How can we make smarter people?

Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t see college as a learning experience, but as a means to an end. There seems to be an alarming trend in universities being more interested in getting than in graduating truly educated people. In this climate, giving a student a failing grade can mean more serious repercussions on the instructor than on the student. In some schools, paying the tutiton and showing up to class virtually guarantees you a diploma, regardless of the quality of your work. Instructors are just too afraid for their jobs to fail students, especially when a good portion of the class deserves it.

My husband teaches at our local university. He always gives the tests to me before administering them to the students, who are mostly adult professionals, seeking a degree to further their careers. Usually, I can get a C, just using simple logic, and reading the questions carefully, even knowing nothing at all about the subject. It’s absolutely astonishing how many of his students fail the test, some of them getting only a twenty percent. As an experiment, he used the same question on all of his tests last quarter, worded in the exact same way each time. Amazingly enough, about half of the students missed the question every time.

Students complained bitterly about the reading material for the class. Instead of a dry text book, my husband decided to use a very interesting book which used stories to illustrate each concept. (I found it to be a very entertaining read.) “But where are the bold faced words?” one woman whined. “What am I supposed to learn?” My husband explained that she should read the story carefully, and the concepts would be explained, but reading comprehension was totally foreign to these students. Most of them admitted that they didn’t even read the text, but were outraged when they recieved poor grades.

That was the book I was referring to in my previous post. A gloomy assessment of our culture, indeed, but it gave me a great deal to think about.

JohnT: Never was a good speller, what can I say? I was, in fact, seriously asking if the OP really wanted to make a smarter type of person rather than wanting to make already existing people smarter. And based on his reply, I think it is the former.

Require at least a High School diploma in order to be allowed to be a parent. We require a license to drive, but you can be a drooling moron and breed.

How would you enforce that Virgowitch?

Eugenics - what a top idea!

Hang on a minute while I go and read what theat lovely man Herr Hitler had to say about it. Apparently, his most respected geneticist, Dr Mengele was pretty keen ion the idea.

Murder all the people we don’t like the look or idea of and enforced sterilisation for the Ayrian underclass!

Foist, I am not convinced that a public education automagically puts people in category one.

Next, curly chick, get some fricken’ reading comprehension. If you don’t like Virgowitch’s points, attack her points, lest the ghost of Godwin ensnare your soul.

robertliguori
I thought I was attacking Virgowitch’s point.
Pardon me for being so subtle.
How about this robertliguori, is this easier for you to understand?

What is the legal definition of a drooling moron?
Who decides the cut off point for what is the limit of intelligence above which breeding should be allowed?

Gosh, I do not know who Godwin is - maybe I would be classed as a drooling idiot and my breeding rights rescinded.

Ooooookay. First of all, racism and sociopathy are two very different things.

Racism is, in a nutshell, “not liking” persons of different races and/or cultures, and perhaps “hating” them for some reason (racists will almost ALWAYS offer you a REASON, even if it’s a load of crap).

Sociopathy (or psychopathy) is, in a nutshell, the lack of a conscience, the ability to do “bad” things without feeling bad about it. Most of us would not wish to kill the family pet with our bare hands, being tenderhearted about such things. Sociopaths, particularly young ones, OFTEN do such things, because having the power of life and death over another creature – or a human, for that matter – is “neato”. It gives them a rush, you see?

Consequently, a RACIST will string up a black person from a tree for a REASON, which he will rationalize to himself… like “The niggers are secretly plotting to take over America,” or “This will make the niggers all want to move out of town.” He knows what he is doing is wrong, and he may well be very uncomfortable with the black person’s death throes.

The SOCIOPATH may well do the exact same thing… but he does not need a rationalized “reason”. He does so because he feels like it, because it’s a power rush for him. He does not rationalize; indeed, he may be incapable of verbally explaining his reasons to someone else. He will not be uncomfortable with the dying man’s agony, because it isn’t HIM up there. He will not know that what he is doing is “wrong”, although he may have it classified as “one of those things that the other people will bust me for if they find out.”

This is not to say that one cannot be BOTH. They aren’t mutually exclusive… and a sociopath whose daddy has told him that black folks ain’t people and that it’s okay to torture and murder them is a dangerous thing indeed. After all, there really ain’t much difference between a black man… and any other kind… and once a sociopath really gets cookin’, you’ve got a serial killer in the making.

And now, on to the subject. Smarter people?

Hm. Define “smarter.”

I mean, on one level, we’re already losing the battle. Smart people wait, get married, build up their incomes, and THEN have children. Stupid people, on the other hand, often start early, and may never actually draw the connection between “sex” and “all these frickin’ babies.”

Sigh … I don’t know, but I think having a required critical thinking class in high school would be a good start. I’m amazed at the number of college freshmen who think a “reliable source” is the first thing that pops up on a Google search.

*Originally posted by Lissa *

To a large extent, I agree. I think you’re right than in general a lot of people see college as a means to an end. Which underscores my point that American culture tends to place a “utilitarian/monetary” value on education/knowledge for its own sake.

I also agree that seems to be an alarming trend towards the “commodification of education”. I teach at a community college and I sometimes have students in the classes I teach that seem to feel that “I’ve paid for this course, I should get grade X.” I should point out that I have no problem in failing students (and I have) if they don’t do the required work for the course.

I think it incumbent upon those of who teach to maintain certain standards. And I also feel strongly that it is incumbent upon the institution’s administration to support those standards. That’s why I tend to lay a good chunk of the blame on “the commodification of education” on the admisitrative side. But I also know that the administration side is trying to respond to the dictates of the wider community (which in turn tends to reflect the values of the wider society).

Again, in the US, we tend to value those things which are utilitarian or based upon some monetary valuation. I think it’s something that has been a part of American culture for a long time. I think it’s a good thing that more American’s are able to get a college education - even it means that that education is a means to an end. Some (but not all) of those people do come away with a greater appreciation for the pursuit of knowledge for it’s own sake.

While I’m not overly optimistic that I (or other) educators can make a significant impact on most students - vis-a-vis knowledge for it’s own sake - I think I can be comfortable in being optimistic in reaching a few students. I liken my optimism to cultivating and maintaining a garden rather than a whole field. Similar to Berman’s “monastic order”

Oh, and if you really want to be depressed, check out Generation X Goes to College by Peter Sacks. Thankfully, my situation is not quite as dire as that detailed in the book.

by eponymous

I see that all the time, too. Part me is disgusted with the trend but another part understands exactly how things got to be this way. Mainstream society equates the key to success with having the right diploma(s), not with what you know or what you can do. Perhaps at one time, when college was seen as a more optional endeavor, people who went there actually went to learn and experience, and not just pay their fare, hop on board, and then get off when their stop comes along. Nowadays, learning is treated like a side-effect to getting a diploma; it’s not seen as the means to end but only as an incidental. Very few people go to school just for the joy of soaking up information. Unless the stuff the professor is droning o about is going to be on the test, then we are not trying to hear it.

I’m sure someone fifty years ago saw this coming and tried to warn us, but we didn’t listen.

Strangely enough, I’m taking a fourth year/post graduate philosophy seminar class this semester in Value Theory, and it’s interesting to note that in this current air of cultural and moral relativism, the only real universal value is that of money, and we are so immersed in this value system that we can’t even see its pervasiveness.
My professor would note, eponymous, that it’s true the

But it places this value on everything. Everything’s value is understood in terms of its monetary worth, its potential to return on investment, in terms of always satisfying the semi-equation of "Capital invested < product creation < Revenue generated.

How can we make smarter people? I don’t think we can make anybody anything. But I do think we can aim to live in a culture which promotes intelligence as well as smartness, being knowledgeable, rational thinking and logic, wisdom, cleverness, and common sense. I don’t think we do live in that culture, but I live a life that promotes those things and I try to influence people around me to do the same. I’m trying to be a virus, I guess.

Strangely enough, I’m taking a fourth year/post graduate philosophy seminar class this semester in Value Theory, and it’s interesting to note that in this current air of cultural and moral relativism, the only real universal value is that of money, and we are so immersed in this value system that we can’t even see its pervasiveness.
My professor would note, eponymous, that it’s true the

But it places this value on everything. Everything’s value is understood in terms of its monetary worth, its potential to return on investment, in terms of always satisfying the semi-equation of "Capital invested < product creation < Revenue generated.

How can we make smarter people? I don’t think we can make anybody anything. But I do think we can aim to live in a culture which promotes intelligence as well as smartness, being knowledgeable, rational thinking and logic, wisdom, cleverness, and common sense. I don’t think we do live in that culture, but I live a life that promotes those things and I try to influence people around me to do the same. I’m trying to be a virus, I guess.

In order to increase the intelligence of the whole human race, you’d need an environment where the smarter people reproduced more often and more successfully than less intelligent people. After we started living in cities and with animals, ability to reproduce sucessfully depended a lot more on blood chemistry and immune function than intelligence due to disease, and more on physical prowess and ability not to get killed in the wars particularly for men, and the ability to survive multiple childbirths particularly for women. In all likelihood, indigenous peoples such as those living in New Guinea are more intelligent on average because that trait is selected for more aggressively in this type of environment than in anything approaching ours.

Think about it: in our society, pretty much everyone gets to breed. Even the ones who don’t have perfectly functioning reproductive systems are helped along. This means that we’re gonna get about the same mix of genes in the next generations as we do now. Unless environmental changes start making that impossible for a good chunk of the genotypic landscape.

what if the “smart” people want the “dumb” people to stay dumb? how much of “dumb” is simply lack of “relevant knowledge.” knowing where lake titicaca is, is nice, but what good is it. it is like trivial pursuit.

accounting is 700 year old, fifth grade arithmatic. why isn’t that mandatory in highschool. this is relevant to the “save the economy” and the “capitalism=good communism=bad” threads.

All warfare is based on deception - Sun Tzu

when did anyone ever suggest a good book that contained information that helped you understand the world? we spend too much time BSing each other. see:

RICH DAD, POOR DAD by Robert Kiyosaki

YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE by Joe Dominguez

RULE BY SECRECY by Jim Marrs

of course anyone suggesting books is promoting their paradigm of reality. you hve to judge if it makes sense.

Dal Timgar