She isn't wrong…

Surely this is where the government should be able to step-in and provide more incentives for businesses to take on apprentices. I would imagine it being cheaper longer term to invest in someone getting a trade, than some leeching of the state and contributing little – except offspring.

I agree with apprentiships. O.K. I know it’s pro rata, but when I did my 42 hrs week as an apprentice fitter, on steam and diesel, I took home 50 pence a week, even though I was doing the same work as a qualified fitter, these Companies ought to jump at the chance of cheap labour.
I remember my 1st day, the fitter I was seconded to told me to clean all the tools we had used that day,I told him as HE had used them, he should clean them. The next thing I remember I was lying on the floor. Never said that again, I think if I remember correctly it’s called RESPECT been lost and gone a long while ago. I went to colledge once a week, and obtained my C&G. and what did I learn?.
I learned, that through life, one had to often take a step back, and figure things out yourself, go to the Library and look things up if the answer your looking for is not at hand. I had a motorcycle when I was an apprentice, and the times that that machine was taken apart and put back together again, well I lost count, skimming heads, porting inlet and exhaust ports etc, I could never have done that without gaining all I had through an apprentiship, and respect was learned the very first day on the job.
Today, I have just been told by my daughter, that my 13 yrs old Grand son has had his ANDROID phone stolen at school, why do kids need a phone at school.
I recently made a purchase at a shop, and asked, and was given a 10% discount, imagine my absolute surprise when the young, well, young to me,girl, got a calculator out, to work out what the 10% discount would come to, I had worked it out as soon as I was told I could have the discount.
The teachers have had their power to whack the trouble makers taken away from them, I remember the odd times I had to stand outside the Headasters door, to be given a good caning for just talking during the lesson.
I say, bring back the good old days, better still, somewon start dishing out respect.

Lincoln .7

Oh, well, we’ll agree to differ in that case as this will only go round and round between us, achieving nothing.:)

She is making generalizations about children’s morals, which for the most part don’t bear any resemblance to what actually happens in real life. Most children don’t think it’s OK to steal or misbehave. Some do but most do not. Her sweeping generalizations are, in fact, quite disrespectful of the many hard-working children in education trying to make the best of the ****-up the adult world has made for them.

Maybe encouragement and support might be more productive than insult and abuse.

You are making inferences from her comments which she never implied. Of course life was worse in many respects, that is accepted, but she is talking about moral values and, yes, old fashioned concepts like respect, discipline and responsibility. That is what we sorely lack in the 21st century.

Ms Lumley is suggesting, from her rather privileged position, that we return to a time which, with the benefit of rose-coloured glasses, was better. It wasn’t for a majority – far from it.

Maybe we should bring back abusing children with physical punishment. Maybe we should bring back some real old-fashioned values like intolerance and bigotry.

Building camps and working on farms – honestly:rolleyes:

I think Joanna Lumley is wrong and it sounds to me as if she is living the past… the distant past. Banning laptops in schools, building camps, working on farms – it is 2011 not 1951 you know.

I reckon that children are pretty much the same as they have always been; some bad but most, the ones you usually don’t hear about, are good, decent kids. There is a tendency to always say that things were better in the old days (they weren’t) – and really that’s all this is about isn’t it.

Still, as long as it gets the headlines eh?

Nope – the relationship between children, adults and teachers has totally changed – for the worse. Ms Lumley is dead right and although it is the year 2011 she is not suggesting that we shouild live in the past but that we should still practice some of the values of the past. Of course there are good and bad children and there is a large minority who are an example to all, but that minority shoild be the majority.

I chuckle everytime some says ‘we must provide apprenticships’.

Who’s gong to pay for them? Industry won’t.

Surely this is where the government should be able to step-in and provide more incentives for businesses to take on apprentices. I would imagine it being cheaper longer term to invest in someone getting a trade, than some leeching of the state and contributing little – except offspring.

I think Joanna Lumley is wrong and it sounds to me as if she is living the past… the distant past. Banning laptops in schools, building camps, working on farms – it is 2011 not 1951 you know.

I reckon that children are pretty much the same as they have always been; some bad but most, the ones you usually don’t hear about, are good, decent kids. There is a tendency to always say that things were better in the old days (they weren’t) – and really that’s all this is about isn’t it.

Still, as long as it gets the headlines eh?

Indeed ‘theory heavy’ is a nightmare! I know – I teach it! I did my trade training with the RAF – almost an apprenticeship (although the proper apprentices would laugh at that).

The modern part 147 EASA driven stuff is completely wrong – too much emphasis on passing exams and not enough learning how to wire-lock-without-bleeding. Thats why my students are spending the next 3 months doing a C-check on an airliner….

Theory heavy.
Oh dear.
Some of the Cad jockeys at work are theory heavy. They are crap.
Just because it can be created on a daytime TV with fancy DogEar software, doesn’t mean it is the correct way to make the part!
The practical side is so so so important. Sorry, I generally don’t trust “Engineers” that haven’t banged their thumb with a hammer at some point of their training.
And yes, I know that “Engineer” is rooted in ingenious, not mucky oily stuff.

I chuckle everytime some says ‘we must provide apprenticships’.

Who’s gong to pay for them? Industry won’t. The cost would be too high for students to pay for their own. Which leaved established colleges. Only its not an apprenticeship if you go to a college to do it!

Oh and by the way, the qualifications which you get as an apprentice in the aviation industry – the C&G / NVQ level 2s and 3s are binned this year. The are being replaced with a two year diploma-style course…. ie. theory-heavy college course.

http://www.cityandguilds.com/62528.html

Ms Lumley is dead right though!

Inkworm, don’t give up old chap. I know peer pressure can be immense, but it’s the core values that people are taught as kids that really stick with them.

Easier said than done, there is nothing more annoying than when I’m trying to teach a bunch of undergraduates who are supposed to be ‘adults’ and are paying for their education and they’d rather mess about on facebook or texting people when I’m trying to deliver a lecture, yes I shouldn’t care, it’s their loss not mine but it is bloody rude. I’m also pretty confident that if their parents ever found out they would not be impressed.

Despite that little one knows how important planes and rugby are so we must be doing something right!:D

Aldertag.
True.

And, your Brother is stereotyping…something I’m always vilified for on here:cool:.
However, the small % of times he’s wrong justifies the judgement IMO.

As a parent and a grandparent there’s a great deal of truth and good sense in your “rant”. Don’t apologise.

Well I’m not a parent myself as yet, but I have family in the education system (one teacher, one uni lecturer) and I’m an uncle a dozen times over…

The one factor that is most prominent in how children learn and behave and so on are the parents. My brother brought home some work to mark from his class of 9 year olds, and having seen this stuff you just wouldn’t believe the difference between the kids with decent parenting and those without. Even before parents evening, he knows almost exactly the kind of parent he is going to be meeting going by how the child behaves, thier attitude toward life and other people, and thier standard of handwriting, literacy and numeracy. Children are absorbant, and everything the adults around them do rubs off on them- fact.

Yes, there are problems with education too, but there is only so much teachers can do. A child who is being subjected to neglect, apathy or other negative influences at home is not going to reach thier full potential no matter how much tweaking of education goes on.

That said, I do agree with Joanna Lumley on the whole, a strong moral education is more important than a strong academic one. You can be as bright as you like, but with no moral compass you’re stuffed.

Inkworm, don’t give up old chap. I know peer pressure can be immense, but it’s the core values that people are taught as kids that really stick with them.

I’m now 30, and it’s just in the last couple of years that I have really begun to appreciate the quality of my upbringing. I have been very lucky in having parents who’ve stuck together through thick and thin, and who have set an excellent example to me all my life. I have friends who’ve been through the divorce and re-marriage of parents and other home problems, and having seen and heard about the things they’ve been through, I’m eternally grateful for the stability of my upbringing.

Sorry, bit of a rant!

Can you always blame the parents, we are trying our best and at the moment doing reasonably well, however little inky is yet to turn three, I’m sure as she gets older she will listen to us less and to her peers more, one of those sad facts.

……..some parents that is.

Probably some schools are OK too, but they are not in Government control and charge rather a lot.

I would heartily endorse every single comment she made. Children are, in the main, no longer taught about respect, discipline and a sense of responsibilty for themselves and to others. Schools and parents are to blame, but so is government for abjectly failing in its duty to support these virtues.