Step 1- Take the members of both houses of Congress and form 2 single file lines on the banks of the Potomac River, alternating Republicans and Democrats in each line.

Step 2- Tie a sufficient quantity of concrete blocks to each members' legs to preclude any chance of floating, after which

Step 3- Start tossing them in the river one by one. Put a bullet in the base of the skull of any who beg for mercy like the wormy curs they all are.

Step 4- Start from scratch. Repeat as necessary.

"It's time for a change"

TENTOZE 2012!!!

tentoze, these guys i jam with played a bill withers song last night and this dude that looks a lot like your av got up to sing it

pretty cool

Was he introduced as Ox Jr.?

crazy larry

An imposter, then.

Do you know what kind of chaos the world would ascend to if attorneys had to address their own outgoing mail?

This is really well-done.

Wow.

Parts of that lecture do not make sense to me

1. People were being educated by public colleges and universities going way back to even in medieval times, not only by "Jesuits".
2. The lecturer completely ignores the fact that there has been real value in vocational schooling that teaches people to learn a trade and work with their hands to earn a decent wage. You can't say "non-academic" people aren't intelligent.
3. ADHD is real, it is not "a matter of debate" and oh yes, it is on the rise.
4. Having a college degree has never guaranteed you job, especially in certain fields. Come on now.
5. Standardized test scores are important and help educators know if students are learning subject matter being taught.
6. I can't believe that "divergent thinking" is highest at kindergarten age and declines after that.

I'll take these one by one



Those schools were still taught by the religious orders, and you had to be able to send your child there. In other words, the lowly of the low weren't being educated, which, I believe was the point.



That was his point. Remember the stairs with the academic on the upper, and the piano movers on the lower? He was saying that they've been told that they aren't intelligent by society/schools so therefore they begin to believe it. I mentor at a tech high school here, and I would say 90% believe they are not good enough for college. Why? Because the tech high school is seen in a negative light by their peers, teachers at other schools, and even their parents. I've had to reinforce more times than I can count students who are probably more well-equipped for college life than many grads, that they can and should further their education.



He said he wasn't qualified to make a call on that. He just said that its a matter of debate because experts cannot agree on it. I believe he did say it does exist, but is it so rampant? Also, I think he made it clear why he believed it was on the rise. Based on prescriptions, of course its on the rise. But clinically? Have you seen the South Park episode on ADHD? Hits it pretty well.



Once again, I think you're using his broad statements to made specialized arguments. He was just saying that once upon a time a basic BS or BA was the standard for employers, and its no longer the case. I do believe that.



That's a broad statement and not true. In fact, my wife had to read a standardized test to two students recently because they read at a 2nd grade level instead of a 5th, due to disabilities. So you are saying that their scores can determine how a student is doing in subject? I don't think you need a standardized test to tell you. Also, their scores will make the curve move and not accurately portray how the class as a whole is doing.



I can. Have you seen a kindergartner playing? Their imagination? How about your average office drone? The world weighs down on you, and schooling in particular as you're told right and wrong. Most classes in public high schools do not allow you to expand or even have your own take on subjects.

So, what are your thoughts on revitalizing schools? Do you even see a problem?

Agree with all of the above (FR)

Yes. Kids have famously wild and productive imaginations, and that's precisely what that is. Divergent thinking. They aren't weighed down by logic or facts or fear of being wrong or being judged. That happens after they've been in school for a while.

I attended an art education conference with my wife in Seattle a few weeks back. I didn't go to many of the lectures myself, but of the ones I did attend, I saw a variety of philosophies and approaches to teaching. The most exciting and interesting were of course the ones that put the fewest restrictions on the kids but reinforced their confidence and creative and technical abilities at the same time. Some of the others reminded me of the kind of art classes I had as a kid where we were mostly copying pictures out of magazines and trying to do the most photorealistic renderings we we possibly could with colored pencils. It's such a crime that so many art programs, of all things, are so conformist, so bent on teaching kids techniques and getting them to make pretty pictures for art shows and their parents that the one place where kids' creativity should be most encouraged becomes just one more mold they have to try to squeeze themselves into.

And I think Rabbit addressed all of your other points really well. These problems certainly don just apply to art classes. My mom's been a high school science teacher for over twenty-five years, and for much of that time I've heard her lament about the most students' inability to think critically or creatively and about the uselessness and wastefulness of standardized tests.

and I say this as a kid who did really well on standardized tests (somehow), and had pretty crippling attention deficit disorder (but no hyperactivity) but never took meds for it. What got me through school was finding a way to turn my brain on, which wound up being friendly competition. I had to finish first, or else I pretty much wouldn't ever finish.

I just punched for the day with instructions to stay home until further notice.

There are a couple of young enlisted guys that work in the section next to me, one with three kids-the other with two both still in diapers who received their military LES today and it appears that DFAS/DoD is already counting on only providing pay to these guys for 1-8 April as LESs are showing half of a normal paycheck. So now they may be coming into work everyday for free. Knowing what an E-3 and E-4 make I understand they have minimal savings and were under the impression that being in the military they would receive a paycheck every two weeks no matter what, but still jumped their asses for not having savings to even get through a month--myself and our one other senior civilian met with them and the wife of one of our guys who is deployed (who will not receive pay even in a combat environment) and have set up a plan for their spending/bills and our assistance to help them out--if this lasts the three weeks the last one did though we aren't going to be able to help these guys out too much next month though. I feel for them in a big way.

On the plus side they will receive back pay once budget is approved, something that myself and a ton of other federal civilians are not guaranteed.

Stability in federal employment... . I am going to get and whiskey drunk now and spout obscenities at CSPAN for the next few hours.

That is very interesting - especially the part about our schools being a product of Industrialization, and an innate desire to instill a "classical liberal knowledge base" in our citizens.

And I agree with a lot of what he says, but I also think the answer is more in recess and forced recreation, and a juggling of the curriculum to reflect modern society. If you want 10th graders to read, don't hand them The Scarlet Letter - hand them Homicide.

(k) Shit dude. That blows.

This is one of the things that riles me up. Agree or disagree with our actions, this just cannot stand. Outrageous. Also, don't the senators, etc get paid no matter what? Just inconceivable.

I'm not about to spend the time watching that, but I hope by "classical liberal knowledge base" he is referring to the larger definition of liberal. They're called the liberal arts for a reason, after all.

lib·er·al (lbr-l, lbrl) adj.
1.
a. Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.
b. Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.

Because, yes, you're damn right that's what schools are for. And should be for. And exactly why more people need to go to them.

He is.

Not a pejorative at all, but thanks for jumping to a conclusion.

But you can't expect a teenager in 2011 to really identify with Melville or Hawthorne, man.

You get people interested in things by playing to their strengths, and while more people should be more thirsty for knowledge, you're not going to make that happen the way we try to make it happen was my only point.

That has always been one of my issues with English departments across the country. They have held onto "the classics" for far too long. Sure, I read and enjoyed many of the books that fall under that sub-heading, but I think administrators have been too slow in adopting new(er) books for a curriculum. I'm not talking about teaching a unit on Harry Potter or Twilight, but if you look at many English departments, you would think writers ceased to create anything of value after 1960.

That said, if I wasn't told I had to read Moby Dick all those years ago, maybe it wouldn't be my favorite book today. So who knows.

You can't entirely blame the educational system, either. For one thing, who knows how any kind of radically progressive approach could ever be implemented in public education. I'd be willing to guess that the lecturer is a little short on ideas about how to make that actually work. If it's even possible. For another, the problems are really rooted into our culture of mass consumption, instant gratification, entitlement, and now constant information overload. I'm not really sure how a public education system can really "adapt" to that.

More standardized testing is definitely not the answer, though. Politicians need to get it out of their heads that those are a good way to evaluate schools and the educational system as a whole.

Yeah, I think it still pretty much works like it always have - the rich get the best, the poor get the worst, and the middle get good enough. The problems only really arise when the rich people figured out they could stop paying for it if they turned the middle against the poor. And its happening all across society. Yippee!

While we are on the subject, this was on HuffPost:

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/265196/FOR-PROFIT-COLLEGE-INFOGRAPHIC.jpg

An Education In For-Profit Education: Infographic