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Post by Drooperdoo on Jan 17, 2006 10:41:51 GMT -5
Anodyne, lol
We both referred people to the work of John Taylor Gatto on the subject of American education. lol
...Great minds think alike...
Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha
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Post by anodyne on Jan 17, 2006 11:04:36 GMT -5
yeah... I didn't see your post until now. I quoted Wendland and then went to another thread. An associate of mine was making arrangemnets for me to interview Gatto since I don't live too far from him but my asscoiate has health issues and his website had to be put on hold. He had conducted some interesting interviews.
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Post by Drooperdoo on Jan 17, 2006 12:32:11 GMT -5
I must manfully acknowledge correction--by both Forrester and Nymos.
I knew the IQ-averages of black Americans and Mexican Americans [85, 87 respectively], but I didn't know the average for Caucasian Americans, so I thoughtlessly threw out the figure 110. I did this because I knew that the national average for the U.S. was 98, and I assumed that it had to be higher to compensate for the 85 and 87-IQ averages of blacks and Mexicans.
Pulling out a calculator, I see my error: Together, blacks and Mexicans account for approximately 25% of the US population. Since their IQs are 85 and 87, we can average it to 86.
If we create a pie chart, dividing America into four parts: one wedge will have an 86. The other three wedges would have 101 as their IQ averages. If we do the calculation, we see that the "national average" would be 97.25.
* It's at 98 probably because of the tiny influence of Northern Asians, who are about 1% of the population and bring the national average up a smidge.
So Nymos and Forrester were correct to say that average Caucasian IQ is about 101 in the United States. So "white America" is tied with Sweden and Switzerland, IQ-wise. Whereas "Black- and Mexican-America" hover around the Phillipines and Lebanon.
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Post by anodyne on Jan 17, 2006 14:12:19 GMT -5
You should have said you meant 101 rather than 110 and you would have been in the clear since that would have been an understandable typo
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Post by Drooperdoo on Jan 17, 2006 14:59:32 GMT -5
Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha
I actually considered trying to scam out of it that way, but a sense of fairplay and honesty predominated.
Whatever I lose in terms of the argument, I gain in terms of self-respect for being able to admit faults and gracefully point out when my opponents are right.
It seemed the gentlemanly thing to do.
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Post by Crimson Guard on Jan 17, 2006 15:13:30 GMT -5
Honestly,Humility and Integrity! Your on you way to becoming a full Knight of Malta, like your ancestors before you.....
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Post by wendland on Jan 17, 2006 18:35:32 GMT -5
Drooperdoo's long post was very interesting and makes sense. In SD, California, for instance, the kids in the public schools are put on tracks starting by 4th grade. If you're not on the "gifted track" you will probably be prevented from taking college preparatory classes, at least those classes that better universities' entrance requirements want. So, I suppose all the regular kids are supposed to become service industry drones. I remember that in junior high school in the late 70s, foreign language instruction was closed to regular kids... Unless, your parents went to the administration to complain, and even that wasn't a guarantee. Typing class was also only for "gifteds"-- the regular kids could wait for typing until high school. If you were regular, you were also tracked towards shop (woodwork, metallurgy) classes. That was then, maybe it's a bit different now, but from what I've heard, it isn't. I've taught and worked with a lot of young people in Europe and South America, though they are usually a little older than high school age. However, when they talk of their highschool experiences, the dynamic IS quite different from the one in the US. I would dare say it is more academic, and there even seem to be fewer peer pressure issues-- though I know they are universal, yet they don't seem to be as strong. Something drooperdoo said in his post about managing people and hightening their emotions of greed and envy does seem to fit into the scheme of US schooling... What I said in my previous post about centralization and atomization: In a sense both happen. If you live within a certain school district, you basically have to play by its rules-- that does seem very centralized, authoritarian (the Prussian heritage?). Yet, it is also atomized, as there are so many districts, the districts tend to be small, and there can be a lot of organizational variety among them. In a neighboring district, the same grade may go to a different type of school, one district may use IQ testing to set kids on tracks, another not, one district has a lot more money at its disposal than another, etc...
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Post by Drooperdoo on Jan 17, 2006 19:14:16 GMT -5
Wendland, Most of the post your referring to is part of an extended quotation from the author of The Underground History of Education, John Taylor Gatto.
I found it fascinating, too, that the American school system was based on the old Prussian system. What amazed me more was that the Prussian system was specifically and intentionally designed to turn out factory workers. It wasn't a side-effect, it wasn't an accident. That was its unabashed, stated goal.
According to more of what I read, the thinking was this: School shouldn't be designed to teach the unwashed masses; it should be there to teach them to carry out certain simple functions and to respond to a system of conditioned challenges and rewards. It was all preliminary stuff for when they entered factories.
One math teacher, who wrote upon the same subject said that it's no accident that math classes don't teach kids real math. It's all fake math that has no application in the real world--and it's purposeful. The designers didn't want the "average person" to know about finance, the tax-system, the world of stocks and bonds, interest and usury: The whole system by which people are enslaved. So the courses are specifically designed to keep the math abstract and without real-world application.
History, too, is purposely a gobbledy-gook. The text books jump from one historical period to another, laying stress on irrelevant trivia while remaining wholly silent upon the real mechanisms of history. The Federal Reserve taking over the U.S. economy? --No, that's not important. Take that chapter out. Put in one on the importance of the Beatles or Elvis. The mechanisms that led to the Civil War? --Unimportant! Put in a chapter on the rise of Nintendo.
The scary thing is: The people who designed the "educational system" aren't hiding anything. They wrote it all out there in black and white. This is just the history we're not supposed to know.
Most of real history is like that.
That's why the older I get and the more I learn I realize how great the words of that French poet, Rimbaud, were: "Everything you know is wrong."
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Post by anodyne on Jan 19, 2006 18:10:43 GMT -5
Nymos, I was thinking it over with regards to a post of yours and wages that I initially disagreed and decided you were partially correct. It would be a good idea to raise the wages of teachers but rather than motivate the unmotivatable it would attract better people to seek teaching jobs.
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Post by nymos on Jan 20, 2006 0:41:22 GMT -5
Nymos, I was thinking it over with regards to a post of yours and wages that I initially disagreed and decided you were partially correct. It would be a good idea to raise the wages of teachers but rather than motivate the unmotivatable it would attract better people to seek teaching jobs. Yes, I had this in mind too, but didn't put it into words. However, I disagree with what you call "unmotivatable." If a teacher is truly unmotivatable then he/she would fall under the category of unqualified/incompetent. I don't think there are too many like that. On the other hand, there are many teachers who may very well be qualified but lack the motivation to put in the effort, because the wages are relatively low and firings are rare.
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Post by nymos on Jan 20, 2006 0:47:25 GMT -5
Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha I actually considered trying to scam out of it that way, but a sense of fairplay and honesty predominated. Whatever I lose in terms of the argument, I gain in terms of self-respect for being able to admit faults and gracefully point out when my opponents are right. It seemed the gentlemanly thing to do. Who are you and what did you do to Drooperdoo?
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