― lexpretend (lexpretend), Friday, 1 December 2006 12:27 (seventeen years ago) link
freelance earnings on top of the rest is a chore. but you can probably claim records purchased, computer, etc against.
― Proxy Fule (Proxy Fule), Friday, 1 December 2006 12:28 (seventeen years ago) link
how do people KNOW WHAT TO DO???
― lexpretend (lexpretend), Friday, 1 December 2006 12:28 (seventeen years ago) link
― lexpretend (lexpretend), Friday, 1 December 2006 12:29 (seventeen years ago) link
― Madchen (Madchen), Friday, 1 December 2006 12:29 (seventeen years ago) link
― Madchen (Madchen), Friday, 1 December 2006 12:30 (seventeen years ago) link
― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Friday, 1 December 2006 12:48 (seventeen years ago) link
― temporary enrique (temporary enrique), Friday, 1 December 2006 12:56 (seventeen years ago) link
(Though IIRC, in lots of schools, only girls took Home Economics and boys took Shop or something.)
― masonic boom (kate), Friday, 1 December 2006 13:02 (seventeen years ago) link
there was a class called 'life skills' in sixth form at my school, it encompassed things like it skills, and possibly tax returns (i do onot know what a tax return is?). i didn't go to them because i did 4 a-levels.
― lexpretend (lexpretend), Friday, 1 December 2006 13:10 (seventeen years ago) link
― cis boom bah (cis), Friday, 1 December 2006 13:19 (seventeen years ago) link
― lexpretend (lexpretend), Friday, 1 December 2006 13:23 (seventeen years ago) link
like: how to fix a radiator.
― temporary enrique (temporary enrique), Friday, 1 December 2006 14:16 (seventeen years ago) link
― Laurel (Laurel), Friday, 1 December 2006 14:18 (seventeen years ago) link
― wogan lenin (doglatin), Friday, 1 December 2006 14:24 (seventeen years ago) link
fixed
omg! i learnt that apparently radiators have, like, WATER in them the other day - gareth couldn't believe i didn't know before. i can't imagine this really, i don't know where the water would go.
― lexpretend (lexpretend), Friday, 1 December 2006 14:29 (seventeen years ago) link
Actually, the school I went to was very very good about this - however, it taught me about the Merkin political system, in which I cannot legally participate. I know next to nothing about the British system - in which I legally can.
― masonic boom (kate), Friday, 1 December 2006 14:31 (seventeen years ago) link
(They probably got a kickback from McDonalds for the training.)
― [electric sound of] esteban buttez (Estie Buttez), Friday, 1 December 2006 14:36 (seventeen years ago) link
on the other hand, i had a plumber come out to stop the flow of water through mine because i had no clue how. it involved a very basic screwdriver operation. mortifying.
― temporary enrique (temporary enrique), Friday, 1 December 2006 14:39 (seventeen years ago) link
more important is the ability to follow multi-part television drama.
― temporary enrique (temporary enrique), Friday, 1 December 2006 14:42 (seventeen years ago) link
― lexpretend (lexpretend), Friday, 1 December 2006 14:45 (seventeen years ago) link
― [electric sound of] esteban buttez (Estie Buttez), Friday, 1 December 2006 14:49 (seventeen years ago) link
Handling domestic finances and using the internet would be good things to learn in school. Enjoying theater and cooking are asking a little much though.
― Maria Emily (Maria), Friday, 1 December 2006 15:29 (seventeen years ago) link
I learned this the hard way. Easy option, my arse!
― kv_nol (kv_nol), Friday, 1 December 2006 15:35 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ms Misery (MsMisery), Friday, 1 December 2006 15:36 (seventeen years ago) link
As is I think everybody should just get the Achewood Cookbook.
Home finances - this is totally on yr parents isn't it? I never learned jack shit about bills and credit in school at all.
― TOM. BOT. (trm), Friday, 1 December 2006 15:36 (seventeen years ago) link
certainly, it's rather more important than "enjoying the theatre". WTF with the cultural fascism, tony, you dick? what's next: i have to "enjoy sport"?
― grimly fiendish '06 SANDBOX REMIX (simon), Friday, 1 December 2006 19:22 (seventeen years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 1 December 2006 19:28 (seventeen years ago) link
my parents were complete shit in this area (as in most things) so therefore not good role models. I wish I had learned it in school.
― Ms Misery (MsMisery), Friday, 1 December 2006 19:32 (seventeen years ago) link
― sede vacante (blueski), Friday, 1 December 2006 19:34 (seventeen years ago) link
(advanced lessons could include holding in a piss for at least three pints; ordering a round when mashed; taxi-queue etiquette; and kebabs and the consumption thereof.)
― grimly fiendish '06 SANDBOX REMIX (simon), Friday, 1 December 2006 19:37 (seventeen years ago) link
I am SOOOOO behind this statement, though! Life will force you, more or less, to either learn about finances or pay an accountant. You cannot pay someone to be open-minded for you, or appreciate beauty/wisdom/human nature in whatever form.
― Laurel (Laurel), Friday, 1 December 2006 19:41 (seventeen years ago) link
― Laurel (Laurel), Friday, 1 December 2006 19:49 (seventeen years ago) link
In a lot of primary schools now (not necessarily posh ones, either) they do exactly this. My mate was a Teaching Assistant for a bit, and the school he did this in had a projector hooked up to a laptop in each classroom so that the teacher could google something if a kid asked a question the teacher didn't know!
― Johnney B has zeros off the line (stigoftdumpilx), Friday, 1 December 2006 19:58 (seventeen years ago) link
This is roughly how people have always gotten through life and will continue to do so. Teaching specific life skill is always a great idea, but the thing they're actually trying to accomplish here is less a matter of that, and maybe more a matter of trying to give people a good enough general education that they have any interest in, say, taking part in a debate.
― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 1 December 2006 20:03 (seventeen years ago) link
uh-huh. that's why my dad, who's a volunteer for the citizens advice bureau, never sees anyone come in in a state of blind panic because they've managed to get themselves in some horrific debt hole because nobody ever bothered to teach them the basics and, for whatever reason, they never quite picked it up for themselves?
but hey, even if these people existed - and they obviously don't; my dad must be putting LSD in his porridge again - the answer's simple: they "pay an accountant". silly me. i forget that accountants are happy to work for fresh air and a smile.
You cannot pay someone to be open-minded for you, or appreciate beauty/wisdom/human nature in whatever form.
er, no, and you can't force someone to be open-minded or appreciate beauty and wisdom either. hellfire, i'm 31 and my tastes and sensibilities are growing and changing all the time. i'm frequently amazed and overjoyed by my capacity to learn more about art in all its forms, and to enjoy things i never thought in a million years i would.
this is perhaps in some way related to my education, which had a classical bent (ie i studied latin and greek and had mad old teachers who let me watch "if ..." in liberal studies) but is very much a part of who i am, my own aesthetic sensibilities etc. like i say: my brother-in-law, who's a top lad and a talented painter and musician, would rather de-nad himself than go to the theatre. does that make him a lesser human being? i think not. and he's certainly far more useful with a tax return - or a hammer and a drill - than i am, that's for certain.
i mean, i speak as a complete ponce for whom art provides a validity to life, but i really think this "teaching children to appreciate the theatre" nonsense is misguided bourgeois shitwittery of the first order. IT WON'T WORK. teaching them how to deal with tax and 'leccy bills, however, just might.
― grimly fiendish (simon), Friday, 1 December 2006 20:07 (seventeen years ago) link
― grimly fiendish, MA (hons) in english fucking literature, which was a complete a, Friday, 1 December 2006 20:10 (seventeen years ago) link
I'm not sure what I'd say should be cut instead, but in my particular rural school district, there was a lot of administrative waste and sports money in the budget every year that could go (sports funding is rarely cut because apparently, unlike for music, it's very important for kids to grow up well-rounded and develop important life skills and discipline from sports).
― Maria e (Maria), Friday, 1 December 2006 20:15 (seventeen years ago) link
It's just that I can think of a lot of people who are fine at the infrastructure of life, meeting legal obligations etc but shite at thinking clearly or appreciating big swathes of human experience and HEY, GUESS WHAT? THEY VOTE!
Maria, schools in NYC have been known to cut sports and recess periods for lack of funding/facilities, with entirely predictably horrifying results in classroom behavior and attention span, esp among boys.
― Laurel (Laurel), Friday, 1 December 2006 20:22 (seventeen years ago) link
I mean, that it's not true strictly as written. I still think there's something to it SOMEwhere.
― Laurel (Laurel), Friday, 1 December 2006 20:23 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ms Misery (MsMisery), Friday, 1 December 2006 20:24 (seventeen years ago) link
it probably won't surprise anyone to know that i was always second-last to be picked for the rugby team (the last kid was invariably the fat dude who came out onto the pitch wearing his thermal vest) but at least i was getting some exercise. i HATED sport with a passion, and indeed still do, but again, what was more important: that i was kept at least vaguely healthy or that i learned to play the tuba?
xpost: laurel, do you really think that forcing uninterested and uncaring children to sit through more shakespeare will stop them growing up into uninterested and uncaring adults? it's a lovely idea, and you sound like a genuinely decent and caring person, but sadly the world is a shitty place full of shitters and i don't think forcible exposure to great art will do a single thing to change that.
whereas teaching said children how not to mire themselves in horrific debt-laden misery might just a) improve the balance of society as a whole between the haves (usually overprivileged cunts like me who were lucky enough to be born in the right place) and the have-nots; and b) give more people more disposable income to spend on going to the theatre anyway :)
― grimly fiendish (simon), Friday, 1 December 2006 20:26 (seventeen years ago) link
― grimly fiendish (simon), Friday, 1 December 2006 20:27 (seventeen years ago) link
CHEMISTRY and all that other science bullshit which was tedious at the time, which went in one ear and straight out the other, which i got straight As in with 0 effort or knowledge, and which hasn't been in the least bit useful to me since.
i think the "teaching kids to appreciate the theatre" is probably the most adequately done thing on that list at the moment! i mean, it's not about forcing kids to love the theatre, it's about giving them the opportunity to see it (which most probably wouldn't) and other art forms. i think school trips to the best artistic events possible - exhibitions, theatre, concerts - should be mandatory and as free as possible. and without any air of "you must like this".
This is roughly how people have always gotten through life and will continue to do so.
i would argue that most people who get by in life with only basic knowledge of these things would probably rather get by with a little bit more knowledge. i know i would rather know what a tax return is! i have this nagging feeling that it might be important.
― lexpretend (lexpretend), Friday, 1 December 2006 20:32 (seventeen years ago) link
― lexpretend (lexpretend), Friday, 1 December 2006 20:33 (seventeen years ago) link
yr not British, then?
― nuneb (nuneb), Friday, 1 December 2006 20:33 (seventeen years ago) link
― Laurel (Laurel), Friday, 1 December 2006 20:35 (seventeen years ago) link
All school literature classes are basically forcing uninterested and uncaring children to sit through literature and not grow into uninterested and uncaring adults. I think it has to do some small amount of good, even if it's not totally transformative and the source of a lifelong love of literature. And would teaching children not to mire themselves in horrific debt-laden misery would actually take much longer than teaching one complete Shakespeare play?
super xxxpost.
― Maria e (Maria), Friday, 1 December 2006 20:37 (seventeen years ago) link
― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 1 December 2006 23:08 (seventeen years ago) link
more than half the operas in the standard repertoire are less than 150 years old, and about 30% are from the 20th century
― nuneb (nuneb), Friday, 1 December 2006 23:10 (seventeen years ago) link
that's attendance in one year compared to sales over as much as 40 years
― nuneb (nuneb), Friday, 1 December 2006 23:11 (seventeen years ago) link
well no, the whole point of high culture is that it isn't pop
― nuneb (nuneb), Friday, 1 December 2006 23:14 (seventeen years ago) link
― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 1 December 2006 23:18 (seventeen years ago) link
― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 1 December 2006 23:24 (seventeen years ago) link
more than triple, actually, but CFL attendance was more than three times that of Canadian opera attendance
― nuneb (nuneb), Friday, 1 December 2006 23:29 (seventeen years ago) link
'experience', actually, not attendance
― nuneb (nuneb), Friday, 1 December 2006 23:32 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ms Misery (MsMisery), Saturday, 2 December 2006 04:44 (seventeen years ago) link
― nuneb (nuneb), Saturday, 2 December 2006 05:31 (seventeen years ago) link
YES, WE KNOW SHAKESPEARE MADE A FEW KNOB JOKES. GET OVER IT.
― [electric sound of] esteban buttez (Estie Buttez), Saturday, 2 December 2006 05:34 (seventeen years ago) link
― nuneb (nuneb), Saturday, 2 December 2006 05:39 (seventeen years ago) link
― nuneb (nuneb), Saturday, 2 December 2006 05:42 (seventeen years ago) link
I WANT CHEAP SERIOUS ELITIST THEATRE!!
― [electric sound of] esteban buttez (Estie Buttez), Saturday, 2 December 2006 05:44 (seventeen years ago) link
er, nothing else to add, really. other than "nabisco OTM", but i feel such truisms should be banned from the sandbox and indeed from nuILX :)
― grimly fiendish (simon), Saturday, 2 December 2006 17:35 (seventeen years ago) link
― ian (orion), Saturday, 2 December 2006 23:08 (seventeen years ago) link
― remy bean (bean), Saturday, 2 December 2006 23:15 (seventeen years ago) link
― ian (orion), Saturday, 2 December 2006 23:16 (seventeen years ago) link
― remy bean (bean), Saturday, 2 December 2006 23:19 (seventeen years ago) link