Time to discard the Myers-Briggs test

This article at VOX points out numerous problems with the test. Erika Price, a friend of mine who has a Ph.D in psychology (and who has written articles for this website), summed up the criticisms as follows:

-Myers-Briggs is based on an old, fringe, untested hypothesis -The categories do not naturally occur in any sample data -The test itself was formulated by people with no psychometric training or experience - It divides people into categories when really every trait is a spectrum - People are divided into binary categories even though most people are near the middle of the spectrum. -Individuals do not consistently get the same type. (i.e. it is unreliable) - It does not predict behavior -It is not used in mainstream psychological research
The article itself concludes:
It's 2014. Thousands of professional psychologists have evaluated the century-old Myers-Briggs, found it to be inaccurate and arbitrary, and devised better systems for evaluating personality. Let's stop using this outdated measure — which has about as much scientific validity as your astrological sign — and move on to something else.

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How to make college free

Many politicians would claim that college shouldn't be free and that, in fact, the federal government, which is now a direct provider of many college loans, should pile interest onto student loans.   I have two things I'd suggest in response, both of which speak to the systemic corruption of the United States Federal Government:   Warren - college loans     college free Here are more stats from The Atlantic:

A mere $62.6 billion dollars! According to new Department of Education data, that's how much tuition public colleges collected from undergraduates in 2012 across the entire United States. And I'm not being facetious with the word mere, either. The New America Foundation says that the federal government spent a whole $69 billion in 2013 on its hodgepodge of financial aid programs, such as Pell Grants for low-income students, tax breaks, work study funding. And that doesn't even include loans.

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No time for fun at Kindergarten

This New York Kindergarten cancelled a play because the 5 year olds needed to spend more time preparing for college. If I were an employee of that school, I would never sign that idiotic letter to the parents unless my job security depended on it. Time to reevaluate the values of the school. Time for the administrators to study the importance of play.

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Conversing in a public library

Once a month I teach English as a Second Language at the St. Louis Public Library. I'm assigned a small corner of a big library and I teach English conversational skills to a group of up to eight adults at a time, people from all over the world. During this afternoon's class, a group of talkative men sat 20 feet away from our table. They weren't part of any group, just guys talking with each other. Those men made it somewhat difficult for my students to hear each other, forcing us to be louder than normal. Eventually the Library Security Guard briskly walked up to the table where I was teaching and told my class to stop talking. I told him I was teaching ESL, but he said he didn't care. He told me to quit talking. I showed him the sign designating our space (see the photo - "Conversation Practice") and told him "It is my JOB to converse with these students." He said that if I didn't stop talking he would throw all of us out of the library.

ESL sign

I found the librarian in charge, convincing him that the unauthorized loud talkers nearby should be quiet, so that we could continue with our class. Eventually, the librarian agreed while the security guard sulked. My English conversation lesson for the next 15 minutes was focused on making fun of the ignoramus security guard.

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The myth of working one’s way through college

What does it take to earn one's way through college? From the Atlantic, some stunning numbers:

[Olsen] added a linear regression analysis to extrapolate the stats for 1979-2013, and found that the average student in 1979 could work 182 hours (a part-time summer job) to pay for a year's tuition. In 2013, it took 991 hours (a full-time job for half the year) to accomplish the same. And this is only considering the cost of tuition, which is hardly an accurate representation of what students actually spend for college. According to the College Board, average room and board fees at public universities today exceed tuition costs by a little more than 100 percent. (For the current academic year, average tuition at 4-year public schools is $8,893, but with room and board, the total average cost comes to $18,391.)

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