🚀 go-pugleaf

Just a few responses to Richard's posting.

On Sun, 26 Feb 1995, Richard L Taylor wrote:

> On Sun, 26 Feb 1995, Donald E. Simanek wrote
>
> > We all know what's 'wrong'. The kids are intellectually lazy.
>
> I think this is garbage.

Since you selected out only this line from my message, I assume that's the
line you characterize as garbage (though you may well have considered the
rest of the posting equally worthless.) I am glad to see that *your*
school's students are not intellectually lazy. You must teach at Lake
Wobegon where all the students are above average. :-) Look around you.
What percent of adults are intellectually lazy? I'll admit I was as
intellectually lazy as teachers allowed me to be, as were all the other
students at my school.

> My kids work hard, and they know more than I
> knew when I was in high school (and I knew more than most.)

Again, you are fortunate to have such marvelous students. I hope their
intellectual achievements match their hard work.

> They are
> better adjusted socially, and they are academically better prepared.

Then why do we who teach at universities and colleges find that most of
those who come to us as freshmen woefully unprepared? Why does one
frequently hear discussions of "How can we get the high schools to do
their job so we won't have to teach remedial courses with college credit?"
I know, part of the problem is our admissions standards. Part of the
problem is that a greater percent of the college-age population goes to
college now than in the past. But we have freshmen who overconfidently
tell us they had analytic functions, linear algebra, and calculus in high
school, yet can't *do* anything requiring those skills. They have had
physics, but ask them to state Newton's third law, and the brightly say
"Action equals reaction" as if that meant anything. (Then ask them what
action and reaction *mean*, or ask them to do a problem requiring use of
this law, and their confidence disappears). The point is they have
memorized a lot of these slogans (to regurgitate on the exams), but can't
*think* or *apply* them properly to new situations.

> What is different is that there is now a much wider range of kids.

In what way a 'wider range'? In the 50s when I was in high school, all
kids of high school age were in high school. They represented the widest
range of backgrounds our community had to offer. The same was true of
other communities--most everyone of high school age went to high school,
though some didn't get high school diplomas. So what is this 'wider
range'? Range of what? I doubt that the range of abilities and
innate intelligence (whatever that might mean) has changed.

> In my
> high school of 2000 students there were two physics classes. In our
> school of 1500 we have ten physics classes. To look at those 200+ kids
> and say they are stupid and lazy because they don't all perform like the
> 35 best kids in school 30 years ago is short sighted and dishonest.

I didn't hear anyone call them stupid; certainly I didn't. Nor are they
lazy in all respects. I singled out 'intellectually lazy'. Lacking in the
ability or desire to find out about intellectual matters, to sweat the
difficult details to achieve understanding, to continually put that
understanding to the test of new situations, etc. And that hasn't changed
over the years I've observed, and probably hasn't changed over the entire
history of mankind. People are now just about as clever, hard-working,
capable and motivated as they ever were, in all countries and cultures.
One thing which has changed: the time spent on extracurricular and
non-academic activities. In my school we did not have driver education,
sex education, drug education, and no credit was given for sports or music
activities. We didn't have as many tempting distractions as kids do today.
And there weren't as many opportunities to get into trouble.

Today, teachers and schools are expected to address all of society's
problems, to take over where parents are negligent, to provide sports and
entertainment for the community, to pander to community prejudices and
political pressures (especially in small communities). It's no wonder
there's so little time for academics!

Your school is far richer in opportunities for students than some of the
smaller rural schools in my part of Pennsylvania. Ten physics classes!
Wow!

I was one of the 35 best in my school in Iowa 35 years ago! :-) My
graduating class had 20 people (two didn't get diplomas). We had *one*
physics class, *no* electives, *no* biology, *no* chemistry, *no* math
above algebra, *no* foreign languages. A very rich academic environment!
Everything was second-rate except the mathematics teacher, who insisted we
*really* learn math. Two of us went to university, and got advanced
degrees, mine in physics, the other in mathematics. I mention this to
address your comment about 'yearning for the way it used to be'. I
wouldn't yearn for a return to schools such as this.

> Yearning for the way it used to be means wanting a great portion of the
> population to be illiterate, and only for the few elite to be in our
> physics classes. Don't sell our kids short.

A great portion of the population is still illiterate, in spite of
education. Only now some of the illiterates have high school diplomas.

Again, in my small school, and small class of 20, *everyone* took physics.
Why? Because the previous superintendent had work in physics, and it was
his favorite course. (And, as I said, there were no electives.)
Unfortunately *we* got physics taught by the new superintendent who didn't
know diddly about physics. I spent so much time seeking out correct
information from a large city public library--our high school library being a
closet of outdated, donated books) that I learned more physics than if he
had been competent. The things you learn on your own effort are the ones
you learn best. No restricting of physics 'to the elite' at our school.

No, do not think that I want to turn back the clock in education. However
I do see real problems with grade inflation. When 10 or 20% of the
graduating class at some schools have straight A grades, I do not for a
minute think that's due to large numbers of student's having high academic
abilities, doing hard academic work, and having serious commitment to
understanding. (Last summer I attended graduation ceremonies at two such
schools. In one case the seniors took a vote to decide who would be
valedictorian. In the other, they drew lots. Grades have become
meaningless at such schools.)

When I see students with such high grades coming into college with huge
areas of misinformation, and incorrect understanding, I see that there's
some problem which needs to be addressed. This grade inflation is a fairly
recent phenomenon, having kicked in about the time of the Vietnam War.
(Colleges and Universities were guilty, too.) And institutional forces put
roadblocks in the way of doing anything about it. What school would dare
enact stiffer grading standards when others do not? What teacher would
dare, when his or her colleagues do not? So grades have become, and
remain, largely meaningless.

And the current fad of cooperative learning will make grades less
meaningful as measures of *individual* achievement and ability. I suspect
there are those who will soon be clamoring for the elimination of grades
entirely. Will the quality of education, and overall student achievement be
better if we do? Ha!

The other problem I see is how non-academic activities have crowded out
academic ones, not only in the time spent on them, but in the importance
attached to them. We have blurred the meaning of 'academic'. It used to
mean 'of the mind'. It now means 'anything done in a school'. We have
blurred the distinction between education and training also. I'm reminded
of the cartoon about the guy with the trained octopus. A curious spectator
gets a demonstration--the octopus counts to three. "That's not very
impressive," the spectator says. "I said he was trained, not smart", the
octopus handler replies.

The only encouraging thing I can see is the fact that the very brightest
and most capable students will survive, and achieve education *in spite
of* the educational system, or the current educational fads. This has been
so throughout history, and is reflected in the line from Gibbons which
Richard Feynman liked to quote: "Education is seldom of much efficacy
except in those happy circumstances where it is superfluous." One of my
university physics profs translated this language to read: "The bright
students don't need formal education, the others don't benefit much from it."

        -- Donald