voice! not tense!

I consider myself to be appallingly undereducated.

The more time I spend figuring out what a sound education is, the more appalled I am.

Thus it gave me great pleasure to discover, tonight, that other people, including other people who write for The Economist, don't know what the passive voice is.^*

And that I, apparently, do.

For instance, I have no difficulty identifying the first two clauses as passive and the third as active:

• Prisoners were forced
  

• A prisoner was shot
  

• MI has instructed us to

I'm feeling better.

With that, I think I'll go learn some more algebra.

I'm on Lesson 69, Saxon Algebra 2.


update: department of corrections

Passive VOICE

Not passive TENSE

informal assessment: I can distinguish passive from active but I cannot read a Language Log post.


^{* gross exaggeration alert: this writer knows what passive tense is. but he's calling it passive voice. that's bad.}

testing, testing

from Independent George:

I completely disagree with the first statement:

The tacit assumption is that if our students score higher on standardized tests that they will be better prepared for life.

No, the tacit assumption is the converse: if students are better prepared for life, they will score higher on the standardized tests. In other words, if students are able to read and count, then they should have no problems with tests on reading and math.

I don't know any supporters of standardized testing who think that the tests themselves are what's important. The only subset of people I've ever encountered who actually believe that are testing opponents, who think that the tests themselves are causing poor performance by students.

math story

from Karen A:

M, our 8th grader, is in Algebra this year. M tends to get math conceptually. However, we have noticed several problems, which can sometimes be the difference between an A and a B for her.

One, she doesn't always know the material as well as she thinks she does. Two, she doesn't always pay close enough attention to detail. As a result, on quizzes and tests, those factors can mean the difference between an A and a B.

Let me note that her teacher is doing a nice job of teaching and the text itself is fine. Plus, there are online practice quizzes available (in addition to the daily homework, which the teacher goes over every day in class).

M had a test this week on Factoring and she needed to get an A on the test in order to get an A for the quarter. So, she was motivated! She started preparing for the test several days ahead of schedule by taking online quizzes.

The night before the test she worked all of the problems on the Review sheet. She had several equations to memorize and she came up with the following poem as a memory device:

"When factoring the difference of squares, write the answer in plus or minus pairs."

Her older sister coached her on paying attention to detail; especially in noting plusses and minuses within the equations.

M then came up with a list of five things that she absolutely needed to remember; she wrote them down and then memorized them. One of these was a reminder to be sure and read the question carefully, so that she knew what the question was asking for.

In short, she was well-prepared and as a result, she was the first one finished. Instead of handing in her paper, she went back through each problem, carefully checking for possible errors (and she caught several minor mistakes). She was the last person to hand in her test.

The result? She scored 100% on the test. Afterwards, she said, "I like math; I enjoy solving equations."

What is the takeaway? There are several, at least in my mind. First, I think she is finally starting to understand that having a conceptual understanding is not enough; she has to know the material thoroughly (and this requires hard work and practice). Two, she has to pay attention to detail (the old pencil and paper thing). Three, "rote" knowledge of arithmetic is essential so that the brain is freed up to do the next level of skills required.

Fourth, there is a tremendous amount of memory work required and that is essential (at least in my mind) for success in Algebra.

mnemonic device

I'm going to remember this one:

"When factoring the difference of squares, write the answer in plus or minus pairs."

Karen A's 8th grade daughter came up with that!

accountability

Exhibit A
Response From: John N. Colantonio, Ph.D. Former School Administrator/Associate Professor

03/24/2007 5:40AM

The tacit assumption is that if our students score higher on standardized tests that they will be better prepared for life. [ed.: in the case of reading comprehension scores, this assumption happens to be correct] As such, the question, according to James Popham, has shifted from "How can we improve student learning?" to "How can we raise test scores?" Albert Einstein perhaps said it best, "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." AND "The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education."

Exhibit B
from State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III by Bob Woodward:

Adelman asked Cody, a husky 1972 West Point graduate and master aviator with 5,000 hours of flight time, what they were measuring to see how the war was going. "What are the metrics coming back that you would say were needed to identify so we know if we're winning or losing?"

"I'd say three," Cody replied. "Number one is the number of Iraqi civilians that are killed by these insurgent attacks. Number two is the number of usable, important bits of information we get from the iraqi people--the actionable intelligence. And number three is the number of competent Irai police and military." ...

Shortly after, Rumsfeld entered. "Let's take some questions," he said.

Adelman asked him the same question he'd asked Cody. "What metrics would you use for success in Iraq? You know, for winning the war?"

"Oh, there are hundreds," Rumsfeld replied. "It's just so complicated that there are hundreds."

[snip]

"Wait a minute," Adelman insisted. "A former boss of mine always said identify three or four things, then always ask about, get measurements and you'll get progress or else you'll never get any progress." The former boss was Rumsfeld himself, who had driven the point home to Adelman 35 years before, when he worked for Rumsfeld at the Office of Economic Opportnity. What are they? Adelman insisted.

Rumsfeld said it was so complicated that he could not give a list.

Adelman believed that meant there was a total lack of accountability. If Rumsfeld didn't agree to any criteria, he couldn't be said to have failed on any critieria.

"Hundreds," Rumsfeld insisted.

"Then you don't have anything," Adelman said.

Exhibit C
from Joanne Jacobs & The Gadfly, Head Start to stop testing children:

This tug of war over the direction of Head Start [academic preparation for Kindergarten versus "child development"] has been going on for years. It's the main reason the 109^th Congress failed to reauthorize the program. Now the establishment is winning and the 110^th Congress will be able to say that it actually did something, albeit something dumb. The cognizant House committee voted last week to kill the National Reporting System, substituting happy talk about "strengthening school readiness by re-evaluating and updating current standards and assessments based on the best science...and improving professional development related to supporting children's cognitive, social and emotional development."

What's on the test?

• picture/word vocabulary assessment
• letter naming assessment involving all the letters of the alphabet in upper and lower case
• short test on early math skills covering simple addition and subtraction, reading of numbers, relative size judgments, and the ability to make use of graphic and pictorial information involving representation of quantities

So.

Instead of assessing Head Start kids to see if they know the alphabet, we'll be re-evaluating and updating current standards and assessments based on the best science.

I'm sure that will work.



A sociologist friend who's working on an assessment project sent me a link to Counting and Recounting: Assessment and the Quest for Accountability awhile back.

Haven't read it yet, but the opening paragraphs are arresting:

When my daughter Dina returned from her first class in managerial accounting early in her MBA program, I innocently asked how it had gone. I fully expected her to describe her boredom with the rigors of accounting, since pursuing an MBA was decidedly an afterthought for my iconoclastic daughter, who already held degrees in theatre and social work.

Imagine my surprise when Dina responded that accounting was unexpectedly interesting because, she now realized, it should be understood as a form of narrative, a kind of drama. Within the ethical and technical rules of the field, the task of the accountant is to figure out which of the stories of the company should be told through the medium of its "books." Accounting is basically about creating the plot, characters, and setting of the story. As the instructor explained to the class, "Your task is to render an account: to tell the facts of the case, the story of the condition of a company in an accurate and yet ultimately persuasive way."

[snip]

Indeed, historian of science Mary Poovey argues in A History of the Modern Fact that a significant source for the modern conception of a scientific fact—that which is measurable, replicable, visible, quantitative, and credible—is the invention of double-entry bookkeeping in late-16th century England. Thus accounting was a source for modern scientific conceptions of evidence; then, in full-circle fashion, scientific doctrines became the basis for our contemporary conceptions of account-ability in education.

I love that.

The very concept of a scientific fact grew out of double-entry bookkeeping in late-16th century England!

Well, I say let's have more of it.

More double-entry bookkeeping. More tests, more scores, more entries in the book. (With parent opt-in, of course!)

More low-stakes assessment, please. More value-added.

The assertion that "not everything that counts can be counted" is self-serving claptrap, beginning to end. As is the observation that Iraq is complex.

Yes, some good things can't be counted & Iraq is complex. I don't need John N. Colantoni and Don Rumsfeld to tell me that.

I'd like to know what my child has learned in school -- in school, not at home -- and where he stands in relation to his peers here and abroad.

And I'd like my school to be able to tell me.

That's going to require numbers.



off-topic: State of Denial

It's a tour de force.

I'm pretty sure this is a book both supporters and opponents of the Iraq War find riveting, for all of the reasons Peggy Noonan did:

Thirty-two years into his career as a writer of books, Bob Woodward has won a reputation as slipshod ("Wired"), slippery ("All the President's Men," "The Final Days"), opportunistic ("Veil"; everything) and generally unaware of the implications even of those facts he's offered that have gone unchallenged. As a reporter he's been compared to a great dumb shark, remorselessly moving toward hunks of information he can swallow but not digest.

[snip]

Now he has thwarted me. I bought "State of Denial" thinking I might have a merry time bashing it and a satisfying time defending the innocent injured.

But it is a good book. It may be a great one. It is serious, densely, even exhaustively, reported, and a real contribution to history in that it gives history what it most requires, first-person testimony. (It is well documented, with copious notes.) What is most striking is that Mr. Woodward seems to try very hard to be fair, not in a phony "Armitage, however, denies it" way, but in a way that--it will seem too much to say this--reminded me of Jean Renoir: "The real hell of life is that everyone has his reasons."

I may finally have lost my mind, but not infrequently, reading about the interagency process and bureaucratic infighting and the utter inability of the govt to get anything done months after presidential directives have been issued, reissued, and re-reissued.....our public schools kept springing to mind.

My favorite moment, second only to the scene in which Rumsfeld says there are hundreds of metrics, is a passage in which Rumsfeld reacts to "The Revolt of the Generals."

Why are the generals so ticked off? he's asked.

His answer?

Change is hard!

"But I think it's important that we recognize that there's a lot of change going on, it's challenging for people, it's difficult for people."

[snip]

In other words it was very hard to be defense secretary with so many backward-looking forces arrayed against him.

I experienced a moment of extreme irony, reading this passage.

I'm used to educators calling parents out of date and afraid of change, but the "SecDef" telling reporters that Generals are out of date?

I'm adding "Change is hard" to my list of banned expressions.



Rand Statistics Group
Trust in Numbers by Theodore Porter

boiling it down

re the Ed Week comments thread, Instructivist nails it:

What is sorely missing is critical thinking about "critical thinking."

middle school math teacher

Response From: Debbie Sheffield

03/21/2007 12:42PM

I am a middle school teacher with a major in math. I see a complete shift to constructivist thinking in all areas of academics that is having a very negative impact on most of my students. Educators must find a middle ground with traditional skill practice as well as creative thinking projects. Why would anyone think one approach is best?

Money is the answer and NCLB. Since the National Science Foundation will pay for the materials for this new approach, most schools hop on the band wagon. I have witnessed the anger and frustration of parents trying to understand their own child's lack of confidence in math and their inability to do the most basic operation. Forget critical thinking for these students, they are so upset about their inabilities that they are unable to come up with an idea how to even start a problem.

Most of my district's parents have no idea what our secondary schools are doing in the future with their child's curriculum. I see a backlash of anger and frustration in the horizon. Already, professors are telling me students have to take remedial college math classes to even get into a degree program and the student may have to attend a junior college first (if they offer the class) to get into a state or private college/university. I have seen a distinct drop in ability levels from all of my students from the most basic to the gifted in my basic math classes and Pre-Algebra classes. My students mix up all the different methods they have seen because they did not practice a way that worked for them enough to keep it stored for future use. Why not give every student an IEP, individual goals and instruction, and chart their progress yearly? We cannot do this because of the political game we play directing every school to jump through hoops proving accountability in high stakes testing for funding. I am sick of it and the endless paperwork that keep teachers from teaching.

Whether you chose Standards Based or Creative Thinking, you must use a combination of both. To me math is sequential, a building block like a foundation for a house. Next year's curriculum will not do any building of skills for my students that are not ready for random problem solving.
source:
Standardized Expectations vs. Creative Thinking

I've read Debbie's writing before. She's fantastic.

cruising Edweek

Response From: Dona/Parent Involvement Specialist/Early Reading First

03/21/2007 9:32AM

The problems our children will have to solve in the 21st century are, for the most part, problems we have not anticipated in the same way that the problems we encountered were not the ones our parents and teachers had solved in their pasts. Teaching children that there are RIGHT and WRONG answers, with such high stakes that entire school districts and most parents are seized with the outcomes of testing, does not give our children the skills and self-confidence they need to solve the unique problems they will encounter in their futures.
source:
Standardized Expectations vs. Creative Thinking

I don't think I have the energy to respond.

blatant bias

How is this for bias in Educations Weeks Talkback section:

What do you think? Does the current approach to school reform favor the regurgitation of random facts over the development of critical and creative thinking?

Interesting terminology... 'regurgitation of random facts'... no prejudice here.

I suppose I could ask...

Does the current approach to education reform favor the the lowering of standards over the mastery of subject matter domain knowledge over ?

This is the kind of thing that makes it hard to take the education establishment seriously.

how to play

Last week, New York State revised its list of schools under registration review, the so-called SURR list. These are schools that are performing so badly that they are being considered for closing.

The idea of closing schools departs a bit from reality. Demolition crews do not come in and level the building. Usually "closing the school" means changing the name and number of the school, removing the principal and some, if not all, of the teaching staff. Most importantly for educrats, the school is now considered new, not failing, so it is removed from the SURR list.

I know of some schools that have had three different numbers in recent years. But changing the number doesn't change much. Five of the nine new schools just added to the SURR list have been there before under a different number. This is the strategy of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, a sad reality for the children.

The city's Department of Education has found a brilliant way to reduce the total number of schools on the SURR list and make itself look better in the public eye. The education bureaucrats do a preemptive strike and "close" schools before the state designates them as SURR. Thus the department can boast of a decline in the number of SURR schools and give the "new" school a free pass for a number of years.

source:
The Numbers Game ($)
Andrew Wolf

I almost have to admire the resourcefulness here.

Cathy's World

In hospital

lucky find

I love free stuff... here is a with a lot of "di" stuff, including training videos. I think it's directed at HS level teachers, but work won't let me view the videos to confirm.

There are even some sample lesson plans for various subjects including 7th grade geometry.

SUHSD - Explicit Direct Instruction

Update:

Via Dickey45:

Tulsa Schools SRA Direct Instruction Site

Lots of links and materials... very good videos.

today's factoid

In grades 4 and 8, students from homes with more than 100 books averaged almost 20 percent higher reading scores than students from homes with 10 or fewer books.

Notably, the question was not about book buying, but the mere presence of books in the home. Though a family’s income may limit the number of books that can be bought, virtually every Colorado household has access to a public library.

source:
LitScreen
Facts & Figures from the Colorado Literacy Research Initiative


The number of books in the household is a useful proxy for the home environment’s contribution to academic success. Adjusting the test-score data for this factor reduces the gap even more [after reducing the gap by adjusting for socioeconomic status]. On average, black students in the sample had 39 children’s books in their home, compared with an average of 93 books among white students. Taking this difference into account cuts the black-white test-score gap to less than a fourth of a standard deviation in math and completely eliminates the gap in reading.

source:
Falling Behind
Steven D. Levitt & Roland G. Fryer

6th meeting of NMP coming up on April 20 in Aurora IL

Just received notice that the 6th meeting of NMP is April 20 in Aurora IL. To our IL constituents on KTM II, if you are interested in making a public statement, please sign up now. Here is the notice and instructions for signing up:

The Sixth Meeting of the National Math Panel April 20, 2007 Hosted by Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) and Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA) Aurora, IL

Registration (first-come, first-served basis) We are now taking registration for: 1- guests who would like to attend the meeting during the open session time and 2- individuals/organizations who would like to make public comments on the Executive Order and/or the Panel's work.

You are welcome to attend just one or both of the following sessions.

On Friday, April 20th, there is a one-hour open session for public comments and two hours for the public to observe the task groups’ progress reports and discussions on their work to date.
Location: Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA) 1500 W Sullivan Road, Aurora, Illinois 60506-1067

8:45 - 9:00 AM Welcome and Opening Remarks 9:00 - 10:00 AM Public Comments 10:15 AM - 12:15 PM Task Group Reports and Discussion

If you wish to provide public comments on the Executive Order and/or the Panel's work, please note that there are limited time slots available, and individual commentators or those representing an organization will be allotted 3-5 minutes to speak.

If space is not available or you cannot attend and would still like to provide comments to the National Math Panel, please email written comments, including your contact information to NationalMathPanel@ed.gov <mailto:NationalMathPanel@ed.gov> by Thursday, April 12, 2007.

To pre-register, please provide the following information to Jennifer Graban at jennifer.graban@ed.gov <mailto:jennifer.graban@ed.gov> or 202-260-1491:

· Are you interested in providing public comment on April 20th?
· If you would like to make public comments, please provide a brief description of the issue you would like to present as related to the Executive Order, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/04/20060418-5.html
· Name
· Title
· Organization you represent
· Address
· Phone Number
· Email Address

You will be receiving a confirmation email with more information before the meeting.
Pre-registration will close at 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 12, 2007; however, onsite walk-in registration will be available at the meeting. Please note: Those pre-registered for the public comments session have priority over walk-in registrants. Walk-in registrants will be given an opportunity to register for any remaining timeslots.

What DI Looks Like In Print

If you are embarking on the exploration of Direct Instruction like I have been recently (or following my exploration of it), you might be interested in this. I finally received the DI books I ordered from Amazon. I bought "Spelling Through Morphographs" (Dixon and Englemann) in a nice little deal, and received the Teacher's Presentation Book 1 and the Blackline Masters (student workbook, unused). I was not able to get the Teacher's Guide, so know I'm working with less than the full arsenal of material here.

I'm going to make a couple of posts about these books, and some other info I'm in the process of gathering. I'm going to begin by simply describing what the lessons look like. I think one of the frustrating aspects of being so interested in something like DI is that there is little easy access to an actual lesson (does this element of mysteriousness negatively affect teacher's opinion of it?), or the actual books to be used. Maybe folks in other areas have had an opportunity to get professional development in it, or see it in action, but I have had no such luck or opportunity in any of the schools I've worked in, and little luck online except for descriptions of what a lesson plan should look like. So, if you're unfamiliar with it, and worried about what it may look like, here's a good start. Everything here is meant to be informative, not critical or otherwise evaluative.

The teacher's book is divided into 70 lessons. Each lesson is divided into 7-10 exercises, labeled by number. The student workbook corresponds to the lesson, but each part is labeled by letter. So, where in the teacher book you may have Exercise 3, it may actually be Part B on the student worksheet. This is because not every exercise is a written exercise - some of them are verbal. The teacher's guide Contents page does not have any description about what the particular lesson is about - just lesson number and page number. This is interesting to me - it definitely keeps one from skipping around in the lessons, or targeting them by topic. The teacher script is written in a light blue in my book, and my only commentary about that is that it is a little faint, and I'd be afraid I might miss a line if I wasn't careful. However, each line is numbered in black, and all cues for signaling and pausing are written in black, as well as the expected responses. The teacher's book is spiral bound.

I've only looked at a few of the beginning lessons so far. I'll talk about lessons 1-4.
Lesson 1 and 2 each begin with a Word Rule (Exercise 1) and a Morphograph Rule (Exercise 2). They are verbal activities, read-and-repeat (teacher reads rule, students repeat, teacher asks question about the rule, students answer question - level: knowledge, skill: recall for those of you following along on your taxonomy scales). They are approximately a paragraph long, and I estimate would take 1-3 minutes. Exercise 3 is done on the board by the teacher. S/he writes words, points, and has students answer. These are longer exercises, probably 7-10 minutes or slightly more. By the time Exercises 1-3 are complete, the students have received all the information and rules they need to complete the written portion.

This is how Lesson 1 and 2 continue (for the most part identical). Part A: students count morphographs in words written on the page; words have 1 or 2 morphographs. Part B: students look at and spell new words; each word has only 1 morphograph. Part C: students look at and spell new words with 2-3 morphographs. Part D: looks like a math problem with ______ + _____ = [word]. Students count morphographs, and write each individual morphograph in the space.

At the bottom of their page, students add up how many they missed in a handy little chart labeled with the parts of the lesson. There's also something about worksheet points and oral points, but it looks as though that's explained in the missing teacher's guide. (Though it seems self-explanatory.)

Lessons 3-4 change a bit. They begin with reviewing how to count morphographs, and students do this on their worksheet (Exercise 1, Part A). They then move into an Affix Introduction, in which students learn some new morphographs. Similar activities include writing new words again (2-3 morphographs) and another activity spelling new words with 3-4 morphographs. New activities in lessons 3-4 are circling words in a line (example below) and matching (draw a line from each morphograph to its meaning).

Example Directions: Circle the words in the lines.

Word given is (example): space

Line looks like: spacespecesacespacespocespacaspacespeca

So, you can see that the lessons move at a steady pace, only change slightly in format from lesson to lesson (and that so that a routine is developed), and quickly increase in content while building on pre-learned skills.

As I glance through more of the book I see there are more activities like word finds, crossword puzzles, bingo, make words from a selection of morphographs, adding morphographs together (in which case students must use spelling rules, such as changing y to i). The student worksheets grow more lengthy, and later involve independent activities as well. Any questions or info you'd like to see from me? Let me know. Ms. Teacher also did a post about this a while back which may supplement your reading.

Scenes From The Battleground - Getting “Terrored”

A few days I posted about how I would never send my two kids to english schools. This is why.

Scenes From The Battleground - Getting “Terrored”

At the Metropolitan School “terror” is a verb, not a noun. “To terror a teacher” means to subject a teacher to a continual stream of intimidation and abuse with the intention of causing the maximum amount of stress. The main purpose of this is to intimidate the teacher into giving up on any attempt to enforce the rules. Also it can also be used to attempt to drive the teacher out of the school, or as a way for students to assert their status or authority with their peers. Consequently it is aimed largely at teachers who are new to the school, or at least new to the class, although if a class is arrogant enough it will be aimed at any teacher who expects them to behave.

Terroring begins with low level disruption. Admittedly everything at the Metropolitan school begins with low level disruption. However, if you are getting terrored then any effort to prevent the disruption or enforce the school rules will lead to escalation through the following stages:

I lived in England for three years, and english children are the most obnoxious, bratty, smartass kids I have ever seen.

There is a culture of hooliganism that pervades the almost the entire country. I would rather work in the worst urban school in American than work in a middle class school there.

Hat Tip: Education Wonks Carnival of Education

school raises IQ

This bears repeating.

School raises IQ.

It does.

There's no question about this. (Or rather, a scientific consensus exists on this question.)

"Substantial evidence of the effects of school attendance on the development of IQ has existed for some time. A detailed review of over 50 studies using naturalistic observation, post-hoc statistical comparisons, and cohort-sequential analysis concludes that there is an association between enhancement of cognitive skills related to IQ and schooling (Ceci, 1991). These studies, conducted throughout the 20th century, comparing schooled and non-schooled populations, have estimated that the enhancement of IQ by schooling ranges from 0.3 to 0.6 of an IQ point for every year of school competed. Importantly, the association between IQ and exposure to formal education is not only due to children with higher measured IQ staying in school longer." (Blair et al)

source:
Rising mean IQ: Cognitive demand of mathematics education
for young children, population exposure to formal schooling,
and the neurobiology of the prefrontal cortex (pdf file)

And here's Engelmann:

We had shown, however, that all the disadvantaged black kids we worked with could learn to read and perform basic arithmetic operations in the preschool and that the average IQ gain of these kids was 24 points.

source:
War Against the Child's Academic Abuse of Children
Siegfried Engelman

Note: Engelmann raised these children's IQs 24 points in the preschool years alone.


By the same token, bad schools lower IQ.

Poor schooling lowers intelligence and handicaps children intellectually for life.... their intelligence is steadily eroded because the synapses in their brain are inadequately tuned and shaped by the planned structured experience that good teachers provide.

This is precisely what happened in some rural school systems in the southern states of America during the 1970s. Education was so poor in some of these systems that intelligence was more badly eroded the longer children stayed in the system. As a result, the IQs of the older children in a family who had been in the school system longer were routinely lower than those of their younger brothers and sisters whose brains had not yet suffered the great synaptic hunger which comes from poor education.

[snip]

In one study, black children who had moved from the south to Philadelphia had their IQ scores raised more than half a point for every year they spent in this better school system.

Mind Sculpture
by Ian Robertson

nature, nurture and gene expression

None of this means that IQ is "environmental" as opposed to "genetic."

Back when I was on the board of NAAR, geneticists were constantly telling us that there was no such thing as a nature/nurture split. To ask whether a phenomenon was "genetic" or "environmental" was wrong.

I found that a difficult concept to absorb, but I think I've got a handle on it these days.

The concept that finally helped me "get it" -- assuming that I do get it -- was the concept of gene expression.

Genes have to be expressed; they have to "speak."

A gene can be silent, as it is when one identical twin has schizophrenia while the other twin does not.

Both twins have vulnerability genes for schizophrenia.

But the genes are expressed in one twin, silent in the other.

Moreover, when a gene is expressed it can be expressed weakly or strongly.

Obviously IQ is "genetic."

But the genes that affect IQ have to be expressed to do what they do, and it is the environment -- which includes other genes! -- that determines whether and how they'll be expressed.

Good schools raise IQ.

Bad schools lower IQ.

I assume college raises IQ, too.

Don't know it -- assume it!

gene expression

good schools raise IQ, bad schools lower IQ, part 1
good schools raise IQ, bad schools lower IQ, part 2
good schools raise IQ, bad schools lower IQ, part 3
Seth Roberts on IQ
fuzzy math makes you smarter
IQ quiz
school raises IQ
intelligence is verbal, perceptual, and image rotation
math isn't English

from Carolyn

IMing with Carolyn, who sent me to this site, which she says is unbelievably cool.

But it doesn't work on my Mac!

dang

how I used my college education

Joanne Jacobs links to a post from Bryan Caplan on the uselessness of education.

We've talked about this before, but I think I'll re-post my Comment on Joanne's blog here:

...the idea that college graduates “don’t use” their education is true only in the superficial sense of the term.

If you read Dan Willingham & E.D. Hirsch you realize that a liberal arts education gives you a large practical advantage in the world of work. A broad liberal arts education turns you into a faster learner (and reader) than you would have been otherwise.

Knowledge begets knowledge. That’s a familiar idea.

What I didn’t realize until I read more cognitive science is that knowledge also begets speed. At a certain point in your learning of any subject you suddenly become able to learn knew facts, skills, procedures, and concepts in that subject much more rapidly than when you were starting out.

I suspect that this speed-up point occurs when you acquire a basic “schema” of the knowledge domain. And I’m positive that a good college gives you the most sophisticated schema for each knowledge domain possible.

My own career is an illustration of this.

As a non-fiction writer I have to tackle fields I know virtually nothing about. I have to be able to get my arms around these fields very quickly.

I can do it because of my education at Wellesley and Dartmouth. All these years later, I’m still “trading on” those four years.

I “use” my liberal arts education to earn a living, but I’m not earning a living teaching the subjects I studied. I’m earning a living being able to pick up new knowledge about the subjects I studied rapidly — and being able to make sense of new knowledge in terms of what I learned in college.

I divided by zero

here

Can't remember how I found this; otherwise I'd give credit where credit is due.


update from Google Master

more photos

Artleague Houston