Goodbye, MIT
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Goodbye, MIT
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Re: Goodbye, MIT
#2testing
Re: Goodbye, MIT
#3I feel genuinely conflicted about these topics. Part of me says “I agree with the letter authors completely. People should experience equal opportunity, equal Justice, and equal responsibility.” Another part of me says “that’s literally impossible (or incompatible) with different families raising their children with different circumstances.”
Overall, I lean pretty strongly towards individual families raising their children as best they can with all the benefits and drawbacks that come from that system. But I think it’s fantasy to believe that that results in even approximately equal opportunities.
My kids will get way more comp.sci and math from me and more biology from my wife than average. Other kids will get more music, art, writing, foreign language, sports or other exposure from their family. If it turns out that one of those is more valuable, well the different kids didn’t have equal opportunities. Other kids worried about nutrition, whether one parent would beat the other, or grow up with a parent in jail. Clearly not equal opportunity.
Re: Goodbye, MIT
#4I vote completely progressive, but I agree there are demons on the left, just like on the right. The point at which common sense flies out the window and emotion becomes the driving force, it's extremism or cultism, not politics.
Re: Goodbye, MIT
#5I vote completely progressive, but I agree there are demons on the left, just like on the right. The point at which common sense flies out the window and emotion becomes the driving force, it's extremism or cultism, not politics.
I think when whatever becomes a political movement (as it has to be one to attract awareness), it eventually brings in more bureaucracy to the point that "administrators" rule the movement.
Re: Goodbye, MIT
#6I feel genuinely conflicted about these topics. Part of me says “I agree with the letter authors completely. People should experience equal opportunity, equal Justice, and equal responsibility.” Another part of me says “that’s literally impossible (or incompatible) with different families raising their children with different circumstances.” Overall, I lean pretty strongly towards individual families raising their ch…
I think to achieve equal opportunity it makes sense to make education equal. But how to make education equal? Instead of setting up quotas maybe we should simply switch teachers. Let the teachers rotate among schools so that every kid gets a random selection of teachers and every teacher gets a random selection of students.
At the same time, should also try to minimize the number of private schools, either through legislation or tax.
I guess it still won't work perfectly because teachers can simply go private by themselves. Meh. Whatever.
Re: Goodbye, MIT
#7MIT is a top university in the world and it makes no sense to remove support for MIT
Re: Goodbye, MIT
#8I feel genuinely conflicted about these topics. Part of me says “I agree with the letter authors completely. People should experience equal opportunity, equal Justice, and equal responsibility.” Another part of me says “that’s literally impossible (or incompatible) with different families raising their children with different circumstances.” Overall, I lean pretty strongly towards individual families raising their ch…
I think to achieve equal opportunity it makes sense to make education equal. But how to make education equal? Instead of setting up quotas maybe we should simply switch teachers. Let the teachers rotate among schools so that every kid gets a random selection of teachers and every teacher gets a random selection of students. At the same time, should also try to minimize the number of private schools, either through le…
Even that won’t do it. Kids show up to kindergarten with wildly different abilities to even “take turns” and participate conversationally. Kids who had less adult conversational interaction as toddlers won’t get the same out of school even with the teachers being in rotation.
There’s disagreement as to whether the gap is 30 million words, but it seems quite likely to be well into the millions. https://www.edutopia.org/article/new-research-ignites-debate...
It’s hard.
Re: Goodbye, MIT
#9When we lose the power to express our thoughts from a differing perspective, we have lost our powers of free speech. Facts are facts. They do not care whether we like them or not.
Re: Goodbye, MIT
#10> He (Abbot) proposed instead an alternative framework called Merit, Fairness, and Equality (MFE) whereby university applicants are treated as individuals and evaluated through a rigorous and unbiased process based on their merit and qualifications alone
I am in full support with this, though it seems to me this is too idealized to be practical in practice. How can one reach a fair judgement of a student only based on a 1000-word essay in his/her application (which might not even be written by him/herself)?
However, I'm still saddened by that the MIT response to this incident is simply "it is Abbot's right of free expression to say whatever he wants", but nothing about what he actually said, or whether it at least makes some sense. It's as if MIT treated Abbot as an unknowing child whose nonsense words shall be tolerated, which is disturbing. Below is part of the mail list letter I received:
> Freedom of expression is a fundamental value of the Institute.
> I believe that, as an institution of higher learning, we must ensure that different points of view – even views that some or all of us may reject – are allowed to be heard and debated at MIT. Open dialogue is how we make each other wiser and smarter.
> This commitment to free expression can carry a human cost. The speech of those we strongly disagree with can anger us. It can disgust us. It can even make members of our own community feel unwelcome and illegitimate on our campus or in their field of study.
> I am convinced that, as an institution, we must be prepared to endure such painful outcomes as the price of protecting free expression – the principle is that important.