Academics are struggling to persuade students that learning the liberal arts will help them in the real world. But the arguments tend to emphasize getting into law school, writes Naomi Schaefer in the Wall St. Journal. Or doing the laundry. Is that all there is?

Some colleges have found a creative way to reassure students they will be getting something practical for all that money. A couple of years ago, Harvard University started offering “Life Seminars” on non-Kantian subjects: “Plumbing 101″ and “Advanced Doing the Laundry,” for instance.

. . . These courses are not for credit, but they do, in their silly way, point to a problem: the gap between normal classroom experience and postgraduation reality. Some academic departments are trying to bridge the gap themselves. The Web site of the philosophy department at Indiana University, for instance, boasts that its graduates are more likely than those in almost any other major to be accepted by medical schools, that law schools value the analytical skills that philosophy teaches, and that businesses at least won’t hold a philosophy degree against you. “Philosophy is quite suitable as a major for pre-professional students. . . . The study of philosophy has practical value.”

. . . Are these the only answers — that the study of the liberal arts applies to, well, something else?

Thomas Jefferson founded the University of Virginia to advance the knowledge and well-being of mankind.

Benefiting the republic was in fact one object that Jefferson had in mind by founding a public university. It seemed obvious to him that a proper education would advance “the prosperity, the power, and the happiness of a nation.” How do Greek and astronomy do that? By generating “habits of application, of order, and the love of virtue” and by controlling, “by the force of habit, any innate obliquities in our moral organization.”

But today’s liberal arts classes are “self-exploration with fancy texts,” writes Schaefer. Not much good for building habits of application or a love of virtue.

John Stuart Mill said a liberal education offers “the deeper and more varied interest you will feel in life: which will give it tenfold its value, and a value which will last to the end.” I think that’s about right.

An Arizona teacher has won an injunction against a student who cursed her every day in class. The 15-year-old boy has been ordered to stay away from the reading teacher in school and out.

In (Elizabeth Anne) Moore’s case, she first complained to school officials on March 18. The student was placed in a three-day after-school detention program, but the behavior continued. On April 7, the same day she filed for the injunction, Moore filed a new complaint with the school and the student received a five-day suspension and was not allowed back into her classroom when he returned to campus.

“I am sexually harassed and abused by his vulgar language and unable to protect my other students from him,” Moore wrote in her complaint. “His father tells me he cannot control [his son].”

The father ascribes his son’s misbehavior to growing pains, says the Christian Science Monitor.

“He’s a growing child,” (Reyes) Cavazos said. “He’s going through the typical teenage years. You know, he has good days and bad days.”

When parents shrug off their children’s misbehavior, the kids grow up to be real pains.

Scandinavian bullies are using their camera phones to humiliate classmates.

Incidents of bullies taking pictures in changing rooms or swimming pools and later ridiculing classmates with the images, as well as other intimidating uses of the phones has become widespread in (Norway’s) schools.

The Norwegian teachers’ association has called for a ban on camera phones; Danish teachers want to teach children to use the technology responsibly. Yeah, that’s going to happen.

At the most competitive colleges and universities, more and more students come from wealthy families, reports the New York Times, which is a bit late to the story.

At the most selective private universities across the country, more fathers of freshmen are doctors than are hourly workers, teachers, clergy members, farmers or members of the military — combined.

Experts say the change in the student population is a result of both steep tuition increases and the phenomenal efforts many wealthy parents put into preparing their children to apply to the best schools. It is easy to see here, where BMW 3-series sedans are everywhere and students pay up to $800 a month to live off campus, enough to rent an entire house in parts of Michigan.

At Harvard, median family income is about $150,000. That’s median.

The story doesn’t mention another possible reason for the preponderance of affluent students: They’re the children of successful people, and increasingly people are successful because they’re well-educated. In addition to paying for good schools, the parents must be passing on some good genes.

Five years after the Columbine massacre, legislators are trying to prevent school violence by banning discrimination against transgender students. That misses the real problem, writes Kay Hymowitz in the LA Times.

What legislators don’t seem to grasp is that kids bully — and turn, in some cases, to more serious forms of violence — not because they are prejudiced in any familiar adult sense but because they are crude, Darwinian creatures trying to stake out territory and proclaim their dominance.

A UCLA study published in the December issue of Pediatrics found that bullies are usually “cool” kids “high in social status.” These are kids who reinforce their social power by lording over their peers who are for whatever reason perceived as weak or vulnerable. This explains why so many bullies are jocks and so many of their victims are 90-pound weaklings.

. . . In order to deal with bullying, harassment and violence, educators have to smash the peer-driven hierarchy that sets the tone in most middle and high schools. Schools without bullies — and though rare, there are such things — are places where dynamic principals build a supportive but serious community whose norms are set by adults.

A community where norms are set by adults. Yes!

This is extra nutty: A sixth grade boy in South Orange, New Jersey has been suspended from school for allegedly threatening to expose his teacher to a peanut butter cookie. His teacher is highly allergic to peanuts. From the Associated Press:

Loubert Gabriel said his son, 12-year-old Jules, had been kept out of class since April 2, after a girl in his social studies class at South Orange Middle School told the teacher that Jules had made the threat.

The father said Jules was carrying a snack packet of Nutter Butter cookies and did make a comment about having “something dangerous” but never said he had a weapon.

A hearing is not scheduled till May 13, which means the Nutter Butter Kid will miss at least six weeks of school.

Update: The boy will be allowed to attend a different school starting May 3. Apparently, classmates say Jules waved the cookies over his head while the teacher was out of the room and said they were his defense against detention; the dad says Jules was a top student who never got detention and that he only said the cookies were “dangerous.”

Is your blood pressure too low? This attack on home-schooled “clones” by a Calgary teacher will solve the problem. Dale Wallace argues that home-schooling is inferior to public education because parents pass on their values and beliefs to their children.

If education were as simple as good grades, perhaps valid arguments could be made of the superiority of home schooling children. All that would have to be done is compare the grades of home-schooled children to the ones educated in the public system. However, any perceptive parent knows that there is more to education than grades. Rather, it is the setting up of conditions where a young person can learn and grow and become the person they choose to be and not simply be a clone of their parents.

Education is like a mother bird teaching its young to fly. It is a gift of freedom that allows children to truly define themselves. It allows children to throw back the protective covers of their parents, and have them see and experience the world with the help and encouragement of minds whose primary purpose is not to protect but to explore. The student-teacher relationship in a public school is as intellectually mighty a Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe in the early 1500′s. Now, students and teachers are the explorers of the new world of science, art, and ideas.

Isn’t it home-schooling that’s like a mother bird teaching her young to fly?

In education, forces outside the child — such as parents — would gladly influence the child and mould them. They want them to attain certain standards and uphold certain beliefs. True education must unshackle itself from the manacles of parental influence.

And shackle itself to the manacles of government influence, I assume.

Any system of education that teaches children to read well enough that they enjoy reading will free young minds to explore and grow.

The school bus stopped to pick up a girl. Then the bomb exploded. Here’s the Guardian story on the terror attacks in Basra:

At 7.13 am the schoolgirls inside, aged 14 and 15 and dressed in black uniforms with white headscarves, had been on their way to Al Amjad intermediate school for girls when a Chevrolet saloon drove past.

The car would have attracted little attention as it approached the station’s front gate. Seconds later it blew up, flinging a fireball of metal and other debris across the street.

The girls, who had been waiting for a classmate to clamber aboard, stood little chance. Their minibus and another taking younger children to kindergarten was incinerated.

“I saw a minibus full of children on fire,” said Amin Dinar, whose house was next to the scene. “Fifteen of the 18 passengers were killed and three badly wounded. I looked around and saw my leg bleeding and my neighbour lying dead on the floor torn apart.”

Only one girl, Ala’ Muhamad, 15, who was about to board the bus, escaped the fireball. “I had just left the house,” she said. “I opened the door and went out. I could see the bus. I found myself flying in the air and falling on the ground. I saw fire and smoke. It was a huge explosion. I couldn’t get up again.”

Shivering, shaking and weeping, she said: “I can’t believe all my friends have been killed. I’m the only one left.”

The suicide bomber must have seen the school buses and chosen to kill those children.

Virginia is cutting math classes to boost lottery ticket sales, reports the Watley Review. The state lottery provides more than $375 million in education funds.

Current math requirements will be eliminated from high school in a bid to bring the overall level of math competency down to a point where purchasing lottery tickets would seem more attractive.

“Math skills are problematic,” said Virginia Lottery Director Penelope Kyle. “Obviously, the ability of our population to understand the odds of winning and effectively manage their personal spending hinders the sale of lottery tickets. The recent Math and Science Partnership Grants won by Virginia school districts highlighted the need for us to take action.”

Beginning in September 2004, the Virginia school system will replace all math classes from pre-algebra to calculus with a new series called “American Counting,” which will focus on providing students with “holistic estimation” techniques and examples of the things they could purchase if they happened to suddenly come into a lot of money.

The Watley Review is a humor site, so this probably isn’t true. Thanks to Cris Simpson for the link.

Starting with the class of 2014, all California students would have to take the college-prep classes required by the state’s public universities, according to a bill just introduced. The A-G classes, as they’re called, include advanced algebra and trigonometry. Yet the state had to postpone its graduation exam because so many students lack basic math skills. Many students enter high school with elementary reading and math skills. They can’t pass real algebra, geometry and trig or real college-prep English classes. I don’t think that’s going to change in 10 years. Not for every student.

It would be more honest to let students choose between a real college-prep track and a vocational track with real-world standards. The latter would prepare students to take community college courses to improve their job skills. Many students who aren’t motivated by college would work to qualify for a decent job.

I met a nice young man at the car rental place today, after I left my car at the repair shop. He mentioned that he’d met his wife in college. His job requires the ability to drive and to fill out car rental forms. Too bad he didn’t study a trade in high school.