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PDQ wrote:
"Drew Lawson" wrote in message
...
In article
"J. Clarke" writes:
Morris Dovey wrote:

SNIP

BTW, my first computer programming was in a US public school. I'm
still finding that useful, as today's paycheck reminds me.

--
Drew Lawson For it's not the fall, but landing,
That will alter your social standing


Must be nice to be so young.

My grade school had no computers - they had not been invented yet.

I saw my first computer in my last year of high school - you could
walk inside it.

The first computer I played with was a 360-50 - only needed half a
room for it.

Now I have a PC with more power than the 50 and it sits on my desk.


Wanna have some fun, google "Hercules". Runs 360 code on a PC faster
than any 360 ever did.

I still need a bigger and faster playtoy.

P D Q


--
--
--John
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(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)


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jo4hn wrote:
J. Clarke wrote:
Douglas Johnson wrote:
"J. Clarke" wrote:

The schools are a miserable experience that produce mediocre
results. The argument that they are better than nothing doesn't
wash. What did you personally learn in the public schools school
other than to read and write and do sums that was of any real
value
in later life?

[snip]


It taught me how to characterize a problem and to employ logical
thought processes in formulating a solution.


Lucky you. The only kind of "problem" we were required to
"characterize" was "what's going to be on the test".

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)


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jo4hn wrote:
J. Clarke wrote:
Douglas Johnson wrote:
"J. Clarke" wrote:

Douglas Johnson wrote:
"J. Clarke" wrote:

The schools are a miserable experience that produce mediocre
results. The argument that they are better than nothing doesn't
wash. What did you personally learn in the public schools
school
other than to read and write and do sums that was of any real
value
in later life?

[snip]
Sounds to me like you went to an unusual school. The most
important
thing I got out of high school was _me_.

You are right. School for you was of no real value.


Well, it did teach me to resist boredom.

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)


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PDQ wrote:
"Drew Lawson" wrote in message ...
In article
"J. Clarke" writes:
Morris Dovey wrote:

SNIP
BTW, my first computer programming was in a US public school. I'm
still finding that useful, as today's paycheck reminds me.

--
Drew Lawson For it's not the fall, but landing,
That will alter your social standing


Must be nice to be so young.

My grade school had no computers - they had not been invented yet.

I saw my first computer in my last year of high school - you could walk inside it.

The first computer I played with was a 360-50 - only needed half a room for it.

Now I have a PC with more power than the 50 and it sits on my desk.

I still need a bigger and faster playtoy.

P D Q


Reminds me of a Monty Python skit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo

--
Free bad advice available here.
To reply, eat the taco.
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"J. Clarke" wrote in message ...
PDQ wrote:
"Drew Lawson" wrote in message
...
In article
"J. Clarke" writes:
Morris Dovey wrote:

SNIP

Now I have a PC with more power than the 50 and it sits on my desk.


Wanna have some fun, google "Hercules". Runs 360 code on a PC faster
than any 360 ever did.


Back when the 50 was new we could get a day's work out of it in 36 hours.
Wasn't until I got to use the 65 that I could get a day' work in a day.

Later, in the 70 and 90 series, I could get 3 days work in 4 hours. Thank "whomever" for we had a total SNAFU (almost a FUBAR) that took us most of a week to recover. Took me 2 days to figure out how much had been screwed up (by whom) another day to convince the headshed what needed doing to recover and a 4th day implementing the requisite changes. Started at 6:00 one evening and by sunup I had managed to recover the whole week's throughput.

I still need a bigger and faster playtoy.

P D Q


--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)




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In article
"J. Clarke" writes:
Drew Lawson wrote:
In article
"J. Clarke" writes:
Morris Dovey wrote:


My public schools (1967-1980) sound a lot like Morris'.


Where was this?


Let's see:
San Leandro, California
Coronado, California
Lemoore, California
Newport, Rhode Island
Springfield, Virginia
Elementary in all, Jr High and High School in the last.

Based on slightly removed observations, the selections are still
similar here in Beavercreek, Ohio (Dayton area). Recent (2-3 years)
feedback from Sterling, Virginia says the same.

Of course, I started school in the heat of the space race when
building the US school system to beat the Russians was a priority.
If I were a decade older, thinks might not have been funded so well.
(In TV terms, I'm the Brady Bunch generation. I get mixed stories
from the Father Knows Best era.)


BTW, my first computer programming was in a US public school. I'm
still finding that useful, as today's paycheck reminds me.


One presumes that that has changed since I was in school--at the time
"computer" was something that cost millions of dollars and would have
filled the gym handily.


I'm thinking that you got taught a thing or three that worked into
whatever your career was, but I don't expect you to agree.


--
Drew Lawson | Radioactive cats have
| 18 half-lives
|
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Drew Lawson wrote:
In article
"J. Clarke" writes:
Drew Lawson wrote:
In article
"J. Clarke" writes:
Morris Dovey wrote:


My public schools (1967-1980) sound a lot like Morris'.


Where was this?


Let's see:
San Leandro, California
Coronado, California
Lemoore, California
Newport, Rhode Island
Springfield, Virginia
Elementary in all, Jr High and High School in the last.

Based on slightly removed observations, the selections are still
similar here in Beavercreek, Ohio (Dayton area). Recent (2-3 years)
feedback from Sterling, Virginia says the same.

Of course, I started school in the heat of the space race when
building the US school system to beat the Russians was a priority.
If I were a decade older, thinks might not have been funded so well.
(In TV terms, I'm the Brady Bunch generation. I get mixed stories
from the Father Knows Best era.)


BTW, my first computer programming was in a US public school. I'm
still finding that useful, as today's paycheck reminds me.


One presumes that that has changed since I was in school--at the
time
"computer" was something that cost millions of dollars and would
have
filled the gym handily.


I'm thinking that you got taught a thing or three that worked into
whatever your career was, but I don't expect you to agree.


Not really. Most of what I learned from 6-18 that was engineering
related I learned on my own, which got me in trouble because on tests
I would put down the right answer instead of the regurgitate the
lecture answer.

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)


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J. Clarke wrote:
Morris Dovey wrote:


Not in the US, although the school program was modeled after New
York
State's curriculum. Don't kids in at least some NY and NJ public
schools have the opportunity to learn other languages? I'd be
astonished if kids in south FL, TX, AZ, and NM don't have the
opportunity to take Spanish. The teacher for both languages was
Lebanese (and the only non-American teacher in the school).


The public schools in Florida, Virginia, Louisiana, and California, at
least when I was there, offered _no_ languages until high school. The
Louisiana Catholic parochial schools taught French from first grade
on, but no Spanish.


That's grim. I don't know about LA, but I'm fairly sure that languages
other than English are now common (or at least not rare) in FL, VA, and CA.

In high school the Spanish teachers were not native speakers and were
marginally competent, which, combined with the starting in high
school, meant that most of the students learned "Queiro ir al cuarto
de bano" (should be a tilde on that n") and that was the end of it.

New York and New Jersey might be better. They would have had to work
at it to be much worse.


Yeah - at some point along the way someone decided that it was more
important for teachers to know about theories of education and how to
handle administrivial paperwork than about the subject they were to
teach. The results speak for themselves.

We sat quietly and regurgitated whatever the teacher told us, no
matter how stupid it might have been.


I'm sitting here giving thanks that this didn't happen to me because I'd
have been dead meat - I can learn, but I've never been able to memorize
anything.

I was blessed (although it didn't always seem that way at the time) with
teachers who wanted their students to /think/ - who were always asking:
"So where do we go with that?" or "When might that be useful?". I had an
English teacher (not in public school) who regularly walked over in
front of my desk, looked down at me, and smiled broadly just before he'd
ask: "And what does The Dove think of /that/?" I'm sitting here laughing
about it now, but in the beginning it absolutely terrified me.

Well, you begin to see the problem. I don't deny that there must be
_some_ decent public schools out there, but I never attended any. The
two good teachers in the ones I attended were constantly battling the
system.


I /do/ see the problem. Somehow we need to replace indifferent
instructors with _teachers_ who know their subject, the value of its
knowledge, and who see that the future is in the hands of their
students. It's the "somehow" that's the hard part.

Good that you managed to hit on a field in which you could apply
_something_. Most people need to know about potics like they need a
hole in the head.


Hmm. I was a math major who went into computer new product development
(and who only rarely ever used any of the math) :-b

I only tackled the solar technology because (at age 60) I decided it was
important enough and potentially valuable enough to use up my last years
demonstrating its potential.

Think of it as an attempt to be worthy of the efforts of those Good
Teachers, however lame that might seem.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/
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Morris Dovey wrote:
J. Clarke wrote:
Morris Dovey wrote:


Not in the US, although the school program was modeled after New
York
State's curriculum. Don't kids in at least some NY and NJ public
schools have the opportunity to learn other languages? I'd be
astonished if kids in south FL, TX, AZ, and NM don't have the
opportunity to take Spanish. The teacher for both languages was
Lebanese (and the only non-American teacher in the school).


The public schools in Florida, Virginia, Louisiana, and California,
at least when I was there, offered _no_ languages until high
school.
The Louisiana Catholic parochial schools taught French from first
grade on, but no Spanish.


That's grim. I don't know about LA, but I'm fairly sure that
languages
other than English are now common (or at least not rare) in FL, VA,
and CA.


But introduced at what level? If they don't start it until high
school then most students are not going to develop any fluency.

In high school the Spanish teachers were not native speakers and
were
marginally competent, which, combined with the starting in high
school, meant that most of the students learned "Queiro ir al
cuarto
de bano" (should be a tilde on that n") and that was the end of it.

New York and New Jersey might be better. They would have had to
work
at it to be much worse.


Yeah - at some point along the way someone decided that it was more
important for teachers to know about theories of education and how
to
handle administrivial paperwork than about the subject they were to
teach. The results speak for themselves.


And now they're loaded down with paperwork to satisfy the bureaucrats
besides.

We sat quietly and regurgitated whatever the teacher told us, no
matter how stupid it might have been.


I'm sitting here giving thanks that this didn't happen to me because
I'd have been dead meat - I can learn, but I've never been able to
memorize anything.

I was blessed (although it didn't always seem that way at the time)
with teachers who wanted their students to /think/ - who were always
asking: "So where do we go with that?" or "When might that be
useful?". I had an English teacher (not in public school) who
regularly walked over in
front of my desk, looked down at me, and smiled broadly just before
he'd ask: "And what does The Dove think of /that/?" I'm sitting here
laughing about it now, but in the beginning it absolutely terrified
me.

Well, you begin to see the problem. I don't deny that there must
be
_some_ decent public schools out there, but I never attended any.
The two good teachers in the ones I attended were constantly
battling the system.


I /do/ see the problem. Somehow we need to replace indifferent
instructors with _teachers_ who know their subject,


And we have to get off the backs of the ones who do. I have a friend
who has a PhD in education and is a retired teacher. Every time I see
him he has another horror story passed on to him by one of the many
teachers with whom he has contact. Idiocy like being disciplined for
answering a student's question with anything other than "look it up"
on the basis that they're "supposed to be teaching studends how to
learn" for example. I don't know how widespread that sort of thing
is--he seems to think it's pretty commonplace. The last teacher I
dated was good with the kids and good with dealing with the
administration, but quite frankly outside of work she was NUTS (not
going to go into anecdotes) and I suspect that the work had done it to
her.

the value of its
knowledge, and who see that the future is in the hands of their
students. It's the "somehow" that's the hard part.

Good that you managed to hit on a field in which you could apply
_something_. Most people need to know about potics like they need
a
hole in the head.


Hmm. I was a math major who went into computer new product
development
(and who only rarely ever used any of the math) :-b

I only tackled the solar technology because (at age 60) I decided it
was important enough and potentially valuable enough to use up my
last years demonstrating its potential.

Think of it as an attempt to be worthy of the efforts of those Good
Teachers, however lame that might seem.


Good thought. The thing is if I was going to do something worhty of
my Good Teachers I'd be an author, and in that area, well, I have seen
talent and it is something that I lack.

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)


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"jo4hn" wrote in message

It taught me how to characterize a problem and to employ logical thought
processes in formulating a solution.
mahalo,
jo4hn


Old fashioned. Nobody does that any more.




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J. Clarke wrote:
Morris Dovey wrote:


I don't know about LA, but I'm fairly sure that languages other
than English are now common (or at least not rare) in FL, VA, and
CA.


But introduced at what level? If they don't start it until high
school then most students are not going to develop any fluency.


I suspect that about the best that can be hoped for is /preparation/ for
fluency. For most of us, real fluency probably only comes with actual
use of a language. AFAICT, the most effective route to fluency is a
total immersion - and that's difficult to do in a school setting.

I /do/ see the problem. Somehow we need to replace indifferent
instructors with _teachers_ who know their subject,


And we have to get off the backs of the ones who do. I have a friend
who has a PhD in education and is a retired teacher. Every time I
see him he has another horror story passed on to him by one of the
many teachers with whom he has contact. Idiocy like being
disciplined for answering a student's question with anything other
than "look it up" on the basis that they're "supposed to be teaching
students how to learn" for example. I don't know how widespread that
sort of thing is--he seems to think it's pretty commonplace.


From what I've heard, it's at least not unusual.

The
last teacher I dated was good with the kids and good with dealing
with the administration, but quite frankly outside of work she was
NUTS (not going to go into anecdotes) and I suspect that the work had
done it to her.


The thing is if I was going to do something worhty of my Good
Teachers I'd be an author, and in that area, well, I have seen talent
and it is something that I lack.



--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/
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Morris Dovey wrote:

Not in the US, although the school program was modeled after New York
State's curriculum.


Just for grins, I looked to see if the school is still there (it is).
This online satellite imagery stuff just boggles my mind - there's a
bird's eye view of the school, my home, and the rec center where I spent
a lot of my time at http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/Misc/AbqaiqSatAn.jpg

And you can get a look at the "moonscape" around the town by going to
Google maps and specifying 'Abqaiq, Saudi Arabia'. Any green you see
outside the town is /not/ vegetation.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/
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