[Vision2020] A few responses to Phil Nesbit

[Nick Gier]

Greetings:

As usual I learned much from what Phil Nesbit wrote in response to my piece 
on American Anti-Intellectualism.  Here are a few responses:

Phil: People study science and engineering not only for fire in the belly, 
they do so because they want to eat. Students gravitate to institutions of 
higher learning because after they are done with grabbing a degree, they 
want to find a nice job at which to exercise their skills. I never met, 
say, a geological oceanographer who was planning on going for a master's 
degree just for the shear joy of knowledge. I have never seen a person go 
through the struggles of P Chem just for the unmitigated hell of it, they 
did so to grab a chemical industry job.

Nick: I obviously hang around people very different from Phil.  I know a 
lot of folks who have done an MA or even a PhD just for the sheer (not 
Phil's "shear") joy of edification and personal gratification.  Some of our 
brightest students attend liberal arts colleges where the curriculum is 
designed not for a profession, but for responsible life in a liberal 
democratic society.

UI students sleep and/or frown through a liberal arts core course because 
our culture has not prepared for any sort of intellectual life at 
all.  Phil, we have designed the core curriculum precisely for those 
geological oceanography students who believe that education is only a means 
to making big bucks.  I was an oceanography major at Oregon State and they 
dragged me kicking and screaming into my first English Comp. class.  After 
three terms I learned how to write and think great thoughts, and I switched 
to philosophy and religion and never looked back, even when my father said 
I would not make any money.

Phil: So, why do the Asian nations have a larger number of scientists and 
engineers graduating? It's because that is where the jobs in science and 
engineering are. And why are they hiring more scientists and engineers?

Nick: Recently Bill Gates bemoaned the fact that not enough American 
students are studying computer science.  Contrary to Phil's claim, 
engineers are in great demand, too.  School districts are bringing in 
Indian teachers to teach math and science because our students are too lazy 
to major in these disciplines.

Phil: But Nick asks us to believe that companies are fleeing to Canada 
because the quality of our people is lower than the Canadians. All I can 
say is hogwash.

Nick: I did make any general claims on this issue.  I simply quoted Toyota 
officials that the main reason they chose to put the plant Canada was the 
education level of Southern American workers.

Phil:  The United States has the world's highest total expenditure on 
education, outspending its closest rival by hundreds of billions of 
dollars. Second, only Norway spends more per pupil than we do.

Nick:  We also spend the most per capita on medical expenses and we rank at 
the bottom of the industrialized world on all health statistics, including 
the greatest percentage dissatisfied with their health care.

I also discount Phil's figures for length of time spent in school. My 
former wife is Danish and she had ten years of school (no 3-yr. Gymansium), 
but in that time she mastered German and English and was a lively 
conversation partner in areas such as music, contemporary literature, and 
philosophy.  She came from a watchmaker's family.

Yes, our students spend a lot of time in school in classes that are 
repetitive and not very challenging.  Most of our brightest students are 
bored silly. And encouraging students to go to college when they are not 
prepared for it is a gigantic waste of time and money.

Phil is correct that we should spend more time discussion this fundamental 
problem.

Nick Gier



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