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.
It strikes me as ironic that in a realm like education, the lesson America’s scholastic visionaries never seem to learn is also the most simple lesson of all—that education should be about educating. Theorists persist in reinventing the wheel, sometimes with good intentions and sometimes in the service of agendas that are rather less defensible and/or wholesome than those publicly stated. Such is the case with the hottest currency to emerge from the pointy-headed precincts of pedagogical theory: social-emotional learning, or SEL...
Somewhere around the time that "new math" became an educational fad, "whole word" reading was developed. Like New Math, the reasons for a new method were never made clear because everybody had been learning to read just fine with "phonics," otherwise known as "sounding it out."
We're in another era now. Now, there is "New, new math" from Common Core that nobody can understand. Supposedly it's meant to offer a deeper understanding of numbers. There is no more plain long division even though that old division sign was a great tool.
Will the government education machine finally accept that phonics is the easiest way to read? K–12: Phonics Is Winning
It's a peculiar topic, best addressed in specifics rather than in generalities. Specific acquired skills and developed talents. It's not too difficult to measure their value. Can you play world-class violin? Can you frame a shed that will not fall down? Can you make a route over a mountain from point A to point B? Can you help an autistic child behave in a civil manner? Can you hit a fastball? Most adults become pretty good at assessing the obvious merits (and flaws) of others. For less evident skills, an oral exam or written exam or performance exam vets out specific merits pretty well. Especially logic and math.
We want bridges that will not collapse, and there is nothing easy at all about that. Yet, our elites happily drive over those bridges with any clue about how they came to be.
Not anymore, not nowadays. Not in a time when lots of "higher ed" is about work skills.
For example, 6 million Americans attend community colleges. That's a lot. They are not there to study Shakespeare and Plato. They stop by to pick up credits that help them apply for work: medical coding, computer coding, hospitality jobs, turf managment, nursing aide ed, etc etc.
There are, in fact, important and interesting insights to be derived from The Social Construction of Reality. On the other hand, there is ordinary reality which always wins in the end.
"The object of the university is to develop character — to make men. It misses its aim if it produced learned pedants, or simple artisans, or cunning sophists, or pretentious practitioners. Its purport is not so much to impart knowledge to the pupils, as whet the appetite, exhibit methods, develop powers, strengthen judgment, and invigorate the intellectual and moral forces. It should prepare for the service of society a class of students who will be wise, thoughtful, progressive guides in whatever department of work or thought they may be engaged."
Johns Hopkins University President Daniel Coit Gilman, in 1876 (h/t, Askblog)
People who analyze and write about higher education generally fall into two camps. One camp consists of those who believe that our system is “the envy of the world” and just needs more public support to do its great work of improving our citizens and strengthening our economy. (For a sense of what that camp is about, read professor Steven Brint’s book Two Cheers for Higher Education, which I reviewed here.)
The other camp consists of people who conclude that our higher education system draws in far too many students, poorly educates most of them, and costs too much. Unlike the first, which has, so far as I am aware, no conservatives or libertarians, in this camp you find people from all over the political spectrum. Former Harvard president Derek Bok, a liberal, has written Our Underperforming Colleges. And arguably the best-known among the critics is professor Richard Vedder, a thorough-going free market advocate.
Charlie Martin is a better writer, but I have said all of this in the past. Quote:
It would take far more than one article to explain how we got here, but at least one of the root causes is the Prussian model of education we adopted early in the 20th century. And no, I'm not using the ad Hitlerum fallacy here — our model of education is literally Prussian, coming from educational reforms instituted in Prussia and eventually throughout the Austro-Hungarian Empire long before Hitler. The goal was to teach the masses, who were assumed not to be capable of a more advanced education, to become literate and tractable workers in the increasingly industrialized German-speaking state.
The model is essentially industrial, suited for the times: students are raw materials that progress through a series of work stations ("grades") allocated by age cohort, with their progress and eventual quality judged at each stage. Individual capabilities and interests were largely ignored, and the results were mainly measured by how much of the raw materials passed through the whole factory with at least a marginally acceptable final delivery.
And yes, of course, this is a mildly hyperbolic overstatement, but only mildly. The educational system disoriented not toward successfully teaching individual student, but to pushing a mass of students through as a group...
Today, college has become our go-to yardstick for minimal competence. Take a look at almost any job listing for almost any desk job in any city, and you will see “college degree” listed as an essential requirement. The argument in favor of this arrangement is that if a candidate can demonstrate that he has completed such a degree, he can be assumed to be both relatively smart and capable of sticking with things to their end. Which, in some cases, is of course true. But it is telling that none of the other experiences that demonstrate capacity and tenacity tend to make an appearance in the listings. Know what else demonstrates an ability to stick things out? Military service. Running a small business. Working at a charity. Training as a plumber. Working on a farm. Learning to weld. Keeping another job for a long period of time...
The author is right about much of this, but does not make enough of the reality that the students are consumers, and are seen as such by the education industry.
