from the book: Shadow Dancing on the Grave of Hope:
I see that Krugman, in the New York Times, is claiming that only immediate action will save the environment. Since Krugman is a relentless statist, the opposite, as usual, is true.
Anyway, on to education myths. North American education has received a non-contingent flow of money for well over a century. This has inevitably led to a cult out of touch with reality, but absolutely sure of its own superiority to the non-cult untermenschen. When a government-supported cult develops, its form is unpredictable, but ineffectiveness is inevitable and contempt for outsiders inevitable. The assumptions about teaching are so wrong, that their polar opposites are correct.
"The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make its home for life. For this task it has a rudimentary nervous system. When it finds its spot and takes root, it doesn’t need its brain anymore so it eats it. It’s rather like getting tenure." — Daniel C. Dennett, Consciousness Explained. Giving someone tenure is a sign of grave problems in an organization and it like giving a player a lifetime team position on the basis of his Little League play.
Now for three of these assumptions:
The Difference Between Teaching and Measuring
The emphasis on "teaching" what is believed to be general problem solving, techniques which can applied to any problem, without teaching requisite skills, is, in practice, just more of the IQ measuring which is really contemporary education. A small percentage of students can do it, and the ones who can’t benefit not at all.
Here’s an example: "Make 4 triangles from each of four squares. Make four different shapes from each set of 4 triangles. Equal sides of the triangles must not touch. Glue (my personal favorite) the figures in the space below. Print the name of each figure." In the wise words of Homer Simpson, "What the hell?"
The Curriculum
"The teacher’s behavior is like driving that (curriculum) automobile. If the car is well designed, the teacher has the potential to drive fast and safely. If the curriculum is poorly designed, it will break down no matter how carefully the teacher drives." Engelmann, 1992, p. 7
"Any impossible task can be divided into 39 steps, each of which is possible."
Most curricula are student-independent in two senses. The first is that they have never been tested on students, but spring from the latest theory or political epiphany. The second is that blocks of time are devoted to each "topic" independently of how the student does. The student is "exposed" or the topic is "covered". A year of math makes as much sense as a pound of happiness. Some students get through it in three weeks, others in two years. A year is an input or "IS" variable and is meaningless without the "DOES". There is no provision for mastery learning. This leads to cascading failure where the problems of today are caused by the solutions of yesterday. Not learning requisite skills results in new "teaching" becoming increasingly more ineffective.
A former president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, John Dossey, objected to a national test of academic achievement on the grounds that it was curriculum dependent. Curriculum dependent means "the test is dependent on what the student has learned in school." Mr. Dossey compares this with the student’s "mathematical thinking", which is apparently neither taught nor learned in school. Where it comes from, no one seems to know. Head for the roundhouse Nellie, they’ll never corner you there.
No one has won, so all must have prizes
In many discussions of education, many people have said, in essence, "No method has proved to be superior to any other, so any method may be used. They’re all equally valid." or, my favorite, since I made it up, but it summarizes the concept, "Since nothing is known, we need to know nothing." Because methods vary widely, and wildly, it couldn’t possibly be true that all are equally valid although this is still taught as truth in schools of education. Similar nonsense is also promulgated in other social sciences such as psychology, psychiatry and social work where all well-known theories are given equal weight. Since billions of dollars have been spent on "educational research", it makes one wonder why this inquiry has not led to some conclusion. There are valid conclusions, of course, they’re just not the ones that the Grand Theories demand.
Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
