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The Nation's Pulse
Back-to-School Advice
These are your creative years.
My first recommendation is very basic. Don't cut. As Woody Allen stated, "Eighty percent of success is just showing up."
And it's best to show up on time. Remember the old Tibetan proverb: "Man who comes to work early and leaves late ends up with tallest stack of Sichuan rupees."
But then the Chinese collectivists came barging in and disincentivized early starts by establishing a new maxim: "Man who becomes biggest party hack gets the most Yuan, plus banned Levis and a complete set of Buddy Holly videos."
It's okay to be late for class, once, if you get backed up in traffic trying to get through one of Obama's stimulus packages, say a road project where the number of guys hanging around a pothole has been upped from 7 to 12 as part of "Recovery Summer."
But one stimulus-delayed late class is enough. After that, get up earlier or take a different route if the road guys are going to be dawdling around the same potholes for the whole semester.
If you have a class in economics, business or political science, ask the teacher how Obama could think it's smart policy to take money from business owners who create real jobs in order to funnel their money to politicians and companies who create fake jobs.
And don't forget the words of caution from Albert Einstein about the mind-numbing impact of education: "It is in fact nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled youthful curiosity, for this delicate plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom."
Education, in other words, should be less about conformity and rote learning and more about what George Leonard called "the achievement of moments of ecstasy," moments of flashing awareness and new insights.
Instead, Leonard saw education being used to suppress creativity and human genius, producing students who were "usable components in the social machine," well-trained and compliant cogs, and "just about finished" as learners. "Only the inefficiency of the present school system and the obdurance of certain individuals can account for the creativity, the learning ability that survives after age twenty-five."
Teachers are "overworked and underpaid," Leonard acknowledged. "True, it is an exacting and exhausting business, this damming up the flood of human potentialities."
Similarly alert to organized mind-numbing, Bertrand Russell warned that education is "one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought."
More broadly, Oscar Wilde asserted that "nothing that is worth knowing can be taught," while Ralph Waldo Emerson pointed to the pulling down of the most talented: "Colleges hate geniuses, just as convents hate saints." Perhaps it's because great genius often comes with a touch of craziness and eccentricity.
In any case, what's correlated with genius is hard work. "Genius," said Thomas Edison, "is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration."
What matters is persistence, and curiosity. "It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer," said Einstein. "The important thing is not to stop questioning."
At the top of the list is the questioning of the experts, the leaders.
"Gaiety is the most outstanding feature of the Soviet Union," said Joseph Stalin in 1935. He was declaring that the supposed fun that he presided over was a more outstanding feature during his reign than the class genocide that he preached, a more important feature than the fact that he and his henchmen were responsible for the death of 17 million Russians.
"One death is a tragedy," he said. "A million deaths is a statistic."
About the Author
Ralph R. Reiland is the B. Kenneth Simon professor of free enterprise and an associate professor of economics at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh.
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Appleby| 9.7.10 @ 7:06AM
*Education, in other words, should be less about conformity and rote learning and more about what George Leonard called "the achievement of moments of ecstasy," moments of flashing awareness and new insights.*
On the other hand, I wasted a good ten minutes at the grocery store because a clerk plus a consultant could not figure a 50% discount. Rote Learning Hath Its Uses.
There is a basic core of knowledge that everyone should possess, and it can realistically only be learned by rote. This does not mean it should not then be analyzed, critiqued, discussed and understood in community; but in order to do this, one must first possess the basics.
Learn the difference between an argument and a fight. HINT: *You Suck* is not an argument.
And those new mouse pads that say *My child molested your Honour Student*? Just another proof that school teaches us to hate the capable, the intelligent, and the hard-working, and to love their sexual organs above all else.
Louis Jenkins| 9.7.10 @ 8:32AM
You really spent that much time waiting for them to figure up a 50% discount? What is going on? Heaven help us.
Dan Hirsch| 9.7.10 @ 10:55AM
In those situations, I always end with a smiling 'Sue your math teacher.'
I guess that makes me a "Mean people" as in "Mean people suck."
They also get things done, and done right...
Joe D. | 9.7.10 @ 8:52AM
What is with all these atheist/agnostics quotes. Are you trying to say they are the only ones that understand what education should be like and how it should be taught?
Dan Hirsch| 9.7.10 @ 10:57AM
Methinks his point is even liberals' icons know how useless most of it is....
Ken (Old Texican)| 9.7.10 @ 9:27AM
My advice?
Don't go back in order to earn more money, unless you go to a Junior college and major in a tech skill.
OR,
If you are fortunate enough to go to Baylor.
RCV| 9.7.10 @ 11:59AM
Just as a matter of curiosity, Ken, where did you go to school?
Ken (Old Texican)| 9.7.10 @ 12:24PM
RCV
I went to Panola Jr. College (great teachers)
and a national champion class baseball program.
I then transferred on over to Baylor University in Waco, Texas. (We called it "Jerusalem on the Brazos river"( smile)
(I made a living throwing left-handed knuckle-balls, (smile).
...Too wimpy to throw fast-balls.
Wrote my Thesis on Victor Frankl's work in psychotherapy.
TheLastConservativeCollegeKid| 9.7.10 @ 10:11AM
What I take away from this is that education in its purest form comes from a Desire to understand things. Yes the basics are essential, but those are covered in middle school/high school. College doesn't teach us anymore, we are assigned readings which are simply reviewed in class. It's up to each individual to want to know more. Joe D. says that these are "atheist/agnostic quotes", well as a Christian Man, I find these quotes inspiring and reaffirming to me that in order to succeed and lean more, you need to WANT to do so. They aren't the only ones that know about education, but I can safely say that a majority of teachers today don't know a thing about education, though I continue to hope otherwise.
Keep it up Mr. Reiland, I find it refreshing to read the quotes of those blessed with God given talent who worked hard to realize their potential.
Ken (Old Texican)| 9.7.10 @ 10:49AM
Conservative College Kid,
Welcome to the conversations here.
I hope you will drop in often.
Ken
edward w del colle| 9.7.10 @ 3:31PM
mr ken, old texican , my nephew who was on a baseball scholarship to boston college has transfered to Panola to pitch and hopefully learn as a backup plan. how is the team these days. he didn't like BC over pitching philosophy???? go figure.
Ken (Old Texican)| 9.7.10 @ 4:13PM
edward,
I honestly don't know what is going on at Panola these days.
They have had a tradition of winning since I was there in 64-65
The coach that was there when I was a player is long gone of course. (good!)
Where did your nephew grow up?
Panola is in a very small town...heh ...and I was a big city kid. OOPs!
Betts| 9.7.10 @ 1:49PM
As I finish my last semester to earn my bachelors of science degree in the field of chemistry, I would like to iterate your statement "College doesn't teach us anymore, we are assigned readings which are simply reviewed in class. It's up to each individual to want to know more."
In my university, this statement holds much water. Nearly every class I have now taken, all the notes in the world my professors lecture (save for a gifted few) are to be best used as kindling. Real learning comes from hours and hours of putting one's nose to the books and applying what was read to problems, or ponder the messages of the reading.
But this is also my biggest frustration as professors are simply not teachers. To quote Hubert Farnsworth, from the show Futurama, "Please, Fry (protagonist). I don't know how to teach. I'm a professor. " Because there are hardly any real teachers in colleges and universities (at least in mine), it is truly up to one's own volition to plow through text books and literature in order to learn the material being "taught."
Albert Constantine, Jr.| 9.7.10 @ 11:58AM
The Einstein quote I hear more frequently paraphrased is that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. While a cursory review of this premise would seem to suggest that he did not truly value persistence, I can't help but reflect that by Mr. Einstein's definition, every lottery winner who previously purchased a losing ticket is insane (along with those who purchase the vast majority of losing tickets). While I think investment in the lottery is not a sound strategy for guaranteed financial growth, ascribing mental infirmity to the point of being able to distinguish right from wrong exceeds the correct label. I think P. T. Barnum was much more wise than Mr. Einstein in identifying this group (with the 60 per minute birth rate), and students would be well served in learning from Barnum's wit and wisdom, as well.
Albert Constantine, Jr.| 9.7.10 @ 12:01PM
Actually, I should have expressed Barnum's birth rate calculation at 60 per hour.
Michael| 9.7.10 @ 2:36PM
You've still need to have credibility in today's world. At work they know and say about me, "If he's not here, there's a good reason for it", and a lot of people don't have that hurting them in the long run.
Mike Bergsma| 9.7.10 @ 5:47PM
I studied geophysics in college. I would not have been able to do what I do without the classroom studies. It was very, very tough for me but I am glad I did it.
Joe McGrath| 9.7.10 @ 6:03PM
"Teachers are overworked and underpaid"? Maybe in 1950. Not anymore. How else do you explain the burgeoning number of college students majoring in special ed, student counseling, educational administration, etc. ad nauseum. Retirees making 50k to 90k a year with fully paid health insurance for life after working 40 weeks a year for 30-35 years. Job security in perpetuity. Big Education is certainly a racket, but it has nothing to do with rote learning.
Petronius| 9.7.10 @ 7:37PM
Thank you all. Nothing to add. School's OUT.
Shyster| 9.7.10 @ 11:49PM
Actually, it's doubtful the quote came from Barnum.
Trialdog| 9.8.10 @ 4:13PM
I'll share one someone may read. It made me smile for many years and I use it on my children now.
"Never let your education interfere with gaining knowledge."
That comes from my beloved uncle, at the end of every summer, as we headed back to school.
Those were wonderful summers.