Quote: zooo @ May 9 2012, 2:13 PM BSTIsn't that actually what people say it used to be? That up until the '50s, students were just taught to parrot facts and historical dates etc.
The exam pressures and league tables are more paramount these days. As a teacher, your greatest priority is to make sure students pass exams and all you are teaching them is to pass exams. Any knowledge, learning or academic wisdom picked up on the way is secondary.
Quote: zooo @ May 9 2012, 2:13 PM BSTIsn't that actually what people say it used to be? That up until the '50s, students were just taught to parrot facts and historical dates etc.
I used to dress my cockatoo up and memorise each outfit.
Then I realised it was just parrot fashion.
Education really is wasted on the young. I wish I could re-experience now all the classes I had at grammar school. I would actually listen and want to learn new things. It would be so much more effective and less of a waste of everyone's time.
Quote: Nogget @ May 9 2012, 2:18 PM BSTI used to dress my cockatoo up and memorise each outfit.
Then I realised it was just parrot fashion.
Oh dear.
Quote: zooo @ May 9 2012, 2:20 PM BSTI would actually listen and want to learn new things. It would be so much more effective and less of a waste of everyone's time.
I know the feeling, but thankfully the Internetz keeps me occupied. Plus, sometimes school does prepare you for life - every time I've sat in a boring business meeting listening to someone droning on in a monotone fashion about something I have no interest in, I can now feign interest, just like in school.
That is a good point.
Quote: Renegade Carpark @ May 9 2012, 2:28 PM BSTevery time I've sat in a boring business meeting listening to someone droning on in a monotone fashion about something I have no interest in, I can now feign interest, just like in school.
Very interesting, do go on.
Quote: Renegade Carpark @ May 9 2012, 1:27 PM BSTSo again, does educated equal clever?
Intelligence is a capacity that a person is born with. Education allows an intelligent person to fulfill that capacity.
In a perfect world (where universities didn't exist merely to churn out degrees), you could take a Chinese or American kid who tested at/below average intelligence and he wouldn't be able to hack courses in advanced mathematics, science, etc., but you could pluck an illiterate kid with a high IQ from a mud hut in Africa and he'd become the next Stephen Hawking.
My ex-girlfriend has a Ph.D and 4 other degrees and she's a whiz when it comes to her field of study (creative writing) but she's a dud when it comes to math, history, science and the everyday operation of modern tech equipment. As she often says, "they'll give a Ph.D to anyone."
Quote: sootyj @ May 9 2012, 1:57 PM BSTSo put a guy with a little brain in Eton and Oxbridge and the guy who comes out will in all measure be clever.
David Cameron has a first in PPE from Oxford. On the evidence of the past couple of years, I wouldn't call him clever.
Quote: KLRiley @ May 9 2012, 1:38 PM BSTthe Us tends to stop at innovation. It doesn't do development. And minaturisation.
Have you seen our nuclear warheads? 
Quote: DaButt @ May 9 2012, 3:26 PM BSTHave you seen our nuclear warheads?
Yup. You're just pleased to see people.
Bigger brains= bigger bombs= with knobs on.
President Obama is so unpopular with his own party in West Virginia that he lost more than 40% of the vote in the Democratic Party's presidential primary to an inmate in a federal prison. In Texas.
I searched the BBC website for mention of the story and came up empty-handed.
Wow if He just got rid of that awful ponytail!
Quote: dellas @ May 9 2012, 7:00 PM BSTWow if He just got rid of that awful ponytail!
I suppose he looks like a woman from behind and one would think that would be something to avoid in prison. 
So obviously true Dabutt, did you get pissed on your BDay?