3 ms·

Okay. The minimal, no sarcasm response is this: Ripping words out of a conversation and trying to formally apply them against your understanding of economics is

by xiaoma 16y ago

Okay. The minimal, no sarcasm response is this: Ripping words out of a conversation and trying to formally apply them against your understanding of economics is a bad idea. The word "enough" carries connotations that economics can't fully model. Your argument leads directly to the conclusion that every black share-cropper's job in the 19th century was "good enough" because if it weren't their best option, they'd have done something else. Here's a more detailed response: Switching costs matter greatly because it's possible that someone may feel that job B doesn't pay enough to compensate them for the unpleasantness involved, but job B is what they put 6 years of schooling into and they don't have the skills or qualifications for the more desirable job A. Knowledge of how events will unfold, prescience, would be guarantee that one won't end up in job B after years of mistaken belief of being on track A. Prudence is some protection, but some people will still be unlucky. Omniscience is the only absolute safeguard against making an unwise purchase. Many, many people buy defective goods every day. In the long term, those who do honest business should have an advantage, but the dishonest aren't all weeded out. In addition, it's possible to pursue an item (or a job) that isn't objectively flawed, but simply has no value to oneself. Without full self-knowledge, this can't be avoided completely. A person might believe a job that they are doing is a good deal when in fact, it is not. Radium jewelry painting was an extreme example. And the gigantic elephant in the room that you were clearly trying to avoid was social good. Just because someone is willing to provide something for X amount of money doesn't mean that X amount of money is all it's worth to society. A cursory reading of economics would show that education is one such good. The return on an educated populace is so great that it's worth subsidizing. And that's exactly what this discussion is about. In the US, the pay for educators is low for the amount of schooling required, and the educators themselves are usually not drawn from the strongest of their classes. In many other countries, teaching is a highly competitive, highly paid, high prestige position. FYI I have worked in education, both in the US and in east Asia. The difference is vast.

tokenadult 16y ago
I have worked in education, both in the US and in east Asia. The difference is vast. What are the most crucial differences that United States policy-makers should be aware of as they try to improve education in the United States? (For that matter, what should east Asian policy-makers learn from the United States?) I like the books by Liping Ma http://www.amazon.com/Knowing-Teaching-Elementary-Mathematics-Understanding/dp/0805829091 http://www.amazon.com/Knowing-Teaching-Elementary-Mathematic... and James Stigler and James Hiebert http://www.amazon.com/Teaching-Gap-Improving-Education-Classroom/dp/ http://www.amazon.com/Teaching-Gap-Improving-Education-Class... as examples of what the United States could learn from the practices of other countries, but perhaps you have other suggestions for readers here.
- xiaoma 16y ago
  As I said, making it more competitive to become a public teacher would be a good idea. I had almost forgotten about how many elementary school teachers in the US dislike or even struggle with basic mathematics until reading your link, but that's definitely a big issue. I don't think I ever encountered the craziness of using animals or fruits to represent tens or hundreds as mentioned in Dr. Ma's book, but it's no surprise to hear it. I know this isn't going to be a popular view, but some major problems in US schools are caused by an obsession with small class sizes. From everything I've seen, I'd say that the importance of small classes is dwarfed by that of having a good teacher. The smaller the classes are, the more teachers you need and the less selective you can be about them. I think this is one of the primary reasons the US (and just about every western country) spends so much more money per student than say Singapore and gets little to show for it. In general, I like the system of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore for earlier schooling. On the flip side, their weakness is college. What works well for giving everyone a basic grasp on fundamental skills doesn't work so well when they need to become self-directed learners. A lot of the current discussion is on increasing the focus on creativity and student autonomy, but there's a long, long way to go. The other huge problem is that after entering a school it's almost impossible to fail out of it and students not planning on grad school often just coast. But tokenadult, you must have already known all that! In your earlier comments, haven't you said you've spent a huge chunk of your life in Taiwan, learned to read Chinese well and already critiqued children's teaching materials there?
  - CWuestefeld 16y ago
    some major problems in US schools are caused by an obsession with small class sizes. I started out disagreeing with you, but we're definitely on the same page here. In the US, there's a cult of small class sizes. It frequently seems as if class size itself is taken as a proxy for the quality of the education, to the exclusion of any other factor. But all the literature I've been able to find is inconclusive on the impact of class size -- and the very fact that it's inconclusive should boldly demonstrate that it's not the single, overriding factor. The only thing I can find that seems to be accepted is that smaller classes can help "at-risk" generally minority inner-city students who aren't getting educational support at home. But in the general case, nobody's been able to show conclusively that it's got any impact at all. So why do we still make this an end goal rather than a means to an end?

by xiaoma 16y ago

tokenadult 16y ago

I have worked in education, both in the US and in east Asia. The difference is vast. What are the most crucial differences that United States policy-makers should be aware of as they try to improve education in the United States? (For that matter, what should east Asian policy-makers learn from the United States?) I like the books by Liping Ma http://www.amazon.com/Knowing-Teaching-Elementary-Mathematics-Understanding/dp/0805829091 http://www.amazon.com/Knowing-Teaching-Elementary-Mathematic... and James Stigler and James Hiebert http://www.amazon.com/Teaching-Gap-Improving-Education-Classroom/dp/ http://www.amazon.com/Teaching-Gap-Improving-Education-Class... as examples of what the United States could learn from the practices of other countries, but perhaps you have other suggestions for readers here.

xiaoma 16y ago
As I said, making it more competitive to become a public teacher would be a good idea. I had almost forgotten about how many elementary school teachers in the US dislike or even struggle with basic mathematics until reading your link, but that's definitely a big issue. I don't think I ever encountered the craziness of using animals or fruits to represent tens or hundreds as mentioned in Dr. Ma's book, but it's no surprise to hear it. I know this isn't going to be a popular view, but some major problems in US schools are caused by an obsession with small class sizes. From everything I've seen, I'd say that the importance of small classes is dwarfed by that of having a good teacher. The smaller the classes are, the more teachers you need and the less selective you can be about them. I think this is one of the primary reasons the US (and just about every western country) spends so much more money per student than say Singapore and gets little to show for it. In general, I like the system of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore for earlier schooling. On the flip side, their weakness is college. What works well for giving everyone a basic grasp on fundamental skills doesn't work so well when they need to become self-directed learners. A lot of the current discussion is on increasing the focus on creativity and student autonomy, but there's a long, long way to go. The other huge problem is that after entering a school it's almost impossible to fail out of it and students not planning on grad school often just coast. But tokenadult, you must have already known all that! In your earlier comments, haven't you said you've spent a huge chunk of your life in Taiwan, learned to read Chinese well and already critiqued children's teaching materials there?
- CWuestefeld 16y ago
  some major problems in US schools are caused by an obsession with small class sizes. I started out disagreeing with you, but we're definitely on the same page here. In the US, there's a cult of small class sizes. It frequently seems as if class size itself is taken as a proxy for the quality of the education, to the exclusion of any other factor. But all the literature I've been able to find is inconclusive on the impact of class size -- and the very fact that it's inconclusive should boldly demonstrate that it's not the single, overriding factor. The only thing I can find that seems to be accepted is that smaller classes can help "at-risk" generally minority inner-city students who aren't getting educational support at home. But in the general case, nobody's been able to show conclusively that it's got any impact at all. So why do we still make this an end goal rather than a means to an end?