HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: scls_ss@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Eric Scoles)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: Re: Homosexuality & Evolution
Date: 27 Sep 92 02:59:44 GMT
Organization: University of Rochester - Rochester, New York

In <1992Sep25.181239.28634@u.washington.edu> monaghan@cac.washington.edu
(Tracy Monaghan {IS}) writes: 
>In article <1992Sep14.230543.204@dartvax.dartmouth.edu>
>Jane.R.Deering@dartmouth.edu (Jane R. Deering) writes: 
>>
>>Perhaps an even more straightforward example comes from ancient Greek
>>society.  Not only was homosexual activity between grown men and young
>>boys allowed, the love it was supposed to be inspired by was looked
>>upon as more honorable and deeply rooted than the love between husbands
>>and wives.  One of the best texts for those who are curious about this
>>is Plato's _Symposium_.  This should clear up the question of whether
>>or not approval of sexual practices such as homosexuality and pederasty
>>is biological or cultural - it is cultural.
>>
>Care should be taken before drawing too strong a conclusion based on a
>single source.

>What would you conclude of Victorian England culture based on a transcript
>of an Oscar Wilde dinner party?

Well, I hardly think _Symposium_ (or anything else) _clears_ _up_ the
question.  But there's plenty of other data suggesting widespread approval
of male, upper-class homosexual activity in "classical" Greece.  I know
several historians of childhood have written on this topic, though my
references are eight years lost (lost 'em in a move).  DeMause devoted a lot
of space to it in _foundations of Psychohistory_ -- there are surely
references in his bibliography.

>Tracy


>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Tracy Monaghan: arithmetic-mean, melanin-deficient, gender-advantaged
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- 
Eric Scoles			: <<insert witty, pithy comment 
scls_ss@uhura.cc.rochester.edu  :    here >>
University of Rochester --------:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
From: rrothaus@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Richard Rothaus)
Subject: Re: The Bible In The Context of Its Time
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 12:42:33 GMT

     See also Robin Lane-Fox, Pagans and Christians.  This book is problematic 
for the specialist but a good introduction for the educated reader.  He is 
especially good on beliefs of both pagans and Christians about the presence of 
the divine  on earth.


Richard M. Rothaus
From: gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: Millenium (TV Series)
Distribution: world
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 92 10:37:14 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents
Reply-To: gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au


In article <1992Sep24.193247.22821@ils.nwu.edu> pautler@ils.nwu.edu writes:

 > In article <JMC.92Sep24122527@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>, jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John >  McCarthy) writes:
 > > If life hands you a lemon, make lemonade.  The culture of the public
 > > TV makers that makes them go for noble savages is at least as worthy
 > > of study as that of the noble savages themselves.
 > > --
 > > John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
 > 
 > But did _Millenium_ do either well?
 > 
 > I was surprised that a prominent anthropologist could be responsible for
 > such a vacuous, and ethically dubious, program.  Mayberry-Lewis seemed
 > to want the audience to sympathize with him when the Brazilian (?)
 > Indian Affairs agency tried to prevent him from pursuing that tribe
 > into the rainforest.  And he's the president of a group trying to
 > preserve native cultures?!

Honestly, netters, I am amazed and appalled by this group's reaction to
Mayberry-Lewis's "Millenium", although these above nowhere near plumb
the depths of ignorance and extremism as some posts.

This newsgroup is *sci.anthropology*, in case you have forgotten.
It has never been proposed in Anthropology, and certainly never
been accepted, that humans are or should be limited to a logically
structured discourse. Perhaps some of you are not anthropologists
(poor impoverished creatures) and find your vocation in Computer
Science or some other hard domain, and have not yet realised that
your manner of dry argument is the exception among human groups, not
the norm. Everyone else performs poetry and drama as their primary
mode of communication.

Mayberry-Lewis's visual poetics are astonishing in their depth and
substance. They reflect faithfully the profound sensual experience
one finds during an initiation ceremony, for example. Certainly his
various discourses on courting behaviour are very well researched
with illuminating examples; his understanding of the importance of
knowledge and the education of children for every culture & society
to prosper is considerable.

Floreat KQED and SBS TV! Perhaps eventually we see the demise of the
bloody wars and violence beamed into our living rooms every evening, as
people realise the potential of the medium as an art-form capable of
enriching us all.

In the meantime, I am extremely gratified to see that other peoples
have as much sense as do our Aboriginal people here in Australia.


Gil Hardwick                                      gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au
Independent Consulting Ethnologist                            3:690/660.6
PERTH, Western Australia                                 (+61 9) 399 2401
   * * Sustainable Community Development & Environmental Education * *
From: s1006420@titan.ucc.umass.edu (If you want peace work for justice)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: Re: Query: science and technological culture
Date: 3 Oct 92 18:46:53 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <BvJwD2.96p@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> thomasl@silver.ucs.indiana.edu ((thomasl)) writes:
>Can anyone recommend reading on "the information age", the role of technology
>and science in the post-modern world, and the implications for social 
>organization, either locally or globally?  
>
>What has been written recently on the cult or culture of science?
>
>What is current thinking on developement v. preservation of indigenous
>cultures on native lands?
>
>Thank you.
>
Two books you might want to check out are: 'Educating for Peace' -
by Brigit Brock-Utne and 'Whose Science, Whose Knowledge' - (dont
have the author's name here with me but I have read it).

Vera B.
From: arkdr@uniwa.uwa.edu.au (Dave Rindos)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: Re: Homosexuality & Evolution
Date: 26 Sep 1992 13:05:12 +0800
Organization: The University of Westrn Australia
NNTP-Posting-Host: uniwa.uwa.edu.au

monaghan@cac.washington.edu (Tracy Monaghan {IS}) writes:

>In article <1992Sep14.230543.204@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> Jane.R.Deering@dartmouth.edu (Jane R. Deering) writes:
>>
>>Perhaps an even more straightforward example comes from ancient Greek
>>society.  Not only was homosexual activity between grown men and young
>>boys allowed, the love it was supposed to be inspired by was looked
>>upon as more honorable and deeply rooted than the love between husbands
>>and wives.  One of the best texts for those who are curious about this
>>is Plato's _Symposium_.  This should clear up the question of whether
>>or not approval of sexual practices such as homosexuality and pederasty
>>is biological or cultural - it is cultural.
>>
>Care should be taken before drawing too strong a conclusion based on a
>single source.

>What would you conclude of Victorian England culture based on a transcript
>of an Oscar Wilde dinner party?

BZZZZZZZTTT....

Sorry, dear, one should conclude LOTS!  And most of it correct!

Dave,
smiling....
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
From: wismith@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (William R. Smith)
Subject: Re: The Bible In The Context of Its Time
Organization: NAS, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 92 15:04:12 GMT

Jeffery A. Bechdol writes:
	>
	Does anyone know of any references that approach the Scriptures
	from a cultural anthropology point of view that put the Text in
	the idioms of the time when it was written?

Vera B. writes:

	There is a book written by Elaine Pagels, a prof. of religious studies
	at Princeton - The Gnostic Gospels - about the 52 gnostic gospels
	unearthed in 1945 in Hag Hammadi (Egypt) - these are not the Dead Sea
	scrolls - 



"The Gnostic Gospels" is a well researched, informative book.  However,
I don't believe it is what Jeffery is looking for.  Pagels' book focuses
more on the early Christian era from about 60 AD to 200 AD.  For those
interested in the very early Christian organization, I recommend it.



William Smith
Intel, SSD

Newsgroups: sci.edu,comp.edu
From: osan@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (Mr. X)
Subject: Re: Year-round schooling
Keywords: year,round,school,schooling
Organization: Twilight Zone
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 21:08:32 GMT

In article <holly.224@mailhub.scf.lmsc.lockheed.com> holly@mailhub.scf.lmsc.lockheed.com (Holly Wise) writes:
>
>I think the biggest advantage of year-round schooling is that kids don't 
>forget what they learned the year before.  

	Here's a little statistic that we kept getting thrown at us when we
	were in college training to be teachers:  85% of what you learn is
	forgotten within two weeks of having learned it without reinforcement.
	We were also told that much (not all) of this forgeting is necessary
	to the healthy condition of a person.  High pressure maintenance of
	information works for a while, but eventually catches up with the
	student.  Keep banging on the kid without cease and you will have
	a stressed out, nervous wreck that may turn suicidal.  Yes there are
	studies to this effect, no I do not have references handy.  This was
	all from 10 years ago.

>Any teacher can probably tell you 
>that it takes months to re-teach the children what they taught them the year 
>before after 3 months vacation.  

	Not necessarily so.  Kids that were taught well, including having had
	the right overall environment for learning tend to remember MOST of
	what they learned the year before.  This is especially true when you
	run an open book class where students are free to look materials up,
	even during a test.  When you give then the basic skills required for
	intellectual pursuits including the proper use of library resources,
	you give them a virtually unlimited potential for learning and 
	developing their skills and interests.

	Also be aware that a child need not be a rocket scientist bt the
	end of the first grade.  If left to their own devices and given
	good conscientious guidance, they will develop themselves into
	fine young intellects all by themselves without being man handled.

	I have taught some pretty good kids and I have taught the worst the
	streets of the South Bronx has to offer.  The "good" kids did not
	forget very much at all, by the time September rolled around, and
	indeed in many cases were quite eager to get to it once again.  The
	"bad" students, generally speaking, tended to forget significantly
	more, though it never failed to amaze me some of the things the WOULD
	remember; things I would have never have expected them to retain.

	People are amazingly complex, and so the "bigger hammer" approach
	will fail every time.

>Although I have no expertise in the area 
>and know no one who did go to year-round schools, this sounds logical to me.

	But when you DO acquire expertise in this area, suddenly you will see
	the great folly that this represents, so sorry.

	-Andy V.
Newsgroups: sci.edu,misc.education,misc.kids
From: tuff@ellis.uchicago.edu (Geoff Tuffli)
Subject: Re: Year-round schooling
Keywords: year,round,school,schooling
Reply-To: tuff@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 18:19:25 GMT

In article <1992Oct1.210832.26418@cbfsb.cb.att.com> osan@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (Mr. X) writes:
>In article <holly.224@mailhub.scf.lmsc.lockheed.com> holly@mailhub.scf.lmsc.lockheed.com (Holly Wise) writes:

>	Here's a little statistic that we kept getting thrown at us when we
>	were in college training to be teachers:  85% of what you learn is
>	forgotten within two weeks of having learned it without reinforcement.
>	We were also told that much (not all) of this forgeting is necessary
>	to the healthy condition of a person.  High pressure maintenance of
>	information works for a while, but eventually catches up with the
>	student.  Keep banging on the kid without cease and you will have
>	a stressed out, nervous wreck that may turn suicidal.  Yes there are
>	studies to this effect, no I do not have references handy.  This was
>	all from 10 years ago.
>
>>Any teacher can probably tell you 
>>that it takes months to re-teach the children what they taught them the year 
>>before after 3 months vacation.  
>
>	Not necessarily so.  Kids that were taught well, including having had
>	the right overall environment for learning tend to remember MOST of
>	what they learned the year before.  This is especially true when you
>	run an open book class where students are free to look materials up,
>	even during a test.  When you give then the basic skills required for
>	intellectual pursuits including the proper use of library resources,
>	you give them a virtually unlimited potential for learning and 
>	developing their skills and interests.
>
>	Also be aware that a child need not be a rocket scientist bt the
>	end of the first grade.  If left to their own devices and given
>	good conscientious guidance, they will develop themselves into
>	fine young intellects all by themselves without being man handled.
>
[some material deleted in the interest of paring down the article]
>
>	People are amazingly complex, and so the "bigger hammer" approach
>	will fail every time.
>
>	-Andy V.

Practical experimentation with this idea, that yes, amazingly enough, children
_do_ learn best when not being hammered at does exist. The most obvious
example of this that I can think of off hand is the Summerhill school in
England (running since the early part of the century.) While the circumstances
there are certainly difficult to reproduce, the basic idea that children's
native curiosity is usually the strongest motivator was fairly well documented
there. (The school in effect did not force children to even go to classes
or give out grades.)

My suspicion is that the primary reason more research on this has not been
done is due to the counter-intuitiveness of this - it is practically a paradigm
of our civilization that a child must be forcefed or they will not learn
anything.

	Geoff Tuffli
From: gregk@propwash.FtCollins.NCR.com (Greg Kapraun)
Newsgroups: sci.edu,misc.education,misc.kids
Subject: Re: Year-round schooling
Date: 5 Oct 92 21:39:29 GMT
Reply-To: gregk@FtCollins.NCR.COM (Greg Kapraun)
Organization: NCR MPD, FT. Collins, CO. 80525  (303) 223-5100

In article <1992Oct1.023954.26205@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> mlp2n@poe.acc.Virginia.EDU (Mary Leslie Parpart) writes:

  -stuff deleted-

>going to YRS.  In my research I found that the biggest reason
>for going to a YRS program in large cities is to deal with over
>crowding.  There have been very few school systems that have
>gone to YRS to improve the quality of education that
                            ^-------------------^

I hope this changes.  This is exactly why my father who has 
been a middle school teacher for 29+ years advocates the YRS
concept.  His opinion is that you would not have to spend the
first 3-4 wks of the new school year to bring the kids back
up to speed and back to the level they were before they left 
school for the summer.  He teaches Math and Science and these
skills are not kept sharp during the summer months.

>their children are receiving.  I feel that this is because that
>there is very little in the way of research that suggest that
>YRS imporves the quality of education.  The only case that I
>have heard that it has deals with single schools in small
>community.  I do feel that YRS will be looked to in the future
>as an answer to some education problems facing us in the future.

-Here! Here!


                             |Greg Kapraun (Greg.Kapraun@FtCollinsCO.NCR.COM)
 "Thank you for using AT&T"  |NCR Microelectronics  (303) 223-5100 Ext. 209
      O _ \                  |2001 Danfield Ct. 
      O   /                  |Ft. Collins, CO. 80525
From: smb@ulysses.att.com (Steven Bellovin)
Subject: Re: Year-round schooling
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 18:44:23 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories

In article <1992Sep28.194450.19983@oakhill.sps.mot.com>, amym@oakhill.sps.mot.com (Amy Moseley Rupp) writes:
> What I'd like to know is:
> 
> what do parents do for daycare during those days when their children
> are not in school?  there are lots of programs for the summer, but a
> daycare probably wouldn't want to handle a kid for just a couple of
> weeks at a stretch.

Look for after-school programs -- they're geared towards the academic
year, and often offer full-day programs for days when school isn't in
session.  Naturally, you'll do best if with programs in your local
school district, or with programs oriented towards whatever school
your child attends.  For example, our local YM-YWHA tracks not just
the local public school system, but also that of the two private Jewish
schools in the area.
From: phillies@wpi.WPI.EDU (George D. Phillies)
Newsgroups: sci.edu
Subject: teaching concepts?
Date: 27 Sep 92 18:00:55 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute
NNTP-Posting-Host: wpi.wpi.edu

In <Bv1uo4.6s2@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
advocates

>Teach the ideas, not the easily-forgotten details!  

This is the oft-heard notion that one should teach concepts, not procedures.
If the students have been taught that details are important, as opposed to the 
modern American approach in which sign errors are treated as trivial, they will 
tend to become meticulous in their study and understand the details.

After several decades of teaching (and research in my field) I am gradually 
convinced that evidence for the existence of concepts in the sense the word is 
usually understood here, let alone evidence for the utility or possibility of 
teaching concepts, is markedly absent.  So far as I can tell, the "concept" is 
basically a mnemonic for a set of problem-solving procedures, which are more or 
less generalizable, if one has had concrete practice generalizing them.  
Observe that the successful approach to doing physics at the graduate and 
research levels is not based on vague invocations of concepts, it is based on 
successful implementation of successful procedures, e.g. Hamiltonian and 
Lagrangian mechanics, solution of Maxwell's equations via orthogonal 
polynomials, etc.  

It is sometimes argued that the Feynmann Lectures in Physics are an example of 
the concept approach.  So far as I can tell, for almost all students (even at 
my alma mater, MIT, when I was a physics major in the early 60s) the approach 
is a failure.  The Lectures are interesting to read after you understand the 
physics, but are not effective at teaching physics.

George Phillies
phillies@wpi.wpi.edu
Newsgroups: sci.edu,misc.education,misc.kids
From: brunner@telebit.com (Eric Brunner)
Subject: Re: Year-round schooling
Organization: Telebit Corporation; Sunnyvale, CA, USA
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 16:44:40 GMT

In article <00717613712@elgamy.sccsi.com> elg@elgamy.sccsi.com (Eric Lee Green) writes:
[in response to Marco A. Duran's original query, omitted]

>A local school district went to year-round schooling one year, and promptly
>switched back the next year.

[Eric Lee Green's urban vs suburban notes, omitted]
>
>From a teacher's point of view there are problems with year-round
>schooling, too. The primary one is the loss of ability to study at a
>university full-time during a summer session. Most teachers with advanced
>degrees were teaching at the time that they got those degrees -- they went
>part-time to night courses during the school year and full-time during the
>summer. Personally, I don't feel that I'm knowledgable enough about certain
>topics in order to be a truly effective teacher -- I want that time to
>enhance my education.

This hadn't occured to me, and it is immediately obvious (now that its been
pointed out), that this will have an effect on the ages and professional
aspirations of the teachers at year-round. The language teachers won't be
summering in Mexico or France or ..., the arts teachers won't be summering
at workshops or institutes, and all of the teachers won't be either able
to augment their incomes with 2nd jobs or long sanity-saver holidays. My
guess is that year-round will, over time, have older, mature teachers, and
that summers-off will have child-bearing, still professionally developing
teachers. Anyone know of studies on age/development correlations with both?

In my earlier post, I commented on the affect on split custody with cross-
district custodial homes, second families, and parental bonding and long
vacations.

-- 
Eric Brunner Tule Network Services
uucp: uunet!practic!brunner
trying to understand multiprocessing is like having bees live inside your head.

Newsgroups: sci.edu,misc.education,misc.kids
From: tuff@ellis.uchicago.edu (Geoff Tuffli)
Subject: Re: Year-round prison (was Year-round schooling)
Keywords: year,round,school,schooling
Reply-To: tuff@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 18:26:07 GMT

In article <1992Oct1.220939.29903@cbfsb.cb.att.com> dal3@cbnewsg.cb.att.com (dale.e.parson) writes:

>I guess this is like the Willy Horton business. No revolving doors.
>Lock 'em up & keep 'em locked up. They won't forget what they learned
>the year before: sit still and shut up.
>
>I keep thinking about most of the housing developments that have gone
>up in eastern Pa. in recent years. Big houses, little to no yard, and maybe
>a small collection of swings, slides etc. at the end of the development.
>I never see kids on those swings or slides; I never see kids playing in
>those yards.
>
>Where are those kids? Watching TV? In some other jail when the legally
>mandated ones are closed? I remember spending evenings & summers sledding
>or softball playing or bicycling or fishing or reading or star gazing
>or doing a million other things for which school only got in the way.
>Is this country so out of imagination, curiosity, and compassion that it
>quietly discusses locking its kids away for the whole freaking year as
>though it were talking about auto inspections or something? Instead of
>sending 'em off to internment for another 3 months, FIND SOME TIME & GO
>DO SOMETHING INTERESTING WITH THEM! Might be educational for all involved.
>
> Dale Parson, dale@mhcnet.att.com

I think it is fair to say that the proponents of year-around schooling are
not unanimously in favor of the authoritarian/totalitarian approach to
"education", with which I agree full-heartedly is a monstrosity and a mockery
of education.

My own thoughts are that a year-around schooling system would be beneficial,
but that the school itself should be dramatically cut down on overt structure.
I.e., have the materials available, have the teachers available and offering
suggestions and answering questions (ANY questions - this is one pet peeve
I have about primary education which is that the only questions a teacher will
generally answer at that level during "class" time is what the "material" is
on - after two or three years of this, I think it a wonder that anybody has
any curiosity left.) In actual practice this has been shown to work remarkably
well, and despite the problems inherant in a set-up like this, I think it
would behoove us to examine such a system to some degree, something which I
do not feel has been done to any marked degree in any official or mainstream
capacity.

	Geoff Tuffli