[ExI] chain rule

[spike]

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Dave Sill
Sent: Friday, May 20, 2016 8:48 AM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] chain rule

 

On Fri, May 20, 2016 at 12:25 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net <mailto:spike66 at att.net> > wrote:

Khan Academy is free…Anywhere in the world, any socio-economic class or any station in life: everyone has a shot at a ton of good stuff.  Check it out:

https://www.khanacademy.org/

>…Cool, thanks. Don't know how I've managed not to run into that before. -Dave

 

OK cool, now let us reason together.

Plenty of us here will likely relate to this next part.  I have two other groups I sometimes post with: the math geek crowd and the MENSA people (not so much these days) but both definitely resonated with the following meme:

Think back on your growing up years, especially the earlier ones, elementary school, but also high school and think about what you were capable of learning and when you became capable of learning it.  I read these messages: we have not a single bonehead among us, they just don’t hang out here.  We are not their people.  But I know we have their counterparts in profusion, so I know plenty of you felt the frustration of being ready to move on and learn something really cool, but couldn’t.  

You heard some teacher say: OK you have this down, so just go get a book and read quietly or help the others.  

You may have heard an administrator say: I would like to help you, but we don’t have any textbooks on that level and even if we did, we have no teachers qualified for it, and even if we had both of those, we can’t get at least a dozen students to sign up for it, sorry.  

You may have heard:  Don’t worry about why a nucleus doesn’t fly apart.  They will explain it to you in college if you take physics.

You may have heard:  I agree you might be able to make it in that class, but we don’t let sophomores take calculus.  It is reserved for seniors.  It would hurt their delicate egos if we let you younger hot-asses go in there.  You might beat them.  Then our best students would get discouraged, give up, we find them ten years from now face down drunk in the gutter… 

Likely you can relate your own school’s excuses and bullshit they gave you (and you are welcome to do so) for… what… for getting in your way, for educators preventing your getting educated to your capacity, for failing to clear your runway, failing to allow you to soar with the eagles, keeping you down to flap around with the pigeons.

Sal Khan has brought in the internet bulldozer and cleared the runway for everyone in the world.  That man has shoveled aside thousands of years of accumulated bullshit, so now the path is free for anyone who can and will.  The runway is clear to take off and soar with the eagles.  

I could hug that man.  Oh wait, already did that.  He was cool with it.  I imagine he gets that a lot.

spike

 

 

 

 

 

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