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    #26
    Liberté, égalité, fraternité

    If you think I work 60 hours a week with the the aim of 'knocking the life out of the kids,' you're due a holiday.
    If you think that's what I said, you're due an English lesson.

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      #27
      Liberté, égalité, fraternité

      TonTon wrote:
      If you think I work 60 hours a week with the the aim of 'knocking the life out of the kids,' you're due a holiday.
      If you think that's what I said, you're due an English lesson.
      TonTon wrote:
      Of course I think uniforms are an appalling idea too.
      Why?

      TonTon wrote:
      Probably for much the same reasons as people like the idea, really. It has always struck me as a convenience and a disciplinary device.
      ...

      The convenience is not aimed at those who are subject to the rule.

      It certainly doesn't work on its own, Tubby, but it is part of trying to knock the life out of kids.

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        #28
        Liberté, égalité, fraternité

        So you have now noticed that what you suggested isn't what I said? Good lad.

        Comment


          #29
          Liberté, égalité, fraternité

          A uniform is a convenience, part of which purpose is to knock the life out of the kids - is precisely what you said.
          Have you now noticed what a disingenuous, arrogant, patronising little fuck you are? Good lad.

          Comment


            #30
            Liberté, égalité, fraternité

            He's not little, mind.

            Comment


              #31
              Liberté, égalité, fraternité

              No, not little. Arrogant and patronising, yes indeed, particularly in response to the kind of shit you posted. And in that spirit, I'd suggest your comprehension skills are maybe a little rusty.

              Comment


                #32
                Liberté, égalité, fraternité

                Okaaaay, anyhoo, I actually hated uniforms as a kid but now look back on them as useful training in "how to bend not break the rules"

                When I went to college where there was no uniform, I actually found myself trying to dress smarter than anyone else.

                Like my primary school life, I don't particularly see a need for uniforms in primary school, defintely not infants but, there again, I don't see any need for homework in primary school and am increasingly coming to the thinking that kids shouldn't have to go to school until 7.

                Having said all this, if you are going to have uniforms, then everyone should wear them

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                  #33
                  Liberté, égalité, fraternité

                  You still get 'textile discrimination' within a uniformed school.

                  Comment


                    #34
                    Liberté, égalité, fraternité

                    It seems to me that this idea of 'knocking the life out of kids' (by making them wear uniforms) asks that I draw some connection between which clothes people have on and how much 'life' they have.

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                      #35
                      Liberté, égalité, fraternité

                      Bored of Education wrote:
                      Okaaaay, anyhoo, I actually hated uniforms as a kid but now look back on them as useful training in "how to bend not break the rules"

                      When I went to college where there was no uniform, I actually found myself trying to dress smarter than anyone else.

                      Like my primary school life, I don't particularly see a need for uniforms in primary school, definately not infants but, there again, I don't see any need for homework in primary school and am increasingly coming to the thinking that kids shouldn't have to go to school until 7.

                      Having said all this, if you are going to have uniforms, then everyone should wear them
                      There are loads of good reasons for uniforms IMO - and a few for not having them, none of which involve mind control.

                      I tend to fall on the uniform side because of my experience in difficult schools - and my wife's experience in very difficult schools - where they were part of a package for turning around a failing school. By and large they helped create a structure in which the kids were more secure and helped make a clear differentiation between that and some of the very chaotic home lives they endured. It also made it easier to support the ones who were sent in wearing unwashed clothes, unsuitable for the weather, etc.

                      (I suppose, if one were cynical and didn't actually give a fuck for real people, one might call that convenient.)

                      By and large, uniforms also help reduce over-sexualised or aggressive dress in kids. Of course they'll push the boundaries a bit, but as you say, good practice! They reduce bullying and distractions to a certain extent. I asked my wife for her opinion and she said that for some kids it gives them back their childhood.

                      I think I've probably said before though that uniforms should be cheap and one you can't paint a picture, play football or climb a ladder in isn't really fit for purpose.

                      I'm with you on homework, but as far as starting at 7, given the standard of some parenting we're seeing now, the sooner someone starts to have interactions with some children other than 'Shut up I'm on me mobile' the better. Though I'd extend the Foundation Stage by a year so the system was closer to Kindergarten.

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                        #36
                        Liberté, égalité, fraternité

                        Jesus Christ, man. The mind control thing was quite clearly a joke. What do they teach at, no, wait. What do you teach yourself at school these days?

                        Comment


                          #37
                          Liberté, égalité, fraternité

                          EIM wrote:
                          Jesus Christ, man. The mind control thing was quite clearly a joke. What do they teach at, no, wait. What do you teach yourself at school these days?
                          Haha. I teach myself self-control. You should have seen what I wanted to write.

                          Sorry, it came on top of the other similar stuff, which clearly wasn't; should have picked it.

                          Comment


                            #38
                            Liberté, égalité, fraternité

                            Giz a kiss.

                            Comment


                              #39
                              Liberté, égalité, fraternité

                              I'm with you on homework, but as far as starting at 7, given the standard of some parenting we're seeing now, the sooner someone starts to have interactions with some children other than 'Shut up I'm on me mobile' the better. Though I'd extend the Foundation Stage by a year so the system was closer to Kindergarten.
                              I am not sure that the results of some education systems in Europe, especially Scandinavia, agree with you but it's a non-starter here anyway.

                              What do you teach, Chris?

                              Comment


                                #40
                                Liberté, égalité, fraternité

                                For a second I thought TonTon was going to start singing that dreadful song from "The Wall"...

                                Comment


                                  #41
                                  Liberté, égalité, fraternité

                                  I once heard him sing Spandau Ballet in the VIP lounge at Kingsmeadow. He was pretty good.

                                  Comment


                                    #42
                                    Liberté, égalité, fraternité

                                    ChrisJ wrote:
                                    ... and one you can't paint a picture, play football or climb a ladder in isn't really fit for purpose.
                                    Ah, ladder climbing. A core subject when I was a boy. But it's gone by the wayside now. Replaced by the 'new' math and all this business about computers and whatnot. It's nonsense. A return to the basics; that's what we need.

                                    Comment


                                      #43
                                      Liberté, égalité, fraternité

                                      EIM wrote:
                                      He was pretty good.
                                      So true.

                                      My daughter has to wear a uniform at Montessori school, and convenient is the last thing it is for parents. What a pain in the ass. I'd love to get her going in the morning with any old clean top and pants, but no. Fucking white blouse and blue pants or skirt, etc etc.

                                      Comment


                                        #44
                                        Liberté, égalité, fraternité

                                        Now you see we are the opposite. For each of the two of ours still at school we buy two shirts and two sets of shorts. One to wear, one in the wash. Sorted.

                                        Mind you, we don't have to worry about long sleeved shirts, trousers, blazers and the like.

                                        I have never seen it as a conformity issue. If they can't think for themselves in five years because they were once made to wear a white shirt and blue shorts, then I suspoect that will be down to us, not the schools.

                                        Comment


                                          #45
                                          Liberté, égalité, fraternité

                                          If uniform is about knocking the life out of kids, they need to adopt another strategy, because it's doesn't fucking work.

                                          Comment


                                            #46
                                            Liberté, égalité, fraternité

                                            Now you see we are the opposite. For each of the two of ours still at school we buy two shirts and two sets of shorts. One to wear, one in the wash. Sorted.
                                            Therein lies basic common sense being shared.

                                            I was actually thinking of getting the school to allow hoodies with the school logo to rid them of any deliquent status. They are actually a lot more practical than blazers.

                                            Comment


                                              #47
                                              Liberté, égalité, fraternité

                                              Though I'd extend the Foundation Stage by a year so the system was closer to Kindergarten.
                                              That is probably a good compromise for Britain. I would make the Foundation Stage much more based on oral skills than starting literacy and numeracy. Although literacy is the gateway to education, oracy is the gateway to literacy

                                              Comment


                                                #48
                                                Liberté, égalité, fraternité

                                                I must admit, TonTon, I think there are complexities here that you're riding roughshod over. Most thoughtful teachers who broadly (if critically) support the way schools work would argue, I think, that a school education is (a) ultimately liberating and (b) impossible to get under way unless the school environment is fundamentally orderly. That order, they'd go on to argue, has to some extent to be imposed by the exercise of authority; it doesn't arise spontaneously through intrinsic human goodness or something.

                                                Now, there's an obvious tension there--perhaps even what you Hegelian chaps call a "contradiction", though I wish you wouldn't. And there are other positions "out there", such as that of Ivan Illich. But an Illichian approach to education, whatever its strengths, would without any doubt at all perform worse on many things that society values, such as rates of literacy. So the people favouring a form of "discipline" in institutions called "schools" where attendance is compulsory: those people have some solid arguments on their side, which I think merit more respect than you're giving them.

                                                On the specific issue of uniforms: well, like you I'm agin 'em. But I think it's simply not the case, either now or historically, that their sole (or even main) "purpose" is regimentation. That may be part of their "purpose", for some of their advocates, but there are other arguments, as we've seen.

                                                And historically, I think one of the main reasons uniforms were introduced in what we now call the "maintained sector" was a kind of cargo-cultish one: they already existed in the public schools that British state schools, wrongly, largely used as their models. And in public schools, their main purpose wasn't regimentation, I'd argue, but another, distinct, military virtue: esprit de corps. Uniforms were to make you feel special and distinct, and to cause you to identify this special and distinct character with the Dear Old School. Some public schools were regimented, others (like Eton) were much freer, but they all had uniforms. And because they had them, we ended up having them too.

                                                Comment


                                                  #49
                                                  Liberté, égalité, fraternité

                                                  You are, of course, completely correct in your last paragraph and this is the reason why France doesn't have school uniforms as there is no concept of identifying with a particular school.

                                                  Of course, this doesn't mean that you can't have a school uniform. All you have to have is the same nationwide school uniform. I tihnk this would actually be better, reducing divisiveness and textile discimination between schools as well as pupils.

                                                  I believe this is what they do in Australia [/research from "Neighbours]

                                                  Comment


                                                    #50
                                                    Liberté, égalité, fraternité

                                                    Wyatt can write, can't he?

                                                    He's certainly right about Eton there, which hardly seemed to have formal lessons. But in general, I'd say most public schools were laxer than thought. Of course, there were brutalities (dealt out by senior boys as much as masters) and a lot of time was wasted playing rugby, but academic discipline was often very secondary. It's only league tables that have challenged that, in the last 20 years. No-one would have cared about a lazy boy before that, or a teacher who was useless but had once played for Gloucs second XI.

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