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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   13826 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026

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In some ways it's more of a qualification to learn how to do a job than anything else.

I wonder how this is different than your IQ + your demonstrated ability to jump through hoops.

Universities love to say they "teach you how to learn". In my mind, this is cope. There is no indication that they are making an effort to do this, nor that it is even possible.

Universities love to say they "teach you how to learn". In my mind, this is cope. There is no indication that they are making an effort to do this, nor that it is even possible.

Regardless of their purpose , whatever it is, employers sure want it.

Yes, it has signaling value. So does an IQ test. But no one says that the process of taking an IQ test makes you smarter.

Really, we've been down this road a million times. I've never heard a convincing argument against Bryan Caplan's "The Case against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money".

I think they are both true. his book is right but at the same time employers derive value from degrees.

I think its more that you demonstrate that you're capable of long term sustained effort at solving difficult abstract problems. Forcing you to do this does in itself teach you how to think.

This is both separate from demonstrating a willingness to jump through hoops and it is teaching something important beyond the object level.

Now, if you're getting a degree in something simple that doesn't require work or intellectual ability, that also doesn't have practical applications then that is probably more or less useless beyond the fact that you might have qualified for the education in the first place.

Good professors model critical thinking skills and ask their students to reflect on the material in a manner they may not have considered. Don't just memorize the formulars. Figure out what purpose they serve and think about how you might use them to make something real.

I think in general "teach you how to learn" may be cope in a lot of cases. But "teach you how to think" is absolutely not. Just from personal experience, a lot of the students I started university alongside were terrible at reflecting on the material. They became better due to interacting with it and receiving feedback from the professors.

I don’t doubt that good individual professors can have a positive effect, but these are quite rare. If there is a pedagogical philosophy, it’s not something that the university is promoting. Teaching is often an afterthought. In almost no cases is there a serious effort to educate educators, especially using any sort of evidence driven approach. College instructors are often just thrown into classrooms with no training. How can they “teach you to think” when they dont know the first thing about teaching?

That is what I love about electricity. You never need bother remembering anything if you have just basic math skills.

I think they do "teach you how to learn" but that really consists in widening the distance between checkpoints and motivating you to figure out how to learn by yourself. Some people can develop these skills alone but it isn't easy.

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