Brian Nangle

If you’ve tal­ked to me recently about Higher Edu­ca­tion (or just edu­ca­tion in gene­ral), you know where I stand with it.  To boil it down into sim­ple terms, I think colle­ges are going to be for­ced to change or they will be for­ced to not exist.

Of course, I’m not tal­king about the Harvard’s or the Stanford’s of the world.  They’ll be around well after I’m gone.  But sma­ller, less exc­lu­sive schools, I’m not so sure about.

I mean, look at the lands­cape of edu­ca­tion right now.  More and more clas­ses are going online.  More and more peo­ple are going to com­mu­nity college (1, because it’s chea­per and 2, because it costs less).  There is more and more evi­dence that our edu­ca­tion sys­tem is wrong for what we want to pro­duce (we don’t want to be pro­du­cing fac­tory wor­kers any­more and we are in grave dan­ger of not having enough ski­lled labor to do the basic things that we rely on others for now).

I just read an article in The Chro­nicle about the coming per­so­na­li­za­tion of edu­ca­tion.  But I think it’s going to be more than that.  At some point in the very near future, the rising cost of college is going to become a big issue, or at least give peo­ple pause to think about other options.  Many peo­ple say that a college degree is what a high school degree used to be.  I tend to think that ins­tead of ever­yone now nee­ding PhD’s to get ahead, things are going to change (or, the US will stop pro­du­cing things and our eco­nomy will go into the tank, but hey, we’ll have really edu­ca­ted people!).

I may be all gloom and doom for the “Uni­ver­sity”, but I feel that they bet­ter be nim­ble or risk beco­ming pha­sed out.

What cau­sed this reac­tion, and how I gene­rally feel about higher edu­ca­tion can be found from this Huf­fing­ton Post article: Whither the Uni­ver­sity.

Ok, this is awe­some!  For those of you who can’t think you can do something (or are afraid to do it)… just follow her lead.  If a 6–12 year old can do this, you can do wha­te­ver you set your mind to.

I was in the gro­cery store after work today.  I nee­ded to pick up some food because we all need to eat.  So I had got­ten all of my food and I am stan­ding in line wai­ting for my turn.

I pic­ked this par­ti­cu­lar line because it was the shor­test of the three lines that were open.  Of course, this was right after work, and it was busy, but the store still thought that they only nee­ded 3 lines.

Any­way, there was an elderly woman in front of me.  She was unpac­king her cart, but she was doing so much slo­wer than most peo­ple wan­ted to.  She rea­li­zed this and made a com­ment.  So I just star­ted right in hel­ping her unpack her cart.  I figu­red it made everyone’s lives easier, inc­lu­ding this nice woman.

So after­wards she said “Thanks.  (Makes sure that the straw­be­rries she got were 2 for 1)  Just for that, I’m going to give you my extra case of strawberries.”

I wasn’t expec­ting a gift because I hel­ped.  Guess I’ll just have to pass along the love.

I love rea­ding dis­sen­ting opi­nions on things as (I hope) it keeps my mind open.  I feel like there are MANY who would disa­gree with the follo­wing post that I’m going to link to.  It’s a very inte­res­ting read about the rea­sons that many of our best uni­ver­si­ties have in doing things the way they do things.

http://theamericanscholar.org/the-disadvantages-of-an-elite-education/

After rea­ding this study, there is evi­dence that it does.

40-Year-Old Triath­lete

Unsur­pri­sing

The study I liked to above is called “Chro­nic Exer­cise Pre­ser­ves Lean Muscle Mass in Mas­ters Ath­le­tes.”  The image above is a cross sec­tion of the legs of a 40-year-old triath­lete and the asso­cia­ted muscle.

The two ima­ges below are the inte­res­ting ones though…

As you can see, the 74-year-old legs are not unlike those of the 40-year-old.

The study’s authors go on to write:
“It is com­monly belie­ved that with aging comes an ine­vi­ta­ble dec­line from vita­lity to frailty. This inc­lu­des fee­ling weak and often the loss of inde­pen­dence. These dec­li­nes may have more to do with lifestyle choi­ces, inc­lu­ding seden­tary living and poor nutri­tion, than the abso­lute poten­tial of mus­cu­los­ke­le­tal aging.

In this study, we sought to eli­mi­nate the con­foun­ding varia­bles of seden­tary living and muscle disuse, and ans­wer the ques­tion of what really hap­pens to our musc­les as we age if we are chro­ni­cally active. This study and those dis­cus­sed here show that we are capa­ble of pre­ser­ving both muscle mass and strength with life­long phy­si­cal activity.”

They conc­lude by writing:

“The loss of lean muscle mass and the resul­ting sub­jec­tive and objec­tive weak­ness expe­rien­ced with seden­tary aging impo­ses sig­ni­fi­cant but modi­fia­ble per­so­nal, socie­tal, and eco­no­mic bur­dens. As sports medi­cine cli­ni­cians, we must encou­rage peo­ple to become or remain active at all ages. This study, and those revie­wed here, docu­ment the pos­si­bi­lity to main­tain muscle mass and strength across the ages via sim­ple lifestyle changes.”

I wish they would have had a pic­ture of the legs of a 40-year-old seden­tary man.  Then some real com­pa­ri­sons could be made.  But just look at the legs of the 74 year olds.  How ama­zing is that?