A Small Digression

Hey guys, this has nothing to do with the class or readings but if you could take a couple seconds to help my brother out a bit.

 If you're into post-hardcore music like Bring me the Horizon, Attack! Attack!, and Emmure check out his band, Awake and Create, on Facebook and take a couple minutes to listen to their debut single and vote for them to help possibly get them on the Ernie Ball stage at Warped Tour this year.

Any support is much appreciated, and thank you all.

Cultural Variances in Education

This article talks about how schools in Iran are beginning to implement lessons of abstinence as early as kindergarten, as well as being taught (the women at least) of wearing the hijab. The article states that the purpose of these lessons are have children adhere to Islamic traditions more closely.

Growing up in American schools, issues as blatant as this never truly arose during our time in public schools. However, since most of you reading this will be educators, or are already, understanding what the role of the public school holds is crucial.

I'm asking you as knowledge hungry and eager college students (or just knowledge hungry person), what you think of this policy? Should public schools be able to implement religious measures such as this (the article explicitly states these practices are of a religious manner)?

Just to jump start any discussion that may occur: I don't believe public schools have any room taking this kind of action. I believe religion should be a truly personal experience and shouldn't be forced onto children like this. Truly, this is nothing more to me than a violation of children's free will.

Progression with Collaboration

In chapter 3 of the Wilbur we all had to read for this week in class, he talks about how many educators don't recommend Wikipedia as a valid source, even though some research may suggest that it is actually more accurate than many other sources students may be using on the Internet, because absolutely anyone and everyone can add and edit information on any page on the entire website. I've had teachers even freak out about using Wikipedia and I personally don't trust it all that much myself. He talks about how "collective wisdom" is something marvelous.

He brings this point up again in chapter 4 when he talks about how a blog is a "multiauthored texts whose meaning changes  through the interplay of the main posts and comments."

Collaboration is wonderful in perspective, as long as it is kept in check, and the people who are writing aren't just throwing things onto the screen of the depths of nowhere. Collaboration between people can lead to great things if done well, and not just in writing or posting information. This is a skill the human race could truly evolve if we grew it to a level where we utilized it well, but, sadly, we don't have that ability right now.

As an ending note: this post and topic makes me think of this song.