I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017) • Hacker News Board

Re: I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017)

#441

Post by EliRivers » Wed, May 01, 2019, 9:47 AM UTC

jodrellblank wrote: post #215

EliRivers wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never understood how someone could master a subject and yet be unable to answer any questions about it. How about spoken English? I know a great many people who are able to express themselves clearly and gramatically - surely mastery of spoken English - but ask them what the rule is for order of adjectives or some such and many of them would even need to double check what an adjective is.

That's hardly being "unable to answer ANY questions"; try asking them which is more common: "the big red car" vs "the red big car", do you think they'd be unable to answer?

That's not a question about the English language. That's asking someone to use it.

The question of this nature about the English language would be "how do I know what order to put adjectives in?" and the answer would be something along the lines of "opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose".

I do think they would be unable to answer. The rule of course then goes deeper, into ablaut reduplication and so on. People master spoken English without knowing anything [0] about it.

[0] Yes, I know, I said "anything" and now your literalist side is jumping in joy at being able to say "Aha, aha, they DO know at least one thing and therefore your statement is not literally correct!" I don't care.

Re: I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017)

#442

Post by Nasrudith » Wed, May 01, 2019, 12:36 PM UTC

i4t wrote: post #348

segmondy wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those classes are all about conformity. It's about learning how to play the game of life and not going against the grain. "smart students" learn to read their teachers and know how to feedback the expected answers even if they don't agree or believe in it. A lesson that's very much needed in life. A lot have not learned this lesson and this is why many of us on this site still marvel at the bullshit companies raising…

"... are all about conformity." You give them too much credit, imo. That would be way to clever, too much 'conspiracy'-like. But, I agree that if you go against the grain, confront their bs... you're toast.

It is worse than a conspiracy really - it is emergent bullshit from groupthink which is all about rationalizations. A conspiracy at least serves a purpose.

Re: I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017)

#443

Post by Nasrudith » Wed, May 01, 2019, 12:46 PM UTC

segmondy wrote: post #330

sametmax wrote: post #234

I always though how silly it was for teachers to pretend they got the correct answer in a text analysis of a century old author. Apparently it's even true for authors that are still alive. Some things seemed so far fetched, so random, so made up. And yet it was supposed to be _the_ right answer. When I offered another one, even knowing the official one but disagreeing, I was graded as failing. Hell, I'm pretty certai…

Those classes are all about conformity. It's about learning how to play the game of life and not going against the grain. "smart students" learn to read their teachers and know how to feedback the expected answers even if they don't agree or believe in it. A lesson that's very much needed in life. A lot have not learned this lesson and this is why many of us on this site still marvel at the bullshit companies raising…

I suspect the bad humanities teacher is a result of university politics in the "office politics" sense allowed to degrade and stagnate.

Essentially if it takes those who are good at the bullshitting game to advance and compete for tenure bullshit becomes the defacto qualifier.

Making matters better yet worse for "optimizing" in both senses are those who actuly are sincerely interested in thd subject - I have had decent ones who would give good marks and respect those who differed philosophically but could give sincere and articulated explanations and justifications.

Re: I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017)

#444

Post by oldjokes » Wed, May 01, 2019, 12:56 PM UTC

kyle-rb wrote: post #372

oldjokes wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the same way about much of Computer Science. So much nonsense was forced into my head as the "best practices", from OO development to Agile to cloud snake oil to crypto scams. And then on top of that it turns out the CPUs are designed to be inherently insecure so all those amazing mathematical proofs in perfect penmanship were a waste of time.

I feel like OOP, Agile, "cloud" as a concept, and cryptocurrency/blockchains are not computer science topics. The way in which blockchains are implemented, sure, that's math, applied as cryptography, applied to achieve distributed consensus, which is very much computer science. But you specifically mention crypto scams, which is much more applying the general concept of distributed consensus to different areas, and I…

I mean if you want to get into the nitty gritty details yeah I think the biggest waste of time of all was the years implementing and tweaking linked lists in C. Not sure who decided to define that as "computer science" at the time, but I have trouble with those definitions too.

Re: I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017)

#445

Post by Nasrudith » Wed, May 01, 2019, 12:57 PM UTC

eru wrote: post #271

sametmax wrote: post #234

I always though how silly it was for teachers to pretend they got the correct answer in a text analysis of a century old author. Apparently it's even true for authors that are still alive. Some things seemed so far fetched, so random, so made up. And yet it was supposed to be _the_ right answer. When I offered another one, even knowing the official one but disagreeing, I was graded as failing. Hell, I'm pretty certai…

> We wonder why fake news and bullshit work ? It's because we teach kids to repeat popular opinions and make up things because they look good. We teach them that not only there is a price to pay for not doing that, but that we are ok with being the ones making them pay it. Luckily, you are overestimating the effect of education. Kids don't pay enough attention to be so indoctrinated.

Kids pay attetion like they eat stuff - not how you want them to neccessarily or what would be rational even.

One thing I noticed about socialization processes is they are about teaching things they are too afraid to teach directly like when and how to lie and when hypocrisy is acceptable.

If you practice some vice while expecting them to be virtuous you teach that the "good behavior" (say you serve them broccoli and water while you have fried chicken and soda) is childish and vice is to be preferred when not forced.

Re: I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017)

#446

Post by bluGill » Wed, May 01, 2019, 1:09 PM UTC

bena wrote: post #367

bluGill wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one more thing that is important that most people miss: a "gifted" student (whatever that means) mixed in with the rest challenges the other students to do better.

Do you support putting intellectually challenged students with the rest to encourage them to do better?

That is a complex question that cannot be answered as a one size fits all. "intellectually challenged" can mean many different things. In some cases yes - it is good for the "smart" kids to learn to deal with the "stupid". In some cases no, the "stupid" just hold back the "smart". Note that this is all levels, the above average student sometimes needs to be at a lower level than the very smartest, and sometimes together.

There is a difference between subjects as well. I've been in choir with some "intellectually challenged" kids who had great voices: I was the one being challenged.

Re: I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017)

#447

Post by ubermonkey » Wed, May 01, 2019, 1:31 PM UTC

sametmax wrote: post #336

ubermonkey wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I always though how silly it was for teachers to pretend they got the correct answer in a text analysis of a century old author. Some elements of analysis are verifiable, like when someone provides meaningful context around lines in Shakespeare, but once you get past very elementary discussions of literature the notion of "right answer" is kind of over. My primary degree is literature; above dumb-freshman courses, t…

It doesn't. I just think I would have liked you as a teacher, and most I met didn't not have your point of view.

To be clear: I'm not a teacher. I've been in software for 30 years.

Lots of people my age in the biz don't have CS or MIS degrees. Most of the degrees back then were lagging real-world tech in a huge way, so we mostly taught ourselves. Our degrees are in things like physics, or math, or engineering, or political science, or (like me) literature & creative writing.

Specialization is for insects. ;)

Re: I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017)

#448

Post by aidenn0 » Wed, May 01, 2019, 1:32 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #363

segmondy wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those classes are all about conformity. It's about learning how to play the game of life and not going against the grain. "smart students" learn to read their teachers and know how to feedback the expected answers even if they don't agree or believe in it. A lesson that's very much needed in life. A lot have not learned this lesson and this is why many of us on this site still marvel at the bullshit companies raising…

> It was all subjective and her own opinion. I fed her back her crap and I passed the class. I had an English class I thought was like this. I generally tried not to do that unless I had to, but given this English teacher had given me a D and C- on the first two essays (which is all we were graded on), I decided for the third essay I would get as much help as possible directly from her to see exactly what she wanted…

I had a similar experience. I was graded 56/100. The only comment was "Good job, almost an A paper."

Re: I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017)

#449

Post by fancyfish » Wed, May 01, 2019, 3:17 PM UTC

jtms wrote: post #139

_7fvc wrote: post #107

This article is fun to read. Incidentally, my daughter just took a test for a gifted program. She didn't study for it as recommended by our school district. She scored 95% in one subject. But the qualified cut-off rate is 98%! My eyes just rolled looking at that number. That means they only pick 98 and 99 percentiles. For a first grader to score that high, she needs to answer the exam perfectly. If you have some stat…

I was in the gifted program when I was in elementary school and I don’t recommend it. It took a kid like me who was already prone to social isolation and isolated him further. I voluntarily left the program after 2 years and was playing catch up socially and I wasn’t any better off academically. Don’t put your kids in that program.

As another anecdote, I was in one and do recommend it. Yes, the social isolation is a real thing and you have to work harder to meet other kids outside the program. However, I made lasting friendships with others in the program who remain my closest friends today. I think I covered more ground academically and it set me up well to take advanced classes in middle school. Note, this was in a well-funded public school and over 15 years ago so your mileage may vary.

Re: I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017)

#450

Post by longer_arms » Wed, May 01, 2019, 3:44 PM UTC

sametmax wrote: post #245

longer_arms wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And as a kid, you certainly can't say a classic author is not interesting. You can't say the text is boring, that you don't see talent in it, that you didn't learn anything from it. It has been validated by society, hence it's good. That is because that statement is both not useful in the context (you're there to pick it apart) and reflects pretty badly on your understanding, clearly the text has some depth, even i…

Some are, but I think many don't. Text analysis is a lot like wine tasting: there is something to it, but it's way over the top. And if you put a brand new text and put 10 experts on it, they will come up with different interpretations. They will even claim terrible wine is good because of the bottle. There is also a huge mentality implication. See for example your reaction: you assume my understanding is bad while k…

Except your comment was about refusing to engage in the activity, analysis of the themes and subtext.

The whole point is that of a subjective analysis, with infinite interpretations which aren't objective views of the text, but a product of the interrelationship between: the text, the context of the text's writing (inc authorial intent), the analyser, their context, and the context of the academia around the text pre existing. These aren't objective measures, but the aim is to have something to say, to have enough insight into the world to link ideas up and make something up that sounds convincing.

Saying the book isn't as good as other people said it was isn't that, and it isn't really very useful, even as a personal opinion, and is completely missing the point of the exercise.