Time To Spare?

LaShawn,

Thanks for the links to A Physicist’s Perspective. It’s always nice to know somebody’s reading what I’ve written.

Best wishes,
David

My pastor just started a series of messages on the 5 points of Calvanism. He mentioned how the points were there long before Calvin came along.

OT,

I didn’t get my password sent to me. Waz up wit dat?

La Shawn, thanks for flashing me back to my grade school nightmare of horrors

I’m referring to your Education Watch link, which was a good one on its own. But then I had go and scroll down and up to read the other postings and I came across the post entitled “THE METEORIC COLLAPSE OF SCHOOLING OVER THE LAST CENTURY”. Shiver me timbers

Imagine being an above average 4th grade student from Detroit being dropped smack dab in the middle, actually the tail end of the British school system’s 5th Class.

While we generally operate on a semester concept that begins in September and ends in June, the All Saint’s International Primary School (run by the Angelican Church) that I attended in Ibadan, Nigeria from ‘72-’74 was operating on a trimester basis; January – Easter, Easter – early July, and late September to Christmas.

Needless to say, starting my “5th grade” in September meant that I was actually in the last trimester of 5th Class. I probably would have done just fine had it been anything like the US schools, but then I had to learn all this nonsense about Pounds, Shillings and Pence. On top of that long division, algebra, binary math (any number reduced to 0s & 1s) and logic equations (If X & Y, Therefore Z) was old stuff for the rest of the class. Brrrr!!!

BTW: I’ve never ever seen the mathematical symbol for “Therefore” being used here in the States — imagine three dots, each placed at the corner of an equilateral triangle.

Although I didn’t get promoted along with my classmates, fortunately for me, the school systems was transitioning to the Fall – Summer year, so by the time I got to 6th class, it was as if I never missed a beat compared to my US classmates. But in 6th Class, the British System threw “New Math” at us (the Union and Intersection of numbers, blah, blah)

Furthermore, back then, one didn’t automatically graduate from Primary School (1-6 Class/Grade) into Secondary School (Form 1-4/ 7-12 Grade compressed into 4 years). Everyone, and I mean every single 6th grade student had to take and pass a national day long comprehensive exam in order to move up. Ain’t no compassionate edumaction in this here system.

For most, it is/was the one and only chance at “high school” and university. Fail it and you could wind up in a apprentice/vocational trade school or worse, your education was done and you unceremoiniously started scratching for a living.

The two subjects that kicked my butt was Math and English (Grammar, Composition & unabridged reading/comphrehension of Ivanhoe, Black Arrow, Shakespeare, R.L. Stevenson, KJV Bible and other classic English Lit) w/ a bit of Latin. This was weighed heavily over science and other studies, which Secondary School was more about.

I not only flunked the Comps, but big time. And everything was riding on whether I would pass and hence continue my education locally, or if I would end up having to go to an US-based boarding school.

That’s how I and my next two younger siblings wound up a thousand miles away attending the Ivory Coast Academy (ICA), a boarding school in Bouake, Ivory Coast for the 74/75 school year, before the family all returned to Michigan.

You might recall the incident a couple of years ago where Ivorian rebels overan a school in Bouake, necessitating a coordinated rescue and extraction by the French and American troops. This was where I went to 7th grade.

Another interesting thing was that former Biafran Lieutenant Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu’s son and daughter not only attended ICA, they were also our dorm brothers & sisters as well. At the time Ojukwu was in exile from Nigeria and served as a General for the Ivorian Army, under President Félix Houphouët-Boigny (H-B).

During one of our trimester breaks, while waiting for my parents to catch up to us at Abidjan, me and my brother/sister would play with Meka and Mimi, along with a few other expats at their villa. Last I heard, Ojukwu returned to Nigeria and is politically active in the Enugu area.

During that same break, I also made my first “paycheck” translating a meeting at the Ivorian “White House” for my dad between him and H-B. After we were done, H-B gave me a bright shiny 5 Franc coin, roughly equivalent to $10. At first I had visions of framing it, but wound up buying a Revell model of the OV-10 and some candy at the Super Marche. I’ve got my priorities

As I understand it now, it is also at the same ICA campus that when the Ivorian Air Force fired on rebels a few weeks ago, they “mistakenly” killed a few French troops and an US aid worker. It is but just a series of events that caused the Ivorians to suspect that the French were actually lending unilateral moral and material support to the rebels. The French retaliated by destroying the entire Ivorian Air Force, on Chienrac’s personal command.

This then lead to the Abidjan demonstration at Hotel d’Ivoire & the White House and increased occupation, euphemistically called “protection” by the French on Ivorian Government facilities & killing unarmed civilian protestors as seen in a series of videos online but ignored by MSM.

Where’s Kofi?

Anyway, La Shawn, now I know I’m just rambling, but it’s all your fault, because that’s the type of stuff you stir up when we have a little spare time. My blathering sort of reminds me of that old 90’s Discovery Channel or TLC show called “Connections” (what does the size of the Space Shuttle have to do with Roman Chariots??).

Allan,
Likely larger parts of Europe would be speaking German or Russian than there are today. And much of the Pacific and Asia would be Japanese labor camps.