(At a regional public university) That’s right, he really doesn’t. I know because he told me. I will tell the story here. It is not nice to make fun of Prof. Alfred (a real person but made-up name), and that is not my purpose. (He is actually a very nice person.) But it is important […]
Archives for October 2013
Financial Times Commentary on Higher Ed in America
October 14, 2013 by
“Price has come unmoored from the value and even the cost of an education, says Mark Vandevelde” is the subtitle of the comment http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/8d502756-327e-11e3-91d2-00144feab7de.html?siteedition=intl#axzz2hhZ4SDOY It is well written, to the point, and cites Nobel Prize Wnner Michael Spence for an explanation for why buying no education is still worth it economically. Its just a tax.
According to OECD, Most Workers Who Feel Overqualified Aren’t. So Why? Have They Been Conned?
October 10, 2013 by
Jordan Weissmann has a post in The Atlantic on this http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/10/1-in-5-us-workers-im-too-educated-for-my-job/280441/#disqus_thread My comment on his post explains my position: “Many of those who think that they are overeducated are actually “over-degreed” by schools that convince students that they are getting a “college education” (and many other types of education), when they aren’t. The brilliant David […]
What does it mean to “learn calculus”
October 7, 2013 by
In a recent post, Calculus on the Road, I pointed out that studnts who didn’t know the definition of a derivative were making good grades in their calculus class. So what does “learning calculus” mean? At some “elite” schools it doesn’t mean knowing any formal definition of a limit (part of the definition of a derivative). For […]
Calculus on the Road
October 5, 2013 by
I’m sitting in a Starbucks in NorthCarolina next to three young community college students who are studying calculus on a Saturday morning. They were nice enough to answer my two questions. The fist was “What is the definition of the derivative?” Two said they don’t know, then one said it is a rate. I pressed him […]
Why Do So Many People Not Ask the Right Question?
I just read Jon Meacham’s piece, What Colleges Will Teach in 2025 America must resolve the conflict between knowledge and know-how Read more: http://nation.time.com/2013/09/26/the-class-of-2025/#ixzz2huhvoTUz He is a well known figure and the author of several books. He writes about how little graduates learn, how little students work, and how, in spite of all this, they […]