I knew being......................

 

............a history major would pay off:

By contrast, the invaluable abilities to distinguish fact from opinion, organize a logical argument, think creatively, and express oneself orally and in writing with clarity and verve — all of which a good liberal education bestows — never suffer obsolescence. Rather, these capacities equip liberal-arts graduates for high-paying positions by mid-career in management, law, and other fields, offering students durable advantages in work and in life. They are gained through exposure to a broad and rich curriculum, through the accretion of specific knowledge and concepts from the earliest grades.

Old school.....................

 

The American university is broken. The people running the universities know it, which is why they have redoubled their efforts to make sure you can’t do anything about it.

-Colin Redemer, from this essay

via

Undistracted..................

 

Undistracted by schooling, one studies best during vacations.

-Carlo Rovelli

Ok, as long as I don't have to watch the kids....

 

Jonathan Haidt gave a platform to Emily Brownlee, M.Ed to deliver a rant against technology in schools. Contrarian that I am, my reaction to her screed was to think the solution is not to ban tech, but to ban schools.

-Arnold Kling, from this episode

On being anti-social...........

 

.............................in the best possible way.

I've cut more than my share.............

In the school of life, every experience offers a lesson. . . .

Some people fully embrace learning, while others choose to cut class.

-Frank Sonnenberg

Be careful out there.....................

 No power on earth is more fearsome than a highly educated class that faces a constrained, even dismal, future. 

-Joel Kotkin, as he starts this entry

Uh-oh.....................

 “The empires of the future are the empires of the mind,” said Winston Churchill. And judging by the state of education in America, it seems both of those empires could soon crumble. The dysfunction is evident from top to bottom: from Ivy League outposts down to the secondary schools. Both are producing a generation that is ill-informed, illiterate and innumerate. In other words, a generation increasingly ill-suited to function as productive citizens in a democracy.

-Joel Kotkin

A mind is a terrible thing to waste...........

      In Finnish schools, a popular mantra is "We can't afford to waste a brain."  This ethos makes their educational culture distinct.  They know that the key to nurturing hidden potential is not to invest in students who show early signs of high ability.  It's to invest in every student regardless of apparent ability.

-Adam Grant, Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things

On getting............................

 ...............................an "A" in life:

Realizing that education begins after graduation is a vital first step.

The poisonous altar......................

 ..............................of DEI.

via

On education......................

      One of the most enjoyable parts of Bagehot's essay is his attack on the pretensions of Gladstone's alma mater.  "No one can deny to it very great and very peculiar merits," writes the University of London alumnus of Oxford University.  "But certainly it is not an exciting place and its education operates as a narcotic rather than as a stimulant."

-James Grant, Bagehot: The Life and Times of the Greatest Victorian

interests............................

 The harm that is done to education by politics arises chiefly from two sources: first, that the interests of some partial group are placed before the interests of mankind; second, that there is too great of love of uniformity both in the herd and in the bureaucrat.  Of these two evils, the first is at present the greater; but if the first were overcome, the second might become very grave.

-Bertrand Russell, from his 1932 essay on The Reconciliation of Individuality and Citizenship

Ya think.........................................?

 One of my deepest concerns is that while educational systems around the world are being reformed, many of these reforms are being driven by political and commercial interests that misunderstand how real people learn and how great schools actually work.  As a result, they are damaging the prospects of countless young people.  Sooner or later, for better or worse, they will affect you or someone you know.

-Sir Ken Robinson, Creative Schools (2015)

preparation for freedom.........................

     Let us begin by asking the question of principle, namely, what should a lover of liberty wish to see done in the schools?  I think the ideal but somewhat Utopian answer would be that the pupils should be qualified as far as possible to form a reasonable judgment on controversial questions in regard to which they are likely to have to act.  This would require, on one hand, a training in judicial habits of thought; and, on the other hand, access to impartial supplies of knowledge.  In that way the pupil would be prepared for genuine freedom of choice on becoming adult.  We cannot give freedom to the child. but we can give him a preparation for freedom; and this is what education ought to do. 

     This, however, is not the theory of education which has prevailed in most parts of the world.

-Bertrand Russell, from his essay on John Stuart Mill

never bend..............................

      On 1 April 1851 Oscar (Claude) Monet entered Le Havre secondary school.  "I was born unruly", he admitted later.  "I could never bend to any rule, even as a very small child . . . the school always seemed to me like a prison, and I could never resign myself to live there even for the space of four hours a day."  In the school records he appears as "a very good-natured boy, who gets on well with his fellow pupils".

-Monet:  The Ultimate Impressionist

"ethnomathematics"..........................?

 Warren Meyer opines on the latest unusual idea to come out of what passes for the educational industry these days - here.  A wee excerpt here:

Steve Martin used to have a comedy routine where he would say something like, "wouldn't it be funny to teach your kids how to talk wrong.  On their first day in Kindergarten class they would walk up to the teacher and exclaim, "Mumbo dogface in the banana patch!"  That had a certain dark humor to it but teaching kids to do math wrong in real life is simply insane.

An explanation of "cargo cult thinking" is here

Simple............................

"Create a culture in which it is okay to make mistakes and unacceptable not to learn from them."

-Ray Dalio

Dig...................................

School is one thing. Education is another. The two don’t always overlap. Whether you’re in school or not, it’s always your job to get yourself an education.

You have to be curious about the world in which you live. Look things up. Chase down every reference. Go deeper than anybody else – that’s how you’ll get ahead.

-Austin Kleon, from here

First sign...................................

“It's an universal law-- intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.”   


-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn