Our Society places too much emphasis on achievement and not enough on learning

So that time of year again has come and gone. The time of year where we hear there are record numbers of people excelling in their GCSEs and A-levels. Where some extraordinary 5 year old with obviously pushy and deluded parents passes a Maths GCSE. Where workaholic individuals who spent their whole school life locked up in their bedroom slaving away at their homework achieve 6 or more A*s at A-level in a bid to prove just how bloody brilliant they are, whilst they fail to realize that they lack the sufficient social skills, common sense and experience that will actually get them somewhere in life.

And whilst I do come from an advanced educational background, I do find it absolutely ludicrous how we place so much value on a couple of slips of paper with our name and some grades on that apparently prove our worth to people and employers. My achievements in life summed up by a few letters of the alphabet and a ratio (2:1). Great.

Why don’t we teach students instead of training them to jump through hoops in exams. It seems as though schools just want to achieve higher amounts of A grades so they can get that magical lump of money that allows them to purchase new desks and projectors that aren’t covered in obscene graffiti about how shit their supposed great achieving school is.

Children and adolescents are no longer learning any useful in life. Most of these individuals finish school having no idea of how to manage their finances, write a CV, apply for job and generally not be a cunt in a professional setting. No wonder we have a growing underclass that we love to point and laugh and label as chavs, whilst we slowly come to realize that a good proportion of the population of Britain will soon be made up of these job seeker’s allowance claiming scumbags.

There are too many clueless people around whilst the government sits on its fat Tory arse (with a slight hint of Lib Dem) and pats itself on the back for the record number of high grades, whilst they fail to do anything about the thousands of students who can’t get into university or attain a job despite their grades. What good is a qualification if it gets you nowhere?

How many of you have worked diligently at your exams only to come out of the hall afterwards and realize that the information you have spent the past month or so cramming into your overloaded brain has been instantly forgotten?

Exams are a poor, poor way of assessing people. They are tests of memory where those can remember bits of information the best are the ones that succeed. Not a real test of your abilities.

We should stop deluding ourselves into thinking our system is still the best in the world and realize that without reform, we will continue to have these problems.

The Asian Outsiders

The Daily Mail. The holy text of middle-England house wives. The voice of good old fashioned Conservatism with a capital C. If The Daily Mail were a person, it would be that annoying middle aged woman from next door whose only topics of conversation are to vilify asylum seekers, homosexuals and muslims – who are all apparently in some sort of pact to destroy the fabric of British society.

Yes the Daily Mail is very good at propagating extreme right wing views under the guise of a serious tabloid (which happens to be quite the oxymoron). Seemingly harmless news stories in this paper are all given their special brand of right wing treatment before being published as I observed in an article from last week:

“Chinese and Indian pupils get more top grades at GCSE than British children”

Whist seemingly harmless at first, I soon cottoned on to the fact they were separating us Asians from the British. This was confirmed in the first paragraph:

“Chinese and Indian pupils gain more top grades than white British children in every school subject.”

So according to the Daily Mail, Chinese and Indians cannot also be British despite the fact many of us were actually born and raised on this island and have as much of the culture within us as our white counter parts. (Hell I even have a British accent. Go me).

What the Daily Mail has done is to ‘Other’ us. A term that Sociologists (like myself) and studiers of the media love to use. It is a process where our race and heritage are highlighted and used to negatively separate us from the rest of society. In this case, the implication is that you can only be British if you’re white NOT if you’re Chinese or Indian.

Whilst a seemingly banal observation, when you start to look at the news more intimately you gradually start to notice all these little facets that make up a big problem. Muslims suffer from this ‘Othering’ worse than other religious or ethnic group. It doesn’t matter if you were born in London and have lived there all your life – if you’re a member of the muslim faith you will be labelled as an outsider whether you like it or not.

This has serious implications for British society who will continue to see us ethnic minorities as the mysterious unknown. It will continue to proliferate racial divide and tension as media publications such as the Daily Mail hinder our acceptance into British society.

I don’t want to be seen as that ‘Chinaman’ who lives down the road. I want to be referred to as the British guy with a Chinese racial heritage.

As for the article itself, this seems to be regular story that crops up every year. Whilst the foolish will point to the idea that Asians are supposedly naturally more intelligent (it’s genetic?!) the sensible will realize that our culture places great importance on education as a means to better oneself. In other words, if we don’t get an A in all our subjects, Mummy and Daddy will go apeshit on us.

Whilst education is important, I do however question the Asian propensity towards achieving high grades and pushing their kids (sometimes to near breaking point in some cases). Is it a healthy? Do we want all our kids to be Engineers, Doctors, Lawyers and Accountants? Or should we also encourage them to pursue other less traditional paths that they enjoy and find more fulfilling? I mean I seriously doubt that each and every one of these kids enjoy their chosen career paths and have not just done so to appease their strict Asian parents.

I don’t know about others, but I’d love to see more Chinese in the media instead of cooped up in the accounting office. Perhaps even a British Born Chinese professional footballer in the Premier League – well, we can all dream...