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dogma wrote:Automatically Appended Next Post:

whatwhat wrote:If they actually taught you how easy it was to make money with a bit of self saught knowledge in a particular area and some dogged determination the/your government would be fethed.

That figure doesn't surprise me.


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If world war three ripped down society as we know it and we all went back to the stone age. Acedemic ability would have no bearing on the system of leadership which would develop. No one will be taking orders from a grade a student simply because they are a grade a student. And in actual fact, it's no different today. The business owners, the people who employ everyone else, the people who effectively rule the world, are a group who vary academicly from people with straight As to no qualifications at all. That's because grades have no bearing on what they do. It wasn't their grades which got them where they were. Chances are if you got where you were because of academic achievement, your an employee not an employer. And the guy at the top knows less than you about what you do.

Someone did poorly in school, and is now bitter for that failure.

Half expected someone to post that lame presumption. Had to be you I guess.

I actually did quite well in school. And am now 23 years old and self employed whos grades come up in important conversation about naught times a year.

If you actually believe academic ability makes the major difference in the real world you are either very naive or just blind. I perhaps your all scrunched up in a safe little corporate bubble?

Aphrodite wrote:"I don’t know why. I need someone to be constantly on top of me..."

kids these days.

Thanks for tittilating us with that again.

Arctik_Firangi wrote:Already posted, rubiks. Thanks for tittilating us with that again, though.

damn it. i looked thru and didn't see it. my bad.

Silver, I really have to disagree with bringing back the 11+. Splitting kids into categories that early is a really bad idea. The onus should be on the curriculum and the teacher to bring those kids up to the highest standard they can attain, not categorise and limit them.(though it would also be helpful if discipline and control were easier to manage, unfortunately due to unprofessional conduct of a lot of teachers I can't see that ever really coming back in the way it would work best.).

The problem with the 11+ is that in the UK we try to force children to learn to read and write too early.

A lot of children get turned off reading at the age of five or six who would easily be able to learn to seven or eight years old but by then they have already fallen behind and become SATS liabilities.

They reach the age of eleven with severely sub-standard reading ability which cripples their ability to partake of formal education from then on.

From looking at it as an outsider, primary education in the UK seems really very competative and intense, but only in upper and middle class situations. There's a huge class gulf at that age, from what I can see.
That extends into secondary school, and is in some ways deepened there, though I think the system DOES do a good job of trying to cater to diverse needs, I also think it is too concerned with categorising kids. Kids tend to live up to what we tell them they are. It's really difficult for a kid to move between streams or bands or sets in my experience. (Which is of course, limited)

11 year old kids haven't even got fully developed brains. I was consdered slow and stupid in primary school, but by the end of secondary was one of the better students in my school. Child centred education isn't about pandering to kids and letting them do what they want, more making sure we don't take choices away from them.

Killkrazy: You make an interesting point about literacy. I was really shocked when I started teaching in Dublin at the poor literacy and numeracy of my students. The numeracy is even worse than the literacy in my experience. I would love to take a year to observe in a bunch of primary schools and try and figure out where they're going wrong with teaching reading, but my suspicion would be that a lot of parents not pulling their weight is a part of it.

Kilkrazy wrote:The problem with the 11+ is that in the UK we try to force children to learn to read and write too early.

A lot of children get turned off reading at the age of five or six who would easily be able to learn to seven or eight years old but by then they have already fallen behind and become SATS liabilities.

They reach the age of eleven with severely sub-standard reading ability which cripples their ability to partake of formal education from then on.

I have never thought of that before, sir.
It seemed to me that it was a lack of intelligence on the student's part that led to the lack of ability but this actually makes sense. +1 to you, good sir.
I think the main problem with a lot of schools is that they almost get more lax as you progress. I remember feeling anxious about finally going to middle school and now I realize that 7th and 8th grade was the greatest two-year near-skive I could ever imagine. Without even really trying that hard I got through geometry with a B average and landed with a 3.6 GPA. Instead of actually trying to increase the intelligence of the student body through education, it seems that they're trying to accomodate for the lackings.

I was so rubbish at German i got an 'X'. Best thing that ever happened: I got 3 hours a week to do other work and didn't need to try and learn another language (note I'm dyslexic and have enough trouble with English ^_^)

Personally i think the biggest problem is that no one is being taught for the sake of being better but to pass a god damn test. And if you can't test it then its not worth it.

Case in point our school had a really nice D&T area just the right size for a school a third the size. Where as they had so many PC's that you could normally spend you're break on one. So the school gets a technology grant for having lots of computers and replaces all of them. Throwing away perfectly good CFT monitors and replacing them with inferior LCD (don't think there was one with out a dead pixel).

The other thing I never understood was the time wasting. Rather then have one long art lesson, D&T or other practical subject (possibly with the lunch break in between) we had 3 one hour lessons. So what was the problem? 5 minute register, 10 minutes on what we're doing, 10 minutes unpacking the work, 25 minutes work, 15 minutes packing up. Now if you're quick you can shave time off here and there but wouldn't it make more sense to only unpack once a week?

I hate to say it but a lot of the time just seemed to be wasting time. Don't get me started on some of the teachers. Lord I've enjoyed ranting about that.

In the case of reading the biggest problem is that you need get mom and dad in on it. Simply put to teach reading you really need one to one.

Da Boss wrote:Silver, I really have to disagree with bringing back the 11+. Splitting kids into categories that early is a really bad idea. The onus should be on the curriculum and the teacher to bring those kids up to the highest standard they can attain, not categorise and limit them.(though it would also be helpful if discipline and control were easier to manage, unfortunately due to unprofessional conduct of a lot of teachers I can't see that ever really coming back in the way it would work best.).

Well, aside from the fact that almost my entire immediate family are teachers (both parents, 1 grandparent and my wife), I think the onus should actually be on the child and their parents to bring them-self up to the required level. Even with the best teachers in the world, a child who refuses to learn, or receives no support at home is unlikely to be able to keep up with those who do.

Discipline is also something that should not just be left up to the schools and teachers to do. Parents need to understand that they are responsible for their children. Teachers should not have to fill that gap and provide the only discipline the child gets (until they run foul of the law perhaps). If you let your child stay out until they want to, to skip school whenever they feel like it, and allow them to speak back to adults (or indeed anyone) however they wish, how exactly is that the fault of the school system? Especially when these parents simultaneously complain that the schools are not doing their part to discipline their little Satans, and then raise hell if the school attempts to actually place any sanctions against the child?

Teachers receive next to no support in dealing with pupils like that, and it shows. Just like laws in society, as soon as enough people stop believing in them, they cease to have any effect. I would love to see, as would most teachers I imagine, a way of disciplining pupils properly.

Regards limiting pupils - I would suggest that it is far more limiting to pupils to have a class disrupted by people who do not fit the current system than it would be for pupils to be streamed into schools which suited their ability, learning styles, etc. Far from limiting them, I believe that such a system would encourage people to learn skills which will benefit them in later life. I in no way believe that if you go to X school, you should not have access to Y subjects - education should be as universal as possible. What I do suggest is that if you go to Z school, you should be with pupils who are best suited to the Z way of teaching, and school Z should focus on teaching the kind of subjects that best suit children with a Z outlook on learning.


@ Killkrazy:
I don't think kids learn to read and write early enough. Both my brother and I could read and write before we went to school. So could my wife and her brother.

The problem comes when you have classes of 30+ kids - a teacher just can't teach that many children when their level of comprehension is so wildly different. You can't help but either turn off the brighter students, or leave the less able behind. Even with all the "Differentiation" stuff you are supposed to plan into every lesson.

Tri wrote:Throwing away perfectly good CFT monitors and replacing them with inferior LCD (don't think there was one with out a dead pixel).

Up to five dead pixels are industry standard, and not considered faults.

I used to work for a certain computer company handling warranty repairs and had to tell people this. Best fun I ever had.


I too was taught to read and write before I went to school.

Silver: I'm a teacher myself, and I agree with the general gist of what you're saying. Parents SHOULD take far more responsibility for their kids, teachers SHOULD have less expectations put on them.
Unfortunately, for many complex reasons, this is not the case and is not likely to ever really be the case outside of some middle class and up areas.
Kids need to be taught responsibility, sure. Totally agree.

I still really disagree with the idea of the 11+. You have to categorise people at some stage, it's inevitable. But categorsing them so young, and in such a sweeping way,I have a major problem with. Kids live up to the labels we give them. To my outsider's eyes, the UK has a severe enough class divide, and something like the 11+ will only make it worse.
There is a big debate about all of this, of course, and I will admit that for some situations, streaming and banding and setting are really useful. The problem tends to be that the implementation is inflexible and flawed.

I breezed through school, up until my sophmore year of highschool, at which point I hit a brick wall. I had never had to study or do much homework, aced all my tests, never paid much attention in class, but then once I was faced with work that actually challenged me, I had no study skills to speak of and I very nearly failed sophmore year. I'm in no way an expert on the subject of education, but perhaps if I'd been put in more challenging classes earlier on I would have fared better when the hard stuff came along. I guess this could be an argument for separating kids based upon their levels or whatnot and grouping them with other kids with similar needs, but then again I'm not too knowledgeable on the matter, just having my own experiences to go own.

I used the 11+ as that was traditionally the point at which your future educational path was set at.

To be truthful, when I say "11+", I refer to a generic point in time, probably before about 13-14.

That point should be the big sort out - based on more than just "how well can you do in this knowledge based test", but also tests built around finding out what kind of learning style you have, general intellect, attitude, etc.

Prior to this I strongly believe in setting children by ability.

Though as you say, there is a great deal of difficulty the implementation of this concept.


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rubiksnoob wrote:I breezed through school, up until my sophmore year of highschool, at which point I hit a brick wall. I had never had to study or do much homework, aced all my tests, never paid much attention in class, but then once I was faced with work that actually challenged me, I had no study skills to speak of and I very nearly failed sophmore year. I'm in no way an expert on the subject of education, but perhaps if I'd been put in more challenging classes earlier on I would have fared better when the hard stuff came along. I guess this could be an argument for separating kids based upon their levels or whatnot and grouping them with other kids with similar needs, but then again I'm not too knowledgeable on the matter, just having my own experiences to go own.

This experience is very similar to my own. Up until my second year at university I'd never really been challenged (except in maths, where I had managed to move from middle to top set over the course of my school years, and French, where I moved from bottom to middle), and I really struggled to cope with not just being able to do something in classes.

Arctik_Firangi wrote:

Tri wrote:Throwing away perfectly good CFT monitors and replacing them with inferior LCD (don't think there was one with out a dead pixel).

Up to five dead pixels are industry standard, and not considered faults.

I used to work for a certain computer company handling warranty repairs and had to tell people this. Best fun I ever had.


I too was taught to read and write before I went to school.

True but would you not wait till the monitor had died before replacing it? (those first LCD also had a habit of burning the school logo in place but that's more an IT fault for leaving the screens on) You know I'm typing on an CRT now its nearly 15 years old and still going strong. Sure it can't hit the higher resolutions but 1600x1200 fine for most things.

It's also using a helluva lot more wattage than a LCD screen of the same size. Environmentally and financially, it makes sense in theory.

I still have a 21" CRT monitor I pull out every now and then, I do love the unique picture quality.

Now that you've explained what you mean a bit more, I can agree with you to an much greater extent. Helping kids learn in the correct style would be a really good thing to do. Properly implemented, I wouldn't have much problem with it at all.
My biggest problem comes with streaming/setting by "ability". Ability comes from so many things- prior experience, genetic potential, current environment, attitude, diet... it's fluid and can be improved (or worsened) with the correct techniques. I see it as part of a teacher's job to try and suss out that improvement and move everybody up as much as possible. Classroom management is tricky, but it shouldn't be the primary concern when educating kids (if it is, your school's discipline policy probably needs looking at.)

However, even though I have a problem with it, I still will work in the English system which has a lot more setting than I'm used to. I know it has it's good points, and I try to get my view across through my work.

Arctik_Firangi wrote:It's also using a helluva lot more wattage than a LCD screen of the same size. Environmentally and financially, it makes sense in theory.

I still have a 21" CRT monitor I pull out every now and then, I do love the unique picture quality.

Well yes and no. Environmentally and financially I've gone through 3 LCD screens and yet to break my CRT. CRT use more power to run but not enough to out weigh the cost of buying a similar quality LCD 3 times. True one day its going to break but till then i think I'm making a saving keeping it.

With how crap the public system is in regards to academic training and teaching, I don't think this will matter much.
In an ideal situation D's represent failing with an effort to learn the material.
If a student actually makes a solid attempt to grasp the subject and fails to fully grok it, then I think that should be represented in the grading structure.
F's are pretty much for those who didn't make the attempt or the subject falls far outside of their ability.

Keep in mind I think the scope of C's should be expanded up at the expense of the A range.

JMHO

As I said... in theory.

On the personal level, keeping your one CRT is probably the most sensible financial option. On the scale of 100+ such devices, they are a bit cheaper to purchase and the difference on the power bill is more significant. It's hard to see, of course, as we use a lot more electronic devices these days and the price of power just keeps going up but ya know what? This is completely off topic.

SilverMK2 wrote:


@ Killkrazy:
I don't think kids learn to read and write early enough. Both my brother and I could read and write before we went to school. So could my wife and her brother.

All children don't have your advantages and we need everyone to be literate because it is the foundation of all later education.

Norway doesn't teach children to read until they are seven. They do alphabet from six.

Hungary teaches reading from age eight. They do alphabet from earlier.

These are not backward countries.

Some British children are learning reading at school from the age of four. A couple of years makes a huge difference intellectually at those kind of ages.

SilverMK2 wrote:
The problem comes when you have classes of 30+ kids - a teacher just can't teach that many children when their level of comprehension is so wildly different. You can't help but either turn off the brighter students, or leave the less able behind. Even with all the "Differentiation" stuff you are supposed to plan into every lesson.

Then we need smaller classes. This is one area where private schools have an advantage.

rubiksnoob wrote:

Arctik_Firangi wrote:Already posted, rubiks. Thanks for tittilating us with that again, though.

damn it. i looked thru and didn't see it. my bad.

Don't worry rubiksnoob I'll be constantly on top of her. Yeah Phryxis I missed the quote too, it has to be intentional too much of a coincidence.

Kilkrazy wrote:we need everyone to be literate because it is the foundation of all later education.

Doesn't this then make it even more urgent that we teach children to read and write as early as possible? I will not dispute that some parents are better than others with regards teaching their children the skills they need, but if you are teaching children to read and write at 7/8 rather than 3/4, doesn't that just put children of parents who do not teach their children to read and write at an even greater disadvantage?

I won't claim to be an expert on learning and child development, so I can't say what is the "best" age to learn to read and write at but as far as I am concerned, the faster we get children learning and exploring the world around them (both the tactile and the written), the better.

Then we need smaller classes. This is one area where private schools have an advantage.

Here I will most certainly not argue with you. I also recall reading that the optimum size for schools is approximately 700-800 pupils.

Agreed on the school and class size thing, though there are ways around it.
.

whatwhat wrote:
Half expected someone to post that lame presumption. Had to be you I guess.

I actually did quite well in school. And am now 23 years old and self employed whos grades come up in important conversation about naught times a year.

Wow, all that life experience! You must truly be wise.

whatwhat wrote:
If you actually believe academic ability makes the major difference in the real world you are either very naive or just blind. I perhaps your all scrunched up in a safe little corporate bubble?

I find it amusing that you feel the need to build these large walls against any possible differentiating opinion. You speak ill of 'bubbles' and yet you appear determined to create one.

I am also self-employed, and I am also quite well-off due to that fact. It has a great deal to do with the fact that I am more intelligent than most people, and I credit my education with making me so. Of course, grades only indicate what you did at school. But if that's your only point, then really the issue is only that we need to revisit causality.

SilverMK2 wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:we need everyone to be literate because it is the foundation of all later education.

Doesn't this then make it even more urgent that we teach children to read and write as early as possible?

I will not dispute that some parents are better than others with regards teaching their children the skills they need, but if you are teaching children to read and write at 7/8 rather than 3/4, doesn't that just put children of parents who do not teach their children to read and write at an even greater disadvantage?

Apparently not.

The Hungarians and Norwegians teaching their children to read several years later has no detrimental effect. In fact thier foreign language skills are significantly higher than ours, because they spend a couple of years learning foreign languages when it is easily absorbed.

Our trying to teach our children too early, and failing in many cases because they simply are not mature enough will be made worse by pushing the age lower.

The problem with our children who fail to learn to read isn't that they learn later, it is that they don't learn at all.

I won't claim to be an expert on learning and child development, so I can't say what is the "best" age to learn to read and write at but as far as I am concerned, the faster we get children learning and exploring the world around them (both the tactile and the written), the better.

Then we need smaller classes. This is one area where private schools have an advantage.

Here I will most certainly not argue with you. I also recall reading that the optimum size for schools is approximately 700-800 pupils.

Yes, I have read that too. No larger than the headmaster can recognise all the pupils.

Kilkrazy wrote:Yes, I have read that too. No larger than the headmaster can recognise all the pupils.

Would also be nice to have heads that are capable of doing the job. I know of a local school where they made the PE teacher head. I've nothing against the guy just seems he got the job since every one senior retired. Surely it's not good for a school to replace it staff that way.

LordofHats wrote:There comes a point where someone has become unteachable. Where is that point? I don't know. Teachers are probably the ones qualified to answer that question. If they don't want to learn why should the teacher have to teach (EDIT: Well, they don't really teach them anyway. It's more like babysitting) them and why should tax payers have to pay for it?

I taught in the fall semester at an inner-city high school. I went in very idealistic, and came out quite shaken by the experience. I had many students that I felt that I simply could not teach within that setting. 1-on-1, maybe even 1-on-3, perhaps, but in a classroom I just could not get through to them. I feel that perhaps an expert or experienced teacher could do 1-on-10. But with the range of abilities in my classroom, I really did feel the choice strongly every day- do I teach to a high level to push the students that are wanting to learn, paying attention, and learned what we did yesterday? Or do I teach to a lower level that everyone can achieve? Obviously, I usually chose somewhere in the middle, "differentiating" as much as possible- but many students were left behind. I also had many with IEPs (special ed) within my classroom, and I wasn't able to give them the attention that they needed/deserved. It felt like a no-win situation, but I don't know what the solution is- it would cost a fortune to cust my class size by 2/3, which is what I felt was needed.

Da Boss wrote:Kids tend to live up to what we tell them they are. It's really difficult for a kid to move between streams or bands or sets in my experience. (Which is of course, limited)

This is also really clear from teaching. Some kids just have gotten it beaten into them, through life, parents, teachers, or whatever, that they're just not up to snuff. And putting on a positive attitude for them doesn't change it one bit. They really need a role model who shows them that they're worth something, and it's hard to do that while getting them to memorize the pythagorean theorem.

About KilKrazy's point about literacy- it's obviously one of the biggest problems. If kids can't read, they can't learn... my Mom has been a reading teacher in a high school in a rural area for almost the last decade. It's a huge problem in the inner city as well. If they fall behind on reading, it makes them want to give up completely, since they can't keep up with anything else.

I don't have any answers, I just know these are huge problems... and it certainly kicked my tail when I tried to do something about it. I'll probably work with children on a volunteer basis like I did previously, now that I'm back working in engineering. It's very rewarding when you can invest in a child or young adult, the problem with teaching is that you have so many, with so many different problems and needs, that it becomes completely overwhelming.

dogma wrote:Wow, all that life experience! You must truly be wise.

Unless you are suggesting that school grades are going to become more important at a later age, which is plain dumb, I don't really think my age is relevant. Not to mention your also of a similar age (as I recall) and the amount of times you flaunt your all powerful wisdom on these forums makes what you just said fairly ironic.

To explain. Considering the occasion you post anything outside of the off topic section occurs less frequently than Wesley Snipes applies sun tan lotion. On a site which, I feel I must remind you, is about wargaming. The only reason evident to anyone regarding why you actually post on here, is that somehow you are making some sort of significant impact on people by bringing them up on their supposed inaccuracies (which is basically what you do, no?). So do forgive me when I come to the conclusion that someone like you, as described above, has a slightly holier-than-thou sense of their own wisdom.

The universe blesses those who do not engage in such petty arguments with the label of 'maturity'.
You're no better or worse than each other - at the moment you're just a pair of clashing egos demonstrating that you have more in common than you care to realise.
Outside of the forum you'd probably get along... unless your self-employed selves happen to be involved in rival businesses.