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Gatto (YES Mag): Higher Education: 12 Things You Might Not Have Learned in a Classroom

You won’t find “takes honors classes,” “gets good grades,” or “attends only Ivy League schools” on John Taylor Gatto’s list of qualities of an educated person. Gatto taught in New York City schools for 30 years and was named New York State’s Teacher of the Year, but his experiences convinced him that what students need is less time in classrooms and more time out in the world. Building character and community, Gatto argues, is more valuable than learning from tired textbooks and rigid lesson plans.

Really educated people ...

Establish an individual set of values but recognize those of the surrounding community and of the various cultures of the world.

Explore their own ancestry, culture, and place.

Are comfortable being alone, yet understand dynamics between people and form healthy relationships.

Accept mortality, knowing that every choice affects the generations to come.

Create new things and find new experiences.

Think for themselves; observe, analyze, and discover truth without relying on the opinions of others.

Favor love, curiosity, reverence, and empathy rather than material wealth.

Choose a vocation that contributes to the common good.

Enjoy a variety of new places and experiences but identify and cherish a place to call home.

Express their own voice with confidence.

Add value to every encounter and every group of which they are a part.

Always ask: “Who am I? Where are my limits? What are my possibilities?”

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This list was adapted from John Taylor Gatto latest book, Weapons of Mass Instruction (New Society Publishers, 2009) for Learn as You Go, the Fall 2009 issue of YES! Magazine. Gatto was a New York State Teacher of the Year. An advocate for school reform, his books also include Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling.

DarkSyde (DK): Top 10 Signs You Might Not Be A Libertarian

Notice a propensity of newly minted Libertarians showing up lately? Perhaps it's just coincidence their ranks swelled in inverse proportion to George Bush's approval rating, ditto that so many are mouthing traditional conservative talking points. But what about the everyday gun toting townhall screamers and taxcutters and deficit hawks we see on cable news: are they really libertarian as so many claim, or just conservatives in glibertarian clothes? Here's a few warning signs.

10. If you think Ron Paul isn't conservative enough and Fox News is fair and balanced, you might not be a Libertarian.

9. If you believe you have an inalienable right to attend Presidential townhalls brandishing a loaded assault rifle, but that arresting participants inside for wearing a pink shirt is an important public safety precaution, there's a chance you're dangerously unbalanced, but no chance you're a Libertarian.

8. If you think the government should stay the hell out of Medicare, well, you have way, way bigger problems than figuring out if you're really a Libertarian.

7. If you rank Anthonin Scalia and Roy Moore among the greatest Justices of all time, you may be bug fuck crazy, but you're probably not a Libertarian.

6. You might not be a Libertarian if you think recreational drug use, prostitution, and gambling should be illegal because that's what Jesus wants.

5. If you think the separation between church and state applies equally to all faiths except socially conservative Christian fundamentalism, you're probably not a Libertarian.

4. You're probably not a Libertarian if you believe the federal government should remove safety standards and clinical barriers for prescription and OTC medications while banning all embryonic stem cell research, somatic nuclear transfer, RU 486, HPV and cervical cancer vaccination, work on human/non human DNA combos, or Plan B emergency contraception.

3. If you think state execution of mentally retarded convicts is good policy but prosecuting Scott Roeder or disconnecting Terri Schiavo was an unforgivable sin, odds are you're not really a Libertarian.

2. If you argue that cash for clunkers or any form of government healthcare is unconstitutional, but forced prayer or teaching old testament creationism in public schools is fine, you're not even consistent, much less a Libertarian, and you may be Michele Bachmann.

And the number one sign: if you think government should stay the hell out of people's private business -- except when kidnapping citizens and rendering them to secret overseas torture prisons, snooping around the bedrooms of consenting adults, policing a woman's uterus, or conducting warrantless wire taps, you are no Libertarian.

Sudbay (AmBlog): Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

The shows on the real networks today are all about Ted Kennedy. On FOX, no surprise, that's not the case. The only guest on FOX is Dick Cheney. That pretty much says it all.

The full slate is after the break.
Here's the full lineup:

ABC's "This Week" — Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and John Kerry, D-Mass.

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CBS' "Face the Nation" — Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Hatch; Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.; Michael Eric Dyson, sociology professor at Georgetown University.

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NBC's "Meet the Press" — Kerry; Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn.; Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and Maria Shriver, nieces of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy; Doris Kearns Goodwin, presidential historian; former Kennedy adviser Bob Shrum.

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CNN's "State of the Union" — Hatch; Dodd; Red Sox president Larry Lucchino; Boston Mayor Thomas Menino; former Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Thomas P. O'Neill III; environmental advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., nephew of Sen. Kennedy; Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, once a Kennedy aide; Sens. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., Mary Landrieu, D-La.

"Fox News Sunday" _ Former Vice President Dick Cheney.

This is not a list, but I put it here anyway because it is interesting . . .

Yglesias: The Trouble With Prescience

Via Paul Rosenberg, a very interesting pre-crash paper from Dean Baker called “The Run-Up in Home Prices: Is it Real or Is it Another Bubble?” His conclusion was bubble. He marshals a variety of evidence for this conclusion, but the key point is simply that the notional value of homes was increasing much more rapidly than the actually observed price of renting a place to live:

The only problem with the paper is that it was published way back in 2002. Baker not only makes the case for the existence of the bubble persuasively, but he highlights most of the various ways in which its collapse will create huge economic problems. But in 2003, the houses are more expensive than ever. And in 2004, things have gone up even more. Then they keep going up in 2005. And then for another year! And this is precisely what makes bubbles so problematic. Even when you’re pretty sure you’ve identified one, this gives you almost no insight into questions of timing. Consequently, it’s quite difficult to use your insight to go make tons of money. And that in turn makes the bubbles more severe, since the skeptics are basically out on the sidelines.

And in the reputational economy of analysts the consequences are even worse. If you go along with the herd and then predict a problem a month before it arises, then you strike everyone as prescient. But if you start warning about something and then it doesn’t happen, and then you keep nagging people, and then you keep complaining about how nobody’s listening to you, you start getting dismissed as a crank. And when you’re proven right, you’re still that crank nobody wants to listen to. You don’t get hailed as a hero. But Ben Bernanke who made very mainstream mistakes and then pivoted adroitly once the bill came due does.