On Fri, 11 Nov 2011 11:55:00 -0800, Hawke
wrote:

On 11/10/2011 7:00 PM, John B. wrote:

You were doing right well, right up to here. Teachers are not always
smart and well educated, and quite frequently not fully qualified to
teach their subject. A high school mate, for example, who spoke, read
and wrote French at home, failed French (mainly because he was chasing
girls instead of turning in work assignments) and his folks, both
native French speakers showed up at the Principal's office with fire
in their eye. The Principal, not wanting to get in the midst of this,
call the teacher in. When she showed Mama and Papa started berating
her, in French. She couldn't speak French.

This, by the way, is extremely common among language teachers. I've
encountered it in every country I've lived in. They read and write the
language but can't carry on a conversation in the language. I know,
the teachers all say it is important to be able to read the language
but practically I can get along in a language, speaking it even though
I can't read it. What is the good in being able to read the Great
Authors if you can't order dinner?

All this shows is how important teachers are. In my personal experience
I have the same kind of example. I took high school Spanish for two
entire years, hated it, learned nothing, but passed. It was the typical
memorization crap. Then I went to a local community college and took a
college Spanish course and the teacher was Latin. Unlike high school he
made every single person in the class speak Spanish the first day and
every day and learn the names of every student in class. At the end of
one semester with that guy I knew Spanish far better than after two
years of high school. So I get what you're saying about the teacher who
couldn't speak the language. But in my experience that is not common
these days.


It is common in a lot of foreign countries; at least here in Asia. And
the results are equally as common. The hospital I go to, for example,
keeps their patient records in English because it is an
internationally spoken language, but very few of the doctors can
actually carry out a conversation in English. They can make do and
treat an English speaking foreigner but the discussions are hardly as
comprehensive and they would be in say, Singapore where English is
nearly universal.

As for collage graduates being educated.... maybe. The people with
professional educations - engineers, etc., all know their stuff. They
lack experience, but so do all beginners. But the liberal-arts people
don't know a specialty and from my contact with them they don't know
much of anything else either. They seldom have much knowledge of
literature, even modern authors. They don't seem to have a clue about
logical thinking - all you need to do is listen to the Wall Street
Mob. They don't seem to have even a rudimentary knowledge of economics
(you can't live forever on borrowed money). They can, however,
usually, speak English, and usually understand what they've read and
most of them can learn. :-)

I've hired a couple of young guys from the local college in my town, Cal
State University Chico, to do some manual labor work for me. Both are
smart and know a lot about the areas they were going into. One was in
communications and the other was trained to manage some kind of
manufacturing. They both impressed me as being very able young guys. By
the way, the one who was all set to work in the communications field in
his senior year changed his mind and decided to go into the Navy and
train to be a pilot.

But you are talking about people why were studying for a specific
"trade". I was talking about the people who aren't.

That's a good example of what I was talking about. They take the best
people they can find and they want young men with college degrees. They
don't really care what they are in. They start them out in officer
training. So it's not just me that values people with a college degree,
any college degree. It says something about you. That you can work hard
and you can stick with something that takes years to accomplish. In my
experience most people can't do even that.

The U.S.A.F.'s stated reason for liking collage students, at least
during the twenty years I was in, was that collage students had "done
something" and were considered to be a step above the drones who
weren't interested in improving themselves. Not that they were
intrinsically more intelligent.

Oh, the other guy, he couldn't get a job when he graduated because of
the recession. So now he's taken up gambling and is making good money
doing that. Which just goes to show you that smart guys with good
educations can adapt, and succeed better than most.

Nope, smart guys can adapt and succeed. I've already noted that a
number of very successful people either had no collage or had dropped
out of collage - Steve Jobs, for example. Interesting that the guy
that actually designed and built the first Apples, Steve Wozniak, now
has something like seven Honorary Doctor of Engineering degrees.


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.

Like what, man?

Some of them are intangible. But there are others like you said, they
speak better English and communicate better. They have better critical
thinking skills, and they are better organizationally and in management,
not to mention the skills they learned in whatever it was they majored in.


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.


Hawke, according to Table A-4. Employment status of the civilian
population 25 years and over by educational attainment
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t04.htm
the unemployment rate for people 25 years or older for September 2011
a

4 year collage degree or higher education is 30%
Associate or some collage 36%
High School only 45%
No High School 41%


I just heard on TV yesterday again that people with college degrees
unemployment level is only 4%. I also saw on CNN a while back where Ali
Velshi did a show about the economy where he showed where all the
categories were as far as employment. They were broken down by race,
education, sex, and age. Black and Latin males and teenagers had the
highest unemployment. Women and college educated people had the lowest.
I took note they too said people with college degrees had an
unemployment level of 4%. So even in a bad recession those with college
degrees stay employed far better than others and they make more than
those without degrees too. So it is a big advantage for most to have a
degree.

all I can say is that the U.S. government doesn't agree with you :-)



Hower, your basic hypothesis is correct higher education usually, or
may, result in higher pay. But history shows (Boeing Seattle, lay-offs
in 1970) during times of lower employment it may well be that a
skilled blue collar worker will have a better chance of finding work,
i.e., the engineers were driving taxi's the welders all went to Los
Angeles and worked.

Things have changed now with all the competition from overseas. It's
even harder to find work with lots of the good jobs going to Asia. Today
if you lose a good job you're lucky to find anything. A college degree
does help but it's tougher now than since the Great Depression.

It may very well be, I haven't been there for a long time and working
overseas is a totally different ball game. But still, if you are good
at your job there is work. A mate of mine, Canadian with an 8th grade
education, is a Drilling Supervisor working on offshore rigs. He
retired a few years ago and spent a bunch of time sailing around Asia.
He told me that every time he had a beer he'd meet another oil field
guy and get a job offer. A year or so he broke down and took a job
with the Vietnam national oil company, working on U.S. owned drill
rigs, operated by Russian crews. He tells me that he is still getting
job offers regularly.

(no collage :-)


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

Not necessarily true. I talked with a computer programmer who's job
went offshore to India. No job. Now works as a security guard.

I was generalizing. But in sever economic slowdowns all bets are off and
regardless of where you were you can wind up a lot worse off. As a lot
of people learned who never would have thought that was possible for them.

Hawke


--
John B.