Jake's Latest News
Sociology Essays - Thursday 16th October 2003
I’ve finally got round to putting all my sociology essays online properly. Some are good, some are okay, and some are just awful! On the plus side the quality has definitely improved a lot since I started uni. Go read them now if you’re bored.
I’ve made a few more updates to this site recently. Looks a lot nicer than it used to.
Exploring Snowdonia - Sunday 12th October 2003
Just got back from a weekend in Snowdonia with the Explorers Society here at uni. I hadn’t been before and I had a great time - some stunning views and generally just good to be outdoors for a bit with a good group of people. Introduced to ’scrambling’ which is basically climbing with your hands a bit, but isn’t as hard-core as ‘climbing’ proper which you need a rope for all the time and proper climbing shoes. Or something like that. Did use a rope on one bit though. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a view from the top of Mount Snowdon because you could only see around 10 metres through the mist. Oh well. Anyway, go have a look at my photos.
Wireless Networking - Friday 10th October 2003
At home we have a wireless network. At uni we have a wireless network. And I’ve also just setup a wireless network next door to my house at uni. They’re really rather nifty. A linksys wireless access point and router connects directly to an NTL cable modem, and it only costs ?60. Then you can get Actiontec wireless USB adapters for ?50 for a two pack, so ?25 each. Very cheap networking. And it works well, too. I’ve just finished installing next door to my house, and am writing this totally wireless there. At last… useful technology which actually works.
Disabling Education System - Tuesday 7th October 2003
In the long run, I want to be a teacher. I want to be a teacher for many reasons, but partly want to change a failing system from the inside-out.
“The British education system today [1984, mind] probably harms more people than it helps… To be a pupil in a large school is a strange experience… organizationally, the secondary school is not organized around the pupil as *worker* but around the pupil as *product*. That so many come through it, smiling, grateful and grown up is a tribute to the dedication of many teachers who impose their humanity and personality on those huge processing-plants [schools]. But many do not come through so well They leave alienated by an institution that seems to them oppressive, irrelevant and dismissive of their possible contributins to the world. Truly, for them, it is a disabling system.
“Why… do we have an assessment system so biased towards one dimension… could there not be more multidimensional assessment, more tests in which ‘celver’ did not always mean ‘best’?
“Why is co-operation (even called ‘cheating’) so frowned upon in education when *work* is always organized around co-operating, sharing groups? Do schools falsely encourage an individualist approach to work because that suits their examination system?
“The education system has outlived the society which created it…”
(pp. 133-138), Charles Handy (1985) ‘The Future of Work’, Oxford: Basil Blackwell
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