"Saving us from our own weakness"

If I wanted my son to do that he could just take drugs.

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Excellent column Bob. Thank you for posting it.

*** A few years ago, a faculty committee at Harvard produced a report on the purpose of education. “The aim of a liberal education” the report declared, “is to unsettle presumptions, to defamiliarize the familiar, to reveal what is going on beneath and behind appearances, to disorient young people and to help them to find ways to reorient themselves.” ***

On a college visit day with my daughter, a speaker said, "We're going to strip your children of every value you've taught them and teach them to think for themselves."

Given the extreme liberal nature of the top academic institutions, it makes college choices difficult. I'm not paying a lot of money for my kids to be reoriented. I'm paying for the education. We weren't the only ones who walked out.

it's the main reason i didn't go to harvard medical.....................that, and the fact that i couldn't quite master 10th grade.

I certainly think it is to teach kids to question things and to think but I thought this web site did the same thing about all things BB.

Don't know about the professors message, but sure did like what Ryno had to say.

Personally, I think most learn to respect the game before they become Major League Stars. Why on earth would anyone want to disorient someone from that. Then there are others that need to be disoriented.

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On a college visit day with my daughter, a speaker said, "We're going to strip your children of every value you've taught them and teach them to think for themselves."

Not sure why anyone would want to pay to have the values you spent 18 years teaching your kid, unravel by some liberal, know it all idiot that you don't know the first thing about. The truth is they don't teach them how to think for themselves, they push them to think in a certain way, yielding a certain result. Big difference. I feel sorry for the kids, and parents, put in that "top" environment. Their arrogance is incredible.

I can see both sides of this equation.
Institutional thinking helps us learn the history of things we participate in, thus we can respect what our predecessors accomplished that allow us to participate.

Individual thinking lets people look at something in a different way and possibly come up with a new invention or discovery.

I believe both ways transcend liberal or conservative thinking. What's more institutional than a labor union. With there history and lineage, yet they are liberal democrat institutions. And entreprenuers are individuals that have new ideas and can create jobs and that is a mantra of conservatives.

I think learning, growing and having our opinions evolve as we experience more of the world is good things. Though we don't have to forget our past as we change.

I think that's well said, fillsfan. Basically, you are foolish to have blinders on at all. You should learn from the institutional thinking as well as from individualist thinking...both good and bad. If you have blinders on to either, you are headed for problems (group think if blinders for individualist thinking, but bound to repeat sins of the past if you have blinders on to institutional thinking completely).

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Originally posted by 20dad:
it's the main reason i didn't go to harvard medical.....................that, and the fact that i couldn't quite master 10th grade.

Here's my recollection of 10th grade 20dad...

"Et tu Brute?"
Not all algae is green.
Something about Jesus Christ being a superstar.
2 pi r...what?
As much as I was led to believe otherwise, a kumquat is indeed a fruit.

You didn't miss much.

Gotwood...that's roughly what I remember as well.

Sadly, now they are teaching that in 7th grade.

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quote:

On a college visit day with my daughter, a speaker said, "We're going to strip your children of every value you've taught them and teach them to think for themselves."

Given the extreme liberal nature of the top academic institutions, it makes college choices difficult. I'm not paying a lot of money for my kids to be reoriented. I'm paying for the education. We weren't the only ones who walked out.

In the summer of '03, and again at I-Day (Induction Day)in the summer of '06, we heard a similar, yet completely different Opening Statement from the Commandants of the Air Force Academy and the Naval Academy. My wife cried, and I must say that tears welled up inside of me... but for a completely different reason.

The choices are becoming very limited on the messages being taught to our kids, but there are a few choices out there where you don't worry on a Thursday night... what your kid's "up to"...

And it is refreshing, after they graduate, when you know their lives are "in order", and yes ladies and gentlemen... the Gate is Safe! It may be 466AD, but there are those who will keep the Mongol Horde out...

Proud of all our kids in uniform,

cadDAD

And I absolutely love that Rodney Dangerfield clip. Part of the problem with college professors these days is that many of them have never had to lay awake on a Sunday night, wondering how to make payroll that week. Until you have that experience, you cannot talk the talk.

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Proud of all our kids in uniform

Amen to that!

[QUOTE]Originally posted by PGStaff:
Don't know about the professors message, but sure did like what Ryno had to say.
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Yes, that prof's idea of education sure makes me shudder. Unfortunately, it seems to me to be a popular ideaology in modern culture. One quote in the article seemed to contrast these two ways of thinking the best: “institutionalists see themselves as debtors who owe something, not creditors to whom something is owed.”

IMO, there's too many people these days waiting for good things to happen to them instead of making them happen for themselves. And even more people who won't do anything unless they are sure that they will immediately benefit personally.

But, on second thought maybe these things aren't anything new...

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Me thinks that things sure have changed from ball, glove, bat.

Throw, catch and hit sure seems to be much deeper and more complicated than it use to be.

I think they need to take Ryno's speech and make every kid, coach and parent that first joins Little League memorize it. Then during their second year they have to memorize it. Then during their third year they have to memorize it. I think you get my drift.

Then maybe we can find someway to incorporate it into the curriculums of schools.

OLDSLUGGER,

He had so much fun that after retiring a multi millionaire, he went back to the minors to ride the bus and manage an A Ball team. I'm guessing he loved it!

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This having fun stuff. That's all well and good, but the question is does it play in Peoria?

Oldslugger I honestly have no idea what you are trying to say. I'm thinking this is in reference to my disagreeing with you a couple of weeks ago about the play vs. work thread.

Could you please clarify?

So you're telling me that Ryne Sandberg and all of these other professional baseball players were just laughing it up and having a good time when they were kids?

You told me to read the speech and I did. In fact I have listened to it several times since he was my favorite player. What I took from it is here is a guy who tried to play the game the right way and make sure his team mates respected him. Do you think you just wake up and become this? No it takes a long time working at it. Getting around good people other than your parents.

Several times in his speech he specifically said he worked hard to achieve the things he did. You don't just wake up and start working hard. It's something you do early on. Yes there are exceptions but overall it's something you learn early on.

You say kids are taught respect at home and I would love to agree with you but come to my classroom and I can show you a whole bunch of kids who never got the lesson. In fact I can name many people who have been in my class and on my teams whose parents failed at doing that job. Maybe they fail because it's hard work and they would rather have fun.

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Originally posted by Tx-Husker:
I think that's well said, fillsfan. Basically, you are foolish to have blinders on at all. You should learn from the institutional thinking as well as from individualist thinking...both good and bad. If you have blinders on to either, you are headed for problems (group think if blinders for individualist thinking, but bound to repeat sins of the past if you have blinders on to institutional thinking completely).

I think the problem comes about when people don't think/act in the way that suits their occupation or skill sets. Some people are capable and intelligent enough to think individually in appropriate situations. Others, well...shouldn't. Ball players need to think institutionally almost always to maintain team discipline (just like Ryno says). So should soldiers, assembly line workers, air traffic controllers, and policemen.

I think musicians, on the other hand, seem to better off when they think less institutionally e.g., Eric Clapton vs. Back Street Boys (Anyone who thinks that the formulated boy-band is the creative genius in this example should probably just stop reading now).

I also don't think a liberal education is a bad thing for someone who can handle it, and has the sense not to air it out in the board room or on Fox news. JFK seemed to be able to cope with his liberal background pretty well...

I've been a Ryne Sandburg fan for a long time. I've seen him contort himself into a pretzel to hit behind a runner on second. I went to many games in Chicago when he played for the Cubs. I'll never forget the one...

My sister was visiting, and on the spur of the moment we decide to go to the Cubs game on a beautiful Saturday. It was her first ever MLB game.

It was also the Game of the Week. Ryno's MVP season - and this was the game many credit for him winning that award, since it was on national TV.

Sandburg tied the game in the bottom of the ninth with a home run, then won it with a walkoff a few innings later. Wrigley was going crazy.

It is still the only MLB game my sister has ever been to.

The clear lack of understanding of mankinds responsibility to knowledge is in the avoidance of recognition that all knowkedge comes from our creator and what we express as development of that knowledge is the discovery of the billions of possibilities in its structures. But without wisdom and humility man learns nothing.

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quote:

Originally posted by wraggArm:
...Fox news

Thanks for the plug wragg...it's a great network isn't it?

quote:

Originally posted by gotwood4sale:
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quote:

Originally posted by wraggArm:
...Fox news

Thanks for the plug wragg...it's a great network isn't it?

whhuuu...uuuhh....sure.

[/CARTOONYTHING] Inert some totally baffled depiction here [/CARTOONYTHING]

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