Before 196x, American universities produced a great many top scientists in response to the launch of USSR's 1st satellite. The curriculum used were rigorous. During 196x's on campus students movements, teaching evaluations for professors were introduced, forcing professors to water down the rigor of the curriculum in order to win the popularity contest. In the meanwhile, a bunch of morons started education "reform", and introduced "New Math" in precollege education. The result was a total failure. The following is a real story I witnessed: A German undergraduate student studying in one the top private university in US told his prof. that he was considered a little bit of mentally challenged in Germany and he routinely require a quiet place and extra time for doing the exams. The prof gave him a quiet place and extra time for his 1st exam. This student got the highest score in the exam. Then the prof said that you did not need extra time and a separate place for your test. Nevertheless, this student got the highest average score in the rest 3 exams as well.
One reason that might contribute to public perception of blacks is that there is no successful progessive peaceful and powerful black country. I heard an interesting comment from a chinese guy in los Angeles who hated communist China. He said that their succcess and influence over there makes us look good over here. Made me think.
And then once at work you have to put up with it too? I bet that sucks when you're concentrating on not putting that extra pickle on the Whooper with cheese huh? Bwahahahahahahahahahaha.
What most people get when they go to school today isn't an education, it is more akin to training. It isn't geared towards enriching your life, but towards being employable by corporations. Blame all the drop out rates on people being dumb, instead of the system and our assumptions that underlie them. In spite of both her mom and her dad being avid readers, my daughter doesn't like to read. I see her slowly rebelling towards school, even though she gets mostly As. As a result, I try to stimulate her mind by suggesting interesting ideas. We talk about the Universe all the time, and she comes up with very interesting questions, like what is on the other side of the Universe. We talk about cells and the different parts of a cell, and about the brain and how it partly controls how tall she is, etc. She is learning about reproduction and has made some interesting statements, like I can't believe my parents did that. BWAAHAHAAHHA She crushes all her math and computer classes, but I can see that it is all brain dead stuff. Most people end up believing that Mathematics is what you do with calculators, or arithmetic. So I got her a Rubiks Cube, and I am now showing her how a concept from Group Theory, one of dads favorite subjects, called commutators are at the heart of solving Rubiks Cube. She gets it and there is no boredom in her eyes. We are at the three coner piece commutator. Instead of using a computer to do mundane stuff, I show her how to move a pixel across the screen using a computer programming language called Logo. She is fascinated. I tell her this is real math. I tell her that when I was in high school, that I should have gone straight to graduate school, because schooling before then is mostly very uncreative. I tell her that it doesn't have to be linear. She can jump grades if she wants and can grasp the concepts. We talk about Universities all the time, and she asks me what the best schools are. I tell her that people will tell you that Harvard or Princeton or UofC are the best schools, but I tell her that there are alternatives, schools where you don't get graded in the same way as you do in those schools. I wrote about them here: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=120055&highlight=mindless+schooling I tell her that some really great schools you don't even need to have any knowledge to get in and could even have dropped out of high school and still get in, like UofC. That if you are smart, they will find a way to let you in. She is confused by this, but it is the right kind of confusion. She says that she would rather know how she "rates" and she likes getting graded. I tell her that is ok, as long as you know that learning is not about your grades. I think she gets it. nitro
LOL jackass. I've worked at Goldman, PaineWebber and CSFB ... can you say the same? Doubt it ... Boy, you get the posters like nutmeg, nitro, mavarickz and RM around these parts ... and then you get all the rest. I see that the 80/20 Rule is still in effect (come to think of it, that actually is a pretty high number of names for the thread).
Inner city blacks have been marginalized in variety of ways. They have responded by creating a closed culture. To add to this, the media feeds them that the way out of the ghetto is to sing, dance, or dribble out. It has been that way for years. The most recognizable blacks are USUALLY entertainers.
Nitro I mostly agree with you. I am a college drop out but ironically I am pushing my daughter to go to college. Although she is 6yrs old, I am playing many games with her. She does play: - Piano - Chess - Monopoly - Poker (yes, poker at 6) and many other games. But my point is that she is very smart and self-confident at this point hoepfully will succeed in life with, or without, college ... and not be dependent of any man ...
ctarmor-et, Very nice. My daughter is learing to play the piano too. I am going to make a very uncontroversial claim: That teaching a child high proficiency in a musical instrument like the piano, deep knowledge of one great game like Chess but preferably Go, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(board_game)(board_game) and basic home schooling including reading, witting and mathematics up to trigonometry, and assuming that child has learned discipline, they are as ready or better prepared to enter a university as anyone else is that has gone through a typical "education". Not only that, they will be far less stressed imo. Schools today are a place where most parents can send their kids as a way to keep them off the streets because they both have to work to make ends meet. When moms had to go to work, we lost our children to the "buffet-style fast food" version of education. Galois was educated by his mother. Newton had lots of home schooling. Need I say more? "It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry ...which stands mainly in need of freedom... It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty." - Albert Einstein nitro