20100309 – barback
Posted on March 9, 2010 - Filed Under picture of the day
took this last week when becky and i stopped at o’garas on the way home. quick little happy hour and a nice little surprise.
so i’d like to write a longer blog about this but i don’t have the time right now. what i wanted to bring up is the idea of critical thinking. we need a greater emphasis on math and science in our educational system. i think there is pretty widespread support for that statement but i admit that i don’t have any numbers with me to back it up. for now, just go with me.
i think one of the main reasons is that it inspires critical thinking in a way that some other fields do not. now i’m not saying we should get rid of band, art, english, sports, etc. just that i think math and science has some strengths in these areas. i’ve been thinking about how easily people can be mislead with facts. for example, i’m reading an interesting article (maybe half way through) about investment of college at AEI called How Much is That Bachelor’s Degree Worth? now it has some interesting analysis about how much return on a degree you can expect and puts forth the idea that the return on investment over just a high school degree isn’t as high as some would think (say like 280,000 versus a million).
now you could read this and think, well maybe i shouldn’t go to college because the return isn’t that great and i could start my own business and grown it and earn more. and that may be a possibility. but if you’re thinking about this critically you could also think that hey, maybe it’s not just about the amount of investment. what about the ease of getting a job period with a high school diploma versus a college degree?
see the numbers could confuse. i stopped to think about it for a few minutes. another interesting point that the article brings up is the the return on investment on private schools versus public schools. so, if you’re going to go to college, where is the best place to go. now that’s an interesting question and a great way to look at these figures, i think.
anyway, my point is that because of my background in math and the time (you might say the investment) that i put in to learn how to think about things and keep asking questions about what is behind the thing being said leads to what i would argue is a deeper understanding of the bigger picture.
i’d love to expand on this and maybe i’ll have the chance but for now, I have to jump into my day. as a parting thought, going back to my point about other subjects, what are some of the strengths that each of those subjects bring to the table? how does a good background in literature or art or team sports change the way we look at the world in a positive way?
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