That's not a bad thing at all actually.... The clue was to, as soon as you understood something, you educated the next one who didn't. ....
I agree that peer tutoring is a great system when the tutee wants to learn and is able to learn, and you get that when you segregate the advanced learners from the dull. The problem (catastrophe) arises when the "peer" tutor is a nerd and the tutee is a cheerleader, a crack head, or a football hero who couldn't care less. The Section 504 has no limit to how non-functional the kids can be, so you can have a tutee who is quite literally brain dead - and, no, I am not exaggerating. Section 504 essentially uses the "separate is not equal" clause of the Civil Rights Act to force schools to mix students of various abilities into a single class. Then the UDL model dictates that the smart kids teach the dumb kids, which in some cases means the smart kids merely do all the dumbed-down classwork for their "peers" or help the mentally disabled fill in their worksheets and tie their shoes. This, of course, only gets done when one of the emotionally disturbed kids is not having a bad day and the teacher's time is not taken up dealing with disruptions of an outrageous sort. When you combine the 504 with UDL and the IDEA Law and IEPs and then railroad it all into the system via the Common Core, you've got a national train wreck on the horizon.
Conversely, a little while ago I started to chatting to two twenty something year old brothers. The subject of computers came up and the younger one looked at me and made a comment to the effect that "oldies don't know about computers". I bit my lip and continued. I happened to have a Prop ASC board in my pocket which I showed them and I spent the next hour answering their questions, what is it? What's a micro-controller? What you can program it! And control stuff! Wow! As I left them I had to turn to the younger one and say "Seems it's the young'n's that don't know about computers."
One thing I find disturbing is how often store cashiers don't understand why you give them extra pennies above the 'total amount due'.
I love the "deer in the headlights" look you get when you hand them bills and they key that into the register and it tells them how much change to give....then you say, "oh, wait, I have a 8 cents" or some such amount to ease you coin burden. It almost makes you want to cry!
Forget it. Public schools are moving toward "total inclusion" in the classrooms thanks to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which is a civil rights thing. That means the special education kids and mentally ill kids soon will be in the same classroom as everyone else. Advanced learners will be used to help "peer tutor" the slow learners. The latest push is for Universal Design for Learning, or UDL, which was originally developed to help special education students but is now being sold to the US education establishment as the way to teach everyone and move the entire country forward. Because UDL is for everyone, everyone will be in the same class - gifted, average, emotionally disturbed, you name it. The National UDL Task Force is led by the National Down Syndrome Society, which has been lobbying heavily to get UDL into Federal Law so it can be embedded in the Common Core. It is already law in Maryland and gets off to a grand start next school year.
Meanwhile, there are some schools that have been discouraging hands-on technological anything because of the liability issues. Working with tools, lab chemicals, etc. is especially hazardous for children when some of them in the class can't even recite the ABCs or they believe their lab partner is a witch trying to cast a spell on them. The only way to keep the classroom safe is to have the kids do their "experiments" in virtual reality, where nobody can get hurt. Public education has always had its problems but what's about to happen to it under Section 504 and UDL is, in my humble opinion, a national catastrophe. The whole concept of Common Core has been hijacked by the special interests of the special education lobby and very few parents even see it coming.
I have volunteered in all grades in schools over the years...and have learned as much as I have taught in a volunteer role.
The education problem of America starts at home...not at school...not a popular comment when parents hear it.
When have you seen the local science and math fairs invoke the same investment and ownership by parents that organized sports does?
Those students who have parents actively involved in learning do well in any school.
<snip>
Like anything...you get what you give.
Actually, you are both right. I'm not sure I'd agree with the 'special education lobby' statement. Special Education teachers (let me expand on that-- the good ones, my wife being one, and knowing/being related to a few others) tend to want to tailor-make a cirriculum to fit the needs of the child. The ones pushing Common Core and UDL obviously either don't remember that kids are actually different and learn at different rates, or they think it's not fair that kids are different and learn at different rates.
My wife has been a Spec. Ed. teacher for 23-ish years now. She had an excellent program. I figure it must be so, since kids from other districts got bussed down to the little school where she teaches. Now, with inclusion, her program is all but dismantled, and she is now the "resource room" teacher. She now gets about 20 minutes per student, as if that's enough to even really get started.
ElectricAye, I'll take back what I said about not agreeing on 'special education lobby' statement. Unfortunately, lobbyists forget the point of what they they are lobbying for: what's best for the child.
T_M_T, I wholeheartedly agree that parents need to be involved. My wife could probably write a book on the effects of no parental participation, or worse, the wrong kind of participation, broken homes, alcohol and/or drug abuse, other abuses... it all leads to a value set in which there is no pursuit of excellence.
I can see by my writing that I'm switching over into preaching-and-teaching mode, so I'm gonna stop. It's kinda sad, too, because I can write some really good stuff!
My wife also works in special Ed and we are very active in school activities. I am also concerned with the lack of Science and Math I see in the school and the socialist approach the US school systems enforce, but that was not the intention of this thread. It was meant to show a unique perspective that we are not always aware of. Technology will change, there is no getting around that. In many ways, what we are doing today is set for a target audience that has not even been born yet.
Call me old fashioned but I can't help thinking that schools should teach the "Three Rs". "Reading, Writing and Arithmetic." That is to say, how to communicate and some basic logical thinking.
After that some fundamentals of reality: physics, maths, chemistry, biology, electronics, etc
With that in place, it matters not how technology changes, they are equipped to handle it.
Oh, yeah, it might help if people have some idea of how we got into this mess, i.e. history.
I think your positive experience from peer tutoring results from a couple of things: I assume this was at college or uni and so everyone there wanted to learn electronics. I'd also assume they had demonstrated they were bright enough to be there. I agree, under the right conditions peer tutoring can be great. After all one often finds that trying explaining something to someone else is a great way to pin point holes you your own understanding which you can then patch up.
But, if schools are still anything like they were in my day that is a totally different situation, half the kids had no interest and did not even want to be there. Half of the remainder were, well, not so bright and made very slow progress to nowhere.
For this reason we had three streams going on throughout. If we had all be thrown in together I would have committed suicide, or at least come out after five years knowing less than when I started. Even then it was a very tough and miserable five years of high school.
I have seen the same approach work at the kindergarden level...and the college level.
Humans are born with a curiosity for the world.
The apathy that one sees in some children/people is because someone has squashed their natural curiosity.
That someone is usually someone at home...as I said education starts...or unfortunately for some never started...at home.
Studies have shown that we learn one half of everything we will ever learn by the age of two...so by high school you are seeing the results...good or bad.
That sounds great. I have never heard such stories coming out about a school in the States. Only a lot of complaining about how bad it is getting. No idea what goes on in the UK now a days, the last time I spoke to any teachers there they were all very depressed about the situation they were in. From their descriptions it was all much the same as back in the 1960's.
Have you considered volunteering in your local schools so you can see for yourself?
Call me old fashioned but I can't help thinking that schools should teach the "Three Rs". "Reading, Writing and Arithmetic." That is to say, how to communicate and some basic logical thinking.
After that some fundamentals of reality: physics, maths, chemistry, biology, electronics, etc
With that in place, it matters not how technology changes, they are equipped to handle it.
Oh, yeah, it might help if people have some idea of how we got into this mess, i.e. history.
I do not consider that to be old fashioned...one needs a foundation to learn more from.
And it should be started very early...long before kindergarden age.
Studies show that the earlier training is started, the better the result.
Meanwhile we have politicians trying to cut preschool programs.
I agree that peer tutoring is a great system when the tutee wants to learn and is able to learn, and you get that when you segregate the advanced learners from the dull. The problem (catastrophe) arises when the "peer" tutor is a nerd and the tutee is a cheerleader, a crack head, or a football hero who couldn't care less. The Section 504 has no limit to how non-functional the kids can be, so you can have a tutee who is quite literally brain dead - and, no, I am not exaggerating. Section 504 essentially uses the "separate is not equal" clause of the Civil Rights Act to force schools to mix students of various abilities into a single class. Then the UDL model dictates that the smart kids teach the dumb kids, which in some cases means the smart kids merely do all the dumbed-down classwork for their "peers" or help the mentally disabled fill in their worksheets and tie their shoes. This, of course, only gets done when one of the emotionally disturbed kids is not having a bad day and the teacher's time is not taken up dealing with disruptions of an outrageous sort. When you combine the 504 with UDL and the IDEA Law and IEPs and then railroad it all into the system via the Common Core, you've got a national train wreck on the horizon.
Isn't your description of the Common Core the way that society works?...those who can help those who cannot.
Again those cheerleaders, crack heads and football heros have their current priorities set by their prior experiences...mostly at home...and for their priorities to change they need to be in an environment with people who represent that change.
As for considering physical defects an indicator of capability, I would use the example of Stephen Hawkings as why the challenged in our society will contribute according to their ability if given the chance.
My wife also works in special Ed and we are very active in school activities. I am also concerned with the lack of Science and Math I see in the school and the socialist approach the US school systems enforce, but that was not the intention of this thread. It was meant to show a unique perspective that we are not always aware of. Technology will change, there is no getting around that. In many ways, what we are doing today is set for a target audience that has not even been born yet.
True...what we do...or not do...affects those who come after us.
As our world becomes ever more technology based, the world needs more people knowing technology..not less.
The countries that educate their populations will lead the way into the future...it has always been the case.
In the past when Sputnik was launched, it shocked and scared the daylights out of the United States into implementing a crash program of math and science...and this country and the world is still benefiting from its results.
Consider this...how many schools actually teach a history of technology so students understand its importance.
My wife has been a Spec. Ed. teacher for 23-ish years now. She had an excellent program. .... Now, with inclusion, her program is all but dismantled, and she is now the "resource room" teacher. She now gets about 20 minutes per student, as if that's enough to even really get started.
ElectricAye, I'll take back what I said about not agreeing on 'special education lobby' statement. Unfortunately, lobbyists forget the point of what they they are lobbying for: what's best for the child.
T_M_T, I wholeheartedly agree that parents need to be involved.....
I think this bogus UDL thing is partially a result of our society getting too cheap with education. Apparently as a democracy we've decided education isn't important enough to our civilization, so the funds have been drying up. The watering hole has gotten smaller and smaller so everyone crowding around the remaining puddle has been vying for what's left. Special education requires lots of teacher time and technology and if you try to make an argument that they shouldn't be getting so much of the remaining mud puddle, you end up looking like an insensitive brute or some kind of master race maniac. The National Down Syndrome Society has done an excellent job of selling UDL to lots of lawmakers to make sure their particular ounce of the mud puddle doesn't get taken away. Honestly, I don't blame them. This is the sort of competition that happens when there's not enough to go around. There are no federal laws to protect the interests of advanced learners, so the "gifted" kids are getting screwed. STEM education is also getting shafted because of the liability issues. We don't have enough engineers and scientists but we have more lawyers than we can keep honestly employed, so everything gets shut down out of fear of a lawsuit.
In some respects, I think the whole system of Independent Education Plans (IEPs) is also wrecking future prospects for the kids. When kids have a problem, instead of addressing the problem itself, parents can get their kid on an IEP, so they still come home with straight A's even though they're getting only 60% of the work done. Some parents even get their kids into honors courses using the IEP, so you have kids that have no business being in an honors course getting inserted in those classes just so the parents can report to their friends that their kids are honors students. The whole thing is totally nuts. And with this we are going to advance as a nation? I don't mean my comments to be political. These policies have been in the works for a decade or more. Only now are they poised to really start impacting large groups of kids. I don't know how we are supposed to train bright kids in all this advanced material and help prepare the next generation for excellence so they can grow up and cure diseases when we've saddled them with a classroom containing kids who can't even recite their ABCs or who are prone to jump up and bang their head against the wall.
As for considering physical defects an indicator of capability, I would use the example of Stephen Hawkings as why the challenged in our society will contribute according to their ability if given the chance.
TMT,
I'm not sure if you're responding to my comments or to those of someone else, but my comments were not about physical disabilities of any kind: I've been talking about the scenario of classrooms in which highly capable students are mixed in with kids who are "normal" but unmotivated, mentally disabled, or emotionally disturbed. The theory of UDL claims they can all be handled in a single classroom in which the highly capable kids help the others. Supposedly technology in the form of each student having his or her own computerized tablet makes this all magically possible and desirable for everyone involved. In my opinion, as long as there's a good mind in there, physical capabilities can be and should be accommodated. But when a kid has mental problems and can't even recite the ABCs or write a coherent sentence or pay attention to a conversation for more than 15 seconds, then that kid needs some real, genuine help of the kind they can't get in a normal classroom.
I know what you are referring to, it was called "mainstreaming", it started some time ago after the schools got rid of the tracking system and then special ed. The sad thing is "tracking" was really helpful to students who weren't up to speed in either English or math. By shoving them in the regular courses the school encouraged failure. And by mainstreaming the special ed kids(the ones with cognitive issues) only benefited the parents who were ashamed their kids rode the short bus to special ed ville. Their kids got shortchanged along with every other kid in the class.
Now the whole co-operative learning / problem solving thing where the smart kids help teach the disinterested and lazy kids. Well that's been a failure from the beginning. I remember when I did it high school, it only encouraged the lazy and dumb to mooch and making the smart kid angry and wasting precious class time. Co-operative learning and problem solving only works with highly motivated people who respect one another, it also works in the private sector because the boss can lower the hammer on the slackers. Not so in school.
As far as the bright kids go, they were on their own. When I was in school(late 70's) there were no programs for them. The closet thing we had were off campus clubs like the DeMolay. Generally parents supported their children's own learning efforts outside of school or they simply fended for themselves. I knew some of the really brainy kids who got scholarships to Harvard they never got a bit of help from the school system. They simply were scary smart.
To make matters worse a few years after I graduated, the school closed down the shop and home economics classes.It seems the public school system has decided that not educating their charges in just about all aspects of life is the proper thing to do. Now boys graduate without a clue as to how to make or do anything. I would hate to see what passes for STEM coursework in high school given the schools fear of lawsuits and the stigma they have towards people learning to do things with their hands.
My personal view is that public schooling is a disaster and parents would be wise to seek education for their children elsewhere..
Why is there such a label on special ed kids? There is enough diversity in a "Normal" classroom that the current system STILL fails.
From what I have observed in the classroom and heard first hand from my wife, is that the teachers are so overwhelmed trying to meet the "Core" curriculum handed down from the district that they have little time to actually teach and spend that little extra time with someone if they don't quite get it. For that student it can be an avalanche nightmare of an experience. This can happen with an intelligent student just as easily ... what happens if they get sick and miss a critical point? Sure they can catch up, but sometimes that can be difficult and it is easy to fall into a diminishing pattern. My daughter is going to start the 6th grade this next year. I was appalled to find out that in the 5th grade they covered 2 Chapters out of their Science book. Coming from one of the other teachers, it was explained to me ... "We mainly focus on English and History with some Math. If we have time, we try to fit in Science." <<--- THIS is where the problem is.
Why is there such a label on special ed kids? ....
I understand what you are saying. The social and academic tensions between even the "nerds" vs. the "jocks" is enough to cause the system to break down. One of the great things about "gifted" classes is that they provided a social safe haven for kids who otherwise were often labeled as social outcasts or who were resented for their talents. Mixing the jocks in with the nerds and then expecting the nerds to graciously tutor the jocks and for the jocks to gratefully accept such noblesse oblige is absurd.
I certainly don't mean to say that the special ed kids are the problem. The problem is the lack of proper resources and, consequently, the move toward UDL as some kind of magical panacea to all the social problems that make their appearance at school. The special ed parents are far more organized than anyone else, so they were the first to surround the dried up watering hole and get their particular needs set into law. I think by the time everyone figures out what is happening with these "fixes" to the education system, the train will have already gone off the cliff.
Sorry, I really didn't mean to hijack this thread. It's just that when people start talking about how kids interact with technology, or when older people complain that the kids don't know how to do anything, I can't help but start ranting about this. The temporary fix, as I see it, is for older techies to volunteer and help motivated kids get involved with technology and science. And I hate to say it, but you might have to do so in some sort of organization that is completely separate from a school system. Section 504 guarantees everyone, no matter what their mental condition or capabilities, full access to after school activities no matter how complex those activities might be (rockets, robotics, etc.), so these UDL-based mixing problems show up even in school sponsored extracurricular activities. It's hard to explain to a group of kids a servo motor's torque-speed curve when one of their assigned team mates is angry and banging his head against a steel cabinet.
I happen to like learning from really smart people. I don't understand why that way of thinking is politically incorrect. But... if I'm a HS student forced to sit next to a student struggling with "c..a..t", I'd be a dropout. "They" don't get to tell me how I 'should' think.
I showed my kids the old fashioned, pre-iPad tablet ** Etch-a-sketch. I told them I recieved it when my boss recently upgraded to the new iPad, because he was too lazy to turn it over and shake to erase. They were quite amused that is never needs batteries or recharging. Then they went back to Angry Birds and Minecraft on the real iPad.
There is something to be said with Minecraft ... not necessarily Mad Birds.
My 11 year old is 3D printing and driving the software to create her own stuff. All I had to do was show her a few basic tools she needed to drive, and she's able to keep up with the best of them at our Maker Space. I contribute that to Minecraft in that she knows the "feel" of rendering a 3D world on a 2D surface and she can navigate very easily.
What does she make? She loves horses, and has plenty of them, what she doesn't have are horse carriages and stalls. Her latest project is a horse drawn carriage. Yes she could probably find one that someone else has made, but what's the fun in that, she's leaning and developing a skill set for a job in the future that hasn't even been invented yet.
I think this bogus UDL thing is partially a result of our society getting too cheap with education. Apparently as a democracy we've decided education isn't important enough to our civilization, so the funds have been drying up. The watering hole has gotten smaller and smaller so everyone crowding around the remaining puddle has been vying for what's left. Special education requires lots of teacher time and technology and if you try to make an argument that they shouldn't be getting so much of the remaining mud puddle, you end up looking like an insensitive brute or some kind of master race maniac. The National Down Syndrome Society has done an excellent job of selling UDL to lots of lawmakers to make sure their particular ounce of the mud puddle doesn't get taken away. Honestly, I don't blame them. This is the sort of competition that happens when there's not enough to go around. There are no federal laws to protect the interests of advanced learners, so the "gifted" kids are getting screwed. STEM education is also getting shafted because of the liability issues. We don't have enough engineers and scientists but we have more lawyers than we can keep honestly employed, so everything gets shut down out of fear of a lawsuit.
In some respects, I think the whole system of Independent Education Plans (IEPs) is also wrecking future prospects for the kids. When kids have a problem, instead of addressing the problem itself, parents can get their kid on an IEP, so they still come home with straight A's even though they're getting only 60% of the work done. Some parents even get their kids into honors courses using the IEP, so you have kids that have no business being in an honors course getting inserted in those classes just so the parents can report to their friends that their kids are honors students. The whole thing is totally nuts. And with this we are going to advance as a nation? I don't mean my comments to be political. These policies have been in the works for a decade or more. Only now are they poised to really start impacting large groups of kids. I don't know how we are supposed to train bright kids in all this advanced material and help prepare the next generation for excellence so they can grow up and cure diseases when we've saddled them with a classroom containing kids who can't even recite their ABCs or who are prone to jump up and bang their head against the wall.
TMT,
I'm not sure if you're responding to my comments or to those of someone else, but my comments were not about physical disabilities of any kind: I've been talking about the scenario of classrooms in which highly capable students are mixed in with kids who are "normal" but unmotivated, mentally disabled, or emotionally disturbed. The theory of UDL claims they can all be handled in a single classroom in which the highly capable kids help the others. Supposedly technology in the form of each student having his or her own computerized tablet makes this all magically possible and desirable for everyone involved. In my opinion, as long as there's a good mind in there, physical capabilities can be and should be accommodated. But when a kid has mental problems and can't even recite the ABCs or write a coherent sentence or pay attention to a conversation for more than 15 seconds, then that kid needs some real, genuine help of the kind they can't get in a normal classroom.
I would strongly agree that education is being underfunded...most teachers spend money out of their own pocket to fund even basic needs in classes. The cost of college is now resulting in over 1 trillion dollars of personal debt...both can be traced back to underfunding at the state level.
The problems of mental health in this country is seriously underfunded..especially starting in the 80's.
Want to guess which political party is cutting that funding?
The problems of not enought technical labor is more a problem of not wanting to pay the going rate...I have seen what happens when companies export technical jobs overseas..smart people decide to not go into careers that are not rewarded such as engineering...and then employers whine because there is not enough qualified people.
History shows us that an educated society is a productive society. The fact that the United States mandated FREE public education for its citizens has done more for our productivity than any other act in our history. The recent GI bill after WWII invoked a similar productivity spike. Educating your population at the public's expense results in a real ROI.
From what I am seeing in your comments, it would seem that you feel that the "smart ones" should be dealt with as a favored class...that the rest of society is holding them back. History shows us that many of the advances in life come from those who were not considered to be the best and the brightest..that good ideas come from the most unlikely places and people. How many Edisions and Eisteins (both who were considered to be losers early in life) have been lost to society because they were not given the opportunity that society denied them.
I know what you are referring to, it was called "mainstreaming", it started some time ago after the schools got rid of the tracking system and then special ed. The sad thing is "tracking" was really helpful to students who weren't up to speed in either English or math. By shoving them in the regular courses the school encouraged failure. And by mainstreaming the special ed kids(the ones with cognitive issues) only benefited the parents who were ashamed their kids rode the short bus to special ed ville. Their kids got shortchanged along with every other kid in the class.
Now the whole co-operative learning / problem solving thing where the smart kids help teach the disinterested and lazy kids. Well that's been a failure from the beginning. I remember when I did it high school, it only encouraged the lazy and dumb to mooch and making the smart kid angry and wasting precious class time. Co-operative learning and problem solving only works with highly motivated people who respect one another, it also works in the private sector because the boss can lower the hammer on the slackers. Not so in school.
As far as the bright kids go, they were on their own. When I was in school(late 70's) there were no programs for them. The closet thing we had were off campus clubs like the DeMolay. Generally parents supported their children's own learning efforts outside of school or they simply fended for themselves. I knew some of the really brainy kids who got scholarships to Harvard they never got a bit of help from the school system. They simply were scary smart.
To make matters worse a few years after I graduated, the school closed down the shop and home economics classes.It seems the public school system has decided that not educating their charges in just about all aspects of life is the proper thing to do. Now boys graduate without a clue as to how to make or do anything. I would hate to see what passes for STEM coursework in high school given the schools fear of lawsuits and the stigma they have towards people learning to do things with their hands.
My personal view is that public schooling is a disaster and parents would be wise to seek education for their children elsewhere..
Lazy and disinterested smart kids exist..and are disruptive as any lazy disinterested "disadvantaged" kids...and as I have said before those values started at home with parents as the role models.
When classes are closed,..it is because of budget reasons...and those who wish to cut taxes deny they are the problem...when the shop classes/ home ec/science labs close because they have no money.
And where are the employers donating time, money and employee volunteers to support education for their next generation of employees...MIA.
Did you know that "No Child Left Behind" was never adequately funded...the law was passed, the pressure applied to the schools to perform...but without the money promised to fund the effort...resulting in the disaster it became.
FWIW...I watched it happen as I volunteered over the years...really sad when the teacher is buying science supplies out of their own pay while the school spends millions on a football field..
FWIW...I am not a bleeding heart liberal but I understand you do not get anything for free...like our crumbling national infrastructure with bridges falling down that is not being funded, education of your population is an asset that needs to be funded at world class rates if you want world class results...
There is something to be said with Minecraft ... not necessarily Mad Birds.
My 11 year old is 3D printing and driving the software to create her own stuff. All I had to do was show her a few basic tools she needed to drive, and she's able to keep up with the best of them at our Maker Space. I contribute that to Minecraft in that she knows the "feel" of rendering a 3D world on a 2D surface and she can navigate very easily.
What does she make? She loves horses, and has plenty of them, what she doesn't have are horse carriages and stalls. Her latest project is a horse drawn carriage. Yes she could probably find one that someone else has made, but what's the fun in that, she's leaning and developing a skill set for a job in the future that hasn't even been invented yet.
Your daughter is a lucky girl to have a parent who encourages her creativity.
I happen to like learning from really smart people. I don't understand why that way of thinking is politically incorrect. But... if I'm a HS student forced to sit next to a student struggling with "c..a..t", I'd be a dropout. "They" don't get to tell me how I 'should' think.
I find that I really like to learn from all people...those who are smarter than I am...and those who are less knowledgable.
And FWIW...I find I learn valuable knowledge from both.
One of the better search algorithms that I designed years ago was derived from observing how a Downs student dealt with an organizational challenge as I volunteered in a shop class...the point is that you can learn much from the world if you look with an open mind.
....
From what I am seeing in your comments, it would seem that you feel that the "smart ones" should be dealt with as a favored class...that the rest of society is holding them back. ....
I'm not sure what you mean by "favored". I think kids should be challenged at whatever level they are capable of learning. The UDL plan utilizes "peer tutoring" but if you read the teacher's lesson plan on that, you will see instructions that tell the teacher to identify who is ahead of the class and then use those students as the tutors. No doubt the smart kids soon figure out that if they are displaying advanced capability, then they will get recruited once again to help Johnny fill out his workbook again. Soon the smarter kids kick back and blend in with the crowd. They breeze through classwork. Nobody is holding them back. They glide through everything. Life is good. Who cares? Me gots my Straight-As and plenty time for playing GTA with my buds. Chill, bro. It's all epic.
When I was a kid, I loved monster movies, because they scared the poo out of me.
When I got into college, I discovered that boring old HISTORY of all things, was bloody, violent, filled with evil and injustice, torture, death, famine plagues, wars, disasters, etc. This is, actually INTERESTING, as opposed to the sanitized garbage that bored me to sleep in elementary thru high school. This got me thinking....
These days, I tell my kids the REAL story behind history. If they don't have nightmares, then I didn't do my job right.
They LOVE hearing about history, when I tells it. At least they don't run away screaming, like my wife does when I talk about robots.
I'm not sure what you mean by "favored". I think kids should be challenged at whatever level they are capable of learning. The UDL plan utilizes "peer tutoring" but if you read the teacher's lesson plan on that, you will see instructions that tell the teacher to identify who is ahead of the class and then use those students as the tutors. No doubt the smart kids soon figure out that if they are displaying advanced capability, then they will get recruited once again to help Johnny fill out his workbook again. Soon the smarter kids kick back and blend in with the crowd. They breeze through classwork. Nobody is holding them back. They glide through everything. Life is good. Who cares? Me gots my Straight-As and plenty time for playing GTA with my buds. Chill, bro. It's all epic.
I find that those who value learning will be challenged by working in a diverse group of differing abilities...coding an optimal program is as much a technological challenge as an human engineering one....ever come across a working piece of code that is illegitable because the coder could not document...a wasted effort in the end.
It has been pointed out by some that UDL is a result of undermanning the class room...not enough teachers for students...aka cutting funding to education. I have personally found that when I taught night courses 10-12 students per teacher seems to be the upper limit before the quality starts to suffer...ironically the average number of students per teacher in schools is about 25...which I have seen personally when volunteering to be far to many students per teacher.
In reference to the "How kids react to old technology.." theme, I wonder if what we need in learning is more on hands efforts using technology both old and new...the diverse areas that are drawn upon in building robots is what drew me into the hobby/discipline.
I'm with Heater here. Learn how to learn, and I would add civics to his list of must have material. Critical thinkers, able to learn, vet what they hear, build, do, will very easily make solid decisions about how they are governed. That matters.
I really don't like the combination of core and limits on resources that make core dominant. High stakes testing makes little sense to me either.
Having many kids together does. No worries here. That leaves us with a resource problem, in addition to the crappy focus on details and not minds, bodies and quality of people.
The latter is arguably a function of education as much as learning how to learn is. Additionally, I strongly agree with parents and the community all sharing responsibility for bringing up their future leaders and care takers. We all get old.
Really, some access to resources and some freedom to tease the good stuff out of kids is where the good education is at.
My own school experience was very different from what I see today. I could get at things. Machines, computers, knowledge in the form of books and frank conversations with everybody in town.
Being poor didn't impact me much. It was those resources that coupled learning and doing into material capabilities I needed to get started.
Looking back, it is so interesting. I would blow off geography to write and perform music, or maybe schedule a free period to work on something that mattered. It was building course material for LOGO classes I taught one year, and another time, it was assembling a choir which I directed from the notes on the sheet through performance.
Both of those things actually were extremely valuable activities, and had the focus been on making sure I had some little details right for some high stakes test or other, I know absolutely I would not have the abilities and skills I have today, and I know my ability to get new ones, change roles in work, etc... would also have been blunted, not the sharp tools I have now.
The thing is, people learn differently. Some need to do it, others need to read about it, or watch others. And people have a vary wide range of intelligence capabilities.
If they get a chance to have enough experiences to know about who they are, they also have time to maximize it all, and we in the US are generally not doing well on that front, leaving people to really develop as they can in their late teend and 20's instead of building their life and taking advantage of opportunities they will encounter at that time.
Seems nuts.
I honestly would take a Smile building, access to a lot of stuff, donated, whatever, and use the money on face time and seat time to get the kids a wide range of potent experiences.
Bet you all a cookie, we could take two roughly equal sets of kids, do it that way and they would compare off the charts favorably to the ones where the priority is all wrong.
My kids enjoy playing both Atari 2600 and NES - found no problems or misunderstanding with cartridges, menus, etc. Actually, "River Raid" and "Super Mario Bros." are much popular games in household than "Angry Birds" or "Fruit Ninja".
Comments
I agree that peer tutoring is a great system when the tutee wants to learn and is able to learn, and you get that when you segregate the advanced learners from the dull. The problem (catastrophe) arises when the "peer" tutor is a nerd and the tutee is a cheerleader, a crack head, or a football hero who couldn't care less. The Section 504 has no limit to how non-functional the kids can be, so you can have a tutee who is quite literally brain dead - and, no, I am not exaggerating. Section 504 essentially uses the "separate is not equal" clause of the Civil Rights Act to force schools to mix students of various abilities into a single class. Then the UDL model dictates that the smart kids teach the dumb kids, which in some cases means the smart kids merely do all the dumbed-down classwork for their "peers" or help the mentally disabled fill in their worksheets and tie their shoes. This, of course, only gets done when one of the emotionally disturbed kids is not having a bad day and the teacher's time is not taken up dealing with disruptions of an outrageous sort. When you combine the 504 with UDL and the IDEA Law and IEPs and then railroad it all into the system via the Common Core, you've got a national train wreck on the horizon.
Actually, you are both right. I'm not sure I'd agree with the 'special education lobby' statement. Special Education teachers (let me expand on that-- the good ones, my wife being one, and knowing/being related to a few others) tend to want to tailor-make a cirriculum to fit the needs of the child. The ones pushing Common Core and UDL obviously either don't remember that kids are actually different and learn at different rates, or they think it's not fair that kids are different and learn at different rates.
My wife has been a Spec. Ed. teacher for 23-ish years now. She had an excellent program. I figure it must be so, since kids from other districts got bussed down to the little school where she teaches. Now, with inclusion, her program is all but dismantled, and she is now the "resource room" teacher. She now gets about 20 minutes per student, as if that's enough to even really get started.
ElectricAye, I'll take back what I said about not agreeing on 'special education lobby' statement. Unfortunately, lobbyists forget the point of what they they are lobbying for: what's best for the child.
T_M_T, I wholeheartedly agree that parents need to be involved. My wife could probably write a book on the effects of no parental participation, or worse, the wrong kind of participation, broken homes, alcohol and/or drug abuse, other abuses... it all leads to a value set in which there is no pursuit of excellence.
I can see by my writing that I'm switching over into preaching-and-teaching mode, so I'm gonna stop. It's kinda sad, too, because I can write some really good stuff!
My wife also works in special Ed and we are very active in school activities. I am also concerned with the lack of Science and Math I see in the school and the socialist approach the US school systems enforce, but that was not the intention of this thread. It was meant to show a unique perspective that we are not always aware of. Technology will change, there is no getting around that. In many ways, what we are doing today is set for a target audience that has not even been born yet.
After that some fundamentals of reality: physics, maths, chemistry, biology, electronics, etc
With that in place, it matters not how technology changes, they are equipped to handle it.
Oh, yeah, it might help if people have some idea of how we got into this mess, i.e. history.
I have seen the same approach work at the kindergarden level...and the college level.
Humans are born with a curiosity for the world.
The apathy that one sees in some children/people is because someone has squashed their natural curiosity.
That someone is usually someone at home...as I said education starts...or unfortunately for some never started...at home.
Studies have shown that we learn one half of everything we will ever learn by the age of two...so by high school you are seeing the results...good or bad.
Have you considered volunteering in your local schools so you can see for yourself?
I do not consider that to be old fashioned...one needs a foundation to learn more from.
And it should be started very early...long before kindergarden age.
Studies show that the earlier training is started, the better the result.
Meanwhile we have politicians trying to cut preschool programs.
Isn't your description of the Common Core the way that society works?...those who can help those who cannot.
Again those cheerleaders, crack heads and football heros have their current priorities set by their prior experiences...mostly at home...and for their priorities to change they need to be in an environment with people who represent that change.
As for considering physical defects an indicator of capability, I would use the example of Stephen Hawkings as why the challenged in our society will contribute according to their ability if given the chance.
True...what we do...or not do...affects those who come after us.
As our world becomes ever more technology based, the world needs more people knowing technology..not less.
The countries that educate their populations will lead the way into the future...it has always been the case.
In the past when Sputnik was launched, it shocked and scared the daylights out of the United States into implementing a crash program of math and science...and this country and the world is still benefiting from its results.
Consider this...how many schools actually teach a history of technology so students understand its importance.
I think this bogus UDL thing is partially a result of our society getting too cheap with education. Apparently as a democracy we've decided education isn't important enough to our civilization, so the funds have been drying up. The watering hole has gotten smaller and smaller so everyone crowding around the remaining puddle has been vying for what's left. Special education requires lots of teacher time and technology and if you try to make an argument that they shouldn't be getting so much of the remaining mud puddle, you end up looking like an insensitive brute or some kind of master race maniac. The National Down Syndrome Society has done an excellent job of selling UDL to lots of lawmakers to make sure their particular ounce of the mud puddle doesn't get taken away. Honestly, I don't blame them. This is the sort of competition that happens when there's not enough to go around. There are no federal laws to protect the interests of advanced learners, so the "gifted" kids are getting screwed. STEM education is also getting shafted because of the liability issues. We don't have enough engineers and scientists but we have more lawyers than we can keep honestly employed, so everything gets shut down out of fear of a lawsuit.
In some respects, I think the whole system of Independent Education Plans (IEPs) is also wrecking future prospects for the kids. When kids have a problem, instead of addressing the problem itself, parents can get their kid on an IEP, so they still come home with straight A's even though they're getting only 60% of the work done. Some parents even get their kids into honors courses using the IEP, so you have kids that have no business being in an honors course getting inserted in those classes just so the parents can report to their friends that their kids are honors students. The whole thing is totally nuts. And with this we are going to advance as a nation? I don't mean my comments to be political. These policies have been in the works for a decade or more. Only now are they poised to really start impacting large groups of kids. I don't know how we are supposed to train bright kids in all this advanced material and help prepare the next generation for excellence so they can grow up and cure diseases when we've saddled them with a classroom containing kids who can't even recite their ABCs or who are prone to jump up and bang their head against the wall.
TMT,
I'm not sure if you're responding to my comments or to those of someone else, but my comments were not about physical disabilities of any kind: I've been talking about the scenario of classrooms in which highly capable students are mixed in with kids who are "normal" but unmotivated, mentally disabled, or emotionally disturbed. The theory of UDL claims they can all be handled in a single classroom in which the highly capable kids help the others. Supposedly technology in the form of each student having his or her own computerized tablet makes this all magically possible and desirable for everyone involved. In my opinion, as long as there's a good mind in there, physical capabilities can be and should be accommodated. But when a kid has mental problems and can't even recite the ABCs or write a coherent sentence or pay attention to a conversation for more than 15 seconds, then that kid needs some real, genuine help of the kind they can't get in a normal classroom.
I know what you are referring to, it was called "mainstreaming", it started some time ago after the schools got rid of the tracking system and then special ed. The sad thing is "tracking" was really helpful to students who weren't up to speed in either English or math. By shoving them in the regular courses the school encouraged failure. And by mainstreaming the special ed kids(the ones with cognitive issues) only benefited the parents who were ashamed their kids rode the short bus to special ed ville. Their kids got shortchanged along with every other kid in the class.
Now the whole co-operative learning / problem solving thing where the smart kids help teach the disinterested and lazy kids. Well that's been a failure from the beginning. I remember when I did it high school, it only encouraged the lazy and dumb to mooch and making the smart kid angry and wasting precious class time. Co-operative learning and problem solving only works with highly motivated people who respect one another, it also works in the private sector because the boss can lower the hammer on the slackers. Not so in school.
As far as the bright kids go, they were on their own. When I was in school(late 70's) there were no programs for them. The closet thing we had were off campus clubs like the DeMolay. Generally parents supported their children's own learning efforts outside of school or they simply fended for themselves. I knew some of the really brainy kids who got scholarships to Harvard they never got a bit of help from the school system. They simply were scary smart.
To make matters worse a few years after I graduated, the school closed down the shop and home economics classes.It seems the public school system has decided that not educating their charges in just about all aspects of life is the proper thing to do. Now boys graduate without a clue as to how to make or do anything. I would hate to see what passes for STEM coursework in high school given the schools fear of lawsuits and the stigma they have towards people learning to do things with their hands.
My personal view is that public schooling is a disaster and parents would be wise to seek education for their children elsewhere..
From what I have observed in the classroom and heard first hand from my wife, is that the teachers are so overwhelmed trying to meet the "Core" curriculum handed down from the district that they have little time to actually teach and spend that little extra time with someone if they don't quite get it. For that student it can be an avalanche nightmare of an experience. This can happen with an intelligent student just as easily ... what happens if they get sick and miss a critical point? Sure they can catch up, but sometimes that can be difficult and it is easy to fall into a diminishing pattern. My daughter is going to start the 6th grade this next year. I was appalled to find out that in the 5th grade they covered 2 Chapters out of their Science book. Coming from one of the other teachers, it was explained to me ... "We mainly focus on English and History with some Math. If we have time, we try to fit in Science." <<--- THIS is where the problem is.
As my hero Fred Dibnah said "Teaching boys to bake cakes? That's no way to maintain an industrial empire."
Also "The modern world stinks."
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fred_Dibnah
I understand what you are saying. The social and academic tensions between even the "nerds" vs. the "jocks" is enough to cause the system to break down. One of the great things about "gifted" classes is that they provided a social safe haven for kids who otherwise were often labeled as social outcasts or who were resented for their talents. Mixing the jocks in with the nerds and then expecting the nerds to graciously tutor the jocks and for the jocks to gratefully accept such noblesse oblige is absurd.
I certainly don't mean to say that the special ed kids are the problem. The problem is the lack of proper resources and, consequently, the move toward UDL as some kind of magical panacea to all the social problems that make their appearance at school. The special ed parents are far more organized than anyone else, so they were the first to surround the dried up watering hole and get their particular needs set into law. I think by the time everyone figures out what is happening with these "fixes" to the education system, the train will have already gone off the cliff.
Sorry, I really didn't mean to hijack this thread. It's just that when people start talking about how kids interact with technology, or when older people complain that the kids don't know how to do anything, I can't help but start ranting about this. The temporary fix, as I see it, is for older techies to volunteer and help motivated kids get involved with technology and science. And I hate to say it, but you might have to do so in some sort of organization that is completely separate from a school system. Section 504 guarantees everyone, no matter what their mental condition or capabilities, full access to after school activities no matter how complex those activities might be (rockets, robotics, etc.), so these UDL-based mixing problems show up even in school sponsored extracurricular activities. It's hard to explain to a group of kids a servo motor's torque-speed curve when one of their assigned team mates is angry and banging his head against a steel cabinet.
My 11 year old is 3D printing and driving the software to create her own stuff. All I had to do was show her a few basic tools she needed to drive, and she's able to keep up with the best of them at our Maker Space. I contribute that to Minecraft in that she knows the "feel" of rendering a 3D world on a 2D surface and she can navigate very easily.
What does she make? She loves horses, and has plenty of them, what she doesn't have are horse carriages and stalls. Her latest project is a horse drawn carriage. Yes she could probably find one that someone else has made, but what's the fun in that, she's leaning and developing a skill set for a job in the future that hasn't even been invented yet.
I would strongly agree that education is being underfunded...most teachers spend money out of their own pocket to fund even basic needs in classes. The cost of college is now resulting in over 1 trillion dollars of personal debt...both can be traced back to underfunding at the state level.
The problems of mental health in this country is seriously underfunded..especially starting in the 80's.
Want to guess which political party is cutting that funding?
The problems of not enought technical labor is more a problem of not wanting to pay the going rate...I have seen what happens when companies export technical jobs overseas..smart people decide to not go into careers that are not rewarded such as engineering...and then employers whine because there is not enough qualified people.
History shows us that an educated society is a productive society. The fact that the United States mandated FREE public education for its citizens has done more for our productivity than any other act in our history. The recent GI bill after WWII invoked a similar productivity spike. Educating your population at the public's expense results in a real ROI.
From what I am seeing in your comments, it would seem that you feel that the "smart ones" should be dealt with as a favored class...that the rest of society is holding them back. History shows us that many of the advances in life come from those who were not considered to be the best and the brightest..that good ideas come from the most unlikely places and people. How many Edisions and Eisteins (both who were considered to be losers early in life) have been lost to society because they were not given the opportunity that society denied them.
Lazy and disinterested smart kids exist..and are disruptive as any lazy disinterested "disadvantaged" kids...and as I have said before those values started at home with parents as the role models.
When classes are closed,..it is because of budget reasons...and those who wish to cut taxes deny they are the problem...when the shop classes/ home ec/science labs close because they have no money.
And where are the employers donating time, money and employee volunteers to support education for their next generation of employees...MIA.
Did you know that "No Child Left Behind" was never adequately funded...the law was passed, the pressure applied to the schools to perform...but without the money promised to fund the effort...resulting in the disaster it became.
FWIW...I watched it happen as I volunteered over the years...really sad when the teacher is buying science supplies out of their own pay while the school spends millions on a football field..
FWIW...I am not a bleeding heart liberal but I understand you do not get anything for free...like our crumbling national infrastructure with bridges falling down that is not being funded, education of your population is an asset that needs to be funded at world class rates if you want world class results...
Your daughter is a lucky girl to have a parent who encourages her creativity.
I find that I really like to learn from all people...those who are smarter than I am...and those who are less knowledgable.
And FWIW...I find I learn valuable knowledge from both.
One of the better search algorithms that I designed years ago was derived from observing how a Downs student dealt with an organizational challenge as I volunteered in a shop class...the point is that you can learn much from the world if you look with an open mind.
I'm not sure what you mean by "favored". I think kids should be challenged at whatever level they are capable of learning. The UDL plan utilizes "peer tutoring" but if you read the teacher's lesson plan on that, you will see instructions that tell the teacher to identify who is ahead of the class and then use those students as the tutors. No doubt the smart kids soon figure out that if they are displaying advanced capability, then they will get recruited once again to help Johnny fill out his workbook again. Soon the smarter kids kick back and blend in with the crowd. They breeze through classwork. Nobody is holding them back. They glide through everything. Life is good. Who cares? Me gots my Straight-As and plenty time for playing GTA with my buds. Chill, bro. It's all epic.
When I was a kid, I loved monster movies, because they scared the poo out of me.
When I got into college, I discovered that boring old HISTORY of all things, was bloody, violent, filled with evil and injustice, torture, death, famine plagues, wars, disasters, etc. This is, actually INTERESTING, as opposed to the sanitized garbage that bored me to sleep in elementary thru high school. This got me thinking....
These days, I tell my kids the REAL story behind history. If they don't have nightmares, then I didn't do my job right.
They LOVE hearing about history, when I tells it. At least they don't run away screaming, like my wife does when I talk about robots.
I find that those who value learning will be challenged by working in a diverse group of differing abilities...coding an optimal program is as much a technological challenge as an human engineering one....ever come across a working piece of code that is illegitable because the coder could not document...a wasted effort in the end.
It has been pointed out by some that UDL is a result of undermanning the class room...not enough teachers for students...aka cutting funding to education. I have personally found that when I taught night courses 10-12 students per teacher seems to be the upper limit before the quality starts to suffer...ironically the average number of students per teacher in schools is about 25...which I have seen personally when volunteering to be far to many students per teacher.
In reference to the "How kids react to old technology.." theme, I wonder if what we need in learning is more on hands efforts using technology both old and new...the diverse areas that are drawn upon in building robots is what drew me into the hobby/discipline.
I really don't like the combination of core and limits on resources that make core dominant. High stakes testing makes little sense to me either.
Having many kids together does. No worries here. That leaves us with a resource problem, in addition to the crappy focus on details and not minds, bodies and quality of people.
The latter is arguably a function of education as much as learning how to learn is. Additionally, I strongly agree with parents and the community all sharing responsibility for bringing up their future leaders and care takers. We all get old.
Really, some access to resources and some freedom to tease the good stuff out of kids is where the good education is at.
My own school experience was very different from what I see today. I could get at things. Machines, computers, knowledge in the form of books and frank conversations with everybody in town.
Being poor didn't impact me much. It was those resources that coupled learning and doing into material capabilities I needed to get started.
Looking back, it is so interesting. I would blow off geography to write and perform music, or maybe schedule a free period to work on something that mattered. It was building course material for LOGO classes I taught one year, and another time, it was assembling a choir which I directed from the notes on the sheet through performance.
Both of those things actually were extremely valuable activities, and had the focus been on making sure I had some little details right for some high stakes test or other, I know absolutely I would not have the abilities and skills I have today, and I know my ability to get new ones, change roles in work, etc... would also have been blunted, not the sharp tools I have now.
The thing is, people learn differently. Some need to do it, others need to read about it, or watch others. And people have a vary wide range of intelligence capabilities.
If they get a chance to have enough experiences to know about who they are, they also have time to maximize it all, and we in the US are generally not doing well on that front, leaving people to really develop as they can in their late teend and 20's instead of building their life and taking advantage of opportunities they will encounter at that time.
Seems nuts.
I honestly would take a Smile building, access to a lot of stuff, donated, whatever, and use the money on face time and seat time to get the kids a wide range of potent experiences.
Bet you all a cookie, we could take two roughly equal sets of kids, do it that way and they would compare off the charts favorably to the ones where the priority is all wrong.