Re: Should I be an engineer in terms of skills

straydog wrote:

<snip>

Whenever I see what's going on in the education system, I'm glad I'm not a father. It seems it's concerned about anything but actually teaching the 3 Rs.


Ah...but the question is what is the definition of the 3Rs?

It sure doesn't seem to be reading, writing, and 'rithmetic. Many of the students I taught were fresh out of high school and their grasp of algebra after Grade 12 was less than what I had in Grade 9 some 35 years ago. For many of the students I had, the 3 Rs were rewards, rebellion, and rudeness.

And, what
else is going on these days. I don't know if the newspapers are representing the state of primary and secondary school (let alone the college level "party" schools), but I'm hearing about kids bringing guns, knives, even bombs to school.

I can't say I encountered anything like that, but, for a while, I drove to where I was teaching as I was taking courses over at the university and commuted between the two locations.

One day, I found one of my tires had a cut on the side. Judging by the angle, the depth, and the shape of the edge, I concluded it wasn't accidental. It could have been someone from the neighbourhood where I lived, but why just the one tire? The other thought that occurred to me was that one of my students figured out which car I drove and wanted to get his revenge.

I remember finding a live 22 shell in the hallway of the main building, making me wonder where that came from.

Then, they are reporting vastly
increased levels of cheating.

I once had a student tell me something like: "I had to cheat as I wouldn't have passed your exam otherwise." How do you answer that?

Then, we've got all those mental health
issues (including the one that just came on the NG) including suicide rates up, anorexia-bulimia rates up. What else?

I encountered a wide variety of personalities in my students, both as a TA and as an instructor. Aside from the usual whiners, yakkers, and class clowns, I had several alcoholics, possibly a dopehead or two, some students who just sat there in near-catatonic states, one who tried to take a swing at me, and several who used profanity.

Then there was the stuff that was left in my drop box....

How was I ever expected to teach with students like that?



I just finished reading volume 3 of Will Durant's "Story of Civilization" (still have 7 volumes to go, all running 600-1000 pages each) and it was mostly about the ancient Roman Empire. Guys, it was really something I can't put into words. An enormous number of things were going on. Some good, some bad. Lots of socio-economic evolution in that society. I'm seeing that they went through almost everything we've ever gone through. Diocletian, one of the emperors, actually established for decades -- believe it or not -- socialism in Rome/Italy. State control of just about everything. Roughly somewhere 275-300 +/- AD. I'll spare the details. Someday when y'all are retired (like I am) and crave to know where we came from can put that on your "to do" list. The Decline and Fall was slow, heterogeneous, had multiple causes, and took place at different times at different places. Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating.


I liked reading about that in school. I wish that they'd taught more of it.


I've got a few more "heavies" on the stack. Unless a heart attack hits me, soon, I'll be mentioning some of this stuff as it happens. But, so far, it seems like most of what is going on in the world today also went on thousands of years ago, too. Technology, nano or otherwise, not included but maybe almost irrelevant. They had power politics, lying and theiving, etc., back then. Just in a little different form. There was an incredible amount of fratricide among the Roman Emperors and their families, for example.

I watched "I, Claudius" several times on PBS. A real chummy lot, those Caesars were.

Actually, in the earlier Durant, all that was
going on even in ancient India and ancient China, too, so it had nothing to do with race or ethnic or geography, either. And, not everything the old Roman Emperors did was bad. Most seemed to go through a early period of rob, rape, pillage, conquor, kill, enslave and then go through a period of build, liberalize laws, lower taxes, cancel debts, and--believe it or not--make the citizens happy!!! 

Bread and circuses, the old standby.
.

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