We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
During my lifetime, lamentation over student ignorance has been sounded by the likes of E.D. Hirsch, Allan Bloom, Mark Bauerlein and Jay Leno, among many others. But these lamentations have been leavened with the hope that appeal to our and their better angels might reverse the trend (that’s an allusion to Lincoln’s first inaugural address, by the way). E.D. Hirsch even worked up a self-help curriculum, a do-it yourself guide on how to become culturally literate, imbued with the can-do American spirit that cultural defenestration could be reversed by a good reading list in the appendix. Broadly missing is sufficient appreciation that this ignorance is the intended consequence of our educational system, a sign of its robust health and success.
An ex- Middlebury prof wrote last week about the stunning lack of intellectual curiosity among the pampered and privileged Middlebury students. That might very well be nothing new, and we all know that all education, in the end, is self-education.
On a related topic, Prof. Deneen is struck by the lack of knowledge about the fundamentals of history and culture among his students at elite institutions, HOW A GENERATION LOST ITS COMMON CULTURE. I suspect he is talking about the common elite culture, because I don't think the average guy or gal on the street in 1950 could tell you much about Magna Carta, Saul of Tarsus, or John Milton. I might be wrong about that.
In any event, the democratization of culture and of higher ed has resulted in the loss of basic cultural knowledge among the educated such that the numbers of those able to transfer the knowledge, as citizens and parents, shrinks. Or does it? Maybe it was always like that. I remember being confused once in high school social studies when the teacher joked that nobody cared about Plato's Republic and nobody read it. Confused because my Dad often referred to it. A quote from Deneen:
It’s difficult to gain admissions to the schools where I’ve taught – Princeton, Georgetown, and now Notre Dame. Students at these institutions have done what has been demanded of them: they are superb test-takers, they know exactly what is needed to get an A in every class (meaning that they rarely allow themselves to become passionate and invested in any one subject); they build superb resumes. They are respectful and cordial to their elders, though easy-going if crude with their peers. They respect diversity (without having the slightest clue what diversity is) and they are experts in the arts of non-judgmentalism (at least publically). They are the cream of their generation, the masters of the universe, a generation-in-waiting to run America and the world.
But ask them some basic questions about the civilization they will be inheriting, and be prepared for averted eyes and somewhat panicked looks. Who fought in the Peloponnesian War? Who taught Plato, and whom did Plato teach? How did Socrates die? Raise your hand if you have read both the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Canterbury Tales? Paradise Lost? The Inferno?
I had the advantage of attending a college where the cultural foundations were required, and came first. The result was that every grad knew the Inferno - and the Bible too. There are a lot of basics that the highly-educated youth that I interview know nothing about.
A good interview with the evil Charles Murray. He discusses social capital, industriousness, civic culture, community, and the stifling of civic life by government.
Your current group of students have dishonored your elite, bucolic school. If police are not called in, and kids are not expelled, the school's reputation and image will suffer for years no matter how excellent the faculty. Forget the college rules of conduct because many laws were broken.
If this is a typical administration, nothing will happen unless the Board and the alums put pressure on a seemingly spineless, castrated administration. Typical administrators.
It’s been exactly 40 years since my late wife and I quit as English profs at Middlebury College, where hundreds of screaming students wouldn’t allow Charles Murray, one of the nation’s foremost conservative intellectuals, to speak to them yesterday, as a campus conservative group had invited him to do. Like everything else in America, no doubt much has changed at the now-trendy college, nestled in Vermont’s maple-clad mountains, in four decades. Back in the 1970s, the Arab-launched oil crisis forced school officials to choose between shutting off the electricity to the library or to the school’s private ski lift. After a student referendum, the library went dark.
... I remember two salient traits of the majority of students in those days. One was their extraordinary intellectual laziness and lack of curiosity, especially infuriating because so many were such intelligent kids. The other was their immense privilege. Shiny new BMWs filled the student parking lot, each fitted with racks holding the most technologically advanced skis for whizzing down the slopes. There were battered Volvos, too. They belonged to us teachers.
I believe that I have no talent and no skills at management. I wish I had. We had an after-church brunch last Sunday with pals, and my friend who is a management consultant challenged me to complete the %s on his simple matrix where R/W means Right Thing Done The Wrong Way, W/R means Wrong Thing Done The Right Way, etc.
I filled in the %s with my guesses, and he explained that my hypothetical business took a 70% cost in poor management. He said that my guesses were probably not too far off for many organizations but I might have the categories wrong. He said one reason for it is that, in organizations, most people have little real skin in the game and just hope to keep their paychecks coming but, in general, organizations are inefficient and one can only hope to keep it as low as possible.
Part 1 by Dr. Norman Doidge is thorough and smart but a bit dull. His error, I think, is in missing a crucial component of the Speech and Thought Police which is their destructive rage and desire for control. In a sense, he gives them too much credit for genuineness. Believe me, they are not hurt when they claim victimhood. They are victimizing.
If you only have a little time, skip Doidge. Prof. Peterson is a fascinating speaker and is able to identify human evil. He has been victimized and he is pissed and passionate. This is dynamite and I urge all of our readers to listen:
Feminists wish to demystify mathematics - and all science too. Go for it, ladies. Please. Math beyond Calculus was a mystery to me due mainly to my IQ limitations. Physical Chemistry stumped me too, which is how I ended up in my career path.
The teaching of science and mathematics must be purged of its authoritarian and elitist characteristics, and the content of these subjects enriched by incorporating the insights of the feminist, queer, multiculturalist and ecological critiques.
I haven't seen any queer critiques of Pythagoras yet, but he was probably gay anyway, being Greek.
Reynolds asks the right question: Would the Left be so gung-ho about a "Living Constitution" if conservative activists controlled the Supreme Court? Discussed at Althouse.
A "living Constitution" just means the politics du jour which can bend with the winds.
1. The U.S. leads the world in health care spending per person, but not in health care outcomes. Many people look at that and say that health care costs too much in the U.S., and we should be able to get the same or better outcomes by spending less. Maybe that is correct, maybe not. That is not the point here. But–
2. the U.S. leads the world in K-12 education spending per student, but not in student outcomes. Yet nobody says that education costs too much and that we should spend less. Except –
3. me. I believe that we spend way too much on K-12 education...
Shipping by ships, that is. I have a pal whose dad was a sea captain. Those guys certainly lead interesting, useful, and colorful lives. Long trips. Women or wives in every port.
A kid of a friend went to the US Merchant Marine Academy, which is in NYC. It is a demanding program and it is difficult to gain admission. An excellent goal for a kid who doesn't want to live in a cubicle and who is interested in mechanics, leadership, and can handle some math. Not unlike the Naval Academy, really, without the guns.
This post, From Breakbulk To The Container, will take some of your time because the amazing vintage videos will captivate. I had not realized that there were steel sailing ships at the NYC docks into the 1930s. Wonderful.
How the Blue Model fails. For a century, this conservative Protestant state, the "Land of Steady Habits," was a state of tough Yankee self-reliance and no faith in or expectations from government of any sort. It had no income tax until recent years (damn that Republican jerk Gov. Lowell Weicker who put in the tax and fled the state to avoid his taxes as soon as he was out of office).
Weicker swore that the state income tax would solve all the problems. It was the opposite, with deeper and deeper debt and higher and higher taxes ever since. Did I mention that, since Weicker, the state has been basically bankrupt?
Under the Blue Model, jobs have fled, manufacturing has fled, the cities are in the ICU and run by various union, ethnic, or other mobsters and predators, and the government unions control the levers of government. Catastrophe. Few remember that in the 1960s Hartford was the most desirable small city in America according to Time magazine. Now it is a dangerous (at night) shithole of degeneracy, dependency, and hugely-expensive and failing government schools.
Pubiic schools in Hartford now cost taxpayers more than fancy private schools.
All the Liberals and Lefties now want to move to red states to survive which I find grimly amusing. Of course, they bring their blue votes with them.
Without the wealth of Fairfield County which is basically a prosperous suburb of NYC, the state wouid now be one of the saddest in the nation. A thin thread of hedge fund taxes barely holds the state together because government has killed the other industries and does its best to kill small businesses. The governor is a pathetic putz, a union hack. A sad story about how the Blue Government illness can kill the goose that laid golden eggs in a lovely New England state.
We stay here despite all the mess. I think it's the same reason people stay in California despite its mess. If you can figure out how to make a living and to minimize your taxes, it's still a fine home.
Often one needs or desires knowledge and skills which do not lead to a degree but which extend your abilities and skills and, thus, your value and employability. The best source I am aware of is the NYU School of Professional Studies.Many of their courses are online.
It's practical education. I am all for it. Many things can be learned on the job, but it never hurts to know the stuff in advance and, after all, you have to be able to say something worthwhile in a job interview. Many or most of their courses are available online and are not expensive.
Signaling, for better or worse, is an important part of what humans do in societies. Signaling can convey what one wants to be, or what one is. Educational signaling is an interesting case.
I have always said that, as a rule of thumb, your education can get you your first job, but that, after that, you are mostly standing on that first job.
The problem of teaching a beginning economic course as a highly technical exercise is an extremely serious problem. The introductory course is the only chance most students have to get an understanding of the benefits we all receive from the amazing economic cooperation made possible only by the markets. And few students gain that understanding from the highly technical presentation they get from many introductory courses. But these students do get clear presentations about market economies in many social sciences and humanities courses that are taught by teachers who have less than an introductory level of economics themselves. What many of them do have is a naïve view that markets are based on exploitation and injustices that can be corrected by government.
It's time up here to put in orders for bare root trees, whether fruit trees or otherwise. We use Musser Forests, Stark Bros, and other websites where we can find what we want.
While November might have been the best time to plant them, the second-best time is as soon as you can get a shovel into the thawing ground.
Bare root trees establish themselves quicker than burlapped or potted plants. There are many sites and Youtubes which explain how to properly plant bare root plants. It's not a bad idea to soak the roots for a few hours before planting. When you plant them in dormancy, water them in well and then withhold any watering until green shoots appear.
In the first summer, a deep watering once or twice a week works well. After the first summer around here, no watering is needed after that. In the first Spring, it's recommended to pinch off any fruit tree blossoms that appear, so the plant can devote itself to establishing itself in its home.
I have ordered three Crabapples (edible crabapple, semi-dwarf,as in photo. Not the ornamental) to put in as soon as we get some thaw. Right now we have 12" of snow and the soil is like a rock.
Adjunct faculty are the serfs of the higher ed industry. Generally speaking, and excluding the "studies" hires, these are very bright people who have either lacked the genius, or the political savvy, to achieve the cushy life of academic tenure. They also tend to be people for whom, ironically, life outside the non-profit bubble seems frighteningly competitive with frighteningly-measurable results.
I once imagined the idea of an academic life, but quickly learned that I was not a genius even though I have some flair for teaching and perhaps a bit of a calling for it. I might have been a beloved and valued private secondary school teacher, but that turned out not to be my fated path. It could be a good retirement path for me, however. I could teach Civics, history, Art History, Law, Latin, and Government, and I can coach Baseball and Soccer. That won't happen, though, because life is too short for everything and retirement from my post is not on my agenda. I like being the boss of me and I do not like answering to anybody.
How the Blue Model fails. For a century, this conservative Protestant state, the "Land of Steady Habits," was a state of tough Yankee self-reliance and no faith in or expectations from government of any sort. It had no income tax until recent years (damn that Republican jerk Gov. Lowell Weicker who put in the tax and fled the state to avoid his taxes as soon as he was out of office).
It's a practical course in management of any organization, large or small: Caplow's How To Run Any Organization.
It's time up here to put in orders for bare root trees, whether fruit trees or otherwise. We use Musser Forests, Stark Bros, and other websites where we can find what we want.