Americas education?

[Beagle]

Where are the competent people fleeing to? Along with all the illegals, America has had middle class professionals flee popular demagogues who raised the taxes on anyone smart enuf to make any real money.

Bush's tax cuts have encouraged that kind of thing. But, as with most of his agenda, was carried out ineptly. Had he conitinued high taxes on the top .001%, he still would have attracted competent professionals and entrepreneurs, but not had nearly the budget deficit that threatens to bring down the whole system that is top heavy with the cost of management.

Have EU social scientists picked up on the effects of melanin on behavior? IIRC, it was Steven Pinker "The Blank Slate" who reported on a Russian pychologist who was sent to Siberia, and ended up raising black foxes. For the popular black fur hats.

Thing is, that the foxes are difficult to manage, impulsively aggressive, and kept tearing holes in each other's hides. So he (I forget the name) selected just the most docile foxes and began breeding them. And in just 12 generations, he was successful. the fox kits were just like puppies. Just adorable. I've seen the video.

The only problem is... they are not all black any more. Can you imagine anyone in any US academic sociology or psychology saying a word about this? <snurk>

DB - regarding the study with foxes, no conclusion can be drawn regarding their color, as it was not the focus of the original hypothesis. When small gene pools are concentrated like that, secondary results are meaningless.

As to your post about taxes, I am a member of the Libertarian Party [insert joke here]. I'll continue to vote for anyone who will lower taxes. Most importantly, I'll vote for someone who will RETIRE old "temporary" taxes. It has been said that nothing is so permanent as a temporary tax. The best example is the temporary tax to pay for the Spanish-American War. We've been paying that for 108 yrs. So much for the two party system. It's a system devoid of true belief. It has devolved into an uninformed "hooray for our side" system. And we're all slowly watching our buying power erode. Most folks can't do the math.

[Digit]

Only 108 yrs Beag. Income tax was a introduced over here as a temporary measure in 1798!
One of the things that kept it going was having to pay to fight you lot!

[daybrown]

if I would enjoy the freedom of spontainity, I must put up with some idiocy, and endure the results of my own.

But it isnt only black foxes. How many trees to make a forest, how many facts to make a case? Make what you will of it. Bouchard's longitudinal data on the powerful effect of genetic endowment, or the lack thereof is compelling. Ask a welder. Dont ask a professional who has to worry about his standing in a politically correct peer group.

Melanin is on the same strand of DNA as other hormones that have powerful effects on behavior like seratonin, dopamine, & adrenlin. I dunno the mechanism, but as the melanin goes up, the number of individuals in a gene pool with higher adrenalin and lower seratonin & dopamine does too.

If I say that redheads are fiery, everyone knows what I am talking about, and nobody calls me racist. But it turns out that there is a red form of melanin. And the most startling example of the effects is seen in the skeletons of the Greenland Norse as well as the documentation about draconian law trying to control all the violence.

But nobody talks about the fact we are talking about the inbred descendants of Eric the *Red*

Lets be clear, there are those with high levels of melanin of good character & intelligence. Its just not the way to bet. But racial profiling is a crummy indicator when there are so many other ways to judge. Every *individual* should be judged on the content of zie character, but every homogenous community should have the police power or whatever policy crafted to adapt to the behavior of the group as a whole. That is quite predictable. Its why everyone loves German engineering and French art.

Education would be far more successful if it recognized the genetic endowments, and how group peer pressure amplifies instinctive responses. I worked for the Job Corps in 1965, which took young black men, en masse, from the ghetto in Chicago and moved them onto the military base at Sparta Wisconsin.

I soon realized it was asinine to try to make Spartan warriors, or anything else very useful out of this bunch. They brought their culture, including their gang affiliations with them, and regularly gang raped each other. Up until that experience, I had been a conventional liberal in my racial attitudes.

Rat studies have shown that if you subject a rat to enough pain, you can change his hormone profile. Field studies of the Mandrill, show that the females, at some point decide they've had enough of the alplha male's genes, and start running away from him. The other males pick up on this, and begin to take him on, one at a time. Eventually, he gets tired, one gets a lucky shot in, and he gets the living shit beat out of him.

Within a day or so the characteristic blue of the alpha male is now worn on another nose, and the former alpha is now beta. And if you draw his blood, just as with the rat, you can see the drop in adrenalin and testosterone.

The schools in the Ozark hilll towns still work. And still hanging on the office wall are the paddles used for attitude adjustments. Teachers likewise, have moved here, despite the 2nd lowest teacher pay in the nation, after they've seen how quiet and controlled the schools and classes are. They dont say anything, but they too have attitude adjustments, and the first time testosterone kicks to cause trouble, they dont have a problem calling in the Principal's goon squad to snatch his ass up for personality realignment.

And you know what? The teachers get to teach. They like that. Now, I spoze there mite be some kind of med that could be used, and if you want to try it on your boy, I dont have a problem with it. But I was born on a farm, and knew the back side of the woodshed, and when I became a parent, kept up the family tradition. But note, this is not impulsive violence. The stoic principle is, that if you are not in full self control, you will not instill it in another.

I dunno that those running urban schools are self controlled enough to apply clear rules in an unambiguous way, at the rite time, for the rite reason. Otherwise, all you get is the rancor of the impotent.

Part of the problem is that social sciences sell the public the tools they are familiar with rather than those which work best, and those which work best are so superior, it only makes it clear how incompetent social scientists have been. They dont like to admit they have been wrong. Yet, if they took their own advice about mental health, that's the first thing they'd do.

we are where we are, and it looks precarious. I dont expect systemic change to the acceptance of the scientific facts without societal crisis, and that could quickly slide into anarchy.

[Minimalist]

Mandatory mass public education has only been around for about 200 years.

Maybe it is time to re-think the original model?

[Digit]

Over here Min it doesn't require re thinking, it requires the application of known sucessful procedures. Our new prime minister's team are turning the education clock back to learning.
A article published this week by the school's inspectorate complained that modern teaching is based on passing exams, not education.
As a student I realised that there was no connection between knowledge and passing exams, so started on learning how to pass exams. It worked, but also meant that as an employee I was bloody useless at first!
When my son was learning to drive I drummed into him that he needed to drive in the manner required by the examiner, whether he agreed with it or not, that was what was required to pass the test. It worked, he passed first time.
Many modern exams over here can be passed by simply ticking the correct box, therefore requiring little in the way of spelling, grammer or punctuation.

[Minimalist]

Our new prime minister's team are turning the education clock back to learning.

I don't know if that is the problem, Dig. As soon as you create a bureaucracy that is charged with doing anything then almost instantly the "measurements" of the success of that program become more important than the program itself.

I don't know if anything resembling the current system could ever succeed. It's been too corrupted.

[Digit]

doing anything then almost instantly the "measurements" of the success of that program become more important than the program itself.

That's certainly true over here Min. When I was at school, education was left to the Masters, at least we ended up able to read, write and count.

[Minimalist]

Over here they are pushing "test scores" as a means to measure whether or not a school is successful or unsuccessful.

How long until the schools start giving the kids the answers to make sure that the school doesn't lose funding?

[Digit]

Both have happened over here Min, the problem is that most people are better at working their way around stupid rules than the rule makers give them credit for.
A new law was recently introduced here in relation to the annual safety checks on vehicles, my son had recently purchased a pre own vehicle and it failed the checks.
It failed because there was a mark on the wind shield that extended more thatn 10 mill in to that area swept by the wipers. (I couldn't even see the mark!)
New Screen, expensive!
Solution, shorter wiper blades. The garage was furious but had to pass the vehicle and said nobody had tried that before. As I said, the rule makers don't think things through.
(And I still can't see the mark.)

[john]

Both have happened over here Min, the problem is that most people are better at working their way around stupid rules than the rule makers give them credit for.
A new law was recently introduced here in relation to the annual safety checks on vehicles, my son had recently purchased a pre own vehicle and it failed the checks.
It failed because there was a mark on the wind shield that extended more thatn 10 mill in to that area swept by the wipers. (I couldn't even see the mark!)
New Screen, expensive!
Solution, shorter wiper blades. The garage was furious but had to pass the vehicle and said nobody had tried that before. As I said, the rule makers don't think things through.
(And I still can't see the mark.)

I absolutely freaking love it!

More power to you, and your son. Teach him well.

john

[Minimalist]

That is freakin' brilliant, Dig!

[Cognito]

One of the things that kept it going was having to pay to fight you lot!

Digit, we learned from our parents!

[Digit]

The daft part it's on a part of the wind shield that would be used only by bird watchers and astronomers! But rules must be obeyed!

[Minimalist]

But rules must be obeyed!

The Bureaucrat's Creed.

[Digit]

One of the problems with the British people Min is that we tend to obey rules, even stupid ones. A few weeks ago the government banned smoking in the work place, as an ex-smoker I agree that smoking is bad for you, but I dislike bullying tactics.
Inevitably some little Hitler moves in, recently a council warden insisted that a publican close the windows of his 'pub' because smokers were standing outside and the smoke could drift in.
My son claims that officials have their common sense and sense of humour surgically removed when they get the job, it's hard to disagree sometimes.