Thread: Russia & UK from 6th History Class - Comments?

To everyone who has posted their views... I am thrilled and if others still want to chime in, please do so! Your comments have been great! They also on the same little handout had summaries of Japan and Cuba... but I don't think we have any natives from those places on this forum.

Just so you have the complete picture... here is her assignment:

Directions: Use the country cards provided by your teacher and follow the steps below to determine where on the economic and political continuums each country belong.

1. Underline economic information on each card and mark it with an E.
2. Underline polictical information on each card and mark it with a P.
3. Discuss where each country should go on the economic continuum. Come to group consensus and mark the continuum.
4. Repeat step 3 for political continuum.
5. Discuss any pattern you see between the economic and political systems of each country.
6. Itentify which principle gives a generalization about this pattern.

Also, if any of you REALLY smart people have an easy way for me to explain the word CONTINUUM to a very visual 11 year old, please let me know as I have yet to be able to help her understand this one.

it-ogo, and you thought words like "communism, democracy, market economy" were intricate and ambiguous terms!!!

Tell her a continuum is like a smooth range or gradient between two colours that lets you see whether a mixture of those two colours is more like the first one or more like the second one, except that a continuum can be about more than just colours, it can also be about ideas, or numbers, or any other values.

This is a continuum, because you can choose any shade of grey between black and white:


And this isn't a continuum, because the choices between black and white are separate and distinct and there are lots of possible shades of grey missing:

scotcher!

ATTY!

Originally Posted by rockzmom

Also, if any of you REALLY smart people have an easy way for me to explain the word CONTINUUM to a very visual 11 year old, please let me know as I have yet to be able to help her understand this one.

+1 "Continuum" can be explained to 11-er. +1 this term is absolutely not needed there. And I feel like this word has not been explained to the author of that text. I am not happy of the way it is used there. Actually after reading those texts I feel like their purpose is to educate a human who can fluently use a plenty of smart words without actual understanding their meanings. A brainless speaker.

it-ogo, and you thought words like "communism, democracy, market economy" were intricate and ambiguous terms!!!

Why, sure! You already has been told about some meanings of the word "communism". As for "democracy" I am still unable to understand what is it. "Republic" is OK, "representation" is OK, but "democracy"...

Originally Posted by it-ogo

Originally Posted by rockzmom

As for "democracy" I am still unable to understand what is it. "Republic" is OK, "representation" is OK, but "democracy"...

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. - Origin unknown.

Matroskin Kot,

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. - Origin unknown.

I had never heard this one before and between you and gRomoZeka's HOUSE, MD thread my hubby keeps wondering why I am laughing so much at the computer!

gRomoZeka,

Your drawing is perfect for a visual student... even an old one like me can understand this!
Ya' know... it looks very much like the ones from your HOUSE, MD thread. Just throw in a cane and some vicodin pills ... could you be the mystery artist??

Originally Posted by rockzmom

Your drawing is perfect for a visual student... even an old one like me can understand this!
Ya' know... it looks very much like the ones from your HOUSE, MD thread. Just throw in a cane and some vicodin pills ... could you be the mystery artist??

Aw, thank you, rockzmom! I am really flattered.
But it's not me. I'm not THAT funny (I wish!). *sighs*

Originally Posted by E-learner

Originally Posted by rockzmom

BTW, I thought the first thing would be about the phrase...

...other services they were used to having under Communism.

Explaining to a westerner that there never was Communism as such, and nobody here ever clamed it to exist as an accomplished thing, is like banging your head against a brick wall. They just seem unable to grasp this idea.

They always use this "under Communism", I suppose it rather means soviet period in context then a social order.

and people expect the government to provide health care and other services they were used to having under Communism.

All these services were and are provided, they just had lack of financing at 90-s.

Everyone,

So I sent an email to my daughter's teacher and here was his response about the project:

It is remarkable how these concepts (some of which I wasn’t introduced to until college!) are part of the 6th grade curriculum. For the record, the students were provided with a visual of a continuum, along with an explanation. It’s basically a scale/straight line (like from 1 to 10), with opposite concepts on each end. The economic continuum has command on one end and market on the other, and the political continuum has authoritarian on one end and democratic on the other. The case studies of each country are supposed to reveal the pattern that countries with command economic systems tend to have authoritarian political systems and countries with market economic systems tend to have democratic political systems.

I must say, gRomoZeka, scotcher & Matroskin Kot.. you helped me to understand way better... because even after all the explanations... I am lost with all the BIG words in his email!

He assures me that my daughter understands now and that is all that matters.

I guess I just like pretty pictures and Power Point way too much!

It is remarkable how these concepts (some of which I wasn’t introduced to until college!) are part of the 6th grade curriculum. For the record, the students were provided with a visual of a continuum, along with an explanation. It’s basically a scale/straight line (like from 1 to 10), with opposite concepts on each end. The economic continuum has command on one end and market on the other, and the political continuum has authoritarian on one end and democratic on the other. The case studies of each country are supposed to reveal the pattern that countries with command economic systems tend to have authoritarian political systems and countries with market economic systems tend to have democratic political systems.

What he is saying here is basically that the point of the exercise was to demonstrate that socialism is inherently bad, and that the case studies were chosen specifically to underline this point.

I'm not a socialist (well, I probably am by a US calibration, but that's hardly difficult), but I would be outraged if any school or teacher tried to indoctrinate my son in this way.

It is remarkable how these concepts (some of which I wasn’t introduced to until college!) are part of the 6th grade curriculum. For the record, the students were provided with a visual of a continuum, along with an explanation. It’s basically a scale/straight line (like from 1 to 10), with opposite concepts on each end. The economic continuum has command on one end and market on the other, and the political continuum has authoritarian on one end and democratic on the other. The case studies of each country are supposed to reveal the pattern that countries with command economic systems tend to have authoritarian political systems and countries with market economic systems tend to have democratic political systems.

We had a command economic system with fixed prices and it came to this:

than prices became the market ones. Now, we have a market economic system that came to the economic crisis but the political system is a democratic one.

Originally Posted by studyr

We had a command economic system with fixed prices and it came to this:

than prices became the market ones. Now, we have a market economic system that came to the economic crisis but the political system is a democratic one.

b#llsh!t

studyr
You should've mentioned that Gorbachev's reforms where the cause of those things you see on your photo. Before him there've been some problems in finding certain things but that was minor.

Originally Posted by Waterlaz

studyr
You should've mentioned that Gorbachev's reforms where the cause of those things you see on your photo. Before him there've been some problems in finding certain things but that was minor.

Trees sway and cause the wind. http://www.wtrg.com/prices.htm He was just unlucky to meet the twofold oil price drop.