JoeyWinson3.0
Aug 6th, 2003, 02:27 PM
What a complete load of bollocks, from start to finish.
Basically the programme was set out as a sociological experiment that placed a group of 16 year olds in a 1950's style state boarding school, where they were to take 1950's style O Levels and be forced to stick to the tough regime of those days of yor.
However, you could draw absolutely no sociological conclusion from the programme whatsoever, it was meant to be a thought provoking experimental ground breaking televisual experience, thats probably what the TV execs thought when they sat round the table. However in fact, it was a thoroughly flawed farce slopped on our screens like the spam fritters and mashed swede the pupils had to eat for dinner.
From the off, it was obvious what the programme makers were setting out to do, give it that "children today have never had it so good" feeling.
At times the programme was patronising, the pupils were tricked into thinking they were taking an O Levels standard paper when in fact they were taking an 11 plus. For example long division and multiplication, slide rules et al.
Here you were meant to think "gosh, wasn't it so much harder in those days, now they use calculators... it's so easy for them now!". Wrong. Mathematics in the 1950's involved utterly confusing and long drawn out methods of calculating problems, questions involved needless elements of logic (for example those "Farmer Jones had twentyseven sheep" style questions). A technology has moved on todays mathematics taught in school is a lot quicker and probably a lot more relevant (I didn't think so but I couldn't bloody do any of it) to todays society.
Then came the pantomime aspect of the programme, the oh so stern teachers. Who were actors. One part of it was a lad got called into the headmasters office for a good old fashioned telling off, where he got shouted at and was then told to take a cold shower.
What made this show the blatantly obvious flaws in the programmes attempt to be a valid sociological experiment was that these teachers were not shouting at these kids for the sake of their educational well being, at the end of the day these pupils would get nothing out of the experience of any educational merit, they were shouting at them for the sake of a television programme.
In short... probably one of the most misguided pieces of television to be called a sociological experiment. And it's not a one off either... it's a SERIES!
Tune in next week anyway, 9pm, Tuesday night...
Basically the programme was set out as a sociological experiment that placed a group of 16 year olds in a 1950's style state boarding school, where they were to take 1950's style O Levels and be forced to stick to the tough regime of those days of yor.
However, you could draw absolutely no sociological conclusion from the programme whatsoever, it was meant to be a thought provoking experimental ground breaking televisual experience, thats probably what the TV execs thought when they sat round the table. However in fact, it was a thoroughly flawed farce slopped on our screens like the spam fritters and mashed swede the pupils had to eat for dinner.
From the off, it was obvious what the programme makers were setting out to do, give it that "children today have never had it so good" feeling.
At times the programme was patronising, the pupils were tricked into thinking they were taking an O Levels standard paper when in fact they were taking an 11 plus. For example long division and multiplication, slide rules et al.
Here you were meant to think "gosh, wasn't it so much harder in those days, now they use calculators... it's so easy for them now!". Wrong. Mathematics in the 1950's involved utterly confusing and long drawn out methods of calculating problems, questions involved needless elements of logic (for example those "Farmer Jones had twentyseven sheep" style questions). A technology has moved on todays mathematics taught in school is a lot quicker and probably a lot more relevant (I didn't think so but I couldn't bloody do any of it) to todays society.
Then came the pantomime aspect of the programme, the oh so stern teachers. Who were actors. One part of it was a lad got called into the headmasters office for a good old fashioned telling off, where he got shouted at and was then told to take a cold shower.
What made this show the blatantly obvious flaws in the programmes attempt to be a valid sociological experiment was that these teachers were not shouting at these kids for the sake of their educational well being, at the end of the day these pupils would get nothing out of the experience of any educational merit, they were shouting at them for the sake of a television programme.
In short... probably one of the most misguided pieces of television to be called a sociological experiment. And it's not a one off either... it's a SERIES!
Tune in next week anyway, 9pm, Tuesday night...