[ale] unusual global warming experiment

[JK]

On 2/11/2010 1:45 PM, Preston Boyington wrote:
> Neal Rhodes wrote:

> imagine my surprise when, upon starting public school (kindergarten), my
> wife and I were promptly chastised because our daughter could read, knew
> her alphabet, colors, had an early basis for general math, could
> distinguish money and give simple change, etc.  she was then
> continuously given very poor marks because of 'talking in class' and
> otherwise being 'disruptive'.
>
> we later found that this was because she finished her work and was
> trying to help fellow students.


The public school system does serve gifted students rather poorly,
IMO.  There seem to be many reasons for this, but the "strong
standardized testing" regime -- AKA "follow these recipes and achieve
these numbers or kiss your Federal funding goodbye" -- is definitely
a factor.  I'm close to a number of teachers in the TX schools, and
to a few people who study the education system academically, and
they are unanimous in deploring NCLB and the state initiatives it
spawned.  The teachers are essentially powerless.  My daughter's
elementary school had low math scores on a NCLB-driven *practice*
test, and in response, the school administration imposed six weeks
of math-only instruction.  Literally every other class except PE
was converted to a math class during that time, and they "taught to
the test" -- they covered only material that was known to be on
the state standardized test.  If that's not a recipe for producing
kids who hate learning, I don't know what is.

My daughter spent three years in Montessori schools, and she thrived
there.  It's typical to have an age range of 4-5 years in a single
classroom, and it's *expected* that more-accomplished kids (regardless
of age) will assist less-accomplished ones.  This is such a good
thing, and I wish the public schools would do as good a job of
leveraging that helpful and nurturing impulse in kids.  I know there
are a very few public Montessori (and other alternative method-based)
schools, but it deserves to be a lot more common.


> in an effort to curb mounting frustration it was decided that she and
> another girl would go sit in with the 1st graders for the reading and
> writing parts of their school day.  after their first day in the class,
> the 1st graders came to their teacher and said they wanted to work
> harder on their reading so 'those little kindergarteners wouldn't beat
> them any more'.  the 1st grade teacher was floored at the immediate
> about-face of her students and all of them started to actually care
> about what they were doing.
>
> when questioned as to why this wasn't common practice (letting a child
> take more difficult course), we were told that it was because of 'No
> Child Left Behind'.  soon after we found a better program to enroll her
> into.
>
> so it seems in this case that:
> Student Competition = 1
> No Child Left Behind = 0


And it was competition that the kids chose, that made sense to them;
not bogus stuff imposed on them.  That seems significant.

A really good SF novel that addresses some of these questions is
John Barnes's "Orbital Resonance".

-- JK


-- 
We Americans are a freedom-loving people, and nothing says "freedom"
like Getting Away With It. -- Guy Forsyth, "Long Long Time"