Today, I spoke in-person to a coworker (born in 1960) who is a graduate of California’s number one high school - Lowell High School in SF. He had completed foreign language and science courses in Junior High - that I didn’t touch until High School. He initially didn’t want to go and be “out of place”, but his parents made it clear the decision was theirs not his. I told him that I reject the equity proposal that academic admission testing be banned and that I want students in primary and middle school to have the academic attention they need.
As a parent who oscillated between neighborhood and choice schools, I'm interested in the tension between choosing what's right for the individual vs the community. Chin emphasizes that the students are at Stuyvesant *for themselves*, in contrast to the notion that they're representing their ethnic community. It's an important point, but also seems to miss a broader dynamic in public schools, which is the mixing of students of differing abilities. By "creaming" these students into elite schools, left-behind students have fewer examples of excellence to mix with. Perhaps the Nobel prizes we gain by this type of elitism make it worth it. But there are surely costs?
I've been that bright kid in an underperforming school. All I remember is being resented by the teachers and flat-out hated and beaten by the other students. Only someone who has never experienced that could say something as silly as that kids need "examples of excellence" around them. Examples of excellence get their asses kicked, and even at 55, I still feel the aftereffects of years of relentless childhood bullying, ostracization, and physical abuse. If I had a bright kid, I'm damned if I'm going to let them stew in a miasma of underperformance, boredom, underachievement, and persecution.
Do you know when I started enjoying going to school? When I started being given academic challenges that I actually enjoyed instead of racing through my homework in under a minute? When my parents were finally able to afford to get me into a better school. Now maybe you'd consider a kid like that acceptable collateral damage for the good of society, but do not waste my time acting like the neglect of unusually bright children is a price you're willing to pay. Most schools already have the attitude that smart kids can be neglected, ignored, and forgotten about because they'll muddle through on their own. It's repulsive, and it ensures that the only bright kids who will ever make good on their potential are the bright children of well-connected parents.
Now awaiting what will either be a condescending psychoanalysis session or an echoing silence.
Suoj - thank you for exploring “How students learn”. My partner’s nephew at age 9 would pretend “read” aloud by reciting a memorized pronunciation of the word he thought each word looked like. That is not reading. My partner and I observed a severe unmet skills need at an early age, that was not remedied by parent, nor school. Older brother of 9-year old had been told by parent, “The important thing is to get a job, you can always finish high school later on”.
What a prime example you give! And the real sadness, is that if a kid is pretending to read, it tells you how badly that kid really wants to have mastery of the ability.
There is another great piece, which is an interview of Emily Solari by Emily Oster. https://emilyoster.substack.com/p/learning-to-read-why-some-schools . I like this quote: "One common rebuttal to the implementation of explicit and systematic early phonics instruction is that it does not foster a joy for reading. I would like to flip this and ask people to consider: It’s very hard to develop joy for reading if you can’t read. A child who is not taught how to read is a child who is more likely to become disengaged in school; they become frustrated and this impacts all academic content areas."
I think it is important to amplify the core issue, which is that educational pedagogy is failing many children on the basics of reading and math. It is hard to see at first glance, because certain demographic groups can compensate for this failure. So, it is easy for the current zeitgeist to misperceive the issue as one of inequity.
Another area that is completely understudied is visual tracking. Whole-word reading approaches might really mess with the early eye muscle development and eye/brain coordination crucial to reading-based focusing, movement, and visual grouping. Age 7-11 is just such a crucial developmental window for brain circuitry. By the time a kid is in middle school, a lot of that ship has already sailed.
Only part way through the discussion. I am opposed to changing admission criteria at top schools. Many readers know that the legendary Neil DeGrasse Tyson is from the Bronx STEM school. Neil is not just one person who excelled at STEM. Because he excelled, he has a tool kit that he uses to improve the life and educational experience of many many children. Rather than threaten the top schools with “intervention”, NY City needs to create a respectable upper-middle tier of schools. Similar story in SF, where I live. SF is home to Lowell High School- #1 in the state. The School Board is considering or perhaps has already decided to eliminate test-based admissions in SF. This means SF will produce no graduates who become mentors and nurturers per the Neil DeGrasse Tyson model.
The modern educational "top-down"-learning paradigm is failing children in the basics of reading and math. And this has serious consequences downstream. The top-down paradigm is well intentioned, but it just doesn't work. This is especially so in the formative 7-11yo years, when the young brain is primed for "bottom-up"-learning through repetitive practice with an authoritative figure. Instead, the modern educational paradigm is inadvertently teaching kids to "avoid the struggle" that is necessary for transferring base-level material into banked knowledge. This post details this beautifully in regard to early reading: https://eduvaites.org/2019/10/21/the-trouble-with-common-word-recognition-strategies/
I worry that these equity-gilded pushes against gifted programs are just another subconscious diversion among the educational-leaders to evade the hard glance inward, and recognize that educational pedagogy is fundamentally broken. The active ingredient in successful learning, is development of one's ability to "confront the struggle." And you don't develop this ability via buddy sessions with a school counselor, outside-yourself activism, nor race conscious math (none of which are inherently "bad," they are just not the active ingredient). You develop the ability to successfully work through struggle via tedious inside-yourself repetitive practice. And this practice can take place at school, at home, and in the community, and can transcend multiple subject domains (e.g. piano lessons after school). The failing students are those that don't get this repetitive practice in any venue, or if they do, it is so compartmentalized within a single domain they don't get the opportunity to have this ability generalize across all learning.
There is a great old SNL skit with Phil Hartman, in which he plays a 1950's era doctor blaming "lung fever" on dirty cigarette holders, and of course meanwhile everyone is smoking. I wish there was a video of it, because it is such a great metaphor. Education, as an organizational entity, is too invested in its own self-image of goodness to see where it is the primary source of failure. Quite sadly, successful students are being pulled into this dirty-cigarette-holder red herring because they and their families have found a way to compensate.
I was fortunate growing up. My parents provided moral support to excel in school and I felt an unspoken threat that something bad would happen if I disappointed them, that I would lose their respect or something like that. Father only completed 8th grade (lived on farm) and mother as immigrant came from different education background. I went to church and Sunday school and Saturday night revivals at age 7-9, which was activity and skills that transferred to school performance. The religious text had English words from another language use era, requiring mental focus, thought analysis and focus. And family moved out of inner city, where I had been pushed down entire flight of stairs at 2nd grade.
Absolutely. There are so many ways that families and communities compensate. Religious communities have definitely been a way for children to develop a commitment to dedicated practice and learning to do something because it is worthwhile (not necessarily fun). For some reason, your description reminds me of this quote in Life at the Bottom (recommended by a long-ago Glenn Show guest): "This is where the baleful effect of education as mere entertainment makes itself felt. For to develop an interest requires powers of concentration and an ability to tolerate a degree of boredom while the elements of a skill are learned for the sake of a worthwhile end." https://www.city-journal.org/html/we-don%E2%80%99t-want-no-education-12348.html
I think people are hesitant to comment on such matters. I spent 30 minutes this morning writing a comment, then canceled before posting. It was a light-hearted post, a little harmless gag, but I canceled myself before posting. I had nothing to gain from it.
It takes a lot of courage for people like Wai Wah Chin (and Glenn and John, for that matter) to make themselves targets of woke vitriol.
As I live across the country, I can safely comment from a distance. My practice for caution in posts/communication is to write in my “notes” app on my iPhone. Then, I go to sleep and look at it the next morning. Then I edit and decide to post or send.
Today, I spoke in-person to a coworker (born in 1960) who is a graduate of California’s number one high school - Lowell High School in SF. He had completed foreign language and science courses in Junior High - that I didn’t touch until High School. He initially didn’t want to go and be “out of place”, but his parents made it clear the decision was theirs not his. I told him that I reject the equity proposal that academic admission testing be banned and that I want students in primary and middle school to have the academic attention they need.
As a parent who oscillated between neighborhood and choice schools, I'm interested in the tension between choosing what's right for the individual vs the community. Chin emphasizes that the students are at Stuyvesant *for themselves*, in contrast to the notion that they're representing their ethnic community. It's an important point, but also seems to miss a broader dynamic in public schools, which is the mixing of students of differing abilities. By "creaming" these students into elite schools, left-behind students have fewer examples of excellence to mix with. Perhaps the Nobel prizes we gain by this type of elitism make it worth it. But there are surely costs?
I've been that bright kid in an underperforming school. All I remember is being resented by the teachers and flat-out hated and beaten by the other students. Only someone who has never experienced that could say something as silly as that kids need "examples of excellence" around them. Examples of excellence get their asses kicked, and even at 55, I still feel the aftereffects of years of relentless childhood bullying, ostracization, and physical abuse. If I had a bright kid, I'm damned if I'm going to let them stew in a miasma of underperformance, boredom, underachievement, and persecution.
Do you know when I started enjoying going to school? When I started being given academic challenges that I actually enjoyed instead of racing through my homework in under a minute? When my parents were finally able to afford to get me into a better school. Now maybe you'd consider a kid like that acceptable collateral damage for the good of society, but do not waste my time acting like the neglect of unusually bright children is a price you're willing to pay. Most schools already have the attitude that smart kids can be neglected, ignored, and forgotten about because they'll muddle through on their own. It's repulsive, and it ensures that the only bright kids who will ever make good on their potential are the bright children of well-connected parents.
Now awaiting what will either be a condescending psychoanalysis session or an echoing silence.
Suoj - thank you for exploring “How students learn”. My partner’s nephew at age 9 would pretend “read” aloud by reciting a memorized pronunciation of the word he thought each word looked like. That is not reading. My partner and I observed a severe unmet skills need at an early age, that was not remedied by parent, nor school. Older brother of 9-year old had been told by parent, “The important thing is to get a job, you can always finish high school later on”.
What a prime example you give! And the real sadness, is that if a kid is pretending to read, it tells you how badly that kid really wants to have mastery of the ability.
There is another great piece, which is an interview of Emily Solari by Emily Oster. https://emilyoster.substack.com/p/learning-to-read-why-some-schools . I like this quote: "One common rebuttal to the implementation of explicit and systematic early phonics instruction is that it does not foster a joy for reading. I would like to flip this and ask people to consider: It’s very hard to develop joy for reading if you can’t read. A child who is not taught how to read is a child who is more likely to become disengaged in school; they become frustrated and this impacts all academic content areas."
I think it is important to amplify the core issue, which is that educational pedagogy is failing many children on the basics of reading and math. It is hard to see at first glance, because certain demographic groups can compensate for this failure. So, it is easy for the current zeitgeist to misperceive the issue as one of inequity.
Another area that is completely understudied is visual tracking. Whole-word reading approaches might really mess with the early eye muscle development and eye/brain coordination crucial to reading-based focusing, movement, and visual grouping. Age 7-11 is just such a crucial developmental window for brain circuitry. By the time a kid is in middle school, a lot of that ship has already sailed.
Only part way through the discussion. I am opposed to changing admission criteria at top schools. Many readers know that the legendary Neil DeGrasse Tyson is from the Bronx STEM school. Neil is not just one person who excelled at STEM. Because he excelled, he has a tool kit that he uses to improve the life and educational experience of many many children. Rather than threaten the top schools with “intervention”, NY City needs to create a respectable upper-middle tier of schools. Similar story in SF, where I live. SF is home to Lowell High School- #1 in the state. The School Board is considering or perhaps has already decided to eliminate test-based admissions in SF. This means SF will produce no graduates who become mentors and nurturers per the Neil DeGrasse Tyson model.
The modern educational "top-down"-learning paradigm is failing children in the basics of reading and math. And this has serious consequences downstream. The top-down paradigm is well intentioned, but it just doesn't work. This is especially so in the formative 7-11yo years, when the young brain is primed for "bottom-up"-learning through repetitive practice with an authoritative figure. Instead, the modern educational paradigm is inadvertently teaching kids to "avoid the struggle" that is necessary for transferring base-level material into banked knowledge. This post details this beautifully in regard to early reading: https://eduvaites.org/2019/10/21/the-trouble-with-common-word-recognition-strategies/
I worry that these equity-gilded pushes against gifted programs are just another subconscious diversion among the educational-leaders to evade the hard glance inward, and recognize that educational pedagogy is fundamentally broken. The active ingredient in successful learning, is development of one's ability to "confront the struggle." And you don't develop this ability via buddy sessions with a school counselor, outside-yourself activism, nor race conscious math (none of which are inherently "bad," they are just not the active ingredient). You develop the ability to successfully work through struggle via tedious inside-yourself repetitive practice. And this practice can take place at school, at home, and in the community, and can transcend multiple subject domains (e.g. piano lessons after school). The failing students are those that don't get this repetitive practice in any venue, or if they do, it is so compartmentalized within a single domain they don't get the opportunity to have this ability generalize across all learning.
There is a great old SNL skit with Phil Hartman, in which he plays a 1950's era doctor blaming "lung fever" on dirty cigarette holders, and of course meanwhile everyone is smoking. I wish there was a video of it, because it is such a great metaphor. Education, as an organizational entity, is too invested in its own self-image of goodness to see where it is the primary source of failure. Quite sadly, successful students are being pulled into this dirty-cigarette-holder red herring because they and their families have found a way to compensate.
I was fortunate growing up. My parents provided moral support to excel in school and I felt an unspoken threat that something bad would happen if I disappointed them, that I would lose their respect or something like that. Father only completed 8th grade (lived on farm) and mother as immigrant came from different education background. I went to church and Sunday school and Saturday night revivals at age 7-9, which was activity and skills that transferred to school performance. The religious text had English words from another language use era, requiring mental focus, thought analysis and focus. And family moved out of inner city, where I had been pushed down entire flight of stairs at 2nd grade.
Absolutely. There are so many ways that families and communities compensate. Religious communities have definitely been a way for children to develop a commitment to dedicated practice and learning to do something because it is worthwhile (not necessarily fun). For some reason, your description reminds me of this quote in Life at the Bottom (recommended by a long-ago Glenn Show guest): "This is where the baleful effect of education as mere entertainment makes itself felt. For to develop an interest requires powers of concentration and an ability to tolerate a degree of boredom while the elements of a skill are learned for the sake of a worthwhile end." https://www.city-journal.org/html/we-don%E2%80%99t-want-no-education-12348.html
I think people are hesitant to comment on such matters. I spent 30 minutes this morning writing a comment, then canceled before posting. It was a light-hearted post, a little harmless gag, but I canceled myself before posting. I had nothing to gain from it.
It takes a lot of courage for people like Wai Wah Chin (and Glenn and John, for that matter) to make themselves targets of woke vitriol.
As I live across the country, I can safely comment from a distance. My practice for caution in posts/communication is to write in my “notes” app on my iPhone. Then, I go to sleep and look at it the next morning. Then I edit and decide to post or send.