Straight A's in HS (ace this test)

Great Debates
21

You’ve made mention of several extraordinary people. They may have been deficient as far as formal education goes, but they were gifted in other ways. Your average under-achiever is not blessed with Einstein’s vision or Ford’s drive or Helen Keller’s courage. It would be easier to just teach them to read and do math than to let them “find what they’re good at”.

There are many more uneducated people who are scraping around at the bottom rungs of society than at the top. It’s good to highlight the success stories, but realize they are memorable only because they are so rare.

22

There is a middle point. Students are sometimes failures because of schooling. I never tried to draw anything again after an art teacher told me I drew horribly. I shunned math and chemistry because of bad experiences with teachers, only to later find I could do "A’’ math in college. Tests are not necessary to prove the students value, only the teachers. Yes, I wish children were taught only reading, writing, and math. Computer skills are also necessary today.

Each individual learns at a different speed, doesn’t mean the slow ones are dumb. Students given the same test will not show much. It is teaching children how to learn that is important, being naturally curious they will go from there.

Karl Menninger, a psychiatrist, said: “Society should pick their school teachers very carefully, and pay them a lot of money, they are trusted with the future of our country,” For the literalists, I paraphrased that quote because I couldn’t remember it exactly.

We need to quit being so damned competitive, and start being more concerned with the emotional as well as the mental welfare of our youth.

23

I started University shortly after the essay requirement was waived. I don’t know what other faculties did, but during my first year the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Alberta made a technical writing course mandatory.

24

I graduated from a magnet public school and like the other students enrolled in the public school system in my state I had to pass a functional literacy exam in order to graduate. This test was ridiculously easy; for example, one of the more difficult questions on the verbal was showing the symbol for a restroom (the little stick guy) and then asking if the sign meant that you were somewhere you could park your car, use the bathroom, etc. The most difficult of the math questions was dividing a two digit number into a three digit one.

Still, a significant portion of students in my state did not pass the test despite multiple tries.

25

I don’t mean to be a doubting Thomas, but just how many is “plenty”? I went to university (in Ontario, not Alberta, but I don’t think it could be that different.) I saw and proofread and just plain picked up and read a LOT of other kids’ papers, and I never once met a kid who could not at least write very coherently. Not everyone was good at writing academic essays, but I never encountered someone who wrote as badly as you’re describing, not even kids for whom English was a new language. I can’t recall any kids in high school who wrote that badly. Well, maybe one or two. So either I went to school with a truly astounding percentage of eggheads, or you’re just slightly exaggerating the number of high school grads applying to university who cannot write. Or your description’s exaggerrated - I mean, that reads like something from Faulkner.

I don’t doubt that kids’ English skills could stand to be beefed up, but that’s always been true; you can find articles from 20, 30, 40, and 50 years ago in which university authories bitch about the morons they’re being sent from the high schools. My father’s 59, and when he went back to school to get his degree, he wasn’t even within shouting distance of being able to write at a college level. (He did pull it up and got his degree, though.) Not that it was his school’s fault, though, there’s another story there.

Anyway, having honestly examined the issue over the years, I really don’t think kids today are as stupid or as badly educated as the prevailing wisdom would suggest. It’s fashionable for adults to rant and rave about idiot high schoolers - start a thread on it and you’ll get 150 people posting stories of varying accuracy and truthfulness about just how stupid today’s students are. Evidently, as Dave Barry says, the education system was way better when it pumped out the real geniuses who are running and financing this school system. Well, I don’t buy it. I see my fellow adults and the shit they produce, and if I had to honestly state whether kids today are dumber than the current crop of adults must have been when they were in school, I would say “Hell, no. Kids today are as bright and informed as they’ve ever been.”

My young sisters-in-law are in high school and the homework I’ve seen them do seems appropriately tough for their age, and they aren’t geniuses. Katie had some particularly nasty math homework in her Grade 9 class that even I had to think about for a minute before I knew how to solve it, and I have a degree in economics and got good marks in my math courses. (No, I did not do it for her.) My mother’s a teacher and if you ask her if kids are dumber today, she’ll tell you it’s an urban myth and claim they’re actually a bit SMARTER. I personally think the education system, all things considered, is actually doing a reasonably good job. It could be improved, but let’s not get too alarmist.

26

I would agree; but there’s no contradiction between saying that and saying, as Sam Stone and I do that writing and reading skills are way down.

The questions are “bright how?” and “informed about what?” The written word has been in decline as a medium since the invention of the telegraph. Young people today have different kinds of literacies because they live in a different world than their professors grew up in: movies and TV take the place of novels for many young people, recorded music occupies the place that poetry once did, and the internet is the newspaper.

These are the cultural forms that young people are exposed to on a daily basis; their communication skills adapt accordingly. The same students who struggle to write coherently often have a quite sophisticated (and intuitive) understanding of visual representation, for example. Many of my students would struggle to master oral debating techniques; then again, Lincoln couldn’t rap.

Whether these changes are good, bad, or neutral is another thread.

27

Thanks for the great posts. A lot of different heads conversing. Opened my eye even more.

Education is a piece of paper. Bought & paid for.

28

on credit

29

According to the link on that site, the requirement for the test has been repealed:

http://www.dpi.state.wi.us/dpi/oea/hsgt.html

Looks like Wisconsin removed that requirement before school even began this year. Your district needs to update its site.

30

Nah. You’re also paying for the connections and networking. Guanxi, baby.

31

If we are going to have test- which I disagree with because they encourage a narrow and unnuaned teaching method- we must seriously think about what to do with kids who speak English as a second language. In my high school, 25% of the students were immigrants. Many who came here in their teens will never master fluent English- some people just don’t have the capacity to learn new languages as an adult. This is not their fault and they did not choose to come here. And yet they may be brilliant engineers, scientists or even writers in their own language. Will anyone really benefit if we deny them- no matter how brilliant they are or what their circumstance may be- something that is somewhat essential to living a life above the poverty line?

32

It apparently is different there, though it is called the “Oxford Comma.”

I even found a poem about it: nzepc - Elizabeth Smither - The Oxford comma I love Google!

33

I thought of that while reading Sam’s example. The construction sounds like a French speaker writing in English. Maybe an almost-stereotypical-not-very-literate-in-French speaker writing poorly in English, but that guy doesn’t sound like English is his first language.

34

A two year old thread raised from the dead by it’s OP? It’s like finding that lost sock at the back of the dresser.

35

Yola, there is a reason why we really prefer that ancient threads not be revived. There are now posters responding to others who no longer even post on the SDMB and the material facts regarding your original complaint appear to have changed. (Although I will admit that it may just be confusion on my part regarding just what your discussion intended.)

If you want to discuss a particular aspect of the education system, please put together a coherent argument and begin a new thread. This one is closing as soon as the hamsters wake up engough to lock the door.
(You may, of clourse, link to this thread, but I am not sure that will be of benefit to your next one.)

[ /Moderator Mode ]