Welcome! And don't judge the  blog by its "cover", please.

    Appearances can be deceiving.

Voted! What's next? A "race war"

Transcripts to the “Alien Thoughts” videos

 

The Litmus Test (a psychological experiment).

I am searching for managers in the field of (distant) education, who:

·     Know the  difference between remote teaching and online learning;

·     Distinguish being polite from being nice;

·     Are not afraid to team up with people who may disagree with her/him;

·     Seek in others professionals skills and knowledge;

·     Value long-term goals over short-term gains;

and

·     who are capable of making bold decisions.

I believe in the future of distant education, (especially for teacher professional development), and can help with making it better (my career choice). 

 

I have all the relevant experience (and more), including, but not limited to, teaching – in its most general sense: selecting the relevant content, developing a syllabus, envisioning learning trajectories, designing teaching strategy, creating teaching tools (to facilitate and guide learning, to assess learning outcomes), and teaching (literally – acting as a teacher).

In addition to my professional experience, I have various publications on the matters of teaching science and philosophy of education (and more).

My most valuable “badge of honor” is a decade of a proven (!) professional success <= this is the link I would advise to start from, of course, if you are curious enough.

I am curious how many managers have (a) curiosity, and (b) confidence, to reach out to a complete stranger who may provide views/opinions/ideas outside of orthodox/mainstream assumptions.

Dr. Valentin Voroshilov     http://iergo.xyz/

"I hated physics before taking this course, and now after taking both 105 and 106 with Mr. V, I actually really enjoy it. He is one of the best teachers I've ever had. Thank you"

 

 What I Do: Dr. Voroshilov: from A to Z; (Professional past, present, and future of a driven professional, an eloquent expert, a productive author, and a collaborative colleague)

Who I Am: Dr. Voroshilov: A Peek Inside!

·      

          The Full List Of Posts

·                Politics

·                Artificial Intelligence

·                Fundamentals of Quantum Physics 

·                Full List Of Post On Education

·                Philosophy Of Education

·                Strategies For Teaching Science

·                From The Top Of My Head: a collection of random ideas

Two short video presentations:

1. Open Classroom Initiative: invest in thefirst world-wide open library of lessons

2. Invest in EdTech and disrupt K12 education

Specific projects for addressing different areas of education and science of education.

 1. Entry125253: High Frequency Data Streams in Education 
(link to the full text)

2. Entry124656: objective measures of physics knowledge 
(link to the full text)
 
3. Entry125317: National database teacher PD 
(link to the full text)
 
4. Entry124655: role of NSF in funding education
(link to the full text) 

5. Entry125719: The new type of a science course for science teachers.  
(link to the full text) 

6. Entry126205: The development of the uniform standard for measuring content knowledge in physics.
(link to the full presentation)

Executive Summary of Professional Experience
(An excerpt from the full description of my path)

(I) Teaching

(A) Groups

5th-graders; 6-th graders; 7-th graders; 8-th graders; 9-th graders; 10-th graders; 11-th graders; 12-th graders; 2-year college students; 4-year college students; university students; school teachers; school administrators; district administrators.
(B) Subjects

Physics for Engineers (two semesters); Elementary Physics (two semesters); algebra, geometry; trigonometry; formal logic; problem solving; group theory (discreet and continuous); methods for teaching science courses; methods for advancing individual teaching practice; managing innovations in education (initiation, implementation, growth, support, assessment, audit).

(II) Managing/Consulting

Assistant to Director of an Institute; Director of Department of computerization and information technologies; Director of Center for Development of City School system; member or a team, leader of a group of consultants for schools and school districts (initiation, implementation, growth, support, assessment, audit of innovations in education).

(III) Learning

graduated from schools with high GPA; participated in a wide range of extracurricular activities; developed personal approach to teaching (flipped the classroom before the approach was described in publications); published papers on various aspects of advancing education; converted publications into PhD theses and then found an adviser; moved to a country without knowing the language; learned the language; learned how to teach using foreign language; started publishing in foreign language.

P.S. A large portion of my ideas come to me while I am in traffic or in a swimming pool. During the day there is not often much of a time to formalize them in a fashionable way. Most of my post are written in one seating as a raw flaw of thoughts. This blog is the best I can do. Well, so far - let's wait for retirement (and the memoir! ). However, I welcome anyone who would like to coauthor a piece and transform it from my "singing as you go" to a fashionable publishable form - polish statements, new points, references, ... . And also, if someone would find in any of my posts a useful idea and used it, I would appreciate a reference to the original.
(C) Education Advancement Professionals consulting services

We, Humans, are the only anti-entropic force in the whole Universe! Everyone has to do his/her part in fighting chaos! That's why the Universe crated us.
P.S.S.
From On the Definition of AI: 

"This is what teachers can do! From the NASA's "Brief History of Rockets"
https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/TRC/Rockets/history_of_rockets.html

“In 1898, a Russian schoolteacher, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935), proposed the idea of space exploration by rocket. In a report he published in 1903, Tsiolkovsky suggested the use of liquid propellants for rockets in order to achieve greater range. Tsiolkovsky stated that the speed and range of a rocket were limited only by the exhaust velocity of escaping gases. For his ideas, careful research, and great vision, Tsiolkovsky has been called the father of modern astronautics.”

What is the difference between an expert and a professional?

A professional does what is needed to be done.

An expert explains - why.  

How do people become professionals?

By accumulating professional experience.

How do people become experts?

By reflecting on accumulated professional experience.                                                        

A Master is an expert professional.

My Mentors taught me a secret of becoming a master teacher:

There are ONLY two rules for becoming a Master

1. Learn from the Masters;  

2. Never stop pushing yourself.

"In order to be able to think you have to risk being offensive" (From Jordan B. Peterson), because ability to take risk is correlated with curiosity (only curious people are capable of taking risk; people who play it safe have no curiosity and hence a vision). 

Disclaimer 
I am an "investigative blogger". I insert myself into a situation I study and then I expose all BS I found there (BTW: BS means "beyond sense-making). I  am not an idiot or a reckless person. I am a person who has strong opinions on matters (I believe U.S. needs more people like that, people who can lay out strong reasons for their statements and take a "blow" of a disagreement). The reason I can allow myself writing what I think, even if that is perpendicular to commonly adopted and conventional views, is that my financial situation is sufficient and stable. Of course, as a normal person, I wouldn't mind making more money, or being involved in more interesting projects (as described in my generic resume). But I do not have to pretend to be someone I'm not to make my living. I am aware of the fact that my chance to find many professionals with views similar to mine is slim. The demand for "professional correctness" is taken to such an extreme that it has become a demand for personal conformity. I believe in telling truth. Truth is facts. Facts are science. I believe in science. Facts can be upsetting or encouraging, but facts cannot be offensive. As a master in my field, I have no reservation to offer my critique of people whose actions overlap with the field of my expertise (human intelligence). I know (and fine with that) that the chance that my writing will have a significant effect is negligible. But the butterfly effect exists, so the chance is not exactly zero.

Welcome! 
Thank you for visiting!
And don't judge the blog by its "cover", please. 
Appearances can be deceiving.

If

then you should not read this blog.

Although, if you can't handle the truth, you cannot solve any problem, because the first step of a problem-solving process is accepting the fact that you have a problem.

Why Zoom sucks for teaching and always will.

My two cents in the discussion about virtual education (an excerpt from The Confession Of The Creative Brain).

 

I wrote a lot about education, including the distant education. 

 

For example, check

The future of education is impossible without a robust online component.

I want you to know what I did last summer!

Getting ready for the fall semester?  Here are some hints.

 

The difference between online learning and online teaching.

 

More on this page.

Here I want to point out at the useless but very active discussion how to effectively use Zoom for teaching. 

The answer is - you CANNOT effectively use Zoom for teaching. 

Zoom, Skype, WebEx, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, or any other meeting software will never be good for teaching.

Of course, to understand and accept that, one needs to know what teaching is and is about.

In American culture, including the top educators, researchers and administrators teaching is not different from animal training, from training circus animals doing tricks.

BTW: one of the reasons for No sign for improving math education soon.

If teaching would have been pouring knowledge from a "knowledge storage" (a.k.a. a teacher) into an empty vessel (a.k.a a student) then Zoom would be sufficient. But teaching is not that. 

E.g.:

What is Teaching?

A handbook for a science teacher.

Teaching is the process of helping learners to learn. And learning is based on communication. If one-on-one communication would have been possible, then, again, Zoom would be fine. But that is not a case. Teaching requires an effective group communication. That requires a an ability to organize, manage and monitor communication between students. That requires s completely different technological instrument. 

A teacher needs to be able to see and not just all students, but the work of every (any!) student (and of course communicate with any student). And a teacher needs to be able to create and re-create collaborative groups and observe the group work and participate in that work. And this is just the bare minimum any teaching collaborative technology must do. Ideally, students should feel immersed in the same learning environment, and that means - use virtual reality. The need to do laboratory experiments brings even more demands to an effective distant teaching-and-leaning technology.

To my best knowledge, there is no company or a startup trying to develop that technology.

Hence, distant teaching sucks, and will continue to suck for years ahead.

Dr. Valentin Voroshilov 

For curious people - a reward!

No teaching technology can do any good if a teacher who uses it sucks.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of teachers in America sucks at teaching.  It is not their fault, though. America dose not have a system of teacher professional development (well, America does not believe in systems in general, and look what she got herself into).

E.g. this post, or this one (from many!). 

The roots of American decline - in all spheres, including education, starting from education! - is the extreme primitivism practiced by the managers of all levels.

America! The victim of the Primitivism.

 

How Stupidity Costed Trump The White House.

My first large piece on the matter of stupidity of the American elite was published in August 2018 and titled “The Degradation of White Male American Elite”. Even though that piece is more than two years old the vast portion of that post is still very much current.

 

Since then I have been returning to this theme many times, for example, read:

 

Knowledge Is NOT Power. At Least In Politics.

 

If Liberals Won’t Enforce Borders, Fascists Will (a word from and to David Frum)

 

Why Americans are Starting To Lose the World Race for Prosperity?

 

Greed - the American cancer that killed good management.

 

Monetary Feudalism, State Capitalism, or Why Does Putin Smile?

 

Why Do I Want To Vote For Trump?

 

China v. The U.S.: The Battle Of Strategic Thinking

 

Checking the Intelligence of Massachusetts Republicans

 

Why Americans are Starting To Lose the World Race for Prosperity?

 

The vast majority of my critique was aimed at the Democrats. There is no point to repeat it again, the main statement is very simple, no one at the top of the Democratic party has vision required for generating a single original idea, starting from 2016 election the only strong idea they were able to create and use was “Trump is bad!”.

 

A word to Senator Sanders, and other anti-Trump warriors

 

Why does Seth Moulton run for the President and what does it say about the Democrats?

 

Why Didn't Hillary Clinton Win The Race?

 

 How Smart Are You, Mr. Kennedy? The Test.

 

"Why Didn't I Win", by Elizabeth Warren (2020)

 

How and why the Democrats screwed up.

 

But the democrats are not alone in this sin, having no vision is the common trait of the whole American elite (fish rots from the head down).

 

You can find all my posts on this page.

 

The reason for this post is to add one more example of stupidity on the part of American elite, but this time on the part of Republicans.

 

I used to say that the Democrats are nice but stupid and the Republicans are smart but evil. Turns out – not so smart.

 

It’s obvious for me that the only reason Biden was able to beat Trump was the COVID pandemic. Actually, not the pandemic per se, but the way Trump administration handled it.

 

Or rather the way the top Trump’s circle handled it. Those few top Republicans who Trump needs to thank for losing the election, starting from himself.

 

If people would really liked the Democrats then they would put them in the state legislatures, in the House of the Representatives, in the Senate.

 

But they didn’t.

 

Trump’s team had a very good chance to beat Biden, if it wasn’t for their absolutely stupid pandemic strategy.

 

Instead of denying, diminishing, ignoring the epidemic Trump should have embraced it.

 

“America is at war with the invisible enemy” was the step in the right direction. The next step should have been “Let’s unite! Let’s beat the enemy! If you fight an enemy it is stupid not to use a helmet and a body armor! Our masks are our Kevlar, our protective gear!”

 

The vast majority of Trump supporters are either ignorant (poorly educated) or idiots (have some knowledge but cannot use it in new situations, cannot think). They would believe anything Trump would say, they do not assess the logic of his words, they just “drink” whatever he says. If Trump would have embraced masks, everyone in his cult would do the same.

 

But the inability of the top Republican circle to see the opportunity the epidemic gave eventually brought Trump’s presidency down.

 

Unfortunately, the top Democrats, including Biden, Obama etc., refuse to accept the fact that the only reason Bien won was due to the disastrous handling of the pandemic on the Trump’s part. Democratic Party has no people who have vision and can generate original ideas. That is why in four years the Democrats will be swept out of the American politics.

 

Stupidity costed Trump the White House. And in four years the Biden will repeat Trump's fate.

Obama's legacy is Trump. Who will be yours, Mr. Biden?

 

The roots of American decline - in all spheres, including education, starting from education! - is the extreme primitivism practiced by the managers of all levels.

America! The victim of the Primitivism.

 

 

Why I'm quitting Amazon Prime.

I have an active internet life, starting from this blog.

 

But I also use Facebook and Twitter to promote some of my ideas.

 

And, as I say in the description of this blog, I use polemic language.

 

Some time ago Facebook suspended my add. 

 

Then Twitter suspended my account. The explanation was that I was using too many hashtags to attract audience. 

 

The whole superpose of Twitter is attracting audience to spits of your thoughts - otherwise no one would every be on Twitter! And with the limit on the number of characters it is only natural that I want to use all of them. One needs to be an actual idiot not to understand that. 

i appealed. My Twitter account was restored.

 

And now it’s Amazon.

 

I do not write many reviews, but sometimes I want to write one.

 

Recently I found that this option was removed from me.

 

Amazon made me voiceless.

I do not care much about writing reviews, but I got curious – why?

 

So, I wrote an email.

_____________

WTF??

Any SPECIFIC reason beyond unusual?
Wrong? Offensive?

Anything?

____________

 

After this email I had some additional email exchange that you all can read below.

 

My right to write a review has not been yet restored, and most probably will never be.

 

But that would be fine if Amazon could PROVE that I did indeed violate their policy. I believe in punishing the crime. Well, I also believe that BEFORE issuing any punishment one should be issued a warning (at least if the crime is not too anti-social, like, for example, just some “unusual” behavior). And I strongly believe that everyone has the right to get a SPECIFIC reason for the punishment.

 

However, Amazon (and, BTW, all other media) do not bother to gather an actual proof.

 

They say, basically, that they found you guilty, because, from their point of view, you were guilty. Period. 

 

-Judge, why did you send me to a jail?

- You may have violated some of the laws from my book.

- What law?

- Who cares. I say you're guilty.

 

N.B. Some young and active left-leaning politician (AOC?) should take on this. Or a right-leaning one, I don't care.

 

In the meantime, please enjoy my communication with Amazon.

 

You will see that the one of the reasons Amazon people are upset with me is that I called them idiots.

 

Well, I said that the were acting like idiots.

 

And now they take this whole thing personal.

 

And the main reason for that is that Jeff Bezos … well, I talk about this at the end of this post.

_________

review-appeals@amazon.com  

Hello,

Amazon has noticed some unusual reviewing activity on this account. As a result, we removed all of this account’s reviews. It is no longer able to contribute reviews, comments, customer questions and answers, and other content.

Why is this happening?
Customer reviews are meant to provide unbiased product feedback to help customers make informed purchase decisions. Our goal is to provide Customer Reviews to help customers make informed purchase decisions. Any reviews that could be viewed as advertising, promotional, or biased will not be posted.

This account can no longer contribute any content for one or more of the following reasons:
-- Elements of the account indicate a relationship to sellers, publishers, or other reviewers of the products you review.
-- Reviews were posted in exchange for compensation, such as gift cards to purchase the product, product refunds, review swaps, or free or discounted products.
-- The account requested free or discounted products in exchange for reviews.
-- The account was created for the primary purpose of writing biased reviews.
-- An unauthorized party may have accessed this account to write reviews.

If you would like to learn more, please see our
 Community Guidelines (https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=14279631).

______________

Right after I read this email I wrote my response (some typos were fixed).

 

Hi,

When you copy and paste a generic description of “your” opinion (as I just did with yours - see below) 

You have to provide PROOF(!)

or

everything you say is, JUST your PERSONAL opinion(!). 

You pretend that you are the God who doesn't need to explain your actions to peasants.

But you are not.

Your job is to demonstrate a SPECIFIC example when my review violated a SPECIFIC rule.

Any idiot can do what you just did - copied a generic response that was even prepared by someone else. 

What does Jeff Bezos pay you for? 

#IdioutsRuinedUS

www.Cognisity.How

____________________

 

Two days later I got this (try to find some substantial difference between this letter and the first letter from Amazon):

review-appeals@amazon.com

Hello,

Amazon previously sent an email about some unusual reviewing activity on this account. As a result, we removed all of this account’s reviews. It is no longer able to contribute reviews, comments, customer questions and answers, and other content. Thanks for contacting us. We have reviewed our decision and will not restore this account’s ability to contribute content.

Why is this happening?
Customer reviews are meant to provide unbiased product feedback to help customers make informed purchase decisions. Our goal is to provide Customer Reviews to help customers make informed purchase decisions. Any reviews that could be viewed as advertising, promotional, or biased will not be posted.

This account’s ability to contribute may have been removed for one or more of the following reasons:
-- Elements of the account indicate a relationship to sellers, publishers, or other reviewers of the products you review.
-- Reviews were posted in exchange for compensation, such as gift cards to purchase the product, product refunds, review swaps, or free or discounted products.
-- The account requested free or discounted products in exchange for reviews.
-- The account was created for the primary purpose of writing biased reviews.
-- An unauthorized party may have accessed this account to write reviews.

If you would like to learn more, please see our Community Guidelines (https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=14279631).

We cannot share additional information about this decision and may not reply to future emails.

________________

 

Of course I could not not to write back (see below, some typos were fixed).

 

Hi Amazon God-like feeling moderator.

you just sent me another email that says, basically, that you have no idea what specifically you punished me for, but you still insist that I was wrong, and you were right to do that.

This is the quote from your email (the fill version is below): 

“This account’s ability to contribute may have been removed for one or more of the following reasons:”
the grammatical structure of this sentence demonstrates that you may have didn’t know what was the actual reason for your decision.

In fact, in my previous email I asked you to provide a SPECIFIC example of one of my SPECIFIC reviews that violated one of your SPECIFIC rules.

You did not do that.

My assumption is that you do not have that SPECIFIC information, and your decision was based on a faulty algorithm.

That means your decisions are based on intrinsically faulty basis and you have no ability to prove the correctness of your decision.

Any court would agree with me.

Unless you CAN provide SPECIFIC proof - your policy is BASELESS.

At the minimum, this whole conversation goes to my blog.

Thank you for the material.

#IdioutsRuinedUS

www.Cognisity.How

_______________

 

The law does not require any media company to prove the correctness of the decision by providing a specific example of the violation of the policies. So, they can punish anyone for anything and do not have to bother about keeping the facts. This means that the policy has to be developed and sustained by the managers of a company. In this case, by the managers of the Amazon.

 

In his recent book Jeff Bezoswrites that he does not think anymore about day-to-day operations, he is busy to model the future, his thoughts are about what will happen three years from today.

 

Evidently, on some level in the Amazon administrative pyramid someone does not do his/her job. But that means that his/her superior does not do his/her job (hired a wrong person or did not provide the right training). But that means that his/her superior does not do his/her job (hired a wrong person or did not provide the right training). But that means … – you know where this all leads us to – to the top person, to Jeff Bezos. That means he does not do his job.

 

This is not a new situation in a business world. There have been multiple companies that downsized or even disappeared because their top management did not do their job (e.g. remember Blockbuster? Or check the history of General Electric).

 

All big-fish top CEOs surround themselves with lots of human filters. And that's natural; they have to limit the influx of information. But the issue is in the quality of those filters, meaning people who operate as information gateways. If those people would be as smart and intuitive and visionary and bold and lucky as their bosses, they themselves would have been bosses, not filters. A smart boss (not the same as a good boss) understands the limits of the people he uses as information filters and does something about that.

Until some politician will take on the policies of the big internet companies, they will not bother to change their policies.

 

There are only two things I can do about Amazon: 1. Share my experience; 2. Quit Amazon Prime.

 

This post is finished.

 

Now, it’s time to make the next step.

 

Dr. Valentin Voroshilov

 

More on American management:

Greed - the American cancer that killed good management.

Ignoring sloppiness: a sign of tolerance or mismanagement?

 

In Management Thinking Makes All The Difference

 

A case of a Dumb Decision. How IT Screwed us. Again.

 

Why Americans are Starting To Lose the World Race for Prosperity?

 

Professional communication: a case study.

 

Was Mr. Jeff Bezos a visionary, is he still is, and will he remain to be such?

 

BTW: I have a lot of publications on the matters of management and politics.