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Boredalt - 80 Dwarf Priest - Dissension

The speaker has identified the problem but does not realize he is part of it.

I don't believe that "softening" education by making it more semantic, or sensory, or accommodating to the whims of children is the answer. And I think the manner in which he delivers his lecture - I'll admit here that I didn't watch the movie start to finish because I am impatient and I believe that images are by nature fundamentally untruthful - is telling.

I think that playing off the instincts and emotions of an audience, or trying to hold their attention through imagery rather than appeal to logic, is just as dehumanizing and deadening as the approach he claims to oppose, and it's the product of the same social evil, which is the herd mentality. Hitler (and no this is not Godwinning because it's relevant) preferred images because it's easier to play off the instincts or biases of the audience than with words that have to go through central processing. Images, conceptual or visual, are by their nature the preferred instrument of demagogues. And it's that appeal to the Lowest Common Denominator that is also responsible for the evils of our current educational system.

Why is the educator white? Why is he male? Why does he wear block glasses and a tweed jacket? Why is he built? Why does he have squared features? Why is the teacher female? Why is the boy homely and awkward? All those elements are appeals to bias and base instinct whether we, or the speaker, realize it or not. And that's why both the speaker's manner of delivery as well as his agenda are evil and wrong.

And yes - contrary to the speaker's assertion - most questions have fixed answers.

SEE SIG
SEE SIG
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To argue that most questions don't have fixed answers is a lie even when it's true. Opening a dialogue about metaphysical questions, or any sort of subjective line of inquiry, will always be defined by the audience's bias. There will ALWAYS be fixed answers...presumed facts...attitudes that are preferable or objectionable to an audience...and in my VERY extensive experience, those so-called free dialogues are the most tyrannical of all.

The speaker draws a false duality between the status quo of the educational system, with a bunch of arbitrary criteria and material of questionable value, and a ridiculously ultra-liberal education based on what is nothing more than pure hedonism - if it feels good, if you like it, do it. That is a total copout - the question addressed by education is, how to most easily do that which is difficult, not how to not do it by denying the whole concept of challenge.

Beyond that, most of the video is idiotic, empty-headed PC bullshit, technocratese and buzzwords spouted by an overpaid moron who obviously hasn't done any real teaching in a real classroom, nor worked in real enterprise. No kids do not need a "globalized", "21st century", "cultural" education. Kids need the same kind of education they ALWAYS have, which is an education in:

1) the best fundamental knowledge available to current human understanding
2) rhetoric and literature
3) discipline

"I have a GLOBALIZED EDUCATION IN FREE THINKING" vs "I know facts, I know how to think, and I know how to sit my ass down and work on shit". That's not just what corporate America wants...that's what I want as an individual. That's what any individual wants.

When you give kids facts, the mental equipment to analyze facts against history and reason, and the discipline to accomplish what they set their minds to...you liberate them as individuals. More so than this groupthink, ultraliberal crap which is really just a shill for herd mentality.

So here's my answer to the speaker, and his "dilemma". Stop sucking and be better parents. Turn off the goddamn TV, sit your kid down, and make him learn. Parents and teachers that can't do that need to accept that they just plain suck.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

I'm convinced! Our current system of teaching to standardized tests, removing incentives for teachers to be creative in the classroom, herding kids through by age instead of ability and promising them that a great job is waiting for those who endure to the end is working well. Crush individuality with dress codes, uniforms, and military-style marching classes and discipline. The lash and medication for those who dare think outside the box! How has this system worked out for you?

I hadn't really meant for this to be a real discussion. I was just telling a co-worker that you would poo-poo just about any post. We randomly selected this from an email I got from somebody. Mission accomplished.

Boredalt - 80 Dwarf Priest - Dissension

Well played.

Wow, Dooj, just...wow. +3 Interwebs.

Your Pal,
Jubber

AKA "The Gun"
AKA "ROFeraL"

World Renowned Mexican Forklift Artiste

I oppose medication and corporal punishment. I believe dress codes and uniforms promote individuality by encouraging people to see themselves outside socially imposed labels. I dress plainly for this very reason. I don't need clothes to tell me who I am, I am who I am.

False choices constrict freedom. No man is an island, and part of the reality - and unfreedom - of school is peer pressure.

Standardized tests test what is to be taught, which is what is on the test. The premise of teaching non-test material is that the classroom is to be a comprehensive life experience, and it's not supposed to be. Again, too bad some people are shitty parents and can't give their kids a life experience outside TV. Don't make that teachers' problem.

Teachers don't want to be creative, and they shouldn't have to be. "Creative" curriculum really means just replacing the arbitrary, but fixed and knowable, criteria of a test, with the whims of some pedagogue, however right or wrong he may be.

The best educational systems are the least creative, and that's a good thing. It isn't possible to be creative in a pedagogical capacity because any pedagogic creativity necessarily imposing one's creativity and thus telling the student what to believe. Children cannot evaluate values independently, that's why they're children, and that's why colleges are, or are supposed to be, the place where that happens.

This is why literature is, or ought to be, taught in middle/high school - to give children a well-rounded background to evaluate values against a broad backdrop, independent of "creativity".

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

Dear God, even after you've been told that you've been trolled, you can't stop yourself.

Your Pal,
Jubber

AKA "The Gun"
AKA "ROFeraL"

World Renowned Mexican Forklift Artiste

/nostalgia Good times.

Boredalt - 80 Dwarf Priest - Dissension

I enjoy those animations. Good find old man

Obviously he didn't want that to be true, so he ignored it in his next post and therefore it never existed. That's how he's always right.

Akiina - Priest - Royal Militia
Leeloo Minai Lekarariba-Laminai-Tchai Ekbat De Sebat

There's no worse feeling than that millisecond you're sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.

Apparently it needs to be linked...

But I am disappointed. I would've thought you'd be above writing off your own line of questioning as a troll when you get a response you don't like.

"Telling a co-worker about you." Old age may well be a second youth, but it needn't be a gender change as well.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

Here ya go.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

Freud said that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. By extension, sometimes a troll is a troll, regardless of whether or not your corpulent ego is too fragile to handle it.

Your Pal,
Jubber

AKA "The Gun"
AKA "ROFeraL"

World Renowned Mexican Forklift Artiste