08.10.04
Posted in education at 7:03 pm by
I’m hopeful that John Kerry is a man of his word, because his words give me hope. Kerry’s educational plan offers students a large incentive to go to 4 year public universities very cheaply (some sources report that it would be free) if they offer to volunteer for a period of two years after college. What a phenomenal plan! It is my deep desire that it would work, I’ll have to see it to believe it.
One thing that troubles me about this plan is that it would seem that students who don’t go to college are short changed. I would love to see this plan further extended to vocational education and apprenticeship programs. But, then again we’re talking about a lot of money and the liklihood of something of this magnitude happening in one fell swoop is next to none. When it comes down to it though, I feel that the US Government investing in the education of the public is really just that: an investment. Something you’ll see a return on in the future.
The biggest problem with the underfunding of students in higher education–which happens in our current administration–is not that students can’t afford an education. The biggest problem is that those who could afford an education anyway (read: the wealthy) get their educations, and those who can’t afford it are stuck in a vortex unable on the whole to climb out of that vortex. (Not that there aren’t glowing counterexamples–but I believe those counterexamples to be the exeption rather than the rule.)
Who should pay? Ah, the question of all questions. Why, the rich, of course. You see, those who can afford to INVEST in K-12 AND higher educational reform should do so, with the understanding that our long-term economy will benefit from supporting educational and vocational programs for all people. Wealthy folks will continue to own businesses and as our economy grows due to a better educated society their businesses benefit.
I know this has turned into a rather broad entry, however, I believe that educational reform will drastically influence the very fabric of our society and make it a better place for all. This is why I’m hopeful for Kerry’s plan for education reform. I do admit though that it seems a bit fantastic; that’s what gives me concern. It seems like in election season politicians tell us what we want to hear. It may be that Kerry knows just what I’d like to hear…let’s hope that’s because he’d like to do it rather than him just wanting my vote. At any rate the woeful underfunding of education needs to cease, at least if we’ve any hope of a truly growing economy in the future.
I don’t need it all at the same time, Mr. Kerry. If it takes two or three years so we can successfully implement a sustainable program for long-term student aid, no problem. I’ll still vote for you. At least we both agree that something must be done.
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07.22.04
Posted in education at 12:01 am by
Where we left our largely undereducated and underprepared college students yesterday was with a mostly meaningless bachelor’s degree. So, where are these completely unprepared graduates to go? Graduate school.
Of course the above is an oversimplification. Graduate education in the states today has quite a number of pitfalls, underprepared students are merely one of a cornucopia of reasons that graduate education is quickly heading to hell in a handbasket.
Underprepared graduate students, though, are a problem for the same reason that underprepared undergraduates are a problem. Their expectations of what they should be able to accomplish has been largely shaped by their undergraduate education–in which their professors lived up to their own woefully sub-par expectations.
Another part of the entitlement to a graduate degree (particularly the Master’s) is that often these degrees are required by one’s employer. For example in the state of Michigan, teachers are required in many school districts to make satisfactory progress toward a Masters degree and attain that degree within a reasonable amount of time. For many teachers this is a fair expectation. They’re the kind of people that thrive on discovery, on not just becoming better teachers–but shaping the discipline of education for educators everywhere. However, there’s another kind of teacher.
This kind of teacher may be one of the best teachers ever known. It’s just that they’re not cut out of the “grad school cloth.” I must stress that these may well be some of the best teachers around–being right for grad school really isn’t a good judge of one’s success as an educator. But when these teachers get to school they feel entitled to be able to receive a degree from the institution they’ve chosen.
For whatever reason, and the degredation of undergraduate and graduate education seems plausible, it is no longer really acceptable to have “just a bachelor’s degree.” Once upon a time, your bachelor’s degree was your passport to the working world. It opened up jobs at most every rung of the ladder. This is simply no longer true.
Thus far, at least in most cases, the Ph.D. has remained the sacred cow of academia. But if the current trend continues, there’s no telling how long the highest degree currently attainable in our higher educational system becomes merely another speed bump in the highway of academia.
Why the concern? I mean in all honesty, who cares. Well, obviously I do, or I wouldn’t be writing, and here’s why. For those of us who truly care about academia, this influx of under prepared graduates cloud the air with half assed theories, under supported data, poorly designed experiments, and these same people will eventually go on to be the next generation of college professors. My concern is that if this cancer goes unchecked it could infect our society for years to come.
What do we do? I think we need to start at the beginning. Let’s start teaching elementary students the truth…that they can be whatever they want. Whether a carpenter, a mortician, or a firewoman, there’s no greater profession to be involved in. Let’s help them to learn the things that they need to be successful middle and high school students. In middle and high school students need to learn to love to learn…and regardless of where they go from that our society–above all–must learn to respect all kinds of people equally, regardless of whether they shower before or after work.
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07.21.04
Posted in education at 9:16 am by
Zach, in yesterday’s comments, jumped a bit ahead of me. His main point, if I understand it correctly, was that more than just encouraging students to find where they “should” be whether college, tradeschool, or an apprenticeship with a tradeswoman, we need to be about training students to love learning! I agreed wholeheartedly.
I think that the higher educational environment bears the dirty marks of students who no longer care to learn, really. Today’s college students seem to display a real disdain for work. Unfortunately, it’s not just today’s college students, it’s yesterday’s as well.
You see, for a while this country has steadily lowered the bar to meet the student’s expectations about how hard their degree should be to attain. Their expectation was that it shouldn’t be hard at all, it was an entitlement. After all, these students come to college and pay what is to them an obscene amount of money–they at least deserve a degree right? I guess that’s what you get in a capitalist society. We’d trained our students that you pay for goods and services, so, it would stand to reason that all that needs to be done in college is to pay tuition and the student then recieves a service.
College isn’t the supermarket, though. One can’t simply walk through the aisle and say one day, “Hmmm…a physics degree, now that looks nice, and some philosophy on the side” and then go check out. (Actually, while it is true that right now one can’t do this…this would seem the logical progression of a higher educational system such as our own. This frightens me.)
Going to college should be a bit like hiring a personal trainer. Hiring this person to personally train you can drastically improve one’s body, however, you still have to be committed to working hard for that exeptional transformation to take place. Many in American higher education have lost sight of this truth.
Probably, this has happened in part because of the point that Zach brought up yesterday. Students no longer have a zeal to learn. College is simply another step, no, step is the wrong word–hurdle. Just Pat, again in yesterday’s comments posted a wonderful Henri Nouwen quote that I’ll share here:
“As teachers, we have even become insensitive to the ridiculous situation in which adult men and women feel that they owe us a paper of at least twenty pages. We have lost our sense of surprise when men and women who are taking courses about the questions of life and death anxiously ask us how much is required. Instead of spending a number of free years searching for the value and meaning of our human existence with the help of others who expressed their own experiences in word or writing, most students are constantly trying to earn credits, degrees and awards, willing to sacrifice even their own growth.”(Henri J. M. Nouwen; Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life; copyright 1975; pg 84, 85)
This perfectly illustrates what’s happened, in my mind at least, to higher education (in some cases) in the states. Teachers, professors have lived up to their students too low expectations. The product–a degree, yes, but one that means almost nothing.
This leads to the “what next” question. After a student has a degree that means almost nothing and has few if any real skills what are they to do? Graduate school, of course.
Stay tuned tomorrow for more thoughts on education.
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07.20.04
Posted in education at 10:49 am by
I’m passionate (read: wound up) about a great number of things. Education, though, is probably one of the most poigniant issues that I see facing the country today. After all, education is the one and only stepping stone to a successful future, right?
The answer to that last question sounds quite logical. But I’m not quite so sure. I do think that all should be afforded some degree of education. But, a college education, now this is a whole horse of a different shoe size.
I feel like our culture has so glamorized getting that coveted bachelor’s degree that students aren’t really asking themselves what they want to do with their lives. For example, a student who has a deep desire and passion for welding doesn’t need a liberal arts education…(it’s taken be a long while to think about whether or not I really mean that last phrase after I wrote it, I think I do really mean it.) Now that welder may one day for his or her own pleasure desire to become more cultured in areas of literature, history, or the arts–though as any good welder will tell you, welding can be an art form. But if I were chosing a welding candidate from one with a liberal arts degree from here, here, or here OR one with a 1-year welding certificate…let’s be honest. I’d take the welding certificate hands down.
Problem being–students in high school don’t hear that message any more. They hear, “if you don’t go to college you’ll be a miserable failure.” Nobody says it (not that bluntly at least,) but they hear it. Guidance counselors lie, “if you want to be a welder/mechanic/carpenter/farmer you’ll need at least a buisness degree so you can run the business some day.” They’re telling those students many of whom haven’t experienced a whole lot of “academic success” that they need to rack up thousands of dollars in debt so that they can get a degree and be successful. Economic principles tell us–I think correctly–that the time value of money in this case may just tell a grim story.
These students in stead of starting work on an apprenticeship (if they don’t already have a trade, which many do) and making money. Many of them make no money–in fact, most go into debt–and are marginally successful at best in academia. They climb into a hole that is impossible to climb out of…and they fight the debt demon for YEARS trying to make up for lost money, time, and energy that they spent completing a degree. Most of the special knowlege they obtain in this course of study they would have obtained naturally anyway through experience in their places of work.
All this because in our culture it is somehow beneath respectibility to be a tradeswoman. This, my friends, is a line of bullshit originating from the pit of hell.
More on the reprocussions of this push that “everyone deserves a college education” tomorrow.
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