Comments on: The College Board has been criticized for this so-called excellence gap

By: Kirk

Kirk — Wed, 25 Sep 2019 20:09:12 +0000

Again, we come to the question of just what the hell we’re talking about with regards to intelligence.

I will continue to contend that a lot of what we measure with “intelligence quotients” isn’t so much the actual spark of intelligence, but the level of adaptation to the environment.

You dump a kid who grew up as a bookish child into a classroom environment, he’s going to flourish. Dump that same kid into the savannahs of Africa, and he’s going to die in a messy and horrid manner, in very short order. Take a kid who grew up on that savannah, drop him into a classroom, and he’s not likely to do very well, at all. Meanwhile, were you to dump him into a similar environment to the one he’s physically, intellectually, and culturally adapted to? He’ll likely do very well, indeed.

The “spark” we think we’re talking about with regards to IQ is something that’s not very well-defined. We arrogantly presume that since we do well on these tests we’ve made up, that we’re measuring something profound and meaningful. Reality? We’re really testing our ability to play a game we made up ourselves, and the outside universe is going to be the final arbiter of just how “smart” we really are.

Longer I live, the more I question the proposition that intelligence is a survival trait. From what I’ve seen, it’s merely a tool to get yourself into more trouble than you would if you were rock-stupid.

By: Adar

Adar — Wed, 25 Sep 2019 16:54:48 +0000

“Finn and the entire education establishment are delusional in their denial of human biodiversity and the very large effect of genetics on intelligence”

Franz Boaz and the blank slate theory [paradigm?]. We all have the same ability to do whatever we want to do and learn whatever we want to learn. From over a hundred years ago. The “theory” still in use but as a concept totally discredited [or at least in measure discredited].

By: Kirk

Kirk — Wed, 25 Sep 2019 02:30:50 +0000

Reference for those interested: Small Unit Leadership, Dandridge M. Malone, COL, USA (Ret). Well-written, pithy as hell, and still not out of date.

By: Kirk

Kirk — Wed, 25 Sep 2019 02:24:51 +0000

The one thing I’ve taken from all the experiences I’ve had in training soldiers and trying to deal with the products of our educational system is that the root problem isn’t in the schools, the teachers, or even the curriculum. It is the students, and more importantly, the parents/supervisors.

Kid comes up valuing education, they’re going to get an education. Soldier wants to be a soldier, they’re going to do well in training. If the kid doesn’t value an education, there’s really no way to instill one into them, short of brute force that’s going to eventually backfire on you. Same-same with the guy you try to force into the mold of “soldier”.

Dandridge Malone had a little book out, where he broke things down into four basic groups: The able and willing, the unable and willing, the able and unwilling, and the unable who were also unwilling. With the first two, you can do something. With the last two…? Fertilizer.

By: Phil B

Phil B — Wed, 25 Sep 2019 02:17:31 +0000

It is again reinforcing failure. THIS school does well and turns out literate and numerate students so no increase in funding. In THAT school the vast majority of students never get beyond a 7 year old level of reading and maths so we’ll pour money into the second school to make it perform like the first …

It is BOUND to work, eh?

By: Grasspunk

Grasspunk — Tue, 24 Sep 2019 20:16:16 +0000

One of my kids went to US kindergarten for a few months and they told us all about NCLB and how it worked. The metric they were held to was percentage of students meeting some passing grade, so the NCLB project at that school had identified four students scoring *almost* at that level and were giving them an extra class so that maybe two of the four could earn the extra couple of points needed to pass and the school would meet its NCLB goals.

No moving the whole school up 2% or working on the entire failing cohort, just adjusting a couple of students up from 48% to 50%.

By: Bob Sykes

Bob Sykes — Tue, 24 Sep 2019 12:28:17 +0000

Finn and the entire education establishment are delusional in their denial of human biodiversity and the very large effect of genetics on intelligence. The wrecking of the American school system continues unabated.