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The higher education system in America is the most rampant case of consumer fraud I can think of... in fact I stormed into the Provost's office and threatened to sue and expose the fraud (a professor had falsified her credentials). What got me going on this today is an article by Bruce Deitrick Price in the American Thinker entitled "K-16: Land of Lies" (I'll include a link below). What I want to offer is some of my experiences along the same line that Mr. Price takes in his superbly written article.
The number one problem, according to Price, is that nobody seems to be able to write in complete sentences. Anybody that's read much of my stuff on Steemit knows that I never went to school- my education prior to college comes from reading and a couple of years being taught at home by my Uncle Arthur. Naturally when I was accepted by a university, I was terrified... I had 3 1/2 months of adult ed and a GED. I was admitted on the strength of a few stories that I had hastily written. I thought I would be unprepared to go up against "America's best and brightest." My fears, I learned, were totally unfounded.
My first semester I took 4 classes, more or less, to see how I would fare... Three 100 level and one 300 (I wanted to see how tough the advanced classes were). The 300 level was in Science Fiction & Fantasy- something with which I had some familiarity. The professor and I became friends- he was what I thought a college professor was supposed to be... tough! Unfortunately, the university disagreed and his contract wasn't renewed. He went to work for the Mackinaw Center, a think tank, doing studies on education. He interviewed the executives in charge of hiring at major corporations and their largest complaint about recent college grads was that "nobody can write."
I took a class in Creative Writing with the professor whose letter had been instrumental in getting me into college. He had written a novel himself and suggested I read it... it was terrible. You could easily tell by reading it that he had never experienced any of the things his characters did- this from a guy whose mantra was "write what you know." It read like an academic treatise rather than a work of fiction. Here's one problem with the education system right there... you can't teach what you don't know. There's an old adage "Those that can do- do... those who can't- teach." There may be some truth in that, but what if you can't teach?
The university I attended used to be Michigan Teachers College and the Education Dept. was the largest on campus. What I learned was that the students that actually belonged in college either went to grad school or to work in the private sector after graduation. Mediocre students took jobs in government. The very lowest students on the academic totem-pole, went into teaching. One student I remember, who was an education major, finally got caught copying and pasting all the material for his papers. He got caught because a professor asked a question about the content of one (I was in the class) and the idiot hadn't even read it. This is who's teaching our children.
According to Prices article, the problem of plagiarism is rampant. That coupled with an inability to write cohesively presents a huge problem for employers. The problem doesn't seem to be limited to undergrads either. My friend Kris' dad was the head of Michigan Fish & Game. He was reviewing applicants for a Summer internship and had asked for essays. One applicant, a grad student in Microbiology submitted an essay about the zebra mussel problem in the Great Lakes. It began: "Zebra muscles, those pesky moluskes..." (I shit you not!) Is it any wonder that beginning in my Freshman year, I made a fortune ghost writing Master's Theses???
This is also much of the thrust of Price's article... the huge market for people that write fraudulent documents. Most of the kids that enter college are unable to function at the high school level. It isn't their fault. From grade 1 onward, fundamental skills in reading, writing, mathematics, etc. are ignored by teachers that are unable to perform themselves. Perhaps Nelson Mandela was right afterall:
By keeping children ignorant, they carry the same lack of skills into adulthood... the only people that benefit from education at any level are administrators and the corrupt teacher's union. The purpose of education in America is indoctrination. They churn out generation after generation of compliant sheep, steeped in Cultural Marxist propaganda and bogus science... and people wonder why nobody but a few can see through the bullshit the mass media is selling as truth.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/09/k16_land_of_lies.html
GIF by @papa-pepper
Solid piece @richq11 🤝
Would you be willing to share how much you charged, how you found clients, and how much time you spent on each project when you were ghost writing Master's Theses?
Always on the lookout for a side gig... 🙂
Have a great weekend brother
@scan0017 🤜🤛
To begin with, the clients found me. My freshman year I met a guy that was in the masters program (in education) and I wrote his... It just took off from there. The price varied with how much work I had to do and what discipline it was. If they had the research material and a subject, I'd charge around $350-$500 for something like Political Science or Econ. It seemed that Psychology attracted a lot of dumb students. We also had a lot of rich Arabs going to school there (most drove Ferraris)... They never had any research material or even a subject for the paper... I'd hit them for up to $2500. It usually didn't take too long once I had the material... I could crank out 25 -35 pages in a weekend.
That's awesome man; as students, you do what you need to do to get by...
The morality is suspect but when the profs are doing the same bloody thing what the hell?
If school is meant to prepare students for life then it's the intelligent ones who work on BOTH sides of this fair trade, mutually beneficial arrangement which, ultimately , is what life is all about in a civilized, capitalist society.
Back in the 90's I would 'donate' (sell) plasma so I could buy my chemistry and biology textbooks.
Earned my Doctoral degree, along with the scar on my left arm from the more than 20 sessions (1.5 hours each time) where they would cycle your blood in and out of your arm, separating the plasma...
I like your way better.
😉
Thanks for sharing the details;
quite a fascinating tale indeed!
Plus I had a wife and 4 kids at the time! I needed the money!!!
That last line reminds me of a joke once told by Andrew Dice Clay about little boy blue... 😂
One issue compounding the problem is the rise of the Internet and smart phone. While these things are incredibly valuable they are in fact changing the way we think. The Internet encourages shallow thinking and distraction.
Combined with the education models of today the results are not that surprising.
What I learned was that the students that actually belonged in college either went to grad school or to work in the private sector after graduation. Mediocre students took jobs in government. The very lowest students on the academic totem-pole, went into teaching
I've been saying that for half a century.
Of course...being a Viet Era Vet and then A Trucker for decades made me a cynic.
I've been finding out just how deplorable the educational system has been with finding out about the recent rise in the flat earth movement. The science, math, science, and logical thinking skills of these people is far worse than you can even imagine. Trying to have an intelligent discussion with these people is an incredible lesson in the dumbing down of education.
And the sad part is that the Dunning-Kruger effect is strong, making them believe they are smarter than everyone else. Thanks for the great article.
Thank you! I had a kid just out of high school come to work for me... This poor kid was actually terrified about global warming- convinced that we'd all be dead in ten years!
Hehehe!😁👌
Like that huh???
You nailed it on the head @richq11!👍
4Chan Pol just doxxed ANTIFA and nearly all of the 32,000 names on the file are teachers or professors! Our education system here in Australia is no different! They're nearly all communists! I have two conservativd friends who work in education here in Sydney and both say it's a hotbed of socialism and if they reveal their political preferences they will be fired.
I went to college in the 90's and saw the same thing... I wrote an article awhile ago about ANTIFA and my research showed that most of them are college kids doing it for extra credit. It's the professors behind it! I had a conservative friend in college, a young guy that I mentored, he wanted to be a teacher but the accreditation exam was a political litmus test!
Here, Here!
I home-schooled my daughter after 7th grade, after I had proven a math teach wrong and had a major confrontation with a Language Arts teacher. She finds others her age (20's) lacking in basic skills: writing and counting change.
Sadly, I find many high-school drop-outs have more common sense as well as writing and math skills!
One of the smartest people I know never made it past the 7th grade. Back in the 70's he was building robots that were remote controlled. They were incredibly cool- they had hoses with different color fluids going through them. He made a fortune taking them to trade shows and putting them through their paces.
My former brother in law, I have no doubt, is a genius... He went to the 6th grade (but didn't finish). If I was wealthy I would set him up in a machine shop and turn him loose. One thing he invented was a tool for going inside automobile engines to repair them without taking them all the way apart (kind of like arthroscopic surgery for cars) it had a light and pincers for holding tools or picking up parts and it was magnetized so it would pick things up. That's just one of his inventions.
I never went to school until I was in my 40's when I went to adult ed. I got into college on the strength of several stories I had written. I had a similar experience with teachers myself! My oldest son's teacher diagnosed him with ADHD and said he couldn't come back to school unless I drugged him. I questioned her medical credentials suggesting she might ought to leave diagnoses of this sort for qualified medical personnel. She said I was agitated and threatened to call security... I pulled all four kids out of school and taught them at home. When my wife and I split, she sent them back to public school... every last one of those kids were the smartest in class!
I was going to use this tag, but I was pretty hard on the educational establishment- I thought it might ruffle some feathers!
Thank goodness we have cryptocurrencies to earn and trade with. So that even with a bad education we can still make a living.
Zebra Muscles LOL.
I got a big kick out of that too lol! I was over at Kris' house and his dad said: "You have got to see this- unbelievable!"
What I learned in skool, that is still with me, is bad for me.
haha! love this - my education started when I dropped out of college and started thinking for myself! appreciate your thoughts here
I was unencumbered by a public education and am much better off for it! It allowed me to see through the crap they were peddling!
I've been unschooled for the past four years and whenever I think of going to any sort of university, the only thing I see myself taking is Creative Writing. And I always come across the same issue, that the courses aren't taught by "real" writers. Stephen King doesn't teach and I can't help but think that those who teach these courses are just wannabe writers themselves.
Besides, i don't think you can teach writing....you either have it or you don't. What do you think?
I think you're right. If you want to be a good writer, here's my advice... First- read. Read everything, after a while you kinda internalize it and that helps you develop a style. The other thing is write. Write about things you know about, things you've lived. I'm not a good writer by any stretch of the imagination- but I love to do it and I've got a book coming out in Nov.
I love Stephen King, but really he's not that good of a writer. He's magnificent as a storyteller though... so good in fact, that you don't even notice that he's not that good of a writer. For example when he writes dialogues, he never uses adverbs... everything is like "he said" or "she said." Never "he said excitedly" or something like that. But his ability as a storyteller is so incredible you never notice. It took me about 15 books to notice.
I know he's against adverbs. I remember reading that in an interview and feeling guilty whenever I use one. Yes, he is very hard to find out.
Excellent advice, it's what I try to do, read and write. SK once said that if you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write, and I try to stick to that.
What's the book about, if I may? And Ithink you're an excellent writer.
It's both of the Night Gods stories (NG & NG II) combined featuring the artwork of marty-art the guy that does the pics for me here. It should be out in Nov. It's already written and I'm editing the chapters and sending them to Marty who does the art and layout. And, thank you for the compliment!!!
Forget about SK and what he says. What works for him, works for him and may not work for you. So don't feel guilty about using adverbs. I do it purposely so I won't be like him... Find what works for you and do that- be yourself!!!
I'm looking forward to your book!
Thank you for the advice! It's greatly appreciated. You're right, I should follow my own rules.
I spent years doing academic writing- very specific rules of grammar and structure. I love the freedom of writing fiction- I just make up my own. As long as it reads smooth, it's all good with me.
Don't worry about success or trying to compare your writing with anyone else's... Just do your own thing. One thing I've noticed when I go back to edit stuff for the book is that my writing is improving all the time- your's will too. My first story was a murder mystery. I was going for a film noir motif... It sucked!!! It was so bad I quit writing after 4-5 chapters... I stunk the place up with it, So just keep writing- like anything else, practice makes perfect (or at least better)
Urgh, academic writing is horrible, in my opinion. I haven't had to deal with it (luckily) since I'm unschooled, but lately, I've been considering taking my SATs and part of that is writing essays. And I find I'm terrible at it because I can't write without a voice. I tend to speak my mind when I write, express something, not write flat.
Thank you so very much (again) for the advice. I really, really appreciate it. And yes, I do find it improves over time. I think back to my first, childish stories with a mix of horror and fondness and I realize how much I've grown. Of course, I will always write. I don't think I could stop even if I wanted to. I bet you know the feeling.
Most valuable and wander full post.....i like it.........
well, they were the best at parroting academic jargon and "critical studies" dogma ;>
Thanks! ;-}
This set my copy-editing alarm off, it's unfortunately a reflex- YES, I'll automatically fill in "were" for "we", but then I wind up picking up nearly (I'll still miss some) all copy errors, and I'll subconsciously critique this excellently written article on that basis as well.
That being said, I agree completely with the author (and the source he cites) of the carnage in our ability to think clearly and effectively the simple common error (and often the completely intentional tactic, as seen nearly every day, in tweets from the Idiot-in-Chief) of failing (or refusing) to complete sentences induces throughout our world.
No-one is served better by poor communication among the masses than those inimical to their interests...
Idiot in Chief? oblahblah is gone ;>
In slavery to debt! No thanks! Seeing what's going on at college campuses right now is down right shocking!
I wound up $65,000 in debt! I told them to go fuck themselves, they were lucky I wasn't soung them! (But I'm just that kind of guy!) The only thing I learned in college was where all the loonies I used to sell acid to in the 60's disappeared to!
It's kinda like that here in Canada, except with Primary, Middle, and High school instead of university or college
The educational system is intended to give you a foundation upon which you can build and people like him should be put behind bars...
Yup, like me... I told them they were lucky I wasn't suing them.