SoylentNews

NZ Petition to Pass Exam Over Trivial Meaning

posted by martyb on Saturday November 17 2018, @10:34PM   
from the Eye-Kant-Speek-Gud dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

New Zealand has sunk to a new low in modern education. A number of high school students have started a petition to not be failed on a national history exam as they did not understand the meaning of the word 'trivial'. For those not in the know, trivial means "of little value or importance" which aptly describes this petition given that it is being made by grade 13 high school students who by all rights should know the meaning of this word. More than 2400 people have signed the petition 'expressing their frustration with the exam question'. Student Logan Stadnyk claimed that he was "lucky" to have known what the word meant, as half his class didn't. "New Zealand History Teachers' Association chairman Graeme Ball has sided with the students calling the exam a 'little bit of a snafu'" but not providing an adequate answer as to why students in grade 13 would not understand a common English word.

Have the three Rs lost all meaning in schools? Are we failing our students? Or is this just another case of today's teens being snowflakes?

---

Original Submission

• RAH on New ZealandRAH on New Zealand (Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @12:35AM (3 children)

  by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @12:35AM (#763268)

  Has anyone else read Robert Heinlein's "Tramp Royale"? He and his wife took an extended round-the-world trip and the book was published posthumously. They didn't have a good time in New Zealand, as well described by this reviewer -- http://www.heinleinsociety.org/rah/works/articles/tramproyale.html [heinleinsociety.org]

  So Where Did You Get Your Ideas, Mr. Heinlein?
          ......
  This trip and later visits obviously contributed to Heinlein’s novels, notably the idea of space colonies originally settled by transported prisoners. It was not so much that people were anxious to discuss things like this when Heinlein met them. If they did, he does not record the encounters. One gathers that one of the attractions of the trip for him was that it provided the occasion to do relevant reading. Additionally, the Heinleins bought books wherever they went, sending them back to Colorado in a steady stream of brown paper parcels.

  So much for liking things. This brings us to the last place on the Heinleins’ itinerary.

  Apparently, the pit of misery, the region without hope, the most god-awful place in the whole southern hemisphere circa 1954, was New Zealand. The chapter dealing with this unhappy visit is called “The Dreary Utopia,” and its dreariness was of varied kinds. This is the only piece of travel literature I can recall in which the writer truly, deeply hated a Post Office system. The problem was not that Heinlein was a free-market ideologue hostile to New Zealand’s welfare state and tightly-controlled economy. Uruguay had a lot in common with New Zealand politically and economically in those days, but Uruguay also had restaurants that served non-poisonous food, and not everybody there shortchanged visitors all the time. Such were the petty vexations of the country that Heinlein spluttered even at the famous narrow-gauge railways, which in a better mood he would have liked. No doubt part of this antipathy was due simply to the fact the tourist industry was not yet well-developed, but for once the Heinleins forbore to seek private hospitality. They did have a letter of introduction, to a former prime minister no less. Heinlein would not use it, however, because it would have been so difficult to stop himself from telling his host how much he hated his country and everything in it.

  Heinlein does record one good thing about the visit: a nice young woman at a zoo showed him and Virginia a kiwi. This was just before the Heinleins left for the airport. Virginia had dropped her objection to air travel in order to leave the country with the greatest expedition. They flew to Hawaii and then home, leaving the rest of the northern hemisphere for another day.
        ......

  Maybe there is some of that snottiness left in these kids?

  Starting Score:	0		points
  Moderation		0
  Offtopic=1, Interesting=1, Total=2
  Extra 'Offtopic' Modifier		0
  Total Score:		0

• Re:RAH on New ZealandRe:RAH on New Zealand (Score: 3, Interesting) by archfeld on Sunday November 18 2018, @01:51AM (2 children)

  by archfeld (4650) <treboreel@live.com> on Sunday November 18 2018, @01:51AM (#763299) Journal

  LOL, I've not thought of that in years. Heinlein is amongst my favorite authors. I grew up reading his stuff. Have Space Suit Will Travel. I grok SCI-FI and Fantasy because of Michael Valentine Smith, and the adventures of Deety and Zeb, and the total irreverence of Job; A comedy of Justice. Long live Rudbek of Rudbek :)

  --
  For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge

  Parent

  • Re:RAH on New ZealandRe:RAH on New Zealand (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @02:56AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @02:56AM (#763321)

    I may have to re-read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job:_A_Comedy_of_Justice [wikipedia.org] sometime. I was raised without any organized religion and I read it when I was too young and naive to understand all the satire. Since then my natural curiosity has led me to study religion a bit (but not enough to get me to attend a regular service at a house of worship).

    The one scene that stuck in my memory is after the rapture: guys from the 3rd world were given housing with bathrooms with sinks for the first time in their lives...and proceeded to use them as urinals.

    Parent

    • Re:RAH on New Zealand(Score: 2) by Demena on Sunday November 18 2018, @10:44PM

      by Demena (5637) on Sunday November 18 2018, @10:44PM (#763650)

      He would have seen that when passing through Aus in '54. That sort of stuff still happens.

      Parent