I despair of the education system.

bylromarha

Nick_C wrote: »

If we don't educate our young people properly, then we will continue to lose jobs to people from those countries that do.

Stories of what it used to be like in the good old days may be boring to the young and ignorant, but if you don't know how much better education standards were the past then you cannot understand how poor they are now.

But I don't think standards are that much worse, I just think the emphasis is in a different place. It went off times tables and onto other things.

Like I said before, DS is doing maths 3 years earlier than I did it in the 80s.

Also, I think education standards from the past are based on the 3 part school system. We're expecting kids these days to learn things in secondary that they'd never have even had the opportunity to learn in the past.

Mrs_Ryan

I was in a shop yesterday and I bought three things costing £2.68.
I had to empty my purse on the counter and ask the assistant to help me which she happily did. No doubt some of you had you been standing in the queue would have shook your heads and muttered about teaching standards but it's nothing to do with the way I was taught- I have severe dyscalculia and I struggle with things most people would take for granted- counting coins being the worst.

I usually pay by card but I hadn't had time to go to the bank and pay in the £10 OH gave me yesterday morning. I even have a Chip and Sign card as I can't use a PIN. I'm currently studying GCSE Maths and I'm needing a LOT of help just to try and understand. I'm not stupid- I'm in the second year of an English degree- but I do have a learning difficulty and it's not something I can help. Just because someone can't do something doesn't mean the education system has failed them or they're stupid.

pendragon_arther

Mrs_Ryan wrote: »

I was in a shop yesterday and I bought three things costing £2.68.
I had to empty my purse on the counter and ask the assistant to help me which she happily did. No doubt some of you had you been standing in the queue would have shook your heads and muttered about teaching standards but it's nothing to do with the way I was taught- I have severe dyscalculia and I struggle with things most people would take for granted- counting coins being the worst.

I usually pay by card but I hadn't had time to go to the bank and pay in the £10 OH gave me yesterday morning. I even have a Chip and Sign card as I can't use a PIN. I'm currently studying GCSE Maths and I'm needing a LOT of help just to try and understand. I'm not stupid- I'm in the second year of an English degree- but I do have a learning difficulty and it's not something I can help. Just because someone can't do something doesn't mean the education system has failed them or they're stupid.

That's very true and I don't think anyone could dispute that. However, certain jobs require certain skills and I would hope that in a job that requires the assistant to deal with money or counting that person would have the necessary skills to be able to do basic mental arithmetic. When I was a kid teachers taught by repetition which is one of the best ways to learn something off by heart plus it uses certain brain cells devoted to memory. I was useless at maths but as I'm now in my 60s and at that age brain cells deteriorate I use mental arithmetic, crosswords etc to get the grey matter working. If I didn't my brain would turn to glue. And that is why brain exercises like using mental arithmetic instead of a calculator all the time helps the cells to maintain activity.

George_Michael

daytona0 wrote: »

q.e.d.

Good debating technique, totally ignore a question that you don't want to answer.

Mrs_Ryan wrote: »

Just because someone can't do something doesn't mean the education system has failed them or they're stupid.

I agree 100%. Not being able to do something isn't generally a problem and in many cases is something that can be lived with in everyday life but it can be a problem if you are in the sort of job that often requires you to do the thing that you are not very good at.
I was never very good at learning French whilst at school and despite having another attempt at this later in life, I can honestly say that most pupils taking GCSE French will be able to converse in, and understand the written language far better then I ever will.
Is this a problem for me?
Not in the least but I wouldn't take up employment where I needed a reasonable knowledge of the French language to do that job.
A cashier who has a poor standard of basic arithmetic is IMO, no different to me trying to work in a French restaurant whilst not being to read the menu.

Pennywise

George_Michael wrote: »

Not being able to do something isn't generally a problem and in many cases is something that can be lived with in everyday life but it can be a problem if you are in the sort of job that often requires you to do the thing that you are not very good at.

But it's not just doing the job is it? If you don't have basic numeracy skills, you're at a massive risk of either being ripped off by unscrupulous people or at the very least, the victim of mistakes by others.

I've lost count of the number of times I've been over-charged in shops, restaurants, etc. To give the benefit of the doubt, this seems usually to be simple mistakes. It seems very easy for a shop till scanner to scan a single item twice or for the shop cashier or restaurant waiter to press the wrong button on the till and over-charge you. I know to within a few percent what I expect my shopping basket or restaurant bill to be so I can easily and quickly challenge a bill higher than I expect before I hand over the money, which makes it quicker and easier to rectify. And that's without the well-known problems of tills not properly doing the BOGOFS and special offers. How many people will pay without checking and thus lose out?

A few months ago, I ordered a new carpet for the lounge. I measured the room and worked out the square metreage required (very simple area sum which is primary school ability level). In the showroom, the available widths was clearly visible on the samples, so in my head, I worked out how many square metres of the carpet I'd need, and multiplied it by the price per sq mtr, (all rounded) so to within a tenner, I knew how much it would be. When it came to ordering, I gave the guy the dimensions and he started tapping away at his calculator and came up with a figure a good hundred pounds more than I got in my head. I challenged him and he did it again and came up with a figure £50 more, which I again told him was still wrong, so he got another salesman to come over, who re-worked it and came up with a figure just a fiver different to my own.

Without basic numeracy skills, I'd have walked out a hundred quid lighter! We're not talking degree level maths, or even A level, and probably not even GCSE - this is very simple area mixed with a bit of multiplication. The kind of thing that's in the 11+ exam.

I do wonder if all this "I'm no good at maths me!" is all down to not teaching the basics properly at primary level. Without knowing the times tables, it's very easy to see why kids feel they're useless at maths when it comes to other things like multiplication and division and then later on, when it comes to algebra and equations.

daytona0

George_Michael wrote: »

Good debating technique, totally ignore a question that you don't want to answer.

Because I don't care beyond:

"Is that an incorrect way of solving the problem?"

"No"

Anything beyond that is rhetoric.

Perhaps shop staff should learn some latin so that they could say "quod erat demonstrandum" next time someone questions their problem solving technique :rofl:

missbiggles1

bylromarha wrote: »

But I don't think standards are that much worse, I just think the emphasis is in a different place. It went off times tables and onto other things.

Like I said before, DS is doing maths 3 years earlier than I did it in the 80s.

Also, I think education standards from the past are based on the 3 part school system. We're expecting kids these days to learn things in secondary that they'd never have even had the opportunity to learn in the past.

TBF (and not meaning to be personal) standards had already plummeted by the 80s. Many of us decrying current standards are going back rather earlier than that.

takman

Pennywise wrote: »

But it's not just doing the job is it? If you don't have basic numeracy skills, you're at a massive risk of either being ripped off by unscrupulous people or at the very least, the victim of mistakes by others.

I've lost count of the number of times I've been over-charged in shops, restaurants, etc. To give the benefit of the doubt, this seems usually to be simple mistakes. It seems very easy for a shop till scanner to scan a single item twice or for the shop cashier or restaurant waiter to press the wrong button on the till and over-charge you. I know to within a few percent what I expect my shopping basket or restaurant bill to be so I can easily and quickly challenge a bill higher than I expect before I hand over the money, which makes it quicker and easier to rectify. And that's without the well-known problems of tills not properly doing the BOGOFS and special offers. How many people will pay without checking and thus lose out?

A few months ago, I ordered a new carpet for the lounge. I measured the room and worked out the square metreage required (very simple area sum which is primary school ability level). In the showroom, the available widths was clearly visible on the samples, so in my head, I worked out how many square metres of the carpet I'd need, and multiplied it by the price per sq mtr, (all rounded) so to within a tenner, I knew how much it would be. When it came to ordering, I gave the guy the dimensions and he started tapping away at his calculator and came up with a figure a good hundred pounds more than I got in my head. I challenged him and he did it again and came up with a figure £50 more, which I again told him was still wrong, so he got another salesman to come over, who re-worked it and came up with a figure just a fiver different to my own.

Without basic numeracy skills, I'd have walked out a hundred quid lighter! We're not talking degree level maths, or even A level, and probably not even GCSE - this is very simple area mixed with a bit of multiplication. The kind of thing that's in the 11+ exam.

I do wonder if all this "I'm no good at maths me!" is all down to not teaching the basics properly at primary level. Without knowing the times tables, it's very easy to see why kids feel they're useless at maths when it comes to other things like multiplication and division and then later on, when it comes to algebra and equations.

Like I said earlier ive never really learned my times tables but I'm currently doing a course which has very advanced math and I don't have any difficulties. I can understand your points about needing to be able to do mental arithmetic, but it's not essential!. In your example of the supermarket I always do scan as you shop when in Tescos so this means I will notice any mistakes immediately and I don't have to queue up. When buying carpet I would get out my phone and know the exact price of the carpet before I spoke to any salesmen.

So because of this I think most people don't really practice mental arithmetic and loose the skill.

takman

missbiggles1 wrote: »

TBF (and not meaning to be personal) standards had already plummeted by the 80s. Many of us decrying current standards are going back rather earlier than that.

I have no idea what education standards were like in the past but I don't think education is that bad at the moment. What exactly made it better in the past, considering that now we have calculators and computers teaching priorities have needed to change.

Pennywise

missbiggles1 wrote: »

TBF (and not meaning to be personal) standards had already plummeted by the 80s. Many of us decrying current standards are going back rather earlier than that.

I think things are getting better than the 80's/90's generally. I was at school in the late 70's and early 80's and the teachers were then complaining about the dumbing down and telling us we'd never had it so good compared to those doing their O and A levels in the years above us, and expecting higher grades in the future.

I remember the text books in most subjects had whole chapters that we were told we no longer had to study as they'd been removed from the syllabus.

In particular, I remember maths teachers telling us that they expected far better results from us with the advent of calculators, as they no longer needed to teach harder things like slide rules & logs and that trig (sin, cos and tan) were far easier now you had keys on a calculator rather than having to look them up in books of tables and then having to use slide rules or logs or long multiplication/division to do the calculations to find the angle or length required.

If anything, subjects like Maths should have been made harder when calculators came on the scene!