Comments on: Misdiagnosing the Cause of Present-Day Educational Failure

By: mick

mick — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 23:59:14 +0000

Most white working class ………. suffer from an (indefinite article) Identity Crises because their teachers have been mis-educated and de-educated by state schools and leftist ideologues sympathetic to the demolition of British culture including recognition of the traditional family as the most stabilising and influential social unit. Since fathers are primarily responsible for the education and discipline of their children they are the main target of leftist educationalists; so our state primary schools are the ultimate “girls world”. Add to this a dogma of “inclusion” and you are bound to end up with what we have now come to. The article is spot on; we cannot possibly teach when we do not have the option to exclude. It is time to say no to the dogma that state education is a “right”. Let state education become an option for those who are prepared to take advantage of the opportunity and let’s find some alternatives for the increasing army of lumpen disfunctionals who disrupt and demoralise our best children.

By: Drew Smith

Drew Smith — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:55:36 +0000

“English is our economic language while Arabic and Urdu is our social, emotional and spiritual languages.”

This would be a perfectly reasonable view if applied to Muslims living in Muslim countries. Like any other racial/ethnic group, Muslims need to preserve their own culture, a key part of which is language. However, given the ubiquity of English in the business world, it would make economic sense to learn English.
Applied, however, to immigrant Muslims in the UK, your view is depressingly insular and largely unhelpful. In the UK, Muslims are a minority. The national language is English. Integration of immigrant Muslims into mainstream British society fundamentally depends on them being able to speak the national language. Therefore, British Muslims must consider English their social and emotional language too.

“They need to learn standard English to follow the National Curriculum and go for higher studies and research to serve humanity. They need to learn and be well versed in Arabic, Urdu and other community languages to keep in touch with their cultural roots and enjoy the beauty of their literature and poetry.”

I agree on both points but the latter is the not the responsiblity of state-funded education, at least not in a secular country in which Muslims are very much a minority.
If immigrant Muslim parents wish for their children to keep in touch with their cultural roots, it is their responsibility to ensure they do so. Either educate them in your own time or establish privately funded schools to do so. If the aim of the government is to create a truly inclusive, multicultural society (and that appears to be their aim) why would they use public money to fund schools that encourage a particular racial/ethnic group to separate itself rather than integrate?

By: William Haines

William Haines — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:58:13 +0000

Iftikar. It is good that people paid no attention to your campaign. Why should people settle here and demand that sectarian schools should be set up for them paid for by the public purse? If they wish to settle here they should assimilate and integrate. Not to do so is the height of bad manners. I cannot imagine millions of British Christians trying to settle in Pakistan let alone demanding that the government should establish and fund Christian schools for them. Even if they did I cannot imagine their request being granted. Nor can I imagine you demanding that they should be accommodated.

What arrogance to demand that schools with a Muslim majority be designated Muslim schools.

Why is it that Muslims are having such identity crises? Sikhs, Hindus, Parsees, Jews, Hugeneots and others have managed to find their place and fit in OK. If Pakistani Muslims cannot I suggest they go home.

One thing that might help Muslims to settle in is to follow the example of Jews. Like many Christian churches they pray weekly for Queen. Maybe mosques should only be allowed to open on condition that prayers are regularly said for the reigning monarch.

By: Matt Knott

Matt Knott — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 12:27:10 +0000

I started teaching in 1994 and there hasn’t been a change in the profile of children’s behaviour since then. In fact even then many school’s were failing their pupils – the problem is that the problem hasn’t been addressed and is widely misunderstood. If we just blame parents then we ignore everything schools do to encourage the problem.

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 10:08:03 +0000

Iftikhar’s submission is enlightening. His ideas will do much for integration (not) and if his views are typical (I guess they are obligatory), one really wonders why Muslims bother to come to this country at all. His command of English is clearly suspect (what is a ‘HOLLY Quran’?) and at least one of your other contributors struggles with the correct use of ‘there’ and ‘their’.

I know these criticisms may seem unkind, but my point is that after years of ‘education, education, education’, the standard of English used today is dreadful.

Even that used by so-called qualified professionals is ambiguous, mis-spelled, gramatically inept and full of the Greengrocers’ apostrophe.

As for discipline in schools, it is obvious that if family break up is encouraged to the extent that it is, and rules, boundaries and discipline are things of the past, we should not be surprised that such a society is now breeding a nation of yobs and thugs.

When I was at school we were expected to wait lined up outside the classroom, enter when we were told and stand quietly until bidden to sit down. We then worked in peace and quiet.

Now it is chaos. Why? What on earth can be the benefit in that for anyone?

Surely only a fool stands in front of a class of secondary kids these days.

By: William Haines

William Haines — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 17:52:42 +0000

Matt, the family structure has changed hugely with the increased proportion of children of unmarried mothers, divorced parents, step-parents, in care and other permutations. Such children are often emotionally and psychologically damaged and bring there resentments and anger problems into the school. There are also more children having sexual affairs which mostly breakup in a painful way. There is also the issue of declining social skills that goes along with computer addiction never mind its affect of their cognitive abilities. So all this has contributed to the decline in the quality of school children today.

Of course government interference is also the bane of schools and teachers.