Friendly chat

I agree. I think it was Plato or Aristotle or one of that lot who said "give me the boy until he is seven, and I will give you the man". (Of course, that would be considered sexist today. He should have said "Give me the child until he/she is seven, and I will give you the adult".) My mum always encouraged me to behave well, respect the teachers, pay attention, believe everything teacher tells you without question etc. She always maintained schooldays were the happiest days of one's life. Wrong, in my case. I never wanted to go to school from the very kick-off aged four and a half. The day when I could blast out of the school's premises (on my motor bike), knowing I would never set foot in the place again, could not come quickly enough. My dad, though, being an engineer, had a different viewpoint. He always encouraged me to think things through, and try to work out what was really going on, before blindly accepting anything as fact. From an early age, he taught me that there was no such thing as magic, and that David Nixon was merely performing a trick - e.g. "he's got two handkerchiefs to begin with, not one, and he hid the other one under the tablecloth before appearing on the telly". He instilled in me a sense of "always look for the facts first", - la Bertrand Russell, or "examine the cogent evidence", - la Richard Dawkins, before believing anything. I am grateful to him for that. In maths, I always wanted to know how a formula, say, was arrived at, before blindly accepting it. As an engineer, that approach has proven invaluable. Dad was always busy doing his DIY or gardening, or maintaining the car (a P4 Rover). I would ask questions. By the age of six, I knew what the carburettor was and did. I knew that the thing I thought was a bomb (well, it looked like a bomb) was the air filter. As an infant, he would ask, out of the blue, "what are six sixes?" - "thirty six, Daddy". "A thousand pence?" "Four pounds three and fourpence." I am also grateful that he made sure I never started smoking. He put the fear of the universe (or the fear of some supernatural deity) into me: "DON'T YOU DARE!"

I think there are many reasons which have built up over the years and each needs a different solution. If you're talking about qualifications, a far greater percentage of kids take them than ever used to. There certainly used to be people who couldn't read or write, let alone pass exams. But yes, kids are arriving at school who don't even know basic behaviour standards. That's down to parenting and a lack of pressure from society to conform. Even kids that spend a lot of time in nurseries have plenty of time at home to be taught social skills. Junior school used to be foremost about teaching the basics but so many add ons have been deemed essential that basic maths and English become less part of the focus. The times table was sliding out of fashion even when I was a child but a grasp of it makes mental arithmetic much easier. With modern technology you mostly don't need mental arithmetic but you should have a ball park figure in mind so that you can spot when the technology has gone silly. Which sometimes it does, and it's not always the result of human error. At the other end of the scale we seem to have forgotten why we want kids to learn stuff - so that they can progress in future life - education seems to have drifted apart from employment.

What very valid points being made here. Just to pick up on what Philip said about 5 year-olds whose bodily functions haven't been mastered - our Mandy has already been pre-warned that in her new class intake of year 1 children next month (aged 5), at least one of them will require help because they haven't yet been potty trained! I really do wonder what on earth the parents have been doing for the last 5 years - obviously not parenting! Simply neglect, in my opinion. Also, interesting that you mentioned Richard Dawkins, Slim - we'll be seeing him at the Warwick Arts Centre on the 23rd October, on his final tour. I look forward to seeing how he deals with daft questions from the audience! I also used to follow my dad around at a young age, and watch all his DIY - then spend summer holidays using up all his best bits of wood to make aeroplanes, swords & shields, go-carts (or trolleys, depending on preference), and anything else I could think of. The only time I got told off was after I'd tidied up the garage..... when he got home he said "How on earth am I going to find anything now?"!!!

Hello, Thank you all so much for your responses to this dreadful scenario. The contents so demonstrate the humane fullness of our forum, coming together almost as though we were part of the same family. Of course we will have different opinions, there would be no point in a discussion if we were all conveyor belt minded. Most of you know that I enjoyed a very blessed education, from (adopted parents) who were education, education & education. They did their utmost to make up for my disability birth & childhood orthopaedic history, but as a senior school pupil, I often wonder if I would have fared better at a comprehensive. I sometimes cringe at the thought of some children being given priority education based on their parents ability to pay, or as in the case of my own son who was educated at Blue Coats, a protestant church school. My thoughts on privileged education are softening as I learn the same kind of issues as Rob's family member is faced with as a new teacher. God Bless her. A close friend has in middle age, come out of teaching & is doing finance. Gosh.

Thumbs up for Blue Coat's Philip. My daughter was educated there and has prospered very well since after becoming a teacher for 30 years. (and still plodding on)

It does SO depend on the parenting from birth. We have a daughter, married with one son, now aged 12, and we have a son, married with two sons, age 18 and 15. The daughter and her husband - both university educated - would read a bedtime story to their son without fail every night. This might explain why he's top of his class in almost everything from maths to music., and amongst his current reading is "A Brief history of Time", by Stephen Hawkings. By contrast, our son and his wife are less bookish but more gregarious. In fact, they have to be gregarious, because their boys have been brought up in a home shared with our daughter-in-law's parents and her brother and (more recently) his family. So, from birth, those boys have had family members to interact with and have learnt more by osmosis than their cousin. All three of these boys are already well-rounded, confident people with quite likely very different futures academically speaking. But it's easy to see that their life skills started from a very early age. I personally can thank my parents and the Bees for my lifetime skills in maths - I could add up the scores and knew what an average was before I went to Ravensdale Infants' School!

Hello Thank you for that Johnnie, I can remember my mum teaching me division, by calling it sharing. If I have ten sweets to share with three friends. I never knew what to do with the remainder. So I ate it!

I think we are all agreed that good parenting should start at home with the parent(s)/carer(s), especially basics like potty-training. As a 73-year old, I find it shocking that some children of 5 aren't properly trained in that. From snippets I read in newspapers I also get the impression that a lot of parents seem to think that nowadays schools are responsible for almost anything that can go wrong with a child (behaviour/attitude to authority etc) and therefore that absolves them. I read of parents storming into headteachers' offices and not just arguing but getting physical because their child has been punished/blamed for something that they, the parents, are liable for. I doubt if I'm the first to mention it but I wonder if parenting skills are something that should be in the curriculum. The problem there I suppose is at what age would it be appropriate and of course it will not be applicable to all pupils, some are not going to have children (I believe quite a few young people make a conscious decision not to have children nowadays). I myself have no children so am not aware what is taught these days but when I was a pupil 'useful' things like domestic science and woodwork/metalwork were on the agenda, I don't think they are anymore are they? Any ideas?

We can't teach kids their future responsibilities if society doesn't know what it should be asking of it's citizens. The citizenship test for new arrivals seems to be a glorified pub quiz rather than a test to see if people know how to behave. We have a great many laws but don't teach anyone what they are. If we're not teaching legal responsibilities, when would we start to teach them about moral responsibilities? We have 'experts' who airily claim that toilet training shouldn't be imposed and that the child will get it when they're ready. It used to be that parent peer pressure made new parents aware that toilet training is essential before school but what happens when all those peers are letting things slide? Supermarkets introduced self checkouts on the grounds that they knew the cost of shop lifting and having till staff was more expensive. Now there are many more people who think it's acceptable, shoplifting has gone through the roof. Mental conditions affecting behaviour that used to be rare are more often being diagnosed, not because those conditions are more common but because people used to suppress the outward effects. Society thinks that letting people be themselves is kind. It's not. Not to those they interact with and not even to themselves. Good behaviour makes sense because there are punishments for bad behaviour. Now we not only don't punish bad behaviour, we can't even define it as a society. How then do you teach the next generation?

Agreed Helen, but how are we, or more correctly, the younger generations going to correct this? Are there enough younger citizens with the correct moral compass after being indoctrinated with these views to break away and change society? If you are older than 50 your views and experience don't count with modern society.

This has been a very interesting thread, especially on behavior. My parents were not disciplinarians but I knew the rules early on with few threats. In fact, they were what is now called Free Range Parents - the sort of Mum and Dad who let you wander and play until just before dark. Your neighbours were part of that family but would only report you if there was danger involved. I really wonder at my parents patience with my elevated sense of adventure. The thing that sticks out for me is really small but shows how certain skills disappear. Take the simple job of tying your shoelaces - who does that regularly anymore? It used to be just sneakers but now it's a rarity to see men's shoes with laces. So nobody learns to tie a knot. Don't even mention polishing shoes. Do the ladies remember when we used whiten our spring/summer shoes. I loved that job because it made me feel very grown up. Things like boiling or poaching an egg or, at the other end of the skill set, making ginger beer have almost disappeared. I feel very lucky to be born and raised in Coventry in the late 40's and up.

I just wanted to mention that I'm sitting, listening to my daughter and grandson out in the back garden doing the weeding for us creaky oldies. They have a full set of fairly sharp tools and she's showing him how to use them and answering his questions. I remember doing this sort of thing with my dad from about the age of four and I was a world champion riddler, or so I thought. I had my own riddle or sieve and my dad would dig me a pile of dirt and I would shake it all until I had half a bucket of stones. Such a sense of achievement - and I got a threepenny bit for my work. We did a lot of talking sitting side by side on the garden steps and now I'm getting all sentimental.

I'm over 4.5 miles from a music festival but the booming is vibrating through the house. How deaf must the visitors be by now? It started yesterday, how deaf will they be by Sunday night?

Oh dear, poor you. And not your preferred choice of music I suppose. It's known as noise pollution I believe. My commiserations.

At this distance it's just mildly irritating but I can't imagine what it's like closer to. To compare, on the other side of me the M6 is less than a mile away and I can't hear that at all.