How I convince kids to accept gay ‘marriage’, starting at 4

[VMI77]

Just to be clear, we shouldn't be allowed to teach anything about the possibility of climate change to our children? I realize that it's a sensitive political topic, but unlike the "gay agenda" there's actually quite a bit of science in the background. Generally speaking, I'm good with teaching my children what mainstream science figures out. I don't want the politics taught, but I do want the science taught - it's a key to critical thinking. Otherwise, we'd all be stuck teaching our children that the world is flat and that the sun revolves around the earth, which were very unpopular ideas at one time.


I don't want a progressive agenda, but I don't want an educational system that only teaches the values of any particular political or social group. If I want specific values taught, I recognize that I'll have to pay for an education that provides those values specifically and that's fine...

The problem with "climate change" as science is that, well, it may not actually be science. Data manipulation and falsification has been rampant and there is enormous political pressure to produce results that confirm the prevailing political ideology. I respect the scientific method but the reality is that science is not the pure intellectual pursuit it is made out to be and it is very much influenced by money and politics. From everything I've seen on the subject they've yet to even produce a model that can forecast what has already been observed using the available data. That's a worthless model.

They've already changed the nomenclature from "global warming"....something hard to prove...to "climate change"....something as meaningless as it is incontestable. That kind of political posturing is suspicious by itself. And there is still no convincing proof that climate change is man made and not part of natural cycles (especially true in light of the known data fraud).

[mojo84]

Climate change/global warmimg = huge money

Those that will benefit from it are the ones that promote it the most. Just follow the money.

[TVGuy]

I am very dubious of this new push toward group learning. Every time I have even been involved in a group project it always seems that one or two people are doing the project while everyone else is grouping. Group learning is just a clever way of raising scores by allowing the slower kids to be propped up by the smart kids.

You nailed it. That's the way study groups work too. Usually the smart person is educating the dummies --if the group has a smart person that doesn't get tired of spending hours to do what he could do by himself in 30 minutes. For a group to do better than what a single smart person can do on his own it has to be composed of people who are roughly equal in intelligence, knowledge, and experience. Furthermore, in my experience as an engineer, it is really only intelligence that matters to other engineers....we care about the right answers, not the facility with which they are delivered. I couldn't care less if someone is a jerk or lacking in supposed social skills if he's smart and delivering results. I might not hang out with him after work but it doesn't interfere with getting the job done. It seems to me that it's the people in the non-technical fields who are overly concerned about the social graces.

For C-Suite and upper management working with and in groups is usually essential. This is why it is so prevalent in business schools. You have to know how to delegate and gather good ideas/solutions from smart people you trust and then find a way to enact them to produce chance or results. Large organizations simply can't be effectively run by one person. I HATED group work in business school, but at the same time it's too much to ask one person to write a quality 60+ page business plan on their own in the time given. Yes, there are always people that shirk their duties, but learning to deal with that mirrors real life and is also part of he skill set gained in the process.

[VMI77]

I am very dubious of this new push toward group learning. Every time I have even been involved in a group project it always seems that one or two people are doing the project while everyone else is grouping. Group learning is just a clever way of raising scores by allowing the slower kids to be propped up by the smart kids.

You nailed it. That's the way study groups work too. Usually the smart person is educating the dummies --if the group has a smart person that doesn't get tired of spending hours to do what he could do by himself in 30 minutes. For a group to do better than what a single smart person can do on his own it has to be composed of people who are roughly equal in intelligence, knowledge, and experience. Furthermore, in my experience as an engineer, it is really only intelligence that matters to other engineers....we care about the right answers, not the facility with which they are delivered. I couldn't care less if someone is a jerk or lacking in supposed social skills if he's smart and delivering results. I might not hang out with him after work but it doesn't interfere with getting the job done. It seems to me that it's the people in the non-technical fields who are overly concerned about the social graces.

For C-Suite and upper management working with and in groups is usually essential. This is why it is so prevalent in business schools. You have to know how to delegate and gather good ideas/solutions from smart people you trust and then find a way to enact them to produce chance or results. Large organizations simply can't be effectively run by one person. I HATED group work in business school, but at the same time it's too much to ask one person to write a quality 60+ page business plan on their own in the time given. Yes, there are always people that shirk their duties, but learning to deal with that mirrors real life and is also part of he skill set gained in the process.

It doesn't take any particular social skill to delegate tasks and cull good ideas and solutions from other people...it takes smarts, knowledge, and experience. But I get where you're coming from now. The world you're talking about is completely different from the world I work in. Yes, social skills are more important in a business environment. I, for instance, would be a terrible salesman. I could never be a broker and make cold calls. And I have absolutely no desire to conduct business with the general public because I understand very well what that entails and requires. Many people working in a business field would get their feelings hurt working with a bunch of engineers. I hate having to deal with non-technical people and where I work I rarely have to.

A technical environment is very different from a business environment. For one thing, in certain technical fields you are dealing primarily with men. Supervising a group of mechanics or electricians in a power plant, or other plant environment, is entirely different than supervising office workers. This is sort of a self-solving problem because generally speaking people inclined towards business or office work don't gravitate to technical fields and people in technical fields generally aren't interested in the kind of office work you're talking about. I could do accounting, for instance, but have zero interest in it and would be bored to tears in less than a week. I like solving technical problems and making things work and couldn't care less about solving business or financial problems. In fact, most of us in my line of work pay little attention to the business side of things and consider bean counters to be obstacles to making things work right.

And let me apologize beforehand...I don't mean to be insulting...but upper management....ugh....in my experience upper management is nothing but brown nosers and yes men. I have zero desire to make the personal compromises necessary to be part of upper management. I used to work for a very large company that in the scheme of things I'd probably rate as better than average, and certainly better than most. Yet upper management was rife with liars and schemers working to serve their personal rather than company interests. They eventually sold out the company for a big personal payday at the expense of employees and shareholders. Even before that most of what they did was concoct what amounted to scams to put more money in their own pockets, forcing employees to play games to reach meaningless "goals" and "targets." Really, this was one of the better companies out there...I had friends who worked at much worse companies. My oldest has come into contact with numerous people who worked for horrible companies and I shudder to think what most other management is like.

[chuck j]

There has been a surge of Christian/private schools open in the last ten or so years . This is a testimonial to the failing of public schools , that is obvious . I would get out and pick up beer cans or sweep parking lots at night to keep my children out of a big city public school .