Sorry, I didn't twig to the fact that you are the original poster.
While my post didn't cite pedagogical research, it did contain an argument, however poorly phrased: I don't think that you've shown that the principles you expressed are in fact central to the success of your school system—even if I grant that it is a successful system.
I still maintain that Finnish society is much more homogenous than that of the U.S., and that this greatly simplifies the challenges of educating children.
Our public school systems do not segregate children according to ability, social status, or wealth—the segregation happens for geographical and demographical reasons. If a child grows up in the inner city of Chicago, that child will attend school there. If a child grows up in a wealthy suburb, the child will go to a school in that suburb (or nearby). We are aware that this system is inherently unfair, even though it does not arise from the old segregation practices that were once typical of the Southern US. However, preventing unfairness in the real world is notoriously difficult.
During the last half of the 20th century, the Federal government has engaged in various efforts to remedy the inherent unfairness of this system. Perhaps the most notorious one was to transport students to distant schools to attain some sort of ideal ethnographic balance. (This was called "school bussing". Nobody liked this system, and I really don't think kids benefitted by being carted around for hours in buses before and after school. It would have made more sense to try to better the local schools. That too has been attempted, both at the Federal and State levels. For example, the State of Texas forces the redistribution of school funds (which are raised through local property taxes) so that poorer school districts are given more money than they would be able to raise from taxes in their local economy.
I base my pedagogical opinions on the insights I gained while seeing to the education of my three daughters, and from what my wife—a teacher with many years of experience—has told me. She actually taught in inner city Chicago schools, and she could tell you some stories about what happens if you just let the children play. Those children are doomed to failure in life if they do not acquire the fundamentals of literacy, and become capable of simple mathematical operations (like counting their change, or balancing a checkbook, should they ever be in a position to have a bank account). There are dedicated teachers, like my wife, who have worked very hard to teach those basic skills as quickly as possible. For a child who has no real home or family, whose peers consider shooting or stabbing people to get money and drugs to be the epitome of a successful life, there is no time for play. Yes that's very sad, but it's also the truth.
By the way, do Finnish schools have multiple tracks, as most European (e.g. German schools, which I am familiar with)? Do you separate students into those who are academically inclined and have scholarly abilities from those who are destined to be mechanics or cosmeticians, and send them to different schools? From what you said, it may be that you do not. Perhaps Finns are so smart that even the plumbers get doctorates.
In the US, the educational system operates on the assumption that all students are equally smart (despite the obvious fact that it isn't so); we send everyone through the same type of schools, and the pressure to go to college is very great on all students, even if the student has no desire whatever to attend college. This has resulted in a lowering of school standards up to and including high school (can't let anyone fail, or the school looks bad), and has caused a corresponding decline in college/university education. —They have to work with the material they've been sent. Besides, if too many students flunk out, then the college will have its funding cut.
So...you've taken the facts and arguments I presented, and called them unscientific—even theological...presumably because you disagree with me. That's called the ad hominem fallacy.
By the way, slashdot discussions are seldom detailed or rigorous enough to be "scientific". The OP was stating his opinions, and I stated mine. We surely didn't have anything I'd call a true exchange of views, or even a good argument. I do think I'm correct in my assertion that if Finland's educational system is as successful as the OP states, then he hasn't shown that it is successful because of the features that he considers to be that system's particular virtues.
Pedagogy is a science? If you don't consider "social sciences" to be an oxymoron, then I guess maybe it's so. What's the scientific backing for the OP's assertion that expecting kids to "learn through play" works? That's one school of thought that's been very prominent among 20th century educational theorists, but there are conflicting views that advocate a more rigorous training in basic skills for beginning learners.
Consider this: could it be that there are some fundamental differences between, say, Finnish primary school kids and American kids? Could there be differences in the educational needs of, say, an inner city Chicago kid and a kid from a "privileged" background (either Finnish or American) that require a different pedagogical approach for each? Maybe it doesn't matter all that much what method you use for kids who come from upper class educated families—or from a typically well-educated and homogenous society like that of Finland. They'll learn no matter what method you use—even despite the methods that are used. But the inner city kids will not learn a thing if they're left to "play"; they have no encouragement at home to learn, and no peer pressure to perform well academically. They have no clue what they need to learn, and do not value learning. They require a teaching method that gives direction and emphasizes basic skills, such as reading, writing and arithmetic.
I don't think you understand the "scale" in use here. The scale is of passing grades, and it was and is used in its entirety. They've simply truncated off the bit of the scale that used to mean "passing" and now means "failing", because "failing" grades don't have a place on the scale at that school any more.
Sure. And pigs fly. What's really going to happen is that "C" is the new "D". It's the grade that is assigned by teachers who are too cowardly to fail students, or who aren't allowed to fail students for various political reasons.
Well, there goes my belief that any European country's educational system must be better than ours.
My country (Finland) has a percentual grading system for high-school's equivalent (we call it lyceum here) is mostly percentual. It's averaged against all participants, so that top 5% always get best possible grade, and down from there. This makes sure that if the test is biased/bad/improper in spite of multiple checks, top people still compete directly against each other, rather then test itself.
In the U.S., we call that "grading on the curve". Such a grading system is indicative of a high tolerance for bad teaching—and for poor test design. If a teacher is so incompetent that he gives a test where the questions are incoherent or the answers he marks as correct are, in fact, false, then what does a score on this test tell you about the student? It tells you nothing—except that maybe the student shares the teacher's erroneous beliefs.
The main point of primary school according to good pedagogy is to teach child to ENJOY LEARNING.
Not really. The objective of primary school is to teach students the basic skills required for learning: reading, writing, and arithmetic.
If the high ranking you report for Finland's educational system is, indeed, meaningful, then I have to say that Finland succeeds despite the methods you have cited, and not because of them. Or perhaps education is just as dismal as the U.S. version everywhere else in the world.
Well, the flag isn't affixed in some permanent way, is it? You can always fly the Jolly Roger. Or the US flag. On second thought, the pirate flag might be considered too cool.
No, it's never worth pointing out a modding mistake. Let the mods fix it. At the best, you're wasting a mod point on you being modded offtopic - (see the reply of mine you replied to) at the worst, you're tempting a dumb moderator to give you an informative mod, like the great grandparent I replied to.
I agree totally! But should one post approval of ignoring trolls, when such a post will inevitably keep the troll in memory? When I saw apoc's post, I had to trace it through to the original troll just to see what all the fuss was about. I bet a lot of people did the same thing. Think of the lost time that could have been put to better use!
And the mod points, of course. Yes, the wasted mod points...that are now going to be wasted on me, too.
Hey, if I were that kind of person, I'd post an anonymous troll, and then a sanctimonious condemnation, and await the inevitable commentary on the condemnation and its equally inevitable sequelae.
Thus creating...An infinitely recursive mod point sink: the Slashdot equivalent of a black hole!
What, pray tell, makes glossy screens "less accurate"? A matte panel is a LCD with a piece of pitted glass in front. A glossy panel is a LCD with a piece of unpitted glass in front.
And neither one gives accurate color rendition, for sufficiently professional values of "accurate". But that's beside the point of the present discussion, I suppose. The glossy screen does give better contrast—because there's no milky haze in front of the black parts of the image being displayed, they look blacker. However, I don't find that this compensates for the annoying reflections I get from the shiny screen.
I understand, dear reader, that you may not find the reflections annoying. I think you should buy whatever screen suits your fancy. The problem is that your fancy will be well suited only if you like shiny screens, because matte screens are next to impossible to find.
I had to buy a laptop for business reasons a couple of months ago. I went to Frys, and found a large selection. Quite a few matched my technical requirements, and I wound up buying a shiny screen. I did not want a shiny screen. But not one of the laptops on display in the whole store had a matte screen. I literally had no choice. (Perhaps I could have shopped around for obscure obsolete laptops on the web, and maybe found one with a frosted screen...but I didn't have time to do that.)
The story is similar with the no-longer-new "wide screen" displays. I hate them. They're fine for watching movies, but not for working with multiple documents and windows. I'm hanging onto my 1200 x 1600 desktop display until it dies. After that, I will have to buy a huge "wide screen" display to get the same real estate, and to prevent that cramped "slit view" feeling every time I get when I work on my new laptop which of course has a wide screen dammit!
My point isn't that you shouldn't be able to buy a laptop or display that's as shiny as you like and proportioned to your tastes. Everyone should get to buy what they want, and can afford. My point—and the source of my anger— is that the marketing cabal that runs the industry has decided to simplify their lives by simplifying our choices: we can have any display we want, as long as it's shiny and narrow. Henry Ford tried to do this with the Model T: as he famously is alleged to have said, "You can have any color Model T you want—as long as it's black." Eventually, competition forced Ford to offer a variety of colors. However, we have now gone a huge step backward: the mega-manufacturers who make all the computer parts and sell them under a variety of brand names have simply decided that they can make more money if they give us no real choices.
Well, there's one choice, of course: how much money you spend. That's where all the marketing schemes are concentrated—in presenting you with an obfuscated range of choices based purely on price range and hyped features. For an example of this, I direct the gentle reader to the way Intel is currently marketing their "i series" CPUs. Do note that the laptop and desktop i series nomenclatures do not have anything that resembles a logical relationship.
Really? Can you find a bug in this...
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
printf("hello, world");
return 0;
}
A bit cryptic, your question is.
Are you saying that including stuff at compilation is safer than relying on DLLs that (by definition) get linked in at runtime? Just a guess of course. Why don't you just say what's on your mind? —or is C the only language you know?
While it's entirely possible that your knowledge of the field in which you hope to obtain a doctorate is mature enough that you should be asking this kind of question, the fact that you have to ask it at all makes me think that this isn't so. Doctoral research and theses usually explore an extremely narrow topic within a much broader discipline. If your interests are so developed that you already know the subject of your doctoral thesis, then how could you have acquired the necessary knowledge of the field without working with relevant scholars—or at least reading their work? Had you done that, you would know exactly who your mentor should be. But then that would mean that you had already done what you are supposed to spend your first couple of years of graduate study doing: learning about the field that you have chosen to specialize in, and identifying a particular interest that you wish to pursue in a thesis.
In my experience, at least, graduate students usually spend the time allotted to the coursework portion of their Ph.D. curriculum gaining facility with the intellectual tools required by their chosen field, learning about this field in general, and most importantly, building relationships with teachers who might further their academic progress. Unless you are a very extraordinary and brilliant student, the normal procedure is not to find a mentor, and then enroll at the university where he is employed. Instead, you identify several universities where you think the interests of the faculty are reasonably compatible with your interests, and apply for admission. Once you are admitted, you work hard, and try to find a teacher with which you "click". Then you talk that teacher into sponsoring you as your dissertation adviser. If that happens, then all you have to do (in addition to the actual doctoral work) is put together a committee of faculty that get along with each other well enough that they can approve your dissertation without tearing each other's throats out in the process. (You have not seen vicious "office politics" until you have had to do with the academic version.)
Yes, of course you can better the odds in your favor. Find some papers you like, and write to the authors about how great their paper is. Tell them you're interested in pursuing graduate study at their institution, and see if you can get a reply. Don't be too forward; they don't know you at this stage, and are not likely to commit themselves to being your "mentor". The best you can hope for is a foot in the door, instead of a door in the face. Good luck!
No actually, "I sold it to a guy at the flea market when I was short of cash" is what you should say. Unless this law applies to all personal transactions also. That would make it easier to buy and sell a gun (here in Texas, anyway) than a cell phone.
You realize this legislation has support from no less a Democrat than Charles Schumer, right? You didn't even have to RTFA, it's right there in the summary.
When it comes to taking away our rights and expanding Government, Democrats and Republicans aren't really all that different. The only difference is which order you lose your rights in.
Yeah, but Chuckie would really like to take away our guns before he makes us register our phones—it's just that the Democrats have finally realized that advocating "gun control" is a losing proposition (that is, they will lose their seats in the next general election). I've never really felt the need to buy an anonymous phone, but who knows when I might need one? I guess I'd better run down to the drugstore and buy a half dozen before the prices go through the roof.
Please mod parent up; this is a lapidary summary, and nothing more need be said.
Of course I'm going to say more. I have a lot of emotional trauma that requires venting. Trauma inflicted on me by Adobe. In fact, it's not just the patches, it's the apps themselves I hate. And I hate Adobe's executives, their dogs, wives, children, houses, golf clubs, and the mothers that gave them all birth.
I have actively distrusted Adobe for several years, ever since they snuck in a stealth updating mechanism (it's called "Adobe online") with an Acrobat patch that makes all other installed Adobe apps call home. All of a sudden, my (perfectly legit) FrameMaker app started to pound on the firewall, asking to talk to its mommy. This happened both at home and at work (where IT was pissed, but what could they do?). What definition of ethics do these people have when they think it's OK to change the behavior of totally unrelated applications while ostensibly patching another?
I think I've got Adobe updates turned off, but occasionally Adobe manages to hack its way into my Windows 7 box and "fixes" something for me. (Wish I could still use Acrobat 5.something, but 64 bit Windows 7 put an end to that.) These guys have delusions of grandeur so vast that they are beginning to confuse themselves with Microsoft.
look at what others do to avoid that pitfall.
[link]
I don't get it. The link directs me to some commercial site that sells (I assume) something or other. A short explanation of what I'm supposed to look for or what this does seems indicated.
Well, that might account for the deterioration of chick quality that I observed in the NYT article.
It says "The California State University" at the top of the tuition info I quoted; if it's not the University of California, what the heck is it, then? Wait...memory is seeping back from the long years that have elapsed since I was a student at UC Berkeley from 1966–1970...I seem to dimly recall a cycle of re-orgs of the California college/university system; maybe this is part of the new—and infinitely more confusing—state of affairs? When I attended Berkeley, there was a college across the Bay called "San Francisco State College". They thought their demonstrations were as good as ours, but of course they were wrong—we, as a University, obviously had better (i.e., more violent and chaotic) demonstration than them. I think the same school is now a University. Are their demonstrations any good? And where is this "California State University" thing if it's not in California, and what is it, if it's not a State University? An ex-junior college?
That voids the rest of your post. To show competency by working you have to a actually be able to get into a job that lets you do that. You could do it 20 years ago, these days its a crapshot. Few, if any, places will hire you for a job that lets you demonstrate any competence without experience or a degree and since the only way to get that experience is to get the job in the first place...
You know, that was, is, and will always be the first problem that must be solved by every inexperienced individual. The smart ones figure it out; the ones who don't get it...don't get anything.
As a history professor, I can safely say it's that kind of thinking that leads students to not come to lecture and instead rely on the interwebs when it comes time to study for exams.
Of course those students fail miserably, while those who attend lecture do much, much better.
And this proves...that people who come to your lectures can quote you more accurately? Come on, I had expected something a bit more incisive from a real academic. You know, something like "history doesn't consist of the mere accretion of memorized 'facts', but in the disciplined analysis of historical events and of their interrelationships". Not that I'd know...my Ph.D. is in Philosophy.
This money is used by the universities/colleges to keep tuition lower...
For state colleges, this is correct. That is why in state tuition is lower than out of state tuition, because the state taxes cover a portion of the college costs. I don't know if private colleges get state funding.
Don't forget that pretty much all accredited colleges and universities get not only state funds (if they are officially state-sponsored), but also Federal funds, even if it's only through Federally guaranteed loans and grants made to the students.
However, that doesn't address the real issue: tuition seems to have been rising steadily over the years. When I went to college, all I had to pay was $70 per quarter—the University of California system still prided itself on being "tuition-free", so they called that $70 a "fee". That was 1966. In 2010, they still call what the students pay "fees", but the amount has gone up:
All students enrolling at the CSU pay the systemwide State University Fee which is currently $4,026 per academic year for undergraduate students enrolling in more than 6 units per term and $2,334 for undergraduates enrolling in 6 or fewer units.... These fees vary by campus. The fee information in this section reflects the combined total of systemwide and campus fees for undergraduates.
Students who are not classified as residents of the state of California must also pay nonresident tuition when enrolling for courses at the CSU. Nonresident tuition is currently assessed at the rate of $372 per semester unit or $248 per quarter unit with an academic year maximum of $11,160.
It looks like in-state tuition is about 4 thousand dollars per year at the University of California. Hmm. That doesn't sound too bad, does it? Aren't these people overreacting just a tad? Also...I remember the chicks as being prettier.
And with limits on education, you get limits on job opportunities. Fine, as long as it it the person who chooses such.
If it is someone else who is already making decent money at a decent job arguing that too many people are advancing their educations... fuck you. With a chainsaw.
It's clear from your diction and your lack of analytical ability that if you ever attended college, you derived little benefit from it. In that case, you would be evidence in favor of the position held by "some experts" in the article. If you were prevented from obtaining an education (and decent manners) by extreme poverty, or are a recent immigrant who has an incomplete acquaintance with English and civilized modes of argumentation, I do apologize.
The argument (the one you attempted to address that is contained in the article that you evidently wouldn't—or couldn't—read) isn't that we should arbitrarily limit people's freedom to pursue academic learning, but that getting a four year college degree doesn't benefit everyone, and that some people would be happier and more productive if they were allowed and encouraged to attend a more practical course of studies. For example, a young person such as the Ms. Hodges mentioned at the start of the article, who ardently desires to attend welding school faces an uphill battle against the expectations of parents and of the prejudices of our educational system. Why shouldn't she be encouraged to become a welder if that's what she wants to do?
In my experience, there is a disadvantage to not having a four year college degree. It has nothing to do with the actual capabilities of the people in question, and everything to do with the baseless but widespread prejudice that if you don't have a college degree, then you shouldn't be promoted or well-paid. I've known very capable people who didn't have that "sheepskin", and were denied promotion for that reason. Some of the most intelligent and informed people I've met had no formal education beyond high school, and some of them led very successful lives despite having to combat the stigma of not having a four year degree.
My own kids taught me a lot about the limitations of the U.S. educational system.
One of my daughters hated high school. When we spoke to her about going to college, it was clear that she regarded this about as favorably as a proposal that she should spend four years in jail. She was getting poor grades in her academic high school courses, and had a low opinion of her own abilities and worth. She did like to mess around with make-up and hair...so we (her parental units) got her into a trade school program that taught her how to do whatever it is that professional beauticians do. In six months, her attitude and self-image improved by about a thousand percent. She now works happily in a top-flight shop, and makes scads of money. I'm proud of her—not because of the money, but because of the determination and intelligence she's shown in mastering her trade.
Another daughter is (tomorrow) graduating from a good public university. She hopes to get a public school position teaching science. I think her education was suitable for her ambitions, and she'll do fine.
Yet another daughter isn't doing as well as she'd like. She got a baccalaureate in psychology, and now works for the technical support group of a major telecom—a job she hates. I'm proud of her also, but I think she would be happier if she had found a more concrete interest, and pursued that instead of the essentially worthless degree in psychology. I think she was poorly served by the notion that a college degree—any college degree—is better than not having one. If she hadn't been put on those fixed academic rails, she might have discovered her own unique path.
This is true, however your target would notice their brakes didn't work before pulling out of the parking space, when they pressed them to put the car into gear. Even if the car had a standard transmission, your target wouldn't get far in the parking lot before realizing something was wrong.
Depends. I once had a near-death experience due to brakes that were pre-failed from the moment I started the car. I was tired from a long day at work, and—as usual—the parking lot was nearly empty, so I didn't have to back up or anything. I just started the pile o' junk that was currently the best transportation I could afford, hit the gas and headed straight for the exit that led to a busy main road with lots of fast-moving cars. I braked as I came to the exit, to wait for a chance to get out. The first clue I had about my brakeless status was that the brake pedal went to the floor without resistance. At this moment, my car was still moving forward (momentum is a terrible thing, almost as much trouble as gravity) to co-occupy a location in space with another heavy metal object traveling at 60 MPH or so orthogonally to my vehicle's sedate but apparently inevitable trajectory.
Luckily, I had an "emergency brake" that did not function via hydraulics, but worked by yanking on wires. Other people call this a "parking brake", for reasons I've never been able to figure out. Anyway, I yanked on the emergency brake for all I was worth...and brought the car to a halt with its nose just far enough into the road to make people honk at me. But not collide, thank God.
I'd like to say that I shot the people who cut my brake line, but actually I'm not important enough to assassinate. I simply had a crap car that had slowly bled out its hydraulic fluid over the course of the long day, and that didn't have one of the new-fangled (in 1982) double (or "crossover") hydraulic systems that prevent losing all your fluid in one go.
So well...what was my point...yeah it's possible to die if you don't have any brakes from the moment you start your car—as long as there's no reason to stop before you enter heavy traffic. And do remember that your "parking brake" can be handy in emergencies.
I like reading all these complaints about revenue raising. They usually precede complaints about lack of decent roads and utilities. Roads don't magic their way onto the ground, the money needs to come from somewhere.
What you are complaining about is a 100% voluntary tax which you are obliged to pay for simply not following basic road rules.
You are seriously suggesting that "traffic enforcement" is a legitimate means of taxation? So all those speed traps, those unreasonably low speed limits, are just a form of taxation? You're completely right, of course—but I don't have to like it. And I'll go to considerable lengths to avoid paying traffic fines (i.e., demand a jury trial). And whenever I serve as a juror in the municipal court, I vote against conviction of all "violators". It's worked for me both ways. You haven't lived until you've made a District Attorney cry. Is this a great country, or what?
But in this case you are just using the legal system in the worst possible way: To screw someone out of a legitimate outcome. If you were fighting an illegal ticket, or something the company legitimately did wrong it would make more sense.
But isn't the city government also using the legal system "in the worst possible way": as a means of raising revenue? The camera company and the city enter into an agreement to share the spoils from these cameras; it has nothing to do with making the roads safer. The moment a camera stops making money because people have changed their behavior, it's shut down.
Also, I believe the OP's point was that a private company does not have the legal power to levy fines. I'm pretty sure that's right.
Seriously, red-light cameras have nothing to do with safety and everything to do with money making.
Agreed. I hate to sound cynical, but I think almost all "traffic enforcement" in the U.S. has much more to do with revenue enhancement than it does with public safety. The ability of almost every sort of jurisdiction (city, county, state) to write traffic ordinances and collect fines from "offenders" represents a temptation that is difficult to resist—and usually isn't.
A couple of years ago, the city of Dallas installed a large number of cameras at intersections, allegedly to reduce the hazard posed by drivers who run red lights. After the cameras had been in operation for a while, it was revealed that about half of them had been shut down. The reason? They simply weren't generating enough revenue. You can read about it here. Note that the article says the cameras reduced red-light running by 50% at some intersections. Sadly, this meant that the cameras weren't paying their way; they became fiscally unproductive...and got shut down.
In a bit of bizarre humor, the mayor is quoted as denying that this means what it obviously does mean—that the purpose of the cameras was never to increase public safety, but to make money, and that their failure to run at a profit led to the decision to reduce the numbers of operating cameras. Never mind that more people will be injured and killed as a result of this decision; in the U.S., traffic "enforcement" must always be profitable. It's a way to make people feel good because something is being done for their "safety", when they are actually being taxed.
The same thing applies to speeding regulations. People have been persuaded that "speed kills", and that the agency that puts up signs with numbers on them know the precise speed that cannot be exceeded without leading to massive death and mayhem. Of course driving insanely fast is dangerous; but following too closely, weaving in and out of lanes, and driving drunk are far more dangerous. However, the greatest emphasis of "traffic enforcement" is speed. It's easy to measure, and because we know that "speed kills", anyone who exceeds the numbers on the sign is some kind of sociopath who must be heavily fined. And woe unto the traffic cop who doesn't have enough speeding tickets to his name when his annual performance review rolls around. Am I saying there are quotas for cops? Of course not...that would be illegal. But every cop knows what will get him promoted, and what will not; every traffic cop knows it's about the money. He has to pay his way, and to do that, he has to write as many tickets as possible. I feel sad every time I'm stopped for speeding—this cop was once a kid who wanted to grow up and be a peace officer, and do good for society. Instead, he's just a tax collector with a gun. That's why I'm always very polite to the officer. Well, that and the gun, of course.
Come on...not everyone that uses Windows regularly plays Minesweeper.
That's because it's a lousy game—there's no guarantee that it can be solved by logic; often you reach a point where you must guess. There's a variant I had on my (now abandoned) Palm Treo that was guaranteed to be solvable by logic. Can't remember who made it now.
Thinking about this, I was at first tempted to say that the first (Windows default) variant of the game is more difficult to solve by a computer (i.e. via an algorithmic solution), while a program could easily solve the second variety. But that's trivial, really—nobody can "solve" the first variant because it involves guessing and guessing of this sort is not "solving"—it's just guessing. And you can write a program that emulates the human behavior of guessing...
Ah, what was I saying? Slow day in my brain today.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, I didn't twig to the fact that you are the original poster.
While my post didn't cite pedagogical research, it did contain an argument, however poorly phrased: I don't think that you've shown that the principles you expressed are in fact central to the success of your school system—even if I grant that it is a successful system.
I still maintain that Finnish society is much more homogenous than that of the U.S., and that this greatly simplifies the challenges of educating children.
Our public school systems do not segregate children according to ability, social status, or wealth—the segregation happens for geographical and demographical reasons. If a child grows up in the inner city of Chicago, that child will attend school there. If a child grows up in a wealthy suburb, the child will go to a school in that suburb (or nearby). We are aware that this system is inherently unfair, even though it does not arise from the old segregation practices that were once typical of the Southern US. However, preventing unfairness in the real world is notoriously difficult.
During the last half of the 20th century, the Federal government has engaged in various efforts to remedy the inherent unfairness of this system. Perhaps the most notorious one was to transport students to distant schools to attain some sort of ideal ethnographic balance. (This was called "school bussing". Nobody liked this system, and I really don't think kids benefitted by being carted around for hours in buses before and after school. It would have made more sense to try to better the local schools. That too has been attempted, both at the Federal and State levels. For example, the State of Texas forces the redistribution of school funds (which are raised through local property taxes) so that poorer school districts are given more money than they would be able to raise from taxes in their local economy.
I base my pedagogical opinions on the insights I gained while seeing to the education of my three daughters, and from what my wife—a teacher with many years of experience—has told me. She actually taught in inner city Chicago schools, and she could tell you some stories about what happens if you just let the children play. Those children are doomed to failure in life if they do not acquire the fundamentals of literacy, and become capable of simple mathematical operations (like counting their change, or balancing a checkbook, should they ever be in a position to have a bank account). There are dedicated teachers, like my wife, who have worked very hard to teach those basic skills as quickly as possible. For a child who has no real home or family, whose peers consider shooting or stabbing people to get money and drugs to be the epitome of a successful life, there is no time for play. Yes that's very sad, but it's also the truth.
By the way, do Finnish schools have multiple tracks, as most European (e.g. German schools, which I am familiar with)? Do you separate students into those who are academically inclined and have scholarly abilities from those who are destined to be mechanics or cosmeticians, and send them to different schools? From what you said, it may be that you do not. Perhaps Finns are so smart that even the plumbers get doctorates.
In the US, the educational system operates on the assumption that all students are equally smart (despite the obvious fact that it isn't so); we send everyone through the same type of schools, and the pressure to go to college is very great on all students, even if the student has no desire whatever to attend college. This has resulted in a lowering of school standards up to and including high school (can't let anyone fail, or the school looks bad), and has caused a corresponding decline in college/university education. —They have to work with the material they've been sent. Besides, if too many students flunk out, then the college will have its funding cut.
This attempt to educate everyone in a hom
So...you've taken the facts and arguments I presented, and called them unscientific—even theological...presumably because you disagree with me. That's called the ad hominem fallacy.
By the way, slashdot discussions are seldom detailed or rigorous enough to be "scientific". The OP was stating his opinions, and I stated mine. We surely didn't have anything I'd call a true exchange of views, or even a good argument. I do think I'm correct in my assertion that if Finland's educational system is as successful as the OP states, then he hasn't shown that it is successful because of the features that he considers to be that system's particular virtues.
Pedagogy is a science? If you don't consider "social sciences" to be an oxymoron, then I guess maybe it's so. What's the scientific backing for the OP's assertion that expecting kids to "learn through play" works? That's one school of thought that's been very prominent among 20th century educational theorists, but there are conflicting views that advocate a more rigorous training in basic skills for beginning learners.
Consider this: could it be that there are some fundamental differences between, say, Finnish primary school kids and American kids? Could there be differences in the educational needs of, say, an inner city Chicago kid and a kid from a "privileged" background (either Finnish or American) that require a different pedagogical approach for each? Maybe it doesn't matter all that much what method you use for kids who come from upper class educated families—or from a typically well-educated and homogenous society like that of Finland. They'll learn no matter what method you use—even despite the methods that are used. But the inner city kids will not learn a thing if they're left to "play"; they have no encouragement at home to learn, and no peer pressure to perform well academically. They have no clue what they need to learn, and do not value learning. They require a teaching method that gives direction and emphasizes basic skills, such as reading, writing and arithmetic.
Sure. And pigs fly. What's really going to happen is that "C" is the new "D". It's the grade that is assigned by teachers who are too cowardly to fail students, or who aren't allowed to fail students for various political reasons.
Well, there goes my belief that any European country's educational system must be better than ours.
In the U.S., we call that "grading on the curve". Such a grading system is indicative of a high tolerance for bad teaching—and for poor test design. If a teacher is so incompetent that he gives a test where the questions are incoherent or the answers he marks as correct are, in fact, false, then what does a score on this test tell you about the student? It tells you nothing—except that maybe the student shares the teacher's erroneous beliefs.
Not really. The objective of primary school is to teach students the basic skills required for learning: reading, writing, and arithmetic.
If the high ranking you report for Finland's educational system is, indeed, meaningful, then I have to say that Finland succeeds despite the methods you have cited, and not because of them. Or perhaps education is just as dismal as the U.S. version everywhere else in the world.
I was wondering how come the DOJ was mandating ADA as the new language in which web pages had to be written. Oh, the horror...
Well, the flag isn't affixed in some permanent way, is it? You can always fly the Jolly Roger. Or the US flag. On second thought, the pirate flag might be considered too cool.
No, it's never worth pointing out a modding mistake. Let the mods fix it. At the best, you're wasting a mod point on you being modded offtopic - (see the reply of mine you replied to) at the worst, you're tempting a dumb moderator to give you an informative mod, like the great grandparent I replied to.
I agree totally! But should one post approval of ignoring trolls, when such a post will inevitably keep the troll in memory? When I saw apoc's post, I had to trace it through to the original troll just to see what all the fuss was about. I bet a lot of people did the same thing. Think of the lost time that could have been put to better use!
And the mod points, of course. Yes, the wasted mod points...that are now going to be wasted on me, too.
Hey, if I were that kind of person, I'd post an anonymous troll, and then a sanctimonious condemnation, and await the inevitable commentary on the condemnation and its equally inevitable sequelae.
Thus creating...An infinitely recursive mod point sink: the Slashdot equivalent of a black hole!
What, pray tell, makes glossy screens "less accurate"? A matte panel is a LCD with a piece of pitted glass in front. A glossy panel is a LCD with a piece of unpitted glass in front.
And neither one gives accurate color rendition, for sufficiently professional values of "accurate". But that's beside the point of the present discussion, I suppose. The glossy screen does give better contrast—because there's no milky haze in front of the black parts of the image being displayed, they look blacker. However, I don't find that this compensates for the annoying reflections I get from the shiny screen.
I understand, dear reader, that you may not find the reflections annoying. I think you should buy whatever screen suits your fancy. The problem is that your fancy will be well suited only if you like shiny screens, because matte screens are next to impossible to find.
I had to buy a laptop for business reasons a couple of months ago. I went to Frys, and found a large selection. Quite a few matched my technical requirements, and I wound up buying a shiny screen. I did not want a shiny screen. But not one of the laptops on display in the whole store had a matte screen. I literally had no choice. (Perhaps I could have shopped around for obscure obsolete laptops on the web, and maybe found one with a frosted screen...but I didn't have time to do that.)
The story is similar with the no-longer-new "wide screen" displays. I hate them. They're fine for watching movies, but not for working with multiple documents and windows. I'm hanging onto my 1200 x 1600 desktop display until it dies. After that, I will have to buy a huge "wide screen" display to get the same real estate, and to prevent that cramped "slit view" feeling every time I get when I work on my new laptop which of course has a wide screen dammit!
My point isn't that you shouldn't be able to buy a laptop or display that's as shiny as you like and proportioned to your tastes. Everyone should get to buy what they want, and can afford. My point—and the source of my anger— is that the marketing cabal that runs the industry has decided to simplify their lives by simplifying our choices: we can have any display we want, as long as it's shiny and narrow. Henry Ford tried to do this with the Model T: as he famously is alleged to have said, "You can have any color Model T you want—as long as it's black." Eventually, competition forced Ford to offer a variety of colors. However, we have now gone a huge step backward: the mega-manufacturers who make all the computer parts and sell them under a variety of brand names have simply decided that they can make more money if they give us no real choices.
Well, there's one choice, of course: how much money you spend. That's where all the marketing schemes are concentrated—in presenting you with an obfuscated range of choices based purely on price range and hyped features. For an example of this, I direct the gentle reader to the way Intel is currently marketing their "i series" CPUs. Do note that the laptop and desktop i series nomenclatures do not have anything that resembles a logical relationship.
Really? Can you find a bug in this... #include <stdio.h> int main() { printf("hello, world"); return 0; }
A bit cryptic, your question is.
Are you saying that including stuff at compilation is safer than relying on DLLs that (by definition) get linked in at runtime? Just a guess of course. Why don't you just say what's on your mind? —or is C the only language you know?
While it's entirely possible that your knowledge of the field in which you hope to obtain a doctorate is mature enough that you should be asking this kind of question, the fact that you have to ask it at all makes me think that this isn't so. Doctoral research and theses usually explore an extremely narrow topic within a much broader discipline. If your interests are so developed that you already know the subject of your doctoral thesis, then how could you have acquired the necessary knowledge of the field without working with relevant scholars—or at least reading their work? Had you done that, you would know exactly who your mentor should be. But then that would mean that you had already done what you are supposed to spend your first couple of years of graduate study doing: learning about the field that you have chosen to specialize in, and identifying a particular interest that you wish to pursue in a thesis.
In my experience, at least, graduate students usually spend the time allotted to the coursework portion of their Ph.D. curriculum gaining facility with the intellectual tools required by their chosen field, learning about this field in general, and most importantly, building relationships with teachers who might further their academic progress. Unless you are a very extraordinary and brilliant student, the normal procedure is not to find a mentor, and then enroll at the university where he is employed. Instead, you identify several universities where you think the interests of the faculty are reasonably compatible with your interests, and apply for admission. Once you are admitted, you work hard, and try to find a teacher with which you "click". Then you talk that teacher into sponsoring you as your dissertation adviser. If that happens, then all you have to do (in addition to the actual doctoral work) is put together a committee of faculty that get along with each other well enough that they can approve your dissertation without tearing each other's throats out in the process. (You have not seen vicious "office politics" until you have had to do with the academic version.)
Yes, of course you can better the odds in your favor. Find some papers you like, and write to the authors about how great their paper is. Tell them you're interested in pursuing graduate study at their institution, and see if you can get a reply. Don't be too forward; they don't know you at this stage, and are not likely to commit themselves to being your "mentor". The best you can hope for is a foot in the door, instead of a door in the face. Good luck!
"Oh, I bought that for my friend Steve."
That's what they all say.
No actually, "I sold it to a guy at the flea market when I was short of cash" is what you should say. Unless this law applies to all personal transactions also. That would make it easier to buy and sell a gun (here in Texas, anyway) than a cell phone.
You realize this legislation has support from no less a Democrat than Charles Schumer, right? You didn't even have to RTFA, it's right there in the summary.
When it comes to taking away our rights and expanding Government, Democrats and Republicans aren't really all that different. The only difference is which order you lose your rights in.
Yeah, but Chuckie would really like to take away our guns before he makes us register our phones—it's just that the Democrats have finally realized that advocating "gun control" is a losing proposition (that is, they will lose their seats in the next general election). I've never really felt the need to buy an anonymous phone, but who knows when I might need one? I guess I'd better run down to the drugstore and buy a half dozen before the prices go through the roof.
Adobe patches are crap in general.
Please mod parent up; this is a lapidary summary, and nothing more need be said.
Of course I'm going to say more. I have a lot of emotional trauma that requires venting. Trauma inflicted on me by Adobe. In fact, it's not just the patches, it's the apps themselves I hate. And I hate Adobe's executives, their dogs, wives, children, houses, golf clubs, and the mothers that gave them all birth.
I have actively distrusted Adobe for several years, ever since they snuck in a stealth updating mechanism (it's called "Adobe online") with an Acrobat patch that makes all other installed Adobe apps call home. All of a sudden, my (perfectly legit) FrameMaker app started to pound on the firewall, asking to talk to its mommy. This happened both at home and at work (where IT was pissed, but what could they do?). What definition of ethics do these people have when they think it's OK to change the behavior of totally unrelated applications while ostensibly patching another?
I think I've got Adobe updates turned off, but occasionally Adobe manages to hack its way into my Windows 7 box and "fixes" something for me. (Wish I could still use Acrobat 5.something, but 64 bit Windows 7 put an end to that.) These guys have delusions of grandeur so vast that they are beginning to confuse themselves with Microsoft.
look at what others do to avoid that pitfall. [link]
I don't get it. The link directs me to some commercial site that sells (I assume) something or other. A short explanation of what I'm supposed to look for or what this does seems indicated.
CSU != UC, dude.
Well, that might account for the deterioration of chick quality that I observed in the NYT article.
It says "The California State University" at the top of the tuition info I quoted; if it's not the University of California, what the heck is it, then? Wait...memory is seeping back from the long years that have elapsed since I was a student at UC Berkeley from 1966–1970...I seem to dimly recall a cycle of re-orgs of the California college/university system; maybe this is part of the new—and infinitely more confusing—state of affairs? When I attended Berkeley, there was a college across the Bay called "San Francisco State College". They thought their demonstrations were as good as ours, but of course they were wrong—we, as a University, obviously had better (i.e., more violent and chaotic) demonstration than them. I think the same school is now a University. Are their demonstrations any good? And where is this "California State University" thing if it's not in California, and what is it, if it's not a State University? An ex-junior college?
That voids the rest of your post. To show competency by working you have to a actually be able to get into a job that lets you do that. You could do it 20 years ago, these days its a crapshot. Few, if any, places will hire you for a job that lets you demonstrate any competence without experience or a degree and since the only way to get that experience is to get the job in the first place...
You know, that was, is, and will always be the first problem that must be solved by every inexperienced individual. The smart ones figure it out; the ones who don't get it...don't get anything.
As a history professor, I can safely say it's that kind of thinking that leads students to not come to lecture and instead rely on the interwebs when it comes time to study for exams.
Of course those students fail miserably, while those who attend lecture do much, much better.
And this proves...that people who come to your lectures can quote you more accurately? Come on, I had expected something a bit more incisive from a real academic. You know, something like "history doesn't consist of the mere accretion of memorized 'facts', but in the disciplined analysis of historical events and of their interrelationships". Not that I'd know...my Ph.D. is in Philosophy.
This money is used by the universities/colleges to keep tuition lower...
For state colleges, this is correct. That is why in state tuition is lower than out of state tuition, because the state taxes cover a portion of the college costs. I don't know if private colleges get state funding.
Don't forget that pretty much all accredited colleges and universities get not only state funds (if they are officially state-sponsored), but also Federal funds, even if it's only through Federally guaranteed loans and grants made to the students.
However, that doesn't address the real issue: tuition seems to have been rising steadily over the years. When I went to college, all I had to pay was $70 per quarter—the University of California system still prided itself on being "tuition-free", so they called that $70 a "fee". That was 1966. In 2010, they still call what the students pay "fees", but the amount has gone up:
It looks like in-state tuition is about 4 thousand dollars per year at the University of California. Hmm. That doesn't sound too bad, does it? Aren't these people overreacting just a tad? Also...I remember the chicks as being prettier.
And with limits on education, you get limits on job opportunities. Fine, as long as it it the person who chooses such.
If it is someone else who is already making decent money at a decent job arguing that too many people are advancing their educations ... fuck you. With a chainsaw.
It's clear from your diction and your lack of analytical ability that if you ever attended college, you derived little benefit from it. In that case, you would be evidence in favor of the position held by "some experts" in the article. If you were prevented from obtaining an education (and decent manners) by extreme poverty, or are a recent immigrant who has an incomplete acquaintance with English and civilized modes of argumentation, I do apologize.
The argument (the one you attempted to address that is contained in the article that you evidently wouldn't—or couldn't—read) isn't that we should arbitrarily limit people's freedom to pursue academic learning, but that getting a four year college degree doesn't benefit everyone, and that some people would be happier and more productive if they were allowed and encouraged to attend a more practical course of studies. For example, a young person such as the Ms. Hodges mentioned at the start of the article, who ardently desires to attend welding school faces an uphill battle against the expectations of parents and of the prejudices of our educational system. Why shouldn't she be encouraged to become a welder if that's what she wants to do?
In my experience, there is a disadvantage to not having a four year college degree. It has nothing to do with the actual capabilities of the people in question, and everything to do with the baseless but widespread prejudice that if you don't have a college degree, then you shouldn't be promoted or well-paid. I've known very capable people who didn't have that "sheepskin", and were denied promotion for that reason. Some of the most intelligent and informed people I've met had no formal education beyond high school, and some of them led very successful lives despite having to combat the stigma of not having a four year degree.
My own kids taught me a lot about the limitations of the U.S. educational system.
One of my daughters hated high school. When we spoke to her about going to college, it was clear that she regarded this about as favorably as a proposal that she should spend four years in jail. She was getting poor grades in her academic high school courses, and had a low opinion of her own abilities and worth. She did like to mess around with make-up and hair...so we (her parental units) got her into a trade school program that taught her how to do whatever it is that professional beauticians do. In six months, her attitude and self-image improved by about a thousand percent. She now works happily in a top-flight shop, and makes scads of money. I'm proud of her—not because of the money, but because of the determination and intelligence she's shown in mastering her trade.
Another daughter is (tomorrow) graduating from a good public university. She hopes to get a public school position teaching science. I think her education was suitable for her ambitions, and she'll do fine.
Yet another daughter isn't doing as well as she'd like. She got a baccalaureate in psychology, and now works for the technical support group of a major telecom—a job she hates. I'm proud of her also, but I think she would be happier if she had found a more concrete interest, and pursued that instead of the essentially worthless degree in psychology. I think she was poorly served by the notion that a college degree—any college degree—is better than not having one. If she hadn't been put on those fixed academic rails, she might have discovered her own unique path.
This is true, however your target would notice their brakes didn't work before pulling out of the parking space, when they pressed them to put the car into gear. Even if the car had a standard transmission, your target wouldn't get far in the parking lot before realizing something was wrong.
Depends. I once had a near-death experience due to brakes that were pre-failed from the moment I started the car. I was tired from a long day at work, and—as usual—the parking lot was nearly empty, so I didn't have to back up or anything. I just started the pile o' junk that was currently the best transportation I could afford, hit the gas and headed straight for the exit that led to a busy main road with lots of fast-moving cars. I braked as I came to the exit, to wait for a chance to get out. The first clue I had about my brakeless status was that the brake pedal went to the floor without resistance. At this moment, my car was still moving forward (momentum is a terrible thing, almost as much trouble as gravity) to co-occupy a location in space with another heavy metal object traveling at 60 MPH or so orthogonally to my vehicle's sedate but apparently inevitable trajectory.
Luckily, I had an "emergency brake" that did not function via hydraulics, but worked by yanking on wires. Other people call this a "parking brake", for reasons I've never been able to figure out. Anyway, I yanked on the emergency brake for all I was worth...and brought the car to a halt with its nose just far enough into the road to make people honk at me. But not collide, thank God.
I'd like to say that I shot the people who cut my brake line, but actually I'm not important enough to assassinate. I simply had a crap car that had slowly bled out its hydraulic fluid over the course of the long day, and that didn't have one of the new-fangled (in 1982) double (or "crossover") hydraulic systems that prevent losing all your fluid in one go.
So well...what was my point...yeah it's possible to die if you don't have any brakes from the moment you start your car—as long as there's no reason to stop before you enter heavy traffic. And do remember that your "parking brake" can be handy in emergencies.
I like reading all these complaints about revenue raising. They usually precede complaints about lack of decent roads and utilities. Roads don't magic their way onto the ground, the money needs to come from somewhere. What you are complaining about is a 100% voluntary tax which you are obliged to pay for simply not following basic road rules.
You are seriously suggesting that "traffic enforcement" is a legitimate means of taxation? So all those speed traps, those unreasonably low speed limits, are just a form of taxation? You're completely right, of course—but I don't have to like it. And I'll go to considerable lengths to avoid paying traffic fines (i.e., demand a jury trial). And whenever I serve as a juror in the municipal court, I vote against conviction of all "violators". It's worked for me both ways. You haven't lived until you've made a District Attorney cry. Is this a great country, or what?
But in this case you are just using the legal system in the worst possible way: To screw someone out of a legitimate outcome. If you were fighting an illegal ticket, or something the company legitimately did wrong it would make more sense.
But isn't the city government also using the legal system "in the worst possible way": as a means of raising revenue? The camera company and the city enter into an agreement to share the spoils from these cameras; it has nothing to do with making the roads safer. The moment a camera stops making money because people have changed their behavior, it's shut down.
Also, I believe the OP's point was that a private company does not have the legal power to levy fines. I'm pretty sure that's right.
I can easily believe that, but lengthened yellow lights also lead to more people trying to rush through on yellow.
But if you lengthen yellow light, don't you get red? Heck, make the wavelength large enough, you'll get infrared, which is darn hard to see.
Of course in my case, it would make no difference, as I see all lights as various shades of blue. Except in my rearview mirror of course...
Seriously, red-light cameras have nothing to do with safety and everything to do with money making.
Agreed. I hate to sound cynical, but I think almost all "traffic enforcement" in the U.S. has much more to do with revenue enhancement than it does with public safety. The ability of almost every sort of jurisdiction (city, county, state) to write traffic ordinances and collect fines from "offenders" represents a temptation that is difficult to resist—and usually isn't.
A couple of years ago, the city of Dallas installed a large number of cameras at intersections, allegedly to reduce the hazard posed by drivers who run red lights. After the cameras had been in operation for a while, it was revealed that about half of them had been shut down. The reason? They simply weren't generating enough revenue. You can read about it here. Note that the article says the cameras reduced red-light running by 50% at some intersections. Sadly, this meant that the cameras weren't paying their way; they became fiscally unproductive...and got shut down.
In a bit of bizarre humor, the mayor is quoted as denying that this means what it obviously does mean—that the purpose of the cameras was never to increase public safety, but to make money, and that their failure to run at a profit led to the decision to reduce the numbers of operating cameras. Never mind that more people will be injured and killed as a result of this decision; in the U.S., traffic "enforcement" must always be profitable. It's a way to make people feel good because something is being done for their "safety", when they are actually being taxed.
The same thing applies to speeding regulations. People have been persuaded that "speed kills", and that the agency that puts up signs with numbers on them know the precise speed that cannot be exceeded without leading to massive death and mayhem. Of course driving insanely fast is dangerous; but following too closely, weaving in and out of lanes, and driving drunk are far more dangerous. However, the greatest emphasis of "traffic enforcement" is speed. It's easy to measure, and because we know that "speed kills", anyone who exceeds the numbers on the sign is some kind of sociopath who must be heavily fined. And woe unto the traffic cop who doesn't have enough speeding tickets to his name when his annual performance review rolls around. Am I saying there are quotas for cops? Of course not...that would be illegal. But every cop knows what will get him promoted, and what will not; every traffic cop knows it's about the money. He has to pay his way, and to do that, he has to write as many tickets as possible. I feel sad every time I'm stopped for speeding—this cop was once a kid who wanted to grow up and be a peace officer, and do good for society. Instead, he's just a tax collector with a gun. That's why I'm always very polite to the officer. Well, that and the gun, of course.
Come on...not everyone that uses Windows regularly plays Minesweeper.
That's because it's a lousy game—there's no guarantee that it can be solved by logic; often you reach a point where you must guess. There's a variant I had on my (now abandoned) Palm Treo that was guaranteed to be solvable by logic. Can't remember who made it now.
Thinking about this, I was at first tempted to say that the first (Windows default) variant of the game is more difficult to solve by a computer (i.e. via an algorithmic solution), while a program could easily solve the second variety. But that's trivial, really—nobody can "solve" the first variant because it involves guessing and guessing of this sort is not "solving"—it's just guessing. And you can write a program that emulates the human behavior of guessing...
Ah, what was I saying? Slow day in my brain today.