Cute and Bright, or Stressed Out
I frogged the left front of Petal back almost back to the cast on edge, then started to knit it as the Right front, which was going fine until I noticed a possible mistake at one point four or so rows back. Trouble is it involves a couple of ssk's and k2togs, so I don't think a quick run down and pick up again with the ol' crochet hook is going to cut it this time. I put it away in disgust. It is not in hiatus, merely awaiting a time when I am feeling more with and, possibly, not trying to watch TV at the same time. Generally I know the pattern so well now that even when I've made a mistake in a previous row I can fix it.
So I got out the second dark purple sock and knitted away on that - 1x1 ribbing on the top and plain stocking stitch on the sole. Simples. Then I had a look and noticed, about 2" back, that I'd slipped the ribbing over four or five stitches. Now I could run them down and work them back with a crochet hook, but 2" is quite a long way, it's dark purple yarn and the flaw is on the mid-foot so it'll barely notice, if at all. Maybe I'll leave it in - like some of the old-time American quilters used to leave a deliberate mistake in their patchwork because only God could make things perfect!
Readers wishing for a dose of 'cute' could try looking here. I'd really like to knit one of these Wowligan cardigans, it'd be a welcome break from the current round of hiati/hiatuses. Trouble is I know no-one of the correct size. Shame! The Owl pattern is famous. Kate Davies has used it on a jumper (for adults), a cardigan (adults again), a jumper for children, and now Wowligan. Heck, I even used them on a hat I knitted for D some years back. It can also be found on other people's patterns for mittens and even socks - with beaded eyes (even on the sock feet!) Sorry, no links, try Google or Ravelry. I am definitely knitting the socks, but equally definitely won't be beading the feet, if I bead them at all. I shan't be sewing buttons on either.
Hmmm, apparently pupils are developing stress-related conditions due to pressure of exams. What are these poor pupils? Soft? Back when I was at school, secondary school anyway, we had exams every year. Some years they really mattered. At age 16 and 18, then we had two sets of exams in the year - 'Mocks', practice exams (though woe betide you if a member of staff heard you calling them Mocks or Practice. They were to be treated with as much seriousness as the Real Thing); then the Real Exams (always in the summer. Most years it was warm, but the school hall was large. H recalls one year it snowed during an exam. That's a British summer for you)
Now they were exams. No calculators. No 'open books'. Hardly any mulitple-guess-choice questions. Just questions. You had to know your stuff, remember it and be able to sort out the questions. Quite what was the question asking? What did the examiner want you to include in the answer? If it was asked in one way then they wanted these (say) five points, asked another way they wanted not only the kitchen sink but the water supply company, the sewage disposal company and, sometimes, the entire water cycle as well. We were advised to avoid those questions! After all, we only had twenty minutes to half an hour to sort out and write each essay-type answer. Exams were either two or two and a half hours long generally.
Science and Maths-type papers had easier questions to answer - the Sciences you either knew the answer or you didn't, the Maths you could work out (once you'd worked out what the question was actually asking you to calculate, always the harder part) But still no calculators. We had four-figure log tables, copies kept especially pristine for exam purposes. Or we could take along slide rules, I think they trusted us not to include crib sheets in the slide rule cases!
Yes, these exams were a little stressful. Or a lot stressful to some of us. But our teachers had taught us not only our subjects but how to answer exam-style questions. How to assess what questions requiring esssay-type answers were actually expecting you to include. How to do various calculations and, important this, how to assess which calculations questions were asking for. For the 'important' exams we practiced for a few weeks answering questions from past papers. We were fairly well prepared and, on the whole we survived and passed, sometimes well.
I reckon the trouble these days is SATS. They happen too often. Too much importance is placed upon them and upon a school's record of SAT achievement. It seems that pupils these days are not taught various subjects, and only partly because so many of them don't know how to listen. They are taught to pass the next SAT. Teachers spend too much time attempting to control classes, then attempting to get across the answers which the next SAT will be requiring. That isn't 'education'.
Yes, I know I said we were taught how to assess exam questions. That was a very small part of a subjects year or two-year long course. A few lessons at the end of the teaching year - when we'd been taught the subject. We knew how to listen, on the whole we enjoyed learning, if we didn't we got on with it anyhow.
Ok, Dear Reader, I know I'm beginning to sound like those who bang on about how they were beaten every day at school and it never did them any harm. Made men of them in fact! We took exams, it didn't harm us, not permanently anyway. We learned our subjects - heck, I still have (dim) memories of much of what we were actually taught! This came in useful when S was doing his 'A' Levels in similar subjects to those I'd taken. I could at least remember the terms he was talking about, if nothing else!
I think part of the trouble today is that pupils do not learn to listen, how to take in information. Hardly surprising when you consider that most of them have been taking in information from screens - tv, tablet, phone, often one-to-one since infancy and now they are faced with a teacher talking to them, with the help of a black or white board in a class of twenty-five to thirty, or more.
Children today are accustomed from an early age to brightly coloured moving visuals which change frequently accompanied by music and often various noises for emphasis - hyperstimulation. There seems to be very little direct listening to one voice involved (though I haven't checked with CBeebies Storytime recently) How are teachers supposed to compete?
What can parents do to help? Hmmm, regulate the time spent in front of a screen of any kind. Do not allow tv's, computers or phones in bedrooms (at night when they should be sleeping) - better start leaving your phone at the bedroom door too as an example! And for goodness sake, READ to your children, from as early an age as possible. Start them off on picture only books, something like Miffy, from as soon as they can sit on your lap and focus. Move quickly on to books like Spot the Dog (stories about a dog called Spot, not trying to find the dog!) Then books with several sentences per page - try Janet and Alan Allberg's Burglar Bill and their other stories.
Go to the local library. You'll can access quite a wide range of books and see which you and your child(ren) like most. Try finding the books by Anthony Browne, the stories are good, the pictures are wonderfully detailed and repay careful attention. Remember the books you liked as a small child, the library will have some of them.
Enjoy reading to your child well before they start school. Spot the Dog is far more interesting than the average school reading scheme. Some of them might have been designed specifically to put children off reading! Pretty soon you can graduate to Thomas the Tank Engine - the newer stuff, then the original little books with a page of picture and a page of text. After that it's on to Real Books - ie: those where the pictures form in your mind as you read, or have read to you, the text. Try Paddington Bear, it's a lot of text per page but each chapter is a story. I must admit I stopped reading to S with Paddington Bear. Reading that much text was, I found, hard work, and by then he was reading for himself. The actual book was heavy to hold and S was getting a bit big to sit on my lap.
These days visual story telling is everywhere - films, tv programmes, ads, YouTube, often with amazing special effects. Plain ol' reading text can seem dull by comparison, not to mention difficult to acquire but persist. Reading is important, even in this visual age. After all, you're reading this.
And if you have been, thank you. Y'all have a good day now!
And Finally - Happy Fourth of July, Dear American Reader!
So I got out the second dark purple sock and knitted away on that - 1x1 ribbing on the top and plain stocking stitch on the sole. Simples. Then I had a look and noticed, about 2" back, that I'd slipped the ribbing over four or five stitches. Now I could run them down and work them back with a crochet hook, but 2" is quite a long way, it's dark purple yarn and the flaw is on the mid-foot so it'll barely notice, if at all. Maybe I'll leave it in - like some of the old-time American quilters used to leave a deliberate mistake in their patchwork because only God could make things perfect!
Readers wishing for a dose of 'cute' could try looking here. I'd really like to knit one of these Wowligan cardigans, it'd be a welcome break from the current round of hiati/hiatuses. Trouble is I know no-one of the correct size. Shame! The Owl pattern is famous. Kate Davies has used it on a jumper (for adults), a cardigan (adults again), a jumper for children, and now Wowligan. Heck, I even used them on a hat I knitted for D some years back. It can also be found on other people's patterns for mittens and even socks - with beaded eyes (even on the sock feet!) Sorry, no links, try Google or Ravelry. I am definitely knitting the socks, but equally definitely won't be beading the feet, if I bead them at all. I shan't be sewing buttons on either.
Hmmm, apparently pupils are developing stress-related conditions due to pressure of exams. What are these poor pupils? Soft? Back when I was at school, secondary school anyway, we had exams every year. Some years they really mattered. At age 16 and 18, then we had two sets of exams in the year - 'Mocks', practice exams (though woe betide you if a member of staff heard you calling them Mocks or Practice. They were to be treated with as much seriousness as the Real Thing); then the Real Exams (always in the summer. Most years it was warm, but the school hall was large. H recalls one year it snowed during an exam. That's a British summer for you)
Now they were exams. No calculators. No 'open books'. Hardly any mulitple-guess-choice questions. Just questions. You had to know your stuff, remember it and be able to sort out the questions. Quite what was the question asking? What did the examiner want you to include in the answer? If it was asked in one way then they wanted these (say) five points, asked another way they wanted not only the kitchen sink but the water supply company, the sewage disposal company and, sometimes, the entire water cycle as well. We were advised to avoid those questions! After all, we only had twenty minutes to half an hour to sort out and write each essay-type answer. Exams were either two or two and a half hours long generally.
Science and Maths-type papers had easier questions to answer - the Sciences you either knew the answer or you didn't, the Maths you could work out (once you'd worked out what the question was actually asking you to calculate, always the harder part) But still no calculators. We had four-figure log tables, copies kept especially pristine for exam purposes. Or we could take along slide rules, I think they trusted us not to include crib sheets in the slide rule cases!
Yes, these exams were a little stressful. Or a lot stressful to some of us. But our teachers had taught us not only our subjects but how to answer exam-style questions. How to assess what questions requiring esssay-type answers were actually expecting you to include. How to do various calculations and, important this, how to assess which calculations questions were asking for. For the 'important' exams we practiced for a few weeks answering questions from past papers. We were fairly well prepared and, on the whole we survived and passed, sometimes well.
I reckon the trouble these days is SATS. They happen too often. Too much importance is placed upon them and upon a school's record of SAT achievement. It seems that pupils these days are not taught various subjects, and only partly because so many of them don't know how to listen. They are taught to pass the next SAT. Teachers spend too much time attempting to control classes, then attempting to get across the answers which the next SAT will be requiring. That isn't 'education'.
Yes, I know I said we were taught how to assess exam questions. That was a very small part of a subjects year or two-year long course. A few lessons at the end of the teaching year - when we'd been taught the subject. We knew how to listen, on the whole we enjoyed learning, if we didn't we got on with it anyhow.
Ok, Dear Reader, I know I'm beginning to sound like those who bang on about how they were beaten every day at school and it never did them any harm. Made men of them in fact! We took exams, it didn't harm us, not permanently anyway. We learned our subjects - heck, I still have (dim) memories of much of what we were actually taught! This came in useful when S was doing his 'A' Levels in similar subjects to those I'd taken. I could at least remember the terms he was talking about, if nothing else!
I think part of the trouble today is that pupils do not learn to listen, how to take in information. Hardly surprising when you consider that most of them have been taking in information from screens - tv, tablet, phone, often one-to-one since infancy and now they are faced with a teacher talking to them, with the help of a black or white board in a class of twenty-five to thirty, or more.
Children today are accustomed from an early age to brightly coloured moving visuals which change frequently accompanied by music and often various noises for emphasis - hyperstimulation. There seems to be very little direct listening to one voice involved (though I haven't checked with CBeebies Storytime recently) How are teachers supposed to compete?
What can parents do to help? Hmmm, regulate the time spent in front of a screen of any kind. Do not allow tv's, computers or phones in bedrooms (at night when they should be sleeping) - better start leaving your phone at the bedroom door too as an example! And for goodness sake, READ to your children, from as early an age as possible. Start them off on picture only books, something like Miffy, from as soon as they can sit on your lap and focus. Move quickly on to books like Spot the Dog (stories about a dog called Spot, not trying to find the dog!) Then books with several sentences per page - try Janet and Alan Allberg's Burglar Bill and their other stories.
Go to the local library. You'll can access quite a wide range of books and see which you and your child(ren) like most. Try finding the books by Anthony Browne, the stories are good, the pictures are wonderfully detailed and repay careful attention. Remember the books you liked as a small child, the library will have some of them.
Enjoy reading to your child well before they start school. Spot the Dog is far more interesting than the average school reading scheme. Some of them might have been designed specifically to put children off reading! Pretty soon you can graduate to Thomas the Tank Engine - the newer stuff, then the original little books with a page of picture and a page of text. After that it's on to Real Books - ie: those where the pictures form in your mind as you read, or have read to you, the text. Try Paddington Bear, it's a lot of text per page but each chapter is a story. I must admit I stopped reading to S with Paddington Bear. Reading that much text was, I found, hard work, and by then he was reading for himself. The actual book was heavy to hold and S was getting a bit big to sit on my lap.
These days visual story telling is everywhere - films, tv programmes, ads, YouTube, often with amazing special effects. Plain ol' reading text can seem dull by comparison, not to mention difficult to acquire but persist. Reading is important, even in this visual age. After all, you're reading this.
And if you have been, thank you. Y'all have a good day now!
And Finally - Happy Fourth of July, Dear American Reader!