This comment from JunkkMale originally appeared on Geoff Chambers’ Moderation in Moderation thread. I’ve moved it here, with the comments it attracted, because I think that this is the kind of problem that seriously needs talking about.
The government talks about the importance of individual actions in the fight against climate change, and it is up to each and every one of us whether we buy an electric car, put a solar panel on the roof, or cancel a weekend flight to Rome. Children do not usually have a choice about what they are taught.
This thread has strayed into many areas beyond the main topic, and I for one have enjoyed the quality of debate on display.
One topic I noted was how certain issues are being shared with our kids. To be honest, it was passing interest… until last night.
The subject of ‘who tells, controls’…. especially in terms of authority figures, was rather brought home to me last night.
My kids are revising currently for some serious exams that do count.
One brought in this book, which forms part of the curriculum: AQA GCSE Science Core Higher Ed. Graham Hill. Pub: Hodder Murray
He wanted some advice on a question. From a series including sections such as 3.3, entitled ‘How do humans affect the environment?’ and 3.5 ‘Global Warming’ (other aspects of global warming and the greenhouse effect also covered in Section 6.4, Air Pollution), and 3.6 ‘What can be done to reduce human impact on the environment?. Here it is, as posed, under 6.4, p113:
21. Which of the following three do you think will actually happen? Write a paragraph to explain your answer.
a) We’ll worry and blame ourselves for climate change for thousands of years.
b) Fossil fuels will run out and renewable energy will save us.
c) The oceans will evaporate as the Earth heats up and humans will die.
His face, when I opined that ‘none are very coherent, accurate, or suggest definite answers that are sensible, at least as posed’, was a heartbreaking picture. He just wanted… needed to provide the ‘right’ one as the system demands it to be one of them. Sighing at the ‘will happen’, I therefore attempted to assist based on the hope that the paragraph of explanation would be rewarded if well argued and having a basis in fact and scientific interpretation.Forget a), which is facile and shows a poor grasp of even basic climate science terminology, though maybe does reflect the ‘worry’ mindset being churned out in some quarters.
If you have to choose, choose b) as fossil fuels will run out. They are finite. As to whether ‘renewable’ energy ‘will’ ‘save’ us, that rather depends on how many of ‘us’ there are, and from what we are being ‘saved’. It seems, currently, optimistic to presume renewable sources can meet all current and projected energy demands.
As for c), well, yes, as the sun goes supernova in a few billion years. But humans may be in a different place by then.
THIS… is what they are being served????!
More touching still was his further plea to me NOT to get in touch with the school with my now serious reservations about the way this information was laid out and the questions posed… as he just wanted to pass the unit and not get in trouble.
If this is the state of education, at least in this area (I now wonder about history, etc), I am seriously troubled not only by the course structures, but the mindsets prevalent in our educational establishment.
Are there any teachers out there who would be prepared to comment? anonymously if necessary.
Junkkmale, have you seen this?
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/11/30/quote-of-the-day.html
Ouch. The trick, one supposes, is to turn such passionate frustration into effective action. Without knowing as much as I’d yet like about the ‘local education authority jobsworth, central government apparatchik, or UK energy minister’ community, I regret that, unless the game is played at least by some of the system’s rules, it is doomed to failure.
However, it is very encouraging to at last find a member of the educational establishment saying out loud (if with blogger’s privilege) what we have already started to gather, if in whispered corners, here.
And, as a parent, I appreciate that. Hence, the invitation to share experiences and bond disparate efforts will continue.
Baby steps…
The follow-up post on Bishop Hill is also worth a read:
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2010/12/1/eco-schools.html
The BishopHill article I linked at #374 doesn’t give the source. There’s 600+ comments on the Telegraph thread! I tracked it down. It’s by suffolkboy 11/30/2010 08:43 AM, p21 of comments in descending order, currently p6 in ascending order. Junkkmale has already commented and linked to here. Why not get over there and give the fellow a pat on the back?
A near complement to this thread, certainly in the comments (which seem very measured) on what is ‘reasonable’ by way of introduction to the educational syllabus:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/dec/03/children-climate-change-television-santa
JunkkMale, #378:
The Guardian article is truly terrifying. When I read parts of it out to my wife just now, her reaction was an incredulous, “Why would anyone want to do that to kids at Christmas?” I explained that it was in The Guardian, and not from one of the further reaches web, but actually answering that question would be far more difficult.
TonyN
Cheer up (regarding the Guardian article).
Sure it’s brainwashing innocent children, but at least it doesn’t sound like blatant scaremongering this time.
Dr. Maurice Bergs’ message is apparently that Santa will only give presents to those kiddos that actively buy into the alarming AGW hysteria with a pledge to help Santa save the snow and ice he needs for his sleigh to take off from runaway melting.
But hey, Tony, Santa isn’t really real.
Nor are his flying reindeer.
Nor is the runaway melting of their take-off runway.
Nor is alarming AGW.
When the kiddos get a bit older they will realize that the whole thing was all a nice fairy tale.
And, until then, those kids that didn’t help Santa’s reindeer have more snow will soon see that they got just as many presents as those that did, so it was all a lie.
“Grown-ups do lie sometimes” will be the “take away” for these kids.
Max
Max:
News stories like that don’t depress me, they make me angry. In fact angry enough to spend a lot of time running a blog.
The Guardian article reminded me of a time a few years ago when we were having a particulary early and warm spring. The Met Office response was to grab headlines every time there was a particularly pleasant day or two with press releases about how this was all evidence of climate change. Even a casual knowledge of weather records showed that it was nothing other than the kind of seasonal bonus we have always enjoyed from time to time.
Spring has always been the happiest season of the year, compensation for the cold days and long dark nights of winter. A time when we see signs of rebirth around us everywhere, if we choose to do so. Why contaminate times of innocent enjoyment with political dogma? We all need them, young and old alike, but for children they should be an inviolable right, and to interfere for purely political of mercenary reasons should be treated as abuse.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1336016/Ousted-teacher-exposes-liberal-tyranny-betrayed-children.html
Not, as the headline alluded, specifically on this thread topic, and very definitely pitched by the author where her future income sources will be derived, but with a few nuggets… if rather depressing ones.
Plus interesting to note the further waves from behind the parapet. Is the system and the idealogues really so all-powerful?
Could worse, once they get to Uni, in some countries….
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=6793
It is to be hoped that the current system, and trends, do not suggest soem action is required…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11929277
Especially for any seeking employment beyond public service and/or these fair shores.
Has anyone mentioned this? I see Alex is having fun in the comments…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/dec/03/children-climate-change-television-santa?showallcomments=true
Sorry, just spotted TonyN’s contribution. I must stop reading from the bottom up… :-)
“Grown-ups do lie sometimes”
Especially in the Grauniad…
Like 10:10, this could be a delicious own-goal. The programmes themselves (just trailered so far) are in the run-up to Christmas. One of many ironies is that the one thing that might hamper Santa’s progress is too much snow, especially if he’s relying on the postman… :-)
Some very fascinating factors however i think your analysis and bias leaves rather a lot to be desired. Then of course, that’s just my opinion. Have an ideal day definitely a thought-frightening post.
A fair spread of opinion here and, hence, varied analysis, maybe inevitably to varying degrees shaped by predetermined views.
Any chance of knowing to whom your comment is directed, what aspects of their argument presented are left to be desired, and why?
May I take the opportunity of sharing with all that, due some personal distractions recently, I have not followed up on much but to date but, across the board, not one educational system institution contacted has come back with any follow up on the ongoing points raised. Effective, if frustrating.
Illegitimi non carborundum.
[TonyN: I’m afraid that the comment that you are responding to was a piece of spam that slipped through. But it will be good to hear more from you when you have the opportunity.]
Some new evidence that the GW evangelists have their work cut out for them; a recent survey has found that climate change is generally low on the list of important issues for young people:
H/T the GWPF and commentator Paul Boyce on Bishop Hill.
Alex
according to the site of the organisation which did the survey, http://www.itvfixers.com.
results haven’t been published yet. It looks dodgy, since it’s a self-completion survey done in schools, universities and youth clubs, so doesn’t cover the three quarters of young people who don’t frequent these places. Questions like “Have you been affected by climate change and/or a poor body image?” don’t inspire confidence.
The other survey mentioned at Bishop Hill, from
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1351217/Climate-change-sceptics-double-4-years-Britain-goes-cold-global-warming.html
is more serious, since it’s by the Office for National Statistics, and repeats the same question year after year. Points of view are so open to misinterpretation, and the proportion of people with an informed opinion so small, that the only useful conclusions that can be drawn are on the movement of opinion, not the opinion itself. Maybe 5% of the population (my guess) is affected by Climategate or Cancun, and always the same 5% (the chattering classes). Everyone is affected by traffic chaos caused by snow.
On the first survey, I’d worry about the 7% of young people who rate climate change as their biggest worry, as I would if 7% were worried about alien abduction or being bewitched.
Geoff, granted that the ITV Fixers’ survey may not be all that well-made or significant in the scheme of things (and I agree, the question about being “adversely affected” by climate change is risible.) But I think it’s still an indication that after so much effort expended in getting the nation’s youth behind the war on CO2, the results are on the disappointing side for the proselytisers.
From this page of results:
Interesting that the survey organisers found that young people were “astonishingly unconcerned” about it; they were clearly expecting something different. Also that girls appear to have been less concerned than boys.
I think this must be the report the Daily Mail is referring to, and would agree with you that the movement of opinion is the thing to watch: the ONS’s August 2011’s results should thus be worth reading (whether – or not – we get an actual barbecue summer this year). :o)
Alex
The big problem with the survey is the narrow range of issues on offer. Respondents had to rank Climate Change alongside Tuition Fees, Youth Unemployment, Street Violence, Media Portrayal of Young People, Your Body Image and Binge Drinking. Climate Change is clearly the odd one out, since the others are all about their personal experience.
Also, the sample was skewed to the younger end, with 60% 16-18, 90% of who were in education – an absurdly high proportion. The sample was 53% female, 46% male, and 1% transgender.
It looks to me as if someone slipped climate change into a survey where it just wasn’t relevant, and got what they deserved.
Oops. Suckered by a bot. Not the first time; won’t be the last.
[TonyN: This stuff is getting more and more difficult to detect, with a rather dodgy looking link from the commenter’s name often being the only real clue. I see that the Bishop got caught the other day.]
I fear my progress elsewhere is either slow or being thwarted.
Saw my MP at last. Like most pols, suspect superficially attentive but with matters of greater import to focus upon. I doubt his kids are within the state system, whilst my boys’ secondary in his catchment ticks all the right boxes and hence provides many photo opps to grin with the head as all around hold up a nice OFSTED report.
Still nothing back from the various bodies who set and published the questions. I suspect they are wishing it, and I will simply go away and give up. This may not be the case.
Thought this was worth a share, as much for the comments*..
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/8294154/What-makes-a-good-teacher.html
*Of many:
‘The first, most valuable lesson she has had to learn is that her tutors are not interested in what she thinks if it deviates from their ideological agenda. In discussions, after being reassured that there is “no right answer”, she is then told the right answer by her “course leaders”. ‘
A parent disconcerted at what is being done without their knowledge at school in the name of less than stellar science taboot.
Just about on topic, I’d say.
http://nofrakkingconsensus.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/teachers-the-new-green-police/
A slightly OT, cautionary tale I’d like to share to show that even when you can be reasonably sure the system has its heart in the right place, a parent must never take their eye off the ball for second as the system can also be monolithic, contradictory, fragmented….
A wee while ago my Mum sadly passed away. With the inevitability of a funeral, and knowing their were in the midst of ISA exams, which do ‘count’, I called the school with a selection of dates that would not interfere with their attendance at a key point, at least. Having been told one that would suffice, I duly made all the arrangements, which came to pass.
A few days ago, in one’s capacity as low pressure parent willing to help if asked, I asked how things were progressing at school.
The twins exchanged glances, and confessed that they had just got a ‘D’ each in Physics. As they tend to be in the ‘A’ or ‘B’ range I was surprised, and decided to follow up. Maybe their Gran’s passing had hit them harder than I thought?
No. I now find that, despite my best efforts, on the day of the funeral, there was a key revision lesson prior to an actual exam as part of the ISA, both of which they missed.
In addition, the Head of Year, who had previously reassured me that such things could easily be retaken later, had not informed the Physics teacher in question of the circumstances.
Hence.. no attendance… no marks. I am amazed this still resulted in a ‘D’.
Now a somewhat irate parent kicking up seems to be resolving this, but I am again horrified by how much our kids’ futures are governed by ticks in boxes that relate little if at all to the actual person being assessed. All the more pertinent given the situation that has inspired this thread.
I am assured that they ‘will get another go’ later in the year, but it was grudgingly admitted that one of their ‘chances’ had been wasted should they be sick or under par for that one.
On top of having to second guess what the desired answers are vs. the correct ones, I weep for our kids’ education these days.
“a key revision lesson”
Slightly OT, but you have to wonder about the teaching of a subject that relies that heavily on a single revision lesson to ensure a good exam result!
Very good point. Which also goes to merely parroting back what is required as ‘correct’ vs. understanding the topic and addressing the question well. And what happens if these are mutually exclusive.
Should make for an interesting parent/teacher evening soon.
My impression is that a huge wadge of the curriculum marking is based on coursework throughout the year.
Hence, by missing that magic session and being logged as absent, they simply got marked on that basis. A matter of concern we need to clarify.
To get back more OnT, I intend soon to pursue AQA and its publishers again, as the attitude seems to be that if I don’t ask, repeatedly, they need not tell.