Another year, another round of bullshittery from adults to teenagers over what they’re spending their time on.
A-Levels can be one of the most stressful things you’ve ever done at the time you take them (it was total hell for me), and the last thing the candidates need is for all the usual public wanking over whether the exams are getting easier or not. The problem is simple enough – students are told A-Levels measure ability, and are told “if you can do ABC you will get XYZ marks”. You can see the mark scheme in some courses. Yet when the results actually come out, a tidal wave of cynicism and outrage swamps the nation over the fact that more people got an A grade than last year. Universities bitch and moan about how they might actually have to work in order to identify the candidates that fit their preferred profile, old-timers whinge about how it was much tougher back-in-’t-day and meanwhile the stressed out and exhausted students get dumped on.
To make matters worse, exam boards actively moderate results to try and make them fit into the bell curve – it’s not uncommon to hear about students getting 100% on exams where they didn’t even answer all the questions. So the qualification is stuck in some no mans land where it’s not clearly a measure of what you know, and it’s not clearly a measure of what fraction of the population you fall into either. In fact it doesn’t measure anything at all, except perhaps how good you are at exams.
I got BBBC for my A Levels and fluked into Durham …. so according to some BBC News “Have Your Say” posters, I basically failed. On average I now earn more than most of the people posting such comments, which if you insist on picking an arbitrary metric to measure success seems a lot more useful than exam grades.
The lesson of all this? Standard school qualifications basically say sweet fuck all about what you can do, and politicians are under pressure to remove the “basically” from that sentence. it seems clearer every day that the smart ones are those who leave school at 16 to get apprenticeships and work their way up. I could have done that and still ended up at Google – they had no idea how degrees are graded in the UK and couldn’t really have cared less when I explained. No qualifications are necessary to do SRE work, though if you have a degree it seems they’ll forgive you for lacking a few years experience (good luck passing the interview process based only on what is taught in a degree though).
Photo by dcJohn
August 23, 2006 at 10:06 am |
My whole life my parents made me think grades were all that mattered. It came as a harsh shock that the real world doesn’t care and the really successful often dropped out of school.
I’m going to push my kids to do apprenticeships. No kids yet though so quite possibly by the time I have school age kids, my motivations will have the same affect on my kids that my parents’ did on me.
As long as I drum into them that school isn’t a good representation of life.
What I find most bizarre about UK education is that it is so focused around working solo. Essays by yourself, homework by yourself, exams by yourself. What in the real world ever doesn’t involve working in a team?
Good for Google for employment based on, I assume what work you’ve done. It’s the only proper metric.
August 23, 2006 at 11:30 am |
There are pros and cons to groupwork.
The pro is that, well, real life involves teamwork.
The cons are that groupwork in class is usually a textbook case of how not to manage teams. Of course cynics can write off pretty much anything with a roll of the eyes and a “welcome to reality” type comment, but group classwork is usually an issue because:
- You cannot hire/fire people (or ask your managed to do it for you). So, incompetent or lazy people just have to be carried. Companies that have the same issue tend to go bust.
- It’s group work for an individual assessment. If you get a bum team you can fail even though you actually do quite well. If this happens in a job, you might become unemployed and then you try to find a new job. If it happens in class, you might fail your exam and that’s a black mark for the rest of your life!
- Often the projects devolve into simply writing a report, one team member per chapter, with some poor schmuck (the “leader” though class groups rarely do this officially) trying to edit it into a cohesive whole ….. a decent employer would give some rewards for extra responsibility but in school leadership is informal so rarely if ever recognised.
So I’m not sure it’s such a bad thing for it to be mostly solo. The groupwork in my degree was a total disaster zone. All of the above problems and many more as well.
August 23, 2006 at 11:31 am |
Hm, I should note that education makes me angry in general, but I don’t get angry very often so hopefully it balances out and I’m not an angry person
August 26, 2006 at 2:01 pm |
I hear ya Mike, I’m just glad I did end up bypassing A-levels etc. and moving straight into work (apart from the three months wasted at college). The place I work isn’t exactly the best when it comes to good working practice, but I certainly learnt a hell of a lot more useful information than if I’d stayed in education and struggled along for a few more years.
Huge congratulations on your position at Google too, I’m not exactly surprised they’d hire you though… I’d love to work for a company like that.
August 30, 2006 at 2:46 am |
Hi there, dcJohn from flickr here. I’m glad you liked my photo enough to use it in your blog, but you’ll notice that I put it under a creative commons license which requires attribution for use. Just a simple “photo by dcJohn” under the shot or at the end of the entry, with a link to my flickr page, would be fine. Thanks
I appreciate it.
September 2, 2006 at 11:49 am |
Hey Gary! Long time no see man, I didn’t realise you read this blog!
We should catch up some time. I’m still in Macc for a few weeks.
John – sorry, I didn’t realise it required attribution. I will add it to the story now. I didn’t tick that box in Flickrs CC search, I guess I am not using it quite right. I will be sharper about this in future (and maybe go back through the archives).
September 2, 2006 at 11:55 am |
BTW Gary if you read this email me, it’s the obvious address, I can refer people (though both guys I referred so far failed so I’d want to give you a quick runthrough first, if you see what I mean).
September 6, 2006 at 2:04 pm |
No worries, Mike. I appreciate you adding the attribution. By the way, as irony would have it, I’m a university prof.
April 5, 2007 at 12:06 pm |
I really understand what you’re saying.. at the moment I’m doing my GCSE’s , and I’m sick of all the pressure which gets rammed on us, and all the people making you believe that grades are the most important thing in the world, which they certainly aren’t. I reckon I’ll be able to get high grades on a lot of subjects, but does it really translate into the real world? I also hate being coached into doing exams, so I’ll probably do some vocational courses, I’d like to own my own business one day.. kids today just aren’t told about their options and capabilities, I feel bewildered myself but I’ll work it out.