Britton Peele's Blog

Originally published in The Daily Toreador.

When it comes to politics, I tend to be pretty conservative. When it comes to life and learning, I tend to be very Christian. C.S. Lewis is my hero, and I don’t care who knows it.

But a lot of recent events, including this fiasco with the new Texas curriculum, almost have me embarrassed to call myself a Republican.

The Texas State Board of Education has approved large changes to our state’s public school curriculum, which has been severely criticized for being extremely right-leaning. The entire situation is controversial to say the least.

After the vote, Don McElroy, a Conservative member of the board, said the board is trying to add balance to our nation’s curriculum, stating “academia is skewed too far to the left.”

Now, I wouldn’t necessarily disagree that a lot of things in our country, from school books to media networks (Fox News excluded, obviously) lean to the left at least every now and then. However, trying to balance that out by making more things lean way to the right (a la the afformentioned Fox News) just seems absurd.

More than anything, I disagree with the extreme measures being taken to create this lean in the first place. For example, in what appears to be an effort to cast doubt on the idea the Founding Fathers wanted the United States to be a secular nation, former President Thomas Jefferson is not included among a list of influential intellectual writers. Jefferson was a deist (believing in a god but not necessarily the Christian God) who helped spur the idea of separation of church and state.

Jefferson is being replaced by the likes of Catholic philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas and anti-Catholic law scholar William Blackstone.

According to a New York Times article on the subject, there also will be a more positive spin on anti-communism during the Cold War, with Communist witch hunter supreme

Joseph McCarthy seeing at least slightly more positive light than he has in the past, stating the later released Verona papers “confirmed suspicions of communist infiltration in U.S. government.”

So a man for whom we’ve coined a term for reckless accusations (“McCarthyism,”) and who no doubt falsely accused many people of being communist, ruining their careers, will now be supported and treated as something of a fallen hero? Seriously?

Look, people from both sides of the political fence are going to screw up sometimes. You don’t see many Democrats trying to defend the affair of Sen. John Edwards by saying, “It’s OK, because his wife was crazy and paranoid.” Republicans should not try to defend McCarthy by saying, “There were at least some real communists inside the U.S.” It’s a bad strategy.

There will also be changes to terminology. “Capitalism” will be replaced with the term “free market,” for example, as it has better connotations.

The problem with all of this (well, OK, one of the many problems) is that it reeks of desperation and fear. Conservatives in high places are worried about the direction our country is taking, and so they’re panicking by making textbooks as Conservative as they can. Want to raise future Republican presidents? Make sure they believe that conservatism is the best choice.

What they don’t understand is that they’re only going to end up raising ignorant children.

It’s the same problem we face when trying to force the theory of evolution out of schools. If children don’t know about arguments from all sides, then they’re going to be much more easily influenced than if you try to keep them in a bubble.

If we &- both Democrats and Republicans, Christians and non-Christians &- don’t allow for other views in our society, then we become the church in the 1600s, notorious for trying to enforce the geocentric view of the universe. Never mind the fact Galileo, defender of the heliocentric model, was a Christian, or the fact rival geocentric scientists were ultimately more responsible for Galileo’s fate than the church, the church is made the enemy purely because it was, as a whole, stubborn.

History, science, theories and fact aren’t always going to support our views as much as we would like. But the only way to truly better ourselves in the long run is to not try to sweep unwanted ideas under the rug. If your view is the right one, is should stand the test of time in the end. I know I, personally, am confident enough in my ideas that I don’t need to run from conflicting theories. I don’t need to alter science or history in order to make my arguments stronger.

As someone who was homeschooled in high school, I already was considering teaching my future children at home, purely because I believe it can (though doesn’t always) lead to a better learning experience. Now, however, I have another reason to do so. Apparently, if my children are going to learn real history in Texas, I’ll have to teach it to them myself.

Originally published in The Daily Toreador.

I come to you today with a confession: I’m a point addict.

Part of it may be my Y chromosome, but I love competition. I used to strive to have the highest grades in class not just because I like being smart, but because I liked knowing I could do better than everyone else. I love high scores, and I’ll sometimes play Xbox 360 games longer than I would like just so I can pad my oh-so-precious Gamerscore total, which is thousands of points higher than most people on my friends list.

There’s a part of me that seriously wonders: if life were more of a game, would I be doing better at it?

Let’s face it; I’m not the healthiest guy on the planet. I can blame growing up with an auto-immune disease for some of that, but I certainly don’t eat as well as I should or exercise as much as I could. Thing is, I often find it hard to find enough immediate incentive for doing such things. Sure, in the long run I’ll live longer and keep my girlfriend happy by looking better, but in the short term eating an entire box of Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies sounds really good right about now.

Several months ago I was flipping through an issue of Wired when I came across an article about Nike+iPod, or just Nike+. It’s an interesting Nike “smart shoe” that connects to your iPod and calculates things such as your distance, pace, time and calories burned as you run. When you’re done running, you can upload all that data to the Nike+ server where you can set goals, attempt challenges and compare data with friends.

Now, I actually liked running already. For as nerdy as I am and as much time as I spend indoors, I’m proud I can run a mile in just more than 10 minutes. But these Nike+ features threatened to turn running into something more for me.

Nike was going to turn working out into a game.

This shouldn’t sound entirely new to anyone, even if you aren’t familiar with Nike+. Chances are you’ve at least heard of “Wii Fit,” which did something similar. And sure enough, “Wii Fit” had me doing push-ups and yoga poses in front of my TV for awhile. But Nike+ boasted some more interesting features.

For example, the Wired article talked about how certain businesses were going to start offering bonuses to their employees who met certain Nike+ goals. You could earn points and exchange them for, say, gift cards. Why? Well, think about it. A lot of businesses provide health insurance to their full-time employees. If their employees are healthy, and require less medical help year-per-year, rates might go down. The insurance company sure isn’t complaining.

During the weekend, The DT’s tech critic, Timothy Poon, directed me to a video from this year’s DICE summit &- a sort of symposium for game developers to talk about game design. The video in question was a half-hour talk by Jesse Schell, a professor at Carnagie Mellon University. The presentation was titled “Design Outside the Box,” and it discussed gaming beyond Facebook, beyond “FarmVille” and “Mafia Wars.” Where is gaming going? His answer: life.

He theorized a world where you score points from toothpaste companies for brushing your teeth for a full three minutes. A world where Dr. Pepper gives you bonus points for drinking their product five times in one week. A world where you unlock achievement points after reading 500 novels or helping the environment by using public transportation. After all, technology is getting so small and so affordable that it will soon be pretty easy to keep track of all of this and more.

On one hand, this paints a rather scary picture. It’s not hard to envision a corporate Big Brother where our every move is monitored and influenced. Schell used examples like tattoo ads, that if placed on your body with e-ink and always visible, could earn you revenue as well as bonus points in the game of life. Kind of a scary thought, that humans might be tricked into becoming walking billboards.

But on the other hand, he says, what if such “game” systems could make us better people?

The advantages of incentivizing things like exercise and recycling are fairly obvious &- any method that could encourage people to do things like these should be examined. But Schell also considers this: Would we be better people just because we know we’re being tracked, measured and judged? That our children and grandchildren might have a record of all our stats? Of where we were in the ultimate global high-score board?

I think there’s definitely a line somewhere, and we’ll have to figure out how far is too far when it comes to tracking our lives. However, I know that I, personally, would be healthier, stronger and maybe even smarter if there was a greater incentive of some sort. Maybe there’s something to the idea of turning life into a literal game, so long as we don’t go overboard.

Originally published in The Daily Toreador.

Many students appear to have the idea that because they’re paying for a class, they have the right to try to shape it as they see fit, regardless of what the professor says. I’ve noticed a lot of freshmen with this mentality, but it would be wrong to lump all newcomers together &- students from all classifications have this problem.

It’s a flawed way of thinking. Just because you pay to rent a house doesn’t mean you can knock out all the walls and turn it into a small parking garage. That right isn’t given to you in the terms of the contract you signed when you started renting.

Similarly, as soon as you are handed that syllabus during the first week of class, you’re entering into a contract with the professor, and you need to respect it.

I’ve had the misfortune this semester to be in a class that’s filled to the brim with people who are testing the limits of the professor and TA. It’s a basic class with a review session requirement, and I’m sorry to say the reason I’m in there is because I suck at the subject in question. It is far from my forte, and as such I was forced into a class that teaches the most basic of the basics.

Thing is, almost all my fellow classmates are in the same boat as me &- we really don’t know what’s going on. If they were good at the subject, they wouldn’t be in that class with me. But despite this, many of them think they’re too good for the class, and act accordingly.

Early into the semester, our normal professor was out sick, and our TA was forced to teach the class. Now, I’ll admit, this guy was far from the best at teaching us the subject, but he was trying, and he deserved our respect as the acting professor.

At least three quarters of the class walked out. They just stood up and left in a mass exodus.

The next class day, we had a substitute professor instead. Now, this guy knew what he was doing. I might even argue he was better than our normal professor. Yet again, people decided they didn’t have to respect the rules of the classroom and decided to leave. When the substitute got on their case about this (he even wrote one woman’s name on the blackboard), the rebels complained, furious a mere substitute would dare try to tell them how to behave in their class.

If this was the whole story, it might not be a huge deal. Sure, the disrespect some of these students have for people in authority made my blood boil, but it didn’t really affect me, and thus wasn’t really my business.

During quizzes, some of these students have the audacity to complain they were never taught the material covered on the quiz and ignore the simple fact that the material was taught. They just don’t remember learning it because they walked out of the lecture.

One guy flat out refused to take a quiz. He turned in a blank sheet of paper just because he did not believe that he had been taught how to answer one of the questions (by the way, he had. I was there). Rather than trying his best, he decided to storm out and make a statement.

Half the class cheered as he left. I said nothing, but shook my head at the audacity and idiocy of those who were celebrating. Is that truly what our society really values here at Tech? “Sticking it to the man” by refusing to do your work?

For no less than three weeks, fellow students sitting next to me kept asking extremely simple questions that they would know the answers to if they would just come to class.

One student in particular asked the same question every Thursday for a month. The information just never sank into his brain.

At that point, their behavior wasn’t just affecting themselves or the professors &- it was annoying the crap out of me.

I can understand if you’re not fond of certain professors or their teaching styles. That’s perfectly fine. But you usually can tell if that’s going to be the case within the first week or two. You have plenty of time to drop the class, even receiving a full refund if you’re quick enough to do so.

Yes, the professors on this campus are here to serve you, but not to be your slaves. You do not have the right to complain about required attendance or the lack of flexibility of due dates. Your professors have the right to teach as they see fit, whether you like it or not. If enough people don’t like it, that will be reflected in the semester-end evaluations and something will be done, but for goodness sake, people, be reasonable about stuff.

If you don’t like the way a class is being run, drop it. If you decide to stick it out, then be respectful, come to class, pay attention and remember your place. You’re not the one in charge in that classroom, no matter what your ego tells you.