I was that kid. The boredom of "learning" at the pace of the dumbest kid in the class was excruciating. For my part I tuned out and learned to amuse myself quietly reading in the back, or sometimes, clowning on the teacher.
These days I'd probably be given a chemical lobotomy aka a scrip for an ADHD diagnosis. If the dumb kids can't be elevated to the level of the smart kids, and they can't, well then it's easy enough to drive a molecular ice pick into the frontal lobes of the smart kids. Indeed, equity demands it.
Goddamn. I remenber in kindergarten reading a book and having my cunt of a teacher yell at me for not participating with the rest of the class as they worked through phonetics exercises to learn how to read three letter words. "But I already know how to read all that," I said. Didn't matter, she yelled; I was part of the class, so I needed to follow along with what the rest of the class was doing. Thankfully, I am no longer bitter about that experience, although I do hope my former kindergarten teacher is now in a nursing home being mocked and rough-handled by the diverse nursing staff, when they aren't just ignoring her completely as her unchanged Depends overflow with piss snd shit and give her an intolerable diaper rash. But like I said, I am no longer bitter about it.
One of my sons was removed from a class at High School to sit in the corridor for the crime of reading quietly in class instead of listening to the teacher and the chaos around him.
Damn, that's harsh. When I was in kindergarten the teacher often had me read a story to the rest of the class while she put her head down on the desk and "rested her eyes." I was such a naïve Pollyanna that I was sincerely astonished when years later my mom off-handedly mentioned that Miss Stevens had been let go due to her drinking and that I had probably been helping her cope with hangovers.
I was also that kid when my parents moved us from a town with a top elementary school to a place where I had to attend a school so far behind that it was unaccredited by the state. For more than two years, I was bored to the point of tears. Luckily a baseball coach from a private school took an interest in me and convinced my parents to send me there. Unfortunately, my baseball skills ended up disappointing him, but my academic skills flourished once again.
When I entered junior high (middle school) in seventh grade, 1966, the basic classes like English were divided into three levels, labeled 1, 3, and 5. My first semester in level 1 English was fun. The second semester, due to a scheduling conflict, I got stuck in one of the lower levels and it was excruciating. Somehow this got resolved.
The next year someone on high had decided that the level system was unfair and made the lower level kids feel inferior. So all of English became the equivalent of level 4. It was awful. Even at that tender age I could tell this was stupid.
This is why education must be managed by men, who respond to a concept like "it makes the lower level children feel inferior" with "yes, that's the point."
Actually, I don't think it was the point to make them feel inferior. I assume you're implying that feeling inferior would spur them to greater efforts?
In the particular situation I described, the system simply recognized that some kids are more capable than others, and separated them into appropriate levels so none would be frustrated by being under- or over-challenged. Not in the interest of protecting their feelings, just to improve efficiency. (That was well before the time where everybody got a blue ribbon, when meritocracy actually meant something.)
While I generally agree with you, I suspect that could be an overgeneralization. You do have a point that the more empathetic emotions often associated with females isn't always appropriate.
Overgeneralization is an overused concept. It tends to simply mean 'generalization', as a synonym for 'stereotype', as a synonym for 'false'. Which is itself false, as stereotypes are almost invariably true.
By hoovering a bunch of kids into university degree territory, the world has lost what would have been brilliant plumbers and electricians and whatnot.
Indeed! They really need to start encouraging more kids to go into trade schools. A plumber makes a hell of a lot more money than an English major. And is arguably more useful.
Case in point: The Manhattan Project. Corral the world's top experts, shower them with money, encourage them to work under wartime urgency, and in two or three years, out pops the atomic bomb. Today, we spend the equivalent of a Manhattan Project on scientific research about every eighteen months or so. What are the eight or so Manhattan-Project-level scientific or technical achievements of the past dozen years?
Anyone?
Bueller?
The diminishing return on ever diluted talent is a real phenomenon. Thanks for the post, Briggs.
The wider issue is the group below the median. Everyone is being pushed into college due to the lie "you have to have a degree to succeed". How many young people are being saddled with a college debt bill that cannot be repaid? This delays or prevents buying a house or a vehicle, gets in the way of marrying, and may bump someone from starting a family.
Academies, Bankers, Advertisers, Entertainment, and the Mainstream Media have helped to depreciate the value of blue-collar work and the typical channels through which these "underachievers" are educated, namely journeyman programs, vocational-technical colleges, and associate degree and certificate programs. Our society is suffering because we jam people into colleges who should have been vectored elsewhere to learn productive skills that they enjoy. It's hard to see this result as anything other than malicious based on results.
When I was a teenager my mother bugged me constantly to go to college and "get that piece of paper" because she considered it necessary survival equipment. I never went, and I think I've done OK.
Can confirm grade inflation on a massive scale. At my niece's grade school graduation I noticed she was wearing a medallion around her neck given as an award for having a high GPA (3.7/4?). She waved off my congratulations explaining that about 80% of the kids "achieved" the honor.
One of the functions of a sane government should be to prevent the clever and morally unconstrained from taking advantage of the dumb and gullible, yet federally guaranteed student loans ensure the endless proliferation of huckster schools selling generations into debt peonage. And it's not only legal, but encouraged! Still more, this is progress!
Funny, I was put in with the slow kids because I wrote some letters and numbers backward. Eventually they gave up, in part, because I could write backward and forward with either hand. Lost interest for years, and would periodically make an effort in school as a form of f***"you.
As someone who TA’d at a large state college a few years back I can attest to both the intelligence and grade inflation. My estimate is at best 25% of students should be there (it’s probably closer to 10%). In grading discussions I was regularly castigated as too hard a grader for not wanting to bump peoples grades up. Short of not doing the work there is no way to fail a course.
Everybody's favourite set theory quote: "The Axiom of Choice is obviously true; the Well Ordering Principle is obviously false; and who can tell about Zorn's Lemma?" (All three are equivalent in ordinary set theory.)
Another effect is that, when only 10% of the population goes to university, the place will be full of nerds. By nerd I mean somebody who excels at a technical or academic subject, but who is weak in social skills. 'On the spectrum' one says these days, though I am not sure that 'nerd' is not a superset here. Nerds care more about the truth than they care about social status. And one of the attractions of the ivory tower was that you could escape a lot of the status seeking and the lying. This isn't true any more. It's everything you hated about high school but with greater stakes. So no wonder we have a replication crisis. And that nerds are finding other things to do with their lives than be an academic.
I was that kid. The boredom of "learning" at the pace of the dumbest kid in the class was excruciating. For my part I tuned out and learned to amuse myself quietly reading in the back, or sometimes, clowning on the teacher.
These days I'd probably be given a chemical lobotomy aka a scrip for an ADHD diagnosis. If the dumb kids can't be elevated to the level of the smart kids, and they can't, well then it's easy enough to drive a molecular ice pick into the frontal lobes of the smart kids. Indeed, equity demands it.
Goddamn. I remenber in kindergarten reading a book and having my cunt of a teacher yell at me for not participating with the rest of the class as they worked through phonetics exercises to learn how to read three letter words. "But I already know how to read all that," I said. Didn't matter, she yelled; I was part of the class, so I needed to follow along with what the rest of the class was doing. Thankfully, I am no longer bitter about that experience, although I do hope my former kindergarten teacher is now in a nursing home being mocked and rough-handled by the diverse nursing staff, when they aren't just ignoring her completely as her unchanged Depends overflow with piss snd shit and give her an intolerable diaper rash. But like I said, I am no longer bitter about it.
One of my sons was removed from a class at High School to sit in the corridor for the crime of reading quietly in class instead of listening to the teacher and the chaos around him.
He actually preferred being in the corridor as he was a keen reader!
Nice of them that he was allowed to keep his book.
Damn, that's harsh. When I was in kindergarten the teacher often had me read a story to the rest of the class while she put her head down on the desk and "rested her eyes." I was such a naïve Pollyanna that I was sincerely astonished when years later my mom off-handedly mentioned that Miss Stevens had been let go due to her drinking and that I had probably been helping her cope with hangovers.
🤣
It's funny that Harrison Bergeron was supposed to be a parody or the right wing's ridiculous predictions.
I was also that kid when my parents moved us from a town with a top elementary school to a place where I had to attend a school so far behind that it was unaccredited by the state. For more than two years, I was bored to the point of tears. Luckily a baseball coach from a private school took an interest in me and convinced my parents to send me there. Unfortunately, my baseball skills ended up disappointing him, but my academic skills flourished once again.
When I entered junior high (middle school) in seventh grade, 1966, the basic classes like English were divided into three levels, labeled 1, 3, and 5. My first semester in level 1 English was fun. The second semester, due to a scheduling conflict, I got stuck in one of the lower levels and it was excruciating. Somehow this got resolved.
The next year someone on high had decided that the level system was unfair and made the lower level kids feel inferior. So all of English became the equivalent of level 4. It was awful. Even at that tender age I could tell this was stupid.
This is why education must be managed by men, who respond to a concept like "it makes the lower level children feel inferior" with "yes, that's the point."
Actually, I don't think it was the point to make them feel inferior. I assume you're implying that feeling inferior would spur them to greater efforts?
In the particular situation I described, the system simply recognized that some kids are more capable than others, and separated them into appropriate levels so none would be frustrated by being under- or over-challenged. Not in the interest of protecting their feelings, just to improve efficiency. (That was well before the time where everybody got a blue ribbon, when meritocracy actually meant something.)
It was a joke.
Good to know. You pulled my leg, but it came off in your hand 🤣
While I generally agree with you, I suspect that could be an overgeneralization. You do have a point that the more empathetic emotions often associated with females isn't always appropriate.
Overgeneralization is an overused concept. It tends to simply mean 'generalization', as a synonym for 'stereotype', as a synonym for 'false'. Which is itself false, as stereotypes are almost invariably true.
ADHD is such a scam. Another disease that didn't exist -- until there was a "treatment."
Modern medicine is wagging the dog.
I think drugging smart kids is part of something bigger.
https://ogre.substack.com/p/addadhd-aadhd-and-the-useful-idiots
By hoovering a bunch of kids into university degree territory, the world has lost what would have been brilliant plumbers and electricians and whatnot.
Indeed! They really need to start encouraging more kids to go into trade schools. A plumber makes a hell of a lot more money than an English major. And is arguably more useful.
"arguably" ?
My weak attempt to soften the didactic tone 😬
God bless plumbers.
Case in point: The Manhattan Project. Corral the world's top experts, shower them with money, encourage them to work under wartime urgency, and in two or three years, out pops the atomic bomb. Today, we spend the equivalent of a Manhattan Project on scientific research about every eighteen months or so. What are the eight or so Manhattan-Project-level scientific or technical achievements of the past dozen years?
Anyone?
Bueller?
The diminishing return on ever diluted talent is a real phenomenon. Thanks for the post, Briggs.
Well, some would say the Covid vaccines 🫤
Now that you mention it, arguably the COVID vaccines did kill more people than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The wider issue is the group below the median. Everyone is being pushed into college due to the lie "you have to have a degree to succeed". How many young people are being saddled with a college debt bill that cannot be repaid? This delays or prevents buying a house or a vehicle, gets in the way of marrying, and may bump someone from starting a family.
Academies, Bankers, Advertisers, Entertainment, and the Mainstream Media have helped to depreciate the value of blue-collar work and the typical channels through which these "underachievers" are educated, namely journeyman programs, vocational-technical colleges, and associate degree and certificate programs. Our society is suffering because we jam people into colleges who should have been vectored elsewhere to learn productive skills that they enjoy. It's hard to see this result as anything other than malicious based on results.
DEIvyLeague delenda est.
When I was a teenager my mother bugged me constantly to go to college and "get that piece of paper" because she considered it necessary survival equipment. I never went, and I think I've done OK.
Can confirm grade inflation on a massive scale. At my niece's grade school graduation I noticed she was wearing a medallion around her neck given as an award for having a high GPA (3.7/4?). She waved off my congratulations explaining that about 80% of the kids "achieved" the honor.
I'm forever grateful to you for your rearranging DEI into DIE. It's just too perfect!
But wasn't it actually DIE at the beginning, before they noticed what it spelled?
This civilisation is incredibly adept at wasting the potential of it's brightest people.
There iught to be free schools for the intellectually gifted, similar to England's old Grammar School system.
Taking bright boys and turning them into bitter worker drones while promoting AWFLs and diversity drones only leads to ruin.
Another grand slam out of the park Briggs. You make the obvious compelling.
Spot on!
One of the functions of a sane government should be to prevent the clever and morally unconstrained from taking advantage of the dumb and gullible, yet federally guaranteed student loans ensure the endless proliferation of huckster schools selling generations into debt peonage. And it's not only legal, but encouraged! Still more, this is progress!
Funny, I was put in with the slow kids because I wrote some letters and numbers backward. Eventually they gave up, in part, because I could write backward and forward with either hand. Lost interest for years, and would periodically make an effort in school as a form of f***"you.
As someone who TA’d at a large state college a few years back I can attest to both the intelligence and grade inflation. My estimate is at best 25% of students should be there (it’s probably closer to 10%). In grading discussions I was regularly castigated as too hard a grader for not wanting to bump peoples grades up. Short of not doing the work there is no way to fail a course.
Everybody's favourite set theory quote: "The Axiom of Choice is obviously true; the Well Ordering Principle is obviously false; and who can tell about Zorn's Lemma?" (All three are equivalent in ordinary set theory.)
I think I need to take away your AI image generator device. You can have it on weekends only.
Excellent. Yes its all obvious and predictable.
Another effect is that, when only 10% of the population goes to university, the place will be full of nerds. By nerd I mean somebody who excels at a technical or academic subject, but who is weak in social skills. 'On the spectrum' one says these days, though I am not sure that 'nerd' is not a superset here. Nerds care more about the truth than they care about social status. And one of the attractions of the ivory tower was that you could escape a lot of the status seeking and the lying. This isn't true any more. It's everything you hated about high school but with greater stakes. So no wonder we have a replication crisis. And that nerds are finding other things to do with their lives than be an academic.