Decline in Valued Contributors???

[Spectric]

They were the days when maths was done long hand, just think of the engineering achievements that were done before calculators / computers and those guys had nothing but slide rules and log tables. A good example is the industrial revolution, railways and steam engines all done by some great engineers of the past like Brunel.

 

[Spectric]

Well when you understand the principles, and bet a feel for what the answer should be, you recognise silly mistakes of hitting the wrong key on your calculator.

That is one of the major problems with people who treat the computer as the master and not the slave so blindly believe what it produces. You must have as a minimum enough brain power to at least reconise whether an answer is in the right ball park, is it feasable or way off.

Without discipline education cannot function, it is the disciplined mind that allows someone to slog their way through a problem.

 

[deema]

I think there are two issue. Firstly at school, discipline has fallen to a level where most are unable to gain a decent education in local schools due to the disruption caused by other kids. Teachers have no real tools to deal with disruptive kids, all forms of physical restraint and punishment are now banned, and with it, discipline. The second was the introduction of paying higher education institutes based on ‘bums’ on seats and student loans. The ‘hard’ stuff in degrees got taken out, and I can say that for the electrical and electronics Engineering degrees with absolute certainty. We used to produce excellent engineers in this discipline, now, the degree is worth less than toilet paper. All the stuff that made it worth while has been abandoned. When I graduated, about 80 started the course and about 12 of us got to the end after 4 years without having to retake a year / drooping down to a HND. Imagine being a student today faced with the statistic and wondering taking out these huge loans is worth the risk? you simply wouldn’t, hence they were dumbed down. In the last 15 years of hiring graduate engineers I was resigned to the fact, that I would have to educate them again to make the useful.
Kids haven’t become dumb, we have just dumbed down what we expect of them.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

One of the biggest improvements in grades was accomplished by going back to basics and getting students to calculate a Log from tables, for example and explaining how they were derived. Why? Well when you understand the principles, and get a feel for what the answer should be, you recognise silly mistakes of hitting the wrong key on your calculator.

We learned how logs worked in junior school. My daughter got "A"s in physics and maths at GCSE without any knowledge of them.
She had a problem with chemistry (her worst subject - she got 7 As, 5 Bs and a C) so I asked a friend, a retired chemistry teacher, to give her a hand. She came back after an hour smiling and said oh, dad, it's so easy - he explained it a different way. He said something odd, though, he told me not to go back to school and tell my teacher that he had told me to do that way as I would be told it was wrong. How can it be wrong when I understood it?
He was a school governor and didn't want to tread on any toes. I spoke to him later and he told me that the biggest problem he had with current methods of teaching is that too much is presumed, they start in the middle and not at the beginning - the basic understanding of principles and methods just isn't there.

My neighbour was a retired maths teacher and he always said the main problem with children's depending on calculators was that they didn't spot decimal point errors - if they pressed a wrong button and made 20 x 20 equal 4000, it must be correct because the calculator said so. They hadn't done enough mental arithmetic to spot their mistake.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

In the last 15 years of hiring graduate engineers I was resigned to the fact, that I would have to educate them again to make the useful.
Kids haven’t become dumb, we have just dumbed down what we expect of them.

My friend's s.i.l. is very high up in one of the major mining companies and travels the world commissioning new mine. He told my friend that nowadays he prefers to employ people with doctorates as he knew at least they would be literate.

 

[Adam W.]

Having just completed an MA in carving, I can say that the course was a complete waste of money and I was provided with no teaching whatsoever and just left to entertain myself. I was also studying alongside a cohort of MA fine art students and nobody could possibly fail that course if they put something on the wall and wrote a short essay at the end of it.

 

[AJB Temple]

I agree that degree standards have declined. As it happens although I originally did law, I did a masters and PhD in maths. Years ago. About 8 years ago, in a finance company, my firm employed a young man with a first class maths degree from a redbrick. (I didn't interview him). He was rightly very proud of his achievement and was unaware that a chunk of my background was in mathematics. He had been with us a couple of years and was keen to get involved with complex derivative instruments (the guy in charge of that area was a Chinese engineering PhD. People often underestimated him as he was very self deprecating. Engineering is largely maths). We tested out the young man's abilities with some worked examples. It became apparent that his knowledge of calculus was round about what I had done at A level, and his knowledge of statistical analysis was at best basic. We probed all this and discovered gaping holes in his education, and that his reading comprehension was very poor (it didn't matter much in the role he was employed for originally). He played the dyslexia card for that, but said it compromised his ability to absorb texts so he was given both extra time and extra marks in exams. None of it was his fault, but the reality is that the first class degree was ridiculous. It does students no favours in the end.

 

[Jacob]

After I graduated and whilst maths GCSE’s actually contained and required a good understanding of maths, I used to teach maths and physics part time. Unconventional I used to teach as part of the curriculum Log, Ln, Sine, Cosine and tangents from first principles. One of the biggest improvements in grades was accomplished by going back to basics and getting students to calculate a Log from tables, for example and explaining how they were derived. Why? Well when you understand the principles, and get a feel for what the answer should be, you recognise silly mistakes of hitting the wrong key on your calculator.
About 6 years ago I went down to the institute of Physics in London and did the exam science teachers had to do to get a grant to become a Physics / science teacher (When the government was trying to encourage science teachers) Now, the room was fully a recently graduated Physicists, so I felt rather daunted. I’d only done a Physics A level about 40 years before them. We were broken into groups and took three different tests, one of which was an exam. Two groups had taken the exam before it was my term, and they all came out with long faces concerned at how hard it was. I nearly got back on the train and headed home without taking it. Anyway, I did, and to my surprise it was simple. It was only pitched at what I used to consider O level standard. I achieved 100% in the test, whilst many of the recently graduated in Physics failed. It was a very sobering experience about how far standards in education have dropped in the last 30 years.

Slide rules and log tables aren't used but basic maths is still taught Specification at a glance
I guess your physics grads had got fairly distanced from their school maths, not necessarily falling standards - science and technology are still advancing without the aid of slide rules!
Amazing how this thread is degenerating into yet another big moan about the decline in everything! When ar worra lad...etc.
It's very traditional though! https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillma...neration-complains-about-kids-these-days.html
PS correction - this thread started as a moan ("Decline in..." etc). Not that there aren't things to complain about but it often seems like a mindset - in another thread they are happily talking themselves out of the value of the NHS!

 

[Spectric]

How many people actually believe that the UK of today is nothing more than just a shadow of it's former self? It is us older folk who were around that bear witness to what once was, the youngsters of today have never witnessed this and so what we see as a downward spiral is accepted as the norm by them. Yes we had hard times and had our own set of issues but not on the same scale as today, we actually had opportunities when we left school and could get employment that supported getting a home, can the newer generations say that. There is a reason why there are so much mental health problems and that is that these youngsters are facing issues we would not have dreamed of, think about what life would be if you suddenly became a spotty teenager just starting out having left school today, what would you see ahead of you ?

 

[Jacob]

How many people actually believe that the UK of today is nothing more than just a shadow of it's former self? It is us older folk who were around that bear witness to what once was, the youngsters of today have never witnessed this and so what we see as a downward spiral is accepted as the norm by them. Yes we had hard times and had our own set of issues but not on the same scale as today, we actually had opportunities when we left school and could get employment that supported getting a home, can the newer generations say that. There is a reason why there are so much mental health problems and that is that these youngsters are facing issues we would not have dreamed of, think about what life would be if you suddenly became a spotty teenager just starting out having left school today, what would you see ahead of you ?

People live much longer, are much healthier, are wealthier (in real terms, ignoring inequalities) travel more, own more, are less likely to have to fight wars, eat much better food, are much better entertained, better educated...and so on.
Terrible isn't it.
Bring back National Service and flogging!
I really do not believe UK of today is nothing more than just a shadow of its former self, (except for the recent backward step over brexit of course).
Maybe you are thinking of the Empire, but that wasn't much fun at all for most of the people involved.

 

[deema]

We are talking about Physics grads that at the most would be 4 years away from their A levels, and people we would be looking to teach our children. It’s nearly 40 years after my A levels, and haven’t taught Physics at O and A level for donkeys years, but, the questions were so simple I’d expect anyone with a O level to have been able to answer them.
Just to Check my perspective I looked up past papers, the latest I could find were from 2022. Golly, how ridiculously easy they have become. They now give you a formulae sheet!

One of the things that seems to have been forgotten these days is that exams were not only designed to grade the intellect / ability to learn but also to be able to apply it under a level of pressure, in an exam. The working environment isn’t all cuddly and safe, you have if you have any job with responsibility to be able to make decisions and work under a level of pressure. Continuous assessment, extra help for those with any form of disability is a massive departure from what employers want/ need.

The last graduates I employed in the UK which is just a little over 6 years ago when I retired struggled with not only realising they needed to learn a lot of basic principles to be useful, but also the disciple required to turn up on time, take instruction without having a two hour debate on the reasons why they felt it’s going to cause them a little stress. Most I had to recommend they seek alternative employment, preferably outside of engineering. Outside the UK, in the far East, it’s a different matter, those I employed in say China had been brought up with strict discipline, and to a much higher level of education than is provided in the UK. Ie their standards are far higher. We now need to import engineers with say power transmission knowledge as those we have are retiring with nobody educated in it to take their place / teach it. We once led the world.

 

[deema]

This thread is sliding into politics, time to close it down.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Of course it's sliding into politics. Jacob's here.

 

[Jacob]

.....

My neighbour was a retired maths teacher and he always said the main problem with children's depending on calculators was that they didn't spot decimal point errors - if they pressed a wrong button and made 20 x 20 equal 4000, it must be correct because the calculator said so. They hadn't done enough mental arithmetic to spot their mistake.

Yes it's an easy mistake. But doing calculations (more complicated than the above) the long way on paper, or with log tables or slide rules would not only take very much longer but also be very much more error prone. This is the whole point of calculators. Hope that helps.

 

[Steliz]

Or the mods could just delete all the off topic posts.

 

[MikeK]

Or the mods could just delete all the off topic posts.

Threads wander, and as long as they don't wander into areas with dragons or killer rabbits, they will normally stay open and find their way back. Too many incursions into forbidden territory normally results in closing the thread instead of trying to cleanse it.

 

[selectortone]

How many people actually believe that the UK of today is nothing more than just a shadow of it's former self?

My grandad used to say the same thing about our generation. Nostalgia is wonderful when viewed through rose-coloured spectacles.

My daughter is an English teacher at a large school in Surrey. She teaches A Level and I've had a look at the curriculum she teaches and it's not much different from A Level at my grammar school back in the 60s, although the books are slightly less boring.

I don't believe in broad-brushing modern education as failing in standards. Twenty years ago it turned out a P.hd, an MSc and a BA with my three kids who have all gone on to successful careers, and from what I can see from my granchildrens' primary school education so far they should do OK too.

The teachers at my daughter's school are mostly concientious and care about the kids they teach. If you want to know why some children do badly at school look at the parents.

 

[Jacob]

........ Continuous assessment, extra help for those with any form of disability is a massive departure from what employers want/ need.

Most (all?) employers would disagree with this.
"Continuous assessment" is normal in any working environment and is a much more reliable indicator of a person's capabilities than a one-off exam.
Helping with disabilities is normal everywhere.

 

[Jameshow]

What was the thread starter Baldkev mortgage?!!!

 

[Spectric]

So if nothing has really changed then why is the Marconi communications factory now an NCP carpark, the RHP bearing factory (once the largest in europe) is a modern university, Cromptons is a housing estate along with Marconi marine and dozens of smaller factories are no more, between them thousands of skilled jobs lost and many apprenticeship schemes no more ? This can be found across the UK in many towns that were once prosperous and offered long term careers to people leaving school.