This may be a repeat title, but his blog is different.
If the over all basic objective for a country is to increase the "median family income", then exactly how does one go about doing that? Talk is cheap, but real action is a lot more complex. I blogged in the past that the simple objective of economic growth is "not" an adequate objective for a society. Actions by President Trump have improved the rate of economic growth for the USA, but has not done too much for the median family income. It is still only around $55,000 and we are "not" in the "top ten" for the world.
I learned a long time ago that I earned what I was worth. One year, I picked 200# of cotton in one day and was paid $7.00. The next year I picked 250# in one day and only earned $6.25. What had happened to me was that my "worth" had gone down due to automatic cotton picking machines. It did not take too much skill to pick cotton, only physical ability and I had that. I also had some mental ability too, but I was not being paid for that. What I needed to do was to figure out how I could make myself "worth" more! I started working a lot harder in school in the 4th or 5th grade. Just like I was the fastest cotton picker among my friends, I soon became the best in Math and Science in my school. What I was doing was making myself "worth" more. Are you following all this?
If we want to raise the median family income, we need for people to start early figuring out how they can make themselves "worth" more. Remember that we are paid what we are "worth". It used to be that we only had to be worth more than the kids in our class or those down the block, but not any more. Now, we have to beat out kids from around the world. Kids who are hungry around the world who have the opportunity to increase their worth are now our competitors. It is not like the old days.
The question is, "How do we turn over a new leaf in our education system such that we make out kids "worth" more?" Like any race, it is critical that we get off to a fast start. Once some other kid gets a lead on you, it is very very difficult to ever catch up. That is a fact of life. Look at how early a kid figures out that it is not a good idea to touch a hot stove. Think about why that was. Don't know? It was because he understood the "reason" for not touching the hot stove. Still don't get it? How many times have you heard a young person ask, "Why do I need to know that?" It seem clear that few kids just want to learn something for the hell of it. They need a reason and if they have a good reason then they want to learn. How does a young kids learn the reason for learning this or that? It is not from the teacher. All they are interested in is "presenting" the information. Some pick it up and other don't. It is not all due to intelligence. There is something else.
Parents are the ones who can show their kids "why" they need to learn this or that. They can not push this responsibility off onto the teacher. They don't explain "why". Some kids exercise and lift weights. Why do they do that? Notice that I just asked "why"? The kid must have figured out "why" or you can be sure that they would not be doing all that exercising and lifting weights. Starting to see where this is going? Some where, while the child is in grammar school, the parent is going to have to figure out how to show their child both "why" and "how" to make themselves "worth" more. You can't have "how" until they understand "why".
I know that we can't ever get 100% of our citizens on board with the above, but we can do a lot better than we are now doing. Compare Asians to Blacks on what I have said above and you tell if their is a significant difference? You know that there is! Notice that both kids go to the same school and have the same teacher, but the results are very different. Now, are you starting to understand why? It is not the quality of our schools that is the problem so we don't need to push more of our tax money into our schools. What is needed is both cheaper and much more needed. We need better parents and we need to start demanding it!! We should start asking parents what they are doing in order to make their children "worth" more. I am sure that they will not understand the question, but we can't stop there. One idea is to demand a letter from the parent of every kid who enters first grade. "What are they doing to make their child "worth" more?" If they can't answer this simple question, the parent should be require to take some night classes to figure it out.
What do you think?
PS--I was just reviewing some data on how kids were doing in grammar school and it showed that "on the average" Whites and Asians ranked about the same. My friend concluded that they were "equal", but that may not be true. I proposed that the two groups might have a very significant different "variance"! If that is the case you might then find more Asians in the top 5% than Whites. Compare this with data that shows the average height of Blacks and Whites is almost exactly the same. Based on my personal observations, I thought that Blacks were much taller. It appears that my misconception is the result of a larger variance in the height of Blacks compared to Whites. There is a danger in just thinking in terms of "averages"!
If the over all basic objective for a country is to increase the "median family income", then exactly how does one go about doing that? Talk is cheap, but real action is a lot more complex. I blogged in the past that the simple objective of economic growth is "not" an adequate objective for a society. Actions by President Trump have improved the rate of economic growth for the USA, but has not done too much for the median family income. It is still only around $55,000 and we are "not" in the "top ten" for the world.
I learned a long time ago that I earned what I was worth. One year, I picked 200# of cotton in one day and was paid $7.00. The next year I picked 250# in one day and only earned $6.25. What had happened to me was that my "worth" had gone down due to automatic cotton picking machines. It did not take too much skill to pick cotton, only physical ability and I had that. I also had some mental ability too, but I was not being paid for that. What I needed to do was to figure out how I could make myself "worth" more! I started working a lot harder in school in the 4th or 5th grade. Just like I was the fastest cotton picker among my friends, I soon became the best in Math and Science in my school. What I was doing was making myself "worth" more. Are you following all this?
If we want to raise the median family income, we need for people to start early figuring out how they can make themselves "worth" more. Remember that we are paid what we are "worth". It used to be that we only had to be worth more than the kids in our class or those down the block, but not any more. Now, we have to beat out kids from around the world. Kids who are hungry around the world who have the opportunity to increase their worth are now our competitors. It is not like the old days.
The question is, "How do we turn over a new leaf in our education system such that we make out kids "worth" more?" Like any race, it is critical that we get off to a fast start. Once some other kid gets a lead on you, it is very very difficult to ever catch up. That is a fact of life. Look at how early a kid figures out that it is not a good idea to touch a hot stove. Think about why that was. Don't know? It was because he understood the "reason" for not touching the hot stove. Still don't get it? How many times have you heard a young person ask, "Why do I need to know that?" It seem clear that few kids just want to learn something for the hell of it. They need a reason and if they have a good reason then they want to learn. How does a young kids learn the reason for learning this or that? It is not from the teacher. All they are interested in is "presenting" the information. Some pick it up and other don't. It is not all due to intelligence. There is something else.
Parents are the ones who can show their kids "why" they need to learn this or that. They can not push this responsibility off onto the teacher. They don't explain "why". Some kids exercise and lift weights. Why do they do that? Notice that I just asked "why"? The kid must have figured out "why" or you can be sure that they would not be doing all that exercising and lifting weights. Starting to see where this is going? Some where, while the child is in grammar school, the parent is going to have to figure out how to show their child both "why" and "how" to make themselves "worth" more. You can't have "how" until they understand "why".
I know that we can't ever get 100% of our citizens on board with the above, but we can do a lot better than we are now doing. Compare Asians to Blacks on what I have said above and you tell if their is a significant difference? You know that there is! Notice that both kids go to the same school and have the same teacher, but the results are very different. Now, are you starting to understand why? It is not the quality of our schools that is the problem so we don't need to push more of our tax money into our schools. What is needed is both cheaper and much more needed. We need better parents and we need to start demanding it!! We should start asking parents what they are doing in order to make their children "worth" more. I am sure that they will not understand the question, but we can't stop there. One idea is to demand a letter from the parent of every kid who enters first grade. "What are they doing to make their child "worth" more?" If they can't answer this simple question, the parent should be require to take some night classes to figure it out.
What do you think?
PS--I was just reviewing some data on how kids were doing in grammar school and it showed that "on the average" Whites and Asians ranked about the same. My friend concluded that they were "equal", but that may not be true. I proposed that the two groups might have a very significant different "variance"! If that is the case you might then find more Asians in the top 5% than Whites. Compare this with data that shows the average height of Blacks and Whites is almost exactly the same. Based on my personal observations, I thought that Blacks were much taller. It appears that my misconception is the result of a larger variance in the height of Blacks compared to Whites. There is a danger in just thinking in terms of "averages"!
