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[Amidala]

No teacher likes NCLB and the NEA, etc have been actively working against it.

I don't know. I was thinking the other day.. where did we go wrong? Something happened in my (our) lifetime, something major, that has changed the general way life is perceived and I can't put my finger on what it is. It is not JUST education or JUST technology or JUST.. what? What do YUNZ think it is? Why the lack of integrity?

[Puffin]

There was a bright note in that regard just today.
 
Rupert Murdoch, the owner of that British tabloid that hacked phones for information.
His solution to the problem was to fire everyone and closed down the paper.
 
Nobody would take responsibility, so he did.
 
Maybe lack of respect is being taught at the dinner table now.

[lifefeedsonlife]

I think part of it is that we live in a seemingly 'contextless' society. I don't think history is being taught well and I think that because we have a great deal of new technology, we act as though we can 'behave' in new ways too.

There's nothing new under the sun - but we want to believe there is. So we experiment in places where failure has occurred before - thinking "it's gonna be different this time."

The coolest experiment of the last 250 years had been the American experiment - but the lab shut down about 130 years ago . . . .

[lifefeedsonlife]

Another facet in answer to Ami's question.

[CindyLouWho]

I agree with that atricle 110%, lol

I was in WalMart a couple days ago and there was this SCREAMING 2 or 3 y.o. sitting in the front of a shopping cart.  The mother went about her shopping with an emotionless expression on her face.  I suppose she was trying to let the child know that your little tantrum is not going to affect me.  Well let me tell you what:  it affected me.  I already detest grocery shopping.  All I could focus on was this out of control screaming at the top its head child and thinking my God just go home!  Or outside or SOMETHING!  The kid is not getting your message because it is just out of its mind!  So I get into a check out line and a friendly man in front of me makes small talk with me  and I responded to something he said with a off-hand statement regarding the screaming child.  (This kid was unlike anything I could imagine dealing with in a store like that.....we have all seen/heard kids cry and act out in stores.....this was UNREAL)).....he said something about not giving into kids tantrums.  I said the child is out of control and maybe it isnt a matter of wanting something or not getting its way and besides the kid was way over-the-top past being rational with or getting any "message".....I said she should remove the child from the situation and not burden the whole damn place with it.   (Honestly, I would have stopped my cart where it was, told an employee I am sorry but I have to leave can you take care of the cart contents, and left.)  To top it off, the mother came right up behind me with her cart at check out with her screaming baby.  I said to the guy "Must be my lucky day".  I statred going through my thoughts and actions over recent days trying to decide what karma I had brought upon myself.........

Nope.  I don't love your child.  I have my own kid troubles thank you very much.

[Zipper]

I agree with that atricle 110%, lol

I was in WalMart a couple days ago and there was this SCREAMING 2 or 3 y.o. sitting in the front of a shopping cart.  The mother went about her shopping with an emotionless expression on her face.  I suppose she was trying to let the child know that your little tantrum is not going to affect me.  Well let me tell you what:  it affected me.  I already detest grocery shopping.  All I could focus on was this out of control screaming at the top its head child and thinking my God just go home!  Or outside or SOMETHING!  The kid is not getting your message because it is just out of its mind!  So I get into a check out line and a friendly man in front of me makes small talk with me  and I responded to something he said with a off-hand statement regarding the screaming child.  (This kid was unlike anything I could imagine dealing with in a store like that.....we have all seen/heard kids cry and act out in stores.....this was UNREAL)).....he said something about not giving into kids tantrums.  I said the child is out of control and maybe it isnt a matter of wanting something or not getting its way and besides the kid was way over-the-top past being rational with or getting any "message".....I said she should remove the child from the situation and not burden the whole damn place with it.   (Honestly, I would have stopped my cart where it was, told an employee I am sorry but I have to leave can you take care of the cart contents, and left.)  To top it off, the mother came right up behind me with her cart at check out with her screaming baby.  I said to the guy "Must be my lucky day".  I statred going through my thoughts and actions over recent days trying to decide what karma I had brought upon myself.........

Nope.  I don't love your child.  I have my own kid troubles thank you very much.

OMG CLW... I couldn't agree more.
The screaming child thing in stores has gotten out of control.
It is burdensome to EVERYONE except the parent, apparently, and should be addressed by management.

Same scenario for me one day, screaming kid, clueless mom.... I wanted to throw watermelons and rotten tomatoes at her. Or at least walk up to her and tell her that THIS would be a good time to practice her parenting skills.

Why we don't speak up is another matter. I wandered around trying to ignore it for a while... finally after a seemingly loooooong time and many isles later....the kid stopped, but I never did approach her.

[NightmarePatrol]

Should have printed this out before you left.



Back to the education thing...

[CindyLouWho]

  I think I had a Bingo.

[lifefeedsonlife]

In further answer to Ami's question:
 
How to Land Your Kid in Therapy
 
Please take the time to read the entire article. (It's a 4 page Atlantic article - so it's rather longish by today's instant 'net graphic quick easily digestible standards.) Seriously - don't think the first page covers it all . . .
 
I agree with the article 100% and believe this has a LOT to do with the general sense of malaise that permeates our society. It's where we are going largely wrong.

[Amidala]

Excellent Article! Tks!

[Puffin]

As we've all witnessed, there are some people who shouldn't be parents. Maybe more than some.
It seems every generation of kids is maligned as defective or pampered or some other malady that will limit their ability to function, effectively socialize or achieve happiness and success. Consider that maybe their worldview is just different!
In regard to Psychologists, they all write books about how screwed up the kids of people who should have never been parents are. THey all reach the conclusion that the problems of the small sample of patients they see, are the tip of the iceberg, and that all kids are infected.
It sells books.
The kids i meet at school seem to be fairly adjusted, have reasonable goals, some which are challenges, and like anyone else, have concerns for the future.
My observation is that if there is a malaise , than it's learned at home. Which would take us back to paragraph one.
 
 
 
 
 

[lifefeedsonlife]

Psychology & Indoctrination for the Destruction of Critical Thinking

 
Yes - it's real. This IS the intent of American Public Education.

[lifefeedsonlife]

The Master's as the New Bachelor's
 

“There is definitely some devaluing of the college degree going on,” says Eric A. Hanushek, an education economist at the Hoover Institution, and that gives the master’s extra signaling power. “We are going deeper into the pool of high school graduates for college attendance,” making a bachelor’s no longer an adequate screening measure of achievement for employers.
 
Colleges are turning out more graduates than the market can bear, and a master’s is essential for job seekers to stand out — that, or a diploma from an elite undergraduate college, says Richard K. Vedder, professor of economics at Ohio University and director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity.
 
Not only are we developing “the overeducated American,” he says, but the cost is borne by the students getting those degrees. “The beneficiaries are the colleges and the employers,” he says. Employers get employees with more training (that they don’t pay for), and universities fill seats. In his own department, he says, a master’s in financial economics can be a “cash cow” because it draws on existing faculty (“we give them a little extra money to do an overload”) and they charge higher tuition than for undergraduate work. “We have incentives to want to do this,” he says. He calls the proliferation of master’s degrees evidence of “credentialing gone amok.” He says, “In 20 years, you’ll need a Ph.D. to be a janitor.”
 

 
Who wins? The Federal Government essentially controls the Student Loan industry these days . . . so - they are creating indentured servants (along with what they did to Fannie and Freddie - creating an 'education bubble.') The Universities (kinda) in that they are getting more money in their coffers for what essentially comes down to (bogus) credentialling.
 
Yeah - I said bogus. In the course of my career I've had the opportunity to interview and work with people of a certain credentialed level . . . and I can unequivocally state that "higher education" doesn't mean shit when it comes to intelligence and applied knowledge. Schools have a financial incentive to keep asses in seats for longer - so even the dimmest bulb with determination to get a degree will 'get by' just in showing up and will receive the same "credentails" as everyone else . . . and the school gets paid (in debt money - because the Federal Government ain't got shit to back up the dollar.)
 
In other words, there's a lot of highly educated dolts out there. (I think a lot of 'em are in the Federal Government.) So the 'employer' doesn't win.
 
This 'fit of credentialling' isn't helping us in the long run. There's a better way to go about education . . . but ya know what's ironic? It's the 'educated' that brought us to this point.
 
 

[lifefeedsonlife]

Bill Gates talks about his $5B investment in education and whether it was worth it.
 

The reality is that the Gates Foundation met the same resistance that other sizeable philanthropic efforts have encountered while trying to transform dysfunctional urban school systems run by powerful labor unions and a top-down government monopoly provider.
 

 
It's kinda funny that the government has rules set up against monopolies . . . save when it comes to its own. Then there's rules (and power structures) protecting it.

[lifefeedsonlife]

Cheating is preferable to actual education.
 
NCLB as an incentive was ill-conceived, but does that excuse cheating? Especially in a place where children are supposed to learn?