The nature of the child has a major influence on a successful development.
I was a bright kid, but very very sensitive, and hence intimidated by aggression, which caused me to seriously underachieve.
I was a bright kid, but very very sensitive, and hence intimidated by aggression, which caused me to seriously underachieve.
All pupils bring with them individual needs which a good teacher should anticipate and tailor lessons to fit.
Not an easy task, and a challenge which my teachers did not have to contemplate!
I disagree about recording quality generally, but one exception both in recording quality and song structure last year was "Senorita".
I wonder if that Capaldi is related to Jim Capaldi of Traffic.
Lewis is distantly related to Peter Capaldi (his father's second cousin?).
Attachments
I think its important to at least Try to remember how you looked at the world when you were young.
You referring to the Mendes/Cabello song?
A lot of that Latin pop is recorded quite well, but it has a larger than life quality I can’t put my finger on......maybe it’s just the passion coming through!
My only reference for new music is tidal hifi (cd+) but comparing same genre, even same recording studios from just a few years ago to current stuff it seems as though they’ve been gradually figuring out compression is bad.
Well some have anyways!
Straight-up redneck mafia kvholio ......little terrorist is probably how everyone saw me!
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I agree...and thank goodness for those kids who have managed to thrive in spite of the horrible environment we've created all around them.
As I mentioned earlier, I think those kids with intelligence far above the median are less likely to be intellectually satisfied by the twaddle on social networks, so they are more likely to spend some of their time actively learning things. For active, self-driven learners, this is a great time to be alive - the Internet contains a wealth of learning resources, most of which weren't available to most of humanity just a few decades ago. It's only been about thirty years since the Internet was first made available to the public.
Any discussion of groups of students who under-perform very badly, and other groups of students who perform extremely well, isn't complete without pondering the underlying statistics. And I can contribute an observation made with my own students over the course of a decade and a half, and a few thousand students.
Teachers who taught in earlier decades were used to finding their students performance falling on a more or less typical normal distribution ("bell curve"). If you were doing your job as a teacher well, very few students would score dismally badly. If your exams were well designed, only a few would score incredibly well. The majority of students would fall somewhere in the middle, and one of the main goals of any teacher was to do whatever was possible to move that median score gradually higher.
The appearance of the bell curve in student score statistics isn't surprising - it's an example of the central limit theorem in statistics: Central limit theorem - Wikipedia
A few years after I started teaching, however, I started to see something very curious. Student performance statistics stopped looking like one bell curve, and instead, began to look bimodal: like two superimposed bell curves, one with a very different mean than the other.
In less mathematical terms, there was a large and growing cluster of students who were very poor in ability, far below grade level, and a separate smaller cluster of students who were more or less performing normally for their age and number of years of education.
As the years went by, the underperforming group continued to grow as a fraction of the total, while the competent group shrank down to perhaps 10% of the total student body.
It's worth mentioning that I was told there is no performance requirement to register for an introductory level junior college course in the USA. If you're breathing, and either have a high-school diploma, or are over 18 years of age, you're eligible. There is no placement exam, no minimum skill level you need to demonstrate; enrolment is on a first-come, first served basis. If you can pay the fees and there are unfilled seats, you're in. The institution I taught at for much of my teaching career followed this approach.
I was fortunate to teach for a few years at a different college (here in Canada) that actually required students to undergo placement testing and pass an entrance exam. My experience there was entirely different: I did not meet a single student there who was still stuck at 4th-grade level. While I had stronger and weaker students, there was rarely ever a student who seemed completely out of his / her depth.
This is THE question, and the answer is obvious when you look at what you wrote: the difference isn't that schooling is worse than it used to be, it's that the rest of the child's life is worse for normal intellectual and emotional development. The environment has changed, and for most children, it's changed for the worse.
People think education begins in school. It doesn't. Students don't even make it to the first grade until they're what, six to seven years old? It's well known to those who study brain development that those first seven years are the most crucially important years for brain development. And those years are spent at home, maybe parts of it in daycare, or kindergarten, before the child ever gets to first grade.
How did previous generations spend their first seven years? By the time we were seven, most of us were reading and writing, climbing trees, trying to build tree-houses, learning to ride bicycles, learning to swim, playing children's games out on the playing field, listening to stories told by the adults around us, doing crafts with glue and paper and scissors and cardboard and pipe-cleaners, maybe participating in the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts.
If we were lucky, adults around us showed us how to read maps, took us camping, and helped us connect to the almost infinite beauties and complexities of nature.
Not so long ago, seven year old boys built complex structures - delicate balsa-wood and tissue-paper model aircraft powered by twisted rubber bands. Not so long ago, seven year old girls learned how to braid their big sisters hair, maybe how to cook a few dishes, how to help look after the baby.
Now, chances are that much of the first seven years are spent sitting almost motionless, breathing shallowly, either in front of a TV, or a computer screen. This is a deprived environment that robs the developing brain of the chance to develop normally.
There is a now-famous series of rather cruel research studies done with kittens in the 1950s that showed how vital a normal environment is to brain development; kittens raised in an visual environment containing only vertical strips for the first few weeks after their eyes opened never, for the rest of their lives, learned to see horizontal edges. They would fall off table tops, for example, unable to see the edge. Their eye/brain system was permanently damaged, for life, due to the abnormal and limited infant environment they were exposed to.
The control experiment was done, too: kittens raised in a controlled environment containing only horizontal stripes never learned to see vertical edges, and would walk into table legs without seeing them.
(The experiment has been repeated more than once since, in some cases, using striped goggles attached to the kittens head, ensuring that the orientation of the stripes never changed from the kitten's viewpoint.)
So it turns out that even something apparently so basic as eyesight, cannot develop normally, without a normal environment for the eye/brain system to learn from. Eyeballs and optic nerves may be coded into the animal DNA, but vision isn't; actually "seeing" is something the brain has to learn how to do, and it requires a normal (rich) visual environment in order to do so.
So just imagine, what happens to a human baby raised mostly on the cold flat two-dimensional world of an iPad? A computer screen lacks almost everything rich and stimulating in the real outdoors. No sunshine; no breeze; no texture of the ground under your feet; no clouds overhead; no birds in the sky; no squirrels in the trees; no grass on the ground; no warmth on the back of your neck from the sunshine; need I go on?
So what happens to this baby's brain, deprived of all the stimuli that evolution designed our brains to grow up with? Is the iPad environment as damaging to the baby as the vertical-striped environment was to the kittens?
I don't think anyone has the definitive answer, for obvious reasons. Today, only a psychopath dictator could conduct the experiment, raising one group of children glued to computer screens from the age of one or two years old, and another exposed to normal life as it used to be a few decades ago.
I've read that there actually was an experiment somewhat along these lines done centuries ago. Important members of the royal court couldn't decide if untutored human babies would learn directly from God to speak Latin, the language of the Bible, or whether God would instead choose to give them English, the language of the people. So the king tried the experiment, no doubt borrowing a few peasant babies torn from the arms of their screaming parents for the purpose.
And the result? Unsurprisingly to any scientist, God gave the children no language at all. Without humans speaking language in their presence, these unfortunate children grew up with no more ability to speak than any other mammal does. 🙁
Earlier in this thread, there was a post about research studies showing IQs falling since 1975, and researchers stating that this was not due to changes in DNA, but changes in environment. That conclusion is hardly surprising (45 years is not enough time for DNA to change significantly), but its importance shouldn't be overlooked: the environment in which large numbers of our children are being raised is an impoverished one, lacking the richness and complexity needed for them to develop to their full potential. And this has been going on, and worsening, for maybe four or five decades now.
-Gnobuddy
Let's not forget the instant gratification culture that even young adults are addicted to. Every single big corporation uses this to their advantage and that is why they are big corporations. When you don't have to wait for anything, develop patience or learn a skill to get what you want, that's the end of jobs like mine.
From my perspective social media works much like sugar. It's everywhere, it's added in everything and it's highly addictive with very few nourishing benefits. Your brain loves it but at the same time it's killing you. Making you dull, boring, unskilled and stupid. Done in moderation it's just a bit naughty, a bit of fun and maybe even beneficial in some cases, but done all the time it just bloats you into an unhealthy unrecognisable blob of nothing. I will never in a million years forgive the leaders of these corporations for knowingly robbing the lives of entire generations, and for what? Money, again another sugar-like substance.
I simply can not wrap my brain around this whole social media thing. I honestly thought it would last for a decade and then just fade away in all its stupidity and soon replaced by another fad, but instead it just keeps growing. I tried a certain short message service for a while and I simply do not understand the appeal. Even some of my favourite people like Stephen Fry, normally highly intelligent and rather verbose seemed like a dull idiot on social media. The same goes for people I know in real life. Very few have something real to say, but almost all have complete hogwash to post there on a daily basis. "Look me breakfast eat. Cool!" "Look me vacation. I also rich because I next to rental Ferrari. You now envy!"
From my perspective social media works much like sugar. It's everywhere, it's added in everything and it's highly addictive with very few nourishing benefits. Your brain loves it but at the same time it's killing you. Making you dull, boring, unskilled and stupid. Done in moderation it's just a bit naughty, a bit of fun and maybe even beneficial in some cases, but done all the time it just bloats you into an unhealthy unrecognisable blob of nothing. I will never in a million years forgive the leaders of these corporations for knowingly robbing the lives of entire generations, and for what? Money, again another sugar-like substance.
I simply can not wrap my brain around this whole social media thing. I honestly thought it would last for a decade and then just fade away in all its stupidity and soon replaced by another fad, but instead it just keeps growing. I tried a certain short message service for a while and I simply do not understand the appeal. Even some of my favourite people like Stephen Fry, normally highly intelligent and rather verbose seemed like a dull idiot on social media. The same goes for people I know in real life. Very few have something real to say, but almost all have complete hogwash to post there on a daily basis. "Look me breakfast eat. Cool!" "Look me vacation. I also rich because I next to rental Ferrari. You now envy!"
It's quite sad, and as much I hate to say it, the problem is not the kids. It's easy to blame teachers, but that's not where the real problem is either.
The main problem is parenting- these days, it's very, very easy for parents to just give their kids an iPad and let them squander the day. This, however, is not how you inspire kids to do great things. 95% of the internet is memes, social media, dorky games, and a word that the mods here probably don't like.
Kids rarely get life-changing experiences in school. My father always worked hard to expose me to as many things as they could. Sailing, woodworking, electronics, etc. My mother was the one who worked tirelessly to help figure out how to get a very ADHD kid through school.
Because of all the things I experimented with as a kid, I had a relatively easy time in Physics I and Physics II because I could always relate the things we were learning to my own experiences. When learning about magnetic fields in Physics II, I immediately thought back to the cutaway of a cavity magnetron I'd seen at a museum and realized what was happening.
I second the note that there are some very smart kids out there.
I spent the weekend doing physics demonstrations as a part of a yearly event put on by the department. Almost everyone found the "plasma balls" interesting, but there were more than a few kids (some of who were very young!) who were very interested in how they work and asked lots of excellent questions. Same goes for the magnetic induction demonstration. A lot of the kids asked better questions than their parents did.
I thoroughly enjoy doing this type of demonstration because it's a lot of fun to see kids showing interest in science.
The main problem is parenting- these days, it's very, very easy for parents to just give their kids an iPad and let them squander the day. This, however, is not how you inspire kids to do great things. 95% of the internet is memes, social media, dorky games, and a word that the mods here probably don't like.
Kids rarely get life-changing experiences in school. My father always worked hard to expose me to as many things as they could. Sailing, woodworking, electronics, etc. My mother was the one who worked tirelessly to help figure out how to get a very ADHD kid through school.
Because of all the things I experimented with as a kid, I had a relatively easy time in Physics I and Physics II because I could always relate the things we were learning to my own experiences. When learning about magnetic fields in Physics II, I immediately thought back to the cutaway of a cavity magnetron I'd seen at a museum and realized what was happening.
I second the note that there are some very smart kids out there.
I spent the weekend doing physics demonstrations as a part of a yearly event put on by the department. Almost everyone found the "plasma balls" interesting, but there were more than a few kids (some of who were very young!) who were very interested in how they work and asked lots of excellent questions. Same goes for the magnetic induction demonstration. A lot of the kids asked better questions than their parents did.
I thoroughly enjoy doing this type of demonstration because it's a lot of fun to see kids showing interest in science.
It makes me sad when I see a young mother out with her young child in a pushchair, pushing with one hand while her attention is focussed on the mobile phone held in the other. Obviously, she considers any interaction with the child to be secondary or even unnecessary.
Fortunately, the Scottish Government recognises the problem you have flagged up and has pledged to increase the provision of free early learning and childcare provision to 1140 hours per year by the end of 2020. This applies to children who are 3 or 4 years old, as well to 2 year olds whose parents/carers are on qualifying benefits and are eligible for the 600 hours free entitlement through the Children & Young People’s Act 2014.
I see it as a deduction a bit simplistic, if some parents try to educate their children without any of the things that you point out as "conflicting", all you would achieve is submission or rebellion, either option would feed grudges on them.
"Why can't I do the same as my friends?"
"Sit down I explain" or "Because I say so, period"
Neither option works.
Children act by emulating and learning (for better or worse, that will depend on the environment in which they live) more of the external reality than of the parents' teachings, (which does not mean that they should not exist, but that for more that are well intentioned will be conflicting when colliding with the outside world) Imagine your child forbidding them to have a smartphone when all their friends have it.
Or forbidding night trips to places of fun ...
It is a huge challenge (I am the father of three children and adults) to achieve a balance, but the rubbish with which the current societies of the "civilized world" drill their minds make it very, very, difficult.
I see it that way.
Yes that is the song, and it does seem very wide and high in imaging, or at least spaciousness.
I cannot resolve a system for streaming yet, the more I read the more I see; "I bought this but it is not compatible with . . . . " and, "X have stopped supporting Y."
My friend states that a really good bullet proof solution would be a Mac mini, dedicated D2A, (Benchmark?), and wireless remote qwerty board, working by 'Airplay' I believe. This all visible on a large TV so that I can use it for the web, but dimmable screen so as not to burn it or be distracted by it.
So many solution routes; I would pay for really good advice.
You want to see the zombie apocalypse?
We’ll see it if there’s ever a large scale emp attack........everyone be roaming around with their phones held high, looking for service whilst bumping into each other and walking into walls.
Pharos,
I use a all in one server/streamer/dac from Elac.....Includes Tidal integration and a lesser free version of Roon (essentials) it also does airplay.
Discovery – Elac
I have the ds-s101g......once setup quite easy to use, no computer needed, controlled by tablet. Very decent dac and can be had for pretty good discounts as it didn’t really take well for some reason.
Another cheaper standalone option is the blue sound node 2i (latest version)
We’ll see it if there’s ever a large scale emp attack........everyone be roaming around with their phones held high, looking for service whilst bumping into each other and walking into walls.
Pharos,
I use a all in one server/streamer/dac from Elac.....Includes Tidal integration and a lesser free version of Roon (essentials) it also does airplay.
Discovery – Elac
I have the ds-s101g......once setup quite easy to use, no computer needed, controlled by tablet. Very decent dac and can be had for pretty good discounts as it didn’t really take well for some reason.
Another cheaper standalone option is the blue sound node 2i (latest version)
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Thank you Mountainman, now you can laugh.
Very much because of the awful 'mobile culture' which I observed when it started to become widespread, my aversion coerced me into a rebellion because of the abhorrence of so much I saw in people using them.
In a local supermarket for eg., whilst going past the vegetables; " I'm just going past the cabbages, what cheese did you want, cheddar or Chesire?" Surely that could have been discussed and agreed previously.
So from this came my concern about dependence, and the resulting loss of personal ability, for eg., calculators. The result is that I still do not have a mobile phone, or an Ipad. I even tend to leave home when the phone rings, it's so often, as with post, a problem imposing itself into my life.
Another similar trait I have noticed in the media, yes and the BBC, is that often many words are said, or should that be at least muttered, but so little actual content is conveyed. And it is so often spoken really fast, as though it is all so life dependant.
A pad does seem to be a good solution, solving I think the small screen ten feet away with stand-alone streamers. But I tend, for reasons of poverty for many years, to avoid further contracts for reasons of cost, though I can do it now.
I am also very averse to being tracked, surveilled, watched by large bodies intent on some of the predatory evils described by others.
The State changed the laws on photo copyright a few years ago, from being that of the subject, to that of the taker. I suggest so that the State can avoid copyright charges from the genera public from street cameras.
I also would like full web facilities so that watching YouTube or attending to Emails, and this forum can be done downstairs with a 55", and listened to on my speakers in the comfort and warmth of the lounge. I'll have a look at that, thank you.
Very much because of the awful 'mobile culture' which I observed when it started to become widespread, my aversion coerced me into a rebellion because of the abhorrence of so much I saw in people using them.
In a local supermarket for eg., whilst going past the vegetables; " I'm just going past the cabbages, what cheese did you want, cheddar or Chesire?" Surely that could have been discussed and agreed previously.
So from this came my concern about dependence, and the resulting loss of personal ability, for eg., calculators. The result is that I still do not have a mobile phone, or an Ipad. I even tend to leave home when the phone rings, it's so often, as with post, a problem imposing itself into my life.
Another similar trait I have noticed in the media, yes and the BBC, is that often many words are said, or should that be at least muttered, but so little actual content is conveyed. And it is so often spoken really fast, as though it is all so life dependant.
A pad does seem to be a good solution, solving I think the small screen ten feet away with stand-alone streamers. But I tend, for reasons of poverty for many years, to avoid further contracts for reasons of cost, though I can do it now.
I am also very averse to being tracked, surveilled, watched by large bodies intent on some of the predatory evils described by others.
The State changed the laws on photo copyright a few years ago, from being that of the subject, to that of the taker. I suggest so that the State can avoid copyright charges from the genera public from street cameras.
I also would like full web facilities so that watching YouTube or attending to Emails, and this forum can be done downstairs with a 55", and listened to on my speakers in the comfort and warmth of the lounge. I'll have a look at that, thank you.
Achieving the balance is indeed difficult. The unfortunate trend that I have seen a lot is parents who try to use the internet as an alternative to parenting.
I don't think that it's right to deprive kids of access to modern technology because it's "evil". There's a lot that can be learned through it, and as you pointed out, "because I said so!" doesn't help. At the same time, there has to be moderation and regulation. If the only experiences a kid gets outside of school is playing on the internet, that is not doing them any favors. Experiencing the world is important. It is by no means easy, but (IMO) it is essential to success.
A friend of mine recently described something very similar to me - he was walking through a local park, past the children's playground area where there were two children sitting on swings, with parents pushing the swings for them. Both parents had their heads down, staring at the phone in one hand while they pushed the swings with the other, quite unaware of their children.
While I appreciate that those parents went to the trouble of taking their children to the park, how sad that they were distracted to the point of not even enjoying the interaction with their children!
This particular phenomenon - parents ignoring their young children - was much worse in Los Angeles. I can't even begin to count the number of times I've been in, say, a department store, and seen a child strapped into a shopping-cart, trying loudly and urgently to attract the attention of the nearby parent, who was ignoring all attempts at connection from the child, completely absorbed in the all-important 🙄 business of shopping.
It's really nice to hear of the occasional political decision that actually makes sense. 🙂
-Gnobuddy
So I had to think of this thread yesterday, after I had done the stupidest thing I have ever done in my life. I still can't quite believe it.
Went to the garage to change the oil in my wife's car. I've done this job on numerous vehicles more times than I can count. I guess I was just a bit too casual and not paying attention, but really there is no excuse.
I drained the CVT fluid (the CVT drain plug is about 1 foot from the engine oil plug), then dumped 5 litres of fresh oil into the engine. So I had twice as much oil as necessary in the engine, and no CVT fluid. I wasn't aware until I had idled the car for several minutes (as I always do) while cleaning up and putting tools, etc. away. I got in the car the the dashboard was lit up like a Christmas tree.
It didn't take me long to figure out what I had done. I was quite upset with myself, as you can imagine. When speaking with my father later I said that I feel like I can't trust myself anymore. He just said "It only gets worse." Perhaps we should have a thread about stupid crap we do as we get older.
I feel lucky that the total cost to get the issues fixed was only $350. It could have been 10 times that if I had damaged the CVT.
Oddly, the car runs and drives better than it has in a long time. There was an odd variable tick when under load (going up hills, etc.) and that has vanished. The engine itself sounds quieter and smoother as well. I don't understand it, but I am not going to question it.
Needless to say, I wont make that mistake again. The stress and embarrassment was quite intense.
Note: before you ask - no, the CVT fluid was not pink/red, it was the colour of moderately used motor oil.
Went to the garage to change the oil in my wife's car. I've done this job on numerous vehicles more times than I can count. I guess I was just a bit too casual and not paying attention, but really there is no excuse.
I drained the CVT fluid (the CVT drain plug is about 1 foot from the engine oil plug), then dumped 5 litres of fresh oil into the engine. So I had twice as much oil as necessary in the engine, and no CVT fluid. I wasn't aware until I had idled the car for several minutes (as I always do) while cleaning up and putting tools, etc. away. I got in the car the the dashboard was lit up like a Christmas tree.
It didn't take me long to figure out what I had done. I was quite upset with myself, as you can imagine. When speaking with my father later I said that I feel like I can't trust myself anymore. He just said "It only gets worse." Perhaps we should have a thread about stupid crap we do as we get older.
I feel lucky that the total cost to get the issues fixed was only $350. It could have been 10 times that if I had damaged the CVT.
Oddly, the car runs and drives better than it has in a long time. There was an odd variable tick when under load (going up hills, etc.) and that has vanished. The engine itself sounds quieter and smoother as well. I don't understand it, but I am not going to question it.
Needless to say, I wont make that mistake again. The stress and embarrassment was quite intense.
Note: before you ask - no, the CVT fluid was not pink/red, it was the colour of moderately used motor oil.
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I makes me much sadder when they treat strollers as a mobile right-of-way, deliberately pushing it into the path of oncoming cyclists. To the point of the thread, it does appear restricted to the young.