WE DON’T NEED NO EDUCATION, (FOR ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL)

From twitterX:

 

I get yelled at for saying this but for many hundreds of years people went to university not to get diplomas or be employable but because immersion in the humanities was considered foundational to a good life, and school must return to its original purpose: the joy of learning.

 

Doesn’t that sound like something to aspire to, ‘The Joy Of Learning?’

After reading the original post I had to scroll:

There are some things that transcend utility. Learning history, art, religion, and literature is one of them.

 

What they mean is try to get a handle on what people are talking about.

Older people, baby boomers who went to college, often flaunt their vocabulary to show their status in the community.

High English can sound like a foreign language.

From Google AI:

 

High-level English words, often used for academic (SAT/IELTS) or advanced literary purposes, include

acquiesce (agree), alacrity (eagerness), capricious (fickle), ephemeral (short-lived), loquacious (talkative), and paradigm (model). These terms enhance precision, sophistication, and eloquence in both writing and speech.

 

Things start getting fun when people use the words wrong on purpose. Or make words up, like philosophico.

“The alacrity in the house turned on the lights.”

 

On The Job Training

at one time most college degrees were based on liberal arts to enlighten and edify

 

The man in red, me, started working here on a six month contract that lasted twenty years.

The lessons learned were life long and still strong.

Since everyone else in the building was so smart I kicked in and walked up the block to Portland State for a degree in US History with an emphasis on Northwest, and a minor in Latin American history.

With, I like to add, a wife and kids and a house in the suburbs, which made it all more meaningful to get finished.

See boys, you can do it. And they did.

My dad did it with wife and kids, which didn’t mean then what it did later since I was a six year old.

 

Take the profit motive away, give ppl free education, UBI or a way to assure survival then ppl will return to learning for learning’s sake. Many harness the power of “Youtube University” because ppl enjoy & hunger for learning. The joy of learning still lives but has morphed.

 

The hunger for learning, the yearning part, is so desperate that too many glom onto questionable stuff and defend it with everything they’ve got.

It’s worse when some numb-nut is so convincing that other’s pick up the shovel and start spreading shit without a thought.

Education is, at its root, the difference between following orders and understanding why the ability to follow orders is important.

Living the museum life was an exercise in looking long range, of what matters, and how to preserve it.

One of the striking things to me was product packaging, also known as trash, but when it’s product packaging a hundred year old it’s called an artifact.

A Category One box for vanilla flavoring is as valuable as the Portland Penny? It is in the world of museum collection management.

 

I remember when things started to change, emphasis on vocational, away from what universities were. I had studied History/museum studies & those depts eventually closed down. Also interacting w/ other humanities students while on campus furthered my reading repertoire.

 

I have a chemistry degree which paid the bills. But the most important things I learned were in history and literature. What it means to be human.

 

One Day Things Change

 

I took sociology, and English literature, and art history alongside organic chemistry and calculus. It was required to graduate. I feel so lucky to have been exposed to so many interesting and beautiful ideas There is value having them inside you instead of your LLM

I went to uni to immerse myself in literature. I had longed for that happiness.

 

Yeah, letting colleges become gatekeepers over who can have a good job in the 1950s was one of the worst mistakes our nation ever made

 

 

Things change when you chase the romanticized vision of an ivory tower away.

Learning from the scope of western history is a good way to find your way, to know your place, and maybe a clue as to how life for someone like you would have been in the past.

I come from a line of people with an uneven record in education.

I could have dropped out of junior high and wouldn’t have been the first.

Quit high school? Already been done in my family tree.

Got a full academic ride to a regal institution and dropped because I didn’t get into the right sorority or fraternity?

I wouldn’t have been the first for that.

 

 

Drop out after freshman year and come back?

That is a first. Where’s my podium?

This is a ripe topic for me because I told myself everything I’d ever heard about higher education.

Yes, no. Do, don’t.

Why not get your shit together and find a way to finish what you started, which struck a note with me.

Or tune out the positives and learn go live with the excuses, until one day things change.

Either way, it’s a learning experience.

 

PS:

Be the change in your life.

 

PSS:

Be the change for those who look up to you.

“But Dave, no one looks up to me?”

Yes, they do. You just don’t see them.

College improves vision, and I’m not talking about optometry school.