Guess what, the "interaction" between several parts is precisely what causes the result to be more than the sum of its parts. It's called "synergy".
If you insist on calling the interaction of the parts "one of the parts", you may do so, but for the majority of people that would be a "bogus concept", because it is useful to separate the parts and their interactions.
Everyone who is making making plans for 2029, please realise that by then we might have a technological Singularity already, with advanced nanotech, AI and immortality. To think that a "naked-eye" visible asteroid would be in any way exciting is insane! There won't be naked-eyes anymore. I don't expect to have unmodified eyes in 24 years and with built-in HUD and VR looking at the passing of the asteroid would not be any more exiting than looking at an asteroid in the asteroid belt or in the latest VR simulation.
I don't know about TeX, but I had to do about a page of formulas for my thesis. Since it was just a page, I absolutely didn't want to waste time on TeX or anything, but let me tell you, it was damn hard work.:) Interestingly, the reviewer complimented the formulas (Microsoft Equation does look nice) and said most people don't bother and just produce some fugly unreadable shit (ASCII formulas, may be?).
But don't tar the entire MS line with the same brush. If MS Office is such shit, why is Open Office practically a feature by feature clone of it? Because there seems to be a demand for MS Office-like software. There are much better word processing applications, there are great publishing applications, but the mass markets need a 100% compatible and similar product.
That's why everyone spends their resources on cloning MS Office, which is extremely complicated, just because it's so huge. And since it's so complicated, there aren't many contenders among for-profit companies. And open source developers don't have enough resources to "finish" even one product since they spread their efforts. As a result, their products are buggy and not as usable as MS Office.
I appreciate Open Office features and stability, but it is crap in so many respects that I prefere to use the free pirated MS Office (buggy too, but I learned to work around it). I liked AbiWord very much, but it hanged on the first Word document that I opened, so I can't use it either.
The sad truth is that the best Word is made by Microsoft. I am curious about Apple's new office suit, though. Still, MS Word is so powerful that one can do almost everything there (despite sometimes crappy interface, bugs and complexity of doing some tasks). I don't see how Microsoft can lose the office battle in the near future.
The big problem is that the heavyweight monster Microsoft is persuading others to get PocketPCs. I've seen a lot of people with PocketPCs and always saw them struggle with basic operations. A horrible "Windows" interface is absolutely counterproductive in a PDA, but no customer would consult a usability study (and select a Palm) and Microsoft would never admit that their handhelds still suck (despite winning in the market).
A Palm PDA can be extremely useful and still has the potential to win a lot of customers. There are many things that you simply can't do comfortably on a cellphone because of a small screen and poor input. But alas, the PDA manufacturers are too bad at using their potential advantages.
Funny post and a nice link as well. But some quotes show that a good communist should not just accept the "one and only truth" not bothering about thinking and making choices. Real good communists are different. In fact, real communists are usually the best people that you can find.
"Our Party members differ in quality because they differ in social background and have come under different social influences. They differ in their attitude, stand and comprehension in relation to the revolutionary practice, and consequently they develop in different directions in the course of revolutionary practice."
"Discover the truth through practice, and again through practice verify and develop the truth. Start from perceptual knowledge and actively develop it into rational knowledge; then start from rational knowledge and actively guide revolutionary practice to change both the subjective and the objective world. Practice, knowledge, again practice and again knowledge. This form repeats itself in endless cycles, and with each cycle the content the content of practice and knowledge rises to a higher level."
I was wondering - what progress is there in using other approaches to shielding. Can something like magnetic fields or active shields (somewhat like in tanks and supersonic torpedoes) be used to protect the spacecraft? If you don't want the hull to have contact with the fast air, may be we can place something around it?
Green? What, do you mean there are people that use the default Slashdot scheme instead of the text-only PDA/black-on-white eye-friendly HTML-classic mode?
Does anyone know about a good scrollable virtual desktop for Windoze? I used to enjoy the virtual desktop provided by ATi drivers back on my P200 with Ati Rage 3D. I tried using SDesk, but it has performance issue (redrawing) and was not updated since 2003.
Does anyone know about a decent scrollable virtual desktop that I just failed to notice?
I think I now see the fault in your strategy. You say kids should get basic skills required to be functional first, but you ignore that the education systems is actually trying to do that. Ignoring for the moment the subject of the article - their familiarity with the First Amendment - we can safely say that all kids are taught addition and multiplication quite well in advance, as well as reading and lots of other basic skills. Still, if you look at the graduates, it is not uncommon to find people who can't multiply 17 by 10 without a calculator as well as people who can read a 1 page of text and not understand a single sentence of it.
Your suggestion "let's teach the basic skills first" ignores the fact that basic skills ARE taught first and that the schools are failing at that. Think for a second - how would we proceed with your suggestion of ensuring that kids are functional. We probably need to fix whatever it is that prevents those basic math lessons from working.
But I am convinced that once you find out what the problems are and fix them (the problems are rather obvious and it's not like nobody wrote about them 20+ years ago), we would get the "good" education system back, where any subject can be taught effectively, meaning that we can have our enlightened kids again.
Now it would be all fine and dandy if our goal is to "fix the system", because once we fix it, it works. But if our first goal is to make sure only that functional skills are taught well, then we risk rebuilding a 100-year old education system that could teach everyone basic skills instead of fixing the relatively modern one that can teach everyone everything.
Any reform is a very complex task, so you can't easily switch between goals on a whim. If we decide we need functional skills, everyone would tend to ignore other goals.
Ah, yes, the Soviets. The models of efficient society and humanitarianism. Well, they deserve some credit for trying. Nobody forced them to add this line to the constitution and it was really backed up with real actions and resources. Not to mention that the education system in the Soviet Union was indeed very efficient and very humanistic.
How familiar are you with the public school systems in the US anyhow? I mean, you're not exactly from the US, are you? No, thanks luck, I am not. But I am very familiar with the problems of the US public school system, because most of them are not specific to the US.
The child does not exist for parents. He is not their property, he is not their responsilibity. The child is a future member of the society and the society should take care of him. I appreciate those parents that are willing to spend their efforts on making the child a well-read, intelligent, passionate, ethical little human, but these are and always will be in the minority.
The simple truth is that most people don't need an "advanced" child. When you argue that these parents should spend time raising that advanced child and blame them if they don't, you make a serious mistake. A funcionally illiterate moron is good enough for most breeders. It's that society that needs more from children. And so the society should be responsible for raising children the correct way, not the parents.
This is natural. If you do it for your own satisfaction, you would not stop working until the result is great.
Harry Potter books were translated into Russian by some pathetic losers. A large group of fans started a distributed project to make a better translation and distribute it online for free. Of course, the translation was much better. Of course, the Russian publisher and that bitch Rowling were pissed off. Of course, they sent a C&D.
If you are translating for money, there is little reason to spend too much time to do a great job. If you are translating for free, there is no reason to spend any time at all, unless the result is great.
The ultimate goal of large content providers is to create a world where they take you money each and every time you view their content. NO EXCEPTIONS!
How about taking your money each and every time you buy an unrelated product, such as a CD-burner or a computer? That would be nice as well.:) I think I know an even better scenario - how about we all send all our money to the large content providers (of course, after Bill Gates takes his cut)?
Thankfully, there are other "corporations" that are just as bent on getting "respect" or "fun" or even some "dinero" out of running pirate groups. These can be as tough as the corporations or even tougher. So I guess there might still be some stories for your kid.:) Of course, fansubbers are usually not as tough, because they have too much respect for the producers and some different notions about what is appropriate. Still, don't despair.
I disagree with the premise that some kids may need 10 years to learn 2+2. All the information I have suggests that in 10 years anyone (except a small percentage of kids with various "complications") can learn trigonometry, calculus and at least the basics of differential and integral calculus. And at least the basic of statistics and probability theory. And by "learn" I mean understand and be able to use, not just memorize and train to mindlessly solve similar tasks. The same level of performance can be achieved in all other important fields as well. All this doesn't even require expensive equipment and super-teachers. The available assets would do just fine, if only someone sane could set some basic rules in stone (i.e. "not lying", "not training for the tests", "finding out whether kids actually understand stuff", etc.). This isn't rocket science, any book on pedagogy has all the necessary techniques and approaches.
So if we decide to make sure that the kids "at least know functional skills", we are missing the point. Yes, we can fix the education system to make sure they learn at least that, but it won't place us closer to the goal - having schools produce "good" citizens. This problem is common - people presume that education is already too complex and we need to simplify it. The reality is that we just need to honestly and openly fix the education system, stop the lies and make it work honestly again. That's the real problem, not that we didn't teach enough basic math in grade 1 (I mean, parents would sometimes do the homework for grade 1 pupils so that they can get better grades).
"curiosity and willingness to learn are not teachable" - they are. You just create the right environment, add a good teacher, remove/neutralise those few students that want to disturb (this becomes unnecessary at later stages) and it works with all, but the most complicated kids (i.e. mentally unstable, cretins, drug addicts, horribly abused kids, etc.).
Re P.S. Sorry if that appeared that way. It was actually inspired by the article in Harper related to the topic that I read recently, it wasn't really targeted at your post. But if I look at your post more closely, it's actually clear that you claim schools should not be focused on being "ground for enlightenment" and should teach functional skills first. It isn't about condescension, it's also about elitism (i.e. "don't think that some people are 'inferiour' in that they don't need advanced education"). My point was that even the poster kids for your position (i.e. totally uneducated minorities who do not appear to be in need of some Plato or Didrot, but 2+2=? and "do not eat this" skills) would in reality benefit immensely from "enlightment". And, as the linked article neatly illustrates, enlightment would lead to personal development that would lead to fixing their lifes, getting professional education and stuff.
The 1977 Soviet Constitution said it best - "The free development of each is the condition of the free development of all".
I don't remember the source of the screenshot and I don't have a Mac nearby to check it myself. I recall it was something related to logging off, but not exactly that. Oh, I got it - it was force quitting Finder (line 3 from the top or something), with 3-4 keys, and there was one more command in the bottom part, with 4-5 keys.
You would have been 100% correct, except that you are 90% wrong.:) You see, the 10+ years that are allocated to compulsory education in most societies is enough to teach the students everything. We should not be discussing whether they need civics in grade 10 - they should know so much more by then that this question itself would appear ridiculous.
If you are saying "at 18 years old kids should know basic math and be able to read the labels in the supermarket" (exaggerating), we have already lost. And the capitalist opressors have won.
People are capable of discovering the joy of reading. It just so happens that the society sometimes prevents in through a variety of ways. The most obvious one being, of course, television. It's hard work to grow and develop yourself, it's not something that just "might" happen. And without some help from the society most people never get to it.
P.S. It was intentionally phrased that way. The point is that even those people, who are so often considered "evil", "uneducable" and "hopeless" and who are condemned to poverty, illiteracy and disproportionally harsh prison sentences, can "see the light" and become good citizens, purely through the magic of good education.
The test is intended to grade the quality of teaching and learning. Designing teaching to make students pass the test better is confusing goals and means.
This is stupid. Instead of fighting to have the public school system work properly you reiterate the lie that it's the job of parents to teach kids. May be it's also the job of family to care for the sick? To protect the house from burglars and the neighbourhood from drug dealers? May be it's the responsibility of the kids to deliver mail and maintain roads?
Guess what - it isn't. The public schools, if they are adequately funded and forced to do the right thing, work wonders. Look at Finland, for example, or at any other country that is graded well in various international studies.
OK, another elitist with hidden class prejudice, even though he probably doesn't realise it...
You can't teach students to be good citizens. You can't make a "functional citizen" by giving a few classes on civics and basic math. The only way to achive this noble goal is to develop the kids as humans as much as you can in the 10+ years they are at school. You need to give them all the knowledge of human civilization, the philosophy, the art, the great literature, fill them with the ideas of Kant, Plato, Marx, make them think, make them understand all that. With the same intensity you must give them natural sciences, explain everything we already learned about the Universe and how it works. Only after you do that can a person become a "functional citizen".
P.S. This applies to all kids, even young black drug pushers from the ghetto raised by single moms on welfare. Good education does wonders to everyone.
Bullshit. If parents were responsible for the education, we would still be living in the Stone Age. The society is responsible for children's education and public schools funded by taxes are just one of the ways of cattying out this responsibility.
It must be more than a "few Americans". In Germany a quarter of people do not even know that Earth revolves around the Sun! (source: a representative survey by VDI Nachrichten)
A vast majority of people are not just stupid, they are total illiterate morons. I am convinced that the problem is a systemic one. The commercialisation of TV, the lack of interest from the governments to have a literate informed populace, the inflexible education system that can't change to accomodate the changed audience of students, all these factors contribute to dumbing down of people.
"We will bury you" was a bad translation. The meaning of the phrase "My vas zakopaem" was that communism is more effective economic system and the US would eventually lose in a peaceful economic competition. This is indeed true and the development of AI and nanotechnology will relatively soon make capitalism obsolete, replaced by something, which will very closely resemble communism. So by no means was that a threat, just a prediction.
Gorbachev didn't try to "buy time". He wrongly believed that the invisible hand would solve all problems and thus destroyed the Soviet economic system. It was akin to taking IBM or Walmart and breaking it up into thousands of individual companies that MUST deal with each other using free markets. All existing relations (all planning, strategies, supply chains, R&D, everything) must be abandoned. Add to that the fact that noone in those companies had any experience with market economy and noone had a business education. And to top it off, eliminate what was left of the administrative infrastructure (as it happened when Soviet organisations were "violently" replaced by their Russian coutnerparts, eager to get their expensive real estate in the centre of Moscow). Finally, add nationalist elites in the republics that saw all this as a chance to severe their ties (including economic ties) with Russia.
The resulting mess has nothing whatsoever with inefficiency of the Soviet system. The Soviet system had positive economic growth almost every year until its destruction in 1990. And it had world's best science, one of the most powerful economies, one of the best educational system and one of the best welfare system. It's extremely disingenuous (or delusional) to say it "hadn't really worked all that well".
Slashdot Mirror
Guess what, the "interaction" between several parts is precisely what causes the result to be more than the sum of its parts. It's called "synergy".
If you insist on calling the interaction of the parts "one of the parts", you may do so, but for the majority of people that would be a "bogus concept", because it is useful to separate the parts and their interactions.
Everyone who is making making plans for 2029, please realise that by then we might have a technological Singularity already, with advanced nanotech, AI and immortality. To think that a "naked-eye" visible asteroid would be in any way exciting is insane! There won't be naked-eyes anymore. I don't expect to have unmodified eyes in 24 years and with built-in HUD and VR looking at the passing of the asteroid would not be any more exiting than looking at an asteroid in the asteroid belt or in the latest VR simulation.
I don't know about TeX, but I had to do about a page of formulas for my thesis. Since it was just a page, I absolutely didn't want to waste time on TeX or anything, but let me tell you, it was damn hard work. :) Interestingly, the reviewer complimented the formulas (Microsoft Equation does look nice) and said most people don't bother and just produce some fugly unreadable shit (ASCII formulas, may be?).
But don't tar the entire MS line with the same brush. If MS Office is such shit, why is Open Office practically a feature by feature clone of it?
Because there seems to be a demand for MS Office-like software. There are much better word processing applications, there are great publishing applications, but the mass markets need a 100% compatible and similar product.
That's why everyone spends their resources on cloning MS Office, which is extremely complicated, just because it's so huge. And since it's so complicated, there aren't many contenders among for-profit companies. And open source developers don't have enough resources to "finish" even one product since they spread their efforts. As a result, their products are buggy and not as usable as MS Office.
I appreciate Open Office features and stability, but it is crap in so many respects that I prefere to use the free pirated MS Office (buggy too, but I learned to work around it). I liked AbiWord very much, but it hanged on the first Word document that I opened, so I can't use it either.
The sad truth is that the best Word is made by Microsoft. I am curious about Apple's new office suit, though. Still, MS Word is so powerful that one can do almost everything there (despite sometimes crappy interface, bugs and complexity of doing some tasks). I don't see how Microsoft can lose the office battle in the near future.
The big problem is that the heavyweight monster Microsoft is persuading others to get PocketPCs. I've seen a lot of people with PocketPCs and always saw them struggle with basic operations. A horrible "Windows" interface is absolutely counterproductive in a PDA, but no customer would consult a usability study (and select a Palm) and Microsoft would never admit that their handhelds still suck (despite winning in the market).
A Palm PDA can be extremely useful and still has the potential to win a lot of customers. There are many things that you simply can't do comfortably on a cellphone because of a small screen and poor input. But alas, the PDA manufacturers are too bad at using their potential advantages.
Funny post and a nice link as well. But some quotes show that a good communist should not just accept the "one and only truth" not bothering about thinking and making choices. Real good communists are different. In fact, real communists are usually the best people that you can find.
"Our Party members differ in quality because they differ in social background and have come under different social influences. They differ in their attitude, stand and comprehension in relation to the revolutionary practice, and consequently they develop in different directions in the course of revolutionary practice."
"Discover the truth through practice, and again through practice verify and develop the truth. Start from perceptual knowledge and actively develop it into rational knowledge; then start from rational knowledge and actively guide revolutionary practice to change both the subjective and the objective world. Practice, knowledge, again practice and again knowledge. This form repeats itself in endless cycles, and with each cycle the content the content of practice and knowledge rises to a higher level."
I was wondering - what progress is there in using other approaches to shielding. Can something like magnetic fields or active shields (somewhat like in tanks and supersonic torpedoes) be used to protect the spacecraft? If you don't want the hull to have contact with the fast air, may be we can place something around it?
Green? What, do you mean there are people that use the default Slashdot scheme instead of the text-only PDA/black-on-white eye-friendly HTML-classic mode?
Does anyone know about a good scrollable virtual desktop for Windoze? I used to enjoy the virtual desktop provided by ATi drivers back on my P200 with Ati Rage 3D. I tried using SDesk, but it has performance issue (redrawing) and was not updated since 2003.
Does anyone know about a decent scrollable virtual desktop that I just failed to notice?
Well, in any case they beat the official translators - either in speed, in quality or in both.
I think I now see the fault in your strategy. You say kids should get basic skills required to be functional first, but you ignore that the education systems is actually trying to do that. Ignoring for the moment the subject of the article - their familiarity with the First Amendment - we can safely say that all kids are taught addition and multiplication quite well in advance, as well as reading and lots of other basic skills. Still, if you look at the graduates, it is not uncommon to find people who can't multiply 17 by 10 without a calculator as well as people who can read a 1 page of text and not understand a single sentence of it.
Your suggestion "let's teach the basic skills first" ignores the fact that basic skills ARE taught first and that the schools are failing at that. Think for a second - how would we proceed with your suggestion of ensuring that kids are functional. We probably need to fix whatever it is that prevents those basic math lessons from working.
But I am convinced that once you find out what the problems are and fix them (the problems are rather obvious and it's not like nobody wrote about them 20+ years ago), we would get the "good" education system back, where any subject can be taught effectively, meaning that we can have our enlightened kids again.
Now it would be all fine and dandy if our goal is to "fix the system", because once we fix it, it works. But if our first goal is to make sure only that functional skills are taught well, then we risk rebuilding a 100-year old education system that could teach everyone basic skills instead of fixing the relatively modern one that can teach everyone everything.
Any reform is a very complex task, so you can't easily switch between goals on a whim. If we decide we need functional skills, everyone would tend to ignore other goals.
Ah, yes, the Soviets. The models of efficient society and humanitarianism.
Well, they deserve some credit for trying. Nobody forced them to add this line to the constitution and it was really backed up with real actions and resources. Not to mention that the education system in the Soviet Union was indeed very efficient and very humanistic.
How familiar are you with the public school systems in the US anyhow? I mean, you're not exactly from the US, are you?
No, thanks luck, I am not. But I am very familiar with the problems of the US public school system, because most of them are not specific to the US.
The child does not exist for parents. He is not their property, he is not their responsilibity. The child is a future member of the society and the society should take care of him. I appreciate those parents that are willing to spend their efforts on making the child a well-read, intelligent, passionate, ethical little human, but these are and always will be in the minority.
The simple truth is that most people don't need an "advanced" child. When you argue that these parents should spend time raising that advanced child and blame them if they don't, you make a serious mistake. A funcionally illiterate moron is good enough for most breeders. It's that society that needs more from children. And so the society should be responsible for raising children the correct way, not the parents.
This is natural. If you do it for your own satisfaction, you would not stop working until the result is great.
Harry Potter books were translated into Russian by some pathetic losers. A large group of fans started a distributed project to make a better translation and distribute it online for free. Of course, the translation was much better. Of course, the Russian publisher and that bitch Rowling were pissed off. Of course, they sent a C&D.
If you are translating for money, there is little reason to spend too much time to do a great job. If you are translating for free, there is no reason to spend any time at all, unless the result is great.
The ultimate goal of large content providers is to create a world where they take you money each and every time you view their content. NO EXCEPTIONS!
:) I think I know an even better scenario - how about we all send all our money to the large content providers (of course, after Bill Gates takes his cut)?
:) Of course, fansubbers are usually not as tough, because they have too much respect for the producers and some different notions about what is appropriate. Still, don't despair.
How about taking your money each and every time you buy an unrelated product, such as a CD-burner or a computer? That would be nice as well.
Thankfully, there are other "corporations" that are just as bent on getting "respect" or "fun" or even some "dinero" out of running pirate groups. These can be as tough as the corporations or even tougher. So I guess there might still be some stories for your kid.
I disagree with the premise that some kids may need 10 years to learn 2+2. All the information I have suggests that in 10 years anyone (except a small percentage of kids with various "complications") can learn trigonometry, calculus and at least the basics of differential and integral calculus. And at least the basic of statistics and probability theory. And by "learn" I mean understand and be able to use, not just memorize and train to mindlessly solve similar tasks. The same level of performance can be achieved in all other important fields as well. All this doesn't even require expensive equipment and super-teachers. The available assets would do just fine, if only someone sane could set some basic rules in stone (i.e. "not lying", "not training for the tests", "finding out whether kids actually understand stuff", etc.). This isn't rocket science, any book on pedagogy has all the necessary techniques and approaches.
So if we decide to make sure that the kids "at least know functional skills", we are missing the point. Yes, we can fix the education system to make sure they learn at least that, but it won't place us closer to the goal - having schools produce "good" citizens. This problem is common - people presume that education is already too complex and we need to simplify it. The reality is that we just need to honestly and openly fix the education system, stop the lies and make it work honestly again. That's the real problem, not that we didn't teach enough basic math in grade 1 (I mean, parents would sometimes do the homework for grade 1 pupils so that they can get better grades).
"curiosity and willingness to learn are not teachable" - they are. You just create the right environment, add a good teacher, remove/neutralise those few students that want to disturb (this becomes unnecessary at later stages) and it works with all, but the most complicated kids (i.e. mentally unstable, cretins, drug addicts, horribly abused kids, etc.).
Re P.S. Sorry if that appeared that way. It was actually inspired by the article in Harper related to the topic that I read recently, it wasn't really targeted at your post. But if I look at your post more closely, it's actually clear that you claim schools should not be focused on being "ground for enlightenment" and should teach functional skills first. It isn't about condescension, it's also about elitism (i.e. "don't think that some people are 'inferiour' in that they don't need advanced education"). My point was that even the poster kids for your position (i.e. totally uneducated minorities who do not appear to be in need of some Plato or Didrot, but 2+2=? and "do not eat this" skills) would in reality benefit immensely from "enlightment". And, as the linked article neatly illustrates, enlightment would lead to personal development that would lead to fixing their lifes, getting professional education and stuff.
The 1977 Soviet Constitution said it best - "The free development of each is the condition of the free development of all".
I don't remember the source of the screenshot and I don't have a Mac nearby to check it myself. I recall it was something related to logging off, but not exactly that. Oh, I got it - it was force quitting Finder (line 3 from the top or something), with 3-4 keys, and there was one more command in the bottom part, with 4-5 keys.
You would have been 100% correct, except that you are 90% wrong. :) You see, the 10+ years that are allocated to compulsory education in most societies is enough to teach the students everything. We should not be discussing whether they need civics in grade 10 - they should know so much more by then that this question itself would appear ridiculous.
If you are saying "at 18 years old kids should know basic math and be able to read the labels in the supermarket" (exaggerating), we have already lost. And the capitalist opressors have won.
People are capable of discovering the joy of reading. It just so happens that the society sometimes prevents in through a variety of ways. The most obvious one being, of course, television. It's hard work to grow and develop yourself, it's not something that just "might" happen. And without some help from the society most people never get to it.
P.S. It was intentionally phrased that way. The point is that even those people, who are so often considered "evil", "uneducable" and "hopeless" and who are condemned to poverty, illiteracy and disproportionally harsh prison sentences, can "see the light" and become good citizens, purely through the magic of good education.
The test is intended to grade the quality of teaching and learning. Designing teaching to make students pass the test better is confusing goals and means.
This is stupid. Instead of fighting to have the public school system work properly you reiterate the lie that it's the job of parents to teach kids. May be it's also the job of family to care for the sick? To protect the house from burglars and the neighbourhood from drug dealers? May be it's the responsibility of the kids to deliver mail and maintain roads?
Guess what - it isn't. The public schools, if they are adequately funded and forced to do the right thing, work wonders. Look at Finland, for example, or at any other country that is graded well in various international studies.
OK, another elitist with hidden class prejudice, even though he probably doesn't realise it...
You can't teach students to be good citizens. You can't make a "functional citizen" by giving a few classes on civics and basic math. The only way to achive this noble goal is to develop the kids as humans as much as you can in the 10+ years they are at school. You need to give them all the knowledge of human civilization, the philosophy, the art, the great literature, fill them with the ideas of Kant, Plato, Marx, make them think, make them understand all that. With the same intensity you must give them natural sciences, explain everything we already learned about the Universe and how it works. Only after you do that can a person become a "functional citizen".
P.S. This applies to all kids, even young black drug pushers from the ghetto raised by single moms on welfare. Good education does wonders to everyone.
Bullshit. If parents were responsible for the education, we would still be living in the Stone Age. The society is responsible for children's education and public schools funded by taxes are just one of the ways of cattying out this responsibility.
It must be more than a "few Americans". In Germany a quarter of people do not even know that Earth revolves around the Sun! (source: a representative survey by VDI Nachrichten)
A vast majority of people are not just stupid, they are total illiterate morons. I am convinced that the problem is a systemic one. The commercialisation of TV, the lack of interest from the governments to have a literate informed populace, the inflexible education system that can't change to accomodate the changed audience of students, all these factors contribute to dumbing down of people.
P.S. BTW, you may be wrong about people's knowledge of Britney Spears's name.
"We will bury you" was a bad translation. The meaning of the phrase "My vas zakopaem" was that communism is more effective economic system and the US would eventually lose in a peaceful economic competition. This is indeed true and the development of AI and nanotechnology will relatively soon make capitalism obsolete, replaced by something, which will very closely resemble communism. So by no means was that a threat, just a prediction.
Gorbachev didn't try to "buy time". He wrongly believed that the invisible hand would solve all problems and thus destroyed the Soviet economic system. It was akin to taking IBM or Walmart and breaking it up into thousands of individual companies that MUST deal with each other using free markets. All existing relations (all planning, strategies, supply chains, R&D, everything) must be abandoned. Add to that the fact that noone in those companies had any experience with market economy and noone had a business education. And to top it off, eliminate what was left of the administrative infrastructure (as it happened when Soviet organisations were "violently" replaced by their Russian coutnerparts, eager to get their expensive real estate in the centre of Moscow). Finally, add nationalist elites in the republics that saw all this as a chance to severe their ties (including economic ties) with Russia.
The resulting mess has nothing whatsoever with inefficiency of the Soviet system. The Soviet system had positive economic growth almost every year until its destruction in 1990. And it had world's best science, one of the most powerful economies, one of the best educational system and one of the best welfare system. It's extremely disingenuous (or delusional) to say it "hadn't really worked all that well".
Nope. All these factors are irrelevant (although you were close with N2). The real problem is that people watch too much TV and don't read books.