Education in the news again

Truth is stranger than fiction.

In the same magazine,  maybe one or two weekly issues apart, we find articles about Google’s head of HR, and Knewton, another learn at your own pace with an iPad, “dot-bomb” startup sort of thing for kids.

Google essentially now knows after 10 years of internal study and tracking that grades, GPA, degrees, etc. don’t correlate to success on the job.  Essentially, it doesn’t matter what the new hires know (usually still kids almost), but what they can do — in other words, can they solve problems. Wow, what an epiphany that is. Took ’em 10 years to find that nugget?  Next time, call me first.

Knewton almost in the same breath says it does matter what the kids know.
PayPal and others chipped in 150 million large to that end.
Maybe Google also invested — now that would be investing against your own proven self-interest.
Like the tangent is opposite over adjacent, or slope intercept form is y=mx+b, or at least I think that’s how it goes. Why do they call slope, “m”, anyway?

Can the same thing at the same time be A and not A?
Do the editors even read their own content?

Of course I haven’t seen a program, or approach, or text book, or coaching, or training, or CD, or any other waste of money that can teach someone to be a great problem solver (whatever that means) or the piano, or singing, or dancing, or tennis, or golf, or math …

Maybe those weekend courses in a cheap hotel meeting room can really teach you to get rich quick flipping real estate.   Just wondering.