h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ideally, nothing would be rote learning.

Sadly, much of what I see from my various kids' educations is they are being taught to pass tests.

To be fair, there is a great deal more variety in the current system than when I was at school but there is also more emphasis on having right answers. Which means you'll get a lot less essays with titles like "Wilfred Owen was to poetry what Elvis Presley was to Downhill Skiing. Discuss."

The emphasis on rote learning means that it has now become very difficult for me to think - as weird as that may sound. I have a maths teacher this year who is very motivated to get students to think for themselves about problems, and I'm just not used to not chugging through problems based on a certain model. It's cool in a way, but kind of scary because now I've got a bad grade in the class.

This post has been removed.

o.O

Does anyone think that was a deliberate non-sequiter? Or have we been threadjacked?

I think it may be better forwarded to Messrs Palin and Jones.

altogether now...

Spam spam spam spam,
spam spam spam spam.
spammity spam,
O' wonderful spam.

I wondered about that one too, Gradient.


az

Well, yes, I went to a very classically oriented school for which my parents paid mega$$USD. This was also in the Cretaceous Period, when we who are now Grouchy Older People walked five miles, uphill each way, to and from school, in really, really starched and uncomfortable uniforms, which kept us alert, by being itchy and fitting badly.

To whoever said 'The Internet' in response to the general wail about 'kids today', .

The Internet is the latest incarnation of a phenomenon I remember commmenting upon, when Music Videos first came out, in the early 1980s. My younger sibling was finishing up high school (one very like mine), and was very excited by music videos. Both of us were hopeless theatre geeks -- if you've done theatre, in school, you know the type of outcaste in-group who are theatre geeks; if not, take my word.

My sib was carrying on about how cool MTV was. *Something* about it had been bothering me. I finally realised what it was, when I responded with, 'Sure, they're great. But do you think people who are 5 now, and growing up on entertainment snippets like this are going to be able to sit through a five-act play?? Or want to?' This gave the sib serious paws... it was always a bit of a .

Meow.

My best mate is 11 years my junior, and *can* have an attention-span, but it comes much less easily than does mine. Said mate's kids are Internet babies, and just tonight, the 9 year old whinged about it being 'too much work' to colour one Easter egg for a whole 10 minutes. I remember sitting down with sib to boil an entire carton of eggs, and then draw on them with wax, before painting them, and melting the wax off, creating very cool patterns, over the course of entire week-ends.

We also used those great data storage and retrieval devices, known as 'books' for fun, as well as homework. And we didn't think anything about two-week turnaround time, when sending and receiving 'letters' by air mail.

Nowadays, if people can't get hold of their kids on their mobile phones, they ring the police. Thank God we didn't have mobile umbilical cords, and could go missing, in our teens, for *several hours* at a go, without people *expecting* to be able to get hold of us. It built a certain amount of TRUST, and was good for our confidence.

This is a world-wide phenomenon, in urban centres. Outside of the urban world, and to a much lesser extent in the Developing World, communication, entertainment, and virtually everything has been speeded up to the point where things like *cooking* just take far too long. People in India sell a kidney to buy microwave ovens...

The school day is shorter, the homework is less, and less deep, because we've raised the bar in terms of speed to the point where if it can't be done instantly, it isn't worth doing.

I was taught needlework and baking, and expected to hand wash dishes for a family of four, all of which skills have served me very well. I doubt most kids, nowadays, would have the patience, let alone the inclination, to do those things. They BORE much more easily than we did. Any rebuttal from the Quiz-Pro Kid?

Just my on where our generation went wrong. We didn't expect the same attention-spans of our kids, and were ourselves very caught up in the time-saving multi-tasking (I blame Microsoft) world into which we have hurtled, since I was a kid.

Serious topic drift here, but I think everyone can see the connection to the USA and geography.

And yeah, it's all marketing. First up against the wall when the Revolution comes...

I don't know about this. Isn't it pretty usual for the previous generation to complain about the lackadaisical attitudes of the current teenagers? You know, 'kids today' and all that.

For clarification's sake, I'm 16 and attend a public high school. Many of the students with whom I spend my time are relatively motivated to do schoolwork and participate in other activities such as music, theatre or sports outside of school. I certainly don't think you can tar an entire generation with the same brush.

The Internet, in my view, has been a positive thing. It has opened up a whole new medium for the exchange of knowledge and information - in my view, always a positive thing. If we didn't have the Internet, of course, we wouldn't have h2g2 - so it seems a bit hypocritical to be posting here about the evils of the World-Wide Web.

We can trace the fall of youth back as long as we want, to when those pre-Stone Age hominid kids played games instead of helping out their parents. New technology has a more or less equal effect on the population - plenty of adults now waste their time reading blogs, doing puzzles, playing games or hanging out with weirdos like all the lovely folks here.

I suggest you catch the National Geographic Bee if you can - I think it's sometimes televised. The kids who appear at the national level know way more about geography than I could ever hope to know - talk about application to study!

Feel better getting that of your chest, Ganapathi?

I think some of what you say is true, but much of it also appears to be, as EMR said, generalisations.

There is definitely an attitude of referring back to a golden age that never really existed, at least not in the way many people remember it. It's only natural to imagine that things were better in the old days - it's the old "You could buy a bag of chips and have change from x pence". (Don't know a suitable amount of money to put in there, being from EMR's generation - I'm 19).

My

10p would be suitable

To Elentari and SWL

You are absolutely right to point out that it's idiotic (not just hypocritical -- it's that too -- but idiotic as *well*) to make the sort of comment I did about the Internet while using the Internet to make the comment.

Re-reading the post, I'm wondering what spectre of Grumbling Old Idiocy possessed me to write that. I would shred it to bits if someone else had written it.

My best mate is not... best pleased with me at the mo. Not that I'm surprised, mind, as neither am I. That was OTT silly of me. It reads as though I'm putting myself on a pedestal, and above my friend. Well... to that. That's not what I meant, and honestly, I don't remember what I thought I did mean.

Note to self: don't post narky-sounding things about people who might see them, unless you know what you mean, and mean what you say. Deal with the consequences in an adult, mature manner. ' and hide until it blows over' is NOT an option.

AND you're quite right to observe that no one can tar an entire generation with one brush. I've picked at people for doing that to entire *counties*.

In short, boy, do I wish I had not written and posted all that stuff. It was potentially offensive. Nah. It was just offensive.

I'll just sit here on my high horse and feel foolish... ok?



PS AMEN, and yes, you're right again, the 'Good Old Days' *weren't*. Anyone accepting Rapid Onset Senile Dementia alibis or selling Indulgences please contact me, up here on my high horse, facing the wrong way.

Oops. echomikeromeo, I meant to thank you, not SWL. My bad, again.

s'ok. nobody likes me anyway. just ignore me.

No worries, Ganapanthi. I just like any excuse for a good argument.

in new york after telling a bloke i was from Scotland,having seen news footage of the riots in Paris he was convinced i was in the thick of it

Kosh

When I was travelling in Canada in the early 90s they gleefully showed a piece on local tele about this subject.
They had asked American teens to draw a map of America which of course was huge, and then draw Canada in relation to it.
Most were uncertain about how many states there were!!
If it was linked by land mass it was a rarity, but most drew it incredibly small, and not attached, like some island.
Europe was a spot floating , but most were not sure where.
I get the feeling that the Canadians, who end up being the butt of many thicky jokes really relish moments like this one!!

In reply to post 19:

I get all my news from the radio, and hense never know where anywhere is. I usually, though, know where it's near.

TRiG.