Poll: DET Anger Rant : now with writing!

[Markness]

Ok, firstly sorry for making a thread so shortly after my last one but I got myself riled up over how stupid I think the system is.
Secondly, I don't know for sure if the Department of Education and Training (DET) is responsible for making English compulsory but since it has education in its name I sorta assumed.
Thirdly, many Non-Australians may not have this system but I'll try to explain it.

Ok. In Australia or at least in NSW our education system is run by the DET. Our final mark for high school is determined by a 10 units (most subjects are 2 units each including english).Eg you can do six subjects but only 5 will be counted towards your final mark.

Now the part that I find incredibly stupid is that a fifth of your mark MUST be determined by your marks in English. English is the only subject you have to do in your final 2 years at high school AND it must be counted towards your mark. I see no rational explanation for this.

Many people (including me) are not the best at English but have skills in other areas such as maths and science. However we have to work incredibly hard in English so we can achieve a good HSC.

You might be thinking, but English is important for people to be understood ie spelling, grammer. However we finished all that stuff in year 10, what we do in these two years is study Shakespeare and obscure poems and generally bullshit about how they were representing the migration of African green ants by the use of the word the in the fourth paragraph.

Counter-arguments are welcome, I be happy to understand this seemingly senseless stupidity.

Im not finished yet. However this is more of a niche DET stupidity. The blocking system implemented on school computers. You are more than likely not familiar with the filters introduced on Australian school computers internet which was introduced over the past 4 years. I'd hazard a guess when I say that 90% percent of sites are blocked. Every forum, every game related site, every sex education site. They have a blocked catagory named Health. This is what I came up against for most sites while I was trying to search for information about Cochlear implants. This site has been blocked under the catagory Health. Wtf.

You may say oh cmon you can live with it, you only have to live with it during school time. You can go home and find the information. Well guess what. They have EXACTLY the same system for boarding schools. I happen to go to one. It is terrible. About 10 people their now pay $40 a month each for mobile internet (which is forbidden). On a side note in case you wanted more evidence on the DET complete and utter incompetence they are now forbidding non day school teachers from working in the boarding school. I have no idea what they hoped to gain from that except from kicking out the most trusted and respected staff in the boarding school and ensuring a under-staffed boarding school.

Sorry for the huge essay of text. Perhaps if English essay questions weren't so retarded I could do better in them. You can post rebuttal if you want, I'm the first person wanting to get into the mindset of these people. If you have no opinion on this matter you can always pot something someone did that make absolutely no sense to you.

 

[Lord Beautiful]

I sympathize. After grammar and vocabulary was over with, English became a steaming crock of unnecessary shit.

 

[Noamuth]

English needs to be important on final exams. It is a pain in the arse, but it needs to be done. However, the way they go about teaching, and what is actually taught, needs to be changed.

So many of the students I graduated with could not spell to save their lives unfortunately, and they always relied on MS Word to correct every little mistake. It is very sad that we weren't re-taught all the basics. We all probably would have done better for it.

But no. We were too busy studying newspaper articles and current events, when half of the class didn't know the difference between 'they're', 'their' and 'there'.

So.. English should be important, but bloody hell, the DET need to get their priorities straight when it comes to what parts of studying English are important. Grammar needs to be drilled into our brains more rather than Macbeth and spelling needs to be more than bloody spellcheck on the computer.

Bah. Now I'm ranting. XD

And as for the internet blocking.. Wow. I thought it was bad two years ago. They are even blocking sex ed and HEALTH sites? Yeesh. Talk about overboard. >.<

 

[Lord Krunk]

We need English in the later years, because there are already way too many people that can't spell. And that's not because of dyslexia either; most people who claim that are merely lazy.

My cheese is with the internet filters and the constant political correctness.

 

[hypothetical fact]

Your NSW system is nothing compared to the QLD system. English and Math are compulsory so if we failed either we failed overall, we also didn't get any reasons for a site being blocked there was just a giant STOP sign.

As for the topic, English should be compulsory because I am tired of dealing with illiterate bogans.

 

[Markness]

I think its possible that English should be taught compulsory but why does it have to be taken as part of your mark. Im my opinion making English necessary is as stupid as making maths necessary in your final 2 years. Yeah everybody needs to know grammer but only as much as everybody needs to know arithmetic, that doesn't make it a reason to make it part of your HSC. Some people are better at English/Maths than others, the DET is just placing far to much importance on furthered interpreting bullshit.

Your NSW system is nothing compared to the QLD system. English and Math are compulsory so if we failed either we failed overall, we also didn't get any reasons for a site being blocked there was just a giant STOP sign.

As for the topic, English should be compulsory because I am tired of dealing with illiterate bogans.

Are you sure maths was compulsory because of the state? I know some schools make it compulsory. If you fail English then yes you fail the HSC. Whats more, correct me if i'm wrong but I was under the impression the blocking system was Australia wide. Only recently have these new category things come in. I remember the old STOP method from a few years ago but it has got much more restrictive since then. In the last 6 months Whirlpool an the Escapist have been blocked.

In my opinion English in the last 2 years does little to further literacy. It seems to me they are skills that only a book/movie critic or poem writer would ever need.