email dated 22nd February 2009 (From Paulo)Last night Suzy Quatro did a desert island disc style interview with bob harris on radio 2 which is worth a listen.....
More for his life story than the music. It struck me as an allegory of our generation...with a positive outcome in Bobs case. In several respects....And heres just one! years of formal education resulted in 2 "o" levels that clearly failed to ilustrate his potential. Then his father tried to make him follow his passion - a policing career. But his true potential came to light when he was able to follow the Thing for which he himself had a passion...This reflects a big chip I have with school and parents.
We are so keen to force them down a path that comes from our own anxieties and fears. we want them to have 'safe' 'comfortable' 'happy' lives, so we parents can sleep easy, and yet when we listen to other peoples life stories, and look at our own, we clearly see that a life is only interesting if it is full of Trouble ,Strife, leading hopefully to personal discoveries and revelation, yet paradoxically we try to deny them self discovery by choking the spark out of them with obsessive formal herd like schooling,....and parental obsession for formal exam sucess and formalised life path of career- marriage- babies...
Of course our kids Screw Up and may prove terminal...but a risk worth running..in my opinion...I heard one pundit suggest (in response to the crisis in schools vis a vis the curiculam choices, and questions about ability streaming, private versus state education standards, exam obsession/cramming by middle class parents) that the one thing that must be taught to all is reading, then forget all the rest, just get your kids to read read and read more books. This strikes me as a plain simple goal for a parent/institution with kids who are not thriving ( or even bothering to go!) to school. Like mine. Fields of knowledge are so vast now compared with just 50 years ago that a 'general' education is no longer feasable, hence the constant crises over the curiculam.
Factoid: The sum of human knowledge, from the dawn of Mankind to the end of WW2, could have fitted on to a single DVD. Expansion has been exponential. Now thousands of DVD's are required. We cant know it all any more!
Of course our kids Screw Up and may prove terminal...but a risk worth running..in my opinion...I heard one pundit suggest (in response to the crisis in schools vis a vis the curiculam choices, and questions about ability streaming, private versus state education standards, exam obsession/cramming by middle class parents) that the one thing that must be taught to all is reading, then forget all the rest, just get your kids to read read and read more books. This strikes me as a plain simple goal for a parent/institution with kids who are not thriving ( or even bothering to go!) to school. Like mine. Fields of knowledge are so vast now compared with just 50 years ago that a 'general' education is no longer feasable, hence the constant crises over the curiculam.
Factoid: The sum of human knowledge, from the dawn of Mankind to the end of WW2, could have fitted on to a single DVD. Expansion has been exponential. Now thousands of DVD's are required. We cant know it all any more!
"Wake up little suzie show" radio2 21st Feb 2009......
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