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Re: [Phys-l] STUDY SUGGESTS NO CHILD LAW MAY BE DUMBING DOWNSTUDENTS



We still have recess in Indiana--at least locally--but with so many problems, I don't see it playing any kind of major factor.

What I mean about 'high stakes' testing--ON THE STUDENTS--is to have serious 'gate-keeper' tests, testing MINIMAL acceptable knowledge and skills for movement forward. Maybe at 3rd, 6th, and 8th grade. We do have something of the sort for getting a HS diploma. It seems absurd to me to advance students on and on when they are stuck at 2nd grade reading and math stills. Such would require some special classrooms or schools to deal with keeping 'age-appropriate' groupings, but if we have 12 year olds unable to read then we need to work on that LONG before worrying about Algebra. I'm not concerned with algebra for the general population (college prep yes) but rather basic reading, writing, and math skills. It wouldn't hurt if students knew a touch of world and national history, a bit of geography (my college classes had no clue how far it was from NY to LA), and some other pertinent 'facts' so as to have something with which to work when we decide we want them to 'think critically', but what we really need is an assessment of BASIC knowledge and skills needed to function reasonably in the society. The testing should concentrate on that--and prevent advancement of those who refuse to 'try' and learn (and special help to those how are clearly unable to learn). There should be other consequences to lack of effort as well--withholding driving privileges and the like. Putting all the blame of teachers because you don't like how they teach is not the answer either--that's 'not their fault' either since they were trained differently than you would have liked.

I hope we can agree to disagree about the politics here--but I just hope we don't have to endure another 4-8 years of vehement hatred aimed at whoever our president happens to be--but I won't hold my breath on that one! ;-(

Despite the multiplicity of factors that are contributing to the educational malaise, I do think we could look more at 'successful' programs, successful school systems, and perhaps learn a bit. Of course, we will all have different measures of 'success', but here in Indiana the ISTEP testing is the 'official' measure, and it is very easy to look at the state results and see one definite trend--one which is not often mentioned since it is 'politically incorrect'. The high scoring schools, the high scoring school systems, tend to be those with fairly homogenous populations and those schools and districts with low scores tend to be those with a diverse student populations. The public schools in rural communities tend to score considerably higher than those in large urban areas. The private schools, especially religious based, score higher than the public schools in the same communities. This might well relate to lots of the contributing factors I listed in an earlier note, but there may be some lessons here as well. One that some districts are trying, is separating the boys and girls in the classrooms. School uniforms (of some sort) can also remove some of the social posturing and peer pressure and that is being tried in some districts as well.

Rick (who went through Catholic education in St. Louis where most of the high-schools were single sex institutions and then went to Notre Dame when it was still male only, and now teach at Saint Mary's College, a women's college--and believes such education to has many advantages (with many social disadvantages though!)


----- Original Message ----- From: "John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>




The tests that were being done by Shayer are things that according to Piaget
were found to click in before age 10. Subsequent research revealed that
these actually are understood at a variety of ages, and that some adults
never understand them. Conventional schooling does not seem to affect
understanding of these tasks, but specialized teaching using the learning
cycle with hands on/minds on lessons does have an effect. The continuous
drill which has been instituted in schools in place of education certainly
does not help students to understand these tasks. The water displacement
task seems to be impossible for students before age 7, even when shown it by
experiment. Understanding of these tasks requires both brain development,
and experience for students to construct this understanding. These are
examples of conservation reasoning.

These tasks are considered markers of concrete operational thinking and are
necessary to be understood, before higher level tasks. Notice that they did
not show research on the markers of formal operational thinking such as
proportional reasoning. This latter maker of reasoning is only acquired by
about 25% of graduating seniors in the US according to my admittedly limited
survey. But this is confirmed by others.

As to recess, this is where students interact in an unstructured setting.
This is absolutely necessary to normal development, and is where they
acquire executive functioning according to the cognitive scientists. It is
not acquired in formal classroom settings. Without good executive
functioning they can not control behavior adequately for good learning.
There are some programs designed to promote executive functioning, but they
do not resemble conventional classroom lessons, and have only been used in a
small limited set of schools. The evidence is very positive that they do
work. There was an article in the NY Times science section about them.

As to the raising of the high stakes tests, there is no use beating someone
for something that they have no control over. The teachers do not
understand or have the programs that are needed to promote good learning.
When a student is at a low level of thinking, they can NOT learn things like
algebra. When they do not understand whether to add, multiply, subtract or
divide, any advanced math is opaque. They lack proportional reasoning, and
the conventional teaching of ratios is not useful in teaching it.

The answer is that teachers need to be trained in pedagogical content
knowledge. The TIMMS report shows that European and Asian teachers have
such knowledge and ask students better questions. And of course the
American texts are entirely too long and clotted with undigested, confusing
material. But along with this districts need to allow different approaches
rather than saddle teachers with one size fits all teaching. While teaching
gobs of material may not be as damaging in schools with high SES students,
it is the kiss of death in lower level schools. Essentially it promotes a
high dropout rate, which the school welcomes as a solution to achieving good
test scores. And dropout rates are very high, but schools find ways of
hiding it such as claiming the student transferred to another school, but
this is never verified.