New BabySafe Ball Makes Shaking Your Infant Guilt And Injury Free
Posts Tagged ‘Youth’
The Stupidity of Shaking Your Baby … the Old Fashined Way
Thursday, June 4th, 2009The Stupidity of the Time / Money Contraction
Tuesday, March 10th, 2009Many times I come across things that I see as stupid and get annoyed. I must therefore ask myself why is it I am annoyed. And in many cases the answer has nothing to do with altruism or the fact that the intelligence level of the general population is of any real concern to me.
Case in point, the new academic tool www.faismesdevoirs.com (which translates to “do my homework”). This is a site where students can pay as little as 5 euros for the answer to a math problem, or up to 80 euros for an end of term project. Personally I think that the end of term project, which comes with slides and speaker notes, is a much deal than math questions at 5 euros a pop.
It would seem that some academics are annoyed with the concept – who’da thunk it? They are wondering what type of message this sends and what the kids will learn. I’ll tell you what it will teach them –money is a contraction of time.
Each and every time we pay someone for a good or service, we are weighing the following: Which is worth more to me, the money the good/service will cost me or the time it would take to do/make the “thing” myself? Make dinner or eat out? Take a taxi or walk? Buy a house or build it myself? Buy the lumber or grow it myself? In each and every case we are weighing whether we are willing to loose a given number of dollars or would we rather loose a given amount of time.
The basis of this decision can be split into two factors. How much free time do we have, or how soon do we need the outcome (I could build my own house but I would like to have somewhere to live this century); and, how hard do you work for your money. So if a student feels that 5 euros is a reasonable price for a math answer then we have one of two situations. Either they have so much homework that they feel overwhelmed, or, their money is so easily obtained that it has little value for them and they are willing to trade it frivolously. I wager it is a bit of both.
The pressure to perform and compete in school, even as early as elementary school, is constantly growing – “Do well in elementary school so that you can get into a good high school to get into a good college and then into a good university”.
We give kids too much. What ever happened to the days of 12 year olds getting up at 5am and delivering newspapers before going to school? Well, to be quite frank, society happened. I think we would report any parent, willing to let their 12 year old go out alone at 5am, to the appropriate child protection agency. On the other hand, just giving kids more money than they actually need generally encourages them not to value money and work on the assumption that there will always be more when they need want it.
This boils down to the following. The homework website is not teaching the kids anything we do not already teach them ourselves. It is not cheating, it is living in modern society. It is up to parents and teachers to ensure that the amount of homework a child gets is appropriate and that they are taught to value money as a limited resource and not to be used to solve any little issue. Don’t blame to solution, blame the situation that causes the need or supports the use of it.
Timmy out.
The Stupidity of Youth
Saturday, March 7th, 2009A recent survey conducted by German Broadband association Bitkom found that 84 percent of 19-29 year olds said they would rather do without their current partner or an automobile than forgo their connection to the Web. Living without a mobile phone was also unthinkable for 97 percent.
Now most people would tell you that I am somewhat attached to my internet connection and all sorts of tech gadgets, however, I would neither give up my wife nor my car for the web. An affirmative answer to a question regarding willingness to give up partner and or car can only be made by someone who lives in their parent’s basement and is intimately involved with one or both of the palm sisters. If a romantic stroll means walking to the bathroom for the hand cream and your keyboard has a neoprene cover then I can understand the answer the prediliction for technology.
GROW UP! Period. If a majority of people, and we are referring to more than a 4:1 ratio, would give up their partner and/or car to play World of Warcraft then we have a serious social issue. If human intercouse is so unappealing to 84% of those about to enter the workforce then the world is a very screwed up place we are placing out future in a very precarious position.
As for the unthinkable of living without a cell phone statistic … *shakes head* The need, and I stress need, for a cell phone is completely fabricated by the cell phone industry. Because I am an analytical type, I have kept a detailed list of all of the times that having a cell phone has allowed me to get a job, intervene in a medical emergency, prevented someone from sustaining injury, or allowed me to significantly benefit in some other way. In order to get included on my list the lack of a cell phone would have had to cause me to loose out on the particular opportunity.
To date, with close to 15 years of cell phone use my list comprises exactly 0 items. Nil. Nada. Zip. Zilch. That is not to say that it hasn’t been very convenient on several occasions, but to say that life without it would be unthinkable is absurd.
Many of the problems in todays modern world are due to the fact that people cannot or will not interact in a meaningful way. Unfortunately, while technology allows us to pass information around more efficiently, it is removing our ability to communicated effeciently, if at all.
Timmy Out.