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Lots of handwringing going on today about the state of science education and in particular how to encourage more young people to keep studying the subjects to A level and beyond.

Emma Brockes in today's Guardian says at one point that "Science lessons have always been thought of as boring, but what seems to have changed is adolescent tolerance of it." I'm not so sure - at least as a viewer of the most recent Channel 4 "That'll Teach 'em" series where they took a class of current GCSE students back in time by thirty or forty years to give them a flavour of a 60s/70s grammar school education.

What came over there was that science lessons have become boring. Gone are the days of loud bangs, noxious smells and pulling things apart, of distilling alcohol and teasing out amorphous sulphur chains. Although I was good, even if I do say so myself (A grades at O level in Physics, Chemistry and Maths - Biology even then was seen as an also ran science because you didn't need it to get onto any serious "discovery" type university courses like medicine or biochemistry), I reckon I remember more of my own O level courses than those kids appear ever to be taught nowadays for the mushed up GCSE "Science" course. And, when faced with the "real science" of cutting things up and making smells and flash-bangs and playing with electron beams and van der Graaf generators and so on, the kids on that program really warmed to it.

Is it all a health and safety thing? Certainly some of what we did at O level (chemistry in particular) could have been dangerous - and in our school Pyrotechnics Club we would create things that today would now only be found on "extremist" websites and would get you four years at GTMO for knowing. Or perhaps squeamishness - the kids on the program had clearly never dissected anything before and once they got over the first few seemed to really enjoy it - even the vegetarians. Or is it just money? Safety aside, sciences should overall be cheaper nowadays I would have thought. There is much more you can do with cheap computers before you get into the lab situation.

My young niece got a "chemistry set" for Christmas last year. I was pleased to hear it. But when I saw it, it was no chemistry set of the sort I remember. Nothing to burn or anything like that. Just some collection, it seemed, of things that make different coloured and shaped crystals if you leave them for a few days.

Science is about discovery, often exciting discovery. And discovery requires risk. If all the risk is taken out of the classroom they're not going to discover anything and not going to get the "science bug". I wish now I had kept my head and insisted on doing Physics and Maths at A level. They are the hardest things to get back into at a higher level - you can always read up on history, law and so on later if you want to, but with maths and sciences beyond a certain level somehow it's much more difficult.

Let ten years olds make bangs, smells and laser guns, let them poke around in the guts of rats or frogs and we'll soon have people wanting to do sciences I'm sure.

Technorati Tags: education

I'm sure it could be so construed. Buying small vials of an oil like substance from Palestinian Arabs.

Try it. It's great stuff. And if you're so inclined you can also ponder whether any of the trees listened in to the sermon on the mount, or something.

Clearly not one for your hand-luggage though.

Nearly a month ago, when Chief Constable Peter Fahy of Cheshire went on his rant about upping the alcohol age limit I wrote the following piece but ended up not posting it. Now that thanks to Tim Martin of Wetherspoons (somewhat ironically as I would hold his company to be part of the problem - cashing in on the drinking shed culture and pricing out many estate pubs) an alternative argument similar to mine below has been posited, and picked up by Liberal England and Niles, I thought maybe it was worth reviving. It was a theme I mentioned actually in my candidate vetting interview as one potential way in which local authorities might be able to influence this "binge drinking" issue:

There's all this chatter about alcohol fuelled crime and anti-social behaviour going on. Most sensible folk seem to agree that raising the drinking age is no answer (I would in fact abolish any minimum age completely of course). But I wanted to take a different tack that has niggled away at me for a while. Kind of on the "Bowling Alone" theme of declining social capital. I believe a lot of this trouble is because of the demise of the local pub.

more from san joan's evening
Originally uploaded by J_G_R

Everyone now seems to get together (usually on the same night of course) and gather at drinking sheds in town and city centers. Long ago, when people weren't so mobile late at night and so on, they would go to their local pub. Many of our housing estates even had one built as part of the original planning for the estate, at least as important as a church or a medical centre or a Co-op.

But in there you would not just have the Club 18-30 hell bent on a little youthful havoc. You'd have people of all ages and all social groups on an estate. And it was probably the only one within walking distance so if you were barred it was a real pain to go anywhere else. If you got a little obnoxious or worse on the booze your family and neighbours would get to hear about it pretty quick through someone else who was at the pub when you kicked off. You would have to apologize, and perhaps even beg, or at least eat a bit of humble pie, to get back in. Be a little shamed by the incident.

Now, nobody who knows you sees you out in these anonymous booze barns in the centre of town. One is much like another so if you embarrass yourself at one you can go to half a dozen others for the same bus journey. Reprimands are all down to the police, assisted perhaps by bouncers. And all have to stay within strict boundaries - your cousin is not going to take you out the side door and box your ears (not that I'd advocate such violence as a cure!) until you stop acting like an idiot and can go back in and apologize. You might even feel proud to be on "Police, Camera, Action" rather than ashamed to be acting the idiot in front of your family and neighbours.

I doubt we can roll back the years that have made some city streets (like George Street here in Oxford) end to end gin palaces. Who knows though, maybe climate change, fuel costs, environmental concerns, might one day make us go back to the real local pub and have to face up to our families when we act the alcohol fuelled arsehole.

See, he may be the donnish one, but we can do a bit of Latin too "up the hill". Kudos if anyone can tell me where it is from...

Anyway - I sing of arms and a man. Me. And a broken arm. It is well and truly broken, but what I hadn't realised was that the Ortho-what-do-you-callem Trauma unit were there to make the incident a whole load more traumatic. I was prepared for a scene out of the Inquisition with racks and stretching machines just so some sadist could prove how much more it could hurt. But the eagle eyed doctor from yesterday maybe missed the bone chip which prevents me twisting my arm - not just making it painful. And so they haven't decided whether to put it in a cast or to cut it open, dig around and remove some precious part of me.

I won't know till at least Monday, when they've booked me in for a CT scan. I am irrationally terrified of operations. Despite gaining solace from just how many miracles Mr Campbell-Gore could pull off even while drunk in charge of a scalpel.

Still - a visit to hospital usually manages to prove to you how lucky you are. There was a young chap in one of these:

You know what it's like, when you haven't been sat on your arses listening to the blather from the podium, you've been trying to remain upright enough to sort out the world in the conference bar.

So now it's all over, if you're travelling back passing anywhere within range of Oxford today, why not call in and help ensure that Nathan Pyle gets elected to the city council?

I myself failed dismally this morning for which I am still trying to work out how to apologise - having said I would do some good mornings, after delivering eve of polls last night and thinking I was getting to bed early enough to get up and five I slept right through my alarms at both 5am and 7am.

Since I am at work, the best way to put this right for me I guess is to encourage you all, freshly inspired by your week away, to spend an hour or so here on your way home. You know it's better than a Welcome Break.

From FlockTogether it's the only thing on today so there are no excuses. Catherine Bearder is the contact but more details on FlockTogether above.