@TheScreamingEagles Sod that, England can have the spaceport. I for one am not keen on people launching several tons of rocket fuel over my head. Add it to the Heathrow extension project?
My understanding was that Mike was largely equivocal about Ed but thought he was the better choice as he is more attractive to Red Liberals than his brother.
Are you sure you aren't confusing your own views with those of Mike?
I am de-lurking just so I can applaud BobaFett for an immaculate bit of maths trolling...
(Oh and to say as a parent of a 10-year-old who is very involved with my sons school I have never heard anyone - either parent or teacher - say a good word about Gove. Even very non-political parents seemed to have an instinctive dislike of him.)
Surely what we have here is a classic merit versus tokenism debate.
If the tories' older supporters get the impression that a load of people have been promoted because they are 1. female and/or 2. young, this could go very badly for Dave.
My understanding was that Mike was largely equivocal about Ed but thought he was the better choice as he is more attractive to Red Liberals than his brother.
Are you sure you aren't confusing your own views with those of Mike?
He'll ask Mike and get back to you
I'm not having that you didn't know 8x7... Ridiculous
@TheScreamingEagles Sod that, England can have the spaceport. I for one am not keen on people launching several tons of rocket fuel over my head. Add it to the Heathrow extension project?
Is the spaceport the place from which we will launch Ed Balls into the sun? I think we need Morris Dancer to advise. (This being the UK we will maybe have a trebuchet based launch system?)
I think we should be mindful of the outstanding job that Mike, Robert and the MODERATORS undertake on our behalf and note that in the ten years of PB the site has enjoyed a free flow of robust and largely civilised discourse within the context of instant publishing, that in the internet world is quite frankly an absolute marvel.
"The date an ancient king died does not. There's an app for that. "
This sums up everything that to me is wrong. Unless you have a basic understanding of the facts - the narrative - of our history and that of other countries, of basic scientific concepts, of mathematical concepts etc, how on earth do you know that what you are being told is true. How can you ask intelligent questions? How on earth do you think that you can design an app or whatever will replace them?
Education is not just a collection of random facts that you pick up from an app, anymore than if you collected facts from an encyclopaedia or words from a dictionary. That's just confusing the sort of random knowledge that might win you points on a pub quiz team with education. You need a good solid basic understanding of what happened, how things work, how to use numbers, how to express yourself etc,. Without this, you will always struggle no matter how many apps you have.
Yep. I've heard of the Argument From Ignorance, but until today I'd never come across the Argument For Ignorance.
It also presumes that there are intelligent people to whom thinking skills and logic can be taught but who aren't otherwise curious. In my experience, this is untrue - smart people are always well-informed and stupid people are always ignorant. You rarely meet a stupid but well-informed person. You sometimes meet a smart but ignorant person, though smart people are usually aware of the limits to their knowledge and manage themselves accordingly. There are obvious exceptions - one thinks of climate scientists, who are sometimes modestly intelligent but ignorant of good statistical practice, and also ignorant of their ignorance - but on the whole I think this is true.
Anyway - how would you google the English Civil War if you'd never heard of it in the first place? What would make you do it?
The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that Labour doesn't want history taught because any knowledge of it would cost them votes; and that UKIPpers want it taught to make all them darkies feel less comfortable "comin' over 'ere".
My understanding was that Mike was largely equivocal about Ed but thought he was the better choice as he is more attractive to Red Liberals than his brother.
Are you sure you aren't confusing your own views with those of Mike?
My understanding is that Ed stands a decent chance of becoming Prime Minister in spite of his faults, and what an indictment that is of the Coalition.
Every "Ed is weird" smear prompts the question "So why aren't the Tories on track for a majority?"
Love education debates, so free of facts and so full of wishful thinking. Fads going round in circles, ignorant to the fact all methods have been tried before, especially the left who seem to ignore they have controlled the Sector since the sixties. Of course the Rand Corporation did a huge study and found the greatest influence was quality of students, it's why all elite educational institutions have rigorous test based entry requirements. To his credit Gove did introduce a more scientific approach to the Department, not least by listening to the likes of Robert Plomin. Unfortunately we still have enormously wasteful nonesense like head start that Labour introduced after its proven failure in America, of course has failed here too. Steal the poor people's kids is the way the left is thinking, of course the left did that to Aborigines in Australia and it was cruel and a failure then.
"The Green party is pleased to see the back of Owen Paterson at Defra, but says that Liz Truss now has her work cut out. Natalie Bennett, the Green party leader, says in a statement that Mr Paterson’s departure removes “a major international embarrassment” to Britain. “Mr Paterson failed to take the threat of climate change seriously and will be remembered as the man who failed to take action to protect Britain against it,” says Ms Bennett. “Having Paterson, who wilfully ignored scientific evidence on climate change, as well in instituting the badger cull, in the post of Environment Secretary made a mockery of David Cameron’s promise that his administration would be the ‘Greenest Government ever’.”
All of which makes me think the firing of Paterson is a mistake.
Was Michael Gove unpopular with parents though (or at least those who are swing voters?) . More of them than teachers
I never heard a parent express an opinion on him one way or the other. It's one of those things where some people feel passionately and vote-switchingly and others don't really know or care.
You do not need to be able to rote repeat times tables to be numerate.
I could have worked it out but as I have a calculator next to me, I used that.
One of the big problems with old school teaching fans is their Luddism.
It's the same wasters who advocate focusing on handwriting over touch typing.
I can still remember at school when we weren't allowed to use word processors for our essays.
They caught up. Years later.
Mental arithmetic is excellent for the brain and helps with many cognitive processes. It is essential it remains core to teaching. Having to 'look up' 7x8 is a damning indictment of the education system in a grown man, it's something every 7-8 year old should know, and retain, throughout their life. You are correct on handwriting versus touch typing.
Will Gove moving result in an increase in LD votes?
One of the reasons why there is a big LD to L shift, and probably high don't knows, is the association of LD education policy with Gove. With Gove gone, and the oxygen taken out of the education fire, does this have an indirect impact of removing a barrier to a shift back to LD?
The PM's spokesman says he wants Michael Gove and William Hague "at the heart of the government's team", adding: "You should expect to see a great deal of Michael Gove on your TV and radio channels."
David Cameron tweets: Oliver Letwin remains Minister for Government Policy and becomes Lord Privy Seal. #Reshuffle
I'm sure Labour love the above....Hague and Gove all over the telly during the GE and Letwin doing the "thinking", what could go wrong.
Of course you need knowledge, of themes, times, trends, dynamics, ideas and theories.
Knowing the exact date of King Harold's death you do not need in your head.
And Morris, nor do you need to know what 7x8 is, off the top of your head. But you do need to grasp how to multiply, and the basics of algebra, and, ideally, game theory.
If you don't know some of the basic arithmetic off the top of your head you will find it very hard to (a) do the more complicated stuff and (b) recognise when you made a mistake putting the numbers into your calculator.
Secondly, while knowing the precise date of King Harold's death as a fact in isolation is irrelevant, it would be hard to know anything about the Norman Conquest without having a good idea of what year it was.
I had to look up 7x8. Yet I am highly numerate and grasp much mathematical theory.
Lots of people who know what 7x8 is have no grasp of maths.
If you have to "look up" what 7x8 is then you are not numerate, and you also have a poor understanding of English. The definition of numerate is: "having a good basic knowledge of arithmetic; able to understand and work with numbers"
Like I said, ignorant people often don't realise they're ignorant, in consequence of their ignorance.
It's a sort of allotrope of the Dunning-Kruger effect, but applicable to knowledge rather than wisdom.
"The Green party is pleased to see the back of Owen Paterson at Defra, but says that Liz Truss now has her work cut out. Natalie Bennett, the Green party leader, says in a statement that Mr Paterson’s departure removes “a major international embarrassment” to Britain. “Mr Paterson failed to take the threat of climate change seriously and will be remembered as the man who failed to take action to protect Britain against it,” says Ms Bennett. “Having Paterson, who wilfully ignored scientific evidence on climate change, as well in instituting the badger cull, in the post of Environment Secretary made a mockery of David Cameron’s promise that his administration would be the ‘Greenest Government ever’.”
All of which makes me think the firing of Paterson is a mistake.
I'm pretty certain Truss will be in a similar mould. Fundamentally Paterson preferred Food and Rural Affairs to the Environment (surely there are others, like Davey, to cover that) and from what Truss has said anecdotally I don't think she'll be much different.
And finally, to confirm what Mike Smithson has said, Gove was definitely unpopular with far more than just the NUT leadership. Many, probably the overwhelming majority, of teachers genuinely had what amounted to a swivel-eyed hatred for him (yes, really, you do get people who will rant, stamp and shout at the mere mention of his name). Just because the NUT are almost as derided and unpopular outside a hardcore of their members doesn't mean that they were unrepresentative on this issue.
Some of us not directly involved with schools share similar views of Mr. Gove. I note that in the latest issue of Private Eye, number 1370, page six, cheekily offers the possibility that Gove could be offered the editorship of the Daily Mail, down the line.
I say that this would seem to be entirely consistent. But heck, what do I know?
There are 7 cars and 8 goats behind 15 doors. You pick a door (At random) - the host reveals 2 cars and 2 goats behind 4 other random doors.
Should you switch if you want to win a car ?
Full workings to be shown.
No. Removing the 2 and 2 leaves 5 cars and 6 goats. You have either a car or a goat. If you have a car, there are 4 cars and 6 goats elsewhere. if a goat, 5 and 5 elsewhere Therefore there is 9 out of 20 chance of finding a car on a swap You have 5 out of 11 chance on your door
Or 99 out of 220 on a swap versus 100 out if 220 on sticking
And finally, to confirm what Mike Smithson has said, Gove was definitely unpopular with far more than just the NUT leadership. Many, probably the overwhelming majority, of teachers genuinely had what amounted to a swivel-eyed hatred for him (yes, really, you do get people who will rant, stamp and shout at the mere mention of his name). Just because the NUT are almost as derided and unpopular outside a hardcore of their members doesn't mean that they were unrepresentative on this issue.
Some of us not directly involved with schools share similar views of Mr. Gove. I note that in the latest issue of Private Eye, number 1370, page six, cheekily offers the possibility that Gove could be offered the editorship of the Daily Mail, down the line.
I say that this would seem to be entirely consistent. But heck, what do I know?
Gove going is a terrible decision for our education system. My only hope is that Nicky Morgan will continue a programme of radical change that might even exceed what Give was attempting. If not we will see our education system slip back into the third rate mediocrity where it languished for sop many years under Labour.
There are 7 cars and 8 goats behind 15 doors. You pick a door (At random) - the host reveals 2 cars and 2 goats behind 4 other random doors.
Should you switch if you want to win a car ?
Full workings to be shown.
The really interesting thing about the Monty Hall problem is that it is answered differently in Britain and America, owing to different assumptions about how the host chooses doors.
Maybe the real lesson, as with the financial crisis, is that the assumptions matter at least as much as the algebra.
My understanding was that Mike was largely equivocal about Ed but thought he was the better choice as he is more attractive to Red Liberals than his brother.
Are you sure you aren't confusing your own views with those of Mike?
My understanding is that Ed stands a decent chance of becoming Prime Minister in spite of his faults, and what an indictment that is of the Coalition.
Every "Ed is weird" smear prompts the question "So why aren't the Tories on track for a majority?"
Patience, 10 months to go, and the Tories lead with the Gold Standard.
Swingback to kick up a few more notches and the Tories gain Doncaster North next year.
Cameron's changes are all about winning in 2015. The faces may have changes, the policies won't. Refreshed new government who by next year will all be on top of their brief's - another underlying message about the risk of switching to Labour.
It will be interesting to see how much the coverage of Cameron's changes will blank out any coverage of Labour's policy conference this weekend.
Still in shock wrt Gove. Mike is right that it should help the Tories electorally, but it's quite an admission of defeat for the governments programme.
Having a part-time education secretary is probably a mistake politically.
"The date an ancient king died does not. There's an app for that. "
This sums up everything that to me is wrong. Unless you have a basic understanding of the facts - the narrative - of our history and that of other countries, of basic scientific concepts, of mathematical concepts etc, how on earth do you know that what you are being told is true. How can you ask intelligent questions? How on earth do you think that you can design an app or whatever will replace them?
Education is not just a collection of random facts that you pick up from an app, anymore than if you collected facts from an encyclopaedia or words from a dictionary. That's just confusing the sort of random knowledge that might win you points on a pub quiz team with education. You need a good solid basic understanding of what happened, how things work, how to use numbers, how to express yourself etc,. Without this, you will always struggle no matter how many apps you have.
Yep. I've heard of the Argument From Ignorance, but until today I'd never come across the Argument For Ignorance.
It also presumes that there are intelligent people to whom thinking skills and logic can be taught but who aren't otherwise curious. In my experience, this is untrue - smart people are always well-informed and stupid people are always ignorant. You rarely meet a stupid but well-informed person. You sometimes meet a smart but ignorant person, though smart people are usually aware of the limits to their knowledge and manage themselves accordingly. There are obvious exceptions - one thinks of climate scientists, who are sometimes modestly intelligent but ignorant of good statistical practice, and also ignorant of their ignorance - but on the whole I think this is true.
Anyway - how would you google the English Civil War if you'd never heard of it in the first place? What would make you do it?
The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that Labour doesn't want history taught because any knowledge of it would cost them votes; and that UKIPpers want it taught to make all them darkies feel less comfortable "comin' over 'ere".
Labour doesn't want history taught because for most of our long history they were irrelevant. Also, if you know our history, for all our nation's faults, it instils a sense of pride.
There are 7 cars and 8 goats behind 15 doors. You pick a door (At random) - the host reveals 2 cars and 2 goats behind 4 other random doors.
Should you switch if you want to win a car ?
Full workings to be shown.
No. Removing the 2 and 2 leaves 5 cars and 6 goats. You have either a car or a goat. If you have a car, there are 4 cars and 6 goats elsewhere. if a goat, 5 and 5 elsewhere Therefore there is 9 out of 20 chance of finding a car on a swap You have 5 out of 11 chance on your door
Or 99 out of 220 on a swap versus 100 out if 220 on sticking
A pretty poor opinion and a pretty poor headline. Hague wanted to go and he stays for the end of the parliament. Few people seem to be thonking about his wife at this juncture. Clarke is 74. Gove has been in education for 4 years and the reforms have been passed; he has done all the dirty work. He is still around as chief whip, and that is not a bad place to be for a leadershp election and he will be doing media and can trawl the constituencies. Patterson? He is a AGW sceptic (like me) - but so what, what evidence is there that that is the defining reason for him going?
I do not see much educated comment on this reshuffle. It seems quite canny to me.
Was Michael Gove unpopular with parents though (or at least those who are swing voters?) . More of them than teachers
I never heard a parent express an opinion on him one way or the other. It's one of those things where some people feel passionately and vote-switchingly and others don't really know or care.
Actually despite you and I being polar opposites politically I agree with that. Most of the hot air came from the "Blob". The vote switching part worked in both directions incidentally - Times readers albeit admittedly not exactly representative of English voters as a whole are critical of Gove being moved by a margin of about 10 to 2 (as judged by readers "likes") .
Still in shock wrt Gove. Mike is right that it should help the Tories electorally, but it's quite an admission of defeat for the governments programme.
Having a part-time education secretary is probably a mistake politically.
Labour had part time Defence Secretaries whilst we were fighting two wars.
Still in shock wrt Gove. Mike is right that it should help the Tories electorally, but it's quite an admission of defeat for the governments programme.
Having a part-time education secretary is probably a mistake politically.
In which case we need to start appointing people who aren't MPs.
And finally, to confirm what Mike Smithson has said, Gove was definitely unpopular with far more than just the NUT leadership. Many, probably the overwhelming majority, of teachers genuinely had what amounted to a swivel-eyed hatred for him (yes, really, you do get people who will rant, stamp and shout at the mere mention of his name). Just because the NUT are almost as derided and unpopular outside a hardcore of their members doesn't mean that they were unrepresentative on this issue.
Some of us not directly involved with schools share similar views of Mr. Gove. I note that in the latest issue of Private Eye, number 1370, page six, cheekily offers the possibility that Gove could be offered the editorship of the Daily Mail, down the line.
I say that this would seem to be entirely consistent. But heck, what do I know?
Gove going is a terrible decision for our education system. My only hope is that Nicky Morgan will continue a programme of radical change that might even exceed what Give was attempting. If not we will see our education system slip back into the third rate mediocrity where it languished for sop many years under Labour.
Sorry if I gave the impression that I think it's impossible to do worse. Maybe they're working on it as we speak.
When is this document from, 2006? I think any spooks going to carry out operations in Second Life would struggle to find anybody too play with these days.
When is this document from, 2006? I think any spooks going to carry out operations in Second Life would struggle to find anybody too play with these days.
Still in shock wrt Gove. Mike is right that it should help the Tories electorally, but it's quite an admission of defeat for the governments programme.
Having a part-time education secretary is probably a mistake politically.
Labour had part time Defence Secretaries whilst we were fighting two wars.
If the purpose of the Gove move is to remove some of the poison from education say by allowing the Lib Dems to come to the front of stage then a part time education secretary makes perfect sense.
The compulsory use of iodised salt by food manufacturers would probably do most to boost test scores, be cretinous not to do so given its negligible cost.
For Boba, an article on why 7x8 is one of the trickiest sums in the times tables. Jolly interesting, and it explained why my wife and I felt like we were banging our head on the wall trying to teach our 7yo the 8 times table!
And finally, to confirm what Mike Smithson has said, Gove was definitely unpopular with far more than just the NUT leadership. Many, probably the overwhelming majority, of teachers genuinely had what amounted to a swivel-eyed hatred for him (yes, really, you do get people who will rant, stamp and shout at the mere mention of his name). Just because the NUT are almost as derided and unpopular outside a hardcore of their members doesn't mean that they were unrepresentative on this issue.
Some of us not directly involved with schools share similar views of Mr. Gove. I note that in the latest issue of Private Eye, number 1370, page six, cheekily offers the possibility that Gove could be offered the editorship of the Daily Mail, down the line.
I say that this would seem to be entirely consistent. But heck, what do I know?
Gove going is a terrible decision for our education system. My only hope is that Nicky Morgan will continue a programme of radical change that might even exceed what Give was attempting. If not we will see our education system slip back into the third rate mediocrity where it languished for sop many years under Labour.
Sorry if I gave the impression that I think it's impossible to do worse. Maybe they're working on it as we speak.
We know it is possible to do a lot worse. Labour did it for 13 years.
Haven't been on PB since the WC Final, but just thought that Germany plenty deserved to win
I am of the thinking that teams only 'deserve to win' if they score more goals than the team they are playing -that's the only aim of football isn't it? the only exception was the play off final where I did sort of feel Derby 'deserved to win' against QPR
When is this document from, 2006? I think any spooks going to carry out operations in Second Life would struggle to find anybody too play with these days.
Sounds like the perfect discreet location ;-)
These were the ones I thought interesting:
Spring Bishop - a tool to find private pictures of targets on Facebook Bearscrape - a tool to extract a computer's wi-fi connection history Miniature Hero - the ability to source real-time call records, instant messages and contact lists from Skype
Anyone that still believes they're only collecting metadata is an idiot. David Cameron believes in a state just small enough to fit through your modem.
There are 7 cars and 8 goats behind 15 doors. You pick a door (At random) - the host reveals 2 cars and 2 goats behind 4 other random doors.
Should you switch if you want to win a car ?
Full workings to be shown.
No. Removing the 2 and 2 leaves 5 cars and 6 goats. You have either a car or a goat. If you have a car, there are 4 cars and 6 goats elsewhere. if a goat, 5 and 5 elsewhere Therefore there is 9 out of 20 chance of finding a car on a swap You have 5 out of 11 chance on your door
Or 99 out of 220 on a swap versus 100 out if 220 on sticking
BANK!
Initially:
P(C) = 7/15; P(G) = 8/15
If we switch, we are choosing from 10 doors (Hence the second denominator)
For Boba, an article on why 7x8 is one of the trickiest sums in the times tables. Jolly interesting, and it explained why my wife and I felt like we were banging our head on the wall trying to teach our 7yo the 8 times table!
Still in shock wrt Gove. Mike is right that it should help the Tories electorally, but it's quite an admission of defeat for the governments programme.
Having a part-time education secretary is probably a mistake politically.
Not really an admission of defeat when he kept in there for four years. More just removing him before the election so Labour can't use his unpopularity. I still think it's a mistake, but don't buy the spin you want to put on it.
I think - in the medium term - that Eurosceptics will be very disappointed with Mr Hammond.
Undoubtedly true, just as they were disappointed in turn with Cameron and Hague. They briefly turned to Boris before discovering he wasn't a Europhobe, and so on.
Of course there's a reason for this: the source of their disappointments is that they are blaming individuals for the constraints of reality.
The constraints of reality being that David Cameron is too europhile to ever put a eurosceptic in a position of influence.
I think - in the medium term - that Eurosceptics will be very disappointed with Mr Hammond.
Undoubtedly true, just as they were disappointed in turn with Cameron and Hague. They briefly turned to Boris before discovering he wasn't a Europhobe, and so on.
Of course there's a reason for this: the source of their disappointments is that they are blaming individuals for the constraints of reality.
The constraints of reality being that David Cameron is too europhile to ever put a eurosceptic in a position of influence.
So Philip Hammond, the man who would vote to leave the EU isn't a eurosceptic.
For Boba, an article on why 7x8 is one of the trickiest sums in the times tables. Jolly interesting, and it explained why my wife and I felt like we were banging our head on the wall trying to teach our 7yo the 8 times table!
As well as parroting the tables, kids need to be taught pattern recognition and partial sum banking to help with trickier sums.
Agreed. I still remember being astounded that the sum of the odd digits equals the sum of the even digits for all multiples of 11. [I later found out this applies to multiples of 9 in base 8, multiples of 17 in hexidecimal etc. This is, IMHO, pretty cool.].
Edit: or the difference is a multiple of 11, 9, 17, etc. Obviously
Fox appears to have been offered ministerial role at FCO - but appears to have turned it down...
Huzzah.
Perhaps offered Hugh Robertson's job as a Minister of State? If true (who knows), Can't blame him for turning it down - such an offer would border on the insulting. And I'm no fan of his.
I think - in the medium term - that Eurosceptics will be very disappointed with Mr Hammond.
Undoubtedly true, just as they were disappointed in turn with Cameron and Hague. They briefly turned to Boris before discovering he wasn't a Europhobe, and so on.
Of course there's a reason for this: the source of their disappointments is that they are blaming individuals for the constraints of reality.
The constraints of reality being that David Cameron is too europhile to ever put a eurosceptic in a position of influence.
So Philip Hammond, the man who would vote to leave the EU isn't a eurosceptic.
You learn something new everyday.
As I understand, Hammond is a "in with reform" position. And a Cameron loyalist. He'll keep out the way while Cameron decides EU policy, like Hague did.
No white smoke from the LibDems over their ministerial changes, if any, or are they waiting for the Conservative music to stop before they wind up the gramophone for their own tunes to play over the airwaves ?
Fox appears to have been offered ministerial role at FCO - but appears to have turned it down...
Huzzah.
Perhaps offered Hugh Robertson's job as a Minister of State? If true (who knows), Can't blame him for turning it down - such an offer would border on the insulting. And I'm no fan of his.
Fox was deluded if he thought he was likely to walk back into a high profile Cabinet position. He left under a very black cloud - and should have rebuilt his career from the ground up.
No white smoke from the LibDems over their ministerial changes, if any, or are they waiting for the Conservative music to stop before they wind up the gramophone for their own tunes to play over the airwaves ?
You are likely to have to wait until after the conference season for the Yellow changes
Has Harriet commented on the lack of a 100% female cabinet yet?
She would never want a 100% female cabinet. She would fix at least one place for her husband - and then play the victim card about how hard done by she is.
Haven't been on PB since the WC Final, but just thought that Germany plenty deserved to win
I am of the thinking that teams only 'deserve to win' if they score more goals than the team they are playing -that's the only aim of football isn't it? the only exception was the play off final where I did sort of feel Derby 'deserved to win' against QPR
I was of course referring to Germany's consistent good performances all tournament
From that article: Students who attend private schools tend to perform significantly better in the PISA assessments than students who attend public schools; but students in public schools in a similar socio-economic context as private schools tend to do equally well.
A huge problem in cities is that private schools produce a vicious circle whereby the removal of the children from state schools by the higher socio-economic groups means the school performance gap widens, so more better-off children leave, so the gap widens, etc, etc.
Having a large slice of state school pupils parented by [what could pejoratively be termed] social detritus means everyone else gets dragged down, and dragged down hard.
Has Harriet commented on the lack of a 100% female cabinet yet?
She would never want a 100% female cabinet. She would fix at least one place for her husband - and then play the victim card about how hard done by she is.
For Boba, an article on why 7x8 is one of the trickiest sums in the times tables. Jolly interesting, and it explained why my wife and I felt like we were banging our head on the wall trying to teach our 7yo the 8 times table!
As well as parroting the tables, kids need to be taught pattern recognition and partial sum banking to help with trickier sums.
Agreed. I still remember being astounded that the sum of the odd digits equals the sum of the even digits for all multiples of 11. [I later found out this applies to multiples of 9 in base 8, multiples of 17 in hexidecimal etc. This is, IMHO, pretty cool.].
Edit: or the difference is a multiple of 11, 9, 17, etc. Obviously
And in the 9x table the digits in the answer always sum to 9 - 18, 27, 36, 45, etc...
Comments
Scotland could host the UK's first dedicated base for spaceplanes, according to new government plans.
Ministers want to establish the UK spaceport by 2018 - the first of its kind outside of the US.
Eight aerodromes have been shortlisted and Scotland has six of the potential locations.
The Scottish government said only independence would lead to a greater development of the country's space industry.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-28276525
Priti Patel becomes Exchequer Secretary at the Treasury. #Reshuffle
You do not need to be able to rote repeat times tables to be numerate.
I could have worked it out but as I have a calculator next to me, I used that.
One of the big problems with old school teaching fans is their Luddism.
It's the same wasters who advocate focusing on handwriting over touch typing.
I can still remember at school when we weren't allowed to use word processors for our essays.
They caught up. Years later.
Sod that, England can have the spaceport.
I for one am not keen on people launching several tons of rocket fuel over my head. Add it to the Heathrow extension project?
My understanding was that Mike was largely equivocal about Ed but thought he was the better choice as he is more attractive to Red Liberals than his brother.
Are you sure you aren't confusing your own views with those of Mike?
(Oh and to say as a parent of a 10-year-old who is very involved with my sons school I have never heard anyone - either parent or teacher - say a good word about Gove. Even very non-political parents seemed to have an instinctive dislike of him.)
If the tories' older supporters get the impression that a load of people have been promoted because they are 1. female and/or 2. young, this could go very badly for Dave.
A lightweight is a lightweight.
Bravo to that one.
I'm not having that you didn't know 8x7... Ridiculous
I accept your apology without reservation and look forward to your return to the broad church that is PB.
......................................................................
I think we should be mindful of the outstanding job that Mike, Robert and the MODERATORS undertake on our behalf and note that in the ten years of PB the site has enjoyed a free flow of robust and largely civilised discourse within the context of instant publishing, that in the internet world is quite frankly an absolute marvel.
Thank you for all your efforts.
It also presumes that there are intelligent people to whom thinking skills and logic can be taught but who aren't otherwise curious. In my experience, this is untrue - smart people are always well-informed and stupid people are always ignorant. You rarely meet a stupid but well-informed person. You sometimes meet a smart but ignorant person, though smart people are usually aware of the limits to their knowledge and manage themselves accordingly. There are obvious exceptions - one thinks of climate scientists, who are sometimes modestly intelligent but ignorant of good statistical practice, and also ignorant of their ignorance - but on the whole I think this is true.
Anyway - how would you google the English Civil War if you'd never heard of it in the first place? What would make you do it?
The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that Labour doesn't want history taught because any knowledge of it would cost them votes; and that UKIPpers want it taught to make all them darkies feel less comfortable "comin' over 'ere".
Every "Ed is weird" smear prompts the question "So why aren't the Tories on track for a majority?"
@Isam
Should you switch if you want to win a car ?
Full workings to be shown.
“Mr Paterson failed to take the threat of climate change seriously and will be remembered as the man who failed to take action to protect Britain against it,” says Ms Bennett.
“Having Paterson, who wilfully ignored scientific evidence on climate change, as well in instituting the badger cull, in the post of Environment Secretary made a mockery of David Cameron’s promise that his administration would be the ‘Greenest Government ever’.”
All of which makes me think the firing of Paterson is a mistake.
Having to 'look up' 7x8 is a damning indictment of the education system in a grown man, it's something every 7-8 year old should know, and retain, throughout their life.
You are correct on handwriting versus touch typing.
LOL. I charge for that sort of service
One of the reasons why there is a big LD to L shift, and probably high don't knows, is the association of LD education policy with Gove. With Gove gone, and the oxygen taken out of the education fire, does this have an indirect impact of removing a barrier to a shift back to LD?
Will this cause Labour' crutch to start wobbling?
David Cameron tweets: Oliver Letwin remains Minister for Government Policy and becomes Lord Privy Seal. #Reshuffle
I'm sure Labour love the above....Hague and Gove all over the telly during the GE and Letwin doing the "thinking", what could go wrong.
It's a sort of allotrope of the Dunning-Kruger effect, but applicable to knowledge rather than wisdom.
When Will I See You Again ....
To be fair to Cam, he put winning elections first ! Now let's see how many MPs he annoys.
I note that in the latest issue of Private Eye, number 1370, page six, cheekily offers the possibility that Gove could be offered the editorship of the Daily Mail, down the line.
I say that this would seem to be entirely consistent. But heck, what do I know?
If you have a car, there are 4 cars and 6 goats elsewhere.
if a goat, 5 and 5 elsewhere
Therefore there is 9 out of 20 chance of finding a car on a swap
You have 5 out of 11 chance on your door
Or 99 out of 220 on a swap versus
100 out if 220 on sticking
BANK!
Maybe the real lesson, as with the financial crisis, is that the assumptions matter at least as much as the algebra.
Swingback to kick up a few more notches and the Tories gain Doncaster North next year.
Cameron's changes are all about winning in 2015. The faces may have changes, the policies won't.
Refreshed new government who by next year will all be on top of their brief's - another underlying message about the risk of switching to Labour.
It will be interesting to see how much the coverage of Cameron's changes will blank out any coverage of Labour's policy conference this weekend.
Having a part-time education secretary is probably a mistake politically.
Also, if you know our history, for all our nation's faults, it instils a sense of pride.
I do not see much educated comment on this reshuffle. It seems quite canny to me.
??? is the new person going to reverse anything Gove has done???
Labour's policy? Let's make England like Wales.....!!!
Glitterball - software to help agents carry out operations in Second Life
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28306819
When is this document from, 2006? I think any spooks going to carry out operations in Second Life would struggle to find anybody too play with these days.
John McTernan @johnmcternan
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In a #reshuffle where competence mattered Hague, Hammond, Gove and Clarke would have stayed in place and IDS would've been sacked.
Odd he should think that, IDS would be hard to replace.
"Here good sir, partake of this goblet before the contents dissolve it"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-28143553
Anything else you feel needs to be made compulsory?
Spring Bishop - a tool to find private pictures of targets on Facebook
Bearscrape - a tool to extract a computer's wi-fi connection history
Miniature Hero - the ability to source real-time call records, instant messages and contact lists from Skype
Anyone that still believes they're only collecting metadata is an idiot. David Cameron believes in a state just small enough to fit through your modem.
P(C) = 7/15; P(G) = 8/15
If we switch, we are choosing from 10 doors (Hence the second denominator)
P(C -> C) = 7/15 * 4/10 = 28/150
P(C -> G) = 7/15 * 6/10 = 42/150
P(G -> C) = 8/15 * 5/10 = 40/150
P(G -> G) = 8/15 * 5/10 = 40/150
P(C or G -> C) = 28/150 + 40/150 = 68/150
P(C or G -> G) = 42/150 + 40/150 = 82/150
(70 - 68)/150 = 2/150
Hence you reduce the probability of winning the car by 1.33... % by switching.
That's how I worked it out anyway...
This one is interesting
"Underpass - a tool to change the result of online polls"
I knew there was something wrong with the old TOTY vote!
http://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisaproducts/pisainfocus/48482894.pdf
You learn something new everyday.
Edit: or the difference is a multiple of 11, 9, 17, etc. Obviously
For unerring bad judgement, combined with complete unsuitability for office, no one comes close to Oliver Letwin.
equally well.
A huge problem in cities is that private schools produce a vicious circle whereby the removal of the children from state schools by the higher socio-economic groups means the school performance gap widens, so more better-off children leave, so the gap widens, etc, etc.
Having a large slice of state school pupils parented by [what could pejoratively be termed] social detritus means everyone else gets dragged down, and dragged down hard.
Paul Maynard (Blackpool North) is another but nothing so far.
One thing I think this reshuffle does do is make Dave's position ultra-secure:
Conservative Specials - David Cameron to be Tory Leader for the next UK General Election
William Hill 1-12 Nice 10% yield or so:
Fill your boots.