46% below average shocker!

I came across this story this morning. Just quoting the first two paragraphs gives us this gem:

"Many adults failed to discover their talents in the classroom because they were made to feel like failures at school, research suggested.
Almost half (46%) of adults said they were regarded as average or poor students, according to a poll of more than 2,000 people."

Well, it certainly shows that whoever put the findings of this survey together is clearly well into the bottom half of the population.

There's lots of other stats pulled from the research which are almost uniformly pointless. Take a gander at this little sequence (and bear in mind I'm pulling these off their press release)

"The findings show that of the 5% who said they were regarded as poor students, more than half (56%) ended up hating school, and feeling less confident (49%).
Half (53%) said they felt their school gave up on them, the survey found."

For one point, this shows that 41% of respondents thought they were considered to be average and more spectacularly that 54% of respondents thought that they were considered to be good. Far from discovering that people have been browbeaten at school, more than you would expect thought they were treated well.

Anyway, moving on from rubbishing the entire premise of the survey, lets look at that poor 5%. Half ended up hating school and half felt that their school gave up on them. Well, no shit! Unsurprisingly if a child is refusing to turn up from school, being generally unhelpful to the teachers, sooner or later their infinite patience will run dry.

Then at the bottom of the press release, we find the real reason behind all of this

"The poll was commissioned to mark the premiere of the new film We Are The People We've Been Waiting For.
The film, inspired by Lord Puttnam, looks at whether the current education system gives young people the opportunity to develop their talents properly."

Well, I'd bet that the film already knows what the results should be "Schools should make everyone feel like they are precious little flowers, so they can build their full potential". The research merely demonstrates that's pretty much bollocks.

Some people are thick, some children are little shits whose parents don't back up the teachers when they attempt to discipline them. Schools are a place of learning, if you are bad, or unable to do that, you're not going to enjoy it. Children should not be able to choose whether or not they "buy in" to the concept of schools. They are their to learn. Sometimes they should just shut the fuck up and get on with it (and that goes for the parents as well).