Searching "comments":
| # | Comment | Survey |
|---|---|---|
| 491 | (Giggles). I'd say no but I'd be lying. :). | Would you be willing to pay higher taxes in order to increase your local school budget? |
| 492 | Teachers rely so heavily on texts that they often do not even know the material they themselves teach. I recall a geometery teacher who admitted two interested beliefs-- First, that 'There sure are a lot of beautiful *WOMEN* in high school' and second 'I don't really see why anyone would bother to learn geometry. I never did.' He would re-learn the materials each time he passed over them in the book. The reliance on texts... which oftentimes the teachers themselves don't understand, takes away from teacher-student interaction. The key to succesful schools is to MOTIVATE STUDENTS TO DO WELL. It's about motivation. If kids WANT TO SUCCEED, and WANT TO BE THE BEST THEY CAN, they will. How is a student supposed to feel special, and part of a community, if there are 3,600 students at his school and he is reading from a text-book that has been sold to 3 million students! Kids are VERY perceptive. They know what it means when something has been 'Institutionalized'. They understand. And they don't feel good about it. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. Well the same goes for students. You can provide them with limitless opportunity in an academic respect, but without positive interpersonal relationships motivating them to do well, they won't. One might argue that COLLEGES are even more institutionalized, but in fact, the OPPOSITE is true. Colleges create a de-institutionalized feel by distributing their power structure throughout different departments, and allowing for various and contradictory communities to co-exist. They are more a caucaus than a hierarchy. This creates the feeling of a 'culture' or 'society' surrounding an institution as students of differing COLLEGES and DEPARTMENTS find themselves isolated to specific buildings, a specific set of teachers, etc. It's like with your Oxford system... first you break it down into specific colleges, and then from there each college is broken down into majors (most of them, anyways, don't some colleges offer only one major?). Despite it being a huge institution, community is obviously felt by the students. Additionally, many colleges have students being away from home for the first time, and LIVING at the college. They identify STRONGLY with their university. I was CERTAINLY a PART, A SHAPING FACTOR, of Charlotte Hill Elementary. For one, I KNEW CHARLOTTE HILL! She was there 9 or 10 times a year and she talked to every single one of us! EVERYONE, and every faculty member, who was there from 90 to 95 while I was there, knows who I am and what effect I had on the institution. That makes me feel good. Later on I went to a cookie-cutter Middle School that had been institutionalized and my own teachers are unlikely to remember who I was... well... except a few. I found a niche in my high school and I identify strongly with certain faculty members, etc... which, is part of what led me to such success. Don't get me wrong, I dropped out... but is was on advice of many of those faculty members! Instead of flailing, the community there provided me with solutions to my problems... which once seemed un-overcomable. I still go back and say hi to certain teachers... the best ones I know will be there til' 5, every day. Even if they don't have anything to do. Simply talking with students... BUILDING COMMUNITY. Some even pick up their kids from elementary at 3:00 and bring them with them! The key is to build that community. Once you have that, students identifying with a positive community, you are set. If they aren't identifying, they are flailing. They lack the emotional and social support structure necessary to handle the transitions of adolescence. Other adolescents are BY NO MEANS sufficient support structure. Well... I take that back. Truly caring juniors and seniors... well adjusted, can help younger students along to an extent, but by and large they can't help each other. The most important factor in the success of our children is that we cause them to feel as though they are a member of a community! *Nationwide* reforms are DOOMED FROM THE START, because they further contribute to the institutionalized feel of pre-college academia. It is of VITAL importance that the students feel that the school is PART OF THEIR COMMUNITY, and that they IDENTIFY with it. However, many schools do not even have names any more!!!!! There are schools in New York City known simply as 'Urban Elementary #19.' What school do you go to? Ninteen. Etc. Kids KNOW. They are onto it. They see what the deal is. They are just a NUMBER (I was '699295'. Seriously.) The first key is understanding that no amount of money will save the system. Small, underfunded, schools in rural areas have high student performance... and students identify very well with the schools. As the environment we put these children in becomes more and more COLD, and INHUMAN, at a time when their emotional development is most sensitive to such influences, we are fudging them up emotionally for the rest of their lives. It's hard to have fond personal memories of friendships at an institution where you were a number and most of the teachers were born on the opposite coast... it's an assembly line. Until we acknowledge the BASIC HUMAN NEED, especially among children, to have warm, positive relationships with caring adults (and to feel like part of a community and culture) student performance will continue to decline as students emotional-adjustment continues to lead them to declining states of health, happiness, and motivation. Only through the power of the institution... the presence of teachers at the institution until WELL after the day ends (and the simple fact is that if the teachers stay, the students will too. I often hung around until 5 (school ended at one) to spend time with teachers... who periodically gave me rides home, as well! And my feelings of community and cooperation were furthered even more by the fact that I was intimate with BOTH of Mr. Depierre's daughters! Ha! I always used to joke that if he threw me up against a wall one day in math class and said 'Are you %#$%ing my daughter?' I'd say 'Which one do ya mean...'. The feelings of community are important. More community=more success. One way to further this is to eliminate national texts. | Would you be willing to pay higher taxes in order to increase your local school budget? |
| 493 | Actually... someone did write a song about me :). A couple lines are "You can tell me how you broke down a door just to save a man's life." It was more of a ballad about my adventures in Vegas over the past few years. As far as breaking down a door just to save a man's life... yeah, I ended up meeting Richard Simmons and getting his official seal of approval over that. | If someone was to write a song about you, how would a line or two of it go? |
| 494 | A random attractive female strangers. Though, that probably just reflects where I'm at in relationship to Ericson's eight stages. | Whose opinion of you matters the most? |
| 495 | Hmm. I'm not really sure. I remember that statistics say that family members are the most likely culprits -- though some might argue that stranger abduction is prone to being more harmful... not really sure. Assuming I had kids I'd probably look fairly critically at everyone who were to come into contact with them-- for various reasons besides the one mentioned. | Who do you think poses the biggest danger to children? |
| 496 | Run my fingers through my beard-- As per that one statue. Of that one guy. Thinking. You know the one. I pace when I write. | What do you do while you're thinking hard? |
| 497 | Don't own one -- no need. | Do you use a cell phone on a daily basis? |
| 498 | Never suffered from it, though, if one were suffering from it I'd have some good advice for them if they asked. | How do you deal with insomnia? |
| 499 | You're lucky you remembered ANYTHING for the next three days after taking that much valium. Bad idea. 5-10 mg would have done the trick. | How do you deal with insomnia? |
| 500 | Due to generic tablets being available, and the tendency of people to develop a tolerance, there are all sorts of doses floating around. That being said, the most common prescription is th 5 MG pills and people are generally told to take HALF of one of those and then wait an hour and take the other half if it ain't doin' it. I've never even heard of someone being prescribed the 10 MG pills for anything other than schizophrenic violent states or if they have a high tolerance (have been on valium for a year already, daily). 35 MG, is, by any standard, a MASSIVE overdose (though, it won't kill you-- LD-50 is around 10 Grams). Given the tendency of valium to induce anterograde amnesia and short-term delerium, you're well advised to take less than 10 MG for sleep. In any event, valium has a half-life that's too long. It's for generalized anxiety disorder. The Benzo you need is 'Lorazepam', trade name Ativan. The half life is 4-6 hours and doses are 1/2, 1, and 2 MG's... with 2 being equivalent in strength at peak to the 10 MG valiums. Most doctors would say to dissolve a 1 MG one (the white circular ones) under the tongue and then swallow the fluid for sleep. Worst case take 2. No more than 3 MG is any 24 hour period though-- 5 MG (=25 of valium) is generally enough to make you forget what year it is. Literally. | How do you deal with insomnia? |
