Re:I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than...
by pempem on Sunday March 20, 2022 @09:38PM
(#30749040)
We talk and I've commented on posts about 'misinformation' 'propaganda' the role of social media and pernicious tentacles of marketing. The amount of surveillance, terrible software promoted as amazing (remember the articles about Shotspotter? or LIDAR? or facial recognition by airlines?)
We're already doing a pretty terrible job educating people and it shows. How much worse does it get when its outsourced to the 'community'? Communities in the US (and everywhere) are fragmented, class stratified, religiously bound structures that we have seen the detriment of when it comes to civic participation. Just check out the IG page of any former evangelical or mormon female.
A secular democracy requires education and time to participate in civic and civil society. That education must imho be grounded in not just how to think, but also the history of humanity. Otherwise we are signing ourselves up for a return to much darker days.
Re:I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than...
by scaramanga on Sunday March 20, 2022 @11:42PM
(#30749964)
Yes. I fear that this is exactly what is missed by people who expect University to operate as a transaction where middle class people invest money in order to obtain membership in to an elite cast, which is a system where the state is treating these investments as a private enterprise which needs public-sector subsidy, and the university is put in to a system of economic incentives where it becomes an institution for producing people who corporations need, and in turn, the indebted student is lumbered with economic constraints which channel them into being who a corporation needs.
There are many ways to prepare an individual for that responsibility. In western nations, that is often done more through a formal educational program than through the community and family.
This also isn't a "you must have X amount of civic responsibility" as different societies are looking for adults to have different amounts of responsibility within that society.
While American college is to an extent the deferment of responsibility, in many cases it is also the exposure to a wider range of cultures than one experienced up through high school. It is that exposure to other people and culture - learning to get along with a roommate or doing your own laundry in a gradual process that college presents.
In that respect, it is not a deferment of dealing with the real world, but rather a gradual introduction to the broader world. While the 18 year old American may be able to do unskilled labor and get along (tolerably) with siblings, being able to work in an office or understand that the upbringing of the driver of the carpool isn't the same as yours - that comes from that exposure to other people and cultures.