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Higher English Activities Test - Task 1

Task 1

Why should soldiers be fast-tracked into teaching? 

Archie Bland argues that the education minister's proposal is insulting to children and 
demonstrates a profoundly anti-intellectual contempt for the teaching profession.

In its wisdom, the Government has decided to give members of the Armed Forces a fast 
track route into teaching. The plan, long in the making, will give former troops the chance to 
teach even if they don’t hold a university degree, and I'm all for it, but I don’t think the 
Government is going far enough. Yes, we need a military ethos in our schools. But what 
about our hospitals? 

Think about it. Schools will benefit from the military values of leadership, discipline, 
motivation and teamwork, as David Laws and Michael Gove have argued, but you know 
where else those values would be useful? The chaotic world of hospitals! OK, so not all 
soldiers have an education in medicine. But they have the right values. And the right values 
are much more important than the right qualifications. 

The image of infantrymen moving from the military’s theatres of operations to the hospitals’ 
operating theatres is not the only one available to demonstrate how absurd this proposal is, 
how insulting to teachers and children, and how profoundly anti intellectual, with its 
contempt for the idea that knowing about things might be a necessary prerequisite for 
teaching them. And these other modest proposals make still clearer the rationale for the 
Government’s pursuit of this particular wheeze. Imagine, for instance, that teachers were to 
be fast-tracked into combat units because of their capacities to work hard, manage people 
and deal with stressful situations. Or try to picture charity workers getting teaching jobs 
without a degree because a philanthropic ethos might be just as worth instilling in our 
children as a military one. Any such suggestion would be greeted, rightly, with puzzlement. 

And yet with the military it’s different. This plan is based on an American example – with the 
difference that in America, 99 per cent of participants already had a degree – and in recent 
years we’ve been edging closer to the American model of unthinking glorification of our 
Armed Forces. When soldiers and sailors behave well, their exploits are used as evidence 
of military nobility. When they behave badly, they are seen as bad apples, and we rarely 
ask whether their wrongdoing might in fact be the product of a poisoned culture. 

I suppose this squeamishness is understandable: ever since the invasion of Afghanistan, 
we’ve been engaged in brutal conflicts that cost most of us very little and a few of us a great 
deal. We owe those few. But squeamishness, and a heavy debt, are not a sensible basis 
for policy making. So, although it feels frankly treacherous to say so, here goes: a military 
culture is appropriate for the front line, but not for the classroom, where independent 
thinking should be considered essential. Soldiers might be brave, and well-disciplined, but if 
they aren’t well qualified that probably won’t be enough to make them good educators. 
Teachers are doing something really difficult. And children? Children are not the enemy. 

The Independent on Sunday, 9th June 2013

NC Communication Literature 1 - Task

NHS prioritising those with a ‘healthy lifestyle’? I think there's enough 
stereotyping already.

Bit tubby? Back of the queue. Smoker? Back of the queue. Drinker? Back of the queue. 
Natasha Devon - @natashadevonmbe

Yesterday it was announced that a ‘think-tank’ has recommended that patients who have a‘healthy lifestyle’ are prioritized for NHS care.

Here’s why they’re wrong:

Anyone who has had the misfortune to visit an A&E department recently will know that they aren’t just stretched to capacity, they are stretched far beyond it. Medical professionals simply do not have time to conduct an in-depth health assessment of every patient who enters the building. Which inevitably means they’ll have to rely on stereotyping, assumption and, ultimately, misdiagnosis.

And there’s far too much of that going on already, as I recently discovered.  Last month my spleen ruptured for, as far as the doctors could make out, absolutely no reason whatsoever. This is, admittedly, an extremely unusual medical occurrence.  However, I was shocked at the extent to which, during my week in a London hospital, assumptions about my health and lifestyle were made on a perfunctory, inaccurate and often purely visual basis and the words which actually came out of my mouth were completely disregarded.

I am almost six foot tall and a size 16. Whilst I’m not drastically overweight, the antiquated BMI chart tells a different story - I do have an absolutely almighty and disproportionate bosom. I have an active lifestyle (not rock climbing, marathon running type active, but I’m always dashing about at high speeds and rarely sit still), I eat a very healthy and balanced diet and I do not smoke. My vice-of-choice is that I’m partial to a tipple and, prior to my hospital visit, I drank about two large glasses of wine on an average night.  The latter is a fact I was foolish enough to share, in a moment of ill-advised candour, with my A&E Doctor.  When I was admitted to hospital with extremely severe abdominal and shoulder pain, difficulty breathing and a visibly bloated stomach, the aforementioned doctor was quick to inform me that I had ‘indigestion’ because I ‘drank too much’ and gave me a little tiny pot of anti-burp medicine. When this, unsurprisingly, proved to be an inadequate remedy for my symptoms and scans revealed I did not have gall stones (from ‘drinking too much’) or appendicitis, I was placed ‘under observation’.

Another doctor in the ward helpfully informed me that my stomach was not, in fact, as I had been insisting, bloated. Apparently she knew my body far better than I did. ‘Just……you know’ , she said. (She followed this vague statement with a hand gesture I took to mean ‘you’re a little bit fat’). She recommended I remained under observation. I insisted on having a diagnostic procedure. At no point during any of this was I considered to be ‘urgent’.  I was put on a not-particularly-high-priority list. Two and a half days after being admitted to hospital I finally went in to have what I thought was a routine keyhole procedure to look inside my tummy with cameras.

Eight hours later I woke up. They’d found a litre and a half of internal bleeding in my abdomen (that’ll explain the bloating, then) and had to perform an emergency laparotomy (where they slice you down the middle like a pirate would) to determine the source of the bleeding and eventually fix my broken spleen.

After my operation, I was told it would take me ‘longer than most’ to begin walking again because I’m a ‘big girl’. I defied that broken logic and astounded my doctors and nurses by walking, lifting stuff and leaving the ward in record time. A month later I am back to work, dashing about endlessly once more.

Despite the lazy stereotyping I was subjected to, my recovery proved that I am strong in both mind and body. Endless blood tests revealed me also to be in tip-top health.  Quite simply, if this proposed regulation is put into place then I and millions of others like me will be wrongly disadvantaged. Bit tubby? Back of the queue. Smoker? Back of the queue. Drinker? Back of the queue. Anyone who isn’t a lean, glowing, gym-frequenting whippet who eschews anything known to reduce life-expectancy (including, presumably, stress), BACK OF THE QUEUE, because your ill health is clearly your own fault.  It’s difficult enough trying to conquer the judgements already made about your lifestyle in medical circles, without it being enforced by official guidelines.

Two things stuck with me after my health-scare. The first is that had I listened to the initial advice I was given, or not been fortunate enough to be able to passionately stand up for myself and demand further investigation, I would now be dead.

The second is a comment by a family friend after the event, who said “do you think perhaps the doctors didn’t take you seriously because you have pink hair?”

The Independent, 14 March 2013 www.independent.co.uk - www.completeissues.co.uk