All posts by Michael

Education, Links

Lenz on Learning: “What grades are good for”

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I bumped into an amusing post on an inactive blog. In five quick, tongue-in-cheek points, Evan Lenz explains what grading teaches you:

2. An abdication of responsibility

Grading encourages you to abdicate all responsibility for evaluating your own learning. That’s somebody else’s job. Other people know better about not only what you should be learning but how well you are learning it. This is their game, and it’s your job to play it. Why you would want to learn something, what you would apply it to, what meaning or importance it has for you, what enjoyment you get from it—these are completely irrelevant to your grade. So why even pay attention to these considerations? They are a waste of time. They’re not going to help you pass that next test.

Read the rest over at Lenz on Learning.

Government

Everything’s political

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Oh, you don't care about politics? That's cool, the rest of will decide you future for you.Everything you do is political, because not trying to change anything is simply working to keep things as they are.

There’s a song by Skunk Anansie called Yes, It’s Fucking Political. I don’t it hear often, but I’m hearing right now. When I first heard it several years ago, I don’t think I really understood it. “Yes, it’s fucking political! / Everything’s political!” Seemed kind of vague. I only really understood it a few months ago, reading an interview in unerzogen magazin with a couple who decided not to tell anyone outside the family about their young child’s biological gender. The point was made there with incredible clarity, and I’d like to argue it here. Continue reading Everything’s political →

Links

Chris Hedges: “Murder is not an Anomaly in War”

Link

I find myself, for once, at loss for words. Despite growing up in what is essentially a warzone, I have had the ridiculously good fortune of never experiencing the horror of war first hand. In a thoughtful and powerful piece of writing, Chris Hedges has managed to transport a small taste, which I can only implore you to read if you haven’t yet. And you’ll want to sit down first, I think.

Chris Hedges: Murder is not an Anomaly in War (TruthDig)

A Hebrew translation, along with some discussion, is available over at Idan Landau’s blog (his post alerted me to the existence of this piece. H/t.)

Meta comment: I haven’t been posting lately – these link posts don’t count – not for lack of ideas or words, but mainly because I’m spending a very big chunk of my waking hours in (academic) writing and having a hard time finding the time to properly formulate blog posts. I hope and assume that I’ll get posting again at some point soon, but no promises.

Internet, Language, Links, Science

New blog discovered: the “because” charade

Link 1 Comment

I was recently delighted to discover that Daniel Harbour, one of the linguistic theorists I’ve most enjoyed reading, has a blog – about language and also other interesting topics. It’s called the “because” charade, and here’s how he explains that curious name:

My blog is called the “because” charade because what follows the word because (in a lot of discussion of science, ethics, politics, religion, …) is rarely a reason, or reasonable, or rational. And I believe that we’d all be better off if reason(ableness) played a bigger part in public life.

Recent topics have included the Pirahã controversy – an important linguistic debate, which he explains in terms a layman can understand – and the theory of evolution. A pleasure to read!

Internet

There’s a genocide going on in Syria?

There are photos on Facebook proclaiming that “THERE IS A GENOCIDE IN SYRIA”.1 The Assad regime is, no doubt, committing mass atrocities2 for which there can be no forgiveness, and for which those responsible must be brought to justice. And it is admirable that people on the Internet are trying to raise awareness of the situation there. However, the use of the word “genocide” to describe these crimes against humanity is a dangerous inaccuracy. Continue reading There’s a genocide going on in Syria? →

Footnotes

  1. This link may not work forever, but some are here: “Share It if You Care” [↩]
  2. As of this writing, Genocide Watch have a page with a detailed update from February, but there is no permanent link available to the specific update. [↩]
Education, Games

See the good in video games: just like in books

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Illustration. Courtesy of the lovely Sabine Günther.

It’s often been said that the moral outrage around video games is the result of a generational gap: most people born before, say, 1970, are unfamiliar with video games, and as a result, they’re afraid of them. This speaks to the negative impressions involved in the debate, and seems to make sense. But the fact that so many people fail to see the immense value, the huge potential for good, in video games, is another matter. I think this part is due to widespread confusion between medium and content. Continue reading See the good in video games: just like in books →

Israel

Book Review: The Source, by James A. Michener (1965)

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Cover of "The Source"
Cover, via Amazon

I recently finished reading an amazing book about Israel and Jewish history, written over 20 years before I was born. The Source, by James A. Michener, is a thick tome spinning an intricate web of fictional stories spread out through the realistic history of a fictional tel1 called Makor (Hebrew for ‘source’) near Acre, in what is now Israel. In retrospect, I probably should have kept a reading diary, because there are so many things in this book I would like to comment on. Continue reading Book Review: The Source, by James A. Michener (1965) →

Footnotes

  1. A tel is a hill composed of layers over layers of civilization; these things are everywhere in Israel. [↩]
Education, Games, Links

Peter Gray on Video Games

Video 2 Comments

Peter Gray, my favorite education blogger, has recently written two posts I can highly recommend:

As always, Peter does a great job of supporting his point with research, and writing some sobering posts about video games is a much-needed service for democratic schools, as well as for parents everywhere. It’s also nice to see how much his well-founded and academic post matches what I wrote about game addiction two years ago based only on anecdotal evidence.
Meta

Commenting restricted

Aside

Over the past couple of days, for some reason, Akismet has not been catching spam anymore, meaning I get a good 10-20 e-mails a day about spam comments awaiting my attention. Until this is figured out, I’ve restricted comments so that you have to be signed up to comment.

I addition, the problem I mentioned a few months ago, where someone posts a comment and it gets lost without a trace, is apparently still ongoing.

I’m sorry for the inconvenience.

If anyone has any idea about either of these problems, your input would be appreciated. I will look into them as soon as I can and see what can be done.

EDIT (April 2012): The problem fixed itself somehow. Commenting is now open for all.