Learing at 9/11

Goneril and Regan (in unison to Cordelia): Why do you hate our father so much?

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Technorati Tags: Shakespeare, 9/11, right-wing idiocy

Fathers' Day

An early Fathers' Day present from my daughter:

She generally rolls her eyes at my bad jokes (and sometimes hits me over the head with a rubber chicken for them), but today when I told one, she repeated to herself, as if reciting a mantra, X's are worse; X's are worse (where X is a friend of the family who also likes bad, geeky puns).

Technorati Tags: bad jokes, dad jokes, parenting, Father's Day, daughters

The concrete and the abstract

In 1886, Leopold Kronecker famously said God made integers; all else is the work of man.¹ For me, even this claim admits too much abstraction into reality, and a better formulation might be God made quarks, leptons, and photons; all else is the work of man. Abstraction is useful, but I'm thinking that a given set of facts can yield more than 1 abstract model for them.
The lesson for those who develop taxonomies is that there is not a single taxonomy defined by reality. A taxonomy—like any other tool for gaining understanding of a domain, for organizing such tools, or for what have you—is defined by reality and by the intended audience.

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¹ Well, actually he said Die ganzen Zahlen hat der liebe Gott gemacht, alles andere ist Menschenwerk, but it comes to much the same thing.

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Technorati Tags: classification, reality, abstractness

Decalogue

There are no absolutes, right? So I've decided it may be time to compromise on the question of whether public schools, courthouses, and other government buildings can post the 10 Commandments.¹

Here's my offer:

1. Believers get to post the 10 Commandments in a prominent place in government buildings.
2. Stores, advertisers, and others who profit from rampant consumerism will be required to prominently display the commandment against coveting.
3. Everyone in the following list will be required to get the commandment listed tattooed onto their forehead (along with the citation for Leviticus 19:28, just for the irony).
   • Newt Gingrich: the commandment against adultery,
   • All bankers: the commandment against stealing,
   • All soldiers and Florida gun owners: the commandment against killing,² and
   • All trial lawyers (prosecutors, criminal defense attorneys, and civil litigators): the commandment against bearing false witness.

That oughta do it. After all, why tell the kids and the hoi polloi to follow them if the elites won't?

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¹ There are more than 10 individual commandments given in Exodus 20:1–17, and there are 3 traditional systems for compressing them into 10 units. We can let the various groups of believers fight amongst themselves over whose list gets posted.

² If the believers insist that this commandment only forbids unjustified killing, then I'm OK with having the tattoo state Thou shalt not kill without a just and proper cause.

Technorati Tags: fundamentalism, irony, Newt Gingrich, religion, satire, Stand Your Ground

Term limits

I don't know whether the 2-term limit for presidents is good in the abstract, but since its only effect so far has been to keep Ike and Reagan from going on for another term each, I can't complain.

(The irony tag is because it was Republicans, in reaction to FDR's 4 terms, who passed the term limit amendment.)

Technorati Tags: irony

Blessed are those with a persecution complex? - Guest Voices - The Washington Post

Blessed are those with a persecution complex? - Guest Voices - The Washington Post:

The kicker:

I am sorry to dash anyone’s hopes, but being required to honor a contract you have voluntarily entered into is not persecution. Being required to abide by your employer’s dress code and other rules is not persecution. Being required to carry out the job you are paid to do is not persecution. Not being exempted from laws that apply to everyone else too is not persecution. Not even if you are religious, and no matter how much you had set your heart on the promised heavenly reward.

These cases are the very opposite of persecution: they are self-serving, self-aggrandizing demands for special treatment. More seriously, they are an insult to Christians around the world for whom the word persecution means something altogether more deadly.

What are we educating for?

I've been thinking lately that what we need kids to learn is not facts or theories but skills. There is some foundation knowledge that may remain relevant long after graduation, but it will be far more important for the kids to be

• flexible, questioning, and able to change their understanding of what is true,
• able to learn new skills and material, and
• interested in the world.