EDUCATION

"Oh one so pure so true
and beautiful,
Hark!
She wanders in a green field plucking flowers
in pastel shades
as the sun gleams down;
How divine the curve
of her leg
and her sweet bosom,
How honorable
what truthfulness
beats in her
absolutely true heart.
Porgy! Porgy!
I seek you both in daylight
and dream,
My angel
my untouched maiden,
my Queen."

"The Dream Poem of Wisey."

Channelled from a Dream I had.

Wisey Banks

Aha! That's Education for you. Poetry, Kafria, that's what should be taught! What better than a heart felt poem by a hobbit about his dear loyal and chaste wife. You might learn something from that yourself. I only wish I could dream up poems like that.

Kafria wrote:Channelling, just for me?

Ooo I'm going all tingly!

I hope it's not the tip of your finger!

Now let's see one from his wife's perspective. That will be quite interesting... Hobbit wives are quite...er... friendly

Ooh my luv is deep like a pond
not full of duckweed
or mud
or nothin' like that
it's got a spring under it
and the water
is really clear and clean to drink
that's how my love is

my luv is true
i would never go off with some guy
or guys
or milk maids
casual like
never
honest to God Wisey
i wouldn't lie
just to hoodwink you
like as if i figured
wot you didn't know
couldn't hurt you
nor a lie neither
or something like that
and that playin' up
is only a crime if you get caught
and i wouldn't do that to you
i wouldn't get caught
promise

oh i doo luv you
deeper than a pond
actually

Porgy Practicing Secretly in front of a Mirror
and channelled by her one and only
Wisey Banks (oh beautiful true hearted girl!)

Eric Schmidt Chairman of Google is in Edinburgh where he wasgiving the McTaggart Lecture at the International Television Festival.
He choose to use it to attack the education system in the UK saying; "the UK needs to reignite children's passion for science, engineering and maths. Dr Schmidt told the audience of broadcasters and producers that Britain had invented many items but were no longer the world's leading exponents in these fields.He said: "If I may be so impolite, your track record isn't great."The UK is home of so many media-related inventions. You invented photography. You invented TV. You invented computers in both concept and practice. It's not widely known, but the world's first office computer was built in 1951 by Lyons' chain of tea shops. Yet today, none of the world's leading exponents in these fields are from the UK." He said he had been flabbergasted to learn that computer science was not taught as standard in UK schools. "Your IT curriculum focuses on teaching how to use software, but gives no insight into how it's made. That is just throwing away your great computing heritage," he said.
He said the UK needed to bring art and science back together, as it had in the "glory days of the Victorian era" when Lewis Carroll wrote one of the classic fairy tales, Alice in Wonderland, and was also a mathematics tutor at Oxford."

I'm not sure about this rose tinted view of education past- it worked alright for the few not so sure about the many. However I agree about teaching computing- no point only knowing how to use programs someone else has made you have to know the very basics and be able to construct from the ground up yourself.

On a slight side note but one that ade me smile he also addressed the potential threat TV companies saw in google by saying ""Trust me - if you gave people at Google free rein to produce TV you'd end up with a lot of bad sci-fi," he said."

Pettytyrant101 wrote:I'm not sure about this rose tinted view of education past- it worked alright for the few not so sure about the many. However I agree about teaching computing- no point only knowing how to use programs someone else has made you have to know the very basics and be able to construct from the ground up yourself.

Ideologue!

Edinburgh uni has set its fees for non-Scots at the max amount of £9,000 a year. And given Scottish degress are a 4 year course and not 3 as in England thats quite a lot of money for your degree. Edinburgh uni claims it is one of the worlds leading universities (true) and that they have no choice now Westminister has withdrawn the funding.
Unsuprisingly ther has been a fall in english students applying to Scottish universities.

How does £9,000 compare to other countries for a degree course? (roughly $14,500 a year)

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Edinburgh uni has set its fees for non-Scots at the max amount of £9,000 a year. And given Scottish degress are a 4 year course and not 3 as in England thats quite a lot of money for your degree. Edinburgh uni claims it is one of the worlds leading universities (true) and that they have no choice now Westminister has withdrawn the funding.
Unsuprisingly ther has been a fall in english students applying to Scottish universities.

How does £9,000 compare to other countries for a degree course? (roughly $14,500 a year)

I did some private study - educating myself in fact. Did you know there's not much more than 5,000,000 Scotshobbits, Petty? Are you dying out?

Depends how you count us. If you count those who live in Scotland its about 5 million. If you count the ex pats its a fair bit more and if you count those descended from the Highland Clearances its rather a lot (most of Oz for a start, Canada, large parts of the USA amongst other places).

That is just sooo untrue! "Most of Oz"? The nerve!

Too scared to reply, too...!

Well when I say most of, I mean most of the original settlers. I know youve taken in others sine then but let me put it another way- would you rather claim Oz culture is more based on the Scottish heritage or the English? Ahh see now you'll be tripping over your comical kangroo sized feet to be Scots descent.

I like smart uniforms!!!! We have a new one and at the moment it is all shiny and new, all the kids look good!

Kafria wrote:I like smart uniforms!!!! We have a new one and at the moment it is all shiny and new, all the kids look good!

I like them too... Kafria...

Now, you obviously were thinking the obvious, Petty, but I wasn't... not really... do you think me so shallow...?

No not shallow just an Oz hobbit. Direct. Not a beater of metaphorical bushes.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:No not shallow just an Oz hobbit. Direct. Not a beater of metaphorical bushes.

There is only one kind of bush an Ozhobbit wants to beat... err... the Ozzie Beating Bush.... we make ropes from the branches... for tying things up... but not women (usually)... {{{{that was close }}}}}

{{yet so far}}

{{{{ }}}}}

A recent survey reported on the BBC news page into parents attitudes towards having corporal punishment reintroduced in schools turned up the following results;

'49% of more than 2,000 parents surveyed for the Times Educational Supplement were in favour, compared with 45% who were opposed... when parents were asked specifically about "smacking/caning children", support dropped to 40%, with 53% disagreeing. Support remained high for most traditional punishments, including sending children out of class (89%), after-school detentions (88%), lunch time detentions (87%), expelling or suspending children (84%), and making them write lines (77%). But shouting at children was less popular, backed by only 55% of parents, and embarrassing children was frowned on, with just 21% of parents supporting it."

Michael Grove the Education Secretary said; ""The right every child deserves to be taught properly is currently undermined by the twisting of rights by a minority who need to be taught an unambiguous lesson in who is boss." He said the government was signalling to teachers "they are freer to use their own judgement" and boosting teacher training on behaviour management."

However the National Union of Teachers said parents may have got the "erroneous impression" from government statements that the classroom was a place of "rowdy and disrespectful behaviour". It said teachers needed consistent support from management, along with appropriate sanctions and rewards, "not the right to hit children".
The NASUWT teachers' union said there was a "mythology" around corporal punishment. In the 1950s and 1960s, vandalism and assaults against teachers were "common features of life" in many schools, and evidence suggested behaviour had improved since the practice was banned.

So who is right? Are things better or worse since corporal punishment was banned?
What's the situation in other folks countries? Do you have corporal punishment? If so does it seem to work? If not do you think you need it?

I was smacked gently by my mom as a child as I’m sure many of us are (maybe?) and don’t feel that had a massive adverse damage on me, but if I had been hit by a teacher it would have massively changed the trust/relationship there and I think definitely would not have made me a better pupil as I would not have had respect for an adult who hits children.

Not that I was the best of pupils anyways!

Ally wrote:I was smacked gently by my mom as a child as I’m sure many of us are (maybe?) and don’t feel that had a massive adverse damage on me, but if I had been hit by a teacher it would have massively changed the trust/relationship there and I think definitely would not have made me a better pupil as I would not have had respect for an adult who hits children.

Not that I was the best of pupils anyways!

A good hard smack would never do anyone any harm --- so long as it was really really hard.

Apart from making it worse...