EDUCATION: WHATS IT FOR?

Do "we" need to completely restructure our whole education system,should it BE a "system" and should we rethink WHAT we teach?

I took this photo in November 1999 as part of my Millennium Project. This ceremony takes place annually and has for about 300 years. The girls of Red Maids School walk in procession led by the Head Girl,with heads bowed in their traditional school clothes through central Bristol to the Cathedral for a service of Thanksgiving in memory of the Founder of the School who was one of the rich Bristol Merchant Venturers.

This morning (8th June 2026) I enjoyed an hour of listening to the early morning radio host talking about the growing phenomenon of young men and women who after attaining their degree at University are going to live and work abroad because they don't find jobs in Britain. This radio host kept it light and entertaining despite it being serious and it helped that the phones were off so he read out texts,of which he got plenty. This was actually a huge improvement. A lot more points of view could be put forward without all the time wasting of greetings and hopes you are ok,and ums and ers,and digressions and all the hold ups in actual conversations especially when you know the point the caller in is trying to make but he or she,like you cant think of the right word to nail it. It's worse if the radio host is hostile and wants to spin your faltering words so you look stupid as happens to many an unfortunate caller in who isn't going with the narrative.

Education. I'm seriously thinking the way we do it is outmoded and no longer fit for purpose. It doesn't seem to prepare anyone for REAL LIFE,if it ever did. People who do well at school have to look to go abroad to get a career going (but they may want to travel and see the world too) and now that low skill jobs seem to be thin on the ground,well how do “low value resource “ as I believe we are now termed manage. I don't know. I'm out of the loop. Happily. I was never really in the loop.

Do children now in this day and age really need to go to a particular building and have gregarity ENFORCED upon them 5 days a week for most of the year for over a decade of their lives. Why not two days or three days and have local outdoor groups taking them on nature walks or being at the city farm or at an allotment or something. I know,it would be horrendously expensive and wouldn't provide the essential child-minding service so both the parents can go out to work so the political administration can rip tax out of them to funnel back into their own back pockets via “initiatives”. Round and round and round she goes,that tax money you paid to maintain our infrastructure that's growing grass over it,where she ends up nobody knows. Once the tax millions go into that dark tunnel labeled “foreign aid” or “ military help to Xxxxx” or “ the public enquiry” into ANYTHING,conducted by Baroness this,and Lady That,and Dame Whoever and Professor Ermintrude expert in Quantum Physics who all get paid £600 a day,is it any wonder the enquiry drags on for 7 years and concludes that no one is to blame and lessons have been learned. THATS WHAT EDUCATION CAN DO FOR YOU.

I now believe that our State Education system put in place in 1870 (I can speak of UK only) had two purposes. One was to provide a proletariat trained to observe time schedules and to be competent to carry out instructions in order to operate machinery in the many factories of the Industrial Revolution that really did darken and blacken and impoverish the urban environments where people were forced to live. In the days before cars you had to live near t’mill or factory or mine. And even if you could walk out to moors near your town which some could not,your immediate environment was smelly and dirty,it was not a good place for children to be in. There was muck and there was work. Now we have sunshine and wildflowers in those old industrial ruins but not the jobs!

But the OTHER REASON and more sinister,thus more hidden,that I now believe Universal State Education was put in place for was to control the narrative,the narrative about life,about history,about the future,about the meaning and purpose of life itself. If you are old enough you will remember comics of old making jokes based on the corny and facile history taught in the old state schools before WW2. King Alfred burning the cakes. Lord Nelson whupping Boney. Yet oddly the diminutive Emperor having a sexy edge to his image. All that ooh la la. That's the Frenchies for you! Our nations destiny under God to rule the World. Bit of a problem there with USA having that same belief and now we are finding out how it feels to be in the trigger hairs of that sort of viewpoint. You need a universal and comprehensive method of indoctrination if you want everyone to be singing from the same song sheet.

I have digressed and rambled and got led astray by side thoughts on this subject so I will conclude now but do another Substack on this actually very interesting subject to which there are many aspects. Education as we have it now no longer seems to be doing or providing what it once was promoted for. Are we even teaching the right things?

Teachers Pet. I wanna be Teachers Pet! I wanna take home a diploma to tell Ma that you love me too. So I can be Teachers Pet long after school is through.

THEY DONT WRITE SONGS LIKE THAT ANYMORE!🤣🤣🤣.