It's their world now

KC_Jones

Harvey Ramer said:

This discussion and others that will appear on this corner of the wall will have one universal truth. It is entirely possible for everyone to be wrong and equally impossible for everyone to be right.



Fascinating.

Checks and balances, halfway between the 2 sides is where we need to be. Seems to be an impossible task in today's world.

BobC

I've had to help kids that were hopelessly lost learning the new math, after a couple of hours of me teaching them how I solve a math problem they not only understood it but they told me it MADE SENSE.

The fact is the HS diploma I got in 1966 is worth more than any bachelors degree and most masters degrees the kids get now, it was good enough to have me directing degree'd electrical engineers on how to design a power supply so it would meet the customers spec at my old job.

As to using calculators and computers they should not be allowed (for math) until someone has finished elementary school. They should show proficiency in adding subtracting, multiplication and division on paper before we allow them to get lazy. How often have you had someone at a register that has no clue about how to figure change if the register doesn't tell them?

Ballparking an answer is one of the most valuable skills you can learn because it's acts as a check on fat fingering a calculation on a calculator or a spreadsheet. When I took electronics all we had were slide rules, nothing better prepares you for knowing about what the answer is than using the slide rule. That skill has saved my **** more than once

I had a contractor in this week to give me an estimate on some work I need done on this old barn. I told him how many windows, how many doors, the grade of siding I wanted and he gave an answer on the spot after about 2 minutes figuring on the back of an envelope. I asked him if he wanted to double check his figuring before I accepted the offer and he said no, he's done dozens of houses like mine over his 30 years in the business and knows how much material and what kind of of labor it will take to do it. Another contractor took a week to get back to me with a figure and his bid was 30% higher. I'm glad I agreed.to the seat of his pants guys price.

Bob

Paul48

@BobC

We were told, by the grandkids teachers, not to help them. Honestly, we couldn't even if we wanted to. I had to have a friend (teacher), explain it to me. She retired before this year, early, as she could no longer watch the steady decline in what the children knew coming to her, year after year. She was also not allowed to maintain order within her classroom. The students can be as disrespectful as they choose, and there is nothing you can do about it. They will inform you of that fact, also. Special Education students are integrated into the regular classrooms here. These are the students she dealt with. They are not necessarily mentally challenged. They can have problems with language, for instance. She saw every form of abuse and neglect, you could possibly imagine.

BobC

I went to public schools till I went to Don Bosco Technical high school in Boston. In the public schools you obeyed or a note was sent home and your parents "explained" things to you. In high school God help you if you pissed off a priest, retribution was swift and sure. If you went home and complained about what happened you would get twice as much there.

In high school they divided the incoming class by ability (you had to take an entrance exam), you went into what ever class you were suited for. That would never fly now but it worked really well, another smart thing they did was students stayed in the classroom and teachers moved from room to room. It's interesting we had almost no discipline problems and everybody paid attention in class. We all wore coat and ties in the classrooms, shop aprons were worn in the printing and cabinet making classes. I had ties with burn marks on them because my tie would drop across the soldering iron we used in the electronics lab.

The result is we managed to send a man to the moon because we were taught how to think and that the project was more important than any single man.

This country knows haw to get things done, we've just been listening to the wrong people for the last 30-40 years. It's time for a change.

Bob

Paul48

To the parents that send their kids to public school........I have seen, first-hand, the results of a private education that costs (out-of-pocket), the same as a public school. I can tell you, there is no comparison.

The topic pisses good parents off. They want the best for their children. But, until the government agrees to paying whichever accredited learning establishment you choose to send your child to, they are not going to get the best.

KC_Jones

@Paul48 I can tell you in my area the private school is the worst school in the area by a HUGE margin. I work with people that are a product of both public and private, I have family the same way. The private school loses and loses hard. These experiences with schools are very regional. If private school around me was free I wouldn't send my kids there. Our public schools are phenomenal. We shouldn't make blanket statements about the nation based on what we see in our tiny corner of the world. I am guilty of doing it on many occasions.

SlamDunk

It's relative. If you lived in the bronx, you'd want your kids in private school.

Fred

It is true. Each area of the country seems to have its own set of circumstances. Here, where I am, in Ohio, our public school District rated at the very bottom (actually the last) in performance, in the state. We have a huge number of Charter schools and many of them have been engaged in some level of corruption as it relates to test scores. I don't know what the answer is. I know we border on another city that is pretty much where the wealthy/elite live and their schools always rank in the top 2 or 3 in the state. Money and resources do play a huge role in how our kids are educated. Those schools that do well have the money/tax base to properly equip their schools, get and retain the most qualified teachers, tutor those students that are struggling in a given subject and have creative programs that engage and challenge those young minds. It seems like our schools have become warehouses to babysit kids first then teach if there is any time left, which there usually isn't. Somehow, there remains a few shining stars who understand what an education means to their future, and they excel in spite if the challenges, unfortunately they are the exception. I think most kids tend to mimic what they see in everyday life; parents who just want to get by for another day with no dreams or plans for a future beyond paying the next utility bill or the rent. If they are lucky, maybe both. Kids learn by example and they are't getting the right examples. If it's not that, i don't know what it is???

ChrisJ

Yes @BobC

The people engineering modern microprocessors and mobile phones all have highschool diplomas from 1966.......

That's all I'm going to say on the subject.

ChrisJ

There are statistics on public schools available and yes, they vary greatly depending on your area.

I do agree with @Fred as well for once, may never happen again. Kids learn by example for the most part, but there is a limit to it.

Paul48

@KC_Jones

Read my posting again. It is, by no means a blanket statement. It was talking specifically about one school with a tuition comparable to the tax dollars spent on public education. It was not meant to compare a struggling Parochial school that has to keep it's tuition low enough to make it affordable for parents that get no compensation from the government.

If there was competition in the private sector for government education dollars, the students would win.

@Fred

Can you find out how much is spent annually per student in your district? I'm curious where it stands in relation to my grand-daughters high school. Which, I think, is the second most expensive private high school in the country.

BobC

The only answer I have for that is the people running engineering companies fifty years ago cared more about what you knew than where you learned it. If you have the basics and can read you can teach yourself almost anything - like someone who unraveled the mysteries of the old monitor top reefers..

The problem these days is we have placed a hierarchical structure on top of most companies that is absolutely hidebound - they call it the HR department. All the I's have to be dotted and all the T's have to be crossed just so. Companies ignore talent at their own peril.

A friends wife is pretty high up in a big companies HR department and she is always lamenting the fact they have to go overseas to find the skills they need. She said they have very specific requirements that are almost impossible to fill with our own native talent. In questioning her I found they had a laundry list of very specific skills that had to be met, I told her that it sounded like they were just looking for cheap help because they had no real way to vet what was being taught 8 or 10 thousand miles away.

Back when the manager knew what he was doing he would walk up to you, hand you spec and tell you to figure it out. Nine out of ten times we figured it out, it wasn't always elegant but it worked and it was usually bullet proof.

One case involved the need to run an arc discharge lamp for setting UV cured epoxy. It had to be cheap and it had to be reliable. That means we had to supply 10-14,000 volts to start the lamp and then supply a constant 200 watts into a lamp that needed 11 to 22v once it started. It took some screwing around but we did it for less than anybody else could at that time (mid 80's). There are much better ways to do it now but we managed to do it with the technology we had at that time. I think we sold those for about $350 each while a much more complex MIL qualified unit we sold to the Navy sold for $20,000. One major cost saver was using a spark plug instead of a cesium discharge tube and the fact it was commercial and did not have to meet military requirements.

Bob

Fred

@Paul48 , I the last data available (published) is for 2012 and shows the average expenditure in this specific school District is $14,374.00 per student/per year.

Fred

@Paul48 , I just found another published report that shows of the $14,374.00 spent per student/per year, $6697.00/per year is spend on Instruction. It does not specify if that is just teachers or teachers and materials/books.

hot_rod

Read to your kids, any kids. A simple, inexpensive way to share and guide their learning. Have them read back.

Paul48

@Fred

It's not close to her private H.S. tuition, but nationally it's nowhere near the bottom, and suggests they're not getting their money's worth.

Tinman

i agree with Hot Rod. If we spoiled the girls on anything, it was books. They pretty much could have all the books they wanted as long as they read them. And they did much to my surprise.

Fred

Paul48 said:

@Fred

It's not close to her private H.S. tuition, but nationally it's nowhere near the bottom, and suggests they're not getting their money's worth.

I agree! It is way higher than I thought. One big problem is our school district has gone from 40,000 students in the 1980's/90's to a total of 14,000 today. Of that 14,000, probably 20 to 30% are in Charter schools and they get that same stipend per student per year as the public schools. The money just isn't being used where and how it needs to be used. We consolidated all the city schools about five years ago and they built all new elementary and high schools, about a third of the number we had, that were built in the early to mid 1900's, but every time you turn around, there's a new charter school opening up on every corner, in every church, office building, whatever. Minimal initial investment and the doors open quickly, after state certification, which apparently isn't difficult to get and then for every student that transfers to a charter school from a public school, those dollars also transfer. On top of that, the Public school has to provide transportation for charter school students just like it does for public school students. It seems like it is really screwed up to me.

BobC

Every kid I see around here is bonded to their phone screen, it would be better if it was an e-reader.

As far as the amount spent per student I think how it's spent (what are we getting for the money) might be more important than how much we spend.

The burden of special needs is crippling a lot of school systems. We would be wise to figure out why this happening, I think it's more a health problem and we have to figure out what in their environment is causing it, it was almost unheard of decades back so something is causing it. Pushing drugs down their throats is not the answer, better food and more time outside away from screens might be good start.

Bob

Paul48

@Fred

How do the charter schools measure up, compared to the public schools? If they out-perform them, that should tell ya something. If not, the state should close them.

NY_Rob

@BobC ...
One thing that is extremely wasteful here is the policy that if any school age child in your household needs special transport (wheelchair accessible mini-bus) then every school age child in that household is entitled to special transportation weather they need it or not.

We have one legit special needs child in the neighborhood so that's one mini-bus every morning. Now with what I mentioned above in mind- his two perfectly able-bodied sisters also get their own door-to-door mini-bus for their everyday trips to and from school. So that's 6 mini-bus stops to just one house every single school day.
Recently it seems there's more mini-buses than regular full size busses on the roads because pretty much everyone qualifies and there's no walking down the street to the bus stop- it's literally door-to-door service to and from school.

Fred

@Paul , The charter schools are a mixed bag. A number of them have been closed, either for failing to meet the standards or for funding fraud or for doctoring test scores. One was receiving funding for 240 students and they actually had four. A few of them are doing a better job than the public schools but they cater to some of the more gifted students. We have one Public high school that consistently excels. It is a School for the Arts and again, the students that get into it have to meet some exceptional criteria and it is considered a privilege to go there. There's a lot to be said for developing school programs that "engage" student interests AND having them feel proud of their accomplishments, both getting in and with their curriculum. Again, most of those students are gifted and can see a future for themselves.

BobC

@NY_Rob We have the same thing here. Some of these kids have never walked further than the house to the car. Recently we have had an influx of orientals into the neighborhood and I'll give them credit for walking the kids up to the local elementary school (1/4 mile). It's rare to see kids playing in the streets or the playgrounds.

We had a neighbor as a kid who had a child with leukemia and the neighborhood always made sure he had a ride to school (1.7 miles away) or had an older kid walk with him to the bus stop and the same thing happened when he came home. It was a poor area and probably 25% of the families had a car, everyone took the bus.

It really is a different world than what I grew up in.

Bob

Paul48

We may disagree on the way it should happen, but we all agree that our children deserve the best. Our government can crank the presses up, to print worthless dollars to bail out banks to the tune of billions. It shows you where our values are.

NY_Rob

Circling back to millennials....
One of the contributing factors to their employment issues stems from the fact that the modern college degree in some cases is pretty much useless.
We have a relative who's daughter attended a full four year college and graduated with a degree in Philosophy of all things.
Well two years later- she's once again back in college because other than a teaching position- there are zero job prospects for someone with a Philosophy degree. It's probably going to be another two years (minimum) worth of full time courses to get a meaningful degree that will result in worthwhile employment. With that in mind- she'll probably be 27yo before she starts looking for a job in her chosen career. I imagine that's 8-10 years later than most of us here were working at/near full time?

In addition to wasting time- let's not even talk about how much that 4-8 years of college education will end up costing their family....

KC_Jones

And actually she probably can't even teach, at least not in public school. Teaching requires, well a teaching degree. If you get say a math degree you might be a math expert, but it doesn't qualify you to be a teacher. Many if not all teachers have a teaching degree with a "specialty" in some aspect of teaching, early childhood, math whatever. On a side note all the states I have personal experience with require teachers to go to school basically for the entirety of their career. That's why you see so many with Masters even Doctorate degrees. Something a lot of people aren't aware of. My sister has a masters and is part way towards a doctorate and hasn't done anything "extra" just what her school system required.

Any college degree can be useful IF a person thinks about what they want to do before they start. You mention chosen career, you basically need to choose a career even on a general basis BEFORE going to college. Do you want to be in engineering, public service, marketing, advertising, etc? Need at least a rough idea otherwise it's money flushed down the drain. I am an advocate for community college first because many students need to find what interests them. Once you do that transferring to a 4 year institution is generally painless and you can start the specialty. In addition there is a HUGE savings for the student.

In the field I work in one could attend community college get an AA degree then get a job with that. Many companies pay for college so after getting the job let the employer pay for your education. People get obsessed with which school they "need" to go to. Unless you attend "Joe's college in neverheardofit, USA" it generally doesn't matter. I don't know where most of my coworkers went, but I know which ones are useless. I think you hit the nail on the head, but my take is slightly different.

DanHolohan

"The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water."

John W. Gardner

DanHolohan

I got my degree in Sociology when I was 36. Toughest thing I ever did, going to school at nights and on weekends, working full time, being a father to four and a husband to one, but it has served me very well. Sociology is at the core of this site

KC_Jones

Dan, sociology was a favorite class of mine in college. I could never see myself doing anything with a degree in it (not my aptitude), but fascinating nonetheless. I understood why it was a requirement, as is Psychology which was another favorite elective. The other one....statistics. Those three were my favorite "non major" classes. You put them together and it can change your outlook on life and society or at least give you a greater understanding of the human condition. Even people that don't plan to get a college degree could benefit from one or all of them in my opinion.

DanHolohan

I was 16 years into this business when I went back to school. I started with Marketing, but quickly realized that what they were teaching was not what I was seeing in our industry.

What I was seeing were groups. Engineers vs. contractors, contractors vs. customers, wholesalers, vs. reps. Groups. And so on. That's why I switched to Sociology. Sociology explains why groups do what they do.

When I was 39, and starting this little business that Erin now owns, I realized that I had to focus only on the things that I was good at, and find people who could do the things that I'm not good at and go hire them. Erin is a good example of this. She is brilliant at things Internet. She conceived this entire site. I just listened and paid for it.

So what was I good at? At 39, I was brutally honest with myself and realized that I was good at only two things:

I could tell stories.

I could bring people together.

That's it.

But if you look at everything I've done since 1989 when Marianne and I stared this company, you'll see that it all revolves around those two things - the books, the magazine articles, the seminars, this site - they're all about story and about gathering people together.

I think the true benefit of a Liberal Arts education is that it teaches a person how to find the answer to those two question: What am I truly good at? And what am I not good at?

If you can find those answers and accept them as true, all you have to do then is focus.

Oh, and work your **** off.

SlamDunk

I would have agreed that it is hard to earn a living with a philosophy degree except for the fact that I work with a guy who has a PhD in philosophy from Duke who works in a rather high position at my pharma company and a guy who started his own window washing business that does our glass buildings has a masters in philosophy... Whether or not you can make a living with a philosophy degree depends on, well, your philosophy!

DanHolohan

I think a philosophy degree prepares you to better understand life. You graduate and then you do what you're good at doing, and get paid for doing that.

All education is good, and I think education should end on the day after the funeral.

SlamDunk

Ahh, but then there is the after life...

ChrisJ

SlamDunk said:

Ahh, but then there is the after life...

Is there?

BobC

Any day you don't learn something new is your own fault. For the last three years of my working life I was the guy who ended showing the new hires the ropes. Mail sorting machines are large and complex, I would explain how different areas of the machine worked and would show them how to fix what went wrong.

When I left my coworkers took me out for a beer at The Cornerstone Tap in S Boston after our shift ended (about 11PM). I was talking to the last guy I trained and he thanked me for being patient and explaining how the machines work and more importantly how they break. I told him while I was showing him the machines I was watching how he went about troubleshooting and fixing the problems we found on the machines. As I watched I learned different ways of doing the job, some better than my usual methods.

Keep your eyes open you'd be amazed at what you can learn.

Bob

DanHolohan

Beautifully said, Bob. Thanks.

SlamDunk

ChrisJ said:

SlamDunk said:

Ahh, but then there is the after life...

Is there?

Maybe not for you.

ChrisJ

SlamDunk said:

ChrisJ said:

SlamDunk said:

Ahh, but then there is the after life...

Is there?

Maybe not for you.

Oh I little doubt of that my friend.

ChicagoCooperator

I have always thought that the value of a college education was learning the ability to write and solve problems (i.e. most liberal arts degrees).

I was just reading in a trade magazine which I've already chucked (not specifically my field, architecture, but a construction trades publication) that a lot of younger, read Millennials, were leaving a lot of details up to shop drawings which the author of the article felt was short changing clients. Now that I type this, it must've been an architecture or engineering publication. What I and my friends have run into has been an expectation on the part of young people that young people will automatically be included in management and decision making, which stems, in my opinion, from parenting styles.

Aaron_in_Maine

I am going to be 35 this year. I have been in the heating biz for 13 years. I have had my own company now for 5. Sometimes you need to be pushed. When I graduated high school and decided I wasn't going to collage my dad said "You can have this set of golf clubs or one months free rent." I took the clubs and never looked back. My little brother was the opposite he was crashing on the couch at my dads when his push came. My dad woke him up at 5 one morning and said you are coming to work with me. Now my brother also has his own heating business for about a year now.