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v v
Delanco, NJ
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v commented on the article |i was never a star at math, more a star at math homework copying in homeroom. but i'm getting interested in statistics and probability from reading nassim taleb, author of the black swan. statistics have often been misused in medical research and financial reporting. i don't understand them well, but i intend to try. i need to understand how statistics/probablity have been used in education accountability testing. taleb says we need to acknowledge that there are so many unknowns that we are playing at knowing with statistics. he advocates observation and trial and error methods for many problems. that resonates with me teaching hard to reach students. a one size fits all approach doesn't work. even 'evidence-based' methods don't often work. i observe and i try different things. with the flexibility i use in teaching, i'm going to need something more flexible to show student progress.
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v commented on the article |i have so much to read this summer- but i will definitely put that on my list, especially coming from someone who has worked is Asia and is married to a Korean woman. I myself lived in Taiwan for 7 years, have upper intermediate Mandarin speaking ability and am married to a taiwan-born man who has advanced beginner english ability. it has made for an interesting 16 year marriage (i have a lot of grey hair).
i don't think you have to transplant confucianism. you just have to exchange ideas and show you walk the walk, not just talk the talk. ira has some truly revolutionary ideas that i'm sure will be harder for some people to grasp than my simple idea that extended family needs to help each other more. actually, if the economy gets worse and worse, i won't have to do any persuading. family members will move in with each other like they did during the great depression and then people will learn the lesson for themselves again.
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v commented on the article |PS ira, on your blog you said: "Assessment must be individual, detailed, and student-centered. This is essential, because two fundamental attitude changes are essential: First, the "customer" in every school must be the student - and our students need assessments which help them move forward, not which compares them to some unknown "norm." "
Isn't the NAEP a normed test? Do you want to keep the NAEP as an accountability tool? How would that work if there were no more age-based grades, as you are advocating for?
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v commented on the article |Debbie, you hit on 2 points i talk about a lot: the wider culture's impact on education and the vital role parents have to play in changing education.
i'm a little different from you maybe in that when i talk about the 'village' raising the child, i refer to the original meaning of that african proverb. i believe the village was a large extended family. i wish that extended family would do more to help each other out- including caring about the education of the children in that extended family. my views were shaped by living for 7 years in taiwan and seeing extended family helping each other out on a scale i had never seen before in the US- even when they don't live near each other.
as to who's going to drive real meaningful educational change- it has to start from the grassroots- the parents. just like real democratic progress comes for the bottom up, not top down. individuals can persuade and inspire, but it takes groups organizing to make change and then monitor it and refine it.
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v commented on the article |
i misspoke. i didn't mean you made up the 1/3 concept. i meant that your school experience bore out that concept. of course we don't need complete agreement, and we can still be friendly and all without complete agreement. but my impression was that your 1/3 point affecting almost ALL US schools (even the ones in the wealthier districts) was not getting across. and since i happen to agree with you and see it as the crux of your argument, i was concerned that clay and others get it. clay brings up the naep to back up his claim that the wealthier school districts are doing 'well enough'. if one agrees with the across the socio-economic board-1/3-concept, one can not make that statement. this is an important point in my opinion. in addition, i don't believe i've seen your support for the naep in your blog before, but i will go back and search for it. i thought that was just another crappy test in your book.
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v commented on the article |
clay, i don't think you share ira's view. he believes that the present system,even the schools that do "well enough" engage 1/3 of the students, while leaving 1/3 bored and the other 1/3 confused. this is a key point of his borne out of his bitter experience as a dyslexic. in ira's opinion, the vast majority of schools across all socio-economic groups only reach 1/3 of the students. so that is not 'well enough'. ira, am i wrong? i wasn't trying to cast you in a bad light, clay. i was just wondering if you and ira are really on the same wavelength.
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v commented on the article |
ira, why do you want to keep the NAEP test? Also, you're going to have to try harder to get your points across because the person who invited you to blog thinks the schools in the wealthier US districts are successful and education in the US is mainly lacking only in the urban/rural districts.
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v commented on the article |
i'm not saying the US should copy the asian educational model, but there are aspects of it that the US could benefit from. as you said, in general people in the US do not value education as much as the asian countries do, and families aren't as closely knit and don't help each other out as much. we need to talk about those 2 aspects more when we talk about improving education in the US. thankfully president obama and people like bill cosby touch on the first point, but not so much the second. we here in the US are used to our materially easy lives (relatively speaking) and often find it too inconvenient to help out extended family. sometimes it is too 'inconvenient' to find out how to help our own children with their education.
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v commented on the article |
does clay burell share any insights about education informed by his experiences in asia anywhere on this blog?
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