In article , mich
wrote:

"Stan The Man" wrote in message
...
In article , mich
wrote:

Secondly, in what way are standards declining? My children are
learning
things that I didn't learn till much later in life.

This must be a rhetorical question since you seem, below, to accept
that there has been a dumbing down of educational standards.

I didnt make the comment you are referring to. I did comment on the dumbing
down issue.

I apologise for the munged attributions.

I don't blame teachers exclusively. The whole system of state education
has gone rotten since I left school in 1966.

So you were taught almost exclusively by those non graduate teachers who you
suggested earlier were inappropriately qualified and "driving dagerously"
and yet you yourself say that standards were higher under their tuition?

You're jumping to conclusions. In fact, my English, History, Geography,
French, Spanish and Maths teachers all had degrees. so Perhaps I struck
lucky.

They did a better job than most do today because the standards of teacher
training were different ( higher) Graduates were an even smaller minority
of the population. Trained teachers were an educational "elite"
themseleves, even though they did not have degrees.
So much for their driving licenses making them dangerous drivers who should
be disqualified.

In those days I was afraid
of being caned (or strapped, in Scotland) by the headmaster; and beaten
by my father. And afraid of failing. So I mostly behaved. We didn't
have to rely on PTAs for text books and we didn't need huge student
loans in order to get a degree. We even had sports fields. Exam
questions, at every age, were much more demanding than they are now and
marking was definitely less generous.

Yes , I agree those were all features of the old system. They were still
features ten years later when I came through the system in England (except
corporal punishment wasnt as widely used maybe. We were still well behaved
though because it was possible to use it.). Now its the kids who beat the
teachers up with impunity and the teachers spend their lives in fear - until
eventually it drives most of them out ( four out of five leave in their
first five years of teaching).

That's the tragedy. Almost all of my teachers were 'lifers' and by the
time I got them they were middle-aged or older.

Simon