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| Re: OP-ED: What Americans keep ignoring about Finland's school success (900453) | |||
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Re: OP-ED: What Americans keep ignoring about Finland's school success |
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Posted by Concourse Express on Wed Jan 18 13:05:08 2012, in response to Re: OP-ED: What Americans keep ignoring about Finland's school success, posted by JayMan on Sun Jan 15 18:21:18 2012. Lest you should think I've forgotten this thread, here's a response; I've several important matters to tend to in the meanwhile...Just like learning to be a Jedi (and in real life, a lot of other things), to learn HBD, you must, to some extent, unlearn what you have learned. I see that you're doing that, and that's good, but you have a way to go. AEM and I are having a discussion about whether it would be a good thing for knowledge of HBD to be widespread. While there's bound to be problems, I'm of the mind that it should be. If we are to have any hope of combating the problems that face society, we need to understand how they really work, not hide behind idealistic PC beliefs. I'll be honest: some of the tenets of HBD are hard to swallow. I guess they are more so for me given the activities I engage in (professional tutoring, ministry, etc.) and my passion for education (plus being a reasonably intelligent Hispanic - one of the groups with a not-so-stellar average IQ). I'll also say, however, that this conversation has warmed me up to HBD a little bit. As for making the knowledge of HBD widespread, I have mixed feelings on that. You'll definitely run into problems, seeing as one must possess a great degree of understanding to properly interpret the findings of HBD. I suppose, however, that such can't be much worse than the debates we commonly see today (i.e. politics, religion, climate change, etc.)... As for being PC...while I did share some of my ideals in this thread, I'm not exactly a proponent of political correctness. Taken to the extreme, you get your "nanny" policies and other nonsense designed to placate the easily offended, uptight, etc. In low-IQ (mostly minority) schools, bullying is a major problem, and always will be. Only by getting the smart kids out would things for them improve. This is most acute at the middle school level where real violent behavior tends to begin. Yes, getting the smart kids out of rough environs will make things better for them; however, we cannot allow the bullying problem to remain unabated for the remaining population. Since interventions appear to have an effect on students at middle school age (typically 10-13 AFAIK), we should not stop fighting it. What we can discuss or debate, however, is how such should be fought. HBD'ers tend to be right-of-center. Needless to say, to conservative HBD'ers, they see liberalism as the source of HBD-denial, and while to an extent that's true, they also sit with blinders against the obvious anti-science streak among conservatives, especially in America. To them, HBD validates conservative policies, such as about welfare, when in reality, it doesn't necessarily. This "anti-science streak" is rather unfortunate, though I think this is due to attribution bias (which everyone has, to varying degrees). Specifically, since scientific arguments are mostly advanced by the atheistic side of the religious debates, some fundamentalists have "attributed" these sciences to atheism/blasphemous beliefs and thus rail against them (that's the bias; incidentally there are Christian evolutionary biologists/scientists - here is a (somewhat old) article on one of them). FTR, I don't deny evolution, as I believe evolution does not preclude a "Creative" origin. Call me crazy, but as a Christian I believe that discussing certain aspects of HBD can actually enhance faith. In this thread alone we've discussed how a person's biological/genetic makeup reduces the efficacy of certain interventions (especially where IQ is concerned). If anything, this is evidence of the futility of the flesh (cf. Romans 8, especially the bits on the "carnal mind") and can exemplify the need for God and faith-based interventions to believers. Incidentally I recently picked up a book that has statistical evidence suggesting that faith-based organizations (FBOs) are considerably effective in reducing crime; as I've only begun reading, I haven't looked at the numbers in-depth yet. However, even with this in mind, introducing HBD is rather dicey IMO since the Christian believers with the loudest voices in politics and such (at least for now) appear to be those who subscribe to the literal fundamentalist ethos. (If you haven't figured it out yet, I subscribe to the redemptive ethos.) However: They are correct when it comes to immigration. I am in favor of selective immigration. Immigrants, regardless of from where they come, should demonstrate that they can contribute to our society. This means some sort of record of achievement in their home country, sort of like what many other countries have in place for their immigration requirements. And any immigrant who commits a serious crime, particularly violent ones, should be deported. So you want higher standards for legal immigration, then? You'd need to effectively combat illegal immigration first so that, if new standards are enacted, the rate of illegal entry does not increase. Also, regarding deportation, would you have the criminals tried in their home land or in the US? I think this is important because of (1) the different judicial standards between nations and (2) because, rather than straight deportation, it can be used as part of his/her sentence (i.e. if tried in the US and found guilty, would you have them deported and then serve time in a prison in their homeland)? About the bit on reforming education, the PISA scores indicate that, if anything, our students are doing great, considering that they outscore all their brethren in their home countries. Is there room for reform? Yes, but probably not necessarily what you have in mind. For example, the only real way to significantly improve the student performance in a given school district is to change the students. That is why all the magic cures have failed: they are doomed in principle. Probably not, probably so - if we don't try, we won't know! :) Seriously though, "changing the students" solves the problem for the gifted, but interventions would still be necessary IMO for the remaining student population. my blog |
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