They start earlier in Singapore Gabby. We had the knowing-how/knowing what debate here once, but as you can imagine any attempt to say the Germans had beaten us to the verstahen was met with xenophobia and references to Hans bombing our chip shop. Bildung sounds suspiciously Germanic here too, so we avoided that in favour of cop shows, soap opera, advertising and thinking it smart of equate Einstein with E = MC2. Imagine my disappointment at all the hard work in learning German on finding a country with advertising soppier than our own!
One of my smart nieces could handle spreadsheets at 8. Many of my adult charges would be better off with the Alheretic Abacus. You are right, of course. Knowledge, like government, needs to be in the right hands under the right control. No doubt if we design the control, the wrong people would then simply change to its new rhetoric, as the apparatchiks became entrepreneurchiks. One could design a spreadsheet that showed where human effort goes in a real time trickle and historic flood to the rich through unearned income. We could tinker with it or the rich might use it as a modern Domesday Book (which shows the English were basically German - imagine my horror on discovering we Scots and even porridge are basically German too) and rip us off even more. I suspect spreadsheet literacy (which isn't knowing Excel) could put an end to vapid political debate on such matters as the welfare drain and that financial services contribute to GDP. Suspicious minds might wonder less on the vapidity of Leibniz's desire for a social calculus and more on the absence of an objective spreadsheet on wealth and its creation and the ever- presence on television economics of rich prats in City braces telling us to be thankful we can follow rich rocking horses about to pick crumbs from their droppings. On 17 Sep, 23:17, gabbydott <[email protected]> wrote: > I agree that Wissen+Können should work hand in hand. > Yet I don't see why this should start as late as by the age of 14. I > imagine it's easier to handle the spreadsheets from that age onwards. > Each well-defined cell can then be accurately filled with the specific > content to generate the best future as desired. Immediate modification > option included and easily scalable. > > > > > > > > On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 11:53 PM, archytas <[email protected]> wrote: > > We'll have to convert you to carbon dioxide as a propellant Allan. > > > At one point I used to do remedial maths with engineers. I rarely got > > through. In the course f a class I could shift most of the class to > > get stuff right, but they'd forget in a week. These same people could > > perform reasonably well in jobs. At higher academic levels I had > > people who could intercourse the inverse differential of Zarkian time- > > travel who couldn't boil and egg because they waited for the gas to > > come on without a match. > > > We could almost do with a control group who don't do school so we > > could see if it really does make much difference. I suspect a lot f > > it is learning to do what you are told in order to be employable doing > > just that. My best students didn't learn much from me. > > > On Sep 17, 7:14 pm, Allan H <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Kid are trained to read a book then answer questions based on what they > >> read. Unfortunately that is what and how they have been taught to learn. > >> Creating and even bigger problem.. the computer games are not any better > >> in creating creative learning. > > >> I agree with you at 14 the education should split with 7 year more > >> training available for on going training .. everything goes,, maybe they > >> will create a trade in computer programming?? I think they put to much > >> garbage into the educational system. > >> Allan > > >> On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 7:18 PM, archytas <[email protected]> wrote: > >> > I'd like to see kids out of school at 14. I'd give everyone 7 years > >> > of further free training or education after that. > > >> > In England we are admitting our GCSE exams were never worth spit and > >> > that coursework is a dud method. I suspect what we aren't doing is > >> > admitting how useless education really is for most people. Having > >> > kids in school so they can commune with each other and be minded until > >> > 14 is fair enough. The few who can benefit from academic study need > >> > to be encouraged to both fit in with the rabble and be given the > >> > chance to establish learning fellowship amongst themselves. Much of > >> > this could now be a university of the air. > > >> > The plan in England is to go back to exams, strangely at 16 given the > >> > assertion school is to be forced on everyone until 18. We had a plan > >> > for grammar schools, technical and secondary moderns once. The > >> > current lunacy is really just a reversion to that. Our grammar and > >> > public schools broadly taught dross about classics and empire. > > >> > From what I see walking the dog, our schools fail to do much with most > >> > kids. Litter is a big problem. I tested three 101 classes for > >> > research purposes last year to see if any of them could write > >> > spreadsheet cells and do literature search. That was 110 people and > >> > the results were zero. Extending the test a bit into such matters as > >> > which are the world's largest manufacturers (some of these people have > >> > economics at A level) or the origins of world wars in trade and > >> > finance also zilch. > > >> > In front of these know-littles was a 101 programme about learning a > >> > few chapters of books in order to answer questions based on them. > >> > Work makes more sense as education than this. > > >> > -- > > >> -- > >> ( > >> ) > >> |_D Allan > > >> Life is for moral, ethical and truthful living. > > >> I am a Natural Airgunner - > > >> Full of Hot Air & Ready To Expel It Quickly. > > > -- --
