Category: Teaching

Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity

copyright © 2010 Betsy L. Angert.  Empathy And Education; BeThink or  BeThink.org

“The principle goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done – men who are creative, inventive and discoverers”

~ Jean Piaget [Swiss Psychologist. Pioneer in the study of child intelligence. 1896-1980]

“The purpose of education is to enable us to develop to the fullest that which is inside us”

~ Norman Cousins [Essayist, Editor associated with Saturday Evening Post 1912-1990]

“America’s noble experiment, universal education for all” may have become but an idealized theory.  In practice it long seemed the impossible dream. However, for the hopeful this statement was a reverie, although the veracity was virtually unrecognizable at best. Still the notion lived on.  The powerful prose marveled many. That is all but believers in a for-profit privatized educational system. Today, corporate aficionados have conquered.  Commerce controls School District Administrators. It shapes decisions made. Countless elementary and secondary school campuses are transformed in accordance.  Big business buys and sells city classrooms.  Our forefathers would have thought present-day headlines could only appear in fictional accounts.  Nonetheless banners blare, “This Class Is Brought to You By. [fill in the corporate enterprise of your choice]”  

This is the time of the year that I get creative in the kitchen, and almost all of what I prepare is given away to friends and family.  I had hoped to be ready to ship tomorrow, but I got behind and will have to ship Tuesday.  Perhaps too late for Christmas, but certainly not for the rest of the holiday season.

I vary my menu year to year, but a couple of things are standard.  One is Lizzies, a sort of fruit cookie that is reminiscent of fruit cake, except Lizzies are good.  Another is chocolate fudge, with black walnuts.  Both of these were always around during my childhood, because my mum loved everything about Christmas and was an excellent cook.

  On December 18, 1904, seven men left for Ottawa. Their objective: to win the Stanley Cup.

 However, the interesting part of this story isn’t the ice hockey game. That was rather anti-climatic compared to what led up to the match itself.

Those of you who read this column know that from time to time I write about TeeVee adverts.  It seems as if some of the worst ones come out during the holiday season, many but not all connected with extracting money from you for gifts.

Before we get going on these new ones, please remember back a couple of months when I wrote about the Tide laundry detergent advert that featured the daughter asking her mum if the mum had seen her green shirt.  The mum thought back to wearing it and stained it with food.  Then she lied to her daughter saying, “Honey, that’s not my style”.  This advert has been modified and now the mum says nothing to the daughter about it.  I consider this a small victory for decency in advertising, and credit this column with at least a bit of influence.  Thank everyone for the support.

One of the more revolutionary innovations in lighting is the Light Emitting Diode, or LED.  This cutting edge technology was first discovered 103 years ago!  However, only comparatively recently have LEDs been either efficient or cheap enough for wide use.

LEDs operate just like any other diode, allowing an electric current to pass, for the most part, in only one direction.  They are built by placing into contact a P-type (positive) and an N-type (negative) semiconductor and passing a current from the N to the P materials.  In the case of LEDs, when the electrons and holes recombine, light is emitted.  In most diodes, heat is emitted.  Actually, LEDs do produce some heat as well and this becomes important for reasons to be discussed later.

After the food contamination incidents over the past couple of years, the Congress has put forth a revamp of food safety law in the United States.  This bill bass the House back in 2009 and was tied up in the Senate until last week.  The Senate passed its version (with amendments) and so it has gone back to the House for either passage of the Senate version or to head for a conference committee for resolution.

This act (S. 510) has created an outcry from both the extreme right and some “back to nature” types on the left.  Herein we shall examine some of the key provisions of the proposed law and make some judgments.  My personal feeling is that it will die before the Congress completes action on other, critical legislation like the tax issue, unemployment benefits, the federal debt ceiling, and funding the government, but who knows?

Many of you who read my posts on a regular basis know that I was born and raised in Hackett, Arkansas.  Hackett is about nine miles south of Fort Smith, and just about a mile from the Oklahoma border.  Many people are of the mistaken opinion that the hill country of Arkansas are all Ozarks, but that is not right.

There are actually two major hill ranges in Arkansas, the Ozarks and the Ouachita (pronounced wash’-a-tah) Mountains.  These two ranges are quite different both in geology and in the old language.  The Arkansas River is roughly the dividing feature betwixt the two ranges.  You might know the Ouachitas because of the excellent natural sharpening stones that are quarried there.

copyright © 2010 Betsy L. Angert.  Empathy And Education; BeThink or  BeThink.org

Originally published, Thursday, October 19, 2006 at 13:24:53 PM

Currently, I am writing for an educational organization.  In penning my pain for what occurs in our schools today, it occurred to me the same impersonal approach, awareness, or lack thereof, is evident in offices, neighborhoods, and in our broader community. People pretend to or believe they ” know” their fellow workers, their family members, and their friends.  Yet, more often than not, I observe that this is not necessarily true.  I, we, she, or he only comprehends what is visible on the surface.

Few choose to ask of, address, or answer the deeper concerns that life delivers daily; I offer this narrative and request your reflections. We all have our own tale to tell. I invite you to share yours.  Please trust that I care; your secrets are safe with me.  I suspect that others will honor you as I choose to do.  I believe we all relate to sorrow.

Today the distress I wish to discuss is heartbreak, heartache, and heart felt feelings. In my own life, I am witnessing that many close to me are battling life-threatening illnesses. Their terminal diagnoses affect me deeply. They weigh heavy on those closer to the ” patient” than I. I cannot begin to imagine the pain long-suffering persons feel. Yet, through the quiet trials and tribulations of a teen, who supposedly studied under my tutelage, I learned. What we hide hurts us most.

Chief Black Kettle:

I want you to give all these chiefs of the soldiers here to understand that we are for peace, and that we have made peace, that we may not be mistaken by them for enemies.

In the kitchen, oftentimes we desire to thicken a sauce or a broth without significantly changing its flavor.  There are several ways to do this, and the physicochemical principles behind them are quite different in many cases.  One way of thickening things is just to reduce them (i.e., boil them down), but that often involves chemical changes that alter flavor.

Other ways of thickening things including adding small amounts of rather bland ingredients that cause the sauce or other material to become thicker without extreme heating, or to create a complex emulsion that thickens materials due to physical rather than chemical changes.  We shall examine some of both this evening.

The intent to commit genocide at Washita is hidden in plain view, unless key elements are brought together. These are: that the Cheyenne were placed on land where they would starve while promises to avert starvation were broken; that George Bent observed how Civil War soldiers did not harm white women and children by a “code of honor,” while Indian women and children were slaughtered; that Sheridan declared “The only good Indians I ever saw were dead;” and that the War Department did not differentiate between peaceful and warring Indians. Hence, the orders “to kill or hang all warriors.” As the consequence, the intent was to kill all men
of a specific race.

Most everyone who is aware of The Who as a major British band realize that the three instrumentalists were very good at their crafts, and some say that Keith Moon may have been the best rock and roll drummer who ever lived.  However, the bass player, John Entwistle, did much more than play bass.

John Alec Enwistle, born 19441009 and died 20029627, was one of the original members of the band.  He and Pete Townshend formed a band in the late 1950s, and he left to join Roger Daltrey’s band in the early 1960s.  He convinced Daltrey to have Townshend join, and with the admission of Keith Moon The Who were formed.