Taken from the "Newsweek 'Top Highschools'" thread;
quote: We live in a culture of mediocrity. The lowest common denominator, which is very low indeed decides everything.
quote: to honor schools that have done the best job in persuading average students to take college-level courses and tests. Heaven forbid that any school have good programs for the gifted. What is important is that the lowest common denominator be raised as high as possible, even if that means neglecting everything above that. AP tests are not for the average student, and were never intended to be. My school, rightly to my mind, discourages students who are unlikely to make a four or a five on an AP test from taking the class. Why? Because it is grossly unfair that, in a gifted class, the teacher should have to spend half an hour explaining the basics Marxism to people who, in the Tenth grade, were totally unfamiliar with the term.
Meritocracy through equality of opportunity is the goal towards which we should strive, not equality of intellect based on a false system.
We have become so anti-élitist that we fear even an élite based on talent, indeed, I would say we fear this more than any other élite. Note that, in the United States today, the word "intellectual" is almost universally used as a sneer, while the "average joe" is raised to the level of demigod, or, at least, President.... Really, what is so wrong with a system that acknowledges that some students are, in fact, more intelligent, or better at school? If we say that this is not so, then we are lying to our students and to ourselves.
A society which considers total equality, rather than meritocracy, to be the goal, even at the expense of real progress, is doomed to fail.
We should, must, allow the talented to rise while providing a safety net for those who lack talent or luck. We should not, cannot, attempt to make them equal, anymore than we can make three equal to nine. There are wrongs which we cannot right, and should not even attempt to do so. Perhaps the day shall come when science can change the intelligence of an individual, but this will not be the course of the near future. Even if this were possible, I am far from sure that it would be desirable: Stephan Hawking, rightly, points out that creating super-smart humans creates a special difference which would ultimately lead to the demise of humanity through its metamorphoses into post-humanity. Do we really want this?
Even if we answer that this course of events is good and right, what system of belief argues for the pretense that something which has not happened has?
In the meantime, we must accept, and teach our children to accept, that humanity, while glorious, is limited, and individual humans, while potentially more glorious, are more limited.
Or education system fails students, for, when they learn that they have been taught lies, will rightly ask what sort of a society teaches lies to the young and this shall lead them to question whether any society based on lies can or should survive. We must change our educational system, and our society without, until truth is the basis. How will our governing élites answer the statement, so often heard from the mouths of the most intelligent youth: Pas de replâtrage, la structure est pourrie? We not replaster, but replant, else our society be uprooted and flung into the abyss. Revolutions do not save societies, but they occur only when a society needs saving.
I fear we underestimate the exent to which a society is formed in its schools. To what degree are world views formed at the university, and, especialy, secondary school levels? The answer is that the world views of individuals within a society, and thus the nature of the society, are almost universaly formed at these levels.
All words are my own, except for the one quote, which is from Newsweek.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Sweetie, maybe you could add something to show why this is a new thread. Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
The old thread morphed, as is often the case, into something unrelated.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Possibly an outside perspective would be helpful here. Now, I've been known to sneer a bit at American high schools, and truly, they do need to begin teaching real math and physics. But at least there exist programs for the gifted. In Norway the culture of equality is much more ingrained, to the point where people have seriously suggested that we stop giving out grades - that only "creates losers". By our standards, American high schools are hopelessly elitist; not to mention that private schools are under nowhere near the same level of state inspection. (You may rest assured, no Norwegian private school, to the extent that they even exist, would dream of teaching anything remotely approaching creationism. The downside is, there are very few of them and they are mainly religious.)
It seems to me, then, that while you are right to worry about a further slide in this direction, it is not your most pressing problem. Studying for standardised tests, curricula designed for testability, and the lack of real mathematics are much bigger problems.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
It's an interesting point, but a complicated one. As a teacher of advanced classes, it would make my life easier to keep kids with lower standardized test scores or more average class performance out of them. That's been tried, though, and it leads to its own bad results. For instance, some students are diamonds in the rough, but if you never give them a chance to shine, they never will. Also, some students really do underperform because they respond adversely to a lack of challenge. Again, without access to higher level classes, we never find out. Finally, students are notoriously misplaced at the earliest ages, when testing is inexact and IQ is far from steady, and teacher and parent expectations tend to be self-fulfilling.
Does that mean I disagree with you? Not exactly. Just that I think it's more complicated than you portray.
For one thing, you seem to be conflating two completely separate issues. With your talk of lying to our kids, and trying to make all people equal, you seem to be mixing this with the "self-esteem for all, for anything" movement. It's not the same, although it's quite possible at some schools the two end up running concurrently. Allowing all students access to advanced courses isn't intrinsically lying to them or telling them they are superior. In a meritocracy, all should have equal opportunity, no? Well, that's what the move toward opening up higher level classes is about: giving all the opportunity. If all students do not have the chance to challenge themselves and rise above where they have been placed and what is expected of them, you don't have a meritocracy.
Here is a very simple proof (to my mind): students from wealthy suburban schools score higher on standardized tests, have better grades, and have more success in advanced courses than students from extremely rural schools and inner city schools. I think it would be hard to contend that, through some cosmic coincidence, all the students who have high merit are all concentrated in these wealthy neighborhoods. I think it far more likely that they have advantages that other students don't. But it would be very easy to look at some grades and some tests blindly, and conclude that the students were simply rising and sinking to their natural levels.
Now opening AP classes to everybody certainly doesn't solve all those socioeconomic ills, but closing them off can be part of perpetuating a system where the haves will become a permanent upper class, and pat themselves on the back and tell each other that they simply deserve all that they have been given, while the have-nots become a permanent lower class. There are already good options to make sure the wealthiest children get every possible educational advantage, but one purpose of public education is as an investment in society. As an investmemt, public education makes it possible for the poor to cease to be poor. For this to happen, they need to be given opportunities to grow. Not just in kindergarten and first grade, but all the way down the line.
What this does not mean is that we should water down courses to increase their pass rate, or tell students they are doing good work when they are in fact not. I have no doubt that this does occur, but this is not intrinsic to allowing all students who want to challenge themselves the opportunity to do so. I also believe that students who do not want to learn ought to be placed where they will not disrupt those who do. But again, these are different issues, really.
Posted by TheHumanTarget (Member # 7129) on :
quote:The old thread morphed, as is often the case, into something unrelated.
Pel, old buddy, old pal, that tends to happen when people aren't interested in your post.
The solution is not to create a new post, but to figure out why the first one went astray.
Edited: Apparently someone is interested. Go figure.
[ July 26, 2006, 12:28 PM: Message edited by: TheHumanTarget ]
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
Except that at least two people were interested enough to create long posts on the subject.
KoM, firstly, math and physics are extremely strong subjects, much more so than history or foreign languages. This is true in the among of funding and the prestige placed on them by schools, although not, perhaps, in the number of students taking highly advanced classes (although there are no highly advanced classes in history of foreign languages like there are in math.)
Secondly, I dislike the Scandinavian educational system when compared to the Gymnasium/Lyceum/Liceo/Grammar School system, which is fading all too fast, but your system appears to yield better results than the U.S. system.
But we risk over-focusing here, the problem is not in the specifics of courses, but in the general atmosphere of schools, which can be dangerously anti-intellectual. Funding for athletics is absurdly high; funding for libraries far lower. However, funding is not the issue, merely a symptomatic of it: the real issues here are twofold, the first is that schools are not focused on producing students ready to compete in the twenty-first century world, the second is that schools are producing students ready too ready to compete in the twenty-first century world. The second, more unusual, complaint is based on the fact that fashionable subjects, like economics and bioscience receive far more funding and prestige than equally important subjects such as history or English. We risk forgeting that, in the future, human languages, not binary will still be spoken, and human history will still matter.
The United States risks creating a society where university and secondary school professors have to be imported. This would actually be very beneficial, if only we were also producing an export crop. How many Americans teach art history at a liceo in Italy? Very few, as few have either the knowledge of art history or Italian needed for the post. On the other hand, my European history teacher was Romanian.
For a final example, the great scholars in my field, ancient history, have almost always been, with the exception of a few Germans, British or British-educated, becouse it is in Britian that the subject is considered worthy.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
I don't see anything wrong with creating a spin-off thread when you want to explore one particular issue that is getting lost in a larger thread. If nobody wants to talk about it, the new thread will simply fall into obscurity. Nobody is forced to read or reply.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
quote:Originally posted by Pelegius: I dislike the Scandinavian educational system when compared to the Gymnasium/Lyceum/Liceo/Grammar School system, which is fading all too fast, but your system appears to yield better results than the U.S. system.
Depends on what you are measuring. Different systems have different strengths. I would argue that, despite its legitimate weaknesses, no school system does as good a job of educating "the masses," and specifically of giving all students the opportunity to follow an academic track, than the US's.
quote: But we risk over-focusing here, the problem is not in the specifics of courses, but in the general atmosphere of schools, which can be dangerously anti-intellectual. Funding for athletics is absurdly high; funding for libraries far lower.
I agree with all of this. I don't really see this as evidence for your initial point, though. Rather than us overfocusing, I would say you are underfocusing, pulling in all sorts of varied symptoms with varied causes and ascribing it all to one cultural attitude.
quote:However, funding is not the issue, merely a symptomatic of it: the real issues here are twofold, the first is that schools are not focused on producing students ready to compete in the twenty-first century world, the second is that schools are producing students ready too ready to compete in the twenty-first century world.
I don't understand your second point. Can you rephrase it for me?
quote:The second, more unusual, complaint is based on the fact that fashionable subjects, like economics and bioscience receive far more funding and prestige than equally important subjects such as history or English.
In my experience this is simply not true.
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
quote:How many Americans teach art history at a liceo in Italy? Very few, as few have either the knowledge of art history or Italian needed for the post. On the other hand, my European history teacher was Romanian.
I don't think this is a valid comparison. It makes sense that someone who grew up in Eurpoe would have an advantage teaching European History. A better question would be how many Americans are teaching American History in Europe? Although I would bet that the most common thing in any country to find someone from a different country teaching would be their native language.
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
"pulling in all sorts of varied symptoms with varied causes and ascribing it all to one cultural attitude." I believe they are all part of a general cultural attitude, one based on anti-intellectualism.
My second point is that we spend too much time teaching what we think the twenty-first century will need, forgetting that basic human needs will not change.
EIJay, Art history is a pretty neutral subject in terms of experience, at least from a U.S./European outlook, as most galleries are located in either Europe or the U.S.
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
Right, that's what I'm saying. You picked a pretty neutral subject as your example for very few Americans teaching it in Europe, but a not-at-all neutral subject (European History) for your example of a European teaching in America. That's why I don't think it's a good comparison.
Posted by Leroy (Member # 9533) on :
As far as too high a percentage of funds being given to athletics, I'd like to play devil's advocate: Nobody pays to watch students add or write an essay. Sports bring in a lot of money for most school systems, and any program that carries it's own weight deserves to be rewarded. Not to mention the fact that students who aren't planning to go to college often see finishing high school as basically useless. As the subjects taught become more and more abstract, too many stuidents look at what they're learning and think, "When am I going to use this?" But a chance to participate in the athletic programs (and maybe even get a scholarship out of it) keep people in school who would otherwise not be there.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
quote:Originally posted by Leroy: As far as too high a percentage of funds being given to athletics, I'd like to play devil's advocate: Nobody pays to watch students add or write an essay. Sports bring in a lot of money for most school systems, and any program that carries it's own weight deserves to be rewarded.
I believe last time sports funding came up, the idea that high school football turns a profit was debunked. Your point is arguably true at the college level, but not so at the high school level.
quote:But a chance to participate in the athletic programs (and maybe even get a scholarship out of it) keep people in school who would otherwise not be there.
This sounds implausible to me.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote: A society which considers total equality, rather than meritocracy, to be the goal, even at the expense of real progress, is doomed to fail.
Fail at what? You are like aka and the Jehovah's Witnesses, mucking up your point by pushing a doomsday scenario.
As to the thread, I'd rather have a thoughtful, diverse mediocrity, than a narrow meritocracy. With the former, you may not always be number 1 in a given field, but with the latter, you create moral blindspots and run the risk of going the way of the Nazies.
Posted by SC Carver (Member # 8173) on :
My dad and brother are both high school football coaches at different schools. My dad checks on all of his players grades to make sure they will stay eligible. He has generally speaking almost all of his players make much better grades when they are in season, and when you would think they would have more time to study in the off season they do worse. An argument for funding high school athletics.
. My Dad coaches at a very good public school while my Brother coaches at a elite private school. The difference between the kids it painfully obvious. At the public school the kids do only what they have to and no more, so my Dad has to stay on top of them, not nearly as much as he did when he worked at a poor rural school. On the other hand at my brother's expensive private school he almost never has to say anything to his students, they are going to do all that is expected from them and more. I think it comes down to family expectations. At the private school the student’s families expect more from them. They expect them to get good grades, to behave in class, do their homework, so the students do it. While at the public school many of the students are only there because they have to be. Their families don’t expect much so the kids don’t do much. At the poor rural school half the kids didn’t have anyone in their family who understood the importance of education. In college I had many blue collar summer jobs and I can’t tell you how many times I heard something to the effect of: why do you want to go to college? You know what a degree and $1 will get you. A cup of coffee I
Sorry if I was off topic, but these are my rambling thoughts on the matter.
But I don't think that was the purpose of this thread. My Dad coaches at a very good public school while my Brother coaches at a elite privete school. The difference in kids it painfully obvious. At the public school the kids do only what they have to and no more. So my Dad has to stay on top of them, not nearly as much as he did when he worked at a rural school. On the other hand at my brother's expensive privite school he almost never has to say anything to his students, the are going to do all that is exspected from them and more.
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
Yes, although this is not necessarily a divide between public and independent education.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I wonder what, if any, studies have been done that don't just look at the schools and the level of education two different students are getting, but what roles their families play in their education. The stereotype of the smart Asian kid is rooted in the fact that their parents are fanatical about making sure the kids actually do all their homework and make them succeed in school.
Are we so sure that the majority of the problem with our education lies with the schools and not the parents? I think part of the problem is the fact that if it IS parents, then we really can't do anything about it, but legislators need to be doing something, so they continually attack schools.
Does anyone know of any studies that look at the effect of family, namely the influence and pressure from parents, has on the education of students across all socioeconomic boundaries and school districts, and locations?
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
Lyrhawn,
From my experience, the problem is that many parents feel uncomfortable telling and retelling their kids a big lie, that grades are the most important things in the world.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
I will point out, when it comes to kids in public vs. private schools, that elite private schools often do not LET you only do the "bare minimum."
At my high school, you HAD to apply to a four-year college. And you had to have all of your application stuff reviewed by the college counselor. So the whole way along, teachers and administrators were focusing on getting the kids to do extracurriculars, get decent grades, and so forth. I'm sure a large part of this was due to the fact that it was a much smaller school, and it prided itself on having 100% of graduates go immediately to a four-year college.
-pH
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
I wish that were true at my school, last year, out of a class of aroung sixty, two went to community college and one joined the Air Force. This has not happened in years, and, although no one talked about it, the school was probably very embaressed, espescialy with only one Ivy League acceptance (and he ended up at U.V.A., not Cornell.)
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Your school was embarrassed, you think, because two students went to community college and one joined the airforce instead of going straight to a four-year college?!
If this is true, your school has a sick outlook.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Don't you know, Icky - not being rich is shameful.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
If you value a meritocracy, why would you disdain someone's choice not to go to a four-year college?
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
Icarus, of course. I think that most understood that going to community college for two years and then to a music conservatory was acceptable, and we were very proud of a student who plans to spend a year in the Americorps. However, the school naturaly feels a sense of failure for each student that they do not send on the university.
Posted by Bob the Lawyer (Member # 3278) on :
That's part of the problem right there. When did we decide everyone needs a college education? How did trades get so devalued?
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
I don't think the school ought to. I think if the school does, it is selfishly thinking about its own reputation and not about the needs of the students. If I were in Texas, I would ask the name of your school and warn people away from it.
(And it's not an uncommon attitude among prep schools. They have to sell themselves, and at a point selling themselves can conflict with what's best for the students, and what's best for the students can take second place. I certainly felt that the prep school I attended fell into that trap quite a bit.)
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
Icarus, it was the same case with mine.
It's not that I wouldn't have gone to college. I'm sure I would've gone to college right out of high school either way.
But these people repeatedly told me that I would never get into any of the schools to which I applied (despite the fact that I had a very high GPA and was a National Merit Scholar). They made me feel horrible about myself, and in the end, I was accepted to every school AND offered big scholarships. If they think I'm donating any money to their school, they can kiss my ass.
-pH
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
quote:I believe last time sports funding came up, the idea that high school football turns a profit was debunked. Your point is arguably true at the college level, but not so at the high school level.
I don't believe it's even true on a college level, this discussion came up in one of my college classes and one person was asked to provide proof that college football actually makes money for the school, he came back and admitted few teams do actually turn a profit. Most of them are in the SEC and other conferences with huge television revenues.
But, high schools do tend to get a lot of outside booster support for athletics, not all of the cost of maintaining a football team is paid by the school. Our system recently built a new high school and athletic complex - the athletic complex was paid for largely with donated funds from individuals and businesses in the community.
quote:That's part of the problem right there. When did we decide everyone needs a college education? How did trades get so devalued?
What's funny is that people who do learn trades now often make more than those that are college educated, becuase trades are now becoming more valued due to the scarcity of qualified tradespeople. Here I'm speaking about the trades that require licensing and years of apprenticeship like electricians, plumbers, and finish carpenters. Most of the less-skilled trades like frame carpentry, painting, and roofing are still pretty low-paying.
Posted by Nighthawk (Member # 4176) on :
quote:I certainly felt that the prep school I attended fell into that trap quite a bit.
Of the 96 graduating students in our class, how many of them went to community college? 2/3rds, on or about?
I remember graduation, when they read aloud the school every student was going to, and I can almost feel our Jesuit elders wincing whenever "Miami Dade Community College" was mentioned.
I remember that only because I found it rather amusing. All those years of agressive teaching, six years of going to one of the most academically challenging schools in South Florida, and for what? I couldn't help but think that the teachers felt like they'd failed.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by SC Carver: My Dad coaches at a very good public school while my Brother coaches at a elite private school. The difference between the kids it painfully obvious. At the public school the kids do only what they have to and no more, so my Dad has to stay on top of them, not nearly as much as he did when he worked at a poor rural school. On the other hand at my brother's expensive private school he almost never has to say anything to his students, they are going to do all that is expected from them and more. I think it comes down to family expectations. At the private school the student’s families expect more from them. They expect them to get good grades, to behave in class, do their homework, so the students do it. While at the public school many of the students are only there because they have to be. Their families don’t expect much so the kids don’t do much.
I think you are very wrong. The key is not private v. public; the key word is money. With the exception of religious private schools, the vast majority of students attending private schools come from families with quite a bit of it.
That means a student who isn't doing well can get a tutor -- or several tutors, if necessary; it means they are likely to get adequate nutrition on a consistent basis; it means they are unlikely to get yanked out of school for days or weeks at a time to help with family issues or harvesting crops. Even within the school itself, wealthy private schools are more likely to have full-time college counselors, academic advisers, school psychiatrists, etc.
Family expectations are only one piece of the puzzle.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote: At the public school the kids do only what they have to and no more, so my Dad has to stay on top of them, not nearly as much as he did when he worked at a poor rural school.
Posted by Phanto (Member # 5897) on :
Going to the air force is something that is noble and should be encouraged. I am seriously considering pursuing a career in military intelligence.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Squick, are you agreeing or disagreeing with me?
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
rivka, actualy, I am afraid that the students who do worst at private schools, and probably at suburban public schools, are those from very wealthy backgrounds who feel they do not need to work hard. Students on scholarships (and, contrary to popular opinion, these are numerous) generally do better, and students whose parents have to scrape to send them to school often do best of all.
"When did we decide everyone needs a college education? How did trades get so devalued?" The irony is that, by makin unvirsities avaidable to almost anyone, we have both devalued a university education and made it indispensable. Jobs which would elsewhere not require a university education do here. In the U.S., a highschool diploma means nothing without at leas and A.A., in France or Germany, it means a great deal by itself.
We must make secondary school worth something, even if most Americans (gasp) do not go to a university.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Nighthawk, many of us went to community college, but, as you noted, it was not because the school encouraged it. It was because, in their drive to be übercompetitive, they accepted students who were virtually all destined for stanines eight and nine, and then made C truly the average grade per class in that school. They also didn't offer very many honors classes, feeling that their regular classes were honors classes by anybody else's standards. They also offered very few AP classes, because their scheduling was too rigorous to make room for any but those that happened to be in core content areas. So our valedictorian had a GPA of what . . . 3.9? 4.1? Other valedictorians listed in the newspapers all had shiny GPAs like 5.4 and stuff. So they ended up making most of us unacceptable to the Harvard's and Yale's of the world.
But yeah, I definitely think the school did a lot of self-aggrandizement on the backs of the students, and put their reputation before anything else. Remember when Armando went to Columbus? He was told by a deacon there that they had had to put back together a great many boys who were "broken" by our school.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Pelegius: numbers ?
I'm sure you're aware there are many studies out there showing corroboration between socioeconomic status and school success at every level. Do you have any showing otherwise for the subset of students attending private schools (prestigious private schools, even)?
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Icarus: that's somewhat odd, all the major universities I'm aware of (granted, just three: Cornell, IU, Washington University in Saint Louis) have regional recruiting officers who keep tabs on schools with peculiar standards, and provide approximate adjustments for admissions officers to make.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
fugu, they did that at our school.
We also had an amazing pair of full-time college counselors, although they left to go into private practice the year before I graduated. The new woman sucked and was evil and bitter.
But we didn't have valedictorians, and we could never put our class rank; no one would tell us. They would give us vague percentiles, but the colleges never objected if that was all they got.
*stabbing laptop touchpad*
We had plenty of honors and AP. In fact, I don't know of one person who hadn't taken a few AP courses before he/she graduated. It wasn't REQUIRED, but they would look down your nose at you and pressure you into doing it.
They were terribly annoyed that I decided to take genetics and organic chemistry senior year instead of AP Bio. Even though I'd already taken an AP science junior year and had two AP maths.
-pH
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
fugu, I can cite experience only (which is, in this field, considerable) The best students at my school had parents who were teachers, military officers, police officers etc. They did, on average, much better than the children whose parents owned twelve office buildings or were c.e.o.s. The later type seemed to lack drive, perhaps reasoning that they were going to inheret money anyway.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
fugu, I'm not sure what to tell you. The school is internationally renowned, and yet I sat there at graduation as the schools we were attending were anounced, and it seemed as though the majority of us were attending Miami Dade.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Pelegius: rivka, actualy, I am afraid that the students who do worst at private schools, and probably at suburban public schools, are those from very wealthy backgrounds who feel they do not need to work hard.
Pel, I've heard the claim you are making before. But always anecdotally, and the studies I have seen (although admittedly, none recently) indicate otherwise -- at least on average. If you can link me to studies supporting your claim, I would love to read them.
(Seriously. This is absolutely the kind of stuff that affects my job, and the more I know the better!)
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
How is your experience considerable? Experience with 60 (or even 600) people is not considerable. In fact, at a given school, experience with 6000 wouldn't be terribly meaningful. Only when you have samples across schools does it begin to matter.
Not only that, but I suspect you are demonstrating sample bias. I predict that, even if such a relationship exists at your school, it is minimal. I predict you are noticing when people who do well are of 'average' background but not when people who do well are of a higher socioeconomic background, and noticing when people who do badly are of higher socioeconomic background but not when they are of 'average' background.
Icarus: I suspect the AP tests and such were of bigger impact than the GPA issue.
Posted by James Tiberius Kirk (Member # 2832) on :
Icarus:
Is it possible that some of your classmates overreached? Sometimes the best students only apply to the best schools, but are not admitted.
Sometimes that happens to the top (meaning, most ambitious) students in any given school. Since your school was so prestigious, many more students may have applied and expected admittance to first-tier schools, only to be rejected.
--j_k
Posted by Nighthawk (Member # 4176) on :
fugu: If recruiting officers came anywhere near our school, the students were certainly not aware of it. And I don't know of anyone that was accurately guided by our college counselor.
They wanted to see every student go to an Ivy League school, whether he was worthy of it or not. I know of one person that wanted to go to Yale desperately and didn't last more than a year there. He wasn't ready for it, it wasn't the school for him, but the counserlor's eyes lit up every time the word "Yale" was brought up in conversation. You could even hear the "oohs" and "aahs" when it was announced in the graduation. They did nothing to try to convince him to go to a place that would be more appropriate for him. Not to mention that he was attempting to study a field that Yale didn't even have a major for at the time. It was Yale!!!
I was coaxed to some degree to go to University of Miami because it was the University of Miami. It was a mistake on my part, as UM did terribly in the curriculum I was pursuing, but that didn't matter at the time. It was as close to Ivy League as one can get without leaving Miami.
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
rivka, I cannot, nor do I deny that your claim is true, on average.
fugu, the valedictorians are, in my memory, respectfully, the son of a college professor (salutatorian son of English teacher), the daughter of an English teacher (salutatorian son of Air Force officer) and the daughter of a police officer (not sure of salutatorian.)
Posted by Nighthawk (Member # 4176) on :
And it's of note that our school only allowed us to take TWO AP courses, and even then only in our senior year. I know of students in public schools that have not only started to take AP courses in the 10th grade, but have taken upwards of SIX AP courses in their senior year.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
j_k, virtually all of them?
In my case, I scored a 1490 the first time I took the SAT (1600 the second time, but that's actually neither here nor there). I was a National Merit Scholar and a National Hispanic Scholar. And I had a 2.1 GPA. I only took two AP courses: Calculus and English Lit.
I only applied to two universities. Both were local. Both offered me scholarships--one a full ride, one a full ride that was a combination of various funds and, I think, loans. I don't know what would have happened if I had applied to a wider variety of schools, because I didn't. I think it's probably safe to say I would have gotten in to most state schools, but probably not so with the higher powered schools in the country. But it's actually not the point. The point Nighthawk and I are making is a tangential one to the discussion: we were talking about how many college prep schools don't keep the best interests of their students in mind. It's entirely likely that most of those students--most of whom, if you think about it, outranked me--didn't get into four year schools because they simply didn't apply to them at all. We were all burned out, and we were all destroyed. We spent six years being constantly compared, constantly having to measure up, and watching our best friends not make it. Then the school pointed to our SATs and such as evidence of their amazing educational prowess. I contend that they only admitted kids who were going to get those fantastic scores in the first place, and weeded out the weakest of even those. And my point in bringing this up (or rather, Nighthawk's, I think) is not to address what a curriculum ought to be, but to back up my claim that high powered prep schools very often don't have the interests of their students in mind--as I feel is the case of his school, if his school is ashamed of kids who go to community college. Note that the symptoms of our two schools are very different, but the underlying idea that the school's "glory" rests on the achievements of the kids is the same.
P.S. fugu, after 12 years in the educational establishment, I need to tell you that college counseling and advisement has changed drastically since the time Nighthawk and I were in high school. My school has a big time advising center, with college visits, interviews on campus, and all sorts of special visitors who give kids advice. When we were in school, we had a college counselor, but she pretty much worked alone and didn't have anything like the kind of resources or information kids get today. So keep in mind that some of the things you know were likely different back then. (And I don't mean that to sound at all condescending; I'm just pointing out something that you might not have thought of.)
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Actually, these days it's conceivable to take AP courses in middle school. Not common, but it does occur.
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
My school only allows one in tenth grade and three a year from then on. Mind you, I am taking four tests in May, but from two formal courses and two independent study.
Posted by Demonstrocity (Member # 9579) on :
quote:Originally posted by Nighthawk: And it's of note that our school only allowed us to take TWO AP courses, and even then only in our senior year. I know of students in public schools that have not only started to take AP courses in the 10th grade, but have taken upwards of SIX AP courses in their senior year.
It upsets me to hear about schools setting up artificial caps on learning.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Well, it wasn't an official limit. The limit was imposed by the logistics of our curricula. How could you take these AP courses, when all the other requirements didn't leave room for them?
In all fairness, I know that this has since changed.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
*nods* Colleges are gathering to them a lot more information nowadays, and placing a lot less weight on GPA, class rank, SATs, and even AP scores, instead focusing on teacher recommendations (and how those reflect really connecting with a teacher), personal essays, and certain aspects of extracurriculars.
Doing decently well on GPA/class rank/SATs/APs just gets you past a minimal cutoff, you get in on the basis of the other stuff (though exceptional capabilities in the aforementioned can ameliorate some minor problems with an essay or recommendation).
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
To clarify some more: everyone's courseload was the same as everyone else's in the same grade. There were no electives below eleventh grade. There were honors math classes, but they were the same course, simply at a more accelerated level. There was leveling in español/Spanish as well, but everyone took one Spanish language class. Everyone took the same science, the same social studies, PE, theology, English, and so forth. Eleventh grade you had room for one elective (no more PE!) and twelfth grade you had room for two. So where were AP courses going to fit?
[ July 26, 2006, 07:16 PM: Message edited by: Icarus ]
Posted by Demonstrocity (Member # 9579) on :
quote:To clarify some more: everyone's courseload was the same as everyone else's in the same grade. There were no electived below eleventh grade. There were honors math classes, but they were the same course, simply at a more accelerated level. There was leveling in español/Spanish as well, but everyone took one Spanish language class. Everyone took the same science, the same social studies, PE, theology, English, and so forth. Eleventh grade you had room for one elective (no more PE!) and twelfth grade you had room for two. So where were AP courses going to fit?
I'm not trying to be deliberately offensive, but seriously, this sounds like one of the worst schools I've ever heard of.
Edit to add: Then again, I might just be spoiled. My high school had scheduling more or less identical to college scheduling. As long as you satisfied certain basic prerequisites (Bio was required as the introductory science, you needed to take Algebra before taking Algebra II, duh, etc.) and met the quotas for graduating (4 English credits, 3 math, 2 science, 2.5 phys ed, 2.5 history, 2 visual/performing arts), you could take pretty much whatever you wanted. If you were going for a serious deviation (two english classes in the same semester), you needed approval from the department head, but that was easy to get unless you were trying to do something truly insane (e.g. more than 7 AP classes in a semester).
If I had gone to a school with restrictions as harsh as the ones you're describing, Icarus, I can't imagine having stayed long enough to graduate.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Well, they had a very conservative outlook, and wanted to not give people the option of taking any easy ways out. They are, as I said, internationally renown, and have world famous alumni, including corporate and world leaders.
But yeah, I was unhappy there, and, to echo pH, no way in hell will I be donating money.
One of the things I'm most bitter about now is their almost total neglect of the arts. I really wish we had had some kind of music program. Or maybe a single music class.
(Their conservative outlook was not merely academic, but gender-related as well. Ours was an all-boys school, and so they didn't teach things they felt boys didn't need to take, like art.*)
*Of course, this is all speculation on my part, as there was no mission statement on boy subjects and girl subjects. But I'm right.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
quote:If I had gone to a school with restrictions as harsh as the ones you're describing, Icarus, I can't imagine having stayed long enough to graduate.
It was all our fathers' dream. Many of our fathers, including mine, attended the same school. Those of us who didn't make it were regarded as failures, and they regarded themselves the same way.
Posted by James Tiberius Kirk (Member # 2832) on :
quote:And my point in bringing this up (or rather, Nighthawk's, I think) is not to address what a curriculum ought to be, but to back up my claim that high powered prep schools very often don't have the interests of their students in mind
fwiw, I totally agree with this point.
--j_k
Posted by Demonstrocity (Member # 9579) on :
quote:Originally posted by Icarus: Well, they had a very conservative outlook, and wanted to not give people the option of taking any easy ways out. They are, as I said, internationally renown, and have world famous alumni, including corporate and world leaders.
I have to wonder: is the success a result of the style of education?
I mean, my high school sounds like it was the polar opposite (you could take the easy way out without a problem, your course choices didn't even need to be approved by your parents), but we've contributed more than our fair share of corporate and world leaders (e.g. Steve Case on the rabid evil corporate side, and Barak Obama on the uber-awesome political side), and I'm not sure how much of that is the result of the education received or the mere name (my high school, and I'd imagine yours is similar in this regard, has enough name recognition that many universities will add between 0.5 and 1.0 to an applicant's GPA automatically based purely on the name).
quote:One of the things I'm most bitter about now is their almost total neglect of the arts. I really wish we had had some kind of music program. Or maybe a single music class.
No performance groups of any kind?
'Cause, yeah, that would be obnoxious.
quote:*Of course, this is all speculation on my part, as there was no mission statement on boy subjects and girl subjects. But I'm right.
Posted by Demonstrocity (Member # 9579) on :
quote:Originally posted by Icarus:
quote:If I had gone to a school with restrictions as harsh as the ones you're describing, Icarus, I can't imagine having stayed long enough to graduate.
It was all our fathers' dream. Many of our fathers, including mine, attended the same school. Those of us who didn't make it were regarded as failures, and they regarded themselves the same way.
That makes sense. My dad was similar, although I'm pretty sure he knew in advance that I wouldn't make it to Harvard. I bet he lays awake some nights, though, wondering at the merit of that attitude since I dropped out of college after a year and went on to start a business that, in its first two years, grossed over $200,000.
Parents are really dumb sometimes. It makes me fear becoming one, especially when it comes to things like education.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
quote:Originally posted by Demonstrocity: . . . but we've contributed more than our fair share of corporate and world leaders (e.g. Steve Case on the rabid evil corporate side, and Barak Obama on the uber-awesome political side) . . .
Well we've easily got you beat on the evil side, both corporate and political. As far as good people . . . ? Um, let me get back to you.
quote:
quote:One of the things I'm most bitter about now is their almost total neglect of the arts. I really wish we had had some kind of music program. Or maybe a single music class.
No performance groups of any kind?
'Cause, yeah, that would be obnoxious.
Senior year we had drama as a one-semester elective.
Which I took.
That was it. No marching band, no strings, no chorus, no drama program. No drawing, no dance.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
My father admits his educational advice was faulty.
I can't wait to see my mistakes.
:-|
Posted by Kasie H (Member # 2120) on :
Icarus,
I'm dying to know where you went to school. I spent a year at Pine Crest and a year at St. Andrew's, in very, very similar environments to the one you've so accurately and brilliantly described here.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by Pelegius: Secondly, I dislike the Scandinavian educational system when compared to the Gymnasium/Lyceum/Liceo/Grammar School system, which is fading all too fast, but your system appears to yield better results than the U.S. system.
What do you think the difference is?
Posted by Kasie H (Member # 2120) on :
quote:My school only allows one in tenth grade and three a year from then on. Mind you, I am taking four tests in May, but from two formal courses and two independent study.
Pelegius,
You should know I almost pulled your comments from the other thread out into an individual thread, just what you ended up doing.
Why? Because I think they make you come off as a pompous @ss, especially in light of what you said at the bottom of the last page.
Your basic argument seems to be this: I am better than everyone else around me; the educational system is stifling my growth to try and encourage these mediocre peers of mine who aren't as naturally gifted as I am.
I'm actually surprised you received as warm a reception as you did from the others in this thread. Usually if I'm hotheaded about something there's several others who are, also.
Some background: I attended three high schools in four years. Two private schools in South Florida that I found very similar to the one Icarus has described. I left the first after 9th grade because I didn't like it; I left the second after 10th grade because we moved back to Pennsylvania. In Pennsylvania I attended public school, but it was a public school that pushed APs almost harder than the private schools. Never explicitly, and there was certainly none of the self-esteem-bashing-don't-apply-to-good-schools attitude of the college admissions counselors - if anything, people were encouraged to try beyond their means - but it was still an intense academic environment. (That said, it was also diverse. We offered classes on levels A, X, H, and AP, standing for Academic, Accelerated, Honors and AP.)
Still, most people went to four year colleges, something like 90%. We had a high school graduation rate of almost 100% and a some-kind-of-college rate of 98%.
I hung out with the top 10% of the class. Of my closest friends, two went to Harvard, two to Princeton, one to Brown, one to Dartmonth, at least two to Cornell, 10 or so to the University of Pennsylvania, one to Columbia, and at least three or so to Yale.
Maybe they way you talk makes me angry because I was the only one of our school's 16 National Merit Finalists who didn't go to an Ivy League school. The people who got in looked down on me, whispered behind their hands, and were so judgmental because I didn't get in to the schools I applied to. You can talk about meritocracy, but the school you attend doesn't make you inherently better than anyone else.
I agree with what Irami's said in that from a sociopolitical standpoint I think it's better to have a public education system that strives to provide a diverse array of thoughtful voices that contribute to an interested, progressive {in the scientific sense) society that moves itself forward and benefits from a variety of life experiences.
But this goes way beyond politics to a fundamental moral value of how you treat the other people that you come into contact with. Yes, society has become anti-elitist, in my opinion, to a fault. But there's a difference between being anti-elitist because you feel threatened by what you perceive to be your own intellectual inferiority, and being "anti" the sort of people who see themselves as inherently superior to others and therefore deserving of a better life. The second sort, in my opinion, is entirely justified. That attitude is the one that spawns racism, sexism, classism and a multitude of other evils in our world.
Just because you take four AP classes - and two of them independent study, oh look at you going above and beyond the call, inhibited by your terrible school district - doesn't make you better than anyone. It doesn't, by itself, say anything about how successful you'll be later in life. If anything, your willingness to post in the way that you have about this subject demonstrates a limited worldview that will lead you to discout possibly valuable information and experience entirely - and that you will be more unsuccessful becuase of it.
Posted by Demonstrocity (Member # 9579) on :
quote:Originally posted by Icarus:
quote:
quote:One of the things I'm most bitter about now is their almost total neglect of the arts. I really wish we had had some kind of music program. Or maybe a single music class.
No performance groups of any kind?
'Cause, yeah, that would be obnoxious.
Senior year we had drama as a one-semester elective.
Which I took.
That was it. No marching band, no strings, no chorus, no drama program. No drawing, no dance.
quote:My father admits his educational advice was faulty.
I can't wait to see my mistakes.
:-|
Is there a way to know if they're mistakes beforehand? I think that's what scares me most: knowing that there might be a right answer, but you have zero way of finding out beforehand (and therefore have no way of altering your actions before arriving at results).
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
*nod*
Well, to be less heavy, the fact is that if you're paralyzed by fear of mistakes, you will simply do nothing . . . which is probably a mistake too. So you do your best, and you make your mistakes, and you hope you children will forgive you, and you forgive your parents for their mistakes, because you need the karma. Posted by Kasie H (Member # 2120) on :
My parents were always willing to commiserate with me about the issues plaguing the schools.
We just lucked out we were able to move back to a place with quality public schools.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Pelegius: My school only allows one in tenth grade and three a year from then on. Mind you, I am taking four tests in May, but from two formal courses and two independent study.
Your basically perpetuating everything the above quote rails against then? Maybe you are qualified to pass these tests, but what makes you so sure? I suppose though, that the independent study stuff can't hurt, as you haven't wasted anyone's class time if you fail.
Seems to me that the problem comes from people abusing the availability of the APs and working over their heads, struggling to hold on, and dragging down the learning level wherever they go. That was exactly what was going on in ALL of my AP classes in highschool. EVERY SINGLE ONE! Your right, it was an expected thing for students who took honors English to advance to AP, and yet an embarrassingly small number of people passed in my year, and VERY few got 4s or 5s.
It was worse for my American History AP, where we spent our days catching the slower students up on basic facts, and never really learning anything helpful.
One thing that really worked at my HS was an Honors/AP Physics class. Because it wasn't an AP course, it didn't encourage people to join merely for the AP credit, however it offered some lunch-time reviews for people who wanted to do the AP test, and a few people did. The ones who did were those who actually worked harder and were capable of it.
If APs become the new SAT for prospective students, and it becomes necessary to overload and get more and more extra tutelage in order to inflate your grade and impress schools, then what is going to be next? What other distinguishing attribute can one have? If everyone is in the best, most advanced class, and they benefit from merely being there, then where do the best students go?
As I've said before, and don't feel shame in saying, honors and AP classes got me through the last two years of Highschool because there was enough of a standard involved in getting into the class, that the type of guys I always fought with were never in them. The basic classes were always harder to handle because I had to endure the company of people I hated, and who hated me. Maybe the students in the honors classes hated me too, but they respected excellence, and I could work hard and actually get respect that way. There was no connect that I could make in the regular classes. If there hadn't been that "elite" refuge for me, or some emphasis on hard work and achievement beyond the expected, then I certainly wouldn't have made it to where I am, which is a happy place.
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
KoM, the culture. For one thing, Scandinavia is much more homogenous in terms of education level, and that level is relatively high.
Kasie H, I am so glad that you are able to contribute in such a thoughtful, productive and polite manner.
Posted by Kasie H (Member # 2120) on :
Well, someone needed to point out how condescending you've been acting. You do realize that there are posters on this board who have never even gone to college, right?
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
And this is relevent, how?
Posted by Kasie H (Member # 2120) on :
*shrug*
As I said in my post, I just thought you were being inconsiderate.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
I could make a convincing argument that the most brilliant person on this board never graduated from college. On the other hand he wouldn't want me to.
AJ
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
AJ, perhaps. I do not recall having said anything to the contrary. I did say that our current secondary school curriculum does an inferior job of preparing students both for trades and for universities.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Then why is our unemployment rate so low?
AJ
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
It is not remarkably low, and, anyway, the number of people employed bears little relationship to the number of people adequately trained in a given field. Skilled professionals, such as plumbers, carpenters and welders, are in great demand.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Yeah, and our economy so productive, and our products so in demand overseas, and even more of our services in demand overseas, and . . . you get the idea Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
quote:Well, to be less heavy, the fact is that if you're paralyzed by fear of mistakes, you will simply do nothing . . . which is probably a mistake too. So you do your best, and you make your mistakes, and you hope you children will forgive you, and you forgive your parents for their mistakes, because you need the karma.
My life got better when I began to internalize this exact advice and quit trying to lay blame on my parents for things they did wrong. And, I decided that as long as I loved my children and did my best for them, there was hope that one day they would forgive me my wrongs too.
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
"But this goes way beyond politics to a fundamental moral value of how you treat the other people that you come into contact with." This makes no sense. Oh, it works as a proposition etc., but makes no sense within the context of this thread.
"Just because you take four AP classes - and two of them independent study, oh look at you going above and beyond the call, inhibited by your terrible school district - doesn't make you better than anyone." This, on the other hand, hardly makes any sort of sense. Trimming down the far-ranging parenthetical proposistions, your proposition seems grounded in my claiming something which I have never claimed, i.e. that I am better than some person or persons unnamed.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:your proposition seems grounded in my claiming something which I have never claimed, i.e. that I am better than some person or persons unnamed.
Pel, I'll come out with it: in overcompensating for your admitted inferiority complex, your tone positively drips with condescension. While you're far too clever to come out and say that you're superior to someone else, that implication is being read into every single thing you say based on the manner in which you say it. It's possible that you aren't aware of this; if so, I hope that knowing this will now make it easier for you to understand many of the critical comments that've so baffled you.
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
Tom, as you doubtless know, I do not take kindly to being insulted, any negative tone was entirely due to Kasie H's insulting comments.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Sometimes the people you think are insulting you are merely trying to get some points through your scull.
Posted by Nighthawk (Member # 4176) on :
Boy, this is like a grown-up's version of the playground sandbox.
So when does one person call the other a "doodiehead"? Did I miss that?
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
::wedgies Nighthawk::
::stuffs Nighthawk in toilet::
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
No, Pel. First off, you frequently perceive insult where there is none. I'll freely admit that many people have insulted you, often without any cause, and that you've got every reason to feel hurt and defensive. I regret this, and wish everyone had treated you well. But for the most part -- in fact, I'd say it's just shy of "overwhemingly" -- you have been criticized politely and fairly, and your points addressed in a manner far more respectful and observant than your replies to those criticisms have been.
This is perfectly common and understandable. You're defensive, you're already a little emotionally fragile, and you're a bit stuffy; all of these things add up to decent justifications for your behavior.
But.
Whether or not Kasie was being insulting, and whether or not your tone was more negative in reply to her, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the fact that consistently -- from your first post on Ornery and in pretty much every post here on Hatrack -- your posts are full of condescension, dismissal, and ego. People pick up on this.
I understand why you take this tone. It's a kind of emotional shield, a bulwark of excessive formality that allows you to hide behind it and feel superior to your challengers. A lot of intelligent people -- not all of them kids, even -- do this. But you have to understand that this annoying.
Even worse, to a lot of people, this kind of formality is a clear sign of weakness and illness. It's like blood in the water, or a limping zebra. It says "I am wounded in some way, and should be culled." I think you've fallen prey to this instinct to some extent, through no fault of your own.
But you have complete control over how you come across. You don't, to extend this metaphor, have to limp or bleed. Your tone, your personal causes, your refusal to admit that your limited experience with reality can in fact be a detriment: all these things scream "Poindexter." And even the nerdiest nerds have an atavistic response to other nerds.
I have no doubt -- none -- that you will grow out of this. And I have little doubt that you'll go on to do some really great things with your life, and will look back on your adolescence with the same bemusement that most of us regard our own. But I get the sense that you really are struggling to understand why so many people are accusing you of being pompous, and so I'm trying to help you see things from their perspective. Drop me a line if you'd like to talk about this some more.
Posted by theamazeeaz (Member # 6970) on :
::grabs Icarus by the back of the shirt::
::shoves Icarus into the next stall::
::gives Icarus chocolate swirly::
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
Tom, I am sorry you feel that way.
I shall not be posting for the next month, as I leave town. This is, doubtless, for the best. I have proposed solutions to problems only for these solutions to be ridiculed. I have presented problems and been told that the problems are all in my egocentric head. This is no longer, if it ever was, an enviorment where problems may be adressed.
SAALAM, with hopes for the future, Pelegius, the heretic.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Poor, poor victim.
Look at my tears.
Everybody else is out to get you.
Everybody else is wrong.
It must be tough.
Posted by Nighthawk (Member # 4176) on :
::Stuffs Icarus in to his locker::
Posted by James Tiberius Kirk (Member # 2832) on :
BobtL:
quote:That's part of the problem right there. When did we decide everyone needs a college education? How did trades get so devalued?
You know, I've been thinking about this post, and I'm beginning to wonder if the change in public opinion was a consequence of the Vietnam War.
--j_k
[ July 29, 2006, 02:51 PM: Message edited by: James Tiberius Kirk ]
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
OSC makes a compelling argument that it was caused by the entrance of women into the workforce. (Sounds like something controversial, but it actually makes a lot of sense.)
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
I don't recall seeing that argument; do you have a link to it?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
It's actually one of the more intelligent things I've seen him say, and I think it's a fair argument. Basically, the idea is that the addition of women flooded the workplace with what was, at the time, mainly unskilled clerical labor. And since prejudice against women continued at the higher levels of the workplace, unskilled clerical labor ceased to be the career path that it used to be for men, back in the era when almost all secretaries were male; "secretary" rapidly became a permanent position, and not a stepping stone, and secretaries became overwhelmingly female. So if entry-level clerical work was now unavailable as a career path, there had to be a way to skip that step and leapfrog directly into administration and/or accounting. And college was that step.
And the more people went to college without actually needing skills from college, the more essential a college diploma became in and of itself. Which brings us to the present day, where thanks to a glut of workers people can no longer support a family on one income and everyone -- men and women -- is expected to have a bachelor's degree.
I don't agree with all of the argument, but the broad outline is compelling.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
*nod*
Also, in simple terms, there are twice as many workers as there once were, and so those seeking to stand out need to be increasingly "qualified."
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Hmm, very interesting - makes sense, too. Just for balance, it's worth pointing out the other side of the equation : With twice as many workers, everybody gets paid half as much. (On average, of course.) However, with twice as many workers, you can get twice as much done. So the half pay buys twice as much per unit, since the supply of 'stuff' just doubled and its price therefore halved. On average, households are better off, since their two incomes add up to one pre-change income, which buys twice as much real stuff. (Or, if you don't want two people working, you can get by on the same amount of stuff you had before. You most certainly can support a household on one income; what you can't do is buy three plasma televisions.)
Of course, all this is on average, assuming other things equal, over the long run, and in principle.
*Hopes no real economist comes along to kick his ass*
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Interesting way of looking it. Instinctively, I would say you are wrong, but I'm not sure how to prove it. The big issue is how do we compare "quality of life" between, say, the fifties and today? We'd also have to agree on what a luxury is.
The reason they didn't have plasma TVs (I don't either, btw) wasn't beause they were a luxury, but because they didn't exist. It should be possible, based on price at the time, to decide how a TV in the 1950s compares to a plasma TV today.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Well, of course I'm wrong as applied to an actual, working economy. Real economies have frictions, regulations, resource bottlenecks, and all kinds of lag time; and real workers have skill differences. But consider : As a minus twoth approximation, it is reasonable to consider the economy as a big factory making generic 'stuff', which pays you in shares of what it produces. If you produce one percent of the stuff, that's what you get to take home.
Ok, let's look at the approximations I made : One, you actually take home 'stuff tokens' rather than the stuff itself, and because of the secondary market in stuff tokens, there can be weird effects - the stuff tokens you get today might be worth more or less actual stuff tomorrow. Second, I have assumed that the factory accurately measures how large a percentage you produce, which is not clear. Has Bill Gates really produced as much stuff as an average third-world country? And, conversely, in low-level jobs that pay everyone the same, some might still be a lot more productive than others. So it's an approximation. But I don't think it's too unreasonable.
Now then, let's say the factory has 100 workers, so they produce 100 stuff. Each worker is paid 1 stuff, right? Add 100 extra workers to the factory, they now produce 200 stuff. They still get paid 1 each, and since the number of stuff tokens doesn't change, their bank accounts will show smaller numbers. But that's just an accounting effect from the token thing. (In fact, in such a case the factory probably would change the number of tokens, ie the Fed grows the money supply to match the economy's growth.) If they live two by two, they are better off, since the same number of people now have twice the amount of stuff.
Of course, this assumes that the factory can expand its production just like that! That's not true of an economy, obviously. Then again, the women didn't all enter it at the same time. And over a period of thirty years you get technology advances, so each worker produces more stuff; and for some kinds of stuff, you didn't really need to double your production. And so on. But as a model, I think it's a good one.
For plasma televisions, I think there's no need to look up the numbers. You can just notice that households in the 50s had at most one TV (with insignificant exceptions) and now the average is somewhere around two (maybe three, I dunno.) You can do the same math for bathrooms, cars, computers (ok, you need to compare to the 80s for that), and stereo systems. Considering that all this stuff has gotten a lot better, too - well, to whatever extent quality of life is measured by 'stuff', households have more of it.
I think, if you stuck to just using the kind (and number) of appliances they had in the 50s, one car, a 50s house, and don't send your children to college (or let them go on scholarships), you could live on one income. Oh, and take a packed lunch to work. Whether you want to is another matter, but I'm quite convinced it can be done.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Oh yeah, I'm imagining that the stuff tokens don't show "One Stuff" but rather "One Percent of Production". Just in case it wasn't clear. So in the case with 200 workers, each worker is now being paid "Half a Percent", as opposed to the "One Percent" that used to be the wage.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Hmm. Thinking about it, it's possible that Bill Gates actually has produced as much stuff as Namibia, or whatever country it is he can buy now. After all, like it or not, Windows is the dominant OS, and without him it wouldn't be built. And since almost all the computer work done today relies on that, well. Maybe his pay isn't so unfair as all that.
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
Its just that Bill Gates is terrible at what is supposed to be doing, i.e. making software, although very good at making software that is obsolete within a few years of production and was never that great to begin with. I'll stick with my iBook, which is four years old and works very well indeed, although the keyboard keeps breaking.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
You know, Pel, I'm not that fond of Microsoft myself. But you might want to reconsider just spouting out the Linux party line. Do you even know why Windows is bad? (Apart from being made by Micro$oft, that is?) Considering you have never written a line of code in your life, do you really think you have the understanding to tell whether MS is doing a good job or not? Especially when you consider this deeply thoughtless comment :
quote:software that is obsolete within a few years of production
Um, yeah. And on your computer is how much software that is more than 'a few years' old? Dude, the day you are capable of making an operating system that works well on the machines of five years later, you can make this criticism. Not before.
As for 'never that great to begin with', Windows has the vast advantage that it gets the job done. Without unnecessary fuss, muss or bother. It doesn't have the power for really deep stuff, but then again, how often do you need anything more than a web browser, anyway?
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
My software, Macm not Linux, is faster, easier and curiously more satisfying than the Windows I use at school. I can’t do better than Bill Gates, but Steve Jobs can, and that is good enough for me.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
quote:Originally posted by Pelegius: My software, Macm not Linux, is faster, easier and curiously more satisfying than the Windows I use at school.
You know, the computers at your school probably aren't the newest or greatest.
-pH
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Oh, you're one of those.
"More satisfying" is of course a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it does not occur to you that faster could be the hardware (school computers being notoriously bad, not to mention full of spyware) and 'easier' could be in what you're used to? After all, 90% of the OS market disagrees with you; they can't all be blinded by Micro$oft propaganda.
Posted by Kamisaki (Member # 6309) on :
You probably didn't notice either that your average Mac costs at least twice as much as a comparable PC. If you're not paying the bills, I can see how that wouldn't make too much of a difference, but to me it sure does.
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
The mac also lasts twice as long (mine is actually about six years old, being used when I bought it, my parents Dell is about three years old, guess which works better?)
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
KoM, there is more to the Microsoft kingdom than propaganda, there is also rigged compatibility, or, there used to be. Still is somewhat. Perhaps the majority of people are unwilling to make the sacrifices needed to use a mac (unreadable e-mail attachments sent from Microsoft computers, difficult viewing of certain sites.) Note that, while I have explorer, I use safari, because has fewer bugs (and prettier colors, although this is secondary.)
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Perhaps the majority of people are unwilling to make the sacrifices needed to use a mac...
The fact that you only list two sacrifices indicates that you have no idea what those sacrifices are.
Home users are not the primary Windows market. And Apple, quite frankly, has no understanding of the corporate market and has failed miserably at producing a computer that corporations might want to buy.
Posted by Gwen (Member # 9551) on :
quote:The mac also lasts twice as long (mine is actually about six years old, being used when I bought it, my parents Dell is about three years old, guess which works better?)
Irrelevant. If someone needs a computer *now*, and can only afford a PC, guess which company they're going to buy from? I'll give you a hint: they won't buy the one they can't afford just because it lasts longer.
And I can't imagine that's an uncommon situation for computer buyers.
Posted by Nighthawk (Member # 4176) on :
quote:Originally posted by Pelegius: My software, Macm not Linux, is faster, easier and curiously more satisfying than the Windows I use at school. I can’t do better than Bill Gates, but Steve Jobs can, and that is good enough for me.
Well, I don't know about you all, but that explains *everything* to me!
Bet you're proud of your "twice as long" lasting Mac while you use the six programs that are available on it.
You don't know how tempted I am to start a raging debate on this, a debate that cannot be won byt either side under normal conditions anyway. But I've seen how your debates go, so I think I'll have better luck debating it with my neighbor's dog.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Perhaps the majority of people are unwilling to make the sacrifices needed to use a mac
Well, why should they? If you have to make sacrifices to use a given product, how good is it? You might as well say that most people are unwilling to make the sacrifices necessary to use a bike, like, for example, having to pedal and being able to only go short distances. Sure, that's true, but it's not an argument for why a bike is better than a car.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
Besides, think of the concept of value.
For some, the benefits of a Mac don't outweigh the price. Or, like me, price isn't an issue, but I just don't like Macs. They annoy me. I find them much more cumbersome than PCs; I had to use one when I was working for the indie label.
-pH
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: You know, Pel, I'm not that fond of Microsoft myself. But you might want to reconsider just spouting out the Linux party line. Do you even know why Windows is bad? (Apart from being made by Micro$oft, that is?) Considering you have never written a line of code in your life, do you really think you have the understanding to tell whether MS is doing a good job or not?
I don't know what is more advanced or exciting or important in programing, but I do know that every time I use my PC I have moment in which I look around for my hammer with thoughts of destruction on my mind. My apple never gives me that urge. You can say its me, and it probably is, but for my purposes, Apple does a better job, and I don't have to be a programmer to tell you that.
By your argument, we all have to be programmers in order to even begin criticising microsoft. I think you probably share this view with the people at microsoft, however you have to acknowledge that not everyone has the time for or interest in programming that you do. I think Pelegius doesn't know what he is talking about, but his opinion IS valid when he is talking about what effects him more than you. Maybe he was just being Pelegius and couching his own personal complaints as if they were universal problems of mankind.
Nevertheless, I think your attitude is very close to what I hate about microsoft and their products: You know nothing, we must not listen to you, do what we want... ooops we futzed everything up... oh well. I can't back that up with any kind of code, but that's how it makes me feel. Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I don't know what is more advanced or exciting or important in programing, but I do know that every time I use my PC I have moment in which I look around for my hammer with thoughts of destruction on my mind. My apple never gives me that urge.
This is a personality flaw.
quote:You know nothing, we must not listen to you, do what we want... ooops we futzed everything up...
Ironically, this complaint is much more valid for Apple, which has for years assumed that its users are not only idiots but unable to handle simple choices. Apple's interface, for good and bad, is all about the removal of obvious choice.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: By your argument, we all have to be programmers in order to even begin criticising microsoft. I think you probably share this view with the people at microsoft, however you have to acknowledge that not everyone has the time for or interest in programming that you do. I think Pelegius doesn't know what he is talking about, but his opinion IS valid when he is talking about what effects him more than you. Maybe he was just being Pelegius and couching his own personal complaints as if they were universal problems of mankind.
I think you've got the crux of it right there. If you find one OS (or anything, really) easier, more comfortable, more suited to you, whatever, nobody can tell you that you're wrong. There are certainly concrete things about which we could argue . . . software titles, coding issues, development issues, whatever . . . with hard facts, and in such a debate, it would be foolish to argue with an expert. But it would be foolish for any expert to tell you you are wrong when you say, "I like this."
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
I'd like to note that in the post Orincoro quoted, I was still discussing (in my mind, at least) the objective qualities of the operating systems; it's only in the next few posts that we moved on to "I like X better".
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
*nod*
I'm not disagreeing with you.
I happen to think Macintoshes are excellent machines. There was a time in my life when I very much wanted one. At the time, I couldn't afford one. Now, though I could, I've found a whole host of reasons why PCs are a better choice for me. We own three computers (not counting our computer graveyard) and all are PCs, and, for the foreseeable future, all the computers we buy will be PCs. But I'm not a zealot. I can see why Mac users love their Macs. (But then, only Mac users ever are zealots, neh? )
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
What's funny is that I, too, like Macs for home use. And Parallels now makes them semi-useful if overpriced corporate boxes, too.
(In fact, I'm actually trying to talk my boss into buying me a high-end Mactop for dev work, since he wants the ERP to be cross-platform.)
Posted by Nighthawk (Member # 4176) on :
For the record, I'm a programmer that's worked on both platforms: Deneba Software's Canvas was developed in parallel on Mac and Windows, and at one point I did have two machine on my desk.
Modern day Mac users fall in to four categories:
1) The "zealot", as you call it, that's been using Macs since 1984. Their machine may be deficient, but they've adapted to it and can't see any other way of doing things, price be damned.
2) The person who wants to have a computer that looks good in their living room, and matches their wallpaper, sofa and Andy Warhol lithographs, price be damned.
3) The person who is for the most part a Linux user, but isn't geeky enough to assemble his own machine from spare parts. Also, they like the pretty colors on the Mac. If he can't launch it via a command line, he doesn't need it, price be damned.
4) Graphic artists. Let's face it, Apple has everyone beat in this regard, price be damned.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
I think your list is flawed.
Numbers 1 and 2 definitely exist. 3 does as well, but it misses a large class of uber-geeks (particularly among java devs) who are more than geeky enough to assemble their own machines, but like some of the options on the mac (typically parts of iLife on the Omni apps). Number 4 is just wrong, OS X and windows are equally good for graphic design, and the split among graphic designers is roughly 50/50 (I'm a member of a major graphic design forum that's had several surveys on the issue).
And it leaves out the people who just like macs, such as myself. There is nothing deficient about a mac. My next computer will be a macbook pro, so I can do all the things I like to do with OS X, and still run several upcoming games that I'm looking forward to (I'm not a huge gamer, but Total Annihilation was one of my favorite games, so I will want to play Supreme Commander, and Spore just looks like it will rule). I have also used windows, and done windows tech support (incidentally, for whatever reason mac users seem less likely to call up tech support, at least for both SBC DSL customer self install and university technology services here at IU, making them popular among the people doing the supporting in both places). I use Gentoo at work. I'm hardly unable to 'see any other way of doing things', but I still like my mac, because it fits how I like to do things more of the time than any other platform I've used.
Posted by Nighthawk (Member # 4176) on :
quote:...split among graphic designers is roughly 50/50...
Really? Wouldn't have guessed... I admit I've never done that level of detailed analysis and surveying myself, but the last two places I've worked indicated the Mac a very strong favorite for them.
- The aforementioned Canvas sold four times as many versions for the Mac than it did for Windows.
- At the graphic design/advertising company I last worked at, which does advertising creative for the likes of Citibank and Burger King, did their design work almost exclusively on Macs, using PCs only to manage the printing because the hardware dictated that.
Macs have their benefits - faster graphic response, better memory management, general ease of use, etc... which makes them much more proper for the major graphic design jobs. I've seen Photoshop files in excess of 600Mb; you try to open that on a PC and I don't care how much memory you have, it's going to burst in to flames.
I do a certain degree of poking fun at Mac users out of habit, and the above post was intended to be a little tongue in cheek and not gospel.
In the end, use what you feel more comfortable with.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Sorry for misinterpreting your list
There has been a fair bit of shift in the last three to five years or so in graphic design; also, the breakdown isn't uniform across 'types' of graphic designer: in-house graphic designers in companies too small to have graphic design departments are hugely windows-heavy; in-house graphic designers in companies with graphic design departments are somewhat biased towards macs; freelance graphic designers tend towards windows (which would be preferred is more up in the air, but cost matters a lot); graphic design firms are highly biased towards macs.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:You know nothing, we must not listen to you, do what we want... ooops we futzed everything up...
Ironically, this complaint is much more valid for Apple, which has for years assumed that its users are not only idiots but unable to handle simple choices. Apple's interface, for good and bad, is all about the removal of obvious choice.
I accept this, but do not concede that this makes Apple ANY different from Microsoft.
Edit to add: And I gotta say Night, that I am nowhere on your list of Mac users. I am not a Mac zealot, I am not politically invested in apple or anything, I am not drinking the applejuice, I am not bowing before the almighty i.
What I am, is someone who has just found that Macs were easy to use, and offered most of what I might need from a machine. I have bought PCs for practical reasons, for games and compatability mostly, and I simply find that the urkesome problems that I have with my PCs make them hardly worth the benefits. On the other hand, my Macs have given me less problems, and are simply limited in other ways. I don't want to be a comp geek, I am a musician and composer and don't have the time to futz with my machine as often as I do. This makes my PC harder to use, and harder for me to know how to mantain, so that I spend way too much of my time learning what mistakes I have already made, much less what gets them fixed!
This is something like talking about cars, and of course you're always going to be right when you say that such and such a car is going to get better mileage or have more torque, or something, but you may not be right in believing that that makes the car right for anyone but you. The car may have qualities to it which make it impossible to use for some people, like its too hard to steer, or they can't take the time to mantain a delicate engine, or whatever. These people just want a ford taurus and there is nothing you can say to them because they don't even care about the things you care about.
In a way I completely understand the programmer's position. As an artist, though amatuerish I may be, I know a hell of a lot more than most people about guitars, symphonies, piano music, music history and so on. But I can't go around expecting everyone to like symphonies and know how to play the guitar and listen to Debussy like I do all the time. In fact sometimes I do see the world with a little of this expectation, and I am often met with bewilderment and personal frustration. Fact is, though it is appalling to me, most people just like what they like and don't think about it as much as I think they should. They are interested primarily in other things, which are more important to them, and I have to just get over it in the end.
Basically what I am saying is that it doesn't cause me a great blow to my dignity to be labeled as a mac-moron or something. I am a computer moron, and wouldn't invest the time in becoming an expert, unless somebody payed me, or I saw some advantage in it which eludes me presently. Nothing anyone has ever said about programming has made me feel differently, just as I am afraid little I have said about music has ever convinced someone to start liking Brahms right away. Life is frustrating like that.
[ July 31, 2006, 01:46 AM: Message edited by: Orincoro ]
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
No worries, mate, when I come to power all you dissident scum will be sent to Siberia where you can convince the trees of the righteousness of your cause. Meanwhile we can just agree to attack each other on sight, like civilised people. Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
"Whether or not Kasie was being insulting, and whether or not your tone was more negative in reply to her, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the fact that consistently -- from your first post on Ornery and in pretty much every post here on Hatrack -- your posts are full of condescension, dismissal, and ego." Unlike many posters on these education threads, I have never claimed particularly high intelligence, nor have I stated any academic credentials except when directly challenged. (The instance most people seem to remember was in response to a direct attack on my training in theology, i.e. that I had none, when, in fact, I have had as much as most none-theology/religion majors, which I pointed out. Yes, I did cite my profesors credentials as part of my defence.)
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
It took you 20 days to say that? Aren't you still in highschool? What profs are there in highschool? I just remember a bunch of burn outs who drove ford focuses and drank lots of cheap coffee. Hmmm.
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
"It took you 20 days to say that?" Seeing as I have been out of town for eighteen of the past twenty, yes.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Ah, that's why it's been so quiet around here. On a totally different subject, do you think you could learn to use the quote function? Seeing as you're so well trained in theology, and all, UBB code should not be a problem.
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
KoM, I can and do use the qoute function, for longer posts. Ordinary qoutation marks have, however, served the English language and its speakers well for some time and take a fraction of the time to use.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
Pelegius, bumping threads when they've been dead for 20 days, unless you have something very important and relevant to add, is probably considered Bad Form in the worst Captain Hook way.
"Ordinary quotation marks have, however, served the English language and its speakers well for some time and take a fraction of the time to use."
Compromise on the quotation thing: How about you use ordinary quotation marks, but then press 'enter' twice to seperate the quotation from your comment, as I just did. It is hard sometimes to pick out immediately that you have quoted someone in the thread.
EDIT: Also, handy way to remember where the "u" goes in "quote"- q is almost always directly followed by u in English words.
How was Nova Scotia?
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
"How was Nova Scotia?"
Very nice, thank you.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
![[Wall Bash]](graemlins/wallbash.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
![[Dont Know]](graemlins/dontknow.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)