Polly Curtis, education editor
Friday October 12, 2007
The Guardian
National tests for seven and 11-year-olds are putting children under stress and feeding into a "pervasive anxiety" about their lives and the world they are growing up in, according to an intimate portrait of primary school life published today.
Primary-aged children worry daily about global warming and terrorism as well as their friendships and passing the next exam, according to a report based on 700 in-depth interviews with children, their teachers and parents, which will feed into the biggest independent review of primary education in 40 years.
The findings echo a report from Unicef which this year placed Britain at the bottom of a league table charting the well-being of children across the developed world. This week a survey by the Howard League for Penal Reform revealed that 95% of 10 to 15-year-olds in the country have experienced crime at least once.
Today's Cambridge University report, Community Soundings, says national tests leave most children stressed and some middle class parents paying for a "parallel" education system employing tutors to get children through their exams even before the age of 11.
Stress is good, it has uses! anxiety is good! pain physical or otherwise has a purpose. anything in excess is bad even food!
if there was no physical pain how would we know when we are injured or having a heart attack?
in absence of anxiety and fear how would you trigger fight or flight mechanism?
I think this thread is for Dr. Woodrow to refute
if you take away all anxiety and fear of failure how the hell are you going to motivate them to study and make them do home work, would they not rather be on PlayStation or xbox?
Many children are irritable and clingy as infants, have more troubles establishing themselves within prevailing environment. In such circumstances, fears about exams and anxieties on one pretext or the other are bound to break them, rather contributing in a positive manner. 7-11 is hardly an age bracket to learn about these aspects, which may lead towards erratic and inconsistent behaviour subsequently.
By Richard Garner, Education Editor
Published: 12 October 2007
Primary schools have been engulfed by a wave of "anti-social behaviour, materialism and the cult of celebrity", according to the most in-depth study for 40 years.
The study, the first major investigation into primary schooling since the Plowden report in 1967, paints a grim dystopian picture of a "loss of childhood" among the 3.5 million children in state primary schools.
It also reveals a decline in mutual respect for fellow pupils and teachers and warns of a growing lack of cohesion and family life.
"Today's children, it was generally felt, are being forced to grow up too soon and the prospects for society and the world they will inhabit look increasingly perilous," it states.
Antisocial behaviour was also a major concern for interviewees, who cited "pervasive and threatening levels of aggression among older children", as well as an unacceptable presence of knives, drugs and guns, particularly in urban areas.
The study warned that the pressures of constant testing at school was also exacerbating antisocial behaviour in the classroom with pupils bored by constant teaching to the test and a narrow and rigid curriculum.
7-11 is hardly an age bracket to learn about these aspects
dear o dear!
age ten is when even corporal punishment is permissible, all this mollycoddling crap is ruining them, just look at illiterate posters on this forum, some of whom claim to be in final year at uni yet can't spell a word containing more than 4 letters nor can they form a coherent sentence
age ten is when even corporal punishment is permissible, all this mollycoddling crap is ruining them, just look at illiterate posters on this forum, some of whom claim to be in final year at uni yet can't spell a word containing more than 4 letters nor can they form a coherent sentence
hmmm...
i see what you mean. but i sort of fail to find the connection between poor grammar and punctuation and the age bracket pertaining to issues of global concern...
i would just like to add something. i think that it is perfectly ligit to say, as you stated below, that a moderate amount of anxiety etc is good. spot on with that...but i think what the concern is, for such an age bracket, is the way in which these issues are presented to them. they are almost portrayed as everyday issues.the benality of them may put the children off issues which they can actually do something about at that age.
perhaps where we draw the line is whether or not anything is expected from the child? or whether or not the child actually feels as though somthing(s) is/are expected from them?
the child knowing about the issues is absolutely vital. the child knowing that they may contribute to the betterment of such issues is even greater. but to urge such ideas upon children as though the issues are 'because of the child' or that 'the child must do something'...then the anxiety will take on an overwhelming stance.
i realise that i have skewed onto a bit of a tangent, but nevertheless, i feel that i may have made a point...which will either prove to add clarity to the article(s) or absolutely confuddle everything.
either way, i seek refuge in Allah from saying anything wrong or offensive to anyone, and forcing my ideas and opinions upon others.
"'Cause I hear the whispered words
In your masterpiece beautiful
You speak the unspeakable through
I love you too"
Stress is an interesting topic. You have to look at stress in more than one way. stress comes in different forms such as distress and eustress. Distress is a destroyer while eustress is a builder. Stress can be emotional/mental or physical there is much similarity between them.
One thing that is know is stress is inevitable, we will all face stress, the only choices we have are to either remove stress, learn to avoid needless stress or learn to cope with it.
When properly used and used as a tool stress is a builder. Physical exercise is stress yet when properly used the result is strong healthy bodies. Mental stress is similar challenges of the mind result in people developing skills to solve problems and use their intellect.
At the moment i am somewhat busy this morning I will return to this thread in about an hour or two. this is an interesting topic and I do have a lot I would like to say about it.
The French are popping anti-depressants at an extraordinary rate. It is estimated that 3.5 per cent of the population are taking medication for depression at any given time.
While this might be good news for the drug manufacturers (some of whom are French), it does paint rather a worrying picture of the general mental state of the nation.
The suicide rate in France is amongst the highest in the industrialised world. At 17.6 per 100,000 head of population it is around 2.5 times the rate of the UK.
Tell them to submit to will of Allah and throw away those drugs.
people feel high, elated and happy during the act of sinning because satan is there cheering them on but as soon as it is over he goes away leaving them feeling alone, abandoned and depressed until the next time.
look at lives of stephen fry,peter cooke, peter sellers and see what all three have in common!
Family breakdown, exam pressure, celebrity culture and crime are robbing children of their innocence, according to a major report released today.
The bleak picture was based on interviews with hundreds of parents, headmasters, employers and primary school pupils.
The consensus view was that youngsters were being forced to grow up too soon and faced a perilous future.
The report - drawn up by academics from Cambridge University - also warns that childhood is under threat from the damaging influences of marketing and computer games. Teachers questioned for the study warned that mothers who put their careers ahead of parenting were fuelling the problem.
Children themselves voiced anxieties about strangers, burglars, gang violence, knives and guns.
The middle-class parents surveyed admitted they were partly to blame for rising exam stress by paying for tutors to get their children into selective schools.
Getting back to stress it's positive effects and it's destructive nature. A good starting place is Festinger's Innoculation theory. A person is unable to cope with challenges they have not been previously exposed to. However, if a person is gradually introduced to challenges and learns coping skills they develop abilities to cope with the unknown when it does occur. Very similar to the innoculations against disease. You get a small pox vaccination it is not pleasant and does cause a mild case of small pox. However, as a result of that in the future when your body is faced to an actual exposure of small pox, it has no harmful effect as your body has developed the anti bodies to render small pox harmless. so it is with emotional stress, controlled exposure results in the ability to handle the dangerous stress when it occurs.
The problem is not stress, the problem is our insistence to teach instant gratification, the concept that if something does not result in pleasure it must be bad. Also our failure to teach the value of future reward.
Quite simply Islam follows this path exactly. Teach us to face our tests and come to the understanding that each test is a learning experience to cope with and overcome the future tests.
Another problem is that in the school setting testing is misused, it is often becoming a tool to evaluate teachers and not to teach students.
We do not need to eliminate tests, we need to return to understanding the purpose of them. Children do not need less stress they need to learn that stress is a builder and helps develop abilities. Some of this advice I see is no different than telling a weight lifter that lifting over 10 kilos of weight is destructive so to make life easier lift this feather instead. With that attitude how many weight lifters would ever be able to lift over 1 kilo in weight?
No, do not reduce the stress, challenge the parents and teachers to apply it for the proper reason. Forget about trying to make life easy for the kids, give them the challenges and skills they need. Get rid of false expectations, go to the blunt realities of life.
Follow the teachings of Islam and understand life is a test and there is no need to try to eliminate the test, instead show that Allah(swt) will give the needed skills if we listen.
I did this in layman's terms in hopes that it makes sense. If you need a more scientific, detailed explanation please ask.
As a parent of a child that is soon entering this age group, I agree that there is too high of an expectation of children these days. My son is in first grade and has over an hour of homework every night. My 11 year old nephew has over 3 hours of homework. Kids aren't allowed to be kids anymore. I am not saying that school and tests are not important because they are vital. However I do feel that the standard has been raised to high. Kids should be allowed to be kids. But in many places that isn't the case. Children shouldn't have to worry about adult issues. I work very hard to keep my child from knowing the evil going on in the world. One day he will know, but for now I want him to live his childhood.
"The only thing neccesary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." - E. Burke
"We have just enough religion to hate but not enough to love one another" -Jonathan Swift
I entirely agree with the post above and reiterate that kids shouldn't be exposed to those aspects, which are simply beyond their limited capacity to handle.
If parents and teachers will expect too much from kids, they are bound to be trapped by stress n strain and would finally face unfavourable situations, rendering them extremely uncomfortable. Its important for both to leave the absurd idea of perfect kids and perfect students, having high expectations from them, which serves neither in the interest of the former, nor the later. They should never guide kids to develop unreasonable belief that if they don't come up to the expectations, they aren't the best
I know of a man since he was a little boy, who became a lawyer, a barrister, a judge, a teacher for past 35 years, a Muhaddith, an expert on Islamic Law (Sha'ariah), an expert on Quraan (so much so that he edited his fathers' Maarif ul Quraan as well as authoring another forty books)
I wonder what would he be now had he a father like fathers of some people on here?
probably would be dole scrounger, sitting at PC to search articles to post to impress to make up for inadequate education and will be blaming failures on Jewish conspiracies
Now to return to the original topic. there was something of imporance posted.
format_quote Originally Posted by ahsan28
If parents and teachers will expect too much from kids, they are bound to be trapped by stress n strain and would finally face unfavourable situations, rendering them extremely uncomfortable. Its important for both to leave the absurd idea of perfect kids and perfect students, having high expectations from them, which serves neither in the interest of the former, nor the later. They should never guide kids to develop unreasonable belief that if they don't come up to the expectations, they aren't the best
I made some very key words bold. That is true. the opposite is also true. That is to underestimate the ability. It is a difficult balance. This is the area in which tests are misused. If properly used testing will serve the purpose of determining the areas of highest achievement potential for each child and indicate what areas are being over emphasized and which are under emphasized.
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