4 ms·

I guess that was the other half of the story I forgot to include. Apparently kids in Finland don't resent reading and developing basic competency nearly as much

by lzimm 17y ago

I guess that was the other half of the story I forgot to include. Apparently kids in Finland don't resent reading and developing basic competency nearly as much as kids in North America do. As the norm, they read by choice instead of coercion. That said, I guess the major difference is that the thing that was holding the kids back there really was just an inability to click with the material instead of what could almost look like a straight aversion to learning, which is what I found with a lot of my peers. And in situations like that, where you're working with people to see how things can fit their existing mental frameworks, I think is where the peer tutoring can really help, not just because its more about helping things fall into place, but because it grows how you look at the problem at the same time. But regardless, its all hazy at this point. I just remember it being an interesting read: struck me as a nice parallel to cashflow normalization (getting the bulk of your revenue in november, december and january doesn't help much in making monthly interest payments unless you can smooth your earnings out to give you money to play with all year round, and thus take on higher debt to finance an even bigger revenue fall next season)

wtallis 17y ago
Peer tutoring can be great when the issue is a mismatch of learning styles, which is inevitably common when the student:teacher ratio is high. But that doesn't really have anything to do with gifted students. It works well for pretty much any population. On the other hand, peer tutoring is not a good way to make up for differences in raw intelligence, and asking a gifted student to help a student that really needs a remedial class is insulting to both students.
- Mz 17y ago
  It also creates serious social issues and I believe it is a root cause of a lot of the hostility that "gifted" people received generally from society. When a child, no matter how smart, is asked to take on a particular role (like teaching others in a hierarchical social system), they draw some general conclusions, like "If I have similar responsibilities as the adult teacher, I should have similar authority and power". This leads to the smart kid inevitably getting their chops busted for being "uppity" by the very teacher who gave them responsibility but then denies them authority or power and punishes them for presuming those things went together. However, the other students also draw the same conclusion as the gifted "peer tutor" and resent the perceived power of this child and also resent what they believe is "teacher's pet" status. So the peer tutor is getting hostility from all sides. Meanwhile, their own intellectual need for new information and new learning is being ignored and neglected. This is a great recipe for creating trouble, what with idle hands being the devil's workshop. Ultimate result: A tortuously bored student getting hostility from the teacher they are trying to help and also from the other students they are trying to help. Should this kid grow up into a "socially awkward geek", no one ever stops and wonders how much of a role negative social experiences played in making them that way. It just becomes one more reason to attack and criticize the smart folks.
  - wtallis 17y ago
    You've just given the most concise and accurate description of my fourth grade year I've ever heard. Unsurprisingly, leaving the public schools after sixth grade was the best thing to happen in the development of my social skills.
    - Mz 17y ago
      I pulled my sons out of public school and homeschooled them when they were in 3rd and 6th grades. My oldest son was an extremely poor fit for public school. I have sometimes said that I homeschooled to prevent "the next Columbine". (He was having fantasies of plowing through the school in a tank and his career-military father had keys to a military motor pool at the time.) For that and other reasons, I've had lots of opportunity to think about such things.
  - lzimm 17y ago
    I think that's (A) a larger cultural thing, and (B) an over-generalization. Is it really that hard to see how that can all be averted? Especially if you're in a society that, like I mentioned somewhere before, takes a much more willing approach to education?
    - Mz 17y ago
      I don't know enough about the culture you are speaking of to have any idea. But I know that's largely how it seems to work here. And, decades later, no matter how hard I work at the social stuff, I routinely run into crapola from other people who are just waiting to pounce on the chance to blame me (or some other bright person) for something going wrong in their life. If I share helpful tips at work, it gets interpreted as me "bragging" rather than trying to help. And I have repeatedly been in educational settings, both related to my job and in college settings, where the instructor was all too willing to hold me up as an "example" in the worst possible way for me personally and to blame me as the reason they couldn't curve the grade more. In one case, I quietly pulled my professor aside and asked her to not crow about me making 107 on the test while everyone is groaning about their own score as all it does it cause huge social backlash for me. On a later test, she threw out my score as an outlier when curving the grade. When the entire class pointed (accusingly) to me as obviously the person who got the 94 that she geared the test to, she and I were both able to say honestly "nope". In another instance (different class, different instructor), I was able to point out that two of the questions on the test either had never been covered in class or were unanswerable because of the way they were structured. Yet in both cases, the entire class was quick to be angry with or blaming towards me rather than the professor for how the grading system worked. Why? Because they have been told that since they were five years old: 'Don't blame me. I would love to curve the grade more but I can't because of Mr./Ms. Smartypants over there." So I think there are huge inherent problems in making students responsible for the outcomes of other students in the class while adults not only shirk their own responsibilities but scapegoat one of their students. On the other hand, I find that fostering an environment where everyone's contribution is genuinely valued and all individuals are genuinely treated with respect can help create a vigorous environment of open intellectual exchange that helps raise the bar for all involved, in part by setting aside pecking order, chest-beating and other ills of typical social interactions. Perhaps that is akin to what the classes in Finland are achieving. That is something I know works well for all members of a group, regardless of individual IQ, educational background, etc.

by lzimm 17y ago

wtallis 17y ago

Peer tutoring can be great when the issue is a mismatch of learning styles, which is inevitably common when the student:teacher ratio is high. But that doesn't really have anything to do with gifted students. It works well for pretty much any population. On the other hand, peer tutoring is not a good way to make up for differences in raw intelligence, and asking a gifted student to help a student that really needs a remedial class is insulting to both students.

Mz 17y ago
It also creates serious social issues and I believe it is a root cause of a lot of the hostility that "gifted" people received generally from society. When a child, no matter how smart, is asked to take on a particular role (like teaching others in a hierarchical social system), they draw some general conclusions, like "If I have similar responsibilities as the adult teacher, I should have similar authority and power". This leads to the smart kid inevitably getting their chops busted for being "uppity" by the very teacher who gave them responsibility but then denies them authority or power and punishes them for presuming those things went together. However, the other students also draw the same conclusion as the gifted "peer tutor" and resent the perceived power of this child and also resent what they believe is "teacher's pet" status. So the peer tutor is getting hostility from all sides. Meanwhile, their own intellectual need for new information and new learning is being ignored and neglected. This is a great recipe for creating trouble, what with idle hands being the devil's workshop. Ultimate result: A tortuously bored student getting hostility from the teacher they are trying to help and also from the other students they are trying to help. Should this kid grow up into a "socially awkward geek", no one ever stops and wonders how much of a role negative social experiences played in making them that way. It just becomes one more reason to attack and criticize the smart folks.
- wtallis 17y ago
  You've just given the most concise and accurate description of my fourth grade year I've ever heard. Unsurprisingly, leaving the public schools after sixth grade was the best thing to happen in the development of my social skills.
  - Mz 17y ago
    I pulled my sons out of public school and homeschooled them when they were in 3rd and 6th grades. My oldest son was an extremely poor fit for public school. I have sometimes said that I homeschooled to prevent "the next Columbine". (He was having fantasies of plowing through the school in a tank and his career-military father had keys to a military motor pool at the time.) For that and other reasons, I've had lots of opportunity to think about such things.
- lzimm 17y ago
  I think that's (A) a larger cultural thing, and (B) an over-generalization. Is it really that hard to see how that can all be averted? Especially if you're in a society that, like I mentioned somewhere before, takes a much more willing approach to education?
  - Mz 17y ago
    I don't know enough about the culture you are speaking of to have any idea. But I know that's largely how it seems to work here. And, decades later, no matter how hard I work at the social stuff, I routinely run into crapola from other people who are just waiting to pounce on the chance to blame me (or some other bright person) for something going wrong in their life. If I share helpful tips at work, it gets interpreted as me "bragging" rather than trying to help. And I have repeatedly been in educational settings, both related to my job and in college settings, where the instructor was all too willing to hold me up as an "example" in the worst possible way for me personally and to blame me as the reason they couldn't curve the grade more. In one case, I quietly pulled my professor aside and asked her to not crow about me making 107 on the test while everyone is groaning about their own score as all it does it cause huge social backlash for me. On a later test, she threw out my score as an outlier when curving the grade. When the entire class pointed (accusingly) to me as obviously the person who got the 94 that she geared the test to, she and I were both able to say honestly "nope". In another instance (different class, different instructor), I was able to point out that two of the questions on the test either had never been covered in class or were unanswerable because of the way they were structured. Yet in both cases, the entire class was quick to be angry with or blaming towards me rather than the professor for how the grading system worked. Why? Because they have been told that since they were five years old: 'Don't blame me. I would love to curve the grade more but I can't because of Mr./Ms. Smartypants over there." So I think there are huge inherent problems in making students responsible for the outcomes of other students in the class while adults not only shirk their own responsibilities but scapegoat one of their students. On the other hand, I find that fostering an environment where everyone's contribution is genuinely valued and all individuals are genuinely treated with respect can help create a vigorous environment of open intellectual exchange that helps raise the bar for all involved, in part by setting aside pecking order, chest-beating and other ills of typical social interactions. Perhaps that is akin to what the classes in Finland are achieving. That is something I know works well for all members of a group, regardless of individual IQ, educational background, etc.