Re: Dumbing Down Ed (Was:Re: Racial Differences in Intelligence)
From: P.Comm (tjsrno_at_spampost.com)
Date: 01/27/05
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Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 09:35:14 GMT
"Wolf Kirchmeir" <wwolfkir@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:rSOJd.3354$Yg6.894872@news20.bellglobal.com...
> P.Comm wrote:
>> "Wolf Kirchmeir" <wwolfkir@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
> [snip a conbfession of, um, malfeasnace. Tsk tsk!]
>
>>>Like I said, the guy [in To Build a Fire] had no imagination. Imagine
>>>building a fire under a snow-laden branch! Didn't he look around
>>>first???.
>>
>> LOL.
>>
>>>>We never had multiple choice questions.
>
> What state?
NJ.
In most states, multiple choice questions were SOP by the
> mid 50s. BTW, read some Reader's Digest articles on education and schools
> from the late 50s/early 60s. They are all in fvaor fo the things the
> public-ed foes detsets: child centere d learning, whole language, etc. RD
> is always a good indicator of current middle-classs thinking, which cycles
> through the same themes every generation or so.
>
>> The whole reaction to the dumbed down education has come up with the
>> issue over vouchers and home-education. Parents took a peak at textbooks
>> from the 50s era and well, freaked out that kids that young were learning
>> that stuff. Compared to what their kids are learning now? There is a lot
>> of outrage over it.
>
> People forget that a lot of kids failed back then: middle school was
> intended to weed out the non-academics, and did a very good job of it,
> too.
Yes, because the school work was a lot, LOT harder. That is what happens
with merit system. Imo, today, a college grad is the equivalent of a HS
grad back then.
When I graduated from HS (about 10 years before you) 70-80% of kids
> didn't. In fact, when I started teaching hjgh school, school-leaving age
> was 14 - and over half of the grade 8s did not go on to high school. Of
> those that did, about 1/2 quit at age 16/grade 10 - which was entry level
> for jobs in the bank, apprenticeships, etc. Of those that did graduate,
> roughly 60% _started_ postsecondary, and less than half of those finished.
But the ones that did finish were excellent at what they did.
There were also a lot of jobs for people with limited
> skills - eg, there were still "office boys" back then! And far more gas
> pumps proportionate to population than there are now, and no easy-swipe
> pay-at-the-pump etc.
There are still a lot of jobs like that now - 14 million illegal aliens take
them - so the jobs are HERE.
In general, required entry-level skills have
> increased enormously since then, as have required skill levels generally.
> The ramping up of skill levels started before then, of course, but people
> didn;t realise it was happening until it was well under way. A US Dept of
> Labour survey of required job skills, done in the late 70s/early 80s IIRC
> using a sample of 400 job-descriptions on file at the Dept, found that in
> 80% of the sample workers had to read and/or write at least 2 hours of
> every work shift. And most of the job-classifications were labelled
> "skilled labour."
>
> BTW, a few years after I started teaching HS, school-leaving age was
> raised to 16. There is now talk about raising it to 18.
>
> The dumbing down of HS education happened for many reasons. One is that
> there were more and more kids who couldn't do the academic stuff to the
> level required, and those that could wanted to get to job-training, er, I
> mean "higher education", as fast as possible. So even for the potential
> high achievers, much was cut out. (I still mourn for Latin.) Another
> resason: the parents' insistence that their kid had some right to a HS
> diploma - after all, they paid school tax, didn't they? And I'm sorry to
> have to tell you that the parents who complain about the dumbing down of
> education are also likely believe that their average kid is a genius.
I know that. Well, catering in to emotions is not a good idea. I would NOT
want to go to a doctor that didn't know what the hell he was doing - and I
have run into quite a few of those here in FL. In NJ not the case.
>
> In addition, a much higher percentage of people now go to college; not to
> get an education, but to get a certificate that they are qualified to do
> some relatively complex job.
>
> [...]
>>
>>>But this question doesn't bug me.
>>
>>
>> OK, but would you take it on without a calculator able to handle BIG BIG
>> numbers?
>
> No. :-)
>
>> Terry had quite a few "strange things" about numbers too, but I can't
>> find the original emails (probably in my old computer). He has websites
>> too - but I can't seem to find the one with the cute strange numbers on
>> it :)
>
> I like reading about number theory, but not doing it.
HA! Too bad you can't remember that trick with large numbers!
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