Update: I just received this from the producer of the Glenn Beck Show a few hours before my scheduled appearance.
Marty.
I need to let you know that we are no longer doing this segment this week. My profound apologies. You are FANTASTIC and I can’t wait to get you on the program and am so grateful to you for putting up with us and constantly shifting your schedule for us.
All the best and I hope to contact you soon. Susan
I will be appearing this Thursday, May 7 at 5 PM Eastern time on the
Glenn Beck Program on Fox News. Its producer asked me to submit talking points.
Note: In a previous version of this post, I included the talking points here. But they are now incorporated in my most recent blog post: "The Case-Against One-Size-Fits-All Education." I deleted them here because I didn't want you to feel I expected you to read them twice.
I remember seeing something on TV where fresh ivy league grads were given a battery, a wire, and a light bulb, and asked to make it light up. Almost none could make it work. Pretty much the same point you cited about graduates lacking basic skills, and how much useless garbage we are fed instead of learning practical things. When I was in school, there was an admistrator from my department who I used to smoke and chat with. One day I told him how I thought the undergrad curriculum (which I was in) might be improved and more marketable to job seekers by adding classes from the computer science department. It was like telling him how to raise his kids. He got really nasty and said that the classes were in place to build a foundation (read BS), and that comp-sci classes would make the program too hard anyway. He said the department needed to keep the level down to get more students. Thanks for telling me i'm wasting my money.
ReplyDeleteIts good hearing this from a
former professor himself. I finished college about four years ago, and thought of many of the points you mentioned while I was a student. How is it fair to pay thousands of dollars to get taught by TA's instead of professional teachers? Especially the TA's who teach hard subjects like math and science, yet they can hardly speak english! No wonder students fail calculus. How can a university spend millions of dollars in new building construction a year, double tuition in five years, sell/give my information to marketers and banks, and then send out letters to alumni giving a sob story about lack of funds and financial aid, then expect me to give back? Grrrrrrr. I think the bottom 40% students know that all anybody cares about is that piece of paper. But that diploma will only get you so far.
Any chance the segment will be available online?
ReplyDeleteOn points 1, 2, 7 and 8 -- The result? A QUALITATIVE DIFFERENCE between the college student of today (the post 60s student) and the college student of the 1950s. It really is a travesty.
ReplyDeleteBest of luck on the Glenn Beck Program. The blogging is finally paying off.
Thanks for you kind words.
ReplyDeleteOne thing, however, I've learned is that you never know for sure you'll be on until it actually airs. Breaking news, a more exciting story idea, whatever, can preclude my appearance.
I don't know if it will be online--check foxnews.com to find out.
Marty, here's some more food for thought:
ReplyDeleteYou still see so many professional jobs that say "Bachelor's required" in the job description because, thanks to the US Supreme Court case of Griggs v. Duke Power, it's practically illegal for companies to give prospective employees intelligence and aptitude tests, as they once did, because these tests constitute discrimination.
Therefore, what employers have to go by is whether or not you went to college, and where you went, as a rough idea of your intelligence, as in, "If you have a bachelor's degree, you must be reasonably smart. You went to Harvard, so you must be really smart." Needless to say, this isn't very accurate.
Any thoughts?
Note that my appearance on The Glenn Beck program has been moved back a day to Thurssday, somewhere between 5 and 6 PM.
ReplyDeleteGood to have some reasoned thought on that program. But if Glenn Beck gets out the gas can, leave the stage immediately!
ReplyDelete