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%.
However, the British Empire covered much of the world for centuries, whilst the EU was a body that lasted about 60 years in one declining region.
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
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.
Adenauer in my opinion is the greatest national leader anywhere since WW II. I don't agree with everything he did, but there is no doubt he was extremely effective. He was the prime mover behind both the EC/EU and NATO in its current form. He set the terms of the Cold War and in a very real sense created West Germany. He also set Germany on its trajectory of success.
Interesting fact, he was in his mid seventies when he first became Federal Chancellor and went on for another fifteen years.
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 .)
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.
Which is why those who trot out the "well we coped wiht the Blitz" line are so absurd. WW2 is a historical event that happened 75 years ago and is out of memory for 95% of the population. Yet so many pretend the way the populaiton acted back then is somehow relevant to our approach to the current crisis.
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
Sister Wendy. Yes, and somewhere I have Simon Sharma's too. But here Mould is talking about the paintings in his home rather than gallery or galleries, and it is unexpectedly compelling.
On topic: since the lockdown started my husband has been gardening and preparing canvases in the shed so he can return to his hobby of painting. Both he and my son have been learning Spanish from an old Spanish language course my husband started and then abandoned. The exercise bike in the shed has come back into use again to provide exercise for us. My son has been keeping in touch with a social club he belongs to for adults with special needs via Zoom and has taken part in quizzes, choir practice and Zumba. He has a disco with a DJ tonight.
I have been trying new recipes, trying to keep my book group going via email and watching theatre productions on the internet. Now that we have secured a few supermarket deliveries, we have got into a routine. We are trying to take it one day at a time. I did plan to use the lockdown for some long reads on my TBR list, eg "David Copperfield" and "A Suitable Boy" but I find I haven't got the concentration required at the moment.
We are lucky enough to have a pleasant house with a small to medium size garden and live less than a minute from a Common (although on a sunny day there is a constant stream of people going to the Common).
However, I realise that the lockdown is taking a mental toll on many and I have posted before that I have seen out a couple of people who I felt were mentally stressed. It is difficult to know what to do as you can't go up to them and ask them if they are OK.
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 .)
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.
Which is why those who trot out the "well we coped wiht the Blitz" line are so absurd. WW2 is a historical event that happened 75 years ago and is out of memory for 95% of the population. Yet so many pretend the way the populaiton acted back then is somehow relevant to our approach to the current crisis.
I suppose that depends on whether you believe you can learn from history.
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.
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.
So you're saying only teachers are allowed to have an opinion on teaching?
When I was a child WW2 seemed like proximate event - my grandfather was still a fit and active man in his 60s when he regaled with me stories of flying (and crashing) Blenheims in the RSAAF. Now it seems as relevant to contemporary life as the Battle of Pelennor Fields.
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.
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.
Mr Peters (history) Mr Huggett (science) and Mrs Tunmore (politics) were mine.
Mrs Tunmore was a strong Labour supporter but she never let a hint of her politics come into her lessons or try and chip me accordingly, and I had huge respect for her.
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.
I agree with that. I think a balance is good.
I'm just arguing that perhaps it's gone too far the other way now.
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. 🤷♂️
Right, sorry. I haven't been a teacher.
Guess I should learn to STFU then and leave it to them.
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.
So you're saying only teachers are allowed to have an opinion on teaching?
Of course not, everyone has an opinion about teaching. But very few have an informed opinion. And fewer still have something useful or new to say about teaching.
There are far too many armchair experts and meddlers. I am looking at you Gove.
What am I doing more of? A lot of remedial house cleaning, all rooms are now habitable except for the spare bedroom which is next (and I'm unlikely to have a house guest for the foreseeable future). Sorting out my finances. Applying for pension estimates and contemplating drawing down a lump sum. Had to have my central heating boiler replaced. Reading (currently Middlebrook's 1944). Skype chats. Drinking beer at home. Learning languages on Duolingo. Getting more exercise - I'm a runner and have been running on my normal schedule, but have been going for a 3-4 mile walk on most of my non-running days. As a single bloke living on my own, I miss female company, even if just casual chats with running club mates.
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.
Fair enough. I read about things I don't know much about "light" (Wikipedia etc) and then buy books to get really under the skin of a new subject I'm interested in.
You can never learn (still less teach) everything but you can expand your knowledge and context, and it's a lifelong mission.
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. 🤷♂️
Right, sorry. I haven't been a teacher.
Guess I should learn to STFU then and leave it to them.
Good plan. Why not share your insights into Crossrail and big procurement instead.
I am waiting to share my experience has an international playboy and raconteur, but the topic is yet to come up.
What am I doing more of? A lot of remedial house cleaning, all rooms are now habitable except for the spare bedroom which is next (and I'm unlikely to have a house guest for the foreseeable future). Sorting out my finances. Applying for pension estimates and contemplating drawing down a lump sum. Had to have my central heating boiler replaced. Reading (currently Middlebrook's 1944). Skype chats. Drinking beer at home. Learning languages on Duolingo. Getting more exercise - I'm a runner and have been running on my normal schedule, but have been going for a 3-4 mile walk on most of my non-running days. As a single bloke living on my own, I miss female company, even if just casual chats with running club mates.
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.
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.
So you're saying only teachers are allowed to have an opinion on teaching?
Of course not, everyone has an opinion about teaching. But very few have an informed opinion. And fewer still have something useful or new to say about teaching.
There are far too many armchair experts and meddlers. I am looking at you Gove.
I would look at Cummings, but his ummm, eccentric dress sense makes that a painful experience.
What are Ranvir Singh and Ben Shepherd playing at on GMB? Interviewing Grant Shapps, they are allowing him to answer the questions, few interruptions, no crude accusations of him laughing at old people dying of Covid-19 & no use of misinformation to score a cheap point and wrong foot him so far.
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. 🤷♂️
Right, sorry. I haven't been a teacher.
Guess I should learn to STFU then and leave it to them.
The point is, it’s very easy to have opinions. As James Blunt said, they’re like arseholes. We all have them but we probably shouldn’t show them in public.
However, informed opinions are much rarer. I have many years of experience of teaching, and I know what the job involves. I know how it can be tough. I know what works, and what doesn’t. Therefore, my opinions on the subject are based on a large body of evidence. Yours are based on general impressions. Which one is more likely to be right?
It works the other way too. I have loads of opinions on railways, and how they should be run. You actually work in managing them. Therefore, if I say something you know to be wrong, you would quite rightly call me out on it. And indeed you frequently do correct posters in debates over Crossrail.
Goves reforms have done wonders for our local schools.
Strong focus on maths, English and science.
Schools exist to educate pupils for the pupils and their parents.
Not to keep teachers from attending XR rallys.
Wait to you see the numbers who drop out of Maths before or during A-levels though.
At the school my twins go / went to the numbers taking maths / physics this year is half of what it was last year. The new GCSEs either put them off taking it or did not prepare them enough and resulting in pupils dropping out.
"The Crick Institute is led by Nobel Prize-winning scientist, Sir Paul Nurse, but not run by the health services. ... Three weeks ago, when the virus crept across Europe their labs were deemed non-essential and closed. They handed in much of their machinery to the Department of Health and Social Care which is leading the testing ramp-up, outside hospitals. ... "We were going to be sent home. I thought to myself, 'Well there are a lot of non-essential workers I know who might actually be quite essential to the coronavirus effort,'" he says.
He sent an email round. A working group was formed. At the same time, Mr Nurse sent an email to his employees at the Crick Institute asking for possible volunteers for a lab.
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.
Male or female? Teacher/student?
The teacher was male, both students were female.
At the same time or different years? Oddly, I've got a novella on the go about a similar situation.
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.
So you're saying only teachers are allowed to have an opinion on teaching?
Of course not, everyone has an opinion about teaching. But very few have an informed opinion. And fewer still have something useful or new to say about teaching.
There are far too many armchair experts and meddlers. I am looking at you Gove.
That is a very fair point.
But.
How do you avoid complacency setting in? How do you allow challenge to be made? How does an outsider or just someone looking at matters with a fresh eye get to ask the question “why” and get an answer?
While it’s probably correct that too many people think they are experts based on their personal or anecdotal experience, all structures, systems and professions - and I include my own - need questioning and challenging. Teaching is no exception - however much we may admire teachers or appreciate how hard it is to do. So how to do that?
Goves reforms have done wonders for our local schools.
Strong focus on maths, English and science.
Schools exist to educate pupils for the pupils and their parents.
Not to keep teachers from attending XR rallys.
Wait to you see the numbers who drop out of Maths before or during A-levels though.
At the school my twins go / went to the numbers taking maths / physics this year is half of what it was last year. The new GCSEs either put them off taking it or did not prepare them enough and resulting in pupils dropping out.
My understanding is it’s now damn near impossible to do A-level Maths without doing Further Maths GCSE, because ordinary maths doesn’t do nearly enough algebra.
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.
Male or female? Teacher/student?
The teacher was male, both students were female.
At the same time or different years? Oddly, I've got a novella on the go about a similar situation.
I think it was about ten years apart (this was before my time). He left his wife for the first one, then a bit later got bored of her as well and ran off with this other student. She was 30 years younger than him and even though it was seven years before I started there was still an echo of scandal about it.
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 .)
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.
I think political wonks on both sides are unhelpfully obsessed with Thatcher and could stand to think about her less, but was undoubtedly a very significant figure, and our first female PM to boot, and there really should be a reasonable level of general knowledge about her mist should know and be taught. We should know a bit more about people like Thatcher, or Attlee for example, than many do.
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. 🤷♂️
Right, sorry. I haven't been a teacher.
Guess I should learn to STFU then and leave it to them.
The point is, it’s very easy to have opinions. As James Blunt said, they’re like arseholes. We all have them but we probably shouldn’t show them in public.
However, informed opinions are much rarer. I have many years of experience of teaching, and I know what the job involves. I know how it can be tough. I know what works, and what doesn’t. Therefore, my opinions on the subject are based on a large body of evidence. Yours are based on general impressions. Which one is more likely to be right?
It works the other way too. I have loads of opinions on railways, and how they should be run. You actually work in managing them. Therefore, if I say something you know to be wrong, you would quite rightly call me out on it. And indeed you frequently do correct posters in debates over Crossrail.
All very true.
But sometimes the so-called experts - even with decades of experience - get it very very wrong. I give you banking as Exhibit 1.
Sometimes a little boy is needed to ask why the Emperor is walking round naked.
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.
I'm impressed. To be honest I am almost the exact opposite. I am finding concentration very difficult and don't even get on with the work I have to do. My productivity isn't even a quarter of what it is in normal times. I am spending a lot of time walking and running but find I don't even have the concentration span for books. I fear it is indicative of depression. I am finding I am spending a lot of time on PB, probably too much to be honest, but it is a comfort. I really cannot wait for this to be over but the financial implications will be with me for a long time.
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.”...
Many scientists are having much greater problems. In astronomy many major telescopes are closed as technicians cannot work to maintain them, including at remote sites. Telescopes and probes launched into space have been hibernated, as teams of technicians either cannot meet to service them or as they have been diverted to work on priority projects. Work on building new satellites and probes cannot be done while complying with COVID guidelines and has essentially been stopped. One cannot build a Mars rover in one's sitting room. Observational astronomy is largely shut down and this is probably true of most of the other experimental sciences as well.
What are Ranvir Singh and Ben Shepherd playing at on GMB? Interviewing Grant Shapps, they are allowing him to answer the questions, few interruptions, no crude accusations of him laughing at old people dying of Covid-19 & no use of misinformation to score a cheap point and wrong foot him so far.
Bring back Piers Morgan!
It is a shame we cannot bet on the Cabinet following Boris's close encounter. I'd fancy Shapps, who at least by his own account played a leading role in getting Boris elected, to replace Matt Hancock whose fall from grace has been remarkable. It is just a couple of weeks since he was lauded as a future prime minister.
Goves reforms have done wonders for our local schools.
Strong focus on maths, English and science.
Schools exist to educate pupils for the pupils and their parents.
Not to keep teachers from attending XR rallys.
Wait to you see the numbers who drop out of Maths before or during A-levels though.
At the school my twins go / went to the numbers taking maths / physics this year is half of what it was last year. The new GCSEs either put them off taking it or did not prepare them enough and resulting in pupils dropping out.
My understanding is it’s now damn near impossible to do A-level Maths without doing Further Maths GCSE, because ordinary maths doesn’t do nearly enough algebra.
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.
I'm impressed. To be honest I am almost the exact opposite. I am finding concentration very difficult and don't even get on with the work I have to do. My productivity isn't even a quarter of what it is in normal times. I am spending a lot of time walking and running but find I don't even have the concentration span for books. I fear it is indicative of depression. I am finding I am spending a lot of time on PB, probably too much to be honest, but it is a comfort. I really cannot wait for this to be over but the financial implications will be with me for a long time.
Goves reforms have done wonders for our local schools.
Strong focus on maths, English and science.
Schools exist to educate pupils for the pupils and their parents.
Not to keep teachers from attending XR rallys.
Wait to you see the numbers who drop out of Maths before or during A-levels though.
At the school my twins go / went to the numbers taking maths / physics this year is half of what it was last year. The new GCSEs either put them off taking it or did not prepare them enough and resulting in pupils dropping out.
My understanding is it’s now damn near impossible to do A-level Maths without doing Further Maths GCSE, because ordinary maths doesn’t do nearly enough algebra.
That explains a lot - thanks
IGCSE Maths is a good preparation for A level maths as it has a heck of a lot of algebra and the basics of calculus (differentiation), in my opinion.
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.
I would venture to suggest that you are both wrong. As in how to deal with Covid 19, everyone knows or think they know how you shouldn't do it. Opinions as to how it should be done are varied and probably wrong too.
I'm impressed. To be honest I am almost the exact opposite. I am finding concentration very difficult and don't even get on with the work I have to do. My productivity isn't even a quarter of what it is in normal times. I am spending a lot of time walking and running but find I don't even have the concentration span for books. I fear it is indicative of depression. I am finding I am spending a lot of time on PB, probably too much to be honest, but it is a comfort. I really cannot wait for this to be over but the financial implications will be with me for a long time.
Thanks for the reality check. In my case I'm earning the same as before and spending nothing on travel or hotels for work so I'm not worried about £ or wondering when the end will come with the company - ironically this crisis has strengthened us.
On the depression point I absolutely hear you. As well as my formally undiagnosed (but online tested and obvious to those who can see it) Autism I am absolutely a depressive. Again, undiagnosed as I fear going to the doctor for pills, and I'm self-aware enough to recognise when I am in the despair pit and conversely when I am bouncing off the ceiling. Books is a good marker for me also. I devour information, reading probably a little obsessively on a subject. But hadn't picked up a book in a month and had struggled for several months to get through one (with several started and abandoned).
I'm making a concerted effort to set aside quite time to read.
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.
I'm impressed. To be honest I am almost the exact opposite. I am finding concentration very difficult and don't even get on with the work I have to do. My productivity isn't even a quarter of what it is in normal times. I am spending a lot of time walking and running but find I don't even have the concentration span for books. I fear it is indicative of depression. I am finding I am spending a lot of time on PB, probably too much to be honest, but it is a comfort. I really cannot wait for this to be over but the financial implications will be with me for a long time.
Buy yourself a moth-trap David! Hours of fun identifying the results in the morning....
Perhaps more practically, iff you can get into it the multi-volume "A Dance to the Music of Time" by Anthony Powell can be very addictive and introduces you to one of the great fictional politicians - Kenneth Widmerpool.
Interesting comparisons. There must be significant variation among subgroups - are you working from home vs not, and are you on your own or not?
I'm working on my day job - which is involving significantly more "meetings" now that informal chats feel less natural - plus translation plus the council executive "meetings" so I don't feel much more free time than before. I'm doing more online Labour stuff - we had a largely non-partisan Facebook Live interview with a chemical engineer yesterday working in pharma on the prospects for virus vaccination, treatment and antibodies which has gone down well (link here if anyone's interested): https://www.facebook.com/swsurreylabour/videos/547794272598804/?t=20
I feel very lucky in all that, and in particular online Teams discussions feel VERY like normal meetings, so I don't feel isolated at all - at the end of a weekday I have a real feeling of "ah, knocking off to go home", even though I'm just switching over the laptop to play poker or something. Overall definitely more screen time, which suits me though I know that's unusual.
I do have more free time at weekends. I've signed up to Netflix and am watching more films/series. Tried going for walks but everyone including me was so paranoid about contact (I'm over 70) that I've stopped - don't usually walk for fun so seems silly to do it now. Pop into the wilderness/garden now and then for some fresh air, and that's it for the great outdoors. A young Labour friend drops off food now and then with a cheery "solidarity, comrade!" I'm quite content at the moment.
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.
You make up for any lacunae with awesome punning, though.
Isn't all knowledge necessarily specialist these days ? The proliferation of >stuff< is so immense that having even a vague grasp of everything is simply impossible.
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.
I'm impressed. To be honest I am almost the exact opposite. I am finding concentration very difficult and don't even get on with the work I have to do. My productivity isn't even a quarter of what it is in normal times. I am spending a lot of time walking and running but find I don't even have the concentration span for books. I fear it is indicative of depression. I am finding I am spending a lot of time on PB, probably too much to be honest, but it is a comfort. I really cannot wait for this to be over but the financial implications will be with me for a long time.
Buy yourself a moth-trap David! Hours of fun identifying the results in the morning....
Perhaps more practically, iff you can get into it the multi-volume "A Dance to the Music of Time" by Anthony Powell can be very addictive and introduces you to one of the great fictional politicians - Kenneth Widmerpool.
I have several books I am a few pages into. I have never felt like this in my life. I am normally very self disciplined and driven. Working for yourself you need to be. It is being so helpless. I need to give myself a shake and get back to work. Talking of which it is 9.15 and I am still in my dressing gown. Laters...
Goves reforms have done wonders for our local schools.
Strong focus on maths, English and science.
Schools exist to educate pupils for the pupils and their parents.
Not to keep teachers from attending XR rallys.
Wait to you see the numbers who drop out of Maths before or during A-levels though.
At the school my twins go / went to the numbers taking maths / physics this year is half of what it was last year. The new GCSEs either put them off taking it or did not prepare them enough and resulting in pupils dropping out.
My understanding is it’s now damn near impossible to do A-level Maths without doing Further Maths GCSE, because ordinary maths doesn’t do nearly enough algebra.
That explains a lot - thanks
twenty years ago my school taught the entire GCSE syllabus in Yr 9 and the A-level syllabus in Yrs 10 and 11, with a bit of revision at the end for the specific exams.
What are Ranvir Singh and Ben Shepherd playing at on GMB? Interviewing Grant Shapps, they are allowing him to answer the questions, few interruptions, no crude accusations of him laughing at old people dying of Covid-19 & no use of misinformation to score a cheap point and wrong foot him so far.
Bring back Piers Morgan!
It is a shame we cannot bet on the Cabinet following Boris's close encounter. I'd fancy Shapps, who at least by his own account played a leading role in getting Boris elected, to replace Matt Hancock whose fall from grace has been remarkable. It is just a couple of weeks since he was lauded as a future prime minister.
Hancock is doing fine, the fact Piers Morgan annoyed him is yet another point in his favour
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.
Troll level beginner: revise up Troll level intermediate: revise up by about 50 % give or take Troll level copper-plated: revise up the death toll in Wuhan by as close to exactly 50% as possible
Also, anyone here defend China's stats in the past? Have a long hard look, chaps
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.
I'm impressed. To be honest I am almost the exact opposite. I am finding concentration very difficult and don't even get on with the work I have to do. My productivity isn't even a quarter of what it is in normal times. I am spending a lot of time walking and running but find I don't even have the concentration span for books. I fear it is indicative of depression. I am finding I am spending a lot of time on PB, probably too much to be honest, but it is a comfort. I really cannot wait for this to be over but the financial implications will be with me for a long time.
Buy yourself a moth-trap David! Hours of fun identifying the results in the morning....
Perhaps more practically, iff you can get into it the multi-volume "A Dance to the Music of Time" by Anthony Powell can be very addictive and introduces you to one of the great fictional politicians - Kenneth Widmerpool.
I have several books I am a few pages into. I have never felt like this in my life. I am normally very self disciplined and driven. Working for yourself you need to be. It is being so helpless. I need to give myself a shake and get back to work. Talking of which it is 9.15 and I am still in my dressing gown. Laters...
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.”...
Many scientists are having much greater problems. In astronomy many major telescopes are closed as technicians cannot work to maintain them, including at remote sites. Telescopes and probes launched into space have been hibernated, as teams of technicians either cannot meet to service them or as they have been diverted to work on priority projects. Work on building new satellites and probes cannot be done while complying with COVID guidelines and has essentially been stopped. One cannot build a Mars rover in one's sitting room. Observational astronomy is largely shut down and this is probably true of most of the other experimental sciences as well.
My lab is shut down - I am expecting delivery of the best part of £1 million of MRI kit 'sometime'. Luckily my group, such as it is, were mostly all in the last stages of things, so we've moved to writing up theses. Not sure about funding for new people - meant to be putting something together for an Indian lad.
What are Ranvir Singh and Ben Shepherd playing at on GMB? Interviewing Grant Shapps, they are allowing him to answer the questions, few interruptions, no crude accusations of him laughing at old people dying of Covid-19 & no use of misinformation to score a cheap point and wrong foot him so far.
Bring back Piers Morgan!
It is a shame we cannot bet on the Cabinet following Boris's close encounter. I'd fancy Shapps, who at least by his own account played a leading role in getting Boris elected, to replace Matt Hancock whose fall from grace has been remarkable. It is just a couple of weeks since he was lauded as a future prime minister.
Hancock is doing fine, the fact Piers Morgan annoyed him is yet another point in his favour
No he isn't. Hancock had the best start to the pandemic and lockdown but for the past couple of weeks has seemed out of his depth as we still fail with testing and PPE, and more tellingly perhaps, he's looked out on his feet at the lectern.
I am spending a lot more time doing research into coronavirus-epidemic related matters, and a lot less time in cafes and cinemas. I am also going out for exercise, but before coronavirus I often used to commute for an hour by bike so I got exercise like that anyway.
I live in a block of flats and last night some people were applauding NHS workers by beating pans together and cheering outside, but I think most people in the block stayed inside including myself. I think it is difficult for most people to contemplate how long the lockdown could go on for and how bad things will get eventually if it continues beyond this year. The situation will develop very slowly.
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.
I would venture to suggest that you are both wrong. As in how to deal with Covid 19, everyone knows or think they know how you shouldn't do it. Opinions as to how it should be done are varied and probably wrong too.
Our role is to ask challenging questions and set objectives, not to come up with solutions.
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.
Of course. But given the vast breadth of knowledge to choose from, I can quite understand that not everyone might choose to bone up on a twentieth century British PM.
What are Ranvir Singh and Ben Shepherd playing at on GMB? Interviewing Grant Shapps, they are allowing him to answer the questions, few interruptions, no crude accusations of him laughing at old people dying of Covid-19 & no use of misinformation to score a cheap point and wrong foot him so far.
Bring back Piers Morgan!
It is a shame we cannot bet on the Cabinet following Boris's close encounter. I'd fancy Shapps, who at least by his own account played a leading role in getting Boris elected, to replace Matt Hancock whose fall from grace has been remarkable. It is just a couple of weeks since he was lauded as a future prime minister.
Hancock is doing fine, the fact Piers Morgan annoyed him is yet another point in his favour
No he isn't. Hancock had the best start to the pandemic and lockdown but for the past couple of weeks has seemed out of his depth as we still fail with testing and PPE, and more tellingly perhaps, he's looked out on his feet at the lectern.
Hancock is doing fine, we are now testing more per head than France and more PPE equipment is coming too.
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.
So you're saying only teachers are allowed to have an opinion on teaching?
Of course not, everyone has an opinion about teaching. But very few have an informed opinion. And fewer still have something useful or new to say about teaching.
There are far too many armchair experts and meddlers. I am looking at you Gove.
That is a very fair point.
But.
How do you avoid complacency setting in? How do you allow challenge to be made? How does an outsider or just someone looking at matters with a fresh eye get to ask the question “why” and get an answer?
While it’s probably correct that too many people think they are experts based on their personal or anecdotal experience, all structures, systems and professions - and I include my own - need questioning and challenging. Teaching is no exception - however much we may admire teachers or appreciate how hard it is to do. So how to do that?
If only that were a real risk. Maybe in some utopia the pendulum will swing that way and the teaching profession will spiral off into self-indulgence. But we are very far from that. Where we are today is every armchair expert and politician with a pond shop ideology having a bit of a fiddle and creating an enormous overhead of bureaucracy to monitor the progress of their grand vision.
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.
Male or female? Teacher/student?
The teacher was male, both students were female.
At the same time or different years? Oddly, I've got a novella on the go about a similar situation.
I think it was about ten years apart (this was before my time). He left his wife for the first one, then a bit later got bored of her as well and ran off with this other student. She was 30 years younger than him and even though it was seven years before I started there was still an echo of scandal about it.
The story which I'm writing has the teacher having serial affairs until he gets a) divorced and b) becomes worried as to the professional consequences. However his son, from whom he is estranged, 'becomes enamoured'..... and she with him...... with one of his father's first 'conquests', now a thirty something widow and single mum. She knows the son is the son, and he knows his father had affairs with students but doesn't know his lady-friend was one of them.
When people cease being paid 80% of their wages to stay at home, do we think the overwhelming opinion poll backing for lockdown might slide?
Yep. At the minute, people are being paid to take a free holiday.
Most people who live from payday to payday. What they don't realise is that many of them will be out of a job soon as the company they work for will either start making massive redundancies or go bust due to the fall in aggregate demand.
I have seen several estimates of 10% unemployment and I think that is on the low side. That's UB-40 levels of unemployment. One in ten on benefits. One in ten unable to take care of their families. Pay their mortgage or rent.
My view is that in six months time most people will be dealing with the economic fallout and the prevailing view will be "was the lockdown really necessary?" Particularly among the under 45s, where the mortality rate is running at 0.014%.
Wait to you see the numbers who drop out of Maths before or during A-levels though.
At the school my twins go / went to the numbers taking maths / physics this year is half of what it was last year. The new GCSEs either put them off taking it or did not prepare them enough and resulting in pupils dropping out.
My understanding is it’s now damn near impossible to do A-level Maths without doing Further Maths GCSE, because ordinary maths doesn’t do nearly enough algebra.
That explains a lot - thanks
twenty years ago my school taught the entire GCSE syllabus in Yr 9 and the A-level syllabus in Yrs 10 and 11, with a bit of revision at the end for the specific exams.
That's interesting.
At my place, if I remember (back to the 1980s, Headmasters' Conference School) we finished the O level syllabus two terms early for French, and took Maths O Level a year early, then did Additional Maths.
Exam Boards were iirc Oxford or Oxford and Cambridge.
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.
I'm impressed. To be honest I am almost the exact opposite. I am finding concentration very difficult and don't even get on with the work I have to do. My productivity isn't even a quarter of what it is in normal times. I am spending a lot of time walking and running but find I don't even have the concentration span for books. I fear it is indicative of depression. I am finding I am spending a lot of time on PB, probably too much to be honest, but it is a comfort. I really cannot wait for this to be over but the financial implications will be with me for a long time.
Where my partner and I benefit enormously now is that we have been through one life-changing disaster, so this is not new territory. What you learn is to put the past to one side as much as you can and focus on your goals for the future.
My partner made a full recovery in part because he wasted little time with regret and from a very early stage put all his energies into his recovery. In this respect he is inspirational. We are all suffering a catastrophe and how we recover from it will depend on what we do in the coming weeks and months.
It’s ok to not be ok. None of us are ok. And if you fear you are depressed, get the professional help you need. Just asking for it is a major step forward. However, it may well be that your state of mind now reflects that you understand the future more clearly than many. This is not a holiday, but limbo, an ante-chamber to purgatory. Far too few really understand that yet.
Right now there are limited things we can do, but never let a crisis go to waste. Now is a good time to reflect, so if you can’t concentrate on reading (I can’t either), try thinking through what needs to be done. Write down lists of them. Do one or two things on the list each day.
It won’t feel like much but when you look over time at long lists of ticked-off items, you start to realise you are doing things after all.
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.
Well it is absolutely true that those best placed to conduct lesson observations are the pupils.
The pupils of several decades ago are probably not quite so well placed.
On the teaching thing (I married one), I think I understand the frustration of teachers being told how they could do it better all the time. It's mostly nonsense, including from politicians and even some school management.
However I do think many teachers appear to react badly to feedback of any kind (probably stemming from a basic requirement of the job to be pretty thick skinned?) and maybe that makes the debate more confrontational than necessary.
Expecting teachers (or anyone, frankly) to have an amazingly inquiring mind and know everything about everything does seem to be entirely unreasonable. The idea sounds good and I am probably more of a subscriber than most, but like 99% of the population, I don't actually have time. So I just think everyone else should be more intellectually curious... The best teachers are mostly born not made I suspect, although it is also very hard work.
What are Ranvir Singh and Ben Shepherd playing at on GMB? Interviewing Grant Shapps, they are allowing him to answer the questions, few interruptions, no crude accusations of him laughing at old people dying of Covid-19 & no use of misinformation to score a cheap point and wrong foot him so far.
Bring back Piers Morgan!
It is a shame we cannot bet on the Cabinet following Boris's close encounter. I'd fancy Shapps, who at least by his own account played a leading role in getting Boris elected, to replace Matt Hancock whose fall from grace has been remarkable. It is just a couple of weeks since he was lauded as a future prime minister.
Hancock is doing fine, the fact Piers Morgan annoyed him is yet another point in his favour
No he isn't. Hancock had the best start to the pandemic and lockdown but for the past couple of weeks has seemed out of his depth as we still fail with testing and PPE, and more tellingly perhaps, he's looked out on his feet at the lectern.
Hancock is doing fine, we are now testing more per head than France and more PPE equipment is coming too.
On the teaching thing (I married one), I think I understand the frustration of teachers being told how they could do it better all the time. It's mostly nonsense, including from politicians and even some school management.
However I do think many teachers appear to react badly to feedback of any kind (probably stemming from a basic requirement of the job to be pretty thick skinned?) and maybe that makes the debate more confrontational than necessary.
Expecting teachers (or anyone, frankly) to have an amazingly inquiring mind and know everything about everything does seem to be entirely unreasonable. The idea sounds good and I am probably more of a subscriber than most, but like 99% of the population, I don't actually have time. So I just think everyone else should be more intellectually curious... The best teachers are mostly born not made I suspect, although it is also very hard work.
On the latter point, if someone were that way inclined - why become a teacher?
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.
Adenauer in my opinion is the greatest national leader anywhere since WW II. I don't agree with everything he did, but there is no doubt he was extremely effective. He was the prime mover behind both the EC/EU and NATO in its current form. He set the terms of the Cold War and in a very real sense created West Germany. He also set Germany on its trajectory of success....
Which perfectly illustrates my point about Thatcher.
Casino might be right that she was one of the more important twentieth century politicians, but I doubt (I could be wrong) that he would without prompting have volunteered the same about Adenauer.
My daily routine hasn't really changed: 40-80km bike ride, car stuff in the workshop, language tutoring on Skype, look for car parts on eBay.
What has changed is the total cancellation of my travel plans. I normally go to the Qatar MotoGp and do 6 or 7 track days in Spain and Italy every summer. Not this year...
Mr. L, can't say if it'll work for you, but I found having some degree of routine helps me in working from home.
It can also help accidentally staying on the computer for too long without a break.
Chunking (setting small targets) can work too. If you've three small tasks, try and get one done before lunch, one early afternoon, and one late afternoon. Can help maintain focus.
I see the Chinese have found a couple more deaths behind the sofa.............
As has, or will, every other country.
By itself, it casts no light on the accuracy or otherwise of their figures.
Yep - revisions of half or double will imo be routine, and all the comparisons - other than for order of magnitude or like for like within a country - are bunk.
Another reason to appproach our trivial media (ie most of it) with virtual pitchforks.
What makes me smile is that any criticim or suggestion for a profession on here from someone who does not work in that profession is shot down instantly. Yet everyone on here criticises the way politicians do things all the time.
In terms of Matt Hancock, the role of Health Secretary during a once in a 100 year pandemic is like being the head of NASA the day Mars invades. He is doing a fine job.
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.
So you're saying only teachers are allowed to have an opinion on teaching?
Of course not, everyone has an opinion about teaching. But very few have an informed opinion. And fewer still have something useful or new to say about teaching.
There are far too many armchair experts and meddlers. I am looking at you Gove.
That is a very fair point.
But.
How do you avoid complacency setting in? How do you allow challenge to be made? How does an outsider or just someone looking at matters with a fresh eye get to ask the question “why” and get an answer?
While it’s probably correct that too many people think they are experts based on their personal or anecdotal experience, all structures, systems and professions - and I include my own - need questioning and challenging. Teaching is no exception - however much we may admire teachers or appreciate how hard it is to do. So how to do that?
Challenge is one of the roles of school governors. Whom many schools find it quite difficult to recruit....
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.
I'm impressed. To be honest I am almost the exact opposite. I am finding concentration very difficult and don't even get on with the work I have to do. My productivity isn't even a quarter of what it is in normal times. I am spending a lot of time walking and running but find I don't even have the concentration span for books. I fear it is indicative of depression. I am finding I am spending a lot of time on PB, probably too much to be honest, but it is a comfort. I really cannot wait for this to be over but the financial implications will be with me for a long time.
Where my partner and I benefit enormously now is that we have been through one life-changing disaster, so this is not new territory. What you learn is to put the past to one side as much as you can and focus on your goals for the future.
My partner made a full recovery in part because he wasted little time with regret and from a very early stage put all his energies into his recovery. In this respect he is inspirational. We are all suffering a catastrophe and how we recover from it will depend on what we do in the coming weeks and months.
It’s ok to not be ok. None of us are ok. And if you fear you are depressed, get the professional help you need. Just asking for it is a major step forward. However, it may well be that your state of mind now reflects that you understand the future more clearly than many. This is not a holiday, but limbo, an ante-chamber to purgatory. Far too few really understand that yet.
Right now there are limited things we can do, but never let a crisis go to waste. Now is a good time to reflect, so if you can’t concentrate on reading (I can’t either), try thinking through what needs to be done. Write down lists of them. Do one or two things on the list each day.
It won’t feel like much but when you look over time at long lists of ticked-off items, you start to realise you are doing things after all.
Yes, I see where you're coming from in your first paragraph. My world collapsed when my wife died 14 years ago, but after after a few years of misery I reached a point where I realised that I had become much more resilient to the tribulations of everyday life. I am now much more content with life than I ever was prior to my wife's death, and I'm confident that I can cope with whatever life throws at me. It's as though the experience of a massively traumatic event makes everything else seem trivial in comparison. Or I suppose it could just be ageing :-)
P.S. Oh yes, and lists are indeed great for motivation!
Edit: Oh, and I am now much less worried about career goals and the like. I have no need any more to strive to be the best and am more able to simply enjoy doing what I do and taking pleasure from minor achievements.
On the latter point, if someone were that way inclined - why become a teacher?
For some people it really is a vocation I suspect. Imparting knowledge _is_ great. I wouldn't have the patience to do it regularly or formally.
Lifestyle can also be appealing (my brother went into it thinking he would spend every summer backpacking around the world for example) (with 3 kids he'll now be lucky to get a static in Rhyl for a week but he made other, bad, life choices).
What makes me smile is that any criticim or suggestion for a profession on here from someone who does not work in that profession is shot down instantly. Yet everyone on here criticises the way politicians do things all the time.
In terms of Matt Hancock, the role of Health Secretary during a once in a 100 year pandemic is like being the head of NASA the day Mars invades. He is doing a fine job.
What would not doing a fine job look like, in your opinion?
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.
Of course. But given the vast breadth of knowledge to choose from, I can quite understand that not everyone might choose to bone up on a twentieth century British PM.
Boning up on Mrs Thatcher is an unfortunate thought.........
Why not bet on how long the money lasts? How long the furlough scheme lasts in its current form? The level of unemployment at the end of this year? The time taken for the government to approve an antibody test? The occurrence of food riots in the UK before the end of this year? Betting is a cultural activity and these are somewhat restricted at the moment.
On the lockdown, I am finding it very tough to stay motivated on anything. I hada great list of things I always wanted a bit more time to focus on. Now I have it I just can't be bothered.
I'm really glad I'm relatively out of shape for cycling, which makes it worthwhile to go out and do a bit every day in this beautiful weather with quiet roads. If I was already super fit (therefore needing to do more to stay super fit) with all races/group rides/events postponed or cancelled, it would be totally infuriating.
Keeping things ticking over with home schooling, remaining employed, and counting the days off, and getting a bit of light exercise is about as good as it's going to get I think.
It's no surprise the Chinese government are claiming mistaken reporting explains the sudden rise in Wuhan's death toll. Those that did not report mistakenly had a habit of disappearing.
On Matt Hancock, I can't think of any cabinet minister in my lifetime (Wilson is the first PM I recall) who has been in such a pressurised job as he is now. All things considered he's doing fine.
Comments
Perhaps !
Interesting fact, he was in his mid seventies when he first became Federal Chancellor and went on for another fifteen years.
(That was a joke, just in case she logs in!)
I have been trying new recipes, trying to keep my book group going via email and watching theatre productions on the internet. Now that we have secured a few supermarket deliveries, we have got into a routine. We are trying to take it one day at a time. I did plan to use the lockdown for some long reads on my TBR list, eg "David Copperfield" and "A Suitable Boy" but I find I haven't got the concentration required at the moment.
We are lucky enough to have a pleasant house with a small to medium size garden and live less than a minute from a Common (although on a sunny day there is a constant stream of people going to the Common).
However, I realise that the lockdown is taking a mental toll on many and I have posted before that I have seen out a couple of people who I felt were mentally stressed. It is difficult to know what to do as you can't go up to them and ask them if they are OK.
"some organisations did not report deaths"
About that open and transparent reporting....
https://twitter.com/MarkYou05730747/status/1250833846804705280
https://twitter.com/pwyowell/status/1251044587478671360?s=21
https://twitter.com/magnusllewellin/status/1251040682380341254?s=21
Warning from history is normally a label applied to the rise of Hitler.
Mrs Tunmore was a strong Labour supporter but she never let a hint of her politics come into her lessons or try and chip me accordingly, and I had huge respect for her.
I'm just arguing that perhaps it's gone too far the other way now.
Guess I should learn to STFU then and leave it to them.
There are far too many armchair experts and meddlers. I am looking at you Gove.
You can never learn (still less teach) everything but you can expand your knowledge and context, and it's a lifelong mission.
I am waiting to share my experience has an international playboy and raconteur, but the topic is yet to come up.
Strong focus on maths, English and science.
Schools exist to educate pupils for the pupils and their parents.
Not to keep teachers from attending XR rallys.
Bring back Piers Morgan!
However, informed opinions are much rarer. I have many years of experience of teaching, and I know what the job involves. I know how it can be tough. I know what works, and what doesn’t. Therefore, my opinions on the subject are based on a large body of evidence. Yours are based on general impressions. Which one is more likely to be right?
It works the other way too. I have loads of opinions on railways, and how they should be run. You actually work in managing them. Therefore, if I say something you know to be wrong, you would quite rightly call me out on it. And indeed you frequently do correct posters in debates over Crossrail.
At the school my twins go / went to the numbers taking maths / physics this year is half of what it was last year. The new GCSEs either put them off taking it or did not prepare them enough and resulting in pupils dropping out.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52276836
"The Crick Institute is led by Nobel Prize-winning scientist, Sir Paul Nurse, but not run by the health services.
...
Three weeks ago, when the virus crept across Europe their labs were deemed non-essential and closed. They handed in much of their machinery to the Department of Health and Social Care which is leading the testing ramp-up, outside hospitals.
...
"We were going to be sent home. I thought to myself, 'Well there are a lot of non-essential workers I know who might actually be quite essential to the coronavirus effort,'" he says.
He sent an email round. A working group was formed. At the same time, Mr Nurse sent an email to his employees at the Crick Institute asking for possible volunteers for a lab.
He received 300 replies in 24 hours."
But.
How do you avoid complacency setting in? How do you allow challenge to be made? How does an outsider or just someone looking at matters with a fresh eye get to ask the question “why” and get an answer?
While it’s probably correct that too many people think they are experts based on their personal or anecdotal experience, all structures, systems and professions - and I include my own - need questioning and challenging. Teaching is no exception - however much we may admire teachers or appreciate how hard it is to do. So how to do that?
Schools exist to educate pupils and prepare them for work.
Not to indulge the whims and interests of teachers.
Our primary school has ditched a lot of bollocks and the pupils have to work a lot harder on core subjects.
This parent approves. Heartily.
But sometimes the so-called experts - even with decades of experience - get it very very wrong. I give you banking as Exhibit 1.
Sometimes a little boy is needed to ask why the Emperor is walking round naked.
And what has he done to make @ydoethur doubt Gove's numeracy? Apart from requiring every school to be above average?
On the depression point I absolutely hear you. As well as my formally undiagnosed (but online tested and obvious to those who can see it) Autism I am absolutely a depressive. Again, undiagnosed as I fear going to the doctor for pills, and I'm self-aware enough to recognise when I am in the despair pit and conversely when I am bouncing off the ceiling. Books is a good marker for me also. I devour information, reading probably a little obsessively on a subject. But hadn't picked up a book in a month and had struggled for several months to get through one (with several started and abandoned).
I'm making a concerted effort to set aside quite time to read.
Perhaps more practically, iff you can get into it the multi-volume "A Dance to the Music of Time" by Anthony Powell can be very addictive and introduces you to one of the great fictional politicians - Kenneth Widmerpool.
I'm working on my day job - which is involving significantly more "meetings" now that informal chats feel less natural - plus translation plus the council executive "meetings" so I don't feel much more free time than before. I'm doing more online Labour stuff - we had a largely non-partisan Facebook Live interview with a chemical engineer yesterday working in pharma on the prospects for virus vaccination, treatment and antibodies which has gone down well (link here if anyone's interested):
https://www.facebook.com/swsurreylabour/videos/547794272598804/?t=20
I feel very lucky in all that, and in particular online Teams discussions feel VERY like normal meetings, so I don't feel isolated at all - at the end of a weekday I have a real feeling of "ah, knocking off to go home", even though I'm just switching over the laptop to play poker or something. Overall definitely more screen time, which suits me though I know that's unusual.
I do have more free time at weekends. I've signed up to Netflix and am watching more films/series. Tried going for walks but everyone including me was so paranoid about contact (I'm over 70) that I've stopped - don't usually walk for fun so seems silly to do it now. Pop into the wilderness/garden now and then for some fresh air, and that's it for the great outdoors. A young Labour friend drops off food now and then with a cheery "solidarity, comrade!" I'm quite content at the moment.
Isn't all knowledge necessarily specialist these days ? The proliferation of >stuff< is so immense that having even a vague grasp of everything is simply impossible.
Troll level intermediate: revise up by about 50 % give or take
Troll level copper-plated: revise up the death toll in Wuhan by as close to exactly 50% as possible
Also, anyone here defend China's stats in the past? Have a long hard look, chaps
https://twitter.com/horton_official/status/1250825311274635264
Turns out she is a total crank.
I live in a block of flats and last night some people were applauding NHS workers by beating pans together and cheering outside, but I think most people in the block stayed inside including myself. I think it is difficult for most people to contemplate how long the lockdown could go on for and how bad things will get eventually if it continues beyond this year. The situation will develop very slowly.
But given the vast breadth of knowledge to choose from, I can quite understand that not everyone might choose to bone up on a twentieth century British PM.
He is one of the more able Cabinet Ministers
The virus will just have to get with the program and recognise their essential contribution.
Most people who live from payday to payday. What they don't realise is that many of them will be out of a job soon as the company they work for will either start making massive redundancies or go bust due to the fall in aggregate demand.
I have seen several estimates of 10% unemployment and I think that is on the low side. That's UB-40 levels of unemployment. One in ten on benefits. One in ten unable to take care of their families. Pay their mortgage or rent.
My view is that in six months time most people will be dealing with the economic fallout and the prevailing view will be "was the lockdown really necessary?" Particularly among the under 45s, where the mortality rate is running at 0.014%.
At my place, if I remember (back to the 1980s, Headmasters' Conference School) we finished the O level syllabus two terms early for French, and took Maths O Level a year early, then did Additional Maths.
Exam Boards were iirc Oxford or Oxford and Cambridge.
My partner made a full recovery in part because he wasted little time with regret and from a very early stage put all his energies into his recovery. In this respect he is inspirational. We are all suffering a catastrophe and how we recover from it will depend on what we do in the coming weeks and months.
It’s ok to not be ok. None of us are ok. And if you fear you are depressed, get the professional help you need. Just asking for it is a major step forward. However, it may well be that your state of mind now reflects that you understand the future more clearly than many. This is not a holiday, but limbo, an ante-chamber to purgatory. Far too few really understand that yet.
Right now there are limited things we can do, but never let a crisis go to waste. Now is a good time to reflect, so if you can’t concentrate on reading (I can’t either), try thinking through what needs to be done. Write down lists of them. Do one or two things on the list each day.
It won’t feel like much but when you look over time at long lists of ticked-off items, you start to realise you are doing things after all.
The pupils of several decades ago are probably not quite so well placed.
However I do think many teachers appear to react badly to feedback of any kind (probably stemming from a basic requirement of the job to be pretty thick skinned?) and maybe that makes the debate more confrontational than necessary.
Expecting teachers (or anyone, frankly) to have an amazingly inquiring mind and know everything about everything does seem to be entirely unreasonable. The idea sounds good and I am probably more of a subscriber than most, but like 99% of the population, I don't actually have time. So I just think everyone else should be more intellectually curious...
The best teachers are mostly born not made I suspect, although it is also very hard work.
By itself, it casts no light on the accuracy or otherwise of their figures.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Casino might be right that she was one of the more important twentieth century politicians, but I doubt (I could be wrong) that he would without prompting have volunteered the same about Adenauer.
What has changed is the total cancellation of my travel plans. I normally go to the Qatar MotoGp and do 6 or 7 track days in Spain and Italy every summer. Not this year...
It can also help accidentally staying on the computer for too long without a break.
Chunking (setting small targets) can work too. If you've three small tasks, try and get one done before lunch, one early afternoon, and one late afternoon. Can help maintain focus.
Another reason to appproach our trivial media (ie most of it) with virtual pitchforks.
In terms of Matt Hancock, the role of Health Secretary during a once in a 100 year pandemic is like being the head of NASA the day Mars invades. He is doing a fine job.
Whom many schools find it quite difficult to recruit....
P.S. Oh yes, and lists are indeed great for motivation!
Edit: Oh, and I am now much less worried about career goals and the like. I have no need any more to strive to be the best and am more able to simply enjoy doing what I do and taking pleasure from minor achievements.
Lifestyle can also be appealing (my brother went into it thinking he would spend every summer backpacking around the world for example) (with 3 kids he'll now be lucky to get a static in Rhyl for a week but he made other, bad, life choices).
https://twitter.com/d_rafi1/status/1250864574984867856?s=19
I'm really glad I'm relatively out of shape for cycling, which makes it worthwhile to go out and do a bit every day in this beautiful weather with quiet roads. If I was already super fit (therefore needing to do more to stay super fit) with all races/group rides/events postponed or cancelled, it would be totally infuriating.
Keeping things ticking over with home schooling, remaining employed, and counting the days off, and getting a bit of light exercise is about as good as it's going to get I think.
It's no surprise the Chinese government are claiming mistaken reporting explains the sudden rise in Wuhan's death toll. Those that did not report mistakenly had a habit of disappearing.
On Matt Hancock, I can't think of any cabinet minister in my lifetime (Wilson is the first PM I recall) who has been in such a pressurised job as he is now. All things considered he's doing fine.