4 ms·

I see a lot of similarities to British trends in the late 19th century with the'public school' (posh/aristocrat) vs state-run (prole/serf) system. By definitio

I see a lot of similarities to British trends in the late 19th century with the'public school' (posh/aristocrat) vs state-run (prole/serf) system. By definition, the aristocratic class was considered to be universally gifted, and the serf class was considered to be universally inferior, so having a 'gifted program' in the school for the proles risked the danger of breaking class lines. However, the collapse of the British Empire was due in large part to greed and incompetent management (not that Empires are all that desirable) but the 20th century history of technological development in Britain isn't all that great. In contrast, looking at the biographies of many leading American scientists and entrepreneurs of the 20th century reveals that a great many of them came from places like impoverished MidWest farming communities and were only able to move on to higher academics, research centers, etc. because of their access to 'advanced learning programs' in their local areas. If the argument is that bias exists in who gets into advanced/gifted programs in the K-12 public schools because there is a limited number of slots, the solution is obviously to expand the number of slots, not to eliminate the programs altogether.

scarmig 4y ago
Expanding slots isn't itself a solution, because ultimately you end up with gifted programs that are targeting people mildly above average. I've heard of some school districts in Virginia where 50% of students are in gifted programs. This waters down the curriculum so that people in the top 5-10% are no longer challenged and engaged. What we need is fine grained tracking and the ability to appropriately serve children at all levels. This includes, btw, people at the bottom of the distribution: if you're teaching material targeting people at the 50% percentile of preparedness, you're not serving the kids at 25% or 10% at all and are setting them up for failure.
quartesixte 4y ago
>solution is obviously to expand the number of slots, Exactly! And then perhaps as we continue to raise the bar and challenge our students and teachers to higher academic levels earlier, we’ll raise the bar on education everywhere and start catching up to our peer nations. The anti-intellectualism that pervades the entire spectrum of US political beliefs is astounding.
- fragmede 4y ago
  This is no less evident than in online discourse sitting the Internet agree. Users see fit to shame other users for learning and making use of the knowledge available to them. You're god damn right I read the shit out of Wikipedia to figure out the basics of whatever thing is on the news today.
  - jrs235 4y ago
    People just want you to tell them the answer you're looking for. They don't want to think, research, or defend a position they choose or chose to take.
- sidlls 4y ago
  I went through grad school and taught in university in the US. My perspective is a bit different. I agree in many ways the US is behind. But in some regions outside the US there seems to be a strong emphasis on rote/mechanical memorization that provides the appearance of good education, but it falls far short when a person is tasked with actually demonstrating an understanding of the material. Me and my US taught peers (of whatever ethnicity) almost always performed better on exams where the problems were similar to but novel compared with the homework, while these rote/memorizing people almost always did better on exams where the problems were essentially lifted from the homework (perhaps with irrelevant changes, such as slightly different numbers or what have you). It was an incredible eye opener, as I had always assumed the US had a trash education system in general. It’s more nuanced than that.
  - quartesixte 4y ago
    An interesting problem for sure, but perhaps a result of self-selection bias? You and your other US peers represent the very tip of academic achievement in the country and perhaps are either the result of great teachers and/or programs that fostered that independent thinking, or were naturally inclined to do so anyways and your academic predispositions led you to where you are today. But let’s face it. The average American school never gets that far. And public schools in the US (based on the miles of anecdata published on the internet) seem to enforce rote memorization anyways. Standardized testing, teaching to the test, “my way or highway” teachers. So not only are we doing the same as our peer nations, but doing it worse. And any attempt to do critical thinking type teaching (a la Finland) gets lost in a sea of terrible schools, incompetent teachers, mediocre curriculums, and an education system that fatalistically lowers rigor and standards in favor of not challenging students to do better. No this is not a funding problem. Schools in the US have some of the highest per-student funding in the world. And those are also paradoxically the worst performing ones.
bnralt 4y ago
At the very least schools should be trying to meet children at their level. I've seen children go an entire year without learning a thing in certain subjects, simply because the curriculum for that year is below their level. Not only is it a waste of time, but it also makes students detached from a school where they feel like they're only getting busywork. It's good that these schools are focused on trying to help children who are struggling in certain areas. But they seem to be fine with providing poor service to the children who are ahead, which should be unacceptable. It isn't possible to meet every child at their level, but at least there should be some effort made to fit each child's needs. The attitude I see a lot of the time is "You're doing well, so shutup and sit there while we ignore you."
- scarby2 4y ago
  > But they seem to be fine with providing poor service to the children who are ahead, which should be unacceptable. This is one of the reasons I hated school, when you can read the book, understand the material and complete the work in 20 minutes and you have an hour allotted and then just have to sit there it makes you dread going in every day. This wasn't the case in every subject but when it came to maths and science it was just painful.
- scarmig 4y ago
  Also note that schools provide poor service to children who are behind. It's unfair to expect a teachers to provide good instruction to anyone in an 8th grade classroom where they have been tasked with instructing a group that includes students from a 6th grade level to a 9th grade level.
  - gnicholas 4y ago
    Our experience (in Menlo) has been that almost all of the teacher's small-group or 1-on-1 time is spent with kids who are behind. It is understandable to have a goal that is bringing up the lowest performers. But if a school is going to do that, they should not steadfastly refuse to let kids be tracked. Allowing tracking would let kids who are not behind actually grow to their capacity. As it is currently structured, the kids at the top are never challenged, and they may not even realize that so many of their peers are also talented and unchallenged. Teachers shouldn't have to teach a span of 3-4 grade levels. But in our district, the teachers and administration are the ones who are fighting hardest against tracking. It's not fair of them to fight tracking and then complain that teaching advanced kids would be too hard. It's only hard in the current system, where tracking (in our district) is not allowed.
agileAlligator 4y ago
> By definition, the aristocratic class was considered to be universally gifted Private tutoring probably had a large role to play in this perception https://erikhoel.substack.com/p/why-we-stopped-making-einsteins https://erikhoel.substack.com/p/why-we-stopped-making-einste...

scarmig 4y ago

Expanding slots isn't itself a solution, because ultimately you end up with gifted programs that are targeting people mildly above average. I've heard of some school districts in Virginia where 50% of students are in gifted programs. This waters down the curriculum so that people in the top 5-10% are no longer challenged and engaged. What we need is fine grained tracking and the ability to appropriately serve children at all levels. This includes, btw, people at the bottom of the distribution: if you're teaching material targeting people at the 50% percentile of preparedness, you're not serving the kids at 25% or 10% at all and are setting them up for failure.

quartesixte 4y ago

>solution is obviously to expand the number of slots, Exactly! And then perhaps as we continue to raise the bar and challenge our students and teachers to higher academic levels earlier, we’ll raise the bar on education everywhere and start catching up to our peer nations. The anti-intellectualism that pervades the entire spectrum of US political beliefs is astounding.

fragmede 4y ago
This is no less evident than in online discourse sitting the Internet agree. Users see fit to shame other users for learning and making use of the knowledge available to them. You're god damn right I read the shit out of Wikipedia to figure out the basics of whatever thing is on the news today.
- jrs235 4y ago
  People just want you to tell them the answer you're looking for. They don't want to think, research, or defend a position they choose or chose to take.
sidlls 4y ago
I went through grad school and taught in university in the US. My perspective is a bit different. I agree in many ways the US is behind. But in some regions outside the US there seems to be a strong emphasis on rote/mechanical memorization that provides the appearance of good education, but it falls far short when a person is tasked with actually demonstrating an understanding of the material. Me and my US taught peers (of whatever ethnicity) almost always performed better on exams where the problems were similar to but novel compared with the homework, while these rote/memorizing people almost always did better on exams where the problems were essentially lifted from the homework (perhaps with irrelevant changes, such as slightly different numbers or what have you). It was an incredible eye opener, as I had always assumed the US had a trash education system in general. It’s more nuanced than that.
- quartesixte 4y ago
  An interesting problem for sure, but perhaps a result of self-selection bias? You and your other US peers represent the very tip of academic achievement in the country and perhaps are either the result of great teachers and/or programs that fostered that independent thinking, or were naturally inclined to do so anyways and your academic predispositions led you to where you are today. But let’s face it. The average American school never gets that far. And public schools in the US (based on the miles of anecdata published on the internet) seem to enforce rote memorization anyways. Standardized testing, teaching to the test, “my way or highway” teachers. So not only are we doing the same as our peer nations, but doing it worse. And any attempt to do critical thinking type teaching (a la Finland) gets lost in a sea of terrible schools, incompetent teachers, mediocre curriculums, and an education system that fatalistically lowers rigor and standards in favor of not challenging students to do better. No this is not a funding problem. Schools in the US have some of the highest per-student funding in the world. And those are also paradoxically the worst performing ones.

bnralt 4y ago

At the very least schools should be trying to meet children at their level. I've seen children go an entire year without learning a thing in certain subjects, simply because the curriculum for that year is below their level. Not only is it a waste of time, but it also makes students detached from a school where they feel like they're only getting busywork. It's good that these schools are focused on trying to help children who are struggling in certain areas. But they seem to be fine with providing poor service to the children who are ahead, which should be unacceptable. It isn't possible to meet every child at their level, but at least there should be some effort made to fit each child's needs. The attitude I see a lot of the time is "You're doing well, so shutup and sit there while we ignore you."

scarby2 4y ago
> But they seem to be fine with providing poor service to the children who are ahead, which should be unacceptable. This is one of the reasons I hated school, when you can read the book, understand the material and complete the work in 20 minutes and you have an hour allotted and then just have to sit there it makes you dread going in every day. This wasn't the case in every subject but when it came to maths and science it was just painful.
scarmig 4y ago
Also note that schools provide poor service to children who are behind. It's unfair to expect a teachers to provide good instruction to anyone in an 8th grade classroom where they have been tasked with instructing a group that includes students from a 6th grade level to a 9th grade level.
- gnicholas 4y ago
  Our experience (in Menlo) has been that almost all of the teacher's small-group or 1-on-1 time is spent with kids who are behind. It is understandable to have a goal that is bringing up the lowest performers. But if a school is going to do that, they should not steadfastly refuse to let kids be tracked. Allowing tracking would let kids who are not behind actually grow to their capacity. As it is currently structured, the kids at the top are never challenged, and they may not even realize that so many of their peers are also talented and unchallenged. Teachers shouldn't have to teach a span of 3-4 grade levels. But in our district, the teachers and administration are the ones who are fighting hardest against tracking. It's not fair of them to fight tracking and then complain that teaching advanced kids would be too hard. It's only hard in the current system, where tracking (in our district) is not allowed.

agileAlligator 4y ago

> By definition, the aristocratic class was considered to be universally gifted Private tutoring probably had a large role to play in this perception https://erikhoel.substack.com/p/why-we-stopped-making-einsteins https://erikhoel.substack.com/p/why-we-stopped-making-einste...