>>I'd love to see graduates with social skills, talent, ambition and >>motivation, but what I saw truly made me sad. > > At the same time volunteer for social causes and community charities are > considerably up from previous generations, right back to the baby boomers. > Its an interesting contrast where both political polarizations really ignore > the actual numbers. The Pew Charitable Trust (btw nice CF site), and the > National Opinion Research Center has been doing some very interesting work > in this area. Generally the ages studied - 15 through 24, show much more > awareness and involvement in the community than previous generations. Myself > I prefer to look at the actual data rather than depend on anectdote.
Perhaps the events of recent times have helped to increase the cooperative spirit in the youths of today. I will admit that my personal experiences are from a relatively small cross section and not current. What would be interesting to see is that same study pointed at "my generation" (I'm 28). >>. level playing field... hah! Maybe they ought to level the playing >>field up instead of down. I feel sorry for the kids graduating from >>schools that feel they have to give them everything and then >>going into >>a workforce that actually requires them to pay attention and >>put forth >>an effort. >> > > I did some educational development in Houston Texas as part of a grant > project 6 years ago. This project allowed me to go into 10 schools in the > Houston area. For all the vaunted educational improvements promised by the > current state administration, nothing had been done. Level playing field? > Hell the students I saw and interviewed would be lucky to have a mountain > slope to climb up on, all too often it was a cliff face. The schools were in > terrible shape. The infrastructure was falling apart in most of these > schools. I saw leaking roofs, bathrooms locked because of broken plumbing > that could not be fixed. There was cardboard in some of the windows. At the > very least these kids should get to go to schools that are inhabitable at > least. My comments about the "level playing field" are more aimed at those school systems that take away scores from games, adjust scoring methods so that everyone passes and hold competitions where everyone involved gets a ribbon. There are some cases where there has to be a looser. >>Notice they'll make it so that everyone can pass but they'd >>never go for a mandatory military or public service. > > Yes and there has been a lot of efforts to zero out the funding of the > Americorps in Congress. The military draft as a method of social > improvement. Lets see how much do you want to fund education, you can do it > two ways, early on buy improving those schools I mentioned or later on and > much more expensively in the military? Some choice. In order to be effective > soldiers they are going to have to have at least a certain level of > education. Its no longer a matter of showing the kid which end to aim. Without a doubt the military is getting more technically advanced. At the same time there are some core values, including respect for authority, attention to detail and concentration under pressure that you can't teach in a classroom. I also don't think that the military is the answer for every case. As I said, perhaps I'm out of touch with the teenagers of today. Maybe my memory is skewed. However, I also don't think that throwing money at bad education systems and programs is the answer either. Hatton ______________________________________________________________________ Signup for the Fusion Authority news alert and keep up with the latest news in ColdFusion and related topics. http://www.fusionauthority.com/signup.cfm Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
