tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6096844366367766843.post4463322332218212088..comments2024-03-27T09:27:33.931+00:00Comments on Idiotic Hat: This is Not the Pipe of My AuntMike C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11279776665185060446noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6096844366367766843.post-71003717706982272582014-02-02T23:22:14.456+00:002014-02-02T23:22:14.456+00:00Mike, I have in the last couple of years employed...Mike, I have in the last couple of years employed a few Ship Science graduates and I have to say your colleagues down or is it up? the road have done a very good job with them - they have all been very good. I was rejected by Southampton as my maths wasn't up to much at that stage, but Newcastle where I studied had a "remedial" maths programme as they took a lot of people direct from industry or the sea which helped me a lot. <br />Languages at school - Our kids are still at primary and it's been OK. But anything is better than the language teaching (at primary level) I received. The facilities we seen at some of the schools our eldest may attend is pretty good but the teachers did admit to struggling with enthusiasm Gavin McLhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14630089445696518084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6096844366367766843.post-14076695256803646922014-02-02T10:36:51.213+00:002014-02-02T10:36:51.213+00:00Gavin,
P.S. I don't know whether you realise ...Gavin,<br /><br />P.S. I don't know whether you realise that in England the requirement to study one language to GCSE was dropped a few years ago?<br /><br />At my daughter's school there were two languages on offer: French or Spanish. You couldn't study both, and had to choose one in the 1st year. In her 3rd year they decided that French was too difficult (!) and too undersubscribed, and would be dropped as a GCSE subject. She would therefore have studied NO language at GCSE.<br /><br />We practically had to threaten to cut bits off the Head to force them to allow her cohort to sit the exam -- a year early. I have rarely been so angry!<br /><br />MikeMike C.https://www.blogger.com/profile/11279776665185060446noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6096844366367766843.post-62579550430726821532014-02-02T10:29:03.848+00:002014-02-02T10:29:03.848+00:00Gavin,
Yes, I know there are survivals here and t...Gavin,<br /><br />Yes, I know there are survivals here and there, but in a world where languages are becoming the preserve of public schools, how many public-school educated teachers are there, who will consider teaching in state secondaries? I don't know of any.<br /> <br />I try not to be a "why, oh, why?" miserabilist about education, but it is disheartening to see a steady erosion of qualitative expectations in order to fulfil quantitative goals (i.e. "more kids with better grades" = "lower the standard").<br /><br />Even I did some calculus at school. My teaching colleagues in engineering and the sciences are in a state of despair over the teaching of maths -- they have to run remedial classes!<br /><br />Yes, those jade disks ("bi") are among a number of inspirations for the "ring hoard" -- in my mind, I have one of those Viking treasure stashes, where objects from across the world (and beyond!) fetch up in a muddy hole in N. Europe.<br /><br />MikeMike C.https://www.blogger.com/profile/11279776665185060446noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6096844366367766843.post-77268332609561452692014-02-01T23:47:47.483+00:002014-02-01T23:47:47.483+00:00Mike - Not all is lost; my wife who was state educ...Mike - Not all is lost; my wife who was state educated - completing her A levels in 1989 has a Latin A-Level. Though she used it as a part of her languages training, rather than a route into classics. A friend of mines daughter last year completed a GSCE in Latin at a state school (though it is a grammar). You can console yourself that the dumbing down of pre 16 teaching is not confined to the arts. An introduction to calculus was removed from the maths syllabus when they moved to GSCE's. Whilst calculus isn't easy, probably all of the technology that makes our lives possible uses it to some extent - shouldn't all people have at least an appreciation of it's existence? I attend an ex secondary modern and there wasn't any Latin taught, but I can spot it, unlike the two Americans I over heard in Westminster abbey who were admiring the tombs and observed that " they used to write English a funny way" <br />I was at the British Museum today and saw some Chinese Neolithic Jade Discs - Very reminiscent of some of your recent blog pictures <br />GavinGavin McLhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14630089445696518084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6096844366367766843.post-40140707798040030442014-01-30T14:51:45.530+00:002014-01-30T14:51:45.530+00:00Rob,
No, agreed, so far as speaking goes. Immersi...Rob,<br /><br />No, agreed, so far as speaking goes. Immersive learning is the way to go. As my Dad liked to say, how difficult can learning French be, if even the children can speak it?<br /><br />But a linguist needs to be able to discuss language in appropriate analytical terms, and not to know the difference between the instrumental and ablative cases of nouns, say, or what a deponent verb is, is a crippling disadvantage. My main point is that this shouldn't be a privilege of private education.<br /><br />As for my aunt, that is a subject we will not discuss.<br /><br />Mike<br /><br />Mike C.https://www.blogger.com/profile/11279776665185060446noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6096844366367766843.post-34956726372596545132014-01-30T14:37:33.566+00:002014-01-30T14:37:33.566+00:00The pipe of my aunt eh? You wouldn't say that ...The pipe of my aunt eh? You wouldn't say that in French, unless you were talking about your aunt's ability to perform fellatio. <br />I can't say that I'm convinced that Latin is a basis for language learning; I didn't even get French O level and yet can speak the language more or less fluently, from necessity. Not only that, but can pidgin my way as a tourist in two other languages as well. Once you've got one down, other European languages at least, come more easily.<br />As for the classics, I'm the first to admit that I'm a bit of an ignoramus. Obviously, I've read one or two, but again, Herodotus didn't do much to broaden my take on the human condition. Once you've heard about one tyrant impaling his enemies, you've heard them all.<br />I can understand that for some people, the difficulty of a subject acts as a powerful incentive to learn it. We have a friend, an astrophysicist, now retired, who was the head of a research institute in Bordeaux, in charge of some three hundred people. I asked him what attracted him to the subject in the first place. His answer was that he was very good at school, so he decided to study the most difficult subject available. His English, as you would imagine, is excellent, but I'm not sure if Latin would have been of any use to him in unravelling the secrets of the Universe.<br />Obviously, I'm playing the devil's advocate a little, but the World of even 1968 is, thankfully, a very different one from now, despite the best efforts of various political groups around the World to take us back to those times. <br />There seems to be a certain nostalgic sentimentality attached to Latin, as a badge of culture and refinement. Enoch Powell was, by all accounts, an absolute whizz at the classics, but doesn't exactly spring to mind as a model of civilisation. On the other hand, I doubt if Bill Gates could get his head round a Latin declension.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11191219331142656345noreply@blogger.com