|
Ershalim posted:I think maybe I explained that badly. It's not that no facts can possibly matter and so we shouldn't ever bother to teach people anything, it's that the objections to things like CRT and Socialism and gender and all that aren't based on factual understandings of any kind. They're entirely cultural and the animosity they derive comes from challenging a world-view that has been coddled by literally everything most people have ever been exposed to. There is a lot in a school's curriculum that becomes accepted as objective fact, and a lot of it wasn't even put there intentionally. I have no response to most of what you said, but I have something to say about common core specifically. Common core had an atrocious problem with "the devil is in the details". The basic idea, "Let's make sure all the kids in the US learn these common concepts!" wasn't bad. The implementation was HORRIBLE. Here's a YouTube video (by CNBC) explaining just how godawful common core implementation was. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3Z9gBKuTIk&t=1s Browse the comments for nightmare stories from people who lived through common core as students, solved math problems, got the correct answer, and got a zero grade because they didn't solve it *specifically through the common core method*, even when the method they used (and that their parents before them used) worked perfectly fine, and arguably better. Now, imagine you're a parent, your kid is struggling with common core math class, and you can't even help them because the way you know to solve math problems is not accepted and will flunk your kid out of class. This should help clarify why common core, as tried in US public schools, was an overall an objective failure.
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2021 23:37
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 4, 2024 12:30 |
|
|
VitalSigns posted:The general population is ok with some hearts being cut out on the temple of the sun to ensure a good harvest, I understand you are not and that's OK but there will be plenty of death coming down the line if the crops fail I am reminded of the war on terror for some reason...
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2021 23:55
|
|
|
Victar posted:I have no response to most of what you said, but I have something to say about common core specifically. Common core had an atrocious problem with "the devil is in the details". The basic idea, "Let's make sure all the kids in the US learn these common concepts!" wasn't bad. The implementation was HORRIBLE. Here's a YouTube video (by CNBC) explaining just how godawful common core implementation was. Sure, there were probably some people in some places who had actual problems with common core, but for the most part people were upset with it without having any idea of what it was, how it was used, and had no reason to interact with it at all. My point is that unchallenged assumptions are reified in practice, and challenges to things that are wholly unquestioned is a difficult thing for people to handle. We, as people generally, aren't given much opportunity or reason to look outside ourselves at systems themselves, and when we are it's a very high-energy process that can induce feelings of anomie and dread because it strikes at a core batch of assumptions we don't even know we've made. I'm not really going to go to bat for common core, because while I do think that it's better in terms of codifying how mental math actually works in practice, you are correct that the implementation leaves something to be desired. But if you're attempting to teach a methodology, you need to test that the methodology is actually being used, no? So of course students who didn't show their work were marked wrong, and summarily, of course people who didn't understand that was the point of the assignment were livid about it. The entire point I'm making is that by showing parents their unchallenged assumptions were not useful (ie: that this is math and there is only one math), it terrified them, made them angry, and they railed at how pointless, cruel, and unusual it was. Y'know, like how they do with CRT. 
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2021 00:16
|
|
|
thewalk posted:youll need to find something in the middle. It may be hard to believe but parents get really upset when someone tries to control how their kids are raised. This can exist at the same time as schools teach facts No it can't because how facts are presented is itself a method of controlling how kids are raised. Example: my school taught the Civil War was fought over states' rights. This is a fact. It is a true statement. What is left out, conveniently, is that the particular right being fought over was "the right to own non-whites as property." So teaching this fact, this true statement in this way, sets up the kid to think "You know the South wasn't really that bad, they just didn't want to be oppressed by the federal government. There's nothing wrong with states having rights, and I should be proud of the Confederacy and my southern heritage for standing up for people's rights." Which means that when you have places in the south building giant monuments to Nathan Bedford Forrest, the first loving Grand Wizard of the KKK, and people go "Hey maybe we shouldn't have monuments to assholes like this," the kid is more likely to go "This person is attacking my heritage and history, in fact they're trying to rewrite it by removing all mention of the righteous cause of the Confederacy and their fight for states' rights." Or hell, look at things like the Bell Curve. It is a factual representation of how different races scored on IQ tests. That's indisputable (unless you want to say they purposely lied about the results). The problem is that looking at the Bell Curve doesn't tell the whole story. It would be incorrect to say "Blacks are generally less intelligent than whites" based on the factual data of the graph, because the graph doesn't take into account things like how inherently racist IQ tests can be, the difference in the quality of schools minorities go to compared to whites, hell even things like "how were the participants feeling that day" which could be due to health care outcomes that vary by race! But there are plenty of people who present the Bell Curve and say "Welp, can't argue with facts, blacks are just statistically not as likely to be as smart as whites." There is no "middle" on these things. No matter which side you pick, you're presenting an ideology and "controlling" how kids are raised. This is why "just teach facts" isn't a useful solution for saying what schools should do.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2021 00:32
|
|
|
Victar posted:Now, imagine you're a parent, your kid is struggling with common core math class, and you can't even help them because the way you know to solve math problems is not accepted and will flunk your kid out of class. This should help clarify why common core, as tried in US public schools, was an overall an objective failure. This is "They can't change how you do math, math is math," bullshit. If the thing you're getting graded on is demonstrating you've learned the method, that's not some conspiracy, it's good educational practice. What year did these parents go to school where "show your work, that's where most of the points are," was not the rule in math class? If I assign a kid to do historical research, am I not going to check their sources and their notes on how they found them and just grade the answers they found when research skills were the thing I was checking? If I assign a worksheet during a punctuation unit where they're supposed to identify clauses and put down where the commas go in relation to them, should I just give them an A if they skip half the job because the commas are in the right place? The argument dipshit parents and dipshit Republicans looking to decry Obama's "takeover of schools," level against Common Core is the perfect example of why "parents shouldn't be deciding what schools do," is the correct response to these idiotic anti-school culture wars. They don't like Common Core because its different than what they did and they don't want to have to learn anything to help their child. That's it, that's the real argument, everything else is lies and hokum. Whatever they learned should be good enough, for all time. The real sentiment at the heart of it all is "gently caress my kid doing better than me." I see it every loving day, it's real. Its also why parent authority over curriculum should be fought, and has been fought for the entire 20th Century by educators. The only difference between then and now is that anti-intelligence and pro-luddite attitudes are a lot higher than ever these days, as is the Karen Entitlement Complex that makes Americans think they deserve to dictate terms on every interaction they make with larger society.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2021 00:40
|
|
|
Sanguinia posted:If I assign a worksheet during a punctuation unit where they're supposed to identify clauses and put down where the commas go in relation to them, should I just give them an A if they skip half the job because the commas are in the right place? This is a bad comparison because there's really only one right way to identify clauses in English, there isn't an alternate method aside from "just guessing." Math can have multiple methods to solutions than guessing. Example: 22 x 27. The method I learned is "2 x 7 is 14, carry the one, 2 x 7 is 14, plus the one you carried is 15, for 154. Now, 2 x 2 is four, and 2 x 2 is four again, for 44, with a 0 in the ones place because these are the tens. 154 + 440 is 594." However, that can be difficult for some kids to follow. Some kids use a different method that is still valid and not just guessing because they realize "Oh hey, 27 x 2 is 54, and 27 x 20 is 540. If I add those together, I get 594." This is, in fact, easier than the method I learned, especially if you're trying to do math in your head without a calculator in front of you, since it can be difficult to remember what digits you've carried to what places in my method. Both are correct. Children shouldn't be punished for using an alternate method to solve a problem if that method is valid, which was the problem with common core as it was taught. You've seen as well as I have, a math quiz where the question is "Approximate how much blah blah blah" and the kid gave an exact answer using the method I learned (because that's the one their parents learned!) only to have it marked incorrect because they didn't approximate, and didn't use the right method. Parents were furious that teachers were "teaching math wrong" because how could a correct answer be incorrect? quote:The argument dipshit parents and dipshit Republicans looking to decry Obama's "takeover of schools," level against Common Core is the perfect example of why "parents shouldn't be deciding what schools do," is the correct response to these idiotic anti-school culture wars. Question: what is your response to schools in the deep south teaching Creationism and the Lost Cause of the Confederacy? Because your statement would seem to indicate you think that it is correct and right for those schools to teach those things, and parents should have no right to demand that the schools teach anything contrary. "Send the kids to another school" and "homeschool them" are also not a valid response to this question, as there may be circumstances (be it money, lack of time, or lack of other schools in the area) that prohibit the parents from sending their kid to a better school or homeschooling.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2021 01:14
|
|
|
Twelve by Pies posted:Both are correct. Children shouldn't be punished for using an alternate method to solve a problem if that method is valid, which was the problem with common core as it was taught. You've seen as well as I have, a math quiz where the question is "Approximate how much blah blah blah" and the kid gave an exact answer using the method I learned (because that's the one their parents learned!) only to have it marked incorrect because they didn't approximate, and didn't use the right method. Parents were furious that teachers were "teaching math wrong" because how could a correct answer be incorrect? For the first point, the problem is that the parents and the children are conceiving of the point of the common core system in math incorrectly from the start. The point is not only to teach the students how to arrive at an answer, the point is to teach the kids a myriad toolkit of ways to find ANY answer. That was the step forward that math teachers and educational experts wanted. The very people ITT giving credence to "anti-CRT," crusade are saying that schools should be teaching critical thinking skills, and that's what teaching multiple methods for the same problem is! Yes, some methods will be easier for some students than others, and yes, in a practical real world setting using whatever method is easiest for you to just find the answer is what society wants most of the time. But there's a hell of a lot more to education than that, or at least there god drat should be! Look at how you even framed this whole argument. Talking about students and parents getting frustrated by letter grades. Every day I deal with parents who want their kids to get extra credit assignments to bring up their letter grades, and they never seem to care that the letter grade reflects the student's inability to demonstrate a skill they were supposed to learn! The parents don't care about the skill, they only care about the mark because to them the mark represents them doing a good job as a parent. That's so hosed up! Or how about the framing of "finding the answer should be the most important thing, not the method." THAT is reflective of our society's view of Education As Job Training, because when you're working for a corporation results are all that count, and methods only matter if get in results way in some fashion. Education is not job training, so why should be treat mathematics education like the only thing that its relevant for is teaching kids "practical," math for "real life." Isn't teaching them a wide variety of skills and problem solving approaching and ways of thinking more important? For your second point: that's a trap. Because the flip side of the coin of "shouldn't parents be able to stop their kids learning the Lost Cause or Religion As Fact," is "shouldn't parents be allow to force schools to teach their kids those things if enough of them want it." The answer to both is no, and the solution to both problems is to cut populism out of educational standards. If local governments are allowing things in schools they shouldn't be to appease the mob, the state government should be stopping it, and if they won't the federal government should be stopping it, and those decisions should be made by experts not politicos and iconoclasts who hate free public education.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2021 01:49
|
|
|
Sanguinia posted:Or how about the framing of "finding the answer should be the most important thing, not the method." THAT is reflective of our society's view of Education As Job Training, because when you're working for a corporation results are all that count, and methods only matter if get in results way in some fashion. Education is not job training, so why should be treat mathematics education like the only thing that its relevant for is teaching kids "practical," math for "real life." Isn't teaching them a wide variety of skills and problem solving approaching and ways of thinking more important? I mean yes, teaching them a wide variety of skills and problem solving approaches and ways of thinking are important. But being able to actually get the correct answer is important too. Even ignoring the corporation point, if someone says "I will sell you this milk for 2.25" and you give them a 10, you should be able to know that if they say "And 75 cents is your change" that they are ripping you off. Or if you are building a house for yourself, you should be able to correctly measure the dimensions that will result in your house not collapsing. Going "But I have a wide variety of skills!" isn't going to matter if you get the numbers wrong and build your house incorrectly. I don't think we're in disagreement on this point though, because of course math isn't the only thing that matters in life, and honestly basically everyone has a calculator in their pocket at all times, and also knowing multiple different methods of solving problems can help you check that you didn't make a mistake. quote:The answer to both is no, and the solution to both problems is to cut populism out of educational standards. If local governments are allowing things in schools they shouldn't be to appease the mob, the state government should be stopping it, and if they won't the federal government should be stopping it, and those decisions should be made by experts not politicos and iconoclasts who hate free public education. The problem is that populism is in our educational standards no matter how you cut it. At least here (don't know about other states), school board members are elected. Even if you live in an area where they aren't, they're probably appointed by your local government, which is elected. Want to bring the decision to SCOTUS? Look at the current makeup of the court, where "In a 6-3 decision..." Even leaving it to experts doesn't work because you can find experts who will say anything. There's plenty of right wing people who majored in history, who can claim "expert" status, who will defend the Lost Cause and say it's totally legit, and now you're still stuck with the same problem. So what's the solution? I don't know. I don't want parents to be able to force schools to teach transphobic poo poo or questionable history. But I also don't want Republican controlled school boards or governments to be able to dictate what's taught either. I genuinely have no idea what the solution is, and I don't know enough to even be able to suggest anything.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2021 04:24
|
|
|
Twelve by Pies posted:So what's the solution? I don't know. I don't want parents to be able to force schools to teach transphobic poo poo or questionable history. But I also don't want Republican controlled school boards or governments to be able to dictate what's taught either. I genuinely have no idea what the solution is, and I don't know enough to even be able to suggest anything. Well, there's no real getting around this bit, is there. It's why I posted the other day that I'm almost certainly going to have to get out of Teaching or get out of the USA in the next couple years. I won't spend the rest of my life being a mouthpiece for fascism or enforcing rules that hurt vulnerable children, I simply, absolutely will not. I already have a poo poo ton of self-loathing for not quitting my job last year and thereby helping keep the school running as more and more covid restrictions were stripped away at a time when it should have just been closed, and for rolling over when my principal told me to have the kids presenting the Stonewall project that it'd be for the best to just put it away rather than risk more angry parents. I won't be party to anti-trans policy or teaching nazi talking points, I just won't loving do it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2021 05:23
|
|
|
Twelve by Pies posted:This is a bad comparison because there's really only one right way to identify clauses in English, there isn't an alternate method aside from "just guessing." Math can have multiple methods to solutions than guessing. Quoting for emphasis, Twelve by Pies explained it far better than I did. Students were showing their work, which obviously is required to test their understanding of math, and getting punished anyway because the work they showed, and the method they used, was not specifically the common core method. When I say that common core objectively failed, I mean that after years of trying, its effects were studied by experts the results were a wash at best. https://www.educationnext.org/common-core-has-not-worked-forum-decade-on-has-common-core-failed/ I don't think the majority of parents don't want to hold their kids down. I think the majority of parents want their kids to do as well as they did, or better. This is seen in the rise of house prices in areas that have good schools, and in the efforts parents go to give their kid an advantage (hiring tutors or sending them to summer school). The Atlantic article someone posted earlier mentioned how Virginia schools were closed more than most other schools (due to COVID), and that was straining some parents to the breaking point. You know that truck driver Republican who may have (I'm not sure what the final count is) defeated his incumbent Democrat opponent? He had a kid with Down syndrome, who was forced to stay home for a year because of COVID, and the kid aged out of the school's Down syndrome program; no effort was made to adjust for a year of COVID. It's one of the things that motivated the truck driver to run. One other note, about schools teaching kids to be punctual. Yes, in the US public schools do emphasize that students have to be on time, because that is 100% a required skill for adulting in the US. Other countries have different cultures that are more lax about punctuality, sure, but unless a kid is going to live in one of those countries they absolutely need the soft skill of managing their schedule to be on time, or else they won't be able to hold down (almost) any job.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2021 06:09
|
|
|
-Blackadder- posted:Got me curious, any good articles/videos of this? Yeah these are the two I was remembering https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1253041723510587394 https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1264996588834996226
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2021 06:29
|
|
|
Decon posted:
Yes, we read the Letter From a Birmingham Jail and went over it in depth.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2021 02:17
|
|
|
thewalk posted:Theres plenty of reason to have workers in the office. You might have a job where it doesnt impact productivity...much Pretty much every bit of research we have says that WFH impacts productivity...positively. Businesses decided that being able to micro-manage was more important than produtivity. Same way they decided that open office plans, being short-term cheaper, were more important than productivity. Businesses are dumb as gently caress about productivity, it's mostly about whatever managers feel like. And with WFH, they feel useless, because many are. quote:Keeping schools closed is a clear instance where the impact is too severe Mostly because society has no interest in doing what it takes to make distance learning work. It's a clear instance of "we tried nothing and we're all out of ideas".
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2021 02:24
|
|
|
Jaxyon posted:Mostly because society has no interest in doing what it takes to make distance learning work. It's a clear instance of "we tried nothing and we're all out of ideas".
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2021 04:52
|
|
|
Timeless Appeal posted:In what sense? Remote learning from my experience really does have some inherent drawbacks that you can compensate for, but I can assure you people were trying a lot of things the last couple of years to make it work. I get wanting to pay parents to stay home to be with their kids and while that would be great that doesn't solve all the problems with it. Nobody actually knows how detrimental distance learning is, if at all, because educating the public is an extremely new science we just don't know a lot about it. On top of that, most of how school doesn't remotely follow the findings of what we do know about mass education. On top of that, most distance learning was some hacked together crap that school districts did at the last minute, leaving overworked teachers to make the best of it. All of that is, in short, mushy as hell. What isn't unclear is A) Dead/sick kids are worse than the vague "drawbacks" of distance learning and B) Parents are unable to do without schools functioning as babysitters, regardless of learning quality. And it turns out parents would rather risk death than have kids at home.
|
|
#
?
Nov 10, 2021 00:17
|
|
|
Jaxyon posted:Nobody actually knows how detrimental distance learning is, if at all, because educating the public is an extremely new science we just don't know a lot about it. On top of that, most of how school doesn't remotely follow the findings of what we do know about mass education. On top of that, most distance learning was some hacked together crap that school districts did at the last minute, leaving overworked teachers to make the best of it. Tactile resources do have some benefits as well. Math at the younger level is heavily focused on the used of manipulatives. Pen and pencil is often easier for kids to practice different strategies. Like there are ways to compensate for it, but it's harder online to quickly tell a kid to draw a fraction or a number line and observe their thinking. For English lot of online resources are rigid and almost worksheet like which hinders kids ability to organize information themselves. There is also the matter of special education.There are children who through assessment are legally required to have an extra adult whose sole job it is to read stuff aloud to them or to talk to them when they get upset or get out of the room. That is very hard to do on Zoom and requires some huge shifts in how our schools are structured to turn into an at home service. And to be frank, your comment on parents is insulting. My parents live primarily in some of the most underserved communities in Brooklyn. Many of them worked frontline jobs, and they for the most part did not send their kids to school, and for those who did, it was a very hard decision. Shutting down the schools was the right choice, this isn't an argument about dead kids vs education. The issue is that you're handwaving what was for a lot of kids a pretty lovely and traumatic experience. I think that we can break down and discuss ways to create functioning remote education. I'm by and large not in favor of maintaining the current assembly line system. However the idea that there is no negative impact at all of remote learning is silly. Timeless Appeal fucked around with this message at 22:14 on Nov 12, 2021 |
|
#
?
Nov 12, 2021 02:11
|
|
|
Timeless Appeal posted:I disagree. It's harder to tell if a kids is being abused. Access to food thankfully stayed open in many districts, but the pairing of food with public education did create an additional barrier for kids to get that food. There is the social emotional development aspect that goes along with school that is being diminished. As someone who is a queer teacher who leads a GSA, there is also a power for kids to leave their homes for seven hours a day and find themselves away from parental figures. For sure there's parts of in-person schooling that are hard or impossible to do with distance learning, but even for just general education, there wasn't a serious organizational effort to support it. Most teachers were just left to figure it out on their own with little warning. The fact that they tried really hard and did their best doesn't mean it was organized or optimal. As for parents, yes there a lot of people who have little choice in whether than can handle kids at home due to being front-line workers and i'm not talking about them. People working 2 jobs and barely keeping their heads above water aren't, for the most part, the people pushing school boards and politicians to open schools up regardless of NPIs and rates. quote:However the idea that there is no negative impact at all of remote learning is silly. As soon as somebody makes that claim, feel free to laugh at them.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2021 00:15
|
|
|
Has pretending the only people who disliked things like school closures were some cigar chomping capitalist caricature become an actual thing?https://www.pewresearch.org/2021/03/05/a-year-of-u-s-public-opinion-on-the-coronavirus-pandemic/quote:While young people faced many challenges during the pandemic, so did parents. In April 2020, with schools around the country closed, roughly two-thirds (64%) of parents with children in elementary, middle or high school said they were at least somewhat worried about their kids falling behind because of the disruptions caused by the outbreak. By October, even as some schools had returned to in-person learning, those concerns had not diminished. At both points in time, lower-income parents were much more worried than middle- and upper-income parents. Lots of people didn't like this poo poo! Sorry, it's true. I think the VA result was mainly driven by the normal poo poo that drives losses for the incumbent party in an off year election with an unpopular incumbent. But the idea that, to the limited extent that they did matter, things like anger over school closures helped republicans in some way isn't that crazy at all.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2021 02:20
|
|
|
Fill Baptismal posted:Has pretending the only people who disliked things like school closures were some cigar chomping capitalist caricature become an actual thing? Not in this thread that I can see, but go on.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2021 02:23
|
|
|
Jaxyon posted:As soon as somebody makes that claim, feel free to laugh at them. quote:Nobody actually knows how detrimental distance learning is, if at all, because educating the public is an extremely new science we just don't know a lot about it. Like look, my district sent me to PDs and did invest in online platforms. Your original post was that nobody wanted remote education to work and nobody really tried to make it work. And that's not really true.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2021 03:07
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 4, 2024 12:30 |
|
|
Timeless Appeal posted:I don't think it's unfair to read from this quote that you were questioning the idea that there were any drawbacks of remote education which was my main critique. That it's not just a matter of people not wanting remote education to work, for all of our current education system's flaws, it accomplishes things that may not actually be possible in a remote setting. That's fair, I forgot I typed that and I'll own it. I concede there are definitely aspects of school that suffer in distance learning. quote:Like look, my district sent me to PDs and did invest in online platforms. Your original post was that nobody wanted remote education to work and nobody really tried to make it work. And that's not really true. Your district is not the norm, and by and large this country did not seriously try to make it work. I've got teacher friends and active parent friends in a bunch of different states and all of them felt their districts had no idea what they were doing and hung them out to dry. I'm glad for you that your district didn't.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2021 03:14
|
|