Tories, they just can't get it right.

God it has been a week. First we found out that the is a possible cover up of child abuse claims by the Conservative party as over 100 files go missing from the home secretary. Then we find that Thatcher possibly knew of the cover up and actually helped to keep the claims out of the public eye. Last week was not a good week for the Tories. Less than a year before the next general election, the curtain is being pulled on the corrupt actions of the party during the 80s and 90s. This was starting to die down as we entered a new week of current affairs but has heated up again after Cameron has announced a huge cabinet shuffle this evening which has seen William Hague moved out of his job as foreign secretary. The government claim that the shuffle is to give the election campaign an extra boost in order to give the Tories the best shot at making us sit through another four year of facepalming. Many believe that Cameron knows the party will be faced with some tough questions in the next few months and wants to rid himself of any old Tories as possible to give once again the lean look which contributed to his win in 2010.

To do this, Cameron is rumoured to be adding a lot more women to the cabinet. Not because he wants to but because he "needs" to in order to attract voters. Young female Tories have always excited to British public. Although not necessarily young, Thatcher both thrilled and scared voters when she first rose to power and arguably did so throughout her reign. In Scotland, where to vote Conservative (to some) is like an act of treason, Ruth Davidson (leader of the Scottish Conservatives) is becoming more and more popular down to her "dynamic" political style in promoting the advantages of a union (so the New Statesman says). You could say, the public crave a strong female political figure. In Tory logic it also shuts the feminists up. This then, from a Conservative's point of view is a good thing - put women in power, stop the feminists from moaning and get votes from the public. NOPE.

I actually find it offensive that women are being shoved in the cabinet in favour of men just because they are women. We shouldn't live in a world where you get jobs on what sex you are, we should get jobs depending on whether we are the right candidate and that decision should be made in an unbiased and just way. Personally, if David Cameron was offering me a job in his cabinet at this time because I have boobs I would tell him to shove it. Female MPs shouldn't be used as pawns in order to win an election and then be discarded.

When I heard of the cabinet shift, I prayed that Gove had been sacked yet, alas, no joy. Despite making education a misery both for students and teacher and failing to improve grades significantly in the process, Mikey is still in a job and I must go on with my suffering as he sucks individuality and self-expression out of education (thank goodness I am coming out of the other end of it!). Everyday Gove stays in his job, the more the Tories prove they are out of tough with the public. It isn't teacher's fault strikes happen, it is his. My Mother cared deeply for her students and was sad to leave them but he drove her out of the profession and will do the same for thousands more.

On the bright side, women can now be bishops. Hooray for women!

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Gove's attack on American Literature.

He has done it again and this time he is attacking literature. This man cannot help but annoy the hell out of me. Gove has announced that 'To Kill A Mockingbird' and 'Of Mice and Men' will be taken off of the GCSE syllabus in favour of "fiction or drama written in the British Isles".

The new syllabus is set to feature:

• A Shakespeare play.
• A 19th Century novel.
• And a 20th Century novel.

All to be written by British writers.

Does American literature not matter? My GCSE English class were given 'Of Mice and Men' as an easy end to our course after we were told to compare Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' with Shakespeare's 'Othello' (near impossible) but we all absolutely loved it. From my knowledge of my school's way of teaching GCSE English is that the 'lower' ability groups will usually study 'Of Mice and Men', 'To Kill A Mocking Bird' or 'The Crucible' (also being booted off) because of it's apparent themes and easy to follow narrative. The stories in Steinbeck and Lee's books are very warming and are able to teach children about race and class and dreaming even though it is unlikely the dream will succeed. 'Of Mice and Men' introduced us to the cruelty of capitalism and in particular America. As a class we almost fell in love with Lennie, who is mentally disabled, and were heart broken when we read over his demise and the cruelty and injustice of it.

Although I have not read Harper Lee's classic, it is on my bookshelf and I'm set to read it soon now that my exams are out of the way. I know it centres round Atticus (a lawyer) and his two children, Scout and Jem and the troubles they get into when Atticus decides to represent a black man in a rape trial. Also the novel is written by a woman which is something that is already rare in the GCSE (and A-Level) syllabus that it is almost saddening. 

Each book/ play teaches us something as well as being able to capture the imaginations of those who read it. To me it seems more than suspicious that the Tory government want to get rid of books that teach us about prejudice and injustice in favour of British, 'stiff upper lip' literature. Children will be bored, teachers will be exhausted (because teachers cannot just pull resources for every text ever written out of their backside), less will take English onto A-Level. Big mistake.

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Finally, someone speaks out about Gove.

This is the truth. I know because I've spent my life surrounded by teachers (family and friends) and I've also shown it to some of my teachers and they all agree. Is this what we want for British education? This woman deserves a medal.

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Why is Media Studies a subject worth keeping?

Rumour has it that the government aren't sure whether or not they will be keeping Media Studies as a qualification as of 2016 as a GCE qualification. As a student who has taken the GCSE and is currently studying A-Level Media (as well as it being my favourite subject), I am outraged that in the near future children won't be able to learn about the world via the media.

Firstly, lets get some misconceptions out of the way about GCE Media Studies:

• It is an easy subject - Nope, It is ridiculously academic. Although the subject is heavily coursework based, it is also heavily based on knowledge that you have obtained elsewhere about the outside world. "Good Media students", as one of my teachers would say, are having to constantly be looking out for things that could be used within the subject. What I have noticed about doing AS Media is that I can no longer just watch an advert and that be that, I have to analyse it as I watch it looking out for "mise-en-scene" and "representations" and whether or not "the advert is a cliché of every other advert ever". A couple of weeks ago we were given the "revision guide" for our Media exam this Friday and it was a sheet of A4 paper. Although we have less exams than other A-Levels (because we do coursework through out the year), we cannot revise because the exam specification is so broad, the questions could be on anything as well as the exam being 2h30 long making it (I think) the longest exam apart from Art. As I say to my friends, "the Media exam is hard because it isn't a memory test.". In subjects such as the sciences, the answers are determined from the guides the exam board release where as (like I said before) the Media exam can be on anything.
• It is a girl's subject - The same as the sciences are a boy's subject? Let us not forget that as close as 40 years ago, journalism was a form of MEDIA almost exclusively run by men. It has only been it the past few decades that we have seen strong and truly amazing women come into the profession. Yes, in my Media class there is probably one boy to every three girls but journalism is still predominantly a male profession and many of them are there out of privilege rather than the quality of what they are saying. Look at current journalists such as Owen Jones who is from a working class background standing up for the mis-representation of the working class in the media, he came from state funded education and now regularly writes for the Independent as well as being a successful author as a result of his books on the working class. He is one of the most intelligent people I can think of in today's media and he is a "normal bloke".

So with these two misconceptions straightened out why does our male-dominated, academic government feel that Media Studies isn't worth our time? Well, this is my theory: I believe that the media run the world. They can take a reasonably good politician and make him look bad as well as taking a reasonably bad politician look good. We do not listen to the government directly, we listen to the media's (already altered) view on what the government have told us and so (depending on what paper/channel we hear it from) we are going to take that view rather than the government's direct view. It isn't just politics, it is everything... two-step flow theory: the mass media (ie: everything that is going on in the world at present) is picked up by the media - called "the gatekeeper" (ie: newspapers, news channels, blogs etc) and give it to you. It could be a kind of soap or a film, anything! Media tycoons are some of the richest and most powerful in the world. Rupert Murdoch has more money than sense and has political influences not only in the U.K but in America also. Simon Cowell has dictated what kind of music the world listens to for about 20 years now. The media has tremendous power over the world we live in today.

To me, I think that politicians are seeing a form of aid for themselves (in order to increase voters or boost popularity etc) slowly begin to become more powerful and more influential than government itself. Social media, for example, has given everyone with internet access a voice to be heard by people across the world (even me, a 17-year old school girl) and with that people are able to see what is actually going on in the world without the aid of two-step flow and it has become much easier for people to question what the government are actually doing. Also, an increasing amount of young people from working backgrounds are coming into the media with left-wing views (many of which are women) threatens the Etonian, right-wing government that are currently in power. They want to decrease the power of left media before people actually begin to question the greedy policies that the "selfservatives" puke out upon the British public.

Of course, I am not saying that this is a feminist attack or that the sciences are any less important than the arts as Media Studies tends the reflect both and you can look at the media via both routes. I just cannot stand people bringing it down because it is a subject that they haven't bothered their time to partake in and won't because women do it. If there is such a push to get more women into sciences such as engineering and physics then surely shouldn't we also be trying to encourage more men into media? 

As someone who hopes to study Media at university, I, naturally, would say it is the best subject in the world but let me tell you one thing. When I chose Media as an opinion in year 9, I thought it would be the most boring piece of crap I'd ever experienced yet I now it is something that my life revolves around. 

I couldn't embed an extract lecture by Owen Jones on the working-class that we watched this year in Media into post so here is a link to it.

What do you think about Media Studies as a qualification? Please leave a comment!

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Gove is an arsehole.

I've made it clear in the past that Michael Gove to me is a perfect example of an absolute idiot with the Uni fees and the academy status (to name a few) and now he is beating out Labour peers from their posts with no reason and no warning? This man needs to leave politics and not come back.

This man is reluctant to allow the working class to have an equal right to education as the middle and upper classes and so triples University fees causing current students to be in debt until their 40. On top of this he enforces the Tory philosophy "If you're not a striver, you're a skiver." into compulsory education by making exams harder and harder for less able students to succeed. Somehow the man thinks these ridiculous changes will somehow raise the standard of the U.K's economy.

Some people may say that these proposals are a good idea and that we just have to wait and see yet almost 3/4 of the way through the Conservatives' term we have fallen out of the Pisa Top 20 and are now ranked at 26th place overall. To top this, Scotland (which is run by a separate government) are currently top in the U.K for the survey which tests 15 year old students on their maths, science and reading skills. Regardless, Mr Gove still insists that his new oppressive system which is pushing teachers out of their profession is exactly what the country needs.

It came to light over the weekend that Sally Morgan, OFSTED chair and Labour peer, had been sacked in order to, in Gove's words, "bring a fresh perspective" and insisted on the Andrew Marr show that it had nothing to do with the fact that she leaned towards the left and was a woman. Morgan and Shadow Deputy Prime Minister Harriet Harman seem to disagree. Morgan said in a Radio 4 interview that "I am the latest of a fairly long list of people now who are non-Conservative supporters who are not being re-appointed." which shows that Gove has an agenda to fulfil over the next year and a half to make weaken Labour's influence in organisations such as OFSTED. Harman stood up to Gove on the Andrew Marr show and asked why so many female's post were being replaced by men also saying "It's like raining men in the Tory party!" she continued to question Gove and asked "What is your problem in government with women?". I agree with her, apart from Nadine Dorries and Theresa May I wouldn't be able to name a recent female Conservative MP off the top of my head.

As much as I sympathise with Sally Morgan, OFSTED aren't in my good books either. They to me are a spineless organisation that seem too scared to stand up for what education is really about and go along with Gove's 'children are numbers' strategy to reforming the British education system. They do not motivate schools, they push them down and create tension in the work place and between the school and its peers. Yes, of course if a school need to improve, it needs to improve but the fact that some inspectors observe lessons and then don't give the teacher feedback afterwards (I am saying this from experience) renders the whole operation as a complete waste of time.

Maybe OFSTED does need a fresher outlook and maybe teacher need to improve standards because obviously schools in the U.K are not doing as well as they should be, as Mikey has told us that enough times, but how long can he put the blame on other people? The facts are simple: since the Conservatives came into power, standards in education have gone down and who is meant to be in charge of education? Yes, Michael Gove.

Sources:
Sally Morgan's radio interview - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25997102
Gove on Andrew Marr - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26005917
2013 Pisa results - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25187997
Harriet Harman on Gove - http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/02/02/harriet-harman-mocks-gove_n_4711813.html?utm_hp_ref=uk

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