Inspired by:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7189402.stm
and
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7189874.stm
I was astonished by Wellington's headmaster's views on private schools. These schools take money from taxpaying parents and give them an education whilst the parents' taxes are kept and spent on education for others.
Already it seems that these people are being unfairly treated. They're paying twice for something that everyone else pays once for. But we can justify that, by saying that it's their choice to pay again. They don't like what their first payment gets them, and put their money where their mouths are. Very admirable, very upright and honest, I'd have thought.
Apparently not. These people are evil, stealing teachers, pupils, facilities, university places and results from those hard-working state-school pupils!
Well first let me deal with the quick ones. The facilities would not exist were they not paid for by school fees. Hence they are not stolen from anyone, nor can they possibly deprive anyone of anything.
The pupils are indeed no longer at state schools, but we've just established that pupils are expensive, so stealing them is not a crime, but a generosity (we'll get to a proposed exception in a moment).
University places are awarded by results, so they hardly count as a separate instance of theft. Results are awarded by merit, and therefore not stolen, but earned.
Finally, we get to teachers. Yes, better teachers will go to better schools. To divide schools into groups and say that better schools are stealing the better teachers is simply to state a fact that occurs throughout any workforce. Better shops get better shop assistants. Nicer customers will retain nicer salesmen. It's hardly the fault of a shop if people want to work for it; if it's its responsibility at all, most people would praise the shop for having such a status.
Schools are perceived differently, I would suggest, because people regard education as a right. And to an extent, I'd agree: in this country, we have established access to an education as a right and necessity for children up to 16. But the difference in how I phrased that is importantl. I said 'access to' education. And so many people think that if someone else is getting a better education, their rights are being infringed. Yet at the same time these people acknowledge that brighter pupils learn more, more quickly, which can be described as a better education.
So how can they reconcile the acknowledgement that people have different abilities with the desire for everyone to achieve the same amount? The only solution is for everyone to achieve at the lowest level, and this is what the comprehensive system achieves very well.
And yet I'd say that such a system is also intrinsically unfair, because those intelligent pupils are not being allowed access to education; they are being denied what they could learn. Why should we add to the unfairness of life, in making some people stupid, by acting unfairly; by making everyone else effectively stupid too?
Education is not a material item that can be imparted equally to everyone, no matter their varying abilities to use it. Education is an interactive process, whereby the more capable and motivated make themselves receive more. In this respect education is much like life in general.
But people insist on attempting to distribute education as though motivation and ability were not making a difference. And by doing so they discriminate against the motivated and talented, because these people will do well, and hence receive less effort to educate, because the effort is not spread evenly, but instead spread so as to achieve even results.
As in so many areas of life, I don't judge actions by their results, and nor do most people. If I attempt to murder a man, but miss, and instead save his life, I will still be prosecuted for attempted murder. If I help a runner in a race and he draws for first place, I have still cheated.
I don't see why the good teachers shouldn't go to where the good pupils are, or where the money is. Why should we spread teaching (or medical care) across the country so that no-one can get a good education? That just deprives the talented people of their access to an education.
A good teacher in one place necessarily deprives everywhere else of his teaching. If we followed current principles we'd have the whole country taught by one teacher, because that way no-one would miss out.
If private schools were simply schools with the same mix of talent and motivation in their pupils, but offering more money, I'd still say that they don't necessarily steal teachers from state schools. They create a sanctuary for teachers who might not otherwise become teachers.
The complaint about pupils also suggests that state schools are often deprived of talented pupils. Many private schools are selective, and so in a way it's a reasonable complaint. But what does it mean to be 'deprived of talented pupils'? Why are talented pupils a benefit if everyone is to be treated equally?
Of course, we're not supposed to treat pupils equally. Talented pupils take less time to receive the set 'amount' of education that must be dispensed, making the school's job easier. That's why not having them is a deprivation: because without them one cannot steal from their potential in order to compensate for others' lack of ability or motivation.
But as I've explained, education is not a material thing; it's an effort. Talented pupils to reach their potential as much as bad ones, and to resort to the revolting 'sheep and goats' theory ignores this entirely.
This theory categorises children into sheep (who follow the leader) and goats (who lead), after the old trick of putting some goats into a flock of sheep to give the flock some intelligence. The idea was that putting some talented pupils into a class of bad or average ones would raise the ability of the rest, letting them achieve more.
Even as it stands, I don't see the justification. The idea is to deprive a few talented pupils of what they could achieve in order to give more to others who could not achieve without them.
However, that's not how children actually work! In reality, the very bad pupils are the goats, and the average and talented pupils are the sheep; putting bad with better makes everyone bad, rather than everyone better. Everyone must go at the speed of the slowest, not at an average speed of the class in general. So mixing talent together simply deprives the talented of what they might otherwise achieve.
Modern politics is firmly against splitting people up based on talent. It's derided as divisive and elitist; it makes people feel like failures. None of which seem to me to be a bad thing. If people are divided into different talents, if there is an elite, and if some people fail to reach that level, I can't see a problem with recognising it. However, people are still blinded by their desperate desire for everything to be equal. We must be equal, people think, because that's what our society is about, isn't it? So in the face of all the evidence, people refuse to accept that nature grants us varying degrees of ability, and refuse to build a system around reality.
In fact, as I've described above, people try to build a system to create their ideal of everyone being equal, even though the structure of the system implicitly recognises that we are not!
The point I'd like to make is that our society is not actually founded on the ideal of everyone being equal, and nor can we ever achieve a functional society so founded. I read about a dystopia once in which a man woke up in the future in a museum 'stasis chamber' as an example of the distant past. He was shown a world in which he gradually saw decrees issued to ensure that everyone was equal, which sounds a laudable aim in the abstract. But to ensure that everyone was equal at first they were all bald. Then all mandated to walk slowly. Then all disfigured. Then all forced to chop an arm off...
To make people equal is not a laudable aim at all, nor a plausible one. We must aim to treat them equally; to give equality of opportunity. In order to do this in education we need to teach the talented to the best of their ability just as much as the untalented. Stealing time or potential from the talented to help the untalented is not equality of opportunity or treatment.
So state schools still cannot complain if they have no talented pupils. If those pupils are better able to reach their potential in private institutions (and they certainly are) then private schools are serving society very well, whilst allowing state schools more time to deal with less talented pupils.
The idea that if private schools introduced bursaries so that talented poor pupils can attend they'd still not be doing enough is ludicrous, and grates horribly on me. State schools have no intrinsic right to good pupils, nor a right to good results or university places. What matters is that each pupil gets the education he can use, and private schools with bursary systems fills that purpose perfectly. To expect more is simply ridiculous, and a result of unthinking bias against private institutions.
Similarly, to claim that private schools, with the 166 state grammar schools, have an unfair stranglehold on good university places is a revolting inversion of the problem. There is no fault with these selective, high-achieving schools; the fact that they have such a stranglehold proves that selection works to help bright people achieve their best. So it is an example of success, not a sad fact to be bemoaned.
If he wishes to bemoan this fact, he should realise that the underlying reason for it is that people are not intrinsically equal, but that he thinks they all are and should be but are not (and can't seem to make up his mind which).
Why do people have such trouble with natural variability in education? I think that in education it is a problem because motivation can make such a difference that it is indistinguishable from talent. And people do not want to take responsibility for their actions, as I mentioned earlier today. People want the end result to be the same; they want desiring something to be enough to make one deserve it, rather than working for it too.
And as with over-eating, this is reinforced by media and government campaigns and policies when it should be fought.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi
and
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi
I was astonished by Wellington's headmaster's views on private schools. These schools take money from taxpaying parents and give them an education whilst the parents' taxes are kept and spent on education for others.
Already it seems that these people are being unfairly treated. They're paying twice for something that everyone else pays once for. But we can justify that, by saying that it's their choice to pay again. They don't like what their first payment gets them, and put their money where their mouths are. Very admirable, very upright and honest, I'd have thought.
Apparently not. These people are evil, stealing teachers, pupils, facilities, university places and results from those hard-working state-school pupils!
Well first let me deal with the quick ones. The facilities would not exist were they not paid for by school fees. Hence they are not stolen from anyone, nor can they possibly deprive anyone of anything.
The pupils are indeed no longer at state schools, but we've just established that pupils are expensive, so stealing them is not a crime, but a generosity (we'll get to a proposed exception in a moment).
University places are awarded by results, so they hardly count as a separate instance of theft. Results are awarded by merit, and therefore not stolen, but earned.
Finally, we get to teachers. Yes, better teachers will go to better schools. To divide schools into groups and say that better schools are stealing the better teachers is simply to state a fact that occurs throughout any workforce. Better shops get better shop assistants. Nicer customers will retain nicer salesmen. It's hardly the fault of a shop if people want to work for it; if it's its responsibility at all, most people would praise the shop for having such a status.
Schools are perceived differently, I would suggest, because people regard education as a right. And to an extent, I'd agree: in this country, we have established access to an education as a right and necessity for children up to 16. But the difference in how I phrased that is importantl. I said 'access to' education. And so many people think that if someone else is getting a better education, their rights are being infringed. Yet at the same time these people acknowledge that brighter pupils learn more, more quickly, which can be described as a better education.
So how can they reconcile the acknowledgement that people have different abilities with the desire for everyone to achieve the same amount? The only solution is for everyone to achieve at the lowest level, and this is what the comprehensive system achieves very well.
And yet I'd say that such a system is also intrinsically unfair, because those intelligent pupils are not being allowed access to education; they are being denied what they could learn. Why should we add to the unfairness of life, in making some people stupid, by acting unfairly; by making everyone else effectively stupid too?
Education is not a material item that can be imparted equally to everyone, no matter their varying abilities to use it. Education is an interactive process, whereby the more capable and motivated make themselves receive more. In this respect education is much like life in general.
But people insist on attempting to distribute education as though motivation and ability were not making a difference. And by doing so they discriminate against the motivated and talented, because these people will do well, and hence receive less effort to educate, because the effort is not spread evenly, but instead spread so as to achieve even results.
As in so many areas of life, I don't judge actions by their results, and nor do most people. If I attempt to murder a man, but miss, and instead save his life, I will still be prosecuted for attempted murder. If I help a runner in a race and he draws for first place, I have still cheated.
I don't see why the good teachers shouldn't go to where the good pupils are, or where the money is. Why should we spread teaching (or medical care) across the country so that no-one can get a good education? That just deprives the talented people of their access to an education.
A good teacher in one place necessarily deprives everywhere else of his teaching. If we followed current principles we'd have the whole country taught by one teacher, because that way no-one would miss out.
If private schools were simply schools with the same mix of talent and motivation in their pupils, but offering more money, I'd still say that they don't necessarily steal teachers from state schools. They create a sanctuary for teachers who might not otherwise become teachers.
The complaint about pupils also suggests that state schools are often deprived of talented pupils. Many private schools are selective, and so in a way it's a reasonable complaint. But what does it mean to be 'deprived of talented pupils'? Why are talented pupils a benefit if everyone is to be treated equally?
Of course, we're not supposed to treat pupils equally. Talented pupils take less time to receive the set 'amount' of education that must be dispensed, making the school's job easier. That's why not having them is a deprivation: because without them one cannot steal from their potential in order to compensate for others' lack of ability or motivation.
But as I've explained, education is not a material thing; it's an effort. Talented pupils to reach their potential as much as bad ones, and to resort to the revolting 'sheep and goats' theory ignores this entirely.
This theory categorises children into sheep (who follow the leader) and goats (who lead), after the old trick of putting some goats into a flock of sheep to give the flock some intelligence. The idea was that putting some talented pupils into a class of bad or average ones would raise the ability of the rest, letting them achieve more.
Even as it stands, I don't see the justification. The idea is to deprive a few talented pupils of what they could achieve in order to give more to others who could not achieve without them.
However, that's not how children actually work! In reality, the very bad pupils are the goats, and the average and talented pupils are the sheep; putting bad with better makes everyone bad, rather than everyone better. Everyone must go at the speed of the slowest, not at an average speed of the class in general. So mixing talent together simply deprives the talented of what they might otherwise achieve.
Modern politics is firmly against splitting people up based on talent. It's derided as divisive and elitist; it makes people feel like failures. None of which seem to me to be a bad thing. If people are divided into different talents, if there is an elite, and if some people fail to reach that level, I can't see a problem with recognising it. However, people are still blinded by their desperate desire for everything to be equal. We must be equal, people think, because that's what our society is about, isn't it? So in the face of all the evidence, people refuse to accept that nature grants us varying degrees of ability, and refuse to build a system around reality.
In fact, as I've described above, people try to build a system to create their ideal of everyone being equal, even though the structure of the system implicitly recognises that we are not!
The point I'd like to make is that our society is not actually founded on the ideal of everyone being equal, and nor can we ever achieve a functional society so founded. I read about a dystopia once in which a man woke up in the future in a museum 'stasis chamber' as an example of the distant past. He was shown a world in which he gradually saw decrees issued to ensure that everyone was equal, which sounds a laudable aim in the abstract. But to ensure that everyone was equal at first they were all bald. Then all mandated to walk slowly. Then all disfigured. Then all forced to chop an arm off...
To make people equal is not a laudable aim at all, nor a plausible one. We must aim to treat them equally; to give equality of opportunity. In order to do this in education we need to teach the talented to the best of their ability just as much as the untalented. Stealing time or potential from the talented to help the untalented is not equality of opportunity or treatment.
So state schools still cannot complain if they have no talented pupils. If those pupils are better able to reach their potential in private institutions (and they certainly are) then private schools are serving society very well, whilst allowing state schools more time to deal with less talented pupils.
The idea that if private schools introduced bursaries so that talented poor pupils can attend they'd still not be doing enough is ludicrous, and grates horribly on me. State schools have no intrinsic right to good pupils, nor a right to good results or university places. What matters is that each pupil gets the education he can use, and private schools with bursary systems fills that purpose perfectly. To expect more is simply ridiculous, and a result of unthinking bias against private institutions.
Similarly, to claim that private schools, with the 166 state grammar schools, have an unfair stranglehold on good university places is a revolting inversion of the problem. There is no fault with these selective, high-achieving schools; the fact that they have such a stranglehold proves that selection works to help bright people achieve their best. So it is an example of success, not a sad fact to be bemoaned.
If he wishes to bemoan this fact, he should realise that the underlying reason for it is that people are not intrinsically equal, but that he thinks they all are and should be but are not (and can't seem to make up his mind which).
Why do people have such trouble with natural variability in education? I think that in education it is a problem because motivation can make such a difference that it is indistinguishable from talent. And people do not want to take responsibility for their actions, as I mentioned earlier today. People want the end result to be the same; they want desiring something to be enough to make one deserve it, rather than working for it too.
And as with over-eating, this is reinforced by media and government campaigns and policies when it should be fought.
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