And this - from a teacher?

Next time you wonder why your children or grandchildren don't seem to actually learn anything at school, take a look on iPlayer at last night's 'Mastermind' - two of the contestants were teachers ...

One couldn't name a 'conjunction' even when given the definition; didn't know the highest mountain in Greece; looked baffled when asked to name the Human Rights Acts; and couldn't identify either Piltdown Man or an Aria - although sport and questions on bands etc., proved no problem.

The other didn't even bother to guess that a 'blood sucking worm' might be a leech, "A berry grown on a bush, used in jam and cordial and high in vitamin C" elicited the answer 'Damson' and when receiving the answers to his pass questions, was clearly none-the-wiser when being told what a 'reflex angle' was.

If teachers don't know diddly-squat, is it any wonder our education system lags behind countries like Lithuania, Poland and South Korea?

 

I don't know how I would react in that scenrio (I'm not a teacher) but being under the spotlight, under pressure, on TV ...

Much of my general knowledge I garnered from my parents; my academic knowledge from teachers and trivia from ... life

 

I realised quite some years ago that general knowledge is unimportant except for winning pub quizzes. Any general knowledge can become true enough as long as you make sure you sound convincing when you say it. For example, once when a bunch of colleagues were debating the capabilities of various military helicopters (bearing in mind we weren't anything to do with the military or the aviation industry), I piped up, 'did you know that the apache gunship is the only helicopter that can achieve sustained inverted flight, ie it can fly upside down', there was a pause before I heard 'yes, of course I knew that, but ....' I didn't listen to the rest of it.