Education Secretary Nicky Morgan in England warned young people that choosing to study arts subjects at school could “hold them back for the rest of their lives”. (The Stage: Education secretary Nicky Morgan: ‘Arts subjects limit career choices’)
The simplistic thinking which tries to turn universities into vocational schools would not have affected The Beatles since they did not pursue any musical curriculum in school. They didn't seem to have spent all that much time in schools, actually. Zappa did not attend a university for musical education for longer than about six months.
From the cursory review thus far, the pattern we're seeing is that education limits a possible career in the arts and not the other way around ... but ... we continue our review.
There was an easily-predictable backlash to Morgan's lack of foresight. (The Stage: Drama leaders decry education secretary’s ‘anti-arts propaganda’)
The flaw to Nicky Morgan's reasoning is a classical university education isn't training for anything except life. There is little application for Latin and Greek in the careers of most people but both languages were required in the classical curriculum for a Bachelor's degree.
There is very much the thinking in America a college degree is a means to an end; I paid the money for the degree so I should get something in return (i.e. a job). That kind of thinking works fine in a vocational school as maybe your purpose is to drive big-rig trucks so, fine, take a vocational program for six weeks or six months, however long that goes, and come out of that with a commercial license to drive big-rig trucks. (I've often thought that would be a cool job because relatively good money and minimal requirements to be sociable. Perfect solution for loners with an interest in roaming.)
There's nothing wrong with a vocational school and that choice will be the best value around if you have a specific purpose of that nature in seeking an education.
It's the thinking a university has to prepare you for work which results in a great deal of the conservative resentment because their thinking is it costs a lot of money so there has to be a value in it. They don't see the actual value nor do they see a university degree never prepared anyone for anything ... except more education. That, in fact, is what they're supposed to do.
In reviewing my own university education and also that of friends, for example Cadillac Man and his intensive study of American history, I couldn't point to anything which came to my life as a result of that education ... but ... I couldn't point to anything which did not come from that education and both statements are true in different ways.
My education didn't prepare me for anything in the workplace but the pigskin says I may be qualified to do intelligent things so the employer takes a chance on that basis. For me and a good many friends, that's exactly how it worked too.
Regrettably, it doesn't work that way so much now because of the need for high levels of specialization for many jobs or no specialization at all in the sense of service jobs. The mid-level jobs with the highest interest in intelligent generalists has nowhere near the strength it once did because so many jobs of that nature went overseas.
The jobs won't be coming back any time soon so the question is what will you do about it. While we agree with Bernie Sanders everyone has a right to a full education, we don't agree everyone should take it and university degrees have been greatly devalued by the compulsive requirement and extreme expense of getting one.
Secretary Morgan said most employers prefer math skills but that view, not surprisingly, is extremely limited as well since employers don't typically need math skills beyond the capability of four-function calculators and your knowledge of calculus will, in most cases, mean nothing at all to them.
(Ed: four-function calculators serve many purposes!)
True enough but you don't see them doing much trigonometry.
Morgan isn't only wrong about the arts, she's even wrong about that which she advocates.
How about we give Nicky Morgan a little math quiz to discover just how much she knows ... or doesn't.
The above does not mean learning calculus is worthless but rather it's generally worthless in a workplace environment. Calculus is equally applicable to high finance on Wall Street and a four-wheel drift in a racing vehicle but it will have almost no impact on day-to-day work for most people.
There's a much more fundamental premise which you will hear from many old people: do what you love and the money will follow.
It may be in doing what you love you come to understand money does not follow but you're still doing what you love and anything else is secondary to that anyway. This thinking is almost entirely lost and immense unhappiness breaks out all over the place because of it. You can see it a great deal in musicos who never did really get it: I worked so hard but I'm not rich so I must have got screwed. Somebody screwed me. Support local music, damn it.
No, bluez man. That's not how it works. You have the music and you have the love. Anything which comes beyond that is only to make you smile. Sometimes it will come and sometimes it won't but that's all you can ever say with any surety you're right. Meanwhile ... shut up and play.
The simplistic thinking which tries to turn universities into vocational schools would not have affected The Beatles since they did not pursue any musical curriculum in school. They didn't seem to have spent all that much time in schools, actually. Zappa did not attend a university for musical education for longer than about six months.
From the cursory review thus far, the pattern we're seeing is that education limits a possible career in the arts and not the other way around ... but ... we continue our review.
There was an easily-predictable backlash to Morgan's lack of foresight. (The Stage: Drama leaders decry education secretary’s ‘anti-arts propaganda’)
The flaw to Nicky Morgan's reasoning is a classical university education isn't training for anything except life. There is little application for Latin and Greek in the careers of most people but both languages were required in the classical curriculum for a Bachelor's degree.
There is very much the thinking in America a college degree is a means to an end; I paid the money for the degree so I should get something in return (i.e. a job). That kind of thinking works fine in a vocational school as maybe your purpose is to drive big-rig trucks so, fine, take a vocational program for six weeks or six months, however long that goes, and come out of that with a commercial license to drive big-rig trucks. (I've often thought that would be a cool job because relatively good money and minimal requirements to be sociable. Perfect solution for loners with an interest in roaming.)
There's nothing wrong with a vocational school and that choice will be the best value around if you have a specific purpose of that nature in seeking an education.
It's the thinking a university has to prepare you for work which results in a great deal of the conservative resentment because their thinking is it costs a lot of money so there has to be a value in it. They don't see the actual value nor do they see a university degree never prepared anyone for anything ... except more education. That, in fact, is what they're supposed to do.
In reviewing my own university education and also that of friends, for example Cadillac Man and his intensive study of American history, I couldn't point to anything which came to my life as a result of that education ... but ... I couldn't point to anything which did not come from that education and both statements are true in different ways.
My education didn't prepare me for anything in the workplace but the pigskin says I may be qualified to do intelligent things so the employer takes a chance on that basis. For me and a good many friends, that's exactly how it worked too.
Regrettably, it doesn't work that way so much now because of the need for high levels of specialization for many jobs or no specialization at all in the sense of service jobs. The mid-level jobs with the highest interest in intelligent generalists has nowhere near the strength it once did because so many jobs of that nature went overseas.
The jobs won't be coming back any time soon so the question is what will you do about it. While we agree with Bernie Sanders everyone has a right to a full education, we don't agree everyone should take it and university degrees have been greatly devalued by the compulsive requirement and extreme expense of getting one.
Secretary Morgan said most employers prefer math skills but that view, not surprisingly, is extremely limited as well since employers don't typically need math skills beyond the capability of four-function calculators and your knowledge of calculus will, in most cases, mean nothing at all to them.
(Ed: four-function calculators serve many purposes!)
True enough but you don't see them doing much trigonometry.
Morgan isn't only wrong about the arts, she's even wrong about that which she advocates.
How about we give Nicky Morgan a little math quiz to discover just how much she knows ... or doesn't.
The above does not mean learning calculus is worthless but rather it's generally worthless in a workplace environment. Calculus is equally applicable to high finance on Wall Street and a four-wheel drift in a racing vehicle but it will have almost no impact on day-to-day work for most people.
There's a much more fundamental premise which you will hear from many old people: do what you love and the money will follow.
It may be in doing what you love you come to understand money does not follow but you're still doing what you love and anything else is secondary to that anyway. This thinking is almost entirely lost and immense unhappiness breaks out all over the place because of it. You can see it a great deal in musicos who never did really get it: I worked so hard but I'm not rich so I must have got screwed. Somebody screwed me. Support local music, damn it.
No, bluez man. That's not how it works. You have the music and you have the love. Anything which comes beyond that is only to make you smile. Sometimes it will come and sometimes it won't but that's all you can ever say with any surety you're right. Meanwhile ... shut up and play.
10 comments:
Tennessee already has education for all. Every person graduating from a Tennessee High School can attend a vocational school or Two year college for free. If you are over 25, they even supply grant money to survive. And those attending a 4 year college receive Hope scholarship money and when the system is working right academic scholarships based on GPA and admission test scores.
The system works very well as the smart kids go to university and the others go to trade or vocational colleges.
We also have a very comprehensive medical coverage for most residents based on income. No we are not socialists just believe in taking care of each other.
Fair enough but Morgan is talking about the content of the education and how any pursuit of arts will be destructive to career prospects. That's the part biting me because trying to force universities to be vocational schools can't possibly work and still have them continue to be universities.
As you stated a lot of graduates receive "I am smart" degrees. Separate from specific knowledge degrees such as Bio-Chem.
Using the Beatles and Zappa is again using the specific to prove the general. Hell based on Bill Gates we can eliminate IT and Business schools
She is very right with the Arts degrees as a major. The ones that can make a real career out of it do mot need the school. The rest pursue secondary careers in the field
Sure they do but there's nothing wrong with an "I am smart" degree as that's presumably what motivated you to get it and hopefully you got what you wanted.
The Zappa / Beatles examples were only to push a specious hypothesis and failed, apparently, to be amusing.
I disagree about the lack of value in any kind of a B.A. and one of the primaries is learning with a colony of like-minded individuals and that's possible in RL (i.e. non-university) but more difficult. When an art colony is founded, often it will be by people from a school and it's their way of dealing with the lack of money in what they do.
The I am smart is a valuable degree.
The Beatles push the lack of value of an arts degree. As true artists dont need education
Most artists sell insurance some teach very few progress in thier craft.
Just look at those in your immediate circle to see very few of them work in thier field of learning.
Unless it was a specialized field
The Beatles didn't push anything of the kind and everyone needs an education to move beyond speaking, writing, and acting like cabbages. Hendrix picked up quite a bit from sci-fi.
Unclear what motivated those ones.
The artists who sell insurance were not likely artists in the first place. An artist with real passion will never give up the art for anything less. I should have walked away from all negative influences and never looked back when Ophir went to California but I did not have the musical passion for that and now I live in a shithole. Evolution in action.
True artists succeed. But they certainly do not need a formal education. They just need to learn. Your knowledge is from your own search. Very little of it came from a formal education.
Gates dropped out Zappa dropped out.Everyone needs an education but everyone achieves it differently.
The artists that sell insurance likely did not have the same passion. But becoming a "discovered" artist is a long shot at best. But we still have schools teaching and graduating them. Because we need insurance sales people. Just as most history majors do not write or teach. They sell insurance.
The motivated will learn and succeed with or without a formal education.
I have very little education because I never cared. I quit my formal education by 13-14. And pretended after that. I am living proof of potential means nothing. And motivation is everything
My point is very few need to actually go to university. Those should be the smart and motivated pursuing specialized degrees i e bio chem etc
Lots of generalizations and you contradict yourself at the top in saying artists don't need a formal education and then later with everyone learns differently. Doing it formally does work for some people and not for others. If there were some surefire path to being an artist, fookin' everyone would do it!
I strongly suspect Cadillac Man would pursue his history degree just as I would pursue mine if I had to do it over even with the knowledge those would not likely become career fields. The luxury of being able to sit about for four years and learn / think about smart crap of some kind is much more than some kind of stoner paradise as there is real enlightenment. It may not have much bank value but it has enormous life value.
I strongly disagree the only point of a university is specialized degrees for specific purposes. Productivity is absolutely not the be all / end all of human capability! We must always aspire to be more than the process!
And what's this about your 'potential' or anyone's potential. It seems you perceive some standard and you did not meet it but I suspect everyone feels that in some way. It's healthy as that makes motivation. I will fookin' make it!
Legba tells it when he says, "Ain't nothin' as good as we hoped it would be, bluesman. You know that."
But the other side of that is they would be nothing at all if you had not tried.
Seems like a peach of a time just at this moment to grab onto living to someone else's idea of potential only matters to a point in life and the win is understanding I am now living toward potential I set for myself and that's so fuckin' alright!
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