xp
when i had a training session on it from some practitioners i thought it seemed very anal re. the orderliness of the classroom but i liked a lot of the philosophy
― Kony Montana: "Say hello to my invisible friend" (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 15 March 2012 00:22 (twelve years ago) link
another real value of high-school education that sometimes gets overlooked in discussions like this is that education creates an environment and then measures people's ability to adapt to and succeed within it. to that extent, it both (passively) teaches students how to suss out and satisfy the environment's demands, and screens for those who can or will not do this. the environment is both curricular and social, and though it's not a perfect match, i think it does a reasonably good job of approximating and preparing for both university-level study and for some generic vision of "the modern workplace".
among the most basic lessons taught and screened for in high school are "get along" and "do what's required". these are basic workplace survival skills for almost any kind of career, imo. in order to succeed at most jobs, you have to subordinate your own desires the expectations of a rather narrow role. regardless of what field you eventually choose, you will probably have to spend years doing mundane shit that doesn't intrinsically fascinate you in order to acquire the advanced skills that will allow you to succeed in the long run. you will have to dress appropriately, treat your supposed superiors with deference, do boring work whose utility you don't fully comprehend, and avoid conflict with your peers. high school teaches just these things.
also, i think it's kind of a good thing that high school education isn't based on what kids think they're going to want to do with the rest of their lives. as others have pointed out, our teenage years probably aren't the best time to be making long-term life decisions. therefore, i think it's good that high school education aims in general for broad-based "college preparedness" of the sort that suits just about any eventual career path.
― Fozzy Osbourne (contenderizer), Thursday, 15 March 2012 00:55 (twelve years ago) link
education creates an environment and then measures people's ability to adapt to and succeed within it
so does, well, anything that would replace it nobody is advocating teen anarchy here
― deconstructive witticism (darraghmac), Thursday, 15 March 2012 00:57 (twelve years ago) link
thought this thread was going to be about sex
― buzza, Thursday, 15 March 2012 01:00 (twelve years ago) link
i think that one of the best things that educational institutions teach students is (pace Howard Stern) when to shut up and to sit down.
― kurwa mać (Polish for "long life") (Eisbaer), Thursday, 15 March 2012 01:05 (twelve years ago) link
i was about to literally say the same thing, but not in approbation
― Kony Montana: "Say hello to my invisible friend" (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 15 March 2012 01:07 (twelve years ago) link
I don't mind the general college-prep drift of US high school education, but the whole 'learning a manual trade' aspect of high school (e.g. welding or auto repair) has completely gone to hell locally and I suspect nationally, too. It needs to be revivied and strengthened, imo. There are a substantial number of students who respond well to this sort of trade-school emphasis, but who find the whole college-prep side of school unbearable. A lot of them drop out or tune out.
― Aimless, Thursday, 15 March 2012 01:09 (twelve years ago) link
that these are purely artificial barriers, designed more or less to suss out your socioeconomic background or parent's educational level
this is wildly otm
― flag post sitta (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, 15 March 2012 01:11 (twelve years ago) link
he once told me that they have a unofficial policy of just throwing out any resumes from recent ivy league grads, MIT grads, caltech grads, etc and skipping down to the resumes from state school / community college transfers
dude obviously doesn't work for a large law firm or a hedge fund ... where such people are hunted after like foxes on an english moor (and by people with the same type of mindset, too).
― kurwa mać (Polish for "long life") (Eisbaer), Thursday, 15 March 2012 01:16 (twelve years ago) link
among the most basic lessons taught and screened for in high school are "get along" and "do what's required
yeah i mean if we want to teach this to kids we could just send them coal mines
― the late great, Thursday, 15 March 2012 01:19 (twelve years ago) link
the problem w/ 'barrier to entry' is that it sorta suggests that it's a system that was designed from above. in some cases that's true, but not that many. a md is definitely a 'barrier to entry' to the medical field - legally, you cannot be a doctor without an md. it's a profession that requires tons of technical skills and a small mistake can kill somebody, having a strict barrier to entry is probably a good thing, though people might argue that there are better ways to go about it than the system we have set up today.
for the most part education doesn't provide highly technical skills and doesn't get you past *legal* barriers to entry. it's better understood as a collection of ~signals~ and the job market / society responds to those signals, sometimes creating what effectively adds up to a barrier to entry in the collective response.
if mark zuckerberg wanted to work for a tech company, despite not having a college degree, I imagine he could get a job. if he wanted to be a lawyer, he'd still have to go to school and pass the bar. if he wanted to be a mechanic, he'd still have to learn technical skills.
I've linked this before, but this is my favorite writer on the subject:http://www.quickanded.com/2011/05/is-higher-education-a-bubble-fraud-conspiracy-ponzi-scheme-part-ii.html
― iatee, Thursday, 15 March 2012 01:20 (twelve years ago) link
that's a great article
i think the argument in the OP is that school these days is 90% #1, 2 and 3, which (like most ivy league grads i know) are of dubious value to anybody
― the late great, Thursday, 15 March 2012 01:26 (twelve years ago) link
Why is it that students can graduate from MIT and Harvard, yet not know how to solve a simple third-grade problem in science: lighting a light bulb with a battery and wire? Beginning with this startling fact, this program systematically explores many of the assumptions that we hold about learning to show that education is based on a series of myths
http://www.learner.org/resources/series26.html
― the late great, Thursday, 15 March 2012 01:27 (twelve years ago) link
^^ this is from the annenberg foundation, btw, so steer clear if you hate liberal bullshit
― the late great, Thursday, 15 March 2012 01:29 (twelve years ago) link
yeah, but i didn't say that's all we're teaching. the college/white collar workplace prep environment part is just as crucial.
― Fozzy Osbourne (contenderizer), Thursday, 15 March 2012 01:29 (twelve years ago) link
uh
college and the white-collar workplace have little in common
speaking of which, which white-collar workplace are you referring to?
― the late great, Thursday, 15 March 2012 01:30 (twelve years ago) link
the only interchangeable white-collar workplace i can think of is admin
― the late great, Thursday, 15 March 2012 01:31 (twelve years ago) link
white-collar workplace rules taught in high school:
1) do what the boss says2) don't get in fights on school (work) property3) timeliness and neatness count4) dress appropriately and speak with deference to your supposed "superiors"5) etc, etc, etc.
― Fozzy Osbourne (contenderizer), Thursday, 15 March 2012 01:37 (twelve years ago) link
i'd say that they have a huge amount in common, having spent a good deal of my life in both.
― Fozzy Osbourne (contenderizer), Thursday, 15 March 2012 01:38 (twelve years ago) link
xp to my own post
I missed mordy's post upthread but I'm generally in agreement w/ robin hanson on this / said more or less the same thing / as does kevin carey
― iatee, Thursday, 15 March 2012 01:40 (twelve years ago) link
colleges are totally different from one another. and even different programs at the same college are totally different from one another! I don't think you can really make any generalizations about colleges as such. I think its more, and this has been discussed on ilx plenty before, that if enough of yr. applicants have degrees, and given that a degree is going to have some correlation with capacity as a first-order filter, then you might as well not even consider the applicants without it.
― s.clover, Thursday, 15 March 2012 01:40 (twelve years ago) link
College students sleep in and sometimes cut classes and basically make their own hours. The #1 rule of workplaces (white collar and otherwise) is pretty much show up on time and don't leave early. And you can't put your head on your desk and sleep if you get bored while somebody is talking. Also college students can dress pretty much however they want. Meanwhile the #2 rule of white collar workplaces is look somewhat together.
but as I said this is a total generalization and I know there are colleges and b-school depts w/in colleges that make a big deal about being on time and dressing sharp and etc.
― s.clover, Thursday, 15 March 2012 01:43 (twelve years ago) link
well the institution wasn't *designed* as something to signal the perfect office worker, it just slowly grew into a signal that's used in that way. if employers got a say, 'being on time' would be an important part of getting your college degree, cause that tells them more than the fact that you got a B+ in anthropology.
― iatee, Thursday, 15 March 2012 01:46 (twelve years ago) link
another important point of connection between high school, college and the white-collar workplace (including blue-collar management and the "professions"): emphasis on paper and computer work.
― Fozzy Osbourne (contenderizer), Thursday, 15 March 2012 02:05 (twelve years ago) link
WTF are you even talking about
mechanics handle 10x as much paper (in triplicate no less) than most white-collar workers i know
also these
1) do what the boss says2) don't get in fights on school (work) property3) timeliness and neatness count4) dress appropriately and speak with deference to your supposed "superiors"
are also the rules at "mcdonalds"
― the late great, Thursday, 15 March 2012 03:33 (twelve years ago) link
also if by "computer work" you mean "word processing" then i gotcha but i guess you've never been to a bank?
― the late great, Thursday, 15 March 2012 03:34 (twelve years ago) link
ah i'm sorry man
i have no idea why i am taking such a nasty tone
it's just that you're saying so much does not compute stuff and in such an authoritative tone that it makes my temples pound
― the late great, Thursday, 15 March 2012 03:35 (twelve years ago) link
your tone is fine, contenderizer is just being willfully obtuse & argumentative for the billionth time
― Flat Of NAGLs (sleeve), Thursday, 15 March 2012 03:44 (twelve years ago) link
I've been made fun of behind my back for caring too much about the content of my classes. It's definitely still not cool to appear to be enthusiastic about anything except money.
― riding on a cloud (blank), Thursday, 15 March 2012 03:54 (twelve years ago) link
i'm perhaps being argumentative, in that i'm stating things rather bluntly, but it's my experience of the white collar workplace that paper and computer work really are central to it, much more so than at the blue collar jobs i've had. note that i was including management, office/admin stuff and the professions in "white collar".
― Fozzy Osbourne (contenderizer), Thursday, 15 March 2012 03:57 (twelve years ago) link
some of the blue collar work i've done: cleaning sites & offices of various sorts, groundskeeping, light carpentry, drywall, bus driving, prep cook, register jockey
white collare work i've done: database design & maintenance, technical writing, manuscript evaluation, contract checking, qa/qc, accounting, research
^ perhaps skews my perception of things
― Fozzy Osbourne (contenderizer), Thursday, 15 March 2012 04:01 (twelve years ago) link
i was awesome at all of these things at high school and completely useless at them in a white-collar workplace
― lex pretend, Thursday, 15 March 2012 09:47 (twelve years ago) link
in school i don't think even i would've guessed i had a latent problem with authority but i found i was pretty unable to tolerate my "superiors" talking to me rudely in the office
― lex pretend, Thursday, 15 March 2012 09:48 (twelve years ago) link
anyway, what i'm saying is, i find it pretty depressing if those are the things we're meant to take from our school experience
― lex pretend, Thursday, 15 March 2012 09:49 (twelve years ago) link
nobody in a workplace should talk rudely to colleagues, it's fucking unprofessional imo
― Kony Montana: "Say hello to my invisible friend" (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 15 March 2012 09:50 (twelve years ago) link
it's pretty endemic ime
― lex pretend, Thursday, 15 March 2012 09:53 (twelve years ago) link
well yeah here too but it's unacceptable i think. not the occasional "had a bad day" snap but a general level of disrespect and sense of hierarchical entitlement
― Kony Montana: "Say hello to my invisible friend" (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 15 March 2012 09:54 (twelve years ago) link
ughhhh workplace hierarchies and the multiple little ways in which people attempt to reinforce them ALL THE TIME that have nothing to do with your actual job or the work you're meant to be doing. at my last job there was a senior guy who was always throwing his weight around in a really argy-bargy at the junior staff, always little menial stuff about why is your desk so untidy or why is there no paper in the printer. it takes two seconds to put the paper in the printer, fucking do it yourself, as i snapped at him once. when he tried to make a fuss about why i was speaking to him like that i was just like, you may be ~senior~ staff but i don't actually report to you. do it yourself. this kept on happening so my own boss eventually just moved my desk so i wasn't anywhere near him.
*hugs freelance lifestyle with no boss and no senior staff and no hierarchies*
― lex pretend, Thursday, 15 March 2012 10:01 (twelve years ago) link
and the thing is, i'm fully aware that was actually a fairly decent workplace environment and a good company to work for, as these things go. some of the places i temped at, my god, inhuman
― lex pretend, Thursday, 15 March 2012 10:02 (twelve years ago) link
i think that one of the best things that educational institutions teach students is (pace Howard Stern) when to shut up and to sit down.― kurwa mać (Polish for "long life") (Eisbaer), Thursday, 15 March 2012 01:05 (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― kurwa mać (Polish for "long life") (Eisbaer), Thursday, 15 March 2012 01:05 (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
i will never forget the first time i visited a university i was applying to (as a high school senior), to, i dunno, somehow soak up its ambience and see if i wanted to join its gestalt, and i attended a class (it was a lecture) and NO ONE WAS TALKING TO EACH OTHER while the professor spoke!!!! you could hear a pin drop! the only place i'd been in my life that was similar was church.
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 15 March 2012 11:08 (twelve years ago) link
How did this fall of sna so quickly? Ilx is growing up.
― bamcquern, Thursday, 15 March 2012 23:46 (twelve years ago) link
'ilx is growing up' = cause this didn't cause a clusterfuck or 'ilx is growing up' = lol kids who cares?
I think it's an interesting subject
― iatee, Friday, 16 March 2012 00:57 (twelve years ago) link
The first one. I think it's an interesting subject, too.
― bamcquern, Friday, 16 March 2012 01:11 (twelve years ago) link
― Fozzy Osbourne (contenderizer), Thursday, March 15, 2012 3:57 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 16 March 2012 01:14 (twelve years ago) link
luv u bro but you are mind-bogglingly relentless on all subjects
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 16 March 2012 01:15 (twelve years ago) link
great thread tho, good convo
i want to make it clear that i disagree w/ the OP and i value the idea of a comprehensive liberal arts & sciences education for everyone, but that i also see (from the inside) that a lot of what is said and done in the name of (not only providing that education but also assessing it) is really counterproductive and based more in tradition and expedience than outcome
― the late great, Friday, 16 March 2012 01:21 (twelve years ago) link
otmfm
― desk calendar white out (Matt P), Friday, 16 March 2012 01:25 (twelve years ago) link
I tried to write a post on how all this applies to law school, but I was boring the shit out of myself and had to stop.
― the prurient pinterest (Hurting 2), Friday, 16 March 2012 01:42 (twelve years ago) link
Turn it into a law school entrance essay.
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 16 March 2012 01:43 (twelve years ago) link