Classic British Flight Sim

Cyberbrat got his GCSE results yesterday. After the excitement died down and the present Mrs Speedbird got over the shock of realising how much her doing-your-coursework bribes was going to cost her, I was left with some puzzles.

How can you get an A* for English Language with a vocabulary which consists of two basic words, dunno and 'kay, and a collection of grunts?
How do you get an A for English Literature if you only ever read PS3 magazine?
How do you get an A* for Humanities if you spend 90% of your time lying in bed fighting the third world war?

Seriously, though, there's nothing remotely easy about these exams (I've been out of my depth for at least two years) and in my opinion the continued rise in pass rates reflects the efforts put in by the schools and the hard work put in by the pupils, who really do take their future seriously. Of course there is a sub-culture of losers as there is in every generation - they're a minority but get most of the attention and publicity and give the majority a bad name.

So congratulations to all the kids whose hard work paid off yesterday.

Ian

Sadly the exact opposite is true here. The kids test scores are going down all too quickly in a large portion of the nation and every attempt by responsible parents to force accountability on the failed "national education system" is foiled by either uncaring (i.e. power hungry) school boards or the much, much too powerful Teacher's Union which would love to see nothing more than $100K/year teacher salaries and tenure for all teachers at every level basically giving them a garunteed job with no performance reviews or any sort of accountability to show that they have truly taught anything to their students.

What's even more unfortunate is that too many of the teachers they represent agree with the union's views.

Thank God that we have private schools in the US that are doing everything they can to be affordable for as many as possible by offering scholarships and sponsorships for students. Maybe one of these days we can force vouchers down the throats of the Teacher's Union and prove to them how displeased the parents really are with the education system that doesn't educate.

The reason the exam results are high is because children are now taught to memorise facts and methods rather than to learn things. It's not as simple as "teaching children to pass exams" as the media is so keen to point out but in the past ten or so years there has been a definite shift with regards to secondary school education, and the only people suffering are the kids unfortunately, they are worked incredibly hard and put under stresses that no child should have to experience and gain very little of anything that has a practical application. The whole system is now geared towards a more "learn and repeat" type of culture than teaching the kids to actually think for themselves and encouraging individual thoughts and opinions. The teachers are expected to act like performing seals in an effort to keep the kids attention because (quite rightly) this style of teaching needs a lot of dressing up to make it even remotely palatable. There is a vicious circle of a growing amount of parents who don't give a damn about their children and won't help them at home "why should I have to teach my kid to read, that's a teachers job" (I've heard that one with my own ears), and on the other side you have an education system that is constantly drifting away from practical skills and genuine knowledge and cramming kids heads with things that they will never ever need to know, and in some case is badly oversimplified, and in many other cases is just plain wrong. Anyone who has studied at school, then gone onto sixth form and then onto university will tell you how it is a constant battle having to unlearn everything you had been taught previously because the beloved national curriculum is just plain wrong. And I haven't been at school for nearly ten years, from what I can gather from reading my better halves work (she's a teacher) it's only gotten worse. In fact she's adamant that we're going to partly home-school our kids!

Oscar Wilde said it best, and it has never been more relevant that today, ""We teach people how to remember, we never teach them how to grow."

Chris Trott wrote:Sadly the exact opposite is true here. The kids test scores are going down all too quickly in a large portion of the nation and every attempt by responsible parents to force accountability on the failed "national education system" is foiled by either uncaring (i.e. power hungry) school boards or the much, much too powerful Teacher's Union which would love to see nothing more than $100K/year teacher salaries and tenure for all teachers at every level basically giving them a garunteed job with no performance reviews or any sort of accountability to show that they have truly taught anything to their students.

What's even more unfortunate is that too many of the teachers they represent agree with the union's views.

Thank God that we have private schools in the US that are doing everything they can to be affordable for as many as possible by offering scholarships and sponsorships for students. Maybe one of these days we can force vouchers down the throats of the Teacher's Union and prove to them how displeased the parents really are with the education system that doesn't educate.

I don't know about Texas but the public schools in this area are excellent. To what "national education system" are you referring? I always thought each state and indeed, each county pretty much contolled the schools within their jurisdiction. The teachers in this area are fairly well paid by national standards but don't earn anything like $100k even in their dreams! I think paying teachers a decent livable salary is a key to quality education in our schools. Seems to me that teachers are an important ingredient in our children's future and they ought to be paid accordingly. Test scores for students in Fairfax County (where I live) are consistently above the national average and have risen for several years in a row. A large portion of the county budget is devoted to the school system, which is recognized as one of the best in the US. In other words - you get what you pay for. School vouchers are not the answer to poor perfomance of schools, investing more in education is!

Apologies to all the Brits for boring you with US politics!

nigelb wrote:I don't know about Texas but the public schools in this area are excellent. To what "national education system" are you referring? I always thought each state and indeed, each county pretty much contolled the schools within their jurisdiction. The teachers in this area are fairly well paid by national standards but don't earn anything like $100k even in their dreams! I think paying teachers a decent livable salary is a key to quality education in our schools. Seems to me that teachers are an important ingredient in our children's future and they ought to be paid accordingly. Test scores for students in Fairfax County (where I live) are consistently above the national average and have risen for several years in a row. A large portion of the county budget is devoted to the school system, which is recognized as one of the best in the US. In other words - you get what you pay for. School vouchers are not the answer to poor perfomance of schools, investing more in education is!

Apologies to all the Brits for boring you with US politics!

"Public Education" is the National Education System I refer to. The advent and continued operation of public schools is a federal law and controlled under the Department of Education. While administered and mostly funded at the County (and even local) level, many of the precepts and requirements are set at the State and Federal level in addition to quite a large sum of money being dispensed at the National level (remember "No Child Left Behind"?)

As for money, no, it's not the only answer. 3 Texas schools that were recently shutdown due to consistently failing grades on the exams that are given each year (teaching to the test doesn't always work no matter how much they want to tell you that it's the reason for "good" grades) were charging the maximum allowable in the state for property taxes, were receiving a good lump of funds from the State Lottery fund, and were arguably well funded as the teachers were well paid, the class sizes were small, and the buildings were kept in excellent repair and equipped with the latest in technology. But they still failed. Why did they fail? Because the teachers had no personal accountability for failing to teach the students. While the school was shutdown, the union ensured they had jobs elsewhere and ensured they were not directly punished for their failures. In fact, the TEA is setup where the system cannot determine specifically what teachers are the source of "failing" students so that they can be held accountable.

They have many of the same problems in Colorado, New York, California, and Florida for certain. Just because they're great in your area doesn't mean that they're good everywhere, especially when the "National Average" has been on the decline for the last 15 years and the US is steadily falling behind the rest of the world in those averages. More importantly, the rate of requiring remedial classes to be given to new college students has skyrocketed in the last 5 years so that now the majority of college freshmen have to take at least 1 remedial class when they enter college to make up for deficiencies from their previous 12 years of schooling which they "passed."

Nigel

Bad example using Fairfax county - its a model to be shown to the rest of the world

Nevada just cut its budget for everything AGAIN (this in a state that has one of the highest grossing tax bases
for obvious reason - Teachers are having to beg parents to buy supplies for them, (I dont mean just text books
but even down to writing material) English is rapidly becoming a second langauge and as Chris points out "No child left behind"
Means brighter children have NO chance of excelling as they are held to the lowest common denominator in the school.
Which is why Tag attends a very nice Lutheran school that costs us in excess of 14000 USD a year to make sure he has
a chance of NT becoming a crackhead, Gangbanger or whats that word you use over back a home "A Chav?". But never mind
when Baroque Odama becomes president in January - Europe can cheer - until they find out exactly what his presidency is going to mean.

Sorry Ben, et al, Its bloody disgraceful and I am a concerned parent trying to get my son educated

Chris H wrote:The reason the exam results are high is because children are now taught to memorise facts and methods rather than to learn things. It's not as simple as "teaching children to pass exams" as the media is so keen to point out but in the past ten or so years there has been a definite shift with regards to secondary school education, and the only people suffering are the kids unfortunately, they are worked incredibly hard and put under stresses that no child should have to experience and gain very little of anything that has a practical application. The whole system is now geared towards a more "learn and repeat" type of culture than teaching the kids to actually think for themselves and encouraging individual thoughts and opinions. The teachers are expected to act like performing seals in an effort to keep the kids attention because (quite rightly) this style of teaching needs a lot of dressing up to make it even remotely palatable. There is a vicious circle of a growing amount of parents who don't give a damn about their children and won't help them at home "why should I have to teach my kid to read, that's a teachers job" (I've heard that one with my own ears), and on the other side you have an education system that is constantly drifting away from practical skills and genuine knowledge and cramming kids heads with things that they will never ever need to know, and in some case is badly oversimplified, and in many other cases is just plain wrong. Anyone who has studied at school, then gone onto sixth form and then onto university will tell you how it is a constant battle having to unlearn everything you had been taught previously because the beloved national curriculum is just plain wrong. And I haven't been at school for nearly ten years, from what I can gather from reading my better halves work (she's a teacher) it's only gotten worse. In fact she's adamant that we're going to partly home-school our kids!

Oscar Wilde said it best, and it has never been more relevant that today, ""We teach people how to remember, we never teach them how to grow."

Was always thus. Back in the 1970's, when I did my O and A levels, it was emphasis on memory and learning facts rather than learning how to think for yourself and express your own reasoned opinions. I always say I didn't learn how to learn (i.e. read a range of books and opinions, mooting and testing hypotheses until you come to your own conclusions) until I studied for my degree. The only exam at A level where I had to proffer my own opinions based on reasoned judgement was the slightly mickey-mouse General Studies where I had to give a reasoned critique of two contrasting buildings of differing ages, for which I chose St Pancras Station and Birmingham New Street, and launched off on a reactionary diatribe that Prince Chuck would have loved, such was my lack of reasoned argument, although the examiner must have liked it as I passed the exam. Every other A level was regurgitating facts and stuff that had largely been handed to us verbatim.

I do agree with the comment earlier though that children are put under far too much pressure, and that exams haven't got any easier. They may be more grounded in real life compared to the rarified Oxbridge academic rubbish I had to wade through at A level but they are not any easier and it's about time the naysayers stopped putting down today's students by suggesting the exams have been dumbed down.

I left a UK grammar school in 1955.

Whenever I see the 1939 version of 'Goodbye Mr Chips' I am reminded of the masters who taught me. Without doubt their job was made alot easier because most parents supported them and we, the pupils came to respect and like most of them. Everyone was encouraged to do as well as was possible in the classroom and on the playing fields. No boy left our school unable to swim. Sports and sportsmanship were taught, an hour a day every day. I recall weekly tests and term end exams which must have been very different to those of today because I cannot recall teachers, pupils or parents exhibiting the emotional tantrums evident, perhaps justifiably, today.

In those days on ecould obtain acompletely free education from infancy to degree standard but it was not considered the end of the world not to go to a university. Good jobs were obtainable without a degree.

We were expected to stay out of debt and out of trouble, our education was not prolonged to lower the unemployment figures and most of my friends from both grammar and secondary schools did not have any problems in finding employment. We had no knowledge of alcohol or sex - that would come later in the 'university of life' and no one had enough money to indulge in binge drinking.

I find it difficult to accept that over the last 50 years that we have developed an education system which employers now criticise for producing British graduates and school leavers who are not ready for the workplace. It is also difficult for me to accept that many of our craftsmen/women (plumbers, painters, electricians) and medical professionals have had to come to this country from abroad while our UK vocational and professional training schemes have been cutback in recent years.

The kids of today may b eworking hard but are they working hard at the things which will make their later lives easier, happier and satisfying.

I am glad I grew up at the time I did and I have many concerns about the future of the UK.

I am not a stick in the mud but I have not seen educational progress just the passage of time over the past few years.

Pleased to see that we are doing well in the current Olympics. There is hope.

DispatchDragon wrote:Nigel

Bad example using Fairfax county - its a model to be shown to the rest of the world

Well, I knew the schools here were good but I didn't realize they are a model system. I suppose that is why I did not understand the apparent concerns of people living elsewhere in the US. The minus side of the schools is that our real estate taxes are very high compared with most areas.