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I don't think I ever suggested grading based on effort, it makes no sense to me either. But most people do need to do something other than just show up to clas

I don't think I ever suggested grading based on effort, it makes no sense to me either. But most people do need to do something other than just show up to class to learn things. That's got to somehow be obvious, based on everyday observation of your peers? Certainly my main experience of university was that kids who were diligent understood things, and those who weren't didn't. Plenty of kids thought they could either quickly catch up, or get an overview at the lectures and just be smart and figure it out. It might have worked for one or two, but for the large mass of kids, they needed to sit and look at things themselves, and take some time. Also I don't understand how you think courses were well explained. Where did you study? I never thought anything was explained much at all, lectures were mostly a summary of major ideas, with a lot of glossing over the details by professors who were long past the point where it mattered how well they understood the stuff.

Jensson 5y ago
> Also I don't understand how you think courses were well explained. Where did you study? I never thought anything was explained much at all, lectures were mostly a summary of major ideas, with a lot of glossing over the details by professors who were long past the point where it mattered how well they understood the stuff. My point is that to me they were well explained. To most others they are not, but that wasn't what we were discussing. A guy above said that nature is completely dwarfed by nature even today. I disagree with that. A bottom 10% kid with respect to nurture can still get great results if their nature just is good enough. Most of my professors in college called me a genius. I got some research projects after my first year, but I didn't have any work ethics so I didn't do anything with it, I mostly just sat there and didn't do anything just like how I spend most of my time in class. I solved the original problem quickly, but all time after that was just sitting. I know I am not normal, I just want to say that people like me exists, and I get angry when others argue that people like me doesn't exist, that we just fake it or are privileged etc. It is just nonsense and it irritates me a lot. I'm a total mental wreck, I could barely do anything, arguing that the reason I did so much better at math than median persons was because I worked hard, got tutoring, had a better home environment, had better focus etc, all of that is just nonsense. I'm a bit better today, there is no way I could even hold a job back then as just sitting and not doing shit doesn't fly at work, but I still lived through all that shit.
- lordnacho 5y ago
  A simple model is that some people will do well regardless, some will do poorly regardless, and the middle will perform dependent on what environment they're put in. I'm not saying really smart people don't exist, obviously we've all met mentally disabled people who cannot be taught higher math so why wouldn't there be people who get it really easily? But I do think most people by far are in the middle group. Teach them well, encourage them, and they do well. Fail to do so and they do badly. But if you agree with such a model you must see that in aggregate, nurture wins. There's a bunch of people who wouldn't know any calculus or whatever if they hadn't been set to do certain problems while being educated. If you look at something like private education in the UK, you see this very thing. Kids are coached and they do well, on average. They're confident and they're well drilled. Not every kid in those schools does well, and not every kid who does well went to one of those schools. Yet stats show that the 7% of kids who went to private schools get about 50% of the Oxbridge places.

Jensson 5y ago

> Also I don't understand how you think courses were well explained. Where did you study? I never thought anything was explained much at all, lectures were mostly a summary of major ideas, with a lot of glossing over the details by professors who were long past the point where it mattered how well they understood the stuff. My point is that to me they were well explained. To most others they are not, but that wasn't what we were discussing. A guy above said that nature is completely dwarfed by nature even today. I disagree with that. A bottom 10% kid with respect to nurture can still get great results if their nature just is good enough. Most of my professors in college called me a genius. I got some research projects after my first year, but I didn't have any work ethics so I didn't do anything with it, I mostly just sat there and didn't do anything just like how I spend most of my time in class. I solved the original problem quickly, but all time after that was just sitting. I know I am not normal, I just want to say that people like me exists, and I get angry when others argue that people like me doesn't exist, that we just fake it or are privileged etc. It is just nonsense and it irritates me a lot. I'm a total mental wreck, I could barely do anything, arguing that the reason I did so much better at math than median persons was because I worked hard, got tutoring, had a better home environment, had better focus etc, all of that is just nonsense. I'm a bit better today, there is no way I could even hold a job back then as just sitting and not doing shit doesn't fly at work, but I still lived through all that shit.

lordnacho 5y ago
A simple model is that some people will do well regardless, some will do poorly regardless, and the middle will perform dependent on what environment they're put in. I'm not saying really smart people don't exist, obviously we've all met mentally disabled people who cannot be taught higher math so why wouldn't there be people who get it really easily? But I do think most people by far are in the middle group. Teach them well, encourage them, and they do well. Fail to do so and they do badly. But if you agree with such a model you must see that in aggregate, nurture wins. There's a bunch of people who wouldn't know any calculus or whatever if they hadn't been set to do certain problems while being educated. If you look at something like private education in the UK, you see this very thing. Kids are coached and they do well, on average. They're confident and they're well drilled. Not every kid in those schools does well, and not every kid who does well went to one of those schools. Yet stats show that the 7% of kids who went to private schools get about 50% of the Oxbridge places.