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Friday, November 13, 1970
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN comment
Toward a Costless Education
Yesterday my political science professor handed out the syllabus for the final weeks of class. At the top he noted that the semester was almost over and expressed the hope that the realization had not just slipped up on us.
It hadn't.
The day before yesterday I was thinking about the demise of the semester. In a few short weeks, I milled, my undergraduate career will be ad finem (barring incompletes and-or failures).
In a burst of mathematical energy, I sat down and figured out exactly what I had learned and at what cost. It worked out to approximately $5.27 per erg of knowledge. (An erg, in the measurement of knowledge, is equal to a 4,006 thought-volts, which you can figure out for yourself).
How much easier it would have been to have ambled into the corner drugstore and handed over $2.27 (plus excise and for a neatly packaged org of knowledge).
A former roommate, by my estimate, paid about $1.19 per erg of knowledge, which is not to say she cheated the U. out. She did, but she was a more diligent erg. attainer.
Another friend, by the same standard,
ended up paying about $73.19 per erg.
It suddenly hit me that all this time I had been budgeting my college expenses.
Hence, Peterson's First Law of College Economics. At that monetary rate entities will be better off in the long run.
Imagine the parallel in your friendly neighborhood supermarket. A sign says "Canned Peaches: 27 cents." You walk in, slap down your 27 cents and walk out with as many cans of peaches as you can carry, haul off or think you can eat.
There isn't too much the average college student can do about the price of going to college for four years (or one or two twelve years). But, by the simple application of Peterson's First Law, the student can reduce the unit price for
knowledge to practically nothing.
Naturally, ergs of knowledge are not necessarily attained solely in class. The college atmosphere does not lend itself to supermarket structure; you can take your peaches canned or go pick them off the tree yourself.
Learned how to harvest marijuana?
Add a few thought-volts. Finally figured out the electron configuration of a dimethyl? That's worth a few thought-volts. If you read "War and Peace" (even half of it), learned how to spell subpoena or found out where (or what) Muckadilla is, you have earned thought-volts. With a little effort, you can build up your erg level until your college expenses, in dollars per erg, are practically negligible.
Come to think of it, it may be your only chance in this life, or your money's worth- for-free.
Cass Peterson Assistant Editor
FROM OTHER CAMPUSES
Armed Love: Not Commonsense
Whenyoureallygledowontown, the concept of "Armed Law" is just a little hard to get access
From THE DAILY CARDINAL University of Wisconsin
★★★
Remember when they first told you about Communist? "Yknow, in Russia, they don't have God. They don't want you to believe that what them Russians want! They want to overthrow the government." And eventually "Yknow, them, they want to overthrow the government."
I remember the seventh grade English class, where they taught us about mixing metaphors and such. But somehow, Armed Love is more than a simple grammaticalmixing of terms. I am pretty sure that I can laugh 'till I哭, but I am not sure that I can love someone to death.
I think that I first began learning my nationalistic evidence when I began reading about real Community leaders and was very strongly. Something about telling the peoplehelpeauthe truth and the freedom to discuss. But at least a couple of times.
One is that Fidel Castro does not exhibit a true revolutionary spirit on the baseball diamond.
Another is this thing about means and ends.
Theiades of Armenian Love does have a certain ring to it. Sort of the "Welveoonebrothersdisserso-muchtleverweairing to fight againstthathewouldoppospress." It makes great rhetorical, and stars all kinds of self-sacrificing, never-a-die, images to the surface. Images can be misleading.
FlowerPower to be a big deal. Giveyerguinotin', mace-sprayin' pigfriendlandwatch-chimchanghightheforyoureyes. Too many challenges for you, peace fingers said that that was just not itin'.
Sosomefreak started getting smarter. No more dumb, peaceful lie-injustwaitingfor the Manto-
comedownoya. Enough of the long hair offered as a handle. We is gonna go militant,
Sotherallyheavypoliticalcsengetarnyam. So that everybody has an贤勇noww, and you canbeterlify that they'll be used. Upagainst the wall, fascist pius. Yes, yes, yes.
★★
Ideen btusemppelatehatnooensbahenhot
andmdsbenthsbad in Madison yet. but, then, I guess
that they want to fight with the police and
play cuspidrobbers, but never really for keeps.
And if fifty groups want to claim The Bombing, let's
go.
So what's this got to do with ends and means?
Everything
We can say that we will use violence now to create a new society of peace and love. But anything born in the past has an edge. We cannot condone violence against those that would destroy us, can we hope to evolve to something more benign?
And when we have evolved? I tweasy that violence is only a tactic to help us throw off the chains of Pig America, when are we at an end? Come the Revolution? If an end is achieved, how can anyone really believe thatween, allofthe suddeness, "OK, you believe thatween" and "bombin" cause the revolution is over.
Yes, I know the whilper about violence as the only method for real change. But peoplewhowheoryaboutamchangingthingsbyblowing themnuprightly without causing a disruption is alternative for thikdeinduck is violence, then.
★★★
If we want toreatesthomethat willofferlove andmorankind of happiness,we cannot really use the tools ofour language.
perhaps, we shouldmoveelsewhere. We do not have to stoop to their nir level.
What this country needs friends is a gooddoel-revolution of the mind. I get scared when I see the wide-eyedstreettpeople tell me about all of the gums in my teeth and that they are the right rhetoric not the Counter culture make.
Does Joan Baezscream a little toosimple for you?
Could be. But she and hermione husband,
David Harris, is onto something. Essentially, that
you love her. We can begin to believe we cannot
begin to love her more shooty, and kill!
Armed Love? None for me, thanks.
The Harold R. Nye Award for best supporting actor in an investigatory role to Dougley County Sheriff Ken汉斯on Johnson, the director of TV," television TV," l ookah this been cut," Rex intended he struck through a marijuana field. Your Field was evidence why we elected you, Rex, now was IU."
Bad Karma
Published at the University of Kansas daily during the week, *Mail and Information* is a quarterly publication. $16 a year. Send an email to mail@mailandinformation.com with the good, services and employment advertised offered by you. All contributions are made to the University of Kansas or the State Board of Regents.
An All-American college newspaper
Monroe Dodd
Griff & the Unicorn
By Sokoloff
"Copyright 1970, University Daily Kansan"
LETTERS
Teachers On Ego Trip?
To the Editor:
On Oct. 30, a letter I wrote was published in the Kansas, in which I contended that there was only one reason for the action for anyone who was discontented with having to take required courses, and that was to ignore those requirements that are irrelevant to his intentions.
I should like to continue and to expand the issue. This proposition is obviously a rebellion against authority. But what is the nature of that rebellion? It is not the authority in question is none other than a manifestation of the insecurity of the people who use it, i.e., teachers. By this it becomes evident that outward display of the insecurity these individuals feel internally toward their profession, and 2) that it is the direct result of the fear these individuals feel when they are forced to "morbidly" (students), who show themselves to be anything but inferior.
Who can think, after all these years of schooling, that the classroom game of regurgitating the answer to a question by anything other than that teacher's sense of incompetency outside his personal interests? Is it that teacher defends his opinion being those of others like himself
who, in turn, do the same? And who, after this recognition, can really believe that the interventionists up by these men are then anything but a defense against the curiosity and creativity of their students, which they conceive to impart to their intellectual integrity?
So, from this, I would derive one more ought: if you feel that the forgoing is the case, but teachers are as competent as men can be expected to be (as I do), then there is again only one requirement: that is to ignore not only those requirements that displease you (as I argued for previously), but also to ignore the fratricious nature of grades, quizzes, aimless discussions, busy work, etc.) that simply manifest this in uneasiness. If you suggest doing this in the same way that you now ignore a teacher's cough or perhaps a peculiar use of his hands and pay attention valid content of what he says.
I would urge that it is time for each student to cease depending upon his teachers to simply inquire understanding into him and be responsible for his own education. Gallioe say somewhere that no man can teach another, man can only learn from another, and would urge you to search your own experience and reflect upon the elements of the student-teacher relationship and, if what he learns from you is to send then to act accordingly to end the wasting of these years.
The correct model to follow in education is that of Virgil's leading Dante. The teacher instructs students to submerge his ego below the level of perception by his students and appear to them as an open guide
to the source of pure knowledge in a human form.
But this is all strictly ideal, and students as well as teachers should realize that it. Teachers should have the ability to see they are human. As such, they have eggs that require education—the method of satisfaction (academic mentions) has unfortunately led a vast number of students into wasting a great deal of time taking courses they had no interest in striving for grades that merely represent memorization of their teacher's opinions. Nowhere in the world is there anything is there understanding.
Jim Swindler Pratt sophomore
For his supporting role in "How I learned to stop worrying and love the ABM system."
Rv.JOSEPH I. MVLER
Aggression: ManLike Animals?
UPI Senior Editor
WASHINGTON — Aggression, whether on campuses, in city streets, in Southeast Asia, or the U.S., is something we read about daily.
This surely is deplorable as it is depressing.
But, according to Dr. Allen W.
Stokes and Lois M. Owens of Ufah
State University, an aggressive behavior has always been essential to both original and modern society.
activity.
The problem for man and beast has always been to keep it from going too far. Both men and beasts have evolved systems—that they don't work—warns the author of destroying the societies it shakes.
Stokes and Miss Cox discussed the "intriguing parallels between aggressive behavior in the lower body" in an issue of Bioscience magazine.
Stokes is professor and chairman of Utah State's Institute of Animal Behavior. Miss Stokes is president of university's division of research.
Aggressive behavior, as the authors define it, can be "anything that establishes or reinforces an individual's social status and back your ears and grow. In humans aggression may take such forms as "wearing certain costumes, using titles, and observing protocol precedence in table or entering rooms."
When the necessities of life are scarce, "the more aggressive the individual, the more likely he is to obtain the resources he needs." But unbridled aggression can also lead to wars that can hurt both the individual and the group by diverting energy away from more useful
Animals develop "dominant-abordinate relationships" which determine how they interact with society. In this society every chicken learns which chickens it may safely peck, and "males play with females." "Once rankings and a stable social hierarchy have been established, aggression wanes
"All vertebrates and man lower animals," Stokes and Mis Cox said, "have evolved system designed to avoid such anarchy."
Animals divide habitats into territories, which they defend. Once boundaries are established, pet owners pose aggression. The crowded Britsher, to whom "a man's back is theirs" and a high wall around his little garden
Both animals and humans have developed a "keep your eyes on the road" behavior. Americans take it as a violation of this system if you approach closer than 20 to 36 inches during conversation. They tend to back away.
"Attempts by individuals an, by groups to rise in rank despite traditions underlay many of today's disturbances and wars.
How do you limit the destructive aspects of aggression without suppressing the useful? How can we avoid that? Populations to avoid aggression resulting from too close contact with one's fellow's. It seems obvious that crowding, whatever it is, "leads to greater aggression."
Among human beings it has been the context of family, business, social organization. Caste systems and military life are
Another way to reduce environmentally caused aggression might be to eliminate the frustrations resulting from the need for food, shelter, and employment.
"If all individuals could change their economic status piously on the basis of religion, or social status, 'Stokes and Miss Cox said,' the currently rampant frustration and confusion should be materially abated."
Fighting among European gray partridges is lessened when the vegetation grows high enough to support them. Each other. City designers might well keep this screening effect in place but don't can't increase space per person.
"Perhaps the political solution is for those in power," they said, "to guarantee a minimum standard of living and enough to prevent upward mobility to prevent social unrest and consequent social unrest."
They also suggested that "the use of rewards for desirable behavior rather than punishment for undesirable actions" is important, in terms of forms of punishment are thwarting and release hostility.
Unfortunately, a potential
likeness aggravates his anger
likewise his fight against
some member of his family or a
minority group than upon some
member.
Nevertheless, "aggressive behavior is fundamentally the same in man as in lower animals."
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"We now have a fair understanding of the causes, and origins of aggression in humans," said Dr. Ferguson, who said, and how to minimize it.