In The Times today there is a horrifying investigation into a suspected illegal school teaching children conspiracy theories and all sorts of mental bullshit. Children are missing out on an education to instead be taught crystal healing, ‘ancient knowledge’ and that chemtrails cause dementia. None of the teachers have DSB checks. There was a similar piece last year.
To say it’s alarming would be downplaying it. By now I think all normal people are on the same page that education is one of the most important things for children and the adults they develop into.
I should know, I barely have any.
I dropped out of school at 14, the year before GCSEs start, and had been bunking off for most of the year before that too. My proper, full time education stops at the end of Year 8. And you know what, I’ve mostly been fine. I worked in the media for a decade, including at a national newspaper, and now make decent money doing a ‘boring’ office job. All of that is solely down to sheer good luck, honestly, rather than the usual story of no education but an incredible work ethic and drive to succeed.
I am very lucky, but I am also pretty thick. I’ve never learnt how to write an essay, I can’t talk to you about moments in history that helped shape it, I love reading but I couldn’t review a book for you to save my life because I never learned how to evaluate them more than ‘I enjoyed it’. I can tell you the Battle of Hastings was in 1066 but literally nothing else about it. My brain is mainly smooth.
I am middle class. I can read and write well. Throughout my childhood my mum supported me hugely and pushed for my education, until I wouldn’t let her (making her a nervous wreck and I’m still apologising for it two decades later). I was exposed to literature, the news, and encouraged to talk about current affairs. If I can fall through the cracks, what happens to the children who have no one helping them and adults in their lives actively stopping them learning?
I often think about how different my life would be if I had stayed in school. The Latin GCSE probably wouldn’t have made much of a difference but the confidence that comes with knowledge and ability absolutely would have done. It’s something almost all of us take for granted, because it’s just there. If I have wobbles over decisions I made I can’t imagine what life will be like for these children when they turn 35. How would their lives look if they hadn’t grown up being taught that I’m A Celeb is to get us used to eating cockroaches before the Government enforces a famine and rather what a verb or an adjective is. (A personal sore point that I should have known before 14 anyway.)
In a 2011 survey 1 in 7 adults in England were found to have a literacy level at or below those expected of a nine year old. Find your local Year 4 and get them to read one of your work emails. Get them to fill in a form for the GP. Ask them to read a campaign leaflet stuffed through the door before an election and get them to explain what policies they prefer.
Knowledge is power, that’s if you want to be Prime Minister or just have autonomy over your own life. You need the analytical and critical skills to do either. Education builds you up as a person, it gives you a leg up to become more than you thought you could be and it opens doors. Whether it’s making money, saving lives in an operating theatre, or just the sheer joy of knowing things and learning itself, school is the start of that and that’s something all children deserve. There shouldn’t be any cracks in the system to fall though.
If you, as an adult who has benefited from a decent education, wish to become some sort of fringe idiot with views that half a cantaloupe would be able to tell you are stupid, then go for it. Prep for the great reset and stock up on all the Bacofoil your head desires. Leave children out of it.