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| An observation on homework problems |
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| coppice:
--- Quote from: tggzzz on August 18, 2020, 11:45:58 am ---I don't know the actual percentages, but the 60s really broke down the barrier that pretty much excluded the working class from university. --- End quote --- That was a period when the UK establishment realised the country was falling behind, and that anyone with talent needed that talent developed. That's why the universities expanded a lot in the late 60s and early 70s. Its also why the state starting paying everyone's college fees, and provided living expenses to anyone who's parents couldn't afford to pay. They didn't really want to admit how easy it was to get the government to pay, so we had to go through a shame of applying for discretionary grants, and not knowing that the outcome would be. If you knew someone involved in these grants - in my case a friend at the local council who could tell me the precise cost of my course, because he dealt with the payments - they could tell you that if a uni would accept you, you would get the relevant grants. Now the authorities have abandoned creating a well educated workforce, and we are back to the bad old days with working class youngsters getting a poor start in life. When I look at my father's generation, there were many bright people in dead end work, which they had never been able to rise out of. In my generation most of the capable people got a reasonable start in life.... at least in London, where I grew up. People of my age from some parts of the North of the UK tell a slightly less happy story. Not so many went to university, but large numbers of working class youngsters went to various kinds of poly or technical college and established a reasonable career for themselves. --- Quote from: tggzzz on August 18, 2020, 11:45:58 am ---I must be odd, because I chose to not accept a scholarship to a local public school, and go to the local Grammar School. Ditto Cambridge vs Southampton Uni. --- End quote --- Not at all. I never applied to Oxford or Cambridge, as I thought my life would be made miserable there. In later years, interacting with both very smart state school people and not always very smart public school people who went to Oxford or Cambridge I think I made the right choice. I went to the top tier that looked good to me - UCL. As an aside, my best friend at college is from Southhampton, and both his parents lectured at the uni. That made his first step to cross Southampton off any list of potent colleges to attend. :) --- Quote from: tggzzz on August 18, 2020, 11:45:58 am ---The major difference between the 70s and now is that in the 70s ~8% went to university whereas nowdays I believe it is 45%. If we make the grossly simplifying assumption of mapping that onto IQ (etc) bell curves, then mean value of competence is very noticably lower. Hence, even if the proportions of grades remains the same, the standard necessary to get a grade must necessarily be lower. --- End quote --- In the early 70s it was a lot lower than 8%. It was more like 4%, consisting of most of the 5% who went to public school, and a modest number from the state schools. |
| tggzzz:
--- Quote from: coppice on August 18, 2020, 01:59:52 pm --- --- Quote from: tggzzz on August 18, 2020, 11:45:58 am ---I must be odd, because I chose to not accept a scholarship to a local public school, and go to the local Grammar School. Ditto Cambridge vs Southampton Uni. --- End quote --- Not at all. I never applied to Oxford or Cambridge, as I thought my life would be made miserable there. In later years, interacting with both very smart state school people and not always very smart public school people who went to Oxford or Cambridge I think I made the right choice. I went to the top tier that looked good to me - UCL. As an aside, my best friend at college is from Southhampton, and both his parents lectured at the uni. That made his first step to cross Southampton off any list of potent colleges to attend. :) --- End quote --- I avoided looking at Surrey Uni and London colleges for similar reasons. Curiously, I went to work in Cambridge, from 81-87. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there, partly because it was a very interesting time. The BBC's Micro Men and Hermann Hauser's Oral History captures it pretty well. I was involved in one of Hauser's anecdotes; I knew the beginning and am not surprised to have learned of the ending. Yes, it was a small world and people did wander into companies and the colleges via backdoors :) The main reason I left is there is too little ink (of any colour) on the OS1:50000 map, in particular contours and trees. |
| coppice:
--- Quote from: tggzzz on August 18, 2020, 02:21:42 pm ---Curiously, I went to work in Cambridge, from 81-87. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there, partly because it was a very interesting time. The BBC's Micro Men and Hermann Hauser's Oral History captures it pretty well. I was involved in one of Hauser's anecdotes; I knew the beginning and am not surprised to have learned of the ending. Yes, it was a small world and people did wander into companies and the colleges via backdoors :) The main reason I left is there is too little ink (of any colour) on the OS1:50000 map, in particular contours and trees. --- End quote --- It certainly was a small world. Talk to anyone who worked at, say, Cambridge Consultants or the PAT Centre, and they tend to know everyone else you've ever known who worked around Cambridge. There always seems to be a Clive Sinclair anecdote in them, too. :) |
| tooki:
--- Quote from: pgo on August 17, 2020, 09:52:04 am ---As an educator I am often amazed and how much effort students will go through to remember things rather than understand them. Personally I have a poor memory so unconnected facts are hard to remember. Connected reasoning is much easier. --- End quote --- One problem I see is that the educational systems cram in too much material to actually go at a pace that permits all the students to actually truly understand. So the ones who need more time end up memorizing, because it’s that or failing. I had this exact problem with the “ballroom dance” class I took at university to fulfill a physical ed requirement: long before I had truly gotten the hang of one basic step, they added on another, and then another, until by the end of the thing I was hopelessly lost. And this is exactly what I saw happen with many students in various academic subjects. |
| tggzzz:
--- Quote from: coppice on August 18, 2020, 02:46:51 pm --- --- Quote from: tggzzz on August 18, 2020, 02:21:42 pm ---Curiously, I went to work in Cambridge, from 81-87. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there, partly because it was a very interesting time. The BBC's Micro Men and Hermann Hauser's Oral History captures it pretty well. I was involved in one of Hauser's anecdotes; I knew the beginning and am not surprised to have learned of the ending. Yes, it was a small world and people did wander into companies and the colleges via backdoors :) The main reason I left is there is too little ink (of any colour) on the OS1:50000 map, in particular contours and trees. --- End quote --- It certainly was a small world. Talk to anyone who worked at, say, Cambridge Consultants or the PAT Centre, and they tend to know everyone else you've ever known who worked around Cambridge. There always seems to be a Clive Sinclair anecdote in them, too. :) --- End quote --- I started at CCL, before moving on. The staff turnover was, by the conventional standards of the time, fairly high - but that was because people were always moving on for good reasons. Usually that meant they were trying their luck at something new and exciting. There was a map at the back of "Cambridge Phenomenon: The Growth of High Technology Industry in a University Town" published in 1985, while I was there. The map showed CCL was pretty central to everything, and there have been many big spinouts since then. |
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