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Musings, meanderings, wonderings and wanderings about unschooling, natural parenting, green living, social justice and more by writer, author and Natural Life magazine editor Wendy Priesnitz. Archives - December, 2008 Santa Claus? – December 31, 2008 Devaluing the Currency of Education – December 29, 2008 Putting aside the law student’s alarming level of dishonesty, I have to ask if she able to do her course work because of some prior experience and knowledge that would have earned her credit for life experience if such had been legitimately available. And what about the standards of the law firm that had offered her a position? Did they put such value in the currency of her credentials that they overlooked due diligence? Or perhaps they didn’t care much about the credentials and had another way to judge her potential success with their company. Maybe they were looking for something other than framed pieces of paper hanging on the wall or a march of letters after a name – the symbols of having been turned into an “expert” on the educational production line. Not likely, you say. But if not, then why do we legitimately bestow these symbols on certain people who were never processed? Honorary degrees are regularly awarded by universities to politicians, writers and other public figures who ironically have often made their mark without attending a post-secondary institution (or at least not the one giving them the degree). And while few would suggest that honorary degrees are bought like those from diploma mills, many honorary degrees are awarded to those who can donate large sums of money to the granting institution, or at least provide it with a profile that can attract funds from others. At any rate, as Harvard’s
Howard Gardner wrote in his 1991 book The Unschooled Mind, schools at all levels
have increasingly substituted test results and various credentials for genuine
knowledge and demonstrated understanding. And as I wrote in my book
Challenging Assumptions in Education, “Since studies show there is little correlation
between education levels and job performance (notwithstanding the specialized
technical training that can be essential), there is no reason to judge
people’s employability (or anything else for that matter, except their ability
to write tests and essays) by their degrees. So those of us who are in hiring
positions can, in some cases, reconsider policies that require university or
college degrees. We can look at a wide range of other qualifications, such as
job and practical life experience, related skills and level of maturity. To
really change the cult-of-experts mentality, many of us will have to examine our
own past university experiences, separate our identities as people from our
university degrees...and try letting our names appear naked on our business
cards.” Maybe that would eliminate the problem of diploma mills.
We Need a New Way of Tracking the Costs – December 1, 2008 Speaking to BBC News at the recent World Conservation Congress, study leader and Deutsche Bank economist Pavan Sukhdev emphasized that the cost of natural declining natural capital dwarfs losses on the financial markets and has been happening every year. (Watch Sukhdev on YouTube talk about the WWF’s Living Planet Report.) This calculation of the financial cost of environmental degradation is a new way of looking at things, at least among the guys at the top. And it might be too new to be on the radar of most of the 8,000 delegates from 180 countries who attending the international climate talks beginning today in Poznan, Poland. If it’s not front-of-mind, the current economic worries will make it hard for them to keep fighting global warming. Lower oil prices mean less of an incentive to invest in renewables. Already, wind and solar power companies are slashing spending and the value of their stocks is plummeting. That’s crazy, given the urgent need for renewable energy! However, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said that it would cost less than 0.12 per cent of global gross domestic (GDP) product every year until 2030 to avert the worst of climate change. So what are we waiting for? I think we need a paradigm shift, a whole new way of looking at quality of life that goes far beyond the GDP and the stock market, and that questions the value of growth at any cost. We’re fixated on the GDP’s rise or fall as an indicator of how well things are progressing or not. But the problem is that the GDP just measures spending and makes no distinctions between transactions that add to well-being and those that diminish it; as long as money changes hands, the GDP increases. For instance, under the GDP, environmental pollution ends up being a positive because it creates economic activity – and is even counted positively twice: once when it’s created and again when it’s cleaned up. And the result of that pollution, which is often illness such as cancer, also ends up on the plus side of the ledger because it, too, creates economic activity. This mindset also affects families because, for instance, it doesn’t account for things like the value of household and volunteer work, which are invisible in the GDP because no money changes hands. And it values schooling – no matter how awful the quality – because, once again, it creates economic activity. There is a rising awareness of this problem and there are
some solutions being proposed. I’ve been writing about them for decades. Here
is a
simple article explaining the
issues, that will appear in Natural Life in March/April 2009 but is now on the
website because it’s too important to wait.
Comments? Suggestions? Email me copyright © Wendy Priesnitz 2008 |
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Pearl
Kathileen Worfolk (nee Knox) died peacefully on December 14, 2008 at The WestBury Long Term Care Home in Toronto, Ontario, after suffering a stroke. Kathileen (Kay) was in her 100th year and is survived by her only child Wendy and her son-in-law Rolf Priesnitz of Toronto; her granddaughters Melanie of Avonport, Nova
Scotia and Heidi of Wolfville, Nova Scotia; as well as numerous nieces and nephews across Canada. Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1909, she grew up in Grassy Lake, Alberta and Long Branch, Ontario. As an adult, she lived in Toronto, Hamilton, Cambridge, Orillia and Paris, Ontario. The eldest of nine children, she was pre-deceased by her husband Vincent Worfolk in 1965. Cremation will be followed by a private family graveside service. On Kathileen’s request, memorial donations may be made to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario.