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Entropymama

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    S/O College students and free stuff .. quality education

    in The Chat Board

    Posted · Edited by Entropymama

    I reject the idea that we are seeing a generation of know nothings. Most young adults I know are smart, passionate and working on getting ahead. Just yesterday I met two high school kids who were spending their afternoon at a political rally and my 12 year old son and I had a long and interesting conversation with them.

     

    Maybe the author hangs around know nothings because people who over generalize are often o limited mental faculties themselves...

     

     

    Then again, how can this really be?  They have history every single year in school.  At some point they are required to take a government course and an economics course.  (At least here where I live that is the requirement). 

    They don't require math and science every year of high school here, but they do require history and/or social studies every single year. 

     

    Maybe things are different in your area, but here math is required every year but history isn't. In fact the elementary kids don't get any history - they get social studies. They learn about different cultures, there are units on families and neighborhoods, different religions, geography, lots and lots of United States history and an entire year devoted to our state history (and there's really not that much to talk about) but nothing on the ancients, nothing on the middle ages. Even US history seems to start at 1776 with nothing about where those ideas about self governance and individual rights come from. One kid I was talking to recently had NO idea that the French and American revolutions were connected, or even that they happened at roughly the same time. To him they were completely isolated events. 

     

    I've never heard of this news organization before. A quick google search told me that The Aquila Report is an organization for "news and commentary from and about conservative, orthodox evangelicals in the Reformed and Presbyterian family of churches". Forgive me for saying I detect a bit of bias.

     

    Are Presbyterians known for criticizing public education? I didn't notice anything in the article that told me he was biased because of his faith. Even if that's true, I find his points interesting, including the ones I don't entirely agree with. 

     

    It really is difficult to be able to step outside of one's specific POV to evaluate something without coming from that place.  And maybe you can do it as a mental exercise, but it's another thing to live it. 

     

    One thing I have learned after 41 years is that a lot of what we spew out as truth has no real evidence of being in fact true.  Then again that is not a comfortable thought.  There is only so much time I like to spend thinking like that. 

     

    But also (and I realize I'm being a bit scattered here), we are asked to consider these deep mature thoughts when we are 18-23ish.  As if we have this lifetime of experiences to draw from.  That is impossible when you consider we spent the bulk of that time sitting in buildings with mostly people our own age and often times with people who come from a similar socioeconomic (among other things) background.  So really maybe to expect students to be wiser than they are isn't even realistic. 

     

    Or is this the purpose of education? To help young people think outside their POV? 

     

    ETA: I can't remember what I was going to say to Katie, but I can't figure out how to delete her quote without messing up all my formatting.  :laugh:

    • Like 1

    S/O College students and free stuff .. quality education

    in The Chat Board

    Posted

     

    But what I don't know is how it is this has been so lost from public education.  I think a few elements are the view of education being for purely utilitarian purposes,  the desire to present an education without assuming a worldview, and perhaps even alienation from true political empowerment.  But I think there is really something more to it than that.

     

    I have a few thoughts. One, I think there is a big push for certain agendas, and time needs to be made for them. For example, when I was kid it was the anti-drug culture. Now it's anti-bullying. Also healthy eating and things like technology skills. When you add, you have to subtract. I think the school system looks at the curriculum and makes cuts in order to fit in these new 'subjects' and things like history get cut. After all, you can get through life just fine not knowing what Rameses II did or who invented the printing press. Spelling, handwriting and grammar are all going by the wayside because technology will do much of that for us, so why bother? 

     

    I also think we've gone from whole-to-parts to parts-to-whole learning. So, for me, when I teach my kids, we grab a great book and read through it, stopping to discuss different aspects of the plot, characters, etc. Through this they learn about good character, what makes people behave the way they do, historical events, etc. (No news to anyone here). But at school they do it the other way round - they need to teach good character so they break down what good character is into easily identifiable and explainable concepts, then build stories of people who have those traits (written by committees) and each character exemplifies a trait. If the stories are vapid, or shallow, or downright boring doesn't really matter, so long as they fulfill their one purpose. 

     

    On the other hand, I agree with Sparkly Unicorn that things are not exactly in a hand basket to hell just yet. The schools near me are generally quite good, and we have many options for charter schools and magnet schools. We even have something called Gateway which is seriously homeschooling at school. Multi-age groups, individual pacing, kids get to decide what they want to study and then create a project. I was cracking up at the orientation as all the teachers gushed about this 'brand new' model that was the future of education. 

    • Like 1

    I need easiest cleaning techniques for the following

    in The Chat Board

    Posted

    I just picked up some bleach tablets that you dump in the toilet tank. Keeps it from smelling and I only need to wipe them down now. Clorox or baby wipes in the bathroom and the kids wipe the toilet down daily. 

     

    Magic erasers for walls - the kids do that, too. They think it's fun. 

     

    Dusting .. uhhhh... don't?  :laugh:

     

    Kitchen - if this is a season, buy paper products so there are fewer dishes. If it's long term, and you can swing it, take a few hours to really go through and get rid of stuff and organize the cabinets so that you can clear the counters. Clear counters are easier to wipe down quickly and make the whole room feel clean, even if there are dishes in the sink. 

    S/O College students and free stuff .. quality education

    in The Chat Board

    Posted

    That thread was veering off, so I thought I'd just start one. 

     

    Regarding free education and it's success and failure, this article was very informative. 

     

    http://theaquilareport.com/how-a-generation-lost-its-common-culture/

     

    "Our students’ ignorance is not a failing of the educational system – it is its crowning achievement. Efforts by several generations of philosophers and reformers and public policy experts — whom our students (and most of us) know nothing about — have combined to produce a generation of know-nothings. The pervasive ignorance of our students is not a mere accident or unfortunate but correctible outcome, if only we hire better teachers or tweak the reading lists in high school. It is the consequence of a civilizational commitment to civilizational suicide. The end of history for our students signals the End of History for the West."

     

    Ok, one more time. Healthy eating.

    in The Chat Board

    Posted

    There's a difference between eating to lose weight and eating to maintain a healthy weight. Once you're at your goal weight, I see no reason you shouldn't add back avocados, or anything else you like, in moderation. Full fat foods are often healthier than their processed, low fat counterparts, in part because many 'low fat' foods (packaged stuff) have added salt and sugar because you lose all the flavor when you remove the fat. I have also heard that you are more satisfied with full fat foods, so you eat less of them. 

     

     

    • Like 2

    What curriculum or resources have your kids loved?

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    My kids attend a weekly co-op that covers science, history and art. We'll have six weeks after the co-op ends before the end of the school year to focus on language arts and math, and whatever else sounds fun. 

     

    If you had six weeks to do anything, what would you do? What are your favorite resources or unit studies? What did you read that your kids actually asked for every day? 

     

    We need something exciting.

    Natural supplements for acid reflux?

    in The Chat Board

    Posted

    I had awful, awful heartburn with my pregnancies, that lasted for almost a year after. For me dairy was a big trigger, not yogurt but cream, milk, etc. So no coffee, sugar, tomatoes, or dairy. Nothing spicy, few carbs. Super fun. Lots of water was bad for me, too. The only thing I did that hasn't been mentioned was take marshmallow root. You can buy it on Amazon for about $5. I took 2 in the morning and 2 at night for about six months and it really helped, so much that with the diet changes and that I quit my Prilosec and Zantac (yes, I was on both) and now I'm back to eating normally with only occasional flare ups. I sometimes forget to take it now and it's okay. It really helps healing. 

    • Like 1

    How do I deal with a bully?

    in The Chat Board

    Posted

    I agree that using the word 'bullying' is powerful, especially if they're in public school as it's probably been drummed into them that bullying is wrong. I recently had a talk with my boys that went something like, "When you are doing something and it is clear that another person doesn't like it, but you keep doing it, that is bullying." It really caught there attention and overcame their protests of "I'm just having fun!". 

    • Like 5

    College Students Demand Free Tampons

    in The Chat Board

    Posted

    For those who have read Cloud and Townsend's 'Boundaries' - and I know it's popular here - there is a difference between your personal responsibility and the responsibility of those around you. We each have a 'burden' to bear; our own life and it's necessities. If our burden gets to be too much for us, then it's the responsibility of those around us to step in and help carry that burden. 

     

    A woman's menstrual cycle falls squarely in her own burden. If she is incapable of dealing with it due to finances, mental or physical illness, etc., then it becomes someone else's responsibility to help her. No one is saying that someone who can't afford menstrual products should be forced to go without them, although I disagree that this is the university's responsibility (but this has already been discussed). 

     

    The problem I see is that this young girl isn't saying she can't afford her tampons. She's saying that they're all the way on the other side of campus in her dorm room and she can't get at them right now. That's poor planning, and nobody's fault but hers. 

     

    If she had some kind of mental impairment or physical ailment that prevented her from remembering to bring tampons or from carrying them with her, then I would say that she deserves some help. 

     

    Is she going to assert that her first class of the day should provide breakfast, since she can't concentrate without it and forgot to set her alarm early enough? 

    • Like 11

    What does one do when they hate their job but feel unable to quit?

    in The Chat Board

    Posted

    I second the idea of taking in child care. At one point, when my dh had just started a new job and was being paid very little, I did daycare and made more than he did. In my area it's not unreasonable to pay $30-40 dollars per day, more if you're only using child care a few days per week. (Drop in care can be $50) If you could watch a couple kids, potentially he could get a temporary part time job, giving him time to look for another job. With his work schedule I don't know how he could even look. 

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