Saturday 15 March 2014

Hidden agenda?

There has recently been a flurry of comment and criticism of the English system of education, comparing ours unfavourably with that of China.  The basics of that are common enough in that about once every six weeks or so there is another body of criticism about our education system in which it is described as failing in one way or another.  When I read this week about a tweet posted by a 20-year-old beautician from Blackpool - and a bonny lass she is, if the photo I saw does her justice - my immediate reaction was, "This just proves it; our education system is not simply failing, it has already failed".  But that was just a knee-jerk reaction, not so very far distant from the numerous insulting comments her tweet drew from people across the globe.  This is what she had tweeted:
If barraco barner is our president why is he getting involved with Russia, scary
That, on the face of it, is a particularly stupid comment from an English girl.  Has she never seen the US President's name spelled out?  And what's this about "our president"?  We don't have such a person.  And if we did, it would not be Mr O.  And just to make matters worse, it appears that this young lady claims to have 17 GCSEs!  Considering that it is the aim of most secondary schools to get their pupils to pass 5 GCSEs and the brainier students might pass 11, 17 does seem a trifle excessive, especially for a beautician.

No, I said to myself, there's more to this than meets the eye.  It seemed to me that there could be several possible reasons behind what appeared to be an exceptionally stupid comment.
  1. The young lady really is as dumb as she seems.
  2. The school she attended failed abysmally in the attempt to educate her.
  3. This was just a heavy-handed attempt at humour aimed solely at her friends.
  4. This was an attempt as self-publicity which has back-fired.
But whatever the reason for the tweet, I'm sure it will have been completely forgotten in a few days.  Except by the young lady concerned.


~~~~~

A misty morning, as seen from the bedroom window.


2 comments:

Linda said...

Your photo is lovely. Greetings from Montreal, Canada.

Brighton Pensioner said...

Thanks, Linda.