Our content is flawed because our method is flawed. And our method is flawed because our epistemology of "learning" is flawed.

In brief, our governing philosophy of education is outdated. Our entire education system is optimized for preparing people for an industrial world. We no longer live in an industrial world.

For example, the industrial world demanded mass production and mass consumption, led by a core elite of broadly educated professional class. (As opposed to the artisanal/agricultural world which preceded it, which required primarily agricultural production and local craftsman for small markets.)

But the world of the 21st century is no more an industrial world than the 20th century was an agricultural world. Just as the fraction of agriculture during the industrial period fell from 80 percent of the economy at the beginning to less than percent at its end, manufacturing today is at most 10% of the modern economy.

The binding limitations on economic and social improvement in the agricultural world were land. The binding limitation on improvement in the industrial world were labor and capital. The binding constraints in today's world are human ingenuity and its primary product, innovation.

Mass production and mass consumption is about conformity and submission to rules about time and the control of effort. And, unsurprisingly in such a world, a big part of the story becomes control and power over the means of production (yes, Marx had that part right). And since the key means of production were labor and capital, it's not at all surprising that battles between "corporations" and "unions" became a critical component in the path of change over the industrial period.

But where mass production and mass consumption are a declining fraction of economic activity (how many people know that 99 percent of business in America today is done by enterprises with 20 or fewer employes?), it's no longer a battle over power by labor and capital. Its about providing and enabling maximum opportunity for innovation.

But that's not what most of education does. In fact we are going the opposite direction, focusing on development of "standard" curricula, "standard" credentials, "standard" practices, and "standard" standards. Progress in a world limited by labor and capital depends on exploiting economies of scale. Progress in a world limited by human ingenuity depends on increasing the ways things do not depend on "standards" and "conformity" and "scale."

Until "educators" figure out better ways of inspiring and enabling the practices of human ingenuity, we will find what we do as of increasingly marginal importance -- and deservedly so.

Just like the industrial world that spawned us.

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I didn't mean to twist this into being about me. There have been many examples of private/public workers treated like royalty or private/public workers treated like dirt as others profit off their labor.

There are just so many angles to this as pack93z has pointed out, with hidden agendas of the wealthy and priviledged being exposed from multiple affiliations from both the right and left. The middle class just gets shit on in the process, and in this particular instance, predominantly middle class public workers.

Thanks for the thorough response. I believe we side-tracked into part of this discussion earlier in the thread but a complaint I hear from many educators, predominantly k-12 is that with SOLs are the mistake - you teach for the test, and that's it.

I'm working with a faculty member at my college right now who is vehemently opposed to the use of text books and really any syllabus or structure. Rather, his method is to give the students a task with minimal instructions and say, "now you go figure it out" and will then try to summarize what happened and why after the fact. As I've referenced before, it's some version of 'inquiry-based learning' which I admit is a semi-vague buzz word. His approach certainly reflects that of a holdover from Woodstock, but at the same time there seems to be a method to his madness.

I need to stress that I'm grossly under qualified to delve deeply into any sort of teaching theory, but it does seem that with standards, ACT/SATs, SOLs, etc. it teaches memorization and routine rather than any sort of creative thinking skills. In practice, what good does spending weeks on memorizing multiplication tables, the atomic weights of noble gasses, or knowing what book started with "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times" really have today other than to make a few bucks on Jeopardy?

The flip side is that standards/SOLs provide goals, checkpoints, and some uniformity for education in a state or ultimately this country which I believe has some merit. Furthermore, I've seen news reports, and can think of anecdotal examples of people who succeeded seemingly independent of the college and or major that they pursued - their success seemed to be more of a function of an environment than what they were taught.

I'm really not making a substantive point here, nor do I know the answers so Ill shut up now, but I do think this is a fun topic to mull over.

Since this has kind of morphed into a topic about employees' rights in general and there's already been discussions about "lazy" employees, I thought I'd share this tidbit from our company in Milwaukee.

Out of 23 employees that hold a common position, over the last week they combined for 1039 minutes clocked in (getting paid) but not ready and available to do their job (working). This only includes shift start times and not discrepancies after a lunch break or other periods of inactivity. That's 45 minutes/week/employee, assuming an average of $10/hour paid to these employees that's $9004/year thrown out the window. With that money saved we could afford to pay these employees an average of $391/year more or $0.19/hour more. In addition, a handful of these employees are part time and thus warp the statistics, it'd be more like $0.22/hour more.

Fact: Milwaukee job pool sucks. Sorry. I'm not saying that all Milwaukeeans are bad employees or workers but that's the consistent message I get from people that I know that run businesses in Milwaukee as well as outside the area or are involved in the hiring and oversight of employees in Milwaukee as well as outside the area.

I am writing this from a computer lab at a school in the UW System. I have returned to college after being out of school for 26 years. I sit in a crowded classroom with very young white kids from the suburbs five days a week.

There are instructors with zest and energy and those just putting in time.

Really, I can not believe how disrespectful these kids are. They eat Mcdonalds during lecture, walk out of lecture to talk on cell phones, bring laptops and do facebook during lecture, WEAR PAJAMAS to lecture.

I do not see how instructors cope. Kids blantanly cheat, by texting, argue with instuctors, and have awful attitudes.

This is one reason I feel strongl about protecting instuctors and making their jobs ones that are highly sought after, not ones nobody wants.


as far as teaching methods, I like both a structured sylabus, and a problem solving assignment also.

but if there is a concept I do not understand, I want an instructor who is willing to take the time to get that concept through to me.

I had a really tough science and math instructor both last semester and this semester. but when I was stuck, they helped me, and I saw them smile when the light went on inside my head and I learned something. I no they got a thrill from it.

with kids nowadays, i think some of thee student teacher relationship has been lost.
JMO

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well friend, I'm working on changing that.
to hear the IT job pool here sucks, that is the best news ever for me.

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Hahaha, we're hiring. Want me to be your boss? ;)

But trust me, you don't want to work here. Plus, with everything I've said about my job on this forum, kind of awkward to have a new hire privvy to such details. And like I said before, despite above average benefits the pay is below industry standards.

Anyways the IT market is opening up in Milwaukee from what I've heard, definitely a better time to be looking for work vs the last two years.

well you never should say never. maybe someday you'll get a peep at a co-workers workstation and see packershome on the screen and be like

who the f#@k is that
damn its dhpackr!!!

one thing you won't have to worry about, is my work ethic!

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Another thing i keep hearing about Walker......he's giving tax breaks to big corporations!!!
Now.....lets look a little deeper on that.
Question: How many big companies have left Wisconsin, because they can get tax breaks in other states? So, what happens when these companies leave?
Yup.......they take thousands of jobs with them.
Seems to me the democrats never think these kinds of things through. it seems so simple to me though.
What it comes down to is, you can't have it both ways. Tax the hell out of companys, then complain there are no jobs here.
Another of my complaints........when gas was going sky high before (you know, when Bush was prez) all we kept seeing was how it was his fault. He was in bed with the big oil guys. Now the prices are getting up to the same levels, and what do we hear about? Not once have i heard Obama being blamed.
Walker is trying to make Wisconsin live within it's means. He's not attacking the middle class. He's trying to make the whole state finacially responsible. I have paid school tax my whole life, yet i never had any kids. Yet i paid for it anyways. If schools have to drop extra things to live within a realistic budget, so be it. After all, isn't school supposed to be about teaching kids? Yes, the music, sports, and othe things are nice. But they are NOT necessary for an education.
Private schools run by churches have to scale back BIG time on activities and teacher pay. But they do it, AND they do a much better job at teaching the kids.

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You're not only paying for the schools. You pay taxes for the DMV, to have your roads plowed, to have clean water to drink, to have your garbage and recycling taken away, to have parks...and all of that is being cut while Walker is not only not allowing for any increase in property/state tax - in fact he's giving more corporate relief e.g. his 117 million tax cuts in January to new businesses coming to the state.

I'm not saying taxes are the perfect solution, but he and Fitzgerald keep saying everyone needs to chip in, but it seems like only public sector services and employees are pitching in (e.g. 8 unpaid furlogh days last year, salary freezes, now the extra HC/pension contribution). Jobs WILL be lost in the public sector even w/out Walkers' threats to layoff 1500 if the 14 don't return.

We're in debt due to public sector costs, I get that, but as I've said before and in previous posts, we overlook and take for granted what the public sector does for all of us, ASIDE from JUST public education - and ALL of us need to chip in to this, not just middle class public employees and public services.