03-14-2003, 08:42 PM
Hi,
Sorry, but I think that an attitude like yours is a large part of what causes the problem. The problem of a lack of respect for education and the failure of the system to provide one. You are not looking at education, you are looking at training. And training in schools is a waste of time. By the time a person is looking for their first job, most of what they've been trained in is obsolete. However, the ability to think, to reason, to solve problems, to learn on their own are of value for life.
As to the "That said, some of the most impressive intellects I've met were incapable of attending the University, as they were unable to "waste their time" proving to a professor things they already knew." that's almost always a cop out used by people who know no better or couldn't make it. All the schools I know of have allowed unlimited challenging of courses for a few decades now. Few schools have any class attendance requirements. If a person has college level knowledge, it is a simple matter to get a piece of paper backing that knowledge up. And I doubt seriously that the people you are talking about are so brilliant and so well rounded that there were no professors in any subject that didn't have *something* to teach them.
There is nothing as useless as a "useful" education.
--Pete
Sorry, but I think that an attitude like yours is a large part of what causes the problem. The problem of a lack of respect for education and the failure of the system to provide one. You are not looking at education, you are looking at training. And training in schools is a waste of time. By the time a person is looking for their first job, most of what they've been trained in is obsolete. However, the ability to think, to reason, to solve problems, to learn on their own are of value for life.
As to the "That said, some of the most impressive intellects I've met were incapable of attending the University, as they were unable to "waste their time" proving to a professor things they already knew." that's almost always a cop out used by people who know no better or couldn't make it. All the schools I know of have allowed unlimited challenging of courses for a few decades now. Few schools have any class attendance requirements. If a person has college level knowledge, it is a simple matter to get a piece of paper backing that knowledge up. And I doubt seriously that the people you are talking about are so brilliant and so well rounded that there were no professors in any subject that didn't have *something* to teach them.
There is nothing as useless as a "useful" education.
--Pete
How big was the aquarium in Noah's ark?