By Michael Smith (Veshengro)
According to in formation released by government agencies many children starting school in Britain do not know what they are called. They don't know their own first name, let alone family name.
Surprisingly those are not children from homes where English is second language and where another language is spoken generally, that is to say from immigrant families.
Nay, those children who have those skill deficiencies come, in fact, from homes where English is the language spoke as mother tongue. And, it has to be stressed also, it is not children exclusively from so-called deprived homes either.
We, as a society, are failing future generations and that is more than shameful, and we fail them in more than one way.
It is scary to see this happening for it means that, unless school can get the attitude to change at home, those children will become more than dysfunctional and we have already enough problems with the dysfunctional young people today. We do not need more of them and especially not some that don't even know what they are called and who lack the basic skills of human interaction , at times.
One can but wonder how those children are being dealt with at home though it is probably obvious that their parents do not seem to talk to them much and definitely not by using their names.
It's not like in the book (and film) “Just William” when William gets asked “What's your name” and upon his reply “William” the man asks him “William what?” to which young William replies “No, just William”... and hence the title of the book and film. He at least knew his first name. Those kids of today don't even know that much.
What a sad world we live in...
© 2011
