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Writer's Block: Batter up!
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My husband proposed to me over pancakes. THAT was my favorite meal involving pancakes. :D
My husband proposed to me over pancakes. THAT was my favorite meal involving pancakes. :D
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Writer's Block: Leading a horse to water
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Oooh, that's a difficult one. I feel both strongly "yes" and strongly "no".
The part of me that says "no" recognises that teenagers are capable of making decisions for themselves. The problem is that they usually don't make good decisions. A lot of teenagers live in the now and are focused - yay modern America - on instant gratification, without worrying about how their decisions will affect them next week, next year, or in the next stage of their life. But I do think they should still be held responsible for those decisions. I don't think it's right to establish a tendency of "oh, it's okay, you're a teenager so you're not responsible for your actions". Responsibility should start young, or it won't ever be learned - there can't be a get-out-of-jail free card (literally) for anyone under some randomly determined age. Teenagers should be held responsible for their own actions, at least to some degree.
On the other hand, I feel "yes" because I think parents should be guiding their children in the decision-making process and teaching them what is acceptable for the society they are being raised in. I think that a lot of people in this time period aren't really taking responsibility for raising their own children. Parents have a huge influence on the attitudes and beliefs of their children - the whole "nature vs. nurture" argument. Granted, there are a lot of other influences out there - yay peer pressure - but parents should be the primary influence. Just because they decide not to be doesn't make them any less responsible for the actions of their children. And that process of identifying good decisions doesn't end when we hit 20. A few years ago I asked a lawyer-professor of mine about how this works in court, and she told me that there is medical proof that the human brain doesn't stop developing and changing until about 25 - so until that point, our identity and our decision-making processes aren't truly set and determined. We're still learning.
Okay, it's 10am and I'm out of time, so that's gonna have to do as my answer. Ta!
Oooh, that's a difficult one. I feel both strongly "yes" and strongly "no".
The part of me that says "no" recognises that teenagers are capable of making decisions for themselves. The problem is that they usually don't make good decisions. A lot of teenagers live in the now and are focused - yay modern America - on instant gratification, without worrying about how their decisions will affect them next week, next year, or in the next stage of their life. But I do think they should still be held responsible for those decisions. I don't think it's right to establish a tendency of "oh, it's okay, you're a teenager so you're not responsible for your actions". Responsibility should start young, or it won't ever be learned - there can't be a get-out-of-jail free card (literally) for anyone under some randomly determined age. Teenagers should be held responsible for their own actions, at least to some degree.
On the other hand, I feel "yes" because I think parents should be guiding their children in the decision-making process and teaching them what is acceptable for the society they are being raised in. I think that a lot of people in this time period aren't really taking responsibility for raising their own children. Parents have a huge influence on the attitudes and beliefs of their children - the whole "nature vs. nurture" argument. Granted, there are a lot of other influences out there - yay peer pressure - but parents should be the primary influence. Just because they decide not to be doesn't make them any less responsible for the actions of their children. And that process of identifying good decisions doesn't end when we hit 20. A few years ago I asked a lawyer-professor of mine about how this works in court, and she told me that there is medical proof that the human brain doesn't stop developing and changing until about 25 - so until that point, our identity and our decision-making processes aren't truly set and determined. We're still learning.
Okay, it's 10am and I'm out of time, so that's gonna have to do as my answer. Ta!
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Writer's Block: Connecting the dots
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I feel kind of ambivalent about standardized tests. I think they could be worthwhile, but there are a lot of problems with how they are being used right now that ends up doing more harm than good.
I agree with many people that they serve well the students who are good test-takers or who are good at memorizing large amounts of data (myself included in that category) but that many otherwise-intelligent people do poorly on standardized tests. There's a lot that can't be tested on a standardized test purely for the fact that they are widely standardized. As well, outside of school people are rarely required to give information in a testing format, so the ability to test well is not actually useful outside the classroom.
That being said, I do think that standardized tests are a good measurement tool for getting a broad-spectrum idea of education levels - think surveys. I think ranking the individual students is pointless, for the above reasons, but the tests could be used as a comparison tool between one school and another, one region and another, one country and another. This only works, imho, if you take the whole body of scores as a range, zB: "This school's top-to-bottom scores ranged 20 points lower on math than all the other schools in the district."
Of course, when you use these tests to determine things like funding levels and teacher pay, it only results in having the instructors 'teach to the test', which is no good for anyone involved. So, yeah. *shrugs* 'Ambivalent' is a good word.
I feel kind of ambivalent about standardized tests. I think they could be worthwhile, but there are a lot of problems with how they are being used right now that ends up doing more harm than good.
I agree with many people that they serve well the students who are good test-takers or who are good at memorizing large amounts of data (myself included in that category) but that many otherwise-intelligent people do poorly on standardized tests. There's a lot that can't be tested on a standardized test purely for the fact that they are widely standardized. As well, outside of school people are rarely required to give information in a testing format, so the ability to test well is not actually useful outside the classroom.
That being said, I do think that standardized tests are a good measurement tool for getting a broad-spectrum idea of education levels - think surveys. I think ranking the individual students is pointless, for the above reasons, but the tests could be used as a comparison tool between one school and another, one region and another, one country and another. This only works, imho, if you take the whole body of scores as a range, zB: "This school's top-to-bottom scores ranged 20 points lower on math than all the other schools in the district."
Of course, when you use these tests to determine things like funding levels and teacher pay, it only results in having the instructors 'teach to the test', which is no good for anyone involved. So, yeah. *shrugs* 'Ambivalent' is a good word.
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Writer's Block: Who's your daddy?
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Washington!!!! The sons of his opponents wish that he was their dad!
JK
In all seriousness, I think having famous parents sounds very frustrating and not worth the attention. I'm very happy having perfectly normal un-famous parents. But I think it would be interesting to be the child of one of the great thinkers of history: Aristotle, Da Vinci, etc... I wonder what they would be like as parents.
Washington!!!! The sons of his opponents wish that he was their dad!
JK
In all seriousness, I think having famous parents sounds very frustrating and not worth the attention. I'm very happy having perfectly normal un-famous parents. But I think it would be interesting to be the child of one of the great thinkers of history: Aristotle, Da Vinci, etc... I wonder what they would be like as parents.
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Writer's Block: Star struck
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I think that what we give to our celebrities is maybe not right, but it is fair - there's a difference.
We value our celebrities because they entertain us. (Consider how in ancient Rome, gladiators and other entertainers were slaves, and in the origins of British theatre, acting was considered a very low-class, unclean profession. Entertainment has moved up in social scale throughout history.) People are willing to pay for all kinds of entertainment - sports, movies, tv, games, etc. If we valued their ability to entertain less we wouldn't pay them as much.
We idolize celebrities because they're talented and beautiful and we aspire to be like them. But we also demand that they be talented and beautiful - most celebrities are, and when they fall short we criticize them for it. They may be on average fabulously wealthy, but that doesn't mean their jobs are easy - and we also demand their privacy in return for what we give them. Would you like to have fans stalk you and paparazzi shove cameras into your personal business every single day?
Considering how critical we are of our celebrities, and how much we ask of them, I think it is fair that they are treated the way they are. I certainly wouldn't want to be a celebrity - you'd have to pay me a lot of money to put me through what they deal with daily!
I think that what we give to our celebrities is maybe not right, but it is fair - there's a difference.
We value our celebrities because they entertain us. (Consider how in ancient Rome, gladiators and other entertainers were slaves, and in the origins of British theatre, acting was considered a very low-class, unclean profession. Entertainment has moved up in social scale throughout history.) People are willing to pay for all kinds of entertainment - sports, movies, tv, games, etc. If we valued their ability to entertain less we wouldn't pay them as much.
We idolize celebrities because they're talented and beautiful and we aspire to be like them. But we also demand that they be talented and beautiful - most celebrities are, and when they fall short we criticize them for it. They may be on average fabulously wealthy, but that doesn't mean their jobs are easy - and we also demand their privacy in return for what we give them. Would you like to have fans stalk you and paparazzi shove cameras into your personal business every single day?
Considering how critical we are of our celebrities, and how much we ask of them, I think it is fair that they are treated the way they are. I certainly wouldn't want to be a celebrity - you'd have to pay me a lot of money to put me through what they deal with daily!