The below is a hodgepodge of various thoughts relating to education that spun off each other in a comparatively short time. Normally, I keep new ideas, with preliminary elaborations, in a particular (unpublished) file for later spin-off into new articles (or integration into existing); however, with the somewhat larger amount of text involved here, I preferred to move them jointly into one document to not flood my ideas file. The result is not optimal, but will serve as a compromise for now. Beware that some of the headings are only rough guide-lines, and that the corresponding texts are not always separated into logical sub-topics. (The contents might or might not be cleaned up or moved to other pages later.)
Since the original publishing in 2009, I have written on education repeatedly in other contexts, notably during my Wordpress days. (TODO import and link.)
While this page has been edited, it has almost always been to improve the often poor language or to clarify my original intents. Mostly, it still reflects my 2009 views, even when they differ from my current views.
Several additions have been made, particularly (but not exclusively) in 2024. Some partially cover differences between my original and later views (cf. above). Others can serve purposes like contrasting some Swedish peculiarity with the U.S.
Because of the age of the page, there is link rot. I will attempt to fix this at some future point, but can give no guarantee about when—or of success.
Many of the problems with modern education result from the flawed idea that any task that pushes the student to his limits, let alone above them, should be avoided. This is made the worse, because the limits used are not that of the individual student, but of the typical student—or even a sub-average student. (Indeed, class-room education is often dictated by the weakest link in the chain.)
This principle goes against the very purpose of education: To better the students. The point is not whether a student is able to complete a task today, but whether trying the task (even if failing) will make him better at it—possibly allowing him to succeed tomorrow. One can go even further and claim that is suffices that the student becomes better at something (possibly something entirely unrelated, e.g. learning his own limits). Similarly, in order to grow and to exceed one’s current limits, it is important to push them.
I had a telling discussion with a fellow student in high school: I suggested that PE should have specific minimum targets on fitness and physical ability, including being able to run an 800-meter race. (With no time limit, and with obvious allowances for e.g. the wheelchair-bound.) His response showed that he had missed the point entirely: Not everyone was currently able to do this; thus, the test was unreasonable. The twist: I was a poorly trained book-worm and he a Swedish junior champion in judo, who also had some success with cross-country running.
http://www.schoolchoices.org/roo/textbook.htme gives telling examples of how textbooks in the U.S. have been dumbed down. To be blunt: If this reflects the literacy created by modern education, school is not worth bothering with. In fact, concerning the first text, I originally, unthinkingly, interpreted “8th grade” as referring to 8 year olds—and, by at least the first few sentences, did not think the text too hard! For those in 8th grade, it is a joke, and a poor joke at that. (For some reason, my first thought at “xth grade” is often “x years old”. I am uncertain why this misinterpretation keeps recurring.)
The eventual issue here is that a child who is confronted with a hard text with unknown words will develop, increase his vocabulary, learn to better understand non-trivial grammatical constructs, etc. In contrast, a student reading a book that he is already fully capable of understanding will not develop in these regards. Textbooks should certainly consider the age-group of the audience—students should put their mental efforts primarily into understanding and learning the subject matter. When we look specifically at “readers”, however, the contents of the book are secondary to the language it self: The difficulty of the language is what makes the student grow. In effect, a reader should be too hard for the students’ current reading level; non-readers should be more or less on par with this level, possibly a little harder, possibly a little easier. Notably, if the level of textbooks is lowered, then reading skills will not develop as they should, necessitating further dumbing-down of textbooks, and so on. (The same principle of dumbing-down applies, m.m., to other kinds of textbooks: If, e.g., the math book does not push the students boundaries in math, then something is amiss.)
Interestingly, here I fail to make allowances for differences in the students. Clearly, different students are more or less challenged by the same book. This is yet another reason why one-size-fits-all attempts must be avoided and education must be sufficiently adapted to the individual students. In particular, something not sufficiently reflected in the original text, a focus on schools is better shifted to a focus on education, including an exploration of options like self-study and home schooling.
http://www.textbookleague.org/82dumbo.htme begins with a historical view by James Michener, which hits the points that I am trying to make rather well (as does the rest of the article).
A depressing issue is that the current standard way (at least in Sweden and the U.S.) of handling unsatisfactory graduation rates is to lower the criteria for a pass. Attempts at actually bettering the education are left at empty claims and for-show measures. This poses a particular danger when (as in Sweden) there are strong political forces striving to put as many as possible through college, leading to a continual decrease in the quality of the students and, with some delay, a decrease in the graduation criteria. In a worst case scenario, the value of an entry-level degree will be diminished to a beefed-up high-school diploma.
I have repeatedly heard claimed that this has already happened in the U.S., e.g. that
Our students frequently lag behind students elsewhere in the age levels at which certain subjects are introduced. To phrase the point differently, students can and should learn by 14 or 15 what they currently learn by age 17.
(http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_n6_v13/ai_19118925/e)
This effectively puts U.S. students at least a community-college degree behind the reasonable target. Similarly, at least in the early 1990s, the Swedish government did not grant support moneyw for the first year of U.S. colleges for Swedish exchange students—with the motivation that the first year studies corresponded to the Swedish high-school level.
A further complication, of which I might have been insufficiently aware in 2009, is that the Swedish equivalent of non-vocational high-school extends to a higher age than in the U.S. (The exact difference varies from person to person, and might be further complicated by different rules for who-begins-school-when based on birth month. I, born in January, graduated at 19.)
A community-college degree (or, for the sake of precision, associate’s degree) would, then, be on the low side for comparing Swedish and U.S. high-school graduates. (With reservations for in which country the education might have degenerated the most in the intervening years.)
In the U.S., the increase in college students also have other driving factors than in Sweden. One is the influx of new students/old soldiers in the years after WWII, which created an over-capacity that needed to be filled once this influx ceased (lest, God forbid, the number of students was allowed to shrink again); another, overlapping, is the commercial benefits from having many students, which is much smaller in Sweden.
Something to ponder: What should the graduating percentage of enrolling students be? In the best of worlds, bright students and first rate teachers/textbooks might ensure a ratio close to 1 (allowing for some necessary drop-out due to changes in interest, lack of funding, health issues, and so on); however, in the real world this is unrealistic. So, 90 %? 80 %? 50 %? I would actually favor a comparatively low value, possibly in the range 50–70 %: This way students are kept on their toes and a later diploma actually counts for something. As an added benefit, certain professional groups will be protected from complete incompetents and diligent nit-wits. To manipulate the graduation criteria to push e.g. a 60 % ratio upwards is just a bad idea (but I have nothing against improvements in e.g. the teaching with the same purpose).
Notably, the political pressures for pushing as many as possible through college are fundamentally flawed in that they assume that going through college is what makes the average graduate intellectually superior to the average non-enroller: This is simply not true—the education can increase the difference, but the main cause is an existing difference in intelligence. What it boils down to, is that the more intelligent are more likely to choose college in the first place, more likely to graduate successfully, and more likely to benefit from college. Looking specifically at Sweden, a common assumption is that “working class” teenagers are kept from going to universities by lack of funds, giving them an unfair disadvantage later in life and keeping their family lines in the working class. This might be one factor (and certainly a factor that should be corrected); however, the main explanation lies with the parents: Working class parents tend to be less intelligent than middle-class parents (on average; beware of great individual variations), which will lead to less intelligent children (again, on average), which will lead to less academic interest and prowess. Further, I have the impression that these parents often have a very negative attitude to education and instill this attitude into their children. Indeed, during my own school years, I noted a very high correlation among my fellow students between a negative attitude to school and uneducated parents; even around 13, many (most?) children of [un-]educated parents strongly felt that they would [not] go to college—and eventually did [not].
Here several remarks from a 2024 perspective are needed:
By 2024, it could be argued that not going to college is a sign of intelligence in some countries, because of the crippling fees, far-Left brainwashing, sinking quality, whatnot.
Issues of money were, of course, bigger in the U.S. even in 2009. However, chances are that the main effect is less to prevent working-class students from going to college and more to land them in debt past college.
But do I not have “a negative attitude to school”, myself?
I do, but I was more positive than most back then (and my mother even more so), once the mechanically-copy-letters stage had blown over. While I was not truly enthusiastic about school, the realization that school did more to hinder than to help my education only arose gradually and might not have been fully formed until my adult years. Moreover, I was likely a too strong believer in ideas like “school = education” (which I now know is horribly wrong), “school leads to success in life” (which is, at best, a half-truth, even when school is seen as the main form of education), “school is how one betters oneself” (again, horribly wrong).
To this, an attitude of “school is my job”, “school is where children belong”, or similar might have applied. I have certainly encountered similar attitudes in adults towards their children since then, e.g. in that a “School is your job, so bite the bullet and stop whining!’ follows when the child complains about too much home work, the need to get up in the morning, or similar. (Of course, school is unpaid and involuntary—some job!)
The idea that “school = education” was, unsurprisingly, prevalent among the other children, implying that an anti-school attitude was almost the same as an anti-education attitude. In as far as the uneducated were truly just anti-school, they might well have had it right (and they certainly have my current sympathies); in as far as they were anti-education, they were wrong.
A similar “it depends” is present for the educated: School was, presumably, not their end goal but a stepping stone to and preparation for college. While college is not free from the flaws of school, they are (were?) usually much smaller and the actual educational benefits correspondingly larger. In as far as they were pro-school, the educated had it wrong; in as far as they were pro-education they had it right. For natural reasons, the difference in attitude only became truly important at the end of mandatory (year 9) or quasi-mandatory school (year 12).
Graduation ratios in college come with two remarks:
Firstly, the “right” ratio will depend on the quality of students, which, in turn, depends strongly on how many are admitted. With today’s mass-admissions, a lower or considerably lower ratio might well be “right” than what would be the case with fewer and more heavily pre-selected students.
Secondly, if the ratio, hypothetically, were to rise through e.g. better teachers, as opposed to laxer criteria, this would not necessarily be an unmixed blessing: One of the great benefits of a college degree used to be a filter effect on intelligence (and e.g. diligence and self-discipline). In our current reality, too lax criteria has severely diminished this filter effect; in another reality, “too good’ teachers could have the same effect. We might then have a greater amount of graduates with certain skill sets (good), but where many of these might lack the right brains and/or the brains expected in the field (bad).
In contrast, some complaints of a declining level of education are unjustified, including those that focus on the removal of classical languages and literature from the schedule, or protest that some other “humanistic” areas, e.g. writing poetry, are of less importance than in the past:
There simply is much more information available today and many areas of modern life require new skills (e.g. computer related ones)—compromise is unavoidable and priorities must be set for the limited time available. These compromises might well be worthy of lament; however, if the compromise is well done, not of complaint. In particular, mandatory schools should focus on giving students the skills and knowledge that they need first, and the nice-to-haves second: Studying Shakespeare is well worth the effort, but is something the interested can do in their own time and/or when they are out of school. OTOH, learning e.g. critical thinking, sex ed, and the basics of society should be highly prioritized—these will immediately affect the students life.
My own schooling (and, I suspect, schooling in general) showed large deficits in many areas of importance. Notably, there was very little said on philosophy (including ethics and principles on how to live one’s life), psychology (including how the human mind works and how to handle difficult persons), how to think critically, and (for want of a better word) wisdom. Generally, there was an overemphasis on learning facts, instead of gaining understanding, be it within specific subjects or regarding what subjects were taught and not taught.
To reconnect with the above: If classic literature should be studied, then start with Aesop or similar material. (More typically proposed classic works often contain much wisdom, but in a less accessible and less condensed way than Aesop.)
I am uncertain what I meant by “classic” above. Chances are that I had my mind on the ancient Greeks and Romans (as with “classical languages” even further above); however, I cannot say this for certain, as “classic” has a much wider range of meanings. Either way, “start with” is a key portion of the sentence.
Similarly, some subjects might simply be of so little relevance that they cannot be justified as curricular and mandatory classes: Consider e.g. the mandatory wood-shop and “textile-shop” (integrated in home economics in the U.S. system?) that I had for two hours a week for the first six years of school—I cannot recall ever having used what I learned there in any form (I have used hammers and screw-drivers, even sewing needles; but not in a way that would have required me to have had any kind of previous instruction—a hammer is a hammer, not an airplane). These subjects were outdated in the eighties; they are even more so now. In the past, knowing how to work wood or use a sewing machine were important skills—today they are something mainly for hobbyists. (I note, further, that some practical skills that can actually be useful in the modern world, e.g. how replace a light-switch, were not taught.)
I briefly checked some Swedish webpages on the topic, and noted that proponents of the subject make statements along the lines of “a valuable complement to the theoretical education in other subjects”, “... gives the students a break from boring theory”, “... gives the opportunity to actually see something created”, “... teaches how to make something in a structured four-step process [with elaboration]”. Largely, this sounds like excuses: I note that art class fills the same niche (with a higher justification); that students would prefer two hours less per week rather than a pseudo-break; that no methodological teaching (be it four steps or not) ever took place in my classes; that the unequivocal focus was on learning specific skills, e.g. how to plane a piece of wood or use a sewing machine; and that an extra-curricular inclusion would still be possible. I grant that things might have changed in the intervening years; however, not so much that it would justify the continued inclusion of these subjects. (Yes, the subjects still seem to be mandatory in Swedish schools.)
The “quoted” statements are not verbatim quotes, but an attempt to catch the spirit and content after the fact. Interestingly, the one argument that I would see as an actual reason, not an excuse, was not mentioned: Practical work can be good for the motor-skills of the children.)
The above overlooks one case: A comparatively large proportion of students end up as e.g. construction workers and might benefit from wood-shop as a preparation for their future profession. It can, however, still be disputed whether wood-shop should be a mandatory subject—even whether the conventional school is at all the right place to learn the corresponding skills.
(In contrast, the proportion of students benefiting from “textile shop” is very small.)
By 2024, another 15 years of dropping relevance later, wood-/textile-shop still seem to be mandatory in Sweden.
An interesting question is to what degree a “four-step process” (and/or other fancy words) might reflect changes since my days and to what degree a disparity between paper and reality.
The former might result from an increased insight that just pushing practical skills with no theory brings little value in the long run. A potentially better example is physical education: Theory that went beyond the rules of some sport was very rare, but just an hour here and there that taught us how to train for different goals, how muscles/joints/whatnots worked, and similar, would have been so much more valuable for later life than yet another hour running around in chase of a ball.
The latter is an ever-recurring issue: I have seen a great many descriptions of learning goals that are out-of-touch with reality, be it because they are ignored by the teachers or because they are far too ambitious, stating goals that might be attained by the most intelligent and ambitious students but not by the average, let alone someone who barely passed—and where the success with the most intelligent might well rest more in what they were before than what they became after. Often, the descriptions seem geared solely at winning approval for a course/program/whatnot among decision makers (in particular, purse-string holders).
It might pay to give more intelligent students a lot of leeway. For instance, during “math” (read: “boring arithmetic”) in fifth grade, a topic where most of the work was done individually rather than as a group, I started to ask the teacher for permission to read a (fiction) book instead, after having worked for possibly three-quarters of the period. As this was granted, I made my request earlier and earlier, until I did 5–10 minutes of work per math period and then read.
Did this affect my math ability negatively? Not that I noticed: During later years I was well-known for being good at mental calculations; from seventh grade (when the first subject grades were given) until high-school graduation, I earned straight A’s in math; and in high school, where calculus, non-trivial trigonometry, and a few other topics appeared, I plowed through the entire three years in the first semester (most of the time taken up by, unnecessarily, solving every single exercise in the textbooks), and spent the second semester doing college level math (after which my interest waned somewhat).
The Swedish high-school system is/was very different from the U.S. one, with a more-or-less fix math curriculum based on a choice of “program” (one overall math grade per semester), while the U.S. appears to have the option of picking courses more individually (one grade per course). As I was in the “natural science” program, the amount of automatically mandatory math was quite large.
As is, I had the luck that my fifth-grade teacher recognized both that I already was reasonably good at arithmetic and that allowing me to pursue reading made school less boring for me—while allowing me to develop other skills than arithmetic. Had she stubbornly insisted that I plague myself through the entire period, I would have had a less positive academic development. (I note that the first few years in school were deadening, with their endless, boring exercises for learning basic arithmetic and writing, including copying the individual letters ad eternam.)
One of the fundamental problems for someone with an unusual level of intelligence is the lack of peers during childhood (with some reservation for special classes for “gifted”—if at all available): The regular students of the same age will have a different level of intelligence and a different set of interests; and older students, while having grown in intelligence, might have a higher maturity level, a more developed world view, be loath to spend time with “kiddies”—and still have a different set of interests.
Notably, as children and teens still develop physically, intelligence might be a lesser determinant of intellectual (to some degree) and emotional (to a high degree) progress than is physical development. Similarly, the effect of sheer time when going from e.g. 10 years of age to 12 will be highly noticeable and can overcome a limited difference in intelligence; in particular, when considering that the average child of twelve (“intelligence age” = 12 => IQ ~ 100) will have an IQ around 120 on the scales for children of ten, and that those brighter will reach correspondingly higher values. (OTOH, there are some indications that there are other differences in brain-workings, as the level of intelligence increases or decreases, than just IQ in the sense of “intelligence age”. It might then be that a 10 y.o. with an IQ of 150 scores equally with a 15 y.o. with an IQ of 100, but that he still thinks in a different manner.)
For these and related reasons, simply letting a bright child skip one or several years is a potentially dangerous solution, replacing one set of problems with another (but, with luck, lesser) set—a careful, individual decision should be made. A further complication is that, from a knowledge POV, skipping early years is better; yet, it might not always be clear at that time who is a good candidate (consider different development rates and pre-school education)—I, myself, was a bit slow in learning to read (lower third of the class?, despite being the second oldest), but once I got the taste for it, I blew past the rest of the class, reading (not truly understanding, however) works by Dostoyevsky, Zola, and Strindberg as a pre-teen. (My sister, in contrast, learned to read somewhat earlier, but went through school with sub-average grades, did not complete high school, and only earned the approximate Swedish equivalent of a GED in her late twenties. Admittedly, this could relate more to external circumstances than to actual ability.)
As follows from the above, a particular problem is the rarity of counterparts that are (a) sufficiently similar in both intelligence and maturity, (b) have the same interests, (c) are willing to interact. This can lead to an isolation that is detrimental to both emotional development and social skills. This in particular as gifted children might be more prone to introversion in the first place.
A common problem is how to prioritize limited resources (the gifted vs. the dull vs. the average). This is a complex question with no good answer (unless the limit on resources can be lifted). Two points worthy of consideration, however: Firstly, if a dull student is over-educated, this will bring him (and society) little benefit, and might well seem an unnecessary intrusion to him. Secondly, money spent on the gifted has a much higher probability of re-paying it self: They make the best (not to be confused with e.g. “most promoted” or “most lauded”) software developers, managers, engineers, scientists, ... Getting them into the right positions with the right knowledge and the right motivation is something that will benefit society.
An earlier version extended the above list with “authors, painters, actors” and the claim:
(There might be some debate as to whether e.g. good a scientist and a good actor share one kind of giftedness. I would maintain that intelligence is important for both, if likely more so for the scientist. There will be, at least, many accomplished actors who would be candidates for “traditional” gifted education; and many others with the possibility of some other kind of giftedness needing special treatment. Note that e.g. Tom Cruise, not the brightest of the bunch, might be an immensely successful actor—but he is not a very good one.)
By 2024, I lean more strongly towards “different breeds”. Intelligence can certainly be an advantage, but it does not seem to be the main deciding factor. The question is large enough that it would need a separate text for a reasonable treatment, but I note in brief:
The difference between “good” and “popular” is not always easy to tell.
There are different types of “good” and different ways to skin a cat, with varying degrees of intelligence needed. For instance, an author like Umberto Eco might be more different from someone like J.K. Rowling than Oleksandr Usyk is from Tyson Fury.
In many “creative” areas, skills like “hitting the right emotional keys” can be very important, and these might often be less a matter of intellect and more a matter of hard-coded traits and/or compatibility with the audience.
The sheer number of actors who are outright stupid is disturbing. (And the same might apply to other groups of “creatives”. Actors are in the news more often, and are easier to judge, than most other groups.)
The not entirely uncommon misconception that women would be superior to men in many intellectual regards could be based on a mistaken belief that abilities are some sort of see-saw: If men are physically superior then, ipso facto, women must be intellectually superior. In contrast, both my own experiences and the large amounts of statistics I have seen on the subject, indicate that men are intellectually superior.
Obviously, there is a differentiation in strengths and weaknesses in the intellects of the sexes, e.g. that men are relatively stronger in “math” than they are in “verbal”, to borrow SAT terminology; and women the other way around. Certainly, women will be better in at least some specific areas; however, I am not entirely convinced that verbal skills is one of these (although many studies indicate this). In my opinion, women use many words, but without regard for quality (and are generally weak in their communicative skills); they read more than men, but seldom something actually worth reading (consider celebrity gossip, insightless self-help books, and romance novels); etc. Notably, men tend to have marginally better scores than women on the “verbal” SAT sub-test (while outdoing the women by a wide margin in “math”; cf. http://nces.ed.gov/Programs/digest/d95/dtab126.aspe). One might speculate that women are better at basic skills, like knowing many words, being good at building sentences, and similar, but that men have an advantage where actually thinking about meaning, reading critically, expressing own thoughts, etc. becomes more important—this, in turn, could be explained by women spending more time using language, in particularly actively, leading to a training effect; but that men have a greater general intelligence.
A particular note on school grades: According to several surveys that I have seen, the GPAs of girls tend to be better than those of boys. This should be seen in light of at least the following cautions:
Grades, in particular in the earlier school years, have a strong subjective component; and it seems likely that girls have an implicit advantage with regard to this subjectivity, because girls/women tend to be better at manipulating others, behave more like “they are supposed to” (e.g. by sitting still and obeying), and likely are more sympathetic to the female majority of teachers.
Further, when comparisons between test results and grades are made (e.g. the Swedish nation-wide tests), it can often be observed that girls have better grades than would be expected from the tests. (Note, however, that there are unproved claims that women simply test worse, which could be a partial explanation.)
By 2024, I have repeatedly seen the oddity that such discrepancies, be it in Sweden or elsewhere, are met by blanket reactions like “The tests are unfair! Abolish [reform, whatnot] the tests!” by certain groups, with no consideration for the possibility that the teachers/grades could be wrong. The tests, however, have a far better chance at being impartial, give fair assessments, measure actual skill/knowledge/understanding, whatnot, than grades do. This, especially, if students are rewarded for e.g. participation and doing homework rather than for what they actually learn. The default assumption must be that the discrepancy points to a problem with the grading—not the tests.
Leta S. Hollingworth’s “Gifted Children” has some discussion both of how often teachers make misjudgments and how the ability to judge accurately can vary greatly from teacher to teacher—and note how even just a large minority of poor judges among teachers can wreak havoc with the accuracy of grades. (I have seen other sources over the years, but have not kept references. An interesting-but-more-anecdotal/-personal complement can be found in some blog posts by Education Realiste, however.)
Women, in my experience, are often more diligent than men; and the less advanced the subject matter, the more important is diligence for good grades. This for at least two reasons:
First, texts, topics, problems, ..., typically have a “DMZ” in intelligence where the more intelligent can handle the situation with ease and the less intelligent cannot handle it at all; whereas the student in the DMZ can cope, but with more or less effort depending on where in the zone he is. The implication is that for easy tasks, hard work is the main determinant; and for hard tasks, intelligence is an absolute pre-requisite (depending on the exact details, intelligence might be enough, in it self, or might require diligence in addition).
Second, the less thinking is required, the less intellectual stimulation is present—which implies that someone who can overcome this lack of stimulation has an advantage. Notably, more intelligent students can have a severe disadvantage here, with poor grades resulting from boredom and lack of stimulation.
Notably, according to several articles (cf. below), some education systems have changed from assessment by one or two larger examinations of knowledge and understanding to “continual assessment” by a stream of course work. This is obviously a disadvantage for those who “work smart”, and an advantage for those who “work hard”: Someone who could spend a week before the exam with hard study and earn the grade he had his eyes set on, can no longer do so, but has to spend noticeably more time doing leg-work. In contrast, someone who lacked the brains for fast learning can now earn good grades by sheer diligence.
From another angle, the system has changed from testing ability to testing effort, which is entirely in line with the dominant political ideologies in much of the modern Western world: It is “not fair” (in a school-yard sense) that someone should succeed because of talent, or that anyone who puts in an effort should fail.
Girls mature physically at an earlier age, and are likely to have some gain from this in their teens. In particular, there are statistics showing that they have a marginally higher average IQ in their early teens, with the adult difference (typical numbers put men ahead by 2–5 points) only developing later.
The level of reading ability has a non-trivial effect on school learning even in education based on class-room teaching, and girls read more than boys on average. That what they read is typically junk, is secondary to the training effect (at least until boys have reached some threshold level of reading/training).
In IQ measurements, women tend to be more closely clustered around the average, with men more common as outliers. Because the school system tends to be focused on the average or somewhat below average students, a greater proportion of girls see a good fit in the curriculum, teaching methods, etc. In particular, the greater proportion of gifted boys, who would theoretically pull the average results of boys upwards, are often troubled by being under-stimulated, bored, misunderstood, or similar. The result is that they do not necessarily receive as good grades as they should; in fact, in some cases they might even pull the average grades down (although this is likely an exception).
Boys tend to have a wider set of interests and obligations that will take a part out of the time available for study outside of school.
This claim might be in need of revision: I originally had my mind set partially on sports, which often come with a “Show up to training thrice a week, or you are off the team.” obligation (and similar constraints). It is, however, quite possible that girls perceive (rightfully or not) similar, but informal, constraints, e.g. “If I do not go over to X’s thrice a week, I will be out of the clique.”—in my understanding, something just as dire as being off the team.
I have later found a number of articles by others with very similar ideas, e.g. Boys are still top dogse and Boys are being failed by our schoolse; or with another take, e.g., Teaching Boys and Girls Separatelye.
My own writings on feminism contains a further discussion of perspectives on “feminization” of schools, abuse of Ritalin to keep boys down, and similar—something which currently is a major problem in at least the U.S., the U.K., and (with some reservations for Ritalin) Sweden.
Unsurprisingly, the harder the topic, the better men do relative women (at least among the top students). Also note that my own college grades in math were better than my business grades (cf. yet-to-be-written TODO)—even though I considered the courses in business easy, and have the impression, from conversations, that my understanding of the respective subject matter was superior to most other students (many of whom actually struggled with the difficulty of thinking involved in first-year accounting and economics classes, which is very low compared to graduate-level analysis.)
Generally, I am highly critical of classic class-room education (including college lectures): This might or might not be a good solution for the less than brilliant, but for a student with a noticeably over-average IQ (even without a limit to the extremes) learning through books is generally faster and more efficient. When I consider how much time I could have saved by not sitting eight hours a day in class, but actually learning instead... Interestingly, when I started in college, I switched gears entirely: partially, because the subject matters were more interesting; but mainly because I learned that I did not need to go to the lectures, if I studied the textbooks. Based on what I did in college, I would have been able to go through the entire high-school curriculum in one year, had I studied on my own. (With reservations for testing opportunities, under the assumption that PE was dropped, and adding some presence phases for “conversational” English/German and practical experiments in e.g. chemistry and physics.)
I am eternally grateful to the professor who, in one of my first lectures, gave the class the advice to read ahead in the text book, because this would make the lectures easier to understand: After a few weeks, I noticed that if I read ahead, the lectures were not merely easier to understand—they were redundant.
(An exception to the above is a direct interaction in a small class between a teacher and a class on the same wave-length; however, such constellations are rare. Language classes, and possibly a few others, are also exceptions, because of the importance of interaction, irrespective of class size.)
Unfortunately, when I came to Germany as an exchange student, I found a very lamentable state, where good text books were absent and each professor had his own (often hand-written!) lecture notes/hand-outs (“Skript”)—and because these were often of a low quality, the students could not avoid lectures without risking severe negative side-effects. I even recall one instance where I had only very rarely visited the lectures—too easy to waste time with—and had planned to just read-up in the last month before the exam. As I asked the professor for the Skript, he refused (!) to give it to me with the motivation that I had not been to his lectures. Interestingly, he explicitly allowed me the opportunity to take the exam, just not access to his Skript.
The way I see it: Either a professor has something truly original to bring to the table (facts, insights, better pedagogy, ...) and, if so, he should write his own textbook; or he has not, and he should then get one of the already existing textbooks. Realistically speaking, the second case will almost always apply outside of highly specialized courses: When dozens, sometimes hundreds, of textbooks are available for a particular topic, what are the chances that the average professor can do better than the top books?
As a direct consequence of this, I went with a long-distance university when I, years later, decided to go for a second master. Here the situation was, necessarily, much better; however, the university made a similar mistake of wasting time and money by, for most courses, skipping textbooks in favor of inferior and non-book educational material written by its own professors and other staff.
I later encountered the following quote, which reflects my own feelings very well:
Lectures were once useful; but now, when all can read, and books are so numerous, lectures are unnecessary. If your attention fails, and you miss a part of a lecture, it is lost; you cannot go back as you do upon a book. . . . People have nowadays got a strange opinion that everything should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see that lectures can do as much good as reading the books from which the lectures are taken. I know nothing that can be best taught by lectures, except where experiments are to be shown. You may teach chymistry by lectures. You might teach making shoes by lectures!
(Samuel Johnson, http://www.xs4all.nl/~jcdverha/scijokes/8_6.htmle)
Here comes the bomb: This quote is not from 1991, nor even 1891, but 1791! Yet, lectures are still the main form of teaching and learning—despite this insight having been present (at least) 218 years ago! Worse yet, I fear that in the year 2227 things might well be as bad as today. Possibly even worse: What if books, and the descendant textual media, are phased out entirely in favour of books-on-tapes, lectures recorded onto video, ... (Note that while these will enable a rewind, a book will still be infinitely superior in this regard—and all other advantages of books remain advantages. This while the one advantage of a lecture, the limited possibility to ask the lecturer questions or require clarification, is lost.)
Or consider:
Lecture: An art of transferring information from the notes of the lecturer to the notes of the students without passing through the minds of either.
(http://forums.sexyandfunny.com/showthread.php?t=18216e, non-text characters altered.)
Clearly, just using a copier would be much, much more efficient—and ensure fewer errors. While at it, why not write a proper book based on the notes instead?
One of the issues caused by my intellectual mismatch was that I learned poor habits for studying, problem solving, etc., which lead to trouble during my second year of college (where I had a course load more than twice the normal and took some really advanced math and physics courses)—I bit of more than I could chew, saw my grades drop, and had too little spare time.
A specific example: In high school, we were often told to draw a picture of a physical or mechanical problem before starting to solve it—yet, the problems provided were so easy that I would just have wasted time by drawing these pictures. Not only did I not learn to draw pictures—I learned that pictures were something for intellectual wimps. Came college, I had bad habits; and when faced with problems where I would have benefited from pictures, false pride kept me from drawing them... If we assume, in contrast, that I had been challenged by tougher problems in high school, it is likely that I would have learned that pictures can be a valuable help in problem solving, and also have gained experience in how to use them optimally, before college.
Obviously, these issues were worsened by how I moved ahead of the schedule: By taking second-year courses in the first year and third-year, even several post-bachelor, courses in the second year, I did not have time to develop my study-technique, mature intellectually, and gain humility with regards to my intellect vs. the difficulty of the courses, in the way I needed to truly be on top of the more advanced classes. Instead I forged ahead with the “brute force” approach that had sufficed in high-school and first-year college classes—and eventually hit a limit where brute force did not cut it anymore.
Where the text currently reads “post-bachelor”, I originally had “post-graduate”. Due to differences between the Swedish system and the European post-Bologna, U.S., and similar systems, this was potentially misleading. (The formulations would be equivalent in e.g. a U.S. context, but not in a Swedish one.)
On a related note, I should almost certainly have limited the number of courses taken—and ensured that I had a truly in-depth understanding of them. As is, there were some cases where I simply did not have the time to reach this understanding. Additionally, this would have lessened problems with scheduling conflicts, leading to both better grades (I rarely went to an examination without a severe sleep deficit) and not having to leave a few courses hanging when leaving for Germany.
In an analogy, a brilliant high-school runner can, if never challenged, learn that he wins whatever strategy he uses, be it an all-out effort from the start to the finish, a hang-back-and-take-everyone-in-the-finish approach, or any other version (within reasonable limits). However, when that same runner is confronted with other runners who are not vastly inferior, he will find that things are much harder, that he gives races away through poor tactics, that his finish is no longer good enough to make good forty meters in the last lap, and so on. In contrast, had he been exposed to better competition in high school, he would have run into these problems earlier—and had been forced to adapt, develop better tactics while still in high school, had more humility, etc.
A related issue is that too easy courses can lead to too little study: Study typically has at least two different goals: Understanding and remembering. I tend to be interested in a course only until I have understood it—after this point I have little motivation to study; and if the course is too easy, I can cease to study before I am able to remember everything that I should remember. This was in particular a problem with my business studies, where exam questions concerning understanding were few and far between, and checks for rote learning abounded—“Name and briefly describe five of the methods to do X mentioned on page 97 of the textbook.” rather than “Give five methods to do X. Explain the possible positive and negative consequences in the short and long term.”. (Unsurprisingly, I have later learned that business graduates tend to be very weak in understanding, lack insights into side-effects and long-term effects, etc.)
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/d_major_chord.htme contains a very illustrative discussion of education of the gifted and how they benefit from receiving various forms of “accelerated” education, instead of receiving the same education as their age peers together with their age peers—as the politically correct often insist be done. (Generally, the site provides a great number of articles and links on various aspects of giftedness).
What particularly struck me was the following quote (concerning a gifted child educated with age peers, like in Sweden, rather than with intellectual peers):
The more mature [word resulting from an analogy used] child will have to learn:
(a) How to explain ideas in simple terms that the other children can understand
(b) How to wait patiently while the others struggle with concepts he or she has known for some time.
(c) How to delay the gratification of answering all the teachers’ questions, so that the others have the opportunity to participate.
(d) How to fit in socially with children whose games are uninteresting, and who play by rules that seem crude and unfair.
(e) How to live without any real friends or understanding from others. [Emphasis in original.]
Concerning c: Personally, I was not more keen on this than other students. However, the general principle of having the far greater knowledge and intelligence, and being severely annoyed at the slowness of others in coming up with answers, respectively their answers being obviously inferior (not to mention their inability to see that this was so...), has been a problem for me for a very large part of my life.
I note that the Swedish gifted-hostile education is at least partially explained by a wish for a–d, but without concern for e; however, that I got e down pat, but never benefited from a–d in any way—possibly, because I, as a result of e, grew even more isolated from and uninterested in others than I would otherwise have been. In fact, problems in these areas followed me far into adult life: Only in my early thirties did I start to conquer them—and then the first successful step was to isolate myself from such influences, gain perspective, develop an intellectual understanding, ...
What I would have needed was just one thing: On the first day of work, for a senior to take me aside, have a discussion of how most humans that I will interact with will be intellectually far behind, will lack ability to reason, will be motivated by egoism, etc.—and that I would benefit from thinking of most of them as children, try to accommodate them from this POV, ... Such a discussion never took place—on the contrary, either (E2) I was told that this or that individual was problematic and to just ignore him, or (at least at E1 and E4) I fell victim to the tall dancer phenomenon because the “leaders” in those companies were themselves too intellectually weak.
Better yet, this information, as well as practical training, could have been integrated into the education of the gifted—thereby ensuring that they would not run into problems as adults, and giving both them and society as a whole major benefits. (As discussed in various other places, those competent tend to be under-utilized or put on too short levers, while who those should be kept away from responsibility and long levers are not. Cf. e.g. my discussions on medium fish and absurd promotions.)
With hindsight, the “first day of work” statement above is likely far too optimistic. Even by 2024, or 25 years after that “first day of work”, I tend to forget such complications, despite having actually experienced them again and again (as opposed to merely being told). The “Better yet” is, at a minimum, more promising, through earlier exposure and a greater chance of internalization.
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