[LINK] Al Gore on democracy, TV and Net neutrality

[Glen Turner]

On Mon, 2007-06-04 at 13:25 +1000, Daniel Rose wrote:

> Strange things are going on with our society, I wonder if they can be traced to
> a decline in education standards in the west over the last 3 or 4 decades, or
> if there's a different cause.

You are pulling my chain, right :-)

My eldest is in Year 12 in South Australia. Her tasks for the weekend:
to write a short essay evaluating the pre-Revolutionary reforms
in France and Russia; revise DNA variability and self-repair;
collate and analyse the survey she conducted on social attitudes
and behaviours towards charity and social justice.

Every weekend is like this. Going to the movies or watching a TV
show is a treat akin to heaven. She is planning, now, towards making
one weekend free the weekend after Harry Potter is released.

Two decades ago, we still learned about the Estates General, the
Tennis Court, Rasputin, the Sealed Train and so on. But we didn't
have to complete major works on them the following week, before
their significance in view of later events had time to sink in.
So the kids actually need to read well ahead of the material
if they are to do well.

We did have the horror of the 100% final exam. One bad half hour
could waste two years effort.  But in a lot of ways this era
has it worse -- the pressure is continual, if you don't keep
up there is no chance of recovering, a bad cold can destroy
your marks, and good time management is needed for two years,
not for two hours in the exam hall.  Oh, and they get exams
as well, for reasons I don't understand.

-- 
 Glen Turner