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The disgrace of my inbox

Posted by $ SarahMontalbano 9 years, 5 months ago to Education
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I checked my email today, and as a high school student looking to go into college soon, I get a lot of information about different colleges. This was a snippet from University of Notre Dame, telling me about pre-college programs I could enroll in:
Confronting Poverty: Bringing Service to Justice—Through an interdisciplinary lens, this course aims to answer the enduring question: Why are people poor? Students will explore the forces that maintain poverty and the forces that resist it. This unique course will also offer students the opportunity to engage in the local community to understand poverty through facts and lived experience. By the end of the course, students should have a sense of the history of poverty and of how poverty could become history.

How is THAT supposed to attract me?

(I just had to share this one, but there's been quite a few of a similar strain from different universities - goodness, public education is a mess!)


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  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 9 years, 5 months ago
    Testing your 'leftness' I can see exactly where that course would lead...and it would hardly be a happy ending. Doubt they will be talking about Ben Franklin's comments on the poor.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Hillsdale is a religious institution. That doesn't bother me, but it would bother some people around here.
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  • Posted by jimjamesjames 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    When I was doing child protection work, that information gave me more insight, to the benefit of the people I was helping, than before and a few took it to heart and changed their lives....
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  • Posted by JCLanier 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Jimjames: An excellent study! And an insight into the power of words/language and the ability to express oneself as a tool in mediating the structure of poverty. Thank you for this jewel.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Hillsdale College is a great institution. It is a beautiful area. My in-laws used to run Hillsdale Beauty College until they retired a couple of years ago.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 9 years, 5 months ago
    Love your attitude and perception.
    Have you looked into Hillsdale College?
    You probably never heard of it, but rather than give you a rundown, please look them up and let them tell you about themselves. Based on what you have just posted, you just might find a home there.
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  • Posted by term2 9 years, 5 months ago
    One doesnt need to go to college to understand poverty. Poverty is simply the result in most cases of laziness or refusal to accept the facts of reality. Some could be due to disability issues, but I really dont think thats what they are talking about. Having multiple babies and not working can easily make you poor also. How can you work if you have to stay home. Solutions to most of these things is for people to take responsibility for their lives and make them better.
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  • Posted by jimjamesjames 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Another version, definition of "maturity"

    "The ability to recognize what has to be done (or shouldn't be done) and the willingness to do it (or not do it) without being told."
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  • Posted by edweaver 9 years, 5 months ago
    Sarah, the fact that you recognize what a mess public education is gives me hope. Don't let the system break you. As others have already stated, seek other like minds to get you through the system and check out Florida Tech as jbrenner suggests. I have not attended the school but he is a great contributor in the gulch & I don't believe he would steer you in the wrong direction.
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  • Posted by blackswan 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The final word on poverty:
    1. finish high school
    2. get and keep a job, even if you start out at McDonald's
    3. don't make babies out of wedlock
    If you follow those 3 simple rules, you'll have 199 chances out of 200 of escaping poverty. End of story.
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  • Posted by LibertyBelle 9 years, 5 months ago
    THAT'S a subject?!--I'm glad I stayed out of col-
    lege. I wasted enough time and money on tech
    courses, but at least it wasn't as bad as the four-
    year stuff would have been.
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  • Posted by Mamaemma 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    At my kids high school, it was actually called "mandatory volunteer hours"! After we finished laughing our heads off, we just falsified the hours. Guess it was our way of saying frell you!
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  • Posted by johnpe1 9 years, 5 months ago
    Sarah, I will say this in traditional terms -- I pray for your generation
    daily. . the stuff which you are facing sucks. . trying to find value
    in the horrid world of "higher education" is a challenge
    worthy of college credits itself. . I spent 23 years in school
    and dodged a bunch of the crap by going to engineering
    and business management ... but it still crept in.

    please consider the hard sciences if it interests you;;;
    you will feel more at home there, and probably be
    more of a producer in your life ... with objective value
    to offer for value in exchange....... but whatever you do,
    please work to find something which you can love doing!!! -- john
    .
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  • Posted by gaiagal 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    "- if an individual cannot plan, he or she cannot predict.

    - If an individual cannot predict, he or she cannot identify cause and effect.

    - If an individual cannot identify cause and effect, he or she cannot identify consequence.

    - If an individual cannot identify consequence, he or she cannot control impulsivity.

    - If an individual cannot control impulsivity, he or she has an inclination to criminal
    behavior."

    Thank you for the article. What I find interesting is, in my experience of observing later middle class generations, the rules of generational poverty are spilling over into the middle class.

    As the article states, poverty is relative. Based on applying what I just read with what I have observed, a number of the middle class are becoming working poor. At least, for a time, they still have the option of following the hidden generational middle class rules...those rules are just becoming more difficult to find.
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  • Posted by $ allosaur 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Nope and jbrenner's links above work fine.
    Click on a link after you post it for a test run.
    I learned that it's best do that when I used to frequent another board.
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  • Posted by gaiagal 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Hello Mama - my daughter is a nursing student. She is having a difficult time because of her Objectivist views. What's sad is that the other students actively encourage the new young students not to disagree with their teachers, or they may fail out of the program.

    My daughter was listening to a group of students talk about a girl, who the previous semester, received a B instead of an A because she was outspoken about the individualized medical care. My daughter, after hearing a few of the examples, realized they were referring to her.

    My daughter has, because of a genetic disorder that reared its ugly head when she was 6 months old,, quite a bit experience on the patient side of medical care. This has resulted in her not only having the physical and psychological experience of being a frequent flyer patient but an acute awareness of the changes that have taken place in how health care is administered. Changes such as in patient-doctor relationships and the involvement in cost as a deciding factor, rather than medical need, for treatments that are offered as a result of increasing government involvement.

    Liberal political policy is taught right alongside every medical subject. I was amazed at how it was squeezed in with even anatomy.

    What is most interesting is my daughter states the other students don't appear to even realize there are other schools of thought...and become fidgety and angry when she expresses her point of view. The majority do this even as they are stating that what is happening doesn't appear to be right. They just can't pinpoint why certain statements made by the instructor don't appear "right."

    Seems as if some kids are forever walking around in a state of cognitive dissonance.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 9 years, 5 months ago
    I'm glad that you had the intellectual fortitude to recognize it for what it is. Many college students do not.
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