I retired fourteen years ago from a history teaching position that had been exhilarating and frustrating. I had one rule for my students that I enforced right to the end. No computers and or smartphones in my lecture hall after they had become ubiquitous on campus. Anyone who dared to disobey that rule I told to leave immediately. I had another rule that caused some consternation among the administrators. I refused to allow student evaluations of my classes. I told my administrative superiors that I did not consider students to be qualified to pass judgement on my academic work, but that any administrator with academic qualifications would be welcome to visit my lectures unannounced at any time. I was given emeritus status upon retirement. Unfortunately, we are now in an educational era where earning “credentials” has replaced critical thinking.
Interesting reading, Bill. You definitely had a grasp of the teaching profession. I love the following statement: " true "collaboration" is achieved not among students working together or with computers, but among students and teachers (and parents) working together, with teachers serving as mentors and role models, guided by a vision of education as a stimulus to individual and social betterment." Every teacher I can remember was a role model, a mentor who stimulated me to learn.
In my opinion our society fails to value teachers. This is reflected in the lack of pay and required credentials in the teaching field (specifically, K-12). I feel that the teaching profession has been relegated to group day care provider. I also think the notion that higher education needs to emphasize employment is extremely problematic. That line of thinking prevents students from attaining a "Renaissance" view or fuller understanding of the world's magic. That is, the social, historic, civic, communication, and artistic classes and experiences are greatly diminished and with it go the student's potential interest and understanding of the world.
I spent the last 25 years of my working life in higher education IT—from Technician to CIO with the last 10 as a consultant working with quite a few colleges and universities. Of course, the 1990’s and early 2000’s saw tremendous changes and adaptations of technology both academically and administratively. It was rather enjoyable when it was about enabling with enthusiastic early adopters eager to put it to some good use.
I’m pleased to honor one such example—a video based distance learning program that offered a new State required Master’s program for speech pathology. Our university provided it through eight sites across Texas, and witnessing students, who completed the program, actually cry when they received their degrees was very moving. Such video links were not the most dependable in those early days, so it took commitment from faculty and students to stick with it.
I also saw too many deans and chairs apply for technology grants with no clear goal to improving student centered learning. Oh, they used the term, but like too many in the academies it was a necessary keyword for the grant application and bore no resemblance to reality in practice. And there was little difference between academic departments and administrative offices.
I was asked by a university president to review the business processes of the admissions department who was forever blaming the administrative software system for their backlog and to see why it “wasn’t working for them.” They had only had one small problem. Transcripts came in, where thrown in a stack by full-time staff while they waited on their student workers to enter them into the system. No one actually bothered to make sure these were getting done. What a shock when students continually called and no one could give them the status of their application. Just as egregious was the “software problem” at a community college who just kept approving student loans. Many students had $60,000 debt and still no degree. At a community college!
I could write a book’s worth. It is certainly true that like most technology, we enter blindly and never do a true accounting.
This 73-year-old retired Structural Engineer noticed a sign in our local town library looking for tutors for "disadvantaged" teenage kids. The only requirement to enroll as a tutor was to pass a Police Background check to see you were not a child molester! Oh dear! I passed.
I hung up my shingle at the center, advertising I would like to teach "WORD®", EXCEL®, and POWERPOINT® on the computer.
In 3-weeks I only attracted one student who always smelled of marijuana. He lasted three lessons before deciding ...too hard!
And always had his head buried in his phone......Tik Tok®????
Student centered learning means indoctrination into the Corp work and political system in public education. It has little to do with learning. It's training for the workforce. The wealthy do not send their children to public school for that reason. Public education in this country is worse than disgraceful. Since the early 1900s the educational system has been designed for training students to enter the labor force, in the beginning that was manufacturing and now it's the service industry. That's why computers are prevalent in classrooms. Students aren't taught how computers work at the fundamental level (bits and bytes) but only how to push buttons.
The schools here in the "Aloha" state resemble prisons more than schools. Police are stationed outside during starting and ending, bags searched and random drug testing required. Discipline is conducted by a mock student court.
I tutored math in college and the math programs here are deplorable. Being extremely naive I decided to offer free tutoring for anyone who needed it. My only condition was a PUBLIC place to work. I tried the local Waldorf school and got an enthusiastic response but absolutely no help whatsoever. So then I decided to try the state library. The head librarian thought it was a great idea so I designed a poster with the details and went back the next day and was informed by him that he'd called his boss (the state head librarian,) and she had said no. "It wasn't a good idea since it had never been tried before".
At the same time I was tutoring an 8 year old girl whose teacher had told her that she "sucked at math". In one month with her once a week she was getting A's and I had her doing beginning algebra 3 or 4 years above her grade level.
So much for civic participation. Is it any wonder that the 70% of Americans are functionally illiterate?
AMERICAN TRANSITION TO IDIOCRACY RUNNING AHEAD OF SCHEDULE
U.S. — Lawmakers and powerbrokers across the United States were proud to announce that America's transition to being an idiocracy is currently running far ahead of schedule.
The shift has been in progress for several decades but has made significant advancements in recent years, with many members of Congress now fully on board and operating as key members of the country's idiocratic government.
"We've become morons much more quickly than we anticipated," said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. "Though it initially seemed like an impossible feat, our hard work to turn the United States into a nation governed by total imbeciles is nearly complete. We've succeeded in weeding out the country's best and brightest and replaced them with drooling dolts. There's now light at the end of the tunnel. The dream of a nation run entirely by idiots is within reach."
Proponents of the transition to idiocracy cited the recent statements made by Texas Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee regarding the moon and sun [ as clear evidence the plan is ahead of schedule [ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sheila-jackson-lee-moon/ ].
Jackson Lee offered a brief comment on the incident. "What I said is correct," she explained. "Once you realize that cars are made of cheese and rain is actually falling tears from crying birds, everything else makes sense."
At publishing time, Jackson Lee had proposed a plan for NASA to launch a mission to colonize the sun.
There should be a Separation of Education/School and State for the same reasons that there should be a Separation of Religion/Church and State.
It is not the function of Government to Meet Human Needs and to Satisfy Human Wants.
The proper function of Government is to Protect Human Rights, and to facilitate the Meeting of Human Responsibilities by the Economy and Civil Society; primarily by the Government's staying OUT of the business of meeting Needs and satisfying Wants.
For the simple reason that the only way Government can meet the Human Needs and satisfy the Human Wants of SOME of its Citizens is by violating the Human Rights of OTHER of its Citizens. And by eliminating the requirement for ALL Citizens to meet their Responsibilities as Citizens and as Human Beings.
Human Rights are: Life, Liberty, Property, Privacy, the Pursuit of Happiness, and, above all else, TRUTH.
Human Needs and Wants are: Health, Prosperity, Security, Literacy, the Pursuit of Wants, and, above all else, PEACE.
Human Responsibilities are to honor and protect the Human Rights of every Human Being, and to facilitate the meeting of the Human Needs and satisfying of the Human Wants of other Human Beings.
The most critical Human Need is for PEACE. For, if there is no PEACE ~ if there is War ~ Human Needs are forgotten, Human Rights are obliterated, and Human Responsibilities are ignored.
The linkage between Human Needs and Human Rights is that there can and will be no PEACE unless and until there is JUSTICE. And there will and can be no JUSTICE until and unless there is TRUTH.
And it is the Responsibility of every Human Being old enough to think for themselves to seek The TRUTH about Everything, particularly when it comes to their government’s waging of War against other Human Beings, and their Society’s and its Economy’s waging of War on the Planet.
You left out what the teacher is to be after mentioning what he/she is not to be - the sage on the stage - and that is the guide on the side. This stuff has been pumped out for decades now.
Speaking for myself, I love a good book that tells me things I did not know, that provides insight on almost every page, that requires re-reading because I know I am not getting all of what the author is saying the first time through.
This reading experience is precisely the sage on the stage speaking to the reader, with no interaction except in the mind of the reader who is eager to learn and fully accepts that the sage knows more and wants to convey it. There can be a bit of frustration for the reader since he/she cannot ask questions with a human standing there to answer them, but this makes the learning experience even more exciting because the reader must work to find the answers by carefully studying the text and referring to other sources, most important, the source the reader has in the head from life experience and from reading material in the past. Careful, dedicated, intense thinking can lead to the light bulb moment of YES - I GET IT -THAT'S IT - I FIGURED IT OUT - NOW I UNDERSTAND!
Education is extremely difficult in our culture of diversions and constant effortless stimulation. I would say a majority of Americans have little interest in making the effort to educate themselves over their lifetimes by doing the work necessary. We are presented with an infinite amount of video and a typical 30 minute video will contain, what, 1% of the information a book might have in it? Can you imagine anyone wanting to re-watch a video as one would be eager to re-read a book as I described above? The result is the Trump Army and the man himself, as ignorant as a stone but inflated with a pride that knows no bounds But his head is not totally empty, it holds the thought that he is the sage on the stage.
Your 2011 commentary is still valid and even more relevant today, I think. Yet we're swimming upstream here, because ours is a society and culture where the 'Siamese twin' that is capitalistic commerce plus technology (which are joined at the hip) drives culture, not the other way around. It's a case of "we can (via technology), therefore we shall"; no pause for questions. Indeed, if it's new and sells, it will almost automatically be fully embraced in all institutions, with little thought to what is being displaced or lost thereby. So your anticipation of AI-displaced human teachers is pretty much right on the money.
I remember a decade or so ago, MOOC were going to destroy universities (with FACTS and LOGIC maybe??) Now apparently hallucinating chatbots and phones that can be Google portals and calculators *but also the gateway to TikTok* are going to destroy the old educational institutions.
Big Tech could use some old fashioned wisdom, much as they hate anything older than one year: ain't broke don't fix.
ISRAEL’S WAR ON GAZA LIVE: BLASTS, SIRENS IN ISRAEL AS IRANIAN MISSILES INTERCEPTED
by Zaheena Rasheed, Lyndal Rowlands and Ali Harb / Al Jazeera 14 Apr 24
*** Air raid sirens and explosions are being heard in cities across Israel, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, as Israeli, US, UK and Jordanian forces shoot down missiles and drones launched from Iran.
*** Tehran says it carried out the attack in response to an Israeli raid on the Iranian consulate in Syria and says the matter can now “be deemed concluded”.
So the Questions become: How will Israel, the United States, and their Allies respond? And then, how will Iran, Syria, and their Allies in Lebanon, Yemen, and elsewhere in the Middle East respond to that response? And finally, how will Russia and China respond to it all?
WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT IRAN’S ATTACKS ON ISRAEL
* Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) said it fired dozens of missiles at Israeli targets in retaliation for Israel’s deadly attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on April 1.
* Iran’s military response marked its first direct attack on Israeli territory and began on Saturday night at about 20:00 GMT.
* Explosions were heard in cities across Israel, including Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem, and air raid sirens sounded in more than 720 locations as Israeli forces sought to shoot down the Iranian projectiles.
* The Israeli military later said Iran launched more than “200 killer drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles” at Israel and that the vast majority of the projectiles were intercepted outside the country’s borders, with help from US and UK forces. It added that a “small number of hits were identified”, including at a base in southern Israel, “where minor damage was caused to infrastructure”.
* Daniel Hagari, the spokesman for the Israeli military, said a girl was wounded in the attack. There were no reports of fatalities.
* Israel’s Home Front Command lifted its order for Israelis to stay near bomb shelters in the early hours of Sunday, at about 00:00 GMT.
* With the attack, Iran’s mission to the UN said it considered the matter of Israel’s raid on its consulate in Syria “concluded” and warned of a “considerably more severe” response “should the Israeli regime make another mistake”.
* The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting requested by Israel at 4pm New York time (16:00 GMT) on Sunday. Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Israel temporarily have closed their airspace while several airlines suspended flights in the region.
Thank You, Bill, for another bottom line, bullet-hits-the-bone commentary and sense making of a “Vexing and Perplexing World,” as You put it.
The following of Your words need to be inscribed in every Hall of Learning, and read each morning after the Pledge of Allegiance by every Student, Teacher, and Educational Administrator and, especially, Bureaucrat:
“The key ingredient to learning (besides motivated students and involved parents) is of course a well-informed, caring, creative, and dedicated teacher or professor. Such a teacher or professor puts her students first not by assigning busywork in the classroom or by embracing fancy and expensive gizmos but by the power of her personality and her commitment to STIMULATING CRITICAL, CREATIVE, AND ETHICAL THINKING.
“In its essentials, great education hasn't changed much since the days of Socrates. It's ultimately about shaping and informing the character of students. It's not only about teaching them the HOW of things, but the WHY. And once they know the WHY, they can make decisions based on ETHICS, based on some knowledge of WHAT'S RIGHT AND WRONG, within educational and social settings that PUT INTEGRITY AND FAIRNESS FIRST.” [EMPHASES added.]
Over the course of American History, the Public Education system of this Nation has produced some very Good and some very Bad results.
The current example of a very Bad result is a population that is totally inert before the Wars and War Crimes that their Government has perpetrated and is perpetuating in Ukraine, Palestine, and soon, someplace with China.
America’s Public Education system has been and is a willing and able companion of America’s Main Stream Media as key elements and agents of this Government’s Department of Censorship and Propaganda.
As noted a couple of years ago here on BV: “ One of the biggest differences between Orwell’s 1984 and today is that we all carry our very own portable, personal Telescreen around with us in our pocket, purse, or bag. Certainly makes the job of the Thought Police a whole lot easier, eh?”
You made mention of AI teachers. I would suppose they will eventually be teaching AI students; that will prevent "undue academic pressure" on the human students. As it is, some studies reveal that over 22 million student essays have already been written by generative AI.
Hopefully it can be avoided, but it appears we're headed to an AI version of "Idiocracy". Brawndo, anyone?
I retired fourteen years ago from a history teaching position that had been exhilarating and frustrating. I had one rule for my students that I enforced right to the end. No computers and or smartphones in my lecture hall after they had become ubiquitous on campus. Anyone who dared to disobey that rule I told to leave immediately. I had another rule that caused some consternation among the administrators. I refused to allow student evaluations of my classes. I told my administrative superiors that I did not consider students to be qualified to pass judgement on my academic work, but that any administrator with academic qualifications would be welcome to visit my lectures unannounced at any time. I was given emeritus status upon retirement. Unfortunately, we are now in an educational era where earning “credentials” has replaced critical thinking.
Interesting reading, Bill. You definitely had a grasp of the teaching profession. I love the following statement: " true "collaboration" is achieved not among students working together or with computers, but among students and teachers (and parents) working together, with teachers serving as mentors and role models, guided by a vision of education as a stimulus to individual and social betterment." Every teacher I can remember was a role model, a mentor who stimulated me to learn.
In my opinion our society fails to value teachers. This is reflected in the lack of pay and required credentials in the teaching field (specifically, K-12). I feel that the teaching profession has been relegated to group day care provider. I also think the notion that higher education needs to emphasize employment is extremely problematic. That line of thinking prevents students from attaining a "Renaissance" view or fuller understanding of the world's magic. That is, the social, historic, civic, communication, and artistic classes and experiences are greatly diminished and with it go the student's potential interest and understanding of the world.
I spent the last 25 years of my working life in higher education IT—from Technician to CIO with the last 10 as a consultant working with quite a few colleges and universities. Of course, the 1990’s and early 2000’s saw tremendous changes and adaptations of technology both academically and administratively. It was rather enjoyable when it was about enabling with enthusiastic early adopters eager to put it to some good use.
I’m pleased to honor one such example—a video based distance learning program that offered a new State required Master’s program for speech pathology. Our university provided it through eight sites across Texas, and witnessing students, who completed the program, actually cry when they received their degrees was very moving. Such video links were not the most dependable in those early days, so it took commitment from faculty and students to stick with it.
I also saw too many deans and chairs apply for technology grants with no clear goal to improving student centered learning. Oh, they used the term, but like too many in the academies it was a necessary keyword for the grant application and bore no resemblance to reality in practice. And there was little difference between academic departments and administrative offices.
I was asked by a university president to review the business processes of the admissions department who was forever blaming the administrative software system for their backlog and to see why it “wasn’t working for them.” They had only had one small problem. Transcripts came in, where thrown in a stack by full-time staff while they waited on their student workers to enter them into the system. No one actually bothered to make sure these were getting done. What a shock when students continually called and no one could give them the status of their application. Just as egregious was the “software problem” at a community college who just kept approving student loans. Many students had $60,000 debt and still no degree. At a community college!
I could write a book’s worth. It is certainly true that like most technology, we enter blindly and never do a true accounting.
This 73-year-old retired Structural Engineer noticed a sign in our local town library looking for tutors for "disadvantaged" teenage kids. The only requirement to enroll as a tutor was to pass a Police Background check to see you were not a child molester! Oh dear! I passed.
I hung up my shingle at the center, advertising I would like to teach "WORD®", EXCEL®, and POWERPOINT® on the computer.
In 3-weeks I only attracted one student who always smelled of marijuana. He lasted three lessons before deciding ...too hard!
And always had his head buried in his phone......Tik Tok®????
Pretty depressing.
Student centered learning means indoctrination into the Corp work and political system in public education. It has little to do with learning. It's training for the workforce. The wealthy do not send their children to public school for that reason. Public education in this country is worse than disgraceful. Since the early 1900s the educational system has been designed for training students to enter the labor force, in the beginning that was manufacturing and now it's the service industry. That's why computers are prevalent in classrooms. Students aren't taught how computers work at the fundamental level (bits and bytes) but only how to push buttons.
The schools here in the "Aloha" state resemble prisons more than schools. Police are stationed outside during starting and ending, bags searched and random drug testing required. Discipline is conducted by a mock student court.
I tutored math in college and the math programs here are deplorable. Being extremely naive I decided to offer free tutoring for anyone who needed it. My only condition was a PUBLIC place to work. I tried the local Waldorf school and got an enthusiastic response but absolutely no help whatsoever. So then I decided to try the state library. The head librarian thought it was a great idea so I designed a poster with the details and went back the next day and was informed by him that he'd called his boss (the state head librarian,) and she had said no. "It wasn't a good idea since it had never been tried before".
At the same time I was tutoring an 8 year old girl whose teacher had told her that she "sucked at math". In one month with her once a week she was getting A's and I had her doing beginning algebra 3 or 4 years above her grade level.
So much for civic participation. Is it any wonder that the 70% of Americans are functionally illiterate?
AMERICAN TRANSITION TO IDIOCRACY RUNNING AHEAD OF SCHEDULE
U.S. — Lawmakers and powerbrokers across the United States were proud to announce that America's transition to being an idiocracy is currently running far ahead of schedule.
The shift has been in progress for several decades but has made significant advancements in recent years, with many members of Congress now fully on board and operating as key members of the country's idiocratic government.
"We've become morons much more quickly than we anticipated," said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. "Though it initially seemed like an impossible feat, our hard work to turn the United States into a nation governed by total imbeciles is nearly complete. We've succeeded in weeding out the country's best and brightest and replaced them with drooling dolts. There's now light at the end of the tunnel. The dream of a nation run entirely by idiots is within reach."
Proponents of the transition to idiocracy cited the recent statements made by Texas Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee regarding the moon and sun [ as clear evidence the plan is ahead of schedule [ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sheila-jackson-lee-moon/ ].
Jackson Lee offered a brief comment on the incident. "What I said is correct," she explained. "Once you realize that cars are made of cheese and rain is actually falling tears from crying birds, everything else makes sense."
At publishing time, Jackson Lee had proposed a plan for NASA to launch a mission to colonize the sun.
Source: https://babylonbee.com/news/american-transition-to-idiocracy-running-ahead-of-schedule .
There should be a Separation of Education/School and State for the same reasons that there should be a Separation of Religion/Church and State.
It is not the function of Government to Meet Human Needs and to Satisfy Human Wants.
The proper function of Government is to Protect Human Rights, and to facilitate the Meeting of Human Responsibilities by the Economy and Civil Society; primarily by the Government's staying OUT of the business of meeting Needs and satisfying Wants.
For the simple reason that the only way Government can meet the Human Needs and satisfy the Human Wants of SOME of its Citizens is by violating the Human Rights of OTHER of its Citizens. And by eliminating the requirement for ALL Citizens to meet their Responsibilities as Citizens and as Human Beings.
Human Rights are: Life, Liberty, Property, Privacy, the Pursuit of Happiness, and, above all else, TRUTH.
Human Needs and Wants are: Health, Prosperity, Security, Literacy, the Pursuit of Wants, and, above all else, PEACE.
Human Responsibilities are to honor and protect the Human Rights of every Human Being, and to facilitate the meeting of the Human Needs and satisfying of the Human Wants of other Human Beings.
The most critical Human Need is for PEACE. For, if there is no PEACE ~ if there is War ~ Human Needs are forgotten, Human Rights are obliterated, and Human Responsibilities are ignored.
The linkage between Human Needs and Human Rights is that there can and will be no PEACE unless and until there is JUSTICE. And there will and can be no JUSTICE until and unless there is TRUTH.
And it is the Responsibility of every Human Being old enough to think for themselves to seek The TRUTH about Everything, particularly when it comes to their government’s waging of War against other Human Beings, and their Society’s and its Economy’s waging of War on the Planet.
You left out what the teacher is to be after mentioning what he/she is not to be - the sage on the stage - and that is the guide on the side. This stuff has been pumped out for decades now.
Speaking for myself, I love a good book that tells me things I did not know, that provides insight on almost every page, that requires re-reading because I know I am not getting all of what the author is saying the first time through.
This reading experience is precisely the sage on the stage speaking to the reader, with no interaction except in the mind of the reader who is eager to learn and fully accepts that the sage knows more and wants to convey it. There can be a bit of frustration for the reader since he/she cannot ask questions with a human standing there to answer them, but this makes the learning experience even more exciting because the reader must work to find the answers by carefully studying the text and referring to other sources, most important, the source the reader has in the head from life experience and from reading material in the past. Careful, dedicated, intense thinking can lead to the light bulb moment of YES - I GET IT -THAT'S IT - I FIGURED IT OUT - NOW I UNDERSTAND!
Education is extremely difficult in our culture of diversions and constant effortless stimulation. I would say a majority of Americans have little interest in making the effort to educate themselves over their lifetimes by doing the work necessary. We are presented with an infinite amount of video and a typical 30 minute video will contain, what, 1% of the information a book might have in it? Can you imagine anyone wanting to re-watch a video as one would be eager to re-read a book as I described above? The result is the Trump Army and the man himself, as ignorant as a stone but inflated with a pride that knows no bounds But his head is not totally empty, it holds the thought that he is the sage on the stage.
Your 2011 commentary is still valid and even more relevant today, I think. Yet we're swimming upstream here, because ours is a society and culture where the 'Siamese twin' that is capitalistic commerce plus technology (which are joined at the hip) drives culture, not the other way around. It's a case of "we can (via technology), therefore we shall"; no pause for questions. Indeed, if it's new and sells, it will almost automatically be fully embraced in all institutions, with little thought to what is being displaced or lost thereby. So your anticipation of AI-displaced human teachers is pretty much right on the money.
I remember a decade or so ago, MOOC were going to destroy universities (with FACTS and LOGIC maybe??) Now apparently hallucinating chatbots and phones that can be Google portals and calculators *but also the gateway to TikTok* are going to destroy the old educational institutions.
Big Tech could use some old fashioned wisdom, much as they hate anything older than one year: ain't broke don't fix.
And so It begins… :
ISRAEL’S WAR ON GAZA LIVE: BLASTS, SIRENS IN ISRAEL AS IRANIAN MISSILES INTERCEPTED
by Zaheena Rasheed, Lyndal Rowlands and Ali Harb / Al Jazeera 14 Apr 24
*** Air raid sirens and explosions are being heard in cities across Israel, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, as Israeli, US, UK and Jordanian forces shoot down missiles and drones launched from Iran.
*** Tehran says it carried out the attack in response to an Israeli raid on the Iranian consulate in Syria and says the matter can now “be deemed concluded”.
So the Questions become: How will Israel, the United States, and their Allies respond? And then, how will Iran, Syria, and their Allies in Lebanon, Yemen, and elsewhere in the Middle East respond to that response? And finally, how will Russia and China respond to it all?
WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT IRAN’S ATTACKS ON ISRAEL
* Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) said it fired dozens of missiles at Israeli targets in retaliation for Israel’s deadly attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on April 1.
* Iran’s military response marked its first direct attack on Israeli territory and began on Saturday night at about 20:00 GMT.
* Explosions were heard in cities across Israel, including Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem, and air raid sirens sounded in more than 720 locations as Israeli forces sought to shoot down the Iranian projectiles.
* The Israeli military later said Iran launched more than “200 killer drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles” at Israel and that the vast majority of the projectiles were intercepted outside the country’s borders, with help from US and UK forces. It added that a “small number of hits were identified”, including at a base in southern Israel, “where minor damage was caused to infrastructure”.
* Daniel Hagari, the spokesman for the Israeli military, said a girl was wounded in the attack. There were no reports of fatalities.
* Israel’s Home Front Command lifted its order for Israelis to stay near bomb shelters in the early hours of Sunday, at about 00:00 GMT.
* With the attack, Iran’s mission to the UN said it considered the matter of Israel’s raid on its consulate in Syria “concluded” and warned of a “considerably more severe” response “should the Israeli regime make another mistake”.
* The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting requested by Israel at 4pm New York time (16:00 GMT) on Sunday. Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Israel temporarily have closed their airspace while several airlines suspended flights in the region.
Full article at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/4/14/israels-war-on-gaza-live-blasts-sirens-as-iranian-missiles-intercepted .
Thank You, Bill, for another bottom line, bullet-hits-the-bone commentary and sense making of a “Vexing and Perplexing World,” as You put it.
The following of Your words need to be inscribed in every Hall of Learning, and read each morning after the Pledge of Allegiance by every Student, Teacher, and Educational Administrator and, especially, Bureaucrat:
“The key ingredient to learning (besides motivated students and involved parents) is of course a well-informed, caring, creative, and dedicated teacher or professor. Such a teacher or professor puts her students first not by assigning busywork in the classroom or by embracing fancy and expensive gizmos but by the power of her personality and her commitment to STIMULATING CRITICAL, CREATIVE, AND ETHICAL THINKING.
“In its essentials, great education hasn't changed much since the days of Socrates. It's ultimately about shaping and informing the character of students. It's not only about teaching them the HOW of things, but the WHY. And once they know the WHY, they can make decisions based on ETHICS, based on some knowledge of WHAT'S RIGHT AND WRONG, within educational and social settings that PUT INTEGRITY AND FAIRNESS FIRST.” [EMPHASES added.]
Over the course of American History, the Public Education system of this Nation has produced some very Good and some very Bad results.
The current example of a very Bad result is a population that is totally inert before the Wars and War Crimes that their Government has perpetrated and is perpetuating in Ukraine, Palestine, and soon, someplace with China.
America’s Public Education system has been and is a willing and able companion of America’s Main Stream Media as key elements and agents of this Government’s Department of Censorship and Propaganda.
As noted a couple of years ago here on BV: “ One of the biggest differences between Orwell’s 1984 and today is that we all carry our very own portable, personal Telescreen around with us in our pocket, purse, or bag. Certainly makes the job of the Thought Police a whole lot easier, eh?”
[ https://bracingviews.substack.com/p/orwells-1984-holds-many-lessons-for-the-new-cold-war ]
You made mention of AI teachers. I would suppose they will eventually be teaching AI students; that will prevent "undue academic pressure" on the human students. As it is, some studies reveal that over 22 million student essays have already been written by generative AI.
Hopefully it can be avoided, but it appears we're headed to an AI version of "Idiocracy". Brawndo, anyone?