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Tag Archives: education
A Good Thing a Catholic Congregation is Doing in South Africa
Congregants recently pulled together enough funds to send to university 31 promising students from some of the poorest townships in South Africa: __________ I personally know of a Catholic priest in Southern California who is doing something similar (raising tuition … Continue reading
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Tagged Catholicism, college, education, life, peace, South Africa
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Do MOOCs Spell the End of the Traditional College Experience?
At The American Interest Nathan Harden, playing prophet, makes a pretty alarming prediction: In fifty years, if not much sooner, half of the roughly 4,500 colleges and universities now operating in the United States will have ceased to exist. The technology … Continue reading
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Tagged college, education, Harvard, MIT, MOOCs, online education, professors, teachers, universities
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Not Waving, But Drowning
At the Daily Beast, Megan McArdle sees college as the American middle class’s last desperate bet for economic security in the fast-shifting global economy: If employers have mostly been using college degrees to weed out the inept and the unmotivated, then … Continue reading
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Tagged America, China, college, critical thinking, education, jobs, the middle class, universities
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Blessed are the Ignorant: Rick Santorum Adds a Beatitude to the Sermon on the Mount
“Blessed are ye who lack degrees, for such is the Party of God.” And they applauded. What manner of man is this? _____ “But woe unto those that are educated, for they art snobs.” Here’s a transcript of Rick Santorum’s exact … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, college, education, Harvard, Jesus, rick santorum, rush limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Sermon on the Mount, snobs, UCLA, university
3 Comments
The Bright American Future
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Tagged America, college, education, geography, globalism, high school, history, illiteracy, school
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Salman Khan’s TED Talk and Website
______ And here’s his exciting website.
Critical Thinking Quote Watch: Derek Bok on the Primary Goal of a College Education (and Higher Education’s General Failure at Reaching It)
The following quote comes from Derek Bok’s book, Our Underachieving Colleges (Princeton 2006, p. 8): Many [college] seniors graduate without being able to write well enough to satisfy their employers. Many cannot reason clearly or perform competently in analyzing complex, … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, cells, critical thinking, Derek Bok, education, philosophy, reason, science, st. augustine, thinking
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At Last, an Honest Budget: Why I’m Glad Jerry Brown is Governor of California
When Jerry Brown ran for governor last year, I voted for him. One reason I did so was because I believed that he would be likely to keep everything above-board, budget-wise. He has delivered in spades. After recently vetoing a budget … Continue reading
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Tagged America, budget balancing, budget cutting, California, college, deficit, education, jerry brown, Politics, silicon valley, taxes
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Community Colleges, the Enrollment Bottleneck, and a Dirty Little Secret
On April 8, 2011, the New York Times ran a piece on students making: . . . a strategic financial decision to attend community college first as a cost saving measure. The cost savings can be large (perhaps somewhere in the … Continue reading
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Tagged antelope valley college, bottlenecks, California, college, community college, dirty secret, education, higher education, money, students, teachers
5 Comments
Critical Thinking in the Classroom Watch: What Miguel Aguilar Does
In the Los Angeles Times this weekend is an article about an unusually successful 5th grade teacher in LA Unified, Miguel Aguilar, and I notice that he very specifically teaches critical thinking to his students. Here, for example, is how the Times describes … Continue reading
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Tagged education, miguel aguilar, pedagogy, teachers, teaching, what the best teachers do
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What’s an undergraduate education for?
I like the way Tim Lee, a CATO Institute scholar, thinks about undergraduate education: [T]he primary function of an undergraduate education is to allow the student to join a scholarly community, and in the process to soak up the values and attitudes … Continue reading
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Tagged college, critical thinking, education, liberal, life, philosophy, reason, the Enlightenment, Thomas Jefferson
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Two Questions for Professors: Are You Demanding and Do You Teach Critical Thinking?
The following is in Salon today: [W]hat if the downward trend in learning extends into the echelons of higher education? That’s what Richard Arum argues in “Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses.” Arum, a sociology and education professor at … Continue reading
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Tagged college, critical thinking, education, professors, reason, teaching, United States, university
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The Decline and Fall of the Male Empire
Hanna Rosin charts it:
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Tagged 2011, 21st century, America, education, feminism, hanna rosin, men, the world, women, women's equality, women's rights
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California Budget Crisis Watch: As Jerry Brown Assumes the Governorship, Education Braces for Big Spending Cuts
The State of California faces a $28-billion funding deficit over the next 18 months, and education costs consume 40% of the state’s budget. That means that cuts to education are coming. Big cuts. Here’s the Los Angeles Times today: Treasurer Bill Lockyer, who … Continue reading
The Case against Dumbing Down
I don’t know about you, but I’m totally against dumbing down subjects or language use before my students. I believe, for example, that if the undergraduates sitting before me in a class have limited vocabularies (and they all invariably do), it’s … Continue reading
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Tagged academic culture, college, education, epistemology, pedagogy, vocabulary
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Sarah Palin’s America
The Sarah Palin life model is internalized by a child:
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Tagged America, anti-intellectualism, Calvin, college, education, elitism, hobbes, life, Sarah Palin
4 Comments
Sarah Palin Shows Disdain for a Middle Class Teacher
In the following clip, Sarah Palin doesn’t even try to conceal her contempt for a teacher (that is, someone devoted to developing the life of the mind and a love of books in her young charges). It’s as if Sarah Palin were saying to this … Continue reading
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Tagged America, conservatism, education, learning, Republicans, right wing, rush limbaugh, Sarah Palin, stupidity, teachers
15 Comments
Why Read Literature or Watch Good Films? Martha Nussbaum on the Role of the Imagination in the Cultivation of Empathy
Here’s a great quote from Martha Nussbaum’s new book, From Disgust to Humanity: Sexual Orientation and Constitutional Law (Oxford 2010, xvii): That ‘terrified’ gay teenager needs, and deserves, equal respect, and a sphere of liberty equal to that enjoyed by … Continue reading
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Tagged college, creative writing, democracy, education, ethics, film, literature, martha nussbaum, morality, poetry, teachers
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A great Henry David Thoreau quote
No method nor discipline can supersede the necessity of being forever on the alert. What is a course of history, or philosophy, or poetry, or the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of looking always at what … Continue reading
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Tagged college, education, Henry David Thoreau, life, literature, philosophy, poetry, psychology, vision, walden, William Blake
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Prometheus Unbound 