Intelligence, education and meritocracy

Charles Murray believes that children are performing as well as they can right now, and that very few are actually held back by poor schools. He is not arguing that we need to be more realistic in how we accomodate students of differing abilities. He is arguing that we need to recognize that kids in crappy schools with bad teachers are doing poorly because they are dumb. We should accept that these kids are just dumb, stop trying to fix their schools and teach them how to read and come up with alternatives which will allow them to be trained to do things that don't require being able to read or do math.

Charles Murray is so married to his idea of immutable inherent abilities that he has no useful ideas. According to him, as things are is as they must be because nothing which occurs in a person's environment can/improve him or her. His lack of vision does not serve us well. Instead, it is a form of fatalism which allows us to feel good about being better than those who are poorer than we are - after all it's not our fault we were born smart and they were born dumb. It also removes any obligation we might feel for improving conditions for people in bad conditions - after all why bother having bright clean schools, teachers who don't sit at the desk and read the newspaper all day and kids protected from gang violence? It wouldn't improve their ability to succeed anyways. Might as well invest the time and energy into the smart people (that'd be us).

Charles Murray is a deeply evil man who I really wish would just go away.

The danger of marginality is that it can fool people into thinking differences are significant at all times. For modest goals like having every child being able to read at an 8th grade level, all the IQ nonsense is just nonsense. If we are talking about taking 3rd semester college calculus in high school like I did, then yes a higher IQ is going to make a difference if not just be necessary.

As to the policy questions, we are really under-serving the top 5-10%. That has nothing to do with NCLB. Overall we would probably be well served by moving to the international standard of the tech and college split of 16. There are things we could do.

I agree that parents, and perhaps teachers, often push kids into college prep courses when they would be better off on the vocational track. Everyone wants their child to have the good life, and often, the amount of money a person makes goes into defining the good life. My kids see it around them. The friend's dad who's the orthodontist has the big house, game room with all the electronics, 4(or is it 5?)cars, and the very nice pool. The friend who's dad does the plumbing has an electronic game or two and drives a truck.

I know that when I was in school, we were divided by ability in reading in the elementary grades(4th or 5th). By 7th grade, we were divided in just about every other subject. My children were placed into different reading groups in 1st grade based on reading tests. They go to different math classrooms based on testing by grade 3. Our school has programs for children with learning disabilities and the school is required by law to come up with an individualized teaching plan for that child. We have programs for really smart kids-gifted or academically talented. Kids have to pass tests to prove that they are extra bright.

From what I've seen, home life and the educational ethic of parents makes the biggest difference in the absence of a learning disability.

I'm wondering where these people are who think that every person has an equal chance of making it. I've never met anyone who would say that, nor have I ever been inside a school that operated under that premise.

The main problem with our educational system today is that it provides a marginal amount of helpful education for our children at an extremely high cost. On of the main reasons why state and local taxes are so high and increasing all the time.

Another problem with our education system, related to our addiction to egalitarianism, is that it requires increasing centralization. If all children must sit in classrooms with identical per pupil funding levels, than Los Angeles County can not spend less or more than Ventura County on a per pupil basis. And if we take egalitarianism really seriously, we must make private tutors illegal because "the rich kids" might benefit more from them than the poor kids, who's parents can't afford them.

This, of course, moves our education system in the wrong direction. We see nothing wrong with one family spending more money on food and clothes while another family spends less on food and clothes so that they can take a vacation in Hawaii. If we don't demand that all families spend receive identical nutrition and clothing, we should not demand that their children all receive identical amounts and types of education.

I'm not sure public school makes sense anymore, anyway, after 5th or 6th grade in most cases. It seems like something we had to do for a long time, but now we have plenty of information to "educate" in a different setting. The idea of helping support a "youth culture" as opposed to assimilation by putting 500-4000 kids together, in a post-60's environment especially, seems foolish and unnecessary. There are so many fine programs from various instructors available online. I won't get into details of how people are already accomplishing education this way, but it's not so unheard of. I teach high school science, and I enjoy my job, but it seems like we're hanging on to a system that's unnecessary and ineffective. The kids could learn in 2 hours what many of them learn in 6 -or more. It's a huge waste of time and we have to figure out answers to the question that have been raised on this post. It's been a while, but there used to be a lot of talk about homeschooling on this blog. Homeschooling means different things to different people, but I'm convinced it's closer to what we should be doing. I feel like we're trying to fix a machine that hasn't really been needed for 20 years.

TJS -

I agree that Homeschooling has many, many benefits, and many of the most talented & best-educated young people that I know are homeschooled.

However, it is often overlooked that the family environments that typically exist for homeschool kids would exist if those same kids went to public schools, and would lead those same kids to excel, even if they were in public schools.

Moving toward more homeschool models does very little for the kids who are currently struggling in the existing public school system, precisely because the lack of a viable homeschooling environment is what is causing them to fail in public schools.

I would imagine that those who would consider themselves to be Crunchy Cons can come to a general consensus that kids who grow up in traditional, stable families will tend to succeed, regardless of the quality of the public education system. Those who grow up outside of those environments will tend to struggle to succeed. The problem (like just about all of our public policy problems) is a problem of culture - not a problem of public policy.

Typically, when people talk about "protecting the poor" by limiting the ability of Mexicans and others to come (legally, even) to our country to take low wages, they really mean "protecting the white poor."

Because the black and Hispanic poor are magically protected from the effects of illegal immigration? Regardless of race, those on the left side of the Bell Curve are hurt by low-skill immigration. Their wages are forced down, and government services are further reduced as it has to be split with the newcomers.

But when one talks about bringing about justice for the poor (in a broad sense), the discussion must extend beyond the Rio Grande.

No, it doesn't, Mike. We're talking about the United States here. The people of Mexico can take care of their own. I know it's a far-out concept, but not everyone needs the Great White Father to come and save them. Maybe, who knows, instead of dumping their poor on us, the Mexican government could clean up their effing act. But, hey, if you feel so bad for those south of the border, join a mission group, or give to a charity, but stop using our home to alleviate your troubled conscience (and to get cheap landscaping).

If I talk about "tracking" in the cafeteria I'm called a racist.

They obviously prefer the Yale-or-jail worldview.

Mike,

I agree that there are many issues here, and my proposal might be leaving something out. I don't normally comment here, but it's best for my own thought process, of course, if I air my thoughts where others can find problems in my thinking. I see many children of stable families who do not do well because they are swallowed up in the mess of the youth culture. I also see many children of less stable families who succeed and thrive, and visa versa. Homeschooling is the term that is used for non-institutional schooling, even if it's not at "home", it seems to me. What I'd like to see, for all types of kids, is education in an environment where there are many adults. The education is mostly done through electronic media, since that allows repeat of lessons, testing, and a choice of instructors. The adults give connection and meaning WRT the students' effort as well as application in some cases. It's not depended on the home environment. The kids would produce a worthwhile service/function/product at times. The "hands-on" portion comes in when the student is providing the service/function/product, as well as occasional hands-on just to improve instruction. What I picture takes more adults per student, but fewer (by 95%) teachers. My goal is to get rid of an institutionalized education system (in execution, not overall content)to avoid the separation of the student from society (and into "youth culture").

TJS, that's an interesting proposition. We homeschool our children, all grade 4 and younger. It's interesting to me because one of the perennial debates or fits of insecurity that all homeschoolers seem to go through is whether to homeschool through high school. Generally, teaching the elementary years is seen as fairly easy. But reproducing the high school experience at home, or at least providing its rigorous equivalent, is seen as too daunting for some. Thus, I hear a lot of people with grade school kids planning on going to the Catholic high school or public school (sometimes combined with the local junior college) because lab science and upper math is pretty challenging to the non-expert parent. So it's interesting to me that you're suggesting public school serves a purpose for the younger years but that most later schooling could be done at home, via computer, or on a smaller basis generally.

The biggest problem with that suggestion that comes to mind quickly is the hugely sentimental place the "high school experience" has come to hold in American society. Whether your experience was Betsy-Tacy or The Breakfast Club, high school is a known paradigm. I can see your idea having some traction though--if only to relieve school districts of the burdens of transportation costs and building mammoth school complexes.

What kind of IQ does it take to read and do algebra? We aren't talking rocket science here.

When I was in engineering school, what killed a lot of people in calculus wasn't the calculus. It was the algebra. It's hard to conceive when you've caught on to it, but it is hard for people to get. Many who do get through the class, forget it quickly. How many people can factor a quadratic equation without running back to the books. I work as an mechanical engineer, and when I wanted to refresh my physics, I had to open up some old precalc books to get my algebra back up to speed.

Rod,

You and I probably swapped on the verbal/math scores.

I just don't like the idea of NCLB being seen as so opposed to the science of IQ. NCLB, which I have other issues, has relatively modest goals.

As a doctoral student in clinical psychology who has administered hundreds of IQ tests in my time, I find this debate interesting and somewhat depressing. I fail to understand why Murray, who is a Ph.D. in political science, repeatedly wades into areas of cognitive science he so clearly does not comprehend. Issues surrounding IQ, its meaning and utilization are not the provenance of political scientists. A careful reading of this essay suggests that Murray is out of his depth. Murray glosses over the deep problems inherent in intellectual assessment and how easily personality and cultural factors may bias or skew the results obtained. Even the act of "testing" itself is a culture bound activity. IQ tests have excellent predictive validity in that they can accurately tell us how well a person may do in the educational system. But this does not mean that they measure intellectual capacity. In large measure they assess acculturation. As such they should be used prescriptively not diagnostically. In reading his essay and his infamous book, his superficial knowledge of this area is clear and one hopes political scientists will stay out of psychology in the future.

That being said, I do agree that all children are not created equal. The educational system currently makes the assumption that children are widgets whose movement through twelve stages will result in a uniform product. The educational system forgets that each child has different strengths and weaknesses. Not only are there between person differences in cognitive abbilty, but there are within differences as well. Many children who are highly adept at math can't write a coherent essay. Also cognitive skills may develop at different rates for different children.

Take algebra, many students struggle with algebra because they are not cognitively or developmentally ready. In my case I flunked algebra in high school one semester and struggled with math throughout my schooling. I was a victim of the "new math" of the early 70's. I clearly remember being baffled as a child by set theory and number theory and so on. If one looks at cognitive development, this makes sense. When I got to high school I struggled mightily. Today I could probably ace an algebra or trig class with little effort since I do advanced statistical analysis all the time with no trouble. Time and development have enabled me to gain those skills.

In my view, we should be more goal oriented and less process oriented. I feel we should eliminate grades .. as in first second and third fourth etc and instead develop models which allow each child to work at their own pace and test for various abilities before a child moves from elementary school to middle school or graduates from high school. A child who is very proficient at language, could spend more time working on areas of weakness. For high school students we should adopt a rigorous and standardized set f examinations to be passed before graduation. Once a student passes the exam they should be able to graduate even if this happens after 10 years of education. This could be done at any time. 12 is not a magic number of years. Conversely slower students should be given the time necessary to complete such a process even if it takes them 13 14 or 15 years. But God forbid we adopt a European model where children are tested at age 11 or 12 and placed in either vocational or college tracks. Due to my difficulties in math at that age I might have been forced into a vo-tech track. Instead, the flexibility of our system allowed me to get two master's degrees and the ability to work on a Ph.D.

'In my view, we should be more goal oriented and less process oriented. '
Very well said. I wonder why i hated algebra so much and was interested in geometry? Possibly because algebra is more abstract. In geometry you see the picture -pyramids or cylinders in spheres capacities of which you must find. It is an interesting puzzle. As for equations and integrals, they were hard and not interesting for many pupils because kids were not taught what advantage they can bring in practice, it took great mental efforts to imagine it's application in real life. It was a very boring occupation to solve equations merely for the process.

And of course aptitudes of person are very important to consider, but they are not always evident at early age, and besides you never know what can prove to be more useful for a child when s(he) grows up. In the list of the best students of our class i used to be in first dozen (from the bottom, unfortunately) -one of candidates to be kicked out actually, especially at mathematics, physics, English and literature. Maximum length of an essay i managed to write was 1 page, that is considering huge fields to make it look bigger, and i realized i was bad at it and hated it. My writing ability hasn't improved since then, but now i am able to write a very long letter, because there is personal interest -i got a whim of sharing memories and pouring out soul to strangers lately.
The same with algebra. If my teacher learned that such a retard would ever become an engineer she would have died of laughter. It was stupid at math, but if i gave it up i would never have become an engineer.

1. I'm against home schooling. My logic is simple. It removes the magic from the education. That magic of course is the example of involved parenting in education. Generally the parents who exert the effort to home school are the same ones who are really involved in the school in public educationt.

The vast majority of us can recall those parents of our friends that were involved. We can also recall how their example of involved parenting in education impressed us. We became aware of what good parenting could be by their example. Home schooling has removed that from the public education forum. It's hurting us.

2. Rev Wright in his Bill Moyers interview explained it with our defining different as deficient. He said we needed to learn to accept different as nothing more than different, no better, no worse, just different.

All of us are different. Our pain, tortured soul one oh oneness, comes from our dealing with our being different. Dealing with different in others makes our lives complicated. Almost as complicated as dealing with our own being different.

That's where the pain comes from, the way we're taught and try to deal with different. We hurt because it's immoral to treat everyone the same because they aren't. We also hurt because in turn we are treated the same as everyone else and we aren't. That's because we always define different as deficient instead of well, different.

3. Our concept of education magnifies this self destructive behavior, different as deficient. That's because the only reason we want to treat everyone as the same is it's easier for us. It takes effort to embrace everyone as different and not deficient because they're different.

The other day a father was talking to me about his son. It seems the boy has some dyslexia and that's causing him difficulty in school.

My advice to the father was two fold. First he needed to celebrate his son having a different perspective on the world. If the father would look around he would notice that everyone who makes a difference in the world shares having a different perspective with his son.

Secondly, the father should feel blessed. Most fathers wake up one day and realize their child is an adult and gone. They have to search for memories. But some parents are blessed with children that are different. Those parents have to work at parenting and every day is memorable.

Thank you, Christian. That's the most sensible comment I've seen so far.

My random thoughts:

Read John Taylor Gatto's book, "The Underground History of American Education." Even if you don't agree with everything he says, he will make you think.

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/

Maria Montessori's educational program started with poor and disabled children. It worked for them, as it does now for the affluent who can afford it. Among other brilliant insights, it depends on respect for the individual child and an environment that facilitates independent learning.

Children with Down's Syndrome have been taught to read. What is the excuse for system-wide failure to do so for children who are within a normal range of intelligence, or even above average? Referring to IQ testing of Africans to explain the failures of our school system is pathetic.

So-called vocational education is useless when the path to a vocation is a dead end. It works in Europe because they have social programs to insure that people who get jobs in trades and services can still support themselves and their families, have health care, etc. And because they follow it up with an apprenticeship program that leads to a job. It's not going to help to study plumbing in high school and then find out you can't get into the plumber's union. And high schools are SO good at predicting what labor opportunities will be available four years in the future! (sarcasm) Every self-respecting person needs access to the means of understanding him or herself within society. That means basic literacy in words and numbers--and these days, computer skills.

Sure wish we could keep this discussion going. I know I could go to a homeschool/online school website, but those people have already made up their minds about what to do. Is there another place I could go to learn more about the pro/con views of "institutionalized vs. non-institutionalized education"? I'm not sold on the idea that we need to create a system where everyone's talents are turned into the highest paying job. I think what we want are happy, responsible, productive people. By removing skilled trades as a noble occupation, and exhalting occupations that require four years or more of college, many kids end up pursuing degrees because that's what "being successful" is thought to require. We also lose gifted craftsmen/women because they're taught to "aim higher" than a vocational trade. (Besides it seems like this creates a huge amount of wasted material resources, since without repairman we're forced to turn to a factory for replacements. The artisan vs. factory approach is another great debate.) I sense a turnaround here, and I've gotten off the topic a little, but the two issues are at least somewhat related. I'm sure the non-institutional education can produce engineers and doctors, but I'm more interested in how it can connect kids with "people" and their community/world, and avoid the cess pool of high school. The availability of information online means we don't need to send our kids into that inefficient mess. I enjoy being a teacher, but I don't want to see this system continued when it's not needed and is counter-productive. I'll find something else to do.

There are two points (made several times each in the preceding comments) that I strongly agree with:

1) Much of our ability is genetically determined.

2) The attitude of one's parents toward education and learning has a huge impact on a child's level of achievement in school.

I would add a point about algebra and other higher mathematical learning. It is my belief that many students in seventh grade through twelfth grade do poorly in math because they have been very poorly prepared by their elementary school teachers in the BASICS of math. Algebra is a high mountain to climb when you cannot add or subtract or multiply or divide simple numbers without a calculator. But I don't put all the blame on the teachers: in the jurisdiction where I live, there is so much emphasis put on literacy that it is actually crowding out what should be a necessary focus on numeracy. I saw this in my days as a substitute teacher, and I still see it today from my wife's experience as a reading recovery specialist teacher.

But even if this flaw in the curriculum were corrected, and the teaching of math improved in the first through sixth grades, it is not going to overcome innate inabilities or a dysfunctional home. To paraphrase what mdavid said above, we may get nowhere until the family makes a recovery.

where is this guarenteed income coming from? (I assume taxes) and how is this any different than being a "welfare queen" or "king"? There still would be no motivation to work hard because the check will still be in the mail the first of each month. And one could still "supplement" one's income in the same ways that many welfare recipients do now.

Murray discusses his proposal here:

aei.org/publications/pubID.24092,filter.all/pub_detail.asp

Not sure what I think of his idea.

Mangled cliches alert...

"It's what works, stupid."

I come today not to argue specifics -- I see the same problems as everyone else sees -- but to softly and gently suggest that few see the root causes of the problems for the forest getting in the way.

Please, take your minds off of the dry rot, over-logging and vermin in the underbrush, and consider (in no particular order):

1) Teachers are professionals. Their training in theory and practice is as rigorous as that of lawyers or engineers. Look past the veneer of union protectionism, school board/city hall/state legislature politics and funding/taxation fiascos, and you will find that the vast majority of teachers and administrators sincerely love your children, want them to succeed, and work hard to keep up with the individual needs and desires of their students.

2) When I see or hear another argument about children's self-esteem, I see or hear the whining of parents who cannot get it into their heads that, all things being equal (a whole discussion in itself around peers, development, etc.) a child will be perfectly happy being good enough. Making a child happy is not the primary goal. Giving the child every opportunity to find and realize his or her potential is, or should be, the first second and third goal. Competition in K-12 is a poison.

3) Parents know what is best for their children, but they don't hesitate to use that as a bludgeon when a) they make an honest mistake concerning their own children, b) a teacher makes an honest mistake concerning their children, and c) the teachers are just plain right and the parents wrong. Teachers live for the parents that can accept the reality concerning their child, and in the next breath ask "what can we do about it?" The audience of this blog may not realize it, but that parent has become a vanishing breed.

[Aside: hear ye!! Teachers are humans!! They even (gasp!) have children of their own!]

As for the meritocracy issue: what our society lacks is ethics. Say what you want about the theological side of it, I'll even join you in criticizing some aspects of secular humanism on that score, but the default attitude is get yours, step on anyone who gets in your way, and don't look back (well, and be charitable if it doesn't get in the way of the second SUV). In no way could I agree that we have a meritocracy per se; what we have is the current version of aristocracy, with meritocratic overlays on the standard tools for getting and keeping privilege. Until we find a workable replacement for the zero-sum game, none of that will change. Until we recognize, as a society, that pluralism is not everyone for themselves, that there is a readily available ethics out there already that too many find inconvenient, nothing will change.

Harvey, Home schooling has removed that from the public education forum. It's hurting us.

If I understand you, homeschooling is hurting the students who remain in school? How's it for the students who homeschool? Are we talking about academics here, or how exactly are you operationalizing "hurting"? Any metrics?

The vast majority of us can recall those parents of our friends that were involved. We can also recall how their example of involved parenting in education impressed us.

I'm in the minority then, as I have no such recall. My parents didn't give a rip, and none of my friends parents did either. Must be a generation thing, or maybe I was just too high to notice :-).

MI, thanks for the web address. I hope I can get my computer to cooperate in finding the site. (Have I mentioned that I hate technology?) If not, I'll probably have to go about this the old fashioned way. What book of Murray's should I read on this subject?

Copying & pasting the link I gave above into the address bar should bring you to an article written by Murray.

Murray also wrote a book on this topic, entitled "In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State". Googling Murray and "In Our Hands" brings up a number of hits.

The concept of giving every citizen (say) $10k annually is usually referred to as a "basic income" or "guaranteed minimum income".

Related (but tangential) to this is the concept of "stakeholding", i.e., giving each citizen a "stake" of (say) $100k at age 18; see here:

theatlantic.com/issues/99apr/9904inequality.htm

...which reviews Ackerman & Alstott's "The Stakeholder Society".

Some points for those trapped in IQ denial:

1) Brain size has an estimated heritability correlation of 0.85.

2) Frontal gray matter volume correlates with g (intelligence).

3) Twin studies show a correlation between whole brain size and g.

4) Prenatal and infancy brain growth rates is also associated with subsequent IQ.

5) In human evolution, we can see a steady correlation between brain size and the complexity of the toolkits early man could build. Because the brain uses so many calories, there is no question the larger primate brain is related to intelligence. Homo erectus has a average cranium size of 980 cm³, Homo habilis: 750 cm³, Homo sapiens: 1300-1400 cm³.

6) Not all human races have the same average brain size nor intelligence (proven with CAT scans correlated against IQ tests). Programs that assume cognitive uniformity among races (NCLB) will always fail.

7) Due to advances in genetics, the strong relationship between intelligence and genes will soon become so overwhelming that our current liberal denial will become futile and laughable. Think Galileo. The solution is not to try and bury the science (liberal methods) but rather to focus on inherent human rights regardless of genetic abilities. Outlawing testing for Downs babies so we can kill them (some 80-90% are killed today) is a good place to start.

Wow, lots of good stuff here. Random thoughts and some responses to comments above:

1. Teachers are dedicated educational professionals, yadda, yadda, yadda. Yes, BUT most elementary teachers are much stronger in teaching literacy and prefer that to laying a good foundation for math. This hampers students' abilities to get into higher math (even algebra) in middle and high school.

2. Our local public school offers a virtual K-8 option. Initially, most families who chose that option came from homeschooling. Their students tended to have much better literacy skills than math skills. So point 1. above also applies to homeschooling parents. (1. is based on observation, this point 2. is based on data.)

3. Tradespeople who think they don't need a good grasp of math will not be good businesspeople. How do you know if you're bidding enough on a job to cover your costs?

4. High intelligence mostly means you can score well on tests. Where have good test scores gotten me? In my 40s, I currently work for others in a not terribly challenging environment, I have under-developed people skills, and I'm financially savvy. I don't own my own business, I'm not a professional (doctor, lawyer, professor, dentist, . . . ), and I'm not rich. And my house is a mess.

5.As far as success in life, what matters at least as much as intelligence is how you treat people, how you relate to people, and how hard you are willing to work.

6. I decry the push toward teaching algebra and formal geometry to younger and younger students. Physical brain development has to be there to understand some concepts.

7. "Engineering" as a career is vague, highly overrated, and misunderstood. Non-engineers view it as a job for smart people. People who work with engineers understand there's a range of abilities present, and many engineers aren't actually very good at math.

Connie, respectfully, your point #6 is a contradiction of your apparent opinions indicated in #1 and #2. Elementary school teachers, beyond recognizing precocious talent, will in fact not "prepare" their students for "higher math". They are in fact laying the foundation for it. What the child does with the foundation is a completely separate issue. The distinction is important.

The brain development part is the frontopolar cortex, a region in the frontal lobe, that doesn't reach post-natal physical maturity (for comparison, consider the development of teeth) and activation until around the age of four. Language skills begin much earlier and develop at an accelerated pace by comparison.

A primary determinant in learning algebra is the child's place on the abstract reasoning curve. I know people who are terrible with arithmetic, but mastered algebra easily.

It's not what they are "stronger" in, or what they "prefer". It's what they are trained to do. It's based on sound developmental theory, and their training includes recognition of exceptions to the "norm" and what to do with them.

Oh, and I'm not a child development expert, but I am married to one. :-)

Once would be one time too many. I have been known to haunt motels looking for extra money walking people's dogs...

Bravo Caroline. You have succinctly explained one of the reasons that my children are in private school. They aren't forced to suffer the behavior of boorish classmates who don't want to be there, but are compelled by law to attend.

Without commenting on this particular teacher's experience, I can say this. I coach people and lead workshops on time management and overcoming procrastination, fears and blocks. I work with adults from as diverse a range of backgrounds as you can imagine - from rich kids struggling to finish a Ph.D. thesis to ex-offenders and ex-addicts struggling to get a job and enter mainstream society for the first time.

What I can tell you is this: there is a huge amount of bad teaching out there, on every level, and many people are seriously harmed by it. There is also a huge number of bad workplaces and bad bosses, and people are seriously harmed by them, too. (Not to mention, bad parenting.) Note that I'm not talking about seriously abusive cases, although of course they exist, but plain old incompetence and uncompassionate schools and work places.

These bad institutions really harm and undermine people. I know many people who overheard someone saying about them like "he's a bad reader" and that got fixed in their minds and became predictive. Moreover, it's often the most ambitious, talented people who can be victimized this way because they are sensitive to criticism.

And a characteristic of these abusive places is that they tend to blame the victim. So, "I'm not a bad teacher/boss - you're a bad student/employee." This happens a lot.

This is what I observe first-hand every day in many contexts. And if you want an independent authority, check out The Myth of Laziness by Mel Levine, MD. He is famous for writing A Mind at a Time, and perhaps the premier expert on learning differences. The thesis of The Myth of Laziness is just that - that a lot of so-called, lazy, stupid, unmotivated, etc. students are actually suffering from/have been victimized by bad teaching, bad parenting, chaotic homelife, learning disability, etc.

I have also seen people - even middle-aged and older people - turn their lives around spectacularly when finally exposed to compassionate mentors, bosses and teachers.

Hillary

sorry if I posted 2x - I meant to post once in Prof. X thread. Hillary

Hillary, I was sincere: your post really does belong in both threads.

Meg, I don't disagree with you, but I wonder if you may have misunderstood Caroline in one respect: engaging children who've mastered a topic or skill in helping peers who have not yet done so can be a valuable learning experience for both children. Teachers are not fobbing off their duties on smart kids. A child who does well can be a prime candidate for mentoring-type vocations.

In my experience, it can also serve to minimize bullying and teasing. It's easy to join in the snarking with the crowd; one on one, compassion can easily result from seeing the pain and frustration in the other child, and there is a healthy source of pride in the satisfaction of having helped that child.

Marian, I like the way you think. :-)

I would like to see a "13th grade" added to pre-collegiate study. In particular, I'd like to see a full year (spread proportionately along the developmental curve) that is completely devoted to the tools and mechanics of learning: critical thinking, abstract reasoning, logic communication skills. No content that isn't absolutely necessary to the main topic. Emphasize doing instead of memorizing.

A subtle symptom of education creep has been the adjustment of the cutoff birthday date for the school year. When I graduated HS in 1974, most of my class had already turned 18. [Too] Many (most?) HS grads are 17 when they get to their college freshman year.

Sherri Tepper, one of my favorite speculative fiction authors, has created a society, in one of her books (can't remember which) in which every adult is required to be competent in an art, a craft, and a science. I would pack up and move to that world in a New York second if I could.