I, too, have been informed (when I worked at the Exploratorium) that napped obsidian blades are used for surgery. The reason given was that obsidian can be napped down to monomolecular edges. These are, of course, incredibly fragile. Obsidian can be napped absolutely smooth (no burs), because it naps along a grain. In obsidian the grain is curved, so you get a scalpel-shape naturually. I see no reason they wouldn't be easy to sterilize: obsidian is volcanic glass, and as easy to sterilize as a test tube.
As it happened, while I was working in the Exploratorium, they had an obsidian napper as a guest artist a couple of times. Intrigued by this idea, I used a couple of his shards -- not blades, just leftovers -- to perform an eye dissection. They worked quite well.
As to whether they are actually being used, or who would be manufacturing them, I could not say.
FYI, for Stephenson fans: I have also done stained glass work, and broken/cut/ground a fair amount of window glass. Normal window glass doesn't have much of a grain, and I don't think it can be napped worth a damn. It's not like obsidian at all. ----------------------------------------------
I know this seems to fly in the face of thePsychotron's first point about making it "absolutely clear to everyone that we are in no way trying to justify the attackers actions".
Er, I assure you, if we do give the money to survivors' families, we (collectively) will be pilloried in the press for appearing to try to appease them. There is no good press in doing that.
I wish I could suggest a charity which would help persecuted geeks, but I don't know of any.
Try the ACLU, the nice folks who were looking into the situation. Alternatively, if there's any real money involved, it would be cool to set up a fund or grant for funding programs for/in schools which promote tolerance and non-violence. ----------------------------------------------
This is the same argument used to murder abortion doctors. This is the same argument that is being used to keep a young Cuban boy from his father.[...]
This is the same argument as was proposed by Rosa Parks when she refused to yield her seat on a city bus. This is the same argument as was/is used by dissidents who met in secrecy defying oppressive regime's laws against peacable assembly. etc.
I agree the rule of law is important. I even have sympathy for your main point concerning the specific case of the Hellmouth posts.
However, I cannot let stand uncontested the implication that the rule of law should never be challenged. The law is but an approximation of fairness and justice, and it is those things to which we must first bear allegance. Yes, we should be commited to approximating fairness and justice, thus should be committed to the rule of law. But let us never forget the law is a means to a more important end, and where it fails that end, it is the law that should yield.
Now, back to your regularly scheduled flamewar. ----------------------------------------------
If they are getting something which seems to them to be a good deal -- largely because they aren't allowed to know there are better deals -- why would they strike out from the warm, cozy nest of AOL?
Furthermore, I think you vastly underestimate the number of people who want their world to be orderly and safe and tidy -- at any cost. The attitudes of/. (e.g. "He who would trade liberty for safety deserves neither") are NOT those of the rest of the world.
The so called "AOLization of America" is actually the "small-towning of America". It is an America where there is no privacy (everyone's in everyone else's business) and behavior is controlled by moral censure and there can be no dissent.
I feel confident that whoever came up with the unfortunately accurate expression "Global Village" never had the misfortune of living in an actual village.
Most people are never going leave AOL. Most people will never take the red pill. They like the safe blandness of AOL just as it is. These are people who live in suburbs, after all. ----------------------------------------------
I just discovered when I went to do this that the House of Reps has this neat form, whereby, if you identify yourself fully and supply an address+Zipcode, they submit your letter automagically to the right Rep -- and presumably, because you are an actual constituent, you get to go to the head of the line. Interestingly, they promise to reply through some means other than email. I expect a form letter thru USnail. Why isn't the Sentate that together? ----------------------------------------------
For heavens's sake, people, he's the Librarian of Congress. Write to your Congress-critters and let them know how you feel! ----------------------------------------------
That was, unquestionably, the most respectful coverage of a subculture I have ever seen in popular media. It was also thereby the most interesting and informative.
I'm not a fanfic writer, but I do belong to other subcultures (even in addition to being a geek). Even self-portrayed "enlightend" media such as salon.com don't seem to be able to transend the urge to present subcultures as consisting as freaks and feebles. I am astonished and delighted they managed to write that piece without a sneer, a wink or a nudge.
Kudos to Slate. salon.com should take note. ----------------------------------------------
[Homeschooling]
takes a lot of work on the part of the parents
I might as well say this here as anywhere, since people keep talking about the demands on parents. Parents aren't the only ones who can homeschool. Grandparents, aunts/uncles, elder siblings, even friends of the family can homeschool a kid, all or in part. ----------------------------------------------
( for example, most parents believe their kids are of "better than average" intelligence, because noone wants to believe their kids are dumb )"choice" is good, but you get all kinds of "races", ie people rushing to the "good" schools. So how do we determine who gets first choice ?
Funny, MIT, CalTech, CMU are all "good schools" in exactly that situation and they don't seem to have a problem with it. ----------------------------------------------
Ah, you mean the way Kayla Rolland was protected by her school -- or for that matter the way her killer was protected from his crack-addict parents by that school?
The victims of dangerous people are often themselves dangerous. Simply lumping them in with other vulnerables is as reckless as it is ineffective.
I agree: the schools are the best we've come up with -- which is why we're in such dire straights. We'd better come up with something better.
That's in Belgium, though, and from what I gather here on/., USA schools must have a totally different attitude towards creativity and being different.
AHHHHHHHHH!!!! Dude, you can't go generalizing from your system to everyone else's system, at least not without some serious substantiating research.
Yeah, the schools in the US rot. The subtext you're not picking up here is that the situation in the US is so bad (even though no one agrees quite what that situation is:) that it's taken for granted in our mass media that we have a "school problem". The media have been discussing "The School Problem" since longer than I've been alive (!).
While different people have different interpretations of just what the problem is (e.g. "The problem is kids dropping out of school" vs. "The problem is we can't expell troublemakers"), no one here could posit there isn't any problem -- at least and not be laughed out of the room.
Speaking as a survivor -- and I do mean that word -- things are very, very bad. If you haven't, please read Katz' Hellmouth series.
I have to admit, I am a little cheezed off at you. It turns out you are spouting off about something you haven't witnessed yourself one way or another, and are speaking of abstract principles. I lived in this system for 13 years. OK? I was essentially in prison for 13 years because of Other People's abstract principles about what I should or should not be doing.
I commited no crime, was accused of none, nor was I found guilty, yet I was required by the state to forfeit my liberty 5 days of every 7 for the majority of the year and surrender myself to their custody. And as if the law were not force enough, the economics our country has developed make it hard-to-impossible not to comply. Our government has state-funded day care, which handily disguises the fact that the majority of Americans can't afford their own kids.
So to hear you, off in some other country, breezily assure us all that "oh, there's nothing wrong with the system".... let us say it's a little galling. Look me in the eyes when you say that. Feel free to tell me that what happened to me didn't happen, that what I witnessed is not so -- but look me in the eyes when you do.
I believe we basically agree on the ultimate goal of school : create people which are well educated on a number of technical skills (math, history), but with unaffected non-technical abilities (creativity, interests,..)
Then we do not agree. I perhaps haven't made myself plain. While there are many dreadful aspects of abuse of power in state-run, state-mandated schools, they are hardly the only reasons to despise our school system. I'm pretty much entirely against schools, except the independent, voluntary kind. I don't agree that "if we just got rid of the abuse of power it would be OK". I still believe that there are plenty of other horrors in our system which would justify its dismantling.
I might agree that having the populace be skilled and well-learned would be a social good. But I neither agree that the state has a right to coerce people into meeting that standard, nor do I agree that schools can ever be particularly good at acheiving that aim!
Having a populace be populace be healthy and well fed is also a social good. But we don't let the government track what we eat, prescribe diets for us, mandate weight testing, and keep permanent records of how well we meet their fitness standards, etc. We certainly don't think governments have a right to control what we put in our bodies.
So why do we think they have a right to control what we put in our minds?
No, what the ultimate goal of schooling is is irrelevant to me, and ascerting what it should be presupposes that schooling is a benign tool to use.
The people should be free to educate themselves however they wish, whether in schools, apprenticeships, private lessons, self-study -- or not at all. That's what freedom means.
Well, I guess it's the same thing here; if the goods to trade are the children's minds, do you want a totally free market where corporate (ie non-state) schools can deliver any goods they want (no warranty, no liability, no guarantees) at any cost they think is ok ? Maybe you can point out a flaw in this analogy, but imho non-state schools are exactly the equivalent of a total-freedom free market.
"Non-state schools" aren't exactly the equivalent of a total-freedom free market, any more than "non-state supermarkets" are total-freedom free markets or "non-state banks" are total-freedom free markets.
If you wish that there be law which says, for instance "no class shall have more than 30 people in it", or other such functional regulation, that does not concern me. The government can say to a grocery store that it's aisles must be so far apart -- but cannot say "you can't stock peas". (At least, not without trouble.)
And this misses the point. There are people who aren't going to buy admission at schools. They may decide to defer their education, or to teach themselves, or barter for it, or take apprenticeships, or come up with yet new clever ways of getting the learning they desire, which we, trapped in an institutionalized world, could not imagine.
The government can't say "you must buy your groceries at this store", but they do say "you must get your education at this school". You can turn around and grow your own crops if you want, or barter with your friends, or starve. That's what freedom means.
I'm not just talking about the freedom to choose between schools. I'm talking about the freedom to choose not to school. I'm talking about freedom from schools.
Again I don't have much arguing to substantiate, so I'll pick up your challenge:) My mom is in fact a teacher in a state-governed school, and I'll ask her a detailed account on how policies are set, to what extent history could be warped if it better fits the current puppetmasters way up the govt chain, etc.
Excellent! However, do go beyond asking one teacher, even if she is your mom.:) Perhaps all teachers in Belgium are deeply politically aware and versed in educational theory -- but it is remarkably not so in the US. I know quite a number of teachers who have, to be short, no clue and no political savvy. They don't know who's influencing the textbook committee; why would they? That's all happening in the capital which might as well be on a different planet. I'm the one giving them books on educational theory. Even really basic ones, classics like Holt and Neill.
So, yes, ask -- but keep exploring.
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Re:Laptops are only a tool to aid learning...
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Laptops In Education
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· Score: 2
But that's the point. Most people suck at English (not just Geeks, btw, you should see what suits write!) and that is amply demonstrated on the net. And where, did these people "learn" their command of English? In schools.
But you know what? After being on the net for a while -- not just surfing other people's web pages, but actively participating in the discourse -- people get better. The net rewards good writing. You get more status, esteem, and slack if you write well in both content and form.
What kind of composition skills are we teaching kids (or adults) by constantly posting bairly readable posts?
We're teaching them that people who write poorly look like bozos. A better lesson could not be had.
The English of the classroom is an empty exercise which fails to get "buy in" from the students unless they have some particularly strong calling to the craft. But on the net, written English is important in a viceral, obvious way. People start writing better than they otherwise would when they become not just passive consumers but netheads.
Most people today don't even know the difference between "your" and "you're" because their spell checker doesn't flag it. They can't do symbolic math because their calculators don't solve it.
*coff* Speaking as someone who taught English composition to HS students back in 1989 and was a docent on the main floor of a science museum on weekends, I think I can say pretty authoritatively that most people didn't know the difference between "your" and "you're" before the age of spell checkers, and most people were pretty hapless confronted with anything past pre-algebra.
Blaming technology for the failings of education is just wrong. Those failings were there (and well documented by much more exalted personages than me) long, long before high-tech came on the scene. ----------------------------------------------
Oh my goodness, all those rascally students, learning new, obscure commands! Using *cat*, looking things up in books in libraries! Consuming precious resources communicating with one another! Sharing security work-arounds with their peers!
Where ever would the net be if we had behaved like that when we were young!?
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Re:Indeed, ask the people teaching the teachers!
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Laptops In Education
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· Score: 3
The truth is that even though we don't know ActiveFoo98 and don't care to, we know how that breed of programs work and can deduce the right answer faster than it would take for them to read the docs.
The big difference between Us and Them is that we're willing to play around, try things out, investigate menus, etc. and they aren't.
The real difference is we're willing to risk being wrong and screwing up. They, by comparison, are uptight about exploring the software themselves. They don't read error messages because they're too busy feeling ashamed of having "screwed up" -- just like kids who don't want to know what grade they got on a test they think they flunked.
The bitter irony of this is that, of all the populations I've worked with, teachers are far and away the worst about this: they are the least willing to risk being wrong, the least willing to explore their software. It stands to reason, of course. School teachers spend their days telling other people when they're wrong, and trying to make people care very much about being right.
Around tech support people, they behave like little kids sure that if they try anything, they'll break it, and then the tech support person will treat them.... the same way they treat their students.
A favorite fantasy dialog -- Me: "I thought you said you were a Constructivist? That the student was supposed to construct their own understanding through hands-on experimentation?" Teacher: "Yeah, so?" Me: "SO PUT YOUR HANDS ON THE KEYBOARD AND CONSTRUCT YOUR OWN UNDERSTANDING!"
The real problem comes from those teachers who see the computer as competition or replacement rather than as a tool.
Schools are deeply competitive places. That's what grading on a curve means. It's a culture of competitiveness, in which the students are pitted against one another on the criterion of competency.
The world in which teachers operate -- their classrooms -- is a world in which, when two people compete at the same task, one is considered a winner and the loser is punished by loss of status, privileges, etc. The loser is told they aren't good enough, they are lazy, they aren't worthy of trust, they don't meet their superior's approval, or any a number of other manipulative things. It is a world in which competence is only measured in competition.
So of course teachers are twitchy about anything which might excel them in any way. They live and work in a world in which being less good at something means you get the short end of the stick.
Contrast this to a cooperative or collaborative environment, where people's strengths are complementary and excellence is measured in results not comparison. That has more to do with the working world most of us know as adults. But that's not the environment teachers work in.
The idea that teachers themselves are immune to effects of the policies they institute in their classes is wrong. If they pit people against one another, they will wind up paranoid about being pitted against other people -- and things. ----------------------------------------------
Oh, hell, where is the "+1 Ironic" choice for moderators?
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Re:Laptops are only a tool to aid learning...
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Laptops In Education
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· Score: 2
before you can develop any of these skills you need a good grounding in the basics - basic mathematics/literacy and so on...
You presume the point of giving kids laptops is teach them about computers. Maybe it is -- we really don't know from the information published so far.
But that's different than giving them access to the net. The net is not the computer. And the net, for all it's pretty pictures and internationalization, is still very much about using English. Participating in fora (such as this one) is a great way to develop skills in reading, writing and rhetoric.
On the net, spelling counts. ----------------------------------------------
Meanwhile, all these poor people trapped in these institutions can't be hurt (I don't think) by being given computer and net access.
With net access, they might even manage to get a little education while doing their time. (Presuming, of course, the machines aren't crippled.) ----------------------------------------------
Huh ? If there is one reasonably stable body which is powerful enough to enforce a fixed, decent set of guidelines on what can and cannot be taught at schools, it would be the government.
Precisely. And that is why we must prevent the government from participating in schools! The power to enforce conformity of thought is wrong. It is unjust, evil, bad, bad, bad!
We do not want anyone to have the power to tell everyone what to think -- which means we don't want anyone to have the power to tell the rest of us what we have to learn in school. No one should ever be allowed to exercise that power. Least of all Big Brother.
The government, as you point out, is best positioned to abuse worst that power. That is why so many of us are against the government running or authorizing schools, or mandating the people's attendence in them.
This is not theoretical. As I posted in other threads, there are plenty of books which indict our school system for teaching politically edited history (just as creationism is a politically edited version of science).
Still, I like to think this Task Force is rather the exception in an otherwise well-working environment, than the default modus operandi of a schoolsystem which should be dissed altogether in favor of corporate run total-freedom schools. Bleh.
This entire -- entire -- argument boils down to exactly that: those who see WAVE as an aberation, and those who see WAVE as characteristic.
I know you'd like to believe this is a hiccup in an otherwise functioning system -- who wants to borrow trouble? who wants to believe they've been duped or taken advantage of?
But the more I learn, the more I read, the more I talk to people.... the more it becomes plain that the system is terribly, terribly warped. There are a hell of a lot of witnesses willing to say that school sucked for them. Unfortunately, a lot of us have observed that it is the modus operandi of a corrupt system.
I challenge you: if you say you care, go do some reading. Pick up some books on this history of school reform, and find out what happened to it. Pick up some books on the theory of pedagogy, and the politics of schooling. Then make up your own mind.
Take the red pill. ----------------------------------------------
The other posts rebutting this are excellent, but I want to add two things:
One: Why do you think the rest of the world is more "forward thinking"? The problem of schools promoting football more than literacy is endemic. Why would you suppose that the folks who caused things to be this way locally wouldn't also want to make it that way nationally?
Two: In the end, isn't your right to make your own standards for yourself what's really important? What if you had to go to a school which met a set of national standards, but wasn't up to yours? Would you say "But it's OK, because it's from Washington?" Wouldn't it be better for you to be able to go into your school and say "do this better or I'm going to a better school down the street, and taking my funding with me?" ----------------------------------------------
I don't see any reason why the local school board doesn't immediately expand the "magnet school" program so that all the applicants, or at least all the ones who are academically qualified, can get in.
But if they don't (immediately expand the program), then there must be (a reason). I can think of lots of ones. Maybe a lot of parents don't approve of the school for some reason. Maybe the teacher's union opposes it (you wouldn't believe the shenanigans of the Boston's teachers' union the past few months!).
But doesn't it behoove you to figure out why? If you care, I mean.
Anyways, it's great that you're really pleased with the quality of education your kids have got from that school. (I presume they also are pleased.:)
The secret to the success of the "magnet schools" is that if a student is lazy or a troublemaker, the school authorities are allowed to kick him right out and send him back to the ordinary, high-school-as-day-care schools.
If "education" (really attendence) weren't mandatory, all schools could kick out troublemakers.
If our system were not coercive, then schools could move away from being babysitters and police forces and jails, and maybe get somewhere with education. Personally, I'm skeptical of the value of classroom learning in even the best of circumstances, but, hey, I think people should have the right to use whatever formats work for them (or that they think will work for 'em.)
Forcing everyone into schools just guarantees you'll have lots of resentful violent people in every class.
When teachers aren't in the business of running "chain-gangs" (John Holt's words), but are leading a group of volunteers, they have a chance of getting somewhere.
And, for that matter, they aren't violating anyone's liberty. ----------------------------------------------
And the kids who have gone to schools tend to have better socialization skills.
Better than whom? Us schooled/.ers?:)
First off, the homeschooling/socialization canard has been widely and thoroughly debunked.
Secondly, since when did we put socialization a priority? Of all people, really.
We are discussing the difference between people who have free minds and people who are, er, good at not rocking the boat.
I know which I prefer...
Are the kid's who aren't home schooled dumber? Would I be smarter if I hadn't gone to a public school? This is a silly argument to be involved in, I quit:)
No, it's the best of arguments. It requires you to ask hard questions, and ponder deeply. It exercises the mind and challenges the heart. Keep with it. The answers you find in yourself are worth it. ----------------------------------------------
Slashdot Mirror
I, too, have been informed (when I worked at the Exploratorium) that napped obsidian blades are used for surgery. The reason given was that obsidian can be napped down to monomolecular edges. These are, of course, incredibly fragile. Obsidian can be napped absolutely smooth (no burs), because it naps along a grain. In obsidian the grain is curved, so you get a scalpel-shape naturually. I see no reason they wouldn't be easy to sterilize: obsidian is volcanic glass, and as easy to sterilize as a test tube.
As it happened, while I was working in the Exploratorium, they had an obsidian napper as a guest artist a couple of times. Intrigued by this idea, I used a couple of his shards -- not blades, just leftovers -- to perform an eye dissection. They worked quite well.
As to whether they are actually being used, or who would be manufacturing them, I could not say.
FYI, for Stephenson fans: I have also done stained glass work, and broken/cut/ground a fair amount of window glass. Normal window glass doesn't have much of a grain, and I don't think it can be napped worth a damn. It's not like obsidian at all.
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Er, I assure you, if we do give the money to survivors' families, we (collectively) will be pilloried in the press for appearing to try to appease them. There is no good press in doing that.
Try the ACLU, the nice folks who were looking into the situation. Alternatively, if there's any real money involved, it would be cool to set up a fund or grant for funding programs for/in schools which promote tolerance and non-violence.
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This is the same argument as was proposed by Rosa Parks when she refused to yield her seat on a city bus. This is the same argument as was/is used by dissidents who met in secrecy defying oppressive regime's laws against peacable assembly. etc.
I agree the rule of law is important. I even have sympathy for your main point concerning the specific case of the Hellmouth posts.
However, I cannot let stand uncontested the implication that the rule of law should never be challenged. The law is but an approximation of fairness and justice, and it is those things to which we must first bear allegance. Yes, we should be commited to approximating fairness and justice, thus should be committed to the rule of law. But let us never forget the law is a means to a more important end, and where it fails that end, it is the law that should yield.
Now, back to your regularly scheduled flamewar.
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Why should users "grow up"?
If they are getting something which seems to them to be a good deal -- largely because they aren't allowed to know there are better deals -- why would they strike out from the warm, cozy nest of AOL?
Furthermore, I think you vastly underestimate the number of people who want their world to be orderly and safe and tidy -- at any cost. The attitudes of /. (e.g. "He who would trade liberty for safety deserves neither") are NOT those of the rest of the world.
The so called "AOLization of America" is actually the "small-towning of America". It is an America where there is no privacy (everyone's in everyone else's business) and behavior is controlled by moral censure and there can be no dissent.
I feel confident that whoever came up with the unfortunately accurate expression "Global Village" never had the misfortune of living in an actual village.
Most people are never going leave AOL. Most people will never take the red pill. They like the safe blandness of AOL just as it is. These are people who live in suburbs, after all.
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I just discovered when I went to do this that the House of Reps has this neat form, whereby, if you identify yourself fully and supply an address+Zipcode, they submit your letter automagically to the right Rep -- and presumably, because you are an actual constituent, you get to go to the head of the line. Interestingly, they promise to reply through some means other than email. I expect a form letter thru USnail. Why isn't the Sentate that together?
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For heavens's sake, people, he's the Librarian of Congress. Write to your Congress-critters and let them know how you feel!
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Yah know, I've always thought it would be justice if BBC sued Paramount's balls off for that.
Jellybaby?
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That was, unquestionably, the most respectful coverage of a subculture I have ever seen in popular media. It was also thereby the most interesting and informative.
I'm not a fanfic writer, but I do belong to other subcultures (even in addition to being a geek). Even self-portrayed "enlightend" media such as salon.com don't seem to be able to transend the urge to present subcultures as consisting as freaks and feebles. I am astonished and delighted they managed to write that piece without a sneer, a wink or a nudge.
Kudos to Slate. salon.com should take note.
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I might as well say this here as anywhere, since people keep talking about the demands on parents. Parents aren't the only ones who can homeschool. Grandparents, aunts/uncles, elder siblings, even friends of the family can homeschool a kid, all or in part.
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Funny, MIT, CalTech, CMU are all "good schools" in exactly that situation and they don't seem to have a problem with it.
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Ah, you mean the way Kayla Rolland was protected by her school -- or for that matter the way her killer was protected from his crack-addict parents by that school?
The victims of dangerous people are often themselves dangerous. Simply lumping them in with other vulnerables is as reckless as it is ineffective.
I agree: the schools are the best we've come up with -- which is why we're in such dire straights. We'd better come up with something better.
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AHHHHHHHHH!!!! Dude, you can't go generalizing from your system to everyone else's system, at least not without some serious substantiating research.
Yeah, the schools in the US rot. The subtext you're not picking up here is that the situation in the US is so bad (even though no one agrees quite what that situation is :) that it's taken for granted in our mass media that we have a "school problem". The media have been discussing "The School Problem" since longer than I've been alive (!).
While different people have different interpretations of just what the problem is (e.g. "The problem is kids dropping out of school" vs. "The problem is we can't expell troublemakers"), no one here could posit there isn't any problem -- at least and not be laughed out of the room.
Speaking as a survivor -- and I do mean that word -- things are very, very bad. If you haven't, please read Katz' Hellmouth series.
I have to admit, I am a little cheezed off at you. It turns out you are spouting off about something you haven't witnessed yourself one way or another, and are speaking of abstract principles. I lived in this system for 13 years. OK? I was essentially in prison for 13 years because of Other People's abstract principles about what I should or should not be doing.
I commited no crime, was accused of none, nor was I found guilty, yet I was required by the state to forfeit my liberty 5 days of every 7 for the majority of the year and surrender myself to their custody. And as if the law were not force enough, the economics our country has developed make it hard-to-impossible not to comply. Our government has state-funded day care, which handily disguises the fact that the majority of Americans can't afford their own kids.
So to hear you, off in some other country, breezily assure us all that "oh, there's nothing wrong with the system".... let us say it's a little galling. Look me in the eyes when you say that. Feel free to tell me that what happened to me didn't happen, that what I witnessed is not so -- but look me in the eyes when you do.
Then we do not agree. I perhaps haven't made myself plain. While there are many dreadful aspects of abuse of power in state-run, state-mandated schools, they are hardly the only reasons to despise our school system. I'm pretty much entirely against schools, except the independent, voluntary kind. I don't agree that "if we just got rid of the abuse of power it would be OK". I still believe that there are plenty of other horrors in our system which would justify its dismantling.
I might agree that having the populace be skilled and well-learned would be a social good. But I neither agree that the state has a right to coerce people into meeting that standard, nor do I agree that schools can ever be particularly good at acheiving that aim!
Having a populace be populace be healthy and well fed is also a social good. But we don't let the government track what we eat, prescribe diets for us, mandate weight testing, and keep permanent records of how well we meet their fitness standards, etc. We certainly don't think governments have a right to control what we put in our bodies.
So why do we think they have a right to control what we put in our minds?
No, what the ultimate goal of schooling is is irrelevant to me, and ascerting what it should be presupposes that schooling is a benign tool to use.
The people should be free to educate themselves however they wish, whether in schools, apprenticeships, private lessons, self-study -- or not at all. That's what freedom means.
"Non-state schools" aren't exactly the equivalent of a total-freedom free market, any more than "non-state supermarkets" are total-freedom free markets or "non-state banks" are total-freedom free markets.
If you wish that there be law which says, for instance "no class shall have more than 30 people in it", or other such functional regulation, that does not concern me. The government can say to a grocery store that it's aisles must be so far apart -- but cannot say "you can't stock peas". (At least, not without trouble.)
And this misses the point. There are people who aren't going to buy admission at schools. They may decide to defer their education, or to teach themselves, or barter for it, or take apprenticeships, or come up with yet new clever ways of getting the learning they desire, which we, trapped in an institutionalized world, could not imagine.
The government can't say "you must buy your groceries at this store", but they do say "you must get your education at this school". You can turn around and grow your own crops if you want, or barter with your friends, or starve. That's what freedom means.
I'm not just talking about the freedom to choose between schools. I'm talking about the freedom to choose not to school. I'm talking about freedom from schools.
Excellent! However, do go beyond asking one teacher, even if she is your mom. :) Perhaps all teachers in Belgium are deeply politically aware and versed in educational theory -- but it is remarkably not so in the US. I know quite a number of teachers who have, to be short, no clue and no political savvy. They don't know who's influencing the textbook committee; why would they? That's all happening in the capital which might as well be on a different planet. I'm the one giving them books on educational theory. Even really basic ones, classics like Holt and Neill.
So, yes, ask -- but keep exploring.
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But that's the point. Most people suck at English (not just Geeks, btw, you should see what suits write!) and that is amply demonstrated on the net. And where, did these people "learn" their command of English? In schools.
But you know what? After being on the net for a while -- not just surfing other people's web pages, but actively participating in the discourse -- people get better. The net rewards good writing. You get more status, esteem, and slack if you write well in both content and form.
We're teaching them that people who write poorly look like bozos. A better lesson could not be had.
The English of the classroom is an empty exercise which fails to get "buy in" from the students unless they have some particularly strong calling to the craft. But on the net, written English is important in a viceral, obvious way. People start writing better than they otherwise would when they become not just passive consumers but netheads.
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Your position may have merit, however...
*coff* Speaking as someone who taught English composition to HS students back in 1989 and was a docent on the main floor of a science museum on weekends, I think I can say pretty authoritatively that most people didn't know the difference between "your" and "you're" before the age of spell checkers, and most people were pretty hapless confronted with anything past pre-algebra.
Blaming technology for the failings of education is just wrong. Those failings were there (and well documented by much more exalted personages than me) long, long before high-tech came on the scene.
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Oh my goodness, all those rascally students, learning new, obscure commands! Using *cat*, looking things up in books in libraries! Consuming precious resources communicating with one another! Sharing security work-arounds with their peers!
Where ever would the net be if we had behaved like that when we were young!?
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The big difference between Us and Them is that we're willing to play around, try things out, investigate menus, etc. and they aren't.
The real difference is we're willing to risk being wrong and screwing up. They, by comparison, are uptight about exploring the software themselves. They don't read error messages because they're too busy feeling ashamed of having "screwed up" -- just like kids who don't want to know what grade they got on a test they think they flunked.
The bitter irony of this is that, of all the populations I've worked with, teachers are far and away the worst about this: they are the least willing to risk being wrong, the least willing to explore their software. It stands to reason, of course. School teachers spend their days telling other people when they're wrong, and trying to make people care very much about being right.
Around tech support people, they behave like little kids sure that if they try anything, they'll break it, and then the tech support person will treat them.... the same way they treat their students.
A favorite fantasy dialog -- Me: "I thought you said you were a Constructivist? That the student was supposed to construct their own understanding through hands-on experimentation?" Teacher: "Yeah, so?" Me: "SO PUT YOUR HANDS ON THE KEYBOARD AND CONSTRUCT YOUR OWN UNDERSTANDING!"
Schools are deeply competitive places. That's what grading on a curve means. It's a culture of competitiveness, in which the students are pitted against one another on the criterion of competency.
The world in which teachers operate -- their classrooms -- is a world in which, when two people compete at the same task, one is considered a winner and the loser is punished by loss of status, privileges, etc. The loser is told they aren't good enough, they are lazy, they aren't worthy of trust, they don't meet their superior's approval, or any a number of other manipulative things. It is a world in which competence is only measured in competition.
So of course teachers are twitchy about anything which might excel them in any way. They live and work in a world in which being less good at something means you get the short end of the stick.
Contrast this to a cooperative or collaborative environment, where people's strengths are complementary and excellence is measured in results not comparison. That has more to do with the working world most of us know as adults. But that's not the environment teachers work in.
The idea that teachers themselves are immune to effects of the policies they institute in their classes is wrong. If they pit people against one another, they will wind up paranoid about being pitted against other people -- and things.
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Oh, hell, where is the "+1 Ironic" choice for moderators?
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You presume the point of giving kids laptops is teach them about computers. Maybe it is -- we really don't know from the information published so far.
But that's different than giving them access to the net. The net is not the computer. And the net, for all it's pretty pictures and internationalization, is still very much about using English. Participating in fora (such as this one) is a great way to develop skills in reading, writing and rhetoric.
On the net, spelling counts.
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Hear, hear!
Meanwhile, all these poor people trapped in these institutions can't be hurt (I don't think) by being given computer and net access.
With net access, they might even manage to get a little education while doing their time. (Presuming, of course, the machines aren't crippled.)
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Precisely. And that is why we must prevent the government from participating in schools! The power to enforce conformity of thought is wrong. It is unjust, evil, bad, bad, bad!
We do not want anyone to have the power to tell everyone what to think -- which means we don't want anyone to have the power to tell the rest of us what we have to learn in school. No one should ever be allowed to exercise that power. Least of all Big Brother.
The government, as you point out, is best positioned to abuse worst that power. That is why so many of us are against the government running or authorizing schools, or mandating the people's attendence in them.
This is not theoretical. As I posted in other threads, there are plenty of books which indict our school system for teaching politically edited history (just as creationism is a politically edited version of science).
This entire -- entire -- argument boils down to exactly that: those who see WAVE as an aberation, and those who see WAVE as characteristic.
I know you'd like to believe this is a hiccup in an otherwise functioning system -- who wants to borrow trouble? who wants to believe they've been duped or taken advantage of?
But the more I learn, the more I read, the more I talk to people.... the more it becomes plain that the system is terribly, terribly warped. There are a hell of a lot of witnesses willing to say that school sucked for them. Unfortunately, a lot of us have observed that it is the modus operandi of a corrupt system.
I challenge you: if you say you care, go do some reading. Pick up some books on this history of school reform, and find out what happened to it. Pick up some books on the theory of pedagogy, and the politics of schooling. Then make up your own mind.
Take the red pill.
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AHA! I knew there was a role for Pinkerton in this somewhere!
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The other posts rebutting this are excellent, but I want to add two things:
One: Why do you think the rest of the world is more "forward thinking"? The problem of schools promoting football more than literacy is endemic. Why would you suppose that the folks who caused things to be this way locally wouldn't also want to make it that way nationally?
Two: In the end, isn't your right to make your own standards for yourself what's really important? What if you had to go to a school which met a set of national standards, but wasn't up to yours? Would you say "But it's OK, because it's from Washington?" Wouldn't it be better for you to be able to go into your school and say "do this better or I'm going to a better school down the street, and taking my funding with me?"
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But if they don't (immediately expand the program), then there must be (a reason). I can think of lots of ones. Maybe a lot of parents don't approve of the school for some reason. Maybe the teacher's union opposes it (you wouldn't believe the shenanigans of the Boston's teachers' union the past few months!).
But doesn't it behoove you to figure out why? If you care, I mean.
Anyways, it's great that you're really pleased with the quality of education your kids have got from that school. (I presume they also are pleased. :)
If "education" (really attendence) weren't mandatory, all schools could kick out troublemakers.
If our system were not coercive, then schools could move away from being babysitters and police forces and jails, and maybe get somewhere with education. Personally, I'm skeptical of the value of classroom learning in even the best of circumstances, but, hey, I think people should have the right to use whatever formats work for them (or that they think will work for 'em.)
Forcing everyone into schools just guarantees you'll have lots of resentful violent people in every class.
When teachers aren't in the business of running "chain-gangs" (John Holt's words), but are leading a group of volunteers, they have a chance of getting somewhere.
And, for that matter, they aren't violating anyone's liberty.
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Better than whom? Us schooled /.ers? :)
First off, the homeschooling/socialization canard has been widely and thoroughly debunked.
Secondly, since when did we put socialization a priority? Of all people, really.
We are discussing the difference between people who have free minds and people who are, er, good at not rocking the boat.
I know which I prefer...
No, it's the best of arguments. It requires you to ask hard questions, and ponder deeply. It exercises the mind and challenges the heart. Keep with it. The answers you find in yourself are worth it.
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Then you get it.
If it's wrong for him to insist your children be taught his way, it is wrong for you to insist his children be taught your way.
He's just asking that the system be fair.
I don't agree with his religion, but even I can see his point.
The folks in Oklahoma who are advancing creationism would say "Fine, we'll have both." I say that's not the answer.
I say the answer is that nobody gets to say how other people's kids get taught!
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