I am reading the blog now… and I guess the main idea there is that the problems with education are caused by IQ differences.
This doesn’t match my experience. I was teaching at a high school for gifted children, where all students must have IQ 130 or more. But I have seen there some of the problems that this blogger attributes to low IQ. (Specifically: learning something, and then forgetting it completely.) Because of this, I think the author’s analysis is wrong. Although I admit that with lower IQ, those problems can be much greater than what I saw.
Specifically, for the “learn and forget” learning style, I think the cause is not enough repetition. Repeating is essential for remembering. But the modern trend for teachers is doing creative things and discussions at classroom, not giving homework, not giving too much tests. In other words, reducing repetition as much as possible. Because the repetition is boring, and there is no worse sin for a teacher than being boring. But this is how our brains are built; remove the repetition and you remove the remembering. -- If your parents are smart and talk with you a lot, you get some of the information repeated informally at home. If they make you learn at home, you repeat the information formally.
EDIT: This is made even worse by many people saying that doing homework should not be reflected in your grades; only what you know. I agree with the argument… but the unfortunate consequence is that if you say homework is optional, most students won’t bother. And then, predictably, they will not remember the lessons. (And then, predicably, if this happens to most of the class, it will be considered the teacher’s problem. But the teacher will often not be allowed to fix it by giving a lot of homework and making it mandatory. Instead, they are required to do some miracle. And judging by the general situation in education, most teachers are pretty bad at making miracles.)
On the other hand, the article about Asians cheating on exams was very interesting. I just propose an alternative hypothesis that it’s not just Asians, but pretty much everyone except for Americans. I would bet that immigrants from Slovakia would be cheating as much as possible… and if not, then the reason wouldn’t be honesty, but merely lack of strategic coordination. So perhaps “not being (culturally) an American” and “being good at cooperation” are the two necessary ingredients, and the children of Asian immigrants are the most visible example of both.
Okay, reading some more stuff from the blog, my impression improved. He seems to be a great teacher (example 1, example 2). It’s just the IQ hypothesis that I disagree with, but I guess for many readers that one is the most interesting. I am tempted to propose a compromise hypothesis, that at the lower end of the IQ scale IQ is the hard limit of ability to learn, but at the higher end of the IQ scale the most limiting factors are elsewhere.
Some quotes I liked:
It’s the delusion of eduformers and progressives, one and all, that if teachers find the right approach, a low ability kid is transformed into a competent high ability kid.
Sure, magic skills are a requirement for a teacher. On the higher end of the IQ scale, the delusion is that a spoiled kid with behavioral problems who never had to work or behave at school and right now is acting even worse than usual because their parents are divorcing… can be transformed into a hard-working and well-socialized student by saying the right magic words.
I am a teacher who doesn’t overvalue any individual student at the expense of the class, which means I have no compunction about kicking kids out for the day. You run into these teachers philosophically opposed to removing kids from class; how can these students learn if they aren’t in class, they bleat. These teachers never seem to worry about how all the other kids learn with a disruptive hellion wreaking havoc because, they strongly hint (or outright assert), the right curriculum and caring teachers would eliminate the need to disrupt.
(Source.) This reminds me of “The Naughty Boy” and “The Disruptive Girl” from Scenes from the Battleground. The difference on the higher end of the IQ scale is that each of those misbehaving kids is a certified special snowflake, and their parents often have good lawyers or sponsor the school or both, so you just can’t kick those kids out of the classroom when you need to.
In my opinion the best blog about education “Scenes From The Battleground” is written by a British teacher.
A good starting point is A Guide To Scenes From The Battleground. It’s like Sequences about education.
I am familiar with Scenes from the Battleground. Another favorite of mine is Educationrealist.
I am reading the blog now… and I guess the main idea there is that the problems with education are caused by IQ differences.
This doesn’t match my experience. I was teaching at a high school for gifted children, where all students must have IQ 130 or more. But I have seen there some of the problems that this blogger attributes to low IQ. (Specifically: learning something, and then forgetting it completely.) Because of this, I think the author’s analysis is wrong. Although I admit that with lower IQ, those problems can be much greater than what I saw.
Specifically, for the “learn and forget” learning style, I think the cause is not enough repetition. Repeating is essential for remembering. But the modern trend for teachers is doing creative things and discussions at classroom, not giving homework, not giving too much tests. In other words, reducing repetition as much as possible. Because the repetition is boring, and there is no worse sin for a teacher than being boring. But this is how our brains are built; remove the repetition and you remove the remembering. -- If your parents are smart and talk with you a lot, you get some of the information repeated informally at home. If they make you learn at home, you repeat the information formally.
EDIT: This is made even worse by many people saying that doing homework should not be reflected in your grades; only what you know. I agree with the argument… but the unfortunate consequence is that if you say homework is optional, most students won’t bother. And then, predictably, they will not remember the lessons. (And then, predicably, if this happens to most of the class, it will be considered the teacher’s problem. But the teacher will often not be allowed to fix it by giving a lot of homework and making it mandatory. Instead, they are required to do some miracle. And judging by the general situation in education, most teachers are pretty bad at making miracles.)
On the other hand, the article about Asians cheating on exams was very interesting. I just propose an alternative hypothesis that it’s not just Asians, but pretty much everyone except for Americans. I would bet that immigrants from Slovakia would be cheating as much as possible… and if not, then the reason wouldn’t be honesty, but merely lack of strategic coordination. So perhaps “not being (culturally) an American” and “being good at cooperation” are the two necessary ingredients, and the children of Asian immigrants are the most visible example of both.
Okay, reading some more stuff from the blog, my impression improved. He seems to be a great teacher (example 1, example 2). It’s just the IQ hypothesis that I disagree with, but I guess for many readers that one is the most interesting. I am tempted to propose a compromise hypothesis, that at the lower end of the IQ scale IQ is the hard limit of ability to learn, but at the higher end of the IQ scale the most limiting factors are elsewhere.
Some quotes I liked:
Sure, magic skills are a requirement for a teacher. On the higher end of the IQ scale, the delusion is that a spoiled kid with behavioral problems who never had to work or behave at school and right now is acting even worse than usual because their parents are divorcing… can be transformed into a hard-working and well-socialized student by saying the right magic words.
(Source.) This reminds me of “The Naughty Boy” and “The Disruptive Girl” from Scenes from the Battleground. The difference on the higher end of the IQ scale is that each of those misbehaving kids is a certified special snowflake, and their parents often have good lawyers or sponsor the school or both, so you just can’t kick those kids out of the classroom when you need to.