College Admissions Cheating Racket

[Bengalzona]

(03-14-2019, 03:27 PM)Dill Wrote: A good story, B-zona.  Somewhat similar to mine, in that I didn't do that well in HS. Plus I graduated from a rural HS, with pretty low standards.  But you ended up an officer, didn't you?  Has to be some striving for that.

I do think there can be a large difference in people's intellectual abilities, though. I once had a professor who worked in 9 different languages. He seemed to know other disciplines (like philosophy and English) better than professors in those disciplines.   LOL so I see some big differences between my intellectual abilities and that guy's. I can think of a non-academic example too--a Command Sergeant Major I knew who did not have a college degree. But the guy was super competent as an administrator and a soldier.  Nine deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Extremely high personal standards. I could listen to him talk all day about the nuts and bolts of base operations. He was a mine of data too, knew how to "access" everything he had learned in 20+ years of military responsibilities.  The way soldiers talked about him behind his back was telling as well--nothing but respect. Training brings out those differences, where they exist, as experience adds to them. Which is why opportunity is important.

That CSM came to mind because you mentioned "raising people up."  He was all about that.  I would even go so far as to say "nurturing," an odd term to apply to someone in that position, giving orders all day and meeting out discipline where needed.  I think there is too little "raising up" now in part because of how bureaucratized and risk-managed almost all our institutions have become. People's abilities are quantified and they are slotted in--or out--of positions and tracks to positions accordingly. Granting that measurement is a necessity, it doesn't have to take the form of cost-benefit calculations based solely on profit.  

I still do not believe there is that much difference in overall intelligence between individuals, developmentally disabled individuals aside. I think people have varying degrees of aptitudes in specific areas, such as your professor friend. Their minds open up to certain ideas like a highway when they are exposed to them, while others may only see an obstacle course to be surmounted. But those aptitudes are not the sum total of their anyone's intellect, just a portion. It just seems that way because a society rewards certain aptitudes and devalues others. Add to that the tendency of societies to want to quantify and rank certain aptitudes (ex. "So You Think You Can Dance") in order to concentrate on the superlatives and capitalize benefits.

Our education system is, as you noted, geared to sorting and tracking certain aptitudes based upon what the society values. The rest are just swept under the carpet and ignored unless some 'enterprising' person comes up with a way to 'profit' from them. Our education system reflects our society, and it is grossly inefficient and unfair.