Targets

[Beef Oven!]

Exactly.

?

Where has anyone said 'everything is objectively measurable' ?

I deliberately couched all reference to targets in a common sense and rational fashion in a vain attempt to avoid the usual straw man arguments that threadsters seem to adore.

[Serial_Apologist]

?

Where has anyone said 'everything is objectively measurable' ?

I deliberately couched all reference to targets in a common sense and rational fashion in a vain attempt to avoid the usual straw man arguments that threadsters seem to adore.

Measured evidence? I didn't see any.

[Beef Oven!]

Measured evidence? I didn't see any.

Where didn't you see any?

[Serial_Apologist]

Where didn't you see any?

In your posts.

[Dave2002]

Sadly, everything is now based on usefulness in the jobs market.

It may always have been thus - but the notion of usefulness may vary. My view, which is very biased, is that most "useful" things or activities (using today's terminology) are in fact totally worthless to any sane person.

[Conchis]

The value of studying arts subjects is not quanitifiable. But consider this: someone who is no good at the 'employable' subjects might be good at expressing themselves through painting, drawing, acting, dancing, creative writing, or music. Their aptitude in these areas might not result in a 'career' or even gainful employment - but it might give them an important insight into how they can express themselves in ways other than stealing cars, robbing houses or getting involved in bar brawls.

[teamsaint]

Does music as a subject to teach have potential which some other subjects do not have? Without straying too far from PC correctness, some subjects such as maths are likely to be out of reach at anything other than a modest level for around 70% of the school population, and some of the more interesting parts of maths can perhaps only be tackled by 5-10% of students. The idea that everyone can learn maths even to a modest level is, IMO, a false one.

It may be that music and art are subjects which many students could study and make useful contributions to, as well as gaining enjoyment and understanding, so rather than pushing them out of the curriculum perhaps greater efforts should be made to retain and expand them within schools.

There is evidence that chinese students perform at a much higher level than UK and other european counterparts in maths.

So there is a cultural and educational failing in regards to maths that we need to address. Just saying that is too difficult is both wrong, and counter productive.

[Beef Oven!]

In your posts.

Nor need there be.

[Dave2002]

The value of studying arts subjects is not quanitifiable. But consider this: someone who is no good at the 'employable' subjects might be good at expressing themselves through painting, drawing, acting, dancing, creative writing, or music. Their aptitude in these areas might not result in a 'career' or even gainful employment - but it might give them an important insight into how they can express themselves in ways other than stealing cars, robbing houses or getting involved in bar brawls.

I very much agree with this. I don't care so much about whether everyone has "employable" subject skills - though it's nice if they can pick them up, but surely education should really be about learning how to participate in society as much as anything else.
Though even that may be difficult for some.

[Dave2002]

So there is a cultural and educational failing in regards to maths that we need to address. Just saying that is too difficult is both wrong, and counter productive.

No - it is not wrong - nor necessarily counter productive. It depends to some extent on the abilities of the potential students. Appropriate encouragement is needed, but it can be cruel to try to make students do things which they are not prepared for and may realistically never be able to understand.

There are students who could do well at maths who are put off at an early age, and perhaps never recover. Once they have decided (or it's been decided for them) that they can't do it, then they give up and it becomes self fulfilling - which is a shame. There are also many misconceptions about what "maths" is - it's not about arithmetic, nor is it always about equations. It contains some "simple" ideas, such as if there's a point inside a closed line on a 2D surface then any line to any point outside must intersect the boundary at least once. Much of maths is like that and can be rather fun to think about.

[anotherbob]

It contains some "simple" ideas, such as if there's a point inside a closed line on a 2D surface then any line to any point outside must intersect the boundary at least once.

You've lost me there.

[Lat-Literal]

There is a difference between time related targets and performance related targets. Generally, time related targets are helpful to the public. My experience of performance related targets includes work units where six people performed unusually well but two had to be assessed as outstanding, two as good and two as needing improvement because that spread was required in every unit so as to minimise performance related pay and surgeries not so much nudging patients into various jabs and tests as making it known that to say no was regarded as unacceptable purely on the grounds that they were assessed on what percentage of a certain section took up on them. That puts the surgeries first while being able to claim that the patients are also being put first when in reality it simply makes the patients subservient to the fashionable line to take even when it is far from proven that it is beneficial even in saving costs nationally. The main gainers are those who decide the policy, endorsed with subsequent promotion, the surgeries, and private industry which manufactures them.

The 10 year growth in the population was 3,259,700 in the 1960s, 697,500 in the 1970s, 907,800 in the 1980s, 1,648,600 in the 1990s, 3,873,400 in the 2000s and it is 4,600,200 in the 2010s to date. The 1970s are hardly remembered as a time when everything was economically easy but a country helps itself or causes itself impossible problems in these areas. Obviously targets generally will feel more attainable when the changes are less dramatic. Any turnaround in the 1980s had far less to do with Thatcherism than the inheritance of conditions which, while they on paper could seem catastrophic, were able to be alleviated by any one of a number of policy approaches. Key to those conditions was the numerology.

There is a lot about modern society that is unreal. Currently, the people who are instinctively kindly and welcoming towards new people and who speak loudest about social care for the elderly are also among the biggest champions of the environment. However, given the housing implications of increased populations. you can't have a sustainable green environment as we have all enjoyed when the population is expanding as fast as it is today. The building demands are simply much too great. It is only in Scotland where there isn't that tension. Its person to land ratio is massively smaller than in any other part of the UK. In fact, its least populated county has the same ratio as the least populated state in the United States.

Why, then, should there be barely any difference between Scottish people and others when it comes to attitudes towards future population increases? That's the part of the equation concerning what we used to call the welfare state. Inadequate numbers of staff are a bit of a red herring in that they run into a few thousands and not millions. They could be addressed by improvements in education and resourcing. The biggest issue is that the kindliness in people anywhere who have friendly attitudes towards others with no limits is incompatible with providing them all with adequate services. It really doesn't matter in that regard whether you have a very high or a very low population to land ratio. We are all in the same boat.