Category: Education

Elliot’s Schooling: The Role of Government

This continues the series of posts on education.

What is the role of government in education? The problem of central government power and corruption in relation to education is a cause of great concern for me. I still remember learning that Abraham Lincoln was a champion of civil rights who wanted to end slavery, and that American exceptionalism defeated the aggressive Soviet Union. I also now realize that there were gaping absences from my education, like the complete absence of any classes concerning philosophy, even as an introduction that scratched the surface, or any study of the decline of empires such as Rome whose glories I studied so intensely.

If there is any quick fix for the problems I am noting, it would be decentralization of power in respect to our education system. This becomes more problematic on a daily basis, as more and more federal stimulus funds are poured into local education systems. While the beltway political community often paints this as government helping small communities, I see the benefit of a temporary boost in funding being far outweighed by the cost of our central government grabbing more and more local power. Education systems will, in the long run, be forced to either permanently entrust more of their budgetary matters to federal power, or suffer the pain of doing away with an infrastructure that big government created and, consequently, only big government can support. Decentralization would help the education system of the United States to be more diverse as well, as different regions would certainly have different educational programs, and these programs could compete in the form of their graduates to show which programs had the best results.

However, no discussion of education in the United States would be complete without taking a look at the intent of our country’s founders. Here I must thank Professor Jarrell for injecting this concept into the current discussion. In a recent LFD post addressed to me and interested others, she wrote:

The Federalist Papers made it clear, to me at least, that our founding fathers believed that the government, our federal government in particular, should have nothing to do with educating the populace.

I realize it sounds a bit radical now, but I believe that any discussion of what is right and wrong about public education today must begin with a healthy debate about whether the federal government should be involved in public education at all.

Your thoughts? Thanks!

In a very soon-to-come post, I will begin yet another discussion, one that I hope will heavily involve Professor Jarrell and many others, about the original intent of our founders in relation to public education, and whether or not there is any hope of returning to their proposed system at any point in the near future.

by Elliot Engstrom

Elliot’s Schooling

So where does this all end up?

Well, I am finally back from an eventful break from writing at Learning From Dogs that has entailed my graduation from Wake Forest University, some final preparations for the University of Georgia School of Law and my move to Athens, and the unfortunate passing of my grandfather, Paul Norman Engstrom.

Therefore, it has been quite some time since I wrote my original post — which at that point was posted by Professor Jarrell with me as a guest author — in which I laid out my goals pertaining to a discussion of the United States’ education system. Since then I have discussed the positives of our system, the negatives of our system, and pointed out the view of Sir Ken Robinson, who believes that creativity should be given the same status as literacy in education systems.

We are often surprised after researching a topic to find our conclusions to be in opposition with our previous line of thought. However, sometimes it can be equally as surprising to do a great deal of research and then wind up back where you started, simply with a larger factual foundation behind. This has been the case for me throughout this entire discussion of the United States’ education system. Despite the attempt I have made to challenge my own viewpoint and think critically about my own biases, I continue to see the costs of the United States’ education system as far greater than its benefits.

High School — Brick and mortar school building

As I have stated before, there is a great difference between formal education and learning. Or, to be more precise, perhaps I should say that formal education is merely one part, and perhaps not even that large a part, of what “learning” entails. I would suggest that the problem is not so much that the United States’ education system is damaging merely because of its existence, but rather that the greatest damage comes from society expecting far too much from this system. School is no replacement for the learning that entails integration into a complex and competitive global society that necessitates human interaction, critical thinking skills, and creativity. Sure, one can force youths into cinder block rooms and force them to learn multiplication tables and historical dates. And, to an extent, I think this is necessary in a mass society as we have today. However, this formula of forcing youths to learn facts and then having these facts regurgitated has been entrusted with far too much of what we today consider “learning,” and if we are ever to have a positive shift in our society from one of idea-accepters to idea-creators, this must change.

multiplicaton table — Learning the multiplication tables

Perhaps high school could integrate into their programs a larger degree of extracurricular internships that count for course credit — I am sure that this is an experiment that could be undertaken by a few school districts quite easily, and then expanded if it proves successful. Perhaps also school curriculum could be altered to include more classes on philosophy and economics, which I see as foundational for a solid understanding of our world. However, this alteration of core curriculum would be a much more difficult task to accomplish, and would require some serious time and thought.

by Elliot Engstrom

Ticker Guy

Karl Denninger is a hero!

Several times a week, I drop into Karl Denninger’s blog The Market Ticker. While frequently the articles are too technical for me, it’s still, nonetheless, possible to get the drift of Karl’s messages.

As his overall theme is strongly coincident with my own views on my pension investments, and which have served me proud over the last 10 years, especially the last 2 years, it’s natural that I like what Karl does.

But the point of this Post is to underline just how much time and effort Karl puts in to his work, all of which is free to the world at the click of a mouse.

Are there others who devote equal amounts of time to their Blogs and websites? Yes, many! And many of them are also heroes (and heroines!)

Of course, I have no doubt that The Market Ticker is part of Karl’s business strategy but, again, he could choose other ways to make his income without sharing, for free, so many valuable ideas.

Here are a couple of examples to underline my deep respect for this man. (Taken from Market Ticker on the 13th May.)

Question for Elliot About Public Education

Hello Elliot!

I’d love to engage in a discussion with you — and interested others — about the appropriate role of government in education.

The Federalist Papers made it clear, to me at least, that our founding fathers believed that the government, our federal government in particular, should have nothing to do with educating the populace.

I realize it sounds a bit radical now, but I believe that any discussion of what is right and wrong about public education today must begin with a healthy debate about whether the federal government should be involved in public education at all.

Your thoughts? Thanks!

by Sherry Jarrell

Elliot’s schooling – Sir Ken’s view

Sir Ken Robinson’s view

I plan to have my final post on education finished very soon. However, with my last week of finals and papers at the undergraduate level (which is finally over!) constantly hoarding my time, I have not yet quite been able to truly decide on which side I plan to end up.

My instinct tells me that the costs of the US schooling system far outweigh its benefits, but I feel I must be sure that this is truly a case that can be supported with logic and not simply my own biases coming through.

However, while I continue to ponder, I thought that readers might find this video interesting. It’s a different take on the nature of institutionalized schooling than is often seen. It’s on the longer side — approximately 20 minutes long — but I definitely think it is worth a watch for anyone pursuing a clear and well thought-out perspective on education, and it’s actually quite humorous and entertaining.

The video is of a presentation by Sir Ken Robinson, an internationally recognized leader in the development of innovation and human resources. His thesis statement is as follows:

My contention is that creativity is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status.

I hope the Learning From Dogs community enjoys this video. Upon my return from celebrating my college graduation in Charleston, I plan to present my final finding on whether the costs or the benefits of schooling in the United States outweighs the other.

By Elliot Engstrom

How big bankers became outlaws

[This is another Guest Post from Patrice Ayme which appeared on his Blog on the 28th April. It has been slightly modified by me. Ed]

Celebrating Goldman Sachs, while acknowledging that it is far from being all their fault.

Point One: We are living in a state of law. Supposedly.

Point Two: That State is democracy, the rule of the demos, the people. It is not the rule of the bankers. Supposedly.

Point Three: Political leaders have recently given PRIVATE unelected individuals, the bankers, the means and the right to create money, the money everybody uses, through debt, ex nihilo, starting from PUBLIC funds (Called, somewhat misleadingly, the fractional reserve banking system.)

Point Three contradicts the union of Point One and Point Two. Power is supposed to be exerted by the people, but money is power. Big bankers create money at will, with the complicity of the political leadership. So they create power at will.

Thus, the present system incites (big) MONEY CREATING BANKERS TO BECOME GANGSTERS, and then OUTLAWS.

It is as simple as that!

Thus one needs to get rid of the private fractional reserve PUBLICLY funded money creating system. The situation has been rendered worse in the last decade by the blossoming of synthetic derivatives which are out-of-this-world bets which could not possibly be paid back.

Synthetic derivatives of derivatives transformed a 300 billion dollars loss in real mortgages into a potential exposure of 24,000 billion dollars, thanks to the leverage of the derivatives squared.

Then political leaders, accomplices with the bankers, offered to pay the 24,000 billion dollars, on behalf of taxpayers, leaving the economy in tatters.

Not all is lost: Goldman Sachs got its entire 2008 profit, 13 billion dollars, from taxpayers, through AIG, thanks to US politicians, and the USA loves a winner. Love and dove, there are still many a feather to pluck.

By Patrice Ayme

P.S. Synthetic derivatives are, mathematically and philosophically, a generalization of the license of the privately managed, publicly funded, fractional reserve system, thus proving further, if need be, how erroneous the latter can be.

P.P.S. The fractional reserve system ought to be kept, to provide the capital needed, simply it ought not to be anymore the province of a small private oligarchy gaming it.

Antonina Whaples — future fitness celebrity?

Showing dedication to health (and chain saws!)

Wake Forest University has an interesting program at our fitness center where students can be trained by certified personal trainers at an extremely discounted rate. I have been doing this program for several months with a trainer named Antonina Whaples. Aside from being a full time student at the university, “Nina,” as her friends call her, has just launched her career as a a figure competitor. The whole process has exposed to me a side of the fitness world that I was not even really aware existed, but have found to be quite interesting.

Antonina recently competed in the National Physique Committee North Carolina State Championships, where she placed fifth — a very impressive feat for a first time competitor. However, the real story is not just the competition itself, but also the work that went in to prepare for such an event. Antonina’s diet, workouts, and lifestyle were all completely centered around this competition; it was dedication like I have rarely seen. Antonina talked about this in an April 12 interview with the blog Promoting Real Women:

My trainers Jill Coleman (diet), and Kimberley Coronel (weight training) were essential to my process. The quality of my diet came out on stage and I trust Jill 100%. I never cheated on her plan and I was super pleased with my results. I know that this next show I will come in even leaner and fuller. I wouldn’t be where I am at all without the creative genius of Kim. She has built my body rep by rep and is my rock. I am proud to say that she is both my trainer and friend, and one of my greatest inspirations. One of the biggest things that mattered to me show day was making her proud!

Before the show, Nina also did a photoshoot. The pictures are really creative, and the fact that one of her majors is studio art really comes out. My personal favorite is the photo featuring black leather boots and a chainsaw as the accessories of choice.

There’s a saying among Antonina’s friends that she is “intense.” And if anyone has ever embodied the word “intense,” it certainly is Antonina Whaples.

Her blog, fitNasti, will be moving to a dot com domain name in the coming weeks, and I would not be surprised if after that her site continued to grow in popularity.

Keep an eye on Antonina Whaples — this girl is going places.

By Elliot Engstrom

Well done, Bill Moyers!

A giant of US television retires from the screen

One of the fascinating aspects of my new American life is seeing how loud the volume of dissent is from the American

people about the shenanigans on Wall Street and the Too Big To Fail banks. There is an intensity and passion that I can’t see happening on the other side of the Pond. Maybe this is the cultural legacy of a people that just a short time ago, relatively speaking, were opening up this giant country seeking a better way of life than the ‘old countries’.

This intensity and passion is why, in the end, I believe that the solution to the huge crisis that still awaits us will start from this side of the Atlantic. But it will get a whole lot worse before it gets better, such is the complexity and depth of the fraud that is being visited on decent, ordinary folks in this and many other fine countries.

Bill Moyers of the Bill Moyers Journal on PBS is retiring. He’s approaching 76 and that’s a grand age to be dealing with the workload and stress of a weekly television presentation. His last Journal was broadcast on the 23rd April, a week ago today airing two really important topics. My only regret is that I haven’t been here sufficiently long to view many more of his Journals.

In that last broadcast on the 23rd, Bill had two key interviews. In this Post, I want to bring to your attention his first report, which was an interview with William K Black, now an academic but, just as importantly, a former bank regulator. William Black really understands what is going on in banking.

The interview is both fascinating and captivating because, well to me anyway, it explains in terms that us laymen can understand, exactly what is going on and why it is so terribly important that legislation and regulations are brought into force to stop this fraud ever happening again.

This interview has not yet made it’s way onto YouTube so I can only post the link to the Bill Moyers website.

But, please, if you care about what is happening to us in whatever country you live in, click on this link and watch the interview.

And if you want to watch the earlier interview that Bill Moyers had with William Black then here it is.

By Paul Handover

Happy Birthday, Hubble!

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has been in space for 20 years!

This week, twenty years ago, the HST was launched into orbit. There’s much online if you want to read about it both on WikiPedia and on the Hubble web site so this post is going to offer just two items.

A beautiful picture

And an interesting audio slideshow tribute from the BBC – click here, introduced thus:

Take a look at some of the sights it has seen in that time with Professor Alec Boksenberg from the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge – who was on the European team that helped build Hubble.

By Paul Handover (in awe of what is beyond our skies)

Elliot’s schooling – the negatives

Author Update – the Learning from Dogs author team are delighted to welcome Elliot to their ranks.

On April 1st I set the scene for the essays that I wanted to write for Learning from Dogs as follows:

I often ask myself just how effective the modern US schooling system is as a tool of education, and whether or not its costs outweigh its benefits. I hope to have at least a rough answer to this question in the final post of this series.

I intend to examine three topics:

– In what ways does the modern schooling system function as a positive tool for education?

– What costs involved in modern schooling hinder its ability as an educative tool, and even make it a negative influence on students?

– Considering the analyses put forth in the first two posts, do the costs or benefits or this system outweigh the other? On the whole, are school and education complements or antagonists?

On April 15th, I looked at the positive aspects of the American educational system. Now I look at the other side of the coin, so to speak.

Intellectual failure

While in my last post I attempted to put a positive spin on the United States education system, I must here admit that I personally tend to view it in a much more negative light. There are several reasons for this, three of which I will try to elaborate on here.

My first major concern about education in the United States is its lack of critical thinking skills, which produces students who do not know how to question the “system” for what is truly is, but rather constantly take the context of things presented as fact (the two-party political system is a perfect example of this.)

I am not necessarily arguing that the specific curriculum is being chosen to suit this purpose, though I think this argument could be made (it would, however, require quite a bit of research.)

Rather, consider the required courses – very rarely do you see courses on economics or logic. While some schools offer these as electives, they are almost never required. This is quite sad, as a sound ability to question the established authorities and the nature of the world as a whole requires a strong background in these two fields in particular.

The history of economics is a history of government policies that have failed because of their disregard for this very topic.

The economist Ludwig von Mises wrote that “the unpopularity of economics is the result of its analysis of the effects of privileges. It is impossible to invalidate the economists’ demonstration that all privileges hurt the interests of the rest of the nation or at least a great part of it.”

A second negative aspect of the American education system is what it does to the human mind. It essentially takes the mind and makes it into a factory that is able to take in information and then spit it back out. I think there is a direct relationship between the formerly mentioned lack of classes on logic and economics and this production of human beings who are essentially taught to be cogs in a machine.

Economically, the schooling system can, in this light, be seen as a massive subsidy to corporations, who are handed people already trained in how to listen then do and repeat.

Finally, I must admit that I am skeptical as to the true purpose of compulsory education. I have rarely in history seen it as a tool for true learning, as it seems to tend to rather be a system of control. I see no reason why our school system would be any different.

John Taylor Gatto, a former school teacher and avid critic of mandatory schooling, has written that the purpose of modern schooling is a combination of six different functions:

The adaptive function – Establish a fixed reaction to authority.
The integrating function – People taught to conform are predictable, and are easier to use in a large labor force.
The directive function – School determines each student’s social role.The differentiating function – Children are trained as far as they need to go according to their prescribed social role
The selective function – Tag the unfit with poor grades and disciplinary actions clearly enough that their peers will see them as unsuitable for reproduction, helping along natural selection.
The propaedeutic function – A small fraction is quietly taught how to manage the rest.

I am not sure if I completely agree with Gatto, but he makes some interesting points. In my final article, I’ll attempt to weight the costs against the benefits, and see which comes out on top.

By Elliot Engstrom

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