113

What fields of science, technology and education will the community endorse?

Due to primarily working on a practical development, skills and reasoning platform, there will initially be a focus on the areas of science, research and engineering (computer/electrical). With a broad base of the basic sciences mathematics and logical reasoning. Ultimately, the community should endorse, teach and promote all the legitimate forms of science and even assess the claims of things considered pseudo-sciences as well.

Initially the organisation will be small and this so this may result in certain certain subject or entire departments having only one person. In time these will fill to reasonable sizes and have more members to spread the duties among, the more time can be dedicated to unique and specialist areas.

There should be a special interest in promoting programming and computer science skills to every member as the ability to develop software is useful in almost any scientific discipline.

[note: computer science skills should also be taught as they should be the bread and butter skill of the community, allowing the community to work en mass on projects to improve them imagine having 5000 community members working on improving a project like Ubuntu or LibreOffice and the amazing strides those projects could make with simple bug fixes being implemented.

Mindfulness and Education

So I saw this article on neural studies of Monks doing meditation and it’s effects on the brain:

https://www.sfgate.com/health/article/Stanford-studies-monks-meditation-compassion-3689748.php

I’m presently reading a book on some of this, it’s really quite amazing. There is a sizeable amount of scientific literature which shows that meditative skills and methods have a huge number of positive benefit to the way we think. With that in mind, I wonder how long it will take to get meditation programs into schools. We are all about training the mind but really we’re mostly just teaching facts and not creative ways to think or solve problems.

In present education systems, at least the ones in the west that I am familiar, there is a focus on how much you ‘know’ as opposed to teaching students how to learn it, use it and retain it. I honestly remember very little of my schooling before University, just like most people we retain relevant pieces here and there but the bulk of it has very little use, outside of a pub quiz. Of course it’s good to have a wide spread of subjects at school to help us find what we excel in or enjoy, but what we need is to teach our children some methods ‘of learning’ rather than making them simply ‘memorize facts’

To clarify, there are a number of teachable skills and methods that we can raise attention levels, memory retention and enhance cognition among people. Even a regular 30 minute exercise and 20 minutes of meditation before schooling, every day, could have dramatic results. Mnemonic techniques have also existed for centuries and while they are a way of ‘memorizing facts’ they are a method which would help in every subject, not just one. Conceptual framing, lucid dreaming and many, many more techniques exist, they work, we already have them, they just aren’t taught in schools.

We need to teach the next generation how to think, not in George Orwellian kind of factual dictatorship kind of way, but in a vibrant, dynamic, constructive way. From memory palaces in primary school to meditation and dialogues at college. Let’s try and create better people and better learners and work from there. Let’s try  make a better student rather than a more comprehensive exam, in all honesty none of us have a clue what the world will be like in 20 years anyway, so what the exam is testing for is really to give you grades to get you into the next level. It’s measuring your capability at the time it was taken. Something which will never reflect your ability in the future, nor prepare you for it.

For those worried about religious aspects or indoctrination into a particular faith, like Buddhism for example. Don’t. While religions were the initial creators of these methods they are now firmly being understood and in the realm of science. Just like we don’t teach kids Islamic algebraChristian science or even Hindu Yoga the religious underpinnings have been clipped from these subjects and we focus on the problem solving methodology  or physical benefits they offer. In the future meditation will also be stripped of its religious elements and join the world alongside other subjects.  Meditation is to the mind what the gym or an exercise regime is to the body.

So now that I’ve got that off my chest, any ideas how do we go about getting these methods and meditations into schools?

les sites educatif

aujourd’hui j’ai fait beaucoup. J’ai utilizé les sites-web duolingo et aussi trésbienFrench pendant 3 heures. Ils étaient un peu durs, néanmoins j’ai persévéré, et dans le processus que j’ai vu  il y a un long chemin à parcourir!

En fait, c’est pas tout mauvais, j’ai vu beaucoup l’amélioration aussi; Je suis sûre; si je continue finalment je gagne.

zut alors!

OK, aujourd’hui c’était un cauchemar ou puet-être une catastrophe. Il a commencé avec une erreur de planification. Pas mon erreur, mon client trompe, cependant, il était de mon devoir pour réparer les dégâts. Il a commencé avec le problème que nous n’avions pas de salle, parce qu’il n’etait pas reservé par la gestion. Mais bien que d’être d’une erreur d’accepter mon patron exigeait signatures et a créé une situation embarrassante pour moi et mes élèves; de plus il est créé une mauvaise image de notre école. Je suis tellement fatigué de la politique scolaire, il est temps de réinventer la roue.

Upcoming test = Mad panic

So I have a test in 13 days for my French. Which has put me immediately into panic mode. I think perhaps I should have skipped this one as my level isn’t to a standard where I can truly benefit from the grade I’ll receive.

However, it’s a good exercise in desperation. If I can revise an hour every week day evening (including tonight) and 2 or 3 hours every weekend that will give me around 17-20 hours of preparation time. Also I’d expect with that much work to substantially improve my French.

As part of that exercise I’m going to write a paragraph each day into my Blog. If you’re French or you speak better French than I do, which isn’t too difficult, please correct me. I’ll owe you one!

This amount of study on top of work and projects I am in the middle of will probably be a challenge but I’m actually really looking forward to setting myself something difficult. Here’s to me getting a B1 level in two weeks time!

Oh on that note I thought I’d mention some good websites I have found for studying French

  • www.lyricstraining.com
    • A fun site where you listen to music in French, Spanish, German etc. Then you have to fill in the blanks appearing in the subtitles as you listen to the song. Very good for improving your listening skills
  • www.duolingo.com
  • www.tresbienfrench.com
    • Far from perfect but with lots of good repetitive exercises that clearly reinforce your ability to remember conjugations and vocabulary. Well worth the very small charge for a subscription (also available in Spanish, German etc).