Misconceptions spread by K-6 Grade School Textbooks

CORRECTED: For every action, there is not an equal and opposite reaction.

Newton originally published his laws of motion in Latin, and in the English translation, the word "action" was used in a different way than it's usually used today. It was not used to suggest motion. Instead it was used to mean "an acting upon." It was used in much the same way that the word "force" is used today. What Newton's third law of motion means is this:

For every "acting upon", there must be an equal "acting upon" in the opposite direction.

Or in modern terms...

For every FORCE applied, there must be an equal FORCE in the opposite direction.

So while it's true that a skateboard does fly backwards when the rider steps off it, these motions of "action" and "reaction" are not what Newton was investigating. Newton was actually referring to the fact that when you push on something, it pushes back upon you equally, even if it does not move. When a bowling ball pushes down on the Earth, the Earth pushes up on the bowling ball by the same amount. That is a good illustration of Newton's third Law. Newton's Third Law can be rewritten to say:

For every force there is an equal and opposite force.

Or "you cannot touch without being touched."

Or even simpler: Forces always exist in pairs.

http://www.amasci.com/miscon/miscon4.html#newt

http://www.usatoday.com/educate/college/careers/rtn/odonnell.htm
"It's not always going to be upbeat and it's okay to be frightened. You are going to be scared, I certainly was. You can't see the light at the end of the tunnel and you want to know what the outcome is going to be. You want that security blanket. I say, go without it, every now and then, it will work out. The real security blanket is your values and your visions and that is what you come back to all the time."

As I sit here, I drink my chocolate soy beverage mixed with rice protein. And I enjoy the taste. And that's my story.

This reminds me of one time in highschool English class. As a journalling exercise, my teacher wanted the class to, "continue writing the story from where the author ended it." So, I wrote a few more paragraphs, stopped writing, and handed it in.

The teacher commented, "Sonya, it appears there is no conclusion -- perhaps you had some time constraints?"

I wrote back, "Nope."

What is a poet? He is a man of religious experience whose creative gift enables him to communicate spiritual truths to men. His poetry can bring deliverance from spiritual death, bringing his hearers to a new knowledge of their divine Creator, who gave him this special power. In this way souls that have been disordered can be healed, and the human relation with God may be restored when it has been impaired...This is the fruit and indeed the purpose of music and poetry, direct gifts from God to mankind.

-- Elizabeth Henry, Orpheus and His Lute

Wealthy nations hold the keys to happiness

See the Map of World Happiness.

More on Money and Happiness

Observation, then, is what shows facts; experiment is what teaches about facts and gives experience in relation to anything. But as this teaching can come through comparison and judgment only, i.e., by sequence of reasoning, it follows that man alone is capable of gaining experience and perfecting himself by it.

"Experience," says Goethe, "disciplines man every day." But this is because man reasons accurately and experimentally about what he observes; otherwise he could not correct himself. The [38] insane, who have lost their reason, no longer learn from experience; they no longer reason experimentally. Experience, then, is the privilege of reason. "Only man may verify his thoughts and set them in order; only man may correct, rectify, improve, perfect and so make himself every day more skillful, wise and fortunate. Finally for man alone does the art exist, that supreme art of which most vaunted arts are mere tools and raw material: the art of reason, reasoning."¹

In experimental medicine, we shall use the word experience in the same general sense in which it is still everywhere used. Men of science learn every day from experience; by experience they constantly correct their scientific ideas, their theories; rectify them, bring them into harmony with more and more facts, and so come nearer and nearer to the truth.

- Claude Bernard

(Integrity, to me, entails aligning my actions with the purpose of all of existence. I am Choice. I collect information, perceive events through senses; I use reason to decide what information is relevant to my chosen purpose. And I act in accordance with what I deem useful, important, valuable, enjoyable, alive. What is most like me, I like.)

apply in all areas of life : invest in long-term

"The secret of wealth is buying once for all. When we buy, we should buy a thing which will last; buy something good even though it costs considerably more than a similar article which is perishable. Real economy consists of building a house that will last for generations, buying furni*ture that will last a lifetime, selecting clothing that is good for more than a fleeting season, choos*ing carpets that can be used by our children's children and then, having bought these good things, economy demands that we take care of them." Leigh Everett

Autodidacticism

Mary Wollstonecraft - I remember reading her essays in my room when I lived in Toronto, and thinking, 'Wow, women can actually think and write. They really do have brains! I thought it was just a lie we'd silently accepted to keep the peace!'

Limits of Language

"The entire sum of existence is the magic of being
needed by just one other person."
-Vi Putnam

...since social relationships are always ambiguous,
since my thought is only a unit, since my thoughts
create rifts as much as they unite, since my words
establish contacts by being spoken and create
isolation by remaining unspoken, since an immense moat
separates the subjective certitude that I have for
myself from the objective reality that I represent to
others, since I never stop finding myself guilty even
though I feel I am innocent....
… We could say that the limits of language are the
limits of the world… that the limits of my language
are the limits of my world. And in that respect,
whatever I say must limit the world, must make it
finite.
"Die Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen
meiner Welt"
-Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico Philosophicus

Idealism, by Osho

THERE are a thousand and one poisons, but nothing like
idealism -- it is the most poisonous of all poisons.
Of course, the most subtle: it kills you, but kills
you in such a way that you never become aware of it.
It kills you with a style. The ways of idealism are
very cunning. Rarely a person becomes aware that he
has been committing suicide through it. Once you
become aware, you become religious.
Religion is not any ideology. Religion does not
believe in any ideals. Religion is to become aware of
the impossibility of idealism -- of all idealism.
Religion is to live here and now, and idealism goes on
conditioning your mind to live somewhere else. And
only the now exists. There is no other way to live.
The only way is to be here. You cannot be there. The
tomorrow is non-existent, it never comes, and idealism
believes in the tomorrow. It sacrifices the today at
the altar of the tomorrow. It goes on saying to you,
'Do something -- improve yourself. Do something --
change yourself. Do something -- become perfect.' It
appeals to the ego.
Idealism belongs to the world of the ego. It appeals
to the ego that you can be more perfect than you are;
in fact you should be more perfect than you are. But
each moment is perfect, and it cannot be more perfect
than it is.
To understand this is the beginning of a new life, is
the beginning of life.

The straight track

The Horrors of Public Education

I like William James.

"James considered pragmatism to be both a method for analyzing philosophic problems and a theory of truth. He also saw it as an extension of the empiricist attitude in that it turned away from abstract theory and fixed or absolute principles and toward concrete facts, actions, and relative principles. James considered philosophies to be expressions of personal temperament and developed a correlation between "tough-minded" and "tender-minded" temperaments and empiricist and rationalist positions in philosophy. Theories, he felt, are "instruments" that humans use to solve problems and should be judged in terms of their "cash value" or practical consequences for human conduct."

"The test of a theory, belief, doctrine, must be its effect upon us, its practical consequences -- the pragmatic test: whatever works is true. The possession of truth is not an in itself but a preliminary means to vital satisfaction. Knowledge is an instrument for the sake of life, existing as practical utility. True ideas are those we can assimilate, validate, corroborate, and verify. Truth is not, therefore, useful because it is true; it is true because it is useful."

"A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."
-- George Bernard Shaw

"What you risk reveals what you value."
-- Jeanette Winterson

The sons of Hermes love to play,
And only do their best when they
Are told they oughtn't;
Apollo's children never shrink
From boring jobs but have to think
Their work important.

- W. H. Auden, Under Which Lyre

Daniel Gilbert

Check out this guy's blog.

Daniel Gilbert.

Terminology

The word education is derived from the Latin educare meaning "to raise", "to bring up", "to train", "to rear", via "educatio/nis", bringing up, raising. In recent times the myth has arisen of its derivation from a different verb: educere, meaning "to lead out" or "to lead forth"; however the English word from this verb is "eduction": drawing out. This false etymology is used to bolster one of the theories behind the function of education—to develop innate abilities and expand horizons.
..
Education was the natural response of early civilizations to the struggle of surviving and thriving as a culture. Adults trained the young of their society in the knowledge and skills they would need to master and eventually pass on. The evolution of culture, and human beings as a species depended on this practice of transmitting knowledge.
..
The goal of education is the development of individuals' capacity to be happy, successful, and productive members of society. Current education issues include which teaching method(s) are most effective, how to determine what knowledge should be taught, which knowledge is most relevant, and how well the pupil will retain incoming knowledge. Educators such as George Counts and Paulo Freire identified education as an inherently political process with inherently political outcomes. The challenge of identifying whose ideas are transferred and what goals they serve has always stood in the face of formal and informal education.

- Education

He attacked everything in life with a mix of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence, and it was often difficult to tell which was which.
Douglas Adams

He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.
Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.
Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

Ah, this is obviously some strange usage of the word 'safe' that I wasn't previously aware of.
Douglas Adams, Arthur Dent in "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy"

The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.
Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

trust = to allow without fear

Writing in this blog as though my eyes are the only ones to roll after reading my entries. This writing-without-consideration is good for the humility department. (There's restructuring of the sacred temple of being Sonya -- yes, a new department! Your services are welcome, humility.)

I think that when a person checks a certain website compulsively, grows irritable with each passing minute that the projected image of one's heart does not e-mail nor acknowledge the existence of me - I mean a person -- and then dances with identified feeling in front of a mirror to Backstreet's "Quit Playin' Games With my Heart" -- that I have temporarily allowed myself to waste my imagination on fruitless wonderings. I mean, a person has. And so, I submit for thoughtful consideration, to a person who is engaging in such behaviour unfit for one of noble rank and self-respect and interest in cool things, to go to work on activities that create the goods. So, off I go. =D

"Your kiss feels like a half-opened door" - gotta love that 80s hurtin' love song.

PS If you read this and roll your eyes, I knowwwwwwww. I'm half-joking. I just added this PS line to please you. And by adding this line, I have given attention to external approval-seeking. Yet by adding the sentence before this one, my conscious mind is okay with that.

Labels Divide and Conquer - by Jason Howard

Calling vs. Occupation: How to Find Out What You Should Do With Your Life - by Gary North

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

"The best education for the best is the best education for all." - Robert Maynard Hutchins

An education from Russia


The Advanced Math and Science Academy Charter School, Massachusetts

Article on the idea of the school, from 2004

I love sweet potatoes.


(20:45:01) ¤Ñ!ÇK€R$¤: Haha, wanna know something terrible and funny at the same time?
(20:45:31) Sonya!: yes.
(20:46:10) ¤Ñ!ÇK€R$¤: Whenever Tim and I would swear (usually Tim!) Mom would be like "Only people who aren't intelligent enough to think of other words swear." Then we'd be like "But Sonya swears sometimes." Then Mom would walk away, defeated.