Printable View
It isn't that hard, bring straw, plant seeds, and don't forget to feed the horses how hard can it be? The seeds will become plants and the horses won't die, equals win if you ask me. After that you can use the horses as a mean of transportation, and as meat when you overburden the economy. Also win.Quote:
Originally Posted by cegorach
Make that France. And, well, the Rhine which should have been France's natural borders had it not been for the pesky Germans!Quote:
Originally Posted by Boyar Son
Notice he doesn't even care about that insignificant canal the Danube, which to some misguided people is one of the most important rivers of Europe. :2thumbsup:
:laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4:Quote:
Originally Posted by Fragony
Thanks for making my day, Fragony!
After over three weeks of dealing with spammers and trolls during the election campaign I can only say:Quote:
Originally Posted by Fragony
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Are you talking about that time when Frenchmen launched a mass corporate takeover of German industries in the Ruhr? Did German laws forbid foreign takeover bids at the time, or did you just decide to wait until it was your turn?Quote:
Originally Posted by Husar
But that was a neat trick how did you do that? Not boring at all, but the presentation could have been better, a friend of mine is great with flash, pm me.Quote:
Originally Posted by cegorach
I was talking about the time where the french almost owned the Ruhrgebiet and had lots of people stationed there.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
Wow Poland must be some sort of paridise. Those emigrants must be polaks who cant handle the sheer awesomeness that is POLAND
Okay, I think Cegorach wanted a serious debate. I don't know about Britian, but there are some general tendencies that I think are international.
One thing I've noticed, is the drive many foreign students have. Don't know about sixteen year olds, but university students, yes. The Asians, the East Europeans - some come here and education is almost a matter of life and death to them. They must succeed. For westerners, not so much. It is important, but we are more relaxed about it. Luxury? Post-materialistic interests gaining prominence in the knowledge that material interests are largely secured? Maybe.
Apart from that, I know that educational methods have changed. Largely, from teaching facts to teaching skills. I think this is the common trend globally. (Western?)
But this had been going on for decades - check your grandparents schoolbooks, you'll be shocked at the amount of dry facts they had to memorise. Are we stupider now then we were back then? I don't think so. Like one of my teachers said, today's youth may not be able to point out the Nile on a map anymore, but there's no denial that they can build a website in half an evening. Sheer magic to him.
It's not the education system so much.
Just that Britain has undermotivated, stupid teenagers.
well it was suggested that it was a mass outbreak of attention deficit syndrome , but on further study it turned out that they just couldn't be arsed .:2thumbsup:Quote:
Just that Britain has undermotivated, stupid teenagers.
It seems the whole west has undermotivated dummies.
Luckily I'll be there to lead them once get a position of high power in the US.
Well, it is not quite the same comparing the motivation and the drive of students in their own country and those who go abroad to study. First of all, sixteen year old boy, who goes to another country to get education isn't really your typical teenager. To leave friends and family and go to another country is by itself a show of drive and motivation, so it isn't really fair to compare him with average kids. Comparing how students perform in their own countries or comparing students who are studying abroad would give us more accurate results.
Also, we should keep in mind that student living in a foreign country have far less things that could distract him/her from studying. The usually don't have as many friends as domestic students, they (usually) have no relatives, no cable tv, no playstation 3, and (probably most important) much less money.
I've been in the US, Atlantic City NJ to be more precise this summer on a work and travel program. I've spent 5 months there with about 700 hundred other guys from Serbia (there were a lot of other eastern European nations). Most of those 700 people where working two jobs for the entire summer. Some worked more than 80 hours a week. And almost all Americans I met were impressed how driven, intelligent and motivated we were. Well, since the program was for university students only, who most of the time are more intelligent than average people it is no wonder that they got that impression. Also, the point of the program was that you work as the name implies, so pretty much only people ready for that and willing to do that applied. To cut the long story short, my american friend were comparing above average group of people from Serbia with general population in the US. Seven hundred of us for the represented the whole nation for them. They thought that the entire nation was like that. But the fact is, almost none of us who worked two full time jobs in America is working two jobs in Serbia now.
Problem is that people tend to generalize too much. Some of my countrymen were saying that americans were "stupid" because most of them never leaves their country. I tried to explain that definition of travel isn't a same for american and for serbian. When you are in Serbia (and most other european countries) you pretty much just have to take a longer walk and you're in a foreign country. It's not like that in America. I'm not saying that it is good that most americans aren't traveling, I'm just pointing the reasons why. Example how people try to compare things that can't be compared that easy.
In my experience, and I visited most of Europe and US, and worked and studied in several countries, people from eastern europe tend to be more motivated and have much broader knowledge than western europeans and americans, but only by a slight margin. Not really that big that deserves a rethink of the entire educational system....
I think the rote-learning method that produces such brilliantly exact reproductions of textbook knowledge is rather counterproductive, myself.
The international standards often attempted to avoid any cultural distinctions that might possibly "interfere" with the fairness of such standards, so they tend towards factual knowledge that does not rely on cultural values: stuff like mathematics (1+1 = 2 anywhere) or science (gravity is gravity be it Tokyo, Khartoum, or New York that you're standing on). Amusingly enough, they in the end fall victim to the same thing they tried to avoid.
I think that the "traditional" method of learning -- direct lectures that covers as much knowledge and formulas as possible and to use them as efficiently as possible in an academic setting -- more often than not produces superior results in these kinds of tests compare to what I think is the far better method that the West comes to adopt: more critical thinking rather than formulaic knowledge.
I remembered distinctly that curiously enough East Asians for example almost universally consider Western education to be superior, and attempts are made to imitate their methods by incorporating critical thinking exercises and hands-on experiments into the curriculum. As usual, however, anything implemented by governments tend to prove unbelievably awkward and rather ineffective, so yeah.
I sure as hell cannot compete with my friends in Thailand right now if they're going to test me on mathematics or biology, but I can confidently say that I could write a far better essay than any of them; and I think the latter is rather more useful really.
Or does anyone really think those Japanese kids driving themselves insane in their countless cram schools are really learning anything worthwhile to think about? :no:
Also, Sarmatian is right. I find it funny that people in the West are complaining about how their kids are just way worse than their counterparts in other countries. Well, guess what, they aren't! Kids are kids wherever they are.
Thank you - there are far too many trolls - I guess they are cloned in huge tanks like Dolly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat
I think it is the main reason. Besides the common knowledge is that the education in the 'west' is far better so people are supposed to try their best.Quote:
One thing I've noticed, is the drive many foreign students have. Don't know about sixteen year olds, but university students, yes. The Asians, the East Europeans - some come here and education is almost a matter of life and death to them. They must succeed.
But there is NO 1 vs 2 here. It is nothing hard to learn something about the world we are living in, how to count without a calculator, what is the EU, how many continents there are etc.Quote:
But this had been going on for decades - check your grandparents schoolbooks, you'll be shocked at the amount of dry facts they had to memorise. Are we stupider now then we were back then? I don't think so. Like one of my teachers said, today's youth may not be able to point out the Nile on a map anymore, but there's no denial that they can build a website in half an evening. Sheer magic to him.
Creativity doesn't necessary exclude basic knowledge. Besides there is a question if schools are to 'create' educated people or just people who have certain skills which they SHOULD learn anyway.
To some people this basic education is the LAST moment when the will read a book, deal with 'higher' culture etc.
I don't think that certain skills should replace basic education - there is no reason for it, really NONE - it can easily be combined with gaining knowledge.:yes:
It is rubbish.
Where is my next beer.
..
Oh a copy of the Daily Mail, brilliant now I will learn something!
..
More beer.
The end.
There are a lot of safety nets for failing students, both in lower and in higher education. I think, in general, if you'd talk to a teenager or a university student the majority won't have placed their study at number one; and it's very easy to do so if there are almost unlimited chances for brightish students to resit exams, redo a year, or take uni courses next semester if it doesn't work out in the current one, and the state pays for most anyway. The only pressure to perform is on those who decide they want to be good at what they're doing and aim to complete whatever they're doing quickly and with high grades, but there's almost no pressure on dropouts in the sense that they won't suddenly end up with no job prospects or below the poverty line.
School is somewhere keep the kids in because of all the child labour laws and when the chav’s drop out and everyone goes off to collage and 6th form then education gets better its bin about 8 years since I was in secondary school and I still remember all the stupid people. and then their's the dole
And we are talking about one school here he could have tried moving somewhere a bit closer
:thumbsdown:
Or rather, it's where the chavs get off, and the brainless masses roll on to clog up our universities because they can't think of anything better to do? :inquisitive:
:laugh4:Quote:
Originally Posted by ZombieFriedNuts
In the course of the (second half of) the previous century education has become a full-fledged production factor, along with capital, land and labour. Hence the need to educate as many young people as possible in ways and at levels for which they are not naturally disposed. As a result, modern mass education is not matched by popular enthusiasm. To say the least.
Our average youngsters now have to compete with the best and brightest of newcomer nations, from Poland and Serbia to India and China, and the result is intellectual mass slaughter...
There is no popular enthusiasm as the perceived gain for working hard is not seen as significant. The competition in China and Poland see the gains the difference between getting nothing and potentially a pleasant life.
If social security was far less the desire to get a good job and succeed would increase greatly - or it would be 40 years or so in the factory.
~:smoking:
Is there something inherently wrong with factory work or job stability?
Off the top of my head:
Boring
Menial
Not challenging
Poor pay
Poor career advancement
If it were not so poorly thought of, we'd have more factories in the UK
~:smoking:
:laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4:Quote:
If it were not so poorly thought of, we'd have more factories in the UK
Hmmmm.....lots of factories ..... huge empire , world leader .
Not a lot of factories ..... superpowers lapdog , begging other countries to open more factories in the country .
Yep Rorys statement makes sense .:dizzy2:
Well done! One of the worst simplifications in recent memory! :thumbsup:Quote:
Originally Posted by Tribesman
More valid points are the massive increase in health and safety in recent years (when brunel biult a tunnel near Bristol the death rate was greater than amongst troops in the trenches of WW1), increase in wages, increase in people's expectations.
If there was no social benefits people could either work or starve... rather like China and India. Child labour again was common - we don't have it now... India and China do.
Now we spend more money on social security than the armed forces. Could this possibly also contribute to loosing world stature?
During empire few had the vote. Those that did were the movers and shakersr in society. Now Everyone has it including the unemployed. So we can't upset them.
The up and coming societies are rough, brutal and prepared to sacrifice lives for progress... like we were when we had empire etc etc.
~:smoking:
A nice illustration of what Rory envisions when he wants a return to old values for Britain , and there was me thinking it was the opium dens and slums that appealed to him .
Dispute the facts if you will. That is how the Old Empires flourished and is how the new emerging powers are doing so.
Slums? Take the rose tinted specs off - there are still streets and estates where police are loathe to tread and anyone else with sense stays well clear of.
Opium dens - again I'm sure there's nowhere these days people go to get drugs...
~:smoking:
Not if you're poor and uneducated. However, the higher classes aspire to something more I would think.Quote:
Originally Posted by Slyspy
Can I ?Quote:
Dispute the facts if you will.
Thank you , show me any tunnel anywhere in the world that had a higher death rate for its workers than world war 1 , it would be funny if you could , it would be absolutely hilarious if you could find a brunel one :dizzy2: