Just a few things that are bugging me and I need to stamp my feet on my soap box to get it off my chest. I've probably mentioned one or two before, but never mind.
On Friday evening, another two young lives were lost in a car crash, just outside Forres on a notoriously accident prone road. Both 17 years of age, both male, with the three other occupants of the car escaping with minor injuries. All extremely tragic but frighteningly commonplace.
I don't think there is any one solution to this, but my idea would be to limit the cc of a car that a young/inexperienced driver can own or have access to, similar to the limit put on motorbike ownership. This would include not being allowed on a parent's insurance so that an inexperienced driver can't borrow daddy's BMW and then wrap it around the nearest tree.
My other main bugbear has always been education. I'm all for equal opportunities, but to me this means clever pupils from a poor financial background are still able to follow on to further education should they want to. At present, I feel it simply means that the standard of education has been lowered to allow those that do not have a good enough academic standard to go on to University. This is perhaps a rather broad generalisation, but it is the impression I get. Also, the idea that children should not be streamed so that the children in lower sets don't feel worthless. Children certainly shouldn't be made to feel worthless, but at the same time, if streamed, children at the same level can be educated at a speed and standard that suits all in the class, rather than trying to teach a mixture of levels and speeds when someone is bound to miss out.
Anyway, that's all in my humble opinion and is enough to start with. I have more, but for another time, when the ironing isn't screaming at me!
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2 comments:
Where do I start? Two issues close to my heart.
Something HAS to be done to slow drivers down - and, yes, teenage boys are the worst offenders. Apparently one teenage driver either dies or is seriously injured EACH HOUR in GB. Why is there not a public outcry??? there would be if the deaths arose as a result of, ooooh, bird flu or something. Why was I 'rudely gesticulated at' for slowing someone down by driving at 30 in a 30 zone the other day???
Education: I agree, again. It's early days for me and mine, but it seems that Michael is quite the academic and Isabel is quite the singer and dancer. The right thing, as far as I'm concerned, is for them to develop a passion for something and find happiness and fulfilment in that. My hb is not an academic, but he is the happiest and least stressed out person you could wish to meet. He loves his engineeringy type electriciany job (errr, never quite sure exactly what he does - I secretly think that he's James Bond really and just pretends to work for BT). He would have hated university and would have got precisely zilch out of it.
I like what comes from your soap-box! Encore!
See, product of 'the old school', like me!
I am a firm believer in youngsters being encouraged and educated in where their strengths lie. (Sorry about the poor construction, I couldn't quite form what I was trying to say. I'm sure you get the drift!)
We need electricians, plumbers, carpenters etc. just as much as we need teachers, (of a higher calibre than at present, a lot of our new, just trained teachers up here, where our system is supposedly better, can't spell!!!!) engineers, lawyers etc. Return to the eleven plus, Grammer schools and Technical schools I say!
And relax.
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