posted
I've never heard anyone say "on the contrary" out loud. My family is reasonably educated - mostly bachelor's degress, relatives a few degrees out have doctorates, but on my mother's side, only my aunt graduated from college.
Buffy and Biff? Are your theoretical white kids wearing tennis whites and ordering Jeeves to bring the Rolls around after lunch?
You don't have any moral standing from which to preach, Irami.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:, "On the contrary, my dear Watson," is common currency in institutionally white circles
a) you got the euphemism wrong. It's "Elementary my dear Watson" b) The only person I've ever heard use it in actual speech is myself, one of the only people I've ever known IRL, who actually *read* Arthur Conan Doyle. My white people could and did look askance at me for saying it, cause they didn't get it either.
quote:Buffy and Biff? Are your theoretical white kids wearing tennis whites and ordering Jeeves to bring the Rolls around after lunch?
Yep.
AJ,
I got the idiom wrong.
quote:The only person I've ever heard use it in actual speech is myself, one of the only people I've ever known IRL, who actually *read* Arthur Conan Doyle.
posted
This thread makes me, as an ethnic hodgepodge who looks white [edit: and who is also, through no fault of his own, skinny as a toothpick], feel decidedly weird.
Do I declare my ethnicity as "other" on the government forms, or not? I'm certainly part caucasian and I look like I'm all caucasian, lips excepted.
posted
Hmm...you know, I don't think Holmes ever actually said, "It's elementary, my daer Watson." It's the quote that you hear all the time, but I think it's like "Play it again, Sam." It's a conglomeration of a few other quotes, but was never said verbatim.
posted
Incidentally, my black-cuban boyfriend, while I have no idea whether he's actually read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, has most certainly read more Plato and Machievelli than I have, and he read it in high school, before he became a National Merit Scholar. I *know* at least a dozen Black "National Achievement" scholars, who were extremely pissed that they were given the "achievement" award because that has been designated for minorities. Because they deserved the straight "National Merit Scholarhship" based on their test scores. They kicked the white kids butts, and still got the scholarship with the affirmative action name.
So don't tell me blacks can't do as well as whites on SATs. The black girl across the hall from me who came from the football mecca of Jenks, Oklahoma still managed to get a 1600.
posted
AJ, you feel good refuting the argument you put in my mouth? Make you feel strong? Or even right? If you want another black statistic for your argument that I didn't make, it's safe to say that I've read more Plato and Machiavelli than most people on this largely white board. But I'm an outlier for quite a few reasons, the least of which is that I don't think it's a coincidence and that one of my parents and your BF's parents were immigrants.
You know, all this should really go on the Tricknology Thread.
This thread used to concern when it's appropriate to make pudgy people feel better about their pudginess.
posted
Katie I believe it was actually in the books, but it was mixed in with a lot of stilted english english. It's in the one where the snake gets planted, and then there's the Left Handed Gang.
I'm still flabbergasted that no one mentions Sherlock Holmes' little cocaine habit at all.
posted
No it just frustrates me, that you don't give your own race any credit, at all, for anything.
You seem to be trying to perpetuate the helpless mythology that you want to believe.
I'm not denying that there are racial inequalities, and issues. But you ignore the large part of the minority population that *has* been steadily improving their living conditions and education as if they are inconsequential. When they aren't. (Including the non-immigrant population)
I thought it was an injustice that some of my friends got the "Achievment" rather than the "Merit" scholarship. But the semantics don't change the facts which were that they kicked 99.99% of the white populations butt at the SAT, even if they lived in a ghetto in Houston or the sticks of Oklahoma. I don't believe the game is actually rigged to keep blacks out of college or they wouldn't have been there.
posted
You know, I don't think I've ever used the phrase "on the contrary" in my life, and I was a huge Sherlock Holmes fan, growing up.
Then again, people who can't figure out what it means by context don't deserve to "pass" the SAT.
------
And I'm going to break your heart now, Irami.
quote: I think think a small cadre of white people proposed this section because they couldn't stand the increasing number of immigrants dominating a "merit" based test.
Nope. Speaking as someone who was working for the National Council of Teachers of English at the time these changes were proposed and discussed, I can say with absolute authority that the major drive to dumb down the SAT -- particularly removing the analogy section and adding useless idioms -- was to improve black and hispanic scores, given that it was assumed that both groups were unfamiliar with the concept of analogies, did poorly with straight vocabulary, and were more likely to have been exposed to idiom.
The goal was not to bring the Asians down to the level of Caucasians, Irami; it was, quite specifically -- and I'm speaking here as somebody who finds the changes ridiculous, and argued against them when I had the chance -- to bring blacks and hispanics up to that level.
posted
Me too. We had a collection in the house and I've read everything. Come to think of it, I think I swiped it. Now *I* have a collection in my house.
I'm going to use "on the contrary" three times the next Hatrack gathering.
quote:I thought it was an injustice that some of my friends got the "Achievment" rather than the "Merit" scholarship. But the semantics don't change the facts which were that they kicked 99.99% of the white populations butt at the SAT, even if they lived in a ghetto in Houston or the sticks of Oklahoma.
Hence, the introduction of the idioms section.
quote:I don't believe the game is actually rigged to keep blacks out of college or they wouldn't have been there.
With the idioms, I think target was first generation Asians and Indians. As to the rest of the sentence, I don't know if that's the case. ________
Tom, I believe you. I also think someone sold you a bill of goods. This may have started out among one group concerning blacks and hispanics, but it ended with its sights on asians and indian immigrants.
posted
AJ, I agree, to an extent. The main beneficiaries of the idiom and essay sections are privileged whites, the ones threatened by incoming asians and Indian immigrants.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
It doesn't hurt the Indian immigrants. because large majority of the ones who would take the SAT in the first place are highly educated, in a British-style education system.
quote:I also think someone sold you a bill of goods. This may have started out among one group concerning blacks and hispanics, but it ended with its sights on asians and indian immigrants.
I'm interested, Irami, in why you think you know this for a fact, when Tom doesn't believe it to be so and he worked there. I also don't think of Tom as a stupid person that could so easily have the wool pulled over his eyes.
Do you think you just see things so much better than others? Is it because you're so much smarter than Tom and me and everyone else? Or is it Tom's white ethnicity that makes him unable to comprehend the complexities of the vast conspiracy of the SAT?
I guess I'm asking - do you not see how arrogant, condescending, and completely vile you sound sometimes? Or do you just not care?
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:I'm interested, Irami, in why you think you know this for a fact, when Tom doesn't believe it to be so and he worked there. I also don't think of Tom as a stupid person that could so easily have the wool pulled over his eyes.
I don't speak in terms of facts. Is it so hard to believe that, at some point in the process, the agenda got subverted, maybe at a point later than Tom's involvement? I've been hustled so many times, in so many ways, for so many reasons, that I wouldn't be surprised at all. I find this terribly ironic that anyone in this nation disbelieves that this could be the case considering that we went to war on being sold a bill of goods. Do you want to know what I think happened. A drive started with good intentions, got perverted, and ended with idioms, and there weren't enough checks in the system to stop it.
quote:I guess I'm asking - do you not see how arrogant, condescending, and completely vile you sound sometimes? Or do you just not care?
Belle, I imagine it's about as arrogant, condescending, and completely vile you sound to me, on occasion. What's worse is that your views have the added emphasis of being popular and fashionable. For most of my life, I've been keeping quiet about it, but then I realized that 1) it gives me indigestion, 2) I think it's what the bad people want, so I'm going to keep yapping as I see it.
And lastly, does it really matter how arrogant, condescending, and completely vile the argument is, if it's right? Here is my question to you. You don't need to marshall up any statistics, feel free to answer with your gut, does including an idiom section sound appropriate to you for the SAT?
For the record, I don't mind an essay section. Depending on how it's graded, it could work. Admittedly, I would probably scored atrociously at the time, but it's one of those things that I should have been able to do, even if I couldn't. But of all of the things in the world, testing ones exposure to idioms strikes me as horribly petty.
AJ,
quote:It doesn't hurt the Indian immigrants. because a large majority of the ones who would take the SAT in the first place are highly educated, in a British-style education system.
I don't know if that's true. I see where you are coming from, but I'm of the opinion that British english taught as a second language in india is different from idiomatic British english which is different from idiomatic American English.
Storm Saxon,
quote:The problem, Irami, is that you have no evidence for that opinion.
I have two eyes and two ears, some situations don't give themselves to evidence.
posted
I don't understand how you can argue with Tom, Irami. He has given a reason for his judgements on the SAT-- you have not.
That's just . . .poor, and you know it. Where is your sense of excellence? I want to discover if you are just spouting rhetoric you've heard from someone else, or if your ideas are well defined, sharpened, extensive, SOLIDLY your own through research and thought.
If we believe Tom, we believe that he has personal knowledge of the subject. His position is as tenous as our trust in him. Nevertheless, you've given zilch other than your opinion-- and what is there that we can point to and say, 'Thus, the reason?'
There isn't.
Give me a reason to give your ideas merit, Irami.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
The Pixiest's last post is a thing of beauty! I was trying to figure out how to demonstrate that the two phrases have different meanings, and would be used in different contexts. But I was beaten to the punch!
quote: Hmm...you know, I don't think Holmes ever actually said, "It's elementary, my dear Watson." It's the quote that you hear all the time, but I think it's like "Play it again, Sam." It's a conglomeration of a few other quotes, but was never said verbatim.
quote: Katie I believe it was actually in the books, but it was mixed in with a lot of stilted english english.
quote: I'm still flabbergasted that no one mentions Sherlock Holmes' little cocaine habit at all.
I didn't pick up on it (isn't it fairly subtle in most of the books?) until I saw The Seven Percent Solution. I guess I was 16 at that con, and I'd been reading Doyle for several years by that point.
I use both "to the contrary" and "on the contrary" in normal conversation. But don't go by me -- my SIL says I'm the only person she's ever heard use the word "hence" in everyday conversation. *grin*
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
All I can say about Holmes' cocaine habit is that, well...it's just WEIRD. [insert comment about the War on Drugs here] I think of it as a sort of cultural artifact of changing attitudes on drug use. First heard about it in a comic book, of all places.
Posts: 1114 | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
Boon
unregistered
posted
quote: who came from the football mecca of Jenks, Oklahoma
HA!! As an aside, this is just up the road from me.
IP: Logged |
posted
Scott, I'll put it too you? "You don't need to marshal up any statistics, feel free to answer with your gut, does including an idiom section sound appropriate to you for the SAT?"
At this stage, who is arguing for an idioms section and why? Who is arguing strenuously against it? I, personally, got used to the analogy section, I wasn't in love with it, but the devil you know is better than the devil you don't, and I liked the devil I had in the analogy section. _________
A few years ago, the president at the University of California started getting complaints from donors about the test, and he realized that he didn't know a few of the analogies tested, and he threatened to pull the University of California from the test and that's when the talk began concerning changing the SAT, because of the University of California carries such a big stick. (A significant number of midwest schools use the ACT, and the UC system is a huge SAT cash cow.) Now Asian Americans are overrepresented at the University of California by some two hundred and fifty percent, and that's not evenly balanced across the system. Berkeley, UCLA, ebb and flow at about over forty three to forty nine percent Asian, and Irvine is over fifty percent, and white people go to Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara. (I thought it was cool. I went to high school in orange county, and by the time I got to college, I was tired of being surrounded by white people. They went to Santa Barbara, I went to Berkeley, everything was cool.)
You only need to take two steps on campus to hear white people start griping about the sheer number of asians, and it was obvious that a pure calculus of GPA and SAT scores would benefit asian californians, (link) post affirmative action, as an unintended consequence.
So here is my read, the two best public universities in the state of California, and the US by extension, could not find a way to admit enough blacks, whites, or latinos, Atkinson got tough with the SAT, and while it took a few years, they eventually drew up a new test. It's going to take a few years to crunch the data, but I can tell you right now, I don't think it's going to help blacks and latinos a lick. To tell the truth, I understood analogies, and I've been saying for ten years that verbal section is a glorified vocabulary test, but through flash cards and perspiration, you can study for a vocabulary test, even you aren't exposed culturally to a large breadth of relevant vocabulary. Idioms are a different beast.
We'll find out next year, but I'll prognosticate that asian scores take a dip, and everyone else stays steady, resulting in a reversal of the trend at the top two schools, and a flood of new white students at Berkeley and UCLA. I don't know anything about the Ivy League schools, but I imagine that they are under similar circumstances, possibily more so because they have staggeringly white alumni to please, and get money from, and I've served on the Foundation, I know that it's not fortuitous for donors to come back and see students who don't look like they did.
As an aside, I heard something similar happened to Jews in the 60s and 70s, but I just remember Joseph Heller saying this in an interview before he died, and I didn't really catch it.
quote: quote:It doesn't hurt the Indian immigrants. because a large majority of the ones who would take the SAT in the first place are highly educated, in a British-style education system.
I don't know if that's true. I see where you are coming from, but I'm of the opinion that British english taught as a second language in india is different from idiomatic British english which is different from idiomatic American English.
India has a British-style education system, as does Sri Lanka. English is not taught in all schools - it depends on the area - village schools are less likely to have the necessary resources to add English to the curriculum as village people are much poorer. But the Indian immigrants that make it to North America tend to be from richer (relatively speaking) families anyway, so yes, they likely would have learned English at school.
Where it's taught, they use British English with British spelling. Pronunciation is Indianized, accents and all, of course. Even in the Hindi movies, English is interspersed with the Hindi dialogue.
One thing to keep in mind about India is that there are many languages in use in the country. Hindi and English are both used as bridge languages. As in Sri Lanka, English is used by big business, and if you want to work your way up the corporate ladder or work in any position that deals with foreigners, you'd better know English.
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
Where's the proof of a secret council of white men whose intention is to make the SAT harder for minorities and easier for white kids? The closest thing you've got is Liddy's diatribe against Atkinson. And is that G. Gordon Liddy that wrote it? My, my! What strange bedfellows. . . And the article directly contradicts the position of your FindArticle link-- which proposes that Atkinson did what he did to NOT be racist. . .
It is hard for me to believe that the process was corrupted, and you have STILL provided no proof to that effect.
Your comment earlier about the acheivement gap was well taken. Why do you believe there is an acheivement gap?
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
I don't support including an idiom section on the SAT, as I think that it tips the balance way too far toward people who grew up speaking American Standard English in the home. I don't think that this section was included on the test as part of some plot to keep Asians out of US Universities; I find Tom's version of things to be much more plausible than Irami's. Nonetheless, I think that Irami is right in the dampening effect it will have on the SAT scores of *any* students who didn't grow up with American Standard being spoken in the home, with non-native English speakers being hit hardest.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Belle, I imagine it's about as arrogant, condescending, and completely vile you sound to me, on occasion. What's worse is that your views have the added emphasis of being popular and fashionable.
What particular views of mine do you find to be vile, condescending and arrogant?
It must be about other subjects, because I know I haven't spoken out in favor of the idioms on the SAT. In fact, I'm not really questioning your view, but the way you've presented it. It is not your view that I find distasteful, it is the way you speak to and about others.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Wow Irami. So you assume that a person is overweight because they choose to be? Hmm. Well I guess I'll just tell that one to my mom who is overweight because of years of medication needed to keep her alive that packed on the pounds. She is allergic to too many foods to list here. She eats things that are considered healthy and does not eat excessive amounts. Yet she doesn't loose weight because of the years of medication and two mastectomies for breast cancer. Her weight is a direct result of circumstances outside her control. She's a pretty awesome lady considering the trials she's gone through. I'm glad I'm related to her and not you though. What a sad life to assume that a person's weight is due to character flaws. Posts: 1132 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
| IP: Logged |
quote:Your comment earlier about the acheivement gap was well taken. Why do you believe there is an acheivement gap?
Here is my opinion. Large swaths of the curriculum should be jettisoned. Most of the math and science should go the way of wood shop or any other trade. Most of everything after long division and a little algerbra is inane, and any more science than four elements, earth, fire, water, and air borders on superfluous. My parents couldn't help me past 6th grade science and math, their parents didn't know any more, and while I know science and math, I wish I would have spent that time learning to read, write, and think in english better.
My read is that WASPs have loaded the curriculum with things they know, and forgot that this information, while useful depending on you trade, is not "core."
Immigrants come to succeed in the America-- if that meant making card castles, they would make the highest damn card castles in the land-- and black americans and latinos have a different relationship with American institutions. The core curriculum is neither filled with things we happen to know, nor things we especially want to learn, nor are we as eager as immigrants to jump wasp hoops just because.
The result is that too often black kids and families can't make a strong argument for education and throw out the baby with bath water. There are complications, as always, because we are talking about kids being taught subjects the parents don't know or need, and being told a child is behind because he/she doesn't know about ohms and the right hand rule when the parent doesn't know about ohms and the right hand rule is tough business.
When I tell kids that education will be the light in their life. I'm not talking about knowing the difference between carpals and tarsals. I'm talking about narratives. You don't need to know about the chemical structure of fat to adjust your diet, one story about Napolean and gout will set a thinking person going. You don't need an FDA test to tell you that smoking is bad for you, all you need to do is talk to a smoker and listen to a cough or read a story about a smoker, and that's enough to send a thinking person going, but instead of thinking, we're big on teaching specific information.
Now I know that engineers and scientists may get upset concerning my thoughts on this issue, but the business of education concerns thinking, speaking, and make decisions every day, and only on occasion are these decisions based on science, the important ones concern thinking about stories and the world, and understanding the sense of the words we use to tell them.
Hannah Arendt, a woman with whom I am quite taken despite her being dead for twenty years, wrote in a book of letters to a friend the late sixties about how the American Negro doesn't want to lower or raise the standards with respect to these schools, rather, they want to fundamentally change the institutions, something much more radical. I read the letter last week, as always, I'm impressed with her insight. I think she is right. I don't want to lower standards. I don't think I'm going to be truly happy until the institution rights itself. ________
As to the SAT: The problem is the SAT was that it had to divide students, and the divisions seemed arbitrary. The solution to the problem seems equally arbitrary, except it gets rid of the pesky high-achievement immigrant problem. Maybe it's a coincidence, but everytime the dice are rolled, it always comes out this way, and how many times does it have to happen before someone think that maybe the dice are weighted.
posted
Irami- I agree that a manager of a business will never need to know the chemical formula for hydrosulfuric acid. I agree that an artist may never need to know trigonometry. I agree that computer training belongs more wholly at the vocational center than at the main school campus.
But I don't see a vast white-wing conspiracy keeping minorities from acheiving their educational goals.
I don't see the weighted die. I'd like to think that if you picked them up, rattled them under my nose, I'd be able to say, 'Oh, hey, man, we can't play with those.' But you've done nothing but tell me that somewhere out there, some white guys are playing shady craps.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
The Two Cultures are alive and well--article about C.P. Snow's Two Cultures, and the dearth of science and technical backgrounds among British elite.
quote: Most of everything after long division and a little algerbra is inane, and any more science than four elements, earth, fire, water, and air borders on superfluous.
Irami. Spoken like an English major.
Instead you want to focus on narratives. How can you make competent decisions in the real world without even a basic understanding of math and science, two of the most sucessful and penetrating ways of looking at the world?
You aren't kidding when you say you want to fundementally, radically change education, Irami. From the article:
quote: Yet the scientific voice is surprisingly marginal to the public discussion of many, if not all, of these issues. Too often in such debates, feet-on-the-ground rationality plays a distant second fiddle to modish attitudinising and "blue skies" thinking. In some debates it is the anti-scientific voice that holds the stage and commands most attention.
All too true. And abandoning math and science education will help this how?? Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote: Now I know that engineers and scientists may get upset concerning my thoughts on this issue, but the business of education concerns thinking, speaking, and make decisions every day, and only on occasion are these decisions based on science, the important ones concern thinking about stories and the world, and understanding the sense of the words we use to tell them.
I submit that there is plenty of time during the school day to teach science, math, english, and philosophy. Certainly, I managed to learn all of the above -- and I consider that the solid grounding in these subjects that I received made me a better person, even though it's the case that very little of any of these concepts help me in my career today.
I submit, furthermore, that someone who merely knows english and philosophy is considerably less of a "complete" person than someone who knows just as much english and philosophy but also happens to know physics and chemistry.
The issue is not that these subjects are not available; it's that not all students take advantage of what is made available to them.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Additionally, regardless of whether the average adult actually needs to know the formula for hydrosulfuric acid (and I would submit that it's certainly useful for them to at least vaguely recall that there is such a thing, especially if acid rain is under discussion) or trig (which I would think an artist absolutely would find useful, for such things as perspective), there are skills, techniques, and mindsets that come from learning math and science.
And those every adult needs.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Moreover, I contend that a basic understanding of math (especially statistics), science, and economics is necessary for one to participate intelligently in the political process. These aren't all that is necessary, but these are the ones you seem to want to eliminate.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Irami, have you read Innumeracy? There are considerable consequences to not knowing math, even for artists and non-engineers.
Description:
quote:Why do even well-educated people understand so little about mathematics? And what are the costs of our innumeracy? John Allen Paulos, in his celebrated bestseller first published in 1988, argues that our inability to deal rationally with very large numbers and the probabilities associated with them results in misinformed governmental policies, confused personal decisions, and an increased susceptibility to pseudoscience of all kinds. Innumeracy lets us know what we're missing, and how we can do something about it.
It looks like your plan, like your plan so often is, is to condemn and jettison everything you are not good at.
I know you'd like a world where the things you are not good at are not necessary, but why do you want to drag everyone else down on purpose? Black kids not keeping up in math? Jettison math! Talk about dumbing down - that wouldn't help anyone, except falsely inflate a few self esteems.
quote:It looks like your plan, like your plan so often is, is to condemn and jettison everything you are not good at.
I've proved to be a strong math and science student, and a shameful english and history student. I'm saying that I was wrong, and would have better served myself if I had spent more energy in my youth revering language and art.
From Paulos:
quote:I'm distressed by a society which depends so completely on mathematics and science and yet seems to indifferent to the innumeracy and scientific illiteracy of so many of its citizens.
This is a strange argument, for a few reasons. If our society depends on math and our citizens are math illiterate, it seems as though our society doesn't depend on the good opinions of our citizens. There is a sense in which this understanding of our society belies humanity.
Dag,
quote: I contend that a basic understanding of math (especially statistics), science, and economics is necessary for one to participate intelligently in the political process. These aren't all that is necessary, but these are the ones you seem to want to eliminate.
I think one needs a conceptual understanding of statistics and an eye for fallacy, all of which Scopatz could teach a 17 year old in a long weekend. By the way, when you say "participate intelligently," do you mean participate scientifically, because that's often code for having efficiency as ones guide post in all decisions.
rivka,
quote:there are skills, techniques, and mindsets that come from learning math and science.
That's where the danger begins. Science rests on a positive metaphysical understanding of the world, mainly, that everything important is intelligible through science.(The judeo-christian foundation for the primacy of science is deeper than that, owing to the world springing from the thought of God.) I do believe that there quiet a bit is intelligible through math and science, but I believe that it is over-represented in our curriculum because that which is represented in science isn't important. The result is an incredible amount of data that doesn't concern citizenship, justice, responsibility, character, courage, humility and all sorts of pesky qualities that are food for thought and belong to public education, and flow from the thoughtful concern for art and language.
quote: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Most of everything after long division and a little algerbra is inane, and any more science than four elements, earth, fire, water, and air borders on superfluous. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Irami. Spoken like an English major.
Instead you want to focus on narratives. How can you make competent decisions in the real world without even a basic understanding of math and science, two of the most sucessful and penetrating ways of looking at the world? --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Do you know what you get from for elements? "Why does earth fall?" "It belongs on the ground and it is merely returning to where it belongs. If you don't understand that, you don't understand what it is to be earth." "Why does fire rise?" "It belongs in the air it is merely seeking to return to where it belongs. If you don't understand that, you don't understand what it means to be fire." "Why do I go home to my wife instead of taking a mistress?" "I belong at home with my wife. If you don't understand that, then you don't understand what it is to be a husband." Belonging is everything, I'm of the opinion that understanding the nuances of belonging as at the heart of anything worth studying. I also worry that science and math, while posing as penetrating, reduce the world along inappropriate and indignified ways. Sure, science and math are common currency, but in a Wal-Mart way, by cheapening and degrading while pretending to serve. A basic level of math and science is appropriate to the core curriculum, but it should stop there, while the rest of the time is spent walking up through Great Books.
See, Rivka, an ignorant populace is easier to decieve. If people can't count or analyze, you can convince them their lives are better, because they should be.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Math for the sake of math should stop around algebra, with enough statistics to know when a study doesn't feel right with a sense of why, everything else incorporated through the discipline, as needed by the discipline. Science, general anatomy and atomic theory, everything else should flow as needed from the narrative. If one is reading a story about consumption, adequate background is given, with resources made available for further study.
rivka,
quote:Are you seriously suggesting that we teach that Aristotle was correct about "natural" and "violent" motion?
We teach Newtonian physics for practical reasons, not because it's correct. The problem is, I think the mind understands the world in Aristotilian terms, then puts them a Newtonian dress, a rigorous understanding of which is only appropriate for specialized trades. I look at Newtonian physics the way that most people see string-theory, and calculus with the relevance most people annex to set theory. If you need to learn it for a discipline, they'll teach it to you when you learn that discipline, but it's not core.
quote:I think one needs a conceptual understanding of statistics and an eye for fallacy, all of which Scopatz could teach a 17 year old in a long weekend. By the way, when you say "participate intelligently," do you mean participate scientifically, because that's often code for having efficiency as ones guide post in all decisions.
Of course not. I'm quite vocal in about the scientific method not being the only way to ascertain truth. But that doesn't mean I don't think it's one of the foundational pillars of knowledge. People don't just disagree on what's right or wrong, they also disagree on the best way to achieve a desired effect, even when they agree that the same effect is desired. Science speaks most strongly in these situations.
Irami, you are trying to convince several people who have frequently stated that science cannot solve everything, that science cannot solve everything. We agree! But that hardly means it isn't useful or necessary!
I'm making a stronger claim. I don't even think science is useful or necessary in the way and to the extent that science is purported to be useful or necessary. And further, science seems to choke out what belongs to public education.
quote:People don't just disagree on what's right or wrong, they also disagree on the best way to achieve a desired effect, even when they agree that the same effect is desired. Science speaks most strongly in these situations.
"Best" invites efficiency as a measure, especially if we remove right and wrong from thinking. I think science comes late the party, even in decisions concerning mechanics, and too often dominates the scene because we let it and are dazzled by its percision.
posted
You want to get rid of science altogether, or just limit to the foreigners who will create everything since Americans will be unprepared?
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:"Best" invites efficiency as a measure, especially if we remove right and wrong from thinking.
Efficiency is absolutely ONE of the measures of "best." If we can feed one hungry person per unit of resource, and find a process to feed two hungry people per unit, then we need to decided whether to use that process.
Perhaps that process causes problems A, B, and C to get worse, but causes problems X, Y, and Z to get better. Then we need to decide if the ability to feed twice as many people, combined with improvements to problems X, Y, and Z, are worth the increase in problems A, B, and C. This will require value judgments that cannot be made until after science has come into play. Because science will tell us that the process will double ability to feed people, science will tell us that A, B, and C will get worse, science will tell us that X, Y, and Z will get better, and science will help us predict how much of each effect occurs.
Efficiency is the opposite of waste. Waste can be a moral harm. Even comparing efficiency and waste requires moral thought, but it also requires science. And it requires both throughout the process.
posted
kat, I imagine you think the same of me, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to take you seriously. Simply put, I want to increase the priority of wrestling with virtue in the core education, and decrease the priority of stoichiometry.
And more pointedly, if the core education is determined by foreigners, then something seems to already be amiss. If we are building better widgets because they are building better widgets, I'm worried that there aren't enough people concerned about why should we preoccupied with widgets in the first place?
Dag,
quote:Efficiency is the opposite of waste. Waste can be a moral harm. Even comparing efficiency and waste requires moral thought, but it also requires science. And it requires both throughout the process.
I'm worried that we have forgotten what serves what. What is specialized and what is general. What is essential and what is accidental. And again, I think this is root causes of the "achievment" gap.
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[ROFL]](graemlins/rofl.gif)
![[Dont Know]](graemlins/dontknow.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Grumble]](graemlins/grumble.gif)
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
And abandoning math and science education will help this how?? ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
