posted
Anybody pay attention to the results of the academic performance study by OECD?
I mentioned this to Ted(Pod) and he had no idea what I was talking about. I'm surprised- America is much lower ranked then I thought I would have thought American's would want to change that and therefore people would take note of such a study.
I don't know how to copy and paste results from pdf's. The math results are on page 335/471, the reading results on page 438/471, and the science results on page 443/471.
How do you feel about your countries results? I'm not surprised about Canada's scores. Canada has a decent school system that is equal for all, but not the best for anything. Canada ranked 7th in Math, 3rd in Reading and 11th in Science. (There were 41 countries studied).
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"The PISA study, conducted every three years, ranked the United States 24th out of 29 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based group that represents the world's richest countries."
"The United States performed slightly ahead of Russia and on par with Latvia, but behind Hong Kong and Liechtenstein. Males outperformed females virtually everywhere on the math test, except in Iceland. In reading tests, females were uniformly ahead."
(I have no idea why 4 threads of the first post was created o_O I deleted them, I hope that didn't inconvenience anyone)
posted
I could not get either of your links to correctly open on my computer . . . the Washington Post one was doing maintenance, and the acrobat file just would not work. So I haven't read them, but here are some generic observations, and you tell me if either of these is relevant.
Similar studies have been done in the past, such as the TIMMS study of math skills, and had similar findings. A couple of objections are generally raised. First of all, many of the countries tested do not attempt to educate all of their students. I have visited countries where the public schools have been closed for years due to a strike that was never resolved, or due to civil unrest or whatever. In these cases, only children from the wealthiest families, with access to all kinds of resources, are educated (typically in private schools) and so they are the only ones who take the test. Thus, all of our students are competing with the most advantaged students from some countries.
Another issue is that it is hard to create a test that successfully tests certain skills, because it is hard to agree on what possession of these skills entails. Tests also tend to be biased to favor whatever model of pedagogy is preferred among the test designers. So, for instance, people will criticize the SAT test, and the meaningfulness of these scores, arguing that all they successfully test is whether or not a student is skilled in taking standardized "aptitude" tests. On the other hand, the designers of the math section of the FCAT exam in Florida wanted to emphasize problem solving, so the FCAT test in the middle school levels concentrates heavily on problem solving in the form of word problems. Students who are very skilled in solving equations or evaluating expressions can easily fail, if they cannot figure out how to generate expressions and equations from the described situations. Another example, in the area of disagreements in pedagogy driving definitions of a field, the drive by the NCTM to get Algebra I to be the standard math course taken in eighth grade (instead of in ninth grade as has been traditionally true) has lead to a redefinition of Algebra. Hatrack's brilliant exceptions aside, (in my opinion based on my experience) the average eighth grader, no matter how intelligent, is not intellectually mature enough to grasp the concepts of Algebra I in depth. Thus, in order to insure acceptable grade distributions and keep their jobs, middle school Algebra teachers are forced to redefine Algebra into "Algebraic thinking," thereby, in my opinion, watering it down. And so we can have two teachers failing to agree on just what "Algebra" is.
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posted
Where was Britain ranked? I ask this because I teach a LOT of British immigrants, and I am quite actively not impressed with their math education. Any test that places them above us will be immediately suspect in my book.
-o-
None of this is to say that I think the state of education in this country is hunky-dory. It would be interesting to see what higher-performing countries do differently from us. Do they pay their teachers like professionals, thus attracting and retaining a better quality of teacher? Do they attract and retain them in some other way? How do they deal with disruptive students? How big are their schools and their classes? How do the popular pedagogies in these countries differ from ours?
Again, though, I think these questions are hard to get answers to, independent of the filtering effect of the person who relays the information. NCTM (the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics in the USA), to which I belong, did a lot of articles on the educational methods of countries outperforming the US on the TIMMS studies, and their findings flat out contradicted my observations from teaching immigrants for many years, and their reports of what education in their homelands was right.
(The only place where their observations seemed accurate, ironically enough, was England.)
Assuming people don't lie, I think people see what they want to see, and don't even realize they are doing this.
posted
"A framework and conceptual underpinning for each assessment area in PISA was developed by international experts from participating countries and following consultation, agreed upon by governments of the participating countries (OECD, 1999a and OECD, 2003e). The framework starts with the concept of "literacy", which is concerned with the capacity of students to apply knowledge and skills to analyze, reason and communicate effectively as they pose, solve and interpret problems in a variety of situations.
The concept of literacy used in PISA is much broader than the historical notion of the ability to read and write. IT is measured on a continuum, not as something that an individual either does or does not have. It may be necessary or desirable for some purposes to define a point on a literacy continuum below which results of competence are considered inadequate, but the underlying variability is important. A literate person has a range of competencies and there is no precise dividing line between a person who is fully literate and one who is not.
The acquisition of literacy is a lifelong process- taking place not just in school or through formal learning, but also through interactions with peers, colleagues and wider communities. Fifteen-year-olds cannot be expected to have learned everything they will need to know as adults, but they should have a solid foundation of knowledge in areas such as reading, mathematics and science. In order to continue learning in these subject areas and to apply their learning to the real world, they also need to understand fundamental processes and principles and to use these flexibly in different situations. It is for this reason that PISA assesses the ability to complete tasks relating to real life, depending on a broad understanding of key concepts, rather than limiting the assessment to the possession of subject-specific knowledge.
As well as assessing competencies in the three core assessment areas, PISA aims to progressively examine the competencies across disciplinary boundaries. PISA 2000 made a start by asking students about motivation and other aspects of their attitudes towards learning, their familiarity with computers and, under the heading "self-regulated learning", aspects of their strategies for managing and monitoring their own learning. In PISA 2003, these elements were further developed and complemented with an assessment of problem solving knowledge and skills. In subsequent PISA surveys, further cross curricular competencies, as well as the use of information technologies, will play a growing role."
Perhaps this says it better:
"skills needed for mathematics: reproduction (simple mathematical operations); connections (bringing together ideas to solve straightforward problems); and reflection (wider mathematical thinking)."
"The ability to use scientific knowledge and understanding, to acquire, interpret and act on evidence: describing, explaining and predicting scientific phenomena; understanding scientific investigation; and interpreting scientific evidence and conclusions."
"Type of reading task or process: retrieving information; interpreting texts; and reflection and evaluation of texts. The focus on PISA is on reading to learn, rather than learning to read, and hence students are not assessed on the most basic reading skills."
(OECD countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States).
I don't know where United Kingdom stands with this- I'll look it up.
(Can people see the PDF?)
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posted
I can see the pdf -- but it's LONG (almost 500 pages!). To cut and paste, use the "select text" tool at the top.
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posted
*smiles* I know it is long, I didn't expect anybody to read it all. That's why I put what pages the tables were on in my first post Posts: 944 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
I'm not so worried. There is something wrong with the fact that I know how to do calculus. I wish I could have taken a second english, history, or an intro high school philosophy course. I don't know how many of today's problems can be addressed with better elementary math and science courses.
As to the mediocre literacy PISA numbers, couldn't that point to our relatively diverse population?
posted
How is diverse population an excuse for not teaching people reading skills? As for math skills, we're not talking calculus here, we're talking basic algebra and statistics. The latter being quite important if you want an informed citizenry.
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posted
We definitely underteach statistics. We cover mean, median, mode, and visual data representation, along with very common misuses of statistics, in middle school, but that's about all kids get unless they take an elective in statistics junior or senior year.
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posted
Frankly, I would say most of our teachers, including math teachers, are underinformed about statistics. And most of them don't know what the heck "curving a grade" means.
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posted
Yes, but it always turns out so much to the advantage of the students! (That is, the teachers who think curving means adding points to everyones score such that the highest scorer has 100%)
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posted
UVA Law has a mandatory mean, but no mandatory method for achieving it. Half the professors use a bell curve or modified bell curve; the rest use their own method.
My professor in criminal procedure announced to the class that the mandatory mean was making him lower everyone's grade. My criminal law professor first year said that she gave out no As simply because she didn't think anyone deserved a grade low enough to make up for any As being given out.
quote:How is diverse population an excuse for not teaching people reading skills? As for math skills, we're not talking calculus here, we're talking basic algebra and statistics. The latter being quite important if you want an informed citizenry.
If the PISA assumes that:
quote: The acquisition of literacy is a lifelong process- taking place not just in school or through formal learning, but also through interactions with peers, colleagues and wider communities.
Having a homogenous state lends itself to everyone speaking the mother tongue and understanding all of a language's infelicities.
I'm still not sold on algebra and statistics. My last three years of math seem like they should have been taught on a contingent basis. Stat is important, as I see it, but most of the problems that the general run need to be aware of with respect to statistics can be addressed in a long weekend concerning fallacies.
I concur solidly with icarus's sentiment. Regardless of what Irami's impressionistic opinions on the utility of statistics are, a proper understanding of statistics and its application is critical to understanding how the world works, and Icarus is right, it's just not taught enough.
What i think is even worse is the dearth of social science education. Psychology, Linguistics, Sociology, Political Science, Economics, these are all fields that tell us what humans are and how they interact, and most people are lucky if they've even heard of them by the time they've completed a bachlors degree. Again, understanding these fields requires an understanding of statistics.
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posted
I TOTALLY believe this report. I've been an educator for 10 years, and if there is one thing that has been completely driven home to me, it's that the vast majority of my students have no interest in academics beyond "doing what it takes to graduate." I live in the southernmost tip of Texas, scant miles from the border, and our reading and math scores regionally are so abysmally low as to make one think one has entered the 9th circle of Hell.
The problem is one of American society in general. If no one in your house reads a book in front of you, EVER, if no one discusses anything beyond the mundane, the trite, the vulgar, if all you're exposed to is pop culture in its most bland or titillating forms, then when the hell are you ever going to acquire the intrinsic motivation for wanting to excell in reading and math yourself? If your parents never buy you a book, never read to you, never look over your math homework and question your answers... hell, not even that, if your parents never even ASK ABOUT YOUR SCHOOL WORK AT ALL, never visit your teachers, never ask to see your report card (many of you are thinking, "Whatever, that doesn't happen in the US..." and you're wrong. Dead wrong. It's more common than I care to think about).
I think there needs to be a fundamental shift in what Americans value: as long as it's feeling good and shutting off the brain, then we will continue getting our collective intellectual ass kicked.
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posted
I don't know i think it's more complicated than that, i think that America isn't serious about preparing their citizens for life in the name of self-determination and states rights. I mean you can claim that no child left behind is a step towards that, but it doesn't actually fix the problems, it just diagnoses and attempts to treat the symptoms (not very sucessfully i might add).
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posted
Cool rant, Unmaker. I dug it. My mother always made great efforts to help me and my brother get all the education and books we needed. I fondly remember trips to the bookstore when we were little kids. As a direct result, I still read often and (hopefully) think critically today. If she had been like some of the apathetic parents you talk about, I shudder to think of how I would have turned out.
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posted
Good points, David. I want to reiterate something from my second post: my point in raising objections was not to claim that the state of American education is one that we should be satisfied, but merely to provide the grain of salt that we should take apocalyptic pronouncements with. Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:What i think is even worse is the dearth of social science education. Psychology, Linguistics, Sociology, Political Science, Economics, these are all fields that tell us what humans are and how they interact, and most people are lucky if they've even heard of them by the time they've completed a bachlors degree. Again, understanding these fields requires an understanding of statistics.
Those are all derivative. I can only take so much social science without reaching for a gun. David is talking about something at the foundation. The guy is talking about heart.
Kids don't need to learn how to read a graph or an opinion poll, they need a sense of dignity and duty and a kinship with the rights and responsibilites that go along with being an educated American. Social sciences teach the mechanics, but mechanics don't matter if you don't have the drive. Before we teach Keynes, Milton, Weber, Hobbes, Marx, Boyle's Law, or the Krebs' Cycle, you need something that'll boil blood. We need frank discussions about education, as not something you look toward because it's fun, it's not even something you look to for a profit, you pick up a book because it's your duty to yourself. It's not a matter of ease, taste, preference, or even entertainment, but maybe, just maybe, it's just a little bit virtuous, and that's a beautiful thing. A lot of athletes or musicians already understand this ethic, but they don't understand how it applies to school.
This isn't a matter of bribing them with future riches, it's a matter of simple dignity and self-respect, the kind of self-respect that leads to taking your responsibilites seriously. I don't know if the PISA or any of the NCLB tests montior those virtues, but that's the problem with American discourse today, and it bleeds into education.
It doesn't matter if you know about glycolosis or whether you know how a bill becomes a law, it matters whether you care enough to learn if you were called upon to do so. Btw, that same self-respect is what is going to get you to say "No," to your friends when they want you to do drugs or steal a car.
posted
Somewhat related, starting on page 356 are the results of student's self reports. (If they plan to go to university/college, graduate highschool, if they enjoy school, feel motivated, etc. What kind income/job they want to have/expect to have.)
Some of those might be relivent to your comments Irami.
You asked about UK's standing for math, Icarus. They didn't have enough people participate for the study to bother with their results. When I get a chance I'll check the study from three years ago.
I'm studying for exams at the moment, so I'm trying to juggle paying attention to this and getting done what I need to get done).
posted
Irami, once again, your personal opinions of a subject field are utterly irrelevant. What's worse is that your dismissal of social sciences as "derivative" simply serve to illustrate not just your ignorance of the subjects but the fact that you remain locked into an anachronistic and elitist intellectual paradigm.
Kids need to be presented with how the world works. It doesn't matter how good their personal ethics are if they are incapable of understanding how people interact, or even worse, are simply ruled by the prejudices kicking around our society.
Don't you see? The road to freedom and better interpersonal relationships are literally paved by a better understanding of -who- and -what- people are. And guess what? Kids aren't taught that.
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quote:Kids need to be presented with how the world works.
The road to freedom and better interpersonal relationships are literally paved by a better understanding of -who- and -what- people are.
There is a difference between how people work and who people are. A scientist, political or otherwise, can tell you how people work.
Who people are is something much deeper, dangerous, and compelling. It doesn't give itself to a doctrine or a graph or a system, but that's where the heart is.
posted
Oh, you'll also note that i posted before david, so i hardly understand why you're replying to my post's relevence to Davids.
I concur with David's assessment, he and i have been talking about this for a while, people aren't seriously committed to education, or the timing of education (but then again if people were perhaps aware of how much development goes on from birth to the age of 10, they might be. But then, this is one of those unimportant 'derivative' social science facts).
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Regardless of such appeals to the mystery of being, children can certainly be taught about biases, cultural, linguistic, and otherwise. Individual identity may be far more complicated than one has time to delve into, but people self-identify with populations, and they can and certainly are studied.
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posted
And you know what, i don't know why you're bothering to split hairs in the first place, these arguments are always retarded because it sounds like you have to choose sides.
Social Science, the scientific study of humans is underepresented in our school system. No ifs ands or buts. I am not advocating the diminishment of the liberal arts, i'm not advocating the dimishment of the physical sciences or mathematics. These things are all part of an understanding of what the world is. But there are currently pieces missing, vital pieces, and there's nothing other than reassessing what we teach our children that's going to fix that.
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quote: these arguments are always retarded because it sounds like you have to choose sides
I think this statement is key. Granted, you took offense to Irami's apparent dismissal of social sciences after your assertion of their importance. But I like his underlying point (as I understand it), that we should try to create a culture where learning is valued for its own sake. I have long believed that the reason we teach, say, math, is not because the kids are going to need it for their day to day jobs. The level of math you can claim that most adults need on a daily basis is elementary at best. And those who need more, our engineers and such, will review whatever they have forgotten or didn't learn in high school in college. I am franlky not a believer in the applied value of high school knowledge (or much college knowledge, for that matter). But I do very much believe in the value of what we teach, insofar as it creates literate critical thinkers who can then go on to learn the specific things they need to know. With that in mind, I don't believe there is any specific discipline that is absolutely vital, but I believe well-roundedness should be our goal at this stage in life. So I can agree with those who say we should teach more statistics and more social science, not because I think the kids will use those specific skills, but to expose them and make them more literate in general. What in Irami's post says social sciences shouldn't be taught more? I think he is addressing a more underlying issue (and therefore, one that is harder to solve).
Plus, I don't like it when someone calls a post I just praised stupid. I feel insulted by proxy. Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Oh i didn't call his post stupid. And frankly i don't inherently disagree with irami, i just don't like the approaches he takes.
What i believe is important is an understanding of the interconnectedness of all intellectual endeavors, the methods used to explore them, the interconnectedness of humans to each other, and the interconnectedness humans have with the world around them. There are many paths to these goals, as they incorporate many things, and some paths are easier than others. My point is that the information gained in the social sciences essentially has to crawl through the backdoor via filters like english courses, or civics courses, which often distort findings even further than text-book condensation would.
And frankly i think its easier to convince society that education is in its best interest, rather than trying to convince society that education is vital for education's sake.
Finally, i agree with you more or less Icarus, i do think that people should be taught how to acquire knowledge, and not just be pumped full of facts they will forget. However i think that there are certain facts that facilitate being a decent person, and shield one from prejudicial judgement.
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posted
We chose sides. We've been choosing sides for sixty years, and responsibility has been on the losing end. It's been subtle, with divorce, draft, abortion, the lack of tax increase in the war time, and now the ownership society, responsibility is on the ropes. Not all of this is bad, it's just something to think about. Actually, choice is the wrong word(choice is a matter of taste,it shares the same root as gusto, and this is not matter of taste) This is a judgement, a decision.
quote:I like his underlying point (as I understand it), that we should try to create a culture where learning is valued for its own sake.
That's the ballgame, everything else gravy. But we need to commit to it. Not the hand-wavy manner, but in an unmitigated profound statement about who we are as a people, replete with as much gall as due the matter. The message is that being an American means that you understand the dignity which goes along with a rigorous education.
Last year, I sat in on some high school alternative ethnic studies classes and they were crap. If we are going to talk about the virtues of this country or of education proper, it's bigger than the race or gender. Responsibility doesn't have a face.
posted
I'm sorry, but what if anything does your post have to do with the topic at hand?
The nature of responsibility isn't at issue here, even believing that the educational woes of the USA are symptomatic of a larger problem (as i and many others do), what if anything did your last post contribute to this discussion?
And i still find considerable irony in the combination of your dismissal of hand-wavy mannerisms, complaints about the supposed indications of irresponsibility in society (some of which are a tad... telegraphic), and your lack of interest in statistics and quantitative measures.
What, are you going to philosophize congress into submission? Are you going to moralize society into your course of action? Posts: 4482 | Registered: May 2000
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posted
I don't have anything to add right now - just wanted to say there are some wonderful posts so far and this is a fascinating thread to read - and extremely powerful reading for someone like me who is headed into the education field.
Please, keep it up guys - and David, good to see you.
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quote:The nature of responsibility isn't at issue here, even believing that the educational woes of the USA are symptomatic of a larger problem (as i and many others do), what if anything did your last post contribute to this discussion?
I think that responsibility is at issue here. I look at the unmaker's post and I see an invective concerning responsibility and neglect.
quote: And i still find considerable irony in the combination of your dismissal of hand-wavy mannerisms, complaints about the supposed indications of irresponsibility in society (some of which are a tad... telegraphic), and your lack of interest in statistics and quantitative measures.
Quantitive measures measure effects. I just don't think you teach responsibility by showing effects. *shrugs* It makes more sense to me to cast kids in plays dealing with these issues, or find some other way so that they wrestle with the issue, and not just an effect of the issue.
If you prove to a kid that if they read and do their homework, they can be rich through the system, that's fine. I imagine that the last book the kid will read will be right before he/she gets his/her first big job. (The grand irony in listening to software engineers belly-ache about outsourcing is that too many gave up living in order to get a personal fortune, only to find out that it got shipped to India for a quarter of the cost.) And if that's the case, I don't know if we have addressed the issue. I'm wary of social sciences because it seems to me that they act like they solve the problem, when they really just mask the symptoms.
posted
You're not listening. The nature of responsibility isn't the problem. Its pretty clear that society should have a responsibility to education. The question is why is there a gulf between the system that we have, and the system that we should have. Telling me that society is shirking its responsibility is a pretty weak and unhelpful explanation.
Irami, you've totally missed the point. Learning has to be a way of life. It's not about motivation. This isn't about convincing individual children that they should do well in school, this is about changing the way society works.
And you're still revealing how little you know about the social sciences, as well as your personal biases. How exactly is it (since social sciences use quantitative measures), that the social sciences "really just mask the symptoms", if as you say, "quantative measures measure effects"? I don't know about you but in my book, symptoms are typically effects. Seems difficult to mask symptoms if your goal is to measure them
Furthermore, all the social scientists i've known and talked to tend to try and give explanations of effects and symptoms, rather than just saying things like, "oh it's just that society isn't responsible enough," as if it were an adequate explanation.
David's comment was that there are cultural reasons why the education of our children is not important to America. You can talk about how irresponsible this is until your blue in the face, but that doesn't address the issue. What caused our educational system to be this way? What can be done about it?
These are not philosophical questions, these are a question of the structure of society and how it needs to be changed, changed for the good of children, changed for the good of society, changed for the good of the world.
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posted
And how does anything i've said precluded "cast[ing] kids in plays dealing with these issues, or find[ing] some other way so that they wrestle with the issue..." ?
The social sciences are a body of knowledge, and while they incorporate educational research, they don't compell anyone to communicate that data in a particular format. What i'm complaining about, in terms of the social sciences' introduction via the public school system, is the biased and extremely spotty coverage that research on human beings receives.
I should make explicit that the role social sciences have in diagnosing and rectifying the educational problems we face is a wholly seperate issue (that we have also been discussing). The irony is that by not educating the populous sufficiently about social science research, the public school system is leaving their public ill-equipped to understand fields studying the problems afflicting the educational system!
[ December 09, 2004, 04:28 PM: Message edited by: Pod ]
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posted
I believe Irami's sentiments can be summed up with a quote:
quote: It's not about filling a bucket, it's about lighting a fire.
You don't assign a research report on the state of South Carolina so the kid will learn about South Carolina. You do it so the kids will crack some books, gather some information, and make a fair attempt to assemble it in their own minds, before putting something down on paper.
For practice.
There's only so many hours in a day, and days in a year. And you can't treat every student the same. Some students will learn the lessons YOU want to teach YOUR way, by.... reading lyrics to rock music. Or something. But they have to know how to read first. And they have to want to read.
I tend to think that a well educated child may be most easily identifiable by the fact that they make their own choices as to what electives they take, rather than by content of the courses they pass.
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posted
I'm sorry but that's catagorically incorrect. There are things that people -have- to know in order to be educated.
For instance, kids have to be taught what good arguments are, and in so far as we know, there is essentially only one rubric by which the structure of an argument can be validated.
And furthermore there are certain things that one has to know to be able to discover information on ones own. You can't start a fire if you don't have dry wood, matches, a lighter, or if you're really ingenious some fricition, and some oxygen.
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posted
And, like i said i don't disagree that an education is about critical thinking. I've said before and i'll say it again, education isn't solely about the piling up of facts, but the facts are what shape the way people look at the world and how they explore it. Thats why the lack of social science education is so devistating. If you're not introduced to the scientific facts about what people can or can't change about themselves, about how society is structured, or how markets function, then they're going to be up shit creek without a paddle once they get out into the world.
[ December 09, 2004, 05:16 PM: Message edited by: Pod ]
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You were talking about sentiment, so i was refering to the sentiment, not to the metaphor.
And it's odd i'd argue that i'm trying to be as pragmatic as possible So i'm not entirely sure why you're accusing anybody of being "ivory tower".
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quote:Quantitive measures measure effects. I just don't think you teach responsibility by showing effects.
I think you have to do so at some point, though.
I think you start with the creative -- no, actually you start with the personal and the family/cultural. Then you go to narrative art. But if you leave it at those two levels, you run the risk (and this is something that composition teachers have found [I think -- I'm no expert in the field]) of students being stuck in a me-centered, sensual type of discourse. A writing/reading the world from self.
So that's when you then hit what Pod is talking about -- the social sciences -- the quantative. The methods for thinking about populations. [And of course in all of this I advocate a comparative approach].
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quote: Then you go to narrative art. But if you leave it at those two levels, you run the risk (and this is something that composition teachers have found [I think -- I'm no expert in the field]) of students being stuck in a me-centered, sensual type of discourse. A writing/reading the world from self.
Don't you get around this by having students write about something moral. A subject that's not them, but a subject where they have to judge, they have to decide, and something important enough that's it's not a matter of taste.
These are the issues where the holes in American discourse show themselves. We, the democratic party included, have trouble thinking on and speaking to things that matter.
quote:Don't you get around this by having students write about something moral.
No, you don't. Because if its draped in the cloth of "opinion" or "moral belief" then anyone with a differing belief system can claim that their belief system is equally as valid as any other (as our educational system is extremely relativistic [and i don't view that as a bad thing in most cases]). There are facts about the world, about how societies function that should not be couched in terms of morals, or in terms of beliefs, because they should not have the door opened for mere opinion to doubt them. (also, i again submit that backdoor presentations of information does not sufficiently present or explain whole bodies of research)
Posts: 4482 | Registered: May 2000
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quote:Because if its draped in the cloth of "opinion" or "moral belief" then anyone with a differing belief system can claim that their belief system is equally as valid as any other (as our educational system is extremely relativistic [and i don't view that as a bad thing in most cases]).
I don't care about opinion, we are trying to teach judgment, though. Aren't we? And it's not something we should run away from. I don't know what belief has to do with anything.
And here is a great article about facts.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
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