Say Anything Blog

Rob, Your niece IS taught government structure in her Social Studies classes and taught cell structure in her Natural Science classes. I will give you the same answer my Dad told me and I give my kids to the age old question, (why do I have to learn this?)
”There is never a time when it’s good to be ignorant”

Hmmm....Anna, hate to disagree with you, but the proportion of Americans that have no idea about the significance of the electoral college suggests that the social studies teachers aren’t doing a terribly good job with the subject of “civics.”

And for what it’s worth, one interesting trend in homeschooling is “classical” homeschooling, and one distinguishing feature is that science is by and large not taught until students have the logical and mathematical background to understand what’s going on.

In other words, you don’t need to wrestle with Newton until you’ve got at least precalculus mathematics behind you.  You wrestle with biology when you’ve got enough Latin under your belt to have a hint about what all those ten dollar words mean.

How the flippin’ government works, for crying out loud.

While I don’t agree with you that Science isn’t useful, I think the state of education about our govt is pathetic now.  Kids should be taught all about how our govt was founded, and why.

If you don’t know by now, don’t mess with it.

Anna - Rob, Your niece IS taught government structure in her Social Studies classes...

She’s probably not.

They don’t really teach important things like American history and government anymore these days Anna. One will get a brief overview of government and a highly agendized* “politically correct” version of America (where America is painted as generally being an evil country).

The liberals who control our education system can’t teach those things. It threatens their power.

*can you believe that agendized isn’t a word? It’s in high popular use.

I think you all are somewhat guessing as to whether students are taught gov’t politics correctly. Just because a proportion of American’s don’t have the knowledge we expect them to have doesn’t mean they were not taught.
It doesn’t matter who, how, or where a student is being taught a subject ... if they don’t want to learn it they won’t.
BB, I don’t consider it wrestling with Newton, I view it as piquing the curiosity and interest of the mind of a future adult. If you wait until jr high or high school you will have lost some to the attitudes of unwilling to try new things. Things are different in a home schooling setting and by far much easier.
We have 30 plus students and some are mainstreamed sever special ed students. Besides those students we have the gifted and the average students, along with several IEP students (Individualized Education Program), which require a separate written curriculum per student to their needs. I could only wish all students could be given the same educational attention as home schooled or even the education the public schools were able to offer years ago.
To deny our young children, the opportunity of an early exploration into the world of science, would be one more shame put on the public school system.

The concept that some one can be taught something and not know it is interesting. Did some one have their mind erased or did some one only imagine that they were actually teaching?

As an engineer, after hours and hours of study, I never used Calculus, Physics, or Chemistry. Most people don’t. As a salesman and marketeer, I never used Sociology, Psychology or Philosophy. You can’t bank on people doing or thinking the same thing day after day. They are likely to do anything at anytime.

Learning useless things does teach the mind to learn and quickly evaluate and respond to situations. It also makes for a person who is able to have an interesting and intelligent discussion.

It is nice to be able to ponder and have discussions about the construction and interaction of the universe and interesting to learn that they didn’t teach you the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Anna, the ugly reality is that the schools already have killed the love of science in all but a very few students; ask most adults, for example, to do a simple calculation on deceleration of an automobile.  Look at the level of what’s taught in birthing classes.

You’re absolutely right that you don’t want to squander the time of teachability; what I’m learning now, however, is that that time goes well into adulthood (see John Taylor Gatto and Linda Schrock Taylor’s work) unless you somehow squelch it.

Sadly, the gov’t schools are really good at this.  Again, think of how many people have forgotten the reasons for the electoral college or the 2nd Amendment. 

Or never learned.

Learning useless things does teach the mind to learn and quickly evaluate and respond to situations. It also makes for a person who is able to have
an interesting and intelligent discussion.

I guess they’re not really “useless” then, are they?

If you don’t know by now, don’t mess with it.

There’s actually quite a bit of government education, at least in the Bismarck schools. Students take history all through elementary school, along with a full year in Junior High, and another full year in High school. They are also required to take 1 semester of Government and 1 semester of Economics during their senior year. It seems like enough to me, but I suppose its not this good in other cities.

EWS48:

As an engineer, after hours and hours of study, I never used Calculus, Physics, or Chemistry. Most people don’t. As a salesman and marketeer, I never used Sociology, Psychology or Philosophy. You can’t bank on people doing or thinking the same thing day after day. They are likely to do anything at anytime.

Funny, I use all of these “useless” things in my daily life.

You must have had shitty instructors.

Get the book
“A Whole New Mind” by Daniel Pink

Or at least google him and read what he has on his website.  I would be very surprised if what you would find is something all of us can agree on.

Schools today do a significantly better job than they did back in the 70’s (when I was in HS)

We teach in multiple modalities and are aware of the individual students learning style preference.

It is also in societies best interest to provide not just the ‘day to day” practical knowledge but a wide liberal arts education.

Gardners book “Frames of Mind- the theory of multiple intelligences” really shows us that all of us learn in different ways....differnt apptitudes. (linguistic,musical,logical-mathematical,spatial,kinesthetic)

Educators really need to be aware of the individual child and what he or she needs to succeed.  To succeed today means something different than it did 20,30 etc… years ago.

Sometimes what we may see as ‘not practical in the real world’ is really ‘not practical in our real world” while maybe in grade 5 the student realizes, from the study of cell structure, an apptitude in “logical-mathematical” thought process…

I realy encourage anyone that gives a damn about education and the current state of education in the US to check out Daniel Pinks book “A Whole New Mind”
He makes a ton of sense...and yes...schools are teaching things that are not practical...but you will be surprised at what he says is “not- practical”..I was.

I’m late to the party on this, but I disagree with Rob’s premise.  Science is part of the core curriculum and needs to be taught.

I’m sure there’s plenty of fluff that can be eliminated before this.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

Imagine, the education schools and departments of education have made a lot of changes, but reality is that they haven’t made a lot of improvements, if you judge by the end results like college board test scores.  Those are quite stagnant.

Personally, I think that a return to some (not all) of the things that have been abandoned since the 1970s would be a good thing; things like expectations of decent behavior and such.

expectations of decent behavior and such.

YES!!! as in rules are rules ... if you don’t follow them you’re eventually out, end of story

Anna:

YES!!! as in rules are rules ... if you don’t follow them you’re eventually out, end of story

Rigorous adherence to rules ("zero tolerance” policies) teaches nothing, fails to address the causes of the behavior that were the guise under which these authoritarian rules were installed, and eventually helps no one, including the teachers.

From the Wiki::

Zero Tolerance, Zero Evidence: An Analysis of School Disciplinary Practice reports that there is no credible evidence that zero tolerance is effective. Furthermore, school suspension and expulsion result in a number of negative outcomes for both schools and students.
The study, conducted by the Indiana Education Policy Center at Indiana University School of Education, reviewed the use of zero-tolerance policies since their inception in the 1980s.

“Zero tolerance is a political response, not an educationally sound solution,” said Dr. Russell Skiba, author of the report. “It sounds impressive to say that we’re taking a tough stand against misbehavior, but the data says it simply hasn’t been effective in improving student behavior.”

Bike Bubbha:

Imagine, the education schools and departments of education have made a lot of changes, but reality is that they haven’t made a lot of improvements, if you judge by the end results like college board test scores.  Those are quite stagnant.

Since these exams essentially test IQ, why would you expect to see any dramatic improvements over time?

Carrick, those test results do correlate to IQ, but what they actually test is whether the student has mastered arithmetic, a touch of algebra, and skill with the English language.  Personally, I don’t believe that all of the functional illiterates being graduated from inner city (and other) schools are actually young Forrest Gumps.  There are simply too many examples of good teachers and good schools taking exactly the same kind of student and making them proficient in these skills for me to believe that kids in the inner city cannot read, write, or cipher.

Moreover, when I talk about standards of behavior, I’m not talking about “no common sense” policies common today.  I’m talking about basic consequences for actions.  You cuss out the teacher, the hickory stick comes out and knocks those words right out of your body.

More or less, we don’t tolerate little Billy’s Swiss Army knife or toy popgun, but we do tolerate it when little Jimmy claims that his teacher is engaging in the world’s first profession in a biologically impossible manner with her mother.  We haven’t gotten stricter on discipline, but have rather inverted it.

It’s been a long time since I took the ACT but I seem to recall it being a general knowledge test.

But since IQ is best correlated with success in school we’re probably for the most part measuring the same thing. 

On the other hand it seems that I’ve read that standardized tests have us doing quite well compared to other countries in the younger years and then falling behind in high school.  I don’t think our kids are smart until puberty and then get stupid.

Wait that’s what happens.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

Regarding zero tolerance I’ll agree that it’s mind boggling stupid.  It winds up being enforced inappropriately to kids that aren’t a problem.

I think what annA was saying was that kids that aren’t there to learn and won’t change shouldn’t disrupt other kids educations.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

kids that aren’t there to learn and won’t change shouldn’t disrupt other kids educations.

Exactly that. Thank you, for clearing that up, Whistler.
Unless a student is breaking the law it is very rare a student is expelled from a public school.

Schools should be for the kids that are there to learn.  If kids that are there to disrupt the education process they should find something else to do like digging out sewers.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

Anna:

Unless a student is breaking the law it is very rare a student is expelled from a public school.

Nonsense.

There are many school rules that don’t carry the weight of law that result in students getting expelled.

I think what annA was saying was that kids that aren’t there to learn and won’t change shouldn’t disrupt other kids educations.

No, she was cheering on zero-tolerance, as if it is a good system for discipline, when the facts say completely the opposite.  It’s nothing but a political knee-jerk reaction to Columbine and other school-related violence.

It solves nothing, but creates many new problems. 

School vouchers, anybody?

Bike Bubba:

Personally, I don’t believe that all of the functional illiterates being graduated from inner city (and other) schools are actually young Forrest Gumps.  There are simply too many examples of good teachers and good schools taking exactly the same kind of student and making them proficient in these skills for me to believe that kids in the inner city cannot read, write, or cipher.

I agree with you here of course, and you make some great points.

The problem from my perspective is that IQ measured on inner-city kids also scores lower, as does IQ scores for children of lower-income homes compared to upper income ones.

None of this is to suggest that I believe there are any genetic differences here, just cultural ones. (Bow to the God of PCism once again.)

Anyway, and here’s my point, if you look at various things that affect performance in standardized tests, the overarching effect is cultural, rather than school environment per se.  The only way, I would expect to see a dramatic improvement would be to change attitudes in lower income homes towards the value of education.

Schools can’t solve society’s problems, and in that sense shouldn’t receive all of the blame for attitudes instilled in kids by sub-moron level TV programing (for example).

The only way, I would expect to see a dramatic improvement would be to change attitudes in lower income homes towards the value of education.

Absolutely.  On the other hand, part of the problem is also the “culture” of mass education.  PC does not encourage scholastic or intellectual excellence.

If you don’t know by now, don’t mess with it.

I love a lively discussion. Rob mentions practical skills and content. I happen to agree with him on that score.

Back in the stone ages when I came up through grade school, students were “tracked”. This term has become taboo because it implies that all students are not created equal and that makes certain populations uncomfortable.

My home state has a Board of Regents.  This group is a collection of individuals that formulate and mandate the content that is administered in public schools. I do not necessary see value in all of the content, but unfortunately it’s required to be taught.

If students perform poorly on the state assessments with regularity, these districts are subject to audit by state officials. If the problem is deemed significant and chronic the district administration can be removed and replaced by state appointed replacements.

So what does this have to do with practical subject matter?  The standardize tests are build around state and national learning standards.  These assessments are the “rulers” that measure the academic health of a district.

Teachers do have flexibility in how they present material, but they don’t have the luxury of only teaching what is practical. I wish they could.

If you are unhappy with the content being taught in your state, get in touch with your senators and local representatives and lobby for change.

“I hold it that a little rebellion, now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.” Thomas Jefferson

Regarding how a student gets expelled, my reading of the news suggests that, while the action that gets a student expelled these days might not be illegal for the rest of us, the expelling of students who do so is currently mandated by law.  One good example is the series of situations where the presence of even a toy gun gets students expelled.  It’s not what the teacher thinks, but rather federal law, I believe.

Want to improve education?  Cancel all federal education laws and the Department of Education in DC.

I could be wrong but I think the only regulation over toy guns is to include that orange muzzle cap so they aren’t mistaken.

On the other hand the No guns in schools act was done in part because schools often wouldn’t expel students who were found in real schools.  Of course it was 90% BS but not that part.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.