OT? American politics
 

In American politics, ignorance has become a virtue. How was it allowed to
happen?

OT? American politics
 

"Getting really tired of this political stuff" Try wrote
in message ...
In American politics, ignorance has become a virtue. How was it allowed
to happen?

Are you counting yourself among the ignorant, or have you escaped that fate?
And, if the latter, why don't you tell us how you became educated about it?

--
Ed Huntress

OT? American politics
 

On Nov 16, 9:18*am, "Getting really tired of this political stuff"
Try wrote:
In American politics, ignorance has become a virtue. *How was it allowed to
happen?

The Left resorts to Big Lie propaganda techniques when logic and the
lessons of history don't support their agenda.

OT? American politics
 

"Getting really tired of this political stuff" Try wrote:

In American politics, ignorance has become a virtue. How was it allowed to
happen?

It was planned. Ignorant people are easier to keep in a perpetual state of voting for
things they never will obtain.

Thank the NEA.

Wes

OT? American politics
 

"Wes" wrote in message
...
"Getting really tired of this political stuff" Try
wrote:

In American politics, ignorance has become a virtue. How was it allowed
to
happen?

It was planned. Ignorant people are easier to keep in a perpetual state
of voting for
things they never will obtain.

Thank the NEA.

Wes

Well, my son is an NEA product. 'Want to take him on? I'll even give you
odds, on economics, American history, English, calculus, Latin, French, and
statistics.

Wes, I won't take him on anymore myself, except in political science and
engineering. And engineering is vocational training, not education.

Would you like me to arrange a take-home test? g

--
Ed Huntress

OT? American politics
 

"Ed Huntress" wrote:

Well, my son is an NEA product. 'Want to take him on? I'll even give you
odds, on economics, American history, English, calculus, Latin, French, and
statistics.

Wes, I won't take him on anymore myself, except in political science and
engineering. And engineering is vocational training, not education.

Would you like me to arrange a take-home test? g


Ed, your son's outcome is the result of your involvement in his education. I doubt you
just handed him over to the public schools and said good luck.


Wes

OT? American politics
 

On Nov 16, 6:18*am, "Getting really tired of this political stuff"
Try wrote:
In American politics, ignorance has become a virtue. *How was it allowed to
happen?

Unhappy with the election I see.

Actually it was the Republican voter who saw through
the Republican smoke screen and chose the best
person for the job. I applaud them.

dennis
in nca

OT? American politics
 

"Wes" wrote in message
...
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

Well, my son is an NEA product. 'Want to take him on? I'll even give you
odds, on economics, American history, English, calculus, Latin, French,
and
statistics.

Wes, I won't take him on anymore myself, except in political science and
engineering. And engineering is vocational training, not education.

Would you like me to arrange a take-home test? g


Ed, your son's outcome is the result of your involvement in his education.
I doubt you
just handed him over to the public schools and said good luck.

I'd like to take more credit, and I do take some credit for his writing and
analysis skills. But the rest is all him and his teachers. I made sure he
never fell behind in math, I taught him how to criticize his own writing and
that of others, and I taught him some things about how to do research. After
that, he was on his own.

We've discussed this before, but I firmly believe that the problem is
primarily with parents and communities. The little town I live in has the
nickname "The Brainy Boro." One of our post offices is even called "Brainy
Boro Station." The education tradition is strong here, and people move here
just to get their kids into our schools. It's not that we have the highest
SAT scores or the highest percentage going on to four-year colleges; we
don't. It's just that education is taken seriously.

But it's an NEA school system. The problem, in my view, is not how the
teachers are organized. It's what the teachers have to work with -- not the
kids' naturally abilities, but the kind of environment and support they have
at home. Our schools attract good teachers because they know they can really
get things done here.

That's what's broken down. That's why we're floundering around with
desperate ideas about education, trying to compensate for something that
can't be compensated. Until we restore that parental attitude and the
community's respect for education, like Asian immigrants have here, we'll
get nowhere.

One man's opinion.

--
Ed Huntress

OT? American politics
 

"Ed Huntress" wrote: (clip) I'd like to take more credit, and I do take
some credit for his writing and
analysis skills. But the rest is all him and his teachers. (clip) Until
we restore (clip) community's respect for education, (clip) we'll get
nowhere. (clipped for brevity and focus, not to change meaning.)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Ed, you deserve credit for more than that. You serve as a role model, by
your performance, your attitudes, your conversation, the place you choose to
live (where the community DOES respect education) and in countless other
ways that are hard to isolate. Just the fact that you care whether he
studies, and he knows that, is an influence of immeasurable value. Don't be
so modest.

OT? American politics
 

"rigger" wrote in message
...
On Nov 16, 6:18 am, "Getting really tired of this political stuff"
Try wrote:
In American politics, ignorance has become a virtue. How was it allowed to
happen?

Unhappy with the election I see.

Actually no, I believe he is the best man for the job.

OT? American politics
 

In American politics, ignorance has become a virtue. How was it allowed
to
happen?

It was planned. Ignorant people are easier to keep in a perpetual state
of voting for
things they never will obtain.

Thank the NEA.

Wes

Well, my son is an NEA product. 'Want to take him on? I'll even give you
odds, on economics, American history, English, calculus, Latin, French,
and
statistics.

Wes, I won't take him on anymore myself, except in political science and
engineering. And engineering is vocational training, not education.

Would you like me to arrange a take-home test? g

--
Ed Huntress


Hey, what I'd like to know is how anyone winds up learning Latin? I don't
even know where they teach that anymore. It's been a dead language for so
long I am surprised to hear that anyone is still learning it. For one thing,
where does one use it and for another, why would a person learn it? Is your
son a linguist or speech expert or something along those lines?

Hawke

OT? American politics
 

"Hawke" wrote in message
...


In American politics, ignorance has become a virtue. How was it
allowed
to
happen?

It was planned. Ignorant people are easier to keep in a perpetual
state
of voting for
things they never will obtain.

Thank the NEA.

Wes

Well, my son is an NEA product. 'Want to take him on? I'll even give you
odds, on economics, American history, English, calculus, Latin, French,
and
statistics.

Wes, I won't take him on anymore myself, except in political science and
engineering. And engineering is vocational training, not education.

Would you like me to arrange a take-home test? g

--
Ed Huntress


Hey, what I'd like to know is how anyone winds up learning Latin? I don't
even know where they teach that anymore.

All good liberal arts colleges and universities. Washington and Lee, which
he attends, is ranked 15th in the country.

It's been a dead language for so
long I am surprised to hear that anyone is still learning it. For one
thing,
where does one use it and for another, why would a person learn it?

There is no "where" that you use it, unless you plan to be a Catholic
priest. As for why, if you have to ask, don't waste your time. It's very
difficult and extremely time-consuming. It's not for the average university
student. If you plan a life of serious scholarship, however, it's important.

However, at the high school level, it's the fastest-growing language in
American schools. Again, they're not your average schools, nor your average
students.

Is your
son a linguist or speech expert or something along those lines?

He's an economics major.

--
Ed Huntress

OT? American politics
 

"Leo Lichtman" wrote in message
...

"Ed Huntress" wrote: (clip) I'd like to take more credit, and I do take
some credit for his writing and
analysis skills. But the rest is all him and his teachers. (clip) Until
we restore (clip) community's respect for education, (clip) we'll get
nowhere. (clipped for brevity and focus, not to change meaning.)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Ed, you deserve credit for more than that. You serve as a role model, by
your performance, your attitudes, your conversation, the place you choose
to live (where the community DOES respect education) and in countless
other ways that are hard to isolate. Just the fact that you care whether
he studies, and he knows that, is an influence of immeasurable value.
Don't be so modest.

Thanks for the compliment, Leo, but the important thing, I believe, is that
by far the largest problem faced by education in this country is the lack of
parental support and community respect for education. My involvement was no
more and no less than I think every parent should contribute.

Imagine if we honored education and teachers the way we honor sports and
sports heroes. It would turn public education around in a heartbeat.

--
Ed Huntress

OT? American politics
 

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

"Wes" wrote in message
...
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

Well, my son is an NEA product. 'Want to take him on? I'll even give you
odds, on economics, American history, English, calculus, Latin, French,
and
statistics.

Wes, I won't take him on anymore myself, except in political science and
engineering. And engineering is vocational training, not education.

Would you like me to arrange a take-home test? g


Ed, your son's outcome is the result of your involvement in his
education. I doubt you
just handed him over to the public schools and said good luck.

I'd like to take more credit, and I do take some credit for his writing
and analysis skills. But the rest is all him and his teachers. I made sure
he never fell behind in math, I taught him how to criticize his own
writing and that of others, and I taught him some things about how to do
research. After that, he was on his own.

We've discussed this before, but I firmly believe that the problem is
primarily with parents and communities. The little town I live in has the
nickname "The Brainy Boro." One of our post offices is even called "Brainy
Boro Station." The education tradition is strong here, and people move
here just to get their kids into our schools. It's not that we have the
highest SAT scores or the highest percentage going on to four-year
colleges; we don't. It's just that education is taken seriously.

But it's an NEA school system. The problem, in my view, is not how the
teachers are organized. It's what the teachers have to work with -- not
the kids' naturally abilities, but the kind of environment and support
they have at home. Our schools attract good teachers because they know
they can really get things done here.

That's what's broken down. That's why we're floundering around with
desperate ideas about education, trying to compensate for something that
can't be compensated. Until we restore that parental attitude and the
community's respect for education, like Asian immigrants have here, we'll
get nowhere.

One man's opinion.

--
Ed Huntress



Ed,

I took the liberty of sending a copy of this post of yours to my sister
(a math teacher in Oklahoma) with a request for comment.

Here's her reply:
____________________________

Thank you so much for sending that post. It nearly made me cry. I've been
bombarded for several years now by emails from people who want to blame
public education for everything.... drugs, gangs, racial relations,
political apathy, the economy.... everything. It's all about blaming
somebody instead of doing something about the problems.

When I was in high school, we heard "horror" stories about how the Soviets
placed their young children in preschools and prepped them to pass
examinations all along the way until they produced superior workers. The
parents didn't marry, but turned their offspring over to the State for
education/training in whatever areas the State deemed appropriate. Sound
familiar?

When we have parents who choose not to participate in their children's
educations, our system becomes dangerously close to the Soviet objective.
What do I face in the classroom every day? Here in rural Oklahoma, I see
students whose parents become angry with the teachers if their offspring do
not make straight A's. They want the kids to be superstars in football or
cheerleading, but tell us that their kids are too busy to do homework after
school. We should be making better use of classtime so that the kids can
participate in extracurricular activities without hinderance. Or we have
students who complain that they cannot do their homework because they have
to go to work after school. Are they supporting their families? No,
they're making car payments for vehicles that I cannot afford to drive.

We have distanced ourselves from some friends in Dallas because they
continually send emails telling me how terrible public education is. I am
personally offended every single time. Nevermind he dropped out of high
school to become a professional bowler and spent the last years unemployed
before going on social security. When she lost her job, she drew
unemployment until her social security checks started.

These people are right about one thing: the public schools are no
substitute for effective parenting. We aren't supposed to be. So, I'm glad
when parents fulfill their responsibilities to teach their children about
drug abuse, sex, alcohol abuse, religion, morals, bullying, tobacco, and
multicultural issues. If they'd do their job, I could spend precious class
time teaching them math instead of having to worry about those issues. The
message I'd send to the parents? I'd tell them that there's more to being a
parent than giving birth and making orthodontist payments and piano lessons.

So, thank your friends on the blog for me. I need a tissue.

________________________________

Yes, I know that Usenet isn't a blog but SHE doesn't.

OT? American politics
 

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

"Leo Lichtman" wrote in message
...

"Ed Huntress" wrote: (clip) I'd like to take more credit, and I do take
some credit for his writing and
analysis skills. But the rest is all him and his teachers. (clip) Until
we restore (clip) community's respect for education, (clip) we'll get
nowhere. (clipped for brevity and focus, not to change meaning.)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Ed, you deserve credit for more than that. You serve as a role model, by
your performance, your attitudes, your conversation, the place you choose
to live (where the community DOES respect education) and in countless
other ways that are hard to isolate. Just the fact that you care whether
he studies, and he knows that, is an influence of immeasurable value.
Don't be so modest.

Thanks for the compliment, Leo, but the important thing, I believe, is
that by far the largest problem faced by education in this country is the
lack of parental support and community respect for education.

I may be living proof that you're right on the money, Ed. I come from a
family that does not have education, nor was it promoted. I was not
taught to study, with teachers coming to the conclusion that I simply
couldn't learn when I was in the 5th grade. The school, then, had no
special programs for kids like me-----who shocked the hell out of the
administrators when I was tested and found to be performing @ 9th grade
level. I badly needed some guidance, to get me to see the importance of
getting a good education, and understanding the ramifications of not doing
so.

Sadly, it was not uncommon for many to have good paying jobs back then, jobs
that would require a degree today. For example, many of the engineers on
the Sergeant guided missile project had no degree, but could do the work.
That wouldn't happen today, but it gave me the hope of landing a decent job.
I was lucky. I landed on my feet.

I hold no one responsible for my lack of education but myself, but it would
be interesting to see how I might have turned out had I been encouraged to
study and to have gone on to college.

Harold






My involvement was no
more and no less than I think every parent should contribute.

Imagine if we honored education and teachers the way we honor sports and
sports heroes. It would turn public education around in a heartbeat.

--
Ed Huntress

OT? American politics
 

"RAM³" wrote in message
om...
"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

"Wes" wrote in message
...
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

Well, my son is an NEA product. 'Want to take him on? I'll even give you
odds, on economics, American history, English, calculus, Latin, French,
and
statistics.

Wes, I won't take him on anymore myself, except in political science and
engineering. And engineering is vocational training, not education.

Would you like me to arrange a take-home test? g


Ed, your son's outcome is the result of your involvement in his
education. I doubt you
just handed him over to the public schools and said good luck.

I'd like to take more credit, and I do take some credit for his writing
and analysis skills. But the rest is all him and his teachers. I made
sure he never fell behind in math, I taught him how to criticize his own
writing and that of others, and I taught him some things about how to do
research. After that, he was on his own.

We've discussed this before, but I firmly believe that the problem is
primarily with parents and communities. The little town I live in has the
nickname "The Brainy Boro." One of our post offices is even called
"Brainy Boro Station." The education tradition is strong here, and people
move here just to get their kids into our schools. It's not that we have
the highest SAT scores or the highest percentage going on to four-year
colleges; we don't. It's just that education is taken seriously.

But it's an NEA school system. The problem, in my view, is not how the
teachers are organized. It's what the teachers have to work with -- not
the kids' naturally abilities, but the kind of environment and support
they have at home. Our schools attract good teachers because they know
they can really get things done here.

That's what's broken down. That's why we're floundering around with
desperate ideas about education, trying to compensate for something that
can't be compensated. Until we restore that parental attitude and the
community's respect for education, like Asian immigrants have here, we'll
get nowhere.

One man's opinion.

--
Ed Huntress



Ed,

I took the liberty of sending a copy of this post of yours to my sister
(a math teacher in Oklahoma) with a request for comment.

Here's her reply:
____________________________

Thank you so much for sending that post. It nearly made me cry. I've
been bombarded for several years now by emails from people who want to
blame public education for everything.... drugs, gangs, racial relations,
political apathy, the economy.... everything. It's all about blaming
somebody instead of doing something about the problems.

When I was in high school, we heard "horror" stories about how the Soviets
placed their young children in preschools and prepped them to pass
examinations all along the way until they produced superior workers. The
parents didn't marry, but turned their offspring over to the State for
education/training in whatever areas the State deemed appropriate. Sound
familiar?

When we have parents who choose not to participate in their children's
educations, our system becomes dangerously close to the Soviet objective.
What do I face in the classroom every day? Here in rural Oklahoma, I see
students whose parents become angry with the teachers if their offspring
do not make straight A's. They want the kids to be superstars in football
or cheerleading, but tell us that their kids are too busy to do homework
after school. We should be making better use of classtime so that the
kids can participate in extracurricular activities without hinderance. Or
we have students who complain that they cannot do their homework because
they have to go to work after school. Are they supporting their families?
No, they're making car payments for vehicles that I cannot afford to
drive.

We have distanced ourselves from some friends in Dallas because they
continually send emails telling me how terrible public education is. I am
personally offended every single time. Nevermind he dropped out of high
school to become a professional bowler and spent the last years unemployed
before going on social security. When she lost her job, she drew
unemployment until her social security checks started.

These people are right about one thing: the public schools are no
substitute for effective parenting. We aren't supposed to be. So, I'm
glad when parents fulfill their responsibilities to teach their children
about drug abuse, sex, alcohol abuse, religion, morals, bullying, tobacco,
and multicultural issues. If they'd do their job, I could spend precious
class time teaching them math instead of having to worry about those
issues. The message I'd send to the parents? I'd tell them that there's
more to being a parent than giving birth and making orthodontist payments
and piano lessons.

So, thank your friends on the blog for me. I need a tissue.

________________________________

Yes, I know that Usenet isn't a blog but SHE doesn't.

No matter. She has the idea.

I sympathize with her. Before I graduated from high school I had attended 11
schools in 7 towns, in 5 different states. I experienced very good
(Princeton, NJ, where I graduated) and very bad (Hagerstown, MD; Ft.
Lauderdale, FL). It's got to be miserable for teachers to work today in
places where the parents don't even recognize that they're a big part of the
problem.

Here's something your sister may appreciate. When our kids entered middle
school, the head of the math department had a meeting with all of us and
strongly suggested we get a book titled _Algebra to Go_, 523 pages, written
mostly for parents to help their kids with math homework. More than half of
the parents bought it. Parents even called each other sometimes to ask math
questions. g

That's what it takes if we're going to have a successful economy in a
globalized world. Without a good education, our kids will be roadkill.
There's no magic formula that's going to fix it, except for involved parents
and community respect for education.

--
Ed Huntress

OT? American politics
 

"Ed Huntress" wrote:

Thanks for the compliment, Leo, but the important thing, I believe, is that
by far the largest problem faced by education in this country is the lack of
parental support and community respect for education. My involvement was no
more and no less than I think every parent should contribute.

Leo did a fine job of pointing out that you are the major force in your sons success.

I will heartily agree that parents that don't give a damn are a huge part of the problem.
My disgust for the NEA is that it is a labor union, a union that activity works to keep
parents from having the options to take their kids out of systems that the parents view as
failed. In other words, they, the NEA, actively work to hold children hostage.

Parents that want to put their children in schools more in line with their values and
where the parents believe the children will thrive are saddled by having pay for public
education and then private education.

Whenever there is an effort to create vouchers to let those parents that care move their
kids to where other parents also care, you can count on the NEA to be a major force
opposing it.

Wes

Wes

OT? American politics
 

____________________________

Thank you so much for sending that post. It nearly made me cry. I've
been bombarded for several years now by emails from people who want to
blame public education for everything.... drugs, gangs, racial
relations, political apathy, the economy.... everything. It's all about
blaming somebody instead of doing something about the problems.

When I was in high school, we heard "horror" stories about how the
Soviets placed their young children in preschools and prepped them to
pass examinations all along the way until they produced superior workers.
The parents didn't marry, but turned their offspring over to the State
for education/training in whatever areas the State deemed appropriate.
Sound familiar?

When we have parents who choose not to participate in their children's
educations, our system becomes dangerously close to the Soviet objective.
What do I face in the classroom every day? Here in rural Oklahoma, I see
students whose parents become angry with the teachers if their offspring
do not make straight A's. They want the kids to be superstars in
football or cheerleading, but tell us that their kids are too busy to do
homework after school. We should be making better use of classtime so
that the kids can participate in extracurricular activities without
hinderance. Or we have students who complain that they cannot do their
homework because they have to go to work after school. Are they
supporting their families? No, they're making car payments for vehicles
that I cannot afford to drive.

We have distanced ourselves from some friends in Dallas because they
continually send emails telling me how terrible public education is. I
am personally offended every single time. Nevermind he dropped out of
high school to become a professional bowler and spent the last years
unemployed before going on social security. When she lost her job, she
drew unemployment until her social security checks started.

These people are right about one thing: the public schools are no
substitute for effective parenting. We aren't supposed to be. So, I'm
glad when parents fulfill their responsibilities to teach their children
about drug abuse, sex, alcohol abuse, religion, morals, bullying,
tobacco, and multicultural issues. If they'd do their job, I could spend
precious class time teaching them math instead of having to worry about
those issues. The message I'd send to the parents? I'd tell them that
there's more to being a parent than giving birth and making orthodontist
payments and piano lessons.

So, thank your friends on the blog for me. I need a tissue.

Ignorant politicians are elected by ignorant people. US education, like the
US health system is notorious for its failures. Fundamentalist religion make
you stupid. The US is the only rich country in which fundamentalism is vast
and growing. Modern fundamentalists reject the science of Darwinian
evolution and accept the pseudoscience of Social Darwinism. The US is is
devolving the control of education to local authorities allowing teaching to
be dominated by the views of ignorant aristocracy. An intellectual blockade
is imposed to keep out any ideas that might threaten social order.

OT? American politics
 

On Sun, 16 Nov 2008 22:13:52 -0500, the infamous "Ed Huntress"
scrawled the following:


"Leo Lichtman" wrote in message
.. .

"Ed Huntress" wrote: (clip) I'd like to take more credit, and I do take
some credit for his writing and
analysis skills. But the rest is all him and his teachers. (clip) Until
we restore (clip) community's respect for education, (clip) we'll get
nowhere. (clipped for brevity and focus, not to change meaning.)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Ed, you deserve credit for more than that. You serve as a role model, by
your performance, your attitudes, your conversation, the place you choose
to live (where the community DOES respect education) and in countless
other ways that are hard to isolate. Just the fact that you care whether
he studies, and he knows that, is an influence of immeasurable value.
Don't be so modest.

Thanks for the compliment, Leo, but the important thing, I believe, is that
by far the largest problem faced by education in this country is the lack of
parental support and community respect for education. My involvement was no
more and no less than I think every parent should contribute.

Yes, parental involvement is extremely important, and good
_interested_ teachers can make that already good student great.
Creating an environment which encourages curiosity is of utmost
importance, and both teachers and parents have a part there. I just
wish more people _cared_.


Imagine if we honored education and teachers the way we honor sports and
sports heroes. It would turn public education around in a heartbeat.

No ****, sherlock. I'm amazed that the sports program takes
precedence over every other function at so many schools. That's
criminal! Allocating all those funds away from teachers and into
sports denies an excellent education to far too many kids.

My neighbor's son is a Principal at a central Oregon school and she
claims that he told her that Oregon law _mandates_ a sports program in
all schools. (Hell, AFAIK, they don't even mandate phys ed any more.)
I haven't been able to verify her claim, but the thought sickens me.

--
When we are planning for posterity,
we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.
-- Thomas Paine

OT? American politics
 

On Mon, 17 Nov 2008 08:25:26 -0600, "Getting really tired of this
political stuff" Try wrote:

Ignorant politicians are elected by ignorant people. US education, like the
US health system is notorious for its failures. Fundamentalist religion make
you stupid. The US is the only rich country in which fundamentalism is vast
and growing. Modern fundamentalists reject the science of Darwinian
evolution and accept the pseudoscience of Social Darwinism.


Hummm ...you mean the US educational system thats run and
controlled by Secular Humanists? The same Secular Humanists who
proclaim the small numbers of actual Fundies to be this huge driving
force in American Politics?

If such were true...and its not..why do we not have fundy candidates
running strictly on their Christianity, and they would be winning by
landslides.

The fundies are used as a paper tiger..a boogy man by the secular
humanists in an effort to scare the body public, and to get their
agendas passed to "protect us from da ebil fundies"

Shrug..if anything..the body public could use a bit more fundy values.
Relative Moralism has given us high crime rates, greed and a host of
other evils so prevelant in todays society (and politicians)

Its fascinating to note that Secular Humanists feel so threatened by
anyone with religious values (no matter if Christian or Jew) that they
must create, like Joseph Goebbels, a vast propaganda against the
Undermenshen..anyone with religious values...religious values that are
NOT those of the Secular Humanist's..and that cannot be controlled by
thos same Secular Humanists. Secular Humanists feel threatened by
that which they cannot control.

Which is interesting, given that over 80% of the US population
professes to have a belief in God(s)..and those dieties are not
Secular Humanists.


Gunner

OT? American politics
 

On Sun, 16 Nov 2008 19:21:27 -0600, "Getting really tired of this
political stuff" Try wrote:


"rigger" wrote in message
...
On Nov 16, 6:18 am, "Getting really tired of this political stuff"
Try wrote:
In American politics, ignorance has become a virtue. How was it allowed to
happen?

Unhappy with the election I see.

Actually no, I believe he is the best man for the job.

Why? He is a church goer and a self professed religious person.

Isnt he Ebil?

Gunner

OT? American politics
 

In American politics, ignorance has become a virtue. How was it
allowed
to
happen?

It was planned. Ignorant people are easier to keep in a perpetual
state
of voting for
things they never will obtain.

Thank the NEA.

Wes

Well, my son is an NEA product. 'Want to take him on? I'll even give
you
odds, on economics, American history, English, calculus, Latin, French,
and
statistics.

Wes, I won't take him on anymore myself, except in political science
and
engineering. And engineering is vocational training, not education.

Would you like me to arrange a take-home test? g

--
Ed Huntress


Hey, what I'd like to know is how anyone winds up learning Latin? I
don't
even know where they teach that anymore.

All good liberal arts colleges and universities. Washington and Lee, which
he attends, is ranked 15th in the country.

It's been a dead language for so
long I am surprised to hear that anyone is still learning it. For one
thing,
where does one use it and for another, why would a person learn it?

There is no "where" that you use it, unless you plan to be a Catholic
priest. As for why, if you have to ask, don't waste your time. It's very
difficult and extremely time-consuming. It's not for the average
university
student. If you plan a life of serious scholarship, however, it's
important.

However, at the high school level, it's the fastest-growing language in
American schools. Again, they're not your average schools, nor your
average
students.

Is your
son a linguist or speech expert or something along those lines?

He's an economics major.

--
Ed Huntress


That seems pretty out of character for the field of economics to learn
Latin, seems like a waste of time too. I remember when I was a teenager that
they still taught Latin in some of the Catholic schools but that was about
it. It was considered a dead language way back in the 60s. Like I said, I'm
really surprised to hear it is having somewhat of a revival because I can't
imagine why. I would think people would be taking either Chinese or Arabic
rather than Latin because as you said if you aren't bound for the clergy you
are never going to use it. It seems particularly strange that someone
working in economics would take that language. I can't recall if I have ever
met anyone that learned Latin in my whole life. It seems pretty darn rare
for anyone to know Latin but then maybe they keep it to themselves. I had a
hard enough time learning Spanish and I lived in SoCal. One thing is for
sure, your son isn't going to be speaking Latin to his fellow economists. I
doubt that even Greenspan, Bernanke, or Krugman can speak it.

Hawke

OT? American politics
 

"Hawke" wrote in message
...

In American politics, ignorance has become a virtue. How was it
allowed
to
happen?

It was planned. Ignorant people are easier to keep in a perpetual
state
of voting for
things they never will obtain.

Thank the NEA.

Wes

Well, my son is an NEA product. 'Want to take him on? I'll even give
you
odds, on economics, American history, English, calculus, Latin,
French,
and
statistics.

Wes, I won't take him on anymore myself, except in political science
and
engineering. And engineering is vocational training, not education.

Would you like me to arrange a take-home test? g

--
Ed Huntress


Hey, what I'd like to know is how anyone winds up learning Latin? I
don't
even know where they teach that anymore.

All good liberal arts colleges and universities. Washington and Lee,
which
he attends, is ranked 15th in the country.

It's been a dead language for so
long I am surprised to hear that anyone is still learning it. For one
thing,
where does one use it and for another, why would a person learn it?

There is no "where" that you use it, unless you plan to be a Catholic
priest. As for why, if you have to ask, don't waste your time. It's very
difficult and extremely time-consuming. It's not for the average
university
student. If you plan a life of serious scholarship, however, it's
important.

However, at the high school level, it's the fastest-growing language in
American schools. Again, they're not your average schools, nor your
average
students.

Is your
son a linguist or speech expert or something along those lines?

He's an economics major.

--
Ed Huntress


That seems pretty out of character for the field of economics to learn
Latin, seems like a waste of time too. I remember when I was a teenager
that
they still taught Latin in some of the Catholic schools but that was about
it. It was considered a dead language way back in the 60s. Like I said,
I'm
really surprised to hear it is having somewhat of a revival because I
can't
imagine why. I would think people would be taking either Chinese or Arabic
rather than Latin because as you said if you aren't bound for the clergy
you
are never going to use it. It seems particularly strange that someone
working in economics would take that language. I can't recall if I have
ever
met anyone that learned Latin in my whole life. It seems pretty darn rare
for anyone to know Latin but then maybe they keep it to themselves. I had
a
hard enough time learning Spanish and I lived in SoCal. One thing is for
sure, your son isn't going to be speaking Latin to his fellow economists.
I
doubt that even Greenspan, Bernanke, or Krugman can speak it.

If you had grown up in Princeton or Cambridge, and knocked heads with
genuinely superior students like I had to, I wouldn't have to explain it to
you.

I'll leave it to others to explain it:

http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/w...studylatin.htm

http://www.promotelatin.org/whylatin.htm

http://www.personal.kent.edu/~rLarson/why_latin.htm

http://www.promotelatin.org/TCAsurvey2.pdf

It's the difference between pursuing an education and pursuing vocational
training.

--
Ed Huntress

OT? American politics
 

"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 16 Nov 2008 22:13:52 -0500, the infamous "Ed Huntress"
scrawled the following:


"Leo Lichtman" wrote in message
. ..

"Ed Huntress" wrote: (clip) I'd like to take more credit, and I do take
some credit for his writing and
analysis skills. But the rest is all him and his teachers. (clip)
Until
we restore (clip) community's respect for education, (clip) we'll get
nowhere. (clipped for brevity and focus, not to change meaning.)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Ed, you deserve credit for more than that. You serve as a role model,
by
your performance, your attitudes, your conversation, the place you
choose
to live (where the community DOES respect education) and in countless
other ways that are hard to isolate. Just the fact that you care
whether
he studies, and he knows that, is an influence of immeasurable value.
Don't be so modest.

Thanks for the compliment, Leo, but the important thing, I believe, is
that
by far the largest problem faced by education in this country is the lack
of
parental support and community respect for education. My involvement was
no
more and no less than I think every parent should contribute.

Yes, parental involvement is extremely important, and good
_interested_ teachers can make that already good student great.
Creating an environment which encourages curiosity is of utmost
importance, and both teachers and parents have a part there. I just
wish more people _cared_.


Imagine if we honored education and teachers the way we honor sports and
sports heroes. It would turn public education around in a heartbeat.

No ****, sherlock. I'm amazed that the sports program takes
precedence over every other function at so many schools. That's
criminal! Allocating all those funds away from teachers and into
sports denies an excellent education to far too many kids.

My neighbor's son is a Principal at a central Oregon school and she
claims that he told her that Oregon law _mandates_ a sports program in
all schools. (Hell, AFAIK, they don't even mandate phys ed any more.)
I haven't been able to verify her claim, but the thought sickens me.

I'm in favor of sports programs. I'm just not in favor of giving them
priviledged status over academics.

--
Ed Huntress

OT? American politics
 

First math, now language. What do you have against a "Liberal"
education? Are you another child left behind?

You don't study Latin to -speak- it. It's grammar and vocabulary are
the secret decoder ring for most other modern European languages, even
German and Russian to some extent. I didn't understand the rationale
of the subjunctive case in English until I had learned its more
complete development in Latin. I've never studied Spanish, for
instance, but Latin lets me (slowly) read it.

Jim Wilkins

OT? American politics
 

On Mon, 17 Nov 2008 15:07:58 -0500, the infamous "Ed Huntress"
scrawled the following:


"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
.. .
On Sun, 16 Nov 2008 22:13:52 -0500, the infamous "Ed Huntress"
scrawled the following:

Imagine if we honored education and teachers the way we honor sports and
sports heroes. It would turn public education around in a heartbeat.

No ****, sherlock. I'm amazed that the sports program takes
precedence over every other function at so many schools. That's
criminal! Allocating all those funds away from teachers and into
sports denies an excellent education to far too many kids.

My neighbor's son is a Principal at a central Oregon school and she
claims that he told her that Oregon law _mandates_ a sports program in
all schools. (Hell, AFAIK, they don't even mandate phys ed any more.)
I haven't been able to verify her claim, but the thought sickens me.

I'm in favor of sports programs. I'm just not in favor of giving them
priviledged status over academics.

Yes, learning competition (formation or toleration) and teamwork are a
couple benefits of sports. I'm sad to see academics being forfeited
to them.

--
Latin: It's not just for geniuses any more.

OT? American politics
 

On Mon, 17 Nov 2008 01:29:47 -0500, "Ed Huntress" wrote:


No matter. She has the idea.

I sympathize with her. Before I graduated from high school I had attended 11
schools in 7 towns, in 5 different states. I experienced very good
(Princeton, NJ, where I graduated) and very bad (Hagerstown, MD; Ft.
Lauderdale, FL). It's got to be miserable for teachers to work today in
places where the parents don't even recognize that they're a big part of the
problem.

Here's something your sister may appreciate. When our kids entered middle
school, the head of the math department had a meeting with all of us and
strongly suggested we get a book titled _Algebra to Go_, 523 pages, written
mostly for parents to help their kids with math homework. More than half of
the parents bought it. Parents even called each other sometimes to ask math
questions. g

That's what it takes if we're going to have a successful economy in a
globalized world. Without a good education, our kids will be roadkill.
There's no magic formula that's going to fix it, except for involved parents
and community respect for education.

Teachers are like presidents. They get the blame when things go bad and
the credit when things go well.

The high school that my daughter just graduated from and that my son
goes to is a good example. It is highly ranked, ~73 out of 18,000
high schools ranked by US News and World Report. Not that USN&WR
is gospel but this ranking seems consistent with the California
STAR tests and it is a highly competitive school.

But what I've seen vicariously, the quality of instruction ranges
from mediocre to OK. The instruction seems to be no better than the
50th percentile high school that I attended. My daughter was a senior
before she figured out that I could help her with her math & science
work. Once she did that, things went better for her.

The school doesn't let the students bring home their tests; so I've
only seen one from my daughter and I was not impressed. That test was
from Honors Chemistry which falls between AP Chem and regular Chem.
The honors part wasn't more depth, it was just problems that require
lots of steps to solve so that the chances of making a clerical error
were high. I was expecting perhaps a little more introductory quantum
mechanics.

In that same class, the teacher didn't crack a bottle of H2S or
drop metallic sodium in water once during the whole year. I will
assert that you can't teach high school chemistry without doing
both of those :-) You may be able to teach a formal model without
demonstrations but you can't give students real understanding.
The words "highly exothermic reaction" just don't mean much to
someone who hasn't experienced one up close and personal.

Why do these students do so well? The parents tell their kids from
an early age "you WILL do well in school". The kids just don't
know that there is another alternative.

The school is mostly, about 75% first generation American
children of Asian immigrants. The parents are from Taiwan,
China, and India and well to highly educated. The parents
live and work in a highly-competitive, fast-paced world. If
their kid comes home with a "B" in high school, many of these
parents will panic. It's time for intensive instruction at
home and/or private tutors.

There must be a dozen or two storefront academic tutoring
establishment in my neighborhood.

These kids often attend Chinese School in addition to regular
school.

I'm almost as bad. When my kids were having a little, not a lot,
of trouble, in middle school math, I bought the appropriate
Singapore Mathematics books and assigned them work from that
excellent series.

This is typical of the successful students in my area, that is
their parents will formally assign extra academic work to their
children. For example, I've occasionally assigned a Supreme
Court decision along with several opinion pieces about the opinion
for discussion. It takes me a number of hours to prepare for
these and several hours of beating my children about the head
and shoulders to get them to do the work but that's OK.

I think many parents bring their cultural expectations of education
to this country which seem grounded in the Chinese Mandarinate's
Palace Examinations. In the Confucian Scholar system, you memorized
your reference works and then writing analysis of them. The emphasis
on memorization made footnotes and citations superfluous. :-) The
Indians seem to behave as if they have a similar cultural history.

One of the downside of that is that lots of (mostly clerical) homework
is assigned over weekends, especially 3-day weekends. That makes it
hard to say take a ski vacation without penalizing your kids in
school. It also makes it hard for me to fit in the non-school
instruction that I want to give my kids.

As a Scoutmaster, I see many bright young men start a heads-down, all
out academic sprint about 2 years before they take the SAT. I'm not
convinced that the Asian geek mode is good for the kids because
they miss out on the non-academic skills that high school students need
to develop. For example, I think that the leadership skills that
we try to develop in Scouts are very good for the personal
development of young men.

So, who takes the credit for the students' success in my area? The
teachers, of course :-)

Bob S

OT? American politics
 

"Wes" wrote in message
...
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

Thanks for the compliment, Leo, but the important thing, I believe, is
that
by far the largest problem faced by education in this country is the lack
of
parental support and community respect for education. My involvement was
no
more and no less than I think every parent should contribute.

Leo did a fine job of pointing out that you are the major force in your
sons success.

I will heartily agree that parents that don't give a damn are a huge part
of the problem.
My disgust for the NEA is that it is a labor union, a union that activity
works to keep
parents from having the options to take their kids out of systems that the
parents view as
failed. In other words, they, the NEA, actively work to hold children
hostage.

Parents that want to put their children in schools more in line with their
values and
where the parents believe the children will thrive are saddled by having
pay for public
education and then private education.

Whenever there is an effort to create vouchers to let those parents that
care move their
kids to where other parents also care, you can count on the NEA to be a
major force
opposing it.

Of course they do. But only because the voucher system sucks. Opposing
vouchers is the only wise course of action to take. Way to go NEA!


Hawke

OT? American politics
 

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

"Hawke" wrote in message
...

In American politics, ignorance has become a virtue. How was it
allowed
to
happen?

It was planned. Ignorant people are easier to keep in a perpetual
state
of voting for
things they never will obtain.

Thank the NEA.

Wes

Well, my son is an NEA product. 'Want to take him on? I'll even give
you
odds, on economics, American history, English, calculus, Latin,
French,
and
statistics.

Wes, I won't take him on anymore myself, except in political science
and
engineering. And engineering is vocational training, not education.

Would you like me to arrange a take-home test? g

--
Ed Huntress


Hey, what I'd like to know is how anyone winds up learning Latin? I
don't
even know where they teach that anymore.

All good liberal arts colleges and universities. Washington and Lee,
which
he attends, is ranked 15th in the country.

It's been a dead language for so
long I am surprised to hear that anyone is still learning it. For one
thing,
where does one use it and for another, why would a person learn it?

There is no "where" that you use it, unless you plan to be a Catholic
priest. As for why, if you have to ask, don't waste your time. It's
very
difficult and extremely time-consuming. It's not for the average
university
student. If you plan a life of serious scholarship, however, it's
important.

However, at the high school level, it's the fastest-growing language in
American schools. Again, they're not your average schools, nor your
average
students.

Is your
son a linguist or speech expert or something along those lines?

He's an economics major.

--
Ed Huntress


That seems pretty out of character for the field of economics to learn
Latin, seems like a waste of time too. I remember when I was a teenager
that
they still taught Latin in some of the Catholic schools but that was
about
it. It was considered a dead language way back in the 60s. Like I said,
I'm
really surprised to hear it is having somewhat of a revival because I
can't
imagine why. I would think people would be taking either Chinese or
Arabic
rather than Latin because as you said if you aren't bound for the clergy
you
are never going to use it. It seems particularly strange that someone
working in economics would take that language. I can't recall if I have
ever
met anyone that learned Latin in my whole life. It seems pretty darn
rare
for anyone to know Latin but then maybe they keep it to themselves. I
had
a
hard enough time learning Spanish and I lived in SoCal. One thing is for
sure, your son isn't going to be speaking Latin to his fellow
economists.
I
doubt that even Greenspan, Bernanke, or Krugman can speak it.

If you had grown up in Princeton or Cambridge, and knocked heads with
genuinely superior students like I had to, I wouldn't have to explain it
to
you.

I'll leave it to others to explain it:

http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/w...studylatin.htm

http://www.promotelatin.org/whylatin.htm

http://www.personal.kent.edu/~rLarson/why_latin.htm

http://www.promotelatin.org/TCAsurvey2.pdf

It's the difference between pursuing an education and pursuing vocational
training.

--
Ed Huntress


Thanks for the links. But I've got to tell you that over the years I've met
a lot of extremely bright and well educated people, some PH.Ds in fact, and
not a one of them ever took Latin. I guess it's the kind of thing you can
argue about as to whether it's important or a waste of time to learn Latin.
In my view, I think there are plenty of other things one can spend their
time doing that are more valuable than learning Latin. Like concentrating on
a sport or learning a modern language, to name a couple. Especially when you
consider how people have to prioritize their precious time these days. But
opinions will vary on the benefits or lack there of to learning Latin. Oh,
how about you? Did you have to learn it?

Hawke

OT? American politics
 

"Hawke" wrote in message
...

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

"Hawke" wrote in message
...

In American politics, ignorance has become a virtue. How was it
allowed
to
happen?

It was planned. Ignorant people are easier to keep in a
perpetual
state
of voting for
things they never will obtain.

Thank the NEA.

Wes

Well, my son is an NEA product. 'Want to take him on? I'll even
give
you
odds, on economics, American history, English, calculus, Latin,
French,
and
statistics.

Wes, I won't take him on anymore myself, except in political
science
and
engineering. And engineering is vocational training, not education.

Would you like me to arrange a take-home test? g

--
Ed Huntress


Hey, what I'd like to know is how anyone winds up learning Latin? I
don't
even know where they teach that anymore.

All good liberal arts colleges and universities. Washington and Lee,
which
he attends, is ranked 15th in the country.

It's been a dead language for so
long I am surprised to hear that anyone is still learning it. For
one
thing,
where does one use it and for another, why would a person learn it?

There is no "where" that you use it, unless you plan to be a Catholic
priest. As for why, if you have to ask, don't waste your time. It's
very
difficult and extremely time-consuming. It's not for the average
university
student. If you plan a life of serious scholarship, however, it's
important.

However, at the high school level, it's the fastest-growing language
in
American schools. Again, they're not your average schools, nor your
average
students.

Is your
son a linguist or speech expert or something along those lines?

He's an economics major.

--
Ed Huntress


That seems pretty out of character for the field of economics to learn
Latin, seems like a waste of time too. I remember when I was a teenager
that
they still taught Latin in some of the Catholic schools but that was
about
it. It was considered a dead language way back in the 60s. Like I said,
I'm
really surprised to hear it is having somewhat of a revival because I
can't
imagine why. I would think people would be taking either Chinese or
Arabic
rather than Latin because as you said if you aren't bound for the
clergy
you
are never going to use it. It seems particularly strange that someone
working in economics would take that language. I can't recall if I have
ever
met anyone that learned Latin in my whole life. It seems pretty darn
rare
for anyone to know Latin but then maybe they keep it to themselves. I
had
a
hard enough time learning Spanish and I lived in SoCal. One thing is
for
sure, your son isn't going to be speaking Latin to his fellow
economists.
I
doubt that even Greenspan, Bernanke, or Krugman can speak it.

If you had grown up in Princeton or Cambridge, and knocked heads with
genuinely superior students like I had to, I wouldn't have to explain it
to
you.

I'll leave it to others to explain it:

http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/w...studylatin.htm

http://www.promotelatin.org/whylatin.htm

http://www.personal.kent.edu/~rLarson/why_latin.htm

http://www.promotelatin.org/TCAsurvey2.pdf

It's the difference between pursuing an education and pursuing vocational
training.

--
Ed Huntress


Thanks for the links. But I've got to tell you that over the years I've
met
a lot of extremely bright and well educated people, some PH.Ds in fact,
and
not a one of them ever took Latin. I guess it's the kind of thing you can
argue about as to whether it's important or a waste of time to learn
Latin.
In my view, I think there are plenty of other things one can spend their
time doing that are more valuable than learning Latin. Like concentrating
on
a sport or learning a modern language, to name a couple. Especially when
you
consider how people have to prioritize their precious time these days. But
opinions will vary on the benefits or lack there of to learning Latin. Oh,
how about you? Did you have to learn it?

Nothing beyond the rudiments, for which I've always been sorry.

The world is full of narrowly educated specialists, many with advanced
degrees. I've spent a lot of my life editing their work into something
coherent and literate. I'm thankful for those people because they produce a
lot of useful work and because they have provided me with a job.

I would never consult with them for their opinions on anything of
importance. d8-)

--
Ed Huntress

OT? American politics
 

On Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:08:47 -0800, the infamous Bob Summers
scrawled the following:

Teachers are like presidents. They get the blame when things go bad and
the credit when things go well.

g


The high school that my daughter just graduated from and that my son
goes to is a good example. It is highly ranked, ~73 out of 18,000
high schools ranked by US News and World Report. Not that USN&WR
is gospel but this ranking seems consistent with the California
STAR tests and it is a highly competitive school.

Being highly ranked on most any ranking system is likely to be A Good
Thing.


But what I've seen vicariously, the quality of instruction ranges
from mediocre to OK. The instruction seems to be no better than the
50th percentile high school that I attended. My daughter was a senior
before she figured out that I could help her with her math & science
work. Once she did that, things went better for her.

Slow learner, eh? ;)


--snip--
In that same class, the teacher didn't crack a bottle of H2S or
drop metallic sodium in water once during the whole year. I will
assert that you can't teach high school chemistry without doing
both of those :-) You may be able to teach a formal model without
demonstrations but you can't give students real understanding.
The words "highly exothermic reaction" just don't mean much to
someone who hasn't experienced one up close and personal.

heh heh heh Instead of H2S, our teacher taught us about esters the
hard way. He made some pukey-smelling ester (I don't recall what
chemistry it was) in the chem room and left the door cracked as he
came out for class. Within 5 minutes, several students had run out the
door and puked in the bushes next to the chem lab and the rest of us
were merely gagging. The banana ester he then made helped reduce that
reaction and brought order to the class.


Why do these students do so well? The parents tell their kids from
an early age "you WILL do well in school". The kids just don't
know that there is another alternative.

An excellent idea.


The school is mostly, about 75% first generation American
children of Asian immigrants. The parents are from Taiwan,
China, and India and well to highly educated. The parents
live and work in a highly-competitive, fast-paced world. If
their kid comes home with a "B" in high school, many of these
parents will panic. It's time for intensive instruction at
home and/or private tutors.

There must be a dozen or two storefront academic tutoring
establishment in my neighborhood.

Impressive!


These kids often attend Chinese School in addition to regular
school.

I'm almost as bad. When my kids were having a little, not a lot,
of trouble, in middle school math, I bought the appropriate
Singapore Mathematics books and assigned them work from that
excellent series.

I've never heard of these. 'Splain, please.


This is typical of the successful students in my area, that is
their parents will formally assign extra academic work to their
children. For example, I've occasionally assigned a Supreme
Court decision along with several opinion pieces about the opinion
for discussion. It takes me a number of hours to prepare for
these and several hours of beating my children about the head
and shoulders to get them to do the work but that's OK.

My parents just told us that if we brought home Honor Roll report
cards, we'd get extra privileges. My sister always did and I most
often did, except in my senior year, where I goofed off quite a bit,
learning more about my alcoholism and such. I still aced the Business
Law classes. One memory of that is the word "usury", which the credit
card comapnies nowadays are using in spades. _33%_ interest? Off with
their @#$%^&* heads!


I think many parents bring their cultural expectations of education
to this country which seem grounded in the Chinese Mandarinate's
Palace Examinations. In the Confucian Scholar system, you memorized
your reference works and then writing analysis of them. The emphasis
on memorization made footnotes and citations superfluous. :-) The
Indians seem to behave as if they have a similar cultural history.

Heavy!


One of the downside of that is that lots of (mostly clerical) homework
is assigned over weekends, especially 3-day weekends. That makes it
hard to say take a ski vacation without penalizing your kids in
school. It also makes it hard for me to fit in the non-school
instruction that I want to give my kids.

I'll bet it would.


As a Scoutmaster, I see many bright young men start a heads-down, all
out academic sprint about 2 years before they take the SAT. I'm not
convinced that the Asian geek mode is good for the kids because
they miss out on the non-academic skills that high school students need
to develop. For example, I think that the leadership skills that
we try to develop in Scouts are very good for the personal
development of young men.

Getting kids out into nature is also extremely beneficial, as are the
development of curiosity about nature/science, development of
physical/positional/self-awareness, and the physical fitness aspects
of scouting.


So, who takes the credit for the students' success in my area? The
teachers, of course :-)

Of course. But let's hope the students and parents are also aware of
their teensy li'l parts in that. ;)

--
Latin: It's not just for geniuses any more.

OT? American politics
 

"Bob Summers" wrote in message
...

snip

One of the downside of that is that lots of (mostly clerical) homework
is assigned over weekends, especially 3-day weekends. That makes it
hard to say take a ski vacation without penalizing your kids in
school. It also makes it hard for me to fit in the non-school
instruction that I want to give my kids.

As a Scoutmaster, I see many bright young men start a heads-down, all
out academic sprint about 2 years before they take the SAT. I'm not
convinced that the Asian geek mode is good for the kids because
they miss out on the non-academic skills that high school students need
to develop. For example, I think that the leadership skills that
we try to develop in Scouts are very good for the personal
development of young men.

So, who takes the credit for the students' success in my area? The
teachers, of course :-)

Bob S

That's interesting, Bob. So, you've experienced the extreme, with the high
percentage of high-achieving Asians in your community setting the
expectations. I haven't seen that at work although I've read about it. We
have a lot of professional Koreans and the highest concentration in the US
of Asian Indians here, and they do help raise the bar, but not like that.

Somewhere in this range of experience lies the ideal balance. Unfortunately,
it's a pretty long reach from the US median.

--
Ed Huntress

OT? American politics
 

"Harold and Susan Vordos" wrote in message
et...

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

"Leo Lichtman" wrote in message
...

"Ed Huntress" wrote: (clip) I'd like to take more credit, and I do take
some credit for his writing and
analysis skills. But the rest is all him and his teachers. (clip)
Until we restore (clip) community's respect for education, (clip) we'll
get nowhere. (clipped for brevity and focus, not to change meaning.)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Ed, you deserve credit for more than that. You serve as a role model,
by your performance, your attitudes, your conversation, the place you
choose to live (where the community DOES respect education) and in
countless other ways that are hard to isolate. Just the fact that you
care whether he studies, and he knows that, is an influence of
immeasurable value. Don't be so modest.

Thanks for the compliment, Leo, but the important thing, I believe, is
that by far the largest problem faced by education in this country is the
lack of parental support and community respect for education.

I may be living proof that you're right on the money, Ed. I come from a
family that does not have education, nor was it promoted. I was not
taught to study, with teachers coming to the conclusion that I simply
couldn't learn when I was in the 5th grade. The school, then, had no
special programs for kids like me-----who shocked the hell out of the
administrators when I was tested and found to be performing @ 9th grade
level. I badly needed some guidance, to get me to see the importance of
getting a good education, and understanding the ramifications of not doing
so.

Sadly, it was not uncommon for many to have good paying jobs back then,
jobs that would require a degree today. For example, many of the
engineers on the Sergeant guided missile project had no degree, but could
do the work. That wouldn't happen today, but it gave me the hope of
landing a decent job. I was lucky. I landed on my feet.

I hold no one responsible for my lack of education but myself, but it
would be interesting to see how I might have turned out had I been
encouraged to study and to have gone on to college.

Harold

You've wrapped up a lot of the problem in those few paragraphs, Harold,
particularly the part about well-paying jobs that didn't require a degree.
That's done for, but our education system is not, by itself, going to shift
the gears of American culture to adjust to the new realities. No education
system could.

--
Ed Huntress

OT? American politics
 

"Wes" wrote in message
...
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

Thanks for the compliment, Leo, but the important thing, I believe, is
that
by far the largest problem faced by education in this country is the lack
of
parental support and community respect for education. My involvement was
no
more and no less than I think every parent should contribute.

Leo did a fine job of pointing out that you are the major force in your
sons success.

I will heartily agree that parents that don't give a damn are a huge part
of the problem.

My disgust for the NEA is that it is a labor union, a union that activity
works to keep
parents from having the options to take their kids out of systems that the
parents view as
failed. In other words, they, the NEA, actively work to hold children
hostage.

Parents that want to put their children in schools more in line with their
values and
where the parents believe the children will thrive are saddled by having
pay for public
education and then private education.

Whenever there is an effort to create vouchers to let those parents that
care move their
kids to where other parents also care, you can count on the NEA to be a
major force
opposing it.

I don't know where you get your information about NEA, Wes, but I think
you're pointing a finger in the wrong direction. The problem with the NEA is
that they resist management of teachers that would improve their
performance, and weed out the bad ones. They had good reason years ago to
establish tenure systems and those reasons even exist in some places
today -- patronage employment and firings for teachers and arbitrary firings
based on political views -- but there are better ways to control the
problem. If you've been following events in Washington, DC, you'll see a
whole new approach to getting the unions out of the tenure business and it
has wide public support.

Most of the structural problems with public education, though, are the
result of the vast and mishandled bureaucracy of education. The fact that
it's a bureaucracy is not actually the problem; the problem is that it's a
bad one. And part of the reason it's a bad one is our antiquated and
counterproductive system of local school boards. They and other interest
groups have layered the bureaucracy in education like a piece of filo
pastry.

You can argue this one till the cows come home but there's a bottom line
that cuts right to the point: All of the school systems in other countries
that are beating our pants off in performance and cost are NATIONAL systems
of PUBLIC schools. They don't have local school boards, with their petty
political interests and academic incompetence. And with a couple of
exceptions, they don't have vouchers.

This gets complicated but there are a couple of other things that should be
pointed out in regard to vouchers and similar ideas. First, the private
school system in the US is mostly religious schools, where tuition averages
something like $4.000/year, as opposed to $9,000/year in public schools. But
secular private schools run around $10,500/year. Religious schools,
particularly Catholic schools, which are the plurality of them, depend on
property tax breaks, vast philanthropic contributions, and grossly underpaid
teachers, plus a selective-admission system that lets them pick and choose
which kids they'll teach. Those schools can only survive in an environment
in which the majority of kids are in public schools. Left by themselves, the
entire private school system can handle only a small fraction of the
population of students. It isn't a matter of letting them grow to meet the
market; it's a matter of market selectivity and a variety of cost supports,
made possible by the larger public school system, that is extensive and
deep-rooted.

But most of all, the best performing systems are the ones in which the
cultural attitudes toward education are vastly different from ours. It comes
back to parents and communities. That's where the critical issues lie.

--
Ed Huntress

OT? American politics
 

"Ed Huntress" wrote:

Whenever there is an effort to create vouchers to let those parents that
care move their
kids to where other parents also care, you can count on the NEA to be a
major force
opposing it.

I don't know where you get your information about NEA, Wes, but I think
you're pointing a finger in the wrong direction. The problem with the NEA is
that they resist management of teachers that would improve their
performance, and weed out the bad ones. They had good reason years ago to
establish tenure systems and those reasons even exist in some places
today -- patronage employment and firings for teachers and arbitrary firings
based on political views -- but there are better ways to control the
problem. If you've been following events in Washington, DC, you'll see a
whole new approach to getting the unions out of the tenure business and it
has wide public support.

Ed, the company I work for manages its labor force. If I stay employed is determined by
my performance and our sales and profitability.

I'd love to read about the approach to getting unions out of the tenure business.

As far as my views of the NEA, some comes from real live teachers with degrees and
certificates that will take less pay to work out side the public system because they feel
free to hone their skills, develop their students and not be a part of the government
bureaucracy or the union bureaucracy.


Most of the structural problems with public education, though, are the
result of the vast and mishandled bureaucracy of education. The fact that
it's a bureaucracy is not actually the problem; the problem is that it's a
bad one. And part of the reason it's a bad one is our antiquated and
counterproductive system of local school boards. They and other interest
groups have layered the bureaucracy in education like a piece of filo
pastry.

Damn, Ed, I was going say you were getting it but I think you are saying the central
government knows best. I was willing to agree on mishandled bureaucracy. I believe the
closer to home the better but was willing to say keep it at the state level.

Of course, I wonder if you would like level state funded education so your local school
would have the same financial resources as poorer areas? I tend to think funding should
be at the state level based on income and level across students. Property taxes is a
crazy way to pay for schools unless your goal is to have the well off people get a better
education for their kids than the blue collar workers in the less affluent areas.


You can argue this one till the cows come home but there's a bottom line
that cuts right to the point: All of the school systems in other countries
that are beating our pants off in performance and cost are NATIONAL systems
of PUBLIC schools. They don't have local school boards, with their petty
political interests and academic incompetence. And with a couple of
exceptions, they don't have vouchers.

Repeating what I said above, I'm willing to have some sort of central system but I want it
at the state level. You chose to live at a local level where the schools met your needs.
Do you think that same school would have been the same if the Feds were running it?

If we run education at the state level, it gives a parent 50 choices, instead the one you
are advocating.


This gets complicated but there are a couple of other things that should be
pointed out in regard to vouchers and similar ideas. First, the private
school system in the US is mostly religious schools, where tuition averages
something like $4.000/year, as opposed to $9,000/year in public schools. But
secular private schools run around $10,500/year. Religious schools,
particularly Catholic schools, which are the plurality of them, depend on
property tax breaks, vast philanthropic contributions, and grossly underpaid
teachers, plus a selective-admission system that lets them pick and choose
which kids they'll teach. Those schools can only survive in an environment
in which the majority of kids are in public schools. Left by themselves, the
entire private school system can handle only a small fraction of the
population of students. It isn't a matter of letting them grow to meet the
market; it's a matter of market selectivity and a variety of cost supports,
made possible by the larger public school system, that is extensive and
deep-rooted.

I know it is complicated. The religious based schools have parents and teachers that have
been willing sacrifice at both ends to achieve what they see is the proper education of
our next generation.

Currently, my sister in law (Baptist) is teaching at a Catholic school. She has two
concerns, the proper education of her son and working in an environment that she believes
allows her to be the most effective. She could earn a lot more teaching in the public
system, she is accredited to do so and has in the past. That should tell you something,
when dedicated teachers refuse to work in the public system and will take lower pay to
work in the non-public system than something is seriously wrong.

But most of all, the best performing systems are the ones in which the
cultural attitudes toward education are vastly different from ours. It comes
back to parents and communities. That's where the critical issues lie.

Here we can agree. I remembered talking to the accountant at work. He is a Catholic and
has his kid in the churches school. When he enrolled his son, one of the first things
that were dealt with is when are dad and mom going to be here to help out?

You just don't write a check in some schools to get your kids in, you have to show up and
work too. That is why schools that may not have all the resources do well.

Let the parents be able to choose. I thought you believed in free markets.

Wes

OT? American politics
 

"Wes" wrote in message
...
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

Whenever there is an effort to create vouchers to let those parents that
care move their
kids to where other parents also care, you can count on the NEA to be a
major force
opposing it.

I don't know where you get your information about NEA, Wes, but I think
you're pointing a finger in the wrong direction. The problem with the NEA
is
that they resist management of teachers that would improve their
performance, and weed out the bad ones. They had good reason years ago to
establish tenure systems and those reasons even exist in some places
today -- patronage employment and firings for teachers and arbitrary
firings
based on political views -- but there are better ways to control the
problem. If you've been following events in Washington, DC, you'll see a
whole new approach to getting the unions out of the tenure business and it
has wide public support.

Ed, the company I work for manages its labor force. If I stay employed is
determined by
my performance and our sales and profitability.

I'd love to read about the approach to getting unions out of the tenure
business.

It's been in the news lately. Here's one article about it:

http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/37991

Their new superintendent is really shaking things up. She's a big part of
the news in education these days.


As far as my views of the NEA, some comes from real live teachers with
degrees and
certificates that will take less pay to work out side the public system
because they feel
free to hone their skills, develop their students and not be a part of the
government
bureaucracy or the union bureaucracy.

Great. Teachers with 15 years experience in US public schools already make
less than the teachers in ANY other school system in the G8 countries, in
comparison with average incomes in each country. So now you expect to find
enough teachers who will take even less so they can "hone their skills?"
Right.

Only saints need apply. g



Most of the structural problems with public education, though, are the
result of the vast and mishandled bureaucracy of education. The fact that
it's a bureaucracy is not actually the problem; the problem is that it's a
bad one. And part of the reason it's a bad one is our antiquated and
counterproductive system of local school boards. They and other interest
groups have layered the bureaucracy in education like a piece of filo
pastry.

Damn, Ed, I was going say you were getting it but I think you are saying
the central
government knows best. I was willing to agree on mishandled bureaucracy.
I believe the
closer to home the better but was willing to say keep it at the state
level.

"Closer to home" means dumber.

Virtually every country that has schools that are outperforming ours has
NATIONAL management and control of schools. Do you want to see the list?

In other words, with our "closer to home" management of schools, we barely
compare with even *mediocre* systems among the world's developed
countries -- and even some of the underdeveloped ones.

Do you think that maybe the problem isn't central management, but rather our
19th century ideas about government? Or maybe something else altogether?
Hmm? One thing is su Nobody who beats us academically has local control
of teachers, curriculum, or anything else relating to academics. Mostly they
have parents' councils to complain to the administration, and local
management of the janitors.

What makes you think that a local school board is likely to have a clue
about how to teach, what curriculum to have, or anything else above the
level of how to keep the toilets running? Half of them are housewives and
small business owners who have crappy educations themselves.


Of course, I wonder if you would like level state funded education so your
local school
would have the same financial resources as poorer areas?

I would LOVE for us to have the same funding as the poorer areas. They get
$2,000 - $3,000 more per pupil, and it all comes from state coffers. You may
not realize this but middle-class and above towns in NJ pay almost all of
their school costs out of local property taxes. And we spend less, overall,
than the poor areas.

Something like 80% of my property taxes, which are the highest in the
country ($5,800 state average), goes to pay for the schools.

I tend to think funding should
be at the state level based on income and level across students. Property
taxes is a
crazy way to pay for schools unless your goal is to have the well off
people get a better
education for their kids than the blue collar workers in the less affluent
areas.

The system we have here gives us the worst of both. We pay income tax, and
it goes to pay for schools in poor areas. And we pay huge property taxes,
which goes to pay for our local schools.



You can argue this one till the cows come home but there's a bottom line
that cuts right to the point: All of the school systems in other countries
that are beating our pants off in performance and cost are NATIONAL
systems
of PUBLIC schools. They don't have local school boards, with their petty
political interests and academic incompetence. And with a couple of
exceptions, they don't have vouchers.

Repeating what I said above, I'm willing to have some sort of central
system but I want it
at the state level. You chose to live at a local level where the schools
met your needs.
Do you think that same school would have been the same if the Feds were
running it?

Probably better. The only problem is that someone (and the state really
wants to do this now) would consolidate our schools with those of another
district. There are no districts close enough to consolidate that are as
good, so it's hard to say what would happen. The state is talking about full
autonomy and no cross-busing, but, who knows. Once you consolidate you can
lose your edge.

But we could use central management by real education and management
experts, like they have in Europe and Japan.


If we run education at the state level, it gives a parent 50 choices,
instead the one you
are advocating.

Fifty choices? What is this, Russian roulette? Few people have that much
flexibility in their work that they could go shopping like that. And half of
them couldn't afford the places where the schools are good. Good schools
drive up property values.

It's much better to have a uniformly good school system, nationwide. This
Balkanization of schools you're talking about is one of the sucky results of
the system we have.



This gets complicated but there are a couple of other things that should
be
pointed out in regard to vouchers and similar ideas. First, the private
school system in the US is mostly religious schools, where tuition
averages
something like $4.000/year, as opposed to $9,000/year in public schools.
But
secular private schools run around $10,500/year. Religious schools,
particularly Catholic schools, which are the plurality of them, depend on
property tax breaks, vast philanthropic contributions, and grossly
underpaid
teachers, plus a selective-admission system that lets them pick and choose
which kids they'll teach. Those schools can only survive in an environment
in which the majority of kids are in public schools. Left by themselves,
the
entire private school system can handle only a small fraction of the
population of students. It isn't a matter of letting them grow to meet the
market; it's a matter of market selectivity and a variety of cost
supports,
made possible by the larger public school system, that is extensive and
deep-rooted.

I know it is complicated. The religious based schools have parents and
teachers that have
been willing sacrifice at both ends to achieve what they see is the proper
education of
our next generation.

Currently, my sister in law (Baptist) is teaching at a Catholic school.
She has two
concerns, the proper education of her son and working in an environment
that she believes
allows her to be the most effective. She could earn a lot more teaching
in the public
system, she is accredited to do so and has in the past. That should tell
you something,
when dedicated teachers refuse to work in the public system and will take
lower pay to
work in the non-public system than something is seriously wrong.

Yes. What it tells me is that there are some saints out there teaching, and
we'll exploit them at every turn, given half a chance, so we'll have more
money to buy new trucks and better vacations. Why should your sister-in-law
make less than public school teachers? And remember that those public school
teachers are already making less compared to other workers, on the average,
than teachers in any other G8 country.

Why is that? Maybe it's because we don't really value teaching? And why
should Catholic schools pay even less?

Here's what really happens with most good teachers in Catholic schools: They
take a job there until a job in a good public school opens up. They have a
big turnover in Catholic schools. Here's a quote from a recent IES study:
"...teacher turnover rates are higher in private schools than in public
schools; in 2000-01, 21 percent of private school teachers had switched
schools or left the teaching force since the previous school year compared
with 15 percent of public school teachers (Luekens, Lyter, and Fox 2004)."

And the turnover is higher in Catholic schools than in private schools in
general: "Teachers in Catholic schools were more likely than others to
report strong dissatisfaction regarding their salary (48 percent compared
with 23 percent of other religious and 31 percent of nonsectarian school
teachers). They also were more likely to report relatively low levels of
input at the school level (23 percent in low category compared with 19
percent of other religious and 13 percent of nonsectarian school teachers)."

Here's the full study if you're interested:

http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2005/2005061.pdf

Teaching in a Catholic school is like subjecting yourself to extortion. If
your sister-in-law likes it, good for her. Don't count on finding a lot like
her. Would you do it?


But most of all, the best performing systems are the ones in which the
cultural attitudes toward education are vastly different from ours. It
comes
back to parents and communities. That's where the critical issues lie.

Here we can agree. I remembered talking to the accountant at work. He is
a Catholic and
has his kid in the churches school. When he enrolled his son, one of the
first things
that were dealt with is when are dad and mom going to be here to help out?

You just don't write a check in some schools to get your kids in, you have
to show up and
work too. That is why schools that may not have all the resources do
well.

FWIW, I was raised Roman Catholic and attended Catholic schools until junior
high school. So I know what they're about. Parents who send their kids there
care more about education. They usually have a bit more money. They have an
extra incentive to get involved. And the schools can decide who they'll
accept, and not.

With all of those things going for them, Catholic schools move at a faster
academic pace, at least until high school, at which point it tends to even
out. That's why they have better outcomes in general, however.


Let the parents be able to choose. I thought you believed in free
markets.

I do believe in free markets. But I also recognize where free markets break
down. The "free market" for private schools is "free" for the parents, if
they can get their kids accepted. But they pay, or they would if a high
percentage of kids attended private schools, when the "underclass" is left
in public schools, which have to teach to an even lower standard as a
result, and wind up incapable of competing for a decent job. So private
schools are a small part of what divides us as a society, although I would
not argue against allowing them. I *would* argue in favor of improving
public schools so the ones who can afford private schools don't wind up
living in a society with an outsize underclass.

As long as private schools can decide who they'll teach and who they won't,
we have a problem. All of Europe, Japan, and much of the rest of the world
have figured out how to make public schools work. It doesn't include "local
control" by incompetent school boards, and it does include generally higher
levels of respect for education, including higher rates of pay for teachers.

--
Ed Huntress

OT? American politics
 

Ed Huntress wrote:
"Wes" wrote in message
...
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

[snippage]

Most of the structural problems with public education, though, are the
result of the vast and mishandled bureaucracy of education. The fact that
it's a bureaucracy is not actually the problem; the problem is that it's a
bad one. And part of the reason it's a bad one is our antiquated and
counterproductive system of local school boards. They and other interest
groups have layered the bureaucracy in education like a piece of filo
pastry.
Damn, Ed, I was going say you were getting it but I think you are saying
the central
government knows best. I was willing to agree on mishandled bureaucracy.
I believe the
closer to home the better but was willing to say keep it at the state
level.

"Closer to home" means dumber.

Virtually every country that has schools that are outperforming ours has
NATIONAL management and control of schools. Do you want to see the list?

In other words, with our "closer to home" management of schools, we barely
compare with even *mediocre* systems among the world's developed
countries -- and even some of the underdeveloped ones.

Do you think that maybe the problem isn't central management, but rather our
19th century ideas about government? Or maybe something else altogether?
Hmm? One thing is su Nobody who beats us academically has local control
of teachers, curriculum, or anything else relating to academics. Mostly they
have parents' councils to complain to the administration, and local
management of the janitors.

My understanding is that New Zealand is doing pretty well
academically and they have strongly switched over to the
school board model and they seem to like it. Here is a
longish URL that describes the system a little:

http://www.nzsta.org.nz/RexDefault.aspx?PageID=3f0f7a18-c7d9-4047-8fe6-fddfb805f6b4

Here is the first paragraph:

All of New Zealand's state and state-integrated schools have
a board of trustees. The board of trustees is the Crown entity
responsible for the governance and the control of the management
of the school. The board is the employer of all staff in the
school, is responsible for setting the school's strategic direction
in consultation with parents, staff and students, and ensuring that
its school provides a safe environment and quality education for
all its students. Boards are also responsible for overseeing the
management of personnel, curriculum, property, finance and
administration.

I don't know all of the details, but my understanding is that
sometime in late 1980's, there was a large change in government
in New Zealand. The new administration had a large centralized
structure that added significant overhead. The new guy came in,
gutted the central office, and pushed the savings out to the local
schools. Having said that, it looks like centralization is coming
back.

What makes you think that a local school board is likely to have a clue
about how to teach, what curriculum to have, or anything else above the
level of how to keep the toilets running? Half of them are housewives and
small business owners who have crappy educations themselves.

When it comes to school boards, the details matter. As they are
currently structured in the US, they are typically just another
layer of paper pushers. In the past, some states gave school
boards the ability to raise taxes (usually property taxes) and
hence properly fund their local schools. That ability is largely
gone now, and state centralized funding (and paper pushing) is the
norm now.

-Wayne

OT? American politics
 

Thanks for the links. But I've got to tell you that over the years I've
met
a lot of extremely bright and well educated people, some PH.Ds in fact,
and
not a one of them ever took Latin. I guess it's the kind of thing you
can
argue about as to whether it's important or a waste of time to learn
Latin.
In my view, I think there are plenty of other things one can spend their
time doing that are more valuable than learning Latin. Like
concentrating
on
a sport or learning a modern language, to name a couple. Especially when
you
consider how people have to prioritize their precious time these days.
But
opinions will vary on the benefits or lack there of to learning Latin.
Oh,
how about you? Did you have to learn it?

Nothing beyond the rudiments, for which I've always been sorry.

The world is full of narrowly educated specialists, many with advanced
degrees. I've spent a lot of my life editing their work into something
coherent and literate. I'm thankful for those people because they produce
a
lot of useful work and because they have provided me with a job.

I would never consult with them for their opinions on anything of
importance. d8-)

--
Ed Huntress

Whew, that sounds awfully condescending and elitist. You must be a narrowly
educated specialist! You'll not get any argument from me that the world is
full of narrowly educated specialists, but that's a damn good thing. In the
modern world there is just too much information for anyone to be a
"renaissance man" anymore. If you want to excel today you have to specialize
and dedicate yourself to one field. No longer can we all be gentleman
farmers. If you are good you will become highly educated in a specific
field. Because you just can't know it all in very many arenas.

I am also sure that you found that highly educated people are not always so
great when it comes to writing. Maybe because that too is a specialty not
many people master no matter how many years they have been in school. It's
like playing a musical instrument. Many people play, many put lots of work
into it, but only a few are really good at it. You can work at learning to
write but some people are just a lot better at it than the rest of us. Lucky
for you, because you specialized in the literary area, you were able to
profit from the lack of talent of people with top flight educations. But if
like me, you have known a good number of the "best and brightest" a lot of
the time you walk away thinking, boy, how did this guy do so well in school.
On the other hand, I've met people that just blew me away with their brains
and knowledge. I have found that most of the people like that all have great
educations and degrees too.

Anyway, I have looked at the question of learning Latin, since it piqued my
interest. After thinking about it I have concluded it's a waste of time and
effort for 99% of people. There are way too many things to choose from to do
with one's limited time these days. Learning Latin isn't one I would rank
high on any list of things one should do. But then, given the choice of
being in a classroom learning Latin or working out in the gym, I'd surely
choose the latter. The time spent in the gym is a lot better for one's
health than sitting on one's ass in a Latin class. With your health
challenges I think you might agree working at being healthy is better for e
tu, brute, in the long run than knowing how to read and speak Latin. Once
that health starts to go everything else begins to look a lot less
important, doesn't it?


Hawke

OT? American politics
 

On Tue, 18 Nov 2008 06:23:19 -0800, Larry Jaques wrote:

On Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:08:47 -0800, the infamous Bob Summers
scrawled the following:

But what I've seen vicariously, the quality of instruction ranges
from mediocre to OK. The instruction seems to be no better than the
50th percentile high school that I attended. My daughter was a senior
before she figured out that I could help her with her math & science
work. Once she did that, things went better for her.

Slow learner, eh? ;)

OK, so she takes after me. :-)

--snip--

heh heh heh Instead of H2S, our teacher taught us about esters the
hard way. He made some pukey-smelling ester (I don't recall what
chemistry it was) in the chem room and left the door cracked as he
came out for class. Within 5 minutes, several students had run out the
door and puked in the bushes next to the chem lab and the rest of us
were merely gagging. The banana ester he then made helped reduce that
reaction and brought order to the class.

Cool! That's a great way to get kids excited by Chemistry. Knowledge
is power.

..

I'm almost as bad. When my kids were having a little, not a lot,
of trouble, in middle school math, I bought the appropriate
Singapore Mathematics books and assigned them work from that
excellent series.

I've never heard of these. 'Splain, please.

Singapore is noted for world class primary and secondary education,
particularly in Mathematics. If you Google for
"singapore mathematics", you'll get a quite a few hits.

Here's a quote from http://www.singaporemath.com:
"Singapore students were in first place in the 1995, 1999 and 2003
TIMSS. TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study)
is designed to measure trends in students’ mathematics and science
achievement in four-year cycles."

One of the official languages in Singapore is English. The Math
books are in English. Singapore school levels don't translate
easily to US grades, so the web site that I bought from had an online
placement test for the kids to take so that you could buy workbooks
of the right level.

I haven't looked at them for at least 5 years but I remember
being struck by the clear explanations and useful applications that
were woven into the workbooks. I thought that they were much
better than my kid's textbooks.


My parents just told us that if we brought home Honor Roll report
cards, we'd get extra privileges. My sister always did and I most
often did, except in my senior year, where I goofed off quite a bit,
learning more about my alcoholism and such. I still aced the Business
Law classes. One memory of that is the word "usury", which the credit
card comapnies nowadays are using in spades. _33%_ interest? Off with
their @#$%^&* heads!


Colleges don't let students slack off like that in their senior year
anymore, so they can't spend quite as much time performing bio-assays
of various psychoactive chemicals. Some kids get their acceptances
revoked for such shenanigans.

I remember when my daughter told me she didn't make the honor roll in
middle school. I told her that wasn't a problem. Then I found out that
only about 10% of students did not make the honor roll. That fact
changed my perspective on the situation!



So, who takes the credit for the students' success in my area? The
teachers, of course :-)

Of course. But let's hope the students and parents are also aware of
their teensy li'l parts in that. ;)

Well, the parents are prepared to spend perhaps an extra $100K on their
house to get into this school district but I think the parents have the
most to do with how well their kids do, with the second most important
factor being the environment (if all of your friends are expected to
do well, you're more likely to do well), and third is the teachers.

Bob S

OT? American politics
 

"Hawke" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the links. But I've got to tell you that over the years I've
met
a lot of extremely bright and well educated people, some PH.Ds in fact,
and
not a one of them ever took Latin. I guess it's the kind of thing you
can
argue about as to whether it's important or a waste of time to learn
Latin.
In my view, I think there are plenty of other things one can spend
their
time doing that are more valuable than learning Latin. Like
concentrating
on
a sport or learning a modern language, to name a couple. Especially
when
you
consider how people have to prioritize their precious time these days.
But
opinions will vary on the benefits or lack there of to learning Latin.
Oh,
how about you? Did you have to learn it?

Nothing beyond the rudiments, for which I've always been sorry.

The world is full of narrowly educated specialists, many with advanced
degrees. I've spent a lot of my life editing their work into something
coherent and literate. I'm thankful for those people because they produce
a
lot of useful work and because they have provided me with a job.

I would never consult with them for their opinions on anything of
importance. d8-)

--
Ed Huntress

Whew, that sounds awfully condescending and elitist.

It is. It's also accurate. What it's *not* is politically correct.

You must be a narrowly educated specialist!

Not much of a specialist in anything, unless you count the skills of a
freelance writer and editor as a specialty. I'd count them as an application
for a generalist who's spent his working life handling language and ideas.

You'll not get any argument from me that the world is
full of narrowly educated specialists, but that's a damn good thing. In
the
modern world there is just too much information for anyone to be a
"renaissance man" anymore.

It's your choice.

I am also sure that you found that highly educated people are not always
so
great when it comes to writing.

"Highly educated" people often are. In contrast, people who are highly
trained in a profession or a highly skilled vocation, such as research
engineers, scientists, and medical specialists, often are not. For me,
that's a good thing. d8-)

Maybe because that too is a specialty not
many people master no matter how many years they have been in school. It's
like playing a musical instrument. Many people play, many put lots of work
into it, but only a few are really good at it. You can work at learning to
write but some people are just a lot better at it than the rest of us.

Like most things it requires some ability, but it's mostly what Thomas
Edison said: perspiration. Like anything else.

Lucky
for you, because you specialized in the literary area, you were able to
profit from the lack of talent of people with top flight educations.

Let's clarify: I've been able to profit because a lot of specialists
confused their vocational training with an education. They aren't the same
thing.

But if
like me, you have known a good number of the "best and brightest" a lot of
the time you walk away thinking, boy, how did this guy do so well in
school.
On the other hand, I've met people that just blew me away with their
brains
and knowledge. I have found that most of the people like that all have
great
educations and degrees too.

Usually true.


Anyway, I have looked at the question of learning Latin, since it piqued
my
interest. After thinking about it I have concluded it's a waste of time
and
effort for 99% of people. There are way too many things to choose from to
do
with one's limited time these days. Learning Latin isn't one I would rank
high on any list of things one should do. But then, given the choice of
being in a classroom learning Latin or working out in the gym, I'd surely
choose the latter. The time spent in the gym is a lot better for one's
health than sitting on one's ass in a Latin class. With your health
challenges I think you might agree working at being healthy is better for
e
tu, brute, in the long run than knowing how to read and speak Latin. Once
that health starts to go everything else begins to look a lot less
important, doesn't it?

If I'm ever limited by it, I'll consider the question. Right now the
challenge is just to keep it out of the way while I get on with my life.

Again, Latin, higher math, philosophy, and other subjects long considered
essential to a liberal education are difficult and time consuming. Whether
to study them is a decision people make based on how they want to live their
life. It's the old mind/material conflict, and, in the US particularly,
we've thrown almost our whole lot in with the material. I'd rather not.

--
Ed Huntress