Sorry, should have put quotes around the "piss-poor". Mine was excellent also, but that was late 50s early 60s. As you noted, things have gone to poop in a scooper in fifty years.
Jim
-- "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." --Aristotle
Why don't you learn to put your automatic sig snip in the right place?
You seem to want to snip everything.
If we can't figure out what you're commenting about maybe we should just snip you ?:-)
...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
America: Land of the Free, Because of the Brave
I disagree with that. Note that I said "multiple choice". Teaching to the multiple choice test has removed what little real education was left.
I agree with this.
The problem with the "new math" is that the teachers don't understand math and thus can't really teach it. The "new math" was about introducing subjects like modulo earlier in the schooling. This is a good thing. Unfortunately neither the teachers nor most of the parents understood what it was all about.
I agree with you on this but not completely. Many people do read using th recognizing of whole words. There are some cute things around on the internet where every word in it is horridly misspelled but most people can read it without any trouble at all. Some hardly even notice that anything is wrong with the words. I have trouble reading at the best of times but was among those who hardly noticed.
I grew up with "sounding the words out" etc. Perhaps part of the reason I struggle is because of that. It is a very slow way to process a word.
Do you mean teaching kids that there are others who are different from them when you say "diversity"?
The idea of showing them how a real business works is to my view a good thing.
Those are bad. They are a classic axample where "free market forces" lead to a bad result.
Virtually everything we do involves computers today. This means that yes, the kids need to know about them.
The problem is not one of technology. It is a question of what is taught. Today the children are taught to do multiple choice tests. They are drilled on the answers to the questions on the test and learn by rote. All the time spent on this is wasted. They could have been learning something useful.
"Under existing requirements, Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles would be allowed to take more than two centuries to bring its graduation rate up to 82.9%, which is the current state standard, said Sen. Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento)."
[...]
"Crenshaw High had a 56.9% graduation rate in the 2005-06 school year, the last for which figures were available. L.A. Unified had a rate of
As a prank in Jr.HS I rolled a lighted Jetex tablet into a sandwich shop across the alley from the school... smoked the place out.
Principal, with the name of William Boyd no less... we called him "Hopalong", confiscated my stash, but returned them to me at the end of the day... admonishing me with, "Never bring 'em back" ;-)
...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
America: Land of the Free, Because of the Brave
That's a corruption, of and by, and from the teachers.
The idea of testing is to make sure kids have learned, as gaged by a representative sampling of the kids' knowledge.
"Teaching to the test" is gaming the system, trying to outwit, to bias the outcome, to subvert its purpose. It's cheating. The manipulators are to blame, not the tests.
People of integrity--like teachers once were and should be--don't do that.
This needs clarification. Traditionally young kids first learn the alphabet, learn letters' sounds, then parse words letter- by-letter, then learn pronunciation.
They learn this at an early age, when languages and certain skills come easily, for whatever brain-developmental reason.
Later, with experience, we recognize whole words.
The young gent I know was taught whole-word recognition right off. Consequently, he couldn't process new words he hadn't seen before. Even words he knew verbally mystified him in print: strange and new, undecipherable, like hieroglyphics.
It's taken him years of hard work to learn, later in life, how to painstakingly decode words by sounding them out. In college.
He covers the letters with his fingers, exposing one at a time, as if he never developed the fine motor skills needed to scan them visually.
It doesn't come easily; he still prefers a talking e-dictionary.
You could almost say he's functionally dyslexic, except he isn't dyslexic. He's a hard-working, smart, great guy. Normal. Proven, if nothing else, by his current mastery of the method he wasn't taught.
The genius' teaching fad that so equipped him? That method is no longer taught. Turns out...it doesn't work. Sigh.
When I was a kid, school punishment meant duplication at home :-(
Except for those situations where I finished fist fights I didn't start ;-)
...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
America: Land of the Free, Because of the Brave
It is also what the parents and the kids have said. As soon as the testing came in, everything that wasn't going to be on the multiple choice test went away.
Multiple choice testing only tests those things that can be done with multiple choice. It favors rote learning over understanding the method of the overall ideas.
You set up a system where peoples jobs and pay depend on the results on the test and then you expect them not to respond to the market forces you just created. The good teachers who don't game the system get a lower rating and leave the classroom for other jobs. Those who are best at gaming it stay and get promoted.
Teaching a low paying job that gets nearly no respect. We are getting the teacher we deserve.
Unfortunately for me, it didn't/doesn't work that what way for my brain. I learned to recognize whole words but only later could do it letter by letter. I think it was when I started always carrying a wallet in my right pocket that I was finally able to put the letters in the right order most of the time. Before that there was a problem with spacial symmetry. It is still true that if I look at what I've typed it always looks misspelled. Google groups underlines the words that are really misspelled so I can go look them up. So far I've looked up about 5 words while typing this.
I think he has a more serious problem than the education. It is way too late but he sounds like someone with a perceptual disability.
Dyslexic people are usually hard-working, smart etc. Dyslexic people have a problem with where the letters are. The reason your friend has to uncover the letters one by one is because he is compensating for a problem. His brain does not assign locations to the objects in his vision. He knows which letters are there but doesn't know the order. The finger is a mechanical way of forcing the issue on the order.
Wasn't Riordan on the school board before he got elected mayor? You would think that he would take some action to improve the schools. All I've ever heard about was some sort of dust up where he was taking money out of the school budget.
I live in the northern California and we seldom hear anything about the south unless they are trying to steal our water or something evil like that.
Punishment delayed and severe is way less effective than one that's milder, but swift and sure. Any delay between behavior and conditioning drastically reduces the conditioning's effect.
Louie had a rep and a rap sheet. He did not want to go to the office, again. He got a chance to straighten up and fly right and save himself. Which he did.
I think it was a great way to get maximum effect with minimum force, for Louie, before things got irretrievably out of hand.
Calmed the other kids a bit too !
When I was much younger, the teacher might threaten your knuckles with a ruler. That got our attention--she never had to use it.
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