Oh that's nice. I hope there are some interesting sites there and you are still within reach of the bigger city. Sounds like the ideal place to live.

Well I was smart, I did something sciency!

Nah, it's cool. I haven't been around here much in the last 6 weeks or so. Been really busy with grad school.

Oh really? Glad to know things are coming together now. So did you move to a larger city? Are you now closer to your workplace or something like that? Why did you move?

Things are going well. On summer "vacation". Semester has ended with a 3.7 GPA and I am supposed to be working on my thesis. LOL, I am taking a 3 or 4 week break from work before I start becoming productive again.

How's life?

Thanks.

Yeah, the HP DV series laptops were really nice except for their heat issues... But they'd get hot and the thermal paste of the graphics card would melt and then bye bye computer functionality... I'm pretty good about not covering the vents though, and about putting my computer on hibernate when I'm not using it.

I'll probably buy a Thinkpad, then... It sounds bad, but from my perspective, Thinkpads are the only Windows laptops worth their price. But I'm a bit worried that if I get a quad-core one (like I want to), I'll end up with shitty battery life after about 2 years.

I just meant that mobile versions of graphics cards or other hardware might not be tested for a particular game, and thus could cause odd in-game issues, crashing, etc. Or it might not. I've heard of some weird glitches concerning how certain laptop hardware interacts with certain software, but like I said, it might not be a very common thing.

Something about the way you broke up the sentences and that comma?

I thought they turned off all the Demon's Souls servers when Dark Souls came out.

yeah np

I see. No problem. I have been busy too. And I don't mind things taking their own pace. Hopefully you'll get accustomed quickly and thrive there. May I ask what the circumstances were? New job?

I could understand that. You get to take part in establishing the fundaments for those kids too, hopefully directing them towards becoming healthy individuals.

That is a problem. Do you have any ideas that you think would remedy it?

That was sort of it. You could have a very high score, but getting a perfect score would be almost impossible. It used a bell curve. Basically made it look like a scholastic version of an IQ test.

Males, I guess, are at a far more dire position than ever before. The modern world brings with it extreme amounts of novelty and distraction that seems to affect males almost exclusively. The tonnes of disorders, such as ADD, popping up seems to imply that. I've gotten into some educational ideas here and there that promise improvement. And I think the system needs to be changed anyway, it doesn't completely fit current society. Do you have any ideas?

The essay I mentioned earlier argued that children know too little problem solving because of weird priorities. Here it is about making mathematics "fun". The end result is just something that is very weird and inefficient.

PS. Speaking of engagement in certain subjects, there was a series over here which dealt with that and some related topics. Very interesting and informative. I recommend you watch it. Here.

Is that internet situation a downside of having direct tv?

Which level do you feel was the most rewarding for you?

Exactly. One of my issues with the teachers was that they would usually just rehash whatever stood in the book to the pupils and then assign us some tasks from the book. Reading the books on our own would have been just as effective. In addition, it constrained the knowledge aquired by pupils very much, as it barely taught the minimum.

Heh, rote learning was another aspect I had problems with. Many simply immersed themselves in lots of factoids without anything more to it. If they were told to apply it to somewhere else, see any sort of pattern or otherwise in one way or another understand it and think with that information, they would have done a lot worse. But I think it's very much in the interest of the elites to have a population of zombies as opposed to free-thinkers. Or people are inherently sheep.

I guess I was a little bit of both. I did try to make the teachers I didn't like to look stupid, and rarely did I fail in doing so. In my defense, I disliked them for valid reasons, one of them being that I hardly had to do that much to make them look stupid other than to point it out. Then again, it also made me really respect the good teachers. I guess I could say I take education very seriously and I have no respect for those who don't do - what should be - their job.

Could you elaborate more? While I do think that you are onto something, I do also think it shows inherent flaws in the educational system. Scores do seem to correlate with the quality system of education. With that said, I only used PISA as an example.

Yes, that could be, though it also depends on the country of course. Education relies on the teachers for the most part no matter what, even with a poor or good curriculum.

I recently read an essay where a teacher complained about something similar. Basically, there was too much focus on these innovative measures from the government that actually were to the detriment of teaching. Would you say they perhaps put the bar too low? I don't think it's necessary to teach some things at the expense of others. And I see the same problems here, just with everything. It's distraughting to see the lack of certain skills amongst my peers. And interestingly, males, while generally also more intellectually curious, seem to fall behind on those skills, such as writing. It's all becoming very vapid.

I don't mind at all; I enjoy reading longer, well-thought out posts - and replying. I hope that is the case for you as well. And yes I think the answer was quite adequate.

What education level? From personal experience, the higher up in the education system I went, the better I went along with the teachers. I went from being perceived as an arrogant and belittling troublemaker intent on disrupting every single class by arguing with every teacher, and I'd say I was, to an intellectually curious student who just 'got' everything and who probably should have been somewhere else by that point.

The reason for this, I guess, is that the higher up you get the more intelligent the teachers are. To add on that, more intelligent people are going to be affected by their position of authority less. A lot of teachers probably have little respect for the minds and thoughts of children. Children are reduced to little more than dogs with no capacity of independent thinking, and if they do have the capacity, it has to be wrong, because, after all, they're just children. Or independent minds intimidate said authority figures.

They have gotten worse here as well, although it never was that good to begin with. The country I live in has one of the highest living standards in the world, yet the educational standard is horrid and one of the lowest on the continent. We continuously perform on the lower half of the list on those standardized PISA tests and similar ones. The flaw is obviously in the system when the country has the amount of wealth that it has. Moreover, simply spending more money doesn't work at all, which just strengthens my belief that the system is inherently flawed, and there's all the other reason to believe that.

How do you as a teacher view all of this? I realize it must have been hard for my teachers, but I'd really wish they weren't such a bunch of drones who simply taught the deeply flawed and stale curriculum and nothing but it. I guess one can't be anything else when one's job depends on it. Does having to be told what to teach and how to teach by people who know less than you, i.e., politicians, annoy you?

This probably was a little too much, and I apologize, but I am very curious on this particular topic.

Heh, that's the efficiency of standardized education for you. "Teach the children the bare minimum and they'll be fine, we're only able to teach the bare minimum anyways."

I just can't seem to understand if politicians are simply inept or following bad policy on purpose. Likely both.

I see. I can understand that they would want more exposure to French, but the solution to the problem is quite poor.

Is French a part of the national curriculum? If not, then it should be, just as English is part in a substantially large part of the world. Additionally, if it isn't, then the decision was very poor. They should have seen it coming if it were the case; making such drastic changes in such short time spells disaster.

It doesn't completely parallel my article, yet there's systematic injustice and bias in both cases. In my article, racial groups are affected; in your article, the poor are affected. This could to some extent have a negative impact on socioeconomic mobility in Canada.

It is as it points out the current state of matters. The system is rigged. That's not only the case in the US, however.

I know little of it. Could you elaborate?

Completely diff experience, I believe BS for consoles was dumbed down. Certain mechanics didn't make it to the ports.

i'm glad to have given you something to think about in a new way.

Well, Snake just has a fine booty. Would be a shame to cover that thing up.