Since 1801, when it was Ireland rather than Northern Ireland of course.
Army Rumour Service
Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!
Poor UK education standards
- Thread starter Cardinal
- Start date
ExREME.TECH
LE
That's only an hour ago, how are we supposed to know
Yokel
LE
Well done for spotting the deliberate mistake. At least someone reads my posts.
Many of the old and bold seem to think education should be like what it was in the 'good old days', without considering the value of it, or if things that were useful back than are useful now.
For example Science lessons teach facts, but also an idea of how to solve problems logically.
ExREME.TECH
LE
They taught me how to blow up test tubes
Ah, no dat is when my great grandfather and grandmother were married in Ballymena...........must be an Oirish passport in there somewhere. ETA, you are probably correct though.
huscarl
Old-Salt
@IndependentBoffin "When I was a young kid I had loads of fun with science. No one wanted to be my lab bench partner (mostly due to unscheduled experiments) but boy were those the days! My teachers back then were adventurous enough to encourage me to stay behind after school hours and use the lab for more fun experiments. Nowadays kids are kept in such straitjackets and cotton-padded rooms that it is a wonder they are allowed to play with anything more hazardous than a pencil. No teacher these days would dare encourage a kid to stay behind after hours doing anything they wanted (back then under supervision, of course).
I remember the joy when I extracted the deflagrating component in fireworks
as a very young boy and learnt by experiment that not only does it burn outside the firework, how it burns and releases its energy can be greatly affected by surface area, confinement, etc. E.g. you can make a firecracker bang much louder if you wrap it a few times in duct tape. So when I was introduced to Reaction Kinetics in O-level chemistry I understood the concepts naturally.
So you can imagine my delight when I found out that reactant diffusion distances can be reduced even further to atomic scales through compounds with both oxidiser and fuel bonded together in the same molecule - hence detonating explosives with much higher reaction rates"
Didn't by chance go on to an AT/ATO did you!?
Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk
I remember the joy when I extracted the deflagrating component in fireworks
as a very young boy and learnt by experiment that not only does it burn outside the firework, how it burns and releases its energy can be greatly affected by surface area, confinement, etc. E.g. you can make a firecracker bang much louder if you wrap it a few times in duct tape. So when I was introduced to Reaction Kinetics in O-level chemistry I understood the concepts naturally. So you can imagine my delight when I found out that reactant diffusion distances can be reduced even further to atomic scales through compounds with both oxidiser and fuel bonded together in the same molecule - hence detonating explosives with much higher reaction rates
" Didn't by chance go on to an AT/ATO did you!?
Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk
MikeMcc
LE
I think in part it is because there is a wide range of media channels, kids can opt to switch to the crazy channels if they get bored. When I grew up we had three TV channels, so I watched The World at War, Tenko, The Secret War, Escape from Colditz, Pathfinders. As a teenager the documents about Ultra and Bletchley Park were released. That got me into reading up about various things, Like the Scourge of the Swastika and the Knights of Bushido. I also watched other documentaries such as the Cousteau documentaries, Horizon, Tomorrows World, all sorts of things that shaped me into who I am now. I do feel that kids (a generalization) now are becoming shallow, not following some sort of drive to improve themselves.
Yokel
LE
I would largely agree with that.
1. Are kids empowered to understand that they can and should do things for themselves - cooking a meal, simple household repairs, working out how many tiles you need for a wall, that sort of thing?
2. Do kids have fiction (or non fiction) with a heroic narrative?
Last edited:
They'll look on YouTube to see how to do it.
Mike Barton
LE
Just like the rest of us then, really.
Yokel
LE
Would they? Would they have the instinct to try - or would they woefully post on social media? I am thinking of all the people who posted on Facebook that they were hungry and felt sad when KFC had a supply problem.
What would they do it the event of a network outage?
I'm not defending this but my son - who has absolutely no mechanical aptitude - happily changed the wiper motor in his little Fiat, simply by following it on YouTube. Clearly no substitute for an apprenticeship or an engineering degree and certification, but we have to accept ways of learning have changed.
fraudstar
LE
People learn in different ways. Some people are visual learners, others kinesthetic. I suspect more people are better at learning from a video from a manual. More still from doing it a few times (and getting it wrong, and working out why it is wrong) than just seeing a video a few times. It is almost as if, apprenticeships were designed for those who are better at that kind of learning than academic learning.
eta @Yokel tag.
and second eta that many army schools are looking at ways to create a "blended learning environment" to accommodate how different soldiers learn
Last edited:
Yokel
LE
I have no problem with that, and I am quite impressed. Your son was able to work out what needed doing, had the gumption to find out how to do it, and had the ability to do the work. No different to looking in a manual - and needed mechanical ability.
I am talking about those who would not have a thought to do anything - as someone else will take responsibility.
Nimbus
LE
pre COVID, most schools had some kind of STEM programme. Sure, limited by somewhat more stringent H&S requirements than when most ARRSERS were at school, but at least we don’t have to fret about chalk dust and broken slates...
Yokel
LE
Do local companies get invited to contribute to STEM type events? After all, the kids will want employment when the leave education, and the firms will want good recruits. I think it would also be good PR for the companies. Win win for everyone. It might get the kids interested too.
Is that what STEM Ambassadors are for?
Ortholith
LE
There's no good evidence for that and it's pretty much fallen out of favour in education. We're busy reinventing the wheel in other ways.
Give it 20 years and we'll come back to VAK learners but with fancy new names and consultants making a packet out of the rebranding.
Nimbus
LE
Good question... My BIL went to Oxford, has a brain the size of a planet, gets a bigger bonus than I’ve ever earned in a year, but if you put a tool in his hand, he will hurt himself. If something breaks, his wife orders a new one, or calls a man (or her 82yr old dad) to come and fix it. BIL got a very good education, I went to 7 different schools in 3 countries, but my dad fished around in skips at work and brought me junk to play with (One week, it was a Turn & Slip indicator, a magnetron and a box of time expired SARBE batteries). Yes, you can read about the shallow end of the gene pool in the papers, but ‘child fixed punctured bike tyre’ is not going to sell papers so is largely ignored. Social media is full of shoite, but it’s also full of amazing stuff - just take a look in the more esoteric threads on here (eg the photography and military modelling threads) and you will see that there are folks who treat problems as entertaining diversions and don’t feel the need to bleat to the world about it.
Yes, and yes. My company has been doing this for some years now.
Nimbus
LE
I’ve worked on STEM projects with David Brown, Cummins, Jaguar Landrover and Huddersfield Town football club, as well as local FE colleges and Universities and Rotary (etc) clubs. So yes, I’ve had students gain apprenticeships with, and blag sponsorship from DB, JLR and Cummins, not to mention a cupboard of trophies.
Not a bad result when you’re 14.
Similar threads
