Comments of mine from a Facebook education discussion.

"Joe I never allowed my kids to go to a school where the minority that don't want to learn are dominant. I'd support any parent who walked away from a school like that and it is a totally responsible decision. Many lefty labourites, particularly in York, have done exactly that ! Good for them. At some point we have to just give up on kids and parents who don't want much to do with the education system because they are quite unjustly sucking up a disproportionate amount of resources that can be better spent elsewhere. On my two day Teacher Training Placement I saw some classes where half the kids just put their feet up and I was told most of them had not picked up a pen for months . Chuck them out and give temporary placements to African kids who would relish the opportunity. That would be just.

When I look at how so called disaffected kids abuse the educational system and compare it to the global demand for education it is not the private school kids who are doing anything wrong , at least they work and hard , it is the hundreds of thousands of UK kids who just abuse the system while their African counterparts would fall over to be in a UK school. Giving up on them is the only option and after a few months of that some will come around . I'm looking forward to the day when we don't pander to them ! As soon as any kids kicks off in a classroom they should be kicked out because they are sinning against the majority of kids who want to learn. A Head Teacher on my teaching practice in 1989 told me exactly that and more or less did it. I've seen it and Fiona has worked in it for the last 16 years in Dodmire School Darlington. Any other position is in fact undemocratic. Give the vote to kids to vote out the idiots and see what happens . The wayward will be gone pretty pronto!

It sounds hard but it is how Fiona and I have raised our kids. We just convinced them from an early age that learning , that which interests you is a good thing . At times we have come down on them very very hard when they fell short of their own stated goals . Sometimes in my view you can't be hard enough with kids particularly when they are genuinely confused to the point that they go against the hand that is feeding them. Many kids in UK schools are doing just that and a long time out period would do many of them a lot of good. They can get their education if and when they want it . Time out periods were the main means of disciplining our lads until recently . Our extreme displeasure worked as well. Treats were withdrawn as a matter of course. No problem ran on for more than a few hours under this system. I am amazed sometimes they still love Fiona and I !"

"Just out of interest any kid who comes out on an activity with us eg skateboarding knows there is a standard of behavior and thinking that I expect and if they don't meet those they get timed out . Sure they'll get another chance but not for several months . Time outs always work you just have to do it !"

"But Joe parents are only responsible for their own kids not others. As a humanitarian gesture and a desire to give service I offer help to other kids , maths, writing , hiking , trip to skatepark. Find out how many education researchers and academics send their kids to duff schools where the social engineering they want is going on . Hardly any! None of them really believe it they are just pursuing their academic careers talking about what would be good for others but impossible to attain so its a good excuse for another research paper .Educational research is largely moribund. If they really believed their own ideas they'd put their kids in the duff schools. They don't."

" Class doesn't matter : sound parenting does and thats the only reason a bright kid from a deprived background makes it : great parents no matter what class they are from. Fiona and I could take any poor kid at five and by 18 they'll be in a trade or doing a degree. Good parenting isn't rocket science."

"Most of the middle classes in the UK are totally confused about parenting and there is a great fear about talking about it . They generally fall back on the feeble and untrue view that all parenting styles are valid . They're not and some are actually harmful to kids . A very touchy subject by the way as I found when I was in York from when Miles was born. After 6 weeks of age Miles was trained to be a sound sleeper and I learned the skill from Fionas Mum. Training is the word when raising kids. This meant that the lad was always fresh and never fractious because of regular sleep and a mega advantage for learning if there ever was one . I can't think of one parental intervention that I didn't get from someone else or just by doing the opposite of what all the other Mums were doing . The best York Mum put down from the few I bumped into was because Miles was very content to watch and observe whilst I sat for up to an hour talking within someone over coffee was , " Oh he is very placid isn't he " . Being placid was seen as a negative. Wrong : sitting still is totally necessary for learning . Both he and Clifford are pretty good learners and still have no problem sitting still! Miles was pretty active if you saw him building and building and building for hours at end at home ! Photos coming soon! It was impossible to attend any of the parent groups because I just did it as a househusbnand completely differently and most of them didn't like it . How could I have a discussion about sleep problems with my young un when he didn't have any ! " Like attracts like and seeks the company of its own kind " as it says in the Bahai Writings. No big deal."  

Facebook comments about education

"The wayward kids Joe shouldn't be anywhere near kids who want to learn. I don't believe in mixed ability groups and kids of a certain level are best with those at the same level just like musicians tend to play with those at a similar level. The whole idea that kids can be educated to the same level is wrong : differences innate and acquired exist . Miles was born doing maths and has great innate skills which I remind him sometimes are a lot to do with what he was born with and nothing to do with his efforts. He doesn't have to try to hard although he is moving it now . That said approaches are important . I could have helped him with some of his A Level work but he sorted it out for himself and the bit I couldn't get I could have got one of the many ex Uni Maths Tutors that live in Teesdale to help but through not getting help he has acquired an iron determination to get better at whatever he is doing . Same with Clifford .

"This educational thing is a red herring Joe put about by all governments masking the fact that housing and the environment are the problems to crack, and governments can do little about that for party political reasons and then privately educated kids who I knew in the 1980s at York Uni can do what they want to do rather than Degree work they didn't like but not be financially penalized for it . There will always be a better house and location but there doesn't h ave to be a worse one : they can all be good. In other words we can build great housing for everyone cheaply if the will was there , it isn't, for negative equity reasons that would bring down any government very swiftly, that would make the current economic problems look small, but we will never get Mr Thick like me much smarter than I am and Mr Bright like Miles much dumber : there will always be a gap!"

"Just out of interest putting more money into education can result in kids just getting experiences forced upon them. That why Miles and Clifford were withdrawn from any pretty useless educational experiences in Primary and Secondary Schools. The National Curriculum was called the Entitlement Curriculum but people great and small who thought and still do think that is a good thing can't accept that it is a great injustice to a child to make them have educational experiences they are entitled to that are totally useless for them! Challenging stuff!

Lots of New Labour kids got the entitlement to University but that is now dropping off because there are not enough graduate jobs and never will be and the student loan scheme makes Degree Education for and increasing amount of kids just not worth it . Yet another discriminatory market created by party politicians because the really bright kids will always get the jobs because the employers do ability and aptitude tests rightly of wrongly and those kids always do better innately or because of practice . I don't like this situation Joe but no party politician is doing anything to change it which involves equalizing every other bit of society namely housing and the environment rather than educational outcomes of which it is impossible to equalize . Pushing teachers around and bamboozling the electorate with education dreams has been going on for the last 100 years. It will stop because housing and environment will become more important to people when enough of them realise that housing and great places to live are more important and directly plug into education. You can have the shiniest and newest school on the planet and there is one called the Education Village in Darlington , New Labour build , but the housing and environment that most of the kids attending that school come from vastly negate anything the underfunded under all governments school can do !"

"Yes you're right and Richmond Comprehensive School never was one it contained the Grammar School within it which was no bad thing . The Headteacher , Mr Dutton stated this right from the beginning and he was the old Grammar School Head . A good man by the way and he has always said hello to me over the years. Any kid in the mid 70s could get into the top sets and be alongside the ex Grammar School kids which is how it should be but it was still the case that kids from the worse housing and environments mostly didn't get into those top sets. This elites thing though Joe . One of the great things I like about Miles and Clifford was that when they were in Longfield School part time they knew kids from all different levels and I put this down to skateboarding which is a great leveler. They always likes the lads who like them like to have a laugh but there is mutual deference to ability or the lack of it . I'm the same by the way and what I like about the Butterknowle musicians is that they quite correctly recognize and appreciate musicians much better than them , thats respect after all, but they don't give a hoot about it ! Thats the sort of society I'd like to live in : recognise and respect differences of ability but it doesn't matter to much socially." 

"The Haughton Education Villlage School that was built about 8 years ago was a brilliant effort from the Government at the time : New Labour and it would have been the same under any Government . But the day after it was opened a load of disaffected local kids went and vandalised chunks of it . Housing and environment have to be good as well Joe . The Teacher Training Placement I did there a few months back was a real eye opener . About a quarter of the kids demonstrably couldn't care less about education and seemed to think that the state will look after them . I thought " Don't they realise that under any government in ten years time there won't be a dole it will just be food stamps"" 

"In Richmond School in the 1970s I was always in the bottom sets . The school put that down to having so much time out of school getting operations on my arm , until I was 14, but there was more to it than that : my parents never valued education , typical white working class and I shared a bedroom with my brother until I left for college at 18. The telly was on a lot in the evening downstairs so it was impossible to do homework . Millions of kids still suffer those environments and parents who don't value education who themselves have suffered poor housing an environments for years . They have no chance whatsoever and according to a person I know who runs a social care company on Teeside when these kids work for her they struggle to fulfill even the most basic requirements of the job . None of this has anything to do with the education system at all." 

"The economy is not as bad as people think . There is a lot of demand just not being realised because people won't spend . Good for them and its about time to. Greenoids never really understood and still don't want to see , what would happen if people spent and consumed less and maybe now they do . Trying to say that moving the UK to Green Energy would also result in economic growth in the old sense ie it can replace consumer spending growth is just plain wrong. Once a wind turbine is up its only economic potential other than energy production and maintenance is tourism and people are not going to go and gawp at power stations no matter how they are dressed up! I don't think they are ever going to spend , like they did , ever again. The politicians are going to have to design a better economic system based on less consumer spending and they are being confronted by that. The problem is fundamentally spiritual in other words."
 

With low cumulus clouds drifting west to east and thousands of feet above them the combed hair of cirrus clouds straggling the sky Clifford, Fiona and I went for our weekly trek around the Durham Woods and Durham City. It was quite warm but with a pleasant autumnal wind cooling everything down, reminding the leaves that not only are they changing but the weather is telling them to do that as well.

There were many people around, which is always nice and loads of parents with 18-year-olds on the teacher training and college courses which start at this time of the year. Seeing all these people under the leafy woods with tinged streaks of orangey brown in the high canopy was quite magical.

We stopped for biscuit break at Durham market and had a really good chat with a young man running his own mobile cafe business and making nice coffee as well. He was a Durham student who had deferred his third year in Engineering because he wanted to run his own business. He had got into University with just three Bs and had only put Durham University on his application form and this was after he had had a year out. He also won a regional engineering competition but preferred running a business to getting his head stuck into engineering mathematics and design. He owns his own house, has three lodgers and is also helping his brother to run part of his business as a supply manager. An incredibly talented and enterprising 21 year old young man and Clifford was very interested in his story  all told in 4 minutes flat whilst he was making  our coffee. Great coffee as well particularly with our biscuit.

 I could say that the   inheritance he got from his grandfather which enabled him to get on the housing market was a big leg up as well as the useful contact of his brother being in business but this lad is making the best of his opportunities and that is what I liked about him as well as being completely open about how he has got to where he is. Refreshing. We also exchanged address  cards because he is interested in anything that is going on around him.

I always love to talk to folk when I'm out and about but we also saw some great rock today looking at some granite which has been used as foundation blocks for a new Durham University building. It is interesting that the same granite is also on the steps in Durham market place.

On the way back the high cirrus clouds had descended and formed  layers of Stratus clouds and because of this we saw a huge star of iridescence,  which occurs when sunlight shines through thin cloud in this case very high cirrus cloud no doubt made up of ice crystals and maybe some water droplets lower down because this rainbow like star in the sky was absolutely huge. One of the best things I have done recently is get into reading about the atmosphere and clouds because  it is yet another interest point when I go out.

When we got back Miles was still working at his mathematics, Goodlad, and he is very busy what with three finals coming up, the start of his next courses at the same time as well as two weeks of mathematics problems he has to solve as part of his application process to do a Masters or Ph.D. at Durham University. He has always got his head down as a matter of course, but he's really doing well at the moment. Total respect.

His lazy fun loving parents just  stuck "Infidels" by Bob Dylan on the CD player in our bedroom and   had a good one hour cuddle listening to The Man singing his stuff. Quite often I am struck by the magic of my family life which   I never take for granted because it all feels so special due to the efforts we as a Baha'i family make  for each other and ourselves due to our beliefs and not just because of our human feelings towards each other. I think that is right but I can only account for my own individual motivation which is firmly based on my religious beliefs. Serious stuff, and I must get back to my meatballs, fresh pasta, tomato sauce and garlic bread which may be singeing so I'm off to make sure the family gets fed  Thats serious stuff as well!.  A smashing day!

From a comment thread about work ;

"When doing volunteer work at Juniper Communities York in the '80s, working with learning disabled men , they were called mentally handicapped then , I got paid in kind with meals and some beer money thrown in . They offered straight cash sometimes but I couldn't take money from a charity. Went busking instead for readyolas. Two old friends from the Dales working at the unemployment office used to sign me on. In Richmond 70s to 80s some people working when signing on was sort of accepted because people got jobs done cheaply and well. I saw my work at Juniper , when signed on as "work" and so did they. I told the dole office exactly what I was doing. Good times. I miss the learning disabled men sometimes and they taught me how to love and were a big influence for raising my lads in an organised way . Maximising human potential and having a good time as well . Thats what its all about !"

" The above got me thinking at the time " Why doesn't society pay me directly for doing what was a full time job" . I got lots of pats on the head from the Juniper Management Committee folk and was given big responsibilities for the men like taking them out on a river cruise boat for a week, just me and three of the guys up the River Ouse , locking into the Ripon Canal and back. No supervision , no risk assessment but a lot of fun . I still disagree with volunteering . Everyone should be paid because that is proper work. It will come ."

Interesting what you find out. I was reading up about Dizzy Gillespie the American jazz trumpet player and music innovator and I knew he was a member of the Baha'i Faith like me but what I didn't know was that a guy called Mike Longo who was also a Baha'i worked with Dizzy Gillespie well before he got religion and what Mike Longo said about jazz education in the United States which is quite influential in all branches of music education,

"I know jazz education is an important thing and I know that the field means well, but there seems to be a trend in that field to teach jazz where people are actually copying off recordings instead of actually learning to play jazz. The apprenticeship aspect of jazz has always been the way it has evolved." (Mike Longo).

Ever since the mid-1990s when I came up to the north-east and started paying more attention to what local musicians were playing in their solos, guitarists and keyboard players mostly and also listened to what recorded artists were playing like Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix ,I noticed that quite often passages from some of the solos for the north-east guitar players and keyboard players sounded like solos from major artists. I know that musicians copy passages in order to learn how to play their instruments as well as improvise but I think there is an awful lot in what Mike Longo is saying. There are thousands of books about rock and pop improvisation and invariably they involve simply playing transcripts of jazz and rock solos. I really think this is the wrong approach and a healthy respect for what has come before and then finding my own musical voice is the right approach.

Whenever I go out and play with locals the first thing I do is to fit in with the style of the music being played and then a close second is trying to play something that is original but still within the style.

What I also found interesting about Mike Longo from my Baha'i point of view is that what he is advocating will increase musical diversity rather than people copying each other. Amen to that. This could also explain why a lot of rock and pop music has done as well as it has because whilst there is an acknowledgement of what has gone before rock, pop and the various styles of rap music try to innovate all the time and I think that is a good thing.

After a straightforward morning mostly reading Bahai History and checking out some harmonica amplifiers on the Internet I went up to Durham City with Fiona and Clifford for a couple of hours of walking in the afternoon.

With a blue sky and some white wispy cirrus fibratus clouds straggling across the sky a healthy 30,000 feet up to stroll under we walked into a busy and very bustling Durham city centre. When we stopped for biscuit break inside Durham Cathedral there was a bat flitting around the quod as well as one having a nice afternoon nap halfway up a stone pillar. Absolutely brilliant and quite a surprise as was the other much larger bat around the corner. Why bats have started roosting in this part of Durham Cathedral I have no idea.

For the second time this century Fiona came up with a good idea which was that instead of striding our way back to the car we go and have a cup of coffee at one of the mobile coffee venues parked in the market. I hope she suggests this again sometime because it was the best cup of coffee I have had in years. Nice one Fiona! Walking around Durham Cathedral with the autumn light shining through the stained glass casting multicoloured patterns onto the stone pillars was really beautiful. I love this time of the year.

Miles was not with us today because he has a lot of University work to do and his course finishes at the end of October but his new courses for next year start in the middle of October so he is doing his finals, because Open University do finals every year whilst at the same time starting his new courses. Not only that, he is applying to do an MSc in mathematics and possibly a Ph.D. but in order to get onto the MSc course he has to do two weeks of fairly rigourous maths problems for Durham University Mathematics Department which I think is a great way to find out whether a young budding maths student has got what it takes. We have decided he is going to do Postgraduate Studies whether he gets funding or not in other words we will be funding it and if anybody wants a kidney I have one for sale at the moment. Just in case any of this falls apart he will also be applying to do Teacher Training to be a maths teacher.

When we got back home Fiona and I went and crashed out to have a listen to the new Bob Dylan CD and it was really good and I will listen to it a lot over the next few days. 71 and still writing great songs: good for him. For tea we had our usual meatballs, tomato sauce, fresh pasta, garlic bread followed by yoghurt and honey for Clifford and me, but the other half of the family had some sort of chemical chocolate concoction which looks as unhealthy as hell but they seem to enjoy it. As the Klingons say "Die well!" . We also watched a couple of episodes of "Fools and Horses" which was really funny. Another really nice day and even though Miles had a bad cold today he still did three hours of mathematics work God bless him. Good lad.

From my Facebook comments;

The US fought and won its federation in the American Civil War intended or not. One consistent law system for all no matter what colour even though all American Indians were not full citizens until 1924 and the African American racial problems persist to today although much reduced.. If there is one constant in American History it is that America makes the best of the unintended and ends up going places it never intended to go and that place is towards establishing democracy and federal principles and practice everywhere. The Founding of the League and United Nations primarily driven by Americans is a good example and as I said before successive American Governments drive Europe to a United States of Europe .

Most of Europe is Christian, Christianity dominates , just as it did in 18C America and the questions I often ask myself because I'm a Bahai and believe in and work for a World Federal System are these : " Why did so many American politicians , government officials and Governments attempt and in some cases succeed in establishing Federal principles and practice? " "Why do so many European governments , government officials and European Institutions want to establish a United States of Europe? And the last one is " How long will it be until Middle Eastern and Far Eastern countries go down the same federal path?" . In the last question trade and business are already conducted across borders to an amazing mount it is only a matter of time until the Far Eastern Countries establish their own economic federation in the same way Europe has no doubt fully supported and encouraged intended or not by who else : America . God bless that country.

Anyway , I totally agree with this from a great American in my view:

"We must make the United Nations continue to work, and to be a going concern, to see that difficulties between nations may be settled just as we settle difficulties between States here in the United States. When Kansas and Colorado fall out over the waters in the Arkansas River, they don't go to war over it; they go to the Supreme Court of the United States, and the matter is settled in a just and honorable way. There is not a difficulty in the whole world that cannot be settled in exactly the same way in a world court." -- President Truman's remarks in Omaha, Nebraska on June 5, 1948, at the dedication of the War Memorial (Quoted from Wikipedia).

As Mr Truman said it above thats the world I want to live in and a lot of people on the planet are coming around to this and America is leading that process often unintended because its the way that great country reacts to world events which always seem to nudge the planet peoples towards more global integration and eventually , I believe, to a world federation.

Under patchy blue skies with long plates of clouds letting the sun through the lightly autumnal light Fiona, Clifford and I had a lovely walk around a laid-back and sleepy Durham City. We walked straight in along the road from Shincliffe because I wanted to see the new university buildings which are nearly completed and the leaves on the Beech and Sycamore trees were just starting to change, getting that tinged colouring, the first signs of another season coming.

Many more times than I can remember and count I have had dreamlike walks as well as occasions with my family and today was one of them. We always have a fairly humorous, mellow, relaxed tone about us it is part of our family culture but sat there having biscuit break in the centre of Durham with my family and the crowds whipped up a little bit with some of the new young people who are about to embark on their studies just felt completely right.

Miles, was a bit unwell today and tired from a very busy week, the lad works very hard as well as intensely, so he stayed in, but what was best about getting back home was his keen interest in our walk, one he knows so well and he pretty much knows what we are going to say, but he is still interested. I think the best human beings are those who just take an interest in the very ordinary because it is in actual fact very special.

The Mr Leonard Cohen graced our crash out and cuddle as Fiona and I listened to his warbling tones and very good songs. For some reason today I was really hearing the backing singers and the instrumentation which was totally sublime.

The meatballs are now cooking, venison today, the sauce is getting even saucier and our Saturday evening routine is about to happen with the second of The Matrix series films to watch. Later on I will be watching some episodes of Deep Space 9 which is really great because I watch them on my own now and I can really get into it even though I said a while back I would never watch it again. I really understand why my eldest lad gets so much out of it it is a very deep series. I might even blow some harmonica and sing later on this evening. Magical day!