Selective Education

[JohannGE]

I would be interested to hear opinions on selective education, particularly from teachers and students.

Personally I am totally against the 11 plus method still used in many areas of the UK and also have grave reservations about the old "streaming" methods. I do realise though that the potential of each child differs greatly as does their aptitude. This would be likely to make a totally universal and equitable system of education both wasteful and unhelpful to many children.

I am struggling to arrive at a satisfactory system which would deliver the greatest educational benefit to the greatest number of children.

[TheCagedLion]

Can you explain what "streaming" and the 11 plus method are, for those of us who aren't from the UK?

[jake williams]

I think it's profoundly difficult, and very important to discuss. I don't have the time to go into it much now, but I'll be back.

I had, for lack of a better way of putting it, a lot of academic ability in school, in that I was regularly ahead if not far aheard of most of my classes. I became profoundly frustrated with the feeling that I was being "held back". At first unfortunately it, for reasons I don't want to go into a lot, developed into a feeling that, because I went to a poor school in a poor neighbourhood and the academic performance reflected that, poor people were dumb and I needed to go live with smart rich people. Later on I smartened up and it turned into something a lot more productive, a contempt for the intellectually restrictive nature of schools.

But my point is I have a lot of very personal sympathy for people who learn particular things much more quickly than others and don't want to waste their time talking about things they already know.

But yes, there is certainly a class basis at very least for the manner in which academic streaming is presently instituted. In fact I can personally relate to this, too - the "gifted" programs at my friends' richer schools were a lot better than my own.

[Aesop]

By selective education I guess you mean grammar schools.

Well, the conservative argument is that grammar schools should be retained as they help the clever poor. However, grammar schools intakes are often from the more affluent middle class families in which their children often have sufficient enough material(able to hire tutors, draw upon resources etc etc) and culture capital (emphasis on the academia) to get into these grammar schools.

Although, don’t get me wrong grammar schools do allow for some pupils to gain more opportunities, but often these ‘clever’ pupils just happen to have the culture capital from socialization which enables them to gain admittance .

So as a socialist I reject grammar schools as they are institutions which are designed to streamline wider education, in which the pupils at the grammar schools are more likely to go down the academic route (A-levels, IB), then go on to a higher education institution in which afterwards they will secure a place in a private firm or a role in the public sphere which will enable them to reproduce these advantages to their children(cycle continues), although not to the same extend as going to a public school(private).
While the normal state school students are left at a disadvantage.

Anyway what use will grammar schools be in a socialist society when it is no longer a scrapheap to the top?

[JohannGE]

Can you explain what "streaming" and the 11 plus method are, for those of us who aren't from the UK?

My apologies...

The 11 plus used to be universal in the UK but is still used in a limited number of education authorities. It is an exam taken by children in their last year of primary education. The results of this single exam dictate the type (quality?) of secondary education the child might be offered.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleven_plus_exam

"Streaming" was a method of selection applied internally within a secondary school which assigned children of different abilities to supposedly appropriate "streams" in the various subjects. eg: Most able to the "A" stream, least able to the "D" stream.

[JohannGE]

By selective education I guess you mean grammar schools.

Well, the conservative argument is that grammar schools should be retained as they help the clever poor. However, grammar schools intakes are often from the more affluent middle class families in which their children often have sufficient enough material(able to hire tutors, draw upon resources etc etc) and culture capital (emphasis on the academia) to get into these grammar schools.

Although, don’t get me wrong grammar schools do allow for some pupils to gain more opportunities, but often these ‘clever’ pupils just happen to have the culture capital from socialization which enables them to gain admittance .

So as a socialist I reject grammar schools as they are institutions which are designed to streamline wider education, in which the pupils at the grammar schools are more likely to go down the academic route (A-levels, IB), then go on to a higher education institution in which afterwards they will secure a place in a private firm or a role in the public sphere which will enable them to reproduce these advantages to their children(cycle continues), although not to the same extend as going to a public school(private).
While the normal state school students are left at a disadvantage.

Anyway what use will grammar schools be in a socialist society when it is no longer a scrapheap to the top?

Pretty much my own view there well re(a)d.

However even "in a socialist society" there will surely still be a requirement to ensure that the education offered to an individual is appropriate to their abilities and their potential to benefit from it.

How, who by and when should such decisions be made?

The idea of possibly life changing decisions been made about the education of an individual child on the outcome of a single, controversial test being among the worst methods I can imagine. It takes no account of the wide variation in the level of maturity of a child or it's state of mind on the day of the test. It is also debatable if the type of test, a rather crude assessment of IQ, genuinely relates directly to a child's true educational potential.

It is a question that has long troubled me. Back in the 60's I was supposedly among the last generation to be assessed this method as the new Comprehensive system of education was in the process of being introduced nationwide by the (Old ;) )Labour administration.

From then until in 1995 when I moved into an area that still used the 11 plus and my son was about to take it, I had thought that this discredited system had been abolished. The strain between my principles and my wish for my son to gain the best education possible were incredible!

The question was recently raised again in my mind when the father of a 4yr old (pre school!) child seriously asked if he should start tutoring the child in preparation for selection at 11. Apparently it is not such an unusual thing to do along with parents specifically buying a home (sometimes a second home) in the area to gain access to the towns Grammar schools.

Knowing how the existence of these "elite" schools affects the standards of education available at the Secondary Modern, and also I suspect, the self worth of the rejected children, I sympathise with parents facing this dilemma.

[JJM 777]

One of the biggest practical problems in school system is the cumulative nature of languages, math and physics. The whole school class proceeds in these studies with pace 100%.

Some language talents would be capable of proceeding with pace 150% in languages but not in math, and some math talents would be capable of proceeding with pace 200% in math but not in languages. In these cases, we lose a lot of learning potential, and some of the most talented persons get extremely bored at the whole education system, possibly at the whole society.

But maybe more important is the other side of the coin: some students learn math or languages with 80% or 50% of the average speed of students. They barely pass one exam with the lowest possible score, and then in the next course they would need the cumulative knowledge of the previous course, which the student never learned to fully master. Learning problems quickly accumulate in these cumulative study subjects, surviving through each new course is more difficult than surviving through the previous course, as the student doesn't master all the basics that would be necessary for effectively learning the next topic that is taught. Maybe the student somehow survives without repeating a class, by working 50% or 100% harder than others, and studying extra hours after school (there are no maximum study time laws for students, even if we have strict maximum working time laws for working adults!). The end product of such a school career can be total disgust at the difficult study subject, which caused so much trouble to the student. And a poor skill in the subject which is worthless for any further use in life. All the trouble had no other purpose or fruit than fulfilling the requirements of the school system.

It is my firm belief that the cumulative study subjects (math, languages etc.) should be taught on a classless course basis. If you have talent, you can proceed through the courses faster than your peers, and at the end of school career you know a lot more than the average student, or have switched to other studies or even professional studies when you completed the entire curriculum meant for your school education. If you don't have any talent, then you proceed slower than the average students, and at the end of your schoool career you will have a strong confidence in your abilities in the limited amount of information that you carefully and slowly learned during your school years.

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Otherwise my general opinion about education is that the education system is unnecessarily long and full of information what most people will never need in life. For example, how many people use or even remember all the mathematical formulas that are taught in last stages of elementary school?

Wikipedia gives the answers when you need to know something. So I would reduce the amount of quiz information taught in school system, and instead give children a general view of what kind of information exists in the world, and where to find the most trustworthy answers when you need to know something. I would replace much of the endless history etc. courses with a short course of how to use Wikipedia etc.