September is here, and children and students all across the nation will be returning back to the classroom and lecture-theatre, many surely dreading the fact that, for some of them at least, this may be a formal GCSE, A-level or degree examination year. The fear of failure in such tests has always been a real one, at least up until now. To prove it, there is a whole cottage industry out there on the Internet these days in which teachers and examiners post images of stupid answers given by their students in exams and workbooks. Here are a few of my favourite examples:
As of yet, such answers most assuredly do not make the grade. And yet, as we saw last time around, demented Left-wing moves are now afoot to essentially allow schoolchildren and university students the luxury of designing their own semi-personalised examinations and assessment schemes. To the extent that, someday, the above incredibly incorrect answers may gain actual legitimate credit simply by virtue of demonstrating the candidates’ ability – intentional or otherwise – to create witty and amusing answers rather than boring old factually correct ones. The following two would surely gain an A* in the woke GCSE grade-schemes of tomorrow:
A recent paper co-authored by Dr. Zahidul Islam Pranjol, of the University of Sussex, ‘Project-Based Learning as a Potential Decolonised Assessment Method in STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths] Higher Education’, argues that it is somehow racist and colonialist to expect non-
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Most of those hilarious examples of kids being sassy are fake BS.
Love your articles, Steven, but really – first line – “…will be returning back to the classroom”? ‘…returning to the classroom’ will do nicely!
A very interesting read, thank you.
I’d always understood that exams were actually a way of judging the teachers. These changes come from the top down.
I remember my polytechnic lecturer in East-West Relations saying that when you give your children to the State to educate you are taking a big risk. Didn’t really understand his point at the time but do now.
I have a modification that would make this even better – let the kids mark their own papers as well
Educashion – Make Exams Easier
All in tune with the Socialist project to reduce this country to third-world poverty.
In the education sphere, it can all be traced back to the introduction of the comprehensive system in the 1960’s.
The objective was overwhelmingly about social engineering rather than education in the traditional sense.
Out went the meritocratic ideas of the immediate post-war era, where there was at least a sense of trying to rebuild a country ravaged by war, and in came the supposedly egalitarian ideas of those frustrated that the 1945 Labour government hadn’t ushered in full Socialism.
Hence we arrived at a system where all views are equal and everyone gets a prize. Add to that the leftist obsession with what’s been called the sacralisation of disadvantage and it’s easy to see where today’s toxic mess comes from.
The problems deriving from this are now everywhere apparent, especially in the public sphere, as those raised under the comprehensive system advance to senior positions in the institutions. Lack of any capacity for rigorous thought leads to poor decision making, made worse by a climate of ever swirling fashionable ideas. This is evident in essentially all public institutions, including the police and the judiciary, local government, and pre-eminently… Read more »
Ah yes, the Comprehensive education system introduced by Anthony Crosland. My mother attended teacher training college in the late 60s as a mature student. She would come home from her studies in despair at the left-wing propaganda that was being fed to trainees.
Even then it was beginning, and now look where we are. The slow destruction of the educated classes – so much easier to indoctrinate ill-educated folk who can’t think for themselves, don’t want to contribute to society and just want bread and circuses, the modern equivalent being on benefits and Love Island.
How about just blowing up all the schools and instead sending the former pupils a Liberal Progressive Pamphlet to tell them what their world view on everything is to be? Who needs to count or read anyway when all kids do is walk down the street using their two thumbs on a phone all day?
You mean those Liberal progressives that have the ruddy nerve to be available in both genders? Who created this stupid toolkit anyway? 🧐
Drat. Looks like a pretty even split of both male and female staff and undergrads. Seems the dreaded “feminisation of society” is being orchestrated by not just women. Terribly inconvenient for some….🤭
https://www.soas.ac.uk/decolonising-philosophy-curriculum-toolkit