Oh, it’s the magic of the cup, the most exciting day of the sporting calendar, the first weekend in January, has brought F.A. Cup Third Round Day again. But, why does it not excite me like the media thinks it should?
Now, I count myself as a football fan, although my allegiance to Notts County, the club I was first taken to see as a six year-old, makes some people doubt it, and severely causes me to wonder at times. To be honest, I am pretty much of an armchair fan these days, I moved away from Nottingham some 16 years ago, and now live around 80 miles away. There are so many other things to do in life these days, that a 160 mile round trip and two hours on a cold terrace do not figure that high on my list of priorities these days. I used to live walking distance from the ground, and attended nearly every home game. But that was easy. And another factor is that, during my lifetime, my team have played four seasons at the highest level of English football; I have seen them beat some of the top teams in the country (although my Arsenal supporting son still does not believe that Notts County have ever beaten his team – they have, I was there). Having watched them play at what is now Premiership level, I find it very hard to motivate myself to watch a bunch of hard working, but basically talent free, journeymen whacking the leather off the ball for 90 minutes, even though I spent years watching this sort of stuff before they got to the old First Division. The joys of modern technology (albeit via a 16kbps Windows Media stream) mean that I can listen to commentaries of all the games via the Internet, and that does for me most of the time. And I am one of those people who just could not bring myself to take any sort of interest in a club closer to where I live.
My point about the hype of the FA Cup Third Round is that I think it is just that, hype. It is all part of the promotional process that media outlets go through to create interest in events they broadcast. They would never get the viewing or listening figures they need if only the fans of the clubs involved tuned in, so they have to sell the game to neutrals. And it occurred to me this morning, when I was listening to one of the pieces of FA Cup Third Round hype on the radio, is that this is how I used to think about it as a small boy. Is it just me, or has anyone else gone through the development process I have? When I first discovered football, it was all exciting stuff, I devoured the footy magazines, followed the latest news on all the teams, read all the match reports in the Sunday newspaper, got one of those cardboard league tables with slot-in tags in the colours of the teams and re-arranged them into accurate positions after every game. It was football in general which was the exciting thing, and it took me some time, after first being taken to a Notts County game, to focus on “my” team above all others. But that did happen, gradually, over a number of years, until I found that I was only interested in Notts County, and everything else that happened in the game became more and more peripheral. And, then it moved from being peripheral to being annoying; particularly the media assumption that everybody is interested in the Premiership, and we would all be fans of the “big four” if only we could get tickets for the games. As I write this, I am listening to a BBC journalist saying that attendances at lower division clubs are increasing because fans are being priced out of the Premiership games. It could never be that the fans might WANT to support the lower league clubs, could it.
So, my contention is that many football journalists are little boys who never grew up. But, is that genuine, or is it an attitude they are required to develop as part of their jobs? Are they really as excited by football in general as they profess to be? Of course, those who work in the national media are required to have a wide focus, national outlets obviously could not concentrate on one or two clubs (although it sometimes feels like they do). I believe that you support a football club from an early age and then it is impossible to change it. Apart form a natural interest in the underdog, which finds me always wanting the least fancied team to win, when watching a neutral game, I am not interested in what any other football clubs are doing except my own.
And that brings me to the last point. Could it be that FA Cup Third Round day leaves me cold because my team is not in it? This year, for the second season running, they have been knocked out at the Second Round stage by a non-league team. I will be on the Internet, listening to them playing away at Aldershot, in what used to be known as the Fourth Division, I’ve lost track of what they call it now. So, if that has coloured my view on this, and the FA Cup Third Round is really still as exciting as they say it is, please ignore me, go ahead and enjoy it!
Saturday, 3 January 2009
Tuesday, 5 February 2008
Pubs as Community Hubs
I have been watching with growing interest the number of pubs which have been closing since the introduction of the smoking ban. This does not seem to have been getting much national publicity, although the local paper where I live, in Huddersfield, has given it some attention.
Now, while I personally think the smoking ban is a great thing, as someone who has always been anti-smoking and who has developed intermittent breathing difficulties which I put down to a combination of having been brought up with parents who smoked and having once worked in an office where nearly everyone smoked, I am concerned at the loss of community hubs which many pubs represented. And, of course, it is usually the pubs in the most disadvantaged areas which have been unable to adapt to the ban through increased food sales and the attraction of non-smoking customers.
Many of those communities have clear needs for community services, and the pub was often the one place which didn't have to try too hard to attract people in, unlike community centres and publicly owned facilities. I wonder what scope there is for the re-opening of some of the lost pubs as explicit community hubs. They might incorporate a (non-smoking) bar, but they would have other services to offer which would sustain them in ways that simply being a pub did not. In particular, For example, I wonder what the potential is for ex-pubs to become centres for people to start small businesses in, in an environment where they can be fostered and nurtured through the early, difficult days of trading.
I would very much like to explore the potential of this idea, perhaps through a pilot project, but also a campaign to bring partners together to look at the role of pubs as community hubs and develop a national strategy to save and re-model them, before they are lost.
Now, while I personally think the smoking ban is a great thing, as someone who has always been anti-smoking and who has developed intermittent breathing difficulties which I put down to a combination of having been brought up with parents who smoked and having once worked in an office where nearly everyone smoked, I am concerned at the loss of community hubs which many pubs represented. And, of course, it is usually the pubs in the most disadvantaged areas which have been unable to adapt to the ban through increased food sales and the attraction of non-smoking customers.
Many of those communities have clear needs for community services, and the pub was often the one place which didn't have to try too hard to attract people in, unlike community centres and publicly owned facilities. I wonder what scope there is for the re-opening of some of the lost pubs as explicit community hubs. They might incorporate a (non-smoking) bar, but they would have other services to offer which would sustain them in ways that simply being a pub did not. In particular, For example, I wonder what the potential is for ex-pubs to become centres for people to start small businesses in, in an environment where they can be fostered and nurtured through the early, difficult days of trading.
I would very much like to explore the potential of this idea, perhaps through a pilot project, but also a campaign to bring partners together to look at the role of pubs as community hubs and develop a national strategy to save and re-model them, before they are lost.
Friday, 18 May 2007
Re-Engaging Reluctant Learners
Letter Published in "Times Educational Supplement - FE Focus" 29th March 2007
I was very surprised by your editorial in FE Focus (“Folly of EU Phone Subsidy” - 23/3/07). I normally have the highest respect for your publication, but, in this instance I think you have lost the plot. To suggest that resources should only be targeted at those who want to learn is to ignore so many of the issues which beset the education system today. The UK cannot afford the waste represented by inactive young people as it seeks to compete in the global economy. The FE sector does a brilliant job in picking up those who have been failed by the one-size-fits-all school system and setting them on paths more suitable to their needs and their learning styles. Some of these young people need coaxing back into the system, and they may need incentives to kick start the re-engagement process before they realise that there are more suitable offers available than the school system which put them off in the first place. In the week when Alan Johnston announced the long rumoured policy of making participation compulsory in some form of education or training up to the age of 18, it is ever more evident that we need imaginative initiatives like this to keep young people engaged. Anyone who thinks that all young people can be made to sit behind desks till they are 18 is in for some severe shocks. I applaud Pembrokeshire College's enterprising spirit in using mobile phone texting to re-engage students, and I think that most of your correspondents who understand the issues will join me in doing so.
Yours sincerely
I was very surprised by your editorial in FE Focus (“Folly of EU Phone Subsidy” - 23/3/07). I normally have the highest respect for your publication, but, in this instance I think you have lost the plot. To suggest that resources should only be targeted at those who want to learn is to ignore so many of the issues which beset the education system today. The UK cannot afford the waste represented by inactive young people as it seeks to compete in the global economy. The FE sector does a brilliant job in picking up those who have been failed by the one-size-fits-all school system and setting them on paths more suitable to their needs and their learning styles. Some of these young people need coaxing back into the system, and they may need incentives to kick start the re-engagement process before they realise that there are more suitable offers available than the school system which put them off in the first place. In the week when Alan Johnston announced the long rumoured policy of making participation compulsory in some form of education or training up to the age of 18, it is ever more evident that we need imaginative initiatives like this to keep young people engaged. Anyone who thinks that all young people can be made to sit behind desks till they are 18 is in for some severe shocks. I applaud Pembrokeshire College's enterprising spirit in using mobile phone texting to re-engage students, and I think that most of your correspondents who understand the issues will join me in doing so.
Yours sincerely
What is the Educational Potential of Reality Television?
I just don’t get the majority of Reality Television. Perhaps it’s my age, I don’t know, but it just passes me by. In my view television should entertain, inform or educate, perhaps even a mixture of these, if possible. I find the antics of reality TV “stars” one step removed from watching paint dry. Why is the nation gripped by so much of this stuff; by young people sitting around bitching about each other and doing very little else; by out of tune wannabe pop stars who really should have been told they couldn’t sing before getting anywhere near a camera; and by so-called celebrities (well have you ever heard of them before?), doing things outside their comfort zone. Surely, they could be watching trained entertainers who have learned and refined their craft before exposing it to the public gaze, and dramas with a point to them, and maybe an exciting ending.
Of course, there will be those who see the ubiquity of such offerings as the democratisation of the medium; as the realisation of Andy Warhol’s dream of giving everybody their 15 minutes of fame. But what does it say about a nation which is obsessed by such matters? Has Reality TV replaced the gossip over the garden fence or the gathering in the village square? We are all part of the global village now, and the eccentricities of the village idiot are available on the small screen for the whole world to see.
I’ll admit, there is one exception to my rule. I am regularly gripped by “The Apprentice”, and the attempts of pushy potential business people to impress Sir Alan Sugar. Perhaps I can justify this by the programme’s professed educational mission. We are told that it aims to demonstrate business methods to a wide audience. There is a consensus, however, that it probably fails in this mission, that the cut-throat competition it engenders is not necessarily the best way to operate in the world of business, and that even the star of the show conducts his real-life business dealings in a more democratic and consensual fashion.
I have the dubious pleasure, nevertheless, of living in a household where my jaundiced view of the genre is held by a minority of one. Although I don’t watch the programmes myself, they are playing in the background to much of my life, and I am regularly a bemused participant in one-sided conversations about the latest exploits of the participants in the X Factor, Big Brother, or whatever this week’s favourite is. I admit it worries me, that my children, in particular, are such enthusiastic devourers of such fare. What effect is it having on their view of the world?
Of course, it is possible to take an anthropological view of such things and argue that we are being given ever increasing possibilities to study human behaviour, and that this is a positive thing. But, what are the aspects of human behaviour which are available for study here? True, some of the programmes may allow us to see how people cope under adversity, how they learn a new skill, or how they operate in an unfamiliar environment. But, are those shows where (usually) young people are simply thrown together to see how long it is before they get on each other’s nerves, sexually harass each other, or drive each other insane, doing anything other than demonstrate fairly unpleasant character traits to the world, and encourage the impressionable to imitate their bad behaviour?
This is an issue which exercises me for two reasons, firstly because I am concerned about its effect on my children, and secondly because I am searching for an educational use for such programmes. “The Apprentice” overtly proclaims its education purpose, but most other of these shows do not. Probably the programme makers would argue that it is not their job to educate, they are there simply to entertain. I am sorry, therefore, that in my case, they fail in that respect.
Much of my working life is spent trying to resolve the conundrum that a large part of the modern school system is so distant from the interests, hopes and aspirations of many of today’s young people that we are experiencing record levels of disengagement from learning. I am firmly of the belief that one of the keys to solving this dilemma is to build from what it is that really interests and engages young people and put it to educational uses. Thus, the power of computer games, iPods, mobile phones, hand-held devices, and other technologies which are central to the lives of teenagers is gradually (albeit slowly) being deployed to transform the education process into something which is really meaningful to them. Strategies such as combining work with learning and treating young people as adults are proving effective in reaching those deemed unteachable in traditional school settings.
In this context, what is the role of Reality TV? It is clearly very important to a large section of the young population, as is evidenced by the levels of phone voting for such shows, demonstrating turnout figures most politicians would kill for. It is unlikely that any TV company would commission an overtly “educational” Reality show in a prime time viewing slot, and even less likely that many young people would watch it. So, is it possible to make educational use of the offerings we have?
This is a dilemma I am struggling with, and I would love to hear from anyone who has made progress in this field.
Of course, there will be those who see the ubiquity of such offerings as the democratisation of the medium; as the realisation of Andy Warhol’s dream of giving everybody their 15 minutes of fame. But what does it say about a nation which is obsessed by such matters? Has Reality TV replaced the gossip over the garden fence or the gathering in the village square? We are all part of the global village now, and the eccentricities of the village idiot are available on the small screen for the whole world to see.
I’ll admit, there is one exception to my rule. I am regularly gripped by “The Apprentice”, and the attempts of pushy potential business people to impress Sir Alan Sugar. Perhaps I can justify this by the programme’s professed educational mission. We are told that it aims to demonstrate business methods to a wide audience. There is a consensus, however, that it probably fails in this mission, that the cut-throat competition it engenders is not necessarily the best way to operate in the world of business, and that even the star of the show conducts his real-life business dealings in a more democratic and consensual fashion.
I have the dubious pleasure, nevertheless, of living in a household where my jaundiced view of the genre is held by a minority of one. Although I don’t watch the programmes myself, they are playing in the background to much of my life, and I am regularly a bemused participant in one-sided conversations about the latest exploits of the participants in the X Factor, Big Brother, or whatever this week’s favourite is. I admit it worries me, that my children, in particular, are such enthusiastic devourers of such fare. What effect is it having on their view of the world?
Of course, it is possible to take an anthropological view of such things and argue that we are being given ever increasing possibilities to study human behaviour, and that this is a positive thing. But, what are the aspects of human behaviour which are available for study here? True, some of the programmes may allow us to see how people cope under adversity, how they learn a new skill, or how they operate in an unfamiliar environment. But, are those shows where (usually) young people are simply thrown together to see how long it is before they get on each other’s nerves, sexually harass each other, or drive each other insane, doing anything other than demonstrate fairly unpleasant character traits to the world, and encourage the impressionable to imitate their bad behaviour?
This is an issue which exercises me for two reasons, firstly because I am concerned about its effect on my children, and secondly because I am searching for an educational use for such programmes. “The Apprentice” overtly proclaims its education purpose, but most other of these shows do not. Probably the programme makers would argue that it is not their job to educate, they are there simply to entertain. I am sorry, therefore, that in my case, they fail in that respect.
Much of my working life is spent trying to resolve the conundrum that a large part of the modern school system is so distant from the interests, hopes and aspirations of many of today’s young people that we are experiencing record levels of disengagement from learning. I am firmly of the belief that one of the keys to solving this dilemma is to build from what it is that really interests and engages young people and put it to educational uses. Thus, the power of computer games, iPods, mobile phones, hand-held devices, and other technologies which are central to the lives of teenagers is gradually (albeit slowly) being deployed to transform the education process into something which is really meaningful to them. Strategies such as combining work with learning and treating young people as adults are proving effective in reaching those deemed unteachable in traditional school settings.
In this context, what is the role of Reality TV? It is clearly very important to a large section of the young population, as is evidenced by the levels of phone voting for such shows, demonstrating turnout figures most politicians would kill for. It is unlikely that any TV company would commission an overtly “educational” Reality show in a prime time viewing slot, and even less likely that many young people would watch it. So, is it possible to make educational use of the offerings we have?
This is a dilemma I am struggling with, and I would love to hear from anyone who has made progress in this field.
Bringing Education & Work Closer Together
This is the full text of a letter partially published in the Society section of "The Guardian" Newspaper on 22nd November 2006.
Dear Sir
Peter Inson’s perceptive article (“Work Ethics” 15/11/06) on the issue of the young people who drop out of school because they have positive alternatives hits the nail on the head in all but one respect. He seems to suggest that schools should waive goodbye to youngsters such as Charlie at an early age and accept they will be lost to the system. My contention is that we need radical alternatives which mix the worlds of education and work within the system, not outside it. There is a growing acknowledgement that young people who leave school at 16 and go straight into low skilled, low paid jobs without training are simply storing up problems for themselves and society in the future. Government is trying various strategies to persuade employers to offer this group some form of skills development and progression. Why, therefore, condemn even younger people to dead end jobs with no prospects?
Young people are growing up earlier than they used to, and it is evident that the National Curriculum fails to offer very much which accords with the interests and aptitudes of a considerable part of the secondary school cohort. Consequently, rather than pushing these young people out of the system, educationalists have a moral duty to effect lasting changes to the system which address this deficiency. Moves which have been made towards introducing more vocational provision into schools must be welcomed, but they have gone nowhere near far enough. Vocational options are still seen as largely peripheral to schools’ mainstream missions, they are still seen as second class options by both students and teachers, and parents, in particular, often see vocational studies as closing off their children’s options for the future.
The education system needs to grasp the nettle and create facilities which offer a more adult environment for those youngsters who are ready to enter the adult world. These new kinds of schools need to be small and focused on clear missions, and they need to have an aura about them which means that young people will see them as somewhere to aspire to. Employers need to stop complaining about the inability of the education system to produce the kinds of employees they need, and get deeply involved in shaping the offer of such institutions so it meets their needs. Small steps are being made in this direction in some parts of the country, but, with “Building Schools for the Future” spending billions on new schools, we are in danger of missing the opportunity to make a lasting difference to the futures of millions of young people.
Finally, I welcome “Society Guardian” bringing this issue to public attention, but I have to ask why “Society Guardian” and not “Education Guardian” on a Tuesday? As someone who works in the field where education and regeneration cross over, I read both. But many people do not, and I think this is indicative of the lack of serious attention given to this issue in some parts of the education system. It seems that those who focus on society’s problems are having to consider again how to deal with an issue not tackled effectively by the majority of schools.
Yours faithfully
John Popham
Consultant in Education, Training, and Regeneration
Dear Sir
Peter Inson’s perceptive article (“Work Ethics” 15/11/06) on the issue of the young people who drop out of school because they have positive alternatives hits the nail on the head in all but one respect. He seems to suggest that schools should waive goodbye to youngsters such as Charlie at an early age and accept they will be lost to the system. My contention is that we need radical alternatives which mix the worlds of education and work within the system, not outside it. There is a growing acknowledgement that young people who leave school at 16 and go straight into low skilled, low paid jobs without training are simply storing up problems for themselves and society in the future. Government is trying various strategies to persuade employers to offer this group some form of skills development and progression. Why, therefore, condemn even younger people to dead end jobs with no prospects?
Young people are growing up earlier than they used to, and it is evident that the National Curriculum fails to offer very much which accords with the interests and aptitudes of a considerable part of the secondary school cohort. Consequently, rather than pushing these young people out of the system, educationalists have a moral duty to effect lasting changes to the system which address this deficiency. Moves which have been made towards introducing more vocational provision into schools must be welcomed, but they have gone nowhere near far enough. Vocational options are still seen as largely peripheral to schools’ mainstream missions, they are still seen as second class options by both students and teachers, and parents, in particular, often see vocational studies as closing off their children’s options for the future.
The education system needs to grasp the nettle and create facilities which offer a more adult environment for those youngsters who are ready to enter the adult world. These new kinds of schools need to be small and focused on clear missions, and they need to have an aura about them which means that young people will see them as somewhere to aspire to. Employers need to stop complaining about the inability of the education system to produce the kinds of employees they need, and get deeply involved in shaping the offer of such institutions so it meets their needs. Small steps are being made in this direction in some parts of the country, but, with “Building Schools for the Future” spending billions on new schools, we are in danger of missing the opportunity to make a lasting difference to the futures of millions of young people.
Finally, I welcome “Society Guardian” bringing this issue to public attention, but I have to ask why “Society Guardian” and not “Education Guardian” on a Tuesday? As someone who works in the field where education and regeneration cross over, I read both. But many people do not, and I think this is indicative of the lack of serious attention given to this issue in some parts of the education system. It seems that those who focus on society’s problems are having to consider again how to deal with an issue not tackled effectively by the majority of schools.
Yours faithfully
John Popham
Consultant in Education, Training, and Regeneration
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