Anti-learning culture - does it exist and what do we do about it?

It stems from the welfare state. I think the welfare state is a great thing, but unfortunately it has this effect. Contrast Britain to China for instance. In China, kids work their asses off in school because they know that if they don't then they'll end up being made to work in the coal mines and die of respiratory failure by the time they're 40 or some similarly macabre fate. Your education matters, because it's a dog-eat-dog world over there. If you don't do well in school it'll massively affect the rest of your life, and quite possibly cut it short by decades.

Whereas in Britain, we have the NHS and social welfare and reasonably paid, low-skilled jobs galore. There is no such pressure to do your best in school, because the ramifications for underachieving are so much lesser. Which isn't to say that social welfare is a bad thing, it's just one of the unfortunate side effects.

This was the case even at my grammar school.

I think the way forward is to give children a meaningful way to prove themselves and develop courage, self-confidence, humility and respect for others.

I think we should teach Martial Arts in schools. Forget about PE, which is pretty useless anyway, and instead teach Judo, Boxing or Fencing four times a week. Martial Arts are very much compatible with a personal learning culture (growth mindset) and teaching culture (it's quite common for more advanced pupils to show less advanced pupils how to do something). Pupils can also compete locally, regionally, nationally and even internationally.

PS. I think team sports are good, but they do encourage cheating, blaming team-mates for your own shortcomings or bullying them for being different from the pack. Unless you have a very good coach who stamps out such behaviours, I'd say that they are not really compatible with a positive learning culture.

You obviously went to a grammar school if you want to make it mandatory for all children to learn how to fight lol. Most martial artists - myself included - are a specific sort of person, the growth is based on their personality not the other way around. The licensing agency and the master were very strict, anyone misusing or even wrongly representing the art could be subject to a discretionary lifetime ban. As all instructors had to be licensed through the same authority, it would mean blacklisting anywhere in the UK. That's quite the punishment. Remove the ability to have real punishment for abuses of such power and it may cause a lot of problems, plus it allows the bullies to figure out who they can safely have a go at. Schools should not mandate such behaviours in my opinion, although some sort of focus on personal growth and attaining ones own self worth should be in the curriculum, even if its just stopping the inherent valuation of those who do well over those who do not.

It has often been noted that in many English state schools, anti-intellectual sentiment is extremely rife and that previously bright students who enter such schools aged 11 are, by the age of 16, nowhere near their potential and in fact have taken active steps to try and becoming non academic so as not to be deemed a "geek".

Has anyone witnessed this, and what can be done about it? It seems like a huge problem for the UK in particular, where we have some of the world's best universities yet we've more likely to find male students wanting to be footballer rather than to maximize their academic potential.

I would of course permanently expel pupils who abuse the arts. I think that the rigid code / honour system associated with traditional martial arts would make it quite easy to spot bullies - and then you would have a very good excuse to expel them. (It's all hypothetical since this is a pipe-dream anyway.) BTW, interesting fact: 60% of Japanese schools already teach Judo, and the Japanese government has now made Judo compulsory for middle schools. Not sure how well they teach it though.

And send them where if its mandatory at all schools? And send them where if its mandatory at all schools?

Judo isnt really a conventional martial art though, its like Taekwondo. Its great in a competitive setting but try it in any other format and you'll get beaten up lol. Judo is a reactive martial art so i suppose that explains its use in such a fashion, most of its moves are in response to something - it has very few offensive moves.

PRUs, just like now.

In fact, bullying is the same problem now, isn't it - only you don't do anything about it. Do you really think teaching Martial Arts would make bullying worse?



There is no suggestion they should try it in "another format" !

No of course not, my point is it makes sense to teach Judo as it comes with the extreme caveat that in a full fight situation it has little use as well as having few offensive moves so in teaching it you limit the danger of students using it.

There will always be bullies. The question is if there will be more, or fewer, if you teach children martial arts. I think there probably will be about the same, and the proportion of bullies who are willing to use violence will also remain about the same. I don't really see why there would be more - unless you think there are currently a lot of wannabe-bullies who can't live out their bullying fantasies in schools because they just need martial arts to unleash them.

I really very much doubt your last assertion in bold, that's just hyperbole.

Even at uni level the way you are taught is to learn and regurgitate, to quote and to remember specific facts. When you train out the ability to think and act independently, you produce poorly adjusted adults who are by most counts relatively stupid in terms of actual understanding. They can quote Marx and Engels as well as anyone but cant critically analyse what he says, and this goes for many areas of study.