1275 Expectations.

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I’m not sure what happened, but the PS3 quit reading discs again. I suspect dust got on the lens, but I haven’t had time to look. The amount of dust still inside that thing is pretty amazing. Every time I think I’ve cleaned it out I end up finding some new trove of filth. I’m going to have to just take it completely apart and clean it properly. As much as I’d rather not there’s just no way around it. I want to make 100% sure the fan is working too, so it’s not like I can put it off forever anyway. If nothing else, I’m thinking about installing the biggest hard drive the system is capable of holding and filling it with all my various media and/or downloaded games.

The best controller also has some kind of short in it that makes the move stick act like the shoot button sometimes. Which is a problem when you need to run and you just start randomly shooting. One of the other controllers might clean up better too, so I guess I’ll just have to see when I get a minute.

I’ve hooked the thing to external hard drives and it pretty much reads any file you throw at it as far as media goes. I was surprised by that, especially since you have to keep telling the fucking thing to actually show the files. If there’s a default show files setting I haven’t found it.

The Teen was not impressed with her first day of school. To the point that I was exasperated by the whole affair. I was lucky in so far as she didn’t keep trying to weasel out of going. I mean as much as I hated school you can count the days I missed if, from middle school to college, on one hand. It was balls, but I was there every stinking day… I even went on the day everyone makes a point to skip. It was actually relatively pleasant because all the dickheads were gone.

That was a big problem for me. School would have been a lot better if the fucks who had no interest in learning were allowed to waste their lives in whatever way they saw fit. Hopefully ways that ended in death because that many uneducated, unemployable, shits would be a real problem for everyone else later on… Kind of like how things are now, if you think about it. Just worse by an order of magnitude. (POP! POP!)

I kind of feel like this shotgun style of education might not be the way to go. Maybe early on, but after a while it seems like maybe we could do a better job of focusing on the strengths of the individual. Although if it were that easy someone would have likely done it already… In any event I feel like maybe not everyone needs to spend a lot of time in geometry. Especially once they’ve proven they have no aptitude for it. I mean you need to get the basics down and after that a person should be able to gravitate towards what they’re good at.

I dunno, I clearly don’t have the answers and probably don’t even understand the problems that well. I’m also kind of an outlier in that I seek out knowledge on my own. The right knowledge can put you way ahead of your competition in most instances, and I like having it.

28 Comments

Up here, after about grade 9, you pretty much can pick courses based on your strengths. Not good at math? Well, take the lower math and take a higher English. In tge province where my friend went to high school, you can specialize even more (algebra, calculus, geography) However, as I found out, it can fuck you in university if your not careful. But some trades just need you to have grade 10

So it doesn’t seem that unreasonable. That’s not to say we don’t have a flawed system, because we certainly do, I just don’ t know enough about your system to see what the issue with individual focused learning would be.

Which is what makes homeschooling such a powerful option. If done properly, you get a wide base, and the opportunity to focus on individual strengths.

If done improperly, you will get an ignoramus.

Big, BIG “if”. In the States, at least, homeschooling is far from an opportunity for individually tailored learning; rather, it’s most often a vehicle for religious indoctrination free from the corrupting influence of the outside world and its pesky “facts”.

A popular but inaccurate stereotype. People homeschool their kids for lots of reasons, most commonly because their public schools aren’t serving their kids well and they either can’t afford private school, or can’t find one that would be a good fit. It’s true that some parents are motivated by religious fundamentalism, but they’re not the majority, certainly not these days. (Of course, at the time I’m posting this, the number one reason for homeschooling is that schools aren’t currently a thing, because virus.)

It might be time to send the old PS3 to the big Gamestop in the sky.

Agreed. They should just focus on english, communication skills (written and verbal) and basic math (maybe a second language option if its prevalent in the area). No long breaks (they seem to be phasing them out here anyway…. ) and just send people to work a few years earlier to either earn the money they need for college or just get that much farther ahead. Use any public moneys we save on reduced school classes on great public libraries/community centers perhaps with lots of workshops where these working youngsters can go and explore different career options if the grunt work doesn’t appeal.

___________________

He managed not to hit any of Reggie’s triggers? Amazing! Or has Reggie actually been thinking over some of what others have tried to teach him lately?

While this might save money and aggravation, it misses the point of education. Based on the fact that you are replying to Jackie’s post, I’m assuming you live in the united States. One of the primary purposes of education here is to create an informed populace capable of electing representatives thoughtfully. Your post seems to suggest that we would be better off with a system of education similar to that of Germany: based on aptitude, tracked, and with a substantial proportion of the students entering trade schools as early as grade 11. This is not an option for us though, because Germany’s government is structured differently from our own. In Germany, the populace elects the Bundestag, which elects most of the rest of the government aside from the Bundesrat which the people have no control over anyway. The Bundestag are all highly educated, so they presumably make thoughtful, informed choices. Although we have issues in the USA with elections, I think it’s fair to say that people have more input than that. This is not to say that Germany has a bad education or government system, just different. Therefore, it is crucial that every member of the populace be educated in many fields beyond reading and math so that they may make thoughtful, informed decisions about who they elect as their civil servants.
Tl;Dr: lack of balanced education is inimical to democracy.

I actually wrote a much longer analysis initially but foolishly closed the browser window and lost it. If any concepts seem poorly reasoned or incomplete, please let me know, and I can elaborate further

The primary purpose of education here is to get you ready for work or college which is to get you ready to perform some more specialized form of work. I think it would be great to have a more varied educational experience but the high schools (least the ones I’ve been anywhere near) don’t seem to be up to the challenge so I thought maybe scaling them back to just making sure the children have enough education to be able to teach themselves or go to work if they have to and then they and or their parents can explore more subjects on their own if they so wish until or if they go to college might be something they COULD handle. This is more a sign of my lack of faith in the system than anything else. IF I didn’t also have a lack of faith in many parents I would suggest home schooling entirely, instead of just the more varied topics you mention, instead.

Interesting concept, but I must disagree on your assertion that the primary purpose of education is to assist with a job. A recent study by the federal Bank of new York showed that only 27 percent of college graduates work in a field that utilizes their major to any significant degree. Education has deeper purposes than preparation for a job. If it didn’t, or economy would be even more broken than it is now.
Also, cutting back school time in exchange for a better educational framework sounds great, but true autodidacts are becoming progressively harder to find. With the rise of the internet and gaming technology, distractions abound.

certainly and the majority of degrees qualify you only to ask “would you like Fries with that?”

far better would be to have some basic schooling until like thirteen or so then move to focus on something that will let you support yourself, you know things you will actually use rather than forget the second you turn in the test paper.

they used to have that too, it was called being an apprentice.

Reggie’s one of the greaatest men to ever walk into whatever store it is they work at (I forgot) it should surprise no one he’s far above petty squabbles.

That was one of the bigger differences when I switched from a public high school to a private high school. Even in a good public high school there were a lot of kids who were just there because they had to be there. At the private high school, their family’s were paying for the privilege of them attending (heavy subsidized in my case) and could be sent home if they did too badly, so pretty much everyone was somewhat motivated in class.

Other kids are dicks, The Teen’s a fucking master of Weird Science already, and I’m out of coffee. I’ve got a crazy tip from my mom to help The Teen with getting out of sportball teams. Ten bucks, a Walgreens, and a wristguard thing. If you get one for her non-dominant hand and do it right she’ll get away with dodging the Meatheads. Do it wrong and they notice and pester for ages. However since she’s a master of Weird Science… You’ve got all the best equipment to win this thing with that plan.

Lincoln and Boothe:
Together Again!

Y’know, if these two start to cooperate, it could create a whole new vibe in the comic. Ed and Reggie interacting without B.S. (bloodshed or bull $#!+ — your choice) may not take on the weight of, say, the friendly rivalry between Thomas Blackwell and John Kepler, but hey…

Many of the Grits and Greasers from my High School ‘graduated’ with diplomas every bit as valid as mine — we actually didn’t have a lot of dropouts. The difference was, they did jack with their sheepskins. Most of them went into the building trades (as laborers), auto mechanics (but you need a certificate to work as an ‘automotive technician’ these days), or they got jobs in the local factories. The building trades went bust two recessions ago; move South or starve. A lot of the grease monkeys couldn’t pass the licensing exam for auto tech. The factories in the Northeast started closing in the Recession of the late 1970s, and they’ll never come back.

Some of the morons were cunning enough to see it coming and many, many of them pulled off the same scam: They’d get a job for a while, then fake a back injury. Back injuries are hard to disprove; I’ve had problems with my back for years, but it won’t disqualify a computer geek from working. I’ve run into so many of these fakers at Physicians and Chiropractors offices over the years, I just want to call in a Retroactive Abortion strike on them. They’re proud of their ‘accomplishments’ and they’ll live out the rest of their useless, unproductive lives on your money. The guy who moved in up the street from me a few months ago and will never work again. He and his woman (wife? girlfriend? bitch?) have three kids who were born without manners and will have nothing to aim for. So, who would like to donate to my mandatory ‘Spay and Neuter’ clinic?

If it turns out the drive has failed again, it might be a good idea to replace the power supply.

On school – I agree totally – if a kid doesn’t want to learn, put them in the “low-EQ/low-motivation” class until (if) they shape up. Keep them away from the kids who do want to learn – and that includes outside of school, or the asshole majority will bully the “privileged” minority.

Of course, it’s also our responsibility (as wholesale incarcerators of children) to make the “low-EQ” class a place for kids to _learn_ how to have higher EQ. Give them the emotional tools they need to succeed. Give them the motivation to get out of the failure track they’re in.

In the bigger picture, if we gave kids the tools to demand what is their right – an education to the limits of their capability, in exchange for years of their lives spent locked in one building – the present school system couldn’t handle them – couldn’t provide them with the opportunities they need, and couldn’t solve all the problems the kids face (e.g. bullying) without getting even more draconian on some of them.

I admit I don’t know the answer to the problem of a kid who’s going bad. But I believe that even in reasonably good public schools, the few worst kids drag down the whole system. And that’s an injustice that I get pretty upset if I let myself think about too much.

That is the way school is set up now, you learn the basics, then start to specialize. Problem is, in high school you are still learning the basics, with some limited specialization. Post secondary is where you start playing to your strengths. The other issue is socialization, in high school you are still learning how to be a social animal and interact with others, then sexual tension and hormones start being tossed into the mix just to make things interesting.

That being said, I agree with you in much of this, once past, say, middle of middle school, the teaching methods should change from large group, rote spew info and regurgitate, to some form of actual focused learning, problem is I don’t know how to make it work on a large scale.

As a tutor in an after school homework help program working alongside other teachers, I’m going to present a counter-viewpoint to this:

While it would likely be more convenient (i didn’t like dealing with bullies, jerks and moronic nitwits, nor teaching said people that don’t want to learn), those same assholes will whine and complain (and likely do something potentially dangerous to the rest of us) many years later if we can’t say we gave them every available opportunity to do right by themselves.

Additionally, kids that don’t want to learn isn’t the only problem. Many teachers lack the enthusiasm, creativity and energy to engage the kids in a fun and interesting way.

For instance, I learned most of what I know about computers playing games. For MUDs like Terris online, and games like Myth: the Fallen Lords and Warcraft 2, I had to learn how to install a new game or demo, system specs, Megabytes, processing speed, how to install a video card or re-install windows OS when problems arose, and eventually how to program, since i ended up making friends with gamers, hackers and computer savvy people.

BTW, are you secretly promoting a “Purge-like” situation for our schools?

Glory be to the New Founding Fathers…

Being the student here who doesn’t much feel like learning and reading the comments section is really only making me more depressed than I already was…
I don’t personally see much point in attempting to learn what I’m likely to either forget or never use. Math is something I’m actually good at it, except the math class I have now doesn’t teach it nearly as well as all of my previous classes used to; it’s all rushed, and I can’t keep up with what the teacher is saying because I tend to not understand it and instead just try to copy all the notes, which I might not understand after reading a few times anyways… Not that I see too much point in learning some of what we’ve already covered, seeing as the only time in the future I can imagine using those skills are “on the test next class” and “on the test at the end of the quarter/year”…
The English classes have always been and will probably always be about literature and not English. Sometimes we have to write essays, in which case the prompt is usually something that I can’t even give an imaginary response to. “Which celebrity would you like to meet?” I don’t know any celebrities! I don’t usually care much for individual celebrities so much as the actual works! While I can see value in being taught how to write and possibly how to organize an essay, I don’t understand why we have to do it on an extremely short timer. In middle school, it was apparently to “prepare for the future” where the future was high school, and in high school, it was to “prepare for the future” where the future is probably college, and what it is for college I’ll just have to see if I even get there, but I don’t know of any large branch of jobs, or even any specific job, that requires you to write a full, five paragraph essay within an hour and maybe a few minutes based on a prompt that you may or may not know anything about and is almost guaranteed to be entirely irrelevant. Also, an important thing to note is that they don’t teach much grammar. It seems to be- and has been said by one of my teachers- that foreign language classes tend to be where you learn about grammar, just because you need to be able to translate from English to whatever it is you’re learning.
I don’t have anything to say about my science classes. They’ve handled themselves pretty well, and I’ve only had a few hiccups with them, mostly my own fault.
History and geography is not something I can handle. I’ve never been good at memorization or caring about people, and combining the two is going to put me under a lot of stress. Everyone else seems to be pretty good at it, though…
Maybe putting all this out here was pointless and unreasonable, but what I meant to say was that I’m not good at learning anything and seeing no reason to attempt to learn most of what I’m supposed to in class beyond “you’ll use it later in education” makes me wonder if I should even bother with most of it because I don’t think I’ll even make it that far.

Also, I hope that I’m not one of the dickheads who’s dragging the class down. Generally, when I’m not motivated to learn, I just stay silent and try to understand what is happening enough that if I have to do something I’m not likely to ruin everyone else’s learning.

You make me sad. I hated school. Many in my school may have actually hated me (made it to the papers in 2000, headlined). The only thing I look back and feel wistful about is that I had even 1/2 the love for consummation of fun info back then as I have now. Not going to bore you to tears, learn how to learn. That’s what it is all about. Clap Clap.

School was boring for me. I pick up on pretty much everything really quickly (it sounds awesome, but that boredom combined with a bad tendency to procrastinate…well I only finished HS with a 2.7 gpa). School’s should not only teach to a student’s strengths, but their speeds as well, if that makes any kind of sense.

As for the comic, I’m SO SO SO glad you didn’t make Reggie an outright asshat. It’s easy to let a character be two dimensional, and it’s only slightly harder to give a likable character flaws. But to take a character that (early on at least) was a complete asshole, and turn him into someone that can be sympathized with, if not liked. So bravo my good sir, I find that I’m enjoying Reggie’s character more and more as time goes on.

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