Of stark contrast is the significant pressure felt by girls over boys in all countries. Studies to compare single sex schools with co-ed may give greater depth. Am not advocating for either model however we should be questioning why girls are so unhappy.
Females generally report higher rates of mental health problems, particularly anxiety and depression - not just girls and not just in relation to schools. There is also some doubt to what extent is this a real difference as opposed to males more reluctant to acknowledge mental health problems.
Smartphone, screentime and social media- read Jonathan Haidt's book The Anxious Generation: The Anxious Generation | Jonathan Haidt https://share.google/748LwO5kqzffFNLCv
My question: why show the data for 15-year-olds' attitude to school but not the same data for 11- and 13-year-olds?
I looked at the numbers, and the picture is a little more complicated than it looks from the 15-year-olds' charts alone. I've written up what I found – link here if you’re curious:
Obviously you’re the expert here so take this with a pinch of salt! But my experience, as my eldest went through primary and then secondary school (in England), and as I worked (as an LSA) in primary, was that Gove’s changes seemed to apply so much more to primary than secondary. In fact I felt that my son’s GCSE work was really not so very different to mine back thirty years earlier in 1993.
I do think something that’s changed in secondary since I was in school is not curriculum but strictness. I’m in two minds about this - I was bullied mercilessly and perhaps more strictness may have been a good thing (for other kids, ha). But I wonder if zero tolerance policies on behaviour make it harder for some children?
(My only experience is of state schools so perhaps private is different?)
Gove has so much to answer for. Not least of which was/is his naive theory that concentrating on a prescriptive and narrow curriculum would raise standards. As if those students who struggled to attain L4s in GCSE would magically do so once maths and English at L4 became the bar over which they were required to leap unless they wanted to spend 2 years in FE endlessly resitting those GCSEs like a version of Groundhog Day. Of course the curriculum must have some knowledge but it should be based on what's relevant .
Isn’t the fact of increasing school absenteeism a signal from the students themselves about something wrong? Questions need to be raised about:
* Compulsory attendance
* Top-down curriculum, knowledge-based or otherwise
* State provision versus alternative education providers
* Schooling vs education
* Etc.
The fact that students are demonstrating some semblance of agency (absenteeism) should be welcomed by influencers and policy and legislative agencies to probe these questions, including the mental health issues arising. Penalizing school marks by as much as 15% reduction for non-attendance as planned by some Canadian groups is “cutting your nose off to spite your face”.
I would agree that the suggestion that Govean reforms caused a mental health crisis is a reach. And I for one couldn't face another year of doing the voices in Of Mice and Men after 13 years in a row. But I do think the Govean reforms have had a negative impact and not a positive one, although my opinion is based on personal experience which is even less reliable than happiness questionnaires.
There are a world potential factors feeding into a mental health crisis, including increasing use of the term mental health in social discourse developing an awareness.
Maybe it’s also the rise of far right political movements, the destruction of the planet, warmongering and the desire to control rather than collaborate by those who have power.
Doubt it. This week a 13 year old told me with the utmost confidence WW3 would be impossible even when I highlighted the precarious state of global affairs right now. I’m always surprised by the general positivity young ppl have for the future tbh
Multiculturalism and rapid cultural change (wokism, genderism) have generated a lot of anxiety that is particularly prevalent in teens: when people don’t all play by the same implicit culturally embedded rules, and there is little in the way of a shared moral imagination that children’s literature, Christianity etc embedded in the culture, people get constant shocks at the reactions of others. This is particularly prevalent in the Anglosphere
How do you get that when the USA, Canada, Australia and NZ have more multicultural populations and higher immigration levels and very different reactions to immigration and the recent, last 30, years has seen increasing multicultural immigration in France and Germany.
Anna, it sounds like you are just making something up.
I’m English and I live in France: school in France is absolutely not overrun with multicultural ideas. Quite the contrary: it’s predictable and old fashioned
Of stark contrast is the significant pressure felt by girls over boys in all countries. Studies to compare single sex schools with co-ed may give greater depth. Am not advocating for either model however we should be questioning why girls are so unhappy.
Females generally report higher rates of mental health problems, particularly anxiety and depression - not just girls and not just in relation to schools. There is also some doubt to what extent is this a real difference as opposed to males more reluctant to acknowledge mental health problems.
My comment refers to the reported happiness/ enjoyment of school not mental health.
Smartphone, screentime and social media- read Jonathan Haidt's book The Anxious Generation: The Anxious Generation | Jonathan Haidt https://share.google/748LwO5kqzffFNLCv
Lots I agree with here.
My question: why show the data for 15-year-olds' attitude to school but not the same data for 11- and 13-year-olds?
I looked at the numbers, and the picture is a little more complicated than it looks from the 15-year-olds' charts alone. I've written up what I found – link here if you’re curious:
https://www.chris-reid.co.uk/p/why-dont-students-like-school-do
Obviously you’re the expert here so take this with a pinch of salt! But my experience, as my eldest went through primary and then secondary school (in England), and as I worked (as an LSA) in primary, was that Gove’s changes seemed to apply so much more to primary than secondary. In fact I felt that my son’s GCSE work was really not so very different to mine back thirty years earlier in 1993.
I do think something that’s changed in secondary since I was in school is not curriculum but strictness. I’m in two minds about this - I was bullied mercilessly and perhaps more strictness may have been a good thing (for other kids, ha). But I wonder if zero tolerance policies on behaviour make it harder for some children?
(My only experience is of state schools so perhaps private is different?)
Gove has so much to answer for. Not least of which was/is his naive theory that concentrating on a prescriptive and narrow curriculum would raise standards. As if those students who struggled to attain L4s in GCSE would magically do so once maths and English at L4 became the bar over which they were required to leap unless they wanted to spend 2 years in FE endlessly resitting those GCSEs like a version of Groundhog Day. Of course the curriculum must have some knowledge but it should be based on what's relevant .
Isn’t the fact of increasing school absenteeism a signal from the students themselves about something wrong? Questions need to be raised about:
* Compulsory attendance
* Top-down curriculum, knowledge-based or otherwise
* State provision versus alternative education providers
* Schooling vs education
* Etc.
The fact that students are demonstrating some semblance of agency (absenteeism) should be welcomed by influencers and policy and legislative agencies to probe these questions, including the mental health issues arising. Penalizing school marks by as much as 15% reduction for non-attendance as planned by some Canadian groups is “cutting your nose off to spite your face”.
I would agree that the suggestion that Govean reforms caused a mental health crisis is a reach. And I for one couldn't face another year of doing the voices in Of Mice and Men after 13 years in a row. But I do think the Govean reforms have had a negative impact and not a positive one, although my opinion is based on personal experience which is even less reliable than happiness questionnaires.
There are a world potential factors feeding into a mental health crisis, including increasing use of the term mental health in social discourse developing an awareness.
Maybe it’s also the rise of far right political movements, the destruction of the planet, warmongering and the desire to control rather than collaborate by those who have power.
Doubt it. This week a 13 year old told me with the utmost confidence WW3 would be impossible even when I highlighted the precarious state of global affairs right now. I’m always surprised by the general positivity young ppl have for the future tbh
😊that’s cute for that one 13 year old. Hard to measure though, right?
Multiculturalism and rapid cultural change (wokism, genderism) have generated a lot of anxiety that is particularly prevalent in teens: when people don’t all play by the same implicit culturally embedded rules, and there is little in the way of a shared moral imagination that children’s literature, Christianity etc embedded in the culture, people get constant shocks at the reactions of others. This is particularly prevalent in the Anglosphere
How do you get that when the USA, Canada, Australia and NZ have more multicultural populations and higher immigration levels and very different reactions to immigration and the recent, last 30, years has seen increasing multicultural immigration in France and Germany.
Anna, it sounds like you are just making something up.
I’m English and I live in France: school in France is absolutely not overrun with multicultural ideas. Quite the contrary: it’s predictable and old fashioned
No it's not.
Also, check out Jared Cooney Horvath's substack- (1) The Digital Delusion | Jared Cooney Horvath | Substack https://share.google/Nt3JhL5UcraqyejZQ