Good. Improving public schools helps everyone.

Not until they were college age, if then.


No one had suggested that they'd exclude understanding.


All the more reason to make teaching part of learning, eh?

We're back to improving the public schools.


You generalize excessively.

hrubin

This cannot be done to any significant extent at this
time. Today's teachers do not understand their subjects,
and memorization and routine seem to make this worse.

Skipping was quite common until about 70 years ago,
including multiple skipping.

Even with restrictions on this in place, I would have
graduated high school at 15 if I had not gone into a
combined high school-college program, and delayed my high
school graduation so I could take a heavier load without paying for it.

They HAVE excluded understanding, and made it harder to
understand, by emphasizing knowledge and skills, instead
of structure. In fact, it is worse than that; I am
posting excerpts from an article about that.

NO. It is often the case that the person who attains
understanding will not be able to explain it; those
who cannot see this are incapable of considering real
research as such.

Differential calculus came into existence in the 17th
century; integral calculus was older. Yet it was into
the 19th century before the concepts were understood.

Nobody had reached the point of explaining the positive
integers until near the end of the 19th century.


No, doing it differently. This requires speeding up,
not keeping those willing and able to learn in the same
classrooms with those who cannot do it.


It was the educationists who

Put in age grouping over learning.

Put in the whole word method, producing many who
could not even learn to use the alphabet.

Removed grammar from grammar school.

Destroyed the college preparatory program by
insisting that "all" should be able to take
algebra, geometry, etc., lowering them so far
as to remove all understanding.

There is much more.

--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Deptartment of Statistics, Purdue University
hrubin@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558

There is none.

They aren't really held back when you refuse to let the poorer
kids starve in the streets.

hrubin

The "poorer" kids are not going to starve in the streets if
you let the average ones learn 50% more than is now allowed
and the bright ones achieve the equivalent of a full strong
college education, at least in mathematics and the sciences,
in their ****s.

You do not have to give them expensive special classes.

Just speed them along, or get out of their way. Nothing is
gained by having them spend several more years in school at
public expense, learning very little.

I specifically include the ones in the lower classes, who
are now denied an education commensurate with their
abilities, because they are kept in classes with their age
group. Anyone who keeps a child back should pay damages,
and if that person says children that age are not ready to
learn, or should be with others the same age, they should
have to pay many times that as punitive damages.

THIS will get the teachers' unions to scream for vouchers
and private schools to get the ones who can learn out
where they cannot bankrupt the teachers.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Deptartment of Statistics, Purdue University
hrubin@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558

You are making a false assumption when you claim
that provision of appropriate education to all children
wouldn't actually promote that of the gifted children.

It's not a zero-sum game. Contemplate that fact.

Either that, or more college-like programs should be
available in regular public schools ...

In the old days, this was accomplished by multitasking
in the classrooms. The students who knew more and
could do more put that to work - one of the best ways
to confirm knowledge and skills - by helping with those
who knew less and couldn't do as well. Interestingly,
those helped offered education/inspiration of their own
to those supposedly their 'superiors' in many instances.


You don't realize what an arbitrary, essentially meaningless
concept you have there in "graduating high school"? For
those destined to work in trades, that's something different
from the same term applied to those who will be doctors.

Maybe if you weren't too busy spending trillions lining the
pockets of corrupt warmongers, everyone could reap the
benefits of improved educational opportunities.

hrubin

I never claimed it wouldn't. What I did claim was that
being in the same classroom and studying the same material hindered that education.


I never said otherwise.


In the old days, the ones who knew the material went on
ahead. Restricting education to "knowledge and skills"
is destructive of understanding, and this is amply shown
by the difficulty of getting people who have learned HOW
to understand WHY.

Also, someone can understand and not be able to explain.
To one who understands, the concepts are obvious, and are
not the manipulations needed to get answers. The massive
use of memorization and routine has made most of the
present teachers, and at least a large portion of the
students, no longer capable of understanding. Interestingly,


For those who will be doctors, they should have learned
far more than the high schools now allow by that age.
There is not that much material in the curriculum, and
what there is happens to be badly taught. What we have
now is training, not education.


If we allow the present educationists to run the schools,
it would not make any difference how much money is
provided. An academic school cannot say that a child of
a given age should be learning a given set of material,
or that children of the same age should be together for
educational purposes.

Query the local school administrators, and see how many of
them agree with the above. Query those who run the schools
of education, likewise. They supposedly teach how to teach;
but they teach how to keep those who can understand from
doing so.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Deptartment of Statistics, Purdue University
hrubin@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558

Why do you subscribe to such myths?

All we need to do is ditch the dishonest warmongers
of the Bush regime, and start spending those trillions
of dollars on things that actually help Americans.

This is not an insoluble problem, however.

That's not sufficient understanding, then.

hrubin

If more money was included, the quality of education
may well go down. The administrators, and the teachers
with seniority, who are the advocates of the present
"methods" of teaching against understanding would get the money.


It is not insoluble in the long run. In the short run, it
is; attempts to get the present teachers to understand have
been unsuccessful. Now will things improve as long as
teachers need "education" courses to be certified.


It can well be great understanding. Also, concepts
cannot just be "learned"; a good test of conceptual
learning would stump someone who has memorized all
the available texts, but has not understood.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Deptartment of Statistics, Purdue University
hrubin@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558

Why do you subscribe to such myths?

All we need to do is ditch the dishonest warmongers
of the Bush regime, and start spending those trillions
of dollars on things that actually help Americans.

This is not an insoluble problem, however.

That's not sufficient understanding, then.