[FRIAM] "certain codes of conduct"

Fri Jul 31 18:47:15 EDT 2020

Hi, Gary,  

There are lots of things that “people like us” don’t know about celestial mechanics.  Like the moon traverses the sky from its northern most point to its southern most point EVERY MONTH.  More over, now a days, the Full moon is high in the winter and low in the summer.  Some years down the road, it will be low in the winter and high in the summer.  I think it’s better this way.  I like having the extra light in the winter.  Where you are  the moon must track from the northern sky to the southern sky every month, right?  

Why can’t I get my mind around that? 

N

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz
Sent: Friday, July 31, 2020 4:23 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "certain codes of conduct"

When speaking of "temporally past", I assumed that for the majority of us young whipper snappers who haven't yet reached 80 or 90 (I'm just shy of 62), that those ages would be in our temporal future. Of course with all the quantum woo floating around the list, I hate to make any absolute statements about what is the future, the past, or any other notion of time. :-)

I applaud you for making the effort to volunteer to help teach kids in schools that, I assume, perform poorly because of lack of resources and motivated, creative teachers. I would be very interested to see what you are doing. I have considered trying to do something here in rural Ecuador, where I get the feeling that much of education is largely rote memorization. 

The first project I had in mind is to teach a bit about the solar system, and how it relates to earth science. It has struck me that most kids, and even a lot of adults here, have no understanding of seasonality or the reason for it (Earth's tilt). Here on the equator, the main thing that changes during the course of the year is the amount of rainfall. The amount of light per day seems to vary only about 15 minutes over the course of the year (the maxima being the Spring and Fall equinox, and the minima being the Summer and Winter equinox). The difference between a daily high temperature and the low for most days is about 5-10 degrees C, and this is greater than the difference between the mean daily temperatures over the course of a year. Unless a person here has either had a very good education, or has lived in temperate regions, they think I'm joking when I speak of daylight varying between 6 and 18 hours during the year, or temperatures varying between -30 and +30 C between Winter and Summer. To be fair, I suppose most of us from the temperate regions take the opposite for granted.

On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 1:39 PM Edward Angel <angel at cs.unm.edu <mailto:angel at cs.unm.edu> > wrote:

Gary,

Does temporally past the age of direct involvement  imply we’ll be more involved when we’re 80? or 90?

Seriously though, I believe a lot can be accomplished by us old farts by being willing to get out of our comfort zones. A few years ago I would have never thought I’d be involved working with 4th-6th graders in the worst performing school in Santa Fe. But here I am making videos about CS ideas for the closed schools. Anyone who is willing to help can work with us through the SF Alliance for Science.

Ed

_______________________

Ed Angel

Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory (ARTS Lab)
Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico

1017 Sierra Pinon

Santa Fe, NM 87501
505-984-0136 (home)   angel at cs.unm.edu <mailto:angel at cs.unm.edu> 

505-453-4944 (cell)  http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel

On Jul 31, 2020, at 12:24 PM, Gary Schiltz <gary at naturesvisualarts.com <mailto:gary at naturesvisualarts.com> > wrote:

Well, you and Debbie are late bloomers.

On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 1:03 PM Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com <mailto:wimberly3 at gmail.com> > wrote:

Yep.  We are raising an 8 year old but he goes to private school. 

On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 11:37 AM Gary Schiltz <gary at naturesvisualarts.com <mailto:gary at naturesvisualarts.com> > wrote:

Probably the reason K-12 underfunding isn't addressed much here has to do with the fact that the list is populated by a high proportion of us old farts and fartesses :-) who are temporally past the age of direct involvement with K-12 and kids in general. I suspect that the more politically left-leaning, as well as many of the centrist-leaning inhabitants would support significantly higher and more evenly distributed funding of K-12 public education. I would make the same claim for health care spending. Ultimately, a modern society depends on a well-educated, healthy citizenry, which the USA seems determined to make a luxury.

On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 11:11 AM Angel Edward <edward.angel at gmail.com <mailto:edward.angel at gmail.com> > wrote:

[...]

Nevertheless, what I see as the overriding issue that doesn’t get addressed on this list is the underfunding of public K-12 schools. Whatever position any of us might have as what we’d like to see at the college level, it isn’t going to happen with the present situation of the public schools.  As long as the public schools can’t provide an equal education for all its students, we can’t expect the colleges to solve the educational problem. 

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