Or they could work on policies that reward significant improvement throughout the year. A rough start can be just that. Mandating that everything is at least 50%, even when a student gets a 0%, is a terrible idea.
Really, I have no problem with a "lousy start" policy of some sort, but to guarantee 50% while other students are giving and earning 100% annoys me to no end. How about simply this, guarantee that all quizzes and tests can be made up after hours (before/after class) that were taken in the first half of the semester for a maximum score of 80% of the total points awarded (gotta at least give a small late bloomer penalty)? Higher of the 2 scores will apply. Thoughts there?
Cool, now if I'm really good in that subject (math comes to mind), I can just skip the entire first half of each semester and still get a B in the class!
Ever taken a math class... generally you can't skip the first half (fundamentals) and pass the second half (more advanced stuff). And while that might not motivate students to "be your best!", if the student is smart enough to pull that off... well I guess being smart does have benefits!
In my high school, there was a kid in the class that graduated the year before my class came in as freshman who only showed up to classes for quizes and tests all four years. He graduated with a B or B- average.
After he graduated and it was brought to the attention of parents and school administrators, a new rule was put in place that any student absent from a class more than a certain number of days during the year (I think it was 20 or so) for any reason could (at the discretion of the teacher) be failed.
Anyway, the point is, there are kids who'll use something like that to skate by while doing even less work. Those kids shouldn't be skipping school; they should be found out and set aside for advanced studies that can actually push them. Otherwise, we're giving up the notion that we're actually trying to teach anything and accepting that all we're looking for is some basic cookie-cutter standards for well-disciplined automotons.
If the kid can pass the class without being in it, why are we forcing them to take it anyway?
The idea of our education system should be to make the smartest members of society that we can. It doesn't make any sense to have them take that class, they have already mastered it. It makes sense to have them take a more advanced class and keep them learning. The policy of letting them just skip it drives those kids back the the average rather than providing for them to excel.
Obviously "No Child Left Behind" simply means "Lower the standards so everyone passes". The combination of these two policies just produces kids with ever less education.
We have to raise them to be completely dependent on the government to do everything for them. Them not attending is showing independence and we can't have that when we're trying to raise Democ^h^h^h^h^h future voters.
Them being able to pull a B without attending shows any onlookers that their needs are not being served. They MUST attend the class so as to hide the fact that their needs are not being served by the class. If they leave the class then so does their portion of the money allocated for them.
If a student can pass a class without being in it, then that demonstrates that the kid has the potential to become a smarter individual. If a student is too smart for a class they should be pushed harder to expand their minds. People wonder why America has a lack of Engineers, Scientists, and generally smart people. Its because way too young in their educational career smart kids learn to coast through things. Instead of being challenged they are ignored by teachers to assist those who are falling behin
The point of having the smart children in the same classes as the regular children is peer interaction. Just a couple of very talented students can raise the level of achievement for the entire class. There is a point for having honors and AP classes in high school. But every class and subject does not have to be separated. I did not require honors typing or even honors computer literature to get the basics.
Why is it the "smart kid" 's responsibility to help the rest of the class?
When they get a job, and there's no "smart kid" there helping them along, how does that work?
How about actually teaching the "smart kid" something, instead of drafting him as a supplementary teacher?
The "smart kid" will be asking probing questions and challenging the teacher to provide more information. The experience is shared by the whole class, or at least the portion paying attention. Teachers learn from the experience as well.
I ahve notice that there are a group of kids that take classes below there abilities and then whine about school not being challenging. These kids are pushing themselves. Are they taking the hardest math? English? Science? If they are and it is easy fro them they can talk to their school; counciler and/or a college counselor about getting college classes. If school is 'too easy' for you and you aren't taking the hardest of everything , it's just an excuse to be lazy.
In my high school, there was a kid in the class that graduated the year before my class came in as freshman who only showed up to classes for quizes and tests all four years. He graduated with a B or B- average.
That's not an example of a school failing to challenge a student. That's an example of a lazy student. Maybe he's a smart slacker, but at the end of the day, he's still just a slacker. What the hell does it matter if he's smart if he won't apply himself?
As Edison said, genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. You'll get much further in life being moderately smart and really hardworking, than extraordinarily brilliant but too lazy to do anything with your intelligence.
But why should you work hard at school if you can get by like this? I know of no school that has the time and resources to challenge students like that one. If I were him I'd be somewhere else than at school too, working on problems that interest and challenge me. Who says this kid was doing nothing while not at school?
Because there might be some reason to achieve a little bit more than "getting by"? At school certainly there is a big incentive to put in a little bit of effort to get top marks rather than just passing, because if you're one of the people who can do that you're probably going to carry on to university. It reminds me a lot of the stories you see every year around exam results time about some 12yr old getting a C in A-level maths or whatever. I am not impressed, either a) get top marks, or b) don't take the
I am not impressed, either a) get top marks, or b) don't take the exam early, you're not clever enough.
Working on the reasonable assuption that he didn't know what grade he was going to get in advance, maybe he thought he was going to get an A? Even a C is more than most people will get, at any age. Indeed, it's what I got.
My actual grades were way off the predictions - some over, some under.
I know of no school that has the time and resources to challenge students like that one.
If the school doesn't have "gifted and talented" or "advanced placement" classes (and they should), or if those aren't challenging enough, skip the kid up a grade. Or two. Or send him off for classes at the local community college.
He got a B. clearly he could ahve applied himself more. Or taken harder courses. Or taken college courses. If school is truly easy for you, you have many opportunities.
What if the school is the highest you can go to? And what is the reward for getting an A instead of a B? Nothing, except in the final exams, because you have a better chance of getting on the university you want with A's on your final tests. If you can get a B with doing nothing in the classes before the last class, I take it you can get A's in the exams, and that's what counts.
That's not an example of a school failing to challenge a student. That's an example of a lazy student. Maybe he's a smart slacker, but at the end of the day, he's still just a slacker. What the hell does it matter if he's smart if he won't apply himself?
Depends on what the student is doing when not at school, of course.
If he's off writing software (or a novel), or doing original research, everyone involved is far better off with him not being there.
Even when young, there are more things in life than school,
Like anything else, college is what you make of it. A decent state university, even without a big name, provides a fine education if one takes advantage of what it has to offer; one just needs to be more on top of things by way of networking than would necessarily be the case elsewhere.
(I speak from experience, having gone to one of the better schools in the CSU system -- while another school I was considering certainly had more big-name appeal, faculty at the CSU school deigned to give me the time of day when touring as a prospective student; my decision was made between that and economic factors, and I've not regretted it once).
SO? how can you not regret it if you didn't go to the other school, your school fails logic.
I could regret it if I saw things I was missing out on in life because I didn't have those contacts. I don't. (As an aside, your school fails grammar).
Contacts from school got me my first job working next door to big-name kernel hackers Paul Mundt and Robert Love. Sure, I had to do some work to get to know the right people to make those contacts -- where at a more prestigious school they might have come free with the
Imagine you were put in a classroom with a load of infants chanting basic sums "2 plus 2 is 4, 2 plus 3 is 5" etc.
When there is no purpose in you being there how long before you get so sick of it that you stop turning up?
That isn't lazyness. Lazyness is being unwilling to work. The "work" in this case is learing math and if he already knew all the material that well then it just means he did all the "work" long before everyone else.
I hardly turn up for any classes at uni, if it's not mandatory. I find it extremely boring to sit through a lecture that takes two hours which I could read up on at home in half the time. sitting through a lecture has so much resistance - getting to uni, sifting through the crowd, all the chattering going on during the lecture, etc etc. waste of time.
Depends on how you learn. Many people simply can't learn from just reading... their brains aren't wired that way. And that's assuming that the books are any good to start with... I know that many times in my engineering classes the instructor would go on a tangent about something that was quite important, but wasn't in the book, or was just glossed over in the book. And by going to class, you learn what you're going to be tested on.
I fail to see how he was supposed to "apply" himself. He clearly had already completely mastered the material if he was able to get the A's he obviously needed to pass with a B average only taking the exams.
News flash here maybe, but sitting in a seat listening to things you already know hardly constitutes "applying" yourself.
Hrmmm.... with the permission of my teachers I often skipped class and maintained straight A's. I went to less than 20 days of my AP Calc class.
I spent the spare time studying for Academic Bowl, Academic Decathlon, the Chess Team, and lifting weights...
I would rather have spent that time taking more advanced courses but due to interesting restrictions on what and where classes were to be attended I had to show up and allow the teachers an opportunity to be complicit in working around the 'system'.
Thats all the system caters for. Cookie cutter students. In real life you change jobs, do what you want and advance at whatever rate your comfortable with. In school, you do the same tests as everyone else. If you do well you get a star then nobody cares.. If you do poorly you get extra attention. If your mediocre, no one cares.
In Australia now we have OBE (outcome based education) so the kids dont even get a grade anymore. No one really knows whats going on until they do the uni entrance exams and they realise
So what sorts of outcomes are being measured in outcome based education? To me, "outcome" means "measure of achievement toward a goal" such as "acquiring a certain set of knowledge." I'm all for measuring and grading someone on what they actually managed to learn and achieve by the end of the course, rather than on how many busyworks they handed in on time. The outcome of education should be educated individuals. If individuals demostrate that they're educated, then it doesn't matter so much that they
When I was in high school in Michigan some years back, there was a state-level requirement on attendance. More than 15 days absent for any reason (IIRC) in a marking period would be an automatic failure for reason of lack-of-attendance. (I think the school board could override in special circumstances, such as an extended medical emergency, but otherwise even extended illness still counted toward the 15 days.) For a primary school, this makes a certain amount of sense.
Most non-office/labor/factory/retail employers place attendance above most any other measure of an employees' worth. I'll take a reliable employee that shows up every day on time, but is only average, or even a little under-average, in other areas over a primadona that may be extremely talented and brilliant, but has poor attendance or is habitually late to work. Dependability is one of the most important qualifications to most employers.
But if the job was output based, would you really care? Say you pay coders $X per year to put out $X lines of good code, would you care if one guy can do it in 20 hours a week if it gets the same results as someone who comes in from 8 to 5 M-F?
But if the job was output based, would you really care? Say you pay coders $X per year to put out $X lines of good code, would you care if one guy can do it in 20 hours a week if it gets the same results as someone who comes in from 8 to 5 M-F?
That's why I specified the type of work I did in my post. Even in your scenario I probably would still care, as I'd want to have that guy there to ask questions of, or to inform of changes, or to have talk to a customer or vendor rep. that was in the office if I neede
I'll take a reliable employee that shows up every day on time, but is only average, or even a little under-average
You will?
Hmmmmmm.. I was manager of an IT department and had an even split of both types of people.
One type was always early, always studiously reviewing policies and eating a brown-bag lunch at their desk so they could "keep working". Unfortunately, most of these people were also quite "average" and maybe even slightly "below-average" in competency. Their solutions were mechanical and I found, by their nature, they learned things in a linear way. I would have to train them, step by step, and provide
I'll take a reliable employee that shows up every day on time, but is only average, or even a little under-average
You will?
Hmmmmmm.. I was manager of an IT department and had an even split of both types of people.
One type was always early, always studiously reviewing policies and eating a brown-bag lunch at their desk so they could "keep working". Unfortunately, most of these people were also quite "average" and maybe even slightly "below-average" in competency. Their solutions were mechanical and I found,
I almost failed a class with a grade of 100 because of a policy like this.
I chose to take welding as an elective class and i was exceptionally good at it. Because of this i tended to skip a lot of the days reserved for practicing technique since i didn't need the practice and tended to get bored. The school board had a policy where if you missed 14 days you failed the class, but my mother appealed and i got the credit.
I can see where good attendance applies to many things including having a real job, but
At my school the policy is, if you miss 6 days you fail, even if you have a doctor's note for all of them. You can get some excused at the end of the semester but it is hard.
they should be found out and set aside for advanced studies that can actually push them.
As someone who's worked for a public school for the past year, I can definitively say that if there's one thing public schools are entirely unable to do it is detect and promote excellence. We're too busy leaving no child behind (and I assure almost all of the ones that would have been left behind WANTED to be left behind and are resentful (at least now, maybe when they grow up some they'll be thankful), and as sad as it is their parents would generally be perfectly fine with them being left behind, too). We're a society hell bent on having everyone be normal - whether that means dragging up the under performers by lowering our standards or neglecting those who would love some extra guidance - and it's absolutely shooting ourselves in the foot.
Otherwise, we're giving up the notion that we're actually trying to teach anything and accepting that all we're looking for is some basic cookie-cutter standards for well-disciplined automotons.
Uh... that's exactly what American public schools are intending to create: a populace comprised of well-disciplined, subservient sheep. Don't question authority. Don't think for yourself. Do what you are told. Obey. Consume. That kind of thing.
In my high school, there was a kid in the class that graduated the year before my class came in as freshman who only showed up to classes for quizes and tests all four years. He graduated with a B or B- average.
I hate to state the obvious here... But if he managed to graduate with a B/B- average, without actually taking the classes, then there was absolutely no point in him showing up for class. Obviously he knew the material to the satisfaction of the school.
In my high school, there was a kid in the class that graduated the year before my class came in as freshman who only showed up to classes for quizes and tests all four years. He graduated with a B or B- average.
After he graduated and it was brought to the attention of parents and school administrators, a new rule was put in place that any student absent from a class more than a certain number of days during the year (I think it was 20 or so) for any reason could (at the discretion of the teacher) be failed.
If a student can skip every class and still get a B, why would you want to force him to sit through mind-numbingly boring repetitions of what he already knows? To punish him for not having to suffer with you?
Who is going to set them aside and give them these "advanced studies" you speak of? Not anyone at a public school. It's not covered by 'NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND'.
I'm pretty sure that's all the teacher's unions want is cookie cutter students.. Each doing well enough to pass.
My son was held out of honors classes, because the teacher wanted to raise her class's GPA... It was the next week, our son started home-school. The curriculum is harder, and more broad based, and there is less distraction. Home-school isn't for everyone, but I for one am glad that the opportunity is there.
The public school system in this country (usa), when it was created, was based on the public school system in Prussia. That system was designed to make good laborers and soldiers. That's it. Over the decades, what we expect from school has slowly evolved. Originally, high school was optional. Then it became required, and university was optional. Now, unfortunately, it seems university is really required. But you have to pay for it. (and pay and pay)
I had a business idea that I discussed with my wife
Things like how to balance a checkbook and make a budget
I actually got that in High school economics, complete with a simulated budget assignment. (I probably still have that spreadsheet somewhere, 9 years later)
If the kids can pass the tests on theirt own merrit, self study style, I really don't give a crap if they do the busy work, or waste their time in a classroom. If the kid can do the work already, shit, why not just let him exempt it, and move on to something that chalklenges his mind enough to WANT to go to class.
I had a similar problem in High School. If my schoo had that policy in place, I would have completed 3 or 4 more classes each year, and had a dozen or more AP tests under my belt before I entered
You can't skate by with this rule. the best you could hope for as an 'abuse' would be that kids don't try on half the test, and then magically get 100% on the remaining half. IN other words, at best a C. Kids that can get 100% will probably be able to get over 50% without studying. I almost never studied in HS and got out with a B avg. Making me a munch more of a skater then someone who tryies but can't get over 50%. And as such become so discouraged they drop out.
Now at your former high school they can no longer skip school. Neither are they singled out for advanced studies. They merely have to sit there bored out of their minds for no useful purpose whatsoever. Sigh...
I had a history class where the teacher graded on total points earned during the semester. 500 points guaranteed an A. This was not considered an easy goal. In the first quarter I earned 500 points. So for the second quarter I still came to class, took tests, but skipped writing papers and some other assignments.
So when the grades came out, for the second quarter I got a C, but for the semester as a whole I got an A. The teacher wasn't all that thrilled about it.
Actually, the real reason they probably put that in place was so the school could get the maximum money possible from the state. The other side of this perversion of the education system is that some states require attendance be taken at a certain time of the day (say third or fourth period) and after that the school doesn't watch too closely if a student takes off from campus. They have met the requirements for full funding for the entire day so the child's presence is no longer required.
Where I live (The Netherlands), we have different difficulty levels of classes. Don't you have a similar system?
We basically have four levels: Low, Medium, High and Advanced. Distribution among the population is about 25%, 40%, 30%, 5%. Advanced level is required for University entry, and usually challenges even the most gifted of students. In the city where I live, with an estimated school going population of 25.000 at the time I was between 12-18. I think there was only one boy in the city who managed to
Disobedience: The silver lining to the cloud of servitude.
-- Ambrose Bierce
Or more reasonable policies (Score:5, Insightful)
Or they could work on policies that reward significant improvement throughout the year. A rough start can be just that. Mandating that everything is at least 50%, even when a student gets a 0%, is a terrible idea.
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Cool, now if I'm really good in that subject (math comes to mind), I can just skip the entire first half of each semester and still get a B in the class!
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Re:Or more reasonable policies (Score:5, Insightful)
In my high school, there was a kid in the class that graduated the year before my class came in as freshman who only showed up to classes for quizes and tests all four years. He graduated with a B or B- average.
After he graduated and it was brought to the attention of parents and school administrators, a new rule was put in place that any student absent from a class more than a certain number of days during the year (I think it was 20 or so) for any reason could (at the discretion of the teacher) be failed.
Anyway, the point is, there are kids who'll use something like that to skate by while doing even less work. Those kids shouldn't be skipping school; they should be found out and set aside for advanced studies that can actually push them. Otherwise, we're giving up the notion that we're actually trying to teach anything and accepting that all we're looking for is some basic cookie-cutter standards for well-disciplined automotons.
Re:Or more reasonable policies (Score:5, Funny)
Anyway, the point is, there are kids who'll use something like that to skate by while doing even less work.
We call them "Executives."
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Re:Or more reasonable policies (Score:5, Interesting)
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Of course it seems the US high school culture is mostly crap. So probably that's not a good idea.
Quite a waste. Just like you need to domesticate dogs so that they can live usefully in modern society, you also need to domesticate humans.
They don't just pop out of their mom's ready to go.
Re:Or more reasonable policies (Score:4, Insightful)
If the kid can pass the class without being in it, why are we forcing them to take it anyway?
The idea of our education system should be to make the smartest members of society that we can. It doesn't make any sense to have them take that class, they have already mastered it. It makes sense to have them take a more advanced class and keep them learning. The policy of letting them just skip it drives those kids back the the average rather than providing for them to excel.
Obviously "No Child Left Behind" simply means "Lower the standards so everyone passes". The combination of these two policies just produces kids with ever less education.
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Smart kids in regular/easy classes (Score:2)
The point of having the smart children in the same classes as the regular children is peer interaction. Just a couple of very talented students can raise the level of achievement for the entire class. There is a point for having honors and AP classes in high school. But every class and subject does not have to be separated. I did not require honors typing or even honors computer literature to get the basics.
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The "smart kid" will be asking probing questions and challenging the teacher to provide more information. The experience is shared by the whole class, or at least the portion paying attention. Teachers learn from the experience as well.
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I ahve notice that there are a group of kids that take classes below there abilities and then whine about school not being challenging.
These kids are pushing themselves. Are they taking the hardest math? English? Science? If they are and it is easy fro them they can talk to their school; counciler and/or a college counselor about getting college classes.
If school is 'too easy' for you and you aren't taking the hardest of everything , it's just an excuse to be lazy.
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If the kid can pass the class without being in it, why are we forcing them to take it anyway?
Because there's more to a class than just what's on the test?
Re:Or more reasonable policies (Score:4, Insightful)
That's not an example of a school failing to challenge a student. That's an example of a lazy student. Maybe he's a smart slacker, but at the end of the day, he's still just a slacker. What the hell does it matter if he's smart if he won't apply himself?
As Edison said, genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. You'll get much further in life being moderately smart and really hardworking, than extraordinarily brilliant but too lazy to do anything with your intelligence.
Re:Or more reasonable policies (Score:5, Insightful)
But why should you work hard at school if you can get by like this? I know of no school that has the time and resources to challenge students like that one. If I were him I'd be somewhere else than at school too, working on problems that interest and challenge me. Who says this kid was doing nothing while not at school?
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Working on the reasonable assuption that he didn't know what grade he was going to get in advance, maybe he thought he was going to get an A? Even a C is more than most people will get, at any age. Indeed, it's what I got.
My actual grades were way off the predictions - some over, some under.
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If the school doesn't have "gifted and talented" or "advanced placement" classes (and they should), or if those aren't challenging enough, skip the kid up a grade. Or two. Or send him off for classes at the local community college.
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He got a B. clearly he could ahve applied himself more. Or taken harder courses. Or taken college courses. If school is truly easy for you, you have many opportunities.
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What if the school is the highest you can go to? And what is the reward for getting an A instead of a B? Nothing, except in the final exams, because you have a better chance of getting on the university you want with A's on your final tests. If you can get a B with doing nothing in the classes before the last class, I take it you can get A's in the exams, and that's what counts.
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Depends on what the student is doing when not at school, of course.
If he's off writing software (or a novel), or doing original research, everyone involved is far better off with him not being there.
Even when young, there are more things in life than school,
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Sadly - given that he had only a B - which college given his potential would have taken him ? MIT ? Caltech ? Berkley ? I think not.
Re:Or more reasonable policies (Score:4, Insightful)
Like anything else, college is what you make of it. A decent state university, even without a big name, provides a fine education if one takes advantage of what it has to offer; one just needs to be more on top of things by way of networking than would necessarily be the case elsewhere.
(I speak from experience, having gone to one of the better schools in the CSU system -- while another school I was considering certainly had more big-name appeal, faculty at the CSU school deigned to give me the time of day when touring as a prospective student; my decision was made between that and economic factors, and I've not regretted it once).
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"and I've not regretted it once"
SO? how can you not regret it if you didn't go to the other school, your school fails logic.
That said, the reason to go to widly known schools is for contacts to be used later in your career.
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Where did you go? I'm a California State University Long Beach alum.
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I could regret it if I saw things I was missing out on in life because I didn't have those contacts. I don't. (As an aside, your school fails grammar).
Contacts from school got me my first job working next door to big-name kernel hackers Paul Mundt and Robert Love. Sure, I had to do some work to get to know the right people to make those contacts -- where at a more prestigious school they might have come free with the
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Imagine you were put in a classroom with a load of infants chanting basic sums "2 plus 2 is 4, 2 plus 3 is 5" etc.
When there is no purpose in you being there how long before you get so sick of it that you stop turning up?
That isn't lazyness. Lazyness is being unwilling to work. The "work" in this case is learing math and if he already knew all the material that well then it just means he did all the "work" long before everyone else.
I hope to god you're not a teacher.
I slept through most of my 1st year compu
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bah!
*learning not learing
*science not sciene
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Depends on how you learn. Many people simply can't learn from just reading... their brains aren't wired that way. And that's assuming that the books are any good to start with... I know that many times in my engineering classes the instructor would go on a tangent about something that was quite important, but wasn't in the book, or was just glossed over in the book. And by going to class, you learn what you're going to be tested on.
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As Edison said, genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.
Which is why engineers sometime smell really bad. [despair.com]
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> As Edison said, genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration
I feel sorry for the poor person that had to do Edison's laundry.
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I fail to see how he was supposed to "apply" himself. He clearly had already completely mastered the material if he was able to get the A's he obviously needed to pass with a B average only taking the exams.
News flash here maybe, but sitting in a seat listening to things you already know hardly constitutes "applying" yourself.
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Hrmmm.... with the permission of my teachers I often skipped class and maintained straight A's. I went to less than 20 days of my AP Calc class.
I spent the spare time studying for Academic Bowl, Academic Decathlon, the Chess Team, and lifting weights...
I would rather have spent that time taking more advanced courses but due to interesting restrictions on what and where classes were to be attended I had to show up and allow the teachers an opportunity to be complicit in working around the 'system'.
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Thats all the system caters for.
Cookie cutter students.
In real life you change jobs, do what you want and advance at whatever rate your comfortable with.
In school, you do the same tests as everyone else. If you do well you get a star then nobody cares..
If you do poorly you get extra attention. If your mediocre, no one cares.
In Australia now we have OBE (outcome based education) so the kids dont even get a grade anymore. No one really knows whats going on until they do the uni entrance exams and they realise
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So what sorts of outcomes are being measured in outcome based education? To me, "outcome" means "measure of achievement toward a goal" such as "acquiring a certain set of knowledge." I'm all for measuring and grading someone on what they actually managed to learn and achieve by the end of the course, rather than on how many busyworks they handed in on time. The outcome of education should be educated individuals. If individuals demostrate that they're educated, then it doesn't matter so much that they
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good point... sounds like the goal is to have the student "come out of school"....
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When I was in high school in Michigan some years back, there was a state-level requirement on attendance. More than 15 days absent for any reason (IIRC) in a marking period would be an automatic failure for reason of lack-of-attendance. (I think the school board could override in special circumstances, such as an extended medical emergency, but otherwise even extended illness still counted toward the 15 days.) For a primary school, this makes a certain amount of sense.
I got the sense while I was there th
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Even so, it puts attendance above achievement.
Most non-office/labor/factory/retail employers place attendance above most any other measure of an employees' worth. I'll take a reliable employee that shows up every day on time, but is only average, or even a little under-average, in other areas over a primadona that may be extremely talented and brilliant, but has poor attendance or is habitually late to work. Dependability is one of the most important qualifications to most employers.
Cheers!
Strat
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But if the job was output based, would you really care? Say you pay coders $X per year to put out $X lines of good code, would you care if one guy can do it in 20 hours a week if it gets the same results as someone who comes in from 8 to 5 M-F?
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But if the job was output based, would you really care? Say you pay coders $X per year to put out $X lines of good code, would you care if one guy can do it in 20 hours a week if it gets the same results as someone who comes in from 8 to 5 M-F?
That's why I specified the type of work I did in my post. Even in your scenario I probably would still care, as I'd want to have that guy there to ask questions of, or to inform of changes, or to have talk to a customer or vendor rep. that was in the office if I neede
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I'll take a reliable employee that shows up every day on time, but is only average, or even a little under-average
You will?
Hmmmmmm.. I was manager of an IT department and had an even split of both types of people.
One type was always early, always studiously reviewing policies and eating a brown-bag lunch at their desk so they could "keep working". Unfortunately, most of these people were also quite "average" and maybe even slightly "below-average" in competency. Their solutions were mechanical and I found, by their nature, they learned things in a linear way. I would have to train them, step by step, and provide
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I'll take a reliable employee that shows up every day on time, but is only average, or even a little under-average
You will?
Hmmmmmm.. I was manager of an IT department and had an even split of both types of people.
One type was always early, always studiously reviewing policies and eating a brown-bag lunch at their desk so they could "keep working". Unfortunately, most of these people were also quite "average" and maybe even slightly "below-average" in competency. Their solutions were mechanical and I found,
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I chose to take welding as an elective class and i was exceptionally good at it. Because of this i tended to skip a lot of the days reserved for practicing technique since i didn't need the practice and tended to get bored. The school board had a policy where if you missed 14 days you failed the class, but my mother appealed and i got the credit.
I can see where good attendance applies to many things including having a real job, but
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Re:Or more reasonable policies (Score:5, Insightful)
they should be found out and set aside for advanced studies that can actually push them.
As someone who's worked for a public school for the past year, I can definitively say that if there's one thing public schools are entirely unable to do it is detect and promote excellence. We're too busy leaving no child behind (and I assure almost all of the ones that would have been left behind WANTED to be left behind and are resentful (at least now, maybe when they grow up some they'll be thankful), and as sad as it is their parents would generally be perfectly fine with them being left behind, too). We're a society hell bent on having everyone be normal - whether that means dragging up the under performers by lowering our standards or neglecting those who would love some extra guidance - and it's absolutely shooting ourselves in the foot.
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Uh... that's exactly what American public schools are intending to create: a populace comprised of well-disciplined, subservient sheep. Don't question authority. Don't think for yourself. Do what you are told. Obey. Consume. That kind of thing.
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I hate to state the obvious here... But if he managed to graduate with a B/B- average, without actually taking the classes, then there was absolutely no point in him showing up for class. Obviously he knew the material to the satisfaction of the school.
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In my high school, there was a kid in the class that graduated the year before my class came in as freshman who only showed up to classes for quizes and tests all four years. He graduated with a B or B- average.
After he graduated and it was brought to the attention of parents and school administrators, a new rule was put in place that any student absent from a class more than a certain number of days during the year (I think it was 20 or so) for any reason could (at the discretion of the teacher) be failed.
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If a student can skip every class and still get a B, why would you want to force him to sit through mind-numbingly boring repetitions of what he already knows? To punish him for not having to suffer with you?
Who is going to set them aside and give them these "advanced studies" you speak of? Not anyone at a public school. It's not covered by 'NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND'.
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My son was held out of honors classes, because the teacher wanted to raise her class's GPA... It was the next week, our son started home-school. The curriculum is harder, and more broad based, and there is less distraction. Home-school isn't for everyone, but I for one am glad that the opportunity is there.
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The public school system in this country (usa), when it was created, was based on the public school system in Prussia. That system was designed to make good laborers and soldiers. That's it. Over the decades, what we expect from school has slowly evolved. Originally, high school was optional. Then it became required, and university was optional. Now, unfortunately, it seems university is really required. But you have to pay for it. (and pay and pay)
I had a business idea that I discussed with my wife
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I actually got that in High school economics, complete with a simulated budget assignment. (I probably still have that spreadsheet somewhere, 9 years later)
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If the kids can pass the tests on theirt own merrit, self study style, I really don't give a crap if they do the busy work, or waste their time in a classroom. If the kid can do the work already, shit, why not just let him exempt it, and move on to something that chalklenges his mind enough to WANT to go to class.
I had a similar problem in High School. If my schoo had that policy in place, I would have completed 3 or 4 more classes each year, and had a dozen or more AP tests under my belt before I entered
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You can't skate by with this rule.
the best you could hope for as an 'abuse' would be that kids don't try on half the test, and then magically get 100% on the remaining half. IN other words, at best a C.
Kids that can get 100% will probably be able to get over 50% without studying. I almost never studied in HS and got out with a B avg. Making me a munch more of a skater then someone who tryies but can't get over 50%. And as such become so discouraged they drop out.
Your example is an extreme case, and not rele
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So when the grades came out, for the second quarter I got a C, but for the semester as a whole I got an A. The teacher wasn't all that thrilled about it.
Problem is, "smart but lazy" isn't
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Actually, the real reason they probably put that in place was so the school could get the maximum money possible from the state. The other side of this perversion of the education system is that some states require attendance be taken at a certain time of the day (say third or fourth period) and after that the school doesn't watch too closely if a student takes off from campus. They have met the requirements for full funding for the entire day so the child's presence is no longer required.
Furthermore, the
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Where I live (The Netherlands), we have different difficulty levels of classes. Don't you have a similar system?
We basically have four levels: Low, Medium, High and Advanced. Distribution among the population is about 25%, 40%, 30%, 5%. Advanced level is required for University entry, and usually challenges even the most gifted of students. In the city where I live, with an estimated school going population of 25.000 at the time I was between 12-18. I think there was only one boy in the city who managed to