The Insiders
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Jun
9
The Fallacy of Absolute Grading
Posted by: Alex Lougheed | June 9, 2010 | 25 Comments
There seems to be a common assumption many students, media, and parents hold. It’s an assumption that’s flat out wrong, and only those who don’t understand how academic institutions work hold it. It runs wild in the media, in parents’ minds, and is abused by many for cheap political gain.
That assumption: that a grade percent, standing on its own, means something.
The Vancouver Sun recently posted an article entitled “Want to go to UBC? You’ll need an A average”. In the article, UBC’s associate director of enrolment states “I wouldn’t have got in with my grades 20 years ago, but if 20 years ago the cutoffs had been what they are now, I would’ve worked harder and I would’ve got in.” He’s assuming that higher admission grades means one has to work harder to be admitted.
Now, I’m not sure if Arida is deliberately giving the Sun what they want to hear here, but he’s not being exactly truthful. Fact of the matter is, your grade percentage is irrelevant. What does matter is where you fall compared to your peers.
UBC tries to admit the best students it can. The province tells UBC how many domestic students it has to admit. So, UBC takes in as many applications as it can, sorts them from best to worst, and takes as many as they can.*
That’s it. A cutoff average is just UBC’s estimate to get a desired class size. It’s not some magical metric of difficulty of transferring to UBC from high school. That metric is the percentage of students admitted from the applicant pool. Counter to the picture the Sun paints, the trend in BC has been more students being admitted to university, and less students graduating from high school.
Our high schools have bumped the curve to the right, while provincial policy has shifted the z-score to the left. Despite students now needing 6 more percentage points, it’s actually easier to get in. That’s the fallacy of absolute grading.
* This is a simplified model. UBC takes in the applications and modifies them according to broad based admissions, province of origin (Alberta students get a boost), and other considerations. With international enrolment UBC is free to do whatever.
Comments
25 Comments so far
I wonder if this is reflected in the number of entrance scholarships awarded as well?
It is reflected in the number of entrance scholarships awarded. If you have the average (over 90%), you get an entrance scholarship.
Most people now have a 90% average or more coming in these days… that’s why they’re doing away with the President’s Entrance Scholarships starting (tentatively) in September 2011.
I didn’t know that “the trend in BC has been more students being admitted to university, and less students graduating from high school.”
Could you provide your source(s) for it?
More students being admitted to University, Statscan: http://www40.statcan.gc.ca/l01/cst01/EDUC53A-eng.htm
Less students graduating from high school, Min. Ed.: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/reports/pdfs/student_stats/prov.pdf
The long term trend is less babies, with immigration not making the difference. That means a small domestic student pool, and a future crisis of empty space in the BC education system.
Well, young couples in British Columbia are not going to be having kids when, in their mid-thirties, still find themselves living in basement suites.
Alex, you make some very good points in your post. You are right – the fundamental principle of managing enrolment at any post-secondary institution is simple: supply and demand. The higher the demand for entrance in relation to the number of spaces available, the more stringent the criteria for admission.
Because capacity is finite, where a student’s grades fall in relation to his/her classmates plays a factor. People always think that UBC’s admission cut-offs represent the “UBC standard”; the truth is that it is the students who set the standard, not the institution.
As mentioned in the recent Sun article, this past year, students required an 85% average in order to gain admission to the Faculty of Arts at UBC; twenty years ago, the cut-off was 70%. The conclusion is that it was a lot easier to get in back in 1990. But this past year, UBC admitted 46% of the students who applied to Arts; in 1990, we admitted 49%. So it really isn’t that much “harder” (in terms of the competition) to get in (a point you make in your post).
The truth is that students today have higher grades. Maybe it is because of the reasons you suggest above. Maybe it is because of competition. Or maybe students are simply working harder and achieving more in high school. Twenty-three years ago, when I entered university (ugh…), I knew that I didn’t need an 85% average to continue my education. I was not aiming for anything specific; I tried to get good grades “just because”. But if I had known that an 85% was required, I would have shot for an 85%.
So are today’s students any smarter because they generally get higher numerical grades? I don’t know. But they sure take their education much more seriously than my friends and I did (there may have been other reasons, but let’s not get into that…). But regardless of whether it is the result of competition for post-secondary or simply because that’s who these students are, is higher achievement a bad thing?
It’s true that a grade without a context is not informative in terms of university admission. If BC high school students banded together and decided en masse to get lower grades next year, our cut-offs would go down. But I hope that does not happen. High school grades do measure achievement. For the most part, students have to work harder and learn more to get higher grades.
Our research shows that high school grades are good predictors of success in university (“success” defined by things like sessional average, perseverance to graduation, etc.). That being said, when the range gets restricted (i.e. when we admit students between 86% – 100% as opposed to 70% – 100%), the distinctions between each grade point begin to mean less and less. And, as we all know, there are important measures of university success other than grades and graduation. That’s why UBC is increasingly turning towards consideration of Broad Based Admission (BBA) criteria in the admission decision. Truth is that there is not much difference between one applicant with a 90% and another with a 91%. But if the student with lower grades is engaged in his/her community, shows leadership potential, is an athlete, artist, etc. and the student with higher grades is simply focused on their studies, the difference is huge. UBC wants an engaged student body and BBA is one way to contribute to that goal. And, BBA has the added benefit of driving down the admission cut-offs.
I’d suggest that using BBA criteria is one way to acknowledge your premise, that grading is relative and not absolute in the context of university admissions. But I still think that for the most part, high grades are a by-product of learning and hard work.
Andrew Arida
Associate Director, Enrolment
The University of British Columbia
Thanks for the detailed and well-thought out response here Andrew! I was rather frustrated by the Sun’s article as it didn’t actually say anything.
The real question of admissions is “how can UBC admit those students that will do best at UBC”. In other words, what metrics should UBC use to choose people, and are those metrics in line with a meritocratic admissions process.
As you rightfully mention, we know teacher issued grades are relatively poor indicators within the narrow margins of admissions (e.g. only predictive within +/- 2 letter grades in math).
We used to have provincial exams, which were good within +/- 1 letter grade in math. Unfortunately the province axed most of those.
So now UBC is looking to better metrics. BBA is a good step forward (if it gets the funding to have teeth in the larger faculties, all the better–Province, are you listening?). Regional and school-based scaling is more controversial, but given the status-quo, I think necessary to fix the unreliability of high school teacher grades. Our high schools need to be accountable to our university standards, or else we’ll see the perpetual dumbing down of our curriculum (as seems to be the political trend in recent years, and no VSB, this isn’t just a funding issue).
In terms of why admissions averages have gone up compared to times before, yes, high school has likely more difficult than it was before. But that’s unrelated to the increase of admissions averages. It’s because the value of a high school degree has greatly diminished in our modern economy, meaning more pressure on students to get the extra credentials. I’m going to guess here that the reason UBC is admitting less applicants into Arts is because there are more applicants, in proportion to high school graduating classes, than before. UBC is taking more people in, and even more people want in.
The Sun article ignores that fact, and naively states that higher grades mean harder to get in to. That’s snake oil. The real issue facing our education system is value, accountability, and proper assessment. If we don’t speak about the real issues, we’re going to continue to have high failure and drop-out rates, and lack of faith in the system will only continue to increase. The Sun isn’t helping.
Thanks again for the great response. I think we’re on the same page here. :)
Well. You’re assuming that in the past and now the same proportion and type of graduates apply to UBC.
While that’s simply not true. The reason why it was easier in the past to get into UBC was because there were a lot more opportunities for high school graduates. People back then with say a good average might not consider UBC when they can work at a unionized factory for a fairly high wage.
Back then it might not have been to norm to attend college to improve your future career opportunities. However, now, everyone knows that you need a university degree to get good jobs and thus there’s more competition.
Regardless of the grade inflation, there’s more competition due to changing socioeconomic norms.
I think BBA has value but it has the by-product of gaming the system by volunteering simply to get more ECs rather than doing it for the joy of volunteering or being passionate about an issue.
I see a lot of pre-med students going to hospitals and doing a lot of random volunteering just to get into medical school. However, they don’t really care or are passionate about the field. How can we distinguish between those who are truly passionate and those who are simply doing it to be admitted?
Well my ECs did get me into Sauder with an 87% but nonetheless I hate seeing my pre-med friends doing useless activities just to pad their resume for medical school.
@Wrong Analysis
I don’t really see where we’re disagreeing.
My overall point is the analysis “high grade cut-off implies X”, where X is anything meaningful. We’re on the same page that it’s likely more competitive because of decreased high school degree value. That is balanced however, by a relaxed curriculum. While material may be easier now, you have to game the examinations way more to get that extra 2%.
Personally, I think that’s not in anyone’s interest. 2% on an exam is such a marginal gain in ability compared to the effort that we’re really just teaching our kids to game the system.
@BBA Issues
Echoed, but those who game that system still typically do do better at UBC..
I am sure that a student with a 70% average is very comforted by these statistics.
That, I think, is what is really discomforting about this issue. This problem is part of the larger problem of access to education. The University of British Columbia was intended as the third part of British Columbia’s free public education system, “for the purpose of raising the standard of higher education in the Province, and of enabling all denominations and classes to obtain academical degrees.” (26 April 1890 Ca. 48, British Columbia)
Now, I think it is fair to read “all…classes” as encompassing even that “class” of individuals whose average is 70%. I do not read “all classes” as meaning “all classes of people capable of an “A” average.”
I think you’re very right if what you want to say is that this doesn’t make it any harder for over-achievers to get into University. Those kids who waste their K-12 years doing whatever State-Commissioned Teacher says without question, they don’t have to worry.
The issue is that those who don’t spend K-12 slavishly pleasing authority figures are now, more or less, being told “too bad, that’s how the game works these days!” And what’s more, “the game” is being presented as though it were a “system” in the sense that an aqueduct is a system where the material nature of water plays in. There’s no material the nature of which dictates an “A” average. That is something the University Degree Holders have decided on, especially when it comes to K-12 “grades” which are not determined by any reliable process, merely by the whimsy of the degree-holders allowed to teach.
The root issue here is how using highschool grades at all is unfair. Admission to the University should be on the basis of open examinations published in advance, as I believe it was in the past.
Public education has been reduced to a game of chance. Will you be able to pass the examinations? Who knows, you don’t get to see them in advance! And a big problem is that this works to the advantage of those game-players who are able to do well on exams they haven’t seen in advance. This sort of examination is foisted upon nearly every participant in education, public or private, and it is unfair. If one is to be examined, one should see the examination in advance, so that one may prepare.
The issue here is the take-home message for that kid who tries hard for his 70%: “you are not good enough to enter the Faculty of Arts. But don’t worry, we’re still accepting roughly half of our applicants, doesn’t that comfort you?”
The kid with the 70 won’t even be applying—and likely he’s known he won’t be applying since he was 15 or thereabout, so he has made certain life choices that even further reduce his chance of ever joining the Convocation.
“I still think that for the most part, high grades are a by-product of learning and hard work.”
Yes, learning how to please state-commissioned authority figures and to work hard at doing what they say is necessary, because if you don’t, well, enjoy your life serving coffee to degree holders!
@ Malf
Wow. Your piece is one of the more ridiculous things I’ve read lately (no offense, just speaking my mind as the title of this text box has instructed me to do).
Let’s talk straight facts for a moment:
1. UBC and other institutions have finite space in which they can put students.
2. Higher education looks substantially different today than it did in 1890.
3. Access is still equal to everybody who is willing to do what is necessary to get in. Nobody is left out because of race, gender, or creed. Nobody is cut out because they weren’t willing to something immoral to get accepted.
Ok now let’s play the “spin” game you seem to love.
With respect to (1), you cannot simply accept everybody. At least we can agree on that. There aren’t the professors to teach the classes, there aren’t the buildings to hold the students, and there isn’t the transportation infrastructure to move the students around. Moreover, there isn’t the money to make it happen. Education is highly subsidized by the government which is already strapped funding-wise and doesn’t need the additional burden of paying for some 65%-average-slacker who couldn’t pull him/herself up by the bootstraps. Suck it up and do the work. If not, accept the fact you aren’t going to one of the top 3 universities in Canada. If you want it that badly, because you “grew up” later in high school, try harder at a different post-sec and transfer.
(2) is self explanatory. The quote did NOT intend for “access” to refer to “classes” of high school grades.
(3). Your standard for determining who should be allowed to get in is essentially ridiculous. If you cut out grades as a determining factor, what do you have left? Personal qualities. Those are great and all, but educational institutions measure something to track progress, and (in case you haven’t noticed) they don’t care about whether you’re a cool person. They care about whether you do the work and learn, and can show something for it at the end of the day. That’s what post-sec is about today, and if you don’t like it then you should go to a trade school where you can learn to do the things that you DO like. EVEN if we were to discard grades as a major determining factor, that would require interviewing everybody who shows interest in the school. That’s INSANE. Think about it. The resources to make that happen don’t exist. It also wouldn’t tell schools whether the candidate is capable of doing the work.
–You say “There’s no material the nature of which dictates an “A” average”
There’s also no material the nature of which dictates an “eligible” candidate or a “good person” or an “interesting character”. So suck it up. The chosen standard is at least easy to evaluate: 90 > 80. Done.
–You say “University Degree Holders have decided on, especially when it comes to K-12 ‘grades’”
Maybe the fact that degree-holders decided on it tells us something… like that it was done by people who are able to evaluate the caliber of character and intellect required to succeed at getting a degree? Just a thought.
–You say “Admission to the University should be on the basis of open examinations published in advance, as I believe it was in the past.”
What is this? A game of “who can google the answers”? Come on. If you’re going to turn university admissions into a joke, you may as well turn them into a joke with an interesting punchline. Make it a giant race in thunderbird stadium where all the lights go out and the first 6000 who find their way out of the building get acceptance for the following year.
–You say “Public education has been reduced to a game of chance. Will you be able to pass the examinations? Who knows, you don’t get to see them in advance!”
Wow… if that’s what qualifies as “chance” to you, then you need to go back to a stats class. Public education is a game of hard work and learning. If you don’t like that game, you won’t like university, so don’t bother applying.
–You say “And a big problem is that this works to the advantage of those game-players who are able to do well on exams they haven’t seen in advance.”
Anybody can do well on an exam they have seen in advance. Then it just becomes a game of “who can memorize the answers better” Is that the standard we should use? Sounds like a much more boring version of what we’ve got now.
–You say: “The issue here is the take-home message for that kid who tries hard for his 70%: “you are not good enough to enter the Faculty of Arts. But don’t worry, we’re still accepting roughly half of our applicants, doesn’t that comfort you?””
Yes. And that’s the way it should be. Life isn’t fair, but it’s fair enough to benefit people who work hard and punish people who don’t. If you got a 70% in high school and genuinely tried hard, then you will NOT make it in a cut-throat university. Go somewhere that you can get a lot of support and mentorship, or somewhere where the skills you DO have will be fostered. University will not foster them. It’s not that kind of institution.
–You say: “Yes, learning how to please state-commissioned authority figures and to work hard at doing what they say is necessary, because if you don’t, well, enjoy your life serving coffee to degree holders!”
OMG here we go again. It’s always “The Man” who is pulling the curtains over our eyes and sucking the lifeblood out of us. Grow up.
“you cannot simply accept everybody. At least we can agree on that.”
I disagree. I think our Faculty of Arts should be legally obligated to accept every domestic, British Columbian high school graduate who wants in before accepting a single international student or out-of-province student. Of course I agree that resources are finite; even if ridiculous, I am not unaware of the finitude of space. To be clear, I think a British Columbian with an average of 55% should be accepted into the Faculty of Arts before an Ontarian with an average of 95%.
I see no reason why the same principle governing access to Elementary and Secondary should not follow through to the University and the Faculty of Arts. If there are N elementary-school aged children, there must be N seats for them, imperative. Why is it considered unacceptable to turn people away for lack of seats in K-12 but not at the University? And whether or not such a policy could be implemented over night, I read you as thinking it is not even desirable.
“Education is highly subsidized by the government which is already strapped funding-wise and doesn’t need the additional burden of paying for 65%-average-slacker who couldn’t pull him/herself up by the bootstraps”
Is it strapped? As far as I am aware, they circulate coloured paper for money, so I think the credit problem is really more one of public relations—the people do not think it fitting to generate enough credit to adequately supply the Educational System, but you already think I’m ridiculous, so I won’t talk social credit any more than that.
“The quote did NOT intend for “access” to refer to “classes” of high school grades.”
Well, how does it read to you? I am aware that the drafters likely did not intend it directly to mean classes of grades, but what does all classes mean other than that all people sufficient, regardless of the grade of their sufficiency, should be given access to the University, so they may obtain academical degree? I think it very much implies that to restrict the University to those with “first class” marks is not in line with the University’s purpose.
“If you cut out grades as a determining factor, what do you have left?”
I’m not sure why there should be a determining factor re: an Arts Degree other than passing all of one’s courses. And if you have too many qualified people, why should the over-qualified by accepted before the merely adequate? If there are more qualified people than applicants, my view is that a lottery is more fair than rewarding people on the basis of highschool grades which are not determined, I maintain, by any reliable process, especially in things like English and History. It is a bit better in physics and chemistry, but in every discipline, the philosophical issues surrounding judgement come into play, and to suspend those for the sake of “getting the work done,” well, that is just the problem, isn’t it?
“It also wouldn’t tell schools whether the candidate is capable of doing the work.”
OK, seriously, have you ever taken an English Literature course? Try to tell me with a straight face that what is considered “work” is distinct from “non-work” isn’t completely made up at the whimsy of the professor and her supervising Faculty Critters. I am not talking about the Engineering Faculties or the Medical Faculties. I am speaking about the Arts, more or less, sorry if I did not make that clear.
“The chosen standard is at least easy to evaluate: 90 > 80. Done.”
How do you know that ninety is bigger than eighty? If anything, 80 looks bigger. The 9 is like the 8, but with part of it cut off…
“What is this? A game of “who can google the answers”?”
Well, for Arts you could ask questions to which one cannot really google the answers, like “What is the meaning of life?” Things of that nature. You can also ask English History questions, like “what is your view of section 29 of Magna Carta?” And even if the kids just memorize answers to these things, well, great. At least they will have memorized some useful things, where highschool grades are no guarantee of having memorized anything useful, merely of ability to please degree-holding authority figures. Public examinations would alleviate that problem by making it impossible for a public fool teacher to play favorites, which they all do, especially in English where the standard is more or less the teacher’s favored style of writing.
“Public education is a game of hard work and learning. If you don’t like that game, you won’t like university, so don’t bother applying.”
No, it takes two things to get a degree: time and health. Unfortunately, time is expensive, and health, well, who can say what that is? But if you have those two things, I am quite confident you can get a degree, absent some sort of severe mental retardation, etc. And on that topic, here is something I have been considering. Should the mentally retarded be excluded from the University? Isn’t that, basically, what you’re saying? If someone has a legitimate and severe mental handicap, does that mean Bachelor of Arts should be off-limits? Is that a just way to operate society? Or will there be exceptions made for the severely disabled, but for those unfortunates who’re simply mediocre, well, too bad, we’ll pretend that’s simply because they didn’t pull themselves up by their bootstraps?
“Anybody can do well on an exam they have seen in advance.”
That is simply not true. Indeed, the most interesting examinations have questions on them to which there is no one correct answer. English Lit, Essay Question on Hamlet’s madness, legitimate or feigned. Knowing the question in advance does very little to assist anyone who doesn’t have something to say on the topic; and if all he does is memorize an answer, well, again, he’s done something. I don’t see how it is better to extemporaneously come up with an answer during an exam rather than to extemporaneously come up with an answer beforehand, memorize it and repeat it.
““The issue here is the take-home message for that kid who tries hard for his 70%: “you are not good enough to enter the Faculty of Arts. But don’t worry, we’re still accepting roughly half of our applicants, doesn’t that comfort you?””
Yes. And that’s the way it should be. Life isn’t fair, but it’s fair enough to benefit people who work hard and punish people who don’t. If you got a 70% in high school and genuinely tried hard, then you will NOT make it in a cut-throat university.”
Wow! Cut-throat U? I didn’t think you’d top the Reaganism.
“OMG here we go again. It’s always “The Man” who is pulling the curtains over our eyes and sucking the lifeblood out of us. Grow up.”
Are you disputing that teachers require, essentially, a state-granted license to teach in British Columbia’s K-12 system? s. 19 of the School Act requires that except for minor cases, all teachers, principals, vice-principals, directors of instruction, superintendents and assistant superintendents of schools must hold a state-defined certificates. Certificate, commission, potayto, potahto. The point is that the teaching profession is monopolized by University degree holders, who are closing the noose, as it were, around the province, only allowing a more and more homogeneous group of over-achievers into the University. I’ve been hanging around for a while. I’ve noticed changes in the student body. I am not amused.
At the end of the day I’m a pragmatist and not a romanticist. I think romanticism had its place in the late 1800s and is now dead and gone. The new age is about getting things done better, faster, and moving on to bigger and better things. Fantasizing about how grand life would be if everybody were accepted into a top school is a fun academic endeavor, but nothing more. Note: I’m all for getting everybody access to the best education they can get, but I prefer to find real solutions, not complain about unsolvable problems. The best practical way to make it happen, as I see it, is to make satellite institutions like UBC-O. Or provide alternative institutions. But someone beat me to it… years ago. If you get a 55% in high school, what’s wrong with going to Kwantlen?
As you will note, I spelled endeavor with “vor” and not “vour.” Why? Because I’m American. That’s right, a dirty, stinking international student the likes of which foul the air at the institution we all dearly hold to be ours. Just as romanticism is dead, so is isolationism. I hope Canada will learn from America’s mistakes by embracing the “rise of the rest” as Fareed Zakaria puts it in his interview on the Post-American world here: http://fora.tv/2008/05/20/Fareed_Zakaria_The_Post-American_World (great vid, btw). If we do not embrace educated and valuable international students, they will just give us the finger, get educated at a top tier school in their own country, and innovation and progress in North America will only be known in history books. A substantial number of people graduating with PhDs in North America are international students. It would be a tragic shame to shun them simply on the basis of some nostalgic xenophobia. I like to think of this issue, and many like it, in terms of basic accounting principles. I am an asset to BC. I work hard, I am smart, and I will bring wealth and prosperity to the province, perhaps even fame if I play my cards right. The kid who gets 55% is probably a liability. He’s going probably going to be receiving his GST check from the gov’t, an institution funded graciously by my future astronomical salary and sapped by his future drinking problem. It’s sad but true that the people who are the largest burdens on the healthcare system, a financial fiasco, are those who can least afford it. (For the record, I don’t drink so I’m not worried about going down that road). So why should BC invest in him simply because he has residency and I do not? There are other reasons BC should invest in him, because there are ways he can have a great life and be a benefit to his community. But residency is not the reason BC should invest in him. It seems petty. So disgustingly petty.
–“To be clear, I think a British Columbian with an average of 55% should be accepted into the Faculty of Arts before an Ontarian with an average of 95%.”
See the preceding paragraph.
–“I see no reason why the same principle governing access to Elementary and Secondary should not follow through to the University and the Faculty of Arts. If there are N elementary-school aged children, there must be N seats for them, imperative.”
It does. It’s called community college. At the end of the day, you’re learning basically the same stuff. Just has a different name and logo on the diploma.
–“Why is it considered unacceptable to turn people away for lack of seats in K-12 but not at the University? And whether or not such a policy could be implemented over night, I read you as thinking it is not even desirable.”
Absolutely right, it’s not even desirable. I don’t know if you remember back to high school, but I remember. I remember the jackasses who slacked off and got poor grades, then went off to a Tier 3 state school to party. I don’t want them wasting my time, my resources, and my space in a learning institution. Those jackasses in high school would have probably gone to a Tier 1 school if they could have just waltzed in. But the system is better than that (thankfully, though only in most cases. Some still have a Daddy rich enough to buy their way in). I don’t want my professors teaching 3000 students per semester and not being able to teach effectively or to be available to discuss content. I don’t want classes of 800. And I don’t want just anybody standing up there and teaching. I want a community focused on high-achievement. That’s why I came to UBC. Other schools are still available that cater to those who aren’t high achievers. I don’t want them diluting the meaning of a UBC degree. I know you’re going to pounce on that comment but I don’t care. I’ll defend it to the bitter end.
–“Is it strapped? As far as I am aware, they circulate coloured paper for money, so I think the credit problem is really more one of public relations—the people do not think it fitting to generate enough credit to adequately supply the Educational System, but you already think I’m ridiculous, so I won’t talk social credit any more than that.”
Yea… let’s move on from this one.
–“Well, how does it read to you? I am aware that the drafters likely did not intend it directly to mean classes of grades, but what does all classes mean other than that all people sufficient, regardless of the grade of their sufficiency, should be given access to the University, so they may obtain academical degree? I think it very much implies that to restrict the University to those with “first class” marks is not in line with the University’s purpose.”
It reads to me like class talks about your race, your religion, your gender, your socioeconomic status, etc. Not your academic performance.
–“I’m not sure why there should be a determining factor re: an Arts Degree other than passing all of one’s courses. And if you have too many qualified people, why should the over-qualified by accepted before the merely adequate?”
Arts is too ambiguous for us to make a blanket statement like yours. If I were to use your style of framing this ‘corrupt institution’, I would call Arts an arbitrary consolidation by bureaucrats who would like nothing more but to snag as many programs as they can under their umbrella to fatten their portfolios and, consequently, their paychecks. But no, really, it is pretty arbitrary. Philosophy sounds like it’s super abstract and anybody can do it, but no. Not everybody can engage in high-caliber philosophy. Most can only claim to do so based on their standard of what sounds eloquent when inebriated at 2AM in a dimly-lit pub.
–“OK, seriously, have you ever taken an English Literature course? Try to tell me with a straight face that what is considered “work” is distinct from “non-work” isn’t completely made up at the whimsy of the professor and her supervising Faculty Critters. I am not talking about the Engineering Faculties or the Medical Faculties. I am speaking about the Arts, more or less, sorry if I did not make that clear.”
I understand that the ideal world of an Arts degree which you envision requires the total obliteration of the entire framework currently existing around the institution of education. I get that. But I don’t think it’s really going to get us further along the “progress” train I think we should be on. I think it will just jump us from one standing train to the adjacent standing train. No, I haven’t taken an English Lit course. Well I took a university-equivalent lit course in high school so I got credit for it, but anyway that’s another topic. I have taken plenty of PHIL courses which qualify as Arts and yes, work is distinct from non-work. Not as distinct as attendance or absence, but pretty distinct.
— “How do you know that ninety is bigger than eighty? If anything, 80 looks bigger. The 9 is like the 8, but with part of it cut off…”
The only way I’m going to dignify your response is with this: Well actually the 90 looks more powerful because it can support the bulk of its weight on that one little line that comes down. In fact it’s stronger and more stable because it can balance all the weight onto a single point. The eight has less work to do so it’s weaker and less skilled.
–“Well, for Arts you could ask questions to which one cannot really google the answers, like “What is the meaning of life?” Things of that nature. You can also ask English History questions, like “what is your view of section 29 of Magna Carta?””
Look: turning the admissions game into any game at all is just rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic, to cliché-it-up a little bit. In the end it’s still going to be a game of some arbitrarily-chosen skill. I agree we’re on the titanic, but while I would like to usher people into the lifeboats into an orderly fashion, I get the feeling you want us to be building an ark with toothpicks.
–“And even if the kids just memorize answers to these things, well, great. At least they will have memorized some useful things.”
Sorry, I didn’t realize that having an opinion on Section 29 of the Magna Carta (or something like it) was useful. I like to think curing cancer is useful, but I know I’ll just be accused of being a science freak. Nonscientists have a terrible time grasping the fact that truly innovative science is as much a creative art as painting or dance, or writing beautiful poetry for that matter. Yet we still know how to evaluate our students and prepare them for success.
–“where highschool grades are no guarantee of having memorized anything useful, merely of ability to please degree-holding authority figures.”
Look: degree holding figures are going to evaluate it no matter what standard you use for admission. Even if you eliminate all standards, the gatekeeper will most likely have a degree. Let’s just get over that point and move on.
–“Public examinations would alleviate that problem by making it impossible for a public fool teacher to play favorites, which they all do, especially in English where the standard is more or less the teacher’s favored style of writing.”
Sure, patch one leak with your gum but you will just spring more leaks elsewhere.
–“No, it takes two things to get a degree: time and health.”
Time: agreed. If you don’t have time, you’re not going to have it whether or not you get in to UBC, so it makes no difference. And health, well, as long as it doesn’t directly interfere with your time, then I think you have sufficient health.
–“But if you have those two things, I am quite confident you can get a degree, absent some sort of severe mental retardation, etc.”
Yea, *a* degree. But not one from UBC.
–“Should the mentally retarded be excluded from the University? Isn’t that, basically, what you’re saying?”
If they are unable to meet the requirements and standards for admission, they can be mentally retarded, they can be fish, or they can be smart slackers, but they will share one thing in common: a rejection letter. Well, fish don’t have mailing addresses so they won’t get rejection letters.
–“If someone has a legitimate and severe mental handicap, does that mean Bachelor of Arts should be off-limits? Is that a just way to operate society?”
You are turning my argument into a strawman. I know you’re smarter than that. Let’s try to avoid these things. Never did I indicate someone’s IQ should be the standard for admission.
–Re: “Anybody can do well on an exam they have seen in advance.”
“That is simply not true.”
Ok fine. If they looked at it and then said “eff this sh*t”, yes, they would probably fail anyway.
–“Indeed, the most interesting examinations have questions on them to which there is no one correct answer.”
Indeed, such questions need not have been read in advance, so it makes no difference anyway. Like you said, time is expensive. Giving the exams beforehand just favors those students who have the time to sit down and think about Hamlet until the day of the exam, and disfavors those students who have to work to help feed the family. Think about that one.
“Wow! Cut-throat U? I didn’t think you’d top the Reaganism.”
I’ll top anything.
“Are you disputing that teachers require, essentially, a state-granted license to teach in British Columbia’s K-12 system?”
No.
“ s. 19 of the School Act requires that except for minor cases, all teachers, principals, vice-principals, directors of instruction, superintendents and assistant superintendents of schools must hold a state-defined certificates.”
Cool. Sorry, I know that’s patronizing but I really didn’t need you to quote for me section 19 of any act ever written anywhere. It’s not relevant. Really.
“Certificate, commission, potayto, potahto. The point is that the teaching profession is monopolized by University degree holders, who are closing the noose, as it were, around the province, only allowing a more and more homogeneous group of over-achievers into the University. I’ve been hanging around for a while. I’ve noticed changes in the student body. I am not amused.”
I’m afraid I agree that the education system as a whole needs restructuring. I am also disappointed in the youth of today. But that’s probably just because I’m an old, bitter man of 22. Anyway, I don’t think you’ve done an adequate job conceiving the way it should be restructured. Your response seems, frankly, reactionary and completely tactless and un-tempered. Moreover, it lacks strategy, insightfulness, and creativity, all of which are key components associated with innovation and progress (the train I believe ultimately leads us to salvation). That said, I think you are smart enough to come up with something good. I just think you’ve been blind-sighted by the counterculture movement that flows almost tangibly through the Drive and its surrounding area.
I don’t have a definitive answer for what the restructuring will look like. I just want to show that your answer is not the one we’re looking for.
“At the end of the day I’m a pragmatist and not a romanticist.”
Ah, I think that might be it. Though my rose-coloured glasses are
scratched, they’re not broken, and I still think the Romantic Trip is
appropriate to British Columbia.
“But someone beat me to it# years ago. If you get a 55% in high school,
what’s wrong with going to Kwantlen?”
“At the end of the day, you’re learning basically the same stuff. Just has
a different name and logo on the diploma.”
The issue is that there are certain temporal advantages annexed to
studentship, and, eventually, freehold in a degree, at the
University—various votes for Senate, Board of Governors, etc. etc. It’s
not unfair to say that by a circuitous process these Senates and Boards
contribute to, if not totally define, the practice of Law, Medicine,
Architecture, etc. etc. within British Columbia. Membership in a
University is not simply about “learning”—there are larger concerns
involved in Universities than mere teaching and learning.
“Because I’m American. That’s right, a dirty, stinking international
student the likes of which foul the air at the institution we all dearly
hold to be ours. Just as romanticism is dead, so is isolationism.”
Isolationism is dead? Well, perhaps national isolationism is dead, but
its uglier brother, Meritocratic Isolationism, is alive and growing fat,
if your posts are representative of the student body, and I suspect they
are more representative than mine are. This is part of why I am not
certain that high grades are necessarily indicative of any general ability
to think. Isolationism is dead? We’re talking about how large numbers of
people are isolated from the University, albeit on meritocratic grounds,
not on race/gender/creed grounds, which brings me to my next point.
Do you think there are no systemic biases against various individuals
within the K-12 system? Of course I could mention the
biggies—residential schools for natives, lack of inclusive spaces for
LGBBQTQUUX students, denigration of drug users. That last one, I think,
is very important and unacknowledged, especially in British Columbia where
everyone and his dog knows our biggest industry is Marihuana.
Your meritocratic view of public education would be much better if we
didn’t have cops in classrooms more or less lying to children and ignoring
modern research—and this is the other problem with the fallacy of
meritocracy. The Marihuana issue makes it very clear to many British
Columbians how the University is so much pomp and circumstance, especially
when some so-called “expert” whose claim to fame is letters after his name
gets put on the television to maintain the status quo re: drugs. And that
is more or less all that they do. If they do agitate for improvement in
drug law, it is almost always through the guise of public health policy
and infantalizing of addicts such that they require “care” by big,
important degree-holders.
“He’s going probably going to be receiving his GST check from the gov’t,
an institution funded graciously by my future astronomical salary and
sapped by his future drinking problem.”
I really don’t want to talk social credit here, but I suppose maybe it
cannot be avoided. The public utility in which your salary will be paid,
that is, statutory credit created by act of parliament, would not exist
without the enfranchisement of that drunkard. His mere existence is part
of what enables the system of statutory money, and, indeed, his peaceful
compliance with the insanity of legal tender is what enables you to lead a
peaceful life. And this is without addressing how Trademark, Copyright
and Patent Statute lead to inflation of the money supply by unjustly
enriching the so-called “authors”/inventors/designers of works.
“It would be a tragic shame to shun them simply on the basis of some
nostalgic xenophobia.”
It is not on the basis of nostalgic xenophobia; it is more about
preserving British Columbia as an English-speaking country that enjoys the
English Law. CSIS Director Fadden’s unprecedented comment re: Foreign
Influence stated very directly that one way people are recruited as part
of long-term influence operations is through University clubs, and,
tho he didn’t say this, such clubs are likely constituted and run by
international students.
As an American, you may be unaware of how quaint our little republic was
until about 1990. Elementary School had no “progressive” curriculum. We
mostly sang silly songs and wrote stories. We did a little bit of math.
Around 1990 the Multicultist Democracy wonks destroyed Christmas because
it is “offensive.” If I seem a bit reactionary, it’s because I am—I had
a progressive internationalist university degree holder tell me in Grade 3
that the reason we’re no longer singing Joy to the World is that some
people find it offensive. I asked who these people were, and I was told
recent immigrants, new Canadians, etc. So British Columbians were forced
to abandon our quaint, pseudo-Protestant Public Education System for the
sake of refugees and other newly acquired human resources?
Many Canadian boomers can remember when our Lord’s Prayer was said daily
in our schools…the notion that Canada is a “secular democracy” is straight up
University-spun propaganda. Canada is a Christian Democracy that is
tolerant of other faiths and creeds, but, fundamentally, our Monarch is a
Protestant Christian, and that _means something_, and the young’uns used
to be taught what it means, at least in Song…now they don’t even get
that.
And this change came all at once, at the behest of the University
indoctrinated internationalist crowd. There was no widespread,
grass-roots movement to destroy public education in British Columbia; it
was a top-down, undemocratic foisting of new, “progressive” secular
values. And now what we’re seeing is the first generation of kids raised
within this Brave New World entering the University. Quite frankly,
they’re horror-show scary. They think they are very tolerant, but in fact
this is nothing more than their having been programmed to unquestionably
accept race/sexual orientation/gender as “irrelevant.” Question one of
their sacred cows, like “multicultural democracy” and so forth, and the
intolerant knives come out. I’ve been shouted down by a sociology 200
class for having the temerity to remind them that Canada is not simply a
parliamentary democracy—we have a Crown, and it has prerogative rights,
like the power of justice and mercy.
I don’t know if anything similar happened during your development, but
this happened in British Columbia more or less “all at once.” Quite
frankly, at the time I felt we were being invaded and I still do—is it
an armed invasion? No. There are loud wars with bang-bangs, and there
are quiet wars with Information. One of the most dispicable ways to win a
war is to poison children against their parents with propaganda. What do
you think the effect of anti-colonialist curriculum in Elementary Schools
is, anyway?
“. I want a community focused on high-achievement.”
Ah. I want a community focused on love, peace and good government. I
think that where we disagree, it is likely due to our starting from
different premises. I do not think it loving to exclude people,
especially when there is not a program of building up capacity to include
people. It would be one thing if people were being told “we don’t yet
have capacity to let everyone do an Arts degree, but we’re working on
it…”
Just as there were those who thought mass-enfranchisement of the commons
was a bad idea, there are those who think that mass enfranchisement in
Universities through general availability of Arts degrees is a bad idea.
I don’t think either position is “wrong”; it depends what one wants.
Really, though, I think most of your arguments re: University entrance,
professorships, etc. are just as applicable to the Parliament at Victoria,
House of Commons and Senate of Canada, etc. etc.
“Other schools are still available that cater to those who aren’t high
achievers. I don’t want them diluting the meaning of a UBC degree.”
Well, here is an interesting question. Who is it that defines the meaning
of a degree? You might say The University, but I think you would be
wrong, for if one looks carefully at University charters, Universities
_confer_ degrees. Pomp and propaganda aside, a degree is a sort of
membership in a body corporate—that’s it. Universities are basically
Municipa, Governments where the franchise is granted on the basis of some
sort of purported intellectual merit instead of owning a certain amount of
land above one’s debts (as for Senate of Canada) or some other thing.
I think if you said “value”, you might be closer to the mark. On that
front, I’ll simply say it is vulgar to denominate knowledge in
dollars—it’s very profitable, but that a thing is profitable does not
meanit isn’t vulgar.
“Giving the exams beforehand just favors those students who have the time
to sit down and think about Hamlet until the day of the exam, and
disfavors those students who have to work to help feed the family. Think
about that one.”
So there you point out one systemic issue. Don’t you think maybe some
kids get worse grades because rather than doing homework, going to Tutors,
etc. they “have to work to help feed the family”? Giving out exams
beforehand, in my view, is part of natural justice. If one is to be
summoned, or given opportunity, of being tested/examined/judged, one
should know the fact upon which one will be tested/examined/judged in
advance. I do not see it as permissible to diminish natural justice, and
I see this as a very big problem with education in general—examinations
not made known in advance, more than anything else in my view, contribute
to the “gamey” taste of Education.
“It’s not relevant. Really.”
I think that the statutory constructions governing education are very
relevant, and I think that the sublimation of discussion thereon into
“it’s just about ensuring your kids are taught by qualified teachers!”
etc. is vacuous. It is about ensuring the continuation of the
degree-holder’s monopoly on teaching. Again, why not have an open
examination to qualify teachers? Why not get rid of the insanity of
requiring four+ years of post-secondary before teaching Kindergarten?
Used to be that a young lady could graduate from highschool in June and be
teaching little ones in September. University types have multiplied the
credentials necessary to engage in various occupations, and it seems to me
to no one’s benefit but their own, especially now that they have started
engaging in overt social engineering, re: destroying christmas, foisting
secular multiculturalism on people, etc. etc.
“I don’t think you’ve done an adequate job conceiving the way it should be
restructured.”
Oh, well, I don’t think that was my intention—this is a blog, after all!
But I will say that my view of how the Faculty of Arts should be obligated
is more or less what appears in s. 102 of British Columbia University Act,
1908. I’ve been unable to locate an act of repeal for that section; it
could be that it was not rolled into the 1927 Statute Revision, for
whatever reason, and thusly has been asleep ever since.
“I just think you’ve been blind-sighted by the counterculture movement
that flows almost tangibly through the Drive and its surrounding area.”
I don’t think it could possibly flow up hill, and I live uphill from the
Drive, so I disagree! As you more or less identified, my views are
Romantic, and I don’t really think that’s something to apologize for
simply because you’ve declared romanticism dead.
“I don’t have a definitive answer for what the restructuring will look
like. I just want to show that your answer is not the one we’re looking
for.”
I think we are looking for different things. I get the sense that you
don’t, for example, think that the K-University status quo produced
stunted consciences incapable of questioning authority—the cost to
questioning authority is now far too high, and the kids are aware of it.
You submit to that authority! You play ball! That’s how the game works,
kid! But if it’s a game…we make up the rules…the game analogy is
deployed in a totally one-sided way. My issue is that everyone is more or
less expected to play, let only an undemocratically self-selected elite
get to set the rules of the game. Mass enfranchisement through a free
path to an Arts degree for everyone would help alleviate that.
“The issue is that there are certain temporal advantages annexed to
studentship, and, eventually, freehold in a degree, at the
University…”
Unless you can identify a real, direct impact of this that’s detrimental to the sanctity of the institution, who cares? Why should anybody BUT degree holders decide what it takes to get degrees? What do you want – a giant town hall meeting about what should constitute higher education? Then let’s have those meetings determine what it takes to be a surgeon. Or a civil engineer. Great. I know your response to this will be “but I’m talking about Arts.” Same thing. Why should someone unfamiliar with the institution be making important decisions for it? Degree holders are and *should* be the gatekeepers.
“Isolationism is dead? Well, perhaps national isolationism is dead, but
its uglier brother, Meritocratic Isolationism, is alive and growing fat”
If I had to choose between xenophobic isolationism and meritocratic isolationism, I would choose arrogance over bigotry. And don’t try to convince me to think that a meritocracy is inherently bigoted.
“Do you think there are no systemic biases against various individuals
within the K-12 system?”
There are. Irrelevant to this discussion. You don’t solve a K-12 problem by reforming post-sec.
“LGBBQTQUUX”
????? Is that the new p-c term for people with gender and sexuality differences? Seems like pretty soon the minority and discriminated group will be the S.
“…denigration of drug users. That last one, I think,
is very important and unacknowledged”
Yea but much of it is exported anyway. Marijuana is irrelevant since no pot-smoking Arts hippie was ever hindered from getting his/her degree because s/he liked to get high. Denigration of drug users in BC happens to people on meth, heroin, coke, crack, etc. Not pot. And no, I do not want meth addicts in class with me. Neither would 95% of students. They would simply leave and go to another school. Soon we would just have another downtown East Side at UBC. Awesome.
“Your meritocratic view of public education would be much better if we
didn’t have cops in classrooms more or less lying to children and ignoring
modern research—and this is the other problem with the fallacy of
meritocracy.”
Not sure where this gets you.
“If they do agitate for improvement in
drug law, it is almost always through the guise of public health policy
and infantalizing of addicts such that they require “care” by big,
important degree-holders.”
They do. If they didn’t, they could get off the drugs by just sitting around, drinking and smoking with their buddies and pretending to heal. Self-medication with narcotics only exacerbates what underlying psychological disorder already existed. If I had to choose between a hippie’s rejection of science and a doctor’s affirmation of study results, I choose the scientist every time.
“The public utility in which your salary will be paid,
that is, statutory credit created by act of parliament, would not exist
without the enfranchisement of that drunkard.”
Meh, not so much. In a general sense yes, but I see no problem with the backing of legal tender with value. I much prefer that to using gold doubloons.
“His mere existence is part of what enables the system of statutory money, and, indeed, his peaceful compliance with the insanity of legal tender is what enables you to lead a peaceful life.”
His peaceful compliance is not necessary. If he doesn’t like it, he will just get the smack-down from the legal system. He bought into the social contract. If he didn’t like it, he was always welcome to leave. Really, the way we are today is simply the lesser of many worse evils.
“And this is without addressing how Trademark, Copyright and Patent Statute lead to inflation of the money supply by unjustly enriching the so-called “authors”/inventors/designers of works.”
This is really a tangent for a separate conversation. I disagree with you so adamantly on this point that I won’t say any more.
“It is not on the basis of nostalgic xenophobia; it is more about
preserving British Columbia as an English-speaking country that enjoys the
English Law.”
1. BC isn’t a country
2. Ontarians and Americans and everybody else required to pass the TOEFL is not going to change the fact that BC is English-speaking. Better to take the immigrants as university students than to take them just “as-is,” as it were, if you wanted to preserve English as the major spoken language.
3. Even if we didn’t speak English, it wouldn’t directly change our system of governance.
This is unadulterated xenophobic nostalgia.
“CSIS Director Fadden’s unprecedented comment re: Foreign
Influence stated very directly that one way people are recruited as part
of long-term influence operations is through University clubs, and,
tho he didn’t say this, such clubs are likely constituted and run by
international students.”
That’s right. I started a club at UBC too. Is everybody jumping on the “I wanna be American” bandwagon? No.
“As an American, you may be unaware of how quaint our little republic was
until about 1990.”
Considering I was 2 years old then, yours would be a fair statement.
“Elementary School had no “progressive” curriculum. We
mostly sang silly songs and wrote stories. We did a little bit of math.”
Perhaps until 1990 Canada was close to irrelevant on the global stage. Look at it today. Better to be an educated progressivist than a hippie of any kind. The 60’s are over for a reason.
“I had a progressive internationalist university degree holder tell me in Grade 3
that the reason we’re no longer singing Joy to the World is that some
people find it offensive. I asked who these people were, and I was told
recent immigrants, new Canadians, etc. So British Columbians were forced
to abandon our quaint, pseudo-Protestant Public Education System for the
sake of refugees and other newly acquired human resources?”
NO. NOBODY FORCED YOU. Quaint pseudo-protestant white Canadians are just pushovers and will bend over backwards and break their necks to be politically correct and avoid stepping on people’s toes. The immigrants didn’t do it to you. You did it to yourselves.
“Many Canadian boomers can remember when our Lord’s Prayer was said daily
in our schools…the notion that Canada is a “secular democracy” is straight up
University-spun propaganda.”
No it’s pretty much just the way it is now. Secularism is the wave of the future. You can hold on to tradition and religion for the sake of holding on to something as you get swept away by progress, but you can’t hold on forever. And you shouldn’t. The grass is greener where we’re going.
“fundamentally, our Monarch is a Protestant Christian, and that _means something_, and the young’uns used to be taught what it means, at least in Song…now they don’t even get that.”
Sorry, I don’t see why it *means something*. Who cares what your pseudo-Monarch holds dear to her aging heart? It almost sounds as if you would rather play “follow the leader off the cliff” than “let’s see if we can think for ourselves”
“And this change came all at once, at the behest of the University
indoctrinated internationalist crowd. There was no widespread,
grass-roots movement to destroy public education in British Columbia; it
was a top-down, undemocratic foisting of new, “progressive” secular
values.”
You snooze, you loose. Public education wasn’t destroyed in BC, it never really existed before if what you tell me about pre-1990 is correct.
“Quite frankly, they’re horror-show scary. They think they are very tolerant, but in fact
this is nothing more than their having been programmed to unquestionably accept race/sexual orientation/gender as “irrelevant.””
I didn’t realize that bigoted nostalgia of the “Canadian English-Law Monarchy” was a tolerant view.
“I’ve been shouted down by a sociology 200 class for having the temerity to remind them that Canada is not simply a parliamentary democracy—we have a Crown, and it has prerogative rights, like the power of justice and mercy.”
I’m sorry, did you just say it had RIGHTS? Given by whom? Itself? Most other colonies realized long ago that the Crown is the root cause of their problems, not their salvation from the problems.
“at the time I felt we were being invaded and I still do”
Xenophobia
“One of the most dispicable ways to win a war is to poison children against their parents with propaganda. What do you think the effect of anti-colonialist curriculum in Elementary Schools
is, anyway?”
The type of curriculum that accepts and embraces globalization as INEVITABLE and seeks to be a partner in making it happen rather than being trampled and left on the roadside when it happens anyway. The world is changing. That’s just how it is. You can try to hit the “big red button” on the internet, global transport, and a growing global population, and go sing kumbaya but it’s not going to work whether or not you reform UBC to your liking. BC will just be forgotten and left in what will one day be known as the new dark ages of human progress.
“Ah. I want a community focused on love, peace and good government.”
You can have that too along with progress. I don’t see them as mutually exclusive ideals, but our approaches to achieving those ideals are mutually exclusive. Your idea of peace and love and good government involves telling foreigners to go eff themselves and stay in their home countries. Yea, that’s what love and peace are all about.
“I do not think it loving to exclude people”
You should clarify that you do not think it loving to exclude *British Columbians* but you seem to get off on excluding anybody who isn’t a WASP.
“Just as there were those who thought mass-enfranchisement of the commons
was a bad idea, there are those who think that mass enfranchisement in
Universities through general availability of Arts degrees is a bad idea.”
You CAN get an Arts degree if you want one. Just not at UBC unless you can demonstrate that you’re capable of handling it and can show that you’re committed to it based on your performance in high school. Again, go to another BC institution. You can still get your degree there.
“Universities are basically Municipa, Governments where the franchise is granted on the basis of some sort of purported intellectual merit instead of owning a certain amount of land above one’s debts (as for Senate of Canada) or some other thing.”
That’s the nature of any institution. You can go to a café and chit-chat politics for three hours and write each other B.A. in Polisci from the University of Blenz. Nobody will stop you.
“I’ll simply say it is vulgar to denominate knowledge in
dollars—it’s very profitable, but that a thing is profitable does not
meanit isn’t vulgar.”
From my understanding of your politics, denominating *anything* in dollars is vulgar.
“So there you point out one systemic issue. Don’t you think maybe some
kids get worse grades because rather than doing homework, going to Tutors,
etc. they “have to work to help feed the family”?”
Yes, but you sure as sh*t didn’t solve it by giving kids exams to look over beforehand. If you’re going to do reform, do real reform. Don’t just prance around and point your finger like a wand at problems thinking any whimsical solution will have a long-term difference to the way things work.
“Giving out exams beforehand, in my view, is part of natural justice.”
There’s no such thing as *natural* justice. There’s no justice in orca’s killing and eating baby whales, or natural forest fires burning animals alive. But it’s natural. Justice is a human construct we arbitrarily assign to outcomes. There’s no non-arbitrary reason to assume giving an exam in advance is somehow more just than not doing so.
“I think that the statutory constructions governing education are very
relevant”
In general, yes, but not in this discussion.
“Why not get rid of the insanity of requiring four+ years of post-secondary before teaching Kindergarten?”
I don’t know. Don’t really care that much as it doesn’t impact the nature of university admissions.
“re: destroying christmas, foisting
secular multiculturalism on people, etc. etc.”
I see what this is about now. You’re just pissed that we don’t praise Jesus in school anymore. One day humanity will look back on the secularist movement and thank us for it. As we’re still in the transitional phase, I can understand there are some people who are screaming “say it isn’t so”. But alas for you, it is so.
“But I will say that my view of how the Faculty of Arts should be obligated
is more or less what appears in s. 102 of British Columbia University Act,
1908. I’ve been unable to locate an act of repeal for that section; it
could be that it was not rolled into the 1927 Statute Revision, for
whatever reason, and thusly has been asleep ever since.”
1908 =/= 2008. I’m glad we’ve move past it.
“I don’t think it could possibly flow up hill, and I live uphill from the
Drive, so I disagree! As you more or less identified, my views are
Romantic, and I don’t really think that’s something to apologize for
simply because you’ve declared romanticism dead.”
No apologies necessary.
“I think we are looking for different things.”
Agreed.
“I get the sense that you don’t, for example, think that the K-University status quo produced
stunted consciences incapable of questioning authority—the cost to
questioning authority is now far too high, and the kids are aware of it.”
In fact I think the opposite is true. People are more aware today and freer to reject authoritarianism than they ever have before.
“You submit to that authority! You play ball! That’s how the game works,
kid! But if it’s a game…we make up the rules…the game analogy is
deployed in a totally one-sided way.”
Absolutely. I love playing that game because I’m a winner. And the losers like to cry about why the game is the way it is, when they really just need to figure out how to play it better. Or go play another game somewhere else. Don’t throw my chess pieces off the board and put down flower petals just because you lost. I’ll play with someone else if you don’t like it and you can do whatever you want on your own.
“My issue is that everyone is more or less expected to play, let only an undemocratically self-selected elite get to set the rules of the game. Mass enfranchisement through a free path to an Arts degree for everyone would help alleviate that.”
How would suddenly giving everybody an Arts degree alleviate anything? Dumbasses will still be dumbasses. Hippies will still be hippies. Elitists will still be elitists. We’re all human anyway, it’s not like all of us having a degree from the same institution will bring us together or change anything. May as well not waste the time and resources. Anyway there is mass enfranchisement. It’s called other post-sec institutions.
“There are. Irrelevant to this discussion. You don’t solve a K-12 problem
by reforming post-sec.”
What if some of the problems in K-12 are caused by the University’s intake
procedures, which are biased towards some and against others?
“Why should anybody BUT degree holders decide what it takes to get
degrees?”
Because Universities have constitutors, and, in the case of The University
of British Columbia, those Constitutors are the Commons of British
Columbia who created the University via their representatives. The
University is an artificial person created to some purpose, and that
purpose is not what the degree-holders for the time being decide. The
ministers who are supposed to serve the people have taken over the temple,
as it were, and now use it more or less exclusively to aggrandize
themselves.
“If he doesn’t like it, he will just get the smack-down from the legal
system.”
The civvie to cop ratio is about 900 to 1. It is not the threat of
smack-down that keeps people in line. It is that they are not taught to
organize, form up, break the cop ranks. They also lack the will, etc.
etc. And this is probably a good thing, from the peace, order, good
government standpoint.
“BC isn’t a country”
British Columbia is most certainly a country with its own Sovereign,
Parliament, Judiciary. For the time being, it might be confederated with
Canada, or that might be something that the University degree holders
teach because it is to their political advantage. Who knows.
“The grass is greener where we’re going.”
“The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: But the word of
the Lord endureth for ever.”
“I’m sorry, did you just say it had RIGHTS? Given by whom? Itself? Most
other colonies realized long ago that the Crown is the root cause of their
problems, not their salvation from the problems.”
Why, glad you asked!
“The law of God, of nature, and of nations created Kings: which law is not
alterble by any creature.” (Jenk. 79)
“You CAN get an Arts degree if you want one. Just not at UBC unless you
can demonstrate that you’re capable of handling it and can show that
you’re committed to it based on your performance in high school. Again, go
to another BC institution. You can still get your degree there.”
There are certain temporal advantages annexed to a degree from The
University of British Columbia that simply won’t be annexed to a degree
from any other institution.
“The type of curriculum that accepts and embraces globalization as
INEVITABLE and seeks to be a partner in making it happen rather than being
trampled and left on the roadside when it happens anyway.”
Yes, violent metaphor is a great way to sell the American Dream which now
seems to have become the Globalist Dream.
“You should clarify that you do not think it loving to exclude *British
Columbians* but you seem to get off on excluding anybody who isn’t a
WASP.”
I don’t think I’ve said anything about excluding anyone. Do you honestly
think it would be “exclusionary” to accept domestic british columbians
before accepting internationals?
“From my understanding of your politics, denominating *anything* in
dollars is vulgar.”
Correct. Money is vulgar. Ugh. Excuse me while I go throw up.
“There’s no such thing as *natural* justice.”
Oh, OK!
No such thing.
Gosh.
This is, I guess, why I should be so happy to have the International
Contingent around—stupid me, believing in Natural Justice! How stupid I
must be!
“If you’re going to do reform, do real reform.”
I am basically suggesting we return to the state of things before WWI re:
Faculty of Arts. BCU Act, 1908: “Instruction in arts in the University
shall be free to all regular students matriculated in the University.”
This beneficial law was never implemented to the benefit of those for whom
it was made, those _without_ academical degrees who might obtain them.
“In general, yes, but not in this discussion.”
This discussion is about how admission requirements are being inflated.
Now, we’ve heard from the staticians that it’s really “OK” because about
the same number of people are being inducted into the University. Quite
frankly, I don’t see how the construction of that profession which is
inflating these grades could be irrelevant. What is it that has happened
to between 1990 and 2009 to cause a fifteen point inflation in the
acceptable average? This change is strongly correlated with the
introduction of “progressive” values and the demise of Christmas.
It may be the difference between sublimated Christian culture and overtly
fascist, in the sense of corporatist, culture. Christians suffer the
faults of others. Fascists drug others into compliance so that they don’t
disrupt the propaganda-distribution matrix. Some elementary schools in
Vancouver even have “quiet rooms,” the psychiatric euphemism for jail cell. If
degree holders cannot deal with unruly kids, which undegree’d
teachers have dealt with for thousands of years,
without recourse to the practices of inpatient psychiatry,
I do believe that they may be quite a bit less competent than they let on.
Does being able to memorize lots of facts about horses and regurgitate
them for an exam mean I will be able to train horses? That’s how teachers
are selected—and I think it’s fair to say that there might be horse
trainers, perfectly good ones, who could never communicate their “horse
sense” on a test.
“I see what this is about now. You’re just pissed that we don’t praise
Jesus in school anymore.”
Well, no, but I do think it is a loss that the Lord’s prayer isn’t said
daily.
“And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive them that trespass against us.”
What is the progressive analog for Christian forgiveness? So far I have
not found it; I have found in its place a pervasive sense of “those
losers, they had chances, but they chose wrong, and now they must deal
with the consequences!” Where a Christian is to forgive his brother
seventy times seven times, the massmedication introduced into public
education concomitant with the abatement of Christianity seems to suggest
that absent Christianity, there is no forgiveness, only Psychiatry, and to
a biopsychiatrist, what is forgiveness, what is mercy, anyway?
“Absolutely. I love playing that game because I’m a winner. And the losers
like to cry about why the game is the way it is, when they really just
need to figure out how to play it better.”
That’s a nice view—and as an individual who wants to succeed, it is a
very useful view that probably motivates you to do well. Unfortunately,
at the population level it is nonsense. The reason we have losers is not
because the losers are inadequate game players. For some time, and
statscan shows this, there has been a buyer’s market for labor, that is to
say, there are more workers than there are jobs. Even if we had a magic
button to hit so that overnight everyone was trained up to capacity in his
chosen field, there would not be enough jobs in those fields. Even if the
magic training button allocated training to available jobs, there are not
enough available jobs.
A good read on the whole issue of equality and the sorry state of equality
jurisprudence in Canada is 1 W.C.R. 193, and I quote from p. 65:
http://www.thecourt.ca/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/womenscourt-gosselin.pdf
“Canada does not have an economy that provides jobs with better than
poverty level incomes for everyone. This is a fact documented regularly by
Statistics Canada, among others. In fact, Canada has many jobs that are
part-time, temporary, casual, seasonal, and low-waged. Levels of reliance
on social assistance rise and fall with fluctuations in the job market,
but there are never enough stable jobs for everyone, and, particularly,
not enough jobs capable of sustaining an adequate standard of living.”
Go ahead, tell me these are just whiny losers—actually, the people who
wrote this are lawyers, and when I saw them deliver this judgement at our
Faculty of Law, they seemed well-dressed, well-fed. I do not think they
are simply sour at their lack of social position.
OK, I think I will quote from p. 66, too:
“The game of musical chairs provides a good analogy. Through training,
less skilled players could improve their likelihood of getting into a
chair and thereby of being a winner in the game. However, at the end, some
players will always be without chairs-that is, unless we stop treating
this as a game.”
And this is all provable in other ways that involve more math, if one
examines the monetary system and the ridiculous idea of using nothing but
statutory debt as money—but, again, please oh please, let’s not talk of
Social Credit! That never ends well! On the money front, it is well if
the mass of mankind will obey the laws when made without inquiring too
nicely into the reasons of making them…
“How would suddenly giving everybody an Arts degree alleviate anything?
Dumbasses will still be dumbasses. Hippies will still be hippies. Elitists
will still be elitists. We’re all human anyway,”
No we’re not. That’s another University-lie. We’re all gods. “Ye are
gods; and all of you are children of the most High,” (Psalm 82, KJV) and
“juxta imaginem Dei, factus est homo,” (Dodderidge Justice, 3 Bulstrode,
172), “nigh to the image of God is man made.”
“1908 =/= 2008. I’m glad we’ve move past it.”
Have we? 100 years does nothing to the Law. “Dormiunt aliquando leges,
nunquam moriuntur,” (2 Co. Inst. 161), Sometimes laws sleep, but they
never
die. This is another problem with progressivism, the offhanded dismissal
of materials, even Laws, on the basis that they must have an expiry date.
This, of course, is due to your rejection of natural justice, which, if it
exists, and it does, is the same today as it was while Socrates was on
trial. I am curious, when you reject natural justice, is it because you
reject justice in itself or merely that you believe justice to be
artificial, which seems the appropriate opposite of natural.
“Anyway there is mass enfranchisement. It’s called other post-sec
institutions.”
No, that leads to enfranchisement in other institutions. There are
temporal advantages annexed to studentship in the university of british
columbia which do not exist at SFU and which certainly do not exist in
community colleges.
“it’s not like all of us having a degree from the same institution will
bring us together or change anything”
As a good, progressive scientist, I’d hope you’d say something more like
“we don’t know what that would do,” as we really don’t. Let’s say s. 102
came back into force tomorrow, and the University started meeting its
obligations. It would be 17 years before we’d have a first-year class
raised from kindergarten up without the grim spectre of Debt-for-degree
hanging over their heads. It would be a couple more decades before we’d
have data on their kids and the intergenerational effects of such a law.
I am very skeptical that it would change nothing. I can’t say where it
would lead, but it certainly seemed like something British Columbians
wanted to try, and to my mind the project was derailed by the World Wars.
It seems to me that s. 102 is a very progressive law, one which should be
executed to the benefit of the people for whom it was made, which is
largely the mass of British Columbians without degrees.
I don’t think it’s controversial to say that much of British Columbia was
Christian in 1908, and they produced s. 102. What brilliant legislation
have our secular progressivists created in a similar vein?
Another good quote, from the Calendar of 1915-1916, which is actually printed under the University’s proper armature, by the Printer to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty, not by some corporate wonk, not with some ugly trademark on the cover:
“The University of British Columbia is to be considered an integral part of the public educational system of the Province. As such it completes the work begun in the public and high schools, holding to the high school, with regard to studies a position comparable to that which the high school sustains to the public school. As those who have passed through the public schools may freely avail themselves of the high school, so those who have profited by instruction offered in the high schools may advance to the opportunities afforded by the University. To encourage all who may be able to proceed to the higher education, the passage from one grade to another is made as easy and natural as possible. The Province, through the University, undertakes to furnish instruction in the various branches requisite for a liberal education, and in the technical branches that have a bearing upon the life and industries of the Province.”
Thank God we now have enough internationalist progressivists to disabuse us of this nonsense!
What if some of the problems in K-12 are caused by the University’s intake procedures, which are biased towards some and against others?
That requires restructuring the entire framework of society. Band-Aid here or there isn’t a real solution. Reinstating section whatever of act whatever would is nothing but a Band-Aid. If that.
“The University is an artificial person created to some purpose, and that purpose is not what the degree-holders for the time being decide.”
That purpose is *education* today, and it was education when the university was first founded. The *way* by which we educate people has changed and will continue to change until the very end… if there is one.
–Group the following–
“The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: But the word of the Lord endureth for ever.”
“The law of God, of nature, and of nations created Kings: which law is not alterble by any creature.” (Jenk. 79)
–My response–
… I kindly suggest you take a moral theory course to address your allegiance to the second quote. And no, reading the Bible doesn’t count.
Next.
“There are certain temporal advantages annexed to a degree from The University of British Columbia that simply won’t be annexed to a degree from any other institution.”
You fail to realize that if you open UBC to “if you sign up you can get it” will obliterate the “temporal advantages” that have been “annexed” to the degree. The very advantages you speak of ONLY exist if there is “meritocratic” barrier to entry. Eliminate the latter and you necessarily eliminate the former.
“Yes, violent metaphor is a great way to sell the American Dream which now seems to have become the Globalist Dream.”
Violence is inherent to people, not globalization. Get it right, so that you can fight the right fight. Stopping globalization won’t get rid of people’s animosities for one another. Perhaps in time it may actually alleviate them. You may one day be able to love your immigrant neighbors rather than secretly seethe at their sight. Even if you can’t, your children hopefully will.
“I don’t think I’ve said anything about excluding anyone.”
Except that you think international students should not be allowed at all, that a British Columbian with a 55% should be accepted over an Ontarian with a 95%, and that you feel like you have been invaded by foreign nationals who now call Canada their home. No, that’s not real exclusionism, that’s ‘fake’ exclusionism.
“Do you honestlythink it would be “exclusionary” to accept domestic british columbians
before accepting internationals?”
Yes if the standard for accepting the domestic British Columbian “You want it, you got it”, and the standard for accepting a foreigner is “Go Home”.
“Correct. Money is vulgar. Ugh. Excuse me while I go throw up.”
Mmmm… maybe we agree here. But then again, it’s certainly less vulgar than bartering. So many currencies to keep track of! How many goats to a chicken??? Imagine how big a wallet we would need!
“I am basically suggesting we return to the state of things before WWI re: Faculty of Arts.”
That’s why it’s not real reform.
“This discussion is about how admission requirements are being inflated.”
No, you and I are discussing what to do about the admission requirements. Not “how” they are being inflated. I’m not particularly concerned with how it’s happening because I know we need to change it anyway.
“This change is strongly correlated with the introduction of “progressive” values and the demise of Christmas… Christians suffer the faults of others.”
OH PLEASE. What, are you going to write “The Book of Malf” in which you give an account of the plight of the sorrowful Christian people via not being able to force their faith on others through the State? Christmas is something you are free to celebrate on your own. There is no reason you should be allowed to force it on me or anybody else if I’m not allowed to force atheism on you. Eliminating prayer from school doesn’t force atheism on you; it just prevents you from shoving religion down everybody’s throats. It’s leveling the playing field, not kicking you into a hole.
“If degree holders cannot deal with unruly kids, which undegree’d teachers have dealt with for thousands of years, without recourse to the practices of inpatient psychiatry,”
Right, silly me, “dunce caps” aren’t inpatient psychiatry. For that matter, neither are sticks for beating children.
“That’s how teachers are selected—and I think it’s fair to say that there might be horse trainers, perfectly good ones, who could never communicate their “horse sense” on a test.”
You have underlined the problem but not a solution.
“Well, no, but I do think it is a loss that the Lord’s prayer isn’t said daily.”
Why should it be said daily if it’s meaningless to all but a few children in school? For that matter, why should it be said in school at all? Saying the lord’s prayer has nothing to do with intellectual education and everything to do with ‘moral education’ if you can really call it that. That’s the parents’ job at home, not the teacher’s job at school. Don’t mix those roles. The only reason teachers have to discipline children at school is because they are disruptive to other kids and the parents haven’t done their job at home.
“What is the progressive analog for Christian forgiveness?”
Modern Canadian political correctness.
“The massmedication introduced into public education concomitant with the abatement of Christianity seems to suggest that absent Christianity, there is no forgiveness, only Psychiatry, and to a biopsychiatrist, what is forgiveness, what is mercy, anyway?”
You only feel that way because you are unable to conceive of life outside a Biblical framework. But the rest of us get along just fine.
“Unfortunately, at the population level it is nonsense.”
At the population level it’s also nonsense to give everybody a university degree as if it would still mean something if everybody had one.
“Even if we had a magic button to hit so that overnight everyone was trained up to capacity in his chosen field, there would not be enough jobs in those fields. Even if the magic training button allocated training to available jobs, there are not enough available jobs.”
But you’re trying to implement that magic button by giving everybody a degree! That’s the point – the degree becomes meaningless if everybody has one.
“Go ahead, tell me these are just whiny losers”
Nah, it’s true. It’s tough out there. But giving someone training at BCIT has a better chance of alleviating that problem than giving someone an amazingly-useful English History degree. Yea… Arts… That’s where the real jobs are…
“No we’re not. That’s another University-lie. We’re all gods. “Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High,” (Psalm 82, KJV) and “juxta imaginem Dei, factus est homo,” (Dodderidge Justice, 3 Bulstrode, 172), “nigh to the image of God is man made.””
Even if I were to acknowledge a biblical reference as intellectually legitimate, that quote still makes us all equals. Making us *more* equal by giving everybody a degree, again, does nothing. You haven’t actually answered the core of the argument here.
“Have we? 100 years does nothing to the Law. “Dormiunt aliquando leges, nunquam moriuntur,” (2 Co. Inst. 161), Sometimes laws sleep, but they never die. This is another problem with progressivism, the offhanded dismissal of materials, even Laws, on the basis that they must have an expiry date.”
A law is a collection of words that people agree to abide by. Lose the agreement, and the law is dead. Simple as that.
“This, of course, is due to your rejection of natural justice, which, if it exists, and it does, is the same today as it was while Socrates was on trial. I am curious, when you reject natural justice, is it because you reject justice in itself or merely that you believe justice to be artificial, which seems the appropriate opposite of natural.”
It does not exist. Where is it? Does it have space in the three dimensions? Does it exist in a temporal dimension? No. Therefore it isn’t real, just like ghosts, god, hell, heaven, hatred, love, happiness, and sadness. They are all constructs of the abstract human imagination – some more abstract than others. They only exist as sequences of chemical signals in our brain. But the only real substance there is the chemicals themselves. That is why justice does not *exist*. We made it up. Do unicorns exist solely based on the fact that we made them up? No. They have no substance outside our imagination. Justice is the same way.
“As a good, progressive scientist, I’d hope you’d say something more like “we don’t know what that would do,” as we really don’t.”
In the same way that I don’t know the sun will rise tomorrow, I don’t know what will happen if you give everybody an Arts degree. But I am quite certain that it will turn it into “high school part 2” whereby it means next to nothing unless you go a step higher.
“Let’s say s. 102 came back into force tomorrow”
By the time the measurable effects of the tragedy would come to pass, BC will have been long forgotten.
“It seems to me that s. 102 is a very progressive law”
Based on what definition of progressive?
“What brilliant legislation have our secular progressivists created in a similar vein?”
I dunno, women’s suffrage, civil rights for people of all races and creeds (including Christians), freedom from persecution for being LGBT, etc. etc. etc. What brilliant laws have the Christians historically come up with? Let’s see here… “rip out your guts alive unless you admit to something we accuse you of doing against the church even though you haven’t done it,” actually you know what, forget it. I won’t even bother listing them. My lists could never beat the hilarity of Leviticus.
“Another good quote, from the Calendar of 1915-1916, which is actually printed under the University’s proper armature, by the Printer to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty, not by some corporate wonk”
Why is the King more credible than a corporate “wonk”? Kings historically survived only because they were able to convince sheep like you that their reign had some divine legitimacy. Seems like the wool is covering *your* eyes after all.
“The University of British Columbia is to be considered an integral part of the public educational system of the Province…”
This quote is taken from a time when people were desperate to send students into higher education because everybody was quitting after high school and finding a job. Times have changed.
“Thank God we now have enough internationalist progressivists to disabuse us of this nonsense!”
Indeed… indeed.
“But the only real substance there is the chemicals themselves.”
“Do unicorns exist solely based on the fact that we made them up? No. They
have no substance outside our imagination. Justice is the same way.”
Oh, really?
Wow.
Gosh, if you don’t believe in unicorns but do believe in chemicals, I
guess that’s where we differ.
“That purpose is *education* today, and it was education when the
university was first founded. The *way* by which we educate people has
changed and will continue to change until the very end# if there is one.”
I’ll repeat the purpose. “Whereas it is desirable too establish one
University for the whole of British Columbia for the purpose of raising
the standard of higher education in the Province, and of enabling all denominations and
classes to obtain academical degrees…Her Majesty [Victoria]…enacts as
follows”
“Yes if the standard for accepting the domestic British Columbian “You want it, you got
it”, and the standard for accepting a foreigner is “Go Home”.”
I think I’ve been fairly clear in suggesting the standard should be passing highschool,
same as how one who benefits from primary education moves on to secondary education.
As that Calendar says,
“As those who have passed through the public schools may freely
avail themselves of the high school, so those who have profited by instruction offered
in the high schools may advance to the opportunities afforded by the University. To
encourage all who may be able to proceed to the higher education, the passage from one
grade to another is made as easy and natural as possible.”
Sorry to be repetitious, but what part of that do you find oh-so-controversial such
that you are now trying to imply that I am xenophobic? You know there are plenty of
Christians of all colours, ethnic backgrounds, etc, correct? I don’t think I’ve
extended this to a generalized immigration policy or anything. My believe on
immigration is actually that, per natural justice, in which you don’t believe,
homsteading unoccupied, unenclosed, unpatrolled lands is A-OK, but that is just another
of my strange beliefs as a xenophobic British Columbian!
“I kindly suggest you take a moral theory course to address your allegiance to the
second quote. And no, reading the Bible doesn’t count.”
“Saying the lord’s prayer has nothing to do with intellectual education and everything
to do with `moral education’ if you can really call it that. That’s the parents’ job at
home, not the teacher’s job at school. Don’t mix those roles.”
“You may one day be able to love your immigrant neighbors rather than secretly seethe
at their sight.”
Let’s pretend that I have taken many philosophy courses, and I think this is more a
question of jurisprudence than morals in my view. As only chemicals exist, what is
morality, anyway? Are you saying that the electrolytic fluid in your head is arranged
in a better way than mine? By what standard? By the determination of a third sack of
electrolytes? I find it hilarious that you chide me with moral philosophy/love and
give me a base “we’re nothing but chemicals” take in the same post!
How do you reconcile telling me to take a moral theory course in University and your
suggestion that moral education is the parents’ job at home? Just so you’re clear, I
wasn’t raised Christian at all, and my parents aren’t Christians. I just really,
really enjoyed singing Joy to the World every Christmas, as we had every year, and I
had no idea why the music had to stop, and I still don’t.
“You feel like you have been invaded by foreign nationals who now call Canada their
home”
Well, this was British Columbia before incorporated into Canada, and my view is that
British Columbia has a Parliament fully competent to legislate for peace, order and good
government without qualification. How that power is exercised is currently determined
by confederation, but confederation is an artifice; what British Columbia has done, it
may undo. Before confederation, there were some who thought a union with the United
States might have been more politic. And before British Columbia, there were many
different aboriginal peoples about whom I’m not qualified to speak, but I do hear that
they did exist…
“You only feel that way because you are unable to conceive of life outside a Biblical
framework. But the rest of us get along just fine.”
Of course there are other frameworks. There’s a lovely one in which nothing but
material exists, and sufficient force to order that material is called “right.” I
certainly understand your framework of corporeal things, but I also admit incorporeal
entities, and you likely do as well, insofar as you believe The University of British
Columbia exists…
“A law is a collection of words that people agree to abide by. Lose the agreement, and
the law is dead. Simple as that.”
Well, you don’t believe in natural justice, am I correct to think you don’t believe in
natural law? And you’ve said not only that you don’t think natural justice exists but
that Justice doesn’t exist…so, does Law exist, or is Law like a Unicorn, too? Why
should this thing called “agreement” cause laws to “live”? Let’s say you and I have a
corpse, and we agree to pretend it is alive. Does it make the corpse live, or does it
evidence something strange in our dispositions?
“But I am quite certain that it will turn it into “high school part 2″ whereby it means
next to nothing unless you go a step higher.”
Why, excellent, that would raise the standard of higher education in the Province,
which is part of the University’s original purpose! I don’t see anything in that
purpose statement about ensuring only so many Arts gradutes as will be employable.
“By the time the measurable effects of the tragedy would come to pass, BC will have
been long forgotten.”
Yes, the tragedy of free Arts instruction for all highschool graduates. When will we
learn that if we only allow the invisible hand of the market free reign, everything
will work out?
“I won’t even bother listing them. My lists could never beat the hilarity of
Leviticus.”
You know, for all of the harshness of the levitical law, it did not prohibit the
growing of hemp plants. All pretense to the gentleness of modernity/secular
progressive values is nonsense. Would we be correct to say China is not subject to
the scourge of deleterious christian influence?
June 26 marks the UN’s International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit
Trafficking, a date when China has traditionally executed and sentenced convicted drug
traffickers to illustrate its resolve in fighting the scourge.
Those evil Christians, with their Levitical Law, please tell me when, within the last
hundred years, they ever created a “worldwide levitical law enforcement day” and, for
example, executed homosexuals, adulterers, unruly children or any of the other groups
given capital punishment in the Torah. Your Parens Patriae, USA Corp. arrested close
to a million marihuana possessors last year. Please tell me when those foul,
anti-progressive Christians ever arrested a million homosexuals in a single year
in the name of their fabricated Jehovah.
“Kings historically survived only because they were able to convince sheep like you
that their reign had some divine legitimacy. Seems like the wool is covering *your*
eyes after all.”
Yes, I am clearly an uncritical, naive monarchist who cannot fathom the depth of your
brilliant assertion that Kings are invented, like Unicorns. Oh my goodness! You’re
really shaking the foundations with such a saucy assertion–here I thought Kings and
Unicorns were natural things! You know, this is why international travel is a good
thing…we get innoculated with these very nice perspectives.
Well, there are electivee views of the divine legitimacy of Monarchs:
“Before the archbishop, Hubert Walter, proceeded to the anointing of John he addressed
the assembled bishops, earls and barons: ‘Hear, all of you, and be it known that no one
has an antecedent right to succeed another in the kingdom, unless he shall have been
unanimously elected, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.'” (Roy Strong, Coronation,
p. 61)
“This quote is taken from a time when people were desperate to send students into
higher education because everybody was quitting after high school and finding a job.
Times have changed.”
Oh, OK! Times have changed! That was then, this is now! So, it was once a decent idea
to offer a full public education system, but today 2/3 should get the job done for
everyone except those excellent sorts with A averages, to bring it back home? Should
the laity of British Columbia tolerate conditions in the University third that they
would not tolerate in the secondary third?
“Sorry, we don’t have enough Secondary
seats, so only the kids who scored so high on their Grade 7 report cards get to go to
Secondary school…” I think that would be intolerable, and I fail to see how “Sorry,
we don’t have enough University seats, so only the kid who scored so high on their
Grade 12 report cards get to go to University…”
… is really all that much different.
And I wish that formatting had not become disjointed!
Is it safe for me to assume that you’re doing this in a textedit/notepad in which you’ve wrapped the text? If so, that’s the cause for the weird disjointing. Try doing it in MS Word or other more sophisticated text editor. Either that or un-wrap the text.
Your statements have progressively become more tempered, so indeed it now seems as if I’ve blown things out of proportion. But lest we forget your comments like “Quite frankly, at the time I felt we were being invaded and I still do” or “but, fundamentally, our Monarch is a
Protestant Christian, and that _means something_, and the young’uns used
to be taught what it means.” I admit I extrapolated more than was actually said out of these comments and others like it with anti-immigrant, anti-secularist comments tendencies. Nevertheless I think you’ve made your opinions clear about British Columbians vs. The Rest.
Regarding moral theory, I can see where you get the idea that I am a hypocrite for suggesting moral theory when I clearly believe none actually exists. Yet it is precisely because I have taken extensive moral theory courses that I have come to realize there is no justice, no morality, none of these seemingly real abstractions. We make it up for ourselves. The only way we’re going to be able to decide which set of ideals to choose is by weighing which is going to have to most positive effects over time. I suggest taking a moral theory course so that you get rid of the idea that morals exist and are legitimately administered via the bible or any other authoritative figure, not so that you will adopt a new (affirmative) moral view. Globalization isn’t inevitable because the “corporate wonks” make it so, it’s inevitable because isolationism died. Along with its aged partner: romanticism.
Regarding laws: Yes the concept of “law” does not exist. But laws exist insofar as they are bodies of text by which we have agreed to abide. It’s also an irrelevant distinction unless you’re going to revert back to your previously reactionary views on the Law and our obligation to follow it due to its tie to the Canadian Monarch who is given divine authority to administer those laws.
Regarding Leviticus: I see… so because it doesn’t ban pot, it’s actually a tempered view? Come on. Tell me you can read the book without laughing at its insanity. There are plenty of things Lev doesn’t ban which we can agree are probably immsdoral (however you want to define it) and should be illegal (like selling crack cocaine to kids or spitting HIV-infected blood on physically handicapped people). That doesn’t make it tempered.
Regarding UBC: This really is all just an academic musing at the end of the day. Because there aren’t the resources to make it happen. There are not enough qualified people to teach university-level courses, you can’t fit all those people into the school, and the degrees they are conferred would be essentially meaningless. Why bother educating a person in something that they will never need to use? You’re here bringing up joblessness and yet you’re advocating giving people Arts degrees, probably the useless form of degree to have been invented (in terms of securing a job)!
We can argue theory all we want, but at the end of the day, my way will prevail simply because I prefer the status quo to your idea. And the status who is the easiest to maintain during peacetime. But how about this: a real solution rather than useless philosophical ponderings. Let’s establish a referendum in which all citizens including high school students are eligible to vote. The referendum will call for a direct levying of taxes to fund a satellite UBC campus in Vancouver. That campus will exist only as an administrative office which governs an online, distance-ed version of all UBC Arts courses. Anybody who wants to get a degree is able to register and get their degree – for free, at the expense of the taxpayer.
If people are willing to do it (and they have to vote for the funds since they will not come out of nowhere) then I’m all up for that. For that matter, how about putting all of UBC’s materials on an Open Courseware system like MIT’s where you can just get the material online?
The only reason you would need to do it in a class is for the discussion, but you can do that with friends if you feel like you’re missing out on the conversation. What do you think of that?
“I suggest taking a moral theory course so that you get rid of the idea that morals exist and are legitimately administered via the bible or any other authoritative figure, not so that you will adopt a new (affirmative) moral view.”
I know you’ve said you don’t care for Acts, but how about the Ratification of Her Majesty’s Confession of Faith?
“GOD gave to Adam a Law as a Covenant of Works by which he bound him and all his posterity to personall entire exact and perpetuall obedience promised life upon the fulfilling and threatned death upon the breach of it and endued him with power and ability to keep it
THIS Law after his fall continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness and as such was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai in ten commandments and written in two tables the four first commandments containing our duty towards God and the other six our duty to man
BESIDE this Law commonly called Moral God was pleased to give the people of Israel as a Church under age Ceremoniall Laws containing severall typicall ordinances partly of worship prefiguring Christ his graces actions sufferings and benefits and partly holding forth divers instructions of moral duties all which Ceremoniall Laws are now abrogated under the New Testament
TO them also as a body politick he gave sundry judiciall laws which expired together with the state of that people not obliging any other now further then the generall equity thereof may require”
So, there is an also an address of Leviticus—the laws given to the body politic of Jacob, surnamed Israel, expired with the state of that people, and we’re not obliged, nor is our Protestant Queen obliged, to keep such law further than the general equity thereof may require. When it’s just one guy like me repeating this stuff, I suppose it might sound a bit strange—but I’m quoting from the _statute law_, not some crazy individual’s personal musings. Even if this stuff has fallen out of fashion, that begs the question: did we change the style of our clothing ourselves, or did fast-talking University types reclothe us “for our own good”?
And this is very much an attitude I’ve heard expressed in undergraduate as well as professional/grad courses I’ve taken/sat in on at the University: many professors, grad students, future lawyers, etc. have the cynical idea that their role is more or less nanny/caretaker of the unwashed, stupid masses who cannot think for themselves how to behave properly. The Nanny State is here, and I want out. I do not need precocious children whose claim to fame is straight As in K-12 and subsequent manpleasing in the University telling me how to run my life, and this, by their own words, so I have heard at least, is their view—it’s not even really conceived of as a positive duty, like, “we’re manufacturing a pliant subject population that will serve us without making waves,” but more a negative duty, as though “thou shalt not slag dumbocratic multiculturalism” is as moral, which is to say certain, a precept as “thou shalt not murder.”
“they are bodies of text by which we have agreed to abide”
When did we agree to do this?
Was it by being born?
Was it by being educated?
Was it by getting a Social Insurance Number?
Was it by getting a Driver’s Licence?
Was it by appearing in court for a traffic ticket and acknowledging oneself to be a Legal Person?
This is more academic hogbroth. The law is what academics decide it is, and they tell us what it is, and if we don’t like it, we can rot in prison. I mean, you can talk about “we agree” all you like, but say I disagree and I plant some hemp-plants in my front yard. Now, the cop who comes to raze them, he’s a useful idiot—he likely doesn’t have a degree.
The Law Degree’d son-of-a-gun who’ll run the prosecution and who’ll run defense for the cop, they’re the problem. They’re the ones who’ve “agreed” to ignore the moral law “thou shalt not steal.” Does it say “thou shalt not steal, unless thine Parliament givest thou a Controlled Drugs and Substances Act”? Theft is theft, and Parliament may be able to legitimate bastards, but I do not think Parliament is capable of redefining theft simply for the benefit of allowing officers of the crown to act like common thieves.
And if you want to look at problematic admission standards, Law Schools are the most ridiculously elitist horror-shows ever. Canadian lawschools don’t even run most of their own admission test; it’s done by the LSAC, which administers the LSAT from their underground bunker on the East Coast of Occupied British North America. I want to grow up and be a good little barrister in right of her majesty in British Columbia and I’ve got to write a standardized test put together by corporate screwheads from the East Coast of Treason City? Nonsense—stark, vicious nonsense, clearly not to the benefit of British Columbians.
Oh, wait, no, having foreign controls on admission to domestic lawschools, that is all part of the sex appeal of globalism, right? I mean, I am certain that when Parliament in Victoria decided The University of British Columbia ought to have a law school, it intended that the largest part of admission thereto be controlled by a foreign testing corporation.
“our obligation to follow it due to its tie to the Canadian Monarch who is given divine authority to administer those laws.”
The Monarch does for her people what God did for Israel: protect them from the Egyptians. There are plenty of gypsies out there, and they know who they are—they like graft, and they like to live on lying to children. Gypsies will steal your children, put them in public school, and before you know it, they’ve forgotten they’re children and start thinking they’re Citizens, Taxpayers, all sorts of gypsy nonsense.
One comment you bring up recurrently is that there are not enough professors to teach. In engineering, I might agree—we really need only those who have built bridges teaching how to build bridges. But for an English Lit course, 100-400, do we really need some overfed, precocious child leading the show? Why not simply have the kids, put them in a room and say “OK, you’ll all need to discuss some English Literature, and you’ll all need to produce some work-product for our files, so if anyone says “did you ever take English 205?” you can say “yeah, man, let me pull up my Term Paper!”
The University of British Columbia has a wonderful Student Directed Seminar program, which really needs to be expanded, and some of the irrelevant restrictions on number of seminars one may run need be removed. The possibilities of peer teaching/peer evaluation have really not been explored in the University, largely, in my view, because of how precarious the Humanities Power Structure is and how incredibly important these globalists think their social-reformation work is.
“an online, distance-ed version of all UBC Arts courses. Anybody who wants to get a degree is able to register and get their degree – for free, at the expense of the taxpayer.”
That’s a decent stop-gap, but what I suppose I will look up, because I don’t know offhand, is how many individuals graduate from High School in British Columbia every year. You’ve said “it’s impossible,” things of that nature, and it very much is overnight, but as part of a long-term project, it is eminently doable. Money (really, now, no social credit talk!) being what it is, the actual limits are men and materials. I think the problem is largely one of motiviation and insufficient pro-education public relations.
There is a very pervasive view, to my mind, that Education is not good for its own sake but must be for some end other than its own.
“Arts degrees, probably the useless form of degree to have been invented”
If you do not see the use to spending 4+ years after highschool reading, contemplating and so forth, rather than working, I suppose I cannot explain it to you. There is no accounting for taste. If you measure the usefulness of a degree in terms of employability upon reciept, well, I’m not sure degrees were ever intended as ensigns of employability in the “real world.”
The University is supposed to be about more than providing domestically subsidized pre-employment screening to Globalist-run Corporations. It’s a great scam. A bunch of idiot, undegreed taxpayers pay, through their support of domestic universities, for the most refined system of corporate pre-employment screening ever devised. The commons pay through the nose to have their own children graded like meat by globalists with no particular investment in the domestic environment, except insofar as it is a “world-class city,” a playground where they can spend their taxpayer-subsidized teaching salaries, all in hope that their Domestic Little Johnny will come out the top of the Steak Factory with USDA CHOICE–sorry, PhD—stamped on his buttocks, because at this point that is what Lay Idiot was told by University people all through K-12 as well as what her kids were told all through K-12, so we’re entering a place now where the intergenerational effects of globalist, university-based indoctrination are becoming apparent.
What is a carefully orchestrated Opera is being portrayed by people such as yourself, whether naively or knowingly, as though it were an Act of God, like a storm coming—it is very much ridiculous to oppose the weather. The storm comes, you let it come. Globalism is not a storm. The death of Romanticism that you suggest occured did not happen at any point in time where we may say “yep, there lies Shelley’s corpse!” Well, OK, he died himself, but his works live on.
I think Romanticism is being flogged to death because Romanticism is bad for business—and that extends to much business, including the business of running a “world-class university” focused on churning out Global Sausage—err, Global Citizens. Where has the University any charter or Act allowing it to undertake such a ridiculous, and even treasonous, project?
The University is under the Crown, and as far as I can tell, for some time the Faculty of Law has been feeding its children hogbroth when it comes to teaching prerogative right.
“I know you’ve said you don’t care for Acts, but how about the Ratification of Her Majesty’s Confession of Faith?”
What about anything I’ve said anti-crown and anti-religion would make you think I would place any weight in a crown act regarding religion?
“So, there is an also an address of Leviticus—the laws given to the body politic of Jacob, surnamed Israel, expired with the state of that people, and we’re not obliged, nor is our Protestant Queen obliged, to keep such law further than the general equity thereof may require.”
That’s a quaint interpretation but I’m quite sure the Catholics would adamantly disagree. And so would basically every other denomination of most religions. So the fact that the queen thinks she’s exempt doesn’t really matter to me in the slightest.
“did we change the style of our clothing ourselves, or did fast-talking University types reclothe us “for our own good”?
Nobody is stopping you from wearing rags.
“And this is very much an attitude I’ve heard expressed in undergraduate as well as professional/grad courses I’ve taken/sat in on at the University: many professors, grad students, future lawyers, etc. have the cynical idea that their role is more or less nanny/caretaker of the unwashed, stupid masses who cannot think for themselves how to behave properly.”
Exactly, and we have that responsibility to be their caretakers because they will just eff things up. When has a mass of idiots ever done anything good?
“thou shalt not slag dumbocratic multiculturalism” is as moral, which is to say certain, a precept as “thou shalt not murder.”
Well, yes, in the same way that “though shalt not hate those different than you” is a negative moral. I’m still amazed you can tout it as “dumbocratic multiculturalism” and call ME the reaganist conservative. Go have fun with Lou Dobbs.
“When did we agree to do this?
Was it by being born?
Was it by being educated?…”
When you use a public road (paid for by the taxpayers of society), enjoy a public park (cared for by the taxpayers of society), use telecommunications (regulated and funded by private and public enterprise of society), eat food (grown and distributed under the regulations and sanctions of farmers and distributors in society), or really employ anything you think is “naturally yours” when you turn a blind eye to all the important societal forces at play which have influenced the availability of that resource to you. That’s when. If you don’t want to abide by that social contract, you are free to go into the wilderness where you can live on your own. Or you can start your own society where you can live under your own rule (Can somebody say Jonestown??). Stop being an ungrateful baby and realize the only reason you have anything that you do is because someone within the framework of society made it happen for you based on the implicit agreement of being in society.
“And if you want to look at problematic admission standards, Law Schools are the most ridiculously elitist horror-shows ever. Canadian lawschools don’t even run most of their own admission test; it’s done by the LSAC, which administers the LSAT from their underground bunker on the East Coast of Occupied British North America.”
How the hell is the geographical origin of the LSAT at all relevant? The exam its intended to be a performance exam bent on looking at students’ aptitudes. Why should Canada administer its own exam? Will it be different? No. Why waste the time to make something “inherently Canadian” if it’s already been done the same way by somebody else? Please. MCAT is the same way – does that mean Canada should make its own medical admissions exam that tests an inherently *Canadian* perspective on medicine? (Note the MCAT doesn’t test you on the medical system, just pure medical and scientific concepts which all doctors should know). Likewise, the LSAT is intended to test you on generic skills that aren’t particular to Canada or the US. Maybe to Germany or to Singapore, but not our two countries.
“controls on admission to domestic lawschools”
It’s a foreign score, not a foreign control. Canadian Law schools choose whether to accept the score and what weight they place in it. The Americans have no implicit ‘control’ in the process unless they change the exam to include American history.
“The Monarch does for her people what God did for Israel: protect them from the Egyptians. “
HAH! That’s an awesome quote. I’m sure banishing the puritans to North America, slaying and oppressing east Indians, selling opium to the Chinese, and subjugating the Aboriginal Australians constitutes “protection”. Maybe she’s protecting WASPs but nobody else. (Not that the queen was the one to do these things, but certainly her predecessors in the same institution did)
“But for an English Lit course, 100-400, do we really need some overfed, precocious child leading the show? Why not simply have the kids, put them in a room and say “OK, you’ll all need to discuss some English Literature, and you’ll all need to produce some work-product for our files, so if anyone says “did you ever take English 205?” you can say “yeah, man, let me pull up my Term Paper!””
Because they won’t show up to class, won’t do any work, and won’t be able to have a benchmark for whether they actually got anything out of the course. There is no way for them to grow that way, even if they think they’re growing. The feedback of an instructor is inherently valuable even if the institution through which the instructor operates has some negative qualities.
“Money (really, now, no social credit talk!) being what it is, the actual limits are men and materials. I think the problem is largely one of motiviation and insufficient pro-education public relations.”
Agreed, but more pro-education would drive us harder into our current framework and not take us further away from it. The issue is not funding, its motivation to test a crackpot theory. It’s just that funding is step 2 and won’t happen either.
“If you do not see the use to spending 4+ years after highschool reading, contemplating and so forth, rather than working, I suppose I cannot explain it to you.”
1. You were the one complaining about the advantages annexed to a UBC degree and not to other institutions. What advantages are these? Are you REALLY talking about the theoretical advantages or are you talking about the measurable advantages of having UBC on the degree versus SFU in terms of getting a job and other social positions? If the latter, then indeed Arts is useless because it doesn’t enable you to better fill a useful position in society except to train more Arts people.
2. You were complaining about job availability so why is this no longer about getting people out of poverty – why is it suddenly about the edifying qualities of education? Please. As soon as I knock you over on one position you just switch to the opposite, and bounce back and forth. Come on now. Are we talking about jobs or are we talking about the glories of education? If we’re talking about jobs, Arts is useless. If we’re talking about the glories of education, then there’s no reason to say there are any advantages annexed to a UBC degree. Either way, you lose one of the core tenets of your argument.
There is no accounting for taste. If you measure the usefulness of a degree in terms of employability upon reciept, well, I’m not sure degrees were ever intended as ensigns of employability in the “real world.”
“What is a carefully orchestrated Opera is being portrayed by people such as yourself, whether naively or knowingly, as though it were an Act of God, like a storm coming—it is very much ridiculous to oppose the weather. The storm comes, you let it come. Globalism is not a storm.”
Perhaps that’s true. North Korea and Myanmar have managed to keep the storm from coming. I’m sure they would be happy to have you join them.
“The death of Romanticism that you suggest occured did not happen at any point in time where we may say “yep, there lies Shelley’s corpse!” Well, OK, he died himself, but his works live on.”
True, it was gradual. Doesn’t mean it ain’t dead.
“I think Romanticism is being flogged to death because Romanticism is bad for business”
It’s already dead but perhaps still being flogged only because disenchanted souls are trying to cling to something and revive it.
“The University is under the Crown, and as far as I can tell, for some time the Faculty of Law has been feeding its children hogbroth when it comes to teaching prerogative right.”
My prediction: in 2 generations the crown will be mostly forgotten outside the UK. In 10 generations, even Brits will be saying what’s a crown?? Monarchies are all but dead too. And it happened for a reason.
No wonder why UBC is so boring,
accepting all the nerds and book crackers.
If there are three applicants with 86%, 92%, 99% respectively.
The 86% is most likely in manager position
92% in some research position
99% finds himself failing university first year.