Twelve times twelve by eleven

ugo.santalucia

I remember very well that we were times tables proficient by the age of 9 in Italy and we started school at 6.

Isn't it a bit pathetic to expect times tables by the age of 11 considering school begins at 5?

Ben6899

ugo.santalucia wrote:

I remember very well that we were times tables proficient by the age of 9 in Italy and we started school at 6.

Isn't it a bit pathetic to expect times tables by the age of 11 considering school begins at 5?

It is pathetic, but it's probably an improvement on the current situation. Stupid bastards everywhere.

ugo.santalucia

Is it the school system or simply modern kids are stupid (whether that is environmental or due to bad parenting)?

Ben6899

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Is it the school system or simply modern kids are stupid (whether that is environmental or due to bad parenting)?

I think it's the school system and bad parenting. Obviously some people are simply born stupid, but it's mainly how they're nurtured that determines how bright they end up.

Sit a kid in front of the TV or give them a book to read?

Flâneur

May have been the schools I went to and my parents but I was having these tests from prep school and expected to know them all well before I left primary.

I remember my Sunday nights after the family meal having homework tests of spelling and multiplication for the following week.

School or parents? Bit of both, parents expect schools to do it all and the school system is so focussed on X Y and Z it doesn't always work.

Problem is the new expected results seem to forget that not every child is good at everything. Fish can't climb trees can they! However it is good to have something to aim at.

ugo.santalucia

My nephew spends a disproportionate amount of time in front of monitors of some sort. There is nothing with any educational content in anything he sees or interacts with... he is now 8 and reads more or less at the level I did read when I was 6. Sedated defines him well. I was way more intelligent than him.

ballysmate

Ben6899 wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Is it the school system or simply modern kids are stupid (whether that is environmental or due to bad parenting)?

I think it's the school system and bad parenting. Obviously some people are simply born stupid, but it's mainly how they're nurtured that determines how bright they end up.

Sit a kid in front of the TV or give them a book to read?

There was an exchange in one of the other threads that pointed out that less well educated doesn't mean less intelligent.
I would agree though that kids need the stimulation and the desire to learn.

Ben6899

Ballysmate wrote:

Ben6899 wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Is it the school system or simply modern kids are stupid (whether that is environmental or due to bad parenting)?

I think it's the school system and bad parenting. Obviously some people are simply born stupid, but it's mainly how they're nurtured that determines how bright they end up.

Sit a kid in front of the TV or give them a book to read?

There was an exchange in one of the other threads that pointed out that less well educated doesn't mean less intelligent.
I would agree though that kids need the stimulation and the desire to learn.

Some of us have more intellectual potential (my own phrase) than others, but that has to be awoken when we're kids. We need to be developed into inquiring beings, who strive to understand things and challenge norms. If you're not that, then you might as well be a dog.

DeVlaeminck

Ben6899 wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

I remember very well that we were times tables proficient by the age of 9 in Italy and we started school at 6.

Isn't it a bit pathetic to expect times tables by the age of 11 considering school begins at 5?

It is pathetic, but it's probably an improvement on the current situation. Stupid bastards everywhere.

Suppose it depends what percentage of kids are expected to be proficient. I'm sure many kids already have their times tables wrapped up by 9 in our schools, mine certainly did, yes we did a bit at home but I know they did competitive mental arithmetic challenges in class too.

ugo.santalucia

Why the quality of schools is so different? I don't think there is any other EU country where the schools are so different in quality (and the system so complicated!)

Manc33

I'm 38 and don't know most of it. :oops:

Not 6x, 7x, 8x anyway. I always hated maths, give me English over maths anytime.

People call me a conspiracy theorist for saying this stuff is done on purpose but this stuff is done on purpose.

Go back 50 years and universities only catered for three main things - maths, English, science. Nothing else even comes close to how important those three core subjects are, but now we have scores of other subjects being taught there. It doesn't matter how advanced you become at say history or geography, they are never going to have the importance of even intermediate levels of maths, English or science.

Let's say you become a genius at basket weaving in university - who cares! You're not going to solve problems or anything, or really do anything meaningful just weaving baskets.

When you look into who it was that setup the "education" system its easy to see why it going the way it is. It is designed to eventually collapse.

"Technology is a double edged sword"

Yes we can be more lazy using calculators but this also then means our brains are turning to chit.

If you want to stay sharp, try playing chess. Like maths, I am terrible at chess now and I used to be able to nearly beat my dad at it... nearly. Nearly beating my dad at chess was a win to me.

Once you get to about 15 years old you're screwed. I mean I used to have an imagination when I was that age, not now though. Some might find that hard to believe around here. :P

RideOnTime

1584

Ben6899

The education system was designed to collapse? Seriously?

dodgy

Ben6899 wrote:

The education system was designed to collapse? Seriously?

It's not too late, tin foil hats are easy to make. Save yourself while you can.

keef66

RideOnTime wrote:

1584

That's what I made it too. And I did it in my head....

I'd learned all my times tables to 12 by the age of 10. But that was 47 years ago, and I didn't have 24 hr TV, the internet or an X Box 360 to distract me. I'd probably struggle at school now...

Pross

RideOnTime wrote:

1584

Was my initial reaction too!

My kids only learned each their tables up to 10 x rather than 12 x, not sure why but I assume we used to learn mutliplying everything by 12 as a relic of the imperial system?

Manc33

Literacy rates were better in Victorian times. Check out George Carlin "The Reason Education Sucks".

He mentions a good point - to get kids to pass these days they just lower the difficulty! Well if you're going to do that its pretty easy to appear clever when you're not. :roll:

"They don't want a population capable of critical thinking" damn right Carlin.

It might take 100 years but of course the education system will collapse, no one is stopping it.

People talk about the dark ages being in medieval times but we never actually came out of it, oh well maybe one day eh.

lostboysaint

Pross wrote:

RideOnTime wrote:

1584

Was my initial reaction too!

My kids only learned each their tables up to 10 x rather than 12 x, not sure why but I assume we used to learn mutliplying everything by 12 as a relic of the imperial system?

So did mine, but they can work the same sort of question out almost as quickly doing it "their way" than ours.

Pross

Manc33 wrote:

Literacy rates were better in Victorian times. Check out George Carlin "The Reason Education Sucks".

He mentions a good point - to get kids to pass these days they just lower the difficulty! Well if you're going to do that its pretty easy to appear clever when you're not. :roll:

"They don't want a population capable of critical thinking" damn right Carlin.

It might take 100 years but of course the education system will collapse, no one is stopping it.

People talk about the dark ages being in medieval times but we never actually came out of it, oh well maybe one day eh.

What a load of bo**ocks. Who are 'they'? How would our nation continue to function within the modern world if 'they' let the education system collapse?

southdownswolf

keef66 wrote:

I'd learned all my times tables to 12 by the age of 10. But that was 47 years ago, and I didn't have 24 hr TV, the internet or an X Box 360 to distract me. I'd probably struggle at school now...

It's worse now; they have an XBox One as kids can not count to 360.

MountainMonster

I drove down to Hunstanton yesterday, as was astonished to see a banner hanging outside of the Sixth Form which was an advertisement for the school. It literally said : This school is good, citing an OFCOM evaluation. How can you really put that on a promotional piece, stating you've been mediocre at best?

desweller

It is a minimum standard that the Tories are hoping to achieve. It should not be thought of as indicative of the standard of top tier pupils.

I too learned my multiplication tables at an earlier age, but I knew plenty of kids into secondary school who were hopeless at them. The reasons, as we all know, are hugely varied.

For reference I'm in my thirties.

norvernrob

My wife is a foundation stage (3-5) teacher. The children are tested/assessed/graded basically from the day they start, far more than we ever were. Teachers have to jump through a million and one hoops, targets have to be met and if they don't pass OFSTED inspections there is a very real chance the school will be closed if it doesn't improve.

I don't know about times tables or why it would even be relevant these days, but I guarantee you education today is of a higher standard than in the past. It isn't that easy though when 50% of the children at my wife's school have English as a second language (ranging from speaking none at all to pretty much fluent).

rick_chasey

MountainMonster wrote:

I drove down to Hunstanton yesterday, as was astonished to see a banner hanging outside of the Sixth Form which was an advertisement for the school. It literally said : This school is good, citing an OFCOM evaluation. How can you really put that on a promotional piece, stating you've been mediocre at best?

Those in Hunstanton don't have quite the same ambition as people in Cambridge.

ugo.santalucia

NorvernRob wrote:

I don't know about times tables or why it would even be relevant these days, but I guarantee you education today is of a higher standard than in the past. It isn't that easy though when 50% of the children at my wife's school have English as a second language (ranging from speaking none at all to pretty much fluent).

So one would expect rural communities with zero immigrants to do better? That might be one problem, but is it THE problem? I have no problems with the standard of written English falling, but maths transcends the background... it's the same everywhere you go

tangled_metal

Rubbish is typed as fact so easily on forums so I think I will add to the rubbish.

Back in the dark ages I did my GCSE physics, we were the second year to ever do them. At that time the content was still based on the old GCE O Levels. We got taught by the head of subject and one day he came in (our first GCSE year) in a reall slump of mood. He then started to teach us some aspect of electronics. Then in the middle of a sentence he stopped and told us that the year after us would not have to learn this. Apparently it was deemed too hard for GCSE despite it being in the O Level for decades (think it was linear logic applied to physics or something like that). I later found out that maths and other scientific subjects had been dropping the difficult subjects from GCSE to A Levels then some A level subjects dropped their difficult parts completely. It started with just one exam board which made that one easier to get better grades. That led to all the other following suit so their GCSE didn;t get dropped by schools. Our school made the conscious decision to stick to the most rigorous and the hardest boards for each subject.

Having said that teachin has got so much better since my day. It is much more about equipping kids to learn despite what rubbish is being said on here. However later on in school it can become more about teaching to a qualification. That is simply put down to targets and rankings. There is nothing wrong with that but they need to be applied well whichis not the case now. Also I suspect most parents have no idea what rankings truly mean. In some ways I think they should not be published to the general public for that reason.

BTW, anyone after exam results time, when driving round an unfamiliar area, do the spotting the good schools game? This is where you can tell the quality of the school by what they put on the promotional banner in front of their school as their big achievement. For example two schools have the figure 75% in big print on the banner for their GCSE maths results. One has the phrase "got A to C grades" and the other says "got GCSEs" and in small print say grades A to E. Or some such comments. One school is pleased with A to Cs the other is just grateful they got anything!! Which is the good school??

That is an attempt at a sarcastic comment on the way the schools these days have to self promote. They want better students so their results go up or at least they don't get into hot water for poor results. That is institutional failings. IMHO choice is good but it is better to equalize standards. Rather than publicising rankings lets keep it quiet and bring up the poor schools to the better average standard.

BTW back to the OP. In my day we learnt the times tables by about 7 years old. I got it a bit earlier (if I could be bothered that was).

Education is only a measure of how well you were schooled not your intelligence. I know of kids who were assessed pre-school for intelligence. One kid was marked out as being of a very high intelligence but was lazy. The parents of that child was told that they could have problems with their kid. The kid could do very well indeed but because of the laziness issue he would need motivation to achieve. In fact they were told he would be at one extreme or the other - high achiever at school or low achiever on account that he wasn't motivated enough. I know what that means, it means the kid would find the school teaching to the lower end of the ability and he was likely to be years ahead of other kids his age.

That is not an issue with private schools as they can and often do teach to the higher end of the class. Also small enough to motivate the brightest. My cousin's children were 2 to 3 years ahead of the national average standard by the time they reached the end of primary school. That was just how their prep school taught them. They then went on to the school's upper school and were capable of being put through GCSEs and A levels up to 2 years early if they had ability and inclination. They did have long holidays but they went to school 6 days a week from about 6 or 7.

Another thing, some schools are truly good. I know of one school in the state sector that has got a pupil 2 years ahead of the average. That case the school had pupils that were equivalent in educational age to 10/11 year olds about to go into secondary school when they were 8/9 years old. That is a case of teaching to the level of the child not to the class. If your class sizes allow that is the way forward.

BTW I am firmly against all this negativity over the standard of teaching and teachers. It has consistently improved decade by decade. The issue is institutional and that is from the department of education and teachers unions messing things up for ideological reasons. That is pecularly British I think and something we need to sort out. We need rigor in the way we get our results out. No teaching to a checklist and other gimmicks. Motivate kids and they will learn if they can but do not think that someone with 10 GCSEs is cleverer than one without anything above an E grade. I truly know someone who got a C at GCSE maths having never managing to sit through a whole maths class but has nothing else. He was one of the quickest in mind I have met. I also met a guy who was educated to degree level (met while we were both doing a higher degree). He was one of the brightest in his university (second best in Chile and considered one of the best in south america to - equivalent to a Russell group university here and probably one of the better ones too). I would honestly say they had the equivalent level of intelligence but opposite ends of the educational spectrum. One was correcting the lecturer (a Russian researcher widely accepted as a significant academic in his field of expertise) in a very hard subject having never studied it. The other was doing the same in his own way when he could be bothered. Both left me amazed at times with their sheer understanding of complex issues. I will never meet their like again and I have lost contact with both.

DeVlaeminck

What evidence is there that the standard of teaching has improved decade on decade? I'm sure I read some research that suggested O levels were far harder than modern GCSEs so we can't use exam results. As a father of three and having taught in a few universities I can't say that I have found our school system notable better than when I went through it in the 70s and 80s.

MountainMonster

Rick Chasey wrote:

MountainMonster wrote:

I drove down to Hunstanton yesterday, as was astonished to see a banner hanging outside of the Sixth Form which was an advertisement for the school. It literally said : This school is good, citing an OFCOM evaluation. How can you really put that on a promotional piece, stating you've been mediocre at best?

Those in Hunstanton don't have quite the same ambition as people in Cambridge.

The way the weather is there right now, I wouldn't have any ambition. Can't blame them. :evil:

Manc33

15 year old kid in Victorian times:
- Risks his life cleaning chimneys all day.
- Knows trigonometry and algebra like the back of his hand.

15 year old kid today:
- Sits pressing buttons on a phone.

I think the most important part of education is... drum roll... honesty! Otherwise what are we all learning for?

For example in history they teach you about World War 2 without ever telling you both sides were funded by the same wealthy business interests. Kinda changes things when you know that doesn't it! :roll:

Same with World War 1. Both sides were funded by the same people (Warburg brothers, among others).

All we get taught is we're always at war and oh well what can you do, but its all orchestrated. You know it is because no one in the real world wants to go to war, you're always made to. There it is right there, humans don't want to go to war with each other, they are always manipulated to. Same reason all the terrorism is done by intelligence services themselves, because humans are never going to do it just off their own back, for no reason.

You're dying and getting nothing while the tycoons running the war see you as expendable and get rich from you dying. I think from that its easy to work out why we really do go to war.

You hear stuff like "They have been fighting in the middle east for the last 2,000 years".

Yeah there was a film with something like that in it that goes "Oceania is at war with East Asia. Oceania has always been at war with East Asia".

Really?

They should rename the subject of history in school to just "Wars". That's what they teach most, that everyone is always at war. When you ask the average man on the street however, he doesn't want war. It is incredible how we all get played off each other, individual against individual all the way up to nation against nation.

rick_chasey

Manc33 wrote:

15 year old kid in Victorian times:
- Risks his life cleaning chimneys all day.
- Knows trigonometry and algebra like the back of his hand.

15 year old kid today:
- Sits pressing buttons on a phone.

I think the most important part of education is... drum roll... honesty! Otherwise what are we all learning for?

For example in history they teach you about World War 2 without ever telling you both sides were funded by the same wealthy business interests. Kinda changes things when you know that doesn't it! :roll:

Same with World War 1. Both sides were funded by the same people (Warburg brothers, among others).

All we get taught is we're always at war and oh well what can you do, but its all orchestrated. You know it is because no one in the real world wants to go to war, you're always made to. There it is right there, humans don't want to go to war with each other, they are always manipulated to. Same reason all the terrorism is done by intelligence services themselves, because humans are never going to do it just off their own back, for no reason.

You're dying and getting nothing while the tycoons running the war see you as expendable and get rich from you dying. I think from that its easy to work out why we really do go to war.

You hear stuff like "They have been fighting in the middle east for the last 2,000 years".

Yeah there was a film with something like that in it that goes "Oceania is at war with East Asia. Oceania has always been at war with East Asia".

Really?

They should rename the subject of history in school to just "Wars". That's what they teach most, that everyone is always at war. When you ask the average man on the street however, he doesn't want war. It is incredible how we all get played off each other, individual against individual all the way up to nation against nation.

tlw1

ugo.santalucia wrote:

NorvernRob wrote:

I don't know about times tables or why it would even be relevant these days, but I guarantee you education today is of a higher standard than in the past. It isn't that easy though when 50% of the children at my wife's school have English as a second language (ranging from speaking none at all to pretty much fluent).

So one would expect rural communities with zero immigrants to do better? That might be one problem, but is it THE problem? I have no problems with the standard of written English falling, but maths transcends the background... it's the same everywhere you go

Except..... At my kids school the farmers first born sons are lined up for the farm and couldn't give a stuff about school