"JohnH" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 19 Dec 2005 21:54:16 GMT, "Doug Kanter"
wrote:


"Shortwave Sportfishing" wrote in message
. ..
On Mon, 19 Dec 2005 21:08:05 GMT, "Doug Kanter"
wrote:


"Shortwave Sportfishing" wrote in message
m...
On Mon, 19 Dec 2005 15:28:45 -0500, DSK wrote:

And it has nothing to do with political bias.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4501646.stm


JohnH wrote:
You may be right, but I think you lean left:

You "think" anybody who doesn't drool themselves to sleep at
night over a picture of President Bush holding hands with
Jesus is leaning to the left.


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,150663,00.html


Interesting article, thanks for the link... definitely gets
the point across about the health issues... but was this
covered on their TV news? Or does this further prove my
point that the best info is to be had by *reading*?

Funny you should mention this Doug. The other day, I was commenting on
an image on a photography group I have frequented for a long time and
used some imagery from mythology, in particular Campbell's "Thousand
Faces" to make my point. Nobody knew the reference or ever understood
it for that matter.

I have noticed more and more that the broad based reading you would
think "artists" would be doing isn't being done and that if you make a
literary reference, it's usually met with stone silence - unless the
reader is around my age (60 +/-).

I have often thought that one reason that we have the political
problems we have is that not enough people are well read enough or
spend their time reading that which is understandable to them, rather
than stretching their imaginations and intellects to at least try and
attain another level of enlightenment.

Later,

Tom

I wonder if what you're talking about has been caused, in part, by the
internet, and the ease of plagiarising such things as written material
for
college assignments.

Two years ago, a friend of mine taught a college course in research
methods
at SUNY Binghamton. The school apparently has a system in place for
spotting
plagiarized writing by the students, who must submit their work as
computer
documents. My friend found that 5 out of 20 of the seniors in the course
had
swiped some or all of their writing off the web. And, their
bibliographies
listed books which did not exist in the school's library. Sort of
interesting, considering it was a course in research methods.

To make matters worse, a few of the students' work was unintelligible -
the
kids could not write to save their lives. How they got past 15-20
professors
in years 1 through 3 was a complete mystery.

Anyway, some of these people never cracked a book.

I can believe it. Locally, we have a pretty good technical college,
but all the good professors are leaving or retiring. The new ones
they are being replaced with are results of the 80's era educational
process and are marginal. When I sub for the math instructors, I'm
constantly amazed at how little information they are imparting to
their students - it's almost as if they are teaching by rote or, worse
yet, don't understand the material they are presenting.

Not to brag, but I had a recent week long term sub assignment and the
kids were begging the administration for a new math teacher - me. I
know the material inside out and can present it properly and actually
answer questions about the mysteries they face.

I don't know that all means, but it's got to be significant in some
way.

Your students are not alone in their desire. Last year, my son and some of
his AP math class pals decided that the teacher was awful, compared to
those
they'd had in the past. These kids would stay after school for extra help,
and the teacher was unable to explain things any better than during the
class. So, they created a petition to bring to the principal. The
principal
wasn't too keen on that method of changing things, but even so, a couple
of
days later, it was as if somebody had stuck new batteries into that
teacher.


A few phone calls from parents can work wonders!
--
John H

I guess, but I thought it was pretty cool what the kids did. These were all
high achievers, too. They were basically saying they liked the difficult
course work, but wanted the help that would "always be available", according
to the nice speech from the principal at the beginning of the year.

On the other hand, my son's balanced enough to know when a teacher's trying
hard, but isn't quite cutting it. That's the deal with his AP physics
teacher now. The guy's 2 years out of college and he doesn't know enough
tricks for explaining things. The kids like him, but the whole class got 60s
on the first exam, and they were appalled.

I ended up spending 3 weeks on the phone looking for a tutor, at my son's
request. I ended up getting him with a physics professor from the Rochester
Institute of Technology. The guy's web page says he's interested in "Plasma
Surface Modification of Polymers (polyimide, Teflon) to Enhance Adhesion
with Vacuum Deposited (sputtering, evaporation) Metals (copper)". (WHAT???)
But, he offered to tutor my son, for free, with the understanding that he
pass along the knowledge to another kid in the future, if the opportunity
arose. The prof's actually enjoying it - he hadn't taught things like
conservation of energy in quite some time.