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?

Education in the UK and examinations

So, if you haven't already read or guessed I am a student and I go to sixth form. I have been in education for over 10 years now and I'm planning to stay here for another 5 years I guess. Currently I'm studying A-levels in Biology, History, Sociology and Dance.
With upcoming exams in about 4 weeks, it made me think about how strange our education system is here in the UK (other countries are probably very similar but I haven't got proper knowledge on those, if you get what I'm saying).

You start reception at 4 years old and on the first day you wave goodbye to your parent/guardian who usually sheds a tear at their little monkey growing up.
You reach 11 years old and youre off to 'big school' where you think you're really grown up leaving all the little kids behind.
Then before you know it, you've reached 16. You have sat through your GCSE's and spent countless hours in the exam hall.
These results determine whats going to happen next in your life.
By 18 you've finished your college/sixth form life.
Results day will decide for you whether you're going to have a gap year, go to uni or get a full-time job.

Exams and exam results seem incredibly important at the time. I personally spent hours slaving away behind textbooks to get some decent GCSE's and hopefully will get some o.k A-level results.

But I can't be the only one how finds it weird how our futures are supposedly determined by what grade we get from writing on a piece of paper for an hour or two?

This method of learning isn't really learning in my opinion. The exams are teaching us that memory recall is more important than actually understanding a topic.
Yes, people have come up with some solutions such as BTEC courses and courses which can be heavily coursework based. However BTEC's aren't avaliable in everything (and I understand that that isn't always possible), coursework isn't in every subject and soon some A-levels are going be completely changed. All exams will be at the end of the second year.
Personally, I think that this is a very strange change. There must be some advantages to it, otherwise it wouldn't have been changed but I just can't find them.
I consider myself lucky to be having exams at the end of my first year and at the end of my second becuase that means that I can truly focus on remebering all the knowledge for my first exams, forgetting it the second I leave the exam hall and then memorising more information for the second exams, only to be forgotten again.

I might be the only person who feels like this and of course some people will disagree because maybe they actually do learn the information needed for exams and then retain it for a lifetime. I just know that its never happened to me.

Anyway, thank you for reading, I would love to hear your opinion, so feel free to tweet me or leave a comment - whatever you want.

I must dash as I've got to get back to revising ;)