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#186648 - 04/01/14 04:46 PM
Re: Parenting arms race article
[Re: JonLaw]
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Member
Registered: 05/27/11
Posts: 741
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It appears you missed my question, WHY? What is the logic behind separate classes if both are doing the same work? Because they shouldn't be doing the same work. THAT'S the point. If you enroll in Physics III for engineers, the course work is set. It doesn't matter if you're HG or simply a really hard worker, so long as you can do the work and pass the test, you've completed the course, that's the objective, the WORK. If you want to be purely with those of like IQ, then don't enroll in classes that aren't defined by completing the required work but by having a certain IQ. Yes, but you don't even need to actually learn anything that way. I should know, since I got a degree in chemical engineering with basically learning nothing about chemical engineering. I just threw what I needed into short term memory and then stopped caring about it once I passed the classes. So something is wrong with the course model being used. Whoa. This is too familiar for me. I wasted a lot of time carousing with my short-term memory.
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#186651 - 04/01/14 05:03 PM
Re: Parenting arms race article
[Re: JonLaw]
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Member
Registered: 07/30/12
Posts: 423
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Silly.
You just smash the rules you don't like.
Or break the game.
Nobody says you have to follow the rules or keep the game going.
Absolutely, IF you can smash the rules and still win the game, by all means do so, however, don't enter the game knowing the rules, be unable to change the rules, and then whimper and whine about how you wasted your time. You signed up for this crap you're whining about.
Edited by Old Dad (04/01/14 05:07 PM)
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#186653 - 04/01/14 05:11 PM
Re: Parenting arms race article
[Re: Val]
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Member
Registered: 07/30/12
Posts: 423
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So you're griping about classes you were getting paid to take? You choose to play the game, if you choose to play the game, then you have to accept what the rules of the game are. The rules of that game are, you do the work, you pass the tests, you pass the class, you move on. If you don't like the game, don't play it.
That's a reality that my eldest DS has learned well, we all daily play games we don't control the rules of, make a choice, live with your choices. You make a lot of pronouncements that imply that solutions to complex problems are simple. They aren't. For example, kids aren't generally sophisticated enough to understand that stuff they've been told all or most of their lives isn't true. This is where we get former tiger cubs who become very, very unhappy when they start to grow up and realize what was going on. There was also a blithe statement about making your own challenging workplace. That's not so easy for people who have bills to pay or special-needs kids to take care of. Etc. etc. Once again, we all make our own bed, be prepared to sleep in it. If you've got difficult challenges, I can sympathize and respect that, however, if you can't get yourself out of them don't expect anyone else to be able to do so either. YOU are responsible for YOUR happiness. Until your kids are adults, YOU are responsible for educating them, giving them wisdom to navigate the world, and teaching them to take care of themselves. Don't expect the rest of the world to have a ready made remedy to your special needs, you're going to have to create that world because nobody else is going to do it for you nor should you expect them to.
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#186654 - 04/01/14 05:12 PM
Re: Parenting arms race article
[Re: Old Dad]
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Member
Registered: 07/29/11
Posts: 2007
Loc: The Sub-Tropics
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Silly.
You just smash the rules you don't like.
Or break the game.
Nobody says you have to follow the rules or keep the game going.
Absolutely, IF you can smash the rules and still win the game, by all means do so, however, don't enter the game knowing the rules, be unable to change the rules, and then whimper and whine about how you wasted your time. You signed up for this crap you're whining about. You have to do *something*, silly. And I didn't say "win the game", I said "break the game".
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#186656 - 04/01/14 05:18 PM
Re: Parenting arms race article
[Re: Mana]
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Member
Registered: 02/05/11
Posts: 5181
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Some of you may not yet see the results-- but trust me that such students RUIN the experience of dual enrollment or AP coursework. Because they are the ones interrupting the teacher to ask "will this be on the test?" when a smaller cohort of students is interested in exploring a topic under discussion. One of my favorite professors had it on his syllabus that no one is to ever ask that question. One of mine (scathingly) responded to a graduate student who was foolish enough to ask it... Do you want me to TELL you what will be on the test?? The grad student in question went  and wanted, very clearly, for the floor to open up underneath him and swallow him into a sinkhole at that moment. Two weeks later, while I was TA-ing gen chem for him, a freshman student asked the precise same question. He shot me a sly look (because I suspect he knew that I'd heard the story already), and less scathingly, though still with a downright wolfish grin, informed the student that paying attention in class, reading the textbook, and doing the homework might provide some helpful clues for this endeavor. Ahhh, good times.  Theoretical physical chemist, incidentally. The first incident was in a statistical mechanics course populated by Chem and Physics PhD students, and the second was in the off-sequence majors Gen Chem class at a large western university. He was old-school. Loved his sense of humor, and I always found him friendly and helpful... but even my DH was terrified of him, and claims that I was the only person ever to "get" Dr. Z completely. I was his favorite TA of all time, apparently. Worked for me-- he wrote me a heckuva letter of recommendation later. Hmm.
_________________________
Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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#186658 - 04/01/14 05:26 PM
Re: Parenting arms race article
[Re: HowlerKarma]
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Member
Registered: 07/29/11
Posts: 2007
Loc: The Sub-Tropics
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One of mine (scathingly) responded to a graduate student who was foolish enough to ask it...
Do you want me to TELL you what will be on the test?? The correct answer is "Yes." Followed by a pause. After the pause, you then follow up with "Would you be so kind as to do that for me?"
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#186659 - 04/01/14 05:44 PM
Re: Parenting arms race article
[Re: HowlerKarma]
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Member
Registered: 02/05/11
Posts: 5181
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:rofl: Yeah.... no, probably not. The implication was very clearly that if such a thing were necessary, well... maybe P-Chem isn't the right place for you... Clearly you didn't know Dr. Z. A far kinder, gentler faculty member (once IAEC spokesperson, and a perfect British gentleman in every way) took one equally foolhardy ChemE senior to task for daring to ask in one of my upper division electives; "So you keep using this term 'Ksp.' Could you just tell me what that is, exactly?"  Dr. British went ballistic, explaining that this (Trace Analysis) was a 600-level CHEMISTRY course, and that ChemE could damned well keep their undergraduates where they belonged if they didn't know any freshman chemistry, because this was a 400-level class even for them, and last time he checked, solubility products were covered in some detail in not one, but THREE prerequisite courses over the course of three separate years of preparatory classes leading to the class, and that if the student were truly curious, he could perhaps consult with any one of the two dozen graduate students whose TIME he was wasting with such a question, since any and all of us could answer it without even breaking a sweat, but that sure... he could spend ten minutes of class time on it... SURE. WHY. NOT?? (He was livid.) The graduate students applauded when he ran out of breath, by the way. We weren't any happier than he was that those ignoramuses were in our class and wasting time with that kind of ill-prepared idiocy. WE all sat on one side of the room, and rolled our eyes collectively anytime one of the ChemE's raised their hands. It was invariably something that demonstrated that they had little business taking the course. The upshot is that this question was asked AFTER a twenty minute discussion of the merits of using a carrier to precipitate a trace analyte. So clearly understanding this concept was pretty key to the material under discussion for the previous 20 minutes. With that one question, this student demonstrated that he had NO grasp on what had just been discussed at some length, in some mathematical and theoretical detail (sufficient to jog pretty much anyone's memory, I'd have thought-- there was an audible GASP of disbelief from the grad students when it was asked). The point of this obvious tangent is that this kind of problem has pretty far reaching consequences even into PhD training. Stupid people make us all a little dumber when they infiltrate. That's not to say that most TigerCubs are stupid... just like that Chem E student was clearly not stupid, or he'd never have made it through statics to bedevil me or my classmates... but still... he clearly had no business being in a 400-level chemistry class, no matter what he (or his department or adviser) may have thought.... it was memorable only because of Dr. British's uncharacteristically volatile response to it-- the type of thing was quite routine in a lot of my 600-level elective classes, I'm afraid. Needless to say, the ChemE's weren't invited to the grad student study and homework sessions. Ha.
_________________________
Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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#186660 - 04/01/14 06:00 PM
Re: Parenting arms race article
[Re: HowlerKarma]
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Member
Registered: 11/02/12
Posts: 2306
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Maybe I'm just too much of an economist, but I think tuition should be scaled inversely to GPA in upper year classes as a rule after adjusting for income (which is effectively just an argument for extensive merit scholarships). There's a strong public policy argument for having a well-educated citizenry, granted, but the achievement of that aim shouldn't come at the expense of maintaining high standards for grad school bound candidates.
_________________________
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
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#186664 - 04/01/14 07:10 PM
Re: Parenting arms race article
[Re: JonLaw]
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Member
Registered: 07/30/12
Posts: 423
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You have to do *something*, silly.
And I didn't say "win the game", I said "break the game".
Breaking the game accomplishes nothing positive though and it's simply someone not liking the game so rather than finding a different game, they ruin it for others which the game is a positive experience for. That's simply childish behavior found on elementary school playgrounds.
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#186665 - 04/01/14 07:18 PM
Re: Parenting arms race article
[Re: Old Dad]
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Member
Registered: 07/29/11
Posts: 2007
Loc: The Sub-Tropics
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You have to do *something*, silly.
And I didn't say "win the game", I said "break the game".
Breaking the game accomplishes nothing positive though and it's simply someone not liking the game so rather than finding a different game, they ruin it for others which the game is a positive experience for. That's simply childish behavior found on elementary school playgrounds. You would not make a very good nihilist. I recommend that you never try to spread pain and suffering. You don't seem very good at it.
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