As I said, I had no interest in geography - I still don't have and don't think that approaching it through history, for example, would have helped - but it is just something that I really did need to know. And someone did need to teach me about it. I don't see any way to get around that.
What would have happened to you if you didn't memorize where the major cities in your country are? Good to know doesn't mean need-to-know. There is usually too much arrogance on the part of people who have learned something (often something quite spurious in practicality for most people like multiplication tables or trigonometry or history or geography). They usually give themselves and their brains value that is real only for their ego. The fact is, and that I keep on bringing up in these discussions, is that most education is quite useless and a waste of time for most people. For example, most medical doctors are required to take "science" courses like biochemistry even though they don't plan on becoming biochemists. It's quite useless, but to those people who have passed the course they often rationalize its importance (sometimes with lame reasons like it helps push their competition outside of the bell curve).
The point of memorizing the 4x table is that it's a lot easier to work out 2174 * 347 if you don't have to work out 4 x 4 because you already know.
Most people use calculators these days. People need to question their assumptions. I don't even think slide rules are used any more. I doubt if most adults can remember anything but a small fraction of the multiplication tables.
That being said, it may not be a bad thing to memorize tables. I've got the ASCII-bet memorized, but I doubt it has much utility even to those people who use ASCII characters on a daily basis. Probably even most computer programmers don't have the ASCII-bet memorized.
Same here. I was usually bored to death by the school.
I'm not sure if this will be a revelation to most people, but even dumb people are bored by school. Schooling, after all, is one of the most unnatural experiences a human being can experience, along with standing upright for eight hours a day working an assembly line. But these days even a high school education doesn't prevent people from being stuck in menial, mind-numbing and stressful jobs.
"But I seem remember..." "I was bored out my mind..."
Yet you claim to be in the top percentile intelligence-wise.
And then you said,
Thanks, but those aren't typographical errors. They're grammatical (and lexical, and cognitive) errors.
So basically you are implying that average people are idiots compared to this person. This is a round-about but perceptive observation (I've noticed most average people are idiots even when I was a young child, and before I learned the rules of grammar and the idiosyncrasies of spelling). My interpretation of your statements could be completely wrong. It could just be that you are a Troll. Of course grammar and spelling or reading and writing skills in general don't imply intelligence, but merely skill and diligence in a particular area of expertise. I guess this prejudice is why Einstein failed the entrance exam to university and got a job as a Third Class Technical Expert in a patent office while his peers all got academic careers straight out of university.
You miss out whole words because you just can't write properly.
It has to do more with proof reading and correcting your errors. But when we have the wisdom of the crowds to point out our mistakes it makes proof-reading redundant and a waste of time. Let other people do for free what intelligent people don't bother to worry about.
Sounds like a fancy name for goofing off, skiving and truancy.
Sounds to me like something I learned about 20 years ago in high school (in one of the social science electives that I took). I remember learning about parents who would let their kids learn what they are interested in, so for example one sibling would emphasize Mathematics in their learning, another languages etc. They took their own time, learned at their own pace; there was no automatic advancements, grade inflation, or slowing down the teaching process to the mean of a bell curve. The kids learned what and how they wanted to learn. They ended up doing very well. These students would be considered prodigies compared to their peers.
It's a very intuitive and intelligent method of teaching and learning, given an environment where they can exploit their interests (they would need access to musical instruments to exploit musical capabilities for example, but that's a problem that public schools have as well). There is always the tendency to look at the worst case scenarios where unconventional methods are used.
It's sure meaningful when it becomes law enough to have police permanantly confiscating your computer for 'testing'.
Which is why people (i.e. law makers, law enforcers, etc should not be taking these people seriously). They should take them as they are; fanatics and shit disturbers to be ignored and denigrated.
I'm just angry that everyone is so damn caught up with climate change.
Who is this "everyone" that you speak of? Climate change is one of thousands of things that people think about; including torture, the economy and having sex. Nothing really gets taken more seriously than people's personal sex lives and their jobs, everything else is marginal.
Whatever are you talking about? This law precisely targets the means, texting, rather than the ends, someone dying in a car accident.
In the sense that the law treats texting and drunk driving as equivalent in respects to irresponsible behavior, then the "end" is the responsible behavior, rather than the means of producing that irresponsible behavior. To quote the article, "... such a crash would now be considered inherently reckless."
Then there is a second issue of proof.
That is the Achilles heal of any law enforcement. Proof is difficult enough when their are witnesses and DNA evidence. I've always found it interesting how fanatical the Authorities are to convict an innocent scape goat, and yet give people like former President Richard Nixon and Rush Limbaugh pardons, even when they finally stop lying about their involvement in crime.
Locking up somebody for 15 years for a moment of misjudgment is quite possibly the stupidest thing ever.
Perhaps, but at least it's fair in the sense that some malevolent behaviors aren't unjustly punished while others are given short shrift. It is somewhat nice to see legislation that targets the end, as opposed to the means (for a change). There is much less hypocrisy in this law. But really, what you call a "moment of misjudgment" is a highly conscious and deliberate act. If I was to get run over by somebody, it really wouldn't matter to my bones whether a person took a sip of beer or was playing video games or texting or talking to somebody on a cellular phone or snorting cocaine. Sometimes stupidity needs to be punished, if only to satisfy some innate desire for justice.
It would be much better if there were preventative measures in place; like a culture that values intelligence and human life and passes down traditions of self respect and respect for others. Unfortunately people would rather preach than practice their ideals.
They clearly have too many police officers with nothing better to do. They should lay the excess baggage off and save the tax payer money and aggravation.
This changes the whole history of the moon as we know it. This is proof that there is (or was) life in other places besides Earth. This is a momentous discovery in the history of space science.
Since schools are disseminators of knowledge, this policy to ban knowledge/information attacks the entire institution of education. What network TV has to do with the educational process beyond Cable In The Classroom is beyond understanding. Clearly these policies will need to change or colleges will no longer be an effective means of higher education.
And the company can then refuse to do business with you.
One could only hope. It amazes me how even in the 21st century there are some people who would be stupid enough to give a business there SSN. I could understand giving them a fake SSN, just to fuck them up, but not a real SSN. I used to give radio shack fake phone numbers and addresses when they asked for them. People do not need to know this information, in fact they should not know this information.
Unfortunately people continue to do business with these types of companies, thus rewarding them for their bad and irresponsible behavior. I never give out by SSN.
A child asking "Where do babies come from" isn't "Daddy, explain to me what biological processes occur when a man ejaculates in a woman's vagina while she's ovulating." It's the physical "where do babies come from?" i.e. Are they brought by a stork? Are they bought at a store?
Unfortunately the answers that they give (from the Web site) are only partly true from a politically correct nanny state perspective (i.e. "babies are created when a cell from the mother and a cell from the father join together or "fuse""). It is indeed a very British answer. I think Monty Python would have given a more accurate answer however. It's interesting how non-answers are given to politically sensitive topics. If sex were not so demonized (in Britain) then perhaps they could learn biology (including sex education) in school. If a child asks these questions then you might as well give them an honest answer. This should not be difficult folks!!
Some teaching requires a back and forth 'conversation' with a teacher
That's called the Socratic method. It is not required but can be very useful if both the teacher and the student have the intelligence to exploit it. Unfortunately it is like debating committees; most people cannot perceive an ad hominem when it slaps them in the face (teachers or students). This approach also assumes that the average teacher is both intelligent and enthusiastic. Try arguing with a PhD in Mathematics; he will claim that he is more logical than you because he knows advanced calculus. Not so bright, many of these PhDs.
Without a teacher pointing out flaws and showing the student where they are going wrong the student doesn't know if they get it.
You are talking about evaluating progress. This does not have to be in real time, and it doesn't even have to be done by a teacher. Granted a (thoughtful and intelligent) teacher may make the process a lot more efficient. Unfortunately it doesn't appear that teachers get hired based on thoughtfulness, but rather on the salesmanship skills of socialization like volunteering and references and grades (did any teacher ever have the honest and insightful proclamation that high grades does not make a person intelligent or less likely to amputate the wrong organ during surgery? and that grades don't demonstrate mastery of a subject or even basic knowledge of the material?... if not then you probably had mainly incompetent and dishonest teachers who strive to promote the status quo).
Teachers provide a vital role in learning that has no substitute.
That's where the whole mythology in these type of topics come to fruition. Teachers will above all teach you what they have been taught. The vast majority of actual in-class "teaching" is just regurgitation. We have Cable in the Classroom for that.
Teachers are also needed to answer questions and promote insightful thought processes.
I don't know where you live, but anything that is original or creative is likely to get a person sent to jail in the U.S.A. and many other Western countries. I wrote about this in one of my journals about Zombiism (Ref. Read the links I have in the journal; they are quite lucid as to the type of status quo education people receive in the U.S. and places like Canada, and the type of teachers that end up getting careers).
Russia is currently looking at how the US teaches art because their students lack insight and creativity. Art is delectably the most important subject to have a teacher to look over your shoulder and give insight into your learning.
Same answer as above. You will not find anything useful to learn in a U.S. school.
Teachers in Russia teach as if they were walking textbooks, they just give facts and ask for those facts to be repeated. The result is little innovation, little creativity, and a whole bunch of robots that can do the same thing really well. I think if people were taught with textbooks they would be 'learning' but they would have little idea how humans actually interact with the subject which even if it could all be articulated into words, may still not provide the equivalent to a teacher.
I grew up in Canada, and it's basically the same here. In fact in college in Canada I've had at least one Russian teacher. I don't think the U.S. is that different from Canada.
I have a perfect example of this that I just went through yesterday. Teaching someone to wake board.
Yes some hands on things like auto mechanics, dentistry etc are sometimes easier to learn with a teacher. But I'm talking from theory; now that I think of it most of the hands on things that I learned very well I actually taught myself to do. In school or in the workplace I always did poorly when trying to learn
These negative moderations that I get whenever I comment on education is really indicative to the audience. It reminds me of when Mathematicians were flaming me because I told them that the average person does not need to know calculus in order to drive a car. People like YOU may call me stupid, but YOU are just an ASSHOLE. GO fuck yourself.
He can just have good notes and ideas of what he wants to teach, then print copies of those for each class. Add in a few projects or assignments to drill specifics into the students, and viola, you're good to go! It's a lot more work, but if you're willing to save the kids the money on books, it's a possibility.
That's something that I was thinking as well (as a substitute for a textbook). To add to my previous comment; there will never be enough time to truly learn what is in a textbook because school curricula will always outpace the amount of information that are in these text books.
Your method of course is not particularly good either, because a large part of the learning process is in taking notes, organizing information in your own notes, etc. I hope things have changed since I was a kid, but nobody ever taught me how to learn, or spoon fed me for that matter, so I ended up getting a lot of C's and D's in school before I finally learned on my own how to learn. I now use mind maps, flash card techniques, outlining techniques, etc and so on. I'm not in school any more, but I'm learning more through my own initiative right now than I ever learned in high school or college. Formal education is over-priced and over-lame.
That really all depends on your own definition of "teach" and probably on some teaching paradigms that have been used on you. Everything can be taught via a text book (it would save money on hiring teachers). Or everything could be taught through a teacher, or a school could use your hybrid method. There is no "best" way to learn, though my option at least saves the expense of a text book while helping to ensure that the teacher is actually capable of teaching instead of just regurgitating. And the reality is that text books are a waste of money because there will be hardly any students who read them or study from them, except on a very rudimentary level. Even most "reference" works will be a waste of money for most students.
"overview of hardware, software, operating systems, and file systems"
I have a hard time reconciling that this should be college level course material. What kinds of students actually need to be given this information in 2009?
That sounds incredibly arrogant (and quite stupid IMHO). One could always wonder why people would need to review the different functions of various parts of the brain for an introductory psychology course, because well, everybody has a brain so they should know how it works. Unfortunately this line of thinking has very little to do with reality.
If you are going to teach, then a text book is redundant. Students only need to study from their notes, otherwise a library should suffice for extra curricular learning.
Slashdot Mirror
As I said, I had no interest in geography - I still don't have and don't think that approaching it through history, for example, would have helped - but it is just something that I really did need to know. And someone did need to teach me about it. I don't see any way to get around that.
What would have happened to you if you didn't memorize where the major cities in your country are? Good to know doesn't mean need-to-know. There is usually too much arrogance on the part of people who have learned something (often something quite spurious in practicality for most people like multiplication tables or trigonometry or history or geography). They usually give themselves and their brains value that is real only for their ego. The fact is, and that I keep on bringing up in these discussions, is that most education is quite useless and a waste of time for most people. For example, most medical doctors are required to take "science" courses like biochemistry even though they don't plan on becoming biochemists. It's quite useless, but to those people who have passed the course they often rationalize its importance (sometimes with lame reasons like it helps push their competition outside of the bell curve).
The point of memorizing the 4x table is that it's a lot easier to work out 2174 * 347 if you don't have to work out 4 x 4 because you already know.
Most people use calculators these days. People need to question their assumptions. I don't even think slide rules are used any more. I doubt if most adults can remember anything but a small fraction of the multiplication tables.
That being said, it may not be a bad thing to memorize tables. I've got the ASCII-bet memorized, but I doubt it has much utility even to those people who use ASCII characters on a daily basis. Probably even most computer programmers don't have the ASCII-bet memorized.
Same here. I was usually bored to death by the school.
I'm not sure if this will be a revelation to most people, but even dumb people are bored by school. Schooling, after all, is one of the most unnatural experiences a human being can experience, along with standing upright for eight hours a day working an assembly line. But these days even a high school education doesn't prevent people from being stuck in menial, mind-numbing and stressful jobs.
First you said,
"But I seem remember..."
"I was bored out my mind..."
Yet you claim to be in the top percentile intelligence-wise.
And then you said,
Thanks, but those aren't typographical errors.
They're grammatical (and lexical, and cognitive) errors.
So basically you are implying that average people are idiots compared to this person. This is a round-about but perceptive observation (I've noticed most average people are idiots even when I was a young child, and before I learned the rules of grammar and the idiosyncrasies of spelling). My interpretation of your statements could be completely wrong. It could just be that you are a Troll. Of course grammar and spelling or reading and writing skills in general don't imply intelligence, but merely skill and diligence in a particular area of expertise. I guess this prejudice is why Einstein failed the entrance exam to university and got a job as a Third Class Technical Expert in a patent office while his peers all got academic careers straight out of university.
You miss out whole words because you just can't write properly.
It has to do more with proof reading and correcting your errors. But when we have the wisdom of the crowds to point out our mistakes it makes proof-reading redundant and a waste of time. Let other people do for free what intelligent people don't bother to worry about.
Sounds like a fancy name for goofing off, skiving and truancy.
Sounds to me like something I learned about 20 years ago in high school (in one of the social science electives that I took). I remember learning about parents who would let their kids learn what they are interested in, so for example one sibling would emphasize Mathematics in their learning, another languages etc. They took their own time, learned at their own pace; there was no automatic advancements, grade inflation, or slowing down the teaching process to the mean of a bell curve. The kids learned what and how they wanted to learn. They ended up doing very well. These students would be considered prodigies compared to their peers.
It's a very intuitive and intelligent method of teaching and learning, given an environment where they can exploit their interests (they would need access to musical instruments to exploit musical capabilities for example, but that's a problem that public schools have as well). There is always the tendency to look at the worst case scenarios where unconventional methods are used.
orry but that IS what British citizens call it, because they are tried of hearing a bunch of dictatorial bastards say "no".
WTF does your neoconservative rant about the evils of non-corporately controlled health care have to do with the musician lobby?
It's sure meaningful when it becomes law enough to have police permanantly confiscating your computer for 'testing'.
Which is why people (i.e. law makers, law enforcers, etc should not be taking these people seriously). They should take them as they are; fanatics and shit disturbers to be ignored and denigrated.
Chinese Game Operator Used DDoS Attacks On Rivals
All is faire in love and Warcraft.
By describing "balanced copyright" as "disgusting, the musician's lobby has admitted publicly that current copyright law is unbalanced in their favor.
It just means that they shouldn't be taken seriously. Nothing they say is meaningful, helpful or relevant to anything but their own copyright fetish.
I'm just angry that everyone is so damn caught up with climate change.
Who is this "everyone" that you speak of? Climate change is one of thousands of things that people think about; including torture, the economy and having sex. Nothing really gets taken more seriously than people's personal sex lives and their jobs, everything else is marginal.
Whatever are you talking about? This law precisely targets the means, texting, rather than the ends, someone dying in a car accident.
In the sense that the law treats texting and drunk driving as equivalent in respects to irresponsible behavior, then the "end" is the responsible behavior, rather than the means of producing that irresponsible behavior. To quote the article, "... such a crash would now be considered inherently reckless."
Then there is a second issue of proof.
That is the Achilles heal of any law enforcement. Proof is difficult enough when their are witnesses and DNA evidence. I've always found it interesting how fanatical the Authorities are to convict an innocent scape goat, and yet give people like former President Richard Nixon and Rush Limbaugh pardons, even when they finally stop lying about their involvement in crime.
Locking up somebody for 15 years for a moment of misjudgment is quite possibly the stupidest thing ever.
Perhaps, but at least it's fair in the sense that some malevolent behaviors aren't unjustly punished while others are given short shrift. It is somewhat nice to see legislation that targets the end, as opposed to the means (for a change). There is much less hypocrisy in this law. But really, what you call a "moment of misjudgment" is a highly conscious and deliberate act. If I was to get run over by somebody, it really wouldn't matter to my bones whether a person took a sip of beer or was playing video games or texting or talking to somebody on a cellular phone or snorting cocaine. Sometimes stupidity needs to be punished, if only to satisfy some innate desire for justice.
It would be much better if there were preventative measures in place; like a culture that values intelligence and human life and passes down traditions of self respect and respect for others. Unfortunately people would rather preach than practice their ideals.
Police 'Steal' From Unlocked Cars
They clearly have too many police officers with nothing better to do. They should lay the excess baggage off and save the tax payer money and aggravation.
"Moon Rock" Is Petrified Wood
This changes the whole history of the moon as we know it. This is proof that there is (or was) life in other places besides Earth. This is a momentous discovery in the history of space science.
Since schools are disseminators of knowledge, this policy to ban knowledge/information attacks the entire institution of education. What network TV has to do with the educational process beyond Cable In The Classroom is beyond understanding. Clearly these policies will need to change or colleges will no longer be an effective means of higher education.
What if you are undead? Does the email get sent?
And the company can then refuse to do business with you.
One could only hope. It amazes me how even in the 21st century there are some people who would be stupid enough to give a business there SSN. I could understand giving them a fake SSN, just to fuck them up, but not a real SSN. I used to give radio shack fake phone numbers and addresses when they asked for them. People do not need to know this information, in fact they should not know this information.
Unfortunately people continue to do business with these types of companies, thus rewarding them for their bad and irresponsible behavior. I never give out by SSN.
A child asking "Where do babies come from" isn't "Daddy, explain to me what biological processes occur when a man ejaculates in a woman's vagina while she's ovulating." It's the physical "where do babies come from?" i.e. Are they brought by a stork? Are they bought at a store?
Unfortunately the answers that they give (from the Web site) are only partly true from a politically correct nanny state perspective (i.e. "babies are created when a cell from the mother and a cell from the father join together or "fuse""). It is indeed a very British answer. I think Monty Python would have given a more accurate answer however. It's interesting how non-answers are given to politically sensitive topics. If sex were not so demonized (in Britain) then perhaps they could learn biology (including sex education) in school. If a child asks these questions then you might as well give them an honest answer. This should not be difficult folks!!
Some teaching requires a back and forth 'conversation' with a teacher
That's called the Socratic method. It is not required but can be very useful if both the teacher and the student have the intelligence to exploit it. Unfortunately it is like debating committees; most people cannot perceive an ad hominem when it slaps them in the face (teachers or students). This approach also assumes that the average teacher is both intelligent and enthusiastic. Try arguing with a PhD in Mathematics; he will claim that he is more logical than you because he knows advanced calculus. Not so bright, many of these PhDs.
Without a teacher pointing out flaws and showing the student where they are going wrong the student doesn't know if they get it.
You are talking about evaluating progress. This does not have to be in real time, and it doesn't even have to be done by a teacher. Granted a (thoughtful and intelligent) teacher may make the process a lot more efficient. Unfortunately it doesn't appear that teachers get hired based on thoughtfulness, but rather on the salesmanship skills of socialization like volunteering and references and grades (did any teacher ever have the honest and insightful proclamation that high grades does not make a person intelligent or less likely to amputate the wrong organ during surgery? and that grades don't demonstrate mastery of a subject or even basic knowledge of the material?... if not then you probably had mainly incompetent and dishonest teachers who strive to promote the status quo).
Teachers provide a vital role in learning that has no substitute.
That's where the whole mythology in these type of topics come to fruition. Teachers will above all teach you what they have been taught. The vast majority of actual in-class "teaching" is just regurgitation. We have Cable in the Classroom for that.
Teachers are also needed to answer questions and promote insightful thought processes.
I don't know where you live, but anything that is original or creative is likely to get a person sent to jail in the U.S.A. and many other Western countries. I wrote about this in one of my journals about Zombiism (Ref. Read the links I have in the journal; they are quite lucid as to the type of status quo education people receive in the U.S. and places like Canada, and the type of teachers that end up getting careers).
Russia is currently looking at how the US teaches art because their students lack insight and creativity. Art is delectably the most important subject to have a teacher to look over your shoulder and give insight into your learning.
Same answer as above. You will not find anything useful to learn in a U.S. school.
Teachers in Russia teach as if they were walking textbooks, they just give facts and ask for those facts to be repeated. The result is little innovation, little creativity, and a whole bunch of robots that can do the same thing really well. I think if people were taught with textbooks they would be 'learning' but they would have little idea how humans actually interact with the subject which even if it could all be articulated into words, may still not provide the equivalent to a teacher.
I grew up in Canada, and it's basically the same here. In fact in college in Canada I've had at least one Russian teacher. I don't think the U.S. is that different from Canada.
I have a perfect example of this that I just went through yesterday. Teaching someone to wake board.
Yes some hands on things like auto mechanics, dentistry etc are sometimes easier to learn with a teacher. But I'm talking from theory; now that I think of it most of the hands on things that I learned very well I actually taught myself to do. In school or in the workplace I always did poorly when trying to learn
These negative moderations that I get whenever I comment on education is really indicative to the audience. It reminds me of when Mathematicians were flaming me because I told them that the average person does not need to know calculus in order to drive a car. People like YOU may call me stupid, but YOU are just an ASSHOLE. GO fuck yourself.
He can just have good notes and ideas of what he wants to teach, then print copies of those for each class. Add in a few projects or assignments to drill specifics into the students, and viola, you're good to go! It's a lot more work, but if you're willing to save the kids the money on books, it's a possibility.
That's something that I was thinking as well (as a substitute for a textbook). To add to my previous comment; there will never be enough time to truly learn what is in a textbook because school curricula will always outpace the amount of information that are in these text books.
Your method of course is not particularly good either, because a large part of the learning process is in taking notes, organizing information in your own notes, etc. I hope things have changed since I was a kid, but nobody ever taught me how to learn, or spoon fed me for that matter, so I ended up getting a lot of C's and D's in school before I finally learned on my own how to learn. I now use mind maps, flash card techniques, outlining techniques, etc and so on. I'm not in school any more, but I'm learning more through my own initiative right now than I ever learned in high school or college. Formal education is over-priced and over-lame.
That really all depends on your own definition of "teach" and probably on some teaching paradigms that have been used on you. Everything can be taught via a text book (it would save money on hiring teachers). Or everything could be taught through a teacher, or a school could use your hybrid method. There is no "best" way to learn, though my option at least saves the expense of a text book while helping to ensure that the teacher is actually capable of teaching instead of just regurgitating. And the reality is that text books are a waste of money because there will be hardly any students who read them or study from them, except on a very rudimentary level. Even most "reference" works will be a waste of money for most students.
"overview of hardware, software, operating systems, and file systems"
I have a hard time reconciling that this should be college level course material. What kinds of students actually need to be given this information in 2009?
That sounds incredibly arrogant (and quite stupid IMHO). One could always wonder why people would need to review the different functions of various parts of the brain for an introductory psychology course, because well, everybody has a brain so they should know how it works. Unfortunately this line of thinking has very little to do with reality.
If you are going to teach, then a text book is redundant. Students only need to study from their notes, otherwise a library should suffice for extra curricular learning.