shuggy's blog
The only thing is that Woodhead has a point, albeit inelegantly expressed. Intelligence is believed to be heritable to a degree.
Now that doesn't mean that all clever people have clever kids - just that they're statistically more likely to. So it's not just that the kids get better results because they're more middle class - they're likely on average to be brighter kids too.
The good news is that there'll still be plenty of bright kids born to working class parents. The bad news is the schools those kids may have to go to.
I've got an early 60s book on secondary education at home (one of my Mums - she taught reception for 40 years) and a concern then was that the working class was being stripped of its natural leaders as they passed the 11-plus and were absorbed into the middle class. I'll have to dig it out - it's a real period piece, totally concerned about the kids losing their working class roots, and without any concerns about the quality of education bright kids were getting. It was a given that, for a bright child who wanted to learn, there were few limits beyond parental pressure to stay in one's 'own class'. Once you got there, any Huddersfield grammar school boy could make it big. "Education and the Working Class", by Brian Jackson and Dennis Marsden.
A hundred years previously Darwinism was seen to support the idea of the vigorous, mongrelised working class being naturally more fitted to survive than an effete, inbred aristocracy.
One or two modern trends will tend to exacerbate this intelligence divide - which, remember is a question of more or less, not class=intelligence.
In the good old days when wifie stayed at home with the weans, there might be considerable class and/or IQ differences twixt partners. Think Mrs Morel and husband in Sons and Lovers. When you get assortative mating (one clever clogs marries another) that sort of mixing tends to diminish. Lots of male doctors marry nurses, but few female doctors marry male nurses.
Woodhead is a disgrace and should never be allowed near children, or involved in any decision making process that affects children.
Regarding the pub smoke ban quote...
(Yeah you lost me after that, I'm afraid. My own father shortened his life through smoking so sorry but you don't get to play the dead dad card with me boyo. Still believe in liberty.)
Edited By Siteowner
Smoking isn't anything to do with freedom. Its an addiction and one that in Scotland has been promoted and supported by a lot of macho claptrap. Unfortunately, unlike booze or drugs, it's one that infringes on other people.
Having a fag lit up does not turn people into the life and soul of the party. Can you think of a single other habit that involves blowing into people's faces?
If you are a smoker you are an addict plain and simple, not a freedom fighter.
Smoking isn't anything to do with freedom.
Smoking per se doesn't have anything to do with freedom - but the context in which people are allowed to do so obviously does.
unlike booze or drugs, it's one that infringes on other people.
Try telling the crew working A & E in the Western Infirmary that drinking doesn't affect anyone else but those drinking. It's possible to drink without it affecting anyone else but this is possible with smoking too.
Having a fag lit up does not turn people into the life and soul of the party.
So?
If you are a smoker you are an addict plain and simple, not a freedom fighter.
Who said anything about smokers being 'freedom fighters'? See the point above...
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