Front Page London Times

Astronomy is on the front page of the Times this morning, but not the way
you would prefer. As my wife said when she brought the paper in and handed
it to me, "You'll love this!"

The story is about the dumbing down of science exams in schools. The
picture of V838 Mon is nice, but the question, stated in very small print to
be from Edexcel, is:
---------
Q
Chei and Jas visit an observatory with their class. The astronomers who
work there show them some instruments they use to find out about many
different types of stars

Many people observe the stars using

A a telescope
B a microscope
C an X-ray tube
D a synthesiser
-----------------
As an astronomer and observatory director who organises observatory school
tours and who gives some of the tours himself, all I can say is that Edexcel
has a negative view of the intelligence of today's youngsters completely at
odds with the impression I get.

Comments?

--
Mike Dworetsky

(Remove pants sp*mbl*ck to reply)

I have got too agree with Mike here,

children of all ages have far greater knowledge that they are ever given
credit for.

On the whole, with the astronomy part of the curriculum, it is often the
pupils teaching the teachers! especially in Primary & Junior science.

The questions I get asked astound some teachers! year 1's for example asking
about black holes etc which is why I have to be up to date all the time
unlike the current curriculum!

All the best

Andy

StarDome - Astronomy - Astronautics - Planetarium
Mr Andrew R Green B.Sc(Hons) FRAS.
Fellow Royal Astronomical Society
Director & Resident Astronomer StarDome,
Director Anglo-Australian Astronomy Education Partnership

www.stardomeplanetarium.co.uk



"Mike Dworetsky" wrote in message
...
Astronomy is on the front page of the Times this morning, but not the way
you would prefer. As my wife said when she brought the paper in and
handed it to me, "You'll love this!"

The story is about the dumbing down of science exams in schools. The
picture of V838 Mon is nice, but the question, stated in very small print
to be from Edexcel, is:
---------
Q
Chei and Jas visit an observatory with their class. The astronomers who
work there show them some instruments they use to find out about many
different types of stars

Many people observe the stars using

A a telescope
B a microscope
C an X-ray tube
D a synthesiser
-----------------
As an astronomer and observatory director who organises observatory school
tours and who gives some of the tours himself, all I can say is that
Edexcel has a negative view of the intelligence of today's youngsters
completely at odds with the impression I get.

Comments?

--
Mike Dworetsky

(Remove pants sp*mbl*ck to reply)

On Aug 29, 8:01 am, "Mike Dworetsky"
wrote:
Astronomy is on the front page of the Times this morning, but not the way
you would prefer. As my wife said when she brought the paper in and handed
it to me, "You'll love this!"

The story is about the dumbing down of science exams in schools. The
picture of V838 Mon is nice, but the question, stated in very small print to
be from Edexcel, is:
---------
Q
Chei and Jas visit an observatory with their class. The astronomers who
work there show them some instruments they use to find out about many
different types of stars

Many people observe the stars using

A a telescope
B a microscope
C an X-ray tube
D a synthesiser
-----------------
As an astronomer and observatory director who organises observatory school
tours and who gives some of the tours himself, all I can say is that Edexcel
has a negative view of the intelligence of today's youngsters completely at
odds with the impression I get.

Comments?

Perhaps the question tells us more about the low expectations of their
examiners than anything else.
Do you think they might add phone a friend, 50:50 and ask the audience
to science exams next?

I heard the report on Radio4 and it was cringe worthy. They seem to
have completely lost the plot.
Since when did science consist only of multiple choice questions or
essays?
Whatever happened to reasoning problems and bench experiments?

BTW Isn't Edexcell the syllabus that still has an Astronomy O'Level ?

Regards,
Martin Brown

"Mike Dworetsky" wrote in message
...


As an astronomer and observatory director who organises observatory school
tours and who gives some of the tours himself, all I can say is that
Edexcel has a negative view of the intelligence of today's youngsters
completely at odds with the impression I get.

Well, as a cub scout leader a few weeks ago we were doing codes -
transposing alpabet letters, etc. To make a start the children were asked to
write out the alphabet. A third of them (12 out of 36) didn't know the
alphabet. They knew the sequence a - b - c, but what came next was a mystery
to many of them.

"Manky Badger" wrote in message
...

"Mike Dworetsky" wrote in message
...


As an astronomer and observatory director who organises observatory
school tours and who gives some of the tours himself, all I can say is
that Edexcel has a negative view of the intelligence of today's
youngsters completely at odds with the impression I get.

Well, as a cub scout leader a few weeks ago we were doing codes -
transposing alpabet letters, etc. To make a start the children were asked
to write out the alphabet. A third of them (12 out of 36) didn't know the
alphabet. They knew the sequence a - b - c, but what came next was a
mystery to many of them.


Be afraid, be very afraid.

If "alphabet" or "alphabetical order" isn't mandatory in the National
Curriculum, what possible use does the NC serve? If it is mandatory, what
happened?

I think we learned it at age five or six, by drill and recitation. There
was even a cringeworthy kid's tune for the alphabet. YMMV. I doubt that
any of the kids in my class, including the dunces, got out of there without
memorizing the alphabet.


--
Mike Dworetsky

(Remove pants sp*mbl*ck to reply)

"Mike Dworetsky" wrote
Be afraid, be very afraid.

If "alphabet" or "alphabetical order" isn't mandatory in the National Curriculum, what possible use does the NC serve? If it is
mandatory, what happened?

I think we learned it at age five or six, by drill and recitation. There was even a cringeworthy kid's tune for the alphabet.
YMMV. I doubt that any of the kids in my class, including the dunces, got out of there without memorizing the alphabet.

Scary indeed.

Speaking for myself, I have no time for such snobbish abecedarian pedantry!
Oh, let's have a discussion on the fascinating subject of the relative
affinities of adjectives for nouns in English. I mean, you say "big red ball",
not "red big ball". Ok, let's not; it's off-topic.

To return to the original subject, I also read this today on the BBC, and
later saw it cited on Slashdot, and I was horrified. IMO, it really is
undeniable that the standard of GCSEs and like exams is falling. I was
in the last year to do O-levels, and for maths, we had to do differential
calculus. Apparently that's never been in GCSE maths. And it's a very
big, important subject and a very useful concept.

I think it's also partly because of the government's constant tinkering
with the syllabus, which is itself driven by the current political
climate, wherein _any_ issue that can be made to be emotive and made into
a political tool for winning votes and "hearts and minds" is fair game.
So in order to be seen to be doing something constructive, they mess around
with the education and exam systems. Education, like healthcare and
crime reduction, is a prime candidate. They just won't leave it alone.
I'm not *that* old, but I'm aware that I may sound old if I say what I feel,
which is that "in my day" (although I was in the last year, as I said),
there was no such silliness. O-levels were O-levels, and that was that,
and they'd been in place for years. And teachers understood them, and how to
teach the subjects for those exams, and didn't spend disproportionate amounts
of time completing irrelevant, pointless paperwork.

One of my friends is into Pink Floyd, and she recently showed me "The Wall",
and I've only seen it once, but I'm reminded of a scene from it, where there's
something like a meat grinding machine, and people are being fed into it,
and strings of sausage meat emerge. It just seems that the government is
seeking to maximise the efficiency of its education-sausage-machine, and
turn out as many kids capable of attaining a grade "C" in {English, Maths}
as possible, even if, to "yield" a year-on-year improvement in the figures,
it's necessary to lower the bar. (That's not to say I think that that scene
in "The Wall" is all about education, given its anti-war theme, but I was
just using the image, because it matches my perception of this issue.)

Rant over, for now.


Martin
--
M.A.Poyser Tel.: 07967 110890
Manchester, U.K. http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=fleetie

Mike Dworetsky wrote:

As an astronomer and observatory director who organises observatory
school tours and who gives some of the tours himself, all I can say is
that Edexcel has a negative view of the intelligence of today's
youngsters completely at odds with the impression I get.

Comments?

Given that GCSEs are arguably easier than ever, and about 40% of papers
submitted this year still only merited a grade 'D' or less (which used
to be a 'fail' when I was a lad), I wouldn't bet on it...

"Mike Dworetsky" typed

I think we learned it at age five or six, by drill and recitation. There
was even a cringeworthy kid's tune for the alphabet. YMMV.

The cringewothy tune I heard for the alphabet, was 'Twinkle, Twinkle,
Little Star' (or 'Ah, Vous Dirai Je Maman')

We received a lurid piece of 7" vinyl with it as a gift after one of my
Dad's trips to the USA. Most cringeworthy then was the way it ended with
'ex why zee'...

I doubt that
any of the kids in my class, including the dunces, got out of there without
memorizing the alphabet.

Mine neither...

--
Helen D. Vecht:
Edgware.

Fleetie wrote:


To return to the original subject, I also read this today on the BBC, and
later saw it cited on Slashdot, and I was horrified. IMO, it really is
undeniable that the standard of GCSEs and like exams is falling. I was
in the last year to do O-levels, and for maths, we had to do differential
calculus. Apparently that's never been in GCSE maths. And it's a very
big, important subject and a very useful concept.


Are you sure it wasn't "Additional Maths" O level ? I don't remember
doing calculus as part of the basic Maths GCE (O&C 1979).

"Andy Guthrie" wrote
Fleetie wrote:
To return to the original subject, I also read this today on the BBC, and
later saw it cited on Slashdot, and I was horrified. IMO, it really is
undeniable that the standard of GCSEs and like exams is falling. I was
in the last year to do O-levels, and for maths, we had to do differential
calculus. Apparently that's never been in GCSE maths. And it's a very
big, important subject and a very useful concept.

Are you sure it wasn't "Additional Maths" O level ? I don't remember doing calculus as part of the basic Maths GCE (O&C 1979).

Absolutely sure. I did also do additional ("AO") maths O-level. This was in
Kent in 1987. AO maths also had integration, which wasn't in the O-level.


Martin
--
M.A.Poyser Tel.: 07967 110890
Manchester, U.K. http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=fleetie