Elitism, education, and high school drop outs

[Waiting For Everyman]

12. I've noticed too, the hostility about this toward Snowden.

It doesn't speak very well for people who hold ignorant attitudes like this.

For one thing, a piece of paper doesn't demonstrate someone's skills. It's only a tool for gatekeepers, to force people into paying off the system. It also relieves employers/interviewers of the effort of evaluating a person by using their own judgment. Either 1), the person interviewing doesn't have the critical thinking skills to make such judgments; or 2) they aren't trusted by someone higher up to do so adequately. Both shortcomings are on the part of the evaluator, not the evaluatee.

It so happens that Snowden didn't finish high school due to an illness. My two kids quit high school due to rampant crime in the school, which authorities refused to addresss. They both "advance placed" into college and graduated with terrific grades.

People without a GED at all can be just as skilled as anyone who has the piece of paper to say so. Back in the "old days" (of the Founding Fathers for instance), people used to be self-taught through reading, and learning-by-doing. Guess what, it still works.