Our Education Is Like Photorespiration

The only reason I didn't die of boredom in fifth period today is because as I was plotting 124 tiny dots on graph paper and drawing lines between them (with a ruler, of course) I was mentally reforming the American education system.

Implementing, or at least coming up with strategies for implementing, educational reform has become something of a dream goal for me. I want to do it the same way some people want to be professional baseball players. The U.S. has been slipping slowly down the list of countries with the best education systems. That is not a list we want to be slipping down. In my opinion, the biggest problem is apathy -- a simple problem with a very elusive solution. But there're smaller problems, scores of them. And as I sit there in public school myself, I can see them. Things we could probably fix and change.

For example, today in fifth period, we made graphs. We mapped the tide at some random location in New York for 31 days, with 4 points for each day. And we were required to do it by hand. According to the teacher, it was just to see if we could do it. Apparently, scientists used to do this all the time back before there were computers.

That, in my opinion, is the worst justification ever. If any scientist did all his graphs by hand in the present day, he'd be fired for being so horribly inefficient. What's the point of practicing something that scientists used to do in years gone by rather than what they do now? I don't think any of us are planning to be scientists in the 1940s. The 2020s, maybe, and by that time the job will even more certainly entail creating computer-generated graphs.

Granted, being able to make a graph by hand is still probably a useful skill in some situations. That's why we learn how to do it in 6th grade.

In short, the graph was the busywork. We practiced an outdated skill, useless (or at least much less useful than other skills we could be practicing) in the modern world. And it was incredibly tedious, which is even worse. If you're going to make students bore themselves to tears, there had better be a good reason. Tedium for tedium's sake breeds apathy -- which, from what I've observed so far, is learning's enemy #1.

From all this, let's create a rule. (Note that this rule is flexible. Even if I solidified it as part of a "theory," it would somewhat fluid, amorphous if you will, because that's how I roll.) Something like this:

"Classwork (especially tedious classwork) needs to have a purpose relevant to both the aims of the class and the modern world for which school is supposed to prepare students."

Work for work's sake is as inefficient as photorespiration. We put in the effort (ATP) and time (NADPH) that we could've used for more effective schoolwork (the Calvin Cycle) and get nothing out of it. And in fact, we eliminate the things we do want (student interest, i.e. carbon dioxide) and produce crap we don't (resentment and boredom, i.e. oxygen.)

Please don't take this as an attack. I'm not trying to complain, especially since I could've switched out of the class in question at the semester. I'm just trying to think of new ways to do things, and trying to identify the problems with the old ways. If anybody reading this has opinions of their own, by all means please share them. If I'm ever going to reform anything, I need to figure out what works, and I'm one person with one subjective opinion that can easily overlook things. In fact, someday I'd need to talk to people about this, hundreds of people, and do research on schools all over the country and probably worldwide. Now wouldn't that be an awesome project?

Like Nicotine Patches. Except for Meat.

Honestly, I'm all for becoming a vegetarian.

Not because I'm opposed to killing for food, mind you. I acknowledge that humans are naturally omnivorous, and agree that killing and eating other animals isn't an evil of modern society any more than reproducing is. It's not the idea that doesn't rest well with me -- it's the way we carry that idea out.

For example:

• Mass meat production is environmentally unsustainable. Animal wastes from factory farms cause huge amounts of pollution, and the meat industry is actually the number one producer of greenhouse gases.
• Eating meat is less efficient than eating plant-derived food. Biology tells us that energy transfers from one trophic level to the next is far from 100% efficient -- which basically means that if you take a field and plant it with grain for bread, you can feed many more people than you can if you take a field, plant it with grain, feed that grain to cows, and then kill and eat the cows.
• Have you ever seen a picture or video of a factory farm? 'Nuff said.

Yeah, so, becoming vegetarian? Sounds like a good deal to me.

But there's one problem: I don't think I could give up meat.

I like meat. Though I don't eat much of it, but I would definitely miss it if I gave it up. Chicken and turkey I could probably do away with. Ham and pork might be hard, but I'd get over it. But hamburgers? How could I give up ground beef? And fish? Forget it! Never going to happen.

I'm pretty sure I'm not alone here. I'm sure that there've got to be more people -- quite a good number of people, I'd suspect -- who have all these reasons to become vegetarian and that one big but standing in their way.

So! I've come up with a simple and brilliant solution that will probably be ridiculed from here to somewhere very far away: demi-vegetarianism.

Ah, I hear scoffs already. Bona fide vegetarians are always looked at with this sort of... I dunno, contempt. What, you're too good for meat or something? Why're you trying to fight how humans naturally are? You're just looking for attention, aren't you? I can't imagine the kind of harsh judgement a demi-vegetarian would be subjected to.

But hear me out here. If you can't bear to give up meat entirely, why can't you just cut back? Maybe have weeks during which you do eat meat, and weeks during which you don't. Or stop eating the kinds of meat you can live without. Or even just make an active effort to choose alternative foods.

But wouldn't this be horribly hypocritical? Sure, if your sole reason for being vegetarians was a moral thing. If you say "It's wrong to eat animals!" and then go around eating animals, you're not going to garner yourself any sympathy. But what if you object to the meat industry? Or you'd like to be vegetarian for health reasons? If you can't give up meat entirely, wouldn't it be better to just cut back?

And who knows? Maybe you'll find that you don't miss meat as much as you thought, and decide to go all out. Demi-vegetarianism could either be a lifestyle choice on its own, or like training wheels for the real thing.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is this: do you have to never use an electrical appliance again in order to conserve energy? No! Do you have to refuse sweets forever in order to eat healthily? No! In my opinion, the only reason why vegetarianism is "all or nothing" is because vegetarians are stereotyped as either fanatical or only doing it for the attention -- therefore, any deviation from leafy green orthodoxy is mocked.

I think, after Thanksgiving, I might try being a demi-vegetarian for awhile and see how it works out.

Of Free Speech and Pedophiles

Warning: potentially weird/offensive/controversial subject matter ahead. Proceed with caution. Bring lots of chocolate.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11731928

For those of you who are too lazy to read the news article (it's only a few paragraphs! C'mon!) I'll provide a little summary. Basically, a book called The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: a Child-lover's Code of Conduct is up for sale on Amazon. As you can imagine, this book isn't being published by a company - rather, the author is using Amazon's self-publishing service, which allows writers to sell their books on Amazon and and share the profits. As you can also imagine, there are a number of people who are quite unhappy that the book is being made available. Amazon does have a policy against obscene materials, but it doesn't define 'obscene.'

This is Amazon's statement on the matter:

"Amazon believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable. Amazon does not support or promote hatred or criminal acts, however, we do support the right of every individual to make their own purchasing decisions."

This is a comment posted by an Amazon user:

"I have seen first hand the harm that people like the author of the book, and potential readers, do to children and to see a book like this on Amazon's 'shelves', so to speak, is very troubling to me."

This the view of the book's author:

"The author, listed as Philip R Greaves II, argues that paedophiles are misunderstood and purports to offer advice to help them abide by the law."

---

So, what's the deal with all this? Well, it reminded me of our lesson on free speech in Government class today. In the United States, according to the First Amendment's free speech clause, words cannot be censored before they are spoken and deemed to be harmful. If words are censored before they are expressed, the law would be making an assumption in regards to exactly what the content of those words would be.

Obviously, seeing a book proclaiming itself to be a guide for pedophiles rests well with no one. The word 'pedophile' automatically brings this image of a creepy forty-year-old man stealing children away from playgrounds, or twisted day care workers abusing their positions for their own pleasure. But are we making assumptions?

The definition of 'pedophile' is "someone who is sexually attracted to children.' Is there contained anywhere within that definition 'someone who rapes children?' Or 'someone who takes indecent pictures of children?' Or 'someone who exploits children for their own pleasure?'

Human sexuality is quite possibly the most demented and incomprehensible thing that ever existed. I, at least, firmly believe that none of us can help who or what turns us on, and that there's not a thing in the world that doesn't turn someone on. (Rule 34, my friends.) Can you imagine being a perfectly good and honest person, and one day realizing that you're sexually attracted to children? You haven't done anything - you haven't harmed a child in any way - but already, you're a monster in society's eyes, because the actions of other people like you have driven us to feel immense disgust towards all of your kind.

Now, of course, there are pedophiles out there who've done horrible, horrible things to children. Please don't misunderstand me - I'm not denying that. All I'm saying is that we, as humans, do tend to make assumptions. I'm sure that there are quite a few pedophiles out there who have never acted on that impulse, and are therefore perfectly respectable people.

Is it right for us to assume that this book up on Amazon is written by and for cruel, demented people who act on their pedophilia? What if this book has been written, as the author claims, for the people who know they have this urge, but want desperately not to act on it? Then, wouldn't allowing them access to advice on how to control their feelings make children safer?

I have no idea what the content of this book is - I haven't read it and never will. All I'm saying is, before these people who are threatening to boycott Amazon criticize, they should at least read the damn thing they're protesting against. There are things in life like escargot - they sound like a terrible idea, but if you look closer, hey, they might actually not be so bad.

Bottom line: Torches and pitchforks are fun and sometimes necessary, but let's get informed and think through all the possibilities before we reach for them.

My Brain's Being Productive Today!

A random idea came flying down from the heavens and smacked me in the face today.

One of the most awesome parts about the Internet (in my opinion, at least) is that you can meet people from all over the place. I could go on and on about all the random cool things I've learned about what life's like in different places just by having conversations over the Internet.

So, wouldn't it be awesome if there was a website which was solely dedicated to learning these random cool things and asking seemingly useless questions? Like, say you wanted to know what people think of McDonalds in, I dunno, Germany. You could ask this question, a German member could answer it for you.

Obviously, a website like this would start out slowly. For it to work the way I'd like it to, it would need time to attract a diverse membership. But it could start small. Even within the United States - heck, even within this town, people have a bunch of different lifestyles. There are probably people out there wondering what it's like to be in cross country, or to live on a farm, or to live in... Maltby. And from there, it would grow.

And once it's grown, wouldn't it be a wonderful resource for writers, travelers, and plain old curious people?

I'm seriously thinking about starting a site like this, using a forum host site since I don't know enough about web design to actually make one myself. It would probably be a message board style deal, with usernames and avatars and such so that you could choose exactly how anonymous you want to be.

Is anybody interesting? Have any suggestions for the name of this site? Any suggestions in general?