The State of Education in The States
Posted on 11. Mar, 2008 by Brad in Education | Twitter: @bradhart |
Two education stories hit me this week as blog worthy. First, is about the encouragement that Madonna got as a teen. Secondly, WTF is up in Oklahoma?
From Madonna‘s Rock Hall induction speech:
She (Madonna) fondly remembered a teacher, who encouraged her to follow her dreams when she was only 14,
Well that is just dandy, and really worked out well for Madonna. However, on the eve of another Idol, I ask myself if this is really the only advice we need to be giving to kids these days. When I was in school I always got the advice from teachers and counselors to find a job you loved and that money would be irrelevant if you loved your job enough. Well that was pure and simple bullshit. Not only is money important, jobs availability is even more important!
When I was really young I wanted to be an astronaut, now that I am in my thirties, with a broken and battered body, I am damned glad I didn’t waste my time following that dream. Being an astronaut takes something that I seem to run real low on these days, pure and simple luck of the draw. Thousand if not tens of thousands of qualified candidates all apply for every single opening.
The job prospects of movie actor, television actress, director, producer, pop sensation, and rock star are even worse than astronaut, but none the less we keep telling high school kids that they should follow that dream Even more irresponsible though is when college counselors help students pick their major by encouraging the same kind of delusions of grandeur. Somewhere along the line someone needs to say and how do you plan on supporting yourself while you follow your dreams?
Is following your dreams important? Sure it is, but so is being able to support yourself while you are doing it. With the ever increasing rate of unemployment, low paying jobs becoming the standard, and the rising cost of a college education we need something more than dreams to sustain us.
While not every college graduate should become a teacher, I am in great dismay that after four or more years of study in a subject and achieving that coveted bachelor’s degree, you aren’t even qualified to teach your subject in most states. I personally feel every liberal arts program should require a certain amount of credits in the field of teaching before graduation. If you can’t teach the basics of your field to high school or middles school kids after all that study, you certainly shouldn’t be granted a degree in it.
The moral of the story is we need to start focusing on reality as much as we do looking at dreams, wishes, hopes, and desires. We live in an economy where the fastest growing employment field is not high tech, as the government wants us to believe. The fastest growing fields are retail and food service. While high tech industries are growing there will only ever be a limited need for high tech employees. Companies can only employ so many and the competition for coveted slots will always be fierce. For those gifted in math and science, this isn’t a bad career field, but the question comes down to is “are you gifted in those areas?”
The question comes back to what do we do with all of these people in degrees with no related job prospects? We find them if they are lucky as glorified file clerks at large corporations or low level management in food service or retail if they are lucky. Since so many of those jobs actually value experience over education, these new grads may well find themselves working for new high school grads with two or more years more experience in the company and no college debt. “Ain’t that a bitch?” as my mother would say.
If that sort of education problem wasn’t enough, Oklahoma is looking to make the situation even worse. The state’s House of Representatives is considering a bill that would allow any student in earth science classes, and I am presuming it will be modified to include any science class by the time this is over, to achieve a passing grade by giving an alternative creationist answer to any question asked. Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy already blogged well enough for all of us on this so take a moment and go have a read.
I am sure that allowing creationism into the classroom is a bad idea. I wonder if allowing the same sort of legal grade manipulation would be effective for other areas of no child left behind like math. With the Catholic Church now saying its followers should do “IT” more often, we could return to former glory days where one man plus one woman in the bonds of the most holy union sanctified by the church of scandals equals a dozen new believers.
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