'Education is the passport to your future' - really?!

Okay so as a Sixth Form student, exam season has just passed. Therefore my Sixth Form has stuck posters up around, supposedly encouraging students to work hard, revise and get good grades.

Now I might've simply read a bit too deeply into the meaning of that statement plastered on the bottom of the poster but I don't really think that it's portraying the most positive message to students who are already on the brink of a mental breakdown from the levels of stress and pressure which they're having to cope with. To me it just looks like a form propaganda to boost the statistics, but that might be a little far fetched...
By using this slogan, it is suggesting that without an education, you will not 'gain access' to your future as such.
If you don't pass these exams then you're a failure, basically. You've technically lost your 'passport to your future'.
I know for a fact, that education is not the only way to having a successful life. Okay so that's a bit of a vague statement as everybody considers success as something different. For example, for me success is when I'm very happy. Of course this can be achieved by getting good grades, or earning lots of money from my job but in all honesty, being surrounded by people who love you can also bring happiness personally. Maybe even loosing weight would make you feel very happy.
Therefore education is not necessarily needed for your future!
I don't know, I guess it just depends what you're striving for in the future but I think that posters like this are simply trying to force you into being something you may not really want to be and adding more unnecessary pressure to your life, which definitely isn't going to make you any happier.
What's the point in living if you're not happy?!
Of course everyone goes through periods of anxiety and anger in their lives but not getting an A* in that exam shouldn't limit your whole future.

Since writing this post, I've found an article on the BBC news website all about banning erasers in schools. Click here to view the original article. It talks about how there have been suggestions that rubbers should be banned in schools because they allow children to remove their mistakes from their work. I quote 'Claxton's argument is that by making children deny they make mistakes, we fail to prepare them for the real world, where mistakes can be made, and consequences ensue.'

So this makes sense, by allowing children to remove mistakes they're not being prepared for the real world, yeah fair enough.

However isn't this extremely contradicting to the whole system of exams and the idea that 'education is the passport to your future'?!? I say this because the original statement implies that if you fail and do not get an education then you've lost your future. So when you're in an exam, you're not allowed to make mistakes because if you do and you fail, BOOM game over.

Okay so I'm not sure if that made too much sense, but hey ho. Rant over.
Thank you for reading, what do you think? Have I read far too deeply into this poster?
Opinions are appreciated:)

Election day! A young person's perspective...

So, politics.
Today, if you weren't already aware, is election day in the UK. This is where anybody over the age of 18 can vote for who they want to run the country for the next few years basically.

As a British teen, I do not like the fact that my knowledge of politics and the parties, candidates etc is very very limited. All I know is that you can vote a polling station and the main parties are the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats, UKIP and the Green Party (I think).

Yes I have basic knowledge of what each party kind of wants but who I would vote for? No clue.

It's funny because you hear about lots of parties trying to get young people's votes because they usually don't bother voting etc. There is a reason for why we don't bother. Of course some people just don't really care and can't be bothered but I would say that its more down to the fact that we don't understand.
We hear rumours from newspapers, television, the internet, other people about some parties being very violent, corrupt, a bit wacky, all about upper class people/ lower class people and sometimes that it doesn't matter who you vote for, nothing will change.
 This information can be very subjective and biased of course because whoever is telling you this information has got a purpose to get you to vote for a particular party otherwise they probably wouldn't be talking to you.

To solve the lack of knowledge of politics in young people, I would suggest having lessons in politics and just being able to learn about who's who, what they want for Britain and their history perhaps. Okay so yeah, some people may object which is fair enough but surely knowing about who will run the country is much more important that Pythagoras's theorem?!
Children ARE the future. They will one day be standing up against each other trying to rule the country, that's a fact.

However, I understand that It would be very hard to deliver this information objectively, as all teachers would have their own personal opinions and beliefs, which kinda throws the idea of being taught about politics in schools out of the window but how else can we learn about this stuff?

I once again, do not have the answer, it's just something that irritates me as I feel like I'm really missing out but I would not want to jeopardise this country with my lack of understanding.

Thank you for reading, what do you think?
Just a disclaimer, of course this is my own personal experience, maybe you went to a school were they taught you this stuff? Let me know how you learnt about politics and who to vote for. Who influenced you?

The dependency culture of technology

Okay so this post is a bit different to my other stuff. It's also the second time that I've attempted at posting this as the stupid blogger app deleted the whole post before actually posting it. Fucking brilliant.

Anyway.. So as a society I think we're becoming more and more dependent on technology to live. We are permanently attached to our mobile phones, listening to our iPods or scrolling through facebook on a computer. 

For example;

'75% of Americans admit to taking their mobile phone to the toilet'

I'm sorry whaaaat? 

Some people argue that they like having their phones with them at all times to feel safe. Yes I completely understand that and there are many benefits to having a phone. GPs, entertainment, safety, capturing memories etc... 

But, who's going to magically appear in your bathroom and attack you whilst you're on the loo?!?! 

This would suggest that maybe it isn't just for safety as to why we crave our phones. 

Nowadays we like having constant attention, constant entertainment, constant conversations. 

This then leads me to think about the future (and the title of this post). As a society we greatly depend on technology. Of course there are major benefits to having these things in our lives and we are very lucky to live in a world such as this. 

As time goes on, we're becoming more and more dependent. This also links to why the obesity rate is so high nowadays, we don't do things for ourselves. We don't have to, so why bother?

Need to get somewhere? Take the car.

Need to wash the dishes? Use a dishwasher.

Need to buy groceries? Do some online shopping.

So does this mean that future generations are going to be completely reliant on these technologies just to live? 

Can you imagine the day when people don't know how to read a clock because they don't need to know. All they have to do is press a button on their smartphone. 

Personally this worries me. 

Say this trend continues, how can our children learn to survive when we don't really live ourselves? 

Children are like sponges. They'll soak information up, ask questions, want to know more. They have endless amounts of creativity. 

But if we just shove them in front of an iPad with a game of Angry Birds, how can they make memories, gain experiences and learn from their mistake? All the things that have to happen for you to live your life. 

I'd like to say 'oh well, it's not my problem'. But actually it is. My children, your children, the future generations who will rule the world have to be considered.

I have no idea what can be done about these problems, but we can't just think about ourselves anymore.

Hope you've had a nice week, it's been lovely weather here in England for a change!;) thank you for reading this. 

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