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WEll… Tommorow at school I have this BIG test; A pre-exam in math. I’ve been preparing for weeks, doing tests, reading, writing notes etc. But not that many exercises, because they don’t seem to help. Then again, neither does my new strategy, I just have to face that when math isn’t about economics or logic puzzles I’ll never find it interesting. And it isn’t much of a secret that uninteresting subjects are rather challanging to prepare for, right? Well here I am, procastrinating the night before the test with the biggest impact on my allready poor grade. Which sucks, I am generally a 5-6 grade student. (B-A for americans?)
One of my other classes, one I am rather good at, is sociology. So i figured I’ll do what all sociologists worth his weigth would do; I’ll blame the society; or rather, the school system. The reason I feel justified to do this is because whilst our society have been expanding in a humongus speed since the industrial revolution, the school systems haven’t really changed that much since the 1800’s. Sure the system is somewhat more liberal to student opinion, female participation and the books might be newer; but at it’s core it’s the same freaking thing. So I have some suggestions on how to improve the great experience of learning for any and all student out there.
1: Experience points.
Yes, I am serious. If teachers grant points for everytime you deliver a task, complete a test, write an essay or get an answer correct in class the feeling of progression would increase thus motivating students to participate more in the educationsystem. Which feels better: seeing a C+ in your grade book, or looking at that progress bar seeing you’re just a few more points away from leveling up? You know it. What if when 3 students in your class gained 10.000 points the entire class gain aditional bonus points? That could really lead to better cooperation between students instead of unhealty competition that might occour in the present system. Unlockable perks and/or achivments for a class would make the experience more fun, wouldn’t it? The grade system wouldn’t even have to change, just make a certein amount of XP worth a grade, or a “level”. (Thanks to ExtraCredit for the idea: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/3167-Gamifying-Education)
2: Drop the homework.
Acording to most statistics, too much homework is actually working against it’s purpose. It seems that if you work less than 60 min per day with homework, and have noteable educated parents, you will gain from your work. However if your parents are somewhat “lesser” educated, or you’ll spend over 90 min on the homeworks it only results in tired students with lower score in school and less interest in further education. So we should either cut them completely, or at least minimize them. (source you say? http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1376208,00.html, amongst others.)
3: Less theory, more practical work.
Don’t get me wrong, I am a theoretic guy. As stated before, exerscices and tasks does nothing for me. I learn trough notes and reading; the thing is though, most people don’t. Statistics (again) show that most people learn from experiencing and doing tasks with their hands. So by adding more field trips, games and such to classes a wider aspect of students may gain from them and grades might get higher. Of course, in certein fields this will be hard or even imposible; but we should try to do it wherever we can.
So there’s my steam, I’ll get back to my math and leave you with the content of my head. Untill another time, cheerio.
I had planned an entry about the death of Osama Bin Laden allready on monday, but as it turned out I never really had the time and was sort of hoping someone else would cover it. Since no one seems to have anything remotly sensible enough to write about it in a blog it must be alot of really important buisness going around with my co-bloggers. Anyhow lets get back on the rails:
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, the perhaps most famous conspirator in the world; and beyond any doubt the world’s most wanted man has been found and killed, on direct order from the big man himself. This puts me in an awkward stance, I am by no means sad to see the man go: I am however rather disapointed by the US for not giving the man a trial. By killing bin Laden without first putting him in court the american goverment showed a lack of respect for the Human rights as set by the UN.
They were also saluted for this very act, and I find that very disturbing. For someone to be able to remove any and all inconvenience without putting them to trial sounds like something Stalin, Mussolini or Hitler would do. By all means, I am not saying president Obama is remotely similiar to any of these, but I have to speak out against his methods in this matter. When even the worst Nazi officers who survived world war two were given a trial for their crimes, why shouldn’t that apply to Osama as well? Do the human rights only apply to certein people now? As previously noted I think they should have given him a trial, the man was unarmed when they found him and didn’t really pose much of a threat to the navy seals who cornered him.
I also just want to point out all the sligthly amusing memes that have sprung from this incident, both refering to Osama himself and president Obama. If you’re an internet geek it’s worth checking out and you’ve got to see the religious aspect of it all. Osama believed Allah would award him with a place filled with virgins or something of the like, correct? well after what I hear he ended up on 4chan. That is all, my name is Simen.
Good morning!
I say morning, because I just woke up. This night, in my dreams I had a vision of what socialism will be like in the future. Behold:
For unknown reasons, I become mayor of some town south in Norway, without living there or careing at all. But in this town which I rule, there is a bakery which makes a ridiculous amount of money, several tens of thousands of whatever currency you use (be it Norwegian kroner, dollahs or euros). In my infinate socialist mayor-powers, I nationalize this bakery and use its surplus to construct an awesome new transnational railway.
This railway is awesome because:
- For some reason, it’s blue!
- It is entirely filled with water, and all travelers get heir own scuba-tank
- The food is free, awesome gourmet-food, and for some magicall (probably socialist) reason, the water does not harm it
- It is really fast, and really cheap
- The conductor is a pandabear!
This is what socialism will be like, people. Spread the word!
Vegard
Burnie posted this awesome blogpost, concerning one of the big questions for us revolutionaries. Revolution vs Parlamentarism? If you haven’t read it yet, mozy on over there. I’ll wait for you.
This got me thinking, and rather than writing this in a comment, I feel like putting it into a blog entry.
The revolutionary socialist parties that exist today are small. Well, obviously that differs, but despite how Karl Marx predicted that the socialist movement would be strongest in the countries where capitalism had evolved furtherst (I think it’s safe to say that Norway falls under this category), in the most advanced countries the marxist parties are so small as to barely count for anything. Obviously, Marx was no magician so he couldn’t predict shitdicks like Stalin and Pol Pot messing with his beautiful words, but that’s for another blog entry.
With that in mind, i return to the question I am trying to answer, which Burnie so neatly presented: why are political movements with the end goal of breaking capitalism and establishing a new, more demoractic system, bothering with parliamentary work on the premises of the very system we want changed?
No one can predict when a revolutionary situation arises. When the october-revolution in Russia 1917 started, Lenin was in Europe. He thought it would happen there, and did not think the revolution would come to his homeland anytime soon. Suddenly he got word that the proletariat was marching in the streets, throwing the Tsar! (really, really simplified version, but this is a blog entry not an article for a history-book)
The point of this nice little story, is that you can never predict when a revolutionary situation arises, it can happen quickly, out of the blue. If the socialist party is so small that no one notices it when the revolution comes, there is a chance that the bourgeoisie might stop the revolution, and cling on to their broken system. Or even worse, the revolution might go the other way, and send fascists and nazis into power (nazism is back in europe, another topic for another blog entry).
We do parliamentary elections in order to gain followers, activists and to make people know who we are. So that when the revolution comes, we are strong enough to pull it through and usher in an eara of peace, freedom and everything for free! (sounds better in Norwegian)
I was going to put something in about elections and remnants of parliamentarism after the revolution, but that is yet another topic for yet another entry. So conclusion: parliamentary work is important, as long as we don’t forget the revolutionary ideology by which we swear by. This happens to most parties, they get eaten by the system and forget about socialism. We fight on in our beautiful party because we believe that we will not.
Thanks for your time! Here is an awesome picture of a unicorn, to lessen the wall of text and because data shows that our readers love politics and unicorns:
Vegard
What is this? Yet another writer? Hello world, my name is Simen. Pronounced something close to “Semen”. Have your laughs 😉
I’m 18 years old, a high schooler; Social sciences, and I am, likewise to Bjørn, Vegard and Frida; A member of the norwegian communist party: Rødt. And trough polictical activism I met Bjørn, who offered me to write for BRBcoffee; needless to say, I said yes. The first post is somewhat awkward to write, it feels like I have to write everything about myself. There isn’t really that much to say; I’m from Bodø, Norway. I am a vegetarian and love to cook, I adore the works of Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain and Tolkien. I talk, and think way to much and I will be writing on BRBcoffee from this point on. So please be gentle, it’s my first time. Blogging that is.