Education About Education

The American educational system, especially California's, is embarrassingly dysfunctional. For some idiosyncratic reason, whenever the state government is having monetary issues, one of the first places to make cutbacks is education. I cannot imagine what the logic behind further dementing our society is, but frankly, it pisses me off. I have several criticisms, predictions and suggestions to make about this.

The current educational system, regardless of effectiveness, is corrupt at the curriculum level. Fundamental skills are important and absolutely necessary. Reading, writing, basic math. These matter, but they are only so stimulating. Additionally, only so much education in each subject is really necessary for the average person, until they decide to become especially capable in some subject area. We learn about as much about the fundamentals as we will ever need to know by the eighth grade level, the end of middle school. High school, then becomes four years of repeating these subjects, making sure we REALLY get it. Though statistically we are not really quite getting it yet. We take the same history and science classes several times. A few useless elective classes here and there. I say useless because generally, specialized topics are offered as one semester classes. For this reason, what is learned in those classes only sustainably impacts a handful of the total students in the class.

Being a public school student myself, the public school system is not about education. For me, the quality of education I think was quite good. However, I lacked any real awareness of my education's significance, as did/do most students. In addition, I felt stagnant relearning so many subjects that I had previously done well in. I cannot imagine what the poor fellows retaking failed classes must have been feeling like.

Obedience seems to be the primary focus of public education, especially at the high school level. Many teachers uninhibitedly refer to their jobs as baby-sitting. School doesn't seem to get serious for most students, myself included, until college. Until you have control of your education, and you are learning about the world at a whole new level. Why isn't high school education like this?

The future will have no choice but to start reinstating those subjects most applicable and useful for real world applications. I think requirements should be considerably more varied and practical. Computer technology is an important skill for the future whose necessity cannot be argued as it is now. I think technology education will become more important as we move into the future. Students will be learning programing and engineering just as they currently learn biology and chemistry. Horticulture will also become necessary for future generations. Considering the mass depletion of agricultural areas in the United States, we will have no choice but to start growing more of our own food in the future (i.e. in our own backyards).

With regard to agriculture: it is a culture. An almost completely lost culture in the United States. What we have replaced it with is what is known as factory farming, a practice already proving to be non-viable. America's lack of realistic perception keeps factory farming alive for now, but when it finally collapses, I would like to hope we know how to at least water tomatoes.

Most importantly, education should be, and will need to be, based around awareness. Self-awareness. Global awareness. Students should be able to coherently explain, even when they are young, why they go to school. Young people need to be mindful of the future, and themselves in its context. Currently, popular culture is mostly mindful of the self and the world as a means to propel oneself. Selfish. Narcissistic. By doing nothing about this, we are only breeding more over-consuming naiveté.

Robert Kennedy, 1968

"We will find neither national purpose nor personal satisfaction in a mere continuation of economic progress, in an endless amassing of worldly goods. We cannot measure national spirit by the Dow Jones Average, nor the national achievement by the Gross National Product. For the Gross National Product includes air pollution, and ambulances to clear our highways from carnage. It counts special locks for our door and jails for the people who break them. The Gross National Product includes the destruction of the redwoods and the death of Lake Superior. It grows with the production of napalm and missiles and nuclear warheads . . . It includes . . . the broadcasting of television programs which glorify violence to sell goods to our children.

"And if the Gross National Product includes all this, there is much that it does not comprehend. It does not allow for the health of our families, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It is indifferent to the decency of our factories and the safety of our streets alike. It does not include the beauty of our poetry, or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public officials . . . the Gross National Product measures neither our compassion nor our devotion to our county. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile, and it can tell us everything about America–except whether we are proud to be Americans."

- Robert Kennedy, 1968 (taken from 1968 by Mark Kurlansky)

What invaluable words of wisdom whose pertinence resonates today. . .

Arte Por Arte

Today I was engaged in a dialogue about art. Very quickly I established a position about art that I didn't want to (nor was I able to) defend, making me feel exceptionally pretentious and insincere. Somehow I got into talking about what is and is not art. I have thought about this before, and I know there have been things I do and do not call art, but to summarize and justify my criterion was an entirely different matter. Sure enough, I fumbled all over myself trying to think about it on the spot. By the end of that conversation, I was left unsatisfied with myself. And so, here is what I have come to realize since then.

Art is something relative to people. If an artist or an audience perceives it as that, then it is. For this reason, it is impossible to empirically define art. So for me, I think there is not so much art that is simply not art, but rather there is art I just cannot feel. Only that which nobody can consider art, is not art. This, no one can ever know. You can only pretend to know what is and is not art.

With that said, I think art is these things (and more):

It is action taken because emotion has compelled you to do so.

It is expression of thought that starts in your guts and touches your influence, all you have learnt, before it escapes from you through your skin and becomes beyond you.

It is ideology and vulnerability.

It is subjectivity eating objectivity.

It is being.

It is loving.

It is life's dissonances.

It is life's resolutions.

It is what every living person feels and does.

It is your best guess at what it is.

Democrats Pwn Health Care

I have been researching the current healthcare reform bills, and unfortunately for Republicans, their bill got out. The Congressional Budget office just released their analysis of the GOP's alternative bill this week (here is the link to it). So now, if you want to argue the Democrat's bill is not perfect (here is the CBO's analysis of that), the Republican's just made it look really good. Some important quotes from the analysis of Republican's bill: "By 2019, CBO and JCT estimate, the number of nonelderly people without health insurance would be reduced by about 3 million relative to current law, leaving about 52 million nonelderly residents uninsured. The share of legal nonelderly residents with insurance coverage in 2019 would be about 83 percent, roughly in line with the current share. CBO and JCT estimate that enacting the amendment’s insurance coverage provisions would increase deficits by $8 billion over the 2010–2019 period." 3 million? How shameful. That hardly keeps up with population growth. The Democrat's bill, according to CBO, should help about 36 million. From the Effects on Premiums section: "In the large group market, which represents nearly 80 percent of total private premiums, the amendment would lower average insurance premiums in 2016 by zero to 3 percent compared with amounts under current law, according to CBO’s estimates" A nice way to reduce total spending, but hardly a way to say you are making a positive difference. Things are not changing things for a significant majority of the population. I think this is just a fancy way of preserving the status quo. Illustrative Examples When you compare Net Changes in Deficit of both bills, the Republican's is estimated to reduce the deficit by about $68 billion. The Democrats is estimated to reduce is by $104 billion. A considerable difference. So now what? Since by reading this you just became more well informed than most of the population, you should call your local representative and express what you support.