Drone Disruptions, Close Calls, Show Current Regulations Are Way Too Lax

Can we finally say 'enough is enough'  with the millions of drones infesting the world's skies especially after what happened recently at Gatwick Airport  ('Drones Shut Down Major UK Airport', WSJ, Dec. 21, p. A8)?  Not to mention the suspected collision of a small drone with an AeroMexico plane ('Risk Of Airliner-Drone Crash In Focus After Incident', WSJ, Dec. 17, p. A6)  a week ago?  I mean,  what is it going to take? A drone ripping into a Boeing 767 engine with hundreds of lives lost before regulators get their collective act together?

As reported in the piece about the near mid=air collision (ibid.):

"Wednesday's AeroMexico incident is bound to prompt greater focus on the various ways airports, regulators and drone operators are experimenting to reduce the risk of such midair crashes, particularly in the vicinity of airports when planes are more susceptible because they are flying slowly and low."
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And in regard to the Gatwick disruption (ibid.):


"Authorities took the dramatic step Thursday of grounding flights all day at one of Europe;s busiest airports, upending plans for more than 100,000 passengers after what was said to be a deliberate attempt to use drones to disrupt travel.

The incident at Gatwick Airport, about   an hour's drive south of London, punctuates the growing threat to civil aviation by unmanned aircraft....Worries over drones have disrupted airport operations before but never for such a long time at such a large airport."

And, of course, I've been blogging about this issue since the drone menace first reared its ugly head, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/02/no-to-more-drones-in-us-skies.html

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/02/time-to-snuff-this-drone-bullshit-now.html

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-drone-pandoras-box-how-long-before.html

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/07/drones-gone-wild-why-moire-air.html

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2018/06/drone-makers-whats-little-risk-for.html

Look, there are many players to blame in this, from a weak-willed, bought out congress anxious to get campaign donations from the drone makers, to the manufacturers themselves - who want as few regulations as possible.  Then to the likes of the drone users, including Alphabet, Inc. and Amazon who've bet big on the drone future.

Indeed, as long ago as February, 2012 I had written:

"Yet another federal agency (FAA) is now being held hostage to the corporatist-industrial complex,  attempting to find new avenues for drone production since the occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan are ending (well the first has officially ended, the second nearly so....

In the case of this new FAA bill, worth some $63 billion (and already four years in the lobbying and rewriting phases), U.S. skies would be inundated with tens of thousands of unmanned drones sharing airspace with commercial planes - and recall these are already at the beck and call of overworked air traffic controllers, as gauged by nearly 300 near misses per year. Imagine if they now had to contend with thousands of these unmanned drones flying who knows where?

Certainly the commercial pilots themselves aren't too enthused. As a WSJ article observes ('U.S. Skies Could See More Drones', Feb. 4, p. A7):

"Barely hours after the 374-page bill became public pilot union officials urged a more deliberate approach. Lee Moak, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, which represents 53,000 pilots across North America, said his organization remains worried about safety issues such as training and certification of those unmanned aircraft."


Then, in a Feb. 27, post some weeks later I cited a Denver Post front page story noting:

"Congress has told the FAA that it must allow civilian and military drones to fly in civilian airspace by 2015"

In other words, even then congress myopically invited the potential for  a slew of near collisions! All for what? MONEY! Each drone that ended up in the skies put lobbyist money in the craven congress critters'  pockets, likely from the "Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International".This is the selfsame "industry trade group"   that has pushed this bullshit down the FAA's throat and used congress as the Trojan Horse to do it....with billions of dollars of money exchanging paws in the background.

I then quoted a PR specialist for the same AUVSI outfit, a Ben Gielow - who could barely control his drooling:

"The potential civil market for these systems could dwarf the military market in the coming years if we can get access to the airspace.."

If?....Well hell, they've now gotten that access to the civilian commercial airspace and with disastrous results.   Some may ask:  what's so wrong with companies pushing to use drones more, and lobbyists getting in on the act too? Plenty! Starting with none of these actors has clue one  - or any real experience - with the historically slow pace of crafting aviation rules. I am talking here not just about getting drones into commercial airspace, but being able to protect large transport craft with hundreds of humans using that airspace.

 

That problem has not been solved, and when stringent proposals were offered by the Obama FAA, i.e. making all drone operators get a pilot's license to conform to a certain standard - the drone makers and congress went ballistic.   True, in some nations, e.g. Germany, there is now a push for those elements manage the country's air traffic control system, to make steps toward "a harmonious and safe coexistence of manned and unmanned aviation".  (WSJ, Dec. 24, p. A9).

 

However, even the most optimistic observers including specialists in aviation and regulatory agencies admit when pushed that "even partial integration is many years away and is dependent on technical leaps still on the drawing boards."  (Ibid.)

More daunting for the drone mavens and operators:

 

"Some drone proponents worry the Gatwick incident could lead to regulatory backlash. The British Airline Pilots Association, which has long called for tighter rules for private drone use, this week called on the British government to raise to 3.1 miles (from 0.6 miles) the drone exclusion zone around airports. It also called for drone licensing and registration requirements."

These are also changes I've endorsed in previous blog posts for U.S. drone management.  The reason is simple:  despite what the drone lobbyists, users and aficionados may say,  it's much better to preemptively make the skies safer for commercial aircraft using stiffer regs, than to wait for a catastrophic drone-airline  collision that kills hundreds to change. After which many may want ALL unmanned craft banned permanently from within 100 miles of  major airports. 

All of these matters should have been thought about when the first legislation appeared nearly 7 years ago. However, the lobbyists, drone makers and a cowed congress were too much in a hurry.  They all  felt the need to dash to the finish line when more sobriety, reflection and temperance was required. The displaced passengers at Gatwick may well be the first adversely affected in mass numbers, but they won't be the last.   And as drone specialists note, it will take years - perhaps as long as a decade- before an effective integration of aviation regs is achieved. In the meantime, what to do?  Common sense screams that the FAA must implement powerful provisional regulations including licensing and registration of all would-be operators.

Cumbersome? Maybe. But preferable to having irresponsible jerks bring down a jetliner with hundreds sacrificed to political and financial expediency.  (And yes, unfortunately in the current 'Drone world', "Peter has to pay for Paul".)

 

Solutions To Statistical Mechanics Problems (1)

1) Quantify the magnetic energy for the system at time t(o) compared to time t(o) + t, if the magnetic energy of one spin magnet can be written:

M = - m B cos Θ 

where m  is the magnetic moment (-eL/2m, L = 1) and assume Θ = +/- π, and B = 0.1T. 


Solution:

For the elementary spin magnets in the system, the orientation of the up spins is such that  Θ =  90 deg, so   cos Θ  =  1.  Given the orientation we may use for the elementary spin magnetic moment:  m s _z  =  - u _B  L  (given the spin is aligned with z-axis)

where:     u _B = 9.27 x 10^-24 J/T  is the Bohr magneton

Then the magnetic energy difference for the spin states at   t(o) compared with  t(o) + t, can be written:

D M =  12 m s _z B cos Θ    =   {12  ( 9.27 x 10^-24 J/T)  (0.1T)}  =  1.1  x 10 ^-23 J

2)  Say that S = log (g) determines the entropy for a  simple statistical mechanical system, where g denotes the number of accessible states. Then estimate S for the 2D ice crystal model - including any errors that might enter.

Solution:

In the Ising model case applied to the ice crystals, the energy is the sum of interaction of all adjacent squares. The contribution  of each pair of neighbors depends only on their colors. Since the total number of white squares is fixed, it is proportional to the total length of the contours separating white from blue.    Thus:

Energy = 2 × Length of contours

The key to successful solution here is to note that white squares save energy by clumping, but low energy does not automatically imply high probability (i.e. associated with the highest entropy state).  Then, as an approximation, we take the clumped contours (if readers have performed the contour-drawing exercise) to be higher order (analogous to the spin ups in the ferromagnetic system) and non-clumped "singletons" to be lower order,analogous to spin downs.

From the contour sketch there are 4 clumped states, and 5 non-clumped or singleton (lower order) states. Thus, there are 5 accessible (higher entropy) states for the system.

Then:

S =  log (g)  =  log (5)  = 1.6

Approximately. (Remember, 'log' here refers to base e log, not base 10!)

Obviously, errors could enter if the contours (yielding clumped, non-clumped crystals)   are incorrectly drawn.

Polemics = Political Blog Posts? You Better Believe It!

Paul Ryan repeatedly depicted as 'Eddie Munster' crying because he can't cut "entitlements". Right: depiction of Mick Mulvaney as a talking rat after taking over Elizabeth Warren's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and wrecking it.

Trump pitching a fit after claiming Obama bugged him, right: sucking at Bannon's teats

Trump -- above left- depicted as Hitler signing executive order.   Giuliani as Nosferatu (the Vampire)

Polemic(def.):   Writing that features contentious rhetoric that is intended to support a specific position by aggressive depiction and undermining of the opposition.

As the Trump-Reich wing driven government shutdown enters its 2nd week, there is more than ever the need to skewer these wretched maggots even as one more and more sees and hears the idiocy "both sides are to blame". Uh no, they are not! Only one side merits blame: Trump who actually wanted this fiasco, and the Right wing media axis that egged him on to go through with it (see previous post).  That said, this more than ever reinforces the need to attack the other side using polemics.

On occasion I've been asked, especially by wifey (and friends), why so many of my political posts lean toward polemics, say as opposed to an "objective" discussion of opponents' policies.  I always reply the same way:  Their own Right wing media system refuses to do that, so why should I help prop up that benighted system by kowtowing to a fake objectivity?  In other words, these fools need tearing down, not validation. If the Reich media tilts perceptions then perhaps polemical posts can help in some small way  to counter the effect their grubby fingers have on the perceptual scales.

According to Eric Alterman, a media specialist writing in a recent issue of the Nation: ('Asymmetric Warfare: Far Right Media Isn't Playing By The Same Rules', Dec. 31, p. 6)  there exists a vast media "asymmetry" between how the supposed mainstream (and even many bloggers) portray the news and how the Right's media mavens do it. Specifically,  the primary consequence of this media asymmetry is a propaganda feedback loop. This loop, once established – as it is via FOX, Limbaugh, Breitbart etc. -   “lowers the costs of lying and increases the costs of resisting in the name of truth”.

In other words, it requires vastly more energy, and time -consuming investigation, as well as  endless scrutiny to knock down all the lies spewed out daily and metastasizing like so many mind viruses in the media ecosphere.   Now, since we already KNOW that 99.9 percent of what the Right media generates amounts to lies, then it make more sense simply to attack  all of their production as propaganda.  Also, take down their  screeching sock puppets (e.g. Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Steve Bannon, Laura Ingraham et cl) as liars and manipulators from the get go.  No need for "scrutiny" because their past misdeeds and overstretch, like Steve Bannon's and Dotard's, precede them,. So why not just go straight for the jugular to skewer the emitted propaganda, using hard hitting criticism as well as imagery (see above graphics) from the outset?

Thus,  nearly all my political blog posts embody a uniformly oppositional point of view,  and yes, "contentious rhetoric" because I believe one cannot fight the Right's media axis properly using namby-pamby rhetoric, cowardly hedging or politically correct weasel words. 

To make his case, Alterman  cites the book 'Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, And Radicalization In American Politics’ (by Yokai Benkler, Robert Faris and Hal Roberts of Harvard University) and I’d say there isn't  a more profound take concerning how the American media consumer is being bamboozled with propaganda.  This is in reference to an asymmetric media environment wherein the Right’s crazies hold all the advantages and the regular media competes with one "hand" tied behind it.   Contrary to the usual malarkey  - which the mainstream media itself often recycles- the 3 authors found (op. cit.):

“No Left Right division, but rather a division between the Right and the rest of the media ecosystem. The Right wing of the media ecosystem behaves precisely as the echo chamber models predict, exhibiting: high insularity, susceptibility to information cascades, rumor, conspiracy theory and drift toward more extreme versions of itself.”

They also observed (ibid.):

"Even core right wing sites that do claim to follow journalistic norms, Fox News and The Daily Caller, do not in fact do so."

In other words, they abide by no known rules of  journalism, despite now accounting for an ever increasing share of political news sources and consumers.  An example, as Alterman writes, "During the 2016 election, the racist, inflammatory Breitbart was the third most frequently shared news source on Facebook, after The New York Times and CNN."

Of course, that stat is pathetic and discloses way too many Americans  unable to distinguish propaganda from real news.

Now, do my blog posts deliver real news? Yes, to the extent I cross check whatever comes over my transom (email alerts), whether from the New York Times. WSJ, Daily Kos, Financial Times or other sources.  If cross checking reveals major discrepancies then that item is not included or referenced. Hence, real news not alternative facts, is delivered but I do not refrain from taking a definite viewpoint on that news.  Or indeed, on any cited editorials, whether from The WSJ (on Trump and his behavior) or from The Denver Post, say on fracking or recent midterm voting amendments.

And always I am on the lookout to skewer (with appropriate imagery or cartoons)  anything that looks remotely hinky, sketchy or outrageous.  Am I justified in this "loaded" approach?  Damned straight!  As Alterman himself notes: The most important contribution of 'Network Propaganda'  has been to reveal that the mainstream media "have made themselves complicit in this system". 

That is, quoting from the book, "when one side systematically produces propaganda and has no internal checks then the insistence on maintaining neutrality creates a fiction that  there are two legitimate sides to this story".

Hence:

"To say this side says 'x' and this side says 'not-x' systematically reinforces and amplifies the lies."

My approach, in my political blog posts, is to call the other side out as liars and manipulators from the get go, no 'two sides' bunkum.  Hence,  I am not going to even pretend a hint of "objectivity" - which has merely been used by the corporate (often hedge-fund owned) media, to avoid doing their due diligence.

The upshot here is that if you arrive at this blog to read political (or economic) posts you should know exactly what you are going to get  It is going to be 100 percent anti-Trump, anti-FOX News, anti- Republican policy and no in- between.   If you prefer a false balance instead, well I am sure there are hundreds of media sources and other blogs to meet that requirement.  You just won't find it here at Brane Space.

More Chaos, Partial Gov't Shutdown. Now We Know Dotard Takes Orders From Right Wing Puppeteers & Putin

"Yes, sir, Mr. Limbaugh! I am takin' orders on the wall from you and Fox 'n Friends!  Now, I gotta go shine Mr. Putin's boots!"


"Every day since this man has taken over, there has been some terrible event that has afflicted the country. ..When you pull back the curtain what you realize is that he is a puppet for Fox News and he's a puppet for Putin, for the Saudis and for the dictators".  - Former Sen. Barbara Boxer, last night on 'All In'

 "I believe this man is afflicted by a seriously sick psyche such that the provisions of the Constitution that transferring his powers to the Vice President should now be brought to bear."-  Former Sen. Gordon Humphreys, last night on 'All In'

Well, a partial government shutdown has occurred, even as the screeching buffoon called Trump tries to foist the blame onto the Dems.  But do not be deceived by the fog of Right wing or Trumpite baloney, this is all on the "reckless and dangerous" Dotard Donnie.   And no matter how much this deranged nutcase yelps about blaming the Dems this is all  on him, and his Reeptard cheering section in the Reich media. Let us recall he openly admitted ownership for it before the press in an Oval Office meeting last week with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, see e.g.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-CuAbbZUoI

How the hell did this all unfold given the Senate had completed a CR (continuing resolution) to keep the government going at least into the new year and originally had Dotard's tacit buy-in?  Well, what happened is that Dotard Donnie again succumbed to his FOX TV watching addiction (which is mostly what he does each day, besides tweeting) and happened to hear and see a bevy of right wingers (Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, Fox and Friends)  teeing off on him, calling him assorted names ("gutless") , and not following through on his promises re: the wall.  Re: Fox and Friends, The Guardian newspaper once said the show “manages to serve as a court sycophant, whispering in the ear of the king, criticizing his perceived enemies and fluffing his feathers." 

This odious sycophant chorus was then amplified by two House Tea Baggers, Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan,  who pushed the vote to kill the CR.   It then went to the Senate, where 60 votes were needed - given this is a budgetary issue - but they weren't there. There are only 51 Republicans currently after all. So given the lack of votes to support any idiotic border wall, the CR failed as well and here we are.  700,000 government workers now with no money coming in, and just before the Christmas holiday.

Let's also be clear as glass, that as I'd written in an earlier post (Dec. 12) , all this bullshit about the "wall" has nothing to do with Trump actually wanting a real wall or any "border security".   Trump could have had $25 b in the summer  toward his wall but decided to crap all over the deal because it included at least something for Democrats: protecting the DACA folks.  No, all Trump and his minions are about is posturing for the Reeptardo base and doing a big show.   The frightening aspect is we have a "resident" who is incapable of analytical evaluation, won't read his daily briefs, and is hostage to cable TV - from which he takes instructions from whatever nitwit is barking at him at a given time.

As political commentator  Ezra Klein made clear (on Dec 11, 'All In') about Trump's motivations in his earlier antics  i.e. in a White House meeting with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer:

"Give Pelosi and Schumer credit for putting him in a corner, What struck me so deeply about that meeting is that Donald Trump doesn't himself want the wall.  That is not the meeting you want if you want the wall. The difference in what he wants in funding and what he's currently got in funding is about $3.7 billion.  That is nothing in the federal budget. 

If he wanted that wall he would not have put that meeting in front of the cameras, and he'd be willing to give them something for it.....But the thing about Trump is he doesn't want the wall, he wants the fight over the wall. So I don't think they exactly know what to do about a president who doesn't want his policies because he doesn't care about policy. What he wants to do is have fights with Democrats about policy or about policy ideas or words that sound like policy ideas. And have those fights on camera.

The fact those fights don't redound well for him, the fact he's not in a popular position doesn't seen to really bother him. Trump runs his presidency as if the ratings on the television show he's starring on are good and the punches are seen. And today was a good day in the Trump Show."

 As Schumer related yesterday:

“The Senate UNANIMOUSLY passed a bipartisan solution to avoid a shutdown. Then you threw another temper tantrum and convinced the House to ignore that compromise,”

But this is what happens when you have a narcissistic, psychologically warped, dyspeptic imp befouling the highest office in the land and who willingly takes marching orders from a clique of right wing extremist assholes.  Oh, but he's also taking orders from Vlad Putin and Turkey's autocrat Recip Tayyip Erdogan  -  after ordering all U.S. troops out of Syria from a spontaneous brain fart....errr... random tweet.

Look, let's back up a tad here.   I was never for barging into Syria in the first place because of the obvious risk of accidental confrontation with the Russians (and indeed, at least one incident did happen in which dozens of Russians were killed).  But as geopolitical strategist Ian  Bremmer put it three days ago  (CBS Early Show interview) , there is a right and wrong way to pull out of a country.

Trump, using a random tweet did it exactly the wrong way, the chaotic way, leaving thoussands of Kurds exposed now to Erdogan's backlash. Already 10,000 Kurds have lost their lives and more stand to - victimized by the Turks and likely the Russians too. Recall the U.S. fighting ISIS and Kurd partnership dates to 2014 (during Obama's tenure) when the Kurds mounted an inspired last ditch defense of Kobani against the ISIL vipers.  The Kurds could have stood down and instead consolidated their own gains, but instead fought on against ISIS at U.S. urging.   Now that has been for naught, as Trump has tossed them to the wolves, and likely enabled ISIS  resurgence.

But let's go back to the ways of a traitor again, or as former Republican Sen. Gordon Humphreys put it last night on All In, "treasonous actions".  This latest move has all the earmarks of yet another gift to Putin, perhaps made as early as the 2016 campaign -but delayed as a head fake to the press. Why?  Because. without U.S. forces to humbug his Syrian- Mideast aspirations, Putin can consolidate Russian expansion from his base at Latakia on the Mediterranean.  No more risking dogfights with U.S.  jets for control of air space, and no more U.S. attacks on Russians on the ground.  No wonder Putin was ecstatic (as much as this poker-faced guy can be) at  his Moscow  press conference two days ago, e.g.

US Syria pullout draws Kurdish condemnation and Putin's praise ...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/.../syria-kurds-trump-troop-withdrawal-isis-turkey

Putin likely was especially pleased Wednesday when Dotard Donnie babbled on Twitter, the chosen medium of five-year olds:

"Now we've won -- it's time to come back. They're getting ready. You're going to see them soon....So our boys -- our young women, our men -- they're all coming back, and they're coming back now. We won. And that's the way we want it."

The fool then pointed up to the sky and blabbed: "And that's the way THEY want it."

Who "they" is we don't know and cannot say.  Perhaps Reptilian aliens  from a planet in Zeta Reticuli?   E.g.


As over 10 million followers of the Reptilian gov't conspiracy meme believe.

What we do know is that Pentagon officials have subsequently  confirmed that planning is underway to withdraw troops.

In the words of analyst Nick Patton Walsh, this was a big win for Putin's interests in the region. adding:

"Without the US in the ring, Russia is the main military force in the post-war Syria. However you divine it, Trump seems to have few qualms about doing things that will please Putin."

Of course, because just as he's FOX and Rush Limbaugh's puppet, he's also Putin's. He's basically  an empty suit, a sock puppet- with no brains, no honor and no hint of a moral compass.  The only thing that matters to him is "winning" in a fictitious way, by grifting, lying and selling snake oil to his foolish,  kool aid drinking followers, e.g



As to Trump's claim that ISIS is "defeated" in Syria, Martin Chulov, a Middle East reporter for The Guardian, responded:

The long fight against Islamic State looks good on a map, but it is yet to be decisive on the battlefield. The terror group has lost more than 95% of the territory it claimed in 2014 and the juggernaut that threatened to shred the region’s borders has been battered back to where it all began for the group’s earliest incarnation – a sliver of land along the Euphrates River, bordering Iraq and Syria.  

There, Kurdish-led forces, backed by US air support, have been fighting it out with diehard extremists in towns and villages in Syria’s far eastern Deir ez-Zor province.
At least 2,500 Isis fighters remain, all survivors of routs to the east and west of their last redoubt. Colossal ruin lays in their wake on both sides of the river. But the group retains the capacity to do even more damage, especially if let off the hook now."

And as the Kurds now face blowback from Tayyip Erdogan's forces there is no strategic way they can hold back the ISIS vermin - who will gradually metastasize like an out of control cancer.

Meanwhile, WaPo political commentator Max Boot. wrote:

"Why would Trump do this now? Who knows? Given that he is acting at odds with his advisers, this is clearly not the result of a normal policy-review process. This is the Trump Doctrine in operation: Trump does whatever he wants. It could be based on what he had for breakfast — or there could be something more sinister going on."

The departure of Gen. Jim Mattis has all our allies in a state of nervous meltdown, as it should. It ought to have us all in a similar state, given there is now no adult in the room minding the overgrown five year old with his paws near the nuclear football.   And no, Gen.  'Mad Dog' Mattis didn't leave just because of the sudden Syria pullout, he left after a slew of Dotard misfires,  with Syria the culmination.  These included, as Gen, Barry McCaffrey spelled out two nights ago ('All In'):   Trump's defense of White Nationalists, Nazis back in August, 2017;  his caging of immigrant children this past spring, summer;  his bowing and scraping to Putin - taking blame for "American transgressions"  at the Helsinki conference in July;  dispatching 5,000 troops to the border before the midterms as a political stunt to egg his stupid base to the polls; and the impulse decision to suddenly pull troops out of Syria leaving  the Kurds to Erdogan, ISIS and Putin's tender "mercies"  - or not.

All who've read Gen. Mattis' letter - at least those in the top brass- interpret it as a signature "sign of distress" like "flying the flag upside down" or indicating  national emergency.  That theme of national emergency has come up before, like after Helsinki, when historian Michael Beschloss stated on July 16th,, (Maddow):

"We are living in a national emergency. We may not have known it twenty-four hours ago. We do now. You know, I have been studying and writing about U.S. Presidents since I was twenty years old. I never thought I would live to say this, but this is a president who now has demonstrated that he deserves suspicion as acting on behalf of another country over his own."
 See e.g.  Michael Beschloss: “We are Living an a National Emergency” - Daily Kos

Gen. Jim Mattis' departure confirms that ominous take, and now it's not only Americans - but the whole damned world - that had better wake the hell up to the fact we have a lunatic at the helm of the most awesome destructive power ever assembled by one nation.

See also:

P.M. Carpenter

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Democrats | Government

In Shutdown Mode, Democrats Must Hang Tough

No More Homework For Poor Little School Kids? Give Me A Break!

Left: Me,  teaching General Science class in Barbados, in Peace Corps, ca. 1971.  Right: kids goofing off, wasting time with smart phones.  If kids have time to goof off with social media, then they can do homework - at least 3 hrs. a night.



Albert Einstein feared that our dependence on technology would one day surpass the capacity for actual human interaction, leading to a generation of "idiots". I fear that day has already arrived.  I also believe its primary initial negative impacts are on our kids, especially coming up through middle and high schools.

Don't take my word for it. According to Common Sense Media, teens spend an average of nine hours a day online (paywall), compared to about six hours for those aged eight to 12 and 50 minutes for kids between 0 and eight.  See, e.g.

https://qz.com/1367506/pew-research-teens-worried-they-spend-too-much-time-on-phones/

This then tells me kids today have enormous chunks of time to spare, so there is NO excuse in the world for not being assigned homework, including over holidays - as I used to do while teaching in Barbados in my Peace Corps years. And after!   Hence, when I came across this nonsense in The Wall Street Journal,

Down With Homework, Say U.S. School Districts - WSJ

https://www.wsj.com/.../no-homework-its-the-new-thing-in-u-s-schools-11544610600

  
I could not believe what I was freaking reading.   We learn for instance:


"The goal of the changes is to give students more time to read, sleep and spend time with family, especially at the elementary level, school administrators say."

Seriously? Do these bozos really believe that freeing up time will deliver more for "reading, sleeping and family"? If so, they're gobbling more marijuana edibles than I can even conceive. Why on earth believe that twaddle when this same age group is on the smart phone up to six hours each day, according to the Common Sense Media study? In fact, my newly minted Ph.D. (Psychology)  postdoc niece Shayl did her dissertation on the use of social media by elementary school kids. She found pretty close to the same time wastage and with little or no parental supervision.

Hell, read the linked article above and Google others!  The kids even admit they're spending too much time on social media.  To me, if a kid has six hours a day to spend on instagram, or playing the FOMO game,  s/he has the time for 3 hrs. of homework per night.  When I taught in Peace Corps and after, three hours per night assigned was the norm. I usually gave at least an hour and a half for both science (Chemistry and General Science) and Math (New Mathematics, i.e. linear programming, group theory etc.)

Another factoid we pick up from the article:

"The average number of hours high school students spent a week on homework increased from 6.8 in 2007 to 7.5 in 2016, the last year available from the U.S. Department of Education. The average hours for students in K-8 stayed flat at 4.7 during those years."

Again, this is pathetic. These students, i.e. in K-8, ought to be able to knock out at least 10 hours of homework per week, especially if they are consuming 30 -42 hours on their phones. The high school kids ought to be able to handle 15-20 hours per week and lots more during holidays - say Christmas and Easter - when I always assigned projects.

Some example problems from a typical homework set for my 4th form math class (equivalent in age to U.S.  9th graders) are shown below:

1) Using Fig. 1 and the information therein, calculate (giving reasons):

a) Angle MSQ

b)Angle RSP

c)Angle SPN

2) (a) Given that:

U = {a, b, c, d, e, f, g} where U is the universal set, and:

L = {a, b, c, d, e}

M= {a, c, e, g}

N = {b, e, f, g}

(i)Draw a Venn diagram showing the sets U, L, M, N and their elements/

(ii)List the members of the set represented by the union of N with the intersection of L and M

(3 a) The coordinates of the points L and N are (5, 6) and (8, -2), respectively.
(i)State the coordinates of the midpoint M of the line, LN.

(ii) Calculate the gradient of the line LN

(iii) Determine the equation of the straight line which is perpendicular to LN and which passes through point M.

(b) An aircraft leaves Jamaica at 13:55 hrs. and travels to Barbados via Antigua. The average speed of the aircraft is 420 km/hr. It arrives in Antigua at 16:45 hrs. local time. Given Antigua is ONE hour AHEAD of Jamaica, compute the distance between Jamaica and Antigua.
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Generally six to seven problems were assigned per night.  At no time did I ever hear a kid make lame excuses, or did his parents come and say the kid was overloaded.  At least also in this "new era"  there are parents with their heads screwed on straight. The WSJ piece quotes one such parent - a Kevin Fulton - who actually withdrew his 5th grader from a school in Houston because the school stopped giving homework. According to Mr. Fulton:

"In my house we're very hands on and homework is a way to determine if our child is falling behind."

Good for you, Mr. Fulton!  On the other hand, a school administrator besieged by concerned parents was quoted:

"We just heard a lot of parents complaining about how much the homework was eating into their family life."

Hold strain! Did you ask these parents to estimate how much their kids' use of Instagram was also "eating into their family life"?  If  they don't know or won't say then they don't have a case. As long as kids are on their cell phones there no excuse not to do at least 2-3 hours of homework per night. 

At least one other good point is teachers, many of them, appear to be set against this stupid trend. As we read:

"Homework changes have been met with concern by some teachers who say it takes away a tool to reinforce the day's lesson."

Indeed. And the other aspect is that often there is too much work to complete in one day's session, lab or class so homework fills a critical completion niche.   As for the whiner (a paent named Laurie Lightfoot) quoted at the end of the piece:

"These kids have so much homework at younger and younger ages.. And heaven forbid if they have after school activities or want to spend time with family."

Aw, Laurie you have me all teary -eyed.  Here's a thought: tell them to put their smart phones away (for aimless chatting, texting) and they'll have all the time they need for family life, school activities PLUS homework. 

Besides, what will the little dears do when  - and if - they get to university - where the standard rubric is 4 hours study per night (per credit hour in a subject)  to ace an A, 3 hours for a B, 2 hours for a C and so on?


See also:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2010/10/college-freshmen-or-wimps-inc.html