In this week’s random reading, I happened upon a 1976 article from The Radical Teacher that tangentially offers an explanation for why Koch/Trump Republicans view a traditional liberal university education with such disdain and why Governor Dennis Daugaard and the South Dakota business community that pulls his strings put such emphasis on teaching basic job skills throughout our education system:
…as more and more students are forced by arbitrary and elusive certificates to go farther and farther in their education, to stay out of the job market for longer and longer, it has become important for the ruling class to exclude the potentially radicalizing elements of higher education from the colleges. Thus everywhere along the scale of education there is a relentless march toward the basics. Education will again be defined solely by the three R’s and by docility and by grades and by command performances and failures [Wayne O’Neil, “Why Newsweek Can’t Explain Things,” The Radical Teacher, June 1976, p. 15.].
As we require students to spend more time in formal education getting degrees and certificates for certain jobs, we run the risk that they’ll pick up a class or two in political science or ethics or (gasp!) philosophy, which seemingly non-job-prepping subjects Governor Daugaard has been bad-mouthing throughout his governorship. Classes like that can get students thinking about bigger issues, and as Tom Joad astutely observed in The Grapes of Wrath, “You’re bound to get idears if you go thinkin’ about stuff.”
And the last thing Daugaard, Trump, and the Republican Party want is workers getting idears.
Probably Related: The state and T. Denny Sanford just handed out another (I’m guessing) $5 million to allow 356 students to get degrees for free at South Dakota’s vo-tech schools, where absolutely no philosophy courses will clutter their schedules.
Hi Cory
I have a philosophy degree. I like philosophy. However, I don’t think said degree was worth the $80,000 in (2002) tuition that was asked for it.
When my children will put down good money for an education, I would prioritize that they learn unique skills that can’t be picked up elsewhere… like becoming a doctor or researching dark matter. If you just want to expand your mind with philosophy, get a library card, or watch the free philosophy lectures from MIT that are available online. I really don’t think my son will have a stunted mind if he fails to write a paper on whether or not the chair he says on is real.
Kind regards,
David
*sits
(is there a pithy term for autocorrect typos, yet?)
As a biology major in the 1970s I had finally focused down hard on ecology, but I had to fill out my humanities credits with an English class. Like most senior level students, I grumbled about this, but chose a modern literature class. We read “The French Lieutenant’s Woman,” a novel by John Fowles. It was a hot read in the late 60s and early 70s. It turned into my favorite novel of all time, although Andre Brink’s “An Instant In the Wind” is a close second. Because of that novel I became fascinated by the literature and history of Britain, and would later read many authors, especially Hardy and Austen, on my own. Getting hooked on English writers, you have to read Shakespeare, which most kids get introduced to in high school, but never really appreciate.
My point is that you can go to school to learn a trade, and that’s fine. We all have to do that at some point, but my life was so enriched by that English class that I can’t imagine what my life would have been like without it.
I have a a degree in Humanities. I’ve always loved the arts. I worked the entire time I was in school and graduated with no debt but the degree, though I love it, did not qualify me for anything other than an appreciation of the arts.
When my son went to SDM&T I was insistent that his fist degree qualify him for a job. It did. Between scholarships and what we had saved he graduated with no debt. SDSM&T was advertising that the $56K for all expenses for an engineering degree was less than the average first year income they were right. His law degree was his choice and on his dime which met what my views were and I was happy for him even though the law profession is certainly less in starting pay than for an engineer. Thankfully he somehow figured out how to do that as well with no debt and he gets to follow his dream, debt free and employable.
Kind regards,
OldSarg
Back in the spring of 1978, I took a quarter class in my junior year at the old Washington High School entitled, ‘The History of Civil Disobedience.’ This class taught not only the history of civil disobedience and its great leaders like Gandhi and King, but it also taught the logic of civil disobedience and how one who practices just disobedience has an obligation or duty to not only protest and potentially violate what they see as an unjust law, but they must also be willing to civilly accept the consequences of their actions by not resisting arrest but rather by beginning an aggressive, though civil, defense with their attorney to challenge such an unjust law that caused them to be arrested.
Something tells me that such classes are not taught in our schools today. In fact, they struggle to even teach civics in our school systems today. Rather, we hear an obsession with vocational education and ‘Workforce Development’ by many of those who claim to be concerned about our education systems today.
Now, I am not against vocational education. In fact, one of my hobbies is carpentry – although for the most part self taught – but I do believe it is important to produce well rounded students who are exposed not only to a hammer, but also the history of tyranny and its hammers, and how the tools of a great society are found not only in one’s hands, but also in one’s mind. And that the promotion of a well rounded student should extend beyond high school and be made possible at credible levels to those who choose an education in the social sciences in post secondary education as well. Because those who criticize the social sciences are criticizing the building blocks of a just, civil, and democratic society and such advocacy mere works to empower a few at the expense of the many, which is not a democratic result.
For it is not the duty of our educational systems to channel people, rather it is to enlighten them – hence the lamp as a symbol of education itself – and those who obsess with vo-tech or ‘Workforce Development’ wish to merely put out the light that a free people so desperately need.
And on a final note, why do we need ‘Workforce Development? Whatever happen to “on-the-job training?” Do we really need to use government resources and monies to do what the private sector once did? Do we really need an other government program to facilitate the needs of a business community which is often conservative, anti-government, and against taxes? Yet, they have the audacity to use or ask the government to help them in the same way they often criticize others for doing, which is often characterized as a handout by such conservative members of the business community when others expect such a government answer.
And let us also not forget, that to attack the social sciences is to attack some of the tools found in the “tool bag” of a free people. For we all have a “tool bag” and some of us know how to use it properly. ;-)
I see where ya got your degree in Humanities, great Russian school…the comrades say.
http://rggu.com/
I took classes in ethics & philosophy in prep school and at UMass.
Theology, too. Way too much Greek literature, as well, now that I think about it. And history. Lots of history. Enough to know that the world has seen all the Democrats’ stupid ideas and they don’t work.
This is not what you expected, I’m sure.
Jerry, you would not even be admitted to the schools I attended to even serve lunch and after high school the colleges were all in the United States.
On the near holy holiday of Labor Day, it’s nice and proper of Anne Beal to remind us of all we liberal Democrats have given America. We’re proud and we damn well have a right to be.
The New Deal
Social Security
Minimum Wage
The Civil Rights Act
The Voting Rights Act
Medicare
Gun Control
Obamacare
We’ve come a long way and yet there are still toadstools to topple.
I know, I am an American patriot and you are a Comrade. What were your school colors?? Red, of course. Football rules (soccer) of course.
Ms. Beal, the only republican idea that has ever been worth a damn in the last 50 years has been the EPA. One of the cornerstone’s of American brilliance. After that, war and more war with the same old weaponry and new stuff that won’t work 74% of the time. In fact, we are always at war with our 800 bases around the planet, no wonder you seem agitated.
jerry, you are all mouth. You’re not even worth the time it took me to post this.
Corporate fascist strategy is still plain old Russian/CPAC/NRA corruption. In fact, as Paul Erickson says ““It might be a novel someday,”, except it is the unfortunate South Dakota corrupted truth. Geesh, how did we get all these traitors among us here?
“Mariia Butina, the Russian graduate student and gun enthusiast indicted in July for acting as an unregistered foreign agent, pursued a plan to deliver a massive amount of jet fuel to the United States from Russia in cooperation with a former NRA president and his wife, a prominent lobbyist, the New York Times reported Sunday.
Butina’s boyfriend, the Republican strategist Paul Erickson, was also deeply involved in the attempted fuel shipment, which never bore any fruit.
“It might be a novel someday,” Erickson wrote at one point to the lobbyist, Donna Keene, per the Times. Keene’s husband is the former NRA president and influential conservative David Keene.” Crooks and liars as well as turn coats, so un-American, not a patriot among them.
Prof. Claussen, your comment is one of the most eloquent and pleasing to read that has ever appeared in my review of DFP and its predecessor, The Madville Times. You beautifully and poetically stated the purpose of a well rounded education and why it is so critical to a highly functional democratic government.
Cory’s post clearly indicates why Russpublicans are so determinedly opposed to that well rounded education. They are deeply opposed to a highly functional electorate.
Both items together show why electing Democratic majorities in Congress and state governments is absolutely critical to returning the United States of America to its position as a leader of democratic nations around the world.
Our nation must have our support by turning out in November and voting for Democrats. As patriotic citizens, we can do no less.
Korporotae amerika and wingnuts have only one civics lesson to be taught to workers today and in the future- UNIONS are EVIL.
In his discussion of his over-priced philosophy degree, there may be evidence that the free market doesn’t assign the clearest value to education. What value can we place on David’s intelligent, civil inquiries contributions to our discussions?
David and John KC both get me thinking about school’s purpose of teaching things we can’t learn elsewhere. I now wish I had paid more attention to learning carpentry, plumbing, and wiring when I was younger, but I wouldn’t have needed shop class for that; I could have learned enough to build my own house (David joined me one weekend in an effort to do that!) just from my dad. But in youthful rebellion, I shunned the practical knowledge offered by my dad and sought expertise in areas I didn’t see him practicing regularly. For politics, philosophy, and rhetoric, I looked beyond my rather unphilosophical home to high school debate and college classes (reminder: I fell asleep during the one philosophy class I sat through at Harvard, but I profited significantly from the instruction of SDSU philosophers Kedl, Tolle, and Nelson, at a quarter of the cost per credit). If my dad had been a philosopher like David, I probably would have majored in shop.
I speculate (and invite evidence from readers!) that the dwindling of our farm population means fewer South Dakota kids grow up in homes learning practical carpentry and mechanics. There perhaps is a role for our schools to offer instruction in those skills to make up for what is being lost in home education (as is the case in many other areas).
But similarly, David, how many children grow up in homes like yours where they can be inspired by their parental example to check out lots of thick books and take free MIT courses online? How many moms and dads are reading their kids books every night instead of just handing them the iPad or phone to dull their imaginations with pre-fab visions?
I hear frequent calls for teaching more civics. I agree wholeheartedly with that call. But how many people use “civics class” as code for some kind of loyalty class? How many people would include in their civics curriculum JKC’s civil disobedience class or some similar practical education in direct engagement in the political process? Just as shop class seems silly if you don’t pick up the tools and build something (not just a bookshelf, but a shed, or a house!), civics class seems silly if we don’t register kids to vote and give them opportunities to make campaign signs, canvass for candidates, design and distribute literature for the ACLU or the FHA, or go to the city commission and the Legislature and testify on substantive and controversial issues. One problem with civics class is that we have to be willing to let our little genii out of their bottles and engage in the actual political process, in ways that might make some grown-ups uncomfortable.
Imagine a civics class where students work for Democratic, Republican, or Libertarian candidates, as they see fit. I’m sure someone from each party would find cause to freak out about public school time being used to engage students in activities on behalf of their opponents—er, in partisan political activity, as surely as some local bigots freak out when social studies classes include units on Islam and other major religions. But what do we want from civics class: young people who become practically active in civic affairs with the possibility that they will use those civic skills to challenge the political status quo, or young people who are merely obedient?
Anne and Porter seem to have read different history books. Porter’s history book appears to have more details.
Nonetheless, I would rather Anne and other students have access to such higher learning than that their education be boiled down to constant drill of basics for standardized tests transitioning directly to vocational training. We never know which young people will be inspired to engage in politics; vocational training drearily removed from the great democratic pursuits to which Jefferson thought every farmer was called.
[David, on autocorrect typos: auto-incorrect? auto-wreck? Perhaps the machines are competing with the Russians to undermine our faith in the printed word and weaken our society as a prelude to conquest. Hmm… to beat our machine overlords, perhaps we will need a combination of civics and shop class….]
Government should pay for everyone’s education (if you can pass the entrance exams) for the same reason we have snowplows on the streets. Because, buying things we all need and use is much cheaper as a group. That, my friends, is what government is for. It was Americans as a group that rejected England. Beat back slavery. Stopped Hitler. Began Social Security to mitigate elderly poverty. Began Medicare to help seniors live without fear of illness. America is a grand and glorious group. Whoever says small government is good government has selfish, greedy, ulterior motives.
What a great discussion here! I, too, wish I had more practical knowledge. I liked shop class, especially carpentry and electrical stuff, but I only had a year of that in junior high. My Dad wasn’t handy at all, so I learned very little from him. When I had to learn some basic stuff on my own, I got a lot of practice in all the cuss words.
My brother spent his working life, all 48 years of it, making real things that ended up in apartments and houses in the area around Sioux Falls. I have an immense amount of respect for people who work building things for other people’s lives.
When I was on the school board, I supported all the tech-ed changes that they were making, which boiled down to more emphasis on using computer-aided technology in design and robotics and the like. I think that was the right thing to do from a vocational sense at the end of the millennium, but I do wonder if things like carpentry and plumbing and electrical wiring aren’t just as important.
It used to be that one learned a skill, a trade, or a craft at the instruction of a master – via an apprenticeship. Unions took on that role as we became industrialized, and the unions I’ve been a part of through my life still offer training and education and apprenticeships (PAID learning).
Of course, the PRIVATELY ORGANIZED unions have been demonized by the “business classes” as commies and socialists and greatly diminished in their role in society. And so now, the same “business classes” have deemed that the work-force available to them is insufficiently skilled to hire – so they are calling upon the tax-payer and the government to do the job that the PRIVATELY ORGANIZED unions (which they destroyed) used to do.
To summarize, get rid of private unions and connive the tax payers into performing the same services as a government function. So who are the hypocrites and socialists again?
Donald’s dad wasn’t handy. My dad wasn’t wordy. A good public education system fills gaps like that.
In general, education gets students thinking about things that they wouldn’t have thought about otherwise.
Richard, you are so right. Unions still do apprenticeship training in my area. No tuition, no Union apprenticeships actually pay you to learn, rather than the other way around. You go to class and you learn by doing. Some of the work you do at first is go-fer stuff, cleanup, etc., but they work you in when they think you’re ready, and you go step-by-step up the ladder, getting better pay with every stip. The trades have been a male dominated area, but women who are interested should consider it.
I don’t know if this comment is on point, it was just a thought I had. What if failure in a class wasn’t such a determining factor in graduating? I wasn’t taught shop skills at home and was intimidated at the idea of signing up for such a class. If it was required, maybe I could have fallen in love with the work or learned useful skills. Most likely it would’ve been a source of harmful stress. But if the class had been merely available to me to learn at my own pace? That would have been far more likely to be beneficial to me. I wonder if others feel the same about classes that were required which I had less trouble in (college algebra or a foreign language class for instance)?
Ben’s question is interesting. At most universities you can take a course or two as pass/fail. You still have to pass the course, but otherwise the grade you get doesn’t affect GPA. Are there any high schools that allow an elective or two in high school to be taken pass/fail?
I think there are many benefits to a liberal arts education, but there are certainly many benefits and a need for tech school and trade education as well. A liberal arts education promotes well roundedness. I gained the opportunity to have a rewarding career but also was introduced to a wide range of subjects like philosophy, religion and Western Civ. On the other hand, I can’t change my own oil now as an adult and I had a bloody run in with a bandsaw in high school( Full on horror movie blood spatter) I think it would be amazing if we could offer people both career oriented education, but also mind expanding education and make these opportunities accessible and affordable for everyone.
My entire doctoral program was Pass/Fai, but in that case it meant either you passed (performed up to the professor’s standards) or you were OUT OF THE POROGRAM. I.E., failure was not an option.
So where the hell are the conservative arts schools so wingnuts quit griping about liberal arts? I’m beginning to believe the only things wingnuts are good at is griping and obstructionism. They sure as shooting can’t govern and they couldn’t find their butt with either hand looking for criminal activities.
Mike, conservative arts school would consist of the following classes..#1. Target shooting. #2. Domestic beer drinking. #3. The art of lying and hypocrisy. #4. 1st grade spelling for Dummies.
This is for both High and Middle Schools in South Dakota.
Health Integration
Meeting grad requirement but not
offering credit …
• District must report via Department
of Education’s Personnel Record
Form if it is meeting the graduation
requirement through health
integration.
• District must document how it
plans to meet key health standards.
Documentation must be kept on file
at the district level.
• District must provide recognition
of completion on the student
transcript. No grade is earned; no
credit is assigned; and therefore,
it does not count toward the
student’s GPA.
This can also be taken for credit. I don’t know why.
That is funny, RJ, but you might be giving them too much credit for ambition.
Hi Donald, OldSarg, Cory, John, Richard, and Ben,
Thank you for the reflective posts. We all have different paths through education and it’s interesting to compare.
As Cory mentioned, my father was on the intellectual side. He’s always reading books. He taught us chess and coached us to two state championships. Dinnertime was always filled with critical discussion. So for me, a philosophy class wasn’t the mind-expanding experience that it can be for others.
Lots of things are in play in this discussion. First, I am wholeheartedly in favor of education. I want all children (and adults) to be knowledgeable and curious.
Second, public education is good, but public education has limits. Nobody’s advocating unlimited public education where students could spend 70 years failing college classes on the taxpayer’s dime. Whether we have 13 years of public education (K-12) or 19 (preschool-college, like Finland) there are limits to the curriculum. There isn’t room for every foreign language, every computer language, and the entire body of federal case law… even though it would be pretty awesome if citizens came out of high school with all that knowledge. Public education also costs money. Public education also requires the public agreeing on what should be taught and how.
Third, careers are becoming increasingly specialized, which means more education and more specialized education. You don’t just put out an ad for a computer guy anymore… you’re looking for a Xamarin user interface engineer with experience in NoSQL backends. You don’t become a doctor, but a retina specialist. You don’t need a lawyer, but a copyright attorney. A liberal arts degree doesn’t set you up for much. Even a specialized degree isn’t always enough. Four years of workplace experience in software is better than an actual Computer Science degree from many colleges.
Fourth, knowledge is moving rapidly. Everything I learned in computer science at college was antiquated by the time I graduated. Should taxpayers fund teachers constantly learning all the new information, so they can pass it to the students… or should we bypass the middlemen and just teach students how to navigate the whitewater rapids of information?
Fifth, the price of higher education is skyrocketing. And it seems like this is because universities are competing on non-essentials to attract undecided freshmen… like getting their sports teams into Division 1 and building rock walls in their student unions. I’m with Mike Rowe, it’s madness to commit to $100k in debt if you don’t have a credible plan of paying that off. Especially when…
Sixth, there are millions of cheap alternatives to formal education. Free ivy league lectures online. Wikipedia. Newsela. Stack exchange. Github. TED talks. AP. Reuters. Your local library. I’m not super mechanical, but when my car’s air conditioner stopped being cold, I could fix it with a $30 can of A/C pro and a YouTube video. No chance that I would have attempted that prior to the Internet. You can road trip on the cheap with Uber and Airbnb. Traveling gives you tons of experiences you can’t get any other way.
One of my favorites methods of teaching knowledge and curiosity to my 8-year-old son is to play Civilization 6 with him. Last spring, he thought that humans have always had electricity. A couple months later, he has a general outline of scientific history, can rattle off a number of history’s most notable leaders, and wants to visit every natural and historical wonder in the game (e.g. the Pyramids, the Grand Canyon, the Alhambra, St. Basil’s cathedral, Mt. Fuji). He could hardly contain himself when he found out that the Washington Pavilion had a documentary about the Terracotta Warriors, since his empire (Sumeria, led by Gilgamesh) had just built the Warriors in his game. We visited the Mall of America, and he asks me, “Daddy, is this a Commercial Hub?” Of course, he names his cities after Pokemon and Minecraft characters, but that just keeps him hooked. :)
Another weekend, he and I made a smartphone video game together. We downloaded Unity3D (free for personal use) and followed some YouTube videos that gave us step-by-step instructions to make a FlappyBird clone. Altogether it cost $0 and took about 3 hours. We both learned a ton, and had a finished product to be proud of. I wish that every 2nd grader could do that. Why isn’t that a universal part of the 2nd grade curriculum?
I love learning. I love teaching. However, I also love efficiency exceedingly. With so many cost-effective ways to learn, I hesitate to try to cram everything into the taxpayer-supported model.
Kind regards,
David
Donald, I get the feeling that block scheduling and graduation requirements crowd out room for experimenting with electives the Ben would like to or allowing students to perhaps audit courses. We set the treadmill cranking pretty early, plugging in to the business of earlier college visits and admission deadlines. For Pete’s sake, don’t give kids time to think.
You’ve got me thinking, Ben: what other barriers do we create to a Pass-Fail system… or maybe even just a mastery system? How many really bright kids would risk taking the kind of classes you have in mind that could certainly enrich their learning but would put at risk their GPA? How hard would it be to move entirely away from grading and just offer students a variety of self-paced learning activities?
Mike, “Health Integration”?! Reading the DOE sheet on that graduation requirement makes me queasy.
But I wonder: if we’re going to train kids to be good radicals with an openness to civil disobedience, don’t we also need to make sure they have P.E. so they’ll be healthy enough to run from the tear gas?
Oh, wait: JKC said part of proper civil disobedience is not running, staying and facing the legal consequences of one’s action so one can turn to fighting and overturning the bad law in court.
See? I’m learning something, and this symposium is most certainly not graded.
David, I am thrilled that you are able to incorporate Civilization into effective parenting. Carry on… just make sure your son saves and closes the game at 9 p.m. and goes to bed.
As a parent, David is free to incorporate Civilization or any other new and fun video game or book or travel into his “curriculum” with his kids. He can respond quite nimbly to the swiftly changing technology and knowledge demands he sees coming (as long as he doesn’t fall into our classic “back in my day”-ism). Teachers laboring under increasing standardization don’t have the same freedom. Teachers have to align their lessons and exams to the state standards. Changing the standards (and the textbooks, and the tests) takes years. By the time the standards respond to some new phenomenon of the information age, we may already be on to the next new thing. I would be happier and society would be better if education worked more like how David teaches his son.
But I wonder (folks, don’t worry too much about topicality—this is a think piece!): do we get more radicals from the standard K-12/university system or from home-schooling? Are parents as prone to pressing their kids into support for the status quo as Governor Daugaard and the corporate vo-tech boosters?
David said, “A liberal arts degree doesn’t set you up for much.”
Au contrarié! Many professional degree schools urge their students to earn their undergrad in a liberal arts area. J School, Law School, God School, MFA, etc.
Jes’ saying. 😊
Debbo provides an excellent reminder that, in a world of ever-shifting specialist knowledge, the best academic preparation is rigorous practice in logic, analysis, composition, and attention, with subject matter consisting heavily (I will suggest) timeless classics of history, literature, and art.
Plus good computer games like Civilization. And good movies.
I was going to suggest that all that specialized training for careers should take place in the workplaces of the employers demanding those specialized skills. You want Xamarin and NoSQL backends? Train your new classically schooled hires yourself for the five years you’ll need those skills. You want someone versed in copyright law? Give that new law school grad a crash course and have her proof the supporting briefs. Need a retina specialist? Hand your new GP a scalpel and point her toward that patient who just walked in… oh, wait, maybe on-the-job training doesn’t solve everything.
But how specialized can school make us? How long must we stay in school to reach the market-worthy level of specialization? How much increased risk do the specialists assume of swift obsolescence and no easily transferrable skills? And how much time do specialists hurrying to get their certificates and squeeze some value out of them before the job market subdivides or obsolesces their jobs have to study political philosophy and engage in a little Obama-style community-organizing to clean up the neighborhood and fight corporate pollution (environmental, moral…)?
Unions provided the on the job trained workers with special skills and korporate amerika used to be glad to hire them so they didn’t have to spend time and money training worker themselves.
Minnesota korporations were only too happy to hire on displaced union workers from SnottWankerstan’s Wisconsin.
Homeschooling your kids tends to be more radical than sending them to public school. Maybe we don’t always like the worldview it imparts, but that might just further prove it’s radical. Radical isn’t inherently good. Does that mean we should be afraid of freethinking? No, but be careful what you wish for.
Again, workforce education only focuses on “job skills” – – ONLY the elements needed by employers. All this great workforce paradigm floods the labor pool to keep labor prices lower for the employer and shifts all the training costs to the employee.
The only real solution to a workforce shortage is fair wages. Pay jobs at a rate worth taking – worth investing in to become qualified/certified — and workers will flock to them.
Hi Debbo, Cory,
We might be using different words to say the same thing. The “rigorous practice in logic, analysis, composition, and attention” within liberal arts isn’t that different from my suggestion that we “teach students how to navigate the whitewater rapids of information” rather than trying to keep teacher up-to-date with all the changing trends in business and technology.
My son’s class (he’s in the Harrisburg school district) seems to do a pretty good job of this from what I’ve witnessed on a couple parent-volunteer days. One day they pretended to be historical figures writing letters to each other (he was Thomas Edison writing to a 5th grader impersonating Ben Franklin). On another, they built rudimentary pinball machines from pegboard, straws, rubber-bands, and empty paper-towel rolls… labelling where each of Newton’s laws of motions applied. Third, they had to use software to design a bedroom to meet a fictitious client’s specifications. And most recently we field-tripped to the Palisades to go rock climbing. Not only that, but starting this week, I’m going to volunteer some of my time to teach the kids how to play chess every-other-Friday as a part of their math rotations. (Look out Pierre Indian Learning Center, we’re coming for your trophies!)
That’s pretty liberal-artsy for 2nd grade. Is this sort of curriculum adopted in other school districts?
Regarding workplace education, three things. (1) There are SD employers who invest in this. An agent friend of mine got her MBA at the University of Sioux Falls courtesy of Wellmark. Avera also helps their employees get further schooling. So it’s not like this never happens.
(2) If I need Xamarin and NoSQL talent, sure I could hire any old computer guy and train him for 5 years. That might work. But I’m much more likely to have success finding someone somewhere who already has those skills. And using fiverr.com they could freelance from anywhere in the world. (This is why we need South Dakotans with these types of skills, rather than philosophy degrees… because the jobs will go overseas in a mouse-click.)
(3) We discussed elsewhere that the concept of loyalty between employers and employees has been thoroughly shredded on both sides since the 60s. So where’s the incentive for employers to invest all that time and money in an employee who simply walks out the door to the competition with their newly-acquired skills?
There’s already plenty on the mind of your honorable business owner: complying with regulations, keeping their prices competitive, trying to forecast consumer trends, watching their cash flow, matching their inventory to the whims of their customers, arbitrating squabbles amongst employees, marketing, dealing with returns and unhappy customers, filing their business taxes, keeping track of their employees payroll taxes (and vacation/sick days), calculating depreciation, updating their website, engaging in social media, reviewing and updating their employee benefits… And in addition to all that they also should be evaluating different workforce-education vendors, finding a philosophy class, sending their employees to the classes, and finding temp employees to cover the shop while their normal workers are learning? Sorry, I just don’t see it.
Thanks to the Internet, the knowledge to be or do just about anything is cheap and easily accessible. Why should anyone (taxpayers, students, parents, or alumnus) waste money on any post-secondary class that isn’t directly aimed at recouping its egregious cost? Philosophy has been free ever since Socrates refused to accept payment for his teachings. If you’d like right now you can read everything Plato wrote about him, here.
Kind regards,
David
Interesting, Mike, that unions played a role in job training. Could that be a way for organized labor to get the corporate powers off their backs and make a comeback, in South Dakota in particular? What if unions used their dues (and to what extent do they already do this?) to pay for workers to take classes or even to offer in-house training to help their members stay competitive and non-obsolete in the changing labor marketplace?
AFL CIO runs government certified apprenticeship programs not only in the trades but also in organizing and strategic research.
https://aflcio.org/about-us/careers-and-apprenticeships
The AFL-CIO Organizing Institute runs a highly selective training program for talented individuals committed to social justice who want to be union organizers. Trainees who successfully complete the paid, 12-week apprenticeship program will be recommended to unions looking to expand their organizing programs. Starting salaries for union organizers are competitive and have excellent benefits.
https://aflcio.org/about/programs/organizing-institute/organizing-institute-apprenticeship-program
South Dakota is perfect for labor unions, in many ways. The German work ethic is just what we’re looking for. Dakota youth are well educated and socially civil, both tenets of unions. A union job (like a government job) usually becomes a career. Corporate employment isn’t usually a career. Those workers are little more than pieces to be moved around and discarded whenever the corporate stock price is weak.
~ My very first union job was as a laborer during the build of the Big Stone Power Plant. That involvement led to a Teamsters job in CO and eventually to an elected position within the Teamsters Rocky Mountain.
Corey – the union most of my current co-workers are members of (Operating Engineers) do just that. They provide free skills training for members funded through dues. Classes do have number limits and require a commitment of time from the members. Popular ones (teaching skills that are more likely to increase compensation rates) fill up fast. It some times takes 2-3 years of applying to get into them.
Hi David. I read a lot of articles in the Strib Business Section* written by columnists who interview local employers about what they do to keep good employees and create that loyalty. (Yes, they recognize how much that relationship has eroded too.)
Top of the line is consistently demonstrating loyalty to the employee. They pay well, offer good benefits, a pleasant environment and as many extras as they can.
For businesses with less $ to afford much for perks, employees report that being treated with respect, courtesy and kindness go a very long way. The more a business shares management info with employees so that they feel they have a role in decision making, the more loyal they feel. Opening the books is very effective. Praise is under-rated.
*The Strib Business Section has some really first rate columnists. Lee Schaeffer just won a Pulitzer a couple years ago.
Hi Deb,
Thanks for the reply. That’s sound advice, and I completely agree. However, Cory seems to doubt the efficacy of employer-dispensed perks. (Then again, has Cory ever worked for a company that he felt particularly loyal to? He seems to be more of the freelance type of worker.)
Kind regards,
David
David makes a fair point about my economic loyalty. Mr. Reitzel told us in senior government/economics at MHS that the free market is based on “easy in, easy out.” Employers and workers owe each other certain courtesies, but my labor is a product on the market. I provide that labor for a price. Promise me a year of pay, and I will promise you a year of labor. I will expect both promises to be kept. Absent longer-term promises, my loyalty extends no further than my paycheck.
That said, I have worked multiple jobs where I have accepted substandard pay year after year but remained loyal to employers because they provided me enjoyable opportunities to do good. I will give loyalty to good causes and good people.
There’s also a lot to be said for workers being loyal to each other. Such loyalty can serve every worker’s self-interest. Stick together, negotiate as a group, and collective power can force management to provide better pay (and benefits, if they float your boat) to everyone.
Of course, such a discussion of principles is easier to navigate and turn into action if students are given more time to study great books and philosophize in their education instead of being pushed into apprenticeships in local shops.