Blogaday day 1!!!
wow, this blogaday stuff is tough! It's the first day, and I definitely have nothing up in my noggin. No philosophy, no huge complaints..... my head is just there right now. However, I will do my best.
Inside out
Nah, this has nothing to do with emotions, its about administration. Today as I walked home from school, I was dreaming alot about frisbee. Usually I dream about other stuff, sometimes about science, whatever. But today I dreamed about frisbee, and boy do I have some great ideas for the future. As I walked though, I saw a sign that said "No excuses, invest in public education" or something to that effect. I thought to myself "Duh, the budget is so screwed up anyways, it woulnd't do much good if we poured money into the system. The budget gets abused and messed with all over the place, Sharpe and Brough would end up spending the new money all by themselves. They ought to let me be in charge of that business, I'd clean it up, and I'd do this... this, and this."
Now, at this point I stopped myself, because I realized that I was doing something that I really don't like at all, insideout management. See, people on the outside are able to look in on systems, be they systems in nature, systems set up by man, or whatever systems you want, and say "Boy, I could make that a whole lot better." Sometimes this does work, but more often than not, it fails miserably. These people have good intentions, but do not fully understand the system, and oftentimes they cannot.
Example: My Algebra teacher. She tries as hard as she can to teach us the stuff that we need to know to get past her class. She really does try, and generally she does an alright job, I don't have too many complaints. However, she is not a student, and thus doesn't know exactly how our brains work. She was a student once, but people forget, and I believe she has. She, as well as the other Algebra II teacher, have this crazy new age idea of teaching us. They use groups, posters, and all sorts of crazy hippy ideas. They are the polar opposites of Mrs. Jamieson.
These hippy ideas do actually look great on paper. Just sitting there thinking about it, it looks really great. And then, you get to the classroom and the whole thing collapses. It just doesn't work. Why not?
Because it is built on theory, theory that is built up by people that are outside the system. Everyone has certain beliefs about other humans. I have them, you've got them, Kyle has them. Everyone has different beliefs, and generally they aren't all that accurate. That's why this stuff doesn't work. In order to get truly functional management, you need to have management from inside the system.
A few months ago I really wanted to be a kindergarten teacher for a week. My sister teaches kindergarten at a charter school, and I thought about all the awesome stuff I could teach kids if you just gave me a week. I thought of all the activities I could do, all the problem solving I'd make them do, all the cool puzzles I'd make them think about to get. I thought it'd be so cool, I would make a generation of super kindergartners, and the world would be mine.
Yeah, then I realized that I've got no freakin' idea what I'm talking about. Do you know how long it's been since i've been in kindergarten? I don't remember that stuff. I was basing my ideas on the 10th grade me. I was stupid, and so is everybody else.
Insideout management is not half as effective as management from inside the system. That is why administrators that havent ever been teachers generally don't make very good admins.
Now, this brings up a very touchy subject for me: Government getting involved in entertainment. Specifically video games. Earlier this year there was a very big scandal over a GTA game because it had some explicit content in there that wasn't appropriate at all. People got upset, that is understandable. However, lame politicians (Hilary Clinton) saw this as an oppurtunity to further their career, and immediately set about writing up legislation to force the video game industry to be responsible or something.
You know what, I doubt she's ever played Halo. She doesn't know why we play halo. I bet she's convinced we all are honestly playing that game to take out our anger, and that we get crazy ideas from the game, like taking a plasma pistol to school and shooting robert while he sleeps. And so, because everybody thinks that Halo nuts are all gonna grow up and use a battle rifle to take out politicians, they freak out, and try to get rid of it. The problem is, they don't understand it, and they are supported by the voters that don't understand it either. Looking from the outside in, Halo does look bad. C'mon, you run around shooting each other. There's nothing wholesome about it, it's all out battle. People get into it, I get into it. So, looking from far away, it looks bad, and then you say "It's bad, lets further our career by taking it out, it'll be easy." Then lazy voters say "Ooooh, that does look bad, the newspaper said so, lets support the ideas!" Then, people from outside the system take control of it, and destroy it.
Those inside the system are really the only ones that can fully understand the system. I'm not for anarchy, I'm not for getting rid of teachers, I just don't think that they should impose things on us that they think will be amazing but prove not to be. Theory doesn't translate well from paper to humanity, we're too complex. We are too crazy to have any statement really apply to everybody. "Kids learn best from teaching others" doesn't apply to some kids. Some kids don't learn well by doing hands on stuff.
Don't do insideout management. End the madness, and support local Halo.
Inside out
Nah, this has nothing to do with emotions, its about administration. Today as I walked home from school, I was dreaming alot about frisbee. Usually I dream about other stuff, sometimes about science, whatever. But today I dreamed about frisbee, and boy do I have some great ideas for the future. As I walked though, I saw a sign that said "No excuses, invest in public education" or something to that effect. I thought to myself "Duh, the budget is so screwed up anyways, it woulnd't do much good if we poured money into the system. The budget gets abused and messed with all over the place, Sharpe and Brough would end up spending the new money all by themselves. They ought to let me be in charge of that business, I'd clean it up, and I'd do this... this, and this."
Now, at this point I stopped myself, because I realized that I was doing something that I really don't like at all, insideout management. See, people on the outside are able to look in on systems, be they systems in nature, systems set up by man, or whatever systems you want, and say "Boy, I could make that a whole lot better." Sometimes this does work, but more often than not, it fails miserably. These people have good intentions, but do not fully understand the system, and oftentimes they cannot.
Example: My Algebra teacher. She tries as hard as she can to teach us the stuff that we need to know to get past her class. She really does try, and generally she does an alright job, I don't have too many complaints. However, she is not a student, and thus doesn't know exactly how our brains work. She was a student once, but people forget, and I believe she has. She, as well as the other Algebra II teacher, have this crazy new age idea of teaching us. They use groups, posters, and all sorts of crazy hippy ideas. They are the polar opposites of Mrs. Jamieson.
These hippy ideas do actually look great on paper. Just sitting there thinking about it, it looks really great. And then, you get to the classroom and the whole thing collapses. It just doesn't work. Why not?
Because it is built on theory, theory that is built up by people that are outside the system. Everyone has certain beliefs about other humans. I have them, you've got them, Kyle has them. Everyone has different beliefs, and generally they aren't all that accurate. That's why this stuff doesn't work. In order to get truly functional management, you need to have management from inside the system.
A few months ago I really wanted to be a kindergarten teacher for a week. My sister teaches kindergarten at a charter school, and I thought about all the awesome stuff I could teach kids if you just gave me a week. I thought of all the activities I could do, all the problem solving I'd make them do, all the cool puzzles I'd make them think about to get. I thought it'd be so cool, I would make a generation of super kindergartners, and the world would be mine.
Yeah, then I realized that I've got no freakin' idea what I'm talking about. Do you know how long it's been since i've been in kindergarten? I don't remember that stuff. I was basing my ideas on the 10th grade me. I was stupid, and so is everybody else.
Insideout management is not half as effective as management from inside the system. That is why administrators that havent ever been teachers generally don't make very good admins.
Now, this brings up a very touchy subject for me: Government getting involved in entertainment. Specifically video games. Earlier this year there was a very big scandal over a GTA game because it had some explicit content in there that wasn't appropriate at all. People got upset, that is understandable. However, lame politicians (Hilary Clinton) saw this as an oppurtunity to further their career, and immediately set about writing up legislation to force the video game industry to be responsible or something.
You know what, I doubt she's ever played Halo. She doesn't know why we play halo. I bet she's convinced we all are honestly playing that game to take out our anger, and that we get crazy ideas from the game, like taking a plasma pistol to school and shooting robert while he sleeps. And so, because everybody thinks that Halo nuts are all gonna grow up and use a battle rifle to take out politicians, they freak out, and try to get rid of it. The problem is, they don't understand it, and they are supported by the voters that don't understand it either. Looking from the outside in, Halo does look bad. C'mon, you run around shooting each other. There's nothing wholesome about it, it's all out battle. People get into it, I get into it. So, looking from far away, it looks bad, and then you say "It's bad, lets further our career by taking it out, it'll be easy." Then lazy voters say "Ooooh, that does look bad, the newspaper said so, lets support the ideas!" Then, people from outside the system take control of it, and destroy it.
Those inside the system are really the only ones that can fully understand the system. I'm not for anarchy, I'm not for getting rid of teachers, I just don't think that they should impose things on us that they think will be amazing but prove not to be. Theory doesn't translate well from paper to humanity, we're too complex. We are too crazy to have any statement really apply to everybody. "Kids learn best from teaching others" doesn't apply to some kids. Some kids don't learn well by doing hands on stuff.
Don't do insideout management. End the madness, and support local Halo.
posted by CJThatcher at 9:01 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home