Scouting and "Myth of the Teen Brain"

[scoutldr]

"One of our technical programs is considering a special remedial program to help certain students who are not prepared for college-level math, physics, thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, etc. This new program will consume extra resources that will take away from other parts of the overall program."

 

To analyze this, we have to ask why they are "not prepared". My local (public) high school offers math through AP Calculus, AP Physics, and other advanced course work that bestow college credit if they pass the AP exam at the end. You can''t expect to excel in a college engineering curriculum if you make a D in high school Algebra 1 and stop there. My observation is that those kids who work hard and take the challenging courses in HS will do well at any college. Most do not want to do that, though...too hard. And the parents don''t push it...also too hard. Another observation...when I was going through HS and college (early 70s), we had a good idea of our major field of study byt 10th grade (certainly by 11th), so we could take the proper preparatory coursework. By our senior year in college, most of us were interviewing and had job offers in hand. Today''s students seem to be "developmentally delayed" in that respect. They are getting degrees just to have a "degree"...THEN they start making career plans...if then. And we need to return to honoring and respecting those who elect to learn a trade. HAve you had to pay a mechanic or a plumber lately...if you can find one who knows what they are doing???

 

[packsaddle]

Scoutldr, good question. I know faculty who have a task to try to identify the reasons. However, at this level we have no control over states' K-12 programs. We can offer advice but that''s about it. If a state wants to put their resources into vouchers or something to the detriment of public schools, we can merely hold onto our admission standards and wait for the criticism when fewer of those students are accepted.

Moreover, on my side of the problem, the reason they are not prepared is unimportant. They are actually a fairly small proportion of the incoming class anyway, we're just trying to help them succeed. And I occasionally have fun with the admissions people, jabbing them with the observation that if their standards were constructed properly, those kids would be going elsewhere (community colleges or something) in the first place.

 

Personally, I have almost no interaction with freshmen at all so I don't have to deal with it, just a few sophomores. So by the time they get to my courses as juniors and seniors, most of the ones who are not serious students have been weeded out. I will say that when I ask the best students where they went to high school, there is a definite pattern to the answers. And it is rarely a private school. Could be, though, that the kids from private schools don't tend to apply here in the first place.

I also have to say that the ones in my classes are almost all outstanding young people with great potential. Some of them are serious enough for graduate school. We have a lot of fun poking holes in favorite theories and devouring sacred cows.

 

Edited part: fixing those pesky double quotes again.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

[GaHillBilly]

Just a couple of notes, pending my receipt of the actual book:

 

1) Although the book and articles by Epstein are currently being discussed in home schooling circles, my strong impression is that Epstein''s only association with home schoolers is in recognizing that they represent a likely marketing target for his book. Put another way, if his work turns out to function effectively as an apologetic for homeschooling, I''m pretty sure this is an incidental and not deliberate effect. (If I find out differently, once I receive the book, I''ll let you know.)

 

2) Although home schooling could presumably be carried out in a manner more consistent with his conclusions than could conventional public or private schooling, I don''t think that was a focus of his research. Things he DID mention as contributors to the development of ''adolescence'' include the educational ''recapitulation'' theory and US-style TV and movies.

 

3) I don''t get the impression that he was focused on ''educational excellence'', or the lack thereof. I believe the adolescent pathologies he considered were more social and integrative in nature. When he compares non-Western tribal cultures favorably to American culture, I don''t think success in AP calculus is one of the metrics being considered!

 

GaHillBilly

 

 

PS. One aspect of Epstein''s analysis that would be very attractive to home schoolers, is its utility in demolishing the ''what about peer socialization'' argument so often leveled against home schooling. This argument is both intrinsically weak and highly ironic, since the effects of peer socialization (ie, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, bullying, teen pregnancy, teen culture, etc.) are the VERY things that seem to show up most in public school parent dissatisfaction surveys!

 

Historically, the ''inadequate education'' argument stopped being used against home schoolers ONLY after massive research showed that, on average, home schoolers out performed public school students, both nationally and state-by-state, on the order of 10 percentile points (I didn''t dig out the research, and don''t remember the figures exactly). Epstein''s research and analysis has the potential to do the same kind of damage to the ''peer socialization'' argument. Nevertheless, my strong suspicion is that such was not his intention. For all I know, it''s not even an effect he''d welcome, even though I gather he does welcome book sales to home schoolers.

 

 

[Beavah]

If a state wants to put their resources into vouchers or something to the detriment of public schools, we can merely hold onto our admission standards and wait for the criticism when fewer of those students are accepted.

 

Yah, interestin' set of prejudices there, eh?

 

As GAHillBilly points out, on average home schoolers do very well academically. Similarly, private and parochial schools generally outperform public schools in major metropolitan areas (after adjusting for race and socioeconomic factors). All da voucher programs are a net benefit to public schools, because for every kid that leaves only half of the money leaves, which mean da public schools get to keep half of the taxpayer dollars in exchange for not educating a kid.

 

In terms of public policy, there's not much real downside to parental choice in schoolin'. After all, every other country in da free world offers it. It's just a religious issue for some folks who "believe" in government-controlled education.

 

 

Beavah

(This message has been edited by Beavah)

[Lisabob]

I''d suggest that your argument too, Beavah, reflects an "interestin'' set of prejudices."

 

I''m divided on the idea of vouchers. On one hand, I can see where they may reduce the funding level for some schools to such a level as to make it impossible for those schools to do their job. As such, the "you''re robbing resources from public schools and then blaming them for failure that is partly the result of the lack of appropriate resources!" argument makes a lot of sense to me. On the other hand, in places like Cleveland, or Detroit (or name a big city) where the public school system is a chronic disaster anyway (with some exceptions), I don''t see how vouchers can make the situation worse. Whether they make it any better is another issue altogether but in those cases, anything is worth a try if it helps some kids escape a rotten system.

 

As to Beavah''s argument that: "All da voucher programs are a net benefit to public schools, because for every kid that leaves only half of the money leaves, "

 

This depends very much on the local/state "rules" and is not necessarily true everywhere.

 

 

[Beavah]

This depends very much on the local/state "rules" and is not necessarily true everywhere.

 

It''s true everywhere there''s a voucher program operatin'' in the U.S. at present. It''s not true for other countries in the free world which support all schools equally.

 

Charter schools and district-run magnet schools provide educational choice within the "public" government-run system in the U.S., and they typically take a much larger fraction of the district dollars. Greater than 100% for the magnet schools (more resources spent on "special" programs), usually 100% of the operating $ for charters (but often weaker access to capital $).

 

The point is that an argument that vouchers "take money from public schools" is spurious. In fact, kids goin'' to private schools, whether on their own or by voucher, save money for the public system.

 

Beavah

 

[Aquila]

Thanks, Kudu, for some very interesting reading! I would love for BSA to move closer Scouting''s original intentions -- I blame the lawyers (of course, I blame the lawyers for most everything ;-)).

 

scoutldr, every school is different. The point is not that children who go through a government education are all "bad" -- it''s "How much BETTER could they have been educated at home?" The answer for some is "Not at all." If you support the education and the peer socialization they''re getting at a government school, then THAT''S where they should be. I can say unequivocally that mine are better off NOT being there.

 

 

[packsaddle]

Beavah, your interpretation of what I wrote isn''t exactly what I wrote. The first word in that statement was "If". I didn''t say that vouchers DO take money away from public schools, I wrote about a hypothetical condition in which they "or something" COULD.

You seem to be very sensitive about the whole voucher issue.

 

Or perhaps you were thinking about the last line. There, I am commenting on direct observations. In a competitive environment, educational institutions must choose the most competitive operating policies. In one such case, the state cut funds to the institution and made the funds available to students in the form of scholarships, "vouchers" if you will. The institution responded by raising tuition AND admission standards. It paid off for the institution but proportionally fewer of students from that state are admitted, primarily because they now fail to meet the admission standards - while richer students from out of state do...in larger proportions.

The marketplaced worked its magic in this case because the institution was free to compete in any way it decided to. Hypothetically it is not clear that the only high school for a sparsely-populated county in a very poor region of a state could muster such a competitive response. I could be wrong. The poor students in this situation, holding a voucher, have little or no choice. Perhaps these are not truly the object of our interest?

 

Theoretically, the real deal is all revenue neutral for the government. So why are the people so upset? The answer is that they don''t have the promised choice they thought they would have.

 

Beavah, there seems to be an inclination to apply a market approach to education as if the same sort of competitive interactions that have so successfully enhanced environmental protection and increased corporate honor and integrity would also improve education. I admit that it may work with precisely the same effectiveness.

 

In reality, the real struggle I described had almost nothing to do with education but with political power. The legislature delivered these vouchers in order to take power from the institution that lost funding. Because the institution then successfully competed in a market for a higher quality (and richer) customer (you might call this educational outsourcing I suppose), the people of the state as well as the legislature actually lost decision-making power, not to mention native student enrollment.

Who won? I would argue that the winners were the customers, you know, the ones from the other states and other countries who met the standards and had the cash.

Interestingly, because the legislature now funds the institution at a lower level, it has a smaller stick - even less influence...and increased funding is just not in the cards for this mindset.

The unseen hand and the magic are such wondrous things sometimes.

[GaHillBilly]

Well, this thread has wandered so far from the original topic that I don''t feel guilty for posting this quote, from a US News & WR article entitled, "The Most Overrated Careers". It''s in the section on teaching:

 

"In many public schools, classes are grouped at random, which means one class can include special ed students, gifted kids, and foreign-born children who speak little English. Trying to meet all their needs can be difficult and frustrating. Government rules often put pressure on instructors to teach all students high-level material, even if it''s over their heads. And summers aren''t sacrosanct: Increasingly, teachers are required to work, or "volunteer," for part of the summer."

 

[ http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/articles/061218/18overrated.teacher.htm ]

 

It happens that even though we home school, I''m also in very close touch with public schooling, and can absolutely verify the total accuracy of this quote, at least with respect to Georgia elementary schools. I can even add that "It is common for teachers with personal integrity to struggle with the ethics of submitting to administrative requirements that they manage classrooms in ways they know are destructive of their students, educationally and otherwise." Some of you might think this is a ''right-wing'' issue, but it''s not. I could, but won''t, name a local gay man who is a huge Al Gore fan, but who is also a great elementary school teacher*, and who struggles almost daily with this very issue.

 

To be fair, it''s probably impossible for any large bureaucracy to avoid the development of systemic irrationalities. But it seems to me that public education is in an especially bad place, trapped as it is between teacher unions; educational training colleges dominated by the latest fad in educational theory; national ''guidelines'' that reflect BOTH political correctness AND ''corrections'' to that correctness; less disciplined kids coupled with a lack of effective means to control disruptive behavior; parents who have been taught, and now believe that schools can ''raise'' their children, ad nauseaum.

 

And just to reiterate, even though WE have, and still do home school, I don''t believe home schooling is the ideal solution for every family. Bad results are, statistically, less common with home schooling than with public schooling, but such results do occur: I''ve seen them myself.

 

But then, nothing in this life works as it should!

 

GaHillBilly

 

 

* He is a good teacher, but that doesn''t mean I''d want him to teach my younger son. Teachers teach more than the ''subject'', and the better they are, the more they tend to teach besides the subject. This man does a great job with his subjects, but also effectively and persistently communicates political, social and moral values I consider wrong. If my younger son was in his class, I''d almost certainly have to do nightly ''deprogramming''. This would be much less of a problem with weaker teachers. On the other hand, my 20 year old is finding the steady stream of hostile ''values education'' coming from his college humanities teachers entertaining and even amusing. We''ve both gotten chuckles about the intrinsic irrationality of being "a Wiccan and an agnostic", as his first college literature teacher described herself. He describes his current literature teacher as an "atheologist", and has been very carefully -- after all, he''s still trying to get an "A" -- monkey-wrenching, with carefully planned questions and quotations, some of this teacher''s set-pieces on how stupid and irrational the Puritans, Wesleyans, and other American Christians were.

[packsaddle]

GaHillBilly, You are correct...this has gone off topic. Sorry. Yeah, I also had some conflicts with the humanities crowd way back when. I sought refuge in science. As soon as I hit the send button, I will be hooking up the canoe trailer and gathering the gear so I can take the class out on a lake to actually SEE some of the things I am lecturing on later this morning. Bright, beautiful September afternoon, calm quiet water on a lake, and the only sounds are canoe paddles and students splashing around making measurements, looking for new things and learning about their environment. ...and maybe venting a little about some humanities courses, heh, heh. Your college-age child might enjoy this for a change.

[Lisabob]

GAHillbilly, you raise an interesting point about the myriad issues that teachers must deal with in their everyday jobs, aside from actually teaching.

 

I have to keep this short as I''m on my way out the door to go teach a bunch of college freshmen right now...

 

But also, I hope your older son is taking some time, not only to push and question his literature teacher and her assumptions (which I always find to be fair game), but also to learn from her and from the literature she is presenting. On occasion I have had students who come in to my class with assumptions and agendas that are so strong, it precludes them from doing anything other than engaging in a debating club. That''s unfortunate because it isn''t really the purpose of my classes (even though I teach about politics!) and it keeps them from developing deeper understandings. Although I''m against religious or political proselytizing in the classroom (even though I teach about politics - again!), recognizing someone else''s viewpoint isn''t the same as being required to agree with it and sometimes students seem to confuse the two. Sometimes if students would set aside what they perceive as the ideology war, they might actually get something much more valuable from the material, in return.

 

Just my quick 2 cents.

[GaHillBilly]

"Sometimes if students would set aside what they perceive as the ideology war, they might actually get something much more valuable from the material, in return."

 

Actually that would be more of a problem if I was in his classroom, than it is for him. My son is much less combative than I am! His Wiccan teacher was not so much of a problem; her philosophical and religious views came up more incidentally, than anything else. But his current teacher grew up in an evangelical home, and as often the case with apostates, is virulently -- and avowedly -- anti-Christian. He''s stated in class that one of his central goals is to ''help students see how stupid Christianity really is'', and has engaged in some pretty aggressive intellectual bullying during class.

 

My son''s goal is primarily to help some of the students who have fewer intellectual skills, and who have been bullied, feel some confidence that the evidence is not quite so one-sided as this professor would indicate. (It''s true that he likes to ''show off'' as well, but he''s consciously trying to avoid doing so.) Some of his professor''s arguments are pretty weak, but most of the students in the class don''t have the skills or background to recognize just how weak they really are. For my son, having grown up with a former agnostic (me!), who has struggled with the content of orthodox faith, much of this stuff is already familiar territory for him. And of course the fact that he''s appropriated for himself my books by CS Lewis, and now has a greater mastery of CSL''s oeuvre than I do, doesn''t hurt, either.

 

But again, unlike some things I did in years past, he''s not trying to take his professor off-topic. He''s only setting up the questions in preparation for predictable off-topic anti-Christian tirades: if the professor doesn''t go OT, my son leaves the questions in the box! As a literature teacher, my son feels this professor is fairly good when he can remain on topic.

 

GaHillBilly

[GaHillBilly]

"Bright, beautiful September afternoon, calm quiet water on a lake, and the only sounds are canoe paddles and students splashing around making measurements, looking for new things and learning about their environment. ...and maybe venting a little about some humanities courses, heh, heh. Your college-age child might enjoy this for a change."

 

Actually, due to heavy rains in NE Georgia, he missed out on a chance to snorkel the Conasauga with his biology teacher this weekend! He was quite disappointed, but they''ll probably try again. Interestingly, it turns out that this teacher who has a Ph.D in entomology, is involved in Scouting himself.

 

GaHillBilly

[DanKroh]

"We''''ve both gotten chuckles about the intrinsic irrationality of being "a Wiccan and an agnostic", as his first college literature teacher described herself."

 

I''m curious as to why you believe that being "a Wiccan and an agnostic" is intrisically irrational....

[GaHillBilly]

Typical* agnosticism claims that trustworthy knowledge of the supernatural is inherently unattainable; a Wiccan claims to have just such knowledge*. The fact that Wiccan beliefs claim knowledge of supernatural entities and powers other than the God of Christianity doesn''t change the problem. The blade of agnosticism does not stop cutting as soon as the God of Christianity has been excised: if it''s wielded consistently and equally, it will remove reliable knowledge of all that is supernatural. All that remains after the sword is done, is a mechanical naturalism**, that offers no basis for ANY belief in the supernatural, whatsoever.

 

Interestingly, during Baden-Powell''s era, British scientists were much interested in spiritualism and theosophy as an approach to the ''scientific'' analysis of the supernatural. Unfortunately for them, most of the claims of spiritualists and the like were eventually debunked by Houdini and others.

 

Thus to claim to be a Wiccan agnostic is first to assert knowledge of the supernatural (whatever its kind), and then to immediately turn about and deny that any such knowledge is possible.

 

The chuckles come from the fact that there''s such an ironic contrast between the rather austere intellectual position of agnosticism, and the sort of touchy-feely believe-anything posture of the Wiccans we have encountered.

 

 

GaHillBilly

 

 

 

 

* The full case is much more complex, because there are so many ''flavors'' of both agnosticism and Wiccan ''belief''. It''s probably worth mentioning three other common flavors.

 

1) A man might claim to disbelieve in automobile engines, but we wouldn''t bother with his belief if he was unwilling to take a look under the hood of his car. More than a few agnostics are like this, disbelieving because they are unwilling to take a look.

 

2) Some people disbelieve in this or that God, often the Christian God (YHWH) because they could ''never believe in a God like that'', who does this or that thing they don''t like. But this is the height of silliness: if there is a transcendent God at all, then what we think of Him (or Her) has no effect whatsoever on His nature. He (She) is what He is, no matter what WE think!

 

If there is such a God, we can''t change or affect His nature. Rather, it''s our business to try to ''make peace'' with whatever God there is, whether he''s the God of the Bible, or Allah of the Koran, or the demon-God of the Aztecs. Whether we LIKE Him or not is totally irrelevant. As Cortes found, many of the Aztec tribes did not LIKE the Gods they worshiped. They worshiped them because the believed they were real, and incredibly dangerous.

 

3) Some enthusiasts of various ''New Age spiritual'' movements, including Wiccan, seem to pick a religion based on what they think will make them ''feel better''. But such ''belief'' is simply play-acting for psychological effect and no more has a legitimate claim to be respected as a ''belief-system'' than does playing (imaginary) cowboys and Indians. It may well make them feel better, but it''s just a placebo with no real content!

 

 

** Such a naturalism has, in turn, its own inherent self-contradiction, for it offers no basis for trusting that language conveys, at least substantially, concepts in my mind across the void of ''external reality'' to the interior of another''s mind. Among other problems, "minds" (as opposed to brains) are NOT a reality which can be verified by science. The problem with embracing the scientific analysis of observable and repeatable reality as the only basis of knowledge . . . is that that the very concept of science itself depends on knowledge of principles, rationality and language which science cannot itself validate. It''s sort of a problem of the cat trying to catch it''s own tail. Naturalists end up being forced to make a blind leap of faith, in order to accept, as unproven axioms, a host of assumptions about mind, meaning, language, the persistence of knowledge, non-randomness of observation, etc.