I find it interesting that a several people disagree with both 6 & 10, but I'm realizing that right now, they are both related to my own experience. I have a daughter and I'm going through a tough custody argument with my ex-husband. I've been in negotiation situations like this before, and when two people are negotiating over something as emotionally-charged as a child, people let fear rule their thinking processes. If I say to my ex "can you give in on this point," he automatically says "no" because he's afraid that conceding a point is the same as giving up rights to his daughter.
The same principle works, though, with any emotionally-charged subject. Look at the Occupy Wall Street movement. The bankers who have been manipulating the system since banking deregulation went into effect are automatically shouting "no" every time someone in power so much as whispers that perhaps more banking regulations would be a good thing.
It's interesting that you say that in the UK they're closing libraries left, right and centre, and just yesterday BBC news had a report saying that 42% of people in the UK say that today's children are "feral." I don't think these two things are unrelated. When you went to the library, there was a standard of behavior expected, and you went there to perhaps research something for school or to find a quiet afternoon's diversion.
Today, governments are increasingly chucking people out on their own, leaving them to find other places to do their research or find their entertainment. Government figures that you can look things up on the internet or buy a book from Amazon, so you don't need an expensive public library. Except that those kids who can't afford a computer of their own, let alone spend precious money on book for entertainment, are left to their own devices.
I think it's a mistake to close the libraries, and to lower our standards.
Nov 4 2011: That's interesting and makes me wonder. Once upon a time, people had these skills. They were allowed to die off as people became more specialized. Nowadays, so many people who used to work in highly specialized jobs are unemployed because those jobs went away. Perhaps it's time to get back to being good at lots of things?
Nov 3 2011: Giusi,
Thanks for your reply!
And while I know that worst-case scenarios do happen sometimes, they usually don't. My thought is that too many people don't do things because they're afraid - they come up with the worst possible outcome and use it as an excuse not to act. Like "If I ask this pretty girl out on a date, she may become so insulted that she stabs me in the eye with a pencil and I'm blinded and lose my job and die of starvation." Sure, that's in the realm of physical possibility, but it's so unlikely that it's silly not to ask her!
Nov 3 2011: I asked a very similar question myself. I'm looking at it from another perspective. I've got money to give, but I want to make sure that the money I give has an actual impact on the people to whom I give it. Frankly, I have a harder time tracking that the larger the charitable organization I support. I also have to weigh the value of doing something globally versus doing something locally. I can give $20 to a guy on the street in my hometown, or I can give $100 to a charity that would spend most of it on their own infrastructure and end up with $20 going to someone in Africa. Which was the better use of my money? Right now, I'm paying to put a kid through nursing school. Not through some charity, but actually writing a check to the school every semester, because I'm convinced that it's the best use for my charitable dollars. It'll change his life and the lives of his kids. But it's really, really hard to know the tradeoffs you're making when you donate.
Nov 3 2011: There's a big difference between "corporation" as legal entity and "corporation" as an evolved life form. Frankly, I believe that much of the economic crisis we're currently experiencing stems from the expanding legal rights given to corporations that shield the humans running them from blame when the corporation does things that are legally or morally wrong. Frankly, I think that the American marketplace would be more competitive if the legal entity "corporation" were abolished.
Nov 3 2011: But don't you have to balance that with the feedback of other people in order to improve at your craft? I'm a writer, and I know any number of fledgling authors who don't take criticism well and insist that the things that make their work sound amateurish isn't a lack of skill, but is my own inability to "get" them. I think that it's important to realize that any type of performance (at least any type that you would like to be paid for) is a product, and no one who makes a product can afford to ignore the feedback of those who consume the product.
Nov 3 2011: I have to admit that on a regular basis, I use perhaps 10% of the things I learned in my classes at school. For instance, no one has ever quizzed me on the difference between a drupe and a pomme, nor do I think that knowledge will ever spell the difference between something good happening to me and something bad.
What I did get that was invaluable was an understanding of how American institutions work. To get out of high school with a diploma, you must understand and fulfill an arbitrary set of requirements, including getting to know a wide variety of teachers, understanding what they want from you, and giving it to them. That's the blueprint for every job you will ever have.
The next level is meshing those requirements with the slightly more complex requirements of getting into a University, and then going through the whole exercise again at the University level where the professors don't even pretend to like you and be your friend the way they did in high school. In order to get out of this system with a diploma, there will be much negotiating, finding and filling out forms, proving to this person or that person that you have fulfilled their needs, etc. All this prepares you for things like proving to an HR department that you are actually a citizen and yes, you already gave them your tax forms.
If you learn interesting stuff like how to parse sentences, solve complex mathematical equations and put together chemicals that can explode in the process, that's a huge bonus, but not always relevant to the jobs you will get right out of college.
Nov 3 2011: She read it in a New York Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/technology/at-waldorf-school-in-silicon-valley-technology-can-wait.html?_r=2) that talked about the fact that many heads of Silicon Valley companies send their kids to Waldorf Schools which specifically prohibit technology in the classroom.
We're the parents this article talks about - Silicon Valley professionals who don't let their kids use technology in the classroom. What I've found is that technology can certainly teach lessons, but those lessons are pre-determined, tightly structured, and built around someone's idea of what's appropriate for a child to learn. A computer cannot take advantage of the fact that the school chickens just hatched a brood of eggs, or talk through the physics of proper timing in kickball the way that a human being, teaching another human being can.
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A reply on Conversation: We can learn by exchanging and discussing our own lists of "10 Things I Know to be True."
I find it interesting that a several people disagree with both 6 & 10, but I'm realizing that right now, they are both related to my own experience. I have a daughter and I'm going through a tough custody argument with my ex-husband. I've been in negotiation situations like this before, and when two people are negotiating over something as emotionally-charged as a child, people let fear rule their thinking processes. If I say to my ex "can you give in on this point," he automatically says "no" because he's afraid that conceding a point is the same as giving up rights to his daughter.
The same principle works, though, with any emotionally-charged subject. Look at the Occupy Wall Street movement. The bankers who have been manipulating the system since banking deregulation went into effect are automatically shouting "no" every time someone in power so much as whispers that perhaps more banking regulations would be a good thing.
A reply on Conversation: An emphasis on technology actually reduces the amount of learning.
It's interesting that you say that in the UK they're closing libraries left, right and centre, and just yesterday BBC news had a report saying that 42% of people in the UK say that today's children are "feral." I don't think these two things are unrelated. When you went to the library, there was a standard of behavior expected, and you went there to perhaps research something for school or to find a quiet afternoon's diversion.
Today, governments are increasingly chucking people out on their own, leaving them to find other places to do their research or find their entertainment. Government figures that you can look things up on the internet or buy a book from Amazon, so you don't need an expensive public library. Except that those kids who can't afford a computer of their own, let alone spend precious money on book for entertainment, are left to their own devices.
I think it's a mistake to close the libraries, and to lower our standards.
A reply on Conversation: How do you give lasting help to those who most need it?
A reply on Conversation: We can learn by exchanging and discussing our own lists of "10 Things I Know to be True."
Thanks for your reply!
And while I know that worst-case scenarios do happen sometimes, they usually don't. My thought is that too many people don't do things because they're afraid - they come up with the worst possible outcome and use it as an excuse not to act. Like "If I ask this pretty girl out on a date, she may become so insulted that she stabs me in the eye with a pencil and I'm blinded and lose my job and die of starvation." Sure, that's in the realm of physical possibility, but it's so unlikely that it's silly not to ask her!
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A comment on Conversation: The Corporation as an Artificial Intelligence
A comment on Conversation: How important is to not be affected by others people opinions in order to enjoy and live the life we want to live?
A comment on Conversation: What is the goal of education?
What I did get that was invaluable was an understanding of how American institutions work. To get out of high school with a diploma, you must understand and fulfill an arbitrary set of requirements, including getting to know a wide variety of teachers, understanding what they want from you, and giving it to them. That's the blueprint for every job you will ever have.
The next level is meshing those requirements with the slightly more complex requirements of getting into a University, and then going through the whole exercise again at the University level where the professors don't even pretend to like you and be your friend the way they did in high school. In order to get out of this system with a diploma, there will be much negotiating, finding and filling out forms, proving to this person or that person that you have fulfilled their needs, etc. All this prepares you for things like proving to an HR department that you are actually a citizen and yes, you already gave them your tax forms.
If you learn interesting stuff like how to parse sentences, solve complex mathematical equations and put together chemicals that can explode in the process, that's a huge bonus, but not always relevant to the jobs you will get right out of college.
A reply on Conversation: An emphasis on technology actually reduces the amount of learning.
We're the parents this article talks about - Silicon Valley professionals who don't let their kids use technology in the classroom. What I've found is that technology can certainly teach lessons, but those lessons are pre-determined, tightly structured, and built around someone's idea of what's appropriate for a child to learn. A computer cannot take advantage of the fact that the school chickens just hatched a brood of eggs, or talk through the physics of proper timing in kickball the way that a human being, teaching another human being can.
A reply on Conversation: We can learn by exchanging and discussing our own lists of "10 Things I Know to be True."