# Are we lying to ourselves about education? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 12, 2020, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-lying-to-ourselves-about-education/847819 "2020-02-12T14:18:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-lying-to-ourselves-about-education/847819/81 "2020-02-17T02:31:09Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > There are a lot of people that don’t believe you really learn anything in school. They think everything they know how to do they just know, and the remember school as a bunch of boring bullshit, just a matter of jumping through hoops. They think smart kids are fine regardless and other kids are hopeless. I’ve encountered this again and again as a teacher, from parents, students, and the community. > > I read once that remembering where or when we learned something is it’s own type of memory and the one we develop last. I really honestly believe this is a cognitive bias a lot of people have. They remember suddenly understanding something and it seemed automatic, self-evident. They don’t remember the earlier iterations, when they didn’t get it, or the careful process it took to get them to the point that something suddenly seemed trivial. > > The amount of time and skill it takes to get an idea into a child’s head is not to be believed. But they never see that. But is the modern public school the most efficient way to do that? When you think about the average day in say middle school, sometimes 15 minutes of each class is just the teacher settling the class down and taking role. Then their is all the time moving between classes, the pep rallies, and other things that take up time. Many classes are just teachers showing movies. I’ve known families who homeschool and knock out the days “lessons” in a couple of hours each day and then the kids can work on other things. Some homeschool families form cooperatives where they will spend all day doing say art projects or do music or go to museums. Now I’m not knocking the hard work teachers put in but I dont think the modern schools are always the way to do things. I think we could be more flexible. Why cant we develop more modes of learning like say 1 room schoolhouses or supported homeschool or online schools where kids only go to class say 1-3 days per week? ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-lying-to-ourselves-about-education/847819/82 "2020-02-17T02:54:19Z")
> [@F.U.Shakespeare](#): > > I strongly agree with this. And I went (for undergrad EE) to an “inferior” school, a large land-grant university. I know that the standards I was required to meet weren’t in the same league as those at MIT. > > But that EE degree got me a job at a government agency where I got to work with and for some really brilliant people. One of my bosses went to MIT (his thesis advisor was Alan Oppenheim, whom I’m sure \*\*Voyager \*\*won’t have to look up). I eventually completed advanced degrees at Johns Hopkins and George Washington (not MIT, but certainly better than where I went to undergrad). I recently retired after a very successful career–I had numerous Ivy League alumni reporting to me. > > I guess my point is that while the quality of engineering schools does follow a bell curve (like most things) the educational system and workplace are very efficient at getting the most out of people, and surprisingly forgiving of motivated people who didn’t start out at top schools. > > Incidentally, one Harvard physics alum told me that he thought people overrated the standards of many Ivy League schools. He said that MIT and Cal Tech alums were invariably six-sigma smart, but that there were mediocre Harvard grads. People tend to conflate name recognition with high standards. You say you have retired. The point others have made is that in the last few years that bell curve has started to flatten out and the quality of all the schools has been going up. Think about this. Say the US has for arguments sake 10,000 TOP, I mean super TOP engineering HS seniors every year. Add in thousands more from other countries. Well MIT only takes about 1100 students a year. Where will the others go? That is where the other schools programs come in. Those schools have to attract students and they attract them thru attracting good professors and offering good scholarships. And dont underestimate the power of regionalism. Top Ivy league schools like MIT and Harvard are east coast. Will a top student from say California, Texas, Kansas, or Florida automatically pick them or might they instead choose a local college or one which offers a better scholarship? So I agree there is a bell curve with some top schools but I think its starting to flatten out. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-lying-to-ourselves-about-education/847819/83 "2020-02-17T03:45:09Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > And dont underestimate the power of regionalism. Top Ivy league schools like MIT and Harvard are east coast. Will a top student from say California, Texas, Kansas, or Florida automatically pick them or might they instead choose a local college or one which offers a better scholarship? Out west we have Cal Tech, Harvey Mudd, Stanford, USC, a few U.Calif’s, Pomona, USF, Reed, and various other schools thought of fairly well. Are Hastings grads worse lawyers than Yalies? Are UCSF grads worse doctors than Harvard MDs? What the Ivy League has are connections with Established Power. That’ll change as power shifts westward. Education means learning. Learning means change. Take a fair-size lead ball and drop it from X height. Note where and how far it “bounces” and rolls. Now repeat the process. It moves differently because of the change impressed on it. It has “learned”. Thus, dropping people on their heads is “education”. Charter schools apparently work this way. ---
**Author:** ![skdo23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@skdo23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skdo23)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-lying-to-ourselves-about-education/847819/84 "2020-02-17T21:20:38Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > My high school in New York didn’t even have a football team. When they thought about starting one, they started to sell seasons tickets to measure interest. > They sold 7 A bit off topic but is HS football even a thing in someplace like NYC? I can’t picture a school being able to afford the land needed for a football field there, or is there some type of facility outside the city that they would have access to. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-lying-to-ourselves-about-education/847819/85 "2020-02-18T00:50:48Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > They need to be in school, but that’s mostly not true of college. Why do kids have to shoulder the massive expense of this signalling via college loans so companies can save money? Is that really better for society? No not at all, most of what is spent on education is a waste from a societal view since the same signaling could be done with an intelligence test and an yearlong internship. The problem is there is no real way to break from the current equilibrium. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-lying-to-ourselves-about-education/847819/86 "2020-02-18T03:10:57Z")
> [@skdo23](#): > > A bit off topic but is HS football even a thing in someplace like NYC? I can’t picture a school being able to afford the land needed for a football field there, or is there some type of facility outside the city that they would have access to. I once asked the same question and I looked on the NYC website. Yes, there is football but it doesn’t seem to be as connected or run by the schools and the stadiums seem to be more part of the public parks programs so yes there is HS football, but no, it isnt like in Texas. [Try this site.](https://www.schools.nyc.gov/school-life/health-and-wellness/sports-and-staying-active/public-schools-athletic-league) ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-lying-to-ourselves-about-education/847819/87 "2020-02-18T07:14:33Z")
> [@skdo23](#): > > A bit off topic but is HS football even a thing in someplace like NYC? I can’t picture a school being able to afford the land needed for a football field there, or is there some type of facility outside the city that they would have access to. Not Manhattan, I suppose, but in Queens where I grew up high schools had plenty of land. We had a big track. Another high school did have a football team - a kid from my junior high went there to play football. The hack he used was that he said he wanted to study Latin, which was only taught at that school. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-lying-to-ourselves-about-education/847819/88 "2020-02-18T21:48:38Z")
> [@ENugent](#): > > I am 51 years old and have a PhD and a JD from extremely reputable schools. I have been practicing in my area of law for more than twenty years. When I was applying for jobs in the past year, law firms still wanted a copy of my transcript from undergrad before they would consider me. My transcript is fine, but the fact that I still need to produce it sucks. College transcripts maybe, but I doubt you have ever been asked for primary or secondary school transcripts (high school or earlier). ~Max ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-lying-to-ourselves-about-education/847819/89 "2020-02-18T23:25:06Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > There are a lot of people that don’t believe you really learn anything in school. They think everything they know how to do they just know, and the remember school as a bunch of boring bullshit, just a matter of jumping through hoops. They think smart kids are fine regardless and other kids are hopeless. I’ve encountered this again and again as a teacher, from parents, students, and the community. > > I read once that remembering where or when we learned something is it’s own type of memory and the one we develop last. I really honestly believe this is a cognitive bias a lot of people have. They remember suddenly understanding something and it seemed automatic, self-evident. They don’t remember the earlier iterations, when they didn’t get it, or the careful process it took to get them to the point that something suddenly seemed trivial. > > The amount of time and skill it takes to get an idea into a child’s head is not to be believed. But they never see that. This is pretty insightful. I think this is one reason why so many people are such poor teachers, especially in universities. University professors are undoubtedly experts in their field, but many suffer from the [curse of knowledge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_knowledge), “a cognitive bias that occurs when an individual, communicating with other individuals, unknowingly assumes that the others have the background to understand.” > [@Wikipedia](#): > > For example, in a classroom setting, teachers have difficulty teaching novices because they cannot put themselves in the position of the student. A brilliant professor might no longer remember the difficulties that a young student encounters when learning a new subject. I taught chemistry and physics for seven years in a military prep school. I got numerous awards for my teaching (including “Instructor of the Year”). One reason I think I was such an effective instructor is that I have generally have very clear memories of when I learn a new skill, and I remember exactly what I went through to learn it. I clearly remember exactly where I was and what I went through to learn all of the various things you learn in a general chemistry class. Indeed, I clearly remember not knowing them. So I was always able to easily put myself in the student’s shoes and see where they were coming from, and I believe this made me a better instructor. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-lying-to-ourselves-about-education/847819/90 "2020-02-25T19:30:28Z")
Yeah, I’ve heard a coupla times that the best people to learn a subject from are the people who struggled like hell to learn it because they know all the snags that will catch a person out. Very insightful posts from Manda Jo and they sync with what I hear over and over again from a friend who teaches middle school. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-lying-to-ourselves-about-education/847819/91 "2020-02-25T23:27:33Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > Yeah, I’ve heard a coupla times that the best people to learn a subject from are the people who struggled like hell to learn it because they know all the snags that will catch a person out. I’ve always believed this to be the case, partly because it applies to me. For various reasons, science and math were not easy for me in college, and I think this has been a factor in the very positive feedback I’ve received on my adjunct teaching over the years. But I think **robby** ’s point above (about the ability to remember what it was like before I grasped the material, and the process of mastering it) and how that can make for a more effective teacher–is a very interesting insight. ---
**Author:** ![damuriajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac8455/32.png) [@damuriajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/damuriajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2020, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-lying-to-ourselves-about-education/847819/92 "2020-09-08T21:58:10Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > I disagree. My sons HS has both regular and AP classes. Offering high school AP classes are not gifted programs. The concept behind gifted classes is mostly where you separate younger kids by ability and teach to their level. By the time they are in high school you are separating kids by ability because they are taking different classes so some kids are taking calculus while others are still working on geometry. ---
**Author:** ![damuriajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac8455/32.png) [@damuriajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/damuriajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2020, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-lying-to-ourselves-about-education/847819/93 "2020-09-08T22:04:32Z")
The regents exam has been dumbed down a bit bu6t I think it still serves its purpose. As for your son in law’s testing, there will always be outliers. But if a society is going to devote scarce educational resources, what better way is there to allocate those resources than on demonstrated ability? ---
**Author:** ![damuriajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac8455/32.png) [@damuriajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/damuriajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2020, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-lying-to-ourselves-about-education/847819/94 "2020-09-08T22:10:35Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > The same thing happens in Japan so that has nothing to do with it. Same thing in Korea. ---
**Author:** ![damuriajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac8455/32.png) [@damuriajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/damuriajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2020, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-lying-to-ourselves-about-education/847819/95 "2020-09-08T22:19:43Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > We test the hell out of students, and in many states we do require them to pass exams in order to graduate/move up a level.[/quote] > > I don’t know of any states that require testing to move from say 9th grade to 10th grade but i do know of some that are required to graduate high school. I don’t know of any that are required to graduate primary or middle school. Do you? > > The tests required to graduate most high schools in the handful of states that have this requirement are either a joke or those states have a high rate of people who do not graduate high school. > > > [@](#): > > > > That has its own problems–the first being that the point of education turns into getting each kid to a very minimum standard and then stopping. > > Why would they stop? What do they do with the rest of the day? > > > [@](#): > > > > But beyond state graduation exams, there are the big ones: SAT, ACT, AP, IB. Then there’s the specialty ones, like SAT Subject tests, AMC, PISA (which is for the school, not the student). > > The SATs have become a bit of a joke over the decades. It has been dumbed down to the point where it is not really useful as much more than a basic screening tool. > > [quote]Right now, colleges and universities use a range of ways to evaluate students in order to get a more complete picture of a student–grades, test scores, essays, recs, accomplishments. It’s not perfect, but probably better than any of those in isolation. And it’s not that grades are meaningless: an A student is different than a B student is different than a C student. But when you start drawing conclusions between students based on a half-point difference in GPA, you might as well be using astrology. > > You also have to look at the reasons, the context. Is this students a B student because they were working at the top of their academic potential and that’s their best day? Or were they working at a job to help pay bills? Or are they just more interested in some extracurricular activity, and that gets all their time and passion? Or do they settle easily, working hard enough but no harder, and spend most of their time smoking pot and playing video games? Or did they have a rough start Freshman year, but matured and improved dramatically? Or did they start high school with a weak skill set (bad middle school) and they caught up? > > Each of those kids is really, really different. Grades alone don’t show that at all. That sort of system works best for kids with really good advocates and mentors. Bias creeps in and you end up with a pretty high population of marginal rich white kids in the pool of admissions. ---
**Author:** ![damuriajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac8455/32.png) [@damuriajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/damuriajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2020, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-lying-to-ourselves-about-education/847819/96 "2020-09-08T22:26:06Z")
> [@F.U.Shakespeare](#): > > Incidentally, one Harvard physics alum told me that he thought people overrated the standards of many Ivy League schools. He said that MIT and Cal Tech alums were invariably six-sigma smart, but that there were mediocre Harvard grads. People tend to conflate name recognition with high standards. The admissions process at MIT and Cal Tech is far less subjective than at other schools. You have some very mediocre students getting into harvard through their holistic process. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2020, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-lying-to-ourselves-about-education/847819/97 "2020-09-09T19:39:26Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > And as an example of this very true observation, almost all the computer science facts I learned in college 50 years ago are now worthless. What I learned about learning, analyzing problems, and working out things has been priceless. There is a book, published by MIT Press incidentally, called “The Trouble with Software: Why Smart Engineers Write Bad Code” (it should have been called “Why Software Sucks”) whose main point is that all anyone learns in a CS program is and always has been worthless, at least in preparing you to code. Good preparation for a higher CS degree though. This whole thread is fascinating though. I know, as a teacher, how hard testing is. But I always attempted to test understanding, not rote memory. This of course made tests very hard to grade. When the answer is wrong you have to try to get into the mind of the student to see what was misunderstood. It also makes multiple choice exams useless since you cannot see what the student has done wrong. I think it was the high point of my teaching career when a student came up with, on an exam, an argument that simplified a standard argument that I and everyone else had missed over hundreds of years. What a thud when she asked me to fill out a recommendation for law school. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2020, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-lying-to-ourselves-about-education/847819/98 "2020-09-09T22:14:17Z")
The PSAL is the Public School Athletic League. ( there are separate leagues for Catholic and private high schools) Some schools ( or campuses\*) have football fields and the teams are connected to either a school or a multi-school campus. But, no, it’s definitely not like Texas - There are a number of large campuses that were formerly a single high school and now have multiple high schools - my high school had about 4000 students. There are now 5 or 6 high schools in that building playing on teams named for the campus. ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Kearsen1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen1)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2020, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-lying-to-ourselves-about-education/847819/99 "2020-09-10T15:54:03Z")
> [@casdave](#): > > A society that devalues education is pretty much blowing its own brains out Agreed. What about cultures who devalue education? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-lying-to-ourselves-about-education/847819.md?page=4)