ARmy Rumour SErvice

How many of you actually work, full time in education? I mean a modern British state comp school.

They are not run by "loony lefty tree huggers", they are not "everyone is a winner" places and teachers have a hell of a lot of hoops to jump through and paper work to do as well as teaching.

You can't teach everything about history so they have to thin it down a little. You can't teach every sport every invented so you choose a small selection. You can't read every book ever written so you only study a few (and old Bill wrote some stunning suff that changed English). Some stuff will get missed but don't blame the teacher for that, and don't underestimate what they have to put up with.

Kids have PCs and Xboxs in their room so arrive at school after having no sleep, the parents don't care about education so the kids don't care about it, they are feed on a diet of celebrity culture and thing the world owes them a million quid for doing nothing. Add to that the lack of proper punishments that schools can give to kids, the massive increase in assaults on school staff in the last ten years. Now take all that and add in a dickhead govenment that is takeing cash away from everyone (DC never read any J M Keynes and you have a system that is in real danger of failing al together.

So a tiny bunch of kids didn't study much WW2 in school, don't use that to assume that schools don't teach anything, ever.

Unicycle - That's a fair rant. The only problem is... there are far too many examples that prove the oppososite - Or downright prove you wrong. What you read here may not be politically correct but, it's how people find things. ergo - the truth. You can deny it but you cannot disguise it.
Accept it.

Originally Posted by unicycle

So a tiny bunch of kids didn't study much WW2 in school, don't use that to assume that schools don't teach anything, ever.

72 and 97 years ago a 'bunch of kids' put their very lives on the line and a good few made the untimate sacrifice for this country in the ultimate example of civic virtue/social responsibility.

If thats not a lesson worth teaching to todays youth, I don't know what is!

in my personal experience, english kids are not worse than most continental kids, in most cases even better.

scandinavian kids however...

what's lacking is 'interest', simply put.

Originally Posted by Commissar

The most relevant periods of history to us now are the two world wars, and the inter war years, and the cold war up to the colapse of the USSR in 1989-1991. As many have said before we must learn the lessons of the past to prevent them happening again, the depression and WW2 are a stark warning of how the public can be misled by extremists during times of crisis and hardship.
And the cold war is critical to understanding many of the issues which still plague our world today. It is impossible to fully understand why our troops are in Afghanistan without understanding the 1979 Soviet invasion. It is impossible to understand why Iran is run by an extremist government without knowing about the 1953 CIA coup which deposed a democratically elected government and replaced it with an authouritarian dictator.

This is why the foundation of our education should have a focus on these areas.

A subjective argument. I’d be equally appalled if a child couldn’t tell me who Cromwell was. The quality of the historical record is much better in modern history, but as a (former) archaeologist and specialist in earlier history I could draw up my own list. I’d be tempted to pick:

Early migrations such as the end of the Neolithic and the arrival of the beaker people (to reinforce the truism that there’s no such thing as the pure Briton).
The demise of the heptarchy and the dominance of the West Saxons under Alfred (a fascinating king who went from warrior to statesman).
Henry 2 (the Plantagenet soap opera – captivating stuff).
The Civil War (cause and effect – the emergence of the Commons and early democracy)
Renaissance (politics, science, ideas, and the preconditions for Industrial Revolution)
Empire (rise, decline and fall – and the importance of trade)
War, depression, war.

Just asked my nine year old son what year the WW2 started and finished and who took part. Got all the answers correct.

Contrast this with a work experience numpty who worked with me a couple of years ago. While walking along the street we bumped into an old soldier complete with blazer, beret and chestful of medals. Obviously a WW2 veteran. I said a quick hello, shook hands, talked about our mutual regiment for a couple of minutes and kept walking. The thick northern twat who was half way through a masters degree in electrical engineering asked "Where do you reckon he got all them medals?"

"WW2" I replied and was astonished to hear the phrase "Fuck off, he'd be dead by now." So I asked a few basic questions, when did it start? When did it end? Who took part? Who won? Name a famous battle etc. Clueless, wasn't even sure it happened in the 20th century.

Over the next couple of days I quizzed him on other subjects to establish the level of his ignorance only to find out that this university student at a good university and half way through his masters degree in electrical engineering couldn't apply Ohm's Law. He understood what Ohm's law was but he couldn't understand volt drop.

It started to become a running joke and culminated in a colleague convincing him that because horses were expensive that trainee horse riders practiced by riding cows.

The difference between him and my son is that if my son asks a question then I will give him the best answer I can, if I don't know then I google it or get a book out and we'll sit together and find out. My Mrs will answer any and I mean ANY question he asks. She taught him about the birds and bees and, frankly, I learned stuff by listening in.

We need to stop setting targets in primary school (other than the basics) and make it attractive for people who have done a bit to take up teaching later in life. What could be better to teach the history of the Falklands war than a man who was under fire at goose green (hang on, that would make him a para. Maybe not).

Poor knowledge of history is one thing. Poor reading, writing and arithmetics is another. But even worse is the absence of any critical thinking skills.

When I was doing my PhD and teaching undergraduates at one of the top British universities the level of critical thinking some of them display is appalling. It is as though they have been spoonfed all their lives and are unable to think outside the box. And about 15% of the lab reports were plagiarised as well.

Originally Posted by IndependentBoffin

Poor knowledge of history is one thing. Poor reading, writing and arithmetics is another. But even worse is the absence of any critical thinking skills.

When I was doing my PhD and teaching undergraduates at one of the top British universities the level of critical thinking some of them display is appalling. It is as though they have been spoonfed all their lives and are unable to think outside the box. And about 15% of the lab reports were plagiarised as well.

Happened when I was in FE as well. I was a lot older than those around me and struggled to make my work as original as I could and was extremely careful to attribute my sources. Those around me would plagiarise, get caught and then start again. They never learned that the lecturer had seen it all before and knew straight away when they were cheating.