Peg in the Machine

Here’s something to think about:  what if a law or just policy could be passed that would actually all-but-guarantee that no child will be left behind in school, while all students would be able to learn to their potential?

There’s a simple thing about humans, we’re animals that can be programed just like any others.  Don’t think so?  Check out Neuro-linguistic programming or Derren Brown or anything similar where people show just how easily people can be manipulated and just otherwise not be as “unique” as they think.  But back to the subject, different people learn differently.  They think somewhat differently (despite my prior comments), and not all people can be or even will be experts in the same field.

Different personalities, intelligence (but really, what is intelligence?), and abilities both within the person and in their environment all alter how well they’ll be able to do in schools.  Almost sounds like boarding schools would be the way to go there if you think about the environment’s involvement.

Here’s the thing:  the same student could get a different score on the same test based on what hour in the day, what day of the week, if they’ve eaten, if they’ve exercised, or even if their school’s sports team won or lost a game.

And what conditions cause one student to get a good grade on a test might not be what causes a higher grade for another student.  But think about how schools do things:  set schedules with tests given to all students at the same time.  A school system could easily manipulate the student’s scores just by testing the students at the time and conditions in the day that the student does best.

For example:

• Student A does 5% better on tests in the afternoon — so instead of giving them tests in the morning, they administer all tests in the afternoon for them.
• Student B does 5% better on tests in the morning — so instead of giving them tests in the afternoon, they administer all tests in teh morning for them.

Of course this would also mean that for every day in the week, there would have to be a “testing classroom” where students go to take tests.  They could either choose the time, or the school could assign them a time.  That way they take tests when they generally do better on tests, which could give them potentially better scores.

But what does this mean?  Does it mean that the students actually are more intelligent at different times in the day?  Maybe, but really it just means they’re mind’s more focused, or just better at guessing at different parts in the day.  The student’s actual knowledge is the same, just one gives better test scores.

It could go a long way for some schools to have students with better scores (so no child “left behind”) while not making any other real changes.

But in the end it all comes down to one thing:  money.  If you have good teachers that are well paid, with schools that have the funds to teach the classes with appropriate materials, and actually able to teach the fine arts (music, art, etc) students would end up being better in school, happier, and maybe just more interested in learning.

For those who don’t think so…. imagine these two schools and think which one you’d much rather attend:

School A:

• Textbooks are 10+ years old, teachers make the corrections on the board for you to keep track of
• Tests are given at 8am and 3pm in different classes — right after you showed up, and right before leaving.
• When you learn about atoms, the teacher draws the atom on the board for you to copy down
• you have classes from start to finish — all involving taking notes and reading, no rest or downtime except for lunch (no band, no art, nothing letting you be creative)

School B:

• Textbooks are within 4 years old, with virtually no updates needed
• Tests are given when you’re ready for them, no early morning or late afternoon tests unless you want it
• The teacher pulls up the notebook with projector screen to show you a 3d animated atom moving on the screen with tons of different animations to explain their movement and how they join.
• You have tangible things to study with in all classes.  You’ve got more models and microscopes you could shake a stick at (so to speak) — you even get to see movies and plays involving stories read in class
• You get to learn theatre, music, art, shop, and other creative and real-world things to learn how things are really done not just what the book tells you — and get time to learn how to be unique and not just be a drone — not to mention getting a “break” from studying to do things that are enjoyable.

Would you really want to be in School A?  If you don’t want a child left behind — get the funding to the schools (all the schools – even the ones “not worth the money” [self-fulfilling prophecy applies]) and students would want to learn, and even have the opportunity to learn.

It’s a simple question, when should children be taught about sex?  After they’ve been having sex?  Before?  Before they’d even have the chance to get molested by a neighbor/relative?

Well for the last one you’d better put speakers up to the mother’s belly and sart teaching through the womb as some babies are sexually molested. But what about the others?  At what point are you teaching children, and not giving them ideas on what to do or just use fear to scare the crap out of them?

Or better yet, what exactly should define “sex ed”?  Just a simple thing of “this is the male body” and “this is the female body” and a general thing about how they can vary, but are basically the same?  Or some in depth details on how to do different sexual things and how to protect yourself from getting a disease or pregnant?

When there’s kids having sexual relations at the age of 10 (vountarially with their classmates), it really makes a person wonder exactly when certain things should be discussed.  Children need to be able to understand what’s being told to them, as well as understand the consequences.  At certain ages, children wouldn’t have a concept of what having a child would involve.  At the same time, if you tell kids how to have sex, you might cause them to do the very acts that you’re wanting to prevent.

And then, who should be the one to tell them?

It’s just one of those things that comes to mind when thinking about the education system.

This is perhaps one of the worst things in history, and one of the worst things politicians could ever get behind. Standardized tests, or even so-called intelligence tests (or even “real” intelligence tests for that matter [but what is "intelligence"?]).

As soon as people start to classify people into neat little groups based on their abilities, they’ve guaranteed that the people will be in those groups. Many years ago, as taught when I was in college, there was a study. They took a class and gave them an intelligence test. They then divided the class into four groups. Two groups scored in the top 50%, two in the bottom 50%, with an equal distribution of test scores within (so both top 50% groups had kids scoring from 50-100, same for bottom 50%). They then put a top 50% and bottom 50% group together and told the teacher “these scored highest”, and took another top 50% and bottom 50% and said “these scored lowest”. At the end of the year a student that was at the top of the class intelligence wise was scoring in the bottom 50%, and the bottom of the class was scoring in the top 50%. Why? The teachers figured there was no point in teaching them (on a subconscious level at least) so they didn’t treat the students equally.

But even that isn’t the problem I’m talking about here. Politicians with the “no child left behind (NCLB)” have done something that’s even worse: they’re making different states and schools dumb down the standardized tests so all students pass — or just teach for the test and not actual information as would be needed. Music, arts, and other “not tested for” items aren’t taught and end up with funding being cut. They need to spend time teaching even more standardized test information to make sure the students can pass.

It’s just an example of how politicians want something good — but don’t think of the consequences. All the kids are losing out on valuable information — some aren’t even being taught how to spell! There’s stories of teachers that don’t teach reading problems (“a train leaves station A heading east at 40mph….”). Kids aren’t taught that life isn’t about multiple choices. Class upon class uses scantron based tests (so everything’s multiple choice) — granted there’s many teachers and schools actually, well, teaching. It’s a sad state of a country to say that the progress and abilities of a person can be fit into a multiple choice test. And I bet that everyone has taken a “guess” on those before. Let’s be honest… ask a person what 9*9 is and you’ll probably have a lot of wrong answers. Phrase it like:

9 * 9 = ?

1. 18
2. 27
3. 9.9
4. 81

And you k now, you do, that you’ll have a lot more people getting the answer “right” even if they don’t know what the answer is. Just by thinking “9*9 is 9+9+9+9+9+9+9+9+9, and that’s gotta be larger than 27….”

Ok, while this is a large topic, and I don’t really feel like writing up anything big right now — let’s just say that if I remember I’ll have a large post for the first time in a while about these.  Might even span two days….

So stay tuned.

Not literally — don’t worry.  With all the new security features tossed into some schools now, they have locked doors at all times, classrooms can be locked, teachers need walkie-talkies to get in and out of the building with their class (during recess and such).  They even have “lockdowns” in case of a shooter (which, ironically, will trap the students with the gunman).

It’s a sad day when schools have about as much security as a min-security prison.  But here’s the real question:  what’s school like in your area?