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But there write to bear arms.

 n0t_u wrote:
But there write to bear arms.

Shawl note bee impinged?

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Poor performance by schools is a complex issue that has many factors.

One of the most important is what I would call "ethos", by which I mean the belief by parents, teachers and society that education is valuable and necessary, and that all children can reach a good level by working at it.

I think it is important that society presents education as not only a way to a job, but a way to a good job and -- more than that -- a life-fulfilling good in its own right.

This of course also means that society needs to provide occupations for children to aspire to.

word

 sebster wrote:

I think part of the issue is that it's hardly anyone's first choice anymore.
Coming to teaching as a second (or third, or fourth...) choice doesn't mean you won't be any good at it, but as an overall system it's hardly a very good way to get our best and brightest in the profession.

Honestly, at least here in the US, I don't think that there are too many teachers who picked up the career as a first choice. Some of the best teachers I've ever had in school did plenty of other work prior switching over and teaching. To be fair, most of that type of person who was a professional whatever, and then decided to "retire" from that job in order to teach usually had a specific skillset, and only taught classes related to that skillset. For instance, the wood/metal shop classes, engineering/CAD classes, and various Computer Sciences classes.

LOL, this is pure comedy.

Education is way different then when I went to school. Its seems in general kids are more dumb these days.

Grey Templar wrote:
The democrat's worst nightmare are long periods of economic prosperity and a shrinking lower class.

But go on...

I was being largely sarcastic. But do please grasp for straws all you want

 Grey Templar wrote:
I was being largely sarcastic. But do please grasp for straws all you want

It is hardly a straw. Ever since the US Budget was invented Republican presidents have overseen times of decline and Democrat presidents have overseen times of improvement in the public finances.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
I was being largely sarcastic. But do please grasp for straws all you want

It is hardly a straw. Ever since the US Budget was invented Republican presidents have overseen times of decline and Democrat presidents have overseen times of improvement in the public finances.

wat?

Look up the budgets passed by Congress.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Look up the budgets passed by Congress.

?

Still, not seeing your point... seems like no matter who's in congress or the WH, the budget is increasing.

You need to go to the original data.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/historicals

Last I checked the DOW may be climbing but as a country we are deep in the red to the tune of trillions, much of that was signed off by the pres, bail outs say what?

Why is it quite a few in the Red States operating within budget and have a surplus....

 Jihadin wrote:
Why is it quite a few in the Red States operating within budget and have a surplus....

Shush... don't tell Killkrazy as it'll mess up his predeposition.


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 Kilkrazy wrote:
You need to go to the original data.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/historicals

Doesn't help your cause... when you said:

Ever since the US Budget was invented Republican presidents have overseen times of decline and Democrat presidents have overseen times of improvement in the public finances.

Where's the supporting evidence for that?

Just go ahead and say Republicans suck & Democrats rocks on.

Jeeze... quit dancing around this.

stanman wrote:Last I checked the DOW may be climbing but as a country we are deep in the red to the tune of trillions, much of that was signed off by the pres, bail outs say what?

We've had a surprising number of bailouts repaid, with interest. Basic economic theory says that a government should spend their way out of a recession, and aim for a surplus during times of prosperity. What actually happened?

Clinton (and, to be fair, a GOP congress) got us a surplus to be proud of. Something you can see in the charts posted above.

Bush decided that rather than follow smart economic advise, he'd cut taxes for his buddies, getting rid of our surplus, while simultaneously declaring a war that cost us billions (if not trillions) of dollars. Big surprise when things came falling down.

Obama followed conventional economic policy and spent some money, much to the chagrin of the GOP, and ended up not only getting us out of the recession, but also resulting in record prosperity on wall street. I'd venture to say that we'd have lower unemployment too, if the GOP weren't acting as obstructionists throughout his entire term.

Jihadin wrote:Why is it quite a few in the Red States operating within budget and have a surplus....

Does that include the money they get from the Federal Government. It's widely accepted (and easily proven, though I'll leave googling to you) that red states take more in government handouts than they pay in taxes, while blue states pay more in taxes than they receive.

Oddly enough, I'm not even a democrat. I have my own issues with how Obama's done certain things, namely Obamacare. I most closely align with the Republican platforms from 1900-1960, where regulation was seen as important for the protection of the populous, and science was considered a good thing. Somewhere in the 70's or 80's, the dixiecrats switched sides and the GOP became the party of pandering to corporate interest and god bothering.

 Jihadin wrote:
Education is way different then when I went to school. Its seems in general kids are more dumb these days.

*than

Just had to go there

 daedalus wrote:


But their way of keeping the treadmill going is too touchy feely!

This is why the republicans do everyone a favour by yelling "BAD TOUCH"

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I think it is important that society presents education as not only a way to a job, but a way to a good job and -- more than that -- a life-fulfilling good in its own right.

That's an excellent point. During the height of the minerals boom here, a few teacher friends of mine would recount stories from students of their's asking why they should bother with school, because they could earn six figure salaries just by going up to work on the mines.

At some point it has come to be understood that knowledge is just a means to a job, and not something beneficial in itself. It's odd because no-one would ever ask why they ought to get fit and healthy, when they're never going to earn a job as a model or fitness instructor, and yet so many people will ask that when asked to learn something new.


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 whembly wrote:
Still, not seeing your point... seems like no matter who's in congress or the WH, the budget is increasing.

So, by your own graph, you mean declining under both Clinton and Obama?

Damn those spendthrift Democrats.


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 Jihadin wrote:
Education is way different then when I went to school. Its seems in general kids are more dumb these days.

That's just the effect of no longer actually experiencing school, and instead just relying on what's reported and told about school. Typically the stories you here are negative, because it's just human nature to tell the negative stories and ignore the positive ones. But those negative stories aren't given in any kind of context, so instead of people walking away from a news story thinking 'an unusual bad thing happened in one school today, elsewhere millions of kids had just another boring school say' we think those negative events now define the school experience.

Meanwhile every few years we have to adjust IQ scoring, because the average score keeps getting better. And don't forget there was once a time when Roger Bacon said that all mathematical knowledge could only be learnt by a highly skilled scholar who dedicated 30 or 40 years of his life to its study... and now all the mathematical knowledge of Roger Bacon's age is taught to kids in junior high. Skills build on skills, we learn not only new things, but learn how better to teach what we've already learned.

No cursive though. Twenty years down the road we're going to be shocked when we meet an adult who can't read cursive. You all (southern drawl) get that

 Jihadin wrote:
No cursive though. Twenty years down the road we're going to be shocked when we meet an adult who can't read cursive. You all (southern drawl) get that

I wonder if two or three generations ago that kids were no longer learning to ride horses and drive buggies?

 sebster wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
No cursive though. Twenty years down the road we're going to be shocked when we meet an adult who can't read cursive. You all (southern drawl) get that

I wonder if two or three generations ago that kids were no longer learning to ride horses and drive buggies?

I wonder if two or 3 generations ago they knew how to spell our?

 Jihadin wrote:
No cursive though. Twenty years down the road we're going to be shocked when we meet an adult who can't read cursive. You all (southern drawl) get that

When was the last time you actually wrote something of significant length by hand*? I mean, I guess being in the military there may be forms you need to fill out that would require it, but for most of the rest of the world it simple isn't done.


*Also, cursive is a nightmare because the further you get from initial instruction the sloppier it tends to be.

 stanman wrote:
Last I checked the DOW may be climbing but as a country we are deep in the red to the tune of trillions, much of that was signed off by the pres, bail outs say what?

TARP and the automaker bailouts were passed by the Bush Administration.

This thread used to be about bad spelling. Now it's about graphs.

So sad.

Bullockist wrote:
I wonder if two or 3 generations ago they knew how to spell our?

How many generations ago did we settle on a standard spelling for 'our'?

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
Education is way different then when I went to school. Its seems in general kids are more dumb these days.

*than

*from.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
This thread used to be about bad spelling. Now it's about graphs.

So sad.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to make it about bikinis.

Challenge accepted.

From graphs you get to maths easily enough.
From maths you can easily jump to physics.
From physics to nuclear physics and testing.
From testing you get to the Bikini atoll where tests used to be conducted.
From there it should be obvious. Mission accomplished.