"The Abomination"

[Rigil Kent]

I think both of our takes are valid - he could join Starfleet @ that age and still go to the University of Florida on the equivalent of a ROTC scholarship.

So there back.

[Silverbullet]

Warpgirl, On the Job Training (OJT) is never as good as a formal education. It is more practicle because all you learn is whast you need to do your job but little else that might comein handy later on.

Of course, I can remeber being told "forget what you were taught" a few times.

SB

[Alelou]

I didn't take a lot of formal education classes since I didn't decide to teach until way too late, but they struck me as particularly thin preparation for the reality of teaching, compared to the classes in my subject area anyway.

Ed Psych, in particular, taught theories of early developmental psychology that have been largely discredited by contradictory evidence now, though I suppose some of it still holds. But I've found more useful stuff on my own.

One class on teaching secondary English was helpful because it gave me a bunch of assignment ideas, but I still thought it was pretty thin gruel. I've found much better insights in my own reading of Jeffrey Wilhelm and Nancie Atwood and other teacher/researchers.

Which just goes to show you that the most important thing you can learn to do in college or any formal learning situation is learn how to do your own research/reading/learning and try to stay current in your field.

One-on-one help AS you teach is the other piece that would really help, but it seems to me few teachers really get that kind of assistance. Their mentors are usually too busy, or they instead get involved in weird personality conflicts. I've had friends who've had real nightmare experiences with mentor teachers and co-teachers -- especially in the lower grades. K-3 seems to hold some appeal for a certain kind of extremely controlling personality.

[Aquarius]

I think both of our takes are valid - he could join Starfleet @ that age and still go to the University of Florida on the equivalent of a ROTC scholarship.

So there back.

I think we're saying basically the same thing but differing in a few less important details. The point of my bringing it up in the first place was to refute the fallacy that some people have grabbed hold of because of Hoshi's remark, that the show is actually saying that Trip got to where he was by being a redneck motorhead with no formal education at all. Since he'd been in Starfleet all of his adult life and had gone through some form of officer's training, it follows that one way or another, they took care of his education, and your ROTC example falls under the umbrella of my suggestion that his academics could've been "outsourced."

So same to you but twice as much of it!

[Rigil Kent]

Plus? Maybe Holo Hoshi was just a snob 'cause Trip didn't go to what she thought were proper schools or something.

Of course, like pretty much everything in that ... finale, I just discard the whole thing out of hand.

[Alelou]

It doesn't even make sense for her to have that attitude, because Hoshi herself could not possibly have learned all she knows about language in a formal, routine schooling situation. She's too much of a prodigy. She would have been more talented than almost any teacher she got.

[Aquarius]

Warpgirl, On the Job Training (OJT) is never as good as a formal education. It is more practicle because all you learn is whast you need to do your job but little else that might comein handy later on.

Of course, I can remeber being told "forget what you were taught" a few times.

SB

I strongly disagree. Even my beauty school experience backs this up. They train you in the fundamentals, maybe you get a little "advanced training" (but with clients who are mostly little old ladies coming in for cheap roller sets, good luck getting to try it out), but honestly, you don't even know enough to know what you don't know until you get that first salon job and get your hands dirty and try things.

That's why so many professions require either apprenticeship or some kind of clinical/field experience as part of your degree. And many of them, you can skip the schooling if you have sufficient apprenticeship. In Michigan, for hair, it's either 1500 of school (which is what I did because if you go full time, you can knock that out in about a year), or it's two years of apprenticeship, with the stylist you're apprenticing handling all of your theory requirements. The school method prepares you better for your state board exam; the apprenticeship method actually prepares you better for what's going to happen once you're licensed.

There are a lot of registered nurses in my family. When my great aunts became nurses (this would've been in the 30s and 40s), they didn't go to college; all of their training was done on the job; they even slept in dormitories at the hospital they trained at. Both of them specialized in anesthesiology nursing, and by the time the retired, their licenses were just as valid as someone who'd gone college for 4 years with a nursing degree--and I bet they knew more after 4 years of on-the-job training than the college graduates did after 4 years of school.

Honestly, a combination of academic/theory training and hands on is probably the best, but if I had to choose and either/or situation, I'd put my money on the person with the field experience than the person who just had the formal educaiton.

[Aquarius]

It doesn't even make sense for her to have that attitude, because Hoshi herself could not possibly have learned all she knows about language in a formal, routine schooling situation. She's too much of a prodigy. She would have been more talented than almost any teacher she got.

Exactly, which also fits in with the notion that Starfleet might've been targeting these types of people for the purposes of accelerated training, so Earth could "catch up" to the Vulcans more quickly.

[Rigil Kent]

Honestly, a combination of academic/theory training and hands on is probably the best, but if I had to choose and either/or situation, I'd put my money on the person with the field experience than the person who just had the formal educaiton.

Totally agreed. More often than not, the person who spends all their time in the academic setting comes out utterly convinced they are God's gift to whatever field of endeavor they're entering when, frankly, they don't know crap. It's the difference between theory and fact - I'd much rather have a mechanic working on my car who has been doing it for five years but has no formal training than a person who just spent five years in college being taught the theories behind fixing a car. Hell, in the Army, we generally preferred "mustang" officers (former enlisted guys who went through OCS after finishing school) to West Pointers because they had actual hands-on experience about what it's like to serve in the mud.

[honeybee]

I teach journalism and creative writing classes - and I treat my students as though I was an editor.

They are expected to produce real articles, usually researched on campus. I always tell them that the scale isn't important - write about your dorm if you need to - but the form and content and editorial process will be the same when you get out into the professional world. I always hear - my interviewee didn't show up or one of my sources lied to me - these are lessons I can't teach them. I just need to force them to do the work, so if and when they do get a "real" assignment - they have a sense of what is expected and what can happen.

On the other hand, I often assign readings - mostly literary journalism - that is beyond the comfort zone and experience of my students - and that is something a classroom can offer. Exposure to ideas/work that might be outside the narrow focus of whatever job you get. So, I'm going to go with a mixture of field experience and theory/classroom stuff. I better since that's how a run my classes.

Notice, I try and keep totally mum about *the_abomination* - I just think of that as a weird little prequel to the books and a second rate TNG episode - Like Rigil, I take nothing in that holoprogram as necessarily true.

[Transwarp]

It's the difference between theory and fact - I'd much rather have a mechanic working on my car who has been doing it for five years but has no formal training than a person who just spent five years in college being taught the theories behind fixing a car.

I'm reminded of the joke about the difference between engineers and technicians: An engineer knows why it works. A technician knows why it doesn't work.

As for Trip not having a college degree, I just can't buy that. Even if he gets it through something like ROTC or Starfleet academy, he still gets a diploma out of it. Therefore Hoshi's comment in *the_abomination* makes no sense. Therefore I shall ignore it, as I ignore everything else about that episode.

Getting back to the topic of *the_abomination*, I believe my finale fix is the shortest on record, weighing in at a mere 236 words. I'd be interested if anyone knows of a shorter one.

Here it is (one more time) for your viewing pleasure:

Riker finished the glazed doughnut with a single bite, and reached into the box for the last of the jellied doughnuts--raspberry, he noted with satisfaction. He was about to bring it up to his open mouth, but the chime of the comm panel stayed his hand.
Annoyed, he brushed the sugar flakes from his beard and stabbed the transmit button. "Riker."
"Sir, this is Crewman Giles in Holo-Maintenance. We have a bit of a problem."
"What do you mean? What problem?" A small drop of raspberry jelly oozed from the doughnut onto Riker's thumb. He licked it off while waiting for the crewman's response.
"Ahh, it's about the holoprogram you checked out yesterday. I was debugging the holomatrix, testing some new AI routines, and it seems the program I was using got accidentally written back to the 22nd History database. There are several, uh, significant modifications to the program you viewed. I've since replaced it with the original, if you're still interested."
While the crewman prattled on and on about databases and modifications, Riker attacked and defeated the doughnut. "Mm nob iberebbed emmmy more." Riker mumbled around its remains.
"I'm sorry sir, I didn't catch that..."
Riker swallowed hastily, "I said, I'm NOT interested any more."
"Oh. Very good, sir."
The connection light went dark, and Riker peered into the box for his next victim.

[Silverbullet]

Okay, a formal education teaches you how to learn. Then you go out and get hands on learning but you are better prepared to absorb it because of your formal education.

There are different kinds of professions that requrie different kinds of learning. Haridresser can be tought OJT, Physics cannot. Chemistry is another that needs formal education. One can screw around with chemicles but that person would be a menace unless educated.

I go aong with Rigel in that Trip might have gone to an accredited University on a ROTC type of scholarsip.

BTW, Bluetiger brought up an intersting dialogue from "observer affect. In it Hoshi says she broke an instructors arm and was given a Bad Conduct Discharge. If Starfleet wre a civilian organiztion she would have been explellled or aksed to leave. Since she was given a Bad Conduct Discharge that means she was in the military. Trip in that dialogue said he too was in the same Starfleet training. He too was in the military. Hence, Starfleet is military.

[Rigil Kent]

Dude, seriously. We get it. You don't need to keep repeating the "Starfleet is military" thing over and over and over. A sizeable chunk of us tend to agree but constantly repeating that refrain when it has little to no bearing whatsoever with the topic in question? That's kind of getting old.

[Silverbullet]

Rigel, strange, in one of these threads a very short time ago that very subject was being discussed. some claimed that Starfleet was like Nasa and some said it was quasi military and others that it was military. KTR came on and said "If it looks like a Duck, waddles like a Duck and quacks like a Duck it is a Duck." whatever, the subject if Starfleet was militry or not was being discussed. As I said in one of the threads a few days ago. Cannot remember Harping on it but proably did.

SB

[Rigil Kent]

Rigel, strange, in one of these threads a very short time ago that very subject was being discussed. some claimed that Starfleet was like Nasa and some said it was quasi military and others that it was military. KTR came on and said "If it looks like a Duck, waddles like a Duck and quacks like a Duck it is a Duck." whatever, the subject if Starfleet was militry or not was being discussed. As I said in one of the threads a few days ago. Cannot remember Harping on it but proably did.

Not in this thread. Yes, it was discussed over in the "Does the Academy Exist" thread, but that has no real bearing with this current topic which revolves around Trip's education, not whether Starfleet is military or not.