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khmerhit
Joined: 31 May 2003
Posts: 1874
Location: Reverse Culture Shock Unit
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 Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 4:01 pm Post subject: |
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yeah sounds like canada too  |
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cassava
Joined: 24 Feb 2007
Posts: 175
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| Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 4:29 pm Post subject: |
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| 007 wrote: |
| Darwin is dead, our God is alive. |
However, Darwin had a logical, rational mind and was not given to murderous, emotional outbursts.
Please, "God", protect me from your followers. |
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ckhl
Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Posts: 214
Location: SE Asia
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| Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 10:43 am Post subject: |
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| AS I predicted after reading the article (which I read a few weeks ago in the Economist), the usual threads of apologists come out of the woodwork. There's the inevitable...'but wait, it's like this in the West too', or, 'it's not so different in the West too'. Tedious indeed. |
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basiltherat
Joined: 04 Oct 2003
Posts: 952
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| Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 11:19 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| AS I predicted after reading the article (which I read a few weeks ago in the Economist), the usual threads of apologists come out of the woodwork. There's the inevitable...'but wait, it's like this in the West too', or, 'it's not so different in the West too'. Tedious indeed. |
I agree. I also get tired of explaining what I maintain is the main difference. Where poor education exists in the west, it is principally due, I believe, to political, structural and strategic incompetence, and mismanagement by politicians and decision makers in the field of education while in the other, it is due to a massive overdose of studying a single ideology at the expense of learning the more useful kinds of things i mentioned in my earlier posting.
Places like Japan and Finland have education systems that produce some of the most well-rounded individuals around. Principally because the way the system operates is efficient and effective with teachers who are top-notch, who care about what they do and who include social discipline into the process. No system is perfect, but these are the systems that work as well as any.
(Other) western countries could take a lesson from these particular systems.
One other aspect of education that is also lacking is 'domestic (home) education'.
If the UK's education system can be overhauled along the lines, perhaps, of one of the state systems above, perhaps in a couple of generations or three, we might achieve not only an institutionally well-educated society but also one that is domestically well-rounded.
Best
Basil
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Cool Teacher
Joined: 18 May 2009
Posts: 930
Location: Here, There and Everywhere! :D
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| Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 1:28 pm Post subject: |
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What about Avicenna?  He was ahead of his time.  |
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ckhl
Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Posts: 214
Location: SE Asia
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| Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 2:10 pm Post subject: |
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Places like Japan and Finland have education systems that produce some of the most well-rounded individuals around.
From what I've read, South Korea is high on the list too. As for mathematics and science, Canada and the Czech Republic, among others, hold their own quite well. |
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veiledsentiments
Joined: 20 Feb 2003
Posts: 17644
Location: USA
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| Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 3:13 pm Post subject: |
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| ckhl wrote: |
| AS I predicted after reading the article (which I read a few weeks ago in the Economist), the usual threads of apologists come out of the woodwork. There's the inevitable...'but wait, it's like this in the West too', or, 'it's not so different in the West too'. Tedious indeed. |
I don't think that comparing similarities (negative or positive) is being an apologist. I don't want to only slam the Arab system without looking in the mirror.
I think one of the major factors in play here is also family support and/or pressure to succeed. In Asia... and in Asian families in the West (and likely everywhere that they are), there is intense pressure on their children to not only succeed, but to excel... and large numbers of them do. The newness of education in the Gulf means that many students have very little family support or pressure. In some of my first classes in the late 80's, I didn't have one student with a literate mother, and only a handful with a literate father. Hopefully our students will provide both the pressure and support to both improve the schools and convince their children that they need an education... not just a grade to reward their presence. And parents whose first goal is that their children do their homework, not entertain the constantly visiting family members.
And I think the lowering of this family support system in places like the UK and the US is one of the reasons why the standard of our average graduates has fallen. Rather than pressuring the students to improve, the system has been dumbed down to their level.
VS
(I totally agree with Basil that government goals are also in play here... too often in a negative sense...) |
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007
Joined: 30 Oct 2006
Posts: 2684
Location: UK/Veteran of the Magic Kingdom
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| Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 5:14 pm Post subject: |
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| cassava wrote: |
| 007 wrote: |
| Darwin is dead, our God is alive. |
However, Darwin had a logical, rational mind and was not given to murderous, emotional outbursts.
Please, "God", protect me from your followers. |
Well, Darwin and his mind are both morally and scientifically wrong.
Did you know that Hitler also believed in Evolution, and used Darwinism in his war agenda to discriminate against other races and for mass murder.
| Quote: |
One other aspect of education that is also lacking is 'domestic (home) education'.
If the UK's education system can be overhauled along the lines, perhaps, of one of the state systems above, perhaps in a couple of generations or three, we might achieve not only an institutionally well-educated society but also one that is domestically well-rounded. |
Well, the UK's education system should first solve the problem of low level mathematics and science in their schools and universities, then think about 'domestic education'. In addition, UK has the highest anti-social behaviour problems in Europe, and this is another side of problem in which UK should solve if they want to keep 'morality' alive!
Last edited by 007 on Sat Nov 07, 2009 5:23 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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ckhl
Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Posts: 214
Location: SE Asia
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| Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 5:17 pm Post subject: |
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Hopefully our students will provide both the pressure and support to both improve the schools and convince their children that they need an education... not just a grade to reward their presence. And parents whose first goal is that their children do their homework, not entertain the constantly visiting family members.
What you are asserting is generally true. As increasing numbers of Emirati women become educated and have fewer children, their children will doubltess have a different attitude towards education.
However, the thrust of the article focussed on the more general problem of the insistence of religious doctrine that prevails in the Arab world at the expense of intellectual rigor and inquiry . Yes...alas, you will find instances of this in the USA but you'll equally find a strong resistance to it as well. Shamefully few Americans believe in Darwinism, but fights to uphold it in the biology curriculum have generally been successful. Generally speaking, those who reject such truths are among those who, a hundred years ago, would not have made it beyond the 8th grade if they were lucky. The only difference now is that they get included in the statistics because they remain in school for longer.
Last edited by ckhl on Sat Nov 07, 2009 6:03 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Cleopatra
Joined: 28 Jun 2003
Posts: 3657
Location: Tuamago Archipelago
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| Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 6:02 pm Post subject: |
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| And I think the lowering of this family support system in places like the UK and the US is one of the reasons why the standard of our average graduates has fallen. Rather than pressuring the students to improve, the system has been dumbed down to their level. |
Another reason behind the 'dumbing down' of education in many parts of the world, but especially in English speaking countries, is because education is increasingly seen as being in the service of the marketplace. Thus, the main purpose of education is asa means of producing good consumers and business people, rather than as an end in itself.
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| Places like Japan and Finland have education systems that produce some of the most well-rounded individuals around. |
Interesting. I really don't know much about the subject,but from what I"d heard, the Japanese system has many of the same faults as the Arab system: ie, an over-reliance on rote memorisation and and emphasis on conformity and obedience rather than on problem solving. I'm open to being corrected on this, of course. |
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cassava
Joined: 24 Feb 2007
Posts: 175
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| Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 10:21 pm Post subject: |
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| 007 wrote: |
| cassava wrote: |
| 007 wrote: |
| Darwin is dead, our God is alive. |
However, Darwin had a logical, rational mind and was not given to murderous, emotional outbursts.
Please, "God", protect me from your followers. |
Well, Darwin and his mind are both morally and scientifically wrong.
Did you know that Hitler also believed in Evolution, and used Darwinism in his war agenda to discriminate against other races and for mass murder.
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The extent to which people will go to support the God delusion is truly amazing. Religious zealots are basically illogical. When you try to hold some kind of rational discourse with them, they pull out one piece of irrelevancy after another, like a magician pulling white rabbits from a hat. As usual, the Hitler bogeyman is displayed with relish as proof that the theory of evolution is evil. The illogicality of this piece of nonsense is so overt that anyone who has even faint claims to intelligence should be able to see it. 007 should remember that Hitler was also a painter. Perhaps there was something in his life as a painter that predisposed him to acts of cruelty. But Hitler was also a vegetarian. Perhaps 007 would like to show a relationship between the lack of a meat diet and tendencies towards racism.
The pathetic argument submitted by 007, displaying as it does a gross ignorance about the basic principles of causality illustrates perfectly one major effect of religious ideology on an individual: an inability to think outside the little box into which he has been squeezed by his adherence to religious dogma.
Many religious people seldom want to acknowledge much less discuss the torture and murder of the tens of millions of inhabitants of the New World by zealots waving one religious icon or another and justifying everything in the name of "God".
Of equal importance is the doctrine of "faith" to which these monotheistic groups cling. What this usually means is that regardless of how bizarre, nonsensical, unjust or simply plain silly the religious ideology appears to be, you believe it, even though, deep down, you know that it is little more than claptrap. This system of belief is aptly called "religious thinking".
When religious thinking is transferred to the secular sphere, the result is moral and intellectual chaos, especially because this kind of thinking is reinforced by the concept of "forgiveness". In other words, there is little impetus to behave morally or rationally because "God" will "forgive", especially if you pray like crazy every day. Numerous priests, particularly of the Roman Catholic church, have been found guilty of the most depraved sexual crimes in countless countries. A few weeks ago, an eminent Bishop in Eastern Canada was arrested for trafficking in the most degrading kind of child pornography.
The list of heinous crimes committed by religious people is almost endless. All religions are guilty. The bible-thumping, born-again moron is cut from the same cloth as the terrorist, mumbling some religious mumbo-jumbo as he attaches his suicide belt and goes out to murder innocent people. |
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007
Joined: 30 Oct 2006
Posts: 2684
Location: UK/Veteran of the Magic Kingdom
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| Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 12:25 am Post subject: |
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It seems you are complaining from "Dawkins Delusion Syndrom" in which you cannot accept that God created you as He created all humans, and you still think that all believers of all faiths are creating their Gods! It seems you, like Dawkins, forgot that a lot of scientists are believers in God.
I do not think you or Dawkins understand what is involved in �faith�.
As long as humans remain on this earth, the quest for God can never be eliminated.
God is the �first and last, the beginning and the end'.
The bible says, "The fool says in his heart, 'there is no God" (psalms 14.1).
I suggest you read the book titled �Dawkins Delusion� by Alister McGrath et al. , 2007. |
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