“ As the traveler who has once been from home is wiser than he who has never left his own doorstep, so a knowledge of one other culture should sharpen our ability to scrutinize more steadily, to appreciate more lovingly, our own.”Margaret Mead
Saturday, 8 December 2007
Quote of the day
Out and about in Munich
Well we were out and about in Munich City center yesterday (Friday) evening - and a magical time we had of it too.
For those of you who don’t know it Munich Town center is largely pedestrianised. It has a beautiful medieval Town Hall (Rathaus) and Cathedral and is lined with modern shops.
What is more important right now, are the Christmas Markets. Everything is decorated like a wonderland. There is a huge Christmas tree outside the Rathaus lit with more lights than you could shake a stick at and there are stalls everywhere selling sweets, roast chestnuts, decorations, mulled wine, all manner of things - and some of the tastiest fast food it is possible to get.
There was a band playing from the town hall balcony and a choir singing and the market was literally thronging with the citizens of Munich, salted with the odd tourist, good naturedly enjoying the season. If you have never been I can heartily recommend it.
Thursday, 6 December 2007
Wednesday, 5 December 2007
Quote of the day
“ Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.”Douglas Adams
Education in the UK continues it’s inexorable slide under New Labour
At one time the British education system was one of the leading ones in the world and arguably helped pioneer the concept of universal education.
Sadly, this is no longer the case.
In the stewardship of the present government and confirming what many believe but has always been strenuously denied by New Labour it now seems our world standing has slipped out of the top ten.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development produce an international study. The Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa). They assess the performance of 15 year olds and are published every 3 years. The UK’s marks are not good – a definite ‘could do better’.
The UK avoided participating in the 2003 round of tests and their chickens are coming home to roost now. The latest assessments now place the UK, previously in the top ten, 24th in maths and 17th in literacy.
According to the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, the fact is the reading performance of 10 year olds in England has fallen to a world ranking of 19th.
Government ministers have tried to spin away the results, attempting to claim the rankings were not comparable with previous years. But a spokesperson for the OECD refuted this insisting the comparisons were "perfectly legitimate".
If the Government were actually serious, or even capable, of managing the education system they should look at scrapping all of the meddling changes and targets they have introduced over the last decade or more - Before them we were in the world top ten, now we are not. It speaks for it's self.
Sadly, this is no longer the case.
In the stewardship of the present government and confirming what many believe but has always been strenuously denied by New Labour it now seems our world standing has slipped out of the top ten.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development produce an international study. The Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa). They assess the performance of 15 year olds and are published every 3 years. The UK’s marks are not good – a definite ‘could do better’.
The UK avoided participating in the 2003 round of tests and their chickens are coming home to roost now. The latest assessments now place the UK, previously in the top ten, 24th in maths and 17th in literacy.
According to the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, the fact is the reading performance of 10 year olds in England has fallen to a world ranking of 19th.
Government ministers have tried to spin away the results, attempting to claim the rankings were not comparable with previous years. But a spokesperson for the OECD refuted this insisting the comparisons were "perfectly legitimate".
If the Government were actually serious, or even capable, of managing the education system they should look at scrapping all of the meddling changes and targets they have introduced over the last decade or more - Before them we were in the world top ten, now we are not. It speaks for it's self.
Tuesday, 4 December 2007
Quote of the day
“ When in doubt, observe and ask questions. When certain, observe at length and ask many more questions.”George S. Patton
Are memory researchers making monkeys of themselves?
It seems Japanese memory researchers have tested young chimpanzees against University students and found that the chimps perform better in certain memory tests than the students.Now I am not normally a betting man, but in this case I would be prepared to bet that they didn’t even think about testing the chimps against non, or pre-literate people.
I recall reading a study, or article, some years back - but I can’t remember ;-) where now - that showed non and pre-literate people performed significantly better in certain similar memory tests. It was concluded that this was because literate people, being able to and used to writing down what they wanted to ‘remember’ didn’t need to practice and develop their memory in that way. Conversely in certain other sorts of memory test literate people performed better.
I do seem to recall studies on the detrimental impact of cannabis on memory as well...
Dr Tetsuro Matsuzawa innocently said: ”No one can imagine that chimpanzees - young chimpanzees at the age of five - have a better performance in a memory task than humans.” Well, based on the above, one might well do so.
It could be the good Dr would have done better selecting his test subjects from amongst illiterate hunter gatherers.
God knows what the availability of the internet will do to us…
Monday, 3 December 2007
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