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jdl
Joined: 06 Apr 2005
Posts: 632
Location: cyberspace
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 Posted: Sat Jan 16, 2010 12:41 pm Post subject: |
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JZer,
That is also true....getting a job in a chosen field is a good thing, no? Whether that be teaching, medicine, law, engineering, research, art, plumbing,carpentry, activism........
I suppose the real tragedy is being in a job for which one has not and can not get the training, or one which the individual has not chosen and is unable to leave due to the lack of resources needed for education.
To spend a lifetime working at something one hates or feels trapped by, in order to meet human needs must be a debilitating experience. Public education allows access and with access comes choice and opportunity.
"My children will be better off than I am" is such a common comment invariably realized.
Now, as for publicly funded and privately supported universal health care and the social safety net......oooops  |
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JZer
Joined: 16 Jan 2005
Posts: 3898
Location: Pittsburgh
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| Posted: Sat Jan 16, 2010 12:55 pm Post subject: |
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| To spend a lifetime working at something one hates or feels trapped by, in order to meet human needs must be a debilitating experience. Public education allows access and with access comes choice and opportunity. |
Sometimes the high cost of higher education does lead people to do just that. They go to a university when they are 18 with no idea what they want to do and go $50,000US to $100,000 in debt. Then they need to work that job to survive and pay their student loans. |
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JZer
Joined: 16 Jan 2005
Posts: 3898
Location: Pittsburgh
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| Posted: Sat Jan 16, 2010 12:57 pm Post subject: |
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JZer,
That is also true....getting a job in a chosen field is a good thing, no? Whether that be teaching, medicine, law, engineering, research, art, plumbing,carpentry, activism........ |
And what percentage of people actually know what they want to do when they are between the ages of 18 and 22 and are studying for an undergraduate degree? |
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jdl
Joined: 06 Apr 2005
Posts: 632
Location: cyberspace
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| Posted: Sat Jan 16, 2010 1:27 pm Post subject: |
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JZer,
Both points you raise, also true and too very real for too many.
Why should public support/funding for education not be as lifelong as learning? |
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naturegirl321
Joined: 04 May 2003
Posts: 9041
Location: home sweet home
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| Posted: Sat Jan 16, 2010 4:44 pm Post subject: |
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I was told that 80% of graduates' first job has nothing to do with their degree. They work, then go back and study. That's why there are MAs  |
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rusmeister
Joined: 15 Jun 2006
Posts: 867
Location: Russia
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| Posted: Sun Jan 17, 2010 4:30 am Post subject: |
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It seems there are too many assumptions that would have to be dealt with to comment productively - I just don't have the time. I'll just ask whether people think not in terms of how they can get "a job" - doing what an employer wants for money - or in raw language, becoming a wage slave, and serving corporations and "market places", but whether what they do is something that makes a difference for the better in this world (and identifying exactly what that "better" is).
| Quote: |
Why should public support/funding for education not be as lifelong as learning? |
For the simple reason that "the public" cannot afford it. It would be part of a utopian "nanny" or "Big brother" state that would ultimately discourage people from actually learning. When people get lifetime supplies of anything, they tend to sit back on their duffs and collect it. It is the fact that the support ends that motivates one to accomplishments.
Or you could say that there IS such a thing, and it is called "a pension". |
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JZer
Joined: 16 Jan 2005
Posts: 3898
Location: Pittsburgh
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| Posted: Sun Jan 17, 2010 4:36 am Post subject: |
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| rusmeister wrote: |
It seems there are too many assumptions that would have to be dealt with to comment productively - I just don't have the time. I'll just ask whether people think not in terms of how they can get "a job" - doing what an employer wants for money - or in raw language, becoming a wage slave, and serving corporations and "market places", but whether what they do is something that makes a difference for the better in this world (and identifying exactly what that "better" is).
| Quote: |
Why should public support/funding for education not be as lifelong as learning? |
For the simple reason that "the public" cannot afford it. It would be part of a utopian "nanny" or "Big brother" state that would ultimately discourage people from actually learning. When people get lifetime supplies of anything, they tend to sit back on their duffs and collect it. It is the fact that the support ends that motivates one to accomplishments.
Or you could say that there IS such a thing, and it is called "a pension". |
Yes, and a lot of countries are having difficulties with the cost of that pension let alone education.
Some European countries offer almost free university education but that often leads students like in Germany spending seven to ten years in a university just for a first degree. Which goes back to paying for something, most people don't take things as seriously if they are not paying for them. |
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gaijinalways
Joined: 29 Nov 2005
Posts: 2279
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| Posted: Sun Jan 17, 2010 5:07 am Post subject: |
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rusmeister posted
| Quote: |
| It seems there are too many assumptions that would have to be dealt with to comment productively - I just don't have the time. I'll just ask whether people think not in terms of how they can get "a job" - doing what an employer wants for money - or in raw language, becoming a wage slave, and serving corporations and "market places", but whether what they do is something that makes a difference for the better in this world (and identifying exactly what that "better" is). |
Interesting take on things. It sounds like a very anti-capitalist life statement. But you do realize some companies do want to make a difference, but to do that they do need to make money? Think The Body Shop, Google to some extent, or any company that has some goals that include making the world a better place, not just making money.
I agree with you though, people can and might start their own business with the idea of making the world a better place. Now whether you need a university education to do that is questionable indeed. Hopefully university not only allows us to get ready for working and or making the world a better place, but also develops our ability to understand and be exposed to different ways of thinking. But that's just my take on things or my philosophy, 'live and let live'.  |
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rusmeister
Joined: 15 Jun 2006
Posts: 867
Location: Russia
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| Posted: Sun Jan 17, 2010 12:02 pm Post subject: |
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| gaijinalways wrote: |
rusmeister posted
| Quote: |
| It seems there are too many assumptions that would have to be dealt with to comment productively - I just don't have the time. I'll just ask whether people think not in terms of how they can get "a job" - doing what an employer wants for money - or in raw language, becoming a wage slave, and serving corporations and "market places", but whether what they do is something that makes a difference for the better in this world (and identifying exactly what that "better" is). |
Interesting take on things. It sounds like a very anti-capitalist life statement. But you do realize some companies do want to make a difference, but to do that they do need to make money? Think The Body Shop, Google to some extent, or any company that has some goals that include making the world a better place, not just making money.
I agree with you though, people can and might start their own business with the idea of making the world a better place. Now whether you need a university education to do that is questionable indeed. Hopefully university not only allows us to get ready for working and or making the world a better place, but also develops our ability to understand and be exposed to different ways of thinking. But that's just my take on things or my philosophy, 'live and let live'. |
Hey, Gaijina!
To that I'd say that capitalism and socialism are equal and opposite evils. Both are the enemy of the common man. One poses business (which always becomes big business) as the dominant entity, the other the state. (Check out Chesterton's "What's Wrong With the World". It is a great exposition of that "interesting take". http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/whats_wrong.html
I think a real drawing card for Chesterton is the humor behind the seriousness.
Other thoughts include the risk of using language that personifies abstract entities - mainly the risk of imprecision: "Companies want..." (I think your following thought is right; there are individuals that do want to do good and they do successfully do it via business - but it's clearly an exception and not the rule.
It is only your last thought that I would disagree with.
I would accent your use of the word hopefully and use it in its older sense; that you are hoping that - but that's not what public education, at any rate, is really doing or is even there for. I think it really exposes people to one kind of thinking: the kind called "pluralism", and forces you to accept that and discourages anything that runs counter to it. In that critical aspect of human thinking - ultimate philosophy, the question of truth and the ability to pursue it, modern universities do precisely the opposite of what you hope they do. They DO prepare people for the corporate workplace - but they don't prepare them to be the people who MAKE the workplace. But the complete failure to teach a philosophy of definite truth is the greatest failure of modern education. (There are a lot of things I can't pack into a zip file there) |
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gaijinalways
Joined: 29 Nov 2005
Posts: 2279
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| Posted: Sun Jan 17, 2010 12:19 pm Post subject: |
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....I would accent your use of the word hopefully and use it in its older sense; that you are hoping that - but that's not what public education, at any rate, is really doing or is even there for. I think it really exposes people to one kind of thinking: the kind called "pluralism", and forces you to accept that and discourages anything that runs counter to it. In that critical aspect of human thinking - ultimate philosophy, the question of truth and the ability to pursue it, modern universities do precisely the opposite of what you hope they do. They DO prepare people for the corporate workplace - but they don't prepare them to be the people who MAKE the workplace.
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I think it depends, as education is also something that holds society together. I encountered many ideas in university and found it a great place to 'learn' about things. Certainly many people with innovative ideas may or may not get those directly from classes, but rather from more informal discussions on campus related to ideas that are taught (and not).
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| To that I'd say that capitalism and socialism are equal and opposite evils. Both are the enemy of the common man. One poses business (which always becomes big business) as the dominant entity, the other the state. |
Yes, I would agree with you, government is not necessarily a better replacement for 'big' business. And sometimes they are in bed with each other and we may be living with the worst of both worlds (depending on which shares you own  ). |
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Sashadroogie
Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 11061
Location: Moskva, The Workers' Paradise
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| Posted: Sun Jan 17, 2010 12:28 pm Post subject: |
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Heh heh, what's the difference between Capitalism and Communism?
Capitalism is the enslavement of man by fellow man - Communism is the exact opposite... |
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rusmeister
Joined: 15 Jun 2006
Posts: 867
Location: Russia
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| Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2010 3:00 am Post subject: |
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| gaijinalways wrote: |
| Quote: |
....I would accent your use of the word hopefully and use it in its older sense; that you are hoping that - but that's not what public education, at any rate, is really doing or is even there for. I think it really exposes people to one kind of thinking: the kind called "pluralism", and forces you to accept that and discourages anything that runs counter to it. In that critical aspect of human thinking - ultimate philosophy, the question of truth and the ability to pursue it, modern universities do precisely the opposite of what you hope they do. They DO prepare people for the corporate workplace - but they don't prepare them to be the people who MAKE the workplace.
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I think it depends, as education is also something that holds society together. I encountered many ideas in university and found it a great place to 'learn' about things. Certainly many people with innovative ideas may or may not get those directly from classes, but rather from more informal discussions on campus related to ideas that are taught (and not).
| Quote: |
| To that I'd say that capitalism and socialism are equal and opposite evils. Both are the enemy of the common man. One poses business (which always becomes big business) as the dominant entity, the other the state. |
Yes, I would agree with you, government is not necessarily a better replacement for 'big' business. And sometimes they are in bed with each other and we may be living with the worst of both worlds (depending on which shares you own ). |
Education is only a means of transmission. It is a shared base philosophy - worldview - that holds society together, be it a radical fundamentalist one or the Heinleinian pluralist one now predominating. If you get control of mass education, the next generation of children is yours to form. Which is what has happened. And if the philosophy is not discussed, only implemented, that generation would not even realize that their views were indoctrinated, and that they really might have been formed differently. We read about it in anti-utopian novels and don't realize that it really has been done - to us. We can't even imagine thinking differently from the popular modern view that truth is individual and personal, that many people believe many different things and that's cool, that diversity is the highest goal of mankind, that all things must be tolerated, and so on. It is because the philosophy controlling public education - and its history (Where did the modern idea of the public school come from? Who pushed it to be the way it has become and why?) are not common knowledge that this is possible. Thinking about it is positively discouraged.
I contrast this with my high school years in a private Baptist school - where they were VERY open about what the controlling philosophy was, and I knew exactly what was driving my teaching - the dogmas were stated. Just try asking any public education official: "What is the nature of man? and "What is his purpose in life?" They'll tell you they don't deal in those questions. But you can't construct an educational system without having definite answers to those questions. So go try to figure out what the answers are in the forming of our system. |
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rusmeister
Joined: 15 Jun 2006
Posts: 867
Location: Russia
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| Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2010 3:01 am Post subject: |
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| Sashadroogie wrote: |
Heh heh, what's the difference between Capitalism and Communism?
Capitalism is the enslavement of man by fellow man - Communism is the exact opposite... |
Good formulation!  |
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tudodude
Joined: 08 Mar 2007
Posts: 82
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| Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2010 3:45 am Post subject: |
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Great replies people.
Some countries have regulations which cannot be overcome.
I still feel that a more case by case way of sorting this out would be fair.
I remember calls to clean up the industry for the sake of good teachers. Now the industry is discriminating against some good teachers. Seperating familes due to relocation needs. Loads of schools have a shortage, more people per classroom, less time to give individual students, lower levels of learning achieved blah blah blah......
I still don't know where I stand, but I know it isn't fair.
Maybe something like: If someone has say over five years checkable teaching experience, good references and all the rest, they should be able to collect credits which should allow them to jump ahead in their place in the degree in teaching esl. Then they still have to do some course work, pass an exam but more quickly....,. Or something along those lines. |
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JZer
Joined: 16 Jan 2005
Posts: 3898
Location: Pittsburgh
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| Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2010 3:52 am Post subject: |
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My feeling is, when was it ever the best man for the job?
It seems like one of those wise tales. |
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