For Once I agree with ObamaFollow

No, I'm looking to go into the Information Security field. It's along the lines of a Network Security specialist but Information Security focuses more on the data on the systems than the systems themselves.

Computer Forensics doesn't have as much to do with law enforcement as people think. It's like crime scene investigation except you work with computers and the data involved. Just because you delete an email or file, doesn't mean it's gone. It can be found, it's just a matter of knowing how. That's pretty much the job of a Computer Forensics Specialist.

Computer Forensics was actually listed as one of the top ten coolest IT security jobs. Here is a general overview of the field.

oh hai

Whether you are or are not immoral for protesting this dude's dropping out has little to none to do with my vision of good pedagogy.

I can empathize with his story, but I think that his conclusions are somewhat invalid - that is, the idea that school work just isn't challenging enough, and therefore the -really- smart ones do poorly at it is quite dubious to me. I made average grades in highschool, and I'm sure that as much of that was just sloth as it was something I can blame on mental problems, or boredom. When i got to university, I started making A's quite consistently. Why? I don't know; the reasons are all confounded.

It isn't so much that the smart kids do poorly, it's that they can actually become a distraction.

I distinctly remember in 3rd grade my teacher had to start giving me extra material from higher grades to keep me busy. If she didn't, I ended up finishing the normal work way too early and distracting others from their work because I had nothing left to do.

Well, personally, I found lessons to be very boring. My knowledge of various subjects from reading was patchy, but it still covered essentially everything I was taught in school, apart from history, as I was interested in a different period, and chemistry, because no one rads about chemistry in their spare time. It was OK throughout primary school because I took joy in knowing more than the rest of the class and at laughing at some of the more outrageous and un-useful lies told - e.g. "a second is the smallest unit of time something can happen in", clapping to demonstrate. Then, sadly, I grew up. I had about 60% attendance in high school the first three years, slightly higher later on, but I still got the best results possible. I did pretty terribly in the tests after the next two years of school, though. Anyway, after that, I continued to not work very hard and miss lessons, but I did great.

I like this story because, although it's rather rambling, the moral is "laze around and stuff will turn out fine anyway". In conclusion, schools need harder classes, more hammocks and a lot more cowbell.

Edit: Meh, didn't read the second page.

Edited, Sep 28th 2009 8:19pm by catwho

Unfortunately, a huge determinant in success is the ability to motivate yourself. I can understand the want for a challenge but sometimes you have to provide it yourself. Relying on someone else to give you one is intellectually lazy; the truly bright satisfy their curiosity on their own terms.

You sure there isn't a little more to that story? If it happened exactly as you say, then shouldn't law enforcement have stepped in as well?

A friend of mine, who is a High School teacher, made an observation to me a couple days ago. We were talking about retirement and comparing self-funded plans (like 401k and self invested stock) to pension plans. Yeah. Fun conversation. Whatever... I made the point that while self-invested systems provide more flexibility, pensions are "safer" as long as there's some assurance that new contributors to the fund would always be generated (which is a safe bet in the case of teachers).

He responded with a point about why teachers pension plans tend to do better than most union based plans, beyond even the whole "what if the industry shrinks over time" angle: Apparently, the average years drawn by teachers on a full pension is something like 7. I found that strange, but he elaborated. Teachers who teach long enough to reach full pension tend to do it because they love teaching. Anyone else would have gone on to do something else. As a consequence, most teachers who work that long will continue to work essentially until they physically aren't able to anymore. And they just don't live that long on average after retiring.


Joph's statement about whether teachers "care" just reminded me of that. I don't think the issue is about caring at all. There are tons of crappy teachers out there, but there are a lot of good teachers. The problem isn't the individuals, it's with the design of the system itself. The Unions are part of that problem. The administrations are part of it. The political aspects and requirements are part of that.

IMO, our mistake with education is that we try to over think the process. We spend so much time trying to figure out what should be taught, at what grade level, and to what size classes, that we sometimes forget what the purpose of education is in the first place. And heck. We debate endlessly that purpose as well (which is where the politics comes in). Is it so that each child will become a part of a homogeneous culture? Is it to ensure that everyone has an adequate knowledge of specific cultural realities? Is it to ensure that everyone can read, write, and otherwise function in society? Is it to maximize the number of people who go on to college? Is it to maximize the number who go on to get a job which will support them and their future family?



There is a lot of debate about "how" we should educate, but I think that the question we really ought to resolve first is "why" we educate. I suspect that a lot of the "how" arguments really are disagreements about "why". But no one's really addressing the issue in that way, so we constantly argue past eachother when it comes to education. I just don't think that's very productive...