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 25 Sep 2004 @ 03:39, by koravya. Education
To my well-informed friends at NCN, I have a request. I am currently teaching a composition course in argumentation, and part of the quarter’s requirement is to write a basic research paper. I’ve asked my students to submit their proposed topics, and one of them is interested in developing an informed opinion on the issues between the Israelis and the Palestinians. I would like to direct him to a few websites that can provide him with some balanced and reasonable perspectives on the issues involved. I know several of you are quite well versed in the deepest complexities of the history in this area. Where does one who doesn’t know much more about it than what he might find in the daily newspaper go to begin his self-education in this domain? Here is his proposal. More >
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26 Jun 2004 @ 19:28, by ming. Education
Via BoingBoing, this is part of a eighth grade test from a 1895 Kansas schoolhouse:1. What is meant by the following: Alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, syllabication?
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: Trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals?
4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u'.
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final 'e'. Name two exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: Bi, dis, mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono,super.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: Card, ball, mercy, sir, odd,cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences, Cite, site, sight, fane,fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication. OK, it is just the Orthography section. Not that the other sections are much easier. What the hell happened? In case you don't get the point, here's a sample piece of an 8th grade test from a U.S. school today:11. What feeling does the author try to communicate about the topic?
A. serious
B. light-hearted
C. critical
D. silly
12. What question does this article try to answer?
E. Are Light Twinkies healthier than regular Twinkies?
F. Why do people like sugary, fatty foods?
G. Do Light Twinkies taste as good as regular Twinkies?
H. Why did the Hostess company invent Light Twinkies?
I'm not kidding. Most tests are multiple choice in the U.S. So, did major knowledge about education get lost, or were they really not as smart back then as it sounds like? More >
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 3 Jun 2004 @ 03:31, by jazzolog. Education
Do not wish to be anything but what you are, and try to be that perfectly.
---St. Francis De Sales
My life has been the poem I would have writ,
but I could not both live and utter it.
---Henry David Thoreau
Tear open the tree!
And can you see
The cherry flowers that yearly
Bloom on Yoshino?
---Ikkyu
Am I preaching to the choir? Oh well, I love a good rant!
Picture of Dave Eggers at a recent booksigning at Boston College.
Reading, Writing, and Landscaping
Mowing lawns, scrubbing bathrooms, selling stereos: How teachers make ends meet
Dave Eggers
May/June 2004 Issue of Mother Jones
As a nation, we're confused about how we see teachers. Most polls show that respect for the profession has risen in recent years, yet we have certain quietly entrenched ideas—that teaching is easy, that teachers get out at 3 p.m. every day—and these notions, all ludicrous, allow us to accept the injustice in teachers' dismally low salaries. We love teachers, we think they're saints, but most of us consider unavoidable the fact that they are underpaid and often have to work two or three extra jobs to maintain a middle-class existence.
The latest statistics put the average teacher's salary at about $46,000; some teachers earn a little more, some a little less (the average teacher's salary—not the starting salary—is $38,000 in Kansas, $36,000 in New Mexico, and $32,000 in South Dakota). Overall, that's about the same that we pay pile-driver operators ($45,980) and about $8,000 less than the average elevator repairman pulls down. Meanwhile, a San Francisco dockworker makes about $115,000, while the clerk who logs shipping records into the longshoreman's computer makes $136,000.
The first step to creating an education system full of the best teachers we can find is to pay them in line with their importance to their communities. We pay orthodontists an average of $350,000, and no one would say that their impact on the lives of kids is greater than a teacher's. But it seems difficult for everyone, from parents to politicians, to shake free of a tradition in which teaching was seen as something of a volunteer project for women whose husbands brought home the real money. Today's teachers need to, but very often can't, support a family on their salaries. They find it difficult or impossible to buy homes, to save money, to live comfortably, and, in wealthier areas, to live in or near the towns where they teach. More >
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 21 Mar 2004 @ 17:55, by bombadil. Education
Photo: Labyrinthos, Jeff Saward (Chartres Cathedral Labyrinth)
The labyrinth "speaks" to us in metaphor. It is a watering hole for the spirit; a reflective mirror of the soul.
It is a place where we can 'wind down' to quiet the mind and when we do this, the door to our intuitive world opens to us. More >
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 18 Dec 2003 @ 11:32, by ming. Education
What to do with the kids and school has been one of the things worrying me a good deal about being in France. There's the language issue, and the difficulty just figuring out how things work here. I haven't even gathered the guts yet to go and apply for our Carte de Sejour (residency permit) here. And French education is considered hard, of a totally different level than the U.S., so there's a question of how they'll adjust. But, as with many other things, when you actually go and do it, and you incidentally run into the right people, things tend to work out.
Little Nadia has since the last month been in École Maternelle. Preschool. When we finally had located a suitable school close by, and managed to show up at the right time, when there wasn't a holiday, there really was no problem signing her up. And they're super-nice to her. A couple of days of crying a bit at first when we left her behind, but she quickly learned to enjoy it. It is in French, obviously, but that doesn't seem to be any kind of problem. Only hard part is us bringing her and picking her up. They have a two hour lunch break in the middle of the day, and unless both her parents were away at work, which we obviously aren't, we'll have to pick her up and bring her back. So, we're talking 4 bicycle trips a day, the 1.5km to the school. Good exercise, and it isn't raining all that often.
As to Zachery, well, he's 17 and the initial plan was that he would finish his U.S. highschool remotely through a home schooling arrangement where he would e-mail homework and otherwise study on his own. Which hasn't been going overly well. So we decided to explore integrating him into the French system now rather than later. Which is certainly not the perfect time to jump into a totally different system, but it might be the best to struggle through it. We spoke first with the British section of the International Lycée de Toulouse, which is all in English and follows the British school system. They didn't think it was a good idea, and that if he at all spoke any French, it would be better with a regular French lycée (highschool). So, we picked the closest one, just down the street, Lycée des Arènes, a big new modern building by the Metro station. And when we went there yesterday, and I was standing trying to explain our situation to the receptionist, who wasn't overly cooperative, it just turned out that next to us a lady overheard our conversation and decided to assist us. And she was nothing less than the Inspector General of English education for all of France, who incidentally was in town. And, first of all she of course spoke perfect English, which made it a little easier to get started. She gave us the general scenario, and told us this was one of the best schools in Toulouse. And she arranged a meeting for us with the principal and laid it all out for him for us. And today Zachery and I went and met him, and the short and the long of it is that he starts after christmas, and we'll work out the details then. And after a month we'll see how well he survives. There are other foreign students there who speak less French than him, so it is possible. And we suspect that he knows more than he's easily willing to admit. Anyway, we're hopeful it will work.
Marie-Therese is 20 and doesn't entirely know what she wants. But pursuing an education as a French chef has probably the best pull on her here. So we're trying to figure that out. Took a little while to even figure out what kind of schools that goes on in, and what diplomas one would get, etc. Turns out it is a specialization within the hotel and restaurant educations. And it would be pretty hard work. Anyway, we were in an employment agency that had a focus day on that business, and got some more hints, and a guy who saw us there we later ran into in the bus somewhere else in town. Turns out his dream is to move to the U.S., but that he actually attended the closest hotel and restaurant school, which is also walking distance from us. And he'll take Marie-Therese there and show her around and introduce her to the people who run it.
Strange thing how most things here don't quite happen before you coincidentally run into just the right person who'll go out of their way help you out. One can't take it for granted, but it is heartwarming each time it happens. More >
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 14 Sep 2002 @ 18:14, by zendor. Education
Beloved Family,
In the process of our evolution we are being educated (information is drawn out) about our individual ascensions rising to the level of collective Beingness. Let’s look at the educational process for a moment while reflecting on our current affairs. We will be reflecting on this process from the ideal place of a master teacher, one who empowers the students to use critical thinking skills to self-assess and grow into the new living awareness that integrates the data of discussion, whether classroom activities or life in general. More >
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22 Sep 2001 @ 23:38, by ming. Education
This weekend I'm at University of Science and Philosophy's yearly symposium, mostly focusing on education. Like the last conference I went to, it is excellent. Great information that all ties together, and great dialogues. Some of the speakers here are Elisabet Sahtouris, Ashok Gangadean, Gregg Braden, Paul von Ward, Cleve Baxter and others. Themes are how to travel across multiple world-views, dialogue, how to teach unified, cosmic, living systems knowledge, rather than just cutting everything into little pieces. More >
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