61–70 of 167 posts
the US education system needs to be made more efficient.
Instead there are
-arguments about semantics
-Republican VS Democrat
Only lower down, in the less pointed-to comments, is there any meat.
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Is this starting to become like "I, for one, welcome our new X overlords?" is on Slashdot? PG wrote everything. Let's take that as a given. Now can we move on? I'm not trying to be persnickety, but your comment adds absolutely nothing to the discussion and sounds like fanboy tripe. If PGs article was on here, we could talk about that. But it's not. AFAIK, every one of PG's articles has already appeared on here and we…
Sorry, Dan, but the strange loop generated by what I am submitting here is irresistible. Cheers: http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2007/12/the_guy.php
The 3 stage process of childhood - adolescence - adulthood is already irrelevant in many affluent Western countries, but what was removed isn't adolescence but adulthood. Many 40 year olds manage their lives as teenagers (look at the low birth rate in western Europe, or high divorce rate in the US) and vice versa - teenagers build $15b (if you believe it ;)) companies.
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The reason republicans so frequently tout this line is because they fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of education. Newt and company believe that education is essentially career training, and as such cannot fathom why kids need to be learning things like calculus and biology. The real purpose of education is to turn people into intellectuals. Industry does not want to simply hire people who know exactly how to…
and as such cannot fathom why kids need to be learning things like calculus and biology I'm pretty sure that Gingrich who is a professor, and every other republican who has ever considered the question in any way, recognizes the use and purpose of calculus and biology. But don't let reason get in the way of your mindless contempt. The real purpose of education is to turn people into intellectuals No, it isn't, unless…
No, it isn't, unless you are talking about highly selective liberal arts colleges. And even then, the best you are going to get are 3rd generation photocopies of Susan Sontag.
It would seem to me that that IS the purpose of education, especially a technical one. To me the definition of intellectual is a person who is always seeking to learn new things and better themselves educationally. In a field like engineering where things are constantly changing, the intellectually minded will be on the cutting edge and will be the ones you want to surround yourself with.
The 3 stage process of childhood - adolescence - adulthood is already irrelevant in many affluent Western countries, but what was removed isn't adolescence but adulthood. Many 40 year olds manage their lives as teenagers (look at the low birth rate in western Europe, or high divorce rate in the US) and vice versa - teenagers build $15b (if you believe it ;)) companies.
I don't believe that a low birth rate says anything about when people grow up. If it did, teenage mothers would be the most responsible people in society.
(I'm not judging this, btw, it's a valid choice.)
And experiments such as the one my daughter, Jackie Cushman, is running in Atlanta—where poor children are paid the equivalent of working in a fast-food restaurant to study and do their homework—are examples of a more dynamic future.
How is being paid to study and do homework an example of early adulthood? One huge difference between adults and non-adults is adults tend to grab every opportunity to improve their skills, and understand that those don't come that often.
This article started with an interesting (if incendiary) premise, but then the author showed that he has poor logical skills. Perhaps he should go back to school himself.
In short, this article is a hodge-podge of potentially interesting half-ideas and downright nefarious illogical conclusions.
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Technology and politics can move in opposite directions. Technology is far, far better. The political situation is much worse. Overall, life is far better. Unfortunately, we don't have an example of what adolescence would look like if we had the same growth of technology but without the decline in the political system. I suspect though, if we could glimpse into this alternate world it would blow us away.
I don't know. I'm almost certain we'd lose something in that alternate world as well. In particular, we'd lose a tolerance for the diversity of the world. College is tremendous for that: it's the one thing it's tremendous for. You realize what radically different sorts of people there are in the world. Without that, if you're born and raised in a suburb then there's a good chance you never realize what you're missing…
As for universities - the top universities have a rainbow of skin colors, but the culture is overwhelmingly "Whiter Person" - http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/
A long time ago I listened to "The Bell Curve" on tape. One of valuable ideas I got from the book was that we should strive to create a valuable place for everyone in society. Everyone, whether young or old, intelligent or not, should feel that they are contributing something of value. No one should feel that they have nothing to give and that society would be better off without them. Furthermore, we should encourage…
Everyone, whether young or old, intelligent or not, should feel that they are contributing something of value If the average person is not contributing at least the economic value they are consuming, your society is in a death spiral, and it doesn't matter how anyone "feels".
So I think "feeling" captures the idea of economic value, and it captures the idea of an individual's happiness which is also important when discussing public policy.
Economic law always functions of course. Even under an affirmative-action quota system, a person is only hired if it makes economic sense as a whole to the employer. However, the employee may not feel as valuable.
With respect to topic, I think much of the angst felt by adolescents comes from them feeling not useful. Allowing them to be useful, i.e., to get a job and support themselves, would help them feel useful.
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> Now certainly the value of a diploma as a measure of intellectual curiosity has gone down dramatically, but I believe this was the original reason. I don't think this was ever true. You can read about the European universities centuries ago and even back then they were about getting the children of the rich to socialize and drink a lot. More recently Jefferson said his time at William & Mary was waste of time, most…
This idea that there's something special about four years of the much longer process is a bit silly. The idea is that a, colleges move to you places you'd never be (I have friends at NYU and Dublin who absolutely are getting more out of the locale than they are anything else), and b, because college is specifically made so that people can learn, you'll attract a purer blend of people, all of whom are interested in le…
You should try harder to get around this. I've never had a problem getting "mandatory" requirements waived.
If you don't manage to waive the classes, but are indeed hot shit, you should be able to crank out a semester's work in a day or two sometime early on. Professor might be more impressed/willing to waive when you turn in every problem, solved, on day one.
I agree with Newt Gingrich's assessment of the problem. However, I don't like this solution, particularly within the context of http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/21/magazines/fortune/talent_col... (warning, very long article) and http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=203... Gingrich is right in that the institution is a failure. However, his proposed solutions merely reinforces those institution. A big…