I despair. There are ready reckoners to do that, PC programs. Even doing it by hand only requires the ability to add and multiply using a calculator and looking up of numbers in a book. Primary school arithmetic. First form physics. Or at least it was.
Sadly, school curriculum doesn't seem to cover Real Life. All that it covers is the ability to pass "SATS" tests. In reality nowadays the whole school life is wasted as far as RL is concerned - any useful education (possibly) takes place at "further education" places - at further cost to the taxpayer, or to industry (at further cost to the ultimate customer).
At primary school I could use a slide-rule (am I showing my age?!) and do simultaneous equations. Apparently even logarithms aren't introduced to schoolchildren nowadays until sixth-form (or whatever it's called) even though such things as decibels are based on them.
Even practical skills such as wood and metal work are rarely taught in schools, except perhaps at a very basic level. Haunched stopped mortice and tenon joints were no real problem hrrumph years ago in 3rd year grammar-technical school; nor were drawings in first or third-angle projection.
I sincerely believe that taxpayers' money is totally wasted in most "comprehensive" schools.
So tell us where you had got to in the first 60 hours of lessons... ;-)
? Both my children went to a state Comprehensive school (one is still there in the 6th form and one now at Uni) and both had compulsary Resistant Materials (wookwork/metalwork to you and me) Textiles (needlework) and Food Tech (cookery) for the first three years of high school and were encouraged (almost forced...) to take one of them to GCSE level.
Both kids (one girl, one boy) can handle power tools (including a lathe), use a sewing machine and cook a meal.
What more are schools expected to do?
Certainly when I was at (an all girls) school we never got the opportunity to do any form of woodwork/metalwork or technical drawing and my husband (who went to an all boys school) never had the opportunity to do any form of needlework.
Schools have actually improved in this "basic skills" area over the past thirty years!
There is much excellent work done within the timetabled restrictions. As a teacher trained in Technology I'm disappointed that the subject has been watered down - but still found time to teach the use of a range of hand tools, technical drawing, problem solving, permitted power tools (eg pillar drill but not band saw), demonstrate use of non-permiited power tools, and take a team of kids to the final of the Steel Challenge Competition. What there generally isn't time for is long-term projects - but then all kids learn all aspects of Technology, and in school I never encountered IT, textiles, food technology, business studies, nor studied aspects of industrial production methods. Indeed
- at my grammar (not technical grammar) school we didn't even touch upon metalwork nor work in plastics either.
The message from Gully Foyle contains these words:
I'm amazed how few kids are taught to cook by their parents. My 8yo can do several basic dishes (though he has trouble getting a roux to work without lumps) and even the 3yo is taking an interest, making eggy bread and cheese on toast etc.
The problem I see over and over is people cant be bothered to get the basic facts right. The last one, who looked at the place personally, could not be bothered to establish the type(s) of building construction, which of course is key to energy consumption figures. Nor could he be bothered to ask how the existing system performed, which would have been a simple check on his errors. He ended up recommending a boiler of about twice the required rating. Unfortunately a ready reckoner would probably not have picked up his mistakes.
As for physically measuring, same story here, not bothering, and producing erroneous information and inappropriate recommendations as a result. Imho the British workforce is in a lot of cases rather lazy. Not all of course.
NT
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