

I'm never going to use this in real life - infinibuy
http://infinibuy.blogspot.com/
This is a blog about why school the current school system is outdated and what needs to be done about it.
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TomOfTTB
Oy. I agree the education system needs an overhaul but you didn't really think
this post out very well (it would also be nice if you contributed to the
community before blindly submitting your post but whatever). Your post doesn't
give one single relevant solution to the problems you outline.

Let's go over your points...

1\. Kids aren't taught real money skills in school which is why many Americans
are in Credit debt

Anyone who has taken economics should be able to figure out a credit card.
People who get into credit debt do so because they don't spend wisely and
that's a function of emotion ("I want that even though I can't afford it") and
not knowledge.

2\. USA Today says only 64% of high school students go on to College and only
29% of those earn a degree and you think this is because kids are bored by
classes they can't relate to.

The system's screwed up. I don't think anyone questions that. But the solution
is not to cut out General Education as you suggest. Most kids don't know what
they want to be at 18 years old. General Education exposes them to fields they
may never have thought of and that's always been the point of it. There's an
argument that teachers should make things more interesting but that, imho, is
really an argument against Teacher Tenure and that brings us back to "everyone
knows the system's screwed up."

Beyond that there's also the up-side of opening kids minds (I love classical
and baroque music to this day because I was forced to take a liberal arts
class like music appreciation)

3\. Textbooks need to go because they are boring, old and outdated.

Newsflash, it's a corrupt system. Publishers bribe dept. heads, dept. heads
require those text books and it all goes on and on. Nothing you suggested
(electronic or self publishing solutions) solves the actual problem.

The rest of your points.

From there you go after the K-12 education system. Well, yes, K-12 is screwed
up. If you think you discovered that problem think again. But the reality is
that K-12 is run by teachers and many K-12 teachers aren't good. It's a job
that's frustrating as all heck, pays lousy and (thanks to unions) promises
lifetime employment no matter how bad you do it. That is the problem. You can
outline the results of that problem all you want but it won't change the fact
that nothing else can be done before that problem is fixed.

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lliiffee
I think you are wrong to criticize him for submitting his own post. This is
the only thing he has submitted, so it isn't like he is spamming the new page.
It would be trivial to make a sockpuppet before submitting, so I think we
should applaud the honesty.

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TomOfTTB
You could be right but my issue wasn't that he submitted his story as much as
it was that he signed up three hours ago (obviously just to submit the story).
Which to me says he wasn't contributing to the community in any way (even
voting things up or down) and just thought of this as a way to boost his blog

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bradford
This sounds like a college student who is stressed out by his current
classload, and instead of studying more, he decided to write a blog and
complain about it. Here's one snippet:

"Why do colleges require you to take classes that have nothing to do with your
major (zoology for business majors anyone)?"

One of the roles of college is to give you a broad education; this diversifies
your skill set and also prepares you for an uncertain future. I'm seven years
out of college. Instead of wishing that I had taken more computer science
classes, I often wish that I would have taken more classes not related to my
major. Some of the most memorable classes that I had were not related to my
major (art, music theory, sociology). These classes don't directly help me
make more money in my job, but they certainly did help me prepare for life.

~~~
infinibuy
Thanks for all the comments everyone (love the constructive criticism)

You guys are right and wrong with some of your critiques: Yes, I am a college
student but I am not really sour on the whole college experience. I just think
the system as a whole needs a drastic revamping. But I do see some weaknesses
in my argument after reading your posts.

As for being a newbie and trying to boost my points, I need to apologize. I
did not do it simply to promote my blog. There was an article on Y Combinator
in INC this month so I decided to check out the website and it led me here. I
definitely plan on contributing to the community with comments and feedback as
well as submitting the occasional blog every now and again.

~~~
jibiki
Oh, you've caught the community at a strange time.

Normally we just sit around and discuss the innards of Erlang.

------
ErrantX
perma link: [http://infinibuy.blogspot.com/2009/05/im-never-going-to-
use-...](http://infinibuy.blogspot.com/2009/05/im-never-going-to-use-this-in-
real-life.html)

Every generation has this bug bear (well, I suppose every modenr generation).
For a LONG time I've thought you could scrap large parts of most Physics
courses and instead get the kids to read A Brief History of Time (the one with
some actual math), In Search of Schroedingers Cat and a couple of others. They
make it much more digestable.

The Blind Watchmaker covers most important biology.

And I've always argued that the Mitnick books should play an integral part of
any school/college level IT class.

But it wont happen :)

