Career Fair

[Austin]

Guys, I may be absent for a few weeks. Greg said something I agreed with and I am checking myself into the Betty Ford Clinic. I may swing by Roswell, NM, and visit some of Greg's friends. Maybe we have something in common after all.

 

[xmrdfghap]

<span style='color:brown'>Ben, back when I was in my 20's I had to do training for garage door installers (I grew up in the Overhead Door business). I had one guy who had been a production line welder for several years, so I naturally (and erroniously) assumed he was familiar with tools. At one point I asked him to get me a 3/32nd bit out of the tool box so I could drill some pilot holes in a steel weld plate above the door. After a couple of minutes I looked down (I was about 30 feet off the ground on a ladder). He had every drill bit in his hand and was looking at each and every one to see what size it was. The sizes ranged from 1/64th to 1 1/4" bits.

I asked him if he ever dealt in fractions.....he said he had had them n High School but wasn't very comfortable with them. I asked if he had used decimals as in .250 inches. He had no idea what I was talking about. The guy was about 30 years old, and this was 30 years ago. Sometimes kids don't pay atention ad never really learn......it has nothing to do with "kids today." It has been that way forever.

It was about that time that we initiated a policy that you would not be hired if you could not spell the position you were applying for. (We would not hire a carpner or a makanic) We also began doing basic tests like convert 1/4 to a decimal. It was amazing how many people would look at the test and walk out.</span>

 

[Ben Vukicevich SRA]

Greg,

Your helper reminds me of my brother-in-law. I was cutting glass for a broken pane in his front door and he was measuring.

I asked him the width and he replied 8 and three dots........Arghhhhh....

Ben

 

[Austin]

Good point again Greg: That is what happened when the Liberals took over the public schools and started social experiments instead of educating. Maybe kids don't know fractions or decimals but they recognize alternative life styles, diversity, and tolerance. After all, our strength is in our diversity. Or so they say. Glad to see you are coming over to the Conservative way of thinking.

 

[Pamela Crowley (Florida)]

The liberal taking over of the education system started after WWII. That's pretty much everyone under the age of 60 now.

Mom made me do things the old way... even had to read McGuffy Readers which I started prior to Kindergarten. Heavily into Jack London novels by 4th grade.

Austin, If I ever get more than my head above the water line here, I'd pay you to spend a week with you learning more about statistics.

 

[Larry Lyke]

You could stress the fact that it's a lot like going fishing and camping. You leave the house in the morning all decked out in clothes appropriate for snow, rain or sunshine with fishing poles in the trunk, plulling your jet ski on a trailer.

You do a couple of drive-by appraisals in the morning, then stop in a shady spot and drop a line for a couple hours of lunch and a nap.

Then drive around a bit looking for "Comps." Comps doesn't mean companionship. Take a few photos of the scenery and head home before dark.

The job requirements are reading a treasure hunt map, knowing the difference between foot-long and furlong, how to write a receipt for C.O.D.s, how to read a compass to determine the wind direction when sticking finger in the air to decide on value up or down.

You could wear a miner's spirit lamp on your cap to add interest to your outfit while manning the career desk. You know, as in mining for data. That could peak someone's interest. As in break the ice.

 

[Tim The Enchanter]

Larry, you make it sound like fun! Explore strange new worlds! Do driveby shootings (digital cam :lol: ) Actually this is the most fun part, except for those trips to shakytown (I don't mean earthquakes :wink: ), but even those are interesting 8O .

And Computers, they're fun too, and they're our friends. :twisted:
Unitl it goes down, then I'm out of biz :evil: .

 

[xmrdfghap]

<span style='color:brown'>Austin, I hate to burst your bubble, but long before I experienced such problems, this country was doing far worse in education. My father-in-law managed to make it through the 8th grade (that was often the level where rural americans quit school). His sister made it through law school and taught at UC Davis, making it onto the board of regents before she retired.

Although you seem to think that "liberals" created the ills of the world, the fact is, that given the same opportunities some kids excel, some fail, most do ok. This has been the case for kids since kids were invented (Cain and Able included). the nice thing about the "liberal" educational system today, is not that we are turning out less educated kids, but that becasue education is more available to kids than ever before, we are turning out lots more good kids. We also are turning out lots more kids who fail and lots more who do ok. The reason is, is that we are trying to educate lots more kids. We are not sending the slower kids to factories or coal mines. We are sending the slower kids to Tech schools and teaching them practicle things like welding, auto repair, diesel mechanics, cosmotology, basic bookkeeping and lots of other useful and necessary things. Our brighter kids are becoming attornies, doctors, CPA's, MBA's etc.....in far greater numbers than ever before.

Our educational system, by and large, is the most successful ever.....if you don't believe me, look at the new homes in the cities today and the age of the people buying them. Look at the kinds of cars they are driving. sure repo's are up there......but Frank referenced an article that said repo'd homes were up to 5.6 % or so. which means 94%+ DON'T get repoed in Florida. Lots of folks are successful....and we can thank our educators and our educational system for that.

Thank God for our liberal ancestors who thought it so important to educate the masses that they were willing to tax themselves and made universal education the law. And Thank God for our liberal fathers who fought for the right for ALL Americans, regardless of race, to have access to that education.......not just the privledged few.</span>

 

[Austin]

Greg: You have a strange ideological make-up consisting of a concoction of concepts and ideological points all mixed together. First of all, in your above post you clearly acknowledge that all men/women are not created equal by saying that the bright people become professionals (Liberal elite to lead us no doubt) and that the less endowed do the dirty work in some pecking order based on natural intelligence. That is completely contradictory to the Liberal Theory. Liberals believe all people were created equal and the social/economic pecking order results from inequality of privilege. In other words, if it were not for some people being rich and having privilege children, we would all have a PhD. Why do you think Liberals detest the Bush family so much? It is because they are in the Liberal mind the perfect picture of the privileged class they detest because they were privileged.
Then your explanation of the natural social/economic pecking order is not Judeo-Christian based. It is not a matter of some people being smarter than others; it is a matter of the gifts God gave to each of us. You claim to be a Christian, so read your Bible and look at what God said. When He told the people to build the Temple, he told them to hire the ones to whom He had given certain gifts. That is the sense in which all people are created equal. We are all equal in God’s eyes but each one of us has a different God given gift to use as our contribution to humankind. What you label as intelligence is nothing more than a gift that God gave some people in order to perform a certain function. That gift makes then no better than a person with a gift to repair an automobile. Both the auto mechanic and lawyer are equally gifted by God, so who are you past judgment on God’s divine plan by assigning them worth. Another Liberal characteristic.
Then you close by attributing all good things, like our public education system to Liberalism. Are you aware that the father or mother, of higher education in this country are five major Universities. If you trace the ancestry of every college and university in this country back to their ancestral roots, you will find Harvard, Yale, Brown, William and Mary and one other I can’t remember. Who founded these universities? They were founded by fundamental Christian denominations for the explicit purpose of training clergy. Ever heard “The fear of the Lord is beginning of wisdom?” These colleges were eventually taken over by the Liberal Cult that has turned them into the crap holes they are today. As soon as I think you are showing signs of sanity, off you go again. It does make interesting conservation though.

 

[Dale Smalley]

Try getting an ariel photo of the school and neighborhood. With a matching plat map. I would suggest the computer angle using the internet and digital photos. If they get too close just bring up the math part and watch em run.