Government screws up. Thank you Department of Education

[srkruzich]

A college education may be important but the question is why?  I can understand a trade school where you actually learn a skill.  But I have met many college graduates that don't know their head from a hole in the ground.  Given my personal expirence while attending college the biggest thing that I got out of it was that if you don't think like a progressive then you are wrong.  Frankly, it was a waste of time and money.  Don't get me wrong, education is important so long as it is REAL.  Given the vast amount of knowledge contained in books and these places called libaries a person doesn't need a "professor" to tell them what to learn, all a person needs is a little self-control and motivation applied with self-discipline to educate themselves.  Just because a person has a piece of paper saying they know how to do something, doesn't mean that person actually knows how.  Look at the rate of failing schools in our country and how many "licensed" teachers are in front of those classrooms...

Having helped someone through the courses at Butler college, I can say the intstructors there are anything but useful.  One course had this friend in tears because the instructor would assign labs that were so far above the level of the course that there was absolutely NO POSSIBLE WAY they could do it.   I had to help without doing it for them, and i even had major difficulty and I have experience in using what they were taking a lab for.

THe biggest problem i had with that class was the text book that was chosen. It was a joke.  This book was so far out there, that most of the students barely passed if they passed at all, and my friend got a A in the class ONLY because i tutored them. 

On the other hand, i hold a degree in electronics and i would have never been able to get through it without the instructor i had.  He made everything click when i got into the complexities of electronic theory.

[Lookatmeknow!!]

I hear what you are all saying. I am taking classes online now, and to tell you the truth, they are great!! You don't have to sit through a lecture and you have work to do but its placed on the one who is taking the class. I felt that it has motivated me to be a better learner. I have had some bad instructors though on some of the courses. All of my papers have to be in APA style, and until now none have said a thing about how my papers were constructed. But my instructor now has offered to help me so that I can improve.

I think it just depends on the classes and how they are taken. I agree about some teachers don't know a thing also! They don't realize that teaching is a really hard job. It can be stressful, long hours, and some days down right bad. But it is very rewarding also!! I feel the best teachers are the ones that care about their students!!

[twirldoggy]

I remember we had lengthy discussions about who was a good teacher at KU.  I happened to like Dennis
Saleeby and took every class he taught.  In the early 1990's it cost $70.00 to sit in the class one time.  Dennis admitted once that he would get nervous when my friend raised her hand to ask a question, because he was afraid he couldn't answer.  He had a Doctorate from Berkley. 

[srkruzich]

I sat in on the IT class at Butler, and the instructor asked me a few questions about what he was teaching.  I found that he was woefully lacking in the education and ability to teach that class.  I know he was not qualified at all.  Too many things he was teaching that were wrong, too many things he was teaching that were 10 years out of date.  

When the text came to teach areas he didn't know, he would instruct his students that no one was using these areas of IT and they didn't need to know them when the opposite of what he was saying is true.  I come from a Enterprise IT background and the instructor said that the only Operating system that is used today is either Mac or windows.  

When asked by the instructor what my skill level was and all I quickly informed him and the class itself that i came from a UNIX environment where we used windows and macs as terminals instead of operating systems and that all business that was big enough to be classified in the top fortune 1000 used Unix not windows.  
I also explained to the students that if they thought that if they were going to go out there and make big bucks in computers to think again, that when i was working in the IT industry we only paid windows people min wage.   ITs not any better today.


He got to stuttering and stammering about it.  Shrug.  


What is sad is that i am immensely more qualified to teach the it courses than he and others are but because i don't have a piece of paper that says i have a teaching degree i am not even considered.