Decline in Valued Contributors???

[selectortone]

So if nothing has really changed

The only thing you can rely on in life is that everything changes all the time. Two of my kids have interesting and fulfilling careers in industries that didn't even exist when I was at school (software development and sustainability). You have to be prepared to move with the times. The Marconi I factory, and all the others, closed because their products could be made cheaper overseas. You can cry into your tea or you can find work in some of the many areas where we still do better than the Chinese.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

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.

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.

As a woman I worked with who went on to teach my children said one day at a parents meeting - we see all the parents we don't need to and none of the ones we do.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

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.

You know more about the NHS than a lifelong nurse and more about teaching than a lifelong teacher.
What's your next reincarnation going to be as?

 

[Jacob]

You know more about the NHS than a lifelong nurse

I just ask the right questions. Simpler than you might think - I googled "NHS Pillow Manager" which brought up nothing explicit (there's no such thing) but lots of other info!

and more about teaching than a lifelong teacher.

WellI I have used abacus, log tables, slide rules, calculators, computers and have a humble maths qualification - OU MST121 which is supposed to be equivalent to A level. I did it about 10 years ago as I thought I was getting rusty. Got a good mark too!

What's your next reincarnation going to be as?

Not sure, not planning on leaving yet

 

[Jacob]

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.

It's not a major problem except with people who know no maths or concepts such as "scale of magnitude" of answers. But they are still more likely to get more correct answers with a calculator than by doing long division which could be completely beyond them.

Without discipline education cannot function,

Oh yes it can!

it is the disciplined mind that allows someone to slog their way through a problem.

More 'determination' than discipline. Some have it , some don't.

 

[deema]

There are local schools with a catchment that has parents who have children that will behave and enable all to have a good chance at a solid education. There are areas where the children are literally feral and nobody has a chance of a good eduction. I have been in both and admire those teachers who literally place their lives at risk in trying to educate certain classes.
There is a school of thought at the moment that talking the issues through with the kids will result in better behaviour. There was equally a trend when my kids went to school that everybody should be a winner, and nobody a loser. That idea quickly died a death fortunately, and is about as useful as expecting kids (boys in particular) to respond to the ‘naughty step’ approach.

 

[Peri]

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.

Also......Education establishment league tables.

Ok, I can see the thinking behind it - it'll make schools/colleges improve their teaching techniques if they're publicly graded along side other local establishments.
What appears to actually happen is management say "In order to show we're improving we need a pass mark of 96.4% in <subject x>. If we can get 96.8% we'll probably do better than <school/college down the road>. Not bothered how you do - make it happen."

Then add in the rule that all 16-18 year olds have to be working, or in education for parents to be able to claim benefits. Education is the easy route for them. Sometimes a majority of the class have no desire to be there, act accordingly, and there's literally nothing a teacher/lecturer can do to discipline anyone.

You end up with teachers being forced to give good grades to apathetic, undisciplined, uninterested pupils. Soul destroying for the teachers, heartbreaking for the genuine students who want to learn.

 

[Molynoox]

I think its like with every thing else; when things change its often for the better but there are always aspects you can look at that seem compromised, and its then easy to throw the baby out with the bath water.

calculators are a good example - I agree with many others that the modern mindset is less able to error check as its all just punched in, but give somebody 1000 sums to do manually vs 1000 with a calculator and there will be less errors overall with the calculator. So in a way you just accept the new methods as sometimes creating these type of silly errors, because overall it outperforms the alternative
satnav is another good example - the modern mindset may not be able to find their way from A to B with just a map book, and they may be more prone to punching in a postcode incorrectly and not spotting the error before its too late... however, I bet when you take the bigger view that they get lost maybe 1 in 1000 times vs how often do you think motorists got lost 50 years ago? 1 in 3?

On the topic of there being more mental health issues around now, I really don't know about that as I don't have the data, but I'm pretty certain that its being recognised / declared / dealt with a hell of a lot more nowadays, which I am pretty sure is skewing people's perspective on how commonplace it is vs how commonplace it was.

same with neurodiversity - my eldest daughter was diagnosed with asperges 2 years ago, my youngest has ADHD.... and then having gone through the process with them both, I realised I had something going on too! I was diagnosed just a year ago, and I'm 47

I think the UK is much like the original topic of this thread - lots of change, some of it bad, but overall working really well for most people. And I'm saying that having just gone through (and still going though) the toughest 2 years of my life. And its nothing to do with Covid....

Martin

 

[Jacob]

Also......Education establishment league tables.

Ok, I can see the thinking behind it - it'll make schools/colleges improve their teaching techniques if they're publicly graded along side other local establishments.
What appears to actually happen is management say "In order to show we're improving we need a pass mark of 96.4% in <subject x>. If we can get 96.8% we'll probably do better than <school/college down the road>. Not bothered how you do - make it happen."

Then add in the rule that all 16-18 year olds have to be working, or in education for parents to be able to claim benefits. Education is the easy route for them. Sometimes a majority of the class have no desire to be there, act accordingly, and there's literally nothing a teacher/lecturer can do to discipline anyone.

You end up with teachers being forced to give good grades to apathetic, undisciplined, uninterested pupils. Soul destroying for the teachers, heartbreaking for the genuine students who want to learn.

Seems to be major leisure activity running down our treasured institutions with no need to let facts get in the way.
What's it all about? Seems to be contagious.
I agree about league tables and ratings being pernicious. It's part of the blame game; distancing it from government departments and underfunding, covering the for the destruction of LEAs and the excellent services they provided.
It's all pointing in the direction of, guess what, privatisation a.k.a academisation, running a poorer and cheaper service and taking them out of democratic control.
We need to take the politics out of education and the NHS and get back to providing good quality and well funded national services.

 

[PhilipL]

I left school in 1972 - we didn't even have calculators.

So did I and we did have them. Mechanical ones first then we could buy digital ones ourselves. Still had to know how to use a slide rule.

 

[John Brown]

I left school in 1972 - we didn't even have calculators.

I left in 71. We had Babbage difference engines.

Ok, that's a bit of a stretch, but I was in a house called "Lovelace".

 

[Yojevol]

I left in '66 and I can remember the school having a few mechanical calculators, not enough for the whole class. My slide rule was my method through to about 1972. I get it out now and again to show the grandkids how we did it 'in-the-old-days'
Brian

 

[baldkev]

I left in '66 and I can remember the school having a few mechanical calculators, not enough for the whole class. My slide rule was my method through to about 1972. I get it out now and again to show the grandkids how we did it 'in-the-old-days'
Brian

I had to google slide rule i was half expecting it to be an abacus

 

[BradyS]

The Marconi I factory, and all the others, closed because their products could be made cheaper overseas.

I want to point out something on this topic. This situation takes place everywhere. But there is something that's missed in most conversations I've seen on this topic. The products could be made cheaper overseas, but they ARE NOT. Because what was once a quality product made by a traditional and reputed manufacturer in [insert country name here] is not the same with the product made overseas. Even if it ismade from the same materials which rarely is the case, it lacks the same quality control and the passion of its original manufacturer for whom making it meant something. Unfortunately, as long as the large masses accept this compromise on quality, things will not change.

I had to google slide rule i was half expecting it to be an abacus

Same here Well, I left school in the 2000s. Sure we had computers but didn't use them. We were taught to calculate on paper or filling multiple blackboards for complex calculations. I have to admit that this slide rule is neat.

 

[Spectric]

Because what was once a quality product made by a traditional and reputed manufacturer in [insert country name here] is not the same with the product made overseas.

Do we not all see this in the current line up of woodworking machinery, rather than the solid well built stuff of yesteryear we often now just get the name but not the machine.

 

[Adam W.]

Not if you are willing to pay for it.

 

[BradyS]

Not if you are willing to pay for it.

Yes but those are rarely manufactured overseas. Or 'overseas', but in a different direction.

 

[Adam W.]

Well, no, that's why they cost more.

 

[Jacob]

Moan, moan, whinge, whinge. Seems to be contagious.
I have foreign machines and tools.
SCM Combi - excellent.
Unnamed morticer (badged "Poolewood Equipment") but probably far eastern - excellent piece of heavy engineering and superior design.
Lost of Bosch excellent stuff.
Japanese plane blades - excellent.
East German woody plane - excellent.
Other foreign odds and ends all good stuff.
Also have excellent British lathe
Excellent British chisels and saws some new most old
Loads of excellent UK stuff.
If you've bought rubbish it's entirely your own fault!
I bought "Faithful" No 10 plane and it was garbage. My fault it was cheap and I thought I'd give it a go.
Not happy with Narex chisels - over hyped, nothing like trad Brit makes.

 

[Spectric]

Not happy with Narex chisels - over hyped,

When buying I tend to filter out the hype, good products sell themselves and do not need forceful sales pitches.