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> five minutes later they started emailing our parents—and > then all undergraduate parents Can somebody explain why the University would email the parents? What do they have to do with it? The students are of age, right?
I wonder if there'll ever be another Steve Jobs or RMS. I wonder if we've destroyed all the places where brilliant weirdos can thrive and closed off all the paths to success other than a handful of narrowly prescribed routes. I wonder how many of the greatest minds of our generation are flipping burgers or making coffee.
All the brilliant weirdos I know are independent. Lampworkers, machinists, turbine engineers, fabricators, inventors. None affiliated with any educational system, no degrees. None making burgers either. All 'shop rats,' in garages, sheds, and machine shops.
Artist/bohemian collectives across the US harbor these same kinds of people as well.
As college morphs into High School+, and society extends their definition of 'childhood' to cover up to age 25, steps will be taken to destroy the autonomy and personality of these 'children.' Children are entitled no rights, no difference of opinion from them is respected, and any degree of control over them, no matter how extreme, is always seen as warranted.
That argument makes sense as they mailed the kids parents; when universities are all about recognizing the students as adults.
Yep. Sounds like every dormitory at any university. All they had to do was look.
This whole thing reads like the playbook of how to use the mechanisms of bureaucracy to build a palatable pretense for unpopular actions.
As a Senior House alum and former instructor at MIT, what bothers me the most is how MIT is teaching horrible standards of ethical behavior through their actions. Improper use of metadata to track down individuals in a confidential survey about mental health and substance abuse would end a scientist's career. MIT did it. Collective punishment of a group for the actions of a few is an educational and social antipatter…
I'm not sure how I feel about Senior House overall, but the misuse of the survey data enraged me. We have such a hard time getting people at MIT to seek help for mental health issues and stupid bullshit like this is exactly why. People should not he punished for trying to seek help, health data should never be shared with people who are not health care professionals, and it's astoundingly unethical to use people's he…
I don't know if this question has been investigated.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That argument makes sense as they mailed the kids parents; when universities are all about recognizing the students as adults.
That's one thing that really struck me as weird in this article. I'm not living in America but just like I would expect my boss to only contact my parents in an emergency, I would expect my University to only contact my parents in an emergency (and graduation).
I'm not saying MIT is in the right here, but if you want parents or others completely disengaged, then you need to not engage them financially.
As college morphs into High School+, and society extends their definition of 'childhood' to cover up to age 25, steps will be taken to destroy the autonomy and personality of these 'children.' Children are entitled no rights, no difference of opinion from them is respected, and any degree of control over them, no matter how extreme, is always seen as warranted.
Remembering some Latin texts from in high school, I get the distinct impression the same could be said of Grammar schools in ancient Rome. Having (quite a bit of) wine with colleagues and even with the teachers on occasion was pretty normal. Living together was a necessity in many places, even for the rich.
Biggest difference with High School being that having good grades was pretty much rewarded, even socially. Not everywhere, but more than a bit.
As college morphs into High School+, and society extends their definition of 'childhood' to cover up to age 25, steps will be taken to destroy the autonomy and personality of these 'children.' Children are entitled no rights, no difference of opinion from them is respected, and any degree of control over them, no matter how extreme, is always seen as warranted.
Even now, I'm hesitant to discuss this here (or most places) because, despite the best intentions in arguing a position (even out of pure rhetoric), I face the high probability of being punished for going against "the collective's" thoughts. Because disagreement means punishment is in order. You're wrong, I know it, fuck you, downvote, whatever. And, if the collective severely disagrees with you, it is, apparently, acceptable to let it be known to your employer, spouse, parents, local pizza shop, etc.
What's the actual story here? "Four students tried to buy cocaine" isn't the story. That happens all the time, at every college, in every other MIT dorm, and in most city high schools.