To be pissed off that people who are not academic are branded as thick!

[teamcullen]

Why is it that people/children who are not academically clever are constantly branded as Thick, stupid or the underclass of society.

A person can leave school at 16 with little qualifications and work every day of their lives in McDonalds or a shop or as a labourer. They pay taxes. They contribute to society. Yet people constantly make comments on how you must be thick to work in those proffessions.

There are options in schools for children to take vocational courses, but I am always seeing comments like "No way Id let my DC take a deploma or vocational course." Or those subjects are only for the thick kids!

I understand that if a child is likely to go to uni, they need to take the traditinal route of GCSEs and A levels, but the world ecomony would quickly cease if everybody took this route.

Just because somebody is not academic, does not constitute being thick. Creative skills, patience, common sence, empathy and listening skills to name just a few are things that may not come naturatly to those with letters after their name, but are needed in many proffessions.

If a child who is not academic goes into the world at 16 and works hard in a job which needs no or little qualifications is it not unreasonable to treat tham and their proffession with a bit of respect.

[2shoes]

you are not wrong

[junglist1]

I agree with you. There are different types of intelligences anyway. I'll have a degree, passed my car theory test with flying colours, yet can't pass the practical test after 4 tries and have had a guinea pig hutch in the back for a month because I can't work out what goes where . I'd love to be practical but am stuck being bookish.

[JaneS]

It's ridiculous imo. Comfortingly, you often find that people who have the creative skills and get-ahead to do well, do actually score as very bright on educational psychologists' tests.

Personally, my IQ is pretty low and in some areas I am seriously retarded. In 'academic' terms I should never have learnt to read. But here I am, my PhD is coming on nicely, and I think all this categorizing gets a bit silly.

We should just accept that people have different skills, and we'd be lost if we were all bright in the same way.

[CastleDouglas]

The trouble is, society often looks at people in terms of academic intelligence.FWIW, I agree with you, there are plenty of professions where you don't need a degree level of education, yet are extremely important and worthwhile, e.g. childminders.

[Mrsdoasyouwouldbedoneby]

I agree. It's like, in order to validate your existence as a human being, you need to be HIGHLY educated and in a TOP PAYING job. Well, their are plenty of people whose shoes I am not fit to WIPE, that have been humble and in societies eyes a failure. Heaven forfend you CHOOSE (because you have the means), to NOT PAY TAXES (i.e not work), but choose a life of voluntary type work... Stupid self-effacing types...

That said, I don't pay taxes... I work in child-care, and don't earn enough... LOL

Without without the smallest of cogs, the world would grind to a halt!

[oldenglishspangles]

YANBU - some of the happiest people I know are, by choice, in the so called 'bottom feeder' jobs. They have made a decision about what they value and live theirs lives accordingly.

[purplepeony]

I didn't think they were- what's made you think this? Maybe you perceive that due to you feeling a bit inferior?

One other point- you can't always assume that peopel who are doing mundane jobs are "thick". At one point, my local supermareket was staffed by ( albeit temporary) staff who were studying to be vets, chemists and physicists- my DD and her uni friends!

My son is also working as a waiter as he is otherwise unemployed and he has an MSc.

[oldenglishspangles]

Says it all

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

No nail - ie cleaners, domestics, sewager workers factory workers etc no kingdom.

[ChasingSquirrels]

umm, because one of the informal uses of the work thick is lacking mental ability?

[bamboobutton]

YANBU!
i wasted years trying to get the right qualifications to get into university as it was "the done thing"

i was so much happier when i finally admitted to myself that academia bored the crap out of me and i went to beauty school instead.

[coralanne]

Who brands them this way? I think purplepeony is right.

Do you feel a little bit inferior to think this way?

One thing to remember is that the only person who can make you feel inferior is yourself.

When I first started Uni, we all sat in the lecture hall feeling really great. The lecturer bought us down to size when he commented that actually at least one third of us wouldn't complete the course.

Also that most of the people in the lecture hall were like sheep and had followed the predicted route their whole life.

Some amazingly brilliant people had chosen to reject the Uni route because it was just an extension of school and they could get to where they wanted to be by a different route.

[drloves8]

lol ! Cave-man sat no exams, caveman passed no tests , cave man had no degree ....but cave man discovered fire - clever caveman (especially as caveman had no matches ! ).

[runnybottom]

Who do you imagine is calling the non-academic "thick"?
Your OP seems confused. Yes you can leave school early and work in mcd's and be a productive, valued and important member of society and as worthy as anyone else. You can also be illiterate and lacking in knowledge. Or not.

I think theres a lot of inverse snobbery here actually. There is nothing wrong with valuing education highly. Education is the silver bullet. The better educated you are the better your chances of being healthier, happier, living longer, and yes wealthier. What is so wrong for preferring that?

[drloves8]

education is the silver bullet? mabey . funny, there are loads of people out there with degrees who cant get a job . (or at least in their chosen field ,using that degree.) .

[teamcullen]

purplwpeony The reasons for making me feel this is widely from peoples posts on MN. Comments such as;

People working in childcare must be thick because they use the word Ta (not a direct quote but thats what was meant)

Blah Blah subject is not a GCSE, its only for the thick kids.

Even when I went to view a school which specialised in vocational courses, the teacher made a similar comment, that his BTEC course in building/painting and decorating was mainly for the thick kids.

I certainly dont feel inferior to anybody. Im of working class background, my dad had a manual job, yet he was a very clever man, who put many to shame in thinking that he must be thick, in his knowledge and understanding of certain subjects.

One of the greatest lessons he taught me was that people are valued for who they are and not where they come from or how much wealth they have.

But I have a DS who is not academic, but works very hard and tries his best. I have every faith that he will grow up to be a hard working man, probably in a manual job and it annoys me that a wide part of society have unintentinally branded him a failior.

[runnybottom]

thats missing the point drloves8.

[NonnoMum]

I think every member of society should be valued whether they hold a Doctorate or a sweeping brush.

A lot of posts recently about Options and MNers not wanting their DCs to do vocational subjects, or even GCSE Sociology.

[mybabywakesupsinging]

I think wrong to judge a life's worth by such a narrow measure. Such a small part of them.
Other qualities are just as / more important.
I work in medicine, so none of my colleagues are "thick". But some are arrogant, dismissive, manipulative...as I say, clever is not a bad thing, but it is a really a very small thing.

[drloves8]

. runnybottom ... exams and degrees are a bit pointless if there is no jobs to use them in.
anyway surely true intellegence is when you discover things for yourself, teach yourself ... not memorise stuff in a book. exams are about whether you can memorise imo.
If there was no- one with true intellegence then no new discoveries would be made ...academia is well, academic.

[drloves8]

intellegence and academic abillity are two very different things .

[Mrsdoasyouwouldbedoneby]

Depends... Some of the Intelligent people I have known lacked COMMON SENSE to an extent that would have excluded them from working in Maccy D's.. so a good thing they were destined for better things.... . I think it is when we OVER value either group we get it wrong. I don't think unintelligent people feel threatened... I think people who are of average intelligence, but lack self confidence feel threatened because, in one sense, they probably could have achieved more, but never did... And I am fully aware that my language exposes me as I have said achieved more and better things...

[MillyR]

I don't think there is a prejudice against people completing non-academic qualifications. On MN there is a prejudice against qualifications that people perceive as useless.

So training as a dance teacher is not really academic but useful. Training in business studies is not really academic and probably not useful in the eyes of many people

[janeiteisFedUp]

You are absolutely right. Unfortunately our society sees children without five A*-Cs as having 'failed' and refuses to accept that, in the law of averages, not everybody is going to be capable of achieving the 'average' grade - so schools/teachers are condemned, pupils feel like failures if they don't achieve and everybody thinks they have a right to a university place, even if they don't really want one. Bonkers.