Wednesday, October 28, 2009

colonial education

Colonial Education

The colonial education was geared more towards teaching people the bible, as a way of saving people’s souls, unfortunately it was not made to actually teach students trades or general knowledge. Because of this students were only thought the importance of learning and adhering to the scriptures from the bible. The second purpose of the Latin grammar schools were to teach the Latin language, because the colleges of the time were thought mainly in Latin, therefore the students that were being prepared to attend colleges had to be fluent in Latin. School were heavy into religion because the purpose of the people migrating from England to the new land was to be able to practice their religious beliefs, the men and women that came here came to escape persecution from practicing their faith.
In todays educational system is very different from colonial times because we are focused more on technology and learning than religion. Religion is no longer allowed in the school system because of the many different faiths practiced by the students, to prevent forcing a Jewish child to pray to a Christian god would be disrespectful to his or her faith. I do believe it was a wise move to remove religion from the school, while I agree with this decision, it really bring down morals colonial children were more respectful of each other because they had the fear of god. There is no such thing as love of one another and respect in the schools in today’s society, which is because we are not thought morals in schools anymore.
Teachers are more qualified today than they were back in the colonial days because in the colonial days there main focus was the studying of the bible, where as today we are geared toward training people for the future. With the advancements we’ve made, we are constantly searching to discover newer and better technologies.
The one thing constant in today’s and as well as colonial times has to be discrimination, in colonial times people were discriminated against not by race but by gender, only boys were given the opportunity to attend school and get an education, women were not allowed to receive an education beyond basic reading and writing. Today we face discrimination in many different criteria, the most noticeable one has to be color, and many non Anglo-Saxons were not permitted to learn. Even after the ban was lifted, teachers refused to teach African American children, the school houses were run down and not suitable for living, the books were several years old.

Monday, October 26, 2009

understand new costums

After reading this passage, i found myself looking back to the different times where i've traveled outstide of the United States, and i've encountered people who have dislikes of Americans and they would treat me with sort of hate. I found myself telling them that i am not American and their attitude would change slightly but not drastically, I than came to realize Americans are not well received around the world as we may think. Even within my own culture and other non-American cultures, they dispise the American way of doing things. This is the reason when we travel to different countries the reception is not often warm.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Self Actualization

Self Actualization

Is a complex theory about understanding our own self, there were many studies done on the subject because people are really curious to understand themselves, such as why they do some of the things they do, like certain things and also attracted to a type of person? There many different names to the studies done on this subject one such study I am really interested in are self-esteem. Self esteem has two different levels of self-esteem, there’s low self-esteem and high self-esteem. As you can already tell by their names low self-esteem is when a person does not have high regards for themselves, these individuals are often loners, they always have a sense that they do not belong anywhere and no one likes them or want them around, they are often refrain from showing emotions and not well kept physically, often these people suffer from severe depression and often suicidal. Low self esteem individuals usually can’t find any good qualities in themselves. Usually due to a bad childhood and child abuse, usually the end result.
Having a high self esteem means that person thinks highly of themselves and usually perform higher in school and in society, these individuals are usually are happier than most because they are always on a natural high about themselves, it’s usually hard to bring that individual down, because of the self love they have for themselves, their physical appearance is usually well groomed and physically fit. Their upbringings are usually happy ones.
Self actualization grows by four characteristics are auditory, physical sensations, body image, and personal memories. A person view themselves in these four cues, because we look at the celebrities and each of these people on television and print magazines are a constant reminder to regular people how much we are not measuring up, we strive to look like the people we see on the television and magazines all the time, we buy the products they endorsed and sometimes we even change our religious beliefs because our favorite star believe their religion is better. We need to be able to look within ourselves and learn what’s right for ourselves and not let others influence our choices.

Rhetoric

Rhetoric

Rhetoric is a form of education I could compare to a debate, the people who practice that type of education believe that nothing is real, that is the most absurd statement ever, and how could nothing in existence not be real? These so called educators believe more about making the argument rather than proving the point, it’s all about show not substance. The practitioners of this form of education were called sophists; sophists were paid professional teachers in Greece classical education, that teach student orally, basically their job was to teach what we not call speech or public speaking to the children of politicians and other members’ government. As we can already tell the sophists were criticized by real scholars, such as Socrates and Plato, for not producing any real facts but only care about appearances, this did not hold well with these early scholars.
Rethors were good salesmen, because they had the power of words and were unable to back anything they said, they were like professional liars, they are able to talk about anything and make it sound like they had knowledge about the subjects. The powers of words are very overwhelming these orators were able to manipulate the good to seem bad and good can also be manipulated to seem bad, this was a very powerful weapon for politicians, one of Socrates’ accusers Lycon was an orator, which Socrates held in such low regards, because they sold their loyalty to the highest bidder, their motive were only monetary and not about making any real contributions to the educational society.
The Roman educational system was not too different from the rhetics because they are both sticking to the idea of truth was nonexistent, the roman only teach the basic reading and writing. The main difference between the two different styles is that one teaches on paper such as reading and writing which would be considered traditional style and the other uses grammar and does not use text to get their point across.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Romans Vs. Athenians school

Romans vs. Athenian schools

Roman education from all the readings that I’ve read, seemed to be governed more by fear than everything else, the roman scholars believed that a young man that is afraid to get caned would perform better, seemed really cruel that type of intimidation would scare anyone from doing actual learning because you would be too afraid to open your mouth and recite your lessons. The Romans did not use text books because text books were too expensive for even the riches people in Rome. Education was very important to the Roman Empire; even the poorer members of the empire knew how to read and write with one exception, the fathers would teach their sons at home, the lessons would include basic reading, writing and arithmetic that are because they could not afford to send their children to a formal school. Even in the formal schools the subjects were very few so the children would often be bored at the school, but with the fear of being flogged by the teachers the children would take the time to memorizing their lessons. The school days were longer than they are today by many hours, the day started from sunrise and ends at sunset and that has to be repeated for seven days, the only times the child is at home is afterschool to go to bed, would place a great amount of strain on the mind of a young child, I’m sure they would not memorize much of their lessons. The girl’s were also educated only those that could afford the education, well the difference is the type of education, they young ladies would be thought how to be a good wife and keep up good home and cooking on the other hand the poorer women would be thought by their mothers how to weave baskets, sew, they would practice these skills every day.
The Athenians had a more formal education with broader subjects, even though they still practice the art of memorization they also wrote ideas down. They Greeks also practice such subjects as philosophy, science, medicine; the Greeks had a more advance education system than the Romans.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Freud's take on Personality

Freud’s take on personality

The part of Freud’s personality theory I found most interesting is his topographical theory, this theory is about the conscious and unconsciousness. Freud believed our personalities are based on the unconsciousness and we keep our needs and wishes in the unconscious area of our psyche, the needs that are locked in our unconscious secretly influence a person’s personality. The unconscious really does not care about consequences it only care about satisfying that need nothing else matters, except getting what their needs met at any cost. Sometimes we do things or have a certain feeling about a person or situation whether good or bad and not know why we feel and react that way; this is cause by our subconscious, this part of our psyche that we are unaware of.
The part of our psyche we are aware of is called conscious, conscious is when a person is awake and formulates their thoughts and know exactly what they want and go forth to achieve those goals to make they happy. When a person is aware of what they want they are also conscious of the consequences of their actions, which means they choose to knowing what may happen whether positive or negative they are definitely aware of the different choices that they are making and totally accept the rewards and punishment that may be the result of such choices.
Freud was a very complex man, his research was more about understanding the human psyche and to understanding why we act and do some of the things that we do. He is often referred to as the father of modern psychiatry, which is a proper title for such a brilliant mind. The success he had with treating people with mental disease and actually curing them was within itself a very amazing feat. After studying Freud, I gained a better understand about human behaviors.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Beliefs and Attitudes

Beliefs and attitude

After reading these passages I could not chose just one part to write about because I believe a person’s beliefs definitely dictate their attitude towards everything. Therefore you can’t pick one without choosing the other, I believe they work great together because one definitely influence the other tremendously, rather it’s for good or bad you cannot have one without mentioning the other.
Beliefs are usually form by the persons’ societal views and majority of the time are mostly influenced by their parents and elders of a society. Majority of beliefs people all around the world share would be religious beliefs, everyone that I’ve come across share some religious beliefs, rather it’s Christianity or Islam and many other religions, the other beliefs are political views, rather it’s a democratic or communist. The thing they share in common is that they totally believe in these ideas whole heartedly, these two subjects are two subjects that can cause major arguments and even fights. People usually dismiss any other idea that is contradictory to what their beliefs are, their minds are closed to even accept or examine any other facts that will be introduced to them, this is when their attitude changes.
Attitude is the way a person reacts to an idea or any other object; the reaction can be good or bad depending on the perception of the person’s beliefs. Usually if it’s something that contradicts the values that has been thought to that individual since birth they would have an adverse reaction to any idea they would deem stupid, because their minds had been shaped by their parents since their infancy and their believe system has become ingrained in them almost becoming a part of their DNA, they tend to have a closed mind, not to mention people with closed mind usually don’t achieve high levels of education or acceptance of other cultures, because of their refusal to accept and interpret new information.
What I came away with is to keep an open mind because the world is constantly changing and with the different mode of transportation and human curiosities they world is closer than ever, we need to learn to respect each other and each other’s cultures, you never know what you will learn from someone else, sometimes we use others on our beliefs and see them as being evil or no good because they are not living upto our standards, it is unfair to do so and we need to adjust our attitudes.

Aristotle's take on the world

Aristotle’s take on the world

Aristotle was in interesting philosopher to me because he was definitely ahead of his time in his thought process. Reading his life story and his works I definitely had a rude awakening, because I never knew that type of thinking was going on in those time, due to the lack of technology because some of the thinking he had would not even be possible to accomplish today without the aid of a computer or any technological help. If I were to give my opinion about who was the greatest philosopher of the early times it would definitely have to be Aristotle. His take on such things as ethics which all psychiatrists still uses today, this is that ethics is divided in two parts which is the Rational which is your intellect and moral virtue, and Irrational which is the nutritional virtue, politics, art and poetics, soul and psychology, nature, metaphysics, and logic.
According to Aristotle logic is the ability to reason orally and this concept consist of ten different categories; substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, situation, condition, action, and passion. Think about it when you are asking a question what is the first thing you ask? You ask what happened. How did it happen? Who was involved? How many? These are the main ten principles of trying to gain knowledge and sharpening your reasoning skills. Normally an individual would ask these same things in not exactly the same order as he named but they would be the same questions that would normally be asked from a student to a teacher or parent.
Aristotle started his work on metaphysics after being curious about existence, through his curiosity and asking the church and he realized that the church would only give him a broad understanding of human existence; he took it upon himself to gain the knowledge himself. Through his readings he saw many speculations from the mathematical theory of Pythagoras and nature theories of Thales and Anaximines, neither one of these theories satisfied his curiosity, this is a theory that cannot be explained.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Plato' Idealism

Plato’s idealisms

Plato’s idealisms are basic but realistic in today’s standards, but back in his days these ideas were sort of taboo, because people were not allowed to voice or question their leaders rules and ideas for them. Socrates started the whole movement about questioning ideas and search for the truth for you and finding why things happen and how things work, Plato continued where Socrates left off and added some ideas of his own. Some of these ideas are; truth is in all things, we should look for the truth because the truth is eternal and perfect, there should be a universal truth, and his claim of that people are born ignorant and living in a cave of shadows and illusions, chained by apathy. These ideas are meant that we are to spend the rest of our lives searching for happiness and that happiness is knowledge.
Truth in all things simply means that in everything that we see and experience in this life, has many different meanings other than what you were brought up to believe. We must seek what the truth is for us individually and not for the masses. Sometimes the explanation that is giving to you about a certain even is not complete and that usually leave people baffled, but back then people did not have the level of education that we do now to ever question what was told to them, they just accept that to be the truth and will pass that down from generation to generation, they would defend those ideas with their lives if they had to.
We should always look for the truth in everything because truth is eternal and perfect, this means that truth cannot be disproved no matter how you try to change it around the end results will always be the same. In order for you to achieve this ultimate truth we must do research and allow ourselves to look at alternative methods of achieving what we are looking for, and also keep an open mind, not going into a research with an open mind will not result in ultimate truth because you already know what results you wanted, some of the world’s most useful inventions came by accidents, these scientist had an open mind.
These ideas affect today’s education system, by allowing it’s students to investigate different ideas and bring their own ideas to life. Today’s students are not restricted to the level of education they can achieve as long as they are willing to do the work.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Awareness

Awareness

Awareness; is the way we see the environment around us, and the way we interact with our environment. This is on our own knowledge and experiences, before we can have our own opinion we first need to have at the least a broad understanding of the world around us and how things normally supposed to work. This way we are to make judgments, mostly through our education we can make correct assumptions. Most people who believe in such things as the super natural, is because of culture. People that believe in such things such as the evil eye, voodoo and even Christianity, these people often believe in those things so much that physically and psychologically they will become affected. Take for instance people who believe that a curse can be place on you; these people would blame every bad things that happen in their lives to that curse. Some Christians who believe in god will attribute every good thing that happens to Jesus Christ, and if something bad was to happen they will blame that on the devil. These people are not crazy by a long shot it’s just part of their culture, if a person believe in something so much, one of the most bizarre thing that I’ve heard is that a voodoo priest can point a finger of death at a person from the tribe and that person will actually die, that is because of the fear and respect that priest as over the tribe. I remember attending a church where the pastor would touch the person and that person would instantly start to fallout and speak in tongues, well when it was my turn and I went up to the priest and she touched my forehead and nothing happened, I started then to question the validity of her so called powers, I come to the realization that everyone at the church was just acting and playing along with what the other people were doing.
Consciousness is being aware of what is going on; basically you are making things happen on your own and you doing it because you actually want to do whatever it is you want to make happen. This is a way of getting the results you wish to get out of your experiment. Doing something with your eyes open and questioning whatever it are you are being thought and making decisions on your own.

Impact of Sputnik

Impact of Sputnik

The impact the sputnik launched in 1950-1960’s had a more positive impact on the American educational system, because it showed us just how far we are behind in certain areas, and these areas were mathematics and science. America is a country that does not like to be last in any advancement at all; they like to think of themselves as being the innovators of everything technological. Americans had to really take a look into their curriculums and they noticed that they were behind in the math and science department.
After learning this fact the powers of the school systems rearranged their system to focus more on the math and science department. Unfortunately it took this to force us to realize the students were not being thought what they needed to be successful. Even today these two subjects are not the focal points in the education system. Math is deemed not important and science as well because most students and faculty are not focusing on these subjects. Math are being focused on now days because of the creation of standardized testing, standardized testing is a result of the poor achievements of the schools and officials were forced to take action to raise the educational levels. This system takes away the other subjects such as geography, economics, and history these subjects have been completely taken out of the curriculum and focused more on the subjects that are on the standardized test. Some students can’t even find their state or city on a map and other students can’t even tell you anything about American history not to any fault of their own but because they are not being through this in the public school systems. Science has become obsolete in today’s educational system, even with the teachers that teach science they are not willing to teach because they don’t feel like the students are taking their science importantly.
Taking standardized testing out of the school system we will have more well rounded students. Seems to me that we are back to the same educational levels as the 1950-1960’s, the American school system is ranked the lowest in the world and that is very unacceptable for a country that is supposed to be a super power. Something has to be done and I don’t think that standardized testing is the answer.

Father of Reasoning

Father of Reasoning

Socrates was a man that was ahead of his time, because the times he live in people did not question anything that was set in place, they just went along with whatever ideas that was already put in place for them. The reason was the people did not possess the education needed to for their own ideas. Socrates was the first person to ever question the many different norms that Greeks believed and enforced. Reasoning is when people question things that are around them, by asking how, when, who, when and where. The system of the Greeks were that of a god belief, not that they believed that they themselves were god like, but they did not believe humans were capable of achieving anything but, they only believed that all things are done by the gods and humans are not wise enough to do great works, and I believe these ideas arrived from the lack of education and as well the priests, this was a form of brain wash.
Socrates never formally wrote anything or had a formal school, that is because he believed that knowledge is interactive and a living force. This means knowledge grows because life is ongoing and there are new things to experience and we must remain open minded to absorb every change that life has to offer, know never stays the same. The hierarchy in the Greek city of Athens accused Socrates of corrupting the minds of the youths of Greece; according to his accusers he was introducing new gods to the youths. Socrates was found guilty at the end and was given poison as a form of execution tool, although he could’ve have escape the punishment by not speaking his mind anymore, he chose to drink the poison to prove a point, Socrates became the first martyr for education.
Elenchus is a questioning method; this method was created by the philosopher Socrates. The saying a wise men recognized that he knows nothing at all. This means that we’ll never know everything about everything in the world, therefore we must continue to be skeptical and not accepting everything that is presented t us.
Socrates believed that knowledge is the key to happiness. When a person has great reasoning skills that individual has a better understanding about what they truly want.
They influential part Socrates has over the today’s educational system is that so much have on the old ideas. Human curiosity has been credited too much of the technological advancements in the word. We are thought the old ideas in as we get older we start to question the validity of the old findings and then we start to experiment different ways.