The Many Values of an Education
One common myth is that students working a degree in Political Science or English, Philosophy or History are wasting their time, because they will not find a job and never earn nearly as much as those in the sciences or professional schools.
First, on strictly monetary terms this is an empirically accurate 'conventional wisdom.'
Second, measuring the value of education strictly based on salary is incomplete. Success after graduation also depends on an individuals capacity to adapt to new and changing work force expectations and we know those who have mastered the communication and problem solving skills, those who have learned to appreciate multiple and competing perspectives, as we would learn in a liberal arts program, are best prepared for these ongoing mid-course adjustments.
Finally, without diminishing the value of a professional degree in any way, even Einstien and Wittgenstein and other great minds who had mastered the mathematics at the root of many non-liberal arts jobs frequently reminded us of the limitations of quantitative analysis alone. And it is important to recognize that there are millions of jobs that pay a living but modest wage but are of enormous importance to society (such as teachers and counselors and care givers).
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Saturday, February 15, 2014
Consider this...
Choice, when used to refer to liberty, does not mean simply having choices...
And if the free market is a natural phenomena, an invisible hand, about choice...
Then the free market of ideas requires us to vigorously contest...like this girl attempts to do... (note to those who may not read my blog often--that is, most of you--while I am critical here of those who see the bible as a science text, I am not suggesting that those who try to live a Christian life are stupid or clueless...if you did read my blog more often it would be clear to you that I take our call to engage with love, to love our neighbors as ourselves, deeply seriously and respect those who attempt to, who struggle to, live this way.)
And ask ourselves how the issues on the agenda actually get on the agenda?
Choice, when used to refer to liberty, does not mean simply having choices...
And if the free market is a natural phenomena, an invisible hand, about choice...
Then the free market of ideas requires us to vigorously contest...like this girl attempts to do... (note to those who may not read my blog often--that is, most of you--while I am critical here of those who see the bible as a science text, I am not suggesting that those who try to live a Christian life are stupid or clueless...if you did read my blog more often it would be clear to you that I take our call to engage with love, to love our neighbors as ourselves, deeply seriously and respect those who attempt to, who struggle to, live this way.)
And ask ourselves how the issues on the agenda actually get on the agenda?
In the FYI category…
A very thoughtful analysis of media misperceptions
in a Huff
Post article from last week starts with a music journalist and concludes
with the recent CBO story.
“The gist of the
CBO's projections was that a not-insignificant number of workers would, because
of incentives the law provides, choose not to supply the labor market. Which is
to say: they'd retire, or reduce their hours, or start a business, or find a better
job now that they weren't caught in the trap of "job lock" -- a
situation in which you can't leave a job you don't like for a better one
because you're too dependent on the health care the employer provides.
The problem is
that the media totally ganked on the story. Opponents of Obamacare seized on
the report, willfully conflated a decrease in labor supply with a decrease in labor demand (this is the difference between an employee leaving a
job or the workforce voluntarily and employers eliminating jobs)…..”
Watch the
embedded Colbert clip as well. Colbert Report and the Daily Show are particularly powerful at
exposing systematic media misinformation.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Tim Wise at UA
Anti-racism activist spoke at UA tonight as a part of Rethinking Race. Those who attended were fortunate. Thanks Tim.
Tim Wise' book White Like Me has been made into a film and here is a panel discussion with the author and Michael Eric Dyson and others that might spark your interest in seeing the film.
In his talk tonight Wise pointed out that the wealthiest 500 white Americans own as much as all 41 million African Americans. And he cited a recent Oxfam study showing that the wealthiest 85 individuals on the planet own as much as the bottom half, 3.5 billion people.
For those who believe in meritocracy, or for those who look at our world and conclude that those who have made it worked hard and others did not...can you really conclude that 85 people worked harder than 3.5 billion people?
Anti-racism activist spoke at UA tonight as a part of Rethinking Race. Those who attended were fortunate. Thanks Tim.
Tim Wise' book White Like Me has been made into a film and here is a panel discussion with the author and Michael Eric Dyson and others that might spark your interest in seeing the film.
In his talk tonight Wise pointed out that the wealthiest 500 white Americans own as much as all 41 million African Americans. And he cited a recent Oxfam study showing that the wealthiest 85 individuals on the planet own as much as the bottom half, 3.5 billion people.
For those who believe in meritocracy, or for those who look at our world and conclude that those who have made it worked hard and others did not...can you really conclude that 85 people worked harder than 3.5 billion people?
Friday, February 7, 2014
Harm Reduction
Anne
Applebaum reminds us that starvation
might have been the first and remains among the most potent weapons of mass
destruction. Are there other ways that
our terrorism conversation opens up new paths to resistance?
Consider
this, however. 2.6 million children die of starvation every
year. While horrific, the 9/11 attacks
killed 2,996 by comparison. We all know
this and have known it for our entire lives.
And consider that one thing new about today’s focus on terrorism is the
shift to taking into account warlike levels of destruction that are perpetrated
by so-called non-state actors.
So, why does our war on terror not focus on
the weapon of mass destruction mobilized by non-state actors that is actually
causing the most harm?
In a context
where elites want to shift military resources to focus on non-state actors
deploying unconventional weapons against civilians, we define this as terrorism
to make it look like something that will support expanding military
budgets.
This is not
a war that is actually designed to reduce those forms of non-state (and state) violence
using unconventional weapons against civilians…if doing so does not mean spending
more tax dollars on drones. Focus on the
actual source of the harm? Don’t be
silly.
Sunday, February 2, 2014
Time to Abandon Textbooks?
David Cutler, writing in The Atlantic (January 31, 2014), argues we should abandon teaching based on textbooks. Here is the essay in full, with three short comments added.
When
it comes to teaching history, nothing destroys student interest faster and more
completely than a heavy reliance on textbooks.
During
my first three years of teaching high-school history I would see students’ eyes
glaze over as we reviewed from a 1,000 page textbook. Five years later, I don’t
blame them. So much is wrong with history textbooks, I hardly know where to
begin, but here is my short list.
- Textbooks present history as
unchanging, but as time passes, our understanding and interpretation of
the past constantly evolves.
- Textbooks are one-sided,
offering a top-down, often white-male-centric view of history.
- Without a thesis or any
semblance or argument, textbooks don’t accurately reflect how most
scholars (at least good ones) write and present history. Teachers should
assign readings that model effective historical writing.
- Most importantly—and this
merits repeating—textbooks are boring and intimidating.
- Textbooks can serve as a crutch
for teachers who don’t know history or the historian’s craft.
I
find affirmation from James W. Loewen, author of Lies My
Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. “The
stories that history textbooks tell are all predictable; every problem has
already been solved or is about to be solved,” he writes. “Textbooks exclude conflict or real suspense. They leave out
anything that might reflect badly upon our national character. When they try
for drama, they achieve only melodrama, because readers know that everything
will turn out fine in the end.”
[In an otherwise great piece, this interests me
most, because it suggests that when we approach teaching and learning through
textbooks we imply that learning is a conflict-free zone. We tell stories about leaders or
breakthroughs that leave out the doubt and lingering controversy. This seems, by design or oversight, to create classrooms that fail to prepare students for
success in the real world, where managing uncertainty, making decisions with
incomplete information, and finding common ground even when we continue to
disagree are all essential skills. They do not tell false stories; they tell misleading stories. Textbooks tell stories we might hear in films like Pleasantville.]
Loewen
has a theory on why textbooks thrive, despite their deficiences: “They meet a
need, but it’s a need that should not exist. It is the need for teachers who
are not, first and foremost, teachers of history or social studies," he
says. He adds that his own high-school American history teacher didn’t care how
he taught American history, that the school system didn’t care about he taught
American history, and that he was hired and fired on the basis of the
basketball team’s record.This isn’t to say that textbooks don’t include information.
They are chock full of information (however one-sided), but herein lies a
serious problem. With so much dense, mind-numbing text, too many students give
up trying to understand what’s really important.
We must abandon textbook-based learning in
favor of assigning a myriad of sources.
Teachers
who depend on textbooks are likely to test what is in the textbooks: long lists
of facts. They tend to give long multiple-choice tests that evaluate students’
memorization skills, not what they have actually learned. To do well, students
memorize mountains of facts. Worst of all, in my experience, success on these
tests isn’t an accurate indication of what students will remember the following
week, month or year.
I
learned this lesson as a rookie-teacher, before rethinking my textbook-heavy
approach. A returning senior asked if she could retake the United States
history final. She had earned an “A” just three months prior, but after a long
summer, she wanted to know how much she remembered. My once-shining star had
devolved into an average student. Little deep or lasting learning had taken
root, and I began to understand why. She really didn’t care about the
content—at least not enough to put any real effort into retaining her
knowledge. And why should she have? After all, doing so would have meant
revisiting Alan Brinkley’s 13th edition of American
History: A Survey, her boring Advanced Placement United States
History textbook.
While
I was earning my BA and MA in history, I never learned primarily from any one
book, and certainly not any textbook. My professors made learning exciting,
always assigning a diverse, thought-provoking array of primary and secondary
sources. For me, that made my understanding of history more meaningful, and
thereby lasting. I learned to
internalize information, not merely store it in my short-term memory.
[Connecting this back to the story about his
star student above and his conversation with his colleague below.... Learning certainly requires us to remember
facts, but if we want this memorization to last and inform our lives, to improve
our thinking and decision-making, then we need to internalize the information,
we need to care about both the specific content and, more generally, about
living an exciting life of the mind. One of the most important skills to learn is to learn to ask good questions and textbooks erase that challenge when they ignore conflict and uncertainty.]
Last
week, I talked about textbook-based history learning with Dr. Aldo Regalado, my
colleague in the history department at Palmer Trinity in Palmetto Bay, Florida,
and a history teacher at the University of Miami and Florida International
University.
“I
have never taken or taught a college-level U.S. history course that earnestly
used a textbook—ever,” Regalado says. “I provide my students with context using
far more efficient means, and then they go deep into case studies, either by
reading primary sources or, better yet, by engaging in their own independent
research, writing and presentation projects. They come out of that experience with a real passion—a real sense of
ownership and an appreciation for questioning and deeper thinking.”
There
has already been some movement towards this approach at the AP level. Next fall,
the College Board will introduce a redesigned AP U.S. history exam. This change
is happening in part, the company’s website says, to “relieve
pressure and free teachers to engage students deeply in exploring,
understanding, and interpreting major historical events.” I strongly support assessing
students on more relevant skills, especially historical interpretation and
periodization. I hope this encourages more teachers to move away from
textbook-based learning. I also like what I hear from Suzanne Sinke, an associate professor of
history at Florida State University and Co-Chair of the AP U.S. History
Curriculum Development and Assessment Committee. “There is still a body
of knowledge that is tied to the curriculum, but the emphasis will be based
much more on skills,” Sinke said. “It moves us toward making this not so much
what you have memorized, but what you have learned.”
If
high-school history teachers want to prepare students for college-level history
courses (which I hope all of us do), we must abandon textbook-based learning in
favor of assigning and teaching from a myriad of sources. My students purchaseThe American
Nation: A Concise History of the American People, a
significantly slimmed-down version of Brinkley’s AP U.S. History textbook. It’s
still over 800 pages, but the pages are much smaller (not that this makes it
any less of a textbook).
Still,
I don’t over-rely on Brinkley, nor do I assign every page or chapter. I
certainly don’t give multiple-choice tests. Instead, I give students
supplemental readings, which serve as their main learning tools. I elicit
excitement by assigning exciting sources, such as Action Comics #1,
which I use to help teach about Judaism and immigration in the early-to-mid
1900s. During a unit on the Cold War, I have students analyze and find sources
to better inform their understanding of singer Barry McGuire’s rendition of
“Eve of Destruction.”
In
an age where information is instantaneous, cheap and easily accessible, history
teachers will need to do even more to guide students toward credible sources.
We must also help students pursue worthy
questions in the context of areas that interest them, even at the expense
of giving certain periods short shrift. In that environment, there is little
need for a textbook-based approach. Students aren’t slaves to a textbook,
eventually forgetting a large chunk of what they store in short-term memory.
Instead, the learning becomes more meaningful, engaging and lasting by being
depth-centered, not breadth-centered.
Teachers
should always inspire students to learn more about their subjects.
Unfortunately, an overreliance on textbooks accomplishes just the opposite.
Saturday, February 1, 2014
Reading
the Akron Beacon Journal…
With all the conversation about what the President meant by going it alone in the State of the Union it is a good idea to remind ourselves that, despite Fox News nonsense, this has nearly nothing to do with a President threatening new Constitutional violations or a President unwilling to compromise.
Here, again, we see fear mongering (about the danger of unions) to protect hidden in plain taxpayer subsidies to private sector elites who believe it is just their right to be beyond challenge.
With all the conversation about what the President meant by going it alone in the State of the Union it is a good idea to remind ourselves that, despite Fox News nonsense, this has nearly nothing to do with a President threatening new Constitutional violations or a President unwilling to compromise.
Here
is a good, short, primer on the tools any president regularly uses to execute
the law, tools President Obama has indicated he plans to deploy more often when
faced by Congressional obstruction.
Welcome signs of sanity on the rise in Texas today.
After years of using their market position to transform school textbooks
into Young Tea Party recruitment brochures, the state has finally taken action
to curb the influence of non-experts who want creationism in Biology
classrooms.
A
comment by one of the extreme conservatives about the state decision to give
preference to teachers and professors and other disciplinary experts in these
decisions is telling.
‘An outspoken
conservative on the board, David Bradley, said he did his best to insert
language mitigating what was approved. But he said “liberals are really trying
to make it difficult for Christians and conservatives to have a voice in public
education.”’
On
the far right knowledge and expertise are illustrations of a liberal bias. It is
a very good sign that there is now, in Texas, some sign of successful pushback
against this lunatic fringe that has been damaging both the nation and the
Republican Party.
Why? We have less trivial conflicts to attend to...
Why? We have less trivial conflicts to attend to...
According
to the Akron Police Department 98% of an annual 10,000 alarms in the city are
false alarms. The department is
proposing that the alarm companies first verify that there is an actual need
for police before the police will respond.
The companies response:
‘“It’s basically
putting the public in danger,” said David Margulies, spokesman for the Security
Industry Alarm Coalition, an advocacy business group.’
This
is fear mongering, by a private sector agent trying to preserve what amounts to
a tax payer subsidy of their own shoddy business model…a taxpayer subsidy that
allows these companies to exist despite the fact that without this subsidy the
free market would compel them to either provide a service that is not a waste
of time and money 98% of the time…or the free market would drive them out of
business.
Taxpayer subsidies to big business, hidden in plain sight, need more attention and scrutiny in an era when our dominant conversation is how to do more with less.
Walmart (and others) executives and stockholders profit from our failure to internalize these externalities and instead providing subsidies to pay for things the companies should pay themselves as a cost of doing business.
Of course, big business is not the only form we find entrenched power seeking to protect is priviledge and revenue stream at the expense of ordinary citizens.
Of course, big business is not the only form we find entrenched power seeking to protect is priviledge and revenue stream at the expense of ordinary citizens.
Here, again, we see fear mongering (about the danger of unions) to protect hidden in plain taxpayer subsidies to private sector elites who believe it is just their right to be beyond challenge.
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