I was not referring solely to grammar but more the wider education system.
Okay
Children's socialisation starts as infants interacting with (mostly) their parents. The schooling system takes the reins for much of a person's formative years, followed by employers and/or tertiary educators. By the time little Johnnie or Julie is in their late teens the mold has been pretty well set and they are fully interacting with society on their own two feet.
Kids still spend time with their parents. Nats was at Kindercare at 1...to me it has served her well given her disability...
The problem as I see it is that PC or busy parents all too often take the soft option in the early years in terms of setting boundaries and exposing kids to the negative repercussions of their (the children's) actions. The schooling system now takes over the socialisation of said child with an education system that increasingly rewards mediocracy and fails to identify failure. That includes spelling and grammar which in themselves are usually not life or death matters but the personal discipline that goes with honing one of our most concise communication skills is a valuable socialisation building block in its own right.
Of course often the parent telling the kid not to do what they did wrong...not a bad thing...but agree it is too easy for parents to be negative instead of constructive
Average is still not bad and the higher % are Average....I still think that rewarding for being average is good...better than not...as the risk is that they may go backwards....
Little Johnnie/Julie then reaches NCEA level and gains a fistful of credits in all manner of virtually useless activities, many of which in the past were regarded as basic lifeskills that earned one a kicked arse if they weren't adopted as a matter of course. So out they head into the workplace and the great wide world to discover, for often the first time in their lives, that when they get it wrong life has a bad habit of giving you a kicking. And shock horror they have no-one to blame but themselves.
The reality check that this results in comes as one hell of a shock and increasingly we are seeing the fallout from this in the form of antisocial behaviour, failure to cope with responsibility, teen suicide and emotional mayhem. Our society is increasingly setting up the young for failure which most do not have the slightest clue how to deal with. Richard Branson is obviously made of much tougher stuff, most aren't.
I am not sure that school is to blame for this.
Read these reason for teen suicide.
Turn it on it's head....kid gets great grades...rewarded...leaves school....cannot get the job they want.
- a psychological disorder, especially depression, bipolar disorder, and alcohol and drug use (in fact, approximately 95% of people who die by suicide have a psychological disorder at the time of death)
- feelings of distress, irritability, or agitation
- feelings of hopelessness and worthlessness that often accompany depression (a teen, for example, who experiences repeated failures at school, who is overwhelmed by violence at home, or who is isolated from peers is likely to experience such feelings)
- a previous suicide attempt
- a family history of depression or suicide (depressive illnesses may have a genetic component, so some teens may be predisposed to suffer major depression)
- physical or sexual abuse
- lack of a support network, poor relationships with parents or peers, and feelings of social isolation
- dealing with homosexuality in an unsupportive family or community or hostile school environment
An analogy would be to allow a child to ride a bicycle in a padded environment with little or no chance of injury. Then let him or her progress to a similarly 'safe' environment to learn motorcycle skills. That rider has never experienced the mental check that a painfull 'off' would imprint on them. Result is that the first accident out in the real world is more likely to be a serious one, and they probably ain't going to see it coming. Oh, and they will immediately blame everyone but themselves.
But surely the idea is to be better than average and not crash and feel the pain...adults blame others...kids will do that..it's how we deal with this that is important...
Question: Who is to blame?
Life dude
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