SYNERGY-NET on http://www.wiredbrain.net/

    RE: Breeding Faster Ponies:



  The views of the pony express on the telegraph:  Edward B.

Fiske, former educational editor of the New York Times wrote the

best book on the current problems in education I know about...



  "Smart Schools, Smart Kids, Why do some schools work?" with

assistance from Ernest L. Boyer of the Carnegie Foundation for

the Advancement of teaching. (1991, Touchstone Books, Simon &

Schuster, Fiske Futures)



  Edward B. Fiske argues in this book. . .  "the time for

tinkering with the current system of public education is over. 

After a decade of trying to make the system work better by such

means as more testing, higher salaries, and tighter curriculums,

we must now face up to the fact that anything short of

fundamental structural change is futile. . . . .  American public

schools grew up around an early industrial model that has

outlived its usefulness in education as well as in the industry

that created it.  The renewal of public education in this country

requires nothing less than a frontal assault on every aspect of

schooling -- the way we run districts, organize classrooms, use

time, measure achievement, assign students, relate schools to

their surroundings, and hold people accountable.  Trying to get

more learning out of the current system is like trying to get the

Pony Express to compete with the telegraph by breeding faster

ponies (Fiske, 1991, p. 14-15)."

  

  The impact of the telecommunications revolution new INTERNET

WEB, netscape and sun microsystems, technology has put all

educational enterprises in the position of the pony express was

in when the telegraph replaced their methods of sending messages. 

Try looking at _learning how to learn_ Joseph Novak and Bob

Gowan.  Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-31926-9  RE:

Action: The action group, a reason for being.  What Am I doing? 

Now is the time to try men's (and women's) peoples souls! During

the first 200 years as a nation each generation was better off,

better educated, and in many ways freer that the generations in

the past. Freedom is a state of mind. (Sufi and Plato, Masons,

science and democracy are linked by the belief in true ideas and

ideals)  



Moral: We are in trouble as a society!  The average American (or

mean or median) are less informed, more illiterate, less

prosperous, than their parents. (The median wages in REAL dollars

has not moved since 1969, familial income had gone up a little

due to more workers - women in the labor force).  Why? Bad

values! Short tern, commercial, greed, lack of concern for

others, selfless, not understanding the interrelationship of all

things and all people, prejudice, bigots, closed minds, hate, and

other bad values. Good values as Bill Bennet points out are

universal and necessary for a working society. Long term,

community, hard work, family, beyond self etc (Stephen Covey)

Competition from others countries who are simply better organized

to provide for high value added jobs than we are. (Reich) They

are have better values, are smarter. better educated, more

organized, and their minds are freer from false ideas.  



Values are an economic issue because of Quality.  The inability

to cooperate is part of an anti-intellectual, anti- science,

anti-technology, anti-reality attitude of people in general and

my students in particular. A society where 40% believe in

UFO,(not only UFO'S but Aliens that take people aboard to study

them) para-psychology, astrology, and other false ideas is in

trouble.  Carl Sagan made a point of belief in Astrology not

simply as a harmless hobby but as a symptom of a lack of

understanding the roots of science.  The old cowboy, macho, Ayn

Rand, the hero in history, attitude of Limbaugh and the groups of

right, who are basically nay sayers, plus the religious

conservative, (Creationism) some small business and old style

populist - not that they are wrong but they just don't understand

the issue of reason, science, facts and people working together

using rational thought to create new ideas. Psychics, sorcerers,

talking snakes, Health Cures, demons, mind power, false prophets,

crime, illegitimacy, rip offs, swindles by established financial

institution, cheating, corruption, etc are part of the Seneca

syndrome.  Our current decline in the quality of life is another

case of when the culture no-longer can provide a working

construct (illusion) there is an outbreak of ghost cults.

(Oriental religions in the end of the Roman Empire, and The Cult

Explosion today) Money mag. reports that 250,000 of the best and

brightest are leaving for places with have a better quality of

life.  Reimann@digex.net suggests that I use a service such as

info@world.std.com to set up a "shell" using a Majordomo as a

communications link. I don't understand this but will

investigate. Delphi has a BBS at !-888-365-4636 Modem or 695-4005

Voice. The idea is that individual interested in ACTION, in doing

something about the steady decline in the quality of life work

together to do something. (use WP7944 for BBS id)  I have been

trying to get a class going on INTERNET 101, another class with

the GNA (Global Network Academy) on Applied Social Relations, and

maybe a Sufi group. We had homepages on a server that went down

(and won't get up) A domain on the local commercial server is TOO

much, I have written a lot of servers about having a homepage

that we can edit from here (FTP or peer-to-peer connections NT

type using Windows 95) I have connected to winserve and had NT

connections.

  Looking at the collaboration page:

-HTTP://union.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HyperNews/get/WWW/collaboration.html

   I am impressed with how little I know - There is so many

alternative but and I don't have a big UNIX system. (what I have

is a 486 PC Window 95 type) I need somewhere students and I can

interact like on a LANs (WINS) - and they can work together on

projects. I have contacted Netscape and Sun Microsystems about a

system for the little user.



  We do our own stuff, edit homepages, graphics everything. We

can ftp to a server. I can pull the pages down using Netscape. (I

have mail, web browser, IRC, and other services with PSS in

Daytona, bulk mail with MCI) We need a place to work. You can't

make any money  from us but we do PR to about 30,000 critical

people on the net.  We do our own registration with search

engines. We draw about 3 - 10 visits per hour to your service. We

hope to be on the edge of educational reform. We have our class

registrared with GNA global network academy (MIT). What I can

afford is about $50 a month until I get fees.  I can'd get fees

unless I have a place on the WEB. I could think about a fee

spliting system.



   The future of interactive groups with SYNERGY.. Moving from

the Pony Express ( Fiske book Smart Kids Smart Schools) which is

the enclosed classroom with teacher talk and a blackboard - to

real innovative active groups working anywhere to anywhere - in

real contact.. mutual aid and benefits - How do we get started ??



  mud telnet maud.cariboo.bc.ca 4000 206.216.2653 or 

>206.930.8270 anytime of the day or weekend.  John Dewey who

remarked (in 1905) that the basic system was in place by 1860 and

has the management and social structure of railroads) The new

communications deregulation bill will have the greatest impact on

education since the founding of public schools and colleges. It

offers universal competition for the first time, all markets

become open, there are no place for communist style monopolies

left.  Everything is more internationalized, sky net services

from Europe are there, the BBC and Russian services; educational

services offered in South Africa, libraries in Rome, shops in

Hong Kong.



  Dewey notes rapid progress of his times.  Advances in

industrialization, transportation, and communication dictated

need to adapt to a continuously and quickly changing environment. 

Experience and thinking involve connection of relationships. 

This connection is essential for reasoning to occur. While all

thinking results in knowledge, ultimately the value of knowledge

is subordinate to its use in thinking.  For we live not in a

settled and finished world, but in one which is going on, and

where our main task is prospective, and where retrospect -- and

all knowledge as distinct from thought is retrospect -- is of

value in the solidity, security and fertility it affords our

dealings with the future (Dewey, 1920, pp. 177-178).

   The Public School system was set up when Railroads were the

dominate social institution. Dewey says that by 1855 they had all

the common elements they have today - school boards (elected by

Teachers, the newspaper and the local power structure - mostly

real estate) superintendents, teacher colleges, teacher journals,

textbooks, state set curriculum, tests (a great outbreak after

WWI) classrooms, rows of desks, age grades, everything except the

blackboard. (They came in the 1890's). They can not be reformed

but need shock economics of dealing with the free market of

providers of Interactive systems. It's only a question of

critical mass - enough systems offering a good enough service -

I'm told higher education on the services is growing 10% a month

or more. Home schools and small schools become great modern

schools.  College and schools no longer have a state  monopoly

over certification.  Anyone can take a class anywhere.  RE: Best

schools in the world:  There are some of the best schools in the

world in and around NYC.  The names are Groton, The Dalton

Schools, St. Pauls, Phillips, American Friends, MaryMount, The

Japanese school, the International School, other private

academies mostly for the rich. Fees run up to $25,000 per year.

Then there are the Scarsdales, Marion Conn., Westchester County,

Oyster Bay, etc.



  I really don't know what gives these days. There are also some

of the worse schools. Maybe to coin a phase "It's a tale of two

cities."



  You would never know it from the public media or learn it

public schools (or maybe even in the Schools of Education) but

the America social system is very class structured. The Rich and

Super Rich send their children to the best schools, then Harvard,

Yale, and other good colleges. In "Who rules America" (Rose) and

in Tom Dye's work on the Irony of American Democracy - show that

families like the George Walker Bush's - household like his,

still maintain a large part of the power (and most of the wealth

) in the society. A easy factor to track is private upper class

schools from the Catalina Island school to Phillips Academy in

New England and members of boards, social positions (the blue

books, who's who etc)  Rich suburbs have the best supported

schools that pay teachers twice as much for much more pleasant

work. In small towns that had a "common" education, High School

stunted working class students into under-funded vocational

programs, and upper class kids into college prep programs. The

work of Coleman, Lipsets, Hunter, Warner, Hunts, and other

community studies show the class structure in public education.

Social Democrats in Europe would never stand for the way working

class people are treated in this country. But then the working

class were "foreigners" or "blacks" or "slum dwellers", or Irish,

or Mexicans, "them" - not "us". 



There was never a real labor party in this country to protect the

interest of the "working man" because the skilled workmen of the

AFL did not feel they had a common cause with the "alien" CIO.

Social and ethnic power reinforced a caste system. In fact

skilled trades kept out non-family members.  The industrial

school system was constructed to "Americaize" foreigners. From

the 1830's to the 1930's the vast majority of city people were

first and second generation immigrants. They were need in the

growing factories owned by the WASP (English) and run by German

and Scot engineers and foeman, with Eastern European, Italian,

Irish, and black workers. The Schools looked and ran like

factories. Working class girls were hired to be school teachers

as a step into the middle class. Upper and most Middle class

girls didn't work in those days - or did social work, or tutor

music, or French - or maybe in a Private School. Nursing was also

a working class, female and poorly paid trade or profession.

Public education benefited from the lack of opportunities for

women, these same women now go into much better paid profession,

accounting, business, banking, etc. Men taught in High Schools

separated neatly by class, never a very "good" job.



    As the demand grows for skilled (really skilled labor) and at

the same time declines for semi and unskilled workers the

traditional industrial school can't keep up. This is THE social

issue. In the past, until the 1970's, High School graduates went

into factories and did quite well. Now there is almost no market

for the mass produced semi-literate graduates from our poorer

schools. Fully half of new high school graduates can't read on

the 7th grade level of yesterday and the 25% that don't finish

many can't read at all - a major cause of crime because what else

can they do, dead end minimum wage jobs ? The military won't take

them any more. (I really believe in the military as a educational

and corrections institution ) It was when a young man got into

trouble it was reform school or the army. Now the Army is too

picky.



  We should look to Europe and the training of skilled workers

but are still bogged down in class, ethic, racial politics. The

Upper class has abandoned it's obligations, the middle class runs

scared of the competition, and the working class sinks into the

under-class lumped-proletarian. So we build walled towns like the

"insiders" in Panama. We become a banana republic. Haiti has one

of the most poorly educated population in the world and some fine

Lycee's for the very very rich. The Rich in Latin America go to

USC, Harvard or Madrid. It's a tale of the lack or real

opportunity for our peasants. Let them eat cake ??? Apre' moi la

deluge ? Revolutions are caused by people doing well and being

pushed back - like in France, Cuba, Russia - a failure of

expectations, dis-illusion-ment, false promises.. Remember social

warfare is to keep the poor quiet. Otto Von Bismarck and the land

and factory owners of Europe created Social Security to kill off

the socialist.

  RE: ERIC search on Values and Technology, Science and teaching 

TITLE New Ways of Knowledge: The Sciences, Society, and

  : / by Raskin, Marcus G.; And Others

  Pages; Fiche: Document no.: [H ABSTRACT  :

  

   In this volume, physicists and social scientists challenge the

bedrock of scientific thinking whose applications can prove

destructive to existing social systems, and shift the debate to

the need for a radical change of direction that would replace

traditional "value-free" inquiry and research with a  knowledge

model that incorporates social responsibility, democratic

principles, and comprehensive ethical standards. Presented in

this book is a form of inquiry -reconstructive knowledge

-concerned with the assumptions and practices of modern science

and the politics of scientific discipline. Essays included are:

(1) "Reconstruction and Its Knowledge Method" (Marcus Raskin);

(2) "Idols of Modern Science and the Reconstruction of Knowledge"

(Herbert Bernstein); (3)"Toward a Reconstructive Political

Science" (Raskin, Bernstein); (4) "Exchanges on Reconstructive

Knowledge"(Noam Chomsky, Raskin); (5) "Ending the Faustian

Bargain (Raskin); (6) "The Human Meaning the Information

Revolution" (Michael Goldhaber); (7) "The Selling of Market

Economics" (Edward Herman); (8) "Semiotic Boundaries and the

Politics of Meaning: Modernity on Tour--A Village in Transition"

(Susan Buck-Morss); (9) "Seizing Power/Grasping Truth" (Joseph

Turner); and (10) "Conclusion: A Manifesto of Reconstructive

Knowledge" (Raskin). The themes of the social construction of

reality, the social sciences' ability to determine fates and

fortunes, the linkage between the realms of knowledge generation

and of political direction, and that economics as a discipline is

a rule of human organization (not nature), are included.



   :Concern about Ethics and Ethical Issues among Professors of

Instructional Systems Design and Technology. / by Nichols,

Randall; And Others Pub.Date:

  

   1987Pages; Fiche:

  11; Document no.:

  ED304099FOUND IN ERIC microfiche unless noted otherwise: EDRS

Price - MF01/PC01 Plus Postage.[  ABSTRACT  :

  

   With a growing awareness of the importance of ethical issues

in the profession of educational communications and technology,

he Professional Ethics Committee of the Association for

Educational Communications and Technology:(AECT) decided to

assess the current thinking of association members toward ethics

in the field. The committee wished to conduct research in which a

broad base of data might be collected that could reflect

membership positions in at least three areas: (1) the degree to

which members feel ethics to be important and address them; (2)

specific issues deemed to be important; and (3) ways in which an

ethical code might be applied. Using a nine-question open-ended

questionnaire, a preliminary survey was conducted at a May 1987

meeting of 80 professors of instructional systems design and

technology, many of whom were members of AECT. Answers to the

responses from the 43 professors who participated in the survey

were tallied and analyzed. It was found that, as a group, the

respondents perceive that they address ethical issues in a

variety of ways, but that more needs to be done; the range of

issues identified was quite broad, ranging from the effects of

technology on learners in general to the effects on whole

cultures; and, although they are concerned about ethical issues,

as a group they do not feel that monitoring of practicing

professionals is necessary. This paper includes a copy of the

questionnaire, an analysis of the responses to each question, and

a summary of the results.  McCaleb, Joseph L. Dean, Kevin W.[HRt] 

TITLE

  :

  

  

   Ethics and Communication Education: Empowering Teachers. /

byMcCaleb, Joseph L.; Dean, Kevin W.Pub.Date:

  

   Document no.:J364700FOUND INCommnication Education; v n4

p410-16 Oct 1987 ABSTRACT  :

  

   Argues that communication education must cultivate in teachers

the capacity to respond sensitively to teaching values. Defines

the responsible teacher as one who: (1) understands structure of

the discipline including the relationships among communication,

ethics, and morality; (2) understands students' cognitive,

social, and moral development; and (3)  can model selection,

analysis, integration, and applications of ethical issues

(NKA)Notes:

  

  

   Special Issue: Censorship in Education.