Just watched this on 4OD as missed the first episode, and I actually quite liked it, and would love to have that opportunity now to do those things that actually bored me back in school!
David Starkey had it all completely wrong though, his attitude from the start was completely wrong, and not sure why he even bothered with the program TBH.
If you watch it, head over to the youtube channel after and you can see the classes in more detail, and found them more interesting than the program itself! As the show is clearly for entertainment and youtube is more for the education..
Just my thoughts and know there are probably people on here who can't stand Jamie Oliver!
My thoughts as the partner of a secondary school teacher are that it was a load of utter bollocks and is indicative of a lot of things that are wrong in education. David Starkey (apart from him calling one kid fat in class as that was obviously out of order) had exactly the right idea about what was wrong in the first episode. He makes a quote that I can't recall in it's entirety but it was something along the lines of these children have been fed on the milk of human kindness for far too long now and been allowed to get away with terrible things, it's time they had a bit of structure and discipline. He was completely right in every way when he said this.
I despise the agenda Jamie Oliver has constantly championing the "underprivileged" kids. He did this with is "fifteen" restaurant some years ago. He doesn't seem to give a damn about the kids who work hard and get no real reward for it, yet the little swines who can't be arsed get special treatment instead of punishment. It makes my blood boil. To be honest Jamie Oliver lost me in the first five minutes when he admitted he was a lazy and obnoxious in school and as a result left with hardly any qualifications, and then turned around and said "I felt let down by the system." Says it all really.
I'm not denying that there are some genuine heart-wrenching stories coming from a few of the kids, but at least two thirds are lazy layabouts who can't be bothered doing any work and won't help themselves. And because of their own self inflicted idiocy they are being rewarded with lessons and experiences that the poor kids who work hard every day will never get.
My main groan with the show is that the Children have all said they have been let down by the system or they made mistakes with their first chance at education. However, the majority are still terribly disrespectful to all of the people who have taken time to try and teach them.
The students need their heads checking, they have some of the best people in their fields to learn from but they just choose to sit texting or chatting between themselves.
Not seen this cos f**k jamie oliver innit but
Quote from: Quixoticish on March 09, 2011, 08:50:38 AM
I despise the agenda Jamie Oliver has constantly championing the "underprivileged" kids. He did this with is "fifteen" restaurant some years ago. He doesn't seem to give a damn about the kids who work hard and get no real reward for it, yet the little swines who can't be arsed get special treatment instead of punishment. It makes my blood boil. To be honest Jamie Oliver lost me in the first five minutes when he admitted he was a lazy and obnoxious in school and as a result left with hardly any qualifications, and then turned around and said "I felt let down by the system." Says it all really.
:stupid:
I think in most cases all of the above are correct, with the exception of anything positive said about David Starkey, even before he called that kid fat, he was putting them down, and I think part of Jamie was trying to do was actually make learning interesting, not the usual boring lectures, I know I learnt much better if I felt engaged rather than being talked at!.
But granted some of those kids are real lazy f**kers, and shouldn't be on there, some I genuinely think are there to give it a proper go, but is made more difficult by the lazy sods.
Also it could be possible some of the kids may have been treated like idiots in school causing low self esteem, don't get me wrong some were the cause of their own downfall and I'm by no means defending any of them.
But I think the bit that made me enjoy the program, were the actual people teaching the lessons, which is why the youtube channel is much better than the program itself!
As for hatred for Jamie Oliver, I'm not with you on this, I think if he tries to do anything positive even if he fails then at least he tried, it's more than most of the population have actually tried to do!
It's on now if anyone is actually interested..
And yes most of them shouldn't even be there, judging on the first half!
Quote from: XEntity on March 09, 2011, 20:43:32 PM
As for hatred for Jamie Oliver, I'm not with you on this, I think if he tries to do anything positive even if he fails then at least he tried, it's more than most of the population have actually tried to do!
And this is where we differ. You see what he does as positive, all I see is him marginalising hard working kids (something of a pet project for him as this programme isn't the first time he's done it) whilst rewarding bad behaviour.
Just because his heart is in the right place doesn't automatically make the outcome of what he does in any way positive.
I haven't actually watched this, but I know what it's going to be about. 'Underprivileged' aka lazy school kids get put on a show to highlight apparently poor education and they try and turn them around.
The main problem I have with this is - they're not miracle workers but like to believe they are. If people aren't interested in education, no matter how many different techniques you try they're not going to change their attitude. But still a vast majority of people seem to believe it will work.
The amount of times I've been stuck in a lesson, and need help but instead the teacher focuses on the trouble makers is just pathetic. I'm not stupid, but I'm not a brainiac either, I need help too, and just because I'm not in poverty or my parents live off the council doesn't mean I don't deserve the same amount of help, and it's the same for the majority of people.
It works the other way too. Some people might have slight learning difficulties, like dyslexia, and certainly in the school I went to they take the assistance to patronising levels, when it's not actually benefiting them in anyway because they're already competent enough.
Everyone should get equal help, because no one is going to be brilliant at everything. And as my old secondary school kept telling us everyone is equal, and equality is important.
Wow don't like some of the intolerance expressed in this thread! at the end of the day these are still children, some of the views expressed in this thread make it sound all they are fit for is a life sponging benefits/drugs/crime and don't deserve a second chance, says a lot about the state of this society if people are willing to write off 16yr olds so easily. :(
I'm no wet liberal and do think they need structure and discipline, there was an episode of Panorama on a few weeks back about fast tracking ex-military into teaching: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ysnt7 I found it quite interesting.
Quote from: Shaun on March 10, 2011, 00:32:32 AM
Wow don't like some of the intolerance expressed in this thread! at the end of the day these are still children, some of the views expressed in this thread make it sound all they are fit for is a life sponging benefits/drugs/crime and don't deserve a second chance, says a lot about the state of this society if people are willing to write off 16yr olds so easily. :(
I'm no wet liberal and do think they need structure and discipline, there was an episode of Panorama on a few weeks back about fast tracking ex-military into teaching: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ysnt7 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ysnt7) I found it quite interesting.
Everyone is entitled to a second chance and as much support as possible to achieve their goals in life.
However if you're given umpteen chances and still mess around and spoil the learning experience for everyone around you then yes, serious intervention is needed that exists away from mainstream education in order to force you to sort your life out. Fast tracking ex military people into teaching won't help; these children need removing from mainstream education so they aren't disruptive and aren't disturbing the rest of the school who aren't so rude and disrespectful.
There are only so many chances you can give a person and only so much patience you can have with someone who throws your hard work and kindness back into your face on a regular basis before it becomes obvious that serious intervention is required.
It's not even worth contemplating introducing remedial classes or anything on the school premises or introducing "stricter" teachers. If you think that will work then you've clearly never seen how modern schools work and how poorly behaved many of the children are compared to what it was like when most of us were still a part of the education system. Many of them are, to be quite frank, feral, and need dealing with now so that they can be broken out of their cycle of bad behaviour, stop disrupting everyone else, and at least have a chance to make something of themselves.
Incidentally be careful with the "intolerance" comment. It's simply not called for when we're being nothing of the sort.
QuoteEveryone is entitled to a second chance and as much support as possible to achieve their goals in life
Reading back your previous posts in this thread you would seem to be saying different in them.
I went to a secondary school with a very good local reputation, I didn't have an easy passage due to undiagnosed dyslexia and yes I WAS let down by the system! While I wasn't disruptive I was earmarked as lazy and stuck in the" thicko and malcontent class" with people who could be very disruptive and basically left to rot for 3 years (but that is another story), so I do have some experience of what school life can be like in such a environment.
Things got so bad in my fourth year history class that they had to break the class up after a few months, the guy was a easy target and got wound up very easily and would go on 10 minutes rants at the top of his voice about how bad we all were...etc, the guy was in his mid 30's, about 6.2-3 and built like a rugby player... but was weak in a classroom environment, some found it funny and could smell blood, so the baiting and his ranting got to the point where it was happening every lesson, so something had to be done.
But yet near enough the same people in my English class... zero disruption or messing about, he was an older guy only about 5 foot tall and was very quietly spoken, can't ever remember him raising his voice, but because he didn't have the obvious chinks in his armour the history teacher had nobody messed with him. Looking at the Panorama program the ex-military can bring calmness and inner strength to the role, which looking back is what a lot of the better teachers in my experience had.
Some of the teachers I had lacked the interpersonal skills to deal with what for the most could be described at best as a "troubled bunch" but other teachers who did have reasonable skills had very few problems, they were in charge nobody messed with them. Blaming kids/parents is very easy but looking on youtube at all the kids kicking off and you often find a teacher shouting his/her head off in the background, which is instant loose in such a environment.
Quote from: Shaun on March 10, 2011, 15:36:09 PM
QuoteEveryone is entitled to a second chance and as much support as possible to achieve their goals in life
Reading back your previous posts in this thread you would seem to be saying different in them.
I went to a secondary school with a very good local reputation, I didn't have an easy passage due to undiagnosed dyslexia and yes I WAS let down by the system! While I wasn't disruptive I was earmarked as lazy and stuck in the" thicko and malcontent class" with people who could be very disruptive and basically left to rot for 3 years (but that is another story), so I do have some experience of what school life can be like in such a environment.
Things got so bad in my fourth year history class that they had to break the class up after a few months, the guy was a easy target and got wound up very easily and would go on 10 minutes rants at the top of his voice about how bad we all were...etc, the guy was in his mid 30's, about 6.2-3 and built like a rugby player... but was weak in a classroom environment, some found it funny and could smell blood, so the baiting and his ranting got to the point where it was happening every lesson, so something had to be done.
But yet near enough the same people in my English class... zero disruption or messing about, he was an older guy only about 5 foot tall and was very quietly spoken, can't ever remember him raising his voice, but because he didn't have the obvious chinks in his armour the history teacher had nobody messed with him. Looking at the Panorama program the ex-military can bring calmness and inner strength to the role, which looking back is what a lot of the better teachers in my experience had.
Some of the teachers I had lacked the interpersonal skills to deal with what for the most could be described at best as a "troubled bunch" but other teachers who did have reasonable skills had very few problems, they were in charge nobody messed with them. Blaming kids/parents is very easy but looking on youtube at all the kids kicking off and you often find a teacher shouting his/her head off in the background, which is instant loose in such a environment.
I can only re-iterate what I've said previously in the thread. Everyone deserves a chance, and everyone makes mistakes. But if you want to take the piss and abuse the hard work and trust of those who have tried to help you then you should be removed from mainstream education so you aren't disrupting the learning of those who actually try. It's as simple as that. The "softly softly" approach has been done to death and simply doesn't work. It's back to basics, reward those who work hard and punish those who consistently misbehave and our children may have a fighting chance in our shambles of an education system.
Where exactly did I say anything about a softly softly approach? If anything chucking kids out of mainstream education is the easy answer IMO.
Get people with a bit of backbone and life experience to deal with more troublesome ones, rather than expecting some newly qualified teacher fresh from Uni who doesn't have the life experience to deal with them and if you had watched Panorama I linked to the results of the ex-military are proven.
Quote from: Shaun on March 10, 2011, 16:44:20 PM
Where exactly did I say anything about a softly softly approach? If anything chucking kids out of mainstream education is the easy answer IMO.
Get people with a bit of backbone and life experience to deal with more troublesome ones, rather than expecting some newly qualified teacher fresh from Uni who doesn't have the life experience to deal with them and if you had watched Panorama I linked to the results of the ex-military are proven.
I've seen both policemen and women and ex military types quite working as teachers or in schools after a few months in floods of tears.
It doesn't work in the real world. I don't deny that you will need to be strict and have some backbone, but that has to come second to a love for your subject and an empathy for your students. Without that it doesn't matter how stern you are and how much life experience you have, you'll fail miserably as a teacher.