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?
Showing posts with label degree. Show all posts
Showing posts with label degree. Show all posts
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.
, 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.
Teach to Test
I have some very strong views about education and teaching. First off, I think it's important to point out that I'm not an education professional; I a parent with school aged kids first and foremost. Secondly I'm a recent import to the USA, I was educated in the UK originally, so I probably have a different set of benchmarks to work within than perhaps other parents in a similar situation to me. This should prove to be an excellent starting point for professional educators to question my validity of my personal opinions on the subject.
I called this blog "Teach to Test" because it's one of the frustrations I currently experience as a parent and a great example of many of the things that are wrong with education today. I don't believe the title is as important as the content, so I'm not that concerned about it.
When I was looking at schools to teach my children, one of the most important things for me, was that they taught critical thinking and creative thinking, both of these things are extremely important to me. In my professional life I've found that having the ability to create mental models, apply those models to different situations and thereby solve the problems has proven to be key in some of the most successful people I've met (and I've met a lot). Success doesn't mean monetary success, although admittedly many of the successful people I've met have also been wealthy; what I actually mean is becoming extremely adept at anything you choose to pursue, and to stand out amongst others in the same field. Creativity plays a huge role in this.
My disappointment is that despite searching extensively and finding a school for my kids which said all of the right things and made all of the right noises, I find after placement that they still teach to test, and testing is the most important thing for them. Now I don't agree with this, but I do understand why they do it. Obviously the better the grades that are achieved by the school, the better the quality of students they attract, they become "the school to get your kids into" because they're the best test scores in town, and with that recognition (I'm assuming) it becomes easier to secure better teachers and more budget, etc. I'd opine that the knock-on effects are manifold.
All of this is wonderful, assuming you want your little one to grow up being able to pass tests, and regurgitate information on queue, to go on and become a 4.0 student with awesome test scores that is potentially useless to future employers. For them to go to a great university and gain an awesome degree packed full of information they'll never use, and carry a student debt for a large chunk of their adult lives. To be a carbon copy of their parents, perhaps?
I understand that this is a very contentious and inflammatory remark and will ruffle many feathers. That's kind of what I'm hoping for, since nobody ever paid a second thought to a point of view that they agreed with, they simply nod politely and go on their merry way. I have many opinions (and that's exactly what they are, my opinions), that I will assert here, and my hope is to, maybe, make people think and challenge their comfortable cotton-wool-wrapped-reality with some things that maybe they don't agree with.
You be the judge. Watch this space.
I called this blog "Teach to Test" because it's one of the frustrations I currently experience as a parent and a great example of many of the things that are wrong with education today. I don't believe the title is as important as the content, so I'm not that concerned about it.
When I was looking at schools to teach my children, one of the most important things for me, was that they taught critical thinking and creative thinking, both of these things are extremely important to me. In my professional life I've found that having the ability to create mental models, apply those models to different situations and thereby solve the problems has proven to be key in some of the most successful people I've met (and I've met a lot). Success doesn't mean monetary success, although admittedly many of the successful people I've met have also been wealthy; what I actually mean is becoming extremely adept at anything you choose to pursue, and to stand out amongst others in the same field. Creativity plays a huge role in this.
My disappointment is that despite searching extensively and finding a school for my kids which said all of the right things and made all of the right noises, I find after placement that they still teach to test, and testing is the most important thing for them. Now I don't agree with this, but I do understand why they do it. Obviously the better the grades that are achieved by the school, the better the quality of students they attract, they become "the school to get your kids into" because they're the best test scores in town, and with that recognition (I'm assuming) it becomes easier to secure better teachers and more budget, etc. I'd opine that the knock-on effects are manifold.
All of this is wonderful, assuming you want your little one to grow up being able to pass tests, and regurgitate information on queue, to go on and become a 4.0 student with awesome test scores that is potentially useless to future employers. For them to go to a great university and gain an awesome degree packed full of information they'll never use, and carry a student debt for a large chunk of their adult lives. To be a carbon copy of their parents, perhaps?
I understand that this is a very contentious and inflammatory remark and will ruffle many feathers. That's kind of what I'm hoping for, since nobody ever paid a second thought to a point of view that they agreed with, they simply nod politely and go on their merry way. I have many opinions (and that's exactly what they are, my opinions), that I will assert here, and my hope is to, maybe, make people think and challenge their comfortable cotton-wool-wrapped-reality with some things that maybe they don't agree with.
You be the judge. Watch this space.
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