Brainwashing 101

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
81

[quote]nephorm wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
Teachers spend so much fucking time teaching for these tests that they ignore things that should be taught, and they ignore all kinds of creativity just to teach to these bastard tests that do not mean shit. Infuriates me.

It goes both ways… standardized testing is a reaction to the perceived indifference of many educators who are held to no objective standard of their performance as teachers.[/quote]

That is my take. Standardized tests are not perfect but without a measuring stick I suspect our schools would be worse.

82

[quote]nephorm wrote:
I’ve known quite a few liberals who were not big fans of the first amendment, particularly with regard to racial statements. Certainly, that isn’t classical liberalism. I’ve also known conservatives who are the same way, so don’t think I’m picking on anyone.[/quote]

Yes, that is the problem with labels, especially if you start using “black vs white” labels, like “conservative vs liberal”. That is why I prefer to call my beliefs as social-democrat, rather than just “liberal”.

However, I also believe that calling somebody that has any kind of problem with the first amendment a liberal, is deeply contradictory. But then again, I also find contradiction in Christian Conservatives, so I may be a pedantic, fundamentalist classical liberal… :slight_smile:

The real problem here is generalizations… If people weren’t so eager to generalize, labels wouldn’t even be necessary. Generalizations and labels go together to enable mindless group behavior, and that’s something I find very, very wrong, and try to fight against as much as I can.

83

[quote]hspder wrote:
nephorm wrote:
I’ve known quite a few liberals who were not big fans of the first amendment, particularly with regard to racial statements. Certainly, that isn’t classical liberalism. I’ve also known conservatives who are the same way, so don’t think I’m picking on anyone.

Yes, that is the problem with labels, especially if you start using “black vs white” labels, like “conservative vs liberal”. That is why I prefer to call my beliefs as social-democrat, rather than just “liberal”.

However, I also believe that calling somebody that has any kind of problem with the first amendment a liberal, is deeply contradictory. But then again, I also find contradiction in Christian Conservatives, so I may be a pedantic, fundamentalist classical liberal… :slight_smile:

The real problem here is generalizations… If people weren’t so eager to generalize, labels wouldn’t even be necessary. Generalizations and labels go together to enable mindless group behavior, and that’s something I find very, very wrong, and try to fight against as much as I can.

[/quote]

Agreed.

84

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
nephorm wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
Teachers spend so much fucking time teaching for these tests that they ignore things that should be taught, and they ignore all kinds of creativity just to teach to these bastard tests that do not mean shit. Infuriates me.

It goes both ways… standardized testing is a reaction to the perceived indifference of many educators who are held to no objective standard of their performance as teachers.

That is my take. Standardized tests are not perfect but without a measuring stick I suspect our schools would be worse. [/quote]

Maybe, but that doesn’t mean they are right or that they are not just another aspirin. There’s no way they are anything remotely close to a solution. Especially because they tend to lose effectiveness with time. Much like aspirin.

Also like aspirin, there are side-effects – the schools might be “worse” without them (all other things being equal), but you might be attacking creative, out-of-the-box thinkers at the same time you are attacking slackers. Standardized testing tends to benefit the “average” student, at the expense of the exceptional ones but the question is: is it better to benefit the average students OR the exceptional students?

Why do you think top-tier colleges are giving less and less weight to SATs? Simply because we have seen there is very little correlation between SAT scores and academic achievement in more demanding colleges.

Graduate schools are a little better – we mostly look at essays, interviews and recommendation letters, with test scores being close to insignificant. Even GPAs become less important. Much like in the “business world”.

Unfortunately looking at essays and recommendation letters doesn’t scale well and has its problems too (especially for foreign students). And it still benefits ass-kissers over talented people that pissed off the wrong guy/gal.

There’s no pain-killer that helps. We need to eliminate the virus.

We need to start working on the underlying problem, which is cultural. Yes, START working. Because I have yet to see any local, state or federal administration even START working on it.

85

[quote]hspder wrote:

The real problem here is generalizations… If people weren’t so eager to generalize, labels wouldn’t even be necessary. Generalizations and labels go together to enable mindless group behavior, and that’s something I find very, very wrong, and try to fight against as much as I can.

[/quote]

I’m against moralizing and voting based on group affiliation as much as the next guy, but I think labels are a combination of people’s inability to resolve complex issues and their inherent desire to create order out of disorder, so you might be fighting a bit of an uphill battle there. :slight_smile:

86

Don’t most of these great foreign school systems rely on standardized tests to determine who gets to advance within the school system?

Are there any of the countries that are doing better than us that gaurantee free education to everyone, even the lazy ass slackers?

87

[quote]hspder wrote:
Derock wrote:
Of course, even though I am not a liberal, it would be unfair to generalize all liberals as thinking or acting like how the video portrayed even if everything was as it seems.

This has been said before, but I’ll say it again: imposing your views on others is completely against liberal ideals. It is part of our core beliefs, as liberals, that everyone is entitled to their opinion and should be able to form it in their own time and circumstances – and is welcome to think differently from everybody else. In fact, we LIKE diversity of opinions. We thrive on it. Even if it means being fragmented as a group (which we are).

Accepting the point this video is trying to get across would be like accepting that all Christians act like the KKK. It’s as silly and absurd as that.
[/quote]

That is exactly what I meant. This video doesn’t show “liberals” are bad, it just shows the error that SOME liberals may have. I’m sure you could find plenty of stuff that would shame conservatives, but it would be completely unfair to generalize an entire group or set of beliefs based off the actions or beliefs of a few.

Especially when considering something as general as “conservative” or “liberal”. Very few people fit perfectly into one of 2 or one of 4 groups. I always try not to unfairly generalize or stereotype even though it could help my case because I know I hate when it is done to me. Both sides are guilty of this, and it leads to name calling rather than genuine arguement of the issues.

88

[quote]doogie wrote:
Don’t most of these great foreign school systems rely on standardized tests to determine who gets to advance within the school system?[/quote]

No, they don’t. Then again we might be looking at different countries, based on our personal definition of “great”. But even for the ones that do have standardized tests, different countries have different cultures and different problems to address. Their results show us it is possible to do better, but don’t necessarily provide a solution.

What I’m trying to say is: there is no panacea here.

89

[quote]Professor X wrote:
Was the film brainwashing? Once they went into why some schools removed flags, I lost interest. I would like to know if the issue was fear of being targeted by an attack. It appears that this question was not asked and it also appears as if they interviewed not one school for an explanation or interview. Is this the anti-F/911? If so, I didn’t watch that either.[/quote]

I would summarize the video as the left using undue pressure to suppress the right. And that it is incorrect or impolite to be too broad minded. The irony of the film it has reversed the roles exactly from the 60?s . The film was too long .

90

[quote]hspder wrote:
What I’m trying to say is: there is no panacea here.

[/quote]

Luckily, there are plenty of nostrums!

91

As a curent college student I have noticed many of the things that the video talks about. I try to stay neutral in many of the situations and I do consider myself mostly middle of the road with tendencies leaning toward conservatism but there definitely is a discrimination against conservative students at many many schools.

The administration of my college is definitely weighted significantly more to the left. Students who express oppinions from a conservative stand-point are often openly critisized for their beliefs by other students. This is seen as a good college atmosphere of divirsity and conflicting view-points by the administration. When the left wing expresses their view-points about a subject and are critisized by the conservatives, however, they better watch out. The administration will come down on them with an iron fist, often either putting them on probation or “asking” them to leave the school if the opposing group is a small enough minority. This has been noticed by many students and has been brought up in many discusions and meetings throughout the college as well as at the colleges and universities that many of friends attend. This would be where I agree with the video.

The issue of having professors that are very biased to the point of discriminating against their students is another matter. Though I have witnessed this at my school, especially involving anti-war protests it hasn’t seemed to be as big an issue in the grade area. There has been only one professor that I am aware of that would weight his grades based on political views. He had no problem dropping grades of students that were openly against socialist view-points. That is only one professor ,however, so it has never really been much of a problem.

The differnce of what is allowed on campus in the way of protests again shows the weight of the left on the college. Protests that are offensive seem to be be of no concern to the administration, such as a die-in for example. This, for people who don’t know, is when a group of students covers themselves in red paint to look like blood, puts signs on themselves for identification and then lays around pretending they have been killed. This was to protest the war in Iraq. I, along with a large number of other students, was greatly offended by this and found it absolutely disgusting. I have many friends that are in Iraq risking their lives every day, if not for my mother and my “partner” (girlfriend) I would be over there as well and I really don’t want to have to see that but that would never stop the administration from stopping the group from letting them do it.

The other side however is very different. There have been instances when anti-abortion groups have wanted to have protests but have been stopped by the administration because it might offend some people. I really don’t like these protests either but I think they should be allowed if the liberals are allowed to have the protests that they want. It again just shows how the school is weighted towards liberalism along with many other colleges and universities.

92

[quote]doogie wrote:
Don’t most of these great foreign school systems rely on standardized tests to determine who gets to advance within the school system?

Are there any of the countries that are doing better than us that gaurantee free education to everyone, even the lazy ass slackers?[/quote]

Back when I was in high school our German teacher always used to tell us that Germany split the kids into 3 different school systems.

Basically a high level school, a middle of the road school and then a vocational school.

I always supected that when American schools were compared to German schools they took the average American class which has a mix of smart kids and room temperature IQ cretins and compared it to the top level German school system.

Can anyone confirm or dispel this?

93

[quote]bigscarymonster wrote:
As a curent college student I have noticed many of the things that the video talks about. I try to stay neutral in many of the situations and I do consider myself mostly middle of the road with tendencies leaning toward conservatism but there definitely is a discrimination against conservative students at many many schools.[/quote]

If you’re not willing to fight it, how about you stop whining and find another college? If what you describe is true, why aren’t you doing something about it and supporting them with your tuition, and wasting your time there?

Even if you feel there’s no point in trying to fight it, the beauty of having competition is that you have alternatives and you can “vote” with your wallet.

So start applying for a transfer. Right now.

And while you wait for the transfer to come through, you should write the following quote on a large sign – or maybe on a T-Shirt – and walk around campus with it:

Freedom of expression is an essential process for advancing knowledge and discovering truth. An individual who seeks knowledge and truth must hear all sides of the question, consider all alternatives, test his judgment by exposing it to opposition, and make full use of different minds… -Emerson

94

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Back when I was in high school our German teacher always used to tell us that Germany split the kids into 3 different school systems.

Basically a high level school, a middle of the road school and then a vocational school.

I always suspected that when American schools were compared to German schools they took the average American class which has a mix of smart kids and room temperature IQ cretins and compared it to the top level German school system.
[/quote]

What the heck are you talking about? We have vocational schools and associate degrees here too, besides the 4-year (BS/BA) and Advanced Degrees (MS and PhD).

And nobody is comparing to “the top level German school system”. First of all, these are comparisons done at specific age levels, independently of where they are or going to – so you will be comparing against students that will go the vocational or associate route (or quit after High School) in both sides of the ocean. Secondly, none of the options is called “top level”. People decide based on the job they want to take, much like over here nurses usually go for an associate degree because there’s really very little point in going for a BS right off the bat.

95

If you’re not willing to fight it, how about you stop whining and find another college? If what you describe is true, why aren’t you doing something about it and supporting them with your tuition, and wasting your time there?

It’s an ongoing battle that has to be done tactfully. I don’t transfer out because the professors are amazing and I am at one of the better schools in the country. I wasn’t really trying to complain about it but more show that it is in fact true that institutions of higher learning are often sideing with liberals.

96

[quote]hspder wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Back when I was in high school our German teacher always used to tell us that Germany split the kids into 3 different school systems.

Basically a high level school, a middle of the road school and then a vocational school.

I always suspected that when American schools were compared to German schools they took the average American class which has a mix of smart kids and room temperature IQ cretins and compared it to the top level German school system.

What the heck are you talking about? We have vocational schools and associate degrees here too, besides the 4-year (BS/BA) and Advanced Degrees (MS and PhD).

And nobody is comparing to “the top level German school system”. First of all, these are comparisons done at specific age levels, independently of where they are or going to – so you will be comparing against students that will go the vocational or associate route (or quit after High School) in both sides of the ocean. Secondly, none of the options is called “top level”. People decide based on the job they want to take, much like over here nurses usually go for an associate degree because there’s really very little point in going for a BS right off the bat.
[/quote]

The German schools system splits the kids up well before college. I am not sure if the split them up just for high school or if they do it in middle school.

Most public school systems in America that I am familiar with have a Vo-Tech that is mixed with the high school. For example they go to English Class, Math Class and then get on a bus and go to Vo-Tech. They are in the same school system as the average kids and the brainiacs.

Germany does (or did) split them completely. So if Germany hands a standardized test to the brainiac school they will do much better than the American school that has the brainiacs, the average kids, the Vo-Tech kids, the burnouts and the mentally handicapped that are being “mainstreamed”.

I would love to hear from the German contingent to see if Germany still does this or if my high school German teacher was on crack.

97

Japan:

http://www.ed.gov/pubs/JapanCaseStudy/chapter1a.html

High School Education

Public education at the high school (ko to kyo iku) level is neither compulsory nor free. However, each prefecture or municipal district maintains publicly funded high schools that offer relatively low-cost education. The vast majority of the Japanese public and private high schools are 3-year institutions. In addition, there are also “night schools,” correspondence courses, and nationally funded 5-year high schools, but these constitute a relatively small percentage (less than 5 percent) of overall enrollment. In 1992 about 75 percent of students were enrolled in academic courses and 25 percent in vocational courses (Monbusho, 1993). Although there is no restriction on vocational school graduates applying to college, few make the attempt. Vocational courses do not offer the rigorous preparation necessary for the college entrance exam.

Virtually all high schools admit students using scores based upon the high school entrance examination scores. However, different prefectures may place different emphasis on test scores and on grades. Shimizu and Tokuda (1991) note that in Hyogo prefecture, student grades and character reports (naishinsho) account for 50 percent of material weighted in the selection process. In the last few years, the use of “recommended admissions” (suisen nyu gaku) has also increased.

In 1992 there were over 5.2 million high school students in Japan and about 70 percent of them attended public high schools. In 1992, over 32 percent of high school graduates continued on to college or junior college, 30 percent went to one of the various specialty schools, about 32 percent found employment, and roughly 5 percent were unemployed or not in school (Monbusho, 1993). The percentage of students who drop out of high school is generally low (about 2 percent), but this figure varies considerably by type of school. Students in the night schools had a dropout rate of over 15 percent as compared with only about 1 percent for academic high schools (Monbusho, 1993).

High school periods, like those in junior high school, last 50 minutes and the school year is scheduled for 1,190 hours. As in junior high school, extra classes are commonly provided by academic high schools, but vocational schools rarely organize such classes. Clubs and other extra-curricular activities also consume a good deal of the students’ time. Students in vocational schools tend to take part-time jobs during the year, and most of these students enter the workplace upon graduation.

98

India:

http://ignca.nic.in/cd_06021.htm

and

Private schools in India

In much of India, the schooling (school in India always means an institution giving education to children in their Kindergarten and/or all or some classes from Class I to Class XII) offered by the state governments, which would technically come under the category of Public schools, often have sub-standard education and educational facilities. They are Federal or State funded and have zero or very minimal fees, usually in the vernacular medium (though English is taught as a compulsory language). Such schools’ students are usually from the poor and the lower middle classes.

The other category of schools are those run and partly funded by private individuals, private organizations and religious groups, especially by the Christian Missionaries. The standard and the quality of education is quite high, and so are the faculty and the facilities. A moderate tuition (and other) fee is paid by the student’s parents?ranging from UD$ 50 to much more per quarter (this is not very less as compared to the Indian standards of living). Technically these would be categorized as private schools, but many of them have the name Public School appended to them, e.g., the Delhi Public School. Most of the middle class families send their children to such schools, which might be in their own city or far off (like Boarding schools). The medium of education is English, but as a compulsory subject, Hindi and/or the state’s official langauge are also taught. There are also many private universities (mostly having opened up recently) where the fees are much more hefty, and yet the standard of education poorer than most Government Universities.

These situations are more or less the same in the other countries of the Indian subcontinent (South Asia).

99

Germany:

http://www.germany-info.org/relaunch/culture/life/G_Kids/@school.htm

The school system in Germany is very different from that in the United States. Every child attends Grundschule (elementary school) from first through fourth grades. After the fourth grade, children, their parents and their teachers choose the track the children will pursue for their schooling. Almost half go to Gymnasium (college preparatory school) for grades 5 to 13 (one year longer than high schools in the U.S.). Children who do not attend Gymnasium go either to Realschule or Hauptschule.

The Hauptschule (secondary general school) gives students a basic general education as well as vocational orientation to ease the transition from school to working life. The secondary general school certificate awarded at the end of five or six years opens the door to occupations in many trades and industries, for which formal training is required.

The Realschule (intermediate school) is positioned between the Hauptschule and Gymnasium. As a rule, it extends through grade 10, and offers business subjects in addition to the regular curriculum. A diploma from the Realschule qualifies students to continue their education at upper-level schools or vocationally oriented upper secondary schools. Gymnasium students often go to a foreign country as exchange students in grade 11. The U.S. and the U.K. are two popular choices.

100

South Korea:

Education experts say that South Korea’s public secondary-school system is foundering, while private education is thriving. According to critics, the country’s high schools are almost uniformly mediocre?the result of an egalitarian government education policy. With the number of elite schools strictly controlled by the government, even the brightest students typically have to settle for ordinary schools in their neighborhoods, where the curriculum is centered on average students. To make up for the mediocrity, zealous parents send their kids to the pricey cram schools.