I very much agree with that article. I grew up in a harsh meritocracy, in which teachers thought nothing about publicly calling someone a dim bulb when they couldn't keep pace. I then came to US and faced the complete opposite: a harsh entitlement culture, which put teachers on the defensive. They could not suggest even in private, and in the gentlest of ways, that the student should consider a different field of study, b/c they simply didn't have the brains for doing math
( ... )
Political correctness, and the phenomenon of people getting offended-to the point of outrage- on behalf of others is one of the biggest reasons American culture is what it is today. We've all learned that if we have an unpopular opinion, we had best keep our mouths shut. There is no public discourse, no more debate. People assume that if you disagree with them, it's becuase you just don't understand. No one wants a classic liberal arts education anymore, everyone wants to be an investment banker or a rock star.
I would love to see our schools assign classes based on ability, but the law states that each student is entitled to an equal and appropriate education, and the easiest way to ensure that is to put all students together, regardless of their needs. This is fine for the majority of children, but those who are at either end of the intelligence spectrum get either left behind or not challenged. Frustrating for all.
Well, theoretically, Romania guarantees the right to an equal education, too. Every child has the RIGHT to sit the entrance exam to the most prestigious high-schools. Not every child has the ability to pass it, of course. But that's not the government's fault. They gave everyone an equal chance, didn't they? And of course, I'm being a bit tongue-in-cheek, b/c like everywhere else rights come down to economics: those whose parents can afford private tutors always have a better chance. Just like in US, those who can afford to pay a private college tuition...
This point shows exactly why 'ability' as a category is completely useless.
In the UK, we're 40 years on from getting rid of the 11+ and the grammar schools (the duffers who failed went to secondary moderns, did lots of cooking / woodwork and left school at 15 to start apprenticeships or work on the farm). This was *supposed* to make things fairer and give all kids a more level playing field. But of course, it just made some things better and other things worse.
On a lighter note, Hogwarts, contrary to popular belief, is NOT a English public (i.e fee-paying) school. It's more like a grammar school or an 'ideal' comprehensive and the whole series is a satire on UK education policy of the 80s and 90s.
We had a similar sort of educational revoloution here at about the same time. In the US then, very few people went to college, and who got to go had very little to do with merit, and more to do with money. Anyone who didn't succeed in school would quit, and join the military, go to work in a factory, or farm.
These days, almost everyone goes to college, and many people who enter the millitary do so as a way to fund college. It still has very little to do with merit, but who can pay. Colleges in the US teach a lot of remeidial stuff that used to be required knowledge for admittance. All this is because you can't get a job in the factory or the farm anymore, and a military carreer is a deadly choice these days.
Part of the problem is that we've moved from a society that respects tradespersons, farmers and manual laborers as necessary and important contributors to a society that discounts the contributions of these people make.
If only we ran the world, I bet we could fix this.
Seeing as we're all about expressing unpopular opinions here, I must state the bleeding obvious that natural selection as a theory is predicated on the natural world, with very different social structures to our particular configuration of circumstances in this period of late modernity and advanced capitalist society.
An entitlement culture (yes, we have it here too) is an unhappy side-effect of an innumerable number of decisons made by powerful people, all working together to promote certain interests. How can the education system be 'fixed' with a few more blunt instruments policy decisions, which are generally taken on the basis of crudely-hijacked 'psychological' research? Can't be done.
Point taken. "Natural Selection" then, is a more palateable stand-in for "Cultural Selection". Maybe a good education can't be legislated, nor can fairness. But that is the only tool we have, and the "No child left behind" act is not serving anyone.
That's exactly right. The name says it all. 'No Child Left Behind' is an impossibility in a capitalist society! I don't have any answers, but (in this country at least) scrapping a whole bunch of politically-motivated policy decisions that have overburdened teachers and taken away every last shred of their professional autonomy, then having a moratorium on passing any new legislation for 20 years might be a start.
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I would love to see our schools assign classes based on ability, but the law states that each student is entitled to an equal and appropriate education, and the easiest way to ensure that is to put all students together, regardless of their needs. This is fine for the majority of children, but those who are at either end of the intelligence spectrum get either left behind or not challenged. Frustrating for all.
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In the UK, we're 40 years on from getting rid of the 11+ and the grammar schools (the duffers who failed went to secondary moderns, did lots of cooking / woodwork and left school at 15 to start apprenticeships or work on the farm). This was *supposed* to make things fairer and give all kids a more level playing field. But of course, it just made some things better and other things worse.
On a lighter note, Hogwarts, contrary to popular belief, is NOT a English public (i.e fee-paying) school. It's more like a grammar school or an 'ideal' comprehensive and the whole series is a satire on UK education policy of the 80s and 90s.
Ack - sorry about the edits Mullvaney. *hugs*
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These days, almost everyone goes to college, and many people who enter the millitary do so as a way to fund college. It still has very little to do with merit, but who can pay. Colleges in the US teach a lot of remeidial stuff that used to be required knowledge for admittance. All this is because you can't get a job in the factory or the farm anymore, and a military carreer is a deadly choice these days.
Part of the problem is that we've moved from a society that respects tradespersons, farmers and manual laborers as necessary and important contributors to a society that discounts the contributions of these people make.
If only we ran the world, I bet we could fix this.
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I think we could, you know. Along with the QsofA, of course :)
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An entitlement culture (yes, we have it here too) is an unhappy side-effect of an innumerable number of decisons made by powerful people, all working together to promote certain interests. How can the education system be 'fixed' with a few more blunt instruments policy decisions, which are generally taken on the basis of crudely-hijacked 'psychological' research? Can't be done.
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