When I hire people, one of the questions I ask is if they like to learn new things. I have no desire for someone who doesn’t want to know and advance in the job.
Everyone answers yes, since that is the expected answer, but I have learned (heh) that the way they answer tells me a lot.
If they just say, “Yes.” Then no, no they do not. If they tell me of something that they learned just that morning, then they probably do.
Technically that is the case in most if not all states.
Yeah, exceptions here are made if you want to. It’s pretty silly, really. But, freedum! you know.
Pretty expensive here. We have community colleges, vocational schools essentially, that are a bit more affordable, but they will still run you a pretty good penny.
Like just about all human behavior, my bet would be on a complex feedback loop between nature and nurture. Maybe education can get inside that loop. Maybe it would only make a difference at the margins, but maybe that would be enough (a percentage point or two here or there could have had an enormous impact on the last 20 years of U.S. electoral politics). Again, I’m definitely not arguing against more or better education.
But I suspect promoting educational reforms to make kindergartners less likely to grow up to be Trump supporters might be a bit of a hard sell among Trump supporting parents…
To be honest, yes, many of them do want exactly this. They see it as safe enough and, in its heyday, was plenty lucrative to support a middle class family on one man’s wages.
Though even if the jobs came back, the wages wouldn’t, which is just another way in which it’s basically holding out for a pleasant fantasy over a harsh reality.
It’s not all that different in the United States. Education is mandatory in most states up to age 16. Many state constitutions require provision of free public schools, and all states do provide it from Kindergarted to Grade 12 (ages 6 to 18). There are home schooling allowances, but parents have to show that they are following the state curriculum and the children must take certain exams. Just like in Europe, people can opt out of free public school and sent their kids to fee-based private or religious schools.
Some states offer inexpensive community college options, but generally speaking higher education isn’t free, even in public colleges and universities.
What makes you assume that U.S. education has less math, statistics, and biology than European schools? Religion is not a common subject in U.S. public schools. “Intelligent design” has been inserted into some curricula by right-wing politicians.
U.S. curricula do fail in terms of world history and geography. It’s to U.S.-centered. Foreign languages: It’s a complex issue. I’m not sure that U.S. schools are generally deficient in that subject–perhaps they don’t start early enough, but that’s debatable.
“More respect for nature”? I have no idea what you’re talking about. What gives you the idea that U.S. schools teach lack of respect for nature?
In any case, I don’t think any of the fundamental problems in the American polity are based in school curricula.
Voting represents different things to different people. No doubt some people really swallow Fox News, but some people who voted for Trump just don’t like change. I suspect that’s really what underlies most Trump support: the story has been that America’s diversifying and that this diversification and dilution of whiteness and white culture is…inevitable. And I think that’s the part that Trump voters object to: the inevitability of change, and that their lives must change because some talking head in the media or some panel of scientists, doctors, or civil servants tells them they must.
Rather than simply say, “I couldn’t agree with you more,” I (probably not for the first time) offer the summary of this study that always stuck with me:
“A study by scientists at New York University and the University of California, Los Angeles, found differences in how self-described liberal and conservative research participants responded to changes in patterns. Participants were asked to tap a keyboard when the letter “M” appeared on a computer monitor and to refrain from tapping when they saw a “W.” The letter “M” appeared four times more frequently than “W,” conditioning participants to press the keyboard on almost every trial. Liberal participants made fewer mistakes than conservatives when they saw the rare “W,” indicating to the researchers that these participants were better able to accept changes or conflicts in established patterns. The participants were also wired to an electroencephalograph that recorded activity in their anterior cingulate cortex, the part of the brain that detects conflicts between a habitual tendency and a more appropriate response. Liberals were significantly more likely than conservatives to show activity in the brain circuits that deal with conflicts during the experiment, and this correlated with their greater accuracy in the test.”
It puts the issue you raise in very sharp relief.
It also poses a bit of a political dilemma, because – as has been said by Trump supporters on any number of fronts – ignoring these differences is done at the Democrats’ peril.
How do you speak directly to vast groups of people who hold different values, different beliefs, and who fundamentally process information differently ?
I think the Trump team did it by finding the single biggest block of Republican voters with a very similar demo- and psychographic to whom they could strategically market. That block was big enough that – provided their message didn’t alienate too many other potential voters – they could ride it to an EC win.
I don’t know whether a single block exists for the Democrats that would allow them to ignore the rest of the (party or) country and still win the election.
I don’t think that’s what happened on the left this time … at all. I think hatred for Trump was the single biggest factor in Biden’s support.
I’m not sure they’re going to have a similar circumstance again.
I think they need to get busy … very busy, slicing and dicing the data and arriving at a strategy for 2024.
This is a HUGE issue in the U.S. - it’s perfectly ok with most parents in our school district that the elected board comprised mostly of stay-at-home moms and retired men who guide what is included in the curriculum or what is not included as well as the school year calendar.
Which means that we provide the minimum education required to students at public schools and that education varies substantially district by district. And even those considered best in the state have leeway to exclude subjects they find uncomfortable. A great example is sex education. We live in the best school district in the state. However, because of religion, schools teach abstinence-only education, which I find particularly alarming given that I’ve had to disabuse my kids of the notion that sex = HIV/AIDS and instant pregnancy.
In my mind, subjects like sex ed and evolution are simple matters of biology. I get that it’s my job as a parent to have these conversations with my kid as well, but it pisses me off to no end that my son is provided very limited information on things like periods and pregnancy and contraception, while my daughter had limited information on how penises work and how women become pregnant.
Oh, and the calendar issue is important as well - the board has in the past claimed to provide as little instructional time as is required by the state to “make it easier for working parents and give children a much-needed break.” I don’t disagree that we load our kids up here disproportionately during the school year, but maybe if you spread it out over a more extended schedule, you’d have less burnout among students and be able to limit homework more rather than cram as much as humanly possible into a semester (which seem to be shorter and shorter every year). Also, reducing the number of days kids are in school in no way makes it “easier for working parents.” What that means is working parents scrambling to figure out what the heck to do with their kids. Yeah, that’s our JOB, but many parents who are hourly find themselves cutting their household income or getting pushed out of a job because their kids have nowhere to go. When pressed, the school board admitted that they didn’t consult any working parents and that there are none on the school board.
For me, that summarizes about 50% of the U.S. If it’s uncomfortable and requires additional research outside your echo chamber and maybe, just maybe might provide you with a more expanded worldview, let’s just not do it. It’s clearly evil. And if it involves inclusiveness and consideration of a bigger picture outside of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, how’s about we ignore it and pretend like we didn’t?
The Baby Boomers who are currently dominant in our society were unusually well educated by US historical standards. We were competing with the Soviet Union and wanted to maintain our scientific and cultural edge. School funding has never been higher than at that period as a percentage of GDP or budgets. Our public schools literally were the envy of the world when they were growing up.
That sure as shit didn’t turn them into conscientious voters able to sniff out the bullshit of the likes of Donald Trump.
Don’t get me wrong - education in general is beneficial to society. But ascribing it as a key factor in our current shitshow doesn’t add up.
It’s also worth noting that much of what we’re talking about falls under the destructive rubric of American Exceptionalism.
No end of websites aggregate important statistics from reputable organizations that quantify, in myriad ways, the standings of individual nations among all the other nations.
American Exceptionalism is a UI constraint that blocks you from seeing any country that scores higher than we do on any metric, and bolsters your smug jingoism by bolding the laundry list of countries that score lower.
And anybody who isn’t a stars-and-stripes dry humper ([cough]Trump[cough, cough]) knows that we score poorly on just about every important metric, and continue to decline.
[Side note: Can you imagine if Obama’s theme had been making America great again – a clear implication that we are not great now ?]
We proliferate worst practices in this country, instead of best practices, because it makes a certain demographic feel just a wee bit less insecure about their identity.
And because it tends to redistribute wealth in one party’s preferred direction.
It’s a race to the bottom, and we’ve been doing really, really well !
As I said in another thread, I think Democrats need to be willing to speak to some whites who just might be a little racist. I don’t mean pander to them or go along with their worldview - not at all. But they should stop trying to cleanse their party of people who don’t exactly fit their mold. They should be the party of equal opportunity and the party of economic fairness, and yes, they should be the party of diversity and inclusion, but I would stop short of saying that they should be the anti-racist party.
I think racism and race consciousness will recede to some degree if Democrats can show strength and unity on the economic front. And I disagree that Democrats can’t be boldly progressive in that regard. The take-away will be that Democrats can’t have any proposal that might be labeled socialist, and I think that’s b.s. Rather, propose something tangible that will improve people’s lives, and then explain why it’s not only not any more “socialist” than farm aid or disaster relief or social security, but that it’s something we can do collectively to improve people’s lives and give them a shot at succeeding or rebounding from hardship.
Democrats frequently, all too often really fuck up badly at messaging, and that tells me that, in one sense, the criticism that they don’t understand all of America is true. If you can’t figure out a way to sell healthcare access to all, then you really don’t understand all of America. You understand the concerns of some members of your constituencies, but you don’t understand the concerns of people who oppose change. We have to understand both.
Again … this is no fun … because I agree with you wholeheartedly
I was talking with somebody recently about Obamacare. In polls, every single component part (provision) of Obamacare had massive support in polling.
Switch the question to like/dislike … “Obamacare,” and the numbers tanked.
Messaging issue.
The bones of a road map to what the Democrats need to do are probably here:
The challenge is to understand where to be on each of those broad issues, the policy prescriptions that might tend to appeal to a sufficient number of voters, and then the capacity to sell those policies effectively.
They really need messaging help. Biden has been a pretty weak messenger, too, IMHO. I have trouble envisioning him as a candidate in '24 for no end of reasons.
I don’t know how they’ll deal with the Gish Gallop aspect of the constant barrage of bullshit, lies, mischaracterizations, and endless fear-mongering (eg, “SOCIALIST!”) that will inevitably continue to come from the right.
But that’s for the Dems to figure out, and quickly.
I would like to see the Dems finally stop taking the high road, and use their position to change the shape of government. Don’t fucking compromise, ram shit through. The Republicans never will, and they have shown it, and it has made them more and more popular.
Appeal to the caveman brain that apparently controls half of America… They want to see strength. At least let our strength be guided by intelligence, unlike the last four years.
Put things in place that actually benefit people, and win on the strength of your policies’ ACTUAL effects. The way it should be.
