Belinda wrote: ↑Sun Oct 15, 2017 4:41 pmYou have made a good point there, Dontaskme. At university level the difference between vocational training and education becomes even more pronounced. Students who choose arts education instead of vocational training such as medicine or law, are probably going to earn less money. In schools, especially the primary and junior.
Being an undiagnosed autistic I was forced from school without finishing (note that Nick still thinks I am an privileged insider). I was too damaged for over a decade afterwards to catch up on my education and looked with awe at university scholars as being "the pinnacle".
Then three decades later my boss decides that I need a piece of paper and sends me off to do a post grad certificate (my thirty years work experience was apparently deemed equivalent to a three-year bachelor's degree). I was excited. The big league! Original thinking and research!
So, for my first assignment I performed original research based on my years of experience and insider knowledge and produced work that could have been of use to the industry rather than a sterile academic exercise. I was given 50% exactly, apparently because I did not refer enough to the simple syllabus that I'd flown way beyond without thinking. I spoke with the lecturer, who was excellent, and told her that next time I would regurgitate the course material to check the lie of the land. 80%.
At that point I realised that education is mostly about regurgitation, not thinking, aside from Masters and PhDs (apparently).
So yes, education's point is to produce maximally productive units, nothing more. This is what education has been rationalised to. Much of it is about money, and the rest is political. Universities cannot teach logical things because they are now deemed to be left wing and thus politically biased.
So I am not here to defend the indefensible, just to say that, whatever may be wrong with education, it will at least be infinitely better than anything devised by theists with axes to grind.
Theists had their chance, with control over education for thousands of years, not only opening the way for today's oppressive conformity in education but also guilty of gross long term abuse of trust / children.
It's time for theism to move aside and give the non religious a chance to show what they can do. I do not want to see children taught Nick and Trump's ideas - that women are lesser than men, mostly just good for housework and providing genitals to be grabbed by those too powerful to be refused. Abortion banned. Pro gun propaganda. Children taught religion in science classes, with information on evolution and climate change distorted or withheld.
While this old news is being re-debated we ignore the important questions such as, why is the west wrecking the lifestyles and opportunities of its people with such high levels of immigration when it's obvious that most work in the future will be done by robots?
The reason is that the prosperity of a nation is measured as GDP rather than
GDP per capita. In other words, what matters are the big players, not the little ones. Another example: try discussing a relevant issue of concern with your local MP. Then consider your reception with the kind of reception that Rupert Murdoch or Bill Gates would receive.
The main game today is about institutions because institutions now run society purely for their own benefit. Humans are increasingly akin to expendable cells. In a survivalist group, the death of one person is a catastrophe. In a society of a billion, a few thousand deaths are not just inconsequential but it allows more opportunities for everyone else. Thus, immediately after the Great Plague, societies immediately prospered as never before.
Hence, those who think they are unlikely to be at the battle front (eg. many conservatives) think that starting a new war would be for the best because there's too many people. (If the war came close to them the would become instant peaceniks, rest assured).
So the problem with education is not "secularisation", it's rationalisation. Too many people consuming too much from an ever-shrinking resource base. So resources are rationed/rationalised - music and art are the first to go, plus all the interesting and inspiring side stories that bring a syllabus to life. Learn the stuff, pass your grades, welcome to the machine.
There is a big new age movement ATM - a shift in world consciousness. Facebook is full of it (so to speak). The story goes that people are becoming more spiritual, more aware, and this will form an irresistible tide to sweep away the blinkered and heartless bean counters. I too think that a subset of humans will become more deeply in touch with reality in the future, but that is some way off, and it will be only a minority. Most will remain undereducated, under-resourced and probably increasingly leaning towards law of the jungle as resource sqeueezes bite. To that end, religion may act as a salve for the miserable and refugee.
Trump gun fans imagine that they can protect their families from the "gummint", but the bean counters now have sophisticated intelligent weaponry. An intelligent, automatic tank will have far better senses, strategy and arms than any thousand terrorists/freedom fighters. The match is over but many would-be combatants are not yet aware. There is a new game called "flying under the radar" and it will be the game de jour for some time to come as monolithic, technically-enabled institutions become ever more controlling and intrusive.
Arising_uk wrote: ↑Sun Oct 15, 2017 10:05 pmNick_A wrote:...
How can I respond to Arising concerning education. ...
By saying what you would teach and how?
Thank you, but Nick has avoided giving an answer to this question for dozens of pages so I don't expect anything to change now.
Very easy to find fault but another matter to come up with workable solutions.