Plus guest appearance by Clinton, who has been AWOL recently
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQJU_M4O-Rk
Thoughts?
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Plus guest appearance by Clinton, who has been AWOL recently
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQJU_M4O-Rk
Thoughts?
Amazing. I can only imagine what good Bernie could do if his supporters didn't turn their backs on him after the DNC stole the nomination from him.
Government intervention in education has already done so much damage, why not have it do more? Youths are growing up later, graduating less informed about reality, more subservient to political authority, with fewer critical thinking skills, and with fewer productivity skills and less time to use them in. We should keep doing more of what's causing that!
I would like to add that I think schools are great. I can't think of a better idea. If I ever have kids, I will likely homeschool them in K through 10 then have them do running start in 11-12 then university for the remaining two years. But I think government is causing a great deal of damage to the entire school system. K-12 has become daycare, where kids learn nothing as well as they learn how to avoid effort and hate themselves. Kids would fare far better with parents deciding what kind of education they receive than the government. College is being pushed in this direction. It's turned into 13-16th grade. Standards are falling and curricula are becoming less independent of the pro-government narrative.
So many people in college (and even in high school) today would be better off if they were working and developing careers and making money and developing the kind of skills that can only be learned on the job. But this can't happen as much anymore because the government pushes so much money at college that so many more people are attending college, which increases the supply of labor with degrees, which incentivizes employers to no longer examine applicants that don't have degrees.
It's very hard to argue that education as a whole is something that has gotten worse when the reality is that the time frame in which education has been anywhere near it's current form means that comparing it to pretty much any other time in history now wins out by a country mile. What times specifically are you referring to when you keep saying education keeps getting worse?
I don't even disagree with you about "free" schools not being optimal.
If we're talking price and debt, that has been quantified many times and pretty much nobody disagrees. It has been skyrocketing and this trend is recent. It correlates with government guaranteeing loans.
If we're talking standards, I haven't quantified it, but few disagree because it has apparently been done so elsewhere. Standards have been falling for a while. Milton Friedman and IIRC Thomas Sowell have discussed at great length how this began happening -- along with a detrimental shift in cirricula -- since around the 50s, when schooling began down the path of more federal and less local. N=1, my all time best teacher retired early because she wouldn't lower her standards. Sometimes in class she told us about what her calculus classes were like in the 70s. Even though her class was far more demanding than other calculus ones, it was nothing in difficulty compared to what she went through (in the same region). My other math professor had a similar experience. 3 hour hard as shit exams, but he was here teaching the same classes with 1 hour moderate difficulty exams that most people were failing and he curved like crazy. Another teacher of mine was hounded incessantly by the administration for having too hard of a class. He once told me verbatim "maybe not everybody is meant for college." Here was the quintessential academic intellectual who was probably the best lecturer I've had and was very sanguine about people learning the humanities, yet he was questioning his own premise because his students kept failing what he felt was him continuing to lower standards.
If we're talking about what the students actually learn, it has been declining so much that we are now in the safe space zone. There are so many news stories about things like faculty getting in trouble for offending students that did not exist a decade ago. If we're comparing now to, I don't know, 100 years ago, 25 is the new 15. These kids get out of college and are clueless about the world. The average 15 year old 100 years ago was probably more grown up and had a stronger work ethic. We can even look at how things were in America back before the 80s-90s. It was super common for teenagers to be productive. Now they're pretty unproductive until sometime in their twenties.
Regarding cirricula, K-12 is a nightmare. Kids are all too often learning nonsense akin to propaganda. Investigate the history of Christianity and Islam on your own, and you will get a wildly different answer than what was taught at public school. Even the university has succumbed to this. Institutions have been more or less making some shit up in areas like gender studies. What we're taught about economic history is filtered through one very specific lens, which I only know about because I've read a bunch of work from economists outside of school. How silly is it that I graduated high school and thought that the US was the biggest player in WW2 and I didn't even know about the Eastern Front? There are so many examples.
I love the old trope about how my exams were harder than your exams. With regards to maths education, and I more so speak about the UK, what we've actually seen is an infinitely better approach to testing children than we had 40 years ago and whilst kids may not be able to do as much in terms of width of learning they certainly understand the work that they cover much better than their parents generation.
Really it's how you want to define hard. It was hard in that it required much more memorisation and was all crammed into one test at the end. So when maths teachers, who had to put a lot of work into their exams & think they're smarter than a lot of kids they are teaching, see kids who they think less of doing well in exams it makes them mad and is seen as standards dropping. Really though that just isn't the case.
To say that kids in your parents day were more grown up is just one of those things where we define things as grown up so that it means kids now obviously aren't in the same situation but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Yes your parents may have been working since they were 12 years old, was that a good thing. Highly debatable. Kids now are massively more equipped to live in the world that they live in now than your parents generation. Unfortunately that generation is too old now to understand all the amazing shit kids do and the skills they have because they are different to the ones they needed growing up. I'd agree that "free" higher education results in more people doing that as a default than is optimal but to imply teenagers aren't productive now is bollocks, in fact the technology available to everyone these days means that kids are about as productive as ever because everything they want to do takes so much less time.
Obviously some of what is taught in schools is propaganda, and the US is particularly bad at this compared to other countries. All groups with private interests would do the same. We see the same thing in religious schools.
Also we shouldn't forget the huge part that nostalgia plays in all of this. The whole back in my day...
I'd agree that the whole protect our children thing is mostly bollocks (not a recent thing though) what we have currently is better than when teachers used to kick the crap out of students.
We should also remember that all the absolutely stupid mad shit that teenagers do these days is heavily documented. Everything is filmed, posted on social media, the internet. That appears as such a negative on the youth of today as it didn't exist previously but they certainly aren't doing anything other generations weren't.
In income terms, going to college instead of learning a trade probably has the highest opportunity cost right now than it ever has.
Youths are doing everything (except sex) later these days and their careers are less developed. The education system isn't the only reason for this, though.
Perhaps the UK is different when it comes to declining standards. The conventional thought in the US is that it's an epidemic. Regarding college, it basically can't not be an issue since there are so many more students. For standards to not fall, teaching would have to get enough better or students would have to get enough smarter, neither of which is documented. I do think teaching has gotten better to a degree though.
When it comes to private vs public, yeah private makes all the same mistakes that public does. It's just that when the system is private enough, i.e., competitive, the non-competitive gets weeded out. The private elements of our system are a laugh. It's not a private system but weakened private elements within a public system.
It sounds like the results of Finnish schools could be due to one of many different reasons.
Did you ever think that it happened only because all schools are free to attend over there?Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
I used to champion that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack Sawyer
They're free to attend here too. Though free isn't free (somebody's production still pays for it).
Harvard is tuition free? USC? Berkley? Stanford? Baruch? Now that is news to meQuote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
I thought we were talking about the schools kids attend, because that is what you posted about.
Would you like to talk about college instead?
ALL schools are free in finland wuf, including universities. Also in Norway and Germany btw, but let's not sidetrack. Not just "the schools kids attend".Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
It's at the core of the thinking that makes that education system great. I thought this was properly explained in this fact-filled vid?
Some marketing speak
Quote:
Finnish education is known for two things: The education system enjoys world-wide recognition for its excellence and, unlike in many other countries, there are no tuition fees.
In Finland, education is regarded as a fundamental right and the Finnish education policy emphasises equal opportunities for all. Against this background, it is rather easy to understand why there are no tuition fees in Finland, and why free education has been extended to cover citizens of other countries, too. In the university sector, the foundations for and the terms of tuition-free education are laid in the Universities Act (link: http://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/kaannok...en20090558.pdf).
All Finnish universities are publicly funded. Despite enjoying large autonomy, the Finnish universities are supervised by the Ministry of Education and Culture of Finland.
The University of Eastern Finland, UEF, is committed to a high standard of research and education. UEF has passed a quality assurance audit carried out by the Finnish Higher Education Evaluation Council, and adopted an ISO 9001:2000 compliant quality management system. Furthermore, since launching its operations in 2010, the UEF has appeared frequently, indeed annually, in several rankings listing the world's leading universities. In 2015, UEF was ranked among the leading 400 universities in the world by Times Higher Education, among the leading 350 universities in the world by QS World University Rankings, and among the leading 401–500 universities in the world by Academic Ranking of World Universities.
To learn more about education in Finland, please see the website of the Ministry of Education and Culture of Finland: http://www.minedu.fi/OPM/Koulutus/?lang=en
I'm often wondering why when something falls within the scope of economics, people generally don't care what the field has to say.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack Sawyer
I should respond to this specifically.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack Sawyer
In society related things, facts should be taken with a grain of salt. This is because the facts are not rigorous, and the ones that are (if they even exist) are hardly distinguishable from non-rigorous ones.
Allow me to give an example. In college, one of the areas I focused on is the area of economics that appears to have more research conducted on it than any other. And it is an area where the theory is extremely well understood and not really in debate. However, the research is non-conclusive. It's non-conclusive bcause we do not have the statistical methods to properly analyze the simplest empirical questions in the ridiculously complex world that is society.
As you may have noticed, the state of facts is that people find their own facts to fit their own views, and this can happen because there are an uncountable number of facts related to any sociological, economic, etc., phenomenon. This is in part why the strength and heritage of economics is in logic and math, not statistics non-rigorous to the scope in which they are intended to describe.
I should clarify that it isn't the case that facts within the scope of some economic phenomenon typically point towards one thing. They usually point towards opposite things at the same time. But people tend to only see one side of it due to things like confirmation bias and selection bias.
Must be convenient to work in a scientific field where all opposing experimental data can be dismissed.
None of that sounds positive to meQuote:
Originally Posted by Jack Sawyer
Free college is by far the worst idea ever thought up. It's foul manipulative demagoguery. "Hey, rich white kids get to go to college, and they do great. If your kid gets to go to college, your kid will do great too" That's bullshit. I mean, REAL wet stinky bullshit covered in flies.
Success has alot to do with temperment, not whether or not you sat in front of some libtard professors from ages 18-22.
And FUCK FINLAND. OMG I'm so sick and tired of the Bernie crowd gushing over Finland. Fucking move there if you like it so much!!!
500th place?? Fuck you!! Let's see the top 50, then tell me how fucking great Finland is. I mean, JEEEEEEZUS!!! There are only 190 countries in the world! And your best college is #401+ ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha and haQuote:
and among the leading 401–500 universities in the world by Academic Ranking of World Universities.
Oh by the way, no one ever mentions how so many of Finland's college graduates end up buried and debt and kill themselves. What the hell are they even learning in that school??
Free college makes no sense in America because it's already so incredibly accessible. If you're poor, a minority, or a female, then chances are there a companies, institutions, and government giving out scholarships and grants earmarked just for you. They're just waiting for you to fill out an application. Furthermore, there are community colleges ALL OVER THE PLACE that are incredibly cheap (some as low as $150/credit). Get a part time job and go to fucking night school ya bum!!! Pretty much every college in America offers weekend, evening, and online classes. So don't tell me you don't have the time folks.
College is there for ANYONE who wants it.
So if you're telling me that you can't succeed because the government didn't giftwrap 4 more years of schooling for you, then eat a rod. Seriously. The fact is, if you can't handle that, you'll never be successful at anything.
Another problem with free college....is what do you do with the idiots? I'm serious, if you have an IQ below 90, you can't even read well enough to follow instructions. That's like 1 in 6 people! What's gonna happen to them? If they go to college they'll fail. Then what? They're gonna go out and tell the world "Yeah, I was given a totally free opportunity to advance my personal success and I couldn't handle it....please hire me?" Doesn't it seem like this 'free college' policy will just increase inequality, and hurt the people it's claiming to help???
It isn't our best uni, it's actually ranked 6th here it seems. The top one is #91 globally. There's 26000+ colleges in the world.Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
They probably don't because it doesn't happen. College is free and you're actually paid to attend.Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studen..._aid_(Finland)
It's free, no one said there's no entrance criteria/exam.Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Oh you Negative Nancy, youQuote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Sounds like you have Stockholm Syndrome. Either that or pure envy. I can't discern which.
Oh, and btw, as CoccoBill so nicely pointed out, there are not 190 COLLEGES in the world. Or 500. Or 1000. #401 is not bad once you get your head out of your ass
:D this is such an iron... my badQuote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
I do not think you have seen the video with the top ten reasons why Finland's education system rocks, because then you would not have made this argument
Despite his lapses into sensibility, you can't argue with Mr. Stand when he puts on his tinfoil hat.
It's the same here in America if you take a major that isn't mostly hand-waving and nonsense.Quote:
Originally Posted by CoccoBill
STEM fields are easy to get paid graduate school. Physics grad students at Wash U in StL get a $25k yearly stipend in addition to their free tuition. (If you think it's easy to get into the graduate program here, you're entirely mislead. Just because it's less than free, doesn't mean it's available to anyone who walks up.)
There, FTFY.Quote:
Originally Posted by CoccoBill
So I present data which shows an approach that works, fully. In the real world, no less. You simply brush it under the rug. Claim that my data is literally fakenews and I can take whatever conclusion I want from the data I have. Because it's a society related thing, and I have to take these facts with a grain of salt.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Yet I have to accept wholeheartedly that your theory says my present, real world situation does not work or is not working. When I can see it working as intended, and providing excellent results at the same time. In real time.
So, instead of trying to see why it actually works so well and improve/perfect it where needed, and want to implement as much of it as you can into your own system (which we can see does not equal it in results), you bash it? That makes truly no sense to me.
What would make sense to me is if you bring up some kind of facts, not just theory, as to why the Finnish system is no good.
Exactly why I believe that economics is not a scienceQuote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ubris-disaster
Thanks for that info. The other fields get the short end of the stick.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
This is the main problem that Finland doesn't have, which is fucking up grads nowadays.
http://money.cnn.com/2018/06/05/pf/c...ats/index.html
Can't keep making Betsy DeVos happy
Finland is a pretty bad case study for education excellence and a system that should be used all over the world. There are lots of reasons for this and you can actually pick countries out that take incredibly right wing views to education and do better and have done better by the same (fairly nonsense) criteria these things are judged upon.
Care to share these reasons, please?Quote:
Originally Posted by Savy
Care to share these examples, please?Quote:
Originally Posted by Savy
Yeah it's recently pumped loads of money into the system and completely change the way they are going about things. It's had good results for a fairly short amount of time. You'll see this type of pattern happen every 5-10 years and as soon as testing criteria starts to change they tend to start performing worse again and the countries that change their approach for the new testing criteria tend to do better etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack Sawyer
What Finland does is incredibly bad for innovation and change so they will suffer from these issues more than most other countries I would hypothesise (and what do I know?).
International testing scores are also mostly complete nonsense. Places like China do brilliantly in them usually because the people that take them see them as an honour to be doing them so put more effort in and they literally stop bad places and schools taking them so the results are incredibly artificial.
Singapore is the main example. They have been doing very well for a fairly sustained period of time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack Sawyer
It's also massively important to realise that cultural differences mean that what works well in one country has absolutely no guarantee to work in another. If you tried doing what they were doing in Finland in the US it literally would not work and there would be uproar. There is also pretty big evidence that what benefits the whole doesn't necessarily result in the best outcomes. IIRC the best results are something like Chinese kids living in Australia and they blow away other similar samplings. Yet Australia doesn't do well in test scores internationally, doesn't get looked at as an example of education.
In places like China being told you get to take an international test to show how great your country is is seen much more as an honour that people prepare for. Try walking into inner city schools in the UK and telling kids they get to do more tests and see what reaction you get.
Experimental data in economics? That's a new one.Quote:
Originally Posted by CoccoBill
Joking aside, there is some tiny amount, but it's a tiny amount and still has lots of confounding variable problems and the like.
I never expressed an opinion about the Finnish system.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack Sawyer
I'm trying to avoid the thing that always happens, where two people talk past each other because they prefer their own facts and data. I don't know why the Finnish system functions the way it does. However, I do know it is pretty unlikely that it does so because it is "free". US schools are free too, and US universities are essentially free. A more interesting point is that Finnish university monetary costs don't fall on attendees the way they do US attendees.
Economics is not a science. Social sciences are not sciences. It's probably true that most of what people hear about social science related stuff is bullshit. Those fields' intelligentsia are pretending to be scientists and end up putting forth a whole lot of nonsense.Quote:
Exactly why I believe that economics is not a science
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ubris-disaster
This problem is rampant in economics. Lucky for you, when I talk economics, I stick to what it was about before the no-skin-in-the-game intelligentsia got a hold of it: models of logic and math regarding resource constraints and human desires.
Savy hit on several of the important components for why univariate analyses of school systems aren't useful.
One I'll add that is very important but doesn't get any play time is that each system exists within a bigger system to which they have varying degrees of interconnectedness. The type of thing I'm getting at is that a place with a school system that doesn't churn out graduates on the extreme right tail of the distribution can exist more sustainably if a different and connected school system does.
I made a mistake in using the "free" framing of school.
It is not free even if the people who use it don't pay for it directly. The cost is paid somewhere, and it's not where people want it to be paid.
Where did you get this information? Also, shouldn't any system be constantly refined and improved?Quote:
Originally Posted by Savy
A good opinion to have. Time will tell if you are right.Quote:
Originally Posted by Savy
One of the great points made in the video I linked above is that the students in Finland never "study for the test", unlike in other places.Quote:
Originally Posted by Savy
And indeed, I found this article on the Chinese PISA thing, but I found no such thing indicating that the Finns are up to the same shenanigans. One of the main things about Finnish education, is that all schools are the same. There are no "better" schools, nor no "worse" schools, and this is a crucial feature of the system. This is not the case in China as you can see with this quote from the article:
Quote:
If we dig deeper into the sampling, we come across another potential problem with the PISA testing: that the sampling done on mainland China (Beijing, Jiangsu, Guangdong and Shanghai) and other cities was not taken from a wide variety of schools. Rather, the very best schools were chosen and the very best students were cherry-picked from those schools.
Point taken. Now if the US schools are "free" too, then why is it that the US has such a problem with student loan debt?Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Does anybody know the causal direction of the feature? It can be that the feature exists because the Finnish are a certain way, or it can be that the Finnish are a certain way because feature exists.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack Sawyer
I realize I've been trying to talk in shorthand and it's making things confusing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack Sawyer
Your claim that Finnish schools not putting the direct costs on students impacting an outcome difference with US schools looked to me to be about education outcomes. Attendance in US schools is very high, so high that people are being majorly over-educated on average. I am one of them.
The debt that US students take on is certainly a thing, though it is probably not that great of an explanation for true educational differences between different systems. The impact on their lives of the debt students take on isn't even that well understood. Indirect costs are often not indirect, so to speak. It can be the case that Finnish students take on the cost of not paying tuition through other means, and that US students don't take on those costs because they take on more direct costs.
I've spent the last year learning about education, talking to people involved in shaping education, particularly in maths in this country so they tend to be pretty aware of what's going on in the world scale.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack Sawyer
Not studying for the test is nonsense, what you may be talking about is not teaching to a test which is also pretty much nonsense too. No matter how great your assessment processes you will have tests at the end of it which are important to teach to otherwise you won't get the results as high as you want them to be. Practice answering a certain types of phrasing of questions etc is all very important and I'm yet to see a large scale system implemented that is successful and viable economically which doesn't do tests.
Not having better or worse schools is complete shit too unless Finnland has absolutely zero social differences across the country. The idea that one school works for everyone is a lie. This can be seen pretty well with the UK academy system where lots of high flying schools have taken over poorly performing schools implemented there policies etc and made the schools much worse because funnily schools that work great for privileged high performing kids don't necessarily know how to deal with schools which have to deal with other problems such as foreign languages, high levels of deprivation, cultures who don't value education (or worse are actively against it), kids not going to school.
All schools should be up to bullshitting international tests if they aren't they aren't doing their job properly and when countries make changes these are the type of things they want to bullshit as it's an easy way of showing success.
This article offers some insight:Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
https://www.vox.com/2015/2/18/806378...ools-education
Quote:
Some people argue that Finland's schools aren't actually better — they're just serving a much smaller, much more homogenous population. Finland is tiny — the entire country has just 5.4 million people, fewer than New York City. About 5 percent of its residents are immigrants, much lower than the United States.
Schools in the US where most children aren't poor are actually better than low-poverty school systems in Finland. But high-poverty schools in the US struggle in part because of a toxic legacy of segregation, unequal funding, and unequal opportunity. "For a lot of kids who don't score well on these tests, you go back six generations and you have people in bondage," Jack Schneider, a historian of education, told Vox in October.
Finland, which essentially reinvented its school system from scratch in the second half of the 20th century, has none of that baggage. In some ways, the United States has two school systems — well-funded, high-performing suburban schools serving the middle class, and struggling urban school systems where students are overwhelmingly poor and from disadvantaged backgrounds. While Finland has a few schools educating low-income immigrants with an excellent track record of success, those schools are fewer and farther between than they are in the US.
As for the constantly improving and changing part of your argument yeah they probably should but it's very hard to do. Places that do well tend to have a more long term educational policy and stick to it because funnily enough a plan tends to be better than flip flopping every few years like we do in the UK.
It's also quite hard to take academia which suggest changes and apply it to schools across the board. A lot of schools in the UK are pushing for "mastery" in maths which is based on foreign imports like singapore and shanghai approaches but then they half ass them, don't look at the important parts that make it work and funnily enough it won't do anything special.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Savy
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innov...55/?c=y&page=2
Quote:
In the United States, which has muddled along in the middle for the past decade, government officials have attempted to introduce marketplace competition into public schools. In recent years, a group of Wall Street financiers and philanthropists such as Bill Gates have put money behind private-sector ideas, such as vouchers, data-driven curriculum and charter schools, which have doubled in number in the past decade. President Obama, too, has apparently bet on competition. His Race to the Top initiative invites states to compete for federal dollars using tests and other methods to measure teachers, a philosophy that would not fly in Finland. “I think, in fact, teachers would tear off their shirts,” said Timo Heikkinen, a Helsinki principal with 24 years of teaching experience. “If you only measure the statistics, you miss the human aspect.”
There are no mandated standardized tests in Finland, apart from one exam at the end of students’ senior year in high school. There are no rankings, no comparisons or competition between students, schools or regions.
Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innov...rdg1ITOT35x.99
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And one of the reasons the educational system in America is so bad is because schools literally can't fail. Waiting for Superman is a very good film about it, I suggest watching.
There are no standardised tests apart from one...Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack Sawyer
so yeah what I said. It may well be better, I've definitely argued it's better than most in other threads but it's hardly an ideal to look at trying to replicate. It just doesn't work like that unfortunately.
HmmmQuote:
Originally Posted by Savy
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innov...55/?c=y&page=2Quote:
Finland’s schools are publicly funded. The people in the government agencies running them, from national officials to local authorities, are educators, not business people, military leaders or career politicians. Every school has the same national goals and draws from the same pool of university-trained educators. The result is that a Finnish child has a good shot at getting the same quality education no matter whether he or she lives in a rural village or a university town. The differences between weakest and strongest students are the smallest in the world, according to the most recent survey by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). “Equality is the most important word in Finnish education. All political parties on the right and left agree on this,” said Olli Luukkainen, president of Finland’s powerful teachers union.
You are calling them liars/bullshitters?
Why lie though? Isn't it the easiest thing in the world to prove?
Getting this film nowQuote:
Originally Posted by Savy
The US certainly does have two school systems (roughly speaking), though I would caution about the claims made as for why that is. The mainstream view today may say things like "legacy of segregation", but top tier thinkers like Thomas Sowell would point out that these failing communities did very well in spite of segregation and that it was after segregation ended that different nefarious policies were instituted that caused the issues we have today.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack Sawyer
You're really not helping your case here. The premise of this conversation is that Finland has this sensational, world class, education system. And yet, your *best* university barely cracks the top 100. Does not compute.Quote:
Originally Posted by CoccoBill
Pull your head out of the sand and tell me where Finland ranks globally on Household Debt, and adult suicides.Quote:
They probably don't because it doesn't happen. College is free and you're actually paid to attend.
So? If some dumb kid can't get into Finland's best school, *cough*, *chuckle*, then they can just go to Finland's 2nd best school. or 3rd best. The whole idea of free tuition for all....is that everybody can go. Right now, there really is no such thing as a high school graduate that is smart, motivated, capable, and driven but who can't go to college for financial reasons. No such situation exists in America. This whole policy is meant to remedy the disproportionate number of poor and minorities who dont' go to college.Quote:
It's free, no one said there's no entrance criteria/exam
But if they're not going to college for reasons other than finances...then it must have something to do with their intellect or drive. And no amount of free school is going to fix that. Think about that. None of us here can really comprehend what that means. We can all communicate eloquently, over the internet, using a pretty complicated machine. Now imagine where your life would be if your cognition was so bad that you couldn't even follow a recipe.
Like I said, if you're IQ is less than 90...you can't read well enough to follow instructions. The average black person in America has an IQ of 85. Do you really think it's money that's keeping them out of college???????????
The whole argument for free college is that the cost of college precludes poor people from going. But maybe...just maybe....something other factor is keeping these people out of college, and maybe it's the SAME factor that's keeping them poor. and if that proves to be right.....then free college will be an absolute catastrophe for those at the bottom. Total disaster.
C'mon man, you have to admit, that "marketing material" wasn't exactly blowing anyone's hair back.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack Sawyer
Envy for what? I have a high IQ. I excelled at academics. I kept a job while I was in school to support myself and cover expenses. I didn't make much, but it was enough to send me to something better than a local community college.Quote:
Sounds like you have Stockholm Syndrome. Either that or pure envy. I can't discern which
I had no special financial advantage. No privilege. I succeeded because of my own abilities and drive. Had I been Finnish, the government would have done all that for me.
Does that sound like the way to cultivate good citizens??
Are you fucking high? Did you go to a Finnish school? Is that why you can't read? I never once, ever, uttered anything that suggests there are only 190 colleges in the world. Not even close sir.Quote:
Oh, and btw, as CoccoBill so nicely pointed out, there are not 190 COLLEGES in the world. Or 500. Or 1000. #401 is not bad once you get your head out of your ass
I said that there are 190 COUNTRIES. one of those countries, Finland, supposedly has this fantastic, world class, undeniably best system of education. So then shouldn't it follow that the country with the best education system would have the best schools??? Surely that makes sense right?
Except that's not the case. I've now learned that Finland's best University is ranked #90 globally. That's better than #400 I guess, but that's sadly disappointing if you have the *best* education system. I mentioned 190 countries to illustrate how abysmal that performance really is.
If quality universities are distributed evenly among countries (they're not, but humor me), then that means that approximately HALF of the world has a better school than Finland's best. Quality universities aren't distributed equally. So that means that a handful of countries have ALOT of schools that rank higher than Finland's best.
So then, wouldn't you say that those countries have a better education system? Do results matter here or what????
How about instead of mocking the argument, you just respond to the questionQuote:
I do not think you have seen the video with the top ten reasons why Finland's education system rocks, because then you would not have made this argument
What about the idiots? what are we gonna do with them?
That video is bullshit propganda.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack Sawyer
Reason #1) Kids get a strong start
None of this has anything to do with schooling. The video claims that free diapers and paternity leave = strong foundation for kids. That's garbage. Then it goes on to talk about daycare and pre-school. We have that in America. The video claims that it costs approx $4k per year. That's what it costs here (I know, I have 3 kids). It's probably slightly more on average here in America, ($120/week is what I paid), but then again we have more money over here because we're so much fucking smarter.
Then it says something about how free pre-school gets kids ready for regular school at age 7. We start Kindergarten here at age 5. First grade at age 6. Both are free (kindergarten sometimes isn't if you live in a small town). So I'm not seeing much of a difference here. Two years, free school, before age 7. What's Finland doing here that's so great?
#2 Top notch teachers with extensive training
Propagandized bullshit. I'm not impressed by the fact that teachers need a master's degree if the government is paying for master's degrees. I'm also not impressed by how "competitive" it is to get a job as a teacher in Finland. That just means the economy there doesn't have much for other jobs. No industry, no jobs. How can your education system be producing so many smart people.....and no innovation???
#3 High levels of Teacher Autonomy
Class outside? Who cares? It's fucking 8 degrees in Finland. A US teacher spends over 1000 hours a year teaching, in Finland, they only spend 600 hours. The rest of the time is devoted to "developing innovative teaching methods". What the fucking hell here?? 400 hours a year on inventing new teaching methods? didn't we just get through hearing about how superbly trained and educated all the teachers are? Didn't we just get an earful of how skilled and meticulously trained these teachers are? Now you're telling me that they spend half their time "winging it"???
Oh and then there was something about Finland having very brief and superficial academic standards. Something about math requirements only taking up 10 pages, etc etc. etc. Sounds like you're setting the kids up to get good grades by lowering the bar so damn much. Well played Finland.
#4 Funding for weak students
This just sounds like Finland patting itself on the back for offering extra help to kids with problems. We do that here in America too. We hae plenty of additional programs and accommodations available to those with needs. For fuck's sake man, every elementary school cafeteria has a designated table for kids with peanut allergies. how much more accommodating can you get??
The video goes on to tout the fact that Finland shows the smallest gap between strongest and weakest students. The video CLAIMS that is the result of un-tracked classrooms which forces all teachers to have high standards. yet it shows no evidence of that other than the result that shows a mall gap between strongest and weakest students. But you could have that same result if all teachers have very low standards.
Also, I would say that having a small gap between strongest and weakest students is a catastrophically bad result. I can't believe there are people that think this a good thing.
#5 Teachers don't teach to the test.
No standardized measurements. Right after we just got an earful about *high standards*. This just kinda reinforces my suspicion above that the lack of disparity in performance is due to the lack of standards, not exceptional standards. All this tells me is that no one has any idea what kids are actually learning, or whether they have proficiency in any skills.
#6 Kids start school late.
Not true. See #1. Kids are starting at age 5/6. Same as everywhere else. How many more contradictions does this video have? This is turning into some wizard of oz shit here. "don't look behind the curtain". Just trust us that Finland is awesome. We don't measure anything. Teachers spend half their time making up shit on their own. It's such a culturally respected profession, they must be doing a great job.
This video loses even more credibility when they talk about how kids are "happier". How do they know that?
#7 Joy and play
We have recess and gym class in America too. But I'll make a half-concession to the video here. American kids are fatter and lazier than they've ever been, and some more time outside would do them good. That's really more of a health issue, than an academic issue though. So what's really happening here is that parents are conceding territory to the state. In this case, its getting kids to exercise so it seems harmless. But ceding that much control to the state has consequences. Perhaps it's why there is so little disparity between student performance.
Note: The video frequently shows images of newspaper articles with Pro-Finnish headlines. The headlines seem to be asserting some kind of truth about Finland's education system. But if you pause the video and look real closely, some of these images say "Opinion" in the fine print, or in the margin somewhere. Not awesome
#8 Everyone attends public school
"less competition is better" "The whole public is invested in the performance of public schools" blah blah blah blah. 90% of American school kids go to public school. That's not enough to produce the same level of public investment? Get the fuck out of town. Furthermore, some 3/4 of private school kids go to a religiously affiliated school. That matters to some people, and in America, the right for it to matter to someone is constitutionally protected. Prayer doesn't fly in public schools.
#9 Finnish kids have bright futures.
Opinion. what do we call it when opinion is presented as fact? Hint: It starts with P and rhymes with "flopped a hand, huh"
#10 Equality Among Schools
Equity is bad mmm, kay. Let me know if you need me to unpack that for you.
Now that is news.Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Bootstraps, mon!Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Good for you!Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Well, the results say it is, I don't care how it soundsQuote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Nah, I'm not finnish.Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Apparently I can read, yet it is you who can't write comprehensively, mr high IQQuote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
So, to have a good education you HAVE to go to the best universities your lists. Yeah, that makes sense. One must have high IQ to understand your arguments.Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Out of 26000+. High IQ makes you adept at learning, that's great!Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Well, yeah, if to be a good place of learning you have to be on your list. Oh, and remember, all the universities in the country are homogenous, which means they are all more or less of the same quality.Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Sounds to me like sour grapes because of the usage of the word *best*Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Yeah, I noticed, you have equated needing #1 university in the world with the best education system in the world. Classic Banana StrawmanQuote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Really, do you have to go the #1 university to have a good education? What differs a #1 school from a #2 school from a #3 school? Shouldn't this matter much more, mr. High IQ, if Finnish Universities were like #20000 on the list?Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Again, do you have to go the #1 university to have a good education?Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Well, apparently the results do matter, as evidenced in the smartness of the kidsQuote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
When did I mock the argument before this particular post?Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
I do not understand what you mean. What do we do with them?Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Did you know Richard Branson is dyslexic?
Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
That's, like, your opinion, man
Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
That's, like, your opinion, man
So there may be some similarities in certain parts of the education system? You don't say!Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
What is the incentive of he who made the video to propagandize? There are sources in the description by the wayQuote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
That's, like, your opinion, man
Which country made Nokia again? I can't rememberQuote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
That's, like, your opinion, man
They do not "wing it" for half their time, they "invent new teaching methods" for half their timeQuote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Less is more, apparentlyQuote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
So there may be some similarities in certain parts of the education system? You don't say!Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Sources are in the description if you requireQuote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
True, but wouldn't this be very easy to expose?Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
That's, like, your opinion, man
These are different things mr. High IQQuote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
That's, like, your opinion, manQuote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Well, the PISA tests say otherwiseQuote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Sources are in the description. What's your source for this?Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
That's, like, your opinion, manQuote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
How does that haterade taste?Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
I have no idea. But the sources are in the description if you'd like to peruse.Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Excellent!Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
https://www.sciencedaily.com/release...0128113246.htmQuote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
https://sparkpe.org/blog/study-physi...-academically/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...=.15ac1505e746
https://learningenglish.voanews.com/...l/2467662.html
https://www.healthiergeneration.org/..._learn_better/
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/sep...emory-20130911
That's, like, your opinion, manQuote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
That's, like, their opinion, manQuote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
They ONLY have public schools. ALL SCHOOLS ARE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. *key difference*.Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
But there are also private schools in America. *key difference*.Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Excellent. You are free to choose religion over education.Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
90% of what you answered here is your opinion.Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
That's, like, your opinions, man
If a university in my country is ranked #90 globally, and all other universities are homogenous to this one, fuck it I'll take it
ooooohhhhhh Nokia.....I'm sooooooo impressed!!!
Wal Mart for the win mother fucker!
#90 is an abysmal result for a country boasting the *best* k thru 12 program.
What does it mean to be #90 when #1-89 are contained within a handful of countries?
It means that handful of countries are doing something better than Finland is.
Oh yes, walmartQuote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
/derail
#90 out of 26,000? What kind of weed are you using?Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
That's top 3‰
It can't be the *best* if the result is only a top 3%Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack Sawyer
Someone out there is producing top 1-2% results. Wouldn't you say that their system is therefore *better*?
Dear Mr. High IQ,Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
top 3‰ ≠ top 3%
But I'm sure you knew that
Keep spinning the math. At the end of the day the alleged "Best" education system can't muster anything better than 90th place. If you think that's good, you're in-fucking-saneQuote:
Originally Posted by Jack Sawyer
I didn't spin any math, its facts, brought to you by your own apparent research, as university rankings seem of utmost importance to youQuote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
All things considered, 90th out of 26K+ (top 3‰) is pretty good if you ask meQuote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
One would have to be an incorrigible fool to think otherwise
what is 0/00? I've never seen that before.
Permillage/permilleQuote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
1‰ = 1/1000 = 0.001 = 0.1%
1% = 1/100 = 0.01 = 10‰
Huh, cool. Never seen that used before.
Finland supposedly has the best educated, most prepared college aged population of anywhere else in the world. Therefore, it would follow that Finland's top university is the creme de la creme
Yet they barely crack the top 100. I don't care how many universities there are in the world, #90 is not something to be proud of if you boast the *best* undergraduates on the planet.
Sigh. Here troll, come take a bite. No one afaik claims that Finland has "the best educated, most prepared college aged population". Many seem to think though that Finland's educational system is one of the best in the world. The university rankings you keep quoting for some reason are based on things like student/teacher ratio, international student ratio, expert opinions etc. Nothing to do with student performance, and how could they be since there are no standardized tests. The standardized international tests that do exist, such as PISA, generally always rank Finnish students near the very top.
You might also want to familiarize yourself with the concept of average. When people say (e.g.) that Finland's educational system is one of the best in the world, they don't mean that one of Finland's schools is like zomg so good bro. They mean the whole system, including all schools and universities, perform at the top level, the students perform well in standardized tests, the students are provided financial security so they can concentrate on their studies and things like that. The US for example admittedly has a number of the top universities in the world, but they also have many that wouldn't rank well in Africa.
Look, no one in the world cares what your opinion is, go ahead and dislike the system as communist and evil as much as you like. The problem just is that when you keep spewing bs in public, someone might call you out on it.
Can I have some of what you're smoking? Seriously. Did you really just say that? Are you that bad at reading, or did you just go to a Finnish school?Quote:
Originally Posted by CoccoBill
How can a school system be "the best", if its output is inferior? How can other non-best schools be producing better educated and more prepared college aged people than the actual "best" school system?
Imagine you gathered all of the *best* appliance engineers in the world. And you set them to the task of building the world's best oven. And they spent 600 hours a year working on the oven, and another 400 hours just thinking about new shit to try. And in the end they produced a very sleek, durable, unit, with lots of options at a price affordable for consumers. Let's even say you integrated some kind of new smart-home technology that wasn't available on any other oven, but widely demanded by the marketplace. You would have "the best oven", wouldn't you?
But, oh by the way, the thing only heats to 150 degrees F. So it's good for warming leftover pizza, and not much else.
You could say this is the "best looking oven". YOu could say it was built by "the best oven engineers". You could say it heats the fastest, has the most gadgets, etc etc etc. But you can not call it the "best oven".
So just stop with the fucking chest pounding Finland! Just admit that things are good over there because it's a jillion % easier to educate 5 million people all speaking one language, than it is to educate 350 million people speaking 350 different languages. You have a small country Finland, and no one wants to move there. The people that are there, all want to kill themselves. Maybe kids pay so much attention in school because learning gives them hope of someday moving out of that socialist shithole.Quote:
The university rankings you keep quoting for some reason are based on things like student/teacher ratio, international student ratio,
No such thing.Quote:
expert opinions etc
Bring 11 million undocumented immigrants into your country and let their kids go to your schools. Let's see what that does to your PISA scores Finland.Quote:
Nothing to do with student performance, and how could they be since there are no standardized tests. The standardized international tests that do exist, such as PISA, generally always rank Finnish students near the very top
Where are you getting this "top level" shit? I thought all the schools were at the same level. That was one of the things in the top 10 video. There is no such thing as a "top" school in Finland. There are just schools.Quote:
You might also want to familiarize yourself with the concept of average. When people say (e.g.) that Finland's educational system is one of the best in the world, they don't mean that one of Finland's schools is like zomg so good bro. They mean the whole system, including all schools and universities, perform at the top level,
And FYI, that's NOT a good thing.
I thought there weren't any?Quote:
the students perform well in standardized tests,
Oh for christ's sake. What is this snowflake nonsense? Are you claiming that American students perform worse because of financial stress? As I've stated many times now, you can get a college education in America for dirt cheap if you want to. The student debt problem we have right now was borne out of spoiled kids desire to have the residential college experience. no one chose to take night courses at community college when Uncle Sam was offering 1.2% deferred interest and no payments for years. So some kids made bad decisions and suffered consequences. That's actually how it's supposed to work you know. If the consequences are being avoided in Finland because the government has removed individual's ability to make decisions...that's really really really fucking bad dude. That road leads to a terrible place.Quote:
the students are provided financial security so they can concentrate on their studies and things like that.
So? And I'm seriously asking you here. I'm genuinely seeking your response to this question: So?Quote:
The US for example admittedly has a number of the top universities in the world, but they also have many that wouldn't rank well in Africa.
That's how it's supposed to work. That's what a marketplace does, it sorts things into hierarchies. That's completely fine as long as it doesn't break tyrannical, which it hasn't.
I haven't stated an opinion. Finland sucks. <--FACTQuote:
Look, no one in the world cares what your opinion is
I don't like evil things. Sorry, that's just how I am. Question is, why do you like it so much?Quote:
go ahead and dislike the system as communist and evil as much as you like.
I'm glad you triedQuote:
The problem just is that when you keep spewing bs in public, someone might call you out on it.
Happy 4th of July mutha fuckah
It's just another classic banana strawman©Quote:
Originally Posted by CoccoBill
I find the strategy of ignoring him is going exceedingly well.
The best part is how he still feels compelled to respond to me even though I no longer take the bait.
Given what I know about how the Finnish system works, there's plenty that I can think of that could positively impact people.
Unless you're an engineer or a scientist, chances are that if you have a college degree, you are vastly over-educated. For pre-college school, what technical things do you need to learn? Well, read, write, and math. That's kinda it.
Most of what helps people succeed in life or in their careers are not things that are taught in education settings. It's possible that a system (which could be similar to the Finnish one) helps people get better at sales, administration, having girlfriends, whatever.
My issue isn't that the system exists. I think it's neat. What I object to is compulsory funding of it.
The value of an education is not just what you learn; it's in learning HOW to learn.
Nobody hires a college graduate because they think 'oh this person took a course on culture in Papau New Guinea. This will help them manage people and fill out forms.' It's because they know that people who've engaged their brains for 3-4 years in college are quicker to learn than people who spent the same years in their mum's basement playing video games.
It's a signal.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
One of my favorite economists was writing (or just finished) a book on it. I was extra excited when my favorite econ professor discussed the signalling model of education too.
Don't know what you're talking about here, sorry. What do you mean by 'signal'?Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Here's a link to his book and a snippet of the description
https://press.princeton.edu/titles/11225.html
Quote:
Bryan Caplan argues that the primary function of education is not to enhance students' skill but to certify their intelligence, work ethic, and conformity—in other words, to signal the qualities of a good employee. Learn why students hunt for easy As and casually forget most of what they learn after the final exam, why decades of growing access to education have not resulted in better jobs for the average worker but instead in runaway credential inflation, how employers reward workers for costly schooling they rarely if ever use
Oh right you've quoted this argument before. Well, I disagree that people don't benefit from education in ways that are independent of the information learned.
https://scontent.fqlf1-1.fna.fbcdn.n...64&oe=5BA0BF79Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
I think people benefit from it. The Caplan discussion is about why people are paying such unusually high amounts of money (both employers and students) for it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
Also the benefit isn't without opportunity costs. I think we (as a society) should have a discussion about those.
https://i.redd.it/gko3okyfax711.pngQuote:
Originally Posted by CoccoBill
I'm so confused why BS's argument that good universities is the result of great schools is complete rubbish. The reason the US and UK have so many great universities is because they are research facilities with the best reputation and funding by far so they attract the best from all over the world.
Neither the UK or US has a great education system between the ages of 5-18 but that doesn't mean that they don't have some brilliant schools, what it does mean is that they are massively failing large proportions of their schooling population.
This line of argument only makes me think that university is a complete and utter waste of time and money for most people. Which isn't something I believe.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
It believe it is.Quote:
Originally Posted by Savy
And yet you hung around and finished your degree.
For some people it probably is because they don't try very hard.Quote:
Originally Posted by Savy
I would have quit about 70% through but I understood the signaling model and opportunity costs and comparative advantages.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
I would probably be much better off today if I didn't live in a culture that pushed college so intently. I'd certainly be happier, making a lot more money, and would probably have a much more developed family life.
Are you planning on continuing your education or what is next for you, if you don't mind me asking.
Well, you can move to like the Dominican Republic and be the one-eyed manQuote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
That's why it's a strawmanQuote:
Originally Posted by Savy
I don't really get this argument though. If it's all about signalling and nothing is gained from education, wouldn't companies who hired uneducated people save money by getting the same quality workers for a lower price, and wouldn't this make advanced education obsolete for non-specialised courses?Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Here's some food for thought - uneducated masses tend to vote right-wing. So, there's an incentive for certain governments to undercut basic education. The smartest will still muddle their way through and go on to succeed at higher ed, but the dumbest will just stay dumb and pliable.Quote:
Originally Posted by Savy
Just an idea.
I've considered doing a doctorate in economics, but I think my motivations (mixed with my drive) would not make that wise. What I'm getting at is that I want to change what I view to be wrong directions taken by the economic academia, yet I don't have the kind of crazy right-tail distribution drive needed to succeed at that, which would turn my decision into a disaster for sure. Outside of that, unless you want to research or teach, doing a doctorate is probably a very bad idea, and I don't necessarily want to do those.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
I'm working now in the roofing industry. The scope of my work is less refined than I would like, but essentially the path forward is a mix of estimating and sales. I use the math and writing I learned in college quite a bit for it, but my experience in the field is sorta backwards. Successful estimators and salespeople are almost never people who come from college, but instead are the brighter ones who started out as roofers. The sorts of skills learned in college are a small portion of what is needed to be successful in the construction industry even if you don't build anything with your own hands. It's almost like I'm learning everything new, and it's in a sort of backwards manner because I don't have the building experience.
There is potential for me to make good money a few years down the road, but as it is right now, I would make markedly more money doing something "easier" like driving semis.
Smart people don't not go to college anymore.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
The success of people who do go to college isn't known to be due to what they learn or if it's because going-to-be-successful people choose to go to college.
The signaling isn't just intelligence, but things like conformity. If you hire from a pool of people who don't go to college, you're hiring from the pool of people who can't do things like sit down and follow orders and do boring stuff for years on end with a smile on their face.
Interesting, thanks for sharing.
Edit: I mean about your future plans.
This sort of univariate analysis doesn't tell us much IMO. I can point out how economists tilt significantly more right-wing than other academics, and that's a univariate analysis that makes my ideas look betterQuote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
Sure thingQuote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
These things are not infallible predictors obviously. There's a lot of variance around who starts where and becomes what. But, the basic relationship between level of ed and political views is fairly well established.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Take the anti-Vietnam movement in the 60s and 70s for example. This was largely fueled by college students, even though they were themselves (at least early on, before the lottery system was introduced) exempt from the draft. It's notable that it was less likely that the uneducated would question the war, even though they had the most to lose (at least the young men among them), but instead they were the ones who generally went along with what the gov't wanted them to do.
There's something to be said for the role of education in teaching people how to think (wrongly). There was once a time where maybe educated people were more skeptical and had better understanding about stuff, but that seems to have reversed.
Yeah the last 30 years of poor educational policy in the UK and US has been because of that. It's much easier to say unions have had a worse effect on education.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop