I Guess It Had To Happen...
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
specifically, the Boston Tea Party as if it were a terrorist act.
...and the teaching of creationism, banning the teaching of Darwinian evolution (or at least down-grading it to an unproven hypotheses). Fundamentalism (be it religous or otherwise) is a dangerous path, but it doesn't half look like the first few bricks on that (very long) road from outside. For the 10 years I've known more about America than that I learnt in school (very little) via visiting for work and seeing relatives, I cannot but help feel that there is an almost endless number of pockets of fundamentalist style behaviour all over the place, kinda frightening tbh. (If anyone is at all offended, please accept my apologies, it was not my intent, it's just an observation)
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Out of curoisity, these fundamentalists have done what to you? Just trying to understand why you'd be 'kinda frightened'.
Probably the same old "throw in emotionjerking words for instant 'relatable'" bullshit that everyone seems to be so fond of nowadays. If you're morally opposed to something, never say it makes you angry. Say it scares you. Also children and their future and puppies. INSTAWIN! Case closed.
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Out of curoisity, these fundamentalists have done what to you? Just trying to understand why you'd be 'kinda frightened'.
It's not what anyone has done directly, it's a number of indirect things. Take a terror attack and assume for a moment the motivation for said attack was fundamentalist, you then have a fear of said type of thing happeneing again, your chance of being involved is slim but real. Now take teaching, kids grow up with poor discrimination between opinion, belief and fact which can lead to misinformed viewpoints and hence substantial differences of opionion between peoples of the world. Drop that difference into a string religious or political context and you have an increased risk of 'incidents', war, terror, trade disputes, all harmful (from my opionion). For clarity 'poor discrimination between opinion, belief and fact' is not a value judgement it simply notes that whatever you choose to believe afterwards is no longer driven primarily by whatever your own sound rartional judgement basis is. Then jump to politics, which in many places in the world is more divided within countries than for a long time since. Such internal differences tend to lead parties to 'stronger' policies that are heavily influenced by some dogma or belief system etc., this drives greater political differences between countries which at a minimum is bad for international relationships and the world is unquestionably a global place today, few countries are internally sustainable, relaying on trade for some major element of infrastructure (food, eneergy generation etc.) and beyond the minimum, well we have plenty of examples on-going now and in the past 30 years. How about the instability that always accompanies global and regional power balance changes, both of which are underway? They usually don't make the world a better place to live. Etc. All of which, from my opinion, makes the world a less fun place to live, often with more fear.
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
Texas schools are teaching US History - specifically, the Boston Tea Party ... as if it were a terrorist act.
This means the whole country is going to start teaching it this way, because normally everyone else follows Texas's choice of textbooks... :| EDIT: Also, I'm interested to hear what our neighbo(u)rs across the pond think of this...
The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative. -Winston Churchill America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -Oscar Wilde Wow, even the French showed a little more spine than that before they got their sh*t pushed in.[^] -Colin Mullikin
Colin Mullikin wrote:
EDIT: Also, I'm interested to hear what our neighbo(u)rs across the pond think of this...
Bit of a 'so what'? It was 200 years ago: who cares? And I hardly think throwing some tea into the water is an act of terrorism, more just a waste of good tea.
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair. nils illegitimus carborundum me, me, me
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
Texas schools are teaching US History - specifically, the Boston Tea Party ... as if it were a terrorist act.
This means the whole country is going to start teaching it this way, because normally everyone else follows Texas's choice of textbooks... :| EDIT: Also, I'm interested to hear what our neighbo(u)rs across the pond think of this...
The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative. -Winston Churchill America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -Oscar Wilde Wow, even the French showed a little more spine than that before they got their sh*t pushed in.[^] -Colin Mullikin
Colin Mullikin wrote:
EDIT: Also, I'm interested to hear what our neighbo(u)rs across the pond think of this...
Bit of a 'so what'? It was over 200 years ago: who cares? And I hardly think throwing some tea into the water is an act of terrorism, more just a waste of good tea.
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair. nils illegitimus carborundum me, me, me
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Probably the same old "throw in emotionjerking words for instant 'relatable'" bullshit that everyone seems to be so fond of nowadays. If you're morally opposed to something, never say it makes you angry. Say it scares you. Also children and their future and puppies. INSTAWIN! Case closed.
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Probably the same old "throw in emotionjerking words for instant 'relatable'" bullshit that everyone seems to be so fond of nowadays. If you're morally opposed to something, never say it makes you angry. Say it scares you. Also children and their future and puppies. INSTAWIN! Case closed.
harold aptroot wrote:
Probably the same old "throw in emotionjerking words for instant 'relatable'" bullsh*t that everyone seems to be so fond of nowadays.
If you're morally opposed to something, never say it makes you angry. Say it scares you. Also children and their future and puppies. INSTAWIN! Case closed.Appreciate your view, but alas no, think I covered it in the previous e-mail with enough rational to note that it isn't knee-jerk, nor attention seeking. And I am not angry, the world has worked this way for as long as animals have lived on it, no point fighting that. However, such behaviour can be frightening.
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It's not what anyone has done directly, it's a number of indirect things. Take a terror attack and assume for a moment the motivation for said attack was fundamentalist, you then have a fear of said type of thing happeneing again, your chance of being involved is slim but real. Now take teaching, kids grow up with poor discrimination between opinion, belief and fact which can lead to misinformed viewpoints and hence substantial differences of opionion between peoples of the world. Drop that difference into a string religious or political context and you have an increased risk of 'incidents', war, terror, trade disputes, all harmful (from my opionion). For clarity 'poor discrimination between opinion, belief and fact' is not a value judgement it simply notes that whatever you choose to believe afterwards is no longer driven primarily by whatever your own sound rartional judgement basis is. Then jump to politics, which in many places in the world is more divided within countries than for a long time since. Such internal differences tend to lead parties to 'stronger' policies that are heavily influenced by some dogma or belief system etc., this drives greater political differences between countries which at a minimum is bad for international relationships and the world is unquestionably a global place today, few countries are internally sustainable, relaying on trade for some major element of infrastructure (food, eneergy generation etc.) and beyond the minimum, well we have plenty of examples on-going now and in the past 30 years. How about the instability that always accompanies global and regional power balance changes, both of which are underway? They usually don't make the world a better place to live. Etc. All of which, from my opinion, makes the world a less fun place to live, often with more fear.
Your post seems to address the human condition more than fundamentalism. I come from a particular view point first. I think people are angry first (and desire violence) and secondly find a cause to justify poor behavior. Again, the need to hate exists first and the reason attached to it is an after thought. That's why any cause usually has a healthy band of haters - even, ironically enough, peace causes.
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Doctor Nick wrote:
a 50 year old teacher using handouts from the 70s
They're using handouts from before they were teachers...
Doctor Nick wrote:
they have little to NO HOMEWORK. The only measure of whether they understand is by actually using the material and tests
The problem with this is that they have little to no feedback about how much they have learned before they are tested on it. A student is much more likely to learn the material if they did poorly on homework before the test than if they do poorly on the test. There is no motivation to learn it after the test has already been taken. If they know that they don't know the material well because of homework, they still have the motivation of a test to learn the material.
The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative. -Winston Churchill America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -Oscar Wilde Wow, even the French showed a little more spine than that before they got their sh*t pushed in.[^] -Colin Mullikin
It's interesting because they actually now take the test before they even learn the content so they know where they need to work and the teacher knows what each student needs to work on. It actually leads to more directed instruction. Then they take the test again and if they fail a section they have to take the test again until they pass it. So like true developers they get to fail over and over again until they get it right. :-D Then again this is just a sample of what some of the teachers are doing. It doesn't work in every subject but it does solve the issue of teachers being overloaded with what is essentially busy work neither the students nor the teacher wants to deal with (complete for student and check for the teacher) and helps the student know areas of improvement. As I said, it's new and shiny right now because nobody has had a chance to prove it doesn't work yet but there's hope. The main message I've noticed is that the school is working to change the way the kids learn to fit more into an office environment instead of the old factory mentality. For example they no longer have a school bell because that was something originally designed to train kids for the whistle in a factory telling you when to go from one place to another. All interesting and in the end I think mostly crap but might as well try something right? :-D
------------------------------------- Do not do what has already been done. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.. but it ROCKS absolutely, too.
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Colin Mullikin wrote:
EDIT: Also, I'm interested to hear what our neighbo(u)rs across the pond think of this...
Bit of a 'so what'? It was over 200 years ago: who cares? And I hardly think throwing some tea into the water is an act of terrorism, more just a waste of good tea.
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair. nils illegitimus carborundum me, me, me
mark merrens wrote:
more just a waste of good tea.
Who says it was GOOD? :-D
------------------------------------- Do not do what has already been done. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.. but it ROCKS absolutely, too.
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But since there is no voting, I will say it again. No citizen of the U.S. is capable of being a terrorist against the U.S. based on the founding doctrines of our country. Allowing anything else, pollutes the original ideal of our country (applies to U.S.). Those ideals are the right to revolt, to overthrow a tyrannical regime, the right to fight for what is right even if it is the government that is wrong. Calling citizens a terrorist allows history books to call patriots terrorists and tyrannical monarchs righteous. Down vote me if you want (HAH) but I am right. What Timothy McVeigh did was wrong, illegal, immoral, and killed my step sister, but was it terrorist? Not to me, did he deserve to be convicted and punished like he was, most likely. But, I still don't call him a terrorist.
Need custom software developed? I do custom programming based primarily on MS tools with an emphasis on C# development and consulting. I also do Android Programming as I find it a refreshing break from the MS. "And they, since they Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs" -- Robert Frost
Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:
No citizen of the U.S. is capable of being a terrorist against the U.S.
USA PATRIOT Section 802[^] says you're wrong.
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mark merrens wrote:
more just a waste of good tea.
Who says it was GOOD? :-D
------------------------------------- Do not do what has already been done. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.. but it ROCKS absolutely, too.
Fair point: maybe they really threw it out because it was really bad tea.
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair. nils illegitimus carborundum me, me, me
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Your post seems to address the human condition more than fundamentalism. I come from a particular view point first. I think people are angry first (and desire violence) and secondly find a cause to justify poor behavior. Again, the need to hate exists first and the reason attached to it is an after thought. That's why any cause usually has a healthy band of haters - even, ironically enough, peace causes.
In the context of the discussion I would believe that fear causes both anger and hate (which we use to 'overcome' the fear), which then, as you note, needs to have something attached to it as justification of the emotion, further burying the fear. Bit of a 'yoda' moment there, not intentional, it's coincidence, honest guv! Which is the same process that goes from a human choosing a fundamentalism and then attaching a cause to it, often religious but not always. But what drives the choice of one or other fundamentalism ? I would argue that it's fear. So paraphrasing my previous comment, "I'm not angry, I stopped at being fearful since being angry doesn't help, it just buries the fear behind something that probably makes the situation worse."
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Texas schools are teaching US History - specifically, the Boston Tea Party (what I consider to be the tipping point toward the American Revolution) - as if it were a terrorist act. At the root of every country's origins, one would more than likely be able to discover what would now be called a "terrorist act". [moved to the Soapbox to let the discussion open up a little. - Chris Maunder.]
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997we've gone ten years labeling every damned thing someone has done to the US as "terrorism". should be no surprise that the word's meaning has expanded to accommodate.
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It's interesting because they actually now take the test before they even learn the content so they know where they need to work and the teacher knows what each student needs to work on. It actually leads to more directed instruction. Then they take the test again and if they fail a section they have to take the test again until they pass it. So like true developers they get to fail over and over again until they get it right. :-D Then again this is just a sample of what some of the teachers are doing. It doesn't work in every subject but it does solve the issue of teachers being overloaded with what is essentially busy work neither the students nor the teacher wants to deal with (complete for student and check for the teacher) and helps the student know areas of improvement. As I said, it's new and shiny right now because nobody has had a chance to prove it doesn't work yet but there's hope. The main message I've noticed is that the school is working to change the way the kids learn to fit more into an office environment instead of the old factory mentality. For example they no longer have a school bell because that was something originally designed to train kids for the whistle in a factory telling you when to go from one place to another. All interesting and in the end I think mostly crap but might as well try something right? :-D
------------------------------------- Do not do what has already been done. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.. but it ROCKS absolutely, too.
Now that I have some more details, I actually like that system. As you said, it reduces the amount of busy work, for both the students and teachers, and it tailors the units to how long it actually takes for the students to learn it, not some arbitrary period of time. If they take the test the first time, and all of the students pass it, there is no reason for the teacher to then spend time covering that subject. They can immediately continue to the next one. :thumbsup: Do they always take the whole test? For instance, if a test has seven sections and I fail one, I retake the entire test and not just the section I failed, correct?
The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative. -Winston Churchill America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -Oscar Wilde Wow, even the French showed a little more spine than that before they got their sh*t pushed in.[^] -Colin Mullikin
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Fair point: maybe they really threw it out because it was really bad tea.
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair. nils illegitimus carborundum me, me, me
They threw it overboard because the Royal Governor of Boston refused to order the ships back to England *with* their cargo.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997 -
Now that I have some more details, I actually like that system. As you said, it reduces the amount of busy work, for both the students and teachers, and it tailors the units to how long it actually takes for the students to learn it, not some arbitrary period of time. If they take the test the first time, and all of the students pass it, there is no reason for the teacher to then spend time covering that subject. They can immediately continue to the next one. :thumbsup: Do they always take the whole test? For instance, if a test has seven sections and I fail one, I retake the entire test and not just the section I failed, correct?
The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative. -Winston Churchill America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -Oscar Wilde Wow, even the French showed a little more spine than that before they got their sh*t pushed in.[^] -Colin Mullikin
Yes, you retake the whole test. I see that as ensuring you didn't already forget the other stuff too. Another point is the teacher does move on after the test but it is up to the student to come in and get the help they need. I suppose if enough kids failed a given section they would hang back and bring everyone up but they don't stop for one or two kids. This makes the student more responsible for their own learning as well because it's up to them to get the help they need rather than wait for the teacher to cater to them.
------------------------------------- Do not do what has already been done. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.. but it ROCKS absolutely, too.
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Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:
No citizen of the U.S. is capable of being a terrorist against the U.S.
USA PATRIOT Section 802[^] says you're wrong.
The patriot act is unconstitutional, and is therefore null and void.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997 -
The patriot act is unconstitutional, and is therefore null and void.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997let me know if you ever get a chance to argue that before a judge. i'd love to hear how it turns out.
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They threw it overboard because the Royal Governor of Boston refused to order the ships back to England *with* their cargo.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997I see you have suffered another sense of humor failure. Perhaps a nice cup of tea? :-)
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair. nils illegitimus carborundum me, me, me
