Education, Education, Education. (Fragment consider revising)

I am reacting to the recent findings in the media, about child literacy rates. Which have now dropped to fifteenth from third in the world ten years ago.

Apparently ten year olds are leaving primary education without the basic literacy skills required for secondary school and the wider world.
Blame has been pointed in numerous corners. Computer games are one suspect where as the education system as a whole is another.
I intend to analyse this situation the only way I know how. So here I go.

Lets start with ten year olds. Well they were born ten years ago obviously. So I see that as a great place to start.

1997 “Things can only get better” apparently. A new government is ushered into power after a landslide election victory. Tony Blair the golden boy of New Labour was the new prime minister of the UK, and his manifesto promising better services and backed up by the now immortal line “Education, education, education.”

The nation mourns the untimely death of HRH Diana the Princess of Wales. The country openly grieved and flowers carpeted London in September.

And different views were expressed about a new style of children’s television show
It stared four brightly coloured “things” called Tinky-Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po. They were the “Teletubbies” and they were the new children’s zeitgeist and the must have toy for Christmas of that year.
Teletubbies was criticised for improper use of language and accused of stunting children’s linguistic development.
These fears were ignored and Teletubbies was sold and broadcasted to 30 countries worldwide.

Today televisual media has blamed computer games for literacy rates even though computer games require more of a conscience effort to read than television does, and also the basics of reading should be ingrained by the age of five at the latest. Also a child should not be playing non-educational software before that age and there are few games certified for that age that are not educational.
I believe Computer Games can be acquitted from this crime, as they should already be able to read and parents should be monitoring what their child is doing at least to the age of ten.

I want to call the new suspect of “illogical children’s television.”
To prove that TV wasn’t always bad I will use an example that has endured generations.

I grew up watching the original first two series of “Thomas The Tank Engine” this was based on the “Railway Series” books by Rev W Awdry which themselves have entertained children and help them to read for over 60 years. If you are a regular visitor “Mike’s Soapbox” you’ll know that from a previous post is that “I loved that show” and I was dismayed to find that it too had been dumbed down. Its once extensive vocabulary lost and replaced by fast edits, new characters and storylines that are so nonsensical, that a child has no chance of relating the viewing experience to the world around it. Please take a ten-minute break and view the two episodes.

I will use two episodes as an example one old and one new and will analyse each.
The first is called “Edward’s Exploit” broadcast in 1986. Starring my favourite of the Sodor engines “Edward”. Enjoy.



Now this episode had so many values didn’t it? Respect your elders, work and try hard in everything you do. It taught ingenuity by loosening the couplings between the coaches and it even mentioned parts of a steam engine such as the sanding gear, crankpins and side rods. Thus raising the vocabulary. Allowing the viewer to apply the new words that they have learnt to its environment.

This next episode was aired more recently. Not as imaginatively titled as the first episode. I will apologise now for the American B- actor narrator and for turning Annie and Clarabel in to some sort of Afro-Caribbean stereotype, but please view the evidence and come back in five, for my scathing attack.



Well What was the point of that episode. There was no message present or even a reason to tell that story.

Why does a millionaire go on holiday on the same Island in which he lives. The story was so disjointed I could not follow it, so how can you expect your child to.

This is blog has had to be re-edited as the first video I embedded was disabled by YouTube, under orders from "HIT ENTERTAINMENT" themselves. Either they were embarrassed by their current series or they are more concerned with money than children's entertainment. I think it is the latter, and also I believe they miss-spelled "HIT".

All in all I think that standard has dropped in the production of children’s entertainment, in pursuit of ratings and merchandising opportunities.
Children’s TV only provides a small part of a child’s waking life most of this is taken up with schooling. I do believe standards have slipped in schools too as budgets have been slashed and public buildings are being built and maintained by private investment companies so with administration fees it can cost up to a thousand pound to have a shelf erected on a wall in a hospital. The same is happening in our schools. Greed is taking our children’s education that we all have paid for in taxation.
This is one example of how schools are striving to make ends meet with an increased population, increased class sizes, fewer resources and all the time selling the child the dream of a brighter tomorrow.
I believe the education system failed me. Because I do not learn new things the way they taught me. I had monocular vision so reading was strain the teachers had no passion and could not engage me.
I learn by doing.
I learnt one thing after I left school.
That I could do a hell of a lot.