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Exam syllabuses 2040

(12 Posts)
Doodledog Wed 03-Aug-22 21:42:01

Galaxy

Wasnt the age of the individual or phrases like it used to describe the 80's?

I can't remember. The 'no such thing as society' started then, so yes, maybe I borrowed it from then.

I think it's different now though - the 80s 'loadsamoney' greed and consumerism is less widespread now, although the seeds of today's inequalities were sown by closing manufacturing, selling off council houses and portraying the contrast between unemployment in some areas and property wealth in others as meritocratic. Nowadays I think it is less 'everyone for themselves' and more tribalism, with differences in age, politics, sex, education and geography (as well as wealth) being sold as reasons for mistrusting one another and for encouraging people to be ok with those in another group suffering from cuts in case they end up better off than their own 'tribe'.

nanna8 Wed 03-Aug-22 10:45:40

It will most likely all be in Chinese the rate things are going. How China colonised the former colonialists without conventional weaponry. The Fall of the West ?

annodomini Wed 03-Aug-22 10:45:18

By 2040, my very new GGD might be taking A-levels! I probably won't be around as I'd be 101, but I'm trying to write my autobiography - for family only - and it might give her an idea of what life was like for us in the unpredictable '20s.

Galaxy Wed 03-Aug-22 10:40:26

Wasnt the age of the individual or phrases like it used to describe the 80's?

Doodledog Wed 03-Aug-22 10:38:52

So will it be called The Age of The Individual? The Death of Cohesion? Or something else?

Galaxy Wed 03-Aug-22 10:36:08

I think there will be some analysis of debate or the lack of it. The role of social media, the inability of people to separate politics from their identity, and relearning compromise.

Doodledog Wed 03-Aug-22 10:31:26

NotSpaghetti

I think we will be lucky if anything other than skills directly related to employment will be taught.
This government is already reducing the curriculum to such an extent that I fear for education in future.

This is also true, and worrying. It depresses me on here when so many people see education purely in terms of whether it will lead to a job.

I'm more interested (on this thread) in how people will look back on the political situation we are living through just now, though.

Doodledog Wed 03-Aug-22 10:26:22

Agreed about a shift to more inclusive syllabuses, but what would that be called that reflects the times we live in?

Death of Colonialism?

(I think the teaching of Arts subjects (or at any rate the setting of the curriculum) is worth a thread of its own smile. I would like to see more modern and relevant texts (or works) being taught, but I also think that shared cultural references are A Good Thing. Obviously they could co-exist, but really only of there are half a dozen texts being studied, which (I think) only really happens at A level? If there is only space for a few texts then I don't know whether I would argue for George The Poet v WH Auden, or Douglas Stuart v Dickens. The former choices would probably change in a couple of years, meaning that pupils from different age groups would learn different texts (so no shared cultural references), but dead white men's perspectives on life are very limited (and limiting) and can put young people off reading in a way that more immediately relevant texts might not.)

NotSpaghetti Wed 03-Aug-22 10:24:40

I think we will be lucky if anything other than skills directly related to employment will be taught.
This government is already reducing the curriculum to such an extent that I fear for education in future.

GagaJo Wed 03-Aug-22 09:35:50

I think if schools are still teaching the way we do now (I think a lot more will go online OR a different system), a major focus will be on the population allowing the climate crisis to get to such a dangerous level.

In my subject (English), hopefully, we'll see a return to a very international, multicultural approach to literature. The current focus on dead white men (and women to a lesser extent) is deadly boring.

Cabbie21 Wed 03-Aug-22 09:32:21

Broken Britain.

Doodledog Wed 03-Aug-22 08:36:16

When we are going through 'interesting times', I often think of what future schoolchildren will be taught about them (in the way we were taught about the causes of WW1 or the Industrial Revolution), and what topic headings they will come under. The people living through the Industrial Revolution won't have thought of it in those terms - they would just see another factory going up, or see neighbours leaving their farming jobs or cottage industries to move to other areas, and so on. The headings come later.

Brexit will obviously provide rich pickings for History, Economics, Politics, Sociology etc, and there will be huge scope for higher level syllabuses to ask for analysis of different viewpoints, voter behaviour, propaganda, economic impact, international relations and so on.

All of that is interesting, and whatever I think personally about it I can see that there are other perspectives and that time will add more exam question fodder, but what will the narrative be about UK politics between 2016 and 2024 (unless the GE comes early)? Will it be The Death of the Conservative Party, The Rise (or fall) of the Labour Party, The End of the UK, The Decline of Democracy, the British Revolution or Workers' Revolt, the End of Consensus, or what?

How do you think that this period will be taught in 2040?