[Gllug] Light the blue touchpaper...

[Bernard Peek]

In message <Pine.LNX.4.44.0403171350360.5551-100000 at yeoshua.ukpost.com>, 
Jason Clifford <jason at ukpost.com> writes


>And as you build the dependancies upon smaller and smaller numbers of
>properly qualified people does anyone really think that this will lead to
>improvements?

Not quite. We will be dependent on larger and larger numbers of properly 
qualified people. We have left the era of the generalist behind, the 
last renaissance man probably lived during the renaissance.

>
>We run the risk of whole generations who are almost totally dependant upon
>others for basic skills. That's a reverse of the last 150-200 years
>progress in general education and the benefits that brings to the
>population as a whole.

It's a reversal of developments in education up to the middle of the 
last century. After that point there were fewer generalists and more 
specialists. There's a popular delusion that experts usually get things 
wrong. If that was really true you wouldn't be able to walk down the 
street without tripping over the dead bodies. We really do need to get 
beyond the belief that 10 years of schooling and some common-sense is 
all that you need.

We have now reached the point where it takes 16 years of full-time 
schooling (age 5 to 21) to get a basic education, and vocational 
education takes another 5 years on top of that. I've seen job ads for a 
junior IT support technician who would be expected to have at least one 
doctorate. If you want to avoid reliance on the experts then most people 
won't be leaving school until they are 30 or more.

>
>We've certainly not reached a point where we can say enough people have
>those basic skills. The numbers of innumerate and illiterate people are
>growing - these types of schemes divert resources away from addressing
>root causes in my view to the benefit of a very small percentage of poeple
>and the benefit is doubtable in itself.

Most people have the basic skills of their age cohort. What we need is a 
system to deliver today's basic skills to yesterday's educated people. 
I'd like to see company's adopting a policy of requiring every employee 
to pass the ECDL test, starting with the board members.

>
>> Did you learn how to calculate tan x by hand before someone gave you a book
>> with a table in it?  I doubt it.
>
>I was encouraged to learn how to when I was at school as calculators were
>banned. We had pencil and paper and were taught (allegedly) how to do
>these things by hand.
>
>Personally I found the allure of solvents, drugs and the occult greater at
>the time ;)
>
>>  We have the technology, why not use it?
>
>As I said I've no problem using it - AFTER teaching kids how to do it
>without the technology.

Sorry, there just isn't time in the syllabus if kids are going to leave 
schooling at 21. If you talk to teachers today you will find that they 
are hard pressed to include everything on today's syllabus, and you want 
to add a lot more too it.

>
>> Agreed on this though, but this shouldn't mean that we should tell a child
>> to understand the source code before they can use dict(1).
>
>Does it mean we should present the child with a black box appliance and
>tell him he need never consider how it works?

Definitely. By all means encourage pupils to find out more if they want, 
but it's absolutely vital to make it clear that they will never be 
required to learn it. They have to learn to trust other people, because 
they can't ever know everything.



-- 
Bernard Peek
London, UK. DBA, Manager, Trainer & Author. Will work for money.

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