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Everything You Need to Know About Your Son and Daughter’s University but Don’t

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Re: Everything You Need to Know About Your Son and Daughter’s University but Don’t

#51

Post by spdionis »

angdis wrote: post #21
hbosch wrote: post #9

In all honesty this writer sounds utterly curmudgeonly. He writes passionately about what "real education" is, dispenses some good ol' Hard Facts About Life, and urges us all to put down those dang computer-devices and just learn ! This is classic finger-pointing, angsty whining. I'm sorry, but the conceit here flagrantly disregards modern reality. Learning is easier now than it's ever been. People don't need to give…

There certainly are more opportunities to learn than ever before, but learning requires effort. If you want to learn something that _really_ matters you have to give it full attention. That means total focus, not "continuous partial attention", not facebooking on another tab. Whether you use an ipad, a book, or sit across from a table from a professor, learning really does require undivided attention-- when has this…

But often in university a good 80% of the material doesn't _really_ matter

Re: Everything You Need to Know About Your Son and Daughter’s University but Don’t

#52

Post by [deleted] »

spdionis wrote: post #51
angdis wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There certainly are more opportunities to learn than ever before, but learning requires effort. If you want to learn something that _really_ matters you have to give it full attention. That means total focus, not "continuous partial attention", not facebooking on another tab. Whether you use an ipad, a book, or sit across from a table from a professor, learning really does require undivided attention-- when has this…

But often in university a good 80% of the material doesn't _really_ matter

[deleted]

Re: Everything You Need to Know About Your Son and Daughter’s University but Don’t

#53

Post by 6502nerdface »

trgn wrote: post #38
marcosdumay wrote: post #6

Guess what, when you insist on doing only useless work, people start to think your work is useless. Humanities are incredibly important. I'd kill for somebody to help me communicate better at my undergrad, or understand people better, or any deep understanding of politics. Was any of that available? Of course not. There were only boring lessons, full of useless bullshit with professors claiming even objectively false…

I think I know what you are getting at, but there's an important historical dimension. The humanities are useless, in the sense that they do not fit the current idea of what a University's place in society should be. Universities used to teach humanities almost to all students, some years even exclusively; not because it was useful in the olden days, but precisely because it was useless. It was a luxury. A university…

> IMO, the humanities have a big place in the University - a place for "higher" learning. It elevates us over the day-to-day drab of doing errands and keeping your shoelaces tied, they connect us to some of the most wonderful human achievements of the past. But it is not useful, and has never been so.

How can it be that there is no use in being "elevated" or in being connected to "the most wonderful human achievements of the past"?

Re: Everything You Need to Know About Your Son and Daughter’s University but Don’t

#54

Post by Bahamut »

rayiner wrote: post #29
hbosch wrote: post #9

In all honesty this writer sounds utterly curmudgeonly. He writes passionately about what "real education" is, dispenses some good ol' Hard Facts About Life, and urges us all to put down those dang computer-devices and just learn ! This is classic finger-pointing, angsty whining. I'm sorry, but the conceit here flagrantly disregards modern reality. Learning is easier now than it's ever been. People don't need to give…

> Kids today can listen with one ear, read with one eye... Do their research with one tab and chat on Facebook with another. Can you code with one tab open to Facebook chat? Because the overwhelming consensus here on HN is that coding requires concentration and lack of interruptions. So does learning. Technology doesn't change the basic biological processes of learning, and the fact is that technology has proven itse…

I actually code with one tab open with Facebook...I trained myself to ignore it unless I have a free moment. Sometimes it's necessary for me to be responsive there due to having plans to do something later with friends (i.e. meeting up in the afternoon to run or have dinner at Facebook). However, if I have important tasks to do, I keep a mental reminder to respond later and focus on my current task first.

I agree with the rest of the points made though. Multitasking is generally difficult.

Re: Everything You Need to Know About Your Son and Daughter’s University but Don’t

#55

Post by lordCarbonFiber »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #48
lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was my impression as well. I love how, in one anecdote, he talks about how students "don't read" and puts the example that given they know they can get a B without the book, don't bother; some how this is the students' fault. Just the selective blindness to it all, how can anyone be surprised that given no external nor internal motivation any human being is going to be arsed to go out of their way to do things.…

Huh. 18 out of 230 students bought the text they were studying. That sounds like statistics. 'C' grades for what used to be failing exams - more data. And rising test scores? In what universe is that happening? These are 2nd-tier liberal arts colleges at issue, not Stanford. Tool belt? Its nonsense to imagine googling a subject is as effective as learning it. That's twaddle, and any student who skates over their lack…

18 out of 230 bought bought a book, widely accessible and read by most in the early hs, from the over priced campus book store. FTFY. That's not statistics, that's just a single (unenlightening) data point.

A personal anecdote about the fact the OP now feels his standards have dropped (providing no numbers for this nor writing samples so we the readership can appraise the truth of this claim) is also ~not~ statistics.

As for rising test scores, unfortuantely for you and your "twaddle" most colleges maintain a factbook detailing past admissions data. Lets look at a couple of state schools from the worst part of the US shall we:

Clemson University: [1]

Engineering school 2014: ACT = 29 SAT_M = 674 SAT_V = 622

                   2004: ACT = 27 SAT_M = 655 SAT_V = 596
LiberalArts School 2014: ACT = 27 SAT_M = 610 SAT_V = 604

                   2004: ACT - 27 SAT_M = 606 SAT_V = 595
Auburn University:[2]

Entire university 2014: ACT = 27 SAT_M = 591 SAT_V = 577

                  2006: ACT = 24.3 SAT_M = 575 SAT_V = 554
Francis Marion University[3]

Entire Universtiy 2011: ACT = NaN SAT_M = 481 SAT_V 472

                  2004: ACT = NaN SAT_M 476 SAT_V 472
It appears you have to go down to at least the 76th ranked southern university[4] before the gains in test scores begin to look more like noise and even at that level there's a non 0 increase in performance. We're clearly not talking Standford here.

Finally, the internet represents a tool because it allows for more mental bandwidth to be used on analysis over memory. No longer must you remember the exact quote to make an allusion, just the fact that it exists. This is then indexed to other supporting works a student can draw upon to further support their argument. Machines are excellent at recalling and storing information, however struggle with analysis (especially in the context of humanities). Students are more free than ever to peruse these lines of thinking, to demonstrate meaningful mastery you might say, now that names, dates, formatting, indexing, etc have been outsourced to the machine. Just for an example, when a blind blow hard comes and makes assertions comfortable his eloquence will make up for the lack of facts, the internet allows for the rapid synthesis of numbers to render the argument hilariously invalid. [1]http://www.clemson.edu/oirweb1/FB/factbook/minifactbook.cgi [2]https://oira.auburn.edu/ [3]http://www.fmarion.edu/about/factbook/article12711c7605652.h... [4]http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/...

EDIT: number formatting

Re: Everything You Need to Know About Your Son and Daughter’s University but Don’t

#56

Post by gtrubetskoy »

lintiness wrote: post #33
cbd1984 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think undergraduate electives are "The Humanities" you're part of the problem you decry.

i attended the university of chicago. my electives were what i wanted; my core was humanities, civ, arts, social sciences, science, language. i haven't decried any problem. the professor who wrote this piece is a bloviating whiner, but he also happens to be mostly right.

isn't the uchicago college core more of an exception that the rule these days?

Re: Everything You Need to Know About Your Son and Daughter’s University but Don’t

#57

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #12

The main point which hit home for me was that the students are running the asylum now and there is no respect for the professors or faculty attempting to teach them. From the comments: The key to this article is the explicit statement that administrators are aligned with students against faculty. I work at a major university, and my department head has often sided with students without even contacting me to hear my t…

> They all cited the same thing - the over coddling of students by administration or faculty. The stories they told were eye opening to say the least. The crazy part? This was going on in the early aughts, nearly two decades earlier.

In my experience, they're not doing things to appease the students, they're doing things to appease the students' parents.

Re: Everything You Need to Know About Your Son and Daughter’s University but Don’t

#58

Post by jseliger »

jccalhoun wrote: post #45

As someone who has taught college for over a decade, I can say that while there are a lot of problems in higher education students are not high on my list.

while there are a lot of problems in higher education students are not high on my list.

I've not taught quite as long as you, but I'll add that I like to tell students that life is going to be their ultimate punishment or reward: If they don't learn how to read and write (I teach English), they'll be the ones who suffer. Not me.

Some people of course don't learn anything and are fine. Many however don't learn anything and aren't fine.

Re: Everything You Need to Know About Your Son and Daughter’s University but Don’t

#59

Post by CyberDildonics »

cableshaft wrote: post #42
rayiner wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kids today can listen with one ear, read with one eye... Do their research with one tab and chat on Facebook with another. Can you code with one tab open to Facebook chat? Because the overwhelming consensus here on HN is that coding requires concentration and lack of interruptions. So does learning. Technology doesn't change the basic biological processes of learning, and the fact is that technology has proven itse…

I was too smart for the pace of learning at my public junior and high school (not too smart for college, but that's another story), and regularly either doodled, wrote stories or poetry, or programmed simple text-based games in TI-BASIC on my calculator in order to get through my classes, while looking up periodically to make sure I was still following everything they said. And this was during the 1990's that I was i…

That's just you being ahead of the curve. Distractions mean you aren't at your best either way.

Re: Everything You Need to Know About Your Son and Daughter’s University but Don’t

#60

Post by hcayless »

lintiness wrote: post #19

i found at least one blatant typo, and it takes this guy about 1000 words what can be said in a quarter that. no wonder his students are bored.

Found at least 2 before I quit paying attention. It's not 100% crap by any means, but there's a disturbing narrow-mindedness to it as well.
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