Salute these fine Brits...

[MinionZombie]

...fighting a just cause against stupidity:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/afp/20070913/tuk-britain-language-offbeat-a7ad41d_1.html

I mean come on, who needs a public information sign that reads "Do not commit crime". :eek:

Treating people like idiots, breeds more idiots! :|

[Danny]

damn straight this kinda **** grinds my gears to no end. its this kinda stuff that makes me think that with better health care and lack of a natural predator our speices is kinda fazing itself out, we dont need to evolve to a cushier position so we getting complacent and dumber without a need to keep our brains sharp. its the whole "why do this when there are better people to do it for me" mentality our species has. rather than thinking everyone can excel people who do are prasied those who dont are practically wrapped in bubble wrap and plugge dinto a feeding tube to be kept out the way. and the english language is definatley suffering. The other day i had to explain in the space of about two hours the meaning of the words :rhetorical, illusion, cascade, paranormal, stationairy (movement), equator and the most jaw dropping to me, explaining to my freinds girlfreind that in her cola and any other "carbonated beverage" it inculded CO2 aka "carbon dioxide to keep it fizzy.
Scary thing is a lot of people i know were top of the class in pyshics and chemistry at school and yet since leaving high school have not read one book!:eek:

[MinionZombie]

Just goes to show how worthless education is these days. Employers are complaining more and more and more about new employees who can't read and can't write, let alone hold a pen properly. I always marvel are someone in a more official type job who actually has to write something (for a moment there I thought writing had been abolished by Brussels, anyway...) but they can't do joined up writing.

Now, I don't remember really being taught how to do joined up writing, I think I personally kinda took it on myself as I saw it as "well, that's just the next step in learning to write", so I just tried it out myself. I think we got a little glimpse of teaching to do with it, but meh, they were too busy trying to make "Maths Chest" text books make sense. :rolleyes:

I just got out of GCSE/A-Level education before it completely descended, but the seeds were sewn already. Even when I was at school we weren't taught to learn, rather cram knowledge and then blurt it out on an exam paper and then forget it all - and that method of learning did me no good, because I can barely remember most things I was taught in school - and another thing - there's no broad understanding of any subject, history being one of the worst offenders. You don't get a broad historical understanding of mankind, no, you get a dissection of the 20th Century until after WW2 finished, you get a drowning in the Tudors & Stewarts and then at A-Level it's goddamned Calvinism (the only exam I've ever had to retake, due to the fact that A: the teaching of the topic was crap, and B: it was right at the point that exam boards were re-aligning their sights to make it look like everybody was doing superbly well - but instead, it made everybody look like a f*cking idiot).

I mean, it's like when I took A/S Level Biology - I got a freaking D, and yet I got a double-A grade for science at GCSE...however, when I discovered that I was the sixth highest grade out of everybody who took A/S Biology, it all became clear. There was one A, one B, one C, about 4 D's, and the rest were E's and U's...and there must have been a good 30 people taking A/S biology.

Another example was my Sociology Coursework - I chose a topic I knew plenty about - film censorship, did loads of research because I was really interested (it was something I took interest in outside of school anyway), my teacher gave me *forgets* it was either an A or a B, and then the exam board came in to moderate and it got a freaking E grade. The same happened with almost the entire class, and our teacher was far from a chump, he was (is) a very smart chap, absolutely dedicated to his profession (although he's now heading up the county's police board), so it wasn't a case of dud teacher - rather, dud examiner's board.

When it came time for our A-Level results, I was one of the lucky ones who got their first choice university (UEA actually raised their grades to AAB, rather than their usual ABB for the film course), but when the results came in a loads of people were failing or getting a grade or two, or even three below what they were expecting, UEA dropped back to their original grade and I was lucky to get in (I got the ABB, but had I been just a few points off, I'd have been ABC). A lot of my mates who were going off to uni ended up going to their second or even third choice, the odd one took a year out to re-take some portions to bump their grades up even.

An absolute disaster, and all thanks to the gubment's brilliant idea that was A/S Levels. :rolleyes: The teachers themselves admitted (well some anyway) they had naff all idea what they should be teaching. So - if the teachers don't know what the hell they're supposed to be doing, how is that helping the students? Who are after all, the country's bleedin' FUTURE! :eek:

At least A-Level Art was the one refuge of intelligent marking, and I don't say that because I was 3 marks off achieving 100%, but because the marks reflected the work that was put in, the thought processes going on and so on - believe me, several of the grades were awful or a bit disappointing.

Anyway, I've blabbered on too long, but I've personally seen the fall in quality comprehensive education, and I can only imagine it's worse now, and that's certainly what I've heard from younger friends or siblings of friends, or even teachers themselves.

Yeah, thanks a lot Tony Blair and whoever the education person was at the time...thanks a bunch. :rolleyes:

Back to the topic, yes...there's too much pandering these days, pandering to the lowest form of life, rather than at least settling in the middle - it's like trying to teach a mixed class and focussing all the energy on the drongo's in the room, the average and smart kids get left to their own devices, or they get dragged down - it's why setting/streaming works - it's just a fact, setting does work.

The gubment would like to think that the drongos would do better because they'd be "pulled up" by the smart kids - *ahem* - have the gubment ever BEEN to a school in their lifetime? That's not how the system works. The smart kids become successful after they leave school, but during school, they are the butt of the cool kid's jokes, they are the targets of the thicko bullies, if they aren't nurtured they descend as the teacher has been busy dealing with rowdy knowledge-cock-blockers who don't even want to be in school anyway, let alone learning something from a book - they'd be best suited learning a skill, a trade - getting out there in a vocation.

And yet Gordo wants compulsory education to be shafted up to 18 - that man literally has NO idea, does he? :eek:

[Danny]

i dunno till 18 could do a fair bit of good, people leave high school with little to no direction, but after the extra 2 years of college, that makes all the difference in giving them a real idea of what they want to do and the time to grow and sorta figure yourself out as an individual.
but yeah, by that i mean compulsory a levels, if you got the 4 c's, not 2 extra yewars of gcse, that'd eb insane.

[bassman]

Reminds me of this movie....
xAeyWap3yMQ

Something tells me that Mike Judge predicted our real future with "Idiocracy"...

[MinionZombie]

*sigh* Indeedy-do...

Hellsing - I think in the other direction, there's kids who are wasted staying on till 16, heck, there were a bunch of them in my year who didn't turn up for most of Year 11, they could have been off out getting vocational work, rather than struggling with academic stuff they hated or couldn't understand. Put them to work on something they can do and something they'd much prefer.

Keeping wasters for another 2 years will just stretch resources even further and thinner, the trouble with school these days is it's basically all about academic stuff, which is great for academic-minded people, but for those who aren't that way inclined, they're wasted and they end up frustrated and just wasting their time and causing trouble or just lounging around skiving off school. Instead, get them out at 15 with some kinda 'half-way-GCSEs' and get them into a trade, plumbing, carpentry, mechanics - that kinda thing.

The sort of kids when I was at school, who got nothing out of being there, were the people who hated being there, hated the lessons, the teachers, the pupils who were getting something out of being there and so-on and so-forth.

[Danny]

yeah that is true, schools what every person made of it really, my grades kidna sucked cus i was allways clowning around and telling stupid stories when i should have head my head in a text book, but thats how i met most of my freinds, who then introduced me to stuff like clerks and cky, which got me really thinking "hey i really can make films too", so it wasnt good for me that academically but it helped me figure out what i wanna do.

O-course then theres the horror stories like dudes leaving school to just becoming a stoner who gets in jail by his 18th birthday for assault or something.
or the dudes who had all the brains but now work in i.t for the money rather than actually haveing anythign in life to aspire to.

That asid some of the guys who wer eproper knuckle draggers whent on to get degrees in engineering and stuff adn are pretty damn good at it, So i think its mroe than the grades that you get out of high school and college, cus at primary school you go from one day to the next playing around with your freinds from dawn till dusk and not thinking about what comes next, but at high school you do, and no matter how you do academically thats gonna effect your outlook and the path you take in your life, do you aim for a dream?, or get a good paying stable job?, or just get down to knicking form the local offy to buy weed?

life's what you make it and that really happens in year 11 at school i think.


Actually that is there year the quiet nerdy kids seem to go all out goth, or you start to notice dudes getting long hair and crap like that. seriously, look at your class photos and the difference between the yaer 10 and 11 one is allwasy pretty drastic i reckon.:D

[MinionZombie]

lol, Year 11 is indeed a formative year...I think mine was Lower Sixth, too busy burrying my head in all the sodding books to bone up for the 11 GCSEs (which included the extra one I got myself into - R.E. - because I wanted to be in a class with my mates, haha).

Anyway, it was in the Sixth Form that I really started becoming who I am now, got into a lot of new music, new movies, expressed myself more, got on MSN and talked to my friends a lot more about more meaningful stuff (dudes just don't talk about that sh*t in real life :D) and so-on and so-forth. Also I felt much more free and easy because all the bullies and arrogant sporty types had f*cked off and while there were still the "populars" who could do the academic stuff, they'd calmed down a bit and were generally a bit cooler, even though there were two distinct kinda groups - theirs and mine, but there wasn't a rivalry, just quiet mutual respect for one another's ways...but over all it was still an "all for one" kinda vibe in the Sixth Form, it was so much cooler than feckin' mandatory school, so much better. Your own clothes, a snack machine, comfy chairs, no P.E. classes, taking the courses you wanted to (even if there wasn't a huge array of choice), it was just actually a really cool time, and then that bled over into Uni, where I had an absolute blast...I think all my years as a teen that I hadn't spent being mischievious all came out in those 3 years - get a video camera involved and sh*t's on, son! :D

[MissJacksonCA]

That's funny to me because I just noticed for some reason that the milk jug says warning contains dairy products...

That and I always notice the blatantly stupid warnings addressed to the most incompetent idiots who obviously are too stupid to either read them or too dumb to be able to read them or just plum dont give a damn. Like my blowdryer says warning dont use in bathtub... wtf? Do they think i'm in an RV where the toilet converts into a shower and then becomes the platform on which I stand soaked with the urge to blow dry?

To be honest they need some of those warnings... when I worked in a seafood restaurant I got a customer on more than one occasion who came in with shellfish allergies and insisted on eating stuff that was deep fried... well guess what lady that frying oil has been cooking up some shellfish... I mean what does she expect?

A lot of these signs of obviousness in the states however are direct results of lawsuits and a way for companies to limit their liability or a way for local governments and the like to limit theirs as well... because as we all know... you can sue for anything here... and people do oft sue for inadequate warnings of things... heck today to pick up some cremains I saw a 'loose gravel' sign next to this huge pile of lose gravel they were using for who knows what... like it wasn't obvious enough being a 15 foot high pile of gravel...

While the world needs ditch diggers I can't help but feel we dont need THIS many of them and ought to simply put idiots out of their misery... or rather... put those of us who aren't total morons out of ours and get rid of them...

Saying 'dont commit crime' isn't going to deter criminals because that's something we're taught from our very birth typically by family and/or school... if you do it anyway well... its not like you didn't know any better you just didn't care...

[Danny]

well on one hand i can see how youd think theyd be needed but on another its just an unessecary comrpomise for idiocy or just a lack of common sence.

[MissJacksonCA]

But what constitutes common sense for one person doesn't mean everyone's going to have the same sense about them... some people are pretty wet behind the ears for their age no matter what age with some things...

[Danny]

yes but such things as putting a warning on a hot beverage you chose to purchase, therefore knowing its heated saying "caution: hot!" is nothing but lowering standards.

[clanglee]

It's actually an unfortunate byproduct of all the stupid lawsuits filed against companies by stupid people. "Of course your HOT apple pie is HOT, That's why it's a HOT apple pie.":rolleyes: The stupid people would burn themselves and get lots of money from some dumbass judge's decision. Then all of the crooks noticed the dumbasses making money, and tried it themselves. The companies panicked (sp) and started protecting themselves from stupid people. The government followed suite, and there we are. Stupid people are running things by proxy.

Used to be that stupid people would get themselves killed off instead of getting goverment protection. :mad: I don't want to sound like a Nazi, but I think that stupid people shouldn't be allowed to breed. If you can't pass a simple IQ and common sense test, then your tubes are tied. I'm not saying "kill em all." Let 'em live, and be as stupid as they wanna be. Just don't let them procreate for God's sake!!

Great, now everyone knows that I'm evil. :shifty:

[MinionZombie]

It's actually an unfortunate byproduct of all the stupid lawsuits filed against companies by stupid people. "Of course your HOT apple pie is HOT, That's why it's a HOT apple pie.":rolleyes: The stupid people would burn themselves and get lots of money from some dumbass judge's decision. Then all of the crooks noticed the dumbasses making money, and tried it themselves. The companies panicked (sp) and started protecting themselves from stupid people. The government followed suite, and there we are. Stupid people are running things by proxy.

Used to be that stupid people would get themselves killed off instead of getting goverment protection. :mad: I don't want to sound like a Nazi, but I think that stupid people shouldn't be allowed to breed. If you can't pass a simple IQ and common sense test, then your tubes are tied. I'm not saying "kill em all." Let 'em live, and be as stupid as they wanna be. Just don't let them procreate for God's sake!!

Great, now everyone knows that I'm evil. :shifty:
Which is exactly my point and why there needs to be a rogue squad of "Neutering Ninjas" out there, they track down morons and then vasectomy the crap out of them as they sleep. :lol:

[MissJacksonCA]

Well i'm just waiting for restaurant plates to be forced to have labels like Caution: Plate may be hot ... because there's a ton of times I go out and the waitress is like be careful the plate is hot so dont touch it... and I usually do anyway and burn the fingerprints off my fingers s'more ... working in one paticular restaurant they kept the heat lamps so smoking hot that the plates were literally too hot to carry even with oven mitts... they'd be put on a corkboard tray and the plate would burn into the cork and burn the top of my shoulder they were so hot... one time a kid touched the plate... that wasn't a pretty scream I tell you what

[clanglee]

Which is exactly my point and why there needs to be a rogue squad of "Neutering Ninjas" out there, they track down morons and then vasectomy the crap out of them as they sleep. :lol:

:lol:

Might work, but remember. .these are stupid people. No need for the Ninjas. Just offer them free Wrestling or Monster Truck tickets, or a free chain wallet or something with each vasectomy. :D

[MinionZombie]

:lol:

Might work, but remember. .these are stupid people. No need for the Ninjas. Just offer them free Wrestling or Monster Truck tickets, or a free chain wallet or something with each vasectomy. :D
Or just hit them in 'squaw-in-the-niuts' when they least expect it with a 2x4. :lol: