An Olive Branch

"Corky Scott" wrote in message
...
Can you give me an example of what you mean by critical thinking?

Critical thinking would allow someone, for example, to read a statement like
"But when schools simply teach you that you have to memorize facts, but
don't
need to know how to put facts together to create new knowledge and insights,
there's no real education going on", and understand by implication what the
author means by "critical thinking", from the "compare and contrast"
construction of the statement.

Well like it or not, there are some things kids just have to memorize.

I never said there weren't. The problem is when education is *limited to*
memorization.

[...]
Bush is a great believer in accountability in schools.

How did we turn this back into a thread about Bush? I don't particularly
agree with his methods, but the truth is that schools have been screwed up
for a LONG time since before Bush was around to help. "No child left
behind" is simply the natural progression for what's already been going on
for decades.

But in any case, just talking about the tests: it's harder, but by no means
impossible, to create tests that test critical thinking rather than rote
memorization. The real question is just how much effort educators want to
put into it.

Pete

"alexy" wrote in message
...
Oh, okay. I didn't realize that the incidence of learning disabilities
was so low.

It's not. Nor are disabled students genuinely causing problems with
standardized test scores. "No child left behind" isn't helping inner city
children any more than it's helping rural children.

The thought that we can improve education by cutting funding to the
underperforming schools is just plain messed up. Many "underperforming
schools" are underperforming because their resources are already stretched
wafer thin.

Pete

On Tue, 09 Nov 2004 11:27:41 -0500, alexy wrote:

With small schools and small classes, students with learning
disabilities have a disproportionately large affect on the test
results.
I don't understand this one. Why is that? Fresh air leads to learning
disabilities, or is it too much maple sugar?

I'm not saying that Vermont has a disproportionetly higher incidence
of learning disabled students than other states. But they do have
lots of very small schools. If the school has just a few learning
disabled kids, they tend to drag down the scores because there are so
few other students in the class. NOTE: I'm not saying that all the
small schools have LD kids in each class. Things get much worse if one
of these small schools is unlucky enough to have several LD kids.
Larger schools get to bury their LD student's scores in a much much
larger student population.

As always at this point in a straying discussion, I regret my adding
to the drift. I will post no more on this subject.

My apologies.

Corky Scott

"Corky Scott" wrote

Bush is a great believer in accountability in schools. How does he
assess accountability? By making schools give their students
standardized tests and telling them that if their students don't show
improvement, the school will loose funding. It's very important for
the schools that their students show improvement in these tests so the
inevitable result of "No child left behind" is rote memorization of
facts...

Corky Scott

Not quite. The thrust of no child left behind, is that the ones that can't
read, or do math, or Write, get the help they need to function in society.
It also puts severely handicapped students normal classes, where they are
sure to do poorly, IMHO, unless the teacher gives them all kind of "special"
consideration, achievement wise.

That is a big failing, I think. The kid that can not read does not need to
try, and do poorly, at memorizing facts. They need to stay in reading and
writing class, all day long, if need be. Same goes with the kid that comes
to us from another country. Learn the language FIRST, then start on the
rest.

I have a kid from Mexico that speaks almost no English, yet I am trying to
teach him a technical trade like carpentry. Experts admit that technical
English is the last thing to be mastered. I don't understand this
situation.
--
Jim in NC


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"G.R. Patterson III" wrote

If you have one disabled child in a school that has 500 students, it
doesn't affect
the average performance of the school. If you have one disabled child in
500
students, but these students are spread out over 10 schools, the
performance of the
one school that kid is in will show up as disproportionately poor.

George Patterson

I hope that this 500 was a number pulled out of your hat, and not what you
believe is a close estimate. The number of kids passed along without being
able to read and write is a disaster, and telling of our biggest failure in
the schools of today and the past.

1 in 50 is still too low of a number. Wow.
--
Jim in NC


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Peter Duniho wrote:

"Alexis Carlson" wrote in message
...
The point is you're wrong with respect to Democrats.

Please quote my incorrect statement.

All I said is that the *REPUBLICANS* have shifted to being a very
pro-evangelical / fundamentalist party over the last couple of decades. I
don't see how you can sit there as write "you're wrong with respect to
Democrats" since my entire contribution to this section of the thread has
been about Republicans.

You said, "so what? First, they [DEMOCRATS] haven't done a very effective job
(or the "religious
left" is very tiny), since those who state a religious preference of any sort
of Christianity are strongly in the Bush camp (again based on polls...)"

Those remarks were about DEMOCRATS not Republicans, contrary to your claim
above. I pointed out that Sen Kerry won nearly half of Catholic votes. Last
time I checked, Catholicism is a sort of Christian religion, and a pretty big
one at that. And 3/4 of evangelical/fundamentalist Jews voted Kerry as well.

"Alexis Carlson" wrote in message
...
You said, "so what? First, they [DEMOCRATS] haven't done a very effective
job
(or the "religious
left" is very tiny), since those who state a religious preference of any
sort
of Christianity are strongly in the Bush camp (again based on polls...)"

The majority of those stating a preference DID vote Republican. Catholicism
is not the only Christian religion in the US. Nor did even the majority of
Catholics vote for Kerry (as you yourself admit).

Those remarks were about DEMOCRATS not Republicans, contrary to your claim
above.

Actually, my claim was more about the people voting for Bush. But
whatever...if you think that proves your point, more power to you.

I pointed out that Sen Kerry won nearly half of Catholic votes. Last
time I checked, Catholicism is a sort of Christian religion, and a pretty
big
one at that. And 3/4 of evangelical/fundamentalist Jews voted Kerry as
well.

"Evangelical/fundamentalist Jews"? What's that, six people in the entire
US? Anyway, regardless, those aren't the evangelicals or fundamentalists I
was talking about, and you should know that.

Pete

It also puts severely handicapped students normal classes, where they are
sure to do poorly, IMHO, unless the teacher gives them all kind of
"special"
consideration, achievement wise.

That is a big failing, I think. The kid that can not read does not need
to
try, and do poorly, at memorizing facts. They need to stay in reading and
writing class, all day long, if need be. Same goes with the kid that
comes
to us from another country. Learn the language FIRST, then start on the
rest.

You have pointed out the many flaws in our current approach to education --
but, remember, those flaws existed long BEFORE "No Child Left Behind."

Crazy do-gooders were trying to "mainstream" developmentally disabled
(formerly known as "retarded") kids into regular schools long before Bush
came on the scene. One of the reasons my 52 year old sister retired early
from teaching (Spanish, English and French) was that her school district
began placing developmentally disabled -- some severely so -- kids in her
regular classes.

Of course, chaos ensued, and the other "normal" kids paid a severe price.

Worse, pointing this out to her superiors had no results -- in fact, she was
chastised for even bringing the issue up. So, she called it a career, and
is now working part-time tutoring Hispanic kids.

This "mainstreaming" practice is so obviously absurd as to defy
explanation -- yet it is now done routinely, both here in Iowa and in
Michigan, where my sister taught. One thing is certain: No learning is
going on in a class with students who are sitting in a corner bashing their
heads against the desk.

But this -- along with the equally crazy insertion of non-English speaking
kids -- is an ENTIRELY different problem than "No Child Left Behind."
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Morgans wrote:

I hope that this 500 was a number pulled out of your hat, and not what you
believe is a close estimate.

Absolutely. I was simply providing an example to Alex of what Corky was talking
about.

George Patterson
If a man gets into a fight 3,000 miles away from home, he *had* to have
been looking for it.

Corky Scott wrote:
On Mon, 8 Nov 2004 14:51:25 -0800, "Peter Duniho"
wrote:
"Corky Scott" wrote in message
. ..
What courses in school would teach critical thinking skills?

Any course can. That's one of the beautiful things about critical
thinking...it's relatively independent of the subject in question.

Can you give me an example of what you mean by critical thinking? How
would you see it being taught in, say, math class? Reading?


Perhaps not a direct example but I'll never forget this one:

The context was engineers and their methodology. The discussion was along
the lines of a perfect engineer wouldn't need anything except a set of
specs to build whatever. Our prof pointed out that an engineers
responsibility goes further than that. "If they ask you to build an oven,
always ask what's going inside."



But when schools simply teach you that you have to memorize facts, but
don't need to know how to put facts together to create new knowledge and
insights,
there's no real education going on. Unfortunately, that appears to be the
norm in education of all levels.

Well like it or not, there are some things kids just have to memorize.
The alphabet, spelling rules, vowel sounds, vocabulary, addition and
multiplication tables, and so on. These are building blocks for
further education.


True enough, especially at early ages. But there are also some things that
better taught/learned without rote memorization. Unfortunately history
tests place more value on knowing what date something happened on rather
than why.


Bush is a great believer in accountability in schools. How does he
assess accountability? By making schools give their students
standardized tests and telling them that if their students don't show
improvement, the school will loose funding. It's very important for
the schools that their students show improvement in these tests so the
inevitable result of "No child left behind" is rote memorization of
facts...


We want to be the best test takers in the world!


--
Frank....H