Dumbing Down America
August 25, 2010
At a time when the US Economy, employment, the housing market and health care are on the ropes and fading fast, there is one area where the good old US of A is excelling beyond all expectations – dumbed-down education!
Once the world leader in the percentage of young people with college degrees, the USA has fallen to 12th among 36 developed nations. In the key group of 25- to 34-year-olds with a college degree, the US ranks behind Canada, South Korea, Russia, Japan, New Zealand, Ireland, Norway, Israel, France, Belgium and Australia. And as America’s aging and highly educated work force moves into retirement, the nation will rely on young Americans to maintain and increase our standing in the world.
One generation ago, the US was No. 1 in the world in college graduations. Now we’re 12th at a time when a good education is critically important to getting a decent job. We read less and less and write like barbarians. These days, a child drops out of high school every 26 seconds and it is expected that the educational level of the younger generation of Americans will not approach their parents’ level of education.
In the 1950s, prior to the onset of one education “reform” initiative after another, America’s literacy rate was at an all-time high, and it’s interesting to note that, with rare exception, we early baby-boomers were not taught to read until first grade. Typically, our mothers made no ..... read more
iPad & Kindle versus Gutenberg
July 15, 2010
As gizmo-addicts guzzle Kindles and iPads, I’m frequently asked the big question – “What’s better? Tablet e-readers or Gutenberg’s printed books?”
Well, for the prolific high-speed reader, e-reader tablets simply cannot cut it. Even at slow speeds, Gutenberg’s printed books have advantages over tablets. In a recent study of reading speeds on tablets versus printed books, Dr Jacob Nielsen found reading speeds on Apple’s iPad to be 6.2% slower than in printed books and Amazon’s Kindle 2 to be 10.7% slower than in printed books. Then adding in the inability to preview the e-book, looking at graphics, images, headings, summaries and conclusions, and you’re way behind the Gutenberg folk in reading speed.
But then neither iPad nor Kindle claim to be selling productivity. They’re selling convenience -- “at less weight than a soft-cover book you can store 1500 books on a tablet e-reader” -- I think the slogan proclaims. Frankly a bit pointless – those who don’t read do so not because of the weight of a book but because of either an inability to read or a lack of available time. Now, if you plain and simply cannot read, neither Apple, Amazon nor Gutenberg will help you. But if it’s lack of time that keeps you away from books, just maybe the e-reader’s convenience might encourage you to read in situations that are not ideal for reading printed books, such as ..... read more
Lies, Damned Lies, Experts & the Internet
April 23, 2010
Don't always believe what you read on the Internet where ANYONE can say ANYTHING, truthful or not.
Here's an example.
This is what the Wall Street Journal ACTUALLY said in an article by Shivani Vora on July 25, 2006 ... "So, in January, Mr. Arledge took a weekend course at ExecuRead, a Charlotte, N.C., company that teaches professionals how to speed-read."
But THIS is what David Aylwin of Reading Transformations has posted on his speedreadingonline website : "Read what the Wall Street Journal had to say ... By Shivani Vora Wall Street Journal 15 July 2005 "So, in January, Mr. Arledge took a weekend course in Fast Effective Reading that teaches professionals how to speed-read.""
Nice one Mr Aylwin! Mr Arledge did NOT do a course in "Fast Effective Reading" -- I have yet to find any course called "Fast Effective Reading". He did an ExecuRead course! Clearly a mis-quote of what the WSJ ACTUALLY said.
So what other liberties do you take with the truth when it comes to presenting your courses? Indeed, are ANY of your testimonials even relevant to your own course(s)? Or did you hi-jack those as well?
And by the way, in case you actually failed to read the WSJ article, it was July 25, 2006 and NOT July 15, 2005.
Failure to be truthful and accurate is one thing. Mangling copyrighted material a little more reprehensible. Don't you agree?
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Spam - Collateral Damage
January 6, 2010
The following explanation, received in my junk folder, attempts to justify stopping legitimate mail from reaching an intended recipient : "Your email message carried your return address, so it was either a genuine mail from you, or a sender address was faked and your e-mail address was abused by a third party." A brilliant but quite obvious observation! "Some balance between losing genuine mail and sending backscatter is sought, but there can be some collateral damage." No shit, Sherlock!
So here's the collateral damage ... the intended recipient questions my professionalism for not sending the requested information and I question the intended recipient's professionalism for not acting upon the 'sent' information.
But perhaps this is in accordance with the 75-percent rule - getting 75-percent of important mail and losing 25-percent is a fair price to pay for not having to deal with so-called spam?
To be sure, repetitive messages, whether solicited or unsolicited, whether sent singularly or in bulk, are an irritation. But is all new information, by definition, not unsolicited? After all, if you solicit the information, it can hardly be new, can it? Perhaps at issue is not whether you asked for it, but rather whether the information is relevant to your current needs? And unfortunately, this decision should not and cannot be taken by a mathematical ..... read more
Speed Reading for Drunks?
December 15, 2009
USA Today reports that almost half of college freshmen spend more time drinking (10.2 hours per week) than studying (8.4 hours per week).
Perhaps a reason for the disappointing college freshmen failure-rate. One solution might be to train students to drink faster so they can spend less time in getting plastered. Of course, the other solution may be to train these students to read and study faster so they can get more studying done in the available time between booze-binges. But it's a race against time - to fill the brain with knowledge before it gets too pickled to absorb anything.
So, if you're a college lush hoping to get a degree, try Speed Reading for Drunks!
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Grade-Inflation? Is this good for our kids?
December 15, 2009
My very intelligent (but sometimes smart-ass) son comes home with a 4.2GPA. "Any homework to do?" I ask him. "No, it's simple stuff and I did it on the bus" he tells me. "Anyway, I got a 4.2 so stop hassling me."
Each year the average GP seems to be on the increase and yet our kids seem to be spending less time on homework. Is this increase in GPA the result of a lowering of the academic bar and resultant grade-inflation? If so, are we not deluding ourselves that our kids are performing well at school? And are we not praising mediocrity?
I read somewhere that at private colleges, the average is now better than a 3.3GPA which means that the average student is getting a B or a B+ grade, so an A is hardly great shakes. And at some universities, 2/3rds of the students get As.
Perhaps we should take a leaf out of the team-sport playbook where only so many players get onto the team and the rest get 'cut'? How about restricting the number of A's to only 20% of the students in any class? Would this not encourage our students to do more than simply meet the ridiculously low 'dumbed-down' academic standards, but also to do better than the other students in that class who are also doing just the minimum amout of work to get an A?
After all, where's the benefit in getting an A when A means Average? When F means Fine? And what motivation is there to put in some extra effort when you're already getting full-marks with your eyes ..... read more
Save Grandpa but kill Illegal Immigrants?
September 30, 2009
So we don't like the 12 million illegals working in this country ... in spite of the fact that most of them are gainfully employed. And we're simultaneously outraged at the idea of illegals getting federal healthcare, and horrified that Grandpa may be past his "sell-by" date and thus doomed to no further medical treatment. So it's save Grandpa but let illegal immigrants die? Nice one!
We demand low prices, cheap services and huge bonusses, salaries and benefits. So we turn a blind eye to big corporations giving away thousands of jobs to people in foreign countries who are willing to work harder and for less money than we are.
We complain that illegals in the USA are not paying taxes or medicare or contributing to Social Security. But we don't seem concerned that every job sent overseas means less taxes paid into the USA, less to medicare and less to social security. Corporations benefit from their off-shore sub-contractors because the labor is cheaper and less regulated than it is locally. Similarly, we like employing illegals because it's cheaper and less regulated than employing legal immigrants and American workers.
Bottom line is that both the illegals and big business are short-changing Uncle Sam, medicare, social security and the American Worker. There's a message in this somewhere ... has the American Worker spent too much time at the trough, enjoying the good life? Has the American Worker lost his ..... read more
Education? in America.
September 27, 2009
While American high schools graduate 70 percent of their students in 4 years, American colleges graduate only a third of their students in 4 years and only half of their students in 6 years. Of the 2012 Title IV institutions that enrolled undergraduates with the intention of granting bachelor's degrees, 1796 reported overall graduation rates and 27 graduated not one student within 6 years. "Graduating college in less than 6 years is like leaving a party at 10.30pm" quips one student.
The 'failing' four-year bachelor's degree model, in existence since before the American Revolution, doesn't appear to compare favorably with the three-year bachelor's degree model in other parts of the world. For example, the University of Cambridge and Oxford University in England have the three-year bachelors degree. As do universities in many other parts of the former British Empire.
So, does the 4, 5 and 6-year bachelors degree model work? Apparently not. The US spends more of its GDP (2.9% in 2003) on postsecondary education than any other country. Yet only 39 percent of US adults between the ages of 25 and 39, have attained a degree, ranking the US as #10 in the world.
Apparently, four-year degrees were designed in large part to provide a broad-based education that teaches young people to analyze and think critically, skills considered vital preparation to participate in the ..... read more
Changing what works is not always the smart thing to do!
September 14, 2009
For years, we added necessary citations to our work as footnotes, either at the bottom of the page, or at the end of the chapter, or sometimes even at the end of the book. But now the fad is "in-text citations". For goodness sakes, WHY???
Why clutter the text with reams of citations that totally trash the flow of words, thoughts and ideas, with pointless clutter that have absolutely no relevance to the ideas and concepts that the author is attempting to impart?
While it is understandable that teachers are concerned about students plagiarizing source material, and thus insist on correct and appropriate citations, I can think of only one reason for teachers' insisting that students move the citations from the end of the book (where they belong!) and into the text itself .... simple laziness!!
I'm getting the impression that in the desperate search to do something new, we end up doing something totally stupid. That to find an easier way to do one thing, we don't think it through and end up complicating something more important.
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Kindle .... Retrogressive Technology?
September 14, 2009
Here's another really dumb idea. A product that weighs less than a single paperback, but which stores over 1500 books.
More than half the US population don't read books, not because they weigh too much, but because it takes up too much time. The only people who need Kindle are the speed-readers who cannot carry the weight of the books they're able to read in a single day or on a long-distance flight. And here's the rub! Kindle appears to have ignored the reading needs, styles and techniques of speed-readers. Try browsing through a book or previewing visual aids. Try quickly referring to a conclusion or summary or flipping back to an introduction. Try turning to page 600 to check a citation .... ah! maybe this is why we've adopted the fad of in-text citations??
And then, even more bizarre, some colleges grabbed onto the idea of getting students to switch their text-books from hard-copy tomes to e-books on Kindle. Apparently a really smart alternative to lugging around all those weighty books in a shoulder- or back-pack. Until of course you attempt to study those e-books. SQ3R with Kindle? Not a chance!
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