I dated an MA recipient who didnt accomplish much during his education (and nothing after.) He described his university experience as "babysitting". I was there. It was embarrassing.

The demands of MA programs differ immensely.

The assumption everything one can learn at school can be learnt while they're on vacation just isn't true. I feel bad when I teach a course but have to provide some of the lectures online due to scheduling conflicts. I will always try to find a substitute instead. There is too much learning benefit from being in class with colleagues and instructors to just slap slides and notes up online instead.

Spearthrower wrote:https://www.bbc.com/news/education-47898657

‘I was put in a school isolation booth more than 240 times'

A girl who tried to kill herself after spending months in an isolation booth at school has said she felt "alone, trapped and no-one seemed to care".

The teenager, who has autism, had no direct teaching and ate her lunch in the room, away from friends.

How the fuck did we get here?

Concept of individualism gone rampant, that's how. Kids - like everyone else - are regarded as evil or good autonomous units. If evil, they are punished, if good they are rewarded. If this concept reflected reality, school isolation would work.

The concept of autonomous individuals does not reflect reflect reality, though. Anyone with just a modicum of experience in educational systems will quickly notice that (a) children with behavioural problems come overwhelmingly from an environment of dysfunctional families, and (b) that dysfunctional families exist overwhelmingly among the poorer strata of society.

Even if the behaviourists' concept of conditioning works, school isolation is an extraordinarily, idiotically, ineffectually blunt instrument to cure misbehaving children. No matter whether they spend one or 240 sessions in isolation, they will always return to the environment that keeps on causing their behavioural problems in the first place.

Schools are not designed to fix those problems, nor should they be. They are meant to teach reading, writing and reckoning skills. (Ideally, they are also meant to instill skills for critical and independent thinking, but that may be asking for too much in our increasingly neo-liberal western societies.)

If some kid turns out to be intractable, get a social worker in. That isn't a particularly good solution either because social workers can't fix poverty, but tackling the core problem is well out of reach while we keep voting conservative fuckwits into government. Thank you, mass media. You've got us over a barrel.

Keep It Real wrote:
I have lost enough sleep / peace of mind over surr for the whole board and way beyond. He is not of this world basically
although is civilised in his own way at least and thats a lot more than can be said about oh so many so kudos to him

I seriously hope you are not wasting your time worrying about me

As far as my civility is concerned well it is just basic manners which anyone is capable of so it is nothing special
I see zero point in being angry online because it only inhibits engaging discourse and can be counter productive
Also I am routinely surrounded by vastly more intelligent people than me both here and else where so humility
is the order of the day rather than arrogance. And I am also old [ 55 ] so I no longer have the spoons for aggro

But please stop worrying about me since I am not in the absolute least deserving of yours or anyone elses sympathy
I am an eternal nobody and it suits me just fine because being anonymous makes me as free as as I can possibly be

surreptitious57 wrote:

Keep It Real wrote:
I have lost enough sleep / peace of mind over surr for the whole board and way beyond. He is not of this world basically
although is civilised in his own way at least and thats a lot more than can be said about oh so many so kudos to him

I seriously hope you are not wasting your time worrying about me

As far as my civility is concerned well it is just basic manners which anyone is capable of so it is nothing special
I see zero point in being angry online because it only inhibits engaging discourse and can be counter productive
Also I am routinely surrounded by vastly more intelligent people than me both here and else where so humility
is the order of the day rather than arrogance. And I am also old [ 55 ] so I no longer have the spoons for aggro

But please stop worrying about me since I am not in the absolute least deserving of yours or anyone elses sympathy
I am an eternal nobody and it suits me just fine because being anonymous makes me as free as as I can possibly be

Lucky you ;)

Hermit wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:https://www.bbc.com/news/education-47898657

‘I was put in a school isolation booth more than 240 times'

A girl who tried to kill herself after spending months in an isolation booth at school has said she felt "alone, trapped and no-one seemed to care".

The teenager, who has autism, had no direct teaching and ate her lunch in the room, away from friends.

How the fuck did we get here? :what:

Concept of individualism gone rampant, that's how. Kids - like everyone else - are regarded as evil or good autonomous units. If evil, they are punished, if good they are rewarded. If this concept reflected reality, school isolation would work.

The concept of autonomous individuals does not reflect reflect reality, though. Anyone with just a modicum of experience in educational systems will quickly notice that (a) children with behavioural problems come overwhelmingly from an environment of dysfunctional families, and (b) that dysfunctional families exist overwhelmingly among the poorer strata of society.

Even if the behaviourists' concept of conditioning works, school isolation is an extraordinarily, idiotically, ineffectually blunt instrument to cure misbehaving children. No matter whether they spend one or 240 sessions in isolation, they will always return to the environment that keeps on causing their behavioural problems in the first place.

Schools are not designed to fix those problems, nor should they be. They are meant to teach reading, writing and reckoning skills. (Ideally, they are also meant to instill skills for critical and independent thinking, but that may be asking for too much in our increasingly neo-liberal western societies.)

If some kid turns out to be intractable, get a social worker in. That isn't a particularly good solution either because social workers can't fix poverty, but tackling the core problem is well out of reach while we keep voting conservative fuckwits into government. Thank you, mass media. You've got us over a barrel.

I am not sure I would agree on rampant but that is not important. I tend to agree that let's say progress in the last half century or so with regards to individual rights, children rights included, is part of the problem so to say. However, I view such progress as positive. We've had posters saying how violence was used when they were schooled half a century ago and there is no going back to that anytime soon I think. So the question is, how to reconcile or balance such individualism, such rights, with responsibilities? Hardly through isolation booths.

And yes to the rest.

Rachel Bronwyn wrote:
There is too much learning benefit from being in class with colleagues and instructors to just slap slides and notes up online

Some learn better in a classroom environment while others learn better studying alone
There is no universal one size fits all so what works for some will not work for others

When you need the subject matter explained to you then the classroom is where you need to be
But when you know what you are doing and require no tuition then you can study at home alone

I was listening to one teacher saying basically what you just said surreptitious57, that the more talented kids should not be required to be at school every day or for all lessons, they could devote their time and energy to other activities while leaving more time and energy teachers devote to the not so talented students. This, of course, would pose a problem for parents of such talented kids because school is, in a way, a babysitting institution.

surreptitious57 wrote:But please stop worrying about me since I am not in the absolute least deserving of yours or anyone elses sympathy

I was/am disturbed by you. Sympathy and empathy? No, and that is very rare for me. I wouldn't even raise an eyebrow in sympathy if you slipped off this mortal coil, had a gout inflammation or accidentally chopped off a thumb this very day.

I know it's a drop in the ocean but STOP formatting my posts into your "style" when quoting me - it's creepy and beyond weird.

Keep It Real wrote:
Sympathy and empathy ? No and that is very rare for me

So if its not sympathy or empathy then what is it ? What exactly is so disturbing about wanting to live a quiet life ?
I think your extreme reaction to my lifestyle choice says far more about you than it does about me in all honesty
Maybe some introspection upon your part about why you feel that way might be rather helpful do you not think ?

surreptitious57 wrote:

Rachel Bronwyn wrote:
There is too much learning benefit from being in class with colleagues and instructors to just slap slides and notes up online

Some learn better in a classroom environment while others learn better studying alone
There is no universal one size fits all so what works for some will not work for others

But there are things that cannot be learnt by anyone in the absence of instruction and facilities, which is the reality of most online courses. It's why most university level courses aren't offered in an online format and most degrees require physical attendance at an institution.

All those kids whose parents take them out of school for vacation aren't necessarily going to be great independent learners nor will all the content they missed be the sort that's possible to teach to one's self from online material.

In reality, everyone is a combination of independent and group learning traits. Even kids who excel in independent study will get some benefit from hands-on learning with other learners and instructors.

Please can we not hear for the three millionth time about surreptitious's personal philosophy? Thanks.

I was responding to his totally ridiculous reaction to it otherwise it wouldnt have been mentioned by me at all
Also I dont keep count of how often I do mention it but it is usually within the context of an ongoing discussion
I have precisely no interest in trying to convert anyone to my way of thinking as all I say is that it works for me

I have decided to give it until tomorrow after reporting post #69 for your continued mutilation of my posts, surreptitous57. After that I may well pursue the issue using other means.

Ok then, I will also be blunt.

Keep It Real - your only contributions to this thread have been personalized posts about surreptitious57's character.

Disagreeing with him on topic is one thing - he'll confirm that I have often disagreed with him on many topics over many fora, over many years - but you haven't actually disagreed with his points about school isolation, or schooling, or punishment, or anything else relevant to the topic.

So I am going to make you the same offer. Take your personal feud with him to another thread - or better still, PM's, and start posting on topic here, or I will also lean on the alert button to draw moderator attention to what looks very much like bullying.

Fair enough, I nearly posted that last one in the rant thread like Hermit but didn't quite join the dots so posted it here, which, with hindsight, was an error and will not be repeated. Bullying eh...well, you're entitled to your opinion Spearthrower.

Keep It Real wrote:Fair enough, I nearly posted that last one in the rant thread like Hermit but didn't quite join the dots so posted it here, which, with hindsight, was an error and will not be repeated. Bullying eh...well, you're entitled to your opinion Spearthrower.

More relevantly; the moderators are/would be entitled to their opinion.

So about the topic.

KIR : just so you know I will no longer be quoting anyone anymore as my formatting causes problems for some here
I didnt bat an eyelid about your comments wrt me so if someone reports you for them it has nothing to do with me

OK, I'll put those "other means" on hold for now.

surreptitious57 wrote:I was responding to his totally ridiculous reaction to it otherwise it wouldnt have been mentioned by me at all
Also I dont keep count of how often I do mention it but it is usually within the context of an ongoing discussion
I have precisely no interest in trying to convert anyone to my way of thinking as all I say is that it works for me

I don’t care about any of this. Remember what the thread is about at all?

surreptitious57 wrote:

Rachel Bronwyn wrote:
There is too much learning benefit from being in class with colleagues and instructors to just slap slides and notes up online

Some learn better in a classroom environment while others learn better studying alone
There is no universal one size fits all so what works for some will not work for others

To some extent perhaps. And depending on the skill or area. There's nobody who learns to drive a car better by reading a book about it rather than practising with a driving instructor.

From the little I've read on the subject, generally speaking if an educational intervention is an improvement over the prevailing methods, it's an improvement for everyone, not an improvement for some and a regression for others. It may, of course, be a bigger improvement for some than others. And there will likely be outliers, and the outliers are probably the same people who struggle and/or are disruptive in school. But as far as I'm aware, other than recognised conditions like Aspergers, there's no concrete evidence to suggest that certain people learn more effectively in one way and others learn more effectively in another. And it's not like there's been a lack of research, because a lot of people have been very invested in this idea of learning styles in education for a long time now.

Having said that, would the idea that "some learn best by studying alone" not be an argument in favour of isolation?