making a castle
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wish I'd seen this one earlier!
We (yes, we, not he) have had to do a motte and bailey castle AND a cell (but not, yet, a wretched wind turbine, Paula has trumped me on that one, but we HAVE had to do the Sydney Opera House recently for my DS in Y5, does that earn any brownie points???)
I'm with magwich in thinking that all three were a wretched waste of time. Up there with the horrors of having had to run up a Parthenon each in Y3. Each of those still gives me nightmares.
The children sat idly by, vaguely amused while my embarrassing "need to please", product of a '70s education in a girls' school, kicked in. Yes, yes, I *know* I should have let them sink or swim but really they do enough "valid" homework, this one seemed to teach us very little apart from potentially wrecking Easter / half term. Then my poor DS Y7 was meant to carry in a *loody castle along with all the other mass of stuff he's already weighed down by, on a bus.
There was no love-in over a shared experience just resentment. We do plenty with our children, they do plenty of interesting stuff on their own, we don't need, or want, the imposition of this sort of thing chucked our way, thanks very much.
Luckily the castle was so rubbish come the end there was no way they'd've suspected the heavy hand of parental intervention.
We (yes, we, not he) have had to do a motte and bailey castle AND a cell (but not, yet, a wretched wind turbine, Paula has trumped me on that one, but we HAVE had to do the Sydney Opera House recently for my DS in Y5, does that earn any brownie points???)
I'm with magwich in thinking that all three were a wretched waste of time. Up there with the horrors of having had to run up a Parthenon each in Y3. Each of those still gives me nightmares.
The children sat idly by, vaguely amused while my embarrassing "need to please", product of a '70s education in a girls' school, kicked in. Yes, yes, I *know* I should have let them sink or swim but really they do enough "valid" homework, this one seemed to teach us very little apart from potentially wrecking Easter / half term. Then my poor DS Y7 was meant to carry in a *loody castle along with all the other mass of stuff he's already weighed down by, on a bus.
There was no love-in over a shared experience just resentment. We do plenty with our children, they do plenty of interesting stuff on their own, we don't need, or want, the imposition of this sort of thing chucked our way, thanks very much.
Luckily the castle was so rubbish come the end there was no way they'd've suspected the heavy hand of parental intervention.
I disagree totally.
My son loves engineering and so the chance of having to sit down research and produce something for the sake of homework is absolutely fantastic as far as he is concerned.
The thing that annoys me is that so many people go on about some of our schools should be more vocational, yet when it comes to giving the kids something that they really have to put a lot of effort into producing something from scratch then we all shout 'what a waste of time'.
Out of curiosity, those parents that say that they thought it was a waste of time for the kids to research and make these models, would they feel the same if the homework was to produce a written piece of work?
My son loves engineering and so the chance of having to sit down research and produce something for the sake of homework is absolutely fantastic as far as he is concerned.
The thing that annoys me is that so many people go on about some of our schools should be more vocational, yet when it comes to giving the kids something that they really have to put a lot of effort into producing something from scratch then we all shout 'what a waste of time'.
Out of curiosity, those parents that say that they thought it was a waste of time for the kids to research and make these models, would they feel the same if the homework was to produce a written piece of work?
making a castle
Would I have felt the same if it was a piece of written work.... well no, that is the whole point!
DDs and DS go to school to be educated. Moreover they go to a grammar school to be educated in proper academic subjects. They have all been more than happy to do various craft activities for many years with varying degrees of success and a lot of enjoyment. They do not see their school as some kind of quasi family any more than they wan t to spend tens of hours a week in marks and spencer. Marks is where you buy groceries and grammar school is where you pass exams so that you can go to a proper university (ie. one that was a university in 1975!!) where you can get a degree in an academic subject whilst socialising with (mostly) middle class fellow students.
DD has spent the last 3 weeks doing public exams and although the requirements for most subjects are not what they were when "O" levels were around they do not include kitchen roll tubes and cotton wool!!!
One day your DC will be in a hall with a transparent pencil case and a bottle of water with the wrapper removed so they cannot write notes on it and they will probably wish they had spent more time looking at their books and less time on useless bits of homework!
Oh and lastly, DH is an engineer (Fellow of relevant institute) and would just like to point out that engineering encompasses physics and maths, not making simplistic models or "design"!!
DDs and DS go to school to be educated. Moreover they go to a grammar school to be educated in proper academic subjects. They have all been more than happy to do various craft activities for many years with varying degrees of success and a lot of enjoyment. They do not see their school as some kind of quasi family any more than they wan t to spend tens of hours a week in marks and spencer. Marks is where you buy groceries and grammar school is where you pass exams so that you can go to a proper university (ie. one that was a university in 1975!!) where you can get a degree in an academic subject whilst socialising with (mostly) middle class fellow students.
DD has spent the last 3 weeks doing public exams and although the requirements for most subjects are not what they were when "O" levels were around they do not include kitchen roll tubes and cotton wool!!!
One day your DC will be in a hall with a transparent pencil case and a bottle of water with the wrapper removed so they cannot write notes on it and they will probably wish they had spent more time looking at their books and less time on useless bits of homework!
Oh and lastly, DH is an engineer (Fellow of relevant institute) and would just like to point out that engineering encompasses physics and maths, not making simplistic models or "design"!!
What a narrow viewpoint! School is so much more than an exam factory and part of the rich experiencs of University is meeting ALL sorts of people.grammar school is where you pass exams so that you can go to a proper university (ie. one that was a university in 1975!!) where you can get a degree in an academic subject whilst socialising with (mostly) middle class fellow students.
Your OH is also sadly incorrect about engineering - it is about design and maths and physics - you have to make something to be a proper engineer!
making a castle
My point was that the maths and physics are more important than making models, especially as the vast majority of applicants to university encountered by DH are sadly lacking in these skills.
It is perfectly obvious Guest 55 that engineers design things but preferably not because the item looks nice but because they apply their academic skills to ensure the item works and is safe!
It is perfectly obvious Guest 55 that engineers design things but preferably not because the item looks nice but because they apply their academic skills to ensure the item works and is safe!
As the DH in question - yes of course Engineering includes design but nowadays there are two sides to "design". The Engineering side calls for a great deal of creativity, experience and background knowledge not to mention all the "maths and physics". The "Product Design" side calls for artistic aptitude and market research. Nowadays one can do degrees in either.
Basically if the product design is wrong the product will not sell but if the engineering is wrong, it will not work and the company in question will become a laughing stock. Think about British motorbikes in the 1960's - as soon as people could buy better-engineered Japanese ones that didn't vibrate, leak oil etc they never looked back. Read "Jupiter's Travels" if you don't believe me. Similarly with British Leyland - Issigonis boasted that he never employed a graduate and, boy, can you tell it if you take an old Mini to pieces. Synchromesh on the wrong side of the gears, cageless bearings mounted inside out....one look at a VW Golf or Nissan from the 1970s and you know why BL failed.
The problem is that the engineering education cannot start from scratch when a student starts 3 years at university - they need to absorb the "language" as they go through school. School pupils used to be familiar with engines, electronic components, heat, fluids etc and then when they did A-levels and degrees they found that they could actually do design calculations relating to what had previously been familiar concepts.
Both at school and at home, 40 years ago, there was far more of a culture for activities that had a technical content. (The Myford lathe company experienced a huge surge in sales after the war with men wanting to make model steam engines with their children!) So at school we had bunsen burners (at age 11) - blowing molten glass tubes to make Cartesian divers. We built crystal radios, experimenting with long aerials, ferrite rods, capacitors and diodes. We had model steam engines, telescopes, wound our own induction coils, machined brass cannons and built large model aeroplanes from hundreds of pieces of balsawood, glued exactly in place, covered in tissue and doped.
DD1 has just taken GCSE Physics. Did the school have a dismantled electric motor? No. She had a "one loop of wire" simplistic drawing in her Physics book and nobody worried whether it meant anything to her. At her age I was a year past O-levels and knew, in some detail, the torque characteristics of series and shunt-wound motors (I had dismantled several), not to mention what an underground train was doing when it made its clicking noise as it started up (reducing the field current so the motor ran faster).
I frequently give Oxbridge applicants mock interviews. Shall I mention the lad who thought that engine crankshafts might be made of lead? The girl who though that concrete came in ingots that were melted down before being poured into holes in the ground? The one who proudly announced that his Physics project had been to make a dye laser using strawberry jam as the lasing medium (it didn't work) - but had absolutely no idea how a laser actually worked? When such people have to do complex physical calculations it is hadly surprising that they have some difficulty understanding the concepts.
You may say this matters only to a tiny minority who intend to become professional engineers. Not so. Every engineering company has a shopfloor workforce who, on the whole, have left school with just a few GCSEs. Rolls-Royce used to find it almost impossible to recruit fitters who had passed GCSE Maths (instead they would stay on for A-levels and look for desk jobs). I have seen people dropping over £100,000 of turbine rotor into its housing without being able to calculate whether it would go in cleanly or jam and bend the blades. I could go on. The reason why engineering projects are so expensive is that there are always lots of mishaps - which a better general education might avoid.
Basically if the product design is wrong the product will not sell but if the engineering is wrong, it will not work and the company in question will become a laughing stock. Think about British motorbikes in the 1960's - as soon as people could buy better-engineered Japanese ones that didn't vibrate, leak oil etc they never looked back. Read "Jupiter's Travels" if you don't believe me. Similarly with British Leyland - Issigonis boasted that he never employed a graduate and, boy, can you tell it if you take an old Mini to pieces. Synchromesh on the wrong side of the gears, cageless bearings mounted inside out....one look at a VW Golf or Nissan from the 1970s and you know why BL failed.
The problem is that the engineering education cannot start from scratch when a student starts 3 years at university - they need to absorb the "language" as they go through school. School pupils used to be familiar with engines, electronic components, heat, fluids etc and then when they did A-levels and degrees they found that they could actually do design calculations relating to what had previously been familiar concepts.
Both at school and at home, 40 years ago, there was far more of a culture for activities that had a technical content. (The Myford lathe company experienced a huge surge in sales after the war with men wanting to make model steam engines with their children!) So at school we had bunsen burners (at age 11) - blowing molten glass tubes to make Cartesian divers. We built crystal radios, experimenting with long aerials, ferrite rods, capacitors and diodes. We had model steam engines, telescopes, wound our own induction coils, machined brass cannons and built large model aeroplanes from hundreds of pieces of balsawood, glued exactly in place, covered in tissue and doped.
DD1 has just taken GCSE Physics. Did the school have a dismantled electric motor? No. She had a "one loop of wire" simplistic drawing in her Physics book and nobody worried whether it meant anything to her. At her age I was a year past O-levels and knew, in some detail, the torque characteristics of series and shunt-wound motors (I had dismantled several), not to mention what an underground train was doing when it made its clicking noise as it started up (reducing the field current so the motor ran faster).
I frequently give Oxbridge applicants mock interviews. Shall I mention the lad who thought that engine crankshafts might be made of lead? The girl who though that concrete came in ingots that were melted down before being poured into holes in the ground? The one who proudly announced that his Physics project had been to make a dye laser using strawberry jam as the lasing medium (it didn't work) - but had absolutely no idea how a laser actually worked? When such people have to do complex physical calculations it is hadly surprising that they have some difficulty understanding the concepts.
You may say this matters only to a tiny minority who intend to become professional engineers. Not so. Every engineering company has a shopfloor workforce who, on the whole, have left school with just a few GCSEs. Rolls-Royce used to find it almost impossible to recruit fitters who had passed GCSE Maths (instead they would stay on for A-levels and look for desk jobs). I have seen people dropping over £100,000 of turbine rotor into its housing without being able to calculate whether it would go in cleanly or jam and bend the blades. I could go on. The reason why engineering projects are so expensive is that there are always lots of mishaps - which a better general education might avoid.
No - I think she has just shot herself in the foot!
We need MORE practical work in schools - exactly what my DC is doing in separate Science GCSEs - they have taken thinks apart and they do this in Technology too - it's called deconstruction.
We need ACADEMIC and PRACTICAl skills - neither is superior - one without the other means a failed product.
We need MORE practical work in schools - exactly what my DC is doing in separate Science GCSEs - they have taken thinks apart and they do this in Technology too - it's called deconstruction.
We need ACADEMIC and PRACTICAl skills - neither is superior - one without the other means a failed product.
Yes I agree totally with you G55.
I was having trouble understanding what magwich was saying, as like you, to me her post implied that we do need more practical lessons in schools, and having read lots of her posts in the past, it did not sound like something she would write.
Maybe GS kids should not demean themselves by having to do practical lessons (sorry can't find an emoticon to put in here which says that 'I absolutely do not think that buy I'm sure that some people do')
I was having trouble understanding what magwich was saying, as like you, to me her post implied that we do need more practical lessons in schools, and having read lots of her posts in the past, it did not sound like something she would write.
Maybe GS kids should not demean themselves by having to do practical lessons (sorry can't find an emoticon to put in here which says that 'I absolutely do not think that buy I'm sure that some people do')
