Posted By: JoinerMath that they should have known when they walked through the door

Trouble with maths is that the finer points are very quickly forgotten. Can remember a very nice Irish Lecturer telling me that, apart from teaching, he had only used calculus once when working and he was just being flash. If you don't use it you loose it.
The college local to me had a Maths and English workshop in the library every lunch time that any student could use. A brilliant idea. I renamed it 'Maths Club' to add a bit more nerdiness to it. They also have an hour in the timetable for 'flexible learning' where you can get more specific help on other topics, no one every turned up but all wished they had in the end.
But listen to this, to achieve Qualified Teacher Status you have to do the equivalent of a GCSE in Maths, English and ICT. I sat next to a very nice woman during my PGCE course who had a Masters in English, she wanted to know if the rules of grammar had changed in 2 years. I have a Science BSc and 10 years Lecturing in ICT and wondered why I had to do it. Found out when I was marking an English paper and I kept coming across the word 'ide', this had always been a type of hard drive to me. Eventually worked out what the chap meant was ' I had'.

Dai, much of the response to your OP picked up on your appearing to use 'technology' as an illustrative point, rather than the general issue of 'education at large'. Most of us reacted with a subconscious reference to the fact that the word 'technology' (yes, from the Greek, so ancient roots) is actually a relatively modern one in the sense we wholly accept and use it now, and so naturally (?) referred back to the grounding in the two disciplines of science and/or engineering that formed the basis of our early education(s).

"The dividing line between what we include in the following list as technology and what we call science elsewhere in this volume is somewhat arbitrary. In general, what we have done is this: if a term is essential to understanding a particular branch of science, it appears in the list for that science. Thus, atom appears with the physical sciences, even though an understanding of atoms is clearly important to the new technology. If, however, the term involves something that is likely to affect an individual's life, even though it is not a central concept of a particular branch of science, it is listed under 'Technology'." (From http://www.answers.com/topic/technology )

And that's more or less what I was told when I did the OU Technology Foundation course nearly thirty years ago. The fact that the word was deemed to need a full explanation said a lot. But it was also drummed into to us that 'technology' brought together many of the 'sciences' previously studied in isolation.

Lovelock criticises that aspect of his education, the narrow confines of too-narrow a focus on a particular discipline (chemistry, physics, engineering, etc) and the lost opportunity for a full appreciation of what was happening to the planet because the different disciplines were fighting their own corner. He reckons we lost twenty years due to that, before 'Earth Science' was reconciled with Gaia Theory. Twenty years we could ill-afford. Lovelock's unifying conceptual leap was the product of his eclectic educational background, one born of rebellion and curiosity, a refusal to accept that there were bounds to knowledge which could not, and should never be, constrained. Perhaps my love of the guy comes from an appreciation of someone else who liked a good digression!

'Modern' education is a boring entity with no personality to speak of. The National Curriculum was a disaster for the kind of creativity that enhances the scientific as well as artistic mind, because it outlawed the idiosyncratic teachers of the past who inspired their brighter pupils to stretch themselves and challenge convention. Now it's just mass-production, bland and safe and universal. Teacher training colleges are sausage factories producing clones designed to go forth and produce junior clones. Half our friends (and our daughter) are in the teaching profession and accept that it's just a job. OK, you're either good or bad at it, and if you're good at playing the politics it doesn't matter which one you are. Forget vocation and don't even mention the word unless you want to be laughed out of the room. If anyone dares show a bit of character and step out of line by injecting personality into what's being taught? Well, don't hold your breath when the next round of cuts come around.

Right, tin hat on.

At least you managed to get back before 2:30.

My two penneth.

My 22 yr old son is doing Avionics (electronics for hairyplanes) at a famous uni. Whilst it is definately a proper course (he generally studies 4 days a week over the (albeit short) four year course rather than the 12hrs a week my nephew did when doing 'International Business'.

He's in his final year but last night called me as his final project wasn't working and he was panicing. He'd built his own wire wrapped PCBs and from his description of his problem it sounded like a cock up on the physical front. When he phoned me he was in the electronics lab surrounded by literally dozens of ossilyscopes so I suggested he hooked a couple up to check signal levels. He then had to admit to me that they hadn't actually been taught (in 4 bl**dy years) to use an oscilloscope!

After 4 years of study he has still not learned anymore about descrete components and has no real grasp of what they do or why they do it. His maths is WOW and he can programme microprocessors with no problem so apparentlky that will set him up for life!

I have already told all three of my kids (the youngest is just 7) they have to leave Britain and go seek their future in a country that places proper value on what makes the world actually go round. My wife chimed in and said, "Don't be a banker" or did I miss hear her...?

Like all civilisations, the West has had its day and in terminal decline. Head East Kids it's where the suns rising!

One of my daughters is getting married next month and soon after will be heading to Australia for a year - she has a BA, PGCE and 5 years teaching experience.

Part of me wants her to stay and part of me thinks going is the best thing she could do. Whether she'll ever come back ...

There maybe good news cometh!!!

The Wolf Report released 3rd March 2011, says that vocational education is important but needs to restructured and more valuable, offering the skills and knowledge needed for employment.

Ted. My view is you have to let 'em go much as it might hurt. Some people settle and some don't but just be careful she feels she has your backing to do what's right for her. Girls often end up doing the 'right' thing by others instead of what's right for them.

At least you'll get some decent hols!

Posted By: CWattersHe had to remain "current" on every new aircraft type that came along or loose his ticket to work on them.

Not sure quite what you mean, do you both do identical work but because you have a Higher Education qualification you don't have to keep current?

ST
YOu have to be certified (perhaps therein lies a clue..) to work on an aircraft aircraft 'type' 747 777 etc. So, you have to be up-to-date with the latest on each you are certified for. That then effectively means you can never rest and are continually studying as things are continually changing. That what CW means by 'current'. I know as I've had, at least, two wives who were cabin crew... now there's a few tales!

Which raises the question of "basics" again. What happens at that hypothetical point when all the "helpful" high-tech stuff can't be manufactured anymore and you have to return to a machine that can only (?) generate a simple sine wave, the little blips and nuances of which have to be interpreted by someone who knows why it's behaving that way.

Whenever anyone lauds the progress we've made and says how they're not sorry to see the extinction of "things" that needed work and thought to make them work, I can't help thinking about the declared and readily-accepted need to maintain rare breeds as a gene-bank "just in case". Except that I'm actually relating that to knowledge and skills. Why can't we, as a society, accept the need to maintain a rare knowledge- and skills-bank?

Nowadays, the reason we don't eat them is because there's a risk of a variant CJD nasty called Kuru. That's the only reason I don't indulge anyway, don't know about you.