Skim Once and Move Along

In tangential response to Is Google making us stupid?:

I used to be able to romanticize the past like nobody's business. These days I can't even get a good reminiscence going. *sigh*

One of the coolest moments ever. Sort of.

Mark your calendars, because Fri Feb 13 23:31:30 UTC 2009 is on its way. Run

date +%s -d 'Fri Feb 13 23:31:30 UTC 2009'

if you want to know why that's interesting. (Ah! Or you can google it instead if you like.)

Worrying About Scared People

Obama isn't scary, but I worry about the people who are scared by him. A friend just pointed out these two articles to me, and I think they shed helpful light on the misguided political path of Evangelicalism in recent years.

• Evangelicalism, Realpolitik and the Gospel


• Slinging Mud and Other Objects

And while I'm on the topic, Obama's Call to Renewal Keynote Address from June 28, 2006, is, in my opinion, one of the best speeches I've heard[1] a politician give on the topic of faith and religion. Those looking carefully might notice that he doesn't state a position on Biblical inerrancy, and he doesn't acknowledge that slavery as described by Leviticus was not identical with chattel slavery as it was practiced in the United States. But those are hardly reasons, in themselves, to reject his claim to be a Christian. His gentle reprimand toward those who "cynically use religion to justify partisan ends" is such a welcome breath of fresh air, especially coming from the lips of the man who is now on his way to the White House.[2]

I think Evangelicals would do well to heed the words of Barack Obama, and not just the words of people who would use scripture or religious authority to incite fear of him.

[1] See a video of the speech here.
[2] In ironic contrast, after you read Obama's speech you might want to note some of the Michael Moore-style (i.e., unfair and unreasonable) mish-mashes of the above speech readily available on youtube, such as the one entitled "Barack Obama Mocks And Makes Fun Of The Bible--No Christian Would Do This".

Some Logic about 6-Day-24-Hour Creationism

[Note: I was really writing about stereotypes and mistakes in doctrinal priority, so I was not very careful to distinguish among various theories of creation. In general, I am critical here of 6-day-24-hour, young earth creationism. --Matt (Sat Oct 25 20:33:40 EDT 2008)]

One day (many years ago), I realized that one of the following must be true:

1. Scientists are in a massive anti-religious conspiracy,


2. scientists are so biased against creationism that they're ignoring vast amounts of creation-confirming data or faking vast amounts of evolution-confirming data,


3. Christians are in a massive pro-creation conspiracy,


4. or Christians are so biased against evolutionary theory that they're ignoring vast amounts of anti-creation data or faking vast amounts of creation-confirming data.

I could easily imagine #4 being true, and within the health-and-wealth section of American Christianism I suspect massive insincerity, so that there is a conspiracy is easy to believe.

Think about the Christians you know (if any), and then think about the scientists you know (if any). Are you clearly in one group or the other? If so, think about the stereotypes you have of the other group. I'll tell you about the stereotypes I have; they are based both on personal interaction and reading works authored by representatives of these groups.

I think every scientist is biased about her science[1], but I think the scientific community recognizes this problem and continues to worry about it and debate ways of dealing with it...just as Christians worry about their interpretations of scripture and continue to debate how to do it properly.

I think every Christian is biased, usually toward what she has been taught. I think a lot of Christians have been taught a particular biblical hermeneutic that posits, as a cornerstone of Christianity, no less, a particular "literal" understanding of Genesis 1-2. I think the majority of these Christians are ignorant about not only the contested nature of biblical hermeneutics within the history of their own faith[2], but also about actual scientific history and practice. I also think the majority of these Christians don't know any practicing scientists (and are therefore willing to believe #1 or #2, above).[3]

I don't think many scientists are in conspiracies, and I don't think scientists' inescapable bias is covering up vast amounts of pro-creation data. I think many Christians ignorantly believe simplistic pro-creation assertions that are not borne out by actual science. Furthermore, I think Christ's command to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind" (Luke 10:27) implies that we need to be intellectually honest, and many 6-day-24-hour literalist creationists are unintentionally breaking that commandment.

When general revelation (creation (the universe), see Romans 1) tells us that, according to our best theories, the Earth is billions of years old, we need to accept that as being probably true.

When I was a child, I was taught that "if you deny 6-day-24-hour creation you might as well throw out the whole Bible!". Then, when I looked into the issue by taking scientists seriously instead of merely reading creationist assertions against them, and in following Christ's command to be intellectually honest, I had to deny 6-day-24-hour creationism...and my faith in scripture was fundamentally shaken because that particular interpretation of those particular passages had been improperly wedged into the foundation of my Christianity. That was 10 years ago, and I'm still struggling with the consequences that unwise teaching had for my faith.

As the book of Job famously illustrates, it's OK to struggle with our faith (or lack thereof), and I think doubt can be quite healthy. But raising particular views about creation to equal importance with the Gospel of Christ is foolish. Beyond that, at this point in history, in my opinion, it violates Christ's command to love the Lord with "all your mind". When a particular interpretation (science) of general revelation (the universe) contradicts a particular interpretation (hermeneutic) of special revelation (scripture), we should be wrestling with that. I see ignorance and wishful thinking in many 6-day-24-hour arguments, and sincerity and a high probability of truth in science's differing conclusions.

One time I had a conversation with a classmate of mine who had some stereotypes about Christians; she seemed to assume that Christians were never serious about science, and always willing to believe whatever would confirm their faith. She seemed surprised to discover that Copernicus was a devout Roman Catholic, and [perhaps less so] that I, too, was a Christian who took science seriously. Christians and scientists alike would do well to foster a healthy respect for each other; we're all bringing personal bias to the problem of interpreting something. Both Christians and scientists have a duty to interpret the universe correctly, and if we're looking for common ground upon which to base a productive discussion of differing views, we couldn't ask for more than all the "ground" that exists.

[1] In his masterful book The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory, Pierre Duhem discusses the difficulty of avoiding bias. (Duhem, Pierre. The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory. Translated by Weiner, Philip P. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. 1982. See page 182.) Duhem is responding to Claude Bernard's work in An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine. (Bernard, Claude. An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine. Translated by Henry Copley Greene. Dover Publications, Inc. New York. 1957. See pages 40-43 for Bernard's discussion of respect for authority within the scientific community.)
[2] For one of the most ancient examples, and to show that old-earth views were not newly invented in the 19th century to accommodate Darwinian theory, consider St. Augustine's commentaries on Genesis. Howard J. Van Till's post at http://www.asa3.org/archive/asa/199804/0345.html might be a good starting point.
[3] Of course, there are very educated, informed Christians who believe in a 6-day-24-hour creation event; I know at least one. I have not found them to be the norm.

[Note: Retitled from "Some Logic about Creationism and Evolutionary Theory".]

Mis-heard

In case anybody else is wondering, "Through constant pained disgrace" != "Through constipated grace".

http://www.lyrics007.com/Metallica Lyrics/Unforgiven Lyrics.html

Enjoyable quotes from Claude Bernard

These both come from his book "An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine", and the context is quite unnecessary to appreciate them.

• "...small eels in mildewed wheat..." (p. 119)


• "...place a small animal under an air pump..." (p. 120)

The Missing Altruistism Gene

Nobody is suggesting that children deliberately and consciously deceive their parents because of the selfish genes within them. And I must repeat that when I say something like 'A child should lose no opportunity of cheating...lying, deceiving, exploiting...', I am using the word 'should' in a special way. I am not advocating this kind of behaviour as moral or desirable. I am simply saying that natural selection will tend to favour children who do act in this way, and that therefore when we look at wild populations we may expect to see cheating and selfishness within families. The phrase 'the child should cheat' means that genes that tend to make children cheat have an advantage in the gene pool. If there is a human moral to be drawn, it is that we must teach our children altruism, for we cannot expect it to be part of their biological nature. [emphasis original]

That's on page 139 of my copy of Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, and the irony is thick. One of the primary purposes of the book is to make some headway on the naturalist's problem of explaining altruistic behavior, and at the halfway point we find this frank admission that the most intriguing part of the project cannot be completed. If naturalism cannot explain human altruism by appeal to our biological nature, then what else is there? We can't escape by claiming it is a social phenomenon, or if we do, we must admit that some propensity toward altruism has been injected into our social nature from somewhere other than our biological makeup. Either biology completely explains who we are, or it does not. If it does not, then naturalism finds itself in a philosophical pickle.

It's difficult to see how a naturalist can ever fully back up the claim that we "must" (or "should", or "ought to") teach our children anything about morality, since that's exactly the issue at question for the naturalist. To put it bluntly: If we need to teach our children altruism because it is biologically unnatural for them, then it is also biologically unnatural for us, so what is the explanation for our conviction that we ought to be teaching it at all?

I have not yet read beyond the chapter-ending quote above, so perhaps Dawkins makes more headway than he seems to admit here. But if not, then not even Dawkins thinks he's made any real dent in a theist's argument that human morality is not satisfactorily explicable within the framework of naturalism. In fact, a theist might be very much in favor of the idea that the human propensity toward altruism has been injected into our social nature from somewhere non-biological.

[Mon Sep 22 10:22:55 EDT 2008 Edit: I accidentally misspelled "altruism" in the title. The error was pointed out to me and I fixed it...and then realized that "altruistism" is not only amusing (to me, anyhow), but actually kinda gets at a helpful idea. So I'm replacing the misspelled word.]

If friends were...

Seen in various and sundry places: "If friends were flowers, I'd pick you."

If friends were roses, I'd cut you.
If friends were whiteboards, I'd erase you.
If friends were baggies, I'd pop you.
If friends were markers, I'd cap you.
If friends were ice cream, I'd freeze you.
If friends were geese, I'd cook you.
If friends were deer, I'd hunt you.
If friends were photos, I'd frame you.
If friends were packages, I'd post you.
If friends were doors, I'd shut you.
If friends were matches, I'd burn you.
If friends were fences, I'd paint you.
If friends were seeds, I'd plant you.
If friends were rifles, I'd shoot you.
If friends were clothes, I'd launder you.
If friends were pianos, I'd play you.
If friends were cars, I'd wax you.
If friends were shoes, I'd wear you.
If friends were footballs, I'd kick you.
If friends were cabbages, I'd boil you.
If friends were potatoes, I'd peel you.
If friends were pizzas, I'd slice you.
If friends were onions, I'd chop you.
If friends were marshmallows, I'd toast you.
If friends were burgers, I'd grill you.
If friends were video games, I'd beat you.
If friends were nails, I'd pound you.
If friends were laundry, I'd wring you.
If friends were glasses, I'd empty you.
If friends were cans, I'd recycle you.
If friends were pistols, I'd fire you.
If friends were food, I'd eat you.

The Shakiest Gun Shot Liberty Valance (and missed)

A couple of weeks ago I was suddenly struck by some memories of a movie I watched repeatedly as a kid: The Shakiest Gun in the West. I remembered the line "...a...seven-shooter?" and realized that entire scene was a comedic riff on a much better film, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Just now I happened to read the plot synposis of Shakiest Gun, and even the basic premise (educated/effeminate wimp sets out to civilize the west) is borrowed from Liberty Valance. It's probably been at least 14 years sine I watched Shakiest Gun...maybe I'll keep it that way. My fond memories of Don Knotts might be safest left alone.

My Canterbury Tale

I wrote the following when I was a senior in high school. Our assignment was to draw a character from a hat (I drew "Methodist minister") and add that character and his/her story to Canterbury Tales. So my classmates and I wrote introductions and then stories from our characters' perspectives.

I did have a couple semi-conscious inspirations for the story; one came from Twain and the other from Chaucer (of course). In the years since I wrote this story I've also encountered Robert Burns' "To a Louse", which may seem a likely inspiration though it wasn't. (I highly recommend reading it.)

Please forgive the spelling and grammar mistakes, the repetitive vocabulary, the stereotypes a teenager in Nebraska in 1997 had about people in Alabama in 1895, and the assertion that hard work and loving families don't promote good learning and common sense.

-- Matt Oquist, June 12, 2005 (updated October 25, 2007, and May 11, 2008)

---

Original text
Methinks, my brethren, that I have a tale so spun that all the Boy Scouts in America could not unravel its plot. I shall place the populace of my anecdote in Wefarthere, Alabama, in approximately 1895.

Now in Wefarthere there lived a young lady whom was called Dottie. Dottie Smythe was one of the simple folk who inhabited the region. Among her peers were the children of blacksmiths, mill workers, and farmers alike, all working their bones raw to provide for their families. They were a rather close lot, as people of this sort tend to be. Neither hard work nor a loving family promote good learning and common sense, however, and Dottie was lacking in both.

Now Dottie was a girl at the tender age of 14. She was at that point at which a girl is transformed into a woman by the ver-present and watchful mother, who offers advice and gives counsel for whatever situation may develop.

It came to pass that, one Sunday as they sat in church, Dottie's stomach began to growl. Now Dottie, although simple minded, was not ignorant to the workings of the gastrointestinal mechanisms. She knew if a stomach goes "rrrwwwwulg," it means "I'm hungry, feed me." She knew "ppbbtp-p-p-pt" with a slight tingling at the bottom of the throat meant gas was on its way up. She also knew that a "ppbbtp-p-p-pt" with any sensation at all at the other end of the system meant gas was moving towards that end.

Now Dottie was used to her mother's watchful eye, and she knew the listening ear was present as well. She glanced at her mother. With relief, she noted that as of yet, Mrs. Smythe had not noticed the digestive disturbance. Dottie concentrated on sitting up straight, with her back to the back of the chair, leaving her midsection relaxed and in the least stressful position possible. For a time, this worked. Soon, though, the noises started up again, and this time Dottie could feel the muscles contorting and working themselves into strange positions.

She quit concentrating on her stomach altogether, and tried listening to the sermon, in hopes that the lack of attention would make her tummy settle down.

It was a right lively sermon, with the pastor jumping up and down, and running to and fro in front of the congregation, holding his arms in the air and gesticulating wildly. "hallelujas" were ringing out from all quarters of the congregation, and the preacher himself added one here and there. Presently, however, Dottie's stomach simply intensified its efforts to be heard and attended to. Dottie's mother had now noticed these gurgles, and was giving Dottie looks of reproval.

Now Dottie knew it was unladylike to let one's stomach rumble, so she tried hard to stop it, but Lord, no, it could not be quelled, try as she might. Needless to say, it was driving Dottie batty.

Now Dottie began to get more uneasy. Without a doubt, the gurgle was signaling a gaseous substance, and she had begun to sense the most queer ticklish feeling in her lower abdomen.

She was not slow to realize what the situation was. Determined that never should gas pass from her in church, she wedged her rear end into that pew, crossed her legs, and tensed her muscles, resolute in her determination.

She concentrated on the pew in front of her. It was a strong, sturdy pine, stained dark brown as all the others. The grain stood out sharply, following the contours of the pew as if the contours had been there first.

She noticed an old lady two pews up. Her white hair was curled and relatively short, as most older womens' is. A fly had nestled itself in it, and the older lady seemed not to notice.

Gurgle. There went her stomach again. She gave a quick, sideways glance toward her mother. Mrs. Smythe must have been listening for some time, judging by the look on her face. The corners of her mouth were pulled down so far she thought they would be pulled off her face, and there was fire in her eyes. Dottie's heart skipped a beat. She would have some explaining to do later, after church.

Quickly she turned her attention back to the fly. It was now buzzing around in the woman's hair, seemingly in circles. Dottie stifled a laugh, and thought "That old lady should get that fly out of her hair before the situation becomes even more embarrassing."

Suddenly, without warning, that's what the old woman did. She reached up and gave herself a tremendous "THWACK" on the back of the head.

The fly was now dazed, and it managed to find its way out of the hair maze and begin flying in confused, lopsided circles in the air.

Dottie's stomach chose that moment to let go with a tremendous groan and her mother's whispered "Dottie!" made Dottie squirm.

The fly did another circle, the preacher another "Hallelujah!", and Dottie's stomach again made a loud, offensive noise. This time her mother's "Dottie!!" was not so quiet. After a hurried glance of acknowledgment to her mother, Dottie began to panic. She could feel a lot more activity going on in her midsection now than before. What if she could contain herself no longer?

Now pressure is an interesting thing. Released a little at a time, such as when one blows through a straw, it is hardly noticeable, just a soft "Phooooooh." Released all at once, such as when a balloon pops, it can be very noisy.

Well, Dottie had been allowing pressure to build up in her digestive system for so long, that it came to the point where all her muscular control was no match for the raw power of nature. All the pent-up gas was released in a belch from the bottom so forceful that the hymnals rattled five pews over.

Before the entire congregation could even turn to locate the source of the rude noise, Dottie's mother stood up, her face bright red. Dottie recognized the signs and mentally prepared herself for a very humiliating public tongue-lashing. Her mother's nostrils were flared, and her mouth was wide open. She sucked in a huge breath with which to initiate a verbal tirade.

At that moment, the unfortunate fly happened to be flying directly under her mother's nose. It was sucked in with the large intake of air, directly through the right nostril and into her windpipe.

This was not a good thing to happen to Dottie's mother, who immediately began coughing and clawing her throat, trying to rid herself of this annoying tickling thing. Dottie's father was, of course, deeply concerned, and, with the curious congregation watching the whole spectacle, tried to ask her what was the matter. She, attempting to look proper and dignified, with her purple face, bulging eyes, and hair rapidly coming undone, couldn't tell him.

So it ended that the Smythes went to find the doctor, who was a Lutheran.

The three elderly women in the back pew immediately leaned in toward each other to discuss the situation.

"Dreadful." said the first.

"Shocking!" said the second.

"Indeed," said the third. "Mrs. Smythe should know better than to pass gas in church by now."

I'm a Metallica fan.

I considered my fanhood official when (after deliberation) I purchased a Master of Puppets t-shirt this year.

Having grown up in the wastelands of CCM, I've been playing cultural catch-up since sometime toward the end of high school (mid-nineties). I now own and listen to every Metallica studio album, as well as Garage Inc. and S&M. My experience over time has followed this pattern:

1. I hear a Metallica song I don't know, and I enjoy the sound.


2. As I listen to the song repeatedly, at some point I catch a bit of the lyric that interests me.


3. I look up the lyric and realize that James Hetfield is actually singing seriously and with depth about a weighty topic that interests me.

The first occurrence of this was when I borrowed Ride the Lightning from a friend at work in 2001. I got to the song Creeping Death and realized that it's about the 10th plague of the Exodous -- hardly the sort of thing I was expecting from one of the four defininitive 80s thrash-metal bands.

Fast forward three years, and I hear S&M being played at a friend's house. I decide I like the sound (of course - I like film scores and Michael Kamen arranged and conducted!) and purchased a copy for myself. I also purchased their self-titled 1991 album around this time. Sometime during the next year of listening, the lyrics of Through the Never sank into me and I realized how thoroughly this band was considering the same philosophical questions that preoccupy me. (I also recall contrasting that song with Joe Diffie's "Third Rock From the Sun", which I believe is inclined toward a darkly humorous escapism.)

In addition, Holier Than Thou echoes Christ's teaching in Matthew 7, and The God That Failed is about disappointment when God fails to meet our expectations. This was likely written in relation to the death of Hetfield's mother, though I believe the title phrase is a double entendre referring also to Christ's unexpected self-sacrifice.

Conversations with friends left me with low hopes for Load, but I've been very pleased over the past three months to come to appreciate "Bleeding Me", "Thorn Within", and "The Outlaw Torn". Additionally, I could listen all day to Hetfield singing

My body my temple / this temple it tilts

in The House that Jack Built. (Now I want a Load t-shirt, too.)

I'm not settled on this, but I read Bleeding Me as a reflection on the consequences of being part of fallen humanity.

The Outlaw Torn is a beautiful and plaintive prayer -- one I pray regularly, but more quietly, more privately, and with fewer guitars.

Thorn Within demonstrates that Metallica has a better understanding of sin than most culture-shunning American Evangelicals.

As so often happens when I have an idea, it turns out that somebody else has already had that idea and done something significant with it. (For example, Augustine pre-empted me on a theology of God and time.) In this case, it just now occurred to me to search for "Metallica theology" to see what other people have said, and lo and behold! Metallica and Philosophy is available for purchase.

So I decided to write this up now, before I read that book. In any case, I think there's plenty of room for a whole adult Sunday School curriculum built around serious consideration of Metallica's music...but I'm not going to search for "Metallica Sunday School" yet. I need to give my wounded sense of originality a break for now.

STOP global climate change! Really?

One of the sponsors of NPR (at least in the NH-area) is wecansolveit.org, and their NPR tagline claims they want to "stop global climate change". They don't want to, say, eliminate human influence on the global climate (if there is any that is significant...), they actually just want to stop the whole darn climate from changing, period. Pesky physical processes of the universe, always shifting things around when it's most inconvenient for us. I assume the tagline is simply an unfortunately shallow and hysterical distortion of the actual views and goals of the people at wecansolveit.org. But the fact that this tagline has been playing on the radio -- for weeks at least -- is still an indicator of how carried away it is easy to get about global climate change.

I suspect that we would do better in the long run to focus on a much better understanding of global climate change and plans to mitigate harmful consequences for humanity of such change. And, in the meantime, we should continue to make serious efforts to transition to using renewable energy sources, especially ones that don't contribute to a global food crisis. I hope I'm not the only one who finds it ironic that people who want to "stop global climate change" are sponsoring NPR reports about how biofuel initiatives are contributing to a global food crisis. At least they're sponsoring NPR; I suppose that's one measurably beneficial effect of their organization.

Volition's Crucial Ignorance

Of the papers I've written, this is my current favorite; I think it's always fun when I manage to find an excuse to worry about free will and determinism. In this paper I argue that ignorance is fundamental to volition, whether we like it or not.

Kant's Critique of Pure Reason

I wrote this paper for a class on Kant. You might find it interesting, or not. Be warned -- reading Kant is like chasing very important and delicious butterflies through a minefield. In this paper I've attempted to collect a few of the butterflies in a small room, so perhaps you will find the morsels closer to hand, and, I hope, just as tasty.

Can you spot the odd man out?

This sample box of cereal showed up with our daily newspaper the other day. Maybe someone should've spent a bit more time in the photo editor, because one of these things is not like the others.



UPDATE: I've been told that this image is used on lots of Curves packaging, and on other printings it's more obvious that she's wearing another shirt underneath. It looked awfully suspicious on the box I had. *shrug*

HP7: Beautiful

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is a beautiful book. Once in the past I began commenting on a book in IRC immediately after finishing it, and I later regretted my haste. In the future I'll probably become more critical of this book, as well. But I announce right now that I believe it is beautiful work.*

Pullman, eat your heart out. The hollow hope that motivates your work can never bring satisfaction to your readers the way that works by J.K. Rowling, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien have done, and will continue to do throughout coming decades. The conventions and types upon which they rely work because they strike a chord of truth that resonates in the soul. As long as you keep playing your same shrill song, you'll just have to get louder and worse to continue to get attention...and you were already embarrassingly shrill in The Amber Spyglass.

John Granger, POMPOUS STYLE NOTWITHSTANDING, got the most important stuff right, writing way back in 2002. Good for him.

* This is to be taken in complete separation from my previous post containing predictions about HP7. As I acknowledged there, Rowling had much better ideas than I was willing to imagine she might.

Prediction: Harry Won't Make It

I, like almost every other Harry Potter fan, have been wondering for years whether Harry will be alive at the end of book 7. Until last week*, I was still wondering.

At this point, I'm convinced that he won't be; I'll be disappointed if he is, actually.

I'm sure Rowling's got loads of much better ideas than I have, but I won't be surprised if Harry dies in part because he's saving the life of Draco Malfoy or Severus Snape. Or perhaps Snape will sacrafice himself to save Harry**, and Harry will die defeating Voldemort and simultaneously resucing Draco.

Of course, there is this enormous question of who else has been collecting Horcruxes, and I haven't the slightest idea how that character may fit into all this.

That's all. I expect I'm the 37,253rd blogger to make this prediction.

* Yes, Joe, our conversation was the turning point.
** I'll be surprised if Snape is actually evil; it will just be too delicious if he's good.

Technology in Education: The Bad (rant warning)

I am increasingly of the opinion that having any classes whatsoever on "applications" is definitely the wrong approach. The proper [and advanced] use of applications is something that should be built into the rest of the curriculum; learning "how to use applications" when there is no purpose at hand is boring and useless, and quickly forgotten. Instead (for example), math classes should use advanced spreadsheet graphing and statistics, English classes should use the word processor and presentation tools, Industrial Arts/Vocational/Career & Tech. Ed./New PC Buzzword classes should use CAD programs, and so on and so forth. (Note that I deliberately did not name "PowerPoint", "OpenOffice", etc. As much as possible, education should be product-agnostic.) However, there is still room for a technology curriculum, and the content of that curriculum should be actual technology concepts, not technology usage. That is, programming, data management, systems administration, etc.

Am I open to changing this opinion? It is constantly changing, and I don't pretend to have all the answers, or the definitive answer. I've never studied a single bit of curriculum design. So I openly admit that I may be wrong, or at the very least that I may overestimate what is possible in real-world classrooms with real-world teachers and real-world students. But:

• I went through high school in the mid-late 90s (so I've been a student under a curriculum like those I'm criticizing).


• I obtained a B.S. in Computer Science after that (so I'm a user and a programmer).


• I have worked as a software engineer and I still write code for a living (so I know what the marketplace is actually like, and what aspects of technology education pay off in the real world).


• I now work for a school district, and my wife is a teacher (so I've been in and witnessed classes like those I'm criticising, I talk with quite a few teachers and technical folks who work in educational environments, and I've seen very exciting alternatives to what most schools are spoon-feeding today's kids).

I simply can't help but point out what I believe are serious problems in the approach that is so often currently taken, and point toward what I believe is a vastly superior pedagogy of technology. This is intended to be the first of a three-part series of posts on this topic.

Problems with Current Practices in Technology Instruction

Note: I'm going to speak in very general terms, but of course I realize that most technology teachers don't fit this mold precisely, and I expect that many could do a much better job than I of stating these and other criticisms. Also, note that I'm focused on K-12, though similar ideas apply to other age groups.

Here are some characteristics that typify an impoverished approach to teaching technology:

1. Class or assignment titles such as "Business Applications", "Office Applications", "Word Processing", "Desktop Publishing"


2. Class or assignment titles with company, product, or project names: Microsoft, Macromedia, Inspiration, Autocad, Power Point, Excel, Shockwave, OpenOffice, GIMP, etc.


3. Predominance of classroom instructions concerning mouse movement ("OK, everybody, click on 'File', then click 'New'..."


4. Assignments such as "Write a pretend diary entry"


5. Assignments such as "Pretend you're on a vacation with your family, and create a postcard to send home to Grandma."


6. Programming classes such as "Intro to Visual Basic"

Here are some problems with the above approach:

1. Companies and products go away, and the ones that don't, change. If you think it's important to teach kids how to use the dominant products in the marketplace today, think about how valuable it was to teach kids Word Perfect, or Windows 3.1. Obviously schools will use many software products and projects that are currently dominant, but their dominance should never be the reason for using them (quality and cost to the taxpayers are vastly more important considerations), and nothing specific to a particular version of a product/project should ever be the focus of what is taught. Kids should learn how to teach themselves how to use software, because spoon-feeding them now does them a disservice when the real world will expect them to be dynamic self-teachers.


2. In the above examples technology is taught and used only in an aimless sense that needlessly heightens disinterest. Rote usage of applications is boring. Pretending, when the pretense is uninteresting, is boring. These examples show a lack of creativity on the part of the instructor, and that lack of creativity extinguishes whatever spark of initiative the students may have. But worse than this, the end goal of these assignments is nothing. Who cares about a pretend diary entry? Who cares about a fake postcard from a pretend vacation? One might care about them in English class, but when the students know the object is to learn to use the software there is no motivation to care about the writing, which is the only possibly interesting part.


3. Many kids already know the basics of computer usage...it's the teachers who need classes in computer basics. So much of what passes for technology curriculum today reflects not the needs of students, but the limitations of their teachers. Even most of the kids who don't know the basics don't need the plodding approach that teaches Microsoft Word one semester, and Microsoft PowerPoint the next.


4. Using expensive software in the classroom dampens the opportunities for interested kids to learn outside of class. There is so much Free Software available now that almost all but the most specialized software needs of K-12 classrooms can be met without spending taxpayer dollars, and without denying interested kids the Freedom to explore their interests further at home.


5. I can't imagine a worse first programming language than Visual Basic. Well, I suppose it beats INTERCAL, but that's about it. Any programming environment focused primarily on producing GUIs starts new programmers definitively on the wrong foot. New programmers should be learning the concepts of structured programming and data structures, and the temptation to play with GUIs (and even working in a GUI environment, IMO) is solely a distraction from these core concepts that should be the focus. This isn't to say that writing good GUIs has no place in a HS curriculum...but the "introduction to programming" class isn't that place.


6. Substantial portions of the above curriculum could be directed at monkeys almost as well as to children. Training is when you show people how to use a product. ("Today we're learning Microsoft Word. Click 'File', then 'New'...")


7. A technology curriculum such as the above leaves the rest of the curriculum and the rest of the teachers unchallenged to integrate technology well. There already aren't general purpose "how to use a graphing calculator" classes, because the higher-level math courses include that. There aren't "how to use CAD software" classes because the classes where kids learn to use CAD software are focused on architecture and design. Including any classes in the curriculum that focus on software usage makes it easy for teachers of real subjects to avoid real integration.

Next: Characteristics that typify a rich approach to teaching technology

Ubuntu Network Installs made easy

The following high-level instructions allow you to PXE boot and install Ubuntu just as if you had a CD in the drive.

1. Install an NFS server and a TFTP server on a system on your network.


2. Download the ISO you want to boot over your network.


3. Mount the ISO and copy all the files to the NFS server, and export the directory.


4. Copy the contents of install/netboot from the CD into the tftpboot directory on your TFTP server.


5. Copy vmlinuz and initrd.gz from the CD (you may have to search for them, they're usually in /install or /casper) into the tftpboot directory; rename them to be something unique if you will have more than one version in the directory.


6. Edit pxelinux.cfg/default to point one of the LABEL entries to your kernel and initrd, with the following options to tell casper to mount / via NFS -- your entry should look a lot like these three lines:
   
LABEL edubuntu
kernel vmlinuz-edubuntu-iso
append vga=normal initrd=initrd-edubuntu-iso boot=casper netboot=nfs nfsroot=10.20.1.2:/opt/ltsp/edudesktop-iso --

   nfsroot points to your NFS server and the path to the directory where you copied all the contents of the CD.
   


7. Set the following options in dhcpd.conf on your DHCP server:
   
next-server 10.20.1.2; # this is your TFTP server
filename "pxelinux.0"; # put this in verbatim

   


8. Profit!

man casper for more information about casper, which is what makes this so easy.

Update: This is more fully explained in the Ubuntu community documentation.

Warning: Improper handling of this product may damage your vehicle.

Today I dented the side of my car with a UPS.