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To heavy for me to read, move alone. Jimbo1

Fine sentiments from the Wisconsin Board of Regents.
The kind of stuff that should be put on a plaque for dreamy-eyed students to gaze at.

True. But much more than that if you try on a different perspective. Entertain that the plaque is not just sentiment, but a formula, tried and true, adopted by individuals that strive to the ideal that it proposes. Then, these individuals took the extra step to mount the formula in stone in just such a place as to catch the dreamy-eye of one not yet jaded, who can only see possibility, so as to inspire the owner of that eye to:

• Change the method and curriculum of the Social Studies program to better serve.
• Cure cancer.
• Become a Microsoft Developer that creates the next-gen desktop operating system, utilizing the four ring memory protection facilities available for more than a decade in the intel architecture, eliminating any possibility of a malware infestation.
• Eschew cussing the weather in favor of getting up off her duff to fix the hole in the roof.
• etc.

Fine perspective, rshaffer4444. I stand with those who would read and be inspired by those principles. My rather dreary epistle above is simply to point out that our educational system has distanced itself from that ethos so far that the graduate can no longer claim to have been educated, but rather has been groomed to fit a pre-determined role. Professions are less populated by those with flexible foundation of the arts and sciences, and more by those whose work performance is locked-step menu driven task satisfaction without regard to customer need. I suppose I could say to myself: "It's the economy, stupid." But more to the point, it is mandated by the risk-assessment and risk-management folks in the corporate structure who decide what can profitably be accomplished, and what acceptable losses can be tolerated. Not my kind of world, anymore.

that all sounds so depressing doug, i believe our own teaching/learning standards have dropped from when i was in school but i still believe they are nowhere near as low as what your describing for your profession/country. in fact i believe the specialist professions, ie. clinical psychology are still as well trained/educated as they've ever been over here. i might be wrong though, hope not.

just out of curiosity, do you think the problem started with the growth in population or industrialisation? here's my thinking on it, years ago the population was a lot smaller so we needed less specialists to care for us, so only the top 1/2% of the brightest were needed to teach/practise and the rest were needed for manual work/management etc. as the population increased the top 1/2% weren't enough, so to fill both teaching and practising jobs, the top 3% who didn't make the 2% bracket became the teachers while the top 2% became the practitioners and so on until now say we have the top 50% practising and the top 50% to 60% bracket teaching. therefore lower quality teachers equalling lower quality practitioners? or was it the less manual workers needed because of industrialisation, to give the top %age of them other jobs we needed to lower the standards of our specialist jobs to cater for them? might even be as our technology increased we rely on it more and more and the level of intelligence needed to operate it has lowered so we don't need just the brightest in those jobs any more? probably a mixture of all 3? one thing i do know, i wouldn't of had to worry about being in the top 2% for one of the jobs… ever!!!

“I went to school, but it did not interfere with my education!” – Mark Twain. “As long as education is synonymous with cramming on an organized plan, it will continue to produce mediocrity” – H.E.Gorst in ‘The Curse of Education’. The dual education system doesn't help either.