Vacuum Knowledge

[Guest]

I finished reading Aldous Huxley's Island and one part stuck out to me. In the schools of the utopian island of Pala, they teach ecology in elementary school so that the children won't think that anything exists "in a vacuum" i.e. on it's own.

One thing that has bothered me for a while is that no history is taught in any class other than history class. In science we are told the mathematical equations and the concepts, but never who, why, and how. It makes the teachings a vacuum so that it can't be easily connected to other fields. I know that Isaac Newton found some laws of motion, but he didn't make them all. What about Hamiltonian Mechanics? One of the most fascinating things about biology is the symbiosis of cells and mitochondria and plastids. A mitochondrion or plastid is actually an "invader" of the cell and has it's own DNA. All I have been told in my class is that mitochondria and plastids make energy among a few smaller tasks. By not showing how these were figured out, students are being misled. The tests done in science classes have little likeness to non-academic tests. We are not even taught the true scientific method!

This is also a problem with ethics. Many egotistical jeks think "all men are islands". That's true in some ways. I prefer mine, "All men are islands. The ocean connects us all." These people believe that they can just do whatever they want and it won't hurt them. If they were taught the interconnectedness of everything, they might realize that what hurts others will also hurt us.

[SoulRiser]

that's a good way of putting it.

one small improvement schools could do right now is abolish history as a subject, but include it with all the other subjects. it'd be a lot more interesting that way

[Midnight Narwhal]

[WildFire]

dude

[youvebeenthunderstruck]

i don't necessarily agree with the ocean that connects us ALL, for the sole reason some people are just idiots and not worth my time to bother with them. i will not hurt them physically or mentally on purpose, i will simply tell the truth. but apart from that, the ocean connects tons. and there are so many ideologies to be found in the oceans, or the pathways, which connect some of the islands. in any case, your analogy is a lot better than the mere "all men are islands" kind of thing. possibly whoever came up with that meant it in a more broad sense. but of course taken superficially, ie not caring about anybody else, is absolutely false.

oh my god. this is turning into a philosophy forum... aren't we supposed to be punk teenagers? quick, have to do something... uh...

SCHOOL SUCKS! DOWN WITH SCHOOL! FIGHT THE MAN! ANARCHY! etc

[Guest]

I'm all for fighting the man, I'm an anarchist you-know, but I need justifications. I'm not going to fight for something I cannot defend.