The stupid trying to keep the smart down.

[ReverseLunge]

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/t...20050913.shtml


Smart 'problems'
Thomas Sowell (archive)


September 13, 2005 | Print | Recommend to a friend


During my first semester of teaching, many years ago, I was surprised to encounter the philosophy that the brightest students did not need much help from the teacher because "they can get it anyway" and that my efforts should be directed toward the slower or low-performing students.

This advice came from my department chairman, who said that if the brighter or more serious students "get restless" while I was directing my efforts toward the slower students, then I should "give them some extra work to do to keep them quiet."

I didn't believe that the real difference between the A students and the C students was in inborn intelligence, but thought it was usually due to differences in attitudes and priorities. In any event, my reply was that what the chairman proposed "would be treating those who came here for an education as a special problem!"

A few days later, I handed in my resignation. It turned out to be only the first in a series of my resignations from academic institutions over the years.

Unfortunately, the idea of treating the brighter or more serious students as a problem to be dealt with by keeping them busy is not uncommon, and is absolutely pervasive in the public schools. One fashionable solution for such "problem" students is to assign them to help the less able or less conscientious students who are having trouble keeping up.

In other words, make them unpaid teacher's aides!

High potential will remain only potential unless it is developed. But the very thought that high potential should be developed more fully never seems to occur to many of our educators -- and some are absolutely hostile to the idea.

It violates their notions of equality or "social justice" and it threatens the "self-esteem" of other students. As a result, too often a student with the potential to become a future scientist, inventor, or a discoverer of a cure for cancer will instead have his time tied up doing busy work for the teacher.

Even so-called "gifted and talented" programs often turn out to be simply a bigger load of the same level of work that other students are doing -- keeping the brighter students busy in a separate room.

My old department chairman's notion that the better students "can pretty much get it without our help" assumes that there is some "it" -- some minimum competence -- which is all that matters.

People like this would apparently be satisfied if Einstein had remained a competent clerk in the Swiss patent office and if Jonas Salk, instead of discovering a cure for polio, had spent his career puttering around in a laboratory and turning out an occasional research paper of moderate interest to his academic colleagues.

If developing the high potential of some students wounds the "self-esteem" of other students, one obvious answer is for them to go their separate ways in different classrooms or different schools.

There was a time when students of different ability levels or performance levels were routinely assigned to different classes in the same grade or to different schools -- and no one else collapsed like a house of cards because of wounded self-esteem.

Let's face it: Most of the teachers in our public schools do not have what it takes to develop high intellectual potential in students. They cannot give students what they don't have themselves.

Test scores going back more than half a century have repeatedly shown people who are studying to be teachers to be at or near the bottom among college students studying in various fields. It is amazing how often this plain reality gets ignored in discussions of what to do about our public schools.

Lack of competence is only part of the problem. Too often there is not only a lack of appreciation of outstanding intellectual development but a hostility towards it by teachers who are preoccupied with the "self-esteem" of mediocre students, who may remind them of what they were once like as students.

Maybe the advancement of science, of the economy, and finding a cure for cancer can wait, while we take care of self-esteem.

[Westley]

This may be the first intelligent thing you've ever posted, and is by far the best. Interesting how this time, though, nobody wants to post back. And they wonder why you are a troll... Thanks. I printed it out. I really like it.

[The Mormegil]

it makes you think, doesn't it. it shouldn't be everyone has to be equal, it should be everyone has the equal right to become what they want to be(within limits of the law)

[ReverseLunge]

Originally Posted by Westley

This may be the first intelligent thing you've ever posted, and is by far the best. Interesting how this time, though, nobody wants to post back. And they wonder why you are a troll... Thanks. I printed it out. I really like it.

Even the dumbest thing I post has got to be above your comprehension level.

[ReverseLunge]

Originally Posted by The Mormegil

it makes you think, doesn't it. it shouldn't be everyone has to be equal, it should be everyone has the equal right to become what they want to be(within limits of the law)

Equality is a lie. Nothing in this world is equal. I'm sick having to have to support the stupids. Money out of my pocket for their stupidity.

[Fencergrl]

I’m not buying the argument presented in the article. The writer assumes that doing well in school is the sole means of determining intelligence. Many brilliant people (Einstein being one of them) do not get great marks in school.

Excelling at what you do in life has little to do with the work you are assigned in school; but more to do discovering what you are really good at, and having the self –esteem to believe in yourself.

[Go? Fencing?]

But he's right about more effort being spent on the kids who have a harder time achieving in school. I've always been one of/the smartest kid in the class, and it's true. Smart kids are shunted off to the side.

[ThatReallyHurt]

I found that the vast majority of my education (even during primary and secondary school) I got from outside school. The stuff I learned at school (and later at college) basically gave me the tools I needed to go out and teach myself what I really wanted to know and do.

I guess that's why I have ten zillion hobbies, but am not particularly good at any of them. Maybe if I was actually smart it would have helped...

[Westley]

Intelligence is a poor substitute for talent. Wisdom, on the other hand... but that's another whole discussion....

[esskreemr]

Another ridiculous post. Near total crap but I know RL didn't make it up because she's not creative enough.

I hate to break it to you, but problem students don't get lavished attention. Unless you count detention, staying after school, extra homework, paddlings (back when I was in elem), etc. Public schools were formulated to create good factory workers. Sit in your seat, shut the hell up, follow instructions, and do your work from dawn until afternoon. Standardized tests, standardized lesson plans, standardized course work all revolving around the perfect middle-of-the crowd intellect. The public school system is simply not set up to handle the top of the heap and the stragglers. Give the 'brilliant' kiddies more work, let those who fall behind repeat their struggles or get shuffled off to the 'class of lowered expectations'. Don't blame the teachers. The system ensures that the outstanding teachers don't stay too long. Low pay, low respect, and no authority over the children whose minds they are shaping. What is left over are the trully devoted, or the trully desperate. Either way their going to find it hard to keep their enthusiasm at an appropriate level throughout the day. Couple that with a RIDICULOUSLY long summer vacation during which the children promplty forget about 80% of what they know and we should all be happy that they don't allow guns in schools.

I was quite startled when my sister told me that my niece had been put on riddlin. Her crime? She was fidgeting in her seat. This was when she was in 1st or 2nd grade!!!!!!!!! I think this is ridiculous. Are we trying to create a bunch of emotionless drones with no abilities of creative thought? Short answer is yes.

A public education system that catered to the needs of each group of students would cost WAY too much. We need the cash to ensure that democracy spreads throughout begrudging world and to make sure that the pockets of our arms industry are bulgingly fat.

[cornflower]

What's riddlin?

[Go? Fencing?]

Ritalin, I believe it's spelled.

[esskreemr]

Originally Posted by Go? Fencing?

Ritalin, I believe it's spelled.

I was spelling it phonetically for the victims of public education, like me.

note: I could change it at this point, but it's staying as a testament to...well something...I haven't figured that out yet.

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

Now, I agree more with RL than Ess. Surreal feeling.

I started Sw. grammar school one year early, and bypassed the two last years of junior high during the summer before high school. I took tests for those years, but my parents had to fight real hard against a restive school administration which was ideologically opposed to letting those who had the ability to skip grades.

Once in high school is was 3 years younger than all my classmates, but I did not have to bother with most of the sh*theads that made my life miserable in grammar school. I hate their guts to this day.

Yes, I support splitting the student body into classes where the ability within one class is as similar as possible. At appropriate intervals, students should be reassessed, and if necessary, moved to a class with another ability level.

To those against standardized tests: try out the Sw. grammar school system for size. No standardized tests to speak of before junior high, and first grades at 2nd year of jr.high. Then: lots of nasty surprises, which by then are well nigh impossible to correct.


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[Sciurus-Rex]

Originally Posted by Go? Fencing?

But he's right about more effort being spent on the kids who have a harder time achieving in school. I've always been one of/the smartest kid in the class, and it's true. Smart kids are shunted off to the side.

I never minded. And I was lucky throughout middle and high school to have teachers who gave me the right kind of attention; I still remember each of them by name. Nor do I recall being held back by other students in the class or given busy work to help them.

People who whine about not getting enough attention because they're allegedly "smarter" than the other kids might only have a greater need to be the center of attention. That's a different issue entirely.

[Go? Fencing?]

A big part of the issue for me was reading. I learned to read when I was 3 1/2, so I already was reading quite well by the time I got to kindergarten. At that point, the reading system my school had was level-based, and although it started in first grade, because I already knew how to read, I was given the books and allowed to start in kindergarten. This system was a textbook/workbook kind of system. In first grade, when everyone else started in the first book, I was already up to the second book, and finished the year in the third book, and in second grade, because there was no one in the class at my level (they didn't do this in first grade, for whatever reason), during reading lessons, they had me go to a different room where I worked with a special teacher and one of the third graders, and they bumped me up to the fifth book from where I was in the third book, so I skipped the fourth book entirely. That didn't hold me back any either; I could do the fifth book very easily.

When I was in third grade, they changed the system to the Pegasus system, which I hated. This system had everyone in the class reading the same book at the same time, real story books, not like the former system. I hated being forced to slow down so much just so my classmates could keep up! The books they were reading, I had read years before, and I was already on to much higher-level books, but I was not allowed to be separate from the group because I had a mich higher reading ability. It was very frustrating.

To give some indication of the level of frustration, in third grade, we took our first big standardized tests, the CMT's (Connecticut Mastery Tests), and on the reading section, I scored to have a college reading level. (It runs in the family; my brother learned to read when he was 3 and in third grade was reading at a professional level.)

[Fencergrl]

Intelligence is more than being good at academics... being good at academics is a skill. You learn to take in information and regurgitate it on a test. Tests are predictable if you are good at seeing patterns. I tested as an adult in the top 5% for my ability to learn and see patterns… so yes; I too did well in school without putting much effort into it.

Most of here on the forum are probably very intelligent people who are just bored with their jobs or schooling and are just looking for a means to entertain our brains for a while… plus we like to fence….

If we want to develop new products and new break-throughs in science, we need something more than increasing the academic/ left brain learning. We need to increase the neuro pathways that link both the creative (right side) with the analytical (left side). These students don’t need more academics … let them develop the other side. School should be about developing well rounded students, academically, creatively, socially and physically.

My ex-husband entered University at age 16, this really messed him up socially. I know several people who did well in school but didn't live up to their full potential because of their (or their parent's) focus on academics.

Scholastic achievement is very important in Japanese culture. Some brilliant people, who are very strong academically, have emerged from that system. Has Japan lead the way in developing new ideas??? No, but they are able to take existing ideas and improve upon them.

When they examined Einstein’s brain they found he had lots of neuro pathways linking both sides of his brain. This man was able to take things he learned (with his left brain) and go places with it that other scientists were not able to even conceive at the time (with his right brain). Leonardo DeVinci is another great mind… brilliant scientist and artist.

I feel that school is not just about learning to regurgitate information, but for developing minds.