US Public "Education".

Quotation marks are on purpose and don't expect me to say anything new what hasn't been said before. James Kunstler wrote today a piece on the "decline" (it is actually an implosion) of US education. He writes, justifiably, sarcastically about the while scam of US university (higher that is) ed. 

I have news for you: the colleges and universities are going down hard and hardly just because Covid-19 has interrupted their business plan. Rather, because of the stupendous and gross dishonesty that higher ed has fallen into. The racketeering around college loans was bad enough but the intellectual racketeering around fake fields of study, thought-crime persecutions, and an epic sexual hysteria has disgraced the very mission of higher ed, turned it into something no better than a sick cult, and infected the rest of the culture by seeding many institutions and business enterprises with cultist graduates bent on subjecting the whole of American society to a never-ending Maoist struggle session.

Well, most modern "fields of study" in the humanities field are a complete scam and have a negative (not just zero) academic value which subtracts from already feeble set of skills of psychologically unstable but sanctimonious, nonetheless, legions of young people with applicable professional skills of a birthday party pony for a kindergarten girl, let's not go into the evaluating the number of prefabricated ass-holes among them who will never become anything but losers incapable of self-reflection. And here is THE issue: yes, one needs to be broadly educated and language and literature are an absolute must, but whatever one thinks on localism and getting back to roots, which I support wholeheartedly, let's be honest--one needs people who know how to build machines. No machines, no survival, period. 

I am not going to dwell too much on the "level" of STEM in American public schools. Unless we are talk about some fairly exclusive schools, real STEM education on the level of K-12 in the US is basically non-existent. I am not talking about Khan Academy which could be a good primer for kids who actually want to learn, but the issue is much deeper--it is the whole structure, approach to those crucial years, usually between 7th and 12th grades which lay down the foundation for any true talent to emerge and be ready to progress to become truly productive in the field which provides for true national competitiveness. One needs an environment saturated with sounds and symbols of classic math, physics and chemistry. US public school couldn't provide that for the last 40 years, now--it is over. Key interaction in those subjects both between students and competent teacher and students are already being removed, and this is just the tip of an iceberg.  

Here is an example from Khan Academy on simplest trig. identities. 

They are filthy simple and are not a nightmare for any student who actually, unknowingly, should have been ready for that in 7-8th grade when studying (that's the point--if they studied) basic forms of factoring which simply has to be, in the end, memorized, such as square of the difference/sum and difference of squares etc. But this is not how factoring is taught in the US. And then kids, even a well performing kids, encounter this (which is a regular fodder for entrance exams in Russia for any decent STEM) and implode:

These are really easy things, but they are easy when they are taught:

1) systematically with ramping up complexity;

2) when students constantly are reminded on WHY they need this both for:

  a) future professional activity;

  b) for development of synapses which are crucial. 

This has never been done on a systematic level in the US and instead of generation of people who know that knowledge is a hard labor and who want to create, we all have got the armies of "free thinkers" and poets, and Queer Studies majors, who constitute the core of (stealing from Kunstler) Maoist crowds attacking, on DNC buck and with its guidance, every single pillar on which civilization rests. You say trigonometric equations and ANTIFA debauchery are not connected? Think twice: differential equations or theoretical mechanics are hard, Queer Studies and Feminism are easy--hence the free time for rioting. Of course, Mohamed Atta example could be used as an exception, after all the dude was an excellent engineer, but we are talking about trends, not narrow particulars or separate data points. 

 

So, here is my point--what is happening in the US today is, of course, a manifestation of a critical phase of liberalism's collapse and, with it, of the economic and ideological structure on which it relied. But let's not forget, that the change is being moved by people and, in American case, very ignorant and badly educated people. Moreover, American BLM-ANTIFA cabal is an uprising of Kreakls. Recall who those are. It is a "revolution" of lumpen masses who are "not essential" and, in fact, dangerous. Looks like taking out of trash started, with federal agents disposing of an ass-hole who murdered Trump supporter in Portland. Bypassing corrupt DAs is also a great idea. Finally, something is being done. In related news, however, good public schools mean this: 

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's "Sputnik-V" COVID-19 vaccine produced an antibody response in all participants in early-stage trials, according to results published on Friday by The Lancet medical journal that were hailed by Moscow as an answer to its critics. The results of the two trials, conducted in June-July this year and involving 76 participants, showed 100% of participants developing antibodies to the new coronavirus and no serious side effects, The Lancet said. Russia licensed the two-shot jab for domestic use in August, the first country to do so and before any data had been published or a large-scale trial begun.

You see, very simple--stay in school, study hard and Lancet will write about you. Develop your synapses and see the purpose in life. Just some thoughts for Friday evening. I will try to finish a large chapter for my new book tomorrow.