Malik Greatly Disapproves. Again.

[loyalrebel]

[It's been a while since Malik's spoken up on the network but this is something drastic to him and it needs addressing.]

It has been recently brought to my attention that the education system of modern times is sorely lacking in a number of regards.

I was told that beyond the basics of reading and mathematics anything else was not important and was not even taught, and this desperately needs to be rectified.

We may be learning magic and other such things from our overlays, but there are areas that are horrifically left by the wayside in this arms race we have entered in to.

I may not know much about history as it is from most of your perspectives but there has to be educators among us or at least those who will be willing to step up and help the children among us not return home uneducated louts who respond to the idea of mathematics or reading with "why should I care?" or "it is too difficult".

[He's not sorry Phillip. This is probably your fault kid.]

Comments

[loyalrebel]

Why would you..? Tests do not... what? The only test should be the practical application of your knowledge in the wider world.

[professorwolf]

Should be, perhaps, but the government-- and the parents-- want some sign that their children are actually learning something in school rather than ignoring the teacher or copying their neighbor's classwork, so tests were developed to see how well they learned various subjects, usually at the end of the current term for school but sometimes interspursed throughout as well. It got a little out of hand from there, I'll admit, to make standardized testing all over a very large country, but the original intention was sound.

[loyalrebel]

The only place government has in education should be lawyers and tax collectors.

[professorwolf]

I'm going to have to disagree with you there. We do need some standards imposed by an outside source, or huge swaths of the country will be getting a terrible education. We'd have schools in New York teaching about evolution and climate change and the historical horrors of slavery, while Texas is teaching out of the Bible and the hymnal and about how our founding fathers were perfect in every way.

[loyalrebel]

...what is climate change?

Also, have you met Alexander Hamiltion yet? He is here.

[professorwolf]

Climate change is about how, with some of our modern technologies, we've added pollution to our environment and it's changing how the climate behaves. Our ice caps are getting smaller every year. We're working on changing our technologies so as not to make this worse, but it's slow going.

... and I have not, I believe. Is he actually the Alexander Hamilton, who created the banks...?

[Cue curious peering around in actual liminal space as he might spot the white-wigged guy from the ten dollar bill. Heh.]

[loyalrebel]

....so people are destroying the planet in the future as well?

[Insert a picture of that professor from Futurama here.]

As far as I know yes, though he does not have the ridiculous hair of the man on the money. History is often inaccurate after all.

[professorwolf]

Oh, we've been steadily working to destroy the planet ever since we invented the spear and the plow, honestly. Medieval cities had problems with smoke and ash everywhere, and sewage was never very efficient. Ancient hunter-gatherers hunted some large prey species to extinction by chasing them off cliffs.

[Mental shrug.]

We're only at the point in my time where there are enough of us and our technology is advanced enough that we're destroying more than just our local ecosystem, that's all.

[And he'll have to look for this Alexander Hamilton. He's pretty sure the wig would be accurate, since the dollar bill portrait is based on paintings at the time. Maybe prettier, considering who was paying for those paintings, but still.]

[loyalrebel]

[He isn't sure whether to be vaguely offended or not at the comment about medieval cities being dirty.]

So essentially nobody gives much of a damn anymore.

[professorwolf]

[Maybe Malik's wasn't, but a lot of them really kinda were. Sorry, man.]

That's not true. Mostly we just didn't know entirely what we were doing. We're working on it, though, it's just slow going because there are simply so many people, and many of them don't even believe it's our fault the climate is changing and so don't see the point of changing their lifestyles. But we're working on it.