[extropy-chat] it's all understandable, except

[Lee Corbin]

Ben writes

> The main problem with the US school system is that most US parents
> are anti-intellectual --- they don't encourage their kids to learn
> intellectual things, and don't encourage the teachers to encourage
> their kids to learn such things....

Actually, the real and horrible problem is that most kids really
just aren't bright enough to learn advanced material or to fill the
jobs that will need filling or to profit from the educational
opportunities that really do exist now.

> I can see that the Montgomery County school system genuinely tries
> really hard to provide a high quality education -- and it does succeed
> to a reasonable degree ... kids coming out of the advanced tracks in
> high school know a lot of stuff ... e.g. in math they do calculus,

Yes!  Exactly.  I've been working with extremely bright kids since the
1960s, and the kids---some kids!---are even smarter than their
exact opposite numbers from one, two, or three decades ago.
But there are too few of them.

The schools in the Santa Clara Valley and Fremont here in northern
California, I do know from personal experience are doing excellent
jobs with the brightest kids.  (There are some unfortunate counter-
examples:  the Palo Alto high school district has been taken over by
some levellers who have taken the pressure off the brightest kids to
such an extent that parents I know have withdrawn their kids and are
sending them to private schools. One teaching math spot remains
open because the primary job qualification is that the teacher be black.
The main focus (goal) in that high school district now---I kid you not
---to have everyone perform at the same level insofar as it is possible.)

But even in botched districts, the kids are amazing.  Controlling for IQ,
they're doing work a year ahead of the 1980s and two years ahead of
the 1960s (very roughly).  Their enthusiasm for math, computers, and
physics is nothing less than RED HOT.  But there are too few of them.

And the problem will only get worse.

> Does the Singularity obsolete the need to improve education?  Sure, in
> a grand sense....  But looking more deeply, the reason the Singularity
> hasn't occurred already is because our society actively discourages
> creativity and learning to such an extent -- which is the same
> essential reason our school system is not better than it is....

It's possible---as your anecdotes relate---that in a number of instances
our educational systems do discourage creativity and learning. But
even if that's true (and I have seen no evidence of it myself), it 
doesn't matter.  The bright kids and the creative kids go far anyway.
There is just---yes, again---too few of them relative to the vast, vast
numbers of kids who aren't so bright and really couldn't care less
about the things we would like them to care about.

The Singularity (or its preceding technological innovations) need 
above all to get people smarter, especially the great hordes of 
children today who simply are incapable of difficult technical work,
and who will (because of IQ limitations) perform rather poorly 
whatever they try to do that is of any use.

Lee

> On 11/4/06, Al Brooks <kerry_prez at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Yes, and it could be America is too large for the
>> problem to be solved, it can only perhaps be lessened.
>> What I wonder is: can it be one reason student
>> performance is overall pretty low is because teachers
>> and administrators not only inflate grades but also
>> don't want to flunk ethnic students? One hesitates to
>> write this, however if too many ethnics washed out of
>> the system it would not only look extremely bad, but
>> also the students, families, and activists would
>> deeply resent all the flunking and seek revenge.
>> Let's be frank-- America is a complicated, overheated
>> ethnic stew-pot, and such undoubtedly affects the
>> school system.