King's Corner

This is the first post in a new category for this blog, called simply “Buccaneering.” The idea comes from an approach to education explicated by James Bach in his book Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar: How Self-Education and the Pursuit of Passion Can Lead to a Lifetime of Success. Some people love the book, some hate it, but there is food for thought here. Learning is a much more complex thing, and yet a much simpler thing, than many in the education establishment would have it. I’ll have several posts jumping off from these ideas, but I’m hoping we’ll have some discussion around the idea of what constitutes education.

You can get some quick background by taking a look at Bach’s own blog, How I Learn Stuff.

Politics has no place in this blog, which is focused on education. Nevertheless, I feel I would be shirking my duties if I didn’t at least mention this, since it could potentially affect hundreds of PSTCC as well as other college students. It has already affected a Walters State graduate.

I have blogged about it at Kingly News. If you fit either of these categories, please take a look immediately. Updates to the legislative action will also appear there.

Here is an excerpt from an email that illustrates the nature of the problem:

Cindy Benefield with the Department of Education told a graduate from a church related school, “Your diploma is not worth the paper it is written on.” He has to have a high school diploma to be able to work in his current profession.

Later the department did offer that he could take the GED and they would accept that. What that means is this: The DOE will accept making a 70 on a 6th grade level test, but they flatly reject a high school diploma given by a church related school. (They also rejected a Police Officer who after receiving his diploma, graduated from the Police academy with a 4.0 and are setting suspects free, because the arresting officer, a CRS graduate, had to be administratively demoted and cannot appear in court to be a witness in his cases.) [DK--this police officer graduated from Walters State Community College. Apparently, his college education is also invalidated by this DoE interpretation.]