Health spending has not kept up with population growth + ageing/obesity + health inflation.
This is especially true with respect to capital investment, or in simplest terms, “beds”.
On top of those limitations, we can’t release people quickly enough from hospital into social care because (a) we don’t fund that properly either, and (b) we’ve lost a lot of staff from that sector.
Covid’s overhang continues to mean acute pressures; people are just sicker than they were before.
Apparently Rishi is fully focused on this (alongside his maths idea) so let’s see what he has to say.
The first point is the most important and the problem that Bart is pointing out is that in this environment of ageing/obesity the NHS is still attempting to extend life expectancy. Maybe, just maybe, it's time to accept we live in a resource limited environment and stop extending life expectancy.
That could have been a cogent argument if it was made decades ago, but it wasn't.
We have a particular and long forewarned problem of one specific generation that seriously outnumber both those that came before it, and those that came after it. But what sacrifice is that generation making?
Future generations won't be retiring at 65 on gold plated pensions. The problem there has already been somewhat addressed but for those who have retired at 65 on a gold plated pension, what's the solution?
Any proposals to extend working is in the future, not for that generation. In the future the problem will have gone anyway, but our generation could be working into the seventies and beyond before retirement but without a demographic boom in that generation. How does extending that further address the problem of those who are already retired and have 3 to 4 or more decades of retirement?
I thought you were a fan of market forces? These gold plated pensions (and I cannot stress enough that I don't have one) were what the labour market dictated at the time you needed to pay these people to do the job they did. Your proposal to rewrite those contracts is pure communism: to each according to his needs, not what a contracting party agreed to pay him. Whereas where you are not personally disadvantaged we get caricature capitalism; the good people of Wick should pay the market price for having their parcels delivered even if that is £1000 a go.
If the contracting party has the funds available to pay the contract, then they can pay it.
If it doesn't, then it shouldn't be subsidised or paid for by taxpayers. If you are in a contract and the other party goes bust, then you lose whatever you contracted.
The good people of Wick I'm sure would rather go collect their own parcels than pay 1000 a go so the market would find equilibrium without interference.
The contracting party was the UK Government. When that goes bust we can talk.
It is. The last time it ran a surplus was in 2002, hence austerity. So let's talk.
Any funds that were put to one side should be used. Anything else, is just politics.
No it isn't. Governments pay their debts is the first rule of a first world, rule of law country.
I don't think what you propose is possible anyway. The government's obligation to pay these pensions is no different from its obligation to pay coupons and redemptions on gilts. I would think our debt would be rerated as junk if it tried to default.
I never proposed defaulting on debts.
But triple locking pensions isn't a debt that is owed.
Taxing pensioners by less than we tax working people isn't a debt that is owed.
If you want to start things off, you could equalise taxes by abolishing national insurance and the graduate tax so that a young graduate starting to work or a retired gold plated pensioner or anyone in between is on the same tax rate.
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.
Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.
And what utter bollocks it is.
I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.
Sure, but your world picture has to explain the "utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history" if that is a major facet of our modern world to you (and it clearly is).
A spectre is haunting casinoRoyaleville; the spectre of Woke. Is Woke itself better explained by various facets of intercontinental trade and war, or by whether Philip of Anjou edged it on penalties over Charles of Austria?
History is the summation of the whole human story to date - taught in our islands should have a particular focus on British history because that's where we live and it explains our institutions and values and how we got here. It should not be taught solely through the prism of gender, race and sexuality - as the Woke would have it.
One day lesser minds, like yours, will come round to this, but for now it's far easier for you to be a dumb sheep.
Sure.
"Divorced, beheaded, died Divorced, beheaded, survived."
There's some proper history that a loyal beef-eating Englishman can get behind.
The idea that there's more to it than that, is not new or commie. Every third chapter of War and Peace is devoted to making this point.
The funny thing about maths is that before University I used to love it. Did it at GCSEs and then A-levels. Stormed it. A* or 9s or whatever they call them these days, at both GCSE and A levels.
However, I didn't want to continue it at University. I wanted a career that involved lots of maths. So I became an accountant......
Accountancy has nothing to do with maths, at all. Outside of adding and subtracting I never use maths. It's all about ensuring that Debits are either an expense or asset as the client wants, or that Credits are revenue or liabilities, again as the client wants.
Not a single bit of maths in my job...... very strange.
A reminder: Only 15% of the population have an IQ level of 115 or above. An IQ above 115 is considered to be a 'High IQ'
For 85% of people advanced maths is simply pointless. They can’t do it and, besides, they have a tiny brilliant machine that can solve all practical daily maths questions, anyway
Soon they will have a new machine which they won’t even require numbers. You’ll just ask it the query “what is a third of a third”
For 85% of people reading A Portrait of the Artist is pointless but it's still worth equipping as many people as possible with the tools to do so in a civilised society.
I don’t disagree at all. The problem is going to be persuading the kids to learn when it becomes evermore pointless and doesn’t help them get work, as all knowledge work is automated
Kids are already fleeing the Humanities for this exact reason: these degrees don’t lead to jobs
If AI makes most STEM, finance, accountancy, law jobs redundant that will change.
The few jobs left will be the most creative ones machines can't do, which humanities teach
Mate, I wish that were true. I fear it is not
GPT3.5 is already churning out pretty good creative writing - poetry, stories. SDiffusion and DALL-E2 are producing some notable art (which is being used commercially already)
In 2 or 3 iterations (3-5 years?) they will be as good at the best creative stuff as almost any human. In ten years unimaginably better than any human
Tiny arguments on Reddit will rage as to whether these machines are “truly” creative. It won’t matter, because the machines will simply be better, and we will avidly consume their creations
In which case all but the top 1% most creative and innovative and skilled will be out of work in most fields.
We then return to the inevitability of a universal basic income funded by a robot tax the more AI is used across sectors, whether creative arts, manufacturing, professional finance, accountancy and law or basic menial tasks
That's Luddite bullshit.
As jobs are eliminated, new ones are created. People have ingenuity. We do different jobs than the past, but the idea of a jobless age has always been and always will be Dystopian SciFi bullshit.
...Because the jobless age (if it ever comes about) will have so much wealth sitting about, that crazy spending by governments would barely begin to spend it.
Health spending has not kept up with population growth + ageing/obesity + health inflation.
This is especially true with respect to capital investment, or in simplest terms, “beds”.
On top of those limitations, we can’t release people quickly enough from hospital into social care because (a) we don’t fund that properly either, and (b) we’ve lost a lot of staff from that sector.
Covid’s overhang continues to mean acute pressures; people are just sicker than they were before.
Apparently Rishi is fully focused on this (alongside his maths idea) so let’s see what he has to say.
The first point is the most important and the problem that Bart is pointing out is that in this environment of ageing/obesity the NHS is still attempting to extend life expectancy. Maybe, just maybe, it's time to accept we live in a resource limited environment and stop extending life expectancy.
That could have been a cogent argument if it was made decades ago, but it wasn't.
We have a particular and long forewarned problem of one specific generation that seriously outnumber both those that came before it, and those that came after it. But what sacrifice is that generation making?
Future generations won't be retiring at 65 on gold plated pensions. The problem there has already been somewhat addressed but for those who have retired at 65 on a gold plated pension, what's the solution?
Any proposals to extend working is in the future, not for that generation. In the future the problem will have gone anyway, but our generation could be working into the seventies and beyond before retirement but without a demographic boom in that generation. How does extending that further address the problem of those who are already retired and have 3 to 4 or more decades of retirement?
I thought you were a fan of market forces? These gold plated pensions (and I cannot stress enough that I don't have one) were what the labour market dictated at the time you needed to pay these people to do the job they did. Your proposal to rewrite those contracts is pure communism: to each according to his needs, not what a contracting party agreed to pay him. Whereas where you are not personally disadvantaged we get caricature capitalism; the good people of Wick should pay the market price for having their parcels delivered even if that is £1000 a go.
If the contracting party has the funds available to pay the contract, then they can pay it.
If it doesn't, then it shouldn't be subsidised or paid for by taxpayers. If you are in a contract and the other party goes bust, then you lose whatever you contracted.
The good people of Wick I'm sure would rather go collect their own parcels than pay 1000 a go so the market would find equilibrium without interference.
The contracting party was the UK Government. When that goes bust we can talk.
It is. The last time it ran a surplus was in 2002, hence austerity. So let's talk.
Any funds that were put to one side should be used. Anything else, is just politics.
No it isn't. Governments pay their debts is the first rule of a first world, rule of law country.
I don't think what you propose is possible anyway. The government's obligation to pay these pensions is no different from its obligation to pay coupons and redemptions on gilts. I would think our debt would be rerated as junk if it tried to default.
I never proposed defaulting on debts.
But triple locking pensions isn't a debt that is owed.
Taxing pensioners by less than we tax working people isn't a debt that is owed.
If you want to start things off, you could equalise taxes by abolishing national insurance and the graduate tax so that a young graduate starting to work or a retired gold plated pensioner or anyone in between is on the same tax rate.
Without defaulting on anything.
Ah, OK, different point. "Gold plated" usually refers to contracted fatcat civil service pensions.
A cut off for NHS services of any kind to the over 70s would resolve so many problems all at once.
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.
Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.
And what utter bollocks it is.
I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.
Sure, but your world picture has to explain the "utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history" if that is a major facet of our modern world to you (and it clearly is).
A spectre is haunting casinoRoyaleville; the spectre of Woke. Is Woke itself better explained by various facets of intercontinental trade and war, or by whether Philip of Anjou edged it on penalties over Charles of Austria?
History is the summation of the whole human story to date - taught in our islands should have a particular focus on British history because that's where we live and it explains our institutions and values and how we got here. It should not be taught solely through the prism of gender, race and sexuality - as the Woke would have it.
One day lesser minds, like yours, will come round to this, but for now it's far easier for you to be a dumb sheep.
If the argument is that schoolchild in the world should learn world history, and end up with relatively similar curricula across countries, then fair enough. It's not a view I agree with, but it's certainly defensible.
However, in practice I suspect that most proponents of teaching "diverse" history in the UK would baulk at the teaching of, say, the Napoleonic Wars in a Nigerian school, as "colonialist".
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
And, we keep being told that such Woke agendas in education don't exist and that such agendas are totally fabricated; a fantasy in the minds of "reactionaries".
It's almost as if they don't want us to challenge it.
It's just not my experience, that's all. Our kids learn about the Tudors and 20th century European history, mainly. The school has started to teach about West African kingdoms, too, which I think is a good thing, a teacher at the school helped to develop the curriculum so it is very well taught and sounds extremely interesting. My son was really engaged by it.
Same at our local school. The bloody Tudors, the Victorian era, WW1 and 2, then at secondary school it's 1066, and yet more world war stuff. They learn about slavery and African kingdoms and a tiny bit about the empire.
What you get none of - and we had almost none of in my time either - is wider European history. Has the typical year 11 student any concept of who Charlemagne was, or the 30 years war, or the Moorish conquests or Mongol invasions, do they know Germany and Italy used to be clusters of tiny kingdoms and principalities or that there used to be these two massive empires within Ryanair distance of us run by the Habsburgs and the Ottomans? No, they know about Henry the 8th, Hitler and the Nazis and William the Conqueror. If they're lucky they might heave heard a passing reference to the French and Russian revolutions and learned about the Battle of Trafalgar.
Aren't we almost neighbours and might therefore be talking about the same secondary school (located in SE14)?
A reminder: Only 15% of the population have an IQ level of 115 or above. An IQ above 115 is considered to be a 'High IQ'
For 85% of people advanced maths is simply pointless. They can’t do it and, besides, they have a tiny brilliant machine that can solve all practical daily maths questions, anyway
Soon they will have a new machine which they won’t even require numbers. You’ll just ask it the query “what is a third of a third”
For 85% of people reading A Portrait of the Artist is pointless but it's still worth equipping as many people as possible with the tools to do so in a civilised society.
I don’t disagree at all. The problem is going to be persuading the kids to learn when it becomes evermore pointless and doesn’t help them get work, as all knowledge work is automated
Kids are already fleeing the Humanities for this exact reason: these degrees don’t lead to jobs
If AI makes most STEM, finance, accountancy, law jobs redundant that will change.
The few jobs left will be the most creative ones machines can't do, which humanities teach
Mate, I wish that were true. I fear it is not
GPT3.5 is already churning out pretty good creative writing - poetry, stories. SDiffusion and DALL-E2 are producing some notable art (which is being used commercially already)
In 2 or 3 iterations (3-5 years?) they will be as good at the best creative stuff as almost any human. In ten years unimaginably better than any human
Tiny arguments on Reddit will rage as to whether these machines are “truly” creative. It won’t matter, because the machines will simply be better, and we will avidly consume their creations
In which case all but the top 1% most creative and innovative and skilled will be out of work in most fields.
We then return to the inevitability of a universal basic income funded by a robot tax the more AI is used across sectors, whether creative arts, manufacturing, professional finance, accountancy and law or basic menial tasks
That's Luddite bullshit.
As jobs are eliminated, new ones are created. People have ingenuity. We do different jobs than the past, but the idea of a jobless age has always been and always will be Dystopian SciFi bullshit.
What new jobs are going to be created then the average IQ person, not especially creative can do which AI can't do? Let alone for those of below average IQ?
There may still be permanent jobs for very high IQ, highly creative people but they are only a small minority
Then why do we have full employment? 🤦♂️
There's 300 years of history showing Luddidm is wrong. You're only limited by your own weak imagination.
People will use their ingenuity to create jobs and opportunities. Just as we always have done.
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
And, we keep being told that such Woke agendas in education don't exist and that such agendas are totally fabricated; a fantasy in the minds of "reactionaries".
It's almost as if they don't want us to challenge it.
It's just not my experience, that's all. Our kids learn about the Tudors and 20th century European history, mainly. The school has started to teach about West African kingdoms, too, which I think is a good thing, a teacher at the school helped to develop the curriculum so it is very well taught and sounds extremely interesting. My son was really engaged by it.
My kids learn English history too. Last term included the Great Fire of London and the Plague.
Not sure what is woke or rewriting history there?
That isn't, but there's an increasing focus in some educational institutions to teach history almost solely through the prism of identity politics, as the post of @AlistairM demonstrates. I also encountered it myself at my daughter's previous school, so I withdrew her.
We shouldn't deny this is a problem.
I don't want to negate your lived experience, I'm just offering my own as a counterpoint. The forces of woke are obviously more active in Hampshire than in Inner London - who knew?
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.
Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.
And what utter bollocks it is.
I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.
How much practical experience of the current state system do you have ?
I went to state sixth form college, my sister went to stste schools throughout her childhood and my nephews both went there.
I am also familiar with the curriculums taught locally. My ex-girlfriend also attended a history lessons during her PCGE course at a Southampton comprehensive entitled "there ain't no black in the union jack".
I am done with denialism and whataboutery on this. IT IS A PROBLEM.
The question is what we do about it so we don't radicalise and indoctrinate future generations.
A reminder: Only 15% of the population have an IQ level of 115 or above. An IQ above 115 is considered to be a 'High IQ'
For 85% of people advanced maths is simply pointless. They can’t do it and, besides, they have a tiny brilliant machine that can solve all practical daily maths questions, anyway
Soon they will have a new machine which they won’t even require numbers. You’ll just ask it the query “what is a third of a third”
For 85% of people reading A Portrait of the Artist is pointless but it's still worth equipping as many people as possible with the tools to do so in a civilised society.
I don’t disagree at all. The problem is going to be persuading the kids to learn when it becomes evermore pointless and doesn’t help them get work, as all knowledge work is automated
Kids are already fleeing the Humanities for this exact reason: these degrees don’t lead to jobs
If AI makes most STEM, finance, accountancy, law jobs redundant that will change.
The few jobs left will be the most creative ones machines can't do, which humanities teach
Mate, I wish that were true. I fear it is not
GPT3.5 is already churning out pretty good creative writing - poetry, stories. SDiffusion and DALL-E2 are producing some notable art (which is being used commercially already)
In 2 or 3 iterations (3-5 years?) they will be as good at the best creative stuff as almost any human. In ten years unimaginably better than any human
Tiny arguments on Reddit will rage as to whether these machines are “truly” creative. It won’t matter, because the machines will simply be better, and we will avidly consume their creations
In which case all but the top 1% most creative and innovative and skilled will be out of work in most fields.
We then return to the inevitability of a universal basic income funded by a robot tax the more AI is used across sectors, whether creative arts, manufacturing, professional finance, accountancy and law or basic menial tasks
That's Luddite bullshit.
As jobs are eliminated, new ones are created. People have ingenuity. We do different jobs than the past, but the idea of a jobless age has always been and always will be Dystopian SciFi bullshit.
I agree again. Of course, the very rare entrepreneurial personality types suited to creating new businesses (or industries) will need to be encouraged to relocate here.
It would also help if we could make some sensible decisions to retain what is left of UK manufacturing - as corporate R&D tends to be closely related to existing businesses. (Easier if the robots are replacing workers for existing products, if you will).
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
And, we keep being told that such Woke agendas in education don't exist and that such agendas are totally fabricated; a fantasy in the minds of "reactionaries".
It's almost as if they don't want us to challenge it.
It's just not my experience, that's all. Our kids learn about the Tudors and 20th century European history, mainly. The school has started to teach about West African kingdoms, too, which I think is a good thing, a teacher at the school helped to develop the curriculum so it is very well taught and sounds extremely interesting. My son was really engaged by it.
My kids learn English history too. Last term included the Great Fire of London and the Plague.
Not sure what is woke or rewriting history there?
That isn't, but there's an increasing focus in some educational institutions to teach history almost solely through the prism of identity politics, as the post of @AlistairM demonstrates. I also encountered it myself at my daughter's previous school, so I withdrew her.
We shouldn't deny this is a problem.
I don't want to negate your lived experience, I'm just offering my own as a counterpoint. The forces of woke are obviously more active in Hampshire than in Inner London - who knew?
Apologies. I forgot it was entirely futile engaging with you on this subject.
My kids’ school in New York appears to draw parents trying to escape the woke invasion of private schools here.
The place is blissfully normal, and nobody cares about critical race theory. Having said that, the nativity play did feature some kind of Kwanza interlude.
The funny thing about maths is that before University I used to love it. Did it at GCSEs and then A-levels. Stormed it. A* or 9s or whatever they call them these days, at both GCSE and A levels.
However, I didn't want to continue it at University. I wanted a career that involved lots of maths. So I became an accountant......
Accountancy has nothing to do with maths, at all. Outside of adding and subtracting I never use maths. It's all about ensuring that Debits are either an expense or asset as the client wants, or that Credits are revenue or liabilities, again as the client wants.
Not a single bit of maths in my job...... very strange.
Last year I was decanting paint, or something, and deployed irl and correctly, without googling, the formula πr^2h which I can't have thought about for 50 years. I was dead pleased.
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.
Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.
And what utter bollocks it is.
I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.
Sure, but your world picture has to explain the "utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history" if that is a major facet of our modern world to you (and it clearly is).
A spectre is haunting casinoRoyaleville; the spectre of Woke. Is Woke itself better explained by various facets of intercontinental trade and war, or by whether Philip of Anjou edged it on penalties over Charles of Austria?
History is the summation of the whole human story to date - taught in our islands should have a particular focus on British history because that's where we live and it explains our institutions and values and how we got here. It should not be taught solely through the prism of gender, race and sexuality - as the Woke would have it.
One day lesser minds, like yours, will come round to this, but for now it's far easier for you to be a dumb sheep.
If the argument is that schoolchild in the world should learn world history, and end up with relatively similar curricula across countries, then fair enough. It's not a view I agree with, but it's certainly defensible.
However, in practice I suspect that most proponents of teaching "diverse" history in the UK would baulk at the teaching of, say, the Napoleonic Wars in a Nigerian school, as "colonialist".
The point is that teaching it solely through the prism of identity politics introduces a bias into it, in the same way it would to teach it solely through a Whig one or a Marxist one.
It should focus on a factual story of the major events that got us to where we are today, triangulated to the broader context in the wider world, and encourage children to interpret and challenge primary and secondary sources themselves to figure it out.
The heavy focus on the Tudors, as opposed to the Civil War, I find a bit weird - to be honest. We were a republic for nearly 11 years, and then exported the religious puritans to New England, helping to spawn America and how it is today, and that feels just as significant - if not more so.
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.
Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.
And what utter bollocks it is.
I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.
How much practical experience of the current state system do you have ?
I went to state sixth form college, my sister went to stste schools throughout her childhood and my nephews both went there.
I am also familiar with the curriculums taught locally. My ex-girlfriend also attended a history lessons during her PCGE course at a Southampton comprehensive entitled "there ain't no black in the union jack".
I am done with denialism and whataboutery on this. IT IS A PROBLEM.
The question is what we do about it so we don't radicalise and indoctrinate future generations.
The weakness of the Union Jack point is that there ain't no black in most flags. Only 13 out of 45 African nations by the look of it.
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.
Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.
And what utter bollocks it is.
I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.
How much practical experience of the current state system do you have ?
I went to state sixth form college, my sister went to stste schools throughout her childhood and my nephews both went there.
I am also familiar with the curriculums taught locally. My ex-girlfriend also attended a history lessons during her PCGE course at a Southampton comprehensive entitled "there ain't no black in the union jack".
I am done with denialism and whataboutery on this. IT IS A PROBLEM.
The question is what we do about it so we don't radicalise and indoctrinate future generations.
That's shocking. No standards nowadays. Should be: "there isn't any black in the union jack".
ETA: The substantive point about colour is valid though - black should be in there - and yellow. All the other nations' patron saints get their flags incorporated.
My kids’ school in New York appears to draw parents trying to escape the woke invasion of private schools here.
The place is blissfully normal, and nobody cares about critical race theory. Having said that, the nativity play did feature some kind of Kwanza interlude.
Interesting. And reassuring.
Just to be clear: I don't want to set up a false dichotomy here, although I bet I will be accused of it.
I am not arguing that women's rights, civil rights, slavery etc. should not be covered in history lessons - quite the opposite.
I am arguing that should not be the prism solely through which all history is taught, and it should always be put in the context of the times.
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.
Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.
And what utter bollocks it is.
I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.
How much practical experience of the current state system do you have ?
I went to state sixth form college, my sister went to stste schools throughout her childhood and my nephews both went there.
I am also familiar with the curriculums taught locally. My ex-girlfriend also attended a history lessons during her PCGE course at a Southampton comprehensive entitled "there ain't no black in the union jack".
I am done with denialism and whataboutery on this. IT IS A PROBLEM.
The question is what we do about it so we don't radicalise and indoctrinate future generations.
The weakness of the Union Jack point is that there ain't no black in most flags. Only 13 out of 45 African nations by the look of it.
Should I point out the obvious that the colours in a nation's flag are not intended to reflect skin colour?
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.
Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.
And what utter bollocks it is.
I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.
How much practical experience of the current state system do you have ?
I went to state sixth form college, my sister went to stste schools throughout her childhood and my nephews both went there.
I am also familiar with the curriculums taught locally. My ex-girlfriend also attended a history lessons during her PCGE course at a Southampton comprehensive entitled "there ain't no black in the union jack".
I am done with denialism and whataboutery on this. IT IS A PROBLEM.
The question is what we do about it so we don't radicalise and indoctrinate future generations.
Yes, it’s a definite problem and it’s a problem in London as much as anywhere
At the age of 15 my eldest was well schooled on every possible significant black figure in British history - I never want to hear the words Mary Seacole again - but she did not know much at all about the Battle of Hastings. She vaguely knew it was important. Didn’t really know who was fighting. Or who won
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
And, we keep being told that such Woke agendas in education don't exist and that such agendas are totally fabricated; a fantasy in the minds of "reactionaries".
It's almost as if they don't want us to challenge it.
It's just not my experience, that's all. Our kids learn about the Tudors and 20th century European history, mainly. The school has started to teach about West African kingdoms, too, which I think is a good thing, a teacher at the school helped to develop the curriculum so it is very well taught and sounds extremely interesting. My son was really engaged by it.
Same at our local school. The bloody Tudors, the Victorian era, WW1 and 2, then at secondary school it's 1066, and yet more world war stuff. They learn about slavery and African kingdoms and a tiny bit about the empire.
What you get none of - and we had almost none of in my time either - is wider European history. Has the typical year 11 student any concept of who Charlemagne was, or the 30 years war, or the Moorish conquests or Mongol invasions, do they know Germany and Italy used to be clusters of tiny kingdoms and principalities or that there used to be these two massive empires within Ryanair distance of us run by the Habsburgs and the Ottomans? No, they know about Henry the 8th, Hitler and the Nazis and William the Conqueror. If they're lucky they might heave heard a passing reference to the French and Russian revolutions and learned about the Battle of Trafalgar.
Aren't we almost neighbours and might therefore be talking about the same secondary school (located in SE14)?
Not the same secondary school, but my son has friends there.
I forgot to mention the plague and the great fire of London. They definitely get lots of that.
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
And, we keep being told that such Woke agendas in education don't exist and that such agendas are totally fabricated; a fantasy in the minds of "reactionaries".
It's almost as if they don't want us to challenge it.
It's just not my experience, that's all. Our kids learn about the Tudors and 20th century European history, mainly. The school has started to teach about West African kingdoms, too, which I think is a good thing, a teacher at the school helped to develop the curriculum so it is very well taught and sounds extremely interesting. My son was really engaged by it.
My kids learn English history too. Last term included the Great Fire of London and the Plague.
Not sure what is woke or rewriting history there?
That isn't, but there's an increasing focus in some educational institutions to teach history almost solely through the prism of identity politics, as the post of @AlistairM demonstrates. I also encountered it myself at my daughter's previous school, so I withdrew her.
We shouldn't deny this is a problem.
I don't want to negate your lived experience, I'm just offering my own as a counterpoint. The forces of woke are obviously more active in Hampshire than in Inner London - who knew?
Apologies. I forgot it was entirely futile engaging with you on this subject.
I think he's winding you up. "Lived" experience is the clue.
This is what teaching will be like in about ten years. Remember you read it here first
Teachers will basically be supervisors, no more, no less. Just maintaining discipline and maybe framing the work
Teacher Pointless will stand there and say “OK, English” then screens will rise in front of every child. And a friendly avatar of a human, Miss AI Perfect, will speak directly to each child via translucent EarPods: “good morning Jonny do you remember what you and me were doing yesterday, let’s go over it. I recall you were curious about the sonnets, here’s another one we can analyse”
The education will be perfectly tailored to the needs and skills of each child. No more one speed learning for an entire class. Every child with its own tutor. Magical. There probably won’t be any homework
So there will still be a teacher then? And "just maintaining discipline" and "Pointless" reveals a lack of much experience of a class of 14 year olds. What if Johnny says "English? Fuck off I'm playing Fortnite?"
I'm not sure that AI will do much to improve education, although it may help to cut costs a bit.
My sister (a civil servant) did quite a lot of looking at education stats as part of a "policy based evidence making" excersise for one of the devolved administrations - she had a massive dataset of virtually every child in the relevant area, with info on their schooling, home life, educational results etc. She said that the only meaningful statistical effects were from when you controlled for things which were effectively proxies for parental interest and involvement, and a stable home life - everything else was just noise.
Unfortunately, poor parenting is quite difficult to overcome, and the government has virtually nothing they can do to help.
Mr. Walker, when you have some vocal but ill-informed people with a fixation on the evil British slavers it does matter.
See also the Woman King (believe that's the film's name), in which a kingdom of black African slavers are portrayed positively and evil Europeans, who at the time were trying to end slavery, are villainous.
As a side note, one black actress seemingly pulled out of the project when she realised it was not merely inaccurate historically but diametrically opposed to reality.
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.
Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.
And what utter bollocks it is.
I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.
How much practical experience of the current state system do you have ?
I went to state sixth form college, my sister went to stste schools throughout her childhood and my nephews both went there.
I am also familiar with the curriculums taught locally. My ex-girlfriend also attended a history lessons during her PCGE course at a Southampton comprehensive entitled "there ain't no black in the union jack".
I am done with denialism and whataboutery on this. IT IS A PROBLEM.
The question is what we do about it so we don't radicalise and indoctrinate future generations.
The weakness of the Union Jack point is that there ain't no black in most flags. Only 13 out of 45 African nations by the look of it.
Should I point out the obvious that the colours in a nation's flag are not intended to reflect skin colour?
I remember kids at primary school singing the song (second line - "so join the national front") back in the halcyon days before the woke thought police had got to work on them.
A reminder: Only 15% of the population have an IQ level of 115 or above. An IQ above 115 is considered to be a 'High IQ'
For 85% of people advanced maths is simply pointless. They can’t do it and, besides, they have a tiny brilliant machine that can solve all practical daily maths questions, anyway
Soon they will have a new machine which they won’t even require numbers. You’ll just ask it the query “what is a third of a third”
For 85% of people reading A Portrait of the Artist is pointless but it's still worth equipping as many people as possible with the tools to do so in a civilised society.
I don’t disagree at all. The problem is going to be persuading the kids to learn when it becomes evermore pointless and doesn’t help them get work, as all knowledge work is automated
Kids are already fleeing the Humanities for this exact reason: these degrees don’t lead to jobs
If AI makes most STEM, finance, accountancy, law jobs redundant that will change.
The few jobs left will be the most creative ones machines can't do, which humanities teach
Mate, I wish that were true. I fear it is not
GPT3.5 is already churning out pretty good creative writing - poetry, stories. SDiffusion and DALL-E2 are producing some notable art (which is being used commercially already)
In 2 or 3 iterations (3-5 years?) they will be as good at the best creative stuff as almost any human. In ten years unimaginably better than any human
Tiny arguments on Reddit will rage as to whether these machines are “truly” creative. It won’t matter, because the machines will simply be better, and we will avidly consume their creations
In which case all but the top 1% most creative and innovative and skilled will be out of work in most fields.
We then return to the inevitability of a universal basic income funded by a robot tax the more AI is used across sectors, whether creative arts, manufacturing, professional finance, accountancy and law or basic menial tasks
Some of the posters on here would be very heavily hit by a robot tax.
The funny thing about maths is that before University I used to love it. Did it at GCSEs and then A-levels. Stormed it. A* or 9s or whatever they call them these days, at both GCSE and A levels.
However, I didn't want to continue it at University. I wanted a career that involved lots of maths. So I became an accountant......
Accountancy has nothing to do with maths, at all. Outside of adding and subtracting I never use maths. It's all about ensuring that Debits are either an expense or asset as the client wants, or that Credits are revenue or liabilities, again as the client wants.
Not a single bit of maths in my job...... very strange.
Last year I was decanting paint, or something, and deployed irl and correctly, without googling, the formula πr^2h which I can't have thought about for 50 years. I was dead pleased.
That formula is easier to remember if you replace r with z, and h with a. Then the formula is pi.z.z.a
A reminder: Only 15% of the population have an IQ level of 115 or above. An IQ above 115 is considered to be a 'High IQ'
For 85% of people advanced maths is simply pointless. They can’t do it and, besides, they have a tiny brilliant machine that can solve all practical daily maths questions, anyway
Soon they will have a new machine which they won’t even require numbers. You’ll just ask it the query “what is a third of a third”
For 85% of people reading A Portrait of the Artist is pointless but it's still worth equipping as many people as possible with the tools to do so in a civilised society.
I don’t disagree at all. The problem is going to be persuading the kids to learn when it becomes evermore pointless and doesn’t help them get work, as all knowledge work is automated
Kids are already fleeing the Humanities for this exact reason: these degrees don’t lead to jobs
If AI makes most STEM, finance, accountancy, law jobs redundant that will change.
The few jobs left will be the most creative ones machines can't do, which humanities teach
Mate, I wish that were true. I fear it is not
GPT3.5 is already churning out pretty good creative writing - poetry, stories. SDiffusion and DALL-E2 are producing some notable art (which is being used commercially already)
In 2 or 3 iterations (3-5 years?) they will be as good at the best creative stuff as almost any human. In ten years unimaginably better than any human
Tiny arguments on Reddit will rage as to whether these machines are “truly” creative. It won’t matter, because the machines will simply be better, and we will avidly consume their creations
In which case all but the top 1% most creative and innovative and skilled will be out of work in most fields.
We then return to the inevitability of a universal basic income funded by a robot tax the more AI is used across sectors, whether creative arts, manufacturing, professional finance, accountancy and law or basic menial tasks
That's Luddite bullshit.
As jobs are eliminated, new ones are created. People have ingenuity. We do different jobs than the past, but the idea of a jobless age has always been and always will be Dystopian SciFi bullshit.
What new jobs are going to be created then the average IQ person, not especially creative can do which AI can't do? Let alone for those of below average IQ?
There may still be permanent jobs for very high IQ, highly creative people but they are only a small minority
Then why do we have full employment? 🤦♂️
There's 300 years of history showing Luddidm is wrong. You're only limited by your own weak imagination.
People will use their ingenuity to create jobs and opportunities. Just as we always have done.
It might help your argument if you could provide examples of these new jobs
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.
Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.
And what utter bollocks it is.
I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.
Sure, but your world picture has to explain the "utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history" if that is a major facet of our modern world to you (and it clearly is).
A spectre is haunting casinoRoyaleville; the spectre of Woke. Is Woke itself better explained by various facets of intercontinental trade and war, or by whether Philip of Anjou edged it on penalties over Charles of Austria?
History is the summation of the whole human story to date - taught in our islands should have a particular focus on British history because that's where we live and it explains our institutions and values and how we got here. It should not be taught solely through the prism of gender, race and sexuality - as the Woke would have it.
One day lesser minds, like yours, will come round to this, but for now it's far easier for you to be a dumb sheep.
If the argument is that schoolchild in the world should learn world history, and end up with relatively similar curricula across countries, then fair enough. It's not a view I agree with, but it's certainly defensible.
However, in practice I suspect that most proponents of teaching "diverse" history in the UK would baulk at the teaching of, say, the Napoleonic Wars in a Nigerian school, as "colonialist".
The point is that teaching it solely through the prism of identity politics introduces a bias into it, in the same way it would to teach it solely through a Whig one or a Marxist one.
It should focus on a factual story of the major events that got us to where we are today, triangulated to the broader context in the wider world, and encourage children to interpret and challenge primary and secondary sources themselves to figure it out.
The heavy focus on the Tudors, as opposed to the Civil War, I find a bit weird - to be honest. We were a republic for nearly 11 years, and then exported the religious puritans to New England, helping to spawn America and how it is today, and that feels just as significant - if not more so.
You might ask why we don't teach children post-Second World War history yet. Up to 1989, perhaps.
The answer is that we're teaching foundational myths - and Elizabeth I and the Spanish Armada are better than Oliver Cromwell and our Protectorate period (even if he did lay the seeds for the Royal Navy and the defeat of the Dutch).
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.
Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.
And what utter bollocks it is.
I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.
How much practical experience of the current state system do you have ?
I went to state sixth form college, my sister went to stste schools throughout her childhood and my nephews both went there.
I am also familiar with the curriculums taught locally. My ex-girlfriend also attended a history lessons during her PCGE course at a Southampton comprehensive entitled "there ain't no black in the union jack".
I am done with denialism and whataboutery on this. IT IS A PROBLEM.
The question is what we do about it so we don't radicalise and indoctrinate future generations.
The weakness of the Union Jack point is that there ain't no black in most flags. Only 13 out of 45 African nations by the look of it.
Should I point out the obvious that the colours in a nation's flag are not intended to reflect skin colour?
I sort of thought that went without saying. OTOH it is presumably the thought behind There ain't no black...
For instance: The colors and symbols of the flag carry cultural, political, and regional meanings. The green alludes to the natural vegetation and "rich agricultural resources" of the country,[3][5] while black represents the Swahili people who are native to Tanzania.
but
The current flag of the Arab Republic of Egypt consists of red, white and black horizontal stripes. Red represents the sacrifices and blood of Egyptian martyrs, white symbolizes peace, black stands for the dark period of occupation, and the eagle represents strength and power.
ETA don't believe everything you read. Swahili is a language, not an ethnicity.
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
And, we keep being told that such Woke agendas in education don't exist and that such agendas are totally fabricated; a fantasy in the minds of "reactionaries".
It's almost as if they don't want us to challenge it.
It's just not my experience, that's all. Our kids learn about the Tudors and 20th century European history, mainly. The school has started to teach about West African kingdoms, too, which I think is a good thing, a teacher at the school helped to develop the curriculum so it is very well taught and sounds extremely interesting. My son was really engaged by it.
Same at our local school. The bloody Tudors, the Victorian era, WW1 and 2, then at secondary school it's 1066, and yet more world war stuff. They learn about slavery and African kingdoms and a tiny bit about the empire.
What you get none of - and we had almost none of in my time either - is wider European history. Has the typical year 11 student any concept of who Charlemagne was, or the 30 years war, or the Moorish conquests or Mongol invasions, do they know Germany and Italy used to be clusters of tiny kingdoms and principalities or that there used to be these two massive empires within Ryanair distance of us run by the Habsburgs and the Ottomans? No, they know about Henry the 8th, Hitler and the Nazis and William the Conqueror. If they're lucky they might heave heard a passing reference to the French and Russian revolutions and learned about the Battle of Trafalgar.
Aren't we almost neighbours and might therefore be talking about the same secondary school (located in SE14)?
My daughter is getting a lot of good stuff at state primary. And especially in the wider reading and watching she's encouraged to do with e.g. Horrible Histories (a magnificent resource), Time Team etc.
As always, the quality of education is heavily determined by the quality of school leadership and that of the individual teachers.
A reminder: Only 15% of the population have an IQ level of 115 or above. An IQ above 115 is considered to be a 'High IQ'
For 85% of people advanced maths is simply pointless. They can’t do it and, besides, they have a tiny brilliant machine that can solve all practical daily maths questions, anyway
Soon they will have a new machine which they won’t even require numbers. You’ll just ask it the query “what is a third of a third”
For 85% of people reading A Portrait of the Artist is pointless but it's still worth equipping as many people as possible with the tools to do so in a civilised society.
I don’t disagree at all. The problem is going to be persuading the kids to learn when it becomes evermore pointless and doesn’t help them get work, as all knowledge work is automated
Kids are already fleeing the Humanities for this exact reason: these degrees don’t lead to jobs
If AI makes most STEM, finance, accountancy, law jobs redundant that will change.
The few jobs left will be the most creative ones machines can't do, which humanities teach
Mate, I wish that were true. I fear it is not
GPT3.5 is already churning out pretty good creative writing - poetry, stories. SDiffusion and DALL-E2 are producing some notable art (which is being used commercially already)
In 2 or 3 iterations (3-5 years?) they will be as good at the best creative stuff as almost any human. In ten years unimaginably better than any human
Tiny arguments on Reddit will rage as to whether these machines are “truly” creative. It won’t matter, because the machines will simply be better, and we will avidly consume their creations
In which case all but the top 1% most creative and innovative and skilled will be out of work in most fields.
We then return to the inevitability of a universal basic income funded by a robot tax the more AI is used across sectors, whether creative arts, manufacturing, professional finance, accountancy and law or basic menial tasks
That's Luddite bullshit.
As jobs are eliminated, new ones are created. People have ingenuity. We do different jobs than the past, but the idea of a jobless age has always been and always will be Dystopian SciFi bullshit.
What new jobs are going to be created then the average IQ person, not especially creative can do which AI can't do? Let alone for those of below average IQ?
There may still be permanent jobs for very high IQ, highly creative people but they are only a small minority
Then why do we have full employment? 🤦♂️
There's 300 years of history showing Luddidm is wrong. You're only limited by your own weak imagination.
People will use their ingenuity to create jobs and opportunities. Just as we always have done.
To a degree and it depends on the timescale.
The Luddites were right - from their own perspective. The Industrial Revolution did lead to a collapse in artisan wages, especially as employers designed factories based around child labour which was cheaper than skilled artisans.
Wages did - eventually - improve and new jobs were created but it took several decades for the effect to come through (eg factories required administration which required clerks etc).
When technological changes come and make people unemployed, there is not an automatic bank of jobs out there. Sure, people can set themselves up (I did) but the idea that people can switch seamlessly into jobs is a fallacy - there are switching costs for a reason.
A reminder: Only 15% of the population have an IQ level of 115 or above. An IQ above 115 is considered to be a 'High IQ'
For 85% of people advanced maths is simply pointless. They can’t do it and, besides, they have a tiny brilliant machine that can solve all practical daily maths questions, anyway
Soon they will have a new machine which they won’t even require numbers. You’ll just ask it the query “what is a third of a third”
For 85% of people reading A Portrait of the Artist is pointless but it's still worth equipping as many people as possible with the tools to do so in a civilised society.
I don’t disagree at all. The problem is going to be persuading the kids to learn when it becomes evermore pointless and doesn’t help them get work, as all knowledge work is automated
Kids are already fleeing the Humanities for this exact reason: these degrees don’t lead to jobs
If AI makes most STEM, finance, accountancy, law jobs redundant that will change.
The few jobs left will be the most creative ones machines can't do, which humanities teach
Mate, I wish that were true. I fear it is not
GPT3.5 is already churning out pretty good creative writing - poetry, stories. SDiffusion and DALL-E2 are producing some notable art (which is being used commercially already)
In 2 or 3 iterations (3-5 years?) they will be as good at the best creative stuff as almost any human. In ten years unimaginably better than any human
Tiny arguments on Reddit will rage as to whether these machines are “truly” creative. It won’t matter, because the machines will simply be better, and we will avidly consume their creations
In which case all but the top 1% most creative and innovative and skilled will be out of work in most fields.
We then return to the inevitability of a universal basic income funded by a robot tax the more AI is used across sectors, whether creative arts, manufacturing, professional finance, accountancy and law or basic menial tasks
That's Luddite bullshit.
As jobs are eliminated, new ones are created. People have ingenuity. We do different jobs than the past, but the idea of a jobless age has always been and always will be Dystopian SciFi bullshit.
What new jobs are going to be created then the average IQ person, not especially creative can do which AI can't do? Let alone for those of below average IQ?
There may still be permanent jobs for very high IQ, highly creative people but they are only a small minority
Then why do we have full employment? 🤦♂️
There's 300 years of history showing Luddidm is wrong. You're only limited by your own weak imagination.
People will use their ingenuity to create jobs and opportunities. Just as we always have done.
Yes and no.
In the 1800s, the average daily food intake in the UK was a bit less than 2500 calories and the UK's population was about 18 million. It was easy to see where the gains from automating agriculture went- feeding more people better.
But we're increasingly running out of material problems to solve. Going from a family living in a single room to a family in a house- definite gain in human happiness. From a house to a mansion- the gain is much more marginal.
Similarly, if all human creativity is online, there's a lot less scope for someone to make a living creating new stuff, because there's a lifetime's worth of good old stuff perfectly preserved. (Even if all AI does is index and remix all that old human creativity, that's still a challenge for new creators.)
And any niche that humans create has the potential to fill up again quickly.
Now this need not be a bad thing; scarcity sucks, work is pretty sucky for most (which is why we gave to pay people to do it). But properly abolishing scarcity does move us to a different bit of the economic graph, and it's one that may behave in disconcerting ways.
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.
Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.
And what utter bollocks it is.
I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.
How much practical experience of the current state system do you have ?
I went to state sixth form college, my sister went to stste schools throughout her childhood and my nephews both went there.
I am also familiar with the curriculums taught locally. My ex-girlfriend also attended a history lessons during her PCGE course at a Southampton comprehensive entitled "there ain't no black in the union jack".
I am done with denialism and whataboutery on this. IT IS A PROBLEM.
The question is what we do about it so we don't radicalise and indoctrinate future generations.
Yes, it’s a definite problem and it’s a problem in London as much as anywhere
At the age of 15 my eldest was well schooled on every possible significant black figure in British history - I never want to hear the words Mary Seacole again - but she did not know much at all about the Battle of Hastings. She vaguely knew it was important. Didn’t really know who was fighting. Or who won
And she’s smart
Of all people to decry such an education.
You can't on the one hand say out with maths, the arts, you name it because it has no relevance to life today; and on the other hand bemoan the lack of teaching of the Battle of Hastings in favour of teaching about a figure who influences so very many aspects of life today, both for you and your eldest.
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
And, we keep being told that such Woke agendas in education don't exist and that such agendas are totally fabricated; a fantasy in the minds of "reactionaries".
It's almost as if they don't want us to challenge it.
It's just not my experience, that's all. Our kids learn about the Tudors and 20th century European history, mainly. The school has started to teach about West African kingdoms, too, which I think is a good thing, a teacher at the school helped to develop the curriculum so it is very well taught and sounds extremely interesting. My son was really engaged by it.
My kids learn English history too. Last term included the Great Fire of London and the Plague.
Not sure what is woke or rewriting history there?
That isn't, but there's an increasing focus in some educational institutions to teach history almost solely through the prism of identity politics, as the post of @AlistairM demonstrates. I also encountered it myself at my daughter's previous school, so I withdrew her.
We shouldn't deny this is a problem.
Also seems to be the case with other subjects. When studying artists in Y9 it has been entirely focused on diverse (i.e. non-white) artists. I'm all for covering a wide variety of different areas but I think there is a real danger of the syllabus being so desperate to be politically correct that it ends up being exclusionary. That is not progress.
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
And, we keep being told that such Woke agendas in education don't exist and that such agendas are totally fabricated; a fantasy in the minds of "reactionaries".
It's almost as if they don't want us to challenge it.
It's just not my experience, that's all. Our kids learn about the Tudors and 20th century European history, mainly. The school has started to teach about West African kingdoms, too, which I think is a good thing, a teacher at the school helped to develop the curriculum so it is very well taught and sounds extremely interesting. My son was really engaged by it.
Same at our local school. The bloody Tudors, the Victorian era, WW1 and 2, then at secondary school it's 1066, and yet more world war stuff. They learn about slavery and African kingdoms and a tiny bit about the empire.
What you get none of - and we had almost none of in my time either - is wider European history. Has the typical year 11 student any concept of who Charlemagne was, or the 30 years war, or the Moorish conquests or Mongol invasions, do they know Germany and Italy used to be clusters of tiny kingdoms and principalities or that there used to be these two massive empires within Ryanair distance of us run by the Habsburgs and the Ottomans? No, they know about Henry the 8th, Hitler and the Nazis and William the Conqueror. If they're lucky they might heave heard a passing reference to the French and Russian revolutions and learned about the Battle of Trafalgar.
Aren't we almost neighbours and might therefore be talking about the same secondary school (located in SE14)?
Not the same secondary school, but my son has friends there.
I forgot to mention the plague and the great fire of London. They definitely get lots of that.
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.
Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.
And what utter bollocks it is.
I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.
Sure, but your world picture has to explain the "utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history" if that is a major facet of our modern world to you (and it clearly is).
A spectre is haunting casinoRoyaleville; the spectre of Woke. Is Woke itself better explained by various facets of intercontinental trade and war, or by whether Philip of Anjou edged it on penalties over Charles of Austria?
History is the summation of the whole human story to date - taught in our islands should have a particular focus on British history because that's where we live and it explains our institutions and values and how we got here. It should not be taught solely through the prism of gender, race and sexuality - as the Woke would have it.
One day lesser minds, like yours, will come round to this, but for now it's far easier for you to be a dumb sheep.
If the argument is that schoolchild in the world should learn world history, and end up with relatively similar curricula across countries, then fair enough. It's not a view I agree with, but it's certainly defensible.
However, in practice I suspect that most proponents of teaching "diverse" history in the UK would baulk at the teaching of, say, the Napoleonic Wars in a Nigerian school, as "colonialist".
There's also the issue that many people are hyper -sensitive on both sides. I hate it when my daughter is uncritically presented with some Christian doctrine as assumed culture, but some tenet of Sikhism as an "othered" thing. Someone else hates it when a feminist reading of history is the assumed perspective. We both ignore the interpretations with which we are naturally more comfortable, and vociferously argue why "Christian culture *is* the assumed baseline" or "feminist readings of history are a better starting point than pro patria 19th century prejudices".
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.
Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.
And what utter bollocks it is.
I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.
How much practical experience of the current state system do you have ?
I went to state sixth form college, my sister went to stste schools throughout her childhood and my nephews both went there.
I am also familiar with the curriculums taught locally. My ex-girlfriend also attended a history lessons during her PCGE course at a Southampton comprehensive entitled "there ain't no black in the union jack".
I am done with denialism and whataboutery on this. IT IS A PROBLEM.
The question is what we do about it so we don't radicalise and indoctrinate future generations.
"There ain't no Black in the Union Jack" is a book by Paul Gilroy, a renowned historian and social commentator, about black culture in the UK. Pretty useful on a teaching course for teachers who are likely to encounter many students from that background.
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.
Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.
And what utter bollocks it is.
I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.
Sure, but your world picture has to explain the "utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history" if that is a major facet of our modern world to you (and it clearly is).
A spectre is haunting casinoRoyaleville; the spectre of Woke. Is Woke itself better explained by various facets of intercontinental trade and war, or by whether Philip of Anjou edged it on penalties over Charles of Austria?
History is the summation of the whole human story to date - taught in our islands should have a particular focus on British history because that's where we live and it explains our institutions and values and how we got here. It should not be taught solely through the prism of gender, race and sexuality - as the Woke would have it.
One day lesser minds, like yours, will come round to this, but for now it's far easier for you to be a dumb sheep.
If the argument is that schoolchild in the world should learn world history, and end up with relatively similar curricula across countries, then fair enough. It's not a view I agree with, but it's certainly defensible.
However, in practice I suspect that most proponents of teaching "diverse" history in the UK would baulk at the teaching of, say, the Napoleonic Wars in a Nigerian school, as "colonialist".
The point is that teaching it solely through the prism of identity politics introduces a bias into it, in the same way it would to teach it solely through a Whig one or a Marxist one.
It should focus on a factual story of the major events that got us to where we are today, triangulated to the broader context in the wider world, and encourage children to interpret and challenge primary and secondary sources themselves to figure it out.
The heavy focus on the Tudors, as opposed to the Civil War, I find a bit weird - to be honest. We were a republic for nearly 11 years, and then exported the religious puritans to New England, helping to spawn America and how it is today, and that feels just as significant - if not more so.
England's identity as, "definitely not a Catholic country," used to be a lot more important to its sense of self then it is now, and clearly the Tudor period was central to that.
As others have mentioned a lot of the present curriculum is determined by what Minister's parents were taught at school (+WWII for history), and so no-one's really rethought how to teach our history.
I was never taught about the Acts of Union at my English school, which seems a rather remarkable gap. Though we did learn about the US civil rights movement and, unsurprisingly, that was the topic that most interested many of my fellow south London inner suburban classmates. I don't think they'd have been as interested as I would have been to learn more about Alfred the Great.
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
And, we keep being told that such Woke agendas in education don't exist and that such agendas are totally fabricated; a fantasy in the minds of "reactionaries".
It's almost as if they don't want us to challenge it.
It's just not my experience, that's all. Our kids learn about the Tudors and 20th century European history, mainly. The school has started to teach about West African kingdoms, too, which I think is a good thing, a teacher at the school helped to develop the curriculum so it is very well taught and sounds extremely interesting. My son was really engaged by it.
My kids learn English history too. Last term included the Great Fire of London and the Plague.
Not sure what is woke or rewriting history there?
That isn't, but there's an increasing focus in some educational institutions to teach history almost solely through the prism of identity politics, as the post of @AlistairM demonstrates. I also encountered it myself at my daughter's previous school, so I withdrew her.
We shouldn't deny this is a problem.
Also seems to be the case with other subjects. When studying artists in Y9 it has been entirely focused on diverse (i.e. non-white) artists. I'm all for covering a wide variety of different areas but I think there is a real danger of the syllabus being so desperate to be politically correct that it ends up being exclusionary. That is not progress.
Depends on the course, obvs, but why on earth, on the planet where x% of people are from any one particular demographic do you worry about a course on "artists" focusing on a variety of artists from different backgrounds.
Or was the course labelled "white artists in 20th Century Britain"?
My kids’ school in New York appears to draw parents trying to escape the woke invasion of private schools here.
The place is blissfully normal, and nobody cares about critical race theory. Having said that, the nativity play did feature some kind of Kwanza interlude.
Interesting. And reassuring.
Just to be clear: I don't want to set up a false dichotomy here, although I bet I will be accused of it.
I am not arguing that women's rights, civil rights, slavery etc. should not be covered in history lessons - quite the opposite.
I am arguing that should not be the prism solely through which all history is taught, and it should always be put in the context of the times.
On the subject of dichotomy I do think there is a vast hinterland of history which is neither British domestic stuff (which I agree is important as it's important for shared cultural reference points, like the Bible and Shakespeare) nor empire, slavery or other "bad stuff we did elsewhere" but is "important things other people in other countries did where Britain isn't the centre of the action". That means European and Asian history in particular. To understand the world and geopolitics, as well as geography and beyond Napoleon and Hitler it really helps to understand:
- The civilisations of ancient history (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Indus Valley, India, China, Greece, Rome) - The religious empires of the middle ages: the holy Roman empire, the Islamic caliphate - The European reformation and the wars of religion - Continental empires: Mongols and their successors, Russia, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman, China - The conquistadores and age of exploration - The rise of the nation state - Japan, Korea and the 20th century politics of the Far East - The Cold war and Soviet Union
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.
Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.
And what utter bollocks it is.
I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.
How much practical experience of the current state system do you have ?
I went to state sixth form college, my sister went to stste schools throughout her childhood and my nephews both went there.
I am also familiar with the curriculums taught locally. My ex-girlfriend also attended a history lessons during her PCGE course at a Southampton comprehensive entitled "there ain't no black in the union jack".
I am done with denialism and whataboutery on this. IT IS A PROBLEM.
The question is what we do about it so we don't radicalise and indoctrinate future generations.
Yes, it’s a definite problem and it’s a problem in London as much as anywhere
At the age of 15 my eldest was well schooled on every possible significant black figure in British history - I never want to hear the words Mary Seacole again - but she did not know much at all about the Battle of Hastings. She vaguely knew it was important. Didn’t really know who was fighting. Or who won
And she’s smart
Of all people to decry such an education.
You can't on the one hand say out with maths, the arts, you name it because it has no relevance to life today; and on the other hand bemoan the lack of teaching of the Battle of Hastings in favour of teaching about a figure who influences so very many aspects of life today, both for you and your eldest.
I’ve already said on this thread that education is good in and of itself. My argument is that it will become a pleasing skill rather than a necessary qualification for employment
Learning maths will be like learning the clarinet to grade 5. It’s nice that you can do it but will it help you get a job? No not so much
In that scenario it will be awfully hard to motivate a lot of students
A reminder: Only 15% of the population have an IQ level of 115 or above. An IQ above 115 is considered to be a 'High IQ'
For 85% of people advanced maths is simply pointless. They can’t do it and, besides, they have a tiny brilliant machine that can solve all practical daily maths questions, anyway
Soon they will have a new machine which they won’t even require numbers. You’ll just ask it the query “what is a third of a third”
For 85% of people reading A Portrait of the Artist is pointless but it's still worth equipping as many people as possible with the tools to do so in a civilised society.
I don’t disagree at all. The problem is going to be persuading the kids to learn when it becomes evermore pointless and doesn’t help them get work, as all knowledge work is automated
Kids are already fleeing the Humanities for this exact reason: these degrees don’t lead to jobs
If AI makes most STEM, finance, accountancy, law jobs redundant that will change.
The few jobs left will be the most creative ones machines can't do, which humanities teach
Mate, I wish that were true. I fear it is not
GPT3.5 is already churning out pretty good creative writing - poetry, stories. SDiffusion and DALL-E2 are producing some notable art (which is being used commercially already)
In 2 or 3 iterations (3-5 years?) they will be as good at the best creative stuff as almost any human. In ten years unimaginably better than any human
Tiny arguments on Reddit will rage as to whether these machines are “truly” creative. It won’t matter, because the machines will simply be better, and we will avidly consume their creations
In which case all but the top 1% most creative and innovative and skilled will be out of work in most fields.
We then return to the inevitability of a universal basic income funded by a robot tax the more AI is used across sectors, whether creative arts, manufacturing, professional finance, accountancy and law or basic menial tasks
That's Luddite bullshit.
As jobs are eliminated, new ones are created. People have ingenuity. We do different jobs than the past, but the idea of a jobless age has always been and always will be Dystopian SciFi bullshit.
What new jobs are going to be created then the average IQ person, not especially creative can do which AI can't do? Let alone for those of below average IQ?
There may still be permanent jobs for very high IQ, highly creative people but they are only a small minority
Then why do we have full employment? 🤦♂️
There's 300 years of history showing Luddidm is wrong. You're only limited by your own weak imagination.
People will use their ingenuity to create jobs and opportunities. Just as we always have done.
To a degree and it depends on the timescale.
The Luddites were right - from their own perspective. The Industrial Revolution did lead to a collapse in artisan wages, especially as employers designed factories based around child labour which was cheaper than skilled artisans.
Wages did - eventually - improve and new jobs were created but it took several decades for the effect to come through (eg factories required administration which required clerks etc).
When technological changes come and make people unemployed, there is not an automatic bank of jobs out there. Sure, people can set themselves up (I did) but the idea that people can switch seamlessly into jobs is a fallacy - there are switching costs for a reason.
More accurately - it ended some jobs, like weaving at home.
There were more and often better paid jobs, but this meant changing trades.
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.
Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.
And what utter bollocks it is.
I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.
How much practical experience of the current state system do you have ?
I went to state sixth form college, my sister went to stste schools throughout her childhood and my nephews both went there.
I am also familiar with the curriculums taught locally. My ex-girlfriend also attended a history lessons during her PCGE course at a Southampton comprehensive entitled "there ain't no black in the union jack".
I am done with denialism and whataboutery on this. IT IS A PROBLEM.
The question is what we do about it so we don't radicalise and indoctrinate future generations.
Yes, it’s a definite problem and it’s a problem in London as much as anywhere
At the age of 15 my eldest was well schooled on every possible significant black figure in British history - I never want to hear the words Mary Seacole again - but she did not know much at all about the Battle of Hastings. She vaguely knew it was important. Didn’t really know who was fighting. Or who won
And she’s smart
Of all people to decry such an education.
You can't on the one hand say out with maths, the arts, you name it because it has no relevance to life today; and on the other hand bemoan the lack of teaching of the Battle of Hastings in favour of teaching about a figure who influences so very many aspects of life today, both for you and your eldest.
I’ve already said on this thread that education is good in and of itself. My argument is that it will become a pleasing skill rather than a necessary qualification for employment
Learning maths will be like learning the clarinet to grade 5. It’s nice that you can do it but will it help you get a job? No not so much
In that scenario it will be awfully hard to motivate a lot of students
Plenty of arts grads in stonkingly good jobs. Some have even become prime ministers.
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.
Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.
And what utter bollocks it is.
I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.
Sure, but your world picture has to explain the "utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history" if that is a major facet of our modern world to you (and it clearly is).
A spectre is haunting casinoRoyaleville; the spectre of Woke. Is Woke itself better explained by various facets of intercontinental trade and war, or by whether Philip of Anjou edged it on penalties over Charles of Austria?
History is the summation of the whole human story to date - taught in our islands should have a particular focus on British history because that's where we live and it explains our institutions and values and how we got here. It should not be taught solely through the prism of gender, race and sexuality - as the Woke would have it.
One day lesser minds, like yours, will come round to this, but for now it's far easier for you to be a dumb sheep.
One does expect a British angle on things discussed by Britons in Britain. Hence why our colonialism (big and recent and OURS) shouldn't be contextualized away with "it's complicated" and "we were no worse than others" and "what about the Romans?" etc etc. Yet this what many try to do. Happens every single time we get into it.
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.
Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.
And what utter bollocks it is.
I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.
How much practical experience of the current state system do you have ?
I went to state sixth form college, my sister went to stste schools throughout her childhood and my nephews both went there.
I am also familiar with the curriculums taught locally. My ex-girlfriend also attended a history lessons during her PCGE course at a Southampton comprehensive entitled "there ain't no black in the union jack".
I am done with denialism and whataboutery on this. IT IS A PROBLEM.
The question is what we do about it so we don't radicalise and indoctrinate future generations.
That's shocking. No standards nowadays. Should be: "there isn't any black in the union jack".
ETA: The substantive point about colour is valid though - black should be in there - and yellow. All the other nations' patron saints get their flags incorporated.
The DUP must be disappointed that there ain't no Orange in the Union Jack (but there is Orange in the Irish Tricolour).
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.
Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.
And what utter bollocks it is.
I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.
How much practical experience of the current state system do you have ?
I went to state sixth form college, my sister went to stste schools throughout her childhood and my nephews both went there.
I am also familiar with the curriculums taught locally. My ex-girlfriend also attended a history lessons during her PCGE course at a Southampton comprehensive entitled "there ain't no black in the union jack".
I am done with denialism and whataboutery on this. IT IS A PROBLEM.
The question is what we do about it so we don't radicalise and indoctrinate future generations.
Yes, it’s a definite problem and it’s a problem in London as much as anywhere
At the age of 15 my eldest was well schooled on every possible significant black figure in British history - I never want to hear the words Mary Seacole again - but she did not know much at all about the Battle of Hastings. She vaguely knew it was important. Didn’t really know who was fighting. Or who won
And she’s smart
The Norman Conquest, the English Civil War and Cromwell's Interregnum are part of KS3 of the History National Curriculum
My conclusion is that the idea of everyone doing maths to the age of 18 (A Level) is completely crackers. A level maths will be beyond a lot of people.
What is needed for the general population is sufficient knowledge of arithmetic, orders of magnitude, managing finances, basic statistics etc. Practical stuff. To age16. Algebra of calculus isn't required. Not everyone is going to be a rocket scientist.
The question isn't really, "Should England teach Maths to age 18?"
The real question is, "Why doesn't England already teach Maths to age 18 like most of the countries that are economically outcompeting it?"
Sure, Maths teaching at primary level needs to be fixed *as well*, but this policy looks like an overdue correction of a mistake. If they can find the teachers for it.
I asked CHATGBT "Why doesn't England already teach Maths to age 18 like most of the countries that are economically outcompeting it?
It replied: The educational systems of different countries are often based on their unique histories, cultures, and economic needs, so it is not necessarily the case that one system is better than another. There are many factors that contribute to a country's economic success, and the way in which math is taught in schools is just one of them.
I would disagree with two main points.
Firstly, yes, it is necessarily the case that education systems in some countries are better than others. Otherwise your argument is that it's impossible to distinguish between failing and successful education systems. This is demonstrably false.
What is true is that you can't simply copy wholesale the education system of one country and transplant it into another. But I struggle to see what is unique about British culture that indicates against teaching Maths to age 18 like most of the rest of the OECD.
Secondly the use of the word "just" in the final sentence to minimise the importance of Maths education in relative economic performance is unwarranted. Teaching Maths well, as well as good Education in general, is a factor that determines a country's economic success.
If, as a country, you want to succeed economically then you have to pay attention to all such factors, particularly those such as education quality that are more directly under your control, unlike, say, geography or geology. Dismissing them as "just one factor" is the route to failure.
"I apologize if my previous response gave the impression that I was minimizing the importance of math education or suggesting that the education systems of all countries are equally effective. That was not my intention.
You are correct that there are significant differences in the quality of education systems across countries, and that math education is an important factor in a country's economic success. I agree that if a country wants to succeed economically, it needs to pay attention to all factors that contribute to its competitiveness, including the quality of education.
However, it's also important to recognize that there are many other factors that contribute to a country's economic success, such as its natural resources, infrastructure, political stability, and so on. No single factor is determinative, and different countries will have different strengths and weaknesses that they need to address in order to achieve economic success.
I hope this clears up any misunderstanding. Please let me know if you have any other questions."
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
And, we keep being told that such Woke agendas in education don't exist and that such agendas are totally fabricated; a fantasy in the minds of "reactionaries".
It's almost as if they don't want us to challenge it.
It's just not my experience, that's all. Our kids learn about the Tudors and 20th century European history, mainly. The school has started to teach about West African kingdoms, too, which I think is a good thing, a teacher at the school helped to develop the curriculum so it is very well taught and sounds extremely interesting. My son was really engaged by it.
My kids learn English history too. Last term included the Great Fire of London and the Plague.
Not sure what is woke or rewriting history there?
That isn't, but there's an increasing focus in some educational institutions to teach history almost solely through the prism of identity politics, as the post of @AlistairM demonstrates. I also encountered it myself at my daughter's previous school, so I withdrew her.
We shouldn't deny this is a problem.
I don't want to negate your lived experience, I'm just offering my own as a counterpoint. The forces of woke are obviously more active in Hampshire than in Inner London - who knew?
Apologies. I forgot it was entirely futile engaging with you on this subject.
I think he's winding you up. "Lived" experience is the clue.
My kids’ school in New York appears to draw parents trying to escape the woke invasion of private schools here.
The place is blissfully normal, and nobody cares about critical race theory. Having said that, the nativity play did feature some kind of Kwanza interlude.
Interesting. And reassuring.
Just to be clear: I don't want to set up a false dichotomy here, although I bet I will be accused of it.
I am not arguing that women's rights, civil rights, slavery etc. should not be covered in history lessons - quite the opposite.
I am arguing that should not be the prism solely through which all history is taught, and it should always be put in the context of the times.
It does seem like the situation varies. It's certainly not something we have come against, the only place I've heard about woke etc is on this site.
My daughters great historical question that was puzzling her which she asked over the Christmas holidays was: Since the Plague was spread by rats, and rats still exist today, how come people today don't get the Plague?
Racial matters too where it comes up I think her school has handled very well for her age group. The school does Nativities and learns about Christian beliefs etc, but also she has learnt more about Eid, Diwali and other faiths etc than we were ever taught at school. That to me seems to be a very good thing and more education there doesn't take anything away from anyone.
My kids’ school in New York appears to draw parents trying to escape the woke invasion of private schools here.
The place is blissfully normal, and nobody cares about critical race theory. Having said that, the nativity play did feature some kind of Kwanza interlude.
Interesting. And reassuring.
Just to be clear: I don't want to set up a false dichotomy here, although I bet I will be accused of it.
I am not arguing that women's rights, civil rights, slavery etc. should not be covered in history lessons - quite the opposite.
I am arguing that should not be the prism solely through which all history is taught, and it should always be put in the context of the times.
On the subject of dichotomy I do think there is a vast hinterland of history which is neither British domestic stuff (which I agree is important as it's important for shared cultural reference points, like the Bible and Shakespeare) nor empire, slavery or other "bad stuff we did elsewhere" but is "important things other people in other countries did where Britain isn't the centre of the action". That means European and Asian history in particular. To understand the world and geopolitics, as well as geography and beyond Napoleon and Hitler it really helps to understand:
- The civilisations of ancient history (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Indus Valley, India, China, Greece, Rome) - The religious empires of the middle ages: the holy Roman empire, the Islamic caliphate - The European reformation and the wars of religion - Continental empires: Mongols and their successors, Russia, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman, China - The conquistadores and age of exploration - The rise of the nation state - Japan, Korea and the 20th century politics of the Far East - The Cold war and Soviet Union
Love all that - I am a passionate student of history.
The best thing we can teach our kids is to have that same passion, since we'll never be able to teach them everything.
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.
Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.
And what utter bollocks it is.
I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.
How much practical experience of the current state system do you have ?
I went to state sixth form college, my sister went to stste schools throughout her childhood and my nephews both went there.
I am also familiar with the curriculums taught locally. My ex-girlfriend also attended a history lessons during her PCGE course at a Southampton comprehensive entitled "there ain't no black in the union jack".
I am done with denialism and whataboutery on this. IT IS A PROBLEM.
The question is what we do about it so we don't radicalise and indoctrinate future generations.
Yes, it’s a definite problem and it’s a problem in London as much as anywhere
At the age of 15 my eldest was well schooled on every possible significant black figure in British history - I never want to hear the words Mary Seacole again - but she did not know much at all about the Battle of Hastings. She vaguely knew it was important. Didn’t really know who was fighting. Or who won
And she’s smart
Of all people to decry such an education.
You can't on the one hand say out with maths, the arts, you name it because it has no relevance to life today; and on the other hand bemoan the lack of teaching of the Battle of Hastings in favour of teaching about a figure who influences so very many aspects of life today, both for you and your eldest.
I’ve already said on this thread that education is good in and of itself. My argument is that it will become a pleasing skill rather than a necessary qualification for employment
Learning maths will be like learning the clarinet to grade 5. It’s nice that you can do it but will it help you get a job? No not so much
In that scenario it will be awfully hard to motivate a lot of students
Plenty of arts grads in stonkingly good jobs. Some have even become prime ministers.
Brown and Boris are the most recent arts and humanities graduates who became PM (arguably May with Geography), PPE is more social science as is law. Thatcher did chemistry
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.
Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.
And what utter bollocks it is.
I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.
How much practical experience of the current state system do you have ?
I went to state sixth form college, my sister went to stste schools throughout her childhood and my nephews both went there.
I am also familiar with the curriculums taught locally. My ex-girlfriend also attended a history lessons during her PCGE course at a Southampton comprehensive entitled "there ain't no black in the union jack".
I am done with denialism and whataboutery on this. IT IS A PROBLEM.
The question is what we do about it so we don't radicalise and indoctrinate future generations.
Yes, it’s a definite problem and it’s a problem in London as much as anywhere
At the age of 15 my eldest was well schooled on every possible significant black figure in British history - I never want to hear the words Mary Seacole again - but she did not know much at all about the Battle of Hastings. She vaguely knew it was important. Didn’t really know who was fighting. Or who won
A reminder: Only 15% of the population have an IQ level of 115 or above. An IQ above 115 is considered to be a 'High IQ'
For 85% of people advanced maths is simply pointless. They can’t do it and, besides, they have a tiny brilliant machine that can solve all practical daily maths questions, anyway
Soon they will have a new machine which they won’t even require numbers. You’ll just ask it the query “what is a third of a third”
For 85% of people reading A Portrait of the Artist is pointless but it's still worth equipping as many people as possible with the tools to do so in a civilised society.
I don’t disagree at all. The problem is going to be persuading the kids to learn when it becomes evermore pointless and doesn’t help them get work, as all knowledge work is automated
Kids are already fleeing the Humanities for this exact reason: these degrees don’t lead to jobs
If AI makes most STEM, finance, accountancy, law jobs redundant that will change.
The few jobs left will be the most creative ones machines can't do, which humanities teach
Mate, I wish that were true. I fear it is not
GPT3.5 is already churning out pretty good creative writing - poetry, stories. SDiffusion and DALL-E2 are producing some notable art (which is being used commercially already)
In 2 or 3 iterations (3-5 years?) they will be as good at the best creative stuff as almost any human. In ten years unimaginably better than any human
Tiny arguments on Reddit will rage as to whether these machines are “truly” creative. It won’t matter, because the machines will simply be better, and we will avidly consume their creations
In which case all but the top 1% most creative and innovative and skilled will be out of work in most fields.
We then return to the inevitability of a universal basic income funded by a robot tax the more AI is used across sectors, whether creative arts, manufacturing, professional finance, accountancy and law or basic menial tasks
That's Luddite bullshit.
As jobs are eliminated, new ones are created. People have ingenuity. We do different jobs than the past, but the idea of a jobless age has always been and always will be Dystopian SciFi bullshit.
What new jobs are going to be created then the average IQ person, not especially creative can do which AI can't do? Let alone for those of below average IQ?
There may still be permanent jobs for very high IQ, highly creative people but they are only a small minority
I understand your point but I think there will be a role for "average" people who will be employed by the AIs to experience for them, something the AIs can't do, at least not human experience.
A bit like Leon experiencing tourist hotspots for the rest of us.
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.
Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.
And what utter bollocks it is.
I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.
Sure, but your world picture has to explain the "utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history" if that is a major facet of our modern world to you (and it clearly is).
A spectre is haunting casinoRoyaleville; the spectre of Woke. Is Woke itself better explained by various facets of intercontinental trade and war, or by whether Philip of Anjou edged it on penalties over Charles of Austria?
History is the summation of the whole human story to date - taught in our islands should have a particular focus on British history because that's where we live and it explains our institutions and values and how we got here. It should not be taught solely through the prism of gender, race and sexuality - as the Woke would have it.
One day lesser minds, like yours, will come round to this, but for now it's far easier for you to be a dumb sheep.
If the argument is that schoolchild in the world should learn world history, and end up with relatively similar curricula across countries, then fair enough. It's not a view I agree with, but it's certainly defensible.
However, in practice I suspect that most proponents of teaching "diverse" history in the UK would baulk at the teaching of, say, the Napoleonic Wars in a Nigerian school, as "colonialist".
The point is that teaching it solely through the prism of identity politics introduces a bias into it, in the same way it would to teach it solely through a Whig one or a Marxist one.
It should focus on a factual story of the major events that got us to where we are today, triangulated to the broader context in the wider world, and encourage children to interpret and challenge primary and secondary sources themselves to figure it out.
The heavy focus on the Tudors, as opposed to the Civil War, I find a bit weird - to be honest. We were a republic for nearly 11 years, and then exported the religious puritans to New England, helping to spawn America and how it is today, and that feels just as significant - if not more so.
England's identity as, "definitely not a Catholic country," used to be a lot more important to its sense of self then it is now, and clearly the Tudor period was central to that.
As others have mentioned a lot of the present curriculum is determined by what Minister's parents were taught at school (+WWII for history), and so no-one's really rethought how to teach our history.
I was never taught about the Acts of Union at my English school, which seems a rather remarkable gap. Though we did learn about the US civil rights movement and, unsurprisingly, that was the topic that most interested many of my fellow south London inner suburban classmates. I don't think they'd have been as interested as I would have been to learn more about Alfred the Great.
Where I diverge a little bit, here, is that different races should be taught histories in slightly different ways.
We are all British and I think we all agree (well, most of us do) that race should ultimately become as irrelevant as your hair and eye colour, so, I do want history to be taught in a unifying way.
Health spending has not kept up with population growth + ageing/obesity + health inflation.
This is especially true with respect to capital investment, or in simplest terms, “beds”.
On top of those limitations, we can’t release people quickly enough from hospital into social care because (a) we don’t fund that properly either, and (b) we’ve lost a lot of staff from that sector.
Covid’s overhang continues to mean acute pressures; people are just sicker than they were before.
Apparently Rishi is fully focused on this (alongside his maths idea) so let’s see what he has to say.
The first point is the most important and the problem that Bart is pointing out is that in this environment of ageing/obesity the NHS is still attempting to extend life expectancy. Maybe, just maybe, it's time to accept we live in a resource limited environment and stop extending life expectancy.
That could have been a cogent argument if it was made decades ago, but it wasn't.
We have a particular and long forewarned problem of one specific generation that seriously outnumber both those that came before it, and those that came after it. But what sacrifice is that generation making?
Future generations won't be retiring at 65 on gold plated pensions. The problem there has already been somewhat addressed but for those who have retired at 65 on a gold plated pension, what's the solution?
Any proposals to extend working is in the future, not for that generation. In the future the problem will have gone anyway, but our generation could be working into the seventies and beyond before retirement but without a demographic boom in that generation. How does extending that further address the problem of those who are already retired and have 3 to 4 or more decades of retirement?
I thought you were a fan of market forces? These gold plated pensions (and I cannot stress enough that I don't have one) were what the labour market dictated at the time you needed to pay these people to do the job they did. Your proposal to rewrite those contracts is pure communism: to each according to his needs, not what a contracting party agreed to pay him. Whereas where you are not personally disadvantaged we get caricature capitalism; the good people of Wick should pay the market price for having their parcels delivered even if that is £1000 a go.
If the contracting party has the funds available to pay the contract, then they can pay it.
If it doesn't, then it shouldn't be subsidised or paid for by taxpayers. If you are in a contract and the other party goes bust, then you lose whatever you contracted.
The good people of Wick I'm sure would rather go collect their own parcels than pay 1000 a go so the market would find equilibrium without interference.
The contracting party was the UK Government. When that goes bust we can talk.
It is. The last time it ran a surplus was in 2002, hence austerity. So let's talk.
Any funds that were put to one side should be used. Anything else, is just politics.
No it isn't. Governments pay their debts is the first rule of a first world, rule of law country.
I don't think what you propose is possible anyway. The government's obligation to pay these pensions is no different from its obligation to pay coupons and redemptions on gilts. I would think our debt would be rerated as junk if it tried to default.
I never proposed defaulting on debts.
But triple locking pensions isn't a debt that is owed.
Taxing pensioners by less than we tax working people isn't a debt that is owed.
If you want to start things off, you could equalise taxes by abolishing national insurance and the graduate tax so that a young graduate starting to work or a retired gold plated pensioner or anyone in between is on the same tax rate.
Without defaulting on anything.
You really are as stupid as you make out. A gold plated Bellend.
My kids’ school in New York appears to draw parents trying to escape the woke invasion of private schools here.
The place is blissfully normal, and nobody cares about critical race theory. Having said that, the nativity play did feature some kind of Kwanza interlude.
Interesting. And reassuring.
Just to be clear: I don't want to set up a false dichotomy here, although I bet I will be accused of it.
I am not arguing that women's rights, civil rights, slavery etc. should not be covered in history lessons - quite the opposite.
I am arguing that should not be the prism solely through which all history is taught, and it should always be put in the context of the times.
On the subject of dichotomy I do think there is a vast hinterland of history which is neither British domestic stuff (which I agree is important as it's important for shared cultural reference points, like the Bible and Shakespeare) nor empire, slavery or other "bad stuff we did elsewhere" but is "important things other people in other countries did where Britain isn't the centre of the action". That means European and Asian history in particular. To understand the world and geopolitics, as well as geography and beyond Napoleon and Hitler it really helps to understand:
- The civilisations of ancient history (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Indus Valley, India, China, Greece, Rome) - The religious empires of the middle ages: the holy Roman empire, the Islamic caliphate - The European reformation and the wars of religion - Continental empires: Mongols and their successors, Russia, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman, China - The conquistadores and age of exploration - The rise of the nation state - Japan, Korea and the 20th century politics of the Far East - The Cold war and Soviet Union
Love all that - I am a passionate student of history.
The best thing we can teach our kids is to have that same passion, since we'll never be able to teach them everything.
There's too much world history to cover it all, though I do think knowledge of the Middle Ages is particularly poor.
There is simply no excuse for not teaching the early modern period, the industrial revolution, colonization, the world wars and the Cold War however.
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.
Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.
And what utter bollocks it is.
I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.
Sure, but your world picture has to explain the "utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history" if that is a major facet of our modern world to you (and it clearly is).
A spectre is haunting casinoRoyaleville; the spectre of Woke. Is Woke itself better explained by various facets of intercontinental trade and war, or by whether Philip of Anjou edged it on penalties over Charles of Austria?
History is the summation of the whole human story to date - taught in our islands should have a particular focus on British history because that's where we live and it explains our institutions and values and how we got here. It should not be taught solely through the prism of gender, race and sexuality - as the Woke would have it.
One day lesser minds, like yours, will come round to this, but for now it's far easier for you to be a dumb sheep.
One does expect a British angle on things discussed by Britons in Britain. Hence why our colonialism (big and recent and OURS) shouldn't be contextualized away with "it's complicated" and "we were no worse than others" and "what about the Romans?" etc etc. Yet this what many try to do. Happens every single time we get into it.
With respect, you have a strong view on colonialism and it only leans one-way.
I have no issue with the facts being taught. I do have an issue with those facts being highly selective and placed outwith the context of the times.
We are able to teach a balanced history of the Roman empire. It shouldn't be hard to do the same for the British.
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
And, we keep being told that such Woke agendas in education don't exist and that such agendas are totally fabricated; a fantasy in the minds of "reactionaries".
It's almost as if they don't want us to challenge it.
It's just not my experience, that's all. Our kids learn about the Tudors and 20th century European history, mainly. The school has started to teach about West African kingdoms, too, which I think is a good thing, a teacher at the school helped to develop the curriculum so it is very well taught and sounds extremely interesting. My son was really engaged by it.
Same at our local school. The bloody Tudors, the Victorian era, WW1 and 2, then at secondary school it's 1066, and yet more world war stuff. They learn about slavery and African kingdoms and a tiny bit about the empire.
What you get none of - and we had almost none of in my time either - is wider European history. Has the typical year 11 student any concept of who Charlemagne was, or the 30 years war, or the Moorish conquests or Mongol invasions, do they know Germany and Italy used to be clusters of tiny kingdoms and principalities or that there used to be these two massive empires within Ryanair distance of us run by the Habsburgs and the Ottomans? No, they know about Henry the 8th, Hitler and the Nazis and William the Conqueror. If they're lucky they might heave heard a passing reference to the French and Russian revolutions and learned about the Battle of Trafalgar.
Aren't we almost neighbours and might therefore be talking about the same secondary school (located in SE14)?
Not the same secondary school, but my son has friends there.
I forgot to mention the plague and the great fire of London. They definitely get lots of that.
A reminder: Only 15% of the population have an IQ level of 115 or above. An IQ above 115 is considered to be a 'High IQ'
For 85% of people advanced maths is simply pointless. They can’t do it and, besides, they have a tiny brilliant machine that can solve all practical daily maths questions, anyway
Soon they will have a new machine which they won’t even require numbers. You’ll just ask it the query “what is a third of a third”
For 85% of people reading A Portrait of the Artist is pointless but it's still worth equipping as many people as possible with the tools to do so in a civilised society.
I don’t disagree at all. The problem is going to be persuading the kids to learn when it becomes evermore pointless and doesn’t help them get work, as all knowledge work is automated
Kids are already fleeing the Humanities for this exact reason: these degrees don’t lead to jobs
If AI makes most STEM, finance, accountancy, law jobs redundant that will change.
The few jobs left will be the most creative ones machines can't do, which humanities teach
Mate, I wish that were true. I fear it is not
GPT3.5 is already churning out pretty good creative writing - poetry, stories. SDiffusion and DALL-E2 are producing some notable art (which is being used commercially already)
In 2 or 3 iterations (3-5 years?) they will be as good at the best creative stuff as almost any human. In ten years unimaginably better than any human
Tiny arguments on Reddit will rage as to whether these machines are “truly” creative. It won’t matter, because the machines will simply be better, and we will avidly consume their creations
In which case all but the top 1% most creative and innovative and skilled will be out of work in most fields.
We then return to the inevitability of a universal basic income funded by a robot tax the more AI is used across sectors, whether creative arts, manufacturing, professional finance, accountancy and law or basic menial tasks
That's Luddite bullshit.
As jobs are eliminated, new ones are created. People have ingenuity. We do different jobs than the past, but the idea of a jobless age has always been and always will be Dystopian SciFi bullshit.
What new jobs are going to be created then the average IQ person, not especially creative can do which AI can't do? Let alone for those of below average IQ?
There may still be permanent jobs for very high IQ, highly creative people but they are only a small minority
Then why do we have full employment? 🤦♂️
There's 300 years of history showing Luddidm is wrong. You're only limited by your own weak imagination.
People will use their ingenuity to create jobs and opportunities. Just as we always have done.
It might help your argument if you could provide examples of these new jobs
Indeed.com - Have a browse.
We have full employment. Many of the jobs today wouldn't exist in the past, and many that exist today won't in the future but new ones will. It's how we get progress.
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.
Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.
And what utter bollocks it is.
I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.
How much practical experience of the current state system do you have ?
I went to state sixth form college, my sister went to stste schools throughout her childhood and my nephews both went there.
I am also familiar with the curriculums taught locally. My ex-girlfriend also attended a history lessons during her PCGE course at a Southampton comprehensive entitled "there ain't no black in the union jack".
I am done with denialism and whataboutery on this. IT IS A PROBLEM.
The question is what we do about it so we don't radicalise and indoctrinate future generations.
Yes, it’s a definite problem and it’s a problem in London as much as anywhere
At the age of 15 my eldest was well schooled on every possible significant black figure in British history - I never want to hear the words Mary Seacole again - but she did not know much at all about the Battle of Hastings. She vaguely knew it was important. Didn’t really know who was fighting. Or who won
And she’s smart
You neglected her education, then ?
No, I took her to Waltham Abbey and showed her the likely grave of King Harold Godwinson and Edith Swan Neck
Since then we have done multiple educational trips. Florence and Rome last summer
My kids’ school in New York appears to draw parents trying to escape the woke invasion of private schools here.
The place is blissfully normal, and nobody cares about critical race theory. Having said that, the nativity play did feature some kind of Kwanza interlude.
Interesting. And reassuring.
Just to be clear: I don't want to set up a false dichotomy here, although I bet I will be accused of it.
I am not arguing that women's rights, civil rights, slavery etc. should not be covered in history lessons - quite the opposite.
I am arguing that should not be the prism solely through which all history is taught, and it should always be put in the context of the times.
On the subject of dichotomy I do think there is a vast hinterland of history which is neither British domestic stuff (which I agree is important as it's important for shared cultural reference points, like the Bible and Shakespeare) nor empire, slavery or other "bad stuff we did elsewhere" but is "important things other people in other countries did where Britain isn't the centre of the action". That means European and Asian history in particular. To understand the world and geopolitics, as well as geography and beyond Napoleon and Hitler it really helps to understand:
- The civilisations of ancient history (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Indus Valley, India, China, Greece, Rome) - The religious empires of the middle ages: the holy Roman empire, the Islamic caliphate - The European reformation and the wars of religion - Continental empires: Mongols and their successors, Russia, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman, China - The conquistadores and age of exploration - The rise of the nation state - Japan, Korea and the 20th century politics of the Far East - The Cold war and Soviet Union
Love all that - I am a passionate student of history.
The best thing we can teach our kids is to have that same passion, since we'll never be able to teach them everything.
We can't, but one term (and one book they can all be given to peruse at leisure) where they simply do the history of the world from the invention of writing to today would be both great fun and just very helpful in anchoring other concepts like deep time and world geography. With each chapter / lesson including some nuggets about how the events then are relevant to events now.
Something that would work well for say year 6 or 7 when kids are already aware of things like Russia-Ukraine or the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Health spending has not kept up with population growth + ageing/obesity + health inflation.
This is especially true with respect to capital investment, or in simplest terms, “beds”.
On top of those limitations, we can’t release people quickly enough from hospital into social care because (a) we don’t fund that properly either, and (b) we’ve lost a lot of staff from that sector.
Covid’s overhang continues to mean acute pressures; people are just sicker than they were before.
Apparently Rishi is fully focused on this (alongside his maths idea) so let’s see what he has to say.
The first point is the most important and the problem that Bart is pointing out is that in this environment of ageing/obesity the NHS is still attempting to extend life expectancy. Maybe, just maybe, it's time to accept we live in a resource limited environment and stop extending life expectancy.
That could have been a cogent argument if it was made decades ago, but it wasn't.
We have a particular and long forewarned problem of one specific generation that seriously outnumber both those that came before it, and those that came after it. But what sacrifice is that generation making?
Future generations won't be retiring at 65 on gold plated pensions. The problem there has already been somewhat addressed but for those who have retired at 65 on a gold plated pension, what's the solution?
Any proposals to extend working is in the future, not for that generation. In the future the problem will have gone anyway, but our generation could be working into the seventies and beyond before retirement but without a demographic boom in that generation. How does extending that further address the problem of those who are already retired and have 3 to 4 or more decades of retirement?
I thought you were a fan of market forces? These gold plated pensions (and I cannot stress enough that I don't have one) were what the labour market dictated at the time you needed to pay these people to do the job they did. Your proposal to rewrite those contracts is pure communism: to each according to his needs, not what a contracting party agreed to pay him. Whereas where you are not personally disadvantaged we get caricature capitalism; the good people of Wick should pay the market price for having their parcels delivered even if that is £1000 a go.
If the contracting party has the funds available to pay the contract, then they can pay it.
If it doesn't, then it shouldn't be subsidised or paid for by taxpayers. If you are in a contract and the other party goes bust, then you lose whatever you contracted.
The good people of Wick I'm sure would rather go collect their own parcels than pay 1000 a go so the market would find equilibrium without interference.
The contracting party was the UK Government. When that goes bust we can talk.
It is. The last time it ran a surplus was in 2002, hence austerity. So let's talk.
Any funds that were put to one side should be used. Anything else, is just politics.
No it isn't. Governments pay their debts is the first rule of a first world, rule of law country.
I don't think what you propose is possible anyway. The government's obligation to pay these pensions is no different from its obligation to pay coupons and redemptions on gilts. I would think our debt would be rerated as junk if it tried to default.
I never proposed defaulting on debts.
But triple locking pensions isn't a debt that is owed.
Taxing pensioners by less than we tax working people isn't a debt that is owed.
If you want to start things off, you could equalise taxes by abolishing national insurance and the graduate tax so that a young graduate starting to work or a retired gold plated pensioner or anyone in between is on the same tax rate.
Without defaulting on anything.
Ah, OK, different point. "Gold plated" usually refers to contracted fatcat civil service pensions.
A cut off for NHS services of any kind to the over 70s would resolve so many problems all at once.
If we simply charged your fat cat civil service pension the same rate of tax as a young graduate starting their career in the civil service, then that alone would fill a lot of the gap.
My kids’ school in New York appears to draw parents trying to escape the woke invasion of private schools here.
The place is blissfully normal, and nobody cares about critical race theory. Having said that, the nativity play did feature some kind of Kwanza interlude.
Interesting. And reassuring.
Just to be clear: I don't want to set up a false dichotomy here, although I bet I will be accused of it.
I am not arguing that women's rights, civil rights, slavery etc. should not be covered in history lessons - quite the opposite.
I am arguing that should not be the prism solely through which all history is taught, and it should always be put in the context of the times.
It does seem like the situation varies. It's certainly not something we have come against, the only place I've heard about woke etc is on this site.
My daughters great historical question that was puzzling her which she asked over the Christmas holidays was: Since the Plague was spread by rats, and rats still exist today, how come people today don't get the Plague?
Racial matters too where it comes up I think her school has handled very well for her age group. The school does Nativities and learns about Christian beliefs etc, but also she has learnt more about Eid, Diwali and other faiths etc than we were ever taught at school. That to me seems to be a very good thing and more education there doesn't take anything away from anyone.
That's an excellent question to ask - the answer involves so many inter connected bits of our society and history.
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.
Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.
And what utter bollocks it is.
I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.
How much practical experience of the current state system do you have ?
I went to state sixth form college, my sister went to stste schools throughout her childhood and my nephews both went there.
I am also familiar with the curriculums taught locally. My ex-girlfriend also attended a history lessons during her PCGE course at a Southampton comprehensive entitled "there ain't no black in the union jack".
I am done with denialism and whataboutery on this. IT IS A PROBLEM.
The question is what we do about it so we don't radicalise and indoctrinate future generations.
Yes, it’s a definite problem and it’s a problem in London as much as anywhere
At the age of 15 my eldest was well schooled on every possible significant black figure in British history - I never want to hear the words Mary Seacole again - but she did not know much at all about the Battle of Hastings. She vaguely knew it was important. Didn’t really know who was fighting. Or who won
And she’s smart
Of all people to decry such an education.
You can't on the one hand say out with maths, the arts, you name it because it has no relevance to life today; and on the other hand bemoan the lack of teaching of the Battle of Hastings in favour of teaching about a figure who influences so very many aspects of life today, both for you and your eldest.
I’ve already said on this thread that education is good in and of itself. My argument is that it will become a pleasing skill rather than a necessary qualification for employment
Learning maths will be like learning the clarinet to grade 5. It’s nice that you can do it but will it help you get a job? No not so much
In that scenario it will be awfully hard to motivate a lot of students
There's a different between maths and arithmetic. Even if you only need to follow along with what ChatGPT is telling you, you need to understand mathematical concepts.
People still don't seem to grasp that even if AI does away with 90% of current employment tasks, the 10% that is left plus a bunch of new tasks required to orchestrate the AI, will rapidly become 100% of people's jobs. A good education system would entail figuring out what those things are and teaching that stuff. And I don't believe only 10% of the population is able to learn how to integrate different AIs, and align it with business needs, and to define the scope of work it needs to do etc.
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.
Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.
And what utter bollocks it is.
I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.
How much practical experience of the current state system do you have ?
I went to state sixth form college, my sister went to stste schools throughout her childhood and my nephews both went there.
I am also familiar with the curriculums taught locally. My ex-girlfriend also attended a history lessons during her PCGE course at a Southampton comprehensive entitled "there ain't no black in the union jack".
I am done with denialism and whataboutery on this. IT IS A PROBLEM.
The question is what we do about it so we don't radicalise and indoctrinate future generations.
Yes, it’s a definite problem and it’s a problem in London as much as anywhere
At the age of 15 my eldest was well schooled on every possible significant black figure in British history - I never want to hear the words Mary Seacole again - but she did not know much at all about the Battle of Hastings. She vaguely knew it was important. Didn’t really know who was fighting. Or who won
And she’s smart
You neglected her education, then ?
No, I took her to Waltham Abbey and showed her the likely grave of King Harold Godwinson and Edith Swan Neck
Since then we have done multiple educational trips. Florence and Rome last summer
Someone should make a no expenses spared series about the Godwinsons - the patriarch and the sons. Sweyn The Swine......
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.
Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.
And what utter bollocks it is.
I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.
How much practical experience of the current state system do you have ?
I went to state sixth form college, my sister went to stste schools throughout her childhood and my nephews both went there.
I am also familiar with the curriculums taught locally. My ex-girlfriend also attended a history lessons during her PCGE course at a Southampton comprehensive entitled "there ain't no black in the union jack".
I am done with denialism and whataboutery on this. IT IS A PROBLEM.
The question is what we do about it so we don't radicalise and indoctrinate future generations.
Yes, it’s a definite problem and it’s a problem in London as much as anywhere
At the age of 15 my eldest was well schooled on every possible significant black figure in British history - I never want to hear the words Mary Seacole again - but she did not know much at all about the Battle of Hastings. She vaguely knew it was important. Didn’t really know who was fighting. Or who won
And she’s smart
You neglected her education, then ?
No, I took her to Waltham Abbey and showed her the likely grave of King Harold Godwinson and Edith Swan Neck
Since then we have done multiple educational trips. Florence and Rome last summer
For Christmas I got my daughter the Usborne book of Politics and am waiting for the end of her current murder mystery book before making this the next bedtime "story". I've had rave reviews about it from a friend. Might learn something myself.
The other thing I've enjoyed doing is Atlas time: one country each evening before bedtime, open up the big Times Atlas and talk about it, from the landscape and physical geography to the people and its history. Not sure it always all sinks in, but sometimes it makes for great storytelling. Israel was a great one, as was the USA and India (the latter mainly for the plate tectonics and Tethys sea stuff).
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.
Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.
And what utter bollocks it is.
I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.
How much practical experience of the current state system do you have ?
I went to state sixth form college, my sister went to stste schools throughout her childhood and my nephews both went there.
I am also familiar with the curriculums taught locally. My ex-girlfriend also attended a history lessons during her PCGE course at a Southampton comprehensive entitled "there ain't no black in the union jack".
I am done with denialism and whataboutery on this. IT IS A PROBLEM.
The question is what we do about it so we don't radicalise and indoctrinate future generations.
Yes, it’s a definite problem and it’s a problem in London as much as anywhere
At the age of 15 my eldest was well schooled on every possible significant black figure in British history - I never want to hear the words Mary Seacole again - but she did not know much at all about the Battle of Hastings. She vaguely knew it was important. Didn’t really know who was fighting. Or who won
And she’s smart
Of all people to decry such an education.
You can't on the one hand say out with maths, the arts, you name it because it has no relevance to life today; and on the other hand bemoan the lack of teaching of the Battle of Hastings in favour of teaching about a figure who influences so very many aspects of life today, both for you and your eldest.
I’ve already said on this thread that education is good in and of itself. My argument is that it will become a pleasing skill rather than a necessary qualification for employment
Learning maths will be like learning the clarinet to grade 5. It’s nice that you can do it but will it help you get a job? No not so much
In that scenario it will be awfully hard to motivate a lot of students
There's a different between maths and arithmetic. Even if you only need to follow along with what ChatGPT is telling you, you need to understand mathematical concepts.
People still don't seem to grasp that even if AI does away with 90% of current employment tasks, the 10% that is left plus a bunch of new tasks required to orchestrate the AI, will rapidly become 100% of people's jobs. A good education system would entail figuring out what those things are and teaching that stuff. And I don't believe only 10% of the population is able to learn how to integrate different AIs, and align it with business needs, and to define the scope of work it needs to do etc.
You think 8 billion humans will in future work on “integrating different AIs and aligning them with business needs”?
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
And, we keep being told that such Woke agendas in education don't exist and that such agendas are totally fabricated; a fantasy in the minds of "reactionaries".
It's almost as if they don't want us to challenge it.
It's just not my experience, that's all. Our kids learn about the Tudors and 20th century European history, mainly. The school has started to teach about West African kingdoms, too, which I think is a good thing, a teacher at the school helped to develop the curriculum so it is very well taught and sounds extremely interesting. My son was really engaged by it.
My kids learn English history too. Last term included the Great Fire of London and the Plague.
Not sure what is woke or rewriting history there?
That isn't, but there's an increasing focus in some educational institutions to teach history almost solely through the prism of identity politics, as the post of @AlistairM demonstrates. I also encountered it myself at my daughter's previous school, so I withdrew her.
We shouldn't deny this is a problem.
Also seems to be the case with other subjects. When studying artists in Y9 it has been entirely focused on diverse (i.e. non-white) artists. I'm all for covering a wide variety of different areas but I think there is a real danger of the syllabus being so desperate to be politically correct that it ends up being exclusionary. That is not progress.
Depends on the course, obvs, but why on earth, on the planet where x% of people are from any one particular demographic do you worry about a course on "artists" focusing on a variety of artists from different backgrounds.
Or was the course labelled "white artists in 20th Century Britain"?
As an aside, PVC-free clingfilm is a wretched and inferior product. I'm unsure if it's due to cost-cutting or environmentalism but whoever came up with the vile stuff should be stuffed into a giant cannon and launched into the heart of the sun.
I can see their argument, but chances are the guy wouldn't have placed the bet if he'd only been offered 66-1, and the question I would have is how many other similar bets did they take (Portugal to win, Ronaldo to be top scorer, Portugal v England final) at similar compound odds, but now not offering to void the bets when they're not willing to stand by the odds offered at the time?
Sometimes they will make mistakes and misprice bets. They shouldn't be able to wiggle away from them only when they lose.
Certainly the combination of "Argentina win the World Cup" and "Argentina-France final" shouldn't have been allowed at full price. I think the logical thing is to work out what "Argentina beat France in the final" would be and then calculate that as a double with "Messi Golden Ball". I don't buy the part of their defence that "Argentina win" can't be combined with "Messi Golden Ball".
Certainly the combination of "Argentina win the World Cup" and "Argentina-France final" shouldn't have been allowed at full price. I think the logical thing is to work out what "Argentina beat France in the final" would be and then calculate that as a double with "Messi Golden Ball". I don't buy the part of their defence that "Argentina win" can't be combined with "Messi Golden Ball".
Unfortunately the Gambling Commission are so useless that bookies can do what they like
A reminder: Only 15% of the population have an IQ level of 115 or above. An IQ above 115 is considered to be a 'High IQ'
For 85% of people advanced maths is simply pointless. They can’t do it and, besides, they have a tiny brilliant machine that can solve all practical daily maths questions, anyway
Soon they will have a new machine which they won’t even require numbers. You’ll just ask it the query “what is a third of a third”
For 85% of people reading A Portrait of the Artist is pointless but it's still worth equipping as many people as possible with the tools to do so in a civilised society.
I don’t disagree at all. The problem is going to be persuading the kids to learn when it becomes evermore pointless and doesn’t help them get work, as all knowledge work is automated
Kids are already fleeing the Humanities for this exact reason: these degrees don’t lead to jobs
If AI makes most STEM, finance, accountancy, law jobs redundant that will change.
The few jobs left will be the most creative ones machines can't do, which humanities teach
Mate, I wish that were true. I fear it is not
GPT3.5 is already churning out pretty good creative writing - poetry, stories. SDiffusion and DALL-E2 are producing some notable art (which is being used commercially already)
In 2 or 3 iterations (3-5 years?) they will be as good at the best creative stuff as almost any human. In ten years unimaginably better than any human
Tiny arguments on Reddit will rage as to whether these machines are “truly” creative. It won’t matter, because the machines will simply be better, and we will avidly consume their creations
In which case all but the top 1% most creative and innovative and skilled will be out of work in most fields.
We then return to the inevitability of a universal basic income funded by a robot tax the more AI is used across sectors, whether creative arts, manufacturing, professional finance, accountancy and law or basic menial tasks
That's Luddite bullshit.
As jobs are eliminated, new ones are created. People have ingenuity. We do different jobs than the past, but the idea of a jobless age has always been and always will be Dystopian SciFi bullshit.
What new jobs are going to be created then the average IQ person, not especially creative can do which AI can't do? Let alone for those of below average IQ?
There may still be permanent jobs for very high IQ, highly creative people but they are only a small minority
Then why do we have full employment? 🤦♂️
There's 300 years of history showing Luddidm is wrong. You're only limited by your own weak imagination.
People will use their ingenuity to create jobs and opportunities. Just as we always have done.
To a degree and it depends on the timescale.
The Luddites were right - from their own perspective. The Industrial Revolution did lead to a collapse in artisan wages, especially as employers designed factories based around child labour which was cheaper than skilled artisans.
Wages did - eventually - improve and new jobs were created but it took several decades for the effect to come through (eg factories required administration which required clerks etc).
When technological changes come and make people unemployed, there is not an automatic bank of jobs out there. Sure, people can set themselves up (I did) but the idea that people can switch seamlessly into jobs is a fallacy - there are switching costs for a reason.
More accurately - it ended some jobs, like weaving at home.
There were more and often better paid jobs, but this meant changing trades.
Which was Simply Not How Things Work, back then.
There were also places like India where mechanisation ended the old jobs but didn't create new jobs any time soon. You could say that Southern Europe has seen old jobs in low-skilled manufacturing go away in the last three decades without being replaced.
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.
Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.
And what utter bollocks it is.
I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.
How much practical experience of the current state system do you have ?
I went to state sixth form college, my sister went to stste schools throughout her childhood and my nephews both went there.
I am also familiar with the curriculums taught locally. My ex-girlfriend also attended a history lessons during her PCGE course at a Southampton comprehensive entitled "there ain't no black in the union jack".
I am done with denialism and whataboutery on this. IT IS A PROBLEM.
The question is what we do about it so we don't radicalise and indoctrinate future generations.
Yes, it’s a definite problem and it’s a problem in London as much as anywhere
At the age of 15 my eldest was well schooled on every possible significant black figure in British history - I never want to hear the words Mary Seacole again - but she did not know much at all about the Battle of Hastings. She vaguely knew it was important. Didn’t really know who was fighting. Or who won
And she’s smart
You neglected her education, then ?
No, I took her to Waltham Abbey and showed her the likely grave of King Harold Godwinson and Edith Swan Neck
Since then we have done multiple educational trips. Florence and Rome last summer
You're right - I should have said "you had neglected her education". Well done for remedying the situation.
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
And, we keep being told that such Woke agendas in education don't exist and that such agendas are totally fabricated; a fantasy in the minds of "reactionaries".
It's almost as if they don't want us to challenge it.
It's just not my experience, that's all. Our kids learn about the Tudors and 20th century European history, mainly. The school has started to teach about West African kingdoms, too, which I think is a good thing, a teacher at the school helped to develop the curriculum so it is very well taught and sounds extremely interesting. My son was really engaged by it.
Same at our local school. The bloody Tudors, the Victorian era, WW1 and 2, then at secondary school it's 1066, and yet more world war stuff. They learn about slavery and African kingdoms and a tiny bit about the empire.
What you get none of - and we had almost none of in my time either - is wider European history. Has the typical year 11 student any concept of who Charlemagne was, or the 30 years war, or the Moorish conquests or Mongol invasions, do they know Germany and Italy used to be clusters of tiny kingdoms and principalities or that there used to be these two massive empires within Ryanair distance of us run by the Habsburgs and the Ottomans? No, they know about Henry the 8th, Hitler and the Nazis and William the Conqueror. If they're lucky they might heave heard a passing reference to the French and Russian revolutions and learned about the Battle of Trafalgar.
Aren't we almost neighbours and might therefore be talking about the same secondary school (located in SE14)?
Not the same secondary school, but my son has friends there.
I forgot to mention the plague and the great fire of London. They definitely get lots of that.
Samuel Pepys and his bloody cheese!
His diaries are bloody brilliant, though.
Indeed, I spent much of lockdown reading them.
In fact Epping gets a mention as Pepys stayed over there on the way back to London from Cambridge and Audley End
“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT 💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a… 👨🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic… 🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…
A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.
As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.
I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.
Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.
And what utter bollocks it is.
I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.
How much practical experience of the current state system do you have ?
I went to state sixth form college, my sister went to stste schools throughout her childhood and my nephews both went there.
I am also familiar with the curriculums taught locally. My ex-girlfriend also attended a history lessons during her PCGE course at a Southampton comprehensive entitled "there ain't no black in the union jack".
I am done with denialism and whataboutery on this. IT IS A PROBLEM.
The question is what we do about it so we don't radicalise and indoctrinate future generations.
Yes, it’s a definite problem and it’s a problem in London as much as anywhere
At the age of 15 my eldest was well schooled on every possible significant black figure in British history - I never want to hear the words Mary Seacole again - but she did not know much at all about the Battle of Hastings. She vaguely knew it was important. Didn’t really know who was fighting. Or who won
And she’s smart
Of all people to decry such an education.
You can't on the one hand say out with maths, the arts, you name it because it has no relevance to life today; and on the other hand bemoan the lack of teaching of the Battle of Hastings in favour of teaching about a figure who influences so very many aspects of life today, both for you and your eldest.
I’ve already said on this thread that education is good in and of itself. My argument is that it will become a pleasing skill rather than a necessary qualification for employment
Learning maths will be like learning the clarinet to grade 5. It’s nice that you can do it but will it help you get a job? No not so much
In that scenario it will be awfully hard to motivate a lot of students
There's a different between maths and arithmetic. Even if you only need to follow along with what ChatGPT is telling you, you need to understand mathematical concepts.
People still don't seem to grasp that even if AI does away with 90% of current employment tasks, the 10% that is left plus a bunch of new tasks required to orchestrate the AI, will rapidly become 100% of people's jobs. A good education system would entail figuring out what those things are and teaching that stuff. And I don't believe only 10% of the population is able to learn how to integrate different AIs, and align it with business needs, and to define the scope of work it needs to do etc.
You think 8 billion humans will in future work on “integrating different AIs and aligning them with business needs”?
No, because only two thirds of them are working age, half of the remainder are in a bunch of countries that are ineptly run, there is a bottom 25% that will really struggle, and among the mid-IQ and above there will be entrepreneurs and creative jobs too.
But yes I do think hundreds of millions can do. Even if automation and AI reaches the point where you only need 50 people to run a massive company, those 50 people are going to have tremendous productivity. That in turn will push up the compensation for those jobs, which means those people will have a lot more money to spend. Which means a lot more aggregate spending and demand to fill for the global economy, meaning many many more 50 person, mega-corporations.
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But triple locking pensions isn't a debt that is owed.
Taxing pensioners by less than we tax working people isn't a debt that is owed.
If you want to start things off, you could equalise taxes by abolishing national insurance and the graduate tax so that a young graduate starting to work or a retired gold plated pensioner or anyone in between is on the same tax rate.
Without defaulting on anything.
"Divorced, beheaded, died
Divorced, beheaded, survived."
There's some proper history that a loyal beef-eating Englishman can get behind.
The idea that there's more to it than that, is not new or commie. Every third chapter of War and Peace is devoted to making this point.
Did it at GCSEs and then A-levels. Stormed it. A* or 9s or whatever they call them these days, at both GCSE and A levels.
However, I didn't want to continue it at University. I wanted a career that involved lots of maths.
So I became an accountant......
Accountancy has nothing to do with maths, at all. Outside of adding and subtracting I never use maths.
It's all about ensuring that Debits are either an expense or asset as the client wants, or that Credits are revenue or liabilities, again as the client wants.
Not a single bit of maths in my job...... very strange.
A cut off for NHS services of any kind to the over 70s would resolve so many problems all at once.
However, in practice I suspect that most proponents of teaching "diverse" history in the UK would baulk at the teaching of, say, the Napoleonic Wars in a Nigerian school, as "colonialist".
There's 300 years of history showing Luddidm is wrong. You're only limited by your own weak imagination.
People will use their ingenuity to create jobs and opportunities. Just as we always have done.
I am also familiar with the curriculums taught locally. My ex-girlfriend also attended a history lessons during her PCGE course at a Southampton comprehensive entitled "there ain't no black in the union jack".
I am done with denialism and whataboutery on this. IT IS A PROBLEM.
The question is what we do about it so we don't radicalise and indoctrinate future generations.
It would also help if we could make some sensible decisions to retain what is left of UK manufacturing - as corporate R&D tends to be closely related to existing businesses. (Easier if the robots are replacing workers for existing products, if you will).
The place is blissfully normal, and nobody cares about critical race theory. Having said that, the nativity play did feature some kind of Kwanza interlude.
I’m only offering it here because this particular source does occasionally uncover genuine intel.
It should focus on a factual story of the major events that got us to where we are today, triangulated to the broader context in the wider world, and encourage children to interpret and challenge primary and secondary sources themselves to figure it out.
The heavy focus on the Tudors, as opposed to the Civil War, I find a bit weird - to be honest. We were a republic for nearly 11 years, and then exported the religious puritans to New England, helping to spawn America and how it is today, and that feels just as significant - if not more so.
How much does all this matter REALLY?
ETA: The substantive point about colour is valid though - black should be in there - and yellow. All the other nations' patron saints get their flags incorporated.
Just to be clear: I don't want to set up a false dichotomy here, although I bet I will be accused of it.
I am not arguing that women's rights, civil rights, slavery etc. should not be covered in history lessons - quite the opposite.
I am arguing that should not be the prism solely through which all history is taught, and it should always be put in the context of the times.
At the age of 15 my eldest was well schooled on every possible significant black figure in British history - I never want to hear the words Mary Seacole again - but she did not know much at all about the Battle of Hastings. She vaguely knew it was important. Didn’t really know who was fighting. Or who won
And she’s smart
I forgot to mention the plague and the great fire of London. They definitely get lots of that.
My sister (a civil servant) did quite a lot of looking at education stats as part of a "policy based evidence making" excersise for one of the devolved administrations - she had a massive dataset of virtually every child in the relevant area, with info on their schooling, home life, educational results etc. She said that the only meaningful statistical effects were from when you controlled for things which were effectively proxies for parental interest and involvement, and a stable home life - everything else was just noise.
Unfortunately, poor parenting is quite difficult to overcome, and the government has virtually nothing they can do to help.
See also the Woman King (believe that's the film's name), in which a kingdom of black African slavers are portrayed positively and evil Europeans, who at the time were trying to end slavery, are villainous.
As a side note, one black actress seemingly pulled out of the project when she realised it was not merely inaccurate historically but diametrically opposed to reality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Woman_King#Historical_accuracy
Then the formula is pi.z.z.a
The answer is that we're teaching foundational myths - and Elizabeth I and the Spanish Armada are better than Oliver Cromwell and our Protectorate period (even if he did lay the seeds for the Royal Navy and the defeat of the Dutch).
For instance: The colors and symbols of the flag carry cultural, political, and regional meanings. The green alludes to the natural vegetation and "rich agricultural resources" of the country,[3][5] while black represents the Swahili people who are native to Tanzania.
but
The current flag of the Arab Republic of Egypt consists of red, white and black horizontal stripes. Red represents the sacrifices and blood of Egyptian martyrs, white symbolizes peace, black stands for the dark period of occupation, and the eagle represents strength and power.
ETA don't believe everything you read. Swahili is a language, not an ethnicity.
As always, the quality of education is heavily determined by the quality of school leadership and that of the individual teachers.
The Luddites were right - from their own perspective. The Industrial Revolution did lead to a collapse in artisan wages, especially as employers designed factories based around child labour which was cheaper than skilled artisans.
Wages did - eventually - improve and new jobs were created but it took several decades for the effect to come through (eg factories required administration which required clerks etc).
When technological changes come and make people unemployed, there is not an automatic bank of jobs out there. Sure, people can set themselves up (I did) but the idea that people can switch seamlessly into jobs is a fallacy - there are switching costs for a reason.
In the 1800s, the average daily food intake in the UK was a bit less than 2500 calories and the UK's population was about 18 million. It was easy to see where the gains from automating agriculture went- feeding more people better.
But we're increasingly running out of material problems to solve. Going from a family living in a single room to a family in a house- definite gain in human happiness. From a house to a mansion- the gain is much more marginal.
Similarly, if all human creativity is online, there's a lot less scope for someone to make a living creating new stuff, because there's a lifetime's worth of good old stuff perfectly preserved. (Even if all AI does is index and remix all that old human creativity, that's still a challenge for new creators.)
And any niche that humans create has the potential to fill up again quickly.
Now this need not be a bad thing; scarcity sucks, work is pretty sucky for most (which is why we gave to pay people to do it). But properly abolishing scarcity does move us to a different bit of the economic graph, and it's one that may behave in disconcerting ways.
You can't on the one hand say out with maths, the arts, you name it because it has no relevance to life today; and on the other hand bemoan the lack of teaching of the Battle of Hastings in favour of teaching about a figure who influences so very many aspects of life today, both for you and your eldest.
As others have mentioned a lot of the present curriculum is determined by what Minister's parents were taught at school (+WWII for history), and so no-one's really rethought how to teach our history.
I was never taught about the Acts of Union at my English school, which seems a rather remarkable gap. Though we did learn about the US civil rights movement and, unsurprisingly, that was the topic that most interested many of my fellow south London inner suburban classmates. I don't think they'd have been as interested as I would have been to learn more about Alfred the Great.
In history we covered the Shakespeare plays we were learning in English literature.
Long live the Henriad.
We should monetise this, I think.
Or was the course labelled "white artists in 20th Century Britain"?
- The civilisations of ancient history (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Indus Valley, India, China, Greece, Rome)
- The religious empires of the middle ages: the holy Roman empire, the Islamic caliphate
- The European reformation and the wars of religion
- Continental empires: Mongols and their successors, Russia, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman, China
- The conquistadores and age of exploration
- The rise of the nation state
- Japan, Korea and the 20th century politics of the Far East
- The Cold war and Soviet Union
Learning maths will be like learning the clarinet to grade 5. It’s nice that you can do it but will it help you get a job? No not so much
In that scenario it will be awfully hard to motivate a lot of students
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000nd9
There were more and often better paid jobs, but this meant changing trades.
Which was Simply Not How Things Work, back then.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-history-programmes-of-study
You are correct that there are significant differences in the quality of education systems across countries, and that math education is an important factor in a country's economic success. I agree that if a country wants to succeed economically, it needs to pay attention to all factors that contribute to its competitiveness, including the quality of education.
However, it's also important to recognize that there are many other factors that contribute to a country's economic success, such as its natural resources, infrastructure, political stability, and so on. No single factor is determinative, and different countries will have different strengths and weaknesses that they need to address in order to achieve economic success.
I hope this clears up any misunderstanding. Please let me know if you have any other questions."
CHATGBT makes life a lot easier!
My daughters great historical question that was puzzling her which she asked over the Christmas holidays was: Since the Plague was spread by rats, and rats still exist today, how come people today don't get the Plague?
Racial matters too where it comes up I think her school has handled very well for her age group. The school does Nativities and learns about Christian beliefs etc, but also she has learnt more about Eid, Diwali and other faiths etc than we were ever taught at school. That to me seems to be a very good thing and more education there doesn't take anything away from anyone.
The best thing we can teach our kids is to have that same passion, since we'll never be able to teach them everything.
"I wonder what the Tories are actually up to today while we are all talking about maths?"
https://twitter.com/markolver/status/1610565375908892673?s=20&t=xLcTcf9xnoAmbSXMlRZwAQ
Staffordshire gambler denied £15,000 winnings on World Cup bets by huge betting company Coral.
https://www.itv.com/news/central/2023-01-03/gambler-denied-15000-world-cup-winnings-after-behind-the-counter-mistake
A bit like Leon experiencing tourist hotspots for the rest of us.
We are all British and I think we all agree (well, most of us do) that race should ultimately become as irrelevant as your hair and eye colour, so, I do want history to be taught in a unifying way.
There is simply no excuse for not teaching the early modern period, the industrial revolution, colonization, the world wars and the Cold War however.
I have no issue with the facts being taught. I do have an issue with those facts being highly selective and placed outwith the context of the times.
We are able to teach a balanced history of the Roman empire. It shouldn't be hard to do the same for the British.
We have full employment. Many of the jobs today wouldn't exist in the past, and many that exist today won't in the future but new ones will. It's how we get progress.
Meanwhile, the latest stats suggest nearly half of all schools are forced to use non-specialists to teach kids because of a shortage of maths teachers.
https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1610584589688360960
Since then we have done multiple educational trips. Florence and Rome last summer
Something that would work well for say year 6 or 7 when kids are already aware of things like Russia-Ukraine or the Arab-Israeli conflict.
But that won't win votes.
"For the first time, more money was raised in the debt markets for climate-friendly projects than for fossil-fuel companies“. Reported today by #BloombergGreen @business.
https://twitter.com/GunterErfurt/status/1610612711317970946
People still don't seem to grasp that even if AI does away with 90% of current employment tasks, the 10% that is left plus a bunch of new tasks required to orchestrate the AI, will rapidly become 100% of people's jobs. A good education system would entail figuring out what those things are and teaching that stuff. And I don't believe only 10% of the population is able to learn how to integrate different AIs, and align it with business needs, and to define the scope of work it needs to do etc.
The other thing I've enjoyed doing is Atlas time: one country each evening before bedtime, open up the big Times Atlas and talk about it, from the landscape and physical geography to the people and its history. Not sure it always all sinks in, but sometimes it makes for great storytelling. Israel was a great one, as was the USA and India (the latter mainly for the plate tectonics and Tethys sea stuff).
Some innovation waffle
Rightmove style gallop through good public services.
Education now - lifelong learning, numeracy.
Sometimes they will make mistakes and misprice bets. They shouldn't be able to wiggle away from them only when they lose.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2023/jan/04/rishi-sunak-teach-maths-up-to-18-strikes-nhs-uk-politics-live
“Rishi Sunak says he will halve inflation, grow economy and cut NHS waiting lists – UK politics live
Prime minister makes wide-ranging speech on education, the economy, the NHS and small boats”
I fear that no one is listening, however
It’s just weird. What is it with this unconvincing earnest delivery? He doesn’t sound remotely like a Primeminister or party leader.
Well done for remedying the situation.
In fact Epping gets a mention as Pepys stayed over there on the way back to London from Cambridge and Audley End
But yes I do think hundreds of millions can do. Even if automation and AI reaches the point where you only need 50 people to run a massive company, those 50 people are going to have tremendous productivity. That in turn will push up the compensation for those jobs, which means those people will have a lot more money to spend. Which means a lot more aggregate spending and demand to fill for the global economy, meaning many many more 50 person, mega-corporations.