It's true that some types of education aren't for everyone. My brother hated school . . . did ok in it, but after he graduated and spent 1 term at a university, some smart counselor at a local community college got him into an electronics program. The transformation was immediate. If you give me a schematic chart of electrical wiring for . . whatever, my eyes glaze over. But my brother knew how to read it w/in months of his start of the program. Confirming tech schools and community college programs -- they help students discover a career they will enjoy . . . and goodness knows, the world needs people who are computer programmers, electricians, plumbers, etc.
My father who was born in 1898 and eventually became a leader of two national Hunger Marches and a campaigner for the unemployed and workers insurance (social security) told me about being inspired by Bellamy when young. He himself knew what it was to Want. We have no recordings of the speeches he gave but I have a sense they were filled with the same passion he had seen in Bellamy and we see in Bernie today.
How does one ensure that everyone in the country is educated, without compulsory, publicly funded education?
Answer: You don't, for even with compulsory and publicly funded education, you have truants (speaking from experience), and parents that would put their children to work, to earn money, rather than "waste time" getting an education.
The current purchasing power of the dollar is 4 to 6% in terms of gold when Nixon took the country off a gold standard internationally in 1971(FDR took the country off a metallic standard domestically in 1933 at the advice of Keynes when FDR devalued the dollar). If the purchasing power of the dollar declines further(not much wiggle room) due to difficulty in getting oil and rising bond yields, oil prices will rise significantly, increasing overall consumer inflation. This is also due to the inelastic nature of oil as a commodity(increasing prices don't decrease demand).
Time to get out of credit(dollars, equity, and bonds) and into real money which is gold and silver and as is mandated in the US Constitution that the country be on a metallic standard. .
Life is never as simple as we make it out to be. While all men are created equal in the eyes of God, the fact is that we are not. Women could not legally vote in the USA until 1920. Only 38 states have so far ratified the Equal Rights Amendment. We vary in intelligence, physical stature, gender, skin color and facial structure, eyesight, hearing, and susceptibility to disease. We also vary in emotional stability and susceptibility to disease. Thus, whether we acknowledge it or not, people enter life with considerable individual variability that influences adaptability and their capacity to develop knowledge, skills, and abilities.
Thus, the very premise of Bellamy's worldview is naive. He also, as most people do, confuses correlation with causality. Most co-occurring events are mere coincidences, or are co-caused by variables/factors not readily observable.
West's assertion that people mow lawns and plant gardens because untended land is an eyesore is an example of naive observation. Had he lived in a communist nation like the USSR, he would have observed that nearly every house was surrounded by a subsistence garden with livestock. That was because everyone earned similar pay at work, and the only way to afford little luxuries was not having to spend all of one's income on food. Many homes in Eastern Europe still have vestiges of those subsistence farms. After my in-laws passed away in Bulgaria in 2014, we tore out the grapes, corn, tomatoes & potatoes, etc., then tore down the hog barn and henhouse, replacing it all with grass and shrubs.
"Looking backward" seems quite appropriate here. How low is too low to set the bar for what will be called education? I am aghast! I cannot believe what I am seeing. Those who are educated are willing to call anything whatsoever that occurs in a school "education". Can you be highly intelligent, perceptive, and educated and still look at what is taking place before your very eyes and call it education? What could make you so anxious to deny the abject failure? How could you not be ashamed of what you ignore and dismiss out of hand. You are not embarrassed to be associated with the tripe that is being mass-produced. I do not think I can bear any more of this utter foolishness. How could anyone speak so passionately about democracy, yet accept without questioning authoritarian institutions inculcating and indoctrinating our young people in factory schools controlled by reactionaries? Someone has to have an answer to explain this. God help us.
It's true that some types of education aren't for everyone. My brother hated school . . . did ok in it, but after he graduated and spent 1 term at a university, some smart counselor at a local community college got him into an electronics program. The transformation was immediate. If you give me a schematic chart of electrical wiring for . . whatever, my eyes glaze over. But my brother knew how to read it w/in months of his start of the program. Confirming tech schools and community college programs -- they help students discover a career they will enjoy . . . and goodness knows, the world needs people who are computer programmers, electricians, plumbers, etc.
My father who was born in 1898 and eventually became a leader of two national Hunger Marches and a campaigner for the unemployed and workers insurance (social security) told me about being inspired by Bellamy when young. He himself knew what it was to Want. We have no recordings of the speeches he gave but I have a sense they were filled with the same passion he had seen in Bellamy and we see in Bernie today.
How does one ensure that everyone in the country is educated, without compulsory, publicly funded education?
Answer: You don't, for even with compulsory and publicly funded education, you have truants (speaking from experience), and parents that would put their children to work, to earn money, rather than "waste time" getting an education.
Trouble In River City
The current purchasing power of the dollar is 4 to 6% in terms of gold when Nixon took the country off a gold standard internationally in 1971(FDR took the country off a metallic standard domestically in 1933 at the advice of Keynes when FDR devalued the dollar). If the purchasing power of the dollar declines further(not much wiggle room) due to difficulty in getting oil and rising bond yields, oil prices will rise significantly, increasing overall consumer inflation. This is also due to the inelastic nature of oil as a commodity(increasing prices don't decrease demand).
Time to get out of credit(dollars, equity, and bonds) and into real money which is gold and silver and as is mandated in the US Constitution that the country be on a metallic standard. .
Life is never as simple as we make it out to be. While all men are created equal in the eyes of God, the fact is that we are not. Women could not legally vote in the USA until 1920. Only 38 states have so far ratified the Equal Rights Amendment. We vary in intelligence, physical stature, gender, skin color and facial structure, eyesight, hearing, and susceptibility to disease. We also vary in emotional stability and susceptibility to disease. Thus, whether we acknowledge it or not, people enter life with considerable individual variability that influences adaptability and their capacity to develop knowledge, skills, and abilities.
Thus, the very premise of Bellamy's worldview is naive. He also, as most people do, confuses correlation with causality. Most co-occurring events are mere coincidences, or are co-caused by variables/factors not readily observable.
West's assertion that people mow lawns and plant gardens because untended land is an eyesore is an example of naive observation. Had he lived in a communist nation like the USSR, he would have observed that nearly every house was surrounded by a subsistence garden with livestock. That was because everyone earned similar pay at work, and the only way to afford little luxuries was not having to spend all of one's income on food. Many homes in Eastern Europe still have vestiges of those subsistence farms. After my in-laws passed away in Bulgaria in 2014, we tore out the grapes, corn, tomatoes & potatoes, etc., then tore down the hog barn and henhouse, replacing it all with grass and shrubs.
Again, Thom, sounds very interesting.
"Looking backward" seems quite appropriate here. How low is too low to set the bar for what will be called education? I am aghast! I cannot believe what I am seeing. Those who are educated are willing to call anything whatsoever that occurs in a school "education". Can you be highly intelligent, perceptive, and educated and still look at what is taking place before your very eyes and call it education? What could make you so anxious to deny the abject failure? How could you not be ashamed of what you ignore and dismiss out of hand. You are not embarrassed to be associated with the tripe that is being mass-produced. I do not think I can bear any more of this utter foolishness. How could anyone speak so passionately about democracy, yet accept without questioning authoritarian institutions inculcating and indoctrinating our young people in factory schools controlled by reactionaries? Someone has to have an answer to explain this. God help us.