After more than a year of health problems, I’d had enough and wanted to get back into what I enjoyed. IT Security, especially Risk analysis & management, etc. I’d been doing it for many years, even published two accepted papers on Risk, consulted with many companies of all sizes… and was told that I had to go back to school and get a Certificate IV in Security Risk Management to get a piece of paper saying I was qualified! A course I could have taught a hell of a lot better than the young fools teaching it. The kicker was that to enrole in the Cirt IV, the Gov (Centrelink) wanted me to complete a Cirt II & III first. Cirt II is basic Crowd Control type physical security, III is more advanced unarmed and armed guard and Control room operations. Now, I’d had a license when I was in my early 20’s because doing security in pub’s and nightclubs for a Uni Student a few nights a week was easy money and a good way to get free beer and girls. So I had no problem doing it as a uni student! I had my priorities right then. 😆 But now? When I’m 50 and been in Engineering and IT for almost 30 years? You HAVE to be shitting me! They wouldn’t budge. In the end, I decided that having the license would be useful because it’s worth 100 points of ID and people don’t bug or annoy you either. So I did the course in my sleep. (almost literally! I ended up with a nasty flu, and still passed the law exam with 96%, only because on the last 2 questions worth 2 points my brain had had enough and I just wrote “I have no f*cking Idea!”.) 😀 After I’d successfully completed the C II & III at the academy, Centrelink said “We’ve decided that we can’t fund you for the Cirt IV.” The C IV was over $4k. They had decided that I could just go to work as a security guard, in spite of my health problems. I had a complete breakdown and am now in rehab on a 2 year program.

About 6 years ago, on of our *leading* universities contacted me and asked me to teach a part-time night IT security course. They were charging 18 students $4.5k for a 32 hour course, and were going to pay me $30/hr AND I had to write the course material, and BTW… The course started yesterday! I discovered the guy who was going to do it eventually realised it was a joke and he was going to be screwed and they couldn’t find anyone else! They were going to own the material I produced for a lousy grand??! 20+ years of my IP? I don’t think so! I told them I’d give them a license for the material with certain conditions for $100k. 🙂 They said no.

Schools are run by bean counters, not educators. they don’t understand or comprehend, or care about, the value (and I mean the true value) of education. How can students be educated when the system is designed so that only someone inexperienced or a fool will be willing to teach these days? Anyone with real experience and some self-respect won’t go near a school now.

So, whilst a lot of it is the kids and parents, a lot of it is because that”s the way the system is!

As for your example of an affluent parent upset about a framer’s square being used to explain slope in a geometry class, I never had that problem, because I was teaching in deprived areas where kids aspired to go to community college to learn a trade, not Harvard, and where parents’ expectations for their kids weren’t very high. But my general point remains: Teachers try explain this stuff, but the kids simply do not listen because they (and their parents) only care about the answer to the question, “will this be on the test?”

Apparently the purpose of school for many of the parents who can actually get involved with their children’s education, is to get good grades to go to a “better” level of school in the next step, or, at least to a school with a better athletics program for too many people.

Those parents would be insulted if you used a framer’s square, as that should be limited to the “Vo-Tech” students who won’t get the grades to go to a better school and will have to work with their hands, rather than wearing a headset and asking about “supersizing” like their bundle of joy.

This stuff is useful, but no one ever bothers to explain why, which makes it a PITA and pointless to a kid. They don’t understand why they have to study it.

I hate to tell you this, Bryan, but you’re wrong here. I, and every other teacher in my school, did my darndest to explain why this stuff is useful. But kids nowdays are legends in their own minds and if an adult is saying it’s useful, then automatically it’s not because if it was really useful they would have already known it was useful (since they know it all). So I start talking about using a framer’s square in Geometry class to put the correct slope on the roof, and the only damned thing I get back is a raised hand and the insolent question, “Is this going to be on the test?”

– Badtux the Former Teacher Penguin

Think about it. No one mentioned that if you can’t do algebra, you will probably get ripped off by a loan company, because you can’t figure out what a good loan is.

You need literature because people refer to great books as a kind of short hand, and if you haven’t read the books, you don’t know what they are talking about. Look at all the stupid crap being spread about “Atlas Shrugged”.

This stuff is useful, but no one ever bothers to explain why, which makes it a PITA and pointless to a kid. They don’t understand why they have to study it.

Anything can be abused, but I would rather see people making some money and doing something, than just waiting for time to pass.

Ah, well… That’s one of the very few *universal* constants on this planet m8! I don’t know any nation that doesn’t waste people. There are just so many ways that can be achieved. *shrug*

It always been a curious dichotomy that people who have *health problems* or *disabilities* are generally more keen to do something actually useful and productive than most healthy *normal* people. I think there have even been studies on that. 🙂 One of the most intelligent and hard working guys I’ve ever known personally had cerebral palsy and was told often he wouldn’t walk and would be dead by 19 at the latest. He’s almost 30 now. He was one of the 7 Global BSD code Auditors, wrote a lot of security related and other code for Red Hat, IBM and other linux vendors. Was a speaker at many conferences… and a great guy to know. It was very hard for him (especially as he has other problems besides the CP) but he always moved forward and is the toughest guy I’ve ever known. I would have been proud to have him in my unit in Cambodia, but I’m really glad he wasn’t there (I think he’d only just been born anyway.) 😆

I’ve often thought that many of the so-called *normal* humans have some serious mental health issues they don’t want to know about. Certainly many have *personality disorders*. Many are simply arrogant prats and join the GOP club, or the equivalent in other countries. 😉 I have found that many *normal* humans are amazingly superficial and shallow. There have been exceptions I’ll admit. But they say it’s the exceptions that validate the rule.

You should be careful what you wish for m8! 😉 The kind of *National Service* you are talking about is what Hitler and Stalin had. And, as we are talking about the Human Race, you know as well as I that no human or group of human’s can ever be trusted with that kind of power ever. I’d trust them about as far as I could throw one by a single hair strand. Any human selfless and *good* enough to do it, would be dead before he could start.

And no… I seriously do *NOT* think highly of humans. With good reason and just cause.

It has always amazed me what people will put up with from employers, having seen what draftees wouldn’t put up with in the military.

I think the US should have national service, but not limited to the military. There are a lot of things that need doing that are a good deal more important than toting a rifle, and the politicians keep putting them off to cut taxes to get re-elected.

If they are bi-lingual use where the language will do some good, don’t put them in a tank in desert somewhere. Even people with health problems can be put to useful work that will help the country and the individual.

We waste people along with everything else in this country.

I don’t mention Afghanistan, because the children there know how to fight by the time they begin to walk. Several ignorant US solders went knocking on doors to be greeted by a 10YO with a gun who knew how to use it and ended up with a hole in the head. I am certain the Eastern European countries laughed aloud when the Bushmorons announced they were invading Afghanistan. It would be better than watching sports in Russia! I can see them sitting around with the vodka nudging each other and saying “this is going to be fun!” And NOT for the Americans.

I suspect that the reason Israel has National Service is so the majority of the population can be brainwashed into doing what they are damned well told! Yes Sir! There are not a lot of serious independent thinkers in Israel. When an entire population is militarily trained, what can anyone expect but a military response to every *problem*, even the contrived ones? I guarantee you, the GOP would absolutely LOVE to force every US citizen into National Service! I’m sure they have orgasms at the thought of controlling mindless millions of cannon fodder. 🙂

I had a sneaking suspicion some time ago that that was the plan behind outsourcing everything and creating huge unemployment (well, that and pure greed). Maybe they thought that when people couldn’t get work, they’d all sign up for military service. 🙂 Might have worked too, except that the GOP can’t do anything right and screwed up everything they ever tried to do. 😆

It doesn’t take long for a new country to develop an aristocracy that makes all of the decisions.

When Sharon vegged out the Likud had to resurrect the ‘Yahu to drive the chariot of Israel around the area. They way it was, is the only way they’ll accept it, Jill. If peace came to the area they would all have to find productive jobs.