General Collapse of Secondary Education
I was appalled the other night when one of my carers told me that she couldn’t tell the time using a clock face. (She was used to a digital clock ).
Today, I got asked if I had been a teacher as I asked for a drink in my squat beaker, and had to explain what I meant - the only time that carer had come across “squat “ was in keep fit.
Today, I got asked if I had been a teacher as I asked for a drink in my squat beaker, and had to explain what I meant - the only time that carer had come across “squat “ was in keep fit.
Comments
So you're complaining about a general collapse in educational standards based on the fact that one of your carers can't read a kind of clock that isn't really in common use any more, and isn't familiar with a particular uncommonly-used word? I know what you mean, but I wouldn't naturally use the word "squat" to describe anything I was about to drink out of.
Around here, kids are taught to read an analogue clock in elementary school, but lots of older kids don't confidently read one, because it's a skill they never use, because they almost never see an analogue clock.
I could also hand them a slide rule or a book of log tables, and then act all shocked that they don't know what to do with those things, and that would be equally unreasonable.
Vocabulary in common use changes over time. There are plenty of words that were in common use 50 years ago that are much less common now, and plenty of words that are common now that weren't common 50 years ago.
Eh, not so much anymore, IME, here in Canada right now.
I would be flummoxed by being asked for a beaker. My mind would go to chemistry labs and Prehistoric cultures with a swerve to Keat's blushful Hippocrene, before asking did you mean a mug or a tumbler?
I never really got the hang of using a slide rule when I did my engineering degree. But I was superb at log tables! (We didn't have calculators, at least not useful ones).
On a broader thought, I'm sure there are things known by secondary (or even primary) school children, of which we members of "the older generation" are totally ignorant!
Meanwhile, I can completely understand why some might find reading an analog clock difficult or foreign, not to mention relatively unnecessary. And is that something that would taught in secondary school anyway? If it’s going to be taught, wouldn’t it be taught to very young children? I think I was taught how to read a clock in kindergarten.
Thank you bringing to mind this “Seinfeld” scene.
meep meep meep meep meep
Many people's houses don't have them. Old people
They might be "all over the place" out in public, but not in a way that people actually look at. I can pretty much guarantee that no young adult has ever looked at the church clock or the town hall clock to see what the time was - they just look at their phones. Clocks in public are just background scenery.
Ah, so he's Berzelius Beaker?
A short drinking vessel, like a tumbler or a possibly a short plastic drinking cup with a lid.
In my other-side-of-The-Pond experience, “squat” can mean short, but would only be used with that sense to refer to a person, and even that usage isn’t common. As for “beaker,” here that’s something used in laboratories, not something one would drink from.
I am not quite old and have an analogue clock in the kitchen. My sons can read it; I will ask them when I see them next if they ever look at analogue clocks.
(Perhaps the younger generation will get into analogue clocks, like they have vinyl records)
Eh. I'm sure some do, if their phone is buried deep in their bag and it's easier to just glance over at the town hall.
I say this, because when I want to know the time, but my phone is in my bag, and I notice somebody near me has a wristwatch, I'll sometimes ask that person.
@Leorning Cniht nailed the real problem with the OP, which is not details about clocks or vessels for liquids. A couple of anecdotes do not support the general claim that secondary education has collapsed. There's also more than a whiff of "these kids these days" disdain about it.
How good are you at coding to produce computer programmes?
All eleven year olds in the UK learn to do it. Coding became part of the national curriculum in England in 2014.
We all have different skills. Don't knock young people for having different skills/knowledge from you.
And I think if this thread is REALLY supposed to be about the alleged collapse of secondary education(rather than just using the phrase as hyperbole in a request for anecdotes about changes in general knowledge), it would be better suited for Purgatory.
Am I the only shipmate who almost never notices what forum a thread is in?
Dumping on all of secondary education doesn't feel lighthearted to me.
Well, maybe I'm just an eccentric old man in that case. Personally, I find phones in pockets bulky and uncomfortable.
Indeed.
I don't want to go through all that to justify my level of irascibility!
Edit: had to read the prayer thread in All Saints to figure out what you were talking about.
So do I, and I'm grumpy about phones getting bigger over time. My current phone is the great-great-grandchild model of my previous phone, and is significantly bigger.
But the thing about my pocket is that I always have it with me, which is why my wallet, my phone, and my keys always live in them. If I put my phone anywhere else, I'd be continually not having my phone with me, and at that point it may as well be a landline.
Was it rotary or push-button?
Not blaming them, it’s just a sad indication of how irrelevant the church has become to most people.
(From a sermon preached by Peter the Hermit in A.D. 1274)
My son talks disparagingly of "Boomers" until he remembers that his Mum (who he loves) is one! I just smile. His turn will come to be old and creaky. 🙂
I always know where my keys are. They have two places where they're allowed, one in my handbag and one on the hook in the kitchen.
I need to do the same with my phone. I missed an important call yesterday because my phone had been left upstairs. We don't have a landline.
Both my young adult children are living in houses where putting in a landline was not even considered upon move-in -- it's far more archaic than a clock on the wall. My daughter does have one of those in her new house, but it's far more a piece of decor than a useful thing; I don't know if anyone in the house ever looks at it to see what time it is.
I see what you did there.