Posted on 09/13/2005 9:04:51 AM PDT by ZGuy
During my first semester of teaching, many years ago, I was surprised to encounter the philosophy that the brightest students did not need much help from the teacher because "they can get it anyway" and that my efforts should be directed toward the slower or low-performing students.
This advice came from my department chairman, who said that if the brighter or more serious students "get restless" while I was directing my efforts toward the slower students, then I should "give them some extra work to do to keep them quiet."
I didn't believe that the real difference between the A students and the C students was in inborn intelligence, but thought it was usually due to differences in attitudes and priorities. In any event, my reply was that what the chairman proposed "would be treating those who came here for an education as a special problem!"
A few days later, I handed in my resignation. It turned out to be only the first in a series of my resignations from academic institutions over the years.
Unfortunately, the idea of treating the brighter or more serious students as a problem to be dealt with by keeping them busy is not uncommon, and is absolutely pervasive in the public schools. One fashionable solution for such "problem" students is to assign them to help the less able or less conscientious students who are having trouble keeping up.
In other words, make them unpaid teacher's aides!
High potential will remain only potential unless it is developed. But the very thought that high potential should be developed more fully never seems to occur to many of our educators -- and some are absolutely hostile to the idea.
It violates their notions of equality or "social justice" and it threatens the "self-esteem" of other students. As a result, too often a student with the potential to become a future scientist, inventor, or a discoverer of a cure for cancer will instead have his time tied up doing busy work for the teacher.
Even so-called "gifted and talented" programs often turn out to be simply a bigger load of the same level of work that other students are doing -- keeping the brighter students busy in a separate room.
My old department chairman's notion that the better students "can pretty much get it without our help" assumes that there is some "it" -- some minimum competence -- which is all that matters.
People like this would apparently be satisfied if Einstein had remained a competent clerk in the Swiss patent office and if Jonas Salk, instead of discovering a cure for polio, had spent his career puttering around in a laboratory and turning out an occasional research paper of moderate interest to his academic colleagues.
If developing the high potential of some students wounds the "self-esteem" of other students, one obvious answer is for them to go their separate ways in different classrooms or different schools.
There was a time when students of different ability levels or performance levels were routinely assigned to different classes in the same grade or to different schools -- and no one else collapsed like a house of cards because of wounded self-esteem.
Let's face it: Most of the teachers in our public schools do not have what it takes to develop high intellectual potential in students. They cannot give students what they don't have themselves.
Test scores going back more than half a century have repeatedly shown people who are studying to be teachers to be at or near the bottom among college students studying in various fields. It is amazing how often this plain reality gets ignored in discussions of what to do about our public schools.
Lack of competence is only part of the problem. Too often there is not only a lack of appreciation of outstanding intellectual development but a hostility towards it by teachers who are preoccupied with the "self-esteem" of mediocre students, who may remind them of what they were once like as students.
Per the College Board, here are SAT scores sorted by "Intended College Major" for 2004:
Mathematics 1162
Physical Sciences 1151
Language and Literature 1150
Foreign or Classical Languages 1115
Philosophy, Religion, or Theology 1099
Engineering 1098
Biological Sciences 1096
Library and Archival Sciences 1082
General or Interdisciplinary 1080
Social Sciences and History 1049
Undecided 1040
Computer or Information Sciences 1036
Military Sciences 1036
Communications 1030
Arts: Visual and Performing 1018
Business and Commerce 995
Architecture or Environmental Design 989
Health and Allied Services 982
Agriculture or Natural Resources 967
Education 965
Public Affairs and Services 923
Home Economics 921
Technical and Vocational 896
As might be expected, the order just looking at math SATs is a bit different:
Mathematics 621
Physical Sciences 587
Engineering 573
Biological Sciences 552
Language and Literature 547
Foreign or Classical Languages 545
Philosophy, Religion, or Theology 539
General or Interdisciplinary 533
Computer or Information Sciences 532
Undecided 526
Military Sciences 520
Social Sciences and History 515
Library and Archival Sciences 515
Architecture or Environmental Design 510
Business and Commerce 509
Communications 505
Arts: Visual and Performing 501
Health and Allied Services 495
Agriculture or Natural Resources 483
Education 482
Home Economics 461
Public Affairs and Services 459
Technical and Vocational 453
I remember being in elementary school and getting really bored during class. So I do the assignments in class while the teacher was 'teaching' the other students. When I ran out of assignments, I would then work ahead. I especially liked to do the math. (We had workbooks with our assigment back then.)
Well at a parent-teach-student meeting, I was asked/demanded not to work ahead because I should be paying attention in class. Nevermind the fact I was correctly answering questions on materials the teacher had't covered.
Not saying I was any brighter than anyone else; I'm surely not. Just that stuff like 2+2 is too easy for second grade.
I can't imagine what retarded standards schools go by these days. Thank goodness my kids have a decent school.
Oh, my! Run-don't-walk to your library or bookstore and start getting Thomas Sowell's books. He is America's greatest living intellectual.
Standards? STANDARDS!?!
Check out Pacemaker Algebra being used in California schools. Mind you, this is Algebra for 8th & 9th grade.
The Pacemaker. Algebra 1, Second Edition
Following the success of Pre-Algebra, The Pacemaker. Curriculum is proud to present Algebra I. Providing the essential concepts and skills of a first-year algebra course, Algebra I meets the needs of all students, facing the new rigorous algebra demands. The text is written at a 3RD TO 4TH GRADE READING LEVEL and is correlated to the NCTM standards.
http://plgcatalog.pearson.com/program_multiple.cfm?site_id=15&discipline_id=0&subarea_id=0&program_id=2
"The whole education system needs to be reformed to allow brighter students to advance faster. I believe that there's at least 20% of the people who graduate high school at age 18 would have been mentally capable to get through at age 16. An idle mind is the devil's workshop.
I went through my k-12 education hardly having to study or pay much attention in class and I still ended up with a 3.8/4.0 GPA in high school taking the toughest college prep courses offered. College started out tough for me because I never actually had to try at school before then."
describes my school career pretty well, had a number of teachers who would complain about my sleeping or reading books in class, and by the middle of the year were admitting to my parents that i'm obviously well ahead of my peers and bored by the slow pace of the class. one teacher went so far as to put a comment on my report card "capable of doing better.. this coming when i had 115 points (out of 100). he was complaining becasue there was still another 15 points of extra credit he thought i could have done.
i had the credits to graduate a year early, decided not to because my parents wouldn't let me goto the college i wanted until i was 18.
moving to college was no better. altho i was waived out of a number of my gen ed requirements, they made me take low level music theory classes (music major) most of which i had covered by the time i was ten. music was the only class in HS i truly applied myself to, and had a special class with the band teacher so he could specifically work with me to advance me to where he thought i could be. i made it thru 4 years of work in 1 year with him.
my advice to smarter kids who are bored with HS.. drop out at 16, take an equivalancey test and go straight to college.
I tend to agree with you based on your observations but I think it's a chicken and egg situation. Over time, parents lost interest in kids who then lost interest in school. From that, good teachers lost interest in teaching so the entire system is in decline and "teaching" has changed.
Could you recomend a good one to start with?
"Basic Economics" is an excellent, easily-read introduction to his economic approach.
"A Personal Odyssey" is a memoir which came out about 10 years ago; it brings out a challenging and contentious character that (in my opinion) doesn't always come through strongly in his commentary.
His latest is a collection of essays, "Black Rednecks and White Liberals," or something to that effect, which I haven't read yet. Other FReepers say it's good. I should check my library catalog again!
"Knowledge and Decisions" took me three months, but it was worth it.
Harrison Bergeron High School.
bttt
Stop stuttering
LOL
Dr. Sowell has cited elsewhere where education majors are the only major that has a lower average academic level among graduates than among incoming freshmen.
How sad is it that "Undecided" runs near the middle of the pack?
Most good teachers are driven out not by the kids, but by the colleges, and for those that get past that, by the administrations. A LOT of it is the union, and there being little test of whether one is actually doing a good job at teaching - only whether you are making various people "happy"..
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Public school is not designed to educate the very bright ones, but to produce machine parts for industry.
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Horse poop. What company wants defective parts? Government schools exist to indoctrinate future demoRAT voters.
Sorry, I got interrupted in the middle of posting and hit the "Post" button too many times when I came back.
Mea culpa but you already knew that.
Red-faced cheers!
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