Another reader has e-mailed me with a comment on education school:
Mr. Leef:
As a graduate student in engineering at the University of Illinois, my wife was working on her Master’s Degree in Music Education. She was too busy with her excellent music career to write any of her term papers, so I wrote them for her — entirely off the top of my head and without a shred of training in the subjects of either teaching or music.
I am proud to report that I got straight As, despite my total ignorance of the subjects. Fortunately, she was a truly gifted musician and a naturally excellent teacher, so no harm was done; but there can be no doubt that the teacher-education system at this supposedly great university is unworthy of its name.