4 comments on “Charles Murray: Real Education & Education Myths”

1. Harry Moore on June 4, 2009 at 3:16 pm said:

   I really enjoy your programs on KERA in Dallas. On 5/24 I watched the Generational Strom, Part 1 (12:01 PM) with Scott Burns. The second half was to be 5/31. It appears that McCuistion is OFF THE AIR now!
   Is this correct? This is a great show! Why?

   If you could provide me with an up date, I would certainly appreicate it.

   Thanks
2. Zach on September 6, 2009 at 2:58 pm said:

   Greetings,

   I am still frustrated by my experiences in school, at an early age I had reading comprehension difficulties and I didn’t know how to ask for help (that is something I desperately wanted), and none of the important people in my life recognized my difficulty. In 4th grade I believe the new problem arose, it was with long division the bit where a number in the hundreds is divided into a number in the thousands. And, I never really caught up with my peer group in mathematics something that pained me deeply, but no one saw OR perceived my desperation to learn. (i really wanted to know mathematics) Now, I can’t say I didn’t ask for help on a specific problem here and there, say for instance a specific problem on a specific page in our text book’s because I DID do that, but I was always desperate in school and I really wanted someone to notice this.

   I recall a poor 6 week report that my parents had to sign and send back with me to give to the teacher, my mom said for me to bring my books home everyday as she was unhappy with the report, and she said she would assist me with any homework (something I had always copied from another student everyday just prior to turning it in). So, I brought home my English homework, and it was all about diagramming the parts of a sentence, and within 45 minutes my mother was pulling her hair out and yelling at me and calling me stupid WHEN she herself could not do it either… Strangely enough, that commandment to bring home my studies each day ended right then, BUT you better believe that I had better bring home good grades OR ELSE. So, I think it was 7th grade the last time that I indicated to my parents that I needed help, and I did so by changing a grade on that darned old 6 week progress report, but my difficulty arose in reading class, comprehension still low and absolutely hating to read I took the punishment meted out by my mom and dad and went about my business of figuring out NOW how to BEAT the system in order to simply get through graduation, and NOT to my surprise I made it all the way through school with only ONE “C” with rest being “A’s” and “B’s.” Now, don’t get me wrong I could effectively study when it came to things that were memory laden like vocabulary, facts in History, Science, Geography, that kind of thing, but English, and Math were still bugaboos.

   Thank ALL that is good for Sports Illustrated, National Geographic, and World Book Encyclopedia, because if not for the publishers of those wonderful magazines, and books I would have ended up on the end of a shovel as an adult. I was a smart kid, but the fact that I spent my time in school day dreaming while the teacher gave critical instructions on those new concepts that cannot simply be overcome because someone is sharp. I am disappointed that none of the important adults in my life ever recognized my educational deficits. How about a little irony at this point? When I began High School both of my parents (who had never attended college AT all) returned to school each graduating from TCU, my father took it a step further earning a Masters Degree at the University of Texas, as for me I struggled through 80 plus hours of University level instruction over 5 years, then I quit to take a job in sales. My downfall in the University were my non-existent study skills.

   Watch your children they can fool you, if only unintentionally. Me personally, I am fine, I made it to the position of General Manager and am still a hungry learner hoping someday to find someone to tutor me in Algebra. Who knows?
3. Diane D on February 18, 2011 at 12:22 pm said:

   The problem with education isn’t money or targeting training so much as it is the curriculum. If we returned to the pre-Princeton recommendations of around 1917, teaching logic and critical thinking to all school children, along with rhetoric and much more precise grammar, then go on to the liberal arts of mathematics, geography, social studies (history) music, literature and so on, all children graduating from secondary school would have the educational equivalent of most BA degrees currently awarded in colleges today.

   It is true that we don’t really need that many college graduates, but we need very well educated plumbers, carpenters, machinists, computer code writers and other skilled craftsmen for today’s technical age. We need to give those really good craftsmen the respect and financial reward that they deserve. They are the people who will make your home safe, or your computer safe, or your retirement account safe. But they need a high quality education in order to do so. Returning to the previous educational curriculum would provide that, without the huge cost of today’s colleges.

   Modern secondary schools scarcely require an original essay, let alone debate or discussion of current affairs in any meaningful way. In fact, in the interest of political correctness, schools even imply that debate is somehow wrong, such that they are squelched immediately in everyday interactions. How can people discuss the issues that affect their lives with this going on? Our children are being brainwashed to believe that any dissension is “bad”, and in so doing deprive themselves of any meaningful discussion of the issues that frame their lives.

   Schools have been dumbed down, it is true. But not by teachers or lack of money. It was done with malice aforethought by elites in the country, and descendants of those elites would have the general population dumb and malleable today. Our forefathers were much better educated than we are today. They were the craftsmen and inventors of the great industrial revolution. They wrote better books and understood current events, including the economy and political maneuvers much better than college graduates do today. They were better journalists, who would never allow politicians &/or major business concerns (read banks) get away with the equivocation and other logical fallacies they use on the complacent journalists of today.

   By giving away the right to a good education, and indeed not even recognizing what constitutes a good education, the middle class has chiseled it’s own gravestone. But it really isn’t their fault. By keeping them ignorant, the elites were able to get away with effectively removing anyone who stood in their way. Reducing the number of people who can effectively speak to the problems at hand, and creating an ever widening gap in education, elections are meaningless and the elite are able to return to their robber baron ways.

   The US public has been deceived into thinking the institutions of “higher education” are worth what we spend on them for too long. A return to a really high quality of secondary education would be in all our best interests. Specialization in the various crafts could always be put in place. But not the milktoast meaningless robotic “education” of today. It needs to be done in a way that requires the craftsman to be well aware of the science behind the practices that are required. But the school system’s curriculum (and probably teachers) would have to change radically.
4. Christine Kallstrom on March 11, 2011 at 2:11 pm said:

   Another critical part of solving the education cutbacks is the realization that millions of dollars are being wasted on curriculum services of the state’s 23+ regional education centers.

   Here’s how: Curriculum for the Texas Education Agency is developed by the SEDL( State
   Education Development Lab ) in Austin and then, piped to the Regional Service Centers
   who then charge every district a fee of c. $60 for each of their teachers to go to the ESC
   to watch the online program THAT COULD INSTEAD BE PIPED DIRECTLY TO THE
   INDIVIDUAL SCHOOLS TO VIEW AT NO CHARGE PER TEACHER. (There is seldom
   any provision for discussion, etc. at the RSC’s showings so that by having it at the schools,
   the teachers themselves could discuss the ideas abd relevance to their teaching.THEY SHOULD
   BE TREATED LIKE THE PROFESSIONALS THEY ARE!

   Along the same lines, the whole mid-management hirings are a real intrusion and insulkt
   to university trained teachers. Many big districts utilized the mid-management funds to
   meet minority hiring quotas for management positions. But the insult is to intelligent,
   university trained teachers , who are denied the leadership of their own classrooms and
   their individual styles of presenting curriculum, motivating children, etc.

   And a third enormous saving is in the ongoing use of textbooks on topics that don’t change
   with time—-Literature, Math, History, Government, etc….providing updates online from SEDL
   of needed additions per legislative action but NOT BY STATE SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS
   with varying backgrounds and biases.

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