British school bans the word "school"

[Milkman Norm]

This really make me angry. Kids, kids in a country where I don't live well attend a learning facility instead of a school Well how dare they? How dare they! PCness is the worst thing ever and will destroy society as we know it.

Or one could have take the tact that perhapes these changes could improve students and leaed them to become productive adults down the road because maybe, just maybe not undercutting kids will build them up for the "real world".

[Reptar]

Yeah, because changing the name of a school to a "Place of learning" or whatever they call it is going to make me hate it less.

All schools can go straight to hell.

[Cela]

don't worry, the names only out for summer

[Tim]

Jan 3, 2009 10:41:31 GMT -5 Loki said:

"School" was probably perceived as authoritarian and "fascist". A place where the poor kids are forced to sit through hours of boring classes, being subdued by evil teachers, and saddled with tons of reading/writing that prevents them from expressing themselves.

Agreed. You were totally sarcastic, but I agree. That is pretty much my views on school.

[The OP]

The thread title is kind of inflammatory. I mean, they changed what they call their facility or whatever but that's not really banning the word "school".

[FrankGotch]

The saddest part of this whole situation is that it is coming from the country that spawned the man who wrote. "'A rose by any other name would smell as sweet".

[Janitor From Mars]

Jan 3, 2009 7:59:30 GMT -5 Next Level was WRONG said:

Personally, I prefer "Learning Facility".

More like

Capitalist Sheep Facility

[Nacho STAYS Hyped]

I prefer "hellhole".

[MiLB Fan]

Maybe they should ban the word "door" as well. Call it a "goozack."

Yeah, I can't believe I remember that either.

[Cela]

Jan 4, 2009 2:52:06 GMT -5 MiLB Fan said:

Maybe they should ban the word "door" as well. Call it a "goozack."

Yeah, I can't believe I remember that either.

Wayside?

[Mozenrath]

But what will people say when they say people "call me the bus driver!"?

Anyone else so glad Carlin isn't alive to see this?

[The Lach is very tired]

Jan 3, 2009 8:39:31 GMT -5 chairshotshurthead said:

This has gotta be the most blatant example of pussy, soft-minded, weak-willed, useless and unnecessary PC bullexcretory matter I have ever heard of. snork off with your euphemistic wankery, it's called a goddamn school and there's nothing wrong with it.

You just summed up my sentiments perfectly bro

[eJm]

Jan 3, 2009 17:18:57 GMT -5 The Line said:

THIS DIRECTLY EFFECTS ME GREATLY!

But seriously, I don't attend the place, and I know not one person personally who does, so really, why the snork should I care and complain about it?

BCZ ITZ PLTICL CORRTNZZZ GNE MAAADDDD!

Translation: Beats me.

[Loki]

Jan 4, 2009 0:02:09 GMT -5 Tim said:

Jan 3, 2009 10:41:31 GMT -5 Loki said:

"School" was probably perceived as authoritarian and "fascist". A place where the poor kids are forced to sit through hours of boring classes, being subdued by evil teachers, and saddled with tons of reading/writing that prevents them from expressing themselves.

Agreed. You were totally sarcastic, but I agree. That is pretty much my views on school.

Well, you're still in there, so it's no surprise you'd rather be at home surfing the web, or at the local mall trying to pick up girls..

The fact is: education is the foundation and the launching pad of your adult life, so yeah the price to pay for it is sitting in school N hours a day, N weeks per year, for N years and learning things that will eventually help you later in your life.

And most important, school teaches you how to relate yourself with authority, working relationships, problem solving etc. That doesn't happen if you just sit at home or are having a ball partying.

The new policy of "let's turn schools into free-for-all kid-friendly places" is killing the youth of Western world.

Oh just for the sake of it, I wasn't one of those who were on the books 24/7, at all. Nor I did love spending 6 hours of my weekday, saturday included, at school. But it was my "job", just as mom and dad had to work in their office.
I'm now glad I had some hard-asses as teachers, even though back then I didn't like it, and I tried to mind my own business as much as I could.

So, while I see where you come from, I think your perspective on that is biased and skewed

[eJm]

Jan 4, 2009 9:14:30 GMT -5 Loki said:

Jan 4, 2009 0:02:09 GMT -5 Tim said:

Agreed. You were totally sarcastic, but I agree. That is pretty much my views on school.

Well, you're still in there, so it's no surprise you'd rather be at home surfing the web, or at the local mall trying to pick up girls..

The fact is: education is the foundation and the launching pad of your adult life, so yeah the price to pay for it is sitting in school N hours a day, N weeks per year, for N years and learning things that will eventually help you later in your life.

And most important, school teaches you how to relate yourself with authority, working relationships, problem solving etc. That doesn't happen if you just sit at home or are having a ball partying.

The new policy of "let's turn schools into free-for-all kid-friendly places" is killing the youth of Western world.

Oh just for the sake of it, I wasn't one of those who were on the books 24/7, at all. Nor I did love spending 6 hours of my weekday, saturday included, at school. But it was my "job", just as mom and dad had to work in their office.
I'm now glad I had some hard-asses as teachers, even though back then I didn't like it, and I tried to mind my own business as much as I could.

So, while I see where you come from, I think your perspective on that is biased and skewed

Ladies and Gentlemen, history was made.

Sunday January 4th 2009...2:21pm...

I agree with Loki.

Never thought that would happen, but I agree with you 100%.

[tap]

Jan 4, 2009 9:14:30 GMT -5 Loki said:

The fact is: education is the foundation and the launching pad of your adult life, so yeah the price to pay for it is sitting in school N hours a day, N weeks per year, for N years and learning things that will eventually help you later in your life.

And most important, school teaches you how to relate yourself with authority, working relationships, problem solving etc. That doesn't happen if you just sit at home or are having a ball partying.

The new policy of "let's turn schools into free-for-all kid-friendly places" is killing the youth of Western world.

Oh just for the sake of it, I wasn't one of those who were on the books 24/7, at all. Nor I did love spending 6 hours of my weekday, saturday included, at school. But it was my "job", just as mom and dad had to work in their office.
I'm now glad I had some hard-asses as teachers, even though back then I didn't like it, and I tried to mind my own business as much as I could.

So, while I see where you come from, I think your perspective on that is biased and skewed

There are wider assumptions herein I wish to address.

1. Education does not stop when one becomes an adult. Even to the point that "18" as a magical number is more or less arbitrary for defining adulthood. In Canada, or at least Ontario, the province I live in, you must 16 to consent to sex, 16 to drive, 18 to vote, and 19 to drink. How do you set about qualifying one of these things as being "more important" and "mature" than the others? Point being, there are wider social factors at play when it comes to maturity. Granted, education plays a big portion of that, but what then is education? This leads to my next point.

2. Education should be about learning. Learning what though? The relationships of student to authority begin at home, with the child to the parental figure. The family unit, as a non-institutional apparatus, sets about the earliest socialization of the child, rearing the child in such a way that members of the family were reared (or in direct opposition of how members were reared, but some basis of socialization, good or bad, starts the entire process).

This socialization, however, is not hierarchical. The family, the neighbourhood, the church, sports teams, clubs, all non-institutional apparatuses, come into play with institutional apparatuses, school, chambers of local, provincial, and federal government, and State-run facilities (the mail service, the DMV, etc.). What lubricates the tension between the domestic and the public life is the private sector, the workplace. In demonstrating the series of relationships one has within the entire network of socialization, there really is no one "authority" to speak of; authority rests within the system as a whole.

Disturbingly, over recent generations, education, the actual learning of "what is in the world and what is my relation to it?" has become a way to miniaturize adulthood, grooming children at the earliest age to be good, competent workers for whatever vocation they should choose (vocations in general are also shifting from trades to services). Even at the university level, now becoming the standard bearer of being educated, when it used to be a Grade 12 diploma, requires a specialization of study to the exclusion of all others. That explains why so many business students have terrible grammar or why political science students don't treat media texts as legitimate means of shaping perceptions of reality.

3. This dumbing down of children is so that they don't reach the level of critical thinking such that they begin to question the assumptions of their entire existence. When this questioning occurs, the whole system becomes undone, for that individuals. When everyone questions, everything becomes undone. Change and progress, always assumed to be the best thing for society, arrays the forces of change further and further away from its affects, an alienating status-quo of nothingness. It's no wonder people give up and retreat into entertainment or the local, common, social bonds of friends and family, because one person, without power or the means to do so, isn't going to change the world.

All this being said, I don't think the "elimination" of the word "school" itself is offensive. What matters is the result. If the positive reinforcement manifested in non-coercive educational results occurs (basing this, of course, on a standardization of aptitude, another assumption tangled within the framework of socializing organization), then perhaps the name change was needed. If results do not occur, then exercises within the pedagogical realities of teachers and concurrent education as well as readjusted cirricula for that school district's students will be in order.

Long story short: "let's wait and see what happens, then judge."

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

And rednecks would like to be called "Sons of the Earth"... but they can forget it!

[>(straightedgepunk)<]

If only George Carlin were here.

[Cyno]

Jan 3, 2009 20:41:19 GMT -5 Supersmark is a Troll said:

Jan 3, 2009 17:46:10 GMT -5 Non Banjoble Tokens said:

I really think they should stop using the word "school" in place of the more politically correct phrase "institute of child belittlement, negative self-esteem inducing, and exclusion of the slightly different."

Just to play devils adovcate, but what you guys think of "Public High School," is "'Learning Center' where inner city youths bully and harass me to no end, in fact it's so bad, that next year, I've got to go to Community College to finish my high school education.


Not that changing what it's called will help though. It would probably make it worse.


I think that Schooling past 8th grade should be optional, that way kids like me, who want to learn, can learn in peace.

It actually works that way in Japan. Mandatory education ends at their equivalent of our ninth grade. High school (grades 10-12) is completely optional and unlike a lot of school districts in America, students have their choice of public schools to go to in addition to any private schools, and they base their choices on prestige and academic programs to more social things like where their friends end up or how attractive the uniform looks. I'm pretty sure they have to take entrance exams to get into their school of choice, though they're not as brutal as the college entrance exams.

[Loki]

Jan 4, 2009 12:37:40 GMT -5 @tap said:

1. Education does not stop when one becomes an adult. Even to the point that "18" as a magical number is more or less arbitrary for defining adulthood. In Canada, or at least Ontario, the province I live in, you must 16 to consent to sex, 16 to drive, 18 to vote, and 19 to drink. How do you set about qualifying one of these things as being "more important" and "mature" than the others? Point being, there are wider social factors at play when it comes to maturity. Granted, education plays a big portion of that, but what then is education? This leads to my next point.

I don't quite get your point there.

But generally speaking, maturity doesn't equal education, but it's impossible being mature without being educated.
And I don't mean it library-rat-educated. I think of it in the broader meaning of "savoir-vivre".

And for sure a lousy upbringing-education won't help kids getting their crap together. Case in point: the insane amount of ignorant morons, me-me idiots and self-centered mediocre human beings our society has groomed in the last couple of years.

2. Education should be about learning. Learning what though? The relationships of student to authority begin at home, with the child to the parental figure. The family unit, as a non-institutional apparatus, sets about the earliest socialization of the child, rearing the child in such a way that members of the family were reared (or in direct opposition of how members were reared, but some basis of socialization, good or bad, starts the entire process).
This socialization, however, is not hierarchical. The family, the neighbourhood, the church, sports teams, clubs, all non-institutional apparatuses, come into play with institutional apparatuses, school, chambers of local, provincial, and federal government, and State-run facilities (the mail service, the DMV, etc.). What lubricates the tension between the domestic and the public life is the private sector, the workplace. In demonstrating the series of relationships one has within the entire network of socialization, there really is no one "authority" to speak of; authority rests within the system as a whole.

The mistake is equating the family with other istitutional apparatus. Schools (sports teams, various youth associations etc) AREN'T supposed to be the longa manus of the kid's family. A place where the kid is treated like a Prince(ss) and where (s)he the center of the universe.

Family can be a bit more lenient, while still teaching the kid the basics of social interaction, politeness and such obvious, yet almost out-of-fashion, stuff.
School should be the place where those basis are put into practice, and expanded. But the kid should be kinda "ready" to accept the challenge.

Instead, with the recent wave of "prima-donna" kids, school has to deal and try to work with persons who aren't remotely ready for a "challenging environment", don't want a challenge and probably can't handle a challenge.
All that with the blessing and the backup of the family.

Disturbingly, over recent generations, education, the actual learning of "what is in the world and what is my relation to it?" has become a way to miniaturize adulthood, grooming children at the earliest age to be good, competent workers for whatever vocation they should choose (vocations in general are also shifting from trades to services)

I partly blame it on the parents trying to live their own (failed?) dreams via their children.

But on the other hand, I don't think the current generation of kids will need to be "competent workers" for a specific vocation.
The 9-to-5 job in the same company/in the same branch, from graduation to retirement is a relic of the past. Our sociery is indeed shifting to services, but services rarely require a specific competence.

To be a surgeon, you can't go to Law School and then try to land a spot in an hospital. To work in services, any degree will work, as long as you can do whatever they ask you.

The issue with kids being small adults is that they have been treated as such, along as potential customers, while until a decade ago or so they were just adults in fieri. But outside of the adult world, and with the sole goal of BECOMING, one day, valuable adults. And the way to get there was "working" hard, at school

. Even at the university level, now becoming the standard bearer of being educated, when it used to be a Grade 12 diploma, requires a specialization of study to the exclusion of all others.

University degree/PhD is becoming the standard because of the "right to study for all". While it was a great social achievement, it has brought education to the point of "everybody and their mom can enroll to college, and by God the more get a degree, the better it is, and the better college we seem to be".

About specialization, it depends. Of course you can't expect a Med School student to dissert about Lucretius. Or an English major to remember Avogadro's number...

But from a college graduate, a bit of general knowledge in every branch has to be expected and required

That explains why so many business students have terrible grammar or why political science students don't treat media texts as legitimate means of shaping perceptions of reality.

Terrible grammar usually comes from laziness, or from certain categories of studies [technical schools, up to engineering degrees...] Usually because flawless grammar or a broad vocabulary isn't required in some lines of work.

3. This dumbing down of children is so that they don't reach the level of critical thinking such that they begin to question the assumptions of their entire existence. When this questioning occurs, the whole system becomes undone, for that individuals. When everyone questions, everything becomes undone. Change and progress, always assumed to be the best thing for society, arrays the forces of change further and further away from its affects, an alienating status-quo of nothingness. It's no wonder people give up and retreat into entertainment or the local, common, social bonds of friends and family, because one person, without power or the means to do so, isn't going to change the world.

Agree 100%

A dumb, self-centered, blissfully unaware of the "bigger picture" will make a perfectly working adult-sheep.

All this being said, I don't think the "elimination" of the word "school" itself is offensive. What matters is the result. If the positive reinforcement manifested in non-coercive educational results occurs (basing this, of course, on a standardization of aptitude, another assumption tangled within the framework of socializing organization), then perhaps the name change was needed. If results do not occur, then exercises within the pedagogical realities of teachers and concurrent education as well as readjusted cirricula for that school district's students will be in order.

Long story short: "let's wait and see what happens, then judge."

I bet my left ball the name change is just made out of PCness, and to please the radical-chic pseudo-progressists.

Kids need MORE discipline and awareness, and stripping the school of its "schoolitude" will just reinforce the feeling education is for nerds, weirdos, losers of any sort. And that cool kids can totally crap all over old-fashioned ideas like discipline, effort, merit and dedication.

But hey, Learning Facility sounds so much cooler! LOLZ!1!1