Is success in the humanities harder to quantify?

[madteaparty]

I don't even know what I am talking about. I do have a huge personal bias against the STEM-everything nonsense (cannot visit a public school open house without being STEM-ed to death...I'm also not sure what exactly it means these days. I have my theories. Anyway, that is a bias, but i also have a kid who sent me the most beautiful poem, in french (disclaimer: 1. I only partly understand it, 2. He is going to school in France for a couple of months, but he got an A, and got to read this poem and a short story he wrote one month into his stay in front of the class). It seems most prestigious "markers" or "competitions" have to do with math and science and robotics. Am I wrong? I'd love to be. I know about the scholastic awards. Anything else?

(Let's set aside for a moment on whether one needs their work entered into competitions and such).

Edited November 29, 2015 by madteaparty

[Gil]

Congrats to your son for his poem, and for his opportunities to travel abroad. I hope that I'm able to give mine similar opportunities in a few years. In my opinion, all the successes of our kids are worthy of acknowledgement.

 

Yes, it is harder to measure/quantify things that do not have a set answer. Such as much of the output produced by those in the humanitarians. Personally, I do not put a lot of stock in STEM because the grouping of sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics doesn't exactly make sense to me...

 

Currently, their is a massive push to improve literacy, interest and ability in the STEM disciplines, hence all of the competitions, contests, prizes and propoganda making STEM alluring to the next generation.

 

We, as a society, have decided that we desperate need more engineers, doctors, technicians, engineers, nurses, scientist, researchers, etc. And that is why we, as a society, are making such a push to develop talent in that bent. It is advantageous to do well in the basics of the STEM fields, because our society has agreed to reward you handsomely if you do. BUT that is just based on (perceived?) supply and demand.

 

I'm not sure that there AREN'T competitions/outlets for more humanities based academics/achievements, after all, the Spelling Bee is a pretty big deal, it's simply that the STEM based ones are receiving funding to award prizes and advertise on a grassroots level. However, The Scripps Spelling Bee is the only nationally televised academic-based competition that I know of.

 

The same way that skill based competitions/outlets in agricultural areas are waning in popularity. They are still important, but we don't need 10 million skilled farmers to feed the nation, half a million will do. No need to push and push on the agricultural front.

 

 

[Garga]

I guess it's where the money is? Money is in the STEM fields--for earning potential. You can make a better living doing STEM work over being a poet.

 

That's my take on it. I don't think STEM is better than humanities, but it's better rewarded monetarily, except for a small few who make it to the tippy top.

Edited November 29, 2015 by Garga

[Laura Corin]

Poetry competitions for children seem fairly well-regarded in the UK.  Calvin's runner-up position in one certainly didn't hurt his university applications.

[Roadrunner]

Because so much of our educational policy is industry driven. Someone dear to me once told me that I could always learn chemistry, but reading books since early age is what is going to make me a human being. 

 

[Hunter]

I have some VERY strong FEELINGS about this topic, but my ability to make a case for my feelings is limited.

 

Last year, I felt this strongly about chronological snobbery, but any attempts to discuss the topic without being able to link to important people with the same idea just left me sounding like a racist. I'm hoping to stumble upon a greater mind that thought what I think first.

[Hunter]

I think sometimes agendas are forced on the masses that those in power know to ignore.

[regentrude]

. It seems most prestigious "markers" or "competitions" have to do with math and science and robotics. Am I wrong? I'd love to be. I know about the scholastic awards. Anything else?

 

On top of my head, the following come to mind:

National History Day

National Language competitions (French, Latin)

Spelling Bees

lots of essay contests for scholarships and writing contests for publications

(ETA: Googling "Student writing competitions 2015" brings up pages and pages)

talent shows and music competitions on every level - school to national

 

Here is a list with lots of humanities contests/activities:

https://eog.tip.duke.edu/home/academic_activities

 

It is certainly true is that it is easier to evaluate the quality of a STEM project: you either solve a math/physics problem or you don't (and perhaps you can solve it in an especially elegant way). You either manage to design a robot that works, or not. Personal preferences and tastes do not enter the evaluation.

It is much more difficult to identify quality and to quantify success in piece of writing.

 

I would be interested to see participation numbers. I am not convinced that more students participate in math competitions than in writing contests.

 

 

Edited November 30, 2015 by regentrude

[deerforest]

Thank you for posting that list! I think I have finally found a contest that DD will love!

[EmilyGF]

When the modern Olympics first started, poetry and art were both events. But it became problematic - how do you decide what poetry wins a gold medal? Which art beats the rest? Do you actually want to have your art judged "the best" in a year by a committee of judges? So they were eventually eliminated.

 

The biggest competitions have industry sponsors; STEM industries have more money to sponsor competitions. Newspapers used to sponsor the Spelling Bee and some still do, but I expect getting the money year to year is becoming harder. National Geographic has the Geography Bee, but I doubt they have a large amount of money for outreach given how print is doing right now.

Emily

[Hunter]

Madteaparty I started a thread with a vague, "I don't even know what I am talking about", that led to me learning about chronological snobbery. My gut told me something was wrong, in what the masses were telling me that I should do. I knew it was at least wrong for ME. My gut told me so, but I had no eloquent words or statistics.

 

My gut tells me something similar to what I think your gut is telling you.

 

I was hoping someone would link to some famous person who could validate my feelings, but I guess I'll just have to quietly act on my gut for awhile longer.

 

I've learned to trust my gut. It is right so much more often than it is wrong.

 

Trust your gut.

Edited November 30, 2015 by Hunter

[Farrar]

Adding to Regentrude's list, there's also...

 

Odyssey of the Mind has a team fine arts challenge (incorporates writing, visual art, theater, and usually a humanities subject like "fairy tales" or "mystery stories")

Destination Imagination - same as above

National Mythology Exam

Medusa Exam

Poetry Out Loud

National Geography Bee

Model UN

Boys/Girls State - government

Optimist Essay Contests

Future City - sort of STEM, sort of humanities and social sciences

 

There's also debate. And there are lots of individual writing contests. And probably more stuff. Targee had a thread. We should compile them all into a single list with links somewhere.

 

I think it is more subjective - some science or engineering contests also have a subjective element, but writing is extra subjective. I agree with you about the absurdity of STEM being crammed down everyone's throats right now as the one and only educational thing worth our time (gag). However, I think it's a bit of a pendulum swing - there have long been a lot of contests for humanities. I mean, how many places have an essay contest - so many. Now there's been a push to have more accessible STEM contests. I think if you look that there's plenty out there on a wide range of topics.

[Arcadia]

My area's public school open houses weren't stem focus because the bulk of the parents are working for a tech related company due to where we are. However there is an inherent bias that my kids are supposed to be good in math and science because of their race and ethnicity :p

 

Humanities is very subjective. In fact I have to google for what are considered humanities subjects and I am still not sure.

 

For example essay writing in an exam or a contest. What makes an essay distinction worthy, even with a rubric, to get that close to perfect score emotions of the marker/grader come into play. I actually face a reverse bias as a math/science kid, people think I can't write and also can't deliver an impromptu speech.

 

It is a lot easier for my teachers to differentiate for the humanities subjects in school. A child can go a lot deeper while still be in sync topic wise with his/her classmates. It is harder in math or science to differentiate within a classroom. It is a lot easier to fly under the radar for humanities talents than math/science talents.

 

My WAHM self employed neighbors who teach piano and languages earn upwards of $100/hr and they teach homeschoolers as well, easily chalking up 8hrs per day. So pay can be high too for non-STEM fields. My lawyer and accountant friends are definately earning higher hourly rates than my hubby in tech. The management track pays better but hubby prefers to stay in the tech track which has a lower ceiling.

 

Statistics paint whatever picture the analyst wants it to paint.

 

ETA:

Debates competitons would be humanities I guess.

 

ETA:

Hubby did well in the humanities exams by slogging. I did better by luck. I felt bad for him. We were study buddies from way back so I know how much effort he puts in.

Edited November 30, 2015 by Arcadia

[deerforest]

Adding to Regentrude's list, there's also...

 

 

The link she posted for Duke TIP had a lot more than she posted in her thread. I just wanted to mention that because I found some real gems that I hadn't heard about before.

[Farrar]

The link she posted for Duke TIP had a lot more than she posted in her thread. I just wanted to mention that because I found some real gems that I hadn't heard about before.

 

Ooh, somehow I thought that was just to a contest or contests connected with TIP. That is a good list.

[Farrar]

Also, a humanities sort of contest (there's no prize, though the best entries get shown at screenings) we're finishing right now is the 90 Second Newbery contest, where kids make a movie of a Newbery book.

[madteaparty]

Thanks everyone, this is turning out to be a great thread despite being started in gloom.

Any team stuff like odyssey of the mind are out for us as we are very rural at the moment.

To add to the list of resources, I saw a mythology contest run by one of the smithsonian museums advertised in Cricket magazine--too late for DS this year as he's still in France.

Arcadia, in my area a quality or even aspiring public high school = "STEM". They brag about the new theater auditorium but when speaking to parents one gets the real story. I think they are closing a local school and rebaptising it as STEM, because that is the magical spell that will make the school better. Only private schools can afford to pay attention to the humanities, so because I refuse (still) to play the NYC privates game, i suppose I'm turning bitter, maybe :)

Edited November 30, 2015 by madteaparty

[daijobu]

I don't know if this will make you feel any better but at Stanford, it seems that humanities is dying on the vine, as it turns into the MIT of California.  If anyone has a student who excels in humanities, I encourage you to apply to Stanford, as I suspect they really need these students to balance all the techies who apply.  

[Arcadia]

Only private schools can afford to pay attention to the humanities, so because I refuse (still) to play the NYC privates game, i suppose I'm turning bitter, maybe :)

The private schools are stem heavy too because of parents requests. Parents ask for First Lego League, Intel Science Talent Search, Siemens competiton, Vex Robotics, AMC10/12...

 

We are looking at IB and bilingual/trilingual high schools because we don't want a stem bias school. We actually looked at how they teach music and art during school visits. My home is almost as bad as a music store :lol:

 

My school district retrofitted the older high schools for earthquakes so the gyms were rebuilt as multipurpose halls. They are sports crazy anyway.

 

My kids are interested in architecture, that is multidisciplinary. My friend works in GIS (geographic information systems) and has a bachelors in geography. GIS is also multidisciplinary. The late James Stewart is a mathematician and a violinist. Many famous people are both sciences/maths and fine arts.

 

OT:

I'm playing piano accompaniment for my kids cello recital performances. Else there is a charge of $18 per piece if the piano teacher does the accompaniment. So my childhood piano lessons did pay off :)

[deerforest]

I have a hang up with STEM meaning Legos, Minecraft, robotics, competitions, etc.

 

My DD is fairly evenly mixed with her humanities and science interests (much like her mom!), but her science interests focus more on biology and earth science, like evolutionary theory, paleoanthropology, marine biology, space, meteorology, etc. 

 

My solution is to schedule a monthly field trip focusing on the science she likes. So far this year we've done a puffin marine biology tour, Neil de Grasse Tyson talk, lemur lab, Homo naledi lab visit, and we have a NOAA trip scheduled on Wednesday. 

 

She loves math, but visibly (and loudly) shutters and expresses her disdain of math competitions. So, in January I'm starting a math club. DH ran one for them when they were younger, and we miss it.

 

I'm having less success with the humanities, and not for lack of trying. We live in an area with several large universities, but it's harder to track down the right folks in the humanities to host field trips. My best attempt so far this year was to go to the Ren Faire for our medieval studies. Sigh.

Edited November 30, 2015 by deerforest

[madteaparty]

 

 

I'm having less success with the humanities, and not for lack of trying. We live in an area with several large universities, but it's harder to track down the right folks in the humanities to host field trips. My best attempt so far this year was to go to the Ren Faire for our medieval studies. Sigh.

We took DS to a talk with Neil Gaiman and Daniel Handler, the latter one signed DS' book "to "DS name", future orphan" which I thought was hilarious. Our field trips have been pretty evenly balanced, mainly because I drive so damn much.  But I also don't want to "peg" him as anything, so despite my STEM hate in this thread, we did do Lego League and DS wrote the main piece of the program that got us second place in our tournament, and I do try to sign him up for things because I don;t want him to gravitate a certain way because I am that way and he hangs out with me all day. I should just give up and start saving for law school, i know ;)

Edited November 30, 2015 by madteaparty

[Loesje22000]

Do you know this:

http://www.olyfran.org/olyfran/

https://www.goethe.de/de/spr/unt/ver/ido.html

 

But here it is hard to attend such things without school.

[wapiti]

I do think that success in the humanities for elementary and high school students is harder to quantify.  That success may depend in part on the quality of the teacher, both for instruction and for grading.  (As you know, success will become much more obvious if indeed your ds heads to law school :))

 

When I think of writing competitions/activities, I think of NaNoWriMo (not that I know what it is).  I believe my non-homeschooled relative participated.

 

This will vary across schools, but I think the perceived focus on STEM is often lip service.  At the high school level and younger, STEM mostly boils down to a quality education in math as a foundation, and like writing, that may depend in part on the quality of the instruction.  Perhaps parents flocking to "STEM" schools are doing so for better math instruction.

Edited December 1, 2015 by wapiti

[madteaparty]

 (As you know, success will become much more obvious if indeed he heads to law school :))

 

 Well, I'd view that more as highly paid defeat than anything else ;) 

[Farrar]

One of the nice things about humanities is that it can be a lot cheaper to pursue than STEM. Competing in some of these robotics competitions doesn't run cheap once you get to higher levels. And really doing it right can mean expensive lab equipment or expensive classes. I mean, there's ways to do it on a shoestring and do it well too, but there's a lot of ways to spend money in STEM. You can spend money in humanities too, of course, but on some level the highest end stuff will always be a stack of really good books.

[regentrude]

One of the nice things about humanities is that it can be a lot cheaper to pursue than STEM. Competing in some of these robotics competitions doesn't run cheap once you get to higher levels. And really doing it right can mean expensive lab equipment or expensive classes. I mean, there's ways to do it on a shoestring and do it well too, but there's a lot of ways to spend money in STEM. You can spend money in humanities too, of course, but on some level the highest end stuff will always be a stack of really good books.

 

No, I do not think this claim is necessarily true.

Yes, robots are expensive and literature books are not.

OTOH, solving math problems costs almost nothing besides pencil and paper, while music requires an expensive instrument and instruction, and the true mastery of a foreign language requires extensive access to native speakers or total immersion (in other words, travel).

 

I spent a lot more money on my kids' humanities education than on their STEM education.

 

Edited November 30, 2015 by regentrude

[madteaparty]

No, I do not think this claim is necessarily true.

Yes, robots are expensive and literature books are not.

OTOH, solving math problems costs almost nothing besides pencil and paper, while music requires an expensive instrument and instruction, and the true mastery of a foreign language requires extensive access to native speakers or total immersion (in other words, travel).

 

I spent a lot more money on my kids' humanities education than on their STEM education.

 

 

It also depends at what level....

We bought the robot for our Robotics team, but the two trips to Europe this year were far more expensive ;) His skype french tutor is more $$ than the AOPS class (but worth her weight in any reserve currency :) and I think she's underpaid). Ditto for the CTY arabic classes. 

Also, at the graduate degree level, there are not many scholarships for say, an MFA. All my DH's engineering friends had their graduate schools paid for, and at very decent schools. 

[Farrar]

Yes, math and foreign language occurred to me as major exceptions. I think it depends a little. But as I was looking at the list of all those humanities contests/competitions vs. the STEM ones, I was struck that most of the humanities ones required nothing but writing, a test, or attending a meeting that you were well prepared to attend (like Model UN). The math competitions can be less, of course, but all the science and engineering stuff was pricey.

[Arcadia]

The math competitions can be less, of course, but all the science and engineering stuff was pricey.

The public school teams typically have corporate sponsors for those competitions to defray the relatively high cost.

[Dmmetler]

I think that providing opportunities for a passionate kid in any discipline, especially one the parents cannot teach themselves, can get expensive fast. Good tutors are worth their weight in gold. Opportunities often require travel. And there's a whole industry (competitions, summer programs, Online courses) set up to take your money. The more talented the kid is, the more it seems to cost because the farther you have to reach to find good fits.

[Bluegoat]

I think one of the issues my be that humanities can be easier to fake.  So perhaps they aren't always as easy for contests. 

 

Perhaps too they may seem less social in some cases.

 

I tend to think though that when we re talking about people in the sciences who are the most insightful, judging them is about as difficult as it is in the humanities.  It's just t the lower levels of talent or ability that it might be easier.  I think this probably should be true as well for the humanities, but people are less likely for a variety of reasons to be critical of students work.

[Farrar]

The public school teams typically have corporate sponsors for those competitions to defray the relatively high cost.

 

I don't know that that's totally true - corporate sponsors - but last year when my kids' team went to the big competitive level for Destination Imagination, I realized how much easier it is for schoolkids (or, as a homeschooled kid told me today, "schoolies") to fundraise when they need cash for something like that. I talked to a fellow coach and she was like, oh, we just held a bake sale and silent auction and voila. And I'm like, that's nice, but we don't have a ready made community to peddle that to.

[madteaparty]

I think one of the issues my be that humanities can be easier to fake.  So perhaps they aren't always as easy for contests. 

 

Perhaps too they may seem less social in some cases.

 

I tend to think though that when we re talking about people in the sciences who are the most insightful, judging them is about as difficult as it is in the humanities.  It's just t the lower levels of talent or ability that it might be easier.  I think this probably should be true as well for the humanities, but people are less likely for a variety of reasons to be critical of students work.

 This is a good point. I sometimes read my kid's work (the stuff he shares) and I think it's brilliant. But then I wonder at my objectivity. Normally I am not a "champion" type parent at all.

 

On the other hand, I was reading the CRISPR article in the New Yorker recently and it mentioned one of the scientists most involved with it got second or third in the Intel science competition--I remarked to DH that I don't know who this kid (at the time) lost to! 

Edited November 30, 2015 by madteaparty

[regentrude]

I think one of the issues my be that humanities can be easier to fake.  ..

 

I just had this discussion with a bunch of my friends in the English department: why is it that so many more students manage an English degree than  Physics degree? Does that mean English is "easier"?

They identified several reasons. First, of course, in physics or math it is impossible to fake - you can't BS your way through a problem set;  a lack of ability is glaringly obvious early on. Second, however, the English professors were also very clear that their discipline has been watered down and expectations for students are too low in their field  - so the classwork is, objectively, easier, unless you are at top departments that really require deep insight and scholarly work from their undergraduates. They agreed that it should be harder to obtain an English degree than it currently is, and that requiring higher quality work would improve the reputation of the field and the value of the degree.

 

I tend to think though that when we re talking about people in the sciences who are the most insightful, judging them is about as difficult as it is in the humanities.

 

No, I think there is very clear consensus in the scientific community who the most insightful scientists are. It is not very difficult to judge the quality of scientific work - but it requires the expertise. Only other physicists can judge the work of a physicist, and only other mathematicians can evaluate the work of a mathematician. Laypeople do not presume to judge their work.

 

In the humanities, however, since (almost) all people are literate, people often presume to judge quality without possessing the necessary insight into the scholarly discipline that would allow them to truly discern quality. Just because one can read a literary paper one should not form an opinion about its scholarly merits unless one is actually qualified.

Edited November 30, 2015 by regentrude

[Hunter]

While I had to take some time off from tutoring, to deal with the sudden and horrible roach infestation, it was interesting to see what students did when left to themselves.

 

They hit the humanities more than STEM, and the only stem that really got done was the cute little Strayer-Upton arithmetic books, and one student found a copy of Apologia Botany at her mom's from a long time ago, and happily played with that. No one really even checked out STEM library books.

 

Some of them call studying "self-soothing". Whatever I teach them that makes them feel better gets lumped under that term, no matter what I call it. I guess they divide what helps me NOW from what others promise me will help me LATER. That is a topic for another thread, though.

 

Maybe we don't value what the poor CAN and WANT to do on their own?

 

In the past, many a poor student has read their way to success under the most horrendous circumstances. But we seem to be saying now that success is impossible unless a poor child has access to a highly trained STEM teacher with lots of expensive stuff not readily available in low income communities. Is this true?

 

There are a couple homeless kids that had no STEM for 2 years other than the Strayer-Upton books I gave them and they seem to be able to hold onto. These kids are so amazing, though, that I constantly see very well educated adults looking at them with dropped jaws and then they praise the mom extensively, and they just don't understand what they are seeing. Two kids living out of backpacks who read and read and read.

 

I don't know exactly what I am saying, just like the OP, but...I have a lot of questions.

 

I think of my own education, and the education of many here. I think about the decades of watching homeschoolers grow up and have their own kids. I've had 9 years of interacting with a large homeless population, and helping out when I can.

 

I'm coming full circle back to all the paperback novels I devoured as kid, and seeing what I saw in them back then. I was just self-soothing. They were just stories. BUT! I don't know. Something happened when I read. Something that didn't just help me, but has helped others.

 

I "fixed" myself some when homeschooling my boys. I "fixed" myself some more over the past few years. I'm starting to not see myself as so broken then or now, though.

 

Maybe SOME people are meant to have a bit of an unbalanced education. Some are going to be a bit STEM heavy and some a bit, or a lot, STEM light. But maybe neither is superior or inferior. Maybe both are just different, with pros and cons. And maybe the world needs all kinds.

 

I don't know. I think maybe I'm supposed to be here just like I am. I think maybe those two jaw dropping kids are supposed to be just like they are. I don't want to trade what I got while being ignored and left to myself. I realize now I can't have had both. It was STEM and grammar and a "proper" education or my books. I choose my books.

Edited December 1, 2015 by Hunter

[Hunter]

What is "cheating" at humanities? I cannot wrap my head around that?

 

I guess if I am only thinking of a competition and not real life, and rigid "rules" are agreed upon, then someone could cheat at the agreed upon rules.

 

But can you really truly cheat at a humanity? Humanities make us human, right? And being human is just not such a rigid thing, is it?

[regentrude]

What is "cheating" at humanities? I cannot wrap my head around that?

 

I guess if I am only thinking of a competition and not real life, and rigid "rules" are agreed upon, then someone could cheat at the agreed upon rules.

 

But can you really truly cheat at a humanity? Humanities make us human, right? And being human is just not such a rigid thing, is it?

 

Yes, there is most definitely cheating in humanities - as every English and history professor will tell you, or every writer who had a book plagiarized.

Plagiarism is cheating.

Pretending an idea or a piece of writing is yours, when you have taken it from another author is cheating.

 

It is pretty generally accepted in "real life" that people have the right to own their intellectual property. That includes anything they wrote, composed, painted, theories they developed, research they conducted. You can't go and claim their work as your own.

 

 

Edited December 1, 2015 by regentrude

[Hunter]

You all were not talking about stealing ideas and work and calling it your own. You can do that in STEM too.

 

You were saying people can cheat and fake at...I'm not sure what? Like be taken seriously even if not trained by people with initials after their names, who charge lots of money for their services?

 

Is a painter cheating, if he just self-taught and does his own thing and people like it?

 

We give painters so much more freedom than writers. Most of the books I see say "style guide" not "rules".

 

Is it so bad, or wrong to have an opinion on literature, without being "qualified"? Isn't it human to have opinions? Isn't it good if everyone reads and discusses?

 

Isn't it good that it is harder to lock out all humans from the humanities? Maybe that is why we shame them away and tell them the STEM is what will provide the money for their baby's antibiotics and without a STEM focus they are doomed to be a negligent parent.

 

I have one student that I have thought talks such nonsense about Shakespeare that it has been painful to me to listen to her manic rants. I think I have a whole new appreciation for her doing that. Who am I to be so judgemental. Yes, I can set a boundary not to have to listen to her too long, because...I really don't want to listen. But...I need to...just...chill. She is enjoying being human, and being included. And that is really cool.

[daijobu]

 Second, however, the English professors were also very clear that their discipline has been watered down and expectations for students are too low in their field  - so the classwork is, objectively, easier, unless you are at top departments that really require deep insight and scholarly work from their undergraduates. They agreed that it should be harder to obtain an English degree than it currently is, and that requiring higher quality work would improve the reputation of the field and the value of the degree.

 

 

I had heard there is grade inflation in the humanities, but my experience in college was that researching, reading, and writing papers was way more difficult than completing problem sets.  Heck, our engineering exams were often open book (not that it helped much).  

[Hunter]

Making it harder to get a degree increases it's value of course. Artificial scarcity always increases the value of things. Is that what we really want to do?

 

Do we want to exclude more people? And widen the gulf between people?

 

Don't we want more people, not less, to be included?

 

Part of this thread is about competition, but not all of it. Do we want competitions at all? Do we want to use competition to exclude people from participating at all?

[SparklyUnicorn]

No, I do not think this claim is necessarily true.

Yes, robots are expensive and literature books are not.

OTOH, solving math problems costs almost nothing besides pencil and paper, while music requires an expensive instrument and instruction, and the true mastery of a foreign language requires extensive access to native speakers or total immersion (in other words, travel).

 

I spent a lot more money on my kids' humanities education than on their STEM education.

 

 

To be fair though, not everyone has a PhD in physics (or whatever because I don't know specifically).  I can easily manage the humanities on the cheap, but math?  No, not quite as easily.

 

It's kinda like I get super cheap and mostly free computer tech support because my DH is well versed in it.  Otherwise, there were times I would have had to pay someone the fix my computer problems. 

[Penguin]

If I have confidence in the subject, I can do it without spending much money. If I need handholding and lack the ability to sift and prioritize the content, I spend more because I need more. At least I think I need more - too many resources creates its own set of problems.

Edited December 1, 2015 by Penguin

[regentrude]

Making it harder to get a degree increases it's value of course. Artificial scarcity always increases the value of things. Is that what we really want to do?

 

 

I assume you are replying to my post? The people with the English degrees would like to be paid adequately. One reason why that does not happen is that there is a glut of English degree holders, giving people a false idea of English being "easy" and, by extension, of little worth. That is a direct consequence of the watered down degree that makes obtaining the degree very easy at many institutions, without scholarly rigor.

Which means an English instructor is paid peanuts because the market is swamped. Nobody depletes the market artificially of mathematicians, the standards are just such that it is, apparently, less easy to obtain a math degree than an English one.

 

If we do not want to accept this explanation for the discrepancies, then the conclusion has to be that humanities are intrinsically easier than science - to which any serious humanities scholar will strongly object.

 

Part of this thread is about competition, but not all of it. Do we want competitions at all? Do we want to use competition to exclude people from participating at all?

 

Competitions are a great motivator for kids to engage deeper in a subject, or to work on something they would not otherwise have worked on, because many kids have a competetive streak and find it fun.

The entire culture of sports is based on that. And country fairs. People compete in pie baking and sheep raising. So, why not math competitions, poetry contests, spelling bees, and science fairs?

Edited December 1, 2015 by regentrude

[regentrude]

Oh, I misunderstood when you asked about "cheating". That's not the same thing as "faking it". I never said "cheat".

 

You all were not talking about stealing ideas and work and calling it your own. You can do that in STEM too.

You were saying people can cheat and fake at...I'm not sure what?

 

Faking it is when you write a nicely sounding paper without substance, use interesting form without content, adopt a hot political or sociological agenda and argue with conviction but faulty logic, make up completely nonsensical content free articles containing all buzz words that get published. Look up the Sokal hoax for example:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair)

ETA: This one is so brilliant, it deserves further elaboration:

http://skepdic.com/sokal.html

 

In its 1996 Spring/Summer issue (pp. 217-252), Social Text journal published an article by Alan Sokal, Professor of Physics at New York University, entitled "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity." The article was a hoax submitted, according to Sokal, to see "would a leading journal of cultural studies publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions?" It would. Needless to say, the editors of Social Text were not pleased.

Sokal claims that the editors, had they been scrupulous and intellectually competent, would have recognized from the first paragraph of his essay that it was a parody. The physicist says he was "troubled by an apparent decline in the standards of intellectual rigor in certain precincts of the American academic humanities." The hoax was his way of calling attention to this decline.

In his article, Sokal attacks "the dogma imposed by the long post-Enlightenment hegemony over the Western intellectual outlook" that there is an external world governed by laws of nature which we can understand imperfectly using the scientific method. He also claims that "physical 'reality' ... is at bottom a social and linguistic construct." Furthermore, he says,

 

Throughout the article, I employ scientific and mathematical concepts in ways that few scientists or mathematicians could possibly take seriously. For example, I suggest that the "morphogenetic field'' -- a bizarre New Age idea due to Rupert Sheldrake -- constitutes a cutting-edge theory of quantum gravity. This connection is pure invention; even Sheldrake makes no such claim. I assert that Lacan's psychoanalytic speculations have been confirmed by recent work in quantum field theory. Even nonscientist readers might well wonder what in heavens' name quantum field theory has to do with psychoanalysis; certainly my article gives no reasoned argument to support such a link.

In sum, I intentionally wrote the article so that any competent physicist or mathematician (or undergraduate physics or math major) would realize that it is a spoof. Evidently the editors of Social Text felt comfortable publishing an article on quantum physics without bothering to consult anyone knowledgeable in the subject.

 

This is "faking it" in the humanities. The fact that the editors did not realize it was a parody is embarrassing for the discipline.

 

Is it so bad, or wrong to have an opinion on literature, without being "qualified"? Isn't it human to have opinions? Isn't it good if everyone reads and discusses?

 

Of course it is good to have an opinion and to discuss! But that is not the same as evaluating the quality of a humanities work. You can read, like books or dislike them, form opinions - but you cannot easily judge the expertise of the historian. It's just that many people think they can - where they would never presume the same of a mathematician. And this creates the illusion that "humanities are easy" because "everybody can do that", which I believe directly contributes to undervaluing of humanities.

 

(Isn't it ironic that I, as a physicist, am making this argument?)

Edited December 1, 2015 by regentrude

[Hunter]

The word "cheat" was used somewhere, and "fake" more than once. I don't want to debate and call out individuals on something I saw surfacing by multiple individuals. I wanted to just discuss the idea.

 

For me at least, this thread has touched on multiple topics, that I would need to debate individually if I wanted to debate. Which I don't.

 

Regentrude, do I think it is ironic that a physicist is making the arguments that you are making? No!!!! Not at all.

 

This thread had made me think more about some things I was already thinking about, and to think about some new things, too. I'm sorry for jumping in with passion, but little...whatever it is that is required to be taken seriously by those with pieces of paper that say they have the right to set the standards that others are measured by.

 

I'm going to slink back in my hole and chew on some of what has been said. A lot has been said here. More than I think some people realize.

[Dmmetler]

https://xkcd.com/451/

 

This XKCD comes to mind...

 

I suspect that the ease of "faking it" has more to do with the ease of getting the skill set. My guess is that most homeschooling parents (on this board at least) could take comprehensive exams for the education school without effort. You may not know Vigotsky from Bruner, but if you've taught your own kids math from kindergarten through high school, you probably have opinions that you can support on the topic.

 

Similarly, I can talk to my brother about current events and historical underpinnings of the same. I don't have near the knowledge that he does, but I have enough background that I can support my opinions. I probably couldn't pass a graduate comp in it, but I can carry on a conversation.

 

But I have had no real exposure to physics beyond what I had in school and what I've done with my DD. No hope of "faking it" there!

 

And I admit, it kind of gives me a giggle when I see the lists the @mylittlepython Twitter has been added to. Apparently my 11 yr old has done a good enough job of "faking it" to be added to several lists of biology and ecology "experts".

[Guest]

Speaking of competitions, has anyone seen this, about the French system of Philosophy contest to become a teacher?

 

The password is 'sorbonne'

 

reproduction of privilege, indeed. Biz is intense!!!!

[Tsuga]

People can easily dismiss truths of history and ethics because the poor and weak--those in need of humanist, social solutions to human, social problems--have no power.

 

Gravity has power over us all.

 

There are people who do the humanities and social science well but we can ignore the conclusions. People ignore earth science as well. As long as people can ignore something inconvenient, it will be ignored.

 

Re: faking it: yeah, philosophy is really hard. You can fake to a lot of people because few can do it. But that doesn't mean it's easy. It means true experts are rare.

[Hunter]

It seems to me that we can't have this discussion without first defining "success". Ultimately, that is something everyone has to do for themselves. For me, for woefully uneducated me, I define success by asking two questions — does my family have food on the table, and does what I do help other people? My current job allows me to answer yes to both questions. That is good

enough for me.

Is finding the "correct" themes of a book more successful than being able to help someone after reading a book?

 

I too want to know what "success" is. Is success a piece of paper and initials? Sometimes? Always? Never?

 

Is it people clapping for you? Does it matter which people?

 

Is a deeply religious family that successfully passes on the faith and family culture, generation after generation successful?

 

Is being able to feed and medicate your family successful?

 

Is being happy successful?

[Rosie_0801]

Is finding the "correct" themes of a book more successful than being able to help someone after reading a book?

 

I don't know about successful, but I'd say more advanced. It's another way of thinking about the same stuff. Finding the "correct" themes always annoyed me in school because the teachers would never tell you why what they said the answer was, really was the answer. But I think that is the first step in what was supposed to be a journey towards having the vocabulary and thoughts to play with those ideas.