It's an interesting article, in that I'm awakened to the idea that the UK handles schooling differently than the US. Differently enough that I don't really understand what this change will mean. Can anyone explain?
Also, the phrase 'Anti-social behavior' is used in the article; I think 'anti-social' to me means that you need some type of medication-- not jail time. Is there a different concept of anti-social behavior across the Atlantic?
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I'm curious as to how they would define anti-social behavior. I feel like they would use it for things such as bomb threats, anyone with a "list", etc. I think that's how they've characterized such events that happened in the US as well.
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Since the whole point of government run schools is to socialize children and make them more obedient to authority, rather than to educate them, I can't see why this should be such a big shock.
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>>Since the whole point of government run schools is to socialize children and make them more obedient to authority, rather than to educate them
That's an interesting premise, sL. What has led you to this conclusion?
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Right on, starLisa. That's EXACTLY what public schools are for. Although most do try to educate...gotta keep up appearances or there might be a riot.
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Scott, I read the antisocial behavior comment as independent from the schools plan.
As far as the school thing, it sounds pretty similar to our own debates between public schooling and using government funds to set up vouchers/charter schools. Their academies sound like a cross between the two.
English schooling is rather different from ours, in my (extensive) experience teaching English immigrants, but this actually sounds pretty similar to debates that we have here.
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quote:Originally posted by Scott R: >>Since the whole point of government run schools is to socialize children and make them more obedient to authority, rather than to educate them
That's an interesting premise, sL. What has led you to this conclusion?
Um... because at least in the US, that was the stated purpose of it when John Dewey campaigned long and hard to bring it into being.
Dewey was a Socialist, and a great fan of the Bolshevists in Russia. He is famous for saying:
quote:Anyone who has begun to think, places some portion of the world in jeopardy.
and
quote:The mere absorbing of facts and truths is so exclusively individual an affair that it tends very naturally to pass into selfishness. There is no obvious social motive for the acquirement of mere learning, there is no clear social gain in success thereat.
Here is a page with pro-Dewey stuff on it. Here are some comments on a book Dewey wrote on education that are a bit more critical. And here is an article highly critical of Dewey, and the public education system, which some people (myself among them) refer to as "Dewey's Folly".
Personally, the scariest of the three is the pro-Dewey one. I wish there was an emoticon for <shudder>, because that was my reaction to reading some of the stuff on that site.
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I've only had time to read that first link. While it is from the "John Dewey Project on Progressive Education," I think it is innacurate and simplistic to represent the articles within it as any kind of evidence on what public schooling is about. The main article is merely two people's ideas of how to put "education for citizenship" into action. (Ironically enough, in many places they seem to mimic your claim that education is merely a tool for indoctrination--from the other side!)
I will follow your other links as I have time.
Public education in this country is a mammoth institution, with many problems to be overcome and many strengths as well. Within it, there are various competing ideologies and pedagogies, some of which you may disagree with and some of which you may agree with. (Finding evidence of a pedagogical perspective with which you disagree is hardly proof of the corrupt nature of all of public education.) To reduce all of this complexity to a silly little soundbite one-liner is unbelievably simplistic, and suprising to see from someone as educated as you claim to be.
Public education's purpose is to create an educated public (a goal that was not being achieved before it came about). Feel free to debate whether this is necessary or a good thing, or whether our educational system is doing an adequate job of this. But to claim that the purpose is anything other than this is childish.
posted
I'm with starLisa on this one, mainly from my own experience with going through the public school system in the US. A lot more emphasis was put on behavior than on actually teaching things like thinking skills.
Of course, maybe things have changed since I was in school, but from the evidence of friends who are teachers, I don't think that much is different now.
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quote:Originally posted by Scott R: starLisa: Do you believe that American teachers follow the Dewey agenda CURRENTLY? What have you experienced that makes you believe this?
First I've heard of it.
Yes, I think that following instructions is much more important in schools in America than learning.
Have you ever taken the 22 question test? It's a test with instructions at the top telling you to read through the entire test before answering any of the questions. Question 22 [sic] says "Turn the test in blank, without answering any of the questions." Needless to say, I failed that test.
Homework. The idea that a student who gets A's on every test can get a poor grade in a class because she doesn't do homework is a tribute to the important lesson of obedience. I acknowledge that homework is necessary for some students; probably most. But if a student clearly knows the material, there's only one reason to penalize her for not doing what would amount to penmanship exercises: obedience first.
Peer promotion. Ghaaa! The worst. Students are grouped by age, rather than by knowledge level. A student who is really good at math has to sit through the most excruciatingly boring crap, and often winds up playing class clown, or otherwise acting out, purely out of boredom and frustration. Meanwhile being denied a chance to learn on her own level. And if your grade level (see, even I'm using those concepts, for lack of a better term) is, say, 5th grade in math, 4th grade in reading, 2nd grade in social studies, and you're 7 years old, well, you're pretty much screwed.
When I was in grade school, I wouldn't use a pencil. Why? Because the sound of a pencil writing on paper is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me (my apologies to those with a too-vivid imagination). I used a pen, instead. And they hadn't invented erasable pens yet. Well, my teacher got upset that I wasn't obeying her anti-pen dictates, so she sent a note home to my parents. We wound up having a freaking conference about it. The only reason she could come up with, because she wasn't about to say that it was a power thing, was that you can erase pencil, but if you make a mistake, say in a math problem, and you cross stuff out in pen, it makes it very hard for a teacher to grade. My response was: "If I hand in a math paper that's messy, show it to me, and I'll use pencil from that point on." Needless to say, she never took me up on it.
I could go on and on and on. So could many of you, I'm sure.
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In High School, I don't really remember any general attempts to "socialize" students.
I've read through the some of the first link, and most of the last, along with some of the articles linked in the last link. It's hard to say which one makes me sicker.
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quote:Originally posted by Goo Boy: I've only had time to read that first link. While it is from the "John Dewey Project on Progressive Education," I think it is innacurate and simplistic to represent the articles within it as any kind of evidence on what public schooling is about.
I apologize if you thought I was being biased. I tried very hard to show a spectrum of views. But I admit that I avoided whitewashes of Dewey, because I don't consider them to be accurate.
quote:Originally posted by Goo Boy: The main article is merely two people's idead of how to put "education for citizenship" into action. (Ironically enough, in many places they seem to mimic your claim that education is merely a tool for indoctrination--from the other side!)
But the whole idea of "education for citizenship" means that they see school as a place to inculcate the values that the government wants people to have, rather than leaving that for parents, and teaching knowledge.
quote:Originally posted by Goo Boy: Public education in this country is a mammoth institution, with many problems to be overcome and many strengths as well. Within it, there are various competing ideologies and pedagogies, some of which you may disagree with and some of which you may agree with. (Finding evidence of a pedagogical perspective with which you disagree is hardly proof of the corrupt nature of all of public education.) To reduce all of this complexity to a silly little soundbite one-liner is unbelievably simplistic, and suprising to see from someone as educated as you claim to be.
<grin> I wasn't aware that I'd claimed to be all that educated, but okay.
Still, my posts are long enough, on the whole, and I didn't think I should post a lengthy essay about everything that's wrong with public education, both in principle and in practice.
I could have come at it from an economic point of view, and pointed out that controlling schooling is hardly an appropriate activity for the government, and that forcing us to pay for the right to have children indoctrinated with values that may not be ours is incredibly unjust. But that would have been off-topic.
quote:Originally posted by Goo Boy: Public education's purpose is to create an educated public (a goal that was not being achieved before it came about).
I disagree with both of those claims. I don't think that's its purpose, and I think people received a better education before the advent of schooling than they do now. And the gap is only increasing.
quote:Originally posted by Goo Boy: Feel free to debate whether this is necessary or a good thing, or whether our educational system is doing an adequate job of this. But to claim that the purpose is anything other than this is childish.
<blink> Oh. And here I thought that it was because I disagreed with you. Or is disagreeing with you prima facie evidence of childishness? I must not have read the rules.
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quote:I think people received a better education before the advent of schooling than they do now.
Really? Most of the population being functionally (if not completely) illiterate, unable to do math beyond basic addition and subtraction, and having no ideas of science at all was better than now? *blinks*
I think the fact that you're able to debate it refutes your claim.
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lma, that's what I mean about it being a cutesy response. It is a deeply satisfying response to people with anger toward their own educational experiences, but that doesn't mean that it's based on truth.
There are reasons for rules in a setting where one teacher has 35 students per class. Feel free to argue for alternatives in which one teacher does not have 35 students per class (210 students in 6 classes, btw); I'm all for it if you can find a way to guarantee a minimum level of education for all while allowing for that.
There are also teachers who are incompetent, jerks, or what have you. The existence of these teachers does not prove anything about the goals of the educational establishment.
To claim that this was all education was about suggests that you would know everything you know today without the aid of any of your teachers, assuming you went to a traditional school--and that everyone else you know also would know everything they know, and possess all the skills they possess, without the efforts of their teachers. This attitude does a gross injustice to the teachers you had, and to teachers in general. I find it personally offensive.
starLisa, if you were in my math class, I too would penalize you for not using a pencil, for exactly the reason your teacher claimed. It would be irrelevant whether or not your work was as free from mistakes as you claim it was, because I have two hundred other students, and I would go crazy trying to have individual rules, and the students would be rightfully outraged. (Crazy thought: I am a really good driver, and I feel like the speed limit is arbitrarily low for me. I also have a car with ABS, you know, in case I need it. I should be allowed to go faster, neh?) This would not mean that I have nothing (else) to teach you as a student.
Incidentally, proving that there are problems with the educational system, which I will freely stipulate, does not prove your claim that its only (or even primary) purpose is to turn students into rule followers.
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quote:Have you ever taken the 22 question test? It's a test with instructions at the top telling you to read through the entire test before answering any of the questions. Question 22 [sic] says "Turn the test in blank, without answering any of the questions." Needless to say, I failed that test.
You didn't follow the instructions-- think what would have happened if you'd been in chemistry class?
quote:Homework. The idea that a student who gets A's on every test can get a poor grade in a class because she doesn't do homework is a tribute to the important lesson of obedience. I acknowledge that homework is necessary for some students; probably most. But if a student clearly knows the material, there's only one reason to penalize her for not doing what would amount to penmanship exercises: obedience first.
We disagree then. Well-designed homework helps the student understand the material, and hopefully communicates the subject for application beyond test time.
I'm totally opposed to homework-as-busywork.
quote:Peer promotion. Ghaaa! The worst. Students are grouped by age, rather than by knowledge level. A student who is really good at math has to sit through the most excruciatingly boring crap, and often winds up playing class clown, or otherwise acting out, purely out of boredom and frustration. Meanwhile being denied a chance to learn on her own level. And if your grade level (see, even I'm using those concepts, for lack of a better term) is, say, 5th grade in math, 4th grade in reading, 2nd grade in social studies, and you're 7 years old, well, you're pretty much screwed.
There's wisdom here, to a certain point. It's obvious that you have sympathies for the gifted, though. Remember that not everyone is a brilliant architect, though, hmm?
What bothers me about your point, and the point of Capitalism Magazine's various articles on the subject, is that it is so clearly utilitarian. Help the best, screw the rest. :shrug: Maybe I'm biased. I always smirk at the intelligista who whine about how repressed they are. . .
quote:When I was in grade school, I wouldn't use a pencil. Why? Because the sound of a pencil writing on paper is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me (my apologies to those with a too-vivid imagination). I used a pen, instead. And they hadn't invented erasable pens yet. Well, my teacher got upset that I wasn't obeying her anti-pen dictates, so she sent a note home to my parents. We wound up having a freaking conference about it. The only reason she could come up with, because she wasn't about to say that it was a power thing, was that you can erase pencil, but if you make a mistake, say in a math problem, and you cross stuff out in pen, it makes it very hard for a teacher to grade. My response was: "If I hand in a math paper that's messy, show it to me, and I'll use pencil from that point on." Needless to say, she never took me up on it.
I'm sorry that you had a difficult teacher. But your one experience doesn't dictate the attitudes of a whole institution, much less a whole system.
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quote: Have you ever taken the 22 question test? It's a test with instructions at the top telling you to read through the entire test before answering any of the questions. Question 22 [sic] says "Turn the test in blank, without answering any of the questions." Needless to say, I failed that test.
When I took that test, I think some time in junior high, I skipped to the last question to see what the "catch" was and then only skimmed through the rest of the questions to make sure there wasn't another special instruction in the middle.
I feel that being able to determine that there may be some reason for an out of the ordinary test instruction and then actually following it is part of Critical Thinking and not just blind obedience.
quote:I think people received a better education before the advent of schooling than they do now.
Oy. I strongly disagree. Though I don't think public schools are able, by nature to educate all children equally well and their potency is harmed by the fact that one teacher has to be responsible for the varying needs of a large classroom.
I really do think that most teachers are concerned about their kids really learning. At least, I *hope* this is the case.
I guess I don't see what's so bad about children learning obedience to authority. That is certainly an important issue in our little family. The kids have to obey Mom and Dad. Granted, as they get older, they will take on more responsibility, but we will still expect them to follow the rules of the house. Are we really so "old fashioned" in this respect?
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quote:I think people received a better education before the advent of schooling than they do now.
Really? Most of the population being functionally (if not completely) illiterate, unable to do math beyond basic addition and subtraction, and having no ideas of science at all was better than now? *blinks*
I think the fact that you're able to debate it refutes your claim.
Well, I'm bright. And I transferred to a private school after my first year of high school.
But you vastly underestimate the level of education before Dewey's Folly went into effect.
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quote:Have you ever taken the 22 question test? It's a test with instructions at the top telling you to read through the entire test before answering any of the questions. Question 22 [sic] says "Turn the test in blank, without answering any of the questions." Needless to say, I failed that test.
You didn't follow the instructions-- think what would have happened if you'd been in chemistry class?
But I wasn't. You can't possibly be defending that test, can you? That was a pivotal point in my educational career, and I was probably in 2nd grade. It taught me that knowing the answers, or being able to figure them out, wasn't what school was about. It was obeying orders.
quote:Originally posted by Scott R:
quote:Homework. The idea that a student who gets A's on every test can get a poor grade in a class because she doesn't do homework is a tribute to the important lesson of obedience. I acknowledge that homework is necessary for some students; probably most. But if a student clearly knows the material, there's only one reason to penalize her for not doing what would amount to penmanship exercises: obedience first.
We disagree then. Well-designed homework helps the student understand the material, and hopefully communicates the subject for application beyond test time.
What if the student already understands the material, and doesn't need the homework? That's what tests are for; to determine whether the students understand the material.
quote:Originally posted by Scott R:
quote:Peer promotion. Ghaaa! The worst. Students are grouped by age, rather than by knowledge level. A student who is really good at math has to sit through the most excruciatingly boring crap, and often winds up playing class clown, or otherwise acting out, purely out of boredom and frustration. Meanwhile being denied a chance to learn on her own level. And if your grade level (see, even I'm using those concepts, for lack of a better term) is, say, 5th grade in math, 4th grade in reading, 2nd grade in social studies, and you're 7 years old, well, you're pretty much screwed.
There's wisdom here, to a certain point. It's obvious that you have sympathies for the gifted, though.
I do, but it applies equally well to those on the left side of the bell curve. When I was in 2nd grade, my little brother (2.5 years younger) taught me a trick that allowed me to color inside the lines. Honest to God, I've seen some of the stuff I colored at that age, and a chimpanzee could have done better.
I'm sending my daughter to a school where grade level is administrivia, for the most part. First and second grades are combined, as are third and fourth, and so on. If a student is on a lower level or a higher level in a particular subject, no big deal is made that the kids can see. If a 2nd grader is doing 5th grade math work, no one thinks, "Wow, a brain", because everyone assumes that people are different, and it's unsurprising to have kids your age, or around your age, doing different stuff than you.
That's civilized.
quote:Originally posted by Scott R: Remember that not everyone is a brilliant architect, though, hmm?
Very nice. I'm no Howard Roark, and I wasn't going down that road. Individual levels are not only for the gifted.
quote:Originally posted by Scott R: What bothers me about your point, and the point of Capitalism Magazine's various articles on the subject, is that it is so clearly utilitarian. Help the best, screw the rest. :shrug: Maybe I'm biased. I always smirk at the intelligista who whine about how repressed they are. . .
But see, that's where you've been making an unwarranted assumption. I know kids who go to my daughter's school who have benefited from having their lower levels in certain areas respected every bit as much as I'm hoping my daughter will benefit from the converse.
quote:Originally posted by Scott R:
quote:When I was in grade school, I wouldn't use a pencil...
I'm sorry that you had a difficult teacher. But your one experience doesn't dictate the attitudes of a whole institution, much less a whole system.
It's chronic and endemic. My partner is a grade school teacher, and she sees it as well. There are good teachers out there who manage to rise above the system they're teaching in. That doesn't mean the system is okay.
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quote:Originally posted by starLisa: But I wasn't. You can't possibly be defending that test, can you? That was a pivotal point in my educational career, and I was probably in 2nd grade. It taught me that knowing the answers, or being able to figure them out, wasn't what school was about. It was obeying orders.
quote:Originally posted by starLisa: Since the whole point of government run schools is to socialize children and make them more obedient to authority, rather than to educate them
You're erroneously making a leap from some teaching methods designed to teach students the importance of following directions to declaring that obeying orders is the whole point of schools, not education.
Um... no I'm not. You quoted me in reverse order. Rather than making a leap from those teaching methods to my conclusion, those methods are actually a limited number of examples of the situation claimed in my conclusion.
You get the difference, right?
quote:Originally posted by IdahoEEBoy: This is not the case. No school I have been to emphasizes control and de-emphasizes learning.
Do tell. I'm not saying they aren't at all interested in teaching knowledge. I'm just saying that it's the lesser priority. If the two objectives come into conflict, it's always education that suffers.
quote:Originally posted by IdahoEEBoy: However, it is absolutely necessary to learn obedience and how to follow instructions in both an academic and social context.
Teaching obedience is not a task for the government. Jeez... it's just horrifying that you'd suggest it is. Neither is teaching social values. The socialist idea that "society" somehow owns your children and is entitled to mold them as it sees fit, regardless of how you see fit... I just can't even find the words to describe how nasty that is.
quote:Originally posted by IdahoEEBoy: I know of no workplace where following its instructions and guidelines are merely optional. I can't think of a community that following the laws is not mandatory.
That's not what they're teaching. They're teaching blind obedience. Like that 22 question test. I mean, how stupid. You're in school, a place that's supposedly for learning things and being tested to see if you have learned them. You're given a test to do, and the important thing isn't whether you know the answers to the questions; it's whether you're going to be slavishly obedient.
In the workplace, doing exactly what you're told, no more, no less, may be okay for assembly line workers. Which is what socialists see us all as, ideally. But it'll get you fired from many jobs.
There's a reason why "work-to-rule" is one step short of striking.
quote:Originally posted by IdahoEEBoy: Although hopefully obeying rules, following instructions, etc are taught at home, they are necessarily enforced and revealed in new contexts at school.
Why do you say it's necessary? What is the goal you're trying to achieve by doing so?
quote:Originally posted by IdahoEEBoy: Many of the things you have pointed out are a result of inadequate funding (which is one reason your private school looks favorable by comparison).
The government can never compete with private anything unless it gives itself a foot up. In the case of private schools, it gives itself a foot up, and still can't compete.
quote:Originally posted by IdahoEEBoy: In most cases I don't think teachers in a classroom of 30 students (or more when high school is reached) have the ability to tailor a customized learning plan to each student. While this represents a big problem in government funding priorities it doesn't follow that they actually have a sinister motive of turning us into some sort of zombie society.
Oh. Gotcha. I'm not suggesting a conspiracy theory. It's pretty well out in the open. Even you are advocating that schools indoctrinate children in the values the government has chosen for them. You're just so used to that idea that you can't even see how atrocious it really is.
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quote:Since the whole point of government run schools is to socialize children and make them more obedient to authority, rather than to educate them, I can't see why this should be such a big shock.
Modern educational requirements are also a function of capitalism: an attempt to force human beings to be nothing but consumers for increasingly long periods of time.
Fifty years ago, a college degree was a luxury, not a necessity for a decent paying job. Trade skill jobs didn't require an associate's degree. A hundred years ago, a college degree for anything but the intellectual/social elite was scarce.
We're beginning to see graduate degrees become more and more common an expectation.
This terrifies me a lot more than the idea of schools teaching my kids social obedience.
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quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: Ah, see, I was thinking the advent of government-mandated schooling. Not quite the same.
Ah. I don't have any problem with that. Within limits. I think that denying a child an education is a form of child abuse. Sort of like locking them in a closet.
The problem arises when you try to determine what acceptable levels of education are. I got through differential equations (barely) in college, but I'm damned if I can figure out what earthly good having taken trigonometry is doing me in my life now. The vast majority of people forget everything beyond simple algebra once they're out in the real world.
Once you have to set those acceptable levels, you find yourself facing the irrational ideas of people on school boards, who have their own societal axes to grind.
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quote:Since the whole point of government run schools is to socialize children and make them more obedient to authority, rather than to educate them, I can't see why this should be such a big shock.
Modern educational requirements are also a function of capitalism: an attempt to force human beings to be nothing but consumers for increasingly long periods of time.
We must understand capitalism differently, you and I. If you're talking about the tunnel vision of modern corporations, I agree. If you're ascribing that goal to free marketers in general, you're completely off base there.
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quote:We must understand capitalism differently, you and I. If you're talking about the tunnel vision of modern corporations, I agree. If you're ascribing that goal to free marketers in general, you're completely off base there.
Modern corporations ARE modern capitalism, so, yes, that's what I was talking about.
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quote:We must understand capitalism differently, you and I. If you're talking about the tunnel vision of modern corporations, I agree. If you're ascribing that goal to free marketers in general, you're completely off base there.
Modern corporations ARE modern capitalism, so, yes, that's what I was talking about.
Ah. I was right that we're using the term differently. To me, capitalism means only that no outside coercive force (like government) meddles in trade. Neither to help them nor to hinder them. They aren't given favors, and they aren't scapegoated.
Most of what you think of as capitalism isn't at all capitalist, in my opinion.
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As your definition of capitalism is one held by few modern economists (say, those since Adam Smith; he certainly held no such view), I think that you may find it beneficial to accomodate your discussion to the mainstream rather than the other way around.
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And on education: the government isn't trying to compete with private schools, its trying to make a move known to be inefficient in the market of education, the education of the masses.
This is one of those situations I remarked on before where the government may choose something which reduces efficiency (at least local efficiency) because it holds some other value dear; the educated public.
Privatized education leads to a largely uneducated public with a small, privileged class mostly composed of those in better economic situations receiving high quality educations. It is certainly a more efficient arrangement of the educational market, but it is hardly better, overall.
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quote:Originally posted by Goo Boy: lma, that's what I mean about it being a cutesy response. It is a deeply satisfying response to people with anger toward their own educational experiences, but that doesn't mean that it's based on truth.
There are reasons for rules in a setting where one teacher has 35 students per class. Feel free to argue for alternatives in which one teacher does not have 35 students per class (210 students in 6 classes, btw); I'm all for it if you can find a way to guarantee a minimum level of education for all while allowing for that.
There are also teachers who are incompetent, jerks, or what have you. The existence of these teachers does not prove anything about the goals of the educational establishment.
To claim that this was all education was about suggests that you would know everything you know today without the aid of any of your teachers, assuming you went to a traditional school--and that everyone else you know also would know everything they know, and possess all the skills they possess, without the efforts of their teachers. This attitude does a gross injustice to the teachers you had, and to teachers in general. I find it personally offensive.
Excuse me? My personal experience is not valid because I cannot quantify it and cross-reference it for you? That's the tyranny of statistics. You can prove anything you want to with statistics. Knock yourself out.
First of all, I do not have anger toward the huge majority of my educational experience. I was bored a lot, but that's a lot different from being angry about it. And, actually, I had what I would consider to be exemplary teachers, especially in elementary school - not so much in junior high and high school, but, oh, well. It was entertaining, anyway.
Having rules is one thing; having arbitrary and largely silly rules is something else altogether. Mrs. French, my third grade teacher, got very irate with me and told me that I was not allowed to write in cursive writing until the middle of the year, despite the fact that I had been able to handwrite as opposed to print for at least two years at that point. I know it wasn't that she could not read my cursive, because it was much more legibile than the printing of a lot of the kids in the class. I continue to have handwriting that I constantly get compliments on.
Oh, and I am sorry if you find it personally offensive that I do believe that I would know everything that I know without the teachers I had in school. But I do believe that. I don't believe that is true for most students, but I honestly can't think of anything I learned in school that I hadn't already read in a book somewhere.
Not my fault that my kindergarten teacher didn't know what to do with me because I could already read. When I was in kindergarten, lo, those many years ago, they taught the alphabet, to count to ten, and the primary colors. Pretty much everything else was socialization. But I had learned to read by the time I was three, and I much preferred to do that than to play with the toy kitchen and baby dolls. I'd have liked to go outside and play with the rockets, but girls weren't allowed to do that.
Should my parents have forbidden me to learn to read? That's what one teacher told them.
Not my fault that by the time I was seven years old I was checking books out of the adult section of the library (and could actually read at adult level a bit earlier than that), so that my second grade teacher didn't know what to do with me, either. I'd fall asleep in class all the time because I was so bored. I quickly learned not to do that, via several trips to the principal's office, but I was still bored to tears pretty much all through school.
And then, after all that, and after they put me through a battery of tests, they wouldn't tell either me or my parents what my IQ tested out to. Don't know what they were afraid of. I did find out at least the minimum it must be, however, after I accidentally found out the criteria for admission to the MGM (mentally gifted minors) program I was in in 5th and 6th grades.
But, my god, I guess I felt like it was a little bit of an insult to me when teachers taught things that I knew good and well were wrong. This happened all the way up to college level when I had an archaeology teacher (a grad student who should have known better) tell the class that the progression of the stone age was paleolithic, neolithic, and then mesolithic. No, he hadn't misspoken. He insisted that he was right after I questioned him about it. Dismissed me out of hand. Wouldn't look it up in the textbook. Never mind the fact that I had know the correct progression since I was about eight years old.
So, sorry if I have offended you, Goo Boy. But from where I sit, that's the way I see it.
Posts: 2454 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
I haven't read all of this, but just in case nobody else has mentioned it antisocial behaviour in the UK is stuff like grafitti and vandalism. It also includes loud music at ungodly hours, etc.
Canada has similar laws but they have different names.
Posts: 944 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Um, back to the original point of the thread...
First of all, education is a big problem in the UK because it's not a very education-centric society. Instead of the US where education is huge and where a vast majority of those who can go to college (notice I say "those who can"), the UK lets people graduate from high school aged 16 with a certification, and many young people do. This puts the population at a bit of disadvantage. Blair's idea, whatever it is- the article didn't seem to specify- no doubt attempts to address this. It's the most recent in a long line of educational reforms that have changed the face of British education, especially high schools, again and again.
quote:'anti-social' to me means that you need some type of medication
"Asbos" or Anti-Social Behavior Orders have nothing to do with medication (even so, medication is not such a big part of British life as it is American). Anti-social behavior examples include being overly loud again and again during the middle of the night in a residential area: signs in restaurants and bars all over britain say "Please consider our local residents and leave quietly". Other things would be swearing across the street at passersby, petty vandalism, loud music in the middle of the night, repetative threats of violence. They ususally apply to the younger generation, although definately not exclusively. They were introduced to deal with the rowdy public, and usually take the form of restraining orders, although it's clear that this is being extended to jail time.
Personally, I have other solutions to Britain's problems. One of the reasons I believe the night crime problem in Britain is so big is that everything closes at five. Other than the bars, pubs and clubs, there's nowhere to go. You might go to get ice cream, or shopping late at night, the British go and get drunk.
Then, even worse, when they come out the pubs, there's only people on the streets like them. Everyone else is locked up in their homes, or scuttling home from the theatre. These empty streets are perfect for crime, and only the growing numbers of CCTV cameras are watching.
Downtown Sheffield at nine o'clock was empty. Anywhere in North America would be teeming with people- young people going to bars, adults out for a drink, people going to the movies, shopping, or just walking.
Get people on the streets, hire students and young people to work those late hours, and I guarantee crime will drop.
On the other issue, I agree with fugu13:
quote: Privatized education leads to a largely uneducated public with a small, privileged class mostly composed of those in better economic situations receiving high quality educations. It is certainly a more efficient arrangement of the educational market, but it is hardly better, overall.
Sure, "gen ed" isn't brilliant. Teachers teach wrong things, sometimes. They go too slow for the cleverest of us. There are sometimes teachers who don't allow us to read or write, or do math ahead of the class. They can be humiliating. They can be stupid.
But they teach the masses to read, to write, to follow instructions, to think a little, to buckle down and meet deadlines, to face unfairness, to face indignation.
British private schools, as you probably know, are some of the most rigid, artificial societies ever invented. Humiliation and utmost obedience is expected. They teach children to play by the rules; they teach children to specifically break the rules. Rules are not a by-product of government education only but a by product of all formalized education since the dawn of time. An apprentice might have spent years laboriously making nails until he was finally allowed to move on. It's not the government, it's any authority, whether it is a school board, a teacher, a master, or a private school there are going to be rules, there are going to be limitations, and there are going to be things that do not let you be entirely free.
It seems like a lot of you have been grievously hurt by your various schools or teachers. My brother was one of them- very bright; completely broken by the system, very angry, like a lot of you. I think any system would have broken him though, other than a personal tutor.
I, on the other hand, realised that playing by the rules was not going to hurt me. I'm not brilliant, but I've always been close to the top of my class. This is partially because I don't mind doffing my cap and stilling my tongue. I don't mind playing by the rules. I always thought about it like math or music or poetry. Once you know how to play by the rules, you can make or bend those rules exactly how you want to. The knowledge of the rules adds to the breaking of them.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I agree with Lisa, I never thought I would say that, but it's true. It's wrong, but true. Education should be anti-authoritarian, free-will is very important, and I would require Orwell, but in todays schools, obedient mediocrity is sought.
I would say that Europe, in general, has a different, and probably better, view of education. They belive that intellegent students should be placed in different schools than less intellegent ones. They also begin to major in a subject while still in secondary school.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Other things would be swearing across the street at passersby, petty vandalism, loud music in the middle of the night, repetative threats of violence.
Gee, sounds like the people in the building next door...
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:Excuse me? My personal experience is not valid because I cannot quantify it and cross-reference it for you? That's the tyranny of statistics.
Um, what the hell?! Did you even read my post, or were you saving that up for some time?? When did I ask you to quantify or cross-reference anything?!
I did not say your experience is invalid. I say your experience is irrelevant to the illogical conclusions you draw from them. (Perhaps some more schooling would be in order.)
Let me try once more to spell it out:
You had an unpleasant educational experience. Specifically, your education was not suited to your gifted needs. Gee, I'm very sorry for you. Your experience points to shortcomings in our educational system, including the difficulty in a mass system of dealing with needs that are outside the mainstream. I don't deny that those shortcomings are there, and thus I am not invalidating your experience.
What is illogical and offensive is when you presume to ascribe these shortcomings to a particular motive. Your teachers didn't serve you as best you might have been served either because they individually were incompetent or because they did not have the resources to do so. (Or they did and you're merely spoiled and bitter. I mean, to be logical, let's cover all possible bases, neh?)
To claim, however, that the entire system exists not to educate but to put people in their places is beyond unjust. It is illogical and immature.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Most of the folks at Hatrack seem to be ahead of the curve in intelligence, depending on how you measure it. I too could read at age three, and I started reading "adult level" books before even little miss attitude. I found school boring as well. But none of that matters.
I would much rather live in a country where the system teaches everyone at the same level (theoretically, ignoring the differences between school districts and funding for the sake of this argument) rather than sending smart kids on to school and average kids to a different school. That seems a much better idea. Believing in the potential of our fellow citizens is not a bad thing. Just because some of us are capable of understanding faster or a greater amount shouldn't mean those who don't shouldn't have the opportunity.
I have a lot more respect for those students who had to work to learn things and graduate than I do for myself, who coasted through on natural intelligence.
I didn't do homework in high school, I found it boring. A waste of my time. That doesn't prevent me from seeing the value of requiring it for everyone.
My younger brother went through school with an individualized education program because he was slower with math, suffered from dyslexia, and took tests very slowly. Should he have been placed in a different school than me, despite the fact that he has the potential and the ability to do just as much and more than I can?
Equality in education means that everyone will have the same education, with some minor variations from problems within the system.
I much prefer that sort of thinking than the sort where we split people up based on tests in the 4th or 8th grade.
posted
Pelegius, FYI, those "less intelligent" students get placed in schools where they haven't a prayer of ever attending a university, and where they receive a substandard education. They typically have no homework at all, and they typically pick up few skills. Then they move to Florida for high school, because "in the US anyone can go to university," and so their parents often see moving to the US as the only way to open up these opportunities for them. The students I get from those superior European schools are invariably poorly prepared, and they always struggle much more to get by than their equally (un)intelligent American peers.
But that's okay, I guess, because they're not really that intelligent, and thus have no business aspiring to a college education, neh?
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
This was tested in England (sorry, I know, England again, but it's what I know about) with the 11+ tests where eleven year olds were tested on their "intelligence" and then divided into grammar schools and everyone else. Needless to say, if you failed the 11+ you were doomed for life.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote: Most of the folks at Hatrack seem to be ahead of the curve in intelligence, depending on how you measure it. I too could read at age three, and I started reading "adult level" books before even little miss attitude. I found school boring as well. But none of that matters.
I would much rather live in a country where the system teaches everyone at the same level (theoretically, ignoring the differences between school districts and funding for the sake of this argument) rather than sending smart kids on to school and average kids to a different school. That seems a much better idea. Believing in the potential of our fellow citizens is not a bad thing. Just because some of us are capable of understanding faster or a greater amount shouldn't mean those who don't shouldn't have the opportunity.
I have a lot more respect for those students who had to work to learn things and graduate than I do for myself, who coasted through on natural intelligence.
I believe there's actually a lot of environmental input that can influence a person's biological "intelligence"--what your mother eats/exposes you to when you're a tadder, to your home environment, to how much time is spent with you as a child and what type all influences intelligence, I believe. Of course, this doesn't take into account software things like culture and how books are viewed in your home. Or so I've learned from watching Gilligan's Island, anyway.
In short, I believe there are few truly gifted people on the planet. There are few people who are permanently "not intelligent", who can't be taught how to be 'book smart' if they wish it.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
Edit: I really am sorry that I offended you, Icaurs. But, you know, I try - and I'm probably not always successful - my original post in this space in answer to your post answering me was an example of not being successful - but I do try, not to personally attack the people who offend me. If you felt that this is what I did in my post, I'm sorry. It wasn't meant that way.
posted
I agree with you Stormy, which is part of the reason I disagree with dividing kids up into groups. If each of those kids has potential to be just as smart as the others, why shouldn't they be given the same opportunities as the others? It's nonsense.
Just because you start off with a disadvantage, whether that disadvantage is biological, social, cultural, whatever, shouldn't mean you have to end up with a disadvantage, and vice versa.
--ApostleRadio
Edited for typo
Posts: 367 | Registered: May 2005
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I have mixed feelings on dividing kids into groups by ability level--but I recognize this as an issue that reasonable people can disagree upon without assuming evil motives in those with other opinions. My school did not segregate by ability level, and I believe that in general, that pushes lower achieving kids to try harder. (To be clear, I believe ability grouping in general benefits gifted students, and no grouping benefits average to low-average students.) The danger in this is in setting the bar too low and in boring the higher achieving kids. But when you group unmotivated (but otherwise reasonably intelligent) kids together, you get a sort of feedback loop where effort is discouraged by peers.
Here's why I'm conflicted: in my schooling I see the advantage of heterogenous grouping, and with our English immigrants I see the disadvantage of a srict tracking system. However, my own children are substantially developmentally delayed, and we suffer the agony each night of trying to help them keep up with their non-delayed peers. I don't think low-average kids benefit from being segregated, but I think kids with substantially below-average ability do benefit from a modified curriculum and more individual attention. (Experience has taught me to disagree with you, Storm, if you think that there are no kids with below average ability, or that it's all environment. I am, by nature , a big believer in the importance of environment. But we all thought that we would take these kids in and give them lots of reading and lots of stimulus and lots of attention and that would make everything great, but it hasn't been quite that simple. I also realize that your own claim was not as simplistic as I am describing it, so take my quibble with a grain of salt.) Anyway, t's really a struggle to keep up with the other kids, but the alternative is schooling that will not lead to a real high-school diploma. And I realize that this is not the worst thing in the world, but I don't want to close that door in their lives this early in it.
quote: agree with you Stormy, which is part of the reason I disagree with dividing kids up into groups. If each of those kids has potential to be just as smart as the others, why shouldn't they be given the same opportunities as the others? It's nonsense.
Just because you start off with a disadvantage, whether that disadvantage is biological, social, cultural, whatever, shouldn't mean you have to end up with a disadvantage, and vice versa.
Well, don't get me wrong , I'm not just saying throw everyone together without applying some metric. But I do think that if someone wants to try a class out, regardless of what their grades are, let them try. I have personal motives for saying this, of course.
quote: (Experience has taught me to disagree with you, Storm, if you think that there are no kids with below average ability, or that it's all environment. I am, by nature , a big believer in the importance of environment. But we all thought that we would take these kids in and give them lots of reading and lots of stimulus and lots of attention and that would make everything great, but it hasn't been quite that simple. I also realize that your own claim was not as simplistic as I am describing it, so take my quibble with a grain of salt.)
Grain of salt taken. My main point, as I hope was clear, was that I don't believe intelligence is only biologically determined.
You are aware that my brother is autistic and I help him out on a constant basis? While I've never been his parent, I have some insight into the fact that there's only so much people can do no matter how much we might wish otherwise, and with the prejudice of looking at people and assuming that because their phenotype (biology) has them look one way, they can't ever do this, this or this, So don't even try. You can't freaking know just by looking at someone or how someone behaves at one point in time, what their potential is. (Sorry, that last bit wasn't directed at you. Just free floating stress about the issue and things in general.)
I'm sure you'd be the first to agree that a loving, nurturing environment that encourages anyone to achieve will help them to achieve more than an environment that assumes the worst, or assumes anything at all, really. I firmly believe that a society that encourages people to dream, and gives them the tools to achieve that dream, is the best society for all concerned. It's why I have such a lot of respect for schools like the Sudbury Valley School. Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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My bad. I meant the advent of government controlled schooling.
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, a big believer in the importance of environment. But we all thought that we would take these kids in and give them lots of reading and lots of stimulus and lots of attention and that would make everything great, but it hasn't been quite that simple. I also realize that your own claim was not as simplistic as I am describing it, so take my quibble with a grain of salt.) Anyway, t's really a struggle to keep up with the other kids, but the alternative is schooling that will not lead to a real high-school diploma. And I realize that this is not the worst thing in the world, but I don't want to close that door in their lives this early in it.![[Dont Know]](graemlins/dontknow.gif)
