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Made in us
Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)

Here are a couple of interesting articles about how the education of boys sets them up for failure in today's economy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/29/upshot/a-link-between-fidgety-boys-and-a-sputtering-economy.html?_r=1

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/04/30/boys_are_struggling_in_school_why_everyone_should_care_about_the_gender.html

The Report:
http://content.thirdway.org/publications/813/NEXT_-_The_Secret_Behind_College_Completion.pdf


And in an economy that rewards knowledge, the academic struggles of boys turn into economic struggles. Men’s wages are stagnating. Men are much more likely to be idle — neither working, looking for work nor caring for family — than they once were and much more likely to be idle than women.


But men have their own challenges. As the economy continues to shift away from brawn and toward brains, many men have struggled with the transition.
“Boys are getting the wrong message about what you need to do to be successful,” Ms. Buchmann says. “Traditional gender roles are misguiding boys. In today’s economy, being tough and being strong are not what leads to success.”


Interesting stuff.....






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 Easy E wrote:
Interesting stuff.....

I find the disparate conclusions drawn more interesting. It's no real shock that Third Way would conclude it's all about gender stereotypes. Slate's take on it being more about gender differences sounds more true.
   
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Probably work

Whenever people talk about the "nowadays", I can't help but wonder when they assume this time began. You'd think that, if you're reporting on a trend, you'd be able to establish at least roughly when it started.

I notice that the stories are focusing mostly on college completion, which doesn't translate directly into getting paid more, especially when you consider the low spark of women with STEM degrees. It's significantly harder to complete a Chemistry or Engineering degree than, say, an English or Philosophy one. Sorry to say, but it's true. Though one of the links did mention a 30% increase in women's salaries, but that's still under what the "gender gap" is supposed to be.

EDIT: Redacted. That last part was probably just snide.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2014/04/30 15:29:07


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Member of the Ethereal Council






The Whole School system in america needs to be change. I for one advocate less recess, shortened summer and longer class days


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also lets think about this, the last 20 or so years have been good on women in terms of earning potential. They just finally get the ability to work outside the house that isnt part time. But men have always been ontop for 200+ years in america. Could it be possible that we are about to acheive an equilibrium? Where the reason women are ging to end up like men? Stagnating at the same lever we are?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/04/30 15:35:19


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Southeastern PA, USA

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
The Whole School system in america needs to be change. I for one advocate less recess, shortened summer and longer class days


That's nonsense, especially for the younger kids. You can't fundamentally change their attention spans just by demanding more.



IMO, nearly every matter related to education is entangled somehow or another in politics, and is almost impossible to separate. Those articles seem no different.

Both my parents were schoolteachers (my dad for 35+ years), and I got to hear all about the latest fads and trends and crises in education. It's a constant shuffling of deck chairs, and it gets comical at times. IMO "the system" seems to work just fine as long as you hire and retain good teachers, and have parents who impress upon their children the importance of getting good grades. Those qualities vary by district, which is why you see such large differences in outcomes from district to district.

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 gorgon wrote:
 hotsauceman1 wrote:
The Whole School system in america needs to be change. I for one advocate less recess, shortened summer and longer class days


That's nonsense, especially for the younger kids. You can't fundamentally change their attention spans just by demanding more.


While I agree that we shouldn't shorten recess, as it is the most important part of school, you do realize that most other countries don't take the middle of the year off from school because they were more agrarian 100 years ago right? We are well past the point of needing kids to have the summer off to help work in the fields.

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Southeastern PA, USA

 daedalus wrote:
Whenever people talk about the "nowadays", I can't help but wonder when they assume this time began. You'd think that, if you're reporting on a trend, you'd be able to establish at least roughly when it started.

I notice that the stories are focusing mostly on college completion, which doesn't translate directly into getting paid more, especially when you consider the low spark of women with STEM degrees. It's significantly harder to complete a Chemistry or Engineering degree than, say, an English or Philosophy one. Sorry to say, but it's true. Though one of the links did mention a 30% increase in women's salaries, but that's still under what the "gender gap" is supposed to be.

EDIT: Redacted. That last part was probably just snide.


I think the schedules can be worse. But I also had liberal arts classes that would have made my STEM friends' faces melt, just as the reverse is true. Hell, go curl up with a copy of Eco's "A Theory of Semiotics" and tell me how easy it is.

This is where I struggle with the big STEM push in this country. Or maybe I'm just not understanding it properly. If the goal is to ensure that young people with talents in those areas reach their potential, great, I'm all for it. If the goal is to "crank out more engineers," or make STEM "more attractive," that makes no sense to me. People tend to be most interested in those areas in which they excel. Those who are talented in math and science are probably going to end up in a STEM field.

Besides, as long as there's STEM people building gak, there'll be a need for people like me to market and sell it.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Ahtman wrote:
 gorgon wrote:
 hotsauceman1 wrote:
The Whole School system in america needs to be change. I for one advocate less recess, shortened summer and longer class days


That's nonsense, especially for the younger kids. You can't fundamentally change their attention spans just by demanding more.


While I agree that we shouldn't shorten recess, as it is the most important part of school, you do realize that most other countries don't take the middle of the year off from school because they were more agrarian 100 years ago right? We are well past the point of needing kids to have the summer off to help work in the fields.


Sure. But most modernized countries still end up with a school year of 180-200 days, even if the summer break is shorter.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/04/30 16:39:57


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The classes for my philosophy minor were waaay easier than anything I had to do when I was working on my CS degree. That's what I based my comment upon.

I think that the big push for STEM is that, at the end of the day, non STEM people don't produce anything. I don't mean that as insultingly as I'm sure it sounds. I really don't. But I mean, without STEM to do the actual research and development, there's no underlying product to sell. Operating on a global economy, you can only be relevant for so long without any products to sell, and then it comes to the point where you have no real US companies, because you have no STEM people developing products, the US economy suffers, and then you have foreign companies who stop employing US marketing people and start doing it in house, because there's no point to market to the US anymore, because they can't afford the shiny bits anyway.

It's not a perfect example, and I'm not saying the ability to make something is more valuable than the ability to sell something necessarily. I'm saying that there's heads of companies out there who are basically saying "hey, STEM is our limiting factor, not marketing". True or not, that's what the push comes from.

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Here is my problem, and my belief with STEM, what if you are not good at it? I fell asleep in most of my math classes and non-sociology classes. But in my Sociology classes, I pass most of the time without even touching the book.
And to say that the focus of material goods being the only criteria is bad.
Sociology has done alot for the world, some people even think sociology is responsible for the way we do polls now. They have helped with urban renewal programs.
Psychology has given us ways our brain works, given us a wealth of knowledge on how to treat mental illness and defects
If we dontt have a focus on Philosophy even a bit, We would loose critical thinking and outside the box creativity that comes with it. This is what I see from International students, a lack of critical and outside the box thinking.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 gorgon wrote:
 hotsauceman1 wrote:
The Whole School system in america needs to be change. I for one advocate less recess, shortened summer and longer class days


That's nonsense, especially for the younger kids. You can't fundamentally change their attention spans just by demanding more.


Ok then, RITALIN!!!!!!

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/04/30 18:14:41


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Probably work

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Here is my problem, and my belief with STEM, what if you are not good at it? I fell asleep in most of my math classes and non-sociology classes. But in my Sociology classes, I pass most of the time without even touching the book.
And to say that the focus of material goods being the only criteria is bad.
Sociology has done alot for the world, some people even think sociology is responsible for the way we do polls now. They have helped with urban renewal programs.
Psychology has given us ways our brain works, given us a wealth of knowledge on how to treat mental illness and defects
If we dontt have a focus on Philosophy even a bit, We would loose critical thinking and outside the box creativity that comes with it. This is what I see from International students, a lack of critical and outside the box thinking.


I never said those had no value of any sort. They do. Even Sociology, somewhere, somehow.

I'm just saying they don't directly translate into monetary value at a global level. Sociologists are not a product that can be exported and sold to people in other countries.

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And that is IMO the problem, I know you where not saying that. But if all we measure is monetary value and not contributions to society. WE ARE FETHED

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Norwalk, Connecticut

Idle? I bust my ass on a daily basis. Then again, when I DO decide to relax for 15 minutes in front of my computer checking emails and sipping coffee, I get called out on it by the girls who look up strip clubs on the company computers. And on company time. Fair? Hardly. But I bust ass and know I'm so far from the chopping block at work that it isn't even funny.

Reality is a nice place to visit, but I'd hate to live there.

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Kamloops, BC

 Ahtman wrote:
 gorgon wrote:
 hotsauceman1 wrote:
The Whole School system in america needs to be change. I for one advocate less recess, shortened summer and longer class days


That's nonsense, especially for the younger kids. You can't fundamentally change their attention spans just by demanding more.


While I agree that we shouldn't shorten recess, as it is the most important part of school, you do realize that most other countries don't take the middle of the year off from school because they were more agrarian 100 years ago right? We are well past the point of needing kids to have the summer off to help work in the fields.


I think we should still have the same amount of time off we do now just shortened the summer break to like a month or a few weeks and put the rest that time into more school breaks as having one long break makes kids forget lots of info that and it saves time from reintroducing old

material next year.
   
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That is what most schools do now. a week off here and there.

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I thought US schools still had long summer holidays.
   
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Its changing slowly. Some have lng some have short. Varies by district

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 Ahtman wrote:
 gorgon wrote:
 hotsauceman1 wrote:
The Whole School system in america needs to be change. I for one advocate less recess, shortened summer and longer class days


That's nonsense, especially for the younger kids. You can't fundamentally change their attention spans just by demanding more.


While I agree that we shouldn't shorten recess, as it is the most important part of school, you do realize that most other countries don't take the middle of the year off from school because they were more agrarian 100 years ago right? We are well past the point of needing kids to have the summer off to help work in the fields.



You do realize that summer vacation has nothing to do with agriculture right? The times in which manual labor was most important in an agricultural setting were spring planting and fall harvest. Summer would have been the perfect time for schooling because crops were just sitting in the ground growing.
   
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I'm pretty sure summer vacation didn't even exist when agriculture was a big thing, since there were no organized school systems at the time. By the time we were organizing our schools, industry had shifted sufficiently that agriculture was no longer the biggest concern for anyone, especially not in big cities.

Summer vacation is about economics/comfort. People vacation in the summer, and freeing the kids from school would allow families to do that. Also consider that air conditioning is a fairly recent thing. Ever been in an non-conditioned classroom with upwards of 40 people? It kind of sucks even in the spring and fall. In major cities it could be especially bad with so much stone and concrete. Cities were giant ovens. No one wanted to pack hundreds of kids into brick buildings when even in New England it can top 100 degrees.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2014/05/01 06:34:24


   
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 LordofHats wrote:
I'm pretty sure summer vacation didn't even exist when agriculture was a big thing, since there were no organized school systems at the time. By the time we were organizing our schools, industry had shifted sufficiently that agriculture was no longer the biggest concern for anyone, especially not in big cities.

Summer vacation is about economics/comfort. People vacation in the summer, and freeing the kids from school would allow families to do that. Also consider that air conditioning is a fairly recent thing. Ever been in an non-conditioned classroom with upwards of 40 people? It kind of sucks even in the spring and fall. In major cities it could be especially bad with so much stone and concrete. Cities were giant ovens. No one wanted to pack hundreds of kids into brick buildings when even in New England it can top 100 degrees.



Word. Apparently rural schools back in the day when most of them actually did agricultural duties did most of their schooling in summer/winter. Which I just looked up, but even with my rudimentary understanding of agriculture it seemed ludicrous that summer was the season they decided to give kids 'off'.
   
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It is entirely possible that I am remembering it wrong. I recall reading somewhere that it had to do with people wanting kids home to help till and such, not just to let them hang out.

Apparently it is an old wives tale, essentially, passed from generation to generation. Ah, to be young again. Anyway, here is a brief article about the origins.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/05/01 06:43:35


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 Ahtman wrote:
It is entirely possible that I am remembering it wrong. I recall reading somewhere that it had to do with people wanting kids home to help till and such, not just to let them hang out.


That's a myth, apparently. Which I just discovered.

- I mean I already knew about the planting/harvesting cycle, I just didn't know that people thought that was where summer vacation came from. I just assumed an early member of congress invented ice cream and set up our school system so kids had the most days off to buy it when it was most profitable or something.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/05/01 06:43:03


 
   
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MN (Currently in WY)

I live in a rural area, and many students on summer vacation end up busting tail on the family farm.

I personally want a year round school, with a longer spring and christmas break and reducing the summer break. Each of these would be a month give or take.

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 Easy E wrote:
I live in a rural area, and many students on summer vacation end up busting tail on the family farm.


I grew up in a rural area and had the same experience, which is why it seemed to make sense about summer break being for helping out on the farm.

 Easy E wrote:
I personally want a year round school, with a longer spring and christmas break and reducing the summer break. Each of these would be a month give or take.


I'm for that as well. I forget the specifics but it ended up being something like 6 weeks on, two weeks off.

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