EDUCATION

Yet we could cut the money that is going to these areas at the present time, to a fraction of present funding, and get a better result as well.

My (very hard to prove wrong) views on health, are elsewhere on this webpage, and if taken up, would save ninety per cent of the money we are presently spending on health, with most people becoming infinitely healthier as a result. Most people would become as healthy and youthful as myself, and that is a pretty healthy state to be in, regardless of a person's age.

 AS EASY AS Pi

But how could you possibly cut the Education Bill by so much and have better educated students as well ?

That is as easy as Pi ( Pi for those of us not as well educated as we perhaps should be, is a mathematical term …Oh forget it ) No, it would be so easy.

 Imagine if you were the Headmaster of a large school, and all your teaching staff had been on a Bus, which had been in an accident, and all your teachers had to go to hospital temporarily.

Would you close the school down ? Possibly, but it would be more sensible to just ask the year twelve students to act as tutors to the year eleven students for an hour each day.

Naturally the year twelve students would know the year eleven standard well because they would have recently completed that level. Then you get the year eleven students to act as tutors to the year ten students for an hour each day And so on until all students were continuing classes as normal, except that they would all be better off, as they would be part time teachers as well as students.

 In reality you only need a few Teachers at every school and they would be at the highest level.

After those positions are filled, all the students would be expected to help educate those at a lower level to themselves. As well as continuing their own studies with the help of students at a higher level.

All students on a rotating basis would take a whole class, as a Teacher would.

Others leading discussion groups of say six younger students, at a time, while others again would direct younger students in terms of Internet research, which of course is the most interesting form of self education

In Australia alone the cost of Teachers salaries runs into billions of dollars each year If we are to spend that kind of money, we might as well have the teachers doing something useful like working as social workers to all the hundreds of thousands of people in the community who are neglected in terms of their social needs, be they educational or otherwise.

 PUBLIC SPEAKING

 For those people who say this innovative educational system would not work, I should point out that nothing concentrates the minds of students more than those occasions when they are required to address their own class on some subject or other.

The fear of appearing foolish, encourages them to prepare well for this often dreaded occasion.

This would happen when they were asked to take a lower class for a period each day or whenever. There is an old saying that the best way to deepen your appreciation of some subject is to be required to teach that subject to others.

 None of us like to be thought of as inadequate in some area that we should know well, So you would find that students would be brushing up on subjects if they were to be required to teach lower classes at school.

There would be a greater sense of responsibility on the part of students. More of a feeling of making a contribution during school days.

 Many students complain of being bored at school. By having them become part time teachers, a lot of that boredom would disappear. They would have greater respect from other students, and a lot of the tensions between students at different levels would disappear also.

Students who were disruptive in classes would soon rethink their behavior when they had to control a lower class themselves.

Giving young people responsibilities helps them mature.

Students want to be treated like adults, but the way our education system works, students are treated like small children right up to university level. In the early years of a students education, he or she is required to attend classes, where they are taught by an adult who is standing at the top of the classroom, this same process continues to university level.

The teacher takes on ninety per cent of the education burden, while the input of the students is minimal. BORED STUDENTS Students tend to become bored and resentful of spending so much time in a non participating environment like that.

They grow up and leave school, usually with just enough knowledge to pass examinations, but keen to leave the boredom and stress of their educational years behind them.

We have the regrettable situation where young people leave school with only half an education, and they are often quite happy never to pick up a book again.

Not long ago I was at a poetry reading, and an eight year old girl read some poems, in front of an audience of thirty or more adults. She had the confidence to do that because she was encouraged and given support by her parents and others. As she gets older, speaking in public will become second nature to her.

A great many adults shy away from public speaking, because they never did any public speaking as children. This is why children as young as kindergarten level, should not only hear adults reading from books, but they should also be encouraged to read to small groups of their classmates from their own story books.

 Then as they progress into primary and secondary levels, public speaking becomes easy and they get very good at it, they lose a lot of the usual nervousness and they improve their posture, dispensing with certain mannerisms, poor choice of words etc.

SPORT

Some of the best athletes in the world, are at the top now because they were given a tennis racquet or golf stick or whatever to play with at an early age. With practice they got better and better as they grew older.

 Young children, if encouraged to read to their classmates at an early age and shown how to improve their public speaking as they get older, would see vast numbers of excellent public speakers in later years.

Most adults lack confidence and sometimes self esteem. This is often due to wasted opportunities in their early educational years. The school curriculums have hardly changed for centuries.

These days we simply continue the old learning traditions with the help of computers. When was the last time you used algebra or trigonometry or even secondary level mathematics ? A lot of time and effort goes into learning subjects like those, but little in the way of the life skills that young adults really need.

What are some of the skills they need to learn ?

Communication

 How to communicate with each other . How to relate to members of the opposite sex.

Ask young women what they think of the communication skills of young men and they will say that they are almost non existent.

One academic lady said to a conference of women on some issue; " Men are such children" and they all mostly agreed.

Why should adult males be regarded as children by some women ?

If you have never been taught how to drive a car, you are not going to feel very confident about driving a car. If you have never been taught how to use a computer, you could spend hours just looking at the keyboard, wondering what to do next.

If young males are taught nothing about Women and how to communicate with women, then women will tend to remain something of a mystery.

RADAR

Women seem to have a kind of radar surrounding them. An early warning system which tells them that approaching aircraft are either friendly or otherwise. If the approach seems to be insensitive, they will often shut down communications. This is at the heart of problems between men and women.

 If young men are taught how to speak to women and what to talk about initially, then they will usually get along fine. ( After quite a lot of early mistakes, I found that the best way to initiate conversations with a lady was through an inoffensive humorous conversation, in which I might say something complimentary about her.)

But even that needs practice, because it is important to be choosing words carefully so as not to seem to be over confident and cheeky.

The point that I am making is that young male students need to be taught how to speak well. How to give compliments and how to carry on a sensible, intelligent and respectful conversation (that may not include sport) with an intelligent female.

 They need to act out in class how to do this, sometimes with criticisms by a panel of female students. This does not happen now, and consequently you have vast numbers of adult males who have limited communication skills, and who are to an extent actually frightened of women, because they know it is easy to feel foolish if you say the wrong thing.

 MALE FRIENDS

 This is part of the reason why so many young males spend so much time in the company of other males, they feel more comfortable with their male friends. Less comfortable in the company of women.

Then there is the problem of rejection which can cause a lot of trauma, anger and bitterness towards women. Rejection often comes because the communication skills are weak. So you have these incredibly complex communication problems arising among adults and usually because young male students are taught nothing about the emotional needs of women, and how to relate to women- when they are at school.

 There are other issues that are not included in the school curriculums.

How to be successful parents, how to bring up happy and bright children.

These are also skills that can be learned, but are never taught in class.

Why do some young children scream and shout in public and others remain quiet and well behaved ? Babies soak up everything they see and hear . This is why a visiting academic said on radio some time back; "I was amazed to find a three year old chinese girl who could speak fluent cantonese , while I had been trying to speak that language for ten years, and not very successfully."

He was half joking of course, but he was making the point that children learn very quickly when they are very young.

If parents speak loudly and argue in front of their children, then the young child starts to argue and scream in like manner. Speak softly and make children laugh as much as possible, even through tickling, is the first lesson that parents need to learn.

But when are parents ever taught anything ?

Certainly not during their educational years at school.

MODERN MUSIC

Have you noticed what awful music is forced on young people these days through FM radio and the like ?

If the only music you ever hear is basically just a lot of noise, with untrained 'singers' screaming non-sensical lyrics in the background, then you are not likely to gain much in terms of musical appreciation.

 All students should be introduced to good traditional popular music with intelligent lyrics, and also jazz and other forms of traditional music at primary school, with live band performances by older musicians, singers etc. every week. They should be encouraged to play a musical instrument with rehearsals during school hours. Then if after years of hearing quality music they then decide to switch to the awful modern variety, then at least they have something to come back to -later on.

We tend to like whatever it is that we are good at, regardless of whether it is sport, public speaking , music or writing poetry or whatever. In most endeavors, early tuition helps students to become highly competent.

TUITION AND PRACTISE

Personal tuition and practice will make a good sportsperson out of any child.

If someone says that they are no good at sport, it is usually a case of never having been given early tuition in some sport. Some people do not like team sports, but they can be comfortable as Tennis or Squash players or with Golf and similar sports

The key to become good at these sports is tuition from someone who has played at a high level . Rarely do you find someone who reaches a high level in sport (or anything else) who has not had a fair amount of personal tuition to get stroking techniques or whatever, as near perfect as possible.

This kind of personal tuition should take place in school, with senior students learning skills from professionals and passing those skills onto students at lower levels.

 DANCING

One of the most enjoyable pastimes is dancing. " I can't dance" is the usual response if you ask people why they do not go to public dances.

Once again the best time for people to learn how to dance and become confident at dancing is when they are at school. To sum up; With a little imagination, and a change in the way that students are asked to participate in their education, we could be seeing students leaving even the primary level of their education (or at age twelve) with a very confident approach to public speaking , with very good communication skills, plus a * High level of literary skills * High level of sporting skills * High level of musical skills * High level of dancing skills * And capable of being very good parents later on.

 All of which can not be said of students being taught in the present old fashioned system of education.

Even if most of our present teachers remained as general supervisors, We would see great advances when students become part time teachers to their younger colleagues.

For those who might worry that educational standards could fall, it is interesting that I dropped out of school about year ten, because I was not doing too well. I more or less resumed my education when I was about eighteen, as I found that there were subjects that I wanted to know more about. But all that I learned from that time on, I learned by my own reading and from discussions with other people who were better informed than I was at the time.

 I found a desire for greater knowledge that I did not have when I was at School. These days I am probably the best educated person ( who has not had what is officially called, a secondary education ) in the country;

It is nothing for me to debate the best known Academics in the land and in a variety of subjects.

The key to education is to get students keen to learn. The best way to do that is to give them responsibilities at school and ask them to become part time teachers and tutors.

Like a lot of other cultural changes, this should have happened a thousand years ago.