In case anybody's feeling smug...
...about my earlier post on the failure of state schools in the U.K., here's
a necessary corrective:
"To determine students’ level of basic civic knowledge, we surveyed Arizona high school students with questions drawn from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) item bank, which consists of 100 questions given to candidates for United States citizenship. The longstanding practice has been for candidates to take a test on 10 of these items. A minimum of six correct answers is required to pass. The service recently reported a first-try passing rate of 92.4 percent.
"The Goldwater Institute survey, conducted by a private survey firm, gave each student 10 items from the USCIS item bank...Questions included (1) Who was the first president of the United States? (2) Who wrote the Declaration of Independence? and (3) What ocean is located on the East Coast of the United States?
"...Only 3.5 percent of Arizona high school students attending public schools passed the citizenship test..."
From which, I suppose, we may conclude that, when it comes to "basic civic knowledge," the average American high school student today is well over an order of magnitude less worthy of American citizenship than the average legal immigrant.
And from which, I suppose, we may also conclude that the whole establishment in charge of the public "education" of American children richly deserves to be cast into that dark place "where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."
But, hey - at least the kiddies know what the'yre told about Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, Amelia Earhart, Oprah Winfrey & Marilyn Monroe.
So I guess that's all right, then.
Hat tip to Jay Nordlinger.
--
God help the while, a bad world I say.
--
God help the while, a bad world I say.
--
God help the while, a bad world I say.
--
God help the while, a bad world I say.
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References
After all, who cares about facts when we're bashing public education?
In summary, Americans in general are idiots, not just those educated by public schools.
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)...I'll gladly agree that the performance of the charter & private schools is *almost* as bad as that of the public schools.
In fact, I suspect that the only reason the charter & private schools do better is because of more selective admission policies.
So what's your point?
Hint 1: did I say *anything* in my post in defense of charter & private schools, as such?
Hint 2: my father, my mother, my step-mother, and myself were all teachers in the public schools. None of us has ever taught in a charter or private secondary school.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )father, your mother, your step-mother are all in accord with your stated position above?
--I had discovered a great secret. That everyone loves themselves more than they love anybody else. And if I wanted them to love me, I better be like THEM!... Ken Nordine
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| parent )But you did intimate that multi-culti PC education was a major blameworthy factor for why these kiddies can't identify basic non-multiculti facts about US history.
On the assumption that private schools, esp. religious ones, are less PC/multi-culti, the relative similarity of the charter + private school performance is a reasonable challenge to your intimation.
Maybe PC isn't as much to blame as you suggested.
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| parent )When I think of private schools, I think of (e.g.) Choate, Phillips Exeter, Sidwell Friends, &c &c &c...
...all of them in the very forefront of "multi-culti PC education" (which phrase did not, of course, appear in my post).
I do not think of sad little fundamentalist Christian academies, of which I know nothing.
So why, catchy, do you poke about in imaginary emanations and penumbras, when you could simply read the plain words that I actually wrote?
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )were just dots waiting for someone else to connect + evaluate?
From your last link:
So I was connecting the dots from *bad public school performance on basic civ* ----> *too much multicultural education*.
Looks like a reasonable read to me!
Anyway, now I'd like to know if the dot-connecting is any good, so I'm looking at private schools. If you don't know anything about them and PC culture, no big deal. Naturally, NE's private schools are unlike any other region's, including AZ's.
Anyway, I'll keep reading the comments and see if anything interesting comes out of this.
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| parent )No. My words are not "just dots," waiting for you, or anybody else, to misconstrue them.
Would it be too much for me to ask you to admit that I said *nothing* in my post, or in subsequent comments, in defense of either private schools or charter schools in the U.S.?
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )You said nothing about either -- it was I who was going there.
I'll also take back the 'just' dots. That wasn't fair either!
But there are dots, vint. -- there are dots!
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| parent )For the record, I strongly advocate home-schooling, for anybody who can get away with it. It's the only real escape.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )MN, where I'm from, usually ranks at or near the top. AZ is in the bottom half.
Even by international standards schools in a lot of northeast and midwest states do OK.
Home schooling isn't a bad idea for those who can afford to, but also comes with costs.
My nieces and nephews have been home schooled for years and they wish for more friends, sports teams, orchestra/band, etc. -- that public schools have but they don't.
Instead of staying home and educating your kids, another option is to work, save, and send em to college.
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| parent )is that the study isn't an indictment of the public component of school administration, as the wording in your diary (and the dishonest executive summary from Goldwater) would appear to argue. It's an indictment of American education in general.
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| parent )...in all its inglory!
Please try to understand, username: to indict "the public 'education' of American children" is not to defend American private education...or even charter schools.
Go back and read my post. And then reflect on the meaning of the phrase "tries to argue." And then consider admitting that you were wrong.
Or is that too much for me to ask of you?
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent ).
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| parent ). . .the charter and private schools produced more "passes" (6 out of 10 or better):
Public Schools: 3.5%
Charter Schools: 7.3%
Private Schools: 13.8%
You were saying?
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| parent )bragging about a 10% difference is pointless when you live on Mount Failure:
Resize as you wish if you feel that my scaling is deceptive:
http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chs=650x300&cht=lxy&chxt=x,y&chds=0,30&chxr=0,0,10,1|1,0,30,10&chdl=Public|Charter|Private&chco=FF0000,00FF00,0000FF&chm=V,3399CC,0,6.0,1.0&&chd=t:-1|2.3,12.9,26,29.2,17.5,8.6,2.7,0.8,0,0,0|-1|1.5,11.8,23.5,27.2,19.9,8.8,6.6,0.7,0,0,0|-1|1.2,8.5,17.6,22.4,21,15.6,9.6,3.6,0.5,0.1,0
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| parent )Three common brassiere profiles found in a suburban strip mall fern bar.
--Me: We! -- Ali
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| parent )this is simply beside my point.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )No one - whatever their institution - got 10 out of 10?
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| parent )After all, when you get to select the higher-performing students, you expect better results.
--"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
–Voltaire
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| parent ).
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| parent ). . .to deal with the implicit accusation of dishonesty for not including the data--public schools *did* do signficantly worse than charter or private schools.
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| parent )Man, you almost made it thru the whole diary. But not quite.
--“Two clichés make us laugh but a hundred clichés move us, because we sense dimly that the clichés are talking among themselves, celebrating a reunion." - Umberto Eco
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)...I think that the constant & rather uncritical self-abasement of elite white gentiles before African-American idols-with-feet-of-clay, even at the expense of their own forefathers, is one of the strangest & most fascinating phenomenae in all of history.
So spit at me.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )Our national mythology. Porting the Civil Rights Movement into that mythology is about the easiest thing ever.
Even white guilt isn't that odd a thing. For most of the last seventeen hundred years, most concern about The Poor has come not from the poor, who are just trying to get by, but from those who are acutely aware of being not poor. And that goes right back to the Prophets. It's just a different iteration of the same theme.
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| parent )...*really* interesting comment.
To the extent that I think I understand what you're saying, I think that I agree.
But it's a bit cryptic. Would you mind expanding this into a diary?
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )Constant and uncritical self-abasement? Good god man, where do you live, Al Sharpton's pants? And why is respect etc. for MLK or Tubman or Parks -- and what do you mean exactly by 'feet-of-clay', and in fairness, what idols, even white ones, pal, don't have feet like that? -- somehow incompatible with respect etc. for one's own forefathers?
But please don't think I spit. My contempt has now morphed into something closer to pity. Honestly.
--“Two clichés make us laugh but a hundred clichés move us, because we sense dimly that the clichés are talking among themselves, celebrating a reunion." - Umberto Eco
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| parent )Did I object to "respect" for MLK or Tubman or Parks?
You ask: "what idols, even white ones, pal [sic], don't have feet [of clay]?"
Well, none, that I know of. Not even MLK. Your point being?
"My contempt has now morphed into something closer to pity."
Violate the posting rules much, "dude?"
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )Pretending you didn't say what you said is tiresome. Here's what you said, and apparently with a straight face:
There's inferred criticism of MLK et al in the statement, tho' in fairness, it's not as looney as the general thesis. Which you were called on by more than one poster. And have yet to defend.
Not that I blame you. It's the kind of unfortunate utterance that is best left alone -- and I must admit, not just by the speaker, but by anyone who hears it.
So my bad, too.
--“Two clichés make us laugh but a hundred clichés move us, because we sense dimly that the clichés are talking among themselves, celebrating a reunion." - Umberto Eco
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| parent )Look, Harley.
MLK was, in some ways, worthy of respect.
He also had great big feet of clay.
But in the American schools today, he's consistently treated as some sort of secular saint - and those great big feet of clay?
Well, they simply don't exist.
Does he deserve a spot in our historical top ten?
Arguably. But not obviously.
And as for Rosa Parks & Amelia Earhart & Marilyn Monroe & Oprah Winfrey - I'd say that two or three out of the four deserve our respect.
But a spot in our historical top ten?
No way. It's laughable. It's historical affirmative action gone stark raving mad.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )...with the flag in the hole.
--Me: We! -- Ali
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| parent )Are you talking about blaxploitation films? Or what the hay are you talking about?
By the way, "phenomena" is already plural. The Gk. singular is "phenomenon." Not a Latin word there, buddy.
--"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
–Voltaire
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| parent )Oh, boy, you are so gonna get it.
--“Two clichés make us laugh but a hundred clichés move us, because we sense dimly that the clichés are talking among themselves, celebrating a reunion." - Umberto Eco
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| parent )...in six minutes.
Settin' there waitin' for me, jus' like spiders, huh?
Like the sweet swan of Avon, I have small Latin & less Greek.
More's the pity.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )... to note that '-ae' is a latin ending, not a greek one? I mean, you're not the kind of philistine who uses horrible words like 'automobile', are you?
--Bene vixit, bene qui latuit
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| parent )you know what always bugged me?
pentium processor.
yeah instead of going from 486 to 586 then went to "pentium" mixing the greek for 5 and the latin for... something.
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| parent ). . .the kids knew who Eugene Debs, Ferdinando Sacco, and Roy Cohn were when they didn't know who Washington and Jefferson were--and for the same reasons.
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| parent )I know you're trying to back up Vinnie here, but comparing any one of those three to MLK?
Hmm.
--“Two clichés make us laugh but a hundred clichés move us, because we sense dimly that the clichés are talking among themselves, celebrating a reunion." - Umberto Eco
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| parent )After all, Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks were both heroic Americans (but nonetheless figures of less historical significance than MLK) and Sacco and Cohn*, well, weren't. But all six are well behind Washington and Jefferson in terms of historical significance. Period.
*--I'm not a fan of Debs either, but YMMV.
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| parent )is that the poll to which vinteuil referred explicitly excluded presidents from consideration. With that qualification, MLK, at least, must surely rank at or near the very top of any such list.
--Bene vixit, bene qui latuit
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| parent ). . .but the analysis of the ten question test indicates that about seventy-five percent of Arizona high school students don't know who Washington and Jefferson were. Not to be cynical, but I suspect that the "no presidents" rule was adopted in self-defense, to avoid the obvious criticism that would result if Washington and Jefferson explicitly finished lower on the list than MLK, et al.
In fairness, those listed standards for eighth grade history knowledge in Arizona seem a bit, ahem, ambitious. I certainly didn't know most of that stuff by the time I got out of eighth grade, and I passed the AP US History test as a junior in high school in 1983.
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| parent )http://stats.oecd.org/oecdfactbook/
It's a lot of fun. Pity it doesn't have some good meaty (or meety) data in there on education. What's there doesn't paint a very suprising picture other than: Canada - smarter than you thought, South Korea - scary smart, Finland - always surprising.
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)and wired up people?
Excellent resource tho, thanks NJ. OECD data on education is available, too, here
http://www.oecd.org/document/9/0,3343,en_2649_39263238_41266761_1_1_1_1,00.html
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| parent ). . .if their leadership hadn't been starving or outright murdering them for six decades. Dictators tend to be threatened by people smarter than them, and given who NK's leader is, that means that the survival prospects are rather grim for anyone in NK who is provably smarter than a tree sloth.
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| parent )Never could figure that out, with their history, and the attitude of NK and China.
http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/9110
54:46? Bit silly, I would have thought, for a bunch of clever people.
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| parent )SK's overall warming toward China, especially economic attitudes.
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| parent )What good are they doing? You might be surprised but South Koreans are not particularly concerned over an attack by China or North Korea. They are concerned about their perennial enemy, Japan.
Here is a page of cartoons drawn by Korean kindergarten students, and displayed in a Seoul subway station. The anti-Japanese theme is related to the conflict over the island of Dokdo which both nations claim. The drawings are amusing, sad and frightening.
http://aog.2y.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=1550&st=0
It's worth noting the the US troops have done nothing to strengthen Korea's territorial claims. They even refer to the body of water off the east coast of Korea as the 'Sea of Japan.'
--Nothing resembles virtue more than a great crime. Saint-Just
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| parent )I didn't find any of the drawings amusing. Just proof of parental prejudices being passed on to another generation.
I don't think you understand why US troops are in Korea, and I don't feel like explaining it to you. I don't think a single of our soldiers should be at risk there, let alonbe 28,000 of them. Maybe Canada can help them firm up their claim over whatever island you're concerned with.
--Sincerity is the first casualty of capitalism. John Burdett
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| parent )These drawings do not come from parental prejudice. They were drawn because teachers were following the governmental guidelines. Schools all over the country were engaged thus. There was also a campaign on TV and the press along similar lines. It's only interesting to show how different Korean concerns are from how foreigners perceive them to be. One thing I thought noteworthy about them were the maps. Not one depicted the Korean penisula as being divided. A childish mistake, you might say, but this probably is an accurate reflection of a simple reality: Korean unity in the face of a traditional enemy.
You're right that I'm not sure what the US troops are doing in Korea. If I had to take a wild stab at an answer, I'd say nobody has chased them out yet!
--Nothing resembles virtue more than a great crime. Saint-Just
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| parent )between South Korea and the US. If my child were commanded to draw a politicized map of the US, I would first say no and then take up with the school administration the unfitness of the teacher involved to interact with my child. I suspect something similar would happen in Canada.
As for your comment about American soldiers in Korea, I suppose you thought you were making a funny. Here are the facts: the only role of the US soldiers stationed along the DMZ is to die in the first artillery barrage that would preceed an invasion from the North, thereby putting NK at war with the US. If you think that's a humorous role to play, all I can say is it must be neat to live in a country with zero risk or exposure to anything other than your internal political scandals and erosion of personal rights. (You know of course that many Canadians fought and died to liberate South Korea right alongside Americans, Australians and the handful of other countries who saw what the big picture would look like if the Korean Peninsula remained in the hands of Big Kim; look up, e.g., the Kapyong River defense in 1951, where the Canadian commander was forced to call in an artillery barrage on his own positions to avoid being overrun by the N Korean and Chicom troops.)
Meanwhile US soldiers stationed in Korea apparently are treated poorly by many Koreans. I would be happy to see every one of them brought home tomorrow, and let the South go to hell in its own peculiar handbakset. They can exchange handshakes and kim chee recipes with the spawn of L:il' Kim why I watch and eat popcorn.
--Sincerity is the first casualty of capitalism. John Burdett
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| parent )There was an American teacher living in Korea who protested against those drawings. He was summarily fired. You can read about it on the net somewhere.
I was aware that Canadians died in Korea. You didn't mention the Turkish for some reason, but their participation was noteworthy. If you visit Korea, as an American, (or Canadian) you will have to wait a very long long time before meeting anyone who will express thanks or even acknowledge the American role in the war. Especially among those who are not senior citizens. Same is not true for the Turks, apparently, there is a warm and cordial feeling between the two peoples.
I enjoyed your joke about the US troops going home. You're sure to get a kick out of this. Here are the lyrics to a tune they used to sing in Europe in the late 1940s. Sung to the tune of Lilli Marlene:
--Nothing resembles virtue more than a great crime. Saint-Just
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| parent )Reading various blogs, news items etc.
So why aren't you lot evacuating South Korea? I always think of an economic reason for most things. Got any?
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| parent )But I can't be the only one who sees inexplicable things and assumes there is a nefarious motive at work. The best-kept political plans, like any successful conspiracy, are those that never see the light of day.
I've heard from more than one person serving over there that the S Koreans are resentful, passive-aggressive, surly and even openly rude to American servicemen. At the same time they seem much more interested in bending over fof the North than we do. I don't think any actual military planners (as opposed to the op-ed blatherers) take the N Koreans as any sort of military threat against this country; I doubt they could hit Hawaii in a thousand yea----
--Sincerity is the first casualty of capitalism. John Burdett
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| parent ).
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| parent )was interesting to me too... having grown up in Ireland it jumped right out at me. How that island was represented in the weather forcasts of various news channels was a constant concern. I was wondering if anyone else had remarked on it.
The other thing that jumped out at me is how b@tsh1t crazy these people must be. Europe really has moved on in comparisson.
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| parent ). . .other than to die painfully if NK cuts loose with the artillery and invades with a million troops. SK has a formidable army, and is perfectly capable of slaughtering NK's forces once the artillery runs out of steam, if it comes to that. Personally, I'd say that one live video feed of a Trident submarine surfacing 200 miles off the NK coast would have infinitely more deterrent effect than all of those troops. It'd be an explicit message to Krazy Kim: "Two hours after the first artillery shell lands in Seoul, there'll be nothing left of your father's precious dynasty but radioactive dust."
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| parent )Deterrence: preventing world wars since 1946.
--The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.
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| parent )On the other hand, an explicit reminder would probably be useful, and I really wouldn't mind getting our troops out of harm's way in case Krazy Kim goes thoroughly bugf**k nuts. Also, I'm confident that the South Koreans are competent enough to defend their own nation should the need arise.
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| parent )... we give them more questions like these.
--Bene vixit, bene qui latuit
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)The link http://news.stanford.edu/news/2008/february20/heroes-022008.html
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)Do you write tests on material you haven't taught?
I've stood in the citizenship line, too many times, at the Dirksen Federal Building in Chicago. My wife took the naturalization test and passed with flying colors, as do most of the people who take it, as your article notes.
But she also had the citizenship handbook, in which the questions are laid out, so the student can study. We don't expect people to take tests without studying.
Try a little experiment on your own students: give them the naturalization test, see how they do. But don't allow them to study for it.
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)With few exceptions, the questions on that test are ridiculously easy.
Anybody who makes it through highschool without knowing basic stuff like this has simply wasted several years of his life and many thousands of dollars in public money to no great purpose.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )...off the streets. Seriously, it's cheaper to attempt to educate the un-educable than to let them run around the streets all day. It's also a lot cheaper than warehousing them in prison. This is old, boring news. Your "indignation" is old and very stale.
--Me: We! -- Ali
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| parent )...and, though I generally enjoy cynicism, this is just so utterly wrong, wrong, wrong.
So instead of letting the un-educable run around the streets all day, or, better, warehousing them in prison, or, better yet, putting them to work in jobs they can actually do...
...we stick them in classrooms with kids who might, otherwise, be educable - where their constant defiance, combined with the impossibility of either getting rid of them or disciplining them in any meaningful way quickly turns them into class heroes, and drives their teachers out of the profession...
Oh, yeah - that's smart. That makes real good sense.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )I'm not happy with the state of public secondary education either. In fact, I may loathe it as much as you, though from a very different perspective. My only HS teaching gig, last century, was at a public "continuation school" (no diploma) where uneducable little felons in training were warehoused. It was considered "uncool" to carry a book to school, or even a writing instrument of any kind. Imagine having to hand out pencils and paper to your students every day. This was done to remove the urchins from the other other high schools, yet still get their ADA funding from the State. We were a money machine for a rather poorly run school district.
--Me: We! -- Ali
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| parent )...so where do we disagree?
Do you want these kids "mainstreamed?"
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )Everybody serves. Many career paths, including the military and maintaining parks. I believe that around 30% of the high school students would be better served by a CCC or AmeriCorps style training and service. After perhaps 18 to 24 months, once the hormones have cooled down, they might be in a better position to try high school.
--Me: We! -- Ali
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| parent )...not a bad idea at all.
It would certainly be a huge improvement over the status quo.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )...I often fly solo with my brethren on the left and my enemies on the right when I broach the subject of required national service. The gal that just got her degree in Women's Studies from Cal State Long Beach owes us a couple of years service by my reckoning. She would be highly qualified counseling battered women, or could work in a hospital, or clearing brush in Yellowstone.
--Me: We! -- Ali
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| parent )That gal is already facing a life of low pay, and you want to further punish her with being a janitor at Yellowstone?
Like we need any more incentives for people to seek business, law, and finance degrees in college and then milk the inefficiencies of our economy with douchebag careers.
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| parent ). . .the idea that a required--and therefore guaranteed--job is waiting for someone with a Women's Studies degree is just going to lead to more doofuses with Women's Studies degrees.
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| parent )Because people go into Women's Studies for the jobs. Er, wait.
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| parent ). . .they go into it with the idea that they *won't* be able to get a job after they get their degree?
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| parent )about 6 months before graduation.
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| parent ). . .they'll probably be looking for work six months *after* graduation, and beyond.
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| parent )...dentist or a real estate attorney.
:-}
--Me: We! -- Ali
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| parent )tuition is free and she has healthcare from the state?
'til then I can't see how she owes the state or national government all that much. average folks in the US don't get a lot from the state for what the average folk pays in taxes.
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| parent )...for the taxes we pay. My brother didn't agree and moved to Norway. Good for him. He's doing well.
--Me: We! -- Ali
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| parent )I formed my opinion when earning between 50k-60k as a single person before going to grad school. i.e. when I payed a reasonable amount in federal taxes several yrs. ago.
1/4th goes to defense, which mostly doesn't benefit me
medicare isn't terrible, but you often need a supplemental
social security is a good program, but I wouldn't expect to get more out of it than I put in
The court systems are largely tied up by businesses disputes, I don't expect to benefit much from 99.9% of cases
the postal service is OK, but not free
most of the interstates are in decent shape, but there's no national rail system
many governmental regulatory bodies haven't served the people for some time
the prison system and War on Drugs is a threat to me personally and counter-productive
subsidies mostly go to corporate interests, not mine
OK, so what part of the fed. government do you think is worth your $?
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| parent )But it seems we're rather uniquely situated to change things to better match our desires. Norwegians spend their tax monies on crazy crap too, as do the Aussies. I still prefer it here, even though our system lets me leave almost any time I like. I'm still really mad that I can't visit Cuba though.
--Me: We! -- Ali
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| parent )...is tuition free, to all state residents. Out-of-state students pay tuition. This is true with all campuses in the state college and the 9, make that 10 campus University system. Health insurance fees may have changed over the years, but they are quite reasonable, because you are young, and if you get a part-time job on-campus, then bingo, they're free.
I believe that everybody, not just college grads, should serve our country either in the military or in some other public-serving capacity. Everybody. All the Palin children. Well, maybe not Sarah's youngest. That should depend on how well he develops.
--Me: We! -- Ali
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| parent )Silly me.
Most other state schools have only reduced in-state tuition. Perhaps you have a point with your case. Requiring counseling off battered women for a free degree doesn't seem so bad to me.
I don't know whether I agree with it in the general case, however.
I don't personally feel a debt of gratitude commensurate to two year's labor to the federal government.
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| parent )It's really just an accounting scam. Residents still pay high fees, in my opinion, compared to what I paid back in the '70's. If you read the fine print, what you pay for a Berkeley education is an assortment of fees, but no "tuition" per se. Of course the bulk of the costs in educating a Bear, or a Bruin, or an Anteater, or a Banana Slug, (various UC mascots), is borne by state and federal funds.
By the way, the mascot for UCSF was, for a short time, the Drosophilia. (fruit fly)
Go Flies! Go Slugs!
--Me: We! -- Ali
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| parent )We do it here all the time. Of course, street children here may not all be dumb. Read for yourself.
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| parent )In this country kids are required to go to school. Period. The system ain't perfect, but you just don't see children under 16 running around during school hours. Refreshing, and it keeps petty crime rates down.
Some improvements I'd like to see include firmer State control of the young until the age of 18, requiring them to do well in school, or be involved in some state-sponsored work study program where they are force-fed some basic skills we expect from adults around here.
--Me: We! -- Ali
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| parent ). . .for any student past the fifth grade not knowing the answers to those three questions (although the other seven may have been the ones that led to failure more often than not--it'd be nice to see the whole list) other than being feebleminded or having been utterly betrayed by their teachers and/or planners of their education.
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| parent )I would have to place myself in an absurdedly high intelligence percentile, but I literally could not find an answer on the "naturalization test" I couldn't answer: to me, it seems just the simplest sort of elementary-school American History 101. But then again I went to school in a era (the 1960s) that, while it was considered well-declined in standards at the time, looks in retrospect like a Golden Age of Intellectualism.
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| parent )...if any poster here couldn't score 99/100, with a blood alcohol level of .06. Maybe we should give our non-native English speakers a 2 point handicap, though I'd require manish and micky to take 2 more drinks. I find the "test" to be way too easy. A more reasonable test would be to have 100 questions, and require a score of 85 to pass. Test generated from a list of 5000.
I gave up checking my answers after the second page, and didn't bother looking at more than 50 questions. I'm just a dumb guy who received a decent high school education in California pre-Reagan.
--Me: We! -- Ali
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| parent )In other news, trekkies are well-versed on star trek. Neither of those scenarios involve necessarily smart or educated people.
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| parent )WTF?
"freedom" is probably the intended answer, but sheesh, give me a break. Yeah, nobody came to America looking for gold. Sure. And of all the millions that came, we can definitely rule out that not a single one of them because of the voyage. But maybe I'm too stupid to grasp that only the religious fugitives on the mayflower & co are supposed to be the "colonists".
Anyway, this quite reminds me of this keeper.
---
hmm, wrong guess on the year of the constitution (2 yrs off).
.... Overall I seem to get about 85% right.
--Dein Grundsatz war, z'erst überleg'n, / a Meinung hab'n, dahinterstehn / Niemals Gewalt, alles bereden / Aber auch ka Angst vor irgendwem -- STS
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| parent )My favourite Q&A, and this is true, comes from a job application literacy test.
Q: Which person, living or dead, do you admire most? Why?
A: The living, because you can talk to them.
--Nothing resembles virtue more than a great crime. Saint-Just
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| parent )Of course they came for the gold. I would have plumped for the gold. Metaphorically, if not actually. And people still do - as they should, naturally.
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| parent )If I'd gone to school I could turn that into a %.
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| parent )Do not over-think when taking a multiple-choice test, especially one written by government bureaucrats for 9th graders.
#1 - Do not over-think a n y t h i n g. Relax, and be dumb.
#2 - Eliminate the obvious wrong answers
#3 - Put yourself in the shoes of the obsequious bureaucrats who wrote the test.
The "correct" answers will just light up before you.
--Me: We! -- Ali
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| parent )I did waaaay better than I should have on the math portion of the SAT and ACT simply because I'm good at taking tests. I never took any advanced math, but somehow picked up some really good deducing/guessing skills.
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| parent )I had the US Army convinced that they had discovered a brainiac.
--Me: We! -- Ali
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| parent )how hard could _that_ be?
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| parent )...in a world-class research library. I also found bunches of sample questions, determined who wrote the tests, studied their methodology, and prepared myself as best I could physically and mentally for what turned out to be a week-long battery of multiple-choice tests.
--Me: We! -- Ali
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| parent ).
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| parent )...who didn't want to die in a rice paddy. My good friend and next door neighbor also aced the tests, and was a real, honest to god brainiac, but didn't fudge the psych evals. He lasted about a month in country before being sent home in pieces in a bag.
--Me: We! -- Ali
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| parent )My dad had flat feet and was behind the lines typing in a medical unit.
He still nearly got killed when someone went berserk and shot everyone *else* in the tent he was in. 4 people died including the shooter.
I finally got the story out of him when I was 17.
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| parent )I finally heard some of the horrors my mom faced when I listened in on her swapping war stories with some old Norwegians. She was a surgical nurse in the Pacific in WWiI. She was 82 and finally felt comfortable broaching the subject with other people. When we were kids she always told us her favorite movie was South Pacific, because it was just like her wartime experiences.
There were lots of incidents of guys going nuts in Viet Nam. I believe this was due to the fact that those of us that were not insane realized rather quickly what an outrageously stupid idea that war was. I'd been in country about a week when a guy I just met flipped out and tossed a grenade in a bucket of kerosene. He was kind. Nobody else died. Two months later my CO flipped out and holed up in a bunker, threatening to shoot anybody who entered. The white coats coaxed him out a couple of days later. He got thirsty.
Good on your dad. Medical personnel in areas I served spent most of their time behind 4 ft. of dirt. The story was that some never came out of their bunkers until their tour ended. That was a bad war. So is our middle eastern adventure.
--Me: We! -- Ali
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| parent )for your comments on this thread. Its really brought it to life.
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| parent ).
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| parent )I just clicked on it to see the response there - and there's nothing like the same level of interaction - username's charts for example.
One of the reasons I like this site is the effort that everyone puts in.
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| parent )And thank you, manish.
I feel you are in some way praising my efforts at making humorous commentary on Sarah Palin's resignation. I've been hard at work today and it's nice that you are indirectly acknowledging that.
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| parent )...WWWW now has four Catholic writers, one Eastern Orthodox, One high-church Anglican...and me.
And yet, they all manage to treat me like family! It's really quite pleasant, posting there, as I please, without ever having to worry about the sort of abuse that I routinely get here from Harley & like-minded others.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )I know! I've read some comments sections with multiple rounds of congratulations. They're boring!
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| parent )- the token atheist? Also, you want to post because its pleasant to do so?
Come on, vinteuil, you know we all like you here.
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| parent )I find the arguments against comtemporary thoroughgoing naturalism offered by the likes of my colleagues Frank Beckwith & Ed Feser more & more compelling.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )I purchased Dr Feser's little philosophical primer from one of our local airport bookshops the other day.
His main point seemed to be that, because there are many criticisms of naturalism (mostly derived, it has to be said, from naturalists themselves), we need to return to supernatural explanations for the world derived from the so-called rationalism of Aristotle and Aquinas - which also means involving the actual existence of gods, angels, devils, miracles, spirits intermingling with human life - all the way to Noah's Ark and suchlike.
And while Dr Feser obviously believes in such, it is not that much of an attractive improvement to thought, to my mind.
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| parent )... the part where Aristotle talked about "angels, devils, miracles, spirits intermingling with human life."
Maybe you could help me out? Citations w/Bekker pages appreciated in advance.
--Bene vixit, bene qui latuit
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| parent )I should have said - got the punctuation wrong. The correct formula should read
{Aquinas} = {(Aristotle)+ n(angels and demons)}.
Very nearly through the Summa. You want angelology and diabolology? Be my guest.
Must say, though, I was fairly surprised to see Dr Feser on the shelf in airports in the wilder parts of our lands. Wouldn't have known who he was without vinteuil's encomium. Maybe someone should tell him about far-flung fame and all that?
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| parent )You're obviously b.s.-ing here. You show not the slightest sign of familiarity with either Aristotle or Aquinas, let alone modern discussions thereof - including Ed Feser's little polemic.
You didn't even link to the right book.
Shame on you.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )and all that.
As for books, we peasants have to, unfortunately, read what we can get ahold of.
One assumes Dr Feser is, at least, consistent? Or, at least, does not disavow his previous writings every time he writes something new?
What about discussing the angelology and diabolology in the Summa? Or the first and last things? Or do you just want to bypass all of that, and cherry-pick the parts that suit "modern" taste?
By the way, and this is in referenceto another subthread, and seeing as you are mathematically minded - wrt first cause arguments, the series terminating with the number -1 has no first term.
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| parent )Manish has been reading Aquinas for the past few months & giving us updates. He doesn't claim to be an expert, and credits you for introducing him to Feser in the very comment you deride him for his ignorance.
If you're going to be an overbearing snob, at least read carefully.
--"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
–Voltaire
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| parent )Really?
Like you could tell?
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )he wrote about it here. Some of us actually discuss matters with each other. Others indulge in drive-by hauteur.
--"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
–Voltaire
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| parent )... is no small task. Given the troubles Aristotelianism (as mediated by the Latin Averroeists) faced in Paris at the time, it was a rather pressing one, too.
--Bene vixit, bene qui latuit
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| parent )The one great thing about you continentalists is that you *care about history,* and make it your business to *know* about it, instead of ignoring or spitting on it.
Same goes for the neo-Thomists, of course.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )--this reminds me, since you were kind enough way back when to walk me through finding torrents of season 5 Wire episodes (talk about a one-eyed king among the blind!), I thought I'd mention to you that I've found some absolute gems of scanned and e-books out there. Philosophy-wise, a lot of the basics, of course, but I've found quite a number of scans of Loeb Classical Library volumes (Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, Greek Mathematics); a number of titles from the Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy & History of Political Thought series; Seth Bernadete's book on Plato's Laws(!); Mathematics in Plato's Academy(!!); Proclus's Commentary on the Timaeus(!!!); and--when I finally get my Latin back in working order--the complete Opera Latina of Giordano Bruno(!!!!!!!!!).
PDFs are a poor substitute for actual books, of course, but they'll do when one is poor.
--Bene vixit, bene qui latuit
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| parent ).
--I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent )... but you can find most by searching the titles (click 'Other', as that's where the ebooks usually are) on thepiratebay.org. A lot of them are parts of rather large (1GB+) collections, but unless it's an archive file that's being shared, you can usually pick and choose what you want.
Standard IP concerns about file sharing apply, in most cases*, so there's that to consider.
*Some are public domain; most are not.
--Bene vixit, bene qui latuit
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| parent )But it's like car maintenance which I also care about. I just never get around to either.
Personally I'd like to know who to blame for this anti-historical bent within modern analytic philosophy. Wittgenstein? The positivists?
But I don't even know enough history to know where to aim my ire.
That said, we're going to have it out one day over this Feser stuff.
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| parent )that people who would live an almost unimaginably brutal life without the scientific advances of the past few hundred years seem to think that naturalism has to justify itself. Especially compared to what religion accomplished in the previous millenia.
--I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent )...how badly, and how immodestly, you can read.
You seem to think that the issue here is "naturalism" vs. "religion" - *tout court*.
It's not.
The discussion long ago moved beyond that.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )I must have missed it, swamped as it is by the constant put downs of others without any germane contributions on your part.
--I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent )philosophically - Sunni Islam, Catholicism, paganism. They can't all be true. This is a problem for religiosity - the same order of problem that affects naturalism, perhaps. I bought Dr Feser's book on vinteuil's recommendation but I can't agree with his conclusions - well, more precisely, he has none.
I must add - what you say about past centuries is so exactly correct - we still live in those centuries and we can see it in front of us.
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| parent )for many religious people is that naturalism pretty much demolishes the idea that each person is by definition special and important. Naturalism gives one the freedom (and terror) to make of oneself what one can.
--I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent )man's fallen nature makes a mockery of the measure.
It is quite possible to dissect away metaphysical naturalism from its ordinary methodological variant. The metaphysical form denies God, the methodological doesn't even bother to address the issue of God.
Perhaps you're right to some extent, but the religious view the problem from the exact opposite viewpoint. Metaphysical naturalism insists we are all unique, that we embody within ourselves our own specialness. The Old Time Religion says we were all grubby old self-deluded Sinners, convinced of our own righteousness and specialness. Religious enlightenment says we are all of a piece: we are all God's creatures, we do not live or die to ourselves. The Buddhists and Christians take this to the only sensible conclusion: the Buddhists even more so, we are all tiny figures in a huge landscape, suffering is endemic and we are not alone. We are our brother's keepers.
This, of course, is merely paring the cheese: where primitive man saw God stage-managing the universe, naturalism said nature pretty much managed itself. Religion would say there were periodic interventions with miracles and the like, but even the faithful know Religion is a big nothing, a framework carried forward in time from when we did believe God was stage-managing the universe. Which is why Aquinas made such headway.
But to your point directly, sure, cheap off-the-shelf religion wants to tell you how special you are. But all it really wants is to put you first in a church pew and then into some behavioural Bed of Procrustes. Give us Believers some credit here: that phase never lasts. The Self, that preposterous old sham, must be obliterated before true enlightenment is possible.
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| parent )is sufficient to prevent one from being an atheist?
Who knew.
--Bene vixit, bene qui latuit
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| parent )...the particular arguments offered by the neo-Thomists are sufficent to prevent *me* from carrying on as a garden-variety atheist.
Obviously, one's mileage may vary.
The big question for me, now, is this: how are we to imagine the Unmoved Mover?
Are we to believe that *consciousness* & *purpose* are unexpected accidents of some sort, beyond its ken?
Are we, really, the crown of creation?
I find the idea as improbable as it is depressing.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )Well, I'm pretty sure I am. The rest of you I wonder about, sometimes. The solipsist in me qustions what I was thinking.....
---“It is unwise for the government to tell people how they can spend their money” - Barney Frank, Chairman House Financial Services Committee, on on-line gambling, 2009
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| parent )for God's existence? Really?
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| parent )n/t
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )Do you mean anyone besides Edward Feser by 'the neo-Thomists' who've offered particular arguments you find convincing?
I just don't know this group.
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| parent )If I were being morose, I suppose I'd say that the evident & utter indifference of the world to purpose, and the seeming superfluity of consciousness, lead me to think those phenomena are not only unexpected, but positively unwelcome, accidents of Deus, sive Natura. Thereupon I'd likely add that calling us the "crown" of creation is about as gobsmackingly wrongheaded as one could be.
But I try not to be morose.
I confess I don't have anything helpful to say about the Unmoved Mover--last time I worked on Aristotle, I spent all my time with the Agent Intellect!
--Bene vixit, bene qui latuit
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| parent )You & Thomas Hardy.
"A time there was - as one may guess
--And as, indeed, earth's testimonies tell -
Before the birth of consciousness,
When all went well."
God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )to cast doubt on any aspect of someone's philosophy/character/positions is to automatically prove that person's critics correct. As long as those critics are some type of conservative. I hope this has been helpful.
--"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
–Voltaire
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| parent )...for correcting "comtemporary" to "contemporary."
A lesser man might have crucified me for that.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )... the change I wish to see in the world.
--Bene vixit, bene qui latuit
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| parent )....Michael Jackson's death was meaningless!
---“It is unwise for the government to tell people how they can spend their money” - Barney Frank, Chairman House Financial Services Committee, on on-line gambling, 2009
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| parent )••
--Me: We! -- Ali
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| parent )So I stopped immediately. As for the Pacific Ocean versus Arctic Ocean being off the western coast of the US, isn't Alaska a part of US? OK so maybe I was being a smartypants on that one, but the others really make one rack one's brains.
Also
2. Name one war fought by the United States in the 1900s.
Civil War
Revolutionary War
World War I
War of 1812
Do they mean 19th century or 20th century? 1900s could easily be mistaken for 1900 onwards.
Thanks BlaiseP.
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| parent )I did pretty well and got about 95% correct after 40 questions. Lucky guesses on the year the constitution was written and the size of the Lower House.
The only two errors were rather significant. Senators serve terms of 6 years and representatives serve terms of 2 years. I had no idea that the entire Lower House was up for grabs every two years, though I was aware that there were elections every two years. Terms of 2 years seem absurdly short and wasteful.
--Nothing resembles virtue more than a great crime. Saint-Just
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| parent )Perhaps you don't understand the formula we use here when constructing multiple-choice tests. Once you figure out the formula, which involves eliminating the obvious and not over-thinking things, they become easy.
--Me: We! -- Ali
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| parent )Multiple choice questions are a reasonably recent innovation here, though. We are more used to writing essays.
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| parent )This is why I'm pretty sure this Arizona "test" is bollocks: to compare to the actual test, as administered to immigrants, is oral.
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| parent )Unpleasant medicine can be.
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| parent )...how many true/false questions I've answered before the age of 15.
A typical American high school civics test, circa 1965 would be 20 multiple-choice, 20 true/false questions, and 3 "essay" questions, with the volume of the groans in direct proportion to the number of the "essay" questions. (The term "essay" meaning a sentence or two.)
--Me: We! -- Ali
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| parent )It's true I probably couldn't get 1/10 on an equivalent test about India, but then Americans are supposed to be ignorant about foreign countries.
1900s is 1900 onwards....
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| parent )is an unusual formulation - can't say I've heard it used here or in England. We say 19th or 20th century - as do you, surely.
And no, I'm not joking. The questions aren't that easy (as a hobby, I know quite a bit about the US by our standards here, so I think I can say this) - but BlaiseP is right. My sister got US citizenship some time ago - she commented on this too.
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| parent )I think it's a pretty standard formulation here (1900s for the 20th c., that is). Wasn't aware it was limited to the US.
--Bene vixit, bene qui latuit
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| parent ). . .but that would only be a problem if the person answering the question didn't know approximately when the wars in question took place, as none of them took place in that decade and only one took place between 1900 and 1999. If they don't know that, they don't really deserve to get credit for the question anyway.
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| parent ).
--The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.
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| parent )Then you've had it.
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| parent )Good one.
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| parent )S#%^$!
--Bene vixit, bene qui latuit
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| parent )It is, after all, a long weekend involving explosions and fires.
--Sincerity is the first casualty of capitalism. John Burdett
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| parent )...you would be dead before your last quart of Jack. A bac approaching 0.4% leads to death or brain damage.
--Me: We! -- Ali
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| parent )and it is very sad all around. Only 26% got George Washington.
Only 29% knew that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, but then only 1-2% of congressmen seem to know that one.
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| parent )You'll get the same results. The whole premise of testing on material without prior pedagogy is a logical botch. In every age, the curmudgeons and Miniver Cheevy-s will say the same thing about Students These Days.
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| parent )You are absolutely right that students in general do surprisingly poorly on any kind of no-notice-given test.
But this is stuff so basic that even someone without any formal schooling should have picked it up just by paying minimal attention to the daily news. It's so basic that I'd bet most us here can't even remember where we learned it. I would bet that every single one of the non-US posters here could get at least an 8/10 despite not going through US schools.
I used to be upset that only 50% of the population seemed to be anti-torture, pro-rule-of-law, but if 96.5% are really as clueless as the survey suggests, then 50% is damn fine score.
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| parent )I'm guilty of curmudgeonry from time to time, must say.
The OECD Education Report 2008 is a useful corrective.
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| parent )But it should be noted that it doesn't prove that US schools are bad, it proves that *Arizona* schools are bad.
Arizona gave us the Minutemen (maybe they need to take the test), Joe Arpaio (probably needs to brush up), and John McCain.
We also got Goldwater, but he's long gone.
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)...it *would* be interesting to see this study replicated on a national scale.
BTW - you do realize that John McCain is one of the biggest open-borders fanatics out there, don't you? Grouping him together with the Minutemen & Joe Arpaio doesn't make a whole lotta sense.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )is bad in their own special way.
But of course you are correct, McCain is an open border fanatic by Minutemen standards.
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| parent )