Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83 based; site hou2g.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!hou2g!scott From: scott@hou2g.UUCP (N. Ersha) Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Petards, Hoist Message-ID: <530@hou2g.UUCP> Date: Tue, 2-Jul-85 15:51:58 EDT Article-I.D.: hou2g.530 Posted: Tue Jul 2 15:51:58 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 3-Jul-85 20:25:12 EDT Organization: rest, relative to the universe Lines: 102 "->" = Oded Feingold "->>" & " " = Me Mr. or Ms. Feingold: (I can't tell your gender from your name, but that's irrelevent--not your gender, just my knowledge of it.) I'm not posting this to net.women because it no longer is appropriate there. The original discussion was about teachers' salaries and relative worth, but it has digressed to a discussion of the shortage of math and science teachers and the low salaries they receive. The reason this is in net.flame should be obvious, you pompous twit. ->>--but I think the lower salaries for this (math, science) type of ->>teacher is held down artificially by the salaries for "liberal arts" ->>teachers (at least at the secondary school level). ->> ->>I mean, could you justify to your local school board paying ->>a math teacher double the salary the English teacher makes? ->>Most of the other teachers would howl... ->> ->> Scott J. Berry ->I couldn't justify it to myself, let alone school boards. I believe ->such narrow-mindedness (math and science are good, English sucks) is ->bad for discussion and bad for living. I find it symptomatic of ->rigid, narrow attitudes that permit all sorts of distortions in our ->value systems. Mr. Berry, I don't think you can quantify humanity and ->human experience, so studying math and science won't give you a handle ->on what makes life worth living. What you just said, in effect, is you find narrow-mindedness symptomatic of rigid, narrow attitudes. What powerful insight! Where did I, or for that matter, anyone, say anything even REMOTELY similar to "math and science are good, English sucks"? Why do you claim I'm narrow-minded? On what evidence do you base this assertion? Where did I state that math and science completely prepare the individual for an understanding of life and what makes life worth living? Or that the "liberal arts" don't? What I tried to explain was that if there was such a HUGE demand for math and science teachers, their salaries should be raised. Otherwise the shortage will persist. Teachers of "liberal arts" do not warrant such a raise (other than any BLANKET raise which I agree all teachers should have). ->they would not be so fast to misapprehend what others are saying, nor ->so likely to make obscure(*) or disjointed replies. The point of ->English education is (or should be) learning to understand what people ->say, and learning to say understandable things, to oneself as well as ->to others. If people made more efforts in that direction we'd see ->more light and less heat. I would much prefer a situation where ->people do NOT engage in witless, recursive mis-perception. HA! HA! HA! HA! What? That wasn't supposed to be funny? How often do you pay any attention to what you're saying? ->Lest I be accused of deliberately misunderstanding Mr. Berry's ->comment, hence hoist by my own petard, Ah, yes. "Hoist by your own petard". THAT was the expression I was trying to remember. But don't worry, I won't accuse you of DELIBERATE misunderstanding. Just not paying attention and being a silly person with a big mouth. -> I'll note that I don't care ->about supply-and-demand nor relative teachers' salaries per se, Then why not move someplace where supply-and-demand is not the (nominal) economic system. Or start a revolution to change it. And if you don't care about relative teachers' salaries, why are you being so obnoxious? -> but I ->*do* object to seeing postings about them on net.women. Okee, fine. This isn't in net.women. -> What bothers ->me is how closely such ill-found measures of relative worth reflect ->incongruities in the discussions on this newsgroup. Which "ill-found measures" reflect which "incongruities"? What's YOUR definition of "relative worth"? ->You read this far? Amazing. You understood this far? No? Well there's nothing I can do. Perhaps you can go back to school and learn some *English*. Your education clearly concentrated too much on (gasp! shudder!) MATH and SCIENCE. You want to know what REALLY gives life meaning? A GOOD FLAME! Ah, Cleansed! Scott J. Berry