Ruminator - I taught in the public high school for 34 years. I attended countless conferences on education. One of the things I vividly remember is the following information:
guess what percentage of current American jobs actually require and use more than the four basic mathematic computations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) and require working knowledge of higher mathematics like the trig you mention?
The answer is under 5%.
Guess what percentage of Americans have an accurate balance in their personal checkbook at any point in time?
Under 25%. And consider that all you need to perform that task is the four basic arithmetic skills.
So why are we wasting the time of 95% of students teaching them things that have no practical application to their lives?
You’re proving my point. The govt does not teach them that math.
Just because trig is on the standard curriculum, and just because the students gathered in a govt funded classroom copying trig formulas from a teacher paid by taxes does not mean they were “educated” in trigonometry.
That’s because “govt teaching trigonometry” does not equal “education in trigonometry!” Generalize that statement and it says that “govt education” does not equal “education.”
Anyways, I agree that 95% shouldn’t bother with trig in high school.
Even if you set aside mathematics and just look at reading & writing skills, you’ll see that most high school graduates read at an 8th grade level. That is also proof that “govt education” does not equal “education”.
Perhaps. Christian nations sometimes do, but alas! sometimes don’t. Are you suggesting a divine power possessed by Reason that is denied to Faith? Why? Does the divine power of St. Ayn erase human frailty?
Reminds me of Thermidorian radicals of the French Revolution, who decided to pull down religious symbols and replace them with icons to the Goodess Reason. Apparently, the French had yet to discover post-modernist irony… Thank our lucky stars they had already invented oral sex!
Not since 1966, when I truly believed. I got better.
Ruminator… do not assume that just because students cannot later do trig on standardized state or national tests that they did not learn it when it was taught in the classroom. As a teacher, I can teach students all sorts of things which they can learn and pass on a unit test. And then, just like most of us, they dump it from their memory banks because they feel it has no immediate application that requires them to retain it. That is true regardless if it is a government school, a private school or a home school. That is simply the way human beings are.
AFAICT, you already nailed it: “Hell, No, We Won’t Go Because Its Not In Our Enlightened Self-interest To Do So!”
Isn’t the divine power in question what you’d referenced when noting that, if you “get your sorry ass killed, well, you most likely will not benefit, even if your side wins. The citizens of Randesia will benefit, of course, and you have the happy pride of knowing you have sacrificed for the greater good…oh, wait, no, that won’t quite work, will it? And if you get all shot up and crippled, turned out in the streets of Galtberg to beg, well, you’re in deep kim chee, no?”
I haven’t offered you any insult, XT, and least not intentionally. Why do you feel compelled to fling poo? Your arguments aren’t that weak!
Hmmm. Upon reflection, you’ve convinced me, yes, they really are that weak. I mean, bringing in Stalin and Pol Pot, like they were somehow relevant, yes, clearly, that was the last gasp of your reason. I take it back, fling away. I understand.
You miss the point. I realize that could also happen with home schooling. The key here is that true learning (or true education) happens willingly. The student must have intrinsic motivation to actually learn (and retain) the material and the teacher muster have motivation to teach it. It requires voluntary effort on both sides – this is what Ayn Rand was emphasizing.
You have a loose definition of “taught.” If the students can’t apply it later, they were never “taught.”
If the students just passed the unit test, then all the teacher has done is train a bunch of chimpanzees for a semester.
A teacher could make me memorize 100 Russian words to pass a unit test next week. Ok, I do that and then forget the words next year. Was I “taught” Russian? No, because I had no real reason to learn it.
(I’m not saying the teacher is to blame for this.)
I agree.
This is why REAL education can take place without govt education.
And NO education can happen in spite of govt education.
Take those 2 truths together and the result is “govt education” does not equal “education.”
Any Rand believed real education is SO IMPORTANT that it would still take place without govt organized schools. If you look at it this way, her position on public schooling is not so strange.
Oh I thought you were trying to imply that folks who assumed that human nature would inevitably lead the application of Rand’s philosophy to the far reaches of avarice were saying more about their own inclinations towards avarice.
Yep, and now you understand the problem some people have with her.
I am not a philosopher but I have read a little bit of John Rawls and I find his views on justice a decent framework for morality (or at least for a just society and I guess I am just assuming that a just society is probably a moral society). The way that most people apply Objectivism is very very subjective.
For example, today is Veteran’s Day. We remember and honor people for their sacrifice to this country. In some cases, their sacrifice leads to suffering by their own family for the sake of the safety of people they have never even met. Is it immoral because these men and women have made sacrifices that are not in their self interest. It matters not that they did so voluntarily. Ayn Rand’s morality does is not merely about people having choices. her Morality dictated that specific choices be made. A choice to follow the mystics of religion and socialism was immoral while a choice to follow the “mind” was moral. So When a citizen decides that they will risk their life and expose their family to pain and suffering for the sake of people who they have never met, wouldn’t that be immoral according to Rand?
Wait a minute didn’t she think wealth redistribution was immoral. Doesn’t (almost?) every government redistribute wealth through taxing and spending?
By paying taxes isn’t she making herself other people’s slave. Isn’t THAT immoral according to Rand? Rand was about more than free choice and non-coercion IIRC, there were some choices you could make that were immoral even if you were harming noone. One of those immoral choices was to “enslave” yourself to the welfare of others.
Yeah but he was anti-tax. That might have been enough to take the bad taste out of her mouth.
I trust that you are not a trained teacher and have never held the job professionally?
Your statements are so obviously wrong that they border on the absurd.
Your implied definition of TAUGHT bears no resemblance to anything in reality and how things really work in the real world. Your reference of human beings as “chimpanzees” is insulting and ridiculous.
What are your educational qualifications to make such statements? What expertise do you have in this area?
You were taught.
You learned.
You made a deliberate decision to then unlearn what you were taught.
Of course. Because that is the choice we must make today. Henry Paulson or Stalin. There is no middle ground where society has some value without subjugating the human spirit.
If Ran’d philosophy was “I hate Stalin and genocide” then I think I would be an objectivist too. But, that is not what Rand says (at least not in Atlas Shrugged).
Perhaps she had more to say before and after Atlas Shrugged but that is not what we are talking about here. We are talking about the philosophy espoused in Atlas Shrugged. I am focusing on the Galt Manifesto from the last 10 pages because that seems to be whee the ideas are most explicitly laid out.
Well, I think Goldman Sachs does a lot more than loot the economy, I used to work for them. They are responsible for some of the innovations that have made our global economy possible. Pound for pound, the people that work there have probably created more wealth than any other large organization in the world. The people that work there are invariably smart, hard working and focused on making money. We need firms like Goldman Sachs, what we don’t need is a nation full of people with the mentality you see there.
Well said. But therein lies the basic problem. You have to look at the real world and real people and real problems in a very unreal way for her ideology to not look so strange. If you evaluate her ideology by the standards of reality, then it is strange indeed.
Of course, perhaps that is one reason why so many libertarians worship at her altar. New terminology, unique specially crafted definitions, twisted logic, unlearning what you thought was true and learning a whole new set of definitions and meanings, throwing out your old assumptions and learning new axioms which cannot be proven…its all part and parcel of libertarianism and getting you to look at their ideology in their own peculiar way.
Not at all. the “pompous ass” - to use your characterization - would be one like yourself who was taught, did learn, and then made a intentional choice to chuck it all and unlearn what they were taught. that is not the fault of the school, the government, the teacher or anyone else but you. Take responsibility for your own willful ignorance resulting from your own willful decisions and choices.
I had thought that libertarians and followers of rand were suppose to be big on accepting responsibility for their own decisions and actions?
Make it ‘I hate communism and all it stands for, including the whole genocide thingy’ and, well, that pretty much IS Rand’s position. Her philosophy is deliberately in opposition to communism and the communist ideals she saw happening in Russia (first hand) and throughout Europe during her day…and saw as an insidious disease creeping into even America. Even Galt’s speech is a denial of the principals and underlying philosophy of communism…if you don’t get that then, well, you aren’t tracking on this stuff at all.
I know I sound like a broken record here, but seriously…read the book(s) before getting into this discussion. Don’t read one long speech in one book and assume you understand what the author is getting at. Be like reading one passage in the New Testiment and thinking you were a theological scholar.
The thing is, you probably won’t like the book(s), even if you take the trouble to read through them carefully. A lot of people (many obviously in this thread) don’t, and don’t like or believe in her underlying philosophy. That’s fine. I’ve read a lot of works I didn’t like, or didn’t believe in the underpinnings of their philosophy…but if I want to have a meaningful discussion with someone about them I need to actually sit down and READ the things, cover to cover, and wrap my mind around what they are getting at. Otherwise I need to stay out of these kinds of discussions, or just lurk and learn.
West of Eastasia, north of Freedonia. Borders on Insaynia. I’d tell you more but my cat is having a very severe hairball attack, keeps going “Ehe! Ehe!”, the poor dear. There, there, Furburger, it’ll be all right…
No no, I was talking about education paid for with money that the government stole from Peter to educate Paul’s children. How does John Galt feel about that? I mean does Galt really care if the money stolen from Peter actually help Paul’s children or does it say, you cannot steal from Peter to educate Paul’s children?
Yeah yeah, I’ve heard this parable before and if we were all George Washington and had a cousin like his then the world would work fine without public education but given that this is not the case, how does Galt feel about stealling your money to educate someone else’s children?
Once again, does Galt really care that the money I stole from you is being put to good use or not?
I’m not trying to turn this into a debate about public education, I’m trying to figure out if I can steal your money to pay for the education of strangers.
The answer form several posters who defend Ayn Rand seems to be “no you can’t, its stealing”