synoptic

So what is your prescription and where does it come from?

This is false. Marx treated society, economy, and politics as interdependent structures; Marxism is about social, economic, and political power. From Manifesto of the Communist Party: "The immediate aim of the Communist is the same as that of all the other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat." "Capital is, therefore, not a personal, it is a social power." "From the moment when labour can no longer be converted into capital, money, or rent, into a social power capable of being monopolised.." From Capital Volume 1 (which arguably has more to do with political theory than economics; in any case, it is certainly not solely a work on economic theory): "In France and England the Bourgeoisie had conquered political power. From that time on, the class struggle took on more explicit and threatening forms, both in practice and in theory. It sounded the knell of scientific economics." - Marx's Postface to the Second Edition

Here is an example to illustrate the difference between teaching topics that are shaped/motivated by moral values vs ethics class - teaching that the US allows capital punishment while other industrialized nations do not vs arguing or examining why or why not capital punishment should be allowed. In the case of Jefferson's statement "all men are created equal," even this almost universally agreed claim is very difficult to give proper examination. For one, many people don't think people are created. 2nd, it says men and not people nor men and women. Suppose we want to modernize it, should it be "all people are equal," "all people are born equal," "all people deserve equal outcomes," etc? 3rd, Jefferson nor none of his peers really seemed to believe the statement in its literal meaing as slavery was allowed and only men with property could vote, so what did they really mean by it? 4th, is the statement even true and if so, how do we know it is true? Some people are better athletes, better at academics, more handsome, contribute more to society than others, etc. Should we just accept it as a maxim? 5th, Jefferson owned slaves and raped at least one of them, so why should we care what he has to say? And so on. I don’t get the point of third graders having these discussions. What would happen in such an effort is the teachers/curriculum would simply attempt to install their preferred views and values.

I think it would be a good thing to teach in history class. That was an important ideal for the founders of the country and relevant to the subject.

To clarify what I meant: All sorts of events and lessons will challenge and shape one's worldview. A kid can solve some geometry puzzles and have their worldview shaped. I'm not suggesting we somehow shield kids from this. I'm talking about direct, explicit instruction on complex ethical topics. I have no idea about your interpretaion of the statement nor why it should be compared to the author, but we are all flawed. I don't think the flaws of the author diminishes its statement. Makes one wonder how he held all these ideas together with is actions, but that is people for you.

You teach them how to think by mastery of the primary subjects. There is no such thing as critical thinking unless one is proficient in basic thinking. One can’t do any useful philosophy without proficiency in logic. That was written by a slave owner.

None of this was stated nor implied by me.

The goal of primary education is to learn the basics, which for many centuries was the trivium (logic, grammar, rhetoric) and then the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy). We have less emphasis on some of those subjects now and have put more emphasis on science, other branches of math, and history. But ultimately, early level instruction should cover the primary subjects for the purpose of getting kids to a base level of proficiency. Teach those and, as I stated earlier, enforce the rules (e.g. no cheating, plagiarism, fighting, etc) and kids will learn academics and begin to learn how to cooperate in society. To answer your question, no, I don’t think classes such as ethics should be taught in primary education.

You have a scale to measure the quality of ethical and religious teaching in primary schools? Sounds like nonsense.

I didn't say that. But public school social studies is probably not what is keeping humanity from exterminating itself. If we want to start preaching moral values in schools and turn them into chapel minus the metaphysics, then we have the problem of who gets to decide what morals to teach and how. Maybe instead just teach them the basic academics taught in primary education for centuries. People don't need the state to install moral values.

I prefer no moral values preaching nor worldview installement in public schools. They should be secular. Teach grammar, math, science, etc. There is no need to have any worldview challenging to learn the basic subjects taught in k-12. Enfore rules (e.g. no cheating, plagarism, etc) and kids can infer what is needed for primary education.

Thanks for response. But my question is not on what is being taught or allowed to be taught in k-12 in Texas. My question is on who thinks CRT should be taught to kids. Maybe there is general agreement that it shouldn't be, maybe not. I really have no idea. Most of the discussion seems to be saying it's not being taught, but that is a different thing than whether it should be or not.

Most of the discussion seems to be on whether or not CRT is being taught in k-12 schools. Is anyone in this thread advocating that it should be taught to k-12 students, or is there genral agreement that it should be college level subject only?

He's either lying or delusional. For one, he claims he has graduated with a masters degree from MIT and CIT. But neither school has a record of him even attending. Only records of him at any school are from a junior college. He claims the government erased his records at the schools. Ok. So why can't he produce a single document from his time at these universities? Why are there no former classmates or professors he can reference that remember him? He would have been in small grad classes at elite universities, not US history at state U with 500 kids. Someone would be able to verify he was there. But they can’t because he is lying. Then his interview is obviously bs. Whenever pressed on any technical detail his migraine starts to bother him and he can't remember. So how did your team determine the material was element 115? Sorry, migraine bothering me. He never says anything that one couldn’t learn with a basic understanding of physics and lots of sci fi watching. But the US government brought in this 25 year old junior college kid to study alien technology because he chatted with Ed Teller once. Nothing about his story is remotely believable.

This statement is something flat earthers say. Any challenge is from goverment or some other powerful orgnaization that secretly controls the world who is trying to hide the truth.

There are all sorts of phenomena that we currently can't explain. That doesn't mean it is the russians or aliens. The russians and the chinese are very far behind us in military (and most other cutting edge) technologies. There is 0% chance they have figured out how to break physical constants, so there is no need to worry about that. It is very difficult to break physical laws. Some might even argue it is impossible. What is happening with most of these videos is that you have forward looking infrared footage, which is difficult to interpret. Visual lock is easy to break when changing zoom or in various other circumstances causing camera to drift off. This can look like fast target movement if there is no background reference (which coincidentally there never seems to be in these videos). There is a hierarchy of conspiracies, with sasquatch and flat earth at the bottom, climbing up to Russian super scientists/physics busters and then blurry image alien visits near the top. What they all have in common is that they have some very implausible elements (the better ones have fewer) and they are impossible to falsify.

Agreed on the above (high cost of housing/living in cities where jobs are at, tied down where they're at currently). Another key differnece from times past is that now most families are two income households. It's easier to relocate if you only need to find one good job. Now most familes need two good jobs to make ends meet.

For sure there are others out there making similar money in other industries; didn't mean to imply that it wasn't possible, just that the food service industry was a good/better option for many folks with certain skill sets. Also, I would argue that those technician's skills extend beyond common sense and not everyone could pick it up with ease or would be well suited for it. Also, the world's demand for that is only so many people, so having a range of industries with decent compensation is still beneficial. As for pandemic driving food service workers to find more stable jobs/careers, I completely agree. Really my point was that the food service industry for many years provided millions of workers with certain skills at certain points of their life better compensation than many other jobs. Maybe that has all changed and other industries provide better options now. If so, I think this is great for those workers and hope they are better off.

Regarding food service compensation, for many people it was a great option. This may sound crazy on a board filled with college graduate professionals, but for many folks it is/was true. For example, one of my best employees was a young woman who was an immigrant from Mexico (came over several years before I met her). She could speak English but had a strong accent and was a bit self conscious about it; her reading and writing skills were not great. She was such a hard worker that I tried to promote here to manager several times. But she absolutely hated the responsibility, managing inventory, writing emails, pretty much any organizational task would stress her out to no end. So I left her as bartender, which was really what she wanted. I paid her $15/hr and with tips she would make $50k per year. This was more than double than what she made at any previous job. And she was very good at the job, customers loved her, and she genuinely seemed to enjoy it (as much as anyone enjoys a job, at least). She worked for me for about 6 years and then had to move out of state for family reasons. She still calls and texts me and wants to make sure that whenever she comes back to Texas, we still have a job open for her. I have a tremendous amount of respect for her as a person and a worker and think she is very talented. But talents and aptitudes come in a large spectrum and not everyone is well suited for corporate gigs. In what other industry is a 25 year old, non-graduate, English 2nd language worker with limited writing skills and who hates administrative tasks going to make $50k/year? There are many stories about restaurants and others in food service industry who take advantage of staff, but the whole industry is not like that and for many workers they took the job for the same reason anyone takes a job, and that is because overall they perceive it as the best option for them. Now if they go on to things that are better fits for them and their families, I am very happy for them. I’ve even written several letters of recommendation for staff when applying to new industries. I only want staff if it is mutually beneficial. The whole industry is not predatory, and many local restaurants genuinely care about their staff as people and professionals.

I'm not knowledgeable in the politics or overall industry statistics, but in my interactions with current and former staff, stimulus checks have nothing to do with it. They have found other jobs they perceive as more stable. Many food service employees do not have much in savings and need steady income. They are very hard working people and can tolerate an incredible amount of bullshit, but inconsistent income is major concern for them. Regarding customers, there are some incredibly entitled folks out there these days. I've gotten voice mails and emails cussing us out for not being open. I've explained we just do not have sufficient properly trained staff. They take personal offense at this.

It's a great question. I think not knowing the viable options is a contributing factor for some, but for my employees they had standing offers from others (friends, family, etc) to come work for them. Many people just really love the food service business and so they never took those other opportunities. They like working with the other staff (become like family), like having cash in their pocket at the end of each shift, generally don't have to worry about work stress once their shift is over. Almost all of my former staff still texts me and say they miss it. But if you have a stable job right now, the overall desire to come back to the food service industry right now is low. The money is not necessarily better where they are at, but the jobs are more stable. I don't blame them.

I have a food service business. One of my locations I've had to shut down completely due to lack of staff. I've talked with several other owners and they are all having the same problem with staffing. I think a combination of things have led to this, a primary one being that many workers in the food service business left the industry during the pandemic and have new jobs now. This is the situation for my three best former managers.

I genuinely do not know if this was written by an advanced AI algorithm some UT grad student is experimenting with or a real person.

I don't drink a lot of gin, but I will occasionally get a bottle and make cocktails. My preferred gin cocktail is negroni. A couple of years ago I was in Spain with a friend from Madrid and he brought me a straight gin drink. I told him I don't normally drink gin straight up, but he said I would like it. He was right. It was a gin made in Spain, which they apparently only make during a full moon. This is of course a marketing gimmick, but a pretty cool one I thought. The gin is called the Alkkemist. I've not seen it on shelves here in the US, but I haven't looked that much. https://www.masterofmalt.com/gin/alkkemist/alkkemist-gin/

Immortal jellyfish can: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turritopsis_dohrnii