Funding in Education, Books - Svend Brinkmann

                                Education and Politics

Michael Wilshaw, erstwhile chief inspector at Ofsted…in an interview on Sunday with Sophy Ridge of Sky News, dropped a number of small, explosive statements which will have rocked Damian Hinds, Secretary of State for Education.

Wilshaw warned that progress has been squandered and that the government is not listening:

“Talk to head teachers, as I do all the time, and they will say funding is an issue…Not one youngster on free school meals got into Oxbridge from the whole of the North East of England, Yorkshire and Humberside.” So how has this been allowed to happen?

The answer is really simple. And deplorable. The Tory Government and the previous coalition government are, and were, dominated by men and women who come from hideously over-advantaged backgrounds. They lack the imagination, capacity or empathy to understand how ordinary people live. They pushed through austerity measures without ever considering the impact on real humans. This is why Amber Rudd, nicknamed “Silver Spoon” by her ex-husband A A Gill, turned viciously on Philip Alston, the UN rapporteur on poverty and human rights recently. His report concluded that Tory welfare policies could be compared with the ethos of Victorian workhouses. The very entitled Ms Rudd accused him of “political bias” and has complained to the UN.

Good Service Work in a London Slum, Ernest Stafford Carlos (1883-1917)

Photo Credit: The Scouts Heritage Service [CC BY-NC-ND]

…In the UK, the sixth-largest economy in the world, I have met parents so despondent, fatalistic and wretched that they are no longer dare hope their young ones will escape hardship and desolation. One female secondary school teacher has told me that staff collect money to buy soap, shampoo, anti-lice lotions, cereals, boiled eggs and bread for pupils.

“Imagine how those teens feel, having to rely on our charity. Ministers don’t care about those they have pushed into these lightless lives.

…Hinds will, I expect, respond with outlandish claims about “record levels” of funding for education. Who do we trust? These suppliers of deceit and spin or Wilshaw, an educator of impeccable integrity?

(Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, The i, 28.5.20

                  Wilshaw, for me.

Books

The Joy of Missing Out – the Art of Self-Restraint in an age of Excess – Svend Brinkmann

Molly Reading a Book, Rose Read (1867-1946)

Photo Credit: St Edmundsbury Museums [CC BY-NC-ND]

…To be truly happy, you should forget about the to-do list and be generally less ambitious about life.

“If we constantly have this ‘must-do’ mentality, we end up being miserable.” …In other words, if we worry about what we don’t have, it’s impossible to be content.

We tend to think of the modern malaise we call FOMO (fear of missing out) as relating to events, but Brinkmann applies it in a broader sense: it also includes an unhealthy desire to constantly upgrade status and stuff. This realisation is key, he believes, to understanding the prevalence of depression and anxiety in the West.

“In Denmark we often say ‘only the best is good enough’, but this means nothing will be ever good enough because no one knows what the best is…that you’re nothing special, you’re no better than anyone else. And your expectations shouldn’t be too great.”

Brinkmann believes this defensive pessimism acts as a healthy check on ego and personal ambition – meaning you’re not forever fretting about missed opportunities – whereas in the UK we’ve been more influenced by American-style relentless “the sky’s the limit” positivity.

…But this innate psychological fear of missing out on what others have has been intensified by our consumer society…If you are feeling disgruntled that your kitchen is falling to bits, he says, it can be helpful to remember that your dissatisfaction is encouraged by manufacturers and advertisers to boost the economy, rather than your personal happiness.

“The products we buy and consume are not meant to last, we’re not meant to be happy with them…I am not against wealth or beautiful objects. They can become a part of a happy life, but your life is not happy because they are there. Your life is happy because you live in a certain way.”

(Anna Maxted, The Times, 13.4.2019)

Buying the latest edition, upgrading, even though what you already have is perfectly fine, is, unfortunately, how the consumer society works. It applies to clothes, food, technology and most things that you buy. Why ‘The Repair Shop’ programme on BBC is so fascinating is that things can be repaired by skilful artisans and that you can still get great pleasure from items that are old.