#4207583 - 12/18/15 06:49 PM
Re: Back at WOFF after a long hiatus ....
[Re: Over50]
|
Joined: Sep 2009
Posts: 2,921
vonBaur
Senior Member
|
Senior Member
Joined: Sep 2009
Posts: 2,921
|
To be fair to the school system, each year the "Big Book of History" gets bigger but the time available to learn it all remains the same. I graduated high school in 1972. There's been 43 years worth of new "history" happen since then. Mostly inconsequential stuff, like:
Major changes in the Middle East The fall of the Soviet Union and the resulting redrawing of the map of Europe The rise of terrorism as an international political tool
There's a lot more that needs to be taught than there was when most of us received our educations. So, unfortunately, some of what once was considered important...maybe even essential...must be rushed over as background to the current state of affairs or dropped altogether. How many of us learned Latin in high school? Not I. But my parents did. Hell, my older sister and brother did. (Not saying Latin should be brought back into the curriculum, just using that as an example of how quickly the priorities can change.)
SALUTE TO ALL!
|
|
|
#4207684 - 12/18/15 10:37 PM
Re: Back at WOFF after a long hiatus ....
[Re: hood]
|
Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 2,808
Adger
Senior Member
|
Senior Member
Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 2,808
|
Many thanks for your kind thoughts gentlemen and to Adger for his post.I would not like to give you the idea that I am a lonely old man.I have a vibrant family---children,grandchildren and a great grand child as well as my Maggie,my wife of 60 years all of whom combine to keep me hopping. It is great to be the Oldest Woffer.Though come to think of it ,I am just about the oldest everywhere I go.Only last week I was told I was the oldest member of my jazz ballet class though looking at the others I find that hard to believe.Nah....just kidding. Woff forum is my first stop every morning and I would like wish the finest forum group I have ever seen a very Merry Christmas and a really great New Year.Cheers all. Hi Keith great to see you on here i did send you a PM in reply to the card you,d received,...Jazz Ballet ay? so you are the oldest swinger in town ,hope you enjoy that as much as i enjoy seeing you on here..Give my very best wishes to your lovely wife and family and once again a very Merry Christmas to you all
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.
|
|
|
#4207760 - 12/19/15 01:44 AM
Re: Back at WOFF after a long hiatus ....
[Re: Over50]
|
Joined: May 2012
Posts: 997
HumanDrone
Just shoot me...
|
Just shoot me...
Member
Joined: May 2012
Posts: 997
Near Pittsburgh, PA USA
|
Hood, it is one of the problems of internet communication - a single sentence can provide not enough information, or too much can be read into it. It does my heart good to hear of your family - "A righteous man leaves a heritage to his children's children," and in your case, children's children's children!
But my offer stands. If you are familiar with "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and would like, PM me your address and you'll get a card bearing the postage stamps - no doubt after Christmas!
I was 10 when it came out and I've watched it every year since. At the time. CBS executives screened it and thought it was a failure. The American people thought quite differently, and so did one of the animators, Ed Levitt - at the in house screening of the finished cut, most in the room were unsure as to how well they did. But he stood in the back of the room and said, "They'll be airing this program 100 years from now." We're halfway there!
Now my grandchildren are watching, and with an 18 year old granddaughter, I could be a great-grandad before I retire!
The merriest of Christmas to you and Maggie and all your generations!!!
Box: Win7 Pro 64 bit / I72600K @4.1 GHz / EVGA GTX1080Ti/ 16GB RAM / Corsair 240 GB SSD / WD 600 GB Velociraptor / 1050W Power FS Stuff: Saitek X52 Pro Stick/Throttle & Combat Rudder Pedals, TrackIR 5 Sims: FSX Gold, REX 2.0 OD, UTX-NA, FSGenesis 10m mesh/ CFS3 ETO 1.40/Wings Over Flanders Fields BH&H2 (more gorgeous than ever!) Proud BOC inductee 4/30/12!
|
|
|
#4207773 - 12/19/15 02:35 AM
Re: Back at WOFF after a long hiatus ....
[Re: vonBaur]
|
Joined: May 2012
Posts: 997
HumanDrone
Just shoot me...
|
Just shoot me...
Member
Joined: May 2012
Posts: 997
Near Pittsburgh, PA USA
|
To be fair to the school system, each year the "Big Book of History" gets bigger but the time available to learn it all remains the same. I graduated high school in 1972. There's been 43 years worth of new "history" happen since then. Mostly inconsequential stuff, like:
Major changes in the Middle East The fall of the Soviet Union and the resulting redrawing of the map of Europe The rise of terrorism as an international political tool
There's a lot more that needs to be taught than there was when most of us received our educations. So, unfortunately, some of what once was considered important...maybe even essential...must be rushed over as background to the current state of affairs or dropped altogether. How many of us learned Latin in high school? Not I. But my parents did. Hell, my older sister and brother did. (Not saying Latin should be brought back into the curriculum, just using that as an example of how quickly the priorities can change.) vonBaur, & others: At the risk of screwing up a nice thread, there are several problems confronting the schools besides the bulk of information. ArisFuser summed it up - it's more the kids and the impact of technology on them than teachers, who (going by Aris) have a way to go just to keep their attention. The kids, even I, are affected by pervasive technology. When I was a kid, I was an excellent scale modeller, and as I got older and moved into model rocketry, I had to glue on my own fins, fill them, sand them, fill them, sand them again, fill them... same with the nose cone - align the launch lug, paint it, and so on. Today you pull it out of the package, stuff a motor up the backside, perhaps some wadding, roll the chute, and off you go. I learned the math behind a stable flying design, etc. I had a HO racetrack and learned out to lay out the track. We raced by the hours with cars that could actually spin out or fly off the track, instead of being held down by magnets and flying at ridiculous speeds. We fought it out in street pickup games, I rode my bike around the neighborhood, read books, and learned how to deal with boredom. I practiced my piano, I joined garage bands, we interacted! We made things, cabins, go karts, even a "cannon" from pop cans that used lighter fluid to launch a tennis ball! Imagine! I had to mow the lawn and the push mower wasn't even self propelled! Even when my kids were coming up the recommendations were to stick with Mr. Rodgers Neighborhood instead of Sesame Street, as the very fast flashy graphics were already having an impact on kids being able to sit still in kindergarten. (Sorry to those who won't know about those two options). Then too, what are we giving them to live for? The nihilism and rabid sensuality of this age is as pervasive as the hideous 24 hour news cycle with its extremism and attention grabbing apocalyptic headlines. Watch TV, and most kids would get the idea that sex is always free, immediately gratifying, and without any regrets, something the admirable, "with it" kids do, while the virgins are the shrinking violets or dorks, geeks & dweebs with the hangups. And the violence - and even the drama cycle, the plots are all resolved in the hour or half hour. And their families are far less stable - and God forbid you actually discipline the little snowflakes in school. Education should be about how to find and use knowledge, about making a person fit to take their place in society; how to process the facts that will be thrown at you all your life. It is often said and rightly so, I believe, that we sent me to the moon with far fewer technological tools than we have today. And we understood much better the balance between individual rights and community responsibility. In school, we pledged alligance to the flag and prayed, and no one thought it tantamount to the US Congress establishing a state church. The Jehovah's Witness kids didn't participate, remained our friends, and learned how to deal. I've been bullied, and I learned how to deal. The Jewish kids went to our choral Christmas and Easter concerts, which contained actual sacred music, suitable for church, and they are ok. We also learned Jewish traditional songs for Hanukkah and and performed them, but the thrust was overtly Christian, though of course we did not actually conduct worship - and the Jehovah's Witness kids were given a pass. All is not gloom and doom. Every age has had to learn to deal with the advances (or setbacks) they have been dealt. But not without confronting those issues, which in my mind are more the cause of the problems in school than the schools themselves, much less folks like ArisFuser struggling against this tide. Shoot. Can somebody help me drag this soapbox out of the way? It's enormous! If anybody wants to continue this discussion, we'd probably be best moving off to another thread... but I do think this impacts WOFF's demographic! Again, Merry Christmas (and indeed, Happy Hannukkah) to all! Tom
Box: Win7 Pro 64 bit / I72600K @4.1 GHz / EVGA GTX1080Ti/ 16GB RAM / Corsair 240 GB SSD / WD 600 GB Velociraptor / 1050W Power FS Stuff: Saitek X52 Pro Stick/Throttle & Combat Rudder Pedals, TrackIR 5 Sims: FSX Gold, REX 2.0 OD, UTX-NA, FSGenesis 10m mesh/ CFS3 ETO 1.40/Wings Over Flanders Fields BH&H2 (more gorgeous than ever!) Proud BOC inductee 4/30/12!
|
|
|
#4207878 - 12/19/15 02:28 PM
Re: Back at WOFF after a long hiatus ....
[Re: HumanDrone]
|
Joined: Sep 2004
Posts: 718
SkyHigh
Member
|
Member
Joined: Sep 2004
Posts: 718
Ireland
|
vonBaur, & others: At the risk of screwing up a nice thread, there are several problems confronting the schools besides the bulk of information. ArisFuser summed it up - it's more the kids and the impact of technology on them than teachers, who (going by Aris) have a way to go just to keep their attention. The kids, even I, are affected by pervasive technology. When I was a kid, I was an excellent scale modeller, and as I got older and moved into model rocketry, I had to glue on my own fins, fill them, sand them, fill them, sand them again, fill them... same with the nose cone - align the launch lug, paint it, and so on. Today you pull it out of the package, stuff a motor up the backside, perhaps some wadding, roll the chute, and off you go. I learned the math behind a stable flying design, etc. I had a HO racetrack and learned out to lay out the track. We raced by the hours with cars that could actually spin out or fly off the track, instead of being held down by magnets and flying at ridiculous speeds. We fought it out in street pickup games, I rode my bike around the neighborhood, read books, and learned how to deal with boredom. I practiced my piano, I joined garage bands, we interacted! We made things, cabins, go karts, even a "cannon" from pop cans that used lighter fluid to launch a tennis ball! Imagine! I had to mow the lawn and the push mower wasn't even self propelled! Even when my kids were coming up the recommendations were to stick with Mr. Rodgers Neighborhood instead of Sesame Street, as the very fast flashy graphics were already having an impact on kids being able to sit still in kindergarten. (Sorry to those who won't know about those two options). Then too, what are we giving them to live for? The nihilism and rabid sensuality of this age is as pervasive as the hideous 24 hour news cycle with its extremism and attention grabbing apocalyptic headlines. Watch TV, and most kids would get the idea that sex is always free, immediately gratifying, and without any regrets, something the admirable, "with it" kids do, while the virgins are the shrinking violets or dorks, geeks & dweebs with the hangups. And the violence - and even the drama cycle, the plots are all resolved in the hour or half hour. And their families are far less stable - and God forbid you actually discipline the little snowflakes in school. Education should be about how to find and use knowledge, about making a person fit to take their place in society; how to process the facts that will be thrown at you all your life. It is often said and rightly so, I believe, that we sent me to the moon with far fewer technological tools than we have today. And we understood much better the balance between individual rights and community responsibility. In school, we pledged alligance to the flag and prayed, and no one thought it tantamount to the US Congress establishing a state church. The Jehovah's Witness kids didn't participate, remained our friends, and learned how to deal. I've been bullied, and I learned how to deal. The Jewish kids went to our choral Christmas and Easter concerts, which contained actual sacred music, suitable for church, and they are ok. We also learned Jewish traditional songs for Hanukkah and and performed them, but the thrust was overtly Christian, though of course we did not actually conduct worship - and the Jehovah's Witness kids were given a pass. All is not gloom and doom. Every age has had to learn to deal with the advances (or setbacks) they have been dealt. But not without confronting those issues, which in my mind are more the cause of the problems in school than the schools themselves, much less folks like ArisFuser struggling against this tide. Shoot. Can somebody help me drag this soapbox out of the way? It's enormous! If anybody wants to continue this discussion, we'd probably be best moving off to another thread... but I do think this impacts WOFF's demographic! Again, Merry Christmas (and indeed, Happy Hannukkah) to all! Tom This is one of the best posts I have ever read, anywhere. Happy Christmas to all on here.
Last edited by SkyHigh; 12/19/15 02:29 PM.
|
|
|
|
|