Theory about why American education fails (Page 1 of 3)

this sums up my feelings pretty well =]
i don't  really want to just do a QFT in MD, but after i read it all i didn't have anything to add. Our education system is "dumb" and there is little to no interest or participation from the parents in their childrens education in many cases.

http://www.myspace.com/dasmg

I read an article the other day discussing a subject similar to this, and one of the main points they brought up is that we spent $8 billion dollars in 2006 (I think that was the year) educating the mentally retarded, while only $800 million on the intellectually gifted. While the exact figures might be off due to my memory, I know it was 10x as much. There's also a great reluctance against letting kids skip one or two grades, even though studies show that they do better and are more socially developed than if they are left in their age group (due, perhaps in part to, the stigma on people who do well).

There's also the fact that being a Teacher is one of the lowest paying jobs for requiring a type of degree (although I'm not sure exactly what is required for some of the lower grades) in America. Thus, the people who are teachers must either really want to be teachers or can't get any other job. There's a shortage of teachers, and they're getting underpaid, so the output is less than desirable. Capitalism working against us in this case.

I would have to step out and say that although I could see it being portrayed or seen as a "stigma against smart people" that the core of that issue is slightly different. You made the same assumption that these kids are doing and that is a false step. I don't mean it as an attack specifically against you KG but more you as a representative of this group. When you side "smart kids" are socially stigmatized you immediately concluded that the "smart kid" would act, look like, have the persona of the geek, nerd, brown-noser, whatever. That to me isn't true. There are plenty of really smart people who probably were well-liked by their friends, went to the parties, did all that stuff, but also had a good/smart head on their shoulders.

I will admit that I did go to private school, but it wasn't a horribly expensive school to go to, and many of the kids there were also at least partially supported by the school. So it was a private school, and a good one at that, but not a social class superior school. So, because it was private school it wouldn't run into as many of the pitfalls of what I think is really wrong with our education system. However, most of the kids that went there were smart, but that didn't mean the entire school was made up of people who look like Screech. The people who were smart and kissed up were thought of as the brown nosers, the kids who were smart and really kind of out there and wierd were made fun of for being losers or weird. The generic smart kid though was really accepted. Again, you could say "oh its cuz its a private school so its different." My point is only that, to me, it doesn't seem to be the smart kid that gets picked on, but the smart kid with some identifiable personality difference (or flaw, but that's harsh). So, it's not the intelligence that's getting picked up on, but the social distinction.

I think that this perceived stigma might exist because if you are smart and well-adjusted, liked, whatever...your other traits will make up for it. If you are easy to get along with, people won't care how well you do in school. If you are the weird kid who huddles up in the back and doesn't talk to anyone and is smart, then you're gonna get picked on. But hell, if you are the weird loner kid and you are dumb you'll still be made fun of imo. I also think that its way overblown in everybody's minds how much making fun of these kids there is. Media, whatever source, is like oh look at the smart kid, and he has glasses, wears high pants, and is the stereotypical nerd. In real life there are those kids, and they do get made fun of, but there are plenty of people who look more "normal" who are smart and they are fine.

So, all in all, the assertions you make about social acceptance, attractiveness, and that being more important that smart may be true. However, thats as far as the stigma goes, if you are more attractive (both socially and physically) you will get made fun of less. How you do in school doesn't really matter.

Additionally, we are now getting to the point where the childs self esteem is more important then their intellect. So children in the lower grades are getting passed on so they don't get low self esteem. But now they're two grades behind the other students, and the teacher has to spend more and more time with the dumb ones.

Also, I've heard that in certain other countries, the students who aren't in the top whatever percent, get kicked out of school (not sure when this starts). Talk about motivation. When you're in class and you start to get bored, you can look at the window and see the "dumb" students doing manual labor in a field or something.

OK, I have to sorta disagree with this assertion. He didn't get that way others alienated him. He "got" that way because of his personality, which is almost entirely genetic. I would say he didn't act that way because he was treated differently, he was treated differently because he acts that way. Not that I'm saying it's OK to ridicule the friendless loser.

Laugh hard it's a long way to the bank.

I may not have made myself entirely clear, my assertion is not that being smart automatically means that a person is going to start wearing double-thick glasses and pocket protectors, its the fact that a person who consistently outperforms his peers necessarily alienates himself in so doing. It doesn't matter what he looks like or how he acts, if he always gets A's, the rest of the B-C average classmates are going to notice and judge him as such. At best he's "the smart kid" (or one of the smart kids).

I say 'at best' because if this person has an identifiable flaw, whether its in the way he dresses, his social skills, skin problems, whatever, those who are jealous of his high marks will latch onto it and make fun of him incessantly about it, for no other reason than to make them feel better about themselves. As time goes on, the rift becomes clearer and clearer, and before long, what used to be a normal kid who happens to do above-average in school, is convinced himself that he is a geek or nerd, and everyone else in the class thinks so as well. As LC said, they don't come out of the womb this way, its a social distinction which is created based on school performance, and is subject to a huge amount of ridicule and abuse. Just take any of the 'nerd power' genre movies starting with Revenge of the Nerds in the 80s, which have become increasingly common since then. Not all of those guys were really geeky or weird, in fact some of them were really charismatic, nice people. They all suffered the same way though, which is the stigma that I'm describing. Have you never heard of cases where students go out of their way to hide their good grades from their peers, or purposely do poorly on a test, just so that they could fit in better?

FYI I also went to a private school, which generally has a negative impact on my ability to gauge the various situations in public schools, but I see the exact same thing I'm describing in private schools, to no lesser degree. I managed to escape the bulk of the nerd treatment myself only because I also did a lot of athletics, and I didn't get along very well with the guys that 100% retreated into dungeons and dragons and the like.

That's a good point, though the case of alienating people for doing well in my mind is a particularly significant one, because it's the only time that someone is alienated for a decidedly GOOD quality. All of those others you mentioned are at best a neutral characteristic, at worst a destructive one. I can't think of anything else which people get made fun of for doing well - athletics, art/music, physical attractiveness are all qualities which are universally adored. Intelligence is the ONLY one which is viewed as a negative, especially when the person isn't humble about it. Athletes, artists, and supermodels however can generally brag all they want (to a point) and still be loved.

Also FYI, I was never in a frat, though I purposely made it sound ambiguous when I mentioned it in that halo thread. I did have a lot of friends that were frat members, but I never ended up in one because I wasn't a fan of the constant and unrelenting obsession with and consumption of alcohol. If there had been a dry fraternity on my campus, I probably would have joined.

Personality is almost entirely genetic? I've never heard anyone say that before with a straight face, and I disagree vehemently. Its certainly partially determined by genetics, but at least 50% is the way you were raised, whether you had any developmental trauma, and any number of other factors. That's what the entire (unresolved) 'nature versus nurture' debate is in psychology.

Raptor, personally I think you're a really smart guy. I mean that honestly. Its just that during discussions like this you somehow manage to totally misunderstand or misinterpret my points. That may very well be as much my fault as yours.

Your entire post is written as if I didn't believe that genetics played any part in personality at all. I never said that nurture is 100% of it. In fact I only said that nurture is at least 50% of it. If you ask me, I'd make a guess of around 75% but the point is that I totally agree that genetics plays a very important part. Things like depression or psychosis are obviously physical issues.

I actually had a job working with twin studies in Minnesota for part of my life, which is why I brought up nature vs nurture. The personalities of separated twins provide a pretty strong case for how genetics plays a larger role than people had previously thought. But for every case in which twins separated at birth ended up with nearly identical personalities and lives, there were just as many cases in which they were entirely different. I disagree that it's a moot subject though, by the way, because it's not about answering the question "which determines the qualities of a person", which is obviously both. It's about answering the question "which traits are determined more by genetics and which are determined more by environment and why" which would be an infinitely useful question to answer. Much much more than a talking point.

You went kinda wild with your idea about social skills there, so I'm not surprised that you confused yourself - no one is saying they're predetermined and set in stone while personality is not predetermined. Neither are predetermined (fully), they are both taught (to a degree, obviously). But just like with anything, behavior can be reinforced, and if a child grows up being told by everyone that he is a nerd with no social skills, then guess what, he's not going to have any social skills.

Saying that personality is almost entirely genetic is pretty ridiculous, hence my reaction to hubris's post. To believe that you'd have to ignore any case in which a child is different from his parents, and you'd have to ignore any case in which peoples' personalities change due to trauma or bad parenting or anything else.

TBH, most of what I wrote in that post was dealing with what LC said. I know that you said that genetics played at least some role and the rest. LC earlier had said most of what I was trying to argue against =P

This is more of a side-note (idiom? I forget the specific word for it), an example to show how oddly our education system is messed up. A few years ago, right around 2001, I had a metal bar in my chest (corrective). Anyway, I was told that it probably wouldn't matter much for going through airport security, as it wouldn't be picked up except with the hand-wave device, but if I tried to go into a school with metal detectors they'd go off. Wow.

Statistically though, how many high school drop outs do you think actually strike it rich? How many more end up homeless, or with incredibly low income jobs as part of an underclass?

I haven't seen any evidence to it, but I'd bet the people with higher educations *usually* end up better off.

america's education sucks because once a teacher has reached a certain number of years at any school they can't be fired. We don't have any sort of incentive for teachers to excel once the charm of teaching has worn off. Now, i'm not saying that there are not teachers out there who love to teach and push themselves to exceed, but i'm sure everyone here has had a couple of those teachers who just didn't care. Those teacher who don't care can really do some damage too. If you have a teacher who absolutly doesn't give a shit and fails to teach you a building block of info for say science or math, etc.., then you could really start to get behind because most things you learn later in school build off concepts that you should have learned earlier. So, basically you have to teach yourself that concept based off other things you have learned or be lucky enough to have someone else who can teach it to you.

For example, i had a teacher in 7th grade who taught physical science and math. You would come into this teachers class and he would tell you that he wasn't going to waste time trying to beat things into your head so just grab the lab packet and do it. Now having free reign in a lab class sounds awesome until you realize that there are 20 other kids who also have free reign and you see some of the dumbass shit they are doing right next to you. 22-25 twelve and thirteen year olds with free range of a lab that contains hydrochloric acid (and other acids), bunsen burners, and all sorts of random flamable powders and such. This teacher would fail anyone who didn't complete his packets but if you asked for any help/guidence he would smack his fist to his forehead and yell "DURRRH" and tell you that you where stupid and you wouldn't make it through high school. One kid had 2nd degree burns after the teacher turned around with AN OPEN FLAME and accidently lit the kids arm on fire. the year before the teacher told everyone in the class that he wished that teachers could have guns (this was right after columbine). the year after 2 students in his class where temporarily blinded for a month after accidentally mixing a compound that is so unstable it ignighted because they stirred it. luckily that was his last year there and he retired.

the retarded part is that it isn't uncommon to have teachers like this (although maybe not as bad) and these teachers CAN NOT be fired after so many years. plus you have school systems like my high school (in another district than my junior high). where they hired a math teacher who for 3 years taught calc, pre-calc, trig, and algrebra 2, WITH NO TEACHING DEGREE. the school hired him and didn't do a back ground check and never wondered why their act scores for math started dropping horrible. this guy would just pick out the ppl he knew where passing their other classes and pass them and fail everyone else. the only reason they found out he had no teaching license or any college education was because they told him he had to go to a teaching conference in springfield. that conference was apparently going to publish stats about how many teachers graduated from certain colleges. when they double checked on the teacher from my high school they found out he hadn't graduated from any college.

honestly, until we have some sort of motivation for teachers, american education is going to suck.