Sociology > Education > The marching morons - NuLabcur's latest plan to destroy British education
| Topic: |
Sociology > Education |
| User: |
"Robert Henderson" |
| Date: |
24 Feb 2005 11:11:28 AM |
| Object: |
The marching morons - NuLabcur's latest plan to destroy British education |
Ruth Kelly, a woman whose personality matches her looks, gave the
outlines of the proposed Nulabcur "education" system yesterday, 23 Feb.
It is a "make them all economic units" approach to schooling. The game
is given away by:
"First, though, the curriculum for those aged 11 to 14 would
have to be slimmed down - particularly in science, history, geography
and design and technology, in all of which there would be significant
changes." Daily Telegraph 24 2 2005
All you need to know. That will be the tip of the iceberg of
an academic dilution under NuLabcur. Ironic that they will remove
history teaching after 14 from those most in need of some cultural
hooks on which to hang their lives whilst at the same time bleating on
about the need to imprint all children with a common British culture.
I am also very suspicious of the ending of 16 as a normal exam date,
which I suspect will be used to obfuscate what is really happening: "We
can't compare with the years before the new system came in because it
is taken at different ages".
As for some children being placed in non-academic streams from 14 - or
arguably from 11 - I am completely opposed to this because it smacks
too much of creating an artisan class. Ask yourself how many
middle-class parents would be happy to allow their children to be
treated so. The time to decide between academic and vocational is 16.
What bewilders me is how children can spend 11 years in full time
education and leave knowing so little and in the worst cases,
functionally illiterate and innumerate. The three "Rs" are utterly
vital and no child - unless they are severely mentally handicapped -
should be allowed to proceed to anything else until they have mastered
those.
As for teaching methods generally, I really do think that tests should
be made with different patters of teaching, for example teach a subject
intensively for a month rather than having different lessons scattered
through the school day.
Regular readers of the ngs will know of my dislike of homework during
term time, which I consider to be an unreasonable imposition on
children who have been subject to five or six hours of intellectual
work - how many adults would fancy regularly working a full day then
have to spend an hour or two on work when the come home? End homework
in term time and the marking burden on teachers will be much reduced,
freeing them to actually teach. RH
--
Robert Henderson
philip@anywhere.demon.co.uk
Blair Scandal web site at http://www.geocities.com/blairscandal/
Personal web site at http://www.anywhere.demon.co.uk
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| User: "Joe Hutcheon" |
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| Title: Re: The marching morons - NuLabcur's latest plan to destroy British education |
25 Feb 2005 07:43:41 AM |
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"Robert Henderson" <Philip@anywhere.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:88vx1TAArgHCFwvJ@anywhere.demon.co.uk...
Regular readers of the ngs will know of my dislike of homework during
term time, which I consider to be an unreasonable imposition on
children who have been subject to five or six hours of intellectual
work
I got around that problem by doing my homework on the train going to school.
Sometimes I had to miss assembly to finish off a tricky maths question, but
I feel the sacrifice was worthwhile.
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| User: "Chris S" |
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| Title: Re: The marching morons - NuLabcur's latest plan to destroy British education |
24 Feb 2005 12:43:08 PM |
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"Robert Henderson" <Philip@anywhere.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:88vx1TAArgHCFwvJ@anywhere.demon.co.uk...
Ruth Kelly, a woman whose personality matches her looks,
I guess you know her personally to come to this conclusion, if not it is
just another snide remark by a snide poster.
Regular readers of the ngs will know of my dislike of homework during
term time, which I consider to be an unreasonable imposition on
children who have been subject to five or six hours of intellectual
work - how many adults would fancy regularly working a full day then
have to spend an hour or two on work when the come home? End homework
in term time and the marking burden on teachers will be much reduced,
freeing them to actually teach. RH
Translation, Rab couldn't do his homework.
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| User: "Welsh Witch" |
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| Title: Re: The marching morons - NuLabcur's latest plan to destroy British education |
24 Feb 2005 01:45:50 PM |
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On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 18:43:08 +0000, Chris S wrote:
"Robert Henderson" <Philip@anywhere.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:88vx1TAArgHCFwvJ@anywhere.demon.co.uk...
Ruth Kelly, a woman whose personality matches her looks,
I guess you know her personally to come to this conclusion, if not it is
just another snide remark by a snide poster.
Regular readers of the ngs will know of my dislike of homework during
term time, which I consider to be an unreasonable imposition on
children who have been subject to five or six hours of intellectual
work - how many adults would fancy regularly working a full day then
have to spend an hour or two on work when the come home? End homework
in term time and the marking burden on teachers will be much reduced,
freeing them to actually teach. RH
Translation, Rab couldn't do his homework.
********************************************
We read all about the strangeness of Ruth Kelly with her membership of
Opus Dei however I was looking at somethig I was writing and this voice
came on the TV I nearly had a fit when I looked up I could have sworn it
was a man she sounds really very rough.
******************************
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| User: "Bob LeChevalier" |
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| Title: Re: The marching morons - NuLabcur's latest plan to destroy British education |
24 Feb 2005 03:47:55 PM |
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Robert Henderson <Philip@anywhere.demon.co.uk> wrote:
Ruth Kelly, a woman whose personality matches her looks,
What on earth does THAT mean?
What bewilders me is how children can spend 11 years in full time
education and leave knowing so little and in the worst cases,
functionally illiterate and innumerate.
What bewilders me is how many times you can post nonsense, be
responded to, and still post more nonsense.
The answer to your question is the trivial "you can lead a horse to
water but you cannot make them drink"
The three "Rs" are utterly
vital and no child - unless they are severely mentally handicapped -
should be allowed to proceed to anything else until they have mastered
those.
Ah, so it doesn't bewilder you that the mentally handicapped ARE
allowed to end up "functionally illiterate and innumerate" in spite of
11 years in full time education, thereby contradicting your earlier
statement.
Of course the problem with "allowed" in your statement is that
children OFTEN do things that they are not "allowed" to do, and the
number of things that they do that are not "allowed" seems to be to
some degree affected by the number and scope of things that they are
not "allowed".
As for teaching methods generally, I really do think that tests should
be made with different patters of teaching, for example teach a subject
intensively for a month rather than having different lessons scattered
through the school day.
And your expertise in teaching methodology derives from where?
Regular readers of the ngs will know of my dislike of homework during
term time,
Why should we care what you dislike?
which I consider to be an unreasonable imposition on
children who have been subject to five or six hours of intellectual
work
What does it matter what you think is unreasonable.
- how many adults would fancy regularly working a full day then
have to spend an hour or two on work when the come home?
A lot of them do it, whether they "fancy it" or not, and most adults
work more than 5 or 6 hours. The professionals these days are often
expected to put in double that amount (not saying that this is
"right", but it seems to be the practice associated with what most
adults call "success", and which some therefore think should be
inflicted on kids as proper training for "adulthood")
End homework
in term time and the marking burden on teachers will be much reduced,
freeing them to actually teach.
Not likely. They would most likely have to spend more class time on
the skills practice that is now given as "homework" leaving less time
for actual teaching.
lojbab
--
lojbab
Bob LeChevalier, Founder, The Logical Language Group
(Opinions are my own; I do not speak for the organization.)
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org
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| User: "Roger Dewhurst" |
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| Title: Re: The marching morons - NuLabcur's latest plan to destroy British education |
24 Feb 2005 06:01:51 PM |
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"Bob LeChevalier" <lojbab@lojban.org> wrote in message
news:69is115siakkfk88evmpf666luq6ejslp2@4ax.com...
Robert Henderson <Philip@anywhere.demon.co.uk> wrote:
Ruth Kelly, a woman whose personality matches her looks,
I recall a professor of zoology, who was no fool, providing advice to his
students on dealing with three hour exams. Basically his proposition was
that an ordinary university student cannot perform at maximum level for
three hours. Therefore the student should optimize the allocation of his
time. i.e. start with an easy question to gain confidence, go to the most
difficult question while the performance level is high and then follow with
easier questions as the performance level drops.
I very much doubt that a child can perform at maximum level throughout the
ordinary school day let alone any addition to it. I suspect too that people
who consider that they can perform at a high mental level for more than
eight hours each day are simply pulling their own legs. They would be
better off going home and then performing better the next day. As far as I
am concerned if someone cannot do the job in an eight hour day they should
not be doing the job at all.
I recall that that my learning strategy in my most successful year at
university was to go to a certain quiet library (actually the Turnbull in
Wellington) and stay there working while the library was open. It shut at
about 5.30 pm as I recall. I did not open a book for the rest of the
evening.
R
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| User: "Dr A. N. Walker" |
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| Title: Re: The marching morons - NuLabcur's latest plan to destroy British education |
28 Feb 2005 12:34:16 PM |
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In article <cvlpuk$319$1@lust.ihug.co.nz>,
Roger Dewhurst <dewhurst@wave.co.nz> wrote:
I recall a professor of zoology [...] Basically his proposition was
that an ordinary university student cannot perform at maximum level for
three hours. [...]
I very much doubt that a child can perform at maximum level throughout the
ordinary school day let alone any addition to it.
As a chess player, I regularly play games that last for three
or four hours; the one I played yesterday was scheduled to last for
seven. In that time of continuous and intensely focussed thought, one
mistake at any stage in the analysis can lead to catastrophic defeat.
Slips through tiredness or loss of concentration are not unknown, nor
even particularly rare, but they are nowhere near as common as the above
would suggest.
Surgeons regularly perform operations that go on for several
hours. They too need to concentrate, and one slip can be fatal. Car,
bus and lorry drivers regularly drive for several hours and be ready
to deal at any stage with an emergency; one slip can be fatal.
Students and children have the advantage that their mistakes
in exams/lessons can be rectified by revisiting doubtful answers later
on. And while they may need to concentrate under time pressure, they
do not have to face "emergencies". So I don't think we need to have
*too* much sympathy with them over three-hour exams. [Especially as
in my day we had 6 three-hour exams at two per day on the Monday,
Tuesday and Wednesday after relevant lectures finished on Saturday;
so much for "revision weeks".]
I suspect too that people
who consider that they can perform at a high mental level for more than
eight hours each day are simply pulling their own legs. They would be
better off going home and then performing better the next day. [...]
Very possibly. But *some* at least of the better performance
is "soak time" -- the phenomenon whereby your brain has been thinking
about the problem while you relax [in the bath or elsewhere]. Whether
this is "better" depends on the timeliness of the solution -- the
surgeon can't simply pack up half-way through and come back the next
day with ideas for the best way to continue the op [but drivers can
and should plan long journeys to include breaks]. And a lot depends
on how "interesting" the problems are. It is certainly possible to
spend a very intense week or so doing something that you personally
find fascinating; but I would agree that that level of concentrated
thought is physically as well as mentally exhausting.
--
Andy Walker, School of MathSci., Univ. of Nott'm, UK.
anw@maths.nott.ac.uk
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