The Indoctrination of University.

We love specialisation.  We love it so much that we teach it to our children from a very early age.  After I moved to the USA my child's Elementary school had a "spirit day" where they get to wear the raiment of their favourite University.  Just think about that for one moment;  we're talking about children of ages 5 to 10, who are invited to choose their favourite university!  At that age I wasn't even qualified to choose my favourite flavour of ice cream when presented with more than 3 flavours!   My daughter, quite understandably came to me and said "Daddy I don't understand, I don't know anything about college?", and really who would expect her to at age 6?  And yet there were all the other kids parading around in their various Ivy League, or State University uniforms proudly. 

For me this raises many questions, and I hope it does for the readers too, and has more parallels with religion than I'm comfortable talking about (which is the subject of another post probably!)

But I wonder, upon what are these children basing their choices of college on?  Almost certainly the opinion of their parents. In general the parents of the children at this particular school, don't even question whether there is a need for the fruits of their loins to even attend a university, but clearly, not just any university, we've already bought them the uniform of the best college, which is apparently, highly likely to be the one the parent went to (no confirmation bias here at all).

These kids have barely learned to write their own names, and the college funds are already in full swing, along with the pre-indoctrination of where to study, and very likely what to study, and as the natural follow-on what to do once they graduate!

Is it any wonder that we're finding a shortage of creative problem solvers in the world?  Why would anyone learn to think for themselves, when they encouraged from their earliest experiences to be mini clones?

The Church of Education

The Teacher Wars: A History of America's Most Embattled Profession

I'm sure this book has been around for sometime now.  I've not managed to get around to it yet, but it is on my list of books to read; however it does raise some interesting points.

If you're not familiar with it (and again I have not yet read it) it deals with the attitude towards the teachers of the education system, how and why they're maligned, or revered.

To me, and as is probably quite evident from this blog, I don't really blame (or praise) the teachers one way or another.  It's not that the teachers are good or bad, caring or uncaring, the problem is with the education religion; that is to say that the teachers themselves are probably a great bunch of guys, but I beleive that they buy into the education dogma, and the education religion.  Putting blind faith in a system that rarely gets objectively evaluated.

Now I know there are a ton of people out there saying to themselves "I know a teacher..." or "I'm a teacher...", "who reads about new educational methods from cutting edge educational leaders all the time; I'm always trying to further my understanding and abilities".   Anyone should be admired for trying to better their knowledge, and expand on their abilities, self-improvement is at the root of personal progress.  The difference is whether your self-improvement reinforces what you already beleive with a fresh angle, or whether you are pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone into areas that really make you think differently.  For example, if I want a fresh perspective on the church, should I go and speak to a pastor? Or would that give me a slightly different perspective on what I already think I know?

I beleive many teachers are the same way and for the most part and I think a public that maligns teachers for doing the best job they can in a system that is so deeply flawed is a little naive and short-sighted.  The teachers at a grass roots level buy into this stuff, they go to University, and learn education from professional educators that assisted in building the system as it exists today; or to put it another way, they're going to the Church of Education, to learn from the Pastors, and Priests, and in some cases Prophets (or should that read profits?).  They are taught how to contribute to the post-war revolution of building lots of new little cogs for the post-industrial machine; this is where the system is flawed.  You can't blame the congregation for the flaw of the church (cult?), all you can do is wonder why no one else is seeing past the dogma and making their own minds up about things, how many truly think critically about it?

I'm not going to make my mind up about the book until I've read it, I beleive that there are good able members of the congregation and less able ones.  I think the answer to why Johnny can't read, may be easy to attribute to potential teacher failings (as the public so often does), but I think the problem runs far deeper in a system that values test results over ability and strength.

I look forward to reading this book with interest.

When is University Counter Productive?

Some people that know me, some of my closer friends, and people I know to be open-minded and overall, less judgemental, are aware of my position on Universities.

My position is that Universities are wonderful things, for particular professions, but by and large a huge number of people are investing money in a University education for no other reason than it's what's expected of them, to work hard for degrees they will often never use or need in their careers.

Now if you plan to be a doctor, lawyer, researcher or any number of other careers, your university degree is your gateway to the next step of your career, whether it be law school, medical school, or your PhD. In these cases a university degree, and potentially even parts of its education are vital from a technical perspective.  Additionally these are all relatively highly paid careers where the investment in education can be paid of relatively quickly.  But what of the other degrees, and the other career paths?

The financially astute amongst you already know that one of the worst financial investments you can possibly make is a brand new car.  It devalues the moment you drive it away from the dealer and progressively loses value every single day from there on out.  Have you ever considered your degree with a similar critical eye?  Josh Kaufman in his book The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business, claims that if you get an MBA from even a top business school, it has a useful life of maybe two years from the day you earn it, before people care less about your MBA and begin to care more about what you've done with it.

My personal opinion is and has been for a long time, that career specific working education, is far more profitable, more apropos and more valuable in the long run than a University degree that may or may not be related to what you're doing, what's more, is cash positive investment if your time, rather than a cash negative proposal; that is to say, you get paid to work and learn in a career, but on the flipside, you pay to go to University to get your degree, which for many careers (excepting the kind of career path I mentioned above) is something of gamble as to how helpful it will be in securing future gainful employment.

The problem is (to quote Jeffery Selingo in College Unbound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students); the three year degree has become the new GED; the four degree has become the new bachelors degree and the PhD/MBA has become the new four year degree.  And all of the time, colleges continue to to chase more customers and perpetuate the issue in the educational ratings game.

There has to be a way to break this cycle, where people are valued for the skills, capabilities and qualities that they bring to the table, rather than valued by a piece of paper that tells you that they can memorise facts and regurgitate them at will better than the other five guys waiting to be interviewed in the lobby.