Five-year-olds making better progress but one in seven can't write name | Education | guardian.co.uk

Sep 18, 2008

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Five-year-olds making better progress but one in seven can’t write name | Education | guardian.co.uk

Five-year-olds in England are making better progress, ministers said today, but one in seven still cannot write their name after a year at primary school.
Assessments showed that 14% of them struggle to write and one in 10 had trouble linking sounds and letters.
While the gap between the development of five-year-olds in the poorest areas narrowed from 17% in 2007 to 16% this year, they still lag behind their affluent peers.

I think we’re worrying about the wrong things here. I don’t think it’s that drastic that children can’t all link sounds and letters at that age – it will come in time if sensible methods are used. I do think that we ought to look into why children of poor parents do worse than children of better off parents, but I would suspect that nature and nurture play a part there, and when it comes right down to it, the best teachers/ schools and education in the world will never produce all the children achieving at the same level. But we ought to be checking that they are all getting the same chance.

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Comments

42 responses to “Five-year-olds making better progress but one in seven can't write name | Education | guardian.co.uk”

Caroline
18 September 2008
I agree Jax – about the poor, not so poor gap, but I don’t think 5 is a good age to measure anything at really. My 5yo (well in Nov she’s 5) has NO idea about letter sounds really yet and has only JUST got a handle on knowing and naming the numbers 1-5. She doesn’t know 6-10 yet! Linking letter sounds within this academic year – I very much doubt it!! All she wants to do is play just now and tbh I am happy to let her! I think the majority of 5yo simply have no interest in learning to read (they have more important things on their minds, like ‘Mum & Dads’ and learning role-play life skills) and so they don’t put the effort in and they don’t grasp it – they don’t NEED it yet!! 🙂
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Sallym
19 September 2008
At the risk of being very politically incorrect… people who aren’t as bright don’t have the same earnings potential, they end up poor. They have kids with other people who aren’t so bright and so don’t have well paid jobs and have not so bright children. They haven’t got the genes, they haven’t got parents who can stretch them, they haven’t got parents who see Uni as a reasonable goal. They are going to be living in an environment where being clever is something to hide so you don’t get picked on rather than something to be celebrated. Therefore the children of poor parents are never going to do that well. The ones that do are always going to be the exception rather than the rule.
Instead of worrying whether they can write their name at 5 we should have far better observation so that those who are on a path of functional illiteracy can get better intervention to enable them to read and write as adults. The system as it stands obviously isn’t working.
And, FWIW, DS3 couldn’t barely hold a pencil at the end of Reception. He does have motor skills issues and could link letter sounds fine, he just can’t write them down!
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Allie
19 September 2008
Hi,
I think it’s a real mistake to assume that,
“people who arenâ€™t as bright donâ€™t have the same earnings potential, they end up poor.” Because what determines earnings potential is determined very much by the structures we find ourselves living in. Whole nations of people don’t have the earnings potential of most people in this country but we wouldn’t claim that everyone in those nations much be not as bright as ‘us’. In the same way people in this country are subject to structural forces that partially determine their life chances.
There are lots of sociological theories about the ‘achievement gaps’ between the classes (and ‘races’, in some places and times). One of those is that of ‘cultural conflict’ – that schools are largely designed and run by people from a particular background and that this means there is a gulf between the culture of the school and the home, for some children. This affects their engagement with the material – and whole experience of the place. When we feel we don’t belong somewhere – or that we can’t own the material in the same way as other people – we won’t ‘achieve’ in the same way. This theory has always seemed quite a good one to me – for various reasons too complicated for a comments box.
That said, I think this story is all about the impression of education, rather than actual learning. It also says nothing about the children’s experience of the process, which is rather important IMHO!
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Tim
19 September 2008
Allie, I am really not clear what you are driving at.
Let’s leave aside the difference between the UK and other countries for the moment. Do you mean that you believe that “people who arenâ€™t as bright donâ€™t have the same earnings potential” is incorrect. Or do you agree with that statement and just have an issue with the inevitability of “they end up poor”? Or what?
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Allie
19 September 2008
Sorry, that wasn’t very clear was it?
What I mean is that it not true that people end up poor because they aren’t as bright as rich people, basically. Statistically, one of the things that determines earnings potential is, indeed, your class background. But I put that down to lack of equality in opportunity – and part of that is down to cultural conflict. To accept a correlation between class and ‘intelligence’ is to go along with the idea of “the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate, God made them high or lowly and ordered their estate.” It’s part of the traditions of this country and it’s all about keeping people in their place.
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Gill
19 September 2008
Yes, you can’t really use affluence as a measure of intelligence, can you? Far too many exceptions- both ways – to call that a rule.
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Tim
19 September 2008
Hmm.
Allie, are high and low intelligence passed on genetically?
Is intelligence a statistical predictor of earnings potential?
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Allie
19 September 2008
Tim,
I struggle with the whole notion of ‘intelligence’, to be honest. When we use it as shorthand then I guess we’re all referring to some sort of commonly understood term…?
I imagine that some brain similarities are passed on genetically – and this could influence the ability to manage certain types of thinking. But I am pretty far to the nurture side of that debate. This is why I’m drawn to the cultural conflict theories about educational outcomes.
I can’t claim to know, right now, the statistical relationship between intelligence (meaning IQ?) and earnings potential. If there is one then I could give you a few explanations. 😉
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Tim
20 September 2008
The term intelligence is in common use, so I am pretty sure most people are quite clear what you meant when you used it.
The evidence is that IQ is mainly determined by genetics (although environment is important). So people who have low IQs will tend to have children with lower IQs, people with high IQs will tend to have children with higher IQs. It is no different to the way short people tend to have shorter children than tall people.
I think there are quite clear relationships between IQ and earnings potential. Put it this way, if you have an IQ of 70, then you are not going to be taking up a high paid job as a surgeon, become a university lecturer, or a lawyer.
I do have a problem with class, I think it is outdated, meaningless and irrelevant. I think each individual is entitled to be respected and to be judged on their own merits, not on the basis of the place they were born, or the jobs their parents have.
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SallyM
20 September 2008
To clarify my point, no, I don’t think you can use affluence as a measure of IQ, the inherited rich stay rich because of good accountants not their brains! I do stand by my statement that poor people are more likely to be less intelligent that well paid people. If they were the brains of britain then they wouldn’t be stood there stacking shelves in Tesco. I don’t think you can blame it solely on lack of opportunity. Those in deprived areas (of the UK as thats what the article and my reply were about) have plenty of opportunities to talk to their children. To mark make, teach them to write their names, teach them to count. Even more so now that we have Sure Start (whom I’m not sure I like but…). Yet so many children arrive in school not able to even recognise their name and then go on to not even being listened to read from their school reading books. How you then take these children and isolate them from their parents effective neglect of their education I don’t know, if the parents have a “its not important” attitude about education then the children will too and they won’t achieve because they won’t be bothered and the cycle continues. I don’t consider that a lack of opportunity, the opportunities are there if they had the interest/brains/IQ/intelligence/desire to seek them out. I include Uni in that, my parents aren’t well paid, I’m the eldest of 4 and my Dad took early retirement before I’d even done my GCSEs and yet 3 of us went. If someone wants it badly enough there are ways and means.
Won’t get involved in a discussion of class, I think the traditional 3 tier class system is very outdated and doesn’t have so much to do with family (as it used to) than lots of other factors. I was always considered the working class child in my group of middle class friends and so its always been a sore point for me 🙂
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Tim
21 September 2008
Sally, it seems to me that, for as long as I can remember the official attitude has been that we should allow the ‘professionals’ to take pretty much every decision for us and do things for us. Any attempt to question what is decided and what is done is ill received, doctor/teacher/… always knows best.
I am utterly convinced that the thing which makes a difference is not whether a child goes to school, or is home schooled, or autonomously self educates, but that parents are committed, interested and involved.
Pretty much inevitably public policy has resulted in a large chunk of our society who, having themselves been ill served by the education system believe themselves to be unequipped to help their own children directly or to challenge what is happening in their schools.
The consequence is that generation upon generation are doomed to low attainment in a self-reinforcing downward spiral.
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Allie
21 September 2008
Tim,
You say:
“The evidence is that IQ is mainly determined by genetics (although environment is important). So people who have low IQs will tend to have children with lower IQs, people with high IQs will tend to have children with higher IQs. It is no different to the way short people tend to have shorter children than tall people.”
I think this is a very dangerous conflation of physical characteristics (height, eye colour, whatever) with a human invented scale that is, by no means, universally accepted as a measure of anything much beyond ability to sit IQ tests. IQ is not ‘intelligence’ in my book. So I guess we’re not talking the same language at all here, which I suspected before.
Sally, when you say,
“If they were the brains of britain then they wouldnâ€™t be stood there stacking shelves in Tesco. ”
I have to say that my jaw hit the floor. I have known people who worked in just such jobs and were creative, thoughful, perceptive – whatever terms you might use to imply ‘intelligence’ – hell, they might even have had high IQs… We exist in complex societies where the dice are loaded – this isn’t a meritocracy (whatever that might be….) and so to think you can make any generalisations about ‘intelligence’ and where people are located in the structure, is crazy. It should also be remembered that cash isn’t necessarily a goal that everyone aspires to – this affects your argument somewhat too.
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Tim
21 September 2008
Allie, we use human invented scales to measure height. That does not invalidate the measurements.
Show me some evidence to support your view that intelligence, measured by IQ or whatever ‘definition’ you want to dream up is not heritable.
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Gill
21 September 2008
“If someone wants it badly enough there are ways and means.”
I think you hit the nail on the head there Sally. My parents tried to push me into Uni, but I didn’t want it so I didn’t go, and yet my IQ was measured at 11 and found to be extremely high. I didn’t see the value of uni and I still don’t, either for myself or my children. Nor do I see the value in acquiring excess funds and would quite happliy stack shelves in Tesco. And yet, my IQ is (no doubt, haven’t checked in a while.. been feeling a bit brain dead since last baby, LOL) still extremely high.
There are many kinds of intelligence, way beyond those measured by the IQ test and all equally necessary to a well-functioning society. An ex-neighbour of mine when our children were younger was considered to be a dunce at school, but was far better at keeping house than I was. In caring for and raising our young children, she definitely had the advantage over me. Another friend had rubbish life skills but was a fabulous graphic artist. I could go on like this, with examples of everyone I know!
High IQ -> many GCSEs and A levels -> good degree -> high salary is by no means the only intelligent route through life, and nor – IMO – is it the most desirable one.
What matters is that a person can be free/helped to identify their own strengths and wishes, to find the best path for themselves, whatever that may be – a job that the education system does very badly, I think.
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Allie
21 September 2008
Yes, we do use human invented scales to measure height – of course we do – and people have for many centuries. They are useful, aren’t they? They help us deal with differences in perception and are a matter of physical fact. IQ scales on the other hand… What’s the use of them? They are, as far as I can see, all about differences in perception, which are then ranked and graded and people are judged against them. I’m sure you know what I’m going to say here! Where is empathy, where is sensitivity, or creativity in an IQ test? Oh, there’s so much I could say… If I am in a state of emotional distress, my height won’t change. Ask me to sit an IQ test and I may do far less well than on a day when I’m relaxed.
I’ve already said that I suspect that some similarity in brain type is inherited and this might influence people’s ability to manage certain types of thinking – or doing, come to that. I don’t put it *all* down to nurture.
If you mean that people’s performance in IQ tests appears to be inherited, I could name any number of social and emotional influences on that. What is the influence of spending your formative years with people who have been told they’re ‘clever’? What is the influence of literacy? As you can gather, I suspect the social world plays a part that simply cannot be isolated from the process.
But I think people’s amazing and complex brains are are way beyond any kind of scale we can dream up and I doubt the motives of people who want to measure such things. I guess that’s the essence of what I’m saying.
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Tim
21 September 2008
Gill, I think a major problem is that some human attributes end up with an implicit association with good and bad. Randy Newman’s “Short People” ridiculed this rather nicely. We don’t regard tall people as being better, they are just taller, short people are just short, but when it comes to skin colour…
And I think this is why pretty much any discussion of intelligence seems to end up being emotive and irrational. Having high IQ does not make you a better, more valuable or superior person, it merely may mean you are better at doing certain things. In that way it is no different to, for example, someone who is very tall having the potential to do well at basketball.
I agree wholeheartedly with your last paragraph, by the way.
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Tim
21 September 2008
Allie, “But I think peopleâ€™s amazing and complex brains are are way beyond any kind of scale we can dream up”. Agreed. 🙂
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Gill
21 September 2008
And I agree with your first two! But the first isn’t an intelligent way of viewing things, is it? 😉
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Tim
21 September 2008
Gill. Most certainly not.
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SallyM
21 September 2008
Gill & Allie, OK maybe that was a bad example 🙂 I did think that after I went to bed thinking about the parents who go back to that as part time job when the kids are in school. Perhaps I should have said “working in McDonalds”! However equally, from what I know of those organisations (which I’ll admit is limited to convos with some late teens Saturday staff) those who are clever move up the ladder and don’t stay stacking shelves, they become supervisor/management. If you have a quick, enquiring mind doing something as mind numbing as shelf stacking will surely not lead you to stay there for long? It might be OK for a while but you wouldn’t make it a career choice would you? And that is more what I meant. I was turned down for jobs as a receptionist when I was 19 being told that “I would be bored” and I guess really thats what I’m trying to say, if you have a high IQ then, all things being equal and childcare etc being taken out of the equation, you wouldn’t choose a career that would leave you bored senseless. Yes there are lots of different ways to be useful to society but the original question was about children of poor parents doing worse than the children of well off parents which will, for the vast majority of children, will be doing well at school. Those who have other skills in life will not do as well at school. They might be very creative yet academically poor but, once again, those kind of skills don’t seem to be valued as much in society and aren’t generally paid well in the wider workforce apart from a select few. I agree those other skills are also needed in society but they aren’t paid as well. Binmen, delivery drivers, postmen, hairdressers, road sweepers… all needed and we’d all complain if they weren’t there but they aren’t well paid jobs and, in general, they won’t attract those with the ability to do better. The jobs that pay the most require good academic skills.
Gill, yes not everyone goes to Uni and not everyone wants to (OH didn’t, hes like you, sees it as a waste of time) however for a lot of high paying careers, especially these days, you do need to prove yourself in further education. Even with a career now spanning 20 years OH is excluded from some jobs due to his lack of degree. Those who choose not to go to Uni and still go on to very well paid careers are those with the drive and determination to beat the system. If you have a low IQ you wouldn’t, in general, be capable of doing that. You’ve got to have the nonce to find another way in. I do believe its fact (oft quoted by the Government) that graduates are higher paid that non graduates which shows that academic skills are valued over the other skills.
I don’t necessarily agree with the way it is, I think that there are other skills and careers that should be valued far more by society but they aren’t and I’m not brainy enough to know where to start solving it!
Tim, I totally agree about involved parents. From my experience in the kids school the parents who are most involved are the parents of the brightest kids. The kids who are low achievers have high “sick” days, are rarely read with, don’t complete homework, have parents who have to be chased (once literally!) to fill in permission slips and don’t have parents who help in class. I don’t know if those kids could do better, some of them I doubt could, others might if they got pushed hard enough though I think they would always struggle. It does make me very cross and will, inevitably, affect my take on this whole argument. There are some parents that I wish I could just shake some sense into, if they want their child to do well (and they must surely? No one wants their child to fail at school do they?) then they need to stop abdicating responsibility and start helping.
(BTW does anyone else find it really hard to make a coherent argument when writing in such a small comments box or is it just me?!)
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Gill
22 September 2008
My main problem with both the article and your comments, Sally – and with the so-called civilised world! – is that ‘doing well at school’ is just about the only official measure of success for a child, when the NC and associated kinds of forced learning en masse don’t work well for so many people, rich and poor alike.
Yes I concede that some wealthy parents might see more incentive and possess more tools/skills to help their offspring to survive the system and come out of it with something, but I don’t necessarily see that as being a good thing. If you’re the square peg child (as I was, and most of the other schoolchildren I knew, in two very middle class schools) being forced through the round hole of schooling, then having your parents join forces with the teachers in hammering you through it isn’t beneficial at all. I envied the ones whose parents didn’t rate academic success, because at least they got a bit of time off to do something else.
In my opinion, childhood should be about having fun and learning about the world on your own terms, not being trained to compete in a jobs market. It should be about growing up feeling safe, secure and content and having time to contemplate, question and explore in your own time. (If this seems idealistic then there’s something wrong with the way things are working I think.) And ok, so you might end up earning less money than some other people (shock, horror!) but as you said earlier, â€œIf someone wants it badly enough there are ways and means,â€ and I think that those people who really do want academic qualifications and that kind of a career will probably succeed regardless of their background, just because they want it. We often underestimate the power of ambition in our earnest efforts to ‘encourage’ and ‘support’ our children down the accepted route to ‘success’, when really we might be just feeding the economic machine with yet more units of production – a machine that’s proving to be increasingly full of design flaws anyway, and looks about ready to collapse in bits on the factory floor!
Hmmm, and I’d rather be a postman than ‘something in the city’ right now, wouldn’t you? The stress must be immense – it surely can’t be worth the money. And with the money comes the mortgages, the lifestyle you have to keep up.. it makes me tired, just thinking about it.
And what happens if the whole system does come tumbling down, as it’s recently threatened to? What if the rescue packages for the banks don’t work and the money system grinds to a halt? It’s a possible scenario, which would render a lifetime of deskwork and qualifications fairly useless.
How did people live before this world of ‘jobs’? They just got by on their skills and their wits and yes, the position of their family probably helped or hindered as it always has and always will. (Traditionally, the ‘stupid’ ones from all classes got drafted into the army, didn’t they? And helped the elite to force everyone else to comply with its wishes!)
LOL! Long comments, fascinating conversation, no easy answers… and yes! Small comments box! 😆
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Allie
22 September 2008
I too think that childhood should be about exploring and learning – about yourself as much as the world. But I also think that childhood is the time to learn about people – to develop the skills of getting along with others and (hopefully) to learn to respect all and value the diversity of the human species. The current schooling system doesn’t come anywhere near that, as far as I can see – apart from paying it lip-service. This is because the education system is set up on the basis of life being a race, with winners and losers. This is why there is such pressure on little children.
I know there are plenty of people who would think me negligent in not ‘pushing’ my children in the race – especially as they are both quite skilled in the particular things valued by schools – but I think they would be losing out in other respects if I did that. And I value those things.
People have different value systems – and that is good. Some families mark things like birthdays and anniversaries of deaths by being together – and will take their children out of school on those days. Some believe that cuddling on the sofa with your mum is better than being dosed up with nurofen so you can go for the 100% attendence bribes. Some parents are profoundly uncomfortable in the school environment because their own childhood experiences were so negative – maybe they’re in a hurry to get out of the place and so aren’t that likely to volunteer to help out in class. I think that it is very hard to know what other people’s motives are when it comes to the choies they make for their children. We also tend not to know anything of the challenges that other parents are facing – be they financial, health or emotional. It’s easy to identify people who appear to conform to some stereotype of ‘irresponsible’ or ‘disengaged’ parent – but if you’re checking some little sterotype box in your head then you’re probably failing to see the whole person…
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sallym
23 September 2008
Allie, I could well be failing to see the whole person but when I have a conversation with someone who tells me their child was off school because they (the parent) couldn’t be bothered to get up I can’t help but mentally gasp. When I hear their conversation taking the mickey out of how badly their child reads whilst knowing that they never listen to their reading scheme books I am shocked. Maybe its overly middle class of me 😉 maybe I’m just some narrow minded product of the system but I can’t help but judge those people on the side of them they present to me. I don’t think I’d be human if I didn’t. I roll my eyes at the children who sneeze and cough their way through the day giving my kids all the germs just as much as you and if it was just special days that these kids were out of school for then I’d understand. I guess there is just a whole array of small things about each family that I have in mind when I talk about these things that, on their own, wouldn’t make me wince but, when put together, build a picture of disengaged parents who really couldn’t give a damn. No car seats let alone seat belts, no coats in winter, uniform on own clothes days, constant nits, thin undernourished looking children (rather than mine which are thin but look healthy IYKWIM?), children who can tell you about the 15 rated horror film they saw but can’t read “and”, “then” or “was”. Its hard to put across in words, I’m not into making snap judgements, I don’t mind changing my mind when someone shows me a different side but some people you do stereotype checkbox because they fit it so well!
Gill, I agree with you about what childhood *should* be. My original comments were based entirely on the question posed by that article which is based on school children. I can think of a lot better things to have done with my last 3 months than coach my child through the 11+ had I not wanted him to stay in the system and get a place in a school I think will suit him. Yes it was incredibly pressured and yes, I think the system is flawed. I don’t agree with the system, that we should only measure children on their SATS results, which I know sounds at odds with me wanting my child to pass the 11+, but I’ve chosen that we are a part of it so I have to work within it. Without fundamentally changing the entire worlds perception of success we have no hope of changing how we measure a childs success. As I said in my very first comment I disagreed that not being able to write their name at 5 was a bad thing. I am kind of feeling my way through how I feel about this discussion as I go, its not like I’ve thought about it a lot but I do still believe that parents who aren’t that bright have not very bright children and that will be reflected in their earning potential.
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Gill
23 September 2008
Maybe they do all that stuff because they’re disempowered and so lacking in self esteem that they’re effectively dehumanised. Maybe they’re subconsciously passing on the way they were treated as children, or parenting that way because they think it’s what’s expected of them. If they’re struggling with life themselves then yes, it’s obviously too much for them to be able to work their lives around keeping another person clean and well fed and whether that other person can read certain words by certain ages – well, yes, it’s probably irrelevant to them, which is why The System doesn’t work for so many people.
Personally I find it much easier and nicer to keep my children clean and healthy when they’re with me all the time than I did when they were away at school for 6 hours a day – I’m more closely connected with them now, and life isn’t so rushed.
I’ve come across that ‘us’ and ‘them’ thinking before quite a lot though, and – while I can kind of understand the reasons for it – I don’t think it helps the people in question to feel, think and act in more socially acceptable ways. It’ll just alienate them more, won’t it?
Seems like sending a child to state school is as much about ascertaining and reinforcing the social hierarchy as anything. Very sad.
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Tim
23 September 2008
Gill, I would agree with you that people may have good reasons as well as bad excuses for being crap people, I don’t just mean parents, there are also murderers, rapists, war criminals and torturers. But some point, don’t you feel that saying it was your bad upbringing that made you what you are just doesn’t really stand up as a defence?
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Gill
24 September 2008
It’s a combination of factors that determines people’s decisions, isn’t it? Their background, their experiences, the personality they were born with and no doubt many others. I don’t particularly subscribe to the “some people are just bad” theory. People have all kinds of deep and complex problems for all kinds of reasons, and most other people only see a snapshot of the surface of their lives, from which to make their behaviour-reinforcing judgments.
And the old organically supporting communities that would have helped many people to feel ok at one time are being systematically dismantled, too. It all contributes, IMO.
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Tim
24 September 2008
If it is “a combination of factors that determines peopleâ€™s decisions” and always takes the blame when things go wrong and that means that they are never “just bad”, never culpable and never responsible for the life choices they make then this cuts both ways. It also means that, by the same token, this combination of factors is what gets all the credit when things go right. So at the end of a tough day, when you have worked hard physically and mentally, you are never entitled to say to yourself, “I did well, I am proud of what I achieved today” you just quietly think, “my parents did well, my community provided me with good support”?
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Allie
24 September 2008
I think we know inside when we have done well. We also all do less than our best and know that (when we can stand to admit it to ourselves.) But, the things is, from the outside, can you know the effort I have made? Can you judge me? I think that’s probably the heart of it.
There is also a difference (in my mind, anyway) between an understanding of structural things (like the education system, poverty and so on) and understanding individual people. I do understand the desire to stereotype – especially when people seem to be making a special effort to conform to one – but I still believe it just won’t be true. People are complicated. It isn’t about excuses but reasons.
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Gill
24 September 2008
LOL no – I’m like a bank. I take all the profit/praise and shed all the risk/blame 😆
Ahem. But seriously.. the ‘combination of factors’ I cited did include personal culpability. We have all those factors and we also have the power to make choices, for which we have to take the flak or reap the rewards accordingly.
It’s just that I’ve been in the situation where someone has been dealing with me as if I was a lesser mortal than them (haven’t we all?) and it doesn’t exacly bring out the best in me.
IMO, we shouldn’t have these bizarre set-ups to which people are expected to deliver their children clean, well-dressed and preferably literate before 9am every day. Or if we do have them, then let them be completely voluntary and let everyone know that’s what they are. Then you wouldn’t have one group of people having to tolerate another’s obviously different standards and priorities day in, day out, which must be pretty untenable for all concerned.
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Tim
24 September 2008
Allie, Peter Sutcliffe is complicated. Can you judge him?
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Tim
24 September 2008
“LOL no – Iâ€™m like a bank. I take all the profit/praise and shed all the risk/blame :lol:”
That was just what I was thinking as I was writing the question. 🙂
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Allie
24 September 2008
I can judge what he did, Tim. In extreme cases, like his, we can become consumed by our actions. The person obliterates their own humanity with violence. The test of our humanity is how we respond. I believe that some choices lead to places from which there is no path back into society. But, for most people, life is a bundle of good and bad choices and we’re doing our best. While we’re distracted by blaming and labelling people for everything we disapprove of, the machine grinds on…
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Tim
24 September 2008
Allie:
“The person obliterates their own humanity with violence.”
What does this mean?
“The test of our humanity is how we respond.”
I don’t understand. What do you mean?
In fact, you have lost me completely.
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Allie
24 September 2008
I think that when people are carrying out acts of extreme violence they cease to see other people as people. They break the connection and show no compassion or empathy. This is what I mean by obliterating their humanity.
How we respond depends on our ability to continue to see such people as people. This means recognising the capacity in all people to act in extreme and damaging ways and not deciding that such people are ‘monsters’ or ‘animals.’ It is about kepping the connection – even if that means admitting that fellow humans do the most vile of things sometimes.
Does that make any more sense? I am very tired, so I wouldn’t guarantee it.
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Gill
25 September 2008
Wow – love that answer! Makes perfect sense to me.
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Tim
25 September 2008
Yes Allie,lovely answer. But as far as I can tell, not to my question. You should have been a politician.
Anyway, I will give you mine. Yes I can judge you, or anyone else. In fact, I, you and everyone else prejudges everyone new that we come into contact with as a matter of routine and we actively teach our children to do so as well.
However, I don’t think that writing people off as animals, inhuman or unhuman is the right thing to do. I think that we should always treat everyone with humanity and compassion.
I think that we, both as individuals and as a society are often too quick in lumping people together into convenient groups – class, race, sex or whatever. But, it has to be said that, in practical terms, it may be necessary to do so. As an example, it seems to me sensible to lump all rail passengers together into a convenient group and say that they want their trains to arrive on time. It isn’t true, some probably don’t care when their train arrives, but, well, I’m sure you get my point. It does involve making some judgements about rail passengers. But if you are going to run a rail network, you need to make some judgements about your customers.
Conversely, when we get to things like ALL single mothers, and ALL poor people (define poor 🙂 ) then the ground gets very shaky indeed. You are then getting into areas where the policy decisions which are made don’t just impact on what time someone arrives at a railway station but touches all aspects of their lives complex and unforseeable sorts of ways.
One, of many, criticisms I have of Nulabor over the last decade is that when they have talked about choice, they have only ever meant choice from a limited range of options of their choosing. This seems to me a bit like going to a restaurant – you can eat whatever you like, you have freedom of choice – but only so long as the chef has put what you want on the menu. But with restaurants we have the option to go elsewhere.
I think that we could really do with rethinking social policy. I really do not know enough to know how we could do it in practical terms, but it seems to me that we could really do with changing things so that people could (to use the restaurant analogy again) choose the ingredients and design their own recipes rather than getting the chef’s special forced on them. That seems to me to be about the only way to give individuals the help and support they actually need and want.
It does seem to me that we do have a culture in which people are actively encouraged, even pushed, into pack, herd or flock behaviour, where conformity is not only the easiest but also the only safe choice. Even if you look at liberal intellectuals, it does seem to me that the convoluted and contorted dialectic they indulge themselves with is for the greater part meaningless, because they are only ever going to come to conclusions which fit in with the pack. Given that, if people have depersonalised themselves in this way it is understandable if outsiders make judgements about them as a pack. Understandable, but inevitably depersonalising and degrading.
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Gill
25 September 2008
“I think that we could really do with rethinking social policy. I really do not know enough to know how we could do it in practical terms, but it seems to me that we could really do with changing things so that people could (to use the restaurant analogy again) choose the ingredients and design their own recipes rather than getting the chefâ€™s special forced on them. That seems to me to be about the only way to give individuals the help and support they actually need and want.”
Spoken like a true intellectual liberal! 😉 With which, of course I quite agree.
I disagree with you about Allie not answering the question you asked though – IMO she answered it precisely.
More on social policy (to indulge in some more possibly convoluted and contorted dialectic which is just saying the same thing all over again in a lightly different way but FFS, it seems we have to keep saying it..) there is far too much of it. We do NOT need to be told how many vegetables to eat, how often to clean our teeth, whether to smoke fags or how much alcohol to drink. How to raise our children, how to teach our children, how to read books to our children, how to discipline our children etc etc et aaaaargh cetera.
Govt treats people like children, which is perhaps what most people still are, or what they want to be. Do we get the kind of govt we deserve? Probably 🙁
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Tim
25 September 2008
When you see a flock of sheep run off a cliff, who do you blame? Surely the individual sheep should take responsibility for their own actions? Or is it the dog’s fault?
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Gill
25 September 2008
What’s the point in blaming anyone though? It doesn’t seem to change or achieve anything. The best course of action as far as I can see is to just ignore it, as much as possible. Which is ok, until the sheepdog starts taking lumps out of the rebellious sheep with its sharp teeth. 🙄
(Hey, where – or who – is the shepherd in all this?)
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Allie
25 September 2008
Now, if you have religion you have the Lord as your shepherd, apparently… 😉
A politician!!! That’s enough to make me sweep off in an indignant huff… 😉
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Gill
25 September 2008
Just reading Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, in which the Ford is your shepherd! 😆
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Tim
25 September 2008
Shepherd? That is just a conspiracy theory! The shepherd was nowhere near the cliff! He was in a meeting with witnesses. 🙂
Sorry Allie, didn’t mean to offend. And obviously, if you were a politician you would have swept off in a huff to spend more time with your family. 🙂
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