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The Tottenham Station Railway Disaster of 1860

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Re: The Tottenham Station Railway Disaster of 1860

#21

Post by DanBC »

Boothroid wrote: post #15
laumars wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's dangerous to assume that kids neither have individually nor anything interesting to say. Just the other day my 3 year old was explaining to me how cars, tablet PCs and people all need different types of energy to function. I found that conversation to be far more interesting than half the discussions I have with peers of my own age.

OK, so what about point b - by prioritising children expressing their individuality we are actually limiting their ability to express themselves with eloquence?

> by prioritising children expressing their individuality

It doesn't happen. You're wrong. You're being very firm with your assertions, but they're based on something that doesn't happen.

Have a look at common core standards for English. Most of them have nothing to do with "expressing their individuality", but about introducing a topic, making an argument, and supporting it with evidence.

Re: The Tottenham Station Railway Disaster of 1860

#23

Post by icebraining »

Boothroid wrote: post #7
zimpenfish wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> university professors complain about standards worsening in their annual intake of students They've been doing that since the 11th Century[1] - if this were even vaguely true, your current average student intake would be somewhere around the level of planaria or possibly tardigrades. It's demonstrable rubbish. [1] http://www.medievalists.net/2015/09/the-long-history-of-teac...

Ah yes, the well-worn 'people have always been complaining about things getting worse' rebuttal.. But your argument is flawed - just because it might not always have been true does not mean it is not true now. As I said, I'm inclined to believe those at the chalkface. Here's one reference I was able to find easily: https://www.bjupress.com/resources/articles/t2t/declining-li...

I find that article to be in need of review by someone with good literacy. It presents single datapoints and talks about "this decline", despite not actually presenting past data to compare with the current numbers. The largest timespan it shows is the literacy from '92 to '03, and they explicitly quote the report saying that "average prose and document literacy did not differ significantly".

They also fail to mention that the 2003 report showed no decline except for Hispanics. Maybe, just maybe, immigration by people with non-English backgrounds was the cause, not textbooks? It'd be nice to at least see that discussed.

Re: The Tottenham Station Railway Disaster of 1860

#24

Post by jcranmer »

Boothroid wrote: post #7
zimpenfish wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> university professors complain about standards worsening in their annual intake of students They've been doing that since the 11th Century[1] - if this were even vaguely true, your current average student intake would be somewhere around the level of planaria or possibly tardigrades. It's demonstrable rubbish. [1] http://www.medievalists.net/2015/09/the-long-history-of-teac...

Ah yes, the well-worn 'people have always been complaining about things getting worse' rebuttal.. But your argument is flawed - just because it might not always have been true does not mean it is not true now. As I said, I'm inclined to believe those at the chalkface. Here's one reference I was able to find easily: https://www.bjupress.com/resources/articles/t2t/declining-li...

You could do better than a reference that lies about the contents of its citations. For example, there is no evidence that "over 50% of American adults over the age of 16 were functionally illiterate." The actual number is 14%, if I'm taking the cited source's statistic of "below basic prose literacy" as the definition of "functionally illiterate."

Actually, upon reading the whole article, this feels a lot more like the same millennium-old whining "kids aren't appreciating the same classics I did and therefore they're stupid idiots." Kids these days read and write a lot--text messaging, twitter, facebook, social media.

If you want to convince someone that it really is the case that people are getting dumber, you need to find references that don't read like the same age-old complaints: you need to show that it's dumber on an objective measure of intelligence, not "they don't show appreciation for the classics," which is what you usually find instead.

Re: The Tottenham Station Railway Disaster of 1860

#25

Post by zimpenfish »

icebraining wrote: post #23
Boothroid wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, the well-worn 'people have always been complaining about things getting worse' rebuttal.. But your argument is flawed - just because it might not always have been true does not mean it is not true now. As I said, I'm inclined to believe those at the chalkface. Here's one reference I was able to find easily: https://www.bjupress.com/resources/articles/t2t/declining-li...

I find that article to be in need of review by someone with good literacy. It presents single datapoints and talks about "this decline", despite not actually presenting past data to compare with the current numbers. The largest timespan it shows is the literacy from '92 to '03, and they explicitly quote the report saying that "average prose and document literacy did not differ significantly". They also fail to mentio…

> they explicitly quote the report saying that [...]

Which ignored the part immediately before that citing an 8 point rise in quantitative literacy between '92 and '03.

Also blatantly ignored the following sentence showing +6 for prose and +8 for document literacy for POC. And the one about Asian/Pacific Islanders getting +16 from '92 to '03.

It is a shoddy piece of work picking only those points that bolster their existing conclusion.

Re: The Tottenham Station Railway Disaster of 1860

#26

Post by exodust »

mirimir wrote: post #12

tl;dr The railway firm used an off-brand wheel on the engine. It had a flaw in a weld, and failed. The engine derailed.

you forgot the part where the author is trying to flog their new romance novel, available now on Amazon for the low price of $2.48

Re: The Tottenham Station Railway Disaster of 1860

#27

Post by protomyth »

brudgers wrote: post #10
Boothroid wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. The obvious culprit is trendy educational methods - these days it's seen as more important to let children express their supposed individuality rather than inculcate a decent standard of literacy. Some would characterise this as a Daily Mail-esque viewpoint, but university professors complain about standards worsening in their annual intake of students, and I'm inclined to listen to those at the chalkface.

Contemporary education eschews the use of passive voice. The passage would judged negatively in most contemporary classrooms in the English speaking world.

What is the reason for rejection of the passive voice?

Re: The Tottenham Station Railway Disaster of 1860

#29

Post by brudgers »

protomyth wrote: post #27
brudgers wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contemporary education eschews the use of passive voice. The passage would judged negatively in most contemporary classrooms in the English speaking world.

What is the reason for rejection of the passive voice?

My guess/speculation/opinion is that it is related to the common pedagogical premise that the primary purpose of writing is to present a convincing argument. And passive voice is viewed as "weaker" in the context of debate and argument by conventional wisdom. For what it's worth, I think the emphasis on writing to argue and convince is a significant contributing factor to the behaviors people exhibit once they discover text boxes on the internet.

An alternative approach to writing is as a tool to examine one's own thoughts...and perhaps explain them to others. That is, writing can be a tool by which the writer comes to understand the subject rather than a means of teaching it to others. This is a bit more at odds with the idea that education is about filling up the empty bucket of a student's mind.

Re: The Tottenham Station Railway Disaster of 1860

#30

Post by mirimir »

exodust wrote: post #26
mirimir wrote: post #12

tl;dr The railway firm used an off-brand wheel on the engine. It had a flaw in a weld, and failed. The engine derailed.

you forgot the part where the author is trying to flog their new romance novel, available now on Amazon for the low price of $2.48

Right, thanks :)

Also, the train was moving at just 30-40 mph. Those are typical speeds for current vehicle crash tests.

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