Maggie's Farm

"They also learned that those degrees were little more then fancy pieces of paper to hang on their walls because there was no way they would ever be able to make a living doing what they got their degrees in."

Whose fault is this? Did someone force them to stay in a particular field of study? As for learning to BS their liberal professors, why not ignore the liberal politics and learn the course work?

It doesn't sound as if those two had parents who placed any value on education much less the inherent pleasure of learning. THAT is not the school's fault.
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Why is it anyone's business what a kid does about education? Who are you to state some kids should not go to college? That is not your business. Who cares if a kid takes six years to get through college? He probably wised up, unlike Nahanni's nephews, that the major they chose was not what they wanted after all. So what? Who are you to say someone is not college-ready? What is college-ready? High SATs? That's no predictor of success.

NRO says charter schools are great, but we can't move more of the 'bad' former peers into them or they'll take it down. In the 80's, the military did a study about groups and group-influence on behaviors. They found 15% 'bad' assimilated into the 'good' group and became like the 'good'. That can be applied to any group, so why is it some should not be allowed the chance to prove themselves in college - even though as you all say, rather constantly, I might add, that college is not for some.

Barrister, what gives you the motivation to relentlessly object to education for all and to decry the efforts of our nation's attempt to educate everyone? Who are you to say a poor man's son should not be allowed to gain further knowledge? Does your pseudo noblesse oblige demand the opportunity to tip the guy who picks up your horse shit? Let's keep the rabble in their places, no sense in letting them advance by education, by god!

Until we wise up and begin to value education and praise those parents who instill a love of learning into their child, our culture will suffer. Ahh, but it is such pleasure to blame the schools, the teachers, the government for the failures of our children. That's not how it works: Parents have firsties, and when they fail, you cannot turn around and blame anything, anyone else.

Maggie's Farmers love to point to the lowly, the losers and cast them cake. Cut it out. Even a plumber deserves knowledge beyond his trade, and to pontificate relentlessly about the failure of our education system is just wrong. Live up to your banner's creed and apply it to all: America, the land of opportunity - for all. You don't have the right to assign value for another and to relegate him to a life you, yourselves, would never tolerate for your own offspring.
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"...we've created an education industry that educates for the sake of education, rather than the betterment of the students and society."

An education industry that educates for the sake of education. Would an education industry have any other purpose?

"...rather than the betterment of the students and society."

Then what is this 'education industry's' purpose? Are universities, colleges, public schools hopeful that they will fail at educating? Schools are ranked rigorously on how their students perform in case you were not aware. Public schools lose funding when they don't perform to certain standards.

But who needs an education anyway, right? One can 'suck shit' and make a lot of money. That's fine if the shit-sucker does not care if he is ignorant. Ignorant and rich. What a fine goal for the people of our great nation.

I gather it has not entered your mind that ignorant parents produce ignorant offspring. That particular cycle is the bete noire of every teacher who has stood before the shiftless losers the state forces into their classrooms.

But beyond your ridiculous value of money over knowledge, what about those who do value education and want to learn for learning's sake? Fie on them? Go find a shit-sucking job?

Education is the key to life. That's its value, and to mock those in pursuit of it in an effort to make their lives better is asking for this great country of ours to fail. Just like our fine president, you want us to fail.

Education is the key to life.
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KRW.

"But education in general has now been watered down to the point that the costs aren't paying off, either in dollars or in cultural/historical/theological/whatever understanding." Can you prove this? How has education been watered down? How does one evaluate cost in terms of every graduating senior from high school and college?

One reason education costs so much is the amount of new information schools must incorporate to keep up.

"Usually, historians are hard-pressed to find any original source material about those who have shaped our civilization. In the Internet era, scholars of science might have too much. Never have so many people generated so much digital data or been able to lose so much of it so quickly, experts at the San Diego Supercomputer Center say. Computer users world-wide generate enough digital data every 15 minutes to fill the U.S. Library of Congress.
In fact, more technical data have been collected in the past year alone than in all previous years since science began, says Johns Hopkins astrophysicist Alexander Szalay, an authority on large data sets and their impact on science. "The data is doubling every year," Dr. Szalay says."

Be sure to work that into your figuring.

"Much of what is learned todaay has to get unlearned later in order to function." Can you explain this keeping in mind that if one learned nothing, one would not, as you say, have to 'unlearn' it. Exactly what do you mean by 'function'? To adjust one's knowledge to the real world? That certainly does make the pursuit of knowledge a fatuous endeavor. Perhaps institutes of higher learning should shut down to save scholars the trouble of 'unlearning' so they may get on with the business of functioning?

I have tremendous admiration for those who work at any job, manual or not, to pay for higher education. They work and go to school at the pace they can handle and pay as they go. Talk about wanting an education - as opposed to those of us whose parents sent us off with all bills paid. I got my Ph.D. that way, though I don't work, and am fooling around working on a second. I admire myself because I want to do it. There is much to be said for staying in college the whole four/five years. I don't think I've ever met anyone who left to work for a year who did not have one hell of a time going back. It suits the mindset to stay in learning-mode for many subjects, and for many students, the continuity of learning usurps everything for those years of scholarly pursuit and that adds much to the education value. I see nothing impractical about it, especially as many decide to stay on and work on a masters or Ph.D. Had they left and starting pocketing money, going back might not produce optimal results. Besides, who cares? We're free to choose what is right and what works best for us.

I could not disagree with you more about sports being touted as the be all and end all to the exclusion of the educational value of any school. Every school's standards are on display for the world to see; and you can count on U.S. News & World Report if word of mouth fails. Sports is important for one reason: Money. Sports generates a huge proportion of a university's costs and few can make it without sports. Do you honestly think most colleges want the meatheads on campus and in classes who are there solely to make a winning team?

I think to give you a flat answer - how do you put a value on a kid's education and then fault the schools for scrambling to accomodate the vast amount of information they have to teach? See data note above: That is not going to stop.

"Watered down". You can't prove this simply because it's not true. It is, actually, a sorry insult to our entire culture to insinuate we 'water down' education when we are all Red Queens frantically trying to keep up with the information coming at us at warp speed. Education institutions have always been the Red Queens running the fastest. Give credit where it's due.
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KRW,

Do you speak frankly with your son? Do you and your wife instill your values in him? Does the thought of him going to college to become indoctrinated against the values you've taught him scare you? Will you keep him home so he'll not be hit with ideas he didn't even know existed? If you believe that is what happens to students aspiring to knowledge in the world of academia, I guess you will not send him to college and will save him from realities he might not know.

But I wonder because you're out-of-the-box, just as I am, and I figure you want your son to experience it all. I figure your son will be like both of my kids - who were one of twenty or so who raised their hands when the 'very' occasional professor asked if there were any conservatives in the class. Did either have to 'push-back'? No. Never. In fact, both got thumbs-up from the few times that happened. I can also tell you political ideology is not that big of a deal on campuses - at least in Virginia, rated 5th for college education. Even if it was a big deal in some errant professor's classroom, I'd laugh it off. See, I indoctrinated my kids first, so I don't worry about such foolishness. I certainly told them to listen and learn. I'd be chagrined to find out they graduated from college and had no clue about 'the other side'.

The point is this: So what if the professor is liberal? That does not mean you can't learn from him. If your ideology prevents you from learning course material because the professor is liberal, that is not the professor's problem - it's your kid's.

By the way, it is against the rules to attempt to indoctrinate one's students. Kinda like it's against the rules to talk about religion unless it's in an historical context.

Point: You do not give credit to the individual, and that's a flimsy excuse for criticizing our education system.

And by the way, don't you still get blindsided by ideas you didn't know existed? I do. This blog presents a few, in fact. How about a U.S. president who hates the U.S.? Learning goes on forever and calling it 'blindsided' is naive.

The data: It still has to be taught.

No doubt about The U. of Mardi Gras, but even those partiers filter out and most eventually come back after being blindsided by the reality that they can't get a decent job without an education.
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ha ha. I think they're in bed. I wouldn't give a rat's ass if they weren't. No disagreement from me. My only qualifier to any of what you said is that there aren't too many young adult autodidactics. I've been one all my life, but I've never been in any majority on anything. Also, parents really like it when their kids leave home. They pretend otherwise, but secretly they like it. And, I have no doubt college students use Google and Wiki and probably more than we know about all the time.

You facilitated one of my points - that the individual can learn it on his own if he's not getting it in class. The object is knowledge. It doesn't matter where you get it, but you get it if you want to be educated. I love the idea of living the years on campus and love the campus atmosphere. Who wants to stay at home when you can have that fabulous experience. The diversity of students alone is such a winner for seeing the world's various realities that I think keeping a kid home is a crime.

My daughter, grad school, has three former soldiers from Iraq in one of her classes, and quite a few women from 35 - 42. She said after the first class meeting that they're all friends - as if there is no difference between them. How terrific is that?

Anyway, yes to any extreme on campus, but luckily, Virginia is very measured and despite its liberal north, very traditional. But tribes find their own no matter, and I wouldn't worry if my daughter was at some northeast liberal school.

As for good teachers.... since everyone is snoozing... I broke Who's Who in America's Teachers record twice. In the nation. I was selected seven times. I'm very proud of that and no doubt, it explains why I loathe ignorant, disparaging remarks about our education system. I can talk about the bad, but looking for the good is the better thing to do.

Good night!
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