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Posted
I don't think its a reduction in intelligence , I just think its exposure to other stuff , eg this eternal texting, gaming etc. The things that we absorbed as we grew up have somehow just been replaced by electronic media. I think I grew up in a magical era I left school at fifteen ( in fact at 14 three weeks before 15) but somehow feel that my educational background in most aspects was so much better than kids have today.
Posted
There's a posting on Facebook by a young friend of mine - I suppose he'd be around 24 - who is now a school-teacher; he was looking through his school-work, and wondered if they did anything at all at school other than create Powerpoint presentations.... Well, they plainly did, because his grammar and spelling are unusually good (unusually given his age, although there are plenty of people of my age who seem to have trouble writing in their own language) but I think great damage was done when we went for bigger and bigger schools; the economies of scale have outweighed the benefits of a more intimate education. <div>
</div><div>Incidentally, this trend began - thanks to the post-war baby boom - long before the introduction of comprehensives; but while I have no affection for the old grammar schools - many of which were just state schools pretending to be Eton - the comprehensives were a different kind of disaster because they provided a standard model and size of school designed around the convenience of the state rather than that of teachers and children. </div><div>
</div><div>Art-work coming out of the schools, however, is often fabulous - so it's wrong to despair of "young people today", even though as a former employer I was often dismayed by the lack of even basic knowledge in those applying for jobs.</div>
Posted
I replied on Pat's blog post to the effect that it is hardly unusual for an older generation to bemoan the ineptitude of the younger. It isn't a lack of intelligence, of course not - it is a different set of experiences, and less of them. Education and environment play their part, and both are created by the older generations.
At 40-something, I am neither the eldest nor the youngest. I started my education in the 1970s, when grammar was considered outdated. Most of my generation are capable of stringing a sentence together, even if we don't always know what the names of the fancier tenses are. My children - now at primary school - are being taught the names of language elements, and the rules; there are a few that are new to me.
I hate to say it, but aren't blanket statements about the inferiority of the upcoming generation more telling of the insecurity of the person uttering them?
Posted
I just escaped the era of "naming of parts" of speech: oxymoron, litotes, hyperbole, pluperfect, past participle - I have a good idea of what most of those mean, but a very hazy one of others (can't remember what litotes means..). I think I've got as good a command of English as most, though..... (except the virtue of brevity).<div>
</div><div>In the 80s and 90s, there was a vogue for "not worrying" about spelling and grammar, so long as you could "express yourself"; which meant we had people coming to us for quite senior jobs who couldn't write a letter or report in any kind of English that made any kind of sense. This didn't reflect adversely on their intelligence, it just said a lot about the incompetence of their teachers (and lecturers; much of the damage was done in colleges and universities).</div><div>
</div><div>The only thing that causes me any real worry is that my generation, and Amanda's too it seems - whom I can give 20 years, though I'd much rather have them back - are going to be the repositories of ancient skills for which the modern world has no use; a bit like the copperplate handwriting typical of my grandfather's generation and earlier.</div><div>
</div><div>So we'll be marooned and useless, in a sea of what we'll be wanting to call others' ignorance; when in fact it's just that no one needs us any more............. </div>
Posted
When we were young we knew little...but today memories permitting we know a lot about all that historical stuff.
That historical stuff we know is foreign to the young and what they know is almost foreign to us.
But what they know is important for our future...so just don't deride them.
My 13 year old computer wizard has his uses...even though he knows nothing about gills, quarts, bushels, hundredweights, shillings..
Posted
I'm sort of with Phil on this. I can remember from my comprehensive days, being introduced to Binary, Hexadecimal etc. Baffled my parents of course, as they had never come across this "new" maths, nor did they see the point of it. I went on to have a good career in computer programing, using binary, hex...................
Each generation must learn what they need to progress in the world. I don't subscribe to any media frenzy that will seek out small minorities to justify attacks on our youth. The vast majority have brilliant active and inquisitive minds. They may not have much interest in "the past", and who can blame them - but they will build the future.
On the other hand, my daughter, a primary teacher, has been told the new curriculum for next year will include maths using old roman numerals................... my turn to be baffled. Is it an age thing? I rather suspect some Eton and Oxbridge educated politician may have had a hand in that ludicrous idea!
Posted
In the good old days of Secondary Modern one of my all-time best maths teachers also had to deal with class 4C (lowest of the low final year)....
He taught them differential calculus...they did not get it, but their parents were most impressed!
It wa better than admitting they could not add up!