I will be one of hundreds of thousands of parents with a new sixth former this coming term. This morning we meet his new college to discuss and confirm options. As a parent I have to stand back: this has to be his choice.
But I can't resist some advice. And it is simple. I've told him to do what he wants. Planning for a world that is changing so fast does not make the greatest sense. Whatever he thinks he might be now will change. Whatever job he thinks of now will also change, or simply not exist in the future. But, with luck, if he studies something because he simply finds it interesting then that passion will not change.
At the end of the day I believe very strongly that we live in community, but that what we have to offer is intensely individual. Finding the balance between those two is essential in life, in our communities and in our politics. And that starts with education that has to be focused on the individual's pursuit of who they are, and not moulding them for a life of work.
It so happens that if the passion is released in education so will the real work they want to do be discovered. And that's what far too much so-called education has forgotten.
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My only advice to my daughter was, I think, a quote from the late great Katherine Whitehorn ‘ find something you love doing and get someone to pay you to do it!’ I also added that you could achieve (pretty much) anything if you were prepared to work hard enough for it. And that everything has a ‘cost’ (not monetary) so consider if you are willing to pay the price of that achievement!
I have been lucky enough to earn money (not a lot) from doing what I love, so it doesn’t seem like work. My daughter is similarly lucky. Life is too short to spend it doing something you don’t love. I wish your sixth former the best…it’s a challenging world they are growing into. I suspect adaptability and some practical skills will be a big advantage.
Thanks
On one point I must protest: Katherine Whitehorn is still alive.
‘Ideal’ advice certainly but regrettably only pragmatically meaningful to those fortunate enough to be born into at least a minimum of income security. For those children whose parent/s are members of the growing precariat, living in areas of underfunded schooling, their first priority will be basic survival – to pay the rent, food and energy bills. While there are always stories of people who have the strength and ability to overcome their underprivileged background, they are a minority and often give false hope to the majority.
In order for human potential to be developed and to flourish at every level we need a radically different socio-economic paradigm. England is now so socially regressive that I don’t know what advice to give a young person whose family life is a constant daily challenge for survival. I believe the situation at ground level to be worse than published stats suggest. The PSE website sheds some light on the problem – http://www.poverty.ac.uk/living-poverty
Alan Milburn drew attention to declining social mobility in his Guardian piece last year – https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/nov/28/social-mobility-stark-postcode-lottery-too-many-britain-left-behind-alan-milburn-commission-report.
I have some direct personal experience of the situation in the NW where the old mill towns like Blackburn, Accrington, Burnley, Bolton etc. offer a depressingly hostile environment in which to grow up and blossom. And of course there are other similar regions, especially in many London boroughs (https://www.trustforlondon.org.uk/data/boroughs/overview-of-london-boroughs).
So, my question is: what advice do you give a new 6th former (if they’ve fortunate enough to have made it to this level) growing up such deprived environments, where following their passion might be an impossible dream? They can’t patiently wait for a régime change that might not happen for decades.
I accept he has some privilege – I have enjoyed above average incomes
But he will be making his own way in the world in the end without parental support
And I would say the same of study to anyone
John D: what nonsense. In addition to having the most progressive tax system in the world – and we do Mr. Murphy if you compute the numbers properly – we also have equal access to education. You need to buy a lottery ticket if you want to win the lottery. And you need to do more than just sit on your arse if you are not privileged enough to just sit on your arse. And 99% of British society – whether poor or rich -prefer the former over the latter. What Brits don’t like are the whiners. Whether you were schooled in Burnley, Rochdale, or just south of Slough.
I am posting this although I disagree with everything in it.
The facts are simply wrong. We do nit have a progressive tax system. See http://www.compassonline.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Compass-in-place-of-cuts-WEB2.pdf page 15. Very little has changed since. Indeed, cuts 8n wealth taxes may well have made things worse.
And the idea that we have equal access to education is ridiculous. I will ignore the enormous advantage private education supplies. The evidence of barriers to education is overwhelming and comes from Tory promoted commissions e.g. that of Alan Milburn.
Outright prejudice is not a basis for informed discussion, but that is what you are offering.
Education may have forgotten what it’s purpose is, but many teachers have not!
Those who are passionate about their subjects and able to fire up kids’ own interests (you need both) still exist in all schools throughout the country.
They make a huge contribution, they compensate for the failings of both the social environment and the brainless, soul-less curriculum, and pull a few kids (too few, I know) out of slumber everywhere.
They make them feel that they can adapt, learn to learn throughout their life, whatever it throws at them.
Also, that they are worth more than their mere education, a means to an end.
I agree!
Advice is a dangerous thing; it is easier to give it than live it, and we should all remember that. I do think we encourage the young to know what they want to do, often before they are ready. I didn’t know what wanted to do, ever; and what I really wanted to do, until I retired. What do I know? To avoid giving advice.
All I would wish to see for all young people, is that they find themselves, and find that in which they can fully express themselves (and nobody else) in whatever they do (and be paid for it!). I wish your son the very best fortune, and to enjoy finding out.
I think that’s pretty consistent with my view
Apologies for a follow-up post – but I just hope I didn’t cause any offense. I certainly wasn’t making a personal comment, or indeed to anyone in a similar situation. I was fortunate enough to have been brought up in a very comfortable environment both domestically and in the wider community, with every opportunity to follow my passion(s).
I was drawing attention to the growing deprivation in which too many children are being brought up and expected to make a sustainable life for themselves. Obviously the environment in which young people develop is critical to their future. And it’s not just about money per se, although of course that’s paramount. It’s also the general debilitating quality of life they’re surrounded by which all too often stifles individual desire and ability to progress. Libraries are closing; many museums charge fees; free swimming has been abolished, shops are boarded up, the streets are filthy, estates have broken windows, etc. etc. You know what’s been happening at grass-roots level.
My question was therefore rhetorical. Pursuing one’s passion is becoming increasingly impractical (but not always completely impossible) for millions of teens who simply won’t be able to flourish in a broader society designed by and for a more privileged minority. Poverty is both absolute and relative.
I was going to conclude by saying: “Was it ever thus” but that’s not strictly true, is it? The post WW2 social-democratic consensus in the west did uniquely offer educational and material opportunities for young people to develop their innate talents as never before. How fortunate we were! Thanks to neo-liberalism Generation Z will find it a lot more difficult. In a sense ‘Brexit’, ‘Trump’ and the expanding popularist movements on the Continent are symptomatic of this depressing (in both senses of the word) and regressive trend.
Definitely time for a coffee – thankfully still one of life’s affordable pleasures 🙂
No offence taken
And of course your point has relevance
My advice would be try to learn not to believe everything your read or hear (not even taxresearch.org.uk). Always ask, why might this be wrong? Even when you would dearly like it to be right.
I’d agree with that
There is only one other thing that I would add to your advice and that would be for a young person to have as many strings to their own bow as possible in order to (1) make their life as full as possible and have things to do other than work (learning a language or a musical instrument for example) and (2) to give them other employment options.
I think that the key to a future in work will be flexibility and maximising the crossover you have in your chosen field and therefore it’s potential use in other fields.
In other words a future career could be made up of a number of careers. Flexibility will be the key. That is what I am telling my two.
I agree with that too
It’s hard to give advice to teenagers, especially given that even in practical courses, much of what is taught will be found to be irrelevant a few years down the line. Still, the very fact that you were trying to consider this has made me think..
So I would say take subjects or future training that present you with challenges of a kind you enjoy, and in departments that are sufficiently connected to the world and a range of progressing fields to be less likely to fall back on cliche and automatic assumptions.
That can be pure research, or it can be links to industry, but either way, find people who are getting things done.
The key is that they are not preparing you for the current practical problems of the world, but they are preparing you to solve certain kinds of problems, that are satisfying, rewarding, and only reinvent the wheel to the extent required to get you used to using it.
In other words, I would prioritise the quality of assessed work and projects above pure instruction, and the links of such work to research, because the university is a process that you pass through, rather than simply a library of information. You want to gain familiarity doing economic analysis, pure mathematics, logical or physical reasoning, computer modelling, structured argument, textual analysis, commentary, translation, design, drawing, animation, and so on, in a wide variety of applications, and you want access to the best forms of rhetoric, analysis and open source software to achieve those aims.
You want to find lecturers and departments who are good at what they do, and learn from them, within a context where your skills can be assessed and grow.
I don’t want to knock an aspiration to access ideas, as I think knowing what is going on when presented with an unfamiliar concept is itself a vital skill, and those ideas can themselves be the appropriate tools, but I hope that over time, raw presentation of interesting information will become ubiquitous, as research becomes publicly available, and popularised. And the difference between studying something as a hobby and having learned it in Uni (and the difference between watching youtube lectures and actually attending as a student) will become the discipline and practice of becoming acquainted with a field’s deeper and more rewarding problems.
On the other hand, there’s also something to be said for making sure that Unis can produce those kind of youtube lectures, or public lectures, sharing the joys of their fields with the world. I want there to be a role of universities as those who unpack and display the value of things that might otherwise be overlooked due to their complexity or subtlety. Or host conferences of practitioners of particular arts, in order to share experiences and perspectives.
It’s a machine that should have many functions, but more and more, I think young people engaging in a university should treat it as a muscle building obstacle course, or a challenging game, and judge it according to those terms.
Thanks
And wise
Amen to that. Well said Richard.
We need our young people to reach inside, discover who they are, not shape themselves to be what others want them to be.
Some years ago a cousin said to me (to paraphrase): “We always envied your family – you all were allowed to make your own choices about further education and university”. She and her siblings were restricted by their father as to what they should study. She, in particular, was “not allowed” to go to ballet school. She was offered places to study ballet, but because the “best” school turned her down, and it was deemed that she would therefore never succeed in her chosen career, she changed her plans. She was unhappy for some years before coming to terms with this path.
I relate this as a little illustration of the folly of putting square pegs in round holes, especially when it is the young person who has to live with the consequences.
One thing that really offends is that currently the choices available to young people are being limited to a far greater extent than many people realise. The government is taking an axe to the FE sector, closing colleges and limiting expansion into new, highly practical and relevant areas of study. The cabinet of Etonians and Oxbrigers have no interest in, or understanding of vocational education, replacing it with apprenticeships, of which there will never be enough to fill the gaps they are creating.
I have seen all the problems forcing young people into occupations they did not want can create
I am doing my best not to make that mistake
Thanks for your comment
Giving your son advice shows him you are interested in his choices and are happy to guide him along, he needs to know that.
I’m sure you won’t make the mistake of making those choices for him, which is what many parents still do today, out of fear, lack of trust in their kids, or out of control-“freakery”.
If he finds a passion, he’ll never have to work a day in his life…if not, he can still develop strong interests and adapt to this rapidly changing job “market” we have.
His teachers will play a huge role there, teaching him to learn how to learn (I hate the word metacognition, sounds like a disease).
I’ve seen kids being fired up by inspirational teachers, subsequently disappointed in uni when the subjects they chose no longer sounded so inspiring.
I’ve seen the reverse happen too, kids coasting along in the 6th form, and suddenly getting excited by quantum physics when they left school!
You never know, you can just guide them, feed them with curiosity and teach them how to love learning. Trust them to do the rest.
I just wish the people who mess around with available courses and funding would understand and learn that every kid matters, needs to find his/her path, given a chance…or two…or three…to find what they can get good at.
Messing about at top level has heavy consequences, and I don’t mean for their careers.
My elder son has found sixth form a revelation – and transformational
Not just the work, but simply being trusted to get on with it has brought out all the best in him