Quote :

"Incomes, on average, have declined by 2.5% among the bottom fifth of families since the late 1990s, while inching up by just 1.3% for those in the middle fifth of households,"

Could it just be that the bottom quintile is just more contempt to live on welfare and blame their lack of achievement on other people. Or take up other "illegal" occupations that does not report income.

4/9/2008 9:08:17 AM

It could be those things. It could also be that the bottom quintile generally has access to the worst schools and other services while living in the worst areas.

4/9/2008 9:14:00 AM

^ word.

4/9/2008 9:17:57 AM

Quote :

"Could it just be that the bottom quintile is just more contempt to live on welfare and blame their lack of achievement on other people. Or take up other "illegal" occupations that does not report income."

helluva blanket statement there.

4/9/2008 9:19:32 AM

Poor people struggle, in my opinion, mainly based on their poor decisions.

This thread reminds me of my brother. He was 3 when SS took him away from his family bc he was abused. My dad adopted him when he was 4, and he has struggled ever since. While I firmly blame his parents for this, the fact that he is now 20 years old, doesnt work, doesnt have a high school degree(dropped out), quits the shitty jobs he does get bc "its bullshit", while my dad keeps paying for his apartment, car, cable, etc.. He will never grow up as long as my dad is paying for his lifestyle... just as many of the poor. As long as thier is a safety hammock, dont be surprised many dont have the motivation to get off it. Esp when that hammock pays more than thier skill level jobs pay... when you factor in kids, disability, CC,... you know more bad decisions.

4/9/2008 9:27:02 AM

Define "Poor People"--oh, and "'Struggle.'"

4/9/2008 9:29:24 AM

well, at least we'll always have farm subsidies

4/9/2008 9:30:28 AM

Quote :

"the fact that he is now 20 years old, doesnt work, doesnt have a high school degree(dropped out), quits the shitty jobs he does get bc "its bullshit", while my dad keeps paying for his apartment, car, cable, etc.. He will never grow up as long as my dad is paying for his lifestyle"

and there is the fundamental flaw with that logic. You don't have to be poor to make bad decisions, its just some people are lucky enough to have the means (thiers or someone elses) to cover them up, which goes back to coming from money and having a leg up from the beginning.

I just find it extremely hard to say that out of all the millions of people who are poor, its b/c they all make bad decisions, are lazy ect...in every case.

theoretically, say everyone made "good" decisions, worked hard and got an education. There are still destined to be many, many people below the poverty line.

4/9/2008 9:42:48 AM

Quote :

"It could be those things. It could also be that the bottom quintile generally has access to the worst schools and other services while living in the worst areas."

From conversation from teachers i know many poor kids do not give a shit about school and make no attempt at providing themselves an education. Why spend the extra school loot when these kids don't give a shit in the first place. School in many poor communities serves as a baby sitting service to keep kids of the street causing trouble than actual education. True i blame the parents but its the mindset that creates a self propagating "poor" mentality.

4/9/2008 10:08:51 AM

Quote :

" From conversation from teachers i know many poor kids do not give a shit about school and make no attempt at providing themselves an education. Why spend the extra school loot when these kids don't give a shit in the first place. School in many poor communities serves as a baby sitting service to keep kids of the street causing trouble than actual education. True i blame the parents but its the mindset that creates a self propagating "poor" mentality."

have you ever actually talked to a poor person?

4/9/2008 10:15:09 AM

Poor people ARE STRUGGLING


I'm trying to organize a WOLF WEB CANNED FOOD DRIVE FOR THE TRIANGLE

we can use this thread to sign up too

4/9/2008 10:16:35 AM

Quote :

"It could also be that the bottom quintile generally has access to the worst schools and other services while living in the worst areas."

Some thoughts: Don't we spend something like $7000-$10,000 per student in this country? Does that mean that most of this money never actually gets to educating these kids? Who is running education?

I have read that the lower economic groups tend to vote consistently for democrats. Why would they keep voting for a group of politicians which hasn't done much to improve their situation.

Again I have also read that being poor is often a temporary state for many people as they move up the earnings ladder.

4/9/2008 10:41:19 AM

Quote :

"have you ever actually talked to a poor person?"

I have -- all the time

I've been friends with povs, (and not just when I was a kid and didn't really notice that kind of thing)

unlike most people I know, I don't reject poor or troubled individuals as being potential friends

while true, some, (maybe half, even,) prove to be reliably untrustworthy, lazy, and generally hopeless,

many are still very good friends to this day and currently appear to be in the middle of their own "rags-to-riches" story

the fact that my friendship likely contributed to their "support group" that ultimately helped them help themselves,

makes me feel that there is hope in humanity -- we just have to help those who deserve it

Quote :

"Poor people struggle, in my opinion, mainly based on their poor decisions."

right, but like you said, it often starts as something not their fault

which is why it's important that individuals [read: private sector] help other individuals help themselves

4/9/2008 11:12:26 AM

some of my best friends are poor people...

[Edited on April 9, 2008 at 11:29 AM. Reason : ``]

4/9/2008 11:27:45 AM

GrumpyGOP wins.

The bottom quintile controls ZERO percent of the world's wealth.

Quote :

"EarthDogg: Some thoughts: Don't we spend something like $7000-$10,000 per student in this country? Does that mean that most of this money never actually gets to educating these kids? Who is running education?"

Sadly, and I say that because I know this may break your libertarian heart, local governments run education. This is one of the fundamental reasons I can't cross the big L picket line. The private sector largely does not -- and has little to no economic incentive to -- educate poor people, or motivate them to educate themselves.

The DOE for all its ills has some level of involvement, but very minor in comparison.

Quote :

"EarthDogg: I have read that the lower economic groups tend to vote consistently for democrats. Why would they keep voting for a group of politicians which hasn't done much to improve their situation."

Food stamps and Social Security go a long way, I guess.

Quote :

"EarthDogg: Again I have also read that being poor is often a temporary state for many people as they move up the earnings ladder."

Economic mobility is often overlooked and understudied. I've read a small amount of literature suggesting this is true for a portion of the American poor, but that it's not a large portion.

4/9/2008 11:59:43 AM

Quote :

"The private sector largely does not -- and has little to no economic incentive to -- educate poor people, or motivate them to educate themselves."

Uh... based upon what do you make this bold assertion?

I'll easily agree the private sector has little incentive to provide a balanced, liberal-arts education to every single person, but the fact remains that skilled workers (both technical and vocational) are very much in demand, and will continue to be so.

It may mean that the type of education they have incentive to provide isn't the kind you had in mind, but the fact remains - the private sector still needs workers.

4/9/2008 1:46:11 PM

Could it just be that the bottom quintile is just more contempt to live on welfare

4/9/2008 2:19:18 PM

Quote :

"Poor people struggle, in my opinion, mainly based on their poor decisions."

Assuming this is true, where do these poor decision come from?

4/9/2008 2:21:02 PM

^stupidity, and possibly the WWF.

4/9/2008 2:29:31 PM

Quote :

"Does that mean that most of this money never actually gets to educating these kids? Who is running education?"

Schools public and private require fairly extensive facilities and support services, and my guess would be that in both cases these expenses mean that "most of this money never actually gets to educating," per se.

Privatization of education scares me more than just about anything save privatization of police and armed forces. I've seen -- hell, just about anybody who's ever been in a third-world country has seen -- what happens when you no longer do at least two things:

1) Force people to go to school
2) Have schools that poor people can afford to go to

And it's not pretty. The swarms of beggar children in Lima every hour of every day -- including right smack in the middle of weekday mornings -- are not learning jack-all except how to moan a couple of pleading sentences in English to get change from tourists. Technically education is mandatory, but this, as far as I could tell, went largely unenforced. It would be even worse if the only option was private schools.

And then, with large, uneducated populations of poor people, some still wonder how these countries end up electing radical leftist dingbat politicians. Would you rather just pay your damn taxes for schools or end up in the guillotine down the road? That option isn't as far-fetched as you apparently want to think.

Quote :

"I'll easily agree the private sector has little incentive to provide a balanced, liberal-arts education to every single person"

This is not a problem to be so casually dismissed. A degree of specialization is a good thing, of course, as Adam Smith was happy to tell us. But it is not the only thing. Specialization taken too far leads to the death of creativity, and I don't just mean shitty poems and hippie jam bands. Creativity is necessary for flexibility, and flexibility is necessary to survive major changes -- be they social, environmental, political, what have you.

Skilled technical and vocational workers will be in demand, yes, and so if we leave it to the market to train them that is what they will do, nothing more. The market is not about doing "superfluous" things. And so congratulations, you've got a large population of people who can fix a toilet and nothing else. That's a helluva society.

Rigid specialization is for insects.

4/9/2008 2:30:04 PM

Quote :

"^stupidity, and possibly the WWF."

So, genes and environment, huh?

4/9/2008 2:31:11 PM

Quote :

"GrumpyGOP: Rigid specialization is for insects."

Precisely.

Quote :

"DrSteveChaos: Uh... based upon what do you make this bold assertion?"

Quote :

"Gamecat: The bottom quintile controls ZERO percent of the world's wealth."

If your target market has no money, how does your enterprise profit?

4/9/2008 2:47:22 PM

Quote :

"This is not a problem to be so casually dismissed. A degree of specialization is a good thing, of course, as Adam Smith was happy to tell us. But it is not the only thing. Specialization taken too far leads to the death of creativity, and I don't just mean shitty poems and hippie jam bands. Creativity is necessary for flexibility, and flexibility is necessary to survive major changes -- be they social, environmental, political, what have you."

You're attacking just a little bit of a strawman, there. Putting forward the notion that a one-size-fits-all educational system may not in fact meet the needs of everyone is not agitating for hyper-specialization. And it's a pretty extreme limb to go out on to assert that this is the end result of the option for vocational specialization away from the more liberal arts model of education.

Quote :

"Skilled technical and vocational workers will be in demand, yes, and so if we leave it to the market to train them that is what they will do, nothing more. The market is not about doing "superfluous" things. And so congratulations, you've got a large population of people who can fix a toilet and nothing else. That's a helluva society."

Because we'll be reverting back to that Dickensian society where individuals never have leisure time to develop their interests, right? I mean, go to work, go home, and, hey! Fix more toilets.

Meanwhile, let's put this in terms of a comparative advantage. Is the model we have right now, where some students obtain little to no value to their "well-rounded" education to the point where they simply drop out somehow a smashing success compared to the sheer horror of admitting that perhaps some students might find themselves better served on a more vocational track?

I mean, good lord - better to have those kids drop out than be specialized!

4/9/2008 3:58:09 PM

Quote :

"If your target market has no money, how does your enterprise profit?"

Imagine a world in which an enterprise needs labor, and the target demographic needs money.

How do you suppose we could arrange this such that both parties benefit? It must be impossible, because I certainly can't think of any way...

4/9/2008 3:59:19 PM

How does your enterprise profit?

[Edited on April 9, 2008 at 4:05 PM. Reason : ...]

4/9/2008 4:03:47 PM

Didn't read all responses... but

Quote :

"Incomes, on average, have declined by 2.5% among the bottom fifth of families since the late 1990s, while inching up by just 1.3% for those in the middle fifth of households,"

Could it be that we have people LEAVING the bottom rungs of the socioeconomic ladder and into the middle class?

4/9/2008 4:05:23 PM

Quote :

"How does your enterprise profit?"

Well, let's see. Somehow, I think it works something like this - somehow, labor is applied to raw materials to make something which has greater value than the cost of the labor and the raw materials.

But hey, that's just a guess.

[Edited on April 9, 2008 at 4:07 PM. Reason : .]

4/9/2008 4:05:47 PM

i'd just replace all my labor with machines. Static costs + more reliable.

4/9/2008 4:11:57 PM

Quote :

"Imagine a world in which an enterprise needs labor, and the target demographic needs money."

Put the people who need money to work in the enterprise who needs labor.


[/drsteve]

[Edited on April 9, 2008 at 4:12 PM. Reason : .]

4/9/2008 4:12:21 PM

^^ That seems to be the way things are going, yes.

Machines already do most of the work.

Technocracy FTW.

[Edited on April 9, 2008 at 4:13 PM. Reason : monad]

4/9/2008 4:12:42 PM

Quote :

"and there is the fundamental flaw with that logic. You don't have to be poor to make bad decisions, its just some people are lucky enough to have the means (thiers or someone elses) to cover them up, which goes back to coming from money and having a leg up from the beginning. "

No my brother is poor and will always be until he decides to do something with his life, or gets put in jail. My dad wont be around for ever.

You are correct that the poor dont own bad decisions. Plenty of people make bad decisions daily. Its just more critical that you spend your money and make good choices when you dont have alot of money coming in.

For example on of the girls I work with. Combined her and her husband make 30k. They have 48k in credit card debt, just got a new car that eats up 50% of her salary for 6 years. I gave her a budget and a plan to get out of debt in just over 2 yrs. But she had to sell a four wheeler, stop smoking and not get pregnant... so instead she gets pregnant, still has the 4 wheeler.. but did stop smoking.. Now she wants more money. What would you do?

4/9/2008 4:16:43 PM

Quote :

"Now she wants more money. What would you do?"

Radically reorganize society so that everyone can consume plenty.

Equal energy credits for all.

4/9/2008 4:19:21 PM

^^ Those are the decisions that create a continuously poor family



[Edited on April 9, 2008 at 4:21 PM. Reason : .]

4/9/2008 4:20:28 PM

Poor people don't struggle enough. They're lazy, and they don't even pay taxes!

Yeah that's right, I'll say it! FUCK THE POOR.

4/9/2008 4:26:52 PM

HURepublican

ConsHURvative

4/9/2008 4:28:25 PM

Quote :

"For example on of the girls I work with. Combined her and her husband make 30k. They have 48k in credit card debt, just got a new car that eats up 50% of her salary for 6 years. I gave her a budget and a plan to get out of debt in just over 2 yrs. But she had to sell a four wheeler, stop smoking and not get pregnant... so instead she gets pregnant, still has the 4 wheeler.. but did stop smoking.. Now she wants more money. What would you do? "

that proves part of my point. that kid that she is going to have is probably going to start off with a vastly higher hill to climb b/c of her parents bad choices. Is is the kids fault he/she will be born into that situation?

I'm not, by any means, saying the kid will be doomed to poverty, but it's just as asanine to say that the kids bad decisions are solely to blame if it is barely scraping by when its 25.

[Edited on April 9, 2008 at 4:29 PM. Reason : .]

4/9/2008 4:29:06 PM

In fact one thing we're short on in this country are policies for poor-fucking. I support a more thoroughgoing poor-fucking economic policy.

4/9/2008 4:29:28 PM

Quote :

"Putting forward the notion that a one-size-fits-all educational system may not in fact meet the needs of everyone . . . "

. . . isn't exactly what you did. You were suggesting clearly that the private sector would have a clear motivation to develop certain educational institutions for people unable to afford the more classical education, these falling into the "technical and vocational" class.

These private actors have, as you say, an interest in training people to fix toilets and install air conditioners and whatnot, so when push comes to shove they probably will pay to teach them to do it. Anything beyond that, though, is just fat, ripe for the cutting. I don't know why you find this so unbelievable -- companies do it all the time. Cutting training costs is one of the overarching goals in several industries, including food and manufacturing. Fast food restaurants have it nearly to the point where anybody off the street can come in and prepare any menu item, regardless of what language they speak, because they've simplified the process in the extreme and illustrated it all with pictures on every piece of equipment.

What makes you think other private sectors wouldn't act the same way? They'll want to keep the cost of training and education as low as possible for their purposes, and that's what they'll do, while simultaneously continuing their work to make all these menial tasks either automated or so simple that any idiot can do them with no instruction.

Quote :

"Because we'll be reverting back to that Dickensian society where individuals never have leisure time to develop their interests, right? I mean, go to work, go home, and, hey! Fix more toilets."

For many of the working poor this is effectively the case already. Reverting will not be necessary.

Besides which, in a fully privatized society having free time means increasingly little without extra money, and I suspect these people would have deplorably little of either.

Quote :

"Is the model we have right now, where some students obtain little to no value to their "well-rounded" education to the point where they simply drop out somehow a smashing success compared to the sheer horror of admitting that perhaps some students might find themselves better served on a more vocational track?"

I'm afraid you've misconstrued my words if you think I'm against vocational schools and training. I'm not. As you say, they are very well-suited to some students. What I'm against is allowing the effects of privatization to force poor kids into these tracks whether it's suited for them or not. It's bad enough as it is with partially-state-sponsored higher education, the last damn thing we need is to start forcing it on even more of them even earlier.

4/9/2008 4:44:47 PM

Quote :

"Those are the decisions that create a continuously poor family "

I agree. When both parents habitually make poor decision after poor decision and our govt actually rewards them to do so.. we will continue to have problems.

I was raised by my mother who was a nurse. I grew up in daycares and we were dirt poor. When I was younger we actually had our power turned off. I dont remember it, but my mom said it was one of the most embarrassing times of her life. The difference is she always stressed saving, education, and college. Its just some people are more responsible than others, I was fortunate enough to have a parent who was. IF you want a better life, you can make one for yourself if you are motivated enough. Its just far easier to whine and bitch and vote democrat.

[Edited on April 9, 2008 at 4:49 PM. Reason : .]

4/9/2008 4:49:47 PM

Quote :

". . . isn't exactly what you did. You were suggesting clearly that the private sector would have a clear motivation to develop certain educational institutions for people unable to afford the more classical education, these falling into the "technical and vocational" class."

Based on the rather brazen assertion that there wasn't. Given that we are now debating the relative merits of such a system, it would appear that this point I was originally refuting was flatly wrong.

Quote :

"These private actors have, as you say, an interest in training people to fix toilets and install air conditioners and whatnot, so when push comes to shove they probably will pay to teach them to do it. Anything beyond that, though, is just fat, ripe for the cutting. I don't know why you find this so unbelievable -- companies do it all the time. ... What makes you think other private sectors wouldn't act the same way? They'll want to keep the cost of training and education as low as possible for their purposes, and that's what they'll do, while simultaneously continuing their work to make all these menial tasks either automated or so simple that any idiot can do them with no instruction."

For one, you're making a conflation of skilled and unskilled labor - of which there is a significant difference. Working food service does not require nearly the level of competence or training that say, an electrician or a plumber needs. Nor is every vocational job strictly manufacturing - there's plenty of need for mechanics, carpenters, welders, and any other skilled profession you can think of. None of these require hyper-specialization - it would really be useless, here. There are only a limited number of domains you can effectively apply this philosophy to, and even there it's contentious of whether productivity is actually higher as a result - plenty of studies have shown worker productivity increases as a function of variety of tasks in one's job.

Look, not every skilled vocation out there involves an industrial-era mindset of how to operate a machine press day in and day out. Further, given that our alternative is essentially nothing, or rather, dropping out entirely, are you really going to complain that even if specialization occurs that this is the absolute worst case?

Quote :

"For many of the working poor this is effectively the case already. Reverting will not be necessary."

I'm fairly sure if you asked more people to make a choice between there and here, most would take here. Which would imply they're not exactly the same.

Quote :

"Besides which, in a fully privatized society having free time means increasingly little without extra money, and I suspect these people would have deplorably little of either."

This another of those empty platitudes that sounds deep and wise at first glance, but totally falls apart upon examination. If you take the average standard of living for someone living in the bottom quintile and compare it now to 50 years ago, chances are it's going to be a whole lot better - despite the "increasing privatization" you moan about. Why? Because money buys more now than it did then.

No one's going to say that living in the lowest income brackets is a picnic, but once again - given the choice between 150 or even 50 years ago and today, most poor people would take today.

Quote :

"I'm afraid you've misconstrued my words if you think I'm against vocational schools and training. I'm not. As you say, they are very well-suited to some students. What I'm against is allowing the effects of privatization to force poor kids into these tracks whether it's suited for them or not. It's bad enough as it is with partially-state-sponsored higher education, the last damn thing we need is to start forcing it on even more of them even earlier."

No one's saying force it on them, the original debate at hand was whether any private economic incentive even exists for vocational training. Which it clearly does - what do you think the apprentice system was based upon?

Given that the drop-out rates among lower income quintiles is disproportionately higher, maybe it does make sense to be less hostile to the notion that the vocational route may work better for some students who the liberal arts model clearly is not working for, especially if it means as a result that these students are less of a disruption to those who it does.

[Edited on April 9, 2008 at 5:04 PM. Reason : .]

4/9/2008 5:04:31 PM

Quote :

"Oeuvre: Put the people who need money to work in the enterprise who needs labor."

We're going to HIRE the poorest quintile of the population TO TEACH in these private institutions?

Quote :

"DrSteveChaos: Somehow, I think it works something like this - somehow, labor is applied to raw materials to make something which has greater value than the cost of the labor and the raw materials. But hey, that's just a guess."

You've thoroughly confused me. And I graduated with honors from your business school. So your plan is to hire teachers, I'm assuming, or pay for equipment to sit in their stead (with respect to GoldenViper), and provide the service of teaching and training to students--your target market being this bottom quintile of people who control ZERO percent of the world's wealth--that they can afford?

How exactly do you remain profitable? What capitalist consortium on this whole planet would invest in this enterprise?

Perhaps a more thoroughgoing poor-fucking policy, is in order after all.

[Edited on April 9, 2008 at 5:16 PM. Reason : .]

4/9/2008 5:16:02 PM

^ As Neal Boortz would point out... your inability to buy into the argument is clearly rooted the your piss-poor government education.

4/9/2008 5:18:58 PM

Indeed.

4/9/2008 5:21:01 PM

Quote :

"You've thoroughly confused me. And I graduated with honors from your business school."

This much is doubtful.

Quote :

"So your plan is to hire teachers, I'm assuming, or pay for equipment to sit in their stead (with respect to GoldenViper), and provide the service of teaching and training to students--your target market being this bottom quintile of people who control ZERO percent of the world's wealth--that they can afford?"

Seeing as it's pretty impossible to produce products without labor, and training is necessary to develop adequate skills in your employees - well, yes. Some places actually go to the fanciful notion of training employees, especially in skilled enterprises! And all from the bottom of their infinitely generous hearts, namely because it actually is profitable to do so.

Meanwhile, even more astounding, some other skilled trades work on the basis of apprenticeship, where a new person learns under the tutelage of an experienced worker, with the tradeoff being in the rate of pay. Electricians, carpenters, plumbers, and a host of others seem to make it work. Apparently, the opportunity cost of providing training seems to outweigh the net benefit of the product produced by the worker. (Amazing!)

Quote :

"How exactly do you remain profitable? What capitalist consortium on this whole planet would invest in this enterprise?"

Apparently, Verizon, Qwest, and every other telco / cable outfit out there, as this is exactly what they do. You think they teach fiber splicing over at Reality Check Tech?

It's probably a good thing you're not a venture capitalist.

4/9/2008 5:42:55 PM

Doubt it all you want, chief. My degree, the education it represents, nor the work I put into earning it ever required your observation to exist before, and they don't require it now.

December '05

Quote :

"Seeing as it's pretty impossible to produce products without labor, and training is necessary to develop adequate skills in your employees - well, yes. Some places actually go to the fanciful notion of training employees, especially in skilled enterprises! And all from the bottom of their infinitely generous hearts, namely because it actually is profitable to do so."

We're back at the crux of the matter.

Training and educating are different things. You're talking about creating model employees--a sterilized end. I'm talking about creating self-actualized human beings. Or at least providing anyone the education necessary to become one.

Quote :

"It's probably a good thing you're not a venture capitalist, yet."

[Edited on April 9, 2008 at 5:57 PM. Reason : ...]

4/9/2008 5:50:06 PM

I would then contend that most of the worthwhile "education" needn't occur in a school, and in many well-rounded individuals, hasn't.

It is entirely possible to learn on one's own. Meanwhile, faced with the choice of a system which provides little means for people to gain useful skills and does not serve their needs and one that does, I'm going to guess that those people would be better served by the latter.

But that's just a guess.

4/9/2008 5:53:35 PM

You guys are missing a very important point.

Fuck.

The.

Poor.

4/9/2008 5:54:51 PM

Quote :

"Quote : "It could be those things. It could also be that the bottom quintile generally has access to the worst schools and other services while living in the worst areas." From conversation from teachers i know many poor kids do not give a shit about school and make no attempt at providing themselves an education. Why spend the extra school loot when these kids don't give a shit in the first place. School in many poor communities serves as a baby sitting service to keep kids of the street causing trouble than actual education. True i blame the parents but its the mindset that creates a self propagating "poor" mentality."

I'm a teacher in a new high school in NC. We have about 60% Black, 30% white, and 10% mix of hispanic, native america, asian, etc. We have about 50% free/reduced price lunch, which means about 50% of kids come from generally considered "poorer" backgrounds.

You would be shocked at how many of these kids don't give a care in the world about education, but well beyond this, they don't care about doing something, ANYTHING, to try to make something of themselves.

Not doing classwork and failing isn't even the biggest issue. Its the attitude that I'm going to do whatever the hell I want to and nobody is going to stop me. Education isn't important because (and I quote) "50 cent don't got no college degree" and another million stupid quotes.

They have absolutely NO respect for adults or teachers (I'm not talking about the normal crap that high school students give teachers). They spend class talking/sleeping/trying to get into stupid arguments. It is seriously like dealing with 8 year olds.

They don't value education and they don't want to hear anything about how they might possibly be wrong about their choices or attitudes because they know everything. Then they drop out or possibly graduate with a 1.0 because if they get a 69.5 and get that D they are perfectly happy if they care at all.

If they do realize how dumb the are, its too late, or they simply end up blaming the man or the system or whatever. Its incredibly frustrating.

[Edited on April 9, 2008 at 6:06 PM. Reason : .]

4/9/2008 6:04:31 PM

^ Hey. Educator. What'd they teach you about anecdotes?

Truth be told, you described most corporate "training" classes, too. Just imagine adults instead.

^^ Of course fuck the poor. If they wanted more, they'd do something about it, right? Fuck those lazy fucks.

^^^ Sure it's possible to learn on one's own.

It's also possible to steer with your feet and press the pedals with your hands. I wouldn't recommend that to most people, though.

In the interests of specialization, I'll argue it's many orders of magnitude easier to learn from professional teachers.

I don't know why you insist on it being a choice between a holistic education and learning a trade.

[Edited on April 9, 2008 at 6:09 PM. Reason : leave those kids alone...]

[Edited on April 9, 2008 at 6:12 PM. Reason : ...]

4/9/2008 6:08:04 PM

Quote :

"MORE CONTEMPT QUINTILE"

4/9/2008 6:10:14 PM