Regardless of what school you go to, the education gained rests on the shoulders of the student and their engagement levels in their own learning.
Education has less impact these days because kids increaswingly expect to be taught, not to learn. Laziness and the expecttation of employability is just as much the problem as the university tuition rates.
Every generation has been lazier than the last since the days of Plato, and we've not degenerated into sloths yet. Skyrocketing tuition rates in an oversaturated educational-services market are a new problem, one that will cause an economic bubble in academia.
I wouldn't worry about listless youth, I would worry instead on the absolutely horrible investments they're making in education.
It is annoying seeing these posts. However, perhaps there is a great opportunity for hackers in this market.
I've created a bunch of my own videos (like Khanacademy but better) and have been teaching online classes for 5 years at a community college. My experience is that roughly 30% of the students pass my class without any interaction from me. They just need to be pointed in the right direction and need to know in what order the topics should be covered.
This fact, coupled with the fact that all elearning websites suck make for an opportunity. I don't know enough about programming to pull off my ideas on what can be done. There are inefficiences in the market but not as much as articles about academe being the next bubble suggest.
The biggest barrier to entry in higher education has nothing to do with the context of the education or course material, it's accreditation. In fact it's so hard and expensive to become accredited that most education entrepreneurs just BUY accreditation by purchasing a failing school. Until we address the high barriers to entry, highly entrenched players, and government support of the education industry I doubt any innovation will gain significant traction outside of skills training and tutoring.
It may be repetitive, but so were the many books and articles about that recent stock market crashes and housing crises. These things matter to a lot of regular people, and by extension they should matter to entrepreneurs.
I think in certain circles it has been dissected enough, but I doubt the message has gotten out to the public at large.
It's still a hot button issue for me, at least. When I was in 7th grade, my English teacher had us read Macbeth, Northwest Passage, The Last of the Mohicans, The Red Badge of Courage, and other notable works. We discussed them in detail and wrote essays ad nauseum. It was hard, but we were the better for it.
Last year, in my son's Literature class (note; it's not English anymore - it's Literature), they read a smattering of short stories from a brightly illustrated textbook and his sole "book report" was to make a pop-up book from his chosen novel "Percy Jackson and The Last Olympian" (now a major motion picture!). This was typical of many of his classes - plenty of busy work, but thin on substance. His middle school ranks very well by state standards, but it's just not a solid education, in my opinion.
This isn't a generational issue, either. Kids' minds are as pliable now as they were in previous generations, but I don't think the schools push them enough on the right things.
It's a huge issue that the vast majority of people remain delusional about. It bears repeating. Did you complain about prescient analyses of the housing bubble, too?
"Bubble" might not be a good choice of term for this case because bubbles pop with some dramatic short run consequences. The only way that happens is if the student loan machine suddenly breaks down, and in that case the driving issue will be a broad credit crisis, not the bursting of the education bubble. More realistically diplomas just start "trading" lower and lower over time, as more people and employers simply don't care.
The blog chatter leading up to the housing crisis was exactly the same. The fact that people are just starting to talk about this within the last year means it will be another 5-7 years before anything happens.
Epistemological mastery just leave us knowing. A lot of time we know how to do something, but we just don't do it. Perhaps it is time to start ontological mastery http://ssrn.com/abstract=1392406
Did nobody notice the other articles linked at the bottom of this one? For example:
"Black Children Do Not Need a Western-style Education"
I, for one, would like to see a little bit more criticism of things being posted to HN, and their sources. Because once people know the HN push-button issues, unquestioning readers can be easily lured down the path to thinking and believing very nasty things.
Despite what the 'logical' HN cannon says, an author's background and intent actually matter very much. It may be popular on HN to assume that only facts matter, but I invite you to read the following piece to see how "facts" (real things that really happened) can be skewered by intent:
Yes, to put it as inanely as possible. More importantly, they're willing to pander to certain "safe" beliefs in order to lure people in, by expressing things in a way that appeals to would-be intellectuals, using their terminology, and their commonplaces, to persuade them of not only highly toxic but fallacious conclusions.
It might be an idea to data mine submissions to HN to try to uncover if there are any special interest or extremist groups trying to gain leverage in this way by posting articles with relatively plausible titles.
Note: I don't literally mean that the author sat down to lure HN-ites in. Let's not flatter ourselves.
My point is that extremists in one area also hold non-extremist beliefs in other areas. That can lull you into a false sense of sharing an identity with them. And that, according to all kinds of psychological research, can end up with you conforming to their other ideals as well -- if you believe they go part and parcel together, you will, on some level, strive for consistency.
That's why you have to be aware of who's saying what, and why, and what you read, and how you feel about it.
That article you linked to was not written by Scott Locklin, in case you haven't noticed. Does the fact that an article is hosted at a crypto-racist website invalidate its thesis? Rhetorical. By the way, weeks ago Locklin's post on nanotech was upvoted to the upper stratosphere here on HN.
"That particular article may not have been written by Scott Locklin, but a quick browse of his other works on the same site validates ahoyhere's point."
Oh, really? The burden of proof lies on your shoulders. More to the point: citation needed.
Considering he gave you 100% of the means you required to investigate it yourself, one can only come to the conclusion that you are a troll, not interested in truth, but only in gaining attention.
A couple of Scott's archived articles turned my stomach, Watermelon. Such as this piece, where he details his preference for foreign women, because they're more submissive, easily-flattered, and wear skirts:
It's extremely revealing that he suggests Mel Gibson's attitude toward women as exemplary.
His articles on class structure expose a rather violent imagination about how best to conduct social intercourse:
"There are two ways of getting along with a lower class person at least to a limited extent. The first way is to beat the [expletive] out of them. They deserve it anyway, and most people lick the boots that kick them."
I saw that you've been reading his articles for a year, so it makes sense that your views reflect his misogyny and subscription to the violent totalitarian credo that might makes right. You wouldn't tolerate him otherwise.
Locklin was no more making a defense for the skirt than I was making a criticism of it. His position is that the proper state of a woman is to wear dresses and skirts, and that the only possible reason for wearing pants is that she's ashamed of her gender. His position, in other words, is that women should be easily identifiable by a uniform. This is part of his preference for women who are subservient and can be kept in what he feels is their proper place.
That you attempt to frame this in terms of liberty reveals that you recognize the shamefulness of this attitude. Well, shame on you.
On class wars: Locklin proposes to "get along with a lower class person" by beating them until they "lick the boots that kick them". Even if class warfare were inescapable, Locklin's views offer no insight except into the violence of his own imagination, and my point was simply that.
You may think your views are legitimatized in seeing them written by someone who claims intellectual authority (even while railing against the institutions who credit it), but the rest of us recognize them for what they truly are: crude, violent, and misogynistic. You are right on this much: I'm not convinced we can fairly add racism to that list, but I'd hardly be surprised to be proven wrong.
That's not "crypto" anything. You can't spell out "I'm racist" any more clearly than "But the real black is not on television, and you pull your purse closer when you see him..."
Or, by the direct author (and not the one wholly quoted), "It is clear that the few who purchased Black slaves in their day made a lamentable choice." -- and he doesn't mean that, oh, I don't know, slavery is immoral. He means it was a lamentable choice because the goods were bad apples that now will spoil the bunch.
Does this article's presence on the same site invalidate the thesis of another article? No. But does it put everything argued into question? Yes. Because there's no such thing as "the facts." You cannot ever have all the facts. The map is not the territory.
Therefore, you must the consider the motives of anyone who presents "facts" to you -- because they had to pick and choose, and could not represent all facts (map, territory), and why did they pick the ones they picked?
Dry-humping the idea of pure logic doesn't work in a non-platonic world where you can never, ever have all the facts. Context matters. Source matters. Motive, intent, and background matter -- a lot.
The author cites an article at the NYT which points out that black children are suspended more than whites. He then points out that this suggests black children are more likely to exhibit behavior problems, hindering the education process for better behaved white children. He then advocates segregating black children from white children, except for the minority who have the aptitude for school.
His reasoning and data gathering process seems no worse than most newspaper columns (which are, in general, pretty bad). I don't agree with his conclusion since some of the values he is basing them on differ from mine, but that doesn't mean his facts are wrong.
So how, pray tell, has he skewered facts? And why does that mean we should ignore another author who shares a site with him?
He quoted an entire, extremely racist essay to support his point. That way he let somebody else argue in his stead, without getting his hands dirty. Example:
"Blacks are keenly interested in their own racial characteristics."
"Blacks break down the intimacy that can be achieved in the classroom"
"One point on which all blacks agree is that everything is “racis’.”"
"Anyone who teaches blacks soon learns that they have a completely different view of government from whites."
"Blacks are extraordinarily quick to take offense."
"But the real black is not on television..."
There's no way you can take these statements and say they are anything but flat-out racist. It's one thing to say "This is my experience in a certain school with black students" and it's another thing entirely to say "Blacks are." If the author is telling the truth, then he mentions many "facts" of his experience.
However, he doesn't settle for merely reporting it as his experience. He skewers those facts - with intent - into de-personalized blanket statements.
Which are clearly and irrefutably racist:
"Racism is the belief that race is a primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race."
Him allowing that there might be a few "specially sensitive blacks" doesn't excuse him from racism.
Now, again, the author of the "essay" in question quoted this other author more than at length -- he quoted him in full. While he studiously did not MENTION the entire essay length piece embedded in his blog post, he clearly condones it. There's no way around it: racist, of the highest degree.
You've convinced me that Alex Kurtagic is racist, which I never really doubted. You have yet to explain why pointing out this fact invalidates his reasoning, or the reasoning of Scott Locklin.
In fact, I don't think you even are trying to argue against his reasoning. I think you are instead attempting to lull us into a false sense of sharing an identity with you. And that, according to all kinds of psychological research, can end up with us conforming to your other ideals as well -- if we believe they go part and parcel together, we will, on some level, strive for consistency [1].
You are hoping that if we pay a lot of attention to Alex Kurtagic being racist, we will share an identity with you ("I'm not racist at all"). Then, based on a shared identity, we will assume that Scott Locklin's opinions must be wrong, without even examining the content of his argument.
I think HN is smarter than that [2].
[1] Yes, I did steal that paragraph.
[2] I realize I'm playing the same game ahoyhere is.
In paragraph 2 he seems to imply that the curriculum isn't broad enough, lamenting the loss of "useless" classes, but then in paragraph 4 he seems to claim it's too broad and that new classes are useless, as evidenced from his claim that no one is making money off of Statistics or Machine Learning, and his implication that someone who didn't start their own company would have been better off as a police officer.
He seems to imply that perhaps grading is not as strict as it used to be, referring to some higher education as "virtuous slacking", but doesn't provide any supporting information to make such a claim.
He calls higher education a status symbol, referencing the increasing prices, mentioning that many take out loans for higher education, briefly going out of his way to mention government. He reinforces with a claim that people go to college because others do, rather than because they've simultaneously converged on the idea that it's a good investment. He doesn't provide any evidence that higher education is actually viewed as a status symbol.
More significantly, though, the author doesn't propose or imply any solution for the system as a whole, or even one of his pain points. The article is vacuous and unfocused. What I've learned from this article: The author doesn't like the current state of higher education, and his mother had to walk uphill both ways to get to school.
It's interesting how many stories appear on HN claiming that too many people have college degrees, when a historically low proportion of Americans have degrees in comparison to other nations. The proportion of Americans with degrees - around 25% - hasn't changed since the 1970s. Back then, that was the highest proportion in the world. However, since the '70s other countries began taking post-secondary education seriously. There are at least ten countries with a higher proportion of college grads. If too many people have degrees in the US, then you'd expect graduates in those countries to be despondent. Heck, Canada is over 40%. The country should be in open revolt if things are really that bad.
34 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 98.8 ms ] threadEducation has less impact these days because kids increaswingly expect to be taught, not to learn. Laziness and the expecttation of employability is just as much the problem as the university tuition rates.
I wouldn't worry about listless youth, I would worry instead on the absolutely horrible investments they're making in education.
Excuse my completely non-constructive comment, but am I the only one who thinks this topic has been dissected enough?
I've created a bunch of my own videos (like Khanacademy but better) and have been teaching online classes for 5 years at a community college. My experience is that roughly 30% of the students pass my class without any interaction from me. They just need to be pointed in the right direction and need to know in what order the topics should be covered.
This fact, coupled with the fact that all elearning websites suck make for an opportunity. I don't know enough about programming to pull off my ideas on what can be done. There are inefficiences in the market but not as much as articles about academe being the next bubble suggest.
There's opportunity here.
It's still a hot button issue for me, at least. When I was in 7th grade, my English teacher had us read Macbeth, Northwest Passage, The Last of the Mohicans, The Red Badge of Courage, and other notable works. We discussed them in detail and wrote essays ad nauseum. It was hard, but we were the better for it.
Last year, in my son's Literature class (note; it's not English anymore - it's Literature), they read a smattering of short stories from a brightly illustrated textbook and his sole "book report" was to make a pop-up book from his chosen novel "Percy Jackson and The Last Olympian" (now a major motion picture!). This was typical of many of his classes - plenty of busy work, but thin on substance. His middle school ranks very well by state standards, but it's just not a solid education, in my opinion.
This isn't a generational issue, either. Kids' minds are as pliable now as they were in previous generations, but I don't think the schools push them enough on the right things.
"Bubble" might not be a good choice of term for this case because bubbles pop with some dramatic short run consequences. The only way that happens is if the student loan machine suddenly breaks down, and in that case the driving issue will be a broad credit crisis, not the bursting of the education bubble. More realistically diplomas just start "trading" lower and lower over time, as more people and employers simply don't care.
http://www.actonmba.org
http://kaospilot.dk
http://www.knowmads.nl
Epistemological mastery just leave us knowing. A lot of time we know how to do something, but we just don't do it. Perhaps it is time to start ontological mastery http://ssrn.com/abstract=1392406
"Black Children Do Not Need a Western-style Education"
I, for one, would like to see a little bit more criticism of things being posted to HN, and their sources. Because once people know the HN push-button issues, unquestioning readers can be easily lured down the path to thinking and believing very nasty things.
Despite what the 'logical' HN cannon says, an author's background and intent actually matter very much. It may be popular on HN to assume that only facts matter, but I invite you to read the following piece to see how "facts" (real things that really happened) can be skewered by intent:
http://www.alternativeright.com/main/blogs/hbd-human-biodive...
My point is that extremists in one area also hold non-extremist beliefs in other areas. That can lull you into a false sense of sharing an identity with them. And that, according to all kinds of psychological research, can end up with you conforming to their other ideals as well -- if you believe they go part and parcel together, you will, on some level, strive for consistency.
That's why you have to be aware of who's saying what, and why, and what you read, and how you feel about it.
Regarding the nanotech article: http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/2010/09/scott... I was wondering myself why that article got so many upvotes.
Oh, really? The burden of proof lies on your shoulders. More to the point: citation needed.
http://www.alternativeright.com/main/the-magazine/the-case-f...
It's extremely revealing that he suggests Mel Gibson's attitude toward women as exemplary.
His articles on class structure expose a rather violent imagination about how best to conduct social intercourse:
"There are two ways of getting along with a lower class person at least to a limited extent. The first way is to beat the [expletive] out of them. They deserve it anyway, and most people lick the boots that kick them."
http://www.alternativeright.com/main/blogs/zeitgeist/social-...
Good grief.
Locklin was no more making a defense for the skirt than I was making a criticism of it. His position is that the proper state of a woman is to wear dresses and skirts, and that the only possible reason for wearing pants is that she's ashamed of her gender. His position, in other words, is that women should be easily identifiable by a uniform. This is part of his preference for women who are subservient and can be kept in what he feels is their proper place.
That you attempt to frame this in terms of liberty reveals that you recognize the shamefulness of this attitude. Well, shame on you.
On class wars: Locklin proposes to "get along with a lower class person" by beating them until they "lick the boots that kick them". Even if class warfare were inescapable, Locklin's views offer no insight except into the violence of his own imagination, and my point was simply that.
You may think your views are legitimatized in seeing them written by someone who claims intellectual authority (even while railing against the institutions who credit it), but the rest of us recognize them for what they truly are: crude, violent, and misogynistic. You are right on this much: I'm not convinced we can fairly add racism to that list, but I'd hardly be surprised to be proven wrong.
Or, by the direct author (and not the one wholly quoted), "It is clear that the few who purchased Black slaves in their day made a lamentable choice." -- and he doesn't mean that, oh, I don't know, slavery is immoral. He means it was a lamentable choice because the goods were bad apples that now will spoil the bunch.
Does this article's presence on the same site invalidate the thesis of another article? No. But does it put everything argued into question? Yes. Because there's no such thing as "the facts." You cannot ever have all the facts. The map is not the territory.
Therefore, you must the consider the motives of anyone who presents "facts" to you -- because they had to pick and choose, and could not represent all facts (map, territory), and why did they pick the ones they picked?
Dry-humping the idea of pure logic doesn't work in a non-platonic world where you can never, ever have all the facts. Context matters. Source matters. Motive, intent, and background matter -- a lot.
The author cites an article at the NYT which points out that black children are suspended more than whites. He then points out that this suggests black children are more likely to exhibit behavior problems, hindering the education process for better behaved white children. He then advocates segregating black children from white children, except for the minority who have the aptitude for school.
His reasoning and data gathering process seems no worse than most newspaper columns (which are, in general, pretty bad). I don't agree with his conclusion since some of the values he is basing them on differ from mine, but that doesn't mean his facts are wrong.
So how, pray tell, has he skewered facts? And why does that mean we should ignore another author who shares a site with him?
"Blacks are keenly interested in their own racial characteristics."
"Blacks break down the intimacy that can be achieved in the classroom"
"One point on which all blacks agree is that everything is “racis’.”"
"Anyone who teaches blacks soon learns that they have a completely different view of government from whites."
"Blacks are extraordinarily quick to take offense."
"But the real black is not on television..."
There's no way you can take these statements and say they are anything but flat-out racist. It's one thing to say "This is my experience in a certain school with black students" and it's another thing entirely to say "Blacks are." If the author is telling the truth, then he mentions many "facts" of his experience.
However, he doesn't settle for merely reporting it as his experience. He skewers those facts - with intent - into de-personalized blanket statements.
Which are clearly and irrefutably racist:
"Racism is the belief that race is a primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism
Him allowing that there might be a few "specially sensitive blacks" doesn't excuse him from racism.
Now, again, the author of the "essay" in question quoted this other author more than at length -- he quoted him in full. While he studiously did not MENTION the entire essay length piece embedded in his blog post, he clearly condones it. There's no way around it: racist, of the highest degree.
In fact, I don't think you even are trying to argue against his reasoning. I think you are instead attempting to lull us into a false sense of sharing an identity with you. And that, according to all kinds of psychological research, can end up with us conforming to your other ideals as well -- if we believe they go part and parcel together, we will, on some level, strive for consistency [1].
You are hoping that if we pay a lot of attention to Alex Kurtagic being racist, we will share an identity with you ("I'm not racist at all"). Then, based on a shared identity, we will assume that Scott Locklin's opinions must be wrong, without even examining the content of his argument.
I think HN is smarter than that [2].
[1] Yes, I did steal that paragraph.
[2] I realize I'm playing the same game ahoyhere is.
He seems to imply that perhaps grading is not as strict as it used to be, referring to some higher education as "virtuous slacking", but doesn't provide any supporting information to make such a claim.
He calls higher education a status symbol, referencing the increasing prices, mentioning that many take out loans for higher education, briefly going out of his way to mention government. He reinforces with a claim that people go to college because others do, rather than because they've simultaneously converged on the idea that it's a good investment. He doesn't provide any evidence that higher education is actually viewed as a status symbol.
More significantly, though, the author doesn't propose or imply any solution for the system as a whole, or even one of his pain points. The article is vacuous and unfocused. What I've learned from this article: The author doesn't like the current state of higher education, and his mother had to walk uphill both ways to get to school.