George Carlin – Modern Man
Class Writing
Les Perelman, director of the Writing Across the Curriculum program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, thinks the writing test is so bad that he coaches students on how to write abysmal essays, while including words that the College Board likes (“plethora” is key) and to end up with great scores. (The story of one of his successful efforts is here.)
Perelman said that it’s absolutely no surprise that students who do well on the SAT writing test do well in college. The College Board favors the traditional “five paragraph essay” format taught to high school freshmen, and those who are going to succeed in college have generally mastered the format and picked up the various tricks that earn good scores on the essay. (One of Perelman’s students, to show how the scoring favors quotations from famous people, accurate or not, took the test using various quotes that happened to be visible in the testing room, and attributed all of them to Lee Iacocca — and she earned great scores.)
“The writing test is teaching students a lot of bad habits,” said Perelman. “It’s real predictive value, in terms of writing, is nil.”
Scott Jaschik, The New SAT: Longer, but No Better?
It’s hard to believe that the standardized test still exists, especially for college entrance exams. They are rooted in eugenicists’ attempts to prove racial superiority and have long been implicated in a kind of racial and class profiling. Even the testers themselves have given up the game, admitting that high school grades are better at predicting college grades.
Wack is Back!
Is cutting edge science too much for high school students to understand?
No! In general students need to have a good overview of the current ‘cutting edge’ issues in science. Without such an overview they will not be able to wise decisions about career choices in science. If science is presented as if all the important and exciting work has already been done few students will chose a career in science and America will continue fall behind other nations in the production of young scientists. The view of science as a static cut and dried body of knowledge is simply false and misleading. Even those who do not chose a science or technology career need to be aware of what the cutting edge issues are about because otherwise the will not be able to participate a good citizens in our nation’s development of legal, ethical, and moral choices of our modern society. When presented with a challenge students often rise to the task but without a challenge students commonly settle for mediocrity. Our students should not be undersold or repressed.
Texans for Better Science Education Foundation, FAQ
Since John McCain has been the Republican choice it”s been relatively quiet on the wacky Christian front, with the exception of Mr.“God is Punishing New Orleans.” Appearances can be deceiving. In fact, as the New York Times reports, they’ve been busily re-tooling themselves as a kind of “fair and balanced” movement.
The Texans for Better Science Education Foundation’s language is so freakishly Orwellian that you’d think they modeled themselves on 1984.They claim that “new discoveries” cast doubt on evolution. That means it’s mainstream scientists who are holding us all back because they can’t deal with change.
The ideas are absurd but the rhetoric seems to work and the TBSEF has managed to get their ideas on the agenda of the Texas Sate Education board. If the creationists get their ideas into Texas textbooks, of course, they get them spread all over the country, since publishers are not going to create special editions for each state.
A Million Penguins
A Million Penguins is an experiment in creativity and community – it will only work if we work as a community and leave our egos at the door, next to the coat-rack. Above all, remember always that all contributions may be edited, altered or removed by other contributors. Below are a few guidelines which we hope will make this collaborative exercise as harmonious as possible – but treating other users and their writing with respect will be key to producing a successful wikinovel.
Ethical Guidelines, A Million Penguins
This is one of those ideas that are more interesting as ideas than as actual practices. I just don’t have the time or the energy to work up all that enthusiasm. It’s also much less original than it seems– fan fiction has been doing similar things for decades. It’s more stunt than experiment, more marketing campaign than viral idea.
I think the most interesting section is the Ethics page, where the editors (for lack of a better word) twisted themselves into relativistic knots trying to be as tolerant as possible. “Remember that contributors to the wikinovel may come from different cultures and countries,” they tell us, ‘and might express different views or perspectives – be respectful of these differences.”
So far so good. “Including the idea,” they continue, “that other people may not be respectful of differences. Be respectful of disrespect, except inasmuch as you cannot be, in your difference.” Derrida laughs is his grave every time he hears that passage. There are some interesting typos too.
“Value consensus and discussion.” The editors say. “Do not upload copyrighted material or material that you have not personally created yourselfs.” Is that an inadvertent ‘s’ or is this the new Wiki-pronoun for the collective writerly ‘you’? There’s a similar phenomena a bit further on, as the authors again warn against egotism.
“A Million Penguins is not a forum for submission of entire novels or short stories – Penguin are not doing this to find new talent.” In some strange fashion the singular Penguin, the book publisher, has grown into the plural Penguin, encompassing all of us, one supposes. There’s a certain irony to the wisdom of this crowd.