1st day at primary school (1 Viewer)

[hugh]

think about it like this, theres two ways to teach someone how to solve some gay maths problem. A) make them do it repetitively until they have no choice but to follow a pattern when confronted with such a problem B) or give them the necessity to find a solution, so they understand the why of the solution. option B sounds like how egg there seems to work, the way of industry seems to suggest that option A is the most profitable ...

Well, I work in third level education and we talk to employers all the time about what they want in graduates and they always mention that they want people with problem solving skills, team working skills, flexibility and all that stuff, so the industry (or at least the industry that the third level sector feeds) is not as backward in that regard as you might think. As time goes on I become more and more convinced that the actual shit you teach people is not that relevant .. what's way more important is how you do it, what kind of experience are you giving them, and whether that experience is positive and (barf alert) empowering or not. Obviously most of the time it's not unfortunately.

On another note - no creativity in maths? No way Jose. Solving complex maths problems involves the most brain melting thinking outside, inside, in between, and all around the box, you can possibly imagine.

 

[GO]

School is bullshit.They don't teach you how to be Chuck Berry,so fuck them.

Is this a music/musicians forum or what?

 

[GARYXKNIFEDX]

School is bullshit.They don't teach you how to be Chuck Berry,so fuck them.

Is this a music/musicians forum or what?

I hear ya Gaz,I wanted to do music but wasn't allowed to because I couldn't already play at what ever basic grade was required. It was the one thing I REALLY wanted to do and knew I could get something out of. From that day on my relationship with school was over. I decided(and admittedly shouldn't have) that if school didn't want to teach me,I didn't want to learn. School failed me.

 

[hugh]

Yeah, and teaching music is an almost perfect example of what I'm talking about. It encourages a whole range of good things over and above the actual content of the subject itself. More schools should be doing more of it. But maybe more like it's done in School Of Rock than learning how to play scales on the recorder ....

 

[GARYXKNIFEDX]

when you say School Of Rock,just to clarify,do you mean the movie?

 

[pissypants]

I was actually beaten on my first day for drawing a round house. Apparently houses are square. I tried to explain that houses could be round and that I had a round house, (my mushroom house money box).
But being only 4 I think I didn't quite explain that is was a toy house not my home that was round.
Any ho, the teacher whacked my hands several times with the wooden ruler, because no one has a round house.

Needless to say i wasn't so fond of going to school after that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xO-tEq4HP3E&feature=channel_page#t=5m26s

 

[hugh]

when you say School Of Rock,just to clarify,do you mean the movie?

I thought it was a documentary?

 

[GARYXKNIFEDX]

I thought it was a documentary?

My mistake.

 

[Froog]

i've always been terrible at maths, and i always will be. but that doesn't stop me seeing the creativity and beauty of it.

things like the poincaré conjecture, or the hilbert problems, or any number of other contributions to maths, seem like some of the most beautiful, elegant, insightful thought in human history.

this is possibly because i'm now safely out of school and away from the threat of actually having it force-fed to me.

i appreciate that this is all beside the point, and somewhat different to learning your nine-times tables and the like, but it bears saying nonetheless.

yeah, i agree, was just saying there's not much creativity in school level maths. absolutely in college and beyond tho.

 

[Froog]

they always mention that they want people with problem solving skills, team working skills, flexibility and all that stuff, so the industry (or at least the industry that the third level sector feeds) is not as backward in that regard as you might think.

yeah employers always say all this and we all throw it down on the aul CV's but its a bit meaningless isn't it? team working - yes i have worked with people before, flexibility - yes i can do different tasks, problem solving - i have solved a problem or two in my time. i mean every person in the world has these "skills". its like saying "we are looking for a human that can sit, occasionally stand, and breathe."

 

[Froog]

On another note - no creativity in maths? No way Jose. Solving complex maths problems involves the most brain melting thinking outside, inside, in between, and all around the box, you can possibly imagine.

but you don't create anything do you? i'm talking about school level maths now, you come across a problem, you use logic and what you know to solve it. you don't come up with new methods, and you don't use rules and equations in a new novel way. you can't put every successful excercise down to creativity.

you problem solve in secondary maths using the eqautions and rules you learn. if you were to creatively problem solve, you would use possibley new rules you made up yourself or new ways to solve these problems, which i'm sure 99.99999% of students don't do.

 

[Unicron]

Yeah, and teaching music is an almost perfect example of what I'm talking about. It encourages a whole range of good things over and above the actual content of the subject itself. More schools should be doing more of it. But maybe more like it's done in School Of Rock than learning how to play scales on the recorder ....

A primary school teacher I know got her class of 11 and 12 year olds to form a band last year, they wrote and recorded this cool little garage rock tune.

zSHARE - 01-AudioTrack 01.mp3

 

[Pirate of Love]

yeah employers always say all this and we all throw it down on the aul CV's but its a bit meaningless isn't it? team working - yes i have worked with people before, flexibility - yes i can do different tasks, problem solving - i have solved a problem or two in my time. i mean every person in the world has these "skills". its like saying "we are looking for a human that can sit, occasionally stand, and breathe."

Everyone writes these things down on the auld CV, looks good. You call to arrange an interview, and they're not great on the phone, but sure, that could be nerves, get them in for a chat. You meet them, and it starts okay, and by the end of it you know that this isn't going to work out because they don't have these skills to an acceptable level. And then I feel like shit, because they're trying, and they've got their piece of paper to say that they're clever, and they should be a good fit for the job, but I know from bitter experience that you end up expending huge amounts of time (which, sadly, is money for all small businesses) trying to improve their basic communications skills so that they don't piss off the designer every day, or refuse to comment their code in the way the other guys do, and it simply isn't worth it. Those skills make a huge difference to how happy, easy and comfortable a team's day-to-day work is, and a happy productive team means that we'll be able to get the work done on time, bill it, and pay the salaries and the rent again this month.

Team work, flexibility, blah blah blah might be buzz words, but they're buzz words for a reason.

 

[Pantone247]

you problem solve in secondary maths using the eqautions and rules you learn. if you were to creatively problem solve, you would use possibley new rules you made up yourself or new ways to solve these problems, which i'm sure 99.99999% of students don't do.

you can't creatively write a novel till you learn how to read and write...

 

[Froog]

you can't creatively write a novel till you learn how to read and write...

you can't compare writing a novel with secondary level maths, in fairness.

 

[broken arm]

i think people are misrepresenting creativity.

this article I read this morning may or may not be related

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/management/article6817517.ece

Ever since the collective sharp intake of breath that was the credit crunch, any discussion of banking and risk seems to involve the word “mitigation”; it’s all sobriety and long-term sustainability and executive caution. David Kershaw, however, would like to see commercial firms, including banks, adding more risktakers to their boards.


Risk-takers come in many shapes and sizes, but Mr Kershaw is not thinking of those who parcel up debt and pass it on but, perhaps unpredictably, those who have proved themselves willing to promote a radical new playwright or musician.


“I think there’s a very sad lack of lateral thinking on most commercial boards,” he said. “This is associated with risk aversion, even more so in this recessionary environment. In the financial sector, boards have not known what the hell was going on. The reaction to that is that people are allergic to risk, so doing new things and being innovative is anathema at the moment.”


Mr Kershaw believes in creative thinking, as chief executive of M&C Saatchi, the advertising agency, and as chairman of the government-funded Cultural Leadership Programme, which promotes leadership development in the arts and creative industries. Creative leaders, he argues, are inherently interested in discovering and celebrating radical new ideas, something that he describes as “very healthy”.


But he is not expecting to welcome a wave of creative leaders sitting in commercial boardrooms any time soon. While business people are happy to join arts organisations’ boards, they are much less willing to invite arts leaders on to their own. “We commissioned a study about the acceptability of creative people going on to big corporate boards, but the corporate side is not very hungry. Their reaction was one of basic resistance. They said that at the moment they need people who are buttoned down, who understand risk and finance. The commercial world is in hibernation rather than employing radical thinking

i think the basic resistence of the corporates is reflected in the reposnses here that are skeptical or misunderstanding the role of creativity.

(yes, this is a sly dig at you knobs :heart::heart

 

[taubstumm]

refuse to comment their code in the way the other guys do

hahaha

pain

 

[taubstumm]

you can't compare writing a novel with secondary level maths, in fairness.

why not? obviously not literally, but there's a large overlap of necessary skills

 

[snakybus]

you knobs :heart::heart:

No academic citation/evidence for this nugget of info?

 

[Pirate of Love]

why not? obviously not literally, but there's a large overlap of necessary skills

The necessary skill for both would be basic keep-going-ness. Or as MDR said:

Mark my words people: what you need in this world above creativity is stamina. Sheer stamina.