fear of knowledge

We live in an age of fear, fear of sex, fear of nudity (cf. here and here), fear of the spoken word (cf. the whinging about swear words on radio and TV), and fear of knowledge, exemplified by:

British Museum's Aztec artefacts 'as evil as Nazi lampshades made from human skin' (Mail Online, 27th September 2009)

Solid and scholarly as this exhibition is, I would rather not have the memory of half of these carefully preserved objects in my mind.

The fear of knowledge is perhaps the most pernicious of all, as it promotes ignorance, breeds bigotry, and engenders hatred, Fear of knowledge is what makes history repeat itself, letting people make stupid choices and start pointless wars over and over again.

New Labour is responsible for creating much of that fear, which today borders on hysteria. But let us not forget the contributions made by our 'friends' from the Daily Mail.

islanders

Nuclear workers join strikes wave (BBC News, Monday, 2 February 2009)

"So an Italian took your job. Why don't you try to find a job in Italy then?"

"Er, you mean, you mean, I would have to learn a foreign language?!"

See also:

UK foreign language teaching hits all-time low (Register, 12th June 2007)

Support Scots language in our schools, ministers told (Scotsman, 28 January 2009)

Welsh language legal bid starts (BBC News, Monday, 2 February 2009)

BBC pumps 60 quid a head into Gaelic (Register, 2nd February 2009)

Should we fear that the French, Germans and Spanish will start protesting against the 290,000 UK citizens currently working on the continent? I wouldn't lose sleep over it.

Further:

Foreign labour strikes spread to Sellafield (Guardian, Tuesday 3 February 2009)

Unite official Kenny Ward told the crowd: "Over the last week your heroic actions here have inspired thousands in our county, hundreds of thousands in our country and millions across the globe.

"Hundreds of thousand in our country"? Not unlikely. About that many voted BNP at recent elections. "Millions across the globe"? Well, perhaps there is like-mindedness among authorities in Lucca and Milan:

Italy bans kebabs and foreign food from cities (Times, January 31, 2009)

opera is harmful

BBC's Christmas Day Hansel and Gretel will show 'dead children' (Telegraph 12 Dec 2008)

(Found via Melonfarmers.)

Children's campaigners have criticised the BBC's decision to broadcast it at a time when young children will be watching. [...]

This is the most violent stuff young children will ever see on TV! And the blasted thing is sung in some weird language that normal people don't understand!

The Torygraph and self-proclaimed 'children's campaigners' would do anything to protect children from foreign culture. Right, let's stick our heads in the sand and pretend that if British children grow up to be violent or otherwise dysfunctional, it is because they once saw a non-Anglo-Saxon opera with puppets of dead people in it. It can't have anything to do with our educational system, the many violent cartoons on TV, our crypto-fascist government, or anything like that, can it? So, blame it on zee Germans!

In this age of cultural barbarism and instant gratification, the 0.001% of British children who can be bothered to watch any opera for more than 5 minutes may be expected to have the intelligence to cope with the discussed scenes.

On a happier note, I can highly recommend Humperdinck's delightful opera, for children and adults of all ages. If you miss the broadcast, or if it is cancelled thanks to xenophobic, self-important bigots, there is a wonderful recording on CD with Anna Moffo, Helen Donath, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Kurt Eichhorn conducting.

grammar

20 examples of grammar misuse (BBC News, Wednesday, 3 September 2008)

Having strong opinions about grammar is of all nationalities and of all ages. Having strong opinions while being wrong requires a special breed. See the annotated items.

next generations

I've been to Vienna. Just what the doctor ordered. Among many other things, I enjoyed hearing three young women playing in the street as string trio. I suspect they were music students earning a little money on the side. They played e.g. Piazzolla with a skill and enthusiasm one may expect from members of the London Symphony Orchestra. If they have an exceptionally good day. Maybe.

Trying to maintain my sanity within an Anglo-Saxon monoculture, I'm now at the Edinburgh International Festival. Last night I attended the most amazing concert by the Budapest Festival Orchestra. The performance of Dvořák's 7th symphony after the interval was phenomenal, but truly unforgettable was the first half, with the Dutch National Youth Choir, consisting of girls many as young as 16. Apart from their ability to sing (by heart) in Czech and Hungarian without floundering once, they had also fully mastered the intricate musical language of songs by Dvořák and Bartók, which were inspired by folk music so far from the triviality of most of Western-European traditional music.

All in all, I witnessed a small miracle yesterday. Culture in the Netherlands has supposedly gone to the dogs as badly as in Britain, and yet a choir of two dozen Dutch girls is able to pull off such a stunt!

A last thought for today: If we are to survive cultural relativism and Islamofascism, we should look to the continent, rather than sucking up to the United Theocracy. (And don't expect President Obama will bring Enlightenment.)

Teachers criticise over-testing

Teachers criticise over-testing (BBC News, Monday, 24 March 2008)

I've yet to meet a university Honours student who can tell the difference between "they're", "there" and "their". Many German and Swedish students seem to write better English than British students. But let's not put too much pressure on our kids, as they are already the "unhappiest in the western world", and who cares if Britain becomes the imbecile member of the European family.

Perhaps for once BBC journalists would care to substantiate or at least investigate the claims they jot down, rather than regurgitate hearsay. They could have asked the delegates at the National Union of Teachers some critical questions: By what criteria are British school children so unhappy, and how is this related to the number of tests? Are they subjected to more (or perhaps fewer) tests than children overseas of the same age? According to what studies? What evidence is there that tests are detrimental to the quality of education? How can one even measure the quality of education if not through tests?

What makes a good teacher?

What makes a good teacher? (BBC News, Saturday, 26 January 2008)

Professor Patricia Broadfoot is quoted: "the highest quality teaching and learning comes when we have the greatest autonomy for the teacher and the learner".

Finally someone who says what everyone in the field knows.

Britain is world champion make believe. To uphold alleged (imagined) high standards, education is stifled by review committees, and more committees reviewing the review committees. Getting a trivial change to a university module approved requires so much paperwork that professors are discouraged from making highly desirable improvements to courses.

I'm not optimistic this will change anytime soon, as the UK is much too addicted to review committees, and too scared to leave responsibility with those who have to do the actual teaching. In the mean while, the gap between British and overseas students is widening.

But don't worry, we'll give prizes to students who perform slightly less badly than their classmates, so they needn't have the feeling their tuition fees are wasted.

Hospitality in a suspicious world

Hospitality in a suspicious world (BBC News, Saturday, 26 January 2008)

This is one of the rare honest articles about Iraq and Afghanistan to appear on the BBC News site. Reporting about personal experiences, it reveals things that tend to get lost in the more frequent kinds of articles that offer mostly meaningless statistics, not uncommonly with misleading suggestions that the situation is improving.

One particularly apt passage is:

"Who tells the stories of civilians in Iraq or southern Afghanistan? Indeed, who tells the stories of Taleban foot soldiers?

And if that is not done, who is to know whether the American military or the British government or the Afghan president sitting in Kabul or indeed the Taleban spokesmen are telling the truth or not?"

Actually, in many countries there is just such kind of reporting. For example, the Dutch NOS news site runs a weekly 'blog' by an ordinary Iraqi, who writes about daily life in the capital. Many of his articles are heart-breaking. A recurrent theme is his wife's desire to start a family, and his feeling that it would be cruel to let children grow up in present-day Iraq, which is illustrated by many horrific incidents.

Regrettably, as language education in this country is shite, the less propaganda-infested news sites from continental Europe are inaccessible to the majority of us.