 'British' culture.

Why do you need to teach a particular culture in schools anyway, surely it is simply picked up from those around you?

 Palindrome wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

You could still tell if French culture or US culture were not being taught or accessed in their respective schools though.

How? If you want something taught you need to define what it is you are teaching. In this particular case the teaching of specific books is to develop a students understanding of the English language, to give an insight into creative writing and other such things. it is not to teach students how to be 'British', aside from anything else there is no such thing as 'British' culture.

Why do you need to teach a particular culture in schools anyway, surely it is simply picked up from those around you?

Of his whole post, you choose to respond only to that one line?

My evidence is not dubious, what is dubious is blaming the Education Secretary for not teaching 'Of Mice and Men'. The DfE guidelines are clear, linked were provided and the actually relevant text copied to this thread. Nowhere were American authors unapproved of, nowhere were they banned or discouraged.
You still jumped on the 'Gove is an idiot for withdrawing American authors' bandwagon without reading or thinking, and then critique the facts presented after someone does.
Sorry the blinkers are definitely there, none so blind as those who refuse to see.

Instead of responding to this, you choose to change the subject...

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

Of his whole post, you choose to respond only to that one line?

We have already had this exact same discussion in another thread(s?), I can't be arsed repeating myself (too much).

Of Mice And Men and To Kill A Mockingbird are not that great. It's a pity they are foisted on American children but we have a need for low-hanging fruit like these and The [not so] Great Gatsby. There certainly is no good reason that children outside of the US should be made to read them.

I quite liked To Kill a Mockingbird, I only read it a couple of years ago as well

 Manchu wrote:
Of Mice And Men and To Kill A Mockingbird are not that great. It's a pity they are foisted on American children but we have a need for low-hanging fruit like these and The [not so] Great Gatsby. There certainly is no good reason that children outside of the US should be made to read them.

I will second you on Of Mice And Men. Predictable and shallow in my opinion (studied it two years ago for my GCSEs).

Texts should just be chosen on their merit, regardless of where they come from. Also would it kill educators to study more upbeat texts? We had to study poetry on the theme of conflict, which was monstrously boring, and not as emotive to me as the authors had hoped. Of course, YMMV. That, Of Mice And Men (the original title for that is so much better) meant that English was really boring. An Inspector Calls made up for it a bit though.

Haven't read To Kill A Mockingbird, I've been recommended it occasionally.

Mockingbird does deal with some pretty darned big stuff and I certainly don't know any book that quite matches the same 'big stuff' it deals with in a similar way.

As for, 'Of Mice and Men' aside from the Burns connection, the most important thing for it is so that you can be suitably horrified about Season 3 of The Walking Dead....

"Look at the flowers..."

 4oursword wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Of Mice And Men and To Kill A Mockingbird are not that great. It's a pity they are foisted on American children but we have a need for low-hanging fruit like these and The [not so] Great Gatsby. There certainly is no good reason that children outside of the US should be made to read them.

I will second you on Of Mice And Men. Predictable and shallow in my opinion (studied it two years ago for my GCSEs).

Texts should just be chosen on their merit, regardless of where they come from. Also would it kill educators to study more upbeat texts? We had to study poetry on the theme of conflict, which was monstrously boring, and not as emotive to me as the authors had hoped. Of course, YMMV. That, Of Mice And Men (the original title for that is so much better) meant that English was really boring. An Inspector Calls made up for it a bit though.

Haven't read To Kill A Mockingbird, I've been recommended it occasionally.

That is the real challenge- what novel deals with those issues while being upbeat? Those themes usually don't occur in happy, cheerful novels.

Well, this is true. The poetry was the worst, and didn't really deal with much.

 4oursword wrote:
Well, this is true. The poetry was the worst, and didn't really deal with much.

I liked my higher English teacher (For a variety fo reasons) but one was she avoided poetry for our class at all costs, all it does it take revision time away from your folio/exam prep

Would that we could have avoided poetry to the same degree. There were 7 other topics in the anthology, and we got conflict :l

As an aside, Albatross, A Clockwork Orange can be studied at A-Level English, along with a lot of other books on the theme of dystopia. Good luck getting GCSE students to read them and understand them, though.

 Palindrome wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

Of his whole post, you choose to respond only to that one line?

We have already had this exact same discussion in another thread(s?), I can't be arsed repeating myself (too much).

Have we?
There hasn't been a thread on this particular topic before.

 Palindrome wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

You could still tell if French culture or US culture were not being taught or accessed in their respective schools though.

How? If you want something taught you need to define what it is you are teaching. In this particular case the teaching of specific books is to develop a students understanding of the English language, to give an insight into creative writing and other such things.....

You can study syntax, prose and writing styles from a vast range of books, however while studying this you also end up studying the content of the book.

 Palindrome wrote:

it is not to teach students how to be 'British',

Its also not intended to teach students to ignore that they are British or to grow up ignorant of our culture.
instilling a sense of national identity in the schools system via the education process is quite normal, most (all that I have heard of) nations see the benefit in doing so. However some types howl when we try it here, it doesn't fit their political comfort zone.

 Palindrome wrote:

aside from anything else there is no such thing as 'British' culture.

I need say little more to prove the need for a balanced education. Seeing as you come from the UK, and deny there is any British culture. Sadly I do hear this a lot, and it shows the brainwashing is really sinking in. You wouldn't get a Frenchman saying there is no French culture, and no one could get away with saying the French have no culture. Even though the same pointers are visible in France and in the UK highlighting our respective cultures.


British culure, examples from the top of my head:
OK for a start British culture is the mix of the variant constituent cultures of the UK brought together by a common society and language. As the UK has had an enormous cultural influence on the world, particularly from English culture but also from the British culture as an offshoot of the Union. English culture developing into British culture includes several of the most popular sports played in the world today including rugby, rounders (baseball), football and cricket. The English cultural tradition of trial by jury became a part of British culture through the Union and then globalised.
National culture can also often be defined by diet and culinary choices, the UK has a largely unified culinary palette which can be considered British rather than from the constituent nation states.
When looking at architecture as cultural iconograpghy there is a lot which is distinctly British also. In particular the ironworks of the early Industrial Revolution, which happened first in the UK. While originally technically English there was heavy Scottish influence in that many of the prominent engineers were Scottish and many of the great works were built in Scotland. One can argue that the works of Brunel could symbolise an aspect of British culture.
I will stop there, but the list does not.

Seeing a Britiash culture has shaped the world as it is today, probably more so than any other. It is ignorant in the extreme to assume it doesnt exist. For starters there would be no US culture without British culture, its a direct descendent culture. Are you going to try and claim the Americans have no culture either?

 Palindrome wrote:

Why do you need to teach a particular culture in schools anyway, surely it is simply picked up from those around you?

Possibly including dogmatised teachers or others who tell you there is no British culture; also 'those around you' may not been taught anything about their nationality because its politically expedient to re-envision the nation for party benefit. The effect is accumulative.

 welshhoppo wrote:

 poppa G wrote:
I hate the way you guys spell things.

You mean like doughnut?

perhaps he refers to the ubiquitous unnecessary 'u' in words like armor, color, etc.
i know that always bugs me, just a little bit.

morpheuschild wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:

 poppa G wrote:
I hate the way you guys spell things.

You mean like doughnut?

perhaps he refers to the ubiquitous unnecessary 'u' in words like armor, color, etc.
i know that always bugs me, just a little bit.

I think that would be some latent French influence in spelling. Given traditional british cultural hostility towards them you think they'd gladly purge the language of unnecessary U's.

For reference, in French, colo(u)r is couleur, armo(u)r is armure.

 4oursword wrote:
Would that we could have avoided poetry to the same degree. There were 7 other topics in the anthology, and we got conflict :l

As an aside, Albatross, A Clockwork Orange can be studied at A-Level English, along with a lot of other books on the theme of dystopia. Good luck getting GCSE students to read them and understand them, though.

We touched on a few passages from it at GCSE level as I recall.

I really, really enjoyed To Kill a Mockingbird.

On a similar subject... we also read and watched A Time to Kill...

 MrDwhitey wrote:
I really, really enjoyed To Kill a Mockingbird.

On a similar subject... we also read and watched A Time to Kill...

uhm...
a time to kill a mockingbird...?

sorry, couldn't resist. i'll just show myself the door now.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

By "this exact same discussion", I think he means "admitting I was wrong, and rude".

Pot, meet kettle. By this 'discussion' I mean Orlanth attempting to claim that the UK education system has been deliberately engineered with the aim of making the population either ignorant or disdainful of British history by Labour while I maintain that it is bollocks. Feel free to trawl through my posting history to find it if you really, really want to.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Orlanth wrote:

I need say little more to prove the need for a balanced education. Seeing as you come from the UK, and deny there is any British culture. Sadly I do hear this a lot, and it shows the brainwashing is really sinking in.

There is no 'British' culture for the simple reason that the UK is so diverse its a gross oversimplification to claim that there is a single culture, you would be almost as well claiming that there is a European culture. The culture that I was brought up in is very different to that of the south of England which is itself different to the North East of England etc etc etc. If anyone has been brainwashed its yourself.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-27586376

Gove rebuts claims of American author ban

Education Secretary Michael Gove has hit back at "culture warriors" who he says have wrongly accused him of banning American novels at GCSE level.

Exam board OCR said it had left texts such as Of Mice and Men and To Kill a Mockingbird Bird off its English GCSE because of new guidelines from Mr Gove.

Responding in the Daily Telegraph, Mr Gove denied he had banned American authors in general or John Steinbeck.

"I have not banned anything. Nor has anyone else," he wrote.

"All we are doing is asking exam boards to broaden - not narrow - the books young people study for GCSE."

Newspaper reports on Sunday said Paul Dodd, OCR's head of GCSE and A-Level reform, had suggested Mr Gove "had a particular dislike for Of Mice and Men and was disappointed that more than 90% of candidates were studying it".

OCR said the decision to drop the works by American authors was because of the Department for Educations's desire for the exam to be more "more focused on tradition" and there were fewer opportunities to include them in the new syllabus.

'I read and loved them as a child'
In a Telegraph article on Tuesday, Mr Gove responded: "Do I think Of Mice and Men, Lord of the Flies and To Kill a Mockingbird are bad books? Of course not.

"I read and loved them as a child. And I want children in the future to be able to read them all. But sometimes a rogue meme can be halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on.

"Just because one chap at one exam board claimed I didn't like Of Mice and Men, the myth took hold that it - and every other pesky American author - has been banned."

The education secretary criticised those who used social media to hit out at his supposed ban.

"And without waiting to do anything as mundane as checking the facts, a host of culture warriors have taken to Twitter to denounce this literary isolationism.

"As an English literature graduate - and indeed unabashed Americanophile - I am rather pleased on one level that so many rhetorical swords should have leapt from their scabbards to defend both literature and the unity of the Anglosphere.

"But sadly I can't take too much delight in these protestations of literary affection. Because they are - in more than just one sense - rooted in fiction."

So in other words, the whole story was a load of rubbish.

William Golding was English anyway.

 Palindrome wrote:


Pot, meet kettle. By this 'discussion' I mean Orlanth attempting to claim that the UK education system has been deliberately engineered with the aim of making the population either ignorant or disdainful of British history by Labour while I maintain that it is bollocks. Feel free to trawl through my posting history to find it if you really, really want to.

Yet Labour appointees still in the system are doing anything, by fair means or foul to scupper the education reforms to counter a detectable dissaossiation from British history..
They don't like the literature reforms that are there solely to include Uk content to the extent that they will deliberately misrepresent what the Minister is doing, and they hate the history reforms.
Do yourself a favour, ask why.

 Palindrome wrote:

There is no 'British' culture for the simple reason that .....<snip>

He's at it again.
I even showed you examples of what is categorically British culture.




Thats to Ketara for linking Goves reply to this unfair story, I hope it puts the issue to bed. Vindicated.

4oursword wrote:Would that we could have avoided poetry to the same degree. There were 7 other topics in the anthology, and we got conflict :l

As an aside, Albatross, A Clockwork Orange can be studied at A-Level English, along with a lot of other books on the theme of dystopia. Good luck getting GCSE students to read them and understand them, though.

The way our education system is laid out, you don't need to understand them

You just need to memorise word-for-word how the exam board understands them.

Seriously, every time you see a question in an exam that contains the words 'your opinion' they actually mean 'our opinion', anything that deviates from the marking sheet is seen as incorrect, so if you actually form your own understanding of the messages and themes in a text, you will suffer as a result, but blindly regurgitate what's on the syllabus and your golden.

 Orlanth wrote:

I even showed you examples of what is categorically British culture.

If thats the best that you could do then you just proved my point for me, thanks.

 Leigen_Zero wrote:

4oursword wrote:Would that we could have avoided poetry to the same degree. There were 7 other topics in the anthology, and we got conflict :l

As an aside, Albatross, A Clockwork Orange can be studied at A-Level English, along with a lot of other books on the theme of dystopia. Good luck getting GCSE students to read them and understand them, though.

The way our education system is laid out, you don't need to understand them

You just need to memorise word-for-word how the exam board understands them.

Seriously, every time you see a question in an exam that contains the words 'your opinion' they actually mean 'our opinion', anything that deviates from the marking sheet is seen as incorrect, so if you actually form your own understanding of the messages and themes in a text, you will suffer as a result, but blindly regurgitate what's on the syllabus and your golden.

This does seem to be what i've gone through at both A level and GCSE. A level wasn't so bad about it but you did have certain points they wanted you to cover...

 Manchu wrote:
Of Mice And Men and To Kill A Mockingbird are not that great. It's a pity they are foisted on American children but we have a need for low-hanging fruit like these and The [not so] Great Gatsby. There certainly is no good reason that children outside of the US should be made to read them.

A thousand French Knights Break Wind in your general direction. To Kill a Mockingbird is refined awesomesauce. I don't think Brits would get it though. But if you're from the South, from an earlier time, there are a lot of themes there.

Agreed on Gatsby. I hated that book and just wanted every single person in it to die in a fire in front of me.

I think Brits should have to read Moby Dick. This would be epic payback for burning Washington.

 Palindrome wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

I even showed you examples of what is categorically British culture.

If thats the best that you could do then you just proved my point for me, thanks.

Well its not the best I could do, I mentioned that this was what I could come up with from the top of my head. I could trfy and write a more in depth reply but there is no need. When the evidence for something is so obvious that you can run off several answers from the top of ones head then that is evidence enough.
Here we are again highlighted in bold.

 Orlanth wrote:

British culture, examples from the top of my head:
OK for a start British culture is the mix of the variant constituent cultures of the UK brought together by a common society and language. As the UK has had an enormous cultural influence on the world, particularly from English culture but also from the British culture as an offshoot of the Union. English culture developing into British culture includes several of the most popular sports played in the world today including rugby, rounders (baseball), football and cricket. The English cultural tradition of trial by jury became a part of British culture through the Union and then globalised.
National culture can also often be defined by diet and culinary choices, the UK has a largely unified culinary palette which can be considered British rather than from the constituent nation states.
When looking at architecture as cultural iconograpghy there is a lot which is distinctly British also. In particular the ironworks of the early Industrial Revolution, which happened first in the UK. While originally technically English there was heavy Scottish influence in that many of the prominent engineers were Scottish and many of the great works were built in Scotland. One can argue that the works of Brunel could symbolise an aspect of British culture.
I will stop there, but the list does not.

Seeing a Britiash culture has shaped the world as it is today, probably more so than any other. It is ignorant in the extreme to assume it doesnt exist. For starters there would be no US culture without British culture, its a direct descendent culture. Are you going to try and claim the Americans have no culture either?

So, you have made no attempt to give any evidence to suggest that the above arer not examples of British culture.

Unless that is not the point you are proving, because you aren't intentionally proving any point, because you haven't forwarded an actual logical argument.

There is one point you are proving, quite unintentionally.
By persisting with your denial of the existence of such a thing as British culture, despite having lived and been educated here, and despite examples being shown to you; you do provide walking evidence that some of the youth of today have been successfully programmed, and have passed through the education system with no clear sense of national identity.

I can sympathise that you don't actually understand how important and alarming that is because frankly you have been brainwashed, and in all likelihood the degeneration of education from the last two decades has much to do with this.
It is also to be expected that you don't recognise you have been brainwashed and will fight the label, because that is part of the nature of brainwashing.
Wash, rinse, and spin. With extra, extra, spin.
That is not really your fault, but you can do something about it. Find someone from a generation older and ask them what they thought of their national identity. You can then find out for yourself.
It Britain truly had no culture, it would have shown long long ago, so if you look for one, you will find it quickly enough.

 Leigen_Zero wrote:

4oursword wrote:Would that we could have avoided poetry to the same degree. There were 7 other topics in the anthology, and we got conflict :l

As an aside, Albatross, A Clockwork Orange can be studied at A-Level English, along with a lot of other books on the theme of dystopia. Good luck getting GCSE students to read them and understand them, though.

The way our education system is laid out, you don't need to understand them

You just need to memorise word-for-word how the exam board understands them.

Seriously, every time you see a question in an exam that contains the words 'your opinion' they actually mean 'our opinion', anything that deviates from the marking sheet is seen as incorrect, so if you actually form your own understanding of the messages and themes in a text, you will suffer as a result, but blindly regurgitate what's on the syllabus and your golden.

True dat. The amount of people in my French class who just memorized their stuff word-for-word with no understanding of the meaning was depressing.

 4oursword wrote:

 Leigen_Zero wrote:

4oursword wrote:Would that we could have avoided poetry to the same degree. There were 7 other topics in the anthology, and we got conflict :l

As an aside, Albatross, A Clockwork Orange can be studied at A-Level English, along with a lot of other books on the theme of dystopia. Good luck getting GCSE students to read them and understand them, though.

The way our education system is laid out, you don't need to understand them

You just need to memorise word-for-word how the exam board understands them.

Seriously, every time you see a question in an exam that contains the words 'your opinion' they actually mean 'our opinion', anything that deviates from the marking sheet is seen as incorrect, so if you actually form your own understanding of the messages and themes in a text, you will suffer as a result, but blindly regurgitate what's on the syllabus and your golden.

True dat. The amount of people in my French class who just memorized their stuff word-for-word with no understanding of the meaning was depressing.

As someone who did French and German at GCSE last year, I can confirm that no understanding of the language is necessary to pass.

 Palindrome wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

I even showed you examples of what is categorically British culture.

If thats the best that you could do then you just proved my point for me, thanks.

First define culture.

You can certainly point to things like cricket, sandwiches, Midsomer Murders and London Pride beer and say these are elements of British culture.

Surely modern British culture also includes ice hockey, The Wire, curries, M&S sushi and Australian wine.

I was taught a lot of foreign literature when I was at school before most of you were born, at a good traditional private prep school that wasn't being interfered with by Labour Party apparatchiks, I might add.

Perhaps learning about foreign literature is part of British culture.

Interfered with by the Labour party? Did this happen in the... err... 70's?



Surely British culture is just absorbing the best/things we like most from others. Specifically commonwealth countries. Since we don't have an Empire anymore it's kind of spread further. Then again I don't particularly feel part of any culture. I think that perhaps that modern Britain doesn't have it's own culture. It's homogeneous and that's a good thing. A culture outwith a culture. I'm sure somebody can explain what I'm attempting to say better.

I don't think it particularly matters what that nationality of the author is. As long as the kids come out with a decent education, that should be what's most important. Perhaps British authors are enough of a resource to fulfil that task. I wouldn't really think of it as enforcing British culture though. I think Gove's proposals are stupid, but the idea if done correctly might not be bad. We've had a good few posts about potential authors that could be good choices.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

Its the other way round I think. You proved his point.

Orlanth claims that British culture, history and tradition has been marginalised and discouraged by a political agenda, and provided plenty of examples to back up his opinion.

In response, you simply scoff and make ad hominem insults of "tin foil hat" and "thats bollocks" and "theres no such thing as British culture".

Every post you make reminds me why you're on my ignore list.

If you think that using painfully generic examples of 'British Culture', especially if he has to resort to literal ancient history, proved his point then you are very much mistaken. Its always nice to be on someones ignore list but I have to ask, why are you responding to me?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Medium of Death wrote:

I see someone reads Viz

Actually a generic example of culture does prove a point.

It proves there is an underlying common culture in Britain.

There may be regional variations on the basic model, but its still there.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Actually a generic example of culture does prove a point.

Even if those points are common across countries throughout the world?

 Palindrome wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Actually a generic example of culture does prove a point.

Even if those points are common across countries throughout the world?

Hmmmm, country conquers much of the known world.

Much of world has common culture points.

Common culture points originate from country which conquered much of the known world.

Its not hard to draw a conclusion

 Grey Templar wrote:

Its not hard to draw a conclusion

Apparently its that English 17th century English culture is alive and well, oh wait........

Specific cultures are far too porous and mutable to pin down with anything but inadequate stereotypes which is why any notion of teaching 'British culture' is a fools errand.

British culture is being generally miserable because it's raining and grumbling about something else to pass the time.


OT: Of Mice And Men is a great book to have on the list of texts because it is not a very challenging book. That means it is suitable for lower set kids who might struggle with a longer, more complicated text. It allows them to read within their own range which means you can then test their understanding of the themes discussed and the techniques used.

Whereas if you give those same kids a much harder, longer text (such as an Austen novel) they will then be completely limited to reciting what their teacher taught them to say.

But then again, that's probably what Gove wants. A nation of badly educated people who can only recite what those in positions of power have told them to say.

I never said anyone one way or the other about teaching British Culture. I simply agree that one exists. You have been asserting that it doesn't, which is demonstrably false.

 Grey Templar wrote:
You have been asserting that it doesn't, which is demonstrably false.

While I think that proving that it exists is an impossibility. Orlanth is the one making the accusation that British culture is no longer being taught in schools.

Is culture taught in any school? That closest my school has gotten to that is US history.

Culture is taught by everything around you. That includes school, but that's only one factor.

If schools change what they are teaching they are changing the culture they are teaching. Is that good or bad? That's a matter of personal opinion.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Is culture taught in any school? That closest my school has gotten to that is US history.

Culture doesn't need to be taught, it pervades the whole of the society in which one lives.

When people ask for culture to be taught in school it is because they don't like the current culture and wish to change it to the culture that they would like.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
First define culture.

In fairness one can't without being trite. However this will apply to all cultures.

Let us take the example given of France.
It is impossible to deny the French have their own culture, but it is also hard to formally define it.

One can only give examples of it, and as warned before said examples when given as a list are a trite answer.
So for example French culture is 'defined' (badly) by:
Berets, long stick loaves, strings of onions, street mime, accordions, Eiffel Tower, garlic , escargots, frogs legs and other than those good food.
If I carry on a definition of a culture' is at best going to be two dimensional and at worst a racial stereotype.
What this exercise can do is not so much define culture as provide examples of it so that we know it exists.

Your mistake is to look at an art like a science, seeking to define culture as a subset. At least your comment is honestly intended, and I, like you, would want to define British culture.
However the lack of a clear definition is deliberately misconstrued as evidence of its non-existence, and proported as such by those who wish to deceive.
Hence why those who want to deny our culture are taught to bring this up as an 'argument'.
Said argument is cetegorically invalid as no national culture can be given a clear formal definition, because human populations and their respective artforms don't fit into neat labeled boxes. Yet we still know that culture exists.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

You can certainly point to things like cricket, sandwiches, Midsomer Murders and London Pride beer and say these are elements of British culture.

Ok your on.

Though you should really start with fish n' chips and football.

Most cultural markers are gastronomic, e.g. stars and stripes and blueberry pie, not that most Americans actually eat blueberry pie.
the other major indicator are sport preferences.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

I was taught a lot of foreign literature when I was at school before most of you were born, at a good traditional private prep school that wasn't being interfered with by Labour Party apparatchiks, I might add.

Broadly similar educational background to myself then.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Perhaps learning about foreign literature is part of British culture.

Every trading nation will trade culture, and the British are most definitely a trading nation being a maritime power.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Surely modern British culture also includes ice hockey, The Wire, curries, M&S sushi and Australian wine.

Less so, you could add curry because the UK eats a lot of it, you could definitely include Tikka Masala because its IIRc the nations most eaten dish, the recipe was also developed in the UK by Indian immigrants.
Australian wine is just a price choice, you could just as easily say Chilean or South African wines also.

Point here is this is where some would prefer to say this means anything can be potentially British culture, and isn't really British culture and therefore there is no British culture.
This rhetoric is where the ideology of there being no British culture spawns from. What those who spout it airbrush over is that this could be said of every culture on the planet, even such places with isolationist outlooks and very distinctive mores because all cultures are interlinked by our globalization.


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 A Town Called Malus wrote:

But then again, that's probably what Gove wants. A nation of badly educated people who can only recite what those in positions of power have told them to say.

Actually that is what we currently have got, and Gove wants to undo it.
I wont assume noble motives from him, but it is in Tory party interests to undo New Labourised indoctrination, I do not think that the current government would actually be able to get away with indoctrinating people the other way.
Its a bit off that many people are saying this is what them evil Tories are doing, when the facts show the current policy is for a broader rather than a suspicious narrowing of the curriculum, which is what we had/have and would be needed to indoctrinate.


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 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Is culture taught in any school? That closest my school has gotten to that is US history.

Culture doesn't need to be taught, it pervades the whole of the society in which one lives.

When people ask for culture to be taught in school it is because they don't like the current culture and wish to change it to the culture that they would like.

Culture is taught in school, the world over I might add, because it enbeds the next generation in society.
Culture is taught, it isnt just observeed, and culture is also to be participated in.

Let us take this to our earliest roots, in Tribalism.

Our national identities are just that our tribal bondings that we as humans develop. It is natural and beneficial to develop those bondings as it builds a former stronger society, this has been as true now as it was when trbies knew that in order to guard the warterhole they had to stand together with spears against the next tribe.

Culture has always been educational and participatory and it is mentally healthy to encourage children to participate.
This again is the same in a national curriculum, team sports, and cultural activities, as it is through tribal ritual around the campfire.

You might wonder if the changes are part of a political evolution then, but no there is no moving beyond our 'primitive past', as it's not primitive, it's just us, besides deceiving the tribe to become secure as big chief is part of the same old system. So the 'progressives' certainly haven't moved on and are in no way enlightened as the type of polltics that does something as damaging as messing with a stable established culture for personal power gain is as backward and crass as it comes, no matter how it's dressed up.


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 Palindrome wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

Its the other way round I think. You proved his point.

Orlanth claims that British culture, history and tradition has been marginalised and discouraged by a political agenda, and provided plenty of examples to back up his opinion.

In response, you simply scoff and make ad hominem insults of "tin foil hat" and "thats bollocks" and "theres no such thing as British culture".

Every post you make reminds me why you're on my ignore list.

If you think that using painfully generic examples of 'British Culture', especially if he has to resort to literal ancient history, proved his point then you are very much mistaken. Its always nice to be on someones ignore list but I have to ask, why are you responding to me?

Your contributions have passed into comedy.

First, the painfully generic examples I had mentioned several times that giving examples was trite, but still were useful as a pointer, as the examples can be given and are around today the culture thereofre exists.
Second, all examples of a national culture are by definition generic.
Third, as for the "resort to literal ancient history" that is what got me to respond to you. Palindrome, Ancient history, really? The only example I gave that was of a specific time was Brunel, who liveed from 1806 to 1859. Ancient history refers to events and peoples up to and including the Romans. You really thought Brunel was ancient history? Honest.
Last, maybe he was responding to you because even if you are on the ignore list, your posts will be visible if quoted by someone else.

text removed.
Reds8n

 Orlanth wrote:
You really thought Brunel was ancient history? Honest.

Nope, trial by jury which was a Greek innovation in the first place.

Do you guys read Twain or Vonnegut at all?

I read Huckleberry Finn in school (I think).

 Palindrome wrote:
I read Huckleberry Finn in school (I think).

See, I'd recommend Twain over Steinbeck if you were looking at a school age book, and if you were reading Steinbeck is recommend east of Eden or grapes of wrath over Of mice and Men 8 days a week. They're superior novels. They're just significantly longer.

Sometimes I think Of Mice and Men gets put on school reading lists more because of its length than it's quality.

And I'd put Hemingway over Steinbeck on my just reads for American lit. I feel like Sun Also Rises would be a really appropriate book for the European classroom....

I can't really remember what we had to read in school but I think the only US books were Huckleberry Fin and Death of a Salesman. I only did English up to Standard grade though.

 Palindrome wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
You really thought Brunel was ancient history? Honest.

Nope, trial by jury which was a Greek innovation in the first place.

It wasn't a continuous cultural connection as only individual city states had trial by jury and they in time were conquered and got Roman law. Hellenic culture was largely extinguished and remained buried for centuies, modern Greek culture has mostly different origins. Byzantium was Greek speaking, but was the Rome of the East, not a new Athens.

The modern trial by jury cultural original comes from the Anglo Saxons. This is where there is the distinction between Common Law and Roman Law, most of Europe's judicial systems broadly descend from Roman law. The Uk and nations based on UK culture such as the US, Canada, Australia, India and much of Africa etc have a judicial system based on English 'Common law', which became British law and British culture as the Scots adopted it also while independent.

It's not ancient, its medieval, like football, but like football its a part of a British culture that is anything but thin, are by no means a painfully weak addition to human culture, though they are generic. You got that bit right.

In any event none of this is medieval or ancient. Football is ongoing trial by jury is ongoing. The only cultural example I used was Brunel, Brunels works are of the past, evwen though they are in use today. But are clearly recent enough and broad enough to enter the common psyche. So much also the 2012 Olympics heavily featured Brunel as a symbol of host nation culture.

You going to challenge the rest of my post, or the earlier ones? Go ahead, I can take it.

 Orlanth wrote:

You going to challenge the rest of my post, or the earlier ones? Go ahead, I can take it.

What would be the point of doing a line by line refutation of your posts? I'm not in the mood to inflate my post count and I have already posted about twice as many times in this thread than I should have.

You simply can't take things that are common throughout the world and claim that they somehow constitute 'British' culture, its as easy as that. They may have originated in the British Isles, they may even have at one time been the sole preserve of parts of the UK but that's largely immaterial.

The UK is comprised of 4 distinct national groups which are further subdivided along preexisting or even imported cultural lines, how on earth can you claim that there is a single unifying culture that all these groups can claim as their own? In addition to that how can you claim that culture can be taught? You can teach a stereotypical parody of what is deemed to be 'culture' but that is all it will ever be.

What would you all recommend for school reading

 Jihadin wrote:
What would you all recommend for school reading

From what I remember from school; porn, lots of porn. Of course that doesn't really involve reading.

I'm not really sure to be honest, most of the 'classic' books that I have read I have found to be disappointing.

There's been a few suggestions made throughout the thread.

I think more Orwell would be a good start.

My reading base is very limited though. Perhaps more modern British authors?

In addition to the typical classics I'd add Tolkien, Bernard Cornwell, George Orwell, and, hell, maybe even a little G.R.R. Martin for final year 16 year olds.

By all means, teach Shakespeare, Of Mice and Men, The Crucible, etc. But lets kids study stuff that they'll actually enjoy too. Sharpe, Saxon Stories, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones...Let kids pick a novel of their choice to study and critique.

 Palindrome wrote:

The UK is comprised of 4 distinct national groups which are further subdivided along preexisting or even imported cultural lines,

Every nation has its subdivisions, some of those boundaries are as strong as those in the UK. The states of the US have thier own cultural identities, there is also a generalised US culture as well.

 Palindrome wrote:

how on earth can you claim that there is a single unifying culture that all these groups can claim as their own?

Because its true.
A good example would be the Monarchy, it clearly ticks the British box as monarchism is prevalent throughout all component territories of the UK, even parts of Northern Ireland, and embodies the Treaty of Union, and it would be beyond dumb to say there is no cultural influence going on.

 Palindrome wrote:

In addition to that how can you claim that culture can be taught? You can teach a stereotypical parody of what is deemed to be 'culture' but that is all it will ever be.

Culture is always taught, its taught through particicipation and/or by rote. This has always been true, from cavemen to today's society.
People learn to be a good Briton/Frenchman/American/Japanese etc etc
Culture is a learning experience, its not a random chaotic mash. You can tell the effects when one devolves into the other.

 Palindrome wrote:

What would be the point of doing a line by line refutation of your posts?

For a start you haven't refuted any single line of any of my posts, just handwaved it off as Shadow Captain Edithae, and likely others have observed.

Also many of your points were already refuted a priori. You called my examples of British culture 'painfully generic' as if thisd was a point in your favour, when I warned you on an earlier post that triteness was symptomic of all attempts to define culture British or otherwise. You also neatly ignored the flat fact that you cant define culture, British or otherwise and can't use that as an excuse to dream up a myth that British culture doesn't exist based on the universal lack of definability of culture. Yet you still tried to put that on with your next reply.

The point of you actually trying to read through and refute my posts is that it would include reading them. Your points have already been anticipated and refuted before you made them and yet you try to make them anyway, without any attempt to rebuff the logic that refuted them to begin with. This means you either aren't actually reading the posts you are claiming to have refuted as 'bollocks'; or you simply fail to understand what you are talking about, both of which are firm evidence of brainwashing.

So I have been wondering if you really could actually try to argue the issues, because so far you have made no actual intellectual attempt to rationalise a point of view, and to be both politically vocal and unthinking is generally not good.
However I think its time to call off the search. Palindrome, I should feel a little sorry for you, and go easy on you for here on in. Perhaps you are really just a victim, and you don't know any better than to spout the same easily refutable BS because you have been too thoroughly indoctrinated to understand anything else. I think someone really did a number on you.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
In addition to the typical classics I'd add Tolkien, Bernard Cornwell, George Orwell, and, hell, maybe even a little G.R.R. Martin for final year 16 year olds.

By all means, teach Shakespeare, Of Mice and Men, The Crucible, etc. But lets kids study stuff that they'll actually enjoy too. Sharpe, Saxon Stories, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones...Let kids pick a novel of their choice to study and critique.

HG Wells
Jules Verne
James Clavell
Frank Herbert
Larry McMurtry

 Orlanth wrote:

For a start you haven't refuted any single line of any of my posts,

I didn't need to refute them in detail, I refuted them all with a simple sentence, even ones you haven't posted yet, as your basic premise is fatally flawed.

You would have more mileage with teaching a set of values, real or aspirational, rather than stuff you would find emblazoned on a tea towel.

Let kids pick a novel of their choice to study and critique.

No. God no. Outside projects sure, but for classroom work that would be terrible for at least two reasons: creating a curriculum around something so random would be so vague as to be useless and because kids have gak taste/limited experience.

 Ahtman wrote:

Let kids pick a novel of their choice to study and critique.

No. God no. Outside projects sure, but for classroom work that would be terrible for at least two reasons: creating a curriculum around something so random would be so vague as to be useless and because kids have gak taste/limited experience.

Oh you can do it- the trick is to limit them to a set of thematically similar novels, and have them discuss them in reading groups. Any time a teacher offers you a 'choice', all your options are actually good choices.

I remember quite regularly doing 'book reviews' of books that I had chosen all throughout school as part of my coursework. They were basically short essays about the books. The teacher basically had a veto, and would pick one from the school library for the utterly hopeless / disinterested.

Then in 6th year, our 'Specialist Study' book could be on literally anything we wanted. And that was a far more in depth essay. I remember picking 'The Lord of the Rings.'

That was very quickly revised to. 'The Fellowship of the Ring' for some reason...

 Ahtman wrote:

Let kids pick a novel of their choice to study and critique.

No. God no. Outside projects sure, but for classroom work that would be terrible for at least two reasons: creating a curriculum around something so random would be so vague as to be useless and because kids have gak taste/limited experience.

I thought we were discussing what would amount to outside projects?

A book report would be an outside project.

 Ahtman wrote:

Let kids pick a novel of their choice to study and critique.

No. God no. Outside projects sure, but for classroom work that would be terrible for at least two reasons: creating a curriculum around something so random would be so vague as to be useless and because kids have gak taste/limited experience.

I meant only as a small part of the exam - worth only a smaller % of an exam's marks. E.g. There are X number of questions on the paper. The first few are all about the typical English literature, Shakespeare etc.

But the last question is like a case study - put into practice your skills (analysis, comprehension, inference, knowledge, awareness and understanding of literary themes) by critiquing a text of your choice (arranged beforehand with your teacher? You pick a book, and your teacher approves it if he/she decides its valid - hopefully filtering out dross like Twilight). At the very least, there ought to be an approved reading list

The idea would be to encourage kids to go and pick a book of their choice (though supervised by their teacher), and they read it, study it, enjoy it and get rewarded for being enthusiastic about literature by getting the chance to write about a book that they enjoyed and are enthusiastic about, as opposed to all the books that they were compelled to read and probably wouldn't have if it was up to them.

Its a chance for kids, after ploughing throw all the questions on compulsory books like Shakespeare etc, to write about something that they enjoy , and would require them to put their skills into practice without their hand being held by their teacher.

Tolkien, Jules Verne, HG Wells, George RR Martin, George Orwell, Bernard Cornwell, Conn Igguldem, JK Rowling etc.


I did well in English myself - I got an A in Eng. Literature and a B in Eng. Language. I've been an enthusiastic reader since primary school (about the age of 10 I became obsessed with reading). But MY GOD did I find GCSE English boring. We did Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet), The Crucible, Lord of the Flies (the most interesting, but very depressing ), and poetrey (Seamus Heaney ).

But at the same time, I was reading thinks like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter and I was loving it. Hell, I was once reported to the English Dep. Head and interrogated. I'd written a 10+ page essay and analysis of The Last Legion (Valerio Massimo Manfredi). Apparently, it was so good and so in depth that she thought my parents had written it. (this was like Year 9 though, not GCSE)

Let kids pick a book that they enjoy, even if its just for a small part of the exam. It'll make a big difference.

At the very least, there ought to be an expanded reading list, from which kids can pick one of their choice as one of the X number of books they must study.


Edit: this would probably work better as a component of Coursework, rather than an exam.

I thought you meant a more laissez faire approach where the students could pick any book they wanted, as opposed to a book from a short list. Excluding some private schools most teachers can't supervise 24 students reading 24 separate books and give meaningful feedback.

Using one student that did will doesn't really make a good metric either when setting policy for a school district let alone State or National guides. I read like mad in school but I'm not sure expecting every student to read three or four books a week outside of class work would be a good idea. For those that do good on em, but it isn't the norm.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I never said anyone one way or the other about teaching British Culture. I simply agree that one exists. You have been asserting that it doesn't, which is demonstrably false.

I don't think there is a unified British culture, there are cultural traits or features that we see as British which are defied by example (e.g. modesty and self-deprecation)
and cases where what is solidly "British" in one area is alien in another or completely absorbed in a separate culture. For example, cricket is endemic in England, nearly unknown in Scotland and fanatically played in Pakistan and India.

Indian food is a staple of modern British restaurant scene but nearly unknown in the home except for Anglo-Indian families.

text removed.

Reds8n

 Compel wrote:
Then in 6th year, our 'Specialist Study' book could be on literally anything we wanted. And that was a far more in depth essay. I remember picking 'The Lord of the Rings.'

That was very quickly revised to. 'The Fellowship of the Ring' for some reason...

Imagine the look on your teachers face if you'd chosen A Song Of Ice And Fire, or The Wheel Of Time.


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 Ahtman wrote:
I thought you meant a more laissez faire approach where the students could pick any book they wanted, as opposed to a book from a short list. Excluding some private schools most teachers can't supervise 24 students reading 24 separate books and give meaningful feedback.

No I was thinking of letting kids pick what they liked, with the teacher vetoing stupid choices. The onus would be on how the students' ability to comprehend a book and present their analysis in an essay, to an examiner/teacher who may not be familiar with it themselves. So its less of a box ticking exercise, and its more subjective.

If thats unpractical, and too much for one teacher to manage then at least provide kids with an approved Reading List from which they can choose; and it may work better as a Coursework component rather than as an exam question.

Using one student that did will doesn't really make a good metric either when setting policy for a school district let alone State or National guides. I read like mad in school but I'm not sure expecting every student to read three or four books a week outside of class work would be a good idea. For those that do good on em, but it isn't the norm.

text removed.

Reds8n

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
If thats unpractical, and too much for one teacher to manage then at least provide kids with an approved Reading List from which they can choose

You have 6 classes a day with 20-24 students in each class, so it would be a bit unwieldy to allow all of them free reign. The reading list isn't designed to disenfranchise students, at least, not purposefully.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
I never said anyone one way or the other about teaching British Culture. I simply agree that one exists. You have been asserting that it doesn't, which is demonstrably false.

I don't think there is a unified British culture, there are cultural traits or features that we see as British which are defied by example (e.g. modesty and self-deprecation)
and cases where what is solidly "British" in one area is alien in another or completely absorbed in a separate culture. For example, cricket is endemic in England, nearly unknown in Scotland and fanatically played in Pakistan and India.

Indian food is a staple of modern British restaurant scene but nearly unknown in the home except for Anglo-Indian families.

You definitely would have a few sub-cultures, but they'd all qualify as british. And the common threads are what can be called British Culture.

The same with any larger culture really, it will invariably have smaller cultural sub-groups but they are all still the same culture. Just slight variations on it.

 Grey Templar wrote:

The same with any larger culture really, it will invariably have smaller cultural sub-groups but they are all still the same culture. Just slight variations on it.

That's the point really, those variations can be as large within countries as without. The average Englishman, Scotsman, Australian or Canadian probably has about as much in common with each other as they are different, yet the last two aren't counted as British. There is no such thing as a unified whole, even if some people have issues understanding this.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
In addition to the typical classics I'd add Tolkien, Bernard Cornwell, George Orwell, and, hell, maybe even a little G.R.R. Martin for final year 16 year olds.

By all means, teach Shakespeare, Of Mice and Men, The Crucible, etc. But lets kids study stuff that they'll actually enjoy too. Sharpe, Saxon Stories, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones...Let kids pick a novel of their choice to study and critique.

I'm sorry but Tolkien intentionally used archaic language and is far too descriptive in his writing for it to be worthwhile. In an English class you get a book the teachers feel they can teach to an exam standard which involves being able to memorise passages of the novels and the themes which fit into these: simply while LoTR is worth the read it is too unwiedly to be taught in a classroom at any level other than A-Level/Advanced Highers

 Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
In addition to the typical classics I'd add Tolkien, Bernard Cornwell, George Orwell, and, hell, maybe even a little G.R.R. Martin for final year 16 year olds.

By all means, teach Shakespeare, Of Mice and Men, The Crucible, etc. But lets kids study stuff that they'll actually enjoy too. Sharpe, Saxon Stories, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones...Let kids pick a novel of their choice to study and critique.

I'm sorry but Tolkien intentionally used archaic language and is far too descriptive in his writing for it to be worthwhile. In an English class you get a book the teachers feel they can teach to an exam standard which involves being able to memorise passages of the novels and the themes which fit into these: simply while LoTR is worth the read it is too unwiedly to be taught in a classroom at any level other than A-Level/Advanced Highers

Heh. The Hobbit then.

I wasn't suggesting that it be taught in class, only that pupils can choose to study books like LOTR outside of school, as part of a Coursework assignment, or as a small part of their exam (a brief 1-2 page essay giving a synopsis and analysis of the themes etc).

Also, I find it odd that you think Tolkien deliberately used archaic language. He began writing the Middle Earth series nearly a century ago, in WW1 or thereabouts. Are you sure that what you regard as archaic language today was also archaic in the early 20th century?

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
In addition to the typical classics I'd add Tolkien, Bernard Cornwell, George Orwell, and, hell, maybe even a little G.R.R. Martin for final year 16 year olds.

By all means, teach Shakespeare, Of Mice and Men, The Crucible, etc. But lets kids study stuff that they'll actually enjoy too. Sharpe, Saxon Stories, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones...Let kids pick a novel of their choice to study and critique.

I'm sorry but Tolkien intentionally used archaic language and is far too descriptive in his writing for it to be worthwhile. In an English class you get a book the teachers feel they can teach to an exam standard which involves being able to memorise passages of the novels and the themes which fit into these: simply while LoTR is worth the read it is too unwiedly to be taught in a classroom at any level other than A-Level/Advanced Highers

Heh. The Hobbit then.

I wasn't suggesting that it be taught in class, only that pupils can choose to study books like LOTR outside of school, as part of a Coursework assignment, or as a small part of their exam (a brief 1-2 page essay giving a synopsis and analysis of the themes etc).

Also, I find it odd that you think Tolkien deliberately used archaic language. He began writing the Middle Earth series nearly a century ago, in WW1 or thereabouts. Are you sure that what you regard as archaic language today was also archaic in the early 20th century?

'Archaic language' is not a problem, it was just proper 'High English' (not a technical term) as used by some academics in the 1950's.
school curricula are expected to include 19th century literature and Shakespeare.

Lord of the Rings is fine, and there is much to learn from Tolkiens choice of vocabulary, the tempo of his works etc. Its very poetic and magically descriptive.

If it is not easily accessible, then I can hand on heart say that any English Literature curricula that makes Tolkien accessible though teaching are lessons worth paying taxes for. I had not problem understanding Lord of the Rings when it was read to me in English class at the age of eleven, it was also a formative experience.

Besides 'proper English Langauge starts with old English translation, or even studies of Latin. Both help understand the roots of the English language. at school we studied Chaucer, which while English is essentially a foreign language, at University level the first term is transtionally studying the Anglo Saxon myths which is like Chaucer but several steps more primordial.
I dont regret being taught to translate the prologue for the Knights Tale, even if nobody speaks like that anymore.

Still The Hobbit is also a good study text in its own right.

I had a friend who studied LotR for a psychology essay.

 purplefood wrote:
I had a friend who studied LotR for a psychology essay.

I am curious as to what inferences he drew from the work.

I read Lord of the Rings at the age of 12, and found it far more accessible than Shakespeare.

If kids are expected to study Shakespeare then I don't see how Tolkien can be considered too advanced.

That probably has more to do with length than readability. Any one book in LotR is a long read and classes have limited time. There's a reason books like Lord of the Flies and Shakespeare are so perfect for schools. They're just the right length for a quick brief work. Longer books often appear in reading classes but there's rarely room for more than two or three.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
I read Lord of the Rings at the age of 12, and found it far more accessible than Shakespeare.

If kids are expected to study Shakespeare then I don't see how Tolkien can be considered too advanced.

I cant see anything wrong with this statement. It's sad that some cant understand Lord of the Rings at 16, or older, even though others could as pre-teens.
I wonder if this is also a symptom of dumbing down, i claim no theory as yet, but from university lecturers I spoke to there is a clearly detectable pattern of declining literacy in the UK even at degree level. I am not too surprised that Tolkien is not considered accessible, but I am disappointed.

Shakespeare was barely accessible to me, and still much is not, to the extent that I can understand it but not enjoy it. So I can imagine how Lord if the Rings could become a chore, but what a terrible curse that would be.

In fairness Shakespeare is pretty easy to read if you get the references.

 purplefood wrote:
In fairness Shakespeare is pretty easy to read if you get the references.

True but that to me meant stopping and cross referencing then remembering afterwards, so it was understandable, but not enjoyable at any level. That's how I see it anyway YMMV.

 Orlanth wrote:

 purplefood wrote:
In fairness Shakespeare is pretty easy to read if you get the references.

True but that to me meant stopping and cross referencing then remembering afterwards, so it was understandable, but not enjoyable at any level. That's how I see it anyway YMMV.

That makes sense. Still Shakespeare has the best if you're looking for your mum jokes, fat jokes and dick jokes.

Sometimes I wish cultural theory wasn't a major component of my degree. Were that the case, these threads would give me less of a headache as I watch people who don't understand the meaning of the word 'culture' lecture others on culture. Culture at its most base level is signification by means of lived practice, encompassing everything from the visual arts and music to cuisine, idioms, habits and attitudes. Basically any form of lived practice in which meaning is made for it's own sake (the meaning, not the action, though actions may be undertaken for the specific purpose of creating meaning) is a cultural act. Incidentally, there IS a discretely British culture. Stop being a silly ideologue.

Right. Carry on.

 Orlanth wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
I read Lord of the Rings at the age of 12, and found it far more accessible than Shakespeare.

If kids are expected to study Shakespeare then I don't see how Tolkien can be considered too advanced.

I cant see anything wrong with this statement. It's sad that some cant understand Lord of the Rings at 16, or older, even though others could as pre-teens.
I wonder if this is also a symptom of dumbing down, i claim no theory as yet, but from university lecturers I spoke to there is a clearly detectable pattern of declining literacy in the UK even at degree level. I am not too surprised that Tolkien is not considered accessible, but I am disappointed.

Shakespeare was barely accessible to me, and still much is not, to the extent that I can understand it but not enjoy it. So I can imagine how Lord if the Rings could become a chore, but what a terrible curse that would be.

It's not to do with dumbing down of education. It is all to do with changes in how young people choose to spend their time, in part due to changes in technology.

Children who spend all their time on twitter and facebook and playing some video games (not all, mind you) will not build the vocabulary required to be able to understand Tolkein. This could be for a number of reasons, potentially due to having parents who are not interested in reading and so they don't read to their child or there isn't a variety of reading material in the house.

In such an environment the drive to read, and especially reading for pleasure, can sometimes not take root.

Children who, on the other hand, have parents who enjoy reading and so read to their child and had a wider range of texts available in the house will have a much better chance of instilling that love of reading.

During my year in which I worked in a secondary school library I lost count of how many year 7 (so 11 to 12 years old) children could basically not read. This is not entirely the fault of the primary school as no matter how much they try to get the child to read, if that isn't enforced or encouraged at home then the child will not make progress.

Well, I think young people would find LotR a little more enjoyable than Shakespeare.

And people who don't have the vocabulary to understand LotR certainly aren't going to understand Shakespeare, or any of Jane Austin's writing.

I did The Hobbit at prep school.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I did The Hobbit at prep school.

Know to my twisted mind that sounds like something you don't want to boast about!

Re dumbing down there's a definite changed in attitude from current generations in my experience. More confident but less knowledgable as they can pick up facts and guides online. They make the right noises but are less willing to ask questions as they know they can get the answer to on the Internet (then finally ask when Google lets them down!). Just my experience of some assistants (not all) over the last decade.

Of course my peers and Senior Directors are not that sharp either. In the last few months I have had to personally explain meanings for aquiese and cognicence among others. My office is regularly invaded by other managers wanting to know spellings, meanings and context of words. I do now put "long" words into emails on purpose to fish for "I had to looking that up" replies - it's good to know who the thickies are (and avoid ).

But then this is the construction industry; I got a C for English (D for Lit) so was never what you would call the sharpest knife in the bag.

Do you mean "acquiesce" and "cognisance"?

Shakespeare is meant to be seen, not read. Hated English at school ("analysing" text for gak that isn't there is not my idea of fun) despite reading literally hundreds of books through my school life (I got my mum to sign the form to say I could go into the adult section of the town library when I was about 8 and for several years I used to take out and read 8 books a week, added to all the books that I or my parents owned - lots of sci fi and fantasy).

Even now I read a lot - have about 1000 books on my kindle and have read about 500 (many more than once). Not read the rest as I made the mistake of downloading a large pack of books not realising they were some kind of furry fiction

There is a reasonably wide rabge of books on the old reading list - the problem is most teachers pick the same handful of gak books to teach as their workload means it is hard to branch out.

Shakespeare reads fine once you need to get used to the flow of the language and the stage directional presentation. Realistically, if you are to study the text it cannot be done by going to plays again and again, you have to have it at hand for reading.

 Orlanth wrote:


Most cultural markers are gastronomic, e.g. stars and stripes and blueberry pie, not that most Americans actually eat blueberry pie.

I certainly eat blueberry pie. Do a lot of Americans not actually eat it or something? Apple pie is usually thought of more iconic, I think, but blueberry pie is the superior dessert in my opinion.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Albatross wrote:
Sometimes I wish cultural theory wasn't a major component of my degree. Were that the case, these threads would give me less of a headache as I watch people who don't understand the meaning of the word 'culture' lecture others on culture. Culture at its most base level is signification by means of lived practice, encompassing everything from the visual arts and music to cuisine, idioms, habits and attitudes. Basically any form of lived practice in which meaning is made for it's own sake (the meaning, not the action, though actions may be undertaken for the specific purpose of creating meaning) is a cultural act. Incidentally, there IS a discretely British culture. Stop being a silly ideologue.

Right. Carry on.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt that way about this thread.

 notprop wrote:
Of course my peers and Senior Directors are not that sharp either. In the last few months I have had to personally explain meanings for aquiese and cognicence among others.

I learned that word from Pirates of the Caribbean. True story.

It honestly doesn't matter where you learn words from. What matters most, is that an individual takes an active interest in understanding their own language by seeking out the meaning of words they encounter but are unfamiliar with, thereby improving their vocabulary. Schools can instill at least a basic understanding of English etc, but if an individual doesn't care that they don't understand certain words, then they're hopeless.

If I ever see a word online that I don't understand, I'll google it. And I often look up the definition of words and phrases that I use but am unsure about, to make sure I'm using them correctly.

 Hordini wrote:

 Albatross wrote:
Sometimes I wish cultural theory wasn't a major component of my degree. Were that the case, these threads would give me less of a headache as I watch people who don't understand the meaning of the word 'culture' lecture others on culture. Culture at its most base level is signification by means of lived practice, encompassing everything from the visual arts and music to cuisine, idioms, habits and attitudes. Basically any form of lived practice in which meaning is made for it's own sake (the meaning, not the action, though actions may be undertaken for the specific purpose of creating meaning) is a cultural act. Incidentally, there IS a discretely British culture. Stop being a silly ideologue.
Right. Carry on.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt that way about this thread.

I can see where Albatross is coming from a culture is something that just is, and need not of itself generate argument.

However culture is also a political battleground and a political weapon, it is not facetious to want to be proactively aware over the issues of politicised culture.
After all a culture can also be imposed, molded and or destroyed, by military or political action.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Shakespeare reads fine once you need to get used to the flow of the language and the stage directional presentation. Realistically, if you are to study the text it cannot be done by going to plays again and again, you have to have it at hand for reading.

So the obvious solution is to watch the plays, but then analyze the script.

The script alone isn't going to be worth much.

Wenn ich Kultur höre ... entsichere ich meinen Browning!

 Orlanth wrote:

 Hordini wrote:

 Albatross wrote:
Sometimes I wish cultural theory wasn't a major component of my degree. Were that the case, these threads would give me less of a headache as I watch people who don't understand the meaning of the word 'culture' lecture others on culture. Culture at its most base level is signification by means of lived practice, encompassing everything from the visual arts and music to cuisine, idioms, habits and attitudes. Basically any form of lived practice in which meaning is made for it's own sake (the meaning, not the action, though actions may be undertaken for the specific purpose of creating meaning) is a cultural act. Incidentally, there IS a discretely British culture. Stop being a silly ideologue.
Right. Carry on.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt that way about this thread.

I can see where Albatross is coming from a culture is something that just is, and need not of itself generate argument.

However culture is also a political battleground and a political weapon, it is not facetious to want to be proactively aware over the issues of politicised culture.
After all a culture can also be imposed, molded and or destroyed, by military or political action.

Far more common is the process of acculturation, whereby those things I mentioned before (language, custom, art, cuisine etc) meet and interact with each other, eventually creating a 'new' culture. This has been most recently observed within the arena of the new media, which has given rise to a discrete 'internet culture'. See, what tribal left-wing know-nothings in this country always, frustratingly, seem to get wrong is that, yes, British culture has moved on from the days of empire to certain extent - our cultural tastes and attitudes have changed as we absorb new influences (and in turn influence others) but that does NOT mean that there is no longer such a thing as British cullture. The meaning of the term has just changed is all; there's still room for Brunel, Shakespeare, Elgar, the village green, tea, cricket and the concept of fair play, it's just that now, those things have been joined by tikka masala, drum & bass, two-tone, Mr Patel's corner shop, a drunken kebab and the word 'innit'. I personally love modern British culture. Many on the right do, it's not about nostalgia and a desire to return to past glories, it's about not forgetting the value of what went before, whilst still adapting to the changes in our society. That's the problem New Labour had - they pursued modernism for its own sake.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Shakespeare reads fine once you need to get used to the flow of the language and the stage directional presentation. Realistically, if you are to study the text it cannot be done by going to plays again and again, you have to have it at hand for reading.

So the obvious solution is to watch the plays, but then analyze the script.

The script alone isn't going to be worth much.

Certainly the plays are enjoyable in themselves. They were written to be performed, after all.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a particular favourite of mine. I have seen several productions and also appeared in a school production as Bottom, ha ha ha.

The normal pattern for study is to read the play and discuss it, then see it performed, then read and discuss again. The reading in the classroom is normally a "sit down" performance rather than a dry reading.

 Albatross wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

 Hordini wrote:

 Albatross wrote:
Sometimes I wish cultural theory wasn't a major component of my degree. Were that the case, these threads would give me less of a headache as I watch people who don't understand the meaning of the word 'culture' lecture others on culture. Culture at its most base level is signification by means of lived practice, encompassing everything from the visual arts and music to cuisine, idioms, habits and attitudes. Basically any form of lived practice in which meaning is made for it's own sake (the meaning, not the action, though actions may be undertaken for the specific purpose of creating meaning) is a cultural act. Incidentally, there IS a discretely British culture. Stop being a silly ideologue.
Right. Carry on.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt that way about this thread.

I can see where Albatross is coming from a culture is something that just is, and need not of itself generate argument.

However culture is also a political battleground and a political weapon, it is not facetious to want to be proactively aware over the issues of politicised culture.
After all a culture can also be imposed, molded and or destroyed, by military or political action.

Far more common is the process of acculturation, whereby those things I mentioned before (language, custom, art, cuisine etc) meet and interact with each other, eventually creating a 'new' culture. This has been most recently observed within the arena of the new media, which has given rise to a discrete 'internet culture'. See, what tribal left-wing know-nothings in this country always, frustratingly, seem to get wrong is that, yes, British culture has moved on from the days of empire to certain extent - our cultural tastes and attitudes have changed as we absorb new influences (and in turn influence others) but that does NOT mean that there is no longer such a thing as British cullture. The meaning of the term has just changed is all; there's still room for Brunel, Shakespeare, Elgar, the village green, tea, cricket and the concept of fair play, it's just that now, those things have been joined by tikka masala, drum & bass, two-tone, Mr Patel's corner shop, a drunken kebab and the word 'innit'. I personally love modern British culture. Many on the right do, it's not about nostalgia and a desire to return to past glories, it's about not forgetting the value of what went before, whilst still adapting to the changes in our society. That's the problem New Labour had - they pursued modernism for its own sake.

Agreed, a culture does naturally evolve, but the process can be steered by unfair means when parts of the extant culture are starved out.
This is why a deliberately imbalanced cultural access in the school curricula is dangerous.
I do not for a moment say that New Labour came around peoples homes with a bat and said 'forget you are British' however by starving certain cultural elements and then allowing a selective development of the culture this is effectively what you get.
Also there is no just concern that British culture is added to by foreign or immigrant influences, only the far right abhor that; its the reduction or removal of other aspects of the culture to create a vacuum for new elements to fill that is concerning.

In any event the evidence is all around us, people taught to believe quite vociferously that there is no such thing as British culture is a symptom of a social decay that has been induced for party political ends. And I beleive it is mirrored by the indoctrination present in much of the schools system and government organisations at a local and national level.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Interesting that Gove focuses particular criticism on Of Mice and Men, a book about inequality and prejudice set in a period of depression and unemployment.

This. Excellent book to be required reading at the moment. I recall reading Fahrenheit 451 in high school too, perhaps that will be scrapped as well.


Will they swap them out for some UK modern classics like 1984 and Brave New World?

Probably not.

Really, endless amounts of Shakespeare on the curriculum are the things that need to be cut, it's no better than medieval soap opera in terms of critical thinking and the prose style used bears no relation to modern usage of English.. some kids have enough trouble with reading regular text without confusing the issue further.

I'm also in favor of scrapping religious education entirely and replacing it with a student's choice of advanced Science - Advanced Biology/ Chemistry/ Physics or Comp. Sci.

It's about time we ended the mandatory tuition of the exact details of the magical wizards that live in the clouds and are nice to you after you die as long as you perform certain pointless rituals and pick the right one. Utter waste of time. If their parents insist on it, they'll get their lessons at church anyway, or they can choose the faith of their choice out of their own free will (how about that!).

PE should be completely overhauled. Scrap competitive sport, change it to teaching fitness classes, cardio/ muscle training etc. A shorter amount of actual workouts as opposed to standing around on a soggy field not doing much. More time spent learning to swim (useful life skill that not everyone learns). Nutritional information, non-preachy, just explaining about RDA's and calorie intake and how to avoid getting fat or how to lose weight.

 scarletsquig wrote:


I'm also in favor of scrapping religious education entirely and replacing it with a student's choice of advanced Science - Advanced Biology/ Chemistry/ Physics or Comp. Sci.

Thats another way to dogmatise the populace. Your wish is already being granted in 'Science Academies' which yield poorer results for their students, even in the Sciences than the faith schools.
In fact the faith schools frequently outperform other state schools.

 scarletsquig wrote:

It's about time we ended the mandatory tuition of the exact details of the magical wizards that live in the clouds and are nice to you after you die as long as you perform certain pointless rituals and pick the right one. Utter waste of time.

When this is given as the excuse to remove RE from the curriculum, you can tell it is being done from a point of ignorance, not a point of enlightenment.

 scarletsquig wrote:

If their parents insist on it, they'll get their lessons at church anyway, or they can choose the faith of their choice out of their own free will (how about that!).

Teaching RE in classes does not remove free will, removing RE might well do so. Allowing for the dogmatisation that can occurs at extremist places of worship, of which the vast majority are mosques, allowing religious education to come solely from those sources is ignorant and dangerous.
Please remember that school curricula demand that at least two religions are covered in RE class in depth. All are covered at an elementary level and atheism is also covered. This is the only fair way to go about things.
In fact the main reason why moslem extremists wanted to subvert the school curriculum in Birmingham was to prevent the schools from countering extremist teaching in the mosques.

 scarletsquig wrote:

PE should be completely overhauled. Scrap competitive sport,

We have seen this. Removing competitive sport is done on the aegis of 'empowerment' because everyone is a winner. That is complete doggerel of course. What is does is give a false sense of entitlement and removes any drive to succeed. Removing healthy competition from schools is a good idea if you want to reduce the next generation to compliant sheep, not so good at providing an education that will strengthen young people for the future.
Please remember that you don't need to be good at sports to succeed in school, but through competition people thrive they can also learn to carry each other.

 scarletsquig wrote:

change it to teaching fitness classes, cardio/ muscle training etc. A shorter amount of actual workouts as opposed to standing around on a soggy field not doing much. More time spent learning to swim (useful life skill that not everyone learns). Nutritional information, non-preachy, just explaining about RDA's and calorie intake and how to avoid getting fat or how to lose weight.

Education is supposed to be preachy, non preachy means you might know better, this is a bad attitude to teachers to adopt as kids don't know better, teachers ought to and this should be the status standing.
Other than that health teaching is useful, but should not replace competitive sport.
Most schools with a quality teaching method will be concerned with nutrition anyway, and it is often taught in domestic science.


Your input to education curricula policy needs thinking through more.

 scarletsquig wrote:
Really, endless amounts of Shakespeare on the curriculum are the things that need to be cut, it's no better than medieval soap opera in terms of critical thinking and the prose style used bears no relation to modern usage of English.. some kids have enough trouble with reading regular text without confusing the issue further.

No arguments here.

I'm also in favor of scrapping religious education entirely and replacing it with a student's choice of advanced Science - Advanced Biology/ Chemistry/ Physics or Comp. Sci.

Or not. Some students have enough trouble with science as it is, forcing them to do more won't help matters.

It's about time we ended the mandatory tuition of the exact details of the magical wizards that live in the clouds and are nice to you after you die as long as you perform certain pointless rituals and pick the right one. Utter waste of time. If their parents insist on it, they'll get their lessons at church anyway, or they can choose the faith of their choice out of their own free will (how about that!).

Or you could view religious education more as a cultural lesson. In general, it's harder to be tolerant towards other people when you don't understand why they do certain things.

PE should be completely overhauled. Scrap competitive sport, change it to teaching fitness classes, cardio/ muscle training etc. A shorter amount of actual workouts as opposed to standing around on a soggy field not doing much. More time spent learning to swim (useful life skill that not everyone learns). Nutritional information, non-preachy, just explaining about RDA's and calorie intake and how to avoid getting fat or how to lose weight.

But fitness training is really boring. Seriously. Nobody would enjoy P.E. lessons if they consisted entirely of workout rather than playing games. As to swimming, my school is lucky enough to have a swimming pool, so everyone did actually learn to swim (or did more swimming if they already could). Finally, I'm sure that nutritional information falls under a mixture of general studies, biology, and P.S.H.E.

P.S.: Can we please not turn this into another religious discussion? It's a sure fire way of getting the thread locked.

You're welcome to your opinion and I won't call it dangerous or hare-brained.

I'm just going by personal experience on what the most objectively worthless pieces of my education were. I scored 100% on my RE GCSE, but it was for the sake of passing a test and completely worthless beyond that.

In a similar fashion, the competitive elements of PE are utterly miserable if you're socially unpopular or not very good at sports. You will have an hour of being crapped on by both your fellow students and the teachers more often than not, it is the exact opposite of motivation for those who aren't any good in the first place.

Might as well bring back the dunce hat for people who fail at maths and make them sit in the corner and be laughed at if competition is seen as a valid method of education, it is the exact equivalent of being that kid who always gets picked last for sports.

At my school we had RMPS not RE to include basic morality and philosophical aspects as well as religious. And when we studied a religion in that class it was a study of that religion to help educate people about that faith not indoctrinate them into it

^ Sounds a lot better, I guess things have changed a bit since I went, or perhaps some schools do it differently? Morality and Philosophy have tangible value, having to go into massive detail on the ceremonies of each one less so.

Yeah, the whole point of current RE/ RS qualifiactions is to build an understanding of religion and traditions. There should never be any attempt at indoctrination/conversion, although I can imagine that this is not always going to be the case. Much of the stuff you learn is why different religions oppose different things, which (with a few exceptions) was basically:
Issue!
Orthodox religion doesn't ever approve.
Middle-of-the-road members generally don't approve but have some flex on issues.
Liberals are fine with it.

There you go, GCSE RE in 4 lines.

ScarletSquig's points on PE are valid. There is no value in playing competitive sports if you just do not care about them. There never will be. Same applies if you are very bad at them or have no interest in that sport. Physical fitness, however, is important, and that is what PE should be about. Not getting barked at in mud as to why you cannot catch a ball. /rant

 scarletsquig wrote:
You're welcome to your opinion and I won't call it dangerous or hare-brained.

Well it wasn't, but point taken.

 scarletsquig wrote:

I'm just going by personal experience on what the most objectively worthless pieces of my education were. I scored 100% on my RE GCSE, but it was for the sake of passing a test and completely worthless beyond that.

Actually that GCSE gave you insights into what millions of people believe. Or at least wit would do when taught properly and retained.
Understanding Judaism and Islam 101 will stand you in good stead when understanding Middle East, its politics and its business opportunities.

More importantly a correct RE curriculum could dispel a lot of the BS surrounding politicised religion.
This is currently happening in northern Ireland. Wheras before schols were sectarian, a balanced curriculum has been forced in the next generation. Its not Atheism that will stop Protestants and Catholics fightsing but a proper understanding of Biblical studies. This is of course simplistic as the religios is as always just an excuse, but at least its one excuse removed.
Likewise a proper study of Islam as 'the reglion of peace' will find that there is a lot of stuff in the Koran glossed over in the extermist mosques. One point of note is how "Allah favours the Jews and will shield them from harm," teach that to a kid and he might second guess when some hook handed fethhead tells him all Jews must die.

Children of Israel! call to mind the favour which I bestowed upon you, and that I preferred you to all others. (Surah 2:47 repeated in 2:122)

It goes further than that, you see we need not agree, you can dismiss religion as unture, I can pick one and believe in it.
Hopefully however a proper understanding of what other believe, even if you disagree should help one understand people as different but not necesaarily inferior.
Those who put forward and educated atheist point of view get my respect, and almost always they can respect a religious opinion that they disagree with. Salme methodology can apply to all competing religions and faith systems.
I am a little disappointed that you scored so well in RE studies but still want to abolish teaching of the wizards in the sky. Its a bit loaded, I for one have a clear religious preference that I do not disguise, but I am all for children leaving school with a solid grounding in multiple faith systems and choices and an clear understanding of at a minimum Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Atheism is essential to living in the modern world.

 scarletsquig wrote:

In a similar fashion, the competitive elements of PE are utterly miserable if you're socially unpopular or not very good at sports. You will have an hour of being crapped on by both your fellow students and the teachers more often than not, it is the exact opposite of motivation for those who aren't any good in the first place.

I have so much sympathy for this comment, I hated most of the sports I did and was crap at them, but sadly the cost is a little high.
If the teachers dogpile in then that is a sign of a sucky school not a sucky sports curriculum. teachers should encourage those who underperform.
Healthy competition causes people to strive to better themselves, healthy team competition helps with social bonding and instills an attitude of cooperation.
The decline in team participatory sports may accounts the increased isolation in society.

 scarletsquig wrote:

Might as well bring back the dunce hat for people who fail at maths and make them sit in the corner and be laughed at if competition is seen as a valid method of education, it is the exact equivalent of being that kid who always gets picked last for sports.

You cant legislate away disability of physical inequality, its best not to even try.
teaching should include compassion and compassion should also be taught, with good teaching yes the slow kid will always be picked last for the team, but there need not be a social stigma to it, if the attitude is we are all of different ability, but we are all one together.
Its considerably better than a dogma of avoiding any form of competitiveness in sports to make everyone a winner, as it just makes everyone a loser when they leave school and find that life just isn't like that.

 4oursword wrote:
ScarletSquig's points on PE are valid. There is no value in playing competitive sports if you just do not care about them. There never will be. Same applies if you are very bad at them or have no interest in that sport. Physical fitness, however, is important, and that is what PE should be about. Not getting barked at in mud as to why you cannot catch a ball. /rant

By my final year of school (2007), I was so fed up with abuse from bullies and donkey-caves that in PE football lessons I actively refused to participate. I stuck to the sidelines, walked away from the ball, if it came close I'd just let it pass me by, returned the verbal abuse from other kids, ignored the complaints from my irate teacher (himself a football enthusiast). And I was far from alone.

The only time I enjoyed PE in the final year was a couple months towards the end, when we were bussed to our our towns Leisure Centre for Table Tennis sessions. I enjoyed that a lot more, because the kids in those sessions were a more relaxed, friendly group, and more of my friends were included.

I used to enjoy sport, and was mad about football up to the age of ~ 10, but 5 years of compulsory weekly PE lessons with kids I actively despised put me off competitive sport for life. That, and England's abysmal performance in World Cups. If I ever pick up a sport again, it'll probably be archery. I did a couple times as a kid and loved it. Plus, few people would be stupid enough to bully someone holding a potentially lethal weapon.

Competitive sports (especially football) ought to be voluntary, opt-in only.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
If I ever pick up a sport again, it'll probably be archery. I did a couple times as a kid and loved it. Plus, few people would be stupid enough to bully someone holding a potentially lethal weapon.

We did air rifle shooting on a school trip once. Nobody bullied me after I removed the centre of the target with a few well placed shots.

At school I read Fahrenheit 451, and saw the film, and read 1984 and Brave New World, and a bunch of Evelyn Waugh stuff and Graham Greene.

Kids these days, etc.

 -Shrike- wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
If I ever pick up a sport again, it'll probably be archery. I did a couple times as a kid and loved it. Plus, few people would be stupid enough to bully someone holding a potentially lethal weapon.

We did air rifle shooting on a school trip once. Nobody bullied me after I removed the centre of the target with a few well placed shots.

That's pretty awesome. The sixth form I'm at currently has Laserquest as a sports option for it's lower school. Frickin' Lasers!

Table-top Wargamers in Not Liking Competitive Sport Shocker; 'Ban it' say Nerds.

I don't get alot of the classics you talk of. I found Lord of the Rings a tedious read, and 1987 boring. That said, I've scored incredibly high at reading comprehension and vocabulary tests.

I've read tons of other things including all the Redwall books, the Narnia books and Harry Potter books. Maybe I'm still just a dumb kid but I don't think so. Some people will like and understand things like Lord of the Rings and 1987 in book format. But some people won't. It's like the person with an IQ of 80 figuring out a word puzzle that a person with a IQ of 160 couldn't get. Some people are just built that way. 1987 and the Lord of the Rings books just aren't for me.

Regarding the brits snobbing out American books and writers, some of the greatest writers and books came from America! I don't know what they were thinking. No offense meant to the may Brits who are reading this. Americans do dumb things too. See 'Redneck' for proof of this

 Overlord Thraka wrote:
I don't get alot of the classics you talk of. I found Lord of the Rings a tedious read, and 1987 boring. That said, I've scored incredibly high at reading comprehension and vocabulary tests.

I've read tons of other things including all the Redwall books, the Narnia books and Harry Potter books. Maybe I'm still just a dumb kid but I don't think so. Some people will like and understand things like Lord of the Rings and 1987 in book format. But some people won't. It's like the person with an IQ of 80 figuring out a word puzzle that a person with a IQ of 160 couldn't get. Some people are just built that way. 1987 and the Lord of the Rings books just aren't for me.

Regarding the brits snobbing out American books and writers, some of the greatest writers and books came from America! I don't know what they were thinking. No offense meant to the may Brits who are reading this. Americans do dumb things too. See 'Redneck' for proof of this

I think you meant 1984? That said, if you didn't enjoy reading either of those (1984 and LotR), I don't think you'd enjoy Shakespeare, which is significantly older than any of the books you listed, and still compulsory at GCSE. I'd much rather remove Shakespeare and replace it with Tolkein's work, than make people suffer through any more plays from the 16th century.

 -Shrike- wrote:

 Overlord Thraka wrote:
I don't get alot of the classics you talk of. I found Lord of the Rings a tedious read, and 1987 boring. That said, I've scored incredibly high at reading comprehension and vocabulary tests.

I've read tons of other things including all the Redwall books, the Narnia books and Harry Potter books. Maybe I'm still just a dumb kid but I don't think so. Some people will like and understand things like Lord of the Rings and 1984 in book format. But some people won't. It's like the person with an IQ of 80 figuring out a word puzzle that a person with a IQ of 160 couldn't get. Some people are just built that way. 1984 and the Lord of the Rings books just aren't for me.

Regarding the brits snobbing out American books and writers, some of the greatest writers and books came from America! I don't know what they were thinking. No offense meant to the may Brits who are reading this. Americans do dumb things too. See 'Redneck' for proof of this

I think you meant 1984?

Oops fixed