At 2/11/10 04:25 PM, BoMToons wrote: I'm thinking that the education system, at least in the US, is SO bad that an alternative is inevitable...I see Internet technology as the foundation for the revolution.

Many of the social experiences, at least for elementary school kids who live mostly in their own world, can be fairly well replicated with online avatars in a virtual environment...of course there is the problem of teaching kids how to use hardware and software to access those experiences, but even little kids are surprisingly good at using a computer now.

Responsible parents will also realize that getting their kids playing with other kids is easily accomplished outside of a rigid "real-life" school program, especially if their kid is able to accomplish his normal 7-8 hours of school learning in an online environment in a fraction of the time.

It all comes down to flexibility. In a brick an mortar school, everyone in the classroom is required to learn at the pace of the slowest student in the class. I could have learned everything in my 6 year elementary school education in 2 years tops if I had a custom-tailored program. What a waste of 4 years...yes, social development is important, but with true web 2.0 apps a lot of the interaction and collaboration can be done online, and the rest can be accomplished by responsible parents who get their kids involved in sports, play groups, clubs, siblings, etc.

The education revolution is coming!

I absolutely hate having to wait for the dumbest kids in my classes to catch up to everyone else. I am one of the smartest in my entire grade, and I am furious when we spend days on material I could cover myself in ten or twenty minutes. I can't even imagine what I could accomplish if given the freedom to move at my own pace. There is so much time in the day where I am completely finished with all of my work and where I have nothing at all to do.

It's also terrible how the schools refuse to separate students based on grades or even attitude. I am stuck in the same classes with the "burnouts" (if you will) who have a negative attitude towards learning and who ruin their lives by drinking and doing drugs. By simply sifting out the students who apply themselves from those who don't, the entire education system would be a thousand times better.

The education system in the US is a very flawed system. The entire government system we have set up here is very flawed. The government is filled with selfish, greedy, intolerant bigots who couldn't care less for the common people.

This country needs some form of revolution. The remaining few who actually care for the good of the people need to step up and take action before it is too late. We need drastic changes in the way this country is run before we destroy everything that was once good about it.

Not only is an education revolution necessary, but also a governmental revolution. This country needs to abandon its conservative ways and take actions to lift this country out of the gaping hole we have dug ourselves in the past few decades.

I absolutely hate having to wait for the dumbest kids in my classes to catch up to everyone else. I am one of the smartest in my entire grade, and I am furious when we spend days on material I could cover myself in ten or twenty minutes. I can't even imagine what I could accomplish if given the freedom to move at my own pace. There is so much time in the day where I am completely finished with all of my work and where I have nothing at all to do.

It's also terrible how the schools refuse to separate students based on grades or even attitude. I am stuck in the same classes with the "burnouts" (if you will) who have a negative attitude towards learning and who ruin their lives by drinking and doing drugs. By simply sifting out the students who apply themselves from those who don't, the entire education system would be a thousand times better.

I completely agree with you Archon. I know its hard to believe, I'm one of the smartest kids in my grade as well, almost all my classes I have to deal with the "Idiot that thinks he's funny" of the class. It gets very annoying and I'm tired of it.

I'll be doing my work and the I hear "No! I don't wanna do this stupid work. You suck." Then the student walks about of the classroom. It used to be funny, now its plain annoying.

At 2/11/10 05:33 PM, Archon68 wrote: I absolutely hate having to wait for the dumbest kids in my classes to catch up to everyone else. I am one of the smartest in my entire grade, and I am furious when we spend days on material I could cover myself in ten or twenty minutes. I can't even imagine what I could accomplish if given the freedom to move at my own pace. There is so much time in the day where I am completely finished with all of my work and where I have nothing at all to do.

Who's forcing you to wait? Just pick up a damn book and start reading. If you're advanced compared to the rest of the class, you could save yourself a ton of time by learning on your own. Being a good student at school and finishing stuff early is cute, but it's not gonna help at all. I pretty much ruled out the idea that school is for learning in the beginning of year 9. One of the main reasons why I still bother going to school is that in no other point in your life will you be surrounded by so many good looking single girls. Maybe that's not true for you, either because the girls in your school aren't good looking, or because in uni you're not gonna choose pure math major in a nerdy school which will surround you in a 90% male and 10% not-really-sure-if-its-a-guy-or-a-girl population.

It's also terrible how the schools refuse to separate students based on grades or even attitude. I am stuck in the same classes with the "burnouts" (if you will) who have a negative attitude towards learning and who ruin their lives by drinking and doing drugs. By simply sifting out the students who apply themselves from those who don't, the entire education system would be a thousand times better.

Hah, I thought exactly the same thing when I was your age (except the "people who apply themselves" part, because I never was one of those). Turns out I couldn't have been more wrong. Those dumb fucks who drown themselves with alcohol are the most fun people to hang out with. Students who do their homework and study seriously are so fucking boring, with a few rare exceptions. Those exceptions might be fun to hang out with because you can share their wit and humor in general. But they also have a large and blunt object stuck up their anus which makes them walk funny. Those burnouts you talk about, are at least fun and outgoing. Last year I hated every single one of them. This year I regret every single time I thought that. Give it some thought.

people need to step up and take action before it is too late.

You mean before the alien invasion, or before doomsday?
Whenever you start a sentence with "people need to take action", you already know it's bullshit. Don't shit yourself.

At 2/11/10 04:50 PM, Luis wrote: The turning point for me was being in church and seeing the preist pull up in his mercedes and then noticing the massive amount of marble-work that went into building the church etc etc etc. It made me really annoyed when that donation basket came around.

My church is trying to buy a million dollar organ. It's baffling.

Religion :
I think that pretending to know what's true (meaning of life for example) , especially since it's all based on faith and none of it can be proven (proof is a problematic concept on its own) is extremely pretentious... that's why I'm Agnostic. Means I don't know, and frankly I don't care either, it's a waste of time.

School System
I agree that the public school system is problematic, but I think it's pretty decent. I've spent quite a few years of my life abroad and the more I do that the better I like the US.

There has to be a balance between creativity and discipline. Creativity is great but in order to allow it to develop you need to let the kids make their own choices. Discipline is necessary for developing learning skills and accomplishing good self discipline.

The problem is that the point of balance is different from person to person.

Also, the school social system is very problematic in general.

@ Archon. I do feel your pain. Our situations are a bit different though. I couldn't imagine going through school now, especially here in the US. Yikes. Our school used to make no secret of who was an idiot, and who was going to college. They weeded us out into the GATE program, until parents complained that their children weren't in it. All the booze and drugs didn't start until college for me, and even that was still another form of daycare which pandered to the lowest common denominator. Before I totally fly off into an elitist rant, I am a firm believer that everyone is good at something, and everyone has something to contribute. What annoys me is how much better Asian and European school systems approach these issues. For example, let's pretend I'm a young student in Hannover, Germany. Let's also suppose that it has become abundantly clear that I'm not pursuing a career in particle physics. All is not lost, and other options will make themselves known. This is not true in the US. ' No Child Left Behind' was high Bush-era farce at best. We leave children behind here every fucking day. Why? There's too many people, not enough money, and sadly...at this point...I think a lot of people don't give a flying fuck.

Also, in regards to the home schooling questions posed a few pages back. I wasn't, but if I had a child right now, with respect to where I live (Redneckkksville USA), I totally would.

At 2/11/10 06:23 PM, Toast wrote: Who's forcing you to wait? Just pick up a damn book and start reading. If you're advanced compared to the rest of the class, you could save yourself a ton of time by learning on your own.

What use is that? I'd be even farther ahead and school would be ten times as dull as it currently is. I want to learn what I need to in order to pass. I may not be content with the minute quantity of material we cover, but I sure as hell am not going to waste even more of my time reading all of the history and math books I can manage to dig up. I want the time I am forced to waste during school hours to be somewhat useful, meaning it would be great to see the curriculum sped up and to see the material become more challenging.

Being a good student at school and finishing stuff early is cute, but it's not gonna help at all. I pretty much ruled out the idea that school is for learning in the beginning of year 9.

Oh, I had that same idea far before grade 9, which I am currently in.

One of the main reasons why I still bother going to school is that in no other point in your life will you be surrounded by so many good looking single girls. Maybe that's not true for you, either because the girls in your school aren't good looking, or because in uni you're not gonna choose pure math major in a nerdy school which will surround you in a 90% male and 10% not-really-sure-if-its-a-guy-or-a-girl population.

Those are shallow reasons and your attitude is exactly that of the people I have come to despise in my years of schooling. If I were to be separate from the people with your simple-minded and careless attitude, things would seem much less pointless and sure enough the challenge would be greater.

It's also terrible how the schools refuse to separate students based on grades or even attitude. I am stuck in the same classes with the "burnouts" (if you will) who have a negative attitude towards learning and who ruin their lives by drinking and doing drugs. By simply sifting out the students who apply themselves from those who don't, the entire education system would be a thousand times better.

Hah, I thought exactly the same thing when I was your age (except the "people who apply themselves" part, because I never was one of those). Turns out I couldn't have been more wrong. Those dumb fucks who drown themselves with alcohol are the most fun people to hang out with. Students who do their homework and study seriously are so fucking boring, with a few rare exceptions. Those exceptions might be fun to hang out with because you can share their wit and humor in general. But they also have a large and blunt object stuck up their anus which makes them walk funny. Those burnouts you talk about, are at least fun and outgoing. Last year I hated every single one of them. This year I regret every single time I thought that. Give it some thought.

Clearly you're not at the top of your class, or else your attitude would be much different. The drunks and the stoners may an appealing crowd to you now, but is that really how you want to spend the rest of your life? Hanging out with the drug dealers, criminals, and scumbags of the world?

It's also obvious that you're misunderstanding my position. My entire circle of friends and I have never studied for a single minute in our entire lives, yet we glide through school on straight A's and perfect or near-perfect GPAs. We're not boring fucks who spend every waking minute reading through a textbook or doing homework. We have fun, we screw around, and we enjoy ourselves just as much as "burnouts" do. We just have a positive attitude towards learning and we find a balance between schoolwork and enjoyment. We find more...erm...'healthy' ways to blow off steam and have a laugh. Getting so drunk you can't remember the difference between a pedestrian and a traffic cone is not the only way to have fun.

people need to step up and take action before it is too late.

You mean before the alien invasion, or before doomsday?
Whenever you start a sentence with "people need to take action", you already know it's bullshit. Don't shit yourself.

What are you talking about? Steps need to be taken and it's our generation that needs to do it.

At 2/11/10 08:26 PM, Archon68 wrote: The drunks and the stoners may an appealing crowd to you now, but is that really how you want to spend the rest of your life? Hanging out with the drug dealers, criminals, and scumbags of the world?

I know quite a bit of the confusion on the subject can come from being young, but trust me... make sure you don't confuse people who drink or do drugs with low-lifes and scumbags.

You'll see what I mean in a few years.

Obama inhaled.

At 2/11/10 08:33 PM, Johnny wrote: You'll see what I mean in a few years.

I believe that period of time will be called university (/college).

At 2/11/10 04:50 PM, Luis wrote: The turning point for me was being in church and seeing the preist pull up in his mercedes and then noticing the massive amount of marble-work that went into building the church etc etc etc. It made me really annoyed when that donation basket came around.

So all that "he made everything in 7 days" and "fuck the gays" and "slavery is fine" and "rape = marriage" is ok, but as soon as he's got a better car than me, that's where I draw the line.

TL;DR:

Relgion is wank and you're a cunt if you believe in it.

At 2/11/10 08:56 PM, SpamBurger wrote: You're seriously going to label someone as a criminal or low-life just because they do drugs,

Are you even listening to yourself?

At 2/11/10 09:38 PM, Archon68 wrote:

At 2/11/10 08:56 PM, SpamBurger wrote: You're seriously going to label someone as a criminal or low-life just because they do drugs,

Are you even listening to yourself?

Do you beleive in a second chance? I know it sounds cheesy.

Many people in the world have comeback from prison and completed college and got a PHD. And then even went on to become doctors an lawyers.

I still do drugs occasionally, (And was once arrested for them) and had quite a few drinks tonight.

I still hold down a steady job, have dozens of hobbies, consider myself fairly talented person, pay all my bills on time and take care of my family, am selfless and nice to my friends, strangers and coworkers... ect.. ect..

Quite a few of the forum regs are in the same boat. =)

What people don't realize is that a large majority of people who do drugs are using socially. This means MDMA, cannibis, alcohol, etc. If you label someone a criminal because they do drugs, you're being ignorant. What you need to keep in mind is that the system that labeled these things "illegal" are only doing so because they're greedy and want money. That is illegal in my opinion, making something illegal because you want to continue making money. Hemp was made illegal only because it would have been a detriment to the wood industry. Remember that.

Also, religion is a coping device people use to understand the world. In my opinion, if it brings comfort to a person, let them have it. Each person is entitled to their own opinion. While it is our responsibility to spread logical thinking, too many people are caught up in their own traditional fallacies. Until the world as a whole moves towards logical understanding of our universe, nothing will ever change. I'm fairly certain, our introduction into a galactic, or intergalactic, civilization will greatly alter the way humanity sees religion and the universe.

In regards to school, I don't think learning should be a social experience. Learning should be the gathering of knowledge. Social pressures affect how well a child absorbs knowledge and as such should definitely be removed from the school process. This is not to say, however, that a child should not be social. I just think a child's social life, and his education, should be separate.

:I'm fairly certain, our introduction into a galactic, or intergalactic, civilization will greatly alter the way humanity sees religion and the universe.

Absolutely. No more security blanket.

@Archon...You could probably test out of high school if you really wanted to, and start college classes. I could've passed the GED in 3rd grade, and I'm sure you can too. As for the droogies, judgment is a really lousy business to be involved in. Better to pay them no mind, and handle your own shit. It's a game everyone is already playing.

At 2/11/10 11:01 PM, Deathcon7 wrote: I'm fairly certain, our introduction into a galactic, or intergalactic, civilization will greatly alter the way humanity sees religion and the universe.

Here's the thing: There will ALWAYS be things we don't know / can't explain / can't solve. That's actually provable (there's a lot of math problems and computer science problems which have been proven to not be solvable), there's heisenberg's uncertainty principal, goedel's incompleteness theorem, and the fact that there is an "edge of the visible universe" (stuff exists beyond it, but cause of the rate of expansion of the universe and the speed of light meaning it would take longer than the age of the universe for the light and therefore information to reach us).

Science and logic can't explain EVERYTHING, and as long as there are gaps, religion will be there to fill them in.

I personally don't care that there are gaps. I'm not going to say for certain that God doesn't exist though, cause that's as silly as saying for certain that God exists

Archon, you're still very young and I am certain that you will change your mind about many of the things you said now, wether it be in 1 year, 10 years, or when you're really old. However, I don't have enough time right now to write a sufficiently constructive post. So I'm just letting you know I'll reply later, I'm not ignoring you.

At 2/11/10 09:33 PM, Kirk-Cocaine wrote: Relgion is wank and you're a cunt if you believe in it.

Amen, brother.

At 2/12/10 04:42 AM, Toast wrote:

At 2/11/10 09:33 PM, Kirk-Cocaine wrote: Relgion is wank and you're a cunt if you believe in it.

Amen, brother.

I think it's important to differentiate religion and a belief in a superior power

At 2/12/10 05:50 AM, Inglor wrote:

At 2/12/10 04:42 AM, Toast wrote:

At 2/11/10 09:33 PM, Kirk-Cocaine wrote: Relgion is wank and you're a cunt if you believe in it.

Amen, brother.

I think it's important to differentiate religion and a belief in a superior power

True. Religion is a load of bullshit which slows down our society, education, and technology by several decades, and belief in superior power is a load of bullshit, but without the latter part.

At 2/12/10 09:38 AM, Toast wrote: True. Religion is a load of bullshit which slows down our society, education, and technology by several decades, and belief in superior power is a load of bullshit, but without the latter part.

And it only took us like 5 pages of way too long posts to come to said conclusion.

I'd like to point out that this whole argument was started by someone saying something that would OBVIOUSLY lead to heated argument, and then saying they didn't want to argue. So next time you type up a post in the same format, please just shut down your computer.

Though fruitless religious discussion is still a step up from one liner crap.

At 2/12/10 01:21 PM, Coaly wrote: I'd like to point out that this whole argument was started by someone saying something that would OBVIOUSLY lead to heated argument, and then saying they didn't want to argue. So next time you type up a post in the same format, please just shut down your computer.

Though fruitless religious discussion is still a step up from one liner crap.

It started from a question about EDUCATION!

Why does every serious question lead to a religious flame war?

At 2/12/10 02:08 PM, citricsquid wrote: because toast is an egotistical fucktard who can't accept that God is looking over him and even if he doesn't believe, God is there for him.

Just the first 6 words would have been fine.

Shit guys, I'm a criminal. Do you all hate me? :D

At 2/12/10 02:20 PM, HDXmike wrote: toast = egotistical fucktard

I say every time we don't agree with someone's opinion we call him names instead of referring to his argument.

At 2/12/10 02:23 PM, Inglor wrote: I say every time we don't agree with someone's opinion we call him names instead of referring to his argument.

Only if his argument is valid. Saying that both organized religion and any belief in any kind of supreme power is "Bullshit" isn't really valid. Its an ignorant generalization.

Religion and/or spiritual belief is good for some people: Fact.
Some people, for whatever reason, need something to believe in: Fact.
It has it's faults: Fact.
Some people don't need it or benefit from it at all: Fact.

Anyone who completely disagrees with those above facts is an Egotistical Fucktard and there's no way around it.

At 2/12/10 03:05 PM, citricsquid wrote: So anyway, back onto flash guys!
foresight john! :D

Greater than or equal to...

At 2/12/10 02:23 PM, Inglor wrote: I say every time we don't agree with someone's opinion we call him names instead of referring to his argument.

The fuck? When did i miss the second coming of Inglor.

Good to see you posting.

Religion

Seeing as we're on the topic again.

http://www.facepunch.com/showthread.php?
t=893402