CBS "News" strikes AGAIN

Howdy!

In article , wrote:
That's the point dufuss, its out of control so folks don't bother to get
technical about the very very few. When things are so screwed up and to the
extreme that our system is nothing more than government learning centers,
who give a crap about the very few. They don't matter at this point. Do
the math then decide when to use your favorite ancient word phrases that
most of us would rather frequent at some engineers annual meeting.

Excuse me. Did I use words you don't understand? Words with more than one
syllable? Did you reply to the wrong post? I can't relate your incomprehensible
tirade to what I wrote.

yours,
Michael
--
Michael and MJ Houghton | Herveus d'Ormonde and Megan O'Donnelly
| White Wolf and the Phoenix
Bowie, MD, USA | Tablet and Inkle bands, and other stuff
| http://www.radix.net/~herveus/

On Mon, 19 Jan 2004 18:04:48 -0700, "Tom Sixkiller"
wrote:


"Mike H" wrote in message
...
I've stayed out of this so far, but....
I'd say the biggest determination of a successful
education is the involvement of the parent(s).

That helps, but, for example, learning to fly will go no where if your
instructor doesn;t know what makes and airplane fly.


Next comes
the child themselves and the type of school is last. (There
are good and bad teachers in all kinds of schools.)

Again...the basis of human learning and knowledge has not been a part of the
schools of education (other than pragmatic guessing games with the kids a
guinna pigs) for a couple generations.


My 'credentials' are purely to have raised two sons, educated
through the public school system. One of which now has
dual BS degrees and the other is about to get his Phd from
Emory Univ. That, and a lot of observing why some
children had problems and others did not....

Have you ever notice what's referred to as the "educated idiot"? I'm sure we
all have. Ever wonder why that is?

Tom, I've stayed out of this so far because you always seem to be on
the edge when it comes to "discussion", and most responses always seem
to degenerate to name calling. But like some others in this group,
I'm married to a career teacher and this gives us an insight that
should be beneficial to this discussion. Guess what the starting
salary for teachers is up here in Vermont?: about $18,000 - $20,000.

Mike has it absolutely correct in that the single greatest influence
in the development and education of the child is not the teacher or
the school, it's the parents.

If the parents do not interact with the child, or disparage the school
in front of them, or "go to bat" for the child when he/she misbehaves
in school rather than make the attempt to correct the behavior that
caused the disruption in the first place (MY Johnny wouldn't beat up
anyone) then there is no hope for that child to gain a viable
education in that school no matter who is teaching, and that kid is
going to have problems throughout school.

In addition, my wife used to meet with parents and children to see if
they are ready to enter Kindergarten. How was that determined? It
had to do with the childs development, both mentally and physically.
If the parent forces the issue and demands that the child enter before
he/she is ready, bad things happen. The child ends up constantly
behind everyone else because they simply aren't ready to learn at the
proper level yet. Again, it doesn't matter who is teaching, God
wouldn't make a difference if the child just isn't developmentally
ready to learn.

This goes for the upper grades too. The huge problem is that children
develop at different speeds. No two children are exactly the same and
the teacher must teach each child at his or her different level,
regardless which grade. Some teachers do this well, others don't.

The big thing you are missing with regards your diatribe against
teachers is that every single one must complete a college education.
If you complete that college education but did not major in the
education field, then you must either then take more courses in
education, or spend many years apprenticing before you become
certified. If you want a higher salary, you must further your
education. My wife has a masters in education and still makes only
about $30,000. Think about that for a minute. Teachers are tasked
with what may be the most important job on earth, teaching children so
that they have the skills to be successfull in life. Are they paid
commesurate of their responsibility?

Corky Scott

Although it's not specifically stated as a right in the US
Constitution, the right to travel freely in your own country (without
"papers"), is generally believed to be a fundamental right. The right
to travel freely is also a benchmark for a measure of freedom in all
countries. Both Nazi Germany and the Communist system required
"papers" to travel from one city to the next. I dread the day when I
land at the airport, and a uniformed officer comes up to me and says,
"papers please". It will be a major loss of a fundamental right.

Now, things ARE different in war. But we can't have "continual" war,
as the "war on terrorism" or the "cold war". I can accept temporary
restrictions during a crisis (gasoline rationing in WWII, sugar
rationing, restricted travel, blackout curtains along the east coast
etc), but not permanent or semi-permanent ones. If we are in a cold
war, sorry, we HAVE to go back to having our fundamental rights and
take some risk of a terrorist attack, which, by the way, there is no
way of preventing with complete certainty.

There has been one terroist attack on the US. And it was terrible.
4000 people lost there lives. But there are over 60,000 deaths due to
car accidents a year. Just how much freedom are you willing to give
up?

The "homeland sucurity" advocates make the argument, "but yes, we
could have a nuclear attack, wouldn't you give up your freedom to
travel for preventing such attack?" BUT their security measures don't
make such a guarantee. With the draconian travel restrictions we give
up our freedom to travel and STILL are under a threat of attack.

There are things they can do. Baggage matching, baggage scanning,
linking visa data with Social Security data etc, to keep tabs on
visitors to our country. Most of these actions limit our freedom to
travel very little. So do those things. But don't start asking me for
"papers please". We can't go there.

In article
fc.003d093b01c589f03b9aca00bb6b3d27.1c589f4@amugo nline.org,
"Royce Brown" wrote:

"C J Campbell" writes:
Maybe you would like to shoot school children or mothers, too. Who else
would you like to shoot? Republicans? Baptists? Anybody that Dan Rather
does
not like?

So to you shooting down a drunk pilot busting airspace is the same as
shooting school children and mothers?


It reminds me of Fearless Fosdick shooting "criminal jaywalkers." MY
answer is "YES."

Could you please provide factual evidence that the system you have outlined
will make my children more successful and/or happy in life than had they
been educated otherwise?

Thanks.

"Tom Sixkiller" wrote in
:


"Judah" wrote in message
...
My kids are just starting in school. My son is in 3rd grade and my
daughter will start Kindergarden next fall.

Please advise on how I can ensure that my children grasp the knowledge
presented to them.

1) Avoid public schools
2) Dig out all you can about the Montessori method
3) Find some good material about human epistemology
4) Find some good works on critical thinking
5) Find some good works about abstract thinking and concept formation
(note: this teaches children to make associations, rather then just
perform memorization)

There is more, but this should hold you for a year or so. Note, too,
that very little of this material is found in the conventional
literature of education.

If you need some sources, leave you email address.

While not enumerated in the Constitution, travel is a civil right
according to the Supreme Court. The applicable decision involved a black
Army officer who was murdered while traveling through a Southern state
and established freedom to travel as a constitutionally protected right.

Dave Reinhart


Doug wrote:

Although it's not specifically stated as a right in the US
Constitution, the right to travel freely in your own country (without
"papers"), is generally believed to be a fundamental right. The right
to travel freely is also a benchmark for a measure of freedom in all
countries. Both Nazi Germany and the Communist system required
"papers" to travel from one city to the next. I dread the day when I
land at the airport, and a uniformed officer comes up to me and says,
"papers please". It will be a major loss of a fundamental right.

Judah wrote in message . ..
Could you please provide factual evidence that the system you have outlined
will make my children more successful and/or happy in life than had they
been educated otherwise?

Thanks.

"Tom Sixkiller" wrote in
:


"Judah" wrote in message
...
My kids are just starting in school. My son is in 3rd grade and my
daughter will start Kindergarden next fall.

Please advise on how I can ensure that my children grasp the knowledge
presented to them.

1) Avoid public schools
2) Dig out all you can about the Montessori method
3) Find some good material about human epistemology
4) Find some good works on critical thinking
5) Find some good works about abstract thinking and concept formation
(note: this teaches children to make associations, rather then just
perform memorization)

There is more, but this should hold you for a year or so. Note, too,
that very little of this material is found in the conventional
literature of education.

If you need some sources, leave you email address.

Montessori method- God I can't believe some people still hang with
that method. Ok for the 80s but the world has moved on - but when you
are deperate or .....

"Jeb" wrote in message
om...

If you need some sources, leave your email address.

Montessori method- God I can't believe some people still hang with
that method. Ok for the 80s but the world has moved on -

Let's see:

The Prussian school model of Thomas Mann; 1840 -still in place
The Social Subjectivist education model of John Dewey; 1920 - still in place
The Look-Say rading methods; 1940's - still in place

Three disasters still going strong....but more money, more parental
involvement....

Montessori - developed in the 1920's; banned in Italy (Where it originated),
Germany and the Soviet Union (amongst others). Teaches the association
between concrete (tangible) items and the relationships to similar items.

but when you
are deperate or .....

So the human mind has evolved in the past 20 years?

Jeb, if you are more than 25 years old, I suggest you are obsolete and
should be converted into Soylent Green.



Sounds like the desperate (and half literate) or here is yourself.

On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 07:28:42 -0700, "Tom Sixkiller"
wrote:


The Look-Say rading methods; 1940's - still in place

It's spelled "reading" and most schools are teaching reading using
phonics now.

Some educational methods work well and don't need changing. Phonics
is one of those things. Schools kind of got away from it back in the
late '60's and '70's, developing something called "whole language",
which was presented as a better method without any testing actually
being done to see if it really was more effective or not. It wasn't,
and most educators now acknowledge that phonics, which is not new, is
by far the more effective method.

So just because the method may seem old doesn't mean it doesn't work.

Also, children tend to learn almost despite the method with which they
are taught. Smart kids learn. Children with attitudes, which they
inevitably pick up from their parents, often have trouble in schools.

Corky Scott

(Jeb) wrote:

Montessori method- God I can't believe some people still hang with
that method. Ok for the 80s but the world has moved on - but when you
are deperate or .....

My sister has seen remarkable success with her kids in a Montessori
school. My niece is on track to enter a community college at age 15 or
so...

Rob