Covid 19

[Old Koreelah]

Post-war, lots of veterans went into teaching; some brought considerable baggage. Coping with huge classes too often depended on the stick.

 

During my first few decades teaching I saw the cane used too much and was happy to see it banned. I’m glad I never needed it. Good preparation and working with kids is better. 

 

One thing I certainly noticed in the years after flogging kids stopped: playground fights went from being almost daily events to very rare indeed.

 

[planedriver]

As Turbo has said, handwriting these days is generally atrocious. The way doctors write, it's amazing so many of us are still alive. Though i'm not anywhere as good as i'd like, I use a calligraphy pen and have bought one for each of my grandsons. They always comment on my handwriting on Birthday cards etc; and they have started to use them a bit and try to copy my style, even though it's not really that flash. They have at least taken a bit of interest and pride on occasions how they write. So hopefully the input from grandad at least inspires them a little to take some pride in how they write.

[onetrack]

I actually got so concerned about deteriorating handwriting skills about 10 years, by the constant use of keyboard devices, I started to keep a comprehensive diary, that I write in by hand every day.

This has several advantages. 1. Your handwriting skills are kept tuned up. 2. You know what day is, every day. 3. You can refer back through the diary to find important dates when things happened.

You can also win arguments by presenting the written proof of exactly what happened, and exactly when! 

 

Edited August 26, 2021 by onetrack

[spacesailor]

I shall say nothing !.  As l can,t find anything good about school.

spacesailor

[kgwilson]

I looked at some of my high school handwriting a while ago and I was impressed  at how neat and legible it was. Now when I write anything I can barely read it myself so anyone else has buckleys. During my travels around the world from 73 to 76 I wrote letters home almost every week or sometimes more often. My mother kept them all & when she died I sat and read though a lot of them. My handwriting then was still pretty good & I kept the font really small to fit as much as possible on a single aerogramme.

 

Being in the IT industry since 1980 meant handwriting became quite rare. Prior to that I had to fill in data entry forms like everyone else in the late 60s & 70s so capital letters were required. Now I can't print at all in lower case but my upper case printing is still pretty good. 

[Flightrite]

12 hours ago, spacesailor said:

I shall say nothing !.  As l can,t find anything good about school.

spacesailor

I have to agree there Spacey, school for me was for learning about hard knocks, daily fights behind the shelter sheds, lots of wogs (which was the accepted word during the day, no harm) giving it to us whites but oddly enuf we where the best of mates outside of the school yards, hmmm...nothing academically worth remembering. Growing up in a commission area and attending the public system meant you learnt by the strap, 6 of the best pretty much every other day, then again at home. I probably deserved it anyway and as mentioned didn't do many any harm:-) At grade 6 it was time to be divided up, clever kids (which where few) went to high school, the rest of us trouble makers went to a tech school, we where the ones that failed tests regularly. I saw form D (the lowest class( for the 4 years I was in secondary school, came away with practical skills but zero smarts, the crazy thing is I retired as a jet Capt, go figure:-)

Thread drift, as already said maybe we need another thread about education, or lack of it!

 

I'd hate to be in the public system these days also!

[skippydiesel]

46 minutes ago, Flightrite said:

I

 

I'd hate to be in the public system these days also!

Why??

 

AND

 

I have often observed that when judging a persons career; its not where you start, its where you end up, that matters and even more importantly how the individual feels about the life they have lead.

[danny_galaga]

Agree. I grew up in Darwin. Schooling in the 70's and 80's. Public school system was probably best in Australia. Most people I knew went to public school. I was housing commission but really had no idea how poor we were. Don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Most of my friends were richer. They were the ones with go karts and Atari 2600's etc. I still haven't owned a go kart but I finally bought an Atari 2600 a couple of years ago 😁

 

Your parents are the most important thing. My friends with mean parents unsurprisingly didn't do well in general. The ones with good parents did. I'm the odd one out in that equation. I think my parents were good, but i STILL didn't do that well. My younger sister did. Even though she went to a rougher high school than me, our family was more settled by then. SHe has a masters degree in education and funnily enough teaches at my old high school. One of my friends who went all the way through public schooling is now a professor of physics. His doctoral thesis was in charting an anti matter periodic table! One friend who went to a private high school became a boiler maker, his brother an auto electrician. His father was a fucking a hole. Nothing wrong with the trades (I ended up being an auto electrician too) but what was the point of the private schooling? He could have left public school after year 10 and been a boiler maker.

 

There, those are my selected examples. How about some famous ones that show all the combinations?

 

Norman Mailer- Harvard at 16. Best selling author.

Theodore Kacsynski- Harvard at 16. Better known as the Unabomber.

 

Michael Faraday- Apprentice bookbinder at 14. One of the most important physicists ever.

Edmund Kemper. Ran away from home at 14. Became known as the CO-Ed killer for killing 8 female students. Also killed his grandparents at 15.

 

Just thought about it. Those four all had very high IQ's. I think for the rest of us non geniuses a stable caring family is the key. 

 

Edited August 26, 2021 by danny_galaga

[turboplanner]

1 hour ago, Flightrite said:

I have to agree there Spacey, school for me was for learning about hard knocks, daily fights behind the shelter sheds, lots of wogs (which was the accepted word during the day, no harm) giving it to us whites but oddly enuf we where the best of mates outside of the school yards, hmmm...nothing academically worth remembering. Growing up in a commission area and attending the public system meant you learnt by the strap, 6 of the best pretty much every other day, then again at home. I probably deserved it anyway and as mentioned didn't do many any harm:-) At grade 6 it was time to be divided up, clever kids (which where few) went to high school, the rest of us trouble makers went to a tech school, we where the ones that failed tests regularly. I saw form D (the lowest class( for the 4 years I was in secondary school, came away with practical skills but zero smarts, the crazy thing is I retired as a jet Capt, go figure:-)

Thread drift, as already said maybe we need another thread about education, or lack of it!

 

I'd hate to be in the public system these days also!

But you lived in a Country which allowed you to break through and get to the top.

The public system these days works on behavioural psychology; a much easier ride to the point where, having worked in it for about six months, I'm wondering why teachers and parents did it. I'm in awe at the skill of a teacher, entering the online class which at that point is a screen full of cross-conversation yelling, and a text panel that looks like a fast foward, and by calling a few names and settling them down, untangling a couple of disputes, has the class quiet and compliant in 30 seconds. A much better way than we had.

[Old Koreelah]

1 hour ago, Flightrite said:

…Thread drift, as already said maybe we need another thread about education, or lack of it!

I agree, Flightie.

Let’s take this discussion to 

https://www.socialaustralia.com.au/topic/1544-school-and-education/

[skippydiesel]

Educated in N Ireland in the Public (Protestant) system - thought I was leaving the stench of sectarianism behind, when I came to Au in the 1970's -  only to see the rise & rise of Private (religious) schooling - cant be good.

 

When tough economic/social times come (& they will) the tribal/religious indoctrination will rise like an infection, with each tribe polarising & looking after itself.

 

The result will be disastrous  for the social cohesion of our country.

 

I am not against private schools of any kind, as long as they meet the minimum education standards of the State and dont get a $ from the tax payer.

 

It was a very very bad mistake to allow tax payers money to be used to fund private schools of any description.

[turboplanner]

1 minute ago, skippydiesel said:

When tough economic/social times come (& they will) the tribal/religious indoctrination will rise like an infection, with each tribe polarising & looking after itself.

The result will be disastrous  for the social cohesion of our country.

Australia has never had the religious affinity of everyday citizens as Ireland had, thanks to our healthy injection of convicts who thumbed their noses at the lot.

Then we had the European immigrants who just wanted to forget the crap

Then the Asians who were busy making money.

 

 

1 minute ago, skippydiesel said:

I am not against private schools of any kind, as long as they meet the minimum education standards of the State and dont get a $ from the tax payer.

It was a very very bad mistake to allow tax payers money to be used to fund private schools of any description.

They are able to do some things not available from the State system.

It's not unreasonable that they received payment for the things they do that the State requires, and would otherwise have to pay for in terms of tuition, infrastructure, school buses etc.

 

[Old Koreelah]

1 minute ago, skippydiesel said:

Educated in N Ireland in the Public (Protestant) system - thought I was leaving the stench of sectarianism behind, when I came to Au in the 1970's -  only to see the rise & rise of Private (religious) schooling - cant be good.

 

When tough economic/social times come (& they will) the tribal/religious indoctrination will rise like an infection, with each tribe polarising & looking after itself.

 

The result will be disastrous  for the social cohesion of our country.

 

I am not against private schools of any kind, as long as they meet the minimum education standards of the State and dont get a $ from the tax payer.

 

It was a very very bad mistake to allow tax payers money to be used to fund private schools of any description.

Agree with gusto, Skip. Will reply on the Off Topic forum.

https://www.socialaustralia.com.au/topic/1544-school-and-education/?tab=comments#comment-54872

 

[jackc]

For me, private schooling was a total disaster…….teachers had ‘pets’ and if you were not one, you were doomed.  The cure?  Get expelled, worked for me!!!

[turboplanner]

32 minutes ago, jackc said:

For me, private schooling was a total disaster…….teachers had ‘pets’ and if you were not one, you were doomed.  The cure?  Get expelled, worked for me!!!

You already told us that.

[jackc]

Proud of it 🙂

[turboplanner]

It would appear that when NSW says schools are closed they mean that literally and they are not operating online schooling. If so, that will be a disaster, possibly costing all students a year. Can anyone conform that?

 

[skippydiesel]

16 hours ago, Old Koreelah said:

Agree with gusto, Skip. Will reply on the Off Topic forum.

https://www.socialaustralia.com.au/topic/1544-school-and-education/?tab=comments#comment-54872

 

How does one get onto this  "Off Topic forum" ?.

[kgwilson]

It is the bottom option on the side bar menu. You will need to create a login once you get there.

[skippydiesel]

4 hours ago, kgwilson said:

It is the bottom option on the side bar menu. You will need to create a login once you get there.

Exactly what I didn't want to do - create new passwords etc

 

Will think on it.

[kgwilson]

23 minutes ago, skippydiesel said:

Exactly what I didn't want to do - create new passwords etc

 

Will think on it.

Just use the same Username and password as Rec Flying.

[red750]

You can use the same password you use on Rec Flying - both sites are run by Ian and Social Australia just separates flying from non-flying.

[planesmaker]

NSW Party time!!! Woohoo!  Gladys has just announced the new freedoms for all the good little boys and girls, yes you can now meet outside with a max number of 5 including children! (Within 5 km of home)Too bad if you are a family of 6!

[Flightrite]

Poor old Glady will get attacked over that by the indoctrinated for sure:-) The resident lunatic in Vict will go the opposite way now that the daily BS No's have exceeded 90, extending the imprisonment time & probably increase the oppression as he gets off on it!

Edited August 28, 2021 by Flightrite

[jackc]

Hope there is some civil unrest,  the Govt might see the light……..

but I doubt it……