Nick Clegg - two faced ****wit

I'm still alive. I've a sore head.

That NBA code needs fixed and I need to replace a bottle of Rioja Reserva I nicked from my Managing Directors Christmas Hamper.

 

I would love for some academic type to do a study into education to figure out why the Catholic system seems to outperform the state sector - a year or two back I seen a report which stated that in Northern Ireland something like 72% of boys attending Catholic school achieved 5 good GCSEs or better while boys attending state schools achieved around 55% good GCSEs or better. When they tried to take out social economic factors and looked at kids who were entitled to free school dinners (parents are on benefits) they found that 1 in 5 of kids who attended a Catholic school went on to University, while only 1 in 10 children who attended a state school from such a background made it to University.

That's a hell of a difference - and it was around the time I seen these stats that I started backtracking on my desire to abolish faith schools - we need to figure out what they are doing differently, replicate it, then abolish them...

In terms of what is causing this performance gap I'm not so sure it's an 'ethos' - as I said earlier I only got a few periods of Religion a week and we were taught about all the major monotheisms in that class. A part of me thinks it might be down to something as silly as the separation of the sexes into different schools. As much as I lamented the cockfest at the time I can't help but wonder did it prevent some teenage hormonal distractions.

 

I'll have you know that I am second in charge of an entire sportsbook business, a Director no less, and I still roll my sleeves up and get stuck into code on a regular basis. (because we can't afford to pay someone better than me to do it )

 

I may be placing a greater emphasis on the ethos than others might. I think it is a huge thing. Even just from the point of view of continuity and order throughout a child's schooling.

Abandoning that point momentarily to examine what else they are doing well in order to achieve better results, I think a lot of it is down to voluntary funding in addition to that which comes from the state. Certainly in England and Wales the support that comes from the various dioceses to the schools has a massive impact. And therein lies (a part of) the answer. More funding, better teachers ( generally speaking as they need an extra string to their bow to teach in a Catholic school), leading to a better reputation and better results. There is nothing precluding any State school from generating more and better funding, they just don't necessarily get the support that a Faith school does.

I cited the special academies where failing schools were turned into academies. They got better funding, better teachers and then better results. They targeted things like sport and music whereas a Faith school aims at something slightly different. Probably a greater emphasis on creating better people.

If you want to recreate that across society in the UK, then either Government spend has to be redirected from stupid things like unwinnable wars and passively policing spastic fleg protesters to the tune of £20m and divert it into sensible projects like educating children. Failing that, the secular schools need to be more creative in getting attracting and spending the funding they get.

It can't just be money though as I would have thought the IoM wouldn't be too pressed on that score.

 

I forgot to reply to this for some reason.

One of Ligotti's main arguments is that a higher level of conciousness has left the human race hopelessly over-armed when dealing with a Universe that barely bothers to fart in our general direction. We need to create all sorts of magical super-natural processes to try to dumb our logical capabilities down to the point that we can find an actual point of existence. I think it may have been Dawkins who once spoke of a green slime which lives on the top of Mount Everest - this green slime's entire existence comprises of clinging to a rock in freezing temperature at the top of the planet, slowly engaging in mitosis, replacing itself so its slimey off-spring may also cling to the same rock for ever more. As a human looking at the existence of this green slime we think 'what is the point?' - its existence is no better than not existing, yet something pushes it on, to strive to continue to exist. Ligotti's argument made me think of myself in that context - I strive to continue to reproduce and to stimulate a clump of cells between my skull while clinging on to a rock which rotates around a small star among hundreds of billions of other stars in a un-noteworthy galaxy. In 200 years time all the neurons I've spent the last 28 and possibly the next 50 years connecting will be microscopic dust, my experiences and accumulated knowledge will be gone, no one will probably remember I existed outside of some genealogy website and the Universe does not care.

So the question would be is an increased conciousness actually a positive thing? If I had never bothered my arse to read such books, or think such thoughts I might be sitting in the house happily scratching my balls watching Geordie Shore, wondering if I'll see my uncle Dave in heaven. Now I'm a miserable bastard telling some long suffering friends in the pub that I don't think there is a point in their existence.

I'm glad you appear to agree about the boring stuff (I may have some cheek calling other people boring after my last paragraph). I thought my brain was missing an interesting point, or that it wasn't wired correctly to appreciate the things that some other very clever and celebrated humans seem to care quite a lot about.

Indeed when reading The Pig That Wants to be Eaten that you recommended I underlined this paragraph:

"Logicians are not like ordinary people. When most people speak they are content that they can make themselves understood and that others will generally know what they mean, even if they put things a bit awkwardly or imprecisely at times. Logicians, on the other hand, are frustrated by the vagaries and ambiguities of everyday language. The point is, they will insist, that their apparently trivial quibbles have implications [nit pickers ]. The puzzle cannot, of course, be resolved here. One thing is clear, however. If you find these problems trivial rather than engrossing, don’t study logic or the philosophy of language."

Well how thoroughly depressing. I thought that like a pint of Guinness all I had to do was keep giving this stuff another go, the neurons will finally connect, and I'll soon discover a new world of pedantic pleasures - not so apparently, like Brussels Sprouts you just can't train yourself to enjoy this stuff?