Question Authority Re: #26 by SaraJ

Well, even urs writing on this web site, using English and TCP/IP communication, using DNS server to get the chowk.com IP, and a web server which is most probabbly written by Americans, is a ``coy attempt at imitating the USA``.

some double standards, huh?

Anarchism or questioning authority, however is not American invention, if i may say so.

Look Ahead In Terror Re: ahmedmadni (5)

I like ur pessimism, and the ironic yet optimist wishes for us.

:)

Look Ahead In Terror #12 by Harpreet

Well, ur definition of democracy is like giving knife to mentally deranged man.

Yes, India can be democratic if it encourages or permits killing of its minortities by majority, yet it would not be civlized.

At the end of the day, a man killed by govt-supported party or his racist neighbour, is an innocent man killed. What is the difference? In the first case. u might end up with 600,000 ppl dead.

The Life and Times of Saddam Hussein OK, lets see some good-$hit surgical operation:

http://home.attbi.com/~zotter/ac130_gunshipmed.wmv

If Americans were muslims, they would caption this movie with some Quranic verse in surah Rehman which is something like: ``And where do u think u would flee? Fire glares will catch u wherever u go. And no doubt, u can not be negate out favours``

:)

Generals: A case study (I) I didnt like the artcile, as it did not explain the factors and motivations for a group of ppl to rule army and pakistan. The article has depicted them as evil-doers, and that some good men in the army can replace them, and make pak army a ``good`` army.

This is a usual approach, preferred by non-sociologists writers.

If Army acts like a Political Party Why not a Forward Bloc in it? >>>
Ask yourself, what is a bigger and more deplorable sin: to be a prostitute or to be a pimp? Likewise, who bears the ultimate responsibility for the revival of horse-trading: the horses or the traders?
<<<<

Well, prostitution is not deplorabale. Pimps and prostitutes r both important for sex industry, and sex is important for human beings. It is just the unprincipled business that is deploarable. That is y I ask govts to legalise prostitution, and make them accountable.

And this is the problem with pak army. They r not accountable to anyone except white house. And Bush and co have their own prioritties.

Barring the offenisve use of prostitution example, nice article, though.

Closet #108 by AAmir
>>>>
iTS GOD THING FREE SOUL THAT YOU ARE NOT A PROFESSIONAL & PPL. DONT GIVE A dAMN ABOUT YOUR HALF BAKED KNOWLEGE.


tHE MOST SENSITIVE & PROFUSELY INNERVATED WITH NERVES PER SQ.CM OF SKIN IN THE BODY IS clitoris !
<<<<

Mr. Aqalmund, read the xcerpt again (not my statement). Nowhere does it say that anus is more innervated than any other part. It just says that what anus is. If u have doubts, go and poke it....i am sure u can figure it out, if there r no unncessary psychological complications.

Closet #106 by the_happy_one

In one breath u affirm that u r not speaking for all heterosexuals, and in another u imply: ``generally speaking male heterosexuals find the prospect of anal sex administered to them fairly forbidding``. Make up ur mind, then say something.

As far as i am concerned, I am just asking all of us to challenge our biases because the biology and psychology r quite clear on that.....nothing is un-natural, repugnant, and bestial---everyhting is just in mind. The same irrational fears that we happily employ in homophobia r also operational in racisim, xenophobia, etc.

The Gray Cotton Shawl i like the general `manzar nigarai` in this story. Having been in such buses (usually in the back side), i can relate to it.

But i do not understand the relevence of the main character`s beging illegitmate and from hindu family, a factor in the whole story. The events can be applied to any woman in khi from poor background.

Closet #102 by the_happy_one

u r also being very presumptuous to think that u can speak for all heterosexuals. maybe this `painful maneuver` and `cringing effect` r ur own experince. Some women find normal intercourse painful....and they r referred to sexologists...Sometimes it is medical problem, sometimes just pshycological, and the good thing is that it is usually cured.

Closet Also,

Is it not a fact that every person is neither 100% hetro or homosexual. Based on genes and social factors, one side can be dominant and the other repressed or comatose. So what is so strange, if a guy prefers a girl for marriage and then explores other options? If it does not happen much (and hence all the blame on such orientation-confused ppl), then maybe social repression is one factor here.

Closet #96 by temporal

u should read my relies twise. First time did not have much effect on u, i guess.

Not all women r illiterate and poor. If an educated working woman do let their lives manipulated by others than their share of blame is far greater than any illiterate poor woman. But everyone is responsible for the acts hes/he wither committed and/or willingly let others commit on themselves.

Is it too difficult to understand?

Problems with Universities in Pakistan Good article:

http://www.dawn.com/weekly/education/education.htm#1

Debunking the conservative view of education

By Dr Shahid Siddiqui

The government claims that our literacy rate has now reached 49 per cent. This, on the one hand, is an encouraging sign and, on the other, invites us to critically think as to why this growth in literacy is not reflected in our social and economic development. To understand the co-relation between education and social and economic development, one can turn to some concrete examples cited in the report on UN Report on Human Development in South Asia (HDC 1998).

Let me refer here to two examples taken from the subcontinent, one from India and the other from Nepal which demonstrate a strong link between education and socio-economic development. According to the HDC report, in India increasing average primary schooling of the work force by one year ``increased output by 23 per cent``. Similarly in Nepal, increasing the average education of a farmer by one year expanded agricultural output from 5.2 to 5.9 per cent``.

Why then is it that in Pakistan the consequences of this so-called increase in literacy are not reflected in socio-economic development. One way of looking at the issue is to challenge the validity of literacy figures, questioning the official definition of literacy, the questionnaire used in the survey undertaken to determine the literacy level, the qualifications of the people who collected the data, the data collection procedure and the interpretation of data.

There are problems in all these facets of measuring literacy in Pakistan. In this article, however, I will focus on another aspect of the issue which is equally responsible for the gap between literacy and socio-economic development. This aspect is the very orthodox view of education we have.

We have a very conservative view of the nature, purpose, and the dynamics of education. The planning built on and around this conservative view of education is unlikely to bring a meaningful change in and our society, especially in the domain of socio-economic development.

In most of our schools, the function of education is equated with ``knowledge transfer``. So the primary purpose of education, in the Pakistani context, appears to be transmission of knowledge, skills, and values. This view of education is conservative in essence as it highlights the significance of conserving knowledge. Consequently, the whole emphasis in education is laid on the transmission of knowledge from one generation to another.

This perspective of education views knowledge as static and as something that can be learned through a behaviouristic model of learning, i.e. by imitation and repetition. As this view of knowledge acquisition requires a lot of memorization and cramming on the part of students, there is hardly any room left for reflection and critical thinking in our classrooms.

The conservative notion of education promotes a conventional view of learners and the learning process. The general concept of a student, in the mainstream schools of Pakistan, is that he or she is an empty vessel who knows nothing and whose sole responsibility is to absorb the `knowledge` delivered by the teachers. A metaphor that describes this kind of students is that of a sponge.

A good student or learner in this paradigm is the one who sits in the classroom quietly, behaves nicely, never disagrees with the teacher, absorbs the given information, hardly asks any question and has a sharp memory to repeat what the teacher has taught. A ``good student`` would never ask a question, give his own viewpoint, or disagree with what the teacher has said. The ``goodness`` of a student in this paradigm emanates from passive obedience, blindly following instructions and doing the needful. Innovation, creativity, or personal opinion is not encouraged and never pays off in most classrooms.

Having seen a glimpse of an ideal student in most of the Pakistani mainstream schools let us now look at the notion of a good teacher in this paradigm. A teacher, in the conservative paradigm of education, can be viewed as a transmitter of knowledge, skills, and values.

The primary aim of the teacher in this paradigm is to prepare the students for examination and present himself to the students as a perfect model who knows the answer to any question under the sun.

To build and maintain this image a teacher may use any measure from persuasion to restraint to coercion and physical punishment. A `good teacher`, in this paradigm, tries to fill the empty vessels (the students) and expects from them to conserve this knowledge and reproduce it when required. There is hardly any room for disagreement on the part of the students. The whole emphasis is laid on the product (getting good grades) and the process is totally neglected. The outcome of this approach is that teachers and head teachers use every possible means to show ``good results``.

This view of students and teachers leads us to our current system of assessment which in turn is a very important influence on the various components of education. Our prevailing assessment system is geared towards testing the ability of students to conserve and store ``knowledge``. If we look at the examination papers of different education boards of Pakistan we realize that there has been little attempt to tap the higher order thinking skills of students. Most of the questions are of the `what is/are....` variety and require students to reproduce information. As a result, the student who is good at memorizing and who has effective recall skills is bound to get better grades. Ironically, in most cases, the students who get good grades have a very shallow understanding of the material for which they got these grades. A simple analysis of the examination papers would show us that questions which ask students to say `how` or `why` something happens are very rare.

So far, I have tried to unpack some aspects of conservative concepts of education such as conservation and transmission of knowledge. The conservative notion of knowledge - i.e. it is a fixed set of information - relates to the role of teachers (as transmitters of knowledge) and which in turn views students as passive recipients (empty vessels). And this all creates a system of assessment and examination that tests the ability of students to conserve and reproduce information. This vicious circle goes on and on. In this paradigm, where education is transmission of a set of information, no matter how high the literacy rate is, there won`t be any significant impact on socio-economic development.

What is required then is a rethinking of some basic educational notions. Teacher education programmes in Pakistan can play a vital part in helping teachers to re-conceptulaize these notions. Ironically, a large number of teacher education programmes focus only on pedagogical skills, with little attention and effort put on the changes at the conceptual and attitudinal levels. My experience as a teacher educator tells me that no matter how many new techniques and methods are given to the teachers, if their fixed educational beliefs are not `unfrozen` and if they are not facilitated to re-coceptualize the fundamental educational notions change at the classroom, school, and societal level is very difficult.

Let us now try to rethink the nature, purpose and dynamics of education. For that we need to go beyond the narrow and conservative and misleading view of education that is concerned with conservation and transmission of knowledge, skills, and values. We need to look at education as a more dynamic tool that helps learners to acquire, interpret, construct and create knowledge and develop appropriate skills and attitudes. For that education should not hinge too much on the aspect of its transmission but should rather be used for the transformation of recipients` lives and of the society in which they live. The purpose of education, thus, should not be a social contract but intellectual emancipation.

This vibrant notion of education does not view students as a clean slate or empty vessels. It rather looks at them from a humanistic angle which believes that learners have their own unique and peculiar experiences and ideas. According to this perspective, each learner has tremendous ability for self-actualization. So in this paradigm there is a respect for students` views and opinions and they are welcome to present their own perspective on certain issues.

They are encouraged to think critically and benefit from creative controversies. The students are not led to passive obedience but are encouraged to reflect and to come up with creative alternatives to resolve conflict.

In the transformation paradigm of education, knowledge is not considered as something fixed and static which is transmitted from one generation to another. Rather it is something fluid which can be discovered, interpreted, constructed and created in the classroom. Reality in this paradigm has multiple versions and diversity is encouraged to have a more comprehensive view.

This view of knowledge legitimizes the role of learners or students as constructors of knowledge. In fact, even teachers are seen as potential learners because they could learn from their students. The teacher in this paradigm is not just transmitter of knowledge, but he/she acts a facilitator who focuses on the transformation of students` lives.

The system of assessment plays a very important role in determining the style of teaching and determining the real function of education. There needs to be a balanced emphasis on the `what`, `how` and `why` type of questions. An effective assessment system should encourage critical thinking skills among students by requiring less memory driven answers and more thinking and use of analytical skills.

In this article I tried to unpack the conservative notion of education which is prevalent in Pakistan. This paradigm of education cannot ensure any correlation with economic and social development. To make our education an effective tool for social and economic development we need to re-conceptualize the notion of education by moving from the transmission to the transformation paradigm. This can be done through teacher education programmes that can bring a change for them at the conceptual level.

Closet #89 by the_happy_one

From a sex education book:

``Anal Stimulation and Intercourse: Because the anus has many nerve endings, it can produce intense erotic responses. Both homosexual and heterosexual couples use stimulation of the anus by fingers or mouth as a source of sexual arousal and engage in penile penetration of the anus...``

I think many ppl show their disgust to anal pleasures on moral (read religous) and traditional grounds. If ppl r open to new things and courageously challenge their biases, the poll result would be quite different.

Closet #86 by nawaid

I just want to say that `dont make society as a villian`. What society is? It is nothing but a general manifestation of all of us. if an educated girl is dumb enough to marry a starnger, then she is answerable to none but herself if her hubby turns out gay, impotent, abusive, or alcoholic. Some risks r always worth taking, but major issues on which the marriage stands, can not be just God to manipulate.

I am sick and tired of ppl projecting educated women as victims in all such cases. No one is victim. We all contribute to rigidity of society in one way or other. If we do not have the courage to challenge biases and traditions, we should all weep at the corner, and not some public form. This is unacceptable victim mentality.

Closet #72 by shanzeh1

>>>Why do poor girls have to pay for their husbands` problems and for our so-called society`s lack of effort to even understand what makes a man gay. On top of the many problems that Pakistani girls face every day of their lives, they now have to wonder whether or not their future spouse IS GAY. This is neither the man`s fault....or the girl`s fault. This is society`s fault. <<<<


Actually, it is becoming fashionable to blame society, and start puffing cigs in unaffected manner.

This is as much girl`s fault as man`s fault. y should a girl be stupid enough to marry a man who is gay? And why should she suffer ater she knows he is gay? is she not educated?

And y should a gay man marry a girl? r gays not MEN enough to stand up to pressure?

It is time we start looking into mirror before blaming some vague culprit (society)