Let's fix Britain.

We all know the country's in a mess. It's about time someone got their heads together and came up with the solutions to the bullshit. So what action would you take to fix Britain?

I would focus on the education system to start with. The current system is seriously outdated and teaches very little in the way of useful mental development. Even in useful areas, many teachers are unable to ply their trade to their best ability and thus can't get through to the students. I feel this trend has really sharpened over the past couple of decades and is tearing society apart. Children are not being challenged in the correct areas to produce thinking members of society, high sales of the tabloid newspapers shows us this.

My approach would be to begin the overhaul from the primary education system. Education will begin at 4 years of age. Linguistics would come first, preferably with the basics of 2 or more languages being taught as well, being continued throughout the student's school life. After sufficient amount of language has been acquired and understood, students would begin education in biology and mathematics. The biology would largely be centred around botany and the study of human anatomy; the mathematics woul begin as simple arithmetic, largely applicable in the biology being studied. After a sufficient understanding of their own natural systems and the natural systems of plants is understood, geometry, physics and chemistry will be introduced. Philosophy would be introduced once basic competence is acquired in all the subjects mentioned.

My intention in a system with beginnings like that is to ground the thoughts of the children in the natural world and curiousity in the human being itself, also in communicating with competence. A great deal of the work will be done on computers. Students will be able to progress at a pace that suits them, the importance lies in the exposure to the truly significant subjects in society.

Artistry and creativity would be encouraged throughout, though in a far more costructive manner. Eg, when a child draws a stick figure human who is the same size as the house they draw, they would be asked how the person is going to fit in the house, they would be asked if the person never eats and has become very thin with no mass to their features. Basically, they wouldn't just get pats on the backs and told that they're very good and get a picture stuck up on the wall or the fridge, they would be encouraged to improve upon what they create.

 

Your doing most teachers a massive disservice...it's years of political meddling and league tables that resulted in a more limited system, which have stripped teachers of control and not being able to pick what they think is best for their students.

That said I work with a lot of young people and teachers (thought not in a school!) and do think that many things are better then when I went to school. Training and professional development for teachers is better then it has every been.

 

Anyway back to the original concept that the country is a mess. How about a growing gap between rich and poor, the breaking down of the welfare state and a society that places little value on those who are on the front line trying to improve things...like teachers, drug workers, those working with our youth and the most hard up in society.

How about the fact that we have no left wing anymore, Blair saw to that nicely and the fact those in power are elected by a tiny proportion of the country.

 

Actually the more I read it back, the more wrong your post is filled with.

Please tell me your trolling?

 

I know it is the constraints of the system, not the teachers themselves. I did not intend to blame them, hence why I outlined a new paradigm for the education system that they work in.

Please, in this thread, instead of saying "how about the fact that we have a massive gap between rich and poor" etc, identify a problem and then present a solution. I do not want this to turn into a "post your moan" thread, I want to hear people's ideas for solutions in our society.

I am not trolling. I am not saying that the children will be scolded or discouraged in any way in regards to their creativity, they will most certainly be encouraged. Part of that encouragement is pointing out areas of improvement and being guided to improve upon weaker areas, not just giving worthless approval for the attempt made at producing something creative. A new approach like this will open the minds of people and prime them better to accept and learn from criticism and also to be critical of themselves, their world and others.

And if I'm wrong, please be kind enough to provide reasons and an alternative, so that things may progress, instead of getting bogged down due to unhelpful phrases like "you're wrong" with no explanation as to what I'm wrong about.

 

Ok fair enough...I'll address the creativity one first as its quick, then come back to the rest.

Art should not be about producing true to life images of life. We have cameras for that. Look at Picasso as an example. I belive that young people today are not given enough opportunity for free form artistic impression, kids naturally have good imaginations, let them run with it. If the sky should be green so be it. It should be a chance to escape all the mundane reality and preparing people for work that the educations system has become.

 

Ah, things were much better in the past.

 

What is education in itself...is it preparing people for the work place or creating environment that teaches a love of learning and critical thinking? If you loved school, then you'll love work.

I think we bog our youngsters down to early on in this machinery. In Scandanavian countries they start later and don't have the same emphises. Prepare the mind right and they will pick up much quicker later on.

There should be a move away from constant testing and increased funding to make for a longer school day (which would actually help working parents). Not to be filled with stuff just in the classroom, but for a much broader range of activities, including much adventurous stuff, that would tire them and out and engage those who do not work so well in traditional environment.

I work in outdoor education and one of the things that really pleases me is when teachers tell me the young people I need to watch and then they are the ones that shine. What truly saddens me is that there a budget for those who have been excluded and its organised in a piss poor fashion. Why do we wait until its to late and try and apply a plaster to years of failure?

Lets give young people a chance to feel good about themselves and what they can achive and put our hands in our pockets and be willing to pay for it. Let abolish private schools so that sons and daughters of the rich are educated side by side with those from the worst council estates and still see if put up with things the way they are now.

 

That ought to kill off any Picassos before it's too late

 

I'd start with tackling the problem of how to house people in proper, dignified homes. Kids from the age of 5-10 should have no more than two days of school and there after 4 days per week. Free cooked meals should be provided every day for people who need it, if we can spare the money, if there aren't too many wars going on.

 

I blame Camilla Parker Jowls

 

Why not just do what worked in centuries past, just build a whole bunch of ships and assrape every country you can find

Then all the bad people you have locked up in prison, just send them over here so they can like get a tan, earn a bunch of money digging stuff out of the ground and learn to play cricket better than you

 

It's not that long ago that Britain did that. I recently watched the Oranges and Sunshine. Bad film, all I got from it were strange milf fantasies about Emily Watson and an untoward sense of belonging.

Anyway as I found out it's about the mass relocation of children through the social welfare system at the time to Australia where they were made to work, and some of them were abused.

Some of them were taken away form their parents and their parents were lied to and they were lied to about who tehir real parents were, ie. told they were dead. This went on as late as the 1960's I'm slightly shocked to find out.

I was born in 1972 and that's a hair and whisker in evolutionary terms.. could have easily happened to me. Maybe it would have been better for me, at least the fucking weather is better in Australia, don't fancy getting molested by a man of the cloth though...

 

cricket is for benders anyway :mickey:

 

this thread is disappointing ...I thought it would be about the systematic application of really tight elastics on the scrotums of all British men.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3ZSXlNvAiI"]The Fall - Reformation - YouTube

 

Same kind of thing with whats called the Stolen Generation, whole bunch of native kids that where taken from their parents, cos of course only good christian white folk know how to raise black kids. Who of course went on to get mistreated, abused, fiddled in their swimsuit area like only good repressed christian white folk know how to - this went on till the 60s as well.


And we are still kind of doing it. Recent hubub about the high court ruling against the government wanting to send asylum seekers off to Malaysia - including the kids. Because you know, those kids are going to be better of in some dingy malay prison than living with their family here, but ehh they are brown, not white so who gives a fuck

Then the next election everyone will crap on about family values. Australia is a pretty racist country

 

I dont know what the hell is going on with Shane Warne lately, Liz Hurley seems to have performed miracles.

Ten years ago it was meat pies and beers, the most recent pic I saw of him, designer jeans and sunnies, moisturiser and lip gloss, he had more joosh than some of my friends

 

I think that the fundamental problem is that the responsibility for unemployment has been shifted almost completely onto unemployed people. I actually did a long post about this somewhere else which I'll copy onto here. This was about unemployment benefit but it's pretty general really



My view is that it's done completely wrong

I think that unemployment benefit should come with proper job coaching and help applying for jobs and so on. It's pointless to just have people come in every 2 weeks and sign on if they have no clue about how to get jobs, some of my friends have been on the dole for more than 10 years, who is going to give them a job at the moment with so many people being laid off, needing extra work etc, plus all of the fresh graduates.

If you go to the jobcentre and say you haven't got a job so you need money to live they shouldn't just give you money to live they should train you up at something and find you a job. Even a lot of sick people can do something.

People who have the skills/confidence and the experience to find jobs usually get back to work pretty quickly when they are unemployed and a lot of people even decide not to claim jobseekers because of the culture. There shouldn't be anyone like that, the only reason that you should depend on welfare is if you are too ill or you have to look after someone

This isn't coming from the perspective of 'they shouldn't waste my bloody money' etc it's because it sucks being unemployed and it shouldn't be normal, it sucks having nothing to do, it sucks not earning your own money. Pretty much everyone I know who has been unemployed long term (which is pretty much everyone i know ) their life and outlook on life improves massively once they get a job

I think it's a totally unacceptable way for the government to treat people just giving them enough to live on and dumping them somewhere.

I also think that this idea that loads of people don't want to work is fiction, in the developed countries there are so many opportunities now that the internet is so accessible, you can get jobs like going round car boot sales and finding weird things to sell on ebay or that job i did in Holland writing utter rubbish.....people just don't realise that even though you could teach it in a 2 or 3 week course. There are plenty of jobs for 'lazy' people

I don't think that it is a social luxury, I think having everyone in work might be something that cost the government money but it would be worth it for the benefit it had on our culture and so on.

I have absolutely no data to back this up but I imagine that over 10 years or something it would cost the country less to have full employment than the current situation with people living on a government allowance with nothing to do all day, especially if you count in the criminality that people often slip into if they are long term unemployed

 

I blame the mass immigration of the 50s and 60s

The first half of the 20th century when everyone was white were a far better time for Britain excluding the 15 years when half of our population were involved in massive wars and the periods of mass starvation in between

People say that is racist but racist attacks went through the roof with the arrival of other races. It's like in America where they made racism illegal in the 60s and then start blaming the victims of the new laws for so many complaints about hate crimes

Political correctness gone mad

 

I'm guessing this was humour, but you were off-centre with the punchline so it fell a bit flat.