Firstly, he says
The salient point (to me, at least) is that arbitrary measures of educational success (like, oh, standardized test scores) don't really take into account the inherent differences in everyone's intelligence (and this doesn't even get into the concept of different types of intelligences).I don't really think this statement is even accurate anymore. At least, maybe, I hope that it's not. I would pray that in this day and age, we (by which I mean school systems and, more generally, society at large) do not claim that standardized tests measure intelligence at all. More on this later, but they instead claim to measure achievement.
With regards to intelligence, the term itself is a ridiculous throwback concept to an overly simplistic view of the brain as a very powerful general computational machine. Now, you may not believe in the evolutionary psychology model of the brain evolving as a vast series of independent but interconnected 'demons', in the parlance of the field, but I think we can surely all agree that people can be intelligent in very different ways.
For instance, I am capable of holding vast numbers of facts about things in my head, and making sometimes quite nonlinear connections between two seemingly unconnected concepts using these facts. Also, I am very good at applying math to everyday problems, and at solving math problems generally. This is, quite clearly, a type of intelligence.
However, any number of my ex-girlfriends will tell you that I am absolutely horrible at 'reading' people. I cannot read between the lines at all, and have an awful tendency to fail to understand how words I use might interact with the mental state that someone is in to have a completely unintended effect. This has led to some comically funny and some tragically sad misunderstandings.
You can call this 'emotional intelligence', which I personally think is a belittling term. It's a type of intelligence, is all. Totally different from the type that I have in spades, but just as valid a measure of brainpower, and also just as important in thriving in society. Everyone knows the stereotype of the super-smart engineer who can barely carry on a conversation about topics other than his or her field of study, but I don't think that person is any smarter than an incredibly intuitive artist, who can capture the emotions of a scene flawlessly in a painting, but can't balance his or her checkbook.
So, getting back to the concept of achievement, which is the crux of Shane's comment. My problem is not that they necessarily do a bad job of measuring achievement. There is undoubtedly some correlation between, say, SAT scores and college grades, if not an especially strong one. But I bet that some really good testbuilders could make a test that would have an even stronger correlation with college grades, graduation rates, etc. My point is none of that really matters.
I don't want to know how you're going to do in school. Success in school is good at predicting pretty much one and only one thing: how well you will do in more school. It's a sad, sad way of predicting whether you have the abilities, curiosity, dedication, etc. to do well in "the real world." That's the problem I have with our schooling system. By mandating so many fields of study (and the wrong ones, but that's another post altogether), they have prevented students from being able to, at least until they get to college, actually study, in depth, the things they are interested in. Any better school system is going to have to provide for these opportunities before it can be an improvement at all on the current setup.
The last point I will make here is that no single school model can possibly account for all this. There's no way that a single school, or even educational model, can properly teach gardening, automotive mechanics, physics, and post-modern painting. There is no 'best system' that somebody very smart is going to come up with. It's going to start when someone is given the opportunity to try something really new, and it works well for some people, and someone else says 'hey, I can do better than that' and applies those ideas in some new direction altogether. Any new system we have ought to be flexible enough to allow all this to happen.
2 comments:
You know, it took me a while to decide if you were agreeing or disagreeing with me... then I decided it was neither.. :)
I didn't say standardized test measured intelligence (I did say they measured "educational success").
And you describe the concept of different intelligences pretty well. :)
I think, ultimately, we're taking the same information and reaching two conclusions, which don't conflict in any way...
The the article I linked to points out that an identical test result/essay/assignment from two students can (and often does) mean two very different things...
For Susie Smarty, that B+ essay probably indicates some variety of underacheivement.
For Average Joe, the same B+ essay might be excellent work.
Add that to Dave's theory that school success only predicts more school success, and we should absolutely ignore standardize test results. (Which is too bad, I feel slight proud of my SAT score... :) )
But, doesn't "No Child Left Behind" take the opposite course? Aren't we taking a decidedly poor path by mandating certain success ratios on standardized tests? Doesn't that push us further into teaching the wrong subjects (or not enough of the right ones)?
This is one of those ongoing challenges... How can the Federal Government ensure that its young citizens are being well-enough educated to continue the societal growth we all seem to think is a good thing? Any set of regulations (like NCLB) will not allow for the kind of flexibility that Dave's advocating here. So, do you leave it to state and local governments? But doesn't that generate class segregation (which is what NCLB is meant to prevent), where wealthier (and presumably better educated) people create higher standards, forcing schools in that area improve the education they offer?
This is why I think someone needs to say that the educational system in broken. The model we have now is, very much, the same model we had 100 years ago, or more.
We've learned much in that time. Enough to speak on blogs about concepts like "emotional intelligence." Don't you think it's time to update the way we teach people?
We're fighting the bureaucratic inertia of models and definitions from generations ago.
Take special education, for example. 40 or so years ago, someone determined that some students required special attention, and struggled to succeed in a standard classroom environment. So, programs to help the learning disabled (or disadvantaged, depending on your PC-ness) were created. Today, we recognize that there are scores of different types of learning disabilities, and yet the programs designed to help them have not been significantly altered to accomodate the numerous varieties of assistance they require.
Schools today are the same. Students who succeed, generally, are those who can, to a certain extent, fit themselves into the mold of our educational system. Those who cannot, struggle.
We don't have a system in place to even begin to accomodate different learning styles, not to mention creating freedom to pursue early interests.
And mandating test scores certainly isn't going to get us there.
The system's broken. Now, if only we had the means and will to fix it.
I feel obligated to chime in here, for two reasons. First I have to point out how you (both of you) may have a scewed view of education and what you get out of it. Second, I did fairly poor in school, despite being fairly intellegent, in the analytical way, not the emotional way, and do quite well for myself now.
First, you're very smart, so what you learned in 2nd or maybe 3rd grade is about all you need to know to pass the "No child left behind" standardized test. By the time I'm 80, in my "adult diaper, kidney dialysis years" I'll still be able to pass that test. It really has nothing to do with how intellegent you are, in any way, but just how much you learned about basic skills.
Second, grades vs SAT scores vs life successfulness really have nothing to do with each other. I had crap grades, pretty good SAT scores and seem to be succeeding in life. I've seen plenty of people who did great in school but suck at life, or sucked at school and won at life (each vibber for instance).
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