Taltos

I must have missed that when reading his posts. He said that? Wow, what an ass.

Well... they sort of score a point here, although it's an odd one. At high school, level, yes, the different disciplines are seperated, and the emphasis is on the distribution of solid facts underlying the basic concepts and terminology of each discipline. I hate this.

The general understanding seems to be that the basic high school structure, as they are, are required in higher studies and to a certain extent this may be true, but I've found that most college instructors at the freshman level have to train their students to "unlearn" a lot of high-school habits. High schools are designed to produce workers for the occupational professions, not to encourage thinkers and leaders.

Furthermore, studying the humanities (philosophy, humanities, visual culture, etc.), while seeing as critically vital in most public colleges and universities, tends to be severaly downplayed in high schools, unless you are fortunate and skilled enough to find yourself in the honors and AP classes.

I, myself, have been involved in setting up classrooms for children in participation with my college and local orphanages where the emphasis is on a more "academic" setting, delving deeply into inter-disciplinary issues, analyzing current events from different perspectives, and focussing on reasoning and debate rather than rote memorization. I've found that many of these 10-year olds hold their own in these discussions better than many college students, and attack complex issues enthusiastically.

Fortunately, this has been changing over the last several years and seems to change more and more. While I encourage this change, and my current stance in this topic isn't so much in favor of ID as it is against censorcism in classrooms, I don't particularly think ID should be the excuse to implement the changes in high school structures, so the current structure does have to be considered for purposes of deciding the classroom curriculum.

__________________
Though we are not now
That strength that in old days
Moved Earth and Heaven;
That which we are, we are:
One equal temper of heroic hearts
Made weak by time and flesh
But strong in will
To seek, to strive, to find
And not to yield.
-Alfred, Lord Tennyson