alexist

Yesterday I went to see the Diane Arbus exhibition at the V&A (I seem to remember cjbroz complaining about Diane Arbus' recent ubiquity, but decided that I didn't want to end up regretting missing another special exhibition).

It was good, and included a decent amount of background material and so on which helped you appreciate the process behind it. Being a New Yorker, it had an additional resonance for me--it's my home, my place. I also have an inexplicable affection/nostalgia for the New York I never knew, the postwar era that's so often looked down on today. I have no idea why, other than it being the city I saw on television when I was little.

(Ah ha - I thought this exhibit looked familiar - it WAS at the Met when I was in New York last spring. Don't know why I didn't see it then, as it was probably included in the admission price and wouldn't have required these damn special tickets that annoy the hell out of me. Especially as the V&A charged an extra £1.40 for online booking, which is effectively required for peak times.)

I also had a look at the fashion section, which confirmed my opinion that fashion began to die around 1962 and has become increasingly focused on being bizarre for its own sake. Not that I actually wish to go back 50 years in most respects (and even in fashion there were mishaps, 1950s brassieres are just wrong) but the clothes were classier and high-end fashion was more interested in looking beautiful rather than being outrageous. It's a shame I'm not thinner (and shorter, 5'8" women were much less common then) as I can't get away with "vintage".

As I was getting yesterday's Economist, I had a flick through the Spectator (a magazine I don't buy, but occasionally glance through). It had an article moaning about David Cameron's "betrayal" of selective education. (And the author was moaning that because Suffolk doesn't have grammars, he "had" to pay £13K for private education. Oh, the shame.)

I will say at the outset that I am vehemently opposed to selective education and believe in the forcible abolition of all remaining grammar schools, so I may be slightly biased. Nonetheless, a few points:

1) The assumption is that a child will do better in a grammar than a comprehensive. This is unproven (and may even be untrue). In order to test this, you need to compare the results of children of equal ability and background, one group at a comprehensive and one at a grammar. The aggregate results are irrelevant, because the grammar is only teaching the clever children.

2) This also assumes that the 11+ is a reliable way of sorting children. It isn't. In Northern Ireland the transfer test is being abolished because the margins are so thin that they're meaningless. And children can be and are coached for the tests (so much for a "route for poor children".)

3) It is impossible to have more than a few grammar schools without also having secondary moderns. And here we have the gamble: if you want the chance of going to a grammar, you must also take the risk that your child will fail the exam. There must be losers as well as winners. This means that 75-80% of children will be sent to inferior schools, as secondary moderns are and always have been. Only well-off parents will take this chance, because they can afford the consequences--if their child fails, they can pay to go private. Poor families can't. So talk of a "route out for the poor" is nonsense, as it always has been--most grammars have traditionally been in middle class areas. Even if you have comprehensives as well (which also means fewer grammars--you can only take so much cream before you get skim) it is impossible to have a loser-less system. Someone has to go to the secondaries. If you let children have 2 bites at the apple, allowing them the chance to choose a comprehensive after failing the 11+, you create double losers: children who choose not to take the 11+ then run the risk of being shifted to a secondary modern anyway.

Is it right to condemn 80% for the sake of 20%? I would argue not, and certainly from a votes point of view not. Proponents of selective education focus on the 20%, and don't realise or want to realise that we can't all be winners. People have to lose, but no one wants to think it will be them.

Selective education perpetuates classism (and this is openly mentioned in debates, talking about middle class parents who would otherwise choose private education--because G-d forbid their little babies should have to go to school with the riff-raff).

The answer now, as it has been for decades, is genuine, high quality comprehensive education. This does not mean "one size fits all". It simply means providing different varieties of education under the same roof, and not condemning children to an inflexible system that creates winners and losers at the age of 11.

There are some things that grammars still do better than comprehensives, such as increased opportunities for triple science, Latin, et cetera. I don't see why comprehensives can't offer these opportunities if there is the desire and funding to do so. I grew up in an area that was entirely comprehensive. There was one local school per area (fixed catchment areas, no enrollment caps), and that's where you went--no pretence of choice. If you didn't like it, you went private (usually religious) or you moved. Yet Long Island has the best public high schools in the country. Comprehensive does not mean mediocre and it pisses me off no end when our so-called Labour government denigrates "bog standard" comprehensives.

Here are the current top 50 books from www.whatshouldireadnext.com. Bold the books you have read. Italicise the books you might read. Underline the books you probably won't read. Pass it on:

( the list )

1) I feel like a bit of a stereotypical chattering classes socialist. Mmm, guilt.

2) I feel even guiltier knowing the choices I'd make for my kids if we stay here. Jewish secondaries are state supported and excellent, and I'd happily send my kids there. They're comprehensive (and JFS uses ability banding to ensure a genuinely comprehensive intake) but they are advantaged, and I'll be bypassing the system. And it's made worse by knowing that many parents use faith schools as a way to get a "better" education, regardless of what they actually believe. My guilt is somewhat assuaged by knowing that faith is a main part of why I'd choose Jewish schooling, but nonetheless, it feels slightly hypocritical, like I'm not willing to live up to my ideals. (If Jewish schooling were unavailable in the state sector, I'm not sure what I'd do. In the US, it would probably be public school, because Jewish schools cater mainly to the observant.)

I made cabbage and noodles tonight. It doesn't taste quite right--I think I did get the wrong cabbage. :/ (In the US, we just have green cabbage, which is green on the outside and white in the middle. In the UK, there's separate green and white cabbages, and I can never remember which one tastes more like the American ones--I don't make cabbage that often as Neil hates it. I think it is the white, which probably just has the dark outer leaves taken off. The leaves on the green were slightly crinkly, as well.)

Hmph, there's quite a bit of it left too...