S Flicking hell of kids’ money spinners
on number one has seven days until his first GCSE exam and things are getting serious. I know this because I’m almost certain I saw him open a revision book.
He closed it immediately and sighed. But, hey, it’s a start.
To be fair I don’t envy him these exams.
These are the tests of knowledge that will shape his future. They shaped mine.
There are three key facts from my exam days that have stuck with me for life. Fact one: The Schlieffen Plan didn’t have enough soldiers in the hammer head in World War One. (O-level History).
Fact 2: The long lost island of Sohcahtoa isn’t a real island. (O-level Maths).
And my favourite exam fact that has persisted despite the passage of time, the name of the laboratory device used to turn hot vapour into cool liquid.
Fact 3 is the most infuriating. I walked out of my CSE Chemistry and let out an exasperated shout of “Liebig Condenser!” That’s because I remembered the answer to the question 60 seconds too late to write it down on the exam paper.
The only fact I remember from that Chemistry exam36 years ago is the name of the device that cost me three marks. I don’t remember anything else.
I say the exams and this knowledge shaped my life, because it was clear from the results of my exams that I wouldn’t be travelling down the route of adcademia with any success.
My two boys may fare differently.
Our Bradley, aged 16, in the run up to his exams, has the added distraction of a younger brother.
It’s one thing creating the right revision environment in the home, quite another immersing yourself in that environment while your 13-year-oldbrother bounces on a trampoline outside the kitchen window.
Bradley’s need for peace and quiet has conincided with his brother’s renewed interest in the trampoline and a strange new gadget I’m assured is all the rage.
The Fidget Spinner is, I’m reliably informed, the hula hoop for the new generation.
Our Isaac dragged me to the shops to buy him one.
It is certainly an intriguing piece of kit. A hand held triangulated set of bearings in various colours. You hold it between the thumb and forefinger and flick it with your middle finger to make it spin.
I watched our Isaac spin it between his fingers.
“So what else does it do?” I asked.
“That’s it,” he said. “It spins when you flick it with your middle finger.”
After forking out £8 for the Fidget Spinner, I felt I’d been flicked the middle finger!
Someone, somewhere is making a fortune out of these things. Good luck to them. I suspect they revised enough to ensure they didn’t walk out of any exams with a plaintive cry of “Liebig Condenser.”
That no doubt is reserved for those stupid schmucks who end up forking out hard earned cash on their kids’ expensive fads. Good luck Brad.