anti-productive
November 2008 
WACKY PROFESSOR or Education Gone A Wry!
Posted on Jul 9th, 2007
by 
Sharon
Sharon
Have universities lost sight of why they exist?
What do you think? I say, absolutely. It's become very much about a senseless learning of information that is playing catch-up with what SHOULD HAVE BEEN LEARNED in high school.
The acceptance of filling-in for the dumbing down and failure of public schools to have properly prepared graduates for the rigors of college, has become anti-productive and belies their true value. Largely, they have abandoned their responsability as an institution of higher learning.
Instead of remaining true to a college level curriculum, most universities have succumbed to crating remedial curricula so as to get the number of enrollments they need to stay profitable.
Would it not have been honorable to offer remedial classes to get into the official degree program classes rather than to dilute the education itself ?
This approach has had the further impact of lessening the attention of the populace as to the vastness of failure of the public school systems in general. This dilution process has had the effect of hiding just how badly education has been in meeting its obligation of college preparation.
People are jaded into a substandard education and phenomenal debt for a meager return, one that several generations ago would have gotten "A Lot more bang for their educational buck!"
Doesn't it leave a "craw in the jaw" to witness people being conned into paying more for less, in being given a pass when a fail is the honest response? How can we expect to compete in a world where the standards are surpassing what we find is palatable, while they DO NOT.
I say pablum is not appropriate at the college level!
I am out-raged at the deceit. I am appalled at how we, the adults, have failed in our educational responsibilities and have had the audacity to put a bow on the box we deliver with the accolades of how we are helping-out in these difficult times.
We are helping the difficult times to be more difficult by heaping huge financial debt upon the shoulders of college students while filling-in educational gaps. To a large degree, we are having them incur college tuition expenses for what they should have come to college with in the first place.
Why do we remain so silent? I surely wonder about such happenings. Are you wondering, too, or are you complacently accepting this with a shrug??
To me, it is all the more repugnant since the fees per credit hour are excessively high, especially, when one considers the nature of the what is Not learned in juxtaposition to what is being taught.
Students come out of college with a meager bachelors and a staggering debt that is outrageous and irresponsible to our youth. Our educational legacy isn't looking too good. John Stossel made a scathing documentary on this, and got it aired on TV. Kudos, John! 
To gain wealth at the expense of making up for gross lacks in basic education of our youth is immoral.
How did we get to this deterioration, esp. in such a short time frame? Consider that in the 1940,s the average high schooler's knowledge base is now equivalent to a present day bachelor's degree??/ How can this not be inane?
Have we lost touch with skills we once had, or are we lazy, or are we greedy? What is the answer? I'd love to hear some other people's thoughts on this. This makes my "brain hurt" as an old Monty Python saying goes.
I came to really look at this ugly mess when I was researching what colleges currently are offering. It was clear to me, that from my present place of knowing, I did not see the value of investing MY PRECIOUS TIME, let alone lage sums of money for information of no interest or value to me.
Where I differed from the enrolling students, was largely due to the fact that I had a sense of what my time was worth regarding investing it into anything, and an awareness of what I wanted an education to offer me.
I wasn't an empty slate looking to be mindlessly written upon by some meaningless standard, no, I was looking for specifics. If universities couldn't offer me what I wanted, why would I consider going into massive debt for what I didn't want, didn't value, didn't need?
I define myself. No degree in the world defines or enlightens me. I am fed by Source and can find whatever I need when I need it. Now, that is how an educated Mind works, isn't it?
What would be lost if universities died off for lack of proper educational focus and lack of value offerings to a discerning buyer of information? What would be lost if they died the natural death of anything that no longer serves its purpose and because they became vehicles of debt producing slavery to their grads?
Better yet, what would fill the void they'd leave behind?
We need real pillars of educational fortitude teaching the forging of mental acuity and acumen and not a broad range of useless info that "doesn't stick to the mental ribs of our selves.
This may mean the evolution of new teaching institutions of higher learning. I think the ones we've got are losing sight of purpose and are the professors of "lock in the box" thinking which is stinkin thinkin of a "higher order"!
They have also become better at "spinning" information than teaching people how to think. Education is "missing the boat" in more ways than one, eh?
I base much of this awareness on my personal experiences of returning to colleges for various courses, and seeing first hand the deterioration of expectations, and that includes what is offered to the student, as well as what is demanded in student performances.
We can look at how an "A" grade is now more than 4.0!!?? Oh, this is a whole other issue, but not for now...
ATL
What do you think? I say, absolutely. It's become very much about a senseless learning of information that is playing catch-up with what SHOULD HAVE BEEN LEARNED in high school.
The acceptance of filling-in for the dumbing down and failure of public schools to have properly prepared graduates for the rigors of college, has become anti-productive and belies their true value. Largely, they have abandoned their responsability as an institution of higher learning.
Instead of remaining true to a college level curriculum, most universities have succumbed to crating remedial curricula so as to get the number of enrollments they need to stay profitable.
Would it not have been honorable to offer remedial classes to get into the official degree program classes rather than to dilute the education itself ?
This approach has had the further impact of lessening the attention of the populace as to the vastness of failure of the public school systems in general. This dilution process has had the effect of hiding just how badly education has been in meeting its obligation of college preparation.
People are jaded into a substandard education and phenomenal debt for a meager return, one that several generations ago would have gotten "A Lot more bang for their educational buck!"
Doesn't it leave a "craw in the jaw" to witness people being conned into paying more for less, in being given a pass when a fail is the honest response? How can we expect to compete in a world where the standards are surpassing what we find is palatable, while they DO NOT.
I say pablum is not appropriate at the college level!
I am out-raged at the deceit. I am appalled at how we, the adults, have failed in our educational responsibilities and have had the audacity to put a bow on the box we deliver with the accolades of how we are helping-out in these difficult times.
We are helping the difficult times to be more difficult by heaping huge financial debt upon the shoulders of college students while filling-in educational gaps. To a large degree, we are having them incur college tuition expenses for what they should have come to college with in the first place.
Why do we remain so silent? I surely wonder about such happenings. Are you wondering, too, or are you complacently accepting this with a shrug??
To me, it is all the more repugnant since the fees per credit hour are excessively high, especially, when one considers the nature of the what is Not learned in juxtaposition to what is being taught.
Students come out of college with a meager bachelors and a staggering debt that is outrageous and irresponsible to our youth. Our educational legacy isn't looking too good. John Stossel made a scathing documentary on this, and got it aired on TV. Kudos, John!
Mater of Self-Teaching is the Bookworm Who is Alive in His Love o
To gain wealth at the expense of making up for gross lacks in basic education of our youth is immoral.
How did we get to this deterioration, esp. in such a short time frame? Consider that in the 1940,s the average high schooler's knowledge base is now equivalent to a present day bachelor's degree??/ How can this not be inane?
Have we lost touch with skills we once had, or are we lazy, or are we greedy? What is the answer? I'd love to hear some other people's thoughts on this. This makes my "brain hurt" as an old Monty Python saying goes.
I came to really look at this ugly mess when I was researching what colleges currently are offering. It was clear to me, that from my present place of knowing, I did not see the value of investing MY PRECIOUS TIME, let alone lage sums of money for information of no interest or value to me.
Where I differed from the enrolling students, was largely due to the fact that I had a sense of what my time was worth regarding investing it into anything, and an awareness of what I wanted an education to offer me.
I wasn't an empty slate looking to be mindlessly written upon by some meaningless standard, no, I was looking for specifics. If universities couldn't offer me what I wanted, why would I consider going into massive debt for what I didn't want, didn't value, didn't need?
I define myself. No degree in the world defines or enlightens me. I am fed by Source and can find whatever I need when I need it. Now, that is how an educated Mind works, isn't it?
What would be lost if universities died off for lack of proper educational focus and lack of value offerings to a discerning buyer of information? What would be lost if they died the natural death of anything that no longer serves its purpose and because they became vehicles of debt producing slavery to their grads?
Better yet, what would fill the void they'd leave behind?
We need real pillars of educational fortitude teaching the forging of mental acuity and acumen and not a broad range of useless info that "doesn't stick to the mental ribs of our selves.
This may mean the evolution of new teaching institutions of higher learning. I think the ones we've got are losing sight of purpose and are the professors of "lock in the box" thinking which is stinkin thinkin of a "higher order"!
They have also become better at "spinning" information than teaching people how to think. Education is "missing the boat" in more ways than one, eh?
I base much of this awareness on my personal experiences of returning to colleges for various courses, and seeing first hand the deterioration of expectations, and that includes what is offered to the student, as well as what is demanded in student performances.
We can look at how an "A" grade is now more than 4.0!!?? Oh, this is a whole other issue, but not for now...
ATL
Access: PublicTagged with: education, failure, schools, schooling, deterioration, grades, grading, progress, record keeping, paradigm shift, high school, vo-tech, social responsability, standards, meaning, time invest, debt, student, value, colleges, anti-productive, learning, tuition, loans
I understand this outrage and in fact also find much more issue with the whole “dumbing down of America” that has happened over the last 30 years. To add more fuel to the fire, students also feel “entitled” to debate what they deem to be unfair grades. Unfair may be a B!
The whole idea of education as business has made this shift and has created many of the bigger problems in education.Add to that full time tenured professors drawn from so called higher academic institutions and asked ot have vast publishing listed on their CV's shows a shift in the real purpose of teaching in higher education: to teach!
Good blog!
Thank You so much Sharon for this information. Our education system has many problems from K - up and most of us are either ignorant to this or (like me) knows about it but has done nothing.
I personally have set down and come up with ideas but I have no clue as to how to start a change in this massive system of education. Does someone out there have some knowledge on how a change can get off the ground??? Of corse there is always the one on one methods until then.
Love & Peace
Thank you for caring AND sharing…that is what starts the dialogs and gives fertile soil to the seeds we have in our Minds.
Re: Enlightened Thinker: That whole grade thing is a real sham. In the educational system I'd like to give birth into a concrete reality, grades will be non-existent. The way we will handle tracking progress is via journalizing, charts, and student contracts with themselves that we will help them review and fulfill.
This way the student is watching his work and playing an active role in designing his path of learning while keeping an eye on the consequences of his choices. This will eliminate the comparing of self to others, also, which is a very harming activity diminishing or idolizing one's sense of self worth. Who needs that while pursing their growth from childhood into adulthood?
There are healthy ways of knowing “where you are at” ways to that end. A grading , and there are destructive unusefulsystem is futile, esp. with the current manipulation of the the system into a totally meaningless commodity. (Oops! there's that business of marketing word creeping into an educational model, eh!!??).
I'm going to address the insights of Peter Lewis, a scholarship review judge, who plays an active role in deciding whether applicants get granted scholarship monies that are applied for, or not, in my post today. Thanks for the nudge.
Re: BeLynn: What are some of your ideas? Maybe, I can help since KRNA is an aborning business model for such social paradigm shifting. It is part of my vision that schooling extend the entire span of time we, as adults, are obligated to our children. That is, until they have become legal adults, which in most states is 21 years. That would mean responsive high schools would extend to grade 15.
This would land our kids into the adult world with the equivalence of Bachelor's degrees, the minimum needed to meet the challenges of a world as fast paced and as technologically oriented as the one we live in today. This includes the offering of vo-tech training opportunities for those so inclined.
Is this is the least (and wise) we can do to fulfill our obligation of support and preparation of our children for the launching of their freedom into adulthood, without the current chasm of leaping they are required at the 'get-go' to deal with presently? Of course, this thought is more developed than what I'm typing into print here, but does this not whet the palette for more??
ATL, Sharon
I agree so much Sharon…and never give tests in my classes, as it is only regurgitation of materials and not a useful tool for which to measure progress…I hope others can see the ineffectiveness of many of the current paradigms, but in 10 years time I have only met one other professor who agrees with the way I do things, and she is a zaadzster!
:)
Oh Oh Oh Oh!!! There goes the 2 year old in me!
Ladies, I know only a tiny bit has been said but it is exactly in the direction of my specifics!
Many people get turned off the moment no grades and test are mentioned it's the moment I get turned on.
I have too many ideas to get into here, perhapes I'll blog about it. But just one thing I'll throw out is the need for flexability (in both a general whole manner as well as in some specific ways such as … we stop deciding what level (grade) they're at and let them advance at their own pace (with guidance and structure provided as needed).
I hope to see the natural joy that can be seen in a young face when they've asked the right question and discovered the answer. The thrill of learning is often gone by the time they hit 2nd or 3rd grade … Can we help them to rediscover? Can we cahnge a system that is so stiff and set and govermentally controlled???
Ladies your words are giving me hope.
I agree completely. Freshman year, my first class was calculus. Lesson number one was the number line. I was outraged. If I don't know what a number line is by the time I hit my freshman year of college, somebody needs to send me back to 4th grade. I think it's really quite insulting to those of us who are intelligent beings. If I'm paying for $450 per credit hour, I don't want to spend one fraction of a minute learning something so elementary as a number line. Nor do I want to sit amongst those who don't already know what a number line is.
I feel as though education has taken a wrong turn– college has become almost too commonplace and adapted for individuals who don't actually have any interest in learning. There is a distinct and noticeable difference in higher education among those who are there to learn and better themselves and those who are there to get a degree simply because everyone else is. I believe that college has been dumbed down a considerable amount to be able to please the majority of students.