I don't hate the idea of giving more money to schools. I hate the idea of wasting money so I want to see better review and oversight of how it gets spent.
Edit: I just want to reiterate in case I haven't been clear in the course of taking "my side" of this discussion: I think it's important to improve the public system, and I think universally available good education for children is the foundation of a modern society. I would not support privatization of the school system and I think we should be trying all sorts of things to improve it. If I had a fantastic public school available to me, my kids would be in it today. I'd like that opportunity for every kid in the country, but I don't think we can give that opportunity to them with the current system and I think it's important we create and encourage alternatives alongside our efforts to fix the public schools, for a lot of reasons but for one in particular: it lets us have our cake and eat at least some of it it too, providing opportunities for kids who otherwise wouldn't have them today, while we also try to make schools better for kids 5-10 years down the road.
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ElJeffeNot actually a mod.Roaming the streets, waving his gun around.Moderator, ClubPAmod
I don't know how well they're paid, and I'm sure some of them would rather have a union job they can't get fired from if they fuck up a bunch.
I am continually confused by how you can think there is a statistically significant number of teachers who go into the field so they can have cushy jobs that allow them to be lazy and incompetent. Like, I do not understand how you came to such a worldview. It is sort of like assuming that people become doctors because they want a fast and easy way to make a buck without having to work too hard.
People who want a job where they are allowed to "fuck up a bunch" tend not to become teachers. Stop propogating the completely fucking clownshoes notion that teachers are the enemy.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
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mrt144King of the NumbernamesRegistered Userregular
I realize that wasn't directed at me, but my solution would be to have a standardized test for finishing every grade, and every class, and if a student doesn't feel like a class is challenging enough they can opt to test out of the class. Alternatively a big assignment where you demonstrate your knowledge on the subject by writing a 10ish page research paper wherein you distill the subject matter into several core points.
the problem with testing out is that anyone who has innate intelligence above their peers will test out of learning how to learn. This is what happened to me. After years of being in the talented and gifted programs in elementary and middle school and coasting by on my uncanny love for encyclopedias at a young age, I didn't know how to do things, like write well. I didn't know how to study for subjects I had not previously had interaction and fascination with.
If there's one thing that you can't do, it's let kids off the hook from learning how to learn.
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
So address the question instead. I admitted I was being a little bit snide but he's apparently against magnet schools and thinks it's foolish to spend extra time and effort on high-potential kids. That was clear from his post. It seems to me that his answer for what we should do for this group of kids is "we should do nothing for them beyond what we do for everyone else, because resources should go to low performers instead".
What's your answer?
No, see, you're doing it again.
That was not clearly what he meant, but he's well capable of defending himself.
You are consistently misrepresenting opposing viewpoints on this topic and it is making having a conversation almost impossible.
There's nothing wrong with pointing out that the 80s movie stereotypes you pointed out are not the largest segments of the student population which is underserved.
Kids need a stable home life in order to succeed in school. This is why poorer students and poorer areas have poorer schools. The current trend of stripping funding for those schools or letting the rich kids skip out to the local charter school isn't addressing that problem.
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
I was in the gifted program (such as it was, which wasn't great), and you certainly do need to provide for those kids as well.
This isn't a zero sum game, folks. At least it wouldn't be if we didn't demand a return on investment that is immediate and tangible.
mrt144 I'm gonna take issue with your terminology and I hope you don't feel like I'm cherry picking - I think it serves to highlight something I think you missed.
The 'best students' are often not the most intelligent or the ones with the most potential - they're the ones who most successfully know how to navigate the system to maximum effect. We all know the slackers who were brilliant but bored and unmotivated, the outcast geeks who did the minimum because straight As got them beat up, and so on. These are archetypes because they're super common.
And then there are twice as many kids that are illiterate. I would worry about the illiterates before the tortured aloof zack morris types of the world, not only because of sheer numbers but also because of the impact that group has on society. This focus on lost brilliance is just so goddamn ridiculous to me because it seems like a way to focus on something so you don't have to worry about bigger issues, that may not affect you directly.
Maybe there should be some sort of option where those kids who have difficulty reading could be sent to schools with specialized teachers who can use alternate approaches to instruct them. Maybe, because they need more attention, the government should provide some extra funds for their education as well. By separating them out for the average students(at least for those subjects where they are challenged), those typical kids could be in classes with higher learning expectations and their mainstream teachers would not have their performance dragged down by students how need more time and different methods which they are not able to provide.
Good idea, but... Parents just hate being told there kids need to be in a special class and will fight it tooth and nail. At the private school my little brothers go to my mom has gotten teachers to pass them when they clearly do not deserve it. The kids found out they won't be held back so now they don't do their homework.
I think we should do it anyways. Thing is, we as a society are really bad at telling people that they are wrong/not exceptional and that they need to do XYZ thing to rectify it. There are a lot of issues where its understood by professionals and academics that certain actions or ways of doing things improve the lives of everyone, but the general public who does not have a good understanding of the issue has a totally different perspective that is not shaped by the realities of the situation, and so the public is against a lot of things that are in everyone's bests interests,
It's not about "you aren't exceptional".
It's the fact that any of these things mentioned (being held back a grade or being streamed into the "dumber" class) are incredibly stigmatized and insulting and socially crippling. You are literally telling the kid and their parents "You are stupid". No one takes that well and no one ever has.
Thing is, this could be fixed by better education. Stupid is not a meaningful concept, it's an abstract subjective notion of another person's intelligence. No one is saying anyone's child is stupid. Were saying that the child is not learning the material in a way that is demonstrable, and therefore we employ other methods.
But really, I would rather live in a society where we tell people they are idiots and put them in special classes than one where we ignore any notion of merit in favor of social promotion.
I did not learn Algebra in high school. I took the class four times, and the fourth time the teacher helped me cheat. I am now in college, and I had to take several extra semesters of remedial math in order to get myself to the level of the material that is being taught in the college. In hindsight, I would rather the teacher have held me back and kept me in high school another year, because it turns out algebra was something I really needed to know.
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mrt144King of the NumbernamesRegistered Userregular
I don't know how well they're paid, and I'm sure some of them would rather have a union job they can't get fired from if they fuck up a bunch.
I am continually confused by how you can think there is a statistically significant number of teachers who go into the field so they can have cushy jobs that allow them to be lazy and incompetent. Like, I do not understand how you came to such a worldview. It is sort of like assuming that people become doctors because they want a fast and easy way to make a buck without having to work too hard.
People who want a job where they are allowed to "fuck up a bunch" tend not to become teachers. Stop propogating the completely fucking clownshoes notion that teachers are the enemy.
Yeah, getting a masters degree so you can earn less than 40k a year starting out, working 12 hour days during the school year, paying for supplies out of your own pocket, all in the name of being able to fuck up a bunch...
there are easier ways to coast through life than being a teacher in a union.
I don't know how well they're paid, and I'm sure some of them would rather have a union job they can't get fired from if they fuck up a bunch.
I am continually confused by how you can think there is a statistically significant number of teachers who go into the field so they can have cushy jobs that allow them to be lazy and incompetent. Like, I do not understand how you came to such a worldview. It is sort of like assuming that people become doctors because they want a fast and easy way to make a buck without having to work too hard.
Yeah, I shouldn't have included that line. I don't think teachers go into the field because they want the opportunity to be terrible and not face consequences, but I do think that the system often shields teachers who turn out to be bad at their jobs for whatever reason. I've described a number of ways I think we could fix that, and admitted that the problem is pretty damned tough to get your arms around.
I'm not demonizing teachers so much as demonizing a system that resists consequences for failure (or even a clear definition of failure).
I don't see why we can't do both, folks. One magnet for the brilliant kids, one for the kids who are struggling with basic skills.
What would you rather do, mrt? Set average as our target, and tell everyone to shoot for that? "Kids, the lesson from 14 years of school is that the minimum is all you really need, and definitely all we're going to ask of you. More than that is up to you and your bootstraps."
That seems a strange sentiment around here, and not one I'd expect to see much support for. Yeah, I'm being a little flippant, but the question is honest: what would you have us do with this cohort of kids who are obviously intelligent and for whom the standard curriculum is clearly insufficient?
I'd rather not take from those who need the most and give to those who need the least. Which is the dynamic we see over and over again when tracking of this sort is used.
So address the question instead. I admitted I was being a little bit snide but he's apparently against magnet schools and thinks it's foolish to spend extra time and effort on high-potential kids. That was clear from his post. It seems to me that his answer for what we should do for this group of kids is "we should do nothing for them beyond what we do for everyone else, because resources should go to low performers instead".
What's your answer?
No, see, you're doing it again.
That was not clearly what he meant, but he's well capable of defending himself.
You are consistently misrepresenting opposing viewpoints on this topic and it is making having a conversation almost impossible.
There's nothing wrong with pointing out that the 80s movie stereotypes you pointed out are not the largest segments of the student population which is underserved.
Kids need a stable home life in order to succeed in school. This is why poorer students and poorer areas have poorer schools. The current trend of stripping funding for those schools or letting the rich kids skip out to the local charter school isn't addressing that problem.
I think it's foolish to think that the most under served constituency in the classroom are the aloof geniuses that just don't have enough fire under their asses, from either themselves, their parents, or the school.
But spool has funny opinions on giving those that already have advantages more advantages. Rich people with taxes, smart kids with magnet schools.
I mean, can we even diagram a worst case scenario for someone that is intelligent and aloof vs. someone that can't even read at a grade level several years behind themselves? I know theres the cliche of "you can't survive on your wits alone" but by and large, you can. What is the greater tragedy in America? That some students do so poorly that they drop out of high school before 11th grade or that a very intelligent child didn't apply themselves nearly enough and are going to chico state.
mrt144 I'm gonna take issue with your terminology and I hope you don't feel like I'm cherry picking - I think it serves to highlight something I think you missed.
The 'best students' are often not the most intelligent or the ones with the most potential - they're the ones who most successfully know how to navigate the system to maximum effect. We all know the slackers who were brilliant but bored and unmotivated, the outcast geeks who did the minimum because straight As got them beat up, and so on. These are archetypes because they're super common.
And then there are twice as many kids that are illiterate. I would worry about the illiterates before the tortured aloof zack morris types of the world, not only because of sheer numbers but also because of the impact that group has on society. This focus on lost brilliance is just so goddamn ridiculous to me because it seems like a way to focus on something so you don't have to worry about bigger issues, that may not affect you directly.
Maybe there should be some sort of option where those kids who have difficulty reading could be sent to schools with specialized teachers who can use alternate approaches to instruct them. Maybe, because they need more attention, the government should provide some extra funds for their education as well. By separating them out for the average students(at least for those subjects where they are challenged), those typical kids could be in classes with higher learning expectations and their mainstream teachers would not have their performance dragged down by students how need more time and different methods which they are not able to provide.
Good idea, but... Parents just hate being told there kids need to be in a special class and will fight it tooth and nail. At the private school my little brothers go to my mom has gotten teachers to pass them when they clearly do not deserve it. The kids found out they won't be held back so now they don't do their homework.
I think we should do it anyways. Thing is, we as a society are really bad at telling people that they are wrong/not exceptional and that they need to do XYZ thing to rectify it. There are a lot of issues where its understood by professionals and academics that certain actions or ways of doing things improve the lives of everyone, but the general public who does not have a good understanding of the issue has a totally different perspective that is not shaped by the realities of the situation, and so the public is against a lot of things that are in everyone's bests interests,
It's not about "you aren't exceptional".
It's the fact that any of these things mentioned (being held back a grade or being streamed into the "dumber" class) are incredibly stigmatized and insulting and socially crippling. You are literally telling the kid and their parents "You are stupid". No one takes that well and no one ever has.
Thing is, this could be fixed by better education. Stupid is not a meaningful concept, it's an abstract subjective notion of another person's intelligence. No one is saying anyone's child is stupid. Were saying that the child is not learning the material in a way that is demonstrable, and therefore we employ other methods.
All this? Doesn't mean a fucking thing. Nothing you've said will actually convince anyone. Do you really think any parent or child is gonna be convinced by what you are saying above?
Getting streamed dumber or getting held back is, to pretty much everyone, educational failure. And educational failure is just a fancy word for "You are dumb" to people.
But really, I would rather live in a society where we tell people they are idiots and put them in special classes than one where we ignore any notion of merit in favor of social promotion.
Sure, you would. You likely aren't the one being told they are stupid after all.
I did not learn Algebra in high school. I took the class four times, and the fourth time the teacher helped me cheat. I am now in college, and I had to take several extra semesters of remedial math in order to get myself to the level of the material that is being taught in the college. In hindsight, I would rather the teacher have held me back and kept me in high school another year, because it turns out algebra was something I really needed to know.
In hindsight, maybe. At the time, you don't seem to have given the least shit.
Kids need a stable home life in order to succeed in school. This is why poorer students and poorer areas have poorer schools. The current trend of stripping funding for those schools or letting the rich kids skip out to the local charter school isn't addressing that problem.
A lottery system like the one we have here solves both the 'poorer kids = poorer schools' and 'rich kids flee to the charter' problems.
I would like to hear how you'd address the problem in a system with no charters, with some specifics.
I realize that wasn't directed at me, but my solution would be to have a standardized test for finishing every grade, and every class, and if a student doesn't feel like a class is challenging enough they can opt to test out of the class. Alternatively a big assignment where you demonstrate your knowledge on the subject by writing a 10ish page research paper wherein you distill the subject matter into several core points.
the problem with testing out is that anyone who has innate intelligence above their peers will test out of learning how to learn. This is what happened to me. After years of being in the talented and gifted programs in elementary and middle school and coasting by on my uncanny love for encyclopedias at a young age, I didn't know how to do things, like write well. I didn't know how to study for subjects I had not previously had interaction and fascination with.
If there's one thing that you can't do, it's let kids off the hook from learning how to learn.
Okay, but what about the research paper idea? That would fall under the category of learning how to learn. If you can write a research paper that demonstrates you have a solid grasp of an era of history or a series of interrelated concepts, at that point why would you even want the kid in the class? Not only can they write a paper, they can cite sources and follow a format.
With your comment about not learning to write in a gifted program, I think you've made an excellent case for more oversight of our school system.
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ElJeffeNot actually a mod.Roaming the streets, waving his gun around.Moderator, ClubPAmod
In the greater Memphis metro area, for a very long time now, there have essentially been two school systems: Memphis City and Shelby County. City schools deal with everything inside the actual incorporated Memphis city limits and county schools deal with suburbs and the outlying rural areas. The city school system is the worst in the state; the county system is one of the best. Both systems receive identical funding on a per-student basis. (Actually, the city gets more, because the city has a small additional tax to support education and the city system is bad enough that it qualifies for government grants and stuff.)
I am extraordinarily skeptical that the issue can be boiled down to "more funding, please."
Questions:
- Does the funding get normalized for variations in cost of living? (Running things in an urban area is much more expensive than running things in the middle of farm land.)
- Are the schools receiving students with the same basic demographic breakdown?
- Are the teachers in the rural area being offered the same pay as those in the urban area, despite the differences in working in those areas?
- Are the neighborhoods in these different schools equally desirable?
- Are the schools of the same size? (I would expect there to be operational cost differences between running a large school and a small school, or between a rural school and an urban school, that are not reflected in an identical per-student funding rate.)
- Were the schools built at the same time? Are they in equivalent states of repair?
- What do the teachers in the underperforming school say that they need more of? Because again, I doubt they have literally no idea of how to fix things.
I would say that a good rule of thumb when dealing with educational needs is to ask the teachers, "What do you need in order to do your job?" and then give it to them. You know, pretty much the same as in any other professional field. The guy running IT is going to know what equipment he needs to make the network run smoothly. The guy doing your accounting is going to know what software he needs to keep your records maintained. The carpenter knows what tools he needs to build your house. If you want these things done properly, you make sure these well-trained professionals have what they need. I don't get why education should not be approached in exactly the same way, rather than treated as if teachers are a bunch of lazy, petulant fuckers who demand ridiculous things and should never be trusted with any degree of authority over the thing they were hired to be experts at.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
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mrt144King of the NumbernamesRegistered Userregular
I realize that wasn't directed at me, but my solution would be to have a standardized test for finishing every grade, and every class, and if a student doesn't feel like a class is challenging enough they can opt to test out of the class. Alternatively a big assignment where you demonstrate your knowledge on the subject by writing a 10ish page research paper wherein you distill the subject matter into several core points.
the problem with testing out is that anyone who has innate intelligence above their peers will test out of learning how to learn. This is what happened to me. After years of being in the talented and gifted programs in elementary and middle school and coasting by on my uncanny love for encyclopedias at a young age, I didn't know how to do things, like write well. I didn't know how to study for subjects I had not previously had interaction and fascination with.
If there's one thing that you can't do, it's let kids off the hook from learning how to learn.
Okay, but what about the research paper idea? That would fall under the category of learning how to learn. If you can write a research paper that demonstrates you have a solid grasp of an era of history or a series of interrelated concepts, at that point why would you even want the kid in the class? Not only can they write a paper, they can cite sources and follow a format.
With your comment about not learning to write in a gifted program, I think you've made an excellent case for more oversight of our school system.
Stop trying to impose your rigid ideas of pedagogy on our precious little genius minds.
In the greater Memphis metro area, for a very long time now, there have essentially been two school systems: Memphis City and Shelby County. City schools deal with everything inside the actual incorporated Memphis city limits and county schools deal with suburbs and the outlying rural areas. The city school system is the worst in the state; the county system is one of the best. Both systems receive identical funding on a per-student basis. (Actually, the city gets more, because the city has a small additional tax to support education and the city system is bad enough that it qualifies for government grants and stuff.)
I am extraordinarily skeptical that the issue can be boiled down to "more funding, please."
I would say that a good rule of thumb when dealing with educational needs is to ask the teachers, "What do you need in order to do your job?" and then give it to them. You know, pretty much the same as in any other professional field. The guy running IT is going to know what equipment he needs to make the network run smoothly. The guy doing your accounting is going to know what software he needs to keep your records maintained. The carpenter knows what tools he needs to build your house. If you want these things done properly, you make sure these well-trained professionals have what they need. I don't get why education should not be approached in exactly the same way, rather than treated as if teachers are a bunch of lazy, petulant fuckers who demand ridiculous things and should never be trusted with any degree of authority over the thing they were hired to be experts at.
The difference is that in those other professional fields there is a set of criteria through which we can determine whether or not their requests turned out to be sensible and correct. The network will run smoothly, or the records will be accurate or the house won't fall over. In the teaching profession, there seems to be an institutional resistance toward defining success and failure and exposing the criteria upon which we judge whether the experts we hired are delivering what they promised.
I've mentioned this half a dozen times in the thread and nobody seems to want to engage on the point. Do you have thoughts on it?
mrt144 I'm gonna take issue with your terminology and I hope you don't feel like I'm cherry picking - I think it serves to highlight something I think you missed.
The 'best students' are often not the most intelligent or the ones with the most potential - they're the ones who most successfully know how to navigate the system to maximum effect. We all know the slackers who were brilliant but bored and unmotivated, the outcast geeks who did the minimum because straight As got them beat up, and so on. These are archetypes because they're super common.
And then there are twice as many kids that are illiterate. I would worry about the illiterates before the tortured aloof zack morris types of the world, not only because of sheer numbers but also because of the impact that group has on society. This focus on lost brilliance is just so goddamn ridiculous to me because it seems like a way to focus on something so you don't have to worry about bigger issues, that may not affect you directly.
Maybe there should be some sort of option where those kids who have difficulty reading could be sent to schools with specialized teachers who can use alternate approaches to instruct them. Maybe, because they need more attention, the government should provide some extra funds for their education as well. By separating them out for the average students(at least for those subjects where they are challenged), those typical kids could be in classes with higher learning expectations and their mainstream teachers would not have their performance dragged down by students how need more time and different methods which they are not able to provide.
Good idea, but... Parents just hate being told there kids need to be in a special class and will fight it tooth and nail. At the private school my little brothers go to my mom has gotten teachers to pass them when they clearly do not deserve it. The kids found out they won't be held back so now they don't do their homework.
I think we should do it anyways. Thing is, we as a society are really bad at telling people that they are wrong/not exceptional and that they need to do XYZ thing to rectify it. There are a lot of issues where its understood by professionals and academics that certain actions or ways of doing things improve the lives of everyone, but the general public who does not have a good understanding of the issue has a totally different perspective that is not shaped by the realities of the situation, and so the public is against a lot of things that are in everyone's bests interests,
It's not about "you aren't exceptional".
It's the fact that any of these things mentioned (being held back a grade or being streamed into the "dumber" class) are incredibly stigmatized and insulting and socially crippling. You are literally telling the kid and their parents "You are stupid". No one takes that well and no one ever has.
Thing is, this could be fixed by better education. Stupid is not a meaningful concept, it's an abstract subjective notion of another person's intelligence. No one is saying anyone's child is stupid. Were saying that the child is not learning the material in a way that is demonstrable, and therefore we employ other methods.
All this? Doesn't mean a fucking thing. Nothing you've said will actually convince anyone. Do you really think any parent or child is gonna be convinced by what you are saying above?
Getting streamed dumber or getting held back is, to pretty much everyone, educational failure. And educational failure is just a fancy word for "You are dumb" to people.
But really, I would rather live in a society where we tell people they are idiots and put them in special classes than one where we ignore any notion of merit in favor of social promotion.
Sure, you would. You likely aren't the one being told they are stupid after all.
I did not learn Algebra in high school. I took the class four times, and the fourth time the teacher helped me cheat. I am now in college, and I had to take several extra semesters of remedial math in order to get myself to the level of the material that is being taught in the college. In hindsight, I would rather the teacher have held me back and kept me in high school another year, because it turns out algebra was something I really needed to know.
In hindsight, maybe. At the time, you don't seem to have given the least shit.
1: I cared plenty, however, I did not have any help from my parents or anyone else in my life. I needed help on a 1 on 1 basis, and I was not getting that.
2: I would have been told I was stupid. It's only post high school that I've learned the things I was actually supposed to learn in high school. It's not because I did not want to learn while I was there, its because the learning environment I was in was not conducive to my learning.
3: I think we can convince people just fine if we frame the argument properly. I'm not here to show off my debating skills, I'm here to give my input on what I think should be done. It is only after you have agreed that a particular action is superior to others that you then decide what the best way to implement it is.
Kids need a stable home life in order to succeed in school. This is why poorer students and poorer areas have poorer schools. The current trend of stripping funding for those schools or letting the rich kids skip out to the local charter school isn't addressing that problem.
A lottery system like the one we have here solves both the 'poorer kids = poorer schools' and 'rich kids flee to the charter' problems.
I would like to hear how you'd address the problem in a system with no charters, with some specifics.
Except that the lottery system doesn't solve those problems at all, as I explained to you previously. You keep falling into the Anatole France fallacy face first.
And addressing the problem means acknowledging it for what it is - an issue of poverty, not of the educational system.
I don't see why we can't do both, folks. One magnet for the brilliant kids, one for the kids who are struggling with basic skills.
What would you rather do, mrt? Set average as our target, and tell everyone to shoot for that? "Kids, the lesson from 14 years of school is that the minimum is all you really need, and definitely all we're going to ask of you. More than that is up to you and your bootstraps."
That seems a strange sentiment around here, and not one I'd expect to see much support for. Yeah, I'm being a little flippant, but the question is honest: what would you have us do with this cohort of kids who are obviously intelligent and for whom the standard curriculum is clearly insufficient?
I'd rather not take from those who need the most and give to those who need the least. Which is the dynamic we see over and over again when tracking of this sort is used.
OK, that's what you don't want to do. What should we do for these kids instead?
I don't see why we can't do both, folks. One magnet for the brilliant kids, one for the kids who are struggling with basic skills.
What would you rather do, mrt? Set average as our target, and tell everyone to shoot for that? "Kids, the lesson from 14 years of school is that the minimum is all you really need, and definitely all we're going to ask of you. More than that is up to you and your bootstraps."
That seems a strange sentiment around here, and not one I'd expect to see much support for. Yeah, I'm being a little flippant, but the question is honest: what would you have us do with this cohort of kids who are obviously intelligent and for whom the standard curriculum is clearly insufficient?
I'd rather not take from those who need the most and give to those who need the least. Which is the dynamic we see over and over again when tracking of this sort is used.
OK, that's what you don't want to do. What should we do for these kids instead?
Acknowledge that they're a small portion of the student population, for one.
Hedgie, rich and poor parents have the same opportunity for entrance into a charter school that does admissions by lottery. It absolutely does solve that problem.
I do agree with you that the issue is very much tied to poverty and efforts in that regard should bring all sorts of positive outcomes, including in education.
I don't see why we can't do both, folks. One magnet for the brilliant kids, one for the kids who are struggling with basic skills.
What would you rather do, mrt? Set average as our target, and tell everyone to shoot for that? "Kids, the lesson from 14 years of school is that the minimum is all you really need, and definitely all we're going to ask of you. More than that is up to you and your bootstraps."
That seems a strange sentiment around here, and not one I'd expect to see much support for. Yeah, I'm being a little flippant, but the question is honest: what would you have us do with this cohort of kids who are obviously intelligent and for whom the standard curriculum is clearly insufficient?
I'd rather not take from those who need the most and give to those who need the least. Which is the dynamic we see over and over again when tracking of this sort is used.
OK, that's what you don't want to do. What should we do for these kids instead?
Acknowledge that they're a small portion of the student population, for one.
mrt144 I'm gonna take issue with your terminology and I hope you don't feel like I'm cherry picking - I think it serves to highlight something I think you missed.
The 'best students' are often not the most intelligent or the ones with the most potential - they're the ones who most successfully know how to navigate the system to maximum effect. We all know the slackers who were brilliant but bored and unmotivated, the outcast geeks who did the minimum because straight As got them beat up, and so on. These are archetypes because they're super common.
And then there are twice as many kids that are illiterate. I would worry about the illiterates before the tortured aloof zack morris types of the world, not only because of sheer numbers but also because of the impact that group has on society. This focus on lost brilliance is just so goddamn ridiculous to me because it seems like a way to focus on something so you don't have to worry about bigger issues, that may not affect you directly.
Maybe there should be some sort of option where those kids who have difficulty reading could be sent to schools with specialized teachers who can use alternate approaches to instruct them. Maybe, because they need more attention, the government should provide some extra funds for their education as well. By separating them out for the average students(at least for those subjects where they are challenged), those typical kids could be in classes with higher learning expectations and their mainstream teachers would not have their performance dragged down by students how need more time and different methods which they are not able to provide.
Good idea, but... Parents just hate being told there kids need to be in a special class and will fight it tooth and nail. At the private school my little brothers go to my mom has gotten teachers to pass them when they clearly do not deserve it. The kids found out they won't be held back so now they don't do their homework.
I think we should do it anyways. Thing is, we as a society are really bad at telling people that they are wrong/not exceptional and that they need to do XYZ thing to rectify it. There are a lot of issues where its understood by professionals and academics that certain actions or ways of doing things improve the lives of everyone, but the general public who does not have a good understanding of the issue has a totally different perspective that is not shaped by the realities of the situation, and so the public is against a lot of things that are in everyone's bests interests,
It's not about "you aren't exceptional".
It's the fact that any of these things mentioned (being held back a grade or being streamed into the "dumber" class) are incredibly stigmatized and insulting and socially crippling. You are literally telling the kid and their parents "You are stupid". No one takes that well and no one ever has.
Thing is, this could be fixed by better education. Stupid is not a meaningful concept, it's an abstract subjective notion of another person's intelligence. No one is saying anyone's child is stupid. Were saying that the child is not learning the material in a way that is demonstrable, and therefore we employ other methods.
All this? Doesn't mean a fucking thing. Nothing you've said will actually convince anyone. Do you really think any parent or child is gonna be convinced by what you are saying above?
Getting streamed dumber or getting held back is, to pretty much everyone, educational failure. And educational failure is just a fancy word for "You are dumb" to people.
But really, I would rather live in a society where we tell people they are idiots and put them in special classes than one where we ignore any notion of merit in favor of social promotion.
Sure, you would. You likely aren't the one being told they are stupid after all.
I did not learn Algebra in high school. I took the class four times, and the fourth time the teacher helped me cheat. I am now in college, and I had to take several extra semesters of remedial math in order to get myself to the level of the material that is being taught in the college. In hindsight, I would rather the teacher have held me back and kept me in high school another year, because it turns out algebra was something I really needed to know.
In hindsight, maybe. At the time, you don't seem to have given the least shit.
1: I cared plenty, however, I did not have any help from my parents or anyone else in my life. I needed help on a 1 on 1 basis, and I was not getting that.
I mean you didn't care that you'd "cheated" at the time. Hindsight isn't relevant to this conversation.
2: I would have been told I was stupid. It's only post high school that I've learned the things I was actually supposed to learn in high school. It's not because I did not want to learn while I was there, its because the learning environment I was in was not conducive to my learning.
3: I think we can convince people just fine if we frame the argument properly. I'm not here to show off my debating skills, I'm here to give my input on what I think should be done. It is only after you have agreed that a particular action is superior to others that you then decide what the best way to implement it is.
I think you are kidding yourself if you believe there's a good way to tell a kid "You are dumb" or a parent "Your kid is dumb".
In the greater Memphis metro area, for a very long time now, there have essentially been two school systems: Memphis City and Shelby County. City schools deal with everything inside the actual incorporated Memphis city limits and county schools deal with suburbs and the outlying rural areas. The city school system is the worst in the state; the county system is one of the best. Both systems receive identical funding on a per-student basis. (Actually, the city gets more, because the city has a small additional tax to support education and the city system is bad enough that it qualifies for government grants and stuff.)
I am extraordinarily skeptical that the issue can be boiled down to "more funding, please."
I would say that a good rule of thumb when dealing with educational needs is to ask the teachers, "What do you need in order to do your job?" and then give it to them. You know, pretty much the same as in any other professional field. The guy running IT is going to know what equipment he needs to make the network run smoothly. The guy doing your accounting is going to know what software he needs to keep your records maintained. The carpenter knows what tools he needs to build your house. If you want these things done properly, you make sure these well-trained professionals have what they need. I don't get why education should not be approached in exactly the same way, rather than treated as if teachers are a bunch of lazy, petulant fuckers who demand ridiculous things and should never be trusted with any degree of authority over the thing they were hired to be experts at.
The difference is that in those other professional fields there is a set of criteria through which we can determine whether or not their requests turned out to be sensible and correct. The network will run smoothly, or the records will be accurate or the house won't fall over. In the teaching profession, there seems to be an institutional resistance toward defining success and failure and exposing the criteria upon which we judge whether the experts we hired are delivering what they promised.
I've mentioned this half a dozen times in the thread and nobody seems to want to engage on the point. Do you have thoughts on it?
Well, when the people pushing these definitions have ulterior motives, why shouldn't you expect institutional resistance? Not to mention that they keep ignoring that elephant named Poverty in the middle of the room.
mrt144 I'm gonna take issue with your terminology and I hope you don't feel like I'm cherry picking - I think it serves to highlight something I think you missed.
The 'best students' are often not the most intelligent or the ones with the most potential - they're the ones who most successfully know how to navigate the system to maximum effect. We all know the slackers who were brilliant but bored and unmotivated, the outcast geeks who did the minimum because straight As got them beat up, and so on. These are archetypes because they're super common.
And then there are twice as many kids that are illiterate. I would worry about the illiterates before the tortured aloof zack morris types of the world, not only because of sheer numbers but also because of the impact that group has on society. This focus on lost brilliance is just so goddamn ridiculous to me because it seems like a way to focus on something so you don't have to worry about bigger issues, that may not affect you directly.
Maybe there should be some sort of option where those kids who have difficulty reading could be sent to schools with specialized teachers who can use alternate approaches to instruct them. Maybe, because they need more attention, the government should provide some extra funds for their education as well. By separating them out for the average students(at least for those subjects where they are challenged), those typical kids could be in classes with higher learning expectations and their mainstream teachers would not have their performance dragged down by students how need more time and different methods which they are not able to provide.
Good idea, but... Parents just hate being told there kids need to be in a special class and will fight it tooth and nail. At the private school my little brothers go to my mom has gotten teachers to pass them when they clearly do not deserve it. The kids found out they won't be held back so now they don't do their homework.
I think we should do it anyways. Thing is, we as a society are really bad at telling people that they are wrong/not exceptional and that they need to do XYZ thing to rectify it. There are a lot of issues where its understood by professionals and academics that certain actions or ways of doing things improve the lives of everyone, but the general public who does not have a good understanding of the issue has a totally different perspective that is not shaped by the realities of the situation, and so the public is against a lot of things that are in everyone's bests interests,
It's not about "you aren't exceptional".
It's the fact that any of these things mentioned (being held back a grade or being streamed into the "dumber" class) are incredibly stigmatized and insulting and socially crippling. You are literally telling the kid and their parents "You are stupid". No one takes that well and no one ever has.
Thing is, this could be fixed by better education. Stupid is not a meaningful concept, it's an abstract subjective notion of another person's intelligence. No one is saying anyone's child is stupid. Were saying that the child is not learning the material in a way that is demonstrable, and therefore we employ other methods.
All this? Doesn't mean a fucking thing. Nothing you've said will actually convince anyone. Do you really think any parent or child is gonna be convinced by what you are saying above?
Getting streamed dumber or getting held back is, to pretty much everyone, educational failure. And educational failure is just a fancy word for "You are dumb" to people.
But really, I would rather live in a society where we tell people they are idiots and put them in special classes than one where we ignore any notion of merit in favor of social promotion.
Sure, you would. You likely aren't the one being told they are stupid after all.
I did not learn Algebra in high school. I took the class four times, and the fourth time the teacher helped me cheat. I am now in college, and I had to take several extra semesters of remedial math in order to get myself to the level of the material that is being taught in the college. In hindsight, I would rather the teacher have held me back and kept me in high school another year, because it turns out algebra was something I really needed to know.
In hindsight, maybe. At the time, you don't seem to have given the least shit.
1: I cared plenty, however, I did not have any help from my parents or anyone else in my life. I needed help on a 1 on 1 basis, and I was not getting that.
I mean you didn't care that you'd "cheated" at the time. Hindsight isn't relevant to this conversation.
2: I would have been told I was stupid. It's only post high school that I've learned the things I was actually supposed to learn in high school. It's not because I did not want to learn while I was there, its because the learning environment I was in was not conducive to my learning.
3: I think we can convince people just fine if we frame the argument properly. I'm not here to show off my debating skills, I'm here to give my input on what I think should be done. It is only after you have agreed that a particular action is superior to others that you then decide what the best way to implement it is.
I think you are kidding yourself if you believe there's a good way to tell a kid "You are dumb" or a parent "Your kid is dumb".
If you don't think there is a good way to tell a kid that, I think your education failed you.
"The issue misses Mumford, is that the learning environment in the classroom we've put your child in is not ideal for his learning habits. There are several distinct learning styles, and our main classroom caters to children of a popular learning style. Your child however, is far too brilliant to be learning in the same classroom that ordinary children learn in. His learning style is different, and there are some distinct advantages to your child's learning style. Many academics would say that it is a much better learning style, for much smarter people. If we get him into a classroom that caters to this learning style, we believe that he can excel far beyond what he would achieve if we kept him in his current classroom."
This is something I made up in a matter of minutes, a good orator could convince you that your child was brilliant and that you were putting him in a gifted classroom when your actually giving him remedial math. It's all in the framing of the discussion. A good administrator could continue to convince the parent that their child was gifted, and in a gifted classroom even while he was only taking remedial classes.
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
Kids need a stable home life in order to succeed in school. This is why poorer students and poorer areas have poorer schools. The current trend of stripping funding for those schools or letting the rich kids skip out to the local charter school isn't addressing that problem.
A lottery system like the one we have here solves both the 'poorer kids = poorer schools' and 'rich kids flee to the charter' problems.
I would like to hear how you'd address the problem in a system with no charters, with some specifics.
You need to have a bottom level of funding that we don't cut past, and this level should be high enough to provide teachers with the tools they need to help students succeed, as well as providing for extracurriculars (because we need well rounded citizens, not STEM-bots).
But we can't address the school problem without addressing the poverty problem, like Hedgie was saying.
If a kid goes home to a unstable place it doesn't matter how extraordinary the classroom is.
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited August 2012
the problem is the populace at large have a conception of intelligence that is actively harmful. and i dont just mean harmful in the sense of "oh it makes johnny feel bad", i mean harmful in the sense that believing in innate intelligence actively makes your performance worse. see carol dwecks stuff on growth mindsets
surrealitycheck on
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HachfaceNot the Minister Farrakhan you're thinking ofDammit, Shepard!Registered Userregular
I'm pretty comfortable saying that the teachers at my charter school would hate working in the public system, so I guess that works out. I'm glad both of them exist, so that teachers can excel in an environment that suits their style.
It's not like this in ALL charter schools. A lot of the people in my alternate route program had jobs in charter schools and they would've strongly preferred to work in a public school. As lilnoobs said above, they have less job security. Typically, they're also paid less and get worse benefits. Almost every charter school teacher I know is only working in one because they can't find a job in a public school right now. Turnover rates are pretty high, among both teachers and administration.
This is absolutely true. Most teachers prefer to work in traditional public schools. There are exceptions, of course. For instance, if a charter school has a strong orientation toward a particular educational approach, like the Montessori method, then it will attract teachers who are true believers of that program. Teachers with strong religious convictions will also tend toward private schools that share their beliefs. In general, though, public school teachers actually enjoy more autonomy in their classrooms than their charter- and private-school peers. And the pay and benefits often are not even comparable. In the public schools teaching is a relatively well-paying, secure union job. In charters schools it can easily be a deeply exploitative working environment, similar to that faced by childcare workers.
Speaking of childcare workers, the single best thing that the United States could do for its children is to establish free public preschools for all citizens. The state and federal governments spend an enormous amount of money on both K-12 and higher education, but almost nothing is spent on early childhood education. It is difficult to overstate how perverse this is. Early childhood education is extremely important, and policymakers have failed to recognize this for literally centuries. Kids who are immersed in an intellectually stimulating environment during their preschool years have an enormous advantage in the formal K-12 system compared to their peers who are not. If our goal is to make all students college-ready [a goal of questionable value, but let's accept it for the sake of argument] our first focus needs to be to make sure all children are kindergarten-ready.
I have to ask you to source this claim. Everything I've read on the subject says that the advantages are temporary and within a year or two, kids without this sort of preschool environment have caught up to their peers and perform at the same level.
My claim: Kids who are immersed in an intellectually stimulating environment during their preschool years have an enormous advantage in the formal K-12 system compared to their peers who are not.
The Importance of Early Years Experience
We learned from the longitudinal data that the problem of skill differences among children at the time of school entry is bigger, more intractable, and more important than we had thought. So much is happening to children during their first three years at home, at a time when they are especially malleable and uniquely dependent on the family for virtually all their experience, that by age 3, an intervention must address not just a lack of knowledge or skill, but an entire general approach to experience. Cognitively, experience is sequential: Experiences in infancy establish habits of seeking, noticing, and incorporating new and more complex experiences, as well as schemas for categorizing and thinking about experiences. Neurologically, infancy is a critical period because cortical development is influenced by the amount of central nervous system activity stimulated by experience. Behaviorally, infancy is a unique time of helplessness when nearly all of children’s experience is mediated by adults in one-to-one interactions permeated with affect. Once children become independent and can speak for themselves, they gain access to more opportunities for experience. But the amount and diversity of children’s past experience influences which new opportunities for experience they notice and choose. Estimating, as we did, the magnitude of the differences in children’s cumulative experience before the age of 3 gives an indication of how big the problem is. Estimating the hours of intervention needed to equalize children’s early experience makes clear the enormity of the effort that would be required to change children’s lives. And the longer the effort is put off, the less possible the change becomes. We see why our brief, intense efforts during the War on Poverty did not succeed. But we also see the risk to our nation and
its children that makes intervention more urgent than ever.
Conclusions Participation in an established early childhood intervention for low income children was associated with better educational and social outcomes up to age 20 years. These findings are among the strongest evidence that established programs administered through public schools can promote children’s long-term success.
Hedgie, rich and poor parents have the same opportunity for entrance into a charter school that does admissions by lottery. It absolutely does solve that problem.
I do agree with you that the issue is very much tied to poverty and efforts in that regard should bring all sorts of positive outcomes, including in education.
Yes, they have the same opportunity to enter, just as the rich and the poor are equally restricted by vagrancy laws.
I don't see why we can't do both, folks. One magnet for the brilliant kids, one for the kids who are struggling with basic skills.
What would you rather do, mrt? Set average as our target, and tell everyone to shoot for that? "Kids, the lesson from 14 years of school is that the minimum is all you really need, and definitely all we're going to ask of you. More than that is up to you and your bootstraps."
That seems a strange sentiment around here, and not one I'd expect to see much support for. Yeah, I'm being a little flippant, but the question is honest: what would you have us do with this cohort of kids who are obviously intelligent and for whom the standard curriculum is clearly insufficient?
I'd tell them and their parents to go fuck themselves for taking resources away from children who clearly need more help than their motivational problems, they'll wind up fine and they could maybe apply themselves in helping the less intelligent and struggling children do better, and if they don't accept that challenge, then good riddance to societal rubbish.
The red part is not a safe bet. Smart kids do not "end up fine" without support.
And this whole post and your entire attitude is remarkably dickish. We don't encourage smart kids to help struggling kids do better. (This is actually one of the successes of the Finland method that we should replicate here.) What do you expect an intelligent student to do? Wander out of his GATE class into the remedial classes and announce, "I'm here to tutor!?" Do you really expect a 13-year-old to do that? Do you expect the teachers and staff to go along with it?
And calling them societal rubbish? What the fuck, man? I don't even know what to say to that.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
In the greater Memphis metro area, for a very long time now, there have essentially been two school systems: Memphis City and Shelby County. City schools deal with everything inside the actual incorporated Memphis city limits and county schools deal with suburbs and the outlying rural areas. The city school system is the worst in the state; the county system is one of the best. Both systems receive identical funding on a per-student basis. (Actually, the city gets more, because the city has a small additional tax to support education and the city system is bad enough that it qualifies for government grants and stuff.)
I am extraordinarily skeptical that the issue can be boiled down to "more funding, please."
I would say that a good rule of thumb when dealing with educational needs is to ask the teachers, "What do you need in order to do your job?" and then give it to them. You know, pretty much the same as in any other professional field. The guy running IT is going to know what equipment he needs to make the network run smoothly. The guy doing your accounting is going to know what software he needs to keep your records maintained. The carpenter knows what tools he needs to build your house. If you want these things done properly, you make sure these well-trained professionals have what they need. I don't get why education should not be approached in exactly the same way, rather than treated as if teachers are a bunch of lazy, petulant fuckers who demand ridiculous things and should never be trusted with any degree of authority over the thing they were hired to be experts at.
The difference is that in those other professional fields there is a set of criteria through which we can determine whether or not their requests turned out to be sensible and correct. The network will run smoothly, or the records will be accurate or the house won't fall over. In the teaching profession, there seems to be an institutional resistance toward defining success and failure and exposing the criteria upon which we judge whether the experts we hired are delivering what they promised.
I've mentioned this half a dozen times in the thread and nobody seems to want to engage on the point. Do you have thoughts on it?
Well, when the people pushing these definitions have ulterior motives, why shouldn't you expect institutional resistance? Not to mention that they keep ignoring that elephant named Poverty in the middle of the room.
You provided a link for why progressives distrust a specific couple of programs. I don't think that really maps well to "why institutions resist establishing criteria for teacher success and failure". In fact I feel like you're sort of dancing around the issue. If you feel poverty of the students should be a factor in determining criteria for teacher success and failure, say that in your post engaging the point.
I have to confess I really don't give a shit what The Progressives are uncomfortable with, especially ones who say things like:
On my view, KIPP is a very regressive philosophy. It’s “work hard, be nice” mantra sounds wonderful to many people, but to me, given that KIPP is working mostly with poor students of color, it sounds very much like “get back in your place. Don’t complain. Do what you’re told.”
mrt144 I'm gonna take issue with your terminology and I hope you don't feel like I'm cherry picking - I think it serves to highlight something I think you missed.
The 'best students' are often not the most intelligent or the ones with the most potential - they're the ones who most successfully know how to navigate the system to maximum effect. We all know the slackers who were brilliant but bored and unmotivated, the outcast geeks who did the minimum because straight As got them beat up, and so on. These are archetypes because they're super common.
And then there are twice as many kids that are illiterate. I would worry about the illiterates before the tortured aloof zack morris types of the world, not only because of sheer numbers but also because of the impact that group has on society. This focus on lost brilliance is just so goddamn ridiculous to me because it seems like a way to focus on something so you don't have to worry about bigger issues, that may not affect you directly.
Maybe there should be some sort of option where those kids who have difficulty reading could be sent to schools with specialized teachers who can use alternate approaches to instruct them. Maybe, because they need more attention, the government should provide some extra funds for their education as well. By separating them out for the average students(at least for those subjects where they are challenged), those typical kids could be in classes with higher learning expectations and their mainstream teachers would not have their performance dragged down by students how need more time and different methods which they are not able to provide.
Good idea, but... Parents just hate being told there kids need to be in a special class and will fight it tooth and nail. At the private school my little brothers go to my mom has gotten teachers to pass them when they clearly do not deserve it. The kids found out they won't be held back so now they don't do their homework.
I think we should do it anyways. Thing is, we as a society are really bad at telling people that they are wrong/not exceptional and that they need to do XYZ thing to rectify it. There are a lot of issues where its understood by professionals and academics that certain actions or ways of doing things improve the lives of everyone, but the general public who does not have a good understanding of the issue has a totally different perspective that is not shaped by the realities of the situation, and so the public is against a lot of things that are in everyone's bests interests,
It's not about "you aren't exceptional".
It's the fact that any of these things mentioned (being held back a grade or being streamed into the "dumber" class) are incredibly stigmatized and insulting and socially crippling. You are literally telling the kid and their parents "You are stupid". No one takes that well and no one ever has.
Thing is, this could be fixed by better education. Stupid is not a meaningful concept, it's an abstract subjective notion of another person's intelligence. No one is saying anyone's child is stupid. Were saying that the child is not learning the material in a way that is demonstrable, and therefore we employ other methods.
All this? Doesn't mean a fucking thing. Nothing you've said will actually convince anyone. Do you really think any parent or child is gonna be convinced by what you are saying above?
Getting streamed dumber or getting held back is, to pretty much everyone, educational failure. And educational failure is just a fancy word for "You are dumb" to people.
But really, I would rather live in a society where we tell people they are idiots and put them in special classes than one where we ignore any notion of merit in favor of social promotion.
Sure, you would. You likely aren't the one being told they are stupid after all.
I did not learn Algebra in high school. I took the class four times, and the fourth time the teacher helped me cheat. I am now in college, and I had to take several extra semesters of remedial math in order to get myself to the level of the material that is being taught in the college. In hindsight, I would rather the teacher have held me back and kept me in high school another year, because it turns out algebra was something I really needed to know.
In hindsight, maybe. At the time, you don't seem to have given the least shit.
1: I cared plenty, however, I did not have any help from my parents or anyone else in my life. I needed help on a 1 on 1 basis, and I was not getting that.
I mean you didn't care that you'd "cheated" at the time. Hindsight isn't relevant to this conversation.
2: I would have been told I was stupid. It's only post high school that I've learned the things I was actually supposed to learn in high school. It's not because I did not want to learn while I was there, its because the learning environment I was in was not conducive to my learning.
3: I think we can convince people just fine if we frame the argument properly. I'm not here to show off my debating skills, I'm here to give my input on what I think should be done. It is only after you have agreed that a particular action is superior to others that you then decide what the best way to implement it is.
I think you are kidding yourself if you believe there's a good way to tell a kid "You are dumb" or a parent "Your kid is dumb".
If you don't think there is a good way to tell a kid that, I think your education failed you.
"The issue misses Mumford, is that the learning environment in the classroom we've put your child in is not ideal for his learning habits. There are several distinct learning styles, and our main classroom caters to children of a popular learning style. Your child however, is far too brilliant to be learning in the same classroom that ordinary children learn in. His learning style is different, and there are some distinct advantages to your child's learning style. Many academics would say that it is a much better learning style, for much smarter people. If we get him into a classroom that caters to this learning style, we believe that he can excel far beyond what he would achieve if we kept him in his current classroom."
This is something I made up in a matter of minutes, a good orator could convince you that your child was brilliant and that you were putting him in a gifted classroom when your actually giving him remedial math. It's all in the framing of the discussion. A good administrator could continue to convince the parent that their child was gifted, and in a gifted classroom even while he was only taking remedial classes.
It's also fundamentally dishonest if used in such a manner.
AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
I should point out that I don't really have a problem with charter schools, I just don't think our educational policy should be about them.
We need to focus on our public school system since that's one of the few things government is actually for. If charter schools want to exist outside of that, good for them, but the government shouldn't be helping them at the expense of the public system.
the problem is the populace at large have a conception of intelligence that is actively harmful. and i dont just mean harmful in the sense of "oh it makes johnny feel bad", i mean harmful in the sense that believing in innate intelligence activately makes your performance worse. see carol dwecks stuff on growth mindsets
I love Carol Dweck so much and I was just about to bring her up.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
mrt144 I'm gonna take issue with your terminology and I hope you don't feel like I'm cherry picking - I think it serves to highlight something I think you missed.
The 'best students' are often not the most intelligent or the ones with the most potential - they're the ones who most successfully know how to navigate the system to maximum effect. We all know the slackers who were brilliant but bored and unmotivated, the outcast geeks who did the minimum because straight As got them beat up, and so on. These are archetypes because they're super common.
And then there are twice as many kids that are illiterate. I would worry about the illiterates before the tortured aloof zack morris types of the world, not only because of sheer numbers but also because of the impact that group has on society. This focus on lost brilliance is just so goddamn ridiculous to me because it seems like a way to focus on something so you don't have to worry about bigger issues, that may not affect you directly.
Maybe there should be some sort of option where those kids who have difficulty reading could be sent to schools with specialized teachers who can use alternate approaches to instruct them. Maybe, because they need more attention, the government should provide some extra funds for their education as well. By separating them out for the average students(at least for those subjects where they are challenged), those typical kids could be in classes with higher learning expectations and their mainstream teachers would not have their performance dragged down by students how need more time and different methods which they are not able to provide.
Good idea, but... Parents just hate being told there kids need to be in a special class and will fight it tooth and nail. At the private school my little brothers go to my mom has gotten teachers to pass them when they clearly do not deserve it. The kids found out they won't be held back so now they don't do their homework.
I think we should do it anyways. Thing is, we as a society are really bad at telling people that they are wrong/not exceptional and that they need to do XYZ thing to rectify it. There are a lot of issues where its understood by professionals and academics that certain actions or ways of doing things improve the lives of everyone, but the general public who does not have a good understanding of the issue has a totally different perspective that is not shaped by the realities of the situation, and so the public is against a lot of things that are in everyone's bests interests,
It's not about "you aren't exceptional".
It's the fact that any of these things mentioned (being held back a grade or being streamed into the "dumber" class) are incredibly stigmatized and insulting and socially crippling. You are literally telling the kid and their parents "You are stupid". No one takes that well and no one ever has.
Thing is, this could be fixed by better education. Stupid is not a meaningful concept, it's an abstract subjective notion of another person's intelligence. No one is saying anyone's child is stupid. Were saying that the child is not learning the material in a way that is demonstrable, and therefore we employ other methods.
All this? Doesn't mean a fucking thing. Nothing you've said will actually convince anyone. Do you really think any parent or child is gonna be convinced by what you are saying above?
Getting streamed dumber or getting held back is, to pretty much everyone, educational failure. And educational failure is just a fancy word for "You are dumb" to people.
But really, I would rather live in a society where we tell people they are idiots and put them in special classes than one where we ignore any notion of merit in favor of social promotion.
Sure, you would. You likely aren't the one being told they are stupid after all.
I did not learn Algebra in high school. I took the class four times, and the fourth time the teacher helped me cheat. I am now in college, and I had to take several extra semesters of remedial math in order to get myself to the level of the material that is being taught in the college. In hindsight, I would rather the teacher have held me back and kept me in high school another year, because it turns out algebra was something I really needed to know.
In hindsight, maybe. At the time, you don't seem to have given the least shit.
1: I cared plenty, however, I did not have any help from my parents or anyone else in my life. I needed help on a 1 on 1 basis, and I was not getting that.
I mean you didn't care that you'd "cheated" at the time. Hindsight isn't relevant to this conversation.
2: I would have been told I was stupid. It's only post high school that I've learned the things I was actually supposed to learn in high school. It's not because I did not want to learn while I was there, its because the learning environment I was in was not conducive to my learning.
3: I think we can convince people just fine if we frame the argument properly. I'm not here to show off my debating skills, I'm here to give my input on what I think should be done. It is only after you have agreed that a particular action is superior to others that you then decide what the best way to implement it is.
I think you are kidding yourself if you believe there's a good way to tell a kid "You are dumb" or a parent "Your kid is dumb".
If you don't think there is a good way to tell a kid that, I think your education failed you.
"The issue misses Mumford, is that the learning environment in the classroom we've put your child in is not ideal for his learning habits. There are several distinct learning styles, and our main classroom caters to children of a popular learning style. Your child however, is far too brilliant to be learning in the same classroom that ordinary children learn in. His learning style is different, and there are some distinct advantages to your child's learning style. Many academics would say that it is a much better learning style, for much smarter people. If we get him into a classroom that caters to this learning style, we believe that he can excel far beyond what he would achieve if we kept him in his current classroom."
This is something I made up in a matter of minutes, a good orator could convince you that your child was brilliant and that you were putting him in a gifted classroom when your actually giving him remedial math. It's all in the framing of the discussion. A good administrator could continue to convince the parent that their child was gifted, and in a gifted classroom even while he was only taking remedial classes.
It's also fundamentally dishonest if used in such a manner.
Yeah, have to agree here. The solution to that problem is not to straight-up lie to the parents.
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mrt144King of the NumbernamesRegistered Userregular
I don't see why we can't do both, folks. One magnet for the brilliant kids, one for the kids who are struggling with basic skills.
What would you rather do, mrt? Set average as our target, and tell everyone to shoot for that? "Kids, the lesson from 14 years of school is that the minimum is all you really need, and definitely all we're going to ask of you. More than that is up to you and your bootstraps."
That seems a strange sentiment around here, and not one I'd expect to see much support for. Yeah, I'm being a little flippant, but the question is honest: what would you have us do with this cohort of kids who are obviously intelligent and for whom the standard curriculum is clearly insufficient?
I'd tell them and their parents to go fuck themselves for taking resources away from children who clearly need more help than their motivational problems, they'll wind up fine and they could maybe apply themselves in helping the less intelligent and struggling children do better, and if they don't accept that challenge, then good riddance to societal rubbish.
The red part is not a safe bet. Smart kids do not "end up fine" without support.
And this whole post and your entire attitude is remarkably dickish. We don't encourage smart kids to help struggling kids do better. (This is actually one of the successes of the Finland method that we should replicate here.) What do you expect an intelligent student to do? Wander out of his GATE class into the remedial classes and announce, "I'm here to tutor!?" Do you really expect a 13-year-old to do that? Do you expect the teachers and staff to go along with it?
And calling them societal rubbish? What the fuck, man? I don't even know what to say to that.
Im hung over and feeling extremely dickish right now. I'm just tired of the same old luke warm, "Think of the underserved smart children" sentiment that gets tossed around when discussing reform.
And I don't expect 13 year olds to do much of anything other than fap way too much.
Kids need a stable home life in order to succeed in school. This is why poorer students and poorer areas have poorer schools. The current trend of stripping funding for those schools or letting the rich kids skip out to the local charter school isn't addressing that problem.
A lottery system like the one we have here solves both the 'poorer kids = poorer schools' and 'rich kids flee to the charter' problems.
I would like to hear how you'd address the problem in a system with no charters, with some specifics.
You need to have a bottom level of funding that we don't cut past, and this level should be high enough to provide teachers with the tools they need to help students succeed, as well as providing for extracurriculars (because we need well rounded citizens, not STEM-bots).
But we can't address the school problem without addressing the poverty problem, like Hedgie was saying.
If a kid goes home to a unstable place it doesn't matter how extraordinary the classroom is.
mrt144 I'm gonna take issue with your terminology and I hope you don't feel like I'm cherry picking - I think it serves to highlight something I think you missed.
The 'best students' are often not the most intelligent or the ones with the most potential - they're the ones who most successfully know how to navigate the system to maximum effect. We all know the slackers who were brilliant but bored and unmotivated, the outcast geeks who did the minimum because straight As got them beat up, and so on. These are archetypes because they're super common.
And then there are twice as many kids that are illiterate. I would worry about the illiterates before the tortured aloof zack morris types of the world, not only because of sheer numbers but also because of the impact that group has on society. This focus on lost brilliance is just so goddamn ridiculous to me because it seems like a way to focus on something so you don't have to worry about bigger issues, that may not affect you directly.
Maybe there should be some sort of option where those kids who have difficulty reading could be sent to schools with specialized teachers who can use alternate approaches to instruct them. Maybe, because they need more attention, the government should provide some extra funds for their education as well. By separating them out for the average students(at least for those subjects where they are challenged), those typical kids could be in classes with higher learning expectations and their mainstream teachers would not have their performance dragged down by students how need more time and different methods which they are not able to provide.
Good idea, but... Parents just hate being told there kids need to be in a special class and will fight it tooth and nail. At the private school my little brothers go to my mom has gotten teachers to pass them when they clearly do not deserve it. The kids found out they won't be held back so now they don't do their homework.
I think we should do it anyways. Thing is, we as a society are really bad at telling people that they are wrong/not exceptional and that they need to do XYZ thing to rectify it. There are a lot of issues where its understood by professionals and academics that certain actions or ways of doing things improve the lives of everyone, but the general public who does not have a good understanding of the issue has a totally different perspective that is not shaped by the realities of the situation, and so the public is against a lot of things that are in everyone's bests interests,
It's not about "you aren't exceptional".
It's the fact that any of these things mentioned (being held back a grade or being streamed into the "dumber" class) are incredibly stigmatized and insulting and socially crippling. You are literally telling the kid and their parents "You are stupid". No one takes that well and no one ever has.
Thing is, this could be fixed by better education. Stupid is not a meaningful concept, it's an abstract subjective notion of another person's intelligence. No one is saying anyone's child is stupid. Were saying that the child is not learning the material in a way that is demonstrable, and therefore we employ other methods.
All this? Doesn't mean a fucking thing. Nothing you've said will actually convince anyone. Do you really think any parent or child is gonna be convinced by what you are saying above?
Getting streamed dumber or getting held back is, to pretty much everyone, educational failure. And educational failure is just a fancy word for "You are dumb" to people.
But really, I would rather live in a society where we tell people they are idiots and put them in special classes than one where we ignore any notion of merit in favor of social promotion.
Sure, you would. You likely aren't the one being told they are stupid after all.
I did not learn Algebra in high school. I took the class four times, and the fourth time the teacher helped me cheat. I am now in college, and I had to take several extra semesters of remedial math in order to get myself to the level of the material that is being taught in the college. In hindsight, I would rather the teacher have held me back and kept me in high school another year, because it turns out algebra was something I really needed to know.
In hindsight, maybe. At the time, you don't seem to have given the least shit.
1: I cared plenty, however, I did not have any help from my parents or anyone else in my life. I needed help on a 1 on 1 basis, and I was not getting that.
I mean you didn't care that you'd "cheated" at the time. Hindsight isn't relevant to this conversation.
2: I would have been told I was stupid. It's only post high school that I've learned the things I was actually supposed to learn in high school. It's not because I did not want to learn while I was there, its because the learning environment I was in was not conducive to my learning.
3: I think we can convince people just fine if we frame the argument properly. I'm not here to show off my debating skills, I'm here to give my input on what I think should be done. It is only after you have agreed that a particular action is superior to others that you then decide what the best way to implement it is.
I think you are kidding yourself if you believe there's a good way to tell a kid "You are dumb" or a parent "Your kid is dumb".
If you don't think there is a good way to tell a kid that, I think your education failed you.
"The issue misses Mumford, is that the learning environment in the classroom we've put your child in is not ideal for his learning habits. There are several distinct learning styles, and our main classroom caters to children of a popular learning style. Your child however, is far too brilliant to be learning in the same classroom that ordinary children learn in. His learning style is different, and there are some distinct advantages to your child's learning style. Many academics would say that it is a much better learning style, for much smarter people. If we get him into a classroom that caters to this learning style, we believe that he can excel far beyond what he would achieve if we kept him in his current classroom."
This is something I made up in a matter of minutes, a good orator could convince you that your child was brilliant and that you were putting him in a gifted classroom when your actually giving him remedial math. It's all in the framing of the discussion. A good administrator could continue to convince the parent that their child was gifted, and in a gifted classroom even while he was only taking remedial classes.
I don't see that convincing anyone past the point where you put him back in the same class or put him in a class where they are learning slower, if it even gets there. People aren't so dumb they don't know when people start talking slow to them.
Plus, the only way this even remotely works is a complete restructuring of how we handle people who aren't succeeding in traditional education. Your lie doesn't survive past the kid being immersed in the truth.
shryke on
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
there are a vanishingly small number of actually "stupid" children, in the sense that people use the word
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mrt144King of the NumbernamesRegistered Userregular
edited August 2012
You only move twice is a great episode about this.
Posts
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/24157766/#Comment_24157766
I am continually confused by how you can think there is a statistically significant number of teachers who go into the field so they can have cushy jobs that allow them to be lazy and incompetent. Like, I do not understand how you came to such a worldview. It is sort of like assuming that people become doctors because they want a fast and easy way to make a buck without having to work too hard.
People who want a job where they are allowed to "fuck up a bunch" tend not to become teachers. Stop propogating the completely fucking clownshoes notion that teachers are the enemy.
the problem with testing out is that anyone who has innate intelligence above their peers will test out of learning how to learn. This is what happened to me. After years of being in the talented and gifted programs in elementary and middle school and coasting by on my uncanny love for encyclopedias at a young age, I didn't know how to do things, like write well. I didn't know how to study for subjects I had not previously had interaction and fascination with.
If there's one thing that you can't do, it's let kids off the hook from learning how to learn.
No, see, you're doing it again.
That was not clearly what he meant, but he's well capable of defending himself.
You are consistently misrepresenting opposing viewpoints on this topic and it is making having a conversation almost impossible.
There's nothing wrong with pointing out that the 80s movie stereotypes you pointed out are not the largest segments of the student population which is underserved.
Kids need a stable home life in order to succeed in school. This is why poorer students and poorer areas have poorer schools. The current trend of stripping funding for those schools or letting the rich kids skip out to the local charter school isn't addressing that problem.
This isn't a zero sum game, folks. At least it wouldn't be if we didn't demand a return on investment that is immediate and tangible.
Thing is, this could be fixed by better education. Stupid is not a meaningful concept, it's an abstract subjective notion of another person's intelligence. No one is saying anyone's child is stupid. Were saying that the child is not learning the material in a way that is demonstrable, and therefore we employ other methods.
But really, I would rather live in a society where we tell people they are idiots and put them in special classes than one where we ignore any notion of merit in favor of social promotion.
I did not learn Algebra in high school. I took the class four times, and the fourth time the teacher helped me cheat. I am now in college, and I had to take several extra semesters of remedial math in order to get myself to the level of the material that is being taught in the college. In hindsight, I would rather the teacher have held me back and kept me in high school another year, because it turns out algebra was something I really needed to know.
Yeah, getting a masters degree so you can earn less than 40k a year starting out, working 12 hour days during the school year, paying for supplies out of your own pocket, all in the name of being able to fuck up a bunch...
there are easier ways to coast through life than being a teacher in a union.
Yeah, I shouldn't have included that line. I don't think teachers go into the field because they want the opportunity to be terrible and not face consequences, but I do think that the system often shields teachers who turn out to be bad at their jobs for whatever reason. I've described a number of ways I think we could fix that, and admitted that the problem is pretty damned tough to get your arms around.
I'm not demonizing teachers so much as demonizing a system that resists consequences for failure (or even a clear definition of failure).
I'd rather not take from those who need the most and give to those who need the least. Which is the dynamic we see over and over again when tracking of this sort is used.
I think it's foolish to think that the most under served constituency in the classroom are the aloof geniuses that just don't have enough fire under their asses, from either themselves, their parents, or the school.
But spool has funny opinions on giving those that already have advantages more advantages. Rich people with taxes, smart kids with magnet schools.
I mean, can we even diagram a worst case scenario for someone that is intelligent and aloof vs. someone that can't even read at a grade level several years behind themselves? I know theres the cliche of "you can't survive on your wits alone" but by and large, you can. What is the greater tragedy in America? That some students do so poorly that they drop out of high school before 11th grade or that a very intelligent child didn't apply themselves nearly enough and are going to chico state.
All this? Doesn't mean a fucking thing. Nothing you've said will actually convince anyone. Do you really think any parent or child is gonna be convinced by what you are saying above?
Getting streamed dumber or getting held back is, to pretty much everyone, educational failure. And educational failure is just a fancy word for "You are dumb" to people.
Sure, you would. You likely aren't the one being told they are stupid after all.
In hindsight, maybe. At the time, you don't seem to have given the least shit.
A lottery system like the one we have here solves both the 'poorer kids = poorer schools' and 'rich kids flee to the charter' problems.
I would like to hear how you'd address the problem in a system with no charters, with some specifics.
Okay, but what about the research paper idea? That would fall under the category of learning how to learn. If you can write a research paper that demonstrates you have a solid grasp of an era of history or a series of interrelated concepts, at that point why would you even want the kid in the class? Not only can they write a paper, they can cite sources and follow a format.
With your comment about not learning to write in a gifted program, I think you've made an excellent case for more oversight of our school system.
Questions:
- Does the funding get normalized for variations in cost of living? (Running things in an urban area is much more expensive than running things in the middle of farm land.)
- Are the schools receiving students with the same basic demographic breakdown?
- Are the teachers in the rural area being offered the same pay as those in the urban area, despite the differences in working in those areas?
- Are the neighborhoods in these different schools equally desirable?
- Are the schools of the same size? (I would expect there to be operational cost differences between running a large school and a small school, or between a rural school and an urban school, that are not reflected in an identical per-student funding rate.)
- Were the schools built at the same time? Are they in equivalent states of repair?
- What do the teachers in the underperforming school say that they need more of? Because again, I doubt they have literally no idea of how to fix things.
I would say that a good rule of thumb when dealing with educational needs is to ask the teachers, "What do you need in order to do your job?" and then give it to them. You know, pretty much the same as in any other professional field. The guy running IT is going to know what equipment he needs to make the network run smoothly. The guy doing your accounting is going to know what software he needs to keep your records maintained. The carpenter knows what tools he needs to build your house. If you want these things done properly, you make sure these well-trained professionals have what they need. I don't get why education should not be approached in exactly the same way, rather than treated as if teachers are a bunch of lazy, petulant fuckers who demand ridiculous things and should never be trusted with any degree of authority over the thing they were hired to be experts at.
Stop trying to impose your rigid ideas of pedagogy on our precious little genius minds.
The difference is that in those other professional fields there is a set of criteria through which we can determine whether or not their requests turned out to be sensible and correct. The network will run smoothly, or the records will be accurate or the house won't fall over. In the teaching profession, there seems to be an institutional resistance toward defining success and failure and exposing the criteria upon which we judge whether the experts we hired are delivering what they promised.
I've mentioned this half a dozen times in the thread and nobody seems to want to engage on the point. Do you have thoughts on it?
1: I cared plenty, however, I did not have any help from my parents or anyone else in my life. I needed help on a 1 on 1 basis, and I was not getting that.
2: I would have been told I was stupid. It's only post high school that I've learned the things I was actually supposed to learn in high school. It's not because I did not want to learn while I was there, its because the learning environment I was in was not conducive to my learning.
3: I think we can convince people just fine if we frame the argument properly. I'm not here to show off my debating skills, I'm here to give my input on what I think should be done. It is only after you have agreed that a particular action is superior to others that you then decide what the best way to implement it is.
Whats your solution?
Except that the lottery system doesn't solve those problems at all, as I explained to you previously. You keep falling into the Anatole France fallacy face first.
And addressing the problem means acknowledging it for what it is - an issue of poverty, not of the educational system.
OK, that's what you don't want to do. What should we do for these kids instead?
Acknowledge that they're a small portion of the student population, for one.
I do agree with you that the issue is very much tied to poverty and efforts in that regard should bring all sorts of positive outcomes, including in education.
OK. What else?
I mean you didn't care that you'd "cheated" at the time. Hindsight isn't relevant to this conversation.
I think you are kidding yourself if you believe there's a good way to tell a kid "You are dumb" or a parent "Your kid is dumb".
Well, when the people pushing these definitions have ulterior motives, why shouldn't you expect institutional resistance? Not to mention that they keep ignoring that elephant named Poverty in the middle of the room.
Some more on why this distrust exists.
If you don't think there is a good way to tell a kid that, I think your education failed you.
"The issue misses Mumford, is that the learning environment in the classroom we've put your child in is not ideal for his learning habits. There are several distinct learning styles, and our main classroom caters to children of a popular learning style. Your child however, is far too brilliant to be learning in the same classroom that ordinary children learn in. His learning style is different, and there are some distinct advantages to your child's learning style. Many academics would say that it is a much better learning style, for much smarter people. If we get him into a classroom that caters to this learning style, we believe that he can excel far beyond what he would achieve if we kept him in his current classroom."
This is something I made up in a matter of minutes, a good orator could convince you that your child was brilliant and that you were putting him in a gifted classroom when your actually giving him remedial math. It's all in the framing of the discussion. A good administrator could continue to convince the parent that their child was gifted, and in a gifted classroom even while he was only taking remedial classes.
You need to have a bottom level of funding that we don't cut past, and this level should be high enough to provide teachers with the tools they need to help students succeed, as well as providing for extracurriculars (because we need well rounded citizens, not STEM-bots).
But we can't address the school problem without addressing the poverty problem, like Hedgie was saying.
If a kid goes home to a unstable place it doesn't matter how extraordinary the classroom is.
My claim: Kids who are immersed in an intellectually stimulating environment during their preschool years have an enormous advantage in the formal K-12 system compared to their peers who are not.
One source: "The Early Catastrophe: The 30 Million Word Gap by Age 3" by education researchers Betty Hart and Todd R. Risley
http://www.gsa.gov/graphics/pbs/The_Early_Catastrophe_30_Million_Word_Gap_by_Age_3.pdf
Another source: "Long-term Effects on Early Childhood Intervention on Educational Achievement and Juvenile Arrest" by Reynolds, Temple et al
http://www.ccfc.ca.gov/pdf/help/chicago_cpc_jama.pdf
Yes, they have the same opportunity to enter, just as the rich and the poor are equally restricted by vagrancy laws.
The red part is not a safe bet. Smart kids do not "end up fine" without support.
And this whole post and your entire attitude is remarkably dickish. We don't encourage smart kids to help struggling kids do better. (This is actually one of the successes of the Finland method that we should replicate here.) What do you expect an intelligent student to do? Wander out of his GATE class into the remedial classes and announce, "I'm here to tutor!?" Do you really expect a 13-year-old to do that? Do you expect the teachers and staff to go along with it?
And calling them societal rubbish? What the fuck, man? I don't even know what to say to that.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I have to confess I really don't give a shit what The Progressives are uncomfortable with, especially ones who say things like:
We need to focus on our public school system since that's one of the few things government is actually for. If charter schools want to exist outside of that, good for them, but the government shouldn't be helping them at the expense of the public system.
I love Carol Dweck so much and I was just about to bring her up.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Yeah, have to agree here. The solution to that problem is not to straight-up lie to the parents.
Im hung over and feeling extremely dickish right now. I'm just tired of the same old luke warm, "Think of the underserved smart children" sentiment that gets tossed around when discussing reform.
And I don't expect 13 year olds to do much of anything other than fap way too much.
I agree with you, so far as it goes here.
I don't see that convincing anyone past the point where you put him back in the same class or put him in a class where they are learning slower, if it even gets there. People aren't so dumb they don't know when people start talking slow to them.
Plus, the only way this even remotely works is a complete restructuring of how we handle people who aren't succeeding in traditional education. Your lie doesn't survive past the kid being immersed in the truth.
You only move twice is a great episode about this.