I know nothing. I learn economics from a blog
Posted on Dec 07 2006 | Tagged as: Politics
Andy and I had another debate on the minimum wage last night. This despite the fact that we basically know no economics (for my part, other than what I’ve picked up from Tim Worstall’s blog).
The Public Admin course that forms part of my journalism diploma is the first instruction in anything vaguely like politics, too - in my 18th or 19th year of education (I’ve lost count).
Schools spend so much time drilling subjects that are ultimately pointless into unwilling pupils. I speak vastly more Spanish than French and German, and I got A-grade GCSEs for the latter two and have never formally studied the former. Children are taught History, so they have some idea of how the UK ended up how it is, but very little of how it actually works now.
All it would take is compulsory politics up until year 9 (age 14) and a little bit of economics, perhaps in maths classes. It might actually help to reduce electorate apathy.
The other thing is that it might help avoid the really sort of tribal political mindset that certainly exists where I come from, where people vote Labour because their dad did.
4 Comments »
on 07 Dec 2006 at 10:18 am 1 Andy said …
And I was right…
on 07 Dec 2006 at 10:24 am 2 Christopher White said …
Let’s have a proper debate. Print, or possibly radio. With research on stuff. and then I can prove that I was right.
on 08 Dec 2006 at 6:54 pm 3 Will Dean said …
I think A-Level politics was the best/useful course I’ve ever done and it certianly woke me up from an apolitical stupor. Think is most kids would just say ‘boring!’, switch off and refuse to take any of it in. As for economics, I do wish I’d taken the A Level. Even if to get a D.
on 08 Dec 2006 at 7:08 pm 4 Christopher White said …
To be honest Will, I’d probably have done the same at school if we were forced to learn politics and/or economics.
It’s like what we were saying the other day about general disengement in school from things that later you realise are actually quite interesting - such as literature. (Speaking of, I bought this within 20 minutes of it being recommended to me on t’other blog. It’s bloomin’ good.)
But at least the background’s there if you fancy taking it up again later (I’d have very little trouble taking up French or German again, I reckon) and it does give sufficient idea of what the hell’s going on to actually make informed decisions instead of ticking the box next to “Labour” blindly.