Smarter Googling?

Google

Here's a link to the Google engine I brought up in class.

LW&PN,
Santos

Readings

I can somewhat see what he is trying to say about how the Universities have come to just build up our society. I can see what he trying to do in the main section when he discusses the word excellence. He is basically trying to say that all universities are looking for ways to use the term excellence in reference to any part of the school that they can prove as being worthy. He discusses how a university will find any way to make their statistics stand out from the rest. He also makes the connection between universities, economics and society. Just like Aronowitzs has done. Readings tries to make it seem like a university is shaped to society. For the most part their ideas were very similar.

Whitehead

Whitehead begins his argument by narrowing down the general problems he finds with the Universities to the specific ones he believes he can discuss. He narrows it all the way down to the school of business with many universities which was a new thing during the late 1920’s and early 30’s. He believes that this school illustrates all that is wrong with universities. His main belief is revealed about half way through the document when he states “Thus the proper function of a university is the imaginative acquisition of knowledge”. This statement while somewhat confusing at first becomes clearer once you analyze a few of his earlier remarks. He really believes that a university is here to prepare us for an intellectual career. I think what he means by this is that we will learn are real life situations once we get there but for the time being learning is learning and no one should look at it any differently.
“Imagination is a contagious disease. It can not be measured by the yard, or weighed by the pound and then delivered to the students by the members of the faculty.”
This quote really stuck out in my mind because he finally points out that we can not be taught all that we need to know at school. Part of what we learn is up to for us to figure out. I personally believe that there is no way that everything we learn in school can be verbally delivered to us. It is up to us to learn some of life’s lessons and become imaginative to create things and get yourself out of certain situations.

Aronowitz

The sections from Aronowitz’s “The Knowledge Factory”, basically state his beliefs in why education is set-up the way it is in America today. He believes that all of the things taught to us are there to strictly prepare us for the industrial world ahead of us. The other thing he states is that even from a young age school is there to just make sure we start to fit into society. It says that it is there is discipline us and make sure that we are obedient to our elders. I personally see all of what he is saying as true, but I don’t think that it is a bad thing. If it didn’t teach us these things then what would its purpose be. He thinks it would only be there for us to learn real materials such as math, writing and other such fields. Then I sort of lost him when he started talking about how kids were rebelling and fighting the system. That whole section sort of lost me. I did like how in the final section he talked about how immigration has had an impact on the education system. Overall he did a good job of using facts and statistics to begin the topic of education and economics. The numbers really show how our education and economic growth were closely linked in growth at one point. Now it just seems that our education keeps growing a little bit at a time while our economy has sort of leveled off. Aronowitz talks about how universities today are similar to corporations which would agree with Readings. He talks about how students today should teach each other their own insight to become creative and imaginative. The positive side to having education in universities become a corporation throughout the world would be that it helps students to accuire the "skills" needed in society and also eases them into the economy. Education in a large university, especially one like Purdue, introduces thousands of students to various beliefs, traditions, and people. Education passes on one culture to another, and supports social and political integration. Having the knowledge of multiple cultures, beliefs, political viewpoints and also religions allows for better opportunities when it comes to finding a job. “Numerous sociological studies have revealed that increased years of formal schooling are associated with openness to new ideas and more liberal social and political viewpoints.” (Robin Williams) Sociologist Robin Williams states, “better-educated people tend to have greater access to factual information, more diverse opinions, and the ability to make subtle distinctions in analysis.” I disagree with what Aronowitz says about going back to focusing teaching on science, philosophy, and literature. The times have changed and education should prepare you for more than those basic subjects, especially with the variety of occupations out there. I think universities do a better job than what Aronowitz gives credit.

Florida

Floridas idea for creativity as a resource is awesome, but there are a few things that i disagree with. I feel that there is like a bourgeois and a proletariant class when it comes to creativity today. The engineers and artists are thriving on creativity but the service working class has just given up. Its like the service class is blaming the creative class for themselves not being creative. I think thats bullshit. If the service class becomes more creative they will get the money that they deserve. Then they can classify themselves as that creative class. Florida states, “The service economy is the support infrastructure of the creative age.” I agree with that. Everyone has different talents, just apply your talents to your job and be creative. If you want these lower paying jobs to become more creative, to better society, then do you need to increase wages for this service class? NO. They should make it their own initiative to be creative, to better society and themselves. This is where i think Florida contradicts himself. He supports creativity, he states creativity will improve society, then why give a "free" handout to people who are not being creative on their own? This service class should step up and quit bitching about not being paid enough. Theyre using the fact that they dont get paid as much as an excuse to not be creative. Take the salon worker for example. A bunch of salon workers are underpaid because they dont take pride in what they do. But then look at the big salons, Mario Tricoci is freaking creative, the stylists get paid well and can eventually go on and do their own thing like being a celebrity stylist....or whatever. So if you want to be a kick-ass salon worker do it with some distinction, take some pride in your job and go balls out creatively and you should be fine.

comment on Evans blog

Commenting on what Evan says about creativity, technology, and inventions. I believe that while technology is improving, todays amount of inventions are slowing compared to what it was over the last 50 years. I think this is caused by the lack of creative minds. This would make creativity in individuals minds very valuable. Students in universities need to think more creative to improve on technology. Florida would agree that through creativity, technology can be improved. I agree that when you look at the computer 10 years ago, it does not add up to what today's machines are capable of doing. That type of creativity improves technology tremendously.