Archive for March 12th, 2008
The Core Business
Outsourced to Arnold Kling:
A university consists of a faculty attached to a fundraising apparatus, where it used to be the other way around.
The Inside Higher Ed-story prompting Kling’s remark is here.
Best Laid Plans
I am happy to admit that I am happy about not being a teenager in this age. Unfortunately, I am occasionally also happy about not having a teenage son or daughter – not because of the tantrums that teenagers can perform, the loud music or stuff like that.
No, what I am happy about is that fact that I don’t have to support my offspring in writing individual education plans including sections about their strengths and weaknesses on the personal, social and academic level, future career ambitions and – to quote – “considerations about performing exams”.
I kid you not: The form you have to fill out to apply for secondary education is here.
The youngsters have no clue what this is about and neither do parents. In the end, education counsellors have had to fill out forms for despairing parents who couldn’t assist their children. And as the icing on the cake, one education counsellor explains that – oh, the individual plans aren’t used anyway.
Maybe it was easier being a teenager in the 1970s and early 1980s. Yes, there was unemployment as a dark cloud in the horizon, but basically we were kids.