They were right — although I had to see it for myself before I fully grasped the magnitude of the phenomenon — children are learning machines, more or less in the same sense that sharks are eating machines.
The only phenomenon more astonishing than that is the way the public school system manages to kick, stomp, and crush a child’s inherent curiosity and love of learning, often destroying it altogether by the third or fourth grade. Yes, children are learning machines. The fact that government schools have managed to condition them against learning is an astonishing — if wholly negative — feat, achieved at the unspeakable cost of countless hundreds of billions of dollars.
Nobody has any choices in the matter. The government’s schools are underwritten by the kind of theft we call taxation, and nothing good can ever come of that. Their little desks are filled by a kind of conscription. The entire institution is administered and operated by unionized net tax consumers, who savagely resist any attempt to objectively assess their work and reward (or punish) them on that basis.
I’d like to have a nickel for every time I’ve had to listen to school administrators inviting parents to participate in the education of their own children — and then complaining when parents actually do it.
They want you to participate, all right, but only on their terms. They don’t want you questioning their policies and practices. They want you to validate whatever they do to your kids, to provide them with what Ayn Rand called “the sanction of the victim”. And if you won’t do that, or if you won’t sit down and shut up — or better yet, just go away — then they identify you as “problem parents” and “trouble-makers”.
L. Neil Smith, “Salt on the Ruins: A Chapter from the Forthcoming Where We Stand“, Libertarian Enterprise, 2010-10-16
October 18, 2010
QotD: The primary achievement of modern schools
October 14, 2010
The anomaly was the “nuclear family” era, not today
In so many stories about adult children moving back home after college, the default attitude seems to be that this is “not normal”. This is false: for most of human history, the default living situation has been multiple generations living in the same dwelling. The “nuclear family” era was the break with everything that had gone before. That being said, this should be no surprise:
Getting a degree used to be a stepping stone to limitless career opportunities. Now it’s more of a hiatus from living under your parents’ roof.
Stubbornly high unemployment — nearly 15% for those ages 20-24 — has made finding a job nearly impossible. And without a job, there’s nowhere for these young adults to go but back to their old bedrooms, curfews and chore charts. Meet the boomerangers.
“This recession has hit young adults particularly hard,” according to Rich Morin, senior editor at the Pew Research Center in DC.
So hard that a whopping 85% of college seniors planned to move back home with their parents after graduation last May, according to a poll by Twentysomething Inc., a marketing and research firm based in Philadelphia. That rate has steadily risen from 67% in 2006.
October 13, 2010
QotD: Economic misconceptions
Students typically come to an economics class with many misconceptions, not just random errors but systematic biases.
Bill Goffe recently (2009) surveyed one of his macro principles classes and found, for example, that the median student believes that 35% of workers earn the minimum wage and a substantial fraction think that a majority of workers earn the minimum wage (Actual rate in 2007: 2.3% of hourly-paid workers and a smaller share of all workers earn the minimum wage, rates are probably somewhat higher today since the min. wage has risen and wages have not).
When asked about profits as a percentage of sales the median student guessed 30% (actual rate, closer to 4%).
When asked about the inflation rate over the last year (survey was in 2009) the median student guessed 11%. Actual rate: much closer to 0%. Note, how important such misconceptions could be to policy.
When asked by how much has income per person in the United States changed since 1950 (after adjusting for inflation) the median student said an increase of 25%. Actual rate an increase of about 248%, thus the median student was off by a factor of 10.
Alex Tabarrok, “Economic Misconceptions”, Marginal Revolution, 2010-10-11
October 12, 2010
Monty on structural unemployment
Monty is still too busy with real life to do a daily Financial Briefing, but he’s dropping by a few times a week with his insightful-and-acidic thoughts at Ace of Spades HQ:
Welding jobs may be plentiful, but that’s no help to you if you’re not a welder. This is called “structural unemployment”, and it has no real short-term solution. It results from a disconnect between current worker skills and employer requirements. It’s really a form of malinvestment. Students train in subjects like Postmodernist Literary Theory and The Hermeneutics of Lesbian Cinema, but the job market is asking for engineers and plumbers. Workers in fading industries won’t or can’t retrain. The last time this problem cropped up was during the 1982 recession: the old manufacturing jobs were gone, and the hundreds of thousands of Rust Belt factory workers — many now middle-aged, with high union wages and benefits packages they didn’t want to lose — either could not or would not re-train into other fields. This led to a long cycle of stagnation in which the American upper midwest remains mired to this very day. Pull quote:
Victor Calix Cruz, 51, has been job hunting for two years after being laid off from construction work in Miami. He, his wife and their two teenage children are “surviving” on his wife’s disability and his unemployment payments, he said. While he heard of openings at hotels, he hasn’t applied because the pay and benefits aren’t as good as what he had before.
I don’t imagine that your unemployment check matches what you were making before either, Chief. It’s like the old Rolling Stones song: you can’t always get what you want.
October 8, 2010
October 6, 2010
Montessori school raided by New Mexico drug cops
You can rest easy, knowing that a potentially dangerous grow op has been investigated by New Mexico Schutzstaffel drug cops:
“We were all as a group eating outside as we usually do, and this unmarked drab-green helicopter kept flying over and dropping lower,” she said. “Of course, the kids got all excited. They were telling me that they could see gun barrels outside the helicopter. I was telling them they were exaggerating.”
After 15 minutes, Pantano said, the helicopter left, then five minutes later a state police officer parked a van in the school’s driveway. Pantano said she asked the officer what was happening, but he only would say he was there as a law-enforcement representative.
Then other vehicles arrived and four men wearing bullet-proof vests, but without any visible insignias or uniforms, got out and said they wanted to inspect the school’s greenhouses. Pantano said she then turned the men over to the farm director, Greg Nussbaum.
Ms. Pantano must have nerves of steel . . . most schools would have gone into emergency lock-down at the sight of all those paramilitary types deploying in the driveway.
The comments on BoingBoing were good, and this one was great:
The War on Organic Produce continues to go well. Each of those tomatoes cost the taxpayer $75.00 US! WE WILL NOT BE SATISFIED UNTIL THE DRUG CZAR IS RUMOURED TO CURE GOUT BY WASHING THE FEET OF THE AFFLICTED.
—
Seriously: What the fucking fuck fuck happened to Probable Cause in this day and age? “We’re spending $20,000 on this operation because we herd thai leik mudkips, so we kipped in thair mud so thai can mud whail thai kip.” In the immortal words of Plato, NON FUCKING SEQUITUR is NOT a RIVER in EGYPT!“What else floats the same as a Cannabis Sativa plant??? – er, WOOD! – Good, what else? – well, tiny rocks. – OH! A DUCK! – Right! So if the suspects are raising ducks — THEN THEY’RE RAISING POT! – WELL /DONE/!”
Law Enforcement by Superstition is horse-shit.
September 3, 2010
QotD: Another key ingredient to ever-growing bureaucracy
Bureaucrats breed more bureaucrats. A system manned by university graduates, with ever higher levels of accreditation, believes that such a type of learning is socially useful. The Mandarin believes his role to be central in society. The state will manage society, and he and his class will manage the state. Other forms of learning are useful, but inferior. Since the Mandarin also controls the state schools, he will wish to gear the whole system to the generation of more like him.
This may seem counterintuitive. Why have more competition? Why not, like the original Mandarins of Imperial China, select only the best and brightest for higher education? Because the modern Mandarin lives in a democratic society. Such obvious selectivity would be damned as elitist. Mass high school and university education has the added benefit of reinforcing the bureaucratic system. This goes beyond the crude propaganda used in the schools, which really works only on those too young to challenge it, but to the very methods being employed.
The academically uninclined, even though still intelligent, youth acquires a grudging admiration for the academically talented. He begins, and the whole system reinforces this notion, that only this type of aptitude truly matters. His own talents, which might be every bit as useful to himself and society as any other, he begins to regard as inferior. Reluctantly, sometimes bitterly, he begins to defer to the “smart kids.” He has been prepared for a society in which the academic student has become the intellectualized bureaucrat. It will be easier for him to defer to the bureaucrat, whom he regards, if only subconsciously, as his superior.
Publius, “The Education Machine”, Gods of the Copybook Headings, 2010-09-02
August 10, 2010
July 31, 2010
That 77 cents myth again
Have you heard that women earn only 77 cents for each dollar earned by men? Do you believe it? I hope not, because it’s provably false:
Blau and Kahn found that 59% of the gender differential could be explained by non-discriminatory things: experience, chosen occupation, chosen industry, etc. So the “77 cents” statistic can’t be due to discrimination:
- Estimated wage gap based on “77 cents” statistic = $0.23 per hour
- Amount explained by nondiscriminatory factors = $0.14 per hour
- Amount NOT explained = $0.09 per hour
According to Blau and Kahn, the most that could be attributed to discrimination is $0.09 per hour. And this assumes that their model accounts for ALL legitimate nondiscriminatory factors.
Are there legitimate nondiscriminatory factors that were omitted from their model? Probably — no model is perfect. Some people have argued that men are better negotiators than women, and because of this men tend to get higher starting salaries. Are differences in negotiating skills discriminatory? Perhaps, based on the way that we raise our daughters (that’s a sociological issue). But the employer can’t be held responsible for differences in negotiating skills, can he?
Something else to consider: overtime hours, shift premiums, etc., may cause a difference in earnings between men and women, even though their base rates of pay are the same. If a woman chooses to work fewer overtime hours than her male counterpart, resulting in lower earnings, is that discrimination?
H/T to Walter Olson for the link.
July 30, 2010
July 29, 2010
July 26, 2010
The American class system
Unlike the British class system, which notoriously has three classes, the American system has only two:
. . . the United States today is divided into (a) a ruling class, which dominates the government at every level, the schools and universities, the mainstream media, Hollywood, and a great deal else, and (b) all of the rest of us, a heterogeneous agglomeration that Codevilla dubs the country class. The ruling class holds the lion’s share of the institutional power, but the country class encompasses perhaps two-thirds of the people.
Members of the two classes do not like one another. In particular, the ruling class views the rest of the population as composed of ignoramuses who are vicious, violent, racist, religious, irrational, unscientific, backward, generally ill-behaved, and incapable of living well without constant, detailed direction by our betters; and it views itself as perfectly qualified and entitled to pound us into better shape by the generous application of laws, taxes, subsidies, regulations, and unceasing declarations of its dedication to bringing the country — and indeed the entire world — out of its present darkness and into the light of the Brave New World it is busily engineering.
This class divide has little to do with rich versus poor or Democrat versus Republican. At its core, it has to do with the division between, on the one hand, those whose attitudes are attuned to the views endorsed by the ruling class (especially “political correctness”) and whose fortunes are linked directly or indirectly with government programs and, on the other hand, those whose outlooks and interests derive from and focus on private affairs, especially the traditional family, religion, and genuine private enterprise. Above all, as Codevilla makes plain, “for our ruling class, identity always trumps.” These people know they are superior in every way, and they are not shy about letting us know that they are. Arrogance might as well be their middle name.
July 22, 2010
The empirical side of engineering
As anyone who’s been paying attention knows, most engineering work is unexceptional and we depend on it working without fuss or bother. Engineers learn what is and isn’t possible with the materials and techniques available, but one of the most important teachers is failure:
The sinking of the Titanic, the meltdown of the Chernobyl reactor in 1986, the collapse of the World Trade Center — all forced engineers to address what came to be seen as deadly flaws.
“Any engineering failure has a lot of lessons,” said Gary Halada, a professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook who teaches a course called “Learning from Disaster.”
Design engineers say that, too frequently, the nature of their profession is to fly blind.
Eric H. Brown, a British engineer who developed aircraft during World War II and afterward taught at Imperial College London, candidly described the predicament. In a 1967 book, he called structural engineering “the art of molding materials we do not really understand into shapes we cannot really analyze, so as to withstand forces we cannot really assess, in such a way that the public does not really suspect.”
July 16, 2010
Addressing the science and technology gender gap
It must be the start of the silly season, as lots of words are being flung around about the low number of women in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). The numbers are well short of gender parity, which some are latching on to as prima facie proof of misogyny, prejudice, and deliberate stunting of women’s career choices. Legislative and regulatory “fixes” are being suggested. Not so fast, says Eric S. Raymond:
Let’s get one shibboleth out of the way first: Larry Summers was right to be skeptical about the prospects for “equality” in STEM (science, technology, math, engineering) fields in general. Just the difference in dispersion of the IQ curves for males and females guarantees that, let alone the significant differences in mean at spatial visualization and mathematical ability. Removing all the institutional, social and psychological barriers will not achieve a 1:1 sex ratio in these fields; the best we can hope for is a large, happy female minority — that is, as opposed to a small and unhappy one.
[. . .]
I don’t mean to deny that there is still prejudice against women lurking in dark corners of the field. But I’ve known dozens of women in computing who wouldn’t have been shy about telling me if they were running into it, and not one has ever reported it to me as a primary problem. The problems they did report were much worse. They centered on one thing: women, in general, are not willing to eat the kind of shit that men will swallow to work in this field.
Now let’s talk about death marches, mandatory uncompensated overtime, the beeper on the belt, and having no life. Men accept these conditions because they’re easily hooked into a monomaniacal, warrior-ethic way of thinking in which achievement of the mission is everything. Women, not so much. Much sooner than a man would, a woman will ask: “Why, exactly, am I putting up with this?”
Correspondingly, young women in computing-related majors show a tendency to tend to bail out that rises directly with their comprehension of what their working life is actually going to be like. Biology is directly implicated here. Women have short fertile periods, and even if they don’t consciously intend to have children their instincts tell them they don’t have the option young men do to piss away years hunting mammoths that aren’t there.
Eric feels that the big problem (at least in computing) is that the field has become the modern sweatshop: better paid by far than sweatshops of the non-digital nature, but still the kind of work that only appeals to the obsessives, the ones who like to focus monomaniacally on goals. As a general rule, men are much more likely to accept this kind of work, as men tend to have a bias towards monomania that most women don’t.
There’s also the social aspect: geeks don’t talk to one another in the same way or for the same lengths of time as non-geeks do. They may communicate by email or instant messaging or other non face-to-face media, but conversation — unless it’s focused on the task at hand — isn’t a preferred activity during work hours (which, for a true geek, may be all the hours not spent sleeping or eating). Looking at that kind of environment doesn’t attract people who are well socialized and who are used to more interaction with co-workers.
As a comment on Eric’s post put it: “You’re saying the real “problem” with the gender ratios is not sexism, its that most women have more sense than we males do!”
July 9, 2010
A Terry Pratchett short story
Lois McMaster Bujold happened upon this Pratchett short story and sent the link to the Bujold mailing list. The academics of the Unseen University confront the recommendations of the University Inspector:
“I have to tell you, sir, that Mr Pessimal is suggesting that we accept an intake of 40 per cent non-traditional students,” said Ponder Stibbons.
“What does that mean?” said the Senior Wrangler.
“Well, er…” Stibbons began, but the council had already resorted to definition-by-hubbub.
“We take in all sorts as it is,” said the Dean.
“Does he mean people who are not traditionally good at magic?” said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.
“Ridiculous!” said the Dean. “Forty per cent duffers?”
“Exactly!” said the Archchancellor. “That means we’d have to find enough clever people to make up over half the student intake! We’d never manage it. If they were clever already, they wouldn’t need to go to university! No, we’ll stick to an intake of 100 per cent young fools, thank you. Bring ’em in stupid, send them away clever, that’s the UU way!”
“Some of them arrive thinkin’ they’re clever, of course,” said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.
“Yes, but we soon disabuse them of that,” said the Dean happily. “What is a university for if it isn’t to tell you that everything you think you know is wrong?”
“Well put, that man!” said Ridcully. “Ignorance is the key! That’s how the Dean got where he is today!”
“Thank you, Archchancellor,” said the Dean, in a chilly voice. “I shall take that as a compliment. Carefully directed ignorance is the key to all knowledge.”
