Posted on 11/09/2015 5:35:02 PM PST by The Looking Spoon
An Associate Master at Yale writes an email complaining that basically college kids...KIDS...are too politically correct and too wimpy to deal with it. The specific topic was on whether or not the university should police what students wear on Halloween to make sure they don't don anything too offensive (i.e. some New England WASP has no business  dressing up as...say...Geronimo wearing black face, or anything at all for that matter).
That is an oversimplification of what was actually said (the link above has the full text of the email), but it's also the gist.
The email became widely known and the kids at Yale did what kids best, throw a temper tantrum about it (<-- that tantrum comes in the third video).
The whole thing follows the five pillars of liberalism to the tee...the students circled the professor to exact an apology for suggesting these intellectual invertebrates develop a backbone instead of maintaining the feeling that Yale is a "safe space." The students are apparently under the impression that demanding an apology entitles them to deserving one. It ended with one little girl jeopardizing her voice box and running off to put on a clinic in weeping, over Halloween costumes, that my own kids could learn from. ("Baby girl, do you hear the pitch in her scream, if you can go that high then maybe next time I'll say yes to cookies before dinner.")
On one hand this is yet another example of why liberalism needs to break its ideological monopoly on academia. These so-called scholars have become a bunch of Dr. Frankensteins with their intellectual bigotry and they've fostered future generations of monsters they can't control, and those intellectual chickens are coming home to roost.
On the other hand it should have us all wondering what the point of college is anymore. They're like reverse-fat camps, except people go in dumb and come out dumber. Why should we subject our kids, to the tune of six-figure debt? This Yale incident reveals more than the danger liberal indoctrination is bringing to America, it reveals education is more like a knock off a Rolex for sale at Rolex pricing.
That is honestly a weird thing for me to say, because I have a college degree. I married ***TRIGGER WARNING: if you're a liberal college student from Yale, or if you've ever thought of going to Yale, or if you've become so wrapped up in your personal triggers in school that you're too dumb to even spell "Yale" then you should bail out of this post......NOW*** a woman who has her masters degree and teaches college students herself. We also met in college, so I can't say I regret going. I can also say I know a lot of people in my life who didn't go to college, many in my own family, and they found great success in life without a degree.
My wife doesn't teach a subject matter that dooms kids to careers as baristas, they actually learn useful skills in her class that should actually be covered more in high school, but aren't. She loves her job and she treats it responsibly, meaning she doesn't impose her ideology on her students. She does her job, and helps them arrive at their own evidence-based conclusions. Every so often she encounters students like the ones at Yale, and she says it gets worse with each passing semester.
There are many sectors of higher education that are very much worthwhile and always have been. There are also so many more that are not. The purpose of higher education was supposed to be the advanced learning of certain professional knowledge and skills that couldn't really be attained with a regular education, which in turn tended to command higher wages in the marketplace.
For generations now young people have been indoctrinated with the idea that their worth as an adult will only come with obtaining (note I didn't say earning) of a college degree. This is bolstered by a pop and political culture that glamorizes and panders to the college lifestyle as a necessary part of modern life. Somewhere along the away we came to believe it doesn't matter what you study, all you need is to get that piece of paper saying you graduated, a ticket to a "real" career. As a result the number of Americans who are college graduates has never been higher, and it has gotten us nowhere intellectually and in terms of people actually getting jobs.
If standardized tests aren't a valid marker of the effectiveness of education or what a student knows then standardized achievement is even worse. A degree in some "grievance" study doesn't condition any American to take on the real world any better than a plumber with a just high school diploma and a actual skill that's needed in the market place.
You see, Yalies, just because you spent a lot of money for the right to be at that campus doesn't mean attacking dissent with totalitarian ferocity is worth what you're paying for it.
College has become a big business by for and of the left the same way global warming has. There's something distinctly and increasingly un-American about the initiates into this once important institution. There is obviously a place for it in society, but the rising aggression of these group-think mobs raises the question of its continued relevance relative to what is being taught.
When college ceases to be a gateway to adulthood and a higher place in our economy then maybe the culture should consider forgoing it in favor of other avenues of education where people can learn what they need to know to move forward with their lives, without spending themselves into oblivion only to be forged into intellectual and emotional wimps.
Preview image from Grad Planet.
It sure isn’t working out for those pinheads that spent 12 years getting a Master’s Degree in “Saving da Planet”.
No sir!
Bring back the draft. After service you can go to college.
And not until you serve. PERIOD.
Go into 200k of debt because you know how to memorize a textbook better than someone else.
ANY PARENT that finances their kid to go to college to pursue “their dreams” in philosophy or to “find himself” DESERVES to be DESTITUTE in retirement.
The days when a person could go to college and NOT clean out themselves and/or their parents are LONG GONE. The only question now is whether your kid gets a piece of paper that has any more value than a plumber...because, at this point, very few degrees meet that standard.
I heartily agree. Those who try hard get the good MOS’s, those who don’t get KP and latrine duty!
Maybe they should first learn how to make change, use a ruler, say “Please” and “Thank you”, respect their elders, have a work ethic, etc.
/old fogey mode.
Just stumblin' over that, are we?
You’re not talking about a draft you’re talking about universal mandatory conscription. Which this country has never had.
There are plenty of kids at the community college I am now attending who literally can not find 1.5 inches on a ruler. That's the truth. I have personally witnessed this. Many **will** go on to earn AA and then B.A. degrees. There are plenty of baristas with college degrees who can not read a ruler or an analog clock and don't know who the Vice President is.
It was the intelligence/vocational testing that determined which ratings you were qualified for when I joined the Navy. Any hard work you did had to have been done before you enlisted. After that your advancement was constrained by the need in your field first, then you performance on tests.
Some of the best math I've eveer seen was done on scrap paper in a machine shop, by a guy who barely spoke English or acceptable Spanish, merely so he could actually do what the red lines called for. Contemporary with that I worked with Engineers who's answer to "why" was because that's what the program says.
Nearly the most depressing sight I encountered in GI Bill education was watching as the demo slip stick behind instructor's desk was replaced with a demo hand calculator. (see above; because that's what the program says)
The problem isn't limited to 'kids'. I watched over a decade of adult employees bagging a Phoenix or Fly by Night BA degree while employed so that they could demand a raise and promotion upon completion...
Spoiler; I have a legitimate BA in a very unmarketable specialty and an after hours MSA in "management", which taken together allowed me to continue working but which I never thought should guarantee me any sort of status, that you need to learn to do for yourself.
For a better education, I suggest 4 years in the Navy and a set of Great Books.
Duhh! Do ya think? Just look how well it's working out for the future rocket scientist attending the "State Run", "University" tee hee, in Missouri. As a parent, save yourself the money. Lobotomies are much faster and cheaper. Same result.
Actually, no! I’ve been batting around these thoughts for quite some time now. I just thought the incident at Yale made it a good launching pad for a post about it.
Plumbers have a lot of value and have to study for loads of certificates.
I agree.
I’ve done PLENTY OF PLUMBING and have incredible respect for them. One of the most taxing things I did was trying to lay out drain pipe (below grade) while meeting the 0.25” per foot slope and making bends to line up with rough-ins. Looks EASY after it’s done, but I was TOTALLY DRAINED (no pun intended), mentally, after that...and that was an EASY JOB. Try doing the same when you’re dealing with 2x10 floor joists and can’t dip below the ceiling level below. The people that built my house had the pleasure of doing that...which is why I NEVER, EVER, call illegals dumb or unskilled. Until I can hold a candle to their work, I will always respect them...but they still need to leave.
So maybe you have a point. It’s likely a LOT EASIER and certainly MORE FUN for a 20-something to eat up mom’s and dad’s retirement to become a Shakespeare Sonnet ‘expert’ than to learn how to lay drain pipe or sweat copper.
But then that’s why I tell parents to tell their kids to SHOVE IT if they insist in getting a worthless degree.
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