syops

It’s easy to find the answer to your question. One does not have to deliberately wallow in ignorance.

Shutdowns have occurred due to no appropriation bill being passed before the previous one expires. Raising the debt ceiling is a different thing. It used to be a routine thing to raise the ceiling because the monies have been appropriated. It was only under Republicans in the Senate trying to sabotage Obama that it became an issue.

The virus mutates quickly so the vaccine can't be expected to be as effective at new variants compared to the variants it was designed to combat.

My recollection is that the showdown aspect is something new in the sense that it has happened only under a Democrat President and started in Obama's presidency.

This is one reason why it will be hard to get rid of the silly requirement to take shoes off. DHS has a financial interest in keeping the theater going.

There are lots of things stopping the DFL from doing what it wants with the police force. I suggest you look into how police forces hold cities hostage when city government acts in a way they don’t approve of.

Presumably the so called good apples will get hired by the newly formed police force. Though I would argue there are very few good apples. You aren’t a good cop when you allow and fail to report on your fellow officers meting out non judicial punishments.

In Minneapolis they want to dismantle the existing police force and replace it with another. A big reason for wanting to do this is to get rid of the problem cops. Police in the U.S. do a horrible job in solving even major crimes. They currently commit a large number of acts of violence without accountability. They system definitely needs to be dismantled and rebuilt.

I think you may have missed it a bit too. jacquesm wrote:

...I have no way of verifying it then I don't believe them. Worked pretty good so far.

This can't possibly be true since one can't verify everything. If one truly lived this then they'd be in an endless quest of verifying things. For instance, verifying verifiers.

We are about to enter into an age of hard to detect AI generated articles and research so this isn't philosophical silliness.

You missed, entirely, the point made by the person you responded to.

Thanks for your rant! It was wells stated. I did not know anything of these things in the sense of having any academic knowledge about this stuff.

I didn't know about the counting one and am not surprised by this. In a thread on another post I wrote that there is a lot of brain washing that occurs in the teaching of low level mathematics. It's easier to brain wash children in this sense than it is for adults.

You are the first to notice this! I wish I had been more explicit.

In case you don’t know this, community colleges are generally required to accept everyone who applies that has a high school diploma or a GED. We are open enrollment institutions.

I understand now what you meant by fairly depressing. Thank you for the clarification.

Do you believe everyone can learn algebra? What evidence do you have for this belief? Have you taught in the classroom much to students with a wide range of educational backgrounds?

I don’t believe everyone has equal intellectual talent in all areas. My talent for math far exceeds my talent for physics. I’ve tried to learn physics but I just can’t. I have no intuition for it. There is variation amongst our brains and how the connections in our brains formed in childhood. In some people the wiring is such that learning a given topic is not feasible. Such is my belief.

Thanks for your comment. My statement has unleashed passions in some. It’s been interesting reading the comments.

How’s this for irony. My high school guidance counselor told me that’d never pass college and now I’m teaching at one!

I don’t get to decide who has the ability to learn algebra. All I get to do in this regard is determine who knows enough to pass.

Certainly not all people can learn how to teach mathematics. That is not at all disputable in my mind. I may be in the set of people who can’t learn to teach math. I’ve tried for over 20 years and appear to be just average at it. Maybe I’m below average.

My collection of anecdotes that not everyone can learn math works as an anecdote that not everyone can teach math.

I believe the universe is discrete and that everything in it is discrete. I believe that “intellignece” is not really measurable. A person might have an intelligence as it pertains to art or critiquing art and be utterly clueless in another area. Indeed, I believe all people have a lack of ability in some area. For all of us there are things we just aren’t ever going to be able to learn and can’t learn. There are lots of reasons for this. I don’t know but can believe that genetics plays a role. There is variation on how our brains work so it seems reasonable that genetics plays some role.

Here’s one reason I know you’ve don’t have much experience teaching. You’ve mentioned that the way to pass all of my students is to do my job. No one who has extensive experience in classrooms with a wide variety of student backgrounds can possibly make such a statement. Even the most ardent, hardcore teachers at my college who advocate that everyone can learn any topic don’t think this.

When I mention that I just mostly pass my students now they understand that grades are an administrative aspect to the job and know that this is detached from my desire to get as many students as possible to learn as much as possible. People with extensive experience don’t harp on my statements about grading. At most they’ll claim they don’t lower their standards but they don’t make any wild conclusions about me like you did.

But you, you’ve made wholly unjustified conclusions about me and that says you don’t know the nuances involved. You don’t immediately understand that one can think not everyone can learn a topic and still be passionate about learning.

You don’t because I’ve never said anything about my teaching. Your conclusions are not supported by the available evidence.

You’ve obviously not taught much in the classroom. Why is it so obvious? Consider the possibility that your thinking on this issue is clouded by your past.

This is what i meant.

Well, I’m certain cockroaches can’t learn calculus. Neither can apes or monkeys. Some humans can. Therefore I think that brain composition has something to do with learning calculus. There is variation in said brain composition amongst humans. It seems reasonable to think that the set of all people is not a subset of all things that can learn calculus.

I haven’t performed any genetics tests but brain composition is partly determined by genetics so genetics might play role, right?

I committed to not responding to you in a different thread. I did not commit to not responding to you in all threads. The teacher in me forced me to try to explain to you why your use of ad hominem was incorrect. My previous response had nothing to do with what was being discussed as such. Your conclusions have not been logically valid.

Here’s an example:

… I must be a calculus teacher in order to challenge your assertion that IQ is the primary source of the problems your students have with learning in your classrooms..

No one has said any of these things and no one has implied any of these things. I never said or implied that IQ is the primary source of anything. No one believes that you must be a teacher of calculus to be right. What people have wondered is if you are a teacher because some of your statements seem to the the type of statements only a non teacher would make.

It does matter in this sense. Students who are poor end up taking on debt for college and this debt is currently (mostly) unforgivable. If we had universal higher education this objection of mine goes by the wayside. But then a new objection rises up.

You know nothing about my teaching or what I do for my students. Did I say a good fraction of the students can’t learn algebra? I never said or implied anything of the sort. All I said is that some people can’t learn it. I gave an extreme example of such a person. I didn’t say anything regarding how large the set of people who can’t learn algebra is other than that this set is larger than the set of intellectually disabled people.

It appears you are letting your past personal experiences distort your judgments about me. It’s ok. I understand this. It’s natural but it makes it hard to have a discussion about whether or not it’s the case that everyone can learn algebra.

You made a statement that the way to pass everyone is to do my job. Clearly you have not taught much in a classroom with a wide variety of students. Consider the possibility that you simply don’t know anything about the craft of teaching other than your very limited experience of being a student and that as such you should be wary of making negative conclusions about me.

This is very nicely put. I wish I had thought of this phrasing when I posted my original comment. The point of my comment was to mention that there are heretical ideas that people won’t discuss in other areas of intellectual inquiry. That was the relation of my comment to the article.

I didn’t imply anything about the number of people who can’t learn algebra other than that I think the number of such people exceeds the number of intellectually disabled people. I used the word intelligence and put this in quotes because intelligence is not really definable but the word does convey a sense of what I mean. One must have a certain level of cognitive ability to learn something. Where that level is for a given topic I can’t say.

There were no leaps of logic made by me. I never indicated or said anything about genetics. I said that it’s clear some people can’t learn algebra and gave an extreme example of such a person by saying that an intellectually disabled person can’t learn algebra. I then said that I’m convinced that there is some level of “intelligence” required to learn algebra.

I said absolutely nothing about what percent of people this is true for and absolutely nothing about why this is true. I brought it up in the context of the article because saying that not everyone can learn algebra is as taboo in education as the thought that genetics plays a role in poverty and success in life in psychology. My reason for thinking this is responses like yours.

There are clearly people who can’t learn algebra: intellectually disable people are such an example. I believe some level of “intelligence” is require to learn algebra.

How can you conclude from what I’ve written that I haven’t thought much about my belief? How can it appear I have an axe to grind from what I’ve written? You have formed an image of me that is wildly incorrect. Do you initially assume that everyone who thinks not everyone can learn algebra has an axe to grind?

You don’t know what an ad hominem is. You are incorrectly applying the definition. It is not an argumentative fallacy to ask the basis by which a person’s assertions have been formed. You’ve made lots of claims about teaching but clearly you have no experience to back it up and (this is important) you have not provided any citations to back up your assertions.

People have to make judgments with imperfect knowledge. It’s reasonable to discount the unsubstantiated opinions of someone with no experience with the topic at hand.

It should at least be interesting to you that it was obvious from your comments that you don’t have experience teaching mathematics in the classroom. Why was that so obvious to those of us with that experience? The previous question is rhetorical.

What is theorized to be impossible is learning a language as an adult if you did not learn a language as a child. That is, if at age 20 you know 0 languages then you’ll never be able really learn a language. For obvious reasons experiments in this regard are few.

My conclusion is that some people simply can’t learn algebra. Be it genetic, environmental, lack of intellectual fortitude, lack of “intelligence”, or any combination thereof it is simply the case that some people can’t learn algebra.