Describing vs Defining. Does it make much practical difference?

Why don't we teach children definitions for everyday objects? Wouldn't it help them to have a definition of their mother, or their toy train so that they could recognize them?

It seems not likely. Most kids wouldn't need such definitions. Barring disruptions to family life, children usually recognize their parents or toys. Besides, if they "needed" such definitions, would they need to know, in advance, how to use them? Learning to use definitions is usually what happens during schooling and many schooled people don't learn to do it well, anyway.

But in order to learn to use specific definitions of their parents and toys, would children need to learn how first how to use even prior definitions to recognize the specific ones of their parents and toys? But, then, etc. etc.

How do we avoid this logical regress?

Suppose Harry is someone we all know. It is an everyday kind of question to ask, "Can you describe Harry?" It is somehow odd to ask, "Can you define Harry?" This contrast between what it is not unusual to ask with what it is strange to ask points out an important difference between the activities of describing and defining.

Consider, again, the difference between the following answers to the question "Who is the town coroner?"

1. She's the elderly woman who lives in the green house on Logan Street.
2. He or she is the doctor who is elected to conduct official medical inquiries for the town.

We intuit that describing and defining are, in some ways, similar activities but normally differ in, at least, three dimensions: focus, criteria used, and range. The chart sketched below lays out some differences.

	FOCUS	CRITERIA	RANGE
DESCRIBE	A unique(?) individual	Easily recognizable, Often accidental	Specific, ...
DEFINE	(A "typical" individual) A class (or set)	(...) Essential Sometimes difficult to ...	Strives for ..., free from ...

Scanning the chart, as incomplete as it is, you can see some items which would be problematic for an intelligence, natural or artificial, that relied on only memory and abstraction for categorization, e.g. uniqueness, typicality, context, for a few. (For more on this see Concept as Abstraction)

For a completed chart and an expansion on this essay with practice exercises to explore the relationship between between describing and defining, see https://goo.gl/atrf21 .


Cordially,

--EGR

Three Human Dimensions of Conceptualization

The limits of your language are the limits of your world. -- Wittgenstein
Dimensions of Conceptual Definition: emotive, descriptive and communal. There are three often overlooked dimensions of importance to be considered when attempting to define a concept used by humans. They are

A: The Emotive-Evaluative Dimension. This focusses on expression of feeling or evaluation, or lack of such. e.g. creepy, cute, three pounds, light, 6 feet. These terms range from expressive to dispassionate with either positive (celebratory) or negative (deprecatory) connotation.(For more on celebratory/deprecatory comparisons, see Philosophy, Race and Language

B. The Descriptive-Uncertainty Dimension. This focusses on the extent to which judgment is based on presumption as opposed to demonstration, e.g. honest. happy, graduate, felon, equilateral, topology. These terms range from defeasible (also characterized as presumptive, ascriptive or concessive) to summative (invoking the logical sufficiency of necessary conditions).

C. The Personal-Communal. This dimension focuses on the breadth of community invoked (not necessarily actual) by the judgment. e.g. cute, annoying, criminal. These terms range from idiosyncratic to social.

It is important to note that these dimensions are not merely embellishments on the distinction in common parlance between “subjective” and “objective.” Daston and Galison in their book, Objectivity, present much evidence that this distinction has been historically problematic, particularly in the sciences. (For more on “objectivity,” see comments and references at Can Criminal or Immoral Behavior Be Dealt With Objectively?)

Unexamined, a vague concept of objectivity probably best serves the interests of those engaged in the academic, professional or commercial competition for status or markets. For more on such considerations, see Tony Becher(2001) Academic Tribes and Territories: Intellectual Enquiry and the Cultures of Discipline.)

Note well that a disagreement among humans on how to describe something need not require a difference in sensory perceptions among them. A group of people could disagree, and often do, on whether a tarantula is creepy or cute, even though they all agree that it is black and hairy.

Those who find it creepy might disagree with those who think it cute on the conditions under which the tarantula would be also dangerous. Very individual fears (or indifferences) may not be shared among members of the same community. This is common experience.

Descriptive uncertainty, on the other hand, is often overlooked or assumed to indicate a (possibly mistaken) perceptual difference underlying a disagreement. What is ignored is the judgment of uncertainty that may be quite independent of agreed-on perceived characteristics.

For some problematic examples consider the uncertainty involved in deciding that:

1. John, a convicted embezzler just released from prison, can be treated as an honest man;

2. John having memorized X number (3 or 3000?) of Spanish phrases can speak Spanish;

3. John, having acquired some number of certificates and diplomas, is educated; and

4. John, playing above average basketball in his first season, is a star player.

Each of these claims, 1 through 4, is far more vulnerable to rejection (defeasible), and would require far more consensus on evidence than the following:

5. John is six feet tall;

6. John has low blood pressure.

7. John throws the ball well.

8. John speaks some Spanish.

Why? Recognized standards of practice or broad familiarity reduces uncertainty in judgment. But uncertainty in judgment, even if supported by some measure of mathematical uncertainty, is a psychological state evidenced by our (un)willingness to pursue action. Its connection to the "real world" is at best a "psychological" one. (See Cause and Effect: essential belief, misapprehension, moral hazard?)

Isn’t this just obvious, just old hat? Apparently not. In the frantic pursuit of the imagined treasures of creating robotic homunculi, defeasible concepts of mental capacity are reduced to a fool’s gold list of sensory inputs hoped to produce sufficient conditions for characteristics of human intelligence. The three dimensions discussed above are ignored as “unscientific,” e.g. too “sociological” or “philosophical” or “legalistic,” by researchers whose conceptual hammers have been tempered in the hard sciences.

So, for example, traditional myths about teaching and learning abound among some researchers in artificial intelligence – also among researchers in other fields, e.g. psychology, organizational studies, and education. (See Five Essays: Causation in Teaching & Learning )

So, we are advised, if we want to protect humans from killer robots – or robots who just don’t give a damn about humans -- we need only “teach them human values,” or “teach them right from wrong.” (For more on this see United Nations tackles the 'fight' against killer robots; teaching them right from wrong may be the first step.— )

The 3 Dimensions as Indicators of Human Capacities.

With artificial intelligence we’re summoning the demon. — Elon Musk (2015 MIT AeroAstro Centennial Symposium)

I suspect the demon is soon to be, if not already, loosed. There are too many highly intelligent and skilled people working in AI today who, but for a misorientation away from promising sources for modeling the human mind, would have come up with something by this time. (The present situation recalls the German attempt during WWII to develop an atomic bomb: they almost got it but for having gone down an unfruitful byway.)

Some promising sources, if one wants to create an artificial homunculus, are to be found in evolutionary biology, linguistic investigations and social, especially organizational theory. ( (See, for example, Joan Bybee (2010) Language, Usage and Cognition).

The three dimensions examined above lead fairly directly to those human – and not only just human – capacities supporting the intelligence with which our evolutionary history has endowed us. But that is grist for a later discussion.




For more relating to these issues, see Trait vs. Behavior: the sometimes non-science of learning

Cordially, EGR

Teaching & Chronic Scarcity: Dodging the Need for Triage. by Gary K. Clabaugh, Ed. D.

New teachers routinely have to deal with too many students, insufficient time and too few resources to thoroughly do their jobs. In short, they struggle with chronic, severe scarcity. And that struggle leads to a centrally important question. Whom can they help without unduly shortchanging others?

I’ve spent 46 years as a teacher educator and have long wondered why so many of my colleagues fail to alert novices to this most difficult issue in teaching? Namely, how to deal with chronic scarcity?

I imagine some ignore this issue because their ivory tower is too far removed from reality for them to realize it even exists. Others dodge it because they don’t want to scare off candidates and thus lose their job. Still others simply are sappy sentimentalists intoxicated by the fantasy that pathological optimism and unreserved self- sacrifice will overcome all.

This is the very nonsense that Hollywood peddles in feature films about education: self-sacrificing teacher surmounts every difficulty through force of will, uncommon devotion and relentless optimism. But this happy horse manure only works in the movies. In the real world even the most dedicated teachers routinely face situations where their resources are so inadequate to the task that difficult, if not impossible, decisions have to be made.

Imagine you are in your initial year of teaching in the state abandoned School District of Philadelphia. Thanks to conservative up-state legislators both your school district and your inner city school are catastrophically underfunded. That is why you have a class of 45 first graders. And, thanks to mainstreaming, it includes a child severely handicapped by Down syndrome. Some administrator decided that your class was the “least restrictive environment possible.” The youngster is low functioning and has serious behavior problems. His uncontrolled actions ruin many lessons and he assaults classmates who obstruct his desires. Sometimes he even strikes out for no apparent reason. Once, while seated in the Caring Circle, he even impulsively kicked a classmate in the face.

You can forget about getting him transferred to special education. Such assignments do not begin until second grade. You have no aide. They all disappeared, (along with the school nurse and guidance counselor) because of draconian budget cuts. When you try to teach this youngster something it takes an enormous amount of your time and yields comparatively little. Meanwhile you have 44 other inner city youngsters to teach, each with their own needs, problems, interests and abilities.

The plain fact is, in a situation like this there is no way to adequately address everyone’s needs. So what is one of the first things you must do? Figure out how to distribute your time and resources to maximize learning for the greatest number while dealing with the guilt that these imposed choices induce. Unfortunately, your training never even suggested you might face such choices, much less explored how to deal with them. The romantic drivel that was handed you is no help. You urgently need to know what to do.

Fortunately, there is a time-tested method for coping when urgent demands exceed existing supplies. It is called triage, and those dealing with mass disasters practice it routinely. Here is how it works. All the casualties are sorted into three categories. Those requiring immediate life-saving attention receive it. They are assigned first priority. Those that can wait must do so. The dying is left untreated until the needs of the others have been satisfied.

Emergency medical personnel simply cannot afford to pretend that their time and resources are limitless. This grim but essential allocation saves lives. Yet teachers in training are rarely taught that they too will likely lack the time and resources to do everything that needs to be done and thus must perform triage. This lack of candid preparation tacitly encourages new teachers to expend unjustifiable time and resources on the most needy youngsters, while neglecting those who would most profit from their help. Such misappropriation is understandable, but ethically indefensible. (1)

Ignorance of the necessity of triage causes many potentially good teachers to blame themselves when they cannot do everything that needs to be done. This is one reason why, five years in, nearly half of newly minted teachers will have either abandoned the occupation or transferred to a new school.

Moreover, maintaining the fiction that triage is never necessary plays right into the hands of the politicians who, by perennially short changing public education, put teachers in situations where triage is ethically unavoidable. Then, making matters worse, these very same politicos demand that no child be left behind or, currently, that every child succeeds.(2)

It is past time to end this humbug. Teaching is just like any other occupation requiring extensive time and resources. Short-changing either results in sub-optimal performance. But at least the very worst outcomes are avoided when triage is employed.

Sincerely, GKC


1. See Edward G. Rozycki, The Ethics of Educational Triage: is Special Education Moral?

2. In December 2016 President Obama signed into law the Every Child Succeeds Act. It replaces the unlamented No Child Left Behind Act.

Teaching or Mowing: Mastering The First Principle of School Management

By Gary K. Clabaugh, Professor Emeritus, La Salle University

updated 2/3/21

It was my first year as a teacher. The students were seventh graders and the course was World Geography. The school year had just begun and it was hot and humid, so I had my ground level classroom windows wide open. As I began the lesson a lawnmower roared by just outside. To my utter disbelief, Copper Bands Charlie, the school’s janitor was cutting the lawn just a few feet from my classroom.[1] The kids could not hear a word I said, nor could I hear them.

I went to the windows and tried to get the janitor’s attention. When he finally noticed me I pointed to his mower, shook my head no and held my hands over my ears. No reaction — just a blank look. I tried a couple of other pantomimes, but he just shrugged and resumed roaring back and forth.

I shut the windows, but the heat was insufferable and the noise still deafening. I tried to conduct class at a shout, but that didn’t work and the kids were starting to snigger. Finally, I forgot the lesson, sat down at my desk, made sure the kids weren’t killing one another and waited until the janitor moved on.

As soon as the class period was over a neighboring teacher burst in complaining bitterly about the grass cutting. I agreed and we resolved to pay the principal a visit.

He saw us right away, listened patiently, leaned back in his office chair, shifted the habitual toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other and said, “Gentlemen, I understand; but Charlie is a very busy man. He has limited time to get everything done. He’s a good janitor and they are hard to find. Besides it won’t be long before the grass stops growing. So be patient.” And with that we were ushered out.

Dissatisfied and more annoyed than ever, we vowed to deal with Charlie ourselves. My colleague was a science teacher and a force pump was among his instructional aids. If you filled it with water and depressed the lever water shot out with astonishing force — a super soaker on steroids! Lacking anything so formidable, I armed myself with a beetle nut (about the size of a small coconut) that was included in my room’s ancient collection of largely useless geography teaching aids. Thus armed, we waited.

When the grass needed another cutting, Charlie and his mower once again roared into action. But this time my colleague squirted him and his mower with a high velocity stream of water while I threw the beetle nut at the instruction-destroying duo. I missed, but the water forcefully impacted both Charlie and his lawnmower and both were steaming. The kids thought the whole thing hilarious.

Of course my neighbor and I were summoned to the principal’s office and crossly asked why we had soaked Charlie and his lawn mower. The principal also added, “And what if that coconut had hit him?” (I thought it unwise to correct him.) We replied that we had reached the end of our tether, that it was impossible to teach with Charlie mowing and that we had already tried asking him for help.

A bit chagrined by our reminder of his earlier inaction, he let us go with a warning. “Don’t ever do anything like that again.” But Charlie stopped cutting the grass during school hours.

This was not the only incident that caused me to think this principal’s priorities were way out of wack. Before the school year began he did not allow any teachers in the building, explaining that he didn’t want the nicely buffed floors scuffed by foot traffic. He also insisted that all classroom window blinds be raised or lowered at matching heights during the day, and be just 6 to 8 inches above the sill at day’s end. He was death on classroom clutter and trash on the cafeteria floor. Attendance registers had to be meticulously maintained. And he was absolutely obsessed with classroom and hall bulletin boards. They had to be attractive, colorful and changed regularly even though I never saw a single kid paying any attention to them.

The one thing he rarely, if ever, checked on was whether the kids were actually learning. As a novice teacher I found this puzzling. As a retired veteran I understand it fully. This principal, who appeared to be a slightly befuddled hayseed, had fully mastered the most fundamental principle of school management. It is, to forget about the mission; i.e. the things that are celebrated, but fail to provoke outrage if they remain unaccomplished. For instance: “Preparing all students to reach their greatest potential, thus becoming responsible and productive citizens.”[2] A principal’s job never depends on accomplishing such lofty humbug. He or she need only give it lip service

Focus instead on functions; i.e. those things that are never celebrated but generate outrage should they remain unaccomplished. For instance, the cafeteria food being ready on time, the school grounds being well manicured (including well cut lawns) the busses being on time, and the attendance records meeting state reimbursement standards.

My principal was not the benighted hayseed I initially took him for. He shrewdly grasped what had to be done and did it. He assiduously attended to every function, making absolutely certain that things ran smoothly and looked right. He largely ignored mission related issues because he knew they were not critical for him and his future.

For a detailed treatment of the mission/function distinction see, Edward G. Rozycki, Mission vs. Function: limits to schooling aspiration.

-- GKC

[1] “Copper Bands” was so named because he habitually wore copper bands on his wrists and ankles to ward off arthritis. (Since he had worn them for years and never developed that infirmity, he was utterly convinced they were effective.

[2] This is later updated Mission Statement of the Red Lion Area School District, Red Lion, Pennsylvania. (updated 2/3/21)

Educator Self-Lobotomy with Slogans

It's not teaching if there's no learning... Justin Tarte . Blog. Life of an Educator. 9/27/13

Despite my advancing years -- which belie the common belief that with age wisdom increases -- I never cease to be amazed, disturbed, even, by how those who style themselves “educators” insist on benumbing their thought processes with hyperbole: short, catchy, unfortunately memorable slogans. (We ancients can remember such gems as, “I’d walk a mile for a mild, mild Camel “ -- a cigarette, not a beast of burden. Ah… nostalgia!) See Slogans: junkfood, dead-weight or poison?

Can you imagine doctors who would say, “If the patient does not get well, we are not 'really' practicing medicine.”?

Would a physicist declare, “Since our research failed to support our hypothesis, we must have been practicing culinary arts instead of physics!”?

What member of the clergy would concede, “Because our congregation members continue to sin, it must be the case that we are -- intentionally, or not -- servants of Satan.”?

Even those putative educators enamored of snappy, mindless slogans might reconsider their allegiance to exaggerations such as “It's not teaching if there's no learning” were they to be told that their paychecks would be reduced after a year in proportion to the demonstrated depth and breadth of learning of all the pupils in their charge, no excuses accepted.

At this point -- someone, particularly among a group of “reform-minded” educational “theorists” (usually not in-the-trenches public school teachers) -- will jump up and declare, “But it’s time we stopped making excuses for our failures and got something accomplished.” (Likely there will be much hand-clapping to follow and assorted hoots of approval.)

Really? What if they’re not “our” failures? Will our “taking ownership” of them result in our acquiring the power to have an effect on them? And since when does wanting to get something done count as being able to do it? Cheerleaders, and, even, enthusiastic fans, do not win games. Skilled, somewhat lucky players and coaches do.

Don’t underestimate luck: Whitey Herzog, widely recognized by fans as one of the top-ranking field coaches in baseball, once estimated that his skills made a difference in six to eight ball games out of the hundred and fifty or so his team played each season. (See Leadership subsection of Morality & Leadership)

Many people have wondered -- after considering the descrepancies among

a. who is permitted to become a public school teacher,

b. how he or she is trained, and

c. how, finally, our public spokespersons would have him or her evaluated

whether teachers are trained to fail. Are they merely cannonfodder to be expended in deeper conflicts among competing cultural and political interests? (See Cannonfodder)

At the end of the day, of course, we could just, more comfortably, perhaps, adopt the attitude that such slogans as “It's not teaching if there's no learning,” are just harmless pep-talk confected by teacher-trainers to whip up enthusiasm in their clientele.

I would suggest that it is more accurate, wiser even, to recognize such slogans as dysfunctional to the preparation of good teachers. They are not medicine, not even palliative, to the ills of schooling.

To examine these issues further, see Causal Fallacy in Teaching and Learning

Cordially

--- EGR

Formal Education as Stultification

edited 080619

Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind. -- Plato

School days, I believe, are the unhappiest in the whole span of human existence.
They are full of dull, unintelligible tasks, new and unpleasant ordinances,
brutal violences of common sense and common decency.-- H.L. Mencken (1929)

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. -- Albert Einstein

Einstein much disliked school regimen and rote learning. His interest in physics was initially extracurricular. He was working as a clerk in a patent office when in 1905 he wrote the papers that would lead to his winning a Nobel Prize in physics in 1921.

Benoit Mandelbrot, although an established mathematician, was ridiculed for “wasting time” on “useless, non-traditional mathematical monsters,” which Mandelbrot called “fractals.” Like Einstein, he lived to see his insights come to be accepted as major contributions to his field.

Formal education can be stodgy and stultifying, both in process and product. I suspect, from my own experience, that that is true for most people a good portion of the time.

Have you ever thought about why the “Books for Dummies” is such a well-selling series? The answer is obvious, if you’ve ever used them. They get to the point. They give you reasons for the theory by showing applications. They don’t go into detail for its own sake. They even use humor to illustrate a point. They are written for the customer, most likely the student!

In contrast, junior and senior high school texts are written to pass review by school system book reviewers on the lookout for anything local politicians might consider offensive to their constituencies. Neither student interest, nor even usefulness to the teacher, is of high, if any, priority. The texts may be filled with factual errors, for which the publishers will pay a fine, if caught. But the errors needn’t be corrected afterward. School boards treat the fines as a discount. (See Beyond the Textbook.)

College texts are written for professors, who will have their students buy them, even if they are scarcely used in the course. For this reason, the writers of college texts worry more about the response of their professional colleagues, than about what the students might think.

In general, school texts are careful to avoid controversy, to seldom, if ever, offer criticisms about the disciplines or about those who practice them. Publishers tend to dissuade authors from leading learners to think “outside the box”: it may put off prospective buyers. (See Reason and Authority in Education)

University life is filled with quaint traditions and cultural practices. Knowing your place and acting accordingly is are two of the more difficult ones to acculturate oneself to. But it is most dismaying to realize that conformity in the pursuit of knowledge is a major desideratum.


For references and to examine these issues further, see Evaluating Learner Strengths and Weaknesses: 
the Impediments of Formalism


Cordially
--- EGR

The Bigger the Bolus, the Better the Brain: education as Trivial Pursuit

“Many a man fails to become a thinker only because his memory is too good.” -- F. Nietzsche

In the name of school reform, millions of students spend more and more of their life swallowing down and regurgitating ever larger masses of "fact." To what end?

If our knowledge of the world distracts us from our knowledge of ourselves, what good is it? Really, other than a university medievalist, who cares that Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor on Christmas Day, A.D. 800? If our abilities at problem-solving enable us to "construct a reality" that is merely self-aggrandizing or self-flattering, what good is it?

Really, other than railroad engineers, who gives a damn about where one train starting in Chicago and traveling east at sixty miles per hour meets another starting in New York and traveling west at eighty miles per hour? In and of themselves, neither answer nor process nor "deep meaning" has any meaning at all.


To examine these issues further, see KNOWLEDGE IS GOOD: some misgivings


Cordially
---- WAC

All Schools Are Little Wheels: the J. Fred Muggs Effect

updated 12/27/20

The little wheel run by Faith…
…(W. Guthrie, Ezekial Saw the Wheel}

Many of us were shocked, -- shocked, I tell you, -- to read (more likely, see on TV) that chimpanzees, affectionately known as "chimps," were not just the cute buffoons we had been seeing all our lives in the media. In the wild, they warred against other clans of their own kind and hunted and fed on the fresh kill of Bonobo monkeys; you know, those even smaller, cuter, gentler primates whose main pastimes merely mimicked those of a typical college undergraduate population. (See also 7 Adorable Animals That Could Kill You In An Instant.)

Faith in the docility, the sociability, of “pets” has brought it about that Florida is overrun by snakes of foreign origin. You flush ‘em down the toilet down there and they end up in the Everglades. (In the North, it’s alligators; elsewhere, it’s boars and cats.)

Americans make a big deal about the distinction between religious and public schools. But both rest on some kind of Faith. The great myth is that the public schools – accused dim-wittedly of being “secularist” – put their faith in Science. Not so.

A group of psychological researchers have reviewed the literature and determined that the following beliefs – often fanatically held by many public school personnel and university trainers of teachers-- are false or lack verification:

--There are left-brained and right-brained people
--Intelligence tests are biased against certain groups of people
--Students have learning styles. Teachers can teach to them.
--Heritable traits cannot be changed.
--Low self-esteem causes psychological problems.

A recent book, 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology. Shattering Widespread Misconceptions about Human Behavior, by Lilienfeld, Lynn, Ruscio and Beyerstein explains the 50 myths and actually mentions 167 more.

How much so-called education, not to mention educational reform, is carried on assuming that these either downright false or unproven ideas are true? How many so-called Best Practices are based on these myths? Perhaps reform doesn’t take in schools because too many people would rather hold on to their chimps – pardon me, “faith” -- than be effective educators.

To examine these issues further, see The Pop-Psych Schoolhouse: Educational Reform Mired in (Inspired by?) Scientific Misconception

Cordially
EGR

Who Can We Trust to Raise Our Children?

“A village is a hive of glass, where nothing unobserved can pass” -- Charles H. Spurgeon (1834-1892)

Does it take a village to raise a child. To be what? Village idiot? Village prostitute? Village drunk? Village ne'er do well? These are not failures of village education but roles integral to certain kinds of community life. Without the fallen, the at-risk, the tempted, those we celebrate as moral leaders would have little to do in a village. Comfortable educators purveying their wares to an increasingly comfortable clientele sentimentalize beyond historical recognition the outcomes of village life. These outcomes were usually not very good for the majority of village dwellers. The motto of village life is not "Thrive" but "Just survive."

Did my village raise its children? Yes, in some sense. Any adult felt free to tell a child what to do. Children were expected to obey. When an adult told me to hand over my mother's grocery money to him for safe-keeping, I, at seven years old, was not considered at fault for obeying. The presence of the thief was the neighborhood scandal. He was an outsider; he had to be. Only outsiders did really bad things in our neighborhood. What our neighbors did, e.g., bloodying their wives' noses, breaking their child's arm, wasn't really bad. For “our own kind,” the quality of mercy could not be strained.

To examine these issues further, see School and Family: A Partnership for Educational Success?


Cordially
-- EGR

What is School For? Honors or Knowledge?

Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them. -- Aristotle

Kindergartners “graduating” in caps and gowns to first grade are just so cute! High-schoolers in caps and gowns, too, are “cute” even though they may still be reading on pretty much the same level as the little tykes.

Too many people see the point of schooling to be the collecting of gold stars, trophies, diplomas and the like, irrespective of whether these are indicators of practically useful or self-transforming knowledge acquired and retained.

Parents want their kids to get high grades no matter what; cheating and plagiarism are frequently thought of as just techniques for “getting through.”

A billion-dollar industry exists to help parents place their darlings in the “highest-ranked” colleges; little does it matter what the students will do once they get there.

What does all this cost? What is all this worth?

To examine this issue further, see Educational Assessment: 
confusing status with achievement

Cordially,

---EGR

What Can Be Learned? By Whom? Under What Circumstances?

“Insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results” -- Albert Einstein

Is the push for academic achievement in American schools a pursuit of useable knowledge? Or is it little more than an ego-gratification activity? Will having more “college-educated” people make us, as a nation, wealthier, stronger, wiser? Or will it merely contribute to the pointless, evanescent conflicts generated by simpering celebrity spokespersons.

We Americans have long rushed to solve problems without considering what exactly the problems were. Americans in the Armed Services have, through many a battle, suffered mightily from hastily under-planned, under-resourced military campaigns based on false, or outmoded assumptions. (Watch the Military Channel on TV for many an example forthrightly described as such.)

American public schools have been being “reformed” for over a hundred years. Each “reform” has been much the impetus for the next. But who wants to be bothered with “philosophical questions” such as those given above in the title of this blog entry?

The danger of such inquiry, I suppose, is that if we were to examine those questions carefully, we might come to conclusions that bring us to reject proposals and programs dear to the hearts of many an ideologue, or “entrepreneur.”

 For references and to examine these issues further, see Models of Learning

Cordially

--- EGR

The Academic Carnival: A ticket to the good life?

Fifteen years ago I asked a college graduate working for a moderately-sized company how she found the corporate life. She remarked that while it was engaging, the surprising thing was that 90% of the work was done by 20% of the people. She couldn’t figure out what the rest contributed.

There used to be a bank in Pennsylvania that appointed the sons of its wealthiest depositors as “directors” of sorts for one particular branch office. These “directors” were paid not insubstantial salaries despite their almost continual absence from work. Residents in nearby communities knew better than to go to that branch and expect service. The depositors whose often fully-grown “kids” were “working” and “titled” were happy the bank could provide their scions with a “respectable” occupation.

John Kenneth Galbraith once remarked that the most philanthropic of institutions in American society was the corporation: for a select group of “employees” few other institutions rewarded low productivity so handsomely.

In the colleges and universities that nowadays claim to prepare students for life in our greater society, certain traditions and practices have existed among a select few students almost since that fateful day in 1636 when Harvard College was founded: slacking off, plagiarism, cutting class, cheating, intimidating faculty, vandalism and social promotion.

As higher education continues, year by year, to cost more, the plebeians have caught on. They have come to the conclusion that the purpose of college is to get a certificate of entitlement to the “good life.” And you can avoid a lot of drudgery – e.g. reading, writing, thinking – if you know how to game the system. (See The University as Rumpelstiltskin.)

Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa in their book, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, report that in their broad study of American colleges a large proportion of students showed no improvement in reading, writing and critical thinking skills for their first two years, and very little afterward.

The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) is a comprehensive survey for freshmen and seniors in which they report the number of books read, papers written, hours spent preparing for class, as well as provide indicators of student collaboration, student-faculty interaction, and the overall campus environment. Although many top-ranked universities participated in this study, those institutions have blocked the general public from access to its results. Are they worried about invasions of privacy?

But the source of many of these problems may well reside with those who criticize them most severely: the public, corporate leaders and their legislative representatives.

To examine this and related issues further, see Fiscal Policy Effects on Grade Inflation


Cordially
--- EGR

From non-Science to Nonsense: Can all children learn? It Depends.

updated 12/20/20

Here is a question to test your “faith” as an educator: Can All Children Learn?
Don’t rush to answer it. It is a trick question. Let’s see how.

In the February 25, 2008 issue of Time Magazine an article appeared titled, "How to Make Great Teachers." In it a teacher-training "expert" reveals that public education, so-called secular education, should be in fact a peculiar kind of faith-based education.

The expert is quoted as saying that "Anyone without this (article of faith) has no business in the classroom!" The article of faith referred to is "an unshakeable belief in children's capacity to learn." This required article of faith for people in our secular public schools -- is a variation on the commonly encountered, and easily mouthed mantra: all children can learn.

Suppose someone offered as an article of faith, "All vegetables can cure." Suppose, in addition, that our proselytizer insisted that unless a person professed this faith in the capacity of vegetables to cure, that person didn't belong in any hospital, pharmacy, restaurant, farm or whatever place vegetables are handled.

Clearly, we would want to know which vegetables, under which conditions, are claimed to cure which illnesses. Not only that, we would want to know what evidence was there to support such claims. We would not be surprised if -- indeed, we would expect -- to discover that some vegetables, prepared in some ways, do not cure any known disease.

But even more suspicious is the way the issue has been presented. Why in such vague terms, "all vegetables," "can," with no circumstances mentioned and "cure" without saying what is to be cured? And why would someone need "unshakeable belief" as a condition for employment? Isn't practical knowledge acquired through experience, rather than being absorbed unshakably in advance as an article of faith?

Let's do the drill we would use with vegetables: Which children do we mean, in what conditions, under what circumstances? What can they learn, to what degree, in how much time? Suppose we could establish that 99.9% of children could learn something, somewhere, somehow, after some period of instruction. This would still be far from encouraging to parents, and, especially, to educators who must teach those very specific children assigned to them, in the classroom to which they are assigned, in the time allotted, the specific, complex subject matter imposed by the school.

Not a few people seem to believe that in order to improve American public schools, prospective teachers must be first indoctrinated with the opinion that all children can learn. I humbly offer some counter-suggestions:

1. Use the belief that all children can learn as a litmus-test for stupidity.

2. Cull out any teachers whose hold it "unshakeably" prior to any real experience in the classroom. You don't want such bubbleheads experimenting on your kids.

3. In addition, close down any teacher-training programs which employ the sloganizing indoctrinators, the frauds and the charlatans who waste the time and money of prospective teachers insulting their intelligence, denying their commonsense and undermining their morality with such drivel. Disregard their babbling about what "research" proves. No real scientist makes vague claims about "all" of anything.

4. Finally, if you are involved at the university level, disassociate your teacher-training program with any so-called "accrediting agency" (there are several) that requires adherence to the doctrine. Let us struggle to maintain education -- to the extent it is possible -- on a scientific, scholarly foundation.

Kids, one might hope, are, after all, at least as important as vegetables.

For more on muddled thinking in education, see Illogic & Dissimulation in School Reform

Cordially
-- EGR

Diagrams: Show me how you think schools influence on-the-job success

In the United States of America educators have been told for years and years that it is they who have to prepare students for the “World of Work.” It is they who have the major responsibility to get kids ready for a job.

Unfortunately, educators have accepted this burden without thinking it through. It is clearly nonsense! What responsibility does your ninth-grade English teacher have for the fact that you got laid off 25 years later because your company is "resizing" because it overexpanded?

In a world of commerce – “free enterprise” it is misleadingly called – in businesses that can’t even keep track of legal records, that can’t and won’t police its own pirates, whose stock markets are vulnerable to arbitrary manipulations, exactly how is a first, or second, or for that matter, an eleventh or twelfth grade teacher supposed to influence his student’s future success on the job?

Diagram it! Let A -> B be read “A influences (causes) B.” What in-school-A's influence on-the-job-B’s? Watch out here that you don’t step in any fresh cowpies! There are two basic rules to follow:

1. Every effect, B, has more than one (contributing) cause.
2. Every cause, A, has multiple effects.

When you start diagramming all the possible causes influencing any B, you soon see that school influences may be a weak contribution to the total.

To examine these issues further, see Moral Responsibility in the Education Industry: 
how much can school reform enhance a student's occupational fitness?


Cordially
--- EGR

Academic Formalities: Just Making Teacher Clones?

A pedant is someone – often a teacher – who insists on form, whether it helps or not. I had an elementary teacher who insisted that we pronounce the word, piano, as pee-ah-no. She gave up on that one once a couple of boys started pronouncing it as a question and answer: “Pee?” “Ah, no.” Or as a command and refusal: “Pee!” “Ah, no!”

But it is not unusual to judge a performance in different ways depending on the situation. That is why people who are generally competent outside of the classroom can appear so inept inside it. "Can you read this text?" is not merely a demand to make some sense of it, but often, in school, to identify plot, and character, author intent, etc. in the manner of a “schooled” that is to say, academic, person.

Another example of academic formalism doing dubious work is this: kids who can solve math problems in their heads are told they are wrong unless they can “show the work,” that is, pretend that their brain works the same way as their math teacher’s. That is probably why the majority of American adults suffer from mathematical phobias.

Any individual competence can be recast as a display of weakness if we restrict the manner in which it is performed. Formalisms are the “manners” we display when we present our individual achievements. Some formalisms may be necessary. Many are controversial. Others are pernicious.

To continue this discussion see Evaluating Learner Strengths and Weaknesses: 
the Impediments of Formalism

Cordially,
-- EGR

Teaching, Parenting and Learning: what are the connections?

You have probably seen the cartoon about a teacher-parent conference:

Frame 1-- Teacher and parent think about their successful student’s achievements.

Teacher: It’s good teaching.

Parent: it’s heredity!

Frame 2: -- Teacher and parent think about their failing student’s failures.

Teacher: It’s heredity!

Parent: it’s bad teaching!

How does what teachers and parents do connect with what students learn? Do teachers really influence the future like the slogan has it? Is parent influence really so important?

Bad teaching, so we are often told in the mass media, has helped bring about the trade deficit, increase in juvenile crime or other calamities. And parents are to blame as well.

But why not blame someone or something else? Why should educators, and parents, even, be held even partly responsible?

Can we clarify what it is reasonable to hold teachers and parents accountable for? A clearer idea of what notions like cause and effect are might help.

To continue this discussion see Causal Fallacies in Education

---Cordially

EGR

Politics, Promises and School Improvement

edited 7/25/18

"If wishes would bide, beggars would ride"
-- John Ray (1670) Collection of English Proverbs

It is easy to make promises about improving schooling; especially, on the campaign trail. However, realities are complex. Talk is said to be cheap; but, only for those who do not have to pay the costs of easy political rhetoric haphazardly implemented.

Educators suffer the tensions of conflicting expectations. They face the frustrations of having to use mandated methods that are seldom highly effective. Suffering insult upon injury, they are offered resources so sparse as to suggest a serious belief in magic.

But there are others, also, for whom talk is not cheap. They are parents and children who are led to expect so much, perhaps too much, from schools begrudgingly supported in their tasks. Their dreams wither, ultimately unsustained by those sloganizers who enjoy the fruits of elective office while avoiding its responsibilities.

But do our political leaders really have that much control? Does the very nature of our democratic pluralism complicate matters?

To examine these issues further, see Politics, Consensus and Educational Reform

Cordially
EGR

Pursuing a Career in Education. It Ain’t About Student Achievement.

Just like many a big private or parochial school, big public schools are bureaucracies. And many have come to be run by administrators – escapees, often, from the classroom -- for whom career takes precedence over place. “Be true to your school!” is preached to students, few others.

A principal looks to become superintendent; a superintendent, mayor, perhaps, or state commissioner of education. “Don't rock the boat,” “Suffer fools gladly,” “Go with the majority opinion – no matter how blatantly uninformed,” are rules for getting ahead. So it is that really dealing with problems in today's schools places one's career at risk. In many places around this Home of the Brave and Land of the Free, principals (and teachers) have been removed for being too concerned with student achievement or well-being.

Consequently, some principals will deal with the problem of student misbehavior by refusing to allow it official recognition. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Tough kids aren’t bullying: they’re just “fooling around.” Girls who complain of sexual harassment are merely “flirting.” School suspension rates will be reduced by some administrative procedure – “in-house” suspensions which do not affect attendance rates, -- rather than by trying to deal with the reason for those suspensions -- an iffy if not overwhelming task.

Student achievement rates will be raised by pressuring teachers to grade less stringently. Plagiarism is accepted as a research method. Parents, especially in middle-class neighborhoods, collude in this chicanery. After all, it helps their kids get into “good” colleges (where they continue to cheat their way through advanced degrees and professional certificates). None of this, of course, helps students learn or adds to human knowledge or well-being, but such machinations can do wonders for an administrator’s career.

To examine these issues further, see Opting Out of Public School: Eluding the Bureaucracy

Cordially
EGR

Making Effective Teachers: engineering or wishful thinking?

“Every child deserves an effective teacher,” says Brian Armstead, director of civic engagement at the Philadelphia Education Fund. (Reported in the Philadelphia Inquirer, March 31, 2009 B4) What Armstead said sounds good; and it’s so very heart-warming. But it’s not only wrong; it’s misleading. What someone deserves depends importantly, not on some magic pill, but on how they personally contribute to the process of their own betterment.

Consider the idea, “Every patient deserves effective medicine.” Would a patient who mixes Tylenol with alcohol, or who skips doses have a valid complaint should they not improve? Only if the effectiveness of a medicine were to be misjudged by not considering whether every patient actually took the medicine prescribed for them in the manner indicated. Effectiveness of a medicine is judged on the assumption that it will be properly used by the patient.

Also consider the idea, “Every driver deserves a safe car.” Would a driver who speeds in and out of dense traffic, or who fails to have safety checkups for his car have a valid complaint should he get into trouble? Is the basic safety of a car to be downgraded because its owner is a bad driver?

The best of teachers will not be effective with a student who comes to class unprepared, who does not do his homework, or is disruptive or inattentive. Learning is not merely a teacher effect on a student, but the outcome of a cooperative effort between teacher and student (and often parent).

Armstead’s group, as well as Philadelphia School Superintendent Ackerman, talk as if they or someone else can determine the effectiveness of teachers in advance and apart from the kinds of students they are assigned to teach. This is clever politics – it tells parents and an uninformed public what they want to hear. But, it is wishful thinking.

To examine these issues further, see Increasing Teaching Efficiency

Cordially
EGR

"Making Kids Learn” and Other Twitter-Worthy Superstitions

updated 2/3/21

A good deal of TV airtime is spent showing talking heads talking to other talking heads chosen by mysterious persons for obscure reasons to fill-in time between commercials. The economy is the hot issue right now so we get “experts” – who somehow managed not to see the crash coming – telling us how it should have been avoided and how it can be fixed. Ah! The Science of Economics!

Another favorite topic for talk-show wheezes is how to “fix” the public schools. Taking time away from their spells and potions, assorted “authorities” present their latest encantations to ward off or invoke obscure, ill-defined “effects” by manipulating even vaguer “causes.” Ah! The Science of Education!

To examine these issues further, see
Causal Fallacy in Teaching and Learning


Cordially

--- EGR>