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.

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?

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?

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“.

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?

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

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.

I think a lot of liberal-arts graduates have been convinced they have
learned something of great value. Why should they believe otherwise?
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?

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.

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.

http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/25909.html

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

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.


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.


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.


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.



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.


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.



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?
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?


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.

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.



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 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.

Hawke

On Nov 10, 2:00*pm, Hawke wrote:


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.

Hawke


Actually economics, sociology, and psychology require a lot of math
if one takes graduate level courses. The introductory courses do no.


Dan

On Thu, 10 Nov 2011 16:00:33 -0800 (PST), "
wrote:

On Nov 10, 2:00*pm, Hawke wrote:


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.

Hawke


Actually economics, sociology, and psychology require a lot of math
if one takes graduate level courses. The introductory courses do no.


Dan


So Hack, when are you running for office with your liberal arts
diploma? I want to know so that I can organize the votes against you.
Or are you just going to waste away making copies for the real bread
winners over at the firm?

On Thu, 10 Nov 2011 11:00:02 -0800, 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.


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.


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.


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.



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.


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.



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?
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?


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?

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. :-)


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?

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%

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.


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.

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.

Hawke

--
John B.

On Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:00:26 +0700, John B.
wrote:

On Thu, 10 Nov 2011 11:00:02 -0800, 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.


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.


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.


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.



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.


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.



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?
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?


You were doing right well, right up to here.

Actually, he wasn't.

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?

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. :-)


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?

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%

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.


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.

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.

Hawke

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"?

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

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

On 11/10/2011 6:32 PM, Benny Fishhole wrote:
On Thu, 10 Nov 2011 16:00:33 -0800 (PST), "
wrote:

On Nov 10, 2:00 pm, wrote:


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.

Hawke


Actually economics, sociology, and psychology require a lot of math
if one takes graduate level courses. The introductory courses do no.


Dan


So Hack, when are you running for office with your liberal arts
diploma? I want to know so that I can organize the votes against you.
Or are you just going to waste away making copies for the real bread
winners over at the firm?

I didn't think you were that perceptive, Mr.Fishhead. You're not the
first person who has asked me why I don't run for an elected office.
Apparently, some people think I would do a good job representing them.
As for you opposing me, as FDR said about welcoming the hate from
republicans, I'd welcome your opposition. I'd also expect that your puny
efforts would not be the worst I'd have to deal with.

Hawke

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.


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.

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.

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.


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.



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.



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

On 11/10/2011 9:31 PM, David R. Birch wrote:

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.

If I were to do that then I'd be like you, a liar. I am well educated
and I have the credentials to prove it. But not only do I have a formal
education I have a whole life worth of experience. So by any measure you
would apply to yourself I have passed the bar of being an educated
person. In words even you can understand it's like this if someone like
me isn't educated then no one is.



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?

I had a pretty good idea. But even so I was surprised at how difficult
it was to accomplish. You get out what you put in and I put in a lot.
But then they expected a lot too.




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?

I did.




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.

What I will admit to is that you come across as someone who is not
educated. I would have to lie if I said I wasn't, and I'm not about to
do that.


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.

If Marx's writing and philosophy are gibberish to you I can understand
that. You don't understand much. Based on the number of people around
the world who have read and heard of Marx, his work is clearly not
gibberish to most people.


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.

Only an idiot would think that psychologists, social scientists, English
teachers, and political advisers, wasted their time training for those
occupations. Anyone who doesn't understand that those and many other
occupations are filled by people with liberal arts degrees
is seriously stupid. In your case, I'd suggest you spend some time with
a psychologist. I know you don't think he learned anything in school and
wasted his time there, but he will present you with a good sized bill
for using his skill, and he'll likely make a lot more money than you do
as well.


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.

Only ignorant people think that way. That's as stupid as saying food
preparation, clothes cleaning, and home cleaning are just women's work.



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.

We do. It's just that some people like you never got the chance to
experience what they are like so you don't think they exist.


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"?

No, as in people like you. The ignorant. College educated people do have
skills.


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?

You got that backwards. You meant someone like me with brains and
education. The opposite of someone like you.



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"?

That beats the alternative, which is no job at all. If you had to
compete with liberal arts educated people you would come out the loser.


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.

Spoken like a man without an education.


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?

Nope, got it right here in California where I live and went to school.
Which I'll take over where ever it is you live in some red state full of
religious nut cases without any education. Are you a southerner, by any
chance?

Hawke

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.

On 11/11/2011 2:23 PM, Hawke wrote:
On 11/10/2011 9:31 PM, David R. Birch wrote:

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.

If I were to do that then I'd be like you, a liar. I am well educated
and I have the credentials to prove it. But not only do I have a formal
education I have a whole life worth of experience. So by any measure you
would apply to yourself I have passed the bar of being an educated
person. In words even you can understand it's like this if someone like
me isn't educated then no one is.

Education is not a question of having a piece of paper from a school
saying you graduated, it is an ongoing process that starts when you are
born and ends (maybe) when you die. Some people learn well and quickly,
others only go through the motions and learn only what is needed to get
by. The educational system in the US often ignores that first group so
it can support the majority in the second.

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

I had a pretty good idea. But even so I was surprised at how difficult
it was to accomplish. You get out what you put in and I put in a lot.
But then they expected a lot too.




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?

I did.




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.

What I will admit to is that you come across as someone who is not
educated. I would have to lie if I said I wasn't, and I'm not about to
do that.


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.

If Marx's writing and philosophy are gibberish to you I can understand
that. You don't understand much. Based on the number of people around
the world who have read and heard of Marx, his work is clearly not
gibberish to most people.

Marx is gibberish because it depends on people being what he thought
they should be, not what they really are. His fundamental
misunderstanding of human nature is typical of the elitism of the left.


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.

Only an idiot would think that psychologists, social scientists, English
teachers, and political advisers, wasted their time training for those
occupations.

Once again you fail in reading comprehension. I was using a device
called irony, a bit too subtle for you as usual.

Anyone who doesn't understand that those and many other
occupations are filled by people with liberal arts degrees
is seriously stupid. In your case, I'd suggest you spend some time with
a psychologist. I know you don't think he learned anything in school and
wasted his time there, but he will present you with a good sized bill
for using his skill, and he'll likely make a lot more money than you do
as well.

I have spent time with psychologists, but not as a patient or client.
Initially as a student, then later as consultant.


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.

Only ignorant people think that way. That's as stupid as saying food
preparation, clothes cleaning, and home cleaning are just women's work.

Totally irrelevant comparison. If you think a college student will get
far while publicly supporting theories that his advisers don't support,
your grasp of college department politics is as weak as your
understanding of national and world politics.



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.

We do. It's just that some people like you never got the chance to
experience what they are like so you don't think they exist.

If they exist, they are the exception, not the rule.


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

No, as in people like you. The ignorant. College educated people do have
skills.

You seem to think that only college educated people have skills and that
a college education means you therefore have those skills.

In many ways you remind me of Shelly Long's character Diane Chambers in
"Cheers", a woman with a lot of education who didn't know anything about
the real world and had acquired no wisdom or common sense.

But she had been to the best schools and had diplomas to prove it.


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?

You got that backwards. You meant someone like me with brains and
education. The opposite of someone like you.

No soup for you, loser. I have been to colleges, took their meager
offerings and went far beyond them.

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

That beats the alternative, which is no job at all. If you had to
compete with liberal arts educated people you would come out the loser.

Actually, my education, training and skills would land me a job by
simply calling any number of HR departments in large corporations...if I
weren't close to retirement age.

Not true of poli sci graduates.

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

Spoken like a man without an education.

Certainly not an education consisting of a degree of no practical use.


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?

Nope, got it right here in California where I live and went to school.
Which I'll take over where ever it is you live in some red state full of
religious nut cases without any education. Are you a southerner, by any
chance?

SE Wisconsin, a blue state, as if it matters. Usual assortment of nut
cases on the left and right.

You continually demonstrate that you think that just having a diploma
makes you special and superior, yet you show at the same time that you
haven't gone beyond that piece of paper and actually have not found a
use for it.

Worse yet, you lack knowledge and understanding of the world of politics
because you don't recognize that there are valid views outside your
narrow world that embraces only what your idols tell you to believe.
Most of the people I know have at least some advanced education, many
with multiple MAs and MSs and/or doctorates, yet when I correspond with
you, its like engaging in a discussion in a freshman bull session,
earnest views from someone with no idea what its like out there in the
real world.

You need to recognize that a diploma is not an end, but just another start.

I'm done here for now, you'll never find wisdom if you refuse to think
beyond the limits you set for yourself. I hope you mature beyond that
level, but you haven't shown that potential.

David

On 11/13/2011 4:56 AM, David R. Birch wrote:

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

If Marx's writing and philosophy are gibberish to you I can understand
that. You don't understand much. Based on the number of people around
the world who have read and heard of Marx, his work is clearly not
gibberish to most people.

Marx is gibberish because it depends on people being what he thought
they should be, not what they really are. His fundamental
misunderstanding of human nature is typical of the elitism of the left.

Thanks for confirming what I thought. You know little or nothing about
Marx or Marxism. Yet you try to come across as being an expert on the
subject. You really know little of Marx's life or of his writings but
pretend you do. Bluffing your way through doesn't work when you have to
put up or shut up. You're a phoney.


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.

Only an idiot would think that psychologists, social scientists, English
teachers, and political advisers, wasted their time training for those
occupations.

Once again you fail in reading comprehension. I was using a device
called irony, a bit too subtle for you as usual.

For you to use a literary device like irony you need to do a lot better
job of letting the reader know it. Like all of a sudden you're ironic,
out of the blue. Sure.


Anyone who doesn't understand that those and many other
occupations are filled by people with liberal arts degrees
is seriously stupid. In your case, I'd suggest you spend some time with
a psychologist. I know you don't think he learned anything in school and
wasted his time there, but he will present you with a good sized bill
for using his skill, and he'll likely make a lot more money than you do
as well.

I have spent time with psychologists, but not as a patient or client.
Initially as a student, then later as consultant.

Apparently you missed my point, which is that you would have done well
to have used the services of a psychologist. You need one. Most people
do but you know what? The people who say they have no need for a
psychologist are usually the ones who need it the most.


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.

If you had a decent education you would understand that good professors
don't want you to regurgitate whatever they say. Good ones encourage
differing views. Sounds like you've been listening to Limbaugh too much
lately. As an uneducated man he's always telling people what they do in
college. Where he never went.

Only ignorant people think that way. That's as stupid as saying food
preparation, clothes cleaning, and home cleaning are just women's work.

Totally irrelevant comparison. If you think a college student will get
far while publicly supporting theories that his advisers don't support,
your grasp of college department politics is as weak as your
understanding of national and world politics.

That's total nonsense on a number of levels. I was a political science
student so the idea I would not understand what was going on politically
in administrative politics is goofy. Besides that, where I went you
could believe any damn political theories you wanted. In the dept. there
were professors with every different political viewpoint. So you don't
know what you are talking about, again.


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.

We do. It's just that some people like you never got the chance to
experience what they are like so you don't think they exist.

If they exist, they are the exception, not the rule.

Nobody ever said that all schools are good. We all know that's not true,
unfortunately.


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

No, as in people like you. The ignorant. College educated people do have
skills.

You seem to think that only college educated people have skills and that
a college education means you therefore have those skills.

In many ways you remind me of Shelly Long's character Diane Chambers in
"Cheers", a woman with a lot of education who didn't know anything about
the real world and had acquired no wisdom or common sense.

That's great. You remind me of Jabba the Hut. A big, fat, evil,
disgusting creature, that runs roughshod over everyone and everything
weaker than him. So how did I do? Did I describe you accurately? No?
Well, your description of me isn't accurate either. Not by a long shot.


Actually, my education, training and skills would land me a job by
simply calling any number of HR departments in large corporations...if I
weren't close to retirement age.

So that's supposed to prove your claims about education? It doesn't.

Not true of poli sci graduates.

All I have to do to disprove that is show you some poly sci graduates
that have done a lot. First off most lawyers started off with poly sci
degrees and a heck of a lot of poly sci degree holders are in congress,
in academia, and in law careers. So those degrees are valuable.

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

Spoken like a man without an education.

Certainly not an education consisting of a degree of no practical use.

There are many benefits to an education that have no practical
application. That doesn't make them no good. You always lose when you
try to make not having an education superior to having one. Bad argument.


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?

Nope, got it right here in California where I live and went to school.
Which I'll take over where ever it is you live in some red state full of
religious nut cases without any education. Are you a southerner, by any
chance?

SE Wisconsin, a blue state, as if it matters. Usual assortment of nut
cases on the left and right.

From what you have said you don't sound like a middle of the roader to
me. Hard right a lot closer to home?


You continually demonstrate that you think that just having a diploma
makes you special and superior, yet you show at the same time that you
haven't gone beyond that piece of paper and actually have not found a
use for it.

So what? Many people get a degree and go on to do things that are not
related to it. I think that is true for most people.

Worse yet, you lack knowledge and understanding of the world of politics
because you don't recognize that there are valid views outside your
narrow world that embraces only what your idols tell you to believe.

I have no idols. But I do understand politics. Not all views are equal
either. The fact that I can judge which ones have value and which don't
seems to bother you.


Most of the people I know have at least some advanced education, many
with multiple MAs and MSs and/or doctorates, yet when I correspond with
you, its like engaging in a discussion in a freshman bull session,
earnest views from someone with no idea what its like out there in the
real world.

I guess you didn't get the news from Benny Fishbone that I didn't get my
college degree until I was 50 years old. So I obviously lived most of my
life without one. That's why I now know what it's worth. It has a value
all its own regardless of any practical use for it. I've had a degree
and I didn't have one for many years. I'm very happy that I got one.
Someone like you would probably never understand the value it is to me.


You need to recognize that a diploma is not an end, but just another start.

It's that and it's an accomplishment and it's a way to improve oneself,
and many other things as well.

I'm done here for now, you'll never find wisdom if you refuse to think
beyond the limits you set for yourself. I hope you mature beyond that
level, but you haven't shown that potential.


You will forgive me if I decide not to use your assessment of my level
of maturity for anything besides laughing at. For you really have no
idea what you are talking about even though you like to act like you do.
Who thinks you have the knowledge and information required to pass
judgment on me? Certainly not I. I too am done with this as well other
than to say I couldn't disagree with you any more on how valuable a
college education is.