Off-topic: Educational methods

[Patricia M Godfrey pmgodfrey@xxxxxxxx]

 Bill Troop:
>I was shocked, in college, to discover that in Italy, there aren't any
> editors at all! They just publish what you write!

About 1965-70, the publisher I worked for (Grolier) purchased, from an
Italian publisher (nameless out of charity), a whole slew of books
supposed to painlessly introduce young people to the world around them;
the chief incentive was the enormous number of very good photographs of
places and works of art. Well, the text was translated and handed to us
for copy editing; of course it wouldn't need any editing, having been
edited and fact-checked in the original. Hah! One caption identified the
building in the picture as being the "cottage in Hungary where Brahms
wrote the Moonlight Sonata." Another id'd a building as the Italian
Parliament. I noticed some writing (in nice Column of Trajan capitals) on
the pediment, and by this time being highly suspicious, got out my
magnifying glass. The writing proclaimed the building to be Il Tempo, a
well-known Roman newspaper. And so on.

In another post, Bill said:
≫your professor, Helen Lockwood, impeccably tailored in tweeds. Her
first words are: "I suppose a few of you still believe in God?"
Pandemonium breaks loose.≫

My first thought is, What the Hades business is it of a Lit. Prof.
whether or not her students believe in God? Of course, if she were going
to point out that a great deal of literature was written by and for
people who did believe in some sort of divinity, that would be relevant.
But given the context (Smith in the 20s), I don't think so. Makes one
think there may be something to "diversity" after all.

George wrote that among the things that could shock people was
≪4. Claiming that MicroSoft products are not only divinely inspired, but
are
also irrefutable.≫
Well, WE know better, but there are a lot of poor souls out there (the J.
Random Lusers of cyberdom) who would probably take that as at most an
exaggeration: "Well, Microsoft is the industry leader; surely its
products must be very good?"
Patricia