Why Can't They Figure it Out?

[Zep]

Wow.

Just. Wow.

I don't need to re-read my OWN posts. I know what I think. Your intentional misrepresentation of what I've said is up to you.

Tokie

[stifled_laugh]

This is just toooooo good! You can't write bad comedy like this, folks! Now, can you!

It's not "champagne" comedy, it's...it's...spumante comedy??!

[/stifled_laugh]

 

[Tokenconservative]

Yes, I let people tell me what they are, much like I don't let folks tell me I'm Mexican, Indian, Sicilian, Hawaiian, etc, or the TSA tell me I'm Middle-Eastern. I don't let folks tell me I'm a baby-making machine who couldn't add 2+2 with a calculator, much less handle mutli-variable calculus.

Your emphasis on the language and documentation status of these students is precluding the other factors involved in school performance, namely, socio-economic status and parental involvement.

When the parent is working long hours trying to keep the family fed, the parent has very little time to ask the kid how s/he is doing in school or keep in contact with the teachers. When the kid comes to school hungry, it's hard to keep focus. When the kid is surrounded by crime and has to worry about their safety when going back and forth to school, be it gang violence or that crazy homeless person, how much focus can you expect them to have in class?

This isn't to say we shouldn't be holding our schools to high standards, but we should also be focusing on some the factors outside of the classroom that are affecting performance.

When it comes to ESL education, you have to realize that not all of the kids in ESL are from Spanish-speaking homes and not all of them are illegal or the offspring of illegal immigrants. Immersion is the best way to learn, but this is also easier for younger kids who pick up languages faster. Having to juggle learning a new language and new information in that language is diificult.

Still, this is just one part of a whole problem.

You need to stop yelling at a single tree and ignoring the entire forest just because you hate that tree, but love your $19.99 microwaves at Wal-Mart.

Socio-economic status and parenting: hmmm...I grew up dirt poor. My parents basically stopped paying attention to us (had their own issues) when I was about 10. Let's not talk about me, tho: I have a brother who holds degrees in math. He is the "go to" guy in this area of the country for what he does with software (don't ask me what that is...I have no clue). He probably gets a dozen headhunters a week trying to poach him and drag him of to CA or somewhere. My other brother runs the tech division of an international firm that produces a unique product that just about everybody uses. He's also a fairly impressive real estate investor.

I'm reasonably successful at what I do and married to a wonderful woman who is very successful (she's one of those same types of "go to" people in our area in what she does. I am not, by the way, but that's partly because we decided I should stay home and raise the kids when they were little. My firm is, however, now steadily growing and taking a larger and larger part of the local (that's all it can) market share, every day, thanks for asking.

When I was a kid, we would've qualified for "free" lunches, WIC, foodstamps, etc. if my parents hadn't too much pride not to do that. My dad (none of us kids has much to do with him, unfortunately--his choice) is virtually destitute and my mom died with nothing, just so you don't get the idea that I spent my formative years playing at the "family compound." They lost their home to the IRS just before divorcing some years ago. They DID stay together long enough to raise us, but I really think that was more a matter of convenience than anything else.

I am boycotting Wally Mart because of their practice of placing the "Hispanic" signange about the American signanage and their habit of employing people who can't seem to speak the language of the US of A.

What your own race, ethnicity etc. is, I really don't care, regardless of your shrieking attempts to divert the issue by claiming I MUST be a RAACCCCIIISTTTTTT!! I am not. What matters in this discussion is this: Are. You. An. American?

I don't really care whether that means your grandfather came through Ellis Island with mine, or whether you crossed the Rio Grande last week. If you are a legal resident/citizen, then you fall outside the scope of my ire, no matter the color or your skin, eyes, hair, stature, girth, gender, etc. If you are an AMERICAN, none of these things matter BECAUSE this is America. But you must pass that first and most important test.

If you are here, in my country, illegally, then you are fair game. I don't dislike you because of your skin or eye color, I dislike you because you are a criminal who has no right to be in my country sucking at the public teat. You need to go home and get "free" healthcare and "free" education in your homeland.

As to ESL: why on earth would a school put the child of a citizen born in America in an ESL class.

Anyone?

Anyone?

Couldn't be because every ESL kid is a $$ bonus for the school...

Must be why they insisted my 1/2-blooded Choctaw nephew be in one, huh?

Tokie

 

[Flo]

[stifled_laugh]

This is just toooooo good! You can't write bad comedy like this, folks! Now, can you!

It's not "champagne" comedy, it's...it's...spumante comedy??!

[/stifled_laugh]

Hmmm, I'm not sure about "spumante", rather one of those sour sparkling wines produced out of a white "Chateau Migraine", especially the melodramatic opus just after your intervention ...

 

[LostAngeles]

Socio-economic status and parenting: hmmm...I grew up dirt poor. My parents basically stopped paying attention to us (had their own issues) when I was about 10. Let's not talk about me, tho: I have a brother who holds degrees in math. He is the "go to" guy in this area of the country for what he does with software (don't ask me what that is...I have no clue). He probably gets a dozen headhunters a week trying to poach him and drag him of to CA or somewhere. My other brother runs the tech division of an international firm that produces a unique product that just about everybody uses. He's also a fairly impressive real estate investor.

I'm reasonably successful at what I do and married to a wonderful woman who is very successful (she's one of those same types of "go to" people in our area in what she does. I am not, by the way, but that's partly because we decided I should stay home and raise the kids when they were little. My firm is, however, now steadily growing and taking a larger and larger part of the local (that's all it can) market share, every day, thanks for asking.

When I was a kid, we would've qualified for "free" lunches, WIC, foodstamps, etc. if my parents hadn't too much pride not to do that. My dad (none of us kids has much to do with him, unfortunately--his choice) is virtually destitute and my mom died with nothing, just so you don't get the idea that I spent my formative years playing at the "family compound." They lost their home to the IRS just before divorcing some years ago. They DID stay together long enough to raise us, but I really think that was more a matter of convenience than anything else.

I am boycotting Wally Mart because of their practice of placing the "Hispanic" signange about the American signanage and their habit of employing people who can't seem to speak the language of the US of A.

What your own race, ethnicity etc. is, I really don't care, regardless of your shrieking attempts to divert the issue by claiming I MUST be a RAACCCCIIISTTTTTT!! I am not. What matters in this discussion is this: Are. You. An. American?

I don't really care whether that means your grandfather came through Ellis Island with mine, or whether you crossed the Rio Grande last week. If you are a legal resident/citizen, then you fall outside the scope of my ire, no matter the color or your skin, eyes, hair, stature, girth, gender, etc. If you are an AMERICAN, none of these things matter BECAUSE this is America. But you must pass that first and most important test.

If you are here, in my country, illegally, then you are fair game. I don't dislike you because of your skin or eye color, I dislike you because you are a criminal who has no right to be in my country sucking at the public teat. You need to go home and get "free" healthcare and "free" education in your homeland.

As to ESL: why on earth would a school put the child of a citizen born in America in an ESL class.

Anyone?

Anyone?

Couldn't be because every ESL kid is a $$ bonus for the school...

Must be why they insisted my 1/2-blooded Choctaw nephew be in one, huh?

Tokie

So you're an exception to the usual standards. This could be due to any number of factors, say, other adults who stepped in, role models, you over-simplifying your background.

I don't shop at Wal-Mart because it has crap to sell, lousy service, and lousy business practices. Also, the city won't put up with that crap here. (Of course, that's partly due to the REEEAAAASSSEEEAAARRRCCHHHH of the LIBBBBEERRRAAALLL UC Berkley.)

So, if a child has crossed the Rio Grande legally last week and is an American citizen, then they should not be in an ESL class? Or if their parents crossed legally and gave birth here, they should not be in an ESL class even if the primary language at home is Spanish or something else?

Hey, they put me in speech therapy for having a New Jersey accent instead of a MA one and in remedial gym because I couldn't see the ball.

No one in the school system EVER makes a mistake.

But your anecdotes prove that all poor kids who are doing badly in school are just stupi... I mean, ILLLLEEEEGGGAAALLL...

 

[volatile]

Has Bill O'Reilly gotten himself a JREF account or something? This whole "debate" is absurd.

Tokie - have you noticed how this is working yet? You make an outrageous claim, others post evidence to prove you are wrong, you whine about it, refuse to substantiate your original point and, even in light of your obvious error, continue to stick doggedly to your ill-formed ideas.

What was that about the global warming "religion"? There's at least one person acting religiously in support of an ideology here, and if you'd take the time to find a mirror you might catch a glimpse of them.

You know what? I love learning. If I made a statement which someone proved, very conclusively, was wrong, I'd thank them and change my opinions. You, on the other hand bitch and whine and cry and, even when presented with rafts of rafts of evidence and even when you lack even a single source to back up your opinions, refuse to change your mind.

That, my friend, is called ignorance.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

So, if a child has crossed the Rio Grande legally last week and is an American citizen, then they should not be in an ESL class? Or if their parents crossed legally and gave birth here, they should not be in an ESL class even if the primary language at home is Spanish or something else?

Deleted.

 

[volatile]

Leaving aside how wrong everything you've said is, no child could possibly have illegally immigrated and then become an American citizen within a week. It's not possible.

Pssst! She said "legally".

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Pssst! She said "legally".

I've been reading this thread too long. I thought I nabbed a quote from Token.

Mea culpa.

 

[Gnu Ordure]

I've changed my mind, Token, you are entertaining (but not deliberately).

You said:

From ImaginalDisc :

In neither case does it appear you're qualified to pass judgment on the education other people should receive.

Hmmm...this is like one of those net grammar nannies who screams about your misuse of a semi-colon, while making all sorts of grammatical and spelling mistakes him/herself in the complaint.

Yes, such hypocrisy is despicable, isn't it, Token ?

But let's be clear. You're heavily critical of the standard of public-school teaching in the States, right ? And you feel qualified to be critical because you are a qualified teacher yourself, you've taught in the public-school system, and still do teach English as a sub occasionally.

Over in the "Grammar adds nothing" thread yesterday, you confirmed your dissatisfaction in responding to Aquila's anecdote:

Originally Posted by Aquila

Yesterday I subbed in a Ist grade classroom where the teacher had written a poem on a poster on the wall as an example for the children. She had used the word "to" instead of "too" - as in "I can do it to".

Yes, that's a big problem I run into as well. I see handouts from teachers that are so riddled with such errors it's embarassing. My kids come home from school with such things, too.

And I not talking about stuff from their math and science teachers, but from their English and History teachers, the first of whom should have a very strong mastery of the language.

Hilarious.

In the same breath as asserting your own 'very strong mastery of the language', and castigating your hapless fellow professionals for lacking it, and describing your feelings about it... you misspell 'embarrassing'.


Now that's embarrassing.

But I know what you'll say. "One little mistake, so what ?"

Hardly. Just one of many.

In ten minutes browsing, I found these other examples of your spelling:

fascetious

germain

tenditioius

seperate (at least five of those)

persue

hegemeny

supressed

councel

cunundrum

privelege

recieve

and

our capitol city.

This isn't about your grammar, Token, which anyway you know and admit is weak (no disgrace there, by the way - some people are just better than others at that stuff).

This is about your credibility as a critic of other teachers. If you're going to criticize their spelling, it does rather behoove you to check your own and get it right. Which you fail to do. Over and over again.

Thus you criticize others for faults that you yourself possess.

Hypocrite.

Are you going to say that this is a forum, not a class-room, so it doesn't matter ?

Please. This is a public educational forum. This is the education section of the educational forum. You're a teacher (sometimes). There may be kids reading this, listening to you, hoping to learn from you, a teacher. You admit your spelling is poor - and yet you continue to post in an illiterate fashion, refusing to spell-check your posts, while simultaneously expecting your criticisms of other teachers to be respected and taken seriously.

Some hope.

One more point. Before I went to collect your spelling mistakes, I didn't know what subjects you taught. I discovered that not only are you an English teacher, but you've actually taught Hamlet to 16-year-olds.

Which makes it even more astounding that you didn't understand what mortal coil meant. An English teacher, with a BA in English Lit, who doesn't understand the most famous speech in the most famous play by the most famous playwight in history, and who therefore cannot teach it ?

Poor 16-year-olds.

 

[volatile]

One more point. Before I went to collect your spelling mistakes, I didn't know what subjects you taught. I discovered that not only are you an English teacher, but you've taught Hamlet to 16-year-olds.

Which makes it even more astounding that you didn't understand what mortal coil meant. An English teacher, with a BA in English Lit, who doesn't understand the most famous speech in the most famous play by the most famous playwight in history, and who therefore cannot teach it ?

Poor 16-year-olds.

Nominated. What a brilliant, brilliant post!

 

[Damien Evans]

You seem confused. That's not my "philosophy." Actually, it's quite clearly a "philosophy" (?) of the left. Lenin (a communist) first said "the lie told often enough becomes the truth) and Hitler's man Goebbels ( A Nazi--socialist) put it to use. These are leftists. Like you.

Wow, so you actually think that the Nazi party was a lefty party?

That's about the most stupid thing I've ever seen

 

[LostAngeles]

I've been reading this thread too long. I thought I nabbed a quote from Token.

Mea culpa.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

 

[Tokenconservative]

I've changed my mind, Token, you are entertaining (but not deliberately).

You said:



Yes, such hypocrisy is despicable, isn't it, Token ?

But let's be clear. You're heavily critical of the standard of public-school teaching in the States, right ? And you feel qualified to be critical because you are a qualified teacher yourself, you've taught in the public-school system, and still do teach English as a sub occasionally.

Over in the "Grammar adds nothing" thread yesterday, you confirmed your dissatisfaction in responding to Aquila's anecdote:




Hilarious.

In the same breath as asserting your own 'very strong mastery of the language', and castigating your hapless fellow professionals for lacking it, and describing your feelings about it... you misspell 'embarrassing'.


Now that's embarrassing.

But I know what you'll say. "One little mistake, so what ?"

Hardly. Just one of many.

In ten minutes browsing, I found these other examples of your spelling:

fascetious

germain

tenditioius

seperate (at least five of those)

persue

hegemeny

supressed

councel

cunundrum

privelege

recieve

and

our capitol city.

This isn't about your grammar, Token, which anyway you know and admit is weak (no disgrace there, by the way - some people are just better than others at that stuff).

This is about your credibility as a critic of other teachers. If you're going to criticize their spelling, it does rather behoove you to check your own and get it right. Which you fail to do. Over and over again.

Thus you criticize others for faults that you yourself possess.

Hypocrite.

Are you going to say that this is a forum, not a class-room, so it doesn't matter ?

Please. This is a public educational forum. This is the education section of the educational forum. You're a teacher (sometimes). There may be kids reading this, listening to you, hoping to learn from you, a teacher. You admit your spelling is poor - and yet you continue to post in an illiterate fashion, refusing to spell-check your posts, while simultaneously expecting your criticisms of other teachers to be respected and taken seriously.

Some hope.

One more point. Before I went to collect your spelling mistakes, I didn't know what subjects you taught. I discovered that not only are you an English teacher, but you've actually taught Hamlet to 16-year-olds.

Which makes it even more astounding that you didn't understand what mortal coil meant. An English teacher, with a BA in English Lit, who doesn't understand the most famous speech in the most famous play by the most famous playwight in history, and who therefore cannot teach it ?

Poor 16-year-olds.

You want astounding...or pathetic, your choice...a person who spends this much time digging through someone else's "stupid" posts and doing this.

Wow.

Jus...wow.

Tokie

 

[Tokenconservative]

Has Bill O'Reilly gotten himself a JREF account or something? This whole "debate" is absurd.

Tokie - have you noticed how this is working yet? You make an outrageous claim, others post evidence to prove you are wrong, you whine about it, refuse to substantiate your original point and, even in light of your obvious error, continue to stick doggedly to your ill-formed ideas.

What was that about the global warming "religion"? There's at least one person acting religiously in support of an ideology here, and if you'd take the time to find a mirror you might catch a glimpse of them.

You know what? I love learning. If I made a statement which someone proved, very conclusively, was wrong, I'd thank them and change my opinions. You, on the other hand bitch and whine and cry and, even when presented with rafts of rafts of evidence and even when you lack even a single source to back up your opinions, refuse to change your mind.

That, my friend, is called ignorance.

Here, my friend, is the difference 'twixt what YOU call learning and what I know is learning: you take all of your information carefully filtered. That way, when someone suggests something "off the wall" like say, your religion, Global Warming is um...well, a religion, you can run around howling "but what about all the PEER REVIEWED ARTICLES!!??"

Dun't change the FACT that these are produced by people who are not being honest to science, does it?

No, it doesn't.

I've been presented with no "evidence" that GW is real. Only more of the same: prejudiced "PEER REVIEWED ARTICLES!!!" that work backward from pre-determined conclusions to support the theory that the earth is flat.

That's not scientific evidence.

That's religion.

Tokie

 

[volatile]

Here, my friend, is the difference 'twixt what YOU call learning and what I know is learning: you take all of your information carefully filtered. That way, when someone suggests something "off the wall" like say, your religion, Global Warming is um...well, a religion, you can run around howling "but what about all the PEER REVIEWED ARTICLES!!??"

Dun't change the FACT that these are produced by people who are not being honest to science, does it?

No, it doesn't.

I've been presented with no "evidence" that GW is real. Only more of the same: prejudiced "PEER REVIEWED ARTICLES!!!" that work backward from pre-determined conclusions to support the theory that the earth is flat.

That's not scientific evidence.

That's religion.

Tokie

Wait, what?

My learning is actually reading information from a variety of sources and weighing up that evidence rationally in order to come to a considered opinion, and yours is to make an ideologically-biased, logically unsound, rationally unsupported, baseless whine, and I'm the one in the wrong?

If you say so, buddy...

*backs away slowly*

If peer-reviewed articles written by people who have spent decades of their lives studying climatology isn't evidence in your world, what *do* you accept as evidence? Who told you, or from whence did you learn, that global warming isn't happening, or isn't anthropogenic?

I'm serious - where did you get this information? You've been asked before, but not told us. If asking climate scientists, who have studied these things all their lives, isn't the right way to find out about the climate, what is the right way? How do you know that AGW isn't happening?

 

[Zep]

An "English Lit. graduate" who can't spell basic English words - stifled laugh.

Same "English Lit. graduate" who can't spell basic English words and tries to pretend this isn't funny - guffaw.

Same "English Lit. graduate" who can't spell basic English words and tries to pretend this isn't funny and THEN tries to convince us that the National Socialists are commies - PRICELESS!

Spumante comedy! (really cheap champagne)

 

[Smiledriver]

From a purely argumentation standpoint...

Yor PC wayling aside, th fackt of the mater iz thet the vast majority of those in this area who do not speak English are in the country illegally. You can run around shrieking "prove the sun rises in the east!!!" all you want, and if I fail to do so you can puff out your chest and proudly proclaim yourself the winner of the debate...but the sun will continue to rise in the east, nonetheless.

...you seem to be arguing that you need not actually prove anything you say so long as it seems to be the case. None of the propositions you have made are self evident, they require reasons to be considered true.

Following this with the hoary tactic (pg. 2, section 1, Liberal Playbook) by implying that anyone noting the facts of this situation must needs by a flaming, xenophobic sheet-warin' redneck nightrider, is not only a very cleverly "hidden" ad hom, but reeks of guilt by association and is an enormous non sequitur. But screaming "RAAAACCCIIISTTTTTTTTTT!!!!" at anyone who dares point up the truth in this sichiashun, is laughably predictable of people on yor siyde of this deebayt

...You rightly censure us for the ad hom, but you lob one back and raise us a scarecrow. That is to say nothing of the conservative/liberal false dicotomy that is implied above.

Mayhaps hat is where the next fine writers will come from...what this has to do with anything in my post, I cannot say. And while I am sure many fine, upstanding additions to our society will come out of the illegal population, in the meantime, schools in places like where I live, are falling apart and those who have an actual right to be there are getting a(n even more) sub-standard education because of the overwhelming presence of these people.

...perhaps, that sounds reasonable As for my two cents, I remember my public school and I have often heard stories about others like it where the greatest ideas of mankind have been not taught at all or presented with so little passion that kids walk out thinking Shakespeare was a bore and Historicsm and Relativism weren't ideas that fall apart the moment you think about them for ten seconds. Maybe public schools have just worked so hard at making science, history and learning in general seem boring and not particulary valuable that kids just make the completely foreseeable conclusion and drop out...I wish I would have.

Tokie[/QUOTE]

 

[Tokenconservative]

Wait, what?

My learning is actually reading information from a variety of sources and weighing up that evidence rationally in order to come to a considered opinion, and yours is to make an ideologically-biased, logically unsound, rationally unsupported, baseless whine, and I'm the one in the wrong?

If you say so, buddy...

*backs away slowly*

If peer-reviewed articles written by people who have spent decades of their lives studying climatology isn't evidence in your world, what *do* you accept as evidence? Who told you, or from whence did you learn, that global warming isn't happening, or isn't anthropogenic?

I'm serious - where did you get this information? You've been asked before, but not told us. If asking climate scientists, who have studied these things all their lives, isn't the right way to find out about the climate, what is the right way? How do you know that AGW isn't happening?

GW has always been political. Now, even more than in the past.

Scientists who want their funding to continue know that they cannot tell the truth, or at best must shade the truth with lots of "yeah, buts" and tap dancing around any findings that indicate that um...actually, not so much.

Look at the scientists who claimed that the 2005 hurricane season was just the beginning, and that every season after would be worse and worse....tell us again, how many cat 5s slammed into the US in 2006? This year? I must misremember.... While the left-advocacy media has been braying TEOTWAWKI!!! everytime a slight breeze rises in the Atlantic each hurricane season, in fact, these seasons have done what long time REAL climate scientists like retired (key term) Colo State Univ. prof Gray, a pioneer in hurricane prediction has said they will do since...well, forever (he predicted the 2006 season): hurricanes run on a 20-25 year clock. At the upper end of their run, they get worser and worser and morer and morer. This has to do with salinity in the ocean, not GLOBAL WAAARRRRRMMIIINNNNGGGGGGG!!!!!!!

As a GW zealot, you don't like THIS evidence, so when you confront such, you squinch your eyes shut rilly, rilly tightly, cover your ears and shriek "I can't hear you! I can't HEEEEAARRRR YOU!!!"

And that works for you.

Meanwhile, your kind, believeing your high priests and their acolytes who do their bidding and carry their water, are forcing governments to "act" in very, very expensive ways and to contemplate engaging in massive projects to "curb" or even "reverse" what appears to be entirely natural and very, very slight warming of the global temp.

For your part, as a willing footsoldier, you are happy to close your eyes to both the evidence against your faith, and the Inquisition perpetrated against any heretic who dares utter even the mildest "not so fast" and indeed, in the front row of the ignorant, suspicious, religious peasants when they burn these heretics at the stake.

Since you "know" that your religion, Global Warming is the One True Way these heretics are clearly insane and only getting what they deserve for daring to speak out against the One True Way. And of course, anything they say is to be dismissed as the ramblings of the insane and in fact, should be officially stricken from the record by the Priesthood.

This is belief, pal...pure and simple. You are a secularist, but you are still a human. And humans, like it or not, have a prediliction toward belief in the supernatural. Since you, as a secularist have rid yourself (and your society) of faith in the standard gods, you have had to replace it with another: Science. And of course, since you know nothing of how politics does and always has intefered with science (science is as politics does...mean anything to you?) you are able to close your mind to the fact that scientists like to eat and that they will arrive at the conclusions those paying them want to hear just as readily as will pollsters, marketers, political advisors, etc.

Now, in another thread in here, we are told that local weather is a predictor of GW. Where I live, we have snow (3rd year running) earlier and earlier in the year...earlier than at anytime in the past oh, 20-25 years (hmm...that number again). While hurricanes in the Gulf are of course, predictors of impending GW TEOTWAWKI (until they don't do what the howling scaremongers say they should do..) isn't the snow here ALSO a predictor? But is SNOW a predictor of...warming? I don't know where you live, or whether you've ever experienced snow, but I have...it's actually cold, and the conditions required to produce it (and keep it lying about) are um...well, cold...not warm.

Please explain?

Tokie

 

[volatile]

All very rantlike, but you wasted a lot of words and didn't answer the very simple questions I put.

1) If we shouldn't get our information about climate from climatologists, who should we get it from?

2) Where did you learn that global warming wasn't happening and / or wasn't anthropogenic?

I'd honestly like to know where I can find the Truth - if my current knowledge-acqusition methodology is flawed, as you claim, please tell me how I can improve! I believe you that I'm wrong, Tokie - just tell me how I should be doing things. What's the TC way? Who should I learn about climate from?

ETA: As an addendum, if you have time, maybe you can explain who told you that global warming = everywhere gets hotter weather, as your last paragraph implies? I'd like to check that out for myself.