Gaashk
9mo ago
One of my friends was asked to help develop parts of a national curriculum and tells me that teachers are pretty stupid, allergic to nuance and don't even follow the curriculum that much. Not all teachers and so on... But it was like there was some vast Power that was inserting errors of fact, errors of punctuation, errors of logic into the curriculum, that my friend was swimming against the tide. Endless anecdotes of frustration at incompetence.
My impression is that your friend, while plausibly smarter than the teachers in question, is actually a net negative for the system.
Given the facts on the ground (teachers as a class are intellectually average), one would most want to leverage that averageness by having them learn to teach one thing, and then they keep teaching that one thing over and over again, and don't change it without a really good reason.
This is actually pretty satisfying for average intelligence people when it works. For a while, I worked at Starbucks. There are a lot of really short, satisfying interactions. A person wants a desert latte. The barista makes the desert latte exactly as instructed. The person gets exactly what they expect. Everyone is happy (most of the time), or perhaps eventually realizes that the drinks are silly, but doesn't blame the barista, they probably made it in keeping with the recipe. There were also some other positions that were scripted, but basically fine. Things got bad when we had a lot of down time, everyone was bored and someone would suggest deep cleaning something without proper training. This is a reasonable job for average and slightly below average intelligence people.
It would be very reasonable to teach a slightly below average intelligence person who's generally responsible and decent with kids how to, for instance, teach 7 year olds phonics. There are several curricula, they mostly seem just fine, she could become an expert in teaching 7 year olds phonics according to some specific just fine curriculum curriculum. It's satisfying seeing a kid go from not connecting letters to sounds, to connecting letters to sounds. The kids feels good about it, the teacher feels good about it, they get a good performance review, perhaps they get a pay raise.
I have a degree in teaching in my specific subject area. They taught us the subject area. They taught us... who to write essays about John Dewy, and some formats one could use to write lesson plans, if anyone ever asks, which they don't... Well, they taught us our subject matter, anyway. But they did not actually teach us very much about teaching our subject matter to kids, and the standards change every couple of years anyway, so I just kind of make stuff up that seems kind of like a watered down version of what I learned about the subject, and keep tinkering with it when it doesn't work.
This is absurd.
Personally, I kind of like designing curriculum, so I don't mind that I'm just making everything up myself. But also, that's absurd. Maybe I'm making up complete nonsense -- someone who doesn't know my content area comes in to check once a year, to see if it looks like I'm teaching something that seems kind of reasonable (actually, to make sure there isn't too much chaos). Why is each teacher making their own Philosophy of Education? I like philosophy, and it was still a waste of my time, because the constraints are pretty tight, so we're really going for optimization more than creativity.
If the problem is that teachers aren't that bright, then they should learn A Curriculum, for something pretty constrained, and learn to teach it well. It will be fine if all seven year olds just learn to behave appropriately, and to connect sounds to letters really strongly, and then the rest of the time is enrichment or something. All the smart sneering people tinkering with the curriculum every year, so that all the average intelligence teachers are trying to learn it as they teach every year is a significant part of the problem.
This is, ultimately, my problem with the review as well. Two hour essays on shiny new conceptualizations instead of "here are ten great stories to read to an eight year old, including the best adaptation." Everyone already wants to tell the kids stories. That is not where the weakness lies at all, even a little bit.
Gaashk
9mo ago
Is there any good Christian music (rock, folk, country) out there? I hear songs here and there, but a lot of it isn’t very good.
What's some music you like in general?
There's lots of great old folk in the "Wayfaring Stranger" camp. Lots of God-haunted classic country.
Not in those genres, but very American feel -- I had this on repeat through a long Utah road trip: https://youtube.com/watch?v=WQIbsm8VVLg
Despite some well eared mockery of Devil Music, the church ladies of a couple generations back may have been right that rock does not mesh so well with Christianity, and it's really hard to get true Christian rock that isn't kind of stupid. I listen to Christian pop anyway, out of nostalgia (Gungor, Andrew Peterson, "Build a Boat" by Colton Dixon "Kyrie Eleison" by Citizens...), but will not vouch for any of it being good
Gaashk
9mo ago
Community and making new friends. Or are you supposed to just be done with that once you have a wife and kids?
In America, this is what churches are for (not so much Catholic churches, which haven't adapted as thoroughly to the situation).
It is true that as America has become less religious, the social organizations have not kept up, and so there's a void that can't quite be filled by meetups. But that's also true in dense cities.
Gaashk
10mo ago
That's an interesting and somewhat surprising observation. As I recall, in mid-America, married women are about as likely to vote conservative as their husbands, but I'm not sure how that translates to willingness to attend formal public political events.
Gaashk
11mo ago
That was mostly conjecture.
The ad is to some extent an exploration of the question: what if men don't buy cheap beer so much more than women because men in general actually prefer the product more than women, but because they have been marketed to so hard? What if women were pandered to as much as men? Would they be willing to buy cheap beer product, instead of having to make actually different products? This is the main kind of pandering they could come up with, and it's much cheaper than changing the taste or even packaging significantly.
I don't actually know what Miller Lite tastes like, because I'm so certain it isn't for me, I've never actually tried it. If someone poured it in a glass and called it a beer flavored soda, who knows, maybe I would like it? Or at least not dislike it? But I won't try that out, and will continue just buying pre-mixed margarita in the spring and summer, Octoberfest beers in the fall, and mulled wine in the winter. They probably aren't wrong that they have an image problem as much as a taste problem among women and other people who find bikini clad models tasteless. I'm not offended, exactly, it isn't a question of morality, I just know with complete certainty that it isn't the sort of drink people like me choose, and have no reason to choose it, since by all accounts it doesn't taste like much.
Gaashk
1yr ago
I feel like I should’ve specified this is a long term partner
Yes! This makes a huge difference! Are you considering children at some point? That makes a huge difference too.
the chores don't get done in a timely fashion and it drives me crazy, so I do them anyway.
In a long term relationship, it's possible this isn't the most useful way of looking at things. It might be useful to consider other perspectives, or at least specify what exactly "the chores" entail, and what exactly is bothering you about pushing them off, and whether there's an area of homemaking comparative advantage for your partner, even when thinking about the problem more generally.
It's easy to fall into a hole of dishes, floors, bathrooms. Dishes, floors, laundry, bathrooms. This can be crazy making for some people.
We have cats, some chickens and may get a pig. I know that no matter how dirty our house gets, or how stressed he is, my husband will definitely remember to do important things to keep them alive, even if they were my idea and I kind of forced them on him, and I tend to forget about them. If he went on a trip and I forgot to look after them, he would be very angry, and rightly so, they might die or something. But in general, he's the person who makes sure they're alright, because he simply is, and if he was feeling very stressed about that, we'd probably be better off not having them.
He is also fire keeper. He likes fires and cares about them in a way I do not. When he does not make a fire, our house is heated by a gas furnace, because I will definitely not make one.
Meanwhile, we also have a baby. We both know without discussing it that I will get up in the middle of the night with the baby. If she's going through something and I have to get up three times, I'll do that. If I have to get up five times, I'll get up five times. This is completely independent of the state of the rest of the house. There are valid reasons why it traditionally makes sense for women to stay home with babies and young children, and this is true even though I don't care that much for babies in general. This is my specific baby, and I probably won't give up or get mad at it even on two hours of sleep. Due to circumstances, husband is currently stuck with more childcare responsibilities than I am. It's terrible. We both hate it. It will be solved when we get different jobs, or when the children go into preschool. Maybe when both things happen.
There's a difference between things that should be solved internally -- by talking things through, making lists, assigning tasks, and so on, and things that should be externally -- by getting different jobs, getting rid of pets, getting rid of dishes, changing heat sources, getting a washing machine, hiring someone to deep clean the bathrooms, stuff like that.
Gaashk
1yr ago
the transition from girl to woman is marked by the onset of menstruation
I've heard this claim before, and it doesn't make sense. While that may well be the case in some cultures, it is very much not the case in Heroine's Journey producing civilizations. When do you start calling someone a woman rather than a "teenage girl?" 18? 21? When they have a child? People were calling me a girl at 24, because I was wandering around the world volunteering instead of establishing a family.
If we're going to go the biological route, the marker is pregnancy, or marriage with the assumption of family obligations, not menstruation.
It's easier, I suppose, for a girl to become a single mother and therefore fully a woman if she chooses to, though it's pretty rough going and strongly discouraged. She's considered a foolish woman who suffers justly, not a heroine. She's wise if she finds a man with potential who others have overlooked, and so can get a higher quality partner than might be assumed based on her humble origins (c.f. Beauty and the Beast).
So women's novels tend to revolve around finding the right man to form her family with -- who's trustworthy and attractive and able to defend and provide, and who will be a good companion and father. Someone mentioned historically important female novelists, and they were all about exercising proper judgement, and the story tends to revolve around misperception, fear of loss, then finally sorting things out and marrying. Jane Austen is very much this, all the time. They don't so much change, as the perception of their suitors changes -- or maybe he goes on a hero's journey and changes -- and they realize that he is in fact the right one for them before it's too late and he gives up. So, in Persuasion, Anne turns Wentworth down because she isn't sure he can provide a stable home for her and potential children, he goes off and proves himself by becoming a rich captain, and the rest of the novel is about the very constrained way they have to feel out whether both parties are still interested or not.
Gaashk
4hr ago
that doesn't mean you can sell your food.
Yes I can. Nobody bothers the tamale vendors, clearly selling stuff they made in their home kitchens from out of their personal cooler chests. The teachers in the schools are selling their home cooked food (mostly tamales) to each other through the official newsletter. Just if they make enough money at it, they'll be expected to pay taxes.
Gaashk
4hr ago
If you're already taking care of a kid full-time, you can throw in a couple more, and barely see the difference
This doesn't appear to be true. It's extremely complicated to get a stay at home mom to watch another mom's kids even for a couple of hours of babysitting. I have heard of it happening now and again, or in an emergency, but it is absolutely not a regular thing, and I could definitely not pay my stay at home mom friends to watch my kids reliably, all day, at any price that I would be able to pay. I grew up around stay at home moms, it was definitely not illegal to watch each other's kids, and it also very rarely happened at a greater scale than very light occasional babysitting.
Gaashk
4hr ago
Ideally all women do both--getting sufficient education and selecting good husbands.
...? To the extent that there's any selection going on, it can't be done by all women? Do you just mean the women you personally know and like or something?
Gaashk
5hr ago
Sure.
But then you probably can't just advise a young woman to get a frivolous degree and hope to be a housewife, because even if it works out to get married, start a family, and be a stay at home mom from 22 - 35 or something (big if), she'll still either need to develop a very substantial hobby that might as well be a job, but without burning through all their disposable income, or have a plan to get a job that's sustainable as a middle aged and older mom, both of which take some amount of forethought.
Gaashk
18d ago
Sure, I suppose I was mostly responding to the first two items on the list being "patriarchy, gender norms." I grew up in a conservative homeschooling community, and the families that were more serious about patriarchy and gender norms (also very heavy on "cheerful obedience") than about the other items experienced some poor results. The families that were more serious about the exposure to nature part through small agricultural operations run by the mother and children generally seemed happier.
Gaashk
24d ago
Maybe that's why I didn't really care for it. I already prefer very low stimulation, and things like meditation sitting alone in the dark.
Gaashk
24d ago
Interesting, I hadn't really thought about it. I asked my husband, and he is but doesn't mind it. Our religious tradition goes both ways, with no particular opinion on the matter. We'll consider.
Gaashk
26d ago
The people I knew in Chicago did. But they or their parents are working class and close to the neighborhoods in question. The Irish, Polish, Black, and city worker neighborhoods know. They're mostly people who had to keep working in person through the riots and Covid. I don't have a good understanding of the wealthier neighborhoods. I've also know people who are intergenerational middle class and talk a lot about systemic injustice for work and status, but are weirdly racist in person.
The people I knew in Minnesota didn't talk about what happened in front of me at all, and just hiked or fished alone all through the Spring and Summer of Covid/Floyd.
Gaashk
2mo ago
I was surprised. It looks like they're doing blood cell counts, antibody counts, and insulin tests. I guess maybe they wanted some more blood on hand, just in case something was off?
Gaashk
3mo ago
I see what you mean better now, thanks. I was partly confused by your use of "artist," which is more often used for visual arts and a bit musicians, where it seems like you mean something more like storytellers, for the most part.
It would be interesting to try, though I'm pretty skeptical. The way you describe it, it sounds sort of like offering sabbatical opportunities to non-academics, in exchange of some expectation that the person will create stories, and then like you say, that isn't necessarily compatible with many people's career paths. Would it be somewhat like Scott's grants projects, where it's posted somewhere that interested people are likely to see the opportunity and apply? Or maybe someone knows a person who has something in mind, and offers it personally? I could see Brandon Sanderson organizing something like that, but just for fun storytelling, rather than Culturally Important Art.
Movies and video games are quite different industries, as far as I can tell, and way more expensive (especially movies), but maybe they'll be getting cheaper with the new AI technology? At least in a decade or two? Could offer some interesting opportunities for smaller operations to try to enter the field.
I'm an extremely shallow consumer myself, and read all sorts of litRPGs, fantasies, and prog fantasies, wasting easily hundreds of hours per year. I can think of only one which even slightly scratched the itch I have for "person gets powerful and then protects others." Books like that exist, I'm sure, but all that I've found have been super low-quality. There's a big market for these stories, but the people who would write them are too busy with safer ventures.
I used to read a lot of low brow fantasy (spent a whole winter alone in Alaska with Edgar Rice Burroughs novels). The morality seemed... fine, I think? Lots of emphasis on courage, anyway, which is fine.
I want to write that story myself, but at my current trajectory I might be able to retire in about 5 years if I work hard, leaving me with another ~45 to find and pursue whatever I determine to be the best use of my time. So it's not happening for 5 years.
Interesting. Have you written stories before?
I kind of liked the subplot in That Hideous Strength where Jane is on birth control, and is super bored alone in her flat, trying to work on her dissertation. And then later Merlin says that they could have had a child who would have been super important and amazing, but the time for that is past, idiots! My guess would be that the book reading population (or at least the population willing to read a book written by a Mottizen) is significantly more likely to be in that kind of situation than the (more numerically common, but unlikely to be affected by this meme space) "never married 19-year-old with three children, below the poverty line" mentioned by an article I just looked up on the statistics. Or the young underclass women Theodore dalrymple is known for writing about.
Gaashk
6mo ago
Not iconographic, but just saw this rather impressive thread artist https://www.ceciledavidovici.com/
Gaashk
6mo ago
But for one example -- women will boundary test (like children) (also known in PUA as shit test or fitness test), all women will boundary test, and they like it if you pass the test and are deeply uncomfortable if they fail. An wife ultimately wants to rely on you as her rock, and as part of that is having enough of a sense of command to do what is good for her, not always what she says she wants at the time.
This is why I was asking more for anecdotes.
Do women prefer decisive men who have a vision for their family, and are able and willing to lead them toward that vision in the face of opposition, sometimes even from their wives? And also have good judgement to actually know what's best, better than their wives? Do they prefer men who are able to provide and protect, can leave demeaning jobs and get by on their own if necessary? Sure. That's, sure enough, why all romance novel leads are like that, and also tall and strong.
However, to the extent that here in reality there are a bunch of men who are directionless and depressed, going into bullshit jobs every day where they get demeaned by their female boss while their infants are in daycare all day because it still isn't enough to afford a mortgage, what then? Rervrn to harems and multiple wives for the capable? To drafty tenements so the wives of the working class can stay home and... what? Supervise their laundry machines and dishwashers and crock pots? Homeschool their children, but then get so upset about the lack of in-house leadership they outsource is to IBLC? This has been tried.
Yeah, he’s probably not a bad priest, at least not going off on wild zeitgeist chases like some churches.
Gaashk
9mo ago
This doesn't seem true, but I would expand the category of "teacher" to include writers and people who make instructional videos.
To take a very simple example, the other day we had to change a flat tire. We went onto Youtube, and several people had uploaded videos about the basic process, and various ways to get stuck tires off when changing them. This was much better than just trying to guess, based on physical reality and the tools found in the back of the car. The video makers were teaching.
Children who grow up with books around, but never have phonics explained to them generally do not learn to read English very well. Most children need someone to teach them how phonics work, even if it's just the person reading a script to the kid about how it works (and then it's a collaboration between person reading and curriculum writer).
Nobody taught me algebra in high school, because I was homeschooled and my parents just gave me a textbook, but not really one that was meant to teach an average teen all by itself. It kind of just said "here's how you manipulate these symbols correctly, here are some examples, here are some practice problems where you can manipulate the symbols yourself," without much hand holding about why anyone would want to manipulate the symbols correctly, or what they meant. I did not learn much algebra. Later, I listened to a teacher lecture, watched Khan Academy videos, and did practice problems with instant feedback. All these things were teaching (but the textbook alone didn't have enough communication channels or interactivity for me to succeed at learning from it). If someone who actually was good at explaining math had tutored me, it would probably have gone even better.
I agree that the idea of a brilliant Teacher who guides and shapes young minds, and also teaches them way more than they would learn from the standard model of lecture+demonstrations+practice+feedback is mostly a myth. I've known people I would consider elders -- very wise and I learned a lot from them in their area of interest, but it probably didn't and couldn't make a big difference in standardized tests or my ability to find and perform work.
Gaashk
9mo ago
Fair enough, I had pretty superficial interactions, and didn't try all that hard.
A family member and also a good friend went to Catholic school for years and grew up Catholic, and also reported not having anything social to do, to the point of going to Evangelic youth group/LDS family events. It's likely this varies a lot by region/predominant culture.
Gaashk
10mo ago
Thanks for the perspective!
I tried to take a chanting class from an Egyptian chanter, and also from a (country of) Georgian teacher, and was very, very lost.
The Arab chant would designate a tone, then write out a sequence of up here, down two steps there, up with a trill, and so on, but no other reference point, and no instruments. Sometimes they would use a tuning fork for a moment at the beginning of a piece, or the lead chanter would hum -- I suppose that wouldn't be necessary for someone with perfect pitch? Someone once mistook me for a potential chanter, and gave me a tuning fork as a gift, but I never figured out what to do with it. They talked about taking pitch cues from the priest, and would sometimes complain he was intoning too high or low and making it hard to sing their part.
The Georgians sung three part polyphony, and it seemed extremely interesting, but too far from my skill level to sing a different part than the others.
It would be really cool if my kids could sing polyphonic pieces someday, they sound so beautiful, but I seem to be missing some core ability not to get immediately confused.
Teacher's certificates are already not required to teach in private schools, or charter schools in some states. In some states, it's quite easy to get a teaching certificate -- people with a BA can attend night school while teaching full time (and the classes aren't all that hard). Difficult while raising young kids, but otherwise not too bad.
These states do not have better test scores. These states still have teacher shortages.
It's fine with me to let people with a Bachelor's in something, anything, teach in their area of competence. The teaching programs I've participated in were not particularly grounded in reality. But this is extremely unlikely to make things significantly better, because the cushy jobs for smart slackers (which is to say, the jobs where the main job is communicating information, rather than "community building and classroom management") already have adequate teachers. And that community building and classroom management is not particularly about intelligence. It's basically orthogonal to academic ability.
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