How education has changed in my lifetime.

When I went to comprehensive school we started in year 1 and went through to year 5 when we took our O'levels. I was in the last year that took those exames in the UK, the following year the GCSE came in. In that far gone time you were in a form group, it was the year you were in and a letter. School was about learning and getting a general education in science, humanities and to a lesser degree art and a subject labeled home economics (Or cooking as we all called it, learning to make such things as rice pudding.)

School was about learning, teachers tried to teach you the subjects, often repeating the same lesson plan they had taught for many years. We lived in a pit village and in the early 80's most kids expected to follow their dads into the coal mines or other industries. How wrong we all were, Thatcherism and the 1984 miners strike saw an end to any possible chance of that but that's a different post. (If you ever get the chance to watch the film Kes directed by Ken Loach it will explain far better then me what school life was about.)

It was about education.

Jump forward to the present and thing have changed. The comprehensive schools have all changed to Science Collages or Language colleges or whatever. On signs outside them they have a couple of lines that use words like 'inspire', 'achive' or 'aim' in some sort of almost political statement. (One fellow dad I spoke to of one of the local Science Collages said after going to an open evening, 'It seems to be more a well run prison camp than a school.')Instead of being in a form group you enter a Harry Potter style house with a name, usually a local historic person or building. You even have the different houses compeating against each othe over the year.

Another big change is on a national level and the attitude of what a school is there for. Where in my day you went to school to get an education, to learn things and to be given a chance to be taught how to learn knowledge. Today the government pushes a new line, schools are their to prepare children for work.

Our education system has been hijacked to now produce constant new products for the economy, our children's education has become part of the economy. Now I'm sure there will be many who disagree with me but I think education should be something that lights a candle in a childs mind, opens a door so they want to learn. You spend far too many years locked in the rat race, trying to earn a living so school should be just a place to learn about the world we live in.

Not everything in life should be about work, childhood should be about wonder, education should be about learning about that wonder.