Author Topic: What do you think? (Read 614 times)

gofaster · « **Reply #15 on:** September 06, 2002, 12:49:32 PM »

Too many issues are contained in this quote, but I'll try to address them as they come up, so pardon me for breaking it up into smaller bits and pieces.

"But the quarrel over curriculum is in the end a quarrel over fault."

Fault is determined by the jury, and the jury is the student body. If the teacher makes a good argument, the kids will buy it. If the teacher is bogus, the kids will out the truth but only if the relevant facts are presented. A clever teacher can manipulate facts to meet a predetermined conclusion, much the same way as a clever trial lawyer can win a case on weak evidence and a strong closing argument - one that can be based on the evidence and presented in a pattern that would be reasonable to the person hearing it. I haven't found a teacher yet that could explain the reason why America was in Vietnam for 11 years, but I did find one that could explain why the Vietnamese communists fought the Japanese, the French, and the Americans for so long. Vietnam wasn't a Japanese homeland, it wasn't a French homeland, and it wasn't an American homeland.

"It (the quarrel over curriculum) seeks judgment about who's really to blame for terror, so it (the quarrel over curriculum) treats teaching as an exercise in persuasion—which is why it (the quarrel over curriculum) misses the point. An education shouldn't just prepare kids to be swayed by your talking points or mine. It should prepare them to live as citizens, to know how to act as voters, leaders, neighbors. "

True history is dates, times, numbers, events. On September 11, 2001, Tuesday, 2 commercial passenger jets were purposely flown into the World Trade Center with great loss of life. Not much argument there. How history is analyzed is up to the person making the argument one way or the other. The trick is knowing which way the speaker is leaning. Most students, from K-12, will buy whatever you tell them. Intellectual authority usually won't get questioned until college age. An education is being able to take true history, analyze it, and form a coherent opinion.

"And the best way to do that, after something like 9/11, is not to rehearse the emoting and posing of the culture wars but to give children practice facing, and making, the world that 9/11 gave us."

This last bit completely lost me. What was the point here? I think the author lost her train of thought and got swept up in the emotion of the moment. Either that or there was one more sentence that got cut off. I'm guessing that what the author wants is for teachers to simply state the facts and let the kids argue the benefits of an islamic jihad against the western nations. The problem with that approach is that history becomes a giant statistics table of numbers with no mouth - nobody to explain the significance of it all. Numbers are boring by themselves.

The best history course I ever took was taught by a community college professor who dealt with history not as a giant timeline, but as concepts that repeated over and over again. For example, the concept of a cult of personality: Julius Caesar, Charlesmagne, Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Mussolini, John F. Kennedy, MLK. We spent 3 class sessions talking about it, interpreting it, arguing it, understanding it. Religion and government: The Crusades, The Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials, nation of Israel, Lebanon civil war, the Aztec and Incas, Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan. And his tests were always essays and you had to call out specific examples to support your interpretations.

I wonder what he'd think about the WTC and the collapse of the Taliban government. Ok, that'll be our topic for the next class!

Kieran · « **Reply #16 on:** September 06, 2002, 12:58:37 PM »

Creamo-

I selected the paragraph in the quote to focus upon, not the entire article. It rings more true to me personally than most stuff I read.

My problem with telling people how to think in matters where there is room for opinion is that it removes the responsibility to think from them. We as teachers are accused of sending kids into the world unprepared to function; certainly one of the prerequisites for mature adulthood would be the ability to think for one's self?

I can lay the facts out. I can say this is what they did, this is what we did, this is why we are doing what we are doing, this is why they are doing what they are doing, etc., but I am not allowed to add my opinion to it. If this seems vaguely familiar, it should be... it's the way journalism used to work. You give thinking people facts and let them draw their conclusions.

Do I feel like we should retaliate against the 9/11 terrorists? Absolutely! I do not have the luxury of sharing that with my students (from an ethical standpoint), because there is room to disagree. That's just how it is. OTOH, I can tell the NEA to kiss my butt where blaming the mess on America is concerned, for the very same reason.

Kieran · « **Reply #17 on:** September 06, 2002, 01:01:59 PM »

Quote

"And the best way to do that, after something like 9/11, is not to rehearse the emoting and posing of the culture wars but to give children practice facing, and making, the world that 9/11 gave us."

This states what I said above- that people need to be able to take facts and glean truth from it all by themselves, without authoritative figures telling them what to think.

Mathman · « **Reply #18 on:** September 06, 2002, 01:16:43 PM »

It has been my experience that the greatest thing that a child can learn is critical thinking skills. It sounds corny, but I truly see life as being one large puzzle/problem that we try to solve. Whether you can solve it or put yourself into a position that is better than before is dependent upon how well you can take in information, process it, and come up with a solution. Mistakes will be made, but it is how well you learn from them that matters.

As Dean of Students, I get to have fun suspending kids, giving them detention and so forth. I don't see my job as just punishing them though. The way I look at these kids is that they will be faced with a ton od decisions during their four years in high school. These kids do not make mistakes. They make poor decisions. I look at my job as showing them what decision was wrong, why it was wrong, other options that they should have looked into, and who they could have asked for help from. Then I give them detention.

It is a bit idealistic, I know, but I think in this job, the second that you lose your idealism, you lose your effectiveness as a teacher.

Just wanted to add that I don't see the two parts contradicting each other, though at times it almost seems like they do. I see the discipline side as enforcing rules that they have to live by and that there are consequences to crossing certain lines, much like what happens when they pass into the world beyond high school where some of the stakes are higher than just spending an hour after school. The critical thinking is not defiance, but questioning in a constructive way and finding out how to correct problems, if they exist, in a way that does not cross lines.

Creamo · « **Reply #19 on:** September 06, 2002, 01:44:17 PM »

I'm not wanting to be in your position Kieran. I'd be run out of town for being a brutal truth conservative old man.

certainly one of the prerequisites for mature adulthood would be the ability to think for one's self?

A lofty BS broad statement if I ever heard one. I think as I grew up it was "Don't disappoint Dad". I was a bastard, but i never made the 'Ol man shamed. Kept me in line. Today? Who knows what they are thinking.

And at say 15, where would that freedom start, and someone at 35, teacher or not, starts, when to just try and save them the all the fukup's?

Point is, when teachers are provoked, or worse, told to give the restraints to give children "ability to think for one's self" your undermining what adults are actually good for. Telling the little toejams what's right and wrong by experience.

15 year olds could'nt find piss in a boot if the map was in the heal.

Good luck.

Kieran · « **Reply #20 on:** September 06, 2002, 03:14:19 PM »

Eventually, Creamo, everyone has to think for themselves or suffer the consequences. You're absolutely right about the priorities of the younger generation, but that doesn't mean they don't understand the truth. And, in time, they can begin to act on that truth IF they can recognize it when they see it.

The way I see it, if I don't allow them to make choices, they won't, and that isn't good. We may disagree here, but I think we have common ground on one point, that is, people are responsible for the decisions they make. Let them choose their path; then, let them experience the good or bad that results. This in my opinion is the best teacher.

Nifty · « **Reply #21 on:** September 06, 2002, 03:38:14 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Creamo
Drill them all day on History, and they still think teenage popsicle, sports, and the next hamburger joint to talk toejam and trade MP3's is the most important thing ever. Been there. (although it was cassete tapes)

I thought as an FDB, you're still there but just upgraded to newer technology and wings and beer instead of hamburgers and coke.

Seriously, I'm agreeing with Kieran on this. Teach the facts, explore the opinions, but all of them, not just one side. Don't teach opinions as facts.

I think that's what Kieran has been trying to say in a nutshell, at least that's what I got out of it.

Creamo · « **Reply #22 on:** September 06, 2002, 03:41:21 PM »

Yeah, and when does that "thinking for themselves" start? At 15?

Forget 15, at 18 when Dad said "Stop eating my food and crapping in my house", I was way gone, not by my choice. All I wanted to do was party and "Think for Myself". I fortunately had the ultimatum, and I bought a FLYING mag and said "this."

I'd a sucked the hind tit for as many years as I could like my friends that are basically fools , still there now.

You don't get that toejam today, and giving them "respect" ain't giving them nothing but a ticket to be turds.

Like I said, I'm no parent or teacher. You let them choose their paths wrongly dictated and politically correct like my friends, they will stay at home, upping the turd content of every small town. I just don't agree. At least my Dad was a noodlesucker (so I thought) to me and sent me on my way.

Man I can't repay him ever for being that initial amazinhunk...

Kieran · « **Reply #23 on:** September 06, 2002, 03:56:57 PM »

I think you are extending my basic premise beyond my intent. I don't think everything we teach has multiple truths; 2 + 2 still equals 4, potato is "spelled" without the "e", and so on. What I would be talking about would be world events and politics. I also think what you are alluding to is the issue of values, which I don't believe is my primary job to teach- that should come from parents. I deal in information and instruction.

midnight Target · « **Reply #24 on:** September 06, 2002, 03:58:06 PM »

Facts are facts, opinions are opinions. Teachers may give both IMHO, as long as they let it be known which is which.
Of course this is all based on which age groups we are discussing. In grade school, the opinions should be kept to a minimum.

OTOH some of the best teachers I have ever had were opinionated SOB's that made the subject matter come alive. Not all were liberal SOB's either.

Creamo · « **Reply #25 on:** September 06, 2002, 04:06:53 PM »

I was about to carpet my driveway...

lol, sorry, Kettle One has it's effects.

Just beat the little toejams into a inch of their lives. Fair enough.

Kieran · « **Reply #26 on:** September 06, 2002, 05:17:46 PM »

Gotta admit, that lost me.