That is why it is so urgent for you to be rightly educated - which means that you must have teachers who can help you to break through the crust of so-called civilization and be, not repetitive machines, but individuals who really have a song inside them and are therefore happy, creative human beings. (JK)

Study: Most College Students Lack Skills

By BEN FELLER, AP Education Writer  Jan 2006

WASHINGTON - Nearing a diploma, most college students cannot handle many complex but common tasks, from understanding credit card offers to comparing the cost per ounce of food.

Those are the sobering findings of a study of literacy on college campuses, the first to target the skills of students as they approach the start of their careers. More than 50 percent of students at four-year schools and more than 75 percent at two-year colleges lacked the skills to perform complex literacy tasks. That means they could not interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure, understand the arguments of newspaper editorials, compare credit card offers with different interest rates and annual fees or summarize results of a survey about parental involvement in school.

Schools  - from http://www.kfionline.org

Education was always one of Krishnamurti's chief concerns. He felt that if only the young and the old could be awakened to their conditioning of prejudices, fears, desires, etc. which inevitably leads to conflict, they might bring to their lives a totally different quality. His concern found expression in the establishment of Education Centres--schools for the young, and Study Centres/ Retreats for adults.

 When Krishnamurti spoke to the school children, his language was lucid and
 simple. He explored with them their relationship to nature and to one another,
 and to psychological problems like fear, authority, competition, love and
 freedom. To him the schools were a milieu in which the larger existential
 issues could be explored in an atmosphere of freedom and responsibility.
 The cultivation of a global outlook, a spirit of inquiry, and concern for man
 and environment have since been integral to the intentions of these schools.

 The more apparent features of this spirit are shared by all schools--large
 campuses of great natural beauty; a friendly, caring relationship between
 teachers and students; simple, wholesome vegetarian diet; austere but
 comfortable living quarters; spacious and inviting classrooms;
 well-equipped libraries and laboratories; and a small teacher-student ratio
 with highly qualified and motivated teachers.

 A school is a place where one learns both the importance of
 knowledge and its irrelevance. It is a place where one learns to
 observe the world without a particular point of view or
 conclusion. One learns to look at the whole of man's
 endeavour, his search for beauty, his search for truth and a way
 of living that is not a contradiction between conclusion and
 action. It is a place where both the teacher and the taught learn
 a way of life in which conflict ends. Conflict is the very essence
 of violence.

 It is here one learns the importance of relationship which is not
 based on attachment or possessiveness. It is in the school one
 must learn about the movement of thought, love and death, for
 all this is the whole of life.
 -- J. Krishnamurti.

By Michiyo Yamada Wednesday August 25 2:57 PM ET  WASHINGTON (Reuters)

According to Department of Labor estimates, America needs more than a million new information technology (IT) workers
through 2005 -- far more than foreign temporary workers can provide.

<snip>

Moore quoted the results of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study that showed the poor academic performance of American students by the time they finish high school. He said students in the United States, including those most advanced, are ranked among the lowest internationally.

Moore said one of the main reasons for America's dependency on high-tech foreign workers stems from the nation's inability to attract qualified science and math teachers into classrooms. ``If you are graduating with your first degree in science, say in chemistry, you've got all kinds of industry opportunities,'' he said. ``But (teaching) salaries are terrible. So why would young people do this?'' ...new teachers, regardless of their teaching subject, earn only about $25,012 annually... New software developers earn twice as much...

Tests are making children hate books, warns Pullman

Lucy Ward, education correspondent
Tuesday September 30, 2003
The Guardian

The award-winning children's author Philip Pullman today launches a broadside against the government's "brutal" school testing regime, warning that it is creating a generation of children who hate reading and "feel nothing but hostility for literature". ... Writing in Guardian Education, the author of the acclaimed His Dark Materials trilogy attacks a lack of focus on enjoyment in the teaching of reading and writing. Drilling to meet the demands of tests makes children's writing "empty, conventional and worthless", he says. ... 

 "we are a nation obsessed by assessment, particularly external examinations".

``Almost one-third of our high school students do not even graduate high school,'' Kerry said. Among black and Latino youths, the graduation rate is about 50 percent, he said.

Playing 'Boy' Games Helps Girls, and Vice Versa

Fri Sep 24, 5:30 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Ten-year olds who spend more time engaging in activities typically associated with their gender tend to have more stereotypical academic interests, skills and characteristics two years later, new research reports.

 For instance, girls who logged many hours on "girl" activities like reading, knitting, dancing or playing with dolls tended to get better grades in English, show more signs of sensitivity, and were more likely to have low self-esteem, which is more common in girls, the Pennsylvania-based researchers noted.

However, girls who spent more time on sports -- a traditionally masculine pursuit -- tended to become more interested in math two years later, regardless of their interest in math at age 10.