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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rambi who wrote (78253)	10/23/2003 12:44:14 PM
From: epicure	Respond to of 82486

I totally agree with you. The teaching of subject matter, like English (for example:-) will help with all those "awareness" issues. An educated informed teen is much better able to handle the world, than a teen who has been attending silly rallies. Does that mean education is perfect? No. Nothing is. But the best prophylactic for dangerous situations is intelligence, education, and the confidence to use the intelligence and education that one has. IMO one way we gain education and confidence is by stretching our minds in really good classes. Rallies do not stretch the mind. Slogans do not stretch the mind. I'm biased in favor of education, real honest to goodness education, because I see is change my students while they are with me. I see them happy. I see them smile when they come up with some great way of seeing a poem in a fresh way. I see them gain a voice to speak with, where before they didn't contribute. All these things, imo, make a person more robust in the face of danger. Rallies are a simple minded solution, and I'm not sure they even do any good.

To: Rambi who wrote (78253)	10/23/2003 2:42:12 PM
From: epicure	Respond to of 82486

A literary aside- I was so lucky to be able to buy the complete set of Anthony Powell's books- the 12 novels comprising the 4 movements of A Dance to the Music of Time. It has been compared to Proust (I love Proust) in its completeness, but is much funnier. I give you some of the billions of glowing reviews (ah well, a teeny bit of overstatement- allowed, I think, when you consider the greatness of the work). Maybe we could all read it, or a bit of it, and talk about it? I'm so thrilled to have gotten it (and at such a bargain, I won't tell you what I paid, you'd go all green). C. David Benson The most sophisticated chronicle of modern life we have. -- New Republic Elizabeth Janeway A book which creates a world and explores it in depth, which ponders challenging relationships and values, which creates brilliantly living and diverse characters and then watches them grow and change in their milieu. . . .Powell's world is as large and complex as Proust's. -- The New York Times Arthur Schlesinger "A series of intertwining stories, in mood at once hilarious, raffish and melancholy....The reader who likes to watch history unfold as social comedy while he savors the astringent of the best English prose is urged to immerse himself in the works and this astute and enchanting writing." --Life Magazine Bernard Bergonzi "A comic masterpiece, and a major achievement in post-war English fiction." --The Guardian Elizabeth Janeway "A book which creates a world and explores it in depth, which creates brilliantly living and diverse characters and then watches them grow and change.....Powel's world is as large and complex as Proust's." --New York Times Naomi Bliven "One of the most important works of fiction since the second world war....a vastly entertaining, deeply melancholy, yet somehow courageous statement about human experience." --The New Yorker Christopher Porterfield "The way in which Powell invests the whole of the book with parallels, variations and ironic reversals of this legend is wonderously rich and subtle." --Time here is a link to Vol 1- enjoy: search.barnesandnoble.com

To: Rambi who wrote (78253)	10/24/2003 12:11:26 AM
From: The Philosopher	Respond to of 82486

This sort of thing is what is turning more and more parents to home schooling. Not just for religious reasons, but because there is so much social stuff in the school curricula that, as you note, the academics are getting squeezed out (as the arts and music largely have been already in many schools). And in many states, including outs, the heavy emphasis on standardized testing, and the need to teach to the test, means that material that isn't on the test, no matter how academically valuable, just isn't taught at all. Our school, for example, has dropped all languages except Spanish. That's your choice -- Spanish, Spanish, or Spanish. I'm already looking forward to the possibility, when they arrive, of homeschooling my grandchildren. I can only see things getting worse. So I've started amassing materials on homeschooling, including a wonderful book titled "The Well Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home." There are lots of arguments I have with it, but they're the right kind of arguments to have, if that makes sense. I can't say what will happen eventually, but twenty years ago I would never even have considered home schooling as an option, and today I think it makes a lot more sense than subjecting children to contemporary schooling. Sad, but that's the way it's going, rapidly.