are people dumber today? (split from the disney thread)

[Kit-Fox]

Factor in that most people on average had left schools by the time they were 14 back then to goto work.

lol.

I perhaps should have once again pointed out I was talking from a UK perspective about that. Most who didnt pass the 11+ and therefore had a better level of education were usually in some form of employment by their 14th birthday.

You can lol all you like but that is correct & I would be suprised if something similar wasnt true of the US as well, in that people left education back then a year or two before they would legally be allowed to do so now (it still 18 in the US isnt it?)

[Apadamek]

Factor in that most people on average had left schools by the time they were 14 back then to goto work.

lol.

I perhaps should have once again pointed out I was talking from a UK perspective about that. Most who didnt pass the 11+ and therefore had a better level of education were usually in some form of employment by their 14th birthday.

You can lol all you like but that is correct & I would be suprised if something similar wasnt true of the US as well, in that people left education back then a year or two before they would legally be allowed to do so now (it still 18 in the US isnt it?)

I can pretty much guarantee you that in the 50's not many people left school to work at 14.

[Kit-Fox]

The majority in the UK did. Your welcome to look it up, you'll find that very few who didnt pass the 11+ (ie all the so called 'working class' & even to some extent the 'middle class' too) were mostly in gainful employment by tier 14th birthday. Hell even if you did pass the 11+ you could still leave before the age of 16 as there was no law stopping you back then. Your parents did have to 'buy out' the contract though that they had signed with the school to say you would say till you were 16 (only those who passed the 11+ had such a contract)

That would mean they left employment 2 years before what would be considered legally possible today. You can only leave full time education upon your 16th birthday, although I think that might have just changed, I'm not entirely sure because as usual the uk gov made such a £%^£%^& up of telling people what was going on.

I would be highly suprised indeed if in the US in the 1950s that most were not in gainful employment by their 16th birthday or possibley before hand in some areas. I say 16 because that would equate to the same 2 year difference between leaving ages (if i'm correct in the assumption that the normal US leaving age of high school is 18 and the uk age is still 16)

[Apadamek]

England might have been a different story, but on average in the US most everybody graduated at least high school. Now if we're talking 1870's-1920's then thats more like it, two of my great grandfathers had only elementary school education.

[I Am Thor]

Still, the fact that people at a college level have no grasp on the basics of effects from radiation is truly disheartening. I mean, most people get their facts from Us magazine or celebrities who have no idea what they're talking about. People take political advice from celebrities who still think global warming is true and the war in Iraq is because of oil.

[Deaths_Rider]

disheartening maybe but you can easily get through high school with out doing science or history(at least here in Aus) and Physics is the only subject that will talk about radiation (again here) if they haven't done thoose subjects and are not interested in them why would they know anything about them. yes most people would have a basic idea but not having it is hardly a messure of intellegence. would should someone that wants a music, english, drama, arts ect degree have to know the effects of radiation? now i don't know what course it was that people didn't know but i know i did no biology in high school but still did first year bioligy at university there was a lot of stuff i had to catch up on and i would have looked ignorant for the first month or so but it hardly means i'm stupid, just as them not knowing about radiation dosen't make them stupid.

ignorance and stupidity are very different things

[I Am Thor]

fine, call it ignorance, or call it stupidity, theyre the same thing to be honest
still though, the fact remains that people didnt know why a duck and cover drill wouldnt work in the event of an atomic bomb, basically, lack of common sense which still adds up to stupidity

[Deaths_Rider]

no ignorance and stupidity are not the same thing! ignorence is not knowing something, stupidity is being unable to learn something.

you can be ignorant for two main reasons either you don't want to learn or you have focused on other things

while all stupid people may be ignorant not all ignorant people are stupid

i am ignorant of art. i couldn't care less about the use of colour and play of shadows. a friend of mine could spend hours explaining why it's important but then used to go and buys oxygen infused water because it has more "goodness" in it untill i pointed out it was rubbish they learnt and so stoped being ignorant but they were never stupid just as not caring about art doesn't make me stupid but ignorant.

so they didn't know one thing. once it was explained did they understand? if so they were ignorant if not stupid?




ignorence is bliss
stupidity is pain

[Kit-Fox]

I take it in Aus & the US then you simply get a diploma to say you graduated from high school??

UK students dont get that, we do our GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) exams. You do at least one GCSE for each subject and are awarded a grades depending on how well you do. The grades range from U = Unmarked (a special grade not usually awarded, it means your paper was unreadable or had been destroyed in some manner and so wasnt makred at all) then from G ( the worst grade) F, E, D, C ( the national average) , B , A, A*, A** (the top grade, you have to get pretty much every question correct and the answer must be in the same format as the answer sheet to get this)

In the subjects of science depending on your exam board you will either do one GCSE for each topic (biology, chemisty, pyshics) or you will do one double award exam (which will cover two of the topics) & one single award exam (which covers the last topic)

Failure in the UK to achieve at least a C grade at your GCSEs is seen as a sign or either inherent laziness or stupidity. And because you are tested in each subject you cant decide not to do the subject or not pay attention in class. Hence why at least to me it is inexcusable for someone not to understand the basics of radiation which are covered in the last two years of your high school education here.

EDIT: I should point out you can choose what subjects you study in your final 3 years but only up to a point. For example you can choose to do religious studies, Art or Music but you must do one of them. Like wise you can choose what you do in the field of D&T (Design & Technology) Electronics, Woodwork, Graphic Design but again you must do one of them. You cannot choose which core subjects you do such as English, Maths or any of the sciences as you are required to do those by law.

[Deaths_Rider]

cant say for the U.S. but here in Aus it differs in each state but in South Australia we have the S.A.C.E. The South Australian Certifice of Education which in your final year is five subjects. there are a dosen or so subjects to choose from and the only compulory thing is that you must do one of the two english subjects offered one of which is just basic grammar ect the other more indepth studys of writing styles, old classics, themes ect. there are some subjects that are rated as non-university level i.e. wood-work but you can do one of these and still get into a university.

although rather than mark people on what they know we get a mark based on what we know compared to other students with a grade that shows what percentage of the state we beat i.e 98.53 you got a higher mark than 98.53% of final year students a grade of 50% or more is enough to reach university. but for some courses such as medicine the entry grade is up too 98% others can be anywhere in between

[Apadamek]

To get a high school diploma you need to maintain a grade point average and a certain score on tests.

[Kit-Fox]

To get a high school diploma you need to maintain a grade point average and a certain score on tests.

So how is the GPA calculated? What kind of tests do you have to do?

I mean can you ignore what we consider core subjects like the sciences (or just on part of them say like psyhics) and do something else instead to make up the points??

Cause you cant do that in our system

[I Am Thor]

nope, not always needed, just sometimes a schools way of making money, or getting funding