[rescue] OT: B0rked educational system (was: Purdue/PSU)

[George Adkins]

On Saturday 16 February 2002 12:45 am, you wrote:
> On February 15, George Adkins wrote:
> > We need trade schools, we need vocational-based secondary schools, we
> > need to step back to a system where a higher education means something,
> > rather than continuing to churn out thousands and thousands of 22 year
> > olds with sheepskins who still can't solve a simple quadratic equation,
> > or calculate bouyancy in air, or explain to me who Tybalt was, or tell me
> > who painted 'Woman of Venice", or tell me when the battle of Stamford
> > Bridge was and why it was important to some young punk named William.
>
>   Hey, I can't do any of those things.  But you'd better believe I can
> write software and build networks with the best of 'em. ;)
>
Yeah, but I'm sure that if you took a college Algebra class, you'd be able to 
tell me how to solve a quadratic formula,  a lot of these people did, and 
can't.

They only have the brain capacity to learn the material long enough to pass 
the tests, then they dump it to make room for the next semester.

Hell, by the time you graduate high school, you should have had to calculate 
bouyancy at least a couple of times, have read Romeo and Juliet and taken a 
history class that tought you about the battle of hastings in 1066.

Perhaps the painting is a little esoteric, but a basic Art Appreciation class 
in college should expose you to Giovanni Antonio Canal (aka Canaletto, early 
1700's painter in Italy and England, who marketed to tourists.)