Spa Tek

Education

Our education system is failing our children. Too many leave school without basic skills, and that leads to the spiralling erosion of our society. Why work when you can steal, deal in drugs, make money by exploitation? Join the gang, gain protection from fellow drop-outs, and there is a life to be made.

Young men, in particular, need a structure that they can live within. They often need to test that structure, to know its parameters, to discover the strengths and weaknesses. And to know they can influence and change, but that rebellion is not worthwhile.

Recent decades have seen a degradation of those structures. There was a disastrous period when teachers decided that the children knew best, that they only needed to be supplied with materials, space and time, and they would eductate themselves. In some respects we are still recovering from those days as those children, now adults, knowing little of the world, attempt to build something they can understand.

The news today is that the Commissioner for Racial Equality wants young black men to be taught separately. They are failing. Not obtaining the educational grades they require. Not integrating into the wider society. Making them feel different is not going to help. I'd suggest, some 4-5 decades after the start of mass immigration into this country that racial equality should no longer be an issue. It has become a convenient cloak, behind which failure to work and conform, can hide. 'You are only saying that because I'm black' is not a valid excuse.

Too many immigrants to Britain now know that the indigenous population are tolerant so there is no clear reason why young black kids should talk about the colour of their skins being a problem. It's got nothing to do with that. I walked around my local town last week, seeing group after group of young people talking and laughing together. I began to notice that each group contained a mixture of races; black, asian, blondes, dark-haired, it didn't seem to matter. What did matter was that each member of each group accepted the social norms, not just of that group but of the wider social context.

Society needs its people to conform, to speak our language, to accept our rules, to enjoy our pleasures.

Unfortunately some kids are not being taught what these social norms are - and they will have a painful education, because the greater power will subjugate them in the end.

posted by Suffolk Notes @ 10:25 am