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Comment Re:Motivation (Score 1) 575

Khan Academy is the greatest supplemental education resource I have ever seen.

This is key.

Khan Academy may have issues that prevent it from replacing other education, but it's a great supplement. It's also a great pattern for other people to innovate an do better with.

We use it to supplement our kids' education, but we make sure they do Khan after we go over the concept in the math book.

Comment Re:And the unions are pissed... (Score 1) 575

Meanwhile getting rid of garbage men would require every American to deliver their own bags of trash to the dump. This is still common practice in many parts of the US.

Garbage men also manage the dump. Instead of an organized system that manages waste and prevents problems with run off, you'd just have people who were willing to throw garbage somewhere on their property for cash.

How many people would bother taking their trash to the dump instead of somewhere closer? (illegal dumping is already a problem now with pickup).

Yes, professional teachers do a very important job, but there's a reason our society did just fine without mandatory school laws for so long. Yes, there would be horrible consequences for not having public education, but it's a hierarchy of needs. Health trumps education. Sick kids don't learn well even with great teachers.

(and if you want an even better example, use sewage treatment workers....)

Comment Re:Are you ready for an EMP ?? (Score 5, Informative) 190

As 'luck' would have it, currently it is believed that an EMP pulse over North America would be worse than in Hawaii due to the difference in the geomagnetic field in the two locations. For example, it is believed that a blast over the Dakotas would mostly cause problems south of the blast vs a circle all the way around.

Now, I think from my reading that his numbers are wrong (it would need to be higher), but the total kt isn't as important (and a smaller bomb could be constructed to emphasize EMP over blast).

Check out the US Army's document "Nuclear Environment Survivability." (Report ADA278230)

Comment Re:You should read that link (Score 3, Insightful) 390

As it is, they're being petty bullies.

Well that's what you get when you let Republicans take office.

Yes, because the current Administration is Republican. Wait a second....

You do realize that it's the Executive branch who would be doing the suing, right? You are also informed that the current Chief Executive is not a Republican, nor is the current Administrator of NASA a Republican Appointee?

Comment Re:Slef-paced education is not a panacea (Score 1) 203

self-paced study courses have a major problem. They need a specific type of student. The student must be exactly smart enough to easily learn the material, yet dumb enough not to play the system to "get it over with."

In the system demonstrated, the self-pacing is combined with teacher instruction. Combined with customizable testing that requires mastery that was demonstrated, there's no need to "get over it" - and if it's stumping you, there is a teacher available.

Self-paced learning is absolutely not a solution to a major need in education.It can't replace stand-up training. BG should spend some time and get himself an education degree and then spend a few years teaching before making grand pronouncements. He has no qualifications to speak on this subject.

Exactly the opposite. Spending time at an ed school is about the worst way to learn about things such as: how students really learn, how to change education, and new approaches that will actually work. Ed schools are mostly propaganda with some old ideas peppered in there. They hold education back. As does thinking as you demonstrated. "It won't work because I said so, and teaching programs are the best."

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