Thread: Wow! Are You Kidding Me!?

Originally Posted by joebehar

...but can you imagine if they asked most of those people to do fractions or calculate a percentage?...

That's a good point. I work as an Education Coordinator in a prison, and we give all prisoners a numeracy and literacy assessment. It's very basic. Almost none of the prisoners I give the test to can work out 50% of 25, 1/4 of 8 or .25 of 12.

Now, of course, a prison population is a distinct 'set' of people, and I work in a women's prison, so we have another set of disadvantages.

I have 48% of the Aboriginal population enrolled, and female Aboriginal prisoners, esp those who are older, form one of the most damaged and disadvantaged groups in our society in my opinion.

However, to be honest, when I needed to check a new assessment, I actually had to Google how to do long division. Just prior to working in this particular prison (I've worked in four) I acted as the Business Manager of the prison. I managed a ten million dollar budget. Yet I couldn't do long division. I'm not sure about you, but it's not something I do everyday. I'd forgotten how to do it, but I was still certainly functional.

Some people who can't perform some skills can still be very functional in their particular world.

Geography is a great subject, yet for day to day existence it hardly matters if you know where Norway is, esp if you live in Central Africa, for instance. I guess that's rather an extreme example, I would have thought an American could have named Afghanistan, as it IS important to know just where (and why) you're shipping your children off to die.

But I think it IS important remembering that not all skills that I for instance see as useful will be useful to another.

[EDIT, I'm on a roll]

I, too am concerned that we too are selling my particular country to the highest bidder in big chunks. To sell prime farming land to Asia, given the fragility of the world food supply system, the size and rapidity of growth of the Asian population and the likelihood that areas closer to the equator will find it most difficult to produce food in the future seems a little short-sighted. I understand that it is VITAL for countries like Australia to help to produce food for countries other than our own (because if we don't they'll just come and take it), but one would think it'd be a good idea to at least try and maintain control over one's own actual physical land and crops. Seems to me a little like wanting quick cash right now, so taking he option of selling a spare room in your house rather than renting it out, or selling products you produce in the spare room. Why we actually need to quick cash is a mystery to me; we have one of the strongest economies of the world right now. Of course, as soon as China slows, we'll need to look inwards and become more self sufficient, at least until the hoards come to invade us.

I guess for Australia the only hope is that energy supplies decline at such a rapid rate the rampaging hoards don't have the fuel to get here.

Then we can happily fight against ourselves (which is where the scenario portrayed prophetically in the Mad Max movies could kick in :-)