Are there really people this uneducated in this Country?

[Nozzle]

I'm don't think there's much merit in that, isn't someone who wants to pocket cash going to do it anyway?

It seems to happen in all petrol stations too - all litres end in .9p. It's not like this on the continent!

Nozzle

 

[Trazor]

And yet the number of A-level passes continues to rise year after year.

 

[JohnD]

I'm willing to bet that most of the people with three As can read and write tolerably well.

They have little relevance to the group too ashamed to ask the way to the adult literacy classes.

Being too ignorant to spell proper nouns with a capital letter does not affect functional literacy.

Mitch.

 

[Trazor]

I'm willing to bet that most of the people with three As can read and write tolerably well.

They have little relevance to the group too ashamed to ask the way to the adult literacy classes.

Being too ignorant to spell proper nouns with a capital letter does not affect functional literacy.

Mitch.

Yes, a generalisation too far by me, but I'm not convinced by our education system.

 

[Deleted member 63160]

I'm willing to bet that most of the people with three As can read and write tolerably well.

They have little relevance to the group too ashamed to ask the way to the adult literacy classes.

Being too ignorant to spell proper nouns with a capital letter does not affect functional literacy.

Mitch.

For sure. I was only pulling your leg. Typo's mean nothing really I know. Is "there's" a proper noun?

 

[Deleted member 63160]

PS mitch66 is an old password not my name

 

[blightymam]

HA!
Actually, I think I've put this on here before... but it's still great so will put it up again..

 

[ladylola]

I did pretty decently in my O levels all those years ago , multiple equations , differnenciation , algreba did it all in my stride without problems. Since leaving school I haven't had the need to actually use any of that and am sure I'd struggle and now my daughter has started at senior school I'm pretty sure I will struggle when she asks me to help with the homework. But , working in the building industry calculations such as floor area , angles and geometry get called upon much more frequently so that says fresh in the mind. As said it's all about what is used or not post school.

 

[^woody^]

How many people go into Screwfix, and don't get the concept of looking in the catalogue, writing down a code on a bit of paper, going to the till, paying, moving away from the till, and wating in the corner for the items? The first part of the process is open-ended. That latter part should take about a minute.

Yes there are too many thick people. The problem is, they don't know it.

 

[EFLImpudence]

moving away from the till, and wating in the corner for the items?

Toolstation has free tea machine for that very purpose.

 

[Brigadier]

I did pretty decently in my O levels all those years ago , multiple equations , differnenciation , algreba did it all in my stride without problems. Since leaving school I haven't had the need to actually use any of that and am sure I'd struggle and now my daughter has started at senior school I'm pretty sure I will struggle when she asks me to help with the homework. But , working in the building industry calculations such as floor area , angles and geometry get called upon much more frequently so that says fresh in the mind. As said it's all about what is used or not post school.

I'm having that quandary, LL.
Got an A level in maths, but have done nothing past "basic arithmetic" for better part of 30 yrs.
Firstborn's homework (algebra, indices, ratios etc, at the moment); I can do it, but am both rusty, and am unsure whether the way I was taught still applies.
As I don't want to confuse him, we decided that a tutor might be the best way forwards.

Another thing that came out is that kids don't have enough repetition nowadays, to really bed in a concept; stuff he did last week (half-a-dozen times), he's already very vague on. I still recall a lot of it from 30 yrs ago because we had to do so many repetitions.

 

[bernardgreen]

Another problem facing the youth is the schools teach to get the students through the exams and thus boost the schools "rating" in league tables.

My school educated students to be successful in careers and life in general and not predominately to pass exams while still at school. We passed the exams but it was not as easy for us in the examination room as it was for pupils in other schools whose teaching was aimed at passing exams. In fact our school would have been close if not at the top of the leaque table had they been bothered about it.

 

[noseall]

Yes there are too many thick people. The problem is, they don't know it.

Thick and extraordinarily selfish.

 

[ladylola]

I'm having that quandary, LL.
Got an A level in maths, but have done nothing past "basic arithmetic" for better part of 30 yrs.
Firstborn's homework (algebra, indices, ratios etc, at the moment); I can do it, but am both rusty, and am unsure whether the way I was taught still applies.

Methodology has certainly changed and that was brought home to me when my daughter was at primary school and asked me to check her maths homework. The method I was taught for multiplication and division seemed to me simple and logical but the "chunking" method she had learned seemed ok for multiplication but cumbersome and prone to error for the division.

 

[Doggit]

When I did maths, things were quite simple, we had multiplication, long division and algebra. We didn't have calculators, but were allowed to uses slide rules. We had times like average, and that represented something, but nowadays, the kids learn mean, and mode and all sorts of things, which seem to have no relevance in the real world, and get forgotten quickly. But if you don't understand how maths works, you can't guarantee that the calculators giving you the right answer.

But having seen many shop workers that went through the progressive education system of letting them find their creative inner person, be unable to do any calculations for themselves, I know why we're about 17th in the education league.