Joe Jackson (shoeless@erols.com)
Wed, 14 Jul 1999 12:02:54 -0400
>About all I know is that my officemate had to dig up her high school
>diploma to show someone when joining the Army Reserves. It should
>be noted, also, that the requirements for all branches of the US military
>have changed over time in part according to supply and demand. Most
>branches also have written tests which count fairly heavily.
Yes; they're called ASVAB's and it would take a total moron to score less
than 80% on one.
>From my very, very limited knowledge of it, being in the military is not
>as Scott Gray seems to assert, limited to following orders and being
>disciplined by others.
In fact, that's the very essence of the military, except that "being
disciplined" is usually referred to as "feedback". Any mission-related
activities that are performed by a soldier or airmen or sailor are in
support of an order.
>I'd also dispute the assertion that anyone who
>is used to being responsible for his/her own life, will be abvle to
>take the initiative and do what needs doing. For all human beings, there
>can come times and circumstances when one CANNOT deal adaquately with
>what life presents you with.
I don't think anyone is saying that people who are uncrippled by
externally-imposed discipline will _never fail_, simply that they are more
likely to succeed.
>I would imagine
>that, for example, during WWWI, a high school diploma was not required, at
>least in part because it was a much less common achievement than now.
Is the WWWI some new pro wrestling league?
>It occurs to me that perhaps a good approach to take in addressing
>issues around accrediation (of both school and teachers) is to note
>how things are at other private schools, including the local
>highly regarded traditional prep school typs institutes. At least
>here in New England, teachers at such places do not necesssarily have
>the same accreditations as public school teachers (although often
>they do have a teaching degree), and such schools do not always
>go through all or any of the possible accrediting processes.
Yes; the concept of how we get the public perception of our school from
where we are now to being a "regionally-respected, highly regarded" school
without selling out in terms of the Model is something we've been talking
about a lot. My theory is that it's marketing but that we'll never get all
the way there because of our culture's crazy ideas about what's good for
children and what rights children have.
-Joe
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu Dec 23 1999 - 09:01:55 EST