Posted on 02/01/2008 7:35:40 AM PST by MuttTheHoople
Here in America, if you have those skills you can make a mint.
The most ambitious, the risk takers, and those who prized freedom have always been the ones to come to the United States. (I’m not blowing my own horn — my dad made the wise decision to leave Germany when I was just a child.)
Now, our challenge is to keep that model. IMO.
Sometimes I dunno. If I had been in a theater in Germany (and I have been) and witnessed what he witnessed, (I didn't, at least watching The Exorcist) maybe I might have reacted the same way.
I noticed in a recent public opinion poll in Germany that Kupernick was voted one of the 50 most important Germans of all time, even though their grandparents would have considered his descendants to be Untermenschen. Ditto in spades for Einstein. (Though Kupernick was a Canon of the Cathedral at Frombork, he did have descendants, with his housemaid, much to the consternation of his bishop.)
The simple answer is that they don't. There is no such thing as "adult" or "continuing" education. Think of French culture as a greased pyramid. Once you fall off, it is almost impossible to climb back up.
As for your point about not being ready at 18, their medical education is even scarier. Here's how it works:
If you pass your baccaleaurate (at the end of high school) you can attend "medical school" - anyone can go to med school. However, because the gov't guarantees doctor salaries, they need to limit the number of potential doctors. So they set quotas for each med school for how many people must get washed out in the first year (usually around 60%).
Because the remaining 40% know that they are 'safe' at that point, they just goof off for the next three years (as I did at that age, and you also, apparently). So at 22 or 23, they are ready to do 2 years of internship after 3 crappy years of "education" and become "doctors".
And their are still Americans who think we should emulate that system.
HF
I have no doubt that grouping kids who are good in math together is a good thing. The same kid who is good in math may not be good in history or literature and need to be at a lower level in those classes.
One of the really goofy things going on today is "main-streaming" where emotionally challenged and/or slow kids are thrown in with the general population. This is one of the really great ideas that comes down from our "educators".
Two minor points. You must be a tad older than I am since by the mid 70s they had phased out vocational/technical schools. I don’t happen to think it is really far to shunt someone into auto repair (e.g.) just because a) he’s a late bloomer or b) because he had a bad day on exam day.
The other point is more subtle. In the US, we have always had a soft spot for the underdog who comes out of nowhere to become wealthy - think of Sam Walton dropping out in 9th grade, or Michael Dell dropping out of college. It is still possible to become wealthy in the US without having gone to Harvard. Now imagine a country where entrepreneurs are looked on with distrust and high ranking civil servants are revered. And then imagine that the only route to that statues passed through 2 or 3 exams...
Though we didn't discuss it fully, I gathered he felt there were severe social and tax problems running amok in Germany, even so as to tax existing wealth, beyond income, which can be one way a switch to a sales tax can hit, if previously-earned wealth isn't exempted or credited back.
"Hey, I paid the tax on this once already!" much like estate taxes.
HF
> The simple answer is that they don’t. There is no such thing as “adult” or “continuing” education. Think of French culture as a greased pyramid. Once you fall off, it is almost impossible to climb back up.
As for your point about not being ready at 18, their medical education is even scarier. Here’s how it works:
If you pass your baccaleaurate (at the end of high school) you can attend “medical school” - anyone can go to med school. However, because the gov’t guarantees doctor salaries, they need to limit the number of potential doctors. So they set quotas for each med school for how many people must get washed out in the first year (usually around 60%).
Because the remaining 40% know that they are ‘safe’ at that point, they just goof off for the next three years (as I did at that age, and you also, apparently). So at 22 or 23, they are ready to do 2 years of internship after 3 crappy years of “education” and become “doctors”.
And their are still Americans who think we should emulate that system.<
Thanks for the info Phillistone on the French educational system. I’m learning a lot.
Not so fast !
the system indeed encourages elitariam thinking by separating the weaker from the better - as good as it can do this.
But do you know a good school system that has to separate sooner or later in a way ? It’s just an ‘everywhere’ problem.
We have schoolforms over here (preferably in states governed by our leftist party SPD) that puts them all in one bin until some get a thumbs up for university and other s don’t. It’s usually good for the weaker but bad for the better.
Our main schools (lowest one after primary or elementary) have a hard stand - they are underfunded and while there are good ones mainly in the country sites there are really bad ones in the bigger cities - teachers not rarely face 80% of pupils with insufficient or no capability in german language - violence and frustration rules.
If we keep concentrating these folks in special schools for those with no future we shouldn’t be surprised that nothing will come from them. They have lost their chances for live at the age of 15. Also in berlin and cologne there’s classes exclusively islamic - how can these kids integrate into german society if they don’t go to school with the other folks ? If we keep this system of Hauptschule we will possibly end up like france.
At 18 I was in the Army, and at 19 in Vietnam, and ironically at age 21 landed in Germany in the Army. There was no time in my life where I goofed off. After the Army I took one month off, but got a job and worked and went to night school till I was 25.
I just realized that it was impossible to finish school going at night.
Whenever relatives visit my mother, they always go hog-wild shopping. The VAT in Germany makes everything incredibly expensive. And personal income tax rates are high too.
They still have far higher unemployment than does the US (7.8% in 12/07), and from what I recall, they have about 10% living below the poverty threshold. Not as bad as France, which doesn’t even have the excuse of having to assimilate a third world nation like the former East Germany, but the German economy is still not so hot.
Me too. It would be like me going to a public movie (I hardly ever do), watching a bunch of teenagers yapping on their cell phones the whole time, and then concluding that Americans were all morons.
The author is an idiot.
I agree. And what I like about America is the opportunity everyone has to succeed. My parents were the typical immigrants without a pot to pee in.
I went to public schools, and then onto college, and did pretty well in my life. I have this country to thank. I’m not sure in Germany or other socialist countries I would have had that mindset or opportunity.
That’s true, but incomplete... we had the best Germans, the best Irish, the best Swedes and Slavs as well as the best Japanese, Chinese and most any other nationality you might consider. And don't leave out Eddie Rickenbacker.
As a Free Democracy, the US attracted the most vigorous people from all over the world. Free Democracies produce kick-ass soldiers because they produce men and women who can think on their feet and take independent action.
Obviously, in America too, not every opportunity is available to every person. I had the choice of bartending nights and being a professional student off and on for ten years. Suffice it to say that that option does not exist in Germany or Francee.
If there is a more sickening spectacle than Germans finding humor in what their fathers and grandfathers did to the Jews, if there is a more perfect example of the utter lack if humanity at the core of the German nation, I am unaware of it. There is something terribly wrong with Germany and the German Volk. The German soul is a deep abyss, a fetid, stinking morass that befouls the community of nations. But wait, there's more.
I don't see how you generalize from the apparent bad behaviour of people you see in a movie theatre to the "soul" of an entire people. I think its ridiculous.
Carolyn
Big ol’ American Bump Brucifer. Well said!
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