Posted on 04/15/2011 7:17:56 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
Food is vital for survival, yet less than 2 percent of America's population works in agriculture. That's a big change from 100 years ago, when over 40 percent of the workforce was toiling away on the farm. If I had been born at the start of the 20th century in Kansas, rather than at the end of the 1950s, no doubt my life would have been spent on the farm.
Agriculture was labor-intensive then, requiring plenty of strong backs, human and animal alike. In addition to nearly half the human workforce, 22 million animals worked the fields. Now 5 million tractors and a dazzling array of farm implements do the work of thousands. Farms have become more productive and specialized. And the number of farms has plunged, while the average-sized farm has quadrupled.
According to the USDA's website, in 1945 it took 14 labor hours to produce 100 bushels of corn on two acres. By 1987, it only took 3 labor hours and one acre to produce the same amount. Now, it takes less than an acre.
We have a wider array of food available to us than ever before. Created by fewer people. The division of labor continues to work wonders. Thank goodness we're not all stuck on the farm. According to the occupational employment numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 419,200 were employed in the farming, fishing, and forestry occupations in May of 2009.
The same May 2009 report listed 8,488,740 people employed in education, training, and library occupations. So more than 20 times more people are needed to educate a small portion of the population than to grow food for everyone. But what about serving the food? Yes, food-preparation and food-serving occupations totaled 11,218,260 employees, serving the entire population of over 308 million.
Meanwhile, it takes more than 8 million to educate the 81.5 million that are enrolled in school. History and technology would say this surely can't last. A proud father recently told me of quizzing his kids about scurvy. And while his young daughter gamely took a wild guess, his crafty teenage son ducked into the next room to google it, quickly emerging to give the correct answer that the disease that killed so many centuries ago is caused by a deficiency of vitamin C.
What schooling is for many is a 12- or 16-year sentence wherein young people are penned up, talked at, cajoled, quizzed, and tested, for the most part on facts and figures that can now be retrieved in seconds with a handheld device.
The budget for education in the United States was $972 billion in 2007, according to the 2009 Statistical Abstract of the United States — all of this money and all of these people for the promise that a life of employment success follows. Just as buying a house was the surest of investments, investing in an education is thought to be a sure bet. But the housing bubble has popped, and the education bubble is afloat, looking for a needle, according to PayPal founder and Facebook investor Peter Thiel.
"A true bubble is when something is overvalued and intensely believed," says Thiel. "Education may be the only thing people still believe in in the United States. To question education is really dangerous. It is the absolute taboo. It's like telling the world there's no Santa Claus."
In an article for TechCrunch, Sarah Lacy accentuates Thiel's point, writing, "Like the housing bubble, the education bubble is about security and insurance against the future. Both whisper a seductive promise into the ears of worried Americans: Do this and you will be safe."
As home buyers leveraged up to buy McMansions in the housing boom, parents and students are borrowing thousands, and in some cases hundreds of thousands, for degrees from big- (and small-) name universities, with the idea that when they come out the other side, with diploma in hand, the employment world is their oyster.
Other than the connections one makes at the Ivy League school, or Stanford, or Whatever State U, what's the point? Years of lost productivity, mountains of debt, and a piece of paper that likely has nothing to do with the job skills needed for this century.
Community-college English instructor Professor X is haunted by the similarities between the housing and education bubbles. In his book, entitled In the Basement of the Ivory Tower: Confessions of an Accidental Academic, X writes, "I, who fell victim to the original pyramid scheme of real estate … have used the educational pyramid scheme, the redefining of who college students are, for my own salvation."
Thiel and Founders Fund managing partner Luke Nosek have decided to pluck 20 talented teens out of the college quicksand and pay them $100,000 each over two years to start companies rather than sit through lectures, go to football games, and pile up student-loan debt. Thiel calls it "stopping out of school."
Great things will come from these "20 under 20." But for the rest of the millions left on campus — and in grade and high schools — few are learning to think and write, while all are gaining the highest self-esteem in the world.
This is the information age, yet the ability to communicate is not being taught, or not sinking in. College English instructor Kara Miller wrote on Boston.com that few of her students had received writing instruction in high school, and that correcting student papers was so time consuming that the task was virtually overwhelming. She quotes Vartan Gregorian, the former president of Brown University, who rightly understands that "the ability to read, comprehend, and write — in other words, to organize information into knowledge — must be viewed as tantamount to a survival skill."
In a piece questioning the need for colleges offering majors in business, David Glenn writes that employers are looking for "22-year-olds who can write coherently, think creatively and analyze quantitative data, and they're perfectly happy to hire English or biology majors."
Yes, the facts and figures are a click away. The ability to use, understand, and communicate those facts is what must be taught and currently is not. And it doesn't take an army of 8 million and a budget of 1 trillion dollars and counting to do it.
Interesting comparison, farming and education. Thanks for posting. I’ll have to spend more time on it later.
For people who want to learn, a great deal could be accomplished with lectures on DVDs and online testing. Those who do not want to learn just muck up the system and drive up costs when we try to force them into the system.
Modern education is a racket. Get a job. Learn a trade. Pick up the skills you need in order to move ahead. Sitting in a classroom with 30 other people is generally a waste of time.
*
It can't come soon enough.
The problem with public education is not “just” the cost, but the quality of the “education” received by the students. It is more about propaganda and the “party line” than about the process of learning useful knowledge.
That MUST change, or the nation will die.
“A people ignorant and free, never was and never will be.” -Thomas Jefferson
“Now 5 million tractors and a dazzling array of farm implements do the work of thousands”
I understand the context but the way it’s written makes it look like we are wasting money on tractors.
“Modern education is a racket. Get a job. Learn a trade. Pick up the skills you need in order to move ahead. Sitting in a classroom with 30 other people is generally a waste of time.”
Agreed. I earned my Business degree while serving in the military. That combination of education on the fly and real world experience has served me well.
Every job I’ve had, post-Army has been a cakewalk compared to what was expected to be accomplished each and every DAY in the military.
I’ve done everything from construction management to managing agri-related businesses. It’s been a fun ride! People have entrusted me with millions of their dollars, just based on my little degree and my ability to get things done.
There were times when it was really hard, but I sure wish more kids would consider that path. (My son is at a tech school right now working on a computer degree...he understands what he’s up against.)
You are right. But I will add one thing....education is more than a racket...it is a means to an end (in the Marxist/Skinnerean sense).
It is to create group-think (mass conformity and stupidity—where logic is non-existent). Dewey set up the Prussian design for mass indoctrination—but the design of one teacher to same age in forced school system—leads to NO outside the box thinkers. All subject matter is set to mediocre at best....the brightest are bored to death and act out and get medicated and destroyed.
Peers make him seem odd and an outsider and he learns to “fit” in through gentle humiliation from teacher and peers.......It is to kill any old fashioned ideas of Intelligent Design and meaning and hope in life. Make kids into trousered animals—just consumers of what ever the elites try to sell—sex, earthly pleasures...even ideas—such as homosexual marriage, no matter how bizarre and how unnatural.
It is to keep the masses down and busy.....interested in stupid non-important stuff—time consuming nonsense—avoiding the true meaning and questions of life.
Our education system was designed by Marxists (Dewey, Dr. Rugg/Dr. Counts, Bill Ayers) to create little non-thinking Marxists because communism allows for no logic—it defies Natural Law Theory which is just common sense.
It depends on the skills being learned. I don't want to be operated on by a surgeon who graduated from a distance learning program. Some skills can't be learned from lectures and books, so there will always be a need for some type of program that provides hands-on learning.
However - this is the exception. Most programs could be taught via distance learning.
IMHO, one can never be too rich, too thin or have too many tractors! :)
The Revolution will not be televised.
It will be on YouTube...
Then, the question becomes...who takes over for the Socialists in the future when their pool of candidates is so ‘dumbed-down’ as to be useless in a leadership role?
I mean, I’m not saying the Left is smart, though they are clever and insidious...and those aren’t usually naturally acquired talents. It takes time to learn to lie to and hypnotize the masses on a minute-by-minute basis...though current TV *SHUDEER* and all manner of other social ills sure does aid them in their quest!
I’ve been dating a farm girl for a few years now and just last year was formally indoctrinated into antique tractor culture at a few events.
A very interesting hobby and seeing hundreds at one time lined up in show rows opened up my eyes to something I never even knew existed.
And edited properly to suit the cause! ;)
We farm girls are pretty interesting all the way around. :) I know more than a few of us have brought a lot to the table for our men - you know, food we’ve grown, animals we’ve raised and butchered, an appreciation of all things ‘au natural’...that kind of stuff, LOL!
Play this Sinatra for your girlfriend!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZctoaLQMmTM
Oh, and marry her if she’ll have ya! We don’t last long when we’re suddenly on the available market, LOL! :)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.