Forum menu
Molgrips
Can you explain what on earth you mean by this?
Take a look at the UK science curriculum.
It's basically full of lies and the exam questions are structured to force the kids to knowingly lie.
A random example is "select from the following, properties that apply to a liquid"
one answer will for example have a statement that it is incompressible and children are then trained to have to select this answer to be marked correct even though a trained monkey knows it is a lie. If they try and answer truthfully they are marked incorrect or given detentions.
It’s basically full of lies and the exam questions are structured to force the kids to knowingly lie.
!!!
I thought it would be about telling students up to GCSE that electrons are arranged in concentric shells.
@jamiemcf - If the Aliens started abducting intelligent people not prone to exaggeration then we might take the threat of invasion seriously!
Take a look at the UK science curriculum.
It’s basically full of lies and the exam questions are structured to force the kids to knowingly lie.A random example is “select from the following, properties that apply to a liquid”
one answer will for example have a statement that it is incompressible and children are then trained to have to select this answer to be marked correct even though a trained monkey knows it is a lie. If they try and answer truthfully they are marked incorrect or given detentions.
Going to need some proof of this.
A random example is “select from the following, properties that apply to a liquid”
one answer will for example have a statement that it is incompressible and children are then trained to have to select this answer to be marked correct even though a trained monkey knows it is a lie.
This is teaching through simple models, rather than lying. In normal experience, it’s pretty hard to compress a liquid without access to expensive equipment.
Take a look at the UK science curriculum.
It’s basically full of lies and the exam questions are structured to force the kids to knowingly lie.A random example is “select from the following, properties that apply to a liquid”
one answer will for example have a statement that it is incompressible and children are then trained to have to select this answer to be marked correct even though a trained monkey knows it is a lie. If they try and answer truthfully they are marked incorrect or given detentions
The first sentence of this is inaccurate, there being no such thing as the UK science curriculum. And the rest of the post goes downhill from that high point.
Thrive FWIW:
Can you explain what on earth you mean by this?
Yeah, enquiring minds want to know.
I suspect he is suggesting that simplified theories should not be taught in schools because they are damned lies. If you can't deal with quantum mechanics you just have to accept you're a ignoramus who will probably go on to be a conspiracy theorist.
babies born now, have a smaller gap between their anus and genitals than 50 years ago
...and conspiracy theorists have their ears closer together than the rest of us.
Anyone who has ever tried to organise and Co-ordinate a project involving multiple people and departments ( or in some cases arrange a group of people to go out for a bike ride) will know that the possibility of any government, agency or corporation to work together and not balls things up AND keep it secret is totally beyond our ability as a species.
The term 'conspiracy theory' has now morphed in meaning from a questioning the mainstream narrative to tin foil hat wearing, flat earth believing paranoia.
If you take the meaning literally of conspiracy though, it only take to people to 'conspire' against someone else. So conspiracies happen every day in all walks of life. It's healthy to question things but not healthy to just believe anything that's in print or what your pall tells you.
I do agree that it's a deep rabbit hole once you start to read into proven government conspiracies. Probably ignorance is better for your sanity if you're easily worried.
I struggle to believe that there is this elitist agenda when you look at how incompetent our leaders are. The real conspiracies for me are the ones where there are cover ups of the incompetences of the government. Things like the PPE scandal during Covid.
babies born now, have a smaller gap between their anus and genitals than 50 years ago.
So this requires scientists from the 1970s to have an understanding of genetics and external effects on it, which I’m pretty sure they didn’t have as they still liked smoking while pregnant back then, and also decide that this was a desirable outcome, and then embark on a half century long process of measuring a significant sample of newborns.
And was this the only effect of micro plastics? Who cares?
This is teaching through simple models, rather than lying.
It's science not some subjective humanities subject.
Part of the problem is the questions themselves are structured to prevent the children giving a factually correct answer or even mitigating the fact they know they are lying to get a correct mark.
If we just stick with liquid compressibility then why are they forced to select an answer that liquids are incompressible rather than "In normal experience, it’s pretty hard to compress a liquid without access to expensive equipment." (for example) or "very hard to compress at normal temperatures and pressures" .. it's not a massive stretch is it for the sake of teaching what we know as fact vs what we know to be untrue?
More to the point of the thread ..
That kid has either now been conditioned to lie in order not to be punished or at a minimum taught a "simple model" without being told this is actually a simple model that isn't actually true but you are required to answer is if it is.
Just sticking with this one example, it's not exactly difficult to find fluid compressibility data in 2022...at least if you own a internet capable device. You used to need access to a library ... in 2022 google will expose these lies.
Kids have been conditioned to accept science is about "putting the expected answer" not the truth. (A common theme for conspiracy theories is that scientists en-masse are in the pay of some organisation or other and hence cannot be trusted)
What then happens when these kids leave school having not learned differently and then some (predatory) conspiracy theorist uses these lies as proof that scientists/science can't be trusted?
This is almost central to conspiracies like flat earth... who then come up with "test it yourself" models vs trust what you were told at school.
That kid has either now been conditioned to lie in order not to be punished
This just doesn't happen these days. Pupils are not punished for getting answers wrong or not giving the preferred answer. I've got no idea where you're getting this info from but it's inaccurate.
As for simplified models, they've always been a necessary part of teaching and most teachers will acknowledge them as such when they use them. There's nothing sinister here.
I'd like to see actual examples of the kind of question you're talking about as I'm afraid you're not looking very credible on this.
It sounds like you want all answers to be essays, or for there to be no science exams ‘till A-level (spoiler here for you, but deeper understanding gained from any post A-level studying of science will reveal some A-level knowledge to have exceptions, or to be superficial, we’re always learning).
On some of the points made… even in the 1980s we were told at GCSE level that electron shells were a model. The compressing a liquid thing, well I can’t remember what terminology was used there, but “common properties” can have exceptions. We were taught about superconductors to make that point (and because they’re interesting for kids).
Wait until you find out that animals can't talk, despite many "nursery" stories suggesting otherwise.
I've never recovered from being taught Bohr's theory of the hydrogen atom - it has blighted my life and led me to believe that Newtonian physics is an adequate model for those structures I designed. I expect they fell over the day after construction.
If only I'd been taught superstrings from day 1.
I’ve got science qualifications up to postgraduate level. At every stage it’s been ‘yeah, about that, it’s a bit more complicated…’
It’s not lying, it’s simplification. As far as most people are concerned, most of the time, fluids are incompressible. It works and it’s easy to understand.
slowoldman
I suspect he is suggesting that simplified theories should not be taught in schools because they are damned lies. If you can’t deal with quantum mechanics you just have to accept you’re a ignoramus who will probably go on to be a conspiracy theorist.
Not really, I'm saying that in science and maths it needs to be made VERY CLEAR AT EVERY LEVEL when something is a simplified theory.
That includes the questions that should be constructed to be truthful even if they allow for a simple model.
I’m saying that in science and maths it needs to be made VERY CLEAR AT EVERY LEVEL when something is a simplified theory.
I'm a teacher and I do this. Every teacher I know does this. The trouble is that lots of pupils don't take that on board as it is actually quite a subtle idea. There's also the fact that most people's science education stops at one of the simplified levels and then they forget a good chunk of even that in the years after they leave school. That's why you get people thinking they've been taught a pack of lies at school.
If they try and answer truthfully they are marked incorrect or given detentions.
Detentions- for answering a question (rightly or wrongly)? Really?
Kelvin
It sounds like you want all answers to be essays, or for there to be no science exams ‘till A-level (spoiler here for you, but deeper understanding gained from any post A-level studying of science will reveal some A-level knowledge to have exceptions, or to be superficial, we’re always learning).
On some of the points made… even in the 1980s we were told at GCSE level that electron shells were a model. The compressing a liquid thing, well I can’t remember what terminology was used there, but “common properties” can have exceptions. We were taught about superconductors to make that point (and because they’re interesting for kids).
As I just posted ... what I expect is kids are not expected to deliberately and knowingly lie to be marked correct or avoid detention. Theoretical and simplified models should be consistently referred to as theoretical and simplified models.
I'm talking about the constructed multiple choice or fill in the missing word type questions and actually constructing those to allow a factually correct answer rather than forcing a factually incorrect answer.
As you say back in the 70's and 80's we were taught when something was a (simplified) model and as I remember the questions were constructed such that you didn't need to lie.
e.g.
I’ve never recovered from being taught Bohr’s theory of the hydrogen atom
Except you were taught this was a theoretical simplified model and an exam question could be "draw and label a hydrogen atom according to Bohr's theoretical electron model".
vs "draw a hydrogen atom"
Life seems to be hard for some.
What about birds? I heard they were fake.
Detentions- for answering a question (rightly or wrongly)? Really?
I've been teaching for 15 years and it's not something I've ever heard of. I'm in Scotland but I can't imagine it happens south of the border either.
For a start, teachers are lazy buggers and detentions need to be staffed so we're not going to give them if we don't have to. 😀
Take a look at the UK science curriculum.
It’s basically full of lies and the exam questions are structured to force the kids to knowingly lie.A random example is “select from the following, properties that apply to a liquid”
one answer will for example have a statement that it is incompressible and children are then trained to have to select this answer to be marked correct even though a trained monkey knows it is a lie. If they try and answer truthfully they are marked incorrect or given detentions.
I’d consider your statement a failure to understand.
I studied electronic/mechanical engineering at uni, what was taught regarding basic electrical/electronic theory in 1st year was not comparable to what was taught in 3rd year, take it further into masters/phd level and it will change yet again. You need to enable a basic datum to get a foothold in the subject that is then expanded to a level of comprehension that bares little relation to the original teachings.
There’s a least one, possibly two, that I would move from ‘detached from reality’ to ‘we have questions’.
Feel free to share, you're among friends
Part of the problem is the questions themselves are structured to prevent the children giving a factually correct answer or even mitigating the fact they know they are lying to get a correct mark.
To be fair, it's a hell of a conspiracy theory
It’s science not some subjective humanities subject.
The Humanities are about methodically looking at patterns, evidence from a variety of sources and statistical data, not making things up. Denigrating something to make your point does not make it true.
even in the 1980s we were told at GCSE level that electron shells were a model.
I wasn't. Only got told it wasn't true when I did A level Chemistry. Not that I have an issue with it. As you and others have said there needs to be simple models to help hook students and make the initial understanding more manageable. This is particularly true in the afore mentioned Humanities where there are many abstract concepts.
I’ve got science qualifications up to postgraduate level. At every stage it’s been ‘yeah, about that, it’s a bit more complicated…’It’s not lying, it’s simplification.
Same here and it was always stressed that what we were being taught was a simplified model. Next level of study (so moving from GCSE to A level for example) would include the "errors" in the first model and the more involved explanation of the "new" model but still with the understanding that you could get massively more complicated if you were doing this stuff at PhD / post-doc level.
For the same sort of reasons, you teach kids to read on John & Jane books, not Dickens.
I used to work with a guy who was well into his conspiracy theories. Plane crashes and Diana were his two favourites. Anything with a crash and a fireball and DEATH. It'd all be some big conspiracy coordinated from on high although for what reasons was never really clarified.
A random example is “select from the following, properties that apply to a liquid”
one answer will for example have a statement that it is incompressible and children are then trained to have to select this answer to be marked correct even though a trained monkey knows it is a lie. If they try and answer truthfully they are marked incorrect or given detentions.
Give me an actual real exam question to demonstrate this?
Your hyperbolic language makes you sound like a raving nutter, by the way.
Re the science - calling simplified models "lies" is ridiculous and suggests you don't really understand science very well. The fundamental nature of the universe is unknown to us. We can only describe it with models. We have different models that suit different purposes. Even actual physicists will use the simple models when they know there's going to be no difference in the results. And they also use them when demonstrating principles even though they know the answers are incorrect in real world terms. Black body radiation, and ideal gas laws spring to mind.
So please don't say 'kids are being taught lies' because they aren't. It's a hugely damaging thing to say. It sounds anti-education and anti-science, even if you don't mean it to be. That 8snt what the word 'lie' means.
Come on then Steve, let's see your evidence for what you say is happening in schools. Specifically, evidence that teachers are lying rather than simplifying, evidence of questions that are deliberately constructed to stop pupils giving the right answer and evidence that pupils are punished for wrong answers.
Ironically, it's all starting to sound a bit like a conspiracy...
Part of the problem is the questions themselves are structured to prevent the children giving a factually correct answer or even mitigating the fact they know they are lying to get a correct mark.
Totally agree, I mean imagine teaching kids that you can’t take the square root of a negative number. We should be teaching complex numbers in primary school!
More Cash ...
To be fair, it’s a hell of a conspiracy theory
... or is it...???
I think it's far more likely its a combination of totally boring things from laziness to not really caring what is taught or understood across a wide range of those involved.
It's far easier and less work all round to set a curriculum with a set of simple binary statements and then write nd mark questions as if those statements are actually fact.
Spin
I’m a teacher and I do this. Every teacher I know does this. The trouble is that lots of pupils don’t take that on board as it is actually quite a subtle idea.
(**sorry chopped your answer but I'll put it later)
So lets stick with compressibility of liquids ...
"Liquids are very difficult to compress at normal temperatures and pressures"
It's really not that hard is it?
What I was told is that the questions set in the pre-GCSE exams and tests are all from "exam board approved publications"... (currently EdExcell)
I’ve been teaching for 15 years and it’s not something I’ve ever heard of. I’m in Scotland but I can’t imagine it happens south of the border either.
For a start, teachers are lazy buggers and detentions need to be staffed so we’re not going to give them if we don’t have to. 😀
He got detention for refusing to write a knowingly false answer in a test then calling out the teacher when the teacher told him to just write it and if he wrote anything else in the exam it would be marked incorrect.
The question was "How many states of matter are there" ...to which my kid said he didn't know exactly and it depends if you only count persistent or include hypothetical but that 3 was most definitely not a correct answer.
He then asked "how does a plasma cutter work then" ... for which he was given detention.
chopped up bit
**There’s also the fact that most people’s science education stops at one of the simplified levels and then they forget a good chunk of even that in the years after they leave school. That’s why you get people thinking they’ve been taught a pack of lies at school.
I completely agree - This is WHY it's so important if you don't want them falling for totally bat-shit crazy conspiracy theories because someone can point to the lies they were taught and convince them that the rest of science is lies!!!
I see, so what you have is one hearsay based example of one kid getting detention for something and no examples of actual questions or evidence that teachers are deliberately lying.
It's pretty clear that what you say either isn't happening or happens so rarely as to be meaningless in terms of science education at a national scale.
Judging from your description, your kid got detention for giving a smartarse reply. Nothing else.
He then asked “how does a plasma cutter work then” … for which he was given detention.
Two possible reasons for this, I suspect.
1. Your kid learned discussion skills from you 😉 I knew about plasma as a kid but I still managed GCSE. Not being a smart arse and understanding context is an important skill to learn.
2. Your teacher is an arse. I don't know any teacher that would respond that way to a kid who is really into their subject. The school curriculum should not say there are three states of matter, it should say there are three common ones. But it's not a "lie".
I Googled GCSE science on states of matter and most of the quotes did specifically say there are three states of matter, which isn't great. But I understand why they say that, and I'm not going to claim that teachers are lying which is a pretty shitty thing to say given how both science and teachers are struggling so badly currently. Teachers and scientists don't need aggro from their own side as well as their detractors.
I completely agree – This is WHY it’s so important if you don’t want them falling for totally bat-shit crazy conspiracy theories because someone can point to the lies they were taught and convince them that the rest of science is lies!!!
By calling them "lies" you are seriously exacerbating the problem here.
Judging from your description, your kid got detention for giving a smartarse reply. Nothing else.
I wouldn't like to judge because there are some insecure teachers out there who would respond in the way described. But if that's the case, the problem is a dick teacher and not the widespread, deliberate issue Stevextc made it sound like.
Two sides to every tale...
I blame the parents 🙂
Your son was penalised for how he conducted himself not because of any inconvenient truth. Unless there are swathes of kids in Britain all being unfairly punished in this way I think your casting blame in the wrong place
CountZero
Yeah, enquiring minds want to know.
I gave up on Fb five or six years ago, partly because I had someone with me to think about, having got back in touch via Fb, but more so because it was just becoming toxic – trying to deal with family posting crap about chemtrails and that sort of stuff was exhausting, so I stopped looking at it. I still have it on my tablet, just because messenger is useful for a bunch of us to keep in touch, but that’s about it.
So I did the first bit... but the second bit and how it interacts is really more interesting.
So yeah.. don't want to name anyone specifically but one of my FB 'friends'.
I've seen a whole raft of fantasy chemtrails and other stuff from someone who seemed pretty sane and grounded.
as maccruiskeen points out with the FB algorithm... but it's not just FB.
I can't remember when I clicked on a Flat Earth takedown video or why.. (JUST DON'T or at least get a throw away account and a clean VM)... but this leads into a rabbit hole when YT then starts trying to give you content you dislike or want to argue over. I think it was a SciManDan ?? video originally but then the whole rabbit hole expands into echo chambers and anti-echo chambers.
It was amusing for a while ... but it becomes more and more disturbing the more you see HOW people reject known and established fact and scientific theory.
It's the HOW that's really disturbing.... the deeper it gets the more it's about "they lied to you about this so they lied to you about everything" until its a spiral.
for example its starts with "the earth is flat"... then a counter about why doesn't it fall in on itself from gravity then "gravity isn't real"...
As per the OP's post .. maybe there is a dopamine response ?? but what you notice is a progression UP that pyramid.
(I don't know what 1/2 of those conspiracies are - I've mostly just seen the science ones and I thought Pizzagate must be prince andrew but I guess not) ... but the ones I recognise all seem to share a common theme of disproving established scientific fact and theory and each leads on to the next because now the "victim" has accepted that "the scientific establishment lied about one thing they half understood so they make the next leap and the next.
maccruiskeen
Your son was penalised for how he conducted himself not because of any inconvenient truth. Unless there are swathes of kids in Britain all being unfairly punished in this way I think your casting blame in the wrong place
So what do you think a kid should do when told to lie by a teacher? Just passively follow their instructions?
So what do you think a kid should do when told to lie by a teacher? Just passively follow their instructions?
Learn how to play the game, probably a good life lesson tbh
So what do you think a kid should do when told to lie by a teacher?
If you actually want an answer to this it might be an idea to drop the lying rhetoric, that's been the main issue with your contributions to this thread.
There’s a least one, possibly two, that I would move from ‘detached from reality’ to ‘we have questions’.
Feel free to share, you’re among friends
No thanks. I don’t want a 12 page argument ending with (redacted) squeaking that I’m a bigot then flouncing off.
Anyway to get back on track...
I was told a theory that the anal probes were as big as a pedal bin....
You would have an arsehole like a busted cat flap.
Thinking my tin foil hat might not offer enough protection.
Wanders off to build a tin foil bung.
In some respects I don't see The Matrix as being too far fetched. However the Bible, now there's a can of worms.
as maccruiskeen points out with the FB algorithm… but it’s not just FB.
I was using FB as an example because the algorithm sort of reveals itself in that range of interactions - that spectrum of love-to-hate.
YouTube doesnt have the same kind of interactions - their thumbs up / down feedback is really about whether you think the video was done well or done badly rather than if the subject matter makes you feel happy or angry. So its more a comment of the author than the content.
Much of the stuff FB is accused of in this respect Youtube is actually much worse at (or better at depending on how you see it) but how it choses the content it promotes is maybe a bit more opaque
So what do you think a kid should do when told to lie by a teacher? Just passively follow their instructions?
I'm sure theres a middle way between passive acceptance and smart arse whataboutery. When we were feeling a bit mischievous is our physics class one of us would just interrupt the teacher mid flow and ask to explain again what a Quark is. And because he was lovely and really too clever for the job he'd stop whatever he was explaining and explain Quarks, pretty much for the rest of the lesson. We actually had no idea what quarks were, even after he'd told us - I mean we really didnt know what the question meant, we were only about 12 or 13. So at that time we had one, 1 hour physics lesson a week. Physical principles had to be described to us in ways that fitted into that hour / term / year and in the context of what lessons had come before and what would come next. If questions are being asked in class they're the about comprehension of the something that has just been taught - presumablysomething about temperature and pressure. If the question is multiple choice and theres an answer that aligns with what you've be taught thats the answer that shows you've paid attention and grasped whats been taught so for. Mouthing off about Bose Eisenstein Condensates just muddies the waters because those conditions are outside of the scope of whats just been taught. Thats not to say theres not an interesting conversation to be had if theres time and space for it. But in a school classroom, often, theres not. But in the scenario you describe where a description of a process has been given which doesn't yet go into more rarified situations - the answer '3' is the right one on that day. A smart kid should really learn how to work that out for themselves - the detention was for his conduct not his answer.
Its great if your son has a in interest in a subject that means he's steps ahead of the information being taught but the teacher is teaching everyone in the room and has to make sure they've all reached the same point before setting off towards the next one. In this even 'plama' was a topic for another day an the class hadn't yet taken those steps to get there.
Ahh my favourite, the moon landing being fake.
TBH, I’ve always thought the moon pictures were sometimes a little too good,and wouldn’t have been surprised if a few had been done on the 2001 set as perhaps some film didn’t survive the journey back or a cock up occurred and they needed to rustle up a few pics to save face.
I don’t think the landing was fake thou so I’m not sure what level of loon that puts me on 🙂