Higher Education

Two interesting education stories in the news today. From Utah we have this story and from nj.com there is this story. (Hat tip Instapundit)

Now don’t get me wrong after raising six children I know the importance of a good education. I myself went back to school after 20+ years in the Mommy trenches to finish the degree I abandoned to have a family and raise my children.  I knew how to study, how to work hard and since my youngest was now old enough to go to school himself I also had a part time job, as do most students today.  Actually a large group of students have to work full time and go to school part time and many are also returning students with families to care for.  So not only do they have to deal with the pressures of college work,  a regular job but they have to keep a roof over the heads and food in the bellies of the people they are responsible for.

Which brings me to the first story about a professor in a Community College in Utah Valley.  I’ll bet you didn’t know that the state of Utah is has one of the highest, if not the highest, percentage of college graduates in the country.  One reason of course is BYU and the other is that people don’t want to leave the area.  BYU is difficult to get into due to the high grade point average needed for admission. The people who live there, in Utah Valley, and those who send their children there ,value education and most are willing to accept the stressors and responsibilities that go with that education.

That said, anyone who has ever been to school knows there are teachers who feel their job is to “wake up” students.  They live to fail their students with an almost sadistic glee.  These teachers don’t seek to educate, they seek to dominate.  They want to be known as the “grade point smasher”.  The only way one can make a decent grade in these kinds of classes is to abandon all other classes and responsibility and focus on this class and this class ONLY.  If this teacher teaches the “capstone” class for your degree, you might as well change majors.  It has very little to do with your previous work, this class and this class alone determines whether you’ve wasted two-four or more years or not.

Many of these teachers find it impossible to teach entry level courses because they teach their courses as if the students already know the material and are proficient in the knowledge there of.  Students do not come to class already knowing the course material.  They are there for the instructor to teach them the material.  While I will agree there are always student that are lazy and some that should not be attending college, if half the consumers of your product have a problem with it, it would appear you have a significant issue.  You could either get rid of the problem professor or get rid of the students and since the students are PAYING for an education and the professor is PAID to educate them it would seem pertinent to deal with the professor issue.  The issue you can actually affect.

Next is a fun little article about a college wide game of Zombies vs Humans.  Now there were many commenters on the story who it seems didn’t finish the article (which I sometimes do myself, mea culpa). If they had they would have read the the purpose of the exercise was to help the students understand that they could have fun and recreation without drugs or alcohol.  A laudable goal on most campuses (or campi for the Latinist).  As I stated before most students are under many other pressures as well as those connected with their education, so blowing off steam seems to be a good thing.

Apparently from the tone of the comments however this is not the case.  No fun should be had, no steam should be blown, no downtime should be allowed, noses to the grindstone should be the order of every minute, of every day.  It would be interesting to see what the posters do daily.  No hobbies, no families, no TV, video or gaming happens in their homes I’m sure.  They just go to work, go home, go to bed,work, home, bed,work, home, bed every day.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy and not dull as in boring but dull as in not lit from within.  Dull as in “why am I here, what is my purpose and why do I have to continue to live”.  Not many of us are privileged to work in a career that satisfies both our financial and personal needs.  Those personal needs we get from others, from things we like to do, hobbies, games, entertainment. Those things are important too and we learn from them as well.

We could however raise a generations of Dr Sheldon Coopers ( while much on Wikipedia is suspect, this article is concise and spot on).  What they’d do with those who don’t measure up doesn’t bear thinking about.  In the mind of the super intellect humanity is simply a cancer that needs to be removed or are veritable amoeba too stupid to be of any real use.

Don’t believe me, just ask Dr. Cooper, he’ll tell you. He has NO filter.

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Now that’s what I call leadership?

Top news story today.  Obama  embraces the 99%.  He is giving support to people whose stated goal is the destruction of the American way of life.  These people have threatened Americans and showed their own special brand of bigotry and racism.  THESE are the people this administration supports.  Not the hard working, taxpaying, law abiding citizens.

No law abiding Americans are the enemy.  They are the ones responsible for the mess we’re in.  They’re the ones who’ve kept the economy running for decades.  These “occupiers” haven’t done anything but support failed policies and taken out unsupportable student loans.

Besides the fact that the “occupiers” are not the 99%.  They’re more like the .5%.  The takers, the malcontents, the constant bellyachers.  These are people who have never been taught that you can’t expect something for nothing.  It’s not someone else’s job to take care of you. And for the “bible” guy who tried to use Jesus Christ to excuse their bad behavior, I would love to be a fly on the wall at his appointment on Judgement Day.  “Do unto others as you’d have others do unto you” deal I guess is so 33 AD.

I’m sure none of them want to hear this but the reason this economic problem has been so bad can be laid directly at the feet of  Little Chucky Schumer who started a run on a California bank, Barney Frank and Chris Dodds of  Freddy and Fanny fame and Barak Hussein Obama of the 450 trillion dollar repayment to his campaign contributors.  The Wall Street bailouts were in response to the bad decisions over the years since the Carter administration.  Pres. Reagan tried to hold these peoples feet to the fire but no one listened to him. GW Bush in 2003 again raise the warning cry, but again no one listened to him, he was an idiot after all (sarc on). The government told banks to lend money to people and companies that they knew would never be able to repay.  They passed regulations to make banks and financial institutions do this. Thanks to the most recent meddling debit cards will now have to be paid for by a service fee. Again causing the working man and women to have to readjust their shrinking budgets.

I realize no one at “Occupy” want’s to hear this truth.  I’m sure they won’t believe this truth but it is the truth.  Wall Street is not without fault but throwing the baby out with the bath water is not the answer.  The answer is making hard choices, working hard and sacrifice.

Something the “occupiers” never learned about from their parents or professors, apparently.

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Poor Governor Perry…….I feel his pain.

According to the Drudge report Mrs Rick Perry is upset because her husband has been “brutalized” by the media because of his “faith”. Really?  The Governor who’s pet attack pastor savaged 13,000,000 + Mormons just a few days ago.  That husband (of course she’s not Mormon so she only has one, right? -sarcasm alert)?  Let’s see what other savagery Mr Romney has been exposed to lately, shall we.  We can then compare who’s more brutalized.

Is Romney’s Mormon faith affecting votes? – CBS News

Mitt Romney is a Mormon. Does it matter in politics? – CSMonitor.com

Expose Mitt Romney, Mormon cult member

Mitt Romney and Mormonism

These are just a few of the hits one can find with just two words romney/mormon.  Don’t be confused, the people who “reported” on this issue wouldn’t recognize actual doctrine from the Mormon ( or the true name of the church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints) church if it rose up and bit them on the nose.

So let us revisit some early church history.  Members of the church were beaten, abused, humiliated, chased from their homes, robbed, cursed, chased from cities they built, their leaders jailed, their leader murdered in cold blood (no one out of the 200 or so members of the gang that shot leaders Joseph and Hyrum Smith were ever convicted) and an extermination order was still in effect until the middle 1970’s.  Their property left behind, taking only what they could carry in a wagon load, Mormons were chased from the city of Navoo across the frozen Mississippi in Feb. 1846. Between 400-600 people died that winter into the next due to exposure, disease and malnourishment.  The Latter day Saints then moved to Utah where they made the desert bloom but they were still harassed.  Through all of this whenever the saints sought redress, guess what the local, state and federal answer was.  So sad, too bad.

I’m so sorry your husbands had a hard time.  I’m so sorry his Christian companions and coworkers have turned against him because of his religion-sarcasm again.  While it is difficult when one’s enemies attack them, it is so much more painful when the very people who are supposed to be on your side, stick a dirk between your ribs.

Don’t worry Ms. Perry, I’m sure the governor will get over it.  After all it’s not like one has to worry about their actions.  Once they’ve accepted Jesus as their personal savior it doesn’t much matter what they do,right.  Of course I might have that wrong.  It’s just something I’ve read about evangelicals and of course I take as gospel things written about others by people who know little to nothing about them.

Doesn’t everybody.

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