Borland Educational News and Views

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

ACT To Take Over As Top Test?

Is the tide at long last turning in the test wars? Will the ACT or the SAT2's overtake the number one spot from the SAT? Will the SAT finally go bye-bye?

Good grief ... let's hope so.

The SAT, now 80 years old, has already outlived its usefulness, and its welcome, on many if not most college campuses today. During the past 30 years, the SAT has been picked to pieces over charges of gender and racial bias, shown to be a poor predictor of success in college (the SAT's "raison d’être") and exposed as a seriously flawed and very coachable test by companies like the Princeton Review and others. Despite three desperate attempts in the last two decades to "improve" the SAT, complaints from students and parents continue to increase, bad news and reviews from school administrators, university admissions departments, and others in the education community cascade daily onto newspaper pages across the country, and everywhere people are wondering why we're all still chasing this bus.

The SAT2 tests, formerly called the Achievement Tests, along with the ACT, are top contenders to move into the prime testing territory formerly monopolized by SAT. Each of these challengers has its strengths, but either is a much better assessment tool than the SAT and could easily step into the vacuum formed by its impending extinction.

In Newsweek's August 21, 2006 issue, the magazine took a look at the ACT and it's threat to push the SAT clear out of the nest of college entrance tests. It's an excellent article, very informative, entirely interesting reading, and highly recommended for further information on this subject.

Read the full article here:

-----

Contact Chris

borlandeducational.com

Sunday, July 01, 2007

Rumor Has It

Wondering if there really ARE alligators living in the New York City sewers?

Ever wanted to check out the latest outlandish urban rumors?

Here's the only site you'll need to fact check a wild one you just heard, or find some amusement on an otherwise slow day:

http://www.snopes.com/

Enjoy!

-----

Contact Chris

borlandeducational.com

Friday, June 01, 2007

Dalai Lama Appointed To Emory Chairmanship

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual and cultural leader of the Tibetan people and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, will begin his new life as a Presidential Distinguished Professor at Atlanta's Emory University when he begins lecturing there this coming October.

Part of the Emory-Tibet Partnership that aims to "provide a solid basis for [a] joint quest to explore the frontiers of knowledge" by engaging in a "genuine two-way exchange of people and ideas that encompasses the areas of culture, philosophy, religion, science and health ...," the Dalai Lama's appointment crowns on a cooperative effort that goes back several years before the partnership between Emory University and Drepung Loseling Monastery was officially established in 1998.

The shared dream of His Holiness and Emory Dean Dr. Robert Paul first envisioned in 1991 is a "vision of bridging two worlds for the benefit of humanity."

A recent article in The Guardian gives further details.

-----

Contact Chris

borlandeducational.com

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Cheney Invitation Inspires Ire At BYU

Those of us Baby Boomers who hear about "student protests" and "campus sit-ins" instantly recall the political demonstrations made famous during the 1960's free speech movement on liberal campuses like U.C. Berkeley, S.F. State, and others. Long-haired, tie-dye wearing hippy dudes in V.W. vans blasting protest music and picking up like-minded hitch-hikers on the way to anti-war marches come quickly to mind.

Times have changed.

This time, it wasn't liberal coastal campuses hosting large anti-establishment rallies, sit-ins, and sign-waving, anti-government dissent. No, no. This time, it was Brigham Young University (BYU), perhaps the nation's most conservative college, the reddest campus in the reddest state in America.

At the Mormon University owned and operated by the LDS church, public protest and dissent are rare. Unity, propriety, and pro-Americanism have always been the norm there, where any serious opposition to leaders of the Republican Party tends to raise disapproving eye brows. Nevertheless, open protests by students and faculty at BYU erupted recently over the decision to invite Vice President Dick Cheney to be this year's BYU commencement speaker (Cheney spoke at BYU on 4/26/07).

Despite the fact that nearly all of the student and faculty at BYU are strong conservatives, and the vast majority registered Republicans, many at BYU feel that Cheney's personal behavior and governmental policies do not at all reflect the traditional Christian/American values (honesty, fairness, integrity, freedom from debt, respect for the Bill of Rights, clean language, etc.) taught at the University and in the LDS church.

From a recent New York Times article:

“The problem is this is a morally dubious man,” said Andrew Christensen, a 22-year-old Republican from Salt Lake City. “It’s challenging the morality and integrity of this institution."

In restrained campus demonstrations on 4/4/07 and again on 4/26/07, several hundred BYU students, faculty, and staff protested Cheney's speech. An "alternative commencement" in neighboring Orem, Utah was miraculously funded and produced at the last minute (despite active local opposition) featuring Ralph Nader as speaker, and more than 3800 LDS members signed an online petition in opposition to the Cheney invitation.

Read the entire article here.

-----

Contact Chris

borlandeducational.com

Sunday, April 01, 2007

This Sentence Is False. True Or false? (Conclusion)

For convenience, I’ll repeat the sentence in question, immediately below this one.

This sentence is false.

The sentence in bold-face immediately above this one is not true, and is not false. It is “undecidable,” and has no “truth value.” The reason is rooted in its self-referential nature.

Here it is:

According to classical Aristotelian logic, what we call “common sense,” a statement cannot be both true and false. It must be one or the other.

If the sentence we’re considering is true, then it is false (after all, that’s what it directly states, that it is a false sentence). It's impossible for a sentence to be both true and false, and so we can rule out the possibility that the sentence is true.

So, the sentence in question must be false (which aside from "true," our initial assumption, is the only remaining alternative).

However, the sentence in question cannot be false either. If the sentence is false, then it is a lie, and the opposite of what it states must in fact be true. Since the sentence in question states that it is a false sentence, the opposite must in fact be the case – i.e. the sentence must be true. Again, no statement can be false AND true, so we must also throw out the possibility that the sentence in question is false.

The sentence in question is therefore demonstrably not true AND also not false – according the rules of “common sense” logic.

Weird. Apparently, logic is sometimes illogical (another strangely self-referential idea)!

If you like this kind of thing, you’ll love Hofstadter’s book (see part 1 of this investigation, here). However, be forewarned. It’s easily the "thickest” book I’ve ever attempted to read. I’m not just referring here to the length of this prodigious tome, but mainly to the difficulty of grappling with the ideas presented within it. Reading that book is like trying to step on your right foot with your right foot, nearly every page of it! It’s about radical, "outside the box" observation and expansion of the human mind – literally thinking hard about thinking hard. An intellectual challenge of the first order, this meta-logical journey will be truly maddening for most mere mortals, but is a sublimely rewarding experience for those brave and stout enough to make the trip.

For further study or additional masochism, try a google search on “self reference” or “fuzzy logic.”

Good luck!

(Click here to go to Part 1.)

-----

Contact Chris

borlandeducational.com