Education failures - context and content

I really do worry about the UK education system. So many kids today cannot spell and what is also interesting is they can sometimes spell but not the correct word (he “... had to except” instead of "accept").

Now I think this is interesting and it ties in with one of my theories.

Briefly, the medium is the message (McLuhan) and even more, context defines content. Most older people learned about words and language from reading and hearing. Therefore, in the main, the correct word became second nature. You heard it and understood the meaning, but you learned how to write and spell from books.

The past 15 years, say, most kids learn words and language from TV and games and their peers. And much of that content is in a context that is not related to grammar. And lots of TV and games are American, with quite different context (and spelling) to the UK. And the past 5 years, of course, the ability to write – and understand how to write – has gone out the window with emails and texts.

Furthermore, the soaps in particular, but also lots of so-called drama, is so lowest-common-denominator that cardboard characters shouting at each other is becoming accepted as ‘representative of real life’ (feedback from 17 year old). And don’t get me started on Big Brother and other ‘reality’ shows.

In short, we now have context at such a poor level it is no wonder the kids have little chance to excel.