Your High School Diploma is now officially meaningless

[ebram Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close ebram]

Al I am saying is education is not going to make a dumb kid smart, but the smart kids are getting the best education ever both in high schools and colleges. Even the community colleges have better professors today than most colleges(except for the IVYs, CalTech Stanford and MIT) did 50 years ago. .

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

Al I am saying is education is not going to make a dumb kid smart, but the smart kids are getting the best education ever both in high schools and colleges. Even the community colleges have better professors today than most colleges(except for the IVYs, CalTech Stanford and MIT) did 50 years ago. .

The best kids may be getting better technical information and training, but I am far from convinced that they are getting a better education.

Two or three generations ago, when the concept of of "liberal education" didn't mean indoctrination in liberal social philosophy, the goal of a liberal education was to produce graduates who were proficient in basic mathematics, the natural and applied sciences, philosophy and logic, literature and the arts, with training in how to integrate all of those elements.

The notion was that a person equipped with that background had the fundamental training to deal with a variety of issues and had the basic training to be able to adapt and respond to a wide range of issues.

Those concepts were being jettisoned about the time when I was in college, when "critical thinking" morphed into criticism of social structures instead of making reasoned and integrated assessments of situations. All of a sudden reasoning for understanding no longer seemed as important as creatively developing rationales to support a specific pre-determined agenda.

I believe that is a significant element in the greatly increased level of rancor, shrillness, partisanship, and faction-mongering in our political landscape today is a result of that alteration of the fundamental orientation of the liberal education. And although the impetus for that effort came from leftist deconstructionists, the tactics and results have been become commonplace throughout society as that has become the general academic model in most of the leading academic institutions.

*****

and for the kids who aren't the elite - I'm hard pressed to say they are better educated.

But to be frank, that really isn't an issue with schools as much as it is a commentary on families. Education begins in the home, but there are too many parents who abdicate significant parts of their responsibilities to schools.

[Ridewithme38 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Ridewithme38]

I'm not a fan of your beliefs on liberal education T.R. Oglodyte, but i'm going to assume that we are from different area's, different generations and have different beliefs....Because of that we may have just come to different conclusions on the same same topic

Liberal Education is EXACTLY that, the ability to look at both sides, weight the pro's and con's and come to our own conclusions...The difference between the 50's and 60's schooling and today's 'liberal education' is that in the 50's and 60's you were taught to fear and hate other political beliefs and structure without reason or education on why....Today, we are taught equally all political beliefs and are able to come to a reasonable conclusion on our own.... basically, learning how to learn(This is the college level i'm talking about), YES because of this there ARE alot more people leaning towards Socialism and Communistic Economic Structures and more liberal or even Anarchist Political systems....But that is based on weighed pros-cons, not just on the fear of a cold war

This has nothing to do with the poor state of the current US School System, if anything kids are learning MORE about politics, with a move diverse subject matter

[ebram Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close ebram]

Actually "liberal arts " (flapjaw I call it)education is a waste of time(except maybe the classics), anyway. Engineering, math, physical sciences, and biological sciences are the only areas worth pursuing.
both now and 50 years ago.
I went too my 50th reunion recently, probably would not be admitted to my college(actually university) today.

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

Liberal Education is EXACTLY that, the ability to look at both sides, weight the pro's and con's and come to our own conclusions...The difference between the 50's and 60's schooling and today's 'liberal education' is that in the 50's and 60's you were taught to fear and hate other political beliefs and structure without reason or education on why....Today, we are taught equally all political beliefs and are able to come to a reasonable conclusion on our own.... basically, learning how to learn(This is the college level i'm talking about), YES because of this there ARE alot more people leaning towards Socialism and Communistic Economic Structures and more liberal or even Anarchist Political systems....But that is based on weighed pros-cons, not just on the fear of a cold war

Your eloquence, Ride, totally amazes. There is simply no way at all that I, or anyone else, could have written nearly as eloquently of your ignorance of the original concept of a "liberal education" and the nature of higher education in the US in the 1950's and 1960's.

[Ridewithme38 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Ridewithme38]

Your eloquence, Ride, totally amazes. There is simply no way at all that I, or anyone else, could have written nearly as eloquently of your ignorance of the original concept of a "liberal education" and the nature of higher education in the US in the 1950's and 1960's.

I wasn't born till the 80's....All i remember was the old movies where you guys had to duck under weak looking school desks to protect you from atomic bombs

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

I wasn't born till the 80's....All i remember was the old movies where you guys had to duck under weak looking school desks to protect you from atomic bombs

Then perhaps you shouldn't pontificate about situations in the 1960's and 1970's.

During my days as a anti-war activist and organizer, post-Cambodia and post-Kent State, on more than one occasion I was appalled at the lack of critical thinking among my cohorts who were ostensibly enrolled in a curriculum designed for that express purpose.

[Ridewithme38 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Ridewithme38]

Then perhaps you shouldn't pontificate about situations in the 1960's and 1970's.

During my days as a anti-war activist and organizer, post-Cambodia and post-Kent State, on more than one occasion I was appalled at the lack of critical thinking among my cohorts who were ostensibly enrolled in a curriculum designed for that express purpose.

as i said, during that time frame all that was really available that was censored by the Neo-con government and Republican controlled media was anti-communism propogana, the information you guys could get was shady at best, its hard to have proper knowledge about what you are fighting for when the truth is censored...this is why so many of the 'communes' of the 60's failed so poorly....Now we have an open connection with the rest of the world....even the young can see the problem with the republican propaganda and how the American form of Capitalism is a failure...Hopefully because of this we can effect change, move away from the failed systems of the past and move towards (as close as possible) to a Utopian society with a Communistic Economic system and a Anarchistic Government

[tonyg Goomba & Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close tonyg]

If anyone has any further political commentary to make, they should start a thread in the political forum to avoid site deletions and infractions.

[Hobbitess Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Hobbitess]

If high schools are so bad how come the competition to get in to Ivy schools have gone to 10:1 from 2:1 years ago.

All your Ivy schools data says is that more people believe they can afford to apply.

Average SAT scores dropped 25 points from 1968 to 1980, which is why the tests were recalibrated in the 1990s, and also a good reason (IMHO) why a lot of people argue that high schools have gotten worse.