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General discussion

On the education front ...

May 13, 2019 10:00PM PDT

The Welsh are looking into ending a program, currently offered, to increase employability skills. Part of it:
"To achieve the SCC students must complete an individual project and three other challenges - testing enterprise and employability skills, knowledge of global issues and participating in community-based activities."

Sounds good to me. Broadens one IMO; always good. Not sure why its controversial, even after reading the piece.
BTW, what age is a sixth former?

Discussion is locked

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Link:
May 13, 2019 10:01PM PDT
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My advise to young people
May 14, 2019 1:06AM PDT

Get a job skill.
Something that someone will pay you for.
If it requires knowledge of global issues then keep up with that.
If it requires knowledge about welding then learn how.
Whatever it is going to take to make you employable.

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(NT) Agreed. We've been plugging that for years.
May 14, 2019 3:05AM PDT
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it's tough to get young people
May 14, 2019 9:21AM PDT

To understand that a high school diploma or a college degree in basket weaving is not going to cut it.

I recall those days and getting a job was not part of my thinking.

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Basket weaving?
May 14, 2019 2:19PM PDT

That sounds like a course that might be offered to those on athletic scholarships. There are certainly legitimate paths one needs to take for some jobs that are only offered in universities. Medical, legal, engineering, chemical sciences and other subjects that require special aptitudes aren't suited for the trade schools. Neither are jobs for educators.

I could guess that colleges began being flooded during the Viet Nam war as young people preferred to hit the books rather than be hit by the bullets. What is offered at colleges and universities has changed dramatically over the past decades and many paths offered don't lead to degrees that are highly sought after by employers.

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Addendum
May 14, 2019 2:48PM PDT

If you had parents whose own parents had come through the depression days, they may have had some influence on us as to the value of a college degree. I had such parents and, in no uncertain terms, I would be going to college. Otherwise, as I recall, one ends up digging ditches along the highways for pennies an hour. Such parents sacrificed plenty to get their own kids in college so they'd be better prepared for higher paying jobs.

Today's kids, IMO, have become ridiculously spoiled unappreciative of what their parents and grandparents did to make their lives better. To these kids, the worst tragedy they can suffer is to run low on battery power for their cell phones and not be able to find a free charging port within arm's reach.

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too true
May 14, 2019 3:13PM PDT

My folks saved enough to send me to college for one year. I really did not want to, at that point in my life, said so, tried it anyway. Dropped out and went to work with a HS diploma only - probably one of my biggest mistakes, ever. At the time, though, I thought I could self-educate, and did to some extent. And most likely since I was so averse to university I flunked out, sort of a "self-fulfilling" result. :^) And now I'm waaay too old (60 in a few days) to get a degree - plus it would be quite expensive to boot.

Rick "content but rueful" Jones

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Similar story on my part
May 15, 2019 2:17AM PDT

I wasn't a good reader in HS but I did very well in math and science. I learned more by discovery than from textbooks. I wasn't interested in traditional college but preferred technical training in electronics. But, my parents and the draft were not going to cooperate with my desires so I went to college. I floundered around for 3 years and never declared a major. I wound up joining the USAF and went to a tech school to learn communications equipment in the crypto field. I was a very good troubleshooter and was able to parlay that into a civilian job once I got out. I wasn't going to become rich and have a fancy house and car but never missed a meal. I really think that learning is best when done through discovery and actual experience rather than books. One retains what one learns through such methods a lot better than than that taught verbally in a classroom. While in the service, I'd considered re-entering college though the GI bill but never did. I don't regret it. College really had nothing for me that could compete with my own hands and brain.

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Yes, I agree
May 15, 2019 3:10PM PDT

that is maybe the "greater truth" of education. I've met several younger folk - I'd imagine they are in their late twenties and thirties - who having secured degrees in various fields found out that the job market favored experience and flexibility rather than supposed knowledge. The degrees helped, no doubt, but were no guarantor of performance, as such. And some found out that they had in essence learned many things and enriched their store of facts and maybe even got better at learning itself, but that was not always translatable to a well-paying career.

I think this problem with education will only get worse if our kids are continued to being "taught to the tests" as some note. There are some changes in schools, recently, that appear to address this - hopefully the next generation will be just as curious about the world and hungry for knowledge as all the preceding.

Rick

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As a final few words on this subject
May 16, 2019 2:33AM PDT

I'm greatly concerned about the notion that young folks should get a college education at no expense to them. Life experience has verified something I remember hearing as a child. Such things that are worked for are highly valued. Such things that are given to someone are not treated in the same way but often considered as disposable. Government "give-aways" might sound good but can become problematic. Ownership through one's own labor causes us to be more protective of that which we have acquired. Nothing shows this more clearly and visibly than in housing. I know this can become a sensitive subject to discuss but just look at the different ways property is cared for by those who own, those who rent and those who live in free or government subsidized housing.

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Free
May 16, 2019 6:16AM PDT

If the young want their college ed to be free perhaps they should look into the GI bill.

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Yup
May 14, 2019 3:09PM PDT

I have a friend who went to college to avoid the draft or I should say his parents sent him to college to avoid the draft.

He loved sports and he was good at it.

So that's what he did for 4 yrs....played sports and majored in bird identification or some other nonsense stuff.

When he got out of college the only job he could get was selling used cars.

He was young and his brains were not focused on getting a job.