Re: Workers, Public Schools, Tradesmen, and Justice

On Fri, 27 Sep 1996 13:01:13 -0800, Timothy C. May wrote:

>My conclusion is simple: Tell people if they don't work, they won't eat. If
>they do something others are willing to give them money to do, they won't
>get money. They won't get "entitlements" from the government (= taxpayers,
>= those who are working, = me and thee). Tell them that a college education
>should only be pursued if one has a "calling" to be an engineer, a
>programmer (and probably not even that, judging by what I see), a doctor, a
I've noticed that many places are concerned more with things like creativity,
adapability, drive, etc when hiring a CS grad.  I've found that having a
resume that shows these kind of traits well overcame the lack of a degree
(I'm working on that). There was a thread about this in comp.lang.cobol
awhile back. 
>lawyer (on second thought, don't ever suggest they become lawyers), and so
>on.

The old way was that your HS provided what the mythical average person needed
to go about life. College was for the more "complex" careers.

>And make it easier to hire people, instead of harder. (And if one hires a
>maid, and the maid steals, cut off her hand. We've lost sight of justice,
>and people think that ripping off the rich is their kind of justice. This
>needs to change.)

You don't even need to be that harsh.  Chain-gang work to pay off stolen
property would be more effective, if for no reason other than that you'd get
your money (or property) back.

>Psychologists and similar psychobabblers call it "tough love." If one
>always "enables" an addict, a layabout, a shiftless worker, with excuses
>and handouts, the behavior does not change. To save a person, sometimes
>harshness is needed.

>This is why crypto anarchy's starving of the tax system is good. It may
>"kill" some number of people, as nearly any new idea does, but ultimately
>it will put things back on track.


And you have to look at it from another point of view:   If it would
ameliorate the problems in the future for the majority of the population,
it'd be worth a bit of discomfort now.

#  Chris Adams <adamsc@io-online.com>   | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp
#  <cadams@acucobol.com>		 | send mail with subject "send PGPKEY"
"That's our advantage at Microsoft; we set the standards and we can change them."
   --- Karen Hargrove, Microsoft (quoted in the Feb 1993 Unix Review editorial)

> The old way was that your HS provided what the mythical average person needed
> to go about life. College was for the more "complex" careers.

Perhaps "high school" should end at age 16, with two years of publicly
funded "junior college" or "technical school" available to those who
select one or the other, and qualify. This would bring an adult-level
decision earlier in life, and students would need to start thinking about
which path to chose at about 14. Perhaps this would allow reality to set
in at an earlier age. A high school diploma has become meaningless anyway 
- it is viewed as a "right."   

This wouldn't leave anyone condemned to a life of menial labor for a
decision made at age 16 - there are plenty of successful people who have
obtained a G.E.D. later in life, and then gone on to college. It would, 
however, give some measure of responsibility to the near-adult.

In my own education, I found that I was getting nothing out of high school
by age 16. I wanted to drop out of high school to start college, but my
parents wouldn't hear of it. I got into an internship-for-credit program
instead, and got out w/ diploma and started college a semester later. My
fiance did drop out of high school at age 16 and started college, with her
parent's blessing. All her high school guidence counselor could come up 
with was "But she'll miss her prom"! 

It seemed that the last two years of high school were devoted to trying 
to drag marginal, apathetic students towards their diploma, kicking and 
screaming. Anyone "college bound" was just marking time.

I wouldn't want my children subjected to this - I'd rather they got into 
college as soon as they were ready, diploma or not.

Just my $.02

-r.w.