The Education System Is Making Kids Stupid

Discussion in 'Education & Learning' started by Martin Alonzo, Nov 2, 2019.

  1. Bobby Cole

    Bobby Cole Supreme Member
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    So, the teachers union wants to eliminate basic skills testing for aspiring teachers?
    It’s a given that math teachers should know something about math but to say that they do not have to know anything but math is ridiculous.

    https://youtube.com/shorts/X0Sx2bYLM2g?si=fw6-uYISTKGR5fSL
     
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  2. Thomas Windom

    Thomas Windom Very Well-Known Member
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    Let’s hear it for the department of education.

    “The Program for International Student Assessment is administered by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and it tests 15-year-old students around the world. The U.S. placed 11th out of 79 countries in science when the test was last administered in 2018. It did much worse in math, ranking 30th.1

    The U.S. scored 478 in math, below the OECD average of 489. That's well below the scores of the top five, all of which were in Asia:…”

    https://www.thebalancemoney.com/the-u-s-is-losing-its-competitive-advantage-3306225
     
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  3. Martin Alonzo

    Martin Alonzo Supreme Member
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    The education here in the D.R. are teaching global warming I tell my children to correct the teacher but the programing of schools are working berceuse they will not correct the teacher. We live on an island surrounded by water on premise of global warming is sea rise. The ocean has not risen any faster than it has in the last thousand years. A walk to the beach will show you.
     
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  4. Thomas Windom

    Thomas Windom Very Well-Known Member
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    Restricting expression of thought is classically tyrannical. I remember an interesting incident when I was working at the NIH. I went down to talk with another researcher in a lab downstairs. She had two, female Chinese post-docs working with her through the Fogarty Center for visiting scientists. Now, bear in mind this was back in the 80s so much might have changed since.

    Anyway, when I walked in, she (the P.I.) was giving the two of them a pretty hot and heavy dressing down about something, first time I had seen her that angry. Later, when we were talking in her office, she commented on how frustrated she was getting. Apparently these two had both done experiments that had produced considerably different results than expected. Instead of evaluating the results and trying to understand them, these two Chinese post docs instead were doing everything possible to explain them away or deny them, doing other stuff to try to “make it go away”. The P.I. got really angry with them for not pursuing the evidence. They explained to her that it was improper to embarrass the senior investigators, to cause him to lose face and they should never challenge him. That was where she kind of lost it, almost yelling at them that the whole purpose of who and what they are is to challenge conventional thought. Anyway, always stuck in my mind.
     
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  5. Mary Stetler

    Mary Stetler Veteran Member
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    https://www.yahoo.com/news/mom-stumped-1st-graders-homework-023732843.html
    I could see three possible answers and give explanations. Depends on where one is coming from if they don't tell you what class this is for.
    IQ tests were kind of like that. If they were written by white upper class people, back in the 60s-70s, Black low income kids had difficulty. But If they were then written by black lower income people, White college bound kids had very low scores.
    Not to be racist, that is just the way things and experiences were then.
     
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  6. Ed Marsh

    Ed Marsh Veteran Member
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    Good evening to all-
    IQ tests do NOT measure intelligence. These tests show how well an individual does on a test. Relying totally on any IQ test for any purpose is not wise.

    I was trained to administer IQ tests, and I have given hundreds of them to hundreds of folks, and they are remarkably inaccurate when it comes to measuring intelligence.
    An example of how such a test can be wrong: On one test, a picture of a very skinny person is shown.to the child- this is a kid's age level test- and the child is asked to describe the person. Down here in the Deep South, most of the kids would respond, " that man is poor." And they would miss the question according to the standard scoring rubric.
    But down here in the Deep South, very skinny people are called "poor"- meaning skinny, thin, not at all fat.

    So this test did not measure language as a part of intelligence at all accurately. It measured how a kid used language in the middle class, white jargon because that's what the persons who put the test together and normed it. were- white, middle class folks.

    IQ tests should not be seen as a good way to determine total intelligence.

    you all be safe and keep well- Ed
     
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  7. Thomas Windom

    Thomas Windom Very Well-Known Member
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    I think that’s a fair assessment. I score well on those tests but have terrible problems in some subject areas. Also, I have seen books that basically “teach” one how to do well on IQ tests. They break down the types of solutions for each type of problem. For example, on geometric shape comparisons, they explain the different permutations possible, rotation, mirror image, etc. Figuring out a solution to a problem is easier once one is given a set framework from which to examine the problem. Then there’s the question, as raised above, about what is being taught in those type books. Can intelligence be taught?
     
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  8. Jan Ahlmann

    Jan Ahlmann Well-Known Member
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    Given the news on the president of Harvard, I now have an answer to a question that I've wondered about for awhile -- Do they even teach how to properly cite sources anymore? Well, apparently, they don't.
    I comment a lot on Fox and libs are always spewing forth misquotes and outright lies. When asked for a cite, they reply by putting quotation marks around what they just wrote, and, then, when called out on that nonsense, they call you a MAGA Cletus and move on. They don't even bother to research how to cite a source.
     
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  9. Mary Stetler

    Mary Stetler Veteran Member
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    I comment on the politics section on craigslist sometimes. They have a free site to discuss politics if they would care to but all they do is throw sophomoric insults back and forth. I will recommend a site to check out the actual tapes released now and how to find out what actually happened on January 6th, I just get insults. If I ask if they went to research it themselves--crickets.
    Or I ask if they can just remove Trump from the ballot for something he has not been convicted of, or even to remove RFK which they are trying to do now, Isn't that election interference by the Democrats? Or how would they define election interference?
    Insults or crickets.
    I think it is the WEF trying to divide us as much as possible. Like Antifa.
     
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  10. Rene Descartes

    Rene Descartes Very Well-Known Member
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    I taught at risk college students and most were not prepared for college at all. Professors do not teach them how to write academically (APA, MLA, etc.) or how to think critically. They just grade the papers and leave the students to ponder their low grades.
    Now I am semi-retired and do substitute teaching 1-12. States have done away with this and that and teachers plaster their rooms with math rules or writing rules and hand out worksheets. That's it. The majority of their classwork is online too. Pick the right answer. After X many times of guessing it, they move up. You can blame common core, but you really need to shift that to the states and teachers. I'm not saying all teachers are lazy, but from what I see across two counties and 13 schools... they are.
     
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  11. Ed Marsh

    Ed Marsh Veteran Member
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    Good morning to all-
    I worked in the public schools and also as adjunct instructor for several colleges in a number of states for almost 40 years. And I can assure you that in my freshman English classes at the colleges, I did absolutely teach research method and research format preparation. I found most students capable of coining up with at least passable first-level research papers after a semester's worth of work.
    And while I am certain that there are lazy teacher in the public schools now as there were when I was there, let me assure you all that the very great majority of public school teachers work hard to present material to their students in a positive, creative way. The task put before public school teachers today is daunting- such a wide range of student abilities and such a large load of expected outcomes- it's a very, very difficult task.

    However, I do absolutely agree with your assessment of "online classwork." When my last school district went online and told the teaching staff that our teaching would be done online from that point on, I knew my days in front of classes was over. And when the last college I worked for told me I had to work up all of my classes for online presentation for students who "were not able to attend in person classes" I knew my college teaching days were over, too. If college work is totally online, then I want no part of it. I am afraid my opinion of online education is not so very high. In fact, I don't consider totally online college as college at all- just another trick to part people from their money.

    you all be safe and keep well- Ed
     
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  12. Mary Stetler

    Mary Stetler Veteran Member
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    I am sure that you and others were great teachers and there are many today (in classes). When I went to college, there were a couple of 'remedial' classes for people who were not up to snuff. I believe it was mostly because of affirmative action. Although I must say, my math skills were not that great back then. When my kids went to school, I was concerned that one of them went into the natural sciences because she liked them, not because she had a path in mind. She has the education to work for the DNR etc but does not. Later it seemed that they dumbed down a lot of the 'majors' to fit the students' likes instead of holding them up to the excellence needed to get employment to pay back their student loans.
     
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  13. Celia Jenkins

    Celia Jenkins Well-Known Member
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    I can't speak for America, of course, because I live in England, but it seems to me that schools are more concerned with brainwashing children with a particular ideology, than actually educating them.
    I read a great deal, American authors as well as British. The standard of writing varies a great deal, depending on where the author was educated. Sorry to say it, but some of the English is very poor, with sentences badly put together.
     
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  14. Mary Stetler

    Mary Stetler Veteran Member
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    Definitely happening in the US too. Horrifying!
     
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  15. Ed Marsh

    Ed Marsh Veteran Member
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    Good afternoon to all-
    With all due respect to the previous posters, let me assure you, public schools in the U.S. do NOT "brainwash" children with any kind of ideology. Teachers and schools are too busy trying to cover the curriculum and get the kids ready for state mandated achievement tests- which by the way, do a very poor job of measuring student achievement.

    Now, I can't speak to parochial or private schools- they operate under totally different rules and regulations. But in public schools, no ideology- other than a certain level of respect for others- is taught.

    Anyone who says that public schools are teaching religious or political ideology is far wide of the mark, and in fact, very much wrong.

    you all be safe and keep well- Ed
     
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