To begin with:

REAL community college students, professors, and staff are NOT PARASITES.

While I'm not surprised to see a right-wing talk show attack academia, that's just going over the line, to call an entire group a "parasite" when many students--myself included--are ONLY at a CC because a real university for all four years is too expensive.

There is NOTHING parasitic about that.



On the other hand, if their study is valid--and I'd like to emphasize "IF," as if FOX News had taught me anything about right-wing media, it's that these sort of shock-jounalists can play fast and loose with their facts--I DO agree...

Too many kids here in CCs--FAR too many slackers who don't want to do the work and take up slots, and that runs through all the college system, but at my CC at least, it CERTAINLY is true.

But NOT 70%, and to call the system itself a parasitic one is short-sighted and smacks of the sort of utter-elitism which makes me laugh as the right wing journalists like these two, and Limbaugh, and O'Reilly, and so on and som forth, "champion" the "real" Americans while attacking the "intellectuals," while they themselves owe their careers to academia...

Well, that and that "70% of slackers" that they speak of, to buy into their ideas.

@Graeme:

It was supposed to link to a podcast of their boradcast, I can't find a transcript online...

If you seach "KFI 640am Podcasts John and Ken 3/16" you might find the podcast.

It's not just CC students that are parasites - it's all of those taking time out to study "liberal arts", "law", "business" or pretty much anything else that they do at these so called "real universities". They all make me sick.

Parallelopiped, are you trying to make a joke? or are you serious? if you are serious, then you are a sick and twisted individual and should get help. seriously. if other people getting an education makes you "sick" then it's you that has problems. serious problems.

Obi, as a John and Ken Mob Member for almost as long as you've been alive, I must say your characterization of them as "extreme right wing" is incorrect. They are generally libertarian.

""extreme right wing" is incorrect. They are generally libertarian. "

what's the difference again?

How can you call a liberal arts degree an "education"? Really, these people would be better off contributing to society rather than simply sponging.

Podcasts are at:
http://johnandkenshow.com/

parallel you need to get a grip... a liberal arts education is very important. if liberal arts schools suddenly went up in smoke we would have a serious problem.

"http://johnandkenshow.com/ "

so, if i browse here and i listen to them, i get to learn why public education is the worst thing in the world? pass.

I agree with snappy, Parallelopiped:

I'm sorry, but while neither suit my fancy, BUSINESS and LAW are NOT wastes of time!

I'll grant that their are some students who take those classes who are wastes of space, will never use that knowledge, or just never learn, but that can be said of ANY field.

And as for Liberal Arts, while form most it's folly to try and take it as a Major, some knowledge is fair enough...

"so, if i browse here and i listen to them, i get to learn why public education is the worst thing in the world? pass."

Sounds like someone can't handle a challenge to their perceptions.

i teach at a Comm college, and i have students who are better than when i taught at a major state university. Some worse as well, but another thing ive found is I have a higher percentage of students tend to care more than the students i had at the state university, and not just about grades either.

or that the attack on public education is so ridiculous ... or rather, it would be ridiculous if it weren't so serious.

"I have a higher percentage of students tend to care more than the students i had at the state university, and not just about grades either."

To what would you attribute this difference?

1. class participation is higher
2. students come to me with questions about the material/ essay writing, not just to bitch about grades
3.students ask questions rather than "could you repeat that" or will this be on the test

i tought something like 16 classes at a state school, there were always 2 or 3 students that actually care, at CC i feel that at least a quarter if not a half of the students do. Just my personal experience

My question was too vague. Why from your experience are CC students more motivated than 4-year students?

well im in a low income area, these students are there because either A. they want the degree B. they want to learn,

This is opposed to the kids at state schools who A. they want the degree B. They want to learn C. they want to party D. Their parents told them too E. They don't even know why.

I see more consistent motivation in my cc students (shouldn't say kids because many are older than me)

I'm a community college student too, and I'm going for the same reason: attending a four-year college for four years would be too expensive.

I would say that one thing that would fix the problem of slackers in colleges (which there definitely are) would be if modern society did not put such emphasis on getting a college degree. Then slackers wouldn't be socially obliged to go to college even though they have no idea what they want to do. It's really ridiculous. There are decent jobs out there that don't require a degree. If you don't know what you want to do, DON'T SUCK UP YOUR PARENT'S AND YOUR OWN MONEY AND THE GOVERNMENT'S MONEY JUST TO DRIFT FOR NO REASON THROUGH THE SYSTEM!

ok, feeling better now...

PS we know Obi--why was he listening to a "Right-of-the-Right Wing" program like this at all???? Is he a closet conservative? :)

a mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Don't waste your time. Don't go to university. Get a real job - earn some money, pay some taxes, quit squandering the best years of your life on education.

Because without education, all the employers of the world will be tripping over themselves to offer you a 'real' job.

@SantaClausowitz:

What do you teach, pray tell?

And I KNOW my English classes are EXTREMELY lively and active...my college my suck on the whole, but the English Department, luckily enough for me, probably has the most involved and passionte students in the entire campus...

I'm taking FOUR English classes this semester, at least one every day...and I LOVE every last minute of it and, with the exception of one of the professors, each and every one I've had is not only engaging but genuinely cares about the students, it's a great little on-campus community to be a part of (and that's why even the "bad" professor's class is so much fun: she LOATHES me or anyone who dares speak or in the slightest way challenge her ideas or even question her literary heroes or England itself--see: "Anglophile" and "More English than the English"--but that just makes it all the more fun for the rest of us, knowing each other and out strengths so well, to poke holes in her strawman arguments and points and just enbjoy the class and the material which, aside from her stuffiness, is fun, Eng. Lit 1750-1900, a TON of great writers in that period!

Oh--and being introduced to people as "the Shakespeare Guy" is fun...a friend of a friend walked in the other day as a few of us were at this place having lunch, sat down, and siad, "So you're Shakespeare Man? I've heard a LOT about you...") XD

@baumhauer:

No, I was directed to it by a link on my college website (needless to say the college was nine to happy about their remarks and, again, with--mostly--good reason.)

Don't you worry, Obi's not a closet conservative--actually, his free-time philosophy book at the moment is "On Liberty" by the great Beacon of the Left, John Stuart Mill!

(Got it because that "bad" professor is going to lecture on that later on in the semester and she sort of said in passing that it'd be nice if we read it but she doesn't expect any of us will...she's already pompous enough and it's already fun to take her down a peg--I look foward IMMENSELY to her talking about one of my Four Favorite Philosophers...I'm not taking a Philosophy class this semester, so arguing against any banal attacks on Mill--she's already made it clear she prefers the 1700s and then Victorian-celebrating writers to Romantics and Revolutionaries in those times, so she looks like the type to take the anti-Mill stance...fun times ahead!) ;)

I only have an associates degree (and nearly 30 years experience) and I still get turned down at some companies for not having a bachelors.

@Parallelopiped:

"Don't waste your time. Don't go to university. Get a real job - earn some money, pay some taxes, quit squandering the best years of your life on education."

Congratulations!

That very well might be the DUMBEST NON-TROLL POST I'VE EVER READ!

Strike that, that might have a chance to make a list of some of the stupidest and most absurd claims I've ever heard...and THIS from the guy who's heard folks say:

"That exhaust froim that jet is really a spray, and it's a government spray that is part of a government plan to keep us all in a Matrix-like "Program" that you can never break...I've broken it, but you have to go on Google to learn how, but that's plugging into the Program, see?"

"There were never any Jews in Europe, and YOU aren't a Jew, there's no such thing as a WHITE Jew! All Jews are blacks, and they're all in America, the black slaves were all Jews, and America's Egypt...see the pyramid on the $1 bill?"

"God hates fags, Jews, Blacks, Mexicans, Asians, Lesbians, Mormons, and Dead Soldiers!" (This bit of racism brought to by the Westboro Baptist Church, where the slogan, beside "God Hates Fags," is "We Hate Everyone To Make Ourselves Feel Better About What An Insignificant Laughingstock We Are!")

"The Mets WILL win the Pennant this year, I jsut know it, this is our year!"

OL, that last one was mine... ;)

But still--education is a waste of time?

Yes, that's SO TRUE!

The GREEKS, after all, didn't ever benefit from education...Socrates and Plato and Aristotle and Epicurus were FOOLS...Euclid and Pythagoras, what did THEY ever do for the world, they and their useless Schools of Thought? And what about those utter wastes, Sophocles, Euripides, and Homer--when are THEY ever going to start contributing to the Wester World, hmm?

And then you have jokers like Isaac Newton--the day THAT college-educated idiot starts being useful is the day an apple falls on your head!

And then there are his the rest of his college-going ilk...Niels Bohr and Blaise Pascal and then that greatest joker of all, the one who had trouble with math and STILL got into college, Albert Einstein...boy, I'll tell you, the German people should be ASHAMED of themselves for admitting him to a university...what a waste of taxpayer dollars!

And Immanuel Kant and John Locke--idiot friend of idiot Newton, proving that all foolish friends come from college, damn frat boys!--and Rene Descartes and Friedrich Nietzsche...they didn't do ANY thinking or work their entire lives! What lazy bums!



Parallelopiped, I am completely swayed by your argument!

College education is a COMPLETE waste of time!

Now, I think I'll go and quit and go and get a real job, like you suggested...

Do you think McDonalds will let me have a few french fries for my retirement fund?

There is a 1975 article by Caroline Bird http://www.grossmont.edu/bertdill/docs/CollegeWaste.pdf
College is a Waste of Time and Money.

Used to be standard reading for most freshman in many lineral arts programs. Still pops up in modern Lit anthologies. The central idea of liberal arts is that you hear arguements like parallelpiped (or parallelopiped) and have a reasonable retort. An anology would be a liberal art political science prof should have a copy of mein kampf on his or her book shelves. It doesn't imply agreement - but someone needs to know what the short poster hanger actually said.

I think your question/indictment is a good one. Like a good labotomy, choosing not to examine or think is far more comforting and leaves one in the cliche blissful ignorance. Humans too often ridicule unjustly the clever Ostrich for putting its head into the cool inviting sand where threats to safety and comfort magically vanish.

On a last defensive note - too often is a liberal arts education somehow assumed to be intertwined with a liberal political postion. That is simply not the case.

@neverhurtstohelp:

+1, and too true...

Those that attack liberal arts, literature, and political science as being "impractical" or "useless" fields of study fail to mention, or fail to realize themselves, that theses three fields give three of the most important skills of all:

The ability to Read Critically, Write Professionally, and Reason Intelligently!

And they're not "kick-back" classes either--one of my first professors, my Philosophy 101 professor, is someone I still visit quite regularly, and those 101 classes never deviate from their pattern:

30 people plus crashers DYING to get in--I was such a crasher, and jsut happened to get lucky that day--and then, by the end of the term, it's a GOOD class if maybe 10 are still left.

People would drop like CRAZY becasue there's the ENTIRE class revolves around reading an argument, be it a single sentence or an entire paper, and then giving REASONS, logic-based REASONS as to why the argument is valid or invalid, to what degree, and to what effect.

I short, there's very few right-or-wrong answers that you can simply memorize and take notes on and regurgitate for a test...

YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY THINK AND THINK FOR YOURSELF!

And that just seems to HORRIFY people in these classes!

And it horrifies ME that so many are so horrified and unable to think for themselves...and then I consider the state of the country, and it becomes less of a wonder just WHY we're in this position, and why voter turnout is so low.

People simply are not being taught or encouraged to think anymore, let alone to think for themselves...it's all about learning a trade to get a job to make money to buy a car to get a wife to buy a house to have kids to die comfortably.

I teach history

Parallel I fail to understand your problem.

Imagine the world without higher education. I mean, jesus.

...did someone in here seriously suggest no one should study law or business?

because, you know, neither of those fields of study have anything to do with the two driving forces in modern American society. not. at. all.

now I'm starting to think we got played by parellel again after the whole "is this in the rules" topic

well done, sir

Dear //
Please stop teasing the Americans, they don't take it well.
Figle


:P

Should I send some of my meds to parallel?

Herp derp