Just a quickie to tell you about my AS Choices which I submitted yesterday

Geography (don’t laugh)

Physics

Maths

Further Math (although I’m a bit nervous about this becasue I don’t think that I’m good enough)

Computing (yay!)

TT

This post started life as a response to Psci (The St Paul’s School Science Blog) which posted this. This, combined with an unexpected talk delivered by the Highmaster prompted me to think deeper into a problem which I have previously given little thought to.

The Highmaster spoke to us about this this morning (mentioning this example). He mentioned the issue of these Science exams becoming what most people ought to know, rather than what a candidate taking a serious exam in a science ought to know. He also raised the issue of What over Why, not just knowing what happens, but knowing why it happens. The best example of this that I have heard is that of the heart in Biology. For GCSE, you have to know that the heart beats. But for IGCSE you have to know why, how and the different parts of the heart. This ides is also coupled with the death of practicals, which in itself is due to the lack of qualified, or even confident and competent teachers. Yet all that this government seem able to do (I don’t realisticaly see any change under the opposition) is convert other subject teachers into science teachers, leading to the troubling statistics about the lack of even A-Level qualification. The truth, as I see it, must be that as the government aims to find horrendously short term fixes to what is definetly a long term problem, it is forced to lower the exam standard, not because children are getting more stupid and less able to learn, but because the teachers that they have put in to teach them are less qualified. Science cannot and must not be taught from a text book. I can prove this on a personal level, because prep school science is so much more boring that “real” science as I have been learning. Practicals make science.

But I offer an example. I have been following (in fact, I Tivo’d) a BBC series called Rocket Science. It is basically about an expierienced Physics teacher trying to convince 13 year olds that Science is actually cool, through the medium of Fireworks. Its fairly bog standard BBC rubbish, except that it has a good point to make. The Physics teacher on the actual show may not be to my liking, I may find him intensely irritating, but the simple fact was the education that he was offering the kids in Physics and Chemistry involved hands on stuff, and not once did he use a textbook. But its not as though the experiments he was doing were particuarly complex. For Physics he used an Oscilloscope, a speaker and a ray box. For Chemistry, he did flame tests, and played with the harmless chemical that is in glowsticks. These are the sorts of experiments that I was doing in Year 8 and yet these were 13 and 14 year olds who were being described as “fortunate” for doing experiments that should be essential for GCSE.

In Conclusion, this country has a serious problem on its hands. The Highmaster said this morning that although teaching becomes a popular career during the recession, we must look further ahead, and anticipate the problems of the future, as the physics graduates start steering towards TNCs and Banks again, the government must work to attract them to the state sector.

Please, before you take offence, read the DISCLAIMER

Last night, Will invited me to a comedy gig in Hoxton, North-ish London. Performing were three relatively unknown acts with a well known standup called Katherine Ryan. The gig was organised by routes. It kind of linked in with their site, and the genetics. There were a lot of Routes and Channel 4 people there (more of them than kids…) although my compadres (secretpeter joined us) seemed to know more of them than I did, although I recognised a few from the SPS Gallery talk.

In relation to the murder mystery (the real reason we were all there): While queuing to get in, I was approached by Rachel, Matt and Fluffy, who enlisted my assistance in trying to find Allia. When she arrived in the second third (…) we noticed her. Then right at the end, Security men, who had been circling for a large proportion of the gig, tried to grab her, but she escaped when the lights mysteriously went out… . We managed to set a decoy using some scary animal masks so that she was able to escape safely.

Anyways, it was fun, and Will blogged it better…

TT

Whilst I perused my morning my morning paper, I turned to the letters section. Under the “Why traffic information stops at the Welsh Border” header, and in relation to the Grit Shortages, I found this

SIR – May I suggest sending bankers and politicians to the salt mines?

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO You stupid, stupid man!

I won’t embarass him by giving you his name, but I’m sure you can look it up. It was in the Telegraph. He is a Doctor. A DOCTOR! Should they not know better?

The following clip by my one of my favourite comedians, Russel Howard, ecompasses perfectly how I feel:

The title is a substitute for something sensible

This morning we had an assembly from KPZ on atheism. It wasn’t entitled “atheism” but it may has well have been. Anyway, it dawned on me that while atheists complain continually about how religions are given special treatment, grants etc., atheists are not. I have two complaints about this. I should probably mention at this point that I am a practising (what does that mean, I wonder) Anglican.

1) Humanism (A ’sect’ of atheism) is becoming a godless version of Christianity. Its own Ceremonies, Its own celebrants, its own meeting places. I would rather meet, celebrate for a reason, to celebrate something being there, rather than to celebrate something NOT being there.

2) Atheists often complain about Christian adverts, or at least the ones I know do. “Have you Found Jesus” etc. get complaints. But we are meant to stand back and just except that “There’s probably no god”. PROBABLY! THAT’S NOT ONLY BLASPHEMOUS, BUT ITS NOT EVEN PROPERLY ATHEIST!!

Apologies for the rambling, un-researched nature of this post. More next week, maybe….

A very interesenting man called Gavin Stark came to speak at school. Gavin is the founder of AMEE, Avoiding Mass Extinction Events.

He spoke about climate change, naturally, and how his solution was helping. he and two friends have basically a database which can store carbon emission readings. It stores the information you give about your carbon emissions to DEFRA (Act on Carbon), google, edenbee and the energy saving trust. It was picked up first by the government, and then by google which, as Gavin commented, have to be the best two first customers in the UK. This was achieved while a part time project.

This talk not only ran home some really depressing, but important, points (like that fact that if everyone painted their rooves white we’d save 35 million tonnes of CO2) but also proved what you can do with a good idea and good knowledge – without much time!

I noticed (with upmost hatred and dread) that good old South West Trains has decided to change the names of ALL their tickets. So as well as not being able to buy a ticket to Barnes because the bloody B key wont work, I now have to decide on whether I want a simple or a complex, and an anytime or an … only_at_a_select_point_in_time_time ticket. But (for the first time ever) I reckon the french have the right idea!

Yes, believe it or not, that is a ticket!! Clever or what! It contains an Oyster-Style-Smartcard but all tickets are loaded on through the USB stick…making all tickets coded on the stick, and therefore there will be fewer muck ups than on a centralised computer. Also, to top up, all you do is plug the USB into an interneted computer and top up normally. If only Ken had been clever….