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.

MMM
Sitting in front of a computer and still using a hardcopy dictionary, and having the gall to have a go at other people for being thick. Bit of a cunt really.

Plurals have no apostrophe though, Milly. ('Degree's', anyone? Good job you've only got one, Milly!)

This is a thread where you go back and pull other people's spelling and grammar apart, right? Or have I got the wrong end of the stick? Is it about something else?

Well LeQueen, you've done alright so fine, but maybe others don't cope so well with upsets in their lives. Nothing to with intellectual capacity and all that......

Le Queen I have a Mathematics degree and (quite coincidently) 2 years post-grad study but I use an on line dictionary. My real point was that MMM is a patronising cow who by breathing is stealing oxygen.

LeQueen, would you imagine that people who AREN'T doctors might also go through awful trauma in their lives?

Surely it's the ability to communicate one's intellectual prowess which is affected by circumstance LeQueen, rather than the intellectual ability itself?

Or maybe the oppotunity? I know about all sorts of things. Most of my friends would be more interested in the woman who was/wasn't thrown off the bus in Bristol, than Chaucer/Mobile Phone technology/Virginia Woolf etc.

LeQueen, I thought that doctors merely observed trauma, and occasionally treat it. It is (skilfully avoiding the slippery apostrophe) their patients who actually go through it.

Completely by the by (as ever) but I was wondering why people think that teaching is a badly paid job (someone said "you can't get rich on teaching"). Starting salary (here in the rovinces 21,500 rising to 48,000 as a head of department. If you enter management the pay (again in the provinces) can range from 37-105,000. All these rates are higher in London.
An experienced classroom teacher earns 36,000 - that is a pretty decent wage is it not?
(I used to be a teacher and we fought hard in the union to get these rates of pay)

This is related but not directly addressing the OP:

I am peturbed by the tendancy for people to assume that people who cannot spell or use poor grammar are thick....I feel like shouting "haven't you heard of dyslexia?". It affects 10% of all people - 3 out of 100 severely, and 7 out of 100 moderately or slightly.

Suspect that so many people deemed non academic are undiagnosed dyslexics. Schools are - as a rule - pretty shit at picking it up. You need a savvy, pushy parent usually to get it identified

LeQueen, that happens to people who aren't dcotors too!

15 dyslexic students on my current degree course (medicine). Dyslexia does not (necessarily) mean you can't pass exams or access the school curriculum. Problems with grammar are generally not related to dyslexia (apart from those to do with capitalisation and punctuation)

I think LeQueen is just giving the profession of people she has known who have gone through that, rather than suggesting that only doctors go through it IYSWIM.

Becuase she only associates with graduates

LeQueen, I'm sure you agree that it wouldn't be wise to assume that doctors don't make mistakes due to emotional trauma based on the evidence of two who didn't.

hmc, that is interesting. My ex reckoned he was dyslexic, possibly, but was never diagnosed. He was/is extremely bright, but struggled with book learning.

"Dyslexia does not (necessarily) mean you can't pass exams or access the school curriculum"

No, not necessarily but it can and does affect academic achievement for many - especially if undiagnosed and thus no appropriate support / input during child's education.

"Does dyslexia affect grammar?"

Well no - not really LeQueen, I just carelessly threw that in with spelling . Tends to affect reading (but often surmountable), spelling, sometimes comprehension, working memory etc

It can hmc, but also increasingly cynical schools will also put students in for dyslexia assessments to get extra time for their students to push up exam results.
Don't get me wrong, I am not denying how disabling dyslexia can be, but just commenting that many people with the condition also achieve very highly in the academic sphere.