UK PM Rishi Sunak To Propose Compulsory Math To Students Up To 18 (cnbc.com) 110
U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will on Wednesday announce plans to force school pupils in England to study math up to the age of 18, according to a Downing Street briefing. The initiative attempts to tackle innumeracy and better equip young people for the workplace. CNBC reports: In his first speech of 2023, Sunak is expected to outline plans for math to be offered through alternative qualification routes. Comparatively, traditional A-Levels subject-based qualifications allow high school students in England to elect academic subjects to study between the ages of 16 and 18. [...] Sunak's education proposals would only affect pupils in England. Education is a devolved issue, with Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish authorities managing their own systems.
School-based education in England is only compulsory up to the age of 16, after which children can choose to pursue further academic qualifications such as A-Levels or alternative qualifications, or vocational training. The prime minister is expected to say in his Wednesday speech that the issue of mandatory math is "personal" for him. "Every opportunity I've had in life began with the education I was so fortunate to receive. And it's the single most important reason why I came into politics: to give every child the highest possible standard of education," he will say.
Sunak attended prestigious fee-paying institutions -- the Stroud School and Winchester College -- before studying at Oxford University. He is expected to acknowledge that the planned overhaul will be challenging and time consuming, with work beginning during the current parliamentary term and finishing in the next.
School-based education in England is only compulsory up to the age of 16, after which children can choose to pursue further academic qualifications such as A-Levels or alternative qualifications, or vocational training. The prime minister is expected to say in his Wednesday speech that the issue of mandatory math is "personal" for him. "Every opportunity I've had in life began with the education I was so fortunate to receive. And it's the single most important reason why I came into politics: to give every child the highest possible standard of education," he will say.
Sunak attended prestigious fee-paying institutions -- the Stroud School and Winchester College -- before studying at Oxford University. He is expected to acknowledge that the planned overhaul will be challenging and time consuming, with work beginning during the current parliamentary term and finishing in the next.
Compulsory Grammar for Editors (Score:2)
n/t
This will also solve the Tory immigration problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Post-Brexit, the only way these mathemagical students will be able to get meaningful work will be by emigrating to the EU. Or maybe they could use their Sunak-enhanced skills to add up restaurant bills in their head, because for the most part, the only jobs left in England these days are low-level service industry ones.
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The Tory approach isn't to get rid of high paying employment; rather to create a wide income inequality (much like the US).
The UK has always been a bit mid-atlantic in terms of income distribution, but in recent years it's been drifting west...
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Rather than "high paying employment", let's call it employment that lets you lead a decent life, without worrying that missing a few days of work will leave you struggling to pay for food and shelter.
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That's the Tory dream. The last half about the peons worrying about food and shelter so working at all costs, that is.
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Sadly, they appear to be getting their way.
An announcement used to smother other news (Score:5, Insightful)
An old trick that the media always fall for: Make an announcement that'll never be implemented but will fixate the media / talkback radio for a couple of news cycles. In the meantime, something damaging to the government misses the news cycle and is soon forgotten.
Re:An announcement used to smother other news (Score:4, Insightful)
Funny how that works with every major news organization in the so-called Free World. Believe it or not, Al Jazeera English is now one of the best places to go when you want to find out what's actually happening in international news. Sadly, they don't do much on a country-specific basis.
All the major news media in Canada whored themselves out to the Conservatives, then the Liberals. The BBC has been equally subservient to the Tories for as long as they've been in power, and the US media is a dumpster fire with corporate-owned news media in a perpetual contest to determine who gets first crack at fellating corporate-owned politicians.
Theoretically, we have a free press. In practice, the news media use their freedom to relentlessly lick the boots of our corporate owners.
If Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan tried to run for office in today's United States, they'd be dismissed as radical left wing lunatics.
Critical life skills/being a decent citizen (Score:1)
If taxpayer's are paying, maybe they should teach things that are in interest of the taxpayers .. like for example how to be good citizens .. everyone should have these life skills, but life skills aren't really taught after pre-school or maybe elementary school. .. how many people have basic knowledge of that? Everyone, especially girls, should know basic fighting and also how to use a weapon. .. who gets taught empathy nowadays? It's all me me me me. We should have classes on how
1. Self defense
2. Empathy
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Classes on "how to be a good citizen" would quickly become political indoctrination.
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Only in shitty pseudo democracies where one party holds all the power... Oh, I see your point.
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Re: Critical life skills/being a decent citizen (Score:2)
Not beyond middle school math. That said I do agree math should also be up to age 18. But if we could only choose one, it is the ethics/reasoning/life skills class.
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Not beyond middle school math. That said I do agree math should also be up to age 18. But if we could only choose one, it is the ethics/reasoning/life skills class.
Most (99%+) high school math and indeed even college math is not useful in life for most people (99%+). Take calculus for example. The fundamental concepts of integrals and derivatives is useful, but the study and memorization of closed-form formulas is utterly useless for almost everyone, including most (99%+) of technical people. Most engineers never have to deal with integrals even once in their careers, and if they do, it's almost certainly using numerical methods. The only reason most students take
Re:Critical life skills/being a decent citizen (Score:4, Insightful)
1. It says something about your values that you think this should be a priority. Why should your values be imposed? (It also doesn't work. Kids who learn self-defense are not better off. For some types, e.g. boxing, they have worse outcomes).
Kids should be defended first and foremost. When they reach an age where we can't defend them anymore, we'd better do our best to make sure they have better options than fists and weapons to defend themselves with.
2. Cannot be taught, except maybe by the example of saintly people. Doesn't feel like anyone did that to you.
3. Cannot be taught, except maybe by the example of saintly people. On some level, all of us should admit that it's just dumb luck that we didn't become drug addicts and thieves - but in your case, it should be especially obvious.
4. Cannot be taught. Probably not even by positive example in this case. If you think you cope with bad shit better than others, maybe your shit isn't as bad as others, have you considered that? Oh, yeah, point two.
5. Sounds like imposing your values, lecturing people about what you think they deserve or not. (Your legal rights in certain narrow, relevant cases like sexual harassment can be taught - and I think it's one of the things that are taught reasonably well. But there's often a gap between what your legal rights say you should have and what you get.)
6. Etiquette - you imposing your chalked-graves cultural values again. If you want to win elections and cram such crap through, fine, but don't let me hear a peep from you if your enemies do the same and your kids will be learning preferred pronouns etiquette.
Cleanliness and hygiene, yeah, this can be taught and is taught. The COVID generation probably knows more about it than we do.
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It is a bad idea, but not for these reasons (Score:3, Insightful)
Its a bad idea, but not for the reasons in the previous comments.
The point of school education is NOT to provide an 'educational environment [which] has interested, self-learning students with the teacher functioning as more of a guide than lesson-giver'. This is a fantasy, and the pretence that its either possible or desirable is a big part of what has wrecked the state school sector in the UK.
The point of schooling is to give students the basic skills they need to function professionally and as citizens and voters in modern society. That means being able to read, write and reason, and it also means basic numeracy. It means instruction, in orderly classrooms, by teachers who know their subjects. It means lots of memorization and lots of exercise in using and applying what has been memorized.
The problem with the idea as presented is that they should know all this basic stuff and have practised it by 15 or 16. The problem in British state education is that students are getting to that age without being able to read and analyze and without basic math skills. You will not solve that problem by trying to teach them more math in the same way for a couple more years. The problem is not that they are stopping teaching math at 15 or 16. Its that they haven't taught enough by that age. Its a bad idea because it focuses on the wrong problem.
What is needed in the state sector in Britain is to take on the teaching unions and the left wing educational establishment and return education to its proper function, the imparting of skills and knowledge by staff who are qualified.
It doesn't sound as if Sunak realizes the problem, nor that he understands what the solution is. The solution is to teach properly in the early years, math, and reading, and history and literature for that matter. The state sector in recent decades has been spending its time finding ever more complicated ways of stopping students from learning, the more gifted you are the more effort is devoted to preventing you learning, and it now seems to be focusing its efforts on having kids leave school not only unable to read, write or do basic math, but not even knowing which of one hundred plus genders they may be, or even which sex they are. But they will be thoroughly decolonized, they will know whether they are white or some other race, and they will feel pretty bad about whichever they are, in different ways, either way!
If you want a concrete example of the refusal to teach effectively, the mania for whole word, non-phonics, reading instruction, which rested on the idiotic false pretense that European languages are ideographic, but which was fiercely defended for decades despite obviously failing. And then the idiocy of reinventing traditional alphabetical teaching under the newly invented name of 'synthetic phonics'. Because we could not admit it was back to the Fifties after failing a couple of generations with stupid unscientific experimental methods.
This is the reason why anyone in the UK who can afford it sends their children to private schools. Or desperately tries to move to the catchment area of one of the few state schools which are still trying to give kids an education.
The state sector teachers unions are apparently considering striking in the coming months. If Sunak starts addressing the real problems of the state sector, it will be the first of many. But the present proposals as reported are not a step towards that.
Re:It is a bad idea, but not for these reasons (Score:4, Interesting)
The bottom quartile of people are going to finish their education barely literate and barely capable of balancing a checkbook (yes, I know that’s obsolete at this point). A few extra years of math MIGHT help these people.
From what I understand, the hard truth is that the bottom 10% are basically illiterate, and no amount of intervention beyond physical brain reformatting will fix it. No amount of extra education will help. You might as well be pouring more water into a bucket with no bottom.
This wouldn’t help the people at the top either. They flew through the subjects.
Extra education would help the middle 25% to 75%.
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There are plenty of countries with over 90% literacy.
I suppose you will accuse them of lying, but there are international standards and tests.
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No, they end up illiterate because of the teaching method. English (and French, German, Dutch, Italian for that matter) are not ideographic languages. The written language is alphabetical. Words consist of letters, know the alphabet and you can figure out what the word is. And you almost certainly know the word already, you just don't know the written form.
You try and teach people to read by recognizing whole words from their image, many will do fine (they figure out the necessary phonics for themselves
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That's part of the overarching key problem of our education system, not just in the UK but globally: We're aiming for mediocracy. The exact opposite of what our labor market needs.
Let's imagine you're great at, say, languages. You pick up French, Italian, English, German, Russian and then some, just by listening to a few songs and watching Youtube videos in that language. Because you're an awesome language talent. On the other hand, you struggle with math and physics because, well, they're not your thing.
Wh
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Since education is only compulsory up to 16 in the UK, and the people who go on to A levels are by definition the ones who are fine with education, and are trying to get into college.... for which you need Maths ... this is a non-issue already
This will teach remedial maths to very few people
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...the people who go on to A levels are by definition the ones who are fine with education, and are trying to get into college...
Not all subjects are equal, or equally well taught, or equally well regarded for that matter (which matters extremely, as attitude is as important as aptitude when it comes to learning a complex subject). Being good at art, for example, or interested in history, doesn't mean you're equally capable at maths.
...for which you need Maths...
Nearly true, but...
...this is a non-issue already
This will teach remedial maths to very few people
When I was at university studying secondary maths teaching (ironically) a significant number of the primary school teacher trainees had failed their GCSE maths exams ( C grade) and had
Re:It is a bad idea, but not for these reasons (Score:5, Insightful)
What is needed in the state sector in Britain is to take on the teaching unions and the left wing educational establishment
This partisan bullshit is why nothing ever improves. 12 years of the right wing in government and it's still everyone else's fault. The right is really the party of blaming everyone else for your problems. Which is why the Tories do a shit job: they prop themselves up by selling off the family silver while blaming Labour and eventually run out of things to sell and people to blame.
Now please for once engage your brain. Might hurt a bit but it will do you good. And answer this question:
Do you honestly think that killing the teaching unions and the "left wing educational establishment" is going to force people with maths training want to take a low paid job massively overburdened with tons of shit paperwork?
No, you'll ignore it, and keep advocating for destruction of workers rights. And in another few years when more people are leaving the teaching profession, standards are down and everything is still shit, you'll do the only thing your Tory-backed education actually taught you how to do: blame Labour even when they've not been in power for ages.
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"Do you honestly think that killing the teaching unions and the "left wing educational establishment" is going to force people with maths training want to take a low paid job massively overburdened with tons of shit paperwork?"
No, it would not affect that at all. I think it would make a fit for purpose education system possible.
And I do not blame only Labour, the disaster has happened under governments of both persuasions who have replaced management for results with politically correct methods with no sc
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No, it would not affect that at all.
Right so you don't think destroying the unions would actually get people to teach maths. But somehow:
I think it would make a fit for purpose education system possible.
So you don't believe destroying the unions will make people want to teach maths. Yet you still believe destroying the unions will fix things. That is magical thinking. It's a question of job quality and pay. Shitting on teachers won't, and hasn't, fixed a damned thing, and shitting on them harder will only
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Because all they use their rights for is indoctrination of garbage political and social theories.
I'm afraid I don't recognise this description of teachers. Quite apart from the fact that the UK has a national curriculum, to which everyone is notionally taught to, pretty much all maths teachers I know (I trained as one ~25 years ago) teach their students maths, not politics or social theory.
I'm curious, what's your experience of UK education, or education in general, that you feel qualified to make these claims?
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You looked like an insightful person until you started peddling obvious lies like schools focusing effort on kids not knowing how to read and the like. I'm not British so maybe I'm missing something here but we have plenty of conservatives over here in the US who are quite happy to make up fantasies of evil doers in government because they are unhappy about some policy or another. It's fucking ridiculous to think there's major elements of English government purposely and maniacally trying to degrade the cou
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The point of schooling is to give students the basic skills they need to function professionally and as citizens and voters in modern society. That means being able to read, write and reason, and it also means basic numeracy. It means instruction, in orderly classrooms, by teachers who know their subjects. It means lots of memorization and lots of exercise in using and applying what has been memorized.
States a reasonable goal for education.
The state sector in recent decades has been spending its time finding ever more complicated ways of stopping students from learning, the more gifted you are the more effort is devoted to preventing you learning, and it now seems to be focusing its efforts on having kids leave school not only unable to read, write or do basic math, but not even knowing which of one hundred plus genders they may be, or even which sex they are.
Demonstrates that this goal has been utterly unfulfilled in their specific case by uncritically spewing back out the utter horseshit that has been force-fed to them by their choice of media outlet.
In my direct experience, the UK state sector is serving its students admirably, and far beyond the level at which you'd expect from the funding and organisational structure given to them. 'one hundred plus genders' - that doesn't happen and whomever told you it does lied to y
Modeling (Score:2)
You think that's a good idea? (Score:2)
Scouses could become able to calculate and find out just how much you shafted them with their dole.
Not like anyone up north would vote for the tosser anyway.
Kind of stupid (Score:2)
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When more than 50% of the papers are crowing about how is going to "fix" things (but not how or when), you know it's the usual news cycle reset:
1. Halve inflation
2. Grow the economy
3. Reduce debt
4. Cut NHS waiting lists
5. Stop migrant boats.
All nonsense.
These points all contradict themselves. Spend more while reducing debt? The tories equate grow the economy with tax breaks for the rich, so that will do zero for that. I'd also
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The opposite of what they've been preaching years (Score:2)
If numeracy went up, then the people would no longer believe the lies of the "magic money tree" or "national credit card", which only comes out when tories want to give money away to their donors.
The UK needs to vote in a party that will basically kill off the newspapers, as the older generations need to stop thinking that something in newsprint is the truth as they "aren't allowed" t
Are you trying to tell me... (Score:2)
That english kids don't have math in high school till the last year? That's a bit odd. Do they stop before learning about fractional numbers?
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No?
Last mandatory year is school but not training is 16.
Here's what they learn up to age 16, in principle at any rate:
https://assets.publishing.serv... [service.gov.uk]
A basic understanding of fractions is by key stage 2 (age 10):
https://www.gov.uk/government/... [www.gov.uk]
Lipstick on a pig (Score:2)
If at 16 somebody doesn't have basic math skills, two more years won't fix that.
Should everybody?... (Score:2)
Textbook writer here (Score:1)
Warren Buffett (Score:2)
"If I were running a business school I would only have two courses. The first would obviously be an investing class about how to value a business. The second would be how to think about the stock market and how to deal with the volatility" --Warren Buffett (b. 1930)
Study (Score:1)
Re:Not cool (Score:4, Insightful)
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For some reason they usually use it in the plural, don't they?
I've never figured that one out.
Re:Not cool (Score:5, Informative)
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Short for mathematics. Not complicated.
Don't confuse them with the difference between a countable noun and a non countable one. We could be here all day.
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Don't they call it "maths" over there?
For some reason they usually use it in the plural, don't they?
I've never figured that one out.
= Hey, dude! You talk funny! Hahaha!
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Don't they call it "maths" over there?
If by "over there", you mean Outside North America, then yes that is what almost everywhere where they speak some type of English does,
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Well, this IS a US centric site...so, it is natural to think in this manner.
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Well, this IS a US centric site...
More of a geek centric with poor spelling.
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Yeah, but it bothers us Americans. It doesn't bother me that much. "Drink driving" bothers me more.
I don't mean the term, I mean the people who drive drunk.
What else bothers me about the way foreigners talk? Actually, I find most of it charming.
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Mathematical
Anti
Telharsic
Harfatum
Septomin
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Who said improving education was the goal? The Tories have always been about degrading public services & replacing them with their friends' privatised services; NHS, education, water, etc..
This is Rishi just trying to "Asian dad" the entire nation.
It's entirely pointless. If you haven't mastered the basics in your first 10 years of schooling, an extra 2 won't do a damn lot of difference. If you want to move onto more advanced forms of maths you will have started to do so long before you're 16 and will continue in your last 2 years of schooling.
Labour are still massacring them in the polls and is turning one of their favourite slogans against them "taking back control". Rishi Sunak is ju
Re:Not cool (Score:4, Insightful)
These sorts of things go down well with the old rich white people who are the only people left in England who are likely to vote conservative at the next election.
If he had even a shred of integrity he would call an election now and take his medicine like a man, but he hasn't, so he won't.
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These sorts of things go down well with the old rich white people
Maths is so racist.
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Clearly, we've got a maths issue in this country, so he's trying to fix it.
No he's not, he's trying to look like he's "doing something".
Google "Sir Humphrey Appleby explains doing something" for an explanation about how that works.
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Every kid now seems to think that Youtuber/Streamer is going to be a viable career option for them. I not sure more math is the answer...but I don't think free reign to "self learn" is really an answer either. Kids are dumb, and make dumb decisions on their own...adults do need to step in and guide them, whether the kids like it or not.
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Have you seen what doubles as adults today?
The key difference between most kids and most adults these days is that laws keep kids from fucking up their lives too badly with bad choices, but there ain't anything keeping adults from doing the same. Otherwise, the choices aren't that much more sensible.
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Ha, you sound like a crotchety old person. "In my day adults were Adults".
Give me a break...
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I'm the last person to tell someone to "act their age", but I also expect people to take responsibility for what they do.
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And just like a notable portion of old people of every generation you are likely viewing the past through rose colored glasses while what is really upsetting you is that things change at all.
If you care to do so you can find people of every generation going back millennia writing about pretty much exactly what you describe in regards to their next gen https://www.bbc.com/worklife/a... [bbc.com] . Some how those next gens never turned out as bad as what was forecasted though.
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You'd be surprised, but I have more hope for the Millennials than I had for the Boomers. Frankly, the latter can't croak fast enough and hand it over, they fucked it up badly enough, if anything, we owe our descendants an apology that we have them clean up that mess.
When I complain about "alleged adults that don't act like adults", it's more likely that I'm talking about the 60+ crowd than the 25-. The tantrum-throwing terrible-two phase "gimme that it's mine!" battle cry is something you'd rather hear from
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, or nothing.
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Let me guess. You work in a pub, garage, or drive a tip truck and don't need anything you learned in school.
Here is a list of the highest and lowest paying jobs in the UK. Guess which group probably uses more math on a daily basis.
https://www.chroniclelive.co.u... [chroniclelive.co.uk]
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The more likely you are to deal with snooty, obnoxious brats, the lower your pay. Something's really messed up here.
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I'm not exactly sure that's a sensible way to go. If you look at unemployment rates and cross reference them to education levels, you'll find that unemployment is worst with people who have a lower education level. Yes, there are exceptional talents in various areas of trades that could have gotten by or would have even benefitted from less formal education and more time to hone their skills, but do you really think it's a sensible idea to destroy the future of 999,999 people to further the one in a million
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There's an impact on those who benefit from an academic environment caused by keeping those who do not present. We should encourage those who will benefit more from apprenticeship-style training to switch to it at 16 (or earlier). Some people will never benefit from a school environment and some will, but not until later in life. We should allow people of any age to re-engage in free tuition that they have missed. Want to retake your GCSEs and get an A-level or two at the age of 43, no problem - free tuitio
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I'd like to agree, but you might want to clarify how that 40+ year old is supposed to support himself when he's back at school. As a child and teenager, his parents are supposed to fulfill that duty, but at 40 that's probably not going to be an option.
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Educators, not politicians, should make curriculum decisions.
Everyone needs to know elementary school arithmetic, but most people don't need much beyond that. 90% of people will never, not once, need to factor a polynomial outside of a classroom.
Prematurely foreclose opportunities (Score:4, Insightful)
Many professions that are essential for society and very lucrative require higher maths beyond factoring polynomials which almost every student should be doing at age 14. How many 14 or 16 year olds are mature and far sighted enough to foreclose future opportunities that require maths? All students should be prepared to a level that opens the greatest breadth of further opportunities. Let them decide at 18 that they would rather dig ditches than design bridges. It's premature to make those decisions at 14 or 16.
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I knew at age 14 that I'll need math and computer skills, and that I will never need French or Italian.
And I was right.
Re: Prematurely foreclose opportunities (Score:1)
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Speaking foreign languages has demonstrated cognitive benefits
Sure, but there are plenty of languages more useful than French and Italian.
Re: Prematurely foreclose opportunities (Score:1)
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I prefer to keep my brain alive with math. It's way more deterministic.
Re: Prematurely foreclose opportunities (Score:1)
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I knew at age 14 that I'll need math and computer skills, and that I will never need French or Italian.
And I was right.
I think you have to consider self-selection bias there. I'm assuming that you did not pursue work as a translator, open a business that operates partly in the Francophone world or Italy, become a foreign book editor, etc.? It's easy to be able to say that you'll never need X in your life if you go through life avoiding X. My favorite with math is people who insist that they will never need math in real life who, when you examine their real life, would be a lot better off if they actually were good at math o
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No, I didn't. Because I had no interest in it nor talent for it. I am very good with computers, I can easily do complicated math in my head, but I cannot wrap my mind around the concept of human language. Ok, granted, I had to learn English, and I understand its value since most literature and manuals concerning computers is in English, so I saw the benefit of learning that language. But there simply was no added benefit to my chosen line of work in learning French or Italian. So I didn't.
Ok, I can speak Fr
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No, I didn't. Because I had no interest in it nor talent for it. I am very good with computers, I can easily do complicated math in my head, but I cannot wrap my mind around the concept of human language. Ok, granted, I had to learn English, and I understand its value since most literature and manuals concerning computers is in English, so I saw the benefit of learning that language. But there simply was no added benefit to my chosen line of work in learning French or Italian. So I didn't.
Ok, but that's what I'm talking about: self-selection bias. Your specific case does not apply to the general case.
Ok, I can speak French, but I only admit it under duress and when I have to interact with French people who refuse to understand a sane language. Any language where the spoken word has nothing in common with how it is written is very suspect. Even English is better in that regard. But I digress.
I also speak French. I have to say, it has its idiosyncrasies and difficulties and parts of it seem like extra work for nothing, but it's a real stretch to call English a sane language. English is a mess. For French, do you have examples of the spoken word having nothing in common with how it's written? In general it seems like French is better than English at that, using accents and so forth wh
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For a French phrase where the written word has little in common with the spoken, you don't have to go any further than qu'est-ce que c'est. One gets the impression that French writers get paid by the letter so they add a bunch of them that don't get spoken.
And don't get me started on how you have to do math just to count to 100. Even though that was kinda up my alley, it still feels a bit silly that 99 is basically four times twenty plus ten and nine.
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And don't get me started on how you have to do math just to count to 100. Even though that was kinda up my alley, it still feels a bit silly that 99 is basically four times twenty plus ten and nine.
That's hardly unique to French. It was a convention in English at one point as well. I hope I don't have to put a name on this quote: "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." Now, admittedly, even in Lincoln's time, using "four score" instead of "eighty" was getting a little outdated, but it was still in use. Same with "three score" for "sixty". It is also not really "
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Then you want to reform the UK school system a lot more than tacking on two years of math. Never mind 14 or 16 years olds, their future is decided for them when they're 10, when their SAT scores (plus sometimes a few other factors) determine if they get entry to a grammar school, an "academy", a catholic or CoE school, or a hell hole.
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Then you want to reform the UK school system a lot more than tacking on two years of math.
Not being in the USA, we might tack on 2 years of maths
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Where your child goes to secondary school is pretty much 100% determined by where you are rich enough to live - it's all catchment area.
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Nope. Creating a standartised curriculum is one of the principal jobs of the ministry of education. This way everyone knows what minimum standards of knowledge are expected and the textbooks can be reused for decades, especially when it comes to basic things like math.
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If you're innumerate at 16, I don't think two more years of math education will help things.
Unless it's also profoundly worthless for those who are NOT innumerate.
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Agreed, maths should be taught a great deal better in the preceding years. Time wasted revising for exams, getting kids up to speed when moving to secondary school, poor teaching methods, disruptive classes, lack of nutrition in school lunches (leading to poor concentration and greater levels of sickness), etc, probably amounts to 3-4 years. Grammar schools avoid a lot of these problems and THAT is why their kids tend to be ahead of secondary school kids. If you had better primary schools, better staff:stud
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Everyone needs to know elementary school arithmetic, but most people don't need much beyond that. 90% of people will never, not once, need to factor a polynomial outside of a classroom.
Hundred years ago this would sound like: "Everyone needs to count to 100 but most people don't need to read. 90% of people will never, not once, need to read a book.".
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A Level pure and applied maths includes spacial relationships (very useful if you're driving a car) and statistics (very useful for rational thinking and understanding risk). Even calculus is useful to have. I'd say that a lot of A Level maths is actually very useful.
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This isn't what education should be about. An ideal educational environment has interested, self-learning students with the teacher functioning as more of a guide than lesson-giver.
That's the model that endless studies, not to mention lots of real-world experience since someone dreamed it up and decided to apply it without ever evaluating it, has been shown over and over again not to work?
Yeah, I know, citation needed, just Google it, there's been a ton of stuff published on this dangerous fallacy.
Re: Not cool (Score:1)
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The age for making that decision in the UK is 16, not 14.
Personally, though, I'm less keen on respecting the decision (I consider it to be a flawed decision) and much more keen on eradicating the causes of that decision - often it will be issues with either the teachers or disruption in oversized classes with highly differentiated abilities. There's a need to respect decisions, yes, but the ideal is surely to give children sufficient motivation and sufficient interest to keep them wanting to come back.
I hav
Re:Not cool (Score:5, Insightful)
#1 Heart Disease, #2 Cancer
Fortunately heart disease and cancer are not contagious. Indeed some people died of heart disease and cancer that would not have if all the hospital beds were not filled with COVID patients. We are still picking away at the huge backlog of procedures that were cancelled becasue all the doctors and nurses were busy caring for COVID patients. It is only by luck that our entire health care system did not completely collapse (one could argue it actually did, in the places the military was sent in to help, and ICU patients were flown to different provinces to wherever there were beds to spare at any given time).
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Cancer, per se, is not contagious, but more and more cancers are being linked to viruses. Of course, that doesn't mean that everyone infected with the virus will get cancer, it's a much more complex picture.
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In a thread about math the parent was actually a good example of why better education is needed.
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Math can also lead to misleading conclusions. I'm not saying it is actually the case but if (as per your example) the percentage of deaths due to Covid is 5% you are correct that 95% of deaths are from something else. Next you list "#1 Hear Disease, #2 Cancer". I'm all with you to this point. The problem is that you are kind of implying that Covid shouldn't be a big concern since it accounts for only 5%. You then point out that Heart Disease is the number one cause of death (not factoring in Covid) but do t
It wouldn't be slashdot if someone didn't do it (Score:2)
Unfortunately, there's 10 types of people.
Those who want to learn binary and those who don't.