How did we get here? A slow and methodical process for sure, but is it a flaw in the human genome or a contrived event by some group of dedicated individuals? I am told that businesses initiate and or plan for events that will occur as far out as 50 to 100 years into the future. When a super alpha, male or female, has trillions of currency at their disposal for operating expenses tied to a sociopathic psychosis, I can imagine just this scenario.
When I was in grade school we had a teacher who would tell the class to write. She would then go to the corner of the room where a very long pole, used to open and close the classroom windows, rested against the corner. She would pick it up and place it on her shoulder, then walk up and down the middle isle with the pole in a horizontal position just inches above our heads as she turned to the left and the right; swish, swish. Needles to say, we wrote. She was loved and respected by all of us. On the other hand we had a science teacher who would tell us to write a report. If anybody made the mistake of putting “THE END” at the end of their paper he would beat the living dickens out of them: while they were in their seat; on the floor screaming; crawling down the isle to the door and out the door and down the hall still screaming and being beaten. I was not just a witness to this outrageous behavior of a teacher: I was a victim. I, being smarter than the average student, printed “FINI” at the bottom of my paper.
Just thought a little humor would help a depressing subject. Once young people receive an incorrect education it is very hard to correct. It is very depressing.

Clarence

The Education Division at the college where I taught once decided to make my Intro to Economics class a required course for their majors. It was not a difficult class, but rather one aimed at the most general audience possible. No math, few graphs, etc. Yet, it was much too hard for these future teachers, and I found myself giving half the class Ds and Fs. On one exam I gave an exceedingly simple problem, involving adding, subtracting, and calculating percentages. The numbers were small and easy to manipulate. It was remarkable how many students could not add two three-digit numbers. Percentages were comletely alien to them. After the test, a student came by my office wondering what she could do to perform better. I said that she would probably have trouble. I told her that she had missed a point because she could not add 800 plus 500. Then she began to cry. After two years the Education Division dropped my class as a requirement. Although there were exceptions, the education majors were about as lacklustre as it is possible to imagine. And yet these people are now teaching our children. I might add that the Education faculty were none too bright either. One of them wrote an article that urged teachers to use happy faces to teach math. In a tenure review meeting, I asked the Chair of the Education Division how this simple-minded essay was an example of scholarship. He said, without missing a beat, that we needed more happy faces!!

So, do not wonder that the teachers did poorly on that test.

I must reply to your article. In the 1970’s I read in the Miami Herald about a government high school test giver who tricked the teachers into taking the same test that he was giving the high school students. The examples of the teachers testing were amazing. They, the teachers, had the equivalent of an eighth grade education. Eighth grade! I am seventy now and your article has helped to resolve the questions that have been bouncing around in my mind every since.

Thank you

Bob, Thank you for this healthy corrective. I wrote a bit hastily and lumped together fields that should not have been put in the same class. Health-related professions are, of course, legitimate fields of study and every effort should be made to see to it that they are such fields and not allowed to be considered merely job-related collections of courses. My dad died of emphysema, so respiratory therapy is a field close to my heart. It owuld be great if we could have integrated heathcare education, with a focus on developing teams of equals that would provide comprehensive, holistic care.

I would challenge your statement that Nursing or Respiratory therapy programs in Universities represent a recent attempt to turn universities into training centers for (menial?) jobs. Nursing programs have existed at Columbia, Yale, University of Michigan and University of Minnesota since the 1920’s. The ones where I have been on faculty, a student, or otherwise associated with all have a large core of tenured PhD level faculty. Although it is unusual for nurses to become higher officials in universities (aside from Nursing school deans) there are Nurses (whose doctoral degrees are in Nursing) who have been University Presidents, Provosts, and tenured faculty in non-nursing departments such as physiology, public health, and medicine. My doctoral program director was a past president of the American Public Health Association. The current President is also a Nurse, and a Professor of both Surgery and Nursing at Yale. About 120 million dollars per year is granted for nursing research by the NIH. There are dozens of peer-reviewed nursing journals as well, and Cuba has recently started a PhD program in nursing.
Respiratory care is another story. This profession got its start at the same time as the rising popularity of 2 year community colleges, and has remained trapped in that ghetto ever since. There is, however, a slowly growing movement to open BS and MS level programs. Respiratory Care does not differ in any substantial way from Physical or Occupational therapy, Nutrition, or a host of other health programs recognized as vital to the public welfare. Neither nursing or respiratory care can be compared to Golf course management, sports marketing, motel management etc.

I share your distaste of the thoughtless drive to put anything and everything into the online format. There is far too much of this in nursing. The University of Phorenix is perhaps the leader in this. I taught for them (or was a “faculty candidate) briefly, and I found it impossible to do any meaningful teaching in the time allotted. I averaged less than $10 per hour. Most of the faculty have full-time jobs in real schools of nursing, and are “double-dipping” – that is doing U of P work while on the other University’s time.

For nurse, higher education beats hospital work (except for pay) and I am planning a return to the University soon – I’d rather have headaches than backaches!

Overall very interesting post.

Bob Lewis, Marietta GA