Human
abilitites vary radically. A testing
psychologist named Howard Gardner found 7 (and a few more are being discovered
and described) Body-kinesthetic varies
from someone who trips over his own feet to Nadia Comenici, Musical from tone-deaf to Mozart, Spatial from someone who gets lost 2
blocks from home to Kit Carson, Linguistic
from someone who can’t talk complete sentences to Shakespeare, Logical-mathematical from someone
unable to see cause and effect to Isaac Newton, Interpersonal autism to Bill Clinton, Intrapersonal from an undisciplined narcissist to Confuscious. Next
understand many people will, even with much training not be able to be a Mozart
or find their way through wilderness like Kit Carson. Although we can recognize
many talents, 2 and a half of the above--Linguistic, Logical-mathematical, and
(partially) spatial--correlate with much success in life and constitute what
are termed Academic Abilities. Those are
the 3 most taught in schools although our schools should also provide outlets
for the other talents like music and athletics. The academic abilities are
valuable with every aspect of human life and are the basis of IQ, NAEP, and
military intelligence tests. High academic ability often correlates with strong
interpersonal and intrapersonal skills.
Trouble is, many students are not
very capable of doing all skills.
Teachers can teach rote things in math like multiplication tables, but “logical
progression” is a skill that must be had to do even junior high math. Literacy teachers can teach vocabulary and
grammar but “inferential leaps” are needed to understand poetry. And each of these abilities require basic
skills of the other (inferential leaps require thinking logically in
circumstances, for example). Schools get blamed for student inability but try
being a teacher who attempts to teach math to people with severe lack of
logical progression skills. No Child Left Behind? But all schools must leave
some behind others. More homework? Won’t work if the curriculum is pitiful!
Small class sizes? Not much help!
Students come to school with
differing abilities and we know certain things affect it. Malnutrition depresses Africa perhaps 25 IQ
points. Early development also makes
differences. IQ trends are set-in by age 6 to 10, so pre-school experiences are
important. Yet nearly all the social programs of the 60s and 70s stressed
raising intelligence by pre-school experiences.
Those succeed only temporarily. Gains are lost by second grade. In 1964,
James Coleman studied the effects of inequality in schools vs. student
performance. EVERYBODY (including Coleman) expected to find quality of schools
= academic achievement. Nothing—facilities, money spent per student,
credentials of teachers, curriculum—made a difference. Except one thing did,
family background. Not waiting for the Coleman conclusions, Congress passed
Title I to affect all the expected but wrong conclusions. Measures of Title I have shown negative effects. Likewise, No Child
Left Behind cheated the vast body of regular students. The result of all these
programs has left us with falling test scores in some areas and a scapegoat
paradigm of bad schools—violent classrooms, no standards, incompetent teachers,
etc. Yet well under 10% of US students have a failing school. So rescuing those students is
not overwhelming. But it points out an important step #1 School Choice. Private and
charter schools have modestly higher math and reading scores. What separates them are #2 Discipline--safe and
orderly learning environments and #3 curricula with a core cultural learning.
Those are the first 3 elements that any common education school must provide.
Next we must understand that college
doesn’t fit everybody. It doesn’t impart
the necessary skills of living and making a living and never did. Going to work on time, working hard, being
pleasant to work with, honest, reliable, looking for ways to further the
business are those skills. College coursework is designed for IQ of 115 or
greater, about 20% of the population.
The fact that we push 35% of students through college results in dumbing
down the curriculum, substituting political propaganda for learning and
indulging students to go 6 or 7 years for a bachelor’s degree. However, there
is such a thing as a Core Learning important to function in a society. And that
actually is a function of common education.
To function in any culture requires a core cultural knowledge, the glue
that holds a society together. This
starts in grade 1. Trouble is, many topics
are not taught completely and often with considerable political
encumbrance. For example: historic slavery.
Few high schoolers could tell the differences in indentured slavery vs. chattel
slavery. Why were mixed-race slaves
often community leaders and why are there more in the Caribbean than in USA?
Where were conditions best for a slave—Brazil, Caribbean or USA? Why were slaves so few in 1787 that the
Constitution sunsets the practice, but after 1820 so numerous they outnumbered
Caucasians in the South? Why did race become a modern issue in USA but not in
Brazil? As a result of this anemic
curricula,public schools often teach that all slaves were like the field slaves
of the US South, creating a bitterness that does little to challenge personal
growth and advancement among Afro-Americans. Let’s restate #3 again. #3
Teach a robust core culture curriculum.
Let’s return to common ed. When you
learned and loved it, was it the time when you were challenged to do something
your teacher sensed you were capable of or the time when you were challenged to
do something you could not accomplish no matter how hard you tried? I’ll bet it was the prior. Too many young
adults are pushed into trying college.
They struggle, acquire a lot of debt, never finish or finish with a
degree in a useless subject. High School counselors try to suggest college to a
majority of students when they should say to the kid who likes to operate
machinery, ”Do you realize you can make a lot more as a crane operator than a pizza
delivery boy?” Few parents try to guide choice of major with their kids.
Students don’t want to take broad survey classes in history, art, sciences, and
so they have wide gaps in their education even after college. Finally, students
think that a degree guarantees them a nice job--true only narrowly. Employers don’t care if your Statistics I
class was well-taught. They just see the degree as a screening device for entry
level applicants. College proves you can
think. But among mature workers, being the best at your field is the Important
Thing. Love your work enough to be the
best, not mediocre in a field that is somewhat a stretch for you.#4 Make it possible for each student to
find a place and the average child should be taught how to make a good living.
In order for that to happen, a one-size-fits-all system must not be in place
and trusted teachers must have liberty from extreme oversight. #5
Teachers must be free to teach.
How would you answer this, “Does
America need leaders with more integrity, prudence, self-discipline, moral
courage, or just smarter ones?” Most people like the common sense, not the
overeducated intellectuals. But smarts
is important too. You’ll want your physician to be smart as well as your CEO.
But you also want them to be good and wise. We are talking about the upper 10%,
“elites”. Most elites spend their days
reading, tapping on keyboards, listening and talking—verbal skills. Yet it is
the verbal section of SAT and ACT scores that has seen the most decline—a clear
indication that we fail to educate the verbally skilled. Rigorous is almost never used with the phrase,verbal expression, in schools today. It starts with correct
spelling and grammar in elementary education and goes on to syntax and
reasoning, evaluation of data and pattern recognition. The last two are part of the widespread
statistical illiteracy among today’s gifted. We don’t teach it because rarely
does a teacher in the early grades start it and rarely does a college prof
demand it! Study of history as a sort of
vicarious experience, also imparts wisdom.
Rigor in thinking about virtue is also vital. There are certain issues so fundamental to
the human condition that people must
think about them. Western individualism inspires the young to risk to fulfill
their potential and roil the established ways of doing things. Family
relationships locate happiness in the matrix of human relations. Humility grows
from being a failure usually more than once. We need to make sure the gifted
know how it feels for the rest of humanity. But then hope grows from finding
ways to get up again. A spiritual walk is important in a leader. So, since the elites will lead our society,
we had better teach wisdom and values. Hence education should #6 Push the gifted as fast as they can
achieve until they find the limits of their ability but also #7 a liberal arts
education for gifted is absolutely required. #8 Teach rigor and excellence in all things.
This in a nutshell is what Charles
Murray, a leading sociologist who specializes in IQ, thinks we need for
education.
#1 School choice
#2 Safe and orderly
learning environments
#3 Teach a robust
core curriculum
#4 Place--each
student to find a place and the average child should be taught how to make a
good living.
#5 Teachers must be
free to teach
#6 Push the gifted as
fast as they can achieve until they find the limits of their ability
#7 Liberal arts
education for gifted is absolutely required
#8 Teach rigor and
excellence in all things
