Where is balance? -- Re: Academic priorities
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From: David Kanter on 2 May 2005 13:31 Steve Richfie1d wrote: > Morten, et al, > > >>Schools exist for two main reasons; the primary one is to provide an > >>"education" (which in reality only needs to be "how to learn stuff" > >>training) > > >>and to teach conformity to societal norms. > > There are two very different interpretations of this, and THIS is where > the schools and our family part company. The two interpretations are: > > 1. Indoctrinate the kids to think "normally", accept commonly accepted > social values, etc., as the schools now attempt to do. > > 2. Teach the kids to ACT (i.e. fake being) completely normal as needed, > but without transforming or restricting their thought processes. I did > this by signing the kids up to Toastmasters when they were ready. A > local group accepted them despite their young age because they could > easily carry on adult-level conversations and generally "fit in" with > the group, give speeches, etc. Of course, official membership had to > wait until they reached 18. It is sure interesting to hear the kids' > impressions of things when they are out of earshot of the other members! > > BTW, the original justification for schools was to have a sufficiently > educated electorate to vote intelligently on the issues. In this they > have failed miserably. LOL. I'm in a toastmasters chapter at my work, and I kind of understand what you mean. I wanted to talk about how stock options are evil and should be replaced entirely with restricted shares of stock that cannot be sold until 2-5 years after leaving employment at the firm in question. However, after a quick look at the audience (lots of HR folks), I decided that would be extraordinarily career limiting. David
From: Kevin G. Rhoads on 2 May 2005 13:08 >BTW, the original justification for schools was to have a sufficiently >educated electorate to vote intelligently on the issues. In this they >have failed miserably. I think it is much worse than that. Public schools these days are not just failing to help solve the problem, they are active contributing to it. (One example: "zero tolerance")
From: Kevin G. Rhoads on 2 May 2005 13:11 >Formulas used are from general relativity. They have to account for >the gravity well, the resultant time dilution, doppler effects, and >bending of space. Without these the GPS receiver would have a best >resolution of a few kilometers. Now it can be as good as a few meters. There are also corrections for the plasma density of the ionosphere as traversed by the signals that need be made -- as the FAA is finding out these can NOT be assumed to be slowly varying functions of geographic position at all times. A "few meters" is not good enough to land planes reliably ...
From: Kevin G. Rhoads on 2 May 2005 13:16 >> And one of the problems with "Government Monopoly Schools" is that the kids >> are limited to the biases and knowledge of the teachers and curriculum >> consultants. :-) > >Sure, but as the kids go through school they'll encounter many >different teachers and their biases will tend to balance out. Bzzzt. Both wrong. Kids are limited to biases of the Bureaucracy, with minor spin by teachers' own biases on top. The biases of the teachers tend to average out, leaving the Bureaucratic bias both dominant and (within the school environment, at least) UN-opposed. That doesn't mean the students take the bias as their own, instead they may rebel against it and adopt some apparent opposite just as unthinkingly. However, either course detracts from true learning.
From: CBFalconer on 2 May 2005 14:14
David Kanter wrote: > > I definitely could have used something like this in 9th grade. To be > honest, I never really did anything like this until my undergraudate > thesis, and I didn't do it to my full satisfaction. But at least now I > know how to... Like what? How to what? See my sig below. -- "If you want to post a followup via groups.google.com, don't use the broken "Reply" link at the bottom of the article. Click on "show options" at the top of the article, then click on the "Reply" at the bottom of the article headers." - Keith Thompson |