Lean Learning

Yes, education is a business; as our economy tanks and budgets crash with it, more and more you will see a business ROI - return on investment - approach to education replace the trendy psycho-babble that now runs it. Watch for application of such techniques as "lean manufacturing" - doing more with less - to education. The days of more are over. Educators are going to "hit the wall" - get a reality check - soon because of this.

Can Canada avoid trends in American education?

Dave, thank you for this.  What's missing is the collapsing standards overall as the educational dinosaurs scramble to enroll bodies - real and fake - to get cash flow at any cost.  Except for hardcore subjects like medicine, the M.D. hopefully will not get watered down, and fields like no-nonsense engineering; the other subject areas, the "soft sciences" and the humanities will suffer from Gresham's Law - "bad money drives out good money." Degrees will have little or no meaning or value in these fields, unless they come from very elite, tough standards, no-nonsense college or universities.  As one of my UW-Madison professors put it in our course on ethics of higher education, "The colleges and universities that keep high, high standards will always be in demand, for there will always be people with money to buy the best."  Also, he observed, to create such high standards you could not let the business office call the shots.  You had to let high academic values, standards set the agenda; the money would follow.  Instead we have the reverse in more and more cases.  Making money in the short run regardless of standards will blow up the organizations peddling valueless degrees.  The one with hard, tough, steely academic standards will in fact survive and make money.  As A.J. Nock observed, "Americans have a gift for turning everything into a racket."  In this case, so-called higher education has become a racket.  In the end, however, people will not pay for fake degrees, and those who are serious and can benefit from learning will go to those places that have maintained good-and-hard standards.  There, you have your humble servant's studied opinion.  Paul 

Look South Not North

Sonia, this is thoughtful. To it, let me add this. Ralph Peters, one of the leading military strategists in our country, in his lastest books, New Glory, argues that America's future is to the South, Latin America, not Europe or the Middle East, or Asia, any longer. Latin America has the resources, markets, and human resources we need to keep our economy moving and support our aging population. Therefore the issue of knowing Spanish will become increasingly important in America, and for incoming Hispanics to America knowing English will be crucial also. We are moving into an new era of hope if we refocus South. Your interest in promoting ESL is on trend, and, yes, much needed.

How similar are trends in Canada to trends in USA?

I have no respect for the government anymore'
Welcome to The Michael Savage Newsletter, your daily insider report on all things "Savage."
In today's issue: It just so happened that Michael Savage’s Tuesday night show coincided with President Obama’s State of the Union address.
“You can listen to this Politbureau speech on other radio stations across America if you want to,” Savage told his audience, adding, “All I see is a bunch of grifters slapping each other on the back.”
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“Watching the prelude to the State of the Union speech, I feel like I'm looking at the Ukrainian parliament,” said a disgusted Dr. Savage, adding:

The only difference is, they'd be punching each other out. At least we the people would get some entertainment out of that.
All I see is a bunch of grifters slapping each other on the back. You just know they're cutting deals in the back room.
I don't even feel it's my country anymore.
I have no faith in them. I have no respect for this anymore.
And I'm not going to sit and watch this clown giving another speech calling for higher taxes and more regulation, and listen to the stooges on the Democrat side clap like a bunch of seals.
That's all Obama's talking about: tax and spend. Soft Marxism and hard crony capitalism.
Tax the people. Control the people from cradle to grave, and then reward your crony capitalist friends by not taxing them, or giving them sweetheart contracts and grants.
Do you really feel that you live in a representative democracy?

Fair Canada and Unfair USA

Walter, here are some thoughts on Obama's impressive speech. He is clearly an accomplished speaker, big time.

The key word, concept is fair. A Canadian from Burlington, Ontario, who attends Rotary here with me, said in conversation with me that in simplest terms the difference between Canada and the USA is fairness. Canada practices fairness. I have lived it.

For example, nobody goes bankrupt in Canada because of medical bills. They do here. Last month, we were in a discount store, and Jane engaged the young woman behind the checkout register in short conversation. The clerk was working two minimum-wage jobs to pay off $8,000 in medical bills! This does not happen in Canada. The USA is not fair. Greed rules supreme here now.

The two parts of his speech, brief, but scary, that caught my attention big time were his backing of Israel, in effect, against Iran. The entire chamber roared approval - for the next war. Obama's bringing Hagel into the cabinet as secretary of defense is part of the runup, "bipartisan" support for the next war in the Middle East. North Korea is a "loose cannon" too, and it could get bloody.

As my late UT professor, J.S. Moir observed, Canada in effect is 30 million Democrats. You repeat his observation too.

Often, what is not said is as important as what is said. For instance, there was no mention of recovering the loot stolen from the American people by the bloodsucking vampires on Wall Street. Big Money owns Washington, DC here. More and more what occurs there has no connection to the "little people" outside the "Beltway." Fakes, phonies and frauds populate D.C.

Yes, Obama put on a good show. He got it right about starvation wages. For instance, here in Citrus County, Florida, the average annual wage is, yes, $17,000. A husband and wife might buy a used trailer house on such pittance; they do. When we go to Wal-Mart here we see lots of "rough" people, the $17,000/year persons living in the shadows here. It is disgusting. It is not fair.
We see good, honest people here each and every day. The American people are good people; we are an abused people. It is not fair that the people who do the work, obey the laws, pay the taxes, and, yes, fight the wars, get ripped off left and right here. My concern is another war in the Middle East will "pull down the house" on them, us. At some point, they are going to get mad.

God bless. Take care. Paul

Paul Rux, Ph.D.
Imagineer
www.paulrux.net

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Keep the Gun Crazies out of Canada

Walter, thank you for this thoughtful, as always, reply.  I concur with all of it.

I do not own any guns; I do not want to own any guns.  As you point out, this gun stuff is toxic to tourism.  The other more potent threat, however, is the recruiting of former special forces alumni into private mercenary groups like Blackwater.  They are the highly-armed, disciplined, experienced shock troops, or Praetorian Guards, to support the corporate power structure if and when push comes to shoves.  Compared with Blackwater, the NRA are amateurs, and if the NRA gets in the way, Blackwater will crush them. It is disgusting; more and more we are reluctant to venture into public places, e.g. movie houses.  Online education will get a boost from this spreading terrorism, call it what it is; online shopping, too, will benefit from this growing fear of public places because of the gun nuts out there.  It has reached the point that one of my online students, a doctoral student, in Texas, tells me teachers there now lock their classroom doors out of fear!  Thank God you live where you do; do not let the rot, cancer of gun mania poison Canada.  This includes taking a swift severe line with the mutants who shoot up places like Toronto.  Stop it now, good and hard.  It is bed time now.  Paul

Federation of the Great Lakes

Marshall, this is first-class, thoughtful, thorough, and of obvious practical value.  Your humble servant here more and more embraces the concept of "economic domains" instead of political boundaries.  For instance, Dubuque, Iowa, on the Mississippi River forms a natural tri-state economic domain with SW Wisconsin and NW Illinois.  Folks there are starting to realize this and act on it.  Great!  What happens in Madison, WI, Springfield, IL, and Des Moines, IA - except for taxing and regulations - has little if anything to do with the economic health of this tri-state interface.  Yes, economic domains, not political boundaries are the future engines.  The consul general of Canada from Chicago told an audience last year, where this writer was in attendance, that the Great Lakes states, Ontario and Quebec could easily form an economic domain without the baggage of the rest of the political structures to east, west, and south.  He said such an economic domain would create the 7th largest economy in the world - and 14th largest population concentration!  We are, yes, edging toward understanding and applying the insights of "economic domains" in the future.