Mainstream catching on to the Values arguments

This blog has repeatedly pounded the table regarding the "easy life" and "easy money" and how the students here should be serious about their studies. Students and teachers should be aware of the hungry students and teachers in other countries who see opportunities and who are willing to invest their time. Further, the numbers are on the side of other countries. The top 10% of a graduating class in China or India is much larger than the top 10% of the graduating class here. Students in my business courses are heavy texters and talkers but no one has the curiosity to figure out how these devices work. While I was in India in Spring I taught a few classes and found that even non-engineers were reasonably aware of how these devices work.

Now Mr. Friedman and Dr. Samuelson are both onto the same argument, although belatedly.

Op-Ed Columnist - We’re No. 1(1)! - NYTimes.com: "...“The larger cause of failure is almost unmentionable: shrunken student motivation,” wrote Samuelson. “Students, after all, have to do the work. If they aren’t motivated, even capable teachers may fail. Motivation comes from many sources: curiosity and ambition; parental expectations; the desire to get into a ‘good’ college; inspiring or intimidating teachers; peer pressure. The unstated assumption of much school ‘reform’ is that if students aren’t motivated, it’s mainly the fault of schools and teachers.” Wrong, he said. “Motivation is weak because more students (of all races and economic classes, let it be added) don’t like school, don’t work hard and don’t do well. In a 2008 survey of public high school teachers, 21 percent judged student absenteeism a serious problem; 29 percent cited ‘student apathy.’ ”

There is a lot to Samuelson’s point — and it is a microcosm of a larger problem we have not faced honestly as we have dug out of this recession: We had a values breakdown — a national epidemic of get-rich-quickism and something-for-nothingism. Wall Street may have been dealing the dope, but our lawmakers encouraged it. And far too many of us were happy to buy the dot-com and subprime crack for quick prosperity highs..."