Education at your service

The other day I went cycling with my three daughters (aged 6, 8 and 10). Two of them (6 and 10) raced on ahead and one (8) lagged behind. I tried to stay somewhere in the middle where I could keep an eye on all of them. It was while I was trying to maintain the middle course that I got an inkling of what it must be like being a school teacher.

6 and 10 came to a fence with a stile. Between them they figured out how to get over the fence along with one of their bikes before I got there and helped them with the other bike. This was a great exercise in strategic thinking and co-operation.

When 8 finally arrived I lifted her bike over myself. Not much of a lesson learned here.

This is where I wondered how our education system can possibly cope with the range of abilities and desires present in a classroom. Obviously it can't. There will always be a difference between the 'top' and 'bottom' pupils in a class at any given subject or activity. The best we can do is find ways that the pupils can help each other (with the guidance of the teacher). Does our teacher training cover this method? I don't know the answer to that question.

Parents also need to become more involved in their (our) children's learning. Schools are often treated as glorified babysitters while the both parents go to work to try and cope with the ever-increasing pace of life and never-ending pile of bills. I think it's time we all slowed down a little and re-focussed on the important things in life. Getting caught up in the cycle of trying to make money is not one of those things. I'm still working on how to break the cycle but I'll keep you posted :-)

One way forward

I walked into the room with all lights blazing and nobody else in the room. In this day of eco-friendliness, eco-terrorism and eco-posing having all the lights on in an empty room is obviously a no-no.

Another room in the house was also light up like a stage show but it at least had some people in it. Still, I considered so many lights on completely unnecessary.

It occurred (not sure of the actual process) to me that the step we need to make as beings on this planet is to evolve from being wants-driven to being needs-driven. That way the lights that didn't need to be on would be turned off; the cheap plastic toy would be replaced by e.g. a bike ride - they would each last about the same length of time. The examples go on and on.

A change of thought process would also occur. There would obviously be some that would take time to understand that needs and wants are quite different.

There's a lot more to this but I'm tired so I will have to pick it up again another time. If anyone actually reads this I would appreciate your thoughts.

By the way ...

Happy new (white man's) year :-)

Blogged with Flock

That man knows a thing or two ...

I'm a bit of a golf fan. I like to play and follow the European Tour a bit (my brother-in-law is a caddy on the Tour).

Recently I played at the Kinloch Golf Course which was designed by Jack Nicklaus (one of only 25 in the world on which he put his signature - he has designed over 300 courses in total).

What a great course!

Every hole is different and leads you on a little adventure. You can take chances or play safe (good luck with either option), and it helps to know the course before you can expect to get a decent score. I wasn't too concerned about my score - I played some good golf but I also got myself into some trouble.

There are bunkers everywhere so expect to play out of the sand more than once. Also expect to walk a long way. There are often large distances to walk from green to the next and the signage wasn't complete when I played so we often walked even further than necessary.

The scenery is great but I was enjoying the layout of the course too much to even think about the mountains, hills and lake. The course is its own scenery.

The tees cater for all level of player so if you can't manage the tournament tees (we didn't) you will still be challenged by some of the distances required to make a decent shot at the green. Some holes will make you think you can play a particular shot then punish you if you get it wrong. The occasional gamble can also pay off - sometimes.

My only beef was that the greens were quite hard which made it almost impossible to stay on the green if we were hitting in from a distance - which was often. The greens were fast and I had difficulty judging the speed but they were consistent and it made it a lot easier to be putting uphill.

Congratulations to the design team and the ground staff. I enjoyed my round and look forward to playing again ... with a bit of local knowledge.

Future of man - at least one idea

Discussion in Aardvark forums (particularly this one) prompted me to make more comment here.

The premise of the argument that I'm commenting on is that man (as in humankind) would not have to make any compromises if there was space enough for all people that inhabited that space.

My argument is that 'man' will (over)fill whatever space they have. Breeding is a natural process and if man is comfortable where and when they are then breeding is to be expected. Thus, whatever space we inhabit is going to be filled by man. This is precluding any other influences that may prevent the filling of that space e.g. pandemic disease, war.

Man is one of the few organisms alive that has not yet learned true balance. Other animals will fit in with their environment whereas man will try and fit the environment to man's (what I consider selfish) needs.

Once man learns to be less selfish and can appreciate the goodness of helping their fellow man then we will all be better off.

T'is better to give than to receive - this has never held such significance as we head towards a day of reckoning (I'll explain this better when I fully understand what I mean by it :-) )

Blu-ray vs HD DVD

I'm going to throw in my two cents worth to the argument and predict that blu-ray is going to prove more popular in this battle.

My reasoning?

Blu-ray sounds cooler.

Silly, isn't it?

A whole industry can be won over because of a name or because of clever marketing. I heard on the news this morning an opinion that David Beckham was a product of Adidas. I have never associated Adidas with Beckham. As far as I'm concerned he is his own brand. How cool is that?

Back to the future of DVD. In this article Blu-ray vs HD DVD there is a good comparison between the two technologies. It is not that recent and things have probably improved for both technologies but it is a fair indicator of what the two are about and which companies are supporting each of them.

Interesting to note that some companies have feet in both camps and maybe Universal have an inkling of how it will pan out. Their games division has gone down the blu-ray path (sounds cooler) while the Pictures and Music division have gone down the HD DVD path. Perhaps they see HD DVD as being a better technology for audio- and videophiles while Blu-ray is better for the PS3-toting gamers. But will the Blu-ray equipped PS3 play HD DVD movies from Universal? I guess not. Ironic really.

technorati tags:blu-ray, HD-DVD, David, Beckham, Universal, PS3, Adidas, marketing

Ain't life great

My family and I have just spent a couple of hours by the lake in Taupo. The sun was hot, the water was cold and everyone was having a great time.

There were boats parked on the beach with young people everywhere out having a few drinks, a few rides on wake boards, sea biscuits and homemade jetskis. There was no wind so some were sitting in the boot of their car flying a kite as the car drove around. There were families with their kids; others with their dogs; older folk in their camper; people cycling, walking, running, sitting, ...

There were no 'sock police', 'anti-fun zealots' or spoilers anywhere. Everyone was enjoying themselves - almost seemed like a different world to that which we read about every day where we are constantly being told what we can and can't do. Perhaps a few of the politicians need to come down to the beach on a day like this to see what life is really all about for a lot of people.

Happy summer.

technorati tags:summer, fun, eco-terrorism, boating, drinking, politics

Apple's Leopard and Time Machine

I use both Macs and PCs every day.

I've recently started using the new Apple Mac OS X version 10.5 called Leopard. One of the great features in this version is Time Machine which is a simple way of backing up all of your work, emails, documents, settings, everything!

It is so easy to use that there is no excuse for not doing it. Surveys have shown that most computer users know they should backup but very few actually do it and even fewer do it regularly. Time Machine will be a saviour for these people.

If you already make a conscious effort to backup then you probably wouldn't 'accidentally' delete anything in the first place almost making your backup redundant - but good on you for doing it anyway.

Time Machine does everything automatically and it is so easy to restore lost files that I wonder if we will see a new culture of careless users who depend on Time Machine so much that they use it every day and build it in to their workflow. Sounds a bit dangerous to me.

So far my experience with Leopard has been good. It seems faster and has features that will be useful. The upgrade process from Tiger was straightforward - so straightforward in fact that one colleague described the whole experience as underwhelming because it just worked and he was up and running without having to tweak anything.

I haven't tried upgrading to Vista on any PCs nor have I used Vista for anything more than a hour or two but I'm willing to guess that the Vista upgrade process wouldn't be quite so easy.

P.S. Yes, I prefer my Mac.

technorati tags:apple, mac, leopard, time, machine, vista