- Nice article:
Too many educationalists today believe an intellectually informed curriculum is only suitable for the elites and not the masses.
- Some teaser excerpts:
Sadly, the education establishment finds it difficult to believe in the power of ideas. Instead of encouraging teachers to gain a mastery of their subjects so that they can go on to inspire their students with the quality of their ideas, pedagogues prefer to put their faith in motivational techniques to manage classroom behaviour. Most of the so-called reforms and educational innovations of the past three decades have side-stepped the question of how best to cultivate the intellectual development of young people. Instead they draw upon market and psychological research to devise schemes that promise to motivate students. Hope is invested in the capacity of this new psycho-pedagogy – learning styles, brain functioning, thinking skills, emotional intelligence or multiple intelligence – to engage students. This pedagogy is fixated on learning styles but cares little for the knowledge to be learnt.
Most parents and non-specialists would be surprised to discover that many educationalists have a very low opinion of a subject-based curriculum devoted to the cultivation of children’s knowledge of history, literature, maths or science. These days, professional educators frequently refer to an academic curriculum as an irrelevant, elitist, nineteenth-century relic.
There was a time when radical educational reformers sought to provide working-class people with the opportunity to gain access to a curriculum with a high level of intellectual content. As the academic Harold Entwistle recalls, the issue for these reformers was ‘discovering ways of bringing to the socially and economically disadvantaged the benefits of the kind of education which has traditionally been reserved to the ruling class’ (1). This approach was forcefully argued by the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci who believed that the problem with the kind of education monopolised by the elites was that the rest of society was prevented from gaining access to it (2). In contrast to Gramsci’s valuation of the ‘great works of European culture’, today’s reformers assume that such a classical education is elitist and therefore not suitable for a national curriculum.
But, paradoxically, this polemic against the classical model is based on assumptions that are surprisingly similar to those held by the elites that they criticise. For today’s anti-subjects crusaders implicitly agree with traditional hierarchical educators on one important point: an intellectually informed curriculum is only suitable for the elites and not for the education of the masses.
Sowell has commenting on this for decades...
This guy actually has a few videos of various stunts like this he did in class on his channel. Pretty cool.
April Fools 2011: Complex Numbers in Math Class
Yesterday afternoon I did another video trick for my Nature of Math class at Biola University. What's the difference between the real and the imaginary?
2 Seattle men stopped at border for illegal candy TSA Agents Allegedly Strip-Search Woman, Fiddle with Feeding Tube
Just wow. Both of these are fucking stupid.
@gotlucky: So sad, particularly the second story. I just hope these inevitable outrages start to wake people up.
Clayton -
'Tis the season for electoral bread and circuses... so let's remind ourselves what a bunch of ass-clowns these "rulers" of ours really are:
This is a follow up to John James' post regarding ABillyRock. I've just started watching this PoliPop debate and so far so good- Amanda really knows her stuff.
The girls in the middle represent the statist POV. There are times where I want to throw my laptop at the wall with what they say and there are times where it sounds like the girl to the right of Amanda, at least, actually seems curious about the market. The girl to the left of Julie Borowski (TokenLibertarianGirl) seems to be of the opinion "Well, I'm a med student. We talked about this in school and all my classmates are for it. Look, the health care situation in this country is bad, this law is supposed to change that and I'm a med student, so I'm for it" (occurs at about the 13:30 mark; the beginning of the video starts off with the recent passage of the PPACA and the girls' thoughts on relevant subjects).
If I had a cake and ate it, it can be concluded that I do not have it anymore. HHH
http://youtu.be/T2lwE4jpxiE
Sidecar app turns your car into a cab.
Not sure if anyones posted on this before just heard about it on the radio. Looks like they get around the cab monopoly/medallions by asking for donations rather than charging a fare, so I guess someone could get away with not paying once, but then who will ever pick them up again?
ThatOldGuy:seems to be of the opinion "Well, I'm a med student. We talked about this in school and all my classmates are for it. Look, the health care situation in this country is bad, this law is supposed to change that and I'm a med student, so I'm for it"
Exactly. A Med student. As in a twentysomething who's spent her entire life in academia studying hard science. And because her classmates, a bunch of other kids who fit her description think some policy is a good idea, she's for it. Forget what people actually working in that field might have to say. No, the students who've barely spent time in a hospital have all the answers.
It's like a kid claiming "well I'm an entrepreneurship major and all my classmates think Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank are a good idea, so I'm for it." As if a person who's never run a business or practiced medicine knows what would be good with regard to the economics of commerce.
Find me an actual doctor who's been practicing for 25 years and then we can talk, sweetie.
^^ Amen!
And thank you for posting the video, and thanks to JJ for introducing Amanda BillyRock to me. She does a good job holding her own, and I love that it's obvious she studied up on the history as well as economics (talking about the AMA way back when); she really just blew that Jackie and Jacqueline out of the water!
The only one worth following is the one who leads... not the one who pulls; for it is not the direction that condemns the puller, it is the rope that he holds.
who will ever pick them up again?
You mean the cabbies will take pictures of the offenders and save them in some online database to reference?
I actually hadn't heard about this, but apparently: "Rush Limbaugh launched a tirade against The Dark Knight Rises for supposedly using the character Bane to criticize Mitt Romney's time at Bain Capital. Here are five comic book villains who are much closer to the GOP Presidential candidate."
Lew Rockwell did a great job in this one. It's a bit long, but I think it's worth it.
My point precisely, John James. She kept referring to her school with respect to most of the topics as if that vindicates anything.
I just finished watching the 'bate and thought it was pretty good. Amanda and Julie worked great as a tag team although Julie was kind of quiet at times. If there was a list of what I would change about the debate it would be to settle Jackie's concern regarding theory vs. reality and to consider the alternative view regarding the "gender gap" in wages by entertaining the radical proposal that wages are not assigned to individuals based on gender.
Jackie clearly has no understanding of the difference between "a hypothetical" vs. "a theory" or "reality" vs. "utopia." She's of the mindset that there's a reality, which consists of the government we have, and that that's the end of it. She'd like to change the state of affairs towards the libertarian perspective, but to entertain libertarian ideas is childish, odd, impossible, and utopian. Clearly, the government can only work in reality (i.e. in its present form). Yes, she's so patient with Amanda and Julie that she reluctantly admits that she "gave up on repeating that ['hypotheticals vs. reality'] on every single topic" as it is just such a damning blow to the freedom side (55:15). She nicely wraps up this argument by stating that "in the world we live in now, it's not illogical [to favor the state leave the affairs of women's health and concurrently support the PPACA]." The best part, I actually laughed, was when she finished this talk by remarking that Amanda's claim of Jackie's position as illogical is 'a little condescending and unwarranted' before moving on to say that she believes that "Obama is the strongest person for women's rights" and [not] relaying to the everyone present what Obama's tremendous platform on women's rights is. At least Jackie is bold enough to state, so confident is she that she says this almost casually, that "Obama, I would say, is more in favor of giving women the freedom they deserve" and later on that "Obama has all these things for women's rights" (53:29; 54:39). I mean, to be honest, what a liberator he is! Remember, that time, when he liberated those women?
There's a fairly annoying segment regarding the "gender gap" in wages. Thankfully, no one cites that B.S. 7/10 ratio of wages between women and men (damnit, I was just browsing for quotes and found that Jacquelyn brings it up at 26:49), but it doesn't stop the two in the middle of the screen in the argument from assuming that wages are established from what aggregate statistics are. Just after commenting on what car she wants (30:00), Jackie informs the viewers that "all the studies show, pretty clearly, that women are underpaid [...]" and proclaims: $12,000 [according to Jacquelyn, this is the average difference in wages between male and female doctors with men earning more] a year is a lot of money to lose out just because, sorry to be crass, you know, you were born with the wrong body part, so to speak. It's very nice to see the girls so comfortable in making these blank assertions. Amanda delivers a pretty good rebuttal starting at 31:17 with what is said by Jackie, but could have also touched on the idea that women, if they are paid less, cost less to hire and will therefore tend to be hired more frequently than men. In other words, the employer must bear a monetary cost if he wants to discriminate. Amanda calmly explains that if employers do not hire the best potential empoyees for the job then they will go out of business in short order. In other words, Amanda is on Jackie and Jacquelyn's side, but they're not.
Then there are just odd discussions in the health care section where Julie brings up charity (Amanda cites the overwhelming outreach of voluntary contributions after the Japanese earthquake a few years ago) as an option to government welfare. The critical thinking girls in the middle are skeptical of the idea that people will reach out to help their fellow men, citing the KONY 2012 movement and others.
And the ethics of the two in the middle are based on non-sequiturs. I'd like to see Jackie consider that it doesn't follow from "I'd prefer a state of affairs in which the poor are helped" that the state ought to use aggression to take from A to pay for B. As a basic law of economics, whatever is subsidized (illness, alcoholism, AIDS, mental ailments, etc.) in the form of government welfare can be expected to increase.
(I try to recall my French lessons below; be warned) Jacquelyn mentions that,
[O]ne of the [libertarian ideals] that [she] just can't seem to connect with is this free-market idea of everyone, in this like utopia, this idea of people giving to charity and how that would be more beneficial to people who need it, like people who are on welfare right now, and how that can solve all these problems- I just don't see it. Like, I mean, you think people would be more charitable and giving. But I just, that just, to me that seems way too idealistic and not practical from what I've seen. I mean, like I just feel like, maybe, we've had different experiences or you know different people than I know or something. But that's just such a fundamental difference in ideals that I can't relate to that and I don't feel like that would be a good thing to rely on. If I needed help, if I were, you know, like disabled or I had something seriously wrong with me where I absolutely needed support, I would not want to rely on the good will of people to help me out. I would want something more concrete and reliable than that.
First, it's very clear that Jacquelyn wants to emphasize that she has different experiences from everyone there: she's a med student; she's in med school. These two in the middle don't think straight. They'll cite various outstanding charitable groups and then say how the idea of charity contributing anything to society is unfounded. For fuck's sake, the above quote is from the one that wants to be a doctor. As John James and I point out above, she really seems incapable of not bringing her fellow med students in the argument and how they agree that something should be done about the poor in this country regarding healthcare. The thought processes of these two is almost to the point where I question that Jacquelyn really is a med student (okay, she probably is but she doesn't seem like it from her demeanor and reasoning skills). I'd like it if the girls in the middle would someday see the contradictions in their arguments. But, hey, Jackie wants a Jaguar.
ThatOldGuy:"Well, I'm a med student. We talked about this in school and all my classmates are for it. Look, the health care situation in this country is bad, this law is supposed to change that and I'm a med student, so I'm for it" [Emphasis added.]
This is just a confession of faith. "I support the health-care reform because its supporters said it's supposed to help/fix the health-care situation in this country and I trust those people."
ThatOldGuy:"[O]ne of the [libertarian ideals] that [she] just can't seem to connect with is this free-market idea of everyone, in this like utopia, this idea of people giving to charity and how that would be more beneficial to people who need it, like people who are on welfare right now, and how that can solve all these problems- I just don't see it. Like, I mean, you think people would be more charitable and giving. But I just, that just, to me that seems way too idealistic and not practical from what I've seen. I mean, like I just feel like, maybe, we've had different experiences or you know different people than I know or something. But that's just such a fundamental difference in ideals that I can't relate to that and I don't feel like that would be a good thing to rely on. If I needed help, if I were, you know, like disabled or I had something seriously wrong with me where I absolutely needed support, I would not want to rely on the good will of people to help me out. I would want something more concrete and reliable than that."
This is just another confession of faith. "I trust certain things (e.g. the government) and not others (e.g. private charity), and you trust different things than me."
What would really be interesting to me is if these girls had a discussion of what/who they trust and why. (I'll go ahead and venture a guess: the girls who trust the government do so because it's supposedly a "democracy", which supposedly means they have some amount of control over what it does.)
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
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Parallels between the film and the shooting
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Geithner: 'I Have Been The Most F***ing Transparent Secretary Of The Treasury In This Country's Entire F***ing History'
Hot: Former Clinton Keynesian Economics Adviser Hangs Up the Phone on Me
The Trouble With Online Education
I'm not sure if I heard it in the video, or the talk on the radio, but all users have an account where drivers, and customers post feedback, and ratings of each other. I assume this will be based upon their phone number, but it was also mentioned that customers must use a credit card. I jumped to the assumption that:
1)A customer would be able to refuse to pay a fare, since it's called a donation, and
2)Anyone denying to pay the fare would end up with negative feedback on their account leading other drivers to not pick them up again.
Depending on how much feedback people can give this could end up being great for the drivers i.e. Cheap fare, paid donation, no tip, vs Friendly guy, great tip thanks
Interesting. But how do you make a record for someone who doesn't pay? You inherently do not have that credit card number, so you can't identify them.
The Usual Suspects: ABC's Ross, Stephanolpoulos Point to Tea Party in Dark Knight Shooting UPDATE: ABC Corrects, Apologizes--After Blaming 'Social Media' and the Public
I'm just making assumptions since I've never seen the app, but (from what I heard in the interview) I assume the drivers app tells the driver where the fare is, and where he wants to go, and shows the driver a rating for that customer, based on what other drivers rated the customer in the past. After dropping the fare off the driver and customer rate each other and leave notes on the experience, positive or negative. Based on this both customer and driver can accept or deny a ride/fare from specific people.
It sounded like fares must use a credit card to get picked up, so the company has that information. My guess is that the customer is identified by his phone number, but possibly also further by his credit card number, the driver may not have the card information, but still has the ratings and feedback from previous drivers.
Oh, I think I was misunderstanding your question, I'm guessing if the customer deny's credit card payment later that the company would mark their account allowing drivers to use their own disgression about picking up that fare again.
Assuming the govt doesn't find a way to shut this down I wonder if the cab industry will come up with innovations similar in degree to the wake in the breakup of the phone monopoly. I bet it will become common for "cabs" to run all sorts of errands for people rather than just driving them around.
I just want to emphasize that that opening quote is my characterization of her, not her own words. The second passage you cite are her words verbatim.
This is just another confession of faith. [...] What would really be interesting to me is if these girls had a discussion of what/who they trust and why. (I'll go ahead and venture a guess: the girls who trust the government do so because it's supposedly a "democracy", which supposedly means they have some amount of control over what it does.)
This is just another confession of faith. [...]
Yes. Neither of them have much else than assertions or non-sequiturs. While it does seem that the girls in the middle trust aggression to solve everything I don't find it implied in what they say that they trust democracy in particular to solve problems- although they would probably hold democracy as the highest form of governance if the question were posed to them. Most naive was Jackie's comment that she doubts Julie's argument that the legislative lobbyists cooked up this Paycheck Fairness Act (this is talked about at around the 30:00 mark) in order to cause conflict so that they can be called on to resolve this; Jackie thinks that such a conspiracy is the naive idea and doesn't want to credit lobbyists with that much intelligence. I'd argue the opposite- indeed, she seems to have an ideal form conception of the US government. If she had even taken AP Govt. & Politics in high school she'd know that Congress is virtually nothing but an association of committees which are incessently badgered by special interest groups. All that is needed to totally vindicate Julie's argument from the realm of "the absurd" [as it is regarded by Jackie] is the simple premise (as Clayton notes helped totally alter his perspective; see the top lines of the third paragraph, as well as the entire fifth paragraph in particular) that politicians are self-interested, too.
With regard to her respect for med students on the argument of the PPACA it's not even an interesting appeal to popularity. She's no understanding of economics apart from her dropping the word "demand" once during an argument (I pretty sure that was her). If it were something like the promise of a new drug and its effect on a certain illness and weighing potential pros and potential cons, she could appeal to the medical community's findings with a bit more relevance (although, this doesn't automatically make their opinion the truth; appeal to popularity is logical fallacy). But no, as John James critiqued, these are students being asked about the signature legislation of the guy who had overwhelming support of the twenty-something demographic. Yeah, they're a good source of ethical/economic knowledge on this matter simply because they've been studying medicine (not economics, medicine; and they've been studying for the last few years, not acting in the market which actually requires conformity to regulations and subjecting one's practice/operations to economic calculation) for the last few years.
If you haven't seen the 'bate yet, Autolykos, I'd recommend it. If you're not gonna laugh at the two girls in the middle then you'll be exposed to ABillyRock and TokenLibertarianGirl; they ain't just easy on the eyes.
Just watched this. The woman's the perfect example of idiocy: arguing with emotion; shifting positions; speaking over your opponent and not allowing a chance for him to rebut your argument; banal assertions, and; a loud ignorance of economics. After watching this video, I'm reminded of John James' concern that Schiff may be hard of hearing (which is not without reason if one wishes to watch the video referenced in that post between he and Cenk Uygur; it's just off). In that video between Cenk and Schiff, Peter is just talking no matter what- it's almost as if he has a script that must be finished as a result of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. In that video, Schiff was extreme.
In reflection, I'm starting to think that, with Schiff constantly having extemporaneous debates with absolute idiots several times a week, often in front of a national audience, he has formed this sort of defense of "just talking." Talking with people like this woman day in and day out must really take a toll on faith in humanity. I won't say patience, because there are still examples of Peter demonstrating incredible amounts of that in his video where he talks to the people at OWS.
Hmm.
New book out at the Mises store:
ORGANIZED CRIME: THE UNVARNISHED TRUTH ABOUT GOVERNMENT by Tom DiLorenzo
Politics and thieves, coercion and regulation, fascism and the Fed, centralization and liberty, workers and unions, trade and freedom, free-market achievements and government disasters in American history—this book covers it all!
Organized Crime collection of essays in the tradition of Austrian political economy—a combination of applied economics and the study of governmental reality. Unlike “mainstream” economists who are content to spin mathematical model after mathematical model which explain little or nothing about the real world, DiLorenzo’s focus has always been just the opposite—to use economic understanding to gain a better understanding of how the political-economic world works. Austrian economics is indispensable to succeed at this task.
I must say it looks epic.
ThatOldGuy:Just watched this. The woman's the perfect example of idiocy: arguing with emotion; shifting positions; speaking over your opponent and not allowing a chance for him to rebut your argument; banal assertions, and; a loud ignorance of economics.
http://mises.org/Community/forums/p/29812/479538.aspx#479538
After watching this video, I'm reminded of John James' concern that Schiff may be hard of hearing (which is not without reason if one wishes to watch the video referenced in that post between he and Cenk Uygur; it's just off). In that video between Cenk and Schiff, Peter is just talking no matter what- it's almost as if he has a script that must be finished as a result of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. In that video, Schiff was extreme. In reflection, I'm starting to think that, with Schiff constantly having extemporaneous debates with absolute idiots several times a week, often in front of a national audience, he has formed this sort of defense of "just talking." Talking with people like this woman day in and day out must really take a toll on faith in humanity. I won't say patience, because there are still examples of Peter demonstrating incredible amounts of that in his video where he talks to the people at OWS.
After watching this video, I'm reminded of John James' concern that Schiff may be hard of hearing (which is not without reason if one wishes to watch the video referenced in that post between he and Cenk Uygur; it's just off). In that video between Cenk and Schiff, Peter is just talking no matter what- it's almost as if he has a script that must be finished as a result of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. In that video, Schiff was extreme.
Yeah that probably plays into it a bit too. But I think the larger culprit is the audio setup and Schiff's own hearing. If you recall back in October when Schiff had Robert Wenzel on his radio show, apparently there was an issue in which if Peter was talking, Wenzel's audio would get muted out, or lowered to a point that it was inaudible. (Which is not uncommon in a radio setup, as a knowledgeable commenter informed Wenzel), but this was only after Wenzel took to his own blog to whine about how he had been gamed, and that that was the last time he went on a radio show without his own recorder to capture the conversation. He basically came out and alleged that Schiff was sitting there with his finger on a mute button, shutting Wenzel up whenever he felt like no one whould listen.
If you want a rundown of the whole episode (which ended up being the subject of at least 6 different posts on Wenzel's blog), that thread provides a nice play by play in real time as it was all going down. It starts here.
:EDIT:
Holy goddamn shit. Get a load of this first sentence, from Robert Wenzel. What the hell did I just say. What an insecure little shit.
He really could have used a mute button with this one. Carew certainly learned in media class that you should keep on talking.[...]
Pretty awesome. The NAP is stated pretty well, too:
What Is the Point of My Libertarian Anarchism?
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Elitist Wall Street Battle: Bartiromo versus Spitzer (and launched by Warren Buffett)
Find Out What Happened When a Federal Reserve Employee Questioned Unusual Currency Movements Before 9-11
This show has already passed the Gary Johnson interview and is now #1 all-time.
You Will Love Madison Avenue...when you compare current advertising to this 1650s ad for coffee.
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10 Worst States for Retirement
Classic.
via Tom Woods:
Courtesy of the Tea Party Economist, here’s a video in which two guys make perfectly clear that the jobs they want to create, and for which they seek public funding, involve digging holes and filling them back in again. The labor leaders they catch on tape have absolutely no problem with this.
For some reason I felt like asking this on the forum instead of the FB page, but who is making those really bad quote pictures on the LvMI Facebook page?
Sex-crime victim could be jailed for tweeting her attackers' names
Justice is as justice does...amirite?
Holy crap..
I commented a recommendation to use Inkscape instead of MS Paint. They really do look awful, and they're posting so much of them. I decided to stop getting updates from that account.
Heather:Holy crap..
So they were shot for showing up to protest a shooting. Sounds about right.
Very cool: Artificial jellyfish created from heart cells
Not just that, but some of the quotes they are using don't really stand alone as a quotable statement. Bluntly it's a bunch of crap, but I don't want to offend any LvMI staff making them. The Bastiat Institute FB page churns out some rather good ones
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