[TAG] Usenet (was Re: [Fwd:] In RI federal court -- Harvard?vs. the RIAA)

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Thomas Adam (thomas.adam22 at gmail.com):

> Good -- please tell me your views on the current GCSE system which is
> purportedly being scrapped in favour of International Baccalaureate.

First, I'll have to update my acquintance with what the General Teaching
Councils have been up to -- which knowledge was last refreshed back
around the time Edward Heath still called 10 Downing Street home, GCSE
hadn't yet been invented, and people were still studying up for
O-levels under the 1950s GCE system.  ;->

You might be nostalgic for the GCE system, but it was rather too much
influenced by the psychological "twin studies" of Cyrl Burt on the
extent to which intelligence was deemed inheritable, which are now known
to have been (in part) falsified -- although, oddly enough, probably
pretty much correct despite Burt's fudging of data.  In particular, it
was based largely on Burt's findings that the GCE system attempted to
classify students and determine their long-term futures as soon as
possible after they reached 11 years of age.  (See summary:
http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/burt.shtml)  

When last I took a good long look -- and, as mentioned, this was ages
ago -- the UK system thus struck me as attempting to set one onto one's 
educational specialty (if any) incredibly early, at least relative to
USA norms, which encourage you to drift along with no specialty
whatsoever through high school, and then likewise be a collegiate
dilettante, too (tuition funds permitting), studying anything and
everything as long as you eventually get enough units in _some_ major
field of study to qualify for a degree.

> For years, teachers have argued that the GCSE system are dumbing-downs
> of what the GCE system used to be (i.e., exams nowadays under the GCSE
> system focus on more practical aspects, rather than the theoretical).
> Not knowing anything about IBs, I am curious to know if you have such
> opinions.  :)

Well, I do lack (most) basis for an opinion -- but the GCSE system does
seem to still encourage Burtian early specialisation.  The IB system
tests in six subjects, whereas typical AS-level students do about three
in their final years, and often all of those are closely related, right?

I tend to think that a broader education through both high school _and_
college is in general a better idea for students and for one's country,
so, at a quick glace, something closer to the IB regime strikes me as
likely to be an improvement.

I'll admit to a pronouncedly Yank perspective on this matter, Thomas. ;->