Thursday, January 6, 2011
Not fighting means more peace in the world
Keep trying, Prager. We're talking about an idea that was embraced and promulgated by the hippies. They have yet to dismiss any of their massively failed ideas, including the "War is not healthy for children and other living things" idiocy.
Why don't colleges have required courses?
Remember that colleges used to have required courses. It was considered essential for anyone who wanted to call himself "educated" to know certain things.
Here is a little list that mere women (not even well-educated men!) were obliged to go through in 1810:
[Miss Bingley:] "...no one can be really esteemed accomplished, who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved.''
``All this she must possess,'' added Darcy, ``and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.''
As for what gentlemen must possess, it was a college education, which comprehended a LOT more than you'll find in even good colleges today. A classical education, including history, Latin, Greek, a couple of modern languages, English grammar and again, "something more substantial, in the improvement of [his] mind by extensive reading." Every mind was expected to be improved else the bearer of the mind would be looked down upon with contempt (because its owner would be considered roughly equivalent to an Irish bricklayer).
In the Twenties and Thirties our Progressives decided to drop standards. "Who is to say that one thing is better than another?" And an old philosophy based in the nonsensical sayings of Rousseau, was dredged up, that education must be determined by the student and whatever the student was interested in learning, and not what some stuffy committee of old grizzled men had decided.
When WW2 was over and our GIs flooded the colleges, their way paid by the GI Bill, and under the assumption that getting a college diploma would bring you a bigger paycheck, colleges took in a huge number of less-educated, less-capable (read "less brilliant") students, and with colleges expanding as fast as they could, the standards had to come down. No longer were Greek and Latin required, nor even were they seen as relevant. Engineering and Business seemed to be the order of the day, not Philosophy or Literature.
But it was in the Sixties that you saw the heyday of the hedonistic curriculum. I have been long used to thinking my peers, the hippies, had inaugurated this anarchy with their mantra of "who's to say what's better than something else?" and all the attendant "ethnic studies" malarkey. But this stuff followed on the heels of even worse courses which were variously described contemptuously as "Underwater Basketweaving 101". So we had hippies under the tutelage of beatniks who had learned from GI Bill benefactors who had never met Mr Chips and probably would have hated him had they ever studied under him.
Now these hippies have taught two generations that there is no such thing as standards, and these generations are in charge of the schools. "It is bad to teach grammar," said the NEA in 1927 at their annual convention; and this axiom was seconded in 1947 and again in 1972. What in the world is wrong with teaching grammar? Well, it confuses and bores the student and it keeps the incompetent teacher (who does not understand grammar anyway) from teaching something that is actually important, such as conflict resolution, self-esteem, or sex ed.
How in the world is could there be required courses in this system?
Here is a little list that mere women (not even well-educated men!) were obliged to go through in 1810:
[Miss Bingley:] "...no one can be really esteemed accomplished, who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved.''
``All this she must possess,'' added Darcy, ``and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.''
As for what gentlemen must possess, it was a college education, which comprehended a LOT more than you'll find in even good colleges today. A classical education, including history, Latin, Greek, a couple of modern languages, English grammar and again, "something more substantial, in the improvement of [his] mind by extensive reading." Every mind was expected to be improved else the bearer of the mind would be looked down upon with contempt (because its owner would be considered roughly equivalent to an Irish bricklayer).
In the Twenties and Thirties our Progressives decided to drop standards. "Who is to say that one thing is better than another?" And an old philosophy based in the nonsensical sayings of Rousseau, was dredged up, that education must be determined by the student and whatever the student was interested in learning, and not what some stuffy committee of old grizzled men had decided.
When WW2 was over and our GIs flooded the colleges, their way paid by the GI Bill, and under the assumption that getting a college diploma would bring you a bigger paycheck, colleges took in a huge number of less-educated, less-capable (read "less brilliant") students, and with colleges expanding as fast as they could, the standards had to come down. No longer were Greek and Latin required, nor even were they seen as relevant. Engineering and Business seemed to be the order of the day, not Philosophy or Literature.
But it was in the Sixties that you saw the heyday of the hedonistic curriculum. I have been long used to thinking my peers, the hippies, had inaugurated this anarchy with their mantra of "who's to say what's better than something else?" and all the attendant "ethnic studies" malarkey. But this stuff followed on the heels of even worse courses which were variously described contemptuously as "Underwater Basketweaving 101". So we had hippies under the tutelage of beatniks who had learned from GI Bill benefactors who had never met Mr Chips and probably would have hated him had they ever studied under him.
Now these hippies have taught two generations that there is no such thing as standards, and these generations are in charge of the schools. "It is bad to teach grammar," said the NEA in 1927 at their annual convention; and this axiom was seconded in 1947 and again in 1972. What in the world is wrong with teaching grammar? Well, it confuses and bores the student and it keeps the incompetent teacher (who does not understand grammar anyway) from teaching something that is actually important, such as conflict resolution, self-esteem, or sex ed.
How in the world is could there be required courses in this system?
Guest: Dr Thomas Sowell
Americans are illiterate in economics.
In school we get no economics instruction. We don't get any understanding about how money works or where it goes, what productivity is or how monetary incentives work, nor are we allowed to understand what business is for or how it is not the Enemy of the People.
Even if we did teach economics to our children, it would be bad teaching in the vast majority of the classrooms because the texts would we written by leftists and two-thirds of the teachers would be coming from a leftwing perspective.
Why have you never read Dr. Sowell's book, Basic Economics? Do you like to be economically illiterate too?
Yet this subject is so important. Our brilliant scholar of a President is a fine example. Harvard educated and he thinks that if I lose my job and go on unemployment insurance, that doesn't affect the economy. The dollar paid to me by the government is just as good as the dollar paid me by my employer. He doesn't see a difference.
No doubt he grew up on "The Story of Stuff", as so many of our children are doing now.
In school we get no economics instruction. We don't get any understanding about how money works or where it goes, what productivity is or how monetary incentives work, nor are we allowed to understand what business is for or how it is not the Enemy of the People.
Even if we did teach economics to our children, it would be bad teaching in the vast majority of the classrooms because the texts would we written by leftists and two-thirds of the teachers would be coming from a leftwing perspective.
Why have you never read Dr. Sowell's book, Basic Economics? Do you like to be economically illiterate too?
Yet this subject is so important. Our brilliant scholar of a President is a fine example. Harvard educated and he thinks that if I lose my job and go on unemployment insurance, that doesn't affect the economy. The dollar paid to me by the government is just as good as the dollar paid me by my employer. He doesn't see a difference.
No doubt he grew up on "The Story of Stuff", as so many of our children are doing now.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Iran is revamping its education system to rid it of Western ideas
When will Americans wake up, instead of crying about how mean and nasty and discriminatory America is? This is absolutely horrible.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Sick today
I started posting today, and am finally coming to grips with the fact that I just don't want to write much at all, never mind a reasoned response.
I woke up this morning with a severe pain in my neck. One of the vertebrae was out of place and I couldn't get it to pop back. Now, five hours and a lot of horrible pain later, I'm hurting more than I did when I woke up. Probably from cringing and tightening muscles that I wasn't tightening five hours ago, there is pain all the way down my neck, almost all extending out to the right side. This hurts, and I mean it really hurts. I got one "pop" an hour ago and immediately that pain was relieved slightly (I could turn my head about 45 degrees) but within two minutes the pain came back even worse than before.
I woke up this morning with a severe pain in my neck. One of the vertebrae was out of place and I couldn't get it to pop back. Now, five hours and a lot of horrible pain later, I'm hurting more than I did when I woke up. Probably from cringing and tightening muscles that I wasn't tightening five hours ago, there is pain all the way down my neck, almost all extending out to the right side. This hurts, and I mean it really hurts. I got one "pop" an hour ago and immediately that pain was relieved slightly (I could turn my head about 45 degrees) but within two minutes the pain came back even worse than before.
Obama: "On the Republican side, this is the Holy Grail, these tax cuts for the rich"
I'm sorry, I truly do not like summing up an opposing politician or even just an opposing point of view with one ugly ad hominem thrown at someone with the intent of dismissing everything that he said in the past, says now, or will say in the future.
The sad fact is that so many democrats have no such constraint whatsoever. Not all of them; for example, the delightful Juan Williams has never tried to pull this stunt. But it forms such an essential part of democrat argument that it is somewhat legitimate to lump them as a group and then address the delightful exceptions as exceptions.
This caller supplies: in their mind, it cannot be that someone who is educated, intelligent, and good can also believe any conservative position. So when discussing this stuff, this caller asks the democrat, "So which am I, mean, uneducated, unintelligent, or evil?" and says the reply always comes back as, "Oh, you're not like that, you're the exception."
Maybe we need to ask our friends that question more often.
The sad fact is that so many democrats have no such constraint whatsoever. Not all of them; for example, the delightful Juan Williams has never tried to pull this stunt. But it forms such an essential part of democrat argument that it is somewhat legitimate to lump them as a group and then address the delightful exceptions as exceptions.
This caller supplies: in their mind, it cannot be that someone who is educated, intelligent, and good can also believe any conservative position. So when discussing this stuff, this caller asks the democrat, "So which am I, mean, uneducated, unintelligent, or evil?" and says the reply always comes back as, "Oh, you're not like that, you're the exception."
Maybe we need to ask our friends that question more often.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Well, this happens to be from Prager's Monday show
I just happen to be listening to it late, Tuesday morning to be exact, on WIND radio, Chicago.
Here's a link to the streaming player so you can listen too if you want:
http://den-a.plr.liquidcompass.net/player/flash/audio_player.php?id=WINDAM&uid=179&mode=live
Here is a link to the New York Times article he addressed in his first hour, only it happens to be a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reprint:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11003/1115168-82.stm?cmpid=nationworld.xml
or maybe this is the one:
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/220883-Europe-s-Young-Grow-Agitated-Over-Future-Prospects
Here's a link to the streaming player so you can listen too if you want:
http://den-a.plr.liquidcompass.net/player/flash/audio_player.php?id=WINDAM&uid=179&mode=live
Here is a link to the New York Times article he addressed in his first hour, only it happens to be a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reprint:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11003/1115168-82.stm?cmpid=nationworld.xml
or maybe this is the one:
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/220883-Europe-s-Young-Grow-Agitated-Over-Future-Prospects
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