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High School Kills Color-Coded ID Program
theodp writes "Anaheim Union High School District has killed a controversial incentive program that assigned students color-coded ID cards and planners based on state test scores, required those who performed poorly to stand in a separate lunch line and awarded the others with discounts. The program was designed to urge students to raise scores on the California Standards Tests, but it also raised concern among parents and students who said it illegally revealed test scores and embarrassed those who didn't do well."
Separate lines for lunch? Who could ever think this was a good idea. Sure, let the students doing well get some perks, just don't go around printing "Dumb" on the lesser achieving kids' foreheads. At least they wised up, even if it did take some external pressure to scrap the idea.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Anything and everything to motivate them. Coddling children doesn't do them any favors.
It's unwise to upset the natural order of things. Nerds, get to the back of the bus where you belong.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Here's another thought. Do better on the tests, and you won't have to worry about being "embarassed." It isn't like they printed the actual score on the ID card or planner. It's a shame that, in this country, we let the bottom of the barrel bring everyone else down, rather than force them to either catch up or fall off the radar. It isn't just schools, but raising the children that way means that it will carry over into everything that generation does as adults. What's next? Musical chairs with enough chairs for every student so no one feels bad about not having a chair?
They want to stop kids from being publicly humiliated in high school? Good luck. The point of the program was to use the only effective stick they have in public school nowadays, peer pressure, and for a good cause in this case. I'm sure none of these kids are going to regret working at McDonald's for the rest of their life as long as it saves them a little embarrasment at school. Nut up California.
It prepares them for future. I mean don't they do shit like that in prison? You do what you are told and you move up to lower security tier, where life is oh so much sweeter. You get to live in in less cramped accommodations, have different time in the exercise yard, and you only get raped once a week instead of 6.*
*Disclaimer: I have not gone to prison, all rape statistics are rough estimates.
;) .. sometimes reality is more surreal than anime can ever be.
"Classification RED, friend computer!"
"I'm sorry, that information is not available at this time."
Well in any case, effective education is a huge problem, especially with No Child Left Behind screwing things up even more, and something needs to be done. That something should be to stop passing everyone and making tests so easy a rhesus monkey could come out with a HD. This is a rather misguided way to address the problem. Rather than humiliating every kid who doesn't do terribly well, what about providing more support and time? Did they consider that?
I write professional videogame reviews! http://www.digitallydownloaded.net/
I've read studies in the past that have shown that children, whether intelligent or struggle to learn, benefit greatly from encouragement rather than either reward or punishment. I truely believe in this.
By all means reward children for doing well, but certainly not punish those who struggle. Everybody is different and will excel at different subjects and it's entirely possible that some may be undiagnosed dyslexics or even have eyesight issues.
In any case, children should be praised for the work they do whether it is better than others or not, but then encouraged to learn how to improve themselves and nurture their enthusiasm for it.
Everyone is special in their own special way. Think of the children(*)
(*) Unless of course you've been arrested for it, in which case stop thinking of the children.
Let's go back and have the argument over "How much can we raise IQ scores" again. Arthur Jensen hasn't gotten nearly enough press coverage since he died. Or we could bow to the superiority of Lake Woebegone which -- as far as I know -- is the only place on the planet where all the children are above average.
For the same reason kids wear their pants around their asses, if it makes them look "bad," they would revel in it. These are the same kids flunking out already anyway. Perhaps if you just come right out and call their behavior 'stupid' instead of trying to coddle them, perhaps if you worry more about their futures instead of worry about offending them, it might help some tiny fraction of them.
In today's culture, I picture the kids in the "smart" lines being bullied and ostracized instead of the other way around, though.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
God forbid you should feel bad about being a dickhead. You know, some people really are stupid, or at least not as smart as you think you are. Some people put forth effort yet fail to achieve. How about those people? Should they be humiliated? Maybe if you have a child and he's a difficult one to potty train you'd make him walk around with a diaper on his head to motivate him?
"revealed test scores and embarrassed those who didn't do well"
Sheesh! That will happen soon enough. "Do you want fries with that..."
'nuf said.
(A) Test scores are heavily correlated with demographic factors such as race and social class. In fact, there's some evidence that they're correlated more with those sorts of demographics than they are with factors like time spent studying. So whether it was intended or not, it's quite possible that the effect of this would have been to separate out, with official sanction, the generally wealthier white and Asian-American kids from the mostly poorer black and Hispanic kids, and treat the first group better than the second group.
(B) For kids who's friends are generally anti-intellectual, they might be more embarrassed to be in the "smart" line rather than the "stupid" line. If you're in a crowd where most everybody is heading nowhere in life and knows it, they will often single out the people who are going somewhere for bullying to try to make themselves feel better about their utter lack of prospects.
(C) Threats only get kids to fake learning, not to really learn stuff. You can get kids to pretend to go to study groups but really just hang out with friends. You can get kids to cram for the next exam and promptly forget everything the next day. You can get kids to cheat on their test to avoid school or parental consequences. But you can't get kids to really learn and internalize what they're supposed to know with threats - for that you need to actually give them a goal that their learning will help accomplish.
I am officially gone from
This is what comes from tying performance to pay. I know schools here are awarded more money from the state as well as teacher performance bonuses for better scores on standardized tests. It's had this kind of push here as well. Lots of schools have even been caught cheating to get their scores up. Desperation brings on this kind of craziness.
Every day I see more and more items coming out of our educational system that make me ask 'where the heck are the parents' when these dumbass policies are being implemented?
There is also the fact if they are marked as stupid then they will work to meet that expectation.
I have seen a lot of actually smart and talented kids just barely pass school, just because they were labeled as such. Usually a kid at an early age will find what his place in life is and stick with it.
Oh well I guess I am not smart, but I am good at sports so I will be the perfect jock. ...
Well I am not good at sports but people think I am funny so I will be the class clown.
Kids find their Cliques to belong in.
By having a color system, it makes it harder for the large number of posers. The geek who doesn't get good grades, or the Jock who does.
In school personal success is much different then adult thinking.
Now what they really should do. Is stop listening to all the parents who beg, plead and threaten lawsuits for not to keep there kid back a grade, if they fail the class. If they fail the class then they should have to retake it over again, until they pass it. This shouldn't be something to be ashamed of. A lot of smart kids do fail classes for various reasons.
When I was in college I had to take Calculus I twice. The first time I got a C- in it and I wasn't happy with the fact that I didn't absorb the information I was use to in a Math Class. So I took it again and I did much better the second time, and also I felt like I knew the material and what do do with it. Then my following math courses were much easier. We shouldn't punish the children for not getting the material as well as others, there should be a system in place to catch those who falter and try to get them back and going again.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
This is the big disconnect between us and our children. They live the first 18 years of their life under constant, state-mandated praise, being told they are special no matter what, and that they can do no wrong.
Then, when they are older and out of the house, they wake up to the harsh reality that those who do not perform are not constantly showered with praise and reward.
The ability to cope with failure and disappointment is a lesson we have completely abandoned and refuse to teach our children anymore, and is one of the major reasons children in the rest of the world are beating the snot out of ours when it comes to achieving success.
This program is a good representation of real life. While they may need to come up with a way to deal with Privacy Act of '74 issues, the program is definitely in the right place. Teaching kids that there are consequences to underperformance is a necessary step in childhood development.
Let's start by color coding the ID's of the people who thought of this plan to a bright red banning them from using the lunchrooms altogether.
AFAIK, the most effective way to motivate children to perform better in school is to actually treat them the same as better performing children; people tend to behave in the way you treat them.
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As a parent I'd be more worried about my kid being targeted for being smart than stupid. Maybe in addition to a nice bracelet they should give the good scorers Jujitsu classes as well so they can protect themselves from the jocks.
So they think it is wrong because it reveals the test scores? Are they insane?
First let's say why it is really wrong: because it identifies the student with the his performance and starts to dehumanize him, it could be mortifying and alienating if the student does not have a really strong character. Even more, who is to say that failing badly would not give you a BETTER reputation with students? In a school for lower class childrem having good scores could become a stigma, could lead to cheating, harassment and god knows what else.
But peer pressure IS important for education. I dream of a school where students think it is cool to have good scores, where a student can learn the importance of culture in a relatively innocuous way before his first job interview bites him.
"[...] illegally revealed test scores [...]"
What, test scores are secret now ? So much easier to manipulate them in that case...
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Actually fail them when they fail? Rather than slow a senior English class down to the level of the kid with a third grade reading level, just fail the people that can't keep up. That is motivation in itself. There are no one worries about bad grades or failing anymore because they know that they will be babied through school and not have to lift a finger to get their diploma.
If it weren't for No Child Left Behind then schools wouldn't have as much need to come up with off the wall programs like this.
Wow, a school district trying to uphold some standards! Letting the Geeks get to the front of the line for doing well at academics, and letting those who don't do well go to the back?! It almost sounds like the school was holding kids accountable for their actions and rewarding the hard work that students put in! No wonder the program is going away.
In the real world it's not the effort that counts. And yes, being humiliated, especially when you know about it in advance and what you need to do to avoid it, is pretty motivating in my experience.
Stupid doesn't have much to do with it. The education system, especially high school and lower, rewards memory ability above all else. You can have shit-poor reasoning and logical skills and be the top student if you have a really good memory.
I'm sort of the opposite. I have good reasoning and logical skills but a shit-poor memory. I always tried to beat the system by learning the underlying rules and trying to come up with algorithms to allow me to derive information without memorizing massive data sets. I was always scraping by (doesn't help that I have ADD, an awful mental disorder that makes it very difficult to pay attention to boring things). Ask any of my friends, family or coworkers who don't know and they'd never believe it. They'd imagine that I was a top student
Really I don't think that creating this grade-based caste system in schools is going to do anything but lead to more arrogant PHBs and even more stress and humiliation on the school's "lower classes" - that means more child suicides and school shootings.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
christ forbid that any american should feel ever feel bad about being stupid
... after all plenty of stupid people became President.
Sounds like a pretty wildly assumption stemming from underlying psychological damage.
There is willful stupidity (eg skipping classes, and general delinquency which results in poor scores,) and then there is intellectually unchallenged (where the the student could skip every class and still ace the tests.) Under the way most classes are taught, both of these students will be considered stupid, because they willfully blow off classes. However it's not the case, unchallenged students could be thought of as easily distracted by more challenging things.
In the case of the article, the color coding was the flaw in the system, as it was based on the worst test score, or best improvement. Had they simply not color coded any of it and instead used a more technical approach (eg NFC, barcodes, magstripes, etc) something that isn't easily read on the card (plus it would save money in not replacing the cards) they could have still made use of the privilege system with subtlety.
I do see why they made a color coding system (basically to humiliate the low scoring students,) but this isn't a whole lot different than other civil rights issues, where the divisional process this causes, results in the opposite effect. Let's say that the smart kids start being bullied because they're now easy targets from the visibility of the cards, the kids might intentionally cripple their scores.
So visible embarrassment = bad.
Nice try though.
... will be embarrassment enough.
If you aren't motivated enough to try in school, you will always be last in line. That is life. It's probably one of the only fair things in life you can depend on (unless politicians flip it upside down for more votes).
wasn't horrible enough as it is, they try to make it even more gruesome.
Alfie Kohn's body of work makes good reading for a sensible approach to education based on how kids actually learn.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfie_Kohn
In this instance, his book "Punished by Rewards" is required reading.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=alfie+kohn&x=0&y=0
Essentially, when we reward for high scores (instead of focusing on improving actual learning), we get these kinds of decisions and further reinforcement of counterproductive outcomes.
The highly broken culture of education continues in a downward spiral.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
Not to mention, what do you do if a kid just happens to like chartreuse?
No Lunch Left Behind?
Chaos maximizes locally around me.
Really, the reason this was nixed is because of fear about illegally revealing test scores? That is even more incredible than the original idea of color-coded IDs. A school where decision-makers do not immediately reject the idea as obviously ludicrous is seriously broken.
Seriously, I was an unchallenged child in school. I got horrible grades because I didn't find any use in homework. I always aced the tests because I knew the material well, but saw no value in wasting my time on homework. I would regularly get Cs and Ds because homework was weighed heavily in deciding the grade. At no point was my actual grasp on the material considered.
That being said, the kids who didn't learn the material well, but did a lot of busy work at home usually passed as well with similar grades. It was a system that benefited nobody.
Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
The district should have run a pilot program with some volunteer students to get an idea of the projected improvement in scores so reluctant parents would have been convinced. Run a pilot and look at the numbers and you can show parents a simple graph of scores before the program vs scores after it.
That way the parents would have had an idea how their kids were going to benefit from it. It removes all the emotion from it and all the "good kids deserve perks" or "humiliation works to make things better" which are both just big generalizations. If it worked to improve the average score, go with it.
It's also the same with other incentive programs. They ran a test between three programs and the one that performed best was paying kids to read a book. Paying them to improve scores didn't do as well because it's difficult for kids to see a direct connection between their actions and test scores. Can't find the article right now. Google is not being my friend.
Schools should bill the parents for their time/resources spent if their kids flunk... for wasting taxpayer money. Now that's the way to balance taxes fairly!
what's the next step, send them to concentration camps?
alphas, betas, gammas and deltas. dont let them play with each other. we might breed a letter in the middle and we dont have any letters in the middle.
There is also the fact if they are marked as stupid then they will work to meet that expectation.
I have seen a lot of actually smart and talented kids just barely pass school, just because they were labeled as such. Usually a kid at an early age will find what his place in life is and stick with it.
Social scientists studied this and one (rather unethical) experiment went like this: at the beginning of the year they gave a teacher a completely random list of the new students with notes about their intellectual capabilities, a fake IQ-test result, if you will. Then they compared the students results at the end of the year with the random list. They matched rather closely.
Once a child is pegged as being a penny, it is pretty hard to become a quarter. Not because the child is unable or unwilling, but because continuous lack of expectation from the teacher is killing all forms of motivation.
You want kids to do great at school? Have a great and motivating teacher. Or at least a passable one who doesn't kill the intrinsic motivation.
This scheme was an attempt to get rid of a few symptoms. As long as you focus on that, the disease itself will never be cured.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
I'm not all crybaby. I have a nasty redneck side and things like you bring it out in me. I think that's why I despise you so, you make me feel bad about having the evil part of me come out. I don't like you and if you were gone I doubt anyone would miss you. Have a nice day. :)
They revel in it as a defense mechanism. They're not going to sulk in the line. They're going to find people like them and claim that their area is better by virtue of them being there. It's called being human.
Take a bad kid, teach him/her well, let the child show mom/dad/grandma/social worker how amazingly hard they've worked in school and you'll see that attitude change. But it won't change without that special attention... the special attention the high achievers receive from advanced elementary school classes through AP classes in high school.
You are right about the "smart" lines getting bullied and ostracized, though (in most schools). That's because most schools only have sufficient funds to afford a couple good teachers, small school supply allowances, and open class rooms for a select few students that, according to their records, already look like they're going to succeed. It makes the smart kids in the smart lines a very small minority-- easy for picking.
In the real world , being a smartass who thinks he's better than everyone else , isn't going to be very useful either.
The situation described is the exact problem with the school system : you are taught that you are not allowed to make any mistakes. ,and how to blame it on someone else.
But everyone makes mistakes , so what they actually learn is how to hide that they made mistakes
The best quality in an employee is someone who can admit mistakes and learn from them , not someone who believes they are perfect and is willing to do anything just to stay on top.
The beauty of mistakes is not only that we can learn from our own mistakes , but also from the mistakes of others.
What does scoring high on a test tell you ?
That you are capable of wasting a lot of time on something you will probably never use again ?
Team spirit and creativity are much more useful qualities.
If i was looking for someone to hire in the future , i would check if there was anyone with good grades , who protested against this.
Slipping shoelaces ?
Memory ability? You sure? In high school, I had to stop taking biology because it was too much memorisation. Memorising Shakespeare passages was difficult. And yet I was still near the top of my class in an academic-oriented high school. University was another story - when the minimum high-school average to apply for Engineering is 75%, and the actual cut-off is much higher than that, you know you're competing some of the top people in the area. Still, memorisation for some things is key, and I never could do that. And I still graduated.
I suspect that your ADD played a bigger role than inability to memorise.
That said, I applaud the school district for wanting to improve grades. But the method they chose was on the lower end of stupid, IMNSHO.
Far too many commas, and I don't know why you put a space before them.
Now get into the dunce line, fucktard!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
So basically, they wanted to implement a "caste" system, eh? :-/ ---- my shocked face
Must have a lot of awfully good medicinal herb out there in Anaheim.
that's why we have State Universities and Community colleges. Maybe PRIVATE colleges, yes. There is a difference, ya know. But never let facts get in the way of blind faith in capitalism, right?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I don't know either, i have always done it like that. Sorry if I hurt your eyes.
Thanks for reminding me, I'll try to avoid it in the future.
Slipping shoelaces ?
Have gnu, will travel.
fundamental error here is the assumption that school is for educating. it isn't, and not by a long shot. it is designed to brainwash children into conforming adults. educating and creating new generation of critical thinkers has nothing to do with state sponsored education system.
to that end, punishment and reward based system fits the intend perfectly.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Once a child is pegged as being a penny, it is pretty hard to become a quarter. Not because the child is unable or unwilling, but because continuous lack of expectation from the teacher is killing all forms of motivation.
Even worse - the teacher doesn't even have to supply these expectations - the kids will do it themselves. A similar experiment was done where they gave a bunch of little kids a math test, and then told half of them they did well, and half they did poorly then tracked their future math prospects. The kids they told did poorly ended up doing poorly going forward - even if those kids had actually done well!
Similarly, they (whoever "they" were) took a bunch of kids and gave them some word puzzles, and afterwards told half "Hey you did great! You must be smart!", and the other half "Hey you did great! You must have worked hard!" then they let them choose some new puzzles to try. The group labeled "smart" tended to choose the simpler puzzles to work on, while those labeled "hard workers" tended to choose the more challenging ones. Seemingly the "smart" kids wanted to get more "your're smart" praise, while the "hard work" kids were trying to demonstrate more of their "hard work".
Most of the evidence-based ideas on how to best run an educational system back up the idea of promoting the model of "hard work leads to success" rather than the model of "innate talent leads to success". Sure, we want to celibate success so maybe the top performer deserves a gold star, but even more important would be to give positive reinforcement for those who manage great improvements and make it part of the culture of learning to recognize the rewards of hard work and practice. In every field that I have seen research on (math skills, violin skills, hockey skills, etc.) all the people at the "top of the game" did a whole bunch of work, and everyone who did a whole bunch of work was at the top of the game. Once one is beyond a pretty basic level of physical and mental innate ability (in other words, excepting those with significant mental or physical disability) success at every field studied is almost entirely predicted by the amount of training done.
"Color-Coded IDs" do not really seem likely to be an effective tool to assist in the goal of better learning.
I think they are humiliated. I usually drive past them while they are holding a shovel on the side of the road. His shovel is the equivalent of his color coded badge he would have had in school. So I don't see why a badge is such an issue.
Say what you will but I doubt highly many college grads would shun the life offered them by the education they worked hard to get to operate a shovel.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
... but the plain bellied sneetches had none upon thars.
Just another way to make them their sneetch....
Why go to the trouble of testing the kids and then separate them in this ridiculous and ostracizing manner?
Why not do like other countries and assign the dumb, average, and smart kids in each subject to their own class and teach them at a more appropriate skill level?
Seriously, I was an unchallenged child in school. I got horrible grades because I didn't find any use in homework. I always aced the tests because I knew the material well, but saw no value in wasting my time on homework. I would regularly get Cs and Ds because homework was weighed heavily in deciding the grade. At no point was my actual grasp on the material considered.
That being said, the kids who didn't learn the material well, but did a lot of busy work at home usually passed as well with similar grades. It was a system that benefited nobody.
I've seen some studies (very preliminary, poorly controlled, not much more than anecdotes really, but they fit well with my preconceptions) of correlations between various factors and success (ie not failing) introductory first year physics. Those kids who learned to "do a lot of busy work at home" tend to end up doing OK at the much more challenging later work. Those kids who did not learn to do hard work outside of class often had a very difficult time when faced with material that required it.
There has been serious discussion, at some institutions, of changing acceptance methods to place more emphasis on "work habits" types of evaluations. Everyone getting an average of a "B" is probably "smart" enough to be able to understand the material in almost any program, but the student who has excellent "study skills" and "work habits" given that minimum GPA will probably have more success (on average) than those who have poor habits. From the institution point of view, a group of 100 "solid B" freshmen who all go through 4 years of schooling is much better from a "getting money out of them" point of view than a group of 100 "straight A" freshmen if half of those students do not complete their degrees, even if the other half end up winning Nobel prizes.
you stupid troll. go crawl into a hole and die.
In fact, we're near the top for the amount of money we spend per pupil.
The problem is much of that is wasted: bloated administrations, feel-good PC courses that don't help core education, and teachers unions that flat-out admit they don't give a damn about students.
Add to that apathetic parents, and you have a crappy school system that won't get better no matter how much money we pump into it.
The only people that have the knowledge and ability to motivate the children are the parents. The problem then is how to motivate the parents. There are probably a hundred ways to do that but my ideology would suggest tax breaks/penalties for each child that does well on yearly SATs. I'd suggest that the incentives should be balanced by disincentives, so that its cost neutral, or nearly so.
Even if it did cost the government more upfront, hopefully that would get offset by higher tax revenue once the children graduate...
Setting up a system like this would be relatively simple. The tricky parts are properly handling the edge cases (learning disabilities, etc.) and hardening the system. (better motivated children might feel more pressure to cheat)
* http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2467658&cid=37660992
P.S.=> I.E.-> If you can't "cut it"? Get into something else then, OR plan your future accordingly to be doing something else (non-academic related, or, tech-trade related etc./et al instead), because that's just life showing you that you "can't make the grade" in that particular area is all (for WHATEVER reasons & yes, there are avenues for academic review, in case 1 particular teacher is unfairly grading a student (lol, for whatever good those are for that is)) & not all of us are "I can do it ALL, and WELL, 'supermen'". In this case, on "making the grade", & literally in this case, in that particular area? Hey - it only shows these kids it's time to move on to something else that you CAN "excel" in is all...
... apk
The point of school however is not to help people find out what they cannot do, but to assist them in being able to actually do things. At what age to we want to cut people off from certain future careers? Does it make sense to take some arbitrary grade and say "if you can't do it at this point, you never will"? Perhaps it does, but only if up until that point you have been providing the type of training and incentives that actually assist people in gaining the skills needed to reach whatever cutoff level has been decided. In this case it seems more like we have created a system that doesn't do a particularly effective job at providing that assistance to large number of students and then slapped a "you're stupid" sign on those who don't perform well. That doesn't seem like a system that is likely to produce lots of highly skilled graduates that can take care of the needs of the country when winners like us are old and grey.
Embarrass them as much as possible. People don't learn when their coddled (Hence why the number of people on gov't aid keeps increasing and doesn't go away). Reward the top 10%, don't do anything extra to the next 60% and slap a dunce cap on the bottom 30%. Maybe they'll get mad and do better, maybe they will quit and go to work at McDonalds, that's where they're headed anyway.
And giving point, rewards, whatever for handing in homework is pointless. The assignment was to hand it in, the reward is a grade. Give point for above and beyond, like the kid that scores 10% above anyone else in the class, or the one who's research paper has more content than a masters thesis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Wave
Due to the poignancy of this post to the discussion, I believe I am immune from Godwins' Law.
As a parent, I encourage anything that might help the kids want to achieve.
Our society is so worried about hurting the esteem of the less gifted we hold the gifted back.
I'm frustrated as all heck that my kids comes home from school bored witless because his school work is too easy. According to the tests- he already is beyond the end of school goals for maths, english and science- yet because "everyone has to be the same" and "don't want to make the stupid kids feel stupid" he, and the other gifted kids have to go at the same plodding pace and be held back.
He is second grade and still being taught things that I taught him before he even started school. He learns quickly- let him progress.
Let all kids learn at their own rate. Let kids be encouraged to learn.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
The best way to deal with the dregs of school society is to get rid of them. Ship them off to a remote Alaskan military school where the only things to do are push-ups and homework. Then the rest of the students will be able to learn without interference.
This is part of the reason I quit playing football in fact (I was pretty good as a defensive back Freshmen - Sophomore years playing & starting 1st string... Especially for being on a team that won championships every year for decades & has produced not only MANY pros, but also many top-notch ALL-PRO types too): However - I wasn't taking "roids" (but, I knew guys that DID, for a FACT, & 1 ended up going pro (All-American & All-Pro, every yr. @ both collegiate & professional levels no less)).
I don't care what anyone says, doing that & lifting with it IS a HUGE COMPETITIVE EDGE but, not one I was willing to take for the long run, nor was I able to get ahold of them anyhow!
I was also given a choice by my father on which sport I was going to be better @ in the long haul (meaning paying for education) & I chose Lacrosse instead, which ended up helping me out in college for room/board etc./et al, somewhat.
I also had to ask myself an HONEST question of:
"Am I good enough to be a pro ball player?"
The answer was no - Not unless I did roids & what-not (& barely ANYONE knew where or how to get that in my day (circa early 1980's)).
So, I had to make the very decision you quoted from me - work harder, & possibly fail (due to genetics etc.), or, work smarter on something I was good enough @ to capitalize on.
Same deal with grades really.
Now, I don't know about nowadays, but afaik in Europe? If you do NOT do well on academic placement tests, you basically relegate yourself to the world of trades (not a bad world either, there's big money in things like plumbing, electrical, etc. for example)... it should be that way in the USA also.
Are all of the "underachievers" really 'dumb/stupid' as those here are saying? By no means. They're either LAZY, or just know they can walk into another job/trade right out of school (say, due to a family business being in place already)... what they don't understand, especially the former, is WHAT YOU DO NOW INFLUENCES THE REST OF YOUR DAYS (in everything you do).
APK
P.S.=> In other words? "May the BEST MAN, win!" & don't drag down or SLOW DOWN those that are those 'best men' in whatever field of endeavor in question... apk
Nothing like forcing those not doing well to quit to lift your school scores.
Hey, but I'll still have you. ;)
If this were the case, they should be calling schools places that condition future workers of america to submit to busy work, not places of education.
My interest in school was learning the material. If I fail to do so with un-enforced homework, then I fail. However, if I learn the material and find no reason for busy work, that should be my prerogative- giving me an opportunity to use my time refining other skills. As it was, I liked spending my afternoons after school teaching myself programming (my highschool did not offer programming classes).
Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
Whoa, hold up a second... Did Hognoxious's post motivate you to do better?
Think about that.
Now read your post.
Now look at me.
Now look at your post.
Now look at Hognoxious.
Now who is insightful?
Everyone loved the program. One parent complained and the project was shut down.
You should read kdemetter's post again.
"The beauty of mistakes is not only that we can learn from our own mistakes , but also from the mistakes of others."
He made a mistake, it was pointed out, he *learned* from it.
emt 377 emt 4
And you get paid for doing so. As compared to being a disabled kid going to school.
Now back at your post!
Your flamebait is now trollfood!
Where are you? You're on Slashdot, arguing that people should be stratified according to intelligence. What's in your mind? Back at me. I have it. It's the sudden realization that these arguments are blatantly unethical. Now look again. The arguments now violate the constitution! Anything is possible when your schoolboard is run by assholes who crave the ability to persecute others' children, and want to instigate class-based segregation. I'm on a moral high-horse.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
That is the single best idea I've ever heard about how to improve education.
While there are privacy concerns with revealing test scores. You SHOULD BE embarrassed about poor test scores. That's part of the entire problem the test scores are trying to fix!
If this were the case, they should be calling schools places that condition future workers of america to submit to busy work, not places of education.
My interest in school was learning the material. If I fail to do so with un-enforced homework, then I fail. However, if I learn the material and find no reason for busy work, that should be my prerogative- giving me an opportunity to use my time refining other skills. As it was, I liked spending my afternoons after school teaching myself programming (my highschool did not offer programming classes).
Perhaps I did not get across my ideas very well. I agree with you that "busy work" has little value, however what does have value to helping the student to understand the link between work and reward and helping them to develop effective work habits. In your case, perhaps such lessons were unnecessary, and perhaps you made your decisions on what to spend your time on in a rational assessment of your situation. Many students (particularly at much younger ages) however are not able to make such decisions in a fully informed manner and can benefit greatly in being shown the relationship between effort and result. Helping students learn that initial lack of success does not always mean the material is uninteresting or worthless.
Sure, we want to celibate success so maybe the top performer deserves a gold star,
Which is exactly what they're trying to do here, and which is exactly what you're arguing against. Give out gold starts to the top 10%, and you've shown the bottom 90% that they are, in fact, not gold star sort of people.
but even more important would be to give positive reinforcement for those who manage great improvements
This is what you're getting after. But it leads to little Jimmy, who got 9/10, being neglected as Tommy gets praised and rewarded when he gets 6/10. Just because he was a real fuckup at the start of the year. This destroys the meritocracy.
You are no longer rewarding success, you're rewarding effort. I think this is part of the reason it's not cool to be a geek or nerd in the USA educational system. Sure, being a top sports jock or a lead in a play is respectable. But getting top grades is not.
I'm not going to ignore the studies though. Kids get tracked (and put themselves in a track). But we need to promote merit. We can't hand out gold stars to whoever wants one. They can't all be the top 10%.
And honestly, I have no idea how to get those two things to mesh.
A glaring example of the epic failure of the US public educational/economic/political system. A good education should be perceived as its own reward.
... bad management. We start at the top with the stupidity of standardized testing and it trickles down into individual school stupidity. It's the race to average! At least, we will reclaim the arts as the domain of the privileged. :-(
I used to think like you, but wasting a lot of time on a subject I'd never use again seems to have compromised my last 6 projects before this one. I'm too much of a generalist computer programmer I guess- in the last 16 years I haven't worked in the same industry twice.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Haven't seen "Office Space" yet, have you?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
"Should be embarrassed!" comments obviously come from stupidity. Is there any way we can color-code such contributors? The kids in the special needs classes (both below and above the average) are already being singled out for attention. Obviously if some kids fall into this category, there must be a wide range of intelligence in between. Sometimes trying your best will only get you a C. Sometimes the A students can't figure out how to make a lamp.
Good thing this isn't the real world. And being humiliated, while it can be motivating, it can also cause someone to drop out altogether and stop trying, because they can't face the humiliation.
Yep, save the lines for AFTER school is completed and JOBS are set, some are in line, some are serving the line. Parents it is YOUR responsibility to determine which part the the line YOUR children are in.
Most of the evidence-based ideas on how to best run an educational system back up the idea of promoting the model of "hard work leads to success"
The problem with that model is that, as we've seen lately, hard work does not lead to success in the real world.
All the guys I see with shovels seem to be from South of the Border. Maybe they used colored cards down there?
It sounds like the school administrators are the ones that need to stand the lunch line for dummies.
Having slaved as an educator in a system that promotes mediocrity, I can tell you, anyone not doing well on a standardized test in the US, needs to be publicly shamed. The fact that this country wastes as many resources on the mediocre disgusts me. Our brightest students are being held back because we keep trying to shine turds and call them gold. It is past time people woke up and started expecting students to meet the standard, instead of lowering the standard to meet the students.
Hard work is a component to success. Don't let those lazy pot smoking hippies tell you otherwise.
Hard work is one component, an important component but there are others. Just working hard is kinda vague.
Is working hard working 9-5 doing back breaking labor.
Or is it working from 9-5 with some less back breaking work, then go to school for 2 hours every night?
Perhaps it is going to school full time and having a part time job.
Perhaps is is going to school full time and really focusing on your studies.
Some elements of hard work will not get you far. Other will help you more.
No working hard will most likely doom you to failure.
But there are other factors too. There are people who you know. There are the resources that you already have or previously acquired. There is a factor of being in the right spot at the right time... But working hard is one of the factors that you can control. And what you are doing how rare is your skill sets really is?
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Sure, we want to celibate success so maybe the top performer deserves a gold star,
Which is exactly what they're trying to do here, and which is exactly what you're arguing against. Give out gold starts to the top 10%, and you've shown the bottom 90% that they are, in fact, not gold star sort of people.
Actually this isn't "exactly" what the are talking about. By "gold star" I mean something more akin to a teacher saying "good job" rather than this whole "front of the line" type of thing.
but even more important would be to give positive reinforcement for those who manage great improvements
This is what you're getting after. But it leads to little Jimmy, who got 9/10, being neglected as Tommy gets praised and rewarded when he gets 6/10. Just because he was a real fuckup at the start of the year. This destroys the meritocracy.
Unfortunately what we are talking about are just attempts to make the current system a bit better. What I think we really need is a fundamental shift in the entire culture of education - both within the school and in the wider society. We don't need a strict dog-eat-dog meritocracy, we need a system that encourages and enables all members to be more engaged in their own learning and encouraging of everyone's successes. When Chris or Patt can't read, their peers should want to help them and they should want that help too. When Patt or Chris becomes expert at some skill or field, their peers should congratulate them and be inspired to perform as well.
Ah, what a utopia I would want.
Seems pretty simple. They do poorly they fail and repeat the year.
I'm really awfully glad I'm a Beta. I wouldn't want to be an Alpha, because they have to work very hard.
Oh no, I don't want to play with the Delta children, they can't even read.
I would argue it's immoral to teach children they are allowed to make mistakes. While we may wish it were true, It's still straight up lying.
Wouldn't it be great if the good performers had white cards, where the poor ones had colored cards, and the lines had clearly legible signs saying "WHITE" and "COLORED"?
from 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
to 45 2F 6E 40 3C DF 10 71 4E 41 DF AA 25 7D 31 3F
You nailed it with the cast-system comment. The USA is continuously trying to recreate the whole Nobility & Peasants thing. As has been said before: The pilgrims left England to be free to oppress.
The cheese stands alone...
True, but leaving such a strong motivator untapped for the sake of the few weak-willed people is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Make dropping out impossible instead.
Well. There are exceptions. I for one was pretty BAD at school because I have a somewhat bad memory for facts. But since in "real live" you don't really need to know much facts, you just need to know where to look them up and logically combine them to reach a solution I probably have a better job now than many college graduates.
Of course the bad "score" in education meant I couldn't get that job right away, I had to work my way up for a few years by showing what I was actually able to do in real life.
Because only the poorer, and less intelligent people can be a waster or a criminal or dangerous! Oh wait....that's utter nonsense. Just like your comment.
Why color-code them? Just make the saggers and jocks... er.. 'anyone' who can't keep their test scores up and continually slips on homework wear fry-cook hats to school. Let them get used to their eventual career dead-end.
It's hard to look like a badass in a striped red white and blue Hot Dog On A Stick hat that's as tall as your head, and a hairnet under that.
This plan would have been totally counterproductive, and would more likely cause even more pupils to be disenfranchised, and disengage from, the education system. Far from raising the lowest, it would more likely cast them adrift!
My kids' school tore down their jungle gym because the insurance wouldn't cover it due to the possibility of injury litigation. Of course that one goes back to it being the fault of the parents who sue if their kid gets an owie.
Transportation is interesting. That fits in with the issue of a general public transportation system. In Germany at least kids ride the city bus.
Wages though can be extremely good. Initial hiring wages aren't that high, but a senior teacher can be rolling in the money, not even counting the extremely generous pension. Back in the Wisconsin debates, one high school teacher at the protests teacher was making about $90,000 per year in pay and benefits. A fourth-grade teacher was making in the mid 80s.
Of course this varies by state, but IIRC the pay doesn't correspond to performance.
The point is to get them studying so that worrying about college funding is even an issue. Cross a bridge when you come to it, if you do come to it.
Saying "Top 5%" is only helpful to students right near the cutoff. The top 1% won't try any harder, because they are in no danger of not being top 5%. Somebody at the 70th percentile won't try any harder, because he knows he can't reach the 95th percentile.
You need to turn class rank percentile into dollars, payable on a short term horizon. For example, multiply the class rank percentile by $10 and pay this out every week. Recompute class rank very frequently, using a running average (possibly exponential decay) that tends to consider the most recent couple months.
Note that it is OK if the parents confiscate this to cover family expenses. In that case, they will apply pressure to succeed as only parents have the ability to do. The kid might even gain better nutrition, full-time parenting, tutoring, etc.
Those crappy Washington D. C. schools are spending about $30,000 per year per student. Lots of ordinary not-well-off places are in the $10,000 to $20,000 range.
Since student/parent motivation is the #1 most important success factor, the majority of that budget should be going to incentives. Weekly cash payouts would be highly effective. Nothing, with the possible exception of weird social rules (such as "minimum class rank average for prom couple is 50th percentile" or "the lower your rank the more patdowns and drug testing you face"), can beat large immediate cash payments.
Budget shortfalls hitting teacher staffing, school improvements, etc.
But the growing administration overhead warranted a multi-million dollar new administration building.
If they have a drink problem their grades might well suffer as a result.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
FTFY.
It was in the news not long ago. But then it's a fairly common occurrence.
Actually, it's kind of like an S&M relationship. You have the guy who thinks people learn from being embarrassed and the guy who thinks you should admit to making mistakes.
This is just an abusive relationship waiting to happen.
Bravo and doubleplus good points to you for keeping the theme!
But hey now, I just thought it funny that the argument went something like:
"Insults make people learn!"
*rebuttle*
*insult*
"Thanks for reminding me, I'll try to avoid it in the future."
Rhetorical gold right there. But anyway, you're right, this sort of thing is unethical and teaches kids that they're stupid. Ignoring the fact that some kids really ARE stupid though destroys any semblance of a meritocracy, which is why it isn't cool to be smart is school. Which sucks.
I dunno how to fix that.
By "gold star" I mean something more akin to a teacher saying "good job"
... huh? No, that's STILL exactly the issue. If the teacher pumps up and encourages one student while doing the same for another student that's the same as a gold star, and at least in the ballpark of similarity of this color coding system. If everyone gets a gold star, or if the teacher tells everyone "good job", then the praise becomes meaningless. The issue: Do you differentiate the kids based on their performance or do you treat them all the same. Kids are smart (well, the smart ones are at least), they notice when everyone gets the same reward. Trust me. I went through that. When everyone is on the honor roll, it's a meaningless distinction.
It IS a better environment when the overall message is positive. Telling everyone they're super is better then telling everyone they're little shitballs. But if you want to encourage kids to be smart, you're going to have to reward them in some meaningful way.
What I think we really need is a fundamental shift in the entire culture of education - both within the school and in the wider society. We don't need a strict dog-eat-dog meritocracy,
Well we STRIVE for a meritocracy out in the real world. That's a good thing. It's leaps and bounds better then Mr.McMoneyPant's kids inheriting the company/job and making a mess of it. Let me be clear about this. If you're arguing against a meritocracy for society on the whole, then you're working to destroy us. Because our competitors will do it better, faster, and cheaper, and we will go hungry.
Now, as far as the education system is concerned, it's not a meritocracy at all. There's quite a bit of coddling and everyone gets a gold star. In the rare exception, kids are held back. Some kids excel at and rewarded for sports or whatnot, but that's the not academics. Well, at least it was a decade ago when I got out.
...we need a system that encourages and enables all members to be more engaged in their own learning and encouraging of everyone's successes.
And that's a lovely dream. But what sort of system encourages that behavior. Now, bear with me a second, some people would argue that giving kids a challenge and turning school into a competitive thing, like a sport, does exactly that. Everyone wants to do better, and through contraptions like "sportsmanship" you encourage everyone to play/study hard.
It's not a great argument, but it's there. And it's a proposed solution. Right now, you have a goal, but you have no plan about how to get there.
You've definitely have a streak of optimism in you if you think that's going to happen. I'm guessing you're a democrat. Me too. Listen, one of the attractive but weak points of this philosophy is it's optimism. If your plan doesn't account for snot nosed little brats being horrible to each other, if your plan for that scenario is "let's hope it doesn't happen" or "get the parents to fix that", then you really don't have a plan. If you want kids to be doves and co-operate with the other prisoners, you're going to have to give them a real psychological and sociological reason to do so. And even then you'll only have maybe 70% of them on board and you'll still have the occasional little bastard to deal with.
You've definitely have a streak of optimism in you if you think that's going to happen. I'm guessing you're a democrat. Me too. Listen, one of the attractive but weak points of this philosophy is it's optimism. If your plan doesn't account for snot nosed little brats being horrible to each other, if your plan for that scenario is "let's hope it doesn't happen" or "get the parents to fix that", then you really don't have a plan. If you want kids to be doves and co-operate with the other prisoners, you're going to have to give them a real psychological and sociological reason to do so. And even then you'll only have maybe 70% of them on board and you'll still have the occasional little bastard to deal with.
Yeah, I'm a dreamer, but the thing that is probably unobtainable is not the effective schooling system - there are plenty of examples from around the country and around the world that point to the possibility of educational systems that serve the vast majority of students (I would guestimate that the potential is for +95% rather than 70%) much more effectively than those systems we are most familiar with. What I am most pessimistic of is the political ability to enact the types of widespread changes that would need to occur for this type of radical change to happen. Almost nobody is going to support the funding needed to drop the student-instructor ration down to something radical like 10:1 or lower for example.
In any case, one of your criticism is that I stated a "goal" rather than a "proposal", and I agree with you that I have not really stated one. However one important point I would like to make is that I feel that a weakness of many of our current educational systems is that they have not clearly stated what their goals are. As much as we like to make fun of "mission statements" and "vision statements", when implemented properly they can very much assist in setting an organization's priorities. One of Steve Jobs' strengths when returning to Apple in the 1990s was his ability to say "no" to many projects that did not fit into the vision of Apple. If our schools had clearly defined goals that were not mutually contradictory we could more easily decide if various programs or plans were optimal for reaching those goals.
It's "rebuttal". Now get over there with kdemetter.
And stop pulling his ears!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."