Re: Prophet3 VAT change query

In article <ant101313d07Mqng@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, John
Norris <JRN@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <500a7deab9see.sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Russell Hafter News
<URL:mailto:see.sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <500a2c6c00ajg@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Alan Griffin
<ajg@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article
<500a016cf8see.sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Russell Hafter News
<see.sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I have been, very politely, asked not to respond
further, and will therefore not comment any further,
except to point out that I also taught science for many
years and do not recognise the situation you describe.

I'm sorry you have been muzzled because it leaves an
important issue unresolved.

I do not think that being asked, by a friend, not to respond
to something counts as being muzzled.

Alan said: "They have been watering down the exam system
steadily (and claiming that the standard is going up!)

They have been steadily cutting out of the syllabuses
anything which requires a brain and replacing it with
what I regard as general knowledge - i.e. no maths. I
know this to be the case, as I have been writing the
(science) questions for the last 15 years!!!!"

I know little about science teaching in England, since all
my science teaching was done in Scotland.

While basic arithmetic and understanding the concept of
orders of magnitude were essential to my being able to
practice my science sufficiently to gain a PhD and do three
years post-doctoral research (in Organic Chemisrty), most of
the maths that I was forced to learn for my first degree at
Oxford proved completely irrelevant and has been long since
forgotten, probably within a few weeks of passing the exam
in 1967.

I do not doubt that more maths is necessary to have a proper
understanding of Physics, but then I never had the slightest
interest in Physics.

But if you want to assess maths, that is for the
mathematicians, not scientists.

To me, maths is, and always has been, a tool, not something
of any interest at all. Rather like a toolbox really,
containing hammers, spanners and so on. Useful, certainly,
in the right circumstances, but hardly something that is
going to inspire my imagination.

You are both science teachers

Not any more. These days I am a tour operator!

and able to take an objective view yet you seem to differ
widely. Surely one of you must have allowed scientific
judgement to be clouded by political views?

It is many years since I took my O levels, but in those days
AIR one was expected to learn things, but one was not
expected to be able to apply them.

When it came to applying to universities I was strongly
advised not to even consider applying to Cambridge, in part
because, at that period anyway, Cambridge was considered to
regard the regurgitation of knowledge as of far greater
importance than being able to show what one knew and how it
could be applied. (The other reason was because I would have
had to study Physics, whereas I was desperate to get away
from Physics.)

When I was teaching Chemistry in Scotland some 50% of the
marks and teaching time was devoted to being able to apply
one's knowledge to problem solving, which does, inevitably,
reduce the time for inculcating facts, true.

But then, I would have thought that knowing how to apply
what has been learned is at least as important as the
initial learning itself.

As to removal of content, think on this.

The study of Crystal Field Theory in Inorganic Chemistry was
not part of the standard syllabus at Oxford and was not
examined as part of the two compulsory papers in Inorganic
Chemistry. It was, though, covered by the third, advanced
paper in Inorganic Chemistry (which was not compulsory,
though one did have to sit two of the three advanced
papers).

However, throughout my science teaching time in Scotland,
the basic principles of Crystal Field Theory were a
compulsory part of the Certificate of Sixth Year Studies,
which anyone contemplating a degree course containing a
significant amount of Chemistry would have been expected to
take.

To sum up, science exams today are designed to assess
completely different abilities from what they were intended
to do in the mid 1960s.

Which is appropriate, since we are no longer living in the
1960s.

--
Russell
http://www.russell-hafter-holidays.co.uk
Russell Hafter Holidays E-mail to enquiries at our domain
Need a hotel? <http://www.hrs.de/?client=en__MT&customerId=416873103>
.

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