Quality of science education

[Godot]

[This is mainly a rant more than anything else. If a decent discussion develops out of it, so much the better!]

I am appalled at the poor level of general scientific knowledge exhibited by current students. Fundamental basic concepts that it is assumed they learned back in warly grade school seem to be lacking in university students.
Two recent glaring examples:

I teach a couple of human physiology labs at uni. This particular unit is the first of four units on physiology and anatomy. In order to get into this unit, students are expected to have completed a unit in functional anatomy or concepts of biology, in addition to a first year chemistry class.

1)Last week we were playing around with electromyography and nerve conduction velocities. Upon electrode stimulation, the computer recorded the elicited EMG and students were to calculate nerve conduction velocity of the median nerve based on recordings from two separate stimulating loci (wrist and elbow). The computer presents the latency with seconds as the unit.
Students were to convert s->ms. Some of these morons had no idea how to facilitate this conversion. This is doubly a concern seeing as the metric system is the predominating system in this country.
Not only that, more than half of the students had no clue how to plug the data into the given formula to obtain a conduction velocity. I would expect a blind Albanian goatherder to figure this shit out!

2)The first experiemnt in this morning's lab was to determine two-point discrimination in the hand and back, both ascending and descending (determined by receptor densities and field size, in case you were curious). Of course, a one-off measure is bloody useless; students are required to take and record each measure three times and then present the mean score. This experiment should take around 20-30 minutes to complete if done correctly.
Within five fucking minutes of starting, one group had the balls to tell me they were finished. Pathetic. "The results were all identical," they said. How bloody conveeenient for you. All it took to get them to do it right was for me to stare at them derisively in silence for about ten seconds. Message of the day: don't fuck with me in my class. Bastards.
Second, when told to report a mean score from values of 9mm, 8mm, and 6mm, Dumbass A came up with "3". Not even "3mm", just a single lonely "3". He had no clue which part of his ass that number came from. Hell, he had no clue what the hell it was supposed to mean either. When asked, ever-so-politely by yours truly, he was unable to tell me how to calculate a mean. "Okay," thinks I "maybe he is simply unfamiliar with the term." How did he respond to the question "How do you calculate the average of three values when provided with three values" you might be asking yourselves at this point? Deer in the headlights pretty much sums it up. This is the same student that was telling me about a unit on data analysis he is currently taking as well. I'm sure he'll do great in that one too.

~~~~~~~~~~~
When either I or the lab tech called them on their stupidity, most students claimed that "they were never previously taught how." I'm sure to some extent this may be true, but only in the smallest minority of cases. It generally falls into the lap of lazy students. If these people cannot comprehend very simple, basic mathematical concepts, how the fuck can they be expected to grasp the larger fundamental concepts that we are trying to teach them in lectures. Christ. It wouldn't surprise me if some of them had a copy of "How to Stop Drooling for Fucking Retarded Morons"(TM) at home.
[/end rant]

Ahhhh. I feel better. Does this sort of shit piss anyone else off around here? I'm fairly certain this is not an isolated incident. Is there any way we can reverse this pandemic of stupidity sort of eugenics and pre-frontal lobotomies?

[alek0]

Imagine a postgrad student writing on the exam kHz as a unit for wavelength. Feeling better?

And no, that's not isolated incident either. Or, for vectors m1 and m2, writing:

(m1-m2) (m1-m2)^T=m1 (1-m2/m1) m1^T (1-m2/m1)^T

Interesting, isn't it?

If you find any way to reverse pandemic of stupidity, I'd be very interested :)

[The Lone Ranger]

Sadly, every time I think that I've finally reached the point where I can no longer be surprised at how ignorant people are, someone does or says something to prove me wrong.

It's amazing how many college students in introductory-level biology courses don't know what a "vertebrate" is, for instance. Call me an elitist, but I honestly think that anyone over the age of 10 who doesn't know has real problems.

In a class I taught recently, I was chatting with the students before the class started one day, and I mentioned an article that I'd read claiming that half of American adults don't know how long it takes the Earth to complete an orbit of the Sun. I honestly couldn't believe the claim, and said so in front of the students. Then I noticed some of them looking uncomfortable. So, I said, "Raise your hand if you know how long it takes for the Earth to orbit the Sun." Only about half of them raised their hands. And these are college students!!

A few months ago, a few of us went out one night to do some star-gazing. I was pointing out some of the brighter stars when one young lady in the group pointed to a bright "star" and asked which one that was. I told her that it was the planet Saturn. She then asked what the difference was between a star and a planet. Assuming that she was asking how you tell them apart visually, I explained that stars twinkle whereas planets don't. "No," she said, "what's the difference between a star and a planet? I've always wondered." For a few seconds, I honestly thought she was joking with me, but she was dead serious.

My friend Chris and I went out for a pizza awhile ago, and Chris decided he wanted to break a $100 bill that he had. The pizza came to $11.58, and Chris handed the cashier the $100 bill. Apparently, the cash register didn't have a $100 button, and she was completely flustered. She started to frantically search for a calculator, saying that she knew there was one around there somewhere. This went on for a few moments; in the meantime, there were people waiting behind us, who were obviously growing impatient. So I told her, "You owe him $88.42." She literally stopped and stared at me. "How did you do that?" she asked, apparently amazed that I could do simple math without a calculator.

There are times when you don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Cheers,

Michael

[trunks2k]

So I told her, "You owe him $88.42." She literally stopped and stared at me. "How did you do that?" she asked, apparently amazed that I could do simple math without a calculator.

While this person was pretty dumb, and had no clue how to do the math at all, you have to be fair to some cashiers that fail to do that math. I was a cashier for 2 years or so as an after school job, most of the time I would calculate the change in my head before I even began entering it into the machine. But after doing that for 100+ customers in a few hours, your brain gets fried. So of course the one or two times that I punch in the wrong amount into the cash register and just hit a mental block because I'm just exhausted, I always got these "You're an idiot" looks from the customer, followed by them sighing and telling me what they are supposed to get back.

[faust]

Not exactly in the same vein but 2 days ago I sat with some friends and this girl i didn't know says to me, "You have big eyes, very pretty". That was nice of her (too bad she's a lesbian). Then she says "Are you pisces?"
Well before I could stop myself i said "What? wtf does that have to do with my eyes? That's the dumbest thing i've heard all day! Maybe genetics had something to do with it." This didn't go over well with my other friends there, one of whom was dating her and told me later not to call her g/f stupid.
Sorry, stupid is as stupid does. And my friend is a bio major :/
oh well.

[Goober]

I'm doing 1st year university chem, and theres this guy in my practical group who's so dumb he can't even follow simple instructions. We get given the procedures for the pracs we do on a sheet of paper, with detailed, step-by-step instructions. For this practical, we also watched a video on it first, which also gave step by step instructions. So this guys got a sheet of paper in front of him saying 'put the glass funnel and conical flask in the 100 degree oven' and he's just seen a video telling him to do the same thing. Guess what, he doesn't know what to do with the conical flask and funnel. The demonstrator has to come up to him and tell him what to do.

A little while later, he has to filter the crystals in a butchner funnel, which is this little funnel thing connected to a vaccum that sucks the air through the funnel making it more efficient. Once again, this guy exactly what to do written in plain english right in front on him, and he's just seen a video on it, and he doesn't know what to do. I mean, shit, he's got a flask connected to another flask connected to a tap thing and it doesn't cross his mind that turning on the damn tap might be the thing to do. He has to ask the demonstrator, who just gives him a look and turns the tap on. The funniest thing was that it just sucks all the crystals straight through the damn funnel because he didn't put a filter paper in it. Despite the fact he has it written in front of him, despite the fact that he just saw it in a video, and despite the fact that he has a box of butchner flask sized filter papers on the desk in front of him. Helloooo brain cell.

And this guy got into university.

This was the first of the chem pracs this semester, and the next one is in two days. I wait with baited breath to see what this guy will do next.

Edited to add:

If you find any way to reverse pandemic of stupidity, I'd be very interested
Ahhh, you might be interested in my patented 'Stupidity Eraser Ray', also known as a 'gun'. I guarantee that anyone you use it on will never say anything dumb again. ;)

[Wounded King]

I don't know, I think a fair percentage might say 'Aaaaagh! You shot me' which is fairly self evident but at least has the advantage of being correct.

[strubenuff]

Well, in case any of you haven't visited any American highschools recently (the places these kids are coming from), then you're missing out. they're are sophmores who think New Jersey is a city in New York ("NJ is a state?"), seniors who don't know how many states there are, freshmen who can't add subtract, or divide single-digit numbers, and juniors who think you can't catch an std if you have sex standing up. I'm going to study abroad...

[markfiend]

Godot mentions eugenics in the OP; this leads me to a few difficult questions:

Are less well-educated people more likely to have children?
The factors that may play a part are Knowledge of contraception.
The "If I get pregnant he'll stay" factor.
More well-educated people may be more likely to decide against having children for social/ecological reasons (Too many kids already on this damn planet).

Does anti-intellectualism actively discourage people from getting an education?
I'm thinking of: Intelligent students labelled as "geeks".
The amount of money paid to professional sportspeople and entertainers as opposed to academics.

Given these factors, are we artificially selecting against intelligence (or at least against the tendency to pursue an education)?

[Volker.Doormann]

Originally posted by Godot
[/end rant]
Ahhhh. I feel better. I can feel with you. But in can also go like this. My boss in 1975 - gave me the job to measure volume storage density using holography. I came up then with a value of 10 times greater as the theory given by the father of holography Dennis Gabor. My boss said, 'Very interesting, if Dennis Gabor would hear that, he would be surprised on that result of your measurements. The theoretical limit of such volume density is about ~ (1/lambda)^3 where lambda is the wavelength. Your wavelength lambda is about 500 nm and this limits the volume storage density to 1/10 of your ?measured? value. This results of your measurement you can put in your hair?' (he turns his head away). After some meditation and a Coke I knock again. I said, ?if Dennis Gabor?s Theroy said, that the maximum volume density is lower then that, what I have measured, then Gabors Theory must be wrong?. - - After some emotional explosions coming from my boss I have argued, that ?one must take the refractive index n into account if this is greater then 1.0. One must use ~(n/lambda)^3 instead of ~(1/lambda)^3, and because my volume (LiNbO3) has a refractive index of n~2.4, this sums up the volume storage density more then a factor of 10!? - - - - Boss: ?Oh, I see . . ?. He just has missed to respect the refractive index n and was a worshiper of Dennis Gabors work, who had not thought about such high refractive index values as he wrote his paper.

?If one carpenter needs 20 minutes to go round ?Ground Zero?; how many minutes do need three carpenters??

Volker

[Feather]

Originally posted by markfiend
Godot mentions eugenics in the OP; this leads me to a few difficult questions:

Are less well-educated people more likely to have children?
The factors that may play a part are Knowledge of contraception.
The "If I get pregnant he'll stay" factor.
More well-educated people may be more likely to decide against having children for social/ecological reasons (Too many kids already on this damn planet).


Less well educated and less intelligent people seem to be more likely to produce in greater numbers. They don't have the mental faculties necessary to understand the cost of raising children and "it's fun to f***" (one of the few "free" things poor people can do for recreational entertainment).


Does anti-intellectualism actively discourage people from getting an education?
I'm thinking of: Intelligent students labelled as "geeks".
The amount of money paid to professional sportspeople and entertainers as opposed to academics.

Given these factors, are we artificially selecting against intelligence (or at least against the tendency to pursue an education)?

It's a combination of active hostility to mere "I want more people to be like me so I don't feel uncomfortable." Very few people--especially uneducated or dumb people--are comfortable around others that are significantly different (in either direction) and the desire to conform is quite strong in most people, I think. So our society in general is set up to oppose a climate of respect for intelligent people.

[NialScorva]

Originally posted by Feather
[B]Less well educated and less intelligent people seem to be more likely to produce in greater numbers. They don't have the mental faculties necessary to understand the cost of raising children and "it's fun to f***" (one of the few "free" things poor people can do for recreational entertainment).


A lot of educated and intelligent people I know think "it's fun to fuck", but they apparently understand birth control well enough that none of them have had unexpected kids.

[Feather]

Originally posted by NialScorva
A lot of educated and intelligent people I know think "it's fun to fuck", but they apparently understand birth control well enough that none of them have had unexpected kids.

Can't argue with that. My point was more of an addendum to this one than an alternative. The two go together to reinforce each other--uneducated/dumb people aren't likely to understand how too much of a "good thing" is likely to negatively impact them or else they just don't care and are therefore more likely to engage in the activity.

[Flynn McKerrow]

Originally posted by strubenuff
they're are sophmores who think New Jersey is a city in New York ("NJ is a state?") And then there are people who don't know the difference between "their", "there", and "they're".

[strubenuff]

Just a product of the system...

[Calzaer]

Just a product of the system...

Ya know, most people would try to rise above that.

**

In any case, it's not the system's fault. I'm a product of the US public school system, in one of the most disjointed ways possible; two different schools, in different states, for each level of education until college), and I don't have these problems.

Why?

Maybe it was because I PAID ATTENTION.

With the exception of people who have never set foot into an accredited school, we've ALL been taught the difference between "they're", "their", and "there". We're ALL been taught how many states there are, and that NJ is one of them. We've ALL be taught the difference between a star and a planet. How do I know we've all been taught this? Because I was taught it REPEATEDLY, and I sure as hell was not the only person sitting in those classrooms.

"A product of the system" is someone like me. Someone who has a broad (but generally shallow) base of knowledge on many different subjects. Dumbasses who don't know that "they're are" is a redundant statements are NOT "products of the system". They're failures of the system. They're the ones who resisted the system. Their only possible excuses are learning disabilities or apathy. Hell, even many kids with learning disabilities can make an effort to overcome those disabilities. They often end up being "smarter" than the perfectly healthy people who just don't give a shit then try to blame it on "the system" they ignored.

In other words:
Knowing basic, fundamental grade-school shit is not "smart", it?s AVERAGE. If you don?t know that shit, you?re stupid. Now go fix it.

[Late_Cretaceous]

I was in a third year course about marine ecology, where we all had to give presentations. One student gave a presentation on the hunting habits of Orca (killer whales). Apparently, they co-ordinate attacks on other large marine mammals very effectively. I will never forget the look on his face when one particular student asked him if killer whales hunt walrus on land or in the water.:rolleyes:

Did I mention that this girl was also an ardent creationist who used to argue with the prof in another course (on evolution and population dynamics). She usually prefaced her questions with "SO, what you are really saying is blah blah blah [while twisting his words all around]"

An education is not an innoculation against ignorance.

[trunks2k]

Originally posted by Calzaer
[B]
"A product of the system" is someone like me. Someone who has a broad (but generally shallow) base of knowledge on many different subjects. Dumbasses who don't know that "they're are" is a redundant statements are NOT "products of the system". They're failures of the system. They're the ones who resisted the system. Their only possible excuses are learning disabilities or apathy. Hell, even many kids with learning disabilities can make an effort to overcome those disabilities. They often end up being "smarter" than the perfectly healthy people who just don't give a shit then try to blame it on "the system" they ignored.
B]

I slightly disagree with you. I feel that "the system" should never have allowed people that don't know the difference between their, they're and there, or how to follow simple instructions, or the difference between a planet and a star to graduate high school. If they dropped out of school then yes, they failed to make it through the system (altough you can easily make the argument that with so many people failing out of "the system" then there is something wrong with it and needs to be fixed), but if they graduate, and don't know jack shit, then the system is at fault because they never should have been allowed to graduate.

I've seen it first hand, when I was in 8th grade there were three kids that were repeating the grade (they were in 8th grade when I was in 7th) and they still failed miserably, and i mean MISERABLY. Frankly these kids didn't know a damn thing and didn't care. Instead of keeping the kids in 8th grade or doing something else to make sure they understand the material, the next year they were allowed to go to highschool. Where again they were kept back another year, failed their second year but were allowed to go onto the next grade. And I've tutored many young kids (4th grade range) that didn't even remotely understand very very basic material that should have been learned in second grade. What are they doing in 4th grade? "The system" just passed them on. If they don't wanna learn, fine. But don't give them a degree they don't deserve.

[pmurray]

Originally posted by Flynn McKerrow
And then there are people who don't know the difference between "their", "there", and "they're".

My favourite is "your" and "you're". I see a fair bit of that, because I run http://www.exchristian.org and get the occasional bit of impassioned ALL UPPERCASE mail.

[strubenuff]

I don't feel a spelling mistake in an online post is that big of a deal. Besides, if I was a failure, I'm sure someone would have prevented me from being the top student out of several hundred.

[Tenpudo]

Originally posted by strubenuff
I don't feel a spelling mistake in an online post is that big of a deal. Besides, if I was a failure, I'm sure someone would have prevented me from being the top student out of several hundred.
I agree with you here, so I'll let somebody else deal with the "if I was"/"if I were" issue...
On a somewhat related note, I recently had somebody at work ask me for a cigarette break of "just seven minutes..." When I asked him why it only needed to be exactly seven minutes, he replied, "Because that's how long it takes to smoke a cigarette. I learned that in middle school."
"Um, what?
"Yeah, they were telling us that every cigarette you smoke costs you seven minutes of your life, or something like that!"
Fortunately, at the time sheer amusement value overrode despair for humanity; I gave him his 7 minute break. :rolleyes:

[Calzaer]

I don't feel a spelling mistake in an online post is that big of a deal.

If you're going to talk about how stupid other people are, you might want to expend a bit of extra effort when you say it.

[Warning! Reducto ad Absurdum ahead!]

"OMG, i cant beleave he sed that!!1 im a prduct of teh sistem, & posting stuf hear isnt importent enuf to take n e time with n e way."

Otherwise, my rant was about people who blame the system when they obviously ignored the system entirely. To paraphrase an old drill instructor: "If it's meant for you, take it to heart; if not, let it fly overhead. But do the damn push-ups."

***

I slightly disagree with you. I feel that "the system" should never have allowed people that don't know the difference between their, they're and there, or how to follow simple instructions, or the difference between a planet and a star to graduate high school.

It doesn't do anyone any good to hold them back repeatedly. You just get people who are more and more resentful of the system and pay less and less attention to it. Plus, they tend to make life even more difficult than it already is for the children who actually *want* to be there. You can lead a kid to high school, but you can't make him care. Same goes for the kid's parents (who are usually at least half the problem in and of themselves). The most efficient, cost-effective thing to do is get them out of there on time so that as few people as possible have the chance to be infected by their apathy.

We have a responsibility, as a society, to PROVIDE an education to these people. It's not our responsibility to tie them to the chair and force-feed it to them while there are hundreds of thousands of kids who WANT to learn waiting in line behind them. Because even if we do hold them back until they get it right (or, more likely, until they learn the best way to cheat) they're still going to come out just as unprepared and uneducated as they would have been had we kicked them out at the end of 4 years. With the added bonus that we've ended up spending more money and more time on this kid for the exact same result... to the detriment of kids who could have actually made use of that money and that time.

Personally, I say high school should not be mandatory. Leave the kids who'd rather stay home and jack off AT HOME, rather than taking out their frustration on the people who actually value an education. If they don't care, we should give them the option of not making us spend money and time on them.

For the elementary grades, it's a completely different story. Parents and environment play a much larger role, and intervention is definitely possible. But once you get into late middle school, it's usually too late to instill a real educational value if it doesn't already exist.

Now, this is all my cynical side. The other side of me says we *should* tie them to the chair and force-feed them education. It's important, they're going to go out into the world and be criminals and Creation Scientists (or both *coughHovindcough*) and contribute to the total assraping of intelligent civilized society.

But I *am* firm in the opinion that we should pick one of the two solutions. EITHER force-feed them, OR let them retain their stupidity in full. Because the current half-assed compromise isn't working; it's holding back the kids who need to learn without actually pushing foward the kids who don't want to learn. If we're going to use Lowest Common Denominator teaching, we should only do it if we're willing to invest the full measure in increasing the knowledge of the Lowest Common Denominator student rather than just pandering to him without actually accomplishing anything except the dumbing-down of the classroom.

But don't give them a degree they don't deserve.

Now that, I'll agree with. If you've been in High School for more than 6 years without graduating, you should be dishonorably discharged. Hell, make it 8. Let everyone try each grade twice before we kick them out without a diploma. After that, they have to find an adult education program and actually pay for their inattentiveness on their own.

[trunks2k]

It doesn't do anyone any good to hold them back repeatedly. You just get people who are more and more resentful of the system and pay less and less attention to it. Plus, they tend to make life even more difficult than it already is for the children who actually *want* to be there. You can lead a kid to high school, but you can't make him care.

I'm not saying that they should necessarily be held back. Being held back is not the only option. But pushing them into the next grade along with everyone else does nothing, and I feel just causes more porblems. Since by law, kids are supposed to go to school until a certain age, We should have stronger programs that take the problem kids (i.e. the ones that get held back every year) out of the normal school going population, and put's them in an environment that teaches these kids at their level. For example, in my town in CT there are a few schools in the area that the kids that are like 15 but have the education of a 6th grader can go where they are taught 6th grade level material (that's a rough idea of it). Why put a 15yr old in an environment that he/she cannot possibly learn anything in. If we have to keep them in school, we might as well try our damnest to get them to know as much as we can. Once the kid passes the age when he/she can drop out of school, and decides to do so. Fine. Hopefully they got as much out of it all as possible.

[Calzaer]

We should have stronger programs that take the problem kids (i.e. the ones that get held back every year) out of the normal school going population, and put's them in an environment that teaches these kids at their level.

I think that's a perfectly acceptable compromise. I agree with you.

I'm always lousy at coming up with the unstated "third solution"...

[Phoenixstar]

I completely understand what you are saying. The thing is high school standards are dropping lower and lower in some states. The state I am in is Florida. They just dropped the high school credit requirement from 24 to 18 credits. The reason for that is because our students could not pass a standardized test. I know there are problems with standardized tests, but most that I have seen just test the basic skills. Reading comprehension and arithmetic up to algebra is what is mainly assessed. Thing is I get students in my classes all the time that don't know that there are 12" in 1'. So the students are not getting the knowledge at all in some of there classes which is the problem. How to fix that I don't know, besides getting new educators.

[Roland98]

In reply to the OP:

I recently finished my PhD, during which time I taught microbiology labs to both undergrads (nursing students) and med students. Sadly, both groups were equally incompetent, and some were indeed bordering on idiocy. It was an accomplishment simply to get the nursing students to understand the importance of handwashing; for the med students, the most common reply to any of the hands-on micro they had to learn was, "why to I have to know this? I'm going to have techs to do this for me." :rolleyes: 3 1/2 years of that has truly made me a bit apprehensive to visit the doctor or enter a hospital (although I do realize they're not all that stupid or dense, but still, a good enough fraction...:()

[ZouPrime]

My story:

Cegep in Quebec (for you americans, this is pre-university). History class. The subject is about Grece, Athens and the birth of democracy. Somehow, the course diverge on the subject of Troy and its famous wooden horse. Now, "Troy" in french is pronounced exactly the same as "trois" (which is "three"). So, surelly enough, some guy in the back of the class needed to ask: "You keep talking about this "city of three".. well, three what?" Almost pissed in my pants.

[DigitalDruid]

This is my friend's story.

Three neighborhood high school kids struck a deal with him for mowing his lawn for $30 during their summer break.

Delighted with their good work, my friend handed them $35. They took the money, thanked him for the 5 dollar tip, but soon started conferring among themselves in hushed but exasperated tones.

Then they turned to my friend and, to his bewilderment, said they would much prefer to be paid $30 only. My firend asked them the reason for refusing the 5 dollar tip. One kid sheepishly said that they were having problem figuring out how to divide $35 equally among the three of them!
:mad:

[Calzaer]

Umm.. I can see that. You CAN'T divide $35 equally three ways. It comes out to 11.666666666666666666666... so someone would have an unequal share. $11.66 each only accounts for $34.98. Two people get $11.67 and one person gets $11.66.

So they were right. It's simply not possible to divide $35 among three people. I don't see exactly what the problem is here.

[Late_Cretaceous]

removed

[Abacus]

Originally posted by Calzaer
Umm.. I can see that. You CAN'T divide $35 equally three ways. It comes out to 11.666666666666666666666... so someone would have an unequal share. $11.66 each only accounts for $34.98. Two people get $11.67 and one person gets $11.66.

So they were right. It's simply not possible to divide $35 among three people. I don't see exactly what the problem is here.

So one takes a penny less than the other two. That shouldn't be that big of a deal. It's certainly not worth passing up the extra 5 bucks because someone will be shorted a measely penny.

[DigitalDruid]

Originally posted by Abacus
So one takes a penny less than the other two. That shouldn't be that big of a deal. It's certainly not worth passing up the extra 5 bucks because someone will be shorted a measely penny.

That's what I would think too. Common sense should accompany number sense. Also, I doubt if they ventured into long division. If they did, probably they were confused ("Dude, this is real creepy! The darn division is going on and on and on ....").

[Dubin]

Gah. I still have to live the nightmare for another two years, and then I get to see how many of them slip through the cracks and into college. As well, I live in California, which seems to be the paradigm of willful ignorance in the US(and not just of the theistic kind).

I've had my fair share of horror stories, most of which have been repressed from memory and reduced to vague anecdotes, but the cream of the crop has to be the "California High School Exit Examination." It was painful enough having to sit through questions on eighth-grade material from a test that's only administered to sophmores and above due to the massive number of freshmen who failed the test in its trial run, but the essay topics nearly gave me a brain aneurysm.

Topic #1: After reading an excerpt from Tenzing Norgay's account of his climb to the top of Mount Everest and answering condescending multiple-choice questions about superficial details from the text, I got the chance to ponder the philosophical intricacies of the following sentence(paraphrased from memory):

"I'd like to think of this as a triumph, not only for my country alone, but for all countries everywhere."

Yes, that's right. The exam asked us to dedicate entire 5-paragraph essays, with intro, body, and conclusion, to our own interpretations of what this could possibly mean.

"Gee golly! What in blue blazes can he mean by this cryptic statement?"

The second topic was much worse:

"What do you believe is the best pet for a child to have?"

I think my brain shut down from shock for a moment after looking at that topic.
The "honors" students(and by that, I mean the population of students in this school, roughly 90% Asian, that takes up the spaces in honors English classes without the slightest idea of how one uses proper grammar or spelling, and in some cases why, outside of passing English class) had a field day complaining about the insult to our intelligence dealt by the very same examination they were going into cardiac arrest over before taking it, but the "normal" students seemed to have little to no understanding of any of the topics on the exam, especially how to write an essay or how to answer the essay topics above - complaints from them about the test being very difficult were muffled and frequent during the testing and increased when they reached the essay topic for the day.

Aside from this, I have a whole other can of worms for "honors" students who focus far too much on grades or view education as nothing more than a (con)test. I'd accept USC's offer to get into college a year early but, being a pessimist, I doubt that would be much of a change.

[xorbie]

I have two threads that deal with this issue. Both are in Political Discussions, one is titled "US education" and the other is "Self-sufficiency"

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=61362 (self sufficiency)
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=60403&perpage=25&pagenumber=1 (US education)

And in case you don't want to sift through this all of this, check out this from the MCAS site, a standardized test given in MA to 10th graders that is a graduation requirement. Reading the answers that were given a one (failing) is a little sad...

http://www.doe.mass.edu/mcas/student/2000/

Let me now adress several things about this thread. First of all, I come from one of the best public HS in the country (top 50 or 30 or something). Even so, the stupidity of some of these kids is mind-boggling. Students in 9th grade that cannot convert a distance graph to a velocity graph... just general lines here, nothing calculus. As in, if you saw a straight line at some slope not equal to 0, you just turned it into a straight line with slope 0 above the x-axis. And these kids insisted on staying in Honors Physics.

To touch on the "students who don't know anything," let me say this: it is suprisngly easy to take classes without the prerequisites. Here at U of Illinois, there is nothing stopping me from taking classes I don't technically have pre-reqs for. Also, a lot of kids go into college with AP credit when they don't really understand the subject and don't review it at all. I personally just got credit for 2 chem courses through placement tests, even though I don't really know much about chem. If I had to take a third, I would be screwed. Of course, I would review a little, but someone a little lazier or more arrogant might not.

But in general, yeah these kids have issues. Stupidity is mind boggling man :eek:

[Godless Dave]

I think a lot of it is lack of support from parents. If the parents don't value education the kids won't either. My parents taught me things all the time. I still remember when they used a globe, a tennis ball, and a flashlight to explain the earth, moon, and sun to me. They would ask me what I was learning in school and discuss it with me. If I got a C, or, worse, a note from a teacher that I wasn't doing my homework boy howdy did I hear about it. I have a friend who is a teacher and she gets parents who complain to her about their kids bad grades. My parents always took the side of the teachers. If I didn't elect to take an advanced section of a class they wanted to know why, and didn't accept "I don't like math" as an answer. Learning wasn't just for school either. We were only allowed an hour of TV a day - put PBS didn't count against that. My dad used to watch Cosmos and The Ascent of Man with me, and talk about it afterwards.

I hate to sound like a grumpy old man, but it seems like there are an awful lot of American parents who let their kids watch TV and play video games all day, and are more worried about their kids' feelings getting hurt by bad grades than about them actually learning something.

[xorbie]

My dad was like that, we talk about math all the time (he is a math PhD). But I watch tv and play computer games like crazy and never try hard in school. Still, my GPA was like 3.6 But yeah, I think your point is very valid in that many parents just chuck off their kids to school and treat it like a free (discounting taxes) nursery and pick them up later expecting them to be good educated people.

[Malagasy Rain]

I agree with the point that teachers are partly the blame for the piss-poor state of scientific knowledge. My 11th grade science teacher, for example, is hopelessly illiterate (e. g. he says "pacific" in place of "specific" and he kept saying "Is there any questions?"). How can students possibly learn anything if the teachers can't even string together a coherent sentence?

[ged]

Interesting! Here in sweden the college students math abilities at the college I attend, is getting worse and worse for each year. We have often wondered about this my fellow students and I, what makes our generation so bad at math.

And I can easily imagine you Ph.Ds. out there wanting to strangle us. Often I have seen a murderous look in the eyes of a Ph.D. student who has to endure the pain of teaching! ;)

But then there are the ones who really enjoy it and do everything to make the students learn. They are incredible! =)

// Ged

[Dubin]

To ged:

1)How often do you(plural) use math skills in general?

2)What level of math skills do you use?

3)How often do you take math classes?

Just curious, as the most common reason I've heard of for atrophy of math skills over time is simple lack of usage. :p

[ged]

Originally posted by Dubin
To ged:

1)How often do you(plural) use math skills in general?

2)What level of math skills do you use?

3)How often do you take math classes?

Just curious, as the most common reason I've heard of for atrophy of math skills over time is simple lack of usage. :p

Hello! Yes, this has been one of our theories. That today students are required to read more subjects, while the older engineers had a more math/physics oriented education.

To answer your question:
1. In the first 1.5 year of the education you use your math skills every day. There's always a course going on. Then reagrding the general math usage it's not so high. Maybe in some programming project, but that is never more complex thatn using dijkstra or something similar like that. Much easier than the math courses.

But personally I understand math better by writing it in a program.

2. The level. I don't know the english terms but I will try. Discrete math is one subjects we read, and statistics + markov chains, and also analysis with one or more variables. So I guess the level is realtively high.

On top of that we have some physics courses that deal with waves.

Don't know if any of this makes sense in english. ;)

3. First 1.5 years you have math classes every day. Then the rest 2.5 years you have no math at all.

Regards,
Ged

[trunks2k]

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! MARKOV CHAINS! *cowers in the corner* I just had big project in my advanced programming techniques class revolving around those. That program took forever to write.

[ged]

Originally posted by trunks2k

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! MARKOV CHAINS! *cowers in the corner* I just had big project in my advanced programming techniques class revolving around those. That program took forever to write.

Hehe, well, I could have had one this year I think it was in some AI course that had with human language to do. But I choose neural networks instead. =) So more matlab for me. =)

[Godot]

Same class this morning that started this rant. The student have their midterm exam on Wednesday. One of them was trying to argue with me that it would be my fault if she did poorly on the exam, because it would reflect badly on me as a teacher. :rolleyes: It was hard not to laugh her out of the class.

[trunks2k]

Originally posted by Godot
Same class this morning that started this rant. The student have their midterm exam on Wednesday. One of them was trying to argue with me that it would be my fault if she did poorly on the exam, because it would reflect badly on me as a teacher. :rolleyes: It was hard not to laugh her out of the class.

Well, she is somewhat correct, but not totally. If you had a normal grade curve, and most of the students doing decently on the exam, but she failed, then it doesn't reflect badly on you. However, it can be argued that if the entire class fails the test, then it would reflect badly on you. For example:

I've had a new bio proffessor that left most of the material up to us to figure out, notes on the sections were limited and/or incomprehensible, and help was hard to get. She was not a particularly bright lady when it came to the subject matter (there were several glaring mistakes in her notes). This woman spent more time trying to figure out who was in lecture (which she said on day 1 that it was optional) than she did actually lecturing. I seriously felt like I was back in kindergarten.

<rant> She took 15 points off one of my exams because I was "talking in lecture." First of all, I wasn't talking, it was the people next to me. They even told her that it was them, and not me, talking. The result? Now THEY get their 15 points back, but I don't. Second of all, if someone is disrupting the lecture, kick them out, that's all there is to it. Third of all, she decided to do this after the lecture was over, which I really think, if you are going to deduct massive points for talking in lecture, then a warning should apply (even though you shouldnt be talking in the first place, but as I said before, you should be kicked out if you are talking). I ended up having to suck up to that bitch for the rest of the semester and kiss her ass to get my points back. Losing 15 points on an exam would drop overall grade down a whole letter. I love how she noticed my "behavior improved" and how much better I was doing in class. Except for having to kiss her ass after lecture, I behaved the same way as I did before, and do you want to know why my grade improved? Because I stopped reading her damn notes. It was much easier just to read the chapters twice (did I mention that she said we wouldn't need the book, as everything would be in the notes?!). God I hate that bitch.
</end rant>

As a result, most of the class did very poorly on her exams. Because of that she was not hired back the next year.

[Godot]

I forgot to include that this student also asked me what I thought she needed to study for the midterm two days from now seeing as how she might want to start doing that.
If a student's inability to grasp the material stems from some error on my part, then clearly I take ownership of that. However, when apathetic students that can barely be bothered to show up for class, are unprepared when they do, don't listen to the explanations to the questions they ask (and subsequently ask me to repeat it) and are oblivious to the breadth of the material covered by the exam try to blame me for their poor grade, I get a smidge upset.
I'm there to teach them and expand their comprehension of the material, not to give them the answers glibly so they can leave early. Fuck that.

[Goober]

Things aren't that bad, I guess.

I heard the other day that 30 percent (I think) of Pakistani boys are educated in Muslim schools that still teach that the sun revolves around the earth. Both the US and Australia have a long way to go to match that, though if the creationists had their way....