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Joined: Feb 2011
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I wonder if this thread could pass the Turing Test. There is no thread. ... and no. Respectively, I mean. Because if it could, there would be a Turing medal, which would be extremely shiny. And that's just silly. There's a Fields medal. But no Turing medal.
Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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The only solution I can think of is to remove any transcript notation of which class the student actually took. If there is no shiny prize, than anyone motivated only by shiny prizes will probably leave. Yes. This is my favorite idea. Turing medal awarded to you. 
Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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Joined: Apr 2013
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Part of the problem is that the classes were created to raise the ceiling for kids who were unusually able, unusually hardworking, and/or unusually interested in the topic (with a minimum competence, of course). For kids in any of these three categories, honors/AP/whatever advanced classes can be a great experience of growth. It's not just a matter of IQ. They are there by choice.
When the class appears on transcripts and becomes important, though, the kids don't feel like they have a choice. Sometimes parents tell them to take it, sometimes they feel the anonymous pressure from some college admissions official, but for them the class stops being about curiosity and exploration and pushing limits and becomes a way to make the grade. Any class that involves group discussion, and any class where the teacher adapts content and lectures to the level of the class, is going to be immediately affected by the presence of a lot of kids who don't really want to be there. When the parents feel pressure from admissions people to make sure their kids get high grades in these classes, they end up putting pressure on the district to lower the expectations in the class so everyone who can make use of the result - the transcript notation - can get it. The end result is that even the syllabus gets diluted down as far as possible, and discussions... go away.
In our district this is followed by another round of even higher level classes to accommodate the kids the original Honors classes were designed for. Unfortunately, this transcript gets noticed too, and before you know it parents are asking for their kids to get A's in THAT class too. It seems to be never-ending. Agreed. The only solution I can think of is to remove any transcript notation of which class the student actually took. If there is no shiny prize, than anyone motivated only by shiny prizes will probably leave. Is it possible that removing the transcript notation creates a different shiny prize? When transcripted the same, might the easier route to an 'A' afforded by taking the gen ed version of a class be a shiny prize? This would tend to incentivize the fixed mindset. Meanwhile the higher risk of the more challenging Honors version of the course comes with no commensurate higher reward. This would tend to de-incent the growth mindset.
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Maybe articles such as this will calm some parents. But it makes me wonder about the ability of education research to guide parenting. Looking at the last paragraph I excerpted, who believes that "regularly discussing school experiences with your child" has a causal positive effect on the academic achievement of Hispanic children but a *negative* effect on white children? I doubt that these correlations reflect causation. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/12/parental-involvement-is-overrated/Parental Involvement Is Overrated By KEITH ROBINSON and ANGEL L. HARRIS New York Times April 12, 2014, 2:32 pm 24 Comments Most people, asked whether parental involvement benefits children academically, would say, “of course it does.” But evidence from our research suggests otherwise. In fact, most forms of parental involvement, like observing a child’s class, contacting a school about a child’s behavior, helping to decide a child’s high school courses, or helping a child with homework, do not improve student achievement. In some cases, they actually hinder it. ... When involvement did benefit kids academically, it depended on which behavior parents were engaging in, which academic outcome was examined, the grade level of the child, the racial and ethnic background of the family and its socioeconomic standing. For example, regularly discussing school experiences with your child seems to positively affect the reading and math test scores of Hispanic children, to negatively affect test scores in reading for black children, and to negatively affect test scores in both reading and math for white children (but only during elementary school). Regularly reading to elementary school children appears to benefit reading achievement for white and Hispanic children but it is associated with lower reading achievement for black children. Policy makers should not advocate a one-size-fits-all model of parental involvement. ... Keith Robinson, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Texas, Austin, and Angel L. Harris, a professor of sociology and African and African-American studies at Duke, are the authors of “The Broken Compass: Parental Involvement With Children’s Education.”
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Joined: Apr 2013
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Thank you for posting another thought-provoking article. This sentence may be key: Most parents appear to be ineffective at helping their children with homework. Extrapolated to other areas, including reading to or with a child, and discussing school experiences... the level of expertise or effectiveness of the parents may have a strong positive or negative effect. This brings to mind the work of Hart & Risley. Having positive interactions with children such as two-way conversations (as opposed to directives) was a distinction observed by Hart&Risely. Some parents may find spanking to be a culturally acceptable form of discipline. The impact of a spanking parent "regularly discussing school experiences" may have a negative impact on a child's self-esteem and performance. Some may say that the ethnic groups whose children were seen to benefit most from parental involvement may be characterized by: - developing a network for acquiring information/support for parents - sharing information freely among one's cultural group - positive, supportive interactions with their children. LOL, this does not account for helicopter parents or hothousing Tiger Moms who tend to be competitive, pushy, and may guard opportunities/information from others.
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The crux seems to be this paragraph:- Do our findings suggest that parents are not important for children’s academic success? Our answer is no. We believe that parents are critical for how well children perform in school, just not in the conventional ways that our society has been promoting. The essential ingredient is for parents to communicate the value of schooling, a message that parents should be sending early in their children’s lives and that needs to be reinforced over time. But this message does not need to be communicated through conventional behavior, like attending PTA meetings or checking in with teachers. No surprises for just about all on this forum, I am sure.
Last edited by madeinuk; 04/13/14 09:23 AM.
Become what you are
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I wonder if this thread could pass the Turing Test. There is no thread. ... and no. Respectively, I mean. Because if it could, there would be a Turing medal, which would be extremely shiny. And that's just silly. There's a Fields medal. But no Turing medal. There's a Turing Award. Not having won it, I can't say whether there's a medal attached, though.
Email: my username, followed by 2, at google's mail
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I was under the impression that there wasn't a medal. I will feel extremely pouty if all this time I had been passing up opportunities simply because I wrongly assumed that nothing shiny was available. 
Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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Joined: Sep 2008
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The Turing Award is nothing to do with the Turing Test except that both are named after Turing. (I am not sure whether the revelation that this thread contained poster(s) who are actually AIs would suffice to win the TA; I suspect not, this style is too easy to automate.) However, if you have been sitting on something that would win you the Turing Award, HK, please don't!
Last edited by ColinsMum; 04/13/14 11:36 PM.
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I think you really have to create some sort of alternate system in order to make anything that is actually new. That's really the only way to challenge a system.
The goal is to develop a system that actually works better for as many of the people involved as is practical.
If you just tear out part of the old system, I would expect that you're just going to go back to where you were when that change was added in the first place.
So, if the older system was better than what you currently have, catabolism of certain aspects is a good idea.
Cultures aren't blank slates. ITA. Very true in general, not just with respect to education.
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