Poking through 13+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

I love being vindicated (again). When I wrote this in 2015 I took a lot of ribbing from my young techie friends, who saw tech as the only road to the good life, while liberal arts was the road to oblivion. That was the story being hyped by most media, too. I never bought it, nor did Nick Kristof, who said as much in no uncertain terms in his column The New York Times. Nothing has changed, as you’ll see tomorrow.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

I constantly read/hear that if you want your kids to have a good life focus on a purely STEM curriculum and they’ll be home free.

Moreover, if they are great at coding they don’t even need college.

While it may be true, at least at this point in time, that they can get a good job if they have strong coding skills, what they are unlikely to get is a promotion that takes them beyond coding, whether in a technical or leadership/management role.

Pulitzer Prize winner (twice) Nicholas Kristof, a columnist for The New York Times, with 1.4 million followers on Twitter, 1.3 million followers on Google+ and 600,000 followers on Facebook (click ‘more’ to see his bio) sums up the value of a humanities, AKA, liberal arts, degree 1, 2, 3.

First, liberal arts equip students with communications and interpersonal skills that are valuable and genuinely rewarded in the labor force, especially when accompanied by technical abilities.

My second reason: We need people conversant with the humanities to help reach wise public policy decisions, even about the sciences.

Third, wherever our careers lie, much of our happiness depends upon our interactions with those around us, and there’s some evidence that literature nurtures a richer emotional intelligence.

Even the most rabid coders don’t want to do it for 40 years.

But if your knowledge of society is limited to code and your ability to interact with others is negligible, then you are left with little choice.

Even a degree in STEM or business won’t give you the broad outlook or emotional intelligence it takes to be promoted, let alone start a successful company.

The best way to assure yourself a bright future, whether you decide to code or earn a “useful” degree, is to patronize your library as so many “self-made” folks did/do

Stay away from your area of expertise, instead wander sections of which you have no knowledge, select books randomly and read at every opportunity.

Image credit: Susanne Nilsson

It’s amazing to me, but looking back over more than a decade of writing I find posts with information that is as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of what I consider some of the best posts during that time.

Considering the forced use of technology in schools, with the exception of the schools to which the tech honchos send their kids, and the insistence that the best (only?) path to success is found through STEM, I thought this would a great time to reprise a slightly heretical post from 2015 focused on the value of (gasp) liberal arts. Not only does it increase EQ, lib arts will make you one of the few who can actually carry on a face-to-face conversation.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

I constantly read/hear that if you want your kids to have a good life focus on a purely STEM curriculum and they’ll be home free.

Moreover, if they are great at coding they don’t even need college.

While it may be true, at least at this point in time, that they can get a good job if they have strong coding skills, what they are unlikely to get is a promotion that takes them beyond coding, whether in a technical or leadership/management role.

Pulitzer Prize winner (twice) Nicholas Kristof, a columnist for The New York Times, with 1.4 million followers on Twitter, 1.3 million followers on Google+ and 600,000 followers on Facebook (click ‘more’ to see his bio) sums up the value of a humanities, AKA, liberal arts, degree 1, 2, 3.

First, liberal arts equip students with communications and interpersonal skills that are valuable and genuinely rewarded in the labor force, especially when accompanied by technical abilities.

My second reason: We need people conversant with the humanities to help reach wise public policy decisions, even about the sciences.

Third, wherever our careers lie, much of our happiness depends upon our interactions with those around us, and there’s some evidence that literature nurtures a richer emotional intelligence.

Even the most rabid coders don’t want to do it for 40 years.

But if your knowledge of society is limited to code and your ability to interact with others is negligible, then you are left with little choice.

Even a degree in STEM or business won’t give you the broad outlook or emotional intelligence it takes to be promoted, let alone start a successful company.

The best way to assure yourself a bright future, whether you decide to code or earn a “useful” degree, is to patronize your library as so many “self-made” folks did/do

Stay away from your area of expertise, instead wander sections of which you have no knowledge, select books randomly and read at every opportunity.

Image credit: Susanne Nilsson

I constantly read/hear that if you want your kids to have a good life focus on a purely STEM curriculum and they’ll be home free.

Moreover, if they are great at coding they don’t even need college.

While it may be true, at least at this point in time, that they can get a good job if they have strong coding skills, what they are unlikely to get is a promotion that takes them beyond coding, whether in a technical or leadership/management role.

Pulitzer Prize winner (twice) Nicholas Kristof, a columnist for The New York Times, with 1.4 million followers on Twitter, 1.3 million followers on Google+ and 600,000 followers on Facebook (click ‘more’ to see his bio) sums up the value of a humanities, AKA, liberal arts, degree 1, 2, 3.

First, liberal arts equip students with communications and interpersonal skills that are valuable and genuinely rewarded in the labor force, especially when accompanied by technical abilities.

My second reason: We need people conversant with the humanities to help reach wise public policy decisions, even about the sciences.

Third, wherever our careers lie, much of our happiness depends upon our interactions with those around us, and there’s some evidence that literature nurtures a richer emotional intelligence.

Even the most rabid coders don’t want to do it for 40 years.

But if your knowledge of society is limited to code and your ability to interact with others is negligible, then you are left with little choice.

Even a degree in STEM or business won’t give you the broad outlook or emotional intelligence it takes to be promoted, let alone start a successful company.

The best way to assure yourself a bright future, whether you decide to code or earn a “useful” degree, is to patronize your library as so many “self-made” folks did/do

Stay away from your area of expertise, instead wander sections of which you have no knowledge, select books randomly and read at every opportunity.

Image credit: Susanne Nilsson

NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof comments that we finally elected an unabashed intellectual to the Presidency (it’s definitely worth reading), but what resonated more with me was the part that ties so closely with that CandidProf has been telling us.

“We can’t solve our educational challenges when, according to polls, Americans are approximately as likely to believe in flying saucers as in evolution, and when one-fifth of Americans believe that the sun orbits the Earth.

Almost half of young Americans said in a 2006 poll that it was not necessary to know the locations of countries where important news was made. That must be a relief to Sarah Palin, who, according to Fox News, didn’t realize that Africa was a continent rather than a country.”

• I’ve met people who think that the “Middle East” is a country;
• a nurse once explained to me that the war between Serbia and Bosnia wasn’t racial because both sides were Caucasian;
• a business type told me that Arkansas and Kansas were next to each other like North and South Dakota;
• CandidProf says that his students don’t know that round means spherical, so they think the Earth is a disk;
• something like 20% of Americans are functionally illiterate.

I’m actually grateful for Palin’s error because it highlights the level of ignorance that has become acceptable and the condition of education in this country.

I’m not saying that it’s necessarily great in other countries, but I don’t live in them either and they don’t bragg about being the world’s leader.

Perhaps it’s time to turn our focus from being the ‘leader’ in fixing the world’s problems to being the ‘leader’ in fixing our own.

The stupidity exemplified in the No Child Left Behind law that has led to a lowering of already low standards in the name of receiving funding is criminal.

We need educational reform that isn’t test-based, but focuses on real learning including critical thinking and is adequately funded.

Funding that shouldn’t be the problem once we stop spending $70 billion a month on the war—not that I think much of it will go towards education.

The stupidity of parents in brainwashing their kids into believing they are special and entitled to good grades and good jobs merely because they exist is tragic.

This entitlement stupidity is likely to carry on to future generations, unless it gets good and stomped down when it comes in contact with reality.

What ignorance can you add to the list above?

What ideas do you have for combating the problems?

Your comments—priceless

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Image credit: sxc.hu