She can be tutored with a punch in the face. Couldn't hurt?

Hmm, I swear I've seen this posted before, right after the election, but I cant find it. Now that these events are somewhat removed in time, I find this even MORE bizarre than I did at the time. I was particulary shocked by the stupidity of O'reilly's comment (and it takes quite a bit of stupidity for him to surprise me now):

"She can be tutored"

Yes she could. IN FOURTH FUCKING GRADE. Not when you are running for VP. Then you are not only required to know such bare minimums, but you ought to have quite a bit deeper understanding of these issues.

Just giving a student more attention doesn't automatically mean they're doing better and everyone else doing worse, and it doesn't automatically lead to the better students somehow missing out or getting held back. There's nothing inhibiting students from maximizing their potential, whatever that means. Making sure everyone passes the bar and gets a sound education is what school is about, not forcing everyone to know the same things regardless of their ability to learn. It's about giving everyone as similar an education as possible, which practically means as much personal freedom to pursue ones own goals.
Of course it would be better if there were more teachers and smaller classes. But the fact of the matter is that most kids who do well in school are doing well because they have their parents' and/or private tutors involved in their education, helping out at home and being active in the child's upbringing. You'd be surprised how even the playingfield is when it comes to talent.

There's simply no validity to the saying that putting extra effort in helping the students who have a harder time learning leads to the students having an easier time learning would somehow lose part of their intelligence or are robbed of education. To be more precise: what is it those gifted students are missing out on? Because I still don't really understand what it would mean for a school to "maximize each individual's potential". As you know, school is for teaching kids broad, basic, general and useful information, to give them an understanding of the world and their surroundings and get them in an environment where they get to interact and cooperate with others. In that regard there is no such thing as lowering the bar when it comes to making an effort to get as many kids as possible to pass. In that regard there is only teaching as many as possible what they need to learn, and actually have them learn it. In geography they need to know what continents are located where, major countries and capital cities etc. In music they need to have tried playing a couple of instruments, sung a couple of songs and learned the basics of music creation. By "maximizing their potential", would that mean making them memorize all countries and cities, make them compose music and become proficient in several instruments?
This doesn't mean that because one kid is done with its calculus and another isn't, that the first will sit on its behind until the second is done aswell. That's a ridiculus proposition and one which we all know isn't how schools work. There's advanced calculus, trigonometry and a host of other things for them to learn. But there are base skills that needs to be known by a student,
things that have been agreed upon by society that a student has to have a grasp of. That's why students struggling to learn them need to get extra help, not because they're raising hell and causing a ruckus.

I'd like to point you to a form of education called the "Montessori method", which has shown great potential and results thus far in preschools and gradeschools, and where the students are encouraged to learn by themselves by teachers changing the dynamics of the classroom aswell as have them take on a different role from the standard lecturer. It's shown that children can not only learn faster and more qualitatively by doing, but they're also improving their own knowledge by helping their friends and classmates learn. Your statement about forcing students to become assistant teachers is not only flat out wrong, it shows a lack of understanding of the subject.

There's also university, where people generally go to maximize their potential. That's where they narrow down their education to one or a couple of fields, and develop their personal interests and/or potential into a profession and hopefully a career.

societal wealth is a gaussian measured in dollars per person. thus, poverty may be reduced via increased efficiency of production or decreased population density.

if you have a number of failing students in a class do you:
a. kick the failing students out
b. make the course easier
c. give some of the points from the A students to the F students, leaving everyone with Bs, Cs, and Ds
d. make the A students tutor the F students
e. teach more effectively so that the whole class can learn better
f. do nothing

LOL LOL LOL!!1 YUO R ALL HATTERZ AND LOOSERZ!

See??? I need help! But I am beyond needing general advice. I require private tutoring. Could you girls... uh.... provide me with, you know, private lessons?

(Sidenote: Sometimes you just hate it when the upvote triangle disappears after you click it once, because you want to click it a lot more times.)

^Doc_M
Well my friend. I've looked at the evidence and I believe. Cook that in your oven. I'm an inch away from Ph.D. and Dawkins is so plainly a D-bag, it almost makes him the definition of such.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins#Biography

Richard Dawkins has a Doctor of Philosophy from Oxford (the wiki is very badly worded), and a Masters in Zoology.

"Dawkins attended Oundle School from 1954 to 1959. He studied zoology at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was tutored by Nobel Prize-winning ethologist Nikolaas Tinbergen, graduating in 1962. He continued as a research student under Tinbergen's supervision at the University of Oxford, receiving his M.A. and D.Phil. degrees in 1966, while staying as a research assistant for another year.[13] Tinbergen was a pioneer in the study of animal behaviour, particularly the questions of instinct, learning and choice.[17] Dawkins' research in this period concerned models of animal decision making.[18]"

Do you teach sex-ed? How does one get you as a tutor? I have many questions...

Perhaps the act of learning is its own reward? Whether they get to use that knowledge to amass material goods to make life easier is of secondary importance. I know that sounds idealistic, especially given the (assumed) fact that your students probably have far more pressing concerns than gaining happiness from reading and understanding Shakespeare. But if they can retreat from any of the ugliness in their world to a mental space of their own which gives them happiness, wouldn't that be worth it to them? I'm kind of thinking along the lines of what Andy Dufresne told other inmates in "The Shawshank Redemption" about taking Mozart and Bach, etc., with him into the hole (solitary confinement). It's the thing 'they' can never take away from you.

What subjects are you tutoring? What ages are these kids?

[edit] You could also make the point that even if the subject itself won't give them any particular happiness (I heard a rumor that some people don't derive pleasure from abstract mathematics, but I don't really believe it), rising to the challenge and overcoming it certainly will. Not to mention the self-confidence it will give them, and how that self-confidence can feed into every other part of their lives.

You could always tell them that robbing banks is a lucrative job that entails little to no effort, while staying in school ensures a corporate middle-management future until the age of 55 when they die of a heart attack, leaving behind a mortgage and five ugly children who are probably addicted to video games and will never amount to anything.

...I'm not a tutor.

I think it's the same that we have in Denmark, where you have a professor as a lecturer and an instructor as a tutor for smaller "classes", which delve into the narrower areas.

She's 44...and she has to be tutored? Just more proof that O'Reilly's logic is so skewed, he can't even look at things objectively.

And yet 30 seconds later, he siding with her on "not wanting to be bogged down with a lesson before Couric talked to her". WTF?

Bill O'Reilly is nothing more than a Jim Jones or Marshall Applewhite, "leading" his flock on to greener pastures by kowtowing to their own deluded reality. And he does it knowingly. He reminds me of Burke in 'Aliens': "Well, at least I don't see them fucking each over for a percentage..."

>> ^imstellar28:
you are not demonstrating a clear understanding of market forces, nor are you demonstrating a clear understanding of our educational system.

Feel free to tell me what part of my prediction is inaccurate when you make slurs against my intelligence.

>> ^imstellar28:
currently the bulk of our educational system is paid for by state property taxes. the argument in this thread is about relinquishing federal control--namely over curricula and standards.

I'm pretty sure we've been arguing about the place of any government in the education system. Otherwise this discussion is pointless (a distinct possibility). I'd be perfectly happy to get rid of the federal government's influence and go back to state controlled education. That was when it was the best education available in the world. I was fortunate enough to catch the tail end of that educational system, as the federal government was starting to interfere. Since that time I've listened to the horror stories of my parents (who were both grade school teachers) and friends who have become teachers after college. Nothing but contempt for the rapidly degenerating system.

>> ^imstellar28:
the beauty of the free market is that the price of milk, for example, is set by the millions of "votes" made every second worldwide. when someone buys milk, or doesn't buy it, or buys less or more, they are transmitting how much milk is worth to them.

Did you even read my post? That is exactly the basis for my prediction. Some people will place a high value on education, and allocate their resources accordingly, but far too many will either not value it at all, or be unable/unwilling to pay what is sure to be a much higher cost than parents currently pay in taxes. The current price per student in the US is somewhere around $10,000 per year, but the price per taxpayer is much less because the burden is spread. We do that because the education of the nation's youth benefits everybody (assuming we can repair the system so that our students actually begin to learn again).

>> ^imstellar28:
if i choose to home school my children, or pay a private tutor, or use online education such as dvds and video lectures in order to reduce the cost and/or increase the quality of education my child receives--who are you to tell me otherwise?

I am a single white male with no children. I have an average job and receive average pay. I cannot afford to purchase a house in the current market. Despite this, I will happily pay my share in taxes with the hope that it will increase the intelligence of the people I share this planet with. Who are you?

And just so we're clear, if milk went up to $8 per gallon, I'd stop drinking it. That's a lousy analogy.

>> ^imstellar28:
if the price rises, supply will be expanded to meet demand, and the price will fall. to force a person to a accept a higher or lower price is to walk into a supermarket with a gun, and force them to pay $8 for a gallon of milk--just because you think it is worth that much. maybe i dont even like milk, or enjoy milk but only at a reasonable price--say $2 a gallon?
the beauty of the free market is that the price of milk, for example, is set by the millions of "votes" made every second worldwide. when someone buys milk, or doesn't buy it, or buys less or more, they are transmitting how much milk is worth to them. to bypass this process, is to turn a democratic system into an autocratic one--instead of a million votes from people all around the world--you have one person, or a small group telling everyone how much milk should be worth. if you believe in democracy, how can you not believe in the free market? even worse, when you have a small group, say a bureaucracy, dictating the prices of a commodity you hide really important information--if the price is fixed, how can a business know when to increase supply to meet demand? or to reduce supply as a result of reduced demand? furthermore, in a free market the price changes on a daily basis based on an incomprehensible amount of data--to reduce this price adjustment to once a year, or once a quarter--and to think that one person can possibly improve on this process is ludicrous. that is why the free market will always be the best solution.

To quote Wikipedia on a commodity: A commodity is anything for which there is demand, but which is supplied without qualitative differentiation across a market.

Education isn't a commodity. It's a service, with a ton of "qualitative differentiation across the market".

Also, education is not elastic, like milk. If milk costs $8/gal, I'll probably cut back on it, or stop buying it. If sending my hypothetical kids to grade school cost me %50 or more of my income, I'd find a way to do it, but you can be damn sure I wouldn't be voting for a Libertarian in the next election.

There's probably some price elasticity in education, though I hope there aren't many parents telling their kids "sorry, even though I can afford to send you to MIT, your future isn't worth enough to me, how about a nice state school?" Student loans create a different situation, with kids having to decide how much individual debt they're willing to take on, but is that really superior to a system that places students in colleges based on desire & ability, with the costs spread amongst the society in the form of progressive taxes?

Also, a free market isn't a democracy. In any form of democracy I'm familiar with, everyone gets an equal number of votes (generally speaking, just 1). I'm pretty sure I have a smaller number of dollar-votes than Bill Gates.

As for taking a gun and forcing people to pay $8 for milk, it's more like taking a gun to people and saying "provide your share to the community or else," though usually they just send paperwork in the mail and say "we already took your share out of your paycheck, fill this out to make sure we got the right amount."

The "or else" is only implied to people who think of law as something imposed by a gang of thugs called "the government" or "the Police", forcing people to bow to their will through violence. Then it's "don't kill people, or else", "don't steal, or else", and all kinds of other democratically created circumscriptions on your freedom imposed artificially by others, tragic as that is.

if i choose to home school my children, or pay a private tutor, or use online education such as dvds and video lectures in order to reduce the cost and/or increase the quality of education my child receives--who are you to tell me otherwise?

I agree with you there, you should have the right to choose those things, I just don't think it excuses you from having to contribute to the education of people who can't afford those choices.

As someone said, sarcastically, you're part of the village that's needed to raise the kid -- and part of the economic system the kid's future works will help drive.

^MaxWilder

you are not demonstrating a clear understanding of market forces, nor are you demonstrating a clear understanding of our educational system.

currently the bulk of our educational system is paid for by state property taxes. the argument in this thread is about relinquishing federal control--namely over curricula and standards. if federal regulation and funding were dropped--we wouldn't incinerate the existing infrastructure--the states would simply take over control and your property taxes would rise and your income taxes would fall. no matter what you do, the money has to come from somewhere-whether it is federal taxes, state taxes, or private donations/tuition makes no difference on the quality of education received.

when you leave it to the market, you let people determine how much education is worth for them--if its worth a lot, they will pay a higher price. if the price rises, supply will be expanded to meet demand, and the price will fall. to force a person to a accept a higher or lower price is to walk into a supermarket with a gun, and force them to pay $8 for a gallon of milk--just because you think it is worth that much. maybe i dont even like milk, or enjoy milk but only at a reasonable price--say $2 a gallon?

the beauty of the free market is that the price of milk, for example, is set by the millions of "votes" made every second worldwide. when someone buys milk, or doesn't buy it, or buys less or more, they are transmitting how much milk is worth to them. to bypass this process, is to turn a democratic system into an autocratic one--instead of a million votes from people all around the world--you have one person, or a small group telling everyone how much milk should be worth. if you believe in democracy, how can you not believe in the free market? even worse, when you have a small group, say a bureaucracy, dictating the prices of a commodity you hide really important information--if the price is fixed, how can a business know when to increase supply to meet demand? or to reduce supply as a result of reduced demand? furthermore, in a free market the price changes on a daily basis based on an incomprehensible amount of data--to reduce this price adjustment to once a year, or once a quarter--and to think that one person can possibly improve on this process is ludicrous. that is why the free market will always be the best solution.

if i choose to home school my children, or pay a private tutor, or use online education such as dvds and video lectures in order to reduce the cost and/or increase the quality of education my child receives--who are you to tell me otherwise?

Here's the deal - and before I tell you, let it be known that I think you are a super cool dude, one of my favorite people on the sift and well intentioned with your libertarian philosophy - but the push for 'school choice' and vouchers is uninformed hysteria.

-There isn't any meaningful research or evidence to suggest that vouchers are even a vaguely good idea.
-There are no countries of note that use vouchers.
-There are practical suggestions for how this could or would be done.
-There is no need for deregulated schools in the first place.
(let the frantic googling commence)

Support for vouchers comes from the unlikely triumvirate of creationists, libertarians - who will sign on to anything that's vaguely anti-government - and opportunist businessmen (God, Fear and Money with all due respect to MeShell Ndegeocello). Do you believe in this? Well, then justify it. Slogans and Orwell quotes don't aren't enough. Just like proponents of 'intelligent design', the voucher folks have no science to support their hypothesis. Just empty sanctimonious slogans.

It's trendy to bash public schools, but think of the shear volume of students that are educated every year. (over 76 million) A large majority do well, pass their classes and go on to live decent lives. Unlike private schools, public schools accept everyone, including poor students, handicapped students, non-english speaking students,mentally challenged students, emotionally disturbed students, etc.

Libertarians look at private schools and wonder why public schools can't be the same. Here's why:
1) Private schools generally limit their attendance to smarter, well behaved students.
2) Private schools can flush students they don't like out of the system.
3) Pay to play (parents who spend money on private school are going to be damned sure their money isn't wasted).
4) Wealth. Wealthy kids get private tutoring sessions while poor kids flip burgers.

Expert in business that you are, have you begun to think of the implications of subjecting education to the dark side of business? What do students do when their school goes out of business mid year, or declares bankruptcy, or has to fire the custodial staff in order to stay afloat. School systems need to be stable and reliable. To think that some rag tag band of plucky entrepreneurs could even begin to tackle this system better than people who have been doing it for decades is beyond naive.

Here is how we fix education:

-Cancel all the expensive gimmicky shit and let the teachers teach.
-Teacher assessment, not school assessment. Weed out the bad ones, but don't punish the ENTIRE SCHOOL.
-Free up teachers to teach how they like. Allow them to pick their own texts and change up their approach according to student needs.
-Disband the textbook commission. (read Lies My Teacher Taught Me for more on this one)
-Competitive pay for teachers, you get what you pay for.
-Build enough schools. Have enough materials, don't skimp on students.
-The Option of skill/trade programs for any student who desires it.
-Limit the higher grades to students who meet a certain grade/dedication threshold (controversial, yes, but it is done in many parts of Europe).
-Less testing, more learning.
-Reading, reading, reading. Along with the classics, include fun books like Harry Potter, Goosebumps, etc. Developing a love for reading is IMPORTANT.


There is no need to reinvent the wheel, we just need to build on what we already have. We need more ideas and more than just lip service from our politicians about education.

Why the fuck did I spend all this time arguing against a fringe concept that will never even come close to getting off the ground you ask?

Well, I've never argued this position in any depth before and had to finally let it all out. Arguing with you, blankfist, is fun. You are a smart, funny, passionate guy and no one in town gives a better rim job.

Considering how long this is, I know that blankfist, Netrunner and kronos are the only people still reading. Thanks guys.