Page 45 - Phonebox Magazine July 2006

Society Today
by Geoff Baccus
When writing of the state of our world I commonly use a very broad brush for which several of you have ‘given me an earful’. One obviously excellent and caring mum reminded me forcefully that most of the people in council housing are as decent and honest as any to be found enjoying more comfortable circumstances. She also reminded me of the many who ‘work the system’ with no apparent conscience.
The serving police officer who responded to my article in the May issue does us all a favour in keeping discussion alive, I would not wish to live in a world where people of my persuasions were the only ones permitted a voice. I will take up his comments one by one. “Where” he asks is the evidence for increasing bad behaviour and crime in and around Emkay Newtown. He will find it right here in the Olney Phonebox. In these pages for June are to be found Councillor Brock, MP Mark Lancaster and Olney Town Council addressing the growing issue of anti social behaviour, graffiti and more. On being challenged to explain why Olney does not enjoy the police cover it needs (and pays for) the answer was that by reason of their considerable experience the police are needed in Milton Keynes. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the place is a crime factory and the evidence is provided and supported by his own firm !
I did not blame the education system we abandoned in the 1960s, if he will please read the piece again he will see I blame the
system we created at that time ..... the one size fits all comprehensive system.
Yes I wish to see selection restored in the interest of all our young people, but certainly the eleven plus was a crude way of effecting the selection. I would prefer selection to take account of aptitude, inclination and motivation. The first may certainly be assessed by examination, and I do mean written examination in English. The second to take account of the young person’s evident likes and dislikes together with some reasonable assessment of the youngster’s prospect of success in pursuing the choice.
Motivation may prove more difficult to guage. Motivation usually comes from family encouragement. What chance highly academic success for a young person whose home offers no decent reading matter, a place where ‘news papers’ are filled with boobs and ball games and nothing else. Difficult to gauge such cases precisely because some youngsters decide whilst very young that they have no real wish to merely drop into the surrounding mould.
The eleven plus was in truth, not a final make or break line. One of my own friends was forwarded by his secondary modern school for a further exam at age thirteen, he passed and set a stiff pace in his further progress.
The ‘crime’ of the secondary grammar schools was this: they taught and encouraged young people to think and to determine their own attitudes instead of slavishly following the class prejudices of their parents, many of those young people came from working class backgrounds and were therefore supposed to vote labour.
Many chose to join the young conservatives so Tony Crossland felt obliged to destroy the schools.
There should have been far more secondary technical schools and the nation’s technical and engineering inventiveness and appreciation have declined for want of them.
The secondary modern schools were never the ‘sinks’ to which the left so sneeringly refers, they had their full share of quite remarkable teachers producing outstanding results whilst seriously under funded. I had the privileged friendship of a man who rapidly became a millionaire and was noted as a considerate employer happily sharing his good fortune – and yes he attended a secondary modern school.
Because humans care there have ever been and ever will be lots of excellent individuals teaching the young, but I do not see teaching today as a profession, only as an adjunct to a department of central government. The department determines that parents’ wishes and leadership for their own offspring are often to be disregarded in the service of big brother; for example any child above the age of eleven will meet the promotion of promiscuity and its attendant apparatus, and the school is on no account to notify the parent. Where parents have expressed the wish that the child will not attend sex education lessons that child will be the first target for visitors from a certain visiting organization promoted by government funding in downright defiance of the parents.
A profession sets, examines and monitors its own standards and qualifications. Medicine and surgery, law and accountancy, dentistry
Phonebox Magazine 47
Olney mini ‘quadrathon’; canoeing, swimming, running and cycling along the Ouse between Newport and Harrold, Odell. If you would like to help us in supporting VSO please visit my fund-raising page at VSO www.justgiving.com/vsofundraising, which gives details of the Ouse quadrathon and can take a donation for VSO.
For more information on the VSO and its work please take a look at their web-site www.vso.org.uk d