Another thread from The Teacher's Corner

[Elfy]

|55555| Wrote:I used pics of notepad to finish my post.

Lol she said on her own post "this is a lengthy post" xD

I enjoyed reading strats post you completely blew the hell out of her ;D

[John Tuttle]

|55555| Wrote:I used pics of notepad to finish my post.

I just read your whole post. It was one big pile of awsomeness.

[SoulRiser]

Niiice post.

Actually, ... an adapted version of that would make a great article, you know, without the specific stuff aimed at the teacher and such.

[Michio-kun]

I can rewrite later.

[SoulRiser]

If you don't mind, that is? It is pretty long. But also pretty awesome.

[Michio-kun]

Link them to this vid 55555

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlRv7Ky7bgE

[Sunbourn]

I will if one replys, which with ownage like that is doubtful.

[NiteRaidah]

|55555| Wrote:I will if one replys, which with ownage like that is doubtful.

You know full well that they're just going to write you off as some immature punk without even reading the post.

[mudkip liek]

Stratovarius, I think I respect you so much more right now.

[Michio-kun]

Quote:Oh - I'm sorry. Somehow I bought into the apparent illusion that people are capable of making their own decisions. But as 55555 CLEARLY shows, all of our actions are controlled by external factors - environment, genetics... God... take your pick.

*eyeroll*

That was a response to my post. I don't even understand this. What is this person referring to?

Also, I love how the sarcasm is dripping from this post when the person just... completely missed the point. And on a side note, actually I think that the individual is the final arbiter of their decisions, but the environment does have a role in your actions as well.

But I mean... wtf, my post went right over this "teacher's" head apparently. Her comment wasn't even relevant. lol

[Sunbourn]

Stratovarius Wrote:

Quote:Oh - I'm sorry. Somehow I bought into the apparent illusion that people are capable of making their own decisions. But as 55555 CLEARLY shows, all of our actions are controlled by external factors - environment, genetics... God... take your pick.

*eyeroll*

That was a response to my post. I don't even understand this. What is this person referring to?

Also, I love how the sarcasm is dripping from this post when the person just... completely missed the point. And on a side note, actually I think that the individual is the final arbiter of their decisions, but the environment does have a role in your actions as well.

But I mean... wtf, my post went right over this "teacher's" head apparently. Her comment wasn't even relevant. lol

So what do you want me to reply to that with?

[Michio-kun]

Just say:

I don't even understand this. What are you referring to? And on a side note, actually I think that the individual is the final arbiter of their decisions, but the environment does have a role in your actions as well.

Still, it was as if you decided to ignore everything else I said and now you're just grabbing at straw to save face.

Try again.

[magikarp]

Strat: I think it was this section, and especially the bolded part.

Quote:I wonder why? You put a mentally healthy, curious, inventive, thoughtful child aged 5 into a school building and you psychologically damage them for at least a decade in what is fundamentally a prison.

The next time you go to work, look around you if you're in a middle school or a high school. You see those kids "acting up"? You see all the bad behavior happening around you? None of that is normal. None of it. Even the worst behaved kids that get into fights, go binge drinking on the weekend, shoot cocaine using an insulin syringe they share with their friend, swear at their teachers and parents etc... They are the product of that ugly hand made up of the commodified and meaningless society around them, their broken parents, their confused and disheveled teachers, the 22,000 TV advertisements they that view by the time they reach age 18 and more horrific things.

Inside these broken kids is a compassionate and intelligent human being ready to unleash everything they're worth onto humanity. And why don't they do it? Well, all the behaviors I just listed above is a kind of rebellion against something they hate which they may not even realize. Over time, this behavior will entirely replace their identity. It is a slow death of a human being and the most heinous crime that society decides to commit in the background to 100s of millions of people.

I disagree that you implied what she said you did, though.

Edit:

Quote:Suffer the consequences.

I really hate when people say that phrase in certain contexts. Often it implies that if a student is punished, fairly or not, it's their own fault since they chose to do something that they knew they would be punished for doing. The problem is that the teacher chooses to punish them, so the punishment is more a consequence of the teacher's action than the students. Of course, it's important to anticipate the consequences of your actions, but that doesn't always mean that those consequences are your fault, or that you shouldn't do something because it will have negative consquences. An action would only be wrong because it will be punished if the goal is to avoid punishment (woo, pre-conventional morality).

I am responsible for my actions, but I am not necessarily responsible for their consequences because the outcome is usually dependent on my decisions, others' decisions, and external factors that can't always be predicted.

Quote:You choose to be creative and find alternatives.

I agree, although I'd bet she has a relatively narrow definition of what counts as an acceptable alternative.

Quote:Turnabout is fair play. You don't care about school, don't expect it to care about you.

I disagree--if it's wrong to do something, it's still wrong when the person you were going to do it to angers or upsets you.

Also, the school system really doesn't follow that rule. In my experience, if a student is apathetic, the school system is hostile in response. According to what Boxcar said, if the student basically ignores his teachers and schoolwork, the teachers should just ignore him in return. However, even if the student is hostile, I think hostility towards a system and hostility towards a person aren't quite the same.

Overall, I actually like some of the idea's in the post. I just think that Boxcar is speaking about it in a narrower context than is appropriate by limiting the (hypothetical) choices of a student to either making an effort to do well at school or doing nothing. From my point of view, "choose to be creative and find alternatives," sometimes means "drop out."

Quote:Oh - I'm sorry. Somehow I bought into the apparent illusion that people are capable of making their own decisions. But as 55555 CLEARLY shows, all of our actions are controlled by external factors - environment, genetics... God... take your pick.

I don't think Strat actually said or even implied this. The idea that environment influences our decisions does not mean that it controls them.

As a side note, it's somewhat inconceivable to me that our choices are not on some level determined by factors which we can't control. (Obviously, this doesn't mean it's not true, and I'm not trying to argue that it isn't.) I can choose to do what I want, but why do I want what I do? Well, that's probably a combination of personality and situation. Personality, as far as I know, is partially determined by genetics and partially by environment. I guess it's a bit more complicated than that, but every factor in a decision that I've thought of so far can eventually be reduced to environment or genetics. Still, I can choose A or B, even if which one I will choose is determined by things that I can't control. *has confused herself*

[Michio-kun]

Ah okay. Well then in that case, my contention is that they would not be like that, if they had grown up in a different environment. There's plenty of neurological research that shows the environment does play a big role in who you are ... I hope they're not going to make me go and cite some.

But that isn't to say I don't think people are capable of making their own decisions. It's hard to judge what actions are the result of mostly your own will, and what actions are mostly the result of your environment.

[Sunbourn]

Oh hai The teacher that replyed had this in her my websites thing there.
http://uncomfortableadventures.blogspot.com/
Who's up for a trolling/spamming?

[Michio-kun]

Quote:Clix
is - student, wife, Christian, teacher, daughter, yankee, bibliophile - progressive in some ways, orthodox in others.

Oh lawd, she makes it too easy...

[John Tuttle]

|55555| Wrote:Oh hai The teacher that replyed had this in her my websites thing there.
http://uncomfortableadventures.blogspot.com/
Who's up for a trolling/spamming?

ME!!!

[Sunbourn]

I'm currently commenting now. If yall want to help with the spam do it.

[Elfy]

Rofl DickNipples.

[Sunbourn]

I'm done.

[Sunbourn]

Now what?

Quote:There are no implied messages in my post. It is what it is at face.

Your summary of my post shows miscommunication.

We do have choices.

I never took a position on the benefits or drawbacks of school or its current mnaifestation.

I idd state that a studnet has choices: pass vs. fail and drop-out vs. graduate.

With these, as with all choices, come consequences.

A willingness to accept these results is evidence of being able to truly make one's own decisions.

Whining that society or whomever is to blame is not productive. It is also unrealistic.

A person who can reflect on his/her own self can identify and counteract external influences.

An person who is cognitively able to say "I'm doing drugs because society screwed me up." is justifying. That person should be able to have a backbone and rise above the forces supposedly crushing independance. Otherwise, that person is only choosing to submit. Upon making that choice, there is no one to blame but oneself.

Addictions and self-injurious behaviors are terribly hard to obercome, but the first step is facing hard truths.

Those who complain about a system but make no move to propose a solution become little more than noise.

I'll have to post a second installment late. Time constraits and all that prevent a long posting.
Let me leave off with this: You are entiled to your opinion. I don't expect you to ever agree with me. I am only sharing my own perspective. Having an opinion is one of the many choces we do have.

[Elfy]

|55555| Wrote:Now what?

Quote:There are no implied messages in my post. It is what it is at face.

Your summary of my post shows miscommunication.

We do have choices.

I never took a position on the benefits or drawbacks of school or its current mnaifestation.

I idd state that a studnet has choices: pass vs. fail and drop-out vs. graduate.

With these, as with all choices, come consequences.

A willingness to accept these results is evidence of being able to truly make one's own decisions.

Whining that society or whomever is to blame is not productive. It is also unrealistic.

A person who can reflect on his/her own self can identify and counteract external influences.

An person who is cognitively able to say "I'm doing drugs because society screwed me up." is justifying. That person should be able to have a backbone and rise above the forces supposedly crushing independance. Otherwise, that person is only choosing to submit. Upon making that choice, there is no one to blame but oneself.

Addictions and self-injurious behaviors are terribly hard to obercome, but the first step is facing hard truths.

Those who complain about a system but make no move to propose a solution become little more than noise.

I'll have to post a second installment late. Time constraits and all that prevent a long posting.
Let me leave off with this: You are entiled to your opinion. I don't expect you to ever agree with me. I am only sharing my own perspective. Having an opinion is one of the many choces we do have.

We need strat to come wow us again :o

[Michio-kun]

I'm sure we all could have predicted this would turn into a "You're a whiny kid." argument. You can't really argue with this unfortunately.

---

I had trouble understanding some of your post, can you proofread next time?

Quote:There are no implied messages in my post. It is what it is at face.

Nah, there was definitely more there than what was at face. Just because you didn't intend for it, doesn't mean it's not there.

Quote:We do have choices.

See, I don't understand this. You keep talking about "choices". But you keep attaching a negative connotation to those choices which lie outside the accepted social norm. In other words, just because someone isn't doing something that the general society around them would view as "normal", "successful" etc., then fundamentally, it is something bad that comes with various "consequences".

Quote:I idd state that a studnet has choices: pass vs. fail and drop-out vs. graduate.

I love these common dichotomies that are often made, and they are often unfortunately made by teachers. I love how you made a X vs. Y choice here. You keep telling this to a child and that child's mind is going to block out grand ideas, uncommon insight, curiosity, creativity, and they'll just be that much closer to turning into another mindless drone for the economy.

That's ultimately what it comes down to right? Schools have always provided a nice way of creating efficient workers for the State. It's a way of creating competition within the economy between the worker and the employer. Those who choose to play the game (no matter how banal it is), will be able to compete for different employers using that meaningless piece of paper they received from X university. The employers themselves will screen workers and pick the ones that they know will turn out to be efficient workers that will create profit. To be honest, degrees and credentials are a type of currency and they are traded in the market just like dollars, euros, and yen.

In terms of actually living a meaningful life, none of these things have any intrinsic value. Like I said in my previous post, there are more ways than these false dichotomies you set up.

I'm sure you know about Rosa Parks right? Someone probably told her, "You can either sit in the back of the bus, or you can get off the bus." But she chose an option that nobody said was available to her. True, she did have consequences (she was arrested). But look what that did for herself.

In the same way, people can choose to leave the system or perhaps find a way to partially exist within it (have their cake and eat it too). Perhaps they will suffer all sorts of consequences but if they're finding their identity in this universe and eating out of a garbage dumpster, they've already got a more fulfilling life than that 40-year old ant in an office cubicle with that uninspiring marriage, kids that hate him, and dreams that were lost when he became a cog in the machine.

Quote:A willingness to accept these results is evidence of being able to truly make one's own decisions.

Whining that society or whomever is to blame is not productive. It is also unrealistic.

A person who can reflect on his/her own self can identify and counteract external influences...

...Addictions and self-injurious behaviors are terribly hard to obercome, but the first step is facing hard truths.

Do you have any idea how naive you sound? I'm sorry, but this is insulting.

I have a friend who is luckily still alive. He's 28 years old and he's been in and out of a phD program for biology and is one of the smartest guys I know. He used to teach lower undergraduates and apparently his students adore him. He often relapses into depression and he's talked to me about his suicide problem and also a lot about his parents who were both physically abusive to him when he was young. He's been through all the therapy a million times and I try to convince him he's worth something but guess what? His environment really messed him up. Despite being able to fully conceptualize the problem and identify the underlying the source of his problems, it's still extremely hard even for a man like him. His parents' attitude toward him is burned in the back of his brain.

He would be considered a mild case compared to what some people have to go through. I know that people like you and me have lived a relatively mild life and fortunately have never had to live in the ghetto. I assumed you've lived a relatively comfortable life, otherwise you wouldn't be saying these things. And no, having a hard day at work and putting up with snotty kids or being out of work temporarily doesn't count. Not even close.

Your attitude that unfortunately many carry does not motivate honest victims' of their environment to make themselves better. The tone in your words is condemning and it makes me a little disgusted to be honest. You're supposed to be a teacher, and I hope you aren't telling any of these things to your kids.

Quote:Those who complain about a system but make no move to propose a solution become little more than noise.

More uninspiring, insulting tripe. I condemn school and "the system" all the time. Once my life attains a little more stability, expect me when I start conspiring with children to commit civil disobedience in order to spread a message. Hey you know what? Maybe I'll write a book later that will be the ultimate guide to what school really is, why it's horrible, how a child can remove themselves from it, things they can do to start spreading their own propaganda/civil disobedience (defying their teachers/administration peacefully), how they can get a job, what learning is really about, what growing up is not about, give them inspiration that there is a full life out there for them...Man, I'm getting excited just thinking about it. I could really change someone's life ya know?

Contact me in 10 years and let's see if that statement holds up again.

Quote:Let me leave off with this: You are entiled to your opinion. I don't expect you to ever agree with me. I am only sharing my own perspective. Having an opinion is one of the many choces we do have.

Don't try to pull this rhetoric on me. You attempted to bring down my message by equating my political, philosophical opinions etc. with matters of "taste" such as your favorite ice cream flavor.

Sure, you've got opinions, but expect as much criticism as humanly possible when you state them, especially if you're going to color your opinions with insulting condescension and naivety.

Edit: I corrected some typos @ 7:51 PM CST. Change your post on the other forum if you copypasta before that.

[Sunbourn]

Wow. They deleted the epicly long post. Censorship.

[Michio-kun]

|55555| Wrote:Wow. They deleted the epicly long post. Censorship.

Well I'm not sure what to say to that... I like how they probably didn't even back up the post or anything when that took me forever to compose. If they don't repost it or have it saved or something, I'm going to have some strong words for them.

[monkey]

oh fuck them.

so they dont know how to answer so they delete it...

real mature...

[SoulRiser]

Normal moderators on normal forums normally delete anything that might be interpreted as something intended to start an argument or 'flame war'... this may include anything that challenges people's little safety bubbles as well.

It's pretty sad, really.

That was an awesome post.

[Michio-kun]

They could have had the courtesy, as human beings and not moderators, to at least back up the post or warn the other person before deleting it. It did take me around an hour and a half to come up with those words. -___-

I hate watering down my feelings/opinions. I do think they are stupid. Not ignorant or something like that, but stupid. And some of them are probably bad teachers with those sorts of opinions. Sure, they're ageist and narrow-minded, but that falls under stupid for me ... in the same way that if today, you were to say, "Lol. Niggers need to stay in Africa." I would call you stupid and racist. But mostly stupid.

[aaaaaaasd]

Nazi-like censoring of a decent arguement anyone?

[Michio-kun]

Quote:I'd like to point out that not all dichotomies are false. *shrug* That's all.

This is true.

At boxcar:

Well okay, you can only go so far with "reading in between the lines" understandably. I'll stop. I really like literature and I've read a ton of Chekhov's short stories and of course, the author isn't going to come out and say, "Here is the theme."

I guess what I was trying to say (in that specific part of my original posts) was that there are shades of grey. You are affected by your environment, but that level varies and you have to judge on a case-by-case basis because there's so many different situations.

I still contest in general that the culture we live in is mostly damaging and I don't see how you can argue that a child is not brainwashed if you're pounding meaningless messages into their head from kindergarten through graduation. "Go to college.", "You need a job.", "You live in the best country in the world.", "You have to do all this work, just because I said so." We're teaching our kids to be brainless, uninventive slaves. Not only that but we hold their hand through everything. Everything in this culture from marriage, to education has been commodified. Everything is bought and sold as a commodity within the economy.

I made a mistake in my previous post. Actually, by the time an American reaches the age of 18, they have watched 22,000 hours of television and 750,000 TV and print advertisements. I wonder how much the average American has read by the time they've reached 18? It's got to be a scary figure. Tell me with a straight face this has minimal effect on how one eventually conducts their life.

When I say that education has become a commodity I mean, children have this nonsense idea pounded into their head that the only thing that matters in life is being "successful" which ultimately amounts to high status (as judged by the general society around them) or high wealth. You need to work hard in school to get good grades so you can go to a good college so you can take that stupid piece of paper to an employer and secure yourself as a cog in the machine. All the while everyone is commending you on your "success" when nothing actually human is going on in this. In all honesty, our lives have been commodified.

I'm sure you've heard of the term "McDonaldization". It's that feeling that travelers get when they're in a foreign country. They realize that different parts of the world aren't that much different. The reason is because of the way our culture has been shaped by the impetus of economic forces of mass culture, mass consumption, mass production... There isn't even really a "western world" or an "eastern world" anymore. It's just one machine that goods that flow from the producer to the consumer. That's it. No mention of meaningful human moments.

My main contention is that ultimately school is just an arm of economic forces. It has nothing to do with education or learning or nurturing. The entire school system up to the university acts as a sieve for sorting workers and shipping them off to employers to produce for the economy. A big reason why public schooling is still mandatory is that it's become almost necessary for the economy. It's our backbone. Parents need somewhere to put their kids when they go off to work right? The kids need someway to eventually become a cog like their parents right?

Has nothing to do with anything meaningful and human. School is just another form of job slothing. I don't care how you dress it up.

On a personal level, I chose not to go through with it. I don't care about school. And ya, I actually feel proud of myself for quitting and I knew there would be consequences and I was prepared to meet them. It's only been several months since I quit, but when I finally distance myself from, mostly my father, I really think I'm going to have a generally interesting and more fulfilling life than if I just went with the crowd. And yes, this is a kind of rebellion against it and I will continue rebelling.

Hah. Some people call me young and naive for saying that, but I can point to plenty of people 3 times my age who think just like I'm thinking right now. Also, all I have to do is point my finger right back at them and ask, "How many times have you simply went with the crowd instead of following what you honestly would rather do?" If there's a will, there's a way. <<< Eternal words.

Quote:How is it that you can say my opinions are about ice cream, but your ideas are great revelations?

I explained this wrong. I was trying to say not all opinions are created equally. There are matters of judgment (will Mccain or Obama be a better president, does God exist, what's the best way to schedule my classes) and then there's matters of taste (my favorite color is blue). Often people will try to pull this "you've got your opinion and I've got mine" to cop out of an argument. Some opinions are better than others. That's all.