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Content-Identifier:  Re: I don't k...
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Date:         Sun, 24 Jan 1993 16:53:55 +0100
From:         Christopher Currie <ccurrie@CLUS1.ULCC.AC.UK>
Subject:      Re: I don't know much history ...
Comments: To: HISTORY@ibm.gwdg.de

>
>
> Yesterday morning I went to the grocer's , because it's
> empty there at 8 am. Still, I was forced to listen to a tune
> from the loudspeaker system, containing the line quoted
> above, as well as several more also starting with "I don't
> know".
>

Yes, and it seems appalling that German shoppers should have to be
subjected to muzak in English.. and at 8 a.m. Or perhaps Walter is
giving us an on-the-fly translation.


> Afterwards, I found here the well argued note by Mr.Marvin
> on the uselessness of Yes-No-questions in examinations and
> on the importance of learning to write in-class essays.
>
> However, I would have expected that the writing of such
> essays is taught in high school, during the years between 14
> and 18. Similarly, I was between 12 and 13 years of age when
> I learned "Hastings - 1066" (in the English class of
> my German high school - and that during WW2).


Yes, and at that age one did multiple-choice questions as well as
writing simple essays. In other words the basic data were absorbed
at an age when it's easy to pick up such things, so that the nuances
and qualifications could be taught at an age when one is mature enough to
appreciate them.


>
> Should it be the case that such basic data and skills are
> not taught at school, should it be the case that the line
> from that song is not meant ironically but that it reflects
> a wider attitude  -  would it then not be necessary that the
> academic community press for a change of that attitude ?


So they should. But standards, at least in these respects,
have been declining in British schools since the 1960s and in US
schools from somewhat earlier. The vulgar pressures first for
'levelling down' and then for 'market-oriented' education have
led to academics' selling the pass not once but repeatedly. In
many British universities I believe it is no longer necessary to
have a reading knowledge of a foreign language to secure admission
to courses in other subjects; it is certainly not necessary to
read at least two foreign languages, as was required at the time
I got in to university. The secondary school to which my children
will go if they are in the local public system at the time teaches
only one foreign language - French - and that not to the level
required for University entrance.


I have also heard that language teaching in schools in the
Netherlands, which used to be outstanding, has deteriorated in
the last ten years or so. Perhaps George Welling could refute
that for us.


>
> Children, which apparently do not know the basic data. Are
> the books in their school's library so bad that they cannot
> find the answer there ?


Almost certainly the books in the school's library have been stolen
or fallen to bits. Book buying (for both school and public
libraries) is one of the first things to be cut when budgets are
squeezed. In university and college libraries, it is not uncommon
for 120 students to be competing for four books.

Christopher Currie
ccurrie@ulcc.clus1
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU