School education

[kevin Abel]

I keep hearing people talking about how bad our education system is in the USA.   Some are saying to get rid of the Department of Education.   Some are talking about paying teachers more money.

I'm learning Java using a book and asking questions on Code Ranch.  

There are loads of internet tools and groups to learn with.  There is a shortage of developers and IT people.

I'm pondering on the idea of school teaching people to read and write and how to communicate with others and not much more.  

After the basics the teachers could become coaches and assist people when they are stuck or cannot find a path to get to what they need to know.

Students could be given a PC, use a physical library, Purchase or borrow books from the library.

This would not have to only be for IT jobs.  It could be for many fields.

I'm not sure how this would work for Medical school or becoming a pilot, but it could be a start.  

I'd like to hear a political person talk about completely new directions and ways of doing things.  

Thoughts?

Kevin

[Campbell Ritchie]

kevin Abel wrote:. . . Some are talking about paying teachers more money.

My friends who teach will agree with you there

I'm learning Java using a book and asking questions on Code Ranch.

I

have never believed you can learn programming from a book. You are lucky to find us; there are lots of other resources on the Net that are nothing like as good as us. Beginners would not know which are any good.

. . . I'm not sure how this would work for Medical school or becoming a pilot . . .

The already use computer‑assisted learning in both those fields. Pilots have to practise handling an aircraft with no engines working, for example. It is hardly possible to engineer a real‑life bird strike, but it is relatively easy to program that, and pilots are probably required to repeat Sullenberger's achievement annually to maintain their flying expertise. They use a slightly larger bit of kit called a Flight simulator.

[kevin Abel]

I never found it easy to learn new skills.  Dancing, playing the trumpet, juggling, BASIC programming, cooking, Morse Code, Automation testing and Mandarin Chinese are some that take me a very long time to learn.  

Once I learn something new, I like to share what I learned.   It's as much fun for me as doing the skill myself.

I heard Scully talking about how he practiced landing on a river many times in a simulator and he was confident he could do it.

Maybe someone can make a "My Fair Lady" re-do where the person never went to formal school and became a success by being shown how to use the internet.   It could be with a person in a poor country that is shown the internet and is given advice.  The person goes from poverty to success.  It could be a musical.

My new contract probably starting in a week will slow me down on Java for a while so I might not be on here as often.    

Thanks,

Kevin

[Tim Holloway]

I did not have access to computer resources for several years at first. Learned the Fortran and IBM mainframe assembly languages from books. Took courses in them later, once I got to college and aced them. Spent several years where assembler was the only viable language to do my job.

I cannot recall for sure, but I think that the Department of Education as a cabinet-level post in the US Government may be fairly recent. However, like several other high-level positions, the last administration deliberately appointed people whose goal was to destroy their functionality. In particular, the DOE was headed by someone who'd never attended a public school in her life, and, I believe has vested interest in for-profit private schools.

At the state level in many states, there has been a long-term push to replace general education spending with vouchers, taking public tax money and handing it over to private entities at the expense of the public education system. This is in part because certain parties believe that government is useless and ineffective and that only private enterprise (which they hold shares in) is good. And partly because it's a back-door way of re-implementing segregation, since unlike public schools, private schools can pick and choose who may attend.

More recently, as we pull more and more policies from Orwell's playbook, the focus has been on education as a tool of the Party, er State. Which has manifested itself in wholesale book banning in "freedom states".

There are those who propose that education should only serve to prepare one for a trade. This is widely held by those who would be their employers. The medieval system was more geared towards making one qualified towards theology, as the peasants didn't need formal schooling. And incidentally, next time someone sneers that they'll only use the term "doctor" to an M.D., note that "Doctor" means "one qualified to teach", and that not all physicians are doctors, including some very expensive surgeons.

The Greeks had yet a third viewpoint, which was a balanced education in arts, sciences, physical skills which more closely compares with 20th Century college programs. It's the one I prefer. Older times had simpler needs. You either leanerd a trade on the job, often moving up from apprentice to journeyman to master, or you were idle enough to study for pure abstraction. Processions such as software design, on the other hand, haven't been amenable to trade-style training, because you're pretty worthless until you know virtually the entire function (though not necessarily well) and you have to have "abstract" skill training such as symbolic manipulation (algebra, calculus, and ideally, logic).

Actually, it used to be a standing joke that to understand what was in one IBM manual, you had to already know what was in 20 others. Our reference racks for OS support were 5 feet long and frequently consulted.

[Campbell Ritchie]

Tim Holloway wrote:I did not have access to computer resources for several years at first. . . .

Computers were things exotic in those days, never encountered in real life, weren't they.

[kevin Abel]

Tim wrote: This is in part because certain parties believe that government is useless and ineffective and that only private enterprise (which they hold shares in) is good.

I have been on USA funded projects that I think were mostly a boondoggle.  

I have also seen USA Gov't projects that must have brought in more money than was spent.  

My friend was laid off 30 years ago while working in California.  The unemployment department sent him through IT training and once he graduated he had constant work and must have paid his training back in taxes.

Fannie Mae once needed a bailout, but they paid the money back early with interest.  They constantly give back $ to the Government.

My dad died when I was 13 years old.  I was allowed to collect Social Security until I graduated from DeVry with my BSEET.  I'm sure that I put much more back into the bucket over the next 38 years of working.

The Greeks had a lot of great ideas that I wish were still used today.   One was for their Senate.   In addition to the senators that ran for office some won a spot through a lottery.  The idea was that it was good to have some people in the Senate that didn't care about winning the next election.  Sometimes an illiterate or uneducated person would be randomly chosen.  I wish I knew more about this, but I heard that they usually did a great job.  

You mentioned Orwellian.   I watch the news and think I'm living in the 1984 book.  

Thanks,

Kevin

[Tim Holloway]

Cynics have commented that certain persons seem to have been using 1984 as an instruction manual.

Just as a snarky aside, that Trump mugshot would make a great Big Brother Is Watching You poster. Or to scare little kids. I think he wanted to look formidable, but that's not the vibe it gives me, at least.

If you think that we have a "two tier" justice system consider that the height, weight, and mugshot photo were all contributed by Trump, not taken by the Fulton County Sheriff's office, so he looks exactly like he wants to look.

As to why we are believing Trump's declaration of height and weight when not only does he hold the all-time record for provable lies by an American President, but is actually being indicted for, among other things, making false statements, one has to wonder what FCSO was thinking.

But I digress.

The term "senate" is actually roman. I don't recall the Greek term, offhand.. "Senate" meanss something like "old people".

As to the "government is useless/more expensive" argument, that's a Procrustean pronunciation made by binary-minded people who generally want to collect the public profits while dumping the losses on the taxpayers.

A scientific look at various enterprises can show that certain enterprises work most effectively as for-profit and certain other ones work best when done for the common good. If you provide communication services (e.g., US Mail) remote rural destinations are very unprofitable and would be thus underserved by a purely profit-driven organisation. But that grand old Communist Benjamin Franklin enshrined postal service in the very roots of the nation, so it's a government enterprise, and a fairly profitable one, subject to congressional meddling. Likewise, Social Security. The American version of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need". More or less. You do get back in proportion to what you put in, but the overall range of benefits is flatter than if it was purely personal in/out retirement savings. Fortunately, for many people I know. Privatised military is another thing that doesn't work well.

On the other hand, there are all sorts of enterprises that do their best work when run for-profit. A rough dividing line is whether everyone needs something, regardless of their own personal wealth or not.

But, again, some people want a simplistic one-size-fits-all solution and get very unhappy when it doesn't work.

[kevin Abel]

Tim,

I observe things how you wrote about them.

I watch debates on all sides and think everyone is repeating sentences that work with the people voting for them, but don't mean much.

As a traveling consultant I would like laws passed where cities should have medium priced lodging.  New Jersey was close to home in NYC.  NJ had great projects but mon through Friday lodging was difficult to find. The economy would get a boost if people could live by their gigs.

I see children taking their elderly parents money and putting them in an awful place without good care.  I'd like to have laws where children need to take care of their elderly parents or at least not harm them.

In Florida we have small pieces of land left for nature. We had a third of a mile by a few hundred piece foot of land that was left alone.  Now it is covered by asphalt for a medical center.  How about laws keeping some areas natural?

I see things that could be better than what the debates cover.

Kevin

[Tim Holloway]

Kevin, as far as the recent debates went, the main environmental question was pretty much derailed by every candidate except the missing one,  and he's already weighed in - another pne of those appointments to a post who was in opposition to most of what the position was intended for.

There are protections on Florida lands, although its a constant struggle with developers. There's a section outside my house that belongs to the Audobon Society. Brevard County has a law that precludes restricting access to the beach, and course, you're legally permitted to walk anywhere below the mean high tide line anywhere in the state. Though various circumventions have been attempted.

It would help a lot if the developers didn't own most of the state and local governments, but that's how it is.

kevin Abel wrote:The economy would get a boost if people could live by their gigs.

I don't think so. Not that I'm opposed to such a concept, but consider that in many cities, it has been the workers choice to live in urban sprawl rather than in high-density housing closer to work. Gotta chalk this one up to the Invisible Hand of the Market.

Conversely, my gig clients are primarily located in New Zealand, Australia, Romania and Western Canada. The closest gig client I've ever had since I gave up in disgust on "permanent" corporate "careers" was in Miami. Second-closest is in Virginia. I realise that not every job can be 100% remote, but enough of them can that I doubt that moving closer to work would make a big economic impact. What would make a much bigger impact would be if people didn't want everything for free and prefer to buy cheap junk (or its labour equivalent) from somewhere overseas.

[kevin Abel]

Tim,

I'm trying to stick to remote work.  My next contract that should be starting next week is remote.  The free market did solve the temporary housing issue for me.  I started using AirBnB.  As long as I booked in advance I could get reasonably priced places to stay.  Also I got to meet a lot of nice folks.  

I'm also in Florida.  I'm down in Pembroke Pines.    

I had to look up Brevard County.  Its a great location.  Jupiter and space coast are fun places.  

I'd like to take the chances of going up to space coast when Falcon Heavy launches.  I'd have to expect that there will be scrubs.  I might have to try a few times.  

Let me know if you are ever visiting down here.  

As far as the debates go, I find it amazing how the population has access to the same news and yet there are two sides so far apart on ideas.  

I know a bit about President Harding.  The country was split on issues.  He got in office by saying things like "let's get back to normalcy".   He didn't pass bills.  He didn't seem to have any talent.  People were playing poker in the white house and drinking alcohol.  But I think people stopped arguing for a while.  Maybe we could use some do-nothing quiet person for a term to cool off and have time to think about what to do.  

I'm about to put my code into a common file and see how chat GPT makes a UML graphic.   I have to go back to the chats to see what it is that I am asking ChatGPT to do with the file.  I forgot the words.

Kevin

[Tim Holloway]

I've lived almost everywhere in Florida, from southern Key Largo to the fabled land West of Tallahassee where the time zone changes. Oddly, the I've never spent any time worth mentioning in SW Florida (though I've lived near Sarasota) or the Miami/Lauderdale-to-Stuart area, barring a week in Hollywood where I went to a convention and never left the hotel.

Brevard County is and has been home to several of my relatives, plus it's a short hop from Orlando, where I have more relatives and even lived for about 3 years. Nice town if you stay off the roads. I've felt less stressed in Miami rush hour traffic. Brevard is actually pretty jumping in its own way. Aside from the space facilities, it has decent beaches and is neither too crowded nor too country. The Brightline is about to go fully live, although I forget how close if gets to Melbourne before it heads to Orlando.

I've never been able to figure out Miami, incidentally. It's kind of like its own isolated Universe. Millions of people, but aside from night clubs (not a thing for me), I'm not sure what I'd do aside from a few things like the Seaquarium. Most businesses are looking towards Latin America/Caribbean and merely satellites of companies headquartered elsewhere, especially since it lost Eastern Airlines and Burger King (which was founded originally right here in Jacksonville!).

Back in my mainframe days I was job hunting and the best places for mainframe work were Jacksonville and Tampa with Orlando a distant third. Miami was only advertising stuff for the little Series 1 systems which was a very different animal.

Miami apparently lacked long-distance passenger train service for a number of years. Less than a decade ago, barring Amtrak's Auto Train from Sanford, Amtrak train service terminated at a hole in the wall station in Jacksonville (they were offered the very nice Union Station, now convention center downtown, but refused). To catch the train to New York, people from Tampa and Lakeland had to catch an Amtrak bus at about 5AM, rider it to Jacksonville, and only them board the actual train. Now service does extend down to Miami again, but it was really sad for a while. No train to Key West, though. Those days are over.

[kevin Abel]

I worked in Lake Mary, FL at Deloitte before the pandemic.    

I met a bunch of nice musicians and their supporters at a restaurant/bar named Sanford Brewery.    They had open mic nights on Mondays and I got to play my pocket trumpet a few times.

I still stay in touch with them.

I became friends with a nice woman from Deloitte who was also a consultant that was on the bench like me.  

Lake Mary was terribly boring.   I joined gyms after work to make the evenings and weekends go by.

[Tim Holloway]

Lake Mary? No Wild Times at Applebees?

I was in Altamonte Springs back in the later 1980s and at the time, Lake Mary/Heathrow was becoming a corporate center and bedroom for lawyers and the like. My own employer at the time, curse them, did groundbreaking there right before they laid off my department. Worst people to work with I ever had, by far.

I got in with a group that played volleyboll on Sundays and did other stuff like canoeing the local waters. There were things to do and places to eat when I wasn't too depressed. Only thing I really didn't like was traffic. Two of the best places I knew for sub sandwiches were in downtown Sanford and on University in Orlando. The Orlando place is long gone, alas. A Walgreens pharmacy sits there now.

[kevin Abel]

I didn't know about Applebee's in the area.  

My Deloitte woman friend took me Dragon Boat Racing in a lake in Orlando.  To get in the boat we had to walk into the water.  The place we walked into looked just like the description of where alligators hang out.  I asked the group of about  15 people why they were in the water with alligators around.  The answer seemed to be that they never had trouble with what they did.  I was one of the last people to step in the water.  

I remember being on a dragon boat for the first time and feeling as though I finally was doing something adventurous in life and it was worth it.

I wonder if the Sanford sandwich place is still there.

I started up walking groups on Meetup just to meet some new people. The group started to build up right when I was let go at Deloitte.

You mentioned the place you worked was awful.  My worst job was right out of college.   I had no idea of how to function in a corporation.  My boss kept complaining about me.  There was truth to his complaints but never any suggestions on how to improve.  Since I had not experience, I took his word for me always making the wrong decision and having poor judgement.  I mentioned that the instructions for how to build the hardware I was working on was not always clear.  I thought that I was asking for the document to upgrade it.  On my review he wrote that I recognised the document being wrong and I didn't take the initiative to improve it.  I got so upset that I went home crying.  I kept thinking that I'd never make it through 40 more years of working.
I took a vacation over a weekend and amazingly bumped into a family that offered me a job on the spot.    

I'm glad we are in the Meaningless Drivel area.  I'm switching topics all over the place.  I think its OK to have one area where we can chat without being too logical.  

I spoke to a co-worker from 30 years ago and we both agreed that it was the worst boss we encountered.   It would have been good if school taught us how to know when we are wrong and how to deal with a difficult person.

In a way it was good for me because it was never as bad as the first job.

By the way I'm on Page 216 of 700 in the book and its' still making sense this pass.

Kevin