One of my favorite facebook quotes from a colleague

C... will be on the 13th floor of [Our favorite campus building]. All day. There are unanswered questions about Ezekiel's use of Egypt. I'm going to invent them and answer them. That's what a scholar does.

It's funny, because it's true!

Elephants are friggin' cool!

Take a look:



If the elephant recognizes the elephant that he paints as an elephant, than that means that he is able to make the connection between reality and symbol. Of course, this ability to make symbolic connections has already been demonstrated by the fact that elephants can be trained to respond to words.

Dogs also have this ability. Dogs that have been sufficiently trained can accurately identify various items by the words that their trainers use to identify them (i.e. they know the difference between "get your ball!" and "get your bunny!"). It's actually pretty cool.

The Evil Teachers' Union!

I was listening to part of the RNC on the radio and heard some guy shouting about the "liberal government" in Washington siding with the teachers' union and against the students. I'd like to take a moment to try to dispel some of the myths surrounding teachers and the union.

“School teachers only work part-time! Look, they have all summer off!”

On average, teachers work 186 days a year in the state of Oregon, of which 169 are spent teaching students. Some states require 180 school days.

A school teacher’s day looks something like this:

7:00-8:00 in school, available to students

8:00-12:00 teaching

12:00-12:30 lunch

12:30-3:00 teaching

3:00-4:00 in school, available to students

+2 hours of grading/lesson planning

That is an 11 hour day for a total of 1859 hours of work in the academic year, which divides out to 46.48 40 hour weeks of student contact per academic year. Additionally, there are the 17 days spent in teacher in-service and other duties, which add up to 136 hours if one assumes an 8 hour day; so another 3.4 40 hour work weeks. That sounds like full-time to me. Of course, that doesn’t include the time spent on required continuing education.

“School teachers are just babysitters!”

For comparison, let me also mention that my parents paid $9/day to my babysitter back in the early 90s. I have no idea what the going rate is, but we’ll go with that. If a teacher has a class of thirty and is ‘just a babysitter’, then that teacher should demand $270/day, which works out to $45,630 for 169 days. However, since a teacher also is to teach students, there is a certain value added.

“School teachers are just greedy and want too much money!”

A school teacher has gone to university for a minimum of 4 and often as many as 6 or 7 years. Generally, people who have gone to university for that long should be able to demand competitive salaries. Since teaching children is so important, it would seem logical that the people trained to do so would be very important to a society. If we want to have the best and the brightest instructing our children, then we need to provide a certain incentive for them to do so. If a person can’t make more as a teacher than as a secretary, where is the incentive? Teachers go into teaching because they enjoy teaching and want to help young people, not because they expect to become rich. However, they also need to have enough to feed their families and have health care so that they can devote their attention to doing their job, rather than to scraping to make ends meet. Also, as indicated above, teachers are professionals and should be paid professional salaries.

"Most money in the budget goes to paying teachers!"

Um, yes, the teachers need to eat. It is the teachers that make the entire enterprise possible. At minimum, a school needs students and teachers - a look at any third world country can tell us that much. We could do without the buildings and other accessories, but the teachers are absolutely necessary! This is not to say that we should stop maintaining the infrastructure, however, it is important to understand the vital role of teachers.

"The UNION!"

I would hope that teachers would be seen as allies in assuring a positive future for our children and, through them, our society. Teachers are workers just like just about everyone else. Teachers' unions are made up of teachers. A union is composed of individuals banding together to make sure that they are treated fairly and compensated for their labor. This doesn't make them evil! Also, many initiatives put forth by teachers' unions are aimed at helping further student education, so it is not only a benefit to the teachers, but also to the students.

------------------------------

Of course, I'm just preaching to the choir. Just about everyone who reads my blog on a regular basis already understands the value of education and the importance of attracting and maintaining qualified teachers.

Calculating your Gasoline Costs (calculate for gasoline sold by the gallon)

If you would like to figure out how much you are spending each time you drive somewhere, you can get a fairly accurate calculation by first determining the actual mileage that you get on your vehicle and then calculating how far places are and how much gas is used. For those who've forgotten how this works, I'm going to provide a step-by-step guide:

1) Calculate your mileage.

You can either use the published mileage for your car, or to be more accurate, calculate your actual mileage.

1a) The next time that you fill your tank, fill it until the pump auto-stop clicks.

1b) Before driving away, zero out your trip odometer.

1c) The following time that you fill your tank, fill it until the pump auto-stop clicks.

1d) Divide the number of miles on your trip odometer by the number of gallons that you pump. This number will be your miles per gallon (mpg). For example, 229.9 miles divided by 9.234 gallons equals 24.9 miles per gallon.

229.9 mi / 9.234 gal = 24.9 mpg.

2) Determine how far you drive.

One way to do this is to use a website like http://maps.google.com. Ask the site to give you directions from your home to a destination. For example, it might be 5.2 miles from your house to the mall, but remember to double it for the round trip, which would be 10.4 miles.

3) Determine how many gallons your trip takes.

You might want to try http://www.gasbuddy.com, a site that lists gas prices for many cities. Alternately, you can just check with the price at your local gas station. In our example, you might find that gas costs as little as $3.97 per gallon and as much as $4.13 per gallon, depending on where you buy it.

4) Calculate the number of gallons used on your trip.

Take your distance of travel and divide it by your mileage. In our example, it's 10.4 miles divided by 24.9 miles per gallon equals .418 gallons for your round trip to and from the mall.

10.4 mi / 24.9 mpg = .418 gal

5) Calculate the cost in gasoline of your trip.

Multiply the number of gallons used by the price of gas. In this example, the lowest this trip could cost would be .418 gallons multiplied by $3.97 equaling $1.66 for your round trip. The highest price would be .418 gallons multiplied by $4.13 equaling $1.72 for your round trip.

.418 gal * $3.97 = $1.66 per roundtrip
.418 gal * $4.13 = $1.72 per roundtrip

6) Cry

Now would be a good time to figure out how to minimize your driving.

Do we need to do this whole abortion thing again???

So, in response to my post about a ferret bed, I was asked (by a fundie) to justify some of my stickers on the side of the blog. I've decided to delete that comment there, but repost that little comment here:

Duane & Patricia said...

Hey, yeah, I was wondering how you reconcile two of your stickers to the right--
"prochild-prochoice" and "when we kill the innocent, we become the enemy"? Isn't that a contradiction?

9:27 PM, March 01, 2008

So, here's a bit of a response:

Well, this has nothing to do with the ferret bed, but I'll entertain it anyway.

Life may begin at conception, but I would argue that the little individual sperm and egg are already alive even before conception. Of course, so is every other cell in the body.

I'm pro-child. Children are great (just don't ask me to babysit). I'm also pro-choice, however, I would not characterize myself as pro-abortion. In the same way that I wouldn't call myself pro-amputation, I wouldn't make it illegal for someone to choose to have an amputation rather than suffer from a painful gangrenous death. I think that such a person should have a choice! I would expect that most people would not choose to have an amputation unless absolutely necessary.

Basically, I believe that most women would not choose to have an abortion. However, if a woman feels that she is unable to carry a baby to term due to such issues as danger to her health, incest, or rape, then I think that she should be able to make that decision. Ideally, in my mind, every woman would carry a baby to term if she is able, and then give it up for adoption if she doesn't want it / can't take care of it. On the other hand, I knew a woman who had been adopted, and she said that she would rather abort a baby than subject it to adoption. Wherever you fall on that issue, I think it is incumbent on the woman to educate herself about the options / repercussions of an abortion before making that decision. It should be her decision. However, I also would personally choose to limit abortions to only happening early in the pregnancy, before there can be argument that the fetus has any cognition / feeling.

As far as killing the innocent, this refers to killing people for no justifiable reason. In addition to being a crime against humanity, it just builds hate in those who remain and is bad for everyone. I think that there is a quantifiable difference between people who have been born, begun experiencing life; and a bundle of cells not yet capable of cognition.

Other people than me have made much better arguments about this than I am going to take the time to do now.

Bush calls for more foreign language learners

I got this in an email (it's also online here):

Bush Says Foreign-Language Study Key to Spreading Democracy

Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush said the U.S. must promote the study of foreign cultures and languages and encourage students from overseas to attend colleges and universities here as part of the strategy against terrorism.

The U.S. government needs diplomats, soldiers and intelligence officers who are fluent in the languages of the Muslim world in order to promote the spread of freedom and fight the battle against terrorists, he said.

Language skills are ``part of the strategic goals to protect this country,'' Bush said today at an international education event at the State Department in Washington that brought together university presidents from around the country.

Bush also told the education leaders that he wants to adjust visa policies to allow more students from overseas to study in the U.S. He said he understood the ``frustration'' of higher education leaders with the visa restrictions imposed by the federal government after the Sept. 11 attacks.

``We want young kids coming from around the world coming to our universities,'' he said.

There were 565,039 students from overseas at U.S. colleges in the 2004-2005 academic year, a drop of 1.3 percent from the year before, according to the Institute of International Education in New York. In 2003-2004 the number declined 2.4 percent from the previous year.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in introducing Bush at the gathering, said the U.S. needs to give as much attention to the study of Arabic culture and language now as it did to Eastern European and Russian culture during the Cold War.

Investment

``This country made a huge intellectual investment in winning the Cold War,'' said Rice, who holds a doctorate in international studies and is a specialist on Russia. The nation hasn't made a similar investment in the current struggle, she said.

Bush is planning to ask Congress for $114 million in fiscal year 2007 to help U.S. grade schools increase the number of students learning ``critical'' foreign languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Hindi and Farsi.

The plan would build upon existing efforts, including a Pentagon-funded program, and create a new National Language Service Corps through which volunteers would promise to work for the federal government in exchange for language training.

Language skills will help U.S. representatives ``convince people of the benefits of a free society,'' Bush said. ``You can't convince people unless you can talk to them.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Holly Rosenkrantz in Washington
at hrosenkrantz@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: January 5, 2006 17:01 EST

The government needs to be careful to not just throw around money. I'm certainly a proponent of foreign language education; my job depends on it; however, I think that the government needs to have some sort of standards for the programs that it funds. I got funded for Arabic, but the courses available to me had very little to do with the practical skills necessary for everyday conversation, let alone intelligence work! It prepared me for beginning a course of study in Arabic literature, but not for just interacting with folks!

Reverend Doctor Joseph E. Lowery

If you ever get the opportunity to hear Reverend Doctor Joseph E. Lowery speak, be sure to attend. He is excellent! His message is one of social justice for everyone, not just based on race or color. His delivery carries all the power from his background as a Southern preacher. It's also refreshingly interspersed with humor. I highly recommend him.

One of the things that he emphasized was the connection between privatizing prisons and the increasing rates of incarceration. If prisons are a business, then they need 'clients' to grow. He also pointed out that budgets for Corrections (but do they really correct anything?) are much higher than those for education.

Choosing a major in high school

Phyllis Schlafly is all freaked out about a new trend in schools, in which students are required to choose a high school major. Let me quote a bit from her article "The Latest "Major" Fad in Public Schools."

Freshmen at Dwight Morrow High School in New Jersey, starting this fall, must declare a major, and they must take at least one course in that subject every trimester for four years. The major will be noted on their diplomas.

She complains that this is bad, because kids change their minds about everything a lot. She writes:

Most teens are not ready to lock into a lifetime career so early; they need to explore and investigate options and opportunities. Anyway, there are magnet schools for those who are ready for specialization.

See, I would argue that the major path would be an exploration of an option. I think that kids in high school are already required to take a number of classes that they might not enjoy, but at least if they are taking career oriented classes, they can see how what they have been learning might (or might not) fit in to actual future education/employment. I guess an important question to ask might be how this is fit into the rest of their schedules. Which courses are there besides the major track? How many are required and how many are elective? As far as magnet schools, I would argue that not all kids have the opportunity to go to magnet schools.

Another thing to consider, is that it is common in Europe for university bound students to have already selected a major, or at least a track in literature or science, for example, before they are able to graduate high school. Their high school exit exam (often named something very close to "Bachelors") is geared towards that field.

I find it odd that she ends her article with this:

Public schools should teach all first-graders to read by the time-tested phonics system, and teach all schoolchildren to know and use the fundamentals of arithmetic by the end of the third grade. This would end the shocking epidemic of illiteracy that now permits students to get into high school and even graduate without being able to read, write or calculate change at the grocery store.

Choosing a major won't solve the problem of high school dropouts who can't read, write, add, subtract, multiply, or divide. Public schools will remain a national embarrassment unless and until the fundamentals are taught in elementary classes.

How does a lack of literacy have anything to do with encouraging kids to explore career options? Yes, please teach children to read (and please do it before they reach high school!). I think that everyone would agree that this is important. However, learning to read and learning the basics about law, or physics, or literature are not mutually exclusive! In fact, if the students do find a field that they are excited about, maybe that would motivate them to hone their basic academic skills.

All that said, I think that it is important to strike a balance between letting kids be kids and helping them to find their path in life. I would advise observing the results of major based high school education, allowing some time for fine-tuning, and then decide whether it is a net positive or negative.

Arabic and Islam - are they the same?

A couple of recent pieces on Townhall.com have prompted me to comment a bit on the relationship of Arabic to Islam.

Ken Connor has written to express his concerns about a new Arabic school in NYC.

Abraham Lincoln once famously observed, "The philosophy of the school room in one generation is the philosophy of government in the next."

The truth of Lincoln's observation is, no doubt, at the core of the apprehensions that New Yorkers have expressed about the Khalil Gibran International Academy scheduled to open next month in Brooklyn. Adding to their apprehensions is the fact that KGIA is just three blocks from a mosque which has a history of employing radical imams and which was frequented by one of the terrorists implicated in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

It takes a lot to rankle Gotham City dwellers, but, given their experience with radical Islam, one can sympathize with their angst. Mind you, KGIA is a public school and will be funded with public tax dollars, some of which will come from families of the victims of 9/11. World Net Daily reports that the school's curriculum "will integrate intensive Arabic language instruction and the study of Middle Eastern history and historical figures," including the life and teachings of the prophet Muhammad. WND also explains that field trips will include destinations in the Middle East and that "teacher materials will be adapted from publications supplied by the Council on Islamic Education." New York City school officials have tried to assure the public that the school will be "non-religious" and will not promote a political or religious ideology, but skepticism abounds.

He seems to be concerned about the school training terrorists. He also insists that

...it is duplicitous to suggest that one can separate Arabic culture from the religion of Islam. That's like trying to square a circle. It can't be done. In Islam, there is no separation of church and state. Islamic fundamentalists do not draw a distinction between religion, culture and politics. The three are united under Sharia law. These religious zealots see the state as a primary vehicle for advancing Islam. Indeed, the coercive power of the state is essential to spreading the teachings of the Koran. ...

I suspect that we can't really know what the aims of this school are until its curriculum can be reviewed. I would have to agree with Connor that a public school should not teach Islam any more than a public school should teach Christianity. However, I do believe that the school should be able to teach ABOUT Islam, Christianity or any other religion in order to enable students to understand others and other religions. (Perhaps Connor would have benefited from a unit on Islam in his schooling.) The biggest problem with a curriculum about religion is determining who should teach it and what the 'truths' are that should be taught, since there is so much variation even between different denominations of the same umbrella religion. (Try asking a Roman Catholic, a Southern Baptist and a Jehovah's Witness what Christianity is, and you will get 3 very different answers once you get beyond belief in Christ as the Savior.)

------------------------------------------

Another right-winger, Doug Giles, has written to insist that "Allah" should not be used to talk about the Christian God, because he ignorantly believes that it is only used by Muslims. Giles goes so far as to personally attack a Dutch bishop, who suggested using "Allah" in Christian ceremonies. Giles writes:

Tiny Muskens, a Dutch Roman Catholic Bishop in Amsterdam, released another nifty idea this week upon his wooden shoe wearing sheep. Minister Muskens, well-known for stupidity aplenty, came up with a fresh game plan of which he said would aid the Dutch, yea, the entire world in getting along with Muslims Gone Wild. Tiny proposed “that people of all faiths refer to God as Allah to foster understanding.”

...

According to the Netherlands' biggest-selling newspaper, De Telegraaf, Tiny, after tabling his plan to reporters, said he had no further comment. He simply smiled, did a pirouette, stripped down to his pink boy shorts, put on a spaghetti-strapped yellow sun dress which he had in his exorcist kit and then started skipping down the cobblestone street with Boy George blaring from his iPod mini.

Well, I'm not sure where Giles gets his copy of De Telegraaf, but I read the two articles that come up on when searching for "Tiny Muskens" and "Allah" ("Muskens: 'God' vervangen door 'Allah' - telegraaf.nl" and "Bisdom: Muskens sprak niet namens bisschoppen - telegraaf.nl") and found no reference to 'no comment' (or to what Muskens might have been wearing - maybe De Telegraaf should sue for misrepresentation) and even found that some other Dutch bishops disassociated themselves with Muskens' suggestion, but noted the following:

Het bisdom wijst erop dat Allah in het Aramees, de taal die in de tijd van Jezus werd gesproken, Heer betekent. In het Arabische taalgebied is het voor zowel christenen als moslims en joden de meest gangbare naam om God aan te duiden. Oosterse christenen, vooral de kopten, gebruikten het woord Allah al, voordat de islam in de zevende eeuw ontstond.

For those who don't read Dutch, this can be translated as:

The bishopric notes that Allah in Aramaic, the language spoken in Jesus' time, means Lord. In Arabic language region, it is the most common name used to refer to God for Christians as well Muslims and Jews. Eastern Christians, especially the Copts, had already used the word Allah before the inception of Islam in the seventh century.

While it is true that many of the idioms used in Arabic are tied to the Islamic faith, it is not necessary to believe in Islam to learn Arabic. When I was learning Arabic over the summer, 'Alhamdu-llah' and 'Ensha'allah' were very common phrases that everyone picked up. They made an atheist student feel weird, because they referred to God. They made me feel weird, having grown up in a Protestant tradition, because it sounded too much like taking God in vain. However, we have the same idioms in English: 'Thank God' and 'God willing'. It's really not that you have to become indoctrinated into Islam; it's just that you need to become more comfortable with hearing 'God' frequently.

It is also important to note that the Koran is written in Arabic, so Muslims consider the Arabic language to be sacred. For a copy of the Koran to be considered legitimate, it must include the original Arabic, even if there is another language translation provided.

Not all Muslims are Arabs. Many Muslims have only a very limited knowledge of the Arabic language; just enough to read from the Koran. Sometimes, they don't even understand what they are reading; they may have just been trained in recitation. One might consider the relationship of Christianity to Latin, particularly during the Middle Ages (though this is also not the best characterization, since the Bible was not originally written in Latin).

The Bible exists in Arabic as well and is used by Christians throughout the Arab world.

So, I think that it is safe to say that Arabic is spoken by non-Muslims, and Muslims don't all speak Arabic. Therefore, there can be a distinction made between the two.

Elbow Room & Lebensraum

Has anyone watched this (School House Rock - Elbow Room) since developing social awareness??? "Manifest Destiny" is the same as the "Lebensraum" policy of Hitler as far as I can tell. How can we still glorify this mentality? No wonder we are having trouble with the rest of the world!

One thing you will discover
When you get next to one another
Is everybody needs some elbow room, elbow room.

It's nice when you're kinda cozy, but
Not when you're tangled nose
to nosey, oh,
Everybody needs some elbow, needs
a little elbow room.

That's how it was in the early days
of the U.S.A.,
The people kept coming to settle though
The east was the only place there
was to go.

The President was Thomas Jefferson
He made a deal with Napoleon.
How'd you like to sell a mile or two, (or three, or a hundred or a thousand?)
And so, in 1803 the Louisiana Territory was sold to us
Without a fuss
And gave us lots of elbow room,

Oh, elbow room, elbow room,
Got to, got to get us some elbow room.
It's the West or bust,
In God we trust.
There's a new land out there...
Lewis and Clark volunteered to go,
Good-bye, good luck, wear your overcoat!
They prepared for good times and for bad (and for bad),
They hired Sacajawea to be their guide.
She led them all across the countryside.
Reached the coast
And found the most
Elbow room we've ever had.

The way was opened up for folks with bravery.
There were plenty of fights
To win land rights,
But the West was meant to be;
It was our Manifest Destiny!

The trappers, traders, and the peddlers,
The politicians and the settlers,
They got there by any way they could (any way they could).
The Gold Rush trampled down the wilderness,
The railroads spread across from East to West,
And soon the rest was opened up for - opened up for good.

And now we jet from East to West.
Good-bye New York, hello L.A.,
But it took those early folks to open up the way.

Now we've got a lot of room to be
Growing from sea to shining sea.
Guess that we have got our elbow room (elbow room)
But if there should ever come a time
When we're crowded up together, I'm
Sure we'll find some elbow room...up on the moon!

Oh, elbow room, elbow room.
Got to, got to get us some elbow room.
It's the moon or bust,
In God we trust.
There's a new land up there!

American Students falling behind in math?

This rich guy, Dr. James Simons, is once again commenting on the lack of math education in America. He founded "Math for America" with some other mathematicians. Basically, they pay math majors to get their masters and go teach math.

They note that America scores are a lot worse than many countries in high school math on standardized tests. I don't think that Americans are exceptional in their abilities. And I would agree that there has probably been a decrease in the overall quality of math education.

However, something that people looking at the statistics need to remember is that American students generally all attend the same school as everyone else in the neighborhood. In other countries it is common practice to divide students. In some countries, such as Bolivia, it is a question of money. Those with money can afford the best private schools. Those without have teachers, who are paid relatively little, compared to other professionals. In Germany, and other European countries, it is common to divide students into different tracks as early as 5th grade. Children are tracked into university bound, trade school bound, and laborer bound schools.

The scores submitted for these international comparisons are generally taken from the university track, so the scores from the other groups never show up in the international reports. In contrast, American public schools' scores include everyone from the future Nobel Prize winning Mathematician to the doped up dropout.

High School diploma won't cut it

I'm listening to public radio and they're talking about a program in Boston called Jobs for the Future. They're saying that the high school diploma isn't enough. They say you need at least an Associate of Arts degree, if not a Bachelor's Degree. This particular program helps retrain working adults so that they can become skilled workers. In particular, they're talking about a project called Jobs to Careers. I'm not quite sure what the program is in practice, but it sounds a lot like a neo-apprentice program, which is a nice idea. The worker/student is placed in a job that is partnered with an institution of higher learning, if I understand correctly and are able to work and learn at the same time.

"who" versus "whom"

I've been spending my day reading the Germany Survival Bible forum from SPIEGEL. I've noticed that there are a number of postings in which "whom" is used in place of "who". One post in particular was a rant about poor education (post #52), in which "whom" was used 5 time, all of them incorrectly:

"There are exceptions of course, but the majority of students in the US graduate while functionally incompetent as individuals (academically speaking-although I haven't met a single high school grad yet whom can give change properly, OR balance a check book)."

These uses are hypercorrections, because they do not occur in the prescriptively grammatically correct location for "whom", which is an object pronoun, whereas "who" is a subject pronoun. The powers that be in American grammar have decided in the last decade or two that "who" is now acceptable in all cases in American English. I'm fine with this, and well served by it, since "whom" is not in the variety of English that I speak. However, I do know the rules for when "whom" should be used according to the style manuals and older instantiations of the English language, thanks to my over-priced education in German, where case systems are still alive and well.

So, here it is:

Who is that? ("who" is the subject of the sentence. German: Wer ist das?)

Whom do you see? ("whom" is the direct object of the sentence. German: Wen siehst du?)

(To) Whom are you giving the book? ("whom" is the indirect object. German: Wem gibst du das Buch?)

With whom are you going? ("whom" is the object of a preposition. German: Mit wem gehst du?)

So, now you know. I'm a descriptive linguist, so for the most part, it's in my ideology that whatever people produce in an oral context under normal circumstances is linguistically valid. However, these forced hypercorrections (I'm sure the writer of post #52 doesn't actually use "whom" naturally in speech) really bother me on a visceral, non-academic level. Obviously, this person is trying to write in a register beyond his/her grasp and is failing at it. Stick to what you know, folks! I think that the most embarrassing thing is to make a glaring error when discussing how stupid other people are, as in post #52! (Better yet is when you specifically try to call someone an idiot in another language and say it incorrectly!)

The teaching of science

I'm listening to an interview with Raymond Kessel on Wisconsin Public Radio. This is a program in which they are discussing the "problem" with science teaching in public education. Basically, his thesis is that the problem with science education is that students are taught to get the "right" answer, rather than exploring with a sense of wonder. Rather than saying, "I wonder why the sky is blue," they ask "What is the answer to #4?" In this manner, students tend to retain terminology, but have no way of applying it actual scientific practice. He suggests that traditional testing, such as standardized testing, is problematic, because it encourages teachers to teach to the test rather than teaching children how to think and follow the scientific method.

Curiosity, creativity, ingenuity.

Actually, this is applicable to just about any field. In my case, as a foreign language teacher, it's difficult to teach students German, because most of them don't see it at as something useful to them. They memorize the forms (sometimes), but they don't put them together into the big picture. The question is, how do you get the students excited about it? How do you get them to make it their own?

It's something to think about.

No freedom of speech in the high school classroom

A teacher has been put on leave for stating that some people compare Bush to Hitler, among other things.

Per CNN:
AURORA, Colorado (AP) -- About 150 high school students walked out of class to protest a decision to put a teacher on leave while administrators investigate remarks he made about President Bush in class, including that some people compare Bush to Adolf Hitler.

Here are a couple of quotes:

Bennish [Bush says] "It's our job to conquer the world and make sure they live just like we want them to," Bennish can apparently be heard saying on the tape. "Now I'm not saying that Bush and Hitler are exactly the same, obviously they're not, OK. But (there are) eerie similarities to the tones that they use."

The kid who recorded him: "He wanted us to question why a coke headed, alcoholic who's had all of his jobs have failed but one, and whose daddy bought him into office became the President of the United States," Allen said during the show.

Yes...please do question that!

Here's a link to the whole transcript of the lecture: http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004689.htm

Here's an audio link: http://secure.eonstreams.com/koa_am/GeoTeacher.mp3

I just finished reading the transcript. I think that I would have said everything that Bennish said, so I can't disagree with him. I thought that he hedged his statements as well as could be expected. I can't help but wonder how fair and balanced a similar lecture would have been from the father of the boy. In my experience, "fair and balanced" is usually applied to whoever does/says things in the way of the person judging whether it is "fair and balanced". It's very rare, perhaps impossible, to find an individual who can be truly impartial.

Bennish was providing an alternative perspective. Students need to learn that there is more to US History and foreign policy than what is presented in School House Rock and the news. If the students are paying any attention at all to the media and political banter in this day and age, they have probably already heard the administration's version of things.

Free speech, people! Free thoughts! Students should learn to be critical consumers of media, propaganda, and politics!

I'm concered abou the precident set by this. The recording and denouncing of teachers is problematic from the point of view of students who just want to be able to listen to the lecture later. Even when I was in high school, some teachers were skitish about having their lectures recorded, and they weren't saying anything controversial. (I've even read about people wanting college students to turn in college professors!)

Ultimately, I think the problem of this type of topic in the high school boils down to authority. Ideally, we'd want students to be able to listen to biased information and filter it to find the truth. However, this would mean telling them that the teacher isn't always right; something that I didn't realize until college. Telling them that the teacher isn't always right leads to authority problems, and with teachers being responsible for classes of 30 students (sometimes more, rarely less), the last thing that they want is even the chance of students not respecting their authority in any respect.

Why on earth would anyone be a historical linguist??? - or - Why would anyone pay anyone else to be a historical linguist?

Being a student of linguistics, but the child of a blue-collar worker and a psychologist, I am often torn between academics and practicality. Linguistics. Who cares? Especially historical linguistics (an interest of mine, but not my focus). Sure, it can be fun and interesting, but so can laying back on the grass watching clouds go by; no one wants to pony up any money to pay someone to do that!

Myself, I'm what's called an applied linguist. That means that we take the theoretical and make it practical. In particular, I am interested in Second Language Acquisition (SLA). My goal is to understand languages and the way that we learn them in a way that will help us find the most efficient and enjoyable ways to learn them. I can deal with that. It's got a practical application.

Other applied linguists work on such projects as language recognition programs for computers. They're the people who have you to thank for all those automated menus that let you talk and not just punch in numbers when you call in to customer service. (For better or for worse!)

Synchronic linguists work on mapping language in terms of syntax, morphology, phonology and other structural stuff. Said linguists try to establish models of language that applied linguists often make use of. So, OK, we can keep the synchronic linguists as useful, even though their work is primarily theoretical.

Then there are historical (diachronic) linguists. History of language. Did Latin American Spanish come from the dialect of Andaluz and do we care? I've struggled with the practicality of historical linguistics, but I've found a few reasons why they are worth while. First off, if you want to read historical documents, you need to be able to read the language that they were written in. That's pretty practical. Second, through historical linguistics, we can see what kinds of changes languages are capable of going through/producing and so we can use them to do a reality check on the work of synchronic linguistic models.

Another branch of linguistics also deserves mention. This is sociolinguistics. Sociolinguistics applies linguistics to real people and real situations. It looks at questions of social interaction. For example, a sociolinguist might deal with the question of which English speakers get subtitled (often the black guy and not the white guy, even if the black guy's dialect is equally understandable). Also, sociolinguists can look at linguistic politics. What's the deal with English Only? Is it a good idea? What are its motivations? What are its potential ramifications? This brings us back to applied linguistics in SLA. How well/quickly can one reasonably expect an immigrant to learn a new language?

So, yes, linguists do stuff outside of the theoretical realm that can justify a paycheck. I'm still working on finding a practical reason for Literary Studies, though.