[Gllug] Light the blue touchpaper...

[Nix]

On Thu, 25 Mar 2004, Amias Channer spake:
> On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 17:29:46 +0000
> Nix <nix at esperi.org.uk> wrote:
>> They did that to me: it took a *lot* of effort, even after a dyspraxia
>> diagnosis, to get them to accept typewritten homework.
> 
> Similar situations lead to almost all of my school reports being along the lines of 
> 'show lots of interest in the classroom but never does his homework'
> My hand writing has always been terrible and i was always marked down for it.

Plus, dammit, if handwriting hurts (which it does, and always has) I'm
not going to do a lot of it. (`But can't you press less hard?' `Sure, if
you want me to pay no attention to forming legible lettering.')

> This eventually lead to me losing interest in school work and school
> in general.

Likewise; ironic, really, as there are few things I'm not interested in
learning: but only about 40% of my teachers seemed to be interested in
teaching /per se/. (I'm sure John is a superb example of what teachers
*should* be like: i.e., more interested in passing on knowledge of the
subject and inculcating a desire to learn than in asserting control over
the horrible little kids.)

> I have written several peices for national magazines who loved my writing style
> and this has repaired some of the hurt but if we had all been allowed to use computers

(as these days, everyone is encouraged/required (?) to, because even the
most thick-skulled teacher realises that it means no more decrypting
handwriting anymore... and print *is* easier to read, even print typeset
by Word, cursed be its name.)

>> (Comments like `if he doesn't write regularly he'll forget how to write'
>> kept emerging. Nowadays I write perhaps a few words a month by hand, and
>> oddly enough haven't forgotten how to do it.)
> 
> I have recently switched from programming to doing some less techy work which
> envolves a lot of form filling,

Sounds like a job from hell to me. :)

>                         i can still write and people can still read it . If anything
> my handwriting has got better since leaving school when I was able to forget
> the pain of remedial handwriting lessons

They tried to give those to me. None of them worked: most of them made
my handwriting even worse. Eventually they stopped trying.

>                                    and constantly be marked down for my writing

Oh yes.

> even when the content of the essay was excellent.

Luckily a few of the enlightened teachers there could ignore the
handwriting, and after I shifted to wordprocessed output everyone could.

> I think the important thing with education is not to try and treat
> kids as if they are all the same.  Everyone has their own strenghts

To an extent that's hard to avoid: you're teaching hundreds of people in
40-minute stretches, how can you avoid generalizing across them? You
can't know all those people properly; just the exceptional/troublesome
ones.

> and weaknesses and education should not be trying to normalise them

Alas, that has been mass education's prime function for as long as it
has existed. (It's still tuned to producing factory-floor workers and
clerks, which is a bit of a shame 'cos there's not much call for those
jobs anymore.)

-- 
`The game proceeds with people picking up cards in turn, and every so
 often this is punctuated with a church council when everyone goes mad
 and starts yelling and playing cards at each other and persecuting and
 making deals.' --- Jo Walton on _Credo_
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