The Decaying Evolution of Education...

[sheeplady]

I'd be a huge supporter of starting something like the Civilian Conservation Corps today. Two years of honorable service (with room and board provided, plus a little stipend sent home) in return for free 2-years of technical training, free vocational school, or two years of free college tuition (maybe with room and board included, not sure). If you have run a successful business that employs 3 full-time employees within 7 years of completing your CCC service, I'd also support a free business grant to expand and grow your business, with a few strings attached. The same should be for military service.

I'd want the vocational training to really step it up and be worth the 2 years of service, including basic business courses (how to run a business, marketing, how to hire people, how to know your account is doing a good job, etc.) We want successful tradespeople who can hire others.

I'd also want to see for-profit "educational" institutions gutted.

There's certainly enough work in our parks to warrant this, and if they run out, well, we've got a lot of bridges that need repair, streets that need potholes filled, and low income housing to be built and/or renovated.

I admit that I like the idea of such a program because it would significantly level the playing field for those students who no matter how bright or gifted they are, have such heavy obligations at home that they cannot attend a college. The type of students that must work to support their parents or siblings, or who constantly have to financially bail them out.

There's a lot of evidence that one of the reasons why young people in the working class cannot get ahead is that money flows backwards or up in these generations. In other words, when someone older dies or gets sick, instead of weath and goods being passed to younger generations (as happens in the upper middle class) instead debt and costs are passed. Someone must pay for the funeral and the hospital bills, so the young "successful" person does it- at the cost of getting ahead themselves- continuing college, saving for a downpayment, paying off their own debt, etc.

It's gotten to the point that I've seen a redefining of class based upon what would happen if a parent died in regards to money transfer- is money passed down to younger individuals, there is no net loss or gain, or is debt passed down to younger individuals?

I was told there'd be pizza.

You sound like a grad student. I went to school so long I could smell the pizza a floor away when it came in to an "event."

 

[p51]

There was no program for so-called "gifted students" in those days, and no provision for grade-skipping in our school district, so I was stuck at a grade level where I was bored, unhappy, and frustrated. This formed the opinion of formal education that I retain to this day.

I was lucky, because my school district - while comically underfunded (I didn't know school nurses and swimming pools in schools actually existed until I was long out of high school)- did have such a program which was run by a university. We got bussed there every Thursday from elementary school to the end of middle school. It was great, we took classes in whatever seemed cool to us, the only time I was ever allowed to let my mind roam free. I now realize I was lucky to be a kid in that time when such things were being experimented with.
Sadly, the program no longer exists and the school district gave up several years ago. the place where it was (on the campus of Florida A&M University) is an open field now with no signs of the buildings ever having been there.
I tried looking it up online and couldn't even find a passing reference to the program ever having existed. That came as quite a surprise.
So in some ways, they've really taken a big step back. It doesn't come as a shock, because we all know that school was always for the average with very little notice given to those well under or well below that arbitrary line.
I went back to my Junior High 2 years ago and the place seemed like a jail now, with fences that didn't exist in my time, topped with triple-strand barbed wire. It's the closest we had to an 'inner city' school and all us redneck boys bussed there carried knives just in case. I got beat on plenty of times for the horrible crime of being a "white boy". I wouldn't repeat those years (being the person I was then) for any amount of money.

 

[philosophygirl78]

I was taught early on that formal education is to teach you how to actually think for yourself, give you a set of basic skills to enable you to continue your education on your own after you graduate, ideally for the rest of your life, and an appreciation for and an interest in a broad range of subjects and ideas. I was blessed with a number of teachers who taught to those standards and encouraged us to embrace that philosophy. And I've conducted my life accordingly.

What I see a lot today are academics who act, at least, as if knowledge you gain anywhere outside of the institutions they are part of is at best suspect and at worst worthless and invalid. They regurgitate facts and ideas they have been fed and little else. To many academics the word "autodidact" is a perjorative and represents someone who couldn't possibly know as much as they do about anything at all, not just their academic specialties. What arrogance!

Before I retired I spent 12 years working at a major university, rubbing sholders with academics every day. With rare exceptions they all acted that way.

The fact that so many academics act like that indicates a fundamental failure of the education system and its institutions.

I would argue that type of arrogance about knowledge is found both within and outside the university establishment.... With few intellects and knowledge seekers in between and in both.

 

[philosophygirl78]

Thread drift is a long and hallowed tradition at the Lounge. Somebody could throw out a comment here about whether or not Tom Brady deflated those footballs, and somebody else would find a way to tie it in to the decaying evolution of education. We're like that here.

I like that.

 

[MikeKardec]

What I see a lot today are academics who act, at least, as if knowledge you gain anywhere outside of the institutions they are part of is at best suspect and at worst worthless and invalid. They regurgitate facts and ideas they have been fed and little else. To many academics the word "autodidact" is a perjorative and represents someone who couldn't possibly know as much as they do about anything at all, not just their academic specialties. What arrogance!

That was my experience too and attitude too. In some way you can't blame them though, if they accepted the autodidact utterly (and there are drawback to self education) then all the time and moeny that went into their preparation for their job would be wasted. I think it is too bad that we've made so many able to call themselves "Professor," people who are actually very narrowly educated and experienced, but the real crime is that kids today seem to go with it. In my day (do you need a cane to say that) we started to disbelieve the moment the teacher opend his or her mouth. We questioned everything and were pretty cynical ... just like we were taught by '60s culture. Now that '60s culture is ascendant, however, the kids believe it and it's just as flawed as the old establishment thought was when I was born. Our entire culture needs to recognize that Boomers are now "The Man" and thus they are not to be trusted.

 

[MikeKardec]

I would argue that type of arrogance about knowledge is found both within and outside the university establishment.... With few intellects and knowledge seekers in between and in both.

Totally true ... but it's the hypocrisy of the academics that get me. You commented regarding scientific method earlier and I assume that the people who are given the job of instructing need to be honest about what they don't know and what their biases are. Bias is fine, they just need to admit it and allow their students the opportunity to take it into account. Truly however, I NEVER saw that sort of open mind when I was teaching. Not even a flicker.

 

[TimeWarpWife]

I think if I live long enough to see a real revolution in this country, it won't be instigated by film school students....

I'm not so sure that you could raise enough people to have a revolution in this country because most are too preoccupied with their electronic devices to even lift their heads up to see what's going on around them. And it's not just the younger folks, on a daily basis I see many people my age - the 55+ group - with their faces stuck to their i-devices too!

 

[philosophygirl78]

Totally true ... but it's the hypocrisy of the academics that get me. You commented regarding scientific method earlier and I assume that the people who are given the job of instructing need to be honest about what they don't know and what their biases are. Bias is fine, they just need to admit it and allow their students the opportunity to take it into account. Truly however, I NEVER saw that sort of open mind when I was teaching. Not even a flicker.

I can agree to a point. There are some Very good professors... That do care about teaching and are very humble... There are however, just as many I would say that have their noses up in the air... Back in 1994 I took a class called Philosophy of Mind with an African world renown Philosophy Scholar. He was CONVINCED that animals could Not Reason or Think... CONVINCED... He professed how humans were the only beings capable of intelligent thought in the universe....

I was 16 years old, still in high school taking part time college credits and I Defied him on that every day I could... Believe it or not, it motivated me to study deeper into other aspects of philosophy and that's one of the reasons it became my undergrad major... And I learned very early on that Humbleness is the key to the search for knowledge.. Along with a continual deconstruction and reanalysis of ones owns personal beliefs every few years... I do not think a university education is required to obtain such paths or understanding to search for knowledge, however, there is a purpose for higher education establishments and a true student will undoubtedly end up utilizing such resources at some point in their search....

You don't need a kitchen to cook, but you need to understand how a kitchen works to be a chef.

 

[LizzieMaine]

You don't need a kitchen to cook, but you need to understand how a kitchen works to be a chef.

Lesson One: Don't put fish sticks in the toaster.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'm not so sure that you could raise enough people to have a revolution in this country because most are too preoccupied with their electronic devices to even lift their heads up to see what's going on around them. And it's not just the younger folks, on a daily basis I see many people my age - the 55+ group - with their faces stuck to their i-devices too!

They used to believe the way to set off a revolution in this country was to occupy the electricity generators and the radio stations. All you'd have to do nowadays is blow up a few key cell towers. Just speculating, of course.

 

[philosophygirl78]

The resources for knowledge are free and plentiful for those who want to learn outside of an institution. Here is an example: A Site for Free College Textbooks on various subjects, legit and found on google from the Gates Foundation. For groups who like to point fingers about government reform, they should be encouraged to read the Intro, Macro and Micro Economic resources available here first: https://www.openstaxcollege.org/books

 

[JimWagner]

But don't just read textbooks. Read some of the books and other sources cited in the textbooks.

 

[GHT]

Lesson One: Don't put fish sticks in the toaster.

Don't put your own fingers in the toaster would be my number one lesson.

 

[GHT]

I'm not so sure that you could raise enough people to have a revolution in this country because most are too preoccupied with their electronic devices to even lift their heads up to see what's going on around them. And it's not just the younger folks, on a daily basis I see many people my age - the 55+ group - with their faces stuck to their i-devices too!

Phone preoccupation I can live with, it's the gibberish techno-babble that blows me away. That and the love of acronyms. When my Godson used ROLF, I texted back: ??? He came back with the explanation. So, I texted back ROLF adding CGUA. His turn to text ??? I explained, when you have lived three score years and ten, rolling over laughing on the floor has it's problems, in that: Can't Get Up Again.

 

[MikeKardec]

I can agree to a point.

And I'm being slightly hyperbolic .... because it's fun. I really didn't see many open minds though, that was true. A few were good teachers, even without recognizing their prejudice.

I was in a program with a great dance/performance art prof. She was very interested in my understanding what she did and really gave me an education. But, though she was a very nice person and was very nice to me, she had utter disdain for what I did. Narrative (narrative in anything) was over, a symbol of the linear mind set of the patriarchy, an affront to "right thinking" artists. She couldn't even sit still if I said something about what I was working on (personally, not even what I was teaching) on numerous occasions she would have to bustle about cleaning up or leave the room. She was very charismatic and would proselytize her students on it all the time 'til they repeated it like parrots even when she wasn't around. Traditional storytelling was virtually evil.

I was pretty taken back, through she never had an aggressive "in my face" attitude about it. I graduated from one of the foremost "Avant Gard" art schools in the country (albeit 20 years earlier, before a lot of this got ingrained) and I'd never faced an attitude toward storytelling, positive or negative, this quietly serious. Just one example but a person who, on all other subjects, I consider to be a friend. She couldn't think about "narrative" (a term I'd never use on my own) and she didn't like when others did. My world was easily big enough for what she did and what I did. She couldn't even pretend to return the favor. As I said before, the really disturbing thing is that her students seemed to just lap it up. When I was in school, if a prof acted prejudiced toward something we'd all run out and try to see if we could rub his nose in it or somehow sneak it by him. We had a very "up the man" attitude.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

They used to believe the way to set off a revolution in this country was to occupy the electricity generators and the radio stations. All you'd have to do nowadays is blow up a few key cell towers. Just speculating, of course.

And how would you cope without your internet connection(s) ?

 

[Trenchfriend]

I can agree to a point. There are some Very good professors... That do care about teaching and are very humble... There are however, just as many I would say that have their noses up in the air... Back in 1994 I took a class called Philosophy of Mind with an African world renown Philosophy Scholar. He was CONVINCED that animals could Not Reason or Think... CONVINCED... He professed how humans were the only beings capable of intelligent thought in the universe....

I was 16 years old, still in high school taking part time college credits and I Defied him on that every day I could... Believe it or not, it motivated me to study deeper into other aspects of philosophy and that's one of the reasons it became my undergrad major... And I learned very early on that Humbleness is the key to the search for knowledge.. Along with a continual deconstruction and reanalysis of ones owns personal beliefs every few years... I do not think a university education is required to obtain such paths or understanding to search for knowledge, however, there is a purpose for higher education establishments and a true student will undoubtedly end up utilizing such resources at some point in their search....

You don't need a kitchen to cook, but you need to understand how a kitchen works to be a chef.

I'm a "philosophyboy" by hobby, of course because of Jean-Luc Picard and "The Next Generation" will never get out of my head". That happens, if an 8 years old-boy substitute boring kids-TV with Star-Trek: TNG.

 

[Fading Fast]

They used to believe the way to set off a revolution in this country was to occupy the electricity generators and the radio stations. All you'd have to do nowadays is blow up a few key cell towers. Just speculating, of course.

Reminds me of the "EMP" or electromagnetic pulse stories that seems to pop up in the news periodically that say terrorists or a foreign gov't could "knock out" (depending on what you read) some / all of the US communication and defenses as they are all computer, satellite, etc. based. I have no knowledge about this beyond the news articles, but since I've been reading the stories for well over a decade and it hasn't happened, I assume it isn't that easy to do. But clearly the idea runs along the same lines of your speculating.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And how would you cope without your internet connection(s) ?

I got along thirty-five years without one, so I think the answer would probably be "surprisingly well."

 

[Lean'n'mean]

The answer is in the need to answer.