Education/Learning

January 10th, 2008, 03:53 PM

It took a long time for me to get Scar Trek out of my mind Jim but it can be done, you just have to try harder. It's passing strange to me that we communicate through the medium of so much long dead fiction, but since we insist on the comfort of those fictions in a vain stupid attempt to realize them we are compelled to ignore reality, and miss the meat of life. oh yah where was I going with this, coughcoughcoughcoughhack, pardon didn't get any on your shirt did I, I did not mention the NDP Jim I mentioned socialism not some completely sold out bunch of silly slaves to the economy. coughhackhackhack
Anyway this is Chinas thread and he wants something from us. His threads always demand what we cannot deliver, he is never satisfied to accept less than certified work of genius, sadly I can never help him but Dexter Sinister can spin him a bedtime story that puts him back to sleep everytime. It's a good nights sleep that China wants, Dexter seems able to deliver the milk and cookies and a thousand word lullabye that sooths and completes the little tuck-in for the night that China craves. At least that's my take on it anyway, I could be mistaken, but what am I to do invent some lie for you. What would be the point?
There is no need to education. A simple enough statement in at least two ways what, on the surface we would think, no sweat, he's full of ****, right, no way, he always ends up making the crew upchuck everything including the kitchen sink in an attempt to provide a winning reply.

So here goes, certainly there is no need to education, education cannot of itself need anything, except perhaps completion or continuation. If he had said there is no need to learning, we would have an entirely different thing, right. Who knows? Only the China knows.

January 10th, 2008, 04:01 PM

Dark Beaver, semantics. What a cop out. You start out with a brilliant wind up and end up with a cheap duck. Where is Dexter anyway?

Scotty, "The dilithuium clystles are covered in schitt Captain! She canna take any more! Somethin' has ta give!"
Kirk, "How much Exlax have we got Chechov?"

January 11th, 2008, 03:54 AM

karrie

I don't think it ,I live it karrie.

Isn't it what the forum is for karrie? g'me a break karrie .Pretty soon you'll be saying I force everyone to read my posts .

January 11th, 2008, 04:03 AM

January 11th, 2008, 04:37 AM

Tonington brothers and sisters are my mentors
Yes Tonington ,Alternatives to what Tonington ?Truth is choice less , Truth Is.

January 11th, 2008, 06:57 AM

It's OK China in my case it's still very much applicable, I could use more of both, more often eh.

January 11th, 2008, 07:01 AM

Dexter's very busy deconstructing the universe into it's tiniest constituant parts and catoloqing them while they change states, he's very busy somewhere near the rings of Saturn, I don't know I'm not his mum.

January 11th, 2008, 07:27 AM

China - how can one live without learning? I'm not being facetious here - I'd like to know if you really think that's possible.

Unless there is substantial developmental damage or one is living in a vacuum, I don't see how it's possible to live without learning something. How we learn what we know is just a matter of semantics. A formalized education process, or thrown to the wolves to fend for ourselves - we're gonna learn.

Long before a formalized education process took front and centre as our primary means of 'educating' our young, we were still teaching them, and life was still teaching them - through experiential learning, through vicarious learning, through trial and error. Through each evolutionary phase of man's development, we've been learning and passing what we 'know' onto our future generations, sometimes even tossing what we learned eons ago out the window upon learning something new.

I had a teacher once who said the day we stop learning is the day we start dying. Ironic that I'd think of his words in a conversation about the irrelevance of learning... maybe I learned something from him.

January 11th, 2008, 08:32 AM

China, "There is no need (for formal) education."

Towards what end? To be an idiot, no. To be a doctor, yes. To be a criminal, no. To be a teacher, yes. To be human there is no need for food. But if one aspires to live, food is an excellent idea.

It is obvious to the point of inanity that if one simply lowers one's standards enough, there is no need for anything at all. It is equally obvious that this is not wisdom but empty foolish talk. Nothing good can be aided or constructed of this blather. But perhaps it has a purpose.

What is that purpose?

January 11th, 2008, 09:32 AM

Why me in particular I wonder? The first sentence I'd say is false, assuming I've understood it correctly. I presume it means either that "There is no need to educate," or that "There is no need for education," both of which I'd argue are false. The other two are true.

It might depend a little on what you mean by education though. The process of formal education the law requires us all to undergo up to a certain age, which seems to be what the second sentence is about, doesn't necessarily actually result in anything we might call an education. All it means is that you've learned enough to pass the examinations, doesn't mean you really understood anything or will retain any of it. Passing examinations is not the primary goal of formal education, it's merely the method used to measure success. It's often not a very good one, but that's another issue.

Formal, legally mandated minimal education is necessary for most people if they're ever going to have any hope of understanding the world around them, and as children they're not in a position to know what they need to know, so it's prescribed for them by adults. The purpose of education, at least at that level, is to give everybody the same foundation, and a basis for going on with whatever interests them if they choose to. And there's more. Who among us does not have at least one beloved teacher, a person who really made a difference? I've done enough teaching to know that I wasn't just teaching the subject, I was also teaching about me, and the handful of really inspired and inspiring teachers I've had in my life were obviously doing that too. Teaching about themselves, I mean, not me.

I'm sure most of us have sat in a boring class and wondered, "Why do I need to know this stuff?" and sometimes some smartass will actually ask that question. Both my children came home from high school math classes in which somebody'd asked it, and the answer from the teacher was, "Because you can't graduate from high school without it." That's about the worst possible answer, even though it's true. The real answer, in that particular case, is that most people don't need to know that stuff, except for the few who will go on in math and science, but more generally, it's part of the common intellectual history of humanity and if you want to call yourself educated you should know something about it, even if it's only a vague awareness that the subject exists and can provide solutions to certain problems. Moreover, if you know nothing of math and science, there are certain important public issues you'll never be able to get a handle on. Much of the debate about global warming, for instance, in these pages and elsewhere, is driven by people who have no idea what they're talking about and don't understand how science works. The information was there in their high school curriculum, or should have been--it certainly was in mine a hundred years or so ago it seems now--but they didn't get it. Whose fault is that? Probably everybody's.

Well, that got a little more long-winded than I expected when I first sat down to compose an answer. There's a lot more to be said about this, but I have things to do this morning, so I'll stop now.

January 11th, 2008, 10:12 AM

Haha, Dexter. You must be some sort of tree to be 100 years old and still have that much life in you.

January 11th, 2008, 12:26 PM

I already told you what the purpose is Jim but being thicker than the average brick you missed it. The purpose is to incite blather commonly called discussion, you have served Von China well. See dexters lullabye Jim, China will sleep on it for a week and then come back with another puzzling but information rich question or statement.