On Thu, 10 Nov 2011 23:31:18 -0600, "David R. Birch"
wrote:

On 11/10/2011 1:00 PM, Hawke wrote:
On 11/9/2011 8:32 PM, Benny Fishhole wrote:
How Do You Know You Have Been “Educated”?

from Chicago Boyz by Shannon Love

Following on my previous post on the “We are the 99%” people who
seem to view education as more ritual than the acquisition of
practical skills or knowledge, it occurred to me that many of these
young people may not understand that they aren’t really, despite
the time and money spent, actually educated.

Well, that all depends on what you think "educated" means. If you
think educated means you have learned a specific job skill; and are
ready to enter the job market and be hired to do that job then it's
true, people with liberal arts educations aren't educated. But if by
educated you mean someone who has gone through a disciplined process
of learning that teaches them how to think and how the world works
then you are.

Then you finally admit that you are not educated.


The liberal arts of today are those fields with little or no
empiricism. In other words, if the field doesn’t have a lot of
math, the information it deals with is subjective and untestable.
Even supposed “soft” sciences in the liberal arts like sociology
or psychology lack true scientific rigor. Given that, how do
liberal-arts graduates know that they’ve really been taught
something worthwhile? How do they know they haven’t been loaded up
with gibberish?

Funny isn't it how economics isn't looked at as subjective and
untestable like sociology or psychology but it is also a soft
science. So some of the negativity is subjective regarding the lack
of empiricism in those subjects.

As to how do you know you have been taught something worthwhile, you
go to an institution that has a history and a reputation for what it
does. There's a reason why people go to Ivy League schools. There is
a reason why people go to the military academies. You know what you
are getting. Go to a reputable school. You'll know what you're
getting.

Did you know what you were getting when you put that check in the mail
for your diploma?



For example, I don’t know much about music, so someday I want to
take some courses about music. How would I know whether any
particular instructor was teaching me anything valid? Since I have
no real knowledge about music, how would I know if I was paying
someone to fill my head with nonsense?

You got to someone that has a good reputation, and is a professional.
You go to someone with impeccable credentials.

Why didn't you?


Some music education would teach concrete skills, e.g., reading
music or learning to play an instrument, so I could evaluate
whether I had been educated by my ability to read music or play an
instrument.


However, what if I spend $50,000 being taught “Music Theory” or
“The Sociology of Music“.

Then you wouldn't be learning how to be a musician. You would be
learning something entirely different. A practitioner is nothing like
a theorist. Depending on your goal you would go to some place or
someone different for whatever it is you wanted to learn.



How would I ever know whether I was taught anything remotely true
and, more important, of practical use? If I want to be a musician
will a degree in either actually help my career or am I better off
spending more time practicing in the garage studio?

That's a question about how will you do in the marketplace. You never
know that until you test the waters. It's like a college football
player wondering how he will do in the pros. He won't know until he
gets there.


Most of what is taught in the liberal arts does not equip the
student with objective skills.

That is simply not true. Objective skills are a must in any liberal
arts program I have ever seen. Soft sciences don't have the precision
of math or science but students in those areas still have to learn
objective skills and critical thinking.

Again, you admit that you are not educated.



Instead, most of what students learn are elaborate hypotheses
validated only by a popularity contest among the professors
themselves. Most of those hypotheses will end up judged by history
to be gibberish — e.g., Marxism.

That's gibberish.

I agree, I've read Marx and its gibberish.



Most degrees in the liberal arts, especially the advanced degrees,
really just equip the student to become a liberal-arts professor.
Given how few professorships open up, most liberal-arts graduates
don’t actually end up with marketable skills.

Since most of them don't go to college to get a marketable job skill
that's perfectly understandable. Liberal arts students go to college
to become educated people. When they graduate they then find what
area they want to go to work in, and that may or may not be related
to their college degree. They don't look at college as vocational
training. They go to get educated. When they have done that they
enter the marketplace and see what they want to do as far as work
goes. The idea is they are prepared for many more things by having a
general education.

So those poor fools majoring in psych, English, soc sci and poli sci
were wasting their time by specializing their ignorance.



I think a lot of liberal-arts graduates have been convinced they
have learned something of great value.

They have, in fact they have learned a great many things of value if
they have earned a liberal arts degree.

Why should they believe otherwise?

Yes, they have learned that regurgitating what the prof said is of great
value in pursuit of a grade.

We are taught since childhood how wise and wonderful all our
teachers are. We are told how uplifting and ennobling education is.
Why would students question whether their trusted professors are
teaching them anything true and/or valuable in the future
workplace?

They shouldn't. The truth is that teachers are smart and well
educated. They do the job of teaching the next generation how to live
their lives. They have both life experience and education behind
them. If you can't trust people like that who can you trust? If they
don't know anything about the world their students are about to enter
then who would?

I wish we had schools like that here on Earth.


What a horrible realization to find out that you haven’t actually
been educated. What a horrible realization to find out you owe tens
of thousands of dollars and you don’t have any skills to
compensate. What a horrible realization to find out you are no more
employable than someone who never went to college in the first
place.

If you have a decent liberal arts degree you do have skills. You
aren't usually trained in a specific way for a specific job but you
have skills that the uneducated do not have.

"uneducated"? As in "didn't go to a liberal arts college"?

Proof of this is the unemployment rate for people with a college
degree is 4%. For those without degrees it's much higher. So don't
tell me a degree isn't worth anything. The market tells me
otherwise.

Which will do better, a person with brains and skills, but no degree, or
someone like you with a degree but no brains?



These kids feel cheated and they are right. They were told they
were actually getting “educated” but they weren’t. They borrowed
tens of thousands of dollars for nothing.

It seems that way now but in time that will change. They will always
have their educations and will find jobs in the future.

"Would you like fresh ground pepper" is so much more fulfilling than
"d'ya want fries with that"?


Pardon me, would you have any Grey Poupon? Laugh, laugh, laugh!




Those who don't have a degree will never have one and will never
understand what they are lacking.

Yes, they will never know the satisfaction of pretentiousness that you
cherish.


Not to mention the 50 years of his life that Hack wasted earning
his cosmic debris. LOL!

If you weren't such a dolt you would know that it didn't take me 50
years to get my degree. All told it took me no longer than average.
The only thing I did was spread out the time I did it in over many
years. I can understand why that would confuse someone like you. Most
everything does.

The mail from that diploma mill must be slow, is it offshore?

David