Nothing like my college indoctrination.

[Old Dog]

Must ... chime in here ... SomeKid, you said:

college is supposed to teach how to think, however modern colleges scorn such attempts.

Having lived most of my young life in and around higher education, growing up in a family with a father who was/is a college professor, an uncle who is a college professor, a brother, a brother-in-law and a cousin who are all college professors (PhDs all) ... And having actually spent six years of my life attending college ... I have to say: you are guilty of gross generalization.

I've heard far more college faculty members decrying the fact that most of their students are totally incapable of critical thinking, even with strong encouragement, than I've heard college students crying out that their faculty members aren't teaching them to think ... Put the blame on public education, lack of parenting, but don't expect college and university faculty to fix something that was broke long before it came to them ...

Fact is, most of our young people in post-high school education institutions today aren't there to learn to think, nor is that any sort of priority for them. They're there, simply chasing the credentials (in the form of a degree) that are so important to find gainful employment in our society today ...

By the way, SomeKid, if I may ask: what year are you in school? Don't judge your faculty by what you experience in 100-level courses ... Most of your real learning won't come until you get into upper-level courses and grad school ...

 

[KONY]

Must ... chime in here ... SomeKid, you said: Having lived most of my young life in and around higher education, growing up in a family with a father who was/is a college professor, an uncle who is a college professor, a brother, a brother-in-law and a cousin who are all college professors (PhDs all) ... And having actually spent six years of my life attending college ... I have to say: you are guilty of gross generalization.

I've heard far more college faculty members decrying the fact that most of their students are totally incapable of critical thinking, even with strong encouragement, than I've heard college students crying out that their faculty members aren't teaching them to think ... Put the blame on public education, lack of parenting, but don't expect college and university faculty to fix something that was broke long before it came to them ...

Fact is, most of our young people in post-high school education institutions today aren't there to learn to think, nor is that any sort of priority for them. They're there, simply chasing the credentials (in the form of a degree) that are so important to find gainful employment in our society today ...

By the way, SomeKid, if I may ask: what year are you in school? Don't judge your faculty by what you experience in 100-level courses ... Most of your real learning won't come until you get into upper-level courses and grad school ...

+1, Old Dog!

 

[KONY]

I know I'm gonna get flamed, but I've got an Aunt that makes her living "teaching" this bull. She is the most educated and ignorant person I personally know.

The upshot of psychology revolves around the view of "normal" as stated by an opium addict with an Oedipus complex. If you fall outside his parameters of "normal" you are by definition "abnormal". So we have someone regurgitating the views of a disturbed man telling us how "normal" folks think and act, when you already know how they do if you've been paying attention to the people around you for the last eighteen years (assuming straight from H.S.).

Well, I've not done any drugs other than alcohol and tobacco, have no desire to bed my own mother, so I'll continue happily in my abnormality.

It's really a shame that this junk is being foisted on our young folks as science. I won't even call it a "soft" science. Pure conjecture and agenda pushing which they are required to pay for to get a degree in an unrelated field. Even more of a shame is the amount of young folks that trust the system to teach them only the truth and walk out four years later with a world view so skewed away from reality that they are nearly non functional in society. Hold down a job, yes. Have any idea what makes people tick, no.

Actually, Freud's psychoanalytic theory really isn't the dominant paradigm in clinical psychology now. Also, clinical is just one of many sub-discipline's of psychology.

 

[SomeKid]

OD, yes it was a generalization, although I did quantify it by noting how only one of my professors liked to get into details, whereas every other one simply likes to talk. I even had a math professor who liked to always mention how we should be writing our state Reps and telling them to raise taxes (or institute a state income tax) and send the money to college. I wrote of my own experiences. I also note, there was nothing in your second paragraph I disagree with. Society itself has problems college cannot fix, but Universities should not exacerbate the problem.

Regarding my time in college, I have ebough to classify me as a seniro, but due to a couple switchings of the major, I will be here a while longer.

 

[ArmedBear]

See if you can find the t-shirt that says "50,000 battered women, and I've been eating mine plain!"

 

[Dr.Rob]

I've had several Psychology profs refuse to teach certain parts of the curriculam textbooks because thay didn't agree with it.

One prof, a cognative psychologist, teaching Pysch. 101, refused to teach the section on Freud, instead he had his TA handle the lecture. (To his credit he explained, "hey I don't agree with Freud on most things, so rather than show my bias in presenting the material, I had someone else handle the lecture.")

Another professor, who was a Psychiatrist teaching "abnormal psychology (400 level class) " flat out told us we'd be skipping the "sexual perverions" section of the approved text because it mostly dealt with homosexuality as a 'mental illness' and glossed over every other subject under the umbrella. After reading the section I'd have to say she was correct.

Just because it's in a book doesn't make it the gospel. Just because a professor said it doesn't make it right.

College (at its best) teaches people to make their own, well thought-out conclusions to a variety of intellectual questions.

Critical thinking should be a by-product of ANY college degree... from art to science to music to engineering.

 

[KONY]

College (at its best) teaches people to make their own, well thought-out conclusions to a variety of intellectual questions.

Critical thinking should be a by-product of ANY college degree... from art to science to music to engineering.

Absolutely. When you enter almost any profession, much on what you know is learned on-the-job. College prepares you by making you a better critical thinker and thus, a better learner (i.e., more trainable).

 

[bigtex1404]

Hilbilly, redneck, hick. coming from a small Texas town these are names that I have come accustomed to be called. The fact is I am proud to be a redneck. I like to sit in a lawun chair in the back of a pickup with a 30 pack of Coors Light and a 223 and blast the hell out of some prarie dogs. I say words like ain't, ya'll, and fixin to. but I ain't gonna go beating on my wife. Holly hell. I guess i only have one thing to say F#&@IN YANKEES!!!

 

[LaVere]

"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not
believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do
not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your
religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of
your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have
been handed down for many generations. But after observation and
analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is
conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and
live up to it."

- Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha


Now your journey has just begun.

 

[Danus ex]

Absolutely. When you enter almost any profession, much on what you know is learned on-the-job. College prepares you by making you a better critical thinker and thus, a better learner (i.e., more trainable).

Spot on. For a deeper look, anyone can brush up on their Quintillian to reveal the intended purpose of education as we know it. Some Aristotle and a little Isocrates and Cicero wouldn't hurt, either.