<p>Where are the parents of the weak students to defend their maligned malingerers??</p>
<p>Actually in the work world leaning to work with a group of varied ability and interest is pretty valuable. It happens on every project in the business world. Half of the learning designed into group projects is learning to manage within a group.</p>
<p>dstark:
Are you opposed to Honors classes in HS? Do you see any value to the students who participate in them?</p>
<p>I find value in honors classes.</p>
<p>Barrons:</p>
<p>Well, yes, but in the business world, there are hierarchies, right? </p>
<p>But the point that Dmd is making is one I would have liked to have made. My S was never happier than when he was in the middle of the pack. And that attitude continues in college.</p>
<p>Aren’t honors classes selective? (perish the thought–how undemocratic!)</p>
<p>From post #865:
“Unfortunately, none of my college courses taught me the subtleties of office politics, basic business etiquette, or the standard performance evaluation system.”</p>
<p>Viewpoint, at a public university would you have had classes that taught this practical business knowledge which Ivies allegedly don’t teach? Or do you think this lack you’ve noticed has to do with the availability of internships or the types of internships to be had at public universities in contrast to Ivies? Or since you admit that some Ivy grads do learn some things from their parents, does this problem have roots in some socio-economic factor?</p>
<p>If you are right (and I am not convinced that you are) that these things are common deficits in young Ivy grads, then I have one theory about why this may be. If our HS is any indication, the type of student who gains admission to Ivies is often too busy with their advanced studies and exceptional EC’s to hold down a normal teen job during the academic year. Also, summers are typically spent taking college classes, doing research, traveling to exotic lands, or otherwise pursuing some lofty community service goal. These kids are gaining national recognition in science fairs and music competitions, etc.; they are NOT working at McDonald’s, mowing lawns, cleaning hotel rooms, or performing other menial jobs which humble a young person and teach him about workplace hierarchies. Thus, perhaps they’ve been deprived of the opportunity to learn that they sometimes need to do unpleasant tasks like it or not, that they will have to pay their dues first, and that they need to do things the boss’s way, whether it makes sense to them or not.</p>
<p>Yes, of course this is a generalization, but it holds true here where I live.</p>
<p>The parents of the weak students are too busy scheming how to abandon their weak children by the nearest river or mountaintop or state school.</p>
<p>The last thing a boss wants is to have to step in and rule over a group project. You learn to work things out among yourselves or you all look bad. Call that the first rule of group projects–no running to the boss (teacher.)</p>
<p>The value of honors classes is the immersion into the material with students of similar focus, interest, and ability. The value of “honors colleges” is the same. I don’t really see what the dispute is about.</p>
<p>The suggestion that top students at state universities are somehow surrounded by less able students is questionable. It has been my experience that very few lower ability kids sign up for multivariate calculus, classical Greek, or an array of very challenging and often honors level classes now offered at most major state universities. For example, the University of Washington has majors to which a student must apply. Often the student must demonstrate success in university coursework by having a GPA in difficult prerequisite courses in excess of 3.0 or higher. They must also demonstrate a passion for the area and have recommendations. The neurobiology major, for example, I believe admits only 48 students a year. The faculty that directly teach the students are first class, and as good or better than one could find anywhere. I doubt there are too many low ability or mediocre students in those classes.</p>
<p>Driver, why does there have to be a dispute to talk about the pros and cons of different learning environments?</p>
<p>Dstark,
You wrote:
"Susan, I can see those 6 math geniuses at Harvard wanting to take classes together and doing their own thing.</p>
<p>Now if I go to Harvard, and I’m not one of those math geniuses, how does this help me?"</p>
<p>I’m not sure on the how does it “help” you part but if you are not one of those math geniuses in Math 55 at Harvard, there are likely other appropriate math classes there for you. That is not the only math class available. Further, if you absolutely suck at math and can’t succeed at a HS level of Calculus class, you may not even be accepted to Harvard because they already select those who they feel can do the work there. There will still be great variation in skill level of the accepted class but not AS great a variation as if they had let in ANY level of learner. I believe most accepted to Harvard could take some sort of math class at Harvard but maybe not the class Marite was refering to. But there would be math classes they could take. Someone with very poor math skills could not succeed at Harvard as they would require remedial math or a very basic level of math which is not offered at Harvard but is offered at many other colleges. I just consulted with a HS junior who at most will go up through Alg. 2 in HS (no PreCal or Calc). So far in HS, she has only taken Alg 1 and Geometry, including an F in Geometry in 10th grade, requiring a semester of basic math tutorial and then retaking Geometry in 11th. This person had Yale and Brown on her college list. I won’t begin to get into her other qualifications but we are just talking math. Ok, I will also mention a 420 on Math. I don’t think there is any math course at the likes of Yale that she’d be able to succeed at straight out of HS. Clearly her math level and learning needs are not in the same ballpark of someone like Marite’s son who takes Math 55 at Harvard. They have different needs and thus different placements. </p>
<p>MWForN:
You wrote:
“I remember breezing through my first paper as a freshman the way I did in high school and being told by my professor that it simply was not up to the college’s standards. I learned how to improve in ways that my high school teachers never thought to point out because I was already one of the best writers in the hs.”
I fully understand this. One of my kids just finished freshman year of college and she had two required writing courses. She said that her papers for college would easily get an A smacked on them if handed in last year at HS because they would have been considered outstanding and exemplarary. She said they may have been good enough for college too but that in her writing conferences at college, the professor saw that she was a gifted writer (and frankly, she truly is…writes way way better than me), and rather than say, “good job, you get an A,” she was pushed and challenged to take it to an even higher level to match her ability. She said that it was refreshing to have that happen even though maybe if someone else had written it, it would be an easy A. She learned to take it even higher. She still got a final grade of an A but she worked hard to challenge herself. It was not like high school at all. The standards and expectations were much higher and even in that setting, they challenged her to go higher than what may have been acceptable. It is a selective school and she is also younger than anyone there. But she craves challenge and was grateful for it. She could go to an easier school but would not be as CONTENT to just get by writing a paper which is easy for her to do at a pretty high level without sweating, but she prefers to be challenged to take it even higher still. </p>
<p>Eng_dude asks:
“LOL. Inquiring minds would like to know at which schools you taught.”
I have taught at five different colleges in Vermont. As there are not THAT many colleges, you can guess a bit but I don’t wish to name them. None were Middlebury. I certainly had some very good students. But I have also had many who cannot write and I don’t even know how they graduated HS with dismal writing skills. At the time that I taught at these colleges, my own children were young. It so happens that my kids started writing at very young ages and are very good writers. So, for instance, I recall teaching college when my youngest was 8 and she had just written a 15 page paper (her school truly allowed for individualized levels and indep. studies). She also wrote a 90 page musical at age 9 around the time I was teaching college. Her papers had a thesis, good intros., conclusions, supporting evidence, well written paragraphs with topic sentences, and did not have spelling errors, and the level of vocabulary and sentence structure was high. I could go on but the level of her papers were not anywhere like the ones I was getting from some of my college students. </p>
<p>Also, my children’s public schools emphasized writing. They wrote papers starting very young and had to write a LOT of papers in HS. They may have gone to an unknown rural public school, but their writing holds its own at selective schools. My older D had an exam essay held up as exemplarary in a course of 100 students (not a freshman course) freshman year at Brown amongst peers there, many of whom went to exclusive prep schools. Recently, in another course, in a presentation, she quoted from a paper her little sister wrote last year (jr. yr. of HS at age 16) and the professor has become very interested in her little sis’s paper even if she was only in HS when she wrote it. Being able to write is a necessary skill and one that I am glad my kids had a good footing in growing up and were given opportunities to become good writers. I was shocked at the level of writing of many of my college students in the courses I taught because they were not nearly at the level that my kids were producing in elementary school. Admittedly, my kids wrote really well at that age but to be truly fair, I’ll say that some of the college students I had didn’t write as well as many of the high school papers I saw my kids or some of their HS peers produce. </p>
<p>A student who is entering college who still needs to learn the basic format of how to write a paper is not operating at the same level as someone who puts out a well done analytical paper. Their learning needs greatly differ. I would hope that the student who needs some basic skills in writing a college level paper can get the coursework he/she needs. By the same token, I would hope my kid could take a different class that pushes them to their level. When my younger D was in eighth grade, one marking she did an independent study in English because she wanted to write a book and the class was learning the basics of how to write papers (I am so glad they taught that there as most kids needed it but she was beyond that). She also took a long distance essay writing course through Johns Hopkins that was considered equivalent to college freshman writing (she was 13). She also took Creative Writing with the HS seniors. So, just like she needed classes that were at her level, I think there are students at the other end who need classes at their level that teach HOW to write.</p>
<p>You learn to work things out among yourselves or you all look bad. </p>
<p>My S never once complained to us or to the teacher. He only did once (to us because we’d brought him something to eat while he was trying to finish the so-called "group project. He was not paid to teach other kids and found it much easier doing all the work himself. If the other kids merely copied what he did and learned nothing, well, that was not his responsibility, was it? At least the various “group” projects got done in time!</p>
<p>
I’ll sign on to this observation as well. My daughter talks frequently, and with great enthusiasm, about so many of her classmates being “crazy smart”–translation: “out of my league”–which is what everyone called her in HS.</p>
<p>“Actually in the work world leaning to work with a group of varied ability and interest is pretty valuable. It happens on every project in the business world.”</p>
<p>Slightly off topic: I hate when schools try to mimic the “business world” in the classroom. I’ve heard this used as justification for many group projects since “kids will have to work with those who are both stronger and weaker in the real world.”</p>
<p>I’m sorry, but education should be for the individual first and the group next. What kind of message are we sending kids when the strongest students do most of the work on a group project? That lazy kids can rely on conscientious ones to pull up their grade? That ambitious students can be penalized because the lazy ones didn’t pull their weight even on 1/4 of the project? Yes, this happens in real life, but must our children experience the business world model when they are still trying to learn HOW to learn? When it comes to college and grad school admissions, students are based individually on their grades, not as a group project. When grads are hired, it isn’t as a group. Yes, learning to work with people is important, but that is a personal skill that does not need to be tied with the education itself. </p>
<p>Venting over. :-)</p>
<p>dstark, you keep forgetting something: the range. </p>
<p>The slow kid in the Harvard class is closer in ability level to the leaders in his class. Whereas at the state school, fewer leaders, lots of slower kids, and a more dramatic difference in ability between leaders and slowest. Not that learning <em>can’t</em> take place there, but it may not be every fast kid’s cup of tea. Again, that fast kid may be the profs best friend inside 6 weeks, yada, yada, yada</p>
<p>Furthermore, I don’t think the 6 geniuses in THAT particular math class are benefitted by the slower kid’s presence all that much. However, he may benefit them in philosophy class.</p>
<p>"Half of the learning designed into group projects is learning to manage within a group. "</p>
<p>While that’s true, companies still hire the very best people whom they can. They would not seek out a work force filled with people whose skills vary from mediocre to excellent. If a company could, everyone on its staff would have skills that were excellent. On the projects, what people would have to learn to manage would be different perspectives and working styles. They wouldn’t have to figure out how to manage incompetents. The incompetents wouldn’t be on the team or at the firm.</p>
<p>“The slow kid in the Harvard class is closer in ability level to the leaders in his class.”</p>
<p>Evidence? The whole point of the “happy bottom quarter” put forward by a Harvard admissions officer (quoted at length in Karabel’s “The Chosen”) is that this isn’t the case. I have no idea how it is now, but I can tell that in my experience at Williams in the Dark Ages, that wasn’t even close to the truth.</p>
<p>I taught at both the University of Chicago and the Community College of Philadelphia, though, since I was older and more experienced, I am pretty sure that I was a better teacher at the latter. (There goes the theory about the quality of instruction.) The biggest difference by far was in preparation. I could immediately tell who were the really smart ones at Chicago since, with very rare exceptions, they were ALL well-prepared, and so I could tell which ones were really motivated, creative, and just plain brilliant.</p>
<p>I had more trouble doing the same at the community college. The lack of preparation masked motivation, creativity, or brilliance, or the lack of it. By the time the students got to my critical thinking class (last course before graduation and often a transfer to a four-year school), I could often tell within two classes which two or three were headed to Penn, and which to Lincoln University.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I whole heartedly agree.</p>
<p>My highschool used what they called PBLs, Problem Based Learning. The idea is that students of varied ability work in groups, on group-assignmentslike the real-world. It was dreadful. </p>
<p>Inevitably, the motivated educated students would have to back-up to the slackers and those with more limited academic skills. Teachers were barely able to teach and if so, always taught down to the classin fact, there was very little actual teaching for those already advancing in the subject.</p>
<p>Postscript:</p>
<p>-The Superintendent was fired.
-Principal fired.
-New Teachers hired.
-Test scores went down consecutive years.
-Board members were overwhelmingly voted out in tears.
-I graduated Val and went on to one of Dstarks dreaded elite colleges and now write for Tsdad’s damnable Review. Scarry stuff! [no rhyme]</p>
<p> and they finally dumped PBLs at the HS. ahhh… fresh air for the class of 2006.</p>
<p>Do we really believe that the range of variation in an honors calculus course at flagship state U is going to be greater than the variation in a top tier calc course? I see no evidence of that. Often the students admitted to honors programs have SAT and GPA scores higher than the students typically attending the top schools. As I have pointed out on different threads, the entire range (not mid 50%) for U of Washington honors is 1300 - 1600 (old test), and the GPA is 3.92 unweighted. I don’t see much room for too much variation in those courses.</p>