Tag Archives: education

March 6, 2011 · 11:01 am

College the Easy Way – NYTimes.com

Another excellent article from Bob Herbert.  He’s fast becoming one of my favorite columnists.

This confirms a fear I’ve had for a while now:  That college has become the equivalent of a 4 year resort vacation for far too many students.

Admittedly, I had a lot of fun at College.  But I also learned more in one concentrated period than I would have thought possible.  It also laid the foundation for life-long learning and intellectual curiosity.

College also validated my natural tendency to question everything.  It helped to develop the critical thinking skills that made this possible.

That History Degree from a Liberal Arts program at Washington and Lee University has meant more in the course of my life than I can articulate.

This is also more validation of my fears we will one day be turning the nation over to a generation of Slack Jawed Idiots, or SJI’s as I lovingly call them…

Please click the link at the bottom to read the entire column.  It’s worth your time.

Intellectual effort and academic rigor, in the minds of many of the nation’s college students, is becoming increasingly less important. According to the authors, Professors Richard Arum of New York University and Josipa Roksa of the University of Virginia: “Many students come to college not only poorly prepared by prior schooling for highly demanding academic tasks that ideally lie in front of them, but — more troubling still — they enter college with attitudes, norms, values, and behaviors that are often at odds with academic commitment.”

Students are hitting the books less and partying more. Easier courses and easier majors have become more and more popular. Perhaps more now than ever, the point of the college experience is to have a good time and walk away with a valuable credential after putting in the least effort possible.

What many of those students are not walking away with is something that has long been recognized as invaluable — higher order thinking and reasoning skills. They can get their degrees without putting in more of an effort because in far too many instances the colleges and universities are not demanding more of them.

MORE:   College the Easy Way – NYTimes.com.

Leave a comment

Filed under Education, Social Commentary

Tagged as , ,

March 4, 2011 · 9:01 pm

Building Better Kids | Mother Jones

Fascinating article from Kevin Drum at Mother Jones….

A strategy that places greater emphasis on parenting resources directed to the early years is a strategy that prevents rather than remediates problems. It supplements families and makes them active participants in the process of child development.

Remediation strategies as currently implemented are much less effective. This is the flip side of the argument for early intervention. Many skills that are malleable in the early years are much less so in the teenage years. As a consequence, remediating academic and social deficits in the teenage years is much more costly….For high quality early childhood interventions, there are none of the trade-offs between equity and efficiency that plague most public policies. Early interventions produce broadly based benefits and reduce social and economic inequality. At the same time they promote productivity and economic efficiency. They are both fair and efficient.

via Building Better Kids | Mother Jones.

Leave a comment

Filed under Education, Politics, Social Commentary

Tagged as ,

February 22, 2011 · 6:43 pm

Want better students? Teach their parents. – Yahoo! News

This guy is right on it….

The Republicans are always trying to cut funding for early childhood development, Head Start and other proven effective programs, so I’m afraid as long as the GOP controls the House, there is little chance of anyone listening…

Plus, the GOP really doesn’t want educated voters with strong critical thinking skills.  Then they could see the GOP is all smoke and mirrors…

From Jerome Kagan in the Christian Science Monitor.

Although schools play a major role in teaching children the basic skills required for jobs in an advanced economy, the family remains the primary institution that prepares children to take maximal advantage of formal schooling and motivates them to persist despite difficulty.

Parents are key to school preparation.  A child’s academic training begins long before he or she sets foot in school. Studies show that more-educated parents instill patterns of thinking, processing information, and early reading instruction that form a vital foundation for later learning.

Sadly, children born to parents who have not graduated from high school are more likely to enter primary school less prepared for instruction and less motivated to learn these vital skills than those children growing up with college-educated parents. Yet most social scientists advising government on education reform do not emphasize the importance of changing the attitudes, behaviors, and opportunities for less-educated parents with low socioeconomic status.

The best predictor of reading and arithmetic skills in the early grades of school is the education of the parents. This relationship can have a major effect, because parents without much schooling are less likely to read to their children, to engage in reciprocal conversation and play, encourage improvement of their children’s intellectual talents, and promote in their children the belief that they can effectively alter their current conditions.

AND

These ethical considerations are inadequate excuses for failing to implement programs designed to help families caught in poverty – many of whom have lost faith in the national premise that all citizens are entitled to an equal opportunity for a satisfying life.

These programs can enhance the prospects of many children who otherwise might later require costly remediation programs that do not guarantee success because they intervene too late to offset the child’s already entrenched educational disadvantage and discouragement. Such later interventions rarely mute a family’s anger at a system that, by then, seems to be indifferent to their plight.

Programs that target early parental instruction don’t just change students’ lives, they have the potential to reform entire education systems.

via Want better students? Teach their parents. – Yahoo! News.

Leave a comment

Filed under Education, Politics

Tagged as , ,

February 22, 2011 · 6:30 pm

Poll: Whites Without College Degrees Especially Pessimistic About Economy

I’m not really surprised by this, but still don’t get why this group primarily votes Republican.

Well, I have some theories…

  1. They are particularly susceptible to the Republican disinformation campaign.
  2. Racial prejudice
  3. Most importantly, they have been hit hardest by the Economic downturn and don’t know where to turn.

My guess is this demographic was open to Obama and the Democrats, but was the first group to become disillusioned when the focus turned to Health Care, instead of Jobs, and no one was punished for the economic collapse.

These folks aren’t dumb.  They know the Rich and the Corporations have bought the government.

The Democrats need to work harder to make their case to this group and not let the GOP control the narrative.

It would also help if they acted like real Democrats instead of Republican Lites and delivered for this group…

From the Washington Post:

The deep recession has had a profound effect on virtually every segment of the country’s population. But if there is an epicenter of financial stress and frustration, it is among whites without college degrees.

By many measures, this politically sensitive group has emerged from the recession with a particularly dark view of the economy and the financial future. Whites without college degrees also are the most apt to blame Washington for the problems, and are exceedingly harsh in their judgment of the Obama administration and its economic policies.

These findings come from a new national survey conducted by The Washington Post, the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University. The numbers represent a fresh look at the effects of the long recession on all Americans, but particularly “non-college whites,” a group of long-fought-over voters often considered a bellwether of the political ramifications of economic woes.

A mere 10 percent of whites without college degrees say they are satisfied with the nation’s current economic situation. Most – 56 percent – say the country’s best days are in the past, and more, 61 percent, say it will be a long time before the economy begins to recover.

Fully 43 percent of non-college whites say “hard work and determination are no guarantees of success,” and nearly half doubt that they have enough education and skills to compete in the job market.

Not everything is bleak in this group’s outlook, according to the survey. Nearly seven in 10 say they are mostly optimistic about their future, although that is somewhat lower than for whites with college degrees, and for most other groups in the population. More than six in 10 report feeling at least somewhat secure financially.

The survey also found differences in the outlooks of younger and older whites without college degrees. Those younger than 50 were more optimistic about the future than were those older than 50 and were somewhat less pessimistic about how long it will take the economy to recover.

via Poll: Whites without college degrees especially pessimistic about economy.

Leave a comment

Filed under Politics, Tea Party, The Economy

Tagged as , , , , , ,