On Fri, 27 Sep 1996 09:20:10 -0800, Timothy C. May wrote:

(Seriously, my view is that schools are not very important. All success, academic or technical, derives from one basic determining factor: those who I always liked Robert Heinlein's comment: "It's possible to get a good education anywhere, if you are willing to work for it". Unfortunately not many people want to work for anything... read for pleasure, succeed, and those who don't read for pleasure, don't. ++agree.

taught usable trades. Seriously. Our "ideal" that all children should attend college is absurd, given the lack of academic preparation, desire, and reading skills that so many high school students lack. Most community

Not only that, what are all these college grads going to do? Only a small percentage are going to be making waves in a given field. Many are just going to lower the overall average... Worse yet, many become lawyers <g>. A society with such a high percentage of parasites (those who don't add value sufficient to cover expenses) isn't healthy.

colleges are essentially becoming Grades 13-14, with most of the Grade Why are they going to college? Well they weren't learning it in HS. They did however learn to feel good about themselves, use a condom and handle complex social situations (see: gossip. Or, for the average guy, see: wedgie). What use this serves is an excellent question.

13-14 students reading at the 9th-grade level (which most of us on this list were reading at when we were in the 7th-grade, or earlier).) That's putting it mildly. . . I read 200+ pages/hour with a very high retention rate. Needless to say, this means I move through books at high speed. Quite a few times I've had the experience of summarizing a "Great Work" to a college-educated teacher. Almost scary. Equally bad are the people who read but do not understand. The term functionally illiterate comes to mind. We may joke that people switch into "Idiot Mode" (Apologies to the BOFH author) around computers but I've run into a number of people who are apparently stuck in it.

# Chris Adams <adamsc@io-online.com> | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp # <cadams@acucobol.com> | send mail with subject "send PGPKEY" "That's our advantage at Microsoft; we set the standards and we can change them." --- Karen Hargrove, Microsoft (quoted in the Feb 1993 Unix Review editorial)