Marie of Guise

Life goals

Antigone may be the origin of independent thought in Western literature. Here is a young woman who stands against the king, against the state, against the consensus of everyone around her, because she believes a higher law demands it. She buries her brother knowing it will cost her life. When I teach Sophocles to students, I don't start with literary analysis. I start with a question: "Have you ever known something was right even though everyone around you disagreed?" Every student has a story. The shy kid who wouldn't go along with bullying. The teenager who questioned a rule that seemed unjust. They know what it feels like to stand alone with their own conviction. Then we read Antigone, and suddenly a 2,500-year-old play becomes personal. What Sophocles teaches, and what no amount of lecturing about "critical thinking" can replicate, is the lived experience of watching someone reason through an impossible moral situation and choose based on principle. Students don't learn independent thought from being told to think independently. They learn it from inhabiting the minds of those who actually did. This is why I believe great literature is not a nice supplement to education. It's foundational. These texts are where young people encounter the full weight of what it means to think for yourself and accept the consequences.

@CarrieZimbo Apparently Avon and Somerset Police were quick to reassure the public that the explosion in Bristol was “not a terrorist incident”, thus conveniently overlooking the fact that domestic violence is one of the most insidious (and deadly) forms of terrorism in the UK

💔The story behind the explosion in Bristol on Sunday. Turns out this guy had several no contact orders from his ex which he repeatedly broke. She had sent the police photos of him having weapons in his house but they decided this wasn’t serious enough. Somehow he got hold of a grenade and turned up at her parents house. They JUST got themselves and the little boy out the door when he detonated it killing himself and her in the explosion. My trial with my stalker, who broke into my home and stole personal items, is coming up soon. It was delayed in December and he made an application that I have to attend in person rather than via video link. This man burnt down the home of a previous ex and was arrested in September 2024. If I had not left the country and then resettled in a different area I could be also facing the toothless no contact orders. Although I will say the police involved in my case were excellent - the CPS let me and them down at every turn. Allowing some of his charges to lapse while he was on bail. Please remind people to get a Clare’s Law report on potential new romances.

@ZackPolanski Given your obvious discomfort at having to face the scrutiny and challenge associated with an election campaign, perhaps you should consider retiring from political life and resuming your career as a low-rent Derren Brown tribute act?

When you see the relentless attacks from other parties on the Greens across the media remember this: They hate our plan to end Rip Off Britain. They don't want a wealth tax. They don't want public ownership & lower bills. They're trying everything in their power to stop us.

@M_H_Taylor As did European royalty. Given that the author also believes that money is a “made up token system”, one can only hope they weren’t in any way remunerated for this drivel

As someone who has studied history a bit, I can say with relative confidence that European countries and empires definitely DID exist …

@theenglishwitc1 @Miss_Snuffy AI is not trained with the best of texts. If it was it would be able to generate more accurate summaries of academic books and articles. Most of it relies on any old guff it scrapes from the web

AI detectors don’t work because they’re, uh, AI. And AI was trained with the best of texts which is why people often get accused of using AI when they just have good SPaG. It’s a mess at the moment, but students who use AI for essays will end up being exposed in exams or in their careers.

You hear this and students will rightly conclude that they would be better off using AI for their university essays. End of education! 😳

@Miss_Snuffy @daisychristo AI is incapable of critical analysis or constructing a substantial evidence based argument. Academics working in the humanities can spot AI generated text easily - as indicated by the many AI-related academic misconduct panels I have sat on during the past few years

@yuanyi_z Link please?

Highly entertaining fight between two historians accusing each other of not being progressive enough over colonial restitution. Who said Twitter was dead.

@PAHoyeck If the book is good enough there’s a risk that I could miss my stop

I'd like to understand the kind of mentality that leads one to suppose that a ten-minute ride is too short to read a few pages of a book but not too short to scroll through several dozen tweets, text the group chat, and answer a couple of emails.

@danielaconte @RepealTCPA1947 Preached to rather than lectured. A lecture would have at least some intellectual basis. This is pure dogma

I would have expected a crab museum to be the one place I was safe from being lectured to about British colonialism.

The curators are presumably blissfully unaware of the colonising habits of the hermit crab

@policy_uk @Steve_in_TO @JudyAbel2 @PaulEmbery I think you have misconstrued my point. The comprehensive system was political and this was probably the most damaging aspect of its imposition

@MarieofGuise @Steve_in_TO @JudyAbel2 @PaulEmbery Comprehensive education wasn’t ‘political’ ? Have you read The Future of Socialism ?

Nobody with an interest in British politics could fail to notice the decline in the calibre of our MPs. Just compare the candidates in Labour’s 1976 leadership election with those who are likely to be on the ballot paper next time. My latest piece (£). ⬇️ paulembery.com/p/titans-and-p…

@policy_uk @Steve_in_TO @JudyAbel2 @PaulEmbery Perhaps the most damaging aspect was the precedent it set for the politicisation of education. Successive governments (of all colours) have imposed various “reforms” on the system, few of which appear to have to led to any tangible improvement in standards

@MarieofGuise @Steve_in_TO @JudyAbel2 @PaulEmbery I don’t deny the 11+ is a flawed assessment mechanism, nor that they were too small. Abolishing them was however the dumbest thing imaginable.

@policy_uk @Steve_in_TO @JudyAbel2 @PaulEmbery Nice anecdote 😉 Raising the school leaving age was a massive achievement, but selection via the 11+ was a deeply flawed process that deprived many able children of enjoying the full benefits of compulsory secondary education

@MarieofGuise @Steve_in_TO @JudyAbel2 @PaulEmbery I don’t think it is, her evidence and her analysis are both very weak. No, I’m saying providing compulsory secondary education *of any form at all* was a massive achievement and the Secondary Moderns did that. My grandfather left his ‘All Age’ elementary school at 12 in 1915.

@policy_uk @Steve_in_TO @JudyAbel2 @PaulEmbery Todd’s use of oral history may seem anecdotal, but her analysis is underpinned by substantial academic studies. And I’m not sure your suggestion that those who didn’t pass the 11+ should be grateful for whatever they got is a ringing endorsement for the grammar school system

@MarieofGuise @Steve_in_TO @JudyAbel2 @PaulEmbery Secondary Moderns were a far better education than most secondary school age children not attending grammar schools received between 1918 and 1945. The majority would not have had any secondary education at all. I don’t take Todd’s research seriously, it’s an anecdotal jumble.

@Steve_in_TO @policy_uk @JudyAbel2 @PaulEmbery They started closing in the 1960s, although they remain open in some areas. The selection process was deeply flawed and the standard of education for those who didn’t win a golden ticket into the grammar schools was very poor. Selina Todd has written an excellent account of this

@MarieofGuise @policy_uk @JudyAbel2 @PaulEmbery My knowledge is second hand. I am a Canadian who is married to a grammar school girl. It is my understanding however that the schools started closing about 20 years ago.

@Steve_in_TO @policy_uk @JudyAbel2 @PaulEmbery The “21th century” Steve? If you’d been around for the 11+ that kind of thing would have you consigned to the dustbin of the Secondary Modern

@JudyAbel2 @PaulEmbery The demise of the grammar school is one of the greatest tragedies of the 21th century.

@simpsonryan32 @BovrilG I imagine the fieldwork involved might present some challenges

@MarieofGuise @BovrilG From anecdotes diet influences it more than anything but I don't know if anyone has actually tested that.

Exclusively focusing on Aboriginal girls to build up a tolerance like Mithridates with the poisons

@VonPyotr @ClarkeMicah This is a far better general summary of Todd’s argument than mine, but I do know that Peter likes a citation or two

@ClarkeMicah @MarieofGuise Todd argues that grammar schools were never the engines of mobility their defenders claim. She shows that selection entrenched inequality rather than overcoming it, with the supposed “golden age” of mobility being mostly myth. Like Darwin, Todd proves what the rational suspected.

.@marieofguise. What is her argument?

@ClarkeMicah This is a poor summary of a detailed chapter Peter (blame the character limit) so please do read it for yourself - even if you disagree

@ClarkeMicah That the 11+ had a middle class bias (as noted by Halsey in the late 1950s) and disadvantaged girls (who were subject to a higher threshold for a pass. She also cites the Crowther Report’s findings that few working class children who attended grammar schools stayed on to 6th form