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Comment by mynameishere | Hacker News Reader

and as such cannot fathom why kids need to be learning things like calculus and biology

I'm pretty sure that Gingrich who is a professor, and every other republican who has ever considered the question in any way, recognizes the use and purpose of calculus and biology. But don't let reason get in the way of your mindless contempt.

The real purpose of education is to turn people into intellectuals

No, it isn't, unless you are talking about highly selective liberal arts colleges. And even then, the best you are going to get are 3rd generation photocopies of Susan Sontag.

Industry wants to hire people who are intellectual

No it doesn't. Period. Even the relatively "creative" jobs like software engineering want a fundamental skill set and raw intelligence, not the ability to quote Chomsky.

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No it doesn't. Period. Even the relatively "creative" jobs like software engineering want a fundamental skill set and raw intelligence, not the ability to quote Chomsky.

Right, but the people who have the ability to quote Chomsky may be able to transfer that skill and quote Knuth or Sedgewick instead.

Which isn't a useful skill either. I want someone who can work like Knuth, not someone who can quote Knuth. Knuth didn't become Knuth by quoting people like Knuth.

If you can quote Knuth, there is a a large chance that you'll be able to understand what you just quoted and be able to apply it.

Can you quantify that probability?

If software engineering jobs want a skill set, then why are technical schools regarded as useless while highly theoretical schools are regarded as top tier?

If you're talking about the Ivy Leagues, it's because those schools are the most selective for people with high test scores and leadership experience.

The real purpose of education is to turn people into intellectuals

No, it isn't, unless you are talking about highly selective liberal arts colleges. And even then, the best you are going to get are 3rd generation photocopies of Susan Sontag.

It would seem to me that that IS the purpose of education, especially a technical one. To me the definition of intellectual is a person who is always seeking to learn new things and better themselves educationally. In a field like engineering where things are constantly changing, the intellectually minded will be on the cutting edge and will be the ones you want to surround yourself with.

I went to a cheep, public, liberal arts school. Granted I know Harvard accepts our English credits, but check out shepherd.edu to see a good education for a reasonable price.

PS: And yes the English department was insanely hard for a public school, but I still got a CS degree while taking 4 English classes, 2 history classes, art, music, horseback riding etc. They even force philosophy majors to take take a single collage level math class.

English fail.

> The real purpose of education is to turn people into intellectuals

Reminds me of something Seth Godin (?) once said - that the whole purpose of school is to institutionalize mediocrity

Don't knock on intellectuals. There's something to be gained from the path they take. The fact that most people miss the path entirely doesn't change that. It's like saying that most programmers never make anything of worth: yes, it's true, but it doesn't make the entire career irrelevant.

That quote, however, is spot-on. Anything that doesn't focus on the best and brightest hurts the best and brightest in a way. And the fact that they survive despite this is a sign of those people ignoring the system rather than of the system's working. I wrote a lengthy post about this long long ago: can't find the link, apparently subjects delete themselves here?, but my point was that by making a system that was hostile to people like that, while ensuring it possible to live without the system, American school systems encourage people driven by ambition to become successes. It's why we have such a powerful entrepreneurial drive in the country.

I wish I could find the link, though, because I said it better back then.

EDIT: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=258239

Everyone says that. If anything is mediocre its this realization.

not the ability to quote Chomsky.

if you had a real education you would know that chomsky's initial ground-breaking work was in language structure, and his work is used widely in compsci texts on automaton theory

so you basically just got fucked by your own defense of ignorance

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