Poorly taught physics to blame for lack of understanding of car electricals?

I enjoyed the subject, unfortunately my maths let me down in any greater progress.

I don't think I even did capacitors, and that was, a little less then you, 25 years ago.

The message from Chris Street contains these words:

That's what annoys me about the "energy ratings" on tumble driers. We've a condensing drier[1] which means that we don't have to throw all that hot humid air out into the wide blue yonder, we dry it and keep it tucked up nice and warm in the house. Since we don't use it much anyway, and then only in winter this suits us fine but isn't even slightly reflected in the apparently apalling figures for condensing driers.

Maths made A levels scary but I left for college after one term. Unfortunately I was in the first year of one of those educational experiments so loved by socialist Governments of the time, namely new maths or IIRC what they called SMP maths. The teachers were even more lost than us pupils.

Yes, I remember capacitors and Vandengraph generators and all kind of other lovely things that I have forgotten the relevance of.

Huw

Hey - I did SMP maths. IIRC it was at least partly developed by independent schools, which means it was hardly likely to be a socialist experiment. (googles) It's still going...

I didn't find any problems with it, and neither did my teachers - but we both had the advantage of what was by then a well developed curriculum, as well as being quite good at it.

cheers, clive

I obviously frequent the wrong class of tip.....

The only thing I ever found of use on a tip was a large sheet of mirror glass, which cracked when I dropped it getting it out of the car at home.

So I swept it up and took it back to the tip.....

They've experimented with all kinds of crap over the years. I have to learn to read and write using the ITA scheme.

Indeed. I think I definitely would have learnt more had I seen the practical relevance I what we were being taught.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Adrian saying something like:

Thanfully it wasn't Rati Sullivan.

The curriculum was entirely new then and a mystery to the somewhat mediocre teachers in the maths department and even more of a mystery to us pupils. Out of some 50 trying O level maths that particular year only some 15 actually passed and most of them had external tuition. A bloody disgrace deserving of legal action I would have thought. Technical and Engineering Drawing was worse still [I did not try that one] with not a single pass, mainly due to it being a completely new subject in that school being taught by an old woodwork teacher LOL. Biology, Agriculture [last year to do that one], Physics and Chemistry were no problem really because the curriculum was well established with skilled and committed teachers.

Huw

Huw

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Huw" saying something like:

I agree. My various science teachers/lecturers were ex-industry and peppered their lessons with practical examples of things from the power generation and chemical industries. Fascinating stuff, most of it.

Imo, teachers shouldn't be hired unless they've done some relevant work in their field.

We did lasers too but only because the teacher was hopelessly addicted to cigs and used it as an excuse to light up to generate some "smoke".

The message from "Huw" contains these words:

My headmaster was one of the bunch who wrote SMP. Sadly, this meant that we stayed lumbered with it long after the rest of the country had seen sense, and only dropped it some years after I left when the head quit.

Then again - I loved the Nuffield Physical Science A-level course. It was like ¾ physics, ¾ chemistry. In the last few terms the relationship between physics and chemistry became beautifully outlined. Smashing course.

The message from Chris Street contains these words:

Sadly that tip's shut now.

I turned up with half a tree in the boot and saw someone dumping a tumble drier. Before I could get the tree out of the boot some bastard stole the drier.

When I went back with the other half of the tree some hours later the same bloke was bringing it back again. So I grabbed it, ignoring his comment that it was beyond repair. Turned out the drum had come off the bearing spider at the back - the rivets had pulled through the sheet of the drum back. I imagine someone had grossly overloaded it[1]. Some penny washers with coachbolts and nylocs and away it went.

The message from snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com (Andy Hewitt) contains these words:

There were still some ITA books floating about when I was a kid. We used to marvel at them and wondered when we'd get to learn to read Martian.

For those who've not met it...

And he probably knows from first hand experience why things go wrong - i.e. flywheel bolts not evenly tightened causing the thing not to be properly balanced, bolts in fast moving parts that haven't had locking compound used on them that vibrate loose, the importance of evenly torquing head bolts, etc etc. A good knowledge of physics means that someone with less experience can see why something might go wrong, and a good way of preventing it by doing things properly, that a lot of mechanics might fail to grasp, and possibly a lot of more experienced mechanics as well.

-- Tell me your birthday!

The message from "AstraVanMan" contains these words:

Now, there's a whole new can of worms.

Kids aren't allowed to break things like we used to. How are they supposed to learn how strong wood is if they don't make a ramp and jump their bikes over it or swing on a branch and have it snap? How do you learn how tough steel is unless you spend a happy day destroying an old pram?

My sister teaches science to 8, 9 and 10 year olds. She's noticed over the last few years that they are less and less able to do floating and sinking experiments with water. The other day she had a brainwave and asked how many of them never used baths but always used showers. Turned out that almost none of 'em bathed at all - so they didn't get the 2 hours play with floating things that kids used to get.

I don't even want to look, it took me ages to learn to read an' write proper!

My wife teaches and she was on a course this last Monday [was it only yesterday?] where she was told that primary school kids will now effectively learn through play in the early years. Discipline and set times for lunch will fly out of the window. The best teachers will ignore this rubbish and teach 3r's from the start. We've been down this road before and it failed then as it will fail again. Kids appreciate being pushed to the limit of their ability. If they can get away with doing very little that is what they will do. Due to the appalling social and cognitive skills of recent [last few years] intake of pupils, the other day she asked a class of 25, "how many of you are read a story at bedtime?" Only two hand went up. The rest mostly went to bed with mummy setting a video going. This is the fault of previous generations who seem to have forgotten to teach their siblings the basics of parenting skills, and increasingly any kind of discipline. Some children now go to school unable to hold a knife and fork much less a pencil and lack discipline to the point of almost being like untamed animals. What is the Country coming to, and more importantly, where is this untamed underclass with sometimes hostile parentage going?

Huw Rant over for now.

"Guy King" wrote >

It is properly called the Pitman Initial Teaching Alphabet. So it is PITA, which I always thought meant Pain In The Ass. It still does of course, in both context.

Huw