British Expat Newsletter

31 August 2005

Hello, and welcome to those who have joined up since our last newsletter.

In this issue

This week: Edukashun
On the website
Virtual Snacks
Sponsor
Bizarre Searches
Joke and quotation

This week

Those of you who have teenage kids will be all too well aware that exam results have been published during the last month. For many of us the tense summer weeks of waiting are a dim and distant memory. (Not for me - I had to go through that ordeal earlier this year while waiting for my MSc result.) But I think we're all aware that it's a very stressful time; after all, the results can be life-changing. All the more so now that the government are trying so hard to boost the numbers attending university after school.

The results have never been better, we're told, with over 96% of A-level exams resulting in passes - the percentage has risen for the last 23 years in succession. But there's a lot of scepticism over this, with the inevitable annual debate over whether teaching methods are genuinely improving or, as many suspect, exams are getting easier. It now seems that the truth may lie elsewhere. The numbers taking A-levels in languages are in decline, with many students choosing "softer" courses such as the much-derided media studies. One media studies university lecturer recently sought to defend his subject on the BBC's website, but drew a set of generally unfavourable comments in response - including from some who confessed to having taken media studies as an easy option.

That raises the whole question of the type of learning schoolchildren undertake - learning by rote or learning how to think. In many of Asia's developing countries, much of the teaching that goes on depends on rote learning rather than pursuing knowledge through enquiry. This extends beyond primary school, where you might expect it, to quite advanced levels in the education system - Dave's sat on scholarship interview panels in the South Asian sub-continent where his fellow panellists - most of them university lecturers - seemed to regard it as their job to catch the candidates out on gaps in their factual knowledge, not test their ability to put together a reasoned argument. Very depressing. This quotation from the BBC/British Council English teaching website explains why:

"Knowledge is changing rapidly; memorising facts and figures which could shortly be outdated does not seem wise. However, learning how to access knowledge quickly and effectively, and evaluating it, as structured inquiry does, seems much wiser."

(Source: BBC/British Council Teaching English website)

Cultural differences lie at the root of this, no doubt. It's much rarer for a student to challenge a teacher in an Asian classroom than it would be in Europe or North America. But there are other differences. For instance, Scott Hipsher tells us in his guide to studying in Bangkok (added to our website today) that it's quite usual for postgrad university coursework to be undertaken in groups, and for each participant in the group to be awarded the same mark for the work. Something of an alien concept to most UK students, I should think - particularly given the spirit of competition which is instilled in our classrooms through the constant testing.

Do you have any thoughts on this issue? Why not tell us about it on the forum?
British Expat Forum

On the Website

In last week's email newsletter we wrote about people doing unusual things - strange journeys and some even stranger jobs. This resulted in some great feedback and even a couple of new articles for the main website about the bizarre things you've done, or even - in Trevor Dykes's case - are still doing. The word of the week is "bizarre"!

This week we've added:

The first part of Bob Fretwell's bizarre trip to Mexico. "I had been trying to fly to Bolivia, but there was no available plane on the 15th, so we decided to fly to Mexico and walk to Bolivia. (It was only a few inches on the map!)" Don't miss this one!
From Mexico City to Mexicali by Train

And the latest news from Trevor Dykes. "I can't tell you precisely where I am. This isn't a matter of secrecy. It's a consequence of my overall unfamiliarity with the local geography and the fact that most of the road signs are in Turkish." Read Trevor's account of his Turkish "invasion" and the bizarre fake ruins at Belek.
News from the Front

Trevor and Bob both contribute so much to BE that we decided to add them to our Team Page. The page has also been updated to include some tasteful photos of us. I also noticed that some of our other columnists and former columnists aren't on the page - so if you fall into that category and would like to be on the Team Page, please get in touch!
Team Page

Other things added this week include Mark Eastwood's piece on why Spanish property prices have gone through the roof, more on our Australian wine series by Gavin Trott, and Scott Hipsher's guide to studying in Bangkok (very interesting if you're wanting a postgraduate degree without breaking the bank).

Each week I delve into the dark cavernous interior of the BE website to see what gems I can unearth - good things you may have missed first time around. Here are my picks for this week:

Rowland Jack, based in Switzerland, writes a great column for us: An Incompetent Continental. Here's one of my favourites, in which he explains "Jetiquette" - budget flying the right way. Great stuff!

Savannah Alan wrote a guide for anyone considering moving to Georgia, USA ("where they put the 'fun' in fundamentalism"). Funny!

And finally, Mike Kingdom-Hockings's "lack of progress" report in which he describes the difficulties of looking after a number of dogs. Here's a small taster of this amazing insight into Mike's life in Botswana: "Then my son, who had just graduated as a vet and doesn't stand aggression from any creature, including humans, was on the receiving end of this behaviour. The air was blue for about ten minutes, and Max ended up cowering at the other end of the garden for half an hour. Nick warned me that I would need to assert my authority, because if Max attacked me and knocked me to the ground the whole pack would pile in. He told me I should not rely on the sjambok, but carry a weapon with which I could kill Max if I needed to. He even showed me how."
MKH Dog Pack Status Report

If you're looking for travel features on the site, a good place to start is our Expat World page.
Expat World

Virtual Snacks

Cultsock - the Communication, Cultural and Media Studies Infobase - has a lot of very interesting - if rather caustic - stuff about the state of further and higher education in the UK. Here's a particularly biting essay about the "commodification" of education - universities as businesses:
Cultsock essay

If you have a child of school leaving age who isn't sure what he or she wants to study yet, why not point them in the direction of Salford University's Higher National Diploma in stand-up comedy? This is no joke...
BBC News - A joke with qualifications

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Bizarre Searches

Some strange search terms which have led people to visit British Expat recently:

wilt chamberlain penis
how to make englishes chicken
sex tips for greek men
hyperactive shih tzu
fairy tales film british adult
celebs captures unknowingly
bunkfest lineup
saggy
how people communicate on olden days
ross german kick boxer
rip my cloths [sic] off
british nude women with nude men alone in the rome and doing sex

Till next time...
Happy surfing!

Kay
Editor
British Expat Magazine

Quotation

"It can be said unequivocally that good teaching is far more complex, difficult, and demanding than mediocre research, which may explain why professors try so hard to avoid it."

- Page Smith, US historian and university lecturer (1917-95)

Joke

A mum and dad are worried about their son not wanting to learn maths at the school he's in, so they decide to send him to a Catholic school instead.

After the first day of school, their son comes racing into the house, goes straight into his room and slams the door shut. Mum and dad are a little worried about this and go to his room to see if he is okay. They find him sitting at his desk doing his homework.

The boy keeps doing that for the rest of the year.

At the end of the year the son brings home his report card and gives it to his mum and dad. Looking at it they see under maths an A+.

Mum and Dad are very happy and ask the son, "What changed your mind about learning maths?"

The son looked at his parents and said, "Well, on the first day when I walked into the classroom, I saw a guy nailed to the plus sign at the back of the room behind the teacher's desk and I knew they meant business."

Bonus joke:

The parents were very disappointed in the grades that their son brought home. "The only consolation I can find in these awful grades," lamented the mother, "is that I know he never cheated during his exams."