Debate #3

[luke warm]

I set out to Kindergarten in the fall of 1943. I brought a rug to nap on and crayons to draw with. We sang. We had recess. We learned to follow directions and to hold up our hands if we had to pee. Class was from 9 to 12, the rest of the day was for play. In first grade we learned to read.

Times have changed! In the best systems they learn a lot, far more than I did, and they start early. My oldest granddaughter, now 16, is taking calculus from a teacher who knows calculus. Since she doesn't much care for math she is just taking regulart calculus instead of the AP course that the serious science students take. I doubt that any teacher in the St. Paul school system in 1955 (when I was 16) could have effectively taught a calculus course, certainly not an AP version. She has already read more Shakespeare than I have or ever will. In some systems however, they learn very little. Many eighth graders know almost nothing.

The biggest difference I see between my schooldays and now is that there is now enormous variance in public schools. Some variance is inevitable and this existed in my day, but today we are far beyond "some". I doubt that this is an easy problem to solve but I regard it as immensely important.

yet, from all reports, the actual quality of education in this country has steadily dropped since about 1966, '67... it seems amazing to me when i hear or read that there are actually hs grads who can't read or write at more than an elementary school level... such a thing was unheard of when i went to school

[onoway]

Another thing that has changed is homework. Even when my kids went to school I would have been amazed and bewildered if they had come home with homework to do (unless something they missed for some reason, or a special project) before about grade 5 or 6. Now infants in primary school carry their knapsacks of books hither and yon. Lord knows if the teachers go on strike somehow the curriculum gets attended to in weeks less time than usual, so why persecute the kids like that? Kids need time to be kids.

 

I have read that some doctors are warning of permanent damage being done to young bodies from lugging around heavy books and papers.

[onoway]

"yet, from all reports, the actual quality of education in this country has steadily dropped since about 1966, '67... it seems amazing to me when i hear or read that there are actually hs grads who can't read or write at more than an elementary school level... such a thing was unheard of when i went to school "

 

Unless they were really good football or basketball players. :wacko: Some college students used to get into University on athletic scholarships and they were there ONLY for the athletics..some of them were barely articulate, much less literate and certainly unable to make use of any of the classes. When they became ineligible to play they got dumped. I am told this has been cleaned up somewhat now.

[luke warm]

well you might be right... it's easy to check out, just see whether or not literacy levels have gone up or down, or see whether the average sat/act scores have risen or dropped

[hrothgar]

well you might be right... it's easy to check out, just see whether or not literacy levels have gone up or down, or see whether the average sat/act scores have risen or dropped

This presumes that the difficulty of the SAT has remained constant over time. As I understand matters, it is largely accepted that the SAT has been nerfed.

 

I think that the most significant difference has to do with the percentage of school aged students that are receiving an education. The US stresses universal education. We force students to attend school until a relatively high age. Moreover, while most schools have some kind of vocational track, its no where near as developed as what you'd find in many other countries.

 

I don't find it particularly surprising that you end up with a significant number of students attending high school who aren't particularly interested in learning.

[kenberg]

I set out to Kindergarten in the fall of 1943. I brought a rug to nap on and crayons to draw with. We sang. We had recess. We learned to follow directions and to hold up our hands if we had to pee. Class was from 9 to 12, the rest of the day was for play. In first grade we learned to read.

Times have changed! In the best systems they learn a lot, far more than I did,  and they start early. My oldest granddaughter, now 16, is taking calculus from a teacher who knows calculus. Since she doesn't much care for math she is just taking regulart calculus instead of the AP course that the serious science students take. I doubt that any teacher in the St. Paul school system in 1955 (when I was 16) could have effectively taught a calculus course, certainly not an AP version. She has already read more Shakespeare than I have or ever will. In some systems however, they learn very little. Many eighth graders know almost nothing.

The biggest difference I see between my schooldays and now is that there is now enormous variance in public schools. Some variance is inevitable and this existed in my day, but today we are far beyond "some".  I doubt that this is an easy problem to solve but I regard it as immensely important.

yet, from all reports, the actual quality of education in this country has steadily dropped since about 1966, '67... it seems amazing to me when i hear or read that there are actually hs grads who can't read or write at more than an elementary school level... such a thing was unheard of when i went to school

As near as I can tell, from observation rather than any statistical study, the upper end is much higher, the lower end is much, much, lower compared wit the past. I sometimes wish I could undergo hypnosis to check my memory of my 1952 eighth grade graduation class but I swear every one of us could read, write, and do arithmetic. We knew the basics of our history and our political system. My father was a carpenter. I walked to high school with a kid whose father was a plumber. The guy across the street was a cop, another a truck driver, and so on. They had not been to college and perhaps, like my father, they had not gone to high school, but they were definitely not illiterate and their kids were not illiterate. It is this population that I think is getting the educational shaft today. I mentioned my granddaughter. Her grandfather (that's me) has a Ph.D. Her father has a Ph.D. Her mother has a Ph.D. Of course her education is seen to. These kids have educational opportunities in the public schools that simply did not exist anywhere in 1950s Minnesota, even for those with the wherewithal to send their kids to private schools. As I moved into adolescence I met kids with a private school education. I was not impressed. We were all pretty much equals. It is very different now.

 

Various explanations have been suggested. My mother was there when I cam home from school. Opportunities for women were much less than today so very talented women became teachers. We didn't have video games. Honestly I don't know the cause. Some kids cope with their circumstances, this will always be true, but my impression is that a lot of young minds are being very seriously underdeveloped. More than a few go through 12 years of school and come out with virtually no ability to do anything. It cannot be that they are all just too dumb to learn.

 

I regard this gap in educational opportunity as far more serious than the widening gap in income, although of course there is a relationship between these two gaps, causation flowing in each direction.

[blackshoe]

Our republic depends on an informed and educated electorate. When we no longer have that, we will have the situation implicitly predicted by Ben Franklin's reply to a neighbor's "What kind of government have you given us, Mr. Franklin?" He said "A Republic, Madam. If you can keep it."

[mycroft]

And I heard a slightly different version (from my mother, a career teacher):

 

Those who can, do.

Those who can't, teach.

Those who can't teach, administrate.