hell, plutarch, why teach the bulk of the kids to read to begin with? why not just plop them down in front of 'educational' tv and let them learn to be good consumers. (ie, buy what ever is being advertized) we can have tv shows instructing them how to look at pictures and work the cash registers at mcdonalds (which don't have dollar values, but picture icons so illiterate idiots can learn to work the cash register.)
i have made the point that knitting (Of all things!) helped me understand binary math and other numbering series, as well as giving me a huge insight into boolian logic.
lots of people scoff at knitting, (a nice hobby for old ladies, usless, but harmless--but then again, knitting needles were banned from airflights right after 9/11 so some thought knitting needles could be used as lethal weapons!) but knitting aside from teaching fine motor skills (good for learning to write) also teached a new way of thinking--ways of thinking i continue to use.
human beings always have insights and understanding based on their current knowledge.
3000 years ago, the egyptians thought the heart a useless organ...even as they 'understood' the lungs (the lungs were 'bellows' that flamed the 'fire' of human life. bellows they knew and understood.
understand of the function of the heart came with the industrial revolution.. as engineers understood pumps, they came to also understanding the pumping action of the heart--
the action of the heart didn't change.. but understanding the action arrived when there was external analogy that could be understood.
what is a measure of practical knowledge? You understand grammar, and you have mastered english and consider understanding part of speech and rules of grammer to be useless.
many disagree. maybe only 1 in 1000 kids truly benefits from the knowledge. SO WHAT? What is the goal? Are we interested in education or in giving children job training?
if the goal (of schools) is to give job training--sure we can dump grammer, 99% of the kids don't need it to be clerks in mcdonalds or wal-marts. but if our goal is education (even if 50% of the kids resist it, and end up in jobs like mcdonald or wal mart where they don't need it) then part of being educated is to understand the language we speak.
a few days ago, you were humbled and agreeing with Word wind, but now you are back to your original position.
for homework to night, reread the essay!
