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SP Greenlaw
Torrington, CT
Left libertarian free thinker. Lover of music and literature. Adores a good footnote.
Recent Activity
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SP commented on the article |Bill Gates and other wealthy philanthropists look good when they show up with a band-aid to help dress the world's wounds, but they are often the ones who cause the injuries in the first place through their buisiness practices. This article had what seems to me to be a fairly accurate portrayal:
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2574/ -
SP commented on the article |
Deeply beautiful stuff. Do you know if the Oratorio is going to be released on cd? I would love to have a copy. I'll have it snuggle up close to atheist Verdi's Messa da Requiem.
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SP signed the petition | -
SP commented on the article |Good post. There is a compelling argument though that, literature gave birth to human rights in European culture. http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2002/april17/hunt-417.html Honestly, I don't know whether or not it's true, but I know that I at least would be a significantly worse person if I didn't read fiction, and I say that as someone who reads a lot of non-fiction as well. Most of my ethical development has come from reading novels, and I'd imagine that this is true for others too.
Perhaps a TV show, or any sort of story telling technique, is capable of this. I don't know. I find literature to be far better at getting into the heads of characters, exploring their pasts and their motivations, though, and I think that definitely has a great deal to do with developing a fair moral "calculus" that values egalitarianism and justice. -
SP commented on the article |At first I thought that the Intelligent Design schills might learn their lesson from the Dover Trial. Obviously that hope was unfounded. Texas is definitely something to worry about. It scares me that people who have such a seriously flawed understanding of science could be making decisions about what children learn. Especially scary is that because of their hold over Texas, these fools can implicate schools nationwide, simply because of the profit motive.
My own state is fairly good when it comes to not shoving mythology and bad science down the throats of students, at least I haven't seen much saying otherwise, but I'll see what I can do to help. -
SP commented on the article |Eric and any others who find the post or picture innapropriate,
You say you want to get past the negative and work towards a brighter future. Well, so do I. Actually, I want one where education, of high quality and suited to the students participating it, is freely available, not one where teachers teach to standardised tests modeled after some corporation's views on what makes a successful school. I want a future where my country's young people aren't blowing up the young people of other countries in order to enforce whatever economic or political model we see fit. I want a future where companies are not given blank checks while our communities can't fund art programs, and where our working people aren't shoved out of their homes and onto the street.
In short: the future I want is the exact opposite of the present we have. Unless we try to learn from the current mess and pick it apart and see how it (doesn't) work, unless we condemn it, and unless we mock those who instituted it, so as to remove their power and their regality, how the heck are we going to bring about real change? We can't avoid making the same grave mistakes unless we know what they are.
Don't be concern trolls. If you disagree, make some good, well reasoned points. Legitimate criticsms are fine, and I know that Clay encourages them; saying that a picture mocking a war criminal, merely by displaying that war criminal's own actions, is innapropriate seems to be pretty weak.
I reccomend that everyone sits down with a big bowl of popcorn and watches Duck Soup. -
SP commented on the article |I'm not sure I like the idea. I fear it might be trivializing. I mean, sure, you can play the sweatshop game for a day, but after class these are students who will go home back to their normal lives, and can distract themselves with such thoughts while they "work". And you can't hit them. You can't make them come into the sweatshop hungry, desperate, futureless, and truly afraid. As for simulating life with an STD, or life as an undocumented student, or homelessness... Well, that is probably going to be extremely uncomfortable for the students who do live under those conditions, wouldn't you think?
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SP commented on the article |I recently found this list of free web tools; some of them look good, while some are old standbys. I think quite a bit of it (worksheets, books, and visual/audio resources) could probably chip away at the amount of supplemental stuff teachers have to order from text book publishers. http://www.smartteaching.org/blog/2008/08/100-awesome-free-web-tools-for-elementary-teachers/
And, for a free replacement for presentation software, like powerpoint, that students can access from any computer connected to the internet, check out 280 Slides. http://280slides.com/ It's still in beta, but it does a great job for the price. -
SP commented on the article |Integrating technology, to allow students who can best share and learn through different mediums, is great. So is giving them the ability to take active control of their education. I loved that students wrote their own text book, and incorporated video, audio, and visuals as well as the usual written word. I've noticed it's something that the text book publishers have been trying to do, what with multimedia cds and dvds shipping with texts, but it comes off as half-assed; they simply don't get it. And, of course, it's always better when the students take charge.
I wonder though, if teachers start incorporating choices between podcast assignments, essays, collages, etc., will it just devolve back into, well, assignments and reports to the authoritative figure (the teachers) like the essay is now? I mean, my greatest communication tool is the written word, and yet I still hated most assignments, because I wasn't able to focus on subjects that were interesting and meaningful to me. I guess that might be unavoidable when you work with prescribed schedules with core curriculum and GPAs, but it seems a shame. It is as if one were handing a student the gift of their own beautiful voice, but then demanding they use it to regurgitate back the same the same old sucky songs.
Any thoughts on how to give students more control over what information they are learning, not just how they interact with it, within a NCLB era public school? Is real bottom up education, real student driven learning possible within the system? If not, how close do you think we can get at the local classroom level, before radically rewriting federal or state guidelines?
Short version: How much power is it possible to grant a student when it comes to deciding what they will study, pace, and level of specificity from within the current system? -
SP signed the petition |
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Deep Roots Animal Sanctuary1 Action 0 Recruits -
Matthew Shepard Foundation0 Actions 0 Recruits -
American Museum of Natural History0 Actions 0 Recruits -
THURSDAY FOOD NOT BOMBS OF SACRAMENTO0 Actions 0 Recruits -
The Humane Society of The United States0 Actions 0 Recruits
