Starmer sees a net 17% approval gain compared with a year ago – politicalbetting.com

Driver said:

TOPPING said:

AlistairM said:

Casino_Royale said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Casino_Royale said:

AlistairM said:

Leon said:

Am I the only sane person on here? AI is clearly going to revolutionise education. But it won’t all be bad. Teaching will be easier:

“Still think ChatGPT is bad for education?

I just gave it a mark scheme and a sample student answer from an AQA GCSE English Language paper.

Look what happened 👇

*Spoiler: It marked it accurately in seconds*

#education #edutwitter #edtech #AI”

https://twitter.com/danfitztweets/status/1609675061211930625?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

And kids all over the world can get one-to-one tuition

“The one thing we know works for education is 1-1 tutoring vs one-to-many classroom

1-1 tutoring with humans for everyone is economically infeasible

But the promise of AI and ChatGPT systems will be 1-1 tutoring for everyone in the world”

https://twitter.com/alexandr_wang/status/1608996309897465856?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

But be in no doubt, the Revolution is here

“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT
💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a…
👨‍🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic…
🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…

https://twitter.com/emollick/status/1608814300805861377?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.

As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.

And, we keep being told that such Woke agendas in education don't exist and that such agendas are totally fabricated; a fantasy in the minds of "reactionaries".

It's almost as if they don't want us to challenge it.

It's just not my experience, that's all. Our kids learn about the Tudors and 20th century European history, mainly. The school has started to teach about West African kingdoms, too, which I think is a good thing, a teacher at the school helped to develop the curriculum so it is very well taught and sounds extremely interesting. My son was really engaged by it.

My kids learn English history too. Last term included the Great Fire of London and the Plague.

Not sure what is woke or rewriting history there?

That isn't, but there's an increasing focus in some educational institutions to teach history almost solely through the prism of identity politics, as the post of @AlistairM demonstrates. I also encountered it myself at my daughter's previous school, so I withdrew her.

We shouldn't deny this is a problem.

Also seems to be the case with other subjects. When studying artists in Y9 it has been entirely focused on diverse (i.e. non-white) artists. I'm all for covering a wide variety of different areas but I think there is a real danger of the syllabus being so desperate to be politically correct that it ends up being exclusionary. That is not progress.

Depends on the course, obvs, but why on earth, on the planet where x% of people are from any one particular demographic do you worry about a course on "artists" focusing on a variety of artists from different backgrounds.

Or was the course labelled "white artists in 20th Century Britain"?

That's an impressive missing of the point.

"When studying artists in Y9 it has been entirely focused on diverse (i.e. non-white) artists."

Not much to go on but please do let me know why a Y9 course on "artists" shouldn't include "non-white" artists.

TIA.

Morris_Dancer said:

As an aside, PVC-free clingfilm is a wretched and inferior product. I'm unsure if it's due to cost-cutting or environmentalism but whoever came up with the vile stuff should be stuffed into a giant cannon and launched into the heart of the sun.

It's likely owing to PVC toxicity ?

Leon said:

WillG said:

Leon said:

TOPPING said:

Leon said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nigelb said:

Casino_Royale said:

beinndearg said:

AlistairM said:

Leon said:

Am I the only sane person on here? AI is clearly going to revolutionise education. But it won’t all be bad. Teaching will be easier:

“Still think ChatGPT is bad for education?

I just gave it a mark scheme and a sample student answer from an AQA GCSE English Language paper.

Look what happened 👇

*Spoiler: It marked it accurately in seconds*

#education #edutwitter #edtech #AI”

https://twitter.com/danfitztweets/status/1609675061211930625?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

And kids all over the world can get one-to-one tuition

“The one thing we know works for education is 1-1 tutoring vs one-to-many classroom

1-1 tutoring with humans for everyone is economically infeasible

But the promise of AI and ChatGPT systems will be 1-1 tutoring for everyone in the world”

https://twitter.com/alexandr_wang/status/1608996309897465856?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

But be in no doubt, the Revolution is here

“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT
💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a…
👨‍🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic…
🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…

https://twitter.com/emollick/status/1608814300805861377?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.

As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.

I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.

Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.

And what utter bollocks it is.

I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.

How much practical experience of the current state system do you have ?

I went to state sixth form college, my sister went to stste schools throughout her childhood and my nephews both went there.

I am also familiar with the curriculums taught locally. My ex-girlfriend also attended a history lessons during her PCGE course at a Southampton comprehensive entitled "there ain't no black in the union jack".

I am done with denialism and whataboutery on this. IT IS A PROBLEM.

The question is what we do about it so we don't radicalise and indoctrinate future generations.

Yes, it’s a definite problem and it’s a problem in London as much as anywhere

At the age of 15 my eldest was well schooled on every possible significant black figure in British history - I never want to hear the words Mary Seacole again - but she did not know much at all about the Battle of Hastings. She vaguely knew it was important. Didn’t really know who was fighting. Or who won

And she’s smart

Of all people to decry such an education.

You can't on the one hand say out with maths, the arts, you name it because it has no relevance to life today; and on the other hand bemoan the lack of teaching of the Battle of Hastings in favour of teaching about a figure who influences so very many aspects of life today, both for you and your eldest.

I’ve already said on this thread that education is good in and of itself. My argument is that it will become a pleasing skill rather than a necessary qualification for employment

Learning maths will be like learning the clarinet to grade 5. It’s nice that you can do it but will it help you get a job? No not so much

In that scenario it will be awfully hard to motivate a lot of students

There's a different between maths and arithmetic. Even if you only need to follow along with what ChatGPT is telling you, you need to understand mathematical concepts.

People still don't seem to grasp that even if AI does away with 90% of current employment tasks, the 10% that is left plus a bunch of new tasks required to orchestrate the AI, will rapidly become 100% of people's jobs. A good education system would entail figuring out what those things are and teaching that stuff. And I don't believe only 10% of the population is able to learn how to integrate different AIs, and align it with business needs, and to define the scope of work it needs to do etc.

You think 8 billion humans will in future work on “integrating different AIs and aligning them with business needs”?

You should try reading the plentiful fiction on the subject of post-scarcity societies.

I always liked the throwaway line in Vernor Vinge about a chap working in a small business, just before the singularity. His partners are getting bored with manufacturing anti-matter by the tens of thousands of tons. Per second. In close orbit, round the Sun.

WillG said:

EPG said:

Malmesbury said:

TheKitchenCabinet said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

HYUFD said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

HYUFD said:

Leon said:

HYUFD said:

Leon said:

TOPPING said:

Leon said:

A reminder: Only 15% of the population have an IQ level of 115 or above. An IQ above 115 is considered to be a 'High IQ'

For 85% of people advanced maths is simply pointless. They can’t do it and, besides, they have a tiny brilliant machine that can solve all practical daily maths questions, anyway

Soon they will have a new machine which they won’t even require numbers. You’ll just ask it the query “what is a third of a third”

For 85% of people reading A Portrait of the Artist is pointless but it's still worth equipping as many people as possible with the tools to do so in a civilised society.

I don’t disagree at all. The problem is going to be persuading the kids to learn when it becomes evermore pointless and doesn’t help them get work, as all knowledge work is automated

Kids are already fleeing the Humanities for this exact reason: these degrees don’t lead to jobs

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-10-24/college-humanities-decline

If AI makes most STEM, finance, accountancy, law jobs redundant that will change.

The few jobs left will be the most creative ones machines can't do, which humanities teach

Mate, I wish that were true. I fear it is not

GPT3.5 is already churning out pretty good creative writing - poetry, stories. SDiffusion and DALL-E2 are producing some notable art (which is being used commercially already)

In 2 or 3 iterations (3-5 years?) they will be as good at the best creative stuff as almost any human. In ten years unimaginably better than any human

Tiny arguments on Reddit will rage as to whether these machines are “truly” creative. It won’t matter, because the machines will simply be better, and we will avidly consume their creations

In which case all but the top 1% most creative and innovative and skilled will be out of work in most fields.

We then return to the inevitability of a universal basic income funded by a robot tax the more AI is used across sectors, whether creative arts, manufacturing, professional finance, accountancy and law or basic menial tasks

That's Luddite bullshit.

As jobs are eliminated, new ones are created. People have ingenuity. We do different jobs than the past, but the idea of a jobless age has always been and always will be Dystopian SciFi bullshit.

What new jobs are going to be created then the average IQ person, not especially creative can do which AI can't do? Let alone for those of below average IQ?

There may still be permanent jobs for very high IQ, highly creative people but they are only a small minority

Then why do we have full employment? 🤦‍♂️

There's 300 years of history showing Luddidm is wrong. You're only limited by your own weak imagination.

People will use their ingenuity to create jobs and opportunities. Just as we always have done.

To a degree and it depends on the timescale.

The Luddites were right - from their own perspective. The Industrial Revolution did lead to a collapse in artisan wages, especially as employers designed factories based around child labour which was cheaper than skilled artisans.

Wages did - eventually - improve and new jobs were created but it took several decades for the effect to come through (eg factories required administration which required clerks etc).

When technological changes come and make people unemployed, there is not an automatic bank of jobs out there. Sure, people can set themselves up (I did) but the idea that people can switch seamlessly into jobs is a fallacy - there are switching costs for a reason.

More accurately - it ended some jobs, like weaving at home.

There were more and often better paid jobs, but this meant changing trades.

Which was Simply Not How Things Work, back then.

There were also places like India where mechanisation ended the old jobs but didn't create new jobs any time soon. You could say that Southern Europe has seen old jobs in low-skilled manufacturing go away in the last three decades without being replaced.

The problem with Southern Europe is that the labour market does not clear because a multinational currency screws up the equilibrium mechanisms.

I don't think you could characterise those exact mechanisms, though, beyond EU=bad.

Driver said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

What do we make of Coral using the related contingencies defence here ?

Staffordshire gambler denied £15,000 winnings on World Cup bets by huge betting company Coral.

https://www.itv.com/news/central/2023-01-03/gambler-denied-15000-world-cup-winnings-after-behind-the-counter-mistake

Certainly the combination of "Argentina win the World Cup" and "Argentina-France final" shouldn't have been allowed at full price. I think the logical thing is to work out what "Argentina beat France in the final" would be and then calculate that as a double with "Messi Golden Ball". I don't buy the part of their defence that "Argentina win" can't be combined with "Messi Golden Ball".

Agree, a few times the leading goal scorer hadn’t made the final such as Gary Lineker.

Sunak's optimistic and cheerful demeanour is exactly what we need right now.

Nigelb said:

Leon said:

Nigelb said:

Leon said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nigelb said:

Casino_Royale said:

beinndearg said:

AlistairM said:

Leon said:

Am I the only sane person on here? AI is clearly going to revolutionise education. But it won’t all be bad. Teaching will be easier:

“Still think ChatGPT is bad for education?

I just gave it a mark scheme and a sample student answer from an AQA GCSE English Language paper.

Look what happened 👇

*Spoiler: It marked it accurately in seconds*

#education #edutwitter #edtech #AI”

https://twitter.com/danfitztweets/status/1609675061211930625?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

And kids all over the world can get one-to-one tuition

“The one thing we know works for education is 1-1 tutoring vs one-to-many classroom

1-1 tutoring with humans for everyone is economically infeasible

But the promise of AI and ChatGPT systems will be 1-1 tutoring for everyone in the world”

https://twitter.com/alexandr_wang/status/1608996309897465856?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

But be in no doubt, the Revolution is here

“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT
💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a…
👨‍🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic…
🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…

https://twitter.com/emollick/status/1608814300805861377?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.

As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.

I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.

Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.

And what utter bollocks it is.

I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.

How much practical experience of the current state system do you have ?

I went to state sixth form college, my sister went to stste schools throughout her childhood and my nephews both went there.

I am also familiar with the curriculums taught locally. My ex-girlfriend also attended a history lessons during her PCGE course at a Southampton comprehensive entitled "there ain't no black in the union jack".

I am done with denialism and whataboutery on this. IT IS A PROBLEM.

The question is what we do about it so we don't radicalise and indoctrinate future generations.

Yes, it’s a definite problem and it’s a problem in London as much as anywhere

At the age of 15 my eldest was well schooled on every possible significant black figure in British history - I never want to hear the words Mary Seacole again - but she did not know much at all about the Battle of Hastings. She vaguely knew it was important. Didn’t really know who was fighting. Or who won

And she’s smart

You neglected her education, then ?

No, I took her to Waltham Abbey and showed her the likely grave of King Harold Godwinson and Edith Swan Neck

Since then we have done multiple educational trips. Florence and Rome last summer

You're right - I should have said "you had neglected her education".
Well done for remedying the situation.

He has two daughters - I wonder if the other one got the (ahem) benefit of his educational neglect?

Driver said:

TOPPING said:

Driver said:

TOPPING said:

AlistairM said:

Casino_Royale said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Casino_Royale said:

AlistairM said:

Leon said:

Am I the only sane person on here? AI is clearly going to revolutionise education. But it won’t all be bad. Teaching will be easier:

“Still think ChatGPT is bad for education?

I just gave it a mark scheme and a sample student answer from an AQA GCSE English Language paper.

Look what happened 👇

*Spoiler: It marked it accurately in seconds*

#education #edutwitter #edtech #AI”

https://twitter.com/danfitztweets/status/1609675061211930625?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

And kids all over the world can get one-to-one tuition

“The one thing we know works for education is 1-1 tutoring vs one-to-many classroom

1-1 tutoring with humans for everyone is economically infeasible

But the promise of AI and ChatGPT systems will be 1-1 tutoring for everyone in the world”

https://twitter.com/alexandr_wang/status/1608996309897465856?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

But be in no doubt, the Revolution is here

“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT
💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a…
👨‍🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic…
🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…

https://twitter.com/emollick/status/1608814300805861377?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.

As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.

And, we keep being told that such Woke agendas in education don't exist and that such agendas are totally fabricated; a fantasy in the minds of "reactionaries".

It's almost as if they don't want us to challenge it.

It's just not my experience, that's all. Our kids learn about the Tudors and 20th century European history, mainly. The school has started to teach about West African kingdoms, too, which I think is a good thing, a teacher at the school helped to develop the curriculum so it is very well taught and sounds extremely interesting. My son was really engaged by it.

My kids learn English history too. Last term included the Great Fire of London and the Plague.

Not sure what is woke or rewriting history there?

That isn't, but there's an increasing focus in some educational institutions to teach history almost solely through the prism of identity politics, as the post of @AlistairM demonstrates. I also encountered it myself at my daughter's previous school, so I withdrew her.

We shouldn't deny this is a problem.

Also seems to be the case with other subjects. When studying artists in Y9 it has been entirely focused on diverse (i.e. non-white) artists. I'm all for covering a wide variety of different areas but I think there is a real danger of the syllabus being so desperate to be politically correct that it ends up being exclusionary. That is not progress.

Depends on the course, obvs, but why on earth, on the planet where x% of people are from any one particular demographic do you worry about a course on "artists" focusing on a variety of artists from different backgrounds.

Or was the course labelled "white artists in 20th Century Britain"?

That's an impressive missing of the point.

"When studying artists in Y9 it has been entirely focused on diverse (i.e. non-white) artists."

Not much to go on but please do let me know why a Y9 course on "artists" shouldn't include "non-white" artists.

TIA.

Once you understand that that an art course can cover both white and non-white artists (as indeed a history course can cover both Britsh and non-British history) this should resolve your difficulty.

You are relying on "entirely focused" but I bet it wasn't. I bet it included a few non-white artists at which point pearls were clutched. If of course the whole thing isn't bullshit.

Casino_Royale said:

LostPassword said:

Casino_Royale said:

Endillion said:

Casino_Royale said:

beinndearg said:

Casino_Royale said:

beinndearg said:

AlistairM said:

Leon said:

Am I the only sane person on here? AI is clearly going to revolutionise education. But it won’t all be bad. Teaching will be easier:

“Still think ChatGPT is bad for education?

I just gave it a mark scheme and a sample student answer from an AQA GCSE English Language paper.

Look what happened 👇

*Spoiler: It marked it accurately in seconds*

#education #edutwitter #edtech #AI”

https://twitter.com/danfitztweets/status/1609675061211930625?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

And kids all over the world can get one-to-one tuition

“The one thing we know works for education is 1-1 tutoring vs one-to-many classroom

1-1 tutoring with humans for everyone is economically infeasible

But the promise of AI and ChatGPT systems will be 1-1 tutoring for everyone in the world”

https://twitter.com/alexandr_wang/status/1608996309897465856?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

But be in no doubt, the Revolution is here

“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT
💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a…
👨‍🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic…
🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…

https://twitter.com/emollick/status/1608814300805861377?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.

As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.

I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.

Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.

And what utter bollocks it is.

I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.

Sure, but your world picture has to explain the "utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history" if that is a major facet of our modern world to you (and it clearly is).

A spectre is haunting casinoRoyaleville; the spectre of Woke. Is Woke itself better explained by various facets of intercontinental trade and war, or by whether Philip of Anjou edged it on penalties over Charles of Austria?

History is the summation of the whole human story to date - taught in our islands should have a particular focus on British history because that's where we live and it explains our institutions and values and how we got here. It should not be taught solely through the prism of gender, race and sexuality - as the Woke would have it.

One day lesser minds, like yours, will come round to this, but for now it's far easier for you to be a dumb sheep.

If the argument is that schoolchild in the world should learn world history, and end up with relatively similar curricula across countries, then fair enough. It's not a view I agree with, but it's certainly defensible.

However, in practice I suspect that most proponents of teaching "diverse" history in the UK would baulk at the teaching of, say, the Napoleonic Wars in a Nigerian school, as "colonialist".

The point is that teaching it solely through the prism of identity politics introduces a bias into it, in the same way it would to teach it solely through a Whig one or a Marxist one.

It should focus on a factual story of the major events that got us to where we are today, triangulated to the broader context in the wider world, and encourage children to interpret and challenge primary and secondary sources themselves to figure it out.

The heavy focus on the Tudors, as opposed to the Civil War, I find a bit weird - to be honest. We were a republic for nearly 11 years, and then exported the religious puritans to New England, helping to spawn America and how it is today, and that feels just as significant - if not more so.

England's identity as, "definitely not a Catholic country," used to be a lot more important to its sense of self then it is now, and clearly the Tudor period was central to that.

As others have mentioned a lot of the present curriculum is determined by what Minister's parents were taught at school (+WWII for history), and so no-one's really rethought how to teach our history.

I was never taught about the Acts of Union at my English school, which seems a rather remarkable gap. Though we did learn about the US civil rights movement and, unsurprisingly, that was the topic that most interested many of my fellow south London inner suburban classmates. I don't think they'd have been as interested as I would have been to learn more about Alfred the Great.

Where I diverge a little bit, here, is that different races should be taught histories in slightly different ways.

We are all British and I think we all agree (well, most of us do) that race should ultimately become as irrelevant as your hair and eye colour, so, I do want history to be taught in a unifying way.

I agree with you there. I guess what I was trying to say is that, because Britain is a different country now than it was before the post-WWII immigration, then our shared historical story is also different.

I can see why you might think some people have overdone this, but I think that's what people are trying to do with what you criticise as a woke agenda in history.

Ideally, if kids are taught about the Battle of Hastings, the Caribbean sugar plantations and the Indian troops who fought in the WWI trenches, then they'd have a shared understanding of how they all ended up in the same country which enjoys the benefits of the rule of law, democracy, and a reasonably prosperous market economy, while still suffering from the pernicious inheritance of Norman feudalism.

TheScreamingEagles said:

Driver said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

What do we make of Coral using the related contingencies defence here ?

Staffordshire gambler denied £15,000 winnings on World Cup bets by huge betting company Coral.

https://www.itv.com/news/central/2023-01-03/gambler-denied-15000-world-cup-winnings-after-behind-the-counter-mistake

Certainly the combination of "Argentina win the World Cup" and "Argentina-France final" shouldn't have been allowed at full price. I think the logical thing is to work out what "Argentina beat France in the final" would be and then calculate that as a double with "Messi Golden Ball". I don't buy the part of their defence that "Argentina win" can't be combined with "Messi Golden Ball".

Agree, a few times the leading goal scorer hadn’t made the final such as Gary Lineker.

If it was Golden Boot they wouldn't have a leg to stand on for this part of the bet. Golden Ball is different - you expect it to be from a finalist - but there's no reason why it has to be. The 2010 winner was from a losing semi-finalist.

LostPassword said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

What do we make of Coral using the related contingencies defence here ?

Staffordshire gambler denied £15,000 winnings on World Cup bets by huge betting company Coral.

https://www.itv.com/news/central/2023-01-03/gambler-denied-15000-world-cup-winnings-after-behind-the-counter-mistake

I can see their argument, but chances are the guy wouldn't have placed the bet if he'd only been offered 66-1, and the question I would have is how many other similar bets did they take (Portugal to win, Ronaldo to be top scorer, Portugal v England final) at similar compound odds, but now not offering to void the bets when they're not willing to stand by the odds offered at the time?

Sometimes they will make mistakes and misprice bets. They shouldn't be able to wiggle away from them only when they lose.

The bookie took the bet, they shouldn't be allowed to scream related contingencies later on.

Assuming a 50:50 chance in the final, the odds would have been 459/1, so still over £4,500 in winnings. Coral should really pay out on that.

Barnesian said:

Pro_Rata said:

MoonRabbit said:

Pro_Rata said:

Anyone watching Sunak?

Yes we are all watching it in this Yorkshire Farmhouse.

It’s just weird. What is it with this unconvincing earnest delivery? He doesn’t sound remotely like a Primeminister or party leader.

I'm not that focussed myself today, but the themes are not strong enough, not forensic enough, after those pledges there is no sense of the meat that lies beneath. Blair could do motherhood and apple pie and you felt he was talking about something. Sunak's Blairite delivery has just descending into word salad for me.

Tbh, he should have run this through ChatGPT.

He says

"The more we innovate, the more we grow," saying "the UK must grow leading sectors such as AI, green technology and life sciences.

All of this can be done by seizing opportunities of Brexit."

Anyone at this late hour still talking about Brexit opportunities should be sectioned.

Mr. B, as we know, morris dancers are the most mild and measured of men.

But if I ever find the cretin who came up with PVC-free clingfilm my wiffle stick will become a cudgel of merciless energy, tenderising the buffoon before they are righteously bethwacked across their mush with an enormo-haddock!

And, with that, I must be off.

The deadline for his 5 targets. Solid question.

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. B, as we know, morris dancers are the most mild and measured of men.

But if I ever find the cretin who came up with PVC-free clingfilm my wiffle stick will become a cudgel of merciless energy, tenderising the buffoon before they are righteously bethwacked across their mush with an enormo-haddock!

And, with that, I must be off.

PVC free clingfilm is the gluten free flour of food wrapping. Hopefully some clever soul will come up with something a bit better soon.

TheScreamingEagles said:

Driver said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Driver said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

What do we make of Coral using the related contingencies defence here ?

Staffordshire gambler denied £15,000 winnings on World Cup bets by huge betting company Coral.

https://www.itv.com/news/central/2023-01-03/gambler-denied-15000-world-cup-winnings-after-behind-the-counter-mistake

Certainly the combination of "Argentina win the World Cup" and "Argentina-France final" shouldn't have been allowed at full price. I think the logical thing is to work out what "Argentina beat France in the final" would be and then calculate that as a double with "Messi Golden Ball". I don't buy the part of their defence that "Argentina win" can't be combined with "Messi Golden Ball".

Agree, a few times the leading goal scorer hadn’t made the final such as Gary Lineker.

If it was Golden Boot they wouldn't have a leg to stand on for this part of the bet. Golden Ball is different - you expect it to be from a finalist - but there's no reason why it has to be. The 2010 winner was from a losing semi-finalist.

Oh yes, my mistake.

My pun was clearly too subtle...

Gardenwalker said:

My kids’ school in New York appears to draw parents trying to escape the woke invasion of private schools here.

The place is blissfully normal, and nobody cares about critical race theory. Having said that, the nativity play did feature some kind of Kwanza interlude.

Jen's schooling is one of the major driving forces pushing us to Ticino or Lugano, I don't trust UK education to not push all of the nonsense onto young impressionable kids and teachers who will try their hardest to convince girls who play with fire engines and bin lorries that they're actually boys.

TOPPING said:

Driver said:

TOPPING said:

AlistairM said:

Casino_Royale said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Casino_Royale said:

AlistairM said:

Leon said:

Am I the only sane person on here? AI is clearly going to revolutionise education. But it won’t all be bad. Teaching will be easier:

“Still think ChatGPT is bad for education?

I just gave it a mark scheme and a sample student answer from an AQA GCSE English Language paper.

Look what happened 👇

*Spoiler: It marked it accurately in seconds*

#education #edutwitter #edtech #AI”

https://twitter.com/danfitztweets/status/1609675061211930625?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

And kids all over the world can get one-to-one tuition

“The one thing we know works for education is 1-1 tutoring vs one-to-many classroom

1-1 tutoring with humans for everyone is economically infeasible

But the promise of AI and ChatGPT systems will be 1-1 tutoring for everyone in the world”

https://twitter.com/alexandr_wang/status/1608996309897465856?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

But be in no doubt, the Revolution is here

“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT
💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a…
👨‍🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic…
🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…

https://twitter.com/emollick/status/1608814300805861377?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.

As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.

And, we keep being told that such Woke agendas in education don't exist and that such agendas are totally fabricated; a fantasy in the minds of "reactionaries".

It's almost as if they don't want us to challenge it.

It's just not my experience, that's all. Our kids learn about the Tudors and 20th century European history, mainly. The school has started to teach about West African kingdoms, too, which I think is a good thing, a teacher at the school helped to develop the curriculum so it is very well taught and sounds extremely interesting. My son was really engaged by it.

My kids learn English history too. Last term included the Great Fire of London and the Plague.

Not sure what is woke or rewriting history there?

That isn't, but there's an increasing focus in some educational institutions to teach history almost solely through the prism of identity politics, as the post of @AlistairM demonstrates. I also encountered it myself at my daughter's previous school, so I withdrew her.

We shouldn't deny this is a problem.

Also seems to be the case with other subjects. When studying artists in Y9 it has been entirely focused on diverse (i.e. non-white) artists. I'm all for covering a wide variety of different areas but I think there is a real danger of the syllabus being so desperate to be politically correct that it ends up being exclusionary. That is not progress.

Depends on the course, obvs, but why on earth, on the planet where x% of people are from any one particular demographic do you worry about a course on "artists" focusing on a variety of artists from different backgrounds.

Or was the course labelled "white artists in 20th Century Britain"?

That's an impressive missing of the point.

"When studying artists in Y9 it has been entirely focused on diverse (i.e. non-white) artists."

Not much to go on but please do let me know why a Y9 course on "artists" shouldn't include "non-white" artists.

TIA.

No one is saying that.

I can't claim I've seen every piece of artwork she has had to do. However, she as a white girl thinks it is a bit odd that she only seems to study certain types of artists. There should be a broad portfolio of artists that they study. At the moment it is excluding artists from a certain background entirely. Discrimination is not being removed, it is being changed to discriminate against others.

TOPPING said:

Driver said:

TOPPING said:

Driver said:

TOPPING said:

Driver said:

TOPPING said:

AlistairM said:

Casino_Royale said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Casino_Royale said:

AlistairM said:

Leon said:

Am I the only sane person on here? AI is clearly going to revolutionise education. But it won’t all be bad. Teaching will be easier:

“Still think ChatGPT is bad for education?

I just gave it a mark scheme and a sample student answer from an AQA GCSE English Language paper.

Look what happened 👇

*Spoiler: It marked it accurately in seconds*

#education #edutwitter #edtech #AI”

https://twitter.com/danfitztweets/status/1609675061211930625?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

And kids all over the world can get one-to-one tuition

“The one thing we know works for education is 1-1 tutoring vs one-to-many classroom

1-1 tutoring with humans for everyone is economically infeasible

But the promise of AI and ChatGPT systems will be 1-1 tutoring for everyone in the world”

https://twitter.com/alexandr_wang/status/1608996309897465856?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

But be in no doubt, the Revolution is here

“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT
💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a…
👨‍🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic…
🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…

https://twitter.com/emollick/status/1608814300805861377?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.

As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.

And, we keep being told that such Woke agendas in education don't exist and that such agendas are totally fabricated; a fantasy in the minds of "reactionaries".

It's almost as if they don't want us to challenge it.

It's just not my experience, that's all. Our kids learn about the Tudors and 20th century European history, mainly. The school has started to teach about West African kingdoms, too, which I think is a good thing, a teacher at the school helped to develop the curriculum so it is very well taught and sounds extremely interesting. My son was really engaged by it.

My kids learn English history too. Last term included the Great Fire of London and the Plague.

Not sure what is woke or rewriting history there?

That isn't, but there's an increasing focus in some educational institutions to teach history almost solely through the prism of identity politics, as the post of @AlistairM demonstrates. I also encountered it myself at my daughter's previous school, so I withdrew her.

We shouldn't deny this is a problem.

Also seems to be the case with other subjects. When studying artists in Y9 it has been entirely focused on diverse (i.e. non-white) artists. I'm all for covering a wide variety of different areas but I think there is a real danger of the syllabus being so desperate to be politically correct that it ends up being exclusionary. That is not progress.

Depends on the course, obvs, but why on earth, on the planet where x% of people are from any one particular demographic do you worry about a course on "artists" focusing on a variety of artists from different backgrounds.

Or was the course labelled "white artists in 20th Century Britain"?

That's an impressive missing of the point.

"When studying artists in Y9 it has been entirely focused on diverse (i.e. non-white) artists."

Not much to go on but please do let me know why a Y9 course on "artists" shouldn't include "non-white" artists.

TIA.

Once you understand that that an art course can cover both white and non-white artists (as indeed a history course can cover both Britsh and non-British history) this should resolve your difficulty.

You are relying on "entirely focused" but I bet it wasn't. I bet it included a few non-white artists at which point pearls were clutched. If of course the whole thing isn't bullshit.

Ah, so you're assuming a lie.

Let's say it was "entirely focused" (big if). So what? What is important about an artist - their work or their skin colour?

Their work.

Which is why a course entirely focused on either white or non-white artists is likely to be undesirable.

MaxPB said:

Gardenwalker said:

My kids’ school in New York appears to draw parents trying to escape the woke invasion of private schools here.

The place is blissfully normal, and nobody cares about critical race theory. Having said that, the nativity play did feature some kind of Kwanza interlude.

Jen's schooling is one of the major driving forces pushing us to Ticino or Lugano, I don't trust UK education to not push all of the nonsense onto young impressionable kids and teachers who will try their hardest to convince girls who play with fire engines and bin lorries that they're actually boys.

One of my friends recently announced on Facebook that their son wants to be referred to as "they", despite there being only one Andrew. It was noticeable that this post got a lot fewer reactions than usual - people presumably being too polite to hit the "Haha" response.

Nigelb said:

WTAF ?

EXCLUSIVE: Arizona is inducing the labor of pregnant prisoners against their will — sometimes as early as three weeks before their due date...
https://twitter.com/JimmyJenkins/status/1609898137107451904

There's some emerging evidence that early induction is bad for longer term child outcomes (or, indeed, any early delivery, even by 2-3 weeks, but apart from the induced, that's not generally something that can be avoided). Elective c-sections are tending a bit later, nearer due date, as result, at least locally.

ETA: That in addition to the general WTAFness.

BartholomewRoberts said:

Casino_Royale said:

Gardenwalker said:

My kids’ school in New York appears to draw parents trying to escape the woke invasion of private schools here.

The place is blissfully normal, and nobody cares about critical race theory. Having said that, the nativity play did feature some kind of Kwanza interlude.

Interesting. And reassuring.

Just to be clear: I don't want to set up a false dichotomy here, although I bet I will be accused of it.

I am not arguing that women's rights, civil rights, slavery etc. should not be covered in history lessons - quite the opposite.

I am arguing that should not be the prism solely through which all history is taught, and it should always be put in the context of the times.

It does seem like the situation varies. It's certainly not something we have come against, the only place I've heard about woke etc is on this site.

My daughters great historical question that was puzzling her which she asked over the Christmas holidays was: Since the Plague was spread by rats, and rats still exist today, how come people today don't get the Plague?

Racial matters too where it comes up I think her school has handled very well for her age group. The school does Nativities and learns about Christian beliefs etc, but also she has learnt more about Eid, Diwali and other faiths etc than we were ever taught at school. That to me seems to be a very good thing and more education there doesn't take anything away from anyone.

I thought that current thinking was that the Plague was spread by human fleas, and not rats?

Improved hygiene did for it, not the elimination of small furry mammals.

Nigelb said:

WTAF ?

EXCLUSIVE: Arizona is inducing the labor of pregnant prisoners against their will — sometimes as early as three weeks before their due date...
https://twitter.com/JimmyJenkins/status/1609898137107451904

Lunatic anti-abortion types running low on lunacy to fulminate about. Create new lunacy.

MaxPB said:

Gardenwalker said:

My kids’ school in New York appears to draw parents trying to escape the woke invasion of private schools here.

The place is blissfully normal, and nobody cares about critical race theory. Having said that, the nativity play did feature some kind of Kwanza interlude.

Jen's schooling is one of the major driving forces pushing us to Ticino or Lugano, I don't trust UK education to not push all of the nonsense onto young impressionable kids and teachers who will try their hardest to convince girls who play with fire engines and bin lorries that they're actually boys.

Aren’t there many good private schools in North London?

AlistairM said:

Casino_Royale said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Casino_Royale said:

AlistairM said:

Leon said:

Am I the only sane person on here? AI is clearly going to revolutionise education. But it won’t all be bad. Teaching will be easier:

“Still think ChatGPT is bad for education?

I just gave it a mark scheme and a sample student answer from an AQA GCSE English Language paper.

Look what happened 👇

*Spoiler: It marked it accurately in seconds*

#education #edutwitter #edtech #AI”

https://twitter.com/danfitztweets/status/1609675061211930625?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

And kids all over the world can get one-to-one tuition

“The one thing we know works for education is 1-1 tutoring vs one-to-many classroom

1-1 tutoring with humans for everyone is economically infeasible

But the promise of AI and ChatGPT systems will be 1-1 tutoring for everyone in the world”

https://twitter.com/alexandr_wang/status/1608996309897465856?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

But be in no doubt, the Revolution is here

“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT
💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a…
👨‍🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic…
🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…

https://twitter.com/emollick/status/1608814300805861377?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.

As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.

And, we keep being told that such Woke agendas in education don't exist and that such agendas are totally fabricated; a fantasy in the minds of "reactionaries".

It's almost as if they don't want us to challenge it.

It's just not my experience, that's all. Our kids learn about the Tudors and 20th century European history, mainly. The school has started to teach about West African kingdoms, too, which I think is a good thing, a teacher at the school helped to develop the curriculum so it is very well taught and sounds extremely interesting. My son was really engaged by it.

My kids learn English history too. Last term included the Great Fire of London and the Plague.

Not sure what is woke or rewriting history there?

That isn't, but there's an increasing focus in some educational institutions to teach history almost solely through the prism of identity politics, as the post of @AlistairM demonstrates. I also encountered it myself at my daughter's previous school, so I withdrew her.

We shouldn't deny this is a problem.

Also seems to be the case with other subjects. When studying artists in Y9 it has been entirely focused on diverse (i.e. non-white) artists. I'm all for covering a wide variety of different areas but I think there is a real danger of the syllabus being so desperate to be politically correct that it ends up being exclusionary. That is not progress.

How many artists in Y9 are there, at least ones that are worth studying?

. . . meanwhile back at the ranch . . .

Good question from bad querist:

The Hill - Gaetz sends letter to Architect of the Capitol asking why McCarthy is occupying Speaker’s office

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) sent a letter to the Architect of the Capitol on Tuesday questioning why House Speaker candidate Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was already inhabiting the Speaker’s office amid an intraparty battle over the House’s top leadership position.

“I write to inform you that the Speaker of the House Office located in the U.S. Capitol Building is currently occupied by Rep. Kevin McCarthy,” Gaetz said in the letter.

“As of this morning, the 117th Congress adjourned sine die, and a Speaker from the 118th Congress has not been elected,” he continued. “After three undeciding votes, no member can lay claim to this office.”

McCarthy failed to secure a majority for his Speakership bid in three consecutive votes on Tuesday, leading Republican leaders to adjourn for the day. A group of 19 GOP lawmakers, including Gaetz, consistently opposed McCarthy on all three rounds, with Rep.-elect Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) joining the anti-McCarthy group in the final vote of the day.

McCarthy on Tuesday criticized Gaetz for reportedly saying he did not care if House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) was elected in place of McCarthy as a result of the group’s tactics.

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3797668-gaetz-sends-letter-to-architect-of-the-capitol-asking-why-mccarthy-is-occupying-speakers-office/

LostPassword said:

Casino_Royale said:

kinabalu said:

Casino_Royale said:

beinndearg said:

Casino_Royale said:

beinndearg said:

AlistairM said:

Leon said:

Am I the only sane person on here? AI is clearly going to revolutionise education. But it won’t all be bad. Teaching will be easier:

“Still think ChatGPT is bad for education?

I just gave it a mark scheme and a sample student answer from an AQA GCSE English Language paper.

Look what happened 👇

*Spoiler: It marked it accurately in seconds*

#education #edutwitter #edtech #AI”

https://twitter.com/danfitztweets/status/1609675061211930625?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

And kids all over the world can get one-to-one tuition

“The one thing we know works for education is 1-1 tutoring vs one-to-many classroom

1-1 tutoring with humans for everyone is economically infeasible

But the promise of AI and ChatGPT systems will be 1-1 tutoring for everyone in the world”

https://twitter.com/alexandr_wang/status/1608996309897465856?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

But be in no doubt, the Revolution is here

“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT
💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a…
👨‍🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic…
🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…

https://twitter.com/emollick/status/1608814300805861377?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.

As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.

I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.

Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.

And what utter bollocks it is.

I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.

Sure, but your world picture has to explain the "utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history" if that is a major facet of our modern world to you (and it clearly is).

A spectre is haunting casinoRoyaleville; the spectre of Woke. Is Woke itself better explained by various facets of intercontinental trade and war, or by whether Philip of Anjou edged it on penalties over Charles of Austria?

History is the summation of the whole human story to date - taught in our islands should have a particular focus on British history because that's where we live and it explains our institutions and values and how we got here. It should not be taught solely through the prism of gender, race and sexuality - as the Woke would have it.

One day lesser minds, like yours, will come round to this, but for now it's far easier for you to be a dumb sheep.

One does expect a British angle on things discussed by Britons in Britain. Hence why our colonialism (big and recent and OURS) shouldn't be contextualized away with "it's complicated" and "we were no worse than others" and "what about the Romans?" etc etc. Yet this what many try to do. Happens every single time we get into it.

With respect, you have a strong view on colonialism and it only leans one-way.

I have no issue with the facts being taught. I do have an issue with those facts being highly selective and placed outwith the context of the times.

We are able to teach a balanced history of the Roman empire. It shouldn't be hard to do the same for the British.

Do we teach a balanced history of the Roman Empire?

I'd say that one curiosity of English history is that all of the invasions are taught as a good, or at least neutral, thing. None of them were particularly oppressive conquests that the locals bravely fought against.

This is especially the case for the Roman conquest where it's taught we were jolly lucky to become part of the Empire, and it was a sad day when the Roman army was withdrawn.

Given that in some respects the British Empire was seen as a modern version of the Roman Empire, this can't help but colour the way we see it and see the reactions of those Britons of earlier generations conquered.

Everything that's wrong with the teaching of the Roman and British Empires in British schools can be summarised in the Monty Python, "What Did The Romans Ever Do For Us?" scene in The Life Of Brian.

Consider the Rio Tinto mines. A few guestimates of how many slaves were sent there to be worked to death - it was literally used as a death camp for otherwise unuasable slaves. Multiply by the years in operation.

Yes, indeed.

TOPPING said:

Driver said:

TOPPING said:

AlistairM said:

Casino_Royale said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Casino_Royale said:

AlistairM said:

Leon said:

Am I the only sane person on here? AI is clearly going to revolutionise education. But it won’t all be bad. Teaching will be easier:

“Still think ChatGPT is bad for education?

I just gave it a mark scheme and a sample student answer from an AQA GCSE English Language paper.

Look what happened 👇

*Spoiler: It marked it accurately in seconds*

#education #edutwitter #edtech #AI”

https://twitter.com/danfitztweets/status/1609675061211930625?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

And kids all over the world can get one-to-one tuition

“The one thing we know works for education is 1-1 tutoring vs one-to-many classroom

1-1 tutoring with humans for everyone is economically infeasible

But the promise of AI and ChatGPT systems will be 1-1 tutoring for everyone in the world”

https://twitter.com/alexandr_wang/status/1608996309897465856?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

But be in no doubt, the Revolution is here

“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT
💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a…
👨‍🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic…
🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…

https://twitter.com/emollick/status/1608814300805861377?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.

As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.

And, we keep being told that such Woke agendas in education don't exist and that such agendas are totally fabricated; a fantasy in the minds of "reactionaries".

It's almost as if they don't want us to challenge it.

It's just not my experience, that's all. Our kids learn about the Tudors and 20th century European history, mainly. The school has started to teach about West African kingdoms, too, which I think is a good thing, a teacher at the school helped to develop the curriculum so it is very well taught and sounds extremely interesting. My son was really engaged by it.

My kids learn English history too. Last term included the Great Fire of London and the Plague.

Not sure what is woke or rewriting history there?

That isn't, but there's an increasing focus in some educational institutions to teach history almost solely through the prism of identity politics, as the post of @AlistairM demonstrates. I also encountered it myself at my daughter's previous school, so I withdrew her.

We shouldn't deny this is a problem.

Also seems to be the case with other subjects. When studying artists in Y9 it has been entirely focused on diverse (i.e. non-white) artists. I'm all for covering a wide variety of different areas but I think there is a real danger of the syllabus being so desperate to be politically correct that it ends up being exclusionary. That is not progress.

Depends on the course, obvs, but why on earth, on the planet where x% of people are from any one particular demographic do you worry about a course on "artists" focusing on a variety of artists from different backgrounds.

Or was the course labelled "white artists in 20th Century Britain"?

That's an impressive missing of the point.

"When studying artists in Y9 it has been entirely focused on diverse (i.e. non-white) artists."

Not much to go on but please do let me know why a Y9 course on "artists" shouldn't include "non-white" artists.

TIA.

It is all bollox , an artist is an artist there should be feck all reference or care of their skin colour.

Luckyguy1983 said:

Gardenwalker said:

Someone with vague intelligence links told me last night that the British were behind the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage.

I’m only offering it here because this particular source does occasionally uncover genuine intel.

'The British' do nothing without American say so. So, as I said at the time when the Russians accused us, it's basically America getting their lackey to do something so they have clean hands. And it wouldn't susprise me at all. Boris (or was it Truss?) would have been pissing themselves with excitement to be asked.

Yes, comrade.

kjh said:

Leon said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

HYUFD said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

HYUFD said:

Leon said:

HYUFD said:

Leon said:

TOPPING said:

Leon said:

A reminder: Only 15% of the population have an IQ level of 115 or above. An IQ above 115 is considered to be a 'High IQ'

For 85% of people advanced maths is simply pointless. They can’t do it and, besides, they have a tiny brilliant machine that can solve all practical daily maths questions, anyway

Soon they will have a new machine which they won’t even require numbers. You’ll just ask it the query “what is a third of a third”

For 85% of people reading A Portrait of the Artist is pointless but it's still worth equipping as many people as possible with the tools to do so in a civilised society.

I don’t disagree at all. The problem is going to be persuading the kids to learn when it becomes evermore pointless and doesn’t help them get work, as all knowledge work is automated

Kids are already fleeing the Humanities for this exact reason: these degrees don’t lead to jobs

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-10-24/college-humanities-decline

If AI makes most STEM, finance, accountancy, law jobs redundant that will change.

The few jobs left will be the most creative ones machines can't do, which humanities teach

Mate, I wish that were true. I fear it is not

GPT3.5 is already churning out pretty good creative writing - poetry, stories. SDiffusion and DALL-E2 are producing some notable art (which is being used commercially already)

In 2 or 3 iterations (3-5 years?) they will be as good at the best creative stuff as almost any human. In ten years unimaginably better than any human

Tiny arguments on Reddit will rage as to whether these machines are “truly” creative. It won’t matter, because the machines will simply be better, and we will avidly consume their creations

In which case all but the top 1% most creative and innovative and skilled will be out of work in most fields.

We then return to the inevitability of a universal basic income funded by a robot tax the more AI is used across sectors, whether creative arts, manufacturing, professional finance, accountancy and law or basic menial tasks

That's Luddite bullshit.

As jobs are eliminated, new ones are created. People have ingenuity. We do different jobs than the past, but the idea of a jobless age has always been and always will be Dystopian SciFi bullshit.

What new jobs are going to be created then the average IQ person, not especially creative can do which AI can't do? Let alone for those of below average IQ?

There may still be permanent jobs for very high IQ, highly creative people but they are only a small minority

Then why do we have full employment? 🤦‍♂️

There's 300 years of history showing Luddidm is wrong. You're only limited by your own weak imagination.

People will use their ingenuity to create jobs and opportunities. Just as we always have done.

It might help your argument if you could provide examples of these new jobs

That is an unreasonable request of @BartholomewRoberts. I mean nobody could have imagined call centre operators before the telephone was invented. In fact nobody imagined them for over century after it had been invented. Similarly all the computer based work, etc, etc. The idea of a computer on your desk was scoffed at when first suggested. The list is near endless of stuff we didn't know would provide work for people.

Yep. You only have to read some of the futurist predictions of yesteryear that technology would deliver us a world where we enjoyed a life mostly of leisure while computers and machines and robots did all the work. And compare it to the reality where most office workers do longer hours than ever and even when they get home are still checking work emails. Leon is being naive (as ever) in assuming that technology will somehow abolish work.

Leon said:

Nigelb said:

Interesting graph on US LNG exports to Europe:
https://twitter.com/JayinKyiv/status/1610640364091629568

Full data available here:
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/NG_MOVE_EXPC_S1_M.htm

Gee, I wonder cui bono from the Nordstream explosion

No noticeable rise since then though. US LNG exports have been on a rapid growth path since they lifted export restrictions on oil and gas in 2016. Before then they were banned for national security reasons.

There were discussions earlier in the year of them reintroducing a ban this winter to protect US business, but that didn’t go ahead as it would have made a mockery of NATO solidarity.

The US has not historically been interested in maximising exports for its natural resources because the benefit is outweighed by the competitive cost benefit to domestic manufacturing of keeping cheaper raw materials at home.

Driver said:

TOPPING said:

Driver said:

MaxPB said:

Gardenwalker said:

My kids’ school in New York appears to draw parents trying to escape the woke invasion of private schools here.

The place is blissfully normal, and nobody cares about critical race theory. Having said that, the nativity play did feature some kind of Kwanza interlude.

Jen's schooling is one of the major driving forces pushing us to Ticino or Lugano, I don't trust UK education to not push all of the nonsense onto young impressionable kids and teachers who will try their hardest to convince girls who play with fire engines and bin lorries that they're actually boys.

One of my friends recently announced on Facebook that their son wants to be referred to as "they", despite there being only one Andrew. It was noticeable that this post got a lot fewer reactions than usual - people presumably being too polite to hit the "Haha" response.

What a tosser.

You, that is, not your friend's child.

I don't in any way criticise Andrew.

But you laugh and only some form of I don't know what prevented you from laughing in their face. No idea the age of the child but they probably don't need one of their parent's friends wanting to ridicule them (and doing so on another internet forum) at what is evidently a sensitive and challenging time for the whole family.

Pro_Rata said:

Anyone watching Sunak?

One interesting thing is that he's set a very clear target on inflation - halved this year, so to 5% ish.

On the one hand that's a lot lower than now, but on the other it would have been seen as high inflation for the last couple of decades.

It will be interesting to see if the target anchors people's inflation expectations and so affects things like pay deals.

The other thing that strikes me is that he's aiming for contradictory things. He wants healthcare staff to work more flexibly - presumably evenings and weekends - as part of reforms to the health service. At the same time he says that, "family runs through his vision of a better future."

Well, which is it? Bluntly, people can't be in two places at once. If a parent is working evening and weekend shifts to provide a better healthcare service then they're not at home for their family.

LostPassword said:

Casino_Royale said:

kinabalu said:

Casino_Royale said:

beinndearg said:

Casino_Royale said:

beinndearg said:

AlistairM said:

Leon said:

Am I the only sane person on here? AI is clearly going to revolutionise education. But it won’t all be bad. Teaching will be easier:

“Still think ChatGPT is bad for education?

I just gave it a mark scheme and a sample student answer from an AQA GCSE English Language paper.

Look what happened 👇

*Spoiler: It marked it accurately in seconds*

#education #edutwitter #edtech #AI”

https://twitter.com/danfitztweets/status/1609675061211930625?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

And kids all over the world can get one-to-one tuition

“The one thing we know works for education is 1-1 tutoring vs one-to-many classroom

1-1 tutoring with humans for everyone is economically infeasible

But the promise of AI and ChatGPT systems will be 1-1 tutoring for everyone in the world”

https://twitter.com/alexandr_wang/status/1608996309897465856?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

But be in no doubt, the Revolution is here

“Forget year in review: lets talk about how technology transformed education in the last MONTH thanks to ChatGPT
💥How to use it to educate: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-a…
👨‍🏫Automating my job as a professor: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanic…
🤖How my students are using it: oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-street-f…

https://twitter.com/emollick/status/1608814300805861377?s=46&t=5D3OrwpAXOPOwYLcHjcJzg

A few weeks ago my 13yo daughter was struggling on the conclusion for her history homework. It was about the civil rights movement in the US. She'd done some Googling but hadn't made much progress. I decided to fire up Chat GPT and decided to ask it the question that she'd been asked to answer and prompted for an A4 page response (the length she was expected to give). The response it gave was very plausible. We kept all the work that she'd used up to then but used its conclusion to help her write her own final paragraph. I suspect we could have copied and pasted the entire response and the teacher would never have known.

As an aside she is taught almost exclusively about "diverse" history and knows very little of British or European history. I find it very sad that children seem to know only small amounts of history on the island which they live.

I would have thought that intercontinental interactions are what shape and explain our world. Narrow focus UK and Europe history boil down to a bunch of repetitive parochial spats between posh rich whiteys using the poor as pawns. Looked at from far enough out.

Yup, such nonsense very neatly describes the utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history.

And what utter bollocks it is.

I will send my children to schools that teach it properly or otherwise privately tutor them myself.

Sure, but your world picture has to explain the "utter idiocy of the marxist Left on history" if that is a major facet of our modern world to you (and it clearly is).

A spectre is haunting casinoRoyaleville; the spectre of Woke. Is Woke itself better explained by various facets of intercontinental trade and war, or by whether Philip of Anjou edged it on penalties over Charles of Austria?

History is the summation of the whole human story to date - taught in our islands should have a particular focus on British history because that's where we live and it explains our institutions and values and how we got here. It should not be taught solely through the prism of gender, race and sexuality - as the Woke would have it.

One day lesser minds, like yours, will come round to this, but for now it's far easier for you to be a dumb sheep.

One does expect a British angle on things discussed by Britons in Britain. Hence why our colonialism (big and recent and OURS) shouldn't be contextualized away with "it's complicated" and "we were no worse than others" and "what about the Romans?" etc etc. Yet this what many try to do. Happens every single time we get into it.

With respect, you have a strong view on colonialism and it only leans one-way.

I have no issue with the facts being taught. I do have an issue with those facts being highly selective and placed outwith the context of the times.

We are able to teach a balanced history of the Roman empire. It shouldn't be hard to do the same for the British.

Do we teach a balanced history of the Roman Empire?

I'd say that one curiosity of English history is that all of the invasions are taught as a good, or at least neutral, thing. None of them were particularly oppressive conquests that the locals bravely fought against.

This is especially the case for the Roman conquest where it's taught we were jolly lucky to become part of the Empire, and it was a sad day when the Roman army was withdrawn.

Given that in some respects the British Empire was seen as a modern version of the Roman Empire, this can't help but colour the way we see it and see the reactions of those Britons of earlier generations conquered.

Everything that's wrong with the teaching of the Roman and British Empires in British schools can be summarised in the Monty Python, "What Did The Romans Ever Do For Us?" scene in The Life Of Brian.

There's surely a point where something ceases to be 'good' or bad' but rather something which happened. The history of man is history of conquest and war. It's so nebulous that it's pointless for the modern day.

Note I'm separating that from concepts like slavery, or human sacrifice which on any modern level are evil.

Andy_JS said:

Sunak's optimistic and cheerful demeanour is exactly what we need right now.

Andy.

Driver said:

TOPPING said:

Driver said:

TOPPING said:

Driver said:

MaxPB said:

Gardenwalker said:

My kids’ school in New York appears to draw parents trying to escape the woke invasion of private schools here.

The place is blissfully normal, and nobody cares about critical race theory. Having said that, the nativity play did feature some kind of Kwanza interlude.

Jen's schooling is one of the major driving forces pushing us to Ticino or Lugano, I don't trust UK education to not push all of the nonsense onto young impressionable kids and teachers who will try their hardest to convince girls who play with fire engines and bin lorries that they're actually boys.

One of my friends recently announced on Facebook that their son wants to be referred to as "they", despite there being only one Andrew. It was noticeable that this post got a lot fewer reactions than usual - people presumably being too polite to hit the "Haha" response.

What a tosser.

You, that is, not your friend's child.

I don't in any way criticise Andrew.

But you laugh and only some form of I don't know what prevented you from laughing in their face. No idea the age of the child but they probably don't need one of their parent's friends wanting to ridicule them (and doing so on another internet forum) for what is evidently a sensitive and challenging time for the whole family.

No, I didn't laugh, you completely made that up. I just concluded the lack of responses compared with usual was other people being too polite (or scared) to laugh.

You're doing a lot of missing the point today, aren't you?

Yeah and I think you should read over your post again.

You presumed that people would want to hit the "haha" response.

Why did you presume that?

You also decided on their child's behalf what they "should" be ("Andrew", then mocking "them", etc).

It was a nasty post. Own it.

TimS said:

Leon said:

To be fair to Sunak, his speech is a bit more substantial than “maths”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2023/jan/04/rishi-sunak-teach-maths-up-to-18-strikes-nhs-uk-politics-live

“Rishi Sunak says he will halve inflation, grow economy and cut NHS waiting lists – UK politics live

Prime minister makes wide-ranging speech on education, the economy, the NHS and small boats”


I fear that no one is listening, however

Those are at least SMART objectives. They are also ones he knows he will achieve.

Not even the most pessimistic inflation forecasts show it above half its peak by the end of the year. It may be significantly lower than that. So he'll be able to claim that and say job done.

Grow economy is a bit more of a hostage to fortune but fortunately for him there are various different ways to interpret this, and so long as GDP is growing by Q4 (which it should be unless we're in a double dip) he can chalk that one up as a resounding success too.

Cut waiting lists: well at least he's talking about it. One of the more controllable aspects of NHS performance so I assume he's quite confident they can do this. Waits have shot up so far that they could fall by weeks and still be greater than they were only a year ago

Cut small boats arrivals: that's the biggest hostage to fortune. The easiest fix if things aren't going as planned will be to make security at the Eurotunnel terminal more lax. Cut a few holes in the wire fences. Stop checking lorries. Then hey presto people won't be coming by boat anymore.

Good analysis. I think the "halve inflation" one is quite clever - as you say, everyone expects this to happen even if he does nothing to achieve it, but it will sound relevant to voters, unlike the trailed "more maths" emphasis. Actually, all the objectives come under the heading of "we'll make things less awful than at the peak which my predecessors created", which is better than nothing.

I know it’s a niche topic to most of you, but now is an ideal time for some good old radical Lib Dem policy ideas.

They’ve struggled in the last year since the T&H by-election because the big new policy ideas they proposed were co-opted by Labour: the energy price cap and windfall taxes.

If it’s policy season in journalism this month then get some eye catching ideas out there, ideally ones that Starmer wouldn’t automatically go for. Labour did their big devolution and constitutional reform thing with Brown last year so I don’t expect much from them for a while.

A few ideas:

- Some reform ideas for NHS and social care: everyone’s listening at the moment
- Environment: nothing in Rishi’s speech. Make the space your own. Focus on domestic stuff, not just renewables and insulation but pollution / sewage
- education: something more root and branch as well as repeating some previous pledges for catch up funding
- EU: remind people in blue wall Remainia why they might want to vote Lib Dem with a comprehensive roadmap to a better post-Brexit deal, including EFTA

kinabalu said:

Andy_JS said:

Sunak's optimistic and cheerful demeanour is exactly what we need right now.

Andy.

Yes?

It strikes me that even if Sunak achieves each of his five pledges (halving inflation, debt falling, economy growing, waiting lists down, fewer small boats) it's highly likely that all five measures will still be significantly worse than they were a few years back; so not much to get excited about.

A paucity of ambition, I think.

These 5 pledges are spectacularly unambitious.
Only one is a SMART target (as extensively discussed the other day, good move). That's the one which is so achievable as to be the equivalent of me pledging to turn up for work on Monday and not commit a serious criminal offence.

FWIW, the plague hasn't been completely eliminated in the US. There are infected rodents in the Western US that carry the disease -- and occasionally transmit it to humans. An average of 7 cases a year, says the CDC:
source: https://www.cdc.gov/plague/maps/index.html

"Plague is a very serious illness, but is treatable with commonly available antibiotics. The earlier a patient seeks medical care and receives treatment that is appropriate for plague, the better their chances are of a full recovery."