Space Force Officer Relieved After Denouncing CRT/Marxism

[taxi1]

Science Technology Engineering ART and Math

My Dyson vacuum cleaner

 

[robav8r]

What COVID-19 has shown me is people in all professions will willingly stop doing their job responsibilities if they can blame it on something.

I literally, see this on every trip I make doing critical infrastructure assessments for DTRA. COVID-19 has become the excuse du jour for just about everyone not wanting to do their jobs.

 

[Jim123]

Teachers execute policy, they don't write it.

Teachers' unions influence policy.

I say that apolitically When a group influences something the way you like then it's a good thing. If they do it in a way with which you disagree then it's a bad thing. Regardless, they do influence it, and strongly.


(I do wish they'd flex their political clout to stamp out apostrophe abuse.)

 

[taxi1]

My Dyson vacuum cleaner

To quote myself, more than STEM or STEAM specifically, what we need are creators and innovators. We want a curriculum that leads to that. Art definitely has a role.

But not everyone has that creative, innovative mindset. Some folks are ideally suited for working the penicillin manufacturing line, where you don't want them wondering what happens if I push the red button.

I love going to Oshkosh and seeing the incredible contraptions that these non-PhD creators strap themselves into. Or the Carlisle, PA carshow. It gives me hope.

 

[sevenhelmet]

I actually get the STEAM thing to some degree. Imagination drives a lot of innovation. Art for its own sake is a wholly different calling, but artistic ability can play a pivotal role in design and innovation. Think about all the success of Apple versus other brands of consumer electronics. Generally, form follows function, but if you have both, it's a one-two punch in favor of your product. If you have something that works well but is butt-ugly, your innovation may lose to a product that is 90% as good, but looks way better.

That said, I also see the "emphasis of all is emphasis of none" argument, but I firmly believe art and music should always have their place in education. You'll still get your manufacturing line employees (if they don't get duped into going broke for a useless college degree first), but you'll also get innovators who find inspiration in interesting places.

 

[Flash]

A student's experiences really depends on individual school districts in this country and some of the things that some folks complain or praise in one district can be completely different in another.

I think that this is a bit of a broad brush. As a 'consumer' of modern public education:

• The shift to digital learning tools is mostly bad. People retain information better when they write it down by hand. They have more endurance reading material when it's a physical book.

We do live in a 'digital' world now, better get 'em started early. Even in the computer-centered environment they have now my kids still have to write more than enough things down on paper.

• I hate, hate, hate the shift toward 'FITREP style' report cards. They are meaningless, especially when teachers apply it with the same 'have to see right movement' as a fitrep. I don't want to see a 2 for 'progressing toward grade level' and get an explanation 'well, it's only October so I give all my students that score because they're not fully at X grade level. Your child is doing wonderful!' Give my kid a numerical or letter grade so I know how much information they actually retained and where their weak areas are.

They do that for elementary schools in my school system but switch to letter grades in middle school, not really much of a difference between the two when you actually dig into them here frankly.

• When I was a kid I had to show every assignment to my parents to get signed. Memories of my dad saying "I'm not signing it until it's right." "What's wrong with it?" "You tell me." Now teachers guard that shit like the holy grail, only to emerge on parent teacher conference day. No, you can't take any of it home to go over it with your child.

Never been an issue with my kids, as a matter of fact the elementary school sends completed schoolwork home in such volume (all done on paper) I often wish they would cut down on it a bit.

Like I said every school district/system will have different experiences, my family has been pretty happy with our local schools that do several things similar to what you describe but seemingly implementing them better. We specifically narrowed our housing search when we bought several years ago to specific areas in order to get into one of the good school districts our area, as @sevenhelmet pointed out, avoiding several others to include the one I grew up in.

 

[Brett327]

I’m imagining spending an evening with Spekkio in his home would be like when Jodie Foster traveled through the wormhole in the movie Contact, experiencing an alien world for the first time. ?

 

[phrogdriver]

Valid points until your last paragraph, imo.

Are you aware how many people graduate with degrees in the liberal arts and can't find jobs utilizing what they learned, versus how many people graduate with STEM degrees and find themselves in the same predicament?

We, as demonstrated by the "free" market, do not need more art majors like we need computer scientists, engineers, etc. Also, one can be a fantastic artist on the level of Van Gogh or Mozart without ever attending a university, which is not true of architects, civil engineers, etc.

College is not meant to be a trade school.

By the same token, you can learn to code on your own, too.

That liberal arts don’t inherently directly lead to employment is not a statement on the value of a classical education. It’s a statement on the rigorousness and selectivity of secondary and college education.

 

[Spekkio]

A student's experiences really depends on individual school districts in this country and some of the things that some folks complain or praise in one district can be completely different in another.

Yes, I understand this and even stated it in my post. Your anecdote notwithstanding, the move away from homework is a broad national trend.

You work in DC. Do you live in VA? All of my friends who live in the state describe a similar circumstance to what you describe... A stark difference to what's being done in the NE.

 

[Spekkio]

That liberal arts don’t inherently directly lead to employment is not a statement on the value of a classical education. It’s a statement on the rigorousness and selectivity of secondary and college education.

Many schools have some kind of core curriculum that forces STEM majors to take a plethora of art / humanities / literature courses. I found these to be mostly a waste of time, never mind the fact that I was in classes for 50% more time a week than non-science major counterparts thanks to the labs.

I always thought it was BS that they didn't have a similar policy toward making art majors take a full calculus, physics, and chemistry 100 sequence.

 

[robav8r]

I’m imagining spending an evening with Spekkio in his home would be like when Jodie Foster traveled through the movie Contact, experiencing an alien world for the first time. ?

I imagine an evening with Captain Brett in his home being as fun as being with Hannibal Lector while he is preparing fresh faba beans and asking if I would like a glass of chianti . . .

 

[Brett327]

I imagine an evening with Captain Brett in his home being as fun as being with Hannibal Lector while he is preparing fresh faba beans and asking if I would like a glass of chianti . . .

I dunno, Rob. You and I have spent an evening together drinking beers in the club, and you appear otherwise unscathed. You seemed to enjoy the experience. Don’t worry, I won’t tell your other friends. ?

 

[Mirage]

College is not meant to be a trade school.

By the same token, you can learn to code on your own, too.

That liberal arts don’t inherently directly lead to employment is not a statement on the value of a classical education. It’s a statement on the rigorousness and selectivity of secondary and college education.

College is meant to prepare you for the work force, which is the same goal of trade schools (and basically all schools). You can learn to do anything on your own with enough effort, but colleges offer a shortcut and a way of proving you learned that thing to potential employers.

If you asked the person paying for any persons college degree why they are willing to pay such huge amounts of money, what do you think the answer would be? I think it would be because they hope it's an investment that pays for itself in time with a better job. So the value of the degree is, typically and for most people, is that it will hopefully directly lead to better employment, which is directly the opposite of what you claimed.

It follows that STEM degrees offer far more value than liberal arts degrees. I say this as someone with a master's in the liberal arts, mind you.

 

[phrogdriver]

College is meant to prepare you for the work force, which is the same goal of trade schools (and basically all schools). You can learn to do anything on your own with enough effort, but colleges offer a shortcut and a way of proving you learned that thing to potential employers.

If you asked the person paying for any persons college degree why they are willing to pay such huge amounts of money, what do you think the answer would be? I think it would be because they hope it's an investment that pays for itself in time with a better job. So the value of the degree is, typically and for most people, is that it will hopefully directly lead to better employment, which is directly the opposite of what you claimed.

It follows that STEM degrees offer far more value than liberal arts degrees. I say this as someone with a master's in the liberal arts, mind you.

College is not to prepare people for the workforce.

It’s to reach you how to think

“The person paying for any person” is generally the person doing it.

I’m not saying a degree in history from Podunk State is a ticket to riches. An engineering degree from that dump is likely more economically valuable

I’m saying that if we reduce college to being a trade school, it’s an overall loss.

We need technicians.

We also need thinkers. And that’s what quality liberal arts graduates provide.

And I say that as a person with an MS and an MA.

 

[exNavyOffRec]

College is not to prepare people for the workforce.

It’s to reach you how to think

“The person paying for any person” is generally the person doing it.

I’m not saying a degree in history from Podunk State is a ticket to riches. An engineering degree from that dump is likely more economically valuable

I’m saying that if we reduce college to being a trade school, it’s an overall loss.

We need technicians.

We also need thinkers. And that’s what quality liberal arts graduates provide.

And I say that as a person with an MS and an MA.

I have many friends that didn't go to college or started that stopped and went to a trade school, they are or have done quite well.

The one thing I have seen with friends, or those that I have talked to as a recruiter is that if a person is a technician eventually age kicks in. I run into many who are looking for a career change because they can't crawl/bend/climb to plumb, wire, build, or whatever their trade is. I guess we all think when we are 20 that we can do what we like to do forever, but the reality is some will and some won't.