At 18:39 20/05/2005 -0400, you wrote:
Keith, I knew that I was taking a real risk in posting what I did. I knew you were waiting out there somewhere waiting to nail me on it. But I was brave, willing to accept the risk!
Well done! Full marks for courage! I hope I didn't sound triumphalist previously. It wasn't meant to be, but I simply couldn't understand why a blinding light should have been shining out of Canada's schools but from nowhere else in the develoed world!
I agree that the human brain is not like a computer, waiting to be programmed. Kids vary greatly not only in their overall ability to be programmed, but in what they can be programmed for. Some have a great deal of diffiuculty in learning anything. Others, the most fortunate have the ability to learn just about anything equally well.
I've actually been modifying my views on intelligence lately, particularly since evidence is mounting on (a) the great loss of neurons in the rear cortex if not activated with a good informational environment in the earliest months and years of home-life, (b) the surprising discovery that a whole new crop of neurons grow in the frontal cortex between the ages of puberty and about 30.
What this now means to me is that the usual 'formula' that intelligence is 70% genetic and 30% environment is a pretty crude one. It is really a much more dynamic picture than this. I would say now that it's more like 10% genetic and 90% environment in the sense that most people (that is, 80-90%) are probably born with an adequate brain in the same way that they're born with an adequate body. However, as the brain of the new-born is cropped and modified up until puberty (when most IQ tests are taken) it is only then that the 70:30 formula is more nearly appropriate.
And the other fascinating view that is beginning to emerge from IQ-score results is that the high-end scores don't really start to emerge until after puberty. In other words, this seems to be environment again -- due to the peer group individuals belong to when they're withdrawing from their parents' control and guidance after puberty. And at the genius level of innovation and science it is very significant I think that the really big beakthroughs seem to occur not so much to isolated individuals but to small groups which seem to stoke up the abilities of its individual members. In particular I can think of the fantastic impetus that the Lunar Society in Birmingham, essentially consisting of no more than about five or six friends, gave to the industrial revolution in England.
But then there is something else at play, and for want of a better way of putting it, I'd call it skewed intelligence. Some kids are very good at sequential logic, like mathematics, but not at all good with things that requires imaginative thinking, like literature. My younger daughter, who was a very early speaker and reader, had a great deal of trouble with math because, as she put it "I can't imagine it in my head - I just don't see a picture of it". She's now at university, carefully avoiding things she can't see a picture of. My eldest son, having dropped out of high school in his early teens, even though tests showed he had an exceptional bent for mathematics, went to university on a mature matriculant program, took a calculus course, aced it, and continued on to get undergrad and graduate degrees in the sciences. My other two kids were, thank God, bright and normal - something a little disconcerting for my family.
Putting on a former hat of mine, when I'd started Jobs for Coventry Foundation in the early 80s to train unemployed school-leavers, I agreed with Coventry Council to take on board some training for young educationally sub-standard kids and we had one group of those (girls actually). We could only teach them the simplest manual skills but what I noticed was that when we paid them their weekly allowance they were very careful with their money. These girls couldn't do the simplest arithmetic but they certainly knew how to apportion their money! We would actually get a pile of coins as well as banknotes from the bank for paytime because some of the girls would immediately start dividing their allowance into different heaps -- something for their mother, something for their bus travel, something they could spend on themselves, etc. So part of their maths skills was very good indeed!
The problem with schools, public or private, is that they are expected to teach everybody approximately the same kind of thing - the bright ones and the dull ones, those that have a special logic or math bent or those who think by seeing pictures in the heads.
Ah, but the difference is, though (I'm speaking here of the private schools in Bath -- preparatory and secondary -- and we have several of them near where I live so I get to know what goes on) is that they have a much wider range of facilities available to them. There are woodwork workshops and after-hour hobby clubs and all sorts -- with teachers in attendance. Most of them have their own swimming pool. In the prep school I know quite well the children are as likely as not (it would seem to me) to be on the sports ground learning how to play cricket, rugger and netball as in the classroom. Nothing like that goes on in the state schools (particularly the secondary schools) where most of the teachers' energies go into simply keeping order in the classroom. Generally speaking the intelligence of the rich and the middle-class children who go to the private schools is probably only somewhat higher than the average when they start but the gap at the 11-year old stage is something like two years and the difference in the results at 16 is immense. (Almost all of our leading research scientists and engineers at university have come from the 7% of private schools.) Teachers at private schools don't get paid a great deal higher than state schools (in fact for many it's probably lower now -- and a very great deal lower at senior teacher level) but each school has a great deal of freedom in deciding how it runs. They have to meet a national curriculum, of course, and they're inspected by government inspectors in the usual way, but they teach a great deal more with a great deal more variability to suit individual children. Three or four of the private schools near here are teaching Chinese to some pupils who want it. I doubt whether there are more than two or three state schools out of several hundred in this country who are teaching it. (The education department would certainly be trumpeting this fact if it goes on.) And it can't be said that there is a shortage of Chinese teachers. There are as many as required in China and the private schools have no problem in recruiting them (at probably modest salaries).
They are expected to turn out a standardized product that meets the requirements of the working world. I suppose that's the way it is. It makes the role of parents and teachers who, like those who dragged my younger daughter through math by the scruff of her neck, difficult. But I guess we have to face up to it and carry on.
So, yes, I agree with you. But once again, I'm modifying my ideas about what would happen if education vouchers came on the scene (as they probably will do in this country). There won't be an immediate upsurge in quality. Only a proportion of really committed parents would take full advantage (that is, be extremely selective). The overall effect would take time -- at least two or three generations to work its way through so that there was a chance that all bright children would avoid being blunted in their earliest years. But even though this would be a long-term 'experiment '(if you like) it can't be more disastrous than what has actually happened to state education as a whole -- where. today, half our college-trained state school teachers can't pass simple maths tests that we (and the Victorian children) used to take with ease.
Anyway, today is the most imortant day of the whole year for us -- the Cup Final -- Arsenal versus Manchester United. There can be no more devotion to FW, and no greater privilege to you, than for me to be tapping away on this keyboard while there's only 10 minutes to go before kick-off. I must get away and get stuck in front of the box!
Keith
Ed_______________________________________________
- ----- Original Message -----
- From: Keith Hudson
- To: Ed Weick
- Cc: [email protected]
- Sent: Friday, May 20, 2005 2:56 PM
- Subject: Re: [Futurework] Fw: [ow-watch-l] Spelling it out -- Reportsays 42% of Canadians arefunctionally illiterate
- Ed,
- Join the club! Well .... about half-a-dozen times over the past few years you reassured me that there was nothing basically wrong with Canadian education. But the article you've sent paints quite a different picture. I never could quite understand how Canada could have retained a good education system when America, UK, Australia , German, France and several others were all dumbing down.
- I don't quite know what 42% "functionally illiterate" means. I guess it means much the same as 25% of the adult population can't find "plumber" in the Yellow Pages. I imagine all the largish developed countries are much the same.
- I've been going on for years now on FW list about the lamentable state of education but I've begun to change my concerns on the subject. I'm now moving towards the idea that, generally, we get the type of education that the economy needs. I remember when I worked in industry and when I was in the army I knew a lot of men who couldn't read and write but, by and large, it was no great hindrance. I'm beginnng to think that the nature of jobs in the economy shapes the education system by and large.
- When an economy changes, then the education system will change also -- at least in an attempt to suit. The big propblem, however, is that the human brain is not like a computer that can be reprogrammed. It's a process that takes at least 20 years, and that in turn depends on the home environment and the values of the parents which takes another 20-30 years to change and that depends on the standards of their education, etc. We're actually talking of a multi-generational adjustment -- at least two or three even in the case of parents and children of nominally average abilities.
- So I'm beginning to think now that my constant call for education vouchers is not the answer. Yes, it will greatly help a proportion of the parents who are committed to finding the best education for their children but cannot afford private education at present, but I rather think now that it won't help, let us say, 50% of the parents (in this country, for example) because they cannot fully appreciate the value of a good education. Or if they do they can only imagine it in a notional sense -- with the idea that education is somehow poured into children at school and the children really don't need to be motivated. They can only begin to pay serious attnetion when the economy and job structure actually forces their attention quite forcibly on it.
- And yet, in some undeveloped countries, the enthusiasm of both parents and children is so immense! Because circumstances are showing them the necessity. Look at China and India where, in some of the cities, fee-paying private schools and colleges are springing up even in the poorest districts.
- Keith
- At 13:34 20/05/2005 -0400, you wrote:
- Bad news from a list I'm on.
- Ed
- Spelling it out
- by Viewpoint: The Red Deer Advocate
- The Hamilton Spectator
- (May 19, 2005)
- In a country as developed as Canada, we take literacy for granted. We assume
- everyone can read a newspaper, pull some meaning from a chart and fill out a
- basic form, like an application for a driver's licence.
- Year after year, we are told that Canadian students graduating from our
- public schools rank among the world's best -- that we're in that top group
- where there are only slight differences left to rank our students on
- reading, science and mathematics.
- So it's kind of a shocker to see another report telling us that no less than
- 42 per cent of Canadians are functionally illiterate. Worse, they tell us
- this number has not changed in 20 years.
- The first reaction has to be disbelief. Who are these people saying this
- about us? Well, they're Statistics Canada and the Organization for Economic
- Co-operation and Development. Not exactly groups prone to exaggeration.
- Next, most people would ask for their definition of being literate. The test
- was given in 2003 to 20,000 Canadians, and their results were compared with
- similar samples of six other industrialized countries, including the U.S.
- and in Europe.
- The next obvious question is: Where did we rank? Canada came out in the
- middle of the pack, and just ahead of the United States. Norway came out on
- top. The testers define literacy as something more than basic reading and
- being able to sign your name. Most people would agree that's no longer good
- enough to function in our society.
- If this study is to be believed, many people in Canada cannot find the
- meaning of a story, compare values of different sets of numbers, or
- understand what's being asked when filling out a government form.
- The result so contradicts our sense of Canadian society that it's hard to
- speculate on what we should do with this information. Meanwhile Canadians
- are graduating from high schools not educated enough to exercise their full
- rights as citizens. And you wonder why people think they can get away with
- siphoning tax money into their own pockets.
- Some findings:
- 1. People with low literacy levels have a 26 per cent unemployment rate in a
- society where almost half of new jobs require at least 16 years of
- education. But less than 10 per cent of this group takes advantage of
- upgrading opportunities.
- 2. Children in poor families are most likely to lack literacy, dooming
- another generation to poverty.
- 3. >From a base salary of $30,000, income rises just under $2,500 a year for
- each additional year of education you take.
- 4. Almost three-quarters of 626 Canadian companies surveyed feel that they
- have a significant problem with functional literacy in some part of their
- organization. But only about 10 per cent of Canadians view literacy as a
- problem.
- It seems obvious that until someone comes up with a better alternative,
- responsibility lands on parents who must stay on their children's case to
- ensure that education stays valued within the family. Don't let your kids
- grow up in the 42 per cent group of this study. We say we are an advanced,
- technological society. Well we're not, if 42 per cent of us aren't included.
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