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Critical Thought about Senseless Contradictions

Archive for the ‘Simple Living’ Category

Fallacy of Composition: A Senseless Contradiction…

February 9th, 2010

I wrote about the Land Conservation movement a few years back. In light of education reform efforts it’s worth revisiting the senseless contradictions inherent in many debates of this type.

The Land as Place…

The old paradigm has caused a polarity between conservation and development. Therefore developers ‘greenwash’ their plans to appease to conservationists. This becomes a political game.

So we educate learners to become one or the other; a developer or a conservationist. We thereby strengthen the polarization and it becomes a senseless contradiction that has no resolution in and of itself.

Like the cruise control directions to “set your speed a little slower than the person in front of you;” if everyone did this, we would slow all traffic to 35 mph as each repeatedly adjusts their speed downward in reaction to the continually slowing traffic before them. Why 35 mph? Because that is the minimum threshold for operating cruise control. Thus, the dumbing down of the majority, the mediocre mainstream, the leveling of minds to the least common denominator.

What we want adds up to what we don’t want. This is known as the fallacy of composition. Oscar Wilde wrote, » More: Fallacy of Composition: A Senseless Contradiction…

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Posted in Conservationism, Critical Thinking, Education, Environment, environmentalism, Futurism, Government, pedagogy, Population Growth, Simple Living, Sustainability

Tags: Conservation movement Economic growth Education Education reform Environment

Apple’s Contribution is More than Content and Devices

January 26th, 2010

: Image via Wikipedia

I read another blogger today saying the Apple’s tablet is not as important as the content and then going on about the new media subscription platforms that may appear with the iTablet to be announced tomorrow. However, I believe Apple’s intrinsic contribution of value is beyond even their innovative approach to content delivery.

Apple’s real contribution to the world of technology is » More: Apple’s Contribution is More than Content and Devices

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Posted in Biotechnology, Critical Thinking, Education, Futurism, Government, Internet, Simple Living, Sustainability, Technology

Tags: Add new tag apple Industrial Age information age Innovation Technology

My Experiences in Port-au-Prince, Haiti …

January 25th, 2010

A typical Haitian family and all their worldly goods.

The wafting smoke from heaps of smoldering trash greets visitor to Haiti. Baby Doc Duvalier was the dictator during my first visit in 1984. The dreaded Toto Makut (Duvalier’s feared secret police force) were in charge back then. During my next few visits, » More: My Experiences in Port-au-Prince, Haiti …

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Posted in Education, Media, Simple Living

Tags: Haiti Jean-Claude Duvalier port-au-prince

Congressional Mathmatics…

December 8th, 2009

I rec’d this email today…

How many zeros in a billion?

The next time you hear a politician use the
word ‘billion’ in a casual manner, think about
whether you want the ‘politicians’ spending
YOUR tax money.

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend,
but one advertising agency did a good job of
putting that figure into some perspective in
one of it’s releases.

A billion seconds ago it was 1959.
A billion minutes ago, Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
A billion hours ago was the Stone Age.
A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.
A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it.

While this thought is still fresh in our mind, let’s take a look at New Orleans. It’s amazing what you can learn with some simple division.

Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D), is presently asking Congress for
250 BILLION DOLLARS to rebuild New Orleans. Interesting number…
what does it mean?

A. Well… if you are one of the 484,674 residents of New Orleans
(every man, woman, and child)
you each get $516,528.

B. Or… if you have one of the 188,251 homes in
New Orleans , your home gets $1,329,787..

C. Or… if you are a family of four…
your family gets $2,066,012.

Now do the math yourself and figure out how much every man,
woman and child in the U.S. would get if we split among us,
the $800 Billion allocated for the Health-care bill*

*(which requires the formation of 118 new government agencies to manage).

How is your math?

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Posted in Critical Thinking, Futurism, Government, Health, Simple Living, Sustainability

Tags: billion Government health care spending

Community is Not Superficial…

November 5th, 2009

Cooperation is working toward a common goal. Collaboration results in collateral material. However, community may or may not be present and/or result from either cooperative or collaborative efforts.

AND COMMUNITY IS THE GOAL!

Which is why teachers should be careful about assigning cooperative and collaborative work without a clear goal in mind of fostering community.

Community cannot exist without a sense of trust and belonging; a sense that each member’s contribution is valued and necessary; and the belief that what the community produces bears significant impact on MORE than the community itself.

I have pondered this phenomenon a great deal recently due to my position with iMMEDIA and have come up with our Mission statement as follows: Shaping communities of impact through professional development targeting technology integration.

My point is that unless we visionize our student groups with the why; then the “what” and the “how” remain irrelevant and dysfunction results. The assignment may get done but not community resulted and in my opinion, we have done nothing more than drive the herd to market. I find this distasteful to the uttermost.

If there is not impact, members feel like they are given busy work. If the only goal is self enlightenment, members grow tired of the monotony of self centered foci.

If we ask them to cooperate, there must be a bigger reason than the subject matter alone. If we ask them to collaborate, the resulting collateral material should impact a wider audience than the group/class itself. It may work for awhile. But eventually everyone will see through the gloss and look elsewhere to satisfy their innate need to pursue the greater good.

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Posted in Education, Futurism, Internet, pedagogy, Simple Living, Social Media, Sustainability, Technology

Tags: collaboration collateral community cooperation Education pedagogy teaching web2.0

Half a Century Later…

October 12th, 2009

Now I see why we are called the human race. As we get older, we race faster to live life more fully. I’m racing to live life more today than I did ten or twenty years ago. And not necessarily anxiously; just more aware of the value of time as the hourglass runs out.

I feel sorry for the youth. They are still under the illusion they have a lifetime before them. I may have most of my lifetime behind me; but what lies ahead will be much better because I value more highly, the little that remains.

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Posted in Critical Thinking, Health, Simple Living

Technology Integration in the Elementary Classroom

July 1st, 2009

“Without deep reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.”
– Albert Einstein –

As noted by Physicist Albert Einstein in the quote above, we inherently figure out that we exist for others. Spouses exist for one another. Parents exist for children. Children exist for parents. And as educators, we exist for learners. Since our existence for others is a given fact that should be concluded by reasonable folks, the only variable becomes the nature of our relationship to those others for whom we are existing. Do we exist to control, manipulate, dominate, or rule over others? Or do we exist to share, serve, and sacrifice for others? It seems to me the aftertaste of one’s education depends upon whether they were shepherded or merely herded; nurtured or merely driven to market. » More: Technology Integration in the Elementary Classroom

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Posted in Education, Environment, Futurism, Government, Simple Living, Technology

Tags: Education future pedagogy Technology

Mediocrity is the entropy of our future…

June 1st, 2009

Nothing is more dissatisfying than living a mediocre existence day after day. Superficial encounters with friends leave our true selves buried within the tomb of wasted time. So pitifully sad. Where are the visionaries? Where are the trumpet blowers? When will we wake up? Are we so drugged, so stupefied by mainstream status quo rhetoric that tells us everything is as good as it can be? When will we break through the shell of our tenuous existence that hangs by a thread and see our subatomic existence as it really is?

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Posted in Futurism, Mystery of Life, Simple Living

Tags: future mediocrity