Dammit! Can't *somebody* learn the real definition of fascist? Geez, go grab a cheap Political Science textbook at your local used bookstore or something...
Sorry. It's not you personally, it's just that *nobody* seems to be able to get this right!
And they all joined a militia and lived happily ever after.
Your desire to brand conservative people as violent, despite the fact that very few are, is amusing. Now, you can settle down comfortably, secure in the knowledge that you put another "gun-toting, wild-eyed, evil, fruit-loopy, evil, rebellious, evil, demon-spawn, worthless, evil, did-I-mention-evil-yet?" conservative in his proper place. Bravo. When do you want your hero-cookie?
I must apologize since it has become apparent that my original post was not clear.
The human soul (meaning the part of man that distinguishes us from animals) is designed to work within certain guidelines and for certain purposes. Teaching is all about the nourishing of the natural human curiosity which drives us to understand the world. Teaching has nothing to do with technical imparting of knowledge as this task solely in the realm of the student (the good student seeks knowledge for him or her self because he or she is driven by a burning curiosity). Parents, being in many cases the most caring and encouraging individuals in the lives of their children, are the most qualified to care for and encourage their children's curiosity.
When discussing social development, I was referring to the ability to talk to other human beings. The cruelty that you describe has nothing to do with this but is the natural result of evil human nature.
You're either missing my point or I simply didn't express it well. Learning, as a real process, is only done *by* the student (when he or she reads books voraciously, for example, in the pursuit of understanding driven by curiosity). The purpose of a teacher is to nourish and encourage this curious search for understanding. In most cases, no one can be more encouraging and nourishing than the parents. *That* is, I hope, a better explaination of why parents make the best teachers (I actually prefer the term "mentor").
Re:Public education has serious problems
on
Sean In The Middle
·
· Score: 1
You, not surprisingly, have no idea what teaching is about. A teacher is not someone who imparts knowledge to the student. A teacher is someone who encourages curiosity and a love of learning. That's it. Period. End of story. That is all a teacher does. The student does the rest (reading, discussing, etc.). The teacher lights a fire and the student (with the continuing encouragement and nurturing of the teacher) does the rest.
The American Family Association was present, accusing the American culture of violent pedophilic homosexual atheist liberals of ruining society, and they are "happy to see one of the horribly persecuted Christians standing up for family values against Satan."
Riiiight. Christians *hate* the public school system and are the biggest supporters of private and home schooling solutions. Christians (*real* Christians--not Catholics or the Southern Baptists or other whacked-out Arminian groups) are persecuted all the time for not "going with the flow" and are the most adamant of individualists. They are the ones who fight so hard for intellectual pursuit and hard work and who fight against the mindless worship of pop culture and atheletics.
Of course, in an environment like Slashdot, it's very easy to accuse Christians of being whatever you want and get away with it. Have fun with your strawman.
My take on it is that God designed human beings to be taught by their parents and that other forms of education are chafing, ineffectual, and worthless.
Yes, but the set of skills required to get by in an agrarian community are drastically different from modern urban culture.
When I referred to students doing fine before our modern methods of education, I was referring to the issue of social skills. Yet, I do maintain that an individual curiosity-driven approach is the only one that is fit to be called "learning."
The advantage to the "assembly line" approach is that *if things are done right*
My assertion is still that this approach CANNOT "do it right." This kind of approach can't even be called education at all.
we can be reasonably assured that kids will get the same chance to get on the same level. The trick is to make it so that the opportunities are there for everybody.
Any kind of extra-legal equality is a fruitless avenue. In addition to the mere inequalities of skill, there are inequalities of goal: not everyone wants to be a lawyer, or an artist, or a garbage collector. We all appreciate different things and have our own interests and pursuits.
Now, you're probably thinking, "But shouldn't everyone have some common level of knowledge in math, science, language, and the arts?" It would be nice wouldn't it? But the students who don't care for math and science don't learn even when they are in a standards-based government system. How many so-called "airhead" girls (contrary to stereotype, they aren't dumb, they just don't have the requisite curiosity) do you recall who never could "get it," despite a reasonable effort? If you want someone to learn something, they must have an inner-drive to learn.
The good news is that people can be encouraged to seek understanding; however, this encouragement can only come with caring individual attention. Additionally, the kind of nurturing spirit required for this is rare outside of the parent.
Perhaps if teachers were left to do their job then perhaps they would do a better one.
There are two problems with our education system: (1) the 1:n relationship between teacher and student; and (2) the complete misunderstanding of what education is. Learning is not the memorization of fact--it is the curiosity-driven understanding of the world around us. But then, you can't have "standards" if you think of learning this way. And if we don't have "standards" our children will be behind! Buy a clue: they already are and it's because of cookie-cutter, lowest common denominator, assembly-line education. Children are not cattle.
I think home schooling is the best choice one can make. I feel that the human soul is designed to learn from loving parents and NOT from a third party.
As for social development, children who came before the collectivist "assembly-line" method of education did just fine.
makes the asumption that's central to the Slashdot mystique: that contributing to free software development and buying into Stallmanesque ideology are necessarily intertwined.
Well, they often are. Many work on free software projects because they enjoy it yet don't give ideology a second thought. However, on some deep level, they would agree with Stallman if they were really interested in philosophy. They're more interested in coding than talking about the freedom to code but this doesn't imply that they disagree with Stallman.
I'll close by pointing out that it was my favorite tech company that finally _really_ brought Unix to the desktop
I assume that you mean Apple. I'll just pick the nit that it was actually NeXT who did this. Apple simply acquired their technology and put an overwrought GUI on top of it.
while Slashdot's pick turned out a slow, bloated Explorer knockoff, and fired half their workers the day they finished it...
Yeah, Slashdot's pick. But don't forget that GNUstep is a GPL'd project, which Stallman is in support of.
But if the USA is like you say it is ("our entire system of political philosophy is based on the concept that government is essentially evil and oppressive and must be carefully limited by the people to restrain its power") then I think it's a little funny to call it "land of the free". Sounds pretty opressed to me...
Yes, well, it's getting more and more so every day. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies abuse our guaranteed Constitutional protection every day in the name of "national security."
Nevertheless, most people are not targets of this abuse, so few people raise a fuss about it. When high-profile cases do occur (as with the African immigrant who was murdered) there are usually a lot of cries of, "This is horrible! We must do something!" Then, everybody forgets about it and things continue as they were. This, in my mind, justifies the quote (that I mangled before) "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance."
Be glad that this sort of thing hasn't happened where you live. But, the lesson you must learn is that it *can* happen if people cease to care.
By "first step" you mean there is a second step that is comming. This assumes that there is some dark force
There is. It's called "human nature."
As long as there is a non-hostile government
There is no such thing as a non-hostile government.
They are on YOUR SIDE, can't you understand that?
Right. They're on our side. That's why they fill an innocent and un-armed immigrant with 42 bullet holes just because they didn't like the way he looked. That's why a police officer here in SC pulled an innocent woman over and tried to jerk her out of her car at gunpoint because she was black. That's why they attack peaceful demonstrators in almost every protest coming down the pike.
Are you from the U.S.? If not, you may not realize that our entire system of political philosophy is based on the concept that government is essentially evil and oppressive and must be carefully limited by the people to restrain its power.
Ah, yes the, "My government would never do anything bad. They're good people." argument. I won't give you the quote by Benjamin Franklin (not Jefferson) but I will give you a paraphrase of another quote: Freedom requires constant vigilance. Have fun in your authoritarian state, pal.
He could have answered "We're the dominant player in the desktop OS market space, so obviously it adds more value to our competitors products when they make their offerings work well with ours than making ours work well with theirs." That would have been honest and nobody would have faulted him for it.
Actually, he *was* being honest--didn't you hear him say that they were in business to make money? <grin>
Many people noted that this would be great for the people who can't "afford" to go to MIT. Well, at the risk of raising 1000 flames, what about the quality of the students you work with?
True. But if you just want access to the basic information, this is great.
Besides: if NeXT were so easy to develop for, and every progammer's dream, why did that not help it become viable?
Because Jobs didn't realize that Intel had the architecture market completely sown up. Yeah, it sucks, but no operating system was ever going to be successful on an expensive and proprietary architecture (no matter how great that hardware might be). Also, Jobs was a lousy businessman in comparison to Bill Gates, which had a good deal to do with it.
I mean the way that things _work_ when you interact with them. Their appearance is important, but not everything.
Can you give examples of what, specifically, you find unpleasant?
How NeXT even wound up in the running back in '97, I'll never know.
How can you even *say* this? Where's Be's counterpart for the Interface Builder or Project Builder? I doubt their API could hold a candle to OpenStep. Can you honestly say you would rather use C++ than Objective C?
Me, I'm using OS X right now, but the UI isn't the Mac's.
That's kind of funny: everybody in the old NeXT camp is complaining that the GUI abandons too much of the clean and elegant look that NeXTSTEP had. For me, it just has too much of a "cotton candy" look to it.
You can do that here, too. However, you're still on a list somewhere that is at most just a little harder to access. Plus, your driver's license (and the accompanying personal information) is considered to be public.
While in the womb, it's not yet a baby. The term is zygote or fetus depending on how many cells are currently involved. The use of the loaded term 'baby' to refer to a fetus is begging the question.
The use of the term fetus is also begging the question. You see, the issue is whether the unborn are considered human or not. And the ultimate question is whether or not human beings have souls. If human beings do not have souls, and have their entire existence in the corporeal, then the likelyhood of the unborn being a human worthy of protection against murder is low until a certain point. (Actually, if we do not have souls, the whole issue of whether murder is wrong at all is up for debate.) Why no one will ever get down to the point and argue the real issue is beyond me.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry. It's not you personally, it's just that *nobody* seems to be able to get this right!
It really didn't come across that well. Perhaps because you didn't go far enough over the top.
Your desire to brand conservative people as violent, despite the fact that very few are, is amusing. Now, you can settle down comfortably, secure in the knowledge that you put another "gun-toting, wild-eyed, evil, fruit-loopy, evil, rebellious, evil, demon-spawn, worthless, evil, did-I-mention-evil-yet?" conservative in his proper place. Bravo. When do you want your hero-cookie?
The human soul (meaning the part of man that distinguishes us from animals) is designed to work within certain guidelines and for certain purposes. Teaching is all about the nourishing of the natural human curiosity which drives us to understand the world. Teaching has nothing to do with technical imparting of knowledge as this task solely in the realm of the student (the good student seeks knowledge for him or her self because he or she is driven by a burning curiosity). Parents, being in many cases the most caring and encouraging individuals in the lives of their children, are the most qualified to care for and encourage their children's curiosity.
When discussing social development, I was referring to the ability to talk to other human beings. The cruelty that you describe has nothing to do with this but is the natural result of evil human nature.
You're either missing my point or I simply didn't express it well. Learning, as a real process, is only done *by* the student (when he or she reads books voraciously, for example, in the pursuit of understanding driven by curiosity). The purpose of a teacher is to nourish and encourage this curious search for understanding. In most cases, no one can be more encouraging and nourishing than the parents. *That* is, I hope, a better explaination of why parents make the best teachers (I actually prefer the term "mentor").
You, not surprisingly, have no idea what teaching is about. A teacher is not someone who imparts knowledge to the student. A teacher is someone who encourages curiosity and a love of learning. That's it. Period. End of story. That is all a teacher does. The student does the rest (reading, discussing, etc.). The teacher lights a fire and the student (with the continuing encouragement and nurturing of the teacher) does the rest.
Riiiight. Christians *hate* the public school system and are the biggest supporters of private and home schooling solutions. Christians (*real* Christians--not Catholics or the Southern Baptists or other whacked-out Arminian groups) are persecuted all the time for not "going with the flow" and are the most adamant of individualists. They are the ones who fight so hard for intellectual pursuit and hard work and who fight against the mindless worship of pop culture and atheletics.
Of course, in an environment like Slashdot, it's very easy to accuse Christians of being whatever you want and get away with it. Have fun with your strawman.
My take on it is that God designed human beings to be taught by their parents and that other forms of education are chafing, ineffectual, and worthless.
When I referred to students doing fine before our modern methods of education, I was referring to the issue of social skills. Yet, I do maintain that an individual curiosity-driven approach is the only one that is fit to be called "learning."
The advantage to the "assembly line" approach is that *if things are done right*
My assertion is still that this approach CANNOT "do it right." This kind of approach can't even be called education at all.
we can be reasonably assured that kids will get the same chance to get on the same level. The trick is to make it so that the opportunities are there for everybody.
Any kind of extra-legal equality is a fruitless avenue. In addition to the mere inequalities of skill, there are inequalities of goal: not everyone wants to be a lawyer, or an artist, or a garbage collector. We all appreciate different things and have our own interests and pursuits.
Now, you're probably thinking, "But shouldn't everyone have some common level of knowledge in math, science, language, and the arts?" It would be nice wouldn't it? But the students who don't care for math and science don't learn even when they are in a standards-based government system. How many so-called "airhead" girls (contrary to stereotype, they aren't dumb, they just don't have the requisite curiosity) do you recall who never could "get it," despite a reasonable effort? If you want someone to learn something, they must have an inner-drive to learn.
The good news is that people can be encouraged to seek understanding; however, this encouragement can only come with caring individual attention. Additionally, the kind of nurturing spirit required for this is rare outside of the parent.
There are two problems with our education system: (1) the 1:n relationship between teacher and student; and (2) the complete misunderstanding of what education is. Learning is not the memorization of fact--it is the curiosity-driven understanding of the world around us. But then, you can't have "standards" if you think of learning this way. And if we don't have "standards" our children will be behind! Buy a clue: they already are and it's because of cookie-cutter, lowest common denominator, assembly-line education. Children are not cattle.
As for social development, children who came before the collectivist "assembly-line" method of education did just fine.
Well, they often are. Many work on free software projects because they enjoy it yet don't give ideology a second thought. However, on some deep level, they would agree with Stallman if they were really interested in philosophy. They're more interested in coding than talking about the freedom to code but this doesn't imply that they disagree with Stallman.
I'll close by pointing out that it was my favorite tech company that finally _really_ brought Unix to the desktop
I assume that you mean Apple. I'll just pick the nit that it was actually NeXT who did this. Apple simply acquired their technology and put an overwrought GUI on top of it.
while Slashdot's pick turned out a slow, bloated Explorer knockoff, and fired half their workers the day they finished it...
Yeah, Slashdot's pick. But don't forget that GNUstep is a GPL'd project, which Stallman is in support of.
I wonder how many people in other countries associate US companies with the US government? (Not entirely unreasonable, of course.)
Yes, well, it's getting more and more so every day. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies abuse our guaranteed Constitutional protection every day in the name of "national security."
Nevertheless, most people are not targets of this abuse, so few people raise a fuss about it. When high-profile cases do occur (as with the African immigrant who was murdered) there are usually a lot of cries of, "This is horrible! We must do something!" Then, everybody forgets about it and things continue as they were. This, in my mind, justifies the quote (that I mangled before) "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance."
Be glad that this sort of thing hasn't happened where you live. But, the lesson you must learn is that it *can* happen if people cease to care.
Can't do that--it's the government's job to protect our kids, right? Uh, I mean, right? Anyone? Anyone?
There is. It's called "human nature."
As long as there is a non-hostile government
There is no such thing as a non-hostile government.
They are on YOUR SIDE, can't you understand that?
Right. They're on our side. That's why they fill an innocent and un-armed immigrant with 42 bullet holes just because they didn't like the way he looked. That's why a police officer here in SC pulled an innocent woman over and tried to jerk her out of her car at gunpoint because she was black. That's why they attack peaceful demonstrators in almost every protest coming down the pike.
Are you from the U.S.? If not, you may not realize that our entire system of political philosophy is based on the concept that government is essentially evil and oppressive and must be carefully limited by the people to restrain its power.
Ah, yes the, "My government would never do anything bad. They're good people." argument. I won't give you the quote by Benjamin Franklin (not Jefferson) but I will give you a paraphrase of another quote: Freedom requires constant vigilance. Have fun in your authoritarian state, pal.
Actually, he *was* being honest--didn't you hear him say that they were in business to make money? <grin>
True. But if you just want access to the basic information, this is great.
Because Jobs didn't realize that Intel had the architecture market completely sown up. Yeah, it sucks, but no operating system was ever going to be successful on an expensive and proprietary architecture (no matter how great that hardware might be). Also, Jobs was a lousy businessman in comparison to Bill Gates, which had a good deal to do with it.
I mean the way that things _work_ when you interact with them. Their appearance is important, but not everything.
Can you give examples of what, specifically, you find unpleasant?
How can you even *say* this? Where's Be's counterpart for the Interface Builder or Project Builder? I doubt their API could hold a candle to OpenStep. Can you honestly say you would rather use C++ than Objective C?
Me, I'm using OS X right now, but the UI isn't the Mac's.
That's kind of funny: everybody in the old NeXT camp is complaining that the GUI abandons too much of the clean and elegant look that NeXTSTEP had. For me, it just has too much of a "cotton candy" look to it.
Perhaps. But it would take an amendment to the Bill of Rights.
You can do that here, too. However, you're still on a list somewhere that is at most just a little harder to access. Plus, your driver's license (and the accompanying personal information) is considered to be public.
The use of the term fetus is also begging the question. You see, the issue is whether the unborn are considered human or not. And the ultimate question is whether or not human beings have souls. If human beings do not have souls, and have their entire existence in the corporeal, then the likelyhood of the unborn being a human worthy of protection against murder is low until a certain point. (Actually, if we do not have souls, the whole issue of whether murder is wrong at all is up for debate.) Why no one will ever get down to the point and argue the real issue is beyond me.
No, there is no right to privacy.