Nice
That kid already has a better understanding of Office than 90% of my end users.
Sometimes I wish MOS was a requirement for hiring.
A six year-old Brit has become one of the youngest people ever to pass a Microsoft exam. Humza Shahzad from Croydon, South London, has earned himself a Microsoft Office Specialist certification. Humza's parents – IT consultant dad Asim and a trained teacher mum – encouraged him to get interested in technology at the earliest …
Its all a bit pointless - if my son's IT lessons are anything to go by he should have been learning powerpoint not word. Seems my Sons IT teacher thinks Powerpoint is at the cutting edge of IT. Apparently putting hyperlinks into your presentation to make them 'interactive' is all the rage.
Powerpoint is used for english homework too rather than say, a word processor, like er... Word.
But fair play to the lad, word is an overcomplicated crock of sh1t these days and anybody who can make that monstrosity do something vaguely useful and keep the intended formatting gets a tip of the hat from me.
"Seems my Sons IT teacher thinks Powerpoint is at the cutting edge of IT."
Unfortunately, he's right as far as middle management careers are concerned... As long as you can produce shiny PPT presentations, the actual content doesn't matter and nobody will question the presenter's know how either...
"Its all a bit pointless - if my son's IT lessons are anything to go by he should have been learning powerpoint not word. Seems my Sons IT teacher thinks Powerpoint is at the cutting edge of IT. Apparently putting hyperlinks into your presentation to make them 'interactive' is all the rage.
Powerpoint is used for english homework too rather than say, a word processor, like er... Word.
But fair play to the lad, word is an overcomplicated crock of sh1t these days and anybody who can make that monstrosity do something vaguely useful and keep the intended formatting gets a tip of the hat from me."
When I was doing my GCSE's in 2003/2004 we had to do the exact same thing as you describe above. It's nice to know classics never die.
But this is endemic in education. I went on to deliver a "web design" course at College and the documentation/lesson plan I had to deliver basically started with "All websites on the internet use tables for layout". I went straight to the person who built the course, told her this was wrong, and she said "Well it's on the syllabus".
No it wasn't, it's the fact that she had drawn the document up back in the late 90's/early 00's and only changed little bits here and there when the curriculum changed. As long as the students demonstrated the skill of structuring a website with a table then that was enough to pass the exam. It was, however, complete shit and if they went in to a web design agency boasting that as a skill they'd have been laughed at.
If I had my time again, I wouldn't even bother my head about doing IT at school or college, and do something like this 6 year old has done and do something vendor specific.
I got called in to my 14 year old son's school when he flat refused to do IT because it was purely focussed on Office. He told the teacher he wasn't going to disrupt the class, he'd sit quietly at the back and catch up on real work, but he wasn't going to participate as he just didn't see the point in the class - Office isn't IT. I did the parental thing and told him he was right, but to toe the line to make life easy for himself...
Well at our school we get office out of the way in 1st and 2nd form with everyone doing ECDL, we also do process control, animation, film making, modelling, Lego C as a programming language introduction (and MS basic too for a bit of VB). If the kids stay on into igcse then we hit databases (filemaker pro) with html, advanced ecdl if the student is strong enough alomg with robotics. A level ict is heavily structured around the student project so almost anything can go.
What a disservice to your child. You're setting him up with the template that you must just shut up and put up.
If the boss says to do something inefficient and stupid... well Dad taught me to just shut up and do what the boss says.
There are many things you could have done to make this better: eg Ask the school to just let him do some other, more useful stuff during that time (eg. python programming).
Any teacher worth anything does not just want compliance - they want their kids learning. They should support alternative education.
Any teacher that just wants compliance is out of date unionised scum unfit to be dealing with the future of kids.
You must lead a charmed life because bucking the boss is a sure fire way to become unemployed.
Conversely, pointing out (tactfully) a better or more efficient way of working to your manager is often the best way to obtain career advancement, as long as your boss isn't a complete fuckwit, in which case you are probably better off getting fired for your 'insubordination'.
As a general rule, your boss probably knows things you don't.
Hard to believe, I know, but if you think about it he's got to be doing something when he's not leaning over your shoulder pointing out typos. That "something" is, inter alia, finding out things that you don't know.
So your assessment of "inefficient and stupid" may not be correct. Of course it may be, but as a general rule, I'd say the probability of you being correct on a call like that is well under 50%. After all, the boss clearly knows enough to have a better job than you, for one...
So "refusing to do stuff just because you think it's stupid and inefficient" might work, occasionally. But for >90% of kids out there, it'll just make them unemployable.
Just playing the numbers: of course YOUR kid is exceptional, but is it wise to assume he's part of this particular minority?
Let's work it through:
1. The kid is sufficiently bright, perceptive and strongminded (hereafter 'SBPS'), and you tell him to conform. In that case he should have no difficulty seeing that you're wrong and shrugging off the instruction.
2. The kid isn't SBPS, and you tell him to conform. Then you've just done him a huge service by teaching him how to keep a job.
3. The kid is SBPS, and you support him in rebelling. Great, so he gets to learn Python. On the other hand, you've weakened his independence by making him rely on your support.
4. The kid isn't SBPS, and you support him in rebelling. Now you've made him unemployable.
Seems to me that "telling him to conform" is the smart and supportive play, no matter what you privately believe.
"Any teacher that just wants compliance is out of date unionised scum unfit to be dealing with the future of kids." - bit harsh maybe? Perhaps the teachers are well aware of how pointless the subject matter is but have not yet won the battle to have it removed from the curriculum, and therefore want to at least ensure that their wards can pass the (silly) exams. Although most teachers I know are indeed just fascists, there are some "good" ones out there :)
If I were that teacher, my first response would have been: "OK, you may have a point. Come on in here and sit last year's final exam for this boring Office class, today."
If he passed - well, great, he can sit at the back of the class and hack away at something that interests him for the rest of the term, reasonably certain that he'll pass this year's test.
But if he didn't...well then that's too bad but he's going to have to participate in this class, end of.
And if I were the parent and the teacher didn't offer then I'd ask for this to happen.
Teaching kids to conform "because that's the way it is" is bad, but imho it's no worse than teaching kids to rebel "because conformity is wrong". Far better to teach kids to conform to what's right, and rebel against what's wrong, *but only after they can prove they know the difference*
> Does he refuse to do history because "it's just about the past"
That would only be a valid comparison if the history syllabus ONLY included the industrial revolution, the French class ONLY only included phrases useful for buying a train ticket and the maths course ONLY consisted of trigonometry.
Secondary school IT classes often consist of the use of Microsoft Office and nothing else.
Most likely the teacher either assumed he was just trying to skive off or they needed to submit the work as evidence of them having done their job. Either way, if your son can just work through the coursework independently and finish it early the teacher should be satisfied (if not then they're the power trip kind of teacher which, while rare, does exist and would probably be annoyed regardless of what he did)
Also good on your son for being willing to consider the usefulness of what he's studying while working on it at a fairly young age. Should be good at handling self guided learning in future
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"Computer Business Review adds that the youngster scored 57 more points than the required 700 minimum needed to pass the exam simply by answering every question with a cross in every box marked "(D) None of the above"".
Another industry observer stated "The childs overall score is 756 points higher than the benchmark to join HPs professional services department."
Kudos to the kid.
My son took his power point and word exams in middle school. It was NOT part of an IT curriculum, however.
Now in high school, he is taking engineering classes as a freshman. So far this year he has learned auto cad, 3d printing techniques, laser etching, and vacuum molding. He's done some cool stuff and is well on his way to a non-IT career in aerospace or mechanical engineering.
"I cannot work out why you think that looking at "cool stuff" is in anyway a preparation for a career in aerospace or mechanical engineering?"
Looking at cool stuff is how to get kids interested in the first place. A good example is chemistry - nice energetic reactions (loud bangs, smelly noises especially) get attention and have the cool factor. If you hammer kids with the mundane, they glaze over and lose interest, watch x-factor and decide they want to be a pop star instead.
One of the key reasons we struggle to get kids into careers in any form of engineering is because of the misinformed view of it being dull. Without emphasis to some degree on the "cool stuff", you won't get them interested in the first place and they won't be bothered to gain even a layman's knowledge, let alone go anywhere near a career.
> Is there a minimum age before you can be a pilot for paying passengers?
Yes.
(In the UK) For a basic PPL you can start at 14, go solo (ie fly on your own, but still under supervision of the instructor) at 16, and get your private licence at 17. That effectively puts a lower limit of 17 on starting any commercial training, which itself (for an intensive course) will take a year and cost you in the order of £40k to £50k last time I heard any numbers (probably more by now). That will take you to co-pilots seat in a budget airline, and from there you spend years climbing a greasy pole.
If you are very very good and very very lucky then you may get in with Virgin or BA who I believe still take trainees without a private licence and take them through to commercial. But that has to be one of the hardest gigs to get - I can imagine they get a lot of applicants !
""The BBC reports that his parents want Hamza to become the next Bill Gates, but the youngster has other ideas, fancying himself as a pilot instead"
Yes. Ignore the pushy parents and do what you want to do."
Good call...
Bill Gates isn't really a great role model unless your parents are happy to splash a few $m to help a college drop out start a business. Also to be Bill Gates you need parents who know some big cheeses at IBM so you get a shot to pitch a hacked up executive that you licensed from a shop down the road for a the price of a 3500 sqft house.
Exams set by companies are to ensure you learn what they want to tell you. You will be expected to study every facet of $PRODUCT in great detail, just in case it could ever come up, and so $COMPANY can make more money selling their information to you. At no point are you expect to think for yourself.
Exams set by universities are to ensure you learn what you should know to understand a given subject, so that you can think for yourself. You will be expected to study every facet of $SUBJECT in great detail, just in case it could ever come up, and so $UNIVERSITY can make more money selling their information to you. At some point you *may* be expected to think for yourself.
Which university you think Microsoft is in this example, probably gives some insight into your IT background!!!!
P.
Surprised they still use 'Engineer' in qualifications because a) they aren't allowed to award that title and b) they really mean 'Technician'. Just like CISCO stopped using it when the IEEE told them to.
The guy that changes the oil in your car is a Technician, the guy that designed your car is an Engineer.
You do know that this old chestnut died a rather long time ago. Firstly, MCSE was dropped in 2008 in favour of MCITP (Microsoft Certified IT Professional). With Windows Server 2012, the MCSE returned, but became "Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert".
And as for such a pretentious interpretation of the title "Engineer" - like "Consultant", "Architect" and even "Doctor", it's so over-applied in so many other ways (including beyond IT), that such snobbery really belongs in the mid 20th century.
Whether you like it or not, language evolves - after all, what the Americans have termed a "Railroad Engineer" for well over a century is what in the UK would be described as a "Railway Driver" - he doesn't design or build it, does he?
"after all, what the Americans have termed a "Railroad Engineer" for well over a century is what in the UK would be described as a "Railway Driver" - he doesn't design or build it, does he?"
You mean an engine driver.
As its form implies, engineer originally meant anyone who built or operated an engine. In the early days of steam, there wasn't a lot of difference - one of my ancestors wrote a book on engine driving which included things like how to replace the glass on your boiler gauge when it cracked, and engine drivers were paid according to how economically they could run their engines, which required a great deal of practical skill and a knowledge of all the gradients on their lines. Goods train drivers and firemen in particular might have to make running repairs, including dealing with axle boxes overheating due to running bearings. Marine engineers might be technicians in modern speak, but their skills were way above those of most; they would often have to design and build fixes to major failures in remote ports.
So a higher professional level of chartered engineer evolved, as engine driving and maintenance was gradually deskilled, and the theoretical knowledge needed to design engines increased. Then the professional bodies got involved and started a landgrab for titles - the medical profession, for instance, trying to lay claim to the title of "doctor", which was in its origins just the higher degree title. But as you suggest, the word engineer was originally generic and perhaps, on its own, should stay so.
Ha ha. I recall many moons ago doing an Server 2003 course and he was trying to show us something with regards to Volume shadow copying, and he couldn't get something to work quite as it was showing in the book, and so being a room full of techies we soon found a different way to do the same thing. He said that "Oh, I can't seem to get it working, but If you intend on taking the MS exam then just remember how it says to do it in the book as any other answer will be counted as wrong, regardless of the fact that other way will actually work. "
Indeed. I remember being on an MS course where the instructor said something like "if I stand on this side of the backboard and answer your question, that's the real life answer that actually works, but if I stand on that side, that's the answer you must give in the exam.
Whenever anybody offers a Certification or Degree, of any type, follow the money to see who stands to benefit from you practicing that particular skill. It has little to do with knowledge, and more to do with association and subservience to a particular entity or school of thought.
Lawyers don't have to understand or uphold the law, as the lawyer-infested US government has shown the world.
Geologists finding a link between fracking and earthquakes run afoul of the source of their funding.
MCSE coursework would never give you points for solving a customer's problem with a free/Open Source solution if an alternative can be hacked together with their expensive proprietary tools.
If you want your kid to succeed in the tech world, the worst you can do is encourage them to get a degree or pursue a certification - this is the path of the office drone. There's a reason why all the tech giants were founded by college dropouts - they discovered the education to be either incomplete or obsolete. Follow your own path, learn both Open and Proprietary toolsets, but reserve for yourself how you would apply them to a problem.
As for the good parts of the university system, you can get them for free, so why on Earth would you pay for them?
"There's a reason why all the tech giants were founded by college dropouts - they discovered the education to be either incomplete or obsolete. "
Err, here's a few of examples of "tech giants" that were NOT founded by college dropouts: Intel, Google, IBM. Oracle was founded by some graduates plus Larry. :)
Sorry for replying to your reply but this quote really gets my goat
"There's a reason why all the tech giants were founded by college dropouts - they discovered the education to be either incomplete or obsolete. "
Just because a few people in the US who failed to complete their academic route and in deperation abused their family contacts to BS their way into millions doesnt mean it is going to work for the majority. Most people tend to want self respect and have little chance to extract money from slightly more ignorant or gullible people without the police being involved.
In truth, education has freed many more people that any collection of historic liberators you can name.
Saying that a few guys won the lottery and obtained millions without an education is not the same as "it could happen to you". The last quoted section for non-UK people is a catch phase for the UK Nation Lottery and it is singularly apt, you have much better odds of winning advancement by taking a degree course then the 14 million to 1 shot of getting the jackpot from buying a ticket.
"And as for such a pretentious interpretation of the title "Engineer" - like "Consultant", "Architect" and even "Doctor", it's so over-applied in so many other ways (including beyond IT), that such snobbery really belongs in the mid 20th century.
Whether you like it or not, language evolves"
Well, the fact of the matter is, both Cisco and Microsoft have dropped the term "engineer", because in quite a few jurisdictions an engineer is an actual engineer, and it's actually illegal to refer to oneself as an engineer if they don't have an engineering certification of some kind. Language evolves, but engineer and doctor are still real terms with real meanings.
are designed for people who cannot deliver a presentation.
I sat a two month course when I was in the army called 'Advanced Instructional Techniques' and it was fucking brutal.
I was given three subjects a week in which I had to learn the subject, develop the powerpoint and deliver the lesson. It was either 35, 55 or 85 minute lessons and the criteria for failure was massive.
If I finished outside of one minute either side of the allocated time, I failed that lesson. If I taught wrong information, even one wrong name or word relating to the topic, I failed. When it came to the presentation confirmation and I asked questions to confirm understanding, if a question was answered wrong, I had to re-teach that entire section in the remaining time, and ask the question again. If it was still a wrong answer, I failed. If I had grammatical or spelling errors, or inconsistencies in font style and size, I failed. I had about thirty lessons to teach, and if I failed more than three I was off the course.
Presentations were basic. An easy on the eyes background and font colour, with appropriate font sizes. The entire essence of the lesson was based on the instructor though. You had to make it interesting and informative -and- engaging, and there were no shinies to help you out. We had a few talks from some very experienced industry people who went into detail about the crap on presentations and how much the take away from the learning process if they put the user off / distract from the text.
Unfortunately, what I've seen in civilian life is that a lot of people think they can use all the animations and shinies and it makes a great presentation, and then fudge or mumble their way through it. It kills me, and I had one last week where the presenter didn't even F5 the screen, just kept it in the editing screen and moused down the left hand slide menu.
I was almost in tears.
Quite honestly, I don't see much moral difference between this and pushy parents packing their little darling of to Bollettieri as a toddler to become a tennis star, or parading them around every weekend in bikini and trowelled-on make-up in beauty contests.
Or Dolly Shivani Cherukuri...
Take it from Uncle Buck (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098554/quotes):
"I don't think I want to know a six-year-old who isn't a dreamer, or a sillyheart. And I sure don't want to know one who takes their student career seriously."
(Oh, and obviously: "Take this quarter, go downtown, and have a rat gnaw that thing off your face! Good day to you, madam.")
The 70% pass mark makes them far from simple, and this is coming from someone with a masters degree in a proper 'hard science' subject, and ten years first-hand every-day experience in developing against SQL Server.
I do suspect it's a case of certain MCXY* exams being easier than others. I'm willing to bet that this particular exam didn't have any questions on scripting or automation. Looking at the syllabus (here) indicates that the amount of material (and complexity) is about 1% as much as the 'real' MS qualifications, so all this really demonstrates is that there is a 6-year-old with a parent gullible enough to shell out the exam fee for a certificate which will be ten years out of date by the time the child is old enough to get any conceivable benefit from having it. Either that, or the dad is going to be shelling out the fee again every 2 years to keep it up-to-date...
*whatever 4-letter acronym MS is calling them this week