BBC Blog Network

User Profile

SpeakerToAnimals

Listed below are comments made by SpeakerToAnimals between Thursday, 26th June 2008 and Thursday, 12th March 2009.

«Newer
Older»

The moral maze of writing 12:14pm on 12 Mar 2009 My initial feeling might have been -- of course a mother (or a father) should not expose the very personal struggles of their family, and of course the cynical are going to claim that she is only in it for the money.

Except my attitude changed when I saw the furore that this has created. We have had (on other sites), those who vehemently defend cannabis as about as harmful as a murray mint (totally missing the point that the real issue was the chaps violent and abusive behaviour towards his family, whether or not that was caused by the drugs). We have also had quite a few posts that recognise all too well the situation with this family, other families where their only choice was to evict a child for uncontrolled behaviour. I think the sheer vehemence of the debate shows this was an issue that needed to be brought out into the open, and if it took this book to do it, then perhaps the myersons will have achieved their aim.
Are standards in school science slipping? 12:54pm on 02 Dec 2008 "I am sick of these reports which rubbish the achievements of our students, they work really hard to get great marks only to be rubbished in the press. How dare you take away from the success of others?"

They may work hard, no one says they don't, but they are being conned if they refuse to acknowledge that many doubt the validity or usefulness of the qualifications they hold. This is not a slur on the students, they did the best they could, but with our current curriculum, and the current way that science as a school subject has been dumbed down.

The point, for me, of a science qualification, is not how hard the student worked, but the relevant scientific knowledge and skills they either do or do not possess.

We should not let our feelings for the efforts of the students deflect us from this criticism.
Are standards in school science slipping? 12:50pm on 02 Dec 2008 "... but this is because science of yester year was so boring and abstract that people didn't want to pursue it. As science teachers now we are trying to address this and make science more accessible to everyone."

Which seems to mean wittering on endlessly about the applications of science, whilst totally missing the basics of the science in question.

Science (and maths) is abstract in many ways, which is why many people find it hard. But I refute the point that the science of yesteryear (which is pretty much the same science as today) was boring and abstract -- if it was, it still is, and the only way to make it 'interesting' and 'accessible' is to take the actual science out, and replace it with fairly pointless wittering on about the applications of science -- which is not science, and someone with a qualification which includes a large proportion of the above has a fairly worthless qualification as far as science is concerned.

Yes, use some imaginative applications of science stuff if you will to motivate, but why bother examining kids on this, it isn't the same as being able to do the actual science. Which is perhaps why so many of the pupils couldn't do the boring science question that required problem-solving and calculation.
Are standards in school science slipping? 4:59pm on 01 Dec 2008 "I think perhaps science needs to re-evaluate itself as a subject, realise that children simply aren't interested in the vast majority, or at least they weren't in my school, a standard middle performing High School".

This illustrates that the problem is not science, or what science professionals think is a necessary component of their subject as regards science education at GCSE level, but the public perception of science and scientific knowledge.

It is still pretty much the case that you can know very little science, but still be considered an educated person. That even a BBC science correspondent considers in necessary to see it as a great achievement that he could perform that utterly basic computation.

As regards exam questions, the problem is not just the content of the syllabus, but the fact that questions now tend to lead you through the question, rather than presenting you with the problem, and asking you to solve it -- holds true for maths and physics papers, as well as chemistry. Hence students (was going to call them pupils, which shows my age!) just don't get taught the sort of analytic, problem-solving skills that are certainly an important, transferable skill, even if they never again use the minuitiae of molar masses.

And only teaching kids what they are interested in? That would produce a rather sparse syllabus indeed. The job of teachers (if they had the time!) would be not just to shovel the stuff in, but to try to get across to them how appreciation of science and scientific issues is totally necessary in our modern world, that it is something that people ignore at their peril.
The spectre of the paedophile 5:45pm on 26 Jun 2008 I don't think it helps, using the terms creatures, incomplete humans or whatever. Dehumanizing them just tries to get away from the fact that they are members of our society, in some cases those we trusted the most.

We all know it is a terrible offense. Nor is it helpful to confuse those who may be inclined to commit such offenses with those who already have.

Lock them up is one solution, but then you can only lock up those you can convict. In the long term, we need to look at WHY some people have these urges, and why some of those go on to act on them, and commit offenses. If there was some way of intervening, of stopping those with the inclination committing the offense, that surely would be a boon to society. Because the approbation of society and threat of conviction doesn't seem to do what we really want -- protect children from abuse.

But if such an intervention was possible, those who need it (i.e., those who know what their inclinations are, but who haven't yet committed an offense) are certainly not going to seek help in the current climate.

I also have to disagree most strongly with whoever said that such abuse has little if any serious psychological impact -- I know several people who were abused as children, they know differently. People can be very resilient, they can work past it, but the effort required is considerable.

«Newer
Older»

^ Back to top

BBC MMVI

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites

BBC.co.uk

BBC Blog Network

Find and talk to the BBC's bloggers.

User Profile

SpeakerToAnimals