I like "A Lily Bit" much more than the new name. Has a better ring and it is more creative in my assessment. The content regardless is superb and thought provoking. There are always new nuances presented that make one think.
I am getting really tired of hearing about Schwab as he annoys me intensely, so every time I read your new "title" I will become...... intensely annoyed.
I saw college educated, successful people that I knew and respected at one time, absolutely transform into mindless sheeple during the plandemic with fealty only to the overlords of the Centers for Disease and Chaos. Their critical thinking ability had been completely destroyed by years of programmed education and media.
Agreed! Critical thinking has diminished firstly in academia as we have moved from a manufacturing to a service economy. In my perception this is due to the lessened experience of working with your hands. Working with physical parts of nature, farming, logging, tinkering with an engine needed to get work done and etc forces connections of mind to the realities of the physical properties of things and sets analytical thinking skills for planning positive outcomes. In a service economy, retail sales, teaching, delivering food, programing a computer, trading stocks and making TikTok videos are devoid of such connections. Academia where teaching lessons for life are far removed from teaching realistic reasoning skills.
We have been headed towards a widening societal split of those who know how to 'do' vs those who must rely on those who 'do' because they are simply incompetent in everything but manipulating others for quite some time. Those who have worked with their hands and been despised as "deplorables" will suddenly find that it is people with manual skills are the ones everyone cannot survive without and are the source of society's critical thinking skills. More than this, it will be those independently running their own businesses and not those in unions following the union line who are the most creative in thought and better carriers of critical thinking skills.
I believe that the liberal arts are useful, although whether they are being taught properly anymore in the Anglosphere is a matter of dispute. But this can be obtained over decades cheaply through many different platforms and venues, rather than at great expense in a limited number of institutions within a few years to disinterested young people. The young should be offered a diverse sampling rather than a concentrated, and over-specialized, curriculum. I remember a letter to the Vancouver Province newspaper in the mid-1990's from a young woman angry that no employer would hire her despite her "degree in 19th century French romantic literature". My first thought was that was a oddly specialized degree, and my second thought was to wonder what sort of career path she expected from such an education. I had a friend suggest she could obtain a teaching position based on this. Well, obviously no very specialized degree can be justified solely on the basis of graduates being able to teach the same subject matter because of the discrepancy between the number of teachers and students. A professor and two or three teaching assistants might graduate many thousands of students during their careers, and upon retiring three or four job openings would occur.
The home in which I grew up was in a university town. My dad taught physics and astronomy at the university of Kansas. My mom taught English literature there. So I was encouraged to pursue quite a wide array of academic topics. Possibly because its high school and junior high faculty included many who were spouses of university faculty there was a fairly high level of quality teaching in our school district. Our only high school required every student to pass two semesters of a course called "The Constitution." It included readings from Alexis de Tocqueville and others, ran through all the articles of the constitution in the first semester, and the amendments in the second. Much history was learnt. Some of what was learnt had been taught out of the textbooks, and quite a lot of the textbook lessons were propaganda.
The college to which I went as a scholarship student has had, for over a century, a tradition of having a "core curriculum" in art, music, literature, and "contemporary civilisation" for all students. I'm sure the Marxists have ruined the literature humanities and political science parts with diversity, exclusivity, and insanity to attack the cultural heritage of the West, but the mere fact that these courses were required even for astrophysics majors is, I think, significant.
However, the truth about Columbia College is that it is the only Ivy League school in Harlem. Us scholarship students were made aware with tours by alternative campus groups that the ghetto around our college was mostly owned by the trustees of Columbia who charged high rents for living in poorly maintained buildings. Our scholarships came from poor people paying their rent every month. The dorms were also a mess. I distinctly remember a headline in the school newspaper about "rats as big as cats" found at the East Campus dorm, and photographed. The "temporary" housing for Midshipmen put up hurriedly in the war fever of the first world war is still standing. It was leaky and drafty and decaying when I was a student there. Lots of roaches and other insect life, though not so many rodents as elsewhere.
Which brings us to "citizen loyalty." Yeah, it's so sad for the filthy parasite bureau-rats and politicians who lie and cheat and sleaze and occasionally rape, murder, and torture that they cannot get loyal citizens. Shed a tear for them and their minions in the air force and the intelligence agencies who are so distraught over a rebellious people taught that they had, at all times, all political authority inherent within them. We were taught to memorise the preamble to the declaration of independence, which says that whenever any government becomes destructive of the liberty it was supposed to protect, we have the right to throw down such filthy, disgusting, evil, nasty, ugly, horrid government, put the people involved on trial for their lies, treason, murders, rapes, tortures, and thefts, and institute new protections for our peace and happiness. Such has been the long suffering of the American people.
Loyalty only works if it works both ways. If you parasites in government and alumni of parasitical offices in government demand loyalty from Americans but you offer no loyalty to us, then you aren't public servants. You are a disease, a parasitic organism, and the world is better off if you are unemployed, disavowed, and all your property taken from you to be distributed to your many victims. The government of the United States is a usurpation of power, and has been since at least the time of the lies told by it to push Americans into supporting the Spanish-American war. You don't deserve loyalty. You haven't earned it. You and everyone who has ever been associated with the government has persistently shown contempt for Americans. You don't know better than us what we should learn. You don't know how to make loyal citizens, because you think loyalty only flows uphill, never down.
I'm the case study for how your proposals about liberal arts education and the teaching of critical thinking skills don't cause people to be automagically loyal to a decadent, evil, putrescent system. I had the "benefit" of suffering through many years of exactly the kind of education you think "best" for the little people, and I'm not even a tiny bit interested in supporting the ongoing rapes, torturings, murders, and thefts of your system. Perhaps it was unwise to teach me and millions of people like me to think critically. Or perhaps it is God's will that having sown the wind, ye shall reap the whirlwind. Batten down the hatches, cousin. Storm's coming.
Well since I come from a the Scottish Education system I cant really comment on the benefits of liberal arts vs other. At one point the Scottish system was exalted as one of the best education systems in the world. Then in the early 70s we changed the system to stop screening pupils at the 11+ examination for academy or secondary school progression and threw everyone into a comprehensive education. Not to belabor it but mixing in pupils who wanted to learn with pupils who had little interest in learning didn't go well and standards have fallen ever since.
However, on a much bigger picture regarding education, I have always questioned why we get fed so much "stuff" that we never end up using. I graduated with a BSc in Chemistry but joined an oil company and became an "engineer" and never utilized my 4 year chemistry instruction every again. It was all really just a test to see if I could pass a structured education syllabus and consequently obtain my "passport" to move onto other things.
My biggest complaint about the education system was not actually the rote learning style, but the fact that the average pupil had to learn calculus and trigonometry, both useless in modern not highly technical life. Yet basic economics, politics, rhetoric and why history is the way it is was ignored. Perhaps if teenage students were encouraged to take different sides of an argument, especially one they disagreed with, and then debate to win over an audience for that stance, we might see more intelligent discussion across the piste.
Seth Godin has touched briefly on education, but as you mentioned with the job market, he's gone on to mention how it's actually the "job market that makes education to ultimately create customers." Essentially, not the skills needed as you mention, for the greater good, but simply to work and consume in the market.
My millennial generation has suffered and the Gen X behind us look to suffer as well in this education crisis. The only thing we can do is to be aware of the problem.
The late great John Taylor Gatto, New York Teacher of the year, 4x I believe, spoke greatly on education. Once he realized the history of education in the states, he called for a change which is what I think we truly need:
I like "A Lily Bit" much more than the new name. Has a better ring and it is more creative in my assessment. The content regardless is superb and thought provoking. There are always new nuances presented that make one think.
Maybe I will change it again. Not sure yet.
You have my vote for change-back. May want to wait for addn'l comments.
I will do a little poll soon. Once I know the result I will also move this to a domain without the .substack included.
I am getting really tired of hearing about Schwab as he annoys me intensely, so every time I read your new "title" I will become...... intensely annoyed.
No worries, it’s now https://www.alilybit.com/ and stays https://www.alilybit.com/
I saw college educated, successful people that I knew and respected at one time, absolutely transform into mindless sheeple during the plandemic with fealty only to the overlords of the Centers for Disease and Chaos. Their critical thinking ability had been completely destroyed by years of programmed education and media.
Same
Agreed! Critical thinking has diminished firstly in academia as we have moved from a manufacturing to a service economy. In my perception this is due to the lessened experience of working with your hands. Working with physical parts of nature, farming, logging, tinkering with an engine needed to get work done and etc forces connections of mind to the realities of the physical properties of things and sets analytical thinking skills for planning positive outcomes. In a service economy, retail sales, teaching, delivering food, programing a computer, trading stocks and making TikTok videos are devoid of such connections. Academia where teaching lessons for life are far removed from teaching realistic reasoning skills.
We have been headed towards a widening societal split of those who know how to 'do' vs those who must rely on those who 'do' because they are simply incompetent in everything but manipulating others for quite some time. Those who have worked with their hands and been despised as "deplorables" will suddenly find that it is people with manual skills are the ones everyone cannot survive without and are the source of society's critical thinking skills. More than this, it will be those independently running their own businesses and not those in unions following the union line who are the most creative in thought and better carriers of critical thinking skills.
IMO.
I believe that the liberal arts are useful, although whether they are being taught properly anymore in the Anglosphere is a matter of dispute. But this can be obtained over decades cheaply through many different platforms and venues, rather than at great expense in a limited number of institutions within a few years to disinterested young people. The young should be offered a diverse sampling rather than a concentrated, and over-specialized, curriculum. I remember a letter to the Vancouver Province newspaper in the mid-1990's from a young woman angry that no employer would hire her despite her "degree in 19th century French romantic literature". My first thought was that was a oddly specialized degree, and my second thought was to wonder what sort of career path she expected from such an education. I had a friend suggest she could obtain a teaching position based on this. Well, obviously no very specialized degree can be justified solely on the basis of graduates being able to teach the same subject matter because of the discrepancy between the number of teachers and students. A professor and two or three teaching assistants might graduate many thousands of students during their careers, and upon retiring three or four job openings would occur.
The home in which I grew up was in a university town. My dad taught physics and astronomy at the university of Kansas. My mom taught English literature there. So I was encouraged to pursue quite a wide array of academic topics. Possibly because its high school and junior high faculty included many who were spouses of university faculty there was a fairly high level of quality teaching in our school district. Our only high school required every student to pass two semesters of a course called "The Constitution." It included readings from Alexis de Tocqueville and others, ran through all the articles of the constitution in the first semester, and the amendments in the second. Much history was learnt. Some of what was learnt had been taught out of the textbooks, and quite a lot of the textbook lessons were propaganda.
The college to which I went as a scholarship student has had, for over a century, a tradition of having a "core curriculum" in art, music, literature, and "contemporary civilisation" for all students. I'm sure the Marxists have ruined the literature humanities and political science parts with diversity, exclusivity, and insanity to attack the cultural heritage of the West, but the mere fact that these courses were required even for astrophysics majors is, I think, significant.
However, the truth about Columbia College is that it is the only Ivy League school in Harlem. Us scholarship students were made aware with tours by alternative campus groups that the ghetto around our college was mostly owned by the trustees of Columbia who charged high rents for living in poorly maintained buildings. Our scholarships came from poor people paying their rent every month. The dorms were also a mess. I distinctly remember a headline in the school newspaper about "rats as big as cats" found at the East Campus dorm, and photographed. The "temporary" housing for Midshipmen put up hurriedly in the war fever of the first world war is still standing. It was leaky and drafty and decaying when I was a student there. Lots of roaches and other insect life, though not so many rodents as elsewhere.
Which brings us to "citizen loyalty." Yeah, it's so sad for the filthy parasite bureau-rats and politicians who lie and cheat and sleaze and occasionally rape, murder, and torture that they cannot get loyal citizens. Shed a tear for them and their minions in the air force and the intelligence agencies who are so distraught over a rebellious people taught that they had, at all times, all political authority inherent within them. We were taught to memorise the preamble to the declaration of independence, which says that whenever any government becomes destructive of the liberty it was supposed to protect, we have the right to throw down such filthy, disgusting, evil, nasty, ugly, horrid government, put the people involved on trial for their lies, treason, murders, rapes, tortures, and thefts, and institute new protections for our peace and happiness. Such has been the long suffering of the American people.
Loyalty only works if it works both ways. If you parasites in government and alumni of parasitical offices in government demand loyalty from Americans but you offer no loyalty to us, then you aren't public servants. You are a disease, a parasitic organism, and the world is better off if you are unemployed, disavowed, and all your property taken from you to be distributed to your many victims. The government of the United States is a usurpation of power, and has been since at least the time of the lies told by it to push Americans into supporting the Spanish-American war. You don't deserve loyalty. You haven't earned it. You and everyone who has ever been associated with the government has persistently shown contempt for Americans. You don't know better than us what we should learn. You don't know how to make loyal citizens, because you think loyalty only flows uphill, never down.
I'm the case study for how your proposals about liberal arts education and the teaching of critical thinking skills don't cause people to be automagically loyal to a decadent, evil, putrescent system. I had the "benefit" of suffering through many years of exactly the kind of education you think "best" for the little people, and I'm not even a tiny bit interested in supporting the ongoing rapes, torturings, murders, and thefts of your system. Perhaps it was unwise to teach me and millions of people like me to think critically. Or perhaps it is God's will that having sown the wind, ye shall reap the whirlwind. Batten down the hatches, cousin. Storm's coming.
Some Schwabs, we have observed, are more equal than others.
Well since I come from a the Scottish Education system I cant really comment on the benefits of liberal arts vs other. At one point the Scottish system was exalted as one of the best education systems in the world. Then in the early 70s we changed the system to stop screening pupils at the 11+ examination for academy or secondary school progression and threw everyone into a comprehensive education. Not to belabor it but mixing in pupils who wanted to learn with pupils who had little interest in learning didn't go well and standards have fallen ever since.
However, on a much bigger picture regarding education, I have always questioned why we get fed so much "stuff" that we never end up using. I graduated with a BSc in Chemistry but joined an oil company and became an "engineer" and never utilized my 4 year chemistry instruction every again. It was all really just a test to see if I could pass a structured education syllabus and consequently obtain my "passport" to move onto other things.
My biggest complaint about the education system was not actually the rote learning style, but the fact that the average pupil had to learn calculus and trigonometry, both useless in modern not highly technical life. Yet basic economics, politics, rhetoric and why history is the way it is was ignored. Perhaps if teenage students were encouraged to take different sides of an argument, especially one they disagreed with, and then debate to win over an audience for that stance, we might see more intelligent discussion across the piste.
Anyway, just a few of my mediocre thoughts.
Seth Godin has touched briefly on education, but as you mentioned with the job market, he's gone on to mention how it's actually the "job market that makes education to ultimately create customers." Essentially, not the skills needed as you mention, for the greater good, but simply to work and consume in the market.
My millennial generation has suffered and the Gen X behind us look to suffer as well in this education crisis. The only thing we can do is to be aware of the problem.
https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/how-millennials-were-setup-to-fail
The late great John Taylor Gatto, New York Teacher of the year, 4x I believe, spoke greatly on education. Once he realized the history of education in the states, he called for a change which is what I think we truly need:
https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/who-are-the-bad-guys
https://www.unorthodoxtruth.com/