ARmy Rumour SErvice

Originally Posted by Yokel

Children go back to basics in maths - Telegraph

Yes but who is going to teach all these children their 12x tables, etc? After over 30 years of not teaching these things, there can't be many teachers who would be that confident in it (apologies to all those teachers who can). Teaching by rote also requires discipline which is a bit in short supply these days.

Originally Posted by Grubby Bum III

Teaching by rote also requires discipline which is a bit in short supply these days.

But that is boring for the child! Honestly, would you really wish to supress their freedom of expression like that?

Originally Posted by CaptainPlume

But that is boring for the child! Honestly, would you really wish to supress their freedom of expression like that?

I do hope you are being ironic. Learning the basics by rote gives you the building blocks to go further, we spent ages doing tables up to 12x12 at primary school, it wasn't boring as such; at that age it was still new, plus you could show off to grown ups. Later on as maths got more complicated having times tables off by rote was one thing less to worry about.

The same applies to grammar, vocabulary, and spelling; listen to the youth of today on the TV, the Kyle type shows are good for seeing how inarticulate many of them are. If you can't express an idea, it is very difficult to have one, innit, yernowhatimean?

Edited to add. Give my regards to Sjt Kite.

It's simple really you can only educate folk if you ill treat them by administering corporal punishment. In my school in the forties, we had an old master who was a sadist and bully but had his own quaint notions of impounding knowledge. He taught us Latin and French. Daily he would prescribe a twenty questions test. When the results were checked, those with one mistake received one cuff around the ear, two mistakes two cuffs and so on until those thickos who got every question wrong were literally beaten to a pulp! It was always significant that when the test was re-run toward the lessons' end how every participants answers improved. He also instructed on a one to one basis, who can forget his little comment "Come into the osiff Darling!" conveyed in his soothing Welsh twang, which was an invitation to stand closer to him and receive a particularly vicious clout on a personal level. Paradoxically and it indicates the strangeness of human behaviour, the boys respected this old character and overlooked his cruelties which were offset by his encyclopeodic knowledge of cricket and rugby; he had played the latter for Wales in the twenties. Another thing to remember is this; had you gone home and complained about him to your parents, you would have received a good telling off for upsetting him in the first place. Ah the ignorance of parents!

Interesting discussion on BBC R4 just now about youth unemployment. A girl was trying to explain the problems & I thought, "poor you, you'll get there eventually if you sit down with someone who can help you to express yourself clearly".

It turned out the interviewee was a teacher.

Originally Posted by CaptainPlume

But that is boring for the child! Honestly, would you really wish to supress their freedom of expression like that?

FFS don't get me started - I need some sleep tonight .....

Originally Posted by Johned

we had an old master who had his own quaint notions of impounding knowledge.

How the hell did he expect the poor buggers to learn when he kept everything to himself?

PS Commiserations on your premature senility.

Originally Posted by Counter-Bluffer-Ops

How the hell did he expect the poor buggers to learn when he kept everything to himself?

PS Commiserations on your premature senility.

You are quick! I think Johned meant 'instilling'.

I came through a similar experience to that described by Johned. I, and most of my classmates I would venture to say, benefited from such a regime. In my case two errors out of twenty got you a slap across the open hand with a ruler. It did not (physically) hurt much but the incentive was to be the one who did not need such treatment next time.

Most of my teachers had served in uniform or in some other wartime role.