TED Community » sterling brewer

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I'm passionate about

linguistics, communication, politics, economics

An idea worth spreading

democratic education

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• TEDCred score: +5.30 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A reply on Conversation: How much of a right do students have to questioning and independent thinking?

  Jan 11 2013: how?

• A reply on Conversation: How can we bring about true gender equality?

  Jan 8 2013: i actually wrote out a huge reply, but i can already tell i'm going to get absolutely nowhere with you.
  have fun with your medical dictionary.

• A reply on Conversation: How can we bring about true gender equality?

  Jan 8 2013: hold on. why is my "belief" mistaken?

• A reply on Conversation: How can we bring about true gender equality?

  Jan 7 2013: as expected.

• A reply on Conversation: How much of a right do students have to questioning and independent thinking?

  Jan 7 2013: i do the same thing with people. telling them to look it up, just as a way to show that you are capable of finding answers with your own resourcefulness and don't always need to be taught. it's a very important skill. :)

• A reply on Conversation: How can we bring about true gender equality?

  Jan 7 2013: that was laughable. consider understanding there's a difference between gender and sex and using the words accordingly. you could say the two sexes will never be equal (even then, there's people that don't fall in the sex binary), but gender equality is a very real thing. gender isn't physical.

• A reply on Conversation: How much of a right do students have to questioning and independent thinking?

  Jan 4 2013: i agree.
  
  if you're being flat out disrespectful by asking questions for the wrong reasons rather than genuinely possessing a question, or simply to be a jerk to the teacher in the middle of class for whatever reason, there should be a limit on that. as soon as it becomes disruptive, that's stepping outside the student's given right and is infringing on other students' right (to be educated without such disruption.)
  
  the teachers definitely do have rights. there's got to be a balance. perhaps one thing that would help is if questions and comments were encouraged for after class, instead of in the middle of class. this right is NOT an excuse to cause disruptions and be disrespectful! there is a proper way to ask and make comments.

• A reply on Conversation: How much of a right do students have to questioning and independent thinking?

  Jan 4 2013: yes. there should definitely not be!

• A reply on Conversation: The common misunderstanding between common knowledge and common sense

  Jan 4 2013: so, part of having common sense would be the ability to operate and make decisions logically without an unreasonable influence from emotion? in my last comment, i never thought about how controlling emotion played into it. i like that definition.
• +3

  A comment on Conversation: How much of a right do students have to questioning and independent thinking?

  Jan 4 2013: when it comes to students independently question and thinking critically, they have an absolute right and nothing less... the right to question information presented until satisfied and in understanding. it's worthless to say they would be receiving an education if they cannot, at the very least, question its validity or call out a fallacy.
  
  at the point in which students do not have this right, what happens in the classroom becomes something other than learning; instead, it becomes nothing more than standardisation, repetition, memorisation, and information without purpose. when there is a lack of learner autonomy in the classroom, the student takes a passive role... a role where the rational mind does not belong. you cannot create a classroom environment so toxically authoritarian and oppressive towards critical thinking, yet still expect students to walk away with real, applicable knowledge. this seethes hypocrisy and lack of respect for these students, who are already shown a dysmal amount as a result of being forced into the long-obsolete american public education system.
  
  that was a bit of a ramble but i feel very passionately on this subject.