On 26 Mar 2003 16:36:20 -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Herman Rubin) wrote: [snip, stuff from me and Art -- not a bit of which seems to lead to this commentary, except we were mentioning the 'old days'; unless Herman Snipped the wrong lines. ]
HR> > Was that educationally sound? But also back then bright > children skipped grades and many did not advance. The > educationists were right that most of those not advancing > were not getting any benefit from their attendance at > school, but their solution greatly reduced the benefit > for the others. > > It is core courses which got hit the most. These were > the courses where one does not just do memorization and > routine, but had to think. Now, most of them have become > memorization and routine. The important part of learning > is not being able to spout facts and plug into formulas, > but knowing what it means. Japan is famous for memorizing, and group recitation. The English are famous for insisting that students write. *I* think the U.S. falls in between, and Herman gives no data or information that says otherwise. RU > > >Most people really don't grasp how lousy *most* schools > >were in the U.S., for a *majority* of their pupils, in our history. > >The public el-hi schools that I went to were considered > >"pretty good" in their time and place, and, well, they were > >good enough to produce me. - But I do see big flaws, > >some of them quite "objective": for example, I saw several > >young teachers in their first years of teaching; and most > >courses did fail to finish their textbooks by the end of the year. HR> > You probably went to school after the decline was well > under way. For those who do not know, it started in the > elementary schools in the 30s, but WWII delayed it in the > high schools until after the war. Those returning GIs > who did not have the background for college kept it up > for a while. *I* think that the schools have been moderately bad for 50 years, and probably for 65 or 75 years. When bright women couldn't work at other jobs, there did come a time when the schools had a number of intelligent women as teachers -- who most often (since they had prejudices, and had never been taught to involve everyone) did a fine job teaching the 10% of the class who they liked, and a poor job with the 70% who would drop out before graduation. For 45 years or so, teaching has become more "professional", even while recruiting the least qualified of students enrolling in college. Before 75 years ago, schools were much worse. RU> > >I've been impressed for quite a while by that mysterious > >increase of average IQ of populations around the civilized > >world, which have gone up by a few points per decade since > >WW II or earlier. Schools might be doing something right? > HR> > It is hard to tell what this means, as IQ tests are being > continually renormed by the educational psychologists. > Most recent scales are produced by converting the scores > on the reference group to normal with mean 100 and standard > deviation 15. - okay, now I am embarrassed for Herman, who should surely know the basics about the Flynn effect, which (earlier than my post) John Kulig cited by name. When Herman says, "It is hard to tell ...", he has admitted to that fundamental ignorance. Yes, IQ scales are periodically re-normed. That is the STRONG, world-wide evidence for the Flynn effect -- the fact that researchers discovered that everyone around the world has to make the tests tougher, by a few points every decade, to keep the averages for normals at 100. Isn't this one the most intriguing findings of social sciences, in the last 50 years? - It has been an amusing confirmation for the folks (liberals, mainly) who stood for a long time with a claim whose support seemed (just) metaphysical, that I.Q. has to have a strong social or social class component. It does confirm that, whatever the explanation someday proves to be. [ snip, rest, about courses.] -- Rich Ulrich, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pitt.edu/~wpilib/index.html . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
