http://blog.yellowblockwall.org Wed, 14 Jan 2009 06:03:49 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en A Sacramento Bee editorial for January 11 describes a report prepared for the California Faculty Association.  The report shows a decline since 1977 in the number of Californians with bachelor’s degrees (from No. 1 or 2 in the U.S. to No. 13) and in the number of California adults who ... http://blog.yellowblockwall.org/?p=107 As part of his attempt to address California’s $11.2 billion budget deficit, Governor Schwarzenegger has proposed cutting about 10% from higher education.  For California community colleges, that means cutting 10% of funding at a time when enrollment has increased 10%. Spreading the pain is an especially bad idea in this case ... http://blog.yellowblockwall.org/?p=106 Most of us know people who “always knew” that they wanted to be teachers, doctors, lawyers, scientists, pilots, firefighters, nurses, veterinarians, actors.  They kept their eyes focused on that goal from a young age, and they went over, around, or through obstacles to make it happen.  If people like this ... http://blog.yellowblockwall.org/?p=105 Acquiring a degree is commonly confused with getting an education. We have created a situation in the U.S. in which employers often require college degrees because they don’t trust the public secondary education system to produce workplace-ready employees.  At the same time, a college degree is widely recognized to be a ... http://blog.yellowblockwall.org/?p=104 Despite the often-heard claim that the U.S. needs more people with college educations, the economy doesn’t need educated people as much as it needs people trained to do certain kinds of work and encouraged to have certain kinds of social class aspirations.  That is because the desire for more things ... http://blog.yellowblockwall.org/?p=103 Liberal arts colleges and universities can be snooty about the quality of education they provide, but they don’t necessarily do a very good job either. In my last post, I referred to an article by Peter Berkowitz in the December 2006 & January 2007 issue of Policy Review.  In the article, ... http://blog.yellowblockwall.org/?p=102 When suicidal Muslim fanatics flew airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, taking thousands of people with them to their deaths, most Americans were satisfied with seeing this as simply mindless, inexplicable evil.  It was certainly evil, but it was neither mindless nor inexplicable.  However, the efforts of ... http://blog.yellowblockwall.org/?p=101 Years ago when I was doing training in the workplace, I learned a useful distinction between education and training.  I learned that education is understanding and interpreting information, whereas training is using that understanding to do something. Training makes appropriate use of the behaviorist model of learning I discussed in the ... http://blog.yellowblockwall.org/?p=100 Mid-level workers in most fields have had the experience of having to record and report everything they do in a given period of time, for the purpose of being evaluated. How many cold calls did you make in an hour? How many customers did you see? How many forms ... http://blog.yellowblockwall.org/?p=99 I used to ask my career college students to define an educated person. (To read some of their answers, see “Defining an educated person,” my posting for May 5). I wasn’t looking for a formal definition of “educated,” and I had no answer in mind when I asked ... http://blog.yellowblockwall.org/?p=98