Skinner’s classic article is reinterpreted in light of contemporary events. Skinner principally blamed cognitive psychology for the shameful state of American education. This paper asserts it is the philosophy of progressive education and its dominant influence over how teachers are trained are largely the cause of American educational ineffectiveness. The authors analyze progressive education and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) using organizational, metacontingency, and macrocontingency analysis. The authors support NCLB’s and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act’s (IDEA) emphasis on science-based pedagogy as a step in the right direction.

This was interesting for me to read. I'm not an expert in the field, but it's of great interest to me.

I found myself disagreeing with, at least, the tone of this article, as it is extremely combative. I'm likewise uncomfortable with the application of the term "progressive" with negative connotations. This may be a well understood usage in this discipline, so I won't get hung up on it, but certainly many of the derision of "progressives" issued herein do not fit well with my notions of modern *political* progressivism.

I should also note that my experiences as a student don't bear out their claims. There's a segment in which the authors state that by 1990 the US was virtually overrun by the kind of terrible education they excoriate (e.g. experience learning and so forth). I was 12 in 1990 and do not recall this being the mode in which I was instructed, in general. I had good teachers and bad teachers and subjects I liked and others that I didn't, but I absolutely had standards to achieve. Perhaps NY was one of the "good" states back then.

My overall reaction is that I'm disinclined to support the kind of hyper standardized and impersonal provisions of NCLB, but certainly don't support education that's largely divorced from notions of measurement. I also sympathize with the potential for NCLB to eviscerate public education in favor of privatization (a line of thinking the authors essentially dismiss as paranoiac and absurd), which isn't really something I support.

I think a hybrid must be achieved that makes use of foundational education combined with a more free-form application / experiential component. This is briefly mentioned, but not exactly championed by these authors. I also see a problematic trend in proponents of highly structured systems like NCLB to treat all subject areas the same way. There are ways to measure competency in English, just as there are for Mathematics and the sciences, but they're not the same ways.

Finally, I think it's quite simplistic -- in fact, it's dishonest in the extreme -- to lay all of the problems of modern education at the feet of "progressive education," even if such methods were contributory. One cannot have a serious discussion on the matter without including some analysis of the political and social culture during the same time frames. The political right has led a systematic attack on the scientific method for years, even as these authors try to claim that some stripe of progressivism has been responsible for the death of experimentalism and scientific, results oriented pedagogy.

This is a topic I wish to learn a great deal more about. I think it's among the most crucial issues we can put our minds and hands to.

“The Shame of American Education” Redux

Chambers said the lawsuit was triggered by a federal suit filed against a judge who recently barred words such as 'rape' and 'victim' from a sexual assault trial.

The accuser in the criminal case, Tory Bowen, sued Lancaster District Judge Jeffre Cheuvront, claiming that he violated her free speech rights.

Chambers said Bowen's lawsuit is inappropriate because the Nebraska Supreme Court has already considered the case and federal courts follow the decisions of state supreme courts on state matters.

I'n not a lawyer and not intimately familiar with these cases, but just from what I've gleaned in the article, I think this Bowen woman has a point, at least, if not a case, and Chambers is being an asshole.

Also, no explanation is given for how a free speech complaint is a "state matter", which I'm curious about.

All legal details aside, I think it's pretty ridiculous for a judge to bar "words such as 'rape' and 'victim' from a sexual assault trial". Until someone can explain a good reason for this (there may be one), I'm gonna conclude that the district judge, the Nebraska Supreme Court and State Sen. Chambers are a bunch of jackasses, at the very least.

Senator Sues God!!!

The New York Times will stop charging for access to parts of its Web site, effective at midnight Tuesday night.

w00t!

Now i can actually read all those memed articles i want to check out.

-k

Times to Stop Charging for Parts of Its Web Site - New York Times

Sums up my concerns rather well.

"No, no, really, we've almost got it! Just another 6 months and we'll be in good shape..."

McCain on Iraq.

If the case for staying depended on extrapolating from the modest gains the general claims for his surge, it would be a weak one. The strong case is that if America leaves, things will get even worse. This can only be a guess, but it is more plausible than the alternative guess that America's going will nudge Iraq in the right direction.

I shall expect everyone who claimed that a positive Petreus report would serve as proof we should stay to shut the fuck up and realize that they really believed the second case -- that we should stay regardless -- all along.

I don't at all believe that leaving will "nudge Iraq in the right direction" or even that things will continue to remain simply Hellish. I suspect our departure will make things worse. I simply also suspect that our staying will make things worse, in a lot of ways, not least of which is the effect on the US.

So where are we? Exactly where I fucking predicted we would be.

The Petreus report is, by most accounts I trust (the Economist among them), a spin laden crock of shit, and his testimony characterized less by honest examination than predictable political posturing by every single one of his questioners (to their extreme fucking shame, if they had any).

So here we are. Nothing's been proved. Nothing's changed. You either think we can make a difference in Iraq, or you think we should keep going, as penance, regardless of whether we can make a difference, or you think it's all cocked up beyond repair and staying is only prolonging the inevitable.

I remain in the latter camp, by a small margin. I simply don't see the point of prolonging this.

The Iraq war | Why they should stay | Economist.com

ROFLMAO! Someone actually shows some creativity on cable TV, Emmy gives them an award for it, then turns around and censors them! The irony is simply delicious.

[ Agreed, this is great stuff. Between Kathy Griffin and Dick in a Box winning, them being forced to hamstring their broadcast to figure out how to handle that is really something.

Death to old media! -k]

Griffin's 'offensive' Emmy speech to be censored - CNN.com

SEPTEMBER 11--A black West Virginia woman was sexually assaulted, stabbed, and tortured while being held captive by her white abductors, one of whom told her, "That's what we do to niggers around here."

Fuck it, kill 'em all. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Go straight to the chair.

Six Held In West Virginia Torture Horror - September 11, 2007

In honor of A Wrinkle in Time author Madeleine L'Engle (who died last week), physicist David Morgan explains tesseracts (aka a "four dimensional cube")

Aw, I didn't know about this... I loved those books.

Peace ML'E.

A four-dimensional tribute to the late Madeleine L'Engle (Video) - Boing Boing

xkcd computes the soft deck...

xkcd - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language - By Randall Munroe

Adapted from Johan Sundstr�m's flags of the world exhibit, with images from famfamfam.com. Here is the Exhibit JSON data file.

Using Exhibit, you can make this map with just the few simple files you see in this directory. Could you have built the same map with as little effort using anything else?

Neat, for a number of reasons....

-k

SIMILE | Exhibit | Flags of the World