[The E]

If you take care to properly support your viewpoints with provable facts, good discussions can and will occur. If you choose resort to flaming and name-calling, then you'll lose.

[Goober5000]

The thing is that the US public education system (which, surprise, is dominated by liberals) has so crippled people's ability to think for themselves that you rarely see any rational debate on the internet, especially forums.  Usually arguments on HLP end up devolving into competing arguments from authority, and more emphasis is placed on citing your sources than on articulating a cogent position.

The remedy is to read more.  Read the source texts (not commentaries on them) for both your side and your opponents' side.  Read enough that you can defend your position competently even if you forget half the stuff you read.

(this is not directed at The E; he just happened to post before I did)

[Shade]

A fair number of HLPers weren't educated by the US public education system, though. Regardless of the reasons behind it though, your proposed remedy seems sound.

[Bob-san]

The thing is that the US public education system (which, surprise, is dominated by liberals) has so crippled people's ability to think for themselves that you rarely see any rational debate on the internet, especially forums.  Usually arguments on HLP end up devolving into competing arguments from authority, and more emphasis is placed on citing your sources than on articulating a cogent position.

Well there definitely is a problem with public education. High school hasn't significantly evolved in 80 years. It's not about learning; it's about keeping kids out of the workforce.

The tough part is people have different learning styles. Adding incentives to do well actually seem like a pretty damn good idea, especially if the incentive comes in the form of future college grants, scholarships, or entry into public jobs at a higher paygrade (including military). Make your past efforts in a mandatory system increase your success in the future.

[The E]

I'd say there's a difference between arguing from authority, and finding and using references to support whatever viewpoint you have on the issue. For me, someone who has facts to back up whatever he or she is saying is definitely more believable than someone who just spouts some opinion made up on the spot.

So yeah.

The remedy is to read more.  Read the source texts (not commentaries on them) for both your side and your opponents' side.  Read enough that you can defend your position competently even if you forget half the stuff you read.

This. All the way.

[Mustang19]

While we're on this US education system tangent, I'd like to point out that the apparent low test scores in the United States are due almost entirely to racial differences. White Americans do nearly as well as white Europeans on TIMSS.

http://www.asianweek.com/2008/12/24/odds-and-ends-alternative-energy-czar-2/

And I like Goob's post as well. The problem comes when you're arguing over topics where very little empirical evidence or useful models are available to prove any particular points (eg the Gitmo thing).

[Luis Dias]

2. Who ever said that aerosols were preventing global warming?

The IPCC ?



I'm with you brother. I just wanted to point that out. (Aerossols *are* a negative forcing in the atmosphere)

[Unknown Target]

The thing is that the US public education system (which, surprise, is dominated by liberals) has so crippled people's ability to think for themselves that you rarely see any rational debate on the internet, especially forums.  Usually arguments on HLP end up devolving into competing arguments from authority, and more emphasis is placed on citing your sources than on articulating a cogent position.

The remedy is to read more.  Read the source texts (not commentaries on them) for both your side and your opponents' side.  Read enough that you can defend your position competently even if you forget half the stuff you read.

(this is not directed at The E; he just happened to post before I did)

Sound points regarding the nature of debate on this forum.

On the topic of the education system, that's personally my first target for reform. The current system does not encourage creative or different thought. You are meant to learn the material to get higher numbers which in our system somehow = better students/people/learners/thinkers. Obviously this is proving to be a fallacy, and what's worse, I think that most every kid in the US feels how BS the education system is, but they feel like they *have* to do it because that's how everyone before them did it. I don't think people realize how new a lot of our educational practices are, relatively speaking.

[Nemesis6]

The second one. However, I really don't understand the point of all these lets-bash-fundies type threads. It's not like anyone here needs to be convinced. Doesn't it get old?

edit: I edited before UT quoted me

I posted this because this is important -- It's important to know that America's schools are actively being infiltrated in a palpable way by these people. You can dismiss the thread as circle-jerking, but the real value of this thread is in the actual readable documents. A lot of people know about this stuff, you know, the concept of Creationism and think that there's no way Creationism could make it into schools, not realizing that it already has, once again. That's what's so annoying about this debate - Creationism/ID keeps evolving, and so it's a game of whack-a-mole. But an important one.

[Unknown Target]

Our schools are being directed by people who think that teaching to the test is the best way to teach. I think that's a more pressing issue. The whole point of the current system is to increase numbers in every area - so whoever controls the tests controls what students "learn". Whether or not they believe it or think it's bull**** is up to the student, but whether or not they have a choice is up to whoever creates those tests and assigns the grades.

I know, personally, that I am tired of having almost no control over my life as an American student from the ages of 13/14 to 22/23 (high school to end of university).

[General Battuta]

The thing is that the US public education system (which, surprise, is dominated by liberals) has so crippled people's ability to think for themselves that you rarely see any rational debate on the internet, especially forums.  Usually arguments on HLP end up devolving into competing arguments from authority, and more emphasis is placed on citing your sources than on articulating a cogent position.

Goober5000, an exemplar on the construction of rational debates, speaks out on the value of hammering your **** into pretty shapes instead of using something other than ****

[Luis Dias]

Yeah, it's kinda depressing, but for a greater perspective, I've been hearing these things for more than a decade, and the actual history of this situation goes back for more than a century. This is a very long war that is being fought. And despite all the problems and fears, we should not forget that at least, science is still winning. Of course, against creotard teachers teaching in creotard-funded schools, very little is doable really.

[Mustang19]

Our schools are being directed by people who think that teaching to the test is the best way to teach. I think that's a more pressing issue. The whole point of the current system is to increase numbers in every area - so whoever controls the tests controls what students "learn". Whether or not they believe it or think it's bull**** is up to the student, but whether or not they have a choice is up to whoever creates those tests and assigns the grades.

I know, personally, that I am tired of having almost no control over my life as an American student from the ages of 13/14 to 22/23 (high school to end of university).

I sympathize, but at the same time I chose to be homeschooled pretty much for the reasons UT elucidated in this thread so I can't say I entirely understand. I believe the important thing is to tailor the curriculum to the abilities of different students. Tracking will never be tried again any time soon of course; it isn't politically correct, but it is only sensible. Believe it or not, there are a lot of students who don't have 115 IQs and who require more didactic supervision than you might have. Teaching-to-the-test is another problem. In Europe the establishment of curriculum and standards is centralized nationally whereas in the United States states and even school districts have greater latitude in how they do things. Having standardized grading metrics is a better way to compare student performance while actually teaching the material than standardized high stakes testing.

[Unknown Target]

I don't feel greater standardization of tests is the solution - look at England. They're the most tested country in the world, and I don't recall (and this would be a situation where I would ask someone else to cite a study if posible), that they're doing much better than anyone else.

I think a better solution would be to teach to projects. This is the approach that works well in art programs and universities; you give the students real projects to figure out - for instance, instead of telling a student to run through an ever increasing number of math problems every night, give them a three week long project to build and mathematically predict the performance of a small trebuchet or a water cannon or something.

One of the things I keep seeing pop up in the news is all the alarmist people going "oh my god, our students aren't interested in their work! what is going on!?". The reason most kids aren't interested is because the work is mind numbingly boring - it's not about learning, it's about rote memorization. Give students a chance to figure things out. On top of that, encourage group work - you can't possibly teach to every student's needs effectively, so bring the students together so that the ones who pick it up quicker can have an opportunity to help those that are farther behind. Get classrooms to be interactive, instead of just bubbles where students run through as many problems as they can memorize before they go home and forget it all. Encourage them to actually try and design crazy spaceships and hover boots - just because you don't think it's possible doesn't mean that the kids don't learn real things from the research that they do on the subject. I tried to design hover boots in 7th grade for a class project, and through research I learned about the properties of magnetism, the periodic table, and different properties of different elements. It was WAY more interesting than sitting in a classroom for two hours while the teacher repeated the same info over and over, made me do boring labs, and made me straight up memorize the whole table for a quiz which would go into my record and help to shape the rest of my entire life. :\

P.S. IQ numbers are misleading. I don't personally like to subscribe to them as a measure of intelligence.

[Mikes]

While we're on this US education system tangent, I'd like to point out that the apparent low test scores in the United States are due almost entirely to racial differences. White Americans do nearly as well as white Europeans on TIMSS.

http://www.asianweek.com/2008/12/24/odds-and-ends-alternative-energy-czar-2/

And I like Goob's post as well. The problem comes when you're arguing over topics where very little empirical evidence or useful models are available to prove any particular points (eg the Gitmo thing).

Let me guess, those white people who do so well also tend to have much more educated/richer parents on average ?

That would be my suspicion as a teacher anyways. Social background is hard to overcome - I'd say no matter how "good" you are... but that's not really true, as "being good" in school is as much a motivational issue as it is anything else and the effect of your upbringing on that motivation is indeed staggering.

[Unknown Target]

While we're on this US education system tangent, I'd like to point out that the apparent low test scores in the United States are due almost entirely to racial differences. White Americans do nearly as well as white Europeans on TIMSS.

http://www.asianweek.com/2008/12/24/odds-and-ends-alternative-energy-czar-2/

And I like Goob's post as well. The problem comes when you're arguing over topics where very little empirical evidence or useful models are available to prove any particular points (eg the Gitmo thing).

Let me guess, those white people who do so well also tend to have much more educated/richer parents on average ?

That would be my suspicion as a teacher anyways.

Probably. There's also an anti-education stigma in some black communities, though thankfully that's finally going away.

[General Battuta]

You can have the best-educated black man in the world, and if you ask him to identify his race at the beginning of a test, his score's going to drop away from what you'd expect of a white guy at the same SEI.

[Mikes]

Probably. There's also an anti-education stigma in some black communities, though thankfully that's finally going away.

Well I'm teaching in Europe so i wouldn't really know about that.

What I do know is that when student gets ridiculed for his efforts in school by his own dad ala "Think you are better than me? / Why you bother with that crap? / The dole not good enough for you?" etc. then that kid is fighting a two front battle every day. And the amount of kids that have much more serious issues than "just" that at home is outright depressing.

Again, all personable experience, no hard data.

[Grizzly]

<removed because it was not really relevant>

EDIT:

I don't feel greater standardization of tests is the solution - look at England. They're the most tested country in the world, and I don't recall (and this would be a situation where I would ask someone else to cite a study if posible), that they're doing much better than anyone else.

I can't actually recall 'anyone else', aside from the USA, which does not have standardized tests...

[Unknown Target]

<removed because it was not really relevant>

EDIT:

I don't feel greater standardization of tests is the solution - look at England. They're the most tested country in the world, and I don't recall (and this would be a situation where I would ask someone else to cite a study if posible), that they're doing much better than anyone else.

I can't actually recall 'anyone else', aside from the USA, which does not have standardized tests...

SATs/ACTs?

But when I said "anyone else" I was referring to both countries with and without standardized testing.