Bossa Nova

In grading quizzes from her Honors Introduction to Philosophy class, Professor Sarah Chant, at the University of Missouri at Columbia, realized a pattern: many of the students hadn't approached the essay questions. Instead they had scribbled down everything they knew about a topic, like Descartes, for instance, instead of actually answering the question. This wasn't Chant's fault, nor was it fully the students'. Overtime they had learned that in some classes, a substantial number of points were lost by simply responding to a test question, those points are gained only by regurgitating everything the teacher mentioned in class. Professor Mashoon Bahrain's Concepts in Cosmology (also at Missouri) class works exactly like that. The students gain more points and higher grades if they read the word "Black Hole" and then write down everything they learned about Black Holes even if the question is "what kind of star becomes a Black Hole"?
The fact that Chant's Intro class is almost exclusively second semester students suggests that this information vomit spewed by students isn't the University of Missouri's fault. They must have learned it in high school or at lower educational levels. How does this exactly happen? Tests are meant to judge whether a student is accurately understanding a subject. Writing down everything the teacher professed does imply that a student placed some value on the knowledge but not necessarily that the student understands it. There's a good chance that Missouri isn't alone in breeding this type of learning. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania described teachers who reward these answers as ubiquitous. What it suggests is that the student repeats what the teacher says without actually utilizing the lessons. Students may be learning the teaching but a far more basic one is in jeopardy if teachers (at the collegiate level and under) award this simple recitation. Sometimes new ideas and innovations are born from the foundations of older ones. These revelations don't exist if students are just working for the grade but not the information.

Love and Happiness

From The New York Times:

McCain and Obama in Deal on Public Financing

By David D. Kirkpatrick

Published: March 2, 2007

WASHINGTON, March 1 — Senator John McCain joined Senator Barack Obama on Thursday in promising to accept a novel fund-raising truce if each man wins his party’s presidential nomination.
The promises by Mr. McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Mr. Obama, Democrat of Illinois, are an effort to resuscitate part of the ailing public financing system for presidential campaigns.
In every election since Watergate, candidates have received limited sums of taxpayer money on the condition that they abstain from raising or spending any more. But this year, the leading candidates are all sidestepping the system in a competition to raise far more in private donations, more than $500 million each, according to most projections, compared with $150 million in potential public financing.
But there is a chance that the obituaries for the public system may be premature. On Thursday, a spokesman for Mr. McCain said that he would take up Mr. Obama on a proposal for an accord between the two major party nominees to rely just on public financing for the general election.
Such a pact would eliminate any financial edge one candidate might have and limit each campaign to $85 million for the general election. The two candidates would have to return any private donations that they had raised for that period.
Mr. Obama laid out his proposal last month to the Federal Election Commission, seeking an opinion on its legality. The commissioners formally approved it on Thursday.
The manager of Mr. McCain’s campaign, Terry Nelson, said he welcomed the decision.
“Should John McCain win the Republican nomination, we will agree to accept public financing in the general election, if the Democratic nominee agrees to do the same,” Mr. Nelson said.
A spokesman for Mr. Obama, Bill Burton, said, “We hope that each of the Republican candidates pledges to do the same.”
Mr. Burton added that if nominated Mr. Obama would “aggressively pursue an agreement” with whoever was his opponent.
Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama have backed changing campaign finances.

Did Kirkpatrick get that right? Perhaps he didn't check his facts but he seems to have reported that two "major party nominees" are not only acting civilly, but working to make the 2008 election actually about the issues rather than money or whatever dirty, scandalous fact one candidate can uncover about another! As recent elections have demonstrated, U.S. politicians are so desperate to gain nomination that government issues aren't as important to a campaign as slander and rumor is. The Tennessee U.S. Senate race between Harold Ford Jr. and Bob Corker where Corker ran a racist commercial against Ford comes to mind. Most politicians are delighted to engineer gossip so deliciously malicious and effective in crippling an opponent.
Obama has demonstrated his association as a member of a small group of politicians who don't engage in such seventh-grade rhetoric. Illinoisans may recall the Jack Ryan scandal during the 2004 senatorial race where it was revealed that Ryan had taken his wife, Jeri Ryan, to a number of sex clubs around the world hoping that lady Ryan would perform sexual favors in these bizarre establishments. Obama's response: "no comment." Many a politician would have jumped on this as fast as Mrs. Ryan jumped on divorce proceedings but Obama, the political oddball that he is, instead chose a clean campaign. He would rather win for the best platform than for the darkest, most embarrassing facts about his republican-counterpart's personal life. Most politicians would scoff at this; what a freak!
McCain seems to be of the same insane disposition. "It seems likely that Obama will win; if he does, lets have a nice, clean, bipartisan election, not one based on opulence," say McCain's actions. In a perfect (and possible) world where McCain and Obama are presidential nominees the next president will win on political issues rather than "financial edge." Of course their sensible example doesn't mean that all politicians will follow suit. Quite the contrary. Most campaigns will probably go the opposite direction with maniacal, deceitful, politically irrelevant efforts to destroy an opponent through slander and personal fault. Still though, it's good to see that two of the most promising politicians of the era like the ludicrous idea of bipartisanship and election based on issues instead of a sort of tabloidal "who has the most shameful personal history that can be exploited?" strategy.
Some time ago a few Americans thought it might be a good idea if politicians were chosen based on their ideas and platforms and not gossip or rumor. Sounds crazy doesn't it? Well that was a long time ago and apparently America has changed a lot since then.