Monday, March 30, 2009
Peer Pressure Cuts Both Ways
There's an article in the Guardian about the pressure gifted boys feel to dumb down and fit in. It's not just a smart-girl problem anymore. I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing.
Monday, March 23, 2009
ABCs for Baby Nerds!
How awesome is this? A seller on Etsy has just come out with a set of ABC flashcards for nerd babies! Now I'm jealous that my sister has grandchildren and I don't!
C.S. Lewis on Education: The More Things Change...
The More They Stay the Same. CS Lewis on the modern educational system of his time:
The scene is in Hell at the annual dinner of the Tempters' Training College for young devils. The principal, Dr. Slubgob, has just proposed the health of the guests. Screwtape, a very experienced devil, who is the guest of honour, rises to reply:
...The basic principle of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils. That would be "undemocratic. " These differences between the pupils - for they are obviously and nakedly individual differences - must be disguised. This can be done on various levels. At universities, examinations must be framed so that nearly all the students get good marks. Entrance examinations must be framed so that all, or nearly all, citizens can go to universities, whether they have any power (or wish) to profit by higher education or not. At schools, the children who are too stupid or lazy to learn languages and mathematics and elementary science can be set to doing the things that children used to do in their spare time. Let them, for example, make mud pies and call it modelling. But all the time there must be no faintest hint that they are inferior to the children who are at work.
Whatever nonsense they are engaged in must have - I believe the English already use the phrase - "parity of esteem." An even more drastic scheme is not impossible. Children who are fit to proceed to a higher class may be artificially kept back, because the others would get a trauma-Beelzebub, what a useful word! - by being left behind. The bright pupil thus remains democratically fettered to his own age group throughout his school career, and a boy who would be capable of tackling Aeschylus or Dante sits listening to his coeval's attempts to spell out A CAT SAT ON A MAT.
In a word, we may reasonably hope for the virtual abolition of education when I'm as good as you has fully had its way. All incentives to learn and all penalties for not learning will vanish. The few who might want to learn will be prevented; who are they to overtop their fellows? And anyway the teachers - or should I say, nurses?- will be far too busy reassuring the dunces and patting them on the back to waste any time on real teaching. We shall no longer have to plan and toil to spread imperturbable conceit and incurable ignorance among men. The little vermin themselves will do it for us.
Of course, this would not follow unless all education became state education. But it will. ..."
~ C.S. Lewis Screwtape Proposes a Toast From The Screwtape Letters, New York: Touchstone, 1961.
The scene is in Hell at the annual dinner of the Tempters' Training College for young devils. The principal, Dr. Slubgob, has just proposed the health of the guests. Screwtape, a very experienced devil, who is the guest of honour, rises to reply:
...The basic principle of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils. That would be "undemocratic. " These differences between the pupils - for they are obviously and nakedly individual differences - must be disguised. This can be done on various levels. At universities, examinations must be framed so that nearly all the students get good marks. Entrance examinations must be framed so that all, or nearly all, citizens can go to universities, whether they have any power (or wish) to profit by higher education or not. At schools, the children who are too stupid or lazy to learn languages and mathematics and elementary science can be set to doing the things that children used to do in their spare time. Let them, for example, make mud pies and call it modelling. But all the time there must be no faintest hint that they are inferior to the children who are at work.
Whatever nonsense they are engaged in must have - I believe the English already use the phrase - "parity of esteem." An even more drastic scheme is not impossible. Children who are fit to proceed to a higher class may be artificially kept back, because the others would get a trauma-Beelzebub, what a useful word! - by being left behind. The bright pupil thus remains democratically fettered to his own age group throughout his school career, and a boy who would be capable of tackling Aeschylus or Dante sits listening to his coeval's attempts to spell out A CAT SAT ON A MAT.
In a word, we may reasonably hope for the virtual abolition of education when I'm as good as you has fully had its way. All incentives to learn and all penalties for not learning will vanish. The few who might want to learn will be prevented; who are they to overtop their fellows? And anyway the teachers - or should I say, nurses?- will be far too busy reassuring the dunces and patting them on the back to waste any time on real teaching. We shall no longer have to plan and toil to spread imperturbable conceit and incurable ignorance among men. The little vermin themselves will do it for us.
Of course, this would not follow unless all education became state education. But it will. ..."
~ C.S. Lewis Screwtape Proposes a Toast From The Screwtape Letters, New York: Touchstone, 1961.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Letting Teens Sleep In Is a Good Idea?
I say yes, DH says no. "The most productive time of the day is morning," which is why our school day begins at 9am at the latest. I have to agree that Wolfie has been very productive in the first hour study hall he has at the high school before German II.
However, my most productive time of day is noon to 2:30pm (second most productive time of day is 10:30 pm to 2 am), which dear DH, being a morning person, just cannot understand. Thus the ongoing battle at my house about bedtimes and school times.
Now it seems the head teacher (aka principal) at Hugh Christie Technical College, Tonbridge, Kent (UK) agrees with me. "[O]n Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays his 14- to 18-year-old pupils start lessons at 11.30am – because research suggests that that teenagers' brains work better if they get up later.
"Their punctuality and attendance has improved, their questioning and answering is better because they are more alert and the pace of lessons is often much quicker," Barker says."
I know such an experiment will not convince DH, but if there are any homeschooling families out there who need this bit of info to adjust your schedule more comfortably, you now have anecdotal research to support your decision.
However, my most productive time of day is noon to 2:30pm (second most productive time of day is 10:30 pm to 2 am), which dear DH, being a morning person, just cannot understand. Thus the ongoing battle at my house about bedtimes and school times.
Now it seems the head teacher (aka principal) at Hugh Christie Technical College, Tonbridge, Kent (UK) agrees with me. "[O]n Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays his 14- to 18-year-old pupils start lessons at 11.30am – because research suggests that that teenagers' brains work better if they get up later.
"Their punctuality and attendance has improved, their questioning and answering is better because they are more alert and the pace of lessons is often much quicker," Barker says."
I know such an experiment will not convince DH, but if there are any homeschooling families out there who need this bit of info to adjust your schedule more comfortably, you now have anecdotal research to support your decision.
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