I was actually under Impression that being Clever At School is no longer the social leprosy it once was. Dunno if this is Fact tho, I’m mostly getting this from TV+Movies.
You sure he didn’t change it Brian Earsy and has since been forever chained to a fast food chip frier??
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Billy used to punch people. A lot I’m afraid.
He also took part in a wonderful little game where you’d run onto the railway tracks overlooking Tooting Triangle park, wait for the train, and try and get out of the way just in time.
He was looking forward to going to Ernest Bevin for secondary school because it was ‘gonna be war’
The question is, what’s Billy doing now? That’s the question, because I’m a financial journalist for a media company in London, what’s he do? I tell you, he’s a forklift truck driver with British Leyland. I’ll tell you. he lives in Edgbaston, he’s got a pathetic life, I’ve seen, I’ve parked my car outside his house, I’ve watched him come and go, and he’s got a sad, pathetic life and Billy, if you are listening, what are you now? You’re nothing. And l am Mr Trampoline!
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Dude, seriously?
I’m asking a question about how society and schools can help one of the most obviously disadvantaged and challenging children it could be presented with.
I’ve given clear real-life examples of the kind of hand he was dealt and how much of a struggle things were for him, to the point where he was behaving semi-suicidally - playing chicken on the railtracks.
Now, obviously this is jolly inconvenient for a lot of people because he provides a clear-cut example of someone who wouldn’t benefit from mainstream academic education and almost certainly could have had his life improved by being given more practical skills or being helped towards finding a dream he’d have been passionate about.
Billy was a clear example of someone at the other end of the academic spectrum who really doesn’t lose out by not going to a mainstream academic school together with the kids who were fortunate enough to be brighter.
Can anyone actually provide a suggestion of how society could and should help Billy?
nah bro, i didn’t mean nothing, i was doing an old alan partridge quote soz
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Cool no worries. (Incidentally your description was quite flattering - I don’t own a car and I don’t even have a licence!)
Yet a few weeks ago you were bemoaning the fact that you cant afford to run a car…hmmm.
Isn’t there a difference between offering specialist help to people with genuine learning difficulties, and segregating people into ‘clever’ and ‘stupid’ schools?
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Originally posted by @MrTrampoline
Dude, seriously?
I’m asking a question about how society and schools can help one of the most obviously disadvantaged and challenging children it could be presented with.
I’ve given clear real-life examples of the kind of hand he was dealt and how much of a struggle things were for him, to the point where he was behaving semi-suicidally - playing chicken on the railtracks.
Now, obviously this is jolly inconvenient for a lot of people because he provides a clear-cut example of someone who wouldn’t benefit from mainstream academic education and almost certainly could have had his life improved by being given more practical skills or being helped towards finding a dream he’d have been passionate about.
Billy was a clear example of someone at the other end of the academic spectrum who really doesn’t lose out by not going to a mainstream academic school together with the kids who were fortunate enough to be brighter.
Can anyone actually provide a suggestion of how society could and should help Billy?
Well, for a start, they can stop sneering at him. Second, they might realise that kids are more capable of being dicks than most, especially if they haven’t had too much in the way of direction in early life.
I’ve known people like Billy. Very few stay that way. If anything, they’re an illustration of how different people develop at different rates. You’re going to meet people later in life that unbeknownst to you, were a version of Billy in earlier life, and you probably won’t even know he was a Billy.
The other problem we’ve got is that you seem to be under the impression that it’s Billy or you. That time spent on him is time wasted on people that could really be doing something with themselves. Perhaps, in the under-resourced reality of education, there’s some truth to that, but there’s no reason for that to be the case. Is it Billy’s fault that there isn’t enough resource, that schools now operate under a targets-based regime, and that getting people like Billy over the line is seen as more important as getting already bright kids over the A* line?
Your life hasn’t been disadvantaged by it, and perhaps at some future point, when Billy’s a grandad and you’re a bigwig at KPMG, there’s a potential connection that cuts right through any class crap, all because of comprehensive education. As I said before, our school had all kinds, and judging from the size of some of my classmates’ places, many of them could have gone private if they’d wanted to. Instead, their parents packed them off to a constantly merging comprehensive on the edge of the Flower Estates, for which they deserve a lot of credit.
There’s a secondary goal to comprehensives that is being entirely missed. Yes, we’re supposed to leave with GCSEs and A Levels, but you’re also supposed to leave knowing enough about life to survive. How’d you suggest a parent best does that with their eleven year old child? A single sex Poindexter echo chamber, or something a bit more comprehensive?
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Where did I bemoan the fact that I can’t afford to run a car? I don’t want or need a car in London.
I do remember Barry asking ‘how can he afford to run a car’? so perhaps you’ve misremembered.
And finally, I haven’t been ‘bemoaning’ anything. I’ve said that I’m looking to change jobs and do a little bit better so that I can move out of my folks’ house.
However, if I did want a car and was disappointed by the fact that I wasn’t yet earning the money to run one it wouldn’t contradict anything.
Sounds like you’re looking for an ‘aha!’ moment to try and bust me on something but you’re impatience has got the better of you and you’ve wound up picking out a complete non-sequitur.
Anyway. Back to Billy.
Can anyone in favour of entirely comprehensive education describe how they believe schools and society should help him?
Got a meeting - brb. But I do baulk at the implication I’m in any way sneering at Billy. I’m horrified by the memory of how tough he had it and personally quite convinced that forcing kids like him through a one-size-fits-all education system is a bad idea *for him*.
Anyway - will chat in a sec.
Originally posted by @Bearsy
The question is, what’s Billy doing now? That’s the question, because I’m a financial journalist for a media company in London, what’s he do? I tell you, he’s a forklift truck driver with British Leyland. I’ll tell you. he lives in Edgbaston, he’s got a pathetic life, I’ve seen, I’ve parked my car outside his house, I’ve watched him come and go, and he’s got a sad, pathetic life and Billy, if you are listening, what are you noqw? You’re nothing. And l am Mr Trampoline!
Smelly Alan Fartridge.
It was a joke, as was Bearsy’s, so calm down.
But below we’re arguing over what we spend our money on, and the fact you wouldn’t be able to afford a car, a family etc:
Where else do you spend that money?
Savings? Family? Car? Phone? Clothes? Mortgage? Tickets to watch Saints?
All stuff that I haven’t factored in and wouldn’t be able to afford.
‘disposable income’
The problem is you have a very confrontational and patronising writing style which gets peoples backs up and makes you seem like a bigger cunt than you actually are - especially when you are one of the youngest on the forum.
The reason I know this is because I suffer from the same affliction. You can ask a few people on here, I’m still a cunt, but I’m not _quite _as cuntish in real life.
Fucking great question.
But this the thing; where do you draw the line?
What constitutes a kid who’s ‘stupid’ and a kid who ‘has learning difficulties’? If we can understand that the latter might benefit from non-mainstream education then why can’t we understand the same might apply to the former? And furthermore why wouldn’t it apply to those right down the other end of the spectrum who are lucky enough to be born gifted?
(Incidentally I think it helps to avoid the word ‘stupid’. Its a horribly negative word for something that for the most part will be the most decisive factor about someone’s capabilities and yet is completely and totally beyond the control of anyone. Criticising someone for being ‘stupid’ is like criticising someone for being short or going bald in their late 30s. I’m trying to make it super clear that there’s no value judgement here.)
So the best you could come up with to fit the definition of ‘Mr Trampoline bemoaning the fact he can’t afford to run a car’ was Mr Trampoline asking where someone else spends their money? lol.
I’ll pop down to the Ropey League meeting and we can talk it over IRL. I get that on the internet its hard to get tone of voice across. What I’m trying to do is make it abundantly clear (particularly in this thread) that I’m not sneering at Billy and that I want a school system that helps him. I also presume that Pap wants the exact same thing - but obviously we have radically different ideas of how to do that.
So; I’m trying to clearly communicate how and why I believe in selective education, and respond to the main argument/challenge against my position - what happens to the kids that *don’t* get into grammar schools.
Putting the cream of the crop into one school and the dregs into another just creates disparity in our society. We should be doing as much as we can to bring people together, and creating a two-tiered education system does exactly the opposite of that.
Grammar/private schools absolutely are a status symbol for a lot of people - I have seen friends of the family move their children to different schools with very similar academic records at the cost of 10k p/a and for those children to end up in exactly the same position as their former classmates who continued through state education.
What is needed is a properly funded and run state education system that doesn’t disadvantage those living in poorer areas of the country, which it currently does. Corbyn’s National Education Service could be fantastic if he gets the chance to put it into practice, and would be the shot in the arm that a lot of people in education think the system needs.
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Every time I’ve met Cherts, I’ve spent the next five nights rocking back and forth, chanting “unclean, unclean”.
Anyone would reasonably expect to have to do that for six nights.
There is truth in what he says.
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