Posts Tagged ‘education’

Five Assorted Thoughts Under the Fedora: Post Christian Old Twitter, Peer Pressure at FW Parker, Griner’s perspective, Sinema’s feint, Oil bills and Ben Franklin

Posted: December 9, 2022 by datechguy in culture, education, politics, tech, Uncomfortable Truths, under the fedora
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The 2nd batch of Twitter files dropped showing that the folks at Twitter pre-musk were lying though their teeth concerning shadow-banning and manipulating trends.

To conservatives this is no surprise, to the left now that denial is no longer an option have started calling it “Old News” but I suspect the endgame it what I predicted a while back deciding to say it’s justified and celebrate it.

This is what happens when you throw out the whole “Thou shalt not bear false witness” business.

Yesterday I speculated concerning the reaction of parents at the Francis W. Parker school over the Project Veritas revelations:

Now in fairness this is Chicago land of the left so it is possible that the school administration and the parents while wanting to avoid the drugs, guns and the lack of an actual education in the public schools, might pine for the indoctrination to the liberal/gay agenda that they kids are missing so it is very possible that they might be all on board with this kind of thing.

It hits me now that the school has publicly defended the Dean in question that even parents who are not onboard on this stuff might find themselves not only keeping silent but leaving their children in the school due to peer pressure, after all as part of the liberal Chicago elites who can afford to spend $40K annually for a private school they are part of an elite club and might get a lot of pushback socially for doing so.

Parents of courage and integrity will willing to pay the price for the sake of their kids, but for those who know this is wrong and stay silent, I say to them I have more respect for those who actually support this monstrosity than for you, at least they are acting according to their warped beliefs that it is right.

Social status or your kids welfare, choose one.

Of course if the funding dries up from Alumni all this will be moot as they’ll drop these folks like a hot iron.

Yesterday with the help of the Saudis and others the Biden Admin managed to get Brittany Griner back from Russia in exchange for a rather dangerous Russian operative.

To say the optics of the trade and the White House spin are bad is an understatement but I won’t begrudge the release of any American being held in a Russian prison for a trivial crime.

What I’m more interested in seeing is how Grimes who has not had a lot of kind words to say about her home country reacts the next time the Anthem is played at a WNBA game she is in.

There is nothing like being in a Russian jail cell to give a person perspective on the relative merits of one’s country vs another. One hopes Griner has gained said perspective through her ordeal but we will see.

There is a lot of fuss being made about Senator Kristin Sinema leaving the Democrat party. There should not be.

As long as Sinema is caucusing with the Democrats it will make no difference in control of the senate nor is it likely to make a difference in how she votes on issues.

The only reason for this change is to eliminate the need for her to run in a Democrat Primary.

What’s really going to be fun is to see her try to pull off a Murkowski but I suspect Charlie Schumer is going to be a lot less forgiving of this renegade incumbent than Mitch McConnell was of his.

After all for the left politics is their religion and they have no mercy for apostates.

Finally my first oil delivery and bill of the season came in. It’s double what it was back in the days of Trump.

A lot of people who happily voted for Biden in the Northeast are going to get an education on the principle that you get the government you deserve over the next few months.

And just wait till they get their local property tax bills because every single city and town is paying more for their oil and gas too and that’s going to be passed on in terms of limited services and higher tax bills.

Of course that’s not much comfort to me as I’m in the same boat despite warning them about it.

As Ben Franklin said: “Experience keeps a dear School, but Fools will learn in no other, and scarce in that” I don’t expect them to learn from this, because that would involve admitting they were wrong. They’d rather pay and buy blankets than face that horror.

Why You Should Put Your Kids into a Catholic School Vs just a Private School in one Video and a Pair of Tweets:

Posted: December 8, 2022 by datechguy in culture, education, News/opinion
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Otto Ludwig Piffl: Is everybody in this world corrupt?

Peripetchikoff: I don’t know everybody.

One Two Three 1961

Project Veritas has done it again exposing the Dean of Chicago’s Francis W. Parker school has some interesting priorities for the students in his charge:

If you wanted the dictionary definition of “Groomer” this guy would be it.

So how does this elite private school react to this, what’s their priority? To warn parents against the evil right wingers!

Both they and the dean have since deleted their twitter accounts. Project veritas has replied in their now, thanks to Elon Musk restored twitter account.

All of this is an excellent reminder that while “private school” means an actual education it doesn’t mean you avoid the liberal agenda.

Now in fairness this is Chicago land of the left so it is possible that the school administration and the parents while wanting to avoid the drugs, guns and the lack of an actual education in the public schools, might pine for the indoctrination to the liberal/gay agenda that they kids are missing so it is very possible that they might be all on board with this kind of thing.

But may I suggest that if you are one of those few parents who not only want an actual education for your kids but aren’t all into the left’s groomer agenda, you might want to consider a Catholic primary or high school.

Closing thoughts: I’d be very interested in seeing the letter going to the alumni donors in explanation.

Closing thought 2: While I’m not a facebook person I took the liberty of checking the Wayback machine to see what was happening on their page. The screengrabs from March had all kinds of school stuff but all the grabs from today brought up 302 errors.

How about that!

Don’t know much about history…

Posted: December 6, 2022 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

As I pondered retirement from teaching a few years ago, one of the most important reasons I decided to leave academia was because I didn’t think we were serving students well.

As a field of employment, journalism had grown increasingly doubtful as a longterm career, and paying more than $100,000 given the prospects of a dying industry didn’t seem right.

It appears that journalism isn’t alone in this academic fraud.

Two in five American college graduates have significant regrets about what they studied in school. Those who regret their decisions included a wide swath of liberal arts majors, according to the Federal Reserve’s annual Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking.

Nearly half of humanities and arts majors had buyer’s remorse, according to a survey in 2021. According to the Federal Reserve survey, engineering majors have the fewest regrets: Just 24 percent wish they’d chosen something different.

As a rule, those who studied STEM subjects – science, technology, engineering, and mathematics – are much more likely to believe they made the right choice. In contrast, those in social sciences or vocational courses second-guess themselves.

There doesn’t seem to be much of a relationship between loans, gender, race, or school selectivity and those who regret their choices. But Federal Reserve data show that the higher one’s income, the fewer people regret their major back in college.

These regrets have remained relatively steady since 2016, the earliest year for which consistent data exist. The most notable exception, education, went from below-average regrets before the pandemic to above-average regrets in 2021. 

Most vocational and technical students (60 percent) wish they’d gone for more schooling, while fewer than 40 percent of law, life science, and engineering students think the same.

The burgeoning regret among humanities and arts majors may help explain why humanities graduates are a dying breed.

“There’s a pretty significant change underway,” historian Ben Schmidt told The Washington Post. “The numbers have dropped by 50 percent, and there’s no sign that they’re going to rebound.”

By 2021, disciplines such as history, English, and religion graduated fewer than half as many students as they did in the early 2000s, according to Schmidt’s analysis of data from the National Center for Education Statistics.

According to Schmidt, the 2008 recession sparked the beginning of a downward spiral in humanities such as history, art, philosophy, English, and foreign languages.

In the decade since our national pivot to STEM, the number of people graduating with computer science degrees has doubled. Every STEM field notched significant gains. Nursing, exercise science, medicine, environment, engineering, math, and statistics are all up by at least 50 percent. Among the humanities, only two increased: linguistics and cultural, ethnic, and gender studies.

Over their lifetime, a typical history or journalism major can expect to earn about $3.4 million, according to an analysis of Census Bureau data from 2014 to 2018 by economist Douglas Webber, who is now with the Federal Reserve. A typical economics, biological sciences, or chemistry major can expect to make $4.6 million over that same time, adjusted for inflation.

If I were in college today, I would never choose journalism or English literature, my two fields of study. I wouldn’t encourage anyone else to do so either!

Five Assorted Thoughts Under the Fedora: Russia Unmasked, A Tough Call for Ukraine, Woke Winners, The coming tech pivot, and My Paypal Plans

Posted: October 12, 2022 by datechguy in culture, DaTechGuy's Quick Thoughts, education, politics, tech, under the fedora, war
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One of the things that has really been revealed by the war in Ukraine is just how weak and unready the Russian Army is. Moreover a lot of Russians were in favor of the war in Ukraine when it looked like it would be a cakewalk to retake the territory that until the breakup of the Soviet Union was part of Russia proper since the days of Napoleon, but once it became clear that it would involve actually fighting, actual causalities and a mobilization the whole pride thing went out the window.

It’s amazing how much harder war is when people are willing to shoot back rather than roll over. I would not be surprised if this lesions the fear of China’s untested military as well.

It’s a tough call for Ukraine when it comes to how the war ends.

They have a good point that they don’t want to reward Russia with any gains but the longer the war goes on the more likely Putin decides to play the tactical nuke game. Ukraine can likely get the best deal it could get right now but in the words of Lincoln if they consider this war for a purpose they see no reason to end it before that purpose is achieved.

Since it’s their blood that being spilled it’s their call, as long as I don’t have to keep paying for it.

This story via Gateway Pundit made me smile:

I predict that in the woke sweepstakes Muslims trump gays, drag queens and transsexuals’ for two reasons:

  1. The Muslim population of the US continues to grow
  2. There have been unfortunate and unhealthy consequences for those who defy those communities

One of the reasons why Sicilian American’s like myself don’t mind people associating us with the mob is it make people less likely to try to mess with us (also we don’t give a damn what others think). With the reputation of Islam backed up by 30 years of shall we call them “incidents” I suspect school committees are going to think twice before they mess with them.

Sometime in the next month we are likely going to see a pivot in tech companies.

Once they decide they can not stop the GOP from winning the House and perhaps the Senate they are going to be a lot more hesitant to oppress members of the GOP when there is a prospect of lawmakers striking back.

Now of course as long as they control the White House and the Justice Department they have a modicum of protection and I’m sure they’ll go all in no matter who the GOP nominee is but most companies don’t want grief and don’t want scrutiny and when it becomes clear who is going to win I suspect these firms will decide to be on the winning side.

Finally a lot of people I know have dropped Paypal like a hot potato. Being a person who is a tad more deliberate I’ve decided to wait till after the first of the year.

This will give me time to decide what I’m replacing it with, to contact donors to see if they wish to switch to whatever service I go over to and to evaluate my opitions.

Also in terms of taxes and their preparation it will be easier to have the account active through at least January.

This does involve some risk but if I’m right about the tech pivot that should give me enough leeway to move deliberately without a lot of worry. If I’m wrong, then it’s on me.

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