Linkstew

Top US universities, plotted on 2004 Election red/blue map

Brilliant!

Microsoft to design city high school

While I'm irritated that Microsoft gets to do this, and I hope it's not so wildly successful that every school wants to be a Microsoft school, I am intrigued by the possibilities of such pervasively integrated technology in education and will be curious to see how this turns out.

Ingredients for taking a final at UC Berkeley:

• Pencil (1)
• Scantron form (1)
• Copy of test (face down until they say so) (1)
• All Notes and Study Materials put away (0)
• Hearst Gymnasium For Women (1)
• Watch, because it took me three years to learn that Heast Gymnasium For Women doesn't have clocks (or when it does, it's a broken clock) (1)
• Horribly Worn Chair with a Sagging Butt, putting my knees on level with my ribs (1)
• Rickety old Table which, when I'm sitting in said chair, hits me in the middle of the chest (1/3)
• Mirrors lining the walls around me (because the test is being administered in a room that's also apparently used for fencing or ballet or something) making me feel vaguely uneasy (infinite)

Here we have a "talk" about The Lies Your Professor Told You. Well, that's what it's called. That's not really what it's about.

First of all, the piece has two major flaws: It doesn't cite any references at all, and while it had a good point, it chose to argue that point by using very controversial exmamples. If you just skim the article, you'll probably get caught up in his examples and ignore his main point, and you'll end up agreeing with him if you agree with his stance on those controversial issues, or you'll disagree with him for any other reason.

The main thing he's attempting to show with the piece is that higher education isn't politically diverse, and a majority of the teachers are liberals. In and of itself, that's a fine thing to bring attention to.

Unfortunately, this guy did several things wrong. First of all, it was implicit in his talk that "so many liberals are bad, therefore we need less of them, and that will be better." That won't be better. It will just introduce another set of lies into the system. Second, he did nothing to address why there are so many liberals in education. I don't have an answer for that, but it's definately something that should have been examined. Finally, he didn't offer a solution to his problem.

In other words, this talk is very anti-liberal, and it points out a problem, but it does it in a very negative way and it doesn't talk about why the problem exists or what can be done about it. (He implied that "less liberals" should be the solution, but that doesn't count as "talking about a solution," because part of talking about a solution is talking about why it will be an effective solution.)

What should be the solution is that school should teach students how to be disciminating consumers of ideas, so that when faced with pieces like this, they can make up their own mind about his arguments. Learning isn't about the facts, because facts change. Learning is about thinking, and thinking intelligently.

So it's an interesting read presenting the side that I don't usually listen to. It does a mind good to take other opinions into consideration from time to time.