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Joined: Apr 2013
Posts: 5,261 Likes: 8
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"We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere." - Elie Wiesel (1928-2016) Holocaust Survivor
Nobel Peace Prize recipient, 1986
Author, possibly best known for Night Another quote from Elie Wiesel: “Let us not forget, after all, that there is always a moment when the moral choice is made. Often because of one story or one book or one person, we are able to make a different choice, a choice for humanity, for life.” Mr. Wiesel was speaking of ' the people who were rescuers during the Holocaust.' Eligible students age 13+ are invited to " write an essay responding to Wiesel’s quote in 500 words or less" if interested to participate in the 2017 Facing History Together Student Essay Contest, open March 1-15, 2017. This year's contest is sponsored by Holland & Knight Charitable Foundation's Holocaust Remembrance Project. The 2016 contest was focused on the theme of "To Kill a Mockingbird", and was sponsored by Margaret Stohl, New York Times #1 Best Selling Author (co-author of young adult novel Beautiful Creatures). More information at the website of 2017 Facing History Together, which also provides two questions which may serve as writing prompts: " What story, book, or person has influenced your thinking about ethical decision making? What has it taught you about how you can participate as a caring, thoughtful citizen in the world around you?"
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Joined: Apr 2014
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Just want to mention that we've had Facing History in our school as part of our history curriculum sequence for several years now, and have had excellent responses from teachers and all levels of students. If you have a chance to advocate for it in your district, I would highly recommend it.
...pronounced like the long vowel and first letter of the alphabet...
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C.S. Lewis, author, on the topic of Liberal Arts education: Lewis contrasts liberal arts education with what he calls "vocational training," the sort that prepares one for
employment. Such training, he writes, "aims at making not a good man but a good banker, a good electrician,
. . . or a good surgeon." Lewis does admit the importance of such training – for we cannot do without bankers and
electricians and surgeons – but the danger, as he sees it, is the pursuit of training at the
expense of education. "If education is beaten by training, civilization dies," he writes, for "the lesson of history"
is that "civilization is a rarity, attained with difficulty and easily lost." It is the liberal arts,
not vocational training, that preserves civilization by producing reasonable men and responsible citizens. A bit like this quote by Henry David Thoreau. Related links on liberal arts education - here and here
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Joined: Mar 2013
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I have never understood the point of the training versus education debate.
BOTH are *critical* to a culture and an economy and neither stops once 'school' is over for anyone with more intellectual curiousity than a turnip, right?
Last edited by madeinuk; 03/19/17 07:36 AM.
Become what you are
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Joined: Apr 2014
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I apologize for possibly bringing the tone of this discussion down for a moment, but this might be the one place that will appreciate that my initial response to madeinuk's comment on vocational vs liberal arts education was to think about the telephone sanitizers from Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy...
...pronounced like the long vowel and first letter of the alphabet...
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I have never understood the point of the training versus education debate. As expressed by C.S. Lewis, it is not a debate, so much as raising awareness that there is a distinction between vocational training and liberal arts education. A society may be vulnerable when vocational training stealthily supplants liberal arts education while people remain unaware of the difference, therefore unaware of the change taking place. If people see their children (and society in general) pursuing "education" without realizing that the content of what is being taught has changed from a broad-based or liberal arts education to a rather narrow-focused job training... they may not understand that these children are being prepared to function in a predetermined role in the economy, rather than developing a knowledge of and appreciation for history, art, literature, cultures, etc, along with the penchant to compare/contrast, evaluate, apply critical thinking skills, engage in debate, and essentially be self-determining... self-governing citizens.
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developing a knowledge of and appreciation for history, art, literature, cultures, etc, along with the penchant to compare/contrast, evaluate, apply critical thinking skills, engage in debate, and essentially be self-determining. Not trying to argue but I do not believe that one needs to go to university to acquire any of that. In fact, I would go as far as to say that a person without the above shouldn't even be aapplying to a university in the first place.
Last edited by madeinuk; 03/19/17 03:48 PM.
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I would go as far as to say that a person without the above shouldn't even be aapplying to a university in the first place. In some countries the government begins sorting children early on... possibly these children would be placed on a track for vocational training as telephone sanitizers. ( thanks, aeh  ) It may be difficult to truly appreciate and enjoy freedom, including simply choosing one's own educational/vocational path, unless one understands the circumstances others live under (such as government sorting children for career assignment). Becoming aware of the distinction between liberal arts education and vocational training may help people to see with enlightened eyes.
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Joined: Apr 2013
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"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them."- attributed (or misattributed) to Mark Twain
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"Done is better than perfect."
I think this is good for all people, but maybe especially good for gifted kids who either find it hard to finish a project because they're afraid it's not good enough, or who throw themselves into a hundred things at once only to lose interest when it's time to get the boring bits done at the end.
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