Yeah, you're right. And I know where my values sit. It's just quite draining, I guess.

I suppose it's more of a vent than anything else.

Vent away, that's what we're all here for isn't it? You don't live your life for her, so fuck her opinion, as it's exactly that an opinion based on fuck all relevant to you

Much like my question about exams, and completely forgetting that exams are stretched across such a broad range of subjects and really only test one discipline, the ability to absorb information. I recognise poprocks comment though, taking my skillset into a new industry I have to become expert in that field quickly to know how to apply my tools. But it's never 12 industries at once

LivDiv wrote:

I dont think exam pressure is anything like work pressure and if it is you are either very relaxed about exams or might want to consider a career change before your heart gives way.
In work you can ask questions, you can use the Internet, manuals etc 99% of the time. Of course you shouldn't be that reliant on them but the option is there. In fact exams teach people to guess, that is a terrible idea in a fair few work places.

Will not argue against any of these points, I've always that note important than knowing something is knowing where to find something. Also I haven't worked (in my industry) for almost two years now after a work related mental health issue, caused by the stresses described above. Also the guessing thing I'd never really considered but it makes a lot of sense and I agree it's a bad move

Armitage_Shankburn wrote:

I wouldn't give a martyrdom complex person at work a second's thought. Honestly, I think typing up a post here is the most energy you should expend on that person.

You're absolutely right.

Good. I have one of those in my office. Every catch up starts with a sigh. She sends emails at 5 to midnight. She goes for me all the time, passively aggressively. I just play rope a dope, don't think twice about her. In a year max, she'll move on, good luck etc. Everyone at work knows what she's like. Fun fact

Spoiler:

five years ago, we were level colleagues, she declare her lust for me and wanted to go to bed. It was just before a work sabbatical. Afterwards I remembered thinking, I should have given her what she wanted, what's it to me. Imagine if I had eh, best decision I ever made. She lives with cats now. It's sad really.

And that is about the most I've thought about this, or written, in about 6 months.

I have worked with this exact person so many times. 'Draining' is the exact term I would use.

Also there are always cats.

The worst is a new combination I have found, which is the person who complains they work harder than everyone and annoyed they don't get any recognition, but also be the laziest person I have ever met? As in during our meetings she would have the camera on and be in bed just waking up with her phone, at 10:30am, on a work day... this would genuinely happen before covid was even a thing. She saves emails for late at night to send so it looks like she works hard though which... I mean whatever I've become very laid back about the whole thing.

edit: I should add that it's easy for me to be laid back because they added stuff like reporting our monthly ticket count, SLA adherance etc and surveys go out asking for feedback from users. So it's pretty clear when you work in support who's actually doing any work...

All sorts going down in Edinburgh schools over a request to move to remote teaching on the 21-22nd December to help reduce risk of covid infection for staff /pupils over Xmas.

It was denied.

Here's the letter from the council - https://www.eis.org.uk/Content/Edinburgh/images/CECresponse111220.pdf


Here's the EIS Union response - https://www.eis.org.uk/Content/Edinburgh/images/lettertocec111220.pdf


Now we are going to a vote on a trade dispute. Welp.

cockbeard wrote:

tin_robot wrote:

This isn't helped by having parents who both regard exams as bullshit, to be fair.)

Can I ask why that's the case? I always enjoyed exams, and normally passed them well. I probably like them because I'm a lazy twat, and they were more appealing than thousands of words of coursework, which I only did in the final three days, because lazy. I always saw the main argument against exams being the pressure, but in professional life you're under pressure all the time. Given the consequences of your job, I thought that exam conditions would be something you'd think was useful for kids to be exposed to All that said the amount of children's futures and opportunities that are balanced in exam results is fucking ridiculous, and completely unfair. It's more about schools climbing League tables than the actual with of the children involved

Sorry, missed this.

I have a bunch of reasons for my bias against exams, some of which are tied up with my own experiences, and some of which are the reasons you've mentioned already.

Boring bit of personal stuff that gives some context.  As a kid I went to a reasonably rough state school (teachers cars got set alight, children were literally conceived in lessons etc).  When I came to do my A levels I failed miserably - at least from the perspective of getting into a medical school.  I got 3 Ds, and an E.  The E, for what it's worth, was the highest grade in my maths class.

However, not long before my exams I got meningitis and was properly, impressively ill. Whilst this was terrifying for all involved, it provided a convenient explanation for my grades.  (Though, as I say, it wasn't the real cause - given those maths results).  Better still, my mother was able to get hold of some money having previously had relatively little.  (Another long story.)

So not only did I get to resit my exams, I spent 6 months in a crammer in London, rather than a dodgy comp.  What I learned there was (1) my original teachers had actually done a pretty good job at teaching me the subject and (2) they had done an absolutely terrible job at teaching me how to pass the exam.  The crammer was the exact reverse.  It was full of wealthy kids who had been sent there with the express purpose of learning how to get an A in an A level, and moist of them (including me) did. Many of the kids I'd gone to my other school with were, in my opinion, a hell of a lot smarter than some of those I spent time with in the crammer.  Yet they'd left with terrible grades.

So, I ended up with the firm opinion that exams, certainly at that point, were something of a scam.  I reasoned that pretty much anyone who could afford it could send their kid to the same crammer as me, and they would emerge with a decent grade, if not actually an A.  Worse still, to my mind, those kids still didn't actually understand the subjects they'd supposedly excelled in.

Beyond that, as you say, I think that resting a kid's future on what happens to them on a particular day in their life is absolutely absurd.  There are a whole host of things that can cause you to screw up on the day, many of which have nothing to do with academic ability or even your ability to perform under pressure. (Again personal bias - my eldest had an allergic reaction on the morning of her GCSE A Level, she still did fine in the end, but... )

Equally, I'm not sure "ability to perform under pressure" is really that useful a thing to test anyway. It's literally creating an educational system that is inherently punitive to those with anxiety related issues, whilst favouring those who don't really give a shit.  Besides I've worked with people who are extraordinary in a crisis, but lose it in an exam, and vice versa.

Finally, as mentioned, I feel like exams create the idea that education is about the end product - the result, the score, the job, the placement, whatever.  I think that's a really unhealthy approach to learning - though will readily admit I'm not a teacher.  (My mother was though, whilst my father was in the "those who can't" camp.  Possibly because he resented the fact that my mother was a better economist than he was...) My eldest particularly complains that her A-levels are being frittered away on revising the same things repeatedly, in the hope of scoring a good grade, when what she wants is to learn more stuff.

I've seen in my kids how learning through school actively kills their enthusiasm for some subjects, because it feels like it's all about the final target. Yet they absolutely love learning just for the sheer sake of it.  (And, truly, I think it's a much better school than most in that regard.)

tigersgogrrr wrote:

I saw an interesting tweet then other day. Teaching to the test is absolutely the best thing and the right thing that teachers should do... so long as the content of said test is Good Content. So, for example, Year 6 Maths hammers the fundamental of the 4 operations. This is... fine? If you want children drilled on something in maths, it probably is those skills. The grammar test which asks children to identify the subjunctive, passive vs active voices, and fronted adverbials? Not so much, as that is bullshit content.

Bad content is definitely harmful in my opinion - though I'm still not sure assessing "good content" in a locked room with your peers on a particular day in your life is the best way to do it.  (I appreciate I'm saying that without having offered a particularly viable alternative.  I had 100% coursework for some of my GCSEs and thought it was great, but know it might disadvantage other kids.)

My absolute favourite example of bad content - which may well still be a thing - was one of my kids coming home from primary school with a note from the teacher saying she shouldn't have used an exclamation mark because "exclamations must always start with what or how".  My daughter had written her own response in the workbook, which was something like "That's rubbish!"

I'm sure there's some grammatical footnote that means that her teacher was right.  However, it seemed an utterly ridiculous limit to put on a primary school kid who was clearly using said punctuation in a perfectly sensible (if slightly confrontational) way.

@Tin
Brilliant.
Reminds me of a story about my brother. In year 1 or 2 he kept getting told his fullstops were not big enough so he drew and coloured in a fullstop covering the entire page.

Diluted Dante wrote:

The fuck? A full stop is a dot on the page.

Yeah exactly.
It was a full Mr Burns "trim those sideburns" to do.

Diluted Dante wrote:

The fuck? A full stop is a dot on the page.

Not in every region m8!

As for the full stops thing, I still refuse to use them at the end of paragraphs. It's just a complete waste of time

Ooooh, that’s awesome! Very nice work mate.

Very cool.

It's where I do most of my Christmas shopping so I'm sure to see it, obviously.

Looks great!

Banging job, nice one Liv.