Alternatives to Public Education
Americans are autodidacts. We support public education, of course, but as a historical generalization Americans have always trusted themselves to acquire the learning they need. In the 19th century local "Chataqua Society" meetings were modeled after mass meetings at which learned lecturers expounded on technical topics.
When television was launched, these were among the shows of the 1950s.
"You are an Arist" with John Gnagy (See here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Gnagy)
"Discovery" Discovery was a television program geared towards children and teenagers... ... involved much travel to on-site locations.... The show's executive producer was Jules Power, the former co-producer of NBC's Mr. Wizard ... The Discovery format originally had Buxton and Gibson (joined by a hound dog named Corpuscle) in studio, exploring various topics in science, culture, history and the arts, often with special in-studio guests..." (See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_(...)
I was enthralled by philology explained by BERGAN EVANS (Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergen_Evan......) And it influenced my own understanding of epistemology.
The hallmark show was easily SUNRISE SEMESTER (Read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunrise_Sem......) It was their series on Astronomy - actually from Harvard for this NYU production - that provided me with the theoretical understanding to go along with observing through my 4-inch reflector.
Only three of the sitting Justices on the US Supreme Court hold juris doctorates. (David Souter has three bachelor’s and a master’s.) In the history of the Supreme Court, most of the justices held either a bachelor's or -no degree at all-.
In 1990-1991, I served as a delegate to a White House Conference on Libraries and Information Services. Of course, a certain self-interest was at play when the librarians declared that libraries are more important than schools. You can teach yourself whatever you want, any way you want, at the library, whereas in school, you have to do what they say is important. But the point is not trivial.
Rivaling libraries, bookstores nominally sell information, but you can stand there and read to your heart's content. In this day, bookstore have coffee shops inside. You can sit and read for the price of a cup of coffee. Educate yourself any way you see fit.
You do not actually need a library card to merely USE any library. However, new to Texas, I met the very minimal requirements to be granted a University of Texas Library Card. My privileges here are actually better than I would be allowed at my alma mater: once I completed a master's and was no longer a student, I was a mere "community guest" at Eastern Michigan University. Here I am not limited in the number of books I can check out, among other privileges.
From April through July, my wife and I took a series of self-paced weekly studies with a local computer security group. They worked through a tutorial book in "Wireshark" a network security tool. Last year, I attended a one-day seminar in the fundamentals of fiber optics sponsored by Dow Corning. I took the same course many years ago at my local community college.
Education is for life. Political conservatives try to make points by decrying the lack of job opportunities for children with new college degree in art history. The fact is that numismatics is a multi-billion UNREGULATED marketplace where a degree in art history is worth its weight in gold. Lacking such an education at the beginning, you can acquire the learning you need via the American Numismatic Association which offers both on-campus classes and self-study courses, all of which can lead to a "master of numismatics" certification. I am short of that, but I have complete classes in basic numismatics, Grading US Coins Today, and in Detecting Counterfeit and Altered Coins.
When television was launched, these were among the shows of the 1950s.
"You are an Arist" with John Gnagy (See here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Gnagy)
"Discovery" Discovery was a television program geared towards children and teenagers... ... involved much travel to on-site locations.... The show's executive producer was Jules Power, the former co-producer of NBC's Mr. Wizard ... The Discovery format originally had Buxton and Gibson (joined by a hound dog named Corpuscle) in studio, exploring various topics in science, culture, history and the arts, often with special in-studio guests..." (See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_(...)
I was enthralled by philology explained by BERGAN EVANS (Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergen_Evan......) And it influenced my own understanding of epistemology.
The hallmark show was easily SUNRISE SEMESTER (Read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunrise_Sem......) It was their series on Astronomy - actually from Harvard for this NYU production - that provided me with the theoretical understanding to go along with observing through my 4-inch reflector.
Only three of the sitting Justices on the US Supreme Court hold juris doctorates. (David Souter has three bachelor’s and a master’s.) In the history of the Supreme Court, most of the justices held either a bachelor's or -no degree at all-.
In 1990-1991, I served as a delegate to a White House Conference on Libraries and Information Services. Of course, a certain self-interest was at play when the librarians declared that libraries are more important than schools. You can teach yourself whatever you want, any way you want, at the library, whereas in school, you have to do what they say is important. But the point is not trivial.
Rivaling libraries, bookstores nominally sell information, but you can stand there and read to your heart's content. In this day, bookstore have coffee shops inside. You can sit and read for the price of a cup of coffee. Educate yourself any way you see fit.
You do not actually need a library card to merely USE any library. However, new to Texas, I met the very minimal requirements to be granted a University of Texas Library Card. My privileges here are actually better than I would be allowed at my alma mater: once I completed a master's and was no longer a student, I was a mere "community guest" at Eastern Michigan University. Here I am not limited in the number of books I can check out, among other privileges.
From April through July, my wife and I took a series of self-paced weekly studies with a local computer security group. They worked through a tutorial book in "Wireshark" a network security tool. Last year, I attended a one-day seminar in the fundamentals of fiber optics sponsored by Dow Corning. I took the same course many years ago at my local community college.
Education is for life. Political conservatives try to make points by decrying the lack of job opportunities for children with new college degree in art history. The fact is that numismatics is a multi-billion UNREGULATED marketplace where a degree in art history is worth its weight in gold. Lacking such an education at the beginning, you can acquire the learning you need via the American Numismatic Association which offers both on-campus classes and self-study courses, all of which can lead to a "master of numismatics" certification. I am short of that, but I have complete classes in basic numismatics, Grading US Coins Today, and in Detecting Counterfeit and Altered Coins.
It must have put a considerable strain upon even the defiant optimism of President Vinson of Western Reserve when he proposed to President Howe of Case that a new affiliated down-town college primarily for adults, with classes mainly after work hours, be established without buildings, grounds, equipment, endowment, director, faculty, or even football team or stadium of its own in sight -none of the accepted sine qua non of collegiate success! . . . Now, in its third year, Cleveland College has about thirty-two hundred students. About five hundred of these are graduates, coming from nearly a hundred colleges and universities, with such degrees as A.B., B.S., M.A., Ph.D., and M.D.; about a thousand more have had some previous college training; about twelve hundred have high-school diplomas only; and about four hundred have never completed a high-school course. The range in age is from sixteen to seventy-one.
The two oldest students are women. One is a bright seventy-one-year-old mother of a college professor and the other an able sixty-eight-year-old woman physician. However, a male bank vice-president of sixty-seven is pretty close behind. About five hundred of the students are below twenty-one, about sixteen hundred are between twenty and thirty and about a thousand are between thirty and seventy-one."
That was 1928. I attended Cleveland College in the summer of 1969. Alternatives have always existed for those who sought them.