[ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future

[Mike Dougherty]

On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 6:42 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:
> extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On Behalf Of *Mike Dougherty
>
> *>…*I'm not really sure what are the goals of "common core"
>
>
>
> I have some ideas on that.  I hope they had in mind something about
> updating education methods that have been outdated for so long it hurts.
> The traditional model of a group of children of the same age sitting and
> listening to one grownup talk has been an enormous waste of brains.  It
> fails to engage a huge proportion of the student, on both ends of the
> ability scale.  They are holding the notion that Common Core will challenge
> all the students.  I have high hopes, along with a realistic attitude.
>

I was in a rush earlier, but have spent some time researching common core.

Perhaps the new curriculum will benefit new entrants into the education
system more than it appears to harm those impacted during the transition.
If so, the decade of children that learned one way and were tested another
could have problems in their adult lives.  How much more or less than any
other decade of children might be hard to prove conclusively.

Maybe those children learning Common Core programming from their start will
succeed at > 30%.  I feel that's not likely to happen.  Instead I imagine
only those in the top of their class will be given the opportunity to
advance while the rest remain peasants for life.


>  As computers get better at interpreting our writing, it allows us to get
> away from five-bubble testing and still save labor costs in grading
> homework and tests.  An example of a more open ended question is this:
>
>
>
> There are three cookies and five children.  What now?
>
>
>
> There are no choices, the student has to suggest an approach.  I can think
> of a dozen answers to that.  The challenge for us is to figure out how to
> teach software to evaluate the answers.  You can even assume a keyboard
> answer, where the software can use multiple criteria, such considering
> spelling, grammar, word length and so on.  What I hope for is some means of
> teaching students the real valuable skills for the world they will
> inhabit.  There is little need for most of the skills you and I were taught
> in school.
>

I think this example provides another illustration:  Rank the five children
according to some criteria ("standard") then give all three cookies to rank
#1.  S/he can eat all three or share as s/he wishes (with whatever sense of
entitlement comes from being #1).  Perhaps #1 shares with #2 and #3,
creating some reciprocity of trust for a minor reordering in the next
ranking.  There might even be some unexpected 'sharing' that comes from the
realization that if #4 & #5 consistently lose the contest they may simply
beat up #1 and take those cookies.  Yes, that's a metaphor for the
have-nots using criminal action to take from those who have.

I realize this is probably not the discourse you might have imagined on
Common Core.


>
>
> Consider these kinds of questions:
>
>
>
> Suppose you go through your education, finish with a degree, then discover
> you just cannot get a job.  What do you do now?
>
>
>
> When you think about it, there are plenty of answers to that question,
> some better than others.  It is a question which the students need to be
> asked often.
>
>
>
Agreed.  It also needs to be asked of teachers, administrators, and the
government that implements a system that produces unemployable,
degree-wielding job seekers.



notice:  If anyone reading this feels that I am underinformed or otherwise
off-the-mark, please do enlighten me.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20140118/03c5d0a9/attachment.html>