Education is Strength, Education is Opportunity - He said

Education is Strength, Education is Opportunity – He said

One day I found an attractive man sitting and drinking coffee at Starbucks; we talked about the stupidity and challenges of various people on Wall Street and in our political leadership, and he couldn’t say enough spiteful things about Republicans in Washington DC, and people on Wall Street, claiming that they were the ones who robbed people of their opportunities people to work for living wage and be successful in life. Then he made blanket statement that:

“Education is Strength, It’s Opportunity.”

Well, I think I completely disagree. Not because knowledge is unnecessary or that education is “way” or perceived way to get that knowledge, nor is it the fact that solid education will definitely help on resumes for certain types of job positions, sure it’s quite true, at least in our period now, however, one can also say, well I would specifically say that:

“Higher Education and Student Loans, Towards Economic Slavery,” or that “Higher Education has Introduced So Much Political Accuracy into Our Society that Basically Pirates the American Way of Life,” and see the results today, right now. Is this good enough? Is this the best and “final” answer to advanced and modern civilizations? Student loans of $ 100,000 or more, and textbooks of more than $ 250 per year for information that you can get in free online lectures, or from WikiPedia?

Furthermore, I will tell you that because the ratio of job applications for open positions is very high, many employers need more substantial education, …

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Education in Our Networked Future

Education in Our Networked Future

As we enter the Connected Age, our education systems are increasingly falling short. We have carefully crafted and refined the education system, schools, vocational colleges and secular universities, but they are edifices of different age.

There are three reasons why I say so.

First, we have moved from time of information scarcity to information abundance. Today’s challenge is not to access information, but to check its credential and to be able to use it in context. But our prescriptive education is mostly about ‘knowing’ things rather than ‘discovery’. The school system is designed to discourage inventiveness and questioning. The students are still required to write memorized answers rather than Googling the facts and building independent or collaborative coursework.

Moreover, the education system today is built as Value Chain systems. The focus is on the Process, and the whole ideis to add value to student who turns up at the beginning of the semester so that she can meet the end-Semester requirements. But such standardized processes are, by definition, inflexible to accommodate diverse learning preferences of individuals. The mass produced education also discriminates against niche subjects and special interests. This education system fails to meet its societal need – because making accountants out of artists does not sound like smart ideany more.

Finally, today’s learners come to college after seeing computer at home for their entire lifetime, having their mobile phones since their school days and most, if not all, have their best friends on Facebook or Orkut. They come from …

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