🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <265@gould.doc.ic.ac.uk>, mmh@ivax.doc.ic.ac.uk (Matthew Huntbach) writes:
> In article <49690@sun.uucp> livesey@sun.uucp (Jon Livesey) writes:
> >Does anyone have a reference showing that Japanese, either as a race
> >or as a culture "have a very bad problem with creativity?
> 
> The obvious reference is the setting up of the Fifth Generation research
> project which deliberately broke standard Japanese styles of management
> in order to encourage creativity.

	Let me see if I have it.     It's not creative to set up a new style
of management whose purpose is precisely to encourage creativity?    How
interesting.

 
> I can't, sitting at this terminal, think of any other reference though I'm
> pretty sure I remember reading it has been discussed quite widely in the
> Japanese press. I don't mean to be anti-Japanese in this as the lack of
> a certain sort of creativity (by which I mean perhaps a willingness to
> step outside conventions) is balanced by the qualities for which the 
> Japanese are renowned and which have led to their economic success.

	A couple of other articles (see <1238@petsd.UUCP>, for example)
have answered this better than I could.   I think it's quite clear that
you have decided that the Japanese style of concensus society is ipso
facto a sign of lack of creativity.    I think this is to mistake the
finger which points with the moon itself.

 
> In article <49691@sun.uucp> livesey@sun.uucp (Jon Livesey) writes:
> >	I can see nothing in the least sinister in having national tests
> >which are graded equally across the country.   The xSAT and xCAT tests in
> >the US work well enough to show that.   I think you have totally misunderstood
> >the function of books of previous tests.   The idea is not to subvert the
> >tests, but to allow everyone an equal opportunity to rehearse.
> 
> In Britain these are seen as a step towards the reimposition of a rigid
> selection system. The tests start at the age of 7. Is it right to label a
> kid of age 7 a failure simply because he or she came from a family where
> no-one much cared for education so s/he wasn't coached into the little
> tricks of passing tests, and didn't know what s/he was doing on the day of the
> test?

	The acute reader will notice the insidious way in which this
sentence slips from testing to "label a kid of age 7 a failure", as though
one were the inevitable result of the other.   The creative use of the 
passive voice is good, too "In Britain these are seen..." means "I personally
think....".

	If parents don't want to know how their children are doing, then they 
are fools.  If they consent to having their children 'condemned' to anything, 
then they are worse than fools.

 
> The danger is that schools will just teach to the tests, damaging the more
> creative aspects of education, and encouraging a dangerous uniformity
> (any social Darwinian ought to know the advantages of diversity! (I don't mean 
> by this to imply that Jon necessarily is a social Darwinian)).

	I am sure we are all aware that measuring academic progress leads 
inexorably to 'dangerous uniformity'.   After all, that's why we measure 
progress in Universities, to encourage uniformity, no?

	If I knew what a "social Darwinian" is, I would know if I was one,
but it sounds properly frightful, whatever it is.     Wasn't Hitler one,
or someone of that ilk?

 
> Of course, at some time tests of actual competence are required and it's
> tough if you fail because you haven't put the work in, whether it's your
> fault or not. But at the age of 7-11 I doubt these tests measure anything
> much more than the ability to pass tests.

	Perhaps that is why the actual proposal, which you appear to be
misrepresenting here, is for testing at ages  7, 11, 14, and 16.

				- // -

	I have to say that I think there is some pretty shoddy thinking here.
The actual proposal, if I can believe the N.Y.T., is for a national curriculum
and nationwide testing.    It does not propose packing the little ones off
down the coalmines if they flunk improper fractions.   It mainly makes schools
responsible for their performance, and allows parents, for the first time that
I know of, to have the information which allows them to figure out which schools
are actually teaching something, and which are not.    In Matthew's hands,
this gets dressed up in a variety of emotional language.   We have 'rigid'
testing, 'reimposition', 'condemning' kids to 'failure', 'damaging', 'social
Darwinian' and so on.    But then, when I ask for some evidence to back all
this fluff up, there is none.   Sorry, but I am not impressed. 


jon.