posted
Allegra, putting gifted kids in a special after-school program solves none of the problems of having gifted kids in a regular class. They're still bored out of their minds and frustrated with the speed of their classmates, and their classmates are still frustrated by the obvious differences in aptitude.
Why not separate the kids for anything academic, but be sure to put them together for anything where they're on a somewhat level field, like sports and music and theater?
Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote: Why not separate the kids for anything academic, but be sure to put them together for anything where they're on a somewhat level field, like sports and music and theater?
and i guess the kid who can't throw or trips over his feet when he runs should get a different gym class, along with the amazing piano protegies, lest they get picked on for performing different than the norm.
posted
I think I will step out of this thread. I think I have expressed my opinion and continuing to post would prolong my agitated mood. No one has said anything offensive to me or over any line. It is just keeping me in a mood that I have been in all day that I do not want to be in. I hope that everyone else has fun talking.
Posts: 1015 | Registered: Aug 2004
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Education begins and ends with understanding responsibility and through responsibility, dignity and propriety. Everything else serves responsibility: science, english, art, pe, and the entire gamut disciplines are all subjects of the queen of education, that is, grasping the wealth and complexity of responsibility.
Taking kids out of class because they are being teased for being good at some technique seems to ignore the first virtue of education, which is understanding responsibility. It's the equivalent of finding out there is a male rapist in the class and solving the problem by quietly tranfering the girls to a different class. In other words, it doesn't solve the problem, it just inappropriately takes it off of the table.
I also think that maximizing for the sake of maximizing without a sense of responsiblity is the sign of a society with priorities gone amuck and explains all manners of individual and social indignities. And maximizing arithmetic or science at the expense of teaching responsibility, on the part of the gifted children or the giftless children, places an inappropriate emphasis on arithmetic or science and degrades the role of responsibility in education.
posted
And I think that you teaching my kid what YOU think ihe should be resonsilble for isn;t a good thing. I will send my kids to learn specific skills and to increase their knowledge, and I understand that some of what you are speaking about is neccessary and good....
But I will teach my kids morals, and I will teach him kidness and respect for others. While I expect the school to reinforce that, I don;t expect it to take upon itself to teach him what his resonsibilities are in life.....who are you to decide for him what they are?
That is what parents are for.
Allegra, you just made All-State, adn first chair, right? That is an exclusive honor, and it segragates you from others who don't play as well. Should you have to give that up and spend all your time either playing poorly to escape notice or teaching other kids who can't play how to play basic scales?
It is the same thing. There are things worth having, worth working for, and the rewards for those programs only go to those who eran the right to them.
posted
I'm going to have to agree with Kwea that I am the primary moral indoctrinator for my hypothetical children. It's the school's job to teach them how to think. It's my job to teach them how to be good people. Yes, the school should teach morals, but I consider critical thinking and conceptual knowledge to be the heart of a secular education. I doubt that schools will be effective at inculcating morals when those lessons are not also taught at home.
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posted
Irami, I'm not sure I agree with you that the primary function of public schools should be socialist indoctrination.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote: And maximizing arithmetic or science at the expense of teaching responsibility, on the part of the gifted children or the gifted children, places an inappropriate emphasis on arithmetic or science and degrades the role of responsibility in education.
I missed this last night..it was late...
Maximizing children's knowledge is what school is for, otherwise we could just all enroll them in soccer programs and after school programs for socialization purposes.
What about teaching the kids to respect their abilities and to strive to better themselves, that they have a responsibility to learn as well as they can?
And demonstrating the fact the the adults DO want kids to learn and are willing to support them in doing so. Kids get all sorts of mixed signals from us as a society, particularly about learning. On one hand adults are always going on about how important it is, but the other kids make gifted kids ashamed of their own intelligence. Being good in school is not a path to popularity...if a gifted kid is popular it is DESPITE being intelligence, not because of it for the most part.
I still have not heard one good argument against gifted programs....lots of concerns, but no plan is perfect...other than Irami's belief that school is lees about learning subject material and more about "social responsibility", whatever that is.
And that is the whole point, that those types of judgments are arbitrary at best, and I really don't think that it is the place of school to assume that role. I want school to be a place where any kid who wants to learn has access to the most advanced base of knowledge he or she can comprehend, regardless of sex, race or religion.
I also feel that it benefits all the kids to have these type of classes, because as frustrating as being stifled is for the more advanced kids, it is equally as frustrating for the mainstream kids to be stuck in with a peer group that has far outpaced them. It is better to have those children placed in an enviroment where they get attention in the specific areas they are weak in, without slowing down the progress of the other students.
Intelligence is truly a special need, as much as any other.
quote: It's the school's job to teach them how to think. It's my job to teach them how to be good people. Yes, the school should teach morals, but I consider critical thinking and conceptual knowledge to be the heart of a secular education.
I'm not sure the distinction between the first two sentences is possible. Looking at the words will shed some light upon this. "Think" is from the old English thencan, the noun of which is thonc or thanc, and still survives in today's word thank. Thinking implies a sense of gratituded. This gratitude is in understanding the thing's responsibilites. A table is not a table because it has four legs and top, it's a table in virtue it fulfilling it's responsibility of holding up my book, or coffee cup, or whatever tables hold. The same with doctors and patients.
For example, take Tom. If I were to think to Tom, yet not understand Tom's responsibility to his daughter, his wife, his job, or his responsibility to truth--which seems to me enough to dignify any human life-- or his responsibility to anything in the world, then whatever is left is an impoverished reckoning of Tom. To tell the truth, this left over accounting of Tom can probably be churned out by a computer.
To speak another away, thinking to a problem is attending to what a problem calls for. The ability to attend to what is called for has the same sense as responsibility: re-again or back, spondere pledge,- abilty.
The greek word, aitia, has a better sense, "for the sake of," there is a sense of propriety that is already lost when words come through Latin. And once we understand problems as pro-ballw, or what is forward-thrown, "thinking" is attending to, with gratitude, what is thown forth, also known as responding.
If you take out responsibility from school you take out thinking, as responsibility is attends that which calls for thought. Let me make myself clear, shiosei, you are advocating the removal of thinking from school. I imagine that would be popular, as attending to what calls for thought is not always popular, but ignoring what calls for thought is stupid, and I say stupid in the dull, insensible way, and it's not understanding that kids come to school to be stupified.
quote:Irami, I'm not sure I agree with you that the primary function of public schools should be socialist indoctrination.
Public schools are vehicles that let students learn. In a way, you can't indoctrinate thinking, you can't inculcate thinking, in the same way we are having a hard time programming computers to understand responsibility, that is, to think.
The following of rules and doctrines and laws, as currently understood, does not require thought. This is even obvious in math or physics, and why we think it's a bad thing when a kid is loaded down with rules and tricks which produce the correct answer, but the kid does not know how or why the rules and tricks work.
posted
AJ, figuring out which rule to apply may call for thought. That phenomena may be attending to the problems that are thrown forth, but the plugging and chugging of rule following, nope, no thinking there.
posted
Then you have no understanding of math and science whatsoever. Solving mathematical problems is an art. No two people come to solutions exactly the same way, even in a toddler beginning to realize that two plus two is four. How they come to that realizeation is a different path for everyone and will actually have a slight different abstract meaning for every one as well. Yes the numbers on the paper might appear identical. But what is going on behind those numbers in one's head most certianly isn't.
If all you've ever learned of numbers is formulas then the educational system has failed you, including college.
I'm sorry for the small world you live in. However I think even though the educational system has failed you, you are responsible. Not the system.
posted
I guess it is a semantic thing. If it is "understood" then it isn't just a formula. And I apologize, I did have an emotional reaction to what you wrote. I literally saw red. (I'm not synesthesia but sometimes I do see colors.)
The other thing is, even without the deepest understanding, I believe there is a good mental discipline in the rote plugging and chugging into formulas. It forces ones mind to think in linear and orderly fashions in order to execute even the plug and chug type formula. Most people are non-linear thinkers and this sort of imposed mental discipline is very important in juvenile brain development. (I've seen way too many adults screw up a simple plug and chug so the execution of even a plug and chug is non-trivial.)
It is only with the repitition often that the understanding comes. Sometimes something is so complex that you have to get the rote mechanics down before you can see the big picture. Much like learning Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, before going out and trying to play a Mozart concert piece, since Mozarts variations on Twinkle Twinkle Little Star take the simple theme into an entirely different dimmension.
quote:It is only with the repitition often that the understanding comes. Sometimes something is so complex that you have to get the rote mechanics down before you can see the big picture. Much like learning Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, before going out and trying to play a Mozart concert piece, since Mozarts variations on Twinkle Twinkle Little Star take the simple theme into an entirely different dimmension.
I'm good musician. It's not that I'm gifted. It's because I lucked into a few good teachers, and I mix thought with practice. It wasn't enough to do scales everyday, I had to think about the relationship between the notes, and seek to remember the muse, and think of the scale as a totality while performing in order to become a good musician. Many days I merely went through the motions, doing my scales without thought, an inattentive ear wouldn't have heard the difference, but there wasn't any music on those days.
The issue with certain prodigies is that they play all of the right notes but without music. It sounds similar to an inattentive ear, and we could even forget what music sounds like if we aren't around it, right up until you hear a real musician, at which point we really see how impoverished the note-perfect dexterous prodigy was.
It's kind of the same with science and math and maybe even the twinkle twinkle variations. I go back and forth on Mozart. Complexity and harmony and balance are nice, but there is something insular about so many of his pieces that I don't know there is art is there, or maybe I can't figure out how to do my part as a musician. There is a danger in symbolic depth that turns its back on dignity, contradiction, excess, life, death, and pride, courage, responsibility, in the world. There is something hamstrung about it as art, in its rigid temperance. It's almost dishonest or facile. It's like being really good at making peanut butter sandwiches. I mean, it's nice to really good at something, but there is only so much dignity in making peanut butter sandwiches.
It's the danger that gives itself to scientists and tacticians and economists and all cybernetics. It's a problem that's not uniquely American, but we have some cultural tendencies that make not thinking acceptable, even endorsed.
Wow, am I'm feeling breezy today. This week's West Wing, 365, brought attention to this will to plug and chug. Leo was coming back after a heart attack, and took not of all of the plugging and chugging that was going on and took time to think. The brush with death brought him to think. He cleared out his office and did just that, and then at the end of the episode, he brought everyone else to think.
There were a lot of symbols in the episode, and I think it was executed pretty well, almost as well as, "Let Bartlet be Bartlet."
If anyone cares about my interpretation, I can go on at length. It's got to do with memory, being, life, thinking, art, noise, music, and Zeus, but I fear I have brought the thread to its inevitable death.
posted
Kama, any brownies that come my way will duly be shared with you! Should we have white milk or chocolate to wash them down? to Kama!
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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posted
Grin, see music IS math. I was the best in my counterpoint class as a result. Acoustics is Math. But to execute a nuance of phrasing so that one would cry, that is art.
But you *have* to play the scales chords and arpeggios before you get there. You learn those at the beginning, long before your teacher tries to teach you the nuances of phrasing and expression. (I'm coming from the piano here, not a wind instrument where phrasing is a more natural result of breathing.)
That's why learning formulas are good, even without the depth of understanding that might be desired. As I said,before, executing a formula correctly is a necessary skill that not many people are actually very good at.
posted
Most of the things that are truly beautiful in life are a combination of skill mastery and art. In elementary school, most kids need to learn the skills they will later build upon and use. Gifted kids often come to school ALREADY KNOWING the skills. They are ready to build upon them and work with them. They usually burn with desire to learn and grow, until bad experiences with school beat that out of them. Gifted programs are supposed to meet the kids where they are and take them further. Not hold them back and kill their spirits.
Remember the conversations we had about The Incredibles? Could someone link to that thread here? It covered a lot of these same issues about giftedness.
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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posted
I'm sorry Jenny, I was no longer discussing gifted kids really, I was more defending the teaching of math and science to *all* children in school and as more important than social responsiblity. (I don't think one can be socially responsible without the knowledge available to make sure you aren't being swindled.)
An interesting note, when I started tutoring, I shot myself in the foot as far as my standardized math test scores went, on the SAT and SATII when I was 17. I didn't do horribly (in fact you'd be yelling at me for saying I shot myself in the foot if you knew my score.) But, because I'd forced myself to slow down, and do all the steps while tutoring. I'd gotten in the habit, and forgotten all the little mental shortcuts I took prior to tutoring. Thus, while I'm 100% sure every problem I actually did I had the correct answer for, I ran out of time on the tests and had about 7 problems left at the end. It was rather a shocker, because I'd never ever run out of time on any test before. I took the SAT when I was 13 and didn't run out of time then!
quote:Grin, see music IS math. I was the best in my counterpoint class as a result. Acoustics is Math. But to execute a nuance of phrasing so that one would cry, that is art.
Music is short hand for musika techne, art pertaining to the muses, the muses being the daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne(memory). What sound is math. Dissonance, assonance, and counterpoint, that's math, but that's not music.
quote:Most of the things that are truly beautiful in life are a combination of skill mastery and art.
Yeah, the question is since these are not the same, what is more important? Skill mastery is for the sake of art, and not the other way around.
posted
You done much Schenkarian (sp) analyisis Irami? The blooming of the tonic about the harmonic axis is pretty much pure math and science. How it blooms is the music.
AJ
Good art can not exist *without* skill mastery. The foundation has to be right before the structure can be built. Without a good foundation the structure will crumble no matter how beautiful the facade. Therefore the skill mastery is more important.
(Ask Andrew Lloyd Weber, he's making millions on the skill mastery alone, IMO)
posted
Close, AJ...it's Schenkerian--though I doubt most Schenkerians would thank you for calling them mathematical. There's quite a bit of argument made, though, for the structure of different styles of music having their bases in math. I could go into detail, but I think it'd be a bit much, and waaaaay off-topic.
Oh, and speaking as both an academic musician and as someone with quite a bit of practical musical training under your belt, I can tell you that without the skill mastery, no will pay a darn bit of attention to how artfully you play. Unless you're just playing for kicks and giggles, of course.
Posts: 4077 | Registered: Jun 2003
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posted
Grin I was hoping you'd respond, Megan. I admit I only did 4 college semesters of music theory. And admittedly I was coming to it from an extremely scientific backround. My schedule at that time was amusingly schizophrenic: 2-3 classes of "hard science, chemistry, math and/or phsyics" and then 3 classes of Music theory, ear training and chamber music.
But my mathematically trained mind seemed to grasp the theory concepts far more easily and readily than the rest of the class, who ran screaming from trigonometry (and I tutored a few of them). And Schenkerian analysis to me seemed like applied math in poetic terms. I loved it and ate the bit that I was taught up.
While counterpoint was probably historically based more on what "sounded" good with experience, (I'm not talking the John Cage modernist types) the mathematical underpinnings can not be ignored. Calculus was invented by Newton to *explain* physics, the observations of which were already there, things speeding up, slowing down, and falling to the ground. The mathematical underpinnings of music (and you can extrapolate to the rest of life if you wish) are there regardless of whether you acknowledge them are not (including all modern pop music). Is calculus necessary for an average person to enjoy beautiful music? Nope, but it doesn't hurt either.
I also firmly believe calculus concepts should start being taught in kindergarten. The concepts are not hard to understand. It is actually a radical simplicfication of the previous math paradigms which we are still teaching, as a hangover from history 400 years later (Note: I'm not saying the old paradigms should be done away with, but they should be broadend farther than they curently are.) It is just the fact that most elementary teachers have math phobias themselves and never got there that makes it self perpetuating.
AJ
(This nearly set me off into my "Chord Progressions and the Krebs Cycle" diatribe, I'm actually surprised it hasn't been triggered sooner. The gist is that the little bit of tinkering and tiny changes that happen as a glucose molecule goes around the Krebs cycle is a lot like how music is built. lol, I bet Sara/CT would like the analogy.)
posted
(Gah, I just logged out by mistake (first time since registering and I had to go through a million possible passwords before I hit on the right one!)
Since the major problem with the gifted education issue is that students need to be integrated with people of all different talents but they also need to be challenged, how about altering the work that is set instead of the classes it is set by?
For example, when giving out math problems, hand out a sheet that increases in difficulty and ask the students to either "go as far as they can" or "go half way, but if you can go further that's great". It's not oriented towards one-on-one but it could potentially challenge the students who hate doing the same addition/multiplication/problems over and over.
The same concept can be applied to nearly everything that is taught or should be taught in an elementary school. Students should be given work that can be achieved on many different levels, depending on the level of understanding, interest and intellect.
A selection of books for a book review is a good idea. Instead of everyone reading "Ella Enchanted" or something similarly simple (but good ) in grade eight, a selection of books on varying levels is offered. A choose-your-own-book report also works. (I did Little Dorrit in grade 6- oops, that was HARD)
Writing assignments are obviously totally subjective so children who are further ahead will merely work harder and more intelligently to get higher marks, or a few extra words from the teacher. The "if you want to" facotr is key; smart children who are interested will want to, children whose interests and talents lie elsewhere will not but will not (should not) lose any marks.
In Science, since at a grade school level basic knowledge and facts (i.e. the sun is made of blah and blah) is pretty much as high as you're going to get, the option to study different aspects of something is easily applied, which also could engage many different strengths of the class to work on what is in essence the same project.
Homework is another opportunity to vary in difficulty. In highschool, teachers often assign a large chunk of problems and if you already know how to do them you do one or two of each section, then skip to the more challenging ones. At the end is the Bonus Question which the people who want to do it can do if they want.
The same goes for research, which I think should be a much larger concentration on in homework. "Find out such and such" can be tailored to children's needs. The sly and subtle teacher can and should have the ability to give out assignments with varying levels of difficulty without making it seem that way, except to the most keen-eyed teacher psychologists of the class.
School should be more dynamic than endless math drill problems. It should be filled with projects and assignments that do not restrict the quick learner and challenge him or her to do his best but do not confuse or throw up barriers before the average or even slow learner.
For classes in which percentages count, 70% problems correct should be 100%, 100% problems correct should merely have the glow of a challenge well done. There should always always be the option to do more.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
While this is getting way off topic, I absolutely agree that counterpoint has a strong mathematical underpinning. All I'm saying is that typically those theorists who work with Schenkerian analysis (warning: very broad generalization ahead!) want to avoid the more mathematical sorts of analysis that are common in the field (such as transformational theory, set theory, and--most mathematical of all--similarity relations in music). As an aside, I'm wondering where you went to school that you did Schenkerian analysis as an undergrad!
quote:(This nearly set me off into my "Chord Progressions and the Krebs Cycle" diatribe, I'm actually surprised it hasn't been triggered sooner. The gist is that the little bit of tinkering and tiny changes that happen as a glucose molecule goes around the Krebs cycle is a lot like how music is built. lol, I bet Sara/CT would like the analogy.)
Now, I barely remember what the Krebs cycle is, but I'm intrigued! Feel free to rant--in another thread, if you feel we've drawn this one too far off topic; I'd love to hear it!
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quote:Good art can not exist *without* skill mastery. The foundation has to be right before the structure can be built. Without a good foundation the structure will crumble no matter how beautiful the facade. Therefore the skill mastery is more important.
You are getting with a little loose with the "therefores." It's like saying, "children aren't born without sex, so conception is more important than child-rearing."
This is how political wonks get born. They start thinking "How do I get elected" is more important than "what it is to be a statesman?"
And for writers "How do I get published?" becomes more important than "What is it to be a good story?"
quote: (Ask Andrew Lloyd Weber, he's making millions on the skill mastery alone, IMO)
Yeah, so, a measure of success or propriety is how much money you make? I imagine that makes Dan Brown a model author.
________________________________________
I agree that skill mastery is important, but it always serves.
______
quote:The mathematical underpinnings of music (and you can extrapolate to the rest of life if you wish) are there regardless of whether you acknowledge them are not (including all modern pop music).
Nietzsche does some work on this in the "Birth of Tragedy." I'm as much of a technician as anyone else, I'm just not going to elevate technique to a place where it doesn't properly belong, and I'm a little slow to call excellence in technique alone enough to be considered "gifted."
Since skill mastery is important but not the end, then we need to teach MORE, not less.
If you teach only the end goal but not how to get there, then you have failed your students spectacularly.
Posts: 1163 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
Grin, you completely missed my point with Andrew Lloyd Weber (and I'd agree to adding Dan Brown to the list).
My point is you can *survive* with Mastery. Therefore it is Necessary.
And yes conception is Necessary to have children.
You can survive, live a good life, have 2.5 children and a dog, without producing Art. Good art is generally rare, and beyond the ordinary. If everyone could achieve those heights, then it wouldn't be valuable. It doesn't matter what industry. A skilled lapping operator knows the art of getting exactly what he wants out of his machine. It may completely be CNC controlled, but there are certain little nuances and tweaks that one always has to do to get the best out of the machine. So you reserve the Artisan for the work where the art is needed. You have 10 ordinary guys (some of which may become Artisans but some not) for the mundane tasks that don't require inspiration.
It directly correlates back to Gifted Children now that I think about it. You have a *few* that are precocious, for which learning is an Art. For all of the other children, it is ordinary and mundane. Once the other children master the mundane, some of them may be able to attain the Art status, when it comes to learning (however it generally takes a lot more hard work.) Many never will.
Why not let the gifted children do the "inspired" learning, rather than get frustrated with the repetition of what is to them, mundane? The problem is that because it is inspired those children who are, at the time, ordinary can not comprehend it in the same manner, and no amount of peer influence or co-teaching will get them there.
I don't understand your point. Maybe we should use an example. Nobody doubts Condoleeza Rice has the right skills to be sec of state, but there is something deficient(in my esteem) about her understanding of the responsibilities of the position. The same can be said about Ashcroft and Gonzolas, and heck, the same claim can be leveled against Kerry, Nixion, and I think that's why I don't especially like Rushdie as a writer.
And I'm putting my money that Obama got them both.
AJ,
quote: You can survive, live a good life, have 2.5 children and a dog, without producing Art. Good art is generally rare, and beyond the ordinary. If everyone could achieve those heights, then it wouldn't be valuable. It doesn't matter what industry. A skilled lapping operator knows the art of getting exactly what he wants out of his machine. It may completely be CNC controlled, but there are certain little nuances and tweaks that one always has to do to get the best out of the machine. So you reserve the Artisan for the work where the art is needed. You have 10 ordinary guys (some of which may become Artisans but some not) for the mundane tasks that don't require inspiration.
It directly correlates back to Gifted Children now that I think about it. You have a *few* that are precocious, for which learning is an Art. For all of the other children, it is ordinary and mundane. Once the other children master the mundane, some of them may be able to attain the Art status, when it comes to learning (however it generally takes a lot more hard work.) Many never will.
Why not let the gifted children do the "inspired" learning, rather than get frustrated with the repetition of what is to them, mundane? The problem is that because it is inspired those children who are, at the time, ordinary can not comprehend it in the same manner, and no amount of peer influence or co-teaching will get them there.
posted
I fail to understand how Condeleeza Rice or Ashroft of anything of that nature has anything to do with gifted education.
And as all of those people are extremely well educated from generally "liberal" institutions, I really don't think education, gifted or otherwise has anything to do with your beef with them. Clearly people can have near-identical educations and come out diametrically philisophically opposed. For crying out loud both Shrub and Kerry were in the Skull and Bones Society!
It has nothing to do with education, because clearly education didn't do anything one way or the other for character.
posted
So how does that translate into discontinuing math and science?
It's better to think critically and work to solve problems than to just practice reading, but if you don't read well, you're not going to be able to read the ethicists and create new solutions. How do you create better leaders by eliminating the in-depth classes?
Posts: 1163 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
Here's another thought. I don't believe that the public schools purpose is educate personal character any more than I believe it is Congress' purpose to legislate personal morality.
quote:It's better to think critically and work to solve problems than to just practice reading, but if you don't read well, you're not going to be able to read the ethicists and create new solutions. How do you create better leaders by eliminating the in-depth classes?
I'm giving myself the clarity of purpose award for being able to quote from the first page:
quote:It takes a keen eye to know the quality and character of a 9 year-old's mind, and it's easy for the teachers to break egos. Maybe I've seen too many schools where the kids of color end up coloring where the other kids are doing academic work, each according to their strengths.
I'm not an "every kid's gift" type of guy.
Now I'll be the first to admit that consistancy over the course of nine pages is not necessarily a virtue.
As Robert Louis Stevenson said:
"To hold the same views at forty as we held at twenty is to have been stupefied for a score of years, and take rank, not as a prophet, but as an unteachable brat, well birched and none the wiser."
But in this case, it means that I've thought about this.
_____________
quote:Here's another thought. I don't believe that the public schools purpose is educate personal character any more than I believe it is Congress' purpose to legislate personal morality.
AJ,
It is congress' job to legislate morality, and I wish they took the problematic nature of that job in a society of people with reasonable, diverse, and comprehensive metaphysical doctrines more seriously.
quote: It is congress' job to legislate morality, and I wish they took the problematic nature of that job in a society of people with reasonable, diverse, and comprehensive metaphysical doctrines more seriously.
Then I assume you are pro-life.
Posts: 11265 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Because there aren't enough political/abortion threads on Hatrack this week. Until we have a vomit smiley, I give you the smilies that make you vomit.
Posts: 2010 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Do me a favor...don;t mention math and music in the same post again, I am having cold sweats...
Just kidding, I was a very good flautist, and played 7 other instruments, but I never got the mathematic principles of music. Just goes to show you that there is always some more to learn, gifted or not.
Irami, you should know from experience as a musician that there are varying levels of skill between people, and sometimes that gap is too much to bridge. I am out of practice these days, but I can still play, but while I am sure that you, AJ, Meghan, twinky, and Allegra could all get together and play Twinkle Twinkle little star quite well, none of us would really consider it very good music. At least the rest of you would be bored quite soon....but what if I had only played for a year or so and that was all I could handle?
I would be frustrated with both myself and with all of you because it would be so easy for you to play it, and I would be outclassed. You four would be bored out of your skull, and it wouldn't help your musical skills at all..in fact it would probably hurt your skills a lot if you were forced to play at my level for a few years.
Of course that wouldn't happen..because we would be placed in different groups based on our skills. I would learn more of the fundamentals, because without them I would never be able to advance towards true musicianship...and you all would place in a more difficult class so that you could progress as far as your talent and desire would take you.
Lets take that one step further...how many of you would be able to become a world-class musician? Not all of you....maybe not any of you. It isn't all about desire, or opportunity; some of it is talent. As a person with that type of talent don't you have a responsibility to try to reach the pinnacle of your talent? How would you ever do that if you were always stuck with people at "my" skill level, never able to progress past what the other kids...most of whom are looking for an easy A...can do.
I feel very strongly that we have a responsibility to nurture those types of skills and talents, and that a lot of what has been suggested here in this thread would be the opposite...it would discourage kids from excelling at what they are good at.
That is not to say that we don't have the same responsibility to the kids in the mainstream classes...of course we do! But these types of programs can benefit all kids by allowing teachers to focus on their weaknesses. If a teacher is trying to split everything up it increases the chance of some of them falling through the cracks...both some of the gifted ones and the ones who were like me....gifted in most areas but not in all of them.
Without AP classes and Honors classes I would have never graduated high school. I didn't care about any of it until I found classes that challenged me to do better than I had ever tried to do before then.
As far as 70% being a 100%, I disagree...I hate grading on a curve, and that is what it sounded like to me. It encourages mediocrity across the board.
Extra credit is a good way to go though...that way there is always a way to raise your grade if you care enough to do some extra work. That always helped me in English classes, and it was very effective at allowing me to harness something I was good at to help motivate me to learn.
I think that the socilization process is a very important part of school, and often it is the area that home schooled kids are lacking in. However, I don;t think that socilization should be (or currently is) the main focus of the education process, because it will happen with kids no matter where they are. Specific information can only be imparted in a classroom setting, and I think schools need to focus more on basic skills than on teaching any one brand of social resonsibility.
Not only is it not their responsibility to do so, I don't feel it is their right to do so. What happens if they begin teaching my kids things I don't believe in from a moral standpoint? Who has the right to teach their children those types of things other than a parent?
I would prefer that my child be taught the basic skills necessary to aquire knowledge, and I will teach them the morals I believe they should have. I also understand that some moral teachings are necessary...such as a ban on physical maltreatment of others, how to play nice (so to speak)....and will be taught.
But I don;t want anyone telling my child that it is their resonsibility to teach other kids, particularily if that interferes with their own learning processes. If my kids aren't in the gifted classes, I will teach them to get the most they can out of school despite that.
Mainstream doesn't equal stupid, and god help anyone who trys to tell my child otherwise.
quote:quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It is congress' job to legislate morality, and I wish they took the problematic nature of that job in a society of people with reasonable, diverse, and comprehensive metaphysical doctrines more seriously. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Then I assume you are pro-life.
Abortion is a properly controversial issue. It's as problematic for America as death is for the human condition. The positions stem from reasonable, diverse, comprehensive metaphysical understandings of the world, and part of being a moral country is understanding which decisions ought to be made at a federal level and which decisions ought to be made at a state or individual level, as part of being a wise parent is understanding which decisions ought to be made at a parental level but which decisions ought left to the child.
I'm pro-choice, but I'm open to a partial term ban knowing that this is an issue that will always leave people rightfully unhappy. This isn't an issue of shiftless, negligent government, it's issue of humility in the face of a complex decision that properly belongs to the individual.
quote:But I don;t want anyone telling my child that it is their resonsibility to teach other kids, particularily if that interferes with their own learning processes.
I'm inspired by this quote, but it is not directed at Kwea.
I wonder how many people countenance a draft, taxes, jury duty, but rise in righteous indignation at the idea of their kid sacrificing time to help out the less fortunate?
quote: I wonder how many people countenance a draft, taxes, jury duty, but rise in righteous indignation at the idea of their kid sacrificing time to help out the less fortunate?
I have no problem with it Irami, that is the funny part of this whole thing. I don't even disagree with some of your points.
As a matter of fact I would probably require it as a parent. I spent Thanksgiving this year at a soup kitchen, serving people who are down on their luck. What did you do?
I have volunteered my time to teach illiterate adults to read...I did it for 3 years. I was an EMT in the Army, and didn't wait to be drafted, I volunteered for it.
I just don't believe it is the public school systems responsibility to teach those moral values to my kids.
It is mine.
I have the right to decide what is proper for them. The schools are there to teach specific subjects, and I think they have enough on their plate with that. I have no chance of teaching my kids calc, but I am sure that I can teach them how to respect others and be good people.
Respect of others and community service are two things I feel very strongly about, which is why I became a Mason. I help raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for needy children every year...
And I didn't learn that from school, I learned it from my parents.
If a school wants to have those type of programs as optional programs then I would support them, but I don't feel that the basic mission of schools should be that type of activity.
And I don't see how making your kids stay in a reading group that reads 4 grades below his reading level will help with any of that.
So let the schools teach subjects in an ever increasing field of knowledge that no parent could keep up with by themselves, and leave the moral indoctrination to me.
I know that a lot of values are taught at school, and I agree with them sometimes...but school is also the first place I ever heard the word nigger, or spic, or wap, so not all of what goes on in school is a good thing....and I barely trust public schools to dispense general knowledge, let alone moral teachings.
quote:Good art can not exist *without* skill mastery. The foundation has to be right before the structure can be built. Without a good foundation the structure will crumble no matter how beautiful the facade. Therefore the skill mastery is more important.
You are getting with a little loose with the "therefores." It's like saying, "children aren't born without sex, so conception is more important than child-rearing."
This is how political wonks get born. They start thinking "How do I get elected" is more important than "what it is to be a statesman?"
And for writers "How do I get published?" becomes more important than "What is it to be a good story?"
And this is how foolish ideas about education get started, by placing adult thought processes and depth of understanding on children that for the most part, want to go play kickball. You've placed the cart before the horse just as much as your examples have.
There are some basic skills that the schools must provide. Reading, writing and basic math. Responibility is not one of these because it is best taught not by thinking exercises, but through time and experience. Experience in the form of doing your homework, or doing your chores at home, or in any other fashion that is more than just a thought exercise.
Helping the less fortunate has absolutely nothing to do with having chlidren teach other children. Nothing at all.
So we are defining those that have lesser scholastic acomplishments as 'less fortunate'? I don't think that qualifies, and I don't think I could give them the help today that they need, and deserve to have available.
I hate to break it to you, but we all weren't good enough to understand how everything flows from understanding our responsibilities when we were in grade school.
It is one child in a million or more that honestly wants to learn from those that hurt them. And to think otherwise is merely transfering your beliefs to them, absent a basis in reality.
----------------------- What a word may have meant at one time is really irrelevent to this discussion. The original root of torrential meant "to burn" or "to parch", but a torrential downpour is not understood to be fire raining from the heavens. A good argument should be expressible in simple terms (barring the need for specialized jargon.) Nothing we have discussed here need jargon.
Don't worry we all know you're smart.
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