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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » What Brits are doing during the lockdown – new Ipsos-MORI poll

SystemSystem Posts: 12,169
edited April 2020 in General

imagepoliticalbetting.com » Blog Archive » What Brits are doing during the lockdown – new Ipsos-MORI polling

One thing is for sure that when all this is over there are going to be many books and studies of how people coped during this period of lockdown as they sought to avoid getting the Coronavirus.

Read the full story here


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Comments

  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,225
    Morning.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,225
    edited April 2020
    Bedford is one of the leading virologists tracking the mutation of this thing.

    https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1230634136102064128
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,205
    Changes for me - less time commuting, more time at the stables, more time gaming.
    Working from home not much of an issue, the lockdown elsewhere in Europe is affecting us more as a company right now.
  • SandraMcSandraMc Posts: 694
    edited April 2020
    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,225
    We’ve noticed here on PB how much longer the comment threads are the audience is very much higher than usual. This is not surprising. This is a site which is about political betting and there is very little of that going on...

    In the context, ought that not to read ...”This is surprising” ?

    Though, give so many of us have little else to do other than Netflix and our backlog of books, it is, of course, not.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,421
    Nigelb said:

    We’ve noticed here on PB how much longer the comment threads are the audience is very much higher than usual. This is not surprising. This is a site which is about political betting and there is very little of that going on...

    In the context, ought that not to read ...”This is surprising” ?

    Though, give so many of us have little else to do other than Netflix and our backlog of books, it is, of course, not.

    The question is, how many of them are SeanT?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,225
    edited April 2020
    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are English, not History teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,225
    ydoethur said:

    Nigelb said:

    We’ve noticed here on PB how much longer the comment threads are the audience is very much higher than usual. This is not surprising. This is a site which is about political betting and there is very little of that going on...

    In the context, ought that not to read ...”This is surprising” ?

    Though, give so many of us have little else to do other than Netflix and our backlog of books, it is, of course, not.

    The question is, how many of them are SeanT?
    Us, or the books ?

    (In my own case, FWIW, none.)
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,729
    ydoethur said:

    Nigelb said:

    We’ve noticed here on PB how much longer the comment threads are the audience is very much higher than usual. This is not surprising. This is a site which is about political betting and there is very little of that going on...

    In the context, ought that not to read ...”This is surprising” ?

    Though, give so many of us have little else to do other than Netflix and our backlog of books, it is, of course, not.

    The question is, how many of them are SeanT?
    I am surprised that having more sex is so low on the list...
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,225
    How COVID-19 could ruin weather forecasts and climate records
    https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00924-6
    ... Dever is one of many scientists sidelined by the coronavirus pandemic, watching from afar as precious field data disappear and instruments degrade. The scientific pause could imperil weather forecasts in the near term, and threaten long-standing climate studies. In some cases, researchers are expecting gaps in data that have been collected regularly for decades. “The break in the scientific record is probably unprecedented,” says Frank Davis, an ecologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

    Davis is the executive director of the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) programme, a network of 30 ecological sites stretching from the far north of Alaska all the way down to Antarctica. Consisting of both urban and rural locations, the LTER network allows scientists to study ecological processes over decades — from the impact of dwindling snowfalls on the mountains of Colorado to the effects of pollution in a Baltimore stream. At some sites, this might be the first interruption in more than 40 years, he says. “That’s painful for the scientists involved.”...
  • SandraMcSandraMc Posts: 694
    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are a English, not history teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    Are you saying that a teacher is not expected to have any general knowledge outside his/her sphere of teaching?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,225
    edited April 2020

    ydoethur said:

    Nigelb said:

    We’ve noticed here on PB how much longer the comment threads are the audience is very much higher than usual. This is not surprising. This is a site which is about political betting and there is very little of that going on...

    In the context, ought that not to read ...”This is surprising” ?

    Though, give so many of us have little else to do other than Netflix and our backlog of books, it is, of course, not.

    The question is, how many of them are SeanT?
    I am surprised that having more sex is so low on the list...
    We covered this in a discussion of social distancing a couple of days back.

    Also, if @ydoethur surmises correctly, many of us would be practising on ourselves...
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,729
    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are English, not History teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    It doesnt matter what they teach its the reality of modern day life. We were given books to read. We went to the library. Some people these days seem to have knowledge limited to who won big brother or other reality type programmes.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,225
    SandraMc said:

    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are a English, not history teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    Are you saying that a teacher is not expected to have any general knowledge outside his/her sphere of teaching?
    I’m saying that Thatcher might be rather less relevant to those who didn’t live through her premiership than those who did can understand.
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,729
    Nigelb said:

    ydoethur said:

    Nigelb said:

    We’ve noticed here on PB how much longer the comment threads are the audience is very much higher than usual. This is not surprising. This is a site which is about political betting and there is very little of that going on...

    In the context, ought that not to read ...”This is surprising” ?

    Though, give so many of us have little else to do other than Netflix and our backlog of books, it is, of course, not.

    The question is, how many of them are SeanT?
    I am surprised that having more sex is so low on the list...
    We covered this in a discussion of social distancing a couple of days back.
    A precis pls ..
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,999

    ydoethur said:

    Nigelb said:

    We’ve noticed here on PB how much longer the comment threads are the audience is very much higher than usual. This is not surprising. This is a site which is about political betting and there is very little of that going on...

    In the context, ought that not to read ...”This is surprising” ?

    Though, give so many of us have little else to do other than Netflix and our backlog of books, it is, of course, not.

    The question is, how many of them are SeanT?
    I am surprised that having more sex is so low on the list...
    Tmi..
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,225

    Nigelb said:

    ydoethur said:

    Nigelb said:

    We’ve noticed here on PB how much longer the comment threads are the audience is very much higher than usual. This is not surprising. This is a site which is about political betting and there is very little of that going on...

    In the context, ought that not to read ...”This is surprising” ?

    Though, give so many of us have little else to do other than Netflix and our backlog of books, it is, of course, not.

    The question is, how many of them are SeanT?
    I am surprised that having more sex is so low on the list...
    We covered this in a discussion of social distancing a couple of days back.
    A precis pls ..
    Measure out two metres, and you tell me....
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,489
    I think running markets on it is too high risk for the Bookies.


    The Government have just regulated away credit cards. They may only be one or two bad headlines on "trying to profit from Covid-19" before further restrictions are put in place.


    Why take the risk?
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,464
    Good morning, everybody. I spend quite a lot of time on U3a activities, normally. Apart from that which I spend looking at Pb, of course. The big change is that that, like a lot of us I've moved on line...... discussion groups on Zoom and similar ...... and quite a few old dogs are learning new tricks. However we do have a residue of members for whom t'internet is a foreign country, to which they don't want to go, or to which they feel they can't go. Which, for some of them, seems sad, as they're becoming isolated.
    Family contact us somewhat more...... are the grandparents OK?
    And, because the gym is closed Mrs C and I walk more, and, of course she doesn't browse the shops.

    The centre of our small town is eerily quiet; only the pharmacy and the convenience store cum post office open, and no-one hanging about the pubs.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,489
    SandraMc said:

    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are a English, not history teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    Are you saying that a teacher is not expected to have any general knowledge outside his/her sphere of teaching?
    Do teachers have any specialist knowledge?

    As far as I'm aware anyone who does a degree (not necessarily the same subject) and then a 1-2 PGCE qualification is eligible.

    So you can be teaching at 22-23 years old knowing remarkably little.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,931

    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are English, not History teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    It doesnt matter what they teach its the reality of modern day life. We were given books to read. We went to the library. Some people these days seem to have knowledge limited to who won big brother or other reality type programmes.
    There is a theory that the web is killing general knowledge. In the past, if you wanted to find something out or check a fact, you had to read a book and would inevitably absorb related material on the way. Now you can directly google who was Margaret Thatcher, discover she was prime minister during the 1980s, and then stop. It is far more efficient than visiting the library but you will learn nothing of monetarism, the Falklands, Neil Kinnock, the SDP, riots and so on.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,931
    The post-lockdown slump might be delayed if my global employer's internal social media is any guide. People around the world are saying what they are most looking forward to resuming, and eating out is the most popular activity, followed by haircuts and holidays.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,250
    I wonder how many people have started writing about the epidemic, and explaining why their political opinions are therefore correct?
  • philiphphiliph Posts: 4,704

    The post-lockdown slump might be delayed if my global employer's internal social media is any guide. People around the world are saying what they are most looking forward to resuming, and eating out is the most popular activity, followed by haircuts and holidays.

    I can just see France ending lockdown in late June working in July and then shutting down for holidays in August.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,931

    SandraMc said:

    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are a English, not history teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    Are you saying that a teacher is not expected to have any general knowledge outside his/her sphere of teaching?
    Do teachers have any specialist knowledge?

    As far as I'm aware anyone who does a degree (not necessarily the same subject) and then a 1-2 PGCE qualification is eligible.

    So you can be teaching at 22-23 years old knowing remarkably little.
    The problem with young teachers is not so much what they know or don't know but that they've never had to grow up, and interact with different generations. They go straight from school to university and back to school. They also are invariably the smartest person in the room, which most of us are not. I'm not, anyway.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,250
    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are English, not History teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    Thatcher coming to power was halfway between last year and the outbreak of WW2.

    (If anyone wants to feel old this morning :smiley: .)
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,720
    Good news. Robin Hanbury-Tenison is speaking and recuperating.
    ‘Now I can believe I’m alive.’
    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-joy-of-hearing-my-father-s-voice-again
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,464

    SandraMc said:

    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are a English, not history teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    Are you saying that a teacher is not expected to have any general knowledge outside his/her sphere of teaching?
    Do teachers have any specialist knowledge?

    As far as I'm aware anyone who does a degree (not necessarily the same subject) and then a 1-2 PGCE qualification is eligible.

    So you can be teaching at 22-23 years old knowing remarkably little.
    The problem with young teachers is not so much what they know or don't know but that they've never had to grow up, and interact with different generations. They go straight from school to university and back to school. They also are invariably the smartest person in the room, which most of us are not. I'm not, anyway.
    'A man among boys, and a boy among men'. One of the teachers at the school I attended back in to 50's was reputed to have come straight from University and stayed in the same school all his working life.
  • paulyork64paulyork64 Posts: 2,507

    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are English, not History teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    It doesnt matter what they teach its the reality of modern day life. We were given books to read. We went to the library. Some people these days seem to have knowledge limited to who won big brother or other reality type programmes.
    There is a theory that the web is killing general knowledge. In the past, if you wanted to find something out or check a fact, you had to read a book and would inevitably absorb related material on the way. Now you can directly google who was Margaret Thatcher, discover she was prime minister during the 1980s, and then stop. It is far more efficient than visiting the library but you will learn nothing of monetarism, the Falklands, Neil Kinnock, the SDP, riots and so on.
    I think it can be the opposite. If you have any wikipedia page open there are links to so many other things. I can't even remember where I started the other day but I ended up learning about Leyden Jars which i'd never heard of. Of course you need to have the enquiring mind to want to look and I'm not sure you can teach/impart that. It might be part of what makes a great teacher or parent.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,164

    SandraMc said:

    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are a English, not history teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    Are you saying that a teacher is not expected to have any general knowledge outside his/her sphere of teaching?
    Do teachers have any specialist knowledge?

    As far as I'm aware anyone who does a degree (not necessarily the same subject) and then a 1-2 PGCE qualification is eligible.

    So you can be teaching at 22-23 years old knowing remarkably little.
    Indeed - watching any GK quiz programmes shows that most people under 30 have next to zero GK beyond the latest pop music, some sport and some celebrity stuff. The demise of live TV means their media diet is very restricted too. Even on shows like University Challenge the dearth of GK is apparent. Only Connect is a bit of an exception but I'd like to see a social/educational analysis of the contestants. They seem very middle class and give every sign of mostly being the products of highly intelligent families and selective/private schooling.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,931
    On-topic, WFH but often starting around 4 or 5am thanks to bladder-induced wakefulness, or even earlier if I dozed off in front of the PC from 9pm till 2 or 3 in the morning. Entertainment comes from Youtube and DVD box sets, currently Patrick Melrose. One meal a day, in the evening, when I take my daily exercise by walking three miles to the fish and chip shop and back. Once a week or so, I might get a lift to the supermarket to restock on life's essentials, like soap, catfood and Coca Cola.

    And every morning I take my temperature to guard against the dreaded lurgy. It is invariably in the low 36s, which might explain why I cannot work on a hot summer's day or could be mere coincidence.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 21,675
    Teaching is one of the hardest jobs. Not a profession to be entered into lightly. The best teachers are nothing short of marvels.

  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,868

    ydoethur said:

    Nigelb said:

    We’ve noticed here on PB how much longer the comment threads are the audience is very much higher than usual. This is not surprising. This is a site which is about political betting and there is very little of that going on...

    In the context, ought that not to read ...”This is surprising” ?

    Though, give so many of us have little else to do other than Netflix and our backlog of books, it is, of course, not.

    The question is, how many of them are SeanT?
    I am surprised that having more sex is so low on the list...
    I believe experts are predicting a fall in the birth rate. A significant proportion of particularly younger pregnancies arise from accidents, which correlate with opportunity and hence with social interaction. And fertility/assisted pregnancy medical work has mostly ceased during the health crisis.
  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 39,653

    The post-lockdown slump might be delayed if my global employer's internal social media is any guide. People around the world are saying what they are most looking forward to resuming, and eating out is the most popular activity, followed by haircuts and holidays.

    FWIW, I think there’ll be something of an immediate surge, followed by a very shallow recovery that will only accelerate once there is widespread availability of a vaccine. We will be emerging - very slowly - into a brand new world. There is no going back.

  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,541
    A campaign for a knighthood for Captain Tom was doing the rounds on the Twitter last night. Personally I think it would be better to belatedly promote him so we can refer to Major Tom.

    Has this been done? I’ll get my coat.
  • state_go_awaystate_go_away Posts: 5,816
    The survey seems to only list positive things . Makes lockdown sound all nice and fluffy. Should ask more negative aspects of isolation as well.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,421
    edited April 2020

    SandraMc said:

    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are a English, not history teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    Are you saying that a teacher is not expected to have any general knowledge outside his/her sphere of teaching?
    Do teachers have any specialist knowledge?

    As far as I'm aware anyone who does a degree (not necessarily the same subject) and then a 1-2 PGCE qualification is eligible.

    So you can be teaching at 22-23 years old knowing remarkably little.
    If you teach A-level, yes. Because A-level requires you to have a degree level understanding of the topic you are teaching. (I will not go bail for all teachers having that, btw!)

    However, it is also true to say that this intensely specialises knowledge. In the particular case of these English teachers, they probably teach nothing after about 1970. So they would need to understand the 60s, and Vietnam, and the Wolfe report, etc, but nothing about Thatcher.

    I’m as bad. I can teach about Khrushchev, or Macmillan, but show me a picture of Konrad Adenauer and I am sadly puzzled as to who it is. Even once I identify him, all I could tell you is he was a former mayor of Cologne and Chancellor of West Germany in the 1950s.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,931
    MattW said:

    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are English, not History teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    Thatcher coming to power was halfway between last year and the outbreak of WW2.

    (If anyone wants to feel old this morning :smiley: .)
    That is a good trick, thinking back to some historic event and then counting the same number of years the other side. I remember being startled the first time I realised Slade's Merry Christmas was closer to the second world war than to now, when "now" was around the turn of the century. Now there are fully functioning adults among us who were not alive for 9/11, and they can vote and everything.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,421

    SandraMc said:

    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are a English, not history teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    Are you saying that a teacher is not expected to have any general knowledge outside his/her sphere of teaching?
    Do teachers have any specialist knowledge?

    As far as I'm aware anyone who does a degree (not necessarily the same subject) and then a 1-2 PGCE qualification is eligible.

    So you can be teaching at 22-23 years old knowing remarkably little.
    The problem with young teachers is not so much what they know or don't know but that they've never had to grow up, and interact with different generations. They go straight from school to university and back to school. They also are invariably the smartest person in the room, which most of us are not. I'm not, anyway.
    'A man among boys, and a boy among men'. One of the teachers at the school I attended back in to 50's was reputed to have come straight from University and stayed in the same school all his working life.
    There were four teachers like that at my comprehensive school in the 1990s, including the deputy head. Another had retired just before I started.

    One of them would certainly not have been allowed to teach today as he had twice had very public affairs with fifth form students.
  • AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340
    Daily routine (when not working):

    Wake up, do exercises, spend an hour doing Hungarian translation exercises, do chores as instructed by higher powers, lunch, spend time in the garden or write, go for a walk, dinner, talk, listen to music or watch TV. Spending more time online is fitted in throughout this.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,421
    DougSeal said:

    A campaign for a knighthood for Captain Tom was doing the rounds on the Twitter last night. Personally I think it would be better to belatedly promote him so we can refer to Major Tom.

    Has this been done? I’ll get my coat.

    Only in general. Your pun got to the kernel of the matter.
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,720

    SandraMc said:

    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are a English, not history teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    Are you saying that a teacher is not expected to have any general knowledge outside his/her sphere of teaching?
    Do teachers have any specialist knowledge?

    As far as I'm aware anyone who does a degree (not necessarily the same subject) and then a 1-2 PGCE qualification is eligible.

    So you can be teaching at 22-23 years old knowing remarkably little.
    The problem with young teachers is not so much what they know or don't know but that they've never had to grow up, and interact with different generations. They go straight from school to university and back to school. They also are invariably the smartest person in the room, which most of us are not. I'm not, anyway.
    'A man among boys, and a boy among men'. One of the teachers at the school I attended back in to 50's was reputed to have come straight from University and stayed in the same school all his working life.
    c.f. "To Serve Them All My Days" by R.F. Dangerfield, with good tv adaptation by Andrew Davies in the 1980s.

  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 39,653

    Daily routine (when not working):

    Wake up, do exercises, spend an hour doing Hungarian translation exercises, do chores as instructed by higher powers, lunch, spend time in the garden or write, go for a walk, dinner, talk, listen to music or watch TV. Spending more time online is fitted in throughout this.

    The life of a Victorian gentleman. If they’d had telly back then. And no servants.

  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,720
    MattW said:

    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are English, not History teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    Thatcher coming to power was halfway between last year and the outbreak of WW2.

    (If anyone wants to feel old this morning :smiley: .)
    Or to put it another way. To #MeAt20 the Suez crisis was 30 years previous, the same as Mrs Thatcher as PM is to a newly qualified teacher.

    Time moves on and all titans of their age look like Ozymandus in the dust to later generations.
  • When is was in my 20's a friend of mine's girlfriend was training to be a teacher.

    Once, when they were at our house, she expressed surprise to see a history book that I was reading. In the discussion that followed, it became quite clear that the thought that someone may want to read about and learn something out of choice had never even occurred to her.

    I remember saying to my wife that she hadn't displayed the qualities that I would necessarily be looking for when choosing someone to educate my children.

    On topic, I suspect there might be some Karma involved, but after having a break from work last year, the roles have now been reversed in comparison with most of my friends, and whilst they are all sitting at home doing the various things listed in the survey, I am working all hours. Running a finance department, our general workload hasn't decreased, but there are a lot of additional things like sorting out furloughed staff, and reporting to owners etc. Talking to others in my position, this is happening a lot. This weekend, I will be making sure I have everything required to claim under the Job Retention Scheme next Monday (we currently don't know much about the process so have to be prepared for all eventualities).

    Compared to my friends, they have the benefit of getting paid whilst not working, which I wasn't last year, but on the other hand I could go out whenever I wanted. I think I prefer it my way.

    I don't mind the work, and I'm being paid well for it, but there are a lot of admin staff who don't get paid a huge amount, and are under massive pressure at the moment, working from home, covering other peoples jobs, making sure that wheels keep turning.
  • IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    Nigelb said:

    We’ve noticed here on PB how much longer the comment threads are the audience is very much higher than usual. This is not surprising. This is a site which is about political betting and there is very little of that going on...

    In the context, ought that not to read ...”This is surprising” ?

    Though, give so many of us have little else to do other than Netflix and our backlog of books, it is, of course, not.

    The question is, how many of them are SeanT?
    I am surprised that having more sex is so low on the list...
    I believe experts are predicting a fall in the birth rate. A significant proportion of particularly younger pregnancies arise from accidents, which correlate with opportunity and hence with social interaction. And fertility/assisted pregnancy medical work has mostly ceased during the health crisis.
    Whilst this virus has run rampant there are others that will be removed from circulation. There have been a run of super-STIs developing through the population, so the lack of "social interaction" will hopefully see these off.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,675
    edited April 2020
    Talking about education, ugh, shame on Boris Johnson and the disgraced national security risk Gavin Williamson.

    https://twitter.com/theipaper/status/1251035161644408832
  • paulyork64paulyork64 Posts: 2,507

    The survey seems to only list positive things . Makes lockdown sound all nice and fluffy. Should ask more negative aspects of isolation as well.

    the top three are all negatives. and decorating.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,931
    Jonathan said:

    Teaching is one of the hardest jobs. Not a profession to be entered into lightly. The best teachers are nothing short of marvels.

    Teachers, like juries, are rarely the object of serious investigation. There is a high correlation between favourite teacher and favourite subject, but which comes first? I do not know what it is like now but when I were a lad, teachers knew little about the science of learning, because teacher training had been captured by historians, philosophers and sociologists; if teachers did know anything of psychology, they kept it well-hidden.

    These days, and I think this is one of the reasons for grade inflation, besides dumbing down, students are far more likely to be taught about Cornell notes, active recall, spaced repetition and so on, all of which is over a hundred years old.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,164

    The survey seems to only list positive things . Makes lockdown sound all nice and fluffy. Should ask more negative aspects of isolation as well.

    Would you like someone to top up the empty half of your glass?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,421

    Talking about education, ugh, shame on Boris Johnson and the disgraced national security risk Gavin Williamson.

    https://twitter.com/theipaper/status/1251035161644408832

    What is it about Johnson that he’s attracted to ignorant egotists with shocking judgement?
  • The post-lockdown slump might be delayed if my global employer's internal social media is any guide. People around the world are saying what they are most looking forward to resuming, and eating out is the most popular activity, followed by haircuts and holidays.

    FWIW, I think there’ll be something of an immediate surge, followed by a very shallow recovery that will only accelerate once there is widespread availability of a vaccine. We will be emerging - very slowly - into a brand new world. There is no going back.

    Nope. The post Covid-19 world will be different to pre, a literal turn of the decade transformation in the way we live and interact with each other. It sounds like the vaccine may be a little way off, and even then it will take a significant time to inoculate everyone everywhere. So the "new normal" has to be different to the old normal because otherwise we aren't going to contain this thing.

    Also, whilst people are slowly going mad in lockdown (some of us faster than others...), are we really wanting to rush headlong back to the status quo ante which for so many was so bad in a different way. I hope that lockdown will have shown people that community is something worth embracing, that work to live (often in a rabbit hutch home bought for transport links to take you elsewhere) isn't working, that "I want someone to bring it to me NOW" isn't sensible, and that all the clean air we've been enjoying thanks to lack of traffic is a precious commidity.

    Lockdown has been a horrible imposition. Lets take the positives out of it and change society for the better.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,421
    geoffw said:

    SandraMc said:

    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are a English, not history teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    Are you saying that a teacher is not expected to have any general knowledge outside his/her sphere of teaching?
    Do teachers have any specialist knowledge?

    As far as I'm aware anyone who does a degree (not necessarily the same subject) and then a 1-2 PGCE qualification is eligible.

    So you can be teaching at 22-23 years old knowing remarkably little.
    The problem with young teachers is not so much what they know or don't know but that they've never had to grow up, and interact with different generations. They go straight from school to university and back to school. They also are invariably the smartest person in the room, which most of us are not. I'm not, anyway.
    'A man among boys, and a boy among men'. One of the teachers at the school I attended back in to 50's was reputed to have come straight from University and stayed in the same school all his working life.
    c.f. "To Serve Them All My Days" by R.F. Dangerfield, with good tv adaptation by Andrew Davies in the 1980s.

    Delderfield, not Dangerfield.

    Was just rereading that yesterday, actually.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,489
    MattW said:

    I wonder how many people have started writing about the epidemic, and explaining why their political opinions are therefore correct?

    Well, David Miliband certainly has.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,421
    edited April 2020

    MattW said:

    I wonder how many people have started writing about the epidemic, and explaining why their political opinions are therefore correct?

    Well, David Miliband certainly has.
    I thought the whole issue with Miliband (D) was that he had no political opinions?
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,729
    geoffw said:

    SandraMc said:

    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are a English, not history teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    Are you saying that a teacher is not expected to have any general knowledge outside his/her sphere of teaching?
    Do teachers have any specialist knowledge?

    As far as I'm aware anyone who does a degree (not necessarily the same subject) and then a 1-2 PGCE qualification is eligible.

    So you can be teaching at 22-23 years old knowing remarkably little.
    The problem with young teachers is not so much what they know or don't know but that they've never had to grow up, and interact with different generations. They go straight from school to university and back to school. They also are invariably the smartest person in the room, which most of us are not. I'm not, anyway.
    'A man among boys, and a boy among men'. One of the teachers at the school I attended back in to 50's was reputed to have come straight from University and stayed in the same school all his working life.
    c.f. "To Serve Them All My Days" by R.F. Dangerfield, with good tv adaptation by Andrew Davies in the 1980s.

    One of my all time favourite series..nothithstanding all.the left wing crap towards the end. John Duttine played it brilliantly... and the contrast between his first wife and his latter relationship could not have been more stark.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,675
    edited April 2020
    Sadly the one thing I'm not doing more of during lockdown is my [moderated].

    I'm doing less travelling, which is a godsend, but not only am I working from home, where my job involves looking at unusual financial transactions, and everything these days looks like a massive unusual transaction, I've also taken on a second job as a teacher.

    I'm really missing sports, which are a strong part of my life, gambling on it, and going to cinema.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,164

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    Nigelb said:

    We’ve noticed here on PB how much longer the comment threads are the audience is very much higher than usual. This is not surprising. This is a site which is about political betting and there is very little of that going on...

    In the context, ought that not to read ...”This is surprising” ?

    Though, give so many of us have little else to do other than Netflix and our backlog of books, it is, of course, not.

    The question is, how many of them are SeanT?
    I am surprised that having more sex is so low on the list...
    I believe experts are predicting a fall in the birth rate. A significant proportion of particularly younger pregnancies arise from accidents, which correlate with opportunity and hence with social interaction. And fertility/assisted pregnancy medical work has mostly ceased during the health crisis.
    Whilst this virus has run rampant there are others that will be removed from circulation. There have been a run of super-STIs developing through the population, so the lack of "social interaction" will hopefully see these off.
    There will always be silver linings to the darkest of clouds - thank goodness. In all the moderntalk about mental health it might help if people focussed more on these instead of adding to the angstmeters.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,317
    Son, reporting for duty on his first day at the Nightingale Hospital, said that it was weird to see so few people out in the rush hour and that the bus smelt as if it had been sprayed if bleach.

    Meanwhile I am watching more opera/theatre on You Tube, listening to lots of the BBC radio archive, walking more, knitting more, playing ping pong and learning about lambing just by watching what is going on in the fields around me. Plus lots of planning the decoration of my home and garden when I do finally manage to move in. TBH I do not have any problem filling my days even if much of the time is simply spent staring at views and sitting in the sun.

    It will be when I am still here on a dark, cold, rainy January day in the 9th month of lockdown that patience may snap.......

  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,489

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    Nigelb said:

    We’ve noticed here on PB how much longer the comment threads are the audience is very much higher than usual. This is not surprising. This is a site which is about political betting and there is very little of that going on...

    In the context, ought that not to read ...”This is surprising” ?

    Though, give so many of us have little else to do other than Netflix and our backlog of books, it is, of course, not.

    The question is, how many of them are SeanT?
    I am surprised that having more sex is so low on the list...
    I believe experts are predicting a fall in the birth rate. A significant proportion of particularly younger pregnancies arise from accidents, which correlate with opportunity and hence with social interaction. And fertility/assisted pregnancy medical work has mostly ceased during the health crisis.
    Whilst this virus has run rampant there are others that will be removed from circulation. There have been a run of super-STIs developing through the population, so the lack of "social interaction" will hopefully see these off.
    Thought kids preferred their phones to shagging these days?
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,729

    geoffw said:

    SandraMc said:

    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are a English, not history teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    Are you saying that a teacher is not expected to have any general knowledge outside his/her sphere of teaching?
    Do teachers have any specialist knowledge?

    As far as I'm aware anyone who does a degree (not necessarily the same subject) and then a 1-2 PGCE qualification is eligible.

    So you can be teaching at 22-23 years old knowing remarkably little.
    The problem with young teachers is not so much what they know or don't know but that they've never had to grow up, and interact with different generations. They go straight from school to university and back to school. They also are invariably the smartest person in the room, which most of us are not. I'm not, anyway.
    'A man among boys, and a boy among men'. One of the teachers at the school I attended back in to 50's was reputed to have come straight from University and stayed in the same school all his working life.
    c.f. "To Serve Them All My Days" by R.F. Dangerfield, with good tv adaptation by Andrew Davies in the 1980s.

    One of my all time favourite series..nothithstanding all.the left wing crap towards the end. John Duttine played it brilliantly... and the contrast between his first wife and his latter relationship could not have been more stark.
    There was another series A Horseman riding by ... also v good.
  • SockySocky Posts: 404
    Foxy said:

    Time moves on and all titans of their age look like Ozymandus in the dust to later generations.

    I propose that the government cancels HS2, and uses the money to erect giant statues of Mrs T in every town.

    They could engrave the "no such thing as society" speech at the bottom as well just to be helpful.
  • kamskikamski Posts: 5,191
    Off topic, very good article about what's happening in India:
    https://www.wired.com/story/indias-frightening-descent-social-media-terror/
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,489
    Foxy said:

    MattW said:

    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are English, not History teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    Thatcher coming to power was halfway between last year and the outbreak of WW2.

    (If anyone wants to feel old this morning :smiley: .)
    Or to put it another way. To #MeAt20 the Suez crisis was 30 years previous, the same as Mrs Thatcher as PM is to a newly qualified teacher.

    Time moves on and all titans of their age look like Ozymandus in the dust to later generations.
    Thatcher is one of the most important figures of the 20th Century


    Thus is just more partisan rubbish from you I'm afraid. Because you don't like her and want to be down with da kidz.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,434
    If you were China and you were wanting to troll the world, revising up the death toll in Wuhan by as close to exactly 50% as possible would be a pretty good way to do it.

    Makes all the complaints about British record-keeping look absurd in comparison.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,931
    ydoethur said:

    Talking about education, ugh, shame on Boris Johnson and the disgraced national security risk Gavin Williamson.

    https://twitter.com/theipaper/status/1251035161644408832

    What is it about Johnson that he’s attracted to ignorant egotists with shocking judgement?
    Do we even know if Boris was involved or if this is something slipped through while the Prime Minister was laid up? #ClassicDom.

    The article says Timothy expects a new wave of Catholic faith schools once the cap is lifted. What he will get is a new wave of Muslim faith schools. They have the numbers and the money. Segregated education: what could go wrong?
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,489

    Daily routine (when not working):

    Wake up, do exercises, spend an hour doing Hungarian translation exercises, do chores as instructed by higher powers, lunch, spend time in the garden or write, go for a walk, dinner, talk, listen to music or watch TV. Spending more time online is fitted in throughout this.

    That's nice.

    I'm working harder than I ever have before during this - I'm up at 5am and in bed by 11pm and either working or looking after my child the whole time in between (she is currently distracted by Milkshake).

    My wife is the same.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,677
    ydoethur said:

    Talking about education, ugh, shame on Boris Johnson and the disgraced national security risk Gavin Williamson.

    https://twitter.com/theipaper/status/1251035161644408832

    What is it about Johnson that he’s attracted to ignorant egotists with shocking judgement?
    Qui se ressemble, s'assemble, as Hyppolite observed.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,489
    ydoethur said:

    SandraMc said:

    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are a English, not history teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    Are you saying that a teacher is not expected to have any general knowledge outside his/her sphere of teaching?
    Do teachers have any specialist knowledge?

    As far as I'm aware anyone who does a degree (not necessarily the same subject) and then a 1-2 PGCE qualification is eligible.

    So you can be teaching at 22-23 years old knowing remarkably little.
    If you teach A-level, yes. Because A-level requires you to have a degree level understanding of the topic you are teaching. (I will not go bail for all teachers having that, btw!)

    However, it is also true to say that this intensely specialises knowledge. In the particular case of these English teachers, they probably teach nothing after about 1970. So they would need to understand the 60s, and Vietnam, and the Wolfe report, etc, but nothing about Thatcher.

    I’m as bad. I can teach about Khrushchev, or Macmillan, but show me a picture of Konrad Adenauer and I am sadly puzzled as to who it is. Even once I identify him, all I could tell you is he was a former mayor of Cologne and Chancellor of West Germany in the 1950s.
    Yes, but if you were a history teacher you'd make it your business to find out about it so you could expand your knowledge and pass more onto others.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,489

    The post-lockdown slump might be delayed if my global employer's internal social media is any guide. People around the world are saying what they are most looking forward to resuming, and eating out is the most popular activity, followed by haircuts and holidays.

    FWIW, I think there’ll be something of an immediate surge, followed by a very shallow recovery that will only accelerate once there is widespread availability of a vaccine. We will be emerging - very slowly - into a brand new world. There is no going back.

    I've heard this "nothing is going to be the same again" meme many times before. Things generally are with only modest changes, and they tend to be evolutions not revolutions.

    Nothing is as good or as bad as it first appears.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,317
    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are a English, not history teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    Are you saying that a teacher is not expected to have any general knowledge outside his/her sphere of teaching?
    I’m saying that Thatcher might be rather less relevant to those who didn’t live through her premiership than those who did can understand.
    The idea that people should only know about what is “relevant” to them is one of the most stupid ideas, if it can even be called that, around.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 21,675
    Teaching is one of those topics that attracts armchair experts. The experience of a parent or pupil gives you remarkably little insight into what teaching is really like.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,421

    ydoethur said:

    SandraMc said:

    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are a English, not history teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    Are you saying that a teacher is not expected to have any general knowledge outside his/her sphere of teaching?
    Do teachers have any specialist knowledge?

    As far as I'm aware anyone who does a degree (not necessarily the same subject) and then a 1-2 PGCE qualification is eligible.

    So you can be teaching at 22-23 years old knowing remarkably little.
    If you teach A-level, yes. Because A-level requires you to have a degree level understanding of the topic you are teaching. (I will not go bail for all teachers having that, btw!)

    However, it is also true to say that this intensely specialises knowledge. In the particular case of these English teachers, they probably teach nothing after about 1970. So they would need to understand the 60s, and Vietnam, and the Wolfe report, etc, but nothing about Thatcher.

    I’m as bad. I can teach about Khrushchev, or Macmillan, but show me a picture of Konrad Adenauer and I am sadly puzzled as to who it is. Even once I identify him, all I could tell you is he was a former mayor of Cologne and Chancellor of West Germany in the 1950s.
    Yes, but if you were a history teacher you'd make it your business to find out about it so you could expand your knowledge and pass more onto others.
    I am a history teacher...
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,250

    ydoethur said:

    SandraMc said:

    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are a English, not history teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    Are you saying that a teacher is not expected to have any general knowledge outside his/her sphere of teaching?
    Do teachers have any specialist knowledge?

    As far as I'm aware anyone who does a degree (not necessarily the same subject) and then a 1-2 PGCE qualification is eligible.

    So you can be teaching at 22-23 years old knowing remarkably little.
    If you teach A-level, yes. Because A-level requires you to have a degree level understanding of the topic you are teaching. (I will not go bail for all teachers having that, btw!)

    However, it is also true to say that this intensely specialises knowledge. In the particular case of these English teachers, they probably teach nothing after about 1970. So they would need to understand the 60s, and Vietnam, and the Wolfe report, etc, but nothing about Thatcher.

    I’m as bad. I can teach about Khrushchev, or Macmillan, but show me a picture of Konrad Adenauer and I am sadly puzzled as to who it is. Even once I identify him, all I could tell you is he was a former mayor of Cologne and Chancellor of West Germany in the 1950s.
    Yes, but if you were a history teacher you'd make it your business to find out about it so you could expand your knowledge and pass more onto others.
    How much is the history of the EU taught?
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,489

    SandraMc said:

    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are a English, not history teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    Are you saying that a teacher is not expected to have any general knowledge outside his/her sphere of teaching?
    Do teachers have any specialist knowledge?

    As far as I'm aware anyone who does a degree (not necessarily the same subject) and then a 1-2 PGCE qualification is eligible.

    So you can be teaching at 22-23 years old knowing remarkably little.
    The problem with young teachers is not so much what they know or don't know but that they've never had to grow up, and interact with different generations. They go straight from school to university and back to school. They also are invariably the smartest person in the room, which most of us are not. I'm not, anyway.
    Yes, I think rather than teach first you should teach second.

    I think most would benefit from 4-5 years in industry first before teaching.

    It used to be something some did right at the very end of their careers - such as retired military officers.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,931
    Cyclefree said:

    Son, reporting for duty on his first day at the Nightingale Hospital, said that it was weird to see so few people out in the rush hour and that the bus smelt as if it had been sprayed if bleach.

    Meanwhile I am watching more opera/theatre on You Tube, listening to lots of the BBC radio archive, walking more, knitting more, playing ping pong and learning about lambing just by watching what is going on in the fields around me. Plus lots of planning the decoration of my home and garden when I do finally manage to move in. TBH I do not have any problem filling my days even if much of the time is simply spent staring at views and sitting in the sun.

    It will be when I am still here on a dark, cold, rainy January day in the 9th month of lockdown that patience may snap.......

    Have you caught Philip Mould's Art in Isolation series of 5-minute videos on Youtube and other social media? Mould discusses paintings in his ancient manor house in the middle of nowhere, with occasional reference to flowers and wildlife.

    Two things of incidental interest are that you can see Mould and his behind-the-camera son getting better from video to video, and that the whole thing is shot on an iphone.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,489
    MattW said:

    ydoethur said:

    SandraMc said:

    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are a English, not history teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    Are you saying that a teacher is not expected to have any general knowledge outside his/her sphere of teaching?
    Do teachers have any specialist knowledge?

    As far as I'm aware anyone who does a degree (not necessarily the same subject) and then a 1-2 PGCE qualification is eligible.

    So you can be teaching at 22-23 years old knowing remarkably little.
    If you teach A-level, yes. Because A-level requires you to have a degree level understanding of the topic you are teaching. (I will not go bail for all teachers having that, btw!)

    However, it is also true to say that this intensely specialises knowledge. In the particular case of these English teachers, they probably teach nothing after about 1970. So they would need to understand the 60s, and Vietnam, and the Wolfe report, etc, but nothing about Thatcher.

    I’m as bad. I can teach about Khrushchev, or Macmillan, but show me a picture of Konrad Adenauer and I am sadly puzzled as to who it is. Even once I identify him, all I could tell you is he was a former mayor of Cologne and Chancellor of West Germany in the 1950s.
    Yes, but if you were a history teacher you'd make it your business to find out about it so you could expand your knowledge and pass more onto others.
    How much is the history of the EU taught?
    I did a bit on it at school.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,720
    Cyclefree said:

    Son, reporting for duty on his first day at the Nightingale Hospital, said that it was weird to see so few people out in the rush hour and that the bus smelt as if it had been sprayed if bleach.

    Meanwhile I am watching more opera/theatre on You Tube, listening to lots of the BBC radio archive, walking more, knitting more, playing ping pong and learning about lambing just by watching what is going on in the fields around me. Plus lots of planning the decoration of my home and garden when I do finally manage to move in. TBH I do not have any problem filling my days even if much of the time is simply spent staring at views and sitting in the sun.

    It will be when I am still here on a dark, cold, rainy January day in the 9th month of lockdown that patience may snap.......

    I have rather enjoyed lockdown. No private practice, fewer patients in clinic, fewer reports to produce, appraisals all mothballed, interesting clinical work and a great team atmosphere.

    Evenings and weekends in the garden, and plenty of time to stare into space. Sometimes I sits and thinks, sometimes I just sits, as one famous philosopher put it.

    I miss the footy, but apart from that not too keen to turn back the clocks. Indeed I may well go part time shortly after it is all over.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,317

    Daily routine (when not working):

    Wake up, do exercises, spend an hour doing Hungarian translation exercises, do chores as instructed by higher powers, lunch, spend time in the garden or write, go for a walk, dinner, talk, listen to music or watch TV. Spending more time online is fitted in throughout this.

    That's nice.

    I'm working harder than I ever have before during this - I'm up at 5am and in bed by 11pm and either working or looking after my child the whole time in between (she is currently distracted by Milkshake).

    My wife is the same.
    That’s parenthood. You have just described my life for about 25 years. :smiley:
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,489
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    SandraMc said:

    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are a English, not history teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    Are you saying that a teacher is not expected to have any general knowledge outside his/her sphere of teaching?
    Do teachers have any specialist knowledge?

    As far as I'm aware anyone who does a degree (not necessarily the same subject) and then a 1-2 PGCE qualification is eligible.

    So you can be teaching at 22-23 years old knowing remarkably little.
    If you teach A-level, yes. Because A-level requires you to have a degree level understanding of the topic you are teaching. (I will not go bail for all teachers having that, btw!)

    However, it is also true to say that this intensely specialises knowledge. In the particular case of these English teachers, they probably teach nothing after about 1970. So they would need to understand the 60s, and Vietnam, and the Wolfe report, etc, but nothing about Thatcher.

    I’m as bad. I can teach about Khrushchev, or Macmillan, but show me a picture of Konrad Adenauer and I am sadly puzzled as to who it is. Even once I identify him, all I could tell you is he was a former mayor of Cologne and Chancellor of West Germany in the 1950s.
    Yes, but if you were a history teacher you'd make it your business to find out about it so you could expand your knowledge and pass more onto others.
    I am a history teacher...
    And do you?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,421
    MattW said:

    ydoethur said:

    SandraMc said:

    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are a English, not history teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    Are you saying that a teacher is not expected to have any general knowledge outside his/her sphere of teaching?
    Do teachers have any specialist knowledge?

    As far as I'm aware anyone who does a degree (not necessarily the same subject) and then a 1-2 PGCE qualification is eligible.

    So you can be teaching at 22-23 years old knowing remarkably little.
    If you teach A-level, yes. Because A-level requires you to have a degree level understanding of the topic you are teaching. (I will not go bail for all teachers having that, btw!)

    However, it is also true to say that this intensely specialises knowledge. In the particular case of these English teachers, they probably teach nothing after about 1970. So they would need to understand the 60s, and Vietnam, and the Wolfe report, etc, but nothing about Thatcher.

    I’m as bad. I can teach about Khrushchev, or Macmillan, but show me a picture of Konrad Adenauer and I am sadly puzzled as to who it is. Even once I identify him, all I could tell you is he was a former mayor of Cologne and Chancellor of West Germany in the 1950s.
    Yes, but if you were a history teacher you'd make it your business to find out about it so you could expand your knowledge and pass more onto others.
    How much is the history of the EU taught?
    It is part of an AQA GCSE unit called Migration, Empires and the People. But it’s about 3% of the course when the British Empire is about 30%.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,208
    Young people exercising more. I live next to a park and I now see a lot of young people hanging around in shorts, Lycra etc. They are not actually running, but I suppose they have the gear so this counts as exercise.

    I also see a fair number of late teens and early twenties out with their parents, that would never happen in pre virus times. Which is nice.

    For myself I spend most of my time working, pretty much as normal.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,317

    Cyclefree said:

    Son, reporting for duty on his first day at the Nightingale Hospital, said that it was weird to see so few people out in the rush hour and that the bus smelt as if it had been sprayed if bleach.

    Meanwhile I am watching more opera/theatre on You Tube, listening to lots of the BBC radio archive, walking more, knitting more, playing ping pong and learning about lambing just by watching what is going on in the fields around me. Plus lots of planning the decoration of my home and garden when I do finally manage to move in. TBH I do not have any problem filling my days even if much of the time is simply spent staring at views and sitting in the sun.

    It will be when I am still here on a dark, cold, rainy January day in the 9th month of lockdown that patience may snap.......

    Have you caught Philip Mould's Art in Isolation series of 5-minute videos on Youtube and other social media? Mould discusses paintings in his ancient manor house in the middle of nowhere, with occasional reference to flowers and wildlife.

    Two things of incidental interest are that you can see Mould and his behind-the-camera son getting better from video to video, and that the whole thing is shot on an iphone.
    No I haven’t. But thank you. Will add it to the list.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,489
    Jonathan said:

    Teaching is one of those topics that attracts armchair experts. The experience of a parent or pupil gives you remarkably little insight into what teaching is really like.

    I am a parent was a pupil and had a longtime girlfriend who was a teacher.

    I've been around them a lot, seen up close what it involves and am friends with and socialised with many.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,421

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    SandraMc said:

    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are a English, not history teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    Are you saying that a teacher is not expected to have any general knowledge outside his/her sphere of teaching?
    Do teachers have any specialist knowledge?

    As far as I'm aware anyone who does a degree (not necessarily the same subject) and then a 1-2 PGCE qualification is eligible.

    So you can be teaching at 22-23 years old knowing remarkably little.
    If you teach A-level, yes. Because A-level requires you to have a degree level understanding of the topic you are teaching. (I will not go bail for all teachers having that, btw!)

    However, it is also true to say that this intensely specialises knowledge. In the particular case of these English teachers, they probably teach nothing after about 1970. So they would need to understand the 60s, and Vietnam, and the Wolfe report, etc, but nothing about Thatcher.

    I’m as bad. I can teach about Khrushchev, or Macmillan, but show me a picture of Konrad Adenauer and I am sadly puzzled as to who it is. Even once I identify him, all I could tell you is he was a former mayor of Cologne and Chancellor of West Germany in the 1950s.
    Yes, but if you were a history teacher you'd make it your business to find out about it so you could expand your knowledge and pass more onto others.
    I am a history teacher...
    And do you?
    No, because I don’t teach about Konrad Adenauer. I barely have time these days to do all the reading I need to do for my core topics, Russia and the Wars of the Roses. It’s sort of crammed into half an hour a day before school when I’m not teaching, marking or asleep. I have neither the time nor the energy to read further afield.

    And that I think is why these English teachers, who will probably also have larger classes than me (their subject isn’t optional) will know very little beyond the immediate bounds of what they teach.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 21,675

    Jonathan said:

    Teaching is one of those topics that attracts armchair experts. The experience of a parent or pupil gives you remarkably little insight into what teaching is really like.

    I am a parent was a pupil and had a longtime girlfriend who was a teacher.

    I've been around them a lot, seen up close what it involves and am friends with and socialised with many.
    And yet not a teacher. We’ve all seen up close what it involves. 🤷‍♂️
  • As I took stock yesterday of my FTW mental state I noted that I am contemplating the nature of "stuff". I've worked very hard to have a decent house with stuff in it, a nice car, a salary that still makes me a little embarrassed. And yet when it comes down to it the lockdown has forced me to spend more time with the fruits of my labours. And its done my nut in (am feeling better today).

    Talked it through with our FD yesterday afternoon, and he pointed out that he's already walked away from everything he'd owned when his marriage broke up. Yes he's gone back and collected stuff since but a fair bit has been sold / stored as it didn't really matter...

    As well as my own Lego collection I've been rebuilding the kids long smashed & boxed sets. So a few toys are worth having. I have a strange MiniDisc fetish where having been an early adopter and then gave it all away I got back into it as a format a few years ago and now have more music recorded than ever. But music, films, books, internet - all of it can really be done via a laptop computer and a data connection.

    So why the west's obsessive compulsion to acquire stuff? Mike's point the other day about 15 years of redundant phones, we're being played by industry to keep buying the latest shiny shiny, even accepting built in obsolescence (yes Apple I'm looking at you) to force us to buy the latest "new" which really isn't. With so much of this made in China, will this change post-Covid?

    In summary I am doing more thinking during lockdown...
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,729

    Cyclefree said:

    Son, reporting for duty on his first day at the Nightingale Hospital, said that it was weird to see so few people out in the rush hour and that the bus smelt as if it had been sprayed if bleach.

    Meanwhile I am watching more opera/theatre on You Tube, listening to lots of the BBC radio archive, walking more, knitting more, playing ping pong and learning about lambing just by watching what is going on in the fields around me. Plus lots of planning the decoration of my home and garden when I do finally manage to move in. TBH I do not have any problem filling my days even if much of the time is simply spent staring at views and sitting in the sun.

    It will be when I am still here on a dark, cold, rainy January day in the 9th month of lockdown that patience may snap.......

    Have you caught Philip Mould's Art in Isolation series of 5-minute videos on Youtube and other social media? Mould discusses paintings in his ancient manor house in the middle of nowhere, with occasional reference to flowers and wildlife.

    Two things of incidental interest are that you can see Mould and his behind-the-camera son getting better from video to video, and that the whole thing is shot on an iphone.
    Sister ??? 'S programmes on paintings was unmissable
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,434

    SandraMc said:

    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are a English, not history teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    Are you saying that a teacher is not expected to have any general knowledge outside his/her sphere of teaching?
    Do teachers have any specialist knowledge?

    As far as I'm aware anyone who does a degree (not necessarily the same subject) and then a 1-2 PGCE qualification is eligible.

    So you can be teaching at 22-23 years old knowing remarkably little.
    The problem with young teachers is not so much what they know or don't know but that they've never had to grow up, and interact with different generations. They go straight from school to university and back to school. They also are invariably the smartest person in the room, which most of us are not. I'm not, anyway.
    Yes, I think rather than teach first you should teach second.

    I think most would benefit from 4-5 years in industry first before teaching.

    It used to be something some did right at the very end of their careers - such as retired military officers.
    My grandad went straight into teaching [History] after finishing his degree, though his degree was interrupted by the Second World War. He confessed to being embarrassed in later years by the History he had taught, because he was aware of how understanding had changed over the decades.

    I don't think that a rigid rule of requiring potential teachers to do something different for a few years is at all helpful. People who were inclined to do the minimum necessary, or who lack a general inquisitiveness, will generally not be changed by the experience, and you've then lost some years (and possibly people) from those who would have been good teachers regardless.
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,729
    Sister Wendy Beckett
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,541
    MattW said:

    ydoethur said:

    SandraMc said:

    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are a English, not history teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    Are you saying that a teacher is not expected to have any general knowledge outside his/her sphere of teaching?
    Do teachers have any specialist knowledge?

    As far as I'm aware anyone who does a degree (not necessarily the same subject) and then a 1-2 PGCE qualification is eligible.

    So you can be teaching at 22-23 years old knowing remarkably little.
    If you teach A-level, yes. Because A-level requires you to have a degree level understanding of the topic you are teaching. (I will not go bail for all teachers having that, btw!)

    However, it is also true to say that this intensely specialises knowledge. In the particular case of these English teachers, they probably teach nothing after about 1970. So they would need to understand the 60s, and Vietnam, and the Wolfe report, etc, but nothing about Thatcher.

    I’m as bad. I can teach about Khrushchev, or Macmillan, but show me a picture of Konrad Adenauer and I am sadly puzzled as to who it is. Even once I identify him, all I could tell you is he was a former mayor of Cologne and Chancellor of West Germany in the 1950s.
    Yes, but if you were a history teacher you'd make it your business to find out about it so you could expand your knowledge and pass more onto others.
    How much is the history of the EU taught?
    If it's anything like the Oxford Modern History syllabus not a lot - according to that (at least when I was there) history stops in 1972
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,317
    Jonathan said:

    Teaching is one of those topics that attracts armchair experts. The experience of a parent or pupil gives you remarkably little insight into what teaching is really like.

    Great teachers do leave a lifetime impression on you though. I had some very good ones. One was a history teacher - Mrs Wooding - and the other was Miss Phillips - who taught Latin and was still alive a few years ago as I still used to see her at Finchley Road tube station. Passed on a love of the subject and learning which is with me to this day. And there was a university lecturer who taught me how to unpick the assumptions behind questions, which has proved essential.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,720
    Everyone knows how to run education because they once were taught, either badly or well. Everyone also knows how to run a health service because they were once poorly too.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,489
    Cyclefree said:



    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are a English, not history teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    Are you saying that a teacher is not expected to have any general knowledge outside his/her sphere of teaching?
    I’m saying that Thatcher might be rather less relevant to those who didn’t live through her premiership than those who did can understand.
    The idea that people should only know about what is “relevant” to them is one of the most stupid ideas, if it can even be called that, around.
    It leads to only being taught what's contemporary and fashionable and thus some extremely important lessons are missed.
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,207
    I see the Chinese have found a couple more deaths behind the sofa.............

  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 21,675
    In 2020 it is perfectly reasonable not to think or care about Margaret Thatcher.

    Obviously if you dig deeper she remains a warning from history, which I guess is why Boris felt it necessary to put her down recently.

    But there are more interesting, inspirational and important historical figures.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,489

    MattW said:

    I wonder how many people have started writing about the epidemic, and explaining why their political opinions are therefore correct?

    Well, David Miliband certainly has.
    He's got the same ones he's held since at least 2002.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 21,675
    Foxy said:

    Everyone knows how to run education because they once were taught, either badly or well. Everyone also knows how to run a health service because they were once poorly too.

    Quite.
  • JohnLilburneJohnLilburne Posts: 6,259
    MattW said:

    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    Morning everyone. Did anyone watch the quiz show "Pointless" yesterday? The contestants included two female English teachers in their 20s. There was a round on Margaret Thatcher and they both giggled and said they didn't know any of the answers because they were both "really young when she was around". Richard Osman lost his cool and told them that they were both teachers and she was one of the most important figures of the 20th century so maybe they should read up about her. The audience applauded this.

    If they were in their twenties, they weren’t even born when she was PM.
    And they are English, not History teachers.

    Other than her brief reintroduction of ‘frit’ to common usage, and an extremely simple example of a rhetorical triplet, did she have any great influence on the language ?
    Thatcher coming to power was halfway between last year and the outbreak of WW2.

    (If anyone wants to feel old this morning :smiley: .)
    WW2 makes me feel old. My parents were children, but my Dad was bombed, and my Mum certainly remembers the bomb damage afterwards (she was fascinated by a website showing where bombs had fallen in London). I had classmates whose fathers had fought. Now, there is hardly anyone left who served and it has gone from living memory. I also clearly remember the fall of eastern Europe - I was on holiday with some of my friends from University, visiting other friends who had moved down south. In a heady two weeks of the summer the Eastern bloc began to crumble. By the end of the year, the Wall had fallen and Ceausescu was dead. I remember visiting Latvia for the first time thinking "wow, this place is now part of the EU, I can just walk in, not so long ago it was in the Soviet Union". There are people in their 30s today who probably don't even realise Russia once occupied most of Eastern and Central Europe.
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