Fucking education! How does it work?

[Qingdai]

Oregon is seeking to get out of the student testing portion of No Child Left Behind and go to local standards, by district.

Oregon Unveils Draft Of No Child Left Behind Waiver Application

[livius drusus]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

TLR, if her disability is reading/writing, could you offer a verbal exam? Not that I believe she knows the material, because I think you would be able to gauge that from class participation, but to demonstrate to her that you are taking the disability into account?

I was wondering about that too. If she claims to know the material despite her functional illiteracy, then she should be able to pass an oral exam.

[The Lone Ranger]

I'd thought of that early in the semester, but she insisted that all she needed was a quiet place to take the exams and plenty of time. So naturally, I provided both. The results were underwhelming, to say the least. And indeed, it wasn't just her exam performance that betrayed a near-total lack of comprehension, it was her classroom participation.

The weird thing is that she seemed utterly confident in her abilities. On my exams, I give both fill-in-the-blank and matching questions (to test basic vocabulary and retention) and short essay questions (to test comprehension).

Some students are good at memorization but poor at comprehension; they tend to do well on the first half of the exams but poorly on the second half. On the other hand, some are good at understanding and explaining the concept, but have poor recall of terminology; these students tend to do relatively poorly on the first half but quite well on the second half.

This student performed abysmally on both halves of each exam.

But the weird thing, as I mentioned, is her confidence that she really did understand the material. A typical answer for one of the short-essay questions would begin: "I've studied this for years and know it very well; it's like this ..." [Except that the spelling and grammar wouldn't anywhere close to what I just wrote.]

And then she'd provide an answer that was not just wrong, but spectacularly wrong.

Reading her tests could be a bizarre experience, because of her frequent and completely confident assertions that she knows the material in question and can explain in detail. And then she'd go on to prove that neither was true.


In short, nothing in my interactions with her -- either in exams or in classroom discussions -- suggested that she had the slightest comprehension of the material, but she remained supremely confident that she understood it perfectly well.

Which leads me to rather strongly suspect that for most of her life, people (surely with the best of intentions) have been telling her "Don't worry, you're really a very smart person; so what if you don't do well on tests?". And/or she has been passed along for having good attendance and a fairly pleasant disposition.


I just got a reply to my e-mail. It's pleasant enough, but she informs me that she won't be taking any classes from me in the future. So evidently, it's my fault.

Her response strengthens my suspicion that, in the past, she has been assigned passing grades merely for having good attendance and a good disposition.

The sad thing is that we're not doing her any favors by doing so. Just the opposite, really.


Nor is she likely to be any more successful if she tries to take the course again with another instructor. I've discussed the case with my colleagues in the Science Department and every one of them is adamant that it would be dishonest to assign a passing grade to such a student.

Which touches on a related issue. I've mentioned the ... tension ... between the Science Department and the Administration before. A big part of that is because those of us in the Science Department have this lamentable habit of assigning failing grades to students who cannot or will not learn the material.

Accordingly, the Science Department has a much lower "success rate" (percentage of students passing their courses) than do the other departments. Indeed, from the numbers I've seen, not only do most other departments have nearly 100% "success rates", well over half the grades assigned by the college are 'A's. What?! An "A" in a course means "outstanding achievement." I'm quite certain that 60% of the students are not doing "outstanding" work in their courses.

This is a major source of friction and bad will between the Administration and the Science Department. We're under constant pressure to "dumb down" our courses (obviously, they don't use that phrase, but that's the message, loud and clear) and to improve our "success rates." And because we refuse to do so, we've been publicly referred to as "unreasonable," and they've tried to do end runs around us.

For example, the school's constitution flatly states that no instructor can be hired who has not been approved by the Chair of the department in which (s)he will teach. To try to get around our objections about how a proposed Geology course was academically unacceptable (every person in the Science Department stated for the record that the proposed course was academically unsound and furthermore, that we would refuse to teach it), the Administration hired an adjunct to teach it. A person who had no training as a geologist (not even geology coursework). Naturally, the Department Chair objected. (We had been given a copy of his C.V. beforehand, and rejected him as completely unqualified.) So in clear violation of the constitution, the Administration hired him anyway.

So along with everything else, we've reached the point that the Administration is openly ignoring the school's constitution in order to do end runs around the Science Department's "unreasonable" insistence that the people who teach courses should be qualified to teach them, and that the course in question should be up to academic standards.

Incidentally, to the surprise of exactly no one in the Science Department, the course in question turned out to be a disaster, and the instructor incompetent.


The irony is that my tenure-review meetings have all been very positive. So I'm pretty sure that I'll be offered tenure next year. The thing is, relations between the Administration and Science are so poisonous right now that if it were known that I was considering employment elsewhere, it wouldn't surprise me if I were fired on the spot for "disloyalty" or some such thing. So I've been advised by friends and colleagues to bide my time. After all, if I sent in an application to another school and they decided to check with my employer, as they probably would, the Administration would likely respond ... badly.

But as soon as I can, I intend to start looking for a better place.

[livius drusus]

What a prison. On the plus side, if they do offer you tenure next year they can't slander you to any prospective employers without making themselves look crazy.

[BrotherMan]

I bet I could pass your class and I never even took it!

Bort's Essay on the Atom
- or -
How I Stopped Learning Everything About the Bomb

Atom was the first man created by God and is thus the basic building block of all humans. The three components of Atom are triune, just like God himself! The positron which is all the good things a man has or ever will accomplish in his lifetime. It should be noted that man is incapable of these good acts on his own. The uplifting effects of the positron comes only from God. The electron represents everything that will corrupt a man, draw him away from God and cause him to do evil things. In Genesis the electron was personified by both the serpent and Eve. That's why electron starts with the letter e, to remind women of how they lead Atom into temptation and deny the grace of God and got both of them kicked out of the Olive Garden of Eden. The neutron, the main component that makes up the middle of a man, is neither positive nor negative but can be affected either positively or negatively. And that's how Equestria was made.

[Waluigi]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

Indeed, from the numbers I've seen, not only do most other departments have nearly 100% "success rates", well over half the grades assigned by the college are 'A's.

But of course, because A's are the most common grade given out in colleges.

[seebs]

TLR: Dunning-Kruger.

[The Lone Ranger]

Yup. The Dunning-Kruger effect was pretty-much my first thought.

Cheers,

Michael

[Doctor X]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

. . . but she informs me that she won't be taking any classes from me in the future.

Take that as a win. To quote a wise man: "Can't help fools!"

--J.D.

[Contrapposto]

Hey, TLR.

I can very well relate with your situation and can possibly offer a little insight as to why you have to deal with such nonsense.

I work in public education.

I do not agree with much, if anything, regarding the way in which things are administered or evaluated, given the current state of affairs.

The way we are expected to teach our children in public education is seriously lop-sided to say the least, having no emphasis on humanities and arts, as well as an over emphasis on standardized testing. Public education teaches kids “what to think”, just long enough to pass a test, and with no retention or actual long-term learning being an emphasis.
In other words, curricula is usually taught without relevance or meaning.
What we should be doing more of is teaching them “how to think”.

Our system is outdated, linear, and lacking in any divergent or critical thinking.
Creativity is not encouraged because there is not enough room for it when having to teach to a standardized test, based on the norms of another time altogether and an ever shrinking middle class. It is an outdated standard.

I do not know how we expect to maintain any foothold in this rapidly growing and increasingly competitive global economy with education continuing down this path.

It's as if government wants our greatest collective skill to be the breeding of ignorance into future generations and to make sure everyone gets a trophy for it…so long as they pass that damn test.

It definitely leaves many adolescents ill-prepared for the real world because for starters our administrative policies do not hold our children or their parents accountable. When students fail a test, they simply retake it.
When they don't do their work, they are given till the last day of the term to make it up.
When they are a discipline problem, academically failing, or simply a hindrance to the overall educational process, they tend to miraculously eek out a 70 average, at year's end, because teachers are essentially punished with miles of red tape for failing one child.

The amount of clerical work that a teacher has to do just to give one student a failing grade for refusing to do their work is enough to make anyone's head spin.
The underlying message from the administration is not to make the pass/fail numbers look bad because state and federal dollars are tied to those statistics and to pass them whether they deserve it or not.

A lot of the kids know this and work that system just as most kids would. It’s human nature to do so.
On the other hand many kids do their best, legitimately pass both their classes, as well as their standardized tests, and yet still find themselves unprepared for the standards set forth by most colleges and universities, to the unfortunate point where even the universities themselves are appearing to lower their standards while raising their costs. If there are greener pastures for you somewhere, I don't know that it will stay that way for very long.

I am not saying there isn't incompetence in some classrooms but I am saying that it is quite myopic for so many to assume these problems all lie square on the teacher's shoulders. It is also equally short sighted to be so dismissive of the millions of kids who suffer as the result of misguided administrations, school districts, and local, state, and federal legislators as well as the apathetic idiots who either put these people into power or couldn't be bothered to vote the right people into public office.

It is a problem which lies deep within our inability to set the right priorities in place.

It is a problem on many fronts.
It is a problem with the very foundation on which we choose to keep our educational system upon; A foundation with its head still back in an industrial age which no longer exists; A foundation of ignorance; A foundation of apathy on the part of legislators who use education as a soapbox on which to run a campaign, who then drastically cut budgets while demanding that standards be raised. All the while constituents turn a blind eye to it, being too consumed or self-absorbed with their personal lives and careers to do much more than shoot their mouths off at the first opportunity to ridicule the very people whom they apparently expect to raise their kids for them.

Does anyone know how to truly accomplish anything under these circumstances?

And what do most Americans do? Well, most Americans who even bother to notice anyway. We merely look at the surface and regurgitate what some politician, newspaper cable news channel, or some one-sided movie producer with an agenda to create controversy tells us the problem is, instead of looking deeper into the real problems, not really caring to be part of any solution.

No, many of us sit smugly in our desk chairs and, upon reading about our system’s academic failure, we might rant to the nearest ear about it, blog about the topic, post in a forum, or even change our facebook status with some pseudo-intellectually stimulating armchair insight as to why teachers are not making our educational system work; hoping someone “likes” us for being so fucking keen or novel. All the while many of us are failing to realize that the current system itself is what has been, and will continue to be, what hinders us.

Rockefeller was once quoted as saying “I don’t want a nation of thinkers. I want a nation of workers.” Oddly enough he was also the founder of the National Education Association. So I think this brings into question the agenda of those who have been the main players in education for over a century now. To create workers suited for industry. Those jobs have mostly moved elsewhere around the globe, out of reach from labor unions and regulators (that’s another story altogether).

I love teaching. I have a great passion for what I teach, which is one of the things which keeps me going in the face of reduced faculty, overcrowded classes, and lack of resources. I believe that every child can learn if given the proper resources, attention, and an instilled desire for knowledge.
I can't bear to think about how much more difficult things will be for them, knowing that they are not being as well prepared as they should be by the current system.

Our educational system needs to be completely restructured from the ground up if the majority of these kids are to succeed.

That could go for the educational systems within a vast majority of the Western Hemisphere for that matter.

Sorry for the TL;Dr.

[Angakuk]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

In short, nothing in my interactions with her -- either in exams or in classroom discussions -- suggested that she had the slightest comprehension of the material, but she remained supremely confident that she understood it perfectly well.

Have you even considered the possibility that she might be right and that you are the one who is wrong? Why can't you keep an open mind and give her the benefit of the doubt? That is, after all, how good science is done.

P.S.
I am seriously starting to miss peacegirl.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

The weird thing is that she seemed utterly confident in her abilities.

There are a great many people like that. And like them, your student may have a bright future ... in politics.

[naturalist.atheist]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

Yup. The Dunning-Kruger effect was pretty-much my first thought.

Cheers,

Michael

My experience is that particular effect runs rampant in young people.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by Angakuk

Have you even considered the possibility that she might be right and that you are the one who is wrong? Why can't you keep an open mind and give her the benefit of the doubt? That is, after all, how good science is done.

P.S.
I am seriously starting to miss peacegirl.

She's baa--aaa-aaack!

[Angakuk]

I know. What a relief!

[The Lone Ranger]

So, our illustrious President delivered the "State of the College" address earlier this morning. Some interesting things there.

According to him, in Fiscal Year 2009, only 16% of the school's revenues came from tuition and student fees. But due to drastic reductions in state and federal funding, it's expected that well over 60% of the school's revenue for FY 2012 will come from tuition and student fees.

"That," I thought, "explains a lot." It certainly seems to go a long way toward explaining why there's such a tremendous emphasis from the Administration on "Customer Service" and on getting -- and keeping -- as many students as possible. And, therefore, the constant pressure to "dumb down" the courses and to keep as many warm (paying) bodies in the seats as possible.

I went onto the college's "Institutional Research" website and did some sleuthing. They have data for "Student Success Rates" from the past several years. The Administration brags about these numbers, but I found them alarming.

"Student success" is defined as a student earning a grade of 2.0 or better (out of 4.0) in a class. Those numbers have been rising in practically every discipline over the past 10 years. I have grave doubts that it's because we've been getting steadily better at teaching and/or because the quality of our students is increasing.

Why am I so sure that the quality of the students isn't increasing? 10 years ago, around 40% of our students were taking "Developmental" courses. These are remedial courses for students who can't handle the demands of introductory-level college courses. Courses like "Remedial Math" (basically, how to add, substract, multiply, and divide), "Remedial Reading," etc.

This year, more than 70% of our students are taking Developmental courses.


I'm reasonably certain that the quality of instruction isn't the true explanation for why student success rates are so high. So that we're succumbing to the pressure to "dumb down" the courses seems a much more likely explanation.


For several disciplines, the average "Student Success Rates" are well over 90%. I could understand that if we were talking about highly competitive disciplines where they only allow students to enroll after they've managed to first get past coursework that "weeds out" the low-achievers. But no, we're talking about disciplines like Mathematics.

The average "Student Success Rate" for Biology, however, has remained remarkably steady over the past 10 years -- at about 65%.

So, the good news is that we seem to be resisting the pressure to "dumb down" our courses, so far.

The bad new, of course, is that the relentless pressure to dumb down our courses continues, and the Administration has made it very, very clear that they think we're being "unreasonable" and that there's some sort of "problem" with the Biology Department, because we insist on giving so many of our students failing grades.

*Sigh*

[LadyShea]

Providing education is an expensive venture, but selling degrees (which people can buy on credit via student loans) in the guise of providing education is a profitable business.

So, all institutions of higher learning are competing for the tuitions to stay open (or to increase profit depending on the institution). Failing students quit or transfer at a higher rate I assume, which means the loss of those tuitions and fees.

In the current environment, you will feel enormous pressure to ensure your students "succeed" no matter where you go in education. Even if you moved to public education you're facing pressure to ensure all your kids pass the standardized tests.

I kind of fear for your emotional health, because sticking to your very large ethical integrity guns is going to be more and more difficult.

I would really, really look around at your options. I've mentioned creating materials for homeschoolers...I also found you to be an outstanding interpretative guide so keeping your eyes on various State's Parks openings for naturalists or biologists might also be worthwhile.

[The Lone Ranger]

I dunno.

On the one hand, I love teaching and the academic life. I've taught at a couple of private 4-year colleges, and simply loved it. The quality of 4-year schools varies enormously, but I've been privileged to teach at an excellent school with high admission standards and bright, dedicated students. It was like living in a dream, as far as I was concerned -- I used to get out of bed every morning looking forward to coming to school to interact with my students and with my colleagues.*

Here ... not so much.



So I'm still dreaming of finding a nice, private 4-year school with high standards where I can teach bright, motivated students. And where I can teach the courses that I want to teach. (I'm so tired of teaching kids how to dissect cats.)

But yeah, the thought of chucking it all and going to work as a naturalist for a state or national park is really sounding kind of appealing. There are a number of places where I think I'd be very happy doing that sort of thing.

If such a thing were feasible, I think I'd enjoy being a science writer, too.



A follow-up of sorts. I spent a little more time data-mining.

According to the statistics, by far the most common grade assigned here is an "A." An "A" means "outstanding work," and I simply cannot accept that the great majority of our students are doing outstanding work.

In fact, when you run the statistics, the average grade assigned here (where an "A" = 4.0, a "B+" = 3.5, a "B" = 3.0, etc.) is statistically indistinguishable from a 4.0.

Yeesh!


*[This was, alas, only a term position. I knew going in that it wouldn't last. Also, it was while I was still in graduate school. They told me on a number of occasions that if I'd had my doctorate at the time, they'd have lobbied to keep me. Oh well ...]

[LadyShea]

So I'm still dreaming of finding a nice, private 4-year school with high standards where I can teach bright, motivated students. And where I can teach the courses that I want to teach. (I'm so tired of teaching kids how to dissect cats.)

Well certainly I think you should keep on trying to follow your dream, but I think that goal is a bit unfeasible today, due to the funding cuts and increased competition from the for profit education industry as well as competition from others like you, who are dreaming the same dream.

So, keep your eyes open, but maybe look for an alternative way to make a living until that opportunity presents itself. Maybe even do the State Park thing seasonally if you see such an opening, to give it a parallel try (or offer an emotional uplift) while staying in your current job to maintain your teaching resume.

Or something.

[The Lone Ranger]

I will say this for the record.

While I was in North Carolina/Virginia recently, visiting with relatives, I naturally took the opportunity to go up onto the Blue Ridge Parkway, and to spend some time hiking in some of my favorite parks. Not that it's the best time of the year to be hunting for neat plants and animals, but it's still wonderful to get out into the woods and to stretch my legs on an nice mountain trail.

It's becoming increasingly clear to me that these occasional excursions into the mountains aren't just for fun and relaxation, they're necessary for my continued well-being.

[davidm]

If a school is essentially selling 4.0s, isn't this ultimately self-defeating?

It seems to me that if I were an employer who was concerned about a job candidate's educational credentials, I wouldn't only check his grades and the courses he took, I would check what kind of grades the school was dishing out to everyone. If the average grades were statistically indistinguishable from 4.0, I would dismiss the place as a mill and the credibility of any applicant from that school would be compromised.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by davidm

If a school is essentially selling 4.0s, isn't this ultimately self-defeating?

It seems to me that if I were an employer who was concerned about a job candidate's educational credentials, I wouldn't only check his grades and the courses he took, I would check what kind of grades the school was dishing out to everyone. If the average grades were statistically indistinguishable from 4.0, I would dismiss the place as a mill and the credibility of any applicant from that school would be compromised.

Unfortunately many employers today don't care where the degree came from, or even if it was earned, they simply have to be able to tick the "degree" box for an applicant to meet the minimum hiring criteria.

This is one of the reasons so many students that have no interest in -or even ability for- University level coursework are going to college at all, and the driving force behind degree mills.

It's a really vicious circle.

[Goliath]

TLR, I say this both sarcastically and seriously: good luck. I ended up spending nine years in college only to find that I was spending most of my time babysitting.

I'm convinced that both K--12 and higher education (or, as some administrators and educrats like saying, K--16 education..every time I hear that, my right eye twitches and I get the urge to stab something) in this country can only be fixed with massive societal changes. And societal changes are too big for any one person alone to make.

[LadyShea]

I'm convinced that both K--12 and higher education (or, as some administrators and educrats like saying, K--16 education..every time I hear that, my right eye twitches and I get the urge to stab something) in this country can only be fixed with massive societal changes.

Several years of researching and discussing education has convinced me of the same thing, and I don't have the benefit of your inside perspective.

It's really going to take a startover from scratch

[Goliath]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Unfortunately many employers today don't care where the degree came from, or even if it was earned, they simply have to be able to tick the "degree" box for an applicant to meet the minimum hiring criteria.

This is one of the reasons so many students that have no interest in -or even ability for- University level coursework are going to college at all, and the driving force behind degree mills.

It's a really vicious circle.

It's even more vicious in that most (or, at the very least, many) education degrees are given to students that, to be blunt, aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer, and who often actively resist any kind of rigor or abstract thinking (there are bright education majors out there who genuinely love learning, but in my experience, they're a small minority). For example, in mid and upper-division undergraduate math courses, the students who whine the most about "is this gonna be on the test? "when am I ever going to use this?" etc are the math education majors.

So, many of these people end up becoming K--12 teachers and passing their intellectual laziness on to their students--and, in the case of math and the sciences, passing on the hatred of the material they're teaching.

These kids end up being passed along ("we wouldn't want to hurt Little Jimmy's self-esteem, now would we?") and they end up in college. Perhaps not knowing what they want to do with their lives, they try out some majors. Some of these kids will find their way into education majors--either through choice, because they couldn't hack it in their first chosen major, or because they want the easy A's that come with the macaroni-art-making education courses (I could rant for pages about education courses...).

And, eventually, some of these kids become K--12 teachers...