Are you sure that people don't influence videogames? I seem to remember a time not so long ago when video games weren't around, yet people were everywhere. In fact, even 100 years ago, there weren't any video games, television shows, or movies to blame when children went bad. What video game did Lizzie Borden play to make her split open her parents' heads with an ax? I don't seem to remember hearing how she played Half-Life, or saw Scarface and that made her do it...
I am saying that we as a society should express clear standards of right and wrong.
Fine. Go ahead. Don't buy or play their games. The rest of the real world will, if they want to.
I would even go so far as to say that the real problems with are society today are linked to the fact that it is no longer completely organized around the task of raising children.
Since when has this planet revolved around children? The last I knew, to get a job, you couldn't be a child. When you're a child, you can't vote, drink, drive, or do anything worth while in life. The world has NEVER revolved around children, and shouldn't start now. If we create little whiney children who expect the world to revolve around them, in 20 years we get little whiney adults who expect the world to revolve around them.
I've got it, lets let Fisher Price have sole controle over every single available consumable on this planet!
Technically, you can kill someone with a Fisher Price playset... just bludgeon them over the head 8 or 9 thousand times, and they'll drop like a rock. We should also do away with pencils, pens, and anything that weighs over 4 ounces. Water is too hazardous to keep around, since you could theoretically drown in 2 inches of water in the bottom of a bucket. Paper isn't safe either, since you could bleed to death if you get 50,000 paper cuts. In fact, you could jab yourself in the eye repeatedly with your favorite finger (any finger will do) and eventually hit your brain, and probably kill yourself... so we better lop off our fingers too. Our feet pose a significant hazard, since we could walk into something we can't protect ourselves from, like the ocean, or off a cliff, or maybe even INTO REAL LIFE.
Exactly...look at what actually happened (real people died) and your stupid-ass response...
Well, boo-fucking-hoo. Cry me a goddamn river. Life is a ZERO SUM GAME. You're NOT guaranteed to win. In fact, you're not even guaranteed to survive long enough to push your way out of your mother's wretched womb. Now that I think about it, you're not guaranteed anything, ever, from anybody. Stop your stupid whining and bitching, and wake up to the reality of LIFE. Every single man, woman, and child that is alive today WILL DIE... it's just a question of when. Don't like it? Sue god. The stupid kids who pulled the trigger are responsible, and should be killed... both of them. They're old enough to know better than shooting people on a highway. Screw them... it's obvious they're not going to amount to much in society. It's time to wipe their slate clean and make room for someone who actually wants to produce something of value and contribute something to the world. Put those kids to death, and let their parents greive for the next few years. Maybe then, when they have another kid, they'll pay attention to the little fucker and he won't grow up to shoot someone.
The system didn't work. I was forced to work for hours and hours without getting anything from it. I got fired for absolutely no good reason, except for questioning their illegal tactics of threatening people's jobs when they ask whether its the ethical and legal way to do business.
When you pay someone a wage for a 40 hour week, then force that person to work for 80 hours, you aren't keeping your end of the bargain. You broke the rules. You should have to pay the price for breaking those rules.
I hold the "Words on a webpage" patent. It turns out that all of you will have to pay me royalty fees! I want 1 penny for every word on a webpage... I should be a trillionare by the end of the hour.
Seriously though, does anybody have a link to the actual patents filed that contain references to "scrolling within a window", or "progress bars"? I'd be interested in looking over the legal ramifications in the US...
Why don't you just get another job and work for a living instead of suing in order to be "fairly well-to-do"? While you are sitting pretty off un-earned lawsuit gains, your former coworkers will either be getting canned to make up for the money you sued for, or honest investors in your company will be losing money to pay for your scumbag lawyer's next car.
First point... The only problem is that if my co-workers weren't also fired around the same time (within 2 months, every single technical employee in the company was replaced), they'd still be fine. There's a thing called "Retaliatory Action" that the employer can NOT engage in, even if their employees are suing them for something that's illegal.
Second point, I have another job. I make 30% more than I did there, and have a nicer office with much, much better benefits. Thanks for being concerned though.
Third point, there are no investors in the company. It was started by a man whose father owns the largest privately-owned weather entity in the United States (gee, this is hard, isn't it). His father was a millionare, many times over before he was even born. When he grew up, he thought he could treat people like shit, just like daddy, except that daddy had a product that people wanted and needed. My former boss didn't. He's just got a silver spoon shoved so far up his ass, he has to unbutton his shirt to polish it.
It would depend on the details of your case... If you could get together a lot of your co-workers and do a class action lawsuit for wrongful termination, Sony would probably settle before taking it to court and having a long, drawn-out public trial. One question you'll definitely be asked is whether you had a contract that specified a period of time longer than you were there for. For instance, if you had a contract that said you would have a job until June of 2001, and you were fired, along with everybody else, in December of 2000, you'd have a very good case. Even if you don't have a written contract, if you have evidence (even circumstantial evidence) that they made it fairly clear that you would have a job there for X months, and you were fired 2 weeks later, you could have a case.
In ALL cases, documentation is the key. Dig up ALL your old e-mails and look for clues on ways to make the employer look like they're trying to screw the "little people" out of everything. They will do the same to you, so you better have more evidence, and better documentation than they do. Also, in a lot of cases, the statute of limitations for Wrongful Termination is sometimes as low as 30 days, so file a complaint TODAY, and look for evidence and everything later.
PS If anyone knows an OSS MS Project replacement that can do all this stuff, please speak up. I've been dying to replace it for ages, but it's a really good fit for this particular problem space.
Ever tried the OpenOffice Project Management? I personally haven't used it, per se, but I played around with it, and it seems very similar to MS Project.
This is a very common misconception. It doesn't matter if you're on salary. It only matters if you're exempt or not. The kicker is that your employer doesn't get to choose whether you're exempt or not. The federal government does. Being a salaried employee is only one step of many, many steps that need to be taken so an employee doesn't get overtime. I've got a LOT more information, if anybody would like it. I'm currently involved in a lawsuit where I'm suing my former employer for unpaid overtime, willful violation of the FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act), and retaliatory action (wrongful termination). If all goes well, I could end up fairly well-to-do.
You forgot that the only place that had political history (in the last 500 years), as a Representative Republic, was the United States.
You then changed your argument to this:
I'm just taking the dates that each one of the Constitutions was initially enacted, not the date they won their independence, for good reason.
I never changed the context of my argument. My argument is, and always was, that the only place worth studying for political history in the past 500 years, as far as a Republic goes, is the United States. No other country has been a Republic as long, or produced as much, or been as generally successful as the United States, under a Republic form of government. The United States began its life as a Republic when the Constitution was approved. There is no other country in the world that has a standing Constitution that governs a Republic for as long as the U.S. Constitution has. Those other documents have extraordinary historical value, but no longer are referred to by lawyers and politicians in the country to uphold and protect, as the U.S. Constitution is.
I'm not sure how to express my point of view, but I don't see the point of your arguments.
First, who cares if it was a public school? If the students didn't pass it, they didn't pass the 8th grade.
Second, I'm pretty sure the community wasn't very large, but I don't see how that's relavent. Students went to the school, the teacher taught the students, the students took the test. If the student passed, off to "life" it was. If not, another year of the 8th grade awaited him/her.
Third, I've never understood the point of not "teaching to the test". Knowledge is knowledge, pure and simple. Why put a limit on what the teacher can and can't teach? All knowledge is useful, despite what some people might think. If a teacher decided that since a class about World War II was important and taught exclusively about Pearl Harbor, do you somehow think that knowledge is less important than the Battle of the Bulge? If the teacher then decides to give the students a test only on Pearl Harbor, in your mind, does that somehow signify that the students don't know anything useful? Now, before you say that the students wouldn't know anything else about World War II, you may be right... that's why teachers have jobs as teachers, and their students, through their grades and knowledge (as determined by standardized tests) can show their teachers aren't doing their jobs. If the students don't know even the most rudimentary things about Hitler or the Third Reich, the teacher obviously isn't doing their job, and should be fired.
Also, in 1895, I'm sure knowing how much space a bushel of wheat took up was fairly important knowledge. No TV's or computers or microwaves or airplanes, etc. to keep your mind occupied, so they had to know what was important at the time. Today, you might see a question on a test about who Saddam Hussein is/was. That's considered fairly important today. In 100 years, it may not be.
As far as how long the school had been in existence, it doesn't matter. If it's longer than a year (which I'm sure it is), then the students had enough time to study for it.
Did the students pass it more often than 50% of the time? Well, I assume so, since there apparently wasn't a mass exodus of Kansas. I've never heard of Salina, so I'm fairly sure there wasn't a major incident involving the students stringing their teacher up to a barn rafter and hitting her with clubs. But, who knows... maybe it happened. Record keeping wasn't like it is today.
Your last question contradicts your third question. "Was this test of regular difficulty...?" Well, if it is, then the teacher obviously couldn't teach specifically for it. If not, then obviously the teacher did. Either way, the students had to pass it.
Obviously it doesn't help to compare our government to governments that haven't lasted as long, or produced as much, or governed as many happy/content citizens as our own, so I must not see the point of your argument. Here's an analogy for you:
If I own a farm that grows apples, and I've governed that farm for 50 years and produced 50,000 apples, would I be in any position to tell someone who's governed an apple farm for 200 years and produced 200,000,000 apples how to run their farm? They might take a few pointers from me, but I'm sure they wouldn't replace their business plan with mine.
I'm just taking the dates that each one of the Constitutions was initially enacted, not the date they won their independence, for good reason. The United States went until 1787 to adopt a Constitution. Before 1787, we were not a Republic. So I figured a good was to measure was the date of the adopted Constitution. Having said that, it's fairly clear that not only is the United States the first real Republic ruled by law in the world, we have a good 150 years on the second Republic similar to us. I'll let you look up each one of those country's Constitutions and see how similar it is to our own. The United States Constitution is the oldest document in the world that governs a country. So, my assessment was correct. As far as comparing the political history of Republics go, the United States is the only one to have over 100 years of history (216, actually).
I forgot the only place that had political history was the US...
You're right. You forgot that the only place that had political history (in the last 500 years), as a Representative Republic, was the United States. Shame on you.
Honestly, I don't care where every country in the world is. I know roughly where on the respective continent each of those nations are, but any more knowledge than that is just a waste of my time. As for knowing all the capitols, thats just silly. Why would I ever possibly want to know that?
Gentlemen, I prove my point. Education is this country sucks. People only learn what they think they need to know immediately. Why would you ever possibly want to know the capitol of Nigeria, or Iran? Why not? Scientia est Potentia. Knowledge is Power.
I also understand that sometime in the next 100 years the middle east will start to dry up. At which time we will make the switch for pure economic reasons. This is why I don't worry about it too much.
Then we can move on to the oil fields in Alaska. We have vast wastelands that have never been drilled that would hold us over for a very, very long time... but we've never drilled there because the environmentalist wackoes throw a nutty when we propose it. If those fields last us another 100 years, in addition to the 100 years from the middle east, that puts us to around 2203. Think we'll discover either a new method of transportation, or a new fuel by then? Maybe the future isn't going to mean the death of us all... maybe it'll be a pretty nice place to live.
But the fact that cockroaches survived is of little comfort to the dinosaurs who died.
True. However, keep in mind that Dinosaurs also didn't have brains that are capable of reasoning like ours are, or hands that are capable of building high-tech machinery to protect themselves.
I'm going by a lot of studies and polls I've heard in recent years.
You may be correct about California. I'm certain a lot of people that live there could identify it on a map. How about Iraq? Or, how about a big important country that isn't on the news quite as much... what about Serbia? How about North Korea? Or maybe Syria or Iran? Those should be pretty easy, since they're so close to Iraq. Or, here's a good one... what about Palestine? Oh wait, that's not a country, just a bunch of really irritable terrorists. What about Israel?
We expect these individuals to try to not only instruct 30+ kids, but also to raise them in a glorified daycare. Furthermore, we given them no power of discipline, and often, when a kid is misbehaving, the teacher is completely powerless to do anything about it -- especially when the parent comes in on the side of the child.
I was naming one of the main problems with education, not the end-all, be-all of solutions. You're right. In my opinion, if a child is misbehaving in school, the teacher should be given all kinds of rights to punish that child, including mental punishment, physical punishment, detention, and expulsion. I see no problem with that whatsoever.
Other than that, I absolutely agree with everything you said... except maybe #3. I think computers should be in elementary school, but only as a reward for getting your homework done very well, or getting a test done with an excellent grade, etc. I used a computer in elementary school for my "gifted" program... there was only 2 people in it in my school, out of a total K-6 population of around 500... not bragging or anything.;-)
(If too many students don't pass, school funding gets reduced and teachers get fired. The "success percentage" the schools are after, too, is greater than 50%).
That's not what's being done. What's being done is the lowering of standards. We're not testing the students on what they're supposed to know to progress to the next grade. We've lowered the standards so much, that to pass the 8th grade in 1895, you would graduate high school now. Can YOU tell me the 9 rules for the use of Capital Letters? Can you name all the republics of Europe and give their capitals? Can more than 50% of high school graduates locate Europe on a map, let alone point to one specific country in it?
Because no one has the right to ask for a salary increase, you see...:)
Asking for a salary increase is fine, but if you're going to go on strike because they won't give it to you, then be prepared to be fired. If I asked for a salary increase, then got pissed off and didn't come into work for the next few days, I'd hand myself a pink slip. The problem is that the teachers unions whine so much about salary, and put the pressure on the politicians so the teachers that aren't doing their jobs can't be fired.
Then explain the constant shortage of math, science, and computer teachers in school districts - even when the economy's not doing so well.
What shortage? I don't know where you are, but I've got a lot of friends going to school for teaching degrees, or people who have graduated with teaching degrees and can't find a job. In Pennsylvania, teachers are the 2nd highest paying profession. I'm not saying that's bad, just saying that I know a few teachers who should be out on their asses.
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Videogames influence people.
Are you sure that people don't influence videogames? I seem to remember a time not so long ago when video games weren't around, yet people were everywhere. In fact, even 100 years ago, there weren't any video games, television shows, or movies to blame when children went bad. What video game did Lizzie Borden play to make her split open her parents' heads with an ax? I don't seem to remember hearing how she played Half-Life, or saw Scarface and that made her do it...
I am saying that we as a society should express clear standards of right and wrong.
Fine. Go ahead. Don't buy or play their games. The rest of the real world will, if they want to.
I would even go so far as to say that the real problems with are society today are linked to the fact that it is no longer completely organized around the task of raising children.
Since when has this planet revolved around children? The last I knew, to get a job, you couldn't be a child. When you're a child, you can't vote, drink, drive, or do anything worth while in life. The world has NEVER revolved around children, and shouldn't start now. If we create little whiney children who expect the world to revolve around them, in 20 years we get little whiney adults who expect the world to revolve around them.
I've got it, lets let Fisher Price have sole controle over every single available consumable on this planet!
Technically, you can kill someone with a Fisher Price playset... just bludgeon them over the head 8 or 9 thousand times, and they'll drop like a rock. We should also do away with pencils, pens, and anything that weighs over 4 ounces. Water is too hazardous to keep around, since you could theoretically drown in 2 inches of water in the bottom of a bucket. Paper isn't safe either, since you could bleed to death if you get 50,000 paper cuts. In fact, you could jab yourself in the eye repeatedly with your favorite finger (any finger will do) and eventually hit your brain, and probably kill yourself... so we better lop off our fingers too. Our feet pose a significant hazard, since we could walk into something we can't protect ourselves from, like the ocean, or off a cliff, or maybe even INTO REAL LIFE.
Exactly...look at what actually happened (real people died) and your stupid-ass response...
Well, boo-fucking-hoo. Cry me a goddamn river. Life is a ZERO SUM GAME. You're NOT guaranteed to win. In fact, you're not even guaranteed to survive long enough to push your way out of your mother's wretched womb. Now that I think about it, you're not guaranteed anything, ever, from anybody. Stop your stupid whining and bitching, and wake up to the reality of LIFE. Every single man, woman, and child that is alive today WILL DIE... it's just a question of when. Don't like it? Sue god. The stupid kids who pulled the trigger are responsible, and should be killed... both of them. They're old enough to know better than shooting people on a highway. Screw them... it's obvious they're not going to amount to much in society. It's time to wipe their slate clean and make room for someone who actually wants to produce something of value and contribute something to the world. Put those kids to death, and let their parents greive for the next few years. Maybe then, when they have another kid, they'll pay attention to the little fucker and he won't grow up to shoot someone.
The system didn't work. I was forced to work for hours and hours without getting anything from it. I got fired for absolutely no good reason, except for questioning their illegal tactics of threatening people's jobs when they ask whether its the ethical and legal way to do business.
When you pay someone a wage for a 40 hour week, then force that person to work for 80 hours, you aren't keeping your end of the bargain. You broke the rules. You should have to pay the price for breaking those rules.
You're using a Christian Slater quote in your sig and you expect us to pay you money? Surely you jest...
Would the quote be any more or less true if it were said by someone else?
I hold the "Words on a webpage" patent. It turns out that all of you will have to pay me royalty fees! I want 1 penny for every word on a webpage... I should be a trillionare by the end of the hour.
Seriously though, does anybody have a link to the actual patents filed that contain references to "scrolling within a window", or "progress bars"? I'd be interested in looking over the legal ramifications in the US...
Why don't you just get another job and work for a living instead of suing in order to be "fairly well-to-do"? While you are sitting pretty off un-earned lawsuit gains, your former coworkers will either be getting canned to make up for the money you sued for, or honest investors in your company will be losing money to pay for your scumbag lawyer's next car.
First point... The only problem is that if my co-workers weren't also fired around the same time (within 2 months, every single technical employee in the company was replaced), they'd still be fine. There's a thing called "Retaliatory Action" that the employer can NOT engage in, even if their employees are suing them for something that's illegal.
Second point, I have another job. I make 30% more than I did there, and have a nicer office with much, much better benefits. Thanks for being concerned though.
Third point, there are no investors in the company. It was started by a man whose father owns the largest privately-owned weather entity in the United States (gee, this is hard, isn't it). His father was a millionare, many times over before he was even born. When he grew up, he thought he could treat people like shit, just like daddy, except that daddy had a product that people wanted and needed. My former boss didn't. He's just got a silver spoon shoved so far up his ass, he has to unbutton his shirt to polish it.
It would depend on the details of your case... If you could get together a lot of your co-workers and do a class action lawsuit for wrongful termination, Sony would probably settle before taking it to court and having a long, drawn-out public trial. One question you'll definitely be asked is whether you had a contract that specified a period of time longer than you were there for. For instance, if you had a contract that said you would have a job until June of 2001, and you were fired, along with everybody else, in December of 2000, you'd have a very good case. Even if you don't have a written contract, if you have evidence (even circumstantial evidence) that they made it fairly clear that you would have a job there for X months, and you were fired 2 weeks later, you could have a case.
In ALL cases, documentation is the key. Dig up ALL your old e-mails and look for clues on ways to make the employer look like they're trying to screw the "little people" out of everything. They will do the same to you, so you better have more evidence, and better documentation than they do. Also, in a lot of cases, the statute of limitations for Wrongful Termination is sometimes as low as 30 days, so file a complaint TODAY, and look for evidence and everything later.
I've got a LOT more information, if anybody would like it.
I'm not at home right now, but here are the links for some of the easier-to-find information:
Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as Amended (PDF)
Regulations from the Department of Labor (DOL) about certain portions of the FLSA
I'm too lazy to do any real searching, but if anybody would like specific links, I can send them to you. Send me an e-mail, netadm2000@hotmail.com.
PS If anyone knows an OSS MS Project replacement that can do all this stuff, please speak up. I've been dying to replace it for ages, but it's a really good fit for this particular problem space.
Ever tried the OpenOffice Project Management? I personally haven't used it, per se, but I played around with it, and it seems very similar to MS Project.
I don't get overtime. I'm on salary.
This is a very common misconception. It doesn't matter if you're on salary. It only matters if you're exempt or not. The kicker is that your employer doesn't get to choose whether you're exempt or not. The federal government does. Being a salaried employee is only one step of many, many steps that need to be taken so an employee doesn't get overtime. I've got a LOT more information, if anybody would like it. I'm currently involved in a lawsuit where I'm suing my former employer for unpaid overtime, willful violation of the FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act), and retaliatory action (wrongful termination). If all goes well, I could end up fairly well-to-do.
You've changed the context of your challenge:
You forgot that the only place that had political history (in the last 500 years), as a Representative Republic, was the United States.
You then changed your argument to this:
I'm just taking the dates that each one of the Constitutions was initially enacted, not the date they won their independence, for good reason.
I never changed the context of my argument. My argument is, and always was, that the only place worth studying for political history in the past 500 years, as far as a Republic goes, is the United States. No other country has been a Republic as long, or produced as much, or been as generally successful as the United States, under a Republic form of government. The United States began its life as a Republic when the Constitution was approved. There is no other country in the world that has a standing Constitution that governs a Republic for as long as the U.S. Constitution has. Those other documents have extraordinary historical value, but no longer are referred to by lawyers and politicians in the country to uphold and protect, as the U.S. Constitution is.
I'm not sure how to express my point of view, but I don't see the point of your arguments.
First, who cares if it was a public school? If the students didn't pass it, they didn't pass the 8th grade.
Second, I'm pretty sure the community wasn't very large, but I don't see how that's relavent. Students went to the school, the teacher taught the students, the students took the test. If the student passed, off to "life" it was. If not, another year of the 8th grade awaited him/her.
Third, I've never understood the point of not "teaching to the test". Knowledge is knowledge, pure and simple. Why put a limit on what the teacher can and can't teach? All knowledge is useful, despite what some people might think. If a teacher decided that since a class about World War II was important and taught exclusively about Pearl Harbor, do you somehow think that knowledge is less important than the Battle of the Bulge? If the teacher then decides to give the students a test only on Pearl Harbor, in your mind, does that somehow signify that the students don't know anything useful? Now, before you say that the students wouldn't know anything else about World War II, you may be right... that's why teachers have jobs as teachers, and their students, through their grades and knowledge (as determined by standardized tests) can show their teachers aren't doing their jobs. If the students don't know even the most rudimentary things about Hitler or the Third Reich, the teacher obviously isn't doing their job, and should be fired.
Also, in 1895, I'm sure knowing how much space a bushel of wheat took up was fairly important knowledge. No TV's or computers or microwaves or airplanes, etc. to keep your mind occupied, so they had to know what was important at the time. Today, you might see a question on a test about who Saddam Hussein is/was. That's considered fairly important today. In 100 years, it may not be.
As far as how long the school had been in existence, it doesn't matter. If it's longer than a year (which I'm sure it is), then the students had enough time to study for it.
Did the students pass it more often than 50% of the time? Well, I assume so, since there apparently wasn't a mass exodus of Kansas. I've never heard of Salina, so I'm fairly sure there wasn't a major incident involving the students stringing their teacher up to a barn rafter and hitting her with clubs. But, who knows... maybe it happened. Record keeping wasn't like it is today.
Your last question contradicts your third question. "Was this test of regular difficulty...?" Well, if it is, then the teacher obviously couldn't teach specifically for it. If not, then obviously the teacher did. Either way, the students had to pass it.
Obviously it doesn't help to compare our government to governments that haven't lasted as long, or produced as much, or governed as many happy/content citizens as our own, so I must not see the point of your argument. Here's an analogy for you:
If I own a farm that grows apples, and I've governed that farm for 50 years and produced 50,000 apples, would I be in any position to tell someone who's governed an apple farm for 200 years and produced 200,000,000 apples how to run their farm? They might take a few pointers from me, but I'm sure they wouldn't replace their business plan with mine.
OK, one by one...
Ireland = Constitution, Dec. 29, 1937.
Germany = Constitution, May 23, 1949.
Nicaragua = Constitution, Jan. 9, 1987.
Bolivia = Constitution, Feb. 2, 1967.
Congo = Constitution, Jan. 2002.
Algeria = Constitution, Nov. 19, 1976.
Liberia = Constitution, Jan. 6, 1986.
I'm just taking the dates that each one of the Constitutions was initially enacted, not the date they won their independence, for good reason. The United States went until 1787 to adopt a Constitution. Before 1787, we were not a Republic. So I figured a good was to measure was the date of the adopted Constitution. Having said that, it's fairly clear that not only is the United States the first real Republic ruled by law in the world, we have a good 150 years on the second Republic similar to us. I'll let you look up each one of those country's Constitutions and see how similar it is to our own. The United States Constitution is the oldest document in the world that governs a country. So, my assessment was correct. As far as comparing the political history of Republics go, the United States is the only one to have over 100 years of history (216, actually).
8th Grade final exam, from Salina, Kansas. Not a college prep school. Sorry.
I forgot the only place that had political history was the US...
You're right. You forgot that the only place that had political history (in the last 500 years), as a Representative Republic, was the United States. Shame on you.
Honestly, I don't care where every country in the world is. I know roughly where on the respective continent each of those nations are, but any more knowledge than that is just a waste of my time. As for knowing all the capitols, thats just silly. Why would I ever possibly want to know that?
Gentlemen, I prove my point. Education is this country sucks. People only learn what they think they need to know immediately. Why would you ever possibly want to know the capitol of Nigeria, or Iran? Why not? Scientia est Potentia. Knowledge is Power.
I also understand that sometime in the next 100 years the middle east will start to dry up. At which time we will make the switch for pure economic reasons. This is why I don't worry about it too much.
Then we can move on to the oil fields in Alaska. We have vast wastelands that have never been drilled that would hold us over for a very, very long time... but we've never drilled there because the environmentalist wackoes throw a nutty when we propose it. If those fields last us another 100 years, in addition to the 100 years from the middle east, that puts us to around 2203. Think we'll discover either a new method of transportation, or a new fuel by then? Maybe the future isn't going to mean the death of us all... maybe it'll be a pretty nice place to live.
But the fact that cockroaches survived is of little comfort to the dinosaurs who died.
True. However, keep in mind that Dinosaurs also didn't have brains that are capable of reasoning like ours are, or hands that are capable of building high-tech machinery to protect themselves.
No, I'm not going by Jay Leno.
I'm going by a lot of studies and polls I've heard in recent years.
You may be correct about California. I'm certain a lot of people that live there could identify it on a map. How about Iraq? Or, how about a big important country that isn't on the news quite as much... what about Serbia? How about North Korea? Or maybe Syria or Iran? Those should be pretty easy, since they're so close to Iraq. Or, here's a good one... what about Palestine? Oh wait, that's not a country, just a bunch of really irritable terrorists. What about Israel?
Disclaimer: You have no right not to be offended.
;-)
We expect these individuals to try to not only instruct 30+ kids, but also to raise them in a glorified daycare. Furthermore, we given them no power of discipline, and often, when a kid is misbehaving, the teacher is completely powerless to do anything about it -- especially when the parent comes in on the side of the child.
I was naming one of the main problems with education, not the end-all, be-all of solutions. You're right. In my opinion, if a child is misbehaving in school, the teacher should be given all kinds of rights to punish that child, including mental punishment, physical punishment, detention, and expulsion. I see no problem with that whatsoever.
Other than that, I absolutely agree with everything you said... except maybe #3. I think computers should be in elementary school, but only as a reward for getting your homework done very well, or getting a test done with an excellent grade, etc. I used a computer in elementary school for my "gifted" program... there was only 2 people in it in my school, out of a total K-6 population of around 500... not bragging or anything.
History and Math. Care to dazzle with geography?
Can you point to Calirornia on a map? Most California high school graduates can't...
(If too many students don't pass, school funding gets reduced and teachers get fired. The "success percentage" the schools are after, too, is greater than 50%).
... :)
That's not what's being done. What's being done is the lowering of standards. We're not testing the students on what they're supposed to know to progress to the next grade. We've lowered the standards so much, that to pass the 8th grade in 1895, you would graduate high school now. Can YOU tell me the 9 rules for the use of Capital Letters? Can you name all the republics of Europe and give their capitals? Can more than 50% of high school graduates locate Europe on a map, let alone point to one specific country in it?
Because no one has the right to ask for a salary increase, you see
Asking for a salary increase is fine, but if you're going to go on strike because they won't give it to you, then be prepared to be fired. If I asked for a salary increase, then got pissed off and didn't come into work for the next few days, I'd hand myself a pink slip. The problem is that the teachers unions whine so much about salary, and put the pressure on the politicians so the teachers that aren't doing their jobs can't be fired.
Then explain the constant shortage of math, science, and computer teachers in school districts - even when the economy's not doing so well.
What shortage? I don't know where you are, but I've got a lot of friends going to school for teaching degrees, or people who have graduated with teaching degrees and can't find a job. In Pennsylvania, teachers are the 2nd highest paying profession. I'm not saying that's bad, just saying that I know a few teachers who should be out on their asses.