UK also reaping the benefits of "modern" education

[Dr Mordrid]

I can't begin to imagine where to start

Link....

Quarter of Brits think Churchill was myth: poll

LONDON (AFP) - Britons are losing their grip on reality, according to a poll out Monday which showed that nearly a quarter think Winston Churchill was a myth while the majority reckon Sherlock Holmes was real.

The survey found that 47 percent thought the 12th century English king Richard the Lionheart was a myth.

And 23 percent thought World War II prime minister Churchill was made up. The same percentage thought Crimean War nurse Florence Nightingale did not actually exist.

Three percent thought Charles Dickens, one of Britain's most famous writers, is a work of fiction himself.

Indian political leader Mahatma Gandhi and Battle of Waterloo victor the Duke of Wellington also appeared in the top 10 of people thought to be myths.

Meanwhile, 58 percent thought Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective Holmes actually existed; 33 percent thought the same of W. E. Johns' fictional pilot and adventurer Biggles.

UKTV Gold television surveyed 3,000 people.

[Fat Tone]

I wouldn't start Doc! Terrible though it is, its on a par with many other 'polls' I've seen from other english-speaking countries

I can almost understand the King Richard one, as he is a big part of the Robin Hood myth that is lapped up here.

3% for Charles Dickens - not worth mentioning.

Florence Nightingale is a surprise. Kids here learn all about her around Year 2/3 (age 7ish). Luke can tell me more about that than I ever knew.

And as to UKTV Gold, its only watched by people with sufficient time on their hands to watch 20-year old repeats, and insufficient recall to care.

Do I sound defensive? Don't mean to. The real state of affairs is shocking. Its hard to know why though when I see the quality of education my children are receiving. I suspect it has more to do with the examples/treatment coming from home than what is happening these days in most schools.

[Dr Mordrid]

Most western education systems these days are run by pointy-headed members of the lunatic fringe.

My wife's been a teacher for ~30 years and every day she comes home with stories of the morons coming out of the teacher colleges these days.

Sad truth: most teachers these days aren't in it because they love teaching kids but because they couldn't get into the more high paid programs that required math. That's not conjecture, that is what my wife's been told by the student teachers that pass through her room.

Worse yet is the politically correct rubbish is being poured into their empty little heads by the professors at said teacher colleges, whose main intent seems to be selling their custom curriculum plans to unsuspecting districts around the nation.

Heaven forbid teachers should have to write a damned lesson plan on their own

Example: in one recent 5 year period the district my wife works for changed their math curriculum 4 times, meaning the upper grade teachers and the middle schools had not a clue as to how the lower grades coming into their classes had been taught. To say it caused a bloody nightmare is the understatement of the century.

Now they're muddling around with the reading programs; 3 different commercial curricula in 5 years. One of the worst parts of this is that in many of these custom reading programs you can't use supplementary materials; you have to use only what is in the "package", otherwise they can't get the federal/state grant to purchase it.

Rubbish!!

Cost: hundreds, if not thousands, of US$ per classroom per year every time they change, and brother do they ever change

[Brian Ellis]

I'd like to know how the questions were asked and how the cohort was chosen. If it was among UKTV Gold viewers, it figures. However, what really makes me wonder is the Biggles question. I would be really surprised if 33% of the population had even heard of Biggles. They were very imperialist/racist books popular when I was a kid. I read them avidly even before the 39-45 war but, above all, during the war, as their brand of patriotism was good anti-German propaganda and W.E. Johns was encouraged to write how Biggles won the war single-handed. I believe Johns wrote a considerable number after the war up to his death, but they lost popularity except among conservative aficianados (men who remained perpetual adolescents, the 'Hoorah Henry' brigade). It would surprise me if many men under the age of 50 had even heard of Biggles and fewer women.

[Brian Ellis]

I'm slightly involved, as my granddaughter is nearly an infant teacher (she graduates from University this coming June, d.v.).

In my youth, infant teachers were mostly women with a vocation for looking after young kids whose training was 6 months or a year at a teacher's training college. A number of them had previously taken a degree but all of them had to be educated to at least 18 with success in exams (A-levels, Scottish Senior Leaving Certificate, Matriculation etc.). They therefore were well versed in the 3-Rs (reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic, in case some don't know the expression). The emphasis, however, was in teaching skills and child psycholoogy.

My granddaughter is finishing a really gruelling 3-year course, essential to become an infant teacher today. The love of children is secondary to a wide knowledge, far above the heads of 4-6-year olds, and often very irrelevant. In fact, a lot of it is above my head!!!! Her academic work is impressive. Only in this final year has she been thrown, as a trainee, on the mercy of kids, under the supervision of an experienced teacher, of course. Having seen what she has been doing, I would say that about half would be relevant to infant teaching (child psychology, curricula, handling of crises in the classroom, teaching the 3-Rs, music, drawing/painting, computer skills for kids etc.), the rest higher maths, Swiss and French literature and culture, French language, Microsoft Office etc.

I know, she has the vocation but she has said, more than once, that if she had known what the course had involved, she would never have gone in for it. She has had to work far harder for her degree than I ever had to for mine.

Believe it or not, she is currently in Burkina Faso on a study comparing infant schools in Ouagadougou (I love that name!) with those in Switzerland, a three-week mission. I'm curious to hear her reactions!

[Gurm]

Don't get me started. My son's first-grade teacher has complained to us in private that she CAN'T teach the way she wants to, or the right way, because the system is so horribly broken. Unless we can afford to put the kids in private school, we're just going to have to supplement substantially!

[Umfriend]

Don't get me started.

Me neither. Our educational system is screwed. It's the result of a process that started 35 years ago but they really made good speed with ****ing it up since the mid-90's.

[Dr Mordrid]

Worse than the curricula problems is the psychobabble BS being used in schools these days.

*they can't play active sports, dodgeball etc., because the little darlings might get hurt

*they can't force a kid to take a shower after gym, modesty reasons you see, so they don't do anything which could cause 'em to break a sweat.

Talk about good reasons for childhood obesity getting a foothold.

*they can't have honors assemblies at card markings because it might make the kids who don't do well feel bad

*if a bully starts beating up some kid they BOTH get suspended for fighting. Doesn't matter if the victim fights back or not, so I taught my kids to EARN that damned suspension & showed 'em how

*whointhenameofGOD came up with the idea that teachers need 3 hours of prep time PER WEEK during school hours, meaning the kids get 3 hours less instruction? When I was actively teaching it was expected that an instructor have a damned lesson plan for the whole year ready when the f#%*&@g term started

*they're obsessed with GUNS beyond all reason. Draw a stick picture of anything that resembles a gun and you get suspended, despite the fact that images of same are in the textbooks. A rotated "L" will do. Point your finger and go "bang" and you get suspended. Bring in a pen with a gun companies name printed on it and you get suspended (a kid was recently suspended for having a Glock pen he borrowed from his dad). Before you know it the names Beretta, Smith, Wesson, Remington and Winchester will be suspension words, not to mention those using the numbers 5.56, 7, 8, 9, 10, .22, .222, .223, .264, .30, .32, .357, .38, .40, .44, .45, .464, .50 etc. will have to be suspended

I could go on for hours, but you get the drift....

[KRSESQ]

The schools around here aren't quite THAT bad yet, because we still have a few administrators around who can think for themselves. They're starting to approach retirement age though, so I wouldn't want to place any long bets.

But it still gives me the willies thinking about how many folks I've met who think the Ichabod Crane character was a real person (perhaps confusing him with the U.S. Army Colonel whose name Washington Irving borrowed).

Kevin

[Gurm]

Actually they CAN play some rough games @ school, Logan got broken blood vessels on his outer thighs (looks like a weird rash) playing some gym game called "survivor" or something like that. Sounded like dodgeball meets foursquare from the way he described it.

[The PIT]

I'd like to know how the questions were asked and how the cohort was chosen. If it was among UKTV Gold viewers, it figures. However, what really makes me wonder is the Biggles question. I would be really surprised if 33% of the population had even heard of Biggles. They were very imperialist/racist books popular when I was a kid. I read them avidly even before the 39-45 war but, above all, during the war, as their brand of patriotism was good anti-German propaganda and W.E. Johns was encouraged to write how Biggles won the war single-handed. I believe Johns wrote a considerable number after the war up to his death, but they lost popularity except among conservative aficianados (men who remained perpetual adolescents, the 'Hoorah Henry' brigade). It would surprise me if many men under the age of 50 had even heard of Biggles and fewer women.

You know some of the comments you put in there really worry me. Do you believe them.

[Jammrock]

Don't get me started. My son's first-grade teacher has complained to us in private that she CAN'T teach the way she wants to, or the right way, because the system is so horribly broken. Unless we can afford to put the kids in private school, we're just going to have to supplement substantially!

By freak chance my family landed in a school district that has a public Montessori-based elementary school. My son has attention and hyperactivity problems, but he is thriving there, and I as I walk down the hallway and see all the school projects these kids do I am floored. My son comes home talking about stuff I didn't learn in school until I was in 4-6 grade. South Carolina, the state I live in, is notorious for having really bad schools, yet the kids at my son's school all seem to to love it and thrive. It is simply amazing!

Which scares me, because the Montessori program ends at the 6th grade, and the Montessori private schools are off the chart expensive. It really makes me think that the educational systems need a serious overhaul to some sort of mix that teaches new ideas in the old fashion way. Somewhere in the past 30-50 years schools have lost the love of learning and have become a test factory, IMO.

[Gurm]

But a BAD test factory. The tests are the only sensible way anyone can think of to gauge the schools' effectiveness. Everyone KNOWS the schools are bad, but everyone WITHIN the system is so oblivious to the real problems that they need to somehow measure their progress against odd goals.

The worst part? If you can't ACE the standardized tests you've been failed by the system. If you can't ACE the SAT nowadays, you've been failed by the system. If you can't ACE the yearly progress tests, you haven't been educated. At all. And that's sad.

[Dr Mordrid]

The worst part? If you can't ACE the standardized tests you've been failed by the system. If you can't ACE the SAT nowadays, you've been failed by the system. If you can't ACE the yearly progress tests, you haven't been educated. At all. And that's sad.

AMEN! Which is why no matter how good Erik does on his standardized tests, classroom work and homework (both his grade level and those above his age-based placement) he gets tons of supplemental TEACHING by both Margie and I. Thank God he loves every minute of it, massively so. The kids a freakin' information vacuum cleaner.