My OperaElvis or the bra? Hmmm- Let me think...
Thursday, August 16, 2007 7:38:58 PM
So the anniversary of Elvis Presley's death is also the 100th birthday of the brassiere. Which to celebrate? Without the pelvis there'd still have been rock'n'roll, but maybe not so much of it. But without the bra there'd still have been boobies, just not quite so well presented. Then again it seems a tad weird to celebrate someone's death...
Fortunately I don't have to choose because today is also another great annual event.
Exam results.
Yes, once again it's that time of year when more kids than ever before get higher marks than ever before and everyone says that exams are getting easier. Everyone except the kids, who of course don't actually have any way of knowing, and the people in charge of the system, who once again wheeled out some old guy to say that "I am really stupid when compared to the geniuses that are the children of today". Well, he doesn't quite put it like that, but that's what it comes down to.
Every year more records are broken. Last year's kids were apparently not as clever as this year's kids, but they were better than the kids of two years ago. The old guy they wheeled out must have been at least 20 years away from his exams, which means that he is twenty generations more stupid than this year's output.
Now I realise that this makes me into a really really stupid individual, but even I can see the flaws in this logic, after all, it's these older stupider generations that are posing the exam questions.
And marking them.
So if they're that dim then they're probably doing it all wrong anyway and the record breaking statistics are completely invalid. Today's kids are just as dim as the rest of us, and in 20 years time they'll be the ones asking the questions and shouting about how clever the generation of the day is.
Meanwhile let's think on this. If your education was completed before decimalisation in Britain, then there were 12d in 1/-, and 20 shillings in £1. There were 16 ounces in 1 lb., and 14 lbs. in a stone. 8 pints in a gallon... I shouldn't need to go on. Exams got easier after decimalisation.
Then came the calculator. They got easier still, especially after calculators were allowed into the exam room. And so it's gone on. Television, computers, the internet, they've all done their bit to make learning easier. To me it's immaterial whether exams have got easier.
Taking them has definitely got easier.
Fortunately I don't have to choose because today is also another great annual event.
Exam results.
Yes, once again it's that time of year when more kids than ever before get higher marks than ever before and everyone says that exams are getting easier. Everyone except the kids, who of course don't actually have any way of knowing, and the people in charge of the system, who once again wheeled out some old guy to say that "I am really stupid when compared to the geniuses that are the children of today". Well, he doesn't quite put it like that, but that's what it comes down to.
Every year more records are broken. Last year's kids were apparently not as clever as this year's kids, but they were better than the kids of two years ago. The old guy they wheeled out must have been at least 20 years away from his exams, which means that he is twenty generations more stupid than this year's output.
Now I realise that this makes me into a really really stupid individual, but even I can see the flaws in this logic, after all, it's these older stupider generations that are posing the exam questions.
And marking them.
So if they're that dim then they're probably doing it all wrong anyway and the record breaking statistics are completely invalid. Today's kids are just as dim as the rest of us, and in 20 years time they'll be the ones asking the questions and shouting about how clever the generation of the day is.
Meanwhile let's think on this. If your education was completed before decimalisation in Britain, then there were 12d in 1/-, and 20 shillings in £1. There were 16 ounces in 1 lb., and 14 lbs. in a stone. 8 pints in a gallon... I shouldn't need to go on. Exams got easier after decimalisation.
Then came the calculator. They got easier still, especially after calculators were allowed into the exam room. And so it's gone on. Television, computers, the internet, they've all done their bit to make learning easier. To me it's immaterial whether exams have got easier.
Taking them has definitely got easier.
