Comments on: Making the most of what you've got

By: Ragnarok

Ragnarok — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 05:25:23 +0000

Very late, but this article is well worth reading in light of Senor Kristof’s recommendation that social workers be more involved in caring for at-risk kids:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-childabuse14-2009jun14,0,7089592,full.story

One memorable sentence:

“Four more years went by as the union representing social workers argued that the system would unreasonably increase workloads, Ploehn said. The union did not respond to a request for comment.”

By: Tracy W

Tracy W — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:40:31 +0000

Miller T Smith – thanks for explaining.

By: KateC

KateC — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 04:03:48 +0000

If you’re going to read Nesbitt, read Albion’s Seed, which explains who settled where in the US. Andrew Jackson was the first “trailer trash” president, and he horsewhipped a man who insulted his wife.

http://www.amazon.com/Albions-Seed-British-Folkways-Cultural/dp/0195069056

By: pm

pm — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:18:33 +0000

True, but that doesn’t make it useful or productive. And as I’ve blogged before I’d like to see that changed.

By: linda seebach

linda seebach — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:41:18 +0000

But pm, schools don’t have to “fit” people in ranges; they’re already *in* ranges, just as they’re in ages or heights (or sexes or races). Your idea is great, but to implement it requires tailoring school work to where children are, without regard to whether their classmates are the socially acceptable mixture of ages/heights/sexes/races.

By: pm

pm — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:32:21 +0000

“Even within a narrow range of IQ, there is wide variation in academic performance. If schools focused on ensuring that all children moved toward the top performance in their range — that is, “making the most of what you’ve got” — we’d have much better outcomes.”

Although I also suspect that Dr. Nisbett’s language is probably too strong, the whole idea of trying to fit people in ranges is useless and probably destructive. A much better idea is to stretch the current capabilities of students by making school work difficult but not too difficult.

By: linda seebach

linda seebach — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:30:52 +0000

Miller Smith is right that Nesbitt’s claim about intelligence and genetics is untrue. It was just barely tenable when Stephen Jay Gould published his tendentious book, “The Mismeasure of Man,” but 20 years of progress in genetics has rendered it ridiculous. (Though it is true that a lot of people, including some who comment here, still believe it.)

Maintaining a false belief in the face of overwhelming evidence comes at a cost. Why are destructive policies like heterogeneous classrooms and group learning still acceptable practice? Because they allow districts to disguise the (statistical) achievement gaps in their students. Why are passing scores on teacher-entry exams set so low? Because states can’t risk having huge disparities in passing rates. Why is portfolio assessment popular? Because it can be manipulated to produce politically palatable results. Why is gifted education so unpopular? Because not enough of the right people qualify for it.

Even within a narrow range of IQ, there is wide variation in academic performance. If schools focused on ensuring that all children moved toward the top performance in their range — that is, “making the most of what you’ve got” — we’d have much better outcomes.

By: Miller T. Smith

Miller T. Smith — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:34:07 +0000

Tracy W., I was taking a shot at Dr. Nesbitt’s assertion, “…what we think of as intelligence is quite malleable and owes little or nothing to genetics.” This is such a obvious untruth told only to be politically correct and thus to get money and social position for one’s self. This is a deeply dishonest professor.

By: pm

pm — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:07:15 +0000

“A look at Nisbett’s CV isn’t reassuring; he got an AB in Psychology and a Ph.D. from the department of Scial Psychology.”

I guess its no longer just race. It could simply be an interest one develops. Well what can one expect from people who graduate Summa cum laude from Tufts

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~nisbett/CV.pdf

By: Tracy W

Tracy W — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:29:20 +0000

Miller T. Smith, that’s not really an answerable question. If there are no Down’s doctors, it may be because people with Downs syndrome are incapable of learning enough to become doctors, at least until medical science can fix brains, or it may be that there are ways of teaching poeple with Down’s syndrome sufficient information to become doctors but the education system hasn’t discovered that yet. And I don’t know of any way, outside the field of mathematics, to tell the difference between “this can’t be done” and “this could be done but we don’t know how.”

But, if we are in the second situation, it seems extremely perfectionist of you to say that it would be due to the failure of the education system. Other professions, such as medicine and engineering, still don’t know how to do many things, does that really mean that they’re failing? Or does it just mean that they haven’t succeeded at everything yet? Would you really call Alexander Flemning a failure because he didn’t discover a cure for cancer along with a cure for bacterial infection? Or say that engineering has failed because the engineers haven’t yet developed robots that can do the housework?