From: johniac@austin.ibm.com (John Iacoletti/100000)
Subject: Re: Football Failures at Bowie Force end of Season
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 92 00:48:32 GMT
Distribution: tx
Organization: IBM Advanced Workstations and Systems, Austin, TX
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]

fred j mccall 575-3539 (mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com) wrote:
: Well, I meant for you to tell me what YOU think one would be, but
: never mind.  You seem to be asserting, since I "introduced the term"
: that there is no such thing.

Not at all.  I just didn't know what you meant by "good citizen".

:                                  He (or she) would be self-sufficient,
: believe in taking care of themself and taking responsibility for
: themself, be informed about what is going on around them, how things
: work, and where the people they have the opportunity to vote for stand
: on the issues, believe in standing up for themself and what they
: believe, and quite a number of other things.

See how easy that was?  It didn't even take up "volumes".  Why couldn't you
have just done this to begin with?

: I find it interesting
: that this is such a foreign concept to you that you don't even
: understand the term.

I think the term is mainly a matter of taste.  It's like trying to define
what a "good meal" is.  What I'm trying to point out is that the rest of
us may not agree with your definition of "good citizen", and may not want
to support instilling those values in the public schools.

: Well, try looking at it as a model of the free market, John.  Things
: have associated costs, and the cost of doing extra-curricular
: activities is adequacy at the curricular ones.  What you seem to
: support is a sort of 'welfare' within this model, where the
: extra-curricular activities 'come free'.

I think we have a fundamental difference which is fueling this whole debate.
I don't make much of a distinction between learning say calculus vs. learning
football, other than that they are different things to learn.  I think that
both skills have value in their own realms and people should have the freedom
to pursue whatever they are interested in and can excel in.  If they fail,
they pick up and try something else.  There's no shame in failing.  There is
shame in not being allowed to try.

:                                         Take a class of 20 in which
: everyone is at least passing.  Is it your contention that I can toss
: in 10 people who AREN'T getting the material and who are flunking and
: that that has no impact at all on the amount of time that the teacher
: can give to each student (the poor ones require more time), the speed
: at which material can be presented (the poor ones require you to go
: slower), and any number of other things?  

I believe so.  In my experience, the people who weren't interested in learning
the material would either skip class, or if they were forced to attend, they
would just ignore the teacher and daydream.  Especially if the teacher evicted
anyone who was being disruptive.

: Hmmm.  Ok.  Give me back my money and you can let them play football
: to their heart's content.  I can spend the money on ammunition and
: shoot the little bastards when they come to rob me because they have
: no skills or experience at learning any (except football).

Now we're getting somewhere!  You're starting to come around.

: >: Silly me.  Obviously if someone is getting good grades they
: >: are learning SOMETHING, even if it's only how to get over on tests.
: 
: >Or how to cheat, or how to bribe the teacher, or ...
: 
: I'm curious, John.  What would your reaction be if I wrote the way you
: have been?

I am very serious.  It seems to me that people take the path of least
resistance.  If they aren't interested in learning the subject of whatever 
class they have to pass in order to do what they want, I think they are 
very likely to do whatever they have to to get by.  And there are a lot of
things that are easier than studying and mastering the material.

: Gee, paint us some more of this wonderful world you espouse, John.  So
: far, I don't like it much.

I think liberty is the most important thing we have.  The freedom to live our
lives the way we choose.  What you are advocating is prior restraint:  "you
can't pursue a football career, because we think you will become a criminal".

: The relevance is that you said that teaching these things stopped in
: elementary school.

No, I said that they are not taught in high school.  Maybe you need to read
more carefully.

: Oh, speaking of which, I'm curious.  What explanation do you have for
: the lower test scores and higher drop-out rate in Texas?

I don't think it's the previous absence of no pass-no play, because I don't
think most other states have it either.  If I had to guess, I would say that
the students just don't value what is being taught.

--
John Iacoletti       IBM AWS Austin       Internet: johniac@austin.ibm.com
        My opinions do not reflect the views of the IBM Corporation
    "Egad, a base tone denotes a bad age" -- TMBG   "I Palindrome I"