Théo and the chickens des Sauches

[ManueB]

Well, I have been in the situation of lowering the level of what I taught because too many students had difficulties. As a librarian I taught a subject, information seeking, which I thought shouldn't even exist on it's own, and there was no way I was ready to flunk a student because of it. I have never attended uni as a student, I was always in selective schools (university is open to everyone in France) so I didn't realize that maybe a quarter of the students didn't have skills supposed to be acquired at the entrance of high school.

I don't think it's a good thing to do, but it's hard to agree that everyone should get a chance at higher education, and maintain a standard of critical thinking.

On maths specifically, I was one of those who really struggled with it, and I chose to stop maths, physics and biology entering high school (it was possible at the time but isn't anymore). I can't tell you how much I regret having done so.

And on statistics more specifically, it turns out that my job as a librarian required teaching databases where basic knowledge was needed for some functionalities. I could show how to obtain linear regression to compare societies in financial databases but couldn't explain precisely what it was. Same with Khi 2 in medical cases and biostatistics databases. Who would have thought ? It's hard to know when you're a teenager or young adult that you should put effort and struggle to learn things that seem irrelevant at the time.

At some point , I think when you specialize in something in your studies, there needs to be a form of selection. It wasn't my point of view before I worked in a university but it is now. Just lowering standards to allow everyone to pass doesn't meet the goal.
On the other hand I think it's very important to allow adults to take up studies again. This for me is a counterpart so that kids who didn't get a chance at some point for many reasons that are not necessarily only related to abilities, can have another chance later on.

@lightm I can't relate to how you feel, but I think I can understand. When we lived with my family for a year in the US 30 years ago it made us laugh so much how the academic system was made so that everyone could get As and Bs and that you even had students suing for low grades. (By the way, many aspects of schools in the US were very interesting and innovative compared to what we had). But we shouldn't have laughed because it has become a crucial problem here as well, and one that has teachers get really upset with one another. I hope your glass of liquor helped you feel a bit better . And while it's important to fight for your beliefs and your students, remember it's not personal .

 

[ManueB]

Life..got in the way today with some picaresque village drama. We didn't tend Alba's foot and the chickens had to put themselves to sleep without me . Seems everything ended well, and for once my partner did really well helping to calm things down.
Just realised the pullets and Pied Beau are already six weeks and a few days old !

 

[MaryJanet]

Life..got in the way today with some picaresque village drama.

Was it about the old horse? Gaston might've been embarrassed?

 

[ManueB]

Was it about the old horse? Gaston might've been embarrassed?

It was, and beginning to turn very ugly, if it wasn't for his grand nephew Maxime who came up with a solution that could be accepted by all.

Many of the village people here are frightened of what goes on in the city, but sometimes, I find their own behaviour terrifying. All the more when I know them to be good people - most of the time.

 

[lightm]

Mate. I hear you.

I am soooo tired of two things.

1 making learning easy.
2 blaming students for poor attainment when the course was too easy.

Also, when learning is "easy" students are not capable of working after they graduate.

Ergo, the public and students (correctly) blame the university for being shit.

I always make learning challenging through F2F assessments and through assessing higher order thinking.

Everything should be challenging but fun learning, and in my field which is packed with students who'd rather be gaming, driven by assessment.


View attachment 3645511

Thanks. I completely agree with you.

Math on a normal level is just too difficult for some students. They can be good in learning languages, history, geography, etc. But just don’t grasp math, statistics, physics and chemistry.
Imho, for this group, it is not bad to offer an alternative. I think it's better to let them learn things they can learn with some effort than to let them learn things they don't understand and never will.

Demanding to learn math at a normal level is for some student just as impossible as asking someone who is dyslexic, to read quickly and learn to write without errors. Think from a student's capabilities.

I think there's often a mismatch between the sort of maths that maths teachers/ curriculum setters think is important (and therefore offer) and the sort of maths that practically everyone needs to function in the time and place they live in (and therefore might actually be interested in to learn).

It is not demanding some math for all students. I was talking about students who choose math or stat majors willingly.

Hope I have understood both of what you are saying.

Well, I have been in the situation of lowering the level of what I taught because too many students had difficulties. As a librarian I taught a subject, information seeking, which I thought shouldn't even exist on it's own, and there was no way I was ready to flunk a student because of it. I have never attended uni as a student, I was always in selective schools (university is open to everyone in France) so I didn't realize that maybe a quarter of the students didn't have skills supposed to be acquired at the entrance of high school.

I don't think it's a good thing to do, but it's hard to agree that everyone should get a chance at higher education, and maintain a standard of critical thinking.

On maths specifically, I was one of those who really struggled with it, and I chose to stop maths, physics and biology entering high school (it was possible at the time but isn't anymore). I can't tell you how much I regret having done so.

And on statistics more specifically, it turns out that my job as a librarian required teaching databases where basic knowledge was needed for some functionalities. I could show how to obtain linear regression to compare societies in financial databases but couldn't explain precisely what it was. Same with Khi 2 in medical cases and biostatistics databases. Who would have thought ? It's hard to know when you're a teenager or young adult that you should put effort and struggle to learn things that seem irrelevant at the time.

At some point , I think when you specialize in something in your studies, there needs to be a form of selection. It wasn't my point of view before I worked in a university but it is now. Just lowering standards to allow everyone to pass doesn't meet the goal.
On the other hand I think it's very important to allow adults to take up studies again. This for me is a counterpart so that kids who didn't get a chance at some point for many reasons that are not necessarily only related to abilities, can have another chance later on.

@lightm I can't relate to how you feel, but I think I can understand. When we lived with my family for a year in the US 30 years ago it made us laugh so much how the academic system was made so that everyone could get As and Bs and that you even had students suing for low grades. (By the way, many aspects of schools in the US were very interesting and innovative compared to what we had). But we shouldn't have laughed because it has become a crucial problem here as well, and one that has teachers get really upset with one another. I hope your glass of liquor helped you feel a bit better . And while it's important to fight for your beliefs and your students, remember it's not personal .

Thanks for your stories. Yes I laugh at the US education system and curriculum a lot too.
I am still trying hard to not let this get me.

 

[Perris]

I was talking about students who choose math or stat majors willingly.

indeed, and I sympathize. And my guess is your colleague who proposed the easy/sh*t course was responding to falling enrolments.
My contribution was intended for the wider potential constituency that the discussion had embraced; sorry I should have made that clearer.

 

[ManueB]

I am still trying hard to not let this get me.

Do you think you are feeling so upset, because you are very passionate about teaching?
If that's the case, then I suppose in a way it's worth getting upset. Have another whiskey !

How is Honey doing ? I don't think I have seen an update, or I may have missed it.

*******
Pied Beau hurt and scared Piou-piou today. He charged her to mate this morning, and after that she was afraid of him and went to hide first in the wood shed, then under the laurel tree. But this afternoon he managed to stuck her and he cut her open on a straight line. Up to now she had been scaring him away . But he is so big, he’s pretty impressive when he comes charging at full speed. It's a clean cut and if it doesn't get opened again it will heal fast but he has to go. We put an ad on the equivalent of Craigslist, but if there is no better possibility, Gaston will be glad to take him. He is missing a big rooster, he has only two bantams now.

The pullets spent all day with the adults, and they are checking out the nest boxes seriously, so it sounds like we're getting near the end of their teenagers years.

Pied beau hung out with Théo, Merle and Lilly outside quite a while. Yesterday evening it was really difficult to get him to go roost in the coop, I had to lure him to go in the chicken yard with corn, then I let him do his things and he ended up going in the coop about 15 mn after everyone else and throwing Lulu off the roost.

The tree trunk seem to be helping at least Laure and Melisse, and now the ladder is in the middle some of the adult chickens use it. They don't actually climb the ladder, they hop on at about a third of the height, and then hop again directly to the roost. So even with a lot of steps added the ladder doesn't work as such.

We won't be home tonight so i’ll update tomorrow morning to say how the colloidal dressing seems to work, i’m curious what we will find. We are tending Alba this evening and her foot was already much better though.

Piou-piou this morning after the first mating by Pied beau. She was locked up so long in this woodshed she still sees it as her safe place.

The big feet with black and yellow nails that earned him his name.

Piou-piou dustbathing inside the netting out of pied beau's reach.

 

[lightm]

And my guess is your colleague who proposed the easy/sh*t course was responding to falling enrolments.

You are indeed correct. The problem is that the stat curriculum was always sh*t, such as they do not have a proper mathematical based statistics course (i am not joking), and they already don't have proper prerequisite for "high" level courses. So the correct solution to low enrollment is to have a proper change of the whole curriculum, instead of going deeper into this mess.

My contribution was intended for the wider potential constituency that the discussion had embraced; sorry I should have made that clearer.

I see. Thanks you. Sorry for not getting it.

Do you think you are feeling so upset, because you are very passionate about teaching?

I am upset because I know their route is doomed to fail. I have worked at a comparable university before and they have an undergraduate degree in data science that is very solid with rigor. It is successful. So here my colleagues are trying to be the grifter and cheat students into good sounding programs but only offer them very superficial things. It may have a temporary spike but these students will be the employees that get laid off in the future if their company have any trouble.

Think about using NPK fertilizer in the gardening rather than nurturing the soil.

How is Honey doing ? I don't think I have seen an update, or I may have missed it.

Honey is good! Thanks for asking. I guess no news is good news. She does have a permanent but very mild limp. No bumble feet. We have no idea why.

Honey on the left

 

[BDutch]

It is not demanding some math for all students. I was talking about students who choose math or stat majors willingly.

I understand your frustration if all students choose math.

Our high schools are different from US and other Eu countries. We have higher levels and go up to 18 yo. There is no choice in taking math, only in the level of difficulty. Or the type of math.

The ones who choose simple math or the economics math (statistics) cant go to some type of studies / university.
In university you choose the study, not wether you like to study math as a part of the study (exeption: the Mathematics BSc/MSc study).

You need to have a good level (with math) to get accepted for some studies. All technical studies have math on a high level in the first 2 years.
Some studies, like languages and history don’t require or teach math at all.

 

[MaryJanet]

It was, and beginning to turn very ugly, if it wasn't for his grand nephew Maxime who came up with a solution that could be accepted by all.

Many of the village people here are frightened of what goes on in the city, but sometimes, I find their own behaviour terrifying. All the more when I know them to be good people - most of the time.

Villages don't afford anonymity like big cities do. Village folks are almost obliged by circumstances to be over-sensitive about their reputations.