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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Educational elitism
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Leorning Cniht
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# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Teekeey Misha:
Better education doesn't make children more intelligent. It makes them better able to use their intelligence in the ways you suggest, but it doesn't make them more intelligent. Nothing makes them more intelligent.
I think this is nonsense.
If I practice running, I get better at running. If I practice thinking, I get better at thinking. Being good at thinking is usually what we mean by "intelligent".
A good diet and good sleep patterns will also make me more intelligent.
(This is different from learning how to do things at school. The mere fact that you have learned some particular techniques doesn't make you more intelligent, although it may well enable you to use your intelligence to solve a set of problems that you couldn't have solved without knowing those techniques.
If you want an athletic comparison, then someone who learns the Fosbury flop might not be a better athlete than someone who only knows the Eastern cut-off, but he will be able to jump higher. )
There is certainly an inbuilt component to intelligence - most people aren't going to be as smart as a Nobel prize winner however much practice they get, and in a similar way I could practice running as much as I liked, but I would still get lapped by Usain Bolt.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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lilBuddha
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# 14333
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Posted
LC, your first two sentences state a position contrary to what TM said, but the rest of your post goes on to reinforce what TM said.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
--Alan: Your "if I were PM" post was great.
--IMHO, no kid should fall through the cracks--**ever**. Even someone with little compassion should be able to see that, on a pragmatic basis, it's much better for everyone to have the best chances they can--over and over and over. Otherwise, they lose hope, fall further and further down, and maybe act out or do something desperate. Better to spend a lot of money on all schools and all childhood services, than to keep building more and more prisons. (And the prisons should be safe places of respect and rehabilitation.)
All families should be able to have enough nutritious, affordable food. Here, in the US, lots don't. Kids go to school hungry, which affects their learning. Many teachers spend their own money to keep food on hand for them. Some schools also have breakfast programs.
Personal counseling should also be available free for kids. Lots of them are in difficult or traumatic situations that affect their learning and behavior in school.
I think that, if we give *all* kids the best possible start, we'll have fewer social problems--and benefit from whatever abilities they bring to society.
--Being smart, well-educated, well-trained doesn't mean that someone is better or more important. It just means they have extra tools.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
How do we improve a shit area? How do we improve the ethos of people so that they make the best use of the opportunities the local schools offer?
That would be more than just a magic bullet of taking a very small number of children to a grammar school.
If you solve those problems you won't need grammar schools any more. What's your plan?
OK, if I was PM with the full support of a loyal cabinet (has any PM ever had that?).
I suppose that would be Mr Attlee (Ernest Bevin and Nye Bevan hated each other, but were loyal to Clem). The policies you outline were very 1945-1950 era too.
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Penny S
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# 14768
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Posted
Class size and funding per pupil are also reasons for wanting a child to go to grammar school.
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
I suppose at the root of this debate is the thorny issue of the individual vs the whole student body.
As has been stated, it is perfectly true that there are some who succeed academically wherever they are educated, and it also seems clear that comprehensives can do better overall than a "total" grammar system.
But if you look at the level of the individual child then I think there is evidence that many above average students perform better in a grammar school than they would in a comprehensive school*
Now, the (or at least a) question is then whether that child performs better in subsequent education because they've been grammar school educated than if they'd performed worse in a comprehensive school.
On the one hand we can see that those who attend the most prestigious universities are overwhelmingly coming from grammars and private schools. Now, of course, we might argue that this just shows the inbuilt elitism of the system. And I'd very much agree with that to a large degree.
But I think - at least to some extent - those universities recognise that a bright student who performs less well at a comprehensive way indeed be actually more intelligent than a straight A student from a private school or grammar. We then have to wonder whether there is any difference in terms of their performance based on their entry grades. I'm not sure if that research exists, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that many of those educated in private or grammar settings do better at university than they might have done if they'd come from a comprehensive (with lower grades), just because they're more prepared for that type of educational setting and more ready for independent learning.
Of course, university isn't everything in life. And just being a good student doesn't make a good person.
* which, I think, is an argument for a much wider intake at the grammar schools. It is instructive, for example, that the grammar schools in Dover (which due to a quirk of history have their own entry examinations) perform very well even though they have a "wider" entry than the other grammars in Kent. And the Northern Ireland grammars apparently perform well even though they're education around 50% of students in the province.
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arse
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Class size and funding per pupil are also reasons for wanting a child to go to grammar school.
In Kent the class sizes are no different and the funding per student is, if anything, lower than for at least some of the non-grammars.
see this handy table
If you are looking to send your child to a grammar because it is better funded or the classes are smaller, then sorry, you're looking at the wrong things.
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arse
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I'm not sure if that research exists, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that many of those educated in private or grammar settings do better at university than they might have done if they'd come from a comprehensive (with lower grades), just because they're more prepared for that type of educational setting and more ready for independent learning.
Yes, the research exists. It's a bit ambiguous, but it mostly shows that state school pupils (I'm not sure it differentiates between type of state school) do better (more 'value added') at university than private school pupils - and for exactly the reasons you state. State school leavers are better at independent learning.
Again, my anecdata from teaching 1st year physics labs reinforces this. Private school educated kids were far more often the ones that needed spoon-feeding.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Yes, the research exists. It's a bit ambiguous, but it mostly shows that state school pupils (I'm not sure it differentiates between type of state school) do better (more 'value added') at university than private school pupils - and for exactly the reasons you state. State school leavers are better at independent learning.
That's the reverse of my guess actually! But an interesting point.
quote:
Again, my anecdata from teaching 1st year physics labs reinforces this. Private school educated kids were far more often the ones that needed spoon-feeding.
Right, that's also interesting. If that's the case, why is Oxbridge so full of the privately educated?
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arse
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
So obviously the right thing to do is focus all the resources and good teaching on Marvin the Martian and fuck the rest. Including many who were just as clever as Marvin but weren't entered. Or for whom there wasn't room. Or who had a bad day when they did the 11+. I'm really not sold on that idea.
You prefer a situation where all the resources and good teaching are focused on kids whose parents can afford to move into a good catchment area?
No, and I'm not sure how you got that from anything I said. Perhaps we should concentrate efforts and resources on schools based on the average parental income, or which have the highest proportion of children on free school meals, since we know it's children at those schools and those backgrounds who statistically are most likely to be failed by our education system.
quote:
It's all very well saying every school should be amazing and excellent and perfect, but it's never going to happen, because even if every school in the country had the facilities and teaching standards of Eton there are still too many kids out there that are just shitheads who don't give a fuck about anything academic whatsoever, and whose parents actively support them in that attitude.
And your solution is to leave them to it. And how exactly does your solution help those in those areas who do want to learn, have positive attidudes, but who aren't quite academic enough to get into the grammar school?
quote:
quote:
Well, if the fact is that the top don't do any better but the bottom do worse, then that's what we'd expect evidence to show. As it does.
You were just now saying that it's impossible to know how any given child's studies would have gone differently had they been at a different school. Is that what you think or not?
It is impossible to know what would happen to any one child. However, it is possible to compare groups - the bottom 25% academically or whatever - doing so shows little or no benefit to the top groups, but significant defecit to the lower groups.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I'm not sure if that research exists, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that many of those educated in private or grammar settings do better at university than they might have done if they'd come from a comprehensive (with lower grades), just because they're more prepared for that type of educational setting and more ready for independent learning.
My impression is that people from comprehensives generally do better academically at university. At universities with a large private or grammar intake the comprehensively educated often feel socially out of place.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
No, and I'm not sure how you got that from anything I said. Perhaps we should concentrate efforts and resources on schools based on the average parental income, or which have the highest proportion of children on free school meals, since we know it's children at those schools and those backgrounds who statistically are most likely to be failed by our education system.
I think there is quite a lot of funding and resources going into those groups in many parts of the country. And grammars are often not receiving the best resources.
Which is absolutely fine. Grammar school children can manage with less so that those with other needs get more.
As I said above, it is a misconception that grammar school kids are getting the best of everything, that's not the case.
quote:
And your solution is to leave them to it. And how exactly does your solution help those in those areas who do want to learn, have positive attidudes, but who aren't quite academic enough to get into the grammar school?
Personally I'd like to see far more flexibility to help those who could benefit (and want to) to join a grammar at other times. It does happen, but not very often.
As to your other point, my question is how the grammar school child is helping the child you mention. Isn't it conceivable that it ought to be possible for a child who is not-quite academic enough but engaged to fulfil their potential in school whether or not the grammar school child is in the classroom?
quote:
It is impossible to know what would happen to any one child. However, it is possible to compare groups - the bottom 25% academically or whatever - doing so shows little or no benefit to the top groups, but significant defecit to the lower groups.
See, there is a big difference about what you might do in the generality of the education system and the choices you make about what is best for your child.
Where my daughter was educated in Kent, as I said, there is a total grammar school system. She passed the 11-plus, if she had failed we would have moved elsewhere. And that's the reality - if you can, you make the best possible choices for your child rather than imagining that they're just a face in a crowd of the entire cohort in the country.
And incidentally, that's why this is a popular Tory policy. It presses all the buttons of individualism.
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arse
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Teekay Misha: quote:
Better education doesn't make children more intelligent. It makes them better able to use their intelligence in the ways you suggest, but it doesn't make them more intelligent. Nothing makes them more intelligent.
Actually, cultural context has quite a large effect on intelligence. See here, for example(scroll down to 'Cultural context'). The key point is this: quote:
[Lev Vygotsky's sociocultural theory] proposes that children learn a larger part of their cognitive abilities from social interactions with adults or older children and people. He distinctly defines this as the Zone of Proximal Development. Older people provide scaffolding, or tools that help children improve their cognitive abilities.
In other words, children whose parents read to them and talk to them and play with them have a huge advantage over children who are left to their own devices or stuck in front of the telly for most of the day.
Furthermore, there is quite a lot of evidence to show that the brain is much more flexible and adaptable than psychologists used to believe - they call this 'plasticity'. In effect, your brain rewires itself when you learn new things, so being in an environment where you learn a lot of new things does increase your cognitive ability (aka intelligence).
This is why the Labour government put so much money into the Sure Start programme and children's centres. Remember those? There aren't many left because the Tories have been closing them down, but if you are really interested in reducing inequality they are far more cost-effective than grammar schools.
[ 15. September 2016, 09:34: Message edited by: Jane R ]
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
But if you look at the level of the individual child then I think there is evidence that many above average students perform better in a grammar school than they would in a comprehensive school*
Now, the (or at least a) question is then whether that child performs better in subsequent education because they've been grammar school educated than if they'd performed worse in a comprehensive school.
A matter your post does not cover is the family environment. A student who can go home from school, have an individual room to do homework in rather than
sitting at a table where there is a meal being prepared and some other children playing noisily is likely to do much better. A student who comes from a home where reading and learning are encouraged will do much better. A student whose family shows it values education and also stresses the role of an education in gaining a well paid job is also likely to do much better.
Research here shows that better academic results are, on average, obtained by those from more affluent families than those from homes partly or wholly dependent upon social security , and the studies link this to the sort of factors I've outlined. What do US and UK studies show?
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
If that's the case, why is Oxbridge so full of the privately educated?
Why indeed?
It's certainly (at least historically) not because they are the best and the brightest. Money, connections, the 'right school', will all play a large part. Back in my day (30 years ago now) the interview process, where offers of EE could be made to students, also helped.
It's also the atmosphere: I went to Oxford (University college) to have a look around and an informal chat with one of the tutors when I was 17. I came away with the impression that I'd fit in about as well as a pork pie at a bar mitzvah. I didn't apply.
I know from my two children that Oxbridge is now making - having to make - an effort at attracting state school pupils. Jesus College has an outreach link to schools in my area, and Master Tor is going down next week for a residential. On paper, he's exactly the candidate they need. In practice, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell of him considering them.
Make of that what you will.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I know from my two children that Oxbridge is now making - having to make - an effort at attracting state school pupils. Jesus College has an outreach link to schools in my area, and Master Tor is going down next week for a residential. On paper, he's exactly the candidate they need. In practice, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell of him considering them.
Make of that what you will.
My daughter is being encourage/pushed into considering Oxbridge on the basis of her GCSEs but is adamant that she has absolutely no intention of attending any elite university. Make of that what you will.
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arse
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I suppose at the root of this debate is the thorny issue of the individual vs the whole student body.
As has been stated, it is perfectly true that there are some who succeed academically wherever they are educated, and it also seems clear that comprehensives can do better overall than a "total" grammar system.
But if you look at the level of the individual child then I think there is evidence that many above average students perform better in a grammar school than they would in a comprehensive school*
Yes, good insight.
quote:
* which, I think, is an argument for a much wider intake at the grammar schools. It is instructive, for example, that the grammar schools in Dover (which due to a quirk of history have their own entry examinations) perform very well even though they have a "wider" entry than the other grammars in Kent. And the Northern Ireland grammars apparently perform well even though they're education around 50% of students in the province.
I agree with this as well. If the split was more 50-50 between grammars and secondaries that would be far better.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Yes, the research exists. It's a bit ambiguous, but it mostly shows that state school pupils (I'm not sure it differentiates between type of state school) do better (more 'value added') at university than private school pupils - and for exactly the reasons you state. State school leavers are better at independent learning.
"State schools" includes grammars, so this research doesn't say anything about the current debate. I'm not aware of any statistics that show a comparison between students from grammars and comps, as state school students are generally subdivided based on where they come from and which social class their parents are in.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
I'd be unhappy with any split. For me, it'd mean explaining to my daughter that she's not considered clever enough to go to the same school as her brothers.
I don't get how the same advantages can't be achieved with setting in Comps. And I do mean Setting, not Streaming - Streaming assumes that ability goes across the subjects; it often doesn't. I was brilliant and physics, good at Chemistry and Maths, above average in Biology, and so-so to dreadful in all humanities subjects. My school streamed; I was in the top stream on the strength of my STEM subjects and might as well have sat picking my arse at the back for all I could keep up in the humanities.
I would actually posit that it's easier to provide for the student with very specific talents in particular subjects in a comprehensive school.
[ 15. September 2016, 10:54: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I'd be unhappy with any split. For me, it'd mean explaining to my daughter that she's not considered clever enough to go to the same school as her brothers.
Might well be the other way round. AIUI girls generally outperformed boys on the original 11+ and the marks had to be adjusted, or to be brutally honest, fiddled. Children mature at different ages and girls mature, generally, more quickly than boys do.
Which raises another issue. It's one thing having a selective system when you have a broadly homogenous society and settled gender roles. What will the politics of the situation be when you have girls and - say - Britons of Chinese and Polish origin outperforming white British working class boys?
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Yes, the research exists. It's a bit ambiguous, but it mostly shows that state school pupils (I'm not sure it differentiates between type of state school) do better (more 'value added') at university than private school pupils - and for exactly the reasons you state. State school leavers are better at independent learning.
"State schools" includes grammars, so this research doesn't say anything about the current debate. I'm not aware of any statistics that show a comparison between students from grammars and comps, as state school students are generally subdivided based on where they come from and which social class their parents are in.
Given that Grammar schools account for an even smaller percentage of pupils (5%) than private schools (7%), that seems to me an awfully small straw to clutch at.
So yes, the research stands. Comprehensive, state educated pupils outperform equivalent privately educated pupils at university. If you don't like it, it's not my problem.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
If the split was more 50-50 between grammars and secondaries that would be far better.
Based on your previous comments, I'd have thought the ideal split would have been 90-10.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Teekeey Misha
Shipmate
# 18604
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
[QUOTE]Being good at thinking is usually what we mean by "intelligent".
Is it? There is, I suppose, a whole world of semantic argument there; is that what we "usually mean" by "intelligent"? What do we mean by "thinking? What do we mean by "good at"?
quote:
If I practice running, I get better at running. If I practice thinking, I get better at thinking.
True but, as the rest of your post explains, within limits. I would argue that "intelligence" is not just what fills the space within those limits; "intelligence" is what provides those limits.
quote:
A good diet and good sleep patterns will also make me more intelligent.
Will they? Are you sure they won't merely make you better at using your intelligence? The rest of your post, I think, pretty much sums up what I said in my post.
The real problem lies in the fact that I don't think we are really able to measure intelligence. Certainly we can measure "crystallized intelligence" - that's what most of our exams and tests do - and certainly we can increase "crystallized intelligence", but nobody (I hope!) would argue that "knowing stuff" is a sign of intelligence. We can even make attempts to measure fluid intelligence (and tests such as Wechsler do just that.) The question should be "are we actually measuring intelligence in such tests?", to which I would answer "Not really." We are principally measuring ability to use intelligence rather than measuring intelligence itself. One might reasonably argue that intelligence is "the ability to use skills, knowledge and understanding", but I don't think IQ tests (which is all the 11+ is) measure "the ability to use SKU"; they measure "demonstrable use of the ability to use SKU".
There are scientific studies that state (roughly) "He had an IQ of 80 - I did my [insert "new" theory of choice] with him - now his IQ is 100." That doesn't, to my mind, prove that his intelligence has increased at all. It proves that he is better able to perform IQ tests or that he fits further up the scale of what the scale-writer has decided is "intelligence". His IQ is not actually his intelligence; it is merely a measure of his performance (compared to his fellows) in a series of tests designed to measure how able we are to use intelligence based on how we think intelligence ought to be used! (Note that tests such as that are called "scales" - it's the Wechsler Scale - because we are placing an individual's performance on a scale of everybody else's performance. So, yes, perhaps the subject's IQ did leap after training; but he was only being measured against a scale of general ability to use demonstrable cognitive skills, rather than whether cognitive ability is actually present.
Liberal educationalists (like what I am, honest!) have long said "Education is not just about treating children as barrels to be filled with skills, knowledge and understanding" and I agree, as long as the qualifier is there. It's not just about filling children with SKU; it's not even mainly about filling barrels with SKU, but it does include filling barrels with SKU. We have to provide children with SKU in their barrel; the more SKU we put in their barrels, the more they will be able to add SKU to their barrels for themselves and the more they will be able to take SKU out of their barrels for themselves.
In this analogy, "intelligence", IMHO, is not the Skills, Knowledge or Understanding, nor is it the ability to transfer SKU in and out of your barrel; "intelligence" is the barrel itself. It doesn't matter how much we coach, "brain train" or otherwise teach children; it doesn't matter what we feed them or when we send them to bed; it doesn't matter to what sort of school we send them; it doesn't matter if we nurture them, bribe them or flog them into learning; no matter what we do, we can't change the size and shape of the barrel. That, though, doesn't matter: education isn't about changing barrels; it's about learning to make best use of your barrel.
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Misha
Don't assume I don't care; sometimes I just can't be bothered to put you right.
Posts: 296 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2016
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
In practice, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell of him considering them.
Make of that what you will.
I make of that that it might not be true. I had a similar experience to you. In fact I didn't even make it to the tour before I concluded that Oxbridge was not for me. But it could have been. The assumption that state school children can't go there (which was shared by my parents and teachers as well) is 90% of the barrier.
Click on school type then no breakdown, respectively, on the left two selectors.
[ 15. September 2016, 11:17: Message edited by: mdijon ]
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
I'm thankful that my children are now beyond the stupidity of the state school system and through university.
I say school system because we, meaning the state, don't attempt to educate our children: rather we have put in place an increasingly rigid system to enable them to jump through hoops to get pieces of paper listing 'qualifications' that are of dubious worth.
IMV the current debate is just p**s and wind. For a start, the age of 11 to change schools is completely arbitrary, and can be linked to the introduction of compulsory education (1890 Act) and the revisions of 1893 and 1900. Subsequent rises in the school leaving age have been more to do with keeping unemployment figures down and/or trying to enabling 'qualifications' to be gained by all than anything to do with preparing people for either life or work - much as the lowering of the age at which children start formal schooling is more to do with childcare on the cheap than any academic or educational advantage.
Bottom line is we now start school earlier and spend more years in school than any other country with little, if any, improvement in literacy or numeracy when measured against other developed countries - but we do have the dubious record of having some of the unhappiest children in the world.
My solution would be to have 3 ages of schooling: Kindergarten to after 7 and with children able to stagger the start depending on when they're ready for a full day away from home.
Preparatory pre-8th birthday to 13 to put the building blocks of literacy, numeracy in place.
Secondary for 13-18 when parents and teachers can select the school best-suited to their child by ability and inclination which by this age can be more reliably assessed.
Of course we already have an informal 'system' along these lines - that is private sector schools which, especially for boys, follows these age bandings and seems to turn out children with all the 'qualifications' anyone could want or need.
Governments keep talking about 'learning' from the private sector but when it comes to schools they persist in shoe-horning very young children - boys in particular - into a system that isn't designed with the child in mind.
[typo corrected]
[ 15. September 2016, 11:19: Message edited by: L'organist ]
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Teekeey Misha:
The real problem lies in the fact that I don't think we are really able to measure intelligence.
Or produce any empirical evidence that such a thing exists. You lay out the concept in your post but it doesn't make much sense of the observation that some people have a faculty for musical improvisation that implies very complex cognitive processes, but can't add up. Or vice versa. It's hard to argue this is simply exposure - it often clearly isn't.
I have to accept there is innate aptitude for a variety of tasks, but I think it generalizes so poorly to other areas that it makes no sense to talk about a single thing called intelligence. Do you have any evidence?
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
So yes, the research stands. Comprehensive, state educated pupils outperform equivalent privately educated pupils at university. If you don't like it, it's not my problem.
What the research says is that state educated pupils outperform equivalent privately educated pupils at university. Which I can well believe - there are a lot of idiots with rich parents and university is the educational point at which that money stops mattering.
What it doesn't say is whether grammar school educated pupils outperform comprehensive school educated pupils at university. Because both of those categories form part of the "state educated" category in the research.
This thread is about grammar schools, not private schools. As such saying that state school pupils outperform private school pupils is irrelevant.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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rufiki
Ship's 'shroom
# 11165
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
If that's the case, why is Oxbridge so full of the privately educated?
<snip>
It's also the atmosphere: I went to Oxford (University college) to have a look around and an informal chat with one of the tutors when I was 17. I came away with the impression that I'd fit in about as well as a pork pie at a bar mitzvah. I didn't apply.
<snip>
I went to a Comprehensive (in a middle class town) and finished my A-levels in 1999. I also didn't apply to Oxbridge. Didn't even visit. Several school teachers asked me if I was thinking of applying but none pushed it. The teacher who knew me best even suggested I might be happier elsewhere because of the atmosphere issue.
All I knew about Oxbridge was it was more work to get in (there was an extra exam). I didn't know what the advantage of attending might be - prestige seemed a somewhat intangible concept.
I don't regret the decision. I still have no evidence that I'd be better off as an Oxbridge graduate!
Posts: 1562 | Registered: Mar 2006
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
A great deal of exams measure memory, not intelligence.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Teekay Misha: quote:
In this analogy, "intelligence", IMHO, is not the Skills, Knowledge or Understanding, nor is it the ability to transfer SKU in and out of your barrel; "intelligence" is the barrel itself. It doesn't matter how much we coach, "brain train" or otherwise teach children; it doesn't matter what we feed them or when we send them to bed; it doesn't matter to what sort of school we send them; it doesn't matter if we nurture them, bribe them or flog them into learning; no matter what we do, we can't change the size and shape of the barrel.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif) Did *anybody* bother reading this?
Originally posted by me, not all that long ago: quote:
Actually, cultural context has quite a large effect on intelligence. The key point [quoted from Wikipedia article on intelligence] is this:
"[Lev Vygotsky's sociocultural theory] proposes that children learn a larger part of their cognitive abilities from social interactions with adults or older children and people. He distinctly defines this as the Zone of Proximal Development. Older people provide scaffolding, or tools that help children improve their cognitive abilities."
In other words, children whose parents read to them and talk to them and play with them have a huge advantage over children who are left to their own devices or stuck in front of the telly for most of the day.
Furthermore, there is quite a lot of evidence to show that the brain is much more flexible and adaptable than psychologists used to believe - they call this 'plasticity'. In effect, your brain rewires itself when you learn new things, so being in an environment where you learn a lot of new things does increase your cognitive ability (aka intelligence).
Here is some more evidence, for those who are interested.
Psychology Today article on benefits of musical training
Blog post on benefits of bilingualism
Guardian article on benefits of talking and reading to/with babies and young children
Scholarly article on educational impact of providing breakfasts for schoolchildren
[ 15. September 2016, 11:42: Message edited by: Jane R ]
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
I've read some of it. There's a lot to critique but it does throw a lot of doubt on the idea that there's some sort of basic, hard-wired engine in the brain called "intelligence" that has a set, unchangeable quantity.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I'd be unhappy with any split. For me, it'd mean explaining to my daughter that she's not considered clever enough to go to the same school as her brothers.
Might well be the other way round. AIUI girls generally outperformed boys on the original 11+ and the marks had to be adjusted, or to be brutally honest, fiddled. Children mature at different ages and girls mature, generally, more quickly than boys do.
I know. However, I was being very specific to my situation. At a 50% cutoff it's absolutely clear who'd go where out of my three.
[ 15. September 2016, 12:16: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
This thread is about grammar schools, not private schools. As such saying that state school pupils outperform private school pupils is irrelevant.
Bzzt.
It's entirely relevant, because 9/10ths of the argument for more Grammars is that Comprehensives fail academic pupils. The statistics show that, once at university, the 95% of state school pupils who didn't go to a Grammar can, and often do, outperform privately educated students.
Simply going on that metric: it ain't broke, and we don't need to 'fix' it with Grammars.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
In practice, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell of him considering them.
Make of that what you will.
I make of that that it might not be true. I had a similar experience to you. In fact I didn't even make it to the tour before I concluded that Oxbridge was not for me. But it could have been. The assumption that state school children can't go there (which was shared by my parents and teachers as well) is 90% of the barrier.
Click on school type then no breakdown, respectively, on the left two selectors.
Yes. That's the assumption that (until relatively recently) was also shared by many of the gatekeepers at the colleges.
Going on what I hear, things have dramatically changed in the last 10-15 years. It's still a 40/60 split private/state, and some colleges (I note that University college, the one I visited, is on the list) can't muster 50/50.
But if the Boy doesn't want to go, I'm not going to make him. It was enough of a struggle to get him to the residential.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
So yes, the research stands. Comprehensive, state educated pupils outperform equivalent privately educated pupils at university. If you don't like it, it's not my problem.
What the research says is that state educated pupils outperform equivalent privately educated pupils at university. Which I can well believe - there are a lot of idiots with rich parents and university is the educational point at which that money stops mattering.
What it doesn't say is whether grammar school educated pupils outperform comprehensive school educated pupils at university. Because both of those categories form part of the "state educated" category in the research.
This thread is about grammar schools, not private schools. As such saying that state school pupils outperform private school pupils is irrelevant.
But both private schools and grammar schools effectively select their pupils from the rich. Private schools via eye-watering fees. Grammar schools by favouring middle class households where the parents can pay for tutors, to coach their charges to pass the 11+. Both systems favour the well off at the expense of the middling and below. Both systems make it possible for expensively honed mediocrities to blag their way into positions in life that a fair contest would have held them back from. It makes it more possible to rig the game. And because the systems allow a few bright kids to pass the 11+ or to earn scholarships, people claim that they favour social mobility. Understandably, if you've done well out of something, you are going to see the best bits of it, but any scheme of social reform has to be judged on how it works across the board, not just how it works for it's beneficiaries.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
The statistics show that, once at university, the 95% of state school pupils who didn't go to a Grammar can, and often do, outperform privately educated students.
Simply going on that metric: it ain't broke, and we don't need to 'fix' it with Grammars.
You seem to be assuming that privately educated students constitute a meaningful benchmark against which to measure the performance of state educated students. I make no such assumption.
The only factor affecting access to private education is whether the child's parents can afford to pay for it. It is, therefore, reasonable to assume that private schools will have roughly the same mix of academic abilities as state schools (unless you assume that a parent's wealth correlates to their child's intelligence, which I do not).
However, private schools are far more focussed on doing whatever they can to get their pupils into university (gotta justify those fees somehow!). This means that far more of the less academically-able private school pupils will go to university than their state-educated peers, which in turn means that a higher proportion of privately educated students will struggle once they are in an environment where their parental wealth doesn't mean shit. Ergo, state educated students (of whom only the more academically-able will even consider higher education) will on average outperform privately educated students at university.
This is why I don't find statistics about how well state educated pupils do compared to privately educated students particularly relevant to a discussion of which form of state education is best.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
A significant proportion of private and public schools have entrance exams, Marvin. They are selective. The function of a Prep school is to prepare pupils for the Common Entrance exam, or at least it was in my day; the exact form of selection may have changed.
[ 15. September 2016, 13:20: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
A significant proportion of private and public schools have entrance exams, Marvin. They are selective. The function of a Prep school is to prepare pupils for the Common Entrance exam, or at least it was in my day; the exact form of selection may have changed.
I should add, but missed the window, that their intake is also skewed by the presence of scholarship pupils, the entrance requirements of whom is even higher - Wikipedia suggests that the standard required at 13 is sometimes close to that of GCSE.
So no, the independent sector does not have the same ability range as the Comprehensives.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
A significant proportion of private and public schools have entrance exams, Marvin. They are selective.
Then isn't it funny that the richest parents always seem to get their kids into a private school. Maybe parental wealth does correlate with child intelligence.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
A significant proportion of private and public schools have entrance exams, Marvin. They are selective.
Then isn't it funny that the richest parents always seem to get their kids into a private school. Maybe parental wealth does correlate with child intelligence.
Private schools are, with the exception of some religious schools, basically in it for the money. They will certainly take children from the most wealthy families, and push them to achieve as much as they can. They're not going to turn down the chance of having a rich parent to donate towards new facilities. But, how many children in private schools are from super-rich families? A few percent? 10% at most?
The majority of students are from well-to-do but not exceptionally rich families - they can afford the fees, but aren't going to suddenly write a million pound check when someone mentions "it would be good to extent the library". For those pupils the schools are in competition, and their biggest selling point is going to be academic achievement. Therefore, as long as number of applicants exceeds available places they can choose to select the brightest, increasing the chances of out scoring competing schools in academic achievement tables and hence ensuring they keep on getting enough applicants to fill spaces and make money (and, that will also make them seem better choices for that small minority of kids of the super-rich they can fleece for even more cash). Which is also why it makes sense for them to give scholarships to very bright kids who couldn't afford the fees. They can live with a small proportion of super-rich less able pupils because they're not going to significantly impact the academic scores of the school, but are likely to bring in more money.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
This is why I don't find statistics about how well state educated pupils do compared to privately educated students particularly relevant to a discussion of which form of state education is best.
Well, you wouldn't, would you, since it fatally holes your argument below the waterline.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
A significant proportion of private and public schools have entrance exams, Marvin. They are selective.
Then isn't it funny that the richest parents always seem to get their kids into a private school. Maybe parental wealth does correlate with child intelligence.
Well, firstly there are the independent schools which aren't selective as an option. Then there are the exceptions that might be made for the very rich, I mean generous to the school.
I'd also question your "always".
[ 15. September 2016, 13:58: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Teekeey Misha
Shipmate
# 18604
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
...it does throw a lot of doubt on the idea that there's some sort of basic, hard-wired engine in the brain called "intelligence" that has a set, unchangeable quantity.
I don't think it does at all. It provides evidence that there can be physical change in the brain. It provides evidence that we can change the extent to which we can use the brain. It doesn't, though, provide any evidence about the existence/non-existence/mutability of "intelligence." Does a child become more intelligent when Jane R teaches him to play the piano? No, I don't believe he does. He develops skills, knowledge and understanding to help him use his skills, knowledge and understanding. Does that increase the "plasticity" of his brain? Maybe it does. Does that mean he's more intelligent? No, I don't believe it does.
quote:
...it makes no sense to talk about a single thing called intelligence.
Perhaps you've hit the nail on the head here and it makes no sense to talk about a single thing called intelligence (and certainly not talk about "measuring intelligence"). More importantly, I think intelligence is probably more about the mind than the brain. Weknow more and more about the concrete concept that is the brain; we really know very little about the abstract concept that is the mind. I don't believe intelligence is about size of, or connectivity within, the brain. (A sewer with more pipes isn't necessarily a better sewer; it's just a sewer with more pipes.) We can measure activity and growth in the brain; but I don't believe that is intelligence. We can measure improvement in demonstrable ability, in skills, in knowledge, in understanding, but I don't believe that is intelligence.
quote:
Do you have any evidence?
Of what? That a single "thing" called intelligence exists or that I don't think we are really able to measure it? In either case no. Can we see intelligence in existence around us? Yes. Can we prove it? No. Do we really know what it is? No. Have I ever used "intelligence tests" in schools? Yes. Can I prove they actually measure intelligence? No. (Perhaps intelligence is like love; we can't prove or disprove the existence of either!)
I have experience, but experience is not necessarily reliable evidence. I know that I have taught "less able" children. Did I increase their intelligence? I don't believe so. I helped them to better use their intelligence.
I know that I have taught "more able" children. Did I increase their intelligence? I don't believe so. I helped them to better use their intelligence.
I know that I have helped plenty of children (thick and bright alike) to improve their scores in "intelligence tests". Did I increase their intelligence? I don't believe so. I helped them to better use their intelligence.
Does talking to babies from birth, or teaching toddlers to play the mandolin, or making nursery pupils to speak Serbo-Croat, or playing Mozart Symphonies to your unborn children make them more intelligent? No; regardless of how much eye-rolling there may be, I don't believe any of those things increases intelligence.
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Misha
Don't assume I don't care; sometimes I just can't be bothered to put you right.
Posts: 296 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2016
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
This is why I don't find statistics about how well state educated pupils do compared to privately educated students particularly relevant to a discussion of which form of state education is best.
Well, you wouldn't, would you, since it fatally holes your argument below the waterline.
Ok, so you are assuming that privately educated students constitute a meaningful benchmark against which to measure the performance of state educated students.
Fine. If the limit of your aspirations for the state sector is to be slightly better on average than the private sector, so be it.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
A significant proportion of private and public schools have entrance exams, Marvin. They are selective.
Yes, they select the cleverest X% of those who are able to pay their fees. Where those individuals fall on the overall spectrum of ability is a different matter.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
But both private schools and grammar schools effectively select their pupils from the rich. Private schools via eye-watering fees. Grammar schools by favouring middle class households where the parents can pay for tutors, to coach their charges to pass the 11+. Both systems favour the well off at the expense of the middling and below. Both systems make it possible for expensively honed mediocrities to blag their way into positions in life that a fair contest would have held them back from. It makes it more possible to rig the game. And because the systems allow a few bright kids to pass the 11+ or to earn scholarships, people claim that they favour social mobility. Understandably, if you've done well out of something, you are going to see the best bits of it, but any scheme of social reform has to be judged on how it works across the board, not just how it works for it's beneficiaries.
Well I'm not speaking for anyone else, but this grammar school parent is not rich. We lived in rental housing at £650 a month because we couldn't persuade anyone to give us a mortgage, we drove a 10 year old car, we didn't go on foreign holidays, had no TV etc and so on.
If you think that puts us in the same bracket as parents who pay £10k a term for their childs education - never mind those who pay a premium of £200k in mortgage - then you're very very wrong.
It is true that grammar school parents are often not the poorest and often are in employment so their children are not on free school meals. But that doesn't make us the same as parents of private schooled children.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
This is why I don't find statistics about how well state educated pupils do compared to privately educated students particularly relevant to a discussion of which form of state education is best.
Well, you wouldn't, would you, since it fatally holes your argument below the waterline.
Is that what the research shows anyway? A quick google suggests that the research reported in the British press in the last couple of years (which, I accept, may not be the sum total of all data on the issue) is that privately-educated students get better degree results than state-educated students, but that comparing students with similar A-level results shows that state-educated pupils improve more. I know that your original quote referred to a 'value-added' measure, but that seems to have been dropped from subsequent discussion, and we've been talking as if state-education produced absolutely better final outcomes. That does not appear to be true.
What does the data show about the value (or otherwise) of a selective education? My guess would be that it shows that when selectively (privately) educated pupils leave school, they seem to be performing quite close to their highest natural level without that much room for improvement compared to others, whereas comprehensively (state) educated pupils are still capable of significant improvement on the standards that they reached at school.
Does that mean that state schools are dramatically adding to their pupils' long-term potential without that yet being translated into academic results at school level, and the universities are then reaping the harvest? Or that, perhaps, some state pupils could have been stretched further and got better results than they did (and probably would have, if they had gone to more selective schools)? I don't know. I know what I think is more likely.
The observation is worth making, of course, that universities are themselves highly selective institutions. Whatever else the data shows, it tends to indicate that there are quite a lot of people from comprehensive schools whose academic performance markedly improves within three years or so of hitting a selective environment.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
The problem with all these assessments is to define a control group. We know we can't take the same individual and put them through a private school, grammar school and a comprehensive to assess if, and by how much, their educational achievements vary.
But, the very nature of the selectivity of grammar and private schools means that if we look at population averages there is no control - the pupils going through each system are from systematically different populations. No one has, for example, taken a group of pupils in a comprehensive only school area and had them sit 11+ exams (somehow simulating the "this will decide your entire future" pressure on pupils and students) and then go through the comprehensive system before assessing how well the 11+ pass and fail groups fared compared to those in another area (closely matched for income, parental education and profession, etc) where those who passed the 11+ went to grammar schools.
Or, rather, I don't know of any such study.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
A significant proportion of private and public schools have entrance exams, Marvin. They are selective.
Yes, they select the cleverest X% of those who are able to pay their fees. Where those individuals fall on the overall spectrum of ability is a different matter.
Well, I'd expect them to have a higher mean and median than the larger set Those who areable to pay their fees. That there's selection by income doesn't negate the effect of selection by ability.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Teekeey Misha:
I have experience, but experience is not necessarily reliable evidence.
No, but better than nothing. You've said a lot about what you think, but not about why you think it. Others have quoted some evidence that informs them. I've said what it is about my admittedly superficial experience that makes me think there isn't a single entity called intelligence.
You've also mentioned experience but not really said what observation it was from experience that informed your view of intelligence. You describe in detail how your model works with analogies but why did you come to that conclusion?
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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