Silversea Water Cooler: Part 3, Welcome!

[UKCruiseJeff]

Small explosion on the London tube this morning .......

[jpalbny]

Small explosion on the London tube this morning .......

 

Just seeing the news reports this morning. Sounds like it's too early to know many details. Hope all reported injuries are minor.

[UKCruiseJeff]

Just seeing the news reports this morning. Sounds like it's too early to know many details. Hope all reported injuries are minor.

 

No one seriously hurt. Just fairly minor but being over-egged by the news. The real issue is "what may have been" and this will make all Londoners stressed about their journies into and out of work.

[Zombatar]

No one seriously hurt. Just fairly minor but being over-egged by the news. The real issue is "what may have been" and this will make all Londoners stressed about their journies into and out of work.

 

Interesting to see at the end of the report on the tube incident that armed police stopped a bus because the driver was wearing a balaclava, but it turns out he wasn't a terrorist, he was cold!

 

Peter

[UKCruiseJeff]

Interesting to see at the end of the report on the tube incident that armed police stopped a bus because the driver was wearing a balaclava, but it turns out he wasn't a terrorist, he was cold!

 

Peter

 

Peter, yes I guess it is a consequence of balaclavism.

 

Personally I cannot get enough of the stuff when I visit Istanbul. I once had a drink or three and got it into my mind that if you combined a baclava with an apple strudel you would have a marriage made in heaven. Whilst in that condition I made one and have made it regularly ever since and I like to think it was something I invented. I'll try and find a piccy. All terrorists should where baclava so they can be eaten promptly.

 

Great to see your first post on the Cooler Peter and I hope you and Jenny enjoy the friendly atmosphere and join in. There is a special offer onm membership this months with two for the price of one. Also hope you enjoy your first upcoming SS cruise.

[mysty]

Greetings Coolers!

 

Thoughts are with the people hurt in this morning’s evil. And thoughts for all the people impacted by the fear, confusion and nerve-wracking anxiety that will follow. Those effects are just as devastating!

 

Thanks Jeff for your well-reasoned and cogent presentation relating to the education system! I do agree with much of what you said. We do differ on some points. Please allow me to rebut (respectfully of course).

 

I agree that our world has changed dramatically since 1960 and the education system is limping behind. Many changes have been effective in the delivery of education to more people and in the attempt to level the playing field. In the late 60’s and early 70’s high schools here had a standard set of course offerings. The course offerings were divided into streams depending on the student’s intentions at the end of high school. All streams had the same subjects in the curriculum. The “A” stream was intended for those who intended to continue on with university. The “B” stream was intended for those planning on finding a job or going to vocational training. The “C” stream was geared to those who were planning on apprenticing for a trade. The downside of the streaming was that there was no one to advise students going into Grade 9 as to which stream to choose. The upside was that everyone learned the “basics” and could function in the world. As early as the early 1990’s when our eldest started high school, that core set of subjects was being changed. More options and even less guidance into how to choose and the implications of those choices. Guidance counsellors were “teachers” with no additional training in career counselling. These days the problem is even worse as guidance counsellors are now mostly dealing with behaviour issues, drug problems etc.

 

I mention spelling because it is directly linked to reading. Even with all the advancements in technology I think that reading will remain a required skill, even if just to read a user manual. I don’t think you can teach reading without teaching spelling. The elementary school system of grades are the building blocks to mastering skills like reading and mathematics. The importance of subjects like history, geography, a second or third language is tied to learning about our world and how we got to where we are. Understanding geographic effects on culture, historical effects on nations and their conflicts are key to creating responsible citizens of the world.

 

I agree that employers should use more than paper qualifications in their hiring practices. However, how do they deal with the masses of job applications for every job posted. There has to be a screening process and that process typically requires some objective measure of competency. Thus the relatively straight forward requirement of a paper qualification. I will say that many jobs now seem to require a degree when the nature of the job does not really require one. For example, junior kindergarten teachers (teaching 4 year olds) here require a 4 year degree in education. Early childhood educators who work in daycares also require some post-secondary education. The basic requirements to my mind should be a love of children and a love of play not a 4 year degree. These kinds of artificial education requirements are driving many secondary school graduates into universities unnecessarily which feeds into the issue of needing paper qualifications as a screening process to deal with the masses of job applications.

 

I definitely agree with the need to teach critical thinking, analysis skills and comprehension skills. These have been missing from the educations system for eons! This is part of the reason why voters are so easily swayed by tripe! Definitely need to add these skills and start them in early grades.

 

I also agree with the idea of teaching negotiation skills. I think that can be done at home though. Parents could teach their kids the art of argument. To my mind that is what negotiations are. I am not sure negotiating “marks” is the way to go. Maybe offer courses in the art of debate!

 

Another long-winded post. And I do agree that our education system is not keeping up.

 

 

Have a great day all!

[Camillus112]

Very well said, Mysty. Though it's true that technology offers ease of data gathering, it is the thought process and analysis that are needed to become educated. Googling can be as much as memorizing by rot of yesteryear. And although trivial memorization may be done away with today through instant googling, the act of memorizing exercises the brain in ways that will be helpful for thought organization and thought processing. Technology is an excellent educational tool but, until artificial intelligence proves me wrong, I believe elementary education should focus on development of the brain and higher education on its use to expand contributions to knowledge. Jeff, of course a distinguished student may not be the person to hire for a particular job, but this is why persons like you are important as recruiters. However, as Mysty points out, given a competitive field of applicants, the objective measure of degrees and awards seems to be necessary...

[mysty]

Thanks Cam! Your point about memorization as exercise for the brain and the development of thought organization and processing is a very good one! So very glad you chimed in! :)

[UKCruiseJeff]

Good Afternoon all .........

 

Very quiet around the Cooler today ....... :)

 

M, in thinking about your post, I'd like to disagree about a point you made which I think is at the core. You say that spelling is directly linked to reading and from that presumably that is why you feel that spelling is so important. It seems to me that what you are saying is that 100% accuracy in spelling should be the norm as when we were kids. Presumably we can agree that the majority of kids today can construct a basic sentence and get say 90% 0f the words spelt correctly but I do not think being able to spell reasonably compared to spelling perfectly in any way compromises reading ability. I think your angst on the topic generally is simply because the reduction in quality of kids spelling ability is simply another marker on the line of reducing standards generally. I think we are in danger of projecting our angst about lowering standards generally which I agree with, but failing to question which of these sacredly felt standards are still as relevant as we think.

 

Like it or not, the people that will be deciding whether kids who are currently five or six or whatever will be given their job will be those who are currently 18 or 19 or 25. And most of these kids do not spell to the same degree of accuracy that we were forced to do. Because of stuff like texting etc I guess they feel that as long as someone can understand what they texted in then the words they have typed in have performed their function, and perhaps they are right and we are wrong. So far as the points Camels raises, to be honest I think they support my version of what schooling should be like.

 

My natural inclination is to agree with you without thinking, but when I do think about my own education and although my memory is hazy much of my learning about history was learning dates of reigns and a few other landmarks like the corn laws and stuff. Geography was largely about learning capitals of country by heart. To this day I can still say "William the Conquerer 1066; William the Second 1087 ....." etc. But I'm unclear that at any time during the intervening period these pieces of information I was forced to learn by heart, and received detention for failing to accurately recall without recourse to the written page, has in any way been useful since. I do however know that virtually any 5 year old would be able to find the information in a few moments. But what life was like in 1066 or 1087 compared to say today might be more interesting and educational. There should be more of social history than about kings and queens. Perhaps more "social geography" ie more about how people live in different countries rather than what is the longest river and the highest mountain. For what it's worth, I'd prefer to see every traditional history lesson replaced with social history. I'd prefer to see geography replaced with learning about how people are living today in different parts of the world, which could really be improved with the use of talking to people via the net and sharing presentations on today's life for kids at home and those abroad. Empathy based skills - ie historical and geographical where the young learns how it might feel to be born somewhere else and to be born at a different time. What people are eating, or working at, and what their struggles and challenges are in their every day lives. They should learn simply how to talk with others. They should also learn how to prepare food for themselves! ;)

 

What we have missing it seems to me is a complete lack of lifeskills training. With the increase in social media the focus on self rather than empathy skills seems to be extreme. This new generation seem to see their world as extremely ego-centric with almost themselves almost as the star of the production the world appears to them to be and the rest of us are sort of peripheral audiences, our sole functions being to "like" or "follow" or "retweet". They seem to have lost a basis of simply how small they are in the world of billions of equals and how to work with and through others.

 

I also think that employers should be provided with more useful facts about what happened at school. What suprises me these days is how more kids lack discipline and respect for others. So understanding through ratings for attendance, a rating for promptness/lateness, for cooperation, helping others, humour perhaps .... perhaps different ratings for behaviour. Memory is important, but there must be better ways of exercising and improving kids memories.

 

At the moment more that 50% of all kids in the UK go on to University. University is required for many things, but it isn't required for 50% of the population and the creation of such a high level of unfulfillable expectations is damaging to the kids and to society. Perhaps we need less education (except for those that will need it in their lives and profession) and a greater emphasis on training for work and life.

[mysty]

Once again Jeff I agree with a lot of your points.

 

We do differ on some though. Why does the idea of teaching spelling cause you such discomfort. If you are going to learn how to do something shouldn’t you learn how to do it properly? For some things “good enough” is good enough. For example, colouring within the lines. :) With the written word I don’t see a problem with striving to get it right. I don’t think the standard we shoot for should be lowered because that becomes the slippery slope toward illiteracy. That is why I think spelling is “sacred”.

 

As to Cam’s point…she is actually supporting the concept of memorizing. Her post suggests that the process (not the subject matter) is valuable for training the brain. I agree with her.

 

I agree with your points regarding the teaching of geography and history as a form of memorizing data with no real purpose. That is not the way I think it should be taught. I think the relevance of historical and geographical information needs to be explained in the process of teaching those subjects. These subjects require context and explanation as to how they are relevant to the development of our world as it stands. Your point about geography being replaced with learning about how people are living in different parts of the world could be achieved with the study of geography in context and would not require its replacement. Geography impacts how people live. Introducing relevance to the learning would provide more value to the information being presented.

 

I agree that empathy is becoming more difficult for the younger generation. How can that be addressed? Seems to me, that training should come from parents. Schools are struggling with teaching academic subjects and parents need to stop foisting “character training” on to the school system.

 

I absolutely agree with the need for life skill training. Basic domestic skills, budgeting skills, money management, etc. should be part of the curriculum.

 

I do agree that the need for a degree has been exaggerated for many of the jobs. Parents telling their kids that a degree is absolutely necessary in order to get a “good job” has resulted in a surplus of people with those qualifications trying to get into the job market. Meanwhile the jobs in the trades such as plumbing, electrical work, carpentry are going wanting. And graduates with a Bachelor’s degree are going back to school to get a Master’s or a PHD in order to compete. It is ludicrous!

 

We are agreeing more than disagreeing J. :)

[UKCruiseJeff]

Hi M,

 

I wonder whether you have the chicken and egg around the right way. Kids at school first learn to read and then to write. You are saying that spelling correctly helps them learn to read, I suggest that early and continued reading teaches them how to spell. I think the problem we have today compared to our school days - and in particular all the generations that preceded us is that the main distraction and escape from where we were was reading and very little else, and as a result most of us had to read and we devoured books wholesale as kids. Alongside books, radio cultivated and developed our skills of imagination and when TVcame along and exploded it reduced the amount of books that kids read and filled the pictures in that we had to provide when we listened to the radio or read books. So perhaps the imagination muscles are under-developed in our kids. An anti-progressive evolution with imagination being enhanced out of our kids.

 

I am always impressed when I sometimes see something written by extremely young children from mid-1800's to the early parts of the 20th c. They use to use (like some of us ....) wooden pen holders and nibs and they had "proper" joined up writing, and girls made samplers and could cook. They understood the seasons, and how things grow and understood that the meat on the plate was related to the animals in the field. The big invention when some of us were kids was the move from wooden nib holders, to fountain pens, and then can you believe biros, which needed no ink was required and stained fingers were a thing of the past and you threw pens away when you had finished with them. And then of course we got coloured biros and then felt tips. :)

 

It is difficult to understand where someone like Charles Dickens who didn't go to school until he was 9, and was promptly taken out to be put to work in a boot blacking factory a few years later when his dad went bankrupt learned how to produce those books. He had a few more years schooling paid for by his older brother when he came into cash, and I guess he must have had only six or so years of schooling. So how was it that this level of schooling in the 19thC was able to produce this man with those writing skills and knowledge and creative skills? It wasn't the educational system. It was reading. It was self-study and self-education and a sense of inquisitiveness. Even until the early 20thC full time schooling wasn't obligatory and a very small percentage of kids had any in the UK, and even that was interrupted in rural areas to release kids for agricultural needs for much of the year.

 

These days we seemed to have multiplied the length of Education by a factor of three or four but I question whether that level and investment of increase is reflected in their additional education and readiness for life and work. In fact it seems to me that much of their education seems intended to nurture that false idea that "everything is possible" and "you can be whatever you want to be" and an enhanced sense of "entitlement". And so our system spends perhaps fifteen years of brain-washing and building up and creating expectations of life for vulnerable and impressionable kids that the realism of the next sixty years or more end up destroying for the vast majority and perhaps that is why so many people today feel so dissapointed and stressed with their lives. In order to cushion those expectations we have now lowered standards so much, just so that no one fails and no one is dissapointed.

 

To compound those issues, the state in the UK has decided that it is primarily the state who decides what is best for children and not parents. If a parent wishes to take their kids out of school for a few days to study the art in Florence they will receive a fine and a criminal record, but the school on the other hand reserves the right not to educate school children who are not wearing the right coloured shoes. Evidently it is important that parents ensure that their kids attend school because every day is precious, but the school reserves the right of admission to those with incorrect shoes perhaps because those days lost are not so precious as the days that one could have spent studying art in Florence with one's parents. This doesn't engender a sense of ownership for parents over the chidlren's education and schooling ...... but I digress! :)

 

Perhaps instead of evolving education and compounding each new small initiative on previous mistakes it is time to think about fundamental changes. We have a right old mess that doesn't seem good for anyone except governments that artificially wish to decrease published youth unemploymen rates. Perhaps it should be Revolution rather than Evolution. But who has the political boldness for such a notion.

 

:)

[mysty]

Jeff, if in fact spelling follows hard on the heels of learning to read, why is there a problem with correct spelling? Kids are reading edited textbooks and readers. If they are learning to recognize the printed word then they are learning how to spell it properly. There should be no disconnect there.

 

I agree that kid's imaginations are being stifled. There is little creative play. Organized sports, video games and television have replaced unstructured play. Even with Lego building blocks, they are packaged in sets with instructions on how the kit should be assembled. So yes...the imagination muscles are under-developed.

 

Some people are born with special gifts. There are prodigies in almost every field. Music, art, dance and writing. Dickens was one of those gifted people. That is not to say that for the rest of us lot, education is not a necessity. Who knows what he would have become if he had gone through more schooling?

 

I do think there is a need for a reality check in terms of expectations for our children. Not every child is a Dickens and yet each child should have the opportunity to explore their interests and passions. Realistic guidance can help direct them into careers and endeavours that they would likely enjoy and thrive in tailored to their individual abilities.

 

Before an education revolution can happen, there needs to be an expressed will of the people that such a change is required. With so many other "more pressing" issues education is not considered much of a priority. Your PM does not have that item on her list of priorities nor does our PM. We continue to muddle through because the situation is not deemed to be dire.

[UKCruiseJeff]

On the topic of Dickens, this weeks best reading .......

 

"How writer outstayed welcome with Dickens"

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/dickenss-letter-reveals-how-andersen-outstayed-his-welcome-jgj5cdz9f?shareToken=4e3a9bdceb131d1504b4d549de498ac8

 

[mysty]

They sound like two spoiled brats with a distinct lack of communication skills. But they do spell things correctly! :)

[mysty]

Thanks for today's dance J! I thoroughly enjoyed it! :)

[UKCruiseJeff]

M, yes interesting ..... but I fear we have bored our normal crew into bored submission!

 

All the talk about baklava and I looked up my bakstrudle ..... some pics of the various shapes I tried .... I'll have to make some more!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[Lois R]

OMG.............that looks DELICIOUS:D:D:D:D

[jpalbny]

Drool... that is so yummy-looking!

 

We made crunchy tacos for dinner tonight. Too messy for photographing.

 

A few nights ago I grilled some salmon fillets, and served it with a cucumber-mint-yogurt sauce. We had leftovers for lunch today. [emoji1]

 

 

PS. Don't get me started about the sorry state of medical education these days. Some days I wonder if the kids coming out are sensible enough to breathe without calling a consult.

 

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Edited September 16, 2017 by jpalbny

[Lois R]

Hi JP, your dinner looks good:)......I went out and had a bunless burger with sliced tomatoes and avocado, along with a

sweet potato on the side. We have a place called Ted's Montana Grille.......not sure if anyone has heard of it. They serve

beef and Bison. I know Bison is supposed to be healthier but I got the beef anyway;)

[UKCruiseJeff]

Thanks L and JP! Nice fishy JP!

 

This was our lamb with a mint jelly, some stuffed peppers and beans .... and a different sweet I made during the baklava experiments. It wasn't baklava but it was fruity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[Lois R]

Your pastries are killing me:eek:,,,,,,,,,,,,Stoppppp LOL...........they look soooooooooo good:)

[jpalbny]

Jeff...I will need a shot of insulin if you keep posting that delicious stuff!

 

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[TLCOhio]

Don't get me started about the sorry state of medical education these days. Some days I wonder if the kids coming out are sensible enough to breathe without calling a consult.

 

Super enjoyed the wonderful food pictures from Jeff and J.P. Appreciate this above very interesting comment regarding medical education. Tell us more!! What's involved (or not being done)?? Is it about admissions, training, needing common sense, etc.??

 

THANKS! Enjoy! Terry in Ohio

 

Enjoyed a 14-day, Jan. 20-Feb. 3, 2014, Sydney to Auckland adventure, getting a big sampling for the wonders of "down under” before and after this cruise. Go to:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1974139

for more info and many pictures of these amazing sights in this great part of the world. Now at 187,008 views for this posting.

[UKCruiseJeff]

That's kind L. JP and Terry!

 

They are simple the product of an over decadent over active imagination. I think of stuff, can taste it in my mind-mouth and so have to try and make it.

 

We're off down to Seaside on Wednesday. Daughters birthday today, mine tommorow and wifey's on Tuesday.

 

There must be a conception concept somehwere there. :D

[Camillus112]

Jeff, what do astrologers say when whole family is of same sign? I don't know but it must be perfect!!! As a Gemini, I've always understood we are two people...but we are honest with each other...