Goodbye Mr Chips!

Education is not working in the UK. League Tables, Michael Gove and Examination Boards jumping overboard, the sacred cow which is the WJEC has become a laughing stock again and a by word in schools for those who want an 'easy' exam board. Goodness knows it has courted enough controversy in the past. "If you enjoyed school, you'll enjoy work" goes the old urban myth, well in my book there must be something congenitally defective with you if you did enjoy school. I was educated in the last century but it might as well have been the century before that, in North Wales, in a school straight out of Goodbye Mr Chips, unfortunately there weren't any Mr Chips there unless you count Biffo, the old Latin Master, who had Parkinson's Disease and was teaching us as he trembled. So I who now have trouble 'speaking the spoke of yr Iaith Gymraeg' or rather writing it was doing Lladin. That singled me out from my peers if nothing else did. School never prepared me for anything. It was so competitive with its emphasis on Sport and Cross Country Running that my silent non co-operation was not appreciated.

So I have been a pupil and I have also been a Teacher, before I became a professional mad person. My contention is that school, like any other institution will make you mad. I don't know enough about Summerhill and the Free school experiment to expand on its success or failure but the word free and school from my memory is an oxy-moron. The fact that I became Mentally unwell early in my teens combined with a Draconian education system has left me in middle age rather hostile to schools and the idea of exams. Schools are for Fish, swimming together with the tide! God Help the little tiddler who decides to swim against the tide. You could do well in coursework throughout the year, you could work hard, become an introverted reader and still fail your GCSE's or O levels as we called them in those days. " Oh Grandad, shut up". We did the Oxford and Cambridge examination board where I was schooled and even though I worked hard I didn't pass my exams and that is why I am now earning £62.40 a week from this Fascist Government for my blogs. It was Herr Thatcher who was in power when I was in school and I remember one of the teachers coming into class and saying "We've got  one of them, we've shot one of them down" during the Malvinas conflict and I remember thinking then, 'What do you mean, We'. I'll have nothing to do with your colonialist, Imperialist nonsense thank you very much. The fact that the course of your whole life can be decided by a few sweaty hours up against the clock, whether you go to Tech, College or Uni. Whether you drop out and do drugs! Whether you self medicate and have a breakdown is in my contention all to do with exams. We are examining you! We your wise elders, we who know better, little tiddler, we are examining you to find out whether that sponge of yours can retain enough information for a couple of hours to enable you to go on and be a whizz in your career. Instead of Teacher leave those kids alone, it should be Michael Gove, leave those teachers alone. Get rid of the formal academic structures, get rid of league tables and competition in education. Get rid of pushing square pegs into round holes and lets get some holistic education shit going here, shall we?