Education: Where did it go wrong?

I’m bored!! Infact I’m tired, actually I’m bored and tired and furthermore frustrated, disappointed and deeply concerned.  WHY??? I hear  you ask… What has got Madeline McQueen going today. Well frankly it is the lack of education many of our young people seem to be receiving in schools and at home today.

David and I spend quite a bit of time in schools delivering motivational speaches, workshops on confidence building and presentation skills as well as coaching young people who seem to have lost their way. What we are finding on an almost daily basis is that the level of literacy within specially London’s schools is very, very poor.  We tend to work with 14-19 year olds and often find that reading, writing and spelling is abismal.

I really do feel very sorry for the young people who have gone through the entire eduational system and who aged 14/15 are struggling to read basic instructions. What hope do they achieve at exam time or in the world of work? I fail to understand how this has not been picked up by their educators and worse still how parents are unable to prioritise spending time children to understand their educational needs. I know that today I am sounding exceptionally judgemental, but I feel exceptionally frustated!!

Reading is the key to learning, it helps with writing and vocabulary it enables students to understand concepts and read questions, especially since many mathematical questions in school these days tend to use scenario’s to present a question. I feel very, very saddened much vocabulary is lost on many of our youth today.

Whilst I applaud teachers for the job that they do, especially since governmental changes has broaden their remit too far beyond learning. Government has placed far too much responsibility on their shoulders with far too little discipline options, with funding relating to bums on seats exceptionally unruly children can take too long to be dealt with. There are some absolutely fabulous, passionate and amazing teachers who are changing lives and feeding our children outstanding knowlege on a daily basis who love the work that they do regardless of the pressures placed on them. However, I have come across too many teachers who are in the wrong profession, who are not at all passionate about teaching and far too willing to wield their power over those they are meant to educate and inspire.

How can we expect our young people to behave better and to do better if we have not given them some of the basic tools to success. I listen as many young people do not have the vocabulary to express themself effectively, where they answer a question are unable to present an arguement to support their answer. I listen as young people often have very little knowlegde of their forefathers, inventors, or change makers in world. They just don’t know!

Between the play station, Big Brother, the mobile phone and too much time on the streets their education is very limited and worse still the education that they are recieving is likely to reduce their chances of success and in the current climate their chances of a long and prosperous life.  Why is it that our young people are on the streets until and after 2.00am in the morning aged away from 13/14 upwards? Where are their parents?No wonder they turn up at school completely out of it and unable to interact effectively or learn. Why are many of our 16 year olds living on their own attempting to survive on benefits with little or no education? Why are there so many young people who are NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training)?  Why does our education system allow young people to take exams which offer them a qualification that employers think useless? Who wants to spend years working towards a foundation GCSE which will only ever give them absolute top grade of a C (if they are lucky) the range being between a C-G grade? You can just here the thought pattern of many a youngster…”If the best I can do is get a C and to be honest I’m only predicted an E what’s the point of going to school?”

Sadly, some research shows that the best teachers in school are reserved for the higher A-C tier of GSCE classes and the less able banished to the lower tier. According to the Institute for Public Policy Research “Poor Secondary Teacher can mean the difference between a pass and a fail”  At to this the false assumption that we hear regulary that many young people feel that their success will be based on the chance of being a celebrity thanks to reality TV. Then throw in the 24 hour entertainment culture that has grown rapidly in the last ten year, the bombardment of sex and instant gratification and parents who have no idea how to be parents. Alcholism, obesity/unhealth diet (Why is there either a fried chicken/kebab takeaway or McDonalds close to most schools)and drugs we have a receipe for failure on a collosal scale.

Where will it end? Parents, Teachers, Goverment and pupils all need to step up and do something about this.

I’m bored, tired, frustated, disappointed and downright concerned. Something has to change.

Are You Accountable?

It’s a questions that many people feel uncomfortable with. Whilst we like to think that we are accountable for our actions and words we live in a culture that blames everything and anything on everyone else. Gun crime, overspending,  a lack of discretion, children’s behaviour, racial inequality, a mistake at work, you name it and it’s someone elses’ fault.

One of the sign’s of maturity is when you are able to take responsibility for your actions (I emphase your actions not everyone elses’) without the “buts” and be accountable. Corporate environments are often a nest bed for blame culture and then many who work on their own often blame the market, the business and everyone else for their failure often ignoring the fact that it is their own actions and decisions that have determined their demise.  We see it in recent child abuse cases where all the parties involved in the case blamed each other for not doing enough. When will it end?

When we take accountability and responsibility for our actions we don’t ever need to look over are shoulders wondering when we will be caught out. We live and thrive in reality because we know what we are and what we are not capable of. We don’t need anyone else to be our crutch and don’t spend our time lying to ourselves about our responsibility in the events of our lives.  When we take responsibility for ourselves constructive criticism is  much easier to swallow as we are not too surprised by it’s conclusions, we already know where our weaknesses lie. Life is just that bit easier because we don’t have to waste energy attempting to believe our own lies to ourselves.

So as you go the events of your day today as yourself… am I accountable?

Why do we like to bitch?

I know, i know you didn’t expect me to use such as word for my blog title or use such a word in general. You’re right usually I wouldn’t use it as it is not necessary. But right now I think it’s the only word that describes what I’m about to talkabout.

It’s when people sit in a group and complain, bemoan, degrade, say derogatory things and verbally slaughter someone or something. What’s worse is that they do it without every attempting to address the issue with the person or the organisation or whatever the situation my be. They just revell in complaining about someone or something else without all the facts or understanding the circumstances behind the person or issue.

What is it about human nature that seems to revell in giving someone else or something a really hard time. I can talk about this because being quite a hypo critical person I have done this on more than one occassion. We love seeing a problem and expounding about it, assuming so many things as to what, why, how, where and when has happened or occurred. We we unforgiving in our bitching and take great pleasure it seems from assuming that the others motives are questionable.

Why is it that we don’t often deal with the person or actual issue face on? Why don’t we write a letter of complaint or contact the person or organsation to gain greater clarity or understanding? Why don’t we inform them in a polite manner of things we think could be included next time or highlight the error as we see it with suggestions of improvement?

We love to bitch!! We expect others to extend grace towards us and understand where we are coming from, but we seem to find it exceptionally difficult to extend that same grace and understanding that we expect of others. It’s high time that we drop the bitching and look for a better way of dealing with our frustation with others, taking action in some way makes much sense to me. It’s the solution that I have found works the best right now. Moreso it is far more energising and fruitful and leaves one with a sense of achievement.

So before you get involved in bemoaning someone or something, next time take a moment and see if there is another way of dealing with it that not only gratifies offending party but also yourself.

The Apprentice: About time too and all!!

Well thank goodness sense has at last prevailed!!! I just couldn’t bare to blog about The Apprentice over the last two weeks as it has been too painful. I am sure that this has been the worse set of candidates yet (I’m sure I’ve said that before). I have felt that Sir Allan made some wrong decisions and the conduct of some of the candidates absolutely appaulling.

Lee McQueen was on of my favourites (not because of the name!!) until last weeks uncalled for outburst on Sara. He was not the only one, I felt like she was outcast based on race, that her ideas because they were more cultural were dismissed and that she as a person was being dismissed as a second class citizen, called lazy for no other reason than she was of asian decent. That was how it made me feel and speaking to my Apprentice buddy Diva, she felt the same. Helena showed her vindictive side yet again and Raef, who has been endearing himself to me week after week, really showed why he stands out from the rest. The previous week Claire for me did not deserve to win and Lucinda showed her complete and utter talent for management. Lindi took the heat for really what Jen should have taken the heat for and Michael yet again proved that he is not ready for real decision making. Jenny yet again showed her complete inability to be humane and Kevin showed that selling really isn’t his skill as he was completely blinded by Jenny.

All that said Sir Allan made the right decisions this week. Jenny has feasted in the boardroom on the plight of others colding using derogative about another team member to make her escape. This week…. at long last… Sir Allan caught her full on and expelled her from the boardroom. Jen tried to fight by discrediting others, she should have extolled her own merits, she may have stayed, but like Lindi she too is only a sales person.

This week a number of people showed their true colours, Nick complimented Lucinda and Sara (at last some recognition for them), Claire proved again that she is a problem team member, Raef stood out as one of the most decent apprentice’s, Lee showed that he is very excitable and not always able to hold his swearing in check, Michael proved what a sleaze bag he really is and that he is actually a mouse for all of his bolshy arrogance and Alex is once again attempting to wait out till the end.

What a nightmare!!!

I think that we are close to having the cream of this crop left on the show but Michael needs to go and I still feel that Helena is missing some vital skills. It is possible that Claire is a diamond in the rough but she needs some serious work. Lucinda might not be as forthright as she needs to be to get the job and the same goes for Sara, that leaves Raef and Lee… at time point I’d take Raef extended dictionary and all at this stage.

Roll on next week…..

The Apprentice: Poor, poor, poor

Yet another shambles, with candidates setting each other up to fail and the crux of the task being left to flounder. What a mess and what a bunch of horrible people! (A little judgemental I know)

Tonight, my dislike of Claire increased as she did it again, bullying Simon and being her usual horrible self, two faced self. The apologies just did not do it for me. I truly believed that she would be a great candidate when I first saw her and I thought that she might make a great Apprentice. Unless she does something pretty spectacular in the coming weeks I think that she might just be out on her ear. The thing is I think that she might actually be a good project leader, she seems to have a decent business brain, but her interpersonal skills really let her down. You have to get people on board to manage a team effectively, but she spends so much time undermining and back stabbing her team members that she has already lost the plot.  It was interesting to see the look on Michaels face when she returned to the house.

Poor Simon, he really didn’t have much of a chance, from the time that he put himself forward that had already decided that they would not support him effectively… and they didn’t. His style of management left a lot to be desired however, he was a man fighting to be heard. He knew that he had a team that didn’t believe in him and that treated him like the village idiot. He just wanted a little respect as PM and they were not willing to give it to him.

Interestingly, those in Simon’s team were very willing to take anyone as a scape goat and as soon as Claire became a possibility you saw both Jenny and Alex jump on her, to her horror! What goes around….

Helene this week completely and utterly fell off her pedastool, I was looking forward to seeing her as a PM and knew that she would be quite good at organsing the team. However, and it’s a big however, she became very Jennyesq when dealing with Lucinda. What is it about Lucinda that the girls go out of their way put her in a predicament that sets her up to be fired. Jenny did it the first week and Helene most definitely did it this week.

Lucinda made is very clear that she is a technophobe, painstakingly clear. (Now what a technophobe is doing looking to work for a man who runs a number of technology companies I’ll never know!). From what I have seen Lucinda can sell or at least get the general public interested, she’s got all the humanism’s going and yet every week she is placed in her area of weakness. They talk to her in the most terrible ways and whilst she might come across as lazy (which I don’t actually think she is by the way) no one is maximising her or her skill set.

Yes it’s a competition but to stay in the competition you need to stay out of the boardroom which means winning the task which means working together and playing to every one’s strengths.  It seems to me that in this season of The Apprentice that important fact seems to have been forgotten. The focus seems to be “Set people up to be fired” before you’ve even started the task furthermore reached the boardroom.

I am finding this session, very poor indeed, poor candidated, poor attitude and even poor decisions by Sir Allen. What a shame.

The Apprentice: Shambles and Shameless

This weeks apprentice really did make me think. Two questions came to mind

1: How did the boys forget the successes of the previous week so quickly?

2: Why is it that people forget that what they say on reality TV is all recorded and then edited?

OK so lets look at it, in week three the boys most certainly had the horse before the cart as they researched pricing, negotiated and got on with the job (well some more than others). This week it all went out of the window as Ian failed to manage the team and Kevin really didn’t have a clue about food! Simon had great ideas but failed to be heard and Mr McQueen decided to address himself in the third person. It seems that this week Raef after proving himself last week as PM faded into the background and Michael who hasn’t really made any kind of positive impact on anyone!!

They were lost really lost and made a pigs ear out of something that should have been quite easy. Simplicity was the key and it was lost on the boys

The girls had a more ambitious plan but working together seemed to be their downfall. Whilst it should never be forgotten that this is a competition winning a task is a team effort. It makes no sense attempting to oust a contestant before you’ve even finished the task as I felt Claire was attempting to do. Work together, win the task, then you don’t have to focus on planning your escape from the board room!

Sadly, Claire has spent time on camera saying that Shara was a good team manager in the board room and the minute she got out of the boardroom she did a complete turn around. She seems to have no shame in being forward in undermining others and quick to smile on one side of her face and scowl on the other.

The girls didn’t have a better idea than the boys, they make some fundamental mistakes but more so they learned the lessons of not negotiating effectively from last week, kept their costs down and got it together.

Right now this appears to be the poorest group of candidates that Sir Alan has had to choose from since the series started. I am sure that we will see what the next episode brings, but I’m having to ask myself is it really worth watching?

The Apprentice: What??? Shariz! no way

What the hell is going on?

Jenny is a nightmare on legs, she does not listen, she makes things us and as Margaret says “she can’t see sideways”. In fact the wrong people where in the boardroom, if any on it should have been Lindi and that Jennifer who says that she is says she’s “the best sales person in europe”. As a Corporate Sales Account Manager and Sales Manager I have never seen so many so called Sales people miss buying signals and

They what was Sir Alan thinking, he got it wrong, very, very wrong and we are going to see Jenny fall I am sure in a collosal way which will hopefully completely open Sir Alan’s eyes. I have to keep reminding myself that this is a television programme and Shariz may not make great ratings unlike the personalities of Jenny and Lucinda so it was inevitable that she would go. But he got it wrong.

I hope that Shariz get’s snapped up by other companies as she showed a level of organisation and common sense that seemed to be lacking in the others. I would have loved to have seen her as a project manager.

The Apprentice: Episode 1… hmm interesting!

There is no doubt that the right choice was made this week in firing Nicolas in the board room, he made some whooping mistakes and could see the trees for the degree’s. Nicolas took the wrong tack in the board room and paid for it. Completely misunderstanding the man Sir Alan Sugar… what a noonar!

What a complete palarva the whole thing was really. There aren’t any real leaders at this stage that stand out for me. Both teams were a bit of a mess and noone really seemed to know how best to go about this task. I will say however that I did think that the girls eventually were abit more organised and I loved the fact that they kept their eye on the money and knew how much they needed to achieve in order to succeed. Its often missed in business as entrepreneurs get excited about the idea of what they are selling and forget that the numbers have to back up everything that they do and influence decisions and choices. So well done for that girls. Just remember you can never sell something effectively without knowing the cost price, sell price and margin that you are working with… trying to sell without knowing that kind of information is suicide.

It’s quite sad that there are those in our society that still feel that because one speaks slightly more mothbally than others that they are the educated and those not able to match their diction are of a lower intellect and have a reduced exposure to the real wonders of this world. WHAT!!!  It’s quite sad that an accent determines in many minds the intelligence of others. SAD!!!

Is Raef our new Tre? What was very interesting was that he said that he was not phased in situations where other “mortals” would quake. Funny that hey, he seemed to most definitely quake in his boots when put forward for Project Manager and when he returned to the house after the board room he told the boys that it was a very scary experience. We shall see in the weeks to come whether or not Raef has nerves of steel… or not!

I have found the claims of many of the contestants (”I’m the best sales person in europe!”) are a little over the top and some just a little crazy, but hey I suppose when  you are fighting on TV for a job with a six figure salary with one of the UK’s most successful businessmen I suppose you’ll say just about anything.

Well let’s see where next weeks takes us… and what Lucinda has got on!

The Apprentice: 2008… It’s Back

Well would you believe it? The Apprentice is back!!

The Apprentice is  one of my favourite programmes and in the past has been a source of much blogging for me. The first episode of 2008’s The Apprentice airs on BBC1 at 9pm Wednesday, March 26 with a line up of candidates (characters) from all over the country.  After viewing the girls and the boys it is really is going to be an interesting one. There are definitely some rottweilers in there but sadly it also looks like, yet again, we’ve a few who are along for the media ride.  I also think that we are in for a bit of a laugh judging by some of this years contestants. We also have some self confessed ruthless people who are proud to admit that they are manipulative and will do anything to get what they want. We’ve one or two who almost sound like they are trying to convince themselves of their abilities.

Well we will see, if this years Apprentice is worth watching soon enough and I shall be commenting as we go along!

but we shall have to wait and see.

Alzheimer’s: Terry Pratchett has hit the nail on the head

Thank you Terry Pratchett!!!

This week Terry Pratchett revealed to the world that as an Alzheimer’s sufferer he’s donatin $1,000,000 to research a cure for the disease. At 59 is is considered rare as he is one of the 15,000 people in the UK to contract the before the age of 65. Over 700,000 suffer Alzheimer’s in the UK and it is a disease that destroys not only the sufferer but the also the family.

Terry is raising the issue that Alzheimer’s lacks the “heroic, glamour of cancer” and that the funding for a cure for the disease is a measly 3% of the amount of research funding that cancer received. That works out as £11.00 per year as opposed to £289.00 per year. That stinks. Now lets get this straight, in no way is he decrying or belittling cancer, he’s simply stating what those of us who have a family member know, Alzheimer’s does not get equal treatment, media attention, priority or any thing else.

Can you image the drug that delays the onset of Alzheimer’s, Aricept, is not available to early sufferers? Sorry? How on earth does that make sense? Surely those who are in the early stages of the disease need it to reduce the effects of the disease and reduce the costs on the health service… or is that just common sense?

I’ve read some of the comments made about what Terry has said and to be honest many people seem to be missing the point. Terry on the other hand for me has hit the nail on the head. This disease like many others needs much more attention. We cannot continue to ignore the elderly, who have given so much to this country, and leave them suffering with this debilitating disease that takes away their dignity and their precious memories. The stigma around the disease needs to be removed and more attention and consideration given to a cure.

Here are some of stats:

There are 700,000 people with dementia in the UK. This will rise to over 1 million people by 2025 and 1.7 million by 2051.

There are 575,000 people with dementia in England. The condition affects more than 56,000 people in Scotland, 16,000 in Northern Ireland and more than 36,000 people in Wales.

One person in every 14, aged over 65, in the UK has dementia. This rises to one in six people over 80. One in three older people will end their lives with a form of dementia

More than 60 per cent of all care home residents, aged over 65, have a form of dementia.

More than 15,000 people under 65 have dementia in the UK.

Dementia affects 11,000 people from black and minority ethnic groups in the UK.

More than 24 million people have dementia today with the numbers affected doubling every 20 years to more than 80 million by 2040.

Another 4.6 million people will develop dementia around the world this year.

It’s frightening and this disease is no respecter of persons we need a cure.