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Thursday Aug 16, 2007
It's rose tinted spectacle season
A-Level results are out today, and its open season for student bashers everywhere. The Telegraph reports that a quarter of all results will be "A's", prompting the annual avalanche of scorn on our educational system, and the young people that pass through it.
Journalists must love this time of year – just open the article they wrote last year, change the date, increase the percentage of grade A's, and away you go.
For students it doesn't get much easier once they've done their A-Levels, because apparently degrees are much easier now as well. In fact, they're not just easier, most of them cover pointless subjects that bear no relevance to the "real world" and are no use to man nor beast.
Not only that – according to some, this increase in "soft A-Levels" is also undermining the economy. I'm not necessarily arguing the facts on this on this one. What does appal me though is the level of negativity about young people that's packaged up at the same time.
So, just in case anyone missed the message, if you believe everything you read, young people are a bunch of ASBO-ridden, disrespectful, poorly qualified wasters.
The weight of implied criticism of young people is immense in this country, and it will surely have a detrimental effect. Imagine if parents told their kids that, despite doing all they can to achieve excellent results in their exams, it was only because "exams are easy now".
So how do young people gain the respect of their elders? Join the army and fight an unpopular war in Iraq and Afghanistan? Excel at sport and join the ranks of the over-paid, over-privileged footballers?
I'm reminded sometimes of one of the classic sports clichés – you can only beat what's in front of you, and what we seem to be creating is a society where young people have no perceived value, and very little to aspire to.
Rant over – I just think endlessly telling people they're useless and they offer nothing of value is no way to nurture, encourage and inspire a generation.Posted by Sam Thomas ( 8:49 AM ) Link to this post Comments[4]
Important points well made.
More of government certainly seems to be talking the talk about portraying young people in a positive light (although a lot of government action doesn't walk the walk...) - and yet the challenges in shifting public opinion are massive...
I've recently been reading a lot on Youth Development approaches to young people from the US (and Youth Development ideas seem to crop up quite a bit in the recent 10 year youth strategy...) and that perhaps offers a lot of learning about creating a positive 'public idea' of youth and how young people should be regarded. It's a long journey - but a really important one.
We've got a lot of attitudes to reverse - but the experience of positive youth development approaches seems to suggest that doing so is key to creating effective services that support young people to grow and thrive and be inspired...
Posted by Tim Davies on August 17, 2007 at 05:05 PM GMT+00:00 #
the hundreds of young people who have nobbled MPs to sign EDM 1885 to change
the way they are portrayed.
Visit the link below for further info!
Get your MP to sign the EDM
Posted by Lucja on August 20, 2007 at 03:46 PM GMT+00:00 #
Thanks for the comment and the link - plenty of food for thought there!
Sam
Posted by Sam Thomas on August 20, 2007 at 03:53 PM GMT+00:00 #
The Trust is asking if you think news stories about 'anarchy in the UK' and the growing problem of youth crime present a realistic picture of Britain today or have the media latched onto a small number of incidents and over-emphasised their significance?
You can join the debate here:
http://www.mediastandardstrust.org/home/debatestandards/debatedetails.aspx?sid=6657
Posted by Lucja on August 22, 2007 at 02:11 PM GMT+00:00 #