Posted on 03/23/2008 6:51:28 AM PDT by FreedomPoster
My following point is appropos.
The biggest problem I see with researching for information on a huge search engine is that the capability of limiting information is present. Demonstrate how commie Red China can limit internet browsing to their list of approved sites. The same can be done worldwide and there is much talk about how to limit content and information available even here in America. Of course, the reasons given are the noble “protecting the children” arguement.
Truth is, people have been manipulating history books for decades and now a whole generation has access to comparitive history beyond the brick and mortar school and it’s books. That scares educators because they can no longer control the ciriculum and it reduces their legitimacy and importance. Socialism cannot be taught if the children have access to contrasting content.
First of all a threat to what? What, if it's based in Truth, needs defense?
It seems to me that certain things are self evident and if certain institutions are being overturned or seeing their foundations crumble then perhaps they weren't that closely based upon Truthful principles afterall.
You'd have some form of gatekeeping (censorship)in place to protect us from ourselves?
IMO it's already way too late to try putting the cork in the bottle. Look at Tibet the Chinese are trying to choke off information and yet somehow in this wired up world it seeps through the cracks like water carrying away what is meant to contain it.
Oh, the dreaded "c" word. I guess I'd better go get my asbestos suit....
***
OK, I'm back. Nobody said anything about putting a cork back in any bottle. Tibet and China? This is my point exactly! You frame your response according to the "hot story." That's what "hot media" does. Does that make it knowledge, or opinion, or some hybrid?
It's caveat emptor like never before. And when you can't trust that your mates are all on the same page, you can kiss real progress goodbye for a long, long time.
Good point. One can be "educated" in that one can find lots of information about a particular thing, but real education is comprehensive and requires one to put things in context. A truly educated person wants to understand a topic and not just lazily "graze" for random or convenient details.
A student brought up on typical leftist propaganda might be vaguely aware that Japan and the U.S. were on opposite sides during WWII, and, looking for evidence of U.S. "war crimes," he might be able to find out a lot of information about Hiroshima. This will confirm his belief in alleged U.S. war crimes and he will stop his inquiry there. He will know nothing about the goals of the Japanese Empire. He will know nothing about Japanese atrocities in China and other places. If told of such atrocities, he will dismiss it as irrelevant to the matter of alleged U.S. war crimes. Furthermore, he will see the Hiroshima bombing as having nothing to do with other events of WWII, but then he may tie in Hiroshima with the war in Iraq. Someone might be able to search for facts but be willingly ignorant of the larger picture.
Maybe I’m missing something here. The author states as fact that “K-12 educators are being pulled back by No Child Left Behind” without any context or exposition. Is this a generally accepted fact? Or is it so within the context of the article’s topic?
A saw from the home schoolers, is that if you want to simulate the public school experience in the home, take your kid to the bathroom, blow smoke in his face, swear at him, beat him up, and take his lunch money.
There are plenty of other ways to gain social experience than sitting in classrooms.
It is to me. From my perspective, No Child Left Behind means No Child Gets Ahead, and is just one more step on the well-trodden path to schools geared for the least common denominator.
A delightful, wonderful paragraph! No time to go further on it though ...
My kids never went to school. My 3 entered community college at the ages of 13, 12, and 13. All finished Calculus III by the age of 15, and all their college general courses.
My prediction:
Even the brink and mortar college can be dumped for much of the routine stuff ( and that includes Calculus III). There are on-line law schools now, and in my opinion even a lot of medical school could be done on-line.
Government school:
Government schools are NOT about educating children. They ARE about maintaining a government white-collar jobs program for collage grads with the lowest SAT and GRE scores on campus.
The availability of excellent curriculum through technology is **definitely “Another Reason(s) to Homeschool!
Public Education Ping!
Those interested in Public Education would enjoy this thought provoking article.
This guy is a savant and actually understands the dynamic of technology as a container of society. Media analyst Marshall McLuhan said 50 years ago that technology is assimilitated when it becomes invisible, part of the gestalt background rather than an object of the attention of learning. but I think sodiety’s learning curve is faster than 30 years. The death of TV and the birth of the computer as both entertainment and information center is a smooth transition, much like the advent of the remote control tuner was a smooth transition. Anything that increases the efficiency of extant technology is a smooth transition.
Yep, schools are dead. All we need is for governments to close their physical plant schools, issue every newborn a laptop and wifi, and unleash the battalions of game programmers to create the new game- “Grades 1- 16”. Burn your textbook digests, they are cartoon programming. The online Library of Alexandria has all the original source materials. For the first time in history any human can teach himself anything.
With medical and nursing, engineering, and the sciences, there are hands-on lab components that won’t work online. But, as you say, much of the curriculum could be online.
I chose China/Tibet because I felt it illustrates the point about information/knowledge that it is flowing at a greater rate today than ever before. What is it really? just thought forms. Neither hot nor cold.
We can attempt to capture these forms in a body of knowledge say a book or school of thought but given the environment today it's often obsolete before it makes it to a shelf or university faculty.
I agree it's real slippery out on these rocks but as ObiWan told Luke "Trust the Force" when it comes to this blizzard of information. I believe we have enough intuitive sense to sort this stuff out individually and collectively. As I see it how you see progress gets down to whether the glass is half full or empty.
Yep, schools are dead.
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The NEA and AFT just doesn’t know it yet! Neither do the government school defenders on this board.
Fantastic article.
I told my kids they only needed to learn 3 things in school: Math, Reading, Research skills. They can teach themselves everything else they need from those 3 building blocks.
Math; learn as much as you possibly can.
Reading; as fast as possible, as much comprehension as possible.
Research skills; finding what you want to know, even when you don’t exactly know what you want to know. You might call it flexibility.
If you can do that, you have the world in the palm of your hand.
I can’t comment on the ISO aspects of the article - it’s outside my purview, however, every other aspect of the article is spot on. I’ve actually been considering the amazing shift that’s occurred in the last 20 years and how it is slowly leaving me behind. I’m a software developer and have been on a computer almost full time since I was 11 yet I feel out of touch now.
What's going on between the publishing industry and colleges? A CD/DVD format would be a lot less costly (and profitable).
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