From: hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
Newsgroups: misc.education
Subject: Re: CHILL OUT
Date: 29 Sep 92 20:48:29 GMT
Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department

In article <BvBn33.6pJ@quake.sylmar.ca.us> brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>In article <00717615264@elgamy.sccsi.com> elg@elgamy.sccsi.com (Eric Lee Green) writes:
>>From article <Bv5M9r.MM6@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>, by hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin):
>>> In article <1992Sep24.155149.15195@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> sdg5e@curry.edschool.Virginia.EDU (Susan Dawn Galea) writes:
>>>>   Sometimes I feel that educators are so plagued by the
>>>>political issues that they forget their main goal:  to educate
>>>>our students.


			.....................

>>> So what do you expect us to do?  If those in charge of the educational
>>> establishment insist on merely warehousing instead of teaching, and do

>>I don't think anybody insists on "merely warehousing". 

>Of course that's not what they call it in public, but can you tell me what
>else you can call a process by which a student spends 13 years in school
>and cannot read and write if it is not "warehousing"?  What do you call it?
>"Education"?

>>For one thing, it is
>>impossible to manage a classroom full of students who are being "merely
>>warehoused". Or, as the saying goes, "idle hands are the Devil's tools."
>>You must have the kids doing SOMETHING, or else it degenerates into mayhem.

>Oh sure, they do SOMETHING.  They fill out work sheets, they engage in role
>playing, they have group discussions, they have field trips, and class 
>projects, and school assemblies, and pep rallies, and driver education, and

			......................


>>Most teachers do the best job they know how to

>Would you accept this kind of attitude and behavior among physicians?  Car
>manufacturers?  What do you think the results of this kind of incompetence
>would be in those cases?  those are pretty lame excuses.  If they can't do
>their jobs, they should be fired.  It's too bad the unions won't allow it.


>>> their best to see that the bright cannot learn more than the stupid, what

>>Nobody TRIES to assure that the bright cannot learn more than the stupid.

>My experience has been that they exert a considerable effort toward that end.
>Of course, they don't call it that.  They call it "socialization", and 
>"cooperation skills".  They call having the bright learn more than the dull
>"elitism".  Among other things, the schools are organized around the 
>transparently false premise that the best way to generate intellectual
>development is to gear the coursework to anything but intellectual ability.
>Students are organized according to age, race, athletic ability...anything
>but intellectual development.

>>That's just how the system is organized. I am of the opinion that it is
>>impossible to do anything else within the current educational system, which

The schools did not do this before the social adjustment people got in.  
They did not have a perfect system by far, but there was an attempt to
group children by intellectual ability, and there were opportunities for
rapid advancement and even guidance beyond the system.

>
>What makes you think that bright students need independent study?  What they
>need is education.  They are just able to go through more material more quickly.
>Of course working alone apart from the influence of teachers IS better than
>being in a class that bores the student into oblivion, but it is NOT a good
>education.

It is more than just going through the material more quickly; this was not 
realized then, and is not realized now.  Whole courses can be done in a 
different order, even.  But going through the material more quickly, and
moving on, was a highly permissible way to do things "back then."

It would be better to organize those who can to have classes suitable to
their talents.  With today's technology, it can be done.  But even in the
old days, not holding them back because of social rather than intellectual
reasons was considered appropriate.

>>I personally have
>>my higher-level students working semi-independently out of kits and
>>encyclopedias and library books (for example, a report on African animals
>>assigned to a smart 5th grader). This does, however, require that I make
>>two extra lesson plans (for my two brightest kids) and expend the energy to
>>give them some extra help when they need help with those advanced
>>assignments.

And what do they have that they are not likely to have to sit through when the
dunderheads are learning that?  "Enrichment" only is a reasonable item to even
consider if it is extracurricular.  

>What a shame!  Let me play my violin for you!

>Actually, since brighter kids are usually easier to teach, they could be put 
>into bigger classes with other bright kids.  The problem is that students
>are promoted by age and not by ability.  Why should a 3rd-grader reading and
>spelling at college level have to take reading classes?  Why should he be held
>back to the level of others his age?

Until about 60 years ago at the elementary school level, that child would not
be kept in the third grade.

>Why not just put all of the smartest kids in the school together and have 
>one teacher do one lesson plan for them?

There is a legitimate problem; there might not be enough smart ones for such a
class.  Now let me make a practical suggestion; television teaching, not
lectures.  There is no reason that we cannot assemble a class electronically.

>>> class attendance, be incorporated?  What can we do about the incompetence
>>> of the teachers except suggest that there be honest testing of their
>>> knowledge, not just grades and credits, and the ones who do not know
>>> get their pay reduced relative to those who do?

>>The question is, "what knowledge do we test?". And to what level of
>>competence?

>Gee, every other profession in the economy seems to have no problem determining
>who is competent and who is not.  What makes you think that education is so
>different?  The problem is that nobody has the power to judge their competence
>and then do something about it.  Neither the "customers" (parents/students)
>nor the administrators (who are prohibited by tenure rules from firing teachers
>for incompetence).  It's also a crime that a young highly skilled teacher makes
>no more than a young incompetent teacher, and makes LESS than an older 
>incompetent one.  Teachers, like students, are advanced according to age
>rather than ability.  In fact, the whole idea that some people are more able
>than others is immediately denounced as "elitism".

I have made a suggestion on this.  Let the subject-matter scholars test the
current and prospective teachers on what the scholars would want a teacher
to know to teach their children and grandchildren.

			....................

>>Testing understanding of complex concepts is one thing. But how do we test
>>ability to present those concepts?

>That's what we used to call "writing " in the old days.  I realize that these
>days, asking a kid to write more than four words in a row is considered
>cruel and unusual punishment, but that IS how you go about measuring the 
>ability to generate and express ideas.

One can test concepts in mathematics as well.  This used to be done in what
is still called "word problems" or "story problems."  There are children
coming out of the high school algebra courses today who have never been
more than marginally exposed to this.  Instead of teaching cookbook calculus
to high school children, insist that they can do this, which is the use of
the language of mathematics for other purposes, such as "real world."  And
instead of having them memorize facts about geometry best looked up, let them
learn what a proof is, and hopefully how to produce them, and not merely
memorize them.
			..........................

>>> There cannot conceivably be a good educational system if children are placed
>>> into their age group regardless of ability and desire.
>
>>Definitely agreed here. In the past, I've proposed grouping students based
>>upon mastery, with students given as much or as little time needed to
>>master the material needed to get a high school diploma. This, naturally,
>>is not a widely-accepted reform proposal. 

>Is it necessary that a policy be popular for it to be right?

>>> Any school which does
>>> not allow the genius to greatly outstrip the idiot does not have education as
>>> its main purpose.

>>The main problem is that the school systems are not organized to educate
>>the genius. 

>Nor the average student, nor the dullard.

>>They are organized to educate the "unwashed masses." 

>If so, then why do so many of the masses emerge from school so utterly 
>uneducated?

Because they are set to educate the child who is dull and/or disinterested.

>>That has
>>always been the purpose of school systems. Traditionally, geniuses were
>>educated via independent tutors, mentorships, "special study", etc., rather
>>than via government-supported school systems. It is laudable to desire that
>>school systems be reformed to be able to educate geniuses to their
>>potential -- but given the design of school systems, that's probably not a
>>really practical goal. The institution of "schooling" simply isn't set up
>>to do it.

They never were designed to educate to the fullest.  But the geniuses in the
immigrant societies before WWII learned far more than today's students.  There
were no separate courses for them, but the college-preparatory courses were not
the garbage of today.  And even the elementary schools gave opportunity to 
think and not merely vegetate.

>So that's just it then?  Must we accept whatever the school systems dish out?
>Why must we never ask for change?  Improvement?  Your implication seems
>to be that the average students are well-served by the current system.  I
>can't see how you can reach such a conclusion.

We had a government-supported school system before the social adjustment 
people got in which did at least a fair job in providing an education for
the average person, and a fair job in providing a better education for those
with superior abilities.  It did a poor job in handling the dullard, and was
far from optimal for the genius.  Most learned far more than they do today.

We can do better than that, but not by the current methods.  We must allow
those who are willing and able to learn and not be stifled.  Even the bright
of the underclasses had more opportunity then than now to get a decent 
education.
-- 
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)  
{purdue,pur-ee}!pop.stat!hrubin(UUCP)