opening up

Posts Tagged ‘scary’

“I’ve never before had the chance to apply my knowledge in pursuit of a real-world solution.”

In edumication, narrative on 14 December 2007 tagged education, education-reform, found, hands-on, hands-on-learning, mit, scary, school, schooling with no comments

I found this class survey in an empty classroom at MIT:

School is a pretty seriously screwed up place. Someone 17+ wrote that. They’ve never had the chance to use their knowledge in a real-world situation. Obviously (presumably?), they’re overstating the case. But even the fact that they feel this way is [...]

overheard in front of 100 memorial dr.

In economics, narrative on 5 December 2007 tagged 100-memorial-dr, coffee-spoons, economics, finance, greed, materialism, overheard, scary with no comments

Heard from a person talking into a cellphone. Emphasis hers.

G: He wants to become a high-powered hedge fund manager. That’s what everyone wants to do.

angry and disempowered

In edumication on 2 December 2007 tagged assessment, australia, beau-abela, coffee-spoons, education, scary, schooling, sue with no comments

As a timely follow-up on my recent post about the language we use in talking about education, I found two, disturbing stories today:

Angry Students Riot in China – This story in The Chronicle of Higher Education covers recent riots by students in China from the Hefei People’s Liberation Army Artillery Academy. The riots began [...]

opportunity : obligation :: right : responsibility :: privilege : duty

In economics, edumication, essays on 1 December 2007 tagged activism, education, education-reform, fixing-things, hell-in-a-handbasket, language, opportunity, philosophy, policy, power, privilege, reform, responsibility, scary, schooling with no comments

I’m going to constrain the meanings of these words for this post. People bandy them about, but there are some essential differences that call for their distinction.
Opportunities are the chance to do something, the chance at something. Rights are guarantees that are (morally or ethically) inviolable. Privilege are opportunities accorded by virtue [...]

precise language and thinking well

In slush on 19 November 2007 tagged arthur-krystal, barzun, coffee-spoons, culture, empiricism, jacques-barzun, krystal, new-yorker, scary with no comments

In pretty nice retrospective1 of Jacques Barzun, Arthur Krystal2 wrote something that leapt out at me:

In fact, when I broached the possibility that his precise way of formulating ideas and strict attention to empirical evidence are distinctive qualities of the civilization that he saw disintegrate before his eyes, his response was gently quizzical. “Why must [...]

sometimes, the analogy between brain and computer is a little bit scary

In technology on 8 October 2007 tagged scary with no comments

Apparently, some Japanese scientists have found that installing a heat sink in an epileptic’s brain can reduce the intensity and frequency of seizures. The idea is that abnormal activity brings more bloodflow to the area, overheating the brain and making it prone to more abnormal activity.
Is the assumption that the higher the temperature of [...]

“the primary way americans express creativity is through buying things”

In economics on 30 September 2007 tagged coffee-spoons, hell-in-a-handbasket, scary with no comments

Or so said a friend of Nagle’s. He pointed out that Americans are often not only obsessed with things, but with the process of buying them. Being a “good shopper,” or “going shopping” are ideas that are significant independent of what is being bought. I’m not quite sure how this dovetails with the [...]