Is it just me

[Harry Bloomfield]

My son, I was proud of, when he passed his RAE and got his amateur radio licence at 14, I am sure his teacher knew he had passed it, so one would have thought he would have been wary. However, my son comes home laughing at his teacher, who had said there were two types of transistor could anyone name them? Son answered bipolar and field effect, and was told wrong, it was PNP and NPN.

Teachers, are themselves, only taught just enough to be able to teach what they teach. They so rarely have any real, deep understanding of what they are teaching, or how things actually work. I did the RAE course, not because needed it, but to ensure I wouldn't be caught out by the exam. There were numerous points, were the lecturer was expressing wrong information, and I took him to task over, lugging a copy of the RSGB manual in, but I was wasting my time. One point he was confusing, was the working/design différance, between a 'noise blanker', and a 'noise limiter'. His information suggested they were one and the same thing.

 

[ericmark]

The problem is often teachers have never had a job which needs their training, so any errors in the training they are unaware of, and the syllabus often changes, without them being retrained. We have allied trades, where both trades do some of the same work, the same happens with teachers, my last physics course was taught by a chemist, and in the main he had the knowledge, but he did lack some of the electrical knowledge.

But secondary school is a limited time, and there is a limit at what can be taught in the time. So I was never taught how to use a computer at school, not even a calculator, so if that is taught, something else has to be missed, some things can be dropped, how to use knotts or castles log tables for example, but I was not taught boolean logic at school.

I did need to do 'games' and got in trouble when found playing chess in the game's lesson, I was just as pedantic back then. I really could not work out why I had to learn to throw a javelin? Or how to kick a ball, or hit one with a stick, or bat, seemed a waste of time, I would never have a job needing those skills.

So most of us at 16 specialised in some subject, be it an apprenticeship, collage, university, or some other vocation, and in the main by 21 we were trained, the apprenticeship had been shortened to just 5 years, it was 7 in my dad's day, but he left school at 14, so 2 extra years in school, meant 2 less years training for one's job, with my children it was 18, so apprenticeship reduced to 3 years, and to cram in the knowledge is less time, we also spent more and more time in collage and gone was the journeyman.

Collage courses assumed one had some background knowledge, how to use log tables for example, but this background knowledge can be lacking, and when I went to University I was given an exam to find out if I had the background knowledge. And I thought knowing logs, was how to use log tables, or a slide rule, oh was my maths lacking.

But some of the bits we were taught have changed, it was red to red, yellow to yellow and blue to bits. Does not work with grey to bits. I was taught L was for live, now L is for line, and both line and neutral are live, any wonder people get confused, and red is for danger, so if you see danger you press the red button not the green! How did that happen. If for personal safety a switch or relay is yellow or red, seems good, until someone does not follow the rules, and uses a black one.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

But secondary school is a limited time, and there is a limit at what can be taught in the time. So I was never taught how to use a computer at school, not even a calculator, so if that is taught, something else has to be missed, some things can be dropped, how to use knotts or castles log tables for example, but I was not taught boolean logic at school.

No such thing as computers, when I was at school - it was all valves, until transistors appeared. I got myself interested in electronics, after school, then when the very early computers came along, they really grabbed my interest. It cost me many thousands.

I did need to do 'games' and got in trouble when found playing chess in the game's lesson, I was just as pedantic back then. I really could not work out why I had to learn to throw a javelin? Or how to kick a ball, or hit one with a stick, or bat, seemed a waste of time, I would never have a job needing those skills.

I wasn't athletic, at all. Whilst in secondary school, at the local library, I happened across a book on chess, it caught my interest, and I began in earnest studying it. Next thing, I was teaching lots of others at school, to play. We would end up playing during the break times.