Who Is IOZ?: And Living With Your Father!

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

And Living With Your Father!

Via one of our many far-flung correspondents, I was turned onto this delightful Times hand-wringer, which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Children, Who Are The Future, are a lot fucking smarter than their elders. Well, I'm sure that'll be ground out of them in high school.

The astonishing findings of the reported-on research are this: smart kids who easily master academic subjects are too smart to give a fuck about the various and sundry rituals of participation. Meanwhile, another group of equally smart kids have figured out that teachers are easy subjects for manipulation; like all adults in positions of ersatz authority, they crave gaudy obedience and demonstrative respect.

All of this of course causes education technocrats to reel around trying to figure out how to "reach out"--to make social achievers more academically sound and academic achievers more socially acceptable. Fortunately, and I have every confidence, kids will continue to foil their best efforts, behaving exactly as they are not supposed to, forever and ever, amen.

30 comments:

mp said...: What I learned from the NYT: some adults may be rethinking the proposition that kids who bring pencils are better than kids who do not.; 2:22 PM
shargash said...: There is lots of handwringing about the state of schools in America, but the schools will never change. The reason for this is that America has the most highly-developed and advanced education system in the modern world.

The mistake is to assume that the purpose of the schools is to produce educated people. American schools do exactly what they are intended to do: turn out obedient, docile consumers. Thus it is no surprise that the students that learn the most may be the least compliant.; 2:46 PM
TedTheJackal said...: Intelligence is the great unequalizer. It knows no bounds of age, gender, or supposed hierarchical status.; 3:13 PM
lucid said...: My teachers actually let me get away with murder because I aced every exam and got straight A's. Of course they did call my parents on occasion suggesting I might be on drugs and they should look into that...; 3:28 PM
Leonard said...: It really is funny how stupid the progs are about intelligence.

Look, NYT-believing progressive: those tests you're giving? Intelligence tests. Probably not great ones, but certainly better than evaluating IQ indirectly via compliance and tractability.

I know, and you know, and we both know the other knows that intelligence is important. Right. So I know why you want to rank kids by IQ: to slot them properly into the progressive educational hierarchy. Smart kids to Harvard! Mediocre kids to UCLA! Dumb kids to Oklahoma State! Really dumb kids... perhaps can they work for a living?

Anyway, sounds great so far, right, NYT-believing progressive? Sorry, there's a worm in this apple: intelligence is inborn, inherited, and important. IQ-testing kids not only reveals important difference (you can handle that part, because your kids are distinctly above-average in IQ, aren't they?), it reveals inborn, inherited difference. Not only are your kids smarter, they are smarter because they are white; because they chose you for a parent, and not some black/brown person. So very unfair! Now, are you going to admit racial differences exist? No, of course not. "Stereotype threat"! "Bad teachers"! "Different intelligences"! "Racism"!; 3:33 PM
lucid said...: Lulz! even better than the last thread Leonard... Paging Inky!; 3:38 PM
pistoffnick said...: “life skills” grade!!!!!!

Hah! Mr Hatlelli, the high school art teacher, with his spooky glass eye, taught me everything I need to know about questioning authority and creative thinking.

If you piss off the big man, there is going to be trouble. Lesson learned.; 4:07 PM
Answard said...: Leonard,

If you placed the crucifix in a jar of urine you would piss (ha!) off Christians less than mentioning racial IQ differences pisses off the progressives.

The science has shown it time and again, but their only response is to laugh it off. Evolution apparently stops at the hippocampus.; 4:33 PM
Keifus said...: I remember they used to rank effort back in grade school--I thought it was hilarious to get an A+ in English, with a failing rank for effort, but I don't know how great that life lesson really was. More go-getterism would have been good for the gradual bend toward voluntary study, but on the other hand, less has done wonders for survival when it comes to paid work.

Am I fucking off too much, or should I just be skating more gracefully? I couldn't decide then either.; 4:36 PM
fish said...: The astonishing findings of the reported-on research are this: smart kids who easily master academic subjects are too smart to give a fuck about the various and sundry rituals of participation. Meanwhile, another group of equally smart kids have figured out that teachers are easy subjects for manipulation; like all adults in positions of ersatz authority, they crave gaudy obedience and demonstrative respect.

Definitely a strange new trend. I bet there is an excellent plot for a movie comedy out of this. Perhaps a charming collection of misfits all together in a fraternity led by an charismatic, intelligent, but ultimately rakish individual with no respect for authority. Perhaps an uptight dean as the foil. Hijinks abound.; 4:53 PM
fish said...: The science has shown it time and again, but their only response is to laugh it off. Evolution apparently stops at the hippocampus.

Whiteness is a Lamarckian trait:

Moore (1986) found that Black children raised by Black middle-class families had mean IQs of 104, whereas Black children raised by White middle-class families had mean IQs of 117.

Why do you progressives hate Lamarck?; 5:30 PM
mandt said...: Harvard is a perfect example of a Hippo Campus and is easier to spell than Mississippi.; 6:47 PM
Anonymous said...: "The science has shown it time and again, but their only response is to laugh it off. Evolution apparently stops at the hippocampus."

Wrong. Pure error of fact. I refer you to this essay, and do not expect to hear any more on this matter:

http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/523.html

(I supply this essay to you assuming you're statistically literate - seeing as you're such a fan of 'science.' If you're not, then you have no business making the claims you're making in the first place, and we should all feel safe dismissing you out of hand.); 6:58 PM
Michael Dawson said...: A rather partial and Procrustean take on this issue from IOZ. The trend being reported here is more increased emphasis on test results. That doesn't strike me as a particularly anarchist value. And absolutely nothing in the situation or this story validates the romantic notion that all D students are fuming, rebels and geniuses. A few are. The rest are lost souls being intensely fucked by the real problems of the school system -- underfunding, scandalously high student-teacher ratios, brain-dead and inflexible curricula.; 7:22 PM
Enron said...: "Smart kids to Harvard!" Lulz! As if grades measure intelligence, or whatever.; 7:54 PM
ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...: I bet there is an excellent plot for a movie comedy out of this.

Never rely on a feech for the lulz.
~; 9:34 PM
coach outlet said...: Thanks a lot for enjoying this beauty article with me. I am apreciating it very much! Looking forward to another great article. Good luck to the author! all the best!; 9:46 PM
NutellaonToast said...: "we should all feel safe dismissing you out of hand."

Thank god we have anonymous, or else I'd still feel uneasy dismissing Leonard out of hand.; 9:48 PM
Professor Coldheart said...: And absolutely nothing in the situation or this story validates the romantic notion that all D students are fuming, rebels and geniuses.

I've got no problem saying anyone getting a 'D' in high school is a de facto rebel. They're doing something with the time that they don't spend studying, after all.; 11:06 PM
Anonymous said...: Ah, it's Zocrates all over again, applauding the corruption of our youth.

How would you like your hemlock, Zoc?; 1:30 AM
Anonymous said...: This is EASILY the most ridiculous example of shoe-horning and gross over generalization ive ever seen here. And BTW .."education technocrats"? ..WHICH pathetically unfunded,overworked,poorly supplied school district would I see some of these slick, corporate/big gubmint boogie people working in? not NY. surely not NY.(at least not outside of like, two charter schools in NY); 1:50 AM
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Montag said...: "education technocrats"? ..WHICH pathetically unfunded,overworked,poorly supplied school district would I see some of these slick, corporate/big gubmint boogie people working in?

[TOWN NAME], Maine. has a Superintendent, an Assistant Superintendent, a Director of Student Services, a Director of Curriculum, a Director of Teacher Program & Development, a Director of Facilities & Property Services, and a Director of Information Technology. they are among the highest paid administrators in the state. they work in an office with 8 assistants, accountants and clerks hoding up the business end of the school department.

there are 3,370 students.

staffing cuts, classroom budget cuts, cuts to music and art programs, have been handed down from these administrators for 3 or 4 years straight now. the classrooms are underfunded. so you're dealing with an extremely top-heavy organization here.

couple of years ago there was a kick for literacy integration across all classrooms, or some such. so kids were supposed to be reading and writing in all of their classes, math, art, gym, all of them. and all of the teachers had to turn in goals, and implementation plans, and reports about how they were forcing kids to read and write in their classes. turns out the administrator who came up with the idea was using the data to write his doctoral thesis. lol. apparently, every time one of these douchebags has a hypothesis, it gets tested right then in the classrooms. is science!

now the system is switching over to "standards based" grading. same deal, bunch of busy work for teachers, indecipherable report cards, and so on. between all the make-work and standardized testing, there is little time for teachers who are inclined to, and there are several, to teach anything outside the sanctioned consumer training regimen.

it's a feature not a bug.; 8:41 AM
Inspector Lee said...: "Football season is over, Veronica. Kurt and Ram had nothing left to offer the school except for date rapes and AIDS jokes."; 10:39 AM
respjrat said...: haha test anxiety. oh my god there's multiple choices! which one!?

dumbest fucks at the top of the class; 11:13 AM
NutellaonToast said...: Shit, Montag, LOL, you found something that looks bad so the system is totally screwed beyond repair....

but wait... a glimmer of hope... I learned something in school. THE SYSTEM IS PERFECT!; 11:24 AM
bueller? said...: Hey, current HS math teacher here who just switched to standards-based grading (voluntarily, and after much research). It's awesome!(of course I identify my own standards rather than using the official state jargon).

Montag's claim of extra busy work and indecipherable report cards is the exact opposite of what standards-based grading is about. Your "traditional" report card has stuff like: "Quiz 1 85%, Quiz 2 60%, Homework: 70%, Test 55%" or whatever, whcih gives basically no real information. My current report cards look like this: "Graphing Quadratic equations: 8/10; Factoring: 4/10; Completing the Square: 6/10", which tells students exactly what skills they need to improve. It takes extra work to create focused assessments and give time for students to come in and reassess on skills once they have improved, but I don't check homework, or grade worksheets, or any of that, which frees up about an equal amount of time.

But no more "i'm not good at tests" kids who copy their HW assignment every night and coast by on their perfect HW grade while learning nothing, and no more kids who fail just because they miss a quiz and don't make it up, or because it takes them an extra week to master a certain topic.

It's a much saner approach to school than the usual points-whoring system where learning things is almost completely orthogonal to getting a good grade.

That said, administrators fuck everything up, and my greatest fear is that our district's curriculum director will find out what I'm doing, jargon it up, and try to mandate it school-wide. Top-down reform never works b/c teachers are stubborn assholes (the ones that aren't don't make it past year 3).; 11:43 AM
Montag said...: point taken, bueller. your standards make sense even to me. the reports my kids get are written in educator jargon that doesn't. my spouse who is a teacher has to explain it to me. i wish i could remember some of the terminology to provide an example, but i can't. it's that arcane. i suspect it is a result of a top-down approach where all of the teachers must use the same terminology.

i barely look at the report cards anymore. opting to get the news from the teacher instead. is he on the honors track going into high school next year? good.

and no he's not a rule follower. he's hacking the system.

but that said, if standards based grading isn't a time bandit, something else is/will be in this particular school department. yes, NoT, i have no broader frame of reference. (zing!) what was that letter that came home the other day? federally mandated, (talk about top-down,) RTI initiative? "response to intervention" was it?; 12:27 PM
respjrat said...: my hs math teacher once took two entire days in class working out a problem from the book on the board. as i recall he never did figure it out.

i handed in a blank final; 1:38 PM
Tim 2 said...: The most important factor in determining intelligence is SLEEP, not heredity. I took an IQ test as a teenager, got 8 hours of sleep the night before, and scored 130. Several years later I was given another one and I got shitfaced drunk until 4am, slept 2 hours, cheated on the test and scored 160.

Simple.; 4:23 PM

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

And Living With Your Father!

30 comments:

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