Posts by Scott Chris
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Hard News: Higgs Live!, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Ha! Very clever. Reminds me of Monty Burns singing See My Vest
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Hard News: Higgs Live!, in reply to Bart Janssen,
And there are folks in science who are very good at presenting their data.
Easier to present data on the supposed benefits of drinking red wine than, say, the feeding habits of Powelliphanta Augusta.
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Regarding the near certain discovery of the Higgs boson – little known fact:
Texan farmer Jethro Nedreck claims that he was the first to discover it back in the 1950s when he cross-bred one of his hogs with a bison.
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Hard News: Higgs Live!, in reply to Hilary Stace,
I don’t care what anyone else thinks, but I am still quite keen on the idea of cold fusion.
Substantial progress has been made in this field albeit under the guise of the rebranded initialism LENR. Nasa scientists, no less have been trumpeting recent breakthroughs:
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Hard News: Who'd have thought?, in reply to linger,
As Tom says, this is not a philosophy of education, but a philosophy of management into which the word “educational” has been shoehorned.
I disagree. Philosophy:
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with reality, existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument.
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next
Although I should have been more specific. I’m not talking about pedagogical methodology or ‘zones of optimal development', I’m talking about being able to measure the effectiveness of whatever practice is being used. How do you know a child is being ’educated’ if you don’t define what that education is and how that child is performing relative to that definition. First things first.
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Hard News: Who'd have thought?, in reply to Tom Semmens,
And funnily enough it was uttered by a man gifted with much greater wisdom and insight into education than you.
And your point in saying that is?
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Hard News: Who'd have thought?, in reply to Rob Stowell,
Most folks at the Ministry I encountered weren't delighted with National Standards, and worked on rolling them out with an apologetic air.
Could be part of the problem. I like the idea because it is compatible with my philosophy of education which is, in a nutshell, setting clear educational aims and expectations and measuring the level of attainment relative to those stated aims and expectations. Makes assessment and evaluation of performance so much easier on a broad scale as well as an individual scale.
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John Key’s government did. They rode it as a campaign slogan in 2008, shoved it through under urgency within weeks of taking office, refused to allow a trial, bullied schools and their boards into doing their bidding, ignored most expert advice and came up with something that barely relates to the existing, carefully-developed curriculum. Who’d have thought there’d be a problem?d
Not sure that that is a fair criticism. Key and his ministers have to have some degree of faith in those who are delegated the responsibility of developing and implementing the Standards and maybe that faith was a little misplaced. I still maintain that the idea is good even if the execution leaves something to be desired. And it is really a work in progress – or a trial if you like.
Also - since when has significant structural change been popular or smooth?
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OnPoint: Pants != Journalism, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
And given the tone of some of the commentary on-line
Yeah the comments on Farrar’s blog were predictably lecherous and misogynistic, due in part I think to the right’s deep-seated mistrust of the perceived liberal bias in the news media. So much for traditional values eh?
Maybe an element of jealousy as well. (but not me of course ;))
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Is that muumuu in disguise? Or he really was draped in bovine hide?
I stand corrected – I meant the other one, not the udder one. (I see Hilary Stace beat me to the punchline anyway)