Not surprised, this is pretty much a recap of the Hawaii school system's "innovative" classes back in the 70's that caused, depending on whom you talked to, up to a 50% illiteracy rate in their HS graduates. It was all about 'social' education, passing on time, and 'maintaining' the Hawaiian lifestyle... I DO remember kids working in the shops that couldn't make change, and didn't know 'basic' English.
I teach in a State University but it is common in all Schools. You see it more in the State schools because there usually is some law that says you have to take the state school graduates.
The students are not prepared for reading writing or arithmatic at the college level. There is a certain amount of social passing depending on where the students are from but even in the good school systems they are not pushed to hard. In most places you the student and you the parent have to push to get a decent education.
So yes if you work hard you can learn but its not that you have to work hard studying as much as you have to work hard to get the classes and get around the teachers and the administration.
If you come out educated it is because you wanted to not becasue the school system wanted you too.
Sounds weird but basically you get an education inspite of them not because of them.
Expectations are low and if you go along they are okay with that.
MOst schools are concerned about retention - yes becasue of the money but also becasue of accreditation. The accrediting bodies will come after you if large numbers of admitted students do not graduate in 6 years. They say you should not have admitted them in the first place but this is where the state laws about taking all students you are in the top XX percent of the schools class. Basic conflict - the state is saying you have to take them the accrediting body is saying you should not have.
Problem is that they should be in a coumminty college not teh four year ones until all the remedial stuff is done but that may damage them.
Instead of No Child Left Behind or any other claptrap "progressive" program, there should be defined standards for every grade NOT tied to federal funding. Kids either meet this standard or redo...forever if necessary. The fact that funding and success is tied to kids passing means there are built in rewards for cheating or gaming the system. I have seen it here in Texas with the TAKS tests that are supposed to guage progress. Teachers and kids will spend hours just preparing to pass these tests so they can get to the next level. The Feds and local adminstrators are doing nothing to earn their salary and are hurting kids and the country as a whole. Of course, that is par for the course with the Feds.
We should just issue every child a high school diploma on May 30 of its 18th year. Problem solved!
A lot of libertarians look at the government schooling system backwards. They complain that the many are taxed to school the children of the few. Public school parents come up with general good rationalisations, and smile at what they see as a benefit to themselves.
Backwards, people. Remember, donation includes control. The many are taxed, and they get to decide what the benefit is. If I have to pay to educate your child, I'll pay for as little as I can get away with. I'll exercise as little supervision as I can, because that costs too.
Parents who complain about a crap education should be told that you get what YOU pay for.
In the schools, parents are getting what someone ELSE pays for. That's right- you, the parents of current pupils, don't get to run the schools. You aren't the political majority.
A crap education is plenty good enough for a stranger's child.
Please explain how Tomlinson's differentiation and Gardner's multiple intelligences might be applicable to many of the items listed in this post. How does increased cultural diversity in our schools relate to lower scores on standardized tests? Are there other ways that students should be assessed? Are teachers empoying a wide range of instructional strategies in their pedagogy? If not, why not?
How does this phrase "The American Education system is a mile wide and an inch deep" relate to the education systems in many East Asian Countries? In your explanation, what are some bullet points (in regards to math and science in particular) or action items that could bring about substanitive change?
While schools certainly do shoulder some of the blame for the issues you mention, what is the primary agency of socialization that has done the most damage to decreased literacy and lowered math skills?
It seems to me that you are frustrated by the current state of education in this country. If you want to continue to bitch and call for "nuking the site from orbit," your frustration will, in all liklihood, mount as this view has no constructive purpose. Start answering the questions above with some honest research and I think you will find that the problem is far more complex than you assert in this post.
Why should we answer your questions when you won't answer ours? For example:
Question 1:
Mark:I'm always the first one to admit that while some conservatives may not buy the climate change theory
Unix-Jedi:WHAT "Climate Change Theory?" Which one? Show your work. [Now 10] days ago, 10:45:18 PM EDT
Which one, Mark?
Explain. Be clear. Show your work. State what you mean. Clarify ambiguity.
Question 2:
Marxy:"But Phil Jones is an ISI highly cited researcher. Basically, what you are telling me is that all of you know more than Phil Jones who is, in fact, a climatologist holding a PhD after years of research in Environmental Sciences?"
Me:Is being cited, holding a PhD and working in the field for years the only thing that makes him "right"?
"It seems to me that you are frustrated by the current state of education in this country. If you want to continue to bitch and call for "nuking the site from orbit," your frustration will, in all liklihood, mount as this view has no constructive purpose." - Markadelphia
"It is only from a special point of view that 'education' is a failure. As to its own purposes, it is an unqualified success. One of its purposes is to serve as a massive tax-supported jobs program for legions of not especially able or talented people. As social programs go, it’s a good one. The pay isn’t high, but the risk is low, the standards are lenient, entry is easy, and job security is pretty good...in fact, the system is perfect, except for one little detail. We must find a way to get the children out of it.” — Richard Mitchell, the Underground Grammarian.
Please explain how Tomlinson's differentiation and Gardner's multiple intelligences might be applicable to many of the items listed in this post.
Better yet, please explain why Stanford failed and Aspire didn't, using the same body of students.
How does increased cultural diversity in our schools relate to lower scores on standardized tests?
See my above question to you - which needs to be answered and assessed before your assumption there is taken as a given.
Are there other ways that students should be assessed?
... Says the man who claims he doesn't "test" students.
Are teachers empoying a wide range of instructional strategies in their pedagogy? If not, why not?
Does't matter. They're failing at it at an increasing rate. Whatever they're doing is failing.
This is a simple concept, so it demonstrates the level at which you can comprehend concepts. You can parrot back things - but your failure to understand the conceptual level dooms you here. The details and fluff you're trying to divert the thread onto - like all those you left hanging last week, and the week before that , and the times before that - are irrelevant when you look at the conceptual issue.
Stanford's more educated, most academic, most advanced theories failed miserably, while the old way, the way sneered at, succeeded.
And you want to continue down the road where everyone has failed.
Obviously Markadelphia's reading comprehension matches that of the East Palo Alto Academy graduates!
I reiterate:
Compared to district high school students, East Palo Academy tutees had "the lowest skills and the highest grades," Kerr recalls. Students with high A averages turned out to have very poor reading and math skills, though their writing was relatively strong.
"How does increased cultural diversity in our schools relate to lower scores on standardized tests?"
Teaching diversity, i.e. spending class time on how wonderful diversity is, can result in lower scores on standardized tests when it is taught instead of the subjects tested by those standardized tests.
You claim to be a teacher, and you ask this question of all questions?
"How does this phrase "The American Education system is a mile wide and an inch deep" relate to the education systems in many East Asian Countries?"
As an inaccuracy, because it does not apply to the education systems in many East Asian countries. Their systems are narrower but deeper. In language even a teacher can understand, they teach less "feel good crapola" and more "reading, writing, and arithmetic", as it were.
"In your explanation, what are some bullet points (in regards to math and science in particular) or action items that could bring about substanitive change?"
Only three are needed:
o Stop teaching students to feel good about not learning.
o Start teaching students how to learn.
o Then teach students reading, writing, arithmetic, history, geography, ...
"While schools certainly do shoulder some of the blame for the issues you mention, what is the primary agency of socialization that has done the most damage to decreased literacy and lowered math skills?"
Schools. That's where "socialization" is taught and "literacy and math skills" aren't.
"It seems to me that you are frustrated by the current state of education in this country."
GODDAMN, but you are perceptive. Did you figure that out by yourself?
"If you want to continue to bitch and call for "nuking the site from orbit," your frustration will, in all liklihood, mount as this view has no constructive purpose."
So, "this view has no constructive purpose", does it? Being frustrated by the current state of education has no purpose, does it? How about having a purpose of waking the reader up to the problem?
Still won't define "cult", will you, teacher boy?
"Start answering the questions above with some honest research ..."
... says the fuckwit who stated that he only has to ask himself the right questions to know the answers.
Goddamn, teacher boy, but your hypocrisy never ceases, does it?
Now, I've answered your questions. Why the hell don't you go back and answer all those questions you ran away from? Hmmm?
That is the death knell of this entire miserable system.
The best high-school teacher I ever studied with has now quit school, and gone to tutoring homeschooled children full-time. He can design curricula the way he wants to, and the way the student will learn from, instead of how some committee dictates. He's been nudging at me to join him, and I may, given that I get my MA in three weeks and I despise formal schools.
A family I know educates most of their children via a combination of parental teaching, Skyping with tutors, community college classes, and one-off classes with a local homeschooling network. Their two oldest are in high school after having been homeschooled when younger, and the mother is not happy with the change. The next oldest has no intention of attending high school and wants to continue homeschooling. (She also wants to be a forensic anthropologist or pathologist, and is already taking forensics classes!)
We are not widgets to be stamped out in factories.
If you want to continue to bitch and call for "nuking the site from orbit," your frustration will, in all liklihood, mount as this view has no constructive purpose.
"What's the sooperintendent gonna do, fire us all?" -- unidentified union thimblewit in Central Falls, RI
Mastiff, I've never had an issue with home schooling. Many of my colleagues do but I don't. To me, it shows that the primary agency of socialization (the parents) are engaged and this is a rare thing these days. So I disagree that home schooling is the death knell for the whole system. Parents, on the whole, are too busy with their own lives and wrapped up in several selfish pursuits to be actively engaged with their children. Often times, the view teachers as "the help" and expect them to not only educate their children but parent them as well. The breakdown of the family as a primary agency of socialization is one of the main reasons why children are having trouble in math and reading. These same children have virtually no interest in civics or history and, as DJ noted in a recent comment in another thread, are only interested in video games. Their parents, most of whom are part of what I call the Michael Jordan generation, teach them that life is all about being lucky and quickly making it rich.Thus, they have no intrinsic motivation.
DJ, it's not teaching diversity...it's understanding that we now have diverse learners in the classroom with multiple intelligences. Part of the reason for this is the increased diversity in our culture. Another reason would be our culture has changed and people learn differently now than they used to learn. It's not surprising, given your bias, that you interpreted my question that way. By bias, I don't mean racial but the Cult myth that we teach "feel good" lessons that are not substanitive. That is flat out wrong. We teach to the standards set out by MDE as many other states do with their own standards. Your three "solutions" are terribly simplistic and betray a real lack of knowledge on effective pedagogy and understanding how people learn.
Unix, do you agree or disagree with Tomlinson or Gardner? Why or why not? Personal attacks directed toward me are not solutions to the problem Kevin has illustrated.
Ed, I'm not sure how many times you want me to answer the same questions or state my position on climate change. It seems to me that you just want me to write things so that you can offer rebutal after rebutla filled with personal insults. This is a thread about education. If you don't want to answer my questions above, it doesn't matter to me. But by not answering my questions above and vilifying me yet again, it appears that you don't know enough about the subject to answer.
"Ed, I'm not sure how many times you want me to answer the same questions or state my position on climate change."
Oh believe me, we know your positions on climate change. What we don't know is your answers for those questions BECAUSE YOU DID NOT ANSWER THEM. We also think you have no factual basis for your positions, which is why we ask questions designed to discover that basis. (Or more likely, expose your basis as mere fantasy castles in the air built on nothing more than wishful thinking.)
I know the questions are off topic for this thread. I reposted those questions here because you RAN AWAY FROM THEM in the other thread. Feel free to go back there and answer them.
Ed, this is getting tiresome. When you don't agree or don't like the points I'm making, you accuse me of not answering questions. Then you proceed to "prove" I'm wrong and/or a coward...shouting at me to "go back and answer" before you answer any of mine. I'm done playing this little game. If you want to debate my points on education, I'm willing to engage in debate with you on this subject. If not, oh well.
When you don't agree or don't like the points I'm making, you accuse me of not answering questions.
No, we accuse you of not anwering questions when (gasp) you won't ANSWER THE QUESTIONS.
Who here has a problem with using "definitions" for words that are ONLY RELEVANT TO ONE PERSON IN THE CONVERSATION, Verbatim Boy?
There's rarely a case where that happens between us, but with you, we have to ask you continually for clarification - which you rarely bestow upon us. (And usually when you do, it's rather laughably easy to point out it's, at the least, not in, shall we say, wide usage?)
I'm done playing this little game.
Notice what Ed did above? He *repeated his questions to you that you didn't answer*.
HAD YOU ANSWERED THEM, YOU COULD PASTE YOUR ANSWERS.
But you didn't, and you can't. Your claim that you "have answered them" is not true.
Tiresome? You've been "debating" and "critically thinking" for 3 years here.
If you want to debate my points on education
To quote Markadelphia "Point proven".
What, after that, can you possibly bring to a debate on education?
You, who purport to be a teacher, who spout the pomo points, who insist that those ways are better, even in a thread that seriously brings to question that - which you totally ignored, going back to your insistence that DO IT AGAIN, ONLY HARDER!
And you've spewed venom at Kevin before when he attributed that to you.
Point. Proven.
You, who claim to be a teacher (personally, I have my doubts.) Who tell us we can't judge the educational system.
Yet you can't manage even the simplest arguments, understanding basic THEORY and PROOF.
STANFORD FAILED.
That is the subject of this thread. STANFORD *FAILED*.
If you've got insights into why they failed, that would be useful.
Insisting that we are wrong that they've failed, which is a fact.....
That's "tiresome". Sadly, it's par for your course. Deny reality, project your failings onto others, and blame us for your worldview being proven wrong continually.
DJ, it's not teaching diversity...it's understanding that we now have diverse learners in the classroom with multiple intelligences. Part of the reason for this is the increased diversity in our culture. Another reason would be our culture has changed and people learn differently now than they used to learn.
Then, Mark, why did STANFORD FAIL AND ASPIRE SUCCEED?
You want to demand answers of me? Oh, no, you've got YEARS of unanswered queues to wrap up before you've got the sack to nut up and demand of me.
This is what you miss, for all of that you just spewed, you missed the most salient point. Stanford, with all that "diverse learning", failed.
Failed.
Miserably.
But doing it the "old way" succeeded.
You have yet to address the factual result in front of you.
I'm not sure how many times you want me to answer the same questions
At least once.
or state my position on climate change.
At least once. You call it "climate change" here, "Global warming" there, and you wave vaguely at "some theory".
What Theory, Mark? BE SPECIFIC.
It seems to me that you just want me to write things so that you can offer rebutal after rebutla filled with personal insults.
As usual, you've missed the forest by running into a tree.
You get "personal insults" after you demonstrate you don't understand, and yet keep talking like you're an authority.
Personal attacks directed toward me are not solutions to the problem Kevin has illustrated.
You'd be wrong there, too. But then, that's the way to bet.
Unix, my point above to Ed is now also my point to you. You're not looking seriously at any of the issues confronting education today and seemingly hell bent on falling back on tired Cult rhetoric (your links below). If you want to demonstrate to me that you have some working knowledge of Tomlinson and/or Gardner using facts, logic, and reasoned debate, let's hear it. Otherwise, I'm done playing your little game as well.
You're not looking seriously at any of the issues confronting education today
No, *I* am. You're not.
You want to bring up tangential nonissues to sidetrack away, and now you're announcing that you're running away, like you did last week, without announcement.
If you want to demonstrate to me that you have some working knowledge of
Why?
WHEN HAVE YOU EVER DONE THIS?
This is hypocrisy of the highest order, Mark.
You routinely REFUSE to do that. Sneer at it, and then swear you've in fact done it.
You've routinely demonstrated the exact opposite, that not only do you have no "working knowledge", you have no ability to listen to people with it.
using facts, logic, and reasoned debate,
Mark, you've demonstrated you have no ability to do that. You just have the ability to deploy any logical fallacy within seconds.
None.
Otherwise, I'm done playing your little game as well.
Run away. It's not the first time. (And keep going this time. - Ed.)
But let us not hear that we don't know what's going on in the educational system.
Here's a topic, and a theory and hypothesis.
Stanford's failed.
Aspire's didn't.
There's something with proof. It stands in opposition to your claims, theories, and fallacies.
Discuss that. Stop trying to change the subject, or blame us for your inability to debate on above a 5th grade level.
Oooohkay...as soon as I get a new keyboard and monitor, let me know where I should send Ed his Internets. You're right, Kevin...that one is twelve stories tall, and made of radiation.
No, he's right (by accident), it's not the "death knell".
He doesn't know what a death knell is. (which is why we often ask him what he means, what he just said, etc - because there's no way to tell when he's being idiotic, or when he's picked up or is using a "definition" that's, uh, well, wrong.)
It is symptomatic of the failure, and how deep and systematic the failure is, and how close we are to a real tipping point. But it's not, itself a "knell".
Have you forgotten that when I first ran into you three years ago, I chewed out DJ for throwing insults at you? Since then, you have earned what you receive from me. Consider:
"Don’t answer a fool according to his foolishness or you’ll be like him yourself. Answer a fool according to his foolishness or he’ll become wise in his own eyes."
(Proverbs 26:4–5 HCSB)
"by not answering my questions above and vilifying me yet again, it appears that you don't know enough about the subject to answer."
I'm perfectly willing to debate you, provided you reciprocate. However, you have no right to demand things of uswhich you refuse to do yourself.
Ed, I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I don't understand what that proverb is trying to say (it is a bit late at night for me, maybe that's it). Would you care to elaborate a bit?
"…using facts, logic, and reasoned debate, let's hear it."
In this thread, you seem to be attempting to divert attention from a simple glaring fact caught squarely in the glare of the spotlight: That the Stanford leftist method of teaching failed horribly, while the conservative "cult" method of teaching surpassed ALL the schools in the area with the exact same type of "hopeless" students. Ignoring facts you do not like is not valid reasoning any more than "delete[ing] the file rather than send[ing it] to anyone" is valid science.
I find it fascinating that the king of using logical fallacies is trying to tell us that we should be using logic! Isn't that kind of like Al Capone telling Elliot Ness he should obey the law because he (Capone) is such a fine upstanding citizen who is popular with the press?
Reasoning is the ability to combine facts, logic and identify the criteria needed to reach a justified conclusion. In other words, it's critical (careful) thinking. Our two questions were both focused on identifying the criteria you were using to create your arguments so it could be examined. Notice the similarity between the words "criteria" and "critical". They both sound the same because they both refer to the same concept; both the details involved in an argument and the examination of those details. By refusing to expose those criteria, you refuse to engage in careful (critical thinking) rational debate.
I can only think of three basic reasons why you might want to refuse to reveal your criteria:
1 - You have no criteria to reveal because you're just Making Stuff Up.
2 - You realize your criteria is faulty and will expose your conclusions as faulty.
3 - You simply don't want to debate. (I can think of several reasons why you might not want to debate, but they still boil down to actively avoiding the debate.)
If you actually want to engage in rational debate using facts, logic and sound reasoning, then do so. That's all we've been asking of you FOR YEARS. Several of us here have already engaged in such debate on the main topic of this thread, and as a result, you're already posturing to run away rather than engage in the reasoned debate you claim you want.
If you really want to prove that you want rational debate, I think it would be most effective for you to respond to the two questions from the climate thread. They both represent brass tacks type questions which the entire debate turns on. (The debate in this thread hasn't quite reached that point yet.) If you actually have valid answers then you have nothing to fear from us, not even ad hominems, which are just logical fallacies, and thus meaningless anyway. The thing is, I think you're dodging those two questions—which, BTW, are really simple to answer—because you know you're wrong and you just don't want to admit it.
" ... because you know you're wrong and you just don't want to admit it."
That's the only thing he's going to hear. The rest is just the "skim over" part. He's looking for "hooks". Because if he actually read what anybody here wrote, he'd have to think, and he's not going to do that.
Local magazine has an article today about the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, and how my city of Richmond, VA is handling it. The main thrust of the article was about how more education efforts regarding slavery were needed. As in, calling for the public schools to talk more about slavery. Except that's all they talk about now. I tutor kids, ranging from 5th to 12th grade. They don't know who George Mason was, but they know all about Harriet Tubman. They might not know much about Jefferson, but they know he was an evil slave owning hypocrite. They don't know anything about Stonewall Jackson or Robert E. Lee, except that they fought for the South and are thus evil. In fact, the American history I'm hearing from kids is more of a leftist morality play then actual history.
I mean these kids don't know anything at all about basic historical facts, they cannot analyze things in a dispassionate fashion, and they lack a basic familiarity with the shape of the world, both past and present. There is this belief now that since we have the Internet we don't need to teach facts. The problem with this is, like the man tied in Plato's cave, children will have no idea where to begin thinking. Without touchstones, without a foundation to build on, all the data in the world is useless.
Like yesterday I was tutoring one of my 10th graders, and he asked, quite seriously, why the Cold War happened if the USSR and the US were allies in WWII. He didn't know, because the assumption nowadays is that "rote learning", the memorization of factual information, is outdated and unnecessary. There is a world of difference between knowing something, and having something available on the Internet.
We're screwed, basically. The memory of what has been lost has been lost. They've won, dumbed the populace down to the point where a majority of the country has no idea what the ideals of the Republic were or how far we've come from them. I don't know how to fix it, because the people who have the power to fix it don't want it fixed. The teachers I've encountered are not very intelligent at all, on the whole. Ed-school graduates constantly rank among the lowest of test scores, this is well documented. Stupid people can't really educate, because turning out intelligent and competent students requires intelligent and competent teachers. Instead we have timserving hacks, entrenched unions, trendy theories, and of course our resident idiot being the one who's supposed to educate children.
Like yesterday I was tutoring one of my 10th graders, and he asked, quite seriously, why the Cold War happened if the USSR and the US were allies in WWII.
I sure hope you took advantage of this very obvious teachable moment. Chances like that don't come along that often. :)
Back to an actual on point question for Markadelphia- in your post that starts " I've never had an issue with home schooling...", you sound pretty much like an "old style education cultist" yourself. I quite agree with you actually, up to a point. That point is where you say " the primary agency of socialization (the parents) ".
Problem is that the school industry screams that the parents CAN"T adequately socialize children! That's the basis for almost every opposition, at large and in particular cases, to home schooling!
You go on to say " they view teachers as "the help"... Of course they do- that is what you ARE. You are an employee paid to do a job, just like the architect or the yard man.
"...and expect them to not only educate their children but parent them as well." Expect, because the school industry has insisted on it! Read the Stanford school web site- or recall your own education classes.
The mission from the START of public education in this country included a hefty component of socialization/indoctrination/parenting, call it what you will. Cleansing the children of immigrants of their foreign ways, making them learn English, teaching them good sober habits their parents wouldn't- all part of, sometimes the main part of, the sales pitch.
Because, in 1810, 1910, or 2010, the problem persists- bad parenting . Now, instead of "doesn't go to Congregational church often enough" or "speaks Italian at home", it's " teach them that life is all about being lucky and quickly making it rich."
Well, I am the help in one sense of the defintion but I am not their parents. My point above was to stress that many parents are not actively involved in their children's lives and expect the school to be both parent and teacher. If this primary agency of socialization (the family) fails, the rest---school, community and the peer group are affected. Inevitiably what ends up happening is the mass media (the 5th main agency of socialization) plays a larger role which I think we can all agree is not a good thing.
So, when I see home schooling going on, I generally am quite supportive. Parents are taking an active role in their child's education which is a rarity these days. Many parents would like their child to have a religious component to their studies so they home school and I think that's great as well. Our country is decidedly lacking in spirituality and any forays into that realm are quite beneficial to the wholeness of a person, imho.
"Well, I am the help in one sense of the defintion but I am not their parents. My point above was to stress that many parents are not actively involved in their children's lives and expect the school to be both parent and teacher."
See the bold part? Good. This is not a sweeping generalization about ALL parents.
"If this primary agency of socialization (the family) fails, the rest---school, community and the peer group are affected."
Yup, they are affected.
"Inevitiably what ends up happening is the mass media (the 5th main agency of socialization) plays a larger role which I think we can all agree is not a good thing."
See the bold part? Good. This is a relative notion, not an absolute. You have stated what you think of this as your own opinion, which, of course, you are entitled to do.
"So, when I see home schooling going on, I generally am quite supportive."
Good for you.
"Parents are taking an active role in their child's education which is a rarity these days."
See the bold part? Good. Home schooling is as active as it gets, and it is relatively rare, because most kids go to public or private schools. "Many parents would like their child to have a religious component to their studies so they home school and I think that's great as well."
See the bold part? Good. This is not a sweeping generalization about ALL parents. You have stated what you think of this as your own opinion, which, of course, you are entitled to do.
"Our country is decidedly lacking in spirituality and any forays into that realm are quite beneficial to the wholeness of a person, imho."
See the bold part? Good. Again, this is a statement of your own opinion, clearly so.
This is a well thought out, well stated comment. It is not off the deep end with made up shit, it is not contaminated with absolutes that you cannot know the truth of, and your opinions are clearly stated to be your opinions.
WELL DONE.
"Parents, on the whole, are too busy with their own lives and wrapped up in several selfish pursuits to be actively engaged with their children."
Some are, some aren't.
You don't know my sister-in-law and her children, or my nieces and nephews and their children. They are the polar opposite your statement, and they are typical of parents I know.
You are too wrapped up in your own ego to admit such things, aren't you?
"Their parents, most of whom are part of what I call the Michael Jordan generation, teach them that life is all about being lucky and quickly making it rich.Thus, they have no intrinsic motivation."
Indeed, many parents are like this, and your statement is well put. Now, have you noticed that this is precisely what we have been complaining about here for years? Damn, teacher boy, are you actually agreeing with us?
"Another reason would be our culture has changed and people learn differently now than they used to learn."
Horseshit.
Their genetics haven't changed, but their teachers have changed their methods, their subjects, and their expectations.
"It's not surprising, given your bias, that you interpreted my question that way."
I didn't misinterpret your question. You are ignoring the essence of my answer, but then, that is what you do. It's your Standard Response #6.
"By bias, I don't mean racial but the Cult myth that we teach "feel good" lessons that are not substanitive. That is flat out wrong."
Again, horseshit.
I talk with my nieces and nephews who are still in school, and with my grand-nieces and grand-nephews who are all in school, and they verify my statement completely.
"Your three "solutions" are terribly simplistic ..."
They are BASIC, teacher boy. The basics are often simple.
"... and betray a real lack of knowledge on effective pedagogy and understanding how people learn."
Golly. I don't know how teaching is done, do I? I don't know how people learn, do I? Well, I was a math tutor beginning in junior high and continuing all through high school, and I was an undergraduate teacher at university, teaching electromagnetic fields, waveguides, and transmission lines. Further, I am largely self-taught, thus I know how I learn.
You, on the other hand, have demonstrated, for three years, a remarkable inability and/or refusal to learn. Odd that, coming from someone who claims to be a teacher.
"It seems to me that you just want me to write things so that you can offer rebutal after rebutla filled with personal insults."
Goddamn, but that is hilarious, and so typical of you. Indeed, it is your Standard Response #12, yet again.
In great measure, no one wants you to write anything at all. I know that because we've stated so.
We offer up personal insults because: 1) you earn them; 2) you are too fundamentally dishonest to be taken seriously; and, 3) I, for one, hope that you might improve your behavior so as to not earn them and thereby avoid them. It usually works with others, even with children, but not with you.
Now, you want a gratuitous insult? I'll oblige. You used the word "rebuttal" TWICE in that statement, you spelled it two different ways, and neither way was correct. That's really good for someone who claims to be a teacher, ain't it?
"Ed, this is getting tiresome."
Teacher boy, this is getting tiresome. You've been tiresome for three years. You spit up the same Standard Responses, over and over and over again. They don't work, you know it, but you keep coughing them up, and you complain of the behavior of others being tiresome. Again, your hypocrisy knows no limits, does it?
"When you don't agree or don't like the points I'm making, you accuse me of not answering questions."
When you don't answer questions, we accuse you of not answering questions. It's what you do. It's what your Standard Responses are all about, fuckwit. You practice evasion as if it were a virtue.
"Otherwise, I'm done playing your little game as well."
Oh, if only you were done playing games ...
But your fundamental dishonesty and your inability to admit error won't let you, will they?
Alfred North Whitehead's The Aims of Education and Other Essays (Macmillan, 1929) begins with this paragraph:
Culture is activity of thought, and receptiveness to beauty and humane feeling. Scraps of information have nothing to do with it. A merely well-informed man is the most useless bore on God's earth. What we should aim at producing is men who possess both culture and expert knowledge in some special direction. Their expert knowledge will give them the ground to start from, and their culture will lead them as deep as philosophy and as high as art. We have to remember that the valuable intellectual development is self-development, and that it mostly takes place between the ages of sixteen and thirty. As to training, the most important part is given by mothers before the age of twelve. A saying due to Archbishop Temple illustrates my meaning. Surprise was expressed at the success in after-life of a man, who as a boy at Rugby had been somewhat undistinguished. He answered, "It is not what they are at eighteen, it is what they become afterwards that matters."
From http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2010/04/education-and-information.html
A more useless bore than a merely well informed man is one that merely thinks he is well informed.
"The three-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots."
"The hardest part about gaining any new idea is sweeping out the false idea occupying that niche. As long as that niche is occupied, evidence and proof and logical demonstration get nowhere. But once the niche is emptied of the wrong idea that has been filling it — once you can honestly say, "I don't know", then it becomes possible to get at the truth." -- Heinlein
Thanks, Grumpy. I haven't read that book in a long time. I'm overdue.
RE: UofA's math woes, isn't this what we were told the AIMS testing system would prevent? AIMS is supposed to guarantee that all of Arizona's high school graduates meet a minimum level of competency in math, reading comprehension, and writing skill. We can see how well that standardized testing is working for us.
Alright, let's take a look at a few comments from DJ.
I talk with my nieces and nephews who are still in school, and with my grand-nieces and grand-nephews who are all in school, and they verify my statement completely.
Well, being a scientist, I'm sure that you will admit that this small set of people does not mean that your theory is valid. Logic and the scientific method, sir ;)
I don't know how people learn, do I? I am largely self-taught, thus I know how I learn.
Thank you, DJ, for being an excellent example of one of the central problems in education. I know how I learn...sheesh. Well, DJ, how you learn is completely different from how other people learn. I am going to put forth a scenario to you. You are a math teacher at a high school. You have 50 children in your class. Half of them speak English as a second language. A third of them have varying degrees of learning disabilities. What instructional strategies would you employ to effectively teach these children? How would you assess them? When it came time for the standardized test, would you teach to the test or find another way?
Let's see how he answers. In the meantime, let's review a defintion.
Confirmation bias is a tendency for people to prefer information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses, independently of whether they are true. People tend to test hypotheses in a one-sided way, focusing on one possibility and neglecting alternatives. The biases appear in particular for issues that are emotionally significant (including some personal and political topics) and for established beliefs that shape the individual's expectations.
By showing the Stanford study, Kevin has, once again, demonstrated confirmation bias. The reasons why our schools are failing is because of progressive, feel good policies of instruction and, in his mind, there can be no other reason. This is a highly simplified and Beck-esque view of the problems facing public education today. It's an assertion that is made to foment anger and hate, hence the "nuke the site from orbit" meme.
There are a myriad of reasons why children are having difficulty. The points I made in my initial post are but a few. If Kevin (or anyone else) took the time to reserach these issues (as a good scientist would), they would see that it is much more complex than his simple and narrow minded belief. In fact, this belief doesn't even accurately describe the problem.
Kevin, you are over-generalizing to the point of silliness. Moreover, you're just flat out wrong about the majority of teaching standards we see today. I have linked them previously. Would you like me to do so again? Each of these standards come with them the encouragement by administrators to employ a plethora of instructional strategies. Whether the teachers actually employ them is another matter all together which is also part of the problem (see: laziness). There's nothing in theses standards that tell students to feel good about themselves.
So, my above scenario applies to you as well, Kevin. Put aside your bias and belief and tell me how you would educate these children? Better yet, test your chosen instructional strategies with the available research that is out there and easily accessible on the web. Isn't that what a good scientist would do?
Marxaphasia: "By bias, I don't mean racial but the Cult myth that we teach "feel good" lessons that are not substanitive. That is flat out wrong."
Me:"I talk with my nieces and nephews who are still in school, and with my grand-nieces and grand-nephews who are all in school, and they verify my statement completely."
Marxaphasia:"Well, being a scientist, I'm sure that you will admit that this small set of people does not mean that your theory is valid. Logic and the scientific method, sir"
Your first statement that I quoted above is a generalization, a blanket statement that "we", meaning teachers (which is what you claim to be), do not "teach 'feel good' lessons that are not substanitive (sic)." Your statement is unequivocal:"That is flat out wrong."
It is sufficient to show that your generalized statement is wrong to show that there is at least one instance where teachers DO teach students to "feel good" about not learning, about being ignorant, about being uneducated, and so on. Thus, my response to your statement was that my nieces, nephews, grand-neices, and grand-nephews EACH verify that their teachers DO teach them to feel good about not learning, about being ignorant, and so on. I offer no hard evidence that they did so, simply because I have none. It is anecdotal, but it came from EACH of them, separately and independently, and it came to ME, thus I know that they did so. You can believe it or not, as you choose.
The purpose of my response was not to represent this as proof that ALL teachers teach this way. I have never suggested that they ALL do.My purpose was, yet again, to get you to understand that sweeping, generalized statements about a whole population, statements that you cannot know the truth of, are just that easy to show to be false.
Yet again, you demonstrated that you do not understand logical reasoning. Yet again, I showed this to you. Yet again, you missed it, and you demonstrated, yet again, that you do not understand logical reasoning.
And, I am not a scientist, I am an engineer. Do you know the difference between the two?
"Well, DJ, how you learn is completely different from how other people learn."
And here we have, yet again, another example of a sweeping, generalized statement that you cannot know the truth of. Why? Because you do not know how I learn, and you do not know how everyone else learns.
"I am going to put forth a scenario to you. You are a math teacher at a high school. You have 50 children in your class. Half of them speak English as a second language. A third of them have varying degrees of learning disabilities. What instructional strategies would you employ to effectively teach these children?"
I'll give you a short history lesson. My last two years in high school were in an Oklahoma City public school in an area that was about 40% white, 30% black, 20% Mexican (literally), and the rest a mix. I took Algebra II my junior year, in a class with about 40 students. Some spoke English as a second language. Some spoke a dialect of English that is commonly found in inner cities, a dialect that I had difficult understanding sometimes. Every class I have ever been in has had students with learning disabilities. Racial tensions were often high across the whole school those two years.
What happened in that class was that the teacher taught algebra and students learned algebra. They were expected to, so they did. Most did reasonably well, some did outstandingly well, and a few failed. That's how things were done when I was in school.
So, I would teach them the same way I was taught. Teach the subject, do not tolerate acting up in class, and teach at a pace such that the slowest kid in class has to work his ass off to keep up. Do not afflict them with the soft bigotry of low expectations. It worked then, and there is no reason why it wouldn't work now.
"How would you assess them?"
The same way I was assessed, via tests that, if one knew and understood the subject matter, one could pass. Again, it worked then, and there is no reason why it wouldn't work now.
"When it came time for the standardized test, would you teach to the test or find another way?"
By "another way", I presume you mean another way to teach students such that they pass the standardized tests and made the school look good.
Here's another bit of history, teacher boy. When I was in school, we did not study to pass standardized tests. We had them every year from seventh grade onward, but we did not know until a few days before the tests were given that they would be given, with the sole exceptions of the SAT and National Merit Scholarship tests. They tested what we had learned, not what we had crammed for.
1. Teaching methods are much much better than they were in the past.
2. School performance has declined since the adoption of these advanced pedagogical methods by any meaningful standard.*
INTERMISSION
*Believe me, I know, I teach marketing at the college level and am trying to determine when the teaching of standard English grammar was abolished in the public schools; it had to have done, there is simply no other explanation for what passes as writing even among bright students who are otherwise a pleasure to have in class.
I have argued -- politely, because we get on well and I like her -- with my son's official teacher (I am his "learning coach" in our homeschool arrangement) that more emphasis should be given to diagramming sentences in the grammar/usage/mechanics portion of the curriculum. Her position is that diagramming sentences kills students' enjoyment of writing. Mine is that if you can't diagram a sentence, you probably can't write for shit anyway.
END INTERMISSION - LATER THAT AFTERNOON
3. The identified performance decline is everyone's fault but the schools.
So public education consumes a metric pantload of finite resources, and explains, oh, about 0% of the variance in performance.
Is that the argument? Srsly?
I tell you whut, Boomhauer, in business if we find something that consumes that much money, time, and effort, and contributes nothing to performance, we blow that shit out the airlock in its underwear.
In the meantime, not to take away anything from DJ's powerful comments, but which is more, Mark? 22 or 15?
Twenty-two or fifteen? (I'll write it out in case the numbers are throwing you.)
WHICH ONE?
You've dodged this question for a YEAR NOW. After you made the claim that "More people listen to Rush Limbaugh than watch all of the network news combined.
And you never retracted it when the facts went against you. IN FACT, you repeated it at least two more times.
22. Or. 15. ANSWER THE QUESTION.
Oh. But the minute you do, I then ask you to retract your incorrect conclusion - Oh! almost got you to walk into that one!
....
But Everybody else here, Mark, already knows what the truth is - We know you were wrong, we know you couldn't admit it, and it's part, parcel, and point proven why the educational system is completely fucked and needs to be nuked from orbit.
"By showing the Stanford study, Kevin has, once again, demonstrated confirmation bias."
By ignoring the Stanford study, Markadelphia has, once again, demonstrated confirmation bias.
Have you ever wondered why scientists use a control group when running tests? Have you ever wondered why drug testing is always double-blind, and uses placebos? It's to eliminate as many variables as possible so the results are meaningful.
In this case, we have students pulled from the exact same pool, in the exact same part of the country, and even formerly partners in the endeavor. The only meaningful difference between the two was their educational theories. Oh, and the results. A rational person CANNOT ignore these results.
Now if there was another similar situation, or even any marginally similar situation, where there results were the opposite, then it would be confirmation bias to use these results and ignore the other results. (Gee, isn't that what Phil Jones did?!?)
Marxy, you've charged confirmation bias. Proving that so-called bias is simple. Just show us similar real-world situations which Kevin has ignored—or even marginally similar situations—where the leftist teaching theories produced better results than traditional methods.
Just show us similar real-world situations which Kevin has ignored—or even marginally similar situations—where the leftist teaching theories produced better results than traditional methods.
Any day now, we'll actually try it HARD ENOUGH TO WORK THIS TIME!
You're a COWARD. I think that somewhere deep inside, you know that you're wrong, but you're dodging the questions because you know that answering them will reveal just how wrong you are to the world, and more importantly, to yourself.
You're a COWARD. I think that somewhere deep inside, you know that you're wrong, but you're dodging the questions because you know that answering them will reveal just how wrong you are to the world, and more importantly, to yourself."
Hey, Ed finally came up with something worth responding to...cool!
where the leftist teaching theories produced better results than traditional methods.
First, I reject your defintion of "leftist" teaching methods, Glenn Beck. You paint anything that is not strictly traditional or something that you don't like as leftist. Classic Cult manuever. Teaching to standards is not leftist. Employing instructional strategies such as the Socratic Seminar or Simulation/Role Playing are not leftist. Gardner and Tomlinson's theories are not leftists.
Here is an example of a real world situation where an alternate instructional strategy worked. Let's take a look at a comment by DJ first, though, as it relates to the story.
So, I would teach them the same way I was taught. Teach the subject, do not tolerate acting up in class, and teach at a pace such that the slowest kid in class has to work his ass off to keep up. Do not afflict them with the soft bigotry of low expectations. It worked then, and there is no reason why it wouldn't work now.
What year was this in? Oh yes...
You think I'm lying? You weren't even born yet.
DJ, I'm not sure what year you are talking about but things have changed quite a bit in the last 50 years. We live in a different culture. People learn differently than they did when you were in school. If you attempt to teach them in a traditional lecture format, for example, there will be no enduring understandings.Teaching in non-traditional way does not mean soft bigotry of low expectations.
A few years back, I was team teaching a class with an older instructor who was frustrated that his students weren't learning fundamental concepts in American government. He taught much in the same way you describe above. He asked me if I had any ideas on how to engage the students. They weren't doing well on tests. I was pretty green back then and remembered an exercise we did in another class that I thought would help. We put bunch of pieces of paper in a hat with "President" "Vice-President" "Speaker of the House" "Chief Justice" "Chairman of the Joint Chiefs" etc written on them. We had the students draw names out of a hat and each student played that role. We presented them first with a routine day at the office and then interrupted it with a terrorist attack. How would each person respond given the role they had? Why are they doing this? We worked on the higher end of Bloom's Taxonomy striving for application and evaluation. We built an entire unti around this and the kids loved it.
We assessed them verbally and in action, so to speak. There were no written tests and the final exam was a group presentation with each kid explaining how their role was played and why. This is Tomlinson's living history in action. For many of the kids who speak English as a second language, they could see visually and interactively how American government works. The interpersonal learners, not ones to do well flying solo, excelled. We also added in some research and computer work for those learners who like to be alone when studying and write. I just heard recently that he added in multiple choice quizzes at different points during the unit. The answers were given via texts from each of the kids cel phones and onto a Jeopardy like projection on a SmartBoard. He got tired of combatting the constant cel phone usage in class so he incorporated it into his assessment.
Basically, the kids started learning again and they retained the knowledge because they lived it. This is the sort of thing that needs to happen more often and it doesn't. Students who learn with their hands (Gardner's bodily-kinesthetic intelligence) have done better in geography if they contruct the maps themselves in a three dimensional space rather than stare at a board as an instructor droans on and on.
So, this is what I am talking about when I say differentiation and learner centered instruction. We don't hold hands and sing songs. We learn in non-traditional methods because that's how things work these days. You have to vary instructional strategies on a consistent basis and pay attention to varied assessment or the simple fact is that students won't learn. And that's just what's happening now. Teachers are slow to adopt many of these new methods and don't take the time to get out of their moldy classrooms and research new ideas that do actually work.
First, I reject your defintion of "leftist" teaching methods, Glenn Beck.
What was that about personal attacks? Oh, right, you forget them when you want.
You paint anything that is not strictly traditional or something that you don't like as leftist.
Just like our demanding answers of you, when you don't answer, and insist that you have, we call you out.
When the leftists are quite open with their plans and techniques, and you parrot them, then you're a "leftist". Everything you say is a derivation - Kevin has done tremendous work in proving that, citing many sources.
Your rebuttal consisted of "Nuh-uh! You can't tell me, you don't know!"
Teaching to standards is not leftist. Employing instructional strategies such as the Socratic Seminar or Simulation/Role Playing are not leftist.
No, not everything is leftist about the educational system. Just most things.
Including the failures.
Including you.
Stanford FAILED, Mark. That's the topic here. Failed. Aspire, doing what you say won't work, didn't. They succeeded in what's as close to a controlled experiment as you can get. When Stanford, with all these theories and diversities and "experts" FAILED.
Why can you not even address the subject at hand? (Rhetorical question. We -excluding you- know why you won't.
Keeping with the custom of the National Research Council, this volume was prepared by a committee of volunteer scholars and other experts. The committee was chaired by Deborah Stipek, Dean of the School of Education at Stanford University and former Director of the Corinne Seeds University Elementary School. Her research interests include the effects of instruction on achievement motivation, school reform, and policies affecting children and education. She has authored several books related to these topics (Bohart & Stipek, 2001; Stipek, 1997; Stipek & Seal, 2001). It seems appropriate that someone with such interests and experiences would chair the study’s committee.
--
Related to the challenge and rigor of instruction, the committee recommends that teachers draw on students’ experiences and allow students to use multiple resources to gain mastery in learning. Making use of student experiences not only makes instruction relevant to learners, but it also moves them from being mere consumers of knowledge to being producers of it. This is the essence of critical pedagogy (Freire, 1970)—to shift the balance of power in the classroom so that it is shared by all and reinforces a student’s sense of agency. This report emphasizes the influence that locus of control and social relationships can have on engagement and motivation to learn.
Not only does the committee recommend that teachers capitalize on students’ cultural knowledge, but that teachers teach in a way that allows all students to learn. Gardner’s (1993) theory suggests that student learn through different modalities or “intelligences.” To be highly effective, instruction must include activities that reflect various intelligences—from reading and writing to drawing and acting.
All of these “best practices” can prove useful to educators interested in creating learning environments opulent with opportunity for engagement.
So the Dean of the School of Education at Stanford University since 2001 is apparently a fan of critical pedagogy.
But that doesn't mean that the Stanford School of Education is full of leftists! Oh no! I'm quite sure there must be at least one professor of education there who has voted for a Republican at least once! And surely there's no more than a half-dozen Ché posters displayed in faculty offices.
Markadelphia, you beclown yourself more every time you put fingers to keyboard.
Kevin, as someone who claims to utilized the scientific method, I'm surprised to find you falling victim to this mistake: correlation does not imply causation. Just because people are poor, doesn't mean they are going to be criminals even though the data shows that more crime occurs in impoverished areas. By the same token, all criminals are not poor. So, just because Stanford (or any other school) teaches critical pedagogy does not mean that it is rampant in our schools. Nor does it mean that their school is full of leftists. In addition, just because an instructor is "liberal," doesn't mean they are indoctrinating their students with their bias.
Clearly, your objection is that you want YOUR OWN bias taught in the classroom. And anything to the left of you is not to be trusted. In other words, picture that I have attatched to this post.
I would also point your use of this logical fallacy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_fear
Either P or Q is true
Q is frightening
Therefore, P is true.
To use this as Glenn Beck does all the time
Either Barack Obama or Adolph Hitler is a fascist
Hitler is frightening
Therefore, Barack Obama is a fascist
Now to use it as you have in the context of education in our country
Either this statement: "Critical Pedagogy is running rampant through our schools" or this one "Students aren't learning the basics" is true.
Students not learning the basics is frightening (and awful).
Therefore, critical pedagogy is running rampant through the schools.
So, Kevin, I would encourage you to review Gardner's MI theory and, in doing so, make sure you give due consideration to the evidence, the context of judgment, the relevant criteria for making the judgment well, the applicable methods or techniques for forming the judgment, and the applicable theoretical constructs for understanding the problem and the question at hand.
"DJ, I'm not sure what year you are talking about but things have changed quite a bit in the last 50 years."
I began school in 1959 and graduated from High School in 1971. The class I wrote of was during the fall of 1969. You stated you were 41 years old, which puts your birthday in 1969, right?
Well, golly. Perhaps you were born by then after all. Do you remember much of that year?
Yes, things certainly have changed. We (I use the term loosely) have spent roughly half a century and roughly three generations changing our education system such that more and more varied resources produce less and lower quality results. You've been shown this, but you can't admit it. More in a moment ...
"People learn differently than they did when you were in school."
People are taught differently than they did when I was in school. This does not mean they are not capable of learning as I did when I was in school.
Do you understand the difference, or is your usual fuckheadedness shining through again?
"If you attempt to teach them in a traditional lecture format, for example, there will be no enduring understandings."
Not now, there won't, because they have not learned how to learn via that teaching method. That does not discredit the method, but it does illuminate the evolution of teaching methodology since I was in school.
"Teaching in non-traditional way does not mean soft bigotry of low expectations."
Ah, your Standard Response #6 kicks in again. You deliberately miss the point and lay on yet another straw man.
The soft bigotry of low expectations is an acceptance of mediocrity to justify the method by which it is accomplished, but it is not dependent on any particular method. It describes a mindset, not a pedagogy.
"Basically, the kids started learning again and they retained the knowledge because they lived it. This is the sort of thing that needs to happen more often and it doesn't."
Now, back to you've been shown this, but you can't admit it. Do you realize that you cherry-pickikng your examples is exactly what you falsely accused me of? Can you see it?
I am reminded of a conversation I had with a niece only two weeks ago. She turns 16 this week and is a sophomore in high school. I described the "story problems" that I loved so well (which you might have read my comments about previously). These are short descriptions of events that require a mathematical analysis and answer for. They are simple and they are easy. My teachers began using them in the first grade, and I dearly loved them, right up until they were discontinued with the "new math" of the sixth grade. My neice stated that NONE of her teachers have EVER taught the practical, real-world usage of everyday ARITHMETIC in this manner. Her grades are good (B's in general), but she could not follow through and understand the simple problems I posed, such as: "Johnny has ten apples. His father gives him six more. His brother takes half, and gives half of what he takes to his sister. How many apples does his sister have?" She has never been taught how to use arithmetic in the real world.
I was born in 1967, graduating from high school in 1985. So that makes me 43 years old and makes you 57?
Again, correlation does not imply causation. Just because changes were made does not mean that these changes are the reasons we have problems in education. The simple fact is that we are always going to have problems in education. We're going to have even more when people (not sure if this you or not) can't accept the fact that our culture has changed both in diversity and how people learn. Changes were made in the first place because the "old ways" weren't working anymore.
Much of what I read on this blog in comments (some from you) has the following theme: let's get back to the old ways cuz they worked! Well, that's not really true. And it completely neglects the organic process of cultural evolution.
I will agree with your last paragraph. In fact, your desire to return to story problems is actually a defense of differentiation and MI. Students who have verbal linguistic intelligence would excel if they learned math in this fashion. Sadly, they don't and I wholeheartedly agree that "new math" seems to be a completely ass-headed way of teaching arithmetic. Since I am not a mathmatician, my opinion is that of a frustrated layperson.
"Just because changes were made does not mean that these changes are the reasons we have problems in education."
Of course. But clear evidence shows that these changes are a big reason we have problems in education. You've been shown the evidence, but you cannot admit that the evidence shows this. Yet again, we see your Standard Response #7.
"We're going to have even more when people (not sure if this you or not) can't accept the fact that our culture has changed both in diversity and how people learn."
I have accepted the fact, explicitly so, that our culture has changed in diversity. Your reading comprehension still acting up, is it?
You continue to spout the notion that people learn differently as a smoke screen to deny the effects of their being taught differently. You will not understand that it won't work here. Apparently you've forgotten how to learn. Read on.
"Changes were made in the first place because the "old ways" weren't working anymore."
HORSESHIT, and I'd put that word in a 72pt screaming font if I could.
Read my comments again about my transition from "old math" of the fifth grade to "new math" of the sixth grade. That transition was NOT made because the "old ways" weren't working, they were made because administrators mandated it. THE CHANGE WAS IN THE TEACHERS AND THEIR EMPLOYERS, NOT IN THE STUDENTS. Had the teachers continued with the "old ways", the students would have continued learning in the "old ways", and the "old ways" would have continued to work just fine. And you complain of others not understanding cause and effect. Teacher boy, the teachers are the cause, the learning is the effect. The teachers drive the process, not the students. The change is in the teaching, not the learning.
Goddamn, but you are a fuckwit.
"Much of what I read on this blog in comments (some from you) has the following theme: let's get back to the old ways cuz they worked!"
Yet again, you cough up your Standard Response #6, the "How 'bout a little fire, Scarecrow?" response. You deliberately miss the point, laying on yet another straw man.
The theme is, "Let's get back to the old ways because the new ways demonstrably don't work worth shit." Again, you've been shows clear evidence of this, and the theme has been explained to you over and over again, but you just cannot deal with it honestly.
"And it completely neglects the organic process of cultural evolution."
No, it points out one cause of cultural evolution and shows it to have very undesireable side effects.
"Since I am not a mathmatician, my opinion is that of a frustrated layperson."
You show repeatedly that you are not a mathematician. Understanding simple mathematics is fundamental to an understand of logic and how to use it. You are not a logician, either.
Have you ever participated in a group presentation, Unix? It's a lot more work than just sitting in class and taking notes from a lecture. I'm also not saying that lecture should NEVER be used. It should be one of many instructional strategies. So, tell me, what instructional strategies would you employ if you were a teacher?
"First, I reject your defintion of "leftist" teaching methods, Glenn Beck. You paint anything that is not strictly traditional or something that you don't like as leftist. Classic Cult manuever."
(You’re calling me “Glenn Beck”? That’s pretty funny coming from a guy who listens to him a whole lot more than I do—which is essentially never.)
Wrong! This is a good definition of what I call leftist teaching:
"EPA Academy students are graded on a five-dimensional rubric, based on (1) Personal Responsibility; (2) Social Responsibility; (3) Communication Skills; (4) Application of Knowledge; and (5) Critical and Creative Thinking.
"Only 20 percent of the grade is based on knowledge, notes Michele Kerr, who taught an ACT prep course for disadvantaged students at a nonprofit from 2007-09. Compared to district high school students, East Palo Academy tutees had "the lowest skills and the highest grades," Kerr recalls. Students with high A averages turned out to have very poor reading and math skills, though their writing was relatively strong."
(Note: I also consider teaching "facts that aren't so" and/or ignoring facts that don't fit the leftist world view to be part of leftist teaching.)
"Employing instructional strategies such as the Socratic Seminar or Simulation/Role Playing are not leftist."
I can agree with this particular statement. In fact, I try to employ the Socratic Method with you, but when you refuse to answer my questions it's clear that you don't want to even consider the point of view I'm trying to get you to think about.
Now contrast that with what I consider to be a conservative approach:
"Aspire co-founded East Palo Alto Academy High with Stanford, but bowed out five years ago. There was a culture clash, Aspire's founder, Don Shalvey told the New York Times. Aspire focused "primarily and almost exclusively on academics," while Stanford focused on academics and students' emotional and social lives, he said."
I also noticed that "critical thinking" is one of the criteria listed as one of Stanford's criteria. I agree that critical thinking is crucial, as long as what you mean by "critical thinking" means "careful analytical thinking". But apparently, what leftists mean by "critical thinking" is very different than the classical definition of the term. As practiced by you—and apparently by just about every leftist—"critical thinking" means "criticizing ideas you don't already agree with and praising ideas you like."
When searching for an a good source for the classic definition of "critical thinking", I came across this excellent definition from a site called, appropriately enough, criticalthinking.org:
“The intellectual roots of critical thinking are as ancient as its etymology, traceable, ultimately, to the teaching practice and vision of Socrates 2,500 years ago who discovered by a method of probing questioning that people could not rationally justify their confident claims to knowledge. Confused meanings, inadequate evidence, or self-contradictory beliefs often lurked beneath smooth but largely empty rhetoric. Socrates established the fact that one cannot depend upon those in "authority" to have sound knowledge and insight. He demonstrated that persons may have power and high position and yet be deeply confused and irrational.
“He established the importance of asking deep questions that probe profoundly into thinking before we accept ideas as worthy of belief.
He established the importance of seeking evidence, closely examining reasoning and assumptions, analyzing basic concepts, and tracing out implications not only of what is said but of what is done as well. His method of questioning is now known as "Socratic Questioning" and is the best known critical thinking teaching strategy. In his mode of questioning, Socrates highlighted the need in thinking for clarity and logical consistency.
“Socrates set the agenda for the tradition of critical thinking, namely, to reflectively question common beliefs and explanations, carefully distinguishing those beliefs that are reasonable and logical from those which — however appealing they may be to our native egocentrism, however much they serve our vested interests, however comfortable or comforting they may be — lack adequate evidence or rational foundation to warrant our belief.”
Notice the focus on word meanings, evidence, consistency, concepts, and logic in this definition. And what have we been beating you up over for years? Word meanings (‘verbatim’ ), evidence, consistency, concepts (‘cargo culting’ ), and logic (your constant use of logical fallacies)!
I have to admit, only recently has it occured to me - reading through the critical pedagogy materials, that we've got yet another definition problem between Mark and ourselves.
as long as what you mean by "critical thinking" means "careful analytical thinking". But apparently, what leftists mean by "critical thinking" is very different than the classical definition of the term.
Right. They're trying to take the imprimatur of what you and I think of as "critical thinking" but without logic, without derivation, without regard to facts.
"Critical thinking" is exactly like "verbatim" and "unregulated". I, and I think most everybody else here, has missed that, and so we've taken Mark at his word, for some reason, when he claimed to have taught (and thus been taught) "Critical Thinking". I recall we've asked for some proof, and some definition, but Brave Sir Mark ran away from those, and we didn't pursue them.
I think that's exactly part of the problem. Reading the Critical Pedagogy materials, it's peppered with words and phrases and concepts that don't mean what they mean to everybody else. It's a meta-psuedo system, using psuedo-science, psuedo-philiosophy and psuedo-statistics to rationalize and support the entire intellectual - and I use that word merely to demonstrate it's theoretical nature - construct.
In fact, look at this part of the definition again:
“Socrates … discovered by a method of probing questioning that people could not rationally justify their confident claims to knowledge. Confused meanings, inadequate evidence, or self-contradictory beliefs often lurked beneath smooth but largely empty rhetoric.”
Oh wow. We both agreed that the Socratic Method is valid. Yet when we ask exactly those types of questions, what do you do? Run away, Brave Sir Robin, run away! Your constant refusal to answer our probing questions shows that at some level you are aware that your arguments are nothing more than “smooth but largely empty rhetoric.”
Take, for example, my question about your reference to Phil Jones’ academic credentials:
“Is being cited, holding a PhD and working in the field for years the only thing that makes him "right"?”
The point here is that your claim regarding his academic credentials is insuffient, and I am certain that you are aware of that. If credentials is all that matters, then how do you account for other climatologists with equal or greater credentials who dispute Phil Jones’ conclusions? If they are not sufficient to establish why his conclusions should be accepted, then there must be some other criteria you’re using which must be examined to distinguish those “that are reasonable and logical from those which … lack adequate evidence or rational foundation to warrant our belief.”
Your refusal to answer my question demonstrates that you aware of both these possibilities, and that you aware that both possibilities would eventually expose you as WRONG.
If you failed to answer such questions occasionally, that would be reasonable. After all, we all have lives which sometimes prevent us from answering such questions, not because we lack answers, but because we lack time. I’ve personally been unable to carry such arguments forward a number of times for that reason, and I’ve always regretted being unable to follow through.
On the other hand, you do it 99.999 times out of 100. That doesn’t demonstrate a lack of time, that demonstrates that your world view is broken, you know it, and you refuse to face that simple fact. Yet if you want to grow and learn, You. Must. Face. It!
As for your “evidence”, you cited an example of a teaching technique which was neither leftist nor conservative. It was just a single lesson in a single class, with no test results available, and no comparative results to compare them to. And you seriously call that “evidence”?!? How many times have we told you that the plural of anecdote is not data?
C’mon, give us some REAL evidence! A class that was taught using the same leftist priorities as Stanford, over a period of at least a year with resulting known results which are better than the results of students taught using other methods. You know, like producing a high percentage of competent students who can read with understanding, do math in their head, and know who fought in WWII and the Revolutionary War and why (among other historical events). Oh, and something more than just a personal anecdote coming from a guy with an blindingly obvious bias.
Ed, that's unlike any rubric I have ever seen. All of my rubrics are geared towards teaching to the MDE standard. So, I would say that the rubric you have listed above was poor.
As practiced by you—and apparently by just about every leftist—"critical thinking" means "criticizing ideas you don't already agree with and praising ideas you like."
Ah, the Rove. http://markadelphia.blogspot.com/2010/04/rove.html
Now that we have gotten that out of the way, critical thinking gives due consideration to the evidence, the context of judgment, the relevant criteria for making the judgment well, the applicable methods or techniques for forming the judgment, and the applicable theoretical constructs for understanding the problem and the question at hand. Critical thinking employs not only logic but broad intellectual criteria such as clarity, credibility, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, significance, and fariness. Generally, that's Oxford's defintion and I agree with it.
So, Ed, explain to me how your comments are illustrative of this defintion in light of the fact that you refuse to take the time to research mutliple intelligences and the varieties of instructional strategies. Take a look at what Tomlinson has done in her career and tell me what you think. Start here
and see where that leads you. There are plenty of links and books if you are truly interested in research. Remember, though, to employ critical thinking as defined above ;)
"Right. They're trying to take the imprimatur of what you and I think of as "critical thinking" but without logic, without derivation, without regard to facts."
I've been thinking that for quite a while (like at least a year). I just hadn't described it so explicitly before. It also seems to me that you've also derided Marxaphasia for his "critical thinking" that isn't.
Now, I'll freely admit that this story is about a kid from Canada, so it doesn't apply directly to education here in the USA, but, well, go read, watch, and listen for yourself:
Now that this thread is back I wonder if Mark will return…
Oh, like MacArthur, he'll be back.
And like MacArthur, it'll be like nothing happened in the meantime.
He's had enough time to think, and if he's gone back and read what he's said, even he's realized his strategic errors. So no, this'll be another one where he lets it sit and thinks we'll forget about it in a week or so, then come back in talking about how we in the Klub or Kult or whatever have 'confirmation bias'....
Kevin, as someone who claims to utilized the scientific method,
Your cut and paste is failing.
I'm surprised to find you falling victim to this mistake:
You keep saying "I'm surprised". It's then followed by a strawman, and an attempt to cargocult.
correlation does not imply causation.
As we've explained to you many dozens of times, and you ignored it then. Even for things like, oh, having the same opinion as Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh, without ever hearing from them.
Remember that?
So, just because Stanford (or any other school) teaches critical pedagogy does not mean that it is rampant in our schools.
You're changing the goalposts here to whether it *is* rampant from the fact that it *is* taught at Stanford and failed miserably. Which you won't even admit.
But no matter. Because your attempted misdirection is incorrect. Though technically, you are correct, the fact that Stanford (one of the leading lights in academia) teaches does not, by itself, prove that critical pedagogy is "rampant". It's merely an indication of that, in and of itself.
But I have yet to find a public university where it is not a required part of the "Education" major.
I'm sure there are some private, but so far, I've yet to find where it's not required to graduate. Not just be aware of it, but take specific classes in it and to teach in that paradigm.
I've talked about this in the past, and you've ignored it/tried to. You've admitted to taking those courses (and you regularly use the buzzwords and mental constructs in your "arguments".)
Nor does it mean that their school is full of leftists. In addition, just because an instructor is "liberal," doesn't mean they are indoctrinating their students with their bias.
But if they listen to Rush, or Beck, they should be shot, and fired, in that order, right?
Clearly, your objection is that you want YOUR OWN bias taught in the classroom.
In my case, at least, that's not clear at all. I want FACTS taught in the classroom. I want methods that WORK. I want to have students challenged, not patronized, or presumed that they have a different level of top achievement.
I would also point your use of this logical fallacy
Strawman. That's not what he did.
To use this as Glenn Beck does all the time
Wait, was all that about causation and correlation??
Keep repeating it, you might figure out what it means at some point.
Just because changes were made does not mean that these changes are the reasons we have problems in education. The simple fact is that we are always going to have problems in education.
The fact that you are spreading this much fire around, without admitting that: STANFORD FAILED WITH YOUR THEORIES, AND ASPIRE DIDN'T
demonstrates more than anything what the "problem" in education is.
You can't even admit a clear, in your face, fact. (This isn't surprising to anybody here, I don't think.)
Stanford. Failed. Admit it. You'll be a better man for it.
We're going to have even more when people (not sure if this you or not) can't accept the fact that our culture has changed both in diversity and how people learn.
Who can't accept the fact? STANFORD FAILED AND ASPIRE DID NOT.
Changes were made in the first place because the "old ways" weren't working anymore.
Much of what I read on this blog in comments (some from you) has the following theme: let's get back to the old ways cuz they worked! Well, that's not really true.
THEN STOP DODGING THE TOPIC, stop moving the goalposts, and discuss why the exact OPPOSITE OCCURED.
You've been rebutted by Stanford's failure, and you have yet to address the topic of the situation.
This cannot be accidental, it's obfuscation from you, because you'd have to admit that what you just said there is not supported by facts.
Have you ever participated in a group presentation, Unix?
That's a profoundly stupid question.
It's a lot more work than just sitting in class and taking notes from a lecture.
Shouldn't you wait for the answer to the previous question before trying to lecture me?
I'm also not saying that lecture should NEVER be used.
We never said it should only be used.
It should be one of many instructional strategies. So, tell me, what instructional strategies would you employ if you were a teacher?
What about when I have been? Mainly lecture, with a lot of hands-on examples when possible. And then I test and respond based on what they've learned, according to the tests.
But you really need to stop stereotyping and assuming we don't know how to teach. I've taught _a lot_. About a lot of subjects. To lots of sorts of people. Granted, it's never been as a credentialed public school teacher. Have you?
Now that we have gotten that out of the way,critical thinking gives
... Critical thinking employs not only logic but broad intellectual criteria such as clarity, credibility, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, significance, and fariness. Generally, that's Oxford's defintion and I agree with it.
Nice cut and paste. Too bad you can't explain any of it.
So, Ed, explain to me how your comments are illustrative of this defintion [that you don't use to define your own usage] in light of the fact that you refuse to take the time
Start here ... and see where that leads you. There are plenty of links and books if you are truly interested in research. Remember, though, to employ critical thinking as defined above
Bold is where you lectured Ed.
After, you know, talking about how "lecture" was so outmoded and old fashioned and inappropriate.
So if that's the case, why are you doing it? Why are you failing to understand our diversity and adjust and adapt for our culture and expectations?
And when are you going to stop with the smokescreens, strawmen, and deal with the fact that here's a perfect case that proves you wrong. If it had been the other way, you'd be all over trumpeting how well it proves your case - even if it was extremely arguable. Even if it was a tossup, or barely usable as proof - you'd give it 100% credibility. (Like those Citigroup documents you don't understand.)
But why do you tell us lecture doesn't work, then proceed to lecture us, despite your Stanford-like failures?
Critical thinking employs not only logic but broad intellectual criteria such as clarity, credibility, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, significance, and fariness. Generally, that's Oxford's defintion and I agree with it.
The fact that you agree with it is hardly surprising, but that doesn't change the fact that it's inherently and deeply flawed.
such as clarity, credibility, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, significance, and fariness.
First off, "such as" translates to "including, but not limited to", in other words those words allow you to change the definition of the concept any time you please by adding criteria that weren't previously stated, only implied.
Next,
clarity, credibility, accuracy, precision
Those aren't too bad, although "credibility" is rather prone to subjective rather than objective judgment. However,
relevance, depth, breadth, significance, and fariness.
as you can see, the criteria get steadily less objective and more subjective as you continue through the sentence, until you reach "fairness", which has no objective definitionat all.
You use that criterion often, either unaware what it means or hoping we are unaware what it means. Simply put, it means "personal preference" or "bias".
As I said, I'm hardly surprised to find that this is how you define "critical thinking".
Bravely Sir Mark ran away, ran away, ran away.....
It's really that hard for Mark to admit facts in front of his face.
(But remember, he doesn't run away, we just don't like his "answers" (Except for the questions he dodges for years on end, rather than admit he's wrong.)
Well that's okay, because the term "critical thinking" just cropped up again up at the top of the page, which prompted me to come back here and copy and paste my response. He'll see it again.
Yes, but he's running away from the entire thread here, which (in his twisted "logic") to deny that he ever didn't deal with the fact that Stanford failed.
That his vaunted techniques failed miserably in a real world test, (and we noticed), and so he'll continue to propose :
1) we don't understand and aren't qualified to critique the educational system
2) critical pedagogy is important, and must be used
3) the schools need much, much more money
4) DO IT AGAIN, ONLY *HARDER*
He could keep it here in this thread. He's just on his usual MO to try and deceive people.
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Not surprised, this is pretty much a recap of the Hawaii school system's "innovative" classes back in the 70's that caused, depending on whom you talked to, up to a 50% illiteracy rate in their HS graduates. It was all about 'social' education, passing on time, and 'maintaining' the Hawaiian lifestyle... I DO remember kids working in the shops that couldn't make change, and didn't know 'basic' English.
I teach in a State University but it is common in all Schools. You see it more in the State schools because there usually is some law that says you have to take the state school graduates.
The students are not prepared for reading writing or arithmatic at the college level. There is a certain amount of social passing depending on where the students are from but even in the good school systems they are not pushed to hard. In most places you the student and you the parent have to push to get a decent education.
So yes if you work hard you can learn but its not that you have to work hard studying as much as you have to work hard to get the classes and get around the teachers and the administration.
If you come out educated it is because you wanted to not becasue the school system wanted you too.
Sounds weird but basically you get an education inspite of them not because of them.
Expectations are low and if you go along they are okay with that.
MOst schools are concerned about retention - yes becasue of the money but also becasue of accreditation. The accrediting bodies will come after you if large numbers of admitted students do not graduate in 6 years. They say you should not have admitted them in the first place but this is where the state laws about taking all students you are in the top XX percent of the schools class. Basic conflict - the state is saying you have to take them the accrediting body is saying you should not have.
Problem is that they should be in a coumminty college not teh four year ones until all the remedial stuff is done but that may damage them.
any way you got me started - :)
Instead of No Child Left Behind or any other claptrap "progressive" program, there should be defined standards for every grade NOT tied to federal funding. Kids either meet this standard or redo...forever if necessary. The fact that funding and success is tied to kids passing means there are built in rewards for cheating or gaming the system. I have seen it here in Texas with the TAKS tests that are supposed to guage progress. Teachers and kids will spend hours just preparing to pass these tests so they can get to the next level. The Feds and local adminstrators are doing nothing to earn their salary and are hurting kids and the country as a whole. Of course, that is par for the course with the Feds.
We should just issue every child a high school diploma on May 30 of its 18th year. Problem solved!
A lot of libertarians look at the government schooling system backwards. They complain that the many are taxed to school the children of the few. Public school parents come up with general good rationalisations, and smile at what they see as a benefit to themselves.
Backwards, people. Remember, donation includes control. The many are taxed, and they get to decide what the benefit is. If I have to pay to educate your child, I'll pay for as little as I can get away with. I'll exercise as little supervision as I can, because that costs too.
Parents who complain about a crap education should be told that you get what YOU pay for.
In the schools, parents are getting what someone ELSE pays for. That's right- you, the parents of current pupils, don't get to run the schools. You aren't the political majority.
A crap education is plenty good enough for a stranger's child.
I fear they’ll write off the elementary, claiming the program didn’t get enough money, and continue to claim the high school as a success.
FIFY.
Kevin (or anyone else),
Please explain how Tomlinson's differentiation and Gardner's multiple intelligences might be applicable to many of the items listed in this post. How does increased cultural diversity in our schools relate to lower scores on standardized tests? Are there other ways that students should be assessed? Are teachers empoying a wide range of instructional strategies in their pedagogy? If not, why not?
How does this phrase "The American Education system is a mile wide and an inch deep" relate to the education systems in many East Asian Countries? In your explanation, what are some bullet points (in regards to math and science in particular) or action items that could bring about substanitive change?
While schools certainly do shoulder some of the blame for the issues you mention, what is the primary agency of socialization that has done the most damage to decreased literacy and lowered math skills?
It seems to me that you are frustrated by the current state of education in this country. If you want to continue to bitch and call for "nuking the site from orbit," your frustration will, in all liklihood, mount as this view has no constructive purpose. Start answering the questions above with some honest research and I think you will find that the problem is far more complex than you assert in this post.
Why should we answer your questions when you won't answer ours? For example:
Question 1:
Mark: I'm always the first one to admit that while some conservatives may not buy the climate change theory
Unix-Jedi: WHAT "Climate Change Theory?"
Which one? Show your work.
[Now 10] days ago, 10:45:18 PM EDT
Which one, Mark?
Explain. Be clear. Show your work. State what you mean. Clarify ambiguity.
Question 2:
Marxy: "But Phil Jones is an ISI highly cited researcher. Basically, what you are telling me is that all of you know more than Phil Jones who is, in fact, a climatologist holding a PhD after years of research in Environmental Sciences?"
Me: Is being cited, holding a PhD and working in the field for years the only thing that makes him "right"?
"It seems to me that you are frustrated by the current state of education in this country. If you want to continue to bitch and call for "nuking the site from orbit," your frustration will, in all liklihood, mount as this view has no constructive purpose." - Markadelphia
"It is only from a special point of view that 'education' is a failure. As to its own purposes, it is an unqualified success. One of its purposes is to serve as a massive tax-supported jobs program for legions of not especially able or talented people. As social programs go, it’s a good one. The pay isn’t high, but the risk is low, the standards are lenient, entry is easy, and job security is pretty good...in fact, the system is perfect, except for one little detail. We must find a way to get the children out of it.” — Richard Mitchell, the Underground Grammarian.
I consider that a "constructive purpose."
Start answering the questions
(Unlike you.)
above with some honest research
(unlike you)
and I think you will find
(Not likely - you thinking, that is)
that the problem is far more complex than you assert in this post.
Like that "unregulated mortgage market"?
Ah, Hell.
I'll feed the troll.
Please explain how Tomlinson's differentiation and Gardner's multiple intelligences might be applicable to many of the items listed in this post.
Better yet, please explain why Stanford failed and Aspire didn't, using the same body of students.
How does increased cultural diversity in our schools relate to lower scores on standardized tests?
See my above question to you - which needs to be answered and assessed before your assumption there is taken as a given.
Are there other ways that students should be assessed?
... Says the man who claims he doesn't "test" students.
Are teachers empoying a wide range of instructional strategies in their pedagogy? If not, why not?
Does't matter. They're failing at it at an increasing rate. Whatever they're doing is failing.
This is a simple concept, so it demonstrates the level at which you can comprehend concepts. You can parrot back things - but your failure to understand the conceptual level dooms you here. The details and fluff you're trying to divert the thread onto - like all those you left hanging last week, and the week before that , and the times before that - are irrelevant when you look at the conceptual issue.
Stanford's more educated, most academic, most advanced theories failed miserably, while the old way, the way sneered at, succeeded.
And you want to continue down the road where everyone has failed.
And you wonder why we laugh at you.
Obviously Markadelphia's reading comprehension matches that of the East Palo Alto Academy graduates!
I reiterate:
Compared to district high school students, East Palo Academy tutees had "the lowest skills and the highest grades," Kerr recalls. Students with high A averages turned out to have very poor reading and math skills, though their writing was relatively strong.
But he's sure he's right!
Of course, he's right, he knows the right questions to ask!
"How does increased cultural diversity in our schools relate to lower scores on standardized tests?"
Teaching diversity, i.e. spending class time on how wonderful diversity is, can result in lower scores on standardized tests when it is taught instead of the subjects tested by those standardized tests.
You claim to be a teacher, and you ask this question of all questions?
"How does this phrase "The American Education system is a mile wide and an inch deep" relate to the education systems in many East Asian Countries?"
As an inaccuracy, because it does not apply to the education systems in many East Asian countries. Their systems are narrower but deeper. In language even a teacher can understand, they teach less "feel good crapola" and more "reading, writing, and arithmetic", as it were.
"In your explanation, what are some bullet points (in regards to math and science in particular) or action items that could bring about substanitive change?"
Only three are needed:
o Stop teaching students to feel good about not learning.
o Start teaching students how to learn.
o Then teach students reading, writing, arithmetic, history, geography, ...
"While schools certainly do shoulder some of the blame for the issues you mention, what is the primary agency of socialization that has done the most damage to decreased literacy and lowered math skills?"
Schools. That's where "socialization" is taught and "literacy and math skills" aren't.
"It seems to me that you are frustrated by the current state of education in this country."
GODDAMN, but you are perceptive. Did you figure that out by yourself?
"If you want to continue to bitch and call for "nuking the site from orbit," your frustration will, in all liklihood, mount as this view has no constructive purpose."
So, "this view has no constructive purpose", does it? Being frustrated by the current state of education has no purpose, does it? How about having a purpose of waking the reader up to the problem?
Still won't define "cult", will you, teacher boy?
"Start answering the questions above with some honest research ..."
... says the fuckwit who stated that he only has to ask himself the right questions to know the answers.
Goddamn, teacher boy, but your hypocrisy never ceases, does it?
Now, I've answered your questions. Why the hell don't you go back and answer all those questions you ran away from? Hmmm?
Mark,
Homeschool.
Homeschool.
Homeschool.
That is the death knell of this entire miserable system.
The best high-school teacher I ever studied with has now quit school, and gone to tutoring homeschooled children full-time. He can design curricula the way he wants to, and the way the student will learn from, instead of how some committee dictates. He's been nudging at me to join him, and I may, given that I get my MA in three weeks and I despise formal schools.
A family I know educates most of their children via a combination of parental teaching, Skyping with tutors, community college classes, and one-off classes with a local homeschooling network. Their two oldest are in high school after having been homeschooled when younger, and the mother is not happy with the change. The next oldest has no intention of attending high school and wants to continue homeschooling. (She also wants to be a forensic anthropologist or pathologist, and is already taking forensics classes!)
We are not widgets to be stamped out in factories.
"We are not widgets to be stamped out in factories."
And feeling good about being uneducated is not a substitute for being educated.
If you want to continue to bitch and call for "nuking the site from orbit," your frustration will, in all liklihood, mount as this view has no constructive purpose.
"What's the sooperintendent gonna do, fire us all?" -- unidentified union thimblewit in Central Falls, RI
Mastiff, I've never had an issue with home schooling. Many of my colleagues do but I don't. To me, it shows that the primary agency of socialization (the parents) are engaged and this is a rare thing these days. So I disagree that home schooling is the death knell for the whole system. Parents, on the whole, are too busy with their own lives and wrapped up in several selfish pursuits to be actively engaged with their children. Often times, the view teachers as "the help" and expect them to not only educate their children but parent them as well. The breakdown of the family as a primary agency of socialization is one of the main reasons why children are having trouble in math and reading. These same children have virtually no interest in civics or history and, as DJ noted in a recent comment in another thread, are only interested in video games. Their parents, most of whom are part of what I call the Michael Jordan generation, teach them that life is all about being lucky and quickly making it rich.Thus, they have no intrinsic motivation.
DJ, it's not teaching diversity...it's understanding that we now have diverse learners in the classroom with multiple intelligences. Part of the reason for this is the increased diversity in our culture. Another reason would be our culture has changed and people learn differently now than they used to learn. It's not surprising, given your bias, that you interpreted my question that way. By bias, I don't mean racial but the Cult myth that we teach "feel good" lessons that are not substanitive. That is flat out wrong. We teach to the standards set out by MDE as many other states do with their own standards. Your three "solutions" are terribly simplistic and betray a real lack of knowledge on effective pedagogy and understanding how people learn.
Unix, do you agree or disagree with Tomlinson or Gardner? Why or why not? Personal attacks directed toward me are not solutions to the problem Kevin has illustrated.
Ed, I'm not sure how many times you want me to answer the same questions or state my position on climate change. It seems to me that you just want me to write things so that you can offer rebutal after rebutla filled with personal insults. This is a thread about education. If you don't want to answer my questions above, it doesn't matter to me. But by not answering my questions above and vilifying me yet again, it appears that you don't know enough about the subject to answer.
"Ed, I'm not sure how many times you want me to answer the same questions or state my position on climate change."
Oh believe me, we know your positions on climate change. What we don't know is your answers for those questions BECAUSE YOU DID NOT ANSWER THEM. We also think you have no factual basis for your positions, which is why we ask questions designed to discover that basis. (Or more likely, expose your basis as mere fantasy castles in the air built on nothing more than wishful thinking.)
I know the questions are off topic for this thread. I reposted those questions here because you RAN AWAY FROM THEM in the other thread. Feel free to go back there and answer them.
Ed, this is getting tiresome. When you don't agree or don't like the points I'm making, you accuse me of not answering questions. Then you proceed to "prove" I'm wrong and/or a coward...shouting at me to "go back and answer" before you answer any of mine. I'm done playing this little game. If you want to debate my points on education, I'm willing to engage in debate with you on this subject. If not, oh well.
Ed, this is getting tiresome.
IOW: you're losing so badly even you noticed.
When you don't agree or don't like the points I'm making, you accuse me of not answering questions.
No, we accuse you of not anwering questions when (gasp) you won't ANSWER THE QUESTIONS.
Who here has a problem with using "definitions" for words that are ONLY RELEVANT TO ONE PERSON IN THE CONVERSATION, Verbatim Boy?
There's rarely a case where that happens between us, but with you, we have to ask you continually for clarification - which you rarely bestow upon us. (And usually when you do, it's rather laughably easy to point out it's, at the least, not in, shall we say, wide usage?)
I'm done playing this little game.
Notice what Ed did above? He *repeated his questions to you that you didn't answer*.
HAD YOU ANSWERED THEM, YOU COULD PASTE YOUR ANSWERS.
But you didn't, and you can't. Your claim that you "have answered them" is not true.
Tiresome? You've been "debating" and "critically thinking" for 3 years here.
If you want to debate my points on education
To quote Markadelphia "Point proven".
What, after that, can you possibly bring to a debate on education?
You, who purport to be a teacher, who spout the pomo points, who insist that those ways are better, even in a thread that seriously brings to question that - which you totally ignored, going back to your insistence that DO IT AGAIN, ONLY HARDER!
And you've spewed venom at Kevin before when he attributed that to you.
Point. Proven.
You, who claim to be a teacher (personally, I have my doubts.) Who tell us we can't judge the educational system.
Yet you can't manage even the simplest arguments, understanding basic THEORY and PROOF.
STANFORD FAILED.
That is the subject of this thread. STANFORD *FAILED*.
If you've got insights into why they failed, that would be useful.
Insisting that we are wrong that they've failed, which is a fact.....
That's "tiresome". Sadly, it's par for your course. Deny reality, project your failings onto others, and blame us for your worldview being proven wrong continually.
"Ed, this is getting tiresome."
NO, Fuckwit.
YOU are getting tiresome.
Don't come 'round here no more.
DJ, it's not teaching diversity...it's understanding that we now have diverse learners in the classroom with multiple intelligences. Part of the reason for this is the increased diversity in our culture. Another reason would be our culture has changed and people learn differently now than they used to learn.
Then, Mark, why did STANFORD FAIL AND ASPIRE SUCCEED?
You want to demand answers of me? Oh, no, you've got YEARS of unanswered queues to wrap up before you've got the sack to nut up and demand of me.
This is what you miss, for all of that you just spewed, you missed the most salient point. Stanford, with all that "diverse learning", failed.
Failed.
Miserably.
But doing it the "old way" succeeded.
You have yet to address the factual result in front of you.
I'm not sure how many times you want me to answer the same questions
At least once.
or state my position on climate change.
At least once. You call it "climate change" here, "Global warming" there, and you wave vaguely at "some theory".
What Theory, Mark? BE SPECIFIC.
It seems to me that you just want me to write things so that you can offer rebutal after rebutla filled with personal insults.
As usual, you've missed the forest by running into a tree.
You get "personal insults" after you demonstrate you don't understand, and yet keep talking like you're an authority.
Personal attacks directed toward me are not solutions to the problem Kevin has illustrated.
You'd be wrong there, too. But then, that's the way to bet.
Unix, my point above to Ed is now also my point to you. You're not looking seriously at any of the issues confronting education today and seemingly hell bent on falling back on tired Cult rhetoric (your links below). If you want to demonstrate to me that you have some working knowledge of Tomlinson and/or Gardner using facts, logic, and reasoned debate, let's hear it. Otherwise, I'm done playing your little game as well.
You're not looking seriously at any of the issues confronting education today
No, *I* am. You're not.
You want to bring up tangential nonissues to sidetrack away, and now you're announcing that you're running away, like you did last week, without announcement.
If you want to demonstrate to me that you have some working knowledge of
Why?
WHEN HAVE YOU EVER DONE THIS?
This is hypocrisy of the highest order, Mark.
You routinely REFUSE to do that. Sneer at it, and then swear you've in fact done it.
You've routinely demonstrated the exact opposite, that not only do you have no "working knowledge", you have no ability to listen to people with it.
using facts, logic, and reasoned debate,
Mark, you've demonstrated you have no ability to do that. You just have the ability to deploy any logical fallacy within seconds.
None.
Otherwise, I'm done playing your little game as well.
Run away. It's not the first time. (And keep going this time. - Ed.)
But let us not hear that we don't know what's going on in the educational system.
Here's a topic, and a theory and hypothesis.
Stanford's failed.
Aspire's didn't.
There's something with proof. It stands in opposition to your claims, theories, and fallacies.
Discuss that. Stop trying to change the subject, or blame us for your inability to debate on above a 5th grade level.
using facts, logic, and reasoned debate, let's hear it. Otherwise, I'm done playing your little game as well.
Which is more, Mark, 22 or 15?
(This is usually good to make him leave for a week.)
Theme from Markapiñata begins at 1:03.
No, no! This one's BETTER!
Oooohkay...as soon as I get a new keyboard and monitor, let me know where I should send Ed his Internets. You're right, Kevin...that one is twelve stories tall, and made of radiation.
Got it. Thanks Ken! O:-)
So I disagree that home schooling is the death knell for the whole system.
Wait.
No, he's right (by accident), it's not the "death knell".
He doesn't know what a death knell is. (which is why we often ask him what he means, what he just said, etc - because there's no way to tell when he's being idiotic, or when he's picked up or is using a "definition" that's, uh, well, wrong.)
It is symptomatic of the failure, and how deep and systematic the failure is, and how close we are to a real tipping point. But it's not, itself a "knell".
A couple of more points:
"so that you can offer rebutal after rebutla filled with personal insults."
Yes, we prefer debate (rebuttals). The personal insults are because you either debate dishonestly, or refuse to debate at all. On the other hand, you seem to prefer throwing out personal insults without bothering with debate.
Have you forgotten that when I first ran into you three years ago, I chewed out DJ for throwing insults at you? Since then, you have earned what you receive from me. Consider:
"Don’t answer a fool according to his foolishness or you’ll be like him yourself.
Answer a fool according to his foolishness or he’ll become wise in his own eyes."
(Proverbs 26:4–5 HCSB)
"by not answering my questions above and vilifying me yet again, it appears that you don't know enough about the subject to answer."
I'm perfectly willing to debate you, provided you reciprocate. However, you have no right to demand things of us which you refuse to do yourself.
Ed, I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I don't understand what that proverb is trying to say (it is a bit late at night for me, maybe that's it). Would you care to elaborate a bit?
It could be stated "Never argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience..."
Greg,
http://reason.com/blog/2010/04/26/stuf-u-learn-in-pubic-schools
http://reason.com/assets/mc/tcavanaugh/saveareteachers.jpg
"…using facts, logic, and reasoned debate, let's hear it."
In this thread, you seem to be attempting to divert attention from a simple glaring fact caught squarely in the glare of the spotlight: That the Stanford leftist method of teaching failed horribly, while the conservative "cult" method of teaching surpassed ALL the schools in the area with the exact same type of "hopeless" students. Ignoring facts you do not like is not valid reasoning any more than "delete[ing] the file rather than send[ing it] to anyone" is valid science.
I find it fascinating that the king of using logical fallacies is trying to tell us that we should be using logic! Isn't that kind of like Al Capone telling Elliot Ness he should obey the law because he (Capone) is such a fine upstanding citizen who is popular with the press?
Reasoning is the ability to combine facts, logic and identify the criteria needed to reach a justified conclusion. In other words, it's critical (careful) thinking. Our two questions were both focused on identifying the criteria you were using to create your arguments so it could be examined. Notice the similarity between the words "criteria" and "critical". They both sound the same because they both refer to the same concept; both the details involved in an argument and the examination of those details. By refusing to expose those criteria, you refuse to engage in careful (critical thinking) rational debate.
I can only think of three basic reasons why you might want to refuse to reveal your criteria:
1 - You have no criteria to reveal because you're just Making Stuff Up.
2 - You realize your criteria is faulty and will expose your conclusions as faulty.
3 - You simply don't want to debate. (I can think of several reasons why you might not want to debate, but they still boil down to actively avoiding the debate.)
If you actually want to engage in rational debate using facts, logic and sound reasoning, then do so. That's all we've been asking of you FOR YEARS. Several of us here have already engaged in such debate on the main topic of this thread, and as a result, you're already posturing to run away rather than engage in the reasoned debate you claim you want.
If you really want to prove that you want rational debate, I think it would be most effective for you to respond to the two questions from the climate thread. They both represent brass tacks type questions which the entire debate turns on. (The debate in this thread hasn't quite reached that point yet.) If you actually have valid answers then you have nothing to fear from us, not even ad hominems, which are just logical fallacies, and thus meaningless anyway. The thing is, I think you're dodging those two questions—which, BTW, are really simple to answer—because you know you're wrong and you just don't want to admit it.
" ... because you know you're wrong and you just don't want to admit it."
That's the only thing he's going to hear. The rest is just the "skim over" part. He's looking for "hooks". Because if he actually read what anybody here wrote, he'd have to think, and he's not going to do that.
That's fine. I want him to try to prove me wrong about that by actually debating.
"He's looking for "hooks". Because if he actually read what anybody here wrote, he'd have to think, and he's not going to do that."
He tries to play GOTCHA! It doesn't work.
Local magazine has an article today about the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, and how my city of Richmond, VA is handling it. The main thrust of the article was about how more education efforts regarding slavery were needed. As in, calling for the public schools to talk more about slavery. Except that's all they talk about now. I tutor kids, ranging from 5th to 12th grade. They don't know who George Mason was, but they know all about Harriet Tubman. They might not know much about Jefferson, but they know he was an evil slave owning hypocrite. They don't know anything about Stonewall Jackson or Robert E. Lee, except that they fought for the South and are thus evil. In fact, the American history I'm hearing from kids is more of a leftist morality play then actual history.
I mean these kids don't know anything at all about basic historical facts, they cannot analyze things in a dispassionate fashion, and they lack a basic familiarity with the shape of the world, both past and present. There is this belief now that since we have the Internet we don't need to teach facts. The problem with this is, like the man tied in Plato's cave, children will have no idea where to begin thinking. Without touchstones, without a foundation to build on, all the data in the world is useless.
Like yesterday I was tutoring one of my 10th graders, and he asked, quite seriously, why the Cold War happened if the USSR and the US were allies in WWII. He didn't know, because the assumption nowadays is that "rote learning", the memorization of factual information, is outdated and unnecessary. There is a world of difference between knowing something, and having something available on the Internet.
We're screwed, basically. The memory of what has been lost has been lost. They've won, dumbed the populace down to the point where a majority of the country has no idea what the ideals of the Republic were or how far we've come from them. I don't know how to fix it, because the people who have the power to fix it don't want it fixed. The teachers I've encountered are not very intelligent at all, on the whole. Ed-school graduates constantly rank among the lowest of test scores, this is well documented. Stupid people can't really educate, because turning out intelligent and competent students requires intelligent and competent teachers. Instead we have timserving hacks, entrenched unions, trendy theories, and of course our resident idiot being the one who's supposed to educate children.
"The memory of what has been lost has been lost."
A terrifying statement, all the more frightening because it is probably true; maybe not yet now, but it soon will be.
Like yesterday I was tutoring one of my 10th graders, and he asked, quite seriously, why the Cold War happened if the USSR and the US were allies in WWII.
I sure hope you took advantage of this very obvious teachable moment. Chances like that don't come along that often. :)
Back to an actual on point question for Markadelphia- in your post that starts " I've never had an issue with home schooling...", you sound pretty much like an "old style education cultist" yourself. I quite agree with you actually, up to a point. That point is where you say " the primary agency of socialization (the parents) ".
Problem is that the school industry screams that the parents CAN"T adequately socialize children! That's the basis for almost every opposition, at large and in particular cases, to home schooling!
You go on to say " they view teachers as "the help"... Of course they do- that is what you ARE. You are an employee paid to do a job, just like the architect or the yard man.
"...and expect them to not only educate their children but parent them as well." Expect, because the school industry has insisted on it! Read the Stanford school web site- or recall your own education classes.
The mission from the START of public education in this country included a hefty component of socialization/indoctrination/parenting, call it what you will. Cleansing the children of immigrants of their foreign ways, making them learn English, teaching them good sober habits their parents wouldn't- all part of, sometimes the main part of, the sales pitch.
Because, in 1810, 1910, or 2010, the problem persists- bad parenting . Now, instead of "doesn't go to Congregational church often enough" or "speaks Italian at home", it's " teach them that life is all about being lucky and quickly making it rich."
Well, I am the help in one sense of the defintion but I am not their parents. My point above was to stress that many parents are not actively involved in their children's lives and expect the school to be both parent and teacher. If this primary agency of socialization (the family) fails, the rest---school, community and the peer group are affected. Inevitiably what ends up happening is the mass media (the 5th main agency of socialization) plays a larger role which I think we can all agree is not a good thing.
So, when I see home schooling going on, I generally am quite supportive. Parents are taking an active role in their child's education which is a rarity these days. Many parents would like their child to have a religious component to their studies so they home school and I think that's great as well. Our country is decidedly lacking in spirituality and any forays into that realm are quite beneficial to the wholeness of a person, imho.
"Well, I am the help in one sense of the defintion but I am not their parents. My point above was to stress that many parents are not actively involved in their children's lives and expect the school to be both parent and teacher."
See the bold part? Good. This is not a sweeping generalization about ALL parents.
"If this primary agency of socialization (the family) fails, the rest---school, community and the peer group are affected."
Yup, they are affected.
"Inevitiably what ends up happening is the mass media (the 5th main agency of socialization) plays a larger role which I think we can all agree is not a good thing."
See the bold part? Good. This is a relative notion, not an absolute. You have stated what you think of this as your own opinion, which, of course, you are entitled to do.
"So, when I see home schooling going on, I generally am quite supportive."
Good for you.
"Parents are taking an active role in their child's education which is a rarity these days."
See the bold part? Good. Home schooling is as active as it gets, and it is relatively rare, because most kids go to public or private schools.
"Many parents would like their child to have a religious component to their studies so they home school and I think that's great as well."
See the bold part? Good. This is not a sweeping generalization about ALL parents. You have stated what you think of this as your own opinion, which, of course, you are entitled to do.
"Our country is decidedly lacking in spirituality and any forays into that realm are quite beneficial to the wholeness of a person, imho."
See the bold part? Good. Again, this is a statement of your own opinion, clearly so.
This is a well thought out, well stated comment. It is not off the deep end with made up shit, it is not contaminated with absolutes that you cannot know the truth of, and your opinions are clearly stated to be your opinions.
WELL DONE.
Now, why the hell can't you do this routinely?
See why I keep Marky around? He inspires some of the BEST commentary! (Though even I am getting pretty damned tired of him.)
"See why I keep Marky around? He inspires some of the BEST commentary!"
I hope you mean absolute, not relative ...
"Parents, on the whole, are too busy with their own lives and wrapped up in several selfish pursuits to be actively engaged with their children."
Some are, some aren't.
You don't know my sister-in-law and her children, or my nieces and nephews and their children. They are the polar opposite your statement, and they are typical of parents I know.
You are too wrapped up in your own ego to admit such things, aren't you?
"Their parents, most of whom are part of what I call the Michael Jordan generation, teach them that life is all about being lucky and quickly making it rich.Thus, they have no intrinsic motivation."
Indeed, many parents are like this, and your statement is well put. Now, have you noticed that this is precisely what we have been complaining about here for years? Damn, teacher boy, are you actually agreeing with us?
"Another reason would be our culture has changed and people learn differently now than they used to learn."
Horseshit.
Their genetics haven't changed, but their teachers have changed their methods, their subjects, and their expectations.
"It's not surprising, given your bias, that you interpreted my question that way."
I didn't misinterpret your question. You are ignoring the essence of my answer, but then, that is what you do. It's your Standard Response #6.
"By bias, I don't mean racial but the Cult myth that we teach "feel good" lessons that are not substanitive. That is flat out wrong."
Again, horseshit.
I talk with my nieces and nephews who are still in school, and with my grand-nieces and grand-nephews who are all in school, and they verify my statement completely.
"Your three "solutions" are terribly simplistic ..."
They are BASIC, teacher boy. The basics are often simple.
"... and betray a real lack of knowledge on effective pedagogy and understanding how people learn."
Golly. I don't know how teaching is done, do I? I don't know how people learn, do I? Well, I was a math tutor beginning in junior high and continuing all through high school, and I was an undergraduate teacher at university, teaching electromagnetic fields, waveguides, and transmission lines. Further, I am largely self-taught, thus I know how I learn.
You, on the other hand, have demonstrated, for three years, a remarkable inability and/or refusal to learn. Odd that, coming from someone who claims to be a teacher.
"It seems to me that you just want me to write things so that you can offer rebutal after rebutla filled with personal insults."
Goddamn, but that is hilarious, and so typical of you. Indeed, it is your Standard Response #12, yet again.
In great measure, no one wants you to write anything at all. I know that because we've stated so.
We offer up personal insults because: 1) you earn them; 2) you are too fundamentally dishonest to be taken seriously; and, 3) I, for one, hope that you might improve your behavior so as to not earn them and thereby avoid them. It usually works with others, even with children, but not with you.
Now, you want a gratuitous insult? I'll oblige. You used the word "rebuttal" TWICE in that statement, you spelled it two different ways, and neither way was correct. That's really good for someone who claims to be a teacher, ain't it?
"Ed, this is getting tiresome."
Teacher boy, this is getting tiresome. You've been tiresome for three years. You spit up the same Standard Responses, over and over and over again. They don't work, you know it, but you keep coughing them up, and you complain of the behavior of others being tiresome. Again, your hypocrisy knows no limits, does it?
"When you don't agree or don't like the points I'm making, you accuse me of not answering questions."
When you don't answer questions, we accuse you of not answering questions. It's what you do. It's what your Standard Responses are all about, fuckwit. You practice evasion as if it were a virtue.
"Otherwise, I'm done playing your little game as well."
Oh, if only you were done playing games ...
But your fundamental dishonesty and your inability to admit error won't let you, will they?
Alfred North Whitehead's The Aims of Education and Other Essays (Macmillan, 1929) begins with this paragraph:
Culture is activity of thought, and receptiveness to beauty and humane feeling. Scraps of information have nothing to do with it. A merely well-informed man is the most useless bore on God's earth. What we should aim at producing is men who possess both culture and expert knowledge in some special direction. Their expert knowledge will give them the ground to start from, and their culture will lead them as deep as philosophy and as high as art. We have to remember that the valuable intellectual development is self-development, and that it mostly takes place between the ages of sixteen and thirty. As to training, the most important part is given by mothers before the age of twelve. A saying due to Archbishop Temple illustrates my meaning. Surprise was expressed at the success in after-life of a man, who as a boy at Rugby had been somewhat undistinguished. He answered, "It is not what they are at eighteen, it is what they become afterwards that matters."
From http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2010/04/education-and-information.html
A more useless bore than a merely well informed man is one that merely thinks he is well informed.
Hirsch's Core Knowledge Foundation.
Enough said.
"A more useless bore than a merely well informed man is one that merely thinks he is well informed."
His twin is one who thinks there is nothing else he need learn.
Oh wow, check out this classic example of psychological (psychotic?) projection. Once again, Marky dips into his Standard Responses and pulls out #9.
I can't help but giggle at the silliness of it.
"The three-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots."
- Robert A. Heinlein, "The Happy Days Ahead"
"The hardest part about gaining any new idea is sweeping out the false idea occupying that niche. As long as that niche is occupied, evidence and proof and logical demonstration get nowhere. But once the niche is emptied of the wrong idea that has been filling it — once you can honestly say, "I don't know", then it becomes possible to get at the truth." -- Heinlein
Thanks, Grumpy. I haven't read that book in a long time. I'm overdue.
RE: UofA's math woes, isn't this what we were told the AIMS testing system would prevent? AIMS is supposed to guarantee that all of Arizona's high school graduates meet a minimum level of competency in math, reading comprehension, and writing skill. We can see how well that standardized testing is working for us.
Doh, I forgot to beat on the dead horse.
"Start answering the questions above with some honest research ..."
Which is the higher number, 22 or 15?
Alright, let's take a look at a few comments from DJ.
I talk with my nieces and nephews who are still in school, and with my grand-nieces and grand-nephews who are all in school, and they verify my statement completely.
Well, being a scientist, I'm sure that you will admit that this small set of people does not mean that your theory is valid. Logic and the scientific method, sir ;)
I don't know how people learn, do I? I am largely self-taught, thus I know how I learn.
Thank you, DJ, for being an excellent example of one of the central problems in education. I know how I learn...sheesh. Well, DJ, how you learn is completely different from how other people learn. I am going to put forth a scenario to you. You are a math teacher at a high school. You have 50 children in your class. Half of them speak English as a second language. A third of them have varying degrees of learning disabilities. What instructional strategies would you employ to effectively teach these children? How would you assess them? When it came time for the standardized test, would you teach to the test or find another way?
Let's see how he answers. In the meantime, let's review a defintion.
Confirmation bias is a tendency for people to prefer information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses, independently of whether they are true. People tend to test hypotheses in a one-sided way, focusing on one possibility and neglecting alternatives. The biases appear in particular for issues that are emotionally significant (including some personal and political topics) and for established beliefs that shape the individual's expectations.
By showing the Stanford study, Kevin has, once again, demonstrated confirmation bias. The reasons why our schools are failing is because of progressive, feel good policies of instruction and, in his mind, there can be no other reason. This is a highly simplified and Beck-esque view of the problems facing public education today. It's an assertion that is made to foment anger and hate, hence the "nuke the site from orbit" meme.
There are a myriad of reasons why children are having difficulty. The points I made in my initial post are but a few. If Kevin (or anyone else) took the time to reserach these issues (as a good scientist would), they would see that it is much more complex than his simple and narrow minded belief. In fact, this belief doesn't even accurately describe the problem.
Kevin, you are over-generalizing to the point of silliness. Moreover, you're just flat out wrong about the majority of teaching standards we see today. I have linked them previously. Would you like me to do so again? Each of these standards come with them the encouragement by administrators to employ a plethora of instructional strategies. Whether the teachers actually employ them is another matter all together which is also part of the problem (see: laziness). There's nothing in theses standards that tell students to feel good about themselves.
So, my above scenario applies to you as well, Kevin. Put aside your bias and belief and tell me how you would educate these children? Better yet, test your chosen instructional strategies with the available research that is out there and easily accessible on the web. Isn't that what a good scientist would do?
Part 1
Marxaphasia: "By bias, I don't mean racial but the Cult myth that we teach "feel good" lessons that are not substanitive. That is flat out wrong."
Me: "I talk with my nieces and nephews who are still in school, and with my grand-nieces and grand-nephews who are all in school, and they verify my statement completely."
Marxaphasia: "Well, being a scientist, I'm sure that you will admit that this small set of people does not mean that your theory is valid. Logic and the scientific method, sir"
Your first statement that I quoted above is a generalization, a blanket statement that "we", meaning teachers (which is what you claim to be), do not "teach 'feel good' lessons that are not substanitive (sic)." Your statement is unequivocal: "That is flat out wrong."
It is sufficient to show that your generalized statement is wrong to show that there is at least one instance where teachers DO teach students to "feel good" about not learning, about being ignorant, about being uneducated, and so on. Thus, my response to your statement was that my nieces, nephews, grand-neices, and grand-nephews EACH verify that their teachers DO teach them to feel good about not learning, about being ignorant, and so on. I offer no hard evidence that they did so, simply because I have none. It is anecdotal, but it came from EACH of them, separately and independently, and it came to ME, thus I know that they did so. You can believe it or not, as you choose.
The purpose of my response was not to represent this as proof that ALL teachers teach this way. I have never suggested that they ALL do. My purpose was, yet again, to get you to understand that sweeping, generalized statements about a whole population, statements that you cannot know the truth of, are just that easy to show to be false.
Yet again, you demonstrated that you do not understand logical reasoning. Yet again, I showed this to you. Yet again, you missed it, and you demonstrated, yet again, that you do not understand logical reasoning.
And, I am not a scientist, I am an engineer. Do you know the difference between the two?
"Well, DJ, how you learn is completely different from how other people learn."
And here we have, yet again, another example of a sweeping, generalized statement that you cannot know the truth of. Why? Because you do not know how I learn, and you do not know how everyone else learns.
Part 2
"I am going to put forth a scenario to you. You are a math teacher at a high school. You have 50 children in your class. Half of them speak English as a second language. A third of them have varying degrees of learning disabilities. What instructional strategies would you employ to effectively teach these children?"
I'll give you a short history lesson. My last two years in high school were in an Oklahoma City public school in an area that was about 40% white, 30% black, 20% Mexican (literally), and the rest a mix. I took Algebra II my junior year, in a class with about 40 students. Some spoke English as a second language. Some spoke a dialect of English that is commonly found in inner cities, a dialect that I had difficult understanding sometimes. Every class I have ever been in has had students with learning disabilities. Racial tensions were often high across the whole school those two years.
What happened in that class was that the teacher taught algebra and students learned algebra. They were expected to, so they did. Most did reasonably well, some did outstandingly well, and a few failed. That's how things were done when I was in school.
So, I would teach them the same way I was taught. Teach the subject, do not tolerate acting up in class, and teach at a pace such that the slowest kid in class has to work his ass off to keep up. Do not afflict them with the soft bigotry of low expectations. It worked then, and there is no reason why it wouldn't work now.
"How would you assess them?"
The same way I was assessed, via tests that, if one knew and understood the subject matter, one could pass. Again, it worked then, and there is no reason why it wouldn't work now.
"When it came time for the standardized test, would you teach to the test or find another way?"
By "another way", I presume you mean another way to teach students such that they pass the standardized tests and made the school look good.
Here's another bit of history, teacher boy. When I was in school, we did not study to pass standardized tests. We had them every year from seventh grade onward, but we did not know until a few days before the tests were given that they would be given, with the sole exceptions of the SAT and National Merit Scholarship tests. They tested what we had learned, not what we had crammed for.
You think I'm lying? You weren't even born yet.
"Let's see how he answers."
You pathetic, hypocritical fuckwit. When are you going to answer all those questions you have evaded for three goddamned years?
So, let me see if I have it right.
1. Teaching methods are much much better than they were in the past.
2. School performance has declined since the adoption of these advanced pedagogical methods by any meaningful standard.*
INTERMISSION
*Believe me, I know, I teach marketing at the college level and am trying to determine when the teaching of standard English grammar was abolished in the public schools; it had to have done, there is simply no other explanation for what passes as writing even among bright students who are otherwise a pleasure to have in class.
I have argued -- politely, because we get on well and I like her -- with my son's official teacher (I am his "learning coach" in our homeschool arrangement) that more emphasis should be given to diagramming sentences in the grammar/usage/mechanics portion of the curriculum. Her position is that diagramming sentences kills students' enjoyment of writing. Mine is that if you can't diagram a sentence, you probably can't write for shit anyway.
END INTERMISSION - LATER THAT AFTERNOON
3. The identified performance decline is everyone's fault but the schools.
So public education consumes a metric pantload of finite resources, and explains, oh, about 0% of the variance in performance.
Is that the argument? Srsly?
I tell you whut, Boomhauer, in business if we find something that consumes that much money, time, and effort, and contributes nothing to performance, we blow that shit out the airlock in its underwear.
Like I said. Wait.
In the meantime, let's review a defintion.
In the meantime, not to take away anything from DJ's powerful comments, but which is more, Mark? 22 or 15?
Twenty-two or fifteen? (I'll write it out in case the numbers are throwing you.)
WHICH ONE?
You've dodged this question for a YEAR NOW. After you made the claim that "More people listen to Rush Limbaugh than watch all of the network news combined.
And you never retracted it when the facts went against you. IN FACT, you repeated it at least two more times.
22. Or. 15. ANSWER THE QUESTION.
Oh. But the minute you do, I then ask you to retract your incorrect conclusion - Oh! almost got you to walk into that one!
....
But Everybody else here, Mark, already knows what the truth is - We know you were wrong, we know you couldn't admit it, and it's part, parcel, and point proven why the educational system is completely fucked and needs to be nuked from orbit.
"By showing the Stanford study, Kevin has, once again, demonstrated confirmation bias."
By ignoring the Stanford study, Markadelphia has, once again, demonstrated confirmation bias.
Have you ever wondered why scientists use a control group when running tests? Have you ever wondered why drug testing is always double-blind, and uses placebos? It's to eliminate as many variables as possible so the results are meaningful.
In this case, we have students pulled from the exact same pool, in the exact same part of the country, and even formerly partners in the endeavor. The only meaningful difference between the two was their educational theories. Oh, and the results. A rational person CANNOT ignore these results.
Now if there was another similar situation, or even any marginally similar situation, where there results were the opposite, then it would be confirmation bias to use these results and ignore the other results. (Gee, isn't that what Phil Jones did?!?)
Marxy, you've charged confirmation bias. Proving that so-called bias is simple. Just show us similar real-world situations which Kevin has ignored—or even marginally similar situations—where the leftist teaching theories produced better results than traditional methods.
Just show us similar real-world situations which Kevin has ignored—or even marginally similar situations—where the leftist teaching theories produced better results than traditional methods.
Any day now, we'll actually try it HARD ENOUGH TO WORK THIS TIME!
Any day!
Oh, and about those two questions, Marxy…
You're a COWARD. I think that somewhere deep inside, you know that you're wrong, but you're dodging the questions because you know that answering them will reveal just how wrong you are to the world, and more importantly, to yourself.
Ed: "Oh, and about those two questions, Marxy…
You're a COWARD. I think that somewhere deep inside, you know that you're wrong, but you're dodging the questions because you know that answering them will reveal just how wrong you are to the world, and more importantly, to yourself."
Yup. He CANNOT admit significant error.
Hey, Ed finally came up with something worth responding to...cool!
where the leftist teaching theories produced better results than traditional methods.
First, I reject your defintion of "leftist" teaching methods, Glenn Beck. You paint anything that is not strictly traditional or something that you don't like as leftist. Classic Cult manuever. Teaching to standards is not leftist. Employing instructional strategies such as the Socratic Seminar or Simulation/Role Playing are not leftist. Gardner and Tomlinson's theories are not leftists.
Here is an example of a real world situation where an alternate instructional strategy worked. Let's take a look at a comment by DJ first, though, as it relates to the story.
So, I would teach them the same way I was taught. Teach the subject, do not tolerate acting up in class, and teach at a pace such that the slowest kid in class has to work his ass off to keep up. Do not afflict them with the soft bigotry of low expectations. It worked then, and there is no reason why it wouldn't work now.
What year was this in? Oh yes...
You think I'm lying? You weren't even born yet.
DJ, I'm not sure what year you are talking about but things have changed quite a bit in the last 50 years. We live in a different culture. People learn differently than they did when you were in school. If you attempt to teach them in a traditional lecture format, for example, there will be no enduring understandings.Teaching in non-traditional way does not mean soft bigotry of low expectations.
A few years back, I was team teaching a class with an older instructor who was frustrated that his students weren't learning fundamental concepts in American government. He taught much in the same way you describe above. He asked me if I had any ideas on how to engage the students. They weren't doing well on tests. I was pretty green back then and remembered an exercise we did in another class that I thought would help. We put bunch of pieces of paper in a hat with "President" "Vice-President" "Speaker of the House" "Chief Justice" "Chairman of the Joint Chiefs" etc written on them. We had the students draw names out of a hat and each student played that role. We presented them first with a routine day at the office and then interrupted it with a terrorist attack. How would each person respond given the role they had? Why are they doing this? We worked on the higher end of Bloom's Taxonomy striving for application and evaluation. We built an entire unti around this and the kids loved it.
We assessed them verbally and in action, so to speak. There were no written tests and the final exam was a group presentation with each kid explaining how their role was played and why. This is Tomlinson's living history in action. For many of the kids who speak English as a second language, they could see visually and interactively how American government works. The interpersonal learners, not ones to do well flying solo, excelled. We also added in some research and computer work for those learners who like to be alone when studying and write. I just heard recently that he added in multiple choice quizzes at different points during the unit. The answers were given via texts from each of the kids cel phones and onto a Jeopardy like projection on a SmartBoard. He got tired of combatting the constant cel phone usage in class so he incorporated it into his assessment.
Basically, the kids started learning again and they retained the knowledge because they lived it. This is the sort of thing that needs to happen more often and it doesn't. Students who learn with their hands (Gardner's bodily-kinesthetic intelligence) have done better in geography if they contruct the maps themselves in a three dimensional space rather than stare at a board as an instructor droans on and on.
So, this is what I am talking about when I say differentiation and learner centered instruction. We don't hold hands and sing songs. We learn in non-traditional methods because that's how things work these days. You have to vary instructional strategies on a consistent basis and pay attention to varied assessment or the simple fact is that students won't learn. And that's just what's happening now. Teachers are slow to adopt many of these new methods and don't take the time to get out of their moldy classrooms and research new ideas that do actually work.
Yeah, yeah..
Which is more, 22 or 15?
First, I reject your defintion of "leftist" teaching methods, Glenn Beck.
What was that about personal attacks? Oh, right, you forget them when you want.
You paint anything that is not strictly traditional or something that you don't like as leftist.
Just like our demanding answers of you, when you don't answer, and insist that you have, we call you out.
When the leftists are quite open with their plans and techniques, and you parrot them, then you're a "leftist". Everything you say is a derivation - Kevin has done tremendous work in proving that, citing many sources.
Your rebuttal consisted of "Nuh-uh! You can't tell me, you don't know!"
Teaching to standards is not leftist. Employing instructional strategies such as the Socratic Seminar or Simulation/Role Playing are not leftist.
No, not everything is leftist about the educational system. Just most things.
Including the failures.
Including you.
Stanford FAILED, Mark. That's the topic here. Failed. Aspire, doing what you say won't work, didn't. They succeeded in what's as close to a controlled experiment as you can get. When Stanford, with all these theories and diversities and "experts" FAILED.
Why can you not even address the subject at hand? (Rhetorical question. We -excluding you- know why you won't.
(Damn ECHO.) Pt2 follows.
Oh, I can't wait for the shitstorm this is sure to inspire.
In the interim, however, from this publication:
Keeping with the custom of the National Research Council, this volume was prepared by a committee of volunteer scholars and other experts. The committee was chaired by Deborah Stipek, Dean of the School of Education at Stanford University and former Director of the Corinne Seeds University Elementary School. Her research interests include the effects of instruction on achievement motivation, school reform, and policies affecting children and education. She has authored several books related to these topics (Bohart & Stipek, 2001; Stipek, 1997; Stipek & Seal, 2001). It seems appropriate that someone with such interests and experiences would chair the study’s committee.
--
Related to the challenge and rigor of instruction, the committee recommends that teachers draw on students’ experiences and allow students to use multiple resources to gain mastery in learning. Making use of student experiences not only makes instruction relevant to learners, but it also moves them from being mere consumers of knowledge to being producers of it. This is the essence of critical pedagogy (Freire, 1970)—to shift the balance of power in the classroom so that it is shared by all and reinforces a student’s sense of agency. This report emphasizes the influence that locus of control and social relationships can have on engagement and motivation to learn.
Not only does the committee recommend that teachers capitalize on students’ cultural knowledge, but that teachers teach in a way that allows all students to learn. Gardner’s (1993) theory suggests that student learn through different modalities or “intelligences.” To be highly effective, instruction must include activities that reflect various intelligences—from reading and writing to drawing and acting.
All of these “best practices” can prove useful to educators interested in creating learning environments opulent with opportunity for engagement.
So the Dean of the School of Education at Stanford University since 2001 is apparently a fan of critical pedagogy.
But that doesn't mean that the Stanford School of Education is full of leftists! Oh no! I'm quite sure there must be at least one professor of education there who has voted for a Republican at least once! And surely there's no more than a half-dozen Ché posters displayed in faculty offices.
Markadelphia, you beclown yourself more every time you put fingers to keyboard.
Kevin, as someone who claims to utilized the scientific method, I'm surprised to find you falling victim to this mistake: correlation does not imply causation. Just because people are poor, doesn't mean they are going to be criminals even though the data shows that more crime occurs in impoverished areas. By the same token, all criminals are not poor. So, just because Stanford (or any other school) teaches critical pedagogy does not mean that it is rampant in our schools. Nor does it mean that their school is full of leftists. In addition, just because an instructor is "liberal," doesn't mean they are indoctrinating their students with their bias.
Clearly, your objection is that you want YOUR OWN bias taught in the classroom. And anything to the left of you is not to be trusted. In other words, picture that I have attatched to this post.
I would also point your use of this logical fallacy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_fear
Either P or Q is true
Q is frightening
Therefore, P is true.
To use this as Glenn Beck does all the time
Either Barack Obama or Adolph Hitler is a fascist
Hitler is frightening
Therefore, Barack Obama is a fascist
Now to use it as you have in the context of education in our country
Either this statement: "Critical Pedagogy is running rampant through our schools" or this one "Students aren't learning the basics" is true.
Students not learning the basics is frightening (and awful).
Therefore, critical pedagogy is running rampant through the schools.
So, Kevin, I would encourage you to review Gardner's MI theory and, in doing so, make sure you give due consideration to the evidence, the context of judgment, the relevant criteria for making the judgment well, the applicable methods or techniques for forming the judgment, and the applicable theoretical constructs for understanding the problem and the question at hand.
Pt 2.
I'm not sure what year you are talking about but things have changed quite a bit in the last 50 years.
Yes, we know. That's the subject of this thread.
We live in a different culture.
Arguably.
People learn differently than they did when you were in school.
NO THEY DO NOT. There's a reason why the tested, proven methods work. (Alternatively: PROVE THAT STATEMENT. BACK IT UP. ANSWER THE QUESTIONS.)
People learn exactly the same as they always have. Your EDUCATIONAL METHODS HAVE CHANGED. Despite all the proof that they DON'T WORK.
That's not to say that everybody learns that way - that's a totally different statement.
Stanford FAILED. Aspire - teaching the way DJ learned, and probably the way you learned most things - SUCCEEDED.
(*(#&($*#*(@#$@#*(. Apparently ECHO learned programming from Mark's teachers)
"DJ, I'm not sure what year you are talking about but things have changed quite a bit in the last 50 years."
I began school in 1959 and graduated from High School in 1971. The class I wrote of was during the fall of 1969. You stated you were 41 years old, which puts your birthday in 1969, right?
Well, golly. Perhaps you were born by then after all. Do you remember much of that year?
Yes, things certainly have changed. We (I use the term loosely) have spent roughly half a century and roughly three generations changing our education system such that more and more varied resources produce less and lower quality results. You've been shown this, but you can't admit it. More in a moment ...
"People learn differently than they did when you were in school."
People are taught differently than they did when I was in school. This does not mean they are not capable of learning as I did when I was in school.
Do you understand the difference, or is your usual fuckheadedness shining through again?
"If you attempt to teach them in a traditional lecture format, for example, there will be no enduring understandings."
Not now, there won't, because they have not learned how to learn via that teaching method. That does not discredit the method, but it does illuminate the evolution of teaching methodology since I was in school.
"Teaching in non-traditional way does not mean soft bigotry of low expectations."
Ah, your Standard Response #6 kicks in again. You deliberately miss the point and lay on yet another straw man.
The soft bigotry of low expectations is an acceptance of mediocrity to justify the method by which it is accomplished, but it is not dependent on any particular method. It describes a mindset, not a pedagogy.
"Basically, the kids started learning again and they retained the knowledge because they lived it. This is the sort of thing that needs to happen more often and it doesn't."
Now, back to you've been shown this, but you can't admit it. Do you realize that you cherry-pickikng your examples is exactly what you falsely accused me of? Can you see it?
I am reminded of a conversation I had with a niece only two weeks ago. She turns 16 this week and is a sophomore in high school. I described the "story problems" that I loved so well (which you might have read my comments about previously). These are short descriptions of events that require a mathematical analysis and answer for. They are simple and they are easy. My teachers began using them in the first grade, and I dearly loved them, right up until they were discontinued with the "new math" of the sixth grade. My neice stated that NONE of her teachers have EVER taught the practical, real-world usage of everyday ARITHMETIC in this manner. Her grades are good (B's in general), but she could not follow through and understand the simple problems I posed, such as: "Johnny has ten apples. His father gives him six more. His brother takes half, and gives half of what he takes to his sister. How many apples does his sister have?" She has never been taught how to use arithmetic in the real world.
Depressing, isn't it?
I was born in 1967, graduating from high school in 1985. So that makes me 43 years old and makes you 57?
Again, correlation does not imply causation. Just because changes were made does not mean that these changes are the reasons we have problems in education. The simple fact is that we are always going to have problems in education. We're going to have even more when people (not sure if this you or not) can't accept the fact that our culture has changed both in diversity and how people learn. Changes were made in the first place because the "old ways" weren't working anymore.
Much of what I read on this blog in comments (some from you) has the following theme: let's get back to the old ways cuz they worked! Well, that's not really true. And it completely neglects the organic process of cultural evolution.
I will agree with your last paragraph. In fact, your desire to return to story problems is actually a defense of differentiation and MI. Students who have verbal linguistic intelligence would excel if they learned math in this fashion. Sadly, they don't and I wholeheartedly agree that "new math" seems to be a completely ass-headed way of teaching arithmetic. Since I am not a mathmatician, my opinion is that of a frustrated layperson.
"Just because changes were made does not mean that these changes are the reasons we have problems in education."
Of course. But clear evidence shows that these changes are a big reason we have problems in education. You've been shown the evidence, but you cannot admit that the evidence shows this. Yet again, we see your Standard Response #7.
"We're going to have even more when people (not sure if this you or not) can't accept the fact that our culture has changed both in diversity and how people learn."
I have accepted the fact, explicitly so, that our culture has changed in diversity. Your reading comprehension still acting up, is it?
You continue to spout the notion that people learn differently as a smoke screen to deny the effects of their being taught differently. You will not understand that it won't work here. Apparently you've forgotten how to learn. Read on.
"Changes were made in the first place because the "old ways" weren't working anymore."
HORSESHIT, and I'd put that word in a 72pt screaming font if I could.
Read my comments again about my transition from "old math" of the fifth grade to "new math" of the sixth grade. That transition was NOT made because the "old ways" weren't working, they were made because administrators mandated it. THE CHANGE WAS IN THE TEACHERS AND THEIR EMPLOYERS, NOT IN THE STUDENTS. Had the teachers continued with the "old ways", the students would have continued learning in the "old ways", and the "old ways" would have continued to work just fine. And you complain of others not understanding cause and effect. Teacher boy, the teachers are the cause, the learning is the effect. The teachers drive the process, not the students. The change is in the teaching, not the learning.
Goddamn, but you are a fuckwit.
"Much of what I read on this blog in comments (some from you) has the following theme: let's get back to the old ways cuz they worked!"
Yet again, you cough up your Standard Response #6, the "How 'bout a little fire, Scarecrow?" response. You deliberately miss the point, laying on yet another straw man.
The theme is, "Let's get back to the old ways because the new ways demonstrably don't work worth shit." Again, you've been shows clear evidence of this, and the theme has been explained to you over and over again, but you just cannot deal with it honestly.
"And it completely neglects the organic process of cultural evolution."
No, it points out one cause of cultural evolution and shows it to have very undesireable side effects.
"Since I am not a mathmatician, my opinion is that of a frustrated layperson."
You show repeatedly that you are not a mathematician. Understanding simple mathematics is fundamental to an understand of logic and how to use it. You are not a logician, either.
If you attempt to teach them in a traditional lecture format, for example, there will be no enduring understandings.
ASPIRE SUCCEEDED. STANFORD FAILED. Accept this. At least fucking man up, have the sack to ADMIT IT.
Teaching in non-traditional way does not mean soft bigotry of low expectations.
No, you're right. (By accident. It happens.) It doesn't.
But your liberal progressive new age thinking does have the soft bigotry built in. You JUST REITERATED IT. Let me refresh your damn short memory:
If you attempt to teach them in a traditional lecture format, for example, there will be no enduring understandings.
That is bigotry and low expecting. That's EXACTLY WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT. Point. Fucking. Proven.
We don't hold hands and sing songs.
Really? Didn't you say just before that...
There were no written tests and the final exam was a group presentation with each kid explaining how their role was played and why.
Awwww.
Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
Have you ever participated in a group presentation, Unix? It's a lot more work than just sitting in class and taking notes from a lecture. I'm also not saying that lecture should NEVER be used. It should be one of many instructional strategies. So, tell me, what instructional strategies would you employ if you were a teacher?
*sigh*
If you'd told me that I'd miss Haloscan......
"First, I reject your defintion of "leftist" teaching methods, Glenn Beck. You paint anything that is not strictly traditional or something that you don't like as leftist. Classic Cult manuever."
(You’re calling me “Glenn Beck”? That’s pretty funny coming from a guy who listens to him a whole lot more than I do—which is essentially never.)
Wrong! This is a good definition of what I call leftist teaching:
"EPA Academy students are graded on a five-dimensional rubric, based on (1) Personal Responsibility; (2) Social Responsibility; (3) Communication Skills; (4) Application of Knowledge; and (5) Critical and Creative Thinking.
"Only 20 percent of the grade is based on knowledge, notes Michele Kerr, who taught an ACT prep course for disadvantaged students at a nonprofit from 2007-09. Compared to district high school students, East Palo Academy tutees had "the lowest skills and the highest grades," Kerr recalls. Students with high A averages turned out to have very poor reading and math skills, though their writing was relatively strong."
(Note: I also consider teaching "facts that aren't so" and/or ignoring facts that don't fit the leftist world view to be part of leftist teaching.)
"Employing instructional strategies such as the Socratic Seminar or Simulation/Role Playing are not leftist."
I can agree with this particular statement. In fact, I try to employ the Socratic Method with you, but when you refuse to answer my questions it's clear that you don't want to even consider the point of view I'm trying to get you to think about.
Now contrast that with what I consider to be a conservative approach:
"Aspire co-founded East Palo Alto Academy High with Stanford, but bowed out five years ago. There was a culture clash, Aspire's founder, Don Shalvey told the New York Times. Aspire focused "primarily and almost exclusively on academics," while Stanford focused on academics and students' emotional and social lives, he said."
(continued… )
I also noticed that "critical thinking" is one of the criteria listed as one of Stanford's criteria. I agree that critical thinking is crucial, as long as what you mean by "critical thinking" means "careful analytical thinking". But apparently, what leftists mean by "critical thinking" is very different than the classical definition of the term. As practiced by you—and apparently by just about every leftist—"critical thinking" means "criticizing ideas you don't already agree with and praising ideas you like."
When searching for an a good source for the classic definition of "critical thinking", I came across this excellent definition from a site called, appropriately enough, criticalthinking.org:
“The intellectual roots of critical thinking are as ancient as its etymology, traceable, ultimately, to the teaching practice and vision of Socrates 2,500 years ago who discovered by a method of probing questioning that people could not rationally justify their confident claims to knowledge. Confused meanings, inadequate evidence, or self-contradictory beliefs often lurked beneath smooth but largely empty rhetoric. Socrates established the fact that one cannot depend upon those in "authority" to have sound knowledge and insight. He demonstrated that persons may have power and high position and yet be deeply confused and irrational.
“He established the importance of asking deep questions that probe profoundly into thinking before we accept ideas as worthy of belief.
He established the importance of seeking evidence, closely examining reasoning and assumptions, analyzing basic concepts, and tracing out implications not only of what is said but of what is done as well. His method of questioning is now known as "Socratic Questioning" and is the best known critical thinking teaching strategy. In his mode of questioning, Socrates highlighted the need in thinking for clarity and logical consistency.
“Socrates set the agenda for the tradition of critical thinking, namely, to reflectively question common beliefs and explanations, carefully distinguishing those beliefs that are reasonable and logical from those which — however appealing they may be to our native egocentrism, however much they serve our vested interests, however comfortable or comforting they may be — lack adequate evidence or rational foundation to warrant our belief.”
Notice the focus on word meanings, evidence, consistency, concepts, and logic in this definition. And what have we been beating you up over for years? Word meanings (‘verbatim’ ), evidence, consistency, concepts (‘cargo culting’ ), and logic (your constant use of logical fallacies)!
I have to admit, only recently has it occured to me - reading through the critical pedagogy materials, that we've got yet another definition problem between Mark and ourselves.
as long as what you mean by "critical thinking" means "careful analytical thinking". But apparently, what leftists mean by "critical thinking" is very different than the classical definition of the term.
Right. They're trying to take the imprimatur of what you and I think of as "critical thinking" but without logic, without derivation, without regard to facts.
"Critical thinking" is exactly like "verbatim" and "unregulated". I, and I think most everybody else here, has missed that, and so we've taken Mark at his word, for some reason, when he claimed to have taught (and thus been taught) "Critical Thinking". I recall we've asked for some proof, and some definition, but Brave Sir Mark ran away from those, and we didn't pursue them.
I think that's exactly part of the problem. Reading the Critical Pedagogy materials, it's peppered with words and phrases and concepts that don't mean what they mean to everybody else. It's a meta-psuedo system, using psuedo-science, psuedo-philiosophy and psuedo-statistics to rationalize and support the entire intellectual - and I use that word merely to demonstrate it's theoretical nature - construct.
#$%#$ Echo!
continued…
In fact, look at this part of the definition again:
“Socrates … discovered by a method of probing questioning that people could not rationally justify their confident claims to knowledge. Confused meanings, inadequate evidence, or self-contradictory beliefs often lurked beneath smooth but largely empty rhetoric.”
Oh wow. We both agreed that the Socratic Method is valid. Yet when we ask exactly those types of questions, what do you do? Run away, Brave Sir Robin, run away! Your constant refusal to answer our probing questions shows that at some level you are aware that your arguments are nothing more than “smooth but largely empty rhetoric.”
Take, for example, my question about your reference to Phil Jones’ academic credentials:
“Is being cited, holding a PhD and working in the field for years the only thing that makes him "right"?”
The point here is that your claim regarding his academic credentials is insuffient, and I am certain that you are aware of that. If credentials is all that matters, then how do you account for other climatologists with equal or greater credentials who dispute Phil Jones’ conclusions? If they are not sufficient to establish why his conclusions should be accepted, then there must be some other criteria you’re using which must be examined to distinguish those “that are reasonable and logical from those which … lack adequate evidence or rational foundation to warrant our belief.”
Your refusal to answer my question demonstrates that you aware of both these possibilities, and that you aware that both possibilities would eventually expose you as WRONG.
If you failed to answer such questions occasionally, that would be reasonable. After all, we all have lives which sometimes prevent us from answering such questions, not because we lack answers, but because we lack time. I’ve personally been unable to carry such arguments forward a number of times for that reason, and I’ve always regretted being unable to follow through.
On the other hand, you do it 99.999 times out of 100. That doesn’t demonstrate a lack of time, that demonstrates that your world view is broken, you know it, and you refuse to face that simple fact. Yet if you want to grow and learn, You. Must. Face. It!
As for your “evidence”, you cited an example of a teaching technique which was neither leftist nor conservative. It was just a single lesson in a single class, with no test results available, and no comparative results to compare them to. And you seriously call that “evidence”?!? How many times have we told you that the plural of anecdote is not data?
C’mon, give us some REAL evidence! A class that was taught using the same leftist priorities as Stanford, over a period of at least a year with resulting known results which are better than the results of students taught using other methods. You know, like producing a high percentage of competent students who can read with understanding, do math in their head, and know who fought in WWII and the Revolutionary War and why (among other historical events). Oh, and something more than just a personal anecdote coming from a guy with an blindingly obvious bias.
"... smooth but largely empty rhetoric ..."
Long ago, I described this as "random but important-sounding gibberish". It still fits.
Testing, testing what the heck, see if this might break loose whatever is
broken.
I can see it!
Works here.
OK, it works with Internet Exploder 8. Whoopee.
Ed, that's unlike any rubric I have ever seen. All of my rubrics are geared towards teaching to the MDE standard. So, I would say that the rubric you have listed above was poor.
As practiced by you—and apparently by just about every leftist—"critical thinking" means "criticizing ideas you don't already agree with and praising ideas you like."
Ah, the Rove. http://markadelphia.blogspot.com/2010/04/rove.html
Now that we have gotten that out of the way, critical thinking gives due consideration to the evidence, the context of judgment, the relevant criteria for making the judgment well, the applicable methods or techniques for forming the judgment, and the applicable theoretical constructs for understanding the problem and the question at hand. Critical thinking employs not only logic but broad intellectual criteria such as clarity, credibility, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, significance, and fariness. Generally, that's Oxford's defintion and I agree with it.
So, Ed, explain to me how your comments are illustrative of this defintion in light of the fact that you refuse to take the time to research mutliple intelligences and the varieties of instructional strategies. Take a look at what Tomlinson has done in her career and tell me what you think. Start here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differentiated_instruction
and see where that leads you. There are plenty of links and books if you are truly interested in research. Remember, though, to employ critical thinking as defined above ;)
And now "critical thinking" is what they think "critical pedagogy" produces, but it's not.
"Right. They're trying to take the imprimatur of what you and I think of as "critical thinking" but without logic, without derivation, without regard to facts."
I've been thinking that for quite a while (like at least a year). I just hadn't described it so explicitly before. It also seems to me that you've also derided Marxaphasia for his "critical thinking" that isn't.
I consider that species of "critical thinking" a close cousin to being transgressive for its own sake.
Now, I'll freely admit that this story is about a kid from Canada, so it doesn't apply directly to education here in the USA, but, well, go read, watch, and listen for yourself:
http://entertainment.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/05/04/justin-bieber-doesnt-know-what-the-word-german-means-no-really/?test=faces
What do they teach up there instead of history?
Woah, it's unbroken!
Woohoo!
Yes! It's back!
It's magically unfucked! I guess everybody cleared their caches, huh?
Uh, I, uh, didn't....
That ranks right near the top of lamest tech support suggestions ever.
Now that this thread is back I wonder if Mark will return… It was such a good debate 'til Echo puked all over it.
Now that this thread is back I wonder if Mark will return…
Oh, like MacArthur, he'll be back.
And like MacArthur, it'll be like nothing happened in the meantime.
He's had enough time to think, and if he's gone back and read what he's said, even he's realized his strategic errors. So no, this'll be another one where he lets it sit and thinks we'll forget about it in a week or so, then come back in talking about how we in the Klub or Kult or whatever have 'confirmation bias'....
Oh, like MacArthur, he'll be back.
Wait, I thought I "ran away from threads after being resoundly defeated." Which is it?
Strategic errors...of course! After all, this is a topic I know nothing about =-X
Which is it?
There's not a contradiction there, you historically illiterate buffoon.
Sheesh.
Kevin, as someone who claims to utilized the scientific method,
Your cut and paste is failing.
I'm surprised to find you falling victim to this mistake:
You keep saying "I'm surprised". It's then followed by a strawman, and an attempt to cargocult.
correlation does not imply causation.
As we've explained to you many dozens of times, and you ignored it then. Even for things like, oh, having the same opinion as Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh, without ever hearing from them.
Remember that?
So, just because Stanford (or any other school) teaches critical pedagogy does not mean that it is rampant in our schools.
You're changing the goalposts here to whether it *is* rampant from the fact that it *is* taught at Stanford and failed miserably. Which you won't even admit.
But no matter. Because your attempted misdirection is incorrect. Though technically, you are correct, the fact that Stanford (one of the leading lights in academia) teaches does not, by itself, prove that critical pedagogy is "rampant". It's merely an indication of that, in and of itself.
But I have yet to find a public university where it is not a required part of the "Education" major.
I'm sure there are some private, but so far, I've yet to find where it's not required to graduate. Not just be aware of it, but take specific classes in it and to teach in that paradigm.
I've talked about this in the past, and you've ignored it/tried to. You've admitted to taking those courses (and you regularly use the buzzwords and mental constructs in your "arguments".)
Nor does it mean that their school is full of leftists. In addition, just because an instructor is "liberal," doesn't mean they are indoctrinating their students with their bias.
But if they listen to Rush, or Beck, they should be shot, and fired, in that order, right?
Clearly, your objection is that you want YOUR OWN bias taught in the classroom.
In my case, at least, that's not clear at all. I want FACTS taught in the classroom. I want methods that WORK. I want to have students challenged, not patronized, or presumed that they have a different level of top achievement.
I would also point your use of this logical fallacy
Strawman. That's not what he did.
To use this as Glenn Beck does all the time
Wait, was all that about causation and correlation??
Again, correlation does not imply causation.
Keep repeating it, you might figure out what it means at some point.
Just because changes were made does not mean that these changes are the reasons we have problems in education. The simple fact is that we are always going to have problems in education.
The fact that you are spreading this much fire around, without admitting that:
STANFORD FAILED WITH YOUR THEORIES, AND ASPIRE DIDN'T
demonstrates more than anything what the "problem" in education is.
You can't even admit a clear, in your face, fact. (This isn't surprising to anybody here, I don't think.)
Stanford. Failed. Admit it. You'll be a better man for it.
We're going to have even more when people (not sure if this you or not) can't accept the fact that our culture has changed both in diversity and how people learn.
Who can't accept the fact? STANFORD FAILED AND ASPIRE DID NOT.
Changes were made in the first place because the "old ways" weren't working anymore.
Much of what I read on this blog in comments (some from you) has the following theme: let's get back to the old ways cuz they worked! Well, that's not really true.
THEN STOP DODGING THE TOPIC, stop moving the goalposts, and discuss why the exact OPPOSITE OCCURED.
You've been rebutted by Stanford's failure, and you have yet to address the topic of the situation.
This cannot be accidental, it's obfuscation from you, because you'd have to admit that what you just said there is not supported by facts.
Have you ever participated in a group presentation, Unix?
That's a profoundly stupid question.
It's a lot more work than just sitting in class and taking notes from a lecture.
Shouldn't you wait for the answer to the previous question before trying to lecture me?
I'm also not saying that lecture should NEVER be used.
We never said it should only be used.
It should be one of many instructional strategies. So, tell me, what instructional strategies would you employ if you were a teacher?
What about when I have been? Mainly lecture, with a lot of hands-on examples when possible. And then I test and respond based on what they've learned, according to the tests.
But you really need to stop stereotyping and assuming we don't know how to teach. I've taught _a lot_. About a lot of subjects. To lots of sorts of people. Granted, it's never been as a credentialed public school teacher. Have you?
Now that we have gotten that out of the way,critical thinking gives
...
Critical thinking employs not only logic but broad intellectual criteria such as clarity, credibility, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, significance, and fariness. Generally, that's Oxford's defintion and I agree with it.
Nice cut and paste. Too bad you can't explain any of it.
So, Ed, explain to me how your comments are illustrative of this defintion [that you don't use to define your own usage] in light of the fact that you refuse to take the time
Start here
...
and see where that leads you. There are plenty of links and books if you are truly interested in research. Remember, though, to employ critical thinking as defined above
Bold is where you lectured Ed.
After, you know, talking about how "lecture" was so outmoded and old fashioned and inappropriate.
So if that's the case, why are you doing it? Why are you failing to understand our diversity and adjust and adapt for our culture and expectations?
And when are you going to stop with the smokescreens, strawmen, and deal with the fact that here's a perfect case that proves you wrong. If it had been the other way, you'd be all over trumpeting how well it proves your case - even if it was extremely arguable. Even if it was a tossup, or barely usable as proof - you'd give it 100% credibility. (Like those Citigroup documents you don't understand.)
But why do you tell us lecture doesn't work, then proceed to lecture us, despite your Stanford-like failures?
Critical thinking employs not only logic but broad intellectual criteria such as clarity, credibility, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, significance, and fariness. Generally, that's Oxford's defintion and I agree with it.
The fact that you agree with it is hardly surprising, but that doesn't change the fact that it's inherently and deeply flawed.
such as clarity, credibility, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, significance, and fariness.
First off, "such as" translates to "including, but not limited to", in other words those words allow you to change the definition of the concept any time you please by adding criteria that weren't previously stated, only implied.
Next,
clarity, credibility, accuracy, precision
Those aren't too bad, although "credibility" is rather prone to subjective rather than objective judgment. However,
relevance, depth, breadth, significance, and fariness.
as you can see, the criteria get steadily less objective and more subjective as you continue through the sentence, until you reach "fairness", which has no objective definition at all.
You use that criterion often, either unaware what it means or hoping we are unaware what it means. Simply put, it means "personal preference" or "bias".
As I said, I'm hardly surprised to find that this is how you define "critical thinking".
Bravely Sir Mark ran away, ran away, ran away.....
It's really that hard for Mark to admit facts in front of his face.
(But remember, he doesn't run away, we just don't like his "answers" (Except for the questions he dodges for years on end, rather than admit he's wrong.)
Well that's okay, because the term "critical thinking" just cropped up again up at the top of the page, which prompted me to come back here and copy and paste my response. He'll see it again.
Yes, but he's running away from the entire thread here, which (in his twisted "logic") to deny that he ever didn't deal with the fact that Stanford failed.
That his vaunted techniques failed miserably in a real world test, (and we noticed), and so he'll continue to propose :
1) we don't understand and aren't qualified to critique the educational system
2) critical pedagogy is important, and must be used
3) the schools need much, much more money
4) DO IT AGAIN, ONLY *HARDER*
He could keep it here in this thread. He's just on his usual MO to try and deceive people.
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