Tactical voting Scotland
http://www.pro-eu-vote-scotland.info/
Showing posts with label Scottish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scottish. Show all posts
Monday, 9 December 2019
Tuesday, 27 October 2015
Halloween !! Its Scottish and Irish ! Celtic !
English Heritage today are the latest body to quote again the incorrect fact that Halloween has come from America.
NO NO NO !!! Every year we email and tweet and try to correct this !!!
Now in Glasgow we celebrated Halloween when I was young ! I am 50 ! But reports from my family record halloween happening 80 and 100 years ago.
My uncle remembers blackening their faces and tying the opposite doors on a tenement close together and running away !
This would have been around World War 2 time.
We always carved turnips - so at least English Heritage are mentioning that - now turnips make a great smell when carved and with a candle in them - but boy are they hard to carve ! So pumpkins are perhaps a welcome import there !!
We did not do "Trick or Treating" - we went "Guising" - we were in Disguise - and we had to have a joke or a poem memorised as we went round the houses, before we would get any sweets or money etc.
And the main enjoyment about getting dressed up was the month beforehand when you thought up and created your costume ! I once went as a pantomime horse with my best friend Jane, who is now a respectable doctor !! We did a pantomime horse dance as our entertainment - the old ladies we visited were scared as their china was dancing in their cabinet so they quickly gave us our sweets !! Another year I went as a witch (apparently made my brother be the cat !) and my friend was the Alien from the Smash potato advert ! Other great costumes in my family included a dalek, a washing machine and an uncivil servant !!
We would do "dooking for apples" - dooking as a word comes from across the north sea I believe, and there would be treacle scones hanging from the pulley and toffee apples !
Now the tradition in Scotland has never stopped - its a spooky night and we did have the idea there were spirits out there so maybe best to stay near a light ! Ireland had the same tradition and it wouldnt surprise me if Cornwall, Wales and Brittany had the tradition too.
Now, please in England if you only discovered Halloween recently, yes you personally may have heard of it from America - but the rest of us have always had it, and it only got to America because of Irish emigrants !!
So lets take back our own tradition !! Also traditionally we did not go in for the majorly scary costumes and props etc you see in the Supermarkets - so lets get rid of those.
It is of course the eve of All Saints Day - or All Hallows - hence Halloween. Many of us also visit church for All Saints Day and All Souls Day the next day. And November is a month of Remembrance and on the 11th Nov we have Remembrance Sunday. Personally it also seems to me to be a good idea if the shops did not bring out their Christmas goods until after that. Certainly I have refused to look at them so far.
So there you go - LETS RECLAIM OUR OWN TRADITIONS !!!
Ref : http://www.scotland.org/features/halloween-traditions/
and more (including the blacking faces tradition of guising -- http://www.milngavieherald.co.uk/news/local-headlines/ways-to-celebrate-hallowe-en-in-true-scottish-style-1-3929175)
NO NO NO !!! Every year we email and tweet and try to correct this !!!
Now in Glasgow we celebrated Halloween when I was young ! I am 50 ! But reports from my family record halloween happening 80 and 100 years ago.
My uncle remembers blackening their faces and tying the opposite doors on a tenement close together and running away !
This would have been around World War 2 time.
We always carved turnips - so at least English Heritage are mentioning that - now turnips make a great smell when carved and with a candle in them - but boy are they hard to carve ! So pumpkins are perhaps a welcome import there !!
We did not do "Trick or Treating" - we went "Guising" - we were in Disguise - and we had to have a joke or a poem memorised as we went round the houses, before we would get any sweets or money etc.
And the main enjoyment about getting dressed up was the month beforehand when you thought up and created your costume ! I once went as a pantomime horse with my best friend Jane, who is now a respectable doctor !! We did a pantomime horse dance as our entertainment - the old ladies we visited were scared as their china was dancing in their cabinet so they quickly gave us our sweets !! Another year I went as a witch (apparently made my brother be the cat !) and my friend was the Alien from the Smash potato advert ! Other great costumes in my family included a dalek, a washing machine and an uncivil servant !!
We would do "dooking for apples" - dooking as a word comes from across the north sea I believe, and there would be treacle scones hanging from the pulley and toffee apples !
Now the tradition in Scotland has never stopped - its a spooky night and we did have the idea there were spirits out there so maybe best to stay near a light ! Ireland had the same tradition and it wouldnt surprise me if Cornwall, Wales and Brittany had the tradition too.
Now, please in England if you only discovered Halloween recently, yes you personally may have heard of it from America - but the rest of us have always had it, and it only got to America because of Irish emigrants !!
So lets take back our own tradition !! Also traditionally we did not go in for the majorly scary costumes and props etc you see in the Supermarkets - so lets get rid of those.
It is of course the eve of All Saints Day - or All Hallows - hence Halloween. Many of us also visit church for All Saints Day and All Souls Day the next day. And November is a month of Remembrance and on the 11th Nov we have Remembrance Sunday. Personally it also seems to me to be a good idea if the shops did not bring out their Christmas goods until after that. Certainly I have refused to look at them so far.
So there you go - LETS RECLAIM OUR OWN TRADITIONS !!!
Ref : http://www.scotland.org/features/halloween-traditions/
and more (including the blacking faces tradition of guising -- http://www.milngavieherald.co.uk/news/local-headlines/ways-to-celebrate-hallowe-en-in-true-scottish-style-1-3929175)
Tuesday, 23 June 2015
Higher Maths
There has been controversy this year over the SQA Higher Maths exam in Scotland.
However .... many people I have spoken to, including some in my family, did not have a particular problem with the exam. Although others were reporting some pupils to be quite distressed by the exam.
Some of the questions were designed in a way that had been experienced by those doing the new Higher. So that would have been a disadvantage to those sitting the old Higher.
There has also been some discussion over the wording of questions, where the question was not entirely clear.
Now the problem is that if they were to remove these questions and base the exam results on the other questions then this could actually disadvantage someone who had originally done better in the exam and could lead to people who originally had a lower mark coming out on top ...
Some pupils just did not even attempt certain questions...and it is possible that these pupils therefore had more time to check their other questions ... whereas those who struggled with the difficult questions may have had no time to go back and check their answers.
On a simple level lets take an example of a eight question exam for a total of 20 marks, with questions increasing in difficulty as the paper progresses.
If achieving full marks, the marks per question would be ... 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4
Now lets assume Pupil 1 finds maths quite hard so they achieve the following marks :
1, 1, 2, 2, 1, 3, 0, 0 (total = 10 / 20)
Pupil 2 is better at maths and achieves :
1, 0, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 2 (they have attempted the last few questions but had no time to go back and check the earlier questions)
(total = 16 / 20)
Now, if the last two questions were removed as deemed too difficult, the marks for both pupils would then be Pupil 1 = 10/12 and Pupil 2 = 11 / 12
Now,... these pupils now appear to be much closer in results than the actual marks illustrate.
So ... how can these pupils be differentiated ? Should they both now get an A ?
Well perhaps that would be OK .... BUT there must never be a case where a pupil ends up with a lesser mark having originally had more marks.
For example lets say there was a Pupil 3 who achieved 1, 1, 0, 1, 3, 3, 4, 3
This pupil originally achieved 16 / 20 (equal to pupil 2 and much more than Pupil 1)
but if the last two questions are removed Pupil 3 would only score 9 / 12 and may well be allocated a B .... which is LESS !! than Pupil 1. This is patently unfair ...
No pupil should ever achieve a mark less than they originally achieved. So if they were heading for an A or a B on their original score then that should not be reduced.
Fine, there may need to be some adjustment for pupils who have taken the wrong meaning from a question if there is agreement that the question was badly worded.
But these decisions must not be taken lightly as people's futures depend on these results.
This is unfair to that pupil but also negative to society in general if we don't get those who are best at maths into for example engineering etc.
However .... many people I have spoken to, including some in my family, did not have a particular problem with the exam. Although others were reporting some pupils to be quite distressed by the exam.
Some of the questions were designed in a way that had been experienced by those doing the new Higher. So that would have been a disadvantage to those sitting the old Higher.
There has also been some discussion over the wording of questions, where the question was not entirely clear.
Now the problem is that if they were to remove these questions and base the exam results on the other questions then this could actually disadvantage someone who had originally done better in the exam and could lead to people who originally had a lower mark coming out on top ...
Some pupils just did not even attempt certain questions...and it is possible that these pupils therefore had more time to check their other questions ... whereas those who struggled with the difficult questions may have had no time to go back and check their answers.
On a simple level lets take an example of a eight question exam for a total of 20 marks, with questions increasing in difficulty as the paper progresses.
If achieving full marks, the marks per question would be ... 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4
Now lets assume Pupil 1 finds maths quite hard so they achieve the following marks :
1, 1, 2, 2, 1, 3, 0, 0 (total = 10 / 20)
Pupil 2 is better at maths and achieves :
1, 0, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 2 (they have attempted the last few questions but had no time to go back and check the earlier questions)
(total = 16 / 20)
Now, if the last two questions were removed as deemed too difficult, the marks for both pupils would then be Pupil 1 = 10/12 and Pupil 2 = 11 / 12
Now,... these pupils now appear to be much closer in results than the actual marks illustrate.
So ... how can these pupils be differentiated ? Should they both now get an A ?
Well perhaps that would be OK .... BUT there must never be a case where a pupil ends up with a lesser mark having originally had more marks.
For example lets say there was a Pupil 3 who achieved 1, 1, 0, 1, 3, 3, 4, 3
This pupil originally achieved 16 / 20 (equal to pupil 2 and much more than Pupil 1)
but if the last two questions are removed Pupil 3 would only score 9 / 12 and may well be allocated a B .... which is LESS !! than Pupil 1. This is patently unfair ...
No pupil should ever achieve a mark less than they originally achieved. So if they were heading for an A or a B on their original score then that should not be reduced.
Fine, there may need to be some adjustment for pupils who have taken the wrong meaning from a question if there is agreement that the question was badly worded.
But these decisions must not be taken lightly as people's futures depend on these results.
This is unfair to that pupil but also negative to society in general if we don't get those who are best at maths into for example engineering etc.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)