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

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

#341

Post by mrob »

RHSeeger wrote: post #263
btilly wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me guess. You don't have a coordination problem? I do. I received about a year of therapy for the fact that my left hand quite literally doesn't know what my right hand is doing. That helped. But being clumsy still made school sports really unpleasant for me. Just because sports was right for you doesn't mean that it is right for everyone.

For any given activity X, there will be people for which X is not a reasonable thing. That doesn't mean X isn't a good thing, it just means it isn't for everyone.

If schools do not take into account those people for whom X is not reasonable, it's entirely possible for the marginal net benefit to be negative. E.g. the students who benefit most from sport would do plenty of exercise anyway, but the students who are most harmed be sport will end up permanently hating exercise.

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

#342

Post by isostatic »

RHSeeger wrote: post #263
btilly wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me guess. You don't have a coordination problem? I do. I received about a year of therapy for the fact that my left hand quite literally doesn't know what my right hand is doing. That helped. But being clumsy still made school sports really unpleasant for me. Just because sports was right for you doesn't mean that it is right for everyone.

For any given activity X, there will be people for which X is not a reasonable thing. That doesn't mean X isn't a good thing, it just means it isn't for everyone.

OP stated "I can't stress enough how important youth sports are for kids"

Based on a sample size of one.

For any given activity X, there will be people for which X is a reasonable thing. That doesn't mean X is really important, it just means it's important for one person.

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

#343

Post by sametmax »

rayiner wrote: post #284
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…

That was not my experience. I went through a libertarian phase in college and wrote lots of papers that were rather contrarian. I always got "As." Of course you can't just say "the text is boring" or that "you don't see talent in it." That's a really dull thing to say. You need to be able to understand the status quo well enough to be able to articulate it on its own merits, and then go beyond that to explain why you…

I can write you a 20 pages essay about why a text is boring and why I don't see talent in it, with detailed analysis on the style, fit, comparison with similar intent and pieces of art and explain the reason I think the usual analysis is overblown given the weakness of the text.

If a teacher find intensity and depth in a text that has little substance or nuances in the most obvious lines, I'd argue that it's actually the most important point to make if you want to say something that matters.

Of course, to win the meta game is to know that is not actually the most important point to make if you, as a student and human being, want to open more opportunities in your life.

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

#344

Post by sametmax »

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.

I think the meta teaching is more important, and more impactful that the information taught.

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

#346

Post by sametmax »

oldjokes wrote: post #309
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…

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.

CS is very new though, and already pressured by immense economical interests.

Give it a thousand years.

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

#347

Post by kolinko »

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…

Which is ironic, considering humanities are supposed to be about exploration of ideas and creative thinking.

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

#348

Post by i4t »

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…

"... 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.

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

#349

Post by ineedasername »

I'm going through a bit of this sort of thing with my oldest child right now. Sometimes there are issues with the common core specifications themselves, but holy heck are there problems with their implementation. For example, common core math standards MP2 & MP3 relate to reasoning and logical arguments.

Typically these areas are targeted to 5th graders to start with. My son is in 3rd grade, yet out of the blue with no prior introduction, questions arise in a module on fractions about this. Suddenly my son is given a question like this:

"Jane has 6 apples but 4 of them are rotten. Jane's friend Bob says that less than half of the apples can be eaten. DERIVE A CONJECTURE about this situation and provide evidence to support your argument."

This is absolutely ridiculous. First, the concept of a conjecture has never previously been introduced. Second, even if it had been, as used here it is completely inappropriate. It has been pulled from the MP3 standard but clearly used by someone creating questions that had no idea of how to actually apply the concept or perhaps know themselves what a proper mathematical conjecture actually is, much less that its use here is basically a complete non-sequitur. The word probably should not appear in an elementary school core specification at all, as every instance I can find of it is used inappropriately as the generic layman's version of the word rather than its mathematical use, when math is the frickin' subject at hand /end rant

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

#350

Post by kermitismyhero »

your-nanny wrote: post #275
jtms wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In middle school I was placed, by standardized testing, into bonehead classes, where I was extremely bored, not because I was so smart that I knew it already, but because it was boring. I took a writing elective course, impressed the teacher sufficiently that she got me into eighth grade honors English, where my dear teacher lectured on grammar like it was a game of chess. I lived it, but I struggled to get my C. Get…

>where my dear teacher lectured on grammar like it was a game of chess.

The greatest teacher I ever had was a middle-school english teacher who marked strictly on the basis of attendance and participation, never opened a textbook, enthusiastically read aloud from books of his students' choice as if he were performing them professionally on stage for half the class time, and spent the other half of the time just casually discussing the books with the students. The first words he said to the class on day one was "I don't want to hear the word preposition, and I don't think you do either."

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