Murray's argument is that only 10 - 15% of white students (lower for some other minorities and perhaps higher for others) are intelligent enough to handle college material. He says that encouraging everyone to attempt college wouldn't be a problem if there weren't high costs attached in terms of time & money. Young people who aren't smart enough to handle college but are encouraged to attend by their parents and their counselors are the victims of a callous system.
quote: The advocates of college for everyone seldom mention those who try and fail, but in fact the college dropout rate is extremely high. In a longitudinal study sponsored by the Department of Education, 42% of those who entered college in 1995 had not obtained a degree within six years. That is almost exactly the same as the 41% of white youths in the 1979 NLSY cohort who dropped out of four-year colleges and never got a B.A. For whites in the 1997 cohort who were at least 24 years old in the 2006 survey, 39% of those who had entered a four-year college had not yet obtained a degree.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:In a longitudinal study sponsored by the Department of Education, 42% of those who entered college in 1995 had not obtained a degree within six years.
I didn't obtain a degree within six years either. It took me seven, and then four more years to get the next one.
Of course, there were many other things in my life besides school during that time period (a 2-year mission, getting married, 2 children, buying our first house, etc.).
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
My husband, who teaches college courses at a local community college, looked over my shoulder and saw only the thread title and said "yes."
Posted by theCrowsWife (Member # 8302) on :
I don't know that intelligence has as much to do with it as you would like. My husband is very intelligent, but also interested in too many different things, so it took him some 15 years to settle on and get a degree. Approximately 10 of those years were actually spent in school (you don't want to know how many credits he has in his transcripts).
In my case* I found after a couple of years in college that I didn't actually want a degree and that I would be better off doing other things. College isn't for everyone, and although sometimes it might be intelligence related, it can also be because of personality and background.
*I'm not interested in bragging, but I've got a whole list of high school accomplishments if you don't believe that I would be grouped amongst the "intelligent" college students.
--Mel
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:(you don't want to know how many credits he has in his transcripts).
How many credits does he have on his transcripts?
Nevermind. I don't want to know. Posted by Tinros (Member # 8328) on :
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:(you don't want to know how many credits he has in his transcripts).
How many credits does he have on his transcripts?
Nevermind. I don't want to know.
I'll admit that I'm curious.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
same here. Posted by Shanna (Member # 7900) on :
I found the opening anecdote interesting because when dealing with a student who makes average grades, is motivated, but is without direction and would dread an office job...I would say its not a matter of intelligence but rather a problem of the system.
As I get older I'm seeing how ridiculous it is that we celebrate the four-year institution which in many cases is more of a life experience rather than an education, and stigmatize community colleges.
I sat through four years of my small liberal arts college professors talking about the value of education. And it was of great use for my many of my classmates who went onto graduate programs. But being put on the four-year college train isn't always the best course REGARDLESS of intelligence. I scored higher on IQ and the SATs than the majority of my college friends and I'm one of the few who doesn't have her BA yet at 24 years old.
My goal, when I do graduate, will be attend the local community-style college and get a degree that is actually useful.
I do like the idea about certifications. And I love the idea of elevating the value of alternatives to the BA. The four-year college program is great for some people who it shouldn't be eliminated but I think as a society we'd benefit by appreciating those who don't fit the model and giving them an opportunity to prove their worth in other ways.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
Weren't you listening? You don't want to know!!
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
It is certainly the case that too many students are attending college. This is largely because employers are lazy.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
It is even more true that many high schools are not adequately preparing their students. That doesn't make them dumb -- it makes them ill-prepared.
Posted by DDDaysh (Member # 9499) on :
Short answer - yes.
Posted by dab (Member # 7847) on :
dumb or smart,necessary or not, thank god we have the privilege to send so many of our society on to higher education.
Posted by Launchywiggin (Member # 9116) on :
quote:This is largely because employers are lazy.
I don't get it.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka: It is even more true that many high schools are not adequately preparing their students. That doesn't make them dumb -- it makes them ill-prepared.
I think this gets at the heart of the matter far more directly.
I'm often shocked at the lack of some very basic skills from the students around me, particularly the younger ones right out of high school. I'm shocked when professors have to put in a syllabus that it's inappropriate to ask for a specific grade because so many students have begged for a passing grade over the last couple years. I'm shocked when a professor spends two weeks doing a mini-lecture on basic writing skills because kids can't even edit their own papers for basic grammatical errors and profs are sick of reading the messes turned in to them.
The number of complaints that I've heard from profs about the quality if incoming freshman has increased yearly since I entered college, which was way back in 2002. I graduate this May, so it will have taken me 8 years to get my degree.
Posted by andi330 (Member # 8572) on :
quote:Originally posted by Launchywiggin:
quote:This is largely because employers are lazy.
I don't get it.
As college has become more and more emphasized by society and high schools and colleges themselves, many employers have stopped hiring people with only high school diplomas, including many employers who could engage in on-the-job training or even apprenticeships to develop their employees have instead started requiring college degrees. It essentially requires many people to spend large amounts of money on college taking dozens of courses, many of which aren't truly necessary for the career that they want. Apprenticeships still exist but they are much fewer and far between than they were at one point. It's sad, because a true apprenticeship can teach an appreciation for the work that they do that a college education cannot always provide.
In addition, this country (the US) does not value it's workers that are not college educated (or even college educated employees working in jobs that wouldn't require a degree). When I was working for an electronics store, I had a customer come back with a phone she had purchased because she couldn't figure out how to make it stay on the hook. When I offered to show her how, her response was:
quote: My husband is an engineer, my son works for NASA. If they couldn't make it work, you certainly don't know.
She didn't have much to say when I flipped the hook over to the hanging position and demonstrated that it now worked. She immediately assumed that because I worked in retail, I was stupid, and therefore couldn't possibly show her how to do something her "much more intelligent" family couldn't figure out.
Not all Americans are like that, but it does show a lack of respect for those who work in jobs that require a lower level of education, or that provide on-the-job training and development, rather than requiring college. What those people fail to realize is that these jobs are an important part of our economy, and that people working in them, showing up on time every day, and choosing to do that job to the best of their ability, deserve just as much respect as a college professor, or someone with a higher education.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I'm not sure if referencing NASA as a center for common sense is really the best defense she could make given they're the people who crashed a couple hundred million dollar probe into Mars because of a conversion error (in that they didn't convert it at all).
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by dab: dumb or smart,necessary or not, thank god we have the privilege to send so many of our society on to higher education.
We'd do better if we had better options for the people who aren't going to thrive in an environment of essays and complex academic material. We must have de-emphasized vocational training and apprenticeships too much along the way.
There is one advantage to this presumed 'necessity' of college education: it puts the onus on our primary school system to try to make as many students capable for it as possible.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I think we'd do better to have a system similar to what many European nations have, where some are put on a university track, and others on a trades/craft track. I'm nervous about separating people out in high school and forcing them into one life path or another, but it seems foolish to force the idea of college on a large number of students that are obviously never going to go, or will go and fail.
I think it would also be a great step forward on the national road towards downplaying the be all end all status of universities. We have to end the stigma that says that working in a trade is somehow less than being a college graduate. People in the trades can make excellent money, and even if they don't make great money, they provide incredibly valuable and necessary skills that aren't in the slightest less important than those of a college graduate.
Kids aren't going to want to be blackballed to vocational training however until the stigma ends.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: I think we'd do better to have a system similar to what many European nations have, where some are put on a university track, and others on a trades/craft track. I'm nervous about separating people out in high school and forcing them into one life path or another, but it seems foolish to force the idea of college on a large number of students that are obviously never going to go, or will go and fail.
Amen.
Especially since a good vocational training can net well-paying jobs.
Posted by Clive Candy (Member # 11977) on :
Only degrees from prestigious universities (i.e, the ones that are most selective about the IQ of the students) have the status of what a general college degree indicated four decades ago. As it stands, most students are attending college to merely acquire useful skills. I think we can up with a more efficient system that accommodates them. Because the only winners of the current system are the high IQ/Ivy League crowd AND college professors who have to teach two classes a semester.
More on the importance of intelligence (from a book called "Spent" by Geoffrey Miller):
quote:The irony about general intelligence is that ordinary folks of average intelligence recognize its variance across people, its generality across domains, and its importance in life. Yet educated elites meanwhile often remain implacably opposed to the very concept of general intelligence, and deny its variance, generality, and importance. Professors and students at elite universities are especially prone to this pseudohumility. They socialize only with other people of extraordinarily high intelligence, so the width of the whole bell curve lies outside their frame of reference. I have met theoretical physicists who claimed that any human could understand superstring theory and quantum mechanics if only he or she was given the right educational opportunities. Of course, such scientists talk only with other physicists with IQs above 140, and seem to forget that their janitors, barbers, and car mechanics are in fact real humans too, so they can rest comfortably in the envy-deflecting delusion that there are no significant differences in general intelligence.
Even within my own field, evolutionary psychologists tend to misunderstand general intelligence as a psychological adaptation in its own right, often misconstruing it as a specific mental organ, module, brain area, or faculty. However, it is not viewed that way by most intelligence researchers who, instead, regard general intelligence as an individual-differences construct—like the constructs “health,” “beauty,” or “status.” Health is not a bodily organ; it is an abstract construct or “latent variable” that emerges when one statistically analyzes the functional efficiencies of many different organs. Because good genes, diet, and exercise tend to produce good hearts, lungs, and antibodies, the vital efficiencies of circulatory, pulmonary, and immune systems tend to positively correlate, yielding a general “health” factor. Likewise, beauty is not a single sexual ornament like a peacock’s tail; it is a latent variable that emerges when one analyzes the attractiveness of many different sexual ornaments throughout the face and body (such as eyes, lips, skin, hair, chest, buttocks, and legs, plus general skin quality, hair condition, muscle tone, and optimal amount and distribution of fat). Similarly, general intelligence is not a mental organ, but a latent variable that emerges when one analyzes the functional efficiencies of many different mental organs (such as memory, language ability, social perceptiveness, speed at learning practical skills, and musical aptitude). ...
In the 1970s, critics of intelligence research such as Leon Kamin and Stephen Jay Gould wrote many diatribes insisting that general intelligence had none of these correlations with other biological traits such as height, physical health, mental health, brain size, or nerve conduction speed. Mountains of research since then have shown that they were wrong, and today general intelligence dwells comfortably at the center of a whole web of empirical associations stretching from genetics through neuroscience to creativity research. Still, the anti-intelligence dogma continues unabated, and a conspicuous contempt for IQ remains, among the liberal elite, a fashionable indicator of one’s agreeableness and openness.
Yet this overt contempt for the concept of intelligence has never undermined our universal worship of the intelligence-based meritocracy that drives capitalist educational and occupational aspirations. All parents glow with pride when their children score well on standardized tests, get into elite universities that require high test scores, and pursue careers that require elite university degrees. The anti-intelligence dogma has not deterred liberal elites from sulking and ranting about the embarrassing stupidity of certain politicians, the inhumanity of inflicting capital punishment on murderers with subnormal IQs, or the IQ-harming effects of lead paint or prenatal alcoholism. Whenever policy issues are important enough, we turn to the concept of general intelligence as a crucial explanatory variable or measure of cognitive health, despite our Gould-tutored discomfort with the idea.
You’ve probably heard that IQ tests are now widely considered outdated, biased, and useless, and that there’s more to cognitive ability than general intelligence—there are also traits like social intelligence, practical intelligence, emotional intelligence, creativity, and wisdom. Strikingly, these claims originate mostly from psychology professors at Harvard and Yale. Harvard is home to Howard Gardner, advocate of eight “multiple intelligences” (linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist). Yale is home to Peter Salovey, advocate of emotional intelligence, and was, until recently, home to Robert Sternberg, advocate of three intelligences (academic, social, and practical). (To be fair, I think the notions of interpersonal, social, and emotional intelligence do have some merit, but they seem more like socially desired combinations of general intelligence, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and/or extraversion, than distinctive dimensions that extend beyond the Central Six.)
Is it an accident that researchers at the most expensive, elite, IQ-screening universities tend to be most skeptical of IQ tests? I think not. Universities offer a costly, slow, unreliable intelligence-indicating product that competes directly with cheap, fast, more-reliable IQ tests. They are now in the business of educational credentialism. Harvard and Yale sell nicely printed sheets of paper called degrees that cost about $160,000 ($40,000 for tuition, room, board, and books per year for four years). To obtain the degree, one must demonstrate a decent level of conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness in one’s coursework, but above all, one must have the intelligence to get admitted, based on SAT scores and high school grades. Thus, the Harvard degree is basically an IQ guarantee.
Elite universities do not want to be undercut by competitors. They do not want their expensive IQ-warranties to suffer competition from cheap, fast IQ tests, which would commodify the intelligence-display market and drive down costs. Therefore, elite universities have a hypocritical, love-hate relationship with intelligence tests. They use the IQ-type tests (such as the SAT) to select students, to ensure that their IQ-warranties have validity and credibility. Yet, they seem to agree with the claim by Educational Testing Service that the SAT is not an IQ test, and they vehemently deny that their degrees could be replaced by IQ tests in the competition for social status, sexual attractiveness, and employment. Alumni of such schools also work very hard to maintain the social norm that, in casual conversation, it is acceptable to mention where one went to college, but not to mention one’s SAT or IQ scores. If I say on a second date that “the sugar maples in Harvard Yard were so beautiful every fall term,” I am basically saying “my SAT scores were sufficiently high (roughly 720 out of 800) that I could get admitted, so my IQ is above 135, and I had sufficient conscientiousness, emotional stability, and intellectual openness to pass my classes. Plus, I can recognize a tree.” The information content is the same, but while the former sounds poetic, the latter sounds boorish.
There are vested interests at work here, including not just the universities but the testing services. The most important U.S. intelligence-testing institution is the Educational Testing Service (ETS), which administers the SAT, LSAT, MCAT, and GRE tests. ETS is a private organization with about 2,500 employees, including 250 Ph.D.s. It apparently functions as an unregulated monopoly, accountable only to its Board of Trustees. Although nominally dedicated to the highest standards of test validity, ETS is also under intense legal pressure to create tests that “are free of racial, ethnic, gender, socioeconomic, and other forms of bias.” This means, in practice, that ETS must attempt the impossible. It must develop tests that accurately predict university performance by assessing general intelligence, since general intelligence remains by far the best predictor of academic achievement. Yet, since intelligence testing remains such a politically incendiary topic in the United States, it is crucial for ETS to take the position that its “aptitude” and “achievement” tests are not tests of general intelligence. Further, its tests must avoid charges of bias by yielding precisely equal distributions of scores across different ethnic groups, sexes, and classes—even when those groups do have somewhat different distributions of general intelligence. So, the more accurate the tests are as indexes of general intelligence, the more biased they look across groups, and the more flack ETS gets from political activists. On the other hand, the more equal the test outcomes are across groups, the less accurate the tests are as indexes of general intelligence, the less well they predict university performance, and the more flack ETS gets from universities trying to select the best students. ETS may be doing the best it can, given the hypocrisies, taboos, and legal constraints of the American cognitive meritocracy. However, it may be useful for outsiders to understand its role in higher education not just as a gate keeper but as a flack absorber [should be "flak catcher"]. ETS throws itself on the hand grenade of the IQ test controversy to protect its platoon mates (elite universities) from the shrapnel.
Before a lot of people started going to college, most highly gifted students were spread around the country and probably went to a college/university in their state. Now they're pretty much concentrated in about 15 schools.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:
quote:This is largely because employers are lazy.
I don't get it.
If you're an employer, one "qualification" that's very easy to use as a baseline is a degree of some kind. If you have 200 applications and really only have time to seriously look at, say, 80 of them, and 60 of them have Bachelor's degrees, it's really a matter of a minute to decide that you're only going to consider the people with Bachelor's. (Of course, in business, the MBA is generally the point of entry, and that's even more expensive; an MBA is basically a simple financial transaction nowadays, consisting of the exchange of lump sums of money and time for a piece of paper entitling you to incrementally more money thereafter.)
Posted by Launchywiggin (Member # 9116) on :
I get it now. Thanks Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Before a lot of people started going to college, most highly gifted students were spread around the country and probably went to a college/university in their state. Now they're pretty much concentrated in about 15 schools.
I'm sorry, but that is just wrong as is most of the article you quote. One of the unique things about the US University system (compared with other countries) is that there are excellent students all over the place. If you look at lists of the top ranked programs in any field, you will find that most of them are at public Universities, not elite private schools. I challenge you to go into any public University around and look at the top 10% of students, you will find that they are every bit as good as the students who go to places like Harvard and Stanford. That is not speculation, I've taught at those Universities. I've sat on scholarship committees. I've written letters of recommendations for graduate schools. The best students I've taught had the grades and SATs to get into places like MIT. Many of them have gone on to graduate school at places like MIT and have been every bit as good, if not better, than people with Ivy League educations.
Most people in the US, even most very smart people, attend state Universities. There are 30 times as many students in the University of California system as attend Stanford. The University of Washington has more undergraduate students than Brown, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia combined.
Schools like Columbia have 2 - 3 times as many students in their graduate schools as in their undergraduate programs. Where do they get all these good grad students. Simply answer, they come from every state University in the country because many of the best students study there.
[ October 26, 2009, 11:38 AM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
I agree with Rabbit on this one. While there are unquestionably better and worse 4-year schools, many -- maybe most -- state schools are on the "better" list.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
A Bachelor's degree - even from a highly ranked university - isn't what it used to be. If you want a career in a "field", more often than not, you need an advanced degree. Or as one academic recently put it, "An MA is the new BA". Often, too, an MA is thought of as a step toward a doctorate which, for many fields, is only useful if you want to be an academic.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
I think a more accurate description of the problem is that there are too many people attending who aren't really interested in learning.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka:
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: I think we'd do better to have a system similar to what many European nations have, where some are put on a university track, and others on a trades/craft track. I'm nervous about separating people out in high school and forcing them into one life path or another, but it seems foolish to force the idea of college on a large number of students that are obviously never going to go, or will go and fail.
Amen.
Especially since a good vocational training can net well-paying jobs.
*hops into the rivka/lyrhawn clique*
That would have certainly helped several people I know of whom college just was not the best environment for them, but trade school likely would have been.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:I think we'd do better to have a system similar to what many European nations have, where some are put on a university track, and others on a trades/craft track. I'm nervous about separating people out in high school and forcing them into one life path or another, but it seems foolish to force the idea of college on a large number of students that are obviously never going to go, or will go and fail.
At least in Norway, the vocational track is not a life sentence. There are mechanisms for going back later and doing the pre-college stuff if you want, although I admit I'm slightly hazy on how it works. Note further that Norwegian universities have to take anyone who has what's called "studiekompetanse", basically a passing grade in all the academic subjects. That's not to say that you'll get into the major you want, of course. For med school you need something a bit more competitive. Which is how the sciences end up with a lot of people who wash out in math 101.
Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade:
quote:Originally posted by rivka:
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: I think we'd do better to have a system similar to what many European nations have, where some are put on a university track, and others on a trades/craft track. I'm nervous about separating people out in high school and forcing them into one life path or another, but it seems foolish to force the idea of college on a large number of students that are obviously never going to go, or will go and fail.
Amen.
Especially since a good vocational training can net well-paying jobs.
*hops into the rivka/lyrhawn clique*
That would have certainly helped several people I know of whom college just was not the best environment for them, but trade school likely would have been.
*joins clique*
I also wish that there were more [public] specialized high schools. My high school was rated highly for a non-magnet public school and offered a wide variety of electives but I still felt suffocated by all of the core curriculum courses. It would be nice if students had more of an opportunity to experiment with courses and career paths before college since it's expensive to pursue the wrong major and even more expensive to discover that college isn't the best life path after already attending and paying tuition.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
I'm in full agreement that the US needs more vocational schools. Universities definitely have a problem dealing with the growing population of students who want job training rather than education. A University education should be just that "education" which isn't the same as training for a job.
But the arguments Murray makes for this alternative are simply factually inaccurate.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Clive Candy:
Murray's argument is that only 10 - 15% of white students (lower for some other minorities and perhaps higher for others) are intelligent enough to handle college material. He says that encouraging everyone to attempt college wouldn't be a problem if there weren't high costs attached in terms of time & money. Young people who aren't smart enough to handle college but are encouraged to attend by their parents and their counselors are the victims of a callous system.
I have no data to back it up, but in my personal experience, many people I went to grade school with spent upwards of six years attempting to complete some form of tertiary education, and a surprisingly many failed.
However, what interests me is that I went to grade school in an economically lower-middle class area, whereas I went to high school in an upper middle class area and a private (religious) school. Of my classmates there, many of whom were no smarter than my grade school classmates, most attended and completed degrees at 4 year colleges. The poorer people I knew went to junior colleges and spent 4 5 and 6 years planning to transfer to 4 year schools, and only a few managed it.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote: That would have certainly helped several people I know of whom college just was not the best environment for them, but trade school likely would have been.
I majored in English and Music in school, and I have to say one thing I regretted about the system was the number of students there, particularly in music, who represented a drain on department resources without adding value to the community. Perhaps it was just more noticeable in a small music program where the working of the department essentially required the involvement of students beyond simple class attendance, but if even one person was there *just* to attend classes and "get the degree" that person was an obstacle, rather than filler. I suppose it happens in every department that there will be people attending the department who do the bare minimum requirements and graduate. But we really noticed those people because with our very small class sizes, and the need to fill various ensembles and study groups with reliable and competent people, somebody who wasn't very familiar with the community, but needed the courses and performance credits to graduate, required extra time and effort from everyone else.
I recall particularly a guy who was in my year, who was very smart, but was more interested in studying economics and business than music (but was triple majoring, seemingly out of vanity). Occasionally someone would be paired with him for some presentation in a high level theory class, and because he was technically passing the courses, but had little interest in the material, that person (once it was me) would end up doing his portion of the work just so that they wouldn't look bad. So in that case it was not just pressure to get a degree, but pressure to get *three*.
Perhaps I'm just an elitist prick, (that's where your quote should start, if you're being uncharitable), but a lot of students entering from junior colleges who were technically third year students ended up retarding the progress of our small classes for people who had been in the same university program for two years already. The system in California that practically guarantees admission to a top school to anyone who can scrape together a 3.0 in a community college always struck me as utterly stupid. I worked my ass off in high school to barely get in the door of a top school, and here were people who had cruised through school with a 2.0 (one guy told me he graduated high school with a 1.8), and then made easy grades at a JC to get into the same classes with me and the other people who had worked for years to get where they were. It never added up, but because it was technically an unimpacted major, and because California had set up this system years ago to accommodate the large numbers of students going to public schools, we had to take people who simply hadn't made the cut the first time, and most of whom, frankly, wouldn't have made the cut the second time, had there been one.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I worked my ass off in high school to barely get in the door of a top school...
I think the belief that "top schools" exist at the undergrad level is itself pretty damaging.
Posted by theCrowsWife (Member # 8302) on :
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: Weren't you listening? You don't want to know!!
That's right.
--Mel
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
I'm going to jump in here and espouse what may be a slightly unpopular opinion.
I don't think everyone needs to go to college, but I do think that everyone needs an education equivalent to what a liberal arts degree in the humanities (history, government and or English) gives. Maybe not a full major, but certainly the equivalent of a minor in each. I think our high schools ought to supply this. I'd like to through in philosophy and world religion too, but there is a certain hope that they would be covered in the first three.
The reason for this is that I think that level of knowledge is what is required to intelligently participate in government. To vote smart as it were. I also think that level of knowledge leads to more tolerant, open minded and generally better off people. If you understand where we as a species have been, you have a better understanding of many many things. It may seem like it has no bearing on anyone's immediate trade - but I think it's hugely important just to be a human being and citizen of the world. And definitely to be a voting citizen of one of the most powerful countries in the world.
And also, I don't think gaining that knowledge requires a special level of intelligence. It is possible to teach those subjects as story telling and discussion. Anyone can grasp history, and anyone can learn to write at least decently.
Anyway, that's just my two cents quickly thrown in.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:I don't think everyone needs to go to college, but I do think that everyone needs an education equivalent to what a liberal arts degree in the humanities (history, government and or English) gives. Maybe not a full major, but certainly the equivalent of a minor in each.
I think that everybody should get that, but I don't think that you need to get it while at school.
At the university, once I figured out what I was doing, almost all my energies were applied toward a couple of a "job training" degrees. I watched with envy as my liberal arts friends got to take all the fun classes while I was taking heat transfer and fluid dynamics.
Once I was done with school and had the job I was shooting for, I started my liberal arts education in earnest.
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
quote:Once I was done with school and had the job I was shooting for, I started my liberal arts education.
I did and am doing a similar thing. I double majored in Computer Science and Physics while at a liberal arts college. Now that I've graduated and have a job doing computer programming I'm doing a ton of reading about history and government and also reading literature.
But I think we should get that education in high school and not have only those who happen to stumble upon a realization of it's value sometime in the course of their lives have to seek it out.
I understand you can't force an education in any thing on the unwilling and that high schoolers are largely unwilling these days. But I really think that this stuff is very nearly universally interesting when taught right and also necessary for the health of a democracy.
How can you expect someone who has little knowledge of a country's history or even its existing laws to vote for people to write its future?
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote: I think we should get that education in high school
Honestly, I don't think I would have gotten nearly as much out of such an education in high school. I wasn't ready for it.
Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
I am all for jumping on the "Any education is good" bandwagon, especially the idea that "any education that you find useful is much better than an bigger education you hate."
But I have one worry about the utility of a vocational education in our economy.
Lets take an example. In the 1980's computers were the key to a rich and rewarding future. Many bright dedicated parents pushed their kids into computer classes in high school. Then as the 90's bloomed those same kids took the all important Computer Programing classes at their community colleges, Universities, and from their friend Mort.
They became experts in programming--in Basic. In Cobol. In Fortran.
Some went after the big bucks and specialized in hardware--especially the big bucks to be made in Main Frame Computers.
As the web came to life, Web Site Design flourished.
As networking became a reality Novell Experts, Unix Wizards, and Certified Microsoft Dos Networking Engineers prepared to take the world by storm.
And all that vocational education is not worth the paper its stored on today.
If the students learned how to learn, if they learned never to rest but always master the new program, the new language, the new software and hardware they might, might, be working today.
That is if their programming job wasn't outsourced to India.
And if they fell behind on their code skills, their education is wasted.
While computers show the largest difficulties in vocational education, it is not the only sphere where voc-ed or on the job training falls short. How many Chevy and Chrysler and Dalco employees, trained to be experts in their manufacturing equipment, are now hoping for a job in food service since their skills are useless? The Air Conditioning classes taken 10 years ago are worthless now that new environmental regulations have changed the way we cool our air. Even the plumbing classes and the long years of toilet plunging experience are outmoded with new water-saving devices.
We must update the adage.
Give some one a fish and you feed them for a day. Teach them to fish and you feed them for a year. Teach them how to learn, and keep learning, how to fish, and you feed them for ever.
And learning how to learn and the importance of learning is all that a Liberal Arts Education is supposed to be about.
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
Also... What he said ^^
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:I think we'd do better to have a system similar to what many European nations have, where some are put on a university track, and others on a trades/craft track. I'm nervous about separating people out in high school and forcing them into one life path or another, but it seems foolish to force the idea of college on a large number of students that are obviously never going to go, or will go and fail.
At least in Norway, the vocational track is not a life sentence. There are mechanisms for going back later and doing the pre-college stuff if you want, although I admit I'm slightly hazy on how it works. Note further that Norwegian universities have to take anyone who has what's called "studiekompetanse", basically a passing grade in all the academic subjects. That's not to say that you'll get into the major you want, of course. For med school you need something a bit more competitive. Which is how the sciences end up with a lot of people who wash out in math 101.
I know France has an escape mechanism too, where you can study on your own time and take exams later on in your studies that allow you to switch from the vocational to the university track, but I've heard that it's extremely difficult to do. If such a system were to be taken up in America, I'd like to see some serious discussion of what such an escape mechanism would look like, how difficult it would be to employ, etc.
I think America, just because of how our education system is set up though, would make it very hard to pigeonhole a determined student. It's not like a place like France, where education is more guided over your entire young adult life, rather than like in America where you get dumped after 12th grade to figure it out yourself. I think that nature of the system would make it hard, even for a student who received vocational training in high school, to be stuck without options for university if that's what they truly wanted. That's part of what puts me very much at ease with regards to a two-tiered education system. It'll give a head start for those who need it or want it, and won't close any doors to those who don't wish to pursue those careers.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:I worked my ass off in high school to barely get in the door of a top school...
I think the belief that "top schools" exist at the undergrad level is itself pretty damaging.
Fair enough- a school that was very difficult to get into, and which I desired to attend.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: That's part of what puts me very much at ease with regards to a two-tiered education system. It'll give a head start for those who need it or want it, and won't close any doors to those who don't wish to pursue those careers.
It would also, I think, help us find ways of eliminating the warehouse mentality that some public schools seem to have- like if a particular student isn't with the college-prep program, they can just kind of become a ghost in a school that's geared towards that, and only that. How do we not recognize when one kid is destined for college, and the other is destined to do something else- especially since these days it seems a college graduate has to compete for the same jobs as people without degrees, if only because there aren't that many jobs out there.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:The reason for this is that I think that level of knowledge is what is required to intelligently participate in government. To vote smart as it were.
I'm sorry, but I see that as a bit elitist and perhaps an attempt to justify a degree that has little or no market value.
Perhaps you can give me some specific examples of what you learned in your history or literature classes that significantly influenced the way you voted in the last election?
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
If that's an open question, I suppose I can add my reply. My studies of literature and history helped me to understand the positions, but more importantly the attitudes of the candidates and their own views of the world as it was reflected through what they wrote and said. I don't know that I would have as easily appreciated Barack Obama's speech on race, for instance, if I had not studied anthropology and the history of colonialism and institutionalized racism in university. I suppose I believe that my training in the analysis of political and sociological arguments helped me to assess whether or not Obama was sincere, and to recognize how he thought. The same was true in reverse for Palin, and to a lesser extent for McCain, both of whom proffered weak and cynically pandering arguments to their constituents, which did not hold up to my own tests of veracity, or sincerity.
That's what I think anyway. It would be easy enough for you to claim all of that as a bias on my part for a particular political ideology.
Posted by Sala (Member # 8980) on :
quote: Originally posted by rivka: It is even more true that many high schools are not adequately preparing their students. That doesn't make them dumb -- it makes them ill-prepared.
It was a bit disconcerting today to see a lesson I did with fourth graders was being repeated in a high school class. The lesson was identifying, in a sentence, parts of speech, verb types, subject/predicate, sentence type. Basically, diagramming a sentence without all of the fancy diagramming that used to be done. Then, on the news tonight a segment was being done on education and a short clip showed a high school classroom doing the exact same thing, but with an easier sentence! Yikes.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
Orincoro, I'm not sure I accurately stated my question. I'm not anti-liberal education. In fact, quite the opposite. My problem is that I think Alcon grossly overstated the necessity of a liberal education for meaningful participation in society.
So let me phrase it this way, do you think its possible for someone to understand the basic racial issues at play in the US without ever haven taken a University level history class? How uncommon would that be?
How common do you suppose it is for some one who has taken a University level history class to fail to understand the basic racial issues in the US?
Do you think its possible for someone to assess the sincerity and reasonability of a candidate without had formal training in argumentation?
Certainly a solid liberal education should improve ones reasoning ability, but liberal education isn't the only way to do that. In fact, the specific content of liberal arts classes is almost irrelevant to good citizenship.
G.W. Bush has a B.A. in History from Yale. Sarah Palin holds a B.A. in Communications from UofI. So its pretty clear that a liberal education is neither sufficient nor necessary for development of critical thinking skills.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:And learning how to learn and the importance of learning is all that a Liberal Arts Education is supposed to be about.
Yes, learning how to learn is far more important than mastering any specific subject matter. My objection is to the assertion that a Liberal Arts Education is a good way to do that. I mean, its a nice assertion and I'm sure it makes people with Liberal Arts degrees feel good, but is it true?
The simple fact is that study after study has found that undergraduate programs in the liberal arts are profoundly unsuccessful in teaching higher order learning skills. Tests of critical think ability show very little improvement between entering freshmen and graduating seniors.
The people I know who've done the best job adapting to the rapidly changing technological world, don't have college degrees at all. They are self taught, which is very likely the best way to develop life long learning skills.
The problem is "teach yourself" isn't a plan for producing a highly competent society. It works for a very small number of unusual individuals.
Posted by Xann. (Member # 11482) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: G.W. Bush has a B.A. in History from Yale. Sarah Palin holds a B.A. in Communications from UofI. So its pretty clear that a liberal education is neither sufficient nor necessary for development of critical thinking skills.
ba-zing!
Otherwise, what Sala said about diagramming sentences is worse than that. Not once have I been taught anything other than the most basic grammar structures. As a high-school senior in AP English I could not even start to show you how to diagram a sentence.
In reality I probably have learned more about grammar from being ridiculed here on hatrack than in school.
What makes me the most upset about the people in my school is that they are just going to college because there is nothing else they can think of doing. I have been told about how people are "Just apply to all the good ones." When I ask people what they want to go for they normally reply with a version of "I don't know, it's not like I have to know for 2 years anyway."
The kids at my school make me want to just say screw college, but unfortunately I am one of the few people who know what they want to study, and it requires college.
I have been made fun of for the schools I am applying to, because they were "crappy" schools. Apparently crappy means not 50,000$ a year.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Otherwise, what Sala said about diagramming sentences is worse than that. Not once have I been taught anything other than the most basic grammar structures. As a high-school senior in AP English I could not even start to show you how to diagram a sentence.
I don't see this as necessarily a problem at all. No one needs to know how to diagram sentences and very few people need to know more than the basic grammar structures. You need to know how to write a good sentence and you need to know how to properly parse a sentence you read. Learning formal grammar can help with that, but that isn't the only way to learn good reading and writing skills. Its probably not even the best way.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: No one needs to know how to diagram sentences
The people analyzing Palin's speeches did
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: I majored in English and Music in school[/QB]
I'm going to ask you a question, and I don't want you to take it as insulting--I don't mean it as such. The question is--were you this pretentious before you got those two degrees, or not? I'm not saying you're a bad guy. I'd rather have 100 of you than 1 Lisa. I probably qualify as part of your own little definition of worthy--I have my degree in classical music performance, and can discuss music history (and theory, to a lesser degree) at a relatively high level. I'm just asking to know.
Posted by aeolusdallas (Member # 11455) on :
quote:Originally posted by Launchywiggin:
quote:This is largely because employers are lazy.
I don't get it.
They cut corners at on the job training and only higher college graduates even when most of the jobs they offer don't really need a 4 year degree. I mean really why does a data entry job , receptionist job or cubical drone need a degree that takes tens of thousands of jobs to get?
Posted by Launchywiggin (Member # 9116) on :
Heh--why would you use the word "pretentious" if you didn't want to insult him? It's an insulting word--it has no positive connotations. I've never heard Orincoro telling people that they're "worthy" or "not worthy" to converse with.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
quote:Originally posted by Launchywiggin: Heh--why would you use the word "pretentious" if you didn't want to insult him? It's an insulting word--it has no positive connotations. I've never heard Orincoro telling people that they're "worthy" or "not worthy" to converse with.
If you don't like my wording, come up with your own. I am honestly curious, though.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
The point was if you're attempting to not be insulting, you should find a way to say something that isn't insulting. Finding a wording that means what you want it to is your responsibility, not his. (If you don't particularly care that much whether you're being insulting or not, that's fine, just be aware what you're saying).
I don't think Orincoro is particularly pretentious. I do think he's obnoxious at times but usually it's in a manner I find clever and funny. In this case I think his point was all around pretty valid. There are plenty of schools (whether California is set up this way I have no idea) that let students who are lazy and ignorant cruise through with good grades, and I can definitely see those students being a drain on a degree than hinges on everyone working together.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: The point was if you're attempting to not be insulting, you should find a way to say something that isn't insulting. Finding a wording that means what you want it to is your responsibility, not his. (If you don't particularly care that much whether you're being insulting or not, that's fine, just be aware what you're saying).
I don't think Orincoro is particularly pretentious. I do think he's obnoxious at times but usually it's in a manner I find clever and funny. In this case I think his point was all around pretty valid. There are plenty of schools (whether California is set up this way I have no idea) that let students who are lazy and ignorant cruise through with good grades, and I can definitely see those students being a drain on a degree than hinges on everyone working together.
I don't see why my wording is an issue, but I don't really care if it was less-than-entirely gentle. He himself is often less-than-gentle, which I accept. I am honestly curious, though, because a fair number of music majors (and a LOT of English majors) are pretentious, and it is a semi-interesting chicken-and-egg conundrum. I seriously doubt that an extremely unpretentious person would choose those two majors, and no others, for their undergrad. However, I can see either/both as making it...worse, particularly with certain professors.
What I have observed in the music field is that the pretentious ones are in the loner areas like solo performance and composition. Vocalists and composers are often tremendously arrogant and snobbish (though not always...however, some male tenors are so snobbish it becomes hilariously effeminate), and violinists and pianists often have the disease too. People who have to be part of an ensemble, just another cog in the wheel, tend not to be as bad, like brass/woodwinds/percussion. When they are arrogant, it's often because they really are that good. I do understand that the pretentiousness is often limited to certain areas, it's just that, between those two majors, and specifically because Orincoro is a composer, he's got at least 2.5 strikes against him, just statistically speaking. And no, I don't care if I'm being jerky. I had to put up with that nonsense for 4 years in my undergrad, laughing down my sleeve at the tenors and composers and pianists. OK, some of the pianists and violinists really were excellent, but the arrogant undergrad tenors and composers are hilarious. I mean, really...you voice doesn't even mature until you hit 30 or so, and composers rarely do their best work when they're still in their late teens, and are basically NEVER famous that young, so...what is all that about?
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
lol
Posted by Launchywiggin (Member # 9116) on :
Your views aren't universal, steven. Maybe you were surrounded by pretentious people in your music department. My music department had lots of soloists and composers--all were very supportive of each other. The *best* singers/soloists/composers were always the most humble, also.
And you're laughing down your sleeve at them. Who's arrogant?
~Pianist, composer, tenor
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: No one needs to know how to diagram sentences. . . .
I do. Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: G.W. Bush has a B.A. in History from Yale. Sarah Palin holds a B.A. in Communications from UofI. So its pretty clear that a liberal education is neither sufficient nor necessary for development of critical thinking skills.
Neither of these individuals had what anyone would characterize as a stellar academic career.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by steven: I'd rather have 100 of you than 1 Lisa.
We get it, you hate lisa a lot, got the message, thanks for making sure to drive it in as often as you can manage
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jon Boy:
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: No one needs to know how to diagram sentences. . . .
I do.
I'll amend that. No one who is not doing graduate level work in linguistics needs to know how to diagram sentences.
I'm also curious Jon Boy, do you really need to know how to diagram sentences for the work you are doing or could some other method work as well?
I actually loved diagramming sentences. It appealed to my mathematical/visual spacial side. I think it's a good way to teach at least some people grammar. What I object to, is the idea that diagramming sentences is an important skill for its own sake. The important life skill involved is communication and a mastery of grammar in the abstract isn't an essential part of that. It is far more important to be able to write a cogent sentence and to be able to read a complex sentence, than it is to know how to diagram sentences. Certainly, diagramming sentences can help people learn to read and write more clearly, but it isn't the only way to do it. And unfortunately, many students and teachers never really make transition from being able to diagram sentences to being able to write them.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: G.W. Bush has a B.A. in History from Yale. Sarah Palin holds a B.A. in Communications from UofI. So its pretty clear that a liberal education is neither sufficient nor necessary for development of critical thinking skills.
Neither of these individuals had what anyone would characterize as a stellar academic career.
No one ever said anything about having a stellar academic career. The claim was made that the "knowledge" obtained by studying the liberal arts was essential to full participation in a democratic society. Its an absurd claim.
First off, Alcon specifically cited the "knowledge" obtained as being essential. He didn't say "analysis skills" or "reasoning skills" he said "knowledge" and as an educator that means something very specific to me. Knowledge means ability to recall data and information. Quite honestly, I can't think of a single byte of information I learned reading Shakespeare, or Kant or studying history that I think is essentially for me to know as a member of a democratic society. And neither you nor Alcon has given me a clear example of one.
Second, even if we presume that Alcon did not intend such a narrow definition of knowledge, the basic point does not change. Reasoning and analysis are relevant in every curriculum and can be learned in many contexts. If one is arguing that studying the liberal arts provides something essential, it must be something that is unique to the liberal arts curriculum. The only thing truly unique to the study of history, which can't be found and learned in the study of other subjects, is the historical data and information. The only thing truly unique to studying Shakespeare, that can only be learned by studying Shakespeare, is the content of Shakespeare's writing.
Third, there is an enormous difference between claiming that you, a particular individual, learned essential things by studying the liberal arts and claiming that studying the liberal arts is essential. For the latter to be true, you would need to demonstrate that formal study of the liberal arts was the only way to learn those things and that nearly everyone who studied the liberal arts did in fact learn those essential things. Both those claims are demonstrably untrue, which was the point of my giving Bush and Pallin as examples. Consider your example of how studying history has helped you understand racial issues. Do you think someone who grew up in the projects and had never been to college but who heard first hand stories of the civil rights marches from Grandma and Grandpa and experienced profiling from the police, might have as a good a grasp of the racial issues?
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
Rabbit, you're clearly missing the point.
But first, a little defense.
quote:I'm sorry, but I see that as a bit elitist and perhaps an attempt to justify a degree that has little or no market value.
I find that deeply insulting. My degree is in Physics and Computer Science. While it is a BA, it is not in the traditional Liberal Arts fields. And I do not need to justify its value. I have had absolutely no trouble finding jobs - even before I had this degree. I don't give a rat's rear end whether or not people think a BA is valuable degree. I have every intention of going on to get a masters in my field and maybe more. Furthermore, I took very few history, philosophy or English classes while at a Liberal Arts college - just enough to get my degree, plus one or two for fun.
I came to my beliefs from several data points. First - myself. I grew up in a university town. I had the option - if I so chose - to take classes at the university while I was still at high school. I didn't have to though, because the quality of my high school classes fell just short of the quality of the classes I later took at a top ranked Liberal Arts college. I was lucky to take AP American History and AP European History classes that were nearly equivalent to the introductory classes that I would have received at many Liberal Arts colleges.
The second data point is my girlfriend. She grew up in a small coal town in central Pennsylvania. A dying coal town at that. Few people in her town ever even went to college, let alone a Liberal Arts college. Her high school transcript looks nearly the same as mine - yet she feels she is miles behind me in knowledge and skills. She has her BA in Neuroscience and Studio Art from the same Liberal Arts college I do, but I often have to illuminate points of history or government for her that she was simply never exposed to. She's now reading ferociously to catch up - and catching up she is.
I grew up with an education that wasn't far removed at times from a Liberal Arts education at a college and I received it in High School. She got a High School education that more closely matches the average in America.
When she arrived at college she knew that her high school education left her way behind. She spent the whole first year depressed and feeling like she would never catch up. She didn't even know the extent of the knowledge she was missing. Didn't really know where to start looking for it. Even after taking a few semester long courses in history and government she only received bits and pieces of the puzzle. There were still gaping holes.
Now my girlfriend is very smart. As smart as or smarter than I am. I would like to think the education she received was bottom quarter of the US, but every day I see more evidence suggesting that it may in fact have only been bottom half - or even average.
I'm going to have to ask her forgiveness for this, but she had trouble keeping straight World War I and World War II. She didn't know enough about the Vietnam War to understand why people were making comparisons between it and the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. I had to explain the significance of the comparisons. Her dad fought in the Vietnam War, and she didn't know hardly anything about it.
I'll repeat. She's very smart. She majored in neuroscience! But she didn't take enough history classes to fill in the gaps left by her High School. Are you going to tell me that someone can judge whether or not we should be fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan well enough to decide between a candidate for fighting them and a candidate against fighting them with out any knowledge of the previous wars we've fought? Of any previous wars [/i]ever[/i] fought? Heck, even with the Education I've received I feel under qualified to make these judgments. Even with the extensive Education I've received - both in and out of the class room - I feel deeply under qualified to be voting in this country.
And I am.
When I vote I have to choose between candidates who espouse different positions on all sorts of issues. I have to judge whether or not their positions are reasonable, first of all. Then I have to determine which one makes the most sense. Which one will work, will last, and won't lead to suffering. Then I have to take all these various issue positions and decide their importance in relation to each other.
I'm lucky if I can understand one issue well enough to make a rational, sound judgement. Let alone the whole pile we typically see. And the time spent trying to make that judgement would be vastly greater if I didn't already have a (relatively) large base of knowledge about history and philosophy to pull from.
In order to work, Democracy requires an educated electorate. An electorate that understands what we have done so that we may not repeat our mistakes.
In order to know what to look for you have to have been exposed to it. You have to know what's out there. Most people in this country probably wouldn't know that we've been fighting the health insurance battle since the great depression. I sure didn't until I read it in the news. And that's with the education I got.
Honestly, I don't even think that giving people a high school education that is equivalent to what a minor in each history, government and English at a good Liberal Arts institution teach is enough. But I think that's the minimum - absolute minimum - amount of exposure to those topics that we can get by with. Notice I'm talking about exposure and not absorption. Such a High School education would allow the people who can and are ready to absorb the knowledge to absorb it. And those that weren't ready to absorb it would at least know it was out there for the finding.
quote:Do you think someone who grew up in the projects and had never been to college but who heard first hand stories of the civil rights marches from Grandma and Grandpa and experienced profiling from the police, might have as a good a grasp of the racial issues?
Of course they will. But will they have a good grasp of the issues surrounding the Vietnam War? How about an understanding Islam? Or the events and mistakes that lead to the Great Depression?
And yes, they could educate themselves in these things - but what if they don't even know these things are out there to be studied? How will they understand the conflict in the Middle East if the name of Islam is only a vague name to them connected to a distant war?
I need to get back to work - and I apologize for the someone rambling and disconnected nature of my post. I feel very strongly about this subject.
Also, as for the elitism bit, is it elitist to feel that I don't have enough knowledge to participate well enough? And to wish for everyone to have more knowledge than I have? To feel that we'd all be a lot better off if everyone had been exposed to these things?
[ October 27, 2009, 11:31 AM: Message edited by: Alcon ]
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:I find that deeply insulting. My degree is in Physics and Computer Science. While it is a BA
You have a BA in Physics and Computer Science? That's...unusual.
What does that even mean? What is a BA in Physics and Computer science?
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by steven:
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: I majored in English and Music in school
I'm going to ask you a question, and I don't want you to take it as insulting--I don't mean it as such. The question is--were you this pretentious before you got those two degrees, or not? [/QB]
I'm going tell you something, and I don't want you to take it as insulting, but that was a stupid question. On the order of, as I think I posted recently (for which I was admonished): "do you still beat your wife."
So you can cram your passive aggressive question, thank you.
quote:What I have observed in the music field is that the pretentious ones are in the loner areas like solo performance and composition. Vocalists and composers are often tremendously arrogant and snobbish (though not always...however, some male tenors are so snobbish it becomes hilariously effeminate), and violinists and pianists often have the disease too.
Were you so terribly jealous of these people, that you actually managed to hold all these silly prejudices through a four year program? I guess I'm a little impressed, actually. I "knew" less leaving college than I did when I entered- anyone I know could tell you that. Doesn't mean I didn't learn anything, but what I didn't gain from the experience was a large degree of self-assurance, despite what you may believe.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:I'll amend that. No one who is not doing graduate level work in linguistics needs to know how to diagram sentences.
Or learning (as an adult) some language that isn't English, with its much-simplified sentence structure due to its origin as a French/Anglo-Saxon/Norse pidgin and its weirdly parochial speakers. Try studying German and you'll either diagram sentences or talk like widdle baby. Foreign kitteh no has grammars!
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
A bachelor of the arts - with a double major in Physics and Computer Science?
I dunno. It means I went to a Liberal Arts School and completed the school's requirements for the major in Physics and the major in Computer Science. For what ever that's worth... Probably not that much honestly. The major in Computer Science was all of eight courses actually in Computer Science along with four to six courses in Math. The Physics major was more like ten to fourteen courses in Physics with six or more courses in Math. I forget the exact number (hence the ranges).
Honestly, I don't feel like it was enough. I sure wouldn't count myself an expert or anywhere near an expert in either field from the knowledge I gained in those courses.
And I got my job in the software development industry on the basis of having been writing code since I was thirteen years old - and having several programs to show for it.
I'm not arguing that having the history, government and English knowledge is necessary for a job. Or that having a BA from a Liberal Arts college is. I'm a glaring counter example to that argument. My work requires me to know exactly nil about any of those things. And it uses very little of the knowledge from even my Computer Science degree. (Okay, it does pull a little from my Physics degree, since I work in the energy industry.)
It's not jobs that I think require the knowledge. It's voting. It's active participation in state and national government. And in the world community as a whole. And again, it's not a BA - it's the knowledge and classroom experience roughly equivalent to what is gained from minoring in those topics.
I also think that my life is generally fuller and better for having some of that knowledge - and for having been instilled with the wish to gain more. But that's a different story.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:Also, as for the elitism bit, is it elitist to feel that I don't have enough knowledge to participate well enough? And to wish for everyone to have more knowledge than I have? To feel that we'd all be a lot better off if everyone had been exposed to these things?
It's kinda elitist to think "we'd be a lot better off if everyone were like me, only moreso."
Not that that's entirely a bad thing -- I personally believe pretty much the same thing.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:I'll amend that. No one who is not doing graduate level work in linguistics needs to know how to diagram sentences.
Or learning (as an adult) some language that isn't English, with its much-simplified sentence structure due to its origin as a French/Anglo-Saxon/Norse pidgin and its weirdly parochial speakers. Try studying German and you'll either diagram sentences or talk like widdle baby. Foreign kitteh no has grammars!
As an English teacher and a part-time student of two languages in different language families, I have to agree here.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
Did you choose to not get BS degrees, or was your school not equipped to provide BS degrees?
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Try studying German and you'll either diagram sentences or talk like widdle baby. Foreign kitteh no has grammars!
I have studied German, three years at a University level. I've also lived for extended periods in Germany and Austria. I speak fluent German. When I was at a scientific conference last month I ended up sitting next to a German during a banquet. I spoke German with him for about an hour after which he told me my German grammar was impeccable -- which shocked the socks off me to be honest. But the point is, I have studied German, I've never diagrammed a German sentence and I don't sound like a widdle kiddy. There are ways to learn grammar that don't involve diagramming sentences.
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
quote:Did you choose to not get BS degrees, or was your school not equipped to provide BS degrees?
My school didn't provide a BS in those fields. Honestly, I probably went to the wrong school for those fields. But I'm glad for my time at that school. I learned many things that I wouldn't have had I merely been focused on earning a BS in Physics and/or Computer Science.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: It's kinda elitist to think "we'd be a lot better off if everyone were like me, only moreso."
Not that that's entirely a bad thing -- I personally believe pretty much the same thing.
Indeed.
Everyone needs a BMath, I scoff at these BA and BS degrees
But seriously, I see no problem with being a bit elitist as you've defined it. Elitism being used as a pejorative kinda puzzles me, I don't quite understand the history there.
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
quote:But seriously, I see no problem with being a bit elitist as you've defined it. Elitism being used as a pejorative in the kinda puzzles me, I don't quite understand the history there.
I don't really get it either
Edited because I'm being too wordy today.
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
I have a B.A in Physics for the following reasons:
I knew I was going into teaching. This meant that following the B.A path was recommended by my university.
Upper level physics classes would eat up massive amounts of time and lowering my GPA (I earned B's in my upper level physics course, and A's in every liberal arts course I ever took).
Upper level physics courses, while interesting, would provide no real benefit in my career that could not be gleaned by doing outside reading for a fraction of the time and difficulty.
The B.S. in physics required math and computer programing classes that would serve no purpose to me, and which I am not interested in, while the B.A. did not.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Also, as for the elitism bit, is it elitist to feel that I don't have enough knowledge to participate well enough? And to wish for everyone to have more knowledge than I have? To feel that we'd all be a lot better off if everyone had been exposed to these things?
Yes, it is elitist. Believing you are one of the elite is not a requisite to being an elitist.
I'm not the one missing the point. I have never claimed that a liberal education isn't of value. My background is similar to yours in many ways and I value my liberal education. My point is that a liberal education isn't essential to being a good citizen and informed voter. All kinds of experience are important in making political decisions. The experience of the soldier whose been on the front lines in Afghanistan, the experience of the war protestor, the experience of the Palestinian immigrant, the experience of the Jew whose parents survived the holocaust, the experience of the doctor who has volunteered in region, the experience of the retired grandma who is teaching English to refugees and the experience of the history professor who has been studying the region, who are you to say that any one of those experiences is more important for understanding the issues?
You still haven't given me a single example of something you learned in your liberal education and how that was critical for you to make an informed vote in an election. But even it if was, it is elitist to say that your experience is only one or even the best one to prepare people for civil life.
No one person can be an expert in everything. But I don't need to be an expert on the middle east conflict to make an informed voting decision. Representative democracy is about voting for people you think have the expertise and share your values.
Its a pity that in all your liberal education, you never gained a real appreciation for the strength of democracy. The underlying ideal behind democracy is the idea that better decisions are made when all perspectives are represented. It is a recognition of the fact that no one individual can be an expert in everything, so we need to listen to each other.
I'm quite confident that if you tried, you'd find that there are many valuable things your girl friend learned growing up in a small depressed coal mining town that are every bit as important as academic learning. Its a genuine pity that neither one of you seems to appreciate that real world experience she shares with lots of common people and only think of her as being behind because she didn't attend a college prep high school.
Yes, your attitudes are elitist. You have taken one kind of experience, liberal education, and elevated it about all other types of learning and experience.
This is something I also feel very passionately about.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:Its a pity that in all your liberal education, you never gained a real appreciation for the strength of democracy. The underlying ideal behind democracy is the idea that better decisions are made when all perspectives are represented. It is a recognition of the fact that no one individual can be an expert in everything, so we need to listen to each other.
That's the ideal of one perspective on democracy. If it were the only way of believing in democracy, I'd be strongly against it.
Instead, I believe that we be better served demolishing this populist myth. But then, I'm an elitist who thinks that smart people who are educated about something on the whole generally make better decisions about this thing than stupid people who are ignorant of it and that the right to have your say in a democracy is morally (though I'd view attempts to make this a legal constraint as a very bad idea) contingent on fulfilling your responsibility to educate yourself about it.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Honestly, I don't even think that giving people a high school education that is equivalent to what a minor in each history, government and English at a good Liberal Arts institution teach is enough. But I think that's the minimum - absolute minimum - amount of exposure to those topics that we can get by with.
Why? You have selected an arbitrary set of skills and said, this is the minimum people need. Why? For what reason? You of course have to recognize that life is finite and by requiring one set of learning experiences, you necessarily exclude another. Why is that set the most important, aside from the fact that it is the experience you have.
I think everyone should spend at least a year of their life living as a disadvantaged minority. Everyone should spend at least a year working as unskilled labor and living off those wages. Everyone should be president of their own company and understand the demands of making payroll. Everyone should spend at least a year volunteering in an inner city. Everyone should spend at least a year traveling abroad. Everyone should be fluent in at least two languages. Everyone should know enough science to be able to read the scientific literature. Everyone should go through basic military training. Everyone should be able to do differential calculous. Everyone should be able to play a musical instrument. Everyone should have enough medical training to make informed decisions about their own health care. Everyone should have friends who immigrated from an under developed country. Everyone should have to go hungry for a week. Everyone should have a disabled family member. Everyone should be on a championship football team.
Not.
Everyone of those experience is of value for making decisions in our society and no one person can have all those experiences. Why do you think the experiences liberal education are the minimum everyone should have?
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Wow, this thread took a surprising turn in the last day.
It's turned into yet another "argue over how useless or useful liberal arts is" thread.
Neat.
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
quote:You still haven't given me a single example of something you learned in your liberal education and how that was critical for you to make an informed vote in an election. But even it if was, it is elitist to say that your experience is only one or even the best one to prepare people for civil life.
It's not about a single piece of knowledge gleaned being critical to making an informed vote. It's about the aggregate value of understanding those people and events that have come before us to get us here. No, of course I can't point to a single thing I learned from my education that is critical.
quote:All kinds of experience are important in making political decisions. The experience of the soldier whose been on the front lines in Afghanistan, the experience of the war protestor, the experience of the Palestinian immigrant, the experience of the Jew whose parents survived the holocaust, the experience of the doctor who has volunteered in region, the experience of the retired grandma who is teaching English to refugees and the experience of the history professor who has been studying the region, who are you to say that any one of those experiences is more important for understanding the issues?
I'm not discounting any experience. Every single one of the experiences you mentioned is valuable in making an informed vote. And every single one of those people could teach the rest of us so much that we do not know. Those experiences grant knowledge and understanding that can't be obtained in any other way, knowledge and understanding that a Liberal Arts education cannot replace. Knowledge which I will probably never gain.
I'm not saying what you think I am saying. I'm not saying that the experience of a Liberal Arts education replaces any other experience. I'm saying it that it can form a basis for a deeper understanding of all experience.
Imagine if all of those people had their years of education - however many that happened to be and whatever form it happened to take - replaced by the same number of years studying in a way equivalent to minoring in all history, philosophy, government, religion, culture, and English. Think about how much more that soldier on the front lines might understand those he is fighting and what is happening around him if he knows and understands the history of the region? It's certainly possible that he could gain that in the field, but how about an understanding of past similar conflicts? That knowledge could be enormously useful to him in many ways. Ways that are not always easy to pinpoint, but that exist non-the-less. What about knowledge of the Islamic religion and philosophy?
And those are just specific examples of knowledge that might be gleaned from studying history, religion, philosophy that could be useful to him. What if he had a broad education in history, culture, philosophy, religion? What connections might he make in understanding that would aid him in both fighting and connecting with the people on the front lines?
None of those experiences would be any lessened if those experiencing had first gone through a Liberal Arts equivalent education while in High School. I'm not talking about going to college. I'm talking about a high school - and even middle and elementary school education - that rigorously addresses, studies and examines these topics. Such that, by the time the student is done with schooling at the end of high school, they will have completed studies that are roughly equivalent to the studies they would complete while minoring in each of these topics at a Liberal Arts institution.
quote:But even it if was, it is elitist to say that your experience is only one or even the best one to prepare people for civil life.
This assumes that my experience precludes other experience. And I'm not saying people should have my experience. My experience was not the sort of education I believe is required. It fell far short of that.
The education of which I am speaking does not preclude or prevent any other experience. It is an education that is rigorous and broad, but that none-the-less could fit into the frame work of the thirteen years of education we already require of all our citizens. And why do we require thirteen years of education for our citizens if there wasn't some value to that education?
quote:Its a pity that in all your liberal education, you never gained a real appreciation for the strength of democracy. The underlying ideal behind democracy is the idea that better decisions are made when all perspectives are represented. It is a recognition of the fact that no one individual can be an expert in everything, so we need to listen to each other.
Listening to each other is something we seem to be utterly failing to do these days and this is one of the things a Liberal Arts education is supposed to teach! Don't you think we could fulfill this value of discussion and deliberation in democracy and comparing and contrasting all our widely varied experiences if we'd all been first educated in that which came before. And if we'd all been first given a glimpse of the myriad of beliefs and viewpoints that exist around the world? Our current high school education barely provides the merest of glimpses into other cultures, into history, into philosophy! I used to scoff at needing these things. I used to say "I'm going to become a scientist, I don't need philosophy!" and "I'm going to be a scientist, I don't need to know about other cultures, if I want to learn about them I'll travel to where they are!" You really think I was right to say that? To dive only to my experience studying science and to attempt to ignore other experiences?
quote:I'm quite confident that if you tried, you'd find that there are many valuable things your girl friend learned growing up in a small depressed coal mining town that are every bit as important as academic learning. Its a genuine pity that neither one of you seems to appreciate that real world experience she shares with lots of common people and only think of her as being behind because she didn't attend a college prep high school.
Behind only in knowledge of what came before. I learn things from her every day and we are both well aware of the value of what she learned. But that real world experience she gained - and the experience I have gained by visiting her in her home town - have only strengthened both of our beliefs in education.
I didn't attend a college prep high school either, I attended a public high school. It just happened to be a very, very good one.
My attitudes, may be considered elitist in this day and age. By I am not taking one experience and elevating it above all others. I am not saying that a liberal education is a replacement for or some how better than any other experience that may be gained as we find our ways through life. I'm saying that a liberal education gained when one is young and starting out can serve to enrich many other forms of experience in ways nothing else can.
And that the knowledge that is gained from an education in history, philosophy, religion and culture is necessary for the population of a Democracy because that population needs to make judgments on where we are going. In those judgments they need to avoid the mistakes we have made in that past. In order to avoid those mistakes, they need to know what those mistakes are.
I'm saying that the knowledge that is gained from an education in history, philosophy, religion and culture is necessary for the population of a Democracy that is as multicultural, multilingual and multifaceted as ours is because it provides everyone with a common base of knowledge - however rudimentary - of each other. Of each other's past, history, and beliefs. It provides us with exposure to beliefs and experiences that are outside our own that many people would never get or seek or even be aware of otherwise.
Is this sort of education a replacement for real world experience? NO! But it's a good starting point.
The people in Shelly's home town. Many of them never leave it. They rarely venture outside of it. Until she came to college she had never met a Jewish person! She thought the Jews were nearly extinct! She'd never even met someone who wasn't a Christian. Or even heard of many of the other religions in the world. For many of the people who live in her town, their experience never goes beyond this. Their experience of the world remains narrowed to one small town in a small part of central Pennsylvania. They don't learn much more than they can learn from local newspapers, browsing facebook and what they are taught in high school. They never get the taste for knowledge or learning because they are never exposed to it. As far as they are concerned it is limited to the boring lectures of their teachers in high school, many of whom grew up in the same town as they are still in and have no more experience of the rest of the world than those they are teaching.
You're telling me that these people are prepared to vote on the issues facing our country in a national election? Many of them simply vote as their parents did, who voted as their parents did. Is that any way a Democracy will survive?
Is their experience worthwhile in making decisions? Certainly. Do they know things I have no knowledge of? ABSOLUTELY! But do they have the breadth of knowledge truly necessary to make informed decisions? Absolutely not. Do they have the experience of culture and history and philosophy to view the world with more than the narrow view granted them by the small town they are restricted to?
If giving them an education of the sort I am talking about will lead them to vote on a basis different than simply that's how their parents voted, then how is that education not necessary?
And I'm not generalizing from my girlfriend. I have spent weeks with her in her town and met many of her family and friends. They are wonderful people. And I truly believe that given the chance and the choice, they would flourish in that sort of education. It would deepen and enrich their lives and the experience of the whole world.
And yes, going back to your Sarah Palin and George Bush example. You can't force a love of learning or a knowledge of things past on anyone. And yes there are other ways than this sort of education to come by those two things. But the easiest and thus far best way we know of is by giving them an education that exposes them to it. You have to offer people the chance. You really don't think it is an imperative of living in a democracy to offer them that chance? That a love of learning and a knowledge of what has come before are not necessary to move forward in to the future?
Would you rather people close their eyes and minds to so many things, as far too many do now, simply because they never encountered anything that would open them?
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
quote:Why is that set the most important, aside from the fact that it is the experience you have.
How bloody many times do I have to say this? The education I am advocating as the minimum we should require is nowhere near the experience I have. The experience I have is far, far less than what I am advocating.
And what I am advocating can be summed up as a love of learning, a love of discussion, a basic knowledge of the other peoples of the world and a knowledge of what has come before us. And yes, the level of knowledge I have chosen as being "basic" is slightly arbitrary - but frankly even that level of knowledge is not entirely deep or detailed.
A minor at many Liberal Arts institutions consists of no more than six courses. Including Intro courses. I'm advocating knowledge equivalent to a minor in each history, philosophy, government, religion, culture and English (I should say "reading", "writing" and "literature" but that's sort of covered under "English" currently.) So the equivalent of 36 semester long courses. Assuming two semesters a year and 4 courses a semester that becomes exactly 9 semesters of college level study or four and a half years. Don't you think we could shoehorn that into 13 years worth of study? Assuming we allow middle school and high schoolers actual credit for their intelligence and don't under estimate it?
Is it really that elitist to suggest that we could teach this sort of education over the course of our children's educational careers? How exactly would that replace or preclude any other sort of experience?
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Wow, this thread took a surprising turn in the last day.
It's turned into yet another "argue over how useless or useful liberal arts is" thread.
To be fair, it's not much of a tangent from the original topic, and certainly not a surprising one.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:I find that deeply insulting. My degree is in Physics and Computer Science. While it is a BA
You have a BA in Physics and Computer Science? That's...unusual.
It's really not very. Plenty of schools give only or primarily BA's, often in fields where BS's are the norm, and sometimes with requirements almost identical to the equivalent BS at other schools.
Generally this has to do with the school's history, particularly their accreditation history.
Posted by scholarette (Member # 11540) on :
I have a master's of ARTS in biochemistry. I find that disturbing. When I turned it in, even the people at the school were confused. One even called my department to check. The department secretary also called the department chair because she couldn't believe it was not an ms.
ETA- fixed rivka's correction.
[ October 27, 2009, 03:00 PM: Message edited by: scholarette ]
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Not art, arts.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
At my school, the difference between a B.S. and a B.A. was two years of a language. That's it.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Wow, this thread took a surprising turn in the last day.
It's turned into yet another "argue over how useless or useful liberal arts is" thread.
To be fair, it's not much of a tangent from the original topic, and certainly not a surprising one.
To be fair, I haven't been arguing that the liberal arts are useless. I'm argue that the liberal arts aren't necessary. There is a big difference.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
That is fair, and correct.
Posted by Sala (Member # 8980) on :
quote:No one needs to know how to diagram sentences and very few people need to know more than the basic grammar structures. You need to know how to write a good sentence and you need to know how to properly parse a sentence you read. Learning formal grammar can help with that, but that isn't the only way to learn good reading and writing skills. Its probably not even the best way.
I totally agree that learning formal grammar isn't the only way, nor even the best way, to learn to read and write. However, having the vocabulary to be able to talk knowledgeably about writing is very helpful. That's the usefulness I see in teaching it in elementary school. And I would hope that things would have moved beyond the simple sentences once kids are in high school, but the sentence I saw in the video clip on the tv news was very, very simple.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
It has to be applied...studying grammar in isolation isn't all that helpful except for the few people who really love grammar and get into it.
For example, my course of study has verbals on it - gerunds, participles, infinitives. The purpose of teaching them about verbals isn't just so they can point to one on a standardized test, but to enrich their writing. Today, a week after we did the "grammar unit" on verbals, we were working on essays and I had them do a quick exercise where we re-stated sentences by creating gerund phrases and making them the subjects of our topic sentences. This was part of a larger lesson on using sentence variety to take their writing to a higher level.
In a perfect world, my students will see that grammar lessons are practical - that we use what we learn to make our writing better so we can communicate more effectively. That's in a perfect world. In the world I live and teach in though, I'm just happy to have students spend an entire week at school without getting suspended for drug or weapons offenses. Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
And to be fair, I'm not arguing that the Liberal Arts are necessary to live a good and full life, to be smart or to be a good person.
I'm only arguing that they are necessary to make a fully informed voting decision.
And when I say Liberal Arts - I don't mean what we think of today as a "Liberal Arts Education".
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
quote:Originally posted by andi330: As college has become more and more emphasized by society and high schools and colleges themselves, many employers have stopped hiring people with only high school diplomas, including many employers who could engage in on-the-job training or even apprenticeships to develop their employees have instead started requiring college degrees.
. . . but it does show a lack of respect for those who work in jobs that require a lower level of education, or that provide on-the-job training and development, rather than requiring college. What those people fail to realize is that these jobs are an important part of our economy, and that people working in them, showing up on time every day, and choosing to do that job to the best of their ability, deserve just as much respect as a college professor, or someone with a higher education.
I want to jump back here to what Andi said on page 1 (yeah, I just now read this thread) because that is the crux of the issue as it applies to my family.
My child #1 and child #3 were very aptly suited for higher education/college and thrived there. Child #2 is not like that. He is not dumb (tested high in intelligence) but let's just say he is a much more hands-on learner, and the classroom environment doesn't accentuate his strengths or learning styles. He excels in math, but struggles with some of the language arts.
He is a perfect candidate for on-the-job training, apprenticeship or trade schools. He is bright and learns quickly and thinks of new, more efficient ways of doing things once he has been shown what is expected of him.
But do you think any of those talents are quantifiable and can get him a job? No. No one will look at a "GED graduate" and be willing to take the risk to hire and mentor. There is no more of the "8th-grade-education-worked my way up the company by my bootstraps" type people that existed last generation. He can't get a decent interview with anyone besides McDonalds, even though he is a dependable, trustworthy employee.
I've tried to get him to just take one, or two, college courses, not toward a degree, but just enough to put on a resume that he has taken a course in [whatever].
But I'm very disheartened that there aren't more employers willing to mentor these types of young adults. They would get their loyalty for life.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
I've got quite a few things I want to address.
1. The concept of employers requiring higher and higher education.
There are fewer and fewer jobs that are willing to train on the job, at least in Canada. All librarians must have a two year MA in Library Sciences. This is more education than is required to be a teacher in Canada (one year B.Ed.) As far as I can tell, although a few librarians with this level of education would be beneficial, especially to big libraries, there is nothing about a smaller library that wouldn't be able to hire people holding B.A.s who simply love books, love libraries and are capable of learning a few intellectually basic skills.
Very few employers are hiring people who 'just' have four years of education at a university, regardless of how much dedication and work that person put into it. Entry-level positions in which the company trains you on the job are very few and far between unless you already have a professional degree e.g. Business, Pharmacy, Nursing. Basically, employers are realising they don't have to offer much training. They can get people to do it elsewhere-- at school, at an unpaid internship, volunteering. I gape at stories from the sixties and before where people straight out of highschool got a job knowing almost nothing except having some tangentially related skill-- they wrote good essays therefore they were hired for a Newspaper. They could fix radios, therefore they were hired to be a sound technician. Both of these are now skills that require a reasonably high level of education and/or experience that can only be gained through paying money or working for free for a considerable period.
2. B.A.s are therefore, as standalone courses, functionally useless, except as a gateway to further education such as Teacher's College.
In my experience this is largely true. However, the two retail jobs I got hired me because of my university degree and one initially paid me 25c more because of my degree.
Aside from that, I always loved learning and never stop learning, so I would not take my University degree back for anything.
I do think that most university grads are better prepared, generally, than they were four years ago when they graduated university. They are better at writing, better at reading. THey have a wider experience of things like History and Science; this gives them more understanding of what is going on in the news-- in my experience just talking with people of various educational backgrounds, this has been the case.
People who go to university seem to be generally more able to spend time thinking critically. Perhaps it's not the classes but the exposure to people like professors and colleagues. Whatever it is, it does seem to make an average difference.
3. High School is poorly preparing students for University.
I would counter that and say school is poorly preparing students for learning. As far as I can tell, teachers at the elementary level are now required to take on a lot of used-to-be parenting roles, depending on the school and the curriculum they're working under-- and the fact that somebody's got to do it.
Recently in Ontario there was a movement to get K-3 classes under 20 students. However, all this meant is that 4-8 teachers were rerouted to teach the younger grades. Older-grade classes are now as high as close to fourty students.
I am not sure, but I suspect that grade eight students are coming into High School behind where they are supposed to be. I suspect that there is a 'behindness' dragging all the way through the entire school system that is being noticed at the top level.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:As far as I can tell, although a few librarians with this level of education would be beneficial, especially to big libraries, there is nothing about a smaller library that wouldn't be able to hire people holding B.A.s who simply love books, love libraries and are capable of learning a few intellectually basic skills.
I'll go one further: there is nothing a librarian does that requires a college degree.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
Well, I feel like my college degree in English (incl. children's lit) and History and knowing how to study for things (so I can help others) would be exceptionally useful if I were a librarian.
Perhaps it wouldn't require me to have it, but I feel that I would be a better librarian for it. I'm not sure I would get that much out of Librarian Sciences.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote: They could fix radios, therefore they were hired to be a sound technician. Both of these are now skills that require a reasonably high level of education and/or experience that can only be gained through paying money or working for free for a considerable period.
Note that those sixties radios could likely be repaired with a basic soldering kit. The circuits weren't integrated, they consisted of transistors the size of your smallest fingernail connected with actual wires - the sort of stuff that today you would only see in a university physics lab. (Indeed, I built a radio like this in my second lab course. Couldn't tell you how it worked, though - it wasn't a very good course. They just gave you the wiring diagram and the components.) Similarly, cars of the time could be repaired by banging on the metal; try that with today's tolerances. It's the tradeoff for having Really Great Stuff: It just requires more skill and training to build and repair. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the ethics of companies.
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: I'll amend that. No one who is not doing graduate level work in linguistics needs to know how to diagram sentences.
I'm also curious Jon Boy, do you really need to know how to diagram sentences for the work you are doing or could some other method work as well?
I'm not sure if you're talking about my research or my employment as an editor. Strictly speaking, you don't need to know how to draw sentence trees in order to be an editor, though knowing how to parse a sentence is pretty much essential. And I'm not working with syntax in my research, so that question is moot, though it's obviously essential for people in that field.
I really don't understand why these discussions always degenerate into arguments about what people need to know. I think there's a lot of value in understanding the world around us, even if that knowledge does not translate into job skills.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Well said. I'm always put off by when we go down this road, because it always leads to people talking about the worthlessness of other people's educations.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
To me, it seems an inevitable consequence of saying "*this* is the minimum education that any voter should have", as long as somebody disagrees with that minimum.
I mean, I could say "everybody should be at least 6' tall and play the banjo in order to be an educated person", and you'll rightly question the value of those things.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
There are so many things that are essential to know.
Even more than a liberal arts education, I think a good solid couple of years of finding a place to live, paying all of one's bills without help from Mommy or the government, and saving for long-term, mid-term, and short-term needs all while working at a blue collar job without the gurantee of a different life later would be very educational.
Then, a few years of running a business and being responsible for a couple dozen people's blue collar jobs, who will lose them if you are bad at your job or mishandle money or do not plan for the future in terms of capital investments.
I think those four years would MASSIVELY improve the quality of voting in this country.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Meh, that's a lot of projection in my opinion. Why not insist that people should spend four years navigating the seas and sustaining themselves on fish? Or 4 years in the mountains scavenging for food and running naked through the ethereal mists? The point, I think, is to spend some time pursuing *anything* that interests a person. However, your angle puts people at a very young age, with the energy to study and create and learn new things, in a possible soul crushing and unbearable environment during those formative years. The reason we have this whole university experience thing is so that people *don't* have to think about real world issues until they've had some time to develop intellectually in a supportive environment. I certainly don't expect you to be understanding of that idea- it's not in your nature, but trust me, it can happily coincide with ideas about getting "real world" experience after a person graduates.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
And yours isn't a projection? That's basically the point - there are a lot of great experiences to have, and to declare any set of them better based on personal experience is lame.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
I would have absolutely no objection to restricting the right to vote to landowners again, Kat, for precisely the reasons you've mentioned.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
I am all for democrasy, but a little less self-centered, fantasy-land democracy would be nice.
---
Oricnoro, you are, as usual, sadly wrong in your judgements and opinions about everything, especially me. It's in your nature to get it all wrong.
[ October 29, 2009, 03:04 PM: Message edited by: katharina ]
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:I think there's a lot of value in understanding the world around us, even if that knowledge does not translate into job skills.
Jon Boy wins everything.
...and I was here to see it!
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: To me, it seems an inevitable consequence of saying "*this* is the minimum education that any voter should have", as long as somebody disagrees with that minimum.
Indeed.
I'd also note that one person's banjo playing is another person's English. In other words, there really are reasonable and debatable minimum requirements from the viewpoint of one person that really are totally useless to another person. Even eliminating those experiences, I don't think anyone "really" thinks that all "non-useless" experiences are truly equal when preparing one to vote. For example, many people would agree that a practical knowledge of drug use gained from actually using using drugs is precisely equally as important as say taking a course of statistics.
But given finite lifetimes, all we're really arguing about is how to prioritize useful experiences* based on an ill-defined standard of being an educated voter, which is kind of amusing since everyone has different definitions of what an educated voter is anyways.
* (Although I'd note that there are experiences that are arguably harmful if all voters had them, the latest example of home-owning for example could lead to pretty perverse incentives)
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:the latest example of home-owning for example could lead to pretty perverse incentives
No more perverse than allowing people to vote who don't actually have a financial stake in their communities.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Not home-owning != no financial stake
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Meh. Own a home, and then I'll listen to you. Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
I think that the odds of you losing your home are much greater than the odds of me buying a home in the States, so I'll meet you there Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
quote:No more perverse than allowing people to vote who don't actually have a financial stake in their communities.
What about long term renters who simply don't have the money to own their own home? They live, work and shop in a community for years and must deal with it's laws on a daily basis. How do they not have a financial stake in the community?
As for other experiences - those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. Of course, other experiences are valuable in voting. But if voters don't understand history all you get is endless loops of the same ideas repeating and failing.
And for voting on a national level - if voters don't have some basic understanding of the cultures in and motivations of the countries their country is interacting with, then how can they vote on foreign policy?
[ October 29, 2009, 12:40 PM: Message edited by: Alcon ]
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
If you pay taxes, you have a financial stake in the community, Tom.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Many people pay effectively zero taxes, though.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Not many. Income taxes, maybe, but sales tax, property tax through rents, and payroll taxes bit just aboute everybody.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:If you pay taxes, you have a financial stake in the community, Tom.
Hm. I'm not so sure that's true.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
If you eat anything you do not grow yourself, you have a financial stake in the community.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
It seems you guys are stretching the meanings of those words a bit.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Alcon:
quote:No more perverse than allowing people to vote who don't actually have a financial stake in their communities.
What about long term renters who simply don't have the money to own their own home? They live, work and shop in a community for years and must deal with it's laws on a daily basis. How do they not have a financial stake in the community?
This. In many parts of this country, long-term renters make up the bulk of the community.
Then again, I imagine Tom has no problem disenfranchising much of New York and California. Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
No. Or Florida, for that matter. It can only help.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: It seems you guys are stretching the meanings of those words a bit.
I'm not sure how the food one fits in myself. I often make a point of buying food from a different community partly in order to encourage particular developments.
That said, for examples of financial stakes, I had more traditional things in mind like a (non pay-go) pension affiliated with one's country or a business in one's community, investments in local businesses, or savings bonds, etc.
Edit to add: Not that I think that a financial stake is a particularly good (or bad) requirement for voting, I just don't particularly see the point in encouraging one kind of financial stake over another
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: No. Or Florida, for that matter. It can only help.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Everyone who exists in a society has a stake in it; I'm not inclined to support anything that tries to define "citizen" with more rigor than it's already defined.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Everyone who exists in a society has a stake in it.
And this I absolutely disagree with, depending on how you're defining "stake."
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
While a think a lot of things would make better voters, my plan for people working and being on their own without handouts at the top of the list, I wouldn't support any kind of enforcement of it.
As crummy as it is when people vote from ignorance, disenfranchisement of voters is much worse.
[ October 29, 2009, 03:21 PM: Message edited by: katharina ]
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:Everyone who exists in a society has a stake in it.
And this I absolutely disagree with, depending on how you're defining "stake."
How are you defining "stake", Tom?
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jon Boy:
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: I'll amend that. No one who is not doing graduate level work in linguistics needs to know how to diagram sentences.
I'm also curious Jon Boy, do you really need to know how to diagram sentences for the work you are doing or could some other method work as well?
I'm not sure if you're talking about my research or my employment as an editor. Strictly speaking, you don't need to know how to draw sentence trees in order to be an editor, though knowing how to parse a sentence is pretty much essential. And I'm not working with syntax in my research, so that question is moot, though it's obviously essential for people in that field.
Actually, I had no idea why you needed to diagram sentences and presumed it must be part of your research. It sounds like you are now saying you don't actually need to be able to diagram sentences, you only need to be able to parse them. You will note that in my original post, I said
quote: No one needs to know how to diagram sentences and very few people need to know more than the basic grammar structures. You need to know how to write a good sentence and you need to know how to properly parse a sentence you read. Learning formal grammar can help with that, but that isn't the only way to learn good reading and writing skills.
You, like many people here, seem to have misinterpreted my intent both on this specific issue and in the general discussion. I wasn't arguing that diagramming sentences wasn't useful. I've been arguing that it wasn't necessary. There is a big difference there. It doesn't concern me in the least if high school students can't diagram sentences as long as they can properly parse sentences and write good sentences.
Likewise, I have never said that the liberal arts weren't valuable or useful. My only question is whether or not they are essential for good citizenship in our society. I don't think they are and no one has given me a good example of how they are essential -- which isn't the same as an example of how they are valuable.
That's a distinction I think anyone with a proper liberal education should appreciate. I'm kind of shocked that so many of you don't seem to.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
I'm trying to imagine how somebody could properly parse a sentence and yet be unable to diagram it (once they were taught how, which should be easy for somebody who already knows how to properly parse sentences).
There might be a few people who are severely spatially impaired who would find the actual diagramming difficult, but certainly not an entire classroom.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:I'm not sure how the food one fits in myself. I often make a point of buying food from a different community partly in order to encourage particular developments.
I guess that depends in part on how you define community. I would consider any establishment that is easily accessible from your home as part of your community.
For many people, in fact most people in the world, buying food is one of their major financial obligation. The price and availability of food in their community has a significant impact on their total financial situation including their ability to save money or buy property. The price of food in their community in turn reflects property values, wages and salaries, taxes,transportation infrastructure, crime rates and so on. Since changes in those things will impact on the price of food in the community, they have a financial stake in all those things.
Even if they are getting food from food stamps or a food bank rather than actually paying for it, the overall health of the community will affect the availability of those services and therefor have a financial impact on them.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: I'm trying to imagine how somebody could properly parse a sentence and yet be unable to diagram it (once they were taught how, which should be easy for somebody who already knows how to properly parse sentences).
There might be a few people who are severely spatially impaired who would find the actual diagramming difficult, but certainly not an entire classroom.
The key point there is "once they were taught how". If someone can already parse a sentence , why would it be necessary to teach them how to diagram it? Furthermore, if a person can already parse complex sentences, what value would there be in learning to diagram them?
The entire point of teaching people to diagram sentences, is to help them learn how to parse a sentence. But it isn't the only way to learn how to parse a sentence, it may not even be the best way to learn how to parse a sentence. Its entirely imaginable that there are many people out there who have no problem parsing sentences and yet have never diagrammed one. Are they missing an important skill? I'd say no.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
If you have a high school classroom full of people who are struggling to diagram a simple sentence, then they're missing an important skill.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: If you have a high school classroom full of people who are struggling to diagram a simple sentence, then they're missing an important skill.
What skill?
Its entirely possible, that they can parse a sentence with no difficult but simply haven't been taught to diagram. If that's the case, they aren't missing an important skill.
Being able to diagram a sentence and being able to parse a sentence are not the same thing.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
If you can parse a sentence, you can be taught to diagram it in a minimal amount of time.
If you have a class full of people who are struggling to diagram sentences, you have a class full of people who can't parse them.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
The Rabbit: Ok, thanks for explaining.
I guess the "landowner requirement" as initially defined brought to my mind things that are more financial assets rather than financial obligations.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Actually, that makes a nice segue: I would define "stake" in this case as an asset to which you owe obligations.
Posted by andi330 (Member # 8572) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:As far as I can tell, although a few librarians with this level of education would be beneficial, especially to big libraries, there is nothing about a smaller library that wouldn't be able to hire people holding B.A.s who simply love books, love libraries and are capable of learning a few intellectually basic skills.
I'll go one further: there is nothing a librarian does that requires a college degree.
It sounds as if your understanding is that librarians check books out and reshelve them, something that a librarian with a master's degree is unlikely to do except in very small libraries in rural areas with low numbers of employees, or school libraries, where librarians are usually required to do double duty. Never mind the fact that many librarians don't work in what you would consider a library. Many work in museums or in archival science (which is a part of the library science curriculum). Librarians working in specialty libraries often have to have two masters degrees, one in library sciences, and one in medicine, music history, law, criminal science, or a host of other specialties.
Here is just a small list of positions held by librarians around the world:
Curriculum Specialist Conservator Metadata Specialist Professor Training Resources Manager Editor Public Access Coordinator, Film Archive Information Resource Director, U.S. Embassy
**The partial list of careers for librarians comes from A Day in the Life: Career Options in Library and Information Science edited by Priscilla K. Shontz and Richard A. Murray
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
I think the point is not that people with degrees in library science can't do many things, but that what most libraries need their librarians to do does not require a master's degree in library science.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Librarians working in specialty libraries often have to have two masters degrees, one in library sciences, and one in medicine, music history, law, criminal science, or a host of other specialties.
Yes, I'm aware of that. And I maintain that nothing they do requires a degree of any kind, much less an advanced one.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Is there any job you think requires a degree of any kind?
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
quote:I would have absolutely no objection to restricting the right to vote to landowners again, Kat, for precisely the reasons you've mentioned.
Local elections, like mayor, I can maybe this being a reasonable position to hold. Possibly even state, since you can always just get up and leave your state (as I have done a couple times so far in my life). I still disagree, strongly, but I can see some justification.
If you are including presidential elections, I think this idea is extraordinarily dumb.
I rent an apartment though, so I guess my opinion isn't valid.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Actually, that makes a nice segue: I would define "stake" in this case as an asset to which you owe obligations.
I'm not sure I understand that definition. Would that include homeowners with an underwater mortgage? (or homeowners with a paid off mortgage?)
Posted by andi330 (Member # 8572) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:Librarians working in specialty libraries often have to have two masters degrees, one in library sciences, and one in medicine, music history, law, criminal science, or a host of other specialties.
Yes, I'm aware of that. And I maintain that nothing they do requires a degree of any kind, much less an advanced one.
Really? You don't think college professors need to have at least a master's degree?
I maintain that you don't truly understand what librarians and people with MLIS degrees do. I also think that we are at an impasse, so I'm going to leave this line of discussion.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
The "they" in his sentence refers to librarians.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:I maintain that you don't truly understand what librarians and people with MLIS degrees do.
What do you base this assertion on, besides the fact that you don't agree with his conclusion?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:If you are including presidential elections, I think this idea is extraordinarily dumb.
Heh. In my ideal world, in which voting rights are restricted to landowners, we also elect local representatives and no longer vote directly for Senators or Presidents. *laugh*
------------
quote:Is there any job you think requires a degree of any kind?
Not many. In fact, depending on how you define "require," possibly not any. There are a few for which a degree system of some kind -- as opposed to a vocational certification system -- might still be useful, maybe. But even then I'm left thinking that the degree winds up being a measure of self-important fluffery instead of actual qualification.
Posted by Godric (Member # 4587) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:Librarians working in specialty libraries often have to have two masters degrees, one in library sciences, and one in medicine, music history, law, criminal science, or a host of other specialties.
Yes, I'm aware of that. And I maintain that nothing they do requires a degree of any kind, much less an advanced one.
And I maintain that Noah Wyle needed extensive training in survival skills to be a Librarian.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Tom, just because you have gotten so far without a degree doesn't mean that other people don't need them. I actually wonder how you can bear to work for a college, feeling as you do.
And just because you have found that owning a house changed your commitment to your community, doesn't mean that is true for other people.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Not many. In fact, depending on how you define "require," possibly not any. There are a few for which a degree system of some kind -- as opposed to a vocational certification system -- might still be useful, maybe. But even then I'm left thinking that the degree winds up being a measure of self-important fluffery instead of actual qualification.
Let's be careful with definitions, shall we? Which part of the degree do you feel is un-necessary: The piece of paper, the coursework, or the (claimed) benefits in learning how to think?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:The piece of paper, the coursework, or the (claimed) benefits in learning how to think?
I think the first and the third are unnecessary. I think the first would be useful, were it not also essentially mandatory and thus cheapened to the point of uselessness when it comes to actually certifying the second.
Posted by vonk (Member # 9027) on :
quote:I mean, I could say "everybody should be at least 6' tall and play the banjo in order to be an educated person".
Agreed! Assuming basic banjo skills are acceptable.
Also, my BBM is probably more useless than anyones BA or BS.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Not many. In fact, depending on how you define "require," possibly not any. There are a few for which a degree system of some kind -- as opposed to a vocational certification system -- might still be useful, maybe. But even then I'm left thinking that the degree winds up being a measure of self-important fluffery instead of actual qualification.
That' exactly the kind of self-important fluffery and rationalization I'd expect from a college drop out.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Well, yeah, it does logically follow, doesn't it? It's like saying that you'd expect that criticism of cake from someone who spit out the cake.
---------
Rivka, the funny thing is that I actually valued college education more before I started working at colleges. I think I'm too close to watching the sausage being made, to be honest. I've worked at three different schools in my life, and have watched all three of them as they've gone through revisions of their curriculum, and it really sufficed to damage my opinion of the entire system -- especially the liberal arts side.
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
quote: I would have absolutely no objection to restricting the right to vote to landowners again, Kat, for precisely the reasons you've mentioned.
For the first time, Tom has gone down a path that I think freaking idiotic, and evil to boot.
Seriously Tom? People who don't own homes don't have a financial stake in the community, and so shouldn't be able to vote? Great! Let's take the vote away from millions of military personnel, teachers, firefighters and policemen, EMT workers and nurses, blue collar workers and laborers of all stripes...
[Edit: Removed unacceptable portion of post. --PJ]
We've been down that route. It sucked [...] for almost everyone involved... and we've got much less land available per capita now, so the probability that your "ideal world," wouldn't be a hell hole approaches nil.
Thanks, Tom. I've lost 100% of the huge amounts of respect that I had for you. You're one of the enemy now... the people who think that it takes huge amounts of wealth to be worthy of having a voice in society.
[Edit: Removed unacceptable portion of post. --PJ]
I'm going to go out on a very short limb on a tree with a very strong trunk and say that my committment to my community is orders of magnitude greater than yours. You know how I can tell? I don't think that taking the vote away from most of the country is doing those people any type of service.
[Edit: Paul, you're out of line. Dial it back or take it elsewhere. --PJ]
[ October 29, 2009, 08:53 PM: Message edited by: Papa Janitor ]
Posted by Godric (Member # 4587) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit:
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Not many. In fact, depending on how you define "require," possibly not any. There are a few for which a degree system of some kind -- as opposed to a vocational certification system -- might still be useful, maybe. But even then I'm left thinking that the degree winds up being a measure of self-important fluffery instead of actual qualification.
That' exactly the kind of self-important fluffery and rationalization I'd expect from a college drop out.
Actually, I don't agree with Tom, but as a fellow college drop out who is constantly dumbfounded by the ignorance of the MBA's I work with daily who think they're someone special because of their degree, I must come to a pseudo defense here.
In my experience, a degree reflects very little upon the quality and quantity of work an individual produces. They're usually important in order to get noticed by the HR staff. After that, I see little correlation between the degree and the work.
I DO think degrees are important in some fields. Just not all fields...
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Paul Goldner: RAAAAAAAAAAGE
Oh and here I thought he wasn't being serious. Ha ha, silly me!
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Rivka, the funny thing is that I actually valued college education more before I started working at colleges. I think I'm too close to watching the sausage being made, to be honest.
That's interesting. I've only worked at the one, and while I would prefer to work elsewhere, that is a reflection on conditions and persons relatively unique to this one. Not all the things that make me crazy are unique (going off comments on my listservs), but the degree to which they are common and accepted is.
Even at this one, I think most of our students gain a valuable education. I don't think I could work there if I didn't.
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
And Tom is not out of line for saying that most of the people in this country and posting on this forum don't have a stake in their communities? Just because something extremely offensive, and frankly dangerous, is couched in polite language makes it "in line?" I hate that viewpoint. It does NOT, contrary to certain mores, keep society running smoothly or reduce friction. All it does is prevent particular words from being used in conversation.
Maybe Tom isn't being serious... it did not look like that to me, though.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Paul Goldner: Maybe Tom isn't being serious... it did not look like that to me, though.
What honestly are the odds that tom davidson actually seriously wants to restrict voting rights to landowners. Like, put some betting odds on it.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
Greater or less than the chance that Paul will murder Tom given the chance?
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
I don't think either of those questions is relevant to what is (or should be) considered acceptable posting here.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
Agreed.
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
quote:That' exactly the kind of self-important fluffery and rationalization I'd expect from a college drop out.
Rabbit, this isn't the kind of name calling that I would have expected from you.
I happen to value college education very highly, but my experience working with phD's is that while many of them got the degree specifically to pursue an avenue of interest and to fulfill a goal of a particular career, altogether too many of them pursued "those three little letters next to their name" specifically for the snob value. In industry, it's easy to tell the players. But in academia, the degree is the message, and it's much harder to tell who's playing a game.
I know of too many people in hiring situations (both in industry and academia) who are turned down not because they don't have the skills, but because they don't have the credentials. Kind of makes the initials pretty ironic.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Hey, no, it's fair. I've basically been kicking a couple sacred cows in the face, here, so I'm not surprised that some people feel the opinions expressed are insulting and/or dangerous despite that, upon closer reflection, I think it's obvious that neither impression is accurate.
The simple fact is that we require too many people to obtain "degrees" that certify nothing useful and may or may not expose them to useful modes of thought; we also permit and expect too many uninformed, uninvolved, and often frankly stupid people to directly elect our government, thus enabling the entrenched bureaucracy to remain entrenched by manipulating a defensive, celebrity- and narrative-obsessed media (and, at the local level, empowering small-minded and frequently nepotistic oligarchies.)
It may be the case that both of these consequences are the lesser of two evils. It may well be that there are other remedies. But certainly many people are invested both in the inherent worthiness of college degrees and of universal voter registration, and it doesn't surprise me that they'd be upset.
Posted by Godric (Member # 4587) on :
quote:Originally posted by Paul Goldner: Maybe Tom isn't being serious... it did not look like that to me, though.
Paul, if you want to call Tom to the mat for what I agree is a terrible and harmful idea - only allowing property owners the right to vote - I'm behind you 100%. But the tone was a little over-the-top, don't you think?
If Tom was a decision maker about allowing voting rights to property owners and expressing such an opinion, maybe such a tongue-lashing could be supported. But serious or not, he's not that person, he's just a citizen expressing his view on a message board.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus:
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Actually, that makes a nice segue: I would define "stake" in this case as an asset to which you owe obligations.
I'm not sure I understand that definition. Would that include homeowners with an underwater mortgage? (or homeowners with a paid off mortgage?)
Ummmm, skipping over most of this page, I'd like to repeat this question because the definition of stake seems ambiguous.
I'd probably add two examples of things that I would consider a "stake" in one's community that seem ambiguous under the given one. To illustrate, someone with a pension associated with a local company is certainly invested in the long-term health of that company (and in many cases, the region that surrounds that company), but they don't really owe the pension plan any more obligations after they quit. However, one could argue that in many cases, when one starts drawing upon that pension plan they will be obligated to pay taxes to the community that houses that business.
Thus I'm curious about how the definition would apply to the two mortgage examples and to the two previous scenarios.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Actually, I don't agree with Tom, but as a fellow college drop out who is constantly dumbfounded by the ignorance of the MBA's I work with daily who think they're someone special because of their degree, I must come to a pseudo defense here.
Oh, well if we are talking strictly about MBAs, then I'm in full agreement. As best as I've been able to determine, an MBA is a less than useless degree.
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
Whether or not it would be a good idea to restrict voting rights in some way so as to remove ignorant/stupid/lazy people from the pool of voters, its certainly not a good idea to restrict voting to only people who have acquired a certain level and type of wealth. Those people are inherently invested in the system in particular ways, and protecting those particular interests has almost universally, in the past, meant screwing people who aren't invested in the system in those same ways. Without a counter-balancing voice for people who have not acquired land, you get a royal-butt-prodding for people who don't own land, because the people who do own land will rule in such a way as to protect their own interests, without regard to the interests of people who do not own land. Its kinda what most people DO.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:an MBA is a less than useless degree.
...and we're back to asserting which type of education is a REAL education. It's less about the degree, and more about how the person applies himself or herself in getting the degree. I know plenty of MBA's that are intelligent, articulate, and thoughtful.
I tend to agree with Tom (about college)-- most people would benefit more from vocational schooling than from traditional college/university. Nonetheless, I emphasize a college education for my kids because there are opportunities that are closed to them if they don't get that piece of paper. The vocational system isn't valued as much, right now.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
I have owned a home, although I don't as of now. I didn't notice any sudden change in my intelligence or judgement (or political tendencies/beliefs) when I bought the house, and I didn't notice any change when I sold it.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Wow I missed some explosiveness in this thread.
I confess I'm alittle sympathetic to Tom's ideas. Granted I'm not a landowner so I would lose my vote, but I'd probably find a way to get some land. I agonize over how frustrating stupid people voting is, and if there was a way to insure that only people who had put thought into their vote could vote without it being abusive I'd take it. Such a solution seems impossible.
I'd settle for a complete rewrite of congressional districts where gerrymandering was totally obliterated. At least the next election cycle would be endlessly fascinating.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Point to notice: Many countries had property qualifications for hundreds of years without the sky falling on that account, the US included. In the US, admittedly, the enforcement was occasionally a bit lax; apparently, a common practice was for a local politician to have a free barbecue on election day, and anyone who showed up was expected to vote for him. No land? No problem! The barbecue was also a venue for selling plots of land five inches on a side, for one cent and other good and valuable considerations! Then after you'd voted, you'd go back to the party and sell on your "plot of land" to the next voter!
Obviously this isn't what Tom had in mind, but it's kind of amusing and it might even be true - I read it on the Internets.
I do think, though, that a land-ownership requirement is not the right qualification in an age where labour mobility is very important and land is not the main form of wealth. In countries which took their requirement more seriously than the barbecue procedure outlined above, the qualification wasn't "own land", as such, but "own a house or land worth X per year". In other words, it was an income qualification, using the sort of income that was most common and easiest to verify. Updating this to modern conditions, I think you get "Paid more in taxes than was received in government benefits last year", with some sort of calculation of how much streets, defense, and police are worth on average - I'm not thinking purely of welfare.
Touching sacred cows, I haven't yet decided whether Tom has kicked mine. His criticism is of course extremely fair and balanced for literature, X Studies, MBAs, and suchlike dreck. But it is completely off the mark for the sciences. Presumably he did not intend to touch the worthy subjects; consequently I am quite in agreement with him. Then again I might be mistaken, in which case, I'll supply the ants for the potluck honey-and-ants party. Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
I can see the desire to restrict voters to people who actually know what they're talking about, but restricting it to landowners seems rather meaningless for that regard. There are plenty of people who don't own land who know what's going on and want to vote, and there are plenty of people who own land who don't care. What exactly is owning land supposed to solve?
If we're picking a random old method that proved extremely dangerous and detrimental to society, I'd think literacy tests would be a far better solution since they are at least *supposed* to solve the actual problem. Perhaps requiring people to list at least one issue that their candidate supports that they agree with.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:Perhaps requiring people to list at least one issue that their candidate supports that they agree with.
Do you think that you shouldn't be allowed to vote for a person if there is no such issue with which you agree?
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
quote:Hey, no, it's fair. I've basically been kicking a couple sacred cows in the face, here, so I'm not surprised that some people feel the opinions expressed are insulting and/or dangerous despite that, upon closer reflection, I think it's obvious that neither impression is accurate.
Saying "I think this country would be better off if I could strip people like you of the right to vote" isn't kicking a sacred cow, it's more like sticking a big middle finger up to a lot of the members of this community.
Perhaps most ironically about your two positions in this thread, Tom: If you're trying to weed out stupid and uninformed people from voting, you'd be much better off restricting the right to vote to only those who have college degrees than you would to only those who own property. That would at least have SOME correlation with the attributes you are trying to select for.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
quote:Do you think that you shouldn't be allowed to vote for a person if there is no such issue with which you agree?
If you can't name a single reason to vote for a person other than their good looks and party affiliation, then no I don't think you should be voting for that person.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
Heh. That's not what I asked at all. Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: ... In other words, it was an income qualification, using the sort of income that was most common and easiest to verify. Updating this to modern conditions, I think you get "Paid more in taxes than was received in government benefits last year", with some sort of calculation of how much streets, defense, and police are worth on average - I'm not thinking purely of welfare.
I'm fractionally more sympathetic to a qualification based on income or taxes paid, at least it wouldn't have the perverse effects of encouraging people to buy a house before they're ready (e.g. subprime loans), hold onto a home after retirement even if they don't want it just to vote, or encourage people to not move when looking for jobs. Fighting over a house when divorcing would also be fighting for a vote, which would be bizarre.
I still think its a fairly bad idea in practice though, for a tax qualification, you wouldn't want to randomly gain or lose your vote based on whether you got sick that year and had to use health-care, or whether you got a government grant, or if you had to use EI. It could also be prone to abuse, creeping up to disenfranchise targeted groups on the margin. There is also one big grey area when it comes to how to classify seniors who would gradually use more and more benefits as they age.
(Taxation planning would be obnoxious too, not only would you need to minimize assets between tax-sheltered and taxable accounts, but you would have to do it in such a way to maintain being above a voting threshold for both you and potentially a non-working spouse too. Oy, but thats just a detail (On second thought, I'm sure politicians would start to game which types of income or tax credits would affect people's votes, making it even more fun))
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
How about this as a requirement to vote:
Not only do you have to select the name of the person you are voting for, but also choose which list of platform points you want. If the two don't match, your vote isn't counted. And the order could randomize for every voter!
This would be based simply on the fact that you should know what it is your candidate stands for... not just that they have a catchy name/slogan/commercial/sign, or some other nonsense.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Godric: If Tom was a decision maker about allowing voting rights to property owners and expressing such an opinion, maybe such a tongue-lashing could be supported. But serious or not, he's not that person, he's just a citizen expressing his view on a message board.
I don't think black people should be allowed to vote, because they're subhuman. I'm not a decision maker, mind you. I'm just a citizen expressing my view on a message board.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote: Not only do you have to select the name of the person you are voting for, but also choose which list of platform points you want. If the two don't match, your vote isn't counted.
Except that very few platform points (I can't think of any, myself) are purely binary in nature. Also, I may disagree with your assessment of a candidate's platform.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:There is also one big grey area when it comes to how to classify seniors who would gradually use more and more benefits as they age.
That's a feature, not a bug. A lot of the current economic problems can be traced to rich old people with political capital and time on their hands voting themselves subsidies at the expense of working young people.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
I think removing party identification next to candidates names as well as the straight ticket option could only do good in ensuring people who don't really know what they are doing don't vote recklessly.
Posted by Godric (Member # 4587) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Originally posted by Godric: If Tom was a decision maker about allowing voting rights to property owners and expressing such an opinion, maybe such a tongue-lashing could be supported. But serious or not, he's not that person, he's just a citizen expressing his view on a message board.
I don't think black people should be allowed to vote, because they're subhuman. I'm not a decision maker, mind you. I'm just a citizen expressing my view on a message board.
Touche. I guess... Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
FC: Also, especially for local races where much of a position's duties are bureaucratic, I would definitely (and have) vote for someone I disagreed with on nearly every campaign "issue" but was morally upstanding over someone who "agreed" with me on the issues, but was morally bankrupt.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
King of Men: That is an appealing point.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
I am of the opinion that even willfully ignorant, evil, and wrong-headed people are, by virtue of being human, as deserving (whatever that means) of having a say in their government as anyone else. This is often an enormously frustrating opinion to hold, but I can't talk myself out of the notion that it is central to the idea of democracy.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Well put.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:(Taxation planning would be obnoxious too, not only would you need to minimize assets between tax-sheltered and taxable accounts, but you would have to do it in such a way to maintain being above a voting threshold for both you and potentially a non-working spouse too. Oy, but thats just a detail (On second thought, I'm sure politicians would start to game which types of income or tax credits would affect people's votes, making it even more fun))
It's a point, yes. I'm also very strongly in favour of massively simplifying the tax code, which would reduce this problem. In fact I would do that before changing suffrage rights. But in any case, the threshold for a vote would be quite low, I think, extending to say 75% of the adult population. At that rate, the people who are on the voting threshold and the people who need lots of tax planning are not the same people.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
[quote]Except that very few platform points (I can't think of any, myself) are purely binary in nature. Also, I may disagree with your assessment of a candidate's platform.[quote]
What does binary have to do with it? As a candidate, you should have a platform of what you stand for. It doesn't matter whether or not your opponent agrees or disagrees with you by a factor of 100% or by a shade of grey. (On a similar note, I have no idea what you were asking about before. Candidates, by definition, should have ideas on what they intend to accomplish. You should know what at least some of those ideas are.)
As for who determines what a candidate's platform actually IS, well that certainly is an issue. On one hand I DO think it'd be fair to require candidates to submit a list of their primary goals to a centralized, neutral location that everyone can refer to. But most goals worth accomplishing are probably going to be complex enough that a simplified bullet point won't necessarily convey the specifics.
On a different note: I think one of the biggest issues with the American system is the reliance on the single vote system. It forces the two party system upon us and stifles innovation. There are many alternatives that would work better, the two simplest would be to either vote for all candidates that would be acceptable to you or to rank all candidates in order of preference.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: I am of the opinion that even willfully ignorant, evil, and wrong-headed people are, by virtue of being human ...
I am sympathetic to this view, although I think that allowing all adults to vote is merely the best pragmatic compromise we've come up with rather than an ideal of democracy.
I would, however, quickly note that most states do not in fact allow all "evil" adults to vote, for at least one definition of "evil." For example prisoners are allowed to vote in Canada but not in the US
quote:In 48 American states and seven European countries, including Britain, prisoners are forbidden from voting in elections. Many more countries impose partial voting bans (applying only to prisoners serving long sentences, for instance). And in ten American states some criminals are stripped of the vote for life, even after their release.
The question for people under those jurisdictions isn't "Should we start taking away the vote from certain groups?" but merely "Are we taking away the vote from the right groups?"
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
I did not write that our practice of democracy lived up to my ideals.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
quote:Except that very few platform points (I can't think of any, myself) are purely binary in nature. Also, I may disagree with your assessment of a candidate's platform.
Two things.
One, platforms wouldn't even need to contain the same points, let alone be opposite from one another. A candidate's platform is a candidate's platform.
As to whose "assessment" it is, the best place to get a list of platform points is from the candidate him/herself, no?
quote:FC: Also, especially for local races where much of a position's duties are bureaucratic, I would definitely (and have) vote for someone I disagreed with on nearly every campaign "issue" but was morally upstanding over someone who "agreed" with me on the issues, but was morally bankrupt.
Maybe then you wouldn't have to pick which list of platform points you wanted, just make sure you match the platform to the candidate you've chosen?
***
On a more serious note, maybe have a rule that a candidate must have some type of platform included in the voting booth associated with their name so that people who have never done an ounce of research might actually be able to see what that person stands for at least once.
Of course they could still ignore it, but maybe make it a screen they have to click past, or something.
I just think there are too many people who vote without having any idea what the candidates are about, simply because of a single commercial or their party affiliation.
As an aside, my grandmother never cared who was running. She'd go into the booth and pull the Democrat lever to select all of the candidates in that line, then leave. If they were Democrats, that was good enough to her - most of the time she couldn't even name them.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:As to whose "assessment" it is, the best place to get a list of platform points is from the candidate him/herself, no?
Not necessarily.
quote:On a more serious note, maybe have a rule that a candidate must have some type of platform included in the voting booth associated with their name so that people who have never done an ounce of research might actually be able to see what that person stands for at least once.
Or at least what they claim to stand for.
quote:I just think there are too many people who vote without having any idea what the candidates are about, simply because of a single commercial or their party affiliation.
You may be right, but I'd have trouble believing that it's that big of a problem without some proof. It seems to me that most people who would vote that would wouldn't bother to vote at all.
Look on the bright side -- at least we don't have mandatory voting here.
Hey, 5 years ago, didn't you argue that it's not worth it for you to vote at all?
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by Glenn Arnold: I happen to value college education very highly, but my experience working with phD's is that while many of them got the degree specifically to pursue an avenue of interest and to fulfill a goal of a particular career, altogether too many of them pursued "those three little letters next to their name" specifically for the snob value. In industry, it's easy to tell the players. But in academia, the degree is the message, and it's much harder to tell who's playing a game.
I know of too many people in hiring situations (both in industry and academia) who are turned down not because they don't have the skills, but because they don't have the credentials. Kind of makes the initials pretty ironic.
I'd like to know where you work and in what field. I find it hard to believe its common for people to get Ph.D's for the prestige value. Ph.D.s just don't get that much respect, we aren't "real doctors" after all. And frankly, getting a PhD is just too hard for many people to seek them for the extremely minimal prestige that it garners.
That's not to say that there aren't more than enough arrogant PhDs out there. But that is a different issue.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: I did not write that our practice of democracy lived up to my ideals.
I'm aware of this. I still think it is important to note this explicitly though.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: And frankly, getting a PhD is just too hard for many people to seek them for the extremely minimal prestige that it garners.
IIRC the statistics properly, only about 10-12% of those who begin a PhD complete one, and the vast majority get stuck at the thesis step -- so they have done much of the work (all the coursework and often lots of the research/writing meant to produce a thesis) -- and are still ABD. Which really is not as cool as a doctorate. Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
quote:I'd like to know where you work and in what field.
Currently I work in fuel cell development. Previously, I was a Middle School teacher, and before that I was in applications research and development at a major industrial gases company.
quote:I find it hard to believe its common for people to get Ph.D's for the prestige value.
Don't underestimate the motivational value of insecurity. I've had people inform me they had a PhD as many as 20-30 times a day, as if I hadn't noticed it the first time, and continue to do so for years of working together.
I've also worked in an environment where we desperately needed B.S. engineers, but because the people in charge of hiring all had PhD's, They only hired PhD engineers and "college dropout" technicians. That particular prejudice meant that either unqualified technicians do engineering work, or PhD's haul cement, depending on what work was needed. The latter was a waste of a valuable resource, while the former was a recipe for safety and quality issues.
Where I work now, there is a definite caste system, and information only flows downhill, which creates a serious knowledge vacuum among the PhD's, who only know what they want to know. It's not an effective way to do research, even if they are orders of magnitude smarter than the hoi polloi.
And of course, as a teacher I've seen elementary school teachers and principals insist that their students call them "Doctor" instead of Mister or Ms. or whatever. One guy I worked with required his 2 year old daughter to call a co-worker "Doctor Tim" instead of just Tim or "Mr Delaney," or even "Doctor Delaney." That's just pretentious. Doctor is a professional title. Kids are not in a professional relationship, and are excused from such ridiculous pretense.
None of this is to say that these people didn't know their stuff. They did. And there were many that I worked with for years where I didn't know that they had a doctorate. They just did their jobs, and did it well. But you could tell which ones were using their title as a crutch.
quote:Hey, no, it's fair.
No it isn't. Rabbit generalized a negative trait, attributed it to all college dropouts, and then used it as an insult. That's just plain rude.
Posted by Stray (Member # 4056) on :
Well, she was just returning the same insult that Tom had just applied to people with college degrees, so it's not like it was unprovoked.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:As to whose "assessment" it is, the best place to get a list of platform points is from the candidate him/herself, no?
Not necessarily.
quote:On a more serious note, maybe have a rule that a candidate must have some type of platform included in the voting booth associated with their name so that people who have never done an ounce of research might actually be able to see what that person stands for at least once.
Or at least what they claim to stand for.
Hmm. I don't know why you think that is relevant.
I'll point out that the idea isn't to accurately divine the intentions of the candidate, but ensure the voter has some familiarity with what the politician's claims are.
If the politician was actually lying about his intentions, that would be good to know, but you'd be hard pressed to have that insight without actually knowing what the politician said.
As a method of ensuring the voter knows something about the person they are voting for, I think requiring them to identify the politician's stated agenda is a reasonable method.
It doesn't even have to be a test of prerequisite knowledge. Merely provide the information in one step of the voting application flow, then have the voter match it up in the next step. Just enough to confirm the voter has actually read the basics of the stated platform.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
quote:Hey, 5 years ago, didn't you argue that it's not worth it for you to vote at all?
For me, and for the presidential election, yes. As I live in NJ, our electoral votes are going to the democrat no matter what, and we don't have the ability to split our block like some other states. So, due to the existence of the electoral college, many voters are in essence disenfranchised (myself being one of them).
That's not to say I wouldn't vote for a Democrat (I have in the past, and likely will again at some point), but that it doesn't really matter if I vote for president at all, because the state leans so heavily in one direction.
However, all *other* elections are very important, because they still are decided by popular vote. Everything from Senators, Representatives, and Governors... all the way down to local school board.
And while senate/governor candidates bash it out in huge television campaigns, those smaller elections (Freeholder, mayor, school board) don't usually have that kind of money. So many people go in to vote, and have little to no idea anything about the candidates.
If nothing else, I think it would be important for there to be a brief blurb about what each candidate says they stand for so that the voters can get an idea while they're in the voting booth.
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
quote:Well, she was just returning the same insult that Tom had just applied to people with college degrees, so it's not like it was unprovoked.
Except that Tom qualified his statement. Read it again:
quote:Not many. In fact, depending on how you define "require," possibly not any. There are a few for which a degree system of some kind -- as opposed to a vocational certification system -- might still be useful, maybe. But even then I'm left thinking that the degree winds up being a measure of self-important fluffery instead of actual qualification.
As opposed to Rabbit's overt generalization:
quote:That' exactly the kind of self-important fluffery and rationalization I'd expect from a college drop out.
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