Here's someone Steve, that's on your side but from a Math perspective: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_meyer_math_curriculum_makeover.html Very interesting.

Yeah I can see it's going to be time soon for me to go back to the Polish Assimil and review a few things, hopefully it'll be much easier...

That would be one of my greatest regrets about high school, that I didn't get involved, and it's probably what pinched off my motivation...

I also recommend the same thing more or less for raising children... especially the "benign neglect" part...

I'm sorry for being so long winded, but I'd also like to respond to these statements. I've been careful to try not to have taken them out of context, please forgive me if I have. I should say that I agree with each one. "I also notice that climate scientists do not seem reassured by the idea that "we'll figure something out, we always do, so no need to worry about it". "I am fairly optimistic in the long-term, but if we don't anticipate and prepare for problems, we may have some very severe bumps in the road." If I have a problem with my car, and I consult 100 mechanics, and 97 of them tell me that unless I do x, my engine is going to explode - I'm inclined to believe them. I don't think climate scientists should say "we'll figure something out, we always do, so no need to worry about it." I think they should continue to study climate change and continue to offer solutions and continue to figure out what ways climate change is anthropogenic and how anthropogenic it is. It's their job and their function. I also think that we should plan ahead and prepare for problems, but I don't think that we should undercut all innovation and live under a much heavier tax burden based on non-exact information. The Ipcc offers many possible outcomes (all theoretical) from the extremely mild, to the world is over. Now while I'll trust those 97 mechanics and believe them, those 97 mechanics don't know what else is going on in my home, is it worth it to buy a whole new engine? Or can I buy a part for cheaper? The 97 mechanics are not experts on my bills at home, my plans for the future ect. Just like the 97 scientists aren't economists, lawmakers, businessmen. Making rash moves, like what countries like Germany and the EU as a whole, want to do today, is irrational. I would prefer not to spite our noses to save our faces from any of the angles, not only from the point of view of climate change. Which brings me back to innovation, all I ask is that we not make wild irreversible decisions, especially when those 97 scientists really don't agree (the agreement stops at yes there is climate change and it's probably anthropogenic). Up until now, innovative ideas have continued to spring forth, they seem to exponentially, as ideas give birth to new ideas, and new needs give birth to newer ideas. No one has to sit back and hope or have faith that innovation will happen (I have very little faith in general), you just have to be cautious not to choke innovation out... I do think it's a very rational point of view.

There's too much here to really respond to, but at least one thing I want to talk about: "American car companies did not seem to innovate enough on their own - presumably because there was neither government nor market pressure to do so." It's a very misleading statement. Americans made cheap affordable cars, the Japanese made better cheap affordable cars, the Americans made decent high end automobiles, the Germans made better high end automobiles. Government pressure came in the form of bailouts (long before the last big run of the last couple years.) A subsidy is a sure fire way to make any business lazy, a system of bailouts is a sure fire way to make a company take unnecessary risks. The government eased the pressure of the market, creating an innovation black hole and is starting a tradition of unnecessary risk. The point is it doesn't matter whether the product we're talking about it American,Japanese or German, one company made a product that people liked better. Which leads me to this statement: I am not at all confident that, without significant government pressure, there will sufficient market pressure to cuase enough innovation to stave off serious problems. It's hard for me to think of good examples of government innovation, the internet? Well that was really invented by scientists at CERN, the US military had an infant form of it, but the internet didn't really matter until free people started using it and innovating. Someone told me the technology from CT Scans came from NASA, but that's one helluva expensive R&D project. Yet of all the inventions I can think about that matter,that changed our lives, that created innumerable other inventions and ideas, Gutenberg printing press, the automobile, Henry Ford's contribution to the automobile, Windows, I think of innovators in their garages creating, away from the government, and despite it. Government sucks away the pressure of the market to innovate, and only helps to stagnate business and economic growth, it should be no surprise that if I asked you to name 3 of the most regulated industries in the United States and asked you to name the 3 three major US industries that caused the financial crises, the answers would be the same: housing finance, and automotive. All stagnating industries with close to zero innovation.

Also, as far as climate change being the ever present danger, from Ridley's blog: "The suffering caused by climate change is (and is predicted by the IPCC for decades to continue to be) minuscule compared with the suffering already being caused by preventable problems: malaria, malnutrition, indoor air pollution, dirty water. Solving those problems through the eradication of poverty (ie, economic growth) would not only save far more lives, it would also enable people to tolerate climate change better without suffering." I don't often hear people argue that climate change won't hurt economic growth, they at best brush it off with some end of the world Book of Revelation type prediction: "But the polar ice caps will melt! And we'll all drown!". Chances are the climate change that will happen (well it's been happening forever on this planet) will be far more mild than creating a Venusian green house effect, but malaria, malnutrition, starvation won't be helped by slowing down economic progress.

Also, as far as climate change being the ever present danger, from Ridley's blog: "The suffering caused by climate change is (and is predicted by the IPCC for decades to continue to be) minuscule compared with the suffering already being caused by preventable problems: malaria, malnutrition, indoor air pollution, dirty water. Solving those problems through the eradication of poverty (ie, economic growth) would not only save far more lives, it would also enable people to tolerate climate change better without suffering." I don't often hear people argue that climate change won't hurt economic growth, they at best brush it off with some end of the world Book of Revelation type prediction: "But the polar ice caps will melt! And we'll all drown!". Chances are the climate change that will happen (well it's been happening forever on this planet) will be far more mild than creating a Venusian green house effect, but malaria, malnutrition, starvation won't be helped by slowing down economic progress.

@ bortrun you said: "I just don't have the confidence to sit back and say that whatever happens we will be able to innovate our way out of it and the consequences will not be severe." Well, so far then I'm winning 452 trillion to zero, but quite possibly, this is the time where we won't be able to innovate our way out, and you will be right. I think innovation would have already been on its way if it weren't for so much government intervention. Some of my more left leaning corporate hating friends always claim that the real price Americans pay for gas when you take into account foreign wars, corporate welfare ect is more than 15 dollars a gallon (http://www.progress.org/gasoline.htm), I don't have any reason to doubt those numbers, if Americans were paying $15 a gallon for gasoline, I think we'd drive a lot less and innovate a lot more. But we're paying a phantom price, and it 'feels' really cheap.

and I might add, that Ridley believes that we will adapt, quite rationally, because we have always have, even in the face of great pessimisms. He then proceeds to support that thesis with many, many well researched and well thought out examples, to the point that, at least for me, slowed down the book, but still absolutely necessary in order to counteract the pessimisms that would be sure to follow in response to the work. Most critical reviews I've read have not even come close to refuting the sheer amount of evidence/research the Ridley provides. Btw Steve have you read any of Ridley's other works? He normally writes about genetics/biology, he writes as beautifully as Dawkins does/can, but without the constant stream of "I'm an atheist" that sometimes undercut Dawkins' work...

sorry forgot the link: http://tinyurl.com/2w8nzno

Friedemann, Here's a pretty in depth interview with him from a German magazine, I have no idea what it really says, I saved it a couple months back to be able study later when I really start learning German in earnest... I suppose this can give a general idea what the book is about, I do have to warn you though, this is one of the better researched (mainstream) books I've ever read, so almost definitely there will be examples omitted from the interview:

Friedemann, Here's a pretty in depth interview with him from a German magazine, I have no idea what it really says, I saved it a couple months back to be able study later when I really start learning German in earnest... I suppose this can give a general idea what the book is about, I do have to warn you though, this is one of the better researched (mainstream) books I've ever read, so almost definitely there will be examples omitted from the interview:

Most important here Friedemann to be able to really comment, is to read the book. His argument for being an optimist (a rational one at that!) is that ideas "have sex" and create new wonderful innovative ideas, and that in our history we've been terrified of things like running out of food in the 60s, because all our doomsayer calculations were based on the assumption that technology would stay as it is. Yet technological advances have always changed everything and made it better (not perfect mind you). My explanation is an oversimplification, but you really do need to read the book, for us to be able to comment back. Even if someone were to take the opposing view (a rational pessimist??), the book is important because it's so well researched, it's one I see myself returning to and citing for the next several years...

I finished Matt Ridley's book a couple weeks ago. He's a wonderful science writer, and someone I've been reading for quite a long time in Reason Magazine. The Rational Optimist is quite good, although there were some dry spots, I also wrote a review to be posted on my blog but apparently I haven't typed it out yet and it's sitting in a notebook somewhere. The last chapter is especially enlightening, where he takes on the two great pessimisms of today, Africa and climate change. A very good, intelligent read...

I think it's pretty clear that towards the end of slavery in the United States, in the deep south, like the Carolinas, slavery was of a very nasty form, worse than it was in a lot of history.

I think it's pretty clear that towards the end of slavery in the United States, in the deep south, like the Carolinas, slavery was of a very nasty form, worse than it was in a lot of history.

I think it's pretty clear that towards the end of slavery in the United States, in the deep south, like the Carolinas, slavery was of a very nasty form, worse than it was in a lot of history.

I think it's pretty clear that towards the end of slavery in the United States, in the deep south, like the Carolinas, slavery was of a very nasty form, worse than it was in a lot of history.

I agree with the post 100 percent, but some of us are just competitive people. Even though I may not win, I know that I would come farther in a language if there was some healthy competition than if I just did it like I'm doing now...

I feel that assimil is a beginner course only, even though there are a 100 plus lessons compared to teach yourself or others with a couple dozen at the most. I think with assimil you can repeat each lesson fewer times than with some of the others because Lessons 1 through 10 are the equivalent of lessons 1-3 in teach yourself, except you get shorter conversations more bang (words) for your buck... and no English at all in the dialogues. Assimil isn't perfect (editing could be much better for example) but I think it runs rings around any other starter course and you can choose how many times you want to listen to each lesson, they're short but vocab filled dialogue. Also, the dialogues are amusing and funny, if not a little corny (I think that when you know there's a punch line you work a little harder to comprehend it too), but that is five trillion times better than the inevitable Going out for Coffee dialogue and the Let's Buy Crap at the Store dialogue. I agree though with one of your older older videos, the point is to get through as fast as possible, a three months at the most..

The important quality is passion. The truth is if you had the perfect science teacher, the perfect history teacher, the perfect French teacher ect, and they all had passion and the ability to generate interest in the subject they teach and are passionate about, still not every student would also become passionate. The point is that the person who has it in him to become a linguist, or a biologist will have had the opportunity, because a teacher who was passionate about French Lit or Cepholapods (or whatever) for example inspired him, that same student with the same passionate history teacher may not care for history, but another student with the potential to love say, British History might. If a teacher/mentor ect isn't passionate himself, student will not have the opportunity to perhaps find that potential within him, and this is what's needed and this is what is not allowed to develop in the current US system.

Well if we're talking the US, a HUGE problem is the teachers' union. In an industry where no one would say that they did not want the best and brightest, the teacher' union comes in and fights for every bad teacher and has made it impossible to fire them. There are reports of teachers hitting children and not getting fired. The union has gotten so big and so powerful that they're virtually untouchable. They're as bad as any 'evil' corporation and their actions of the last 30 years are being felt today in a diminishing quality of education.

I think that's becoming more and true for all learning, the need for teachers to create an appetite. There is simply too much to learn and too much knowledge, too much history, too much science. A teacher should definitely teach, but one that tries to give a student the appetite to learn more on his own, to me, is the greatest kind.

I think her best bet would be to either set up a conversation on lingq in English, or if she's just started English, then to set up a conversation with a senior member who speaks her language, to discuss ways of using the site. If there's one thing that English Lingq isn't missing, it's lessons about and how to use the lingq system, she could also try doing those.