Human Growth & Learning
The Scariest Show on TV proves we remember little of our schooling; but as schools demand more, the students hate it more, and they remember less & less. Beating Children Some years ago I saw a t-shirt that read, “The beatings will continue until morale improves.” This applies to all sorts of bureaucracies, but particularly … [Read more…]
I mentioned a couple of days ago that we homeschool our children. One of the questions/complaints we often hear from other parents is about their socialization skills. Interaction with peers is an important step in socialization, so how will our kids learn social skills? Sometimes on my grumpy days I ask: What kind of socialization … [Read more…]
I remember working a small town hospital in central Mississippi and seeing a patient in her 50’s. In tow was a very engaging 5 year-old boy. As I was examining his grandmother, he was going around the ER opening all the drawers and looking inside. He didn’t touch anything, he just looked. And the whole … [Read more…]
My children hardly wanted anything for Christmas. They only asked Santa for a couple of things each, and my wife and I had to work to come with a few extra gifts for them. Then after opening presents, my daughter happily commented that she had gotten more than she asked for. Gratitude. That’s something we … [Read more…]
At one point in practicing medicine, I remember worrying that I was becoming racist. I had examined several black children one day who were all uncooperative and fought me, so I couldn’t get in a good exam, which means I couldn’t practice good medicine. I could feel myself tensing up when I went to examine … [Read more…]
I got some feedback, positive and negative, on the Justice Scalia/Affirmative Action piece. One person asked an interesting question about different admission criteria for football players, and that gave me something to think about. In Fisher v University of Texas, Fisher was not denied admission because her slot was filled by a minority student. Rather, … [Read more…]
There’s this woman I know of, who has too many children. The unfortunate thing, however, is that despite the natural differences among them, she all expects them to perform and master new skills on demand: all at the same time, and at with same level of proficiency.
I remember a friend of mine who had earned his PhD at the University of California once saying that he thought Lafayette was more tolerant than Berkeley. That seemed unlikely to me, so I asked a mutual friend, another scholar who read constantly about politics and social issues, and who also traveled widely. “Certainly,” she … [Read more…]
In the oral arguments of Fisher vs. University of Texas, Justice Antonin Scalia raised some questions about Affirmative Action: There are those who contend that it does not benefit African Americans to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, … [Read more…]
Physical, emotional, sexual abuse; what about intellectual abuse? Modern education begins in the medieval, when there was no respect for freedom of thought.