Do androids dream of clockwork sheep?

[jackofallgeeks]

I was directed Here by postvixen's journal.

The implications of todays educational structures really frighten me. I don't mean "oh, that's bad" frightened, I mean up-all-night-in-a-cold-sweat frightened. I think it's REALLY scary how schools are caught up in funding, which are based on test scores, which encourages narrowly defined, over-rushed lessons on how to score well. The point of schools these days isn't about learning, and it isn't even really about teaching what the Government wants you to think. It's about processing children through a system to get scores on a test which determines cash-flow. Teachers aren't concerned about whether children learn or not; teachers are penalized for doing too good a job, and are rewarded for passing students down the line, regardless of what they do or do not know.

Math is good to know, and in some vague sense it can still be taught in this sort of... system. But science can't, not really. And certainly language can't, or literature, or philosophy. Children are spoon-fed data which they're meant to regurgitate back, bit for bit. They aren't meant to think, or analyze, or anything else which makes humans rational beings. They're made very much to be little computers, little cogs in The Machine, and I think I for one can tell you just how stupid and mindless computers can be.

It's times like that, laying in sweat-soaked sheets at night, that I wish I'd been an English Major.

Comments

[surichan.livejournal.com]

That gives me the jibblies. Oh, wait...here they come again:

::jibbliejibbliejibblie::

How 'bout I become an English Major for you and you live vicariously through me? Both you and I have a language to protect, and I have a major that needs changing. What say?

[jackofallgeeks.livejournal.com]

*prepares an off-handed quip, then actually considers the proposal*

Would you? Answer carefully -- if you did take that path of thorns, you realize I would ask you everything about it, from what you were studying to what they were saying about it to what YOU were thinking about it... words and literature and such and the like... But dude, I would so advocate that sort of course study.

[surichan.livejournal.com]

I've been considering it honestly for some months now, majoring in English with a concentration in Linguistics. I think I would hang myself were I to go into teaching with said degree, but I wouldn't mind being an editor. I practically am now, sans payment for the work.

I love foreign tongues, and I would of course continue to study them, but I have a very special fondness for my native tongue, and I don't suppose I'd mind working toward a degree in it. It would of course increase my already flaming ire toward those who flagrantly misuse English...but I suppose that's par for the course. Only problem is I don't know how good ODU's English program is...but we'll see if they accept me, won't we?

[jackofallgeeks.livejournal.com]

Well, you shouldn't need to settle for ODU, since that seems to be your take on it (and I'm not sure I hold it in high regard myself). Still, on the matter of studying English, I think it could be a nice move, so long as you don't mind me asking you constantly about your studies.