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Cite a source. Dictionary dot com contradicts you.
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Then it needed to have been AL who defined that term, not I, for it was s/he who used it.
Cite a source. However, I think it flies in the face of common sense to expect the speaker to navigate the myriad misconceptions that can be concluded by listeners. Further, considering that I, apparently, understood the intent, anything else except a recognition of ambiguity is incorrect. Therefore, you're still wrong for making conclusions about an ambiguous statement.
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The problem is that few sources, whether mechanical or human, can only impart knowledge without some kind of judgment of value implicit in them.
Yes, I've heard the anti-objectivity arguments of relativists. The system rests on the belief that one shouldn't do the best they can because they might fail. When the laughably young philosophy is exposed to the ravages of human nature in real life, it falls apart quite fast.
However, the topic is this statement: "They should be able to accept every kid that walks into the classroom for who they are and not have the desire to change them."
You can accept that a person is unable to do anything objectively. However, what AL was advancing is that a person should not desire to change them.
Your argument is irrelevant.
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To make a comparison, I believe a good teacher needs to be the whetstone against which the knife of the student's mind is sharpened -- but not a blacksmith who will take that knife and turn it into a horseshoe.
Unfortunately, there's an infinite number of angles to sharpen a blade. Which one you choose depends on your goals.
Last edited by One Thousand; 04-22-2008 at 04:52 PM..
What you call "achieving justice," I call imposing your values on another. You have the right to leave. You have the right to change professions. You do not have the moral right to strong-arm a district to pay you what you think you're worth. That is theft and the belief that you "deserve" what you're stealing is called "a sense of entitlement."
It was also the district's choice to capitulate or not. They also have a choice: they could have decided they would fire the strikers and hire others, or they could have decided that it was worth more to them to pay a reasonable wage, which they did.
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Like any question of morality, the answer is contingent on assumptions. The point "... This situation... would have been ethically wrong...." rests on the assumption that you know better than the parents-- That the conclusions resulting from the parents love, self-interest, judgement and intelligence is inferior to your superior opinion. This is elitism.
You apparently are ruling out the idea that the teachers in this situation weren't also parents in the same district. Many of them were. Moreover, it's regrettable that parents don't have more control over what occurs in the schools; they really have very little and had almost none here. The parents of the students (as well as the students themselves) supported the teachers and felt the district was acting quite high-handedly. I'm afraid you are seeing opposition and dichotomy where none need exist (and did not in this particular instance).
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I think the problem is that todays educators have mistakenly assumed that their profession is as serious as they believe.
I actually feel it is more serious than most educators believe, primarily because the state-sponsored school system makes it possible for parents to work two jobs -- a circumstance that would be rendered impossible for many people if all teachers were suddenly to leave the profession.
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Those of us who've been out in the world in jobs and owning businesses quickly discover what works and what doesn't... because when you stick with what doesn't work, you lose your job or go out of business.
Because we're forced to cope with reality, we change and grow as professionals and individuals. However, for teachers, because the industry accesses the force of government to get paid, they can't go out of business. Therefore, teachers never have to come to terms with reality. They never have to be efficient.
I agree with much of what you said -- I strongly believe that greater choice in school options would benefit students and parents first, to say nothing of schools themselves.
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Here's the problem, Mr. Wallace, in the real world, when the customer (for you, the district) says you're not doing enough, you figure out what you have to do to make your product more valuable to that customer or you walk. In the real world, you get better... In education, you complain.
In the real world, no one is forced to buy a particular product whether they like it or not, need it or not, or want it or not. I sincerely believe that the compulsory nature of education dooms a great many school systems to permanent mediocrity for that reason.
In many ways, we are not necessarily as opposed as perhaps you believe we are.
Cite a source. Dictionary dot com contradicts you.
Sure. Not like Wikipedia is a perfect or unimpeachable source, but it observes the following about properties a logical argument must (ideally) possess:
Consistency, which means that none of the theorems of the system contradict one another.
Soundness, which means that the system's rules of proof will never allow a false inference from a true premise. If a system is sound and its axioms are true then its theorems are also guaranteed to be true.
Completeness, which means that there are no true sentences in the system that cannot, at least in principle, be proved in the system.
The kind of logic you were talking about is essentially false logic.
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...I think it flies in the face of common sense to expect the speaker to navigate the myriad misconceptions that can be concluded by listeners. Further, considering that I, apparently, understood the intent, anything else except a recognition of ambiguity is incorrect. Therefore, you're still wrong for making conclusions about an ambiguous statement.
If you understood the intent, then your asking me to define it was unimportant to the argument. Moreover, if the statement was ambiguous, it is also incorrect to come to any conclusions about it whatsoever.
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Yes, I've heard the anti-objectivity arguments of relativists. The system rests on the belief that one shouldn't do the best they can because they might fail. When the laughably young philosophy is exposed to the ravages of human nature in real life, it falls apart quite fast.
This has little do to with ethical relativism and more about practical reality. Given that events (such as the Holocaust) are imparted by human beings with (inevitably) some degree of bias, and given also that some events (such as the Holocaust) perhaps ought not to be presented with whatever neutrality a teacher is capable of presenting, it is impractical to assert that teaching is merely (or should be merely) the presentation of dispassionate fact.
However, I do believe that teachers far too often go in the direction of propagandizing rather than making the attempt to present a neutral view (or even conduct a classroom in which multiple arguments were allowed to exist and be discussed and debated without necessarily coming to "the right point of view").
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However, the topic is this statement: "They should be able to accept every kid that walks into the classroom for who they are and not have the desire to change them."
You can accept that a person is unable to do anything objectively. However, what AL was advancing is that a person should not desire to change them.
Your argument is irrelevant.
Not in the least, but I regret if I failed to communicate why this is with the clarity that we would both desire.
If I have a student walk into my class who is unable to write a clear English sentence, I desire to change this ability so that he is able to write a clear English sentence by the time he leaves.
If I have a student walk into my class who is unable to use language to express her thoughts with a reasonable degree of clarity, I desire to change this ability so that she is able to do so (or more able to do so) by the time she leaves.
If I believed that students were perfect when they entered my classroom and did not need or require any kind of change, then I would really have very little to do.
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Unfortunately, there's an infinite number of angles to sharpen a blade and which one you choose depends on your goals.
It was also the district's choice to capitulate or not. They also have a choice: they could have decided they would fire the strikers and hire others, or they could have decided that it was worth more to them to pay a reasonable wage, which they did.
Yeah. Good rationalizing. "Well, she had the choice to put out or get out the boat, she chose to put out... that's not rape."
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You apparently are ruling out the idea that the teachers in this situation weren't also parents in the same district. Many of them were. Moreover, it's regrettable that parents don't have more control over what occurs in the schools; they really have very little and had almost none here. The parents of the students (as well as the students themselves) supported the teachers and felt the district was acting quite high-handedly. I'm afraid you are seeing opposition and dichotomy where none need exist (and did not in this particular instance).
The citizens are the government who is the school. If something's happening in the school, it is within the power of the citizens to change it. End of story.
Regarding the teachers with kids in the school, if they were of the minority and their legal rights were not being violated which required a trip to court, then they have the choice to make changes with rest of the citizens or get their kids out.
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which means that the system's rules of proof will never allow a false inference from a true premise. If a system is sound and its axioms are true then its theorems are also guaranteed to be true.
That's referring to relationships still; not the accuracy of the premissees. You see where I bolded it? It wouldn't make sense of them to say "if... its axioms are true" because then it'd be a repeat of what was already said.
You're wrong and you've delivered evidence to prove it.
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If you understood the intent, then there was apparently no need to define it. Moreover, if the statement was ambiguous, it is also incorrect to come to any conclusions about it whatsoever.
Hobbes would be proud of you.
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Given that events (such as the Holocaust) are imparted by human beings with (inevitably) some degree of bias, and given also that some events (such as the Holocaust) perhaps ought not to be presented with whatever neutrality a teacher is capable of presenting, it is impractical to assert that teaching is merely (or should be merely) the presentation of dispassionate fact.
That's a far cry from your initial argument. At best, I would guess that you're trying to use an exception to a rule as the thread to hang from.
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If I have a student walk into my class who is unable to write a clear English sentence, I desire to change this ability so that he is able to write a clear English sentence by the time he leaves.
If I have a student walk into my class who is unable to use language to express her thoughts with a reasonable degree of clarity, I desire to change this ability so that she is able to do so (or more able to do so) by the time she leaves.
I believe the three of us are on the same page now.
NCLB has NOT improved anything about education in public schools!! It has only left behind students -- ELL students being a prime example
I said it was positive for respect. However, I think it's positive for students also.
Saying "schools need to do better" is empty. NCLB says "here's what you need to do." It just so happens, when you do that, schools are getting better.
If ESL students are being left behind (If you don't mind, I don't like it when words are changed to produce an emotional response and I like it even less when there's a redundancy for the sake of slipping the change in under the radar. "Learner" and "student' are the same.) then the way teachers teach needs to change. If it doesn't change, I suggest firing the teachers and/or faculty to get people in who can do rather than the rest of us supporting a company that can't delivered a finished product on time.
Another reason why I think it's better for students is because if teachers are "teaching to the test," it means that they have less time to advance their personal ideologies.
I hate socialism, but it was the only thing I ever heard about in school in a postive way. I'm certain not one teacher I ever had read "The Wealth of Nations." However, they were quite confident to give grand speeches about the evils of it.
Rats, just when I thought we were on the same page.
Eliminating stupidity would be even better than suppressing it, but unfortunately, what I've seen more with NCLB is that it's suppressing excellence.
I heartily endorse improving the quality of education, raising the standard for teachers' mastery of their material, and using proven methods to deliver that material. Unfortunately, what NCLB has actually done is not just compel teachers to teach to a test, but compel them to do so at the expense of teaching other disciplines such as science and history.
It's also focused a disproportionate amount of teachers' attention on the few kids in their classes who are unprepared for the test either because of their inherent abilities or because of their previous lack of preparation, but unfortunately, this is often done at the expense of the higher-achieving kids, who are largely left on their own. Many parents of gifted students have turned to homeschooling or other educational alternatives since (and because of) NCLB.
I believe in improving the quality of education, but I don't think NCLB's the right tool for the job.
NCLB has NOT improved anything about education in public schools!! It has only left behind students -- ELL students being a prime example
NCLB best serves the students near the median. The further away from the median, both above and below, the less they are helped and the more they are hurt by NCLB.
Rats, just when I thought we were on the same page.
I just meant we were speaking the same language... I'm not getting on board with elitism
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Eliminating stupidity would be even better than suppressing it, but unfortunately, what I've seen more with NCLB is that it's suppressing excellence.
That's equality.
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Unfortunately, what NCLB has actually done is not just compel teachers to teach to a test, but compel them to do so at the expense of teaching other disciplines such as science and history.
Describe please.
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Many parents of gifted students have turned to homeschooling or other educational alternatives since (and because of) NCLB.
That's a positive. It's creating a demand for special schools. Just as W.Bloomfield, MI took all their dimwits and put them in a special school, so too must the exceptional be seperated.
This is the division of labor. (Speaking of, "The Wealth of Nations" might make you think of education in a whole new light if you recognize that you're producing a product.)
A teacher with an average IQ is suited to teach average IQ students. However, special student need special teachers. NCLB is forcing a division of labor so that the right student gets the right kind of teacher.
Smart districts can see this and they're responding. Districts committed to the status-quo refuse to change and deserve to be booted.
I haven't read all the posts,so I hope I don't repeat one someone else said. The teaching "system" where I grew up (Small towns) had rampant nepotism. So many "bad" or mediocre teachers are kept,ones who don't really care,just doing it for a paycheck or because years ago they thought teaching would be easy with a summer off (this,sad to say describes a relative of mine in teaching). And many potential good,dedicated teachers have to either spend years substitue teaching or move to another area or go into another profession. Also, some children are so poorly behaved that the teacher spends more time trying to disciplining them (unfair to the teacher and other students).
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