Slashdot Mirror
College Students Lack Literacy
Frr writes to tell us that CNN has a rather disturbing confirmation of what many of us have already seen in practice. In a recent literacy study it was found that "more than half of students at four-year colleges -- and at least 75 percent at two-year colleges -- lack the literacy to handle complex, real-life tasks such as understanding credit card offers." The literacy study took a look at three different type of literacy: analyzing news stories and other prose, understanding documents, and having basic math skills needed for checkbooks or restaurant tips.
Credit card offers are considered a complex task? What kind of world is this turning into?
My college studys lacked lottery traning, and so farr, I havent one teh lottery yet.
Formal contracts & documents should be written in Internet slang. "If you fail to pay your credit card debt we will take your car lol"
LINUX ONLINE POKER: Linux Poker
I should have went to a US college. I probably could have graduated there.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
I, for one, am not surprised. I never read __less__ books in my life than when I was in college. I was much too busy trying to get the course busy-work done to do any reading, or much learning for that matter.
Oh, wait, you mean that by including all this concern for non-academic characteristics like sports, diversity (of background, not ideas), and the ilk our schools have lost the ability to test for the right skills?
I'm sure this thread will fill essentially instantly with anecdotal stories about how dumb everyone was at our colleges. Yes, great, whatever.
Frankly, I wish everyone could have seen the great 20/20 special on our school system last Friday. We're crippling our ability to compete internationally by focusing on the wrong things: we don't want kids to feel bad, so we've got helicopter parents; teachers don't want to worry about getting fired, so we've got horrible teachers' unions; we aren't willing to let some kids occasionally lose-out because a public school failed to compete with other nearby schools, so we don't have vouchers like most of the European nations; etc.
Now, someone will come complain about how vouchers are bad for schools (despite universally benefiting the quality of schools in Europe), how unions protect teachers (despite the fantastic proof of how bad such unions were by 20/20, including a 10 page diagram from the Unions showing how difficult it is to fire someone), etc.
"Stumble before you crawl"
So my boss was passing this article around a few days ago to make fun of one of our new hires. The new guy pointed out that all colleges are not equal. Strangely the study doesn't mention what schools were part of this survey. Does anyone know?
15-20 years ago a guy working on his PhD told me that that getting a PhD had become like getting a MA or MS had been a generation earlier, getting a MA/MS like getting a BA/BS had been, getting a BA/BS like graduating from high school had been, and so on down the chain.
I've always been tempted to dismiss that as just a "back in my day" story about walking to school in a snowstorm, but it's hard to dismiss certain facts. For example, Robert Graves tells us in his biography that when he an ~8 year old, about 100 years ago, he was "doing ok with Latin, but having trouble with Greek".
And now people are having trouble with their own native language when they graduate from college...
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I mean, like read a -book- (that's not required for a course)?
I found that a great many folks (students, and in general) simply don't read anything that's outside of e/mail. That just means that, for the most part, they're -way- less `literate' than folks who do read books (for entertainment value).
And yes, `useless' novels do increase your literacy.
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
In one of the classes I teach, I had to explain to a student what the word "abundant" meant. Even her Mexican lab partner was rolling her eyes.
Here's another gem:
"The geology of Mesa, Arizona is significant because my family has lived there for several generations"
___Fewer___ books, dammit.
The bad news is that its not just college students. By the time that a student graduates high school, they should be able to do the things being tested here, never mind college. If all college is going to teach you is to function as well as someone with an 8th grade education 100 years ago, we have a really *REALLY* bad problem.
People, in general, are lazy, and learning to communicate is not a high priority for many. Learning to do many things is not a priority and until it is, they will not learn it. In all probability, some of those who can't make sense of credit card offers do know all the tricks for a dozen video games. I'm not saying that gamers are dumb, but that this demonstrates they are not stupid, just lazy.
The school system that my tax dollars help pay for should not cater to lazy students. They should be made to work hard, and learn as much as they can. So, with some trepidation that I've not considered every angle, I blame the school system(s) for the quality of graduates they produce. Yes, I believe that if a kid doesn't want to learn, let them languish behind the grill at a burger joint for a few years to get inspired to go back and learn something.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Try being in a resturant during a power-outage or the ordering computer is down, and there's no calculator in the building. That's when you see the resturant staff really struggling trying to figure out the bill and then making change. As my Dad keeps telling me, the fine art of making change without a computer telling what the change is disappeared a long time ago.
> Patience... Not Literacy... It takes too much time to read the fine print on those damn offers...
And it may be the case that sometimes companies don't want you to understand an offer very well.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
but then, the purpose of educational theories since 1900 has not been to create a responsible independant thinking citizen. It has been to create whatever citizen was desirable at the time, be it a willing worker, or a willing consumer. The end result is that we are now reaching the end of the rope.
Teaching professionals advocate throwing Money at the problem, sort of like in the IBM commercials. When the problem is as ineffective technique. But the teachers are illiterate as well. No wonder some people throw their hands up and go for home schooling, or other solutions.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Why is this supposed to be a test of literacy? It sounds more like they don't have much 'common sense', which is surely a good sign in an academic ;)
Note that this research comes from the Pew Charitable Trust, the same institution which told us that the gender gap is alive and well online, claiming that women use the Internet for socialising and that men use it for hunting down information. They are certainly making a lot of bold statements and getting themselves in the news.
Phoenix, Boston, Little Rock, see a pattern?
My wife is a graduate student at one of the local state schools here in Texas. And she tells me stories about students she has had that don't know how to use a ruler. A freaking ruler for crying out loud, I learned ruler 101 in 1st grade, after I stopped having to write with the giant pencils.
If you've gotten a credit card offer recently, there's a medium-sized standard box they include on the black-and-white legalese page which tells you the real (not introductory) interest rate, for instance.
Despite this, some people will briefly glance at the color glossy flyer, see "ZERO PERCENT (introductory) INTEREST!" and be shocked, yes, shocked, when the rates hop to twenty-seven percent or something ridiculous like that.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
The pressure to get people's money and get graduates out the door really means that any college that causes someone to drop out looses thus money.
So ofcourse they try to make everyone pass.. nevermind the things they are supposed to be teaching.
I'm reading this and thinking about the earlier story about humans being hardwired for geometry.
Maybe the Egyptians were onto something with hieroglyphics - we should have anything that looks remotely complex traslated into a series of small pictures and icons, or maybe even comics. Imagine that; a loan agreement graphic novel.
And as I type that, I'm looking at the giant icons Slashdot uses for its stories and thinking "hmmm... stick one of those at the top of each printed newspaper story and everyone'll figure out what it's about". For chequebooks and tips, well if you can't do that you either fail sociably or get stung badly. Maths, the choice is yours... probably.
No one ever ends a rant on education with IANATeacher. Why is that?
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
To be fair, I think that quite a bit of that came from a certain physics professor that I had. He was the head of the department, and I ended up getting him for about 8 of the physics classes that I took. He expected you to understand every nuance of what you had studied, and to understand it *completely*. Often he would ask questions that were seemingly impossible to solve, but if you looked at what he gave you and gave it enough thought, you would find that in every case he had given you everything you needed to know - even if it wasn't obvious that he had.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
"Baby on board" sticker prominently displayed (wtf are they *for*, anyway?)
I don't know about most people, but I intentionally ram cars that don't have babies in them.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I wonder if adults, tested to the same criteria as the posted article, would fare any better. Every generation has morons.
I couldn't find it eaisly on google, but I remember a recent article about college law professors reading standard credit card offers/agreements. They all came up with different interpretations from the agreements.
That's pretty sad when legal experts can't even agree on what they say.
BBC News reports teenagers value the role of science in society, but feel scientists are "brainy people not like them." This was according to The Science Learning Centre's research in London that asked 11,000 pupils for their views on science and scientists.
Around 70% of the 11-15 year olds questioned said they did not picture scientists as "normal young and attractive men and women". The research examined why numbers of science exam entries are declining. They found around 80% of pupils thought scientists did "very important work" and 70% thought they worked "creatively and imaginatively". Only 40% said they agreed that scientists did "boring and repetitive work". Over three quarters of the respondents thought scientists were "really brainy people". Among those who said they would not like to be scientists, reasons included: "Because you would constantly be depressed and tired and not have time for family", and "because they all wear big glasses and white coats and I am female".
The number taking A-level physics dropped by 34% between 1991 and 2004, with 28,698 taking the subject in that year. The decline in numbers taking chemistry over the same period was 16%, with 44,440 students sitting the subject in 1991, and 37,254 in 2004. The number of students taking maths also dropped by 22%...
Seen on Shacknews. I believe United States is also like this. Posted on AQFL.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
They were original used for motor homes, so that in case of an accident, rescuers knew to look for a baby. Things got a little out of hand afterwards, though.
"Who needs math? There are calculators."
Ever whipped out a calculator when trying to pay a tab at a restaurant? Who brings their dictionary with them to a place they need to spell correctly?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
There's a joke that circulates among math professors and graduate students: Calculus is where you learn College Algebra.
>>and so on down the chain.
Well, heres a partial explanation right here. People tend to develop skills as they need them. 50+ years ago in the US by the time a man was 17 going on 18 he was considered an adult who would be entering the career of his life. In a couple years, if not already so, he would also get married. These people needed to know basic finance but also worked manual labor jobs.
Now its a bit different. We don't really consider 18 year olds adult in the same sense. Adulthood starts after college graduation. Now we dont enter careers until age 22-25 and get married in mid to late twenties. College finances are not real world finances. You're living off loans, your parents help you out, the state helps you out with aid, etc. So its not surprising that people who we rarely treat as adults act like children. They have no incentive to act otherwise and have no need.
This is not common outside the US but more common in developed western nations where economies demand people with college and post-college educations for jobs that pay (checked for inflation) what old manufacturing jobs paid.
Extended childhood and a case of arrested development is part of the price of an educated society that has moved away from manufacturing and into a service based economy it seems.
I think its being very disingenious to cry "Everyone is stupid nowadays" without look at the radical cultural changes from 50-100 years ago. 200+ years ago people werent getting any education outside a few years of schooling and were getting married at around 15-17 years old and working the rest of their days on the farm. If progress means a longer childhood period then so be it unless you want to be a farmhand or working a lathe for 50 years until retirement somewhere (outside of the western world).
When I was younger, I was raised in a household with a library. It wasn't a very big house, but the library room was important; this is where my dad would sit and read, and I could do so as well. It never had to be said directly to me (at least, not that I remember), I just understood that the books were important, they were there to be read, and that was an important way to learn about the world. The books were knowledge, and that knowledge was respected. Whenever we visited someone else's house, I would always look at their library, because my father said you can learn a lot about a person by seeing what kind of books they read. A house without books was not a home to me.
Now, I visit people living in McMansions in various parts of the US, and I find many of them have no library, even though there is far more room for one if they so chose. Not surprisingly, their kids have little interest in reading, because their parents don't read, yet are "successful" - i.e. they have the McMansion and stuff to fill it. What conclusion do you think most kids today will come to?
"Success" and education APPEAR more uncoupled in today's world than they used to be - and that is awfully hard for even the best teachers to overcome. The people who are drawn to knowledge for its own beauty have always been a very small minority; for the rest, education is interesting to the extent it is rewarding. If the rewards appear less, the education is less interesting and devolves into seeking the form (degrees) rather than the substance.
Btw, I used to tutor kids in their homes for many years, so I have some experience/bias when it comes to how kids are educated....
I don't understand. How can you use a ruler improperly?
Just in case anyone doesn't know, here are instructions on how to use one properly.
You would be surprised. Remember, your typical American ruler is broken into binary fractions of an inch (1/2, 1/4, 1/8, and usually 1/16 is the smallest). In order to measure something to less than a whole inch, you have to be familiar with those fractions, how they convert, how to count them, and so forth. I can personally attest to the fact that many kids have no idea what exactly all the submarkings below an inch mean. They have a hard time memorizing the powers of two, which you probably take for granted, so they have to count how many marks there are to know the denominator of the fraction, remember that, then recount how many marks they move over to the edge of the thing they are measuring.
Sounds complicated when you describe it like this, doesn't it? You probably learned it at such a young age that you don't remember a time when it didn't make sense or you had to think about it.
Another sign of this is a somewhat new breakdown in the clothing and fashion industry. It used to be that there were just Fashion Designers, who controlled the making of a garment from mental conception all the way to the fractions of an inch, stitches per inch, seam width, etc., that were given to the manufacturers of garments. Nowadays, there are Fashion Designers, and Tech Designers. The Fashion Designer has the "creative" part, and the Tech designer is the one who translates that into inches, stitches, fabrics and so forth! In other words, the ability to handle numbers, fractions, and measurements is now considered difficult enough to render a new job position. I know this because my mother has been in the garmento industry for 40+ years. She is now a tech designer, because nobody wants to do that icky math stuff; all the FIT graduates want to be "creative" designers. Not suprisingly, tech designers typically get paid about 2 to 3 times more than fashion designers.
"I hope to learn skill that will be detrimental to my life and job".
I am pretty sure that this wasn't a joke. This is scarey!