Yes, just look at you: the first time you encountered me, you disagreed with me quite violently. Now you're on my f-list. And I'm pretty sure neither of us has budged on the Phillip Pullman issue. (I still think he's great. *Sticks out tongue*)
But it's all a matter of how you disagree. I'm quite happy for people to argue with me, provided it's a rational argument and not "You're stupid and ignorant and you're going to hell anyway, so THERE!" (Which, by the way, is not something I'm accusing you of.)
Instead of trying to propagandize children to hug trees and recycle garbage, our schools would be put to better use teaching them how to analyze and test what is said by people who advocate tree-hugging, recycling, and innumerable other causes across the political spectrum.As a matter of fact, we are taught that, now. The new HSC English syllabus (this is the end of high school in Australia) has a very strong emphasis on critical analysis of all forms of text. My teacher used to encourage class discussion of the stuff we studied. It was
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Sounds good to me. My favourite modern philosopher, Karl R. Popper, used to say that the main goal of education ought to be to teach students to distinguish between an expert and a charlatan, and between well-grounded and poor arguments. Let us just hope, however, that your new syllabus does not become just an excuse for lazy teachers to let classes get out of control.
Yeah, I don't know how well it worked at other schools. They certainly wouldn't try it with younger students. I went to a good school - the kids were motivated to learn and to do well. And I had a good teacher. (Which I only really appreciated after I'd finished.)
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Bear in mind that Sowell is in general rather on the conservative side, and that www.townhall.com is very conservative indeed. I do not know what your politics are, but you have been warned.
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But it's all a matter of how you disagree. I'm quite happy for people to argue with me, provided it's a rational argument and not "You're stupid and ignorant and you're going to hell anyway, so THERE!" (Which, by the way, is not something I'm accusing you of.)
Instead of trying to propagandize children to hug trees and recycle garbage, our schools would be put to better use teaching them how to analyze and test what is said by people who advocate tree-hugging, recycling, and innumerable other causes across the political spectrum.As a matter of fact, we are taught that, now. The new HSC English syllabus (this is the end of high school in Australia) has a very strong emphasis on critical analysis of all forms of text. My teacher used to encourage class discussion of the stuff we studied. It was ( ... )
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