StatsCan Make You Rich!
In the Toronto Star today, we learn that a recent StatsCan survey "suggests the vast majority of Canadian adults feel there is a strong relationship between education and success in life." Hmm. So, let me get this straight. The survey doesn't actually prove that education leads to success in life. Nor does StatsCan attempt to prove that remaining stupid and/or uneducated leads to failure in life. Rather, it seeks to answer the burning societal question so many of us have repeatedly pondered over the years: How many Canadians believe that education leads to success?
What I want to see is a breakdown of respondents in the following groups: Stupid, Smart, Success, Failure. Moroever, because this survey was about what people believe rather than what is proven, I think it would be methodologically useful to consider more detailed, somewhat less empirical aspects of the respondents' characters, like these, for instance:
1. Does the person believe in ghosts?
2. Does the person immediately forward e-mails to everyone they know, which warn that cell phones can light your hair on fire and spontaneously make your colon explode if you use them at gas stations?
3. Is the person obsessive-compulsive or Catholic or both?
4. Does the person habitually smoke marijuana cigarettes?
5. Does the person believe in political altruism?
I'll tell you one thing that the StatsCan survey clearly demonstrates: That an education in statistics and/or sociology can make you one well-fed civil servant.
What I want to see is a breakdown of respondents in the following groups: Stupid, Smart, Success, Failure. Moroever, because this survey was about what people believe rather than what is proven, I think it would be methodologically useful to consider more detailed, somewhat less empirical aspects of the respondents' characters, like these, for instance:
1. Does the person believe in ghosts?
2. Does the person immediately forward e-mails to everyone they know, which warn that cell phones can light your hair on fire and spontaneously make your colon explode if you use them at gas stations?
3. Is the person obsessive-compulsive or Catholic or both?
4. Does the person habitually smoke marijuana cigarettes?
5. Does the person believe in political altruism?
I'll tell you one thing that the StatsCan survey clearly demonstrates: That an education in statistics and/or sociology can make you one well-fed civil servant.
posted by K-Dough at 10:03 AM
18 Comments:
Right on, k-dough.
Having been (until recently) an employee in the research industry, I can say with utmost certainty that polls are ALWAYS biased and despite what pollsters claim, they're NOT as scientific as what they sell their numbers to be.
1. The idea that education denotes intelligence - bullshit.
2. They obviously categorize 'success' as having gobs of money, which also suggests that you're not a "successful" person unless you can buy an SUV without going into debt - also bullshit.
3. This further perpetuates the idea that one must seek education for financial comfort and that's all they need to focus on to have a better life - also also bullshit.
I'm not saying I'd turn down a 6-figure salary, but I don't consider myself a failure because I don't have that now. Perspective...it's what's for dinner.
Back at ya Freddy- I have a masters degree and yet, I consider myself pretty much self-educated.
I despise that I have to say this but higher education these days is worth nothing in the eyes of society. Unless you can put a dollar figure on it (like the mythology of business school and the reality of IT, law and medicine) education has lost its value.
We are no longer concerned with turning out good human beings, with a breadth of knowlege and intellectual sensibility. Then again, education is no longer merely a gentleman's pursuit. It has indeed become a means of social mobility.
Ach. You take the good, you take the bad. You take them both and there you have...the facts of life. (Holding my nose)
K-Dough, I do believe in Ghosts since I encountered one recently.
Anyways it is true that these days people are just getting an education to get the highest paying job.
People these days don't learn just for the sake learning.
Hey hey hey. I wasn't judging anyone for believing in ghosts, or Jesus or Haile Selassie for that matter. I mentioned those things strictly in the interest of scientific study.
Yep. Schools teach people WHAT to think and not HOW to think. The public education system is designed to be able to teach everyone and most young people are brainwashed by the worst of pop culture and moronic parents who either don't give a shit or coddle them too much to allow them to become independent, so standardized education needs to be formatted to meet the ability of the lowest common denominator. This means that the few with actual intelligence suffer as well.
Kids today may be more skilled with computer technology & programming, but they're losing the kinds of social skills and level of emotional intelligence they need to survive in the real world, so they appear to us older folks as being dumber and more reclusive as years pass. The education system does nothing to address this issue, let alone fix it.
Going back a step to look at the bigger picture...if we want to truly raise a society to be BETTER people and ACTUALLY accomplish great things, we also need to abandon the childish notion of religion and 'god'. It has been and will always continue to hold humanity back from becoming what it COULD be. The education system and society's attitudes towards what intelligence is plays a hand in this as well.
Sadly, either we'll nuke ourselves or another asteriod will wipe out life on earth again before this will have even a remote chance of happening.
"Me fail English? That's unpossible!"
Hey hey hey...I'm not worried about being judged. The pot-smoking Catholics might not be a great cross-section of the public, but we're thick skinned.
What were we talking about?
I'm with you Pam!!! Pot smoking Catholics are where it's at.
JC: Where it's at? I got two turntables and a microphone.
Pam: Pot smoking Catholic school girls. Mmmmmmm.
Freddy: "we also need to abandon the childish notion of religion and 'god'." Hmmm, not that I entirely disagree but... Whether it's realistic to think that the mouthbreathing masses could survive without oprganized spoon-fed faith- well, that's an entirely different question.
That's like trying to imagine a world where there was no TV and the zombie masses roamed the streets at will every night after work instead of being safely glued to their fucking couches, drooling into oblivion. Yikes- dangerous.
Good point, actually.
Surely, you flatter me sir. I'm blushing.
Kids today may be more skilled with computer technology & programming, but they're losing the kinds of social skills and level of emotional intelligence they need to survive in the real world, so they appear to us older folks as being dumber and more reclusive as years pass. The education system does nothing to address this issue, let alone fix it.
Do you think that our children's social and emotional intelligence should fall in the hands of the public school system? Have you been inside a classroom in the last decade? Most elementary school classes have +30 students per class, with at least a few "special needs" children. It's the parents responsibility to fill the gap.
my colon is safe??????? oh THANK GOD. I can go back to yacking on the phone even during the gas-pumping sessions. wait, is that considered rude???
hey k-dough...turns out my post came in as anonymous....no not the make money post, the colon post. just want to claim my twisted little bowels;)
Only the good die young.
Were they ever in dispute Romana?
it's society itself that demands the higher education. quite the little scheme they have going. and of course let's not forget it's the foreign student bucks that's keeping the ivory tower going.
what kills me is the people who buy into education denoting intelligence.....hell, i thought most got over it by a certain age but an older sister with her master's get's on her superiority band wagon. that makes for a pretty hard fall when knocked off.
success is weighed by meeting your goals....if they're material ones only, then have fun in your mahogany coffin. personally i want mine built out of used pallettes.
Classrooms are definitely packed in all sardine-like these days. Teachers are on the low end of the totem pole and obviously are torn between keeping their jobs and making a stand with the bloated and broken education system. It's a shame, to be sure.
I, for one, learned everything as a kid from The Hilarious House of Frightenstein.
"I have a masters degree and yet, I consider myself pretty much self-educated."
I bought my law degree on eBay. Now that's self educated.
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