No More College Debt

Story about a young man named Joe Mihalic who graduated from Harvard Business School with $90,000 debt and how he paid it off seven months after graduating. This guy obviously has a lot of tenacity and self-discipline. Some of it seems drastic, maybe unwise (e.g. not paying into retirement). But when you think of all the money he saved over the lifetime of the loan, it makes sense. And now, of course, he can get right back into the process of saving for retirement. Very smart.

Here's a video he produced to tell his story.

  

Here's a write-up in Yahoo! Finance, by Josh Mitchell. 

Here's Mihalic's now-famous blog about how he did it.  

Update: Of course he wrote a book! 

Wiki-Nonsense!

Though I'm as likely as the next person to do a quick check on Wikipedia (usually to check a person's bio or maybe confirm a bit of historical background on something), I'm also as likely to tell my students not to rely on Wikipedia as a reliable resource and certainly not to use it as a source for research essays. Call me a Wikiskeptic, but I think the best approach when dealing with Wikipedia is to trust but verify (which is a loose translation of a Russian proverb, doveryai, no proveryai, at least, so says Wikipedia...!)

Here's a good illustration of why a healthy dose of wikiskepticism (am I the first to coin this word?) is a good idea. The other day I looked up "Weekly Republican Address" for some reason. Here's the first line:

The Weekly Republican Address is an anarchist effort by the Republican party to divide the country and combat the initiatives of the 44th President of the United States, President Barak Obama.

(Ha, that's funny, I just noticed that the first name of the president is misspelled.) 

Here's the link. On the off chance it's changed by the time you look at it, I'll include the screen shot (taken April 30, 2012) and, in case you can't read the words in the screen shot (I can't), the complete entry:

Screen shot captured April 30, 2012

The Weekly Republican Address is an anarchist effort by the Republican party to divide the country and combat the initiatives of the 44th President of the United States, President Barak Obama. Created in 2009, the Weekly Republican Address is the first anarchist tactical approach used against a sitting president, since the 16th President of the United States. The Weekly Republican Address is delivered by a different member of the Republican party each week, in a response to the official Weekly Address of the 44th President of the United States. Hence, the Weekly Address of the President was started by the 32cd President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, more than 70 years ago.

Obviously someone's having a little fun here, though he (or she) is a terrible writer. 

I tried to follow the editing history of changes made to this entry but I don't understand the process. Any tech person out there care to explain?  

I rated the page at the bottom ("Lacks reputable sources," "Heavily biased," "Missing Most Information," "Incomprehensible"). 

I thought about reporting the page, but apparently, being run and edited by volunteers, that's easier said than done. The Contact page says "Wikipedia has no editorial board. Content is not the result of an editorial decision by the Wikimedia Foundation or its staff." And the "Report a Problem" page addresses dispute resolutions, but it looks pretty complicated. 

I also thought about editing the page myself. But that's not something I want to do right now. 

Bottom line? Common sense tells me that Wikipedia users should abide by the business principle caveat emptor ("let the buyer beware").

And yes, I double-checked the Latin spelling on Wikipedia.

An Appeal to Community College Students: Don't be Fooled!

As an educator who interacts constantly with college-aged students, and as a parent of three children who are in their early twenties, I am disturbed by President Obama's shameless attempt to manipulate young people by holding political rallies disguised as "official White House events" at community colleges.

In fact, the more I listen to this man on the campaign trail, the more alarmed I become. It is increasingly apparent to me that Obama's "power to persuade" is a deadly concoction of charm and fallacious reasoning, made all the more potent when presented to gullible students who, simply by virtue of being assembled together in a stadium or auditorium, are vulnerable to the insidious "bandwagon" fallacy. When the president of the United States mocks and ridicules people or ideas you might otherwise respect, either because of family tradition or personal convictions, and when everyone around you laughs and cheers and jeers, are you going to be among the few who "sit on your hands" or shout out a dissenting "boo"? Most twenty-somethings wouldn't. Most fifty-somethings wouldn't.

Again, the word "shameless" comes to mind. Obama, correctly assuming most of these students are either ignorant of or disinterested in facts and taking full advantage of social mores (what college kid would shout "boo" while a popular, witty, charming president is speaking?), is able to make overtly false claims with virtually zero accountability. And even if those claims are rightly disputed in the next day's right-wing news outlets who are vetting and fact-checking the president, little matter. He's moved on, the kids with their short attention span and Twitter and Facebook have moved on, the mainstream news outlets aren't interested, and the beat goes on. The 24/7 information cycle is all and only about image, not substance.

Critical thinking is in danger of becoming a lost art. The more time we (educators) spend focused on "diversity" and "tolerance," the less time we spend teaching students how to understand an argument, recognize and challenge logical fallacies, and refuse to be manipulated.

Here's an assignment for the English classroom. Rather than holding feel-good discussions about diversity, let's analyze campaign stump speeches, particularly Barack Obama's. We could practice on the 3-minute clip below. How many logical fallacies can you identify?

Here's a partial list: appeal to pity; appeal to fear; bandwagon; begging the question; confusing chronology with causality, either/or reasoning; equivocating; failing to accept the burden of proof; false analogy; hasty generalization; over-reliance on authority; oversimplifying; personal attack; red herring; slanting; slippery slope; sob story; straw man.

President Obama, speaking at Prince George’s Community College in Ohio, this week.

Who Decides What We Should Be Aware Of?

Received the following in my in-box this morning from Michael Mufson, professor of theater at Palomar, sent on behalf of the PC3H Committee (and no, "PC" is not short for politically-correct, though it should be). Addressing the entire Palomar College community, including classified staff, counselors, administrators, faculty, district counselors, deans, directors, distinguished Governing Board members, Mufson writes: 

April is LGBTQ awareness month at Palomar and we are hoping to create a broad discussion amongst classes, faculty, staff and community about gender and sexuality in American culture.  We are planning a series of events to spark discussions across many disciplines.  An essential part of the project is participation of many classes in the discussion. There are many ways you can participate:

•  Have a discussion on any LGBTQ topic and encourage your students to share their thoughts on the blog.

•  Encourage students to use the blog for pre-writing or free-writing process and discussion

•  Give extra credit to students for attending one or more of the events.  Encourage them to post a response on the blog.

•  If you already have a written assignment that relates to the topic, post some quotes or conclusions from the assignment on the blog.

•  Create a written assignment that relates to the topic, post some quotes or conclusions from the assignment on the blog.

In these stressful times, it is important for us to remember that education is more than student learning outcomes and career training for corporate America.  This project is an expression of the ideal of education.  Let’s put the community in community college.

My initial thoughts:

Mufson's suggestion that faculty and staff incorporate discussions on LGBTQ in our courses is absurd, especially when you think in terms of your own course content (Physics? Calculus? Library Technology?). Our job as educators is to teach our course content, not to incorporate social values of any sort, no matter how commendable, that are not relevant to those objectives.

I have a feeling that Stanley Fish, who wrote Save the World on Your Own Time, might disagree with Mufson's final statement about education being more than learning outcomes and/or career training. Fish's entire book revolves around a simple thesis: Our job as educators is to teach content related to our own discipline, along with analytical skills related to that content. That's it. If we have passions or beliefs or morals or values that we want to fight for or protest or advocate, that's fine. Do it on your own time, and in your own name, not in the classroom and not as a representative the institution where you teach.


And who determines that April is anything month? Why do LGBTQ people get their own month? Lots of people could argue for special acknowledgment of their disenfranchisement. What about "Unborn Human Babies Awareness Month" or "Religious Liberties Under Assault Awareness Month" or . . . ?

One wonders how Professor Mufson would feel if the college encouraged faculty to incorporate discussions about the rights of the pre-born or of persecuted Christians in his theater classes? My guess is he would opt out. As I will be this April in my English classes.


Sorry, but this is infuriating.


Note: posted this on my other blog (Ahem) as well.