Science Scares

The American Council on Science and Health has published a study examining the National Resources Defense Council's claims of 13 disease cluster areas in 42 states around the U.S.

"a peer-reviewed analysis by ACSH, using well-established principles of scientific investigation, shows that only one of the 42 sites meets the scientific definition of a disease cluster...

• "All but five of the purported clusters lack any supportive evidence at all;
• "13 examples cited by NRDC as confirmed disease clusters are in fact places where investigations by public health officials are still ongoing;
• "Several cases have already been ruled out by public health officials as disease clusters as no statistically significant elevations of any disease have been found;
• "Only four of the NRDC-claimed sites are possible clusters, and just one of the 42 can actually be identified as a disease cluster based on the scientific definition."

What does this have to do with education? I see the rising number of specious claims about the links between disease and technology, medicine, and science as a result of poor science education and poor scientific thinking.

This kind of thinking can be difficult - it often doesn't follow intuitive human reasoning tendencies, especially conclusions based on statistically-based evidence. But good education in reasoning and especially reasoning about statistics would make a world of difference.

Someone who's been thinking a lot about how to improve students' "statistical literacy" is Professor Milo Schield at Augsburg College. Here he has a wealth of information and resources about this issue. I suspect the people at NRDC need a course from him - in the hope that they weren't bending the facts on purpose.

Rediscovery of What We Already Knew in Montessori

Apparently the Erikson Institute's new program "The Early Mathematics Education Project," recently instituted at 300 Chicago public schools, incorporates real objects and events to teach young children the fundamentals of mathematics. This was reported today in the Wall Street Journal in an article titled "New Calculation: Math in Preschool."

According to the article, "Evidence is mounting about the importance of teaching math in preschool and kindergarten."

I'm glad they've just discovered this! But it's not a new calculation: Montessori schools have been teaching fundamental mathematical concepts in preschool (Children's House to us) for over 100 years, because Maria Montessori discovered the importance of doing so that long ago.

We use fabulous, beautiful materials, such as the Trinomial Cube. Here's the equation it represents:





And the Golden Bead materials teach the basics of addition and subtraction so that even 4 year olds can do equations to the millions.

The Montessori Method has dozens of carefully designed and tested mathematical materials to work with.

One of the first graduates from my school, Council Oak Montessori, is now a parent of a three year old there. He came to a parent meeting and described how the mathematics materials helped him in all his later school career (and even to today), by teaching him how to concretize and visualize mathematical operations. And he didn't start at our school until 2nd grade.

Ah well, it's great that the students at CPS are getting SOME mathematical concretization.

More on the "99%"

Following up on my last post, I found a website, History is a Weapon, with the entire text of Zinn's People's History of the U.S.  Here's a quote from Chapter 24 on this webpage:

"One percent of the nation owns a third of the wealth. The rest of the wealth is distributed in such a way as to turn those in the 99 percent against one another...Against the reality of that desperate, bitter battle for resources made scarce by elite control, I am taking the liberty of uniting those 99 percent as 'the people.'"

Not only is it clear from the text that this is the origin of the Occupy movement's "99%" mantra, but the Occupy movement is advertising on the very webpage of the book which discusses this issue. No wonder: over 1 million copies of this textbook have been sold and used at high schools and universities across the country in the past 20 years.

Is Howard Zinn the originator of the "99%"?

Researching some quotes of Howard Zinn, author of the widely used history text, The People's History of the United States, I came across a 2004 blog entry from historian Michael Kazin on George Mason University's History News Network about Zinn's book that said this:

"According to Zinn, '99 percent" of Americans share a  "commonality" that is profoundly at odds with the interests of their rulers.' And knowledge of that awesome fact is 'exactly what the governments of the United States, and the wealthy elite allied to them--from the Founding Fathers to now--have tried their best to prevent.'"

Since many, many young people today are educated using Zinn's book - is this where they got the "we are the 99%" slogan?

Manipulating Happiness - Maria Montessori

In this article , researcher Robert Biswas-Diener writes in the International Journal of Well-Being about the Montessori Method and its relation to optimal living:

"One  Montessori   teacher   I   interviewed told me that using the term "work" to describe the children's activites lends   a   sense   of   dignity   and   importance   to   what   they   do,   and   set   up   kids   for   a   lifetime   of   believing that work can be fun, rewarding, and educational...When I asked Ella [a Montessori student] what, specifically, she liked about 'work,' her answer was immediate "I like that it is challenging.' Either  Ella  is  being  fed  some  excellent  propaganda  or  she  is  participating  in  a  school  system   which   fosters   enjoyment   alongside   learning.   Which   begs   the   tough   question:   Was   Maria   Montessori   a   happiness-­‐‑enabler?"

"What's the little difference that makes the big difference" between apes and humans!

Watching this NOVA special, Ape Genius, I almost fell over (while exercising!) when I heard one of the researchers say that in their quest to understand the apes and their relation to us, they were trying to find out "what's the little difference that makes the big difference."

And these were not neurologists, talking about brain anatomy/physiology differences! These were cognitive psychologists and anthropologists. I'm afraid it is yet another example of the deterioration of education.

"The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes"is Reason! Humankind's ability to conceptualize abstract ideas.  It makes ALL the difference.

I suspect this ignorance on the part of the scientists is a result of the century+ attack on Reason and that attack's influence in the humanities and sciences.

"My Teacher is an App"

Learning through the Internet reminds me of Isaac Asimov's Encyclopedia Galactica in his Foundation trilogy - all the knowledge available at one's fingertips. A life-altering resource of knowledge.

"My Teacher Is An App" discusses elementary schools using computers for most of the learning, or "hybrid" models in which children do some in-person work, often through a homeschool, but more work through computers.

It's good that their virtual experiences and activities are so much richer than the mere paper and pencil learning of traditional schools. But I worry that they will not get enough real-world experience through such systems to develop their senses, their motor abilities, their knowledge, and their imaginations well.

We are living animals and our reason is highly connected to the functioning of our bodies. In the '90's, Antonio Damasio began demonstrating how poorly reason operates without a well-functioning connection to emotion; reason cannot enable us to choose well if cut off from emotion which relay our deepest core values and needs to the reasoning mind.

This connection is developed through sensory-perceptual-motor experience, through physical interaction with the world, through interaction with other people. These experiences can be simulated on computer but not replaced.

What happens to a person's ability to reason well and wisely about life-choices if they don't have sufficient real-life experience?

The Montessori Mafia and India

"But most highly creative achievers don’t begin with brilliant ideas, they discover them."


The Wall Street Journal had two immensely contrasting articles on education April 5th: "The Montessori Mafia" was one of them - reviewing the remarkable evidence for the creative advantages of a Montessori education. 


In the same issue, April 5th, I was saddened to read the article "India Graduates Millions, But Too Few Are Fit to Hire," which featured some of the rampant corruption and cynicism in Indian colleges.


"I was not prepared at all to get a job," says Pradeep Singh, 23, who graduated last year from RKDF College of Engineering, one of the city of Bhopal's oldest engineering schools. He has been on five job interviews—none of which led to work."


"Mr. Singh and several other engineering graduates said they learned quickly that they needn't bother to go to some classes. "The faculty take it very casually, and the students take it very casually, like they've all agreed not to be bothered too much," Mr. Singh says. He says he routinely missed a couple of days of classes a week, and it took just three or four days of cramming from the textbook at the end of the semester to pass the exams."

What are such students thinking? Apparently, they have no idea that they need the engineering knowledge to perform on the job. The same kind of thinking that led to the Bhopal disaster years ago. What would lead to such an idea? (not that this is unique: plenty of U.S. students seem to act the same way).
Hattip John Gillis.

Thinking without the concept of number

Read about the remarkably limited language of the Piraha Tribe of the Amazon in this article - they literally have no concept of number.

Further, "No one paints and there is no art."

"Whatever isn't important in the present is soon forgotten...Very few can remember the names of all four grandparents."

No wonder there's only about 350 of them - could their in-the-moment-only life support more? Very, very doubtful.

Bother me, I'm thinking

This new research on the link between creativity and distractability should give all educators pause. It's another piece of the evidence that teachers should "follow the child" as Maria Montessori advised.

Jonah Lehrer on Distractions, ADHD and Creativity | Head Case - WSJ.com

Empathy in the Classroom

Lila Jokanovic shared this documentary with me, "Children Full of Life" about a Japanese classroom with a teacher who nurtures the empathy between his students. It's fascinating how much more developed children can be in such an environment.

How Great Entrepreneurs Think

Here's an article about a wonderful new study, detailing how great entrepreneurs think. Lots of material here with implications for education.

"Sarasvathy (the researcher) concluded that master entrepreneurs rely on what she calls effectual reasoning. Brilliant improvisers, the entrepreneurs don't start out with concrete goals. Instead, they constantly assess how to use their personal strengths and whatever resources they have at hand to develop goals on the fly, while creatively reacting to contingencies...This is not say entrepreneurs don't have goals, only that those goals are broad and--like luggage--may shift during flight."

Here are some of their attitudes: "I don't believe in market research. Instead of asking all the questions, I'd try and make some sales."

"Ultimately, the best test of any product is to go to your target market and pretend like it's a real business."

"I always live by  the motto 'Ready, fire, aim.' I think if you spend too much time doing "ready, aim, aim, aim," you're never going to see all the good things that would happen if you actually started doing it. I think business plans are interesting, but they have no real meaning, because you can't put in all the positive things that will occur...if you know intrinsincally that this is possible, you just have to find out how to make it possible, which you can't do ahead of time."

Ah, here's the creator coming out in them: "if you know intrinsically that this is possible" - these people get an idea that some product or service would be valuable and then they find a way to make it work. They use their own creativity and independent judgment to determine whether something it's valuable.

One of the reasons even the best of market research doesn't always work is that people often don't know what they want or need, or whether they will like a product until they actually try it - especially something really new. Research shows that a small number of people accept a new product right away, but most take a while.

I suspect great entrepreneurs are at least intuitively aware of this, which is why they focus on getting the product out to market and selling it as soon as possible - let people try it, see if/that they like it, then spread the word.

What are the implications for education? Students need encouragement to try new things, to dare to come up with original combinations, and most of all, to rely on their own judgment. They need problems to solve with open-ended possibilities, not test answers.


Hattip John Enright via Tyler Cowen

How do innovators think?

See this Harvard Business Review article in which researchers Fryer and Dyer discuss their 6-year, 3,000 person study of creative business executives. They discern some of the key characteristics to the creative in business...mentioning that how you get taught in kindergarten can make a difference for the rest of your life.

"A number of the innovative entrepreneurs also went to Montessori schools, where they learned to follow their curiosity. To paraphrase the famous Apple ad campaign, innovators not only learned early on to think different, they act different (and even talk different)."


Hattip to Mark Berger.

"Challenging the Left: The case for intellectual diversity"

Well-written article from The New Individualist by Robert Bradley about the intellectual problems at his high school alma mater. The saddest statement was this:

"My advertised Interim Term class presents students with a different view on economics and business. I have a number of publications and have lectured at many colleges and universities. But never in my five years at Kinkaid has a teacher introduced himself/herself and engaged me in a discussion about my viewpoint. Not even a “Hello, I am …. Tell me about ….”"


Why? Because it reveals how the faculty is unintellectual. Yet, they're in charge of teaching students ideas!


I was very fortunate that when I went to high school in the '60's, one of my most interesting teachers was a lifelong Democrat, Mr. Woll. He made sure we students learned about the full range of the political spectrum, so we could make up our own minds. But then, he was highly intellectual, even ran "The Eggheads" club where we debated all kinds of ideas. I think he was unusual even in his day!

"To really learn, quit studying and take a test"

A new study from Purdue, discussed in this New York Times article, finds that students who take a test about material they've learned have 50% more recall of the material than those who either repeatedly study the material, or those who study and draw diagrams of it.

I can see immediately two important learning principles operative in these results: 

1. The test focuses attention and motivation, which always makes someone remember better and, as the writer mentioned, shows the person what they don't know, possibly interesting them in correcting their ignorance.

But do most students care about what they don't know? My observation is that many just want to get done with what they're studying to go on to the next requirement.

2. The article's analysis claims that testing requires active reconstruction of material, which helps recall. They used a free-form essay as the test in which the student reconstructed the material learned.

Actively reconstructing knowledge requires a person to not only recall what they've learned, but conceptually organize it and this does help with learning and retention.

But whether testing always helps is not clear to me. Multiple choice tests, so often used, require recognition of material rather than active recall and reconstruction. So the inference from this study, that testing results in better learning, is flawed. 

In Montessori, students study through learning materials, such as these. They are designed to illustrate concepts through real objects - a better way to fix knowledge in memory than mere paper and pen, as it engages the senses and the students' activity. 

And we use a three-period lesson to teach the student how to use each learning material:

1. Teacher names objects in material and demonstrates its use, with as few words as possible.

2. Student practices material, with teacher asking "show me this" etc.

3. Student demonstrates use of material/meaning to teacher, with the teacher asking "what's this" etc.

This last step requires the student to reconstruct his own knowledge in order to present it correctly - giving him an opportunity to see the gaps, like a test. When a child thinks he has mastered the material, he can ask the teacher to "test out" of it by demonstrating how much he knows about using it.

"Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses"

Sickening but not surprising research findings from "an unusually large-scale study" are summarized in this article from the Chicago Tribune. The sad result of Progressive education's long history.

"Half of students did not take a single course requiring 20 pages of writing during their prior semester, and one-third did not take a single course requiring even 40 pages of reading per week."


"information from 24 schools, meant to be a representative sample, which provided Collegiate Learning Assessment data on students who took the standardized test in their first semester in fall 2005 and at the end of their sophomore years in spring 2007. The schools took part on the condition that their institutions not be identified....After four years, 36 percent of students did not demonstrate significant improvement, compared to 45 percent after two...


"Students from families with different levels of parental education enter college with different learning levels but learn at about the same rates while attending college. The racial gap between black and white students going in, however, widens: Black students improve their assessment scores at lower levels than whites."


Hattip to John Enright.

Examining the Value of the Beleagured For-Profit Sector

Peter Woods, president of the National Association of Scholars (NAS) has written a thoughtful article on the criticisms, attacks on, and value of for-profit colleges. NAS is concerned with supporting the value of a liberal arts education, so one wouldn't think they would be much concerned about most for-profits, which tend to be highly career-focused. But he says "But they are very much part of what I take to be the fundamental transformation of American post-secondary education—and that is very much a matter of concern to NAS and to anyone concerned with the survival of liberal education.

You can read it here in 4 installments:

Part I "For-Profit Colleges on the Brink."

Part II

Part III

Part IV "For Profits Break the Monopoly on What a College Can Be"

Teaching Statistics Delightfully

Here's a brilliant lesson on health/wealth statistics by Hans Rosling: "200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes." It underlines the power of the Internet to teach complex principles simply, if the product is done well. You can see more of his videos at the Open University here. What he demonstrates is the mental power to take numbers about a subject and embody them as meaningful information. If only statistics teachers did this more often...

The essence of leadership

"How great leaders inspire action." Fabulous TED lecture by Simon Sinek - summarizing the fundamental importance for organizations of having a purpose which encapsulates a moral vision.


Hattip Lucy Hair and Eric Rhodes!

The wisdom of the "gap" year

According the the Wall Street Journal's "Delaying college to fill in the gaps," more students are exploring the real world before heading off to college. Good for them! After the long infantilization of most schooling, some real-world experience will help them learn what's possible and good for them.

Udemy.com

A reader of this blog asked me about udemy.com, a start up that seeks to provide an easy way for anyone to offer an online course. What a great idea! It has a vast array of courses offered already. Right off the bat I like the featured course "Ideas come from everywhere." And it's free!

It's an innovative permutation on the autodidact features of the internet, which is a truly liberating development of technology. Now, anyone with even some small access to a computer anywhere in the world has the world's knowledge at his or her fingertips. The market for knowledge is liberated.

With so much information available - and ambitious people around the globe - individuals will be able to bootstrap themselves into some levels of expertise formerly available only through schools.

This means, schools will have to offer something special to be worthwhile. But most are market dinosaurs.

What's going to happen?

Hattip to carterson2

Are Doctoral Degrees Worth It?

Research with some surprises summarized in this article from The Economist "Doctoral degrees: The disposable academic."

Once again, I point a finger at government money which has encouraged a ridiculous amount of degree inflation. Do you ever wonder how Borders, Starbucks, and Whole Foods manage to have so many intelligent and highly educated people working for them?

Hattip to Stephen Hicks.

New thinking on the "problems" of adolescence

A must-read article, "The Myth of the Teen Brain," re-thinking the way we think about adolescence.

I do think that some behavior of adolescents is highly influenced by their growing brains and rapidly fluctuating hormones - and that hotheadedness and foolhardiness has evidence of this since ancient times. But we should use Occam's Razor before proposing that something is "caused" by brain changes.

Maria Montessori thought that adolescents were striving to become adults and needed to do real work while they learned - that's why she thought they should attend high school on a farm that they worked.

The Hershey Montessori Farm School is a model of what she proposed. Students learn subjects like chemistry, physics, geometry, biology and botany while cooking, constructing buildings, and caring for animals and plants. They run a bed and breakfast and a business, selling their produce.

Hattip to Jim Peron.

Inside the Teenage Brain

If you've ever wondered why adolescents do some of the odd, impulsive things they do, you'll like this article,
"Inside the Teenage Brain." It summarizes some of the neurological findings on brain development and how it reflects in behavior.

For example, one small study seems to show that teenagers rely on an older, pre-mammalian part of the brain, the amygdala, to understand facial expressions, whereas adults use the reasoning cortex.

Most important, the use-it-or-lose-it feature of the brain implies that the earlier adolescents work on reasoning skills, the better.

Why are there Shadow Scholars?

This week the Chronicles of Higher Education featured an article that's been widely read around the internet: "The Shadow Scholar":

"In the midst of this great recession, business is booming. At busy times, during midterms and finals, my company's staff of roughly 50 writers is not large enough to satisfy the demands of students who will pay for our work and claim it as their own.

You would be amazed by the incompetence of your students' writing. I have seen the word "desperate" misspelled every way you can imagine. And these students truly are desperate. They couldn't write a convincing grocery list, yet they are in graduate school. They really need help. They need help learning and, separately, they need help passing their courses. But they aren't getting it."

"It is my hope that this essay will initiate such a conversation. As for me, I'm planning to retire. I'm tired of helping you make your students look competent."

Searing words.

My question: why is this happening? The author puts some blame on professors who can't/won't judge what's going on. Yes, that's a problem, but part of a bigger issue.

My hypothesis: this is a long-term effect of progressive, egalitarian education and  the degree inflation caused by government-financed education. Progressive education teaching methods have left teachers incompetent and students ignorant.  Now that "everyone" must have a college degree to get the most basic of jobs, many academically incompetent students are trying to graduate college, or even get graduate degrees.

For many, many students, learning has very little to do with going to college - getting through and getting the degree does. The Shadow Scholar is one solution.

Many of the ESL students he mentions could be very bright and even succeed in business or other fields that don't require mastery of English. In the big picture, going to college may be a complete waste of time and money for them, as well as other students, except for the fact that they need a degree to get most less-than-basic jobs.

Evidence in the article to support my thesis: business is booming in the recession. Why? The Feds are pouring money into student loans so out-of-work people can "go back to school."

It's a sorry, sorry situation.

Superman's arrived at some charter high schools

 Interesting study of charter high schools in Chicago by the Illinois Public Policy Institute here.

"Waiting for Superman" has put the spotlight on charter schools as an innovation tool. I'd love to see what goes on at some of them myself.

Is High School Making Your Kids College Ready?

 The Chicago Tribune found 8 of 10 public high school juniors in Illinois scoring below the college readiness measures of the ACT test, reported in this article. "The nonprofit ACT company stands by its readiness scores: at least 18 in English, 21 in reading, 22 in math and 24 in science. The top possible score is 36."

This includes students from high schools of high repute, like New Trier, where 94% go to college. Even there, 38% of juniors fell short of the readiness scores.

"In Lincolnshire and Naperville [posh and highly-regarded programs], more than half of juniors scored too low to reach the targets in English, reading, science, and math, though several hundred met three of four benchmarks, usually missing in science."

Sheesh. 

Students Don't Know How to Think About Google

Lead research anthropologist for the Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries Andrew Ascher found that students are highlyunskilled in performing searches.

“Student overuse of simple search leads to problems of having too much information or not enough information … both stemming from a lack of sufficient conceptual understanding of how information is organized,” he said. Even computer science students!

Read about his study of their use of Google and other tools in this Inside Higher Ed article.

"“they’re not getting adequate training as they’re going through the curriculum,” he said.

"Asher moved swiftly through a few slides featuring excerpts from interviews with students, each eliciting both chuckles and gasps from the audience of librarians and technologists. “I’m just trusting Google to know what are the good resources,” responded one sophomore biology student."

This alarming result--even among students who are academic achievers is what you get when education focuses on information and testing at the expense of cognitive development and independent thinking.

Another researcher suggested they get instruction on how to do searches. But the real problem lies in the fact that their minds are not conceptually organized--they don't know what is relevant or connected to a topic or idea and what is not. This is the serious deficit of education.

Employees Learn More, Forget Less With Videogames

Much maligned in education and by teachers everywhere, read about a new study metastudy examining 65 studies and over 6,000 videogame trainees which finds that people learn better with videogames.

"A University of Colorado Denver Business School study found those trained on video games do their jobs better, have higher skills and retain information longer than workers learning in less interactive, more passive environments."

"games work best when they engage the user, rather than instruct them passively. She found 16 percent of the games she studied were too passive and no more effective than other teaching methods," said researcher Traci Sitzman.

Active engagement is key to the success of the Montessori Method also, using learning materials and self-directed activities.

To give teachers critical of videogames their due, students sometimes play these games so much that they miss important opportunities for real-world exploration and social interaction.

On the other hand, I've seen plenty of children work closely together on strategy and logical implications while playing videogames as a group, or online together.

Videogames can enable a person to engage in complex, multi-faceted, and/or exciting, dangerous activities, developing important cognitive and physical skills while remaining safe. They can develop skills through games that would be much more difficult to gain in the real world as a child or adolescent.

Bottom line: technology can result in good or ill, depending on how you use it.

College Tuition Rises with Pell Grants

When will colleges be accountable to the market? In the midst of our major recession, they're hiking tuition fees again. As I reported in a previous post, if you want to see how out-of-whack college tuition is, compare it to inflation:

When I went to Northwestern University in the '70's, the tuition was a very high $3,000 a year;using 2 inflation calculators, I estimated that,last year, if tuition rose with inflation, if should have been between $12,000 and $16,000 a year. What's current NU tuition?

$40,223!

Here's a story from the Chicago Tribune that names what's going on: "Tuition, Pell Grants Rise in Tandem."

The "free" money of Pell grants drives their uneconomical use, and thus increases prices.

The decline of creativity in the United States

Valuable article from The Virginia Gazette about the research of William and Mary Psychology professor Kyung Hee Kim on creativity.  It has good suggestions for how to foster children's creativity - one's all parents should try to implement.

Read this and then listen to the Google founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, talk about their experience in Montessori school:








Hattip to Bert Loan.

Waiting for Superman

I recently saw the movie "Waiting for Superman" about public education.  It's by Davis Guggenheim, director of "An Inconvenient Truth." Consequently, you'll understand that it's quite artfully done, and it's loaded with information. 

Families desperate to get their children into lottery-selected charter schools scream and cry - when they win a place, or lose. It's pathetic and depressing. The message is powerful: children in public schools are being robbed of a good education by the system. The New York Public schools, the DC Schools, the Milwaukee schools, and the teachers' unions are featured.

Although not strident, the director seems to lay the blame on teachers' unions. And it's astonishing to hear that the DC union leadership did not even allow the members to vote on maverick DC Superintendent (recently resigned) Michelle Rhee's proposal to give merit pay. I'm surprised the membership didn't rebel - but then, what does that say?

However, I'm of two minds about this movie: the movie won a Sundance Film Festival award, and, apparently, the New York Times , theWashington Post, and other mainstream media outlets have taken an interest in it - unlike other worthy film attempts on the same topic, such "The Cartel." It's getting the problem to the attention of more people.

But the director makes NO MENTION WHATSOEVER of the school choice movement, i.e. vouchers or credits allowing students to go to private school. 

This, while Guggenheim admits at the beginning of the movie that his own kids attend private school! 

This, while he interviews the superintendent of the Milwaukee schools, which have a very successful voucher program!

This, while ignoring the successful voucher program in DC!

Within the world of his movie, it's public schools or charter schools for those who can't afford an alternative.

He can't be that ignorant. So why is he ignoring school choice? "Don't bother to examine a folly, ask yourself what it accomplishes."

"Old Dead White Men" Hip Hop Curriculum for Oklahoma

Read about the "Flocabulary" history program which Oklahoma implemented with federal tax money.  

And example of the text: "White men getting richer than Enron. They stepping on Indians, women and blacks. Era of Good Feeling doesn’t come with the facts."

Flocabulary’s CEO and co-founder Alex Rappaport told FoxNews.com: “Without engagement and motivation it’s very difficult to learn, so our main purpose is to create materials that will motivate the students that are least likely to succeed with traditional methods.” 

More leftist indoctrination under the guise of an "edgy" curriculum which will get the attention of the students!



Hattip to Bob Meier

Why does college cost so much?

See the Goldwater Institute's study on Administrative Bloat at American Universities for the answer. 

Slate Crowdsourcing Project to Design 21st Century 5th Grade Classroom

Slate launches a crowdsourcing project to design a 21st century classroom. Anyone can read the parameters and contribute here.

I'll be curious to see if anyone comes up with something entirely innovative; many of the suggestions so far we already do in Montessori schools.

The Hand as the Instrument of the Mind

"Using advanced tools such as magnetic resonance imaging, researchers are finding that writing by hand is more than just a way to communicate. The practice helps with learning letters and shapes, can improve idea composition and expression, and may aid fine motor-skill development."

"How Handwriting Trains the Brain," in the Wall Street Journal, you can read about a "new" discovery we've known in the Montessori world for 100 years.

“The hands are the instruments of man’s intelligence.” 
“The human hand allows the minds to reveal itself.”
“The mind and the hand are prepared separately for written language and follow different roads to the same goal.”  Maria Montessori 

Hence, the thousands of "hands-on" Montessori materials in a Montessori school. 

College Starts in High School

Story about a new trend, high school students enrolling in college courses:

"A record number of Illinois high school students enrolled in college courses this fall, racking up credits that fulfill high school requirements and also get them started on a college transcript, state records show."

Doubtless this is a new income stream for colleges. Is this also related to the dumbing-down of high school? In other words, students take college courses for a real challenge?

Many of the American Founders attended college at the age of 16 - James Madison nearly made himself sick by taking double classes at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton). At The College of the United States program, we will welcome qualified 16 year olds for the full college program.

Rankling Rankings

happy with it. Here's the story on the controversy from Inside Higher Ed, including a link to the study and a downloadable database of its information. You might be interested in what kind of criteria they use.

At least the problems show how difficult it is to rank such programs - in contrast to the way it might seem from the college rankings at U.S. News & World Report or others like it.

TED as the New Harvard

  Fastcompany article about the tremendous success of TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference and videos and how people are learning from them all over the world.

"These two things -- great ideas and the human connections they create -- make TED a unique phenomenon."

A liberating education.


Hattip to Stephen Hicks.

Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits

This New York Times article reveals what good research shows actually works when studying. Result:

Moving locations and mixing up what you study. Not the usual advice! But very much in line with what goes on in a Montessori classroom!

I love what it said about cramming:

"Cognitive scientists do not deny that honest-to-goodness cramming can lead to a better grade on a given exam. But hurriedly jam-packing a brain is akin to speed-packing a cheap suitcase, as most students quickly learn — it holds its new load for a while, then most everything falls out.

“With many students, it’s not like they can’t remember the material” when they move to a more advanced class, said Henry L. Roediger III, a psychologist at Washington University in St. Louis. “It’s like they’ve never seen it before.”" (emphasis mine)

Explaining Postmodernism

I just read Professor Stephen Hicks of Rockford College's 2004 book, Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault for our book club meeting last Wednesday. As one review says, "should be in every student's backpack."

I'm taken with the brilliance of his softball approach to an ultimately devastating critique of Postmodernism and its progeny in history, literature, art, science - but most notably in politics. 

Dr. Hicks briefly reviews Postmodernism's philosophical predecessors in Rousseau, Hume, Kant and others, and the path to present-day ideas in remarkably clear exposition any intelligent layman can understand. He then explains the internal "logic" of the Postmodernist positions, starting with their epistemology,  which led to political correctness, identity politics and radical gender feminism. He also unearths why they use any manipulation of ideas and any ad hominem to silence opponents, especially those from the pro-reason, pro-liberty, limited government right.

At the climax of his argument, he answers the question: if Postmodernists believe there is no objectivity, no right and wrong, and that the values of all cultures are relative - why do they ALL believe in collectivism and statism? His careful historical and philosophical scholarship, combined with devastating logic, prove Ayn Rand's contention that irrationalist philosophies are systems of rationalization for beliefs and actions which the irrationalist does not want to admit. The book is a paean to philosophy's power.

Other members of our book club were shocked to read about how these ideas are affecting colleges and universities - and terribly worried for all the young people who's minds are being mangled by the Postmodernists. 

If you want to understand what's happening in our culture and politics today, read this book! You can find an online PDF of it at Dr. Hicks' website here.

Induction and Modern Science

See the excellent slides of Professor Milo Schield, Augsburg College, who gave a talk on the problem of induction and its consequences to modern science at our Great Connections Seminar July 18-25, 2010:

1. Induction in Science
    www.StatLit.org/pdf/2010Schield1Seminar6up.pdf
2. Formidable Challenge of Young-Earth Creationism
    www.StatLit.org/pdf/2010Schield2Seminar6up.pdf
3. Resolving the Problem of Induction
    www.StatLit.org/pdf/2010Schield3Seminar6up.pdf

He shows how the creationists are using the weaknesses of postmodernist science to undermine the theory of evolution. All with the tools of modern philosophy. What's happening to science at the fundamental level is scary and infiltrating the schools like crazy.

Thank you Dr. Schield!

Do you have to agree with your professor?

 "In response to the question, "On my campus, there are courses in which students feel they have to agree with the professor's views on the topic at hand in order to get a good grade,' 44.3 percent said yes. The answers, of course, don't prove that such agreement with a professor is in practice essential to being graded fairly, but the very fact of that perception should be of the most urgent concern to all faculty who care about critical thought and intellectual diversity...I hope that ACTA will keep the public informed of the response (or non-response) of colleges and universities in Illinois to that devastating finding."

That's Professor Alan Charles Kors, Henry Charles Lea Professor of History, University of Pennsylvannia, quoted in the Association of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) journal in response to ACTA's report card on higher education in Illinois.

Too complicated for words

Terry Teachout talks about James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Pierre Boulez and the research of Fred Lerdahl in this article. Lerdahl argues that modern art is too complicated for the human mind to comprehend.

My only complaint: he doesn't add that it's too complicated on purpose, the purpose being to make one feel that one's mind is incapable of comprehending, as a demonstration of pedestrian reason's impotence.

IMHO

Hattip to Joan Fencil.

"The End of the Best Friend"

Frightening story about the deeply intrusive spread of egalitarianism by "child-rearing experts"- sounds like 1984 or "The Comprachicos."

"For many child-rearing experts, the ideal situation might well be that of Matthew and Margaret Guest, 12-year-old twins in suburban Atlanta, who almost always socialize in a pack."

Hattip Michael Richard Brown.

David Brooks on how the Liberal Arts can help your career

Read an original take on the importance of the Liberal Arts in  "History for Dollars" . 

Plan B - Skip College

Interesting New York Times article about researchers and public policy thinkers who see the revival of vocational training as a superior life-path for a large segment of students.

"Perhaps no more than half of those who began a four-year bachelor’s degree program in the fall of 2006 will get that degree within six years, according to the latest projections from the Department of Education. (The figures don’t include transfer students, who aren’t tracked.)

For college students who ranked among the bottom quarter of their high school classes, the numbers are even more stark: 80 percent will probably never get a bachelor’s degree or even a two-year associate’s degree.

That can be a lot of tuition to pay, without a degree to show for it."

Hattip to Don Hauptman.

Shining Eyes

Fantastic TED talk by music expert Benjamin Zander about how to teach understanding and appreciation of classical music. His comments on "shining eyes" should be the sine qua non of all teachers.

Hattip Liz Parker!

Father Guido Sarducci on College

Saturday Night Live's Father Guido Sarducci on his Five Minute University: “In five minutes,” he suggests, “you learn what the average college graduate remembers five years after he or she is out of school.”

Rating the "Top" Colleges and Universities

Related to my previous post on forgotten history, take a look at the Association of College Trustees and Alumni - ACTA's - project to evaluate learning at the top-rated colleges and universities at the What Will They Learn website - it's not pretty.

For $38,361 tuition at my alma mater, Northwestern University, a student is not required to take any classes in economics, history, mathematics, science, or literature - only foreign language. University of Chicago requires courses in all but economics, history, and foreign language. The question is: what are they learning?

Another unhappy finding - the graduation rates at many of the institutions are abyssmal. Economically, these institutions are taking in millions in federal loans, yet their customers are not getting the full product. If a business did this, wouldn't everyone scream?

What happened in history class? The Great Unknown Depression of 1920.

Unemployment at 11.7%, the stock market plummeted 50%, top income tax rates (thanks to Woodrow Wilson) were at 77% - and America was in the Great Depression of 1920. Although I never heard of it before yesterday!

Why not? It wasn't long enough???? We see the selective education we get.

President Warren Harding's free-market policies got us out of this depression in 18 months, and into the Roaring '20's.

Here's an article from Cato that discusses it - and I recommend Glenn Beck's April 12th show for it's summary of the issues.

The Myth of Public Education

Through a Google alert, I came across this blog entry about liberating education. The first sentence stopped me:

"Since the creation of the Idea of Public Education, or Education for all, that education has slowly been moving away from the way Plato and Socrates would have envisioned it."

I'm not sure if the author is referring to public education in the U.S. or in general. However, here's what Richard Hofstadter, most definitely NOT a conservative or libertarian, says about public education in America in his 1962 book, Anti-Intellectualism in America, Chapter XII "The School and the Teacher":

"The criticism made by Horace Mann about one of the nation's best school systems [Massachussetts]...after 1837 are illuminating. Schoolhouses, he said were too small, and ill-situated...one portion of the community was so apathetic about education that it would do nothing for the school system, but the wealthier portion had given up on the common schools and were sending their children to private institutions...'the schools have retrograded with the last generation or half generation...' 'more than eleven-twelfths of all the children in the reading-classes in our schools do not understand the meaning of the words they read.'"

Apathy of some parents, wealthy children going to private schools, complaints of decreasing standards, poor reading skills - sound familiar???? Mann was saying this in 1837.

Hofstadter continues "The complaints continued, and the plaintive note spread from New England to the country at large. In 1870, when the country was on the eve of a great forward surge in secondary education, William Franklin Phelps, then head of a normal school in Winona, Minnesota, and later a president of the National Education Association, declared:

' [In the elementary schools] children are fed upon the mere husks of knowledge. They leave school for the broad theater of life without discipline; without mental power or moral stamina...Poor schools and poor teachers are in a majority througout the country...They afford the sad spectacle of ignorance engaged in the stupendous fraud of self-perpetuation at the public expense...Hundreds of our American schools are little less than undisciplined juvenile mobs.'"

Except for the comments about the poverty of the schools, he could be talking about today!

Hofstadter goes on for another page and a half with even more quotes from other experts, at later times in our history, with the same kinds of complaints. 


I had to ask myself: why the same kinds of complaints since the beginning of public education? Since we have poured billions in recent years into public education, poverty of the system is obviously not the problem.

No - the root cause  is at the very heart of a government-run service-system:  a disjunction between the interests of the customer (parents and children) and the interests of the provider (the government, whether of a village or the whole country), embodied in the government bureaucracies.


The government employees running public school systems do not have the discipline of the market brought to bear on them - of satisfying their customers or failing - exercised on free-market businesses. Hence, they've been a problem - and had very much the same problems from day one until today.

Fortunately, the public is catching on to the problem - at least about education.

A Father-Daughter Bond, Page By Page

 Great story about the cultivation of a father-daughter relationship through reading.

Hattip to Don Hauptman.

The Montessori Way

My review of Tim Seldin and Paul Epstein's book, The Montessori Way, on the Montessori approach to education, in which I connect biological, social, and political issues.

An Engineer's Incisive Take on Deconstructionism

Read Chip Morningstar's trenchant analysis of deconstructionism. A naive engineer-scientist, he encountered it in spades at the Second International Conference on Cyberspace in Santa Cruz, CA, April 1991 from the humanities types attending the conference.

Shocked and perplexed by the mumbo-jumbo so many were taking seriously, he devoted serious time reading up on it. His analysis is dead-on.

Remember, this is the theory that many, many, many humanities professors use to teach our children, in high school and college - the brighter, the more likely they will be introduced to it and their minds deformed.


Hattip to John Enright.

Employers want 18th century skills

 New data reviewed by Mark Bauerlein in The Chronicle of Higher Education which argues for getting a high-level liberal arts education.

Hattip to Laurie Morrow.

The Philosophical Baby

Researcher Alison Gopnik talks about the amazing findings on what babies grasp.

Hat tip to Anja Hartleb-Parsons.

Illiteracy in the Detroit Public Schools' Superintendent's Office

 If we had any doubts about root causes of Detroit's problems, this will help to dispel them:

Iliterate emails from Detroit Public School's Superintendent, Otis Mathis.


Hat tip to John Enright

Sam Adams on Education

Samuel Adams

letter to James Warren

"If Virtue & Knowledge are diffused among the People, they will never be enslav'd. This will be their great Security."