[lit-ideas] Re: education
- From: Andy <mimi.erva@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2011 16:15:39 -0700 (PDT)
Much of what I read says that the next 20 years are going to be very different
from the last 20 years due to changes in the energy situation that, some say,
are driving the economic changes. If these experts are right, and we all know
what Yogi Berra said about predicting the future, then a college education may
not be the investment it once was. That couples with the fact that college
nowadays is just a variation on vocational training anyway, whether it's the
MBA, doctor, lawyer, engineer, whatever. The days of learning because it's
fun, i.e., liberal arts, are over. Given all of this, if it were me, given
what I know now, and especially in light of the student loan situation,
and especially if I wasn't interested in learning for its own sake, I would
consider some sort of trade, preferably one that didn't center on fossil fuels,
but that's admittedly a tall order.
It's sad, really, that the world has dumbed down so amazingly. Even the so
called professionals today don't know anything outside of their professions;
they're just glorified tradespeople interested mostly in money. That's just a
statement of fact. It's what Wall Street and corporate are all about; the Koch
brothers, etc. That's ironic, since the financial threshold for
happiness turns out to be $13,000. It might explain why the people on Wall
Street can never seem to get enough, because in fact they never can get enough
if everything over $13,000 doesn't contribute to happiness. But that's another
subject.
Useless factoid: the group the Doors took their name from Aldous Huxley's book
The Doors of Perception, but you all knew that.
Andy
________________________________
From: Julie Krueger <juliereneb@xxxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, November 4, 2011 7:54 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] education
I have two daughters. One is a natural-born academician and lord knows where
she'll go -- she's in my worry basket for totally different reasons.
My 18 yr old is a different story. She is not naturally academically inclined
and the public schools have served her incredibly poorly. Her grades are low
and the classrooms she's in are student chaos. This is her senior year. Her
teachers have emphasized test-taking over subject-learning and she says things
like, "If I don't understand high school biology, how am I ever going to take
College biology?"
How much of an epidemic is this, and how do you, as College Prof's, deal with
students whose public schooling has left them entirely unprepared for
College-level study and subject matter??
It was my experience that College was easier than pub. school because I truly
loved my classes, my prof's were excellent, and the atmosphere was one of
learning, not scraping by by hook or by crook. (One teacher of my daughter's
actually told her to just cheat on her tests, to do anything she had to to pass
that class.)
Julie Krueger
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