Education

This got me thinking about education. Why do we insist on forcing everybody to do the same curriculum? Why do we kid ourselves that everybody is academic? Taking English as an example, I can understand why the less academic people would be bored in a standard English class - it is boring and unengaging, and has no relevance to everyday life, or the future. What does somebody who has their eyes set upon being an electrician for example, care about Dickens? Surely he would appreciate much more being taught how to understand important pieces of information that he will encounter in his life and work, and how to fill in forms properly etc.

Similarly, and this is a point that has annoyed me for years and that I briefly mentioned at dinner at Maggi's on Friday night: why are children forced to 'learn' woodwork and metalwork? Surely there are much more useful skills that our schools' technology departments could be teaching our children: changing a tyre, car maintenance, building flat-pack furniture, how central heating works, how to change a bulb or a fuse safely etc. We should be preparing our children to cope with real modern life, not kid ourselves that it is still the 1950s and that boys should learn how to hammer some metal just because it's what has been done since time immemorial.

Maggi was telling us how she loved Food Technology when she was at school: she learned the science of cooking almost, so she understands why a cake rises, and how the ingredients interact and so on. This would be great to know! As would real advice about how to check that food is cooked properly, how to avoid food poisoning, hygeine, how to thaw food properly etc. All that us eighties-born children who were also at dinner could remember, was being told to make pizza by following a recipe and concentrating most on making the topping look pretty: an ugly pizza would get lower marks. How ridiculous!

Dawkins on religion...

He describes his astonishment that, at the start of the 21st century, religious faith is gaining ground in the face of rational, scientific truth. Science, based on scepticism, investigation and evidence, must continuously test its own concepts and claims. Faith, by definition, defies evidence: it is untested and unshakeable, and is therefore in direct contradiction with science.

In addition, though religions preach morality, peace and hope, in fact, says Dawkins, they bring intolerance, violence and destruction. The growth of extreme fundamentalism in so many religions across the world not only endangers humanity but, he argues, is in conflict with the trend over thousands of years of history for humanity to progress – to become more enlightened and more tolerant.