Philip Larkin Removed from GCSE Curriculum

[Lex]

A 1st for me - I'm actually agreeing with Nadhim Zahawi in questioning why these poets are being taken off the curriculum: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-61925148

Smells like another Wokeish diversity tick-box exercise to me.

[rebbonk]

I must admit I was rather surprised at Zahawi's stance.

I didn't take English Lit' at school, and frankly, I never saw the point of poetry. However, as I've aged my views have changed.

You might be right about wokery box-ticking, Lex; but I'd hope that maybe the intention is to spend more time teaching kids to write proper England like wot I do.

[margaret]

I became more interested in poetry and reading the classics when I was a lot older, My English is naff, I 'm ashamed to say. It wouldn't be fair to blame my school, I put id down to my laziness.
But having said all that , reading Facebook makes me feel better as the grammar and spelling on there makes me looking like I have a degree in English Lit. But don't worry, its not worth getting wound up about it.
What I don't understand is though, how some people get through life without being able to read or write. I have always wanted to try and help such people.

[Lex]

You might be right about wokery box-ticking, Lex; but I'd hope that maybe the intention is to spend more time teaching kids to write proper England like wot I do.

I'll for ever be sceptical about the intentions of the teaching 'profession'. Whereas my primary school teachers actually taught me something, my secondary education, which with hindsight was hard-line Left, was little more than a babysitting service. Sadly, by the time I realised this, I'd lost any interest in education through apathetic osmosis.

[rebbonk]

That's quite interesting, Lex. My own experiences are not a million miles away from yours, yet we're a generation apart.

Junior school teachers were interested in their pupils and did genuinely try to teach things. My secondary school teachers were mostly ex-WW2 officers (mainly intelligence corps) coasting to retirement. They really didn't give a stuff about us.

When I attended Henley college and the Butts college after school, I was honestly surprised as they were, in general, very much like my Junior school teachers and genuinely wanted you to succeed.

Incidentally, I had a chat with my daughter earlier. She works for one of the big curriculum and exam setting boards, and her opinion is that the whole curriculum needs ripping up and starting again. I know from my days involved in education that English and Maths abilities are generally poor (worldwide, not just in the UK, even in Germany) but her opinion is that they are atrocious. She favours removing a lot of things from the curriculum in order to teach children things that are useful in everyday life; such as money management, official form completion, and a whole raft of basic social skills.

Interestingly, this past few weeks she's been engaged in a rather large fraud investigation and she has had to attend several school exams where the exam invigilators and other school officials are being watched rather carefully!

[Lex]

I had the same experience of college as you, Rebbonk. I suddenly teachers who were interested in teaching!