Parents Say Students Forced To Learn Spanish

[Zkribbler]

Happy Day's Potsy:

You take French to pick up on French chicks.
You take Spanish to pick up on Spanish chicks.
Taking Latin is stupid. Who you gonna pick up on? Nuns??

[Blake]

Originally posted by Krill
So...Parents work 9-5, and the kids have only half the hours in school...


...who looks after them for the extra time?

Frankly, parents spend too much time at work. The 9-5 is an abomination which has staggered along for far too long. With technological advance being as it is, increasing productivity dramatically, we OBVIOUSLY don't need to be working such long hours. This SHOULD be reflected in reduced working hours.

I personally try to work those kind of hours ON AVERAGE. The typical "8/5/50" (8 hours/day, 5 days/week, 50 weeks/year) results in 2000 hours at work a year, the ideal is "4/4/40", resulting in 640 hours at work a year. Although I can't manage 4/4/40 I do aim for around 700-1000 hours work a year, it's quite enough.

It's much nicer to be wealthier in time than wealthier in possessions, and 4/4/40 seems to strike a good balance.

Making a society where everyone is so busy that they never have any time to get along with others (or themselves), is just plain dumb and wrongheaded.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by snoopy369
German's quite commonly offered where I've seen ... Spanish 1, French 2, German 2.1 ; only schools that offer only 2 languages (most reasonably funded schools offer at least 3) would not teach German.

interesting. that hasn't been our experience. what part of te country are you in?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Blake
School should be a positive and supportive environment where children feel safe to make mistakes and to fail, this encourages creativity and success.

So you want to teach them that it's safe when they fail? Honestly, I thinks that's the very thing that is wrong with the way education is right now. It's imperative that they succeed in school. If they don't they face dire consequences. It's not fair to them to tell them lies.

We can only succeed when we try, but whenever we try we run the risk of failing. So fear of failure must not be allowed to take root, both success and failure must be greeted with equanimity. This encourages children to try, to strive.

Fear of failure breeds success. You can't feed kids that BS. It doesn't work. They won't beleive you and they shouldn't.

Classroom sizes and school hours should both be slashed by at least half. Ideal hours would be about 4 hours a day, 4 days a week, that is quite sufficient time spent learning. Obviously the life and social skills can't be taught by rote memorization - so this teaching must be done skillfully, through activity and such. Children should do A LOT of pair, group and class activities, rather than most of it being solitary, this would introduce the badly needed concept of cooperation. Yes, cooperation is difficult, that is why it needs to be taught! Cooperation being difficult is no reason to shun it, as happens currently in the schooling system.

None of that is going to work. No one can do it but the students. They have everything they need. If they don't want to do it show them the door. That way they know you mean what you say.

[Kuciwalker]

Fear of failure breeds success. You can't feed kids that BS. It doesn't work. They won't beleive you and they shouldn't.

How the **** are you qualified to say what breeds success? Your entire life is a failure.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Fear of failure breeds success. You can't feed kids that BS. It doesn't work. They won't beleive you and they shouldn't.

Your entire life is a failure.

It's just fine. Thanks for caring.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Your entire life is a failure.

Judging by how much of a little creep you are, I would say that my life is actually more successfull than yours.

Actually I was a B student, but who the hell cares. I'm happy. I haven't always been, but I am now.

Are you happy?

[Blake]

Fear of failure breeds success. You can't feed kids that BS. It doesn't work. They won't beleive you and they shouldn't.

Painfully stupid.

Someone who fears failure; fears the cause of failure. The cause of failure, is trying. They thus fear trying.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Blake

Painfully stupid.

Someone who fears failure; fears the cause of failure. The cause of failure, is trying. They thus fear trying.

According to your philosophy kids are insane. They aren't. They are just as sane as adults if not more so.

[Kidlicious]

Seriously Blake,

I don't know if you learned that crap from Buddhism or somewhere else. But it's tragically wrong.

[Blake]

I learned this concept from life itself, firsthand experience.

You are insane to think that the lack of fear, leads to the doing of that which isn't feared. That is insane thinking.

It is usually quite the opposite, someone who fears something, runs towards it.

I took an outward bound course, when I was 20.

We were kayaking. The instructor said, that if you try to avoid hitting the rock, you will be drawn into it and hit it.
Once you fear something, you're mind dwells on it and you tend to run into it. Because you're trying desperately to avoid hitting the rock you crash your kayak into the rock.
If your mind wasn't focused on the rock, it would be focused on the clear waters instead - and that is where the kayak goes.

Understand the difference between fear, and recognition of danger. A rock in the middle of a river, is dangerous to a kayaker. It could damage the kayak or harm the kayaker.

Recognition of danger is very important. Fear itself, is very dangerous, it is very important to recognize fear and to master fear totally, otherwise it will inevitably lead you into danger.


The hazards of fear is a very common "wisdom" theme.


You can take a board, 10 feet long and 4 inches wide, raised onto a couple of bricks a few inches above the ground. Most people would walk across it with confidence, and not fall. Because they don't fear falling a few inches to the ground (even though it could actually be a little dangerous!)

Take the same board, and place it between two buildings, 20 stories above the ground.

Now many people will be hesitant, they will falter - they may well fall off! Lets hope they are roped on. Why do they fall? Fear of falling makes them fall, nothing more. Just fear.

That's how fear works. Why does it work that way? I don't know. Perhaps because people are insane.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Judging by how much of a little creep you are, I would say that my life is actually more successfull than yours.

Actually I was a B student, but who the hell cares. I'm happy. I haven't always been, but I am now.

Are you happy?

Happy and successful

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Happy and successful

I can tell.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Blake
That's how fear works. Why does it work that way? I don't know. Perhaps because people are insane.

No they aren't insane and fear doesn't work like that. Welfare reform works. Do you know why? Because people are afraid.

It's very simple. You are making it way too complicated.

People are afraid of a danger so they avoid it. We aren't even talking about being chased by a bear of something like that. It's not even that kind of fear we are talking about. We are talking about kids making a rational decision to either do their homework or not. If they don't do their homework they can't go to school. It's that simple. But you think they won't do their homework because of fear. You seriously disappoint me Blake. I thought you had more sense than that.

[Blake]

People make a much too big deal over school.

A child might think, that if they fail a test, it's the end of the world! That is how fear can work in a child's mind. It can work the same way in a parents mind.

The problem? It simply isn't true. There's no danger, there's no need for fear.

I have no problem saying, that every single moment I spent in education past age 13 (with the exception perhaps of school camps and lunch time), was pretty much wasted, not benefiting me in my career or life.

That means; all the success and failure, didn't matter. There was never any danger.

But it took me a long time to "unlearn" that fear of failure. There, was the real danger.