A cure for our kids' illiteracy?

[octave]

When things started to go bad, it was because the good teachers had all of their authority taken from them. I partly blame their union for this.

 

 

 

How so? 

 

I am always suspicious of vague anecdotes.

 

I have just returned home from my biggest teaching day of the week as a music teacher. I teach kids (and adults) one to one.  I am quite certain the the biggest determiner of academic success is the parent. I always assume that people who think that the system is appalling are people who have been disappointed by the the results of their children or grandchildren.     

 

After 30 years of teaching and following my ex students I can tell you that the particular school is no predictor of success form exclusive private schools to poorer rough schools. The successful students come from families that are caring and supportive and value education. Harsh discipline does not contribute to success.

 

Re the internet.   My assumption is that people who bag the internet as an educational tool are those who are unable to navigate it sensibly or whose children are unable to use its resources.

 

Nothing wrong with books but in many fields of employment the book published last year is hopelessly out of date, information is changing at an ever increasing rate. Those who are comfortable with today's technologies will find it easier to thrive than those who cling to the past. This may be uncomfortable for some but this has always been the case.

 

Of course there is nothing wrong with WELL INFORMED criticisms but remember that  there are psychological reasons why every generation bags the following generation, it is well understood, this has occurred since Platos time and probably before his time. 

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamthierer/2012/01/08/why-do-we-always-sell-the-next-generation-short/#17bfc2752d75

 

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20171003-proof-that-people-have-always-complained-about-young-adults

 

Too many links on this to post.

 

My father used to quiz me on capitol cities. He was horrified that at school I did not learn the order of British monarch. I feel I have done alright especially in terms of happiness and whilst I am not rich I am financially self sufficient.

 

The notion that young people are as a group are illiterate can not really be supported by anyone who has actually read and understood the source material of the latest moral crisis. The fact is although we have slipped marginally and other countries have slightly we are still well within in the top 25 of the world.

 

I suspect that news stories about the new awful youth of today are popular with older people who need to believe that they are the greatest generation. The truth is that as we get older we do find it harder to keep up and maintain our relevance.  I personally put a lot of work into keeping up.   I am happy to report that most of my friends are younger than me and some of my best friends are educated and successful 20 somethings. I find that I have less in common with some of my older friends who have reached the unhappy "you kids get off my lawn stage" 

 

Nearly all of my work colleagues are  around 30 years younger than me.  Sometimes I can see they suffer from lack of life experience but they are much more talented and educated than me, between us we do good things.

 

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[willedoo]

One of my greatest fears would be to wake up one day in a retirement village in a mono culture of old farts, cut off from other generations.

 

My idea of hell.

 

 

[octave]

Is that because we learned as children to examine encyclopedia and other text books for the information we wanted and not the 'Net makes the preliminary parts of the search so much more convenient?

 

 

 

If we consider that one of the purposes of education is to prepare people for the workforce then we need to teach them to use the tools of the age.  As a couple of examples, my wife recently retired from a small engineering company that builds cutting edge water treatments units (built into shipping containers) for the mining industry as well as many other areas in Australia and all around the world.  This small company is a world leader and is able to build bespoke machines to suit particular circumstances form a bowling club to a chicken far to a large mine to a refugee camp.  What is built depends  on local conditions such as salinity levels etc. I can assure you that they do not look up this information in Encyclopedia Britannica, information from 6 months ago is already out of date.

 

A young friend of mine is from Poland and she is doing her PHD in Nanobiotechnology.   In her research she needs to access other people's scientific papers, she does not go down to the local library for 2 year old books.  Now I can imagine some of you expert hating folks saying what she does is ridiculous. What she is researching is the packaging of cancer destroying molecules in nanoparticles that are able to insert themselves in cancer cells but not healthy cells.  Sound like money well spent to me.

 

As a music teacher back in the day I purchased a set of Groves music encyclopedia for I think about $2500.  Eventually I got rid of these books, they only covered music theory and history up until 1985 and I can't take it anywhere to use. 

 

Although books have their place there are some things that I can now find online that I have difficulty finding in books to help my students. Consider this video (I accept you will not find that interesting but if you jump forward a couple of times you may get the point.)     I have to get students of all ages interested in music analysis. This even for the most smart and enthusiastic student can seem a little dry and boring.   I recently turned one of my young adult students to analysis analysis of Bohemian Rhapsody.  i am not sure what physical book could have done this better.

 

 

The people regardless of age who are enthusiastic and smart enough  to fully exploit all the available tools (including books) will thrive and succeed. 

 

 

[willedoo]

The internet is a wonderful resource, you just have to be smart about how you use it and how you combine it with more traditional skills. For a long time, my main passtime/hobby/endeavour has been researching/collecting Soviet/Russian/Eastern Bloc ALSE. 100% impossible without the internet. If there was no internet, I'd have to take up bowls for a hobby.

 

 

[Bruce]

I've just been watching the state school's concert...  wonderful stuff. No rough kids only there to sabotage it.

 

We could do that everywhere if you had to pass an audition to be let in.

 

That's the deal you have had Octave, but not all teachers have. I reckon they should.

 

 

[old man emu]

Is that because we learned as children to examine encyclopedia and other text books for the information we wanted and not the 'Net makes the preliminary parts of the search so much more convenient?

 

It's marvelous what one misspelled word can do to a sentence. I've marked the incorrect word. I meant to write "now". The correction changes the meaning completely.

 

What I was trying to say was that we oldies learned to carry out research by going to books, and we learned how to filter out of those books the information we needed. But getting the books and going right to the information took a lot of time. Now we can type a few words into a search engine and the up-to-date information appears in seconds. 

 

It's true that printed information is often out of date the next day, but there is some information published long ago in books that is timeless. Happily a lot of those books have been digitised and uploaded to the 'Net.

 

 

[Bruce]

In some subjects, knowledge of the old stuff is necessary and it doesn't go out of date. Mathematics, for example. You need to know a bunch of old stuff before you can understand the new things. Who among us can go from Maxwell's equations to Einsteins   E=mc2?  I tried but I'm not smart enough . Maxwell's equations are partial differential equations, and they led directly to radio and atomic stuff.

 

They are also about 100 years old.

 

In another modern field, I reckon you need to at least appreciate the Navier-Stokes equations before you can make a real contribution to aerodynamics.

 

Those equations form the basis of modern computer modelling of airflow around objects like planes.

 

I'm surprised that in music, you need recently written material. What about Mozart, I wonder. ( My favs are Mozart and the Everly Brothers ) . Yes,  I admit to liking classical pop stuff from Elvis to Abba.

 

I reckon my generation took so much of the good tunes off the market  that it is real hard these days to come up with anything both new and good.   

 

 

[nomadpete]

I am not trying to 'bag out' the internet as a source of information, nor as a learning tool. My point was, that learning that some information is 'big', and 'looking stuff up' sometimes is interesting, is important for any person. The culture must be cultivated from an early age. This can only be done in a one-on-one learning environment. (Which is the best learning environment for most things, as Octave has found).

 

Such early attitude and culture is not the responsibility of the school system. It is the responsibility of the parents (and grandparents)

 

 

[old man emu]

Try to interest a seven-year-old in learning anything when its mother is fat, lazy and uneducated whose parenting method is to hand the remote or tablet to a child at three-years of age and leave education at that.

 

 

[octave]

Try to interest a seven-year-old in learning anything when its mother is fat, lazy and uneducated whose parenting method is to hand the remote or tablet to a child at three-years of age and leave education at that.

 

I totally agree, in my childhood the equivalent was the television and before that there was a time when reading novels was frowned upon.   I think the key is parenting.   I think in your example the Ipad or tablet is not the main problem but the lack of parental involvement. That particular parent is failing to interact and using something that could be a powerful tool with appropriate guidance in a passive way.   

 

 

[octave]

I'm surprised that in music, you need recently written material. What about Mozart, I wonder. ( My favs are Mozart and the Everly Brothers ) . Yes,  I admit to liking classical pop stuff from Elvis to Abba.

 

It is easy to think that the composition of "serious" music ended sometime ago.  This kind of art music is still happening, it may not be known by the average listener but a working musician needs to be familiar with Phillip Glass, John Adams. Steve Reich, Elena Kats Chernin.  Apart from that the type of music you like to listen to is also important and should not be dismissed just because it may not be as complex or because it is popular.   I am most definitely not a musical snob. What I love about the age  I live in is that I have available to me medieval music all the way though to music composed yesterday.   My spotify  playlist might surprise you, it ranges from nerdy and heavy through to light pop.  

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

... some information published long ago in books that is timeless...

 

I agree, OME, but people should forget the idea that reference books are totally reliable. Despite the best efforts of their publishers, they suffer from the biases and errors of their time.

 

Wikipedia, the world's most-visited site, compares well with prestigious encyclopaedias for accuracy- and can be regularly corrected and updated.

 

 

[octave]

Wikipedia, the world's most-visited site, compares well with prestigious encyclopaedias for accuracy- and can be regularly corrected and updated.

 

And available to anyone with an internet connection. Remember the days when the encyclopedia sales people would knock on your door and try to sell you their wares at a cost that would preclude many. 

 

 

[old man emu]

Remember the days when the encyclopedia sales people would knock on your door and try to sell you their wares at a cost that would preclude many. 

 

My parents bought me a full set of Encyclopedia Britannica  and a subscription to the Yearbook update and with the kids' set thrown in. My sister got a horse, saddlery and riding clothes. She's still got horses. The Britannica went into the bin years ago. 

 

But my library also contains "The Private Pilot" C.S.HAMES, "Songs of the Sentimental Bloke", "The Moods of Ginger Mick" and "Digger Smith" by C.J.DENNIS,  a one and ninepence copy of an Arthur Upfield Detective Bonaparte story and "Airplane Maintenance" by Hubert G. LESLEY (1940), plus others. The information in Hames and Lesley is still applicable, and the works of Dennis and Upfield are immortal.

 

 

[facthunter]

I love and use Wiki a lot, but it's not guaranteed to be immune from deliberately falsified data being posted there.. If you wanted to know how to make a harpsichord (as they were) I wouldn't go to the net, IF original docs are about describing how it WAS done . The only things that give you accurate  indications of how things WERE are not reproduction or restored.  THOSE are adaptations and substitutes.  You need images and data of the ORIGINAL. If you are developing something that is right on the cutting edge of innovation , or technological development, It's an entirely different matter.  In that place you don't get tried and tested "things" by definition.  Nev.

 

 

[old man emu]

But Wiki is a damned good starting point.

 

 

[octave]

30 years ago we built our own house making some mistakes along the way of course. Now I am renovating my current home and I am so thankful we have youtube.  For example renovating our bathroom and ensuring the shower does not leak.  Many you tube clips are from tradespeople and home renovations who give a variety of advice some of it contradictory. The advantage is that I can look at 30 different clips. I can compare methods and look for points agreement. I can see pros and cons of different methods. Alternatively I could go down to the library and borrow  3 or for books on this subject and compare them.

 

I can buy Groves music encyclopedia or I can subscribe to Groves online, same information but cheaper more portable more up to date and more searchable.

 

A friend of mine is quite old school and he restores vintage cars.  Whilst he owns many old books that refer to the vehicles he restores he also uses the net to both get advice and give advice about solving problems that are not in old books.   Where did you get your xxx part, how do I restore xxx part.

 

Re building a harpsichord, this is not I wish to do (as Thomas Beecham once said "the harpsichord sounds like two skeletons copulating on a tin roof")  I would suspect that there would be much good information as well as an online community of builders. Knowing  a few people who are into such things they would be painfully fussy about details and authenticity.  

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

...The Britannica went into the bin years ago...

 

Sacrilege!

 

We might be needing those old tomes WTSHTF.

 

 

[old man emu]

I could always look it up on the 'Net. https://www.britannica.com/

 

 

[willedoo]

I love and use Wiki a lot, but it's not guaranteed to be immune from deliberately falsified data being posted there..

 

Wiki is good but not perfect as you say. Some take it as gospel, but pages are written by anyone like you and me. References are needed and are mostly reviewed by peers, but the volume of material is so large that some slip through the cracks. Political bias is also sometimes evident but thankfully not too often. Mainly Eastern or Western centric bias and not domestic political bias. It's a good idea to check the reference notes on a wiki page before quoting it as an authoritative source. Sometimes those references are to a very poorly researched and inaccurate piece of journalism. There is a certain amount of incorrect material on wiki, in the minority of course. Very important to check the reference notes.

 

 

[willedoo]

30 years ago we built our own house making some mistakes along the way of course. Now I am renovating my current home and I am so thankful we have youtube.  For example renovating our bathroom and ensuring the shower does not leak.  Many you tube clips are from tradespeople and home renovations who give a variety of advice some of it contradictory. The advantage is that I can look at 30 different clips. I can compare methods and look for points agreement.

 

Youtube is probably one of the best centralized research tools around, particularly in aviation. There are volumes of old clips from Martin Baker early seat tests to USAF, RAF and VVS training videos over a long time period. One feature I like is it's multi language ability. Enter search terms in any language and it takes you there.

 

And if the research gets boring, a couple of mouse clicks and you can be watching a music video. I think Youtube as a resource far outshines all others.

 

 

[facthunter]

Later is not always better. It's often just cheaper and involves the design being easy to make in large volumes. This gives high tech stuff at affordable prices but little interchangeability or opportunity to service parts. They just have to be replaced and that brings in the issue of parts supply availability (planned obselescence?).

 

  IF you are restoring an old vehicle or even a plane you job is to resist the temptation to modify it as by doing that you often ruin it entirely, as frequently happens. You also lose the contact with the feel and history of the time..  Nev

 

 

[octave]

IF you are restoring an old vehicle or even a plane you job is to resist the temptation to modify it as by doing that you often ruin it entirely, as frequently happens. You also lose the contact with the feel and history of the time.. 

 

Nev not sure if this was in answer to my post or not

 

My friend who  restores vintage cars is a stickler for authenticity. More often than not a car being restored is not 100% complete. My friend doesn't modify but where necessary remanufactures to original specifications. He also has done work for Point Cook RAAF Museum and wrote the history of RAAF Point Cook.  The point is that looking for the definitive answer to something on the net is just one thing you can use it for but it is often the networking that can be extremely useful. In the past you might consult with your local vintage car crowd now using the www you can perhaps find the one person who has a spare xxx part that you may be having trouble finding or who has some documentation.  

 

 

[facthunter]

It is a response but not a refutation. Horses for courses. Peoples knowledge often dies with them and is often GONE forever. It's often replaced with conjecture and ill informed "new" facts from general and often self promoted "experts". Nature abhors a vaccuum and weeds grow on a bare patch..  Nev

 

 

[octave]

Peoples knowledge often dies with them and is often GONE forever.

 

Agreed, this is why this information must be recorded by whatever means and preserved.