What Shall We Teach In School Today

Two articles in today's Observer caught my eye and rather made me weep for the British education system and the future of our youngsters

Firstly on the front page we have the Amy Winehouse Foundation and parents of other kids who died in a haze of illegal substances calling for Drug and Alcohol awareness classes to be made compulsory i8n schools

Secondly the fact that Maths is now so radically different to what it was little more than 20 years ago that even well educated parents are having to get hold of Maths Dictionaries to be able to help there kids even with Primary School maths.

With regard to the first point I have great sympathy for those who have lost loved ones to the evils of drugs but sorry the school is not the place to educate kids about the dangers of such substances that’s still the responsibility of the parents like mine did with me and I have done with mine,whatever you do some kids will always go off the rails.

And may I also ask where the time will be found to teach such things,its only a few weeks ago that we were talking about Driving Lessons in school,add to that the fact that the school day is a good 20-% shorter than “When I Were a Lad” and where will the time be found to teach kids important subjects like Maths.

Ah yes maths now may I say that I was rubbish at maths at school but was still able by knuckling down to be able to help my kids with maths at least when they were at Primary School,so what is this latest version of maths that is so complex,are we teaching Euclidean Geometry to 6 year olds or Integral calculus in nursery?

My heart bleeds for kids today so called experts change the curriculum on a whim so that the kids from one generation to the next see no continuity in their education and parents arrive at a situation like this where helping their children prosper at school is a virtual impossibility.

I know I'm a dinosaur but how about a return to the basics otherwise the generations of dysfunctional jobless kids turning to illegal substances because they have nothing else to do will blight this country for a very long time.