Originally Posted by supermatelot

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.

Well I am a teacher and I can tell you that you are not right. I have worked in plenty of schools and trust me, the crap written here is by people who haven't been in a school since they were 16/18, and no, parents evening don't count.

Or are you lot suggesting that all we teach is military history? 5 hours a day, 5 days a week.

From personal experiance I can tell you that the kids that do well at school come from homes where the parents take an active interest in the child, their life and education. Crap parents have crap kids and there is little the schools can do to correct this.

Some of the poeple on here need to go and work in a school for a term, it might make them change their point of view. Talking crap about teaching based on their own experiance at school is just the same as the kids I teach tellimg me they know what it's like to be in the army because they play Call od Duty. It is about as far from the truth as it's possable to get.

Originally Posted by unicycle

Well I am a teacher and I can tell you that you are not right. I have worked in plenty of schools and trust me, the crap written here is by people who haven't been in a school since they were 16/18, and no, parents evening don't count.

Or are you lot suggesting that all we teach is military history? 5 hours a day, 5 days a week.

From personal experiance I can tell you that the kids that do well at school come from homes where the parents take an active interest in the child, their life and education. Crap parents have crap kids and there is little the schools can do to correct this.

Some of the poeple on here need to go and work in a school for a term, it might make them change their point of view. Talking crap about teaching based on their own experiance at school is just the same as the kids I teach tellimg me they know what it's like to be in the army because they play Call od Duty. It is about as far from the truth as it's possable to get.

Helps if the teacher is literate!

Originally Posted by IndependentBoffin

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.

We've just recently had the results of our annual Student Barometer Survey and one thing we were called to answer was that home postgrad students surveyed their application-to-decision time as being almost double that of International ones.

We don't treat their applications differently in any way, shape or form - it's just that the non-English speakers bother their arrse to read and follow the basic instructions printed in bold at the top of the front page of the form, meaning we don't have to waste time chasing them up for evidence of what they're claiming to have studied.

We're breeding a nation of half-wits.

You missed the Call od Duty bit too, Ilech so you need to get your eye sight checked!

There is a difference between literacy and typing skills. Having dyslexia makes teaching a challenge but luckly I don't have a blackboard in my classroom, that chalk and talk crap went out of style about 10 years ago.

Originally Posted by smartascarrots

We've just recently had the results of our annual Student Barometer Survey and one thing we were called to answer was that home postgrad students surveyed their application-to-decision time as being almost double that of International ones.

We don't treat their applications differently in any way, shape or form - it's just that the non-English speakers bother their arrse to read and follow the basic instructions printed in bold at the top of the front page of the form, meaning we don't have to waste time chasing them up for evidence of what they're claiming to have studied.

We're breeding a nation of half-wits.

Well according to this article:

IQ and the Wealth of Nations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

the national average IQ of the UK is 100. If the UK has so many half-wits (and yes sadly I agree with you), it makes you wonder how countries with national average IQs in the 50 - 70 region tie their shoelaces together let alone run a government.

Part of the problem is natural selection is not allowed to have free reign in anything other than a free market economy. With all the social welfare today, the heavily taxed, hardworking people with (presumably) genes for intelligence have maybe 1 child and stop because of financial considerations. Guess who are the ones breeding lots and passing on their genes?

Benefits couple claiming £30,000 for 11 children have ANOTHER on the way | Mail Online

In a zero welfare free market economy people will die, survive or flourish in accordance to their skills and will to work. A worker is due his wages; anything else is theft.

Originally Posted by unicycle

Well I am a teacher and I can tell you that you are not right. I have worked in plenty of schools and trust me, the crap written here is by people who haven't been in a school since they were 16/18, and no, parents evening don't count.

Or are you lot suggesting that all we teach is military history? 5 hours a day, 5 days a week.

From personal experiance I can tell you that the kids that do well at school come from homes where the parents take an active interest in the child, their life and education. Crap parents have crap kids and there is little the schools can do to correct this.

Some of the poeple on here need to go and work in a school for a term, it might make them change their point of view. Talking crap about teaching based on their own experiance at school is just the same as the kids I teach tellimg me they know what it's like to be in the army because they play Call od Duty. It is about as far from the truth as it's possable to get.

What an outstanding example of why today's youth are being churned out as half witted.

I also take umbrage at your comment about crap parents bringing up crap kids. There are a million reasons why some kids struggle to learn, despite the best efforts of the parents. As an alleged teacher, you should be acutely aware of that. If you are not and you consider the crap kids that you get are a result of crap parenting, then you need to change your job, mate. Perhaps your parents were crap though, they certainly didn't spend any time teaching you English.

Originally Posted by unicycle

You missed the Call od Duty bit too, Ilech so you need to get your eye sight checked!

There is a difference between literacy and typing skills. Having dyslexia makes teaching a challenge but luckly I don't have a blackboard in my classroom, that chalk and talk crap went out of style about 10 years ago.

I saw it but couldn't be arsed with any more, love Llech!

There are a million reasons or a million excuses for bad parenting?. I am of no doubt that some parents struggle due to changes in circumstance , however I have seen plenty of parents who can't give two shits about their kids and who would rather spend time partying or on holiday then do anything that progresses their childs education. The lesson that should be taught is that If you cannot provide a decent and supportive upbringing to your child then you shouldn't have children full stop. I'm sympathetic to those who do try but I have seen plenty of examples where the parents would rather blame the school then any shortfalls on their part.

Many of the young parents ( your average teenage mother) fail to understand that a lack of a male rolemodel is extremely damaging to the lives of their children. As proven by recent research by the princes trust which shows some pretty steep figures for children growing up in single parent families. Unfortunatly the corrosion of respect and family means many preganant teens see their babies as fashion accesories more than a human being that needs constant support.

Originally Posted by IndependentBoffin

Well according to this article:

IQ and the Wealth of Nations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

the national average IQ of the UK is 100. If the UK has so many half-wits (and yes sadly I agree with you), it makes you wonder how countries with national average IQs in the 50 - 70 region tie their shoelaces together let alone run a government.

Part of the problem is natural selection is not allowed to have free reign in anything other than a free market economy. With all the social welfare today, the heavily taxed, hardworking people with (presumably) genes for intelligence have maybe 1 child and stop because of financial considerations. Guess who are the ones breeding lots and passing on their genes?

Benefits couple claiming £30,000 for 11 children have ANOTHER on the way | Mail Online

In a zero welfare free market economy people will die, survive or flourish in accordance to their skills and will to work. A worker is due his wages; anything else is theft.

Ahh, anecdote and the application of generalities, without any understanding of social history, ohhh, since the origins of time, especially your last paragraph re the zero welfare market.

Spend anytime amongst released census papers, or parish records and you will understand that the small "2.4" children family is a essentially a post-war (ww2) construct. From the homeless n hoors up to Creosus riches of the aristocracy, family has in the past been big, big, big. As an example, my grandfather was 11th of 13 children and my Nan one of nine, (yeah anecdote, but the archives back me up). Mainly for the fact that disease, malnutrition, bugger all health care or clean water did for the poor and rich what Dan Browne did for intellectual literature. So your statement that families stopped breeding according to the cut of their cloth in times gone by is evidentially and factually BAAALLLLSSS!!

Further to this you have to look at wages, comparative analysis of wages today vs decades past, reveal huge differences between low and high, far, far higher than differences between the levels of rich and poor today, though evidence suggests in the US/UK the divide is once again increasing.

Going back to the central point of this thread regarding the education standards of the current generation, schools can only impart a certain amount of education, they only have limited time in order to do this, we become specialists because our interests draw our us into deeper understanding of the subject. To use a weak analogy, school organises the trip to the beach and lets us splash in the shallows, it's up to us to swim out to the reef to see the fish.

Our knowledge, of history, literature comes about through a brief introduction in school it is our love of the subject that makes us experts (thorugh dint of will and learning).

Having said that, I do think that schools could impart a far higher standard of education than they currently do, on another thread I stated I believe that students should be able to pass their S-Grades at age 14, have 5-10 Highers by age 16, two years ahead of where they are now. However what type of education they recieve is up for debate, peronally I see it as the ability to read, write, perform arithmatic and how to critically analyse a document. (the last component is supposed to be a core constituent of a number of subjects at school which is not absorbed, or drilled into the student firmly enough).

Originally Posted by rampant

Spend anytime amongst released census papers, or parish records and you will understand that the small "2.4" children family is a essentially a post-war (ww2) construct. From the homeless n hoors up to Creosus riches of the aristocracy, family has in the past been big, big, big. As an example, my grandfather was 11th of 13 children and my Nan one of nine, (yeah anecdote, but the archives back me up). Mainly for the fact that disease, malnutrition, bugger all health care or clean water did for the poor and rich what Dan Browne did for intellectual literature. So your statement that families stopped breeding according to the cut of their cloth in times gone by is evidentially and factually BAAALLLLSSS!!

No it isn't.

List of sovereign states and dependent territories by fertility rate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Poorer countries tend to have higher fertility rates than richer countries. As a large number of poorer families eventually sum up to make a poorer country, it follows that poorer families tend to have higher fertility rates than richer families.

The fertility rate in the UK may be 1.82 or so at present, but I would argue that working class families would have smaller numbers of children than the workshy on benefits, and the genetic heritage of the country is thus skewed towards the latter to the future's peril.