I got involved in a debate regarding UK schools on a footy forum, so wondered what you guys thought.
The population is growing massively, the IT sector is beginning to dry up with the introduction of cloud/virtualisation and theres only so much content creation and keeping the lights on necessary.
More worryingly is the population is being fed cretin child after cretin child to breed another cretin child, I daresay Jeremy Kyle is actually starting to paint an accurate picture on certain areas within the country, more-so in 5/10/15/20 years.
From my own experiences more increasingly the next generations attitude to sex is to use a kind word hedonistic, with an ever growing number with an image and attitude problem thats spiraling into the ridiculous, with an alarming number thinking theyre actually popstars or gangsters.
Whats even worse is theres a huge chunk who will sit and moan about foreigners coming into the country and taking their jobs, from the comfort of a wetherspoons chair on a Tuesday afternoon.
But thats not where the lack of responsibility stops, you get party after party being in charge who dont actually give a toss and are just content with blaming the predecessors, or setting up a fall for the next mugs in the seat out for a few tasty backhanders.
Cynical? oh yes, put me down for a slice.
Ill take a slice too.
The really sad fact is that there is a general corruption - in every sense of the world - of society and our ever growing population and attachment to the media is what allows this to grow.
I try not to worry about it all as theres nothing to be done to stop it happening, my vote eventually counts for nothing as you pointed out, I cant do anything about the financial situation, I cant do anything about North Korea and the other nutter countries either.
Give it another five or ten years, China will be the dominant superpower and the west will be pandering to the East I reckon. Or well be heading for some sort of cultural revolution, its all boom/bust, boom/bust.
Part of me agrees wholeheartedly, and another part is left thinking this is what each generation has thought since probably the turn of the 20th century, if not earlier.
The bit I think needs changing is we need population control, but everything else is evolution of society.
Zypder is right, every generation says the same thing about the younger generations.
Truth is, were all richer than before, the IT sector is booming in this country - you can get a job in 15 minutes in london.
Hardline National Socialism is what we need. And you can run a successful society under NS without the racism aspect.
Quote from: EagleHardline National Socialism is what we need. And you can run a successful society under NS without the racism aspect.
Out of curiousity, which countries have tried this successfully ?
Quote from: EagleHardline National Socialism is what we need. And you can run a successful society under NS without the racism aspect.
This stuff makes me laugh. The people who suggest it always think that all the bad things that happen in governments like that will always happen to someone else.....
Its a bit unfair to be putting the blame onto the younger generation.
The thing is, the media like to over exaggerate, so if one cretinious douche decides to beat up an old woman, then suddenly every teenager is painted to be a waste of space, jobless, binge drinking lout.
But the thing is, I dont actually know anyone like this. Okay, so I dont exactly associate myself with these types of people commonly known as chavs, but there are plenty at my college.
It seems now the way people deal with all of lifes problems is to push it onto the teenagers of now, and blame them, because after all they are just living off hard working tax payers money and popping out illiterate kids by the millisecond arent they?
Its not our fault the government is full of up themselves snobs who couldnt give a monkeys what happens to everyone else as long as they have their lovely country estate where they can go shoot partridges or whatever it is they do in their spare time.
I want to be a journalist. Not one of those investigative reporters that work for the Daily Mail, I actually have a conscience, so Im going through 2 years of college. Then Ill go through 3 years of university at the now increased price of hundreds of billions of pounds or whatever the ridiculous amount is, and then Ill go through another to do my NTJC, and after all these years of trying my hardest I still probably wont get a job, Ill just end up working in Tesco or somewhere. But thats okay, because thats what society expects of me anyway.
But then again, Im not even old enough to vote yet, so I guess I just dont get a say in my future.
I think the blame culture we are living in has a lot to do with a lot of the things which are perceived as the ills of the country, while Im not saying people as a rule are bigoted, when your exposed to it day after day in the press and other popular culture some of it is bound to rub off on you.
It's always somebody's fault, at the moment it is the young, immigrants, people on benefits ... Im a bit older than most of the regular posters on here so remember the 80's, under Thatcher the fault in popular culture was with people who worked in industries such as mining, shipyards and travellers. Who like today's easy target groups are dragging the rest of us hard working people down!
"Aw bull #@%$, man. Come on Vern, the kids havent changed, you have! You took a teaching position, cause you thought itd be fun, right? Thought you could have summer vacations off...and then you found out it was actually work...and that really bummed you out."
Quote from: BeanissocoollikeOkay, so I dont exactly associate myself with these types of people commonly known as chavs, but there are plenty at my college.
It seems now the way people deal with all of lifes problems is to push it onto the teenagers of now, and blame them, because after all they are just living off hard working tax payers money and popping out illiterate kids by the millisecond arent they?
Its this ever growing number thats the concern.
Could it be that only the dumb people get press? and that the smart younger generation are just not covered at all? If thats the case then surely its not all bad...
IT sector isnt drying up for those of us heavily involved in cloud computing and virtualisation!
Web design and anything web based or mobile at all in fact are still booming in fact, I do have to wonder how long that will last though.
Quote from: EddCould it be that only the dumb people get press? and that the smart younger generation are just not covered at all? If thats the case then surely its not all bad...
We know they are out there because at the other end there are the brilliant minds working in medicine, engineering, physics at places like CERN, etc. They do get press but as youve pointed out, its certainly not in the mainstream tabloids. Cheryl Cole is apparently more important than unravelling the mysteries of the universe (we know most blokes only care about unravelling the mysteries of whats in her knickers though)
Indeed I certainly dont think the current younger generations are brainless pondscum after spending 5 mins with the PHD students. If anything they make me feel like a Neanderthal.
I actually believe people are getting more intelligent, and with teaching methods evolving, its making it better for children to learn as theyre more involved.
When I first started secondary school, everyone had to do a test to determine how best they learn, and what level theyre working at. I was seen to be a kinetic learner, so having to just write whatever the teacher says or copying from the board just doesnt work for me. But get me involved with something and I work really well, I think this is why Im less academic and more creative.
But then when my parents were at school, you just did what the teacher said, it wasnt so interactive.
But then apparently 15 and 16 year olds arent allowed to be getting smarter, it must be that the exam boards are being more lenient with their marking.
If thats the case then I must be a retard.
I have a problem with the kids these days who cant read properly being called dyslexic. Just because theyre illiterate doesnt automatically make them dyslexic, and while you cant really call them thick, I have my suspicions that its because of the culture of "blame everything and everyone but oneself"
I myself am dyslexic, but in a kind of strange way. I have no problem with reading or spelling, my problem is getting information into my brain. My writing is kinda nasty but thats not a biggie. I went on a dyslexia test recently to see if I was. (they wouldnt count my previous 2 tests which confirmed I was.) Anyway they sat me down in front of a computer and because I could read and spell the computer said I wasnt dyslexic.
Anyway, Im sure there are genuinely kids out there who DO have a problem and are dyslexic, but there are kids out there being diagnosed as dyslexic when the problem seems to me to be something much easier to address; laziness. Theyre lazy, with their text speak and sh*t like that no wonder they cant f**king read properly. Its something that really winds me up. And the result will be that when theyre grown up if theyre presented with a challenge, theyll just say "I cant do that, Im dyslexic and youre persecuting me for it." although I doubt theyll use the word persecuting.
[read retorts]
Yes, were screwed... :disappointed:
I agree with you, I went to a school which also had students with learning and physical disabilities, so I knew quite a few people in my year who were dyslexic/dyspraxic. And then there were the ones who just couldnt be bothered.
Because of some of the students in our school, we had a lot of Learning Support Assistants, and loads of people would just fake being stupid because it was their way of getting the LSA to basically do the work for them, so the people that actually needed help werent getting it (majority of the actual teachers in our school were useless).
But at the same time I always hated being treated like an idiot. I dont think of myself as dumb, but when I was in year 10, after spending 3 years in the higher group for science, I got put in the middle group. I couldnt understand why and spent the whole year trying to get them to put me back up, because for that whole year the teacher spoke to that class as if we were 5 year olds.
Thankfully, when I got to year 11 I got put back up again, and got to be confused by physics again.
Its weird. When I was maybe 8-10 (sometime around then) I did some test and was told I had a memory sequencing issue/form of dyslexia, but we never did anything about it. Ive never ticked the boxes on education or employment applications which ask if you have dyslexia or other disabilities, and have never really used it as an excuse. But in the last 6 months or so I remembered about it when someone was saying they were dyslexic and thats why they couldnt spell, and I pointed out so was I. Since then I think Ive mentioned it once a fortnight or so...its just so convenient it seems.
I hate myself a little more each time I use it though. All it is is basically I can remember things, but struggle to remember which is which. So I often get confused on the roads when I cant remember if its the left or right turning, or learning new species I often get similar ones muddled up, and things like cations and anions I can remember what they are, but never which one is positive and which negative etc.
Quote from: EddCould it be that only the dumb people get press?
Nailed it. W celebrate the mundane in people.
std issue pop idol bird #4, wins pop idol and its front page news for days: OMG this person can sing after practicing for years and getting guidance and help from experts in the field. Woooo!!
WAG bonks some footballer - international news.
Rooney shags some whore - 14 page colour supplements.
The CERN guys contain antimatter - nothing.
A potentially life-friendly planet in the neighbourhood - nothing.
Were living a Jeremy Kyle show.
Then we got technology.
1900s - blokes mess around with mechanical computers and early flying machines.
1960-1970s - we get the space race, we get the blackbird, we get computers taking up whole buildings, we get nuclear fusion in the next decade! We got people in the pubs, down at community centres talking about sh*t.
2010- - we got AMD eCPUs, we got £100B windmills, we got broadband running 1/100 the speed it could be if we werent spending millions on dog rehabilitation centres in hungary or 250mph rail links that will never break even. We got Facebook and omg Neil has a wonky toenail...
2050 - Idiocracy.
Quote from: matt5cottWhats even worse is theres a huge chunk who will sit and moan about foreigners coming into the country and taking their jobs, from the comfort of a wetherspoons chair on a Tuesday afternoon.
Yep. People bitch and whine all day long about this. Those damn foreigners, we got people coming here who are prepared to wash our cars in sub zero temperatures for 6quid. People who are happy to clean our houses for £30 a week, people who are prepared to go to uni and not see it as a 3 year drink and drug binge. Sods. Gimme a hardworking German or Nigerian or whatever dentist or car valet or chef over some lazy, entitled english git any day.
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Kids these days :gag:
Problem with kids these days is they have absolutely
zero independence. I got 2 trainees at the moment and Ive had a bunch on work experience and its constantly what do i do with this W7 install disk? and pete, can you hold my hand while I install this memory upgrade?. I get kids in, I give them something simple, something as technical as running a virus scan. They all seem to expect me to spend 10 minutes going through it with them, even though weve gone through it a dozen times already. Fine. I do that cos theyre new.
Then they go find another engineer to ask questions to but its not stuff like should I be running combofix? or is malware malbytes going to fix this or is there something better?
No. They go to engineer no.2 and say i got this problem. What do I do now?
Engineer no.2 says the same as me and they come back to me. Pete, E2 says i should do that exact thing you said I should do a few minutes ago. What do I do?
....
I realised a few months back that I dont teach kids how to fix stuff anymore, Im trying my damnest to get them thinking on their own feet -
*This is the Problem*
*These are your resources*
*Find the solution*
Getting them to reach a conclusion on their own. Getting them through the thought process: This PC has a Virus. NOD32 didnt pick it up. We need to run malware malbytes while we Google for a solid fix.
Impossible. They got no independence.
Quote from: Pete2050 - Idiocracy.
Or a well-functioning, fit, healthy, prosperous society under a benevolent, national socialist government. It neednt be all jack-boots and secret police, you silly, paranoid people.
National Socialism. Analyse those words.
Quote from: EagleQuote from: Pete2050 - Idiocracy.
Or a well-functioning, fit, healthy, prosperous society under a benevolent, national socialist government. It neednt be all jack-boots and secret police, you silly, paranoid people. National Socialism. Analyse those words.
National Socialism. Read a history book.
Sure...
Quote from: EagleOr a well-functioning, fit, healthy, prosperous society under a benevolent, national socialist government. It neednt be all jack-boots and secret police, you silly, paranoid people. National Socialism. Analyse those words.
Will the trains run on time?
I think to be fair, national socialism did work for Germany at that time.........until he went on holiday to poland.....
Germany was undeniably efficient because of NS, thats why we struggled so hard against them and their rapid growth.
Quote from: EddI think to be fair, national socialism did work for Germany at that time.........until he went on holiday to poland.....
Yes, the expansionist aspect was the main reason it failed. However, National Socialism didnt fail
itself, per se - as a political system. It worked wonders for getting the people fit, healthy, motivated and
contributing to society. It follows that a tempered NS could work very well here. It would certainly counter and redress the rot thats set in.
After all, nothing else is working...
its not the kids... is bad parenting
Its kids having kids... Thats the problem. Zero life experience.
Quote from: BeanissocoollikeI actually believe people are getting more intelligent, and with teaching methods evolving, its making it better for children to learn as theyre more involved.
When I first started secondary school, everyone had to do a test to determine how best they learn, and what level theyre working at. I was seen to be a kinetic learner, so having to just write whatever the teacher says or copying from the board just doesnt work for me. But get me involved with something and I work really well, I think this is why Im less academic and more creative.
But then when my parents were at school, you just did what the teacher said, it wasnt so interactive.
But then apparently 15 and 16 year olds arent allowed to be getting smarter, it must be that the exam boards are being more lenient with their marking.
If thats the case then I must be a retard.
Evolution isnt that quick and year on year rises are mostly artificial - boundaries moving, grades being adjusted/moderated.
Looking over a long period standards have dropped considerably - back when I was doing maths a-level we were able to use an old o-level book to cover a large portion of the 1st year pure syllabus so wed already regressed standards by a year in that subject (this was a decade ago).
Im not sure what being less academic and more creative even means - but it sounds like some PC excuse for a teacher to try and sidestep the reality that some kids are simply brighter than others.
A fairer system would use a bell curve and just keep grade boundaries at a set % - though this wouldnt go down too well politically as the govt love to be able to turn around each year and say grades have improved yet again.
I think what she means by less academic and more creative is that not everyone is going to be brilliant at core/science type subjects such as maths, physics, english, but they may be much better at creative and skill based subjects such as art, music, etc. Not everyone can paint and not everyone is going to be a brilliant mathematician after all, but I think getting back onto that debate is really retreading much worn ground.
I do agree that the syllabus being taught seems much simpler now and more focused on passing exams and technique rather than actually teaching knowledge.
Ive been a bit shocked by my experience as a demonstrator at uni, given that 3+ years ago I was on the other side of the desk.
My memory of the experience was being told about several different topic in a moderate amount of detail and being given recommended texts and assignments that would direct your studies in a certain direction. We had limited practical seminar sessions and those we did have were fairly intensive on the staff due to the level of confusion generally (in practice, practice and theory are the same, in practice, they never are...)
And now as a demonstrator either 1 of 2 things has happened. Either its just a different perspective and the hands-offness of the practical sessions is a result of the students working in groups and confusing each other, filtering out the questions until its refined to a quick answer (so what I remember as being 5 people huddled around a sheet confused and panicking and pestering the staff is still going on, but being the staff and there being only a few different groups means the questions arent as common if you get my meaning.)
The alternative is that the uni is now taking a step back from the recent teaching techniques of handfeeding the students. There certainly are a lot of people in the sessions that will come up and say "what do we do" "Im confused" or "help". when told "What do you think you need to do?" 9/10 get it right, theyre just that used to being hand fed and not thinking for themselves.
Certainly there are some thick people, but also some scarily bright ones too. Maybe just the increase in population means we notice the increase in mr and ms average than the bright sparks who will be making the break throughs in a decade or two.
I think a large part (not all by any means) of people being "bad" at subjects like maths is fear.
They have been told that maths is hard, and they assume they cant do it.
Before I started my PhD I was working for an engineering company, and one of the CAD techs was doing a day release course to become a full fledged engineer in her own right. She was struggling with her calculus "homework" and since I had a Physics degree she asked if I would help. I reluctantly agreed (for a physicist, calculus is not my strongest suit). I quickly discovered that she actually didnt need me to tell her how to do the maths, all she really needed was someone to help her see that she could already do it, and actually basic calculus is pretty easy.
As usual, all we have to fear is fear itself.