The Night Mail

[Compound2632]

47 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

I can think independently and think what you have stated is not true.

 

Absolutely, as to the nature of education - but there are employers, politicians, this-that-and-the-other deniers, and other such charlatans about who would rather not see young people learn how to evaluate evidence and reason independently. That's what I understood @rockershovel to mean.

[The White Rabbit]

3 hours ago, rockershovel said:

The problem nowadays is that it is no longer thought desirable that graduates should be taught to think independently, and draw reasoned conclusions from the evidence available.  ...

 

1 hour ago, Tony_S said:

I can think independently and think what you have stated is not true.

Even before higher education as one example, secondary school history is more about analysing sources than remembering dates and names of monarchs. 

 

In my (admittedly limited experience) at secondary school and then at graduate level, much lip service was paid to encouraging independent thought and analytical skills. The trouble was, if you deviated from the 'party line' on so called independent thinking, then you suddenly became very unpopular with the teachers/tutors. The lesson I and many of my contemporaries took away was you are allowed to say you can think and analyse facts/data - but woe betide you if you actually come up with something genuinely original or which deviates from the 'received wisdom' of your department/section, even if the facts support your case beyond reasonable doubt. Shades of Galileo! 

[iL Dottore]

5 minutes ago, The White Rabbit said:

 

 

In my (admittedly limited experience) at secondary school and then at graduate level, much lip service was paid to encouraging independent thought and analytical skills. The trouble was, if you deviated from the 'party line' on so called independent thinking, then you suddenly became very unpopular with the teachers/tutors. The lesson I and many of my contemporaries took away was you are allowed to say you can think and analyse facts/data - but woe betide you if you actually come up with something genuinely original or which deviates from the 'received wisdom' of your department/section, even if the facts support your case beyond reasonable doubt. Shades of Galileo! 

That’s definitely an issue. Call me a jaded old cynic if you will, but I think as long as you are being creative in the ways that you can say “red is actually green, if it wants to be“, you can be as “independent minded” and “creative“ as you wish. But if you dare say, for example, “well, no. Red is Red” God help you.

There’s a certain groupthink that has taken over much of media and politics, whereby everyone buys in to the same concepts, with absolutely no room or even tolerance for dissent or dissenting views. To make a non-political, but illustrative example, if groupthink dictates that “tinned baked beans are the best food ever”. Not only can’t you say that “maybe tinned beans aren’t that good after all“, but to suggest an alternative – such as “tinned goulash is much better than tinned beans“ is to render you an outcast (an ***ist) with unspeakable views, no matter if the evidence shows more people buy and eat tinned goulash than tinned beans.
 

As I said before, they may be all singing different arias but they’re all singing in the same opera.

[DenysW]

3 hours ago, polybear said:

has never been to a cricket match - the closest I've been is seeing one going on in a field as I drive by.  I reckon that's close enough....

Nor have I, since skule. However, my son, on the broader subject of cricket and its ability to grip the attention, say that he quite enjoys watching paint dry. Not only that, he has studied the properties and characteristics of drying paint (when undercoating his Warhammer models) to improve the effectiveness/productivity of his activities in that field. The field of cricket has never interested him in this way.

 

His son quite likes model railways.

[DenysW]

12 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

tinned goulash is much better than tinned beans

Is it? Enquiring minds want to know!

[Happy Hippo]

We got to Welshpool at just after 1000 in one piece, and  then proceeded to set up at a very leisurely pace

 

Everything was up and running by 1125.

 

The Brio railway which is next to us has a Hippo hiding under a bridge.

 

Obviously, what we thought was funny last year had caught on!

[Tony_S]

1 minute ago, Happy Hippo said:

has a Hippo hiding under a bridge.

A company called Hippo Toys have just posted some scenic materials to me. It wasn’t in stock at the local train emporium, so perhaps one of your relatives will benefit from my custom!

[Happy Hippo]

2 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

A company called Hippo Toys have just posted some scenic materials to me. It wasn’t in stock at the local train emporium, so perhaps one of your relatives will benefit from my custom!

Based in the Conwy area last time I was there.

[Tony_S]

25 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

Based in the Conwy area last time I was there.

But not your relatives?

[J. S. Bach]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

 ...snip... “tinned goulash is much better than tinned beans“  ...snip...

I have never seen canned goulash. Too bad (if you were being serious, that is) as I would definitely have tried it.

[DenysW]

8 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

I have never seen canned goulash. Too bad (if you were being serious, that is) as I would definitely have tried it.

On a quick trawl on the (UK) Interweb, definitely avoid the stuff marketed as dogfood for £4. The 500 ml jars at £8 might be edible. @iL Dottore - come on - several hungry nations look to you!

[Tony_S]

56 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

I have never seen canned goulash. Too bad (if you were being serious, that is) as I would definitely have tried it.

When I was at school there was some sort of beef stew every week for lunch. It was given all sorts of exciting foreign names but it was always just stew. I have never eaten tinned goulash either. We used to follow an allegedly Hungarian recipe but Aditi  really prefers less spicy recipes, so haven’t made it for ages. 

Edited August 30 by Tony_S

[TheQ]

Evening all

the only cricket matches I've watched live, were from just inside the boundary in the direction the batsman was least likely to hit. I was that good at the game

 

At school we had steak pie, otherwise translated as gristle in a thin gravy, with a bit of pastry thrown on top often literally.

 

 

Edited August 30 by TheQ

[Tony_S]

55 minutes ago, DenysW said:

avoid the stuff marketed as dogfood for £4.

Back when my son was in year 8 part of the curriculum was called food technology.For homework one week the students had to find a packet/ready meal, list the  ingredients and find out what they were.  The only packet meal he could find was the dog’s lamb and rice kibble. So he listed that. At first his teacher was “not amused” but he said his family didn’t have stuff like pot noodles or similar products, and she forgave him. 

[SM42]

1 hour ago, DenysW said:

On a quick trawl on the (UK) Interweb, definitely avoid the stuff marketed as dogfood for £4. The 500 ml jars at £8 might be edible. @iL Dottore - come on - several hungry nations look to you!

 

A strange quirk of food regs is that dog food must be fit for human consumption. 

 

A colleague regularly eats dog biscuits. 

 

It doesn't do him any harm but his hair is lovely and shiny. 

 

Andy

[Winslow Boy]

I don't want to worry the Great H, especially whilst he's on a jolly, but I noted a very worrying piece in the paper today. It would appear that the authorities in Namibia have decided that a cull of hippos should occur. Should our esteemed leader be worried?

[BSW01]

30 minutes ago, SM42 said:

 

A strange quirk of food regs is that dog food must be fit for human consumption. 

 

A colleague regularly eats dog biscuits. 

 

It doesn't do him any harm but his hair is lovely and shiny. 

 

Andy

Arrr, but can he lick his own b@lls?

[SM42]

5 minutes ago, BSW01 said:

Arrr, but can he lick his own b@lls?

 

That may be what he was hoping 

 

Andy

[monkeysarefun]

2 hours ago, DenysW said:

On a quick trawl on the (UK) Interweb, definitely avoid the stuff marketed as dogfood for £4. 

 

 

You'll change your tune when the apocalypse gets here!

 

 

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[AndyID]

18 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

as he knows he isn’t a “cake stealing monster”

 

 

I'm not entirely sure about that.

[jjb1970]

A few years ago Noam Chomsky famously posited that the way to control political discourse is to establish limits on what can be discussed while encouraging rigorous debate within those boundaries. I think this is true in the education and the business worlds where colleges and employers like creative and original thought so long as it is within certain boundaries. Start questioning those boundaries and you may soon find life becoming more difficult. 

[rockershovel]

13 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Indeed, because employers don't like employees capable of independent thought.

 

 

Likewise, this is what employers prefer - they do not like to have their absurd practices challenged.

I don't believe employers are involved in setting policy on this level 

[rockershovel]

1 hour ago, jjb1970 said:

A few years ago Noam Chomsky famously posited that the way to control political discourse is to establish limits on what can be discussed while encouraging rigorous debate within those boundaries. I think this is true in the education and the business worlds where colleges and employers like creative and original thought so long as it is within certain boundaries. Start questioning those boundaries and you may soon find life becoming more difficult. 

As with much of his output, Chomsky was simply plagiarising other things said long before. 

 

See Orwell's essay on the subject of the control of thought through the  politicisation of language, which lays the groundwork for his two final novels. 

[jamie92208]

There are the remains if a thunderstorm heading past us.  The garden needed the rain.  

 

Jamie