Monday Morning
Monday 5th February, 2007 09:48 Comments: 7
Despite it being National Sickie Day, I am indeed at work (and despite police cars and a diversion, I still made it in before 9). Surveys suggest the first Monday in February is the worst day of the year for absenteeism. Post-Christmas blues, poor weather, credit card bills and a long wait for the next holiday have all been blamed for workers wanting to stay in bed.
In other news, Mandarin and Arabic would be taught alongside Shakespeare and slavery, under proposed changes to the school curriculum in England and Wales. Lessons in climate change and healthy cooking could be offered to make teenagers more aware of hazards facing the planet and their own health. And studies about the British slave trade and the reform movement that ended it could raise awareness of the need for integration.
I can perhaps understand why Mandarin is proposed, as Asia slowly becomes more important and relevant to business, but perhaps we should focus on improving English first. I can see how climate change could be an important issue to teach our children, but our efforts are futile unless the big offenders make an effort (*cough* America *cough*), and even though the IPCC claim that temperatures will increase and that the end of the world is night (okay, I don't think they quite say that), there are many opponents with sensible arguments that claim global warming isn't perhaps as serious an issue as the world seems to think. As for raising the awareness of integration, perhaps we should sort out our own issues first, such as whether muslim women can wear veils in official photographs and when teaching children, or whether christian women can openly wear crosses.
In more interesting news, the Cadbury's Flake girl is back! Blonde model Alyssa Sutherland will be seen gently nibbling the bar when a new commercial hits the UK's TV screens this week. In traditional style, Alyssa is shown peeling back the wrapper and enjoying the crumbly confectionery. Sexy!
In other news, Mandarin and Arabic would be taught alongside Shakespeare and slavery, under proposed changes to the school curriculum in England and Wales. Lessons in climate change and healthy cooking could be offered to make teenagers more aware of hazards facing the planet and their own health. And studies about the British slave trade and the reform movement that ended it could raise awareness of the need for integration.
I can perhaps understand why Mandarin is proposed, as Asia slowly becomes more important and relevant to business, but perhaps we should focus on improving English first. I can see how climate change could be an important issue to teach our children, but our efforts are futile unless the big offenders make an effort (*cough* America *cough*), and even though the IPCC claim that temperatures will increase and that the end of the world is night (okay, I don't think they quite say that), there are many opponents with sensible arguments that claim global warming isn't perhaps as serious an issue as the world seems to think. As for raising the awareness of integration, perhaps we should sort out our own issues first, such as whether muslim women can wear veils in official photographs and when teaching children, or whether christian women can openly wear crosses.
In more interesting news, the Cadbury's Flake girl is back! Blonde model Alyssa Sutherland will be seen gently nibbling the bar when a new commercial hits the UK's TV screens this week. In traditional style, Alyssa is shown peeling back the wrapper and enjoying the crumbly confectionery. Sexy!
Fab - Monday 5th February, 2007 10:37 Chocolate and sexy women, you can die a happy man!!
Arabic and Mandarin are too specialist to realistically be taken up as part of a school curriculum. Only a small number of students would ever do them. Of course this is different for schools in an ethnic minority dominated borough. Teaching them English and their parent's language rather than French makes good sense.
I thought slavery was meant to be taught in history classes anyway (I certainly was) or maybe that was a subtle hint to teach something other than WW2 history! Healthy cooking (yay finally) and climate change make eminent sense despite any scientific arguments. Let's face it, making our economy self sustaining has to be a priority and scaring people about climate change is a good way to do it. Americans being the bad boys is fine as it means we can corner the market and make $$$$$$$bns! :-)
Arabic and Mandarin are too specialist to realistically be taken up as part of a school curriculum. Only a small number of students would ever do them. Of course this is different for schools in an ethnic minority dominated borough. Teaching them English and their parent's language rather than French makes good sense.
I thought slavery was meant to be taught in history classes anyway (I certainly was) or maybe that was a subtle hint to teach something other than WW2 history! Healthy cooking (yay finally) and climate change make eminent sense despite any scientific arguments. Let's face it, making our economy self sustaining has to be a priority and scaring people about climate change is a good way to do it. Americans being the bad boys is fine as it means we can corner the market and make $$$$$$$bns! :-)
I'm not sure about making billions, especially with such a strong pound right now making all our exports very expensive. It's good to try and make a difference to the world, but I'm not sure you need to devote lessons to it. You could include it within the syllabus for geography and biology lessons, for example. Aren't healthy diets already being taught in schools? Many aspects of life that have traditionally been taught by parents (e.g. sex, cooking) are now being forced upon schools. In some cases this is a good thing, as teachers usually have a better knowledge than the parents, but it does start to reduce the need for parents to spend time with their children.
Too true, but how do you tell parents they are bad parents without sounding like an asshole? Also teachers are no worse or better than anyone else for bringing up kids. Just because you heap abuse on a class of kids doesn't mean you know how to look after your own... The skills are quite different despite it still being kids.
Teachers are often provided with study materials and will typically know more about things like sexually transmitted diseases or recommended daily allowances. Your comment reminds me of a column by Scott Granneman: http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/408/2
I'm reminded of another story from my days as an English teacher years ago. It was parent-teacher conferences, and I was meeting with the parents of Sandy, a 9th grade girl who was quite smart but never did a lick of homework. I was a youth of 23, still green, while Sandy's parents were in their 40s. The conversation went something like this (and this is the absolute truth, I promise):
Sandy's Dad: We just can't figure out why Sandy's grades aren't any good.
Me: She doesn't do her homework.
Dad: Ah. Um ... how do we get her to do her homework?
Me: Do you have a dining room table?
Sandy's Mom (proudly): Oh yes!
Me: What does Sandy do after dinner?
Dad: She goes to her room.
Me: Well, how about after dinner, you have Sandy sit at the dining room table and do her homework instead?
Mom (leaning over to Dad): Write that down!
(Dad takes out a slip of paper from his pocket and a pen and - I swear to you - wrote down "Do homework at dining room table.")
Dad: What else?
Me: How about one of you get up every half hour or so and ask her what she's working on and then check it?
Mom (excitedly leaning over to Dad): Write that down!
(Dad writes down "Check homework every 30 min's.")
This astonished me. Here I was, only 23 and childless, and I was telling adults how to parent their teen! At that point I realized the awful truth: lots of people just don't know how to raise their kids.
Sandy's Dad: We just can't figure out why Sandy's grades aren't any good.
Me: She doesn't do her homework.
Dad: Ah. Um ... how do we get her to do her homework?
Me: Do you have a dining room table?
Sandy's Mom (proudly): Oh yes!
Me: What does Sandy do after dinner?
Dad: She goes to her room.
Me: Well, how about after dinner, you have Sandy sit at the dining room table and do her homework instead?
Mom (leaning over to Dad): Write that down!
(Dad takes out a slip of paper from his pocket and a pen and - I swear to you - wrote down "Do homework at dining room table.")
Dad: What else?
Me: How about one of you get up every half hour or so and ask her what she's working on and then check it?
Mom (excitedly leaning over to Dad): Write that down!
(Dad writes down "Check homework every 30 min's.")
This astonished me. Here I was, only 23 and childless, and I was telling adults how to parent their teen! At that point I realized the awful truth: lots of people just don't know how to raise their kids.
perhaps we should focus on improving English first
The thing about languages is that they all help each other: if you really want to improve English standards, bring back a year or two of compulsory latin (ooo, controversial).
Arabic and Mandarin are too specialist to realistically be taken up as part of a school curriculum
Bollocks: once they're established, I think uptake would be high (particularly mandarin). Start 'em young on drastically different languages like this and we stand a chance of making a dent in the HUGE differential between language standards and bilinguilism between the UK (particularly England, Scotland and Ireland (sorry, true)) and the rest of europe.
I think the only way to drag up America is to show them up.
my days as an English teacher years ago
!! Was not aware of this at all - do tell more...
Not SB, the guy writing the article! He didn't add the quote marks.
Students definitely should do a compulsory core of subjects like English, maths etc. But should have the option to choose a compulsory 2nd language, eg. you must choose a language to learn and the choices are... Naturally they will pick the easy ones which have all their mates in the classroom.
Students definitely should do a compulsory core of subjects like English, maths etc. But should have the option to choose a compulsory 2nd language, eg. you must choose a language to learn and the choices are... Naturally they will pick the easy ones which have all their mates in the classroom.
With the quotation marks in the article, I wasn't sure on the best way to present it. I'll add a quote tag to the site at some point and use CSS to make quotes clear in future.
I mastered English long before I started learning additional languages. I think knowing how English worked made it easier to apply additional rules and exceptions for things like German. Otherwise there's the potential to mix things up, like I did with physics and maths at A Level (physics had a tendency to round things instead of using proper equations, and sometimes it was hard to remember the right approach to maths when you'd learnt a similar but still quite different approach in physics). In hindsight, a bit more revision and I'd have done a lot better in both subjects.
The problem with giving students a choice in second languages is that you don't have a wide selection of qualified teachers that know these languages. Class sizes are large because of funding issues, trying to cater for Welsh, Mandarin, German, Latin, French, Polish and a handful of other languages will only make things harder for schools. In an ideal world, teach students a choice of subjects that will benefit them the most. But in the real world, do the best with what you can.
It will probably take hundreds of years, even with global communication, until we're all speaking the same language. And even then, there'll still be local dialects and slang. After all, we have to give etymologists something to do!
I mastered English long before I started learning additional languages. I think knowing how English worked made it easier to apply additional rules and exceptions for things like German. Otherwise there's the potential to mix things up, like I did with physics and maths at A Level (physics had a tendency to round things instead of using proper equations, and sometimes it was hard to remember the right approach to maths when you'd learnt a similar but still quite different approach in physics). In hindsight, a bit more revision and I'd have done a lot better in both subjects.
The problem with giving students a choice in second languages is that you don't have a wide selection of qualified teachers that know these languages. Class sizes are large because of funding issues, trying to cater for Welsh, Mandarin, German, Latin, French, Polish and a handful of other languages will only make things harder for schools. In an ideal world, teach students a choice of subjects that will benefit them the most. But in the real world, do the best with what you can.
It will probably take hundreds of years, even with global communication, until we're all speaking the same language. And even then, there'll still be local dialects and slang. After all, we have to give etymologists something to do!