The things kids say

[Cenwulf]

I was turned off history at school. Mainly because the teaching wasn't exactly riveting. In the primary years I had gone through the various eras (Romans, Saxons, Vikings, Tudors, Stuarts, Georgians, Victorians) and then found myself back with the Saxons and Vikings in secondary school. It seemed like a waste of time.
But now I'm quite fond of history. The reason for this change - Time Team! It's given me a better understanding of history than I ever got taught at school.

"History is not what you thought. History is what you remember." (Sellars and Yeatman, 1066 and All That)

[Bunnylump]

One of my Mum's friends (she used to teach with him) appears on time team sometimes. He's a farmer (as well as a part time biology teacher) and has a real interest in ancient blacksmithing techniques. He's appeared a couple of times on the programmes. He also has an iron age fort on his land.

[kingsley]

We had a History teacher a couple of years ago who was so rubbish and boring that we ended up a couple of months behind the other classes. We missed out an entire topic to catch up! The plus side was that when it came to revising for the end of year exam, he literally told us the questions and the answers for all of the topics that we hadn't covered properly. I ended up with about 70% in the exam!!!

[Bunnylump]

That's a bit of a result!!!

[giraffe]

Was that the exam that someone got 107% for, after they moved the marks up?

[Bunnylump]

Brilliant.

I remember doing a Latin exam once when the teacher had not realised that he'd left all the vocabulary on one of those "rolling" blackboards they used to have. We rolled it back down directly before he came in the room, and all copied it and got 100%. Well, all of us apart from the two REALLY dim kids who couldn't copy properly. The stupid thing was the teacher just thought he'd done a really good job of teaching us and never suspected a thing.

[MBH]

You lot are doing NOTHING to improve my (oft critisized) thoughts on teachers and exams

[clvrlad]

thats the problem with exams
the teachers and the students have an obvious way of seeing how well there doing
so they just focus on the goal
so lots of facts and figures for history
when really its a story that were still living with consequences the those decisions have brought us to for example someone mentioned a certain uprising in Scotland just so certain people don't have to learn anything
which was all to do with the legitimacy of the monarchy and the role of Catholics within Britain and helped ferment uprisings in Ireland and involved the battle of Culloden which is officially the last battle to be fought on British soil and banning of the tartansee told you i never studied history
thats why i loved the non gcse option of integrated humanities i couldgo off and spend the afternoon in the reference section of the library studying one of several options fulfilling criteria to make it a project and possibly helping someone else present it to the group

[eirian]

Ooh, I remember a latin exam. I sat next to Gill, who scored 99% in the exam (and went on to study maths at Oxford). I cheated as much as possible from her and still only got 47%... Something tells me latin was not my strongest subject!

[giraffe]

Well I used to sit in Latin lessons with my sister's book on my lap (she was in the year above and quite a linguist) just in case the teacher asked me to translate anything. The latin teacher was very fierce and I dread to think what her reaction would have been if she had found the book.

[MBH]

Errr...... You lot had Latin lessons? We had enough trouble with English

[SparkOut]

Caicaelius est in triclinium. Canis est in via.
I never did Latin.

History was a subject that alternated between phases of being really dull and tedious, and really interesting, depending on the teacher and the methods used. Dry dates and facts made it very bad. Other things, like the who/how/why and consequences of things made history take shape, and I agree that programmes like Time Team can make this sort of history come alive. One of my history teachers asked at the beginning of the year "Who among you is bored to tears by History?" and there were a lot of us who put hands up. Then he went on to discuss what history is about. Dates and battle sites? no, not really. It's all about people. "And why should we say that people are boring?" He went on for that year to cover history more like a dramatic story, and there was a lot more enthusiasm as a result.
Reading a novel such as Kidnapped is made much more enjoyable by awareness of some of the historical background too. And vice versa - having read a novel such as that, can make the study of the surrounding history that much more enjoyable too. And that old subject of the Battle of Culloden is made all the more interesting to me as there are a great many of my ancestral relatives who died there.

[eirian]

Errr...... You lot had Latin lessons? We had enough trouble with English

Unfortunately, yes. I was in the top set and therefore had to study latin. It was about the only time I'd've preferred to be in the bottom set - they did classical studies instead. I was hopeless at languages (spent more time trying to learn vocab for latin & french than revising any other subject, and got worse marks. My french teacher (who I got on well with btw), was glad when I gave it up...)

[Bunnylump]

I've been in year 10 exams today. A question had 2 pie charts with data for number of medals (bronze silver and gold) for 2 olympic games. The question was
"Looking at these charts, suggest a way you could tell that there were more bronze medals won than either gold or silver"

A boy answered:

"You can tell there are more bronze medals because it's obviously so much easier to get bronze than the other two".

Yeah, piece of cake, I'd say...

Another one was trying to add fractions and express them in their simplest form, and decided the simplest way to express 5/8 was 2.5/4.

Ever felt like shooting yourself? (I hasten to add that none of these are pupils I've taught maths to... )

I cheered myself up by pointing out that the maths department had said that if people hadn't remembered their equipment we shouldn't really lend them protractors / rulers etc. So (since about half the group had forgotten everything apart from a pen) I made them recite:
"Please lovely and beautiful Mrs. ----, the best Teaching Assistant on the planet, may I borrow your maths kit?" before I'd allow the invigilators (who thought I was off my rocker) to lend them. Well, it made me laugh, anyway...

[gill216]

Not quite a kid but might as well be.

OH has just informed me that rain is wetter than water

(Why? Because the garden gets soaked faster with rain than it does with a hose pipe. )

Not a lot you cn say to that is there!

[giraffe]

Lally described drizzle as "that small, but wet rain" (as opposed to the big, but dry rain?)

[Bunnylump]

I think they both have a point, actually!

My daughter (who is training to be a primary school teacher at the moment) came home today horrified. She'd been sitting with a group of year 4 kids and one of them said
"Miss, did you know you have a spider attached to your hair?"

(She's terrified of spiders but had to try to keep calm)...She could see it out of the corner of her eye, so said to the boy:

"OK, Thomas, could you get it out for me please?"

The boy tried to grab the spider, missed, and knocked it down her top!! She had to try to calmly walk out of the classroom before she could shut the door, screech, and shake a big spider out of her underwear!! EEEk!

[pebbles]

I'd have bliddy screamed!

[Bunnylump]

Well, me too. But as I'm a truly caring mother I just laughed at her!! (MBH has already told me off for being a wicked mother!)

[gill216]

I'm a truly caring mother too. My adult daughter had her belly button pierced- I told her I hoped it festered.

It did- and I laughed