Tag Archive for university

Ellen Lundgren | December 5, 2011
One comment

Adult takes standardized test… fails

Standardized tests. The thing that sends chills down the spines of many students. In grade school they were the terror that made no. 2 pencils snap, and little palms sweat. College students still groan over Scantron sheets and filling in endless rows of bubbles. Hence why I loved this Washington Post article of an adult who took a 10th grade standardized test and made his scores public.

 

Long story, short; failure. The man who took the test said,

I won’t beat around the bush, the math section had 60 questions. I knew the answers to none of them, but managed to guess ten out of the 60 correctly. On the reading test, I got 62% . In our system, that’s a “D”, and would get me a mandatory assignment to a double block of reading instruction.

It seems to me something is seriously wrong. I have a bachelor of science degree, two masters degrees, and 15 credit hours toward a doctorate.

I help oversee an organization with 22,000 employees and a $3 billion operations and capital budget, and am able to make sense of complex data related to those responsibilities.

 

A result of this has come to a revolt of school principals in New York protesting the use of students’ test scores to evaluate teachers’ and principals’ performance. I have always thought this was a ludicrous practice because it turns teachers away from the students from being good learners, to teaching them to be good standardized test takers — two very different skills.

These tests give students unrealistic skills for our world, and cause a lifetime of damage when used improperly as students who fail these tests are told they are not ‘college material’ when they are otherwise wonderfully gifted and intelligent. As I posted this on my facebook page, Ryan Coons responded by saying, “I only passed 11th grade English because my teacher didn’t want to see me ever again, and she told me this. ‘Where will you get with that attitude?’ Well, it got me into graduate school. Twice.”

I think education is a system that is severely flawed in our country and is a movement we as secularists need to command. It needs to change immediately. The US is already falling behind in education standards by many other countries. If we’re to keep up at all, our teachers need to be paid fairly, students need to be taught effectively, and these standardized tests need to be thrown out the window.

Category: Ethics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Jessica Swider | August 29, 2011
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Want to make your life as a campus group leader a whole lot easier? Read this.

You have a great event idea– you have the funds needed, picked the perfect date and have started writing a press release. Everything is just freaking awesome! Until your university finds out.

Suddenly you have miles beyond miles of red tape to work through. Those assholes! How dare they make your life infinitely more difficult with all their silly rules and regulations?!

We’ve all been there. While we all get that paperwork and the likes are in place for a reason, dealing with university authorities can be a hassle, to say the least. However, it’s important to maintain a good relationship with these people, no matter how stupid you think the hoops they make you jump through are.

It is inevitable that at some point during your school year, as a group leader, you will have to interact with these people, be it in person or over email. Below are a few tips to keep in mind while doing so, to make your life easier and to make the people who grant you permission, happier.

1. Know how your university works. For example, at my school, you need several forms filled out and signed by officers for fundraising, to spend money, to hold an event, to travel somewhere, or to breath (practically). While it can get annoying, I’ve made myself knowledgeable about each and every form so whenever I need to do something, I know where to start.

2. They’re busy too. While it can be incredibly annoying to have to run around getting a bazillion different forms signed in between classes and a job, keep in mind that whatever university officials you’re dealing with manage this process everyday- with hundreds of students orgs. It’s stressful for EVERYONE.

3. Kiss up. Hello! Being the teachers pet works. Each university handles things differently– maybe you’re lucky enough to only need a single signature, or maybe your every move is monitored. Either way, try to kiss a little you-know-what. Do they need to find a certain phone number, or get a form faxed over to your speaker? Offer to do it for them. By going above and beyond during the legwork of your event, or even just being willing to do so, your group will be remembered as incredibly helpful, which will benefit you at some point- I guarantee it.

4. Give everyone enough time. As soon as you know details, fill out whatever paperwork you need to. Don’t wait! Give any university office plenty of time to process things. Not only will this cut down on stress levels for everyone, but they’ll be grateful, meaning next time, when you DO wait until the last minute (on accident, of course) they’ll be more willing to cut you some slack.

Every school is different, which means only you know what works best for your group during the beginning processes of an event, but by being responsible and doing things the right way no matter what those things are, you’re likely to build bridges, and not burn them.

Category: General, Managing Your Campus Group | Tags: , , ,
Astrid Lydia Johannsen | July 20, 2011
One comment

How I Arrived At Religious Scholarship

Last week I wrote about the mythical forbidden fruit of Christianity. When I was a child, religion was a curiosity to me and became even more so when it became my forbidden fruit. I was fortunate that as a child I was never forced to go to church, so I was never taught to believe in imaginary things. Both Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny were characters played by my mom. I knew that, and I knew my mom was aware that I didn’t actually believe in these things. The character of God was a little more nebulous though, so I thought what any rationally thinking child would think: “If I go to church, I can find out more about this mysterious God critter.”

My family was spiritual perhaps, but never particularly religious, so we didn’t go to church. It was only when I had to go over to my friend’s house on those Sundays when my mom was away that I was able to go to a church. This one happened to be Catholic. It was there that I learned about how loving and inclusive the Church and religious folks could be.

I kid. I learned very quickly how insular and unwelcoming the church could be. I wasn’t allowed to go have crackers and juice along with my friend because his mom told me I wasn’t allowed. They offered no reason why. I just wasn’t allowed. I went home feeling left out, like I was a freak or something, and thus began my unrequited fascination with religion. I wanted a place where I felt I belonged, but when I tried churches and synagogues, I was greeted with “you are Other and you are not welcome here”. I would always see religion as an outsider, no matter how hard I tried to get in, no matter how much I wanted to get in.

Drawing Down the Moon by Margot Adler

But this feeling of needing to belong to something outside of myself did not go away. I tried out a few other traditions including Judaism, Buddhism, Wicca, and general Paganism. When I read Margot Adler’s “Drawing Down the Moon”, an academic tome looking into the history of witchcraft ancient and modern, I stumbled upon the Discordian tradition. I had the luxury of working at a bookstore, so I nabbed a copy of the Principia Discordia and read it cover to cover again and again.

Principia Discordia

Discordianism featured Eris, the Greek goddess of Discord. The very goddess who crafted the golden apple that led to the Trojan War. Being fond of Greco-Roman mythology and history from a very young age, I was definitely interested in a Greek goddess. The Principia Discordia also featured a lot of Buddhist and Zen philosophies which clicked with me. It also featured an interesting commandment which expressly forbade me to believe anything I read. Deciding to be a Discordian in the mid-1990s was probably the best thing I could have done as far as choosing a religion was concerned. It was a religion that wasn’t a religion. It ordered me to challenge my beliefs, including my beliefs in Discordianism. For someone who had always questioned the existence of the divine and ridiculed the dogmatic traditions of older religions, it was a perfect fit.

Calling myself a Discordian only made me even more of a religious outcast than I had been before. Like the Biblical mythical outcasts Adam and Eve, I would just have to start figuring things out for myself. Since I couldn’t get an insider’s approach, I’d study religion on my own. I made a promise to myself that I would own and read a copy of every religious tome ever written. I went to college and majored in religious studies, and learned more about many religions than I ever could have learned in a church.

If I couldn’t be a part of religion from the inside, then I would take a look at it from the outside. I would study religion the same way a scientist studies the world. After trying on several different faiths, I finally settled on none of them. Instead, I came to the university to study what I wasn’t allowed to learn as a child, and I am so much wiser for it.

Next week I’ll be writing about Biblical scholarship in the late 19th century. Stay tuned!

Category: Focus on Religion, Lifestyle, Religion, Religious Recovery | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Ellen Lundgren | July 5, 2011
2 comments

Call to Campuses Nationwide!

If you run a campus skeptic/atheist group, let us know! Send us your website or email address and we will add you to our directory!

Please send us the following:

Group Name:
Location:
Websites: (blog, facebook, twitter, etc.)
Contact Email: (non-personal)
Logo or Photo:

 

We are working on building this directory as a resource for others to find a group near them. Our list will be sorted into High School, College, and other groups, and then sorted alphabetically into state and/or country.

Further, if you would like to provide updates on your campus group on this blog, become one of our Campus Updaters. You can send us public event information to advertise weekly for free. Let the nation know when you’re volunteering or hosting a public lecture. It’ll connect you with other campuses and provide inspiration for others. Win-win!

If you have more time to contribute and you have a knack for writing, become a current events writer or columnist! We would love more student perspective, tips on working with groups, and more. Just email ellen[at]skepticfreethought[dot]com if you’re interested.

Category: Campus Updates, General | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,