Re: Mind's Eye Re: Positive ideas education

Many of the major universities are agreeing with you Neil , LOI here in the Netherlands MIT, Harvard the list goes on and on. Education is not for the privileged few our rich. I was looking at MIT online courses all you need is an internet connection and a computer / tablet / smart ¿phone? And you can download every thing needed, I believe you can actually get an online degree.
Me my educational skills have down graded rusting away over the years. Education is becoming available for everyone with access than internet connection. I was reading that people were removing the hard drives from old computers  and putting the OS and programs on a USB stick where students could take their  programs and work with them. A 16 gig USB drive complete can be produced cheaply. I am on a 7" tablet right now and see no reason why it could not be restructured new to handle an USB I have a micro chip for added memory.

Today I see the educational format changing for the better, I hope

Check out MIT online courses.

Allan
A Living Soul


-----Original Message-----
From: archytas <nwterry@gmail.com>
To: minds-eye@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 5:50 AM
Subject: Re: Mind's Eye Re: Positive ideas education

We have the Open University here and you have the Empire State College (NSU) doing all courses online.  Plenty of other colleges are in the game and some publishers.  What most people miss is that most of the cost of universities is not the teaching, but administration, estates and overheads about 8 times teaching cost.  We also neglect how very unpopular education is.  We have to force some people to send kids to school, most kids don't like it much and almost no one really puts in much effort without supervision or exam threat.  And nearly everyone fails.

A modern university (and school) system would be presented online, but it would be much more civic than the current system and open to all.  I say this even though the majority of kids likely to be put in front of me for teaching these days can't hack much thinking and graduate knowing very little.  Universities should be open to provision of a much greater set of opportunities and events.  I find the very idea that schools continue an academic curriculum with the 60% of kids no good at such stuff cruel.  We should replace this by work learning and projects with the likes of our armed services, local authorities and big companies.  Essentially, we oldies are inflicting our past experience on our young and are too dumb to see times have changed and what we got wasn't very good either.

On Wednesday, 27 August 2014 12:06:23 UTC+1, Molly wrote:

I gave up trying to fathom the depths of humanity's depravity awhile ago, Don, and yet am faced with it more often than I'd like still. The mystic would say it is my own depravity I am faced with but I can't help but wonder if the formula for experience isn't somewhat more complicated than that.  The missing link that brings the we experience and I experience into unlimited experience removing all separation. Ken Wilber would say the depravity hurts more but bothers us less.  I haven't been less bothered by much, but would like to be. If the folks in the cars on my drive home from work could hear me, I'd have been locked in isolation for everyone's sake a long time ago. The lawless streets of Detroit require air conditioning and good working windows, that's for sure. Luckily, when the day is done I've found my peace and can rest easy.

These are the things that can't be taught in "school" how to corral my own thoughts and emotions and what effect my self created internal environment has on my life.  It takes self observance and self correction. No one can do it for me.  the best anyone else can do is point the way. After the socialization, we still have to live with ourselves.

On Tuesday, August 26, 2014 12:37:56 PM UTC-4, Don Johnson wrote:

There must be free education available on the internet. Not credited, obviously, but my hope is that sometime in the near future perhaps it could be. What on-line courses can't do, aside from lab work, is the socialization and networking aspect inherent in the college experience. Normal folk are priced out of this experience as Neil mentions. It's frequently less about what you know and more about who you know. If you can be trusted. I gotta say, my list of trustworthy is extremely short. People suck. Generally. Not you guys of course. 

dj

On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 7:00 AM, Allan H <allanh1946@gmail.com> wrote:

You are making me feel old Molly, in the Vietnam era it was an incentive to join the military.

The cost of education is  is very expensive, there is no way around that.  But I relevant of the general courses can be taught via internet, lowering the cost, many university are actually starting to set them and providing credits toward your chosen field, that could bring down the cost and time especially if the general courses were started while still in school.

I don't think the population is dumbing down so much as losing the ability to think. It seems there is a tremendous focus on reaction time , killing and violence, always seeking the adrenaline rush.

I am left wondering how many people actually have the ability to think at all.

Allan
A Living Soul


-----Original Message-----
From: Molly <mollyb363@gmail.com>
To: minds-eye@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 1:05 PM
Subject: Re: Mind's Eye Re: Positive ideas education

In my area, manufacturing, retail and trades take on the bulk of the workforce without university degrees.  In some states, including Michigan, this might mean starting out second or third shift and belonging to a union.  Michigan became a "right to work" (without belonging to a union) state, but union picket lines and pressure on the industries still make it very hard to do so. It is good to see manufacturing coming back to the rust belt in the US, albeit much to slowly due to unfavorable tax laws.

Internships, apprenticeships and on the job training come into play here and replace higher education.  More life skills may be learned because it is difficult to party, rebel and explore life's boundaries while working (more start families earlier too taking this route.) But higher education (after the useless general courses are fulfilled) teach higher level problem solving, critical thinking, group dynamic and technical skills otherwise untaught, for 10K+ a semester on average. Ouch. Seems to me that this single pre-determiner hasn't changed over the eons. The exception would be after WWII, folks that served in the military were sent to university by the government helping to slow the influx to the workforce and it produced a generation educated much more than those following.  Examining the influence on history and culture would be interesting.  It isn't possible, as far as I can tell, to work your way through college anymore, unless you take a course or two at a time and stay in for a decade.  I've seen kids try and give up over the years. My dad's generation was able to do it (if they were in the military.)

On Monday, August 25, 2014 9:37:56 PM UTC-4, archytas wrote:

There is some research indicating IQ is dropping and our brains are getting smaller.  I've long suspected most expert knowledge isn't.  Clearly, I'm not going to turn up at  bone pointer's place rather than hospital if ill, but I doubt our universities and schools serve much direct learning purpose.  Immigration is seen here much as Don suggests.  Though we have a lot of Asian doctors, you only have to look at a taxi rank to see much immigration has taken base jobs.  I'd guess from my visits that London is now 50% immigrant.  We have been failing to educate and train our own for as long as I can remember.  Education seems to have expanded to soak up the decline in work and need for childminding.  One of the most radical questions concerns what to do with people who can't even get into university at the current low standards.  Another is how university education has become so expensive and rarely lifts the skills or prospects of people not already from well-off families.

On Tuesday, 19 August 2014 04:55:36 UTC+1, Don Johnson wrote:

I agree with apprenticeship programs Andrew. We are all exploited in some way. It would be a fantastic way to indoctrinate new immigrants. Those that fail get a free ride back to their country of origin. We'd have Big Business actively recruiting in other countries competing for their best and brightest to come to the shining city on the hill(that's the USA btw) to make their fortune. I've read CEO's moaning about how hard it is to recruit from other countries because of the pain in the ass immigration laws we have. Meanwhile it's easy as hell for the huddled masses to crowd in and get a free stay pass, free education, food stamps and social security. Somebody tell me, what is wrong with this picture? 

On Sat, Aug 16, 2014 at 10:06 AM, andrew vecsey <andrewvecsey@gmail.com> wrote:

Excerpt of my science fiction book "A Short History of a Long Future - a Guide for New-man"

"Indoctrination centers called schools were organized. Starting at an early age with kindergartens, children were removed from the tutelage and sanctity of families and from the exploitation of factories. They were cultivated under a program of brainwashing called education where they were programmed and trained to be obedient and skilled adult workers."

Getting more to Molly`s point below, in the end, it is more of "who you know" than "what you know".  Perhaps more apprenticeship programs (a la Switzerland) should be used where most of the learning is done on the job. As an apprentice, you are paid very little and you are exploited a lot, but you do end up learning, and you do usually end up having a job at the end if you get thru it.

On Saturday, August 16, 2014 3:26:46 AM UTC+2, Molly wrote:

The cost analysis for US universities includes the online courses, Alan.  Most have them.  then their are universities where most of the course work is online.  the diplomas aren't worth much in the job market.

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