Here’s an interesting tidbit in a story about Blumenthal’s fabrication of his Vietnam experience. Some people apparently think that this is equivalent:
“It’s appalling that the Attorney General of the state of Connecticut – a highly-educated and trained lawyer – would misspeak about such a significant issue,” Simmons told POLITICO this morning. “Clearly he knows he never was in Vietnam, and yet he’s on record saying he was in Vietnam – obviously to appeal to an audience, and that’s a very troubling disclosure.
“But it’s matched in some respects by Mrs. McMahon who brought the charge — when just a few montnhs ago it was disclosed that she did not tell the truth about her college education and her degree — which is again something everybody should realy know,” Simmons said, referring to a Hartford Courant report that McMahon claimed on documents filed with her appointment to the State Board of Education that she had a degree in education, when her degree was in French.
“I got a degree in English Literature,” Simmons said. “It’s hard to make a mistake about something like this.”
What I find hilarious about this is that both Simmons and McMahon apparently believe that an education degree is of more merit than one in French. I disagree. At least the French major has some knowledge to impart to her students, if they want to learn French. I’ve never noticed that a degree in education teaches doesn’t provide much knowlege of positive value, and much of negative value. I would think that if you were going to upgrade your degree, you’d pick something worthwhile to substitute for French, like business, or even poli sci, not the degree that has the lowest entrance scores of all majors.
As I’ve said before, I’d abolish schools of education if I were dictator. Or at least eliminate government-backed loans for them (though actually, I’d eliminate government-backed educational loans, period).
Didn’t the old “Spy Magazine” deal with this issue? They had an article about “suppose you dodged the draft but now want to get the respect afforded a Vietnam veteran now that public opinion has shifted.
They had this made up war story, and they gave first the basic talking points of the fabricated story, and then they told how to embellish it when telling it to the girlfriend (this is too horrible, I don’t know if I even want to talk about it), how to tell it before a civic group (in polite but bold language), and how to tell it in a bar with your beer drinking buddies (suitably punctuated with vulgar language, about your “fine” lieutenant who didn’t pay attention to the “fine” flank security, and your “fine” unit was “finely” ambushed by the “fine” enemy).
Besides owing an apology to veterans, this man is probably in violation of the copyright of that magazine article.
Can you get Woody Allen to endorse you for dictator, instead of Obama? And can I put a plug in for school choice once you have the laurel wreath on your head?
Yours,
Tom
Can you get Woody Allen to endorse you for dictator, instead of Obama?
It seems unlikely. I’m not “brilliant,” like Obama is.
Rand, I think you missed the point. The point is that both people knew the truth (Vietnam or what their degree is in) yet said something different. They are both making easily-discovered lies.
There’s nothing about one degree being better than another, and there is a plain implication that Simmons thinks the Vietnam lie is a more important matter.
I don’t miss the point at all. I just find it amusing that in one case the lie burnishes the reputation, while in the other it tarnishes it (at least in my opinion).
Well, I’m not seeing anything in the quote that would lead me to believe that, per your quote, both Simmons and McMahon apparently believe that an education degree is of more merit than one in French. Simmons is making no value judgment about the degrees.
OK, maybe Simmons doesn’t, but common sense would indicate that she wouldn’t lie about her degree unless she thought that doing so would improve her political standing, so she not only must believe it, but must also believe that others believe it as well. Whatever Simmons believes, no one else has pointed out what I did, as far as I know. It seems to be taken as a given that an education degree is preferable to a French degree.
Who taught the first person to get an “education” degree, and how were they certified to teach such things?
“I’d eliminate government-backed educational loans, period.”
And, the only people who would be worse off, or at least less better off, for it would be university employees. It’s like Universal Health Care. If you increase the demand for something without doing anything to eliminate scarcity of that something, the price will rise. It is a bottomless pit into which you can pour money without creating any improvement whatsoever. Tuition continues to outpace inflation, and the response is to keep trying to blow out the fire, while managing only to stoke the flames.
“Who taught the first person to get an “education” degree, and how were they certified to teach such things?”
Did Adam and Eve have navels? But, seriously, how can anyone equate these two things? Lying about your academic credentials doesn’t imbue you with the respect accorded those who risked their lives, and often died, in the service of the entire nation. Getting an education degree isn’t generally considered hazardous duty, and doesn’t require a particular quantity of valor, bravery, and selflessness.
Moreover, is it in any way beside the point to note that Mrs. McMahon is not running for public office and asking the citizens of Connecticut to vote for her on the basis of her public record??? What kind of ridiculous tu quoque argument is this, and what bearing does it have on the election? Unless… the object is to warn off others who might harm politicians that their closet will be thoroughly searched for skeletons. Ah,… now I see.
Oh, I see now Mrs. McMahon is running for the office.
Never mind…
You keep knocking education degrees — I do think you make a good point, but would you rather see 1st grade math taught by a mathematician, or by someone who someone who has training in “math education”?
I know people with degrees in math, some with very low Erdos numbers. One of them became a high school teacher (for gifted kids) and loves it. Most wouldn’t do well as high school teachers, and none of them would be as good at teaching 1st grade math as a typical 1st grade teacher.
I’ll follow-up: Most teachers acknowledge education courses are horrible, both at the undergrad level, and at the masters degree level. They say if they learn anything useful at all in school, it is from the final semester before they get their degrees, when they become “student teachers” in actual classrooms.
But that’s a problem for education in general — more of it should be learn-by-doing. There is no reason, in principal, why “education classes” couldn’t be learn-by-doing, just as there is no reason why engineering classes couldn’t have more learn-by-doing. Of course, the best engineering schools often do have a lot of project-based curricula, and I bet the same is true for the best schools of education.
Finally, as bad as many education classes are, I do think it is helpful for teachers to have at least a smidgen of formal knowledge about child development and the learning process.
I do wonder about schools of education as well. I’ve known some fine teachers — and some awful ones. Schools of education should, in theory, at least be able to screen out the poor ones.
The same goes for business schools. Business schools are a relatively recent development. I’ve known too many MBAs with real shortages of people knowledge (Mike Griffin comes to mind) to automatically accord respect to such people.
Recently I have also been making a wry commentary on “business” people. After reading a 400 year old poem, I’ve been pronouncing “business” as “busy ness.” It helps make the point that too many busy ness people don’t really accomplish all that much except staying really busy. Mike Griffin again comes to mind.