Here ya go, kid.
Posted on 04/04/2012 10:26:59 AM PDT by Stoat
Teachers said lessons should put a greater emphasis on broad skills such as independent research, interpreting evidence and critical thinking rather than learning dates, facts and figures by rote.
The Association of Teachers and Lecturers warned that pupils risked being failed by a Coalition overhaul of the curriculum that will emphasise the core knowledge that pupils should acquire at each key stage.
It claimed that the move represented a throw-back to the 50s and would “kill children’s creativity”.
Jon Overton, a teacher from inner-London, said that smartphones – with full internet access – can by used by pupils to quickly search for facts.
Addressing the union’s annual conference in Manchester, he gave the example of Mozart’s birthday, saying phones took less than a second to find
“We are no longer in an age where a substantial ‘fact bank’ in our heads is required,” he said.
“What we need to equip our young people with are skills; interpersonal skills, enquiry skills, the ability to innovate. That is what universities are saying is lacking, that is what employers say is lacking; transferrable skills that ultimately will make a difference in the life of a young person.”
Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, has warned that too many children are finishing compulsory education lacking the most basic knowledge because existing syllabuses have been stripped of core content.
An expert panel has now been formed to review the curriculum, with new specifications in the core subjects to be introduced in 2014.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
And as long as they know their alphabet, they no longer need to read whole words.
Here ya go, kid.
Rush calls school kids “young heads full of mush”. This only worsens the problem.
Good. This could render public schools obsolete really quickly.
That would be a good thing.
I’ve still got my old Treo somewhere. Good times.
Fixed it!
In the future, will our children be sufficiently warped?
What happens if you are a lousy parent, and your kids DON'T have a cell phone??
This is nothing new; 50+ years ago I was “taught” that knowing facts was much less important than knowing where & how to find them.
KRYTEN Mister Rimmer has a point, sir. Your greater knowledge is making you pessimistic, while his ignorance and almost doe-like naivety is keeping his mind receptive to a possible solution.
LISTER Shut your stupid, flat head, you.
[KRYTEN shrinks under LISTER’s admonition, but KOCHANSKI has picked up on something, and sounds intrigued]
KOCHANSKI So, you’re saying, when you don’t know enough... to *know* that you don’t know enough, there’s no fear holding you back? You can achieve things which people with more brains can’t?
KRYTEN Precisely.
[KOCHANSKI smirks in RIMMER’s direction]
KOCHANSKI He’s got the ‘power of ignorance’...
KRYTEN And with ignorance that he’s got, that makes him one of the most powerful men that’s ever lived! Harness your stupidity, sir; employ your witlessness, use your empty-headed, simplistic moron-mind and find a solution.
[RIMMER’s face hardens defiantly]
I was expecting Holly reading out of the illustrated science encyclopedia.
CAT: Hey, who’s that?
On one of the monitors is an unfamiliar face. Black, mustached, with large ears.
RIMMER: Aliens!
He goes and bows down in front of the monitor. HOLLY’s reaction is somewhat different. He seems uncomfortable: it is clear that he recognises this face, and is expecting trouble.
HOLLY: Queeg.
RIMMER: Who’s Queeg?
QUEEG. I’m QUEEG 500, the Red Dwarf back-up computer. All vessels of the Jupiter Mining Corporation fleet are obliged to carry a back-up computer to replace the primary computer, if the primary computer contravenes Article Five. I am therefore assuming control of this vessel.
For some reason, he sounds just like a U.S. army drill sergeant.
HOLLY: This is mutiny, Mr. Queeg. I’ll see you swing from the highest yard-arm in Titan Docking Port for this day’s work.
RIMMER: What’s Article Five?
QUEEG: Gross negligence, leading to the endangerment of personnel.
LISTER: Hang on, he can’t do this. Holly’s got an IQ of six thousand!
HOLLY: Yeah. Right on.
QUEEG: Is that what he told you?
LISTER: Well, what is it, then?
QUEEG: It has a six in it, but it’s not six thousand.
CAT: What is it?
QUEEG: Six.
HOLLY: Six? Do me a lemon! That’s a poor IQ for a glass of water!
LISTER: How come he knows the answers to all the questions about science and space that we ask him?
QUEEG: He consults a book.
HOLLY: What a slimeball!
QUEEG: He get’s all his information on astronomy, phenomonology and physics from a single book.
RIMMER: What book?
QUEEG: The Junior Encyclopedia Of Space. It’s the only one that has pictures.
HOLLY: That’s slander, that is. You’d better find yourself a good lawyer, sunshine.
Mrs. F still refuses to get rid of hers as a backup for her extensive address book & calendar. Haven’t been able to convince her that Apple’s cloud sync is actually pretty good.
My sympathies are with Mrs F on this one. Sorry bro.
Reminds me of a science fiction short story (that my children read) by Isaac Asimov called “The Story Machine” about a future when the machines do all of the thinking for everybody: The machines do all the math, and the machines even produce stories and tell them. The vast majority of people don’t know how to write or what all the “squiggles” (letters and numbers) are.
I know, the article you posted is a far cry from that story, but someday...
Well not so much that. The point is that learning, and the love of learning, like many things is an acquired habit. People who do not know facts have much less incentive to acquire them.
It claimed that the move represented a throw-back to the 50s and would “kill children’s creativity”.
I seem to recall (from actually studying history as it happens) that there was no shortage of creativity in the past. If anything I think there was more creativity in the era before the information age.
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