[rescue] OT: B0rked educational system (was: Purdue/PSU)

[George Adkins]

> If you ever want an eye-opening experience, become a volunteer
> or a substitute teacher--some kids are wonderful while other
> kids (and some parents) can make a teacher's day pretty bad.
> Even the best teachers.
>
<snip, sorry if this seems to be an out of context juxtaposition, but there 
is a reason I am referencing these together...>

> believe that there's a need to better educate people in this
> country, and there are about 200 million different opinions on
> how best to do it.  

I have a proposal,
Let's stop educating those who do not want to be educated.

We live in a society where a High School Diploma means almost nothing anymore 
(unless you don't have one).  Where College Degrees often aren't worth the 
sheepskin they're printed on.  Where many top jobs now require a Masters 
Degree, not because of the education required, but because they have to 
separate out the hordes of useless BA Degrees.

to quote a singer from the 80's:
"... everyone's a super hero, everyone's a Captain Kirk..."

This is a bad thing.  Not everyone is meant to be college educated, (in my 
opinion, not everyone's meant to be a High School Graduate.)  We need ditch 
diggers and garbage men too.  Let's stop calling them "sanitation engineers" 
and expecting them to have four-year degrees.

We need trade schools, we need vocational-based secondary schools, we need to 
step back to a system where a higher education means something, rather than 
continuing to churn out thousands and thousands of 22 year olds with 
sheepskins who still can't solve a simple quadratic equation, or calculate 
bouyancy in air, or explain to me who Tybalt was, or tell me who painted 
'Woman of Venice", or tell me when the battle of Stamford Bridge was and why 
it was important to some young punk named William.

Sigh.  If there were more Ditch Diggers, and fewer Suits, those of you who 
really are brilliant just might stand a chance of being able to accomplish 
something.

George