Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!ncrlnk!ncrcae!hubcap!billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu
From: billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu (William Thomas Wolfe, 2847 )
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Education
Message-ID: <7492@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Date: 19 Dec 89 22:12:23 GMT
References: <1989Dec19.053905.11104@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu>
Sender: news@hubcap.clemson.edu
Reply-To: billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu
Lines: 99

From bralick@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu (Will Bralick):
>>> How is an ignorant person supposed to have cultivated interests
>>> in "irrelevant" subjects without being exposed to those subjects?
>> How about letting individuals determine their OWN interests??  
> There is nothing prohibiting them from pursuing their own interests.

   Except possibly the fact that they are being forced to waste their
   time pursuing Mr. Blalick's interests instead...

> If you just want to
> make money, then, with a high school diploma and sufficient drive
> and determination, one's future is made.

   This is an extremely high-risk strategy with a low probability of
   succeeding, and hence constitutes a red herring.  Try again.

>>   It absolutely astounds me that the educational system takes people
>>   who are living in the depths of poverty in the filthiest of ghettoes
>>   and insists that they study wars of previous centuries, Shakespeare,
>>   etc.!!!
> 
> So an elitist would contend that a poor person is not capable of
> appreciating history, or literature.  That is only for the upper
> classes in the suburbs -- the leaders of tomorrow.  Po' folk
> in the ghetto are only good for being trained to be laborers, eh?

   People in the ghetto are good for being anything they want to be;
   however, one of the most important things they want to be is less
   poverty-stricken.  Wasting their time and money on history and
   literature does not realistically address their needs.  Please
   note also that nothing prohibits anyone from acquiring this sort
   of information at their local library, be they rich, poor, etc.;
   not shoving this stuff down people's throats does not imply that
   nobody can ever know the stuff.
 
> If the quality of one's life is measured in dollars and cents,
> then it really is rather worthless, isn't it?  A better life 
> could also consist of being able to appreciate better literature,

   Sure, once there exists a state of financial well-being.  Notice
   that the highest levels of interest in the humanities have existed
   in conditions within which people perceive themselves as rich.  The
   Athenians were able to sit around philosophizing because they had
   enslaved enough other people to make themselves rich.  In the future,
   the same conditions will be created by the "enslavement" of artificially
   intelligent robots.  Once people no longer have to worry about things
   financial, their attention and interest turns VOLUNTARILY toward the
   humanities.  Clearly this is far from the case as far as ghetto dwellers
   are concerned; to present something other than a fast track to financial
   success to ghetto-dwellers constitutes tremendous insensitivity toward
   education users, as well as a massive waste of educational resources.
 
>>   Bullshit.  The educational system turns them off to school, and
>>   thereby sees to it that another generation remains in poverty.
> 
> Ahh.. there is no `culture of poverty,' then.  Poverty is inflicted on
> people by the educational system.  Gee, and I thought there were poor
> people _before_ there was an educational system, too.

   Hey, can you read?  The above does NOT say that the educational 
   system causes poverty; it says instead that the educational system 
   is instrumental in its perpetuation.

>>   Education is the mechanism for financial upward mobility in our
>>   society, but many users find this to be a ridiculous suggestion
>>   given the extent to which effort is directed toward things which 
> 
> Gee, don't our wise students understand that the median income of 
> college graduates is higher than the median income of non-college
> graduates?  Even those college graduates who have to read actual
> _books_ in college that they (and you'll find this hard to believe)
> don't actually want to read!  Isn't this _reality_ enough to 
> convince even the most intransigent of our students that they
> should do something that they might not actually _like_ so that
> they might benefit in the long term?

   Few understand this, since the educational system does not bother
   to produce rationales for the structure of its coursework, much less
   see to it that students understand that rationale.  As far as students
   are concerned, they are attending specific classes because they will
   be imprisoned for failing to do so, because these classes are required,
   and so on.  Of those who do understand, many judge the amount of bullshit
   involved to be greater than they are willing to tolerate, and opt instead
   for the sale and/or consumption of drugs.  These people are severely 
   stressed out as it is, just from having to live in the ghetto; they do 
   NOT need the educational system piling additional bullshit on their backs.

   Education must respond meaningfully to the context in which it is to
   be consumed.  I submit that if a person feels the need to take the fast
   track to professional employment, the educational system should not stand
   in that person's way.  If that person later becomes filthy rich and starts
   to wonder about humanities courses and the meaning of life, then the system
   should be ready to serve then as well.  But trying to shove things down the
   throats of unwilling users will result only in alienating the users and 
   wasting a lot of valuable educational resources in the process.  


   Bill Wolfe, wtwolfe@hubcap.clemson.edu