If Music Could Talk

Here is a thread where we can talk of the important things being done to change the world's education system. Found this article.

Protip:

If you actually read the article the stench of profit-seeking sociopathic Randoid quackspeak would've knocked you unconscious within a 2-mile radius of your web browser. Or, you could've been tipped off by the words "venture capital" in every single one of those write-ups. Or, just perhaps, the "Forbes" that sits in the URL before the ".com".

Here. Let's start with Hero #1 on that list of visionaries doing such very important things for edjamucashun: http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/5/459189 ... a-ba-in-bs


That's not education. It's a blowjob to Wall Street for shallow people with too much of daddy's money to burn whose one dream in life is to trend on LinkedIn as an "influencer". It is neither important nor changeworthy. These people are why there's a caste system in the U.S. that's gutted and ruined education top-to-bottom and consigns students to the permanent underclass.

Re: Forbes article. I did read most of that article, I just needed to post it to get something going for us....

Why? What does a paid advertisement for 5 CEOs' egos and the vanity certificates even they won't wipe their own asses with possibly have to do with education and spurring a serious discussion therein about "important things being done to change the world's education system"?


Does the Mike Love Rape Van thread suddenly become a substantive debate about the Trans Pacific Partnership if the thread title gets changed to says that's what it's about. Because the logic of using that first post as a placeholder for real, serious roundtable discussion of the international trade issues of the day makes about as much sense as the content served up in this thread's first post.


If you want thoughts about a thinkpiece, you sort of have to think about what you're linking to...no? Clearly the things being done to education are not all that important after all if we can't be arsed to find a single example as discussion fodder.

The greatest ugliness to befall the university has been the adoption of the corporate model. That students are considered clients to be serviced to instill a brand loyalty is everything you need to know about why the contemporary university model is a barrier to meaningful education, not its facilitator.

I've applied for funding for an Open University History Degree. Fingers crossed, I'll know if I've been successful in about five weeks.

Silent Majority wrote:I've applied for funding for an Open University History Degree. Fingers crossed, I'll know if I've been successful in about five weeks.

Good luck, man! You're the kind of person that any instructor would love to have in class.

Dr. Medulla wrote:

Silent Majority wrote:I've applied for funding for an Open University History Degree. Fingers crossed, I'll know if I've been successful in about five weeks.

Good luck, man! You're the kind of person that any instructor would love to have in class.

Open U's distance learning, so I won't physically be attending a class, but since all I do with my free time is learn shit about the past I thought I may as well get accreditation and open up a few careers.

Silent Majority wrote:

Dr. Medulla wrote:

Silent Majority wrote:I've applied for funding for an Open University History Degree. Fingers crossed, I'll know if I've been successful in about five weeks.

Good luck, man! You're the kind of person that any instructor would love to have in class.

Open U's distance learning, so I won't physically be attending a class, but since all I do with my free time is learn shit about the past I thought I may as well get accreditation and open up a few careers.

Good school. That's one of only a handful of Limey Larnin' Palaces that earned a cross-accreditation in the U.S. One of the very earliest adopters of distance learning...they partnered with the BBC to broadcast course lectures on TV way back in the early-70's up until it all moved online 10 years ago. Probably no public university of its size as experienced at teaching that way. Distance learning is pretty ubiquitous nowadays, but can be a real hit-or-miss teaching experiment on the backs of students at schools where they're still working out the bugs in their first-time deployments. It can get dicey when instructors and administrators aren't experienced enough with it to answer the "Is this thing on?" question with their students' attention span.

Since they were such early adopters of that they've also been big on publishing free open courseware materials online under Creative Commons license: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/. Basically a giant free repository of old and new course materials open sourced for anyone on the planet to do as they please. MIT's got an identical repository that gets a lot more trade press buzz stateside, but I don't think that one's as large as OU's: http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm. Had a lot of experience myself lately in that world, as my last year-plus has been tied up editing full first-edition open source textbooks for a non-profit that's publishing free alternatives to the textbook industry's price racket: https://openstaxcollege.org/books.

Silent Majority wrote:

Dr. Medulla wrote:

Silent Majority wrote:I've applied for funding for an Open University History Degree. Fingers crossed, I'll know if I've been successful in about five weeks.

Good luck, man! You're the kind of person that any instructor would love to have in class.

Open U's distance learning, so I won't physically be attending a class, but since all I do with my free time is learn shit about the past I thought I may as well get accreditation and open up a few careers.

Wait, there are careers to be had with a history degree? I loved (he said sarcastically) applying for shitty service industry jobs after finishing my MA and being told that they weren't looking to hire historians. Yeah, does it seem likely I'm looking to use my knowledge of American slavery historiography while working a fucking till at minimum wage? But thanks for shitting on my interest in self-improvement, fuckface.

That vented, you've got a keen and critical mind, and that makes all the difference in whether the person reading your paper wants to open a vein in a hot bath. Physically present or not, they'll love your ass.

Dr. Medulla wrote:

Silent Majority wrote:

Dr. Medulla wrote:

Silent Majority wrote:I've applied for funding for an Open University History Degree. Fingers crossed, I'll know if I've been successful in about five weeks.

Good luck, man! You're the kind of person that any instructor would love to have in class.

Open U's distance learning, so I won't physically be attending a class, but since all I do with my free time is learn shit about the past I thought I may as well get accreditation and open up a few careers.

Wait, there are careers to be had with a history degree? I loved (he said sarcastically) applying for shitty service industry jobs after finishing my MA and being told that they weren't looking to hire historians. Yeah, does it seem likely I'm looking to use my knowledge of American slavery historiography while working a fucking till at minimum wage? But thanks for shitting on my interest in self-improvement, fuckface.

That vented, you've got a keen and critical mind, and that makes all the difference in whether the person reading your paper wants to open a vein in a hot bath. Physically present or not, they'll love your ass.

Thanks, man. I'm not doing it with a solely aspirational bent - I love history, it holds the place in my life that sports fans have football in - but there are a few jobs I love the look of that require a degree. An archivist looks just right for my sensibilities, for example. And I'm happily anticipating a challenge and the opportunity to expand my capacity. I reckon, he said arrogantly, that I'll piss right through the first year, based on what's up in my head already, but I'd be glad to be proven wrong on that.

Silent Majority wrote:

Dr. Medulla wrote:

Silent Majority wrote:

Dr. Medulla wrote:

Silent Majority wrote:I've applied for funding for an Open University History Degree. Fingers crossed, I'll know if I've been successful in about five weeks.

Good luck, man! You're the kind of person that any instructor would love to have in class.

Open U's distance learning, so I won't physically be attending a class, but since all I do with my free time is learn shit about the past I thought I may as well get accreditation and open up a few careers.

Wait, there are careers to be had with a history degree? I loved (he said sarcastically) applying for shitty service industry jobs after finishing my MA and being told that they weren't looking to hire historians. Yeah, does it seem likely I'm looking to use my knowledge of American slavery historiography while working a fucking till at minimum wage? But thanks for shitting on my interest in self-improvement, fuckface.

That vented, you've got a keen and critical mind, and that makes all the difference in whether the person reading your paper wants to open a vein in a hot bath. Physically present or not, they'll love your ass.

Thanks, man. I'm not doing it with a solely aspirational bent - I love history, it holds the place in my life that sports fans have football in - but there are a few jobs I love the look of that require a degree. An archivist looks just right for my sensibilities, for example. And I'm happily anticipating a challenge and the opportunity to expand my capacity. I reckon, he said arrogantly, that I'll piss right through the first year, based on what's up in my head already, but I'd be glad to be proven wrong on that.

Were I a more sensible fucker, I would have parlayed my history MA into archivist work. I gravitate to organization and am always more interested in other people's projects more than my own. Ah well, the only thing I'm better at than organization is making bad decisions, so the greater talent won out.

Rat Patrol wrote:

Silent Majority wrote:

Dr. Medulla wrote:

Silent Majority wrote:I've applied for funding for an Open University History Degree. Fingers crossed, I'll know if I've been successful in about five weeks.

Good luck, man! You're the kind of person that any instructor would love to have in class.

Open U's distance learning, so I won't physically be attending a class, but since all I do with my free time is learn shit about the past I thought I may as well get accreditation and open up a few careers.

Good school. That's one of only a handful of Limey Larnin' Palaces that earned a cross-accreditation in the U.S. One of the very earliest adopters of distance learning...they partnered with the BBC to broadcast course lectures on TV way back in the early-70's up until it all moved online 10 years ago. Probably no public university of its size as experienced at teaching that way. Distance learning is pretty ubiquitous nowadays, but can be a real hit-or-miss teaching experiment on the backs of students at schools where they're still working out the bugs in their first-time deployments. It can get dicey when instructors and administrators aren't experienced enough with it to answer the "Is this thing on?" question with their students' attention span.

Since they were such early adopters of that they've also been big on publishing free open courseware materials online under Creative Commons license: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/. Basically a giant free repository of old and new course materials open sourced for anyone on the planet to do as they please. MIT's got an identical repository that gets a lot more trade press buzz stateside, but I don't think that one's as large as OU's: http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm. Had a lot of experience myself lately in that world, as my last year-plus has been tied up editing full first-edition open source textbooks for a non-profit that's publishing free alternatives to the textbook industry's price racket: https://openstaxcollege.org/books.

I was a little concerned about my terrible work ethic versus the more independent manner of learning, but I still figure this'll be a good fit based on my enthusiasm on the subject.

Were I a more sensible fucker, I would have parlayed my history MA into archivist work. I gravitate to organization and am always more interested in other people's projects more than my own. Ah well, the only thing I'm better at than organization is making bad decisions, so the greater talent won out.

Yeah, I've an honourary degree in Bad Decisions. Presented to me at the university of You Didn't Think This Through, by Shaun W. Ryder, PHD.