Re: Kids.....(Easy scapegoats aren't they?)

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Ed Biebel" <edward () biebel net>
Date: November 18, 2008 10:18:51 AM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] Re: Kids.....(Easy scapegoats aren't they?)

Dave,

I have enjoyed reading this thread and found the myriad responses  
enlightening.

I have cause to deal with a lot of young people that enter our EMS  
department as cadets.  These are dedicated young people who are taking  
time to become volunteer EMTs and do a dangerous and often thankless  
job for free.  So most of these young people are hardly slackers  
whiling away their life in front of TV/PC.

With that being said, I have noticed at times a disturbing trend among  
these young people and their parent's expectations.  I'll see young  
people come from households with two bright successful parents.  These  
young people have benefited from their parent's success and drive   
expensive cars, wear nice clothes and have nice things.

However, often I discover that these young people don't have the  
intellectual prowess of their parent's.  This is not for lack of  
effort or dedication.  Dad may be a brilliant engineer but basic  
algebra is difficult for the son.

This is the disconnect.  The young person has been given all the  
benefits of great success but is heading for a career path, while  
respectable, that will not support the lifestyle to which they have  
become accustomed.  For instance, if the young person continues in EMS  
in this area, a top salary of $80K as a department chief is probably  
the best they can hope to attain.    They are left in the position of  
trying to live a lifestyle which they can't support.

For a while it seemed like the rule was that each generation did a  
little bit better than the last.  It almost seems now that the with  
the great success of the last generation these young people face the  
prospect of not being as successful as their parents.  They going from  
mansion to the row home and from the Expedition to the Escort.

I think that many of the problems that have been discussed relate to  
this.  Students are struggling to follow a path that doesn't work for  
them to maintain a lifestyle that they can't support.

Ed

On Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 6:25 AM, David Farber <dave () farber net> wrote:


Begin forwarded message:

From: Rahul Tongia <tongia () cmu edu>
Date: November 16, 2008 8:51:24 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Cc: ip <ip () v2 listbox com>, Rahul Tongia <tongia () cmu edu>
Subject: Re: [IP] WORTH READING    Kids.....(Easy scapegoats aren't  
they?)
Reply-To: tongia () cmu edu

Dave,

I will mention that my sample size for the "entitlement" comment was  
small - but it was just a clear example that made me scratch my head.

I can appreciate Anthony's comments - but feel I need to respond to a  
few things.

[in no particular order]:
1) Not all faculty are tenured and have cushy jobs.  Untenured and  
contract faculty are worse off (having the pay of academia and the  
"security" of the real world with annual contracts or worse.
2) I cannot make claims for what academia was like in the 1970s and  
1980s to create the conservative backlash, but
a) If there is a liberal viewpoint in colleges, is this a bias? I (and  
most of my colleagues) have NEVER tried to crowd out differing  
viewpoints (I even believe in the free market, with limits).  I state  
in my classes where something will be a bias/opinion, but keep that  
distinct from facts.  This is akin to someone complaining, oh, the  
media has 60% negative articles on person X and only 40% negative on  
the other person.  What if person X was doing/saying wrong things?!!
b) Do we ever worry about the "concentration" of conservative  
viewpoints in certain echelons of industry?
3) "Or perhaps the "Political Science" for a buck that allowed
> the global climate change debate to remain unresolved until there is
> barely a North Pole left."  One major reason that there is debate  
over this is the scientific obfuscation paid for by select groups.  It  
is not the fault of the real social scientists.
4) Just how do foreign students pay more? Out of state pay more at  
state schools, but otherwise, no.  Foreign students pay a heck of a  
lot to be here, especially on a purchasing power parity (PPP) basis.   
It's a completely separate issue whether there is something the US  
needs to investigate as to why more US students don't want to go to  
grad school.  Is it that they have loans to worry about, and want to  
join the real world sooner? Or, should the US not care because many of  
the skilled brains just want to stay in the US, helping US companies?
5) While we're thinking out loud, what about what some see as the  
challenge of how faculty are viewed or reviewed? "Publish or perish" =  
research first.  Teaching then might have to take a backseat.  Even if  
faculty don't want that. They just have grants that pay the bills for  
their students that need results.  How much does a student cost? A  
grad student costs way more than a starting salary for graduates (at a  
private university).
6) I think the discussions of entitlements per se is distracting - we  
need to ask are US students competitive in a global world?  Compared  
to countries where top schools have an acceptance rate of 1% or so?  
The good news is yes (for now) since US students tend to be more  
entrepreneurial, broad-minded, with a liberal education.
7) My impression of education is hierarchical (comparing this to the  
world). US schools are mediocre (sometimes awful).  US colleges are  
pretty darn good. US graduate schools are the best in the world.  The  
catch becomes who keens moving up in the ranks of these?

I really like most of the students I have - and I learn as much from  
my students as I hope they do from me.

Cheers,

Rahul

************************************************************************
Rahul Tongia, Ph.D.
Senior Systems Scientist

Program in Computation, Organizations, and Society (COS)
School of Computer Science (ISR) /
Dept. of Engineering & Public Policy

Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213 USA
tel: 412-268-5619
fax: 412-268-2338
email: tongia () cmu edu
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rtongia



David Farber wrote:
Again for the record, I often distribute articles that make people  
angry to provoke thinking djf
Begin forwarded message:
*From: *"Anthony Watson" <anthony () neo-liberalism org <mailto:anthony () neo-liberalism org 
>>
*Date: *November 16, 2008 5:46:48 PM EST
*To: *<dave () farber net <mailto:dave () farber net>>
*Subject: **[IP] Re:    Kids.....(Easy scapegoats aren't they?)*
Hello Professor:
At the risk of sounding obsequious, I again want to thank you for  
running this list.  However, I can barely articulate my disgust with  
this thread.  Here we have a bunch of "holier than thou" academics  
scapegoating the "kids" for education's failures.  There they are in  
their public sector ivory towers, tenured and protected by their  
unions.  Poor private sector parents paying enormous amounts of money  
for tuitions may have a case for their entitlement ideas given the  
amounts of money they are shelling out.   I could go and on about the  
advantages that educators have over private sector workers, but I have  
not the time given my own private sector pressures.  Like trying to  
pay the mortgage while paying into an enormous black hole called  
social security too, a black hole most educators manage to avoid  
through public sector pension funds that will actually be there when  
they retire.  On issue after issue, a dead body can be put at the  
doorstep of professional educators…let me count the ways.  Favoring  
foreign students over domestic, because they pay larger tuitions.  Or  
creating the huge conservative backlash by making the 1970's and 80's  
university so hostile to any free thought.  If you did not bow down to  
liberal dogma as a student in these years you were flunked out and  
drummed out of academia.  Or perhaps the "Political Science" for a  
buck that allowed the global climate change debate to remain  
unresolved until there is barely a North Pole left.  Or the "I'll do  
anything to get my research to be funded" mentality even if it means  
taking DARPA money that makes my scientific research classified and  
used to make weapons rather than really better the state of humanity.
Interestingly, this thread reminds me of Bill Gates blaming schools  
and kids for the messed up state of America and its education system.   
Here is Bill Gates' critique of dumb American kids and the rules he  
thinks American kids fail to live by, because educators are too soft  
on them!  <<<<<<<<<
*Rule 1:* Life is not fair - get used to it! *Rule 2:* The world won't  
care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish  
something BEFORE you feel good about yourself. *Rule 3:* You will NOT  
make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice- 
president with a car phone until you earn both . *Rule 4:* If you  
think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. *Rule 5:*  
Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a  
different word for burger flipping: they called it "Opportunity".  
*Rule 6:* If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine  
about your mistakes, learn from them. *Rule 7:* Before you were born,  
your parents weren't as boring as they are now.  They got that way  
from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you  
talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain  
forest from the Parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing  
the closet in your own room. *Rule 8:* Your school may have done away  
with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have  
abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES
as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest  
resemblance to ANYTHING in real life. *Rule 9:* Life is not divided  
into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are  
interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF.  Do that on your own time.
*Rule 10:* Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually  
have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs. *Rule 11:* Be nice to  
Nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Really though in defense of education, I would say the following-à
What does Bill Gates know about helping schools teach children to be  
successful in business?  First and foremost, Bill Gates got his entree  
to the IBM boardroom through his Mom's contacts. She was on the Board  
of Directors.   He is not quite the self-made man, he would want us  
all to believe he is.  He never flipped burgers.  He had intellectual  
property, which he ripped off from an older developer.    His Mom was  
on IBM's board and got him the meetings that got him the sales of his  
pirated operating system.   DOS was licensed exclusively to the giant  
corporation and he made a mint.   He keeps telling Congress that he  
needs to hire more foreigners to work at Microsoft.  He keeps pushing  
for greater increased H1B visas quotas while laying off American  
programmers.  The American school system is producing less and less  
high tech engineers and developers, not because American kids are  
stupid.  It is because they are SMART!  They can see what happened to  
American programmers in the dotcom flameout.  They see the government  
making trade deals with India that include promises to allow more  
foreign workers.  They see Indians all over the engineering and  
programming jobs, having the inside track.  If you are smart, why  
would you go through the pain and suffering that an engineer goes  
through to get his degree only to get outsourced or have to train your  
H1B visa replacement.  Instead if you are a smart American student you  
become a lawyer or a doctor or even a plumber, jobs that will not be  
outsourced.
Bill Gates is the most UNPATRIOTIC S.O.B., I can imagine and so are  
the sniveling and sniping educators on this thread.  Bill Gates sells  
America's future for today's profits while destroying the American  
middle class by importing foreign workers that he can pay less.  He is  
a master of labor arbitrage.  Many educators sit in their ivory towers  
and blame the students for the mess that is the American education  
system rather than looking at their own commitment to the kids, they  
are supposed to be educating.
The kids are not the problem!!!!  It is the adults in positions of  
power that do little else, but blame the kids for their own failures.   
You are either part of the solution or part of the problem and blaming  
American kids, THIS COUNTRY'S FUTURE GENERATION, is in no way  
productive.  This thread makes me sick!  Enough said…
Yours very truly,
Anthony Watson

Begin forwarded message:

From: Rahul Tongia <tongia () cmu edu <mailto:tongia () cmu edu>>
Date: November 13, 2008 4:22:35 PM EST
To: dave () farber net <mailto:dave () farber net>
Subject: Re: [IP] Re:    re: Kids.....
Reply-To: tongia () cmu edu <mailto:tongia () cmu edu>

Dave,

I can vouch for a student *formally complaining* when I didn't respond
to her email about a HW due on Monday. Except the student emailed
after 5 or 6 PM friday. And complained early Sat. morning.

Why is this? Part of this shift may be due to grade inflation and
expectations.  Are faculty also facilitating this? There are studies
that show that a lenient or high-scoring faculty member gets better
reviews/evaluations. Forget how well he/she served the students.
Thus, faculty tend to want to "keep the customers happy". Universities
are to blame for this in how they evaluate faculty.

I also think we have bi or multimodal distributions. Some students may
be demanding, overly so, but others are quite deferential (esp. some
international students).  I certainly don't want submissive sheep for
students. But I don't want students who think they are right by default.

Rahul


David Farber wrote:
Begin forwarded message:
From: dewayne () warpspeed com <mailto:dewayne () warpspeed com> (Dewayne  
Hendricks)
Date: November 11, 2008 11:35:52 AM EST
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy () warpspeed com <mailto:xyzzy () warpspeed com 
>>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] re: Kids.....
[Note:  This comment comes from reader Mike O'Dell.  DLH]
From: Michael O'Dell <mo () ccr org <mailto:mo () ccr org>>
Date: November 11, 2008 6:49:25 AM PST
To: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com <mailto:dewayne () warpspeed com 
>>
Subject: re: Kids.....
my major professor had a phrase he would use (back in the 70s!!)
to express his outrage at wacko "student expectations"
"This is NOT a #$%@$!%@ High School with Ash Trays!"
a bit dated, obviously, but the sentiment is no less the case
30 years later.
-mo
RSS Feed: <http://www.warpspeed.com/wordpress>
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