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What funny/interesting thing happened in your life today?


Ultimate Steve

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2 hours ago, lolowl said:

 :cool:

And when all of your self-schooling is done, as long as you can pass or excel beyond the corporate metric required for the position you seek, you'll have done well. Otherwise... you've cut yourself seriously short and will be standing there wondering 'why?' as you're passed by.

You want to re-invent school?... but it's the sound established schooling and methods which have brought us this far and seen us excel. Refer to @adsii1970's comments above and elsewhere. Were you an educator, I believe you'd hold a different view, especially when faced with the results of which you've cultivated.

 

Sorry, but education is a very touchy subject here. :/ Nothing personal.

Edited by LordFerret
can't spell
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2 hours ago, lolowl said:

Changing the status quo takes time, but if my compatriots and I have anything to say about it "memorize this, fill in this multiple choice quiz, and follow the rubric OR ELSE" education is going DOWN.

Here's the thing. These types of questions, which I do use, are an important tool in measuring retention of information. But should never be the sole basis of an examination grade. In fact, I use them as "self tests" and have set them up on-line. Each lecture has a bank of 100 questions and each student is randomly given 25. It serves two purposes within my courses:

  • Serves to tell the student they either understand the materials presented in class or they need to pay closer attention.
  • Serves to show me how well students are retaining what is being taught in lectures.
2 hours ago, lolowl said:

For what it's worth, there is an invisible army of teachers and researchers out there -myself included- fighting to re-invent school so that it's less about "follow and obey" and more about giving students choices and allowing them to follow their interests.

I already do this to some extent. However, there is a core set of data that students must be able to comprehend before I let them go on tangents that interest them. For the 300 and 400 level classes, I pretty much let the students do their own thing since those are Junior and Senior level courses. But my 100 and 200 level courses, I cannot do that. I tried that three years ago with one course and it was a complete disaster - 1/2 of the class failed because of the excuse "I just can't get into history..." Lesson learned. In that course, the students who did produce work, their works were more rant and opinion than a statement of fact. But then again, that's how even the History Channel is going... the truth doesn't matter and facts are distorted to make historical villains under some alien influence...

The only way to improve post secondary education is to first improve the primary and secondary education systems...

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2 hours ago, lolowl said:

For what it's worth, there is an invisible army of teachers and researchers out there -myself included- fighting to re-invent school so that it's less about "follow and obey" and more about giving students choices and allowing them to follow their interests. (Quick summary here for those interested.)

Changing the status quo takes time, but if my compatriots and I have anything to say about it "memorize this, fill in this multiple choice quiz, and follow the rubric OR ELSE" education is going DOWN. :cool:

Which probably goes a long way towards explaining why 2/3 of Millennials don't know what Auschwitz was.

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2 hours ago, lolowl said:

Yup. My fellow historians and I are not sure whether to break out the popcorn or hide under the bed.

I took the liberty of taking a different approach. When Elon Musk and NASA were looking for volunteers for Mars colonization, I volunteered on BOTH sites and for BOTH prospective colonial programs. I'd prefer to watch Western Civilization collapse from the safety of a Mars colony. :D

2 hours ago, lolowl said:

There are a couple of analogies being tossed around, like The Fall of Rome and Berlin in the 1920s/30s (which Cabaret the stage musical and movie capture perfectly). But the widespread cynicism and willing self-destruction of today is without true precedent.

It will be far darker than the fall of Rome - and much worse than Berlin in the 1920s and 1930s. I think you could probably throw in Lenin and Stalin in on this too. At that point, you'll be at the stage I think we are heading into. What emerges will leave two classes of people in Western Civilization: the politico-social class and the modern day serf.

2 hours ago, lolowl said:

(gets off historian soapbox) 

I don't. I am an historian by trade. It is what I do and is what I am...

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I started working on a drawing that'll (hopefully) mimic a scene from LATT; one of my stories I'm writing for the forums (Check the link in my sig for more). Who knows... Maybe if it works out I'll try some more.

(Unfinished)

Ixf0waB.png

 

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4 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Keep it going a little longer. 

giphy.gif

unless you haven’t seen this movie and don’t get the reference. Then we’re all doomed. 

 

3 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

By Grabthar's Hammer, you shall be avenged!

It feels strange actually getting and understanding a reference on this forum

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I started the Friday the 13th listening to Ligeti's Requiem (ikr, creepy) at 00:00 am, i didn't even realize it untill i looked on the screen of my device. Anyways, i earned €20,- today, so i don't know what this whole 'bad luck' was all about.

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5 minutes ago, NSEP said:

i earned €20,- today, so i don't know what this whole 'bad luck' was all about.

Hey thats nice.

Then you learn you have to pay 40 euros for something completely unrelated tommorow :P

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1 hour ago, TheSaint said:

Which probably goes a long way towards explaining why 2/3 of Millennials don't know what Auschwitz was.

Well, the US and the rest of America wasn't the biggest victim of the *cough* event. So its somewhat understandable, but still very ignorant.

 

1 minute ago, qzgy said:

Hey thats nice.

Then you learn you have to pay 40 euros for something completely unrelated tommorow :P

*curb your enthusiasm theme plays*

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11 minutes ago, qzgy said:

Hey thats nice.

Then you learn you have to pay 40 euros for something completely unrelated tommorow :P

Maybe we should start a new forum game: give a curse to the user above you on their happy statement and then share your happy statement...

10 minutes ago, NSEP said:

Well, the US and the rest of America wasn't the biggest victim of the *cough* event. So its somewhat understandable, but still very ignorant.

No, it isn't understandable. Not in the least. Ignorance is never an excuse.

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1 hour ago, Ultimate Steve said:

By Grabthar's Hammer, you shall be avenged!

I certainly hope so. :/

I just got through dealing with a.... somewhat less encouraging member of the upcoming generation. Guy was absolutely incapable of managing a ball, a bicycle, and boarding the bus. Never got his bike on the rack right, the ball tried to make a break for it several times (possibly to commit seppuku in traffic), and he went 10 miles in the wrong direction after being repeatedly counseled, “dude, this will take you ten miles in the wrong direction.”

I should have asked if he had any Tide pods. I’ve got a stain on my shirt. Possibly from my own brain cells leaking out my nose from acute exposure to second-hand stupidity. 

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25 minutes ago, NSEP said:

Well, the US and the rest of America wasn't the biggest victim of the *cough* event. So its somewhat understandable, but still very ignorant.

13 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

No, it isn't understandable. Not in the least. Ignorance is never an excuse.

I agree with this statement. Especially when most of the entire world was involved, it seems like something that should show up at some point.

 

You know - I wonder if the average amount of stupid in the world (stupid per like 1000 heads or so) is increasing, or we just hear more about it.

Edited by qzgy
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6 minutes ago, qzgy said:

 

You know - I wonder if the average amount of stupid in the world (stupid per like 1000 heads or so) is increasing, or we just hear more about it.

It's probably both, and the fact that the less intelligent people now have the tools to communicate with people easier, and they have access to more things that shouldn't be used by them.

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Political discussions on this forum never end well, and you know we've had to rule the subject off-limits. Furthermore, discussions of politics and history are off-topic in a thread which is supposed to be about venting. For those reasons, a number of posts have been removed from this thread. 

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2 hours ago, NSEP said:

Speaking of millennials not knowing stuff, one 1/3rd of us apparently don't believe the Earth is round.

http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2018/04/05/millennials-flat-earth-survey/

Is this a new meme/gag for millennial haters to make them feel bad? I don't believe in these kind of things anymore.

What I know is that during my lifetime there will always be at least one person who believes Earth is a sphere.

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10 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

... a thread which is supposed to be about venting.

If ever there was a subject to vent about!!!

You guys crack me up. Really, you do. lol

 

This was just something funny that happened in my life today. :wink:

Edited by LordFerret
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