Why blogs suck

[Ron Thorne]

Is Goody really Don DeLillo?

I seriously doubt it.

[GoodSpeak]

I do, too.

[GoodSpeak]

[GoodSpeak]

Yet another blog which questions the over reliance on blogs:

http://www.whydowork.com/blog/wdw-insider/191/

[shrugs]

Is Goody really Don DeLillo?

Tiny Silver Death Machine: Election Coverage 2008

POSTED BY: Don DeLillo, Master of Postmodern Literature

Sep 26, 2008, 12:00 pm

Noted author Don DeLillo blogged for The Onion from the Conventions

He speaks in your voice, American, and he's blogging right next to me, as I type my own blog, in this our blogging age. Our faces fixated with vigorous purpose on glowing rectangular screens, measured in centimeters. In the air, invisible information. Uploads, downloads. Waves and radiation. Surrounding us both, on every side of the lobby, dozens more do exactly the same, typing with their thumbs into tiny silver death machines.

From across America, they come to Minneapolis, to Denver, in herds, teaming hordes filled with sounds, smells. In great tidal flows of seething humanity they ease around the I-beam sculptures and move into the sports arenas. They are loaded down with noisemakers and paper and special hats.

The crowds are a slowly spreading ripple and moan. They heave and surge with some unexplainable animal intelligence. They have to walk slowly to accommodate their awe. Snatches of unattributed dialogue—absurdist, yet paradoxically naturalistic—come out of the mass of pressing bodies:

"You cannot state categorically?"

"Not at the present moment."

"So that's that?"

"As far as we are aware."

"So the general consensus seems to be that we don't know enough at this time to be sure of anything."

"Let me put it to you like this: if I were a rat, I wouldn't want to be within a 200 mile radius of Minneapolis right now."

"What if you were a human?"

Isn't most of that straight outta White Noise? Just insert herds of kids and their parents in stationwagons driving onto campus at the start of the semester.

[GoodSpeak]

....then write a blog.

[Tom Storer]

Yet another blog which questions the over reliance on blogs:

http://www.whydowork.com/blog/wdw-insider/191/

That (shudder) blog post recommends the interactivity of forums over the passive consumption of blog content and says "blogs are a supplement." That's not at all without merit. However, you are promoting this recommendation to people with whom you interact daily in a forum. In other words, people who have no need of this recommendation because they clearly are already doing what it advises.

[jesus marion joseph]

That (shudder) blog post recommends the interactivity of forums over the passive consumption of blog content and says "blogs are a supplement." That's not at all without merit. However, you are promoting this recommendation to people with whom you interact daily in a forum. In other words, people who have no need of this recommendation because they clearly are already doing what it advises.

Yeah, but blogs suck.

[rollhead]

I read in a blog this morning that GoodSpeak sucks.

[Gary Sisco]

This is one of Goodie's strangest threads.

[tippy]

Who's Phenonena?

[Gary Sisco]

Goodie's Greek cousin.

[tippy]

"When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you." (Philip Kerr)

That's an interesting quote, Gary. I have to ask you what it means to have the abyss look into you - does that mean one becomes more abysmal by looking into the abyss or does the abyss get ideas from the abyss looker into? Probably neither but I am interested in what it means.

[GoodSpeak]

That (shudder) blog post recommends the interactivity of forums over the passive consumption of blog content and says "blogs are a supplement." That's not at all without merit. However, you are promoting this recommendation to people with whom you interact daily in a forum. In other words, people who have no need of this recommendation because they clearly are already doing what it advises.

Not exactly.


The people who most often use blogs as a source of accuarate and reliable information on this BBS are not, Tom.

That is my point.

[GoodSpeak]

This is one of Goodie's strangest threads.

Why is it something has to be strange or wrong or whatever simply upon the fact you don't agree with it?


That is what is strange.

[GoodSpeak]

I read in a blog this morning that GoodSpeak sucks.

Well...that's one blogger's opinion.

[rollhead]

Thomas Paine: The First American Blogger

http://www.thomaspaineblog.org/thoma...rican-blogger/

[Jon Abbey]

Results 1 - 10 of about 3,720,000 for why public high school teachers suck

[Gary Sisco]

Shit's too lamebrained to debate.

Tippy -- For me, it means that the look into the abyss is also a look into yourself -- they abyss becomes a kind of self measure. It tells you about yourself you might or might not want to know. Or it might mean nothing but sound good nevertheless. Not everyone wants to look into it, including most of those who have, myself included.

[tippy]

Why do public high school teachers suck? In New York they have to have a master's degree whereas private school teachers don't.

[tippy]

Shit's too lamebrained to debate.

Tippy -- For me, it means that the look into the abyss is also a look into yourself -- they abyss becomes a kind of self measure. It tells you about yourself you might or might not want to know. Or it might mean nothing but sound good nevertheless. Not everyone wants to look into it, including most of those who have, myself included.

so is it like looking in a mirror but instead of just a regular mirror it's a dark, spooky mirror. with monsters?

[Gary Sisco]

Yeah, something like that. Staring the void full in the face can teach you things about yourself you'd not otherwise learn, not necessarily comforting things.

I can't take degrees seriously anymore. I've met too many morons with advanced degrees to think of them as anything other than receipts for bills paid. I don't take bachelor level degrees seriously either, for the same reason. And graduating high school is a measure of time spent in school, nothing more.

[tippy]

Fair enough about the degree but my question remains - if public high school teachers suck, I want to know specifically why they do? (Because I kinda wanted to become one - that's why I want to know.)

[tippy]

Hey that's a totally legit question. It came up in the debate, US spends the most and has the stupidest people in the Western world. How can that be? (1) Why do public school teachers suck and (2) Why are the kids ending up so damn stupid?

[Tom Hall]

Hey that's a totally legit question. It came up in the debate, US spends the most and has the stupidest people in the Western world. How can that be? (1) Why do public school teachers suck and (2) Why are the kids ending up so damn stupid?

So how do they tell if the kids are stupid? I'd guess that they give them tests to find out if they have memorized a bunch of stuff. And teaching kids to memorize a bunch of stuff and calling it education is the reason why (particularly now, since "No Child is Left Behind") public schooling sucks in the first place.

So who's stupid?

People who grew up in a world where intelligence meant knowing a bunch of stuff from a bunch of books, and being able to put it together in a slightly different way and write that down in another book, are not a good judge of what intelligence means in 2008.

As a improv kinda guy, I'm happy to live in a world where more emphasis is being placed on improvisation and improvisational thinking. I see it in the kids I teach. In general, they can understand and practice the basic principles of free improvisation much easier and with much less resistance than when I started teaching it about 10 years ago. They just naturally "get it", with much less explanation and work.

[tippy]

I totally see that. I very recently started tutoring a group of students at a high school in Queens for the math portion of the SAT - I am totally fascinated by this project by the way - I really really love it! - BUT they are very keen on slowing me down to "write it down" - simple stuff that they wouldn't need to remember by rote if they realized that the knowing how to do it will keep the info in their head.

And I totally remember being the same way. Trying to catch every snippet that teacher says in case I might get tested on it, y'know. Meanwhile you have this notebook of mucho notes much of which is insignificant, details you could never remember anyway and that you really just need to know where to look. It must be very hard to break kids of that habit because I don't think I ever broke myself of it and I left school awhile ago.

[GoodSpeak]

Why do public high school teachers suck? In New York they have to have a master's degree whereas private school teachers don't.

They only suck when guys like Abbey get their undies up in a bunch.


It may be of some interest to point out 75% of those in college right now are products of the public schools systems.


It might be of further interest to note that college professors expect hard evidence as proof, not blogs.



For the record, I hold a Masters Degree as do 15 other folks on staff here....two hold an earned Doctorate.

[tippy]

Goodspeak, is it standardized tests that get in the way of giving students a better education? I know you have complained as do others about the bureacracy of teaching. Is it because you don't get to make the choices of what and how you teach?

[Jon Abbey]

It may be of some interest to point out 75% of those in college right now are products of the public schools systems.

none whatsoever.

For the record, I hold a Masters Degree

it'd be tough to find a bigger indictment of America's education system than that simple fact.

[Uli]

one too oh

see, goody. you should have a blog.