Nice people thread part 4 - sugar and spice and all things

zagubov

lostinrates wrote: »

As a student I was very prejudiced against the US system...pours was ''better'' deeper, higher. As an adult I'm pro it. My US peers have a greater bredth of knowledge IMO than many of my UK ones.

Now I think that for well rounded polymath students then the US or European greater breadth might well produce a better ''finished'' product before specialisation.

I'd back you 100% on that- I believe that a general education is more important to most people than a specialised one.

lostinrates wrote: »

What is the system in India and the Far East...China for example? Broad or specialised?

Not sure, I think China only puts 2% of its population through higher education locally.
Have you seen this
"Shift Happens"

Generali

My limited experience of US education is that the state school system is awful but the unis are excellent, at least judging by their output they are.

India and most of the Far East tend to put a premium on regurgitation of facts rather than independent thought. As a result, Indian accountants are excellent in my very extensive experience. Indian administrators tend to be utterly hopeless and incredibly frustrating to train and deal with. I have worked on a number of outsourcing/offshoring projects so I speak from bitter experience.

lostinrates

Generali wrote: »

My limited experience of US education is that the state school system is awful but the unis are excellent, at least judging by their output they are.

I have to admit my experiences were not ''US Public school'' but followed that US system rather than Uk system for a while nevertheless, just it was paid for, lol. DH went to a US state school for a little while...not long. I shall ask him how he found it academically should I remember.

edit: my guess is, not unlike here....its partly geographic, no?

Generali

lostinrates wrote: »

I have to admit my experiences were not ''US Public school'' but followed that US system rather than Uk system for a while nevertheless, just it was paid for, lol. DH went to a US state school for a little while...not long. I shall ask him how he found it academically should I remember.

edit: my guess is, not unlike here....its partly geographic, no?

My belief is that US public education ranges from bad to awful! I'd be glad to be shown to be wrong.

vivatifosi

misskool wrote: »

You can't have it all though. I teach students intensively (I only really teach postgraduate level) and even then there are massive gaps to plug.

That reminds me of something DH told me when he was doing his PhD. The woman on the bench next to him had a beaker of water on a stand over a bunsen burner, with a thermometer in it. When he asked her why she had a thermometer in the water, she said "so I know when it gets to 100 degrees C".

lostinrates

vivatifosi wrote: »

That reminds me of something DH told me when he was doing his PhD. The woman on the bench next to him had a beaker of water on a stand over a bunsen burner, with a thermometer in it. When he asked her why she had a thermometer in the water, she said "so I know when it gets to 100 degrees C".

we all have those moments, but that one is funny.


I once had driven a hugely long way to collect some data and samples and I was also going to do a feacal worm count for the farm owner as a favour..but got back at about 2am. I decided to bung the samples in the freezer :wall::wall: and do it in the morning. eventually done two days later, after going back next day for some fresh poop and not put in freezer overnight. (I've never actualkly done a comparison between frozen and fresh samples to see if its true that its the worst idea in the world, so thats also pretty shoddy of me I guess.)

zagubov

Never mind the shortcomings of the US system; in the 19th century they proposed to supply free public education in England and these words were part of the debate:

"I venture to maintain that it is quite possible to teach a child soundly and thoroughly, in a way that he shall not forget it, all that is necessary for him to possess in the shape of intellectual attainment by the time he is ten years old.

If he has been properly looked after in the lower classes he shall be able to spell correctly the words that he will ordinarily have to use;

he shall read a common narrative—the paragraph in the newspaper he cares to read—with sufficient ease to be a pleasure to himself and to convey information to listeners;

if gone to live a distance from home, he shall write his mother a letter that shall be both legible and intelligible;

he knows enough of ciphering to make out or test the correctness of a common shop bill;

if he hears talk of foreign countries he has some notion as to the part of the habitable globe in which they lie;

and underlying all, and not without its influence, I trust, upon his life and conversation, he has acquaintance enough with the Holy Scriptures to follow the allusions and arguments of a plain Saxon sermon, and a sufficient recollection of the truths taught him in his catechism to know what are the duties required of him towards his Maker and his fellow man"

Would all our ten-year-olds be able to do this now?:A

PasturesNew

vivatifosi wrote: »

T
When he asked her why she had a thermometer in the water, she said "so I know when it gets to 100 degrees C".

That makes sense to me. Water boils at 100 degrees..... but how do you know when it's boiling? When you're boiling water there are lots of stages it goes through close to the end.... how'd you know it'd actually got to 100 degrees without a thermometer...... maybe only half of it's boiling so only half of it is at 100 degrees and the rest is still catching up and only at 98!!

PasturesNew

zagubov wrote: »

Would all our ten-year-olds be able to do this now?:A

I spotted a couple of areas in that list that I wouldn't be able to do even now.

When you lot (and others) speak of foreign places, I've no idea where most of them are... and some I've never heard of.

michaels

Nothing wrong with having a 2.1 from Cambridge...

GDB2222 wrote: »

Edit: He has a 2:1 from Cambridge. Why not an A*?

I know someone at a Scottish Uni who has been researching learning in a science subject and has looked at performance in an entry assessment test that has been run for the last 30+ years - students A level grades have gone up consistently during the period, no prizes for guessing the pattern of results in the consistent test. English students are now being encouraged to follow the Scottish pattern of 4 year fegrees so that they can do a first year of 'remedial' study.