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The boys and I were off for a walk in Beacon Hill Park on a blustery but beautiful Sunday. A mother duck and her 11 ducklings were walking across the trail.
Written by jay on May 10th, 2006 with 1 comment.
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I have been thinking about homeschooling and my own, upcoming, half century mark. The two are related in the sense that as I was educated a life could reasonably, if roughly, be divided into quarters with the first quarter being taken up with education, the next two with productive work and the final quarter given over to retirement and drool time. (Oh Joy.)
This is less true for my generation where, as I devoutly pray, 50 is the new 30, or at least the new 40 and human life expectancy in Western countries is out at85 and rising. But it is even less true of my 5 and 2 year olds. For Sam and Max it is literally impossible to predict life expectancy due to the onrush of medical procedures, genetic therapies and wellness knowledge. Even now the fastest growing demographic cohort in the United States are the spry 100 year olds.
Which raises an interesting set of questions about what the educational objectives should be for a generation which has every possibility of saying, “Well, 100 is the new 60.”
The core curriculum of K-12 has changed a bit since I was a kid. Assorted political and social engineering notions have been tossed in the mix. A nod is given to continous learning. But the out and out, radical revision which a fundamental change in the human prospect demands is not going to happen within the industrial school system. In a sense it can’t if only because most of the players in that system - teachers, administrators, parents and politicians - are too busy keeping a lid on the current explosion of kids’ capabilities.
That explosion is driven by the wee box on which I type this blog and on which my 2 year old is now, quite competently, bookmarking his favorite websites. The PC is a great leveller. My five year old likes to use Photoshop to crop and filter the pictures we take on our walks. He is not particularily good at it; but he can produce results which satisfy him. And, in a year or two he’ll be shooting his own pictures and Photoshopping them like a pro.
What the PC has done is given adult tools to children. While no one would give a five year old power tools, letting him fool around on a computer is safe (more or less) and extends his capabilities in the same way a Skillsaw or electric drill makes for rather faster treehouse construction.
Getting adult tools when you are five, or two for that matter, means you have insight into the adult world at a much earlier age. You may be just learning to read and you may still be making your printed “S” backwards, but you can surf the net and use programs just like mum and dad.
Like calculators when I was growing up, computers and the net make a good deal of what used to be included in “an education” seem rather quaint. Why go to a library to look something up when you can Google it? Looking something up and then reporting on your research formed a large part of a conventional education in the upper grades when I went to school and it still does. It is a skill which, rather like mental arithmetic in the age of calculators, is something of an anachronism.
Looked at within the 80 year lifespan model, anachronisms are really a waste of the child’s time and so there is a drive, often lead by the kids themselves, to have a calculator in every pencil case and always on broadband internet in every classroom. Competitive parents seem to think there is some virtue in acquiring “computer skills” in school.
Looked at from the perspective of a 120 or even a 160 year lifespan the one thing which is certain is that the computer skills acquired this year will be entirely useless in ten years and long forgotten at the turn of the next century. (”What is this typing thing you speak of grandpa?” “A mouse? Our cat chases mice. What do they have to do with computers?”)
What might last is the more ineffable: a feel for numbers, a sense of the texture of information. I overuse the example of the estimation question “How many golf balls fit into a suitcase?” simply because it underlines what a calculator can’t tell you. Ask a calculator kid that question and he or she will be back to you with, “How big is the suitcase?” with the critical insight that the size of the suitcase really makes a difference in the answer. A calculator is very good at manipulating data, it is entirely useless where the data is imprecise. Answering, “You know, a suitcase, just your average suitcase.” drives calculator kids to distraction.
Open ended research questions or questions where there cannot be a right answer, have much the same effect on people who see Google as a solution rather than a tool. Information comes in two broad categories, fact and opinion. Unfortunately for the “right answer brigade”, your opinions often colour what weight you give facts and, worse still, facts can easily and effectively change opinion.
Looking for a way into the idea of information having a texture I constantly come back to history. Looking at ways of knowing who we are and how we arrived where we seem to be. The great advantage of history is that it so clearly underlines the disputed nature of “facts” without having to become terribly abstract. Plus, and I think this is a huge bonus, there are plenty of historical questions which do not have definative answers. (How were those pyramids constructed anyway?)
The other advantage which a history based education offers is that history broadly defined gives you a way into science, literature, politics, theology, engineering architecture, art and music. It also gives a structure into which other cultures and religions, other languages and other understandings of the world fit naturally.
I have no way of knowing what my hundred year old children are going to need to know. I am pretty sure it will not be facts per se. What I can be sure of is that a sense of history, a bedrock foundation in the evolution of Western and World culture, will not be wasted. If, along the way, they learn to read critically, write with assurance and use numbers as the powerful tools they are, then they should be well placed to deal with the twenty second century. If they also happen to pick up a sense of the critical importance of civility, an understanding of toleration, a comprehension of just how vital and fragile a culture and civilization is, then my work will be done.
Written by jay on May 10th, 2006 with 5 comments.
Read more articles on Homeschooling and culture.
This will mystify people who have not followed Plame/Wilson/Mary McCarthy wonders in detail this is not going to make a lot of sense. For Just One Minute devotees here’s a theory.
Goss resigned because CIA people were very pissed at the outing of MOM as a serial leaker and they had some fairly serious dirt suggesting Goss and and or one of his deputies was playing poke her on a defence contractor’s dime.
Done now. Tinfoil hat back in place. Canadian politics. Heck of a budget, eh.
Written by jay on May 6th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Terror and media.
Great fun in the blogosphere. Christopher Hitchens wrote a piece in Slate in which he suggests that the pretend Arabist Juan Cole’s Iranian apologetics are simply wrong as a matter of translation. Cole does not actually respond to Hitchens’ position but, instead, states
Well, I don’t think it is any secret that Hitchens has for some time had a very serious and debilitating drinking problem. He once showed up drunk to a talk I gave and heckled me. I can only imagine that he was deep in his cups when he wrote, or had some far Rightwing think tank write, his current piece of yellow journalism. I am sorry to witness the ruin of a once-fine journalistic mind.
informed comment
Nice bit of argumentation that.
Unluckily for Cole,
Cole, however, trashes whatever high ground he might have sought by accusing Hitch of writing the piece drunk, or, worse, having it ghost-written. By pure coincidence, I was at Hitch’s yesterday as he filed the piece. He was stone-cold sober. And on top form. It is Cole who owes Hitch an apology. Hitch stuck to the issues; Cole got personal.
andrew sullivan
Of course Cole has been nailed before and simply keeps going. The idea that he might be ashamed would imply he has sufficeint integrity to feel shame. Cole’s political commitments have trumped his integirty and such scholarship as he possesses on other occassions. Basically, Cole is more than willing to make stuff up if it serves his particular anti-American, pro-Palestinian agenda.
Now, taking on Hitchens is not for the faint hearted. Especially when Sullivan can pretty much prove that Cole’s speculations about Hitchens filing while legless is only the beginning of Cole’s partisan inventions.
The only question is whether Hitchens will once and for all finish Cole and his ongoing lies. I hope so.
Written by jay on May 4th, 2006 with 2 comments.
Read more articles on International and Terror and culture and media.
The Tory Budget is pretty much as expected. GST cut, child care payment, a few minor credits and cuts: the Bloc is willing to support, the Liberals - likely kicking themselves that they lost and are not able to enjoy spending the surplus they were responsible for - are opposed and, of course,so is the NDP.
While there is a small corporate income tax cut there is not the much speculated about capital gains roll over provision.
This is an intensely political Budget teeing up an election in a year or, perhaps, two. What it is not is a deeply fiscally conservative document or much of a change from the Liberal agenda. Harper recognizes his minority position and knows that the time for significant change is one election away. At least I hope so.
In fact, this is a budget which Ralph Goodale or Paul Martin could have delivered in a non-election year.
Now the question becomes whether in electing the Tories Canadians have not simply elected a marginally less tired business wing of the Liberal Party.
Predictably, the Liberals are stealing the NDP’s talking points and murbling on about “working men and women” being dinged by this Budget. It would be more interesting to hear an actual Liberal counter-proposal; but that will not happen so long as the Liberals are leaderless.
It will also be interesting to hear the reaction of the more fiscally conservative folks for whom the object in electing Tories was not more Liberal spending.
The Tories seem more than willing to spend - whether on program spending or tax expenditure - while leaving the national debt to gently drift down largely as the result of projected growth in GDP. Which, of course, explains why the reduction of the debt is put in these terms in the Budget
The debt-to-GDP ratio is projected to fall to 31.7 per cent by 2007–08, on track to meet the new medium-term objective of reducing the debt-to-GDP ratio to 25 per cent by 2013–14.
budget 06
This is hardly a ringing commitment to fiscal probity; rather it is a willingness to let momentum carry the economy up while leaving plenty of room for growth in Government expenditure.
Similarily, when it comes to program spending, the Tories are quite willing to hide another rabbit in the same hat:
The Government is committed to reducing growth in spending to a rate that is sustainable. Program expenses as a share of GDP are projected to decline from 13.7 per cent in 2004–05 to 13.0 per cent in 2007–08.
budget 06
This will look brilliant if the Canadian economy continues to grow - and the Budget includes private sector forecasting suggesting that it will do just that - not so brilliant if that growth slows.
The one thing which the Budget does not do is actually reduce the levels of overall government spending. Or the size of the government. Which, implictily endorses the spending and growth in government under the Liberals.
Politically this may be very wise. Nothing makes you look scarier than reducing the size and scope of the government which Canadians have been trained to look at as a source of largesse and compassion. (Without, of course, being reminded of the costs.) But it is a political wisdom bereft of any long term vision or conservative commitment.
It looks as if Harper has learned the Mulroney lesson altogether too well.
Written by jay on May 3rd, 2006 with 4 comments.
Read more articles on CPC and Canadian Politics.
Lacking gainful work, Mr Prescott has crashed, pachyderm-like, through Whitehall, decreeing the flattening of historic terraces in northern cities, the concreting of the southern green belt and - in between bacon butties with his secretary - preventing council candidates from expressing opinions on the questions that most matter to their constituents. He should go, not because he is an adulterer, but because he is a thundering nuisance.
telegraph
Once in a while the English put the boot in. Poor Mr. Prescott. Better to be slung out of Cabinet as an adulter than a nuisance.
Written by jay on May 1st, 2006 with no comments.
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