Thread: The loss of basic skills in school

If you have an e-reader and a couple hundred of e-books, and your e-reader gets stolen, is it possible for you to get new copies of the e-books without having to pay all over again?

It is tied to your amazon account. If i buy a book from amazon, it syncs across all my devices. So i can read at home on the kindle, then pick up where I left off on my phone.

It is similiar how android works with the marketplace.

Books you acquired from other..umm.. sources is a different matter.

Originally Posted by Bruno

If you have an e-reader and a couple hundred of e-books, and your e-reader gets stolen, is it possible for you to get new copies of the e-books without having to pay all over again?

Originally Posted by gugi

This is probably true in many cases, but not in all.

That being said americans generally do have this naivete, selfishness, and exceptionalism you itemized, but from what I've seen it's not a result of education, but of the american culture itself, i.e. it is just the way the american society is.
Though the way current politics go, the really smart minority will be getting richer and richer, and the rest will be getting poorer and poorer.

Thank you. Everyone wants blame teachers or schools or administrators. We are only one small piece of a giant puzzle, and a lot of us do work really hard to be great teachers and break kids bad habits.

Originally Posted by holli4pirating

Thank you. Everyone wants blame teachers or schools or administrators. We are only one small piece of a giant puzzle, and a lot of us do work really hard to be great teachers and break kids bad habits.

Well Dylan, of course everyone wants to blame you guys after-all they need someone to blame and the fact you are civil servants and earn outrageous salaries and unamerican benefits and are paid for full time work when you are part-time employees doesn't help now does it?

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

Well Dylan, of course everyone wants to blame you guys after-all they need someone to blame and the fact you are civil servants and earn outrageous salaries and unamerican benefits and are paid for full time work when you are part-time employees doesn't help now does it?

Imo the big reason that people were angry with the teachers unions was that instead of bartering with some unnamed company, they were negotiating (indirectly) with them. That is why private employees unionizing is 'American' and pbulic emplyees unionizing is 'socialist'

You need to watch more American news. It is all socialist/communist

Originally Posted by Bruno

Imo the big reason that people were angry with the teachers unions was that instead of bartering with some unnamed company, they were negotiating (indirectly) with them. That is why private employees unionizing is 'American' and pbulic emplyees unionizing is 'socialist'

On the subject of American exceptionalism, I would only point out that it wasn't until not too long ago that I was blissfully unaware the term even existed. In the America I grew up in it was simply referred to as our national character or the way Americans were. Back then it was a badge that most of us wore proudly and made no apologies for. Apparently though, since electing a Socialist president, the term is used by leftists derisively, almost in a condescending fashion. As if the great things we've done at home and abroad over the last 200 years or so were merely the product of someones imagination. Seems to me that American exceptionalism from this sort of perspective has left us a country with no national identity. We simply don't know who we are or what we stand for as a country anymore. Until we fix that issue, nothing else can be fixed (IMHO). The lofty ideas on which the country was founded drew millions of people to the "city on the hill". Many came to this country with nothing and through hard work, self-reliance and essentially buying into the national character built great lives for themselves and their families. This "national swagger", the ideas and principles that made this country great all these years, now seem to have been relegated to punch lines. Pardon me if I just don't get the joke.

Great article on the subject in the Wall Street Journal today: Shelby Steele: Obama and the Burden of Exceptionalism - WSJ.com

Lets stay on track guys. The original thread had to do with a loss of basic skills and education. Lets not turn this into a political thing.

I work for the US Government and my section employed a college intern who is a computer science major. The young man had to write an "end of tour" essay and his supervisor brought to me to get my opinion on what the intern had written. After reading the essay, I told the supervisor that the writing level was well below what college junior should be capable of writing; to me, the essay was written more towards middle school to early high school level. I understand that computer science requires quite a bit of mathematics and learning the programming language(s); however, I feel the colleges should continue to stress writing skills should be continued in the technical oriented upper level classes. I have a degree in information technology, in addition to mathematics and computer programming, I had to write essays, answer essay questions, and write papers which were written in accordance with the APA format. I am a computer system security manager with the US Department of Defense and part of my job is writing policy, reviewing incident reports, and developing system security plans. My position requires strong writing skills, but what if that intern finds himself in the same job after he graduates from college? His college did not provide him a diverse curriculum to prepare him for the real world. I am sure he will be an excellent programmer, developer, or software engineer, but what about his writing skills?

My son is a Baltimore City Police Officer; he joined the police department right after high school as a cadet and later he was accepted into the police academy. The police academy not only taught the recruits self defense, using firearms, police procedures, law, and policy, they taught him how to write reports. The academy emphasized writing in addition to the other subjects in their curriculum. I got to read some of his report writing assignments and I saw over time how much his writing improved as he progressed. Now he has his own post which is a very busy one, I cannot think of all the various reports that he has to write based on the different incidents that he handles in his shift. He recently told me the academy's emphasis on good writing and my tough proof reading, writing reports is second nature to him (well it should be) and good writing is essential to helping detectives and prosecutors with their investigations and bringing cases to the courts. A police officer's report is part of the evidence submitted to the courts.

My point, education needs to be a balanced to create a "well rounded" individual and prepare them as much as possible for whatever the vocation a person chooses in life.

Thank you for reading, your opinions, comments, criticisms and input are most welcomed.
Patrick

Originally Posted by pmburk

The young man had to write an "end of tour" essay and his supervisor brought to me to get my opinion on what the intern had written. After reading the essay, I told the supervisor that the writing level was well below what college junior should be capable of writing; to me, the essay was written more towards middle school to early high school level.

Sounds like he'll have to be disincentivized in some way to not continue such thing. Don't they have to write something when they apply, as well?

Originally Posted by pmburk

My position requires strong writing skills, but what if that intern finds himself in the same job after he graduates from college?

He shouldn't be able to get it based on inadequate qualifications, or if he does he shouldn't be able to keep it for too long. If that doesn't happen the problem is with the DoD not with him.

I think the fundamental skills people need to learn for our society are first critical reasoning, second ability to express themselves. One can of course get by without the second, but they'll be limited to positions where they don't have to interact with anybody else.