surely they are not that bad

[Bruce Tuncks]

I just read that in Russia, children of ex-servicemen can attend medical school and never be failed even if they don't attend lectures and do any assignments.

Gosh, this would make them as bad as we are with non-english speaking australians...

[Jerry_Atrick]

Did you read what courses this applies to? I would not think Russians would allow it for practioners courses.

Edited July 22, 2023 by Jerry_Atrick

[Bruce Tuncks]

My firm impression was that it would apply to practitioners....  we in Australia have Indian practitioners who have found a loophole which includes London. One of these practitioners was the Bundaberg Dr death.

[spacesailor]

England gave it's ' demobilised service personnel ' 

Any JOB THEY WANTED .

School teachers my arse , .

Should have been subjected to All the Laws , that they broke .

Teacher's, Lawyer's, Police, Doctors,  Mp's and Royalty. 

Were all above the Law after the 2nd war .

spacesailor

[Jerry_Atrick]

Teachers and docs no longer but the rest are

[facthunter]

Surely returning heroes can expect  good treatment? Nev

[spacesailor]

Yes !

But

To give them " cart blanch " to school children . To do whatever they desired,  

Just think of that .

It was criminal,  without recourse to ANY justice. 

spacesailor

[facthunter]

Are you talking about the UK?    Nev

[spacesailor]

I am talking about. ' MY ' UK schooling .

OR

LACK of it .

spacesailor

[Old Koreelah]

Two different stories illustrate the crucial role of parents in education:

https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/why-are-teachers-struggling-because-your-children-are-awful-20230731-p5dsqn.html

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-25/tamworth-dolly-parton-imagination-library-730/102643392?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=link&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web

[facthunter]

parents expect Teachers to do more and more of what would be a good parents responsibility.   Nev

[old man emu]

I think a problem is that teachers don't engage with the parents who want to be involved with their children's education. As someone said elsewhere, why does the education system insist on teaching measurement with units that nobody uses in daily life. I think a lot of parents who do have an interest in their children's education are put off by the amount of what some might describe as PC and woke topics. Most parents know that readin', writin' and 'rithmetic are the foundations of a successful life. And before Octave bounces me, to my mind, the 3 Rs are also the basics of Music and the Arts.

[Old Koreelah]

2 hours ago, old man emu said:

…why does the education system insist on teaching measurement with units that nobody uses in daily life.

Which ones do you mean? Science is full of measurements that most of us will never use, but a decent education should at least expose us to their existance, just like we should know a bit about the world outside our little valley.

When in high school I had no idea what a Mol was, nor a Candela, but at least I learned that there were whole fields of inquiry that required their use.
 

[old man emu]

I should have clarified that quotation from another member of this forum. I should have said that the quoted practice of teaching children, and I assume they to be Primary School children, to use the centimetre as the basic unit of measurement is out of step with daily practice. In the making of anything from bulk materials such as timber or metal (not source materials such as iron ore) one uses millimetres for fine measurement and metres for coarse measurements. For example, One buys a 2.4 x 1.2 metre sheet of plywood and cuts it into smaller sheets whose dimensions are based mainly on factors of 150 mm ( 300, 450, 600, 750, 900). The only time that centimetres are commonly used that I can think of is in describing the height of a person.

 

I agree that as one enters specialised fields, usually the Sciences, one encounters units of measurement that are specific to the field of study involved. Let's look at what a candela is.

 

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candela

 

The 26th General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) redefined the candela in 2018.The new definition is:

The candela [...] is defined by taking the fixed numerical value of the luminous efficacy of monochromatic radiation of frequency 540 × 1012 Hz, Kcd, to be 683 when expressed in the unit lm W−1, which is equal to cd sr W−1, or cd sr kg−1 m−2 s3, where the kilogram, metre and second are defined in terms of h, c and ΔνCs.

 

In case you did not know the "sr" in those units is the steradian, of which everyone is intimately familiar.

 

[Bruce Tuncks]

Apparently we were supposed to metricate in 1974!

Yet here I am, in 2023, still thinking that my tyres require 35psi. I hate kilopascals.

But, having assembled a Jabiru, I feel sorry for the yanks that they are stuck with such an archaic system...  apparently they still have roods, whatever they may be.

[Jerry_Atrick]

I don't know whether to do it here or the other forum that talks about it, but I am going to chip in on the "Should we be teaching them mm instead of cm?" debate. I started school in 1971, and tbh, I remember inches et al, but can't remember how I knew about them. But, sometime after 1974, I was taught about measurements in km, m, cm, a mm.

 

These days (and long before I moved here), I do all my measurements in CM. Yes, building and construction use mm, but as we were taught all units, but admittedly focused on cm for the smaller units, I became comfy using cm, and if something was, e.g. 605mm, I can easily convert to 60.5cm.

 

The great thing about metric is everything works in mutlples of 10, so using a decimal system for expressing lengths in cm is no big deal. I honestly can't see what the fuss is about. And when I talk these measurements to the builders, they seem to get it.

 

Of course, when speaking about certain appendages, only inches will do (but to some ladies, I may have quoted cm, but left the unit of measure out of the conversation). 😉

 

 

[red750]

9 minutes ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

apparently they still have roods, whatever they may be.

Rood (unit) - Wikipedia
Rood is an English unit of area equal to one quarter of an acre or 10,890 square feet, exactly 1,011.7141056 m 2. A rectangle that is one furlong (i.e., 10 chains, or 40 rods) in length and one rod in width is one rood in area, as is any space comprising 40 perches (a perch being one square rod). The vergée was also a quarter of a Normandy ...

[old man emu]

Rood is a unit of area equal to one quarter of an acre or 10,890 square feet, exactly 1,011.7141056 m^2.

 

The rod is defined as 16+1⁄2 feet, equal to exactly 1⁄320 of a mile, or 5+1⁄2 yards (a quarter of a surveyor's chain), and is exactly 5.0292 meters. The rod is useful as a unit of length because integer multiples of it can form one acre of square measure (area). 

 

The 'perfect acre' is a rectangular area of 43,560 square feet, bounded by sides 660 feet (a furlong) long and 66 feet (a chain) wide (220 yards by 22 yards) or, equivalently, 40 rods by 4 rods. An acre is therefore 160 square rods or 10 square chains.

 

So, a rood is 40 square rods. 

[red750]

19 minutes ago, old man emu said:

The only time that centimetres are commonly used that I can think of is in describing the height of a person.

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Windoware 120 x 223cm White Coco Sheer Rod Pocket Curtain - 2 Pack. (1) $14 .95. Compare.

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[old man emu]

Notice that those dimensions are based on the sizes of raw materials : 1200 x 2400 (1.2 x 2.4).

 

The 2230 mm leaves 170 mm for aesthetic clearance above the curtain, and another amount to prevent the bottom dragging on the floor. Modern rooms are 2.4 metres from floor to ceiling. The old 9 foot ceiling is a tad under 2.75 m.

 

One thinks of defining the Imperial measurement "tad" in terms of the poofteenth or bee's dick, which are units of distance. However in this case "tad" is misused because  a "tad" is a measure of volume equal to 1/4 of one Imperial teaspoon, or nearly 1.48 ml.

[Old Koreelah]

29 minutes ago, old man emu said:

Rood is a unit of area equal to one quarter of an acre or 10,890 square feet, exactly 1,011.7141056 m^2.

 

The rod is defined as 16+1⁄2 feet, equal to exactly 1⁄320 of a mile, or 5+1⁄2 yards (a quarter of a surveyor's chain), and is exactly 5.0292 meters. The rod is useful as a unit of length because integer multiples of it can form one acre of square measure (area). 

 

The 'perfect acre' is a rectangular area of 43,560 square feet, bounded by sides 660 feet (a furlong) long and 66 feet (a chain) wide (220 yards by 22 yards) or, equivalently, 40 rods by 4 rods. An acre is therefore 160 square rods or 10 square chains.

 

So, a rood is 40 square rods. 

With such handicaps, how in hell did the Brits ever have the Industrial Revolution?

[old man emu]

Once you define a standard measurement, everything falls into place. I read that there are examples inscribed on stones on the Parthenon that are the references to the lengths of the measurement units to be used. The symbols used were the arm from elbow to the tips of the fingers and the palm. Once those symbols were inscribed, workers could go to them to calibrate their measuring tools. I think that the Greeks got the idea from the Egyptians, and who knows where they got the idea from. I suppose the idea is pretty basic to construction from the beginning of permanent buildings.

[Old Koreelah]

Those measures would work okey if everyone was about the same size. My cubit is quite a bit longer than most.

 

[facthunter]

I'm about equally "fluent" in Both. US people see Metric" as UN American but it's pretty much the Universal measure for science. I've just gotten a copy Of Machinery's Handbook 15th edition of 1900 pages very comprehensive and the Bible of standards in this area.  Nev

[Marty_d]

The curtain measurements are in CM because most fabrics use it - my wife's into knitting, sewing, spinning etc and all of them seem to use CM.  I only use millimetres & metres.  Just makes it easier, multiply by 1000 to get the next one.  You don't see anyone using a unit between metres and kilometres.