Sitting still for long periods while appearing to be awake
barbara ehrenreich's take on higher education...
having taught in mba programs for 20 years, i can vouch for the "ticket to ride" factor of higher education degrees, and could easily start foaming at the mouth over what i consider to be the massive failings of graduate business education, but i'll save that rant for another time...
the single most important missing ingredient, imho, in ALL education, from kindergarten on up, except in rare instances, is that people are not empowered, encouraged or taught to think for themselves... we are surrounded every minute of every day by people, whether it be in the form of news media, advertisers, friends, colleagues, teachers, bosses, or authority figures of every imaginable stripe, all working feverishly to get us to agree that THEIR way of thinking and seeing the world is the RIGHT way... it's extraordinarily difficult to shut off the incessant racket, to learn to be still, and to hear that small voice inside, the voice that is OUR voice, OUR truth...
i often think that the ceaseless racket is purposely designed to MAKE that inner voice virtually impossible to hear, so much so that we begin to believe it isn't there, that the only REAL voices are the ones that come to us from the outside... if education were more focused on finding your OWN truth, it would be a wonderful day indeed...
Tweet
My theory is that employers prefer college grads because they see a college degree chiefly as mark of one's ability to obey and conform. Whatever else you learn in college, you learn to sit still for long periods while appearing to be awake. And whatever else you do in a white collar job, most of the time you'll be sitting and feigning attention. Sitting still for hours on end -- whether in library carrels or office cubicles -- does not come naturally to humans. It must be learned -- although no college has yet been honest enough to offer a degree in seat-warming.
Or maybe what attracts employers to college grads is the scent of desperation. Unless your parents are rich and doting, you will walk away from commencement with a debt averaging $20,000 and no health insurance. Employers can safely bet that you will not be a trouble-maker, a whistle-blower or any other form of non-"team-player." You will do anything. You will grovel.
having taught in mba programs for 20 years, i can vouch for the "ticket to ride" factor of higher education degrees, and could easily start foaming at the mouth over what i consider to be the massive failings of graduate business education, but i'll save that rant for another time...
the single most important missing ingredient, imho, in ALL education, from kindergarten on up, except in rare instances, is that people are not empowered, encouraged or taught to think for themselves... we are surrounded every minute of every day by people, whether it be in the form of news media, advertisers, friends, colleagues, teachers, bosses, or authority figures of every imaginable stripe, all working feverishly to get us to agree that THEIR way of thinking and seeing the world is the RIGHT way... it's extraordinarily difficult to shut off the incessant racket, to learn to be still, and to hear that small voice inside, the voice that is OUR voice, OUR truth...
i often think that the ceaseless racket is purposely designed to MAKE that inner voice virtually impossible to hear, so much so that we begin to believe it isn't there, that the only REAL voices are the ones that come to us from the outside... if education were more focused on finding your OWN truth, it would be a wonderful day indeed...
Labels: college degrees, education, higher education
Submit To PropellerTweet
posted by profmarcus at
5/02/2007
