***
Sort of long, but had to be done.
***
After thinking about my last rant for awhile, thinking about WHY people with all that flesh and blood and busy endocrine systems allow themselves to be sealed up like the pretty packages they see on the teevee, and after reading a portions from an essay called Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work I am more angry than I usually am. It just won't quit naggling my brain.
I honestly think that almost every human being has the potential to do great things, even if those things are small in the eyes of others, things that matter. Yeah, you can look at those assholes waving pathetic DAY of RAGE signs and point and say "Well, at least they're doing something." Bullshit. They're not doing any more than I am doing right now, drinking coffee and yelling with a keyboard. Their problem is they actually think they're accomplishing something, or that they're on the right track to accomplishing something. And that's what pisses me off and makes me laugh at the same time. I guess it's better than watching teevee.
Uh, sidetracked.
What happened in Egypt, as Demolition Squid so aptly illustrated, shows us that humans CAN do SOMETHING of SUBSTANCE. They can reach into their sallow, over-ripe bellies and pull out something genuine and important. And you've all seen it in your lives (in others and in yourself), it's possible and nearly every person on the planet contains that possibility.
So what keeps it down so low, so seemingly out of reach?
I think the largest component is education. Or, rather, the lack of it.
I am grossly undereducated. Working in a bookstore for years and coming here, talking with you very smart people, has been the only thing that has saved my mind from turning into the same useless goop that fills the skulls of All These Assholes. And there are others like me who, despite a deficiency in formal education, are capable of using their minds effectively. Critical thinking, problem solving, etc.
But the majority, the people who are allowing awful things to happen when we could instead live in a golden era of technology, knowledge and freedom, are not so...lucky? Is it chance? I think so.
How in the hell are people supposed to think for themselves when they don't know how to think. At best, some of them learned WHAT to think, they collected all the right bits of knowledge that allow them to pass by all the right doorways to enable them to be "successful". And most of them are still idiots.
It has been said here "If they treat education like a product they can't very well bitch when you act like a consumer." Yeah. Not that I disagree but that's a tiny fragment of the problem. THEY do not want an educated society. Period. They want a society that knows how to dot their i's cross their t's, fill out forms. God, every single class I've had since the 1st grade has consisted of a series of forms to be filled in with the right answers. Math? Nothing but a chunky books, do problems 1-113 odd or evens, your choice. MY choice would be to learn how to solve problems, MY choice would be to grasp the fundamental of certain skillsets and how they related to other skillsets which give me an opportunity to use the best of my brain.
But THEY tailor education to fit the social class. By the time kids reach highschool it is way, way, way too late to undo six years form learning, unstable teachers, rote memorization, etc. And then, AND THEN, when little pieces of shit who think their families have money because their parents went deeper into debt to purchase them some giant fucking gas guzzler (might be my local there) act like spoiled little shits in class and a teacher with no patience for their petty, ignorant, undereducated bullshit lays down the law their parents come in "How Dare You, MY Child Would Never." and the teacher has to fucking EAT IT.
What is the fucking point?
I'm pretty good at explaining things to people so they can understand them. I'm a very good public speaker. I like talking. I have always had it in the back of my mind that I would like to teach someday. But you what? FUCK that shit. Not in 'murrica. Not when the best teacher I had, a simple guy from Chicago who taught me the WONDER that is a star and how they work, blew his heart into tiny pieces with a .44. Not when I've seen spineless administrators cower behind a bureaucracy so massive it can pay its superintendent $250,000 a year but can't afford textbooks and other materials for US government class. Not when some kid gets bullied, and despite the parents and teachers talking and talking and FUCKING TALKING, and the kid kills himself and the districts settlement ensures the story doesn't reach the papers.
All that shit and the pay the give to the people at the front lines with ZERO backup from The Man? No. I don't think so.
So maybe I'm a part of the problem too. No, I definitely am. And I don't know what to do. And I'm very pissed off.
This is the ugly truth, Alty.
The first time I went back to classes as an adult, I was utterly horrified by my classmates. I was surrounded not just by teens and young-twenties "adults" who not only didn't know how to think, but who had no desire to do so.
I know what to do about it now for myself. I'm learning things, I'm getting an education. But the more I learn and the more I become aware of the deficit left by the school system I was in I just get more angry.
Quote from: Alty on September 20, 2011, 08:39:35 PM
I know what to do about it now for myself. I'm learning things, I'm getting an education. But the more I learn and the more I become aware of the deficit left by the school system I was in I just get more angry.
Get yourself elected or appointed to the Alaska board of education, and fix shit.
Fuck, if Palin can get elected, you can. :wink:
Eh, I dunno, I'd rather throw poop at them.
More seriously, perhaps you're right. If it's that important to me that would be a good route to follow. My immediate thought is that it's impossible. Anchorage is a very political place where even small offices are fiercely fought over. We once had an election for Anchorage Assembly where the two major candidates spent over three times what they would earn in a year in that position in ads and such. One of them sent his coke-head son to hawaii, bought him a condo, to get him out of the way.
I doubt I'd make a good elected official since I have very strong views and previous habits and experience that, once come to light, would not do well in this very conservative town.
But maybe that's just me making excuses and you're right.
First thing's first though, get a degree.
Biggest reason in the fucking world that shit doesn't get done is people thinking "I can't."
I'm not saying I've got the right answer... I'm saying, look around until you find AN answer, if it's that important to you.
Education is fucked because we elect politicians that promise to fuck it.
Reality does not line up with conservatism very well, so the obvious thing to do is ignore reality. This is more easily accomplished with an ignorant population.
See that's exactly why I think school boards are useless (well, not to politicians, they're VERY useful to The Man). So my though has often been, get in at the ground level, try to give some kids a chance as early as possible, or even in High School and do for some of them what a few teachers did for me: Be honest, teach me something of value, teach me HOW to learn.
But the steady erosion of my patience, wits, and mental stability is something I can see from here. I might get a handful of students a year if I'm lucky. And they'll probably only realize what was going on years and years later. Meanwhile, I do not take people's bullshit lightly (parents) unless I'm getting seriously paid. And even then, I'm not good at hiding my hatred for idiocy.
Quote from: Alty on September 20, 2011, 10:14:02 PM
See that's exactly why I think school boards are useless (well, not to politicians, they're VERY useful to The Man). So my though has often been, get in at the ground level, try to give some kids a chance as early as possible, or even in High School and do for some of them what a few teachers did for me: Be honest, teach me something of value, teach me HOW to learn.
But the steady erosion of my patience, wits, and mental stability is something I can see from here. I might get a handful of students a year if I'm lucky. And they'll probably only realize what was going on years and years later. Meanwhile, I do not take people's bullshit lightly (parents) unless I'm getting seriously paid. And even then, I'm not good at hiding my hatred for idiocy.
School boards serve no purpose other than to allow non-educators to joggle the elbows of educators.
Yeah that, and to earn a pretty good paycheck. Here, anyway.
I've been thinking about writing something like the OP, only a bit shorter and more polite (in the beginning, not so much at the end) and going to one of their meetings.
Quote from: Alty on September 20, 2011, 10:31:49 PM
Yeah that, and to earn a pretty good paycheck. Here, anyway.
Also to make sure that biology classes consist of nothing but endless disclaimers.
PAUSE.
QuoteBy the time kids reach highschool it is way, way, way too late to undo six years form learning, unstable teachers, rote memorization, etc.
Rote memorization is perhaps the best way to learn certain things, like your multiplication tables, alphabet and letter sounds and general guidelines to pronunciation, things that never actually change.
RESUME.
Quote from: Jenkem and SPACE/TIME on September 20, 2011, 10:39:01 PM
PAUSE.
QuoteBy the time kids reach highschool it is way, way, way too late to undo six years form learning, unstable teachers, rote memorization, etc.
Rote memorization is perhaps the best way to learn certain things, like your multiplication tables, alphabet and letter sounds and general guidelines to pronunciation, things that never actually change.
RESUME.
THIS.
Why can't Johnny do math?
Because they've stopped making kids memorize the multiplication tables.
Yes, but there is a limit to the kind of knowledge necessary using that tool. It's one tool and one used too heavily, IMO.
Very basic math, basic letters and such.
But its usefulness ceases very quickly and does not offer any lasting value beyond what it contains. By a certain grade lever students should already have those skills locked down and move on to things that require application of concepts. I was taught using rote memorization in the 8th grade. For phonetics.
It has value, perhaps what you quoted was not formed as well as it should have been.
It's insane, and I hate the fact that nobody can do this shit anymore.
Other than that, though, I completely agree that the education system needs to be changed, and also that its likely to never be, and that is in itself frustrating and rage inducing.
Quote from: Alty on September 20, 2011, 08:16:39 PM
I'm pretty good at explaining things to people so they can understand them. I'm a very good public speaker. I like talking. I have always had it in the back of my mind that I would like to teach someday. But you what? FUCK that shit. Not in 'murrica. Not when the best teacher I had, a simple guy from Chicago who taught me the WONDER that is a star and how they work, blew his heart into tiny pieces with a .44. Not when I've seen spineless administrators cower behind a bureaucracy so massive it can pay its superintendent $250,000 a year but can't afford textbooks and other materials for US government class. Not when some kid gets bullied, and despite the parents and teachers talking and talking and FUCKING TALKING, and the kid kills himself and the districts settlement ensures the story doesn't reach the papers.
You forgot the administrators themselves, who are just as bad as the parents and hold the teachers at their mercy. :lulz: I watched as my old high school fell apart under the hand of a new principal because of his policies (one of my biggest beefs with the NCLB act is that it punishes just teachers and not administrators when schools fail). The principal forced my high school debate coach, who was also an English teacher, to pass ~70% of her senior class one year (them not passing the class is the purest, most awful example of laziness I have ever, ever seen because it wasn't hard).
Quote from: Alty on September 20, 2011, 10:14:02 PM
See that's exactly why I think school boards are useless (well, not to politicians, they're VERY useful to The Man). So my though has often been, get in at the ground level, try to give some kids a chance as early as possible, or even in High School and do for some of them what a few teachers did for me: Be honest, teach me something of value, teach me HOW to learn.
But the steady erosion of my patience, wits, and mental stability is something I can see from here. I might get a handful of students a year if I'm lucky. And they'll probably only realize what was going on years and years later. Meanwhile, I do not take people's bullshit lightly (parents) unless I'm getting seriously paid. And even then, I'm not good at hiding my hatred for idiocy.
So what if you only get a few a year and they don't realize things for a while? At least you got to someone in
some way, and it's better than nothing.
Work in a district with a union and learn to hide your hatred for idiocy until you have tenure. Then, as long as you aren't showing your kids R rated movies without a permission slip, they can't touch you.
Refusing to teach when you can do it well is definitely being part of the problem, imo. Somebody has to be that Chicago teacher, after all.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on September 20, 2011, 10:04:08 PM
Education is fucked because we elect politicians that promise to fuck it.
Reality does not line up with conservatism very well, so the obvious thing to do is ignore reality. This is more easily accomplished with an ignorant population.
THIS. Politicians have absolutely no place in education. They have no idea how a classroom works and no understanding of the process of teaching, and so they need to keep their goddamn noses out of it.
Quote from: Alty on September 20, 2011, 10:44:57 PM
Yes, but there is a limit to the kind of knowledge necessary using that tool. It's one tool and one used too heavily, IMO.
Very basic math, basic letters and such.
Balls. It isn't used at all, any more. Kids are now taught using change, so they recognize the shape and not the concept, making them very good WalMart clerks and dick all else.
Also, the first two years of physics is nothing but memorization. Same thing with most of trigonometry, chemistry, and biology.
All that stuff you listed, is why I want to be a teacher.
I want to be that teacher that tells the parents to shove it, because I'm not a babysitter.
I want to be that teacher that moves minds as mine was moved. I want to be Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds.
I want to be that teacher that the kids talk about when they go home, the one that comes into history class wearing full costume. I'd get laughed at, but I'd get their little fucking attentions, now won't I?
Teachers today have no fucking drive because, well, they have nothing to strive for. They have shitty pay, shitty benefits, and shitty students day in and day out. Reform is going to begin from within, not from anything passing through Washington. We've seen the wonders that NCLB did, after all.
And where it's not the teachers, it's the parents. The results of the Special Snowflake Generation rearing their offspring to be even more spoiled and disillusioned. Unfortunately, parental reform sounds like eugenics, and we can't talk about such things, so, blame it on the schools. That system you pay taxes for to babysit your sprogs while you sit at home and collect UI while your SO works 3 jobs to make ends meet in this economy.
I often feel like my parents were a dime a dozen. Not only were they still married, but I had all the homework help I needed, and they would make sure I got it to the best of their abilities with their own backgrounds in English and Chemistry. And when my parents weren't home, I helped my brother and sister. It just seemed like the right thing to do. That sort of family interaction seems even more rare now, unfortunately, as parents are working longer hours.
There are still good parents, good students, and good teachers in this country, but the bad just continues to outweigh the good.
Quote from: Alty on September 20, 2011, 10:44:57 PM
Yes, but there is a limit to the kind of knowledge necessary using that tool. It's one tool and one used too heavily, IMO.
Very basic math, basic letters and such.
But its usefulness ceases very quickly and does not offer any lasting value beyond what it contains. By a certain grade lever students should already have those skills locked down and move on to things that require application of concepts. I was taught using rote memorization in the 8th grade. For phonetics.
It has value, perhaps what you quoted was not formed as well as it should have been.
Rote memorizing really does have limits to usefulness. Phonetics should be taught in third grade at the latest, and if I remember correctly you said that your teacher taught you them because you were all seriously lacking in that department.
Quote from: Jenkem and SPACE/TIME on September 20, 2011, 10:50:38 PM
Rote memorizing really does have limits to usefulness.
RUBBISH!
9/10ths of education is like 9/10ths of anything else. It's fucking WORK. Better to get the little hothouse flowers accustomed to that now.
Also, how can you possibly teach cell division, without requiring memorization?
Memorization is part of education, however, so is learning to fucking THINK.
Your average history class is all memorization. Vomit back lists of dates, events, and names, but there's no understanding of WHY shit happened.
When I was little, I wanted to be a teacher. I learned later that I have absolutely no patience with people who can't keep up with me, and teaching is one thing that absolutely requires patience in order to be effective at it. :(
Quote from: Doktor Howl on September 20, 2011, 10:52:04 PM
Quote from: Jenkem and SPACE/TIME on September 20, 2011, 10:50:38 PM
Rote memorizing really does have limits to usefulness.
RUBBISH!
9/10ths of education is like 9/10ths of anything else. It's fucking WORK. Better to get the little hothouse flowers accustomed to that now.
Also, how can you possibly teach cell division, without requiring memorization?
I don't know, because I don't think I learned it. :x
ETA: I was referring more to critical thinking and classes where answers are mutable. You couldn't rote memorize what X author was talking about in Y novel with Z metaphors, after all. But now that I'm thinking about it, most things worth knowing are based off of formulas, so yeah, you're right.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on September 20, 2011, 10:48:09 PM
Quote from: Alty on September 20, 2011, 10:44:57 PM
Yes, but there is a limit to the kind of knowledge necessary using that tool. It's one tool and one used too heavily, IMO.
Very basic math, basic letters and such.
Balls. It isn't used at all, any more. Kids are now taught using change, so they recognize the shape and not the concept, making them very good WalMart clerks and dick all else.
Also, the first two years of physics is nothing but memorization. Same thing with most of trigonometry, chemistry, and biology.
Perhaps my own under-education is getting the best of me here. I will endeavor to re-assess my opinion on this matter.
Freeky: The entire school went through that process. Sometime later they introduced the exit exams for high school students, all of which I failed but was not required to pass since nearly 75% of the students who took it throughout the district failed it. This was a last ditch effort to get students competent enough to fill out job applications. The district did not seem to be of the mind that this failure was their own to begin with.
Every high school graduate should have at LEAST the following under his/her belt:
Algebra & geometry. MINIMUM.
Statistics.
Physics.
Chemistry.
Biology.
American history, at least the basics, 1600-present.
20th century European history.
4 years of English, to include speech and essay writing.
Civics, to include the US constitution.
Literary study (Twain, Mencken, Kipling, etc)
Basic mechanics and electrical knowledge.
Electives added to round it out.
Anything less means you do not have an educated citizen, and 90% of the above is memorization.
Quote from: Alty on September 20, 2011, 10:55:18 PM
Freeky: The entire school went through that process. Sometime later they introduced the exit exams for high school students, all of which I failed but was not required to pass since nearly 75% of the students who took it throughout the district failed it. This was a last ditch effort to get students competent enough to fill out job applications. The district did not seem to be of the mind that this failure was their own to begin with.
Damn.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on September 20, 2011, 10:58:14 PM
Every high school graduate should have at LEAST the following under his/her belt:
Algebra & geometry. MINIMUM.
Statistics.
Physics.
Chemistry.
Biology.
American history, at least the basics, 1600-present.
20th century European history.
4 years of English, to include speech and essay writing.
Civics, to include the US constitution.
Literary study (Twain, Mencken, Kipling, etc)
Basic mechanics and electrical knowledge.
Electives added to round it out.
Anything less means you do not have an educated citizen, and 90% of the above is memorization.
I would have failed your school. When I left highschool, I had a decent grasp of 15% of that. :| <-- at my education
See, I'd argue that half the problem now is teaching to the fucking test. That takes up huge amounts of time, especially at the elementary school levels. I asked my mother once how much of her day was teaching kids how to pass standardized tests and she said it was something like 80%. How are you supposed to teach a kid to think if you're wrapped up in teaching them to pass a test?
Quote from: Luna on September 20, 2011, 10:53:11 PM
Memorization is part of education, however, so is learning to fucking THINK.
Your average history class is all memorization. Vomit back lists of dates, events, and names, but there's no understanding of WHY shit happened.
Which is a fucking shame because that shit's exciting, and exactly why I want to teach history.
Quote from: Luna on September 20, 2011, 10:53:11 PM
Memorization is part of education, however, so is learning to fucking THINK.
Your average history class is all memorization. Vomit back lists of dates, events, and names, but there's no understanding of WHY shit happened.
Thank you, NCLB, for those fucking tests.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on September 20, 2011, 10:58:14 PM
Every high school graduate should have at LEAST the following under his/her belt:
Algebra & geometry. MINIMUM.
Statistics.
Physics.
Chemistry.
Biology.
American history, at least the basics, 1600-present.
20th century European history.
4 years of English, to include speech and essay writing.
Civics, to include the US constitution.
Literary study (Twain, Mencken, Kipling, etc)
Basic mechanics and electrical knowledge.
Electives added to round it out.
Anything less means you do not have an educated citizen, and 90% of the above is memorization.
I had all of the above sans mechanical shop. I would like to include art and music in there as well to a point. An elective in each should be required.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on September 20, 2011, 10:58:14 PM
Every high school graduate should have at LEAST the following under his/her belt:
Algebra & geometry. MINIMUM. Scraped by with a D in sort of a remedial Alrgebra & Informal Geometry
Statistics. Didn't take it.
Physics. Took a stripped down version in Germany.
Chemistry. Took a stripped down version in Germany. I know what acids and bases are sort of!
Biology. Took a stripped down version in Germany. Got a lot out of it.
American history, at least the basics, 1600-present. Failed it the first time, got a B when I retook it with the football coach.
20th century European history. Nope.
4 years of English, to include speech and essay writing. Nope. We read Of Mice and Men and wrote poetry.
Civics, to include the US constitution. Scraped by with a D in Government.
Literary study (Twain, Mencken, Kipling, etc) See English
Basic mechanics and electrical knowledge. Nope.
Electives added to round it out.
Anything less means you do not have an educated citizen, and 90% of the above is memorization.
I ain't doing to bad for all that!
Quote from: Doktor Howl on September 20, 2011, 10:58:14 PM
Every high school graduate should have at LEAST the following under his/her belt:
Algebra & geometry. MINIMUM.
Statistics.
Physics.
Chemistry.
Biology.
American history, at least the basics, 1600-present.
20th century European history.
4 years of English, to include speech and essay writing.
Civics, to include the US constitution.
Literary study (Twain, Mencken, Kipling, etc)
Basic mechanics and electrical knowledge.
Electives added to round it out.
Anything less means you do not have an educated citizen, and 90% of the above is memorization.
I got out without European history and physics. Mechanics and electrical knowledge... well, I know enough not to fuck with what I don't understand. I can rewire a phone jack (and have), and have picked up bits and pieces of the rest along the way. (Hell, I've learned a lot here, alone.)
One of the biggest problems with American education is the belief that, once you leave the building, you're finished.
Quote from: Secret Agent GARBO on September 20, 2011, 11:01:35 PM
See, I'd argue that half the problem now is teaching to the fucking test. That takes up huge amounts of time, especially at the elementary school levels. I asked my mother once how much of her day was teaching kids how to pass standardized tests and she said it was something like 80%. How are you supposed to teach a kid to think if you're wrapped up in teaching them to pass a test?
I must have got into school just before this started happening, because I don't remember this at all. How do you teach how to take a test? You fill in the fucking bubble, you're done. :?
Quote
Quote from: Luna on September 20, 2011, 10:53:11 PM
Memorization is part of education, however, so is learning to fucking THINK.
Your average history class is all memorization. Vomit back lists of dates, events, and names, but there's no understanding of WHY shit happened.
Which is a fucking shame because that shit's exciting, and exactly why I want to teach history.
I had some really awful history teachers. Most of them tended to focus entire quarters to a single event or person (my least favorite teacher, Mr. Boobany [I shit you not that was his name] had a hard on for Reagan).
Quote from: Suu on September 20, 2011, 11:05:10 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on September 20, 2011, 10:58:14 PM
Every high school graduate should have at LEAST the following under his/her belt:
Algebra & geometry. MINIMUM.
Statistics.
Physics.
Chemistry.
Biology.
American history, at least the basics, 1600-present.
20th century European history.
4 years of English, to include speech and essay writing.
Civics, to include the US constitution.
Literary study (Twain, Mencken, Kipling, etc)
Basic mechanics and electrical knowledge.
Electives added to round it out.
Anything less means you do not have an educated citizen, and 90% of the above is memorization.
I had all of the above sans mechanical shop. I would like to include art and music in there as well to a point. An elective in each should be required.
I knew I was forgetting something. Music OR art should be required, and the alternate offered as an elective.
Quote from: Luna on September 20, 2011, 11:07:57 PM
I got out without European history and physics.
You can't understand American history without at least an overview of European history, and you can't understand any of the sciences properly without physics.
Quote from: Jenkem and SPACE/TIME on September 20, 2011, 11:08:42 PM
Quote from: Secret Agent GARBO on September 20, 2011, 11:01:35 PM
See, I'd argue that half the problem now is teaching to the fucking test. That takes up huge amounts of time, especially at the elementary school levels. I asked my mother once how much of her day was teaching kids how to pass standardized tests and she said it was something like 80%. How are you supposed to teach a kid to think if you're wrapped up in teaching them to pass a test?
I must have got into school just before this started happening, because I don't remember this at all. How do you teach how to take a test? You fill in the fucking bubble, you're done. :?
I think you're a year older than I am. 2006 was your graduation year, yeah? It wasn't as bad for us and quite isn't as bad at the high school level, ime. They only teach what's on the test, so students only ever see dry facts, names, and dates, with no emphasis on critical thinking or concepts. Rote memory has its place in history, but so does concepts and learning to pick things apart.
Quote from: Jenkem and SPACE/TIME on September 20, 2011, 11:08:42 PM
Quote
Quote from: Luna on September 20, 2011, 10:53:11 PM
Memorization is part of education, however, so is learning to fucking THINK.
Your average history class is all memorization. Vomit back lists of dates, events, and names, but there's no understanding of WHY shit happened.
Which is a fucking shame because that shit's exciting, and exactly why I want to teach history.
I had some really awful history teachers. Most of them tended to focus entire quarters to a single event or person (my least favorite teacher, Mr. Boobany [I shit you not that was his name] had a hard on for Reagan).
I was bored shitless in high school history, too. One teacher was a heroin addict who didn't actually do anything except sit in the corner (though he did pick a good book) and the other class wasn't interesting because I had already learned most of what he was teaching.
It wasn't until college that I began to enjoy it when I had a fabulous instructor who made it real and interesting.
Quote from: Secret Agent GARBO on September 20, 2011, 11:01:35 PM
See, I'd argue that half the problem now is teaching to the fucking test.
[/quote]
There's nothing wrong with teaching to the test, provided the test is generated in a common-sense manner.
You can't grade without a test, and you can't test what you didn't teach.
This is to be contrasted with the notion of the federal government giving a corporation a billion bucks to generate an irrelevant test, and then forcing the entire country to change its curriculum to match.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on September 20, 2011, 11:17:15 PM
Quote from: Luna on September 20, 2011, 11:07:57 PM
I got out without European history and physics.
You can't understand American history without at least an overview of European history, and you can't understand any of the sciences properly without physics.
And you can't understand physics without the more advanced algebra, either. Knowledge is crazy, how it all ties up together like that.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on September 20, 2011, 11:20:41 PM
Quote from: Secret Agent GARBO on September 20, 2011, 11:01:35 PM
See, I'd argue that half the problem now is teaching to the fucking test.
There's nothing wrong with teaching to the test, provided the test is generated in a common-sense manner.
You can't grade without a test, and you can't test what you didn't teach.
This is to be contrasted with the notion of the federal government giving a corporation a billion bucks to generate an irrelevant test, and then forcing the entire country to change its curriculum to match.
*froth*
Quote from: Doktor Howl on September 20, 2011, 11:17:15 PM
Quote from: Luna on September 20, 2011, 11:07:57 PM
I got out without European history and physics.
You can't understand American history without at least an overview of European history, and you can't understand any of the sciences properly without physics.
Oh, believe me, I know. I've scraped together some on those topics on my own.
I DID, however, refuse a second year of home ec in order to take shop. It's been awhile, but if you put me in front of, say, a wood lathe, I could probably produce something without bleeding on it.
Quote from: Secret Agent GARBO on September 20, 2011, 11:19:57 PM
I think you're a year older than I am. 2006 was your graduation year, yeah? It wasn't as bad for us and quite isn't as bad at the high school level, ime. They only teach what's on the test, so students only ever see dry facts, names, and dates, with no emphasis on critical thinking or concepts. Rote memory has its place in history, but so does concepts and learning to pick things apart.
Yeah, 2006 was my graduation year.
My problem with what I see now, at the COLLEGE level, is that some teachers (and these would be the really terrible ones, very sub-par) don't teach for understanding. My math class I'm taking, the teacher is basically just teaching the class how to use their calculators. How is that going to help them when their calculator suddenly dies on them, and they don't understand how what they're trying to do actually works?
Home ec/child rearing is another interesting topic.
I would have been better off if I'd been shown how to change a shitty diaper, instead of on-the-job training at 3AM back in 1993.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on September 20, 2011, 11:17:15 PM
Quote from: Luna on September 20, 2011, 11:07:57 PM
I got out without European history and physics.
You can't understand American history without at least an overview of European history, and you can't understand any of the sciences properly without physics.
American History is godawfully boring in comparison to European history, also.
-Suu
Might be slightly biased.
Also, a lack of understanding of science leads to THIS sort of jackassery.
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2011/09/20/trial_opens_against_scientists_for_italy_quake/
Seven scientists, on trial for manslaughter. Why? They failed to give advance warning of an earthquake that killed 300 people in Italy in 2009.
QuoteThe seven defendants are accused of giving "inexact, incomplete and contradictory information" about whether smaller tremors felt by L'Aquila residents in the six months before the April 6, 2009 quake should have constituted grounds for a quake warning.
"We all know well that earthquakes cannot be predicted. This is not in the point here," said Vincenzo Vittorini, a relative of a victim, who attended the trial.
Rather, he said, because of the failure of the scientists to say a significant quake could be possible, victims and their relatives missed a chance to take preventative measures.
Prosecutors focused on a memo issued after an expert commission meeting on mounting concerns about the months of seismic activity in the region. Released a week before the big quake, it concluded it was "improbable" that there would be a major temblor, though it added that one couldn't be excluded.
Commission members also gave largely reassuring interviews to local media after the meeting which "persuaded the victims to stay at home," the indictment said.
The defendants' lawyers have insisted on their clients' innocence and stressed the impossibility of predicting quakes.
The 6.3-magnitude temblor killed 308 people in and around the medieval town of L'Aquila, which was largely reduced to rubble. Thousands of survivors lived in tent camps or temporary housing for months.
Home ec is something that nobody takes anymore, especially not guys, because it's seen as an old fashioned, stupid, boring subject, but I think more people would be better off being required to take it.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on September 20, 2011, 11:27:32 PM
Home ec/child rearing is another interesting topic.
I would have been better off if I'd been shown how to change a shitty diaper, instead of on-the-job training at 3AM back in 1993.
It is my own humble opinion that any adult that can't manage to deal with an infant (diaper change, feed, burp, and at least make a decent attempt at figuring out why the fuck the kid is screaming) isn't educated. Managing to make a decent meal without burning down the kitchen :pokewithstick:, sewing on a button and managing at least a straight seam, knowing which end of a hammer to hold, left/loose, right/tight with a freakin' screwdriver, how to change oil and a tire, are basic life skills.
Quote from: Jenkem and SPACE/TIME on September 20, 2011, 11:30:54 PM
Home ec is something that nobody takes anymore, especially not guys, because it's seen as an old fashioned, stupid, boring subject, but I think more people would be better off being required to take it.
Hell, my home ec class actually had a section on economics. Writing checks, balancing a checkbook, budgeting... We also did a whole month on foods from around the world. That's where I learned to use chopsticks, actually.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on September 20, 2011, 11:20:41 PM
This is to be contrasted with the notion of the federal government giving a corporation a billion bucks to generate an irrelevant test, and then forcing the entire country to change its curriculum to match.
Those are the kind of tests I'm talking about, not tests a teacher creates and gives. A classroom test is much more valid and useful than federal/state irrelevant tests that take up ridiculous amounts of classroom hours.
I teach introductory biology at the local community college as an adjunct. I can attest that memorization is fundamental. Understanding is not really understanding when you understand that the thingy is made of other thingies and performs some functions like it does some stuff to other thingies or makes thingies or something...but I understand it, deeply. You have to memorize the names of the thingies, sorry. Also, a lot of my non-majors are older (non-traditional) and they can be worse than the kids in terms of not wanting to learn. Everybody needs a college degree now like its a ticket to a job. What people don't realize is that they have to want to learn, to be scholars, intellectuals, thinkers. They just want to pass the class so they can get a promotion. Older people (>30) tend to have a personal narrative that tells them they are too old, it has been too long since they were in school, they aren't science people, excuses, excuses, excuses.
I can't really speak to younger grades, but I will say that it is very important that I am able to fail someone for not doing their work. Learning takes work on the part of the learner to build knowledge in their own minds. The model that teachers can impart knowledge upon their students while students sit passively and receive this knowledge is bullshit. This means some students need to fail if they don't do their work. I speculate that teachers might spend too much time trying to cram the minimum amount of required knowledge to pass the standardized test into the slower kids heads while everybody else sits and waits for the dumb kids to catch up. Teachers need to be allowed autonomy and be given the tools to increase learning effectiveness in their classrooms, starting with a better cognitive model of how learning takes place in the human brain, and leading to more playful interaction with concepts so that students can develop their own understanding.
It's actually pretty complicated, and politicians and people in general hate complicated things, so they pretend they are simple.
Alty, I seem to recall on my homework schedule I'm supposed to have an essay to do something about. Can I use this if it turns out to be appropriate?
Sure!
Use how?
Quote from: Jenkem and SPACE/TIME on September 20, 2011, 11:30:54 PM
Home ec is something that nobody takes anymore, especially not guys, because it's seen as an old fashioned, stupid, boring subject, but I think more people would be better off being required to take it.
Home ec was required for me in 6th grade as part of a wheel that I had to take. I couldn't tell you everything in the wheel class, but I do remember that it started with home ec in the first 6 weeks of school and ended with art. It was a long time ago. I know I had a gymnastics class in there that I hated, and another PE class that focused just on various ballgames. o.O
they didn't even offer it at my school.
Quote from: Alty on September 21, 2011, 02:04:43 AM
Sure!
Use how?
I dunno. Probably to do with analyzing stuff. NOT as my own work, I can assure you.
Oh I didn't figure that. Yeah feel free.
Woot woot!
Just leave out the bit about rote memorization, plz. :D
HINT HINT, Phlogiston.
Quote from: Alty on September 21, 2011, 05:21:09 AM
Just leave out the bit about rote memorization, plz. :D
HINT HINT, Phlogiston.
:lulz:
Quote from: Doktor Howl on September 20, 2011, 10:58:14 PM
Every high school graduate should have at LEAST the following under his/her belt:
Algebra & geometry. MINIMUM. 2nd year HS algebra and a year of geometry
Statistics. Unless it was hidden someplace..nope
Physics. does basic science count?
Chemistry. :lulz: I miss my chem class
Biology. :lulz: ditto
American history, at least the basics, 1600-present. I think something
20th century European history. nope. I don't even think it was offered
4 years of English, to include speech and essay writing. Um...I took that much as you can see it never really stuck.
Civics, to include the US constitution. Does a semester that I barely remember count?
Literary study (Twain, Mencken, Kipling, etc) I think....no?
Basic mechanics and electrical knowledge. So I should have taken autoshop instead of metal and wood shop?
Electives added to round it out.
Anything less means you do not have an educated citizen, and 90% of the above is memorization.
OFUK :cry:
Quote from: Jenkem and SPACE/TIME on September 20, 2011, 11:21:00 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on September 20, 2011, 11:17:15 PM
Quote from: Luna on September 20, 2011, 11:07:57 PM
I got out without European history and physics.
You can't understand American history without at least an overview of European history, and you can't understand any of the sciences properly without physics.
And you can't understand physics without the more advanced algebra, either. Knowledge is crazy, how it all ties up together like that.
I think Dok means the basics of physics, like how magnetism occurs, electricity, basics of Newtonian physics, and stuff about the EM spectrum. You do need to understand the nature of atoms to know how they form compounds to understand chemistry.
I'm not an American, but I thought my school experience might be helpful anyway.
I live in Buckinghamshire, which is the only county left to still have the 11+ exam. This means that when you are 11, you take a test which determines whether you will go to Grammar School (the 'good' schools, at least that is how it felt at the time) or the Comprehensive - everything else. I was an arrogant little shit when I was 11, and assumed that I'd walk through it no trouble. Unsurprisingly, I failed.
The school I went to was actually the best Comprehensive in the area in terms of passrate, and the teachers they had were amazing. It was very much an 'old style' school in atmosphere, although we didn't have to sing hymns thankfully. Almost every teacher in the school was highly motivated to make the kids learn. They didn't get the gifted kids who made it easy, they got the relative chaff. I might be slightly biased in my assessment because I was at the top in all the academic classes, but I would say I was only there because the teachers really engaged with the class. If they can make you want to learn, they've won. Not everyone did want to learn of course, but a decent number did.
Part of it came down to school pride. It was damned difficult to inspire in a bunch of kids who have basically just been told 'you are the stupid ones', but for the first few years I was there, we had it. We were given a lot of freedom and encouraged to form clubs with the backing of the school, that sort of thing. We also had a uniform which was cheap and functional. It helped us identify as kids from that school, as opposed to kids from the other schools, and there was a rivalry and competition which helped.
The headmaster, unfortunately, was only there for my first three years - he was really the heart and soul of the school. I think he'd worked there his entire career in one position or another. When he left, he was replaced by a man who came in with buzzwords and rules. We were told we were 'stakeholders' rather than pupils, for instance. He made every teacher reapply for their position, and reorganized the school into departments. He applied for funding which turned us into a Business Specialist School. The kids clubs were stopped and replaced by teacher led activities.
By the time I left, every good teacher had moved, retired or been replaced. The school dropped down several slots in the rankings, and last I heard the uniforms had become elaborate and expensive; half the point of the old ones being that they were cheap and therefore helped families who didn't have huge amounts of money to (somewhat) remove that stigma.
There was also a scandal last year where the headmaster turned out to have been having an affair with the woman he promoted to deputy headmistress. I believe they've resigned, which probably means another of the new breed will come in, and shake things up with their own set of Byzantine rules and regulations.
I guess the point I was making is; if you want kids to succeed and learn, you need to engage them. You don't do that with 'making learning fun' initiatives and patronizing them. You do it by instilling a sense of common identity and mutual respect.
Quote from: Alty on September 20, 2011, 10:44:57 PMYes, but there is a limit to the kind of knowledge necessary using that tool. It's one tool and one used too heavily, IMO.
Very basic math, basic letters and such.
But its usefulness ceases very quickly and does not offer any lasting value beyond what it contains. By a certain grade lever students should already have those skills locked down and move on to things that require application of concepts. I was taught using rote memorization in the 8th grade. For phonetics.
Sorry but this reasoning sounds more like a whole bunch of speculation about a particular aspect in school that you (and a lot of people with you) didn't like, than anything based in fact.
Quote from: DokAlso, the first two years of physics is nothing but memorization. Same thing with most of trigonometry, chemistry, and biology.
THIS.
Quoteits usefulness ceases very quickly and does not offer any lasting value beyond what it contains.
Nonsense. Memorization IS a skill, right on its own, in that sense alone it keeps offering lasting value as long as you train it.
Additionally, if you DONT have your multiplication tables memorized, you will suck at math, forever. Pretty much making sure you won't have any interest whatsoever in learning more about it.
Trick question: for solving quadratics, what's more useful skill, factorization or memorizing the quadratic root abc formula?
(Trick answer: only a very small fraction of quadratic equations with integer coefficients is actually factorizable into real numbers. You get a very skewed idea of this, because the factorization exercises you did only include these particular equations, and one that wasn't, often was a mistake in the exercise)
Not that factorization isn't a useful skill, btw.
But memorization is too! :)
Quote from: Suu on September 20, 2011, 11:28:21 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on September 20, 2011, 11:17:15 PM
Quote from: Luna on September 20, 2011, 11:07:57 PM
I got out without European history and physics.
You can't understand American history without at least an overview of European history, and you can't understand any of the sciences properly without physics.
American History is godawfully boring in comparison to European history, also.
-Suu
Might be slightly biased.
But there's much less of it, and cowboys! And you invented electricity, freedom, light switches and both historical re-enactment AND steampunk!
Instead you know how much SHIT happened in Europe?? Stuff was going on all over the fucking place. It was horrible! And things! Events! Countries! Royal families and smelly middle-ages diseases, renaissance, enlightenment, romanticism, then some more stuff and then the second world war which was not only terribly depressing but also apparently had about 500 years worth of STUFF and EVENTS compressed into just five.
oh god how I HATED History--even though I had a really really good teacher.
Like many here, I also wasn't really good at memorization, and unlike, say, physics or math, you can't just figure out history based on principles alone. At least, not the parts where there's all these fucking monkeys interfering with it. Before that, history was basically physics, and then biology. Those were the good bits of history. Good old times. Good old pre-historic times.
It didn't get much better until somewhere in my first year of university, I found the
Reality Enhancement and Intelligence Increase homepage which quoted some book or other to inform me that the most important part of history is that it ALL happened five minutes ago. ALL OF IT. Phew, what a relief!
And Dok, in your list of important classes/knowledge, you left out Geography? And not just places and countries but also social geography, demographics, social planning, weather, climate, terrain types, all these fucking maps where pink means the ground is clay and dots mean the people are islamic and the size of the triangles indicate how much it snows in november, but at least green usually means there's a forest there. I had about 4.5 years worth of that stuff before I dropped it in favour of Even More Mathematics.
(http://i.imgur.com/SvdX0.png)
I work at an educational publishing office. Most of my coworkers are former grade school teachers. When I asked around about why they left teaching, there was only one answer, with varying degrees of vitriol. "No child left behind".
My favorite high school teacher quit because of that too. He got fired after throwing a bunch of standardized tests in the trash can. He never even took that shit out of the shrink wrap. He didn't talk about it, he just went on with the lesson plan - reading Walden with the class. American hero, that man.
The educational publishing industry is all fired up about test scores these days. They love standardized tests because it allows them to demonstrate, empirically, that their product is more effective than the competition. It sucks because it reinforces the validity of those measures.
publishers always laugh when they pass my cubicle because I make shit like this:
(http://i.imgur.com/5ldft.png)
Here's a really good lecture about shifting educational paradigms. (It's the RSA Animate lecture, in case you've seen it already)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U
I asked my boss about this stuff, he said that we're on the way... the way he explained it: (paraphrasing)
The current model, based on business trends and the economy, is that companies swell up during a boom, and then slim down and shed fat during a bust. Over time, companies will breathe - expanding and contracting as the market allows.
This is good for the health of the company, shitty for the people who work for it. The new educational paradigm is based on preparing people to be laid off several times during their lives. (I prefer the old model, he said, where companies incentivize loyalty instead of treating everybody like temps)
So rather than specializing kids towards one career/vocation/field, educational publishers have been developing sets of skills that will be useful no matter what industry you work for. Like the ability to turn a complex conversation into a diagram. Or the ability to understand your own learning process and use that knowledge to pick up skill sets more efficiently.
Quote from: Luna on September 20, 2011, 11:32:33 PM
Managing to make a decent meal without burning down the kitchen :pokewithstick:,
:crankey:
It was only a couple of times. It's not like I make a habit of it.
Cram pictures, nice :D You print those and hang them on your cublicle walls or something?
You guys DO know the actual reason for NCLB, right?
Quote from: Doktor Howl on September 21, 2011, 03:13:05 PM
You guys DO know the actual reason for NCLB, right?
and what's that?
Quote from: Triple Zero on September 21, 2011, 03:10:01 PM
Cram pictures, nice :D You print those and hang them on your cublicle walls or something?
jah, I've got a bunch of married-to-the-sea style woodcuts + publishing satire
(http://i.imgur.com/xq0WE.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/lDfnL.png) (http://imgur.com/WY7JT.png)
Quote from: Cramulus on September 21, 2011, 03:18:09 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on September 21, 2011, 03:13:05 PM
You guys DO know the actual reason for NCLB, right?
and what's that?
You take a standardized test, and apply it to schools in, say, Oro Valley, which is posh and has good schools, and to Buttfuck, Tennessee, which barely has schools at all. Kentucky fails, and is punished by loss of title I funding, which then goes to the well-performing, posh schools. Rich kids get an even better education, poor kids get to be peasants.
20th century European history is absolutely vital, if only as a reference point for not how to run a country, ever.
I was lucky, in some ways (and in other, minor ways, quite unlucky) as I was recognized as having an incredible capacity for learning at a fairly young age, and a house where no books were out of bounds and copies of everything from the Ecyclopedia Britannica to Polybius' history of Rome was available.
I also had some very good teachers, including my infamous philosophy teacher, whose classes were a strange blend of critical thinking, aimless rants and work-dodging (by us and him). Our school library also had a restricted section which I was given access to within my first term there and, well, England has a lot of shitty weather and there were no rooms set aside for students to gather in when it was raining, so I spent my spare time in there.
An educational system that works is vital to slowing population growth, encouraging economic growth and democratizing political power. All of those things are heavily, heavily correlated with a high level academic system which focuses on critical and problem solving skills. It is probably no coincidence, either, that the fastest periods of socio-political reform in history (1600-present) is also the one in which education has been most widely achieved at any time.
As such, education can worry certain unethical and short-sighted oligarchical interests (practically all the Anglo-American ones...Asian oligarchical interests tend to balance the pursuit of selfish interest against social stability in quite a strict way), as a world in which there is economic growth and a democratization of political power is one in which they are, relatively speaking, weakened.
And this is why American "conservatism" in particular tends to target education most viciously. It is not enough to simply control education, like the Soviets tried to do, as education tends to find ways around these rules. Short of sticking a political officer in every classroom, a good teacher will find ways to teach the cirriculum they deem necessary, not the one they have necessarily been taught to teach. So you overwork teachers. Give them larger and larger classrooms. Cut their budgets. Cut their staffing. Put their unions under attack. Do everything in your power to make the job less attractive, to the point the only viable teaching positions will be ones at elite academies...where staff are directly reliant on oligarchical interests for payment, and where dismissal of "inappropriate" staff is usually much easier.
Every good educational system is going to have elements of rote memorization, and of cross-subject critical thinking. Rote memorization should come in especially hard in the early years of...well, every subject. Later on, you introduce the more creative elements. History, for example, can focus very heavily on source use, critical thinking skills and alternative viable interpretations....which is the reason I personally enjoy teaching the subject so much.
Cross-subject critical thinking, however, gets left by the wayside when students are "taught to the test". Much of the success of British students in tests over the last 20 years has been due to this process of teaching, which is a little more complicated than the "exams are getting easier/grade inflation" whiners make out. But not that much more. Often, the students will be taught a narrow range of "acceptable" arguments, for subjects like English, History, human Geography etc which they will almost entirely rote memorize. Because exams are fairly predictable in the kinds of questions they will ask, the format having hardly changed in generations, and with teachers under extraordinary pressure to "produce good league table results", often a teacher will have little choice but to grudgingly teach in this way, if they wish to retain their job.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on September 21, 2011, 03:07:08 PM
Quote from: Luna on September 20, 2011, 11:32:33 PM
Managing to make a decent meal without burning down the kitchen :pokewithstick:,
:crankey:
It was only a couple of times. It's not like I make a habit of it.
:wink: We all have our failings. I don't make a habit of blowing myself across a room with electricity, or trying to fix a car with no clue what I'm doing, either.
Quote from: Cain on September 21, 2011, 03:56:13 PM
And this is why American "conservatism" in particular tends to target education most viciously. It is not enough to simply control education, like the Soviets tried to do, as education tends to find ways around these rules. Short of sticking a political officer in every classroom, a good teacher will find ways to teach the cirriculum they deem necessary, not the one they have necessarily been taught to teach. So you overwork teachers. Give them larger and larger classrooms. Cut their budgets. Cut their staffing. Put their unions under attack. Do everything in your power to make the job less attractive, to the point the only viable teaching positions will be ones at elite academies...where staff are directly reliant on oligarchical interests for payment, and where dismissal of "inappropriate" staff is usually much easier.
I'm actually a little surprised to see you repeat that meme, Cain. In my entire political lifespan and any conservative I have ever discussed American education with, not a single one has ever expressed anything other than a strong desire to see improvement, results, and accountability. There is also a strong belief that DoE policies that result in teaching to the lowest common denominator have been gutting the quality of primary education since it's inception.
Not a single person ever implied we should be making education worse to keep the poor down.
Quote from: Disco Pickle on September 21, 2011, 04:26:24 PM
Quote from: Cain on September 21, 2011, 03:56:13 PM
And this is why American "conservatism" in particular tends to target education most viciously. It is not enough to simply control education, like the Soviets tried to do, as education tends to find ways around these rules. Short of sticking a political officer in every classroom, a good teacher will find ways to teach the cirriculum they deem necessary, not the one they have necessarily been taught to teach. So you overwork teachers. Give them larger and larger classrooms. Cut their budgets. Cut their staffing. Put their unions under attack. Do everything in your power to make the job less attractive, to the point the only viable teaching positions will be ones at elite academies...where staff are directly reliant on oligarchical interests for payment, and where dismissal of "inappropriate" staff is usually much easier.
I'm actually a little surprised to see you repeat that meme, Cain. In my entire political lifespan and any conservative I have ever discussed American education with, not a single one has ever expressed anything other than a strong desire to see improvement, results, and accountability. There is also a strong belief that DoE policies that result in teaching to the lowest common denominator have been gutting the quality of primary education since it's inception.
Not a single person ever implied we should be making education worse to keep the poor down.
They aren't going to SAY it... but watch what they do.
Quote from: Phlogiston Merriweather on September 21, 2011, 01:13:14 AM
I teach introductory biology at the local community college as an adjunct. I can attest that memorization is fundamental. Understanding is not really understanding when you understand that the thingy is made of other thingies and performs some functions like it does some stuff to other thingies or makes thingies or something...but I understand it, deeply. You have to memorize the names of the thingies, sorry. Also, a lot of my non-majors are older (non-traditional) and they can be worse than the kids in terms of not wanting to learn. Everybody needs a college degree now like its a ticket to a job. What people don't realize is that they have to want to learn, to be scholars, intellectuals, thinkers. They just want to pass the class so they can get a promotion. Older people (>30) tend to have a personal narrative that tells them they are too old, it has been too long since they were in school, they aren't science people, excuses, excuses, excuses.
I can't really speak to younger grades, but I will say that it is very important that I am able to fail someone for not doing their work. Learning takes work on the part of the learner to build knowledge in their own minds. The model that teachers can impart knowledge upon their students while students sit passively and receive this knowledge is bullshit. This means some students need to fail if they don't do their work. I speculate that teachers might spend too much time trying to cram the minimum amount of required knowledge to pass the standardized test into the slower kids heads while everybody else sits and waits for the dumb kids to catch up. Teachers need to be allowed autonomy and be given the tools to increase learning effectiveness in their classrooms, starting with a better cognitive model of how learning takes place in the human brain, and leading to more playful interaction with concepts so that students can develop their own understanding.
It's actually pretty complicated, and politicians and people in general hate complicated things, so they pretend they are simple.
Most excellent reply to a very harsh, and yes tangled skein of a problem. Huzzah, to a fellow lecturer!
Quote from: Luna on September 21, 2011, 04:42:48 PM
Quote from: Disco Pickle on September 21, 2011, 04:26:24 PM
Quote from: Cain on September 21, 2011, 03:56:13 PM
And this is why American "conservatism" in particular tends to target education most viciously. It is not enough to simply control education, like the Soviets tried to do, as education tends to find ways around these rules. Short of sticking a political officer in every classroom, a good teacher will find ways to teach the cirriculum they deem necessary, not the one they have necessarily been taught to teach. So you overwork teachers. Give them larger and larger classrooms. Cut their budgets. Cut their staffing. Put their unions under attack. Do everything in your power to make the job less attractive, to the point the only viable teaching positions will be ones at elite academies...where staff are directly reliant on oligarchical interests for payment, and where dismissal of "inappropriate" staff is usually much easier.
I'm actually a little surprised to see you repeat that meme, Cain. In my entire political lifespan and any conservative I have ever discussed American education with, not a single one has ever expressed anything other than a strong desire to see improvement, results, and accountability. There is also a strong belief that DoE policies that result in teaching to the lowest common denominator have been gutting the quality of primary education since it's inception.
Not a single person ever implied we should be making education worse to keep the poor down.
They aren't going to SAY it... but watch what they do.
So these people, who have families and children of their own, attending these same schools. schools THEY went to. They're secretly hoping the quality of education gets worse, their communities get worse.. why?
I'm having a hard time putting on my lefty hat for this one. What's the thought process for this particular lefty meme. That there's an unspoken conspiracy by conservatives to destroy their own communities by making the quality of education worse?
Help me out here.
I think the point is that most conservatives - at least the ones in a position of decision making power - do not go to the same schools that they destroy.
This is certainly the case over here, where a ridiculous proportion of our top politicians go to 'public schools' (which are actually private schools, confusing name), pay tens of thousands of pounds for the privilege, and then go on to Oxford or Cambridge as a matter of course.
Private education is a thing in the states too, right? I'd be pretty surprised if it wasn't... and I'd be pretty surprised if a similar state of affairs isn't the case across most countries, to be honest.
Quote from: Cain on September 21, 2011, 03:56:13 PM
And this is why American "conservatism" in particular tends to target education most viciously. It is not enough to simply control education, like the Soviets tried to do, as education tends to find ways around these rules. Short of sticking a political officer in every classroom, a good teacher will find ways to teach the cirriculum they deem necessary, not the one they have necessarily been taught to teach. So you overwork teachers. Give them larger and larger classrooms. Cut their budgets. Cut their staffing. Put their unions under attack. Do everything in your power to make the job less attractive, to the point the only viable teaching positions will be ones at elite academies...where staff are directly reliant on oligarchical interests for payment, and where dismissal of "inappropriate" staff is usually much easier.
wait, they do that on purpose?
i mean, I can understand that this would be the logical thing to do to preserve status quo of the rich conservatives, etc.
but how can a status quo operate with such purpose, like this?
I mean, I thought it was all a combination of rich conservatives power politicians that think their lobbies are more important than whatever, and clusterfucks and stupid decisions and chaos and religious shitheads and people acting really shortsighted and only in their own self interest race for power and wealth.
but the thing you describe sounds more like a deliberate very long-term operation that spans multiple generations as well as politicians and terms?
are there actually politicians literally thinking "so we need to stop the population getting educated to gain power and wealth, history has shown it doesn't work to dictate teachers to teach stupidity because they won't, so we'll have to wear them down by budget cuts and larger classrooms. let's draft a few bills that seem well-intentioned on the surface to achieve this goal ..." (not putting words in your mouth here, just trying to formulate my question)
because that's really devious.
I mean, I can imagine there must be some politicians being that devious, but I'd expect to be able to count them on one hand. And that just seems too little of them to affect change in such a large fashion?
Sorry if this is a really stupid question, but I was always under the impression that these sorts of degenerative tendencies in society are caused by, well, "The Machine", complicated systems clusterfucking themselves, people getting promoted until they reach a position they cannot handle, that sort of thing, monkeys being shitheads.
Seems DP is wondering the same thing.
Quote from: Triple Zero on September 21, 2011, 04:52:54 PM
are there actually politicians literally thinking "so we need to stop the population getting educated to gain power and wealth, history has shown it doesn't work to dictate teachers to teach stupidity because they won't, so we'll have to wear them down by budget cuts and larger classrooms. let's draft a few bills that seem well-intentioned on the surface to achieve this goal ..." (not putting words in your mouth here, just trying to formulate my question)
Some pretty much say it out loud.
DP, it's not that they say "keep brownie down" or whatever. What they say is this:
YOU CAN'T FIX EDUCATION BY GIVING IT MORE MONEY! WE SPEND MORE ON EDUCATION THAN WE DO ON ANYTHING ELSE--AND LOOK AT WHAT IT GETS US! SHIT! SO WE'RE NOT GOING TO SPEND MORE THAN WE *HAVE TO*...
and this
IT'S ALL THOSE ADMINISTRATORS! CUT THE FAT! THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING, GIVE LOCAL CONTROL!
The thing is, most don't know what the fuck they're talking about, and that second sentence above highlights that. Local control *is* the administrators. The fact is, there are less superintendents, less counselors, less area administrators THAN ever. But the population is increasing, and the principals (who start out NOT as administrators, mind you, but as teachers) end up with more on their plates than ever. There are less vice principals to help carry the weight. And the laws are trickier. I think I've posted before about how the efficacy of public education would be helped out by teaching teachers and administrators alike a good, solid course on what they are legally able and not able to do....
but I digress...
Everything Cain said is spot on. And everything Phlogiston said gels with what my experiences at UCLA and environs taught me about teaching as well. The part that gets me is not the failure of NCLB (that's been well known in the education circles for the better part of a decade), nor the fact that teaching to the test is the new all-important curriculum (Cram's explanation was excellent--and in fact, it's unfortunately highly and despicably practical).
NO, the thing that gets me is what Rog touched on in the realm of equalization of funding. The fact that public education has no REAL standard of funding leaves it a "haves" and "have-nots" proposition...nationwide. The various formulas states use to calculate how much per-pupil spending is to be allotted for each school is amazingly complex, and therefore quite assinine, whem you are talkinga bout any sort of reform.
Because attracting the better teachers out of the spectrum, hiring the better people to run the schools and districts, and creating a learning environment that can suit the greater number of pupils rather than a small minority...that takes a bit of dough.
And it's not all about money, of course, but when there's a lack of fucking desks or textbooks (in fact, I was shocked to learn about 7 years ago just how many states RENT their textbooks to their students in K-12), there's something fundamentally wrong. Especially if we have the so-called "richest" nation in the world.
Public education is a good, it IS a commodity. I have come to the conclusion that the public in general has to fight to change it if they desire that change. Anyone legislating it has OTHER priorities in mind, not necessarily the improvement of the populace's bottom line. So, to go back to the OP, the sorry state of our public education will only improve internally--with that point I agree wholeheartedly.
I suscribe to Education Week, and I occaisionally provide articles from it here. It's a nonprofit watchdog news agency that sort of keeps an eye out on education policy nationwide, the larger cases get highlighted usually, and reformation of public education curricula, trends, etc. It's very informative about the different debates (like charter schools, for instance) and the various sides of said debates. And it gives me a more well-rounded perspective on where public education is headed nationally.
Thing is, Jenne, the money that lined the pockets of the standardized testing company (billions) is counted in the education budget. That way, they can claim that "there's more funding for education than ever"...But little of it reaches the schools.
Which companies do you mean?
Quote from: Cramulus on September 21, 2011, 05:31:54 PM
Which companies do you mean?
Quote
Those four companies are Harcourt Educational Measurement, CTB McGraw-Hill, Riverside Publishing (a Houghton Mifflin company), and NCS Pearson. According to an October 2001 report in the industry newsletter Educational Marketer, Harcourt, CTB McGraw-Hill, and Riverside Publishing write 96 percent of the exams administered at the state level. NCS Pearson, meanwhile, is the leading scorer of standardized tests.
Even without the impetus of the No Child Left Behind Act, testing is a burgeoning industry. The National Board on Educational Testing and Public Policy at Boston College compiled data from The Bowker Annual, a compendium of the dollar-volume in test sales each year, and reported that while test sales in 1955 were $7 million (adjusted to 1998 dollars), that figure was $263 million in 1997, an increase of more than 3,000 percent. Today, press reports put the value of the testing market anywhere from $400 million to $700 million.
Read more: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/schools/testing/companies.html#ixzz1Ybc0FyHK
That's per year, of course.
Naw. Not in CA. Not how you mean, I think. Though I'll ask the Superintendent when I meet with him in the next couple of weeks and ask him. That would be a good thing to find out about.
And some of those measures are useful, just not all. The part where it gets REAL fucked up is when a state like CA, who teaches the majority of the ESL kids in the nation, has its own system that was well under way for assessment and needs-based curricular changes, and then along comes some fucked up national system that gets in the way of the state's assessments.
Q: Which ones do the teachers use?
A: The ones that bring the most cash to the table.
And in economic downturns, that can be BOTH. And when THAT happens...you bet your ass there's no time for painting, sculpting, singing, acting, playing an instrument or playing out on the field.
DP:
I've talked with people, whom I trust, who say they've seen it explicity spelled out in such terms (more than a few of these witnesses are American and British "conservatives", alas of a dying breed who are none too common these days).
In fact, this particular facet of conservative thinking has its roots in the intellectual revolt against the French Revolution. Not so much Burke (who wasn't so much a "conservative" as an admirably independent thinker who was pigeon-holed into being a "conservative" sometime in the early 20th century) but the likes of de Maistre, Carl Schmitt and so on.
Incidentally, I know more than a few Anglo-American conservatives who are very open about their interest in Schmitt and de Maistre - presumably under the illusion that no-one who went to a private school has actually read these people, or knows what they advocated.
But anyway. For a movement made up mostly of second-rate academics, the Nouvelle Droit certainly do buy into certain aspects of anti-intellectualism. Some of them frame it as education = Communism, because, well, educated people tend towards more liberal or soft-left positions, as a rule (and this goes back to de Maistre, again). Some of the crazier ones then throw in some nonsense about Gramsci and the Frankfurt school, but that is a discussion for another day.
Education has consequences. A certain level of education is grudgingly admitted as necessary, in such circles, for innovation and so on. But it is also felt that if the vast majority of people are kept unskilled and unschooled, it will be easier to exploit (in the classic, Marxist sense of the term) their productive value. This makes perfect sense when you realise how many Neoconservatives are just reverse Communists in expensive suits.
It is also felt that education, especially "multi-cultural" education, makes nations weak, succumb to subjectivism and be unwilling to fight against their foreign enemies. Which is utterly ridiculous, but there we are.
If you visit some of the more insane rightwing blogs on the internet, you will see this kind of thing discussed openly (especially during the "golden years" of 2003-8). Rightwing bloggers have a distressing tendency, from a certain point of view, to pick up on the implications and dog-whistles of contemporary conservative rhetoric, and make them explicit. On the other hand, this makes it much easier to understand conservative rhetoric, especially certain memes which may go unnoticed, because the value-laden assumptions of the audience are not shared with the reader trying to discern them.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on September 21, 2011, 05:36:05 PM
Quote from: Cramulus on September 21, 2011, 05:31:54 PM
Which companies do you mean?
Quote
Those four companies are Harcourt Educational Measurement, CTB McGraw-Hill, Riverside Publishing (a Houghton Mifflin company), and NCS Pearson. According to an October 2001 report in the industry newsletter Educational Marketer, Harcourt, CTB McGraw-Hill, and Riverside Publishing write 96 percent of the exams administered at the state level. NCS Pearson, meanwhile, is the leading scorer of standardized tests.
Even without the impetus of the No Child Left Behind Act, testing is a burgeoning industry. The National Board on Educational Testing and Public Policy at Boston College compiled data from The Bowker Annual, a compendium of the dollar-volume in test sales each year, and reported that while test sales in 1955 were $7 million (adjusted to 1998 dollars), that figure was $263 million in 1997, an increase of more than 3,000 percent. Today, press reports put the value of the testing market anywhere from $400 million to $700 million.
Read more: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/schools/testing/companies.html#ixzz1Ybc0FyHK
That's per year, of course.
That's national funding or state? I need to read up on that first.
Quote from: Triple Zero on September 21, 2011, 04:52:54 PM
Quote from: Cain on September 21, 2011, 03:56:13 PM
And this is why American "conservatism" in particular tends to target education most viciously. It is not enough to simply control education, like the Soviets tried to do, as education tends to find ways around these rules. Short of sticking a political officer in every classroom, a good teacher will find ways to teach the cirriculum they deem necessary, not the one they have necessarily been taught to teach. So you overwork teachers. Give them larger and larger classrooms. Cut their budgets. Cut their staffing. Put their unions under attack. Do everything in your power to make the job less attractive, to the point the only viable teaching positions will be ones at elite academies...where staff are directly reliant on oligarchical interests for payment, and where dismissal of "inappropriate" staff is usually much easier.
wait, they do that on purpose?
i mean, I can understand that this would be the logical thing to do to preserve status quo of the rich conservatives, etc.
but how can a status quo operate with such purpose, like this?
I mean, I thought it was all a combination of rich conservatives power politicians that think their lobbies are more important than whatever, and clusterfucks and stupid decisions and chaos and religious shitheads and people acting really shortsighted and only in their own self interest race for power and wealth.
but the thing you describe sounds more like a deliberate very long-term operation that spans multiple generations as well as politicians and terms?
are there actually politicians literally thinking "so we need to stop the population getting educated to gain power and wealth, history has shown it doesn't work to dictate teachers to teach stupidity because they won't, so we'll have to wear them down by budget cuts and larger classrooms. let's draft a few bills that seem well-intentioned on the surface to achieve this goal ..." (not putting words in your mouth here, just trying to formulate my question)
because that's really devious.
I mean, I can imagine there must be some politicians being that devious, but I'd expect to be able to count them on one hand. And that just seems too little of them to affect change in such a large fashion?
Sorry if this is a really stupid question, but I was always under the impression that these sorts of degenerative tendencies in society are caused by, well, "The Machine", complicated systems clusterfucking themselves, people getting promoted until they reach a position they cannot handle, that sort of thing, monkeys being shitheads.
Seems DP is wondering the same thing.
It is my belief that there are certain people who are certainly aware and explicity pushing for such an outcome, and a larger group of dupes/willing accomplices who have picked up on the idea via stimergic learning - usually through expensively funded think tanks with impressive (and utterly flawed) papers on such things.
Most politicians in public office are not smart, nor with as long a view as this. In fact, they are so busy, they have to rely on staffers, who get their information from such think tanks. Which are funded by select oligarchical interests. Some of which do take a more long-term view of things.
I always appreciate the depth and volume in your replies, Cain. Thank you. I'll start looking for more evidence of this of my own.
It is also a basic rule of politics that winning parties reward and empower their supporters, and punish and disempower their enemies.
As previously noted, a large number of teaching staff tend towards liberalism or left wing ideas.
Cain, I remember seeing a few months ago a lot of articles arguing against the "standard" (i.e. usually lower-middle to -upper class) American assumption that all kids should go to college. The points they brought up were ones of crushing debt, a high dropout rate, and overeducated graduates not being able to find work.
I can't recall all the people who were saying these things, but do you think that they might be echoing the conservative position here?
ah yes, the testing services industry..
I won't disclose which one, but I work for one of those big four companies. :lulz:
I'm in the publishing wing though so we never hear about the testing /scoring services.
Quote from: Jenne on September 21, 2011, 05:37:51 PM
And some of those measures are useful, just not all. The part where it gets REAL fucked up is when a state like CA, who teaches the majority of the ESL kids in the nation, has its own system that was well under way for assessment and needs-based curricular changes, and then along comes some fucked up national system that gets in the way of the state's assessments.
your state has much more dire problems --- like budgeting!
as I understand it, nobody in CA got new textbooks in 2010-11.
Luckily it's not like your state standards were updated, right? so the old books should be fine! :horrormirth:
National funding then. Probably so that state budgets generated by state tax-payer income and property taxes isn't affected by federally-mandated testing.
I work for a testing agency and I help develop testing for the TOEFL. I could go into why quantitative analysis can be helpful for companies hiring people speaking English as a foreign or second language, but that's not necessarily the issue here.
The issue is priority--and what is needed in funding public education and preparing teachers in diverse settings in a fair, equalized manner. Who decides this is a sticky wicket. Not all players have an equal measure of experience in how to do so.
Quote from: Cain on September 21, 2011, 05:38:35 PM
DP:
I've talked with people, whom I trust, who say they've seen it explicity spelled out in such terms (more than a few of these witnesses are American and British "conservatives", alas of a dying breed who are none too common these days).
In fact, this particular facet of conservative thinking has its roots in the intellectual revolt against the French Revolution. Not so much Burke (who wasn't so much a "conservative" as an admirably independent thinker who was pigeon-holed into being a "conservative" sometime in the early 20th century) but the likes of de Maistre, Carl Schmitt and so on.
Incidentally, I know more than a few Anglo-American conservatives who are very open about their interest in Schmitt and de Maistre - presumably under the illusion that no-one who went to a private school has actually read these people, or knows what they advocated.
But anyway. For a movement made up mostly of second-rate academics, the Nouvelle Droit certainly do buy into certain aspects of anti-intellectualism. Some of them frame it as education = Communism, because, well, educated people tend towards more liberal or soft-left positions, as a rule (and this goes back to de Maistre, again). Some of the crazier ones then throw in some nonsense about Gramsci and the Frankfurt school, but that is a discussion for another day.
Education has consequences. A certain level of education is grudgingly admitted as necessary, in such circles, for innovation and so on. But it is also felt that if the vast majority of people are kept unskilled and unschooled, it will be easier to exploit (in the classic, Marxist sense of the term) their productive value. This makes perfect sense when you realise how many Neoconservatives are just reverse Communists in expensive suits.
It is also felt that education, especially "multi-cultural" education, makes nations weak, succumb to subjectivism and be unwilling to fight against their foreign enemies. Which is utterly ridiculous, but there we are.
If you visit some of the more insane rightwing blogs on the internet, you will see this kind of thing discussed openly (especially during the "golden years" of 2003-8). Rightwing bloggers have a distressing tendency, from a certain point of view, to pick up on the implications and dog-whistles of contemporary conservative rhetoric, and make them explicit. On the other hand, this makes it much easier to understand conservative rhetoric, especially certain memes which may go unnoticed, because the value-laden assumptions of the audience are not shared with the reader trying to discern them.
Thank you. If you state it like that I can sort of imagine people thinking like this. Terrible people, but somehow I can imagine.
Bastards.
I must mull over this. It boils somewhere.
Does more and better education always make people happier? Looking at what you say education correlates with, it probably does.
And now I gotta learn more about Stigmergy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigmergy It sounds a whole lot like the thing Sheldrake described as morphic field resonance, except for not being pseudoscience.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on September 21, 2011, 05:44:21 PM
Cain, I remember seeing a few months ago a lot of articles arguing against the "standard" (i.e. usually lower-middle to -upper class) American assumption that all kids should go to college. The points they brought up were ones of crushing debt, a high dropout rate, and overeducated graduates not being able to find work.
I can't recall all the people who were saying these things, but do you think that they might be echoing the conservative position here?
This is actually becoming gestalt in the public education sector as well. The thing is, you can get TRAINING in a vocation and be set for a career as well. There's still skilled labor out there that needs laborers.
So if we turn our minds to the fact that not all kids need college or university but instead a vocational apprenticeship, training, etc., that could work just as well if not better for a larger part of the city/junior college set that seem to be just indebting themselves to the banks rather than getting further ahead in the job sector.
The things I talked about are what I hear most from Conservatives and their legislative counterparts. That cutting education funding is ok because there's too much there with too little output already. So buildings are crumbling, class sizes go up, textbooks go unfunded, mandates for special education cut into general funding, etc. etc.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on September 21, 2011, 05:44:21 PM
Cain, I remember seeing a few months ago a lot of articles arguing against the "standard" (i.e. usually lower-middle to -upper class) American assumption that all kids should go to college. The points they brought up were ones of crushing debt, a high dropout rate, and overeducated graduates not being able to find work.
I can't recall all the people who were saying these things, but do you think that they might be echoing the conservative position here?
I think it could be.
I mean, there are real problems with the American college systems, in terms of costs and benefits. If you're looking for a paying job, plumbing or electrician training is probably worth more than many college degrees (excluding law, medicine and MBAs). Clearly, something has gone wrong with the system, the insane price increases year on year are testament to that.
But if someone is offering no solutions, just shrugging and accepting it as the natural order of things...then yeah, I think there is an aspect of the conservative anti-education meme in there.
Quote from: Cain on September 21, 2011, 05:42:13 PM
It is my belief that there are certain people who are certainly aware and explicity pushing for such an outcome, and a larger group of dupes/willing accomplices who have picked up on the idea via stimergic learning - usually through expensively funded think tanks with impressive (and utterly flawed) papers on such things.
I can name at least one who has said it out loud (our friend Mrs Bachmann).
Quote from: Cramulus on September 21, 2011, 05:45:37 PM
ah yes, the testing services industry..
I won't disclose which one, but I work for one of those big four companies. :lulz:
I'm in the publishing wing though so we never hear about the testing /scoring services.
Quote from: Jenne on September 21, 2011, 05:37:51 PM
And some of those measures are useful, just not all. The part where it gets REAL fucked up is when a state like CA, who teaches the majority of the ESL kids in the nation, has its own system that was well under way for assessment and needs-based curricular changes, and then along comes some fucked up national system that gets in the way of the state's assessments.
your state has much more dire problems --- like budgeting!
as I understand it, nobody in CA got new textbooks in 2010-11.
Luckily it's not like your state standards were updated, right? so the old books should be fine! :horrormirth:
I don't know--but it sounds about right. We had something called "guaranteed educational funding" through Proposition 98--until the Governator took over and stole from it time and again to make ends meet in an ever-increasing needs but always-diminishing budget in Sacramento. The guarantee of 2/3 of the funding going to education was a stopgap to Prop 13 that took away property tax funding from education and made it solely rested upon the basis of what was driven from tax revenue through capital gains.
So when you have a market driven down as we have the last 5 years or so...you can imagine what happened to education funding. In the shitter. We currently fund at the level of Arkansas.
Textbooks usually have a mandated categorical funding, which is rarely flexible. They've been adding flexibility to the categorical funding measures lately, due to the fact that one year you might have money for textbooks, but none for cleaning supplies. But you cannot spend on cleaning supplies unless you want to lose your textbooks, etc. It made no sense.
Quote from: Cramulus on September 21, 2011, 05:45:37 PM
ah yes, the testing services industry..
I won't disclose which one, but I work for one of those big four companies. :lulz:
I'm in the publishing wing though so we never hear about the testing /scoring services.
Don't feel bad. I work for Big Oil.
We could get together, though, and heap scorn on those vampires that work for HMOs.
Quote from: Cain on September 21, 2011, 05:43:57 PM
It is also a basic rule of politics that winning parties reward and empower their supporters, and punish and disempower their enemies.
As previously noted, a large number of teaching staff tend towards liberalism or left wing ideas.
And you already touched on the fact that there's an anti-intellectualism that teems within the Conservative movement--the Tea Party especially seems to eschew anything to do with book learning or studying. This is right on par with that sector in American society, at any rate.
This fread feeds my brain something wonderful. :) Just thought I'd mention that.
Well, they'll accept some learning, but only from Approved Sources.
Glenn Beck's online "university" seems to be doing alright, for example. I actually find that a real shame, as it shows there is a hunger for superior, yet affordable education out there - but most of the people who actually provide such resources (the Teaching Company etc) are crowded out by those with flashier marketing techniques and inferior, lower cost products.
Also, I'm currently working in private education, so...
My phone came with a reader app preloaded with a variety of classic literature.
My reaction? "OOOH I CAN READ ART OF WAR ON THE JOHN!"
and then my horrific realization...
Somewhere, some 16 year old just got the same make and model phone from her parents. She went through, and deleted the novels from the reader app to make room for Twilight, text messages, and Angry Birds.
That, right there, is why America is fucking stupid.
Does anyone who posted ITT have a problem with me sharing all this with people?
I don't mind.
No objections here.
Go for it.
This bloody well sums it up.
(http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/s320x320/300815_10150338637043028_500063027_7968925_397463241_n.jpg)
Quote from: Luna on October 10, 2011, 02:46:09 PM
This bloody well sums it up.
(http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/s320x320/300815_10150338637043028_500063027_7968925_397463241_n.jpg)
I hear about shit like this via the rumor mill, but as a parent, and as a friend of several elementary and high-school teachers, I haven't experienced or heard a firsthand account of anything like it. I've heard of kids getting a chance to change their grade by turning in missing homework or doing extra-credit work at the end of the term, but nothing like parents just bullying teachers into changing a grade for no reason.
I assume it must happen sometimes, but it certainly must be rare in my area.
I grew up in an area of England where over 25% of the population had zero qualifications
Regardless of money or ethics or anything else. Most of my classmates never chose or could be bothered to learn as they had no aspirations.
Why bother to work hard at school when you can be a drift on by and drink and fuck like your parents/step parents/ mums new bf.
And when these people are having children at 16-18 the situation self perpetuates regardless of which political party is in power.
Though hopefully with a slash of benefits a lot of these idiots will be forced to get a job and realise what they have lost out on.
Pretty sure I'll start coming home to find them dancing around a severed boar's head in the streets.
Quote from: Drunken Monkey Cabal on October 10, 2011, 06:36:46 PM
I grew up in an area of England where over 25% of the population had zero qualifications
Regardless of money or ethics or anything else. Most of my classmates never chose or could be bothered to learn as they had no aspirations.
Why bother to work hard at school when you can be a drift on by and drink and fuck like your parents/step parents/ mums new bf.
And when these people are having children at 16-18 the situation self perpetuates regardless of which political party is in power.
Though hopefully with a slash of benefits a lot of these idiots will be forced to get a job and realise what they have lost out on.
Pretty sure I'll start coming home to find them dancing around a severed boar's head in the streets.
And whose fault is that?
Parents?
Quote from: Drunken Monkey Cabal on October 10, 2011, 06:41:44 PM
Parents?
And the students themselves.
But let's also not forget under-funded schools, discouraged and/or apathetic teachers, and a society that doesn't exactly put education on a pedastle.
WE DON'T NEED NO BOOK-LEARNING! WE HAVE COMMON SENSE AND BABY JEBUS!
\
:mullet:
I'm not sure pushing them off the dole will suddenly motivate them to better themselves.
My best guess is that conditions will worsen dramatically, and eventually they'll all wind up killing each other.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on October 10, 2011, 06:45:23 PM
I'm not sure pushing them off the dole will suddenly motivate them to better themselves.
Actually, they'll be motivated to hit people over the head with lead pipes for the change in their pockets.
But why let something like that get in the way of a nice, simple, self-righteous "solution"?
I see/hear less of that with parents, but administrators....oooh, boy. This not the only instance of this that I know of, but the one that sticks out most is the teacher at my high school who was FORCED to pass all the failing kids in her class. All of them, regardless of the fact that none of the failures had done a lick of work (believe me, I graded some of what little they turned it; it was <i>awful</i>. I have met fifth grade ESL kids who write better).
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 10, 2011, 06:43:53 PM
Quote from: Drunken Monkey Cabal on October 10, 2011, 06:41:44 PM
Parents?
And the students themselves.
But let's also not forget under-funded schools, discouraged and/or apathetic teachers, and a society that doesn't exactly put education on a pedastle.
WE DON'T NEED NO BOOK-LEARNING! WE HAVE COMMON SENSE AND BABY JEBUS!
\
:mullet:
And let's not forget punishing schools who fail by taking away even more money and excessive state/federal interference in the classroom.
Quote from: Drunken Monkey Cabal on October 10, 2011, 06:36:46 PM
Though hopefully with a slash of benefits a lot of these idiots will be forced to get a job and realise what they have lost out on.
Lol, no
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15234228
QuoteThe current rate of public sector job losses is far greater than official projections and suggests total job cuts in the sector will be 50% higher than forecast, researchers say.
Since April, the public sector shed jobs at five times the rate predicted by the Office for Budget Responsibility, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) said.
There was already five unemployed people for every vacancy before we started slashing and burning government jobs. Without a recovery, those people are jobless.
And besides, as you said, they're not well educated and not motivated. An employer is going to prefer someone with a decade or two in the civil service, or an Eastern European, before they want someone like that. Employer's market, these days.
Now, now, Cain. We all know that unemployed people are all lazy, and that there's jobs just dangling from the low branches.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 10, 2011, 06:43:53 PM
Quote from: Drunken Monkey Cabal on October 10, 2011, 06:41:44 PM
Parents?
And the students themselves.
But let's also not forget under-funded schools, discouraged and/or apathetic teachers, and a society that doesn't exactly put education on a pedastle.
WE DON'T NEED NO BOOK-LEARNING! WE HAVE COMMON SENSE AND BABY JEBUS!
\
:mullet:
In the UK we have common sense and thinly veiled racism in place of religion. Baby Jebus barely gets a pass, because everyone knows Israelis are white and can speak English.
Dil (Drunken Monkey Cabal) makes me giggle.
It's like someone took Rush Limbaugh and shoved Ron Paul up his ass.
Depending on where Dil is, he may have had a point, six or seven years ago. Parts of up north did have atrocious teen pregnancy rates (worst in Europe) and employment rates (at a time when you could walk into a factory or shop and get a job in the same day).
However, that also fails to take into account how industry was utterly destroyed up north, creating a climate where getting jobs was impossible, so even when things did improve, people didn't believe it and continued on as they had before. That's another one we can blame Thatcher for.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 10, 2011, 09:47:43 PM
Now, now, Cain. We all know that unemployed people are all lazy, and that there's jobs just dangling from the low branches.
I was talking to my friend Annie just Sunday about her job search. See, after Annie got out of the Navy (with decorations, no less), she got a GIS degree and then moved to Portland, where she was, after a bit of a search, able to land a seasonal job at Target. "Great!" thought Annie. "This gives me a couple of months to find a job in my field".
The seasonal job ended and, 300 applications and one year later, Annie found a temp job on a road crew in Gresham.
Lucky, lucky Annie!
But wait, it gets better. See, Annie is the little sister of my friend The Enucleator. The Enucleator is in charge of the tissue collection at the eye bank. Recently, she has noticed a disturbing trend; she's been receiving a lot of resumes from people who are grotesquely overqualified for the job. People who are more qualified than she is, such as actual surgeons. Surgeons who have been looking for work for months on end.
Look at all those lazy, unmotivated, unskilled unemployed!
Oh wait.
actually Cain was back home in Essex, so near enough, but just slightly warmer.
I think my point was that people who fail to have any aspirations who then raise children to have no aspirations are a underlying big problem in the education system. They are unwilling to work for anything, as they have nothing to work for.
so they don't want to work hard, cannot see the end benefits, so I found they were the majority of the idiots who fucked around in the classes.
So since they have no respect for education, they have no respect for the teachers. and they sure as hell do not fear teachers, making 75% of the teaching I saw crowd control methods.
Not excusing poor teaching standards or lack of funds, but I don't think teaching apathetic children, who apathy for education is reinforced by the no aspiration parents is a new problem.
Just I dunno. Not seeing you 3 younger siblings dying in famine/disease/war/purges has made a lot of people very lazy.
Quote from: Drunken Monkey Cabal on October 10, 2011, 11:45:11 PM
actually Cain was back home in Essex, so near enough, but just slightly warmer.
I think my point was that people who fail to have any aspirations who then raise children to have no aspirations are a underlying big problem in the education system. They are unwilling to work for anything, as they have nothing to work for.
so they don't want to work hard, cannot see the end benefits, so I found they were the majority of the idiots who fucked around in the classes.
So since they have no respect for education, they have no respect for the teachers. and they sure as hell do not fear teachers, making 75% of the teaching I saw crowd control methods.
Not excusing poor teaching standards or lack of funds, but I don't think teaching apathetic children, who apathy for education is reinforced by the no aspiration parents is a new problem.
Just I dunno. Not seeing you 3 younger siblings dying in famine/disease/war/purges has made a lot of people very lazy.
Jesus christ, is this what I sounded like in the What Do You Own thread?
Fucksake. Education is not some magical cure-all which instantly results in a job. In Birmingham when I lived there, there were 13 people on average applying to every 1 vacancy. In London, applying for jobs in my field post-graduation, even jobs paid at
below minimum wage (because fuck you, MPs, that's what your 'internship' is), were getting literally hundreds of applications within 24 hours of being posted.
The problem isn't that people are lazy. The problem is that even if you are motivated to work,
there isn't enough work to go around. We do not need the amount of people that are looking for work, to meet our current demands as a society.
And even if you get a job, you can work as hard as you like. Fact is, you're probably still not going to be able to establish a good standard of living (or at least, not the standard the TV tells you that you should have) without massive debt, and if you have a family, both parents working every hour God sends on top. Christ. I've watched a good friend of mine, Cambridge-educated high-flying corporate accountant, struggle to find anything for nine months, until he's wracked himself so far into debt to keep the shitty flat he owns over his head that he couldn't afford the fuel to drive to interviews on his own.
I can't imagine how difficult it would be to be entering this job market without those advantages. And just stop to think for a moment - not everyone can excel in education. So when the people who have done, and have got the top grades, can't find work, what hope would those who are merely 'average' or 'below average' have? Then consider the meaning of the word 'average'.
Are you seriously arguing that this situation would be better if we organized a fucking cull and gunned down a bunch of kids? Well by God, they'd definitely appreciate their meagre lot in life then, eh?! Little bit of survival of the fittest never hurt anyone! Well, except for Timmy, but who gives a fuck, right? We've got more.
Quote from: Drunken Monkey Cabal on October 10, 2011, 11:45:11 PM
actually Cain was back home in Essex, so near enough, but just slightly warmer.
I think my point was that people who fail to have any aspirations who then raise children to have no aspirations are a underlying big problem in the education system. They are unwilling to work for anything, as they have nothing to work for.
so they don't want to work hard, cannot see the end benefits, so I found they were the majority of the idiots who fucked around in the classes.
So since they have no respect for education, they have no respect for the teachers. and they sure as hell do not fear teachers, making 75% of the teaching I saw crowd control methods.
Not excusing poor teaching standards or lack of funds, but I don't think teaching apathetic children, who apathy for education is reinforced by the no aspiration parents is a new problem.
Just I dunno. Not seeing you 3 younger siblings dying in famine/disease/war/purges has made a lot of people very lazy.
I am awfully certain that somewhere in the OP I crammed the idea that people are hopelessly fucked because the educational system is fucked because of The Man's greasy fingers. Even in good educational systems there are lazy kids, but most kids want to learn and get nasty when you don't give them what their brains want, and a lot of them are good at smelling bullshit. It's a system that perpetuates and ingrains their apathy.
You know, you'd figure it would be difficult to focus on getting exceptional grades for a future career when famine/disease/war/purges fuck your families' shit up rather than the other way around.
Quote from: Demolition_Squid on October 11, 2011, 08:51:12 AM
Jesus christ, is this what I sounded like in the What Do You Own thread?
I think you know the answer to that already.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on October 11, 2011, 12:56:08 PM
Quote from: Demolition_Squid on October 11, 2011, 08:51:12 AM
Jesus christ, is this what I sounded like in the What Do You Own thread?
I think you know the answer to that already.
But there is hope, because he recognized it.
Talking about education here. as in for the people who will begin their careers in the next 5+ years
Yes the job market is shit at the minute. Probably will be shit for perhaps another year or two. Never said it wasn't
Would be seriously surprised if in five years time the economy is still in the same state today.
But in five years when there will be more jobs and more demands for educated people, these people will still not care, and still have no aspirations.
Quote from: Drunken Monkey Cabal on October 10, 2011, 11:45:11 PM
actually Cain was back home in Essex, so near enough, but just slightly warmer.
I think my point was that people who fail to have any aspirations who then raise children to have no aspirations are a underlying big problem in the education system. They are unwilling to work for anything, as they have nothing to work for.
so they don't want to work hard, cannot see the end benefits, so I found they were the majority of the idiots who fucked around in the classes.
So since they have no respect for education, they have no respect for the teachers. and they sure as hell do not fear teachers, making 75% of the teaching I saw crowd control methods.
Not excusing poor teaching standards or lack of funds, but I don't think teaching apathetic children, who apathy for education is reinforced by the no aspiration parents is a new problem.
Just I dunno. Not seeing you 3 younger siblings dying in famine/disease/war/purges has made a lot of people very lazy.
Put kids in a society in which they were doomed at conception, and lo & behold! They don't care about school, knowing their future holds nothing resembling the American dream. They aren't stupid, they know there's no fucking jobs, so they concentrate on getting fucked up and getting laid.
Quote from: Drunken Monkey Cabal on October 11, 2011, 04:26:43 PM
Talking about education here. as in for the people who will begin their careers in the next 5+ years
Yes the job market is shit at the minute. Probably will be shit for perhaps another year or two. Never said it wasn't
Would be seriously surprised if in five years time the economy is still in the same state today.
But in five years when there will be more jobs and more demands for educated people, these people will still not care, and still have no aspirations.
So we should let them starve to death. Good plan!
Quote from: Drunken Monkey Cabal on October 11, 2011, 04:26:43 PM
Yes the job market is shit at the minute. Probably will be shit for perhaps another year or two.
:lulz:
Quote from: Drunken Monkey Cabal on October 11, 2011, 04:26:43 PM
Talking about education here. as in for the people who will begin their careers in the next 5+ years
Yes the job market is shit at the minute. Probably will be shit for perhaps another year or two. Never said it wasn't
Would be seriously surprised if in five years time the economy is still in the same state today.
But in five years when there will be more jobs and more demands for educated people, these people will still not care, and still have no aspirations.
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y153/Meiintas/images.jpg)
I didn't realise you guys had such proficiency at reading the future,
or maybe could you explaining it to me in a clear way, since you are clearly more knowledge about this then myself
Where the hell are all these Tea Party retards coming from, anyway?
Quote from: Drunken Monkey Cabal on October 11, 2011, 04:38:15 PM
I didn't realise you guys had such proficiency at reading the future,
or maybe could you explaining it to me in a clear way, since you are clearly more knowledge about this then myself
Because, for the first time since 1929, we have a bust that is not related to consumer confidence.
This is a case of an utterly plundered economy. You think that shit's going to be fixed in two years, when nobody who has any influence over it has any incentive to fix it, whatsoever?
The sheer inability to process the available information is what gets me. I'm just like, really? I give up.
On the other hand, DiL....see all those guys saying "the worst of it is over, we'll be back in shape in a couple of years". Guess what they were saying a couple of years ago? Something something green shoots of recovery something. The banking system is an unstable clusterfuck, the Eurozone is one small, angry country's default away from economic catastrophe, the US cant even carry out a simple administrative procedure without one party trying to implode the world economy and China aint looking too good these days either.
Just last week, experts from the IMF were saying this was the most dangerous time for the global economy since Bear Stearns in 2008. We've been seeing financial patterns of instability which seem to suggest another 2008 style collapse is very close. The best solution that has been come up with is "quantative easing", aka throwing money at the problem. All that has done so far is give a few month's breathing space before more money is printed.
Meanwhile, jobs continue to be lost. When jobs are created, they are invariably under the replenishment level, the number of extra jobs needed due to population growth, meaning a net job loss. And with the current flavour of response being "austerity", money is being actively removed from the economy in order to keep the loans ratings agencies (Moody's, Fitch and S&P - the same people who rated the junk subprime loans as Triple A, helping to cause the financial crisis) from raping the country and making it insanely expensive to borrow money. Problem is, austerity reduces the economic base of the country, usually by laying off civil service workers in large numbers, who then make the job situation even worse.
Nicely summed in three paragraphs, Cain.
But at what point will the economy bottom out. I don't understand how it cannot bottom out, from simple supply and demand no?
I understand that everything is going to shit, and will still go to shit, but surely at some point, by the simple fact that one person is employed will in fact spawn more jobs no?
Roger, what do you mean by utterly plundered. Goods are still being produced, people still need to eat, so what physically has been looted?
Quote from: Drunken Monkey Cabal on October 11, 2011, 05:09:22 PM
But at what point will the economy bottom out. I don't understand how it cannot bottom out, from simple supply and demand no?
I understand that everything is going to shit, and will still go to shit, but surely at some point, by the simple fact that one person is employed will in fact spawn more jobs no?
Roger, what do you mean by utterly plundered. Goods are still being produced, people still need to eat, so what physically has been looted?
What is wrong with your brain?
A lot. why?
Is me asking questions in a polite manner, or trying to understand in some way offensive to you?
Quote from: Drunken Monkey Cabal on October 11, 2011, 05:09:22 PM
But at what point will the economy bottom out. I don't understand how it cannot bottom out, from simple supply and demand no?
I understand that everything is going to shit, and will still go to shit, but surely at some point, by the simple fact that one person is employed will in fact spawn more jobs no?
Roger, what do you mean by utterly plundered. Goods are still being produced, people still need to eat, so what physically has been looted?
New jobs are only created when there's new demand. Less jobs = less demand, no matter how many tax cuts you give the rich.
Quote from: Drunken Monkey Cabal on October 11, 2011, 05:09:22 PM
But at what point will the economy bottom out. I don't understand how it cannot bottom out, from simple supply and demand no?
I understand that everything is going to shit, and will still go to shit, but surely at some point, by the simple fact that one person is employed will in fact spawn more jobs no?
Roger, what do you mean by utterly plundered. Goods are still being produced, people still need to eat, so what physically has been looted?
30,000 jobs are being sent overseas per month.
CEOs are now whining that they can't bring them back because of lack of infrastructure and skilled tradesmen. That would be because we spent all of our income building infrastructure on Iraq, and because nobody wants to apprentice to a trade that CAN'T FIND WORK HERE.
Right now, 90% of the fish you eat is from China. EVERYTHING you wear comes from the far East, mostly China. Yeah, goods are still being produced...ELSEWHERE.
Now, I gotta ask you, if there's a demand for, say, tractors...You're saying that someone should just start a tractor factory?
Quote from: Drunken Monkey Cabal on October 11, 2011, 05:09:22 PM
But at what point will the economy bottom out. I don't understand how it cannot bottom out, from simple supply and demand no?
I understand that everything is going to shit, and will still go to shit, but surely at some point, by the simple fact that one person is employed will in fact spawn more jobs no?
Roger, what do you mean by utterly plundered. Goods are still being produced, people still need to eat, so what physically has been looted?
Oh, Christ.
Start here (http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/03/22-6).
The banks knew they were selling bullshit. They betted against it, in secret, while telling their clients that what they were selling was really great and wouldn't cause the economy to implode or anything. They knew otherwise, and kept on selling them, because they were getting rich. It was fraud, basically.
And then, when the economy did implode, what happened? A few dozen banks went under, but the rest...oh the rest got lots and lots of free money given to them. Trillions, all over the world. Government's aren't on the edge of ruin because of irresponsible spending. They're on the edge of ruin because they spent lots of money bailing the banks out, and the banks said "thanks" and sat on that money instead of lending it.
If companies cant get loans, they cannot afford to expand. If they cannot afford to expand, they cannot afford to employ more people. As budgets shrink, there is less money to spend on goods, reducing demand. Banks are also gambling public money on what are called commodity indexes - that is, indexes dealing with the price of goods like food and fuel. Noticed how heating, bread and fuel costs are going up and up, above inflation and year on year?
So people are earning less, but everything is getting more expensive. What do you do in that situation? You spend less. Demand drops. The suppliers earn less, causing them to cut back and lay off more staff, helping fuel unemployment. It's a vicious circle, from top to bottom.
Quote from: Nigel on October 11, 2011, 05:10:34 PM
Quote from: Drunken Monkey Cabal on October 11, 2011, 05:09:22 PM
But at what point will the economy bottom out. I don't understand how it cannot bottom out, from simple supply and demand no?
I understand that everything is going to shit, and will still go to shit, but surely at some point, by the simple fact that one person is employed will in fact spawn more jobs no?
Roger, what do you mean by utterly plundered. Goods are still being produced, people still need to eat, so what physically has been looted?
What is wrong with your brain?
To be fair, if you read back on DiL's old posts, he actually seems to be trying to
use his brain this time around.
I feel that this should be encouraged.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on October 11, 2011, 05:19:30 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 11, 2011, 05:10:34 PM
Quote from: Drunken Monkey Cabal on October 11, 2011, 05:09:22 PM
But at what point will the economy bottom out. I don't understand how it cannot bottom out, from simple supply and demand no?
I understand that everything is going to shit, and will still go to shit, but surely at some point, by the simple fact that one person is employed will in fact spawn more jobs no?
Roger, what do you mean by utterly plundered. Goods are still being produced, people still need to eat, so what physically has been looted?
What is wrong with your brain?
To be fair, if you read back on DiL's old posts, he actually seems to be trying to use his brain this time around.
I feel that this should be encouraged.
No, I think he's just replaced the old meme-plex with a different one.
Quote from: Cain on October 11, 2011, 05:16:59 PM
Quote from: Drunken Monkey Cabal on October 11, 2011, 05:09:22 PM
But at what point will the economy bottom out. I don't understand how it cannot bottom out, from simple supply and demand no?
I understand that everything is going to shit, and will still go to shit, but surely at some point, by the simple fact that one person is employed will in fact spawn more jobs no?
Roger, what do you mean by utterly plundered. Goods are still being produced, people still need to eat, so what physically has been looted?
Oh, Christ.
Start here (http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/03/22-6).
The banks knew they were selling bullshit. They betted against it, in secret, while telling their clients that what they were selling was really great and wouldn't cause the economy to implode or anything. They knew otherwise, and kept on selling them, because they were getting rich. It was fraud, basically.
And then, when the economy did implode, what happened? A few dozen banks went under, but the rest...oh the rest got lots and lots of free money given to them. Trillions, all over the world. Government's aren't on the edge of ruin because of irresponsible spending. They're on the edge of ruin because they spent lots of money bailing the banks out, and the banks said "thanks" and sat on that money instead of lending it.
If companies cant get loans, they cannot afford to expand. If they cannot afford to expand, they cannot afford to employ more people. As budgets shrink, there is less money to spend on goods, reducing demand. Banks are also gambling public money on what are called commodity indexes - that is, indexes dealing with the price of goods like food and fuel. Noticed how heating, bread and fuel costs are going up and up, above inflation and year on year?
So people are earning less, but everything is getting more expensive. What do you do in that situation? You spend less. Demand drops. The suppliers earn less, causing them to cut back and lay off more staff, helping fuel unemployment. It's a vicious circle, from top to bottom.
And what did they do to the money we gave them (other than hand out huge bonuses)? They used a lot of it to buy government bonds. So instead of loaning it in a way that would spur spending and business expansion, they
loaned it right back to the government, at a higher interest rate than what they'd borrowed it from the government at.
They also had their best quarterly profits EVER for the first three months of 2009.
Short version: The means of production still exist, but the method of counting production has failed.
And monkeys won't make it if they can't count it.
Quote from: Drunken Monkey Cabal on October 11, 2011, 05:12:24 PM
A lot. why?
Is me asking questions in a polite manner, or trying to understand in some way offensive to you?
No. It's just that the compound stupidity that's been flooding into this forum has finally gotten me down, and instead of explaining what seems pitifully obvious, using little words, I just want to give up, curl into a little ball, and cry.
There is no hope for humanity. None. And you are just one of billions of examples why.
I suspect, DiL, that Nigel's frustration with you stems from the fact you seem to have done very little thinking or research about the topic at hand.
For example, we have a nearly fifty page thread in the political forum, dating back to 2009, that you could have read, to educate yourself somewhat. http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=20156.0 if you were wondering.
Quote from: Nigel on October 11, 2011, 05:30:45 PM
Quote from: Drunken Monkey Cabal on October 11, 2011, 05:12:24 PM
A lot. why?
Is me asking questions in a polite manner, or trying to understand in some way offensive to you?
No. It's just that the compound stupidity that's been flooding into this forum has finally gotten me down, and instead of explaining what seems pitifully obvious, using little words, I just want to give up, curl into a little ball, and cry.
There is no hope for humanity. None. And you are just one of billions of examples why.
And then people ask me why I WANT the whole thing to crash and burn.
Quote from: Cain on October 11, 2011, 05:33:57 PM
I suspect, DiL, that Nigel's frustration with you stems from the fact you seem to have done very little thinking or research about the topic at hand.
For example, we have a nearly fifty page thread in the political forum, dating back to 2009, that you could have read, to educate yourself somewhat. http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=20156.0 if you were wondering.
Yeah, there's really no reason to be asking questions. All the answers are already written down, if he wasn't too
lazy to go look for it.
I used to love people. I don't think I can go on doing that, because they're terrible, awful, unredeemable evil creatures that really just need to be wiped out.
The only thing I can hope for is a species divergence. Or extinction, really that would be just as good.
Ugh.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 11, 2011, 05:34:23 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 11, 2011, 05:30:45 PM
Quote from: Drunken Monkey Cabal on October 11, 2011, 05:12:24 PM
A lot. why?
Is me asking questions in a polite manner, or trying to understand in some way offensive to you?
No. It's just that the compound stupidity that's been flooding into this forum has finally gotten me down, and instead of explaining what seems pitifully obvious, using little words, I just want to give up, curl into a little ball, and cry.
There is no hope for humanity. None. And you are just one of billions of examples why.
And then people ask me why I WANT the whole thing to crash and burn.
I get it now.
Quote from: Nigel on October 11, 2011, 05:41:18 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 11, 2011, 05:34:23 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 11, 2011, 05:30:45 PM
Quote from: Drunken Monkey Cabal on October 11, 2011, 05:12:24 PM
A lot. why?
Is me asking questions in a polite manner, or trying to understand in some way offensive to you?
No. It's just that the compound stupidity that's been flooding into this forum has finally gotten me down, and instead of explaining what seems pitifully obvious, using little words, I just want to give up, curl into a little ball, and cry.
There is no hope for humanity. None. And you are just one of billions of examples why.
And then people ask me why I WANT the whole thing to crash and burn.
I get it now.
Welcome aboard, Doktor. :lulz:
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 11, 2011, 05:48:42 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 11, 2011, 05:41:18 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 11, 2011, 05:34:23 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 11, 2011, 05:30:45 PM
Quote from: Drunken Monkey Cabal on October 11, 2011, 05:12:24 PM
A lot. why?
Is me asking questions in a polite manner, or trying to understand in some way offensive to you?
No. It's just that the compound stupidity that's been flooding into this forum has finally gotten me down, and instead of explaining what seems pitifully obvious, using little words, I just want to give up, curl into a little ball, and cry.
There is no hope for humanity. None. And you are just one of billions of examples why.
And then people ask me why I WANT the whole thing to crash and burn.
I get it now.
Welcome aboard, Doktor. :lulz:
:horrormirth:
And then Nigel was a Doktor.
I just can't get past the fact that this big skin-sack of willful ignorance has been complaining about how poor people just won't bother to educate themselves. :horrormirth:
The fucking irony.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on October 11, 2011, 06:01:06 PM
And then Nigel was a Doktor.
And she & I have a terrible prescription.
Ho ho!
Don't think of it as choking fools, so much as tourniqueting their necks, to stave off the wasted blood flow to their heads. Don't think of it as knocking the foundation in, think of it as allowing the house to fly off on the glorious invisible wings of the Free Market
TM. Don't think of it as a thousand years of darkness, think of it as a serious reduction in light pollution, which ought to make astronomers happy.
Quote from: Nigel on October 11, 2011, 06:03:14 PM
I just can't get past the fact that this big skin-sack of willful ignorance has been complaining about how poor people just won't bother to educate themselves. :horrormirth:
The fucking irony.
We Doktors know a hopeless case when we see one.
Say, there's a perfectly good universe
right next door.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 11, 2011, 06:03:58 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on October 11, 2011, 06:01:06 PM
And then Nigel was a Doktor.
And she & I have a terrible prescription.
Ho ho!
Don't think of it as choking fools, so much as tourniqueting their necks, to stave off the wasted blood flow to their heads. Don't think of it as knocking the foundation in, think of it as allowing the house to fly off on the glorious invisible wings of the Free MarketTM. Don't think of it as a thousand years of darkness, think of it as a serious reduction in light pollution, which ought to make astronomers happy.
If you're looking for employment, I think Frank Luntz might have a job waiting for you.
Quote from: kingyak on October 11, 2011, 06:14:04 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 11, 2011, 06:03:58 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on October 11, 2011, 06:01:06 PM
And then Nigel was a Doktor.
And she & I have a terrible prescription.
Ho ho!
Don't think of it as choking fools, so much as tourniqueting their necks, to stave off the wasted blood flow to their heads. Don't think of it as knocking the foundation in, think of it as allowing the house to fly off on the glorious invisible wings of the Free MarketTM. Don't think of it as a thousand years of darkness, think of it as a serious reduction in light pollution, which ought to make astronomers happy.
If you're looking for employment, I think Frank Luntz might have a job waiting for you.
:lulz:
Quote from: kingyak on October 11, 2011, 06:14:04 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 11, 2011, 06:03:58 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on October 11, 2011, 06:01:06 PM
And then Nigel was a Doktor.
And she & I have a terrible prescription.
Ho ho!
Don't think of it as choking fools, so much as tourniqueting their necks, to stave off the wasted blood flow to their heads. Don't think of it as knocking the foundation in, think of it as allowing the house to fly off on the glorious invisible wings of the Free MarketTM. Don't think of it as a thousand years of darkness, think of it as a serious reduction in light pollution, which ought to make astronomers happy.
If you're looking for employment, I think Frank Luntz might have a job waiting for you.
No, that pasty faced fat bastard is going straight into the chipper.
Please please please let the pandemic begin soon.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 11, 2011, 06:20:03 PM
Quote from: kingyak on October 11, 2011, 06:14:04 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 11, 2011, 06:03:58 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on October 11, 2011, 06:01:06 PM
And then Nigel was a Doktor.
And she & I have a terrible prescription.
Ho ho!
Don't think of it as choking fools, so much as tourniqueting their necks, to stave off the wasted blood flow to their heads. Don't think of it as knocking the foundation in, think of it as allowing the house to fly off on the glorious invisible wings of the Free MarketTM. Don't think of it as a thousand years of darkness, think of it as a serious reduction in light pollution, which ought to make astronomers happy.
If you're looking for employment, I think Frank Luntz might have a job waiting for you.
No, that pasty faced fat bastard is going straight into the chipper.
As a rule I'm against the death penalty, especially when administered in cruel and unusual ways, but every rule has its exceptions.
Quote from: Nigel on October 11, 2011, 06:25:10 PM
Please please please let the pandemic begin soon.
Not actually necessary.
At the behest of fucking retards with money, the fucking retards without money are busy dismantling the things they need to survive, or at least to live into their 40s.
The inevitable pandemics will follow.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 11, 2011, 06:27:24 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 11, 2011, 06:25:10 PM
Please please please let the pandemic begin soon.
Not actually necessary.
At the behest of fucking retards with money, the fucking retards without money are busy dismantling the things they need to survive, or at least to live into their 40s.
The inevitable pandemics will follow.
Can't come soon enough for me.
Quote from: kingyak on October 11, 2011, 06:26:38 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 11, 2011, 06:20:03 PM
Quote from: kingyak on October 11, 2011, 06:14:04 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 11, 2011, 06:03:58 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on October 11, 2011, 06:01:06 PM
And then Nigel was a Doktor.
And she & I have a terrible prescription.
Ho ho!
Don't think of it as choking fools, so much as tourniqueting their necks, to stave off the wasted blood flow to their heads. Don't think of it as knocking the foundation in, think of it as allowing the house to fly off on the glorious invisible wings of the Free MarketTM. Don't think of it as a thousand years of darkness, think of it as a serious reduction in light pollution, which ought to make astronomers happy.
If you're looking for employment, I think Frank Luntz might have a job waiting for you.
No, that pasty faced fat bastard is going straight into the chipper.
As a rule I'm against the death penalty, especially when administered in cruel and unusual ways, but every rule has its exceptions.
We ARE a living, breathing death penalty. Rushing the whole of civilization to the guillotine as fast as possible.
The founding fathers never intended for poor people to live into their 40s.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 11, 2011, 07:01:09 PM
The founding fathers never intended for poor people to live into their 40s.
The founding fathers never intended a nation of equality and opportunity; clearly, they sought a fiefdom, a land of massive debt and indenturement, a disempowered populace serving as servants for the wealth of the elite.
Nothing like England.
Quote from: Nigel on October 11, 2011, 07:06:21 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 11, 2011, 07:01:09 PM
The founding fathers never intended for poor people to live into their 40s.
The founding fathers never intended a nation of equality and opportunity; clearly, they sought a fiefdom, a land of massive debt and indenturement, a disempowered populace serving as servants for the wealth of the elite.
Nothing like England.
And General Chamberlain never expressed alarm at the same tendency in the short-lived CSA.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 11, 2011, 07:07:21 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 11, 2011, 07:06:21 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 11, 2011, 07:01:09 PM
The founding fathers never intended for poor people to live into their 40s.
The founding fathers never intended a nation of equality and opportunity; clearly, they sought a fiefdom, a land of massive debt and indenturement, a disempowered populace serving as servants for the wealth of the elite.
Nothing like England.
And General Chamberlain never expressed alarm at the same tendency in the short-lived CSA.
Why would he? After all, it's not as if it ran counter to what he was fighting for! No, he was fighting for the Banks, for the Corporations, and for America!
Quote from: Nigel on October 11, 2011, 07:11:51 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 11, 2011, 07:07:21 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 11, 2011, 07:06:21 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 11, 2011, 07:01:09 PM
The founding fathers never intended for poor people to live into their 40s.
The founding fathers never intended a nation of equality and opportunity; clearly, they sought a fiefdom, a land of massive debt and indenturement, a disempowered populace serving as servants for the wealth of the elite.
Nothing like England.
And General Chamberlain never expressed alarm at the same tendency in the short-lived CSA.
Why would he? After all, it's not as if it ran counter to what he was fighting for! No, he was fighting for the Banks, for the Corporations, and for America!
The funny thing is, that's true. :lol:
He was fighting an aristocracy for the benefit of an oligarchy, come to think of it.
He saved the Communist cause at Gettysburgh.
:lulz:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 11, 2011, 07:15:07 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 11, 2011, 07:11:51 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 11, 2011, 07:07:21 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 11, 2011, 07:06:21 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 11, 2011, 07:01:09 PM
The founding fathers never intended for poor people to live into their 40s.
The founding fathers never intended a nation of equality and opportunity; clearly, they sought a fiefdom, a land of massive debt and indenturement, a disempowered populace serving as servants for the wealth of the elite.
Nothing like England.
And General Chamberlain never expressed alarm at the same tendency in the short-lived CSA.
Why would he? After all, it's not as if it ran counter to what he was fighting for! No, he was fighting for the Banks, for the Corporations, and for America!
The funny thing is, that's true. :lol:
He was fighting an aristocracy for the benefit of an oligarchy, come to think of it.
He saved the Communist cause at Gettysburgh.
:lulz:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!
:lulz: Full circle yet?
Let's see:
Communism requires everyone to work for the common good, whether or not they see any benefit personally.
Libertarians and the GOP wants to elimate the minimum wage.
Communism requires that people who can't follow the state as a religion be shipped off for "reeduction".
America puts potheads in jail with murderers and rapists to teach them a lesson.
Communism believes in a cash-less society.
America HAS a largely cash-less society.
Communism lowers the quality of goods to keep them within the means of production.
America buys cheap plastic crap at Wal-Mart, in order to afford what they want on their lower paychecks.
Communism inculcates the idea that the central committee is infallible.
Americans pick a political cause and worship it.
There's more, but this rates a rant of its own.
I've been saying this for years.
Even better - if you read the strategy meetings of Republican thinkers and PR people, you'll see just how often they quote Lenin and Gramsci. For those who don't want to look (understandably) the answer is: a lot.
Quote from: Cain on October 11, 2011, 07:26:23 PM
I've been saying this for years.
Even better - if you read the strategy meetings of Republican thinkers and PR people, you'll see just how often they quote Lenin and Gramsci. For those who don't want to look (understandably) the answer is: a lot.
I've got a flyer brewing...
Quote from: Nigel on October 11, 2011, 06:25:10 PM
Please please please let the pandemic begin soon.
speaking of, are we getting any funky diseases this winter? :)
Quote from: Triple Zero on October 11, 2011, 08:26:19 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 11, 2011, 06:25:10 PM
Please please please let the pandemic begin soon.
speaking of, are we getting any funky diseases this winter? :)
I can ship you something special, if you like. Would you prefer vomiting profusely, or toilet-exploding poomps? Maybe something with spots?
Now working for a public school as a temp. We get 'em ALL.
Quote from: Triple Zero on October 11, 2011, 08:26:19 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 11, 2011, 06:25:10 PM
Please please please let the pandemic begin soon.
speaking of, are we getting any funky diseases this winter? :)
Nothing special that I've heard about, but this is a great URL to bookmark: http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/
You can even subscribe to get an email when they update or release a new issue.
Personally, I'm still waiting on Captain Trips. C'mon, military-industrial complex! Do us a solid and fuck up with a supervirus! That'd be real horrorshow. :lulz:
OK let me try and attempt to clarify
The financial world isn't one I'm particularly familiar with, I probably should have found that thread before asking stupid questions, but having a giant discussion about finances was never what I originally intended. Returning to my original point.
My original response in regards to apathy, whilst it related to education, it was also a comment more on what appears to me as more of a systemic problem within certain areas of population that I've met. The people who I was referring to are apathetic about their future in general. They have no dreams, no goals, other than to "Buy Product X" or "Just get drunk and party and have a good time and stuff"
I'm sorry if it came out as if I was suggesting that you required education in order to achieve a job. The point I was trying to make was that very few worthwhile things just fall in your lap, you generally are going to have to work for them, be this being an astronaut, a vet or a world famous porn star.
So there is little they need to do in order to achieve any of the 'goals' that they have in life. So these were the people who fucked around in school, as for them what was the point being there.
The point of there being no work at the minute or education not being the cure all are both valid, and I wasn't disagreeing with either.
The opinion I was trying to get across was that my old high school was full of people like this during the 'economic boom' (or at least the growth of the last 10 years), and will continue afterwards if/when the economy recovers. These people will still have no aspirations. Therefore they and their descendants will still fuck around in school ruining theirs and others education. My comment towards death/famine/war was that it seems for many people they only get up and do anything when some form of competition/Impending disaster/ something that TV/Booze cannot hide suddenly occurs. As for culling the kids, I'm pretty sure that wasn't what I meant.
Quote from: Alty on October 11, 2011, 09:28:05 AM
I am awfully certain that somewhere in the OP I crammed the idea that people are hopelessly fucked because the educational system is fucked because of The Man's greasy fingers. Even in good educational systems there are lazy kids, but most kids want to learn and get nasty when you don't give them what their brains want, and a lot of them are good at smelling bullshit. It's a system that perpetuates and ingrains their apathy.
You know, you'd figure it would be difficult to focus on getting exceptional grades for a future career when famine/disease/war/purges fuck your families' shit up rather than the other way around.
I disagree. A lot of people I went to school with did not want to learn, were lazy and considered that they knew all the needed to know to survive in life. As such regardless of the standard, or how it was delivered, they did not care. This lead them to apathy I was talking about above. And this apathy as I suggested before, seems to me as a social issue. In that these people are not given any aspirations or drive by their parents. they then have Kids and repeat. Worse is that due to lack of inspiration from any one growing up (none from parents, and did not listen to teachers, so leaves few adults in their growing up period), they become afraid of failure so they do not try. I wasn't stating a solution, just as to what my opinion of what is wrong with the current education system is. Which is something that I don't think is anyway the government's fault. All the government should be responsible is to provide the environment for people to learn/better them selves. In the 'Take a horse to water' analogy.
From my experience, it was that there are many people exist who have no dreams and would rather drink and fuck, rather than try at something, possibly fail and have try again and eventually succeed, and its these people who I think are a main cause in lower educational standards.
But maybe I'm just missing the point, or repeating what's already been said before but in just a different way.
Moving back onto my financial point. I Tried reading for a change, and there are still things I don't understand. I mean I get what happened, but not so sure on what could happen in the future.
So lets say the global economy collapses. Banks goes bust, Governments default. This has happened before no? The UK has done it before in the past.
My question was, what is the point at which things bottom out. I read references to Japan's Lost decade, where things just halted to virtually zero percent interest. Which is near to what the UK is experiencing now, so does that mean we can expect a similar scenario, of slow growth of x years before recovery? where things just tick over?
Will the government austerity measures designed to cut the deficit affect this in any way? I mean I thought the whole point of reducing the deficit would be to reduce the tax wasted on debt interest, meaning that money can then be used for actual useful things, stimulating the economy with new jobs right?
and whilst I understand that continuing cutting jobs will lead to the point where no more cuts can be made to reduce the deficit, What I don't understand is how the basic fact that people in jobs need to spend their money on something (food at least), therefore spawning more jobs, and so on. How will this not lead to a recovery or some sort of recovery?
Say analogous to a biodiversity model where in the predator/prey relationship fluctuates by modifying one of the variables, an equilibrium point will always be reached (ignoring an external cataclysm). so surely at some point whilst the economy is still declining, it will reach equilibrium point somewhere, yes? Where the number of money input into the economy supports a certain amount of jobs plus the taxes etc. But is the reason we are so 'fucked' is that the current financial climate may cause this equilibrium point to exist at such a level that growth will be nigh on impossible unless an external factor is added?
If you don't feel like answer what some of you may consider stupid, I would at least appreciate some decent links that point me in the right direction, say a decent idiots guide to economics or something?
Quote from: Drunken Monkey Cabal on October 12, 2011, 01:57:22 AM
My original response in regards to apathy, whilst it related to education, it was also a comment more on what appears to me as more of a systemic problem within certain areas of population that I've met. The people who I was referring to are apathetic about their future in general. They have no dreams, no goals, other than to "Buy Product X" or "Just get drunk and party and have a good time and stuff"
That's because goals are foolish for 95% of them. There's nothing to BE.