President Trump on the Civil War...

[DrHoops]

Ironically those are our president's own words.

We'll see that crap on CNN, NYT and WAPO reported as journalism next.

 

[anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa]

Education and learning isn't worth much unless one can apply all of that to their lives and to their occupations and professions. That is a skill that requires much more than knowledge. Among those things is imagination. I like the many quotes attributed to Einstein about imagination.

I wouldn't say history is one of the least valuable because history teaches us about the collective human experience. In many contexts that knowledge, and how to use it in today's world, is extremely important.

After having gone through 16 years of education, I really hadn't experienced education until I started law school and got hit hard with the Socratic Method. The mind probing by a skilled instructor is simultaneously intimidating, disconcerting and reassuring I realize that is not everyone's cup of tea. We are all different in how we learn. In any event, mass produced education to large classes is unsuited for that. It also takes more instructor effort than simply delivering a lecture.

I don't disagree with anything you've said. However, history is the most subjective of subjects and unless one is learning how to use various historical sources to triangulate what likely really happened, then you're not learning much and being fed Propaganda.

Ladoga's test is worthless at point-making. It only exhibits rote memorization skill and that in and of itself with history is worthless.

 

[hootch1]

I posted a copy of the History portion of that exam. It is authentic, having been copied from an original found in a local genealogical library.

Are you saying its not harder than anything an 8th grader have to learn now? You'd be wrong. Just showed the entire exam to a tip top 8th grade student last year. He said no teacher in his building - a 4 Star super school - could pass that exam. I doubt anyone here could pass it within the time allowed and without an internet connection to look it up.

I call BS. Our daughter is about to finish the eighth grade. This year included a full year of STEM classes and Algebra 1. Our son, about to graduate from high school, had Algebra and Geometry his eighth grade year.

I cannot say what school was like at the end of the 19th century, but our local school systems are significantly better than the schools I attended in my younger years. I had never heard of an AP test or an International Baccalaureate curriculum in school. There are many more opportunities and a lot more information now compared to 120 years ago.

 

[DrHoops]

The illiteracy rate for adults during the time that test was administered was probably 30%. "Conservatives" like Ladoga are always looking backward...to a time they think was better...when it actually wasn't.

Another reason I could never be a conservative.

I call BS. Our daughter is about to finish the eighth grade. This year included a full year of STEM classes and Algebra 1. Our son, about to graduate from high school, had Algebra and Geometry his eighth grade year.

I cannot say what school was like at the end of the 19th century, but our local school systems are significantly better than the schools I attended in my younger years. I had never heard of an AP test or an International Baccalaureate curriculum in school. There are many more opportunities and a lot more information now compared to 120 years ago.

 

[CO. Hoosier]

I don't disagree with anything you've said. However, history is the most subjective of subjects and unless one is learning how to use various historical sources to triangulate what likely really happened, then you're not learning much and being fed Propaganda.

Ladoga's test is worthless at point-making. It only exhibits rote memorization skill and that in and of itself with history is worthless.

Of course history is subjective. I don't think that is a fault, but a benefit. To decide whether the Civil War could have been avoided, or whether Truman was correct in dropping the bombs are subjective, but it requires people to think.

 

[anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa]

Of course history is subjective. I don't think that is a fault, but a benefit. To decide whether the Civil War could have been avoided, or whether Truman was correct in dropping the bombs are subjective, but it requires people to think.

No argument. Well put.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

Of course history is subjective. I don't think that is a fault, but a benefit. To decide whether the Civil War could have been avoided, or whether Truman was correct in dropping the bombs are subjective, but it requires people to think.

I don't know that either question is hard. Truman is a simple matter of priorities. If one prioritizes the lives that may have been lost in Operation Olympic, the question is easy. If one prioritizes the people alive at that moment in those two cities, the question is easy. One would have to work awful hard to answer that question with a wrong answer.

The civil war question is different. Could it have been avoided is a bit different than the usual "what caused" question. That avoided question is just a "fun" question, I don't know there is an answer. If one suggests it can be avoided, they need an explanation of what may have avoided it. Barring a magic fairy, I have no idea what that would have been. There just is no way to prove that Lincoln could have offered X and the slaveholders would have agreed.

 

[CO. Hoosier]

I don't know that either question is hard. Truman is a simple matter of priorities. If one prioritizes the lives that may have been lost in Operation Olympic, the question is easy. If one prioritizes the people alive at that moment in those two cities, the question is easy. One would have to work awful hard to answer that question with a wrong answer.

The civil war question is different. Could it have been avoided is a bit different than the usual "what caused" question. That avoided question is just a "fun" question, I don't know there is an answer. If one suggests it can be avoided, they need an explanation of what may have avoided it. Barring a magic fairy, I have no idea what that would have been. There just is no way to prove that Lincoln could have offered X and the slaveholders would have agreed.

Kinda agree. There are no right and wrong answers to questions like that. There are only arguments and those arguments spring from individual values and priorities.

 

[hoosboot]

Kinda agree. There are no right and wrong answers to questions like that. There are only arguments and those arguments spring from individual values and priorities.

Even given the limitations of the questions you pose, they are infinitely more valuable learning tools than most of the questions on the test that IronTreeLaBossierWorksPromenade fawns over.

IMHO, history is most valuable specifically when it is tethered in an applied learning fashion as you suggest. Being challenged to contemplate and discuss the why and the how instead of the what and the when is the kind of thing that produces dramatically better adults. That wasn't my experience growing up, but I find it is much more the experience of students today and that's one of many reasons why I think IronTreeLaBossierWorksPromenade's premise is faulty.

 

[CO. Hoosier]

Even given the limitations of the questions you pose, they are infinitely more valuable learning tools than most of the questions on the test that IronTreeLaBossierWorksPromenade fawns over.

IMHO, history is most valuable specifically when it is tethered in an applied learning fashion as you suggest. Being challenged to contemplate and discuss the why and the how instead of the what and the when is the kind of thing that produces dramatically better adults. That wasn't my experience growing up, but I find it is much more the experience of students today and that's one of many reasons why I think IronTreeLaBossierWorksPromenade's premise is faulty.

I mostly agree. But I would note that there are several around here who find it necessary to stake out a "right" position on issues where there are really only arguments and no right or wrong.

 

[Ladoga]

I call BS. Our daughter is about to finish the eighth grade. This year included a full year of STEM classes and Algebra 1. Our son, about to graduate from high school, had Algebra and Geometry his eighth grade year.

I cannot say what school was like at the end of the 19th century, but our local school systems are significantly better than the schools I attended in my younger years. I had never heard of an AP test or an International Baccalaureate curriculum in school. There are many more opportunities and a lot more information now compared to 120 years ago.

I agree - there are many enhanced opportunities and exposures. My grandchildren excel in all of those.

Its the content of SOME of them - like history and its materials that are a problem I've seen. AND, its a lack of consequences for not mastering the material. Excellent students would do perfectly well with or without good schools because they have good families. Those kind of kids always have and always will. What about the rest of the kids? What are those not eager to learn actually learning? What does an average kid graduate knowing?

My grandson had fabulous instruction and learning in 8th grade history but it was an accelerated class for which he had to compete just to get in the class. About 50 applicants did not get in the class as I recall. 36 kids out of hundreds got in that class - replacing their regular US History 8th grade class. My grandaughters all have great learning experiences, but they are straight A students with top scores. The 7th grader is finishing Algebra 1 now - 2 years ahead - with an A+. They aren't the ones left behind.

As I said above, if you don't do what you are required to do, something bad should happen to you. Instead, we praise mediocrity and give trophies for participation.

 

[hoosboot]

I mostly agree. But I would note that there are several around here who find it necessary to stake out a "right" position on issues where there are really only arguments and no right or wrong.

I can buy that, too. For a great many issues, Dave Mason says it best.

 

[i'vegotwinners]

I agree - there are many enhanced opportunities and exposures. My grandchildren excel in all of those.

Its the content of SOME of them - like history and its materials that are a problem I've seen. AND, its a lack of consequences for not mastering the material. Excellent students would do perfectly well with or without good schools because they have good families. Those kind of kids always have and always will. What about the rest of the kids? What are those not eager to learn actually learning? What does an average kid graduate knowing?

My grandson had fabulous instruction and learning in 8th grade history but it was an accelerated class for which he had to compete just to get in the class. About 50 applicants did not get in the class as I recall. 36 kids out of hundreds got in that class - replacing their regular US History 8th grade class. My grandaughters all have great learning experiences, but they are straight A students with top scores. The 7th grader is finishing Algebra 1 now - 2 years ahead - with an A+. They aren't the ones left behind.

As I said above, if you don't do what you are required to do, something bad should happen to you. Instead, we praise mediocrity and give trophies for participation.

thanks for the "my kids are better and smarter than everyone elses' kids" post. glad you got a chance to vent that.

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"if you don't do what you are required to do, something bad should happen to you. Instead, we praise mediocrity and give trophies for participation".
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guess i've just missed those ceremonies where they praise mediocrity and give trophies for participation.

no doubt that sound bite hasn't been overused enough, or over exaggerated enough.

i wonder where mediocre participants find enough space in their house for all those trophies.

and just what is the "something bad" you want to happen to other's kids that don't meet your standards of excellence? (hope use of capital letters isn't on the test).


as for history, one could literally write volumes after volumes of books that make the US look like the Mother Teresa of all countries ever.

and every word could be true.

and the same could be said which would make the founding fathers, and many after them, look like traitorous, tax dodging, power hungry, slave ownership loving, overtly sexist, plutocracy embracing, terrorists.

and again, every word could be true.

history is funny that way.

 

[Aloha Hoosier]

thanks for the "my kids are better and smarter than everyone elses' kids" post. glad you got a chance to vent that.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
"if you don't do what you are required to do, something bad should happen to you. Instead, we praise mediocrity and give trophies for participation".
------------------------------------------------------------------------

guess i've just missed those ceremonies where they praise meritocracy and give trophies for participation.

no doubt that sound bite hasn't been overused enough, or over exaggerated enough.

i wonder where mediocre participants find enough space in their house for all those trophies.

and just what is the "something bad" you want to happen to other's kids that don't meet your standards of excellence? (hope use of capital letters isn't on the test).


as for history, one could literally write volumes after volumes of books that make the US look like the Mother Teresa of all countries ever.

and every word could be true.

and the same could be said which would make the founding fathers, and many after them, look like traitorous, tax dodging, power hungry, slave ownership loving, overtly sexist, plutocracy embracing, terrorists.

and again, every word could be true.

history is funny that way.

Didn't they teach English and grammar at your schools?

 

[meridian]

We'll see that crap on CNN, NYT and WAPO reported as journalism next.

Ironically those are our president's own words.

Let me help out Ladoa.

What Ladoga is saying is that what CNN, NYT, and WAPO' put out are crap because he doesn't agree with them, but the crap our so-called president and Fox News put out are godly because he adores them. He is living a very simple life.

 

[Ladoga]

Let me help out Ladoa.

What Ladoga is saying is that what CNN, NYT, and WAPO' put out are crap because he doesn't agree with them, but the crap our so-called president and Fox News put out are godly because he adores them. He is living a very simple life.

No thanks. No help wanted. I didn't say that. But it is true that those outlets put out crap.

 

[SuperHoosierFan]

The illiteracy rate for adults during the time that test was administered was probably 30%. "Conservatives" like Ladoga are always looking backward...to a time they think was better...when it actually wasn't.

Another reason I could never be a conservative.

The hallmark of truly miserable individuals. Any day is better than today. Any time is better than right now.

 

[UncleMark]

The hallmark of truly miserable individuals. Any day is better than today. Any time is better than right now.

It's never as good as it used to be, or never as good as it should be.