Education and School
Education. I think that it should be open for everyone who can do the work. My feeling is that there should be no immediate costs for education. It should be a deferred cost based on their future earnings – like a tax category. Everyone gets high school for free. Maybe a two year trade school or community college will cost you 1% of your gross for the rest of your life. 4 year colleges might be 2-3%, but variable by college. Master’s degree – another 1%. Ph.D.? 3%. It creates and interesting dynamic. First, the cost of their education is being paid by students, not parents. The cost is real to them so the decisions to get an education are much more important than just delaying life to party for a few years. Next, better schools should provide for better salaries. It is in everyone’s interest (students and schools) to attract the students who will earn the most over their lifetime. Some people are destined to earn a lot. Wouldn’t you like to have 3% of Bill Gates’ daughter’s income? What would a school give – a 1% rebate? Would a better school be worth more to me? 2% more? Or am I good enough that they should give me a 1% rebate? Once this is running for awhile, it becomes self sustaining, just like social security (twitter). The present students costs are covered by the income generated by past student’s taxes. Steady state occurs when the students who first started in this are retiring. I’m clueless how this would be funded until it reaches that point.
Understanding is like an onion (or and ogre). There are layers. This applies to almost anything – music, craftsmanship, sports, mathematics – anything. On the surface is the most visible and obvious. This can be the basic rules of the game, the clear beauty of a finished result or the functionality of the result. With finer examination, you see an underlying precision, clarity or finesse you might not see with an initial look. Beyond this level, the person reviewing might need a deeper understanding of what they are experiencing….. and so on until very few can truly appreciate the best of the best.
Try fitting this model to anything. A piece of furniture. The first glance shows nicely matched wood, clean lines, a nice surface, dovetail joints. A closer look shows perfect glue lines, those dovetails were hand cut without gaps or fillers, the style is true to traditional Shaker designs. Only another craftsman might recognize that the joinery accounts for wood movement – the breadboard ends are only fastened in the middle to account for expansion and contraction. Beyond that? I don’t know, it exceeds my level of understanding.
My father-in-law describes bridge playing that way. I understand the rules – bidding and play. He plays at the tournament level and feels he is just seeing the level of finesse of the great players. One of the joys of this level of understanding is the intimacy it implies. You become very close with the subject. Possibly this is akin to friendship. Knowing someone so well that the surface level stuff is taken for granted. It is the real and subtle detail of life that must be shared. Or, maybe a good friend is more than a well-made table.
OK, freaky. This train of thought led me to remember Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I was thinking I should re-read it, if nothing else just for the way he deals with the concept of quality. So, I flip the page in the Third Machinist’s Bedside Reader and there is an essay on ZATAOMM. He says it will “change the way you work – and think- forever”
On education (written for film students but you get the idea)
Mike said: “ be reasonably sure of what you want to get out of it.”
Mike said a mouthful. You are at a point where you need to take an active view of education. Too many students are passive - sit in a chair and get fed information. They show no real direction, just absorbing what gets put in front of them. The few smart ones figure out what they want to do, which professors are teaching it well, participate and do much more outside of the class boundaries. This can be getting involved in school projects, small film festivals, local broadcast and concerts - anything beyond the limited scope of being a student. Don't worry about the money you earn from this stuff - you are gaining experience. Do a short with some friends and get it on youtube. Be on a set whenever you can. Be a person with a plan.
Now excuse me while I step off my soapbox without tripping.
Thinker toys
So many of the toys that could be just as creative - lincoln logs, legos now come with directions to build something with lots of premolded parts to make it perfect. Kids think those are directions - like model instructions - build it once, build it as it says and you are done. It is hard to get them to be creative. I have a set of steel balls with plastic shafts with magnets in the ends. We have done a bunch of geometric things without instructions.
Electronic kits are similar. Robot kits come ready to go. Maybe the issue is that so many adults can't help with electronics, or even mechanical problems. My kids had a full wood and metal shop at their disposal and it took until high school before my daughter got interested. There was clearly an 'open door policy' but IMing and Neopets were more fun. *sigh*
Avoiding plagiarism
I would guess that the ideal conclusion to a lack of plagiarism is that they collect information from multiple sources and reach a conclusion. A personally discovered conclusion. The fact collecting is just the overture.
For example, instead of asking for the economic and social reforms brought about by the Civil War (the one in the U.S. that your students don't care about), ask them to contrast the actual results with what they think might have happened if the South had won. There is no absolute correct answer and nothing to copy. It is harder on you because the grading must be done carefully to reward creativity but it sparks what I think is the hardest part of teaching - getting them to think beyond basic facts.
I might hypothesize that since slaves are valuable, they would be encouraged to reproduce at higher rates than the land owners. At some point when their numbers are high enough and possibly when communication becomes faster or reading skills more common, a mass revolt is almost inherent causing the system to implode. I could cite India's independence or the end of apartheid in South Africa.
Maybe in the 20th century, African-Americans would have been better off if the South had won.
Lessons Learned
As part of my formative years, I learned the soldering iron orientation the hard way. I was working my way through school as a pinball machine
repairman (mostly the old electro-mechancials but a few with 6800 uP in them). Anyway, the playfield is raised like the hood of a car, I'm on a stool half-way into the machine following wiring diagrams through the timing motor contacts while my pointy haired boss is yammering away in my ear. I found the loose wire, reached up for the iron and ....sssssssssss. I dropped the iron, he looked at me and said maybe he should leave me alone now. (2 minutes earlier would have been my preference). But y'know, the lesson stuck. I will NEVER forget which end of a soldering iron to grab. And I'm sure all of that hands on work has helped me over the years. Connectors should have cable orientations marked (someone will try to reverse them), you should be able to dissassemble without removing everything, beware of mechanical contacts, for they will bite your reliability. Don't trust soldering, especially on a prototype. A good silkscreen will save 10x the time to put the details on it. (label test points, voltages)
Understanding is like an onion (or and ogre). There are layers. This applies to almost anything – music, craftsmanship, sports, mathematics – anything. On the surface is the most visible and obvious. This can be the basic rules of the game, the clear beauty of a finished result or the functionality of the result. With finer examination, you see an underlying precision, clarity or finesse you might not see with an initial look. Beyond this level, the person reviewing might need a deeper understanding of what they are experiencing….. and so on until very few can truly appreciate the best of the best.
Try fitting this model to anything. A piece of furniture. The first glance shows nicely matched wood, clean lines, a nice surface, dovetail joints. A closer look shows perfect glue lines, those dovetails were hand cut without gaps or fillers, the style is true to traditional Shaker designs. Only another craftsman might recognize that the joinery accounts for wood movement – the breadboard ends are only fastened in the middle to account for expansion and contraction. Beyond that? I don’t know, it exceeds my level of understanding.
My father-in-law describes bridge playing that way. I understand the rules – bidding and play. He plays at the tournament level and feels he is just seeing the level of finesse of the great players. One of the joys of this level of understanding is the intimacy it implies. You become very close with the subject. Possibly this is akin to friendship. Knowing someone so well that the surface level stuff is taken for granted. It is the real and subtle detail of life that must be shared. Or, maybe a good friend is more than a well-made table.
OK, freaky. This train of thought led me to remember Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I was thinking I should re-read it, if nothing else just for the way he deals with the concept of quality. So, I flip the page in the Third Machinist’s Bedside Reader and there is an essay on ZATAOMM. He says it will “change the way you work – and think- forever”
On education (written for film students but you get the idea)
Mike said: “ be reasonably sure of what you want to get out of it.”
Mike said a mouthful. You are at a point where you need to take an active view of education. Too many students are passive - sit in a chair and get fed information. They show no real direction, just absorbing what gets put in front of them. The few smart ones figure out what they want to do, which professors are teaching it well, participate and do much more outside of the class boundaries. This can be getting involved in school projects, small film festivals, local broadcast and concerts - anything beyond the limited scope of being a student. Don't worry about the money you earn from this stuff - you are gaining experience. Do a short with some friends and get it on youtube. Be on a set whenever you can. Be a person with a plan.
Now excuse me while I step off my soapbox without tripping.
Thinker toys
So many of the toys that could be just as creative - lincoln logs, legos now come with directions to build something with lots of premolded parts to make it perfect. Kids think those are directions - like model instructions - build it once, build it as it says and you are done. It is hard to get them to be creative. I have a set of steel balls with plastic shafts with magnets in the ends. We have done a bunch of geometric things without instructions.
Electronic kits are similar. Robot kits come ready to go. Maybe the issue is that so many adults can't help with electronics, or even mechanical problems. My kids had a full wood and metal shop at their disposal and it took until high school before my daughter got interested. There was clearly an 'open door policy' but IMing and Neopets were more fun. *sigh*
Avoiding plagiarism
I would guess that the ideal conclusion to a lack of plagiarism is that they collect information from multiple sources and reach a conclusion. A personally discovered conclusion. The fact collecting is just the overture.
For example, instead of asking for the economic and social reforms brought about by the Civil War (the one in the U.S. that your students don't care about), ask them to contrast the actual results with what they think might have happened if the South had won. There is no absolute correct answer and nothing to copy. It is harder on you because the grading must be done carefully to reward creativity but it sparks what I think is the hardest part of teaching - getting them to think beyond basic facts.
I might hypothesize that since slaves are valuable, they would be encouraged to reproduce at higher rates than the land owners. At some point when their numbers are high enough and possibly when communication becomes faster or reading skills more common, a mass revolt is almost inherent causing the system to implode. I could cite India's independence or the end of apartheid in South Africa.
Maybe in the 20th century, African-Americans would have been better off if the South had won.
Lessons Learned
As part of my formative years, I learned the soldering iron orientation the hard way. I was working my way through school as a pinball machine
repairman (mostly the old electro-mechancials but a few with 6800 uP in them). Anyway, the playfield is raised like the hood of a car, I'm on a stool half-way into the machine following wiring diagrams through the timing motor contacts while my pointy haired boss is yammering away in my ear. I found the loose wire, reached up for the iron and ....sssssssssss. I dropped the iron, he looked at me and said maybe he should leave me alone now. (2 minutes earlier would have been my preference). But y'know, the lesson stuck. I will NEVER forget which end of a soldering iron to grab. And I'm sure all of that hands on work has helped me over the years. Connectors should have cable orientations marked (someone will try to reverse them), you should be able to dissassemble without removing everything, beware of mechanical contacts, for they will bite your reliability. Don't trust soldering, especially on a prototype. A good silkscreen will save 10x the time to put the details on it. (label test points, voltages)