You are correct. While there is research that an impoverished infancy can result in a child being developmentally behind, there isn't any research that you can push kids ahead beyond a certain level. You can send a kid to academically rigorous preschool, but on average, by 3rd grade (age 8 in the U.S.), their peers will have caught up with them. The science supports the Finnish way of doing things, and those of us who actually are developmental researchers in the U.S. are continually frustrated that educational policy, and often the demands of the parents, are quite contrary to what the research suggests.
18 months is waaaaaaaaaay to early to introduce stuff like that.
Let the toddler be a toddler. All that baby Einstein-esque crap has been proven to be nothing but trouble for your child's NORMAL development.
On the other hand, if it's a child with atypical development, 18 months may be bordering on too old: These kids benefited greatly from computer access.
Er... what am I missing here, why the heck is this story even on Slashdot, which is primarily a technology news site?
On its own, this article doesn't necessarily fit except to a minority of readers who might be wine geeks. However this article is related to an ongoing discussion on "Intellectual Property" [sic] concerning the increasingly problematic state of trademarks, patents and copyrights. As one article among many on this topic, it fits in just fine. Extending the discussion beyond the tech industry provides context.
Would you expect a "Scotch Whisky" to come from Polland? Obviously no. It doesn't preclude Japanese to make great Single Malt Whiskies. They just don't make Scotch Whiskies.
Think of it as a trademark, shared by all the producers from one geographic region. You can't buy a Macintosh from Hewlett-Packard, can you? So why should you be able to buy a Burgundy from someone that isn't located in the region of Burgundy, and therefore doesn't share in the trademark?
(Emphasis mine)
But there's a system in place for establishing and protecting trademarks and the regional producers never used it. Generally, once you stop protecting a trademark, you lose it. Why are they able to fight this now so late in the game?
The problem is that I, as a casual consumer, cannot know the dozens of varieties available on the market. I might think that Australian port is my favorite, but how am I supposed to find that product on a shelf after the name change? The product is "port," I've never thought of that as a Brand name. The industry has done a fairly good job communicating to the public that "sparkling wine" and "champagne" are analogous, but what's their strategy for teaching me new names for all these--"Auslese, burgundy, chablis, claret, marsala, moselle, port, and sherry"? I don't know if I have the spare bandwidth in my brain to absorb all that, especially since I don't go to a liquor store for wines more than three or four times per year and thus don't have a lot of exposure to this information.
They may be using modern technology to do the census, but they're using them in a primitive way. Modern statistical methods allow one to take a small sample and accurately determine the entire population and its makeup, at a tiny fraction of the cost.
The Census Bureau has been arguing for sampling for several Censuses now. It's not like they aren't aware of modern statistical methods. It's a no-go. Congress won't approve it. It might not even be legal since the letter of the law clearly specifies an enumeration of every individual. Besides, the specific data from this Census gets opened in 2080 and will be a treasure trove for historians and genealogists.
I was an enumerator in 2000 and one of our team did exactly that: made up the data at home. She was caught in two days when those forms got input into the computer and got kicked back out. Besides running an ANOVA check on the data to compare the variances between workers (I'm guessing that's how they caught her so quickly, but I didn't know what an ANOVA was at the time), they also had a follow-up team separate from ours that double-checked a random sample of our work.
I am completely in love with Metroid Prime Pinball for the DS. I'm not a pinball aficionado, and have no idea if it's really that good, but when I need a short distraction, that's my go-to game--more so even than TetrisDS.
However, without a standardized national curriculum or standards for grading, there is much variance between different schools in different places. Grades between different districts might not be directly comparable. The SAT was invented to compensate for that. You raise a good point in that what is evaluated on the SAT isn't necessarily in the curriculum... in fact, in many sections, it's intentionally NOT what is in the curriculum.
I agree that the information should be available. Transparency is important.
However, with the abysmal state of science reporting in the mainstream press, the LA Times is likely to misinterpret the numbers. The teachers are right when they question the validity of the tests--will the Times be running any disclaimers of the limitations of their findings? Will the "value-added" calculation be published for peer review? Even if LA Times does everything right, some other newspaper in another city will try to do the same thing and make a hash of the numbers. (I guess I just don't trust journalists with science; they routinely get it wrong).
We really should be looking at designing tests with more validity for assessing this sort of thing. Before we can even do that we need to form some sort of consensus as a society as to what a "well educated" citizen even looks like in the 21st century. The tests are determining the curriculum rather than the other way around--and no, the teachers' union has nothing to do with that problem.
Perhaps the moderator should have posted a dissenting view instead. I recommend something like "Fifty years from now, your van will be long gone and its replacement replaced by other vans, but those tracks, built once, would still be in service and paying energy dividends."
This was a while back, but I remember recess in my first week of middleschool - 5th grade. A bunch of us wanted to play tag or something, but a teacher/supervisor stopped us and told us we weren't to run anymore, we're too old for that game. The rest of middleschool recess was like that, the one consistent time of day to get out our frustrations we were reduced to walking like any other intermission between class periods. Strange rule though, because we had Gym, and dodgeball is just a form of tag with a ball and slightly different rule (tag, you're out! instead of tag, you're it!)...
That may be the saddest thing I've ever read--particularly since my PhD research is on the developmental effects of play. Running and rough play is one way that children condition themselves to suppress impulsive behavior. Forcing kids to be sedate for longer than is developmentally appropriate is making the attention problem worse. It messes with brain development.
I agree, but I don't think there will ever be an objective threshold between normal distractibility and pathology. It's always going to be a judgement call of how much it interferes with everyday life.
The problem is with the schools creating a curriculum that isn't developmentally appropriate. Placing preschoolers in kindergarten, kindergartners in first grade, and so on, means that kids never get the developmental experience of learning to suppress their own impulses (something that happens in early childhood during unstructured physical activity). They don't get that foundation and then we have to compensate for it later medically. (I know, [citation needed]? The experts in this area are Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Roberta Golinkoff, and Dorothy Singer.)
A major problem is confusing difficulty for academic rigor. I've seen textbooks that were just plain developmentally inappropriate. Things like mathematics are extremely abstract. There are some things that kids' brains are just not ready to absorb, but administrators want all the kids to be above average (like in Lake Woebegon) so that their test scores will look good. "Wow! Look at the advanced stuff they've got the kids doing! We'll be sure to ace the state tests now!" Next thing you know, you're teaching the 5th grade curriculum to 3rd graders and the 2nd grade curriculum to the kindergartners and, while it's great for the kids who get it (they grow up to be Slashdotters), most of the class can't and they get cheated out of learning the basic fundamentals. They never get a decent education. (And as most Slashdotters can attest, it isn't that great for the advanced kids either).
Another issue is when districts get a math program, buy the books, then cheap out on training the teachers how it works. They send some of the staff to the workshop where the publishers explain WTF is going on in their program, and then those few train everyone else. Stuff gets lost in translation. Then new hires come on and trained people leave and you've got a total mess of interpretations of the curriculum.
I know it's not the popular political stance here, but part of the solution is to move control of the curriculum from the towns to something larger, like states or the Fed.
They start prepping kids for algebra in the 1st and 2nd grade. Granted, I spend more time in language arts classes than math (I'm a speech therapist), but I see this stuff on the chalkboard and on the walls. Where is this going wrong? Back in the 80s, I remember talking about the = being the center point of a balance scale. And inequality signs being an alligator that eats the higher value. We knew what those symbols meant when we were six. Are they not doing the foundational stuff like that? Skipping over it to get to the actual problems that will be seen on the standardized test?
In most of the world we study Mathematics. I didn't realise that there was only one Mathematic studied in the US.
This is a dialectical thing about American English. We use singular verb inflections with collective nouns. Queen's English: "Aerosmith are playing Wembley Stadium." U.S. English: "Aerosmith is playing the Verizon Center." This is why you hear "the data is" over here.
I was doing programming in the 4th grade, and this was in the early 80s...
I went to a rural public school in the 80s and I learned BASIC and LOGO starting in about 4th grade. In high school, in the time between when the AP tests were and the end of the school year, we learned programming, too.
I think they still break out the Lego LOGO with the younger kids, but by the time they get into the upper elementary now, if it isn't on the standardized test, they don't bother. This is a major factor in why I'm not a teacher.
My fear is that someone in Hollywood is going to realize that Primer is such a great science fiction movie and think that they need to remake it and "sexy" it up with effects and shit. I do wish they had done some ADR, or had used some better microphones with some of the dialogue, but visually, that movie is perfect the way it is.
Indeed. In fact, I spend as much time playing the Bit.Trip games as most Wii games, and they're made to look like 8-bit graphics. They'd be worse with better graphics.
Slashdot Mirror
You are correct. While there is research that an impoverished infancy can result in a child being developmentally behind, there isn't any research that you can push kids ahead beyond a certain level. You can send a kid to academically rigorous preschool, but on average, by 3rd grade (age 8 in the U.S.), their peers will have caught up with them.
The science supports the Finnish way of doing things, and those of us who actually are developmental researchers in the U.S. are continually frustrated that educational policy, and often the demands of the parents, are quite contrary to what the research suggests.
18 months is waaaaaaaaaay to early to introduce stuff like that.
Let the toddler be a toddler. All that baby Einstein-esque crap has been proven to be nothing but trouble for your child's NORMAL development.
On the other hand, if it's a child with atypical development, 18 months may be bordering on too old:
These kids benefited greatly from computer access.
Thanks. This was actually exactly what I was looking for. (Also, I too grew up on the TI-99/4a).
When they're old enough, why not? Or did you miss the part about "old enough" or "under close supervision, and specific direction."?
Did no one else get to sit on their parents lap and steer the car?
Or learn to drive a stick by shifting from the passenger's seat because their dad needed his other hand to hold a beer?
Er... what am I missing here, why the heck is this story even on Slashdot, which is primarily a technology news site?
On its own, this article doesn't necessarily fit except to a minority of readers who might be wine geeks. However this article is related to an ongoing discussion on "Intellectual Property" [sic] concerning the increasingly problematic state of trademarks, patents and copyrights. As one article among many on this topic, it fits in just fine. Extending the discussion beyond the tech industry provides context.
Or were you trolling? In which case may I direct you to this Rick Astley Video, or goat.cx?
Would you expect a "Scotch Whisky" to come from Polland? Obviously no. It doesn't preclude Japanese to make great Single Malt Whiskies. They just don't make Scotch Whiskies.
Think of it as a trademark, shared by all the producers from one geographic region. You can't buy a Macintosh from Hewlett-Packard, can you? So why should you be able to buy a Burgundy from someone that isn't located in the region of Burgundy, and therefore doesn't share in the trademark?
(Emphasis mine)
But there's a system in place for establishing and protecting trademarks and the regional producers never used it. Generally, once you stop protecting a trademark, you lose it. Why are they able to fight this now so late in the game?
The problem is that I, as a casual consumer, cannot know the dozens of varieties available on the market. I might think that Australian port is my favorite, but how am I supposed to find that product on a shelf after the name change? The product is "port," I've never thought of that as a Brand name. The industry has done a fairly good job communicating to the public that "sparkling wine" and "champagne" are analogous, but what's their strategy for teaching me new names for all these--"Auslese, burgundy, chablis, claret, marsala, moselle, port, and sherry"? I don't know if I have the spare bandwidth in my brain to absorb all that, especially since I don't go to a liquor store for wines more than three or four times per year and thus don't have a lot of exposure to this information.
Is that a reflection of the device in his glasses? Zoom in and enhance!
They may be using modern technology to do the census, but they're using them in a primitive way. Modern statistical methods allow one to take a small sample and accurately determine the entire population and its makeup, at a tiny fraction of the cost.
The Census Bureau has been arguing for sampling for several Censuses now. It's not like they aren't aware of modern statistical methods. It's a no-go. Congress won't approve it. It might not even be legal since the letter of the law clearly specifies an enumeration of every individual.
Besides, the specific data from this Census gets opened in 2080 and will be a treasure trove for historians and genealogists.
I was an enumerator in 2000 and one of our team did exactly that: made up the data at home. She was caught in two days when those forms got input into the computer and got kicked back out. Besides running an ANOVA check on the data to compare the variances between workers (I'm guessing that's how they caught her so quickly, but I didn't know what an ANOVA was at the time), they also had a follow-up team separate from ours that double-checked a random sample of our work.
I am completely in love with Metroid Prime Pinball for the DS. I'm not a pinball aficionado, and have no idea if it's really that good, but when I need a short distraction, that's my go-to game--more so even than TetrisDS.
However, without a standardized national curriculum or standards for grading, there is much variance between different schools in different places. Grades between different districts might not be directly comparable. The SAT was invented to compensate for that. You raise a good point in that what is evaluated on the SAT isn't necessarily in the curriculum... in fact, in many sections, it's intentionally NOT what is in the curriculum.
I agree that the information should be available. Transparency is important.
However, with the abysmal state of science reporting in the mainstream press, the LA Times is likely to misinterpret the numbers. The teachers are right when they question the validity of the tests--will the Times be running any disclaimers of the limitations of their findings? Will the "value-added" calculation be published for peer review? Even if LA Times does everything right, some other newspaper in another city will try to do the same thing and make a hash of the numbers. (I guess I just don't trust journalists with science; they routinely get it wrong).
We really should be looking at designing tests with more validity for assessing this sort of thing. Before we can even do that we need to form some sort of consensus as a society as to what a "well educated" citizen even looks like in the 21st century. The tests are determining the curriculum rather than the other way around--and no, the teachers' union has nothing to do with that problem.
How you're modded "Troll" is beyond me.
Perhaps the moderator should have posted a dissenting view instead. I recommend something like "Fifty years from now, your van will be long gone and its replacement replaced by other vans, but those tracks, built once, would still be in service and paying energy dividends."
This was a while back, but I remember recess in my first week of middleschool - 5th grade. A bunch of us wanted to play tag or something, but a teacher/supervisor stopped us and told us we weren't to run anymore, we're too old for that game. The rest of middleschool recess was like that, the one consistent time of day to get out our frustrations we were reduced to walking like any other intermission between class periods. Strange rule though, because we had Gym, and dodgeball is just a form of tag with a ball and slightly different rule (tag, you're out! instead of tag, you're it!)...
That may be the saddest thing I've ever read--particularly since my PhD research is on the developmental effects of play. Running and rough play is one way that children condition themselves to suppress impulsive behavior. Forcing kids to be sedate for longer than is developmentally appropriate is making the attention problem worse. It messes with brain development.
I agree, but I don't think there will ever be an objective threshold between normal distractibility and pathology. It's always going to be a judgement call of how much it interferes with everyday life.
The problem is with the schools creating a curriculum that isn't developmentally appropriate. Placing preschoolers in kindergarten, kindergartners in first grade, and so on, means that kids never get the developmental experience of learning to suppress their own impulses (something that happens in early childhood during unstructured physical activity). They don't get that foundation and then we have to compensate for it later medically.
(I know, [citation needed]? The experts in this area are Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Roberta Golinkoff, and Dorothy Singer.)
P.S. concerning your sig, shouldn't it be "sudo someone go find it"?
I'm going to go fix that right now. :)
There is no U.S. education system. Systems are for Socialists. Here, we have local control and we like it!
You are so right.
A major problem is confusing difficulty for academic rigor. I've seen textbooks that were just plain developmentally inappropriate. Things like mathematics are extremely abstract. There are some things that kids' brains are just not ready to absorb, but administrators want all the kids to be above average (like in Lake Woebegon) so that their test scores will look good. "Wow! Look at the advanced stuff they've got the kids doing! We'll be sure to ace the state tests now!" Next thing you know, you're teaching the 5th grade curriculum to 3rd graders and the 2nd grade curriculum to the kindergartners and, while it's great for the kids who get it (they grow up to be Slashdotters), most of the class can't and they get cheated out of learning the basic fundamentals. They never get a decent education. (And as most Slashdotters can attest, it isn't that great for the advanced kids either).
Another issue is when districts get a math program, buy the books, then cheap out on training the teachers how it works. They send some of the staff to the workshop where the publishers explain WTF is going on in their program, and then those few train everyone else. Stuff gets lost in translation. Then new hires come on and trained people leave and you've got a total mess of interpretations of the curriculum.
I know it's not the popular political stance here, but part of the solution is to move control of the curriculum from the towns to something larger, like states or the Fed.
They start prepping kids for algebra in the 1st and 2nd grade. Granted, I spend more time in language arts classes than math (I'm a speech therapist), but I see this stuff on the chalkboard and on the walls. Where is this going wrong?
Back in the 80s, I remember talking about the = being the center point of a balance scale. And inequality signs being an alligator that eats the higher value. We knew what those symbols meant when we were six. Are they not doing the foundational stuff like that? Skipping over it to get to the actual problems that will be seen on the standardized test?
The empty square as a "variable" in an equation is something I've seen as low as 2nd and 3rd grade.
In most of the world we study Mathematics. I didn't realise that there was only one Mathematic studied in the US.
This is a dialectical thing about American English. We use singular verb inflections with collective nouns.
Queen's English: "Aerosmith are playing Wembley Stadium."
U.S. English: "Aerosmith is playing the Verizon Center."
This is why you hear "the data is" over here.
I was doing programming in the 4th grade, and this was in the early 80s...
I went to a rural public school in the 80s and I learned BASIC and LOGO starting in about 4th grade. In high school, in the time between when the AP tests were and the end of the school year, we learned programming, too.
I think they still break out the Lego LOGO with the younger kids, but by the time they get into the upper elementary now, if it isn't on the standardized test, they don't bother. This is a major factor in why I'm not a teacher.
My fear is that someone in Hollywood is going to realize that Primer is such a great science fiction movie and think that they need to remake it and "sexy" it up with effects and shit.
I do wish they had done some ADR, or had used some better microphones with some of the dialogue, but visually, that movie is perfect the way it is.
I think Wii sales proved that a long time ago.
Indeed. In fact, I spend as much time playing the Bit.Trip games as most Wii games, and they're made to look like 8-bit graphics. They'd be worse with better graphics.