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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kidl who wrote (494158)	7/8/2022 5:52:05 PM
From: cosmicforce	Respond to of 540582

Yes, the time to educate broadly is prior to specialization. It provides general cultural and historic context. We consume 30% of our higher education budget learning things that should (IMO) have been part of primary and secondary (i.e. general population) knowledge bases. Our general population is incredibly ignorant. College is really expensive in the USA. It is horrible that we pay so much to become hired - and given my two science degrees - neither really prepares one for the careers based upon them. My best education - in terms of efficiency and efficacy - was the Navy Avionics course where the equivalent of an Associates degree in Electronics was delivered in about 5 months or faster. They used something called "Programmed Instruction" - wow! that was like the crack cocaine of learning for a willing student. In elementary - we had the Standford Research Associates (SRA) series - I loved those too. Unfortunately I had a teacher that "throttled" me and wouldn't let me read more than one a week. I would have read one a day and instead became disruptively bored. WTH?

To: kidl who wrote (494158)	7/8/2022 7:54:41 PM
From: Cautious_Optimist	3 Recommendations Recommended By Ron Terry Maloney Wharf Rat Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 540582

My problem is more related to privilege vs. merit in education. Social waste; where people do not max their potentials because of limited opportunities.. This is how castes are formed and perpetuated. Estate taxes, after the way generous exclusions, should pay for this next generation of scholars and educated workers. Also too many US children of all classes do not value public education as children do in poorer nations. Africans and Asians who DREAM of true education past 4th grade - of leaving the subsistence life. Of literacy. Also, I don't think anything is free or should be. There needs to be a price, everyone receiving a free education must give something back later; some sort of service (not necessarily military.)

To: kidl who wrote (494158)

7/8/2022 10:21:32 PM

From: koan

Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 540582

I sort of agree, a well rounded high school education is key.

I don't think languages should be compulsory. I think general information like history and logic and the humanities are more important.

But many kids like me never had a chance in high school and it was the community college that saved so many of us street kids as it gave us a second chance when we were more mature.

In Richmond California where I grew up the street kids and gangbangers flooded into the community colleges, because there were no entrance requirements at all. And if we succeeded we could transfer to four year colleges.

And most of us were successful and went on to four year colleges.

But to be honest, high school is not enough. And I am not saying everyone needs to go to college, but what I am saying is if you don't go to college then you need to work on more education on your own or some other way.

It takes more time than high school to maximize the human brain, which I think is moving from concrete thinking to being able to think abstractly--"higher order thinking.".

And if you don't do that you will miss and misunderstand an awful lot of reality.

Remember science has a word for it "knowledge directed perception i.e. you cannot SEE what you do not understand.".

And a good way to sort of know when you are there is if you can understand, see what existentialism is.

You don't have to agree with it, just see it, because it can only be seen by people who can think abstractly.

It is impossible to explain existentialism to someone who cannot think abstractly.

Going through life intellectually blind is such a waste.

Cheers. .

<<

The key is a well rounded high school education. My parents sent me to a humanistic grammar school in Germany. I wasn’t happy about learning Latin and a little Greek at the time not realizing that with these languages came history, geography, science and and and. There was essentially no option to drop courses along the way. A good thing imho as a 15, 16, 17 year old should not be allowed to “specialize” and thus limit his secondary education options.

I have employed a lot of North America educated people and never got over how “uneducated” they were aside from their specific “trade”.

There is a German term for this: “Fachidiot”... dict.cc dictionary :: Fachidiot :: German-English translation