Where did the questions come from?
Where did the questions come from?
I once did an entire Scarlet Letter assignment for one student, using
google.com to find the answers.
I did read the book 40 years ago... but.. that was not much help.
I answered all the questions in about 2 hours, using google and string
search. The student that I helped was full blooded native American
on a reservation. Analyzing the Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne was
something they found alien and daunting. They had grown up in an
environment of material and intellectual poverty. After a few help
sessions, they continued on their own in highschool without asking for
further help.
Even Jesus needed help carrying the cross. We all need help once in a
while. Was Jesus cheating when Simon of Cyrene helped carry the
cross? Sometimes, help means cheating, and sometimes it means
something else.
Is lying always bad? The midwives Shiprah and Puah lied to Pharoah
about the Jewish women being too lively, and giving birth before they
could arrive. These midwives told a "noble lie" to save lives, and it is
said that God rewarded them. When the Nazi officers ask us "have
you any Jews in your basement", do we tell a lie or do the truth?
Once upon a time, a young Buddhist monk had just taken his first
vows, not to lie, and not to cause harm to living beings. He was
walking in the forest, when suddenly a frightened rabbit runs by him
and jumps into the bushes. A moment later, hunters arrive, and ask
the monk "have you seen a rabbit?" If he tells them the truth, then
he breaks his vow not to cause harm to living beings, and if he does
not tell the truth, then he breaks his vow not to lie.
Perhaps the answer is to vow never to vow, and to renounce
renunciation.
Sartre warns us about in the first chapter of "Being and Nothingness" that We are condemned to be free, because the act of renouncing freedom demands and exercise of freedom as a prerequisite.
Many students do not realize how much they can do with search
engines, downloads, and string searches plus, things like Sparknotes.
At my age, it is not really "cheating" for me to read Sparknotes, but
rather a way for me to absorb a lot of knowledge that I could not
otherwise obtain (for lack of time and energy)
Such activity broadens my understanding in a rapid fashion and
broadens my foundation.
Sometimes, something like sparknotes will whet my appetite to read
the book itself.
Sometimes... what looks like cheating.... like when I wrote paper for a
student for whom English is a second language ... is really something
quite different.
They could NEVER have done that paper in the time alloted, and they
would have lost their place in the university, and perhaps been back
in the military or the rice fields,... or something even less desirable in
their totalitarian society.
In reality.... what I did for him was like priming a well with water... it
saved him, and he learned from it.
Last night, he had to write an essay, and I was on line, he said hello,
but did not ask for help.
Some young people just dont have the foggiest idea how to think
abstractly,.... or analyze a poem... or things like that...
Its like training wheels on a bike, thats not cheating... neither are
water wings for a novice swimmer... IF ultimatly they learn to swim
and cycle unaided
It all boils down to something in Socrates, in Plato's Dialogues, now
that I think about it...
Socrates had two very different nicknames.... one was Narke (Greek
for stingray, we get the word narcotic from it)...
Socrates would use refutation to STING people and numb them into
the motionlessness of APORIA (no way out, like checkmate)
whereby, like the slaveboy in the dialogue "Meno", they finally admit,
"Ala ma ton Dion O Sokrates, Egoge ouk oida" (by golly Socrates, I
JUST DONT KNOW)
Diotema, Socrates' female guru, taught him that "the Gods do not love
wisdom, because they possess it."
We only love and strive for that which we do not possess. Hence,
PHILO-Sophia (loving wisdom) becomes a continual process (dialectic)
rather than a final state, an achieved goal or arrived-at destination.
If you THINK you possess knowlege, then you will not seek, enquire....
We do not look for that which we assume that we already possess.
We do not question that which we assume that we thoroughly know
and understand.
Socrates' other nickname is GADFLY (who stings up the lethargic
horse of the state)....
When a student feels hopeless and helpless, THEN, Socrates uses
myth, to give them the illusion that they know something.
This illusion is sort of like the positive function of Maya in Hinduism,
and, this is sort of like the Noble Lie of the Republic.
In some ways,.... doing papers for people can be like the Noble Lie....
IF it ultimately gives them hope, and makes them self-sufficient
So, Socrates, and his dialectic method, was like a piano tuner....
tightening and loosening strings, until they "sound" just right...
which was the great insight of Siddhartha Gautama, leading him to
"the middle way"...
Siddhartha was on a river bank, on the verge of death from extreme
asceticism and fasting. Suddenly a boat floated by, with a master musician instructing his young apprentice on how to string a musical instrument. Siddhartha eavesdropped, and heard "Do not make the string too tight, or it will break. Neither make it too loose and slack, or it shall not sound."
Siddhartha suddenly realized "the middle way."
Sometimes, it is ok to eavesdrop.
By refutation, Socrates numbs those who presume to know...
by myth, Socrates enlivens those dead in dispair, who have lost hope
of learning
Education is a constant process of getting "tune ups" to stay in
harmony, on the middle way of the straight and narrow
Now, all this fits in with Plato's metaphor of Dialectic as a weavers
loom, with warp, woof, and a shuttle with runs back and forth
Which also fits in with the Jewish Talmudic notion of "pilpul", of
wisdom as the product of constant conjoining and separation
http://www.sichosinenglish.org/books...achayim/30.htm
"the goal is the dialectic give and take and the pilpul, to raise a
question and offer a resolution"
(pilpul:. a dialectic method of Talmudic study, consisting of. examining
all of the arguments pro and con )
I am currently helping a student in Bahrain to answer the question of
spiritual development in Silas Marner.
http://toosmallforsupernova.org/page050.htm
Looking at Silas Marner, the first pages stress his LOOM, and stress
that he seems suspicious to others, and , perhaps even seems
demonic. Science and philosophy appear demonic to primitive
Christianity.
Those same first pages of Silas Marner also mention the winnowing
fan and the threshing floor.
The loom and weaving is philosophy, dialectic, connoting the
philosophers on the hill of Mars, while the winnowing fan and the
threshing floor is the Christian image of the New Testament.
George Eliot, prior to writing Silas Marner, had translated Feurbach, a theologian with very Humanist leanings... and she had rejected traditional Christianity
Stop and think. The great opposition between Philosophy and Faith
symbolized by the loom, weaving, for dialect (not to mention
dialectical materialism) vs. the Christian images of winnowing fan,
threshing floor, separating the goats from the lambs, the wheat from
the chaff, wheat from the tares. These are powerful images and
symbols.
The manufacturing and synthesis of science and philosophy is transformational and very different from the winnowing and harvesting of a final judgment.
Last edited by Sitaram; 06-26-2005 at 10:43 PM.
ok, gotcha. but will you read them with the kids so you all can discuss them? (just curious.)
-az
shh!!!
the air and water have been here a long time, and they are telling stories.
I.....find it hard to believe the tag line and purpose of this thread, especially the notion that this quiz is posted here by a teacher of anything. the approach seems a little ........................fishy..................... .....no?
Let us try to imagine some situation where a summer teacher really would be justified in feeling angry.
Perhaps this "teacher" has volunteered for some tough inner city situation,... a summer school for gang members who flunked out.... but... the program is mismanaged by someone who is a controlling martinet, and they blindly dictates what is to be done in the course, but with unreasonable expectations, and they hand out all these elaborate questions, but with no answer guide... and meanwhile our noble teacher is also working full time at something else, I KNOW! He runs a needle exchange program and counselling center for addicts.... so the teacher really is angry at the administration, for not supplying the answers...
Now, the bad thing is that one of the gang members in summer school, this tough guy, named "Rooster" with a scar on his face, has this girlfriend who is from a wealthy family, but she has low self esteem, and is attracted to low-life types. But she is always surfing the net, and in fact, she is a member of this very literary forum, and she has an icon with fluffy angels, or perhaps a tinkerbell, and she stumbles upon this very thread, and prints out all the answers, and give them to Rooster, who laughs an evil laugh, cruelly abuses her (which secretly thrills her) and then give out all the answer to the rest of the gang members. (this story has definite potential...)
We can call our story "Tale of Two City Blocks", because the night school, and the councelling center and Rooster's gang hangout turf, are all in the same two city blocks of a dangerous ghetto neighborhood...
The administrative head of the summer program is "Mr. Thrashman", but behind his back, the kids call him "Trashman". I thought of the name from Thrasymachus in Plato's republic, who defines good as doing evil to ones enemies.
The angry summer school teacher's name is Cyrl. St. Cyril brought religion and the Cyrilic alphabet (and literacy) to the Slavs circa 900 a.d.
Cyril is the youngest son of a family of Russian immigrants. He wanted to enter an Orthodox seminary, and become a married priest, and have a parish, and save peoples souls. But things happened and he could not follow through on that dream.
Last edited by Sitaram; 06-27-2005 at 05:22 AM.
Here's a link to just that chapter.
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin...&division=div2
It appears that those questions are completely inappropriate for book 2 chapter 5. Are you trying to flunk everyone?
Last edited by PeterL; 06-27-2005 at 05:09 PM. Reason: addition
Look everyone, we have a comedian on our hands. Apparentley PeterL makes jokes. I might add that he is pretty funny. I mean he made a funny that made me smile, how silly is he?! Well Peter here is what I think about your hilarious, jokes. I think you should seriously consider finding something else to do with your time, besides making smartass comments to me...I dont care about these kids and, yes they will all fail. I am such a great teacher. He he.
Last edited by Scheherazade; 06-29-2005 at 07:47 PM.
You might consider a career where you don't deal with other people.
Last edited by Scheherazade; 06-29-2005 at 07:52 PM.
I will now close this thread as it does not serve its purpose anymore.
~
"It is not that I am mad; it is only that my head is different from yours.”
~
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