Simmons says:
Never having gone to college all I can say to Dave is that by not doing so has done me immeasurable good. College produces a script for the average or slightly above average white or Asian, and for the most part little else aside from a little technical training on the side. Once these kids receive these scripts they lose nearly all their curiosity. Because why would they need to ask questions, mommy prof supplied all the answers.
From the word go the BUGS entry has been: “You have to have outgrown a college education, whether you had one or not.” I think I might use that as a leadin to asking people to read BUGS.
On a more general point, in a healthy free society people routinely feel that they have outgrown institutions. Why am I the only former professor who saw the whole thing as the pure fraud it is? National Review went to pieces at my 1976 demand that we stop wasting money on an “education” myth.
But they are still desperate to stay in good with the priesthood of our established religion.
Lately, a third of a century later, NR had a cover article about young people realizing they’ve been cheated. But they keep talking about “reform.” They are “disenchanted” with “education” as provided today. Every other institution has a number of ex-members who say it is all a fraud and a waste and worse. But when it comes to the academic bureaucracy, I seem to be the only person who came out of it and OUTGREW it.
What I said in 1976 is truer today. The last thing we need is some monopoly giving “accreditation” to specific institutions to provide what t hey call “education.” ALL institutions that get that sort of monopoly go berserk, but no one else seems to even notice it IS a monopoly.
#1 by shari on 12/12/2009 - 9:51 am
The gigantic college business has run it’s course.It’s can’t be passed down from generation to generation. The children of those who were very sucessful, with lots of college, don’t know what to do with themselves, and aren’t inspired by what their parents actually DO. Their parent’s money keeps them propped up for who knows how long. Maybe,not so long now! Can you imagine,going to school from 2yrs to 18 or 19yrs and don’t know how to do anything? Unfortunately,this has fed the military,which betrays them, as well. Grrrrrrr!
#2 by Simmons on 12/12/2009 - 10:03 am
Our new, new “Greatest Generation” the college graduate, how tough it was to spend four or five years repeating what Mommy Prof had to say. Maybe the military is more authoritarian than the campus, but not by much.
Since I am by definition a “racist” I have long since advocated that every black be forced to go to college, they deserve it, they all deserve it.
#3 by Wolf on 12/12/2009 - 12:02 pm
My views on University have changed a lot.
I went to a major university in Canada and I actually learned quite a bit of stuff. My degree was in Computer Science and a minor in Philosophy. I got a job in my field (I.T.) and I use basically nothing I learned in school. The majority of what I know and my abilities comes from my own personal study and doing things on the job. I have a completely different (and better) understanding of the stuff I do day by day than I had in school. I’m starting to think apprenticing somewhere after high school maybe best and supplementing with your own reading/study.
At the time I went to school a large number of people were cheating in Computer Science. Assignments were being shared, some of them had the exams before they came out. The field is full of east Asians and as far as I could tell they were the guys doing it.
I didn’t cheat, and I suffered for that with a decent GPA while these people excelled in the number. However in the working world, no one can touch me on the things I do. However, these people probably all got amazing jobs because they had a super high GPA. It made me realize that even if I did learn anything in University it doesn’t matter because it appears that people learned more who in reality were very lazy.
Contrary to popular belief, good programming takes some creativity. You have to see other ways to do things and ways to solve problems. I’ve found that these Asians can only function if every single thing is spelled out for them.
Everyday I work with Asians (east and increasingly south) and I ask myself where that work ethic and genius IQ I’ve heard so much about is. I’ve found maybe 1-2 in 12 years that has some clue about working. However, asians can excel at school, regardless of if it’s because they cheat or they are simply good at taking tests. That will lead to more and more of them getting top paying jobs.
What scares me is if I ever encounter one of these people doing a life-and-death job like a doctor. I can see something unexpected coming up and they won’t be able to adjust or they somehow fudged their way past that day’s test and have no ideas now. That will be the end of someone’s life.
Anyway, I’m happy to have found your blog and see that some people can see what’s going on.
#4 by Dave on 12/12/2009 - 12:06 pm
I find it absurd that higher education thinks that it can use the Internet to evolve “higher education”.
This is where pundits like Gary North get it wrong, even though he, like BW, has done great work in opposing higher education.
The MIT project (MIT is freely publishing its curriculum online) is not the “future” of education.
This is a project that North fancies as “reform”. North’s problem is that he believes in “literacy” in the larger sense of the word.
The world is far too big for Gary North, and North and his ilk represent the underlying problem.
It is not true that Eve disobeyed God by eating from the “Tree of Knowledge”. North’s kind can never see that the text itself is a lie.
The truth is that Eve never disobeyed God at all. She simply mounted a steed and rode out of the Garden of Eden. This was no offense against God.
Adam was the disobedient one. He failed to bring the steed under his dominion. Had Adam made the effort to submit the steed to his bond, all he needed to do was to call the steed to recover Eve, who was riding on it. A wild steed obeys any rider. A bonded steed obeys its master.
If you think what I just observed is full of sexual innuendo, you have not understood the slightest thing I just said.
Instead, I have told exactly why the “Greatest Generation” sold us out.
I also just explained why the world today floats in a sea of confusion.
Education is no “gateway” to opportunity.
To the contrary, only the determination to do what really needs to be done matters and this determination is the beginning of the ability to think.
#5 by Simmons on 12/12/2009 - 1:19 pm
The GGs were always called “our boys”, yep that about covers it. They made college what it is today, obedient children.
#6 by shari on 12/12/2009 - 1:42 pm
I think that “the world adrift in a sea of confusion” is not the right metaphor for us. Rather it’s more like being driven down into a bottleneck,which is about to explode.