Flashback to GCSE days
Oct. 18th, 2011 09:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sawylAfter a lazy day spent reading and catching, I got down to cooking supper while pater helped my niece cram for her imminent GCSE maths exam. Even though she was doing the easier paper, I was surprised by how easy it was: I don't think it covered anything that I hadn't learnt by the end of my second year of senior school.
Still, the girl seemed to find it tough going. She's hoping to get a C in November, with the possibility of a re-sit in the summer if she doesn't get the grade she needs for sixth form; pater, on the other hand, is clearly if unrealistically hoping that she'll somehow find a way to study hard enough to be able to take the more difficult paper in June. Sometimes I think we — both children and grandchildren — have let him down by not being better at mathematics...
ETA: I completely forgot to mention my niece's unexpected — to me, at least — interest in philosophy. For some reason, she mentioned that some of her friends had visited Auschwitz as part of their philosophy and ethics course. I transformed this into a few comments about Kant's argument that it is always wrong to lie — something I hazily remembered Kant justifying in terms of the Categorical Imperative — and after she mentioned that she was interested in studing P&E in the Sixth Form, we went on to talk about William Paley's watchmaker argument and where it falls down.
I'm very excited by the idea of another philosopher in the family!
Still, the girl seemed to find it tough going. She's hoping to get a C in November, with the possibility of a re-sit in the summer if she doesn't get the grade she needs for sixth form; pater, on the other hand, is clearly if unrealistically hoping that she'll somehow find a way to study hard enough to be able to take the more difficult paper in June. Sometimes I think we — both children and grandchildren — have let him down by not being better at mathematics...
ETA: I completely forgot to mention my niece's unexpected — to me, at least — interest in philosophy. For some reason, she mentioned that some of her friends had visited Auschwitz as part of their philosophy and ethics course. I transformed this into a few comments about Kant's argument that it is always wrong to lie — something I hazily remembered Kant justifying in terms of the Categorical Imperative — and after she mentioned that she was interested in studing P&E in the Sixth Form, we went on to talk about William Paley's watchmaker argument and where it falls down.
I'm very excited by the idea of another philosopher in the family!
