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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
>What is "shop" ?? >How do you think Americans got to be such voracious consumers? We have classes in it! I did wonder ... I think that the same thing here is called Technology. They got rid of the old woodwork, metalwork etc in the early eighties and created CDT (craft, design and technology) which incorporated home economics and computing. The girls grammar school that I attended paid lipservice to teaching home economics and we didn't have any woodwork or metalwork workshops, thankfully that has changed. The website below gives a guide to the history of the subject and what is included: Regarded as largely for pupils who were “dull in all ‘brain work’” 2, handicraft was from the outset bereft of status, view as the black sheep of the British educational system - a position not helped by the 1944 Education Act which effectively relegated workshop skills to the secondary modern sector, thus further reinforcing the established “gentlemanly culture”.
Britain’s post-war economic decline is seen as rooted in this culture: humanistic and aesthetic pursuits being regarded higher than practical and commercial activity, resulting in the more able youngsters being attracted away from careers in business and industry.http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/trinity/ph_hist.html
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
>Such tests given at various grade levels would be controversial
Why? That seems to me to be the main difference. Our externally validated exams are all about grades. I suppose that we accept them because they have always been that way.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
Thanks Sparteye and Wordwind
I'm starting to understand.
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
Apparently, pay is good for such positions I guess 'good' is a relative term - in the UK, the second largest (behind the USA) such market in the world, these facilities (originally known as Call Centres, but now corporately rebadged by the loathsome title of Customer Relationship Management Centres!) are increasingly widely recognised for exactly what they are: the sweatshops of our age. Having lead a team involved in 'proving the business case' for one such facility, believe me - I know whereof I speak! To return with a language based remark, the industry has coined a less than delightful word for a less than lovely phenomenon: churn describes the massive turnover of staff endemic in such working hell-holes (frequently over 25% of staff within a 12 month period). That belies the 'wellness' of the pay in relation to the conditions of work, I guess 
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
>Customer Relationship Management Centres
The former "call centres" are burgeoning in Scotland. Apparently Scottish voices sound more professional and reassuring.
Is it so in the valleys boyo?
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
in the valleysoh yes indeedy - we have in Wales the 3 prime requirements: 1 Well-educated labour force, from a better-than average school system 2 Low levels of alternative employment 3 Atrractive regional dialect (Can't somehow imagine a Brum accent working quite so well for many people, tho personally I love it!) Back to school in the UK as a whole, I see our quaintly named ‘public school’ system continues to encourage initiative and independent learning…. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/scotland/newsid_1642000/1642646.stm With the Robbie Coltrane connection, maybe JK's next might be Harry Potter and the Magic Trip?  
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
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Sparteyes descriptions was great-- but here is a big note– schooling is local.. each town or school district gets to set a lot of rules, with a state guideline... Like 180 days in the school year is a state minimum, but some school districts (say up Faldages way, or even out by Sparteye,) might schedule 190, or 200 days.. so that they can also have snow emergency closings... NYC usually on has 185 days in its school calendar, since we rarely have enough snow to close down the roads/schools.
and each local school district can choose its own text books -- but must meet a state standard for curriculum but there is a large leeway..
In NYC, there is Local control-- a big political issue.. but there are about 40 local school districts. they each get a share of state/city school funds basis on enrollment.. and they can figure out how they want to spend it. so some local schools have special curriculums.. they might offer journalism classes starting at first grade. or science classes with special labs, or language arts classes..
and these are open city wide.. so if your child has an interest in music, you can enroll them in a school that has a special focus on music.. the district get extra money for each out of district kid that enrolls, so each district tries to have one conveniently located school, that is a Magnet school. (drawing students to the school as a metal filings are drawn to a magnet.)
High schools are often in a separate school district. In NYC all HS are open to every student. some high-school, Stuyvestant, Bronx HS of science, Art and Music, Art and Design, and others have qualifying test to get in.. competition is fierce. as a ratio, its harder to get into Stuyvestant then Harvard.. (ratio of # applicants to # of admits)
my son went to "local HS" -- about 1.5miles from our house. my daughter commuted 15 + miles each day to Manhattan to specialty HS.
In less densely populated areas, several school districts might band together to have 1 large high-school. Jim the Dog has touched upon the problems of small HS districts.. You might only have 90 or so kids on a grade.. And total enrollment of 300 to 400– not enough students to have offer both spanish and french.
NY HS offer spanish, french, latin, german and russian..and maybe others... (or maybe different choices now.. But usually a very large assortment. But each HS usually only offers two.. If you want german, there might only be 5 schools in all of NYC that offer german. –
and about university/college levels most states offer at least some very inexpensive Jr colleges, (Community Colleges) 2 year programs.. These will sometimes feed into State colleges.. State colleges have varying fees, (cheaper for in state students than out of state) Until 20 years ago, CUNY– City University of NY was total free.. Its not now, but it is still very inexpensive. CUNY alumni include many Nobel prize winners, and pulitzer prize winners , etc. .
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
>Back to school in the UK as a whole, I see our quaintly named ‘public school’ system continues to encourage initiative and independent learning…. Yes, you get a better class of "prank", the more you pay. You have to note their innovation and the fact that they only put themselves at risk . The kids from the local comp on the other hand failed to burn down their own school down last week (it was too busy on the designated evening) so they burned down the neighbouring primary instead, it just took a couple of petrol bombs. Only a few thousands of pounds and zillions of hours of work.  Who'd be a teacher (or a parent)?
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Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 387
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 387 |
It's Technology at our school, too. It's fun, because we've got the coolest teacher in the world for it. In 7th grade, I remember, at the beginning he was pretending to be a caveman to illustrate why we started using tools. I'm laughing just remembering it. The only homework we had, ever, was to go home, take the top of the toilet, and flush it.
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