Could You Have Passed the 8th Grade in 1895?
Damian J. Anderson
Could You Have Passed the 8th Grade in 1895?
This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 from Salina, KS. USA.
It was taken from the original document on file at the Smoky Valley
Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, KS and reprinted by the
Salina Journal.
8th Grade Final Exam: Salina, KS - 1895
Grammar (Time, one hour)
1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.
2. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define Verse, Stanza and Paragraph.
4. What are the Principal Parts of a verb? Give Principal Parts of do,
lie, lay and run.
5. Define Case, Illustrate each Case.
6. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of Punctuation.
7 - 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that
you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.
Arithmetic (Time, 1.25 hours)
1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many
bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3942 lbs., what is it worth at 50 cts. per
bu., deducting 1050 lbs. for tare?
4. District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary
levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104
for incidentals?
5. Find cost of 6720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $20
per m?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per are, the distance around
which is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.
U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)
1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States.
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln,
Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates:
1607
1620
1800
1849
1865
Orthography (Time, one hour)
1. What is meant by the following: Alphabet, phonetic, orthography,
etymology, syllabication?
2. What are elementary sounds? How are they classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: Trigraph,
subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals?
4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u'.
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final 'e'. Name two
exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word:
Bi, dis, mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono,super.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following,
and name the sign that indicates the sound: Card, ball, mercy, sir,
odd,cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences, Cite, site, sight,
fane, fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation
by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.
Geography (Time, one hour)
1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas?
3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
4. Describe the mountains of North America.
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba,
Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fermandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco.
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S.
7. Name all the republics of Europe and give capital of each.
8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same
latitude?
9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to
the sources of rivers.
10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give inclination of
the earth.
Imagine a college student who went to public school trying to pass this
test, even if the few outdated questions were modernized. It certainly
gives the saying of an early 20th century person that "she/he only had
an 8th grade education" a whole new meaning!!
---
Damian J. Anderson <dam...@unification.net> http://www.unification.net
mahab...@my-deja.com
100...@www.unification.net>,
"Damian J. Anderson" <dam...@unification.net> wrote:
This fool test keeps popping up on Usenet, and I'm wondering if anyone
has been able to verify it, or is this another $650 Mrs. Fields cookie
recipe?
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
George Leroy Tyrebiter, Jr.
<dam...@unification.net> wrote:
>
> Could You Have Passed the 8th Grade in 1895?
Sure. And if my teachers taught this mumbo jumbo crap when I went to
the 8th grade many decades later I could answered these questions
also.
If I posted a quiz on the size of phone books in small towns in
Illinois in 1943, you would likely not know the answers. But if my
teacher, for some stupid reason had taught such nonsense, then you
would probably get many of the questions right.
Look - some of these questions are themselves idiotic, with OBVIOUSLY
no objective answer. So the eighth grade teachers back them were a bit
batty.
>
>This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 from Salina, KS. USA.
>It was taken from the original document on file at the Smoky Valley
>Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, KS and reprinted by the
>Salina Journal.
>
> 8th Grade Final Exam: Salina, KS - 1895
>
>Grammar (Time, one hour)
>
>1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.
There is no set of nine rules. I can provide a set of four rules, or
fourteen rules. The number of rules is arbitrary, a matter anyone
making up rules can arbitrarily determine.
God does not have Moses come down and decree - there are nine rules
for the use of Capital Letters. Flunk the teacher, pal.
>
>2. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no modifications.
Again, this is purely arbitrary. Some linguists can parse the parts of
speech into this many, and another linguist can parse it differently.
Another arbitrary question. Apparently rote memory of prissy misses
prevailed in this place and time.
But if I had such a teacher telling me that there are five rules for
proper grooming I am sure I could spit back the five rules.
So what?
etc
>
>3. Define Verse, Stanza and Paragraph.
>
>4. What are the Principal Parts of a verb? Give Principal Parts of do,
>lie, lay and run.
>
>5. Define Case, Illustrate each Case.
>
>6. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of Punctuation.
>
>7 - 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that
>you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.
>
>Arithmetic (Time, 1.25 hours)
>
>1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
Again - it's rote repetition of whatever the teacher had in mind.
Why in the world do I CARE what a teacher in Kansas back then thinks
are HER fundamental rules of Arithmetic?
This is rote learning at its very worst. Thank God I had New Math so I
could learn to solve math problems, instead of repeating make-work
mumbo jumbo.
>2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many
>bushels of wheat will it hold?
WHo cares? We buy flour by the pound now. Didn't you notice? When you
have to figure out if your wagon can haul 41 bushels - give us a call.
What junk.
George Leroy Tyrebiter, Jr.
Loren Petrich
Damian J. Anderson <dam...@unification.net> wrote:
> Could You Have Passed the 8th Grade in 1895?
>This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 from Salina, KS. USA.
>It was taken from the original document on file at the Smoky Valley
>Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, KS and reprinted by the
>Salina Journal.
I think that those who wave this test around ought to take it
themselves. Yes, that means you, Damian Anderson, Harold Brashears, etc.
And most of this test would be easy to cram for, if one knew what
was going to be on it.
>1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.
There are 2 or 3 that cover just about all the cases (beginning of
a sentence and proper names). But why not something fun, like mentioning
that German capitalizes all Nouns. Doesn't German Spelling have a rather
interesting Convention there? I'm not sure if we English Speakers ought to
try to imitate this Style. Germans also like to run together compound
Words, which is why organic Chemistry has these horrid long dashless Names
-- in the late 19th Century, many of the big Names were Germans.
>2. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no modifications.
>3. Define Verse, Stanza and Paragraph.
Who cares about verses and stanzas?
>4. What are the Principal Parts of a verb? Give Principal Parts of do,
>lie, lay and run.
Why not mention something fun, like how the most irregular words
tend to be the most commonplace ones?
>5. Define Case, Illustrate each Case.
This reminds me of the Lithuanian linguist who recalled learning
that English has no noun cases -- he wondered how English speakers could
understand each other.
English has a possessive suffix, and its pronouns have cases that
could be called nominative (subject only) and oblique (everything else).
>6. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of Punctuation.
>7 - 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that
>you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.
>Arithmetic (Time, 1.25 hours)
>1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
Is this the New Math? :-)
[a lot of calculation problems deleted]
All that's necessary is to know what unit is what, like how many
cubic feet is a bushel.
>U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)
>1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.
A matter of definition, I suppose.
>Orthography (Time, one hour)
[...]
Much of it would be rather easy for me.
>Geography (Time, one hour)
>1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
A sort of average weather. Several things. Latitude, height,
whether mountains or oceans are nearby, which direction they are in
relative to the prevailing winds, etc.
>2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas?
No nearby ocean with its thermal inertia.
>3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
Useful for lots of things.
>4. Describe the mountains of North America.
Applachians in the east; they date back from the formation of
Pangaea about 200 million years ago, and they are rather eroded. Most of
them do not go above the tree line.
The Rockies and the Sierras in the west; they are much more
recent, thus being much less eroded, and they usually go above the tree
line and the snow line.
>5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba,
>Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fermandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco.
>6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S.
>7. Name all the republics of Europe and give capital of each.
And the monarchies?
>8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same
>latitude?
Because the Atlantic Coast is upwind of the Atlantic, while the
Pacific Coast is downwind of the Pacific. Thus, the Pacific Ocean acts as
a thermal damper for the nearby land, while the Atlantic Ocean does not.
>9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to
>the sources of rivers.
Evaporation and being blown in the wind.
>10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give inclination of
>the earth.
The Earth rotates.
Its spin axis is made to move in a circle by the Sun and the Moon
-- the precession. Nutation is a related wobble.
The Earth and the Moon move around each other, with the Moon
doing most of that motion.
The Earth moves around the Sun.
The Sun moves in an orbit around the core of the Milky Way Galaxy.
The Galaxy, in turn, is moving relative to its neighbors.
And these neighbors all take part in the Expanding Universe.
As to the Earth's structure, consider Continental Drift.
>Imagine a college student who went to public school trying to pass this
>test, even if the few outdated questions were modernized. It certainly
>gives the saying of an early 20th century person that "she/he only had
>an 8th grade education" a whole new meaning!!
Public school? Would a private school make any difference?
--
Loren Petrich Happiness is a fast Macintosh
pet...@netcom.com And a fast train
My home page: http://www.petrich.com/home.html
Gore_In_Conte...@no-spam.com
On Tue, 06 Jun 2000 19:09:51 GMT, "Damian J. Anderson" <dam...@unification.net>
wrote:
>
> Could You Have Passed the 8th Grade in 1895?
>
>This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 from Salina, KS. USA.
>It was taken from the original document on file at the Smoky Valley
>Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, KS and reprinted by the
>Salina Journal.
>
> 8th Grade Final Exam: Salina, KS - 1895
>
>Grammar (Time, one hour)
>
>1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.
>
>2. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no modifications.
>
>3. Define Verse, Stanza and Paragraph.
>
>4. What are the Principal Parts of a verb? Give Principal Parts of do,
>lie, lay and run.
>
>5. Define Case, Illustrate each Case.
>
>6. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of Punctuation.
>
>7 - 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that
>you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.
>
>Arithmetic (Time, 1.25 hours)
>
>1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
>
>2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many
>bushels of wheat will it hold?
>
>3. If a load of wheat weighs 3942 lbs., what is it worth at 50 cts. per
>bu., deducting 1050 lbs. for tare?
>
>4. District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary
>levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104
>for incidentals?
>
>5. Find cost of 6720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.
>
>6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
>
>7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $20
>per m?
>
>8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
>
>9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per are, the distance around
>which is 640 rods?
>
>10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.
>
>U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)
>
>1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.
>
>Geography (Time, one hour)
>
>1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
>
>2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas?
>
>3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
>
>4. Describe the mountains of North America.
>
>5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba,
>Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fermandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco.
>
>6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S.
>
>7. Name all the republics of Europe and give capital of each.
>
>8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same
>latitude?
>
>9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to
>the sources of rivers.
>
>10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give inclination of
>the earth.
>
>Imagine a college student who went to public school trying to pass this
>test, even if the few outdated questions were modernized. It certainly
>gives the saying of an early 20th century person that "she/he only had
>an 8th grade education" a whole new meaning!!
>
>---
>Damian J. Anderson <dam...@unification.net> http://www.unification.net
*************************************************
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lojbab
I did a detailed analysis of this test two years ago. Here are the
results, quoted from the post I made then. I believe the text is
identical.
I claim that this test proves nothing, and is not particularly hard as
compared to an 8th grade final exam today. The only way to properly
argue this is question by question and section by section. Pardon the
length.
> This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 from Salina, KS. It
was
> taken from the original document on file at the Smoky Valley
> Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, KS and reprinted by the
> Salina Journal.
>
>8th Grade Final Exam: Salina, KS - 1895
Among the claims made are that most PhDs or college students today could
not pass this test.
Many respondents note that PhD's in 1895 could not pass an 8th grade
test given today either, because there is so much that is now important
knowledge that was not taught then. This is true, but I want to take
another tack.
I contend that, if a PhD could not pass this test today, it is only
because too many of the questions make little sense today. I also
contend that most PhDs, given a trivial amount of time to study material
including the idiosyncratic material on the test, would have no trouble
passing it. Remember that a passing grade was probably around 70%, A
PhD might not "ace" the test, but passing it would be no problem. So to
with a mere college graduate (I have made a guesstimate that I would
score between 70% and 80% on this test, being almost 30 years out of
school.)
I also contend that, given that a modern 8th grader facing a test like
this as a final exam required for graduation is going to study, that if
the material on this test was in their textbooks, that most of them
would have no trouble doing as well as a PhD. Some might do better.
I also wish in particular to deride Herman for holding up this test to
prove his claims. Herman, we recall, is the champion of "concepts"
rather than "rote memorization". This test is almost purely rote
memorization; hardly a concept therein. Herman is also an advocate of
learning "facts" and not opinions. But several of the questions, even
those appearing to be factual, are really quite subjective.
Furthermore, many of the questions are unconscionably vague, at least to
my modern eye, though it is possible that at the time, they were more
obvious in meaning than they are today.
Let me now go through this test.
> Grammar
>
> (Time, one hour)
> 1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.
Note that this first question itself uses a "rule for the use of Capital
Letters" that is not currently accepted, specifically the rather random
capitalization of common nouns in the middle of a sentence. The number
of rules necessary to describe when to capitalize is purely arbitrary
and depends on the way one states the rules. Therefore the test author
had in mind a specific set of (at least) nine rules that presumably had
been taught to the kids. Subjective, arbitrary and rote memorization.
> 2. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no
>modifications.
"Modifications" is vague; I presume that it means that the words have no
changes depending on their grammatical environment, changes such as verb
conjugations. Rote memorization. But does this include normal-language
changes in the pronunciation of "the"? Probably not. Furthermore,
there are differences of opinion among English grammarians as to how
many parts of speech there are. So the question is subjective.
3. Define Verse, Stanza and Paragraph.
Simple vocabulary. Rote memorization.
> 4. What are the Principal Parts of a verb? Give Principal Parts of
>do, lie, lay and run.
Again "principal parts" is a term not commonly used in grammar these
days; I presume the term means "conjugation". The definition is simple
vocabulary. The conjugation of these verbs is simple rote memorization.
The answer the test writers would have accepted would probably not be
considered correct today, since the conjugations considered principal
today differ from in 1895.
> 5. Define Case, Illustrate each Case.
Simple definition. Rote memorization. Again, the system of "case"
applied to English grammar as accepted in 1895 is considered incorrect
today. Then, English was described as if it were a Latinate language,
which it is not.
> 6. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of
>Punctuation.
Simple definition. Rote memorization. At least this time they did not
say how many rules to give. Which marks are "principal"? Subjective
and rote memorization of whatever list was taught.
> 7. - 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein
that
>you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.
It is not clear whether this is one composition worth 40% of the grade
or 4 compositions each worth 10% of the grade. Either way, this should
be no problem for 8th grader or PhD, especially with preparation.
With access to the materials used to define the subjective portions of
this test, I would probably have little trouble acing it. Same with
most PhDs. 8th graders have been taught at least comparably, and the
average student would probably pass it after studying.
>
Arithmetic
>
> (Time, 1.25 hours)
> 1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
Again, a term that I suspect had a particular meaning that no longer
applies. Were they referring to commutative, associative, distributive,
and identity properties (probably not, at least under those names), or
to Peano's postulates (certainly not - I am not sure he had come up with
them by 1895, but I am not a master of history of math). In any case,
given that a particular definition had been taught this is simple
definition and rote memorization.
> 2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How
many
>bushels of wheat will it hold?
Requires the simplifying assumption that the box is not overflowing/is
closed. It also requires knowledge of the conversion from cubic feet to
bushels of wheat (the conversion was specific to the material). This
conversion of course is not taught in most schools today, even in
Kansas. But the problem is trivial if you have memorized the conversion
factor.
> 3. If a load of wheat weighs 3942 lbs., what is it worth at 50 cts.
> per bu., deducting 1050 lbs. for tare?
Again requires knowledge of the conversion factors for bushels of wheat.
It appears here that this is a conversion from weight to bushels whereas
the previous problem had a conversion of volume to bushels. So either
there are two definitions of bushel applicable, or the previous problem
omitted information as to how densely the wheat was packed in pounds per
cubic foot. Thos problem also requires knowledge of the definition of
"tare", though even without knowing it, I would presume that one would
simply subtract that weight from the weight of the load of wheat before
converting. Again the problem seems trivial given the conversion
factors.
> 4. District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the
necessary
> levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and
have
> $104 for incidentals?
The only thing difficult about this one is dealing with the
disconcerting small numbers that make a modern person want to ask
whether they are misunderstanding the problem. There is actually a
concept of a sort here - that "levy" is expressed as a percentage of
valuation - though of course since taxes today are figured on an annual
basis, someone might get confused by the seven month period. Probably
an 8th grader today would miss this because the concepts are not taught,
and are not trivial to pick up, but there is no reason that it couldn't
be taught, as the math is totally within the skills of an 8th grader.
> 5. Find cost of 6720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.
Simple problem using a conversion factor most 8th graders know.
> 6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7
> percent.
Impossibly vague to a modern person. Simple interest? Is that 7% per
annum or over the 8+ month apparent life of the loan? If it is simple
interest, is it figured based on a 365 day year or a 360 day year? One
might even ask which months depending on the answers to the other
questions. Rounding up all fractions or standard mathematical rounding.
The easiest assumption is that it means 258/360 of a year at 7% per
annum. Given this assumption, the answer involves a lot of cumbersome
decimal arithmetic, but again nothing an 8th grader could not handle.
But most 8th graders probably have not been exposed to varieties of
interest, and the simple interest and odd time periods I assume here are
so uncommon today as to be unlikely to be understood without specific
teaching to the test.
> 7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at
>$20 per m?
Again an unknown conversion factor. It is safe to say that "m" does not
stand for meter. Given the conversion factors have been taught, the
answer is not hard.
> 8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
Ambiguous term: "discount". I believe that bank discounts today (when
they are applicable) are usually stated as a percentage of the loan
irrespective of the loan period, making much of the info in this problem
irrelevant. Given the likely meaning of the term in this context, the
problem suffers all the ambiguities of problem 6. In any event,
discounts are not taught in most schools except perhaps in accounting
classes, so this would probably be missed.
> 9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance
>around which is 640 rods?
Another oddball conversion unit problem. Most people are not taught
these units.
> 10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a
Receipt.
Not likely taught to pre-high schoolers, but most adults could do these.
Summary. Probably most people today would flunk this test based on use
of unusual and normally untaught English conversion units and vague
definitions. Given study of problems of the time most could memorize
the units and pass the test. But hardly half this test is "Arithmetic"
and where is the "math" that Herman says was so well taught before the
public schools "declined"? I don't see any Euclid proofs here. (Nor do
I see fractional arithmetic, factorization, exponents, rubrics of
divisibility or simple fractional probability, all of which are taught
today before 7th grade and surely should have been an important part of
arithmetic in 1895 as well.
> U.S. History
>
> (Time, 45 minutes)
> 1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.
Subjective, but rote memorization. Most people could guess some of
these. Of course another 100 years has made a few more epochs appear.
> 2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.
Essay question with uncertain depth standard, but most people know the
story. Probably rote, insofar as the grading standards were concerned.
> 3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary
War.
Subjective as to which were most important. Most kids and PhDs could do
the question justice, especially with a little review/study.
> 4. Show the territorial growth of the United States.
Map or table? In any event, rote memorization, and probably easier for
8th graders than PhDs since the information is fresh to them.
> 5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.
Obviosuly not easy unless you have been educated in Kansas. Let people
write about whatever state they were educated in on local history, and
most kids would do fine, though PhDs have probably forgotten much.
Kansas of course had a particularly simple history prior to 1895 as
compared to Virginia or California.
> 6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
Civil War, one presumes. Probably most 8th graders would pass this,
especially with study. Most PhDs would not pass without study. My 4th
grader, who just had his test on the Civil War and *flunked it* still
named three battles and got the victors right in 2 of 3. Simple rote
memorization unless the expectation was to describe WHY each battle was
lost.
> 7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell,
Lincoln,
>Penn, and Howe?
In US history, all but the last are clear references to particular
individuals (Howe could refer either to Julia Ward or Elias). Rote
memorization, and rather heavily weighted towards inventors.
> 8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620,
1800,
> 1849, and 1865?
4 would be easy for most kids. Not certain what they consider
especially significant about 1800 - certainly nothing as obvious as the
others. (I checked the World Almanac timeline to be sure I wasn't
having a memory lapse, and found only the move of the capital to
Washington listed for 1800).
Most 8th graders would have no trouble passing this with study, and
perhaps without. My 4th grader gets MUCH tougher questions on his
tests, and usually gets Cs.
> Orthography
>
> (Time, one hour)
This subject is not exactly taught. Much of what is being tested here
is specific to the particulars of the dictionary/phonetic system being
used.
> 1. What is meant by the following: Alphabet, phonetic orthography,
> etymology, syllabication?
Sinple definition; rote memorization. Most kids know or could guess
given the context of the test.
> 2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
Obsolete terminology makes this question vague. One presumes they mean
"phonemes of English" (other languages have different
phonemes/elementary sounds, and linguists differentiate between the
systems of classifying sounds in general (phonetics) from
sounds-in-languages (phonemics). This test clearly confuses the two.
Classification systems depend on which definition is intended.
> 3. What are the following, and give examples of each: Trigraph,
>subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals?
I do linguistics, and only know two of these %^). "Subvocals" is not in
the dictionary; "linguals" is, and the definition makes sense to me,
even though I have not seen it made use of in any classification
commonly used today. I can guess what "cognate letters" are, but this
also is not in my dictionary. In any event, given that thesewere
taught, it is simple definition and rote memorization.
> 4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u'.
Vague - what do they mean by "substitutes"? Probably rote memorization
for most kids in 1895 Kansas, whatever the question means.
> 5. Give two rules for spelling words with final 'e'. Name two
> exceptions under each rule.
Rote memorization. Easy with study, takes a little thought off the top
of my head.
> 6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
Rote memorization. Easy even without studying.
> 7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word:
> Bi, dis, mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, supe
Rote memorization. Easy even without studying. Finding FALSE prefixes
is more of a challenge.
> 8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and
> name the sign that indicates the sound: Card, ball, mercy, sir,
> odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
Presumes knowledge of a particular diacritical system. But most kids
that age have done enough dictionary work recently to manage this
without study, though many PhDs have not.
> 9. Use the following correctly in sentences, Cite, site, sight,
fane,
>fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
fane and fain are considered archaic, and I did not know the former.
Otherwise no problem for me, nor probably for most 8th graders. (My 6th
grader gets some pretty obscure words on her vocabulary tests - and
misses them, though most of her peers do better).
> 10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate
pronunciation
>by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.
Rote memorization. But most kids could probably make a reasonable stab
at this without study.
> Geography
>
> 1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
By coincidence, my 4th grader asked me the former today, and was
disappointed that I knew the answer because he thought he knew something
that I did not. He can give a reasonable answer to the second question
as well, though I find it vague myself.
> 2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas?
Specific to Kansas, but most kids have had corresponding instruction for
their home state.
> 3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
This question would be a joke to a 3rd grader.
> 4. Describe the mountains of N.A.
I assume they do not mean Netherlands Antilles. Most kids could make a
good stab at this one, but might not answer completely. Likewise most
PhDs.
> 5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver,
> Manitoba, Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fermandez, Aspinwall
and
> Orinoco.
Some of these are Kansas-specific and pretty obscure. Others are vague
(Odessa, Texas or Odessa, Ukraine). For the kids in question it was
undoubtedly rote memorization.
> 6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S.
The answer has changed drastically since 1895.
> 7. Name all the republics of Europe and give capital of each.
One wonders whether by "republics" they mean sovereign countries, since
in 1895 much of Europe was tied up in the Ottoman, Russian, British, and
Austro-Hungarian Empire. Politically, most of these countries were not
"republics" as we define the term today, though most now are. Almost
certainly, the number to be named was no more than a dozen or so.
Nowadays it is probably triple that, so the problem is MUCH harder.
Still, my daughter had to label a European map with country names in 5th
grade, and just aced tests of memorized states and capitals both with
and without a map in 6th grade. I suspect most 8th graders could do OK
on naming countries, but not capitals of most. (Do YOU know the capital
of Moldova?)
> 8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same
>latitude?
This one took me aback, because the reverse is true - if you are talking
about the ocean side of the coastal interface. But once I realized they
meant the land regions near the coast, the question made sense.
Probably one of the toughest question conceptually in the whole test,
but it was probably rote-memorized, rather than "understood" in Herman's
sense of the word.
> 9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to
>the sources of rivers.
The water cycle is covered in 4th grade. My son is having his test
tomorrow. No problem for him. Now why don't they ask for the
difference between different kinds of clouds - my 4th grader knows that
too, but at least it isn't an easy question.
> 10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give inclination of the
>
earth.
Well, since continental drift had not been accepted then, I assume they
did not mean this. Describe earthquakes, landslides and volcanoes
perhaps? Oh wait. Maybe they mean rotation and revolution around the
sun. But then do they also want precession, revolution around the
earth-moon center of gravity, motion along with the sun with respect to
the local stars and the galaxy and motion along with the galaxy, not to
mention the expansion of the universe? Which of these were known in
1895 and taught in the schools? If the latter interpretation was
intended, I suspect most 8th graders today could give as good an answer
as an 8th grade of 1895, but the answers they gave would be incomplete.
But the question as stated is vague. The inclination number is rote
memorization; it is probably known to most 8th graders from recent
study, but not to most PhDs.
Notice that half of this "geography" test is really weather, now taught
in science class. And only 2 of the continents are mentioned in the
test.
Conclusion:
As a final exam covering a full year or even 8 years of study this test
is not especially difficult. WITH STUDY (which most 8th graders would
be doing a lot of before taking such a test), and given that they had
covered the material in coursework, these tests cover a fraction of what
is learned by 8th grade today. In a separate post, I will show the
latter as a comparison.
(I won't repeat that post, but anyone with a search engine can find the
Virginia Standards of Learning for 8th grade for one comparable set.
In addition,
will allow you to take short sample mini-tests generated according to 4
8th grade standards, CA, VA, FL, and OH.
Alberto
"George Leroy Tyrebiter, Jr." wrote:
> Sure. And if my teachers taught this mumbo jumbo crap when I went to
> the 8th grade many decades later I could answered these questions
> also.
Hello ?
It isn't mumbo jumbo crap, and many of those questions were probably directly
relevant to the way people in Kansas lived back in the year of our Lord 1895.
> Look - some of these questions are themselves idiotic, with OBVIOUSLY
> no objective answer. So the eighth grade teachers back them were a bit
> batty.
I see no idiotic questions. There's also an objective answer, as I see it, for
just about every one of those questions. Or maybe we're lacking some reading
skills here ?
>
> >1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.
>
> There is no set of nine rules. I can provide a set of four rules, or
> fourteen rules. The number of rules is arbitrary, a matter anyone
> making up rules can arbitrarily determine.
So, come out and give nine of them. There may be more, they're just asking for
nine rules. English isn't my native language, but I can certainly come up with
nine such rules for my native Portuguese.
> God does not have Moses come down and decree - there are nine rules
> for the use of Capital Letters. Flunk the teacher, pal.
Maybe some reading comprehension is needed here ? The question DOES NOT say
that there are exactly nine rules. The question says, give nine of them. The
question IMPLIES there are more than nine rules, and it also implies that at
least nine such rules, if not more, were taught in those days. AND it implies
that they tought it was important that students knew how to properly capitalize
whatever they wrote.
> >2. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no modifications.
>
> Again, this is purely arbitrary. Some linguists can parse the parts of
> speech into this many, and another linguist can parse it differently.
There's context missing here, but no, this is not arbitrary. This reflects the
knowledge and focus of those times, and their view of what was needed to build
up a "well rounded" individual.
> But if I had such a teacher telling me that there are five rules for
> proper grooming I am sure I could spit back the five rules.
>
> So what?
So, spit back those Parts of Speech. Can you ? Can most students ?
> etc
Yes, etc. Very much so. I can see an objective answer to each of these 6
questions, and to all the others. Can you ?
> >3. Define Verse, Stanza and Paragraph.
> >
> >4. What are the Principal Parts of a verb? Give Principal Parts of do,
> >lie, lay and run.
> >
> >5. Define Case, Illustrate each Case.
> >
> >6. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of Punctuation.
> >
> >7 - 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that
> >you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.
Now, how many students can do this today ? That is, writing a 150 word
composition SHOWING UNDERSTANDING OF THE PRACTICAL USE OF GRAMMAR ? If you
think we're on the safe side with this one, just go read some college
application essays, or some of what grad school students write for papers. And
heck, I'm not even an native English speaker.
> >Arithmetic (Time, 1.25 hours)
Note the time alloted, and the number of problems given, and the work they
entail. This expects that a student has no vacillation whatsoever, that he or
she can spit out the solution of those problems as a matter of fact - involving
decimal computations BY HAND, no calculators in 1895! This is a standard of
performance we just do not have today.
> >1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
>
> Again - it's rote repetition of whatever the teacher had in mind.
>
> Why in the world do I CARE what a teacher in Kansas back then thinks
> are HER fundamental rules of Arithmetic?
>
> This is rote learning at its very worst. Thank God I had New Math so I
> could learn to solve math problems, instead of repeating make-work
> mumbo jumbo.
Do you at all *know* what they considered "fundamental" as far as rules of
arithmetic goes ? Can you make an allowance to the fact that maybe those rules
were how they sedimented their students practical knowledge of how to do
arithmetic ? I hear people, in this very ng, complaining left and right against
"rote memorization", and you yourself are, right here, ranting against
"repeating make-work mumbo jumbo" - all while confronted with an obvious
attempt to back arithmetic manipulation with some rational rules that, when
understood and memorized, can help students to do arithmetic. Make up your
mind, dude, what do you want ?
> >2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many
> >bushels of wheat will it hold?
>
> WHo cares? We buy flour by the pound now. Didn't you notice? When you
> have to figure out if your wagon can haul 41 bushels - give us a call.
>
> What junk.
It's called today "real life application" of mathematic. PRECISELY what many
contemporary teachers advocate as the right way of doing things. If you lived
in Kansas back in 1895, bushels of wheat and wagon boxes would have been as
part of your life as the Internet and your desktop computer are today. So, junk
? Not at all.
> >3. If a load of wheat weighs 3942 lbs., what is it worth at 50 cts. per
> >bu., deducting 1050 lbs. for tare?
> >
> >4. District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary
> >levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104
> >for incidentals?
> >
> >5. Find cost of 6720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.
> >
> >6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
> >
> >7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $20
> >per m?
> >
> >8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
> >
> >9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per are, the distance around
> >which is 640 rods?
In every one of those nine arithmetic questions you see a concern with padding
the math with some application that will be relevant in the future adult life
of the student. Computing worth of a shipment. Understanding budgets. Finding
cost of materials. Banking issues, such as interest and discounts. Costing
land.
REAL LIFE, as far as an 1895 Kansas citizen would have seen it. A 19 year old
with a solid amount of this kind of knowledge would probably be quite ready to
try starting his or her own little business, help operating the family farm, or
engage in a profession. There's a definite concern with application of math
here, I can see it clear as water. Can you ?
> >10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.
More, here you see the math class being used as a springboard for commercial
exposure. We have evolved a lot from 1895, and we need to learn a lot more than
this, but can anyone say that there's that much quality and objectiveness in
the system today ? I can't.
And so on. Sorry, guy, to me you seem way out of order here.
Alberto.
lojbab
Alberto <junk...@moreira.mv.com> wrote:
> "George Leroy Tyrebiter, Jr." wrote:
> It isn't mumbo jumbo crap, and many of those questions were probably
directly
> relevant to the way people in Kansas lived back in the year of our
Lord 1895.
And many were not. The rules for orthography, definition of stanza,
and complete listing of the republics of Europe probably had little
relevance to a farm boy in Kansas.
> I see no idiotic questions. There's also an objective answer, as I
see it, for just about every one of those questions. Or maybe we're
lacking some reading skills here ?
An objective answer would require some objective standard.
> > >1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.
> >
> > There is no set of nine rules. I can provide a set of four rules, or
> > fourteen rules. The number of rules is arbitrary, a matter anyone
> > making up rules can arbitrarily determine.
>
> So, come out and give nine of them. There may be more, they're just
asking for nine rules. English isn't my native language, but I can
certainly come up with nine such rules for my native Portuguese.
How are you counting rules? Change the wording and you can write 1
rule as 100. But you can bet that there was a particular formulation
of rules required in answer to this question and any other answer was
wrong.
And should the rules cover the capitalization of "Capital Letters" in
the test question, which violates all the rules that I know for the use
of capital letters?
> > God does not have Moses come down and decree - there are nine rules
> > for the use of Capital Letters. Flunk the teacher, pal.
>
> Maybe some reading comprehension is needed here ? The question DOES
NOT say that there are exactly nine rules. The question says, give nine
of them.
No, it does not use the word "of", and, if you will trust our native
speaker instincts on this, it is perfectly clear that there were
precisely 9 rules that were expected to be known and parrotted back in
response to this question.
> > >2. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no
modifications.
> >
> > Again, this is purely arbitrary. Some linguists can parse the parts
of
> > speech into this many, and another linguist can parse it
differently.
>
> There's context missing here, but no, this is not arbitrary. This
reflects the
> knowledge and focus of those times, and their view of what was needed
to build
> up a "well rounded" individual.
And those views are arbitrary; i.e. not from any rational basis or
standard.
> > But if I had such a teacher telling me that there are five rules for
> > proper grooming I am sure I could spit back the five rules.
> >
> > So what?
>
> So, spit back those Parts of Speech. Can you ? Can most students ?
The answer is that the answer is different depending on who you ask,
and was different THEN depending on who you asked (though there was
probably less disparity in opinion then).
> > >Arithmetic (Time, 1.25 hours)
>
> Note the time alloted, and the number of problems given, and the work
they
> entail.
Which is relatively trivial if you know the conversion factors, and
impossible if not.
>This expects that a student has no vacillation whatsoever, that he or
> she can spit out the solution of those problems as a matter of fact -
involving
> decimal computations BY HAND, no calculators in 1895! This is a
standard of
> performance we just do not have today.
Sorry, Alberto, but this is baloney. In another post I have referred
people to
http://demo.edutest.com/demo/
to see current 8th grade standards test questions. They would not have
4 or 5 such questions in an hour and a quarter, but rather 60 questions
or more, though only part of them would be computational (the rest
would be conceptual) in 3 hours.
> > >1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
> >
> > Again - it's rote repetition of whatever the teacher had in mind.
> >
> > Why in the world do I CARE what a teacher in Kansas back then thinks
> > are HER fundamental rules of Arithmetic?
> >
> > This is rote learning at its very worst. Thank God I had New Math
so I
> > could learn to solve math problems, instead of repeating make-work
> > mumbo jumbo.
>
> Do you at all *know* what they considered "fundamental" as far as
rules of
> arithmetic goes ? Can you make an allowance to the fact that maybe
those rules
> were how they sedimented their students practical knowledge of how to
do
> arithmetic ? I hear people, in this very ng, complaining left and
right against
> "rote memorization", and you yourself are, right here, ranting against
> "repeating make-work mumbo jumbo" - all while confronted with an
obvious
> attempt to back arithmetic manipulation with some rational rules
that, when
> understood and memorized, can help students to do arithmetic. Make up
your
> mind, dude, what do you want?
When they complain about rote memorization, it is precisely such rote
memorization they complain about - rote memorization of rules is no
different from rote memorization of formulas.
You have now completely lost me with your comment on the last few,
Alberto. You more than anyone else have been the one who has said that
application has no place in the mathematics class. In these particular
examples, the math content is especially minimal compared to the
application knowledge, most of which is definitions and conversion
factors, rather than the model-making that math teacher would like to
see kids doing in the math class in solving an application. Herman is
always talking about the good old days when math concepts were taught,
and taught supposedly to kids much younger than today. Well these were
the good old days, and you can see from this test that there is hardly
a "math concept" in evidence in the math portion of the test, at least
in terms that a 19th century (much less a 20th century) mathematician
or scientist would understand as such.
But if you favor this kind of commercial and application stuff being
taught in the math classes, then you certainly have never communicated
it before (and "we need to learn a lot more than this" is not enough to
evade that criticism, because you have essentially been saying that we
need to learn not only MORE but DIFFERENT material.
--
lojbab loj...@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-
0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:
http://www.lojban.org
The OldTimer
start flailing away at you. That stuff is Al Gore 101 and he thinks it is
the only way to teach. It needs to be rejected.
"The one thing we must make certain of is to give this administration credit
for everything good, and place all the blame for everything bad on the
Republicans", Paul Begala, organizational meeting, Crosett, Ark, Oct. 19,
1996.
The news media hawks a favored
issue, blasting the airways for days,
telling you what to think. Then they
do a poll and, you being the naive
idiot you are, answer just as they
programed you to. Then the politicians
use you to line their pockets!!!
You be's one smart kookie!
The OldTimer
"lojbab" <loj...@lojban.org> wrote in message
news:8hlca4$pfn$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
George Leroy Tyrebiter, Jr.
wrote:
>
>
>"George Leroy Tyrebiter, Jr." wrote:
>
>> Sure. And if my teachers taught this mumbo jumbo crap when I went to
>> the 8th grade many decades later I could answered these questions
>> also.
>
>Hello ?
>
>It isn't mumbo jumbo crap, and many of those questions were probably directly
>relevant to the way people in Kansas lived back in the year of our Lord 1895.
>
The point of posting this test is to demonstrate that kids today lack
the skills of those taught in the past, so the utility of these
questions for another era undercuts the message.
Some of this test is mumbo jumbo because the questions have arbitrary
answers, and pertain to matters which do not matter.
>> Look - some of these questions are themselves idiotic, with OBVIOUSLY
>> no objective answer. So the eighth grade teachers back them were a bit
>> batty.
>
>I see no idiotic questions. There's also an objective answer, as I see it, for
>just about every one of those questions. Or maybe we're lacking some reading
>skills here ?
I think asking the nine rules of capitalization a foolish request. I
capitalize perfectly and do not know nine rules. I can walk without
stating the six rules of bone and tendon mechanics. I do not need to
know those six rules to walk well. Knowing the six rules will not make
me better at walking.
>>
>> >1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.
>>
>> There is no set of nine rules. I can provide a set of four rules, or
>> fourteen rules. The number of rules is arbitrary, a matter anyone
>> making up rules can arbitrarily determine.
>
>So, come out and give nine of them.
Capitalize the name Paul. Capitalize the name Bill. Capitalize the
name of the country commonly referred to as Portugal. Capitalize
anything if you have a good reason to do so. Capitalize the name E E
Cummings just to annoy him for his odd refusal to capitalize words.
and so on. Do not capitalize words, even though they might commonly be
capitalized, if you have a good reason not to.
I could devise a system of rules to capture all common rules regarding
capitalization which has fewer than nine rules, so that a complete
answer would presumably generate a poor grade.
The teacher has apparently split many of the rules I would describe
into various sub-rules. Knowing what sub-rules the teacher has in mind
is somewhat pointless.
There may be more, they're just asking for
>nine rules. English isn't my native language, but I can certainly come up with
>nine such rules for my native Portuguese.
There might be fewer as well. I think that if the student fails to
track the peculiar taxonomy of the teacher then the grade will be
scored as: poor. The task of tracking an idiosyncratic taxonomy of
rules of spelling seems a waste of time.
So I do not find this test a peculiarly good test to capture what
valuable skills students have learned.
>
>> God does not have Moses come down and decree - there are nine rules
>> for the use of Capital Letters. Flunk the teacher, pal.
>
>Maybe some reading comprehension is needed here ? The question DOES NOT say
>that there are exactly nine rules.
The question says, give nine of them. The
>question IMPLIES there are more than nine rules, and it also implies that at
>least nine such rules, if not more, were taught in those days. AND it implies
>that they tought it was important that students knew how to properly capitalize
>whatever they wrote.
I agree that it is important to capitalize appropriately. I do not
agree that knowing the idiosyncratic chunking of the rules of
capitalization into those categories the teacher finds to fit this
task is important. I capitalize well, I suppose, and do not care about
knowing nine rules to do so.
So I don't find this question a very good way to measure whether a
student has mastered important skills. I do not think that detecting
the peculiar wave-length of one teacher is important.
>
>> >2. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no modifications.
>>
>> Again, this is purely arbitrary. Some linguists can parse the parts of
>> speech into this many, and another linguist can parse it differently.
>
>There's context missing here, but no, this is not arbitrary. This reflects the
>knowledge and focus of those times, and their view of what was needed to build
>up a "well rounded" individual.
There are a variety of ways to break speech into parts. I rarely find
that it is useful to know that I am saying an adverb rather than a
preposition.
In fact, I never find that distinction useful.
Perhaps there are uses that I do not know about. But in that I have
been educated to excess, and have worked acceptably well in a wide
variety of fields, I doubt that such uses are going to matter to even
one child in a thousand.
So again, I do not find this test to be a likely good measure of
whether kids today have learned useful skills.
>
>> But if I had such a teacher telling me that there are five rules for
>> proper grooming I am sure I could spit back the five rules.
>>
>> So what?
>
>So, spit back those Parts of Speech. Can you ? Can most students ?
Spit back the five rules of grooming.
Can most students?
I have made money because I write well. Writing well does not require
knowing parts of speech. Olympic sprinters do not need to know the
parts of muscles. Knowing the parts of muscles will not increase how
well you can use them.
I can spit back parts of speech, but it is a pointless skill. My time
was wasted, IMO.
>> etc
>
>Yes, etc. Very much so. I can see an objective answer to each of these 6
>questions, and to all the others. Can you ?
I can see many answers to many questions because I have been
well-educated, perhaps to excess, by those who taught me to think for
myself, as opposed to teaching me the answers, by rote learning, to
arbitrary lists.
>
>> >3. Define Verse, Stanza and Paragraph.
>> >
>> >4. What are the Principal Parts of a verb? Give Principal Parts of do,
>> >lie, lay and run.
>> >
>> >5. Define Case, Illustrate each Case.
>> >
>> >6. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of Punctuation.
>> >
>> >7 - 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that
>> >you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.
>
>Now, how many students can do this today ? That is, writing a 150 word
>composition SHOWING UNDERSTANDING OF THE PRACTICAL USE OF GRAMMAR ? If you
>think we're on the safe side with this one, just go read some college
>application essays, or some of what grad school students write for papers. And
>heck, I'm not even an native English speaker.
Compare to comparable kids of the past. There are not many tests which
have been given to broad samples then and now. But there is one kind
of test - IQ tests. And, interestingly, kids today do vastly better
than kids did seventy years ago.
And for the past couple decades standard tests have been given to
broad samples of kids, and the results do not show a decline.
I see no evidence that kids today are learning less than kids of older
days learned. I see some evidence to the contrary.
I have been taught that conclusions should spring rationally from
facts, and that mere assertions, such as Julius Caesar implied when he
asked: What is the younger generation coming to?, are often just full
of it.
>
>> >Arithmetic (Time, 1.25 hours)
>
>Note the time alloted, and the number of problems given, and the work they
>entail. This expects that a student has no vacillation whatsoever, that he or
>she can spit out the solution of those problems as a matter of fact - involving
>decimal computations BY HAND, no calculators in 1895! This is a standard of
>performance we just do not have today.
Post proof that kids of then, on average, did better than kids today
can do.
Remember that kids in school back then represented a smaller sample of
the population.
>
>> >1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
>>
>> Again - it's rote repetition of whatever the teacher had in mind.
>>
>> Why in the world do I CARE what a teacher in Kansas back then thinks
>> are HER fundamental rules of Arithmetic?
>>
>> This is rote learning at its very worst. Thank God I had New Math so I
>> could learn to solve math problems, instead of repeating make-work
>> mumbo jumbo.
>
>Do you at all *know* what they considered "fundamental" as far as rules of
>arithmetic goes ? Can you make an allowance to the fact that maybe those rules
>were how they sedimented their students practical knowledge of how to do
>arithmetic ? I hear people, in this very ng, complaining left and right against
>"rote memorization", and you yourself are, right here, ranting against
>"repeating make-work mumbo jumbo" - all while confronted with an obvious
>attempt to back arithmetic manipulation with some rational rules that, when
>understood and memorized, can help students to do arithmetic. Make up your
>mind, dude, what do you want ?
I want a test said to indicate a failure in current education to do
so.
>
>> >2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many
>> >bushels of wheat will it hold?
>>
>> WHo cares? We buy flour by the pound now. Didn't you notice? When you
>> have to figure out if your wagon can haul 41 bushels - give us a call.
>>
>> What junk.
>
>It's called today "real life application" of mathematic. PRECISELY what many
>contemporary teachers advocate as the right way of doing things. If you lived
>in Kansas back in 1895, bushels of wheat and wagon boxes would have been as
>part of your life as the Internet and your desktop computer are today. So, junk
>? Not at all.
I agree that this is a good question for 1895. I do not think that the
ability of kids today to get the correct answer means that kids today
are learning fewer useful skills than kids learned back then.
and so on.
George Leroy Tyrebiter, Jr.
mahabarbara
"Look - some of these questions are themselves idiotic, with
OBVIOUSLY no objective answer. So the eighth grade teachers back
them were a bit batty."
Educators in the latter part of the 19th century tended to get
hung up on things like which way the student's toes were pointed
when he stood up to recite. I'm serious. Yes, a lot of them were
batty.
<snips>
1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.
Mr. Tyrebiter writes: "There is no set of nine rules. I can
provide a set of four rules, or fourteen rules. The number of
rules is arbitrary, a matter anyone making up rules can
arbitrarily determine."
Yes, and also the rules for capitalization have changed since
this
test was written. People in the 19th century capitalized common
nouns and adjectives derived from common nouns more than we do
now.
I've spent a big chunk of my life as a copyeditor and
proofreader,
and followed capitalization rules as enumerated in the style
manuals of the Associated Press, University Press of Chicago, the
American Medical Association, and the American Psychiatric
Association, the latter of which is nuts, and I can capitalize
with the best of 'em, and I can't think of nine separate rules,
either. But there were more rules in the 19th century.
Note that it is OK to start sentence with conjunctions, because I
said so.
<snips>
Mr. Tyrebiter writes: "There may be more, they're just asking for
nine rules. English isn't my native language, but I can certainly
come up with nine such rules for my native Portuguese."
I'm surprised you are not a native English speaker. I couldn't
tell from how you write. Very good, sir! I'm jealous. English is
my only language. I studied French in school, but never used it
so
it didn't stick.
Mr. Tyrebiter writes: "There might be fewer as well. I think that
if the student fails to track the peculiar taxonomy of the
teacher
then the grade will be scored as: poor. The task of tracking an
idiosyncratic taxonomy of rules of spelling seems a waste of
time."
Especially in English. It's a nutty and bastardized language that
doesn't follow it's own rules, especially in regard to spelling.
Mr. Tyrebiter writes: "So I do not find this test a peculiarly
good test to capture what valuable skills students have learned."
My beef with it is that being able to regurgitate a list of rules
doesn't always translate into being able to apply the rules, just
as people who are very skilled with the application may not be
able to break down the application into nine arbitrary rules.
IMO most teachers today test capitalization by giving students
sentences with errors and asking them to correct the errors. This
is a better test of being able to capitalize.
<snips>
2. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no
modifications.
Mr. Tyrebiter writes: "There are a variety of ways to break
speech
into parts. I rarely find that it is useful to know that I am
saying an adverb rather than a preposition."
I'm sure most folks agree with you, but back in my copyediting
days I was grateful that I had been taught sentence diagramming
and could pick out parts of speech in a sentence. Some of the
more
arcane rules of English, such as when to use "who" or "whom"; or
"which" or "that"; or when to hyphenate compounds; do require
some
understanding of parts of speech.
However, at this point in my life I admit I'd have to haul an old
grammar book off the shelf and look the rules up. I haven't
thought about the names of parts of speech in years, even though
I
can use parts of speech correctly.
Again, reciting a list of parts of speech doesn't demonstrate the
child can use the parts of speech correctly in a sentence.
Teacher's today are more likely to require children to
demonstrate
that they recognize an error in a sentence than to have them
recite the names of parts of speech.
Also, as you say elsewhere, we really don't know if kids back
then
did all that well on the tests. How would the average 8th grader
of 1890 compare to the average 8th grader of 2000? Impossible to
say without a lot of study.
Also in the 19th century a smaller percentage of the population
attended school, so in the 19th century children who made it all
the way to the 8th grade were the better-than-average ones. The
others had dropped out by then.
B.
* Sent from RemarQ http://www.remarq.com The Internet's Discussion Network *
The fastest and easiest way to search and participate in Usenet - Free!
Herman Rubin
Loren Petrich <pet...@netcom.com> wrote:
>In article <Pine.LNX.4.04.100060...@www.unification.net>,
>Damian J. Anderson <dam...@unification.net> wrote:
>> Could You Have Passed the 8th Grade in 1895?
>>This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 from Salina, KS. USA.
>>It was taken from the original document on file at the Smoky Valley
>>Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, KS and reprinted by the
>>Salina Journal.
> I think that those who wave this test around ought to take it
>themselves. Yes, that means you, Damian Anderson, Harold Brashears, etc.
> And most of this test would be easy to cram for, if one knew what
>was going to be on it.
Some of it would be, and some would not.
>>1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.
> There are 2 or 3 that cover just about all the cases (beginning of
>a sentence and proper names). [Section about German deleted.]
What about all "major" words in titles, adjectives derived from
proper names, and even common nouns derived from such? All of
these are in use today. It seems from the questions quoted that
there were some in use then, such as treating the titles of
topics as words in titles, which are not today.
>>2. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no modifications.
>>3. Define Verse, Stanza and Paragraph.
> Who cares about verses and stanzas?
What is wrong with poetry?
>>4. What are the Principal Parts of a verb? Give Principal Parts of do,
>>lie, lay and run.
> Why not mention something fun, like how the most irregular words
>tend to be the most commonplace ones?
Again, what is wrong with the question? Almost all of the
irregular verbs in English all come from German, and have
the same type of irregularity there, and the use of
"principal parts" comes from German. It reduces almost all
of irregular verbs to memorizing THREE parts, not all.
>>5. Define Case, Illustrate each Case.
> This reminds me of the Lithuanian linguist who recalled learning
>that English has no noun cases -- he wondered how English speakers could
>understand each other.
All languages have problems like this. Those languages
which have different forms for different cases and tenses
can dispense with auxiliary words, and languages which have
no different forms use more of them. But the cases and
tenses are still there.
> English has a possessive suffix, and its pronouns have cases that
>could be called nominative (subject only) and oblique (everything else).
English does have a grammatical distinction, not in the
form of the word but in how it is used, between dative,
accusative, and prepositional. It can help that these
are fully regular in pronouns in English, and is usually
easier, but often requires disambiguation, for nouns.
>>6. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of Punctuation.
>>7 - 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that
>>you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.
>>Arithmetic (Time, 1.25 hours)
>>1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
> Is this the New Math? :-)
No, it is the real old math. I agree it is memorized, which
is not a good idea.
> [a lot of calculation problems deleted]
> All that's necessary is to know what unit is what, like how many
>cubic feet is a bushel.
There are many who bemoan the lack of calculation. One
difference between then and now is that units of measure
were of considerable importance then. However, some of
the problems would bother students today, even with such
tables available.
>>U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)
>>1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.
> A matter of definition, I suppose.
To some extent.
>>Orthography (Time, one hour)
> [...]
> Much of it would be rather easy for me.
Likewise.
>>Geography (Time, one hour)
>>1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
> A sort of average weather. Several things. Latitude, height,
>whether mountains or oceans are nearby, which direction they are in
>relative to the prevailing winds, etc.
>>2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas?
> No nearby ocean with its thermal inertia.
>>3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
> Useful for lots of things.
This would certainly not be an acceptable answer.
>>4. Describe the mountains of North America.
> Applachians in the east; they date back from the formation of
>Pangaea about 200 million years ago, and they are rather eroded. Most of
>them do not go above the tree line.
> The Rockies and the Sierras in the west; they are much more
>recent, thus being much less eroded, and they usually go above the tree
>line and the snow line.
Some of the Appalachians are older than that. It would take
a lot more space than I intend to devote in this posting to
the necessary amplification of this, and also the mountains
of the west. The Coast Ranges are not parts of the Sierras,
and many of the western mountains also are below the tree line.
Of course, it depends on what you call a mountain.
>>5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba,
>>Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fermandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco.
>>6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S.
>>7. Name all the republics of Europe and give capital of each.
> And the monarchies?
Answer the questions. My knowledge of European history is
not fantastic, but I seem only to be able to come up with
two republics at that time, unless San Marino counts.
>>8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same
>>latitude?
> Because the Atlantic Coast is upwind of the Atlantic, while the
>Pacific Coast is downwind of the Pacific. Thus, the Pacific Ocean acts as
>a thermal damper for the nearby land, while the Atlantic Ocean does not.
Is it wind, or is it the ocean currents? These are related,
but it has at least been claimed that the Gulf Stream would
make the Atlantic coast much warmer than it is now if not for
the presence of one seamount.
>>9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to
>>the sources of rivers.
> Evaporation and being blown in the wind.
You left out a very important part, precipitation.
>>10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give inclination of
>>the earth.
> The Earth rotates.
> Its spin axis is made to move in a circle by the Sun and the Moon
>-- the precession. Nutation is a related wobble.
> The Earth and the Moon move around each other, with the Moon
>doing most of that motion.
> The Earth moves around the Sun.
> The Sun moves in an orbit around the core of the Milky Way Galaxy.
> The Galaxy, in turn, is moving relative to its neighbors.
> And these neighbors all take part in the Expanding Universe.
> As to the Earth's structure, consider Continental Drift.
>>Imagine a college student who went to public school trying to pass this
>>test, even if the few outdated questions were modernized. It certainly
>>gives the saying of an early 20th century person that "she/he only had
>>an 8th grade education" a whole new meaning!!
> Public school? Would a private school make any difference?
What proportion of public school students today know grammar?
We cannot teach that variables are essentially pronouns, because
they do not know what that means.
What proportion of them know any geography? I doubt that those
Kansas students would have had any problem in locating Japan
or Egypt on a map or globe.
I do not recall the precise date when radio transmission was
first done, but it was neither commercial nor long distance at
that time, if it was present at all. The airplane was almost a
decade in the future, and rapid communication and especially
travel was nonexistent.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
hru...@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
mahabarbara
hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) wrote:
>>>7. Name all the republics of Europe and give capital of
each.
>
>> And the monarchies?
>
>Answer the questions. My knowledge of European history is
>not fantastic, but I seem only to be able to come up with
>two republics at that time, unless San Marino counts.
OK, now I'm going to be spending the rest of the day trying to
figure out what republics existed in Europe in 1895.
It so happens that I own a set of encyclopedias that were
published in 1897. I actually look stuff up in them sometimes.
They are very good if you want to know something about sailing
ships, but otherwise a little out of date. But now I guess I'll
have to dig them out and look up republics. I'll try to remember
to do that this evening.
What two do you have? Italy? France? Switzerland?
>What proportion of public school students today know grammar?
>We cannot teach that variables are essentially pronouns, because
>they do not know what that means.
Oh, pshaw, sir. My kids went to public school and write very
well.
My daughter is an honors English student in college. (I've tried
to get her to switch majors, knowing she is looking at a life of
underemployment, but no luck so far.)
>What proportion of them know any geography? I doubt that those
>Kansas students would have had any problem in locating Japan
>or Egypt on a map or globe.
My kids went to public school and could locate Japan and Egypt
long before the 8th grade.
Herman Rubin
>In article <393E4A49...@moreira.mv.com>,
> Alberto <junk...@moreira.mv.com> wrote:
>> "George Leroy Tyrebiter, Jr." wrote:
>> It isn't mumbo jumbo crap, and many of those questions were probably
>directly
>> relevant to the way people in Kansas lived back in the year of our
>Lord 1895.
>And many were not. The rules for orthography, definition of stanza,
>and complete listing of the republics of Europe probably had little
>relevance to a farm boy in Kansas.
The farm boys in Kansas were expected to be quite literate,
and that meant knowing the generally accepted as correct
English. At that time, even the ones not literate were in
agreement that there was such, not the present idea that
the language is whatever is spoken by those in the gutter.
>> I see no idiotic questions. There's also an objective answer, as I
>see it, for just about every one of those questions. Or maybe we're
>lacking some reading skills here ?
>An objective answer would require some objective standard.
>> > >1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.
>> > There is no set of nine rules. I can provide a set of four rules, or
>> > fourteen rules. The number of rules is arbitrary, a matter anyone
>> > making up rules can arbitrarily determine.
>> So, come out and give nine of them. There may be more, they're just
>asking for nine rules. English isn't my native language, but I can
>certainly come up with nine such rules for my native Portuguese.
>How are you counting rules? Change the wording and you can write 1
>rule as 100. But you can bet that there was a particular formulation
>of rules required in answer to this question and any other answer was
>wrong.
Teachers in those days could understand different wordings
and descriptions.
>And should the rules cover the capitalization of "Capital Letters" in
>the test question, which violates all the rules that I know for the use
>of capital letters?
I agree that this violates the current rules. But seeing
that question, the rule which seems to be applicable is that
the words, other than connectives, etc., in a title are
capitalized, even if that title is used in a sentence without
being in quotes.
>> > God does not have Moses come down and decree - there are nine rules
>> > for the use of Capital Letters. Flunk the teacher, pal.
>> Maybe some reading comprehension is needed here ? The question DOES
>NOT say that there are exactly nine rules. The question says, give nine
>of them.
>No, it does not use the word "of"
I see the word "of" before the word "Capital". I also see
no use of the definite article.
and, if you will trust our native
>speaker instincts on this, it is perfectly clear that there were
>precisely 9 rules that were expected to be known and parrotted back in
>response to this question.
Not as this person, who supposedly has a reasonable
understanding of the structure and the grammar of the
English language, sees it. You may be right that they
were expected to memorize a set of rules, and repeat
them. But they also gave partial credit.
>> > >2. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no
>modifications.
>> > Again, this is purely arbitrary. Some linguists can parse the parts
>of
>> > speech into this many, and another linguist can parse it
>differently.
>> There's context missing here, but no, this is not arbitrary. This
>reflects the
>> knowledge and focus of those times, and their view of what was needed
>to build
>> up a "well rounded" individual.
>And those views are arbitrary; i.e. not from any rational basis or
>standard.
>> > But if I had such a teacher telling me that there are five rules for
>> > proper grooming I am sure I could spit back the five rules.
>> > So what?
>> So, spit back those Parts of Speech. Can you ? Can most students ?
>The answer is that the answer is different depending on who you ask,
>and was different THEN depending on who you asked (though there was
>probably less disparity in opinion then).
They also considered the answers, and gave partial credit.
However, the standard list of parts of speech, and this
was not just memorized but used, was:
nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs,
prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections.
I have studied some foreign languages to a greater or less
extent, and have looked at some additional grammar; one of
these languages is not Indo-European. I find the same
list, although in some of the languages, the parts are
attached to other words, and need separation to be seen
as distinct objects.
>> > >Arithmetic (Time, 1.25 hours)
>> Note the time alloted, and the number of problems given, and the work
>they
>> entail.
>Which is relatively trivial if you know the conversion factors, and
>impossible if not.
The teaching of these conversion factors persisted well
into this century. And they also gave partial credit.
>>This expects that a student has no vacillation whatsoever, that he or
>> she can spit out the solution of those problems as a matter of fact -
>involving
>> decimal computations BY HAND, no calculators in 1895! This is a
>standard of
>> performance we just do not have today.
>Sorry, Alberto, but this is baloney. In another post I have referred
>people to
>http://demo.edutest.com/demo/
I agree that the proficiency in computation by hand is
not important, and I am quite proficient. But this
was the situation, not just in 1895, but in the 1930s.
>to see current 8th grade standards test questions. They would not have
>4 or 5 such questions in an hour and a quarter, but rather 60 questions
>or more, though only part of them would be computational (the rest
>would be conceptual) in 3 hours.
Conceptual? It takes a much longer time to answer a
conceptual question. You are thinking of using rote
definitions, and trivial application.
Fortunately, multiple choice tests were not in common
use then, and they should be eliminated now to the
extent possible. Teachers were expected to look at
the work if the answer was wrong, and to decide how
much of the work was correct. A multiple choice
examination ignores this.
>> > >1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
>> > Again - it's rote repetition of whatever the teacher had in mind.
>> > Why in the world do I CARE what a teacher in Kansas back then thinks
>> > are HER fundamental rules of Arithmetic?
They were not decided by the teacher in any case.
>> > This is rote learning at its very worst.
I agree.
Thank God I had New Math
>so I
>> > could learn to solve math problems, instead of repeating make-work
>> > mumbo jumbo.
Considering the difficulty the elementary school teachers
when the New Math was introduced had with it, I would put
these eighth graders and their teachers ahead of them.
..............
>> > What junk.
I agree that this is not mathematics, or even applications
of mathematics.
>> More, here you see the math class being used as a springboard for
>commercial
>> exposure. We have evolved a lot from 1895, and we need to learn a lot
>more than
>> this, but can anyone say that there's that much quality and
>objectiveness in
>> the system today ? I can't.
>> And so on. Sorry, guy, to me you seem way out of order here.
>You have now completely lost me with your comment on the last few,
>Alberto. You more than anyone else have been the one who has said that
>application has no place in the mathematics class.
Not really. There are a few conversion factors which would
have to be memorized, but the understanding of mathematics
is demonstrated by being able to use the ideas.
In these particular
>examples, the math content is especially minimal compared to the
>application knowledge, most of which is definitions and conversion
>factors, rather than the model-making that math teacher would like to
>see kids doing in the math class in solving an application. Herman is
>always talking about the good old days when math concepts were taught,
>and taught supposedly to kids much younger than today.
Math concepts were only taught in elementary schools, except
during the new math period, by being applied. They were
taught in high school in those days; I do not consider
this a good mathematics test, but except for the conversion
factors, it is quite similar to what is expected in doing
word problems before algebra is taught today. It is an
applied arithmetic test, primarily. But the present use
of meaningless drill is certainly no better.
However, there was an expectation that working concepts
were formed, and that is present here.
Well these were
>the good old days, and you can see from this test that there is hardly
>a "math concept" in evidence in the math portion of the test, at least
>in terms that a 19th century (much less a 20th century) mathematician
>or scientist would understand as such.
As I said, I agree. Nor is there now before the
introduction of algebraic concepts. But there is
the expectation of the ability to use structure.
George Leroy Tyrebiter, Jr.
<bobrien...@scholastic.com.invalid> wrote:
>Mr. Tyrebiter writes:
>
>"Look - some of these questions are themselves idiotic, with
>OBVIOUSLY no objective answer. So the eighth grade teachers back
>them were a bit batty."
>
>Educators in the latter part of the 19th century tended to get
>hung up on things like which way the student's toes were pointed
>when he stood up to recite. I'm serious. Yes, a lot of them were
>batty.
>
><snips>
>
> 1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.
>
>Mr. Tyrebiter writes: "There is no set of nine rules. I can
>provide a set of four rules, or fourteen rules. The number of
>rules is arbitrary, a matter anyone making up rules can
>arbitrarily determine."
>
>Yes, and also the rules for capitalization have changed since
>this
>test was written. People in the 19th century capitalized common
>nouns and adjectives derived from common nouns more than we do
>now.
>
>I've spent a big chunk of my life as a copyeditor and
>proofreader,
>and followed capitalization rules as enumerated in the style
>manuals of the Associated Press, University Press of Chicago, the
>American Medical Association, and the American Psychiatric
>Association, the latter of which is nuts, and I can capitalize
>with the best of 'em, and I can't think of nine separate rules,
>either. But there were more rules in the 19th century.
>
>Note that it is OK to start sentence with conjunctions, because I
>said so.
>
><snips>
>
>Mr. Tyrebiter writes: "There may be more, they're just asking for
>nine rules. English isn't my native language, but I can certainly
>come up with nine such rules for my native Portuguese."
>
>I'm surprised you are not a native English speaker. I couldn't
>tell from how you write. Very good, sir! I'm jealous. English is
>my only language. I studied French in school, but never used it
>so
>it didn't stick.
You got confused on the attribution. My Grandmother, in her trailer in
rural Mississippi, was actually visited by a pollster who asked her
her nationality. Trying to be more than she was, she said: Why,
Methodist of course. (We are solid Southern Baptist stock).
I am not Portuguese. I know someone who is, though, who claims, based
on a prior husband, that she is Jewish by penetration. So I suppose I
am Portuguese by penetration.
I once picked up money copy editing, sort of , a vanity novel, where
the goal was to forget things like complete sentences - hopeless - but
to at least try to MINIMIZE the possible lawsuits. This author, the
son of a lady who owned a place named Reno Nevada, got a job as a
driver for Senator McCarran, and you would not have believed the
crimes that he, in all not-all-there innocence proudly described
various Nevada politicians committing. I pray it's better there now.
What kind of name is marahrabhafbabarbara anyway?
Tyrebiter is from the Danish, Tynebiter.
>
>Mr. Tyrebiter writes: "There might be fewer as well. I think that
>if the student fails to track the peculiar taxonomy of the
>teacher
>then the grade will be scored as: poor. The task of tracking an
>idiosyncratic taxonomy of rules of spelling seems a waste of
>time."
>
>Especially in English. It's a nutty and bastardized language that
>doesn't follow it's own rules, especially in regard to spelling.
>
>Mr. Tyrebiter writes: "So I do not find this test a peculiarly
>good test to capture what valuable skills students have learned."
>
>My beef with it is that being able to regurgitate a list of rules
>doesn't always translate into being able to apply the rules, just
>as people who are very skilled with the application may not be
>able to break down the application into nine arbitrary rules.
>
>IMO most teachers today test capitalization by giving students
>sentences with errors and asking them to correct the errors. This
>is a better test of being able to capitalize.
>
><snips>
>
> 2. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no
>modifications.
>
>Mr. Tyrebiter writes: "There are a variety of ways to break
>speech
>into parts. I rarely find that it is useful to know that I am
>saying an adverb rather than a preposition."
>
>B.
>
>
>* Sent from RemarQ http://www.remarq.com The Internet's Discussion Network *
>The fastest and easiest way to search and participate in Usenet - Free!
George Leroy Tyrebiter, Jr.
Eric da Red
>
>> Sure. And if my teachers taught this mumbo jumbo crap when I went to
>> the 8th grade many decades later I could answered these questions
>> also.
>
>Hello ?
>
>It isn't mumbo jumbo crap, and many of those questions were probably directly
>relevant to the way people in Kansas lived back in the year of our Lord 1895.
Sure. Lots of Kansans meditated on the Orinoco while busting sod.
>> Look - some of these questions are themselves idiotic, with OBVIOUSLY
>> no objective answer. So the eighth grade teachers back them were a bit
>> batty.
>
>I see no idiotic questions.
Then it's a very good thing you aren't in charge of educating our youth.
--
Libertarian Insight Of The Week: "It is implied in having sex with a
prostitute that you are not intending on having a child with this person
in any circumstance. This is not implied when having sex with a
girlfriend or wife." -- Unnamed seattle.politics libertarian.
Eric da Red
Damian J. Anderson <dam...@unification.net> wrote:
>
> Could You Have Passed the 8th Grade in 1895?
>
>This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 from Salina, KS. USA.
>It was taken from the original document on file at the Smoky Valley
>Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, KS and reprinted by the
>Salina Journal.
>
>
>
>1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.
Rule one: don't capitalize "Capital Letters".
<snip>
It looks like education in 1895 was heavy on rote memorization.
Fortunately things have improved since then.
...
>U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)
>
>1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.
The Imperialist Epoch (1492-present).
>2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.
A bunch of white guys blew off course and enslaved a shockingly large
number of natives.
>3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
Local elites were upset with interference by distant elites.
>4. Show the territorial growth of the United States.
First, the USA was small. Now, it's big.
>5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.
It was flat a long time ago, and it is still flat.
>6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
Guys wearing blue suits exchanged gunfire with guys wearing grey suits.
Lots of them died.
Repeat two more times.
>7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln,
>Penn, and Howe?
(a) a fictional British detective.
(b) a terribly overrated singer.
(c) a Catholic priest who had a popular TV show in the 1950's.
(d) a family of professional baseball players.
(e) a muckraking journalist
(f) Teller's sidekick
(g) greatest hockey player of all time
>Geography (Time, one hour)
>
>1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
Air.
>4. Describe the mountains of North America.
Big.
>8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same
>latitude?
It's not. Stupid question.
Bill Bonde
Eric da Red wrote:
>
> >7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln,
> >Penn, and Howe?
>
> (a) a fictional British detective.
>
Inspector Morse is just too cool.
mahabarbara
Leroy Tyrebiter, Jr." <tyre...@workOMITmail.com> wrote:
You got confused on the attribution. My Grandmother, in her
trailer in
>rural Mississippi, was actually visited by a pollster who asked
her
>her nationality. Trying to be more than she was, she said: Why,
>Methodist of course. (We are solid Southern Baptist stock).
LOL!
>
>I am not Portuguese. I know someone who is, though, who claims,
based
>on a prior husband, that she is Jewish by penetration. So I
suppose I
>am Portuguese by penetration.
>
>I once picked up money copy editing, sort of , a vanity novel,
where
>the goal was to forget things like complete sentences -
hopeless - but
>to at least try to MINIMIZE the possible lawsuits.
An important part of the job, always. <g>
>This author, the
>son of a lady who owned a place named Reno Nevada, got a job as
a
>driver for Senator McCarran, and you would not have believed the
>crimes that he, in all not-all-there innocence proudly described
>various Nevada politicians committing. I pray it's better there
now.
Well, I don't know. I have family who dabbled in politics (just
local stuff) and I'm convinced that a certain degree of criminal
shenanigans in politics is a vital American tradition. <g>
>
>What kind of name is marahrabhafbabarbara anyway?
"Maha" is Sanskrit for "great" and Barbara is my name, meaning
foreign and strange, I understand. I suppose it roughly
translates into "wondrously strange person." <g> But ethnically
I am sort of a hillbilly-Celt-American.
>
>Tyrebiter is from the Danish, Tynebiter.
Oh, yes, that's perfectly clear. <g>
Alberto
lojbab wrote:
> And many were not. The rules for orthography, definition of stanza,
> and complete listing of the republics of Europe probably had little
> relevance to a farm boy in Kansas.
You don't know, you weren't there. You may not believe it was, but that's
not a good call.
> An objective answer would require some objective standard.
Which they probably had, at least as good as our own today, applied to their
own times and context. Whether or not we disagree isn't really the point,
the point is, if we transliterate that exam to today's subject matter, at
the level the exam is placed, it's probably harder than the things we do
today.
> How are you counting rules? Change the wording and you can write 1
> rule as 100. But you can bet that there was a particular formulation
> of rules required in answer to this question and any other answer was
> wrong.
>
> And should the rules cover the capitalization of "Capital Letters" in
> the test question, which violates all the rules that I know for the use
> of capital letters?
Doesn't matter, Bob. What matters is, they taught that then, and they
demanded it. They thought this was important, given their own world, their
own times, and their own context. The negation of everything cultured is a
relatively new phenomenon. And whether or not the text of the exam has some
orthographic glitch is not a relevant point.
> No, it does not use the word "of", and, if you will trust our native
> speaker instincts on this, it is perfectly clear that there were
> precisely 9 rules that were expected to be known and parrotted back in
> response to this question.
I don't see how we can possibly get to that conclusion. It says give "nine",
it doesn't qualify any further than that. Imposing our own hypothesis on the
text of the exam does not add or subtract to the quality or level of the
exam, it merely exposes the inadequacies of our own thought.
> And those views are arbitrary; i.e. not from any rational basis or
> standard.
Again that nihilist view of culture that is pervasive and characteristic of
our times. It is not rational to you, today - more you cannot say, you
weren't alive in 1895. But the whole text is full of this cultural tilt,
therefore it is reasonable to assume that these things were considered
relevant then. Furthermore, if you read books written in the second half of
the nineteenth century, you will find a definite tilt towards the sort of
culture that they seem to be emphasizing. My conclusion is that these things
were the culture of the times, and that the exam was trying to assess the
cultural level of their students vis-a-vis their own times and cultural
traits.
> The answer is that the answer is different depending on who you ask,
> and was different THEN depending on who you asked (though there was
> probably less disparity in opinion then).
Yes, but the answer then was probably NOT any different from what was taught
then. And THAT is the important point. Whatever is today, wasn't, and it
isn't a good idea to analyze yesterday's need with today's riches.
> Which is relatively trivial if you know the conversion factors, and
> impossible if not.
No, Bob, that's not correct. You have seven and a half minutes per question,
and no calculator. The point probably was that you were supposed to know the
conversion factors, yet you should be able to do the operation, because back
in 1895 there were no props to help you. I have seen plenty of students
today who cannot do one of those problems in seven and a half minutes
without making enough mistakes, even with a calculator.
> Sorry, Alberto, but this is baloney. In another post I have referred
> people to
> http://demo.edutest.com/demo/
>
> to see current 8th grade standards test questions. They would not have
> 4 or 5 such questions in an hour and a quarter, but rather 60 questions
> or more, though only part of them would be computational (the rest
> would be conceptual) in 3 hours.
And that shifts the test away from what we're talking about. The point of
this test is, we have one hour and a quarter to perform a fair amount of
computation BY HAND. Was it easy ? Yes, probably, because a good student
then was probably
> When they complain about rote memorization, it is precisely such rote
> memorization they complain about - rote memorization of rules is no
> different from rote memorization of formulas.
You can call whatever you want "rote", and it makes no difference
whatsoever. What you cannot escape is, there are things in mathematics that
we MUST memorize, period, no ifs and no buts. Better memorize a few rules
than a lot of tables, even better if the rules are rational enough that they
agree with our mindset and we don't have to memorize them because we rather
intuitively interiorize them. And Herman notwithstanding, I do not believe
it is possible to learn math, specially in K12, without a healthy dose of
memorization. If there's one thing I definitely do not believe, is this
"concept" illusion that's in vogue in this ng.
> You have now completely lost me with your comment on the last few,
> Alberto. You more than anyone else have been the one who has said that
> application has no place in the mathematics class.
Yes. But that's not what I'm arguing here.
I'm arguing against an extreme, inflammatory, almost nonsensical,
troll-tasting, point, that the test is "nonsense". I can see the point of
the test - even though I may not agree with it. Furthermore, I can at least
try to rid myself of the twentieth century, and go back to a time where
Einstein, Quantum Mechanics, the atomic model, airplanes, televisions,
electronics, and a whole lot of other modern icons, were still to be born.
So, what today is clearly needed, that is, a fundamental tilt towards
science and technology, may not have been necessary then, because they
didn't have much of the stuff. Times change, and need changes with times.
And you know what, the amount of arithmetic manipulation demanded from the
student during those 75 minutes is something I feel our students today
sorely need.
> In these particular
> examples, the math content is especially minimal compared to the
> application knowledge, most of which is definitions and conversion
> factors, rather than the model-making that math teacher would like to
> see kids doing in the math class in solving an application.
The "math" content here is to do the operations. You see, you totally ignore
the need for that manipulation bit, and that's a fundamentally important
thing. While the application tilts things a little bit away from math
itself, the student's still required to put in a whole lot of computational
skill, and to me that's a very healthy thing. Do I believe they should be
doing more advanced things, today ? Sure. Back in 1895 ? I'm not that
certain, nobody had a crystal ball to say, hey, in ten or so years this
Einstein guy is going to come in and revolutionize science, so let's change
the curriculum. The need in 1895 was totally different from the need in
1995!
> Herman is
> always talking about the good old days when math concepts were taught,
> and taught supposedly to kids much younger than today. Well these were
> the good old days, and you can see from this test that there is hardly
> a "math concept" in evidence in the math portion of the test, at least
> in terms that a 19th century (much less a 20th century) mathematician
> or scientist would understand as such.
I wasn't here to judge either way, but I myself was taught in those "good
old days" - albeit not as far back as 1895 - and yes, I was taught a whole
lot more math a lot earlier. Furthermore, the way I learned was brought into
the New World from France and Germany, and it had been there for some time
before then, so I'm going to imagine it stretched way back before 1895.
Maybe you wouldn't see this kind of thing in Kansas, but you might see them
in a more cosmopolitan place.
> But if you favor this kind of commercial and application stuff being
> taught in the math classes, then you certainly have never communicated
> it before (and "we need to learn a lot more than this" is not enough to
> evade that criticism, because you have essentially been saying that we
> need to learn not only MORE but DIFFERENT material.
Again, that is far from the point I'm trying to make. What I'm saying is,
that exam seems to have had a decent fit to the needs of those days. Today's
exams, as I see them, have a very poor fit to today's needs.
Alberto.
Alberto
lojbab wrote:
> Sorry, Alberto, but this is baloney. In another post I have referred
> people to
> http://demo.edutest.com/demo/
I went there and took a quick look at the Florida 8th grade math test. I
only looked at the first batch, I don't have much pacience for this sort of
thing.
Let me put it this way. By the end of the 8th grade, I had had one full year
of algebra; one semester of proof-based geometry; I could solve equations of
the first degree and systems of two or even three linear equations of two
and three variables. I had studied proportions and could handle things like
if a/b = c/d then a/b = (a+c)/(b+d).
So I look at the test. First question: naive extrapolation: two columns, the
first increases by one, the second by minus three, what's the value of the
second column if the first column goes to umpteen ? Zero math in it, just
plain naive inference.
Second question: pure arithmetic, last time I had done that kind of thing
was in fifth grade.
Third, fourth questions: same thing.
Last questions: lots of pretty colors, green, yellow, little men, tables,
and what not: plenty of snow to confuse the unwary. Mathematical content:
near zero.
Is that the kind of exam you're proposing ? Sorry, no cigar. I didn't
continue, if the rest is the same, I can do without it.
Alberto.
Alberto
"George Leroy Tyrebiter, Jr." wrote:
>
> The point of posting this test is to demonstrate that kids today lack
> the skills of those taught in the past, so the utility of these
> questions for another era undercuts the message.
No it does not. The level of skills asked for in that test, when confronted with the
level of need they would have had - before much of what we understand today as
science had been discovered - is a whole lot higher than what we demand today.
> Some of this test is mumbo jumbo because the questions have arbitrary
> answers, and pertain to matters which do not matter.
Those answers may be arbitrary to you, because you are outside their context. They
don't look arbitrary to me, and they're far from mumbo jumbo.
> I think asking the nine rules of capitalization a foolish request. I
> capitalize perfectly and do not know nine rules.
What you can do, or what you think you can do, is not relevant here. You weren't
alive in 1895. The point is, in those days they did have a standard, and what *they*
thought were important rules of capitalization were taught to kids of that age, and
demanded in the test. What's foolish about it ? Furthermore, you didn't learn your
capitalization alone, someone taught you. Did you know how to capitalize properly
when you were an 8th grader ? Could you tell the difference between new world and
New World ?
Good Lord, I see people in this very ng, supposedly teachers and what not, who can't
even spell, who confuse "its" with "it's", and so on.
> I can walk without
> stating the six rules of bone and tendon mechanics. I do not need to
> know those six rules to walk well. Knowing the six rules will not make
> me better at walking.
Again, what you can do today is beyond the point. Can the average eight grader
disgorge the equivalent level of knowledge for contemporary standards ? And let me
know, your nihilist attack on culture is, as I see it, one of the pervasive diseases
of today's education. I see lots of mediocre people using that sort of line, "I can
do this and that without needing this foolish ____________" and you can fill in the
blanks with just about any learned thing. But you know what, the foolishness is in
that very position, or so I do believe.
And mind you, knowing those six rules of bone and tendon mechanics may not help you
walk better today, but they may make you be better at handling people who can't
quite walk, or who walk with a problem, or who need rehabilitation - and one of
those people may be one, hey, it's like that kitchen maxim: don't criticize the
coffee, you may yourself be old and weak someday.
> Capitalize the name Paul. Capitalize the name Bill. Capitalize the
> name of the country commonly referred to as Portugal. Capitalize
> anything if you have a good reason to do so. Capitalize the name E E
> Cummings just to annoy him for his odd refusal to capitalize words.
> and so on. Do not capitalize words, even though they might commonly be
> capitalized, if you have a good reason not to.
These are not rules. These are examples. I want rules. The exam asked for rules. And
please don't forget to specify what a "good reason" is. You know, if I was grading
your paper, I'd have given you a zero on this question.
> I could devise a system of rules to capture all common rules regarding
> capitalization which has fewer than nine rules, so that a complete
> answer would presumably generate a poor grade.
Yes, because nobody's interested in your system, teachers want you to learn the
language's system. Here you come, again, with this nihilist attitude towards
learning. Maybe you think that's cool and dandy, but sorry, I can't agree; it
repulses me.
> The teacher has apparently split many of the rules I would describe
> into various sub-rules. Knowing what sub-rules the teacher has in mind
> is somewhat pointless.
How do you know ? There isn't nearly enough data in that exam text to warrant such
an extrapolation.
> There might be fewer as well. I think that if the student fails to
> track the peculiar taxonomy of the teacher then the grade will be
> scored as: poor. The task of tracking an idiosyncratic taxonomy of
> rules of spelling seems a waste of time.
And here again the nihilist approach to learning. You know, dude, that may fit you
well, but it certainly doesn't fit an establishment of learning.
> So I do not find this test a peculiarly good test to capture what
> valuable skills students have learned.
What's "valuable" here is beyond your grasp or mine, because none of us lived in
those days to see whether or not what they were asking was valuable. But I'm
prepared to give them a discount, because I imagine that people who lived in 1895
had way more clue about what they needed than I who was born fifty years later.
Cultural arrogance, you know, can be a disease.
> I agree that it is important to capitalize appropriately. I do not
> agree that knowing the idiosyncratic chunking of the rules of
> capitalization into those categories the teacher finds to fit this
> task is important. I capitalize well, I suppose, and do not care about
> knowing nine rules to do so.
Don't evade the point. Whether you care or not is irrelevant. The point is, those
teachers must have had nine such rules, or more, and they asked their students for
nine of them.
> So I don't find this question a very good way to measure whether a
> student has mastered important skills. I do not think that detecting
> the peculiar wave-length of one teacher is important.
Again, you don't know whether the skill of proper capitalization wasn't something
important to have back in 1895.
> There are a variety of ways to break speech into parts. I rarely find
> that it is useful to know that I am saying an adverb rather than a
> preposition.
Yet that sort of knowledge goes a long way in making one's speech and writing more
understandable and less ambiguous. And, again, what you find useful for yourself is
irrelevant to the point.
> In fact, I never find that distinction useful.
Soothe yourself. Some of us do.
> Perhaps there are uses that I do not know about. But in that I have
> been educated to excess, and have worked acceptably well in a wide
> variety of fields, I doubt that such uses are going to matter to even
> one child in a thousand.
> So again, I do not find this test to be a likely good measure of
> whether kids today have learned useful skills.
Oh, yuk. I, I, I, I, I, that's all I hear. We're not talking about you here, we're
talking about an 1895 exam for 1895 kids. Don't be so self-centered! The point is
not whether kids today can do yesterday's test. THE POINT IS, BUILD A TEST TO THE
SAME LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY AND RELEVANCE FOR TODAY AS THAT 1895 TEST HAS RELEVANCE TO
THE 1895 REALITY, AND LET'S SEE IF OUR KIDS GET THROUGH IT.
THAT is the point made, that, in perspective, we demand far less from our kids than
they did one hundred or so years ago. Like I pointed out in another post, by the end
of the eighth grade I had learned one whole year of algebra, plus one semester of
geometry, plus one semester of proportions and related subjects, plus solving linear
equations, plus solving systems with two and three linear equations with two or
three unknowns. I would really relish making an exam that tests a student on these
subjects to the same level those 1895 kids were tested, or to the same level I
myself was tested when I was an 8th grader.
> I have made money because I write well. Writing well does not require
> knowing parts of speech.
Beyond a level, yes it does. Buy yourself any college level paper writing guide, and
you'll see the rules creeping up on you all over again. It's not what *we* think we
do well, it's what *they* want us to do well.
> Olympic sprinters do not need to know the
> parts of muscles. Knowing the parts of muscles will not increase how
> well you can use them.
Doctors do need to know the parts of muscles. Weight instructors at the gym must
know the parts of muscles. Coaches of olympic sprinters must know parts of muscles.
You see, once you take everything for granted, no, you don't need to know anything.
But it's the building up those things that others take for granted that's the
difficult part. Anyone can wield a gun, way fewer can design one, and fewer still
can produce the materials without with the gun wouldn't exist, and even few can
handle the chemistry and the physics that makes that projectile work the way it
does.
So, it's all a question of perspective. It's not that the stuff isn't needed, it's
just that you have opted out. And whenever it's needed, you take it for granted that
someone else will handle it, even while you yourself keep insisting it's not needed.
A kind of a deep contradiction, if I may say so.
> I can spit back parts of speech, but it is a pointless skill. My time
> was wasted, IMO.
Like I said, different people have different opinions.
> I can see many answers to many questions because I have been
> well-educated, perhaps to excess, by those who taught me to think for
> myself, as opposed to teaching me the answers, by rote learning, to
> arbitrary lists.
The very fact that you see rote where it doesn't show up leads me to doubt this very
statement of yours. The apparent inability you show from dissociating the reality of
an 1895 kid from your personal viewpoints is, to me at least, another telltale. So,
how intensely do I take your points ? I'm not sure myself.
> Compare to comparable kids of the past. There are not many tests which
> have been given to broad samples then and now. But there is one kind
> of test - IQ tests. And, interestingly, kids today do vastly better
> than kids did seventy years ago.
IQ is an irrelevant commodity, so are IQ tests. And how old is this whole science
anyway ?
> And for the past couple decades standard tests have been given to
> broad samples of kids, and the results do not show a decline.
Standard tests are a living joke. No result from a standard test means much, except
that they're so easy and so pedestrian that anyone who doesn't get a decent grade
should be considered in severe deficiency.
> I see no evidence that kids today are learning less than kids of older
> days learned. I see some evidence to the contrary.
I don't, and I don't need to go back to 1895. All I need to do is to compare the
education my own offspring have received against the education I did receive. The
contrast is glaring.
> I have been taught that conclusions should spring rationally from
> facts, and that mere assertions, such as Julius Caesar implied when he
> asked: What is the younger generation coming to?, are often just full
> of it.
I do not see conclusions springing from "facts" very often, because facts are few
and far between. But this is another thread.
> Post proof that kids of then, on average, did better than kids today
> can do.
Did we have a uniform failure in those tests ? I doubt it. That means that a
sensible proportion of kids could handle it. Now, find an 8th grade test today
that's that dense, I'm not sure you will. So, the ball is smack on the other side of
the court.
> Remember that kids in school back then represented a smaller sample of
> the population.
Which is a totally irrelevant thing. Why is it that having more students means we
have to lower the level ? Are we now going to open an exception and allow mob rule
in education ? Bread and circus ? Fun and games ? Mind you, we're tethering pretty
close to the edge on this issue.
> I want a test said to indicate a failure in current education to do
> so.
Look at your job market, and tell me if your cherished education system is filling
up the need. Right now we're importing professionals at record speed, from wherever
we can get, while many full blooded Americans can't get anywhere beyond burger
flipping. And you think all's well ?
> I agree that this is a good question for 1895. I do not think that the
> ability of kids today to get the correct answer means that kids today
> are learning fewer useful skills than kids learned back then.
Ah, so we get to my point. Yes, these are jolly good questions for 1895. Now,
extrapolate and get some jolly good questions to what should be an 8th grader of the
21st century. But you know, we don't even formulate tests that rigorously any
longer. Nah, it would be a multiple-choice thing, with the answers all on sight, and
lots of little shallow irrelevancies.
Pitiful.
Alberto.
George Leroy Tyrebiter, Jr.
wrote:
>
>
>"George Leroy Tyrebiter, Jr." wrote:
>
>>
>> The point of posting this test is to demonstrate that kids today lack
>> the skills of those taught in the past, so the utility of these
>> questions for another era undercuts the message.
>
>No it does not. The level of skills asked for in that test, when confronted with the
>level of need they would have had - before much of what we understand today as
>science had been discovered - is a whole lot higher than what we demand today.
>
You are confused, apparently unaware of the underlying issue.
Here we have traditionalists who feel that the old ways are the best
ways, and others who think that this modern world of ours is not akin
to a snowball headed for hell.
The point of posting this exam is to demonstrate that kids today would
get a low score, while kids of yore would get a higher score, so as to
prove that our modern world, and our modern ways, suck.
This test is posted to be a ruler of kids today - how high do they go?
Folks who post this test LITERALLY want to demonstrate that the raw
score today would be lower than the raw score of yesterday would be.
They are not trying to show that the scaled score of answers gauged
against the needs of yesterday would have been higher than the scaled
score of answers on a current test gauged against our needs would be
today.
The posters LITERALLY want to know how many questions we get right.
To make the point that we are less well educated.
So my comments that I might not get a certain answer correct, because,
for instance, I rarely need to measure the volume of a bushel of
wheat, IS relevant to the point of the posting of this test.
In addition, my comments about the relative inanity of some of these
questions, measured against what we need kids to learn, is a comment
again about how our modern world, with its lesser interest in certain
arcane rules apparently considered important in the past, is not
necessarily inferior to the world of the past.
This test relates to a cultural war between the traditionalists and
the modernists.
So many of your comments below strike me as at right angles to the
real issues.
>> Some of this test is mumbo jumbo because the questions have arbitrary
>> answers, and pertain to matters which do not matter.
>
>Those answers may be arbitrary to you, because you are outside their context. They
>don't look arbitrary to me, and they're far from mumbo jumbo.
>
>> I think asking the nine rules of capitalization a foolish request. I
>> capitalize perfectly and do not know nine rules.
>
>What you can do, or what you think you can do, is not relevant here. You weren't
>alive in 1895. The point is, in those days they did have a standard, and what *they*
>thought were important rules of capitalization were taught to kids of that age, and
>demanded in the test. What's foolish about it ? Furthermore, you didn't learn your
>capitalization alone, someone taught you. Did you know how to capitalize properly
>when you were an 8th grader ? Could you tell the difference between new world and
>New World ?
>
>Good Lord, I see people in this very ng, supposedly teachers and what not, who can't
>even spell, who confuse "its" with "it's", and so on.
so what? The issue is whether kids, as a whole, were better educated
in the past than they are now. This test, which was given to a small
sample in the past, because in farm states of the past kids dropped
out to work the farms, would not be a true gauge of the abilities of
ALL kids of the past, while we think today of how ALL kids of today -
since all go to school now - would do on the test.
That folks now are basically mentally retarded is not germane to the
real issue - does the modern world suck - because for all we now folks
were just as mentally retarded in the past - even though this test,
limited as it was to a subset of all kids - would imply retardation
was less common in the past.
>
>> I can walk without
>> stating the six rules of bone and tendon mechanics. I do not need to
>> know those six rules to walk well. Knowing the six rules will not make
>> me better at walking.
>
>Again, what you can do today is beyond the point. Can the average eight grader
>disgorge the equivalent level of knowledge for contemporary standards ? And let me
>know, your nihilist attack on culture is, as I see it, one of the pervasive diseases
>of today's education. I see lots of mediocre people using that sort of line, "I can
>do this and that without needing this foolish ____________" and you can fill in the
>blanks with just about any learned thing. But you know what, the foolishness is in
>that very position, or so I do believe.
I am not nihilistic. I am actually snooty. I think people should read
good books, and I think that the inability to reason statistically is
a dreadful failing among us. For examples. But I think much of the
approach reflected in the ways of yore, shown in the posted test, are
not going to lead to well-educated kiddies. I think that THEIR
approach is below minimally acceptable standards - not that there
should not be standards.
>
>And mind you, knowing those six rules of bone and tendon mechanics may not help you
>walk better today, but they may make you be better at handling people who can't
>quite walk, or who walk with a problem, or who need rehabilitation - and one of
>those people may be one, hey, it's like that kitchen maxim: don't criticize the
>coffee, you may yourself be old and weak someday.
I assume you do not know how truly funny that sounds to my ear.
Do you have the saying: a wet bird never flies at night?
To me the two are comparably humorously devoid of any sense, but sound
as if they are intended to be sensible. The contrast in tone and
substance - makes me laugh.
But I digress.
>
>> Capitalize the name Paul. Capitalize the name Bill. Capitalize the
>> name of the country commonly referred to as Portugal. Capitalize
>> anything if you have a good reason to do so. Capitalize the name E E
>> Cummings just to annoy him for his odd refusal to capitalize words.
>> and so on. Do not capitalize words, even though they might commonly be
>> capitalized, if you have a good reason not to.
>
>These are not rules. These are examples.
An example is also a rule. It just has a narrow reach. The notion of
rule is a bit slippery. That is sort of my point. Now, remember what
the REAL point of posting this exam is. When someone does not know the
rules which the old teacher had in mind, they will get a poor score on
the test. The poor score on the test will be taken as proof that old
methods work better than new ones. But that is illogical. A poor score
simply means that we have not been taught the categories the teacher
wanted us to learn.
I want rules. The exam asked for rules. And
>please don't forget to specify what a "good reason" is. You know, if I was grading
>your paper, I'd have given you a zero on this question.
I had a teacher in grad school visiting from Cambridge, named Max
Hamburg I think, and at one point he stopped, in total exasperation,
and said: How in the world can you be such poor students yet turn out
to be such great scientists?
We had a strong independent streak. That is the answer. Mr. Hamburg
also was always wanting to give us zeros.
He expected us to track the frame he cast, and we wanted to question
his frame, and to use our own frames.
Again, it was a conflict between the old ways, with rigid order and
discipline, and the new ways, with more free-for-all chaos and
emphasis placed on originality.
So I take your zero in the same spirit I took his exasperation: with
amusement that I know what I am doing here, so don't you worry.
>
>> I could devise a system of rules to capture all common rules regarding
>> capitalization which has fewer than nine rules, so that a complete
>> answer would presumably generate a poor grade.
>
>Yes, because nobody's interested in your system, teachers want you to learn the
>language's system. Here you come, again, with this nihilist attitude towards
>learning. Maybe you think that's cool and dandy, but sorry, I can't agree; it
>repulses me.
Education should lead the student to the ability to make his own good
system. Education should guide you to being able to teach yourself
after a while.
Our seemingly chaotic system, in the modern world, to wax this example
again, makes us great scientists in the view of Mr. Hamburg/. But alas
he was horrified with us as well. I think that our modern ways have
advantages. You seem to have more affection for educational methods
which have more predictable results.
Now we are getting to what this test is REALLY about.
>
>> The teacher has apparently split many of the rules I would describe
>> into various sub-rules. Knowing what sub-rules the teacher has in mind
>> is somewhat pointless.
>
>How do you know ? There isn't nearly enough data in that exam text to warrant such
>an extrapolation.
>
>> There might be fewer as well. I think that if the student fails to
>> track the peculiar taxonomy of the teacher then the grade will be
>> scored as: poor. The task of tracking an idiosyncratic taxonomy of
>> rules of spelling seems a waste of time.
>
>And here again the nihilist approach to learning. You know, dude, that may fit you
>well, but it certainly doesn't fit an establishment of learning.
We have no way in this era to know what was intended in this exam, so
that the poor raw score of today is not an indication that we are not
as well=educated as folks were back then.
We continue at right angles.
>
>> So I do not find this test a peculiarly good test to capture what
>> valuable skills students have learned.
>
>What's "valuable" here is beyond your grasp or mine, because none of us lived in
>those days to see whether or not what they were asking was valuable. But I'm
>prepared to give them a discount, because I imagine that people who lived in 1895
>had way more clue about what they needed than I who was born fifty years later.
>Cultural arrogance, you know, can be a disease.
I am merely urging skepticism myself - that we be skeptical of what
our inability to answer this exam implies. We are converging on
understanding each other at last.
>
>> I agree that it is important to capitalize appropriately. I do not
>> agree that knowing the idiosyncratic chunking of the rules of
>> capitalization into those categories the teacher finds to fit this
>> task is important. I capitalize well, I suppose, and do not care about
>> knowing nine rules to do so.
>
>Don't evade the point. Whether you care or not is irrelevant. The point is, those
>teachers must have had nine such rules, or more, and they asked their students for
>nine of them.
The point is that my inability to reach back into the head of that
teacher does not mean that education was better then than now.
>
>> So I don't find this question a very good way to measure whether a
>> student has mastered important skills. I do not think that detecting
>> the peculiar wave-length of one teacher is important.
>
>Again, you don't know whether the skill of proper capitalization wasn't something
>important to have back in 1895.
I do not denigrate the skill. I denigrate the parsing of the skill
into a number of rules. I just want people to capitalize ok. How they
get there is not such a concern to me.
>
>> There are a variety of ways to break speech into parts. I rarely find
>> that it is useful to know that I am saying an adverb rather than a
>> preposition.
>
>Yet that sort of knowledge goes a long way in making one's speech and writing more
>understandable and less ambiguous. And, again, what you find useful for yourself is
>irrelevant to the point.
I presume that since I find it useless, it will be useless as well to
others.
>
>> In fact, I never find that distinction useful.
>
>Soothe yourself. Some of us do.
I can not think of a good joke, to make fun of you unfairly, but I
know that one lurks, wanting to fit into this spot.
Enough of this odd talk.
George Leroy Tyrebiter, Jr.
Loren Petrich
Herman Rubin <hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu> wrote:
>In article <8hllr6$te$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, lojbab <loj...@lojban.org> wrote:
>>And many were not. The rules for orthography, definition of stanza,
>>and complete listing of the republics of Europe probably had little
>>relevance to a farm boy in Kansas.
>The farm boys in Kansas were expected to be quite literate,
>and that meant knowing the generally accepted as correct
>English. At that time, even the ones not literate were in
>agreement that there was such, not the present idea that
>the language is whatever is spoken by those in the gutter.
What would you prefer? Some sort of "English Academy" that
decides what is correct English? Sort of like the French Academy.
Damian J. Anderson
You can find the exam on the web site of the Smoky Valley Genealogical Society
and Library at:
http://skyways.lib.ks.us/kansas/genweb/ottawa/exam.html
Best Sellers wrote:
> mahabarbara wrote:
>
> >This fool test keeps popping up on
> >Usenet, and I'm wondering if anyone
> >has been able to verify it, or is
> >this another $650 Mrs. Fields cookie
> >recipe?
>
> You can verify it by contacting the
>
> Smoky Valley Genealogical Society and Library
> Salina, KS
>
> or the
>
> Salina Journal
> 333 S 4th St
> Salina, KS
> (785) 823-6363
>
> The test is authentic.
>
> Le
> ==
> Please visit www.sepschool.org.
--
Damian Anderson dam...@unification.net http://www.unification.net
Loren Petrich
Herman Rubin <hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu> wrote:
>In article <8hjv1s$hbk$1...@slb7.atl.mindspring.net>,
>Loren Petrich <pet...@netcom.com> wrote:
>Again, what is wrong with the question? Almost all of the
>irregular verbs in English all come from German, and have
>the same type of irregularity there, and the use of
>"principal parts" comes from German. It reduces almost all
>of irregular verbs to memorizing THREE parts, not all.
English irregular verbs coming from German? ROTFL.
English's irregular verbs are almost all *native*, and many of
them can be traced back to Old English without much trouble. Given the
similar grammatical patterns of other Germanic languages, especially the
older ones, one extrapolates that the ancestral Germanic language had had
these irregularities also.
>> English has a possessive suffix, and its pronouns have cases that
>>could be called nominative (subject only) and oblique (everything else).
>English does have a grammatical distinction, not in the
>form of the word but in how it is used, between dative,
>accusative, and prepositional. ...
That's syntax, and not a "true" case system of morphology. That
reminds me of something I once read, that there was some Italian
grammarian who posited that (modern) Italian had all 6 of Latin's cases -
constructed with prepositions, and the interjection "o" for the vocative.
>>>3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
>> Useful for lots of things.
>This would certainly not be an acceptable answer.
I was annoyed at what seemed like a silly question.
>>>7. Name all the republics of Europe and give capital of each.
>> And the monarchies?
>Answer the questions. My knowledge of European history is
>not fantastic, but I seem only to be able to come up with
>two republics at that time, unless San Marino counts.
The interesting question is what had counted as "republics" to
the test designers. Did they mean nations in general, or did they mean
nations without a monarch?
At the present day, the question would be complicated by
constitutional monarchies, which are essentially de facto republics.
>>>9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to
>>>the sources of rivers.
>> Evaporation and being blown in the wind.
>You left out a very important part, precipitation.
I concede my incompleteness. Not only rain and snow, but seeping
into the ground.
gabor
mahabarbara <bobrien...@scholastic.com.invalid> wrote:
> In article <8hlvcd$2d...@odds.stat.purdue.edu>,
> hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) wrote:
>
> each.
> >
> >> And the monarchies?
> >
> >Answer the questions. My knowledge of European history is
> >not fantastic, but I seem only to be able to come up with
> >two republics at that time, unless San Marino counts.
>
> figure out what republics existed in Europe in 1895.
>
> It so happens that I own a set of encyclopedias that were
> published in 1897. I actually look stuff up in them sometimes.
> They are very good if you want to know something about sailing
> ships, but otherwise a little out of date. But now I guess I'll
> have to dig them out and look up republics. I'll try to remember
> to do that this evening.
>
> What two do you have? Italy? France? Switzerland?
>
Good guesses. There were actually three republics in Europe in 1895:
France, Switzerland and tiny San Marino. All other countries in Europe
were monarchies at the time. For anyone who is interested, I can provide
the date at which other European republics were established (Portugal
was next, in 1910; Greece, Spain and my native Hungary have switched
between the two types of government a couple of times).
The designers of the exam probably thought that there were more European
republics at the time (or they used "republic" as a synonym of
"country"). This is the only real weakness of the exam that I can see.
> >What proportion of public school students today know grammar?
> >We cannot teach that variables are essentially pronouns, because
> >they do not know what that means.
>
> Oh, pshaw, sir. My kids went to public school and write very
> well.
> My daughter is an honors English student in college. (I've tried
> to get her to switch majors, knowing she is looking at a life of
> underemployment, but no luck so far.)
>
Whether in public or private schools, the teaching of basic grammar has
been discontinued in many places in the English-speaking world. I accept
that it is possible to learn to write one's native language well without
learning formal grammar, but it is much harder to learn foreign
languages if you don't understand concepts like "noun", "subject" and
"subordinate clause". If children are not taught such concepts, they
will be handicapped later on if they need (or want) to learn foreign
languages.
So the question is: do American parents want their kids to be
handicapped this way? Multinationals and international organizations (I
work for one) look for people who are competent in several languages; it
is not by accident that there are so many people from Scandinavia and
the Netherlands working internationally - they do know languages. They
were certainly taught grammar to make the learning of languages easier.
> >What proportion of them know any geography? I doubt that those
> >Kansas students would have had any problem in locating Japan
> >or Egypt on a map or globe.
>
> My kids went to public school and could locate Japan and Egypt
> long before the 8th grade.
>
> B.
>
> * Sent from RemarQ http://www.remarq.com The Internet's Discussion
Network *
> The fastest and easiest way to search and participate in Usenet -
Free!
>
>
Alberto
"George Leroy Tyrebiter, Jr." wrote:
> You are confused, apparently unaware of the underlying issue.
Looks more like you are.
> Here we have traditionalists who feel that the old ways are the best
> ways, and others who think that this modern world of ours is not akin
> to a snowball headed for hell.
That's not the issue. The issue is whether we're driving our students as hard as they
used to drive us.
>
> The point of posting this exam is to demonstrate that kids today would
> get a low score, while kids of yore would get a higher score, so as to
> prove that our modern world, and our modern ways, suck.
The point of posting this exam is to put out a comparative benchmark of demand versus
contemporary need: demand in 1895 versus need in 1895, compared to demand in 2000, versus
need in 2000. It is *not* about comparing demand in 1895 against need in 2000, nor is it
about comparing a 1895 exam with what "I" can do, whoever "I" happen to be.
> This test is posted to be a ruler of kids today - how high do they go?
> Folks who post this test LITERALLY want to demonstrate that the raw
> score today would be lower than the raw score of yesterday would be.
That is not what is happening. The point of the test is not that the raw score on THAT
test would be lower today, but that the raw score on a SIMILAR test today, made up at the
same level to us that that exam was to an 1895 kid, would be substantially lower. And you
know what, I don't need to go back to 1895, I grew up in the fifties and sixties, and my
education was a whole lot more exacting than what my own kids had in the eighties and
nineties.
> They are not trying to show that the scaled score of answers gauged
> against the needs of yesterday would have been higher than the scaled
> score of answers on a current test gauged against our needs would be
> today.
Scaled scores are nonsense and mean nothing.
> The posters LITERALLY want to know how many questions we get right.
No, I don't think so. But you're free to ask them. Wasn't it Herman who put it out ? He's
a college professor, I'm sure he knows better.
> To make the point that we are less well educated.
And that point is made, roundly and directly.
> So my comments that I might not get a certain answer correct, because,
> for instance, I rarely need to measure the volume of a bushel of
> wheat, IS relevant to the point of the posting of this test.
Nothing that you as an individual might or might not need or do is relevant to the point
of posting that test. The point is a very different one.
Take that exam, translate to modern parlance. I don't care what you put in there, as long
as you keep the mathematical and scientific content at the same level: seven and a half
minutes per question, each involving a healthy dose of computation, no calculators or
computers, and a few key items of required memorization. Take the dates and names who
were relevant in 1895, replace by names and dates relevant to us today, try replacing
Morse by Churchill and inserting dates such as 1941 and 1945 into it. Try taking those
rules of punctuation and converting into something really necessary today - for example,
someone posted, as a professional editor, on the need to know a lot of that jazz, and
even more. Then give it to today's 8th grade students and see what happens.
> In addition, my comments about the relative inanity of some of these
> questions, measured against what we need kids to learn, is a comment
> again about how our modern world, with its lesser interest in certain
> arcane rules apparently considered important in the past, is not
> necessarily inferior to the world of the past.
The inanity of what 1895 kids learned against what 2000 kids need to learn is caused by
time and nothing else, and no one in his or her right mind could demand this sort of
thing; and taking the exam at that light denotes a strong lack of understanding. If you
drop that inflammatory adjective - arcane - and look at contemporary writing guides, you
will find plenty of such rules.
Arcane ? I remit you to a modern book, for example, "Writing for Computer Science", by
Justin Zobel. Look at some of the titles in the table of contents. "Stops. Commas. Colons
and semicolons. Apostrophes. Exclamations. Hyphenation. Capitalization.
Ah, capitalization. For example, how do you capitalize headings ? Captions ? Titles of
references in bibliographies ? Do we capitalize references to theorems, lemmas, figures,
sections ? Do we capitalize names of computer languages ? What is correct, "Fortran",
"fortran" or "FORTRAN" ? Do we follow the old German way, that permeated into eighteenth
century English, of capitalizing all nouns in a phrase ? Do I write "CPU", C.P.U", "cpu"
? As a matter of fact, why can't I write "cPU" ? If I have a Chinese name - and the
overwhelming majority of my students are Chinese - do I write Da Heng, Daheng, DaHeng,
Da-Heng, Da-heng, da-Heng ?
If capitalization is irrelevant, why everyone writes "I" and not "i" when they're
referring to themselves ?
Right here, I got at least nine capitalization themes, and I bet each has a lot more than
one rule.
If you go through the book, there's a whole lot of rules. And this is not even for
general writing, these are rules for writing computerese.
So, arcane ? Maybe to you today, not to them in 1895.
> This test relates to a cultural war between the traditionalists and
> the modernists.
No, it relates to a cultural war between those of us who believe in strong academics and
cultural bias, and those who believe in fun and games and easy-street. I for example am
in my fifities, I wasn't educated in this generation. But I had the good luck of getting
my children into top learning institutions in this country, so I know that strong
academics are alive and thriving, here and now, and because of the inevitable advance of
science and knowledge, those places will be teaching more and better than the places
where I myself was educated. But the problem is, those places are getting fewer and fewer
in proportion to the alarming growth of a permissive and nihilistic approach to education
where knowledge is derided and anyone can confront a knowledgeable person and say, "get
out of here, I don't need what you teach" - even while not having a clue not only about
what that teacher is trying to teach, but not even about where in the big picture that
subject fits.
No, it's not a question of today vs. yesterday, it's a question of quality vs.
mediocrity.
> So many of your comments below strike me as at right angles to the
> real issues.
If I'm at right angles with you, you're at right angles with me. If "I" always have the
"right" issues, then obviously your "issues", whatever they are, are wrong and out of
place. But I am a professional and a teacher, and I spend much of my lifetime teaching
and worrying about how to do it effectively, therefore I believe I have at least some
weight behind me to grant a minimum level of understanding of the subject. You know, I
have had plenty of students with your kind of belief, and they're usually not very happy
in a learning institution. Some do well in life, many more don't. And as a teacher, you
quickly learn that the word "I" doesn't have much place in reality, what we have to do is
to use "they" a whole lot, and try to see things through their eyes and live, if
fleetingly, a little of their own reality.
> so what?
So, what I'm facing here is a nihilistic approach to learning. But you know what, this
is, or should be, a choice: if you don't think learning is important, just don't, and go
do something you find important. But when you try to deny the benefits of learning, and
come among teachers saying that learning is irrelevant, don't expect to get a cigar.
> The issue is whether kids, as a whole, were better educated
> in the past than they are now.
And they definitely were, considering that this has been the century of science and
technology. I can easily make the point that, except for science and technology, this
century has seen a significant deterioration of human knowledge, attitude and belief. A
century that saw two world wars, Nazism, Communism, widespread oppression, genocide,
can't have a lot of claim to cultural progress.
> This test, which was given to a small
> sample in the past, because in farm states of the past kids dropped
> out to work the farms, would not be a true gauge of the abilities of
> ALL kids of the past, while we think today of how ALL kids of today -
> since all go to school now - would do on the test.
That is no argument. Compare apples to apples: kids who *were* in eight grade then, to
kids who *are* in eight grade now. We are talking about comparative ability of EIGHT
GRADERS. We are not talking about "all" kids, nor are we talking about dropouts. We are
considering a SPECIFIC point about the relative readiness of eight graders to face their
contemporary worlds, now and then.
> That folks now are basically mentally retarded is not germane to the
> real issue - does the modern world suck - because for all we now folks
> were just as mentally retarded in the past - even though this test,
> limited as it was to a subset of all kids - would imply retardation
> was less common in the past.
This is totally irrelevant to the issue, try to stay focused. The issue is a specific
one: do eight graders today get evaluated to the same stern level that exam evaluated
them back in 1895 ?
> I am not nihilistic. I am actually snooty.
I don't know what you are, neither do I care. But I do see a nihilistic approach to
education in your writing, and here you go again, the very use ot the word "snooty" in
this context contributes to this.
> I think people should read
> good books, and I think that the inability to reason statistically is
> a dreadful failing among us. For examples. But I think much of the
> approach reflected in the ways of yore, shown in the posted test, are
> not going to lead to well-educated kiddies. I think that THEIR
> approach is below minimally acceptable standards - not that there
> should not be standards.
I'm sorry, statistics is a mathematical discipline, and there is no reasoning
"statistically" without knowing a fair amount of the underlying mathematics and
assumptions. You are right in that, outside of the mathematical sciences professions, I
see virtually no one using statistics the way it should be, and that happens because the
underlying mathematical knowledge is sorely missing, and that maybe because teachers seem
to be more worried about counting baseball cards or such other trifles than about
learning real math.
So, again, at least from where I'm looking at it, even 40 years seem to make a whole lot
of a difference.
> I assume you do not know how truly funny that sounds to my ear.
And I don't care. You know, I really think you should try to use that "I" word a bit less
frequently, it hinders communication.
> Do you have the saying: a wet bird never flies at night?
The cuteness is, to me, irrelevant. Running out of argument ?
> To me the two are comparably humorously devoid of any sense, but sound
> as if they are intended to be sensible. The contrast in tone and
> substance - makes me laugh.
Laugh as you will, your problem. But I'm here for solid argument, and I'm not sure I
heard much of it as well.
> >These are not rules. These are examples.
>
> An example is also a rule.
Hello ?
Now I really suggest you go back to your textbooks and read a bit more. Start with modern
logic and mathematics, learn about rules, inference, clauses, propositions, and so on.
Then come back and let's talk.
> It just has a narrow reach. The notion of
> rule is a bit slippery. That is sort of my point.
No, rules have nothing slippery about them. Some rules are a consequence of accumulated
knowledge. Some are established by common culture and belief. Some are established by
need.
And here, again, that nihilistic approach.
> Now, remember what
> the REAL point of posting this exam is. When someone does not know the
> rules which the old teacher had in mind, they will get a poor score on
> the test.
That teacher probably put out the rules during class and worked on them. If I come to my
class and spend one semester hacking over a textbook, I expect my students to know what's
in that textbook, and not to come out with their own little snippets drawn from their own
fertile immaginations. That simple - know it, learn it, and be tested on it.
> The poor score on the test will be taken as proof that old
> methods work better than new ones. But that is illogical.
Again, you totally miss the point. The issue is, compare what the test was to them to
what tests are now to us. Compare a math test where students actually had to work to get
it done, to today's multiple-choice tests, press a button and get done, and don't bother
me, and mostly, don't make me think.
I'm sorry, I'm a teacher, I've seen enough students with inadequate attitude around me.
> A poor score
> simply means that we have not been taught the categories the teacher
> wanted us to learn.
And I will have to assume that those categories were taught, or what's the point of
examining ? You are assuming a basic flaw in that exam, where there is precisely zero
evidence that it was at all the case. And you are doing that at the light that you,
today, can't answer some of those questions any longer, because you lack the context. But
the fact you lack it doesn't mean that the students of 1895 also lacked that context. If
anything can be drawn from the exam, that's there's a good reason to believe that those
students were taught that sort of thing. But while you yourself may be totally
disconnected from that reality, when I was a schoolboy I had teachers who were old enough
to have been young men back in 1895, and who still carried the tradition of those old
days, and I have been exposed to more than one textbook from that period.
> I had a teacher in grad school visiting from Cambridge, named Max
> Hamburg I think, and at one point he stopped, in total exasperation,
> and said: How in the world can you be such poor students yet turn out
> to be such great scientists?
And you know what, many don't. This country is full of little known foreigners, educated
abroad, who carry the baton. Open any professional journal, and count the number of
Chinese, Indian and Arabic names; then correlate them to their employer institutions, and
you will find that a high proportion of them are here in this country. So, the conceit is
unwanted and leads to a false appraisal of the situation.
> We had a strong independent streak. That is the answer. Mr. Hamburg
> also was always wanting to give us zeros.
You know, "we" includes a whole lot more than Harvard or MIT, and it even includes a
sizable proportion of us who don't even have a college degree. But while science advances
by leaps and bounds, everything else seems to be in regression; and I'm not even sure our
educational system of today is nearly as responsible for that advance as they pretend to
be.
> He expected us to track the frame he cast, and we wanted to question
> his frame, and to use our own frames.
>
> Again, it was a conflict between the old ways, with rigid order and
> discipline, and the new ways, with more free-for-all chaos and
> emphasis placed on originality.
I see nobody today with nearly as much originality as we have seen during the beginning
of this century. Those people, roughly in that time bracket - 1895, early 1900s - gave us
modern mathematics, modern physics, just to mention two cornerstones. Who among us have
displayed a fraction of the revolutionary originality displayed by Einstein, Cantor,
Frege, Russell, Turing, Church ? And you talk about "originality" ? Today's originality
pales at the light of the contributions of the nineteenth century and those of the
beginning of this century. Your statement is conceit and pretension, you know, and little
more. Yesterday for example I was reading in the newspaper that the Boeing 707 was
celebrating its 50th birthday. And you talk about modern originality ? All while the
Concorde, a very advanced concept, has been languishing because of the inability of our
modern world to take real originality. Back in the early sixties we put a man on the moon
- well, it's been almost forty years now, where's our originality ?
Conceit and pretension, I say.
> So I take your zero in the same spirit I took his exasperation: with
> amusement that I know what I am doing here, so don't you worry.
Again, I, I, I, I. Conceit and pretension. You know, I'm not sure we today have people
with the stature of those fathers of modernity.
> Education should lead the student to the ability to make his own good
> system. Education should guide you to being able to teach yourself
> after a while.
Indeed it should. But in order to teach myself, I need a whole lot of knowledge
underneath, nothing works in a vacuum. And much of that knowledge is not, and cannot be,
utilitarian.
> Our seemingly chaotic system, in the modern world, to wax this example
> again, makes us great scientists in the view of Mr. Hamburg/. But alas
> he was horrified with us as well. I think that our modern ways have
> advantages. You seem to have more affection for educational methods
> which have more predictable results.
As I said before, I see no one with even a fraction of the stature of some of the great
names of the nineteenth and early twentieth century scientists. What I do see is a
beehive approach, we move forward by inching like snails, and much of the evolution today
isn't so much scientific but technological. Our "modern" ways are generating a system
where our students are quickly falling behind their foreign counterparts, and
professional and higher learning slots are been filled by foreigners at an ever
increasing rate, while our kids, educated in our "modern" ways, go on flipping burgers.
I'm sorry, just look around yourself, the picture is pitiful.
> Now we are getting to what this test is REALLY about.
No, we're not, and again, you miss the point. The issue is, we're not demanding of your
kids at the level they demanded from our grandfathers back in 1895. So, new generations
are falling more and more behind.
> We have no way in this era to know what was intended in this exam, so
> that the poor raw score of today is not an indication that we are not
> as well=educated as folks were back then.
The poor raw score of today means that our students aren't putting up what the examiners
believe they should be. Furthermore, the strong trend towards a purely utilitarian,
dumbed down curriculum is, indeed, making us into a group of people who are less educated
as we should be. You can count on seeing somebody jumping at any demand for display of
real knowledge and culture, today, and saying that it is "not relevant", or "nonsense",
or that "I don't need it", or some other copout. And meanwhile, I'm hiring Chinese and
Indians, and going out to Canada and Europe to find professionals, because our cherished
modern system does not show the capability of filling the demand.
> We continue at right angles.
Indeed we do.
> I am merely urging skepticism myself - that we be skeptical of what
> our inability to answer this exam implies. We are converging on
> understanding each other at last.
Our inability to answer that precise exam means that we lack the context the exam was put
in. But that's not the point; the point is, write a contemporary exam to a comparable
level, can eight graders handle it ? Make they do that amount of computation in 75
minutes, do you really think they would do it and not cop out with "this is not
necessary", or "I need a calculator", or "who needs rote repetition anyway", or "what a
drudgery" ?
And then fast forward a few years, and they're my students at grad school, and they now
basically zero about high school math, let alone college math.
Pitiful. Actualy, frightening that our future lays in their hands. Reminds me of what
Nelson said before Trafalgar when he was given the list of his commanders, "I hope their
names frighten the enemy as much as they frighten me!"
> The point is that my inability to reach back into the head of that
> teacher does not mean that education was better then than now.
But that is *not* the point. The point is a comparison between the level then and the
level now, as judged by the relative context of the times.
> I do not denigrate the skill. I denigrate the parsing of the skill
> into a number of rules. I just want people to capitalize ok. How they
> get there is not such a concern to me.
I wrote on that before. I remit you again to the book I mentioned. And I only have to
read some of what passes today by papers - even in well known professional journals - to
see how this lack of concern translates in poor communication and low quality.
> I presume that since I find it useless, it will be useless as well to
> others.
Here's that word "I" again. A lot of other people, myself included, find it quite
useful. Try publishing anything, for that matter.
> I can not think of a good joke, to make fun of you unfairly, but I
> know that one lurks, wanting to fit into this spot.
>
> Enough of this odd talk.
Indeed. Have fun with your personal choices - but maybe you should refrain from trying to
push it on others ? Specially on your students, that is, if you actually do teach ?
Alberto.
Alberto
Loren Petrich wrote:
> English irregular verbs coming from German? ROTFL.
>
> English's irregular verbs are almost all *native*, and many of
> them can be traced back to Old English without much trouble. Given the
> similar grammatical patterns of other Germanic languages, especially the
> older ones, one extrapolates that the ancestral Germanic language had had
> these irregularities also.
Just rewind a bit further down in time. "Native" language in the British Isles
came from Celtic, Latin, Germanic, roots. Take your pick. I don't know much
Celtic, but many English verbs are definitely not Latin. If they're not
Germanic either, then, maybe they come from northwestern France's Celts ?
Alberto.
lojbab
hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) wrote:
> In article <8hllr6$te$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, lojbab <loj...@lojban.org>
wrote:
> >In article <393E4A49...@moreira.mv.com>,
> > Alberto <junk...@moreira.mv.com> wrote:
> >> "George Leroy Tyrebiter, Jr." wrote:
> >> It isn't mumbo jumbo crap, and many of those questions were
probably
> >directly
> >> relevant to the way people in Kansas lived back in the year of our
> >Lord 1895.
>
> >And many were not. The rules for orthography, definition of stanza,
> >and complete listing of the republics of Europe probably had little
> >relevance to a farm boy in Kansas.
>
> The farm boys in Kansas were expected to be quite literate,
> and that meant knowing the generally accepted as correct
> English. At that time, even the ones not literate were in
> agreement that there was such, not the present idea that
> the language is whatever is spoken by those in the gutter.
As someone else noted, knowing how to express oneself in a literate
manner is quite a different matter than being able to spout off a bunch
of memorized rules. But your comment here is not even relevant, since
the rules for orthography probably have to do do with the marking of
pronunciation in dictionaries, and neither the definition of stanza nor
the list of republics in Europe hace anything to do with the notion of
correctness of English. Please stay on topic, Herman.
> >> I see no idiotic questions. There's also an objective answer, as I
> >see it, for just about every one of those questions. Or maybe we're
> >lacking some reading skills here ?
>
> >An objective answer would require some objective standard.
>
> >> > >1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.
>
> >> > There is no set of nine rules. I can provide a set of four
rules, or
> >> > fourteen rules. The number of rules is arbitrary, a matter anyone
> >> > making up rules can arbitrarily determine.
>
> >> So, come out and give nine of them. There may be more, they're just
> >asking for nine rules. English isn't my native language, but I can
> >certainly come up with nine such rules for my native Portuguese.
>
> >How are you counting rules? Change the wording and you can write 1
> >rule as 100. But you can bet that there was a particular formulation
> >of rules required in answer to this question and any other answer was
> >wrong.
>
> Teachers in those days could understand different wordings
> and descriptions.
I am sure they could. The question is whether they would accept them.
> >> > God does not have Moses come down and decree - there are nine
rules
> >> > for the use of Capital Letters. Flunk the teacher, pal.
>
> >> Maybe some reading comprehension is needed here ? The question DOES
> >NOT say that there are exactly nine rules. The question says, give
nine
> >of them.
>
> >No, it does not use the word "of"
>
> I see the word "of" before the word "Capital". I also see
> no use of the definite article.
There is indeed no use of the definite article. The appearance of "of"
you mention is not the one we observe as being absent: the question
does not say as Alberto claimed "give nine of them"(the rules), but
simply "Give nine rules". If I faced that question on a test, then in
part because of the wording (which did not say "nine of the rules", and
the specific, sizeable for such a question, and odd number nine used in
that question, then I would expect that the curriculum taught exactly
nine such rules. If they did not have a specific set of rules in mind
which were expected to be rote memorized, a better wording would likely
have been "Give as many rules as you can for the use of capital
letters", although such a wording could be abused as well as another
poster showed.
> and, if you will trust our native
> >speaker instincts on this, it is perfectly clear that there were
> >precisely 9 rules that were expected to be known and parrotted back
in
> >response to this question.
>
> Not as this person, who supposedly has a reasonable
> understanding of the structure and the grammar of the
> English language, sees it. You may be right that they
> were expected to memorize a set of rules, and repeat
> them. But they also gave partial credit.
Now Herman, on what basis could you possibly know whether they gave
partial credit on this question? Do you have access to some
information that we do not have? I don't think you are QUITE old
enough to have taken the test yourself.
> >> > So what?
>
> >> So, spit back those Parts of Speech. Can you ? Can most students ?
>
> >The answer is that the answer is different depending on who you ask,
> >and was different THEN depending on who you asked (though there was
> >probably less disparity in opinion then).
>
> They also considered the answers, and gave partial credit.
Again, on what basis do you claim this factoid.
> However, the standard list of parts of speech, and this
> was not just memorized but used, was:
>
> nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs,
> prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections.
That is the standard set that was used when you were a kid; I am not
sure about 1895. It is also an incorrect description of English. It
excludes gerunds and articles and modals among other possibilities, and
conjoins verbs with auxiliaries and the copula, neither of which are
really verbs.
> I have studied some foreign languages to a greater or less
> extent, and have looked at some additional grammar; one of
> these languages is not Indo-European. I find the same
> list, although in some of the languages, the parts are
> attached to other words, and need separation to be seen
> as distinct objects.
You find the same list because until around 30-40 years ago, which
probably was after you completed your formal education, all languages
were analyzed as perversions of Latin and were described using Latinate
terminology. Indeed they still are for the most part, but now at least
they recognize that not all languages have all the same pieces; some
have things not found in Latin, and some are missing things that Latin
has. For example, English, contrary to what most of your generation
were taught, has no future tense; it uses an auxiliary that does not
act like the Latinate tenses.
> >> > >Arithmetic (Time, 1.25 hours)
>
> >> Note the time alloted, and the number of problems given, and the
work
> >they
> >> entail.
>
> >Which is relatively trivial if you know the conversion factors, and
> >impossible if not.
>
> The teaching of these conversion factors persisted well
> into this century. And they also gave partial credit.
Again, the latter is a claim without evidence. I'm sure they taught
the conversion factors. So what? It is still rote memorization, and
not the concepts that you insist are supposed to be taught in math
class.
> >to see current 8th grade standards test questions. They would not
have
> >4 or 5 such questions in an hour and a quarter, but rather 60
questions
> >or more, though only part of them would be computational (the rest
> >would be conceptual) in 3 hours.
>
> Conceptual? It takes a much longer time to answer a
> conceptual question. You are thinking of using rote
> definitions, and trivial application.
Rote definition is what the 1895 test is about - spit it out exactly as
you memorized it. If you look at the site with the sample questions,
they do not merely ask you to pick the definition from among multiple
choices (well, maybe they do for a couple, come to think of it), they
do indeed ask you to apply the definition. You can call the
application "trivial", but it remains an application, and it shows that
you understand the words and are not merely echoing them back without
thought.
> Fortunately, multiple choice tests were not in common
> use then, and they should be eliminated now to the
> extent possible. Teachers were expected to look at
> the work if the answer was wrong, and to decide how
> much of the work was correct. A multiple choice
> examination ignores this.
I would sometime like to see you look at the TIMSS advanced math
questions, many of which were multiple choice. They were well-crafted
questions such that the most common misunderstandings of the concepts
would lead to the incorrect choices among the multiple choices. These
are multiple choice questions where I believe in some cases kids scored
below chance. They also did have some questions to be worked out as
well - all in all an excellent model for a test, IMHO.
> >> > This is rote learning at its very worst.
>
> I agree.
Wow!
> Considering the difficulty the elementary school teachers
> when the New Math was introduced had with it, I would put
> these eighth graders and their teachers ahead of them.
On what basis? Do you know what these rules of arithmetic were that
they had to memorize?
It happens that right here beside me, I have an 1880 edition of Ray's
Higher Arithmetic, a typical arithmetic textbook, that might have been
used in schools of that day, though I don't know if this particular
Kansas county used it in 1895. In this textbook, "rule" means
"algorithm", and the "rules for arithmetic" are given throughout the
book as rather precisely (though not mathematically formally) stated
multistep algorithms for each of the operations that are taught in the
book. For example:
Rule for Numeration. - 1. Begin at the right, and point the number into
periods of three figures each.
2. Commence at the left, and read in succession each period with its
name.
Rule for Cancellation. 1. Indicate the multiplications which produce
the dividend, and those if any which produce the divisor.
2. Cancel equal factors from dividend and divosr; multiply together
the factors remaining in the dividend, and divide the product by the
product of the factors left in the divisor.
etc.
> In these particular
> >examples, the math content is especially minimal compared to the
> >application knowledge, most of which is definitions and conversion
> >factors, rather than the model-making that math teacher would like to
> >see kids doing in the math class in solving an application. Herman
is
> >always talking about the good old days when math concepts were
taught,
> >and taught supposedly to kids much younger than today.
>
> Math concepts were only taught in elementary schools, except
> during the new math period, by being applied.
Well this is nominally the final exam from such elementary school
teaching. I somehow doubt that one would find a Kansas 8th grader
understanding the concepts of cardinal, ordinal, or induction, or the
linguistic use of mathematical variables (your favorite bugaboo), none
of which I think treads into anything particularly 20th century.
> They were taught in high school in those days;
No they weren't. I have high school books too. They studied algebra,
but it was solution of 1st and 2nd degree equations and their
applications - nothing much harder than the quadratic formula.
Geometry was generally studied directly from Euclid, but only by maybe
20% of high school students, who of course were less than 10% of the
population. Trigonometry was a college subject in 1895; I have a
textbook for that subject as well.
> I do not consider
> this a good mathematics test, but except for the conversion
> factors, it is quite similar to what is expected in doing
> word problems before algebra is taught today.
No it is not. You haven't looked at the word problems of today, many
of which typically by 4th grade or so require you to use some kind of
simple modelling technique, whether it be a picture, a table, guess and
check, and of course by direct solution, since they now call algebraic
solution "pre-algebra" these days.
> It is an
> applied arithmetic test, primarily. But the present use
> of meaningless drill is certainly no better.
Look at the sample tests on the site I gave, and say that. I'm sure
they are not up to your standards, but they are certainly a few grade
levels above this test.
> However, there was an expectation that working concepts
> were formed, and that is present here.
Can you present us with the reasoning by which you claim that these
working concepts are present here? And then having done so, please
explain why you think that they are NOT present in the standard
classroom of today.
> Well these were
> >the good old days, and you can see from this test that there is
hardly
> >a "math concept" in evidence in the math portion of the test, at
least
> >in terms that a 19th century (much less a 20th century) mathematician
> >or scientist would understand as such.
>
> As I said, I agree. Nor is there now before the
> introduction of algebraic concepts.
False.
> But there is
> the expectation of the ability to use structure.
I don't see it.
George Leroy Tyrebiter, Jr.
wrote:
Hey - it's your concept. I was just being polite and following your
thought. You talked about fitting the need of the times - which I call
scaling - instead of using raw scores.
>
>> The posters LITERALLY want to know how many questions we get right.
>
>No, I don't think so. But you're free to ask them. Wasn't it Herman who put it out ? He's
>a college professor, I'm sure he knows better.
ALberto, I know where this test fits into a political debate in this
country, because I have been involved in thousands of political
debates here, and I have heard similar references many times. I deduce
the game from previous skirmishes. I imagine that Herman;s motive (if
he posted it) was in fact to wage a cultural war, claiming that the
old, more disciplined approach, makes kids learn more than our
permissive, sinful modern ways. But I could be wrong about Herman. I
do not know him. But I do not think I am wrong about where this test
fits in the overall political struggle here.
I could be wrong. Just as I could be wrong about what a fist raised by
a driver means. But I don't think so.
In any event, my purpose was to undercut what I take to be the
underlying argument - that kids learned more in the old days than they
learn today. I also argue that an Authoritarian style of teaching in
not necessarily the best route to learning.
If you don't like the way I construe the issue posed, then you and I
are simply talking about different things. Sorry.
>
>> To make the point that we are less well educated.
>
>And that point is made, roundly and directly.
Well, again the only objective measure we have of how much kids in the
old days learned, compared to kids now, would be scores on IQ tests.
That is because they were the only tests given to representative
samples. I know that answers to IQ questions is a poor measure of how
much you have learned. But it may be related. And on that measure,
kids today, contrary to common belief, are vastly superior to kids of
old - a full two standard deviations better than long ago.
>
>>
>Take that exam, translate to modern parlance. I don't care what you put in there, as long
>as you keep the mathematical and scientific content at the same level: seven and a half
>minutes per question, each involving a healthy dose of computation, no calculators or
>computers, and a few key items of required memorization. Take the dates and names who
>were relevant in 1895, replace by names and dates relevant to us today, try replacing
>Morse by Churchill and inserting dates such as 1941 and 1945 into it. Try taking those
>rules of punctuation and converting into something really necessary today - for example,
>someone posted, as a professional editor, on the need to know a lot of that jazz, and
>even more. Then give it to today's 8th grade students and see what happens.
What would that prove? Today all kids are in the 8th grade. In the
past only a subset of kids were in the 8th grade. You can not compare
(all) kids of yesterday with (all) kids of today by comparing scores
of (basically all) kids today with (some) kids of yesterday.
At least, I can not think of a good way to do that.
....
.....
>
>> This test relates to a cultural war between the traditionalists and
>> the modernists.
>
>No, it relates to a cultural war between those of us who believe in strong academics and
>cultural bias, and those who believe in fun and games and easy-street.
The two are not necessarily incompatible. I taught myself many things
in high school which were not required because they were fun.
I am a big fan of rigor. I have not said we should have low standards.
I merely point out that our educational system today has NOT been
shown to perform worse than it did in the past. It is a love for rigor
which leads me to be skeptical of the claim of the traditionalists. I
insist on proof for the assertion that kids today learn less than did
kids long ago. I have a hunch that this is one of those things that
"everybody knows" but which is just wrong.
Posting this exam as proof of the inferiority of current schools shows
a lack of rigorous logic.
You like rigor - don't you?
So your complaints, at least as far as they might apply to me, are
misguided.
I for example am
>in my fifities, I wasn't educated in this generation. But I had the good luck of getting
>my children into top learning institutions in this country, so I know that strong
>academics are alive and thriving, here and now, and because of the inevitable advance of
>science and knowledge, those places will be teaching more and better than the places
>where I myself was educated. But the problem is, those places are getting fewer and fewer
>in proportion to the alarming growth of a permissive and nihilistic approach to education
>where knowledge is derided and anyone can confront a knowledgeable person and say, "get
>out of here, I don't need what you teach" - even while not having a clue not only about
>what that teacher is trying to teach, but not even about where in the big picture that
>subject fits.
I am with you. I was lucky enough to go to the very best of those
places you refer to, where students would scream in class at other
students speaking in an intellectually sloppy way, forcing them to sit
down. That was not cruel, because we all were talented. It simply
sharpened colleagues to the ethic of rigor. I want MORE rigor, and
HIGHER standards.
But how we get there is perhaps debatable.
We continue to talk past each other I think.
>> so what?
>
>So, what I'm facing here is a nihilistic approach to learning. But you know what, this
>is, or should be, a choice: if you don't think learning is important, just don't, and go
>do something you find important. But when you try to deny the benefits of learning, and
>come among teachers saying that learning is irrelevant, don't expect to get a cigar.
>
>> The issue is whether kids, as a whole, were better educated
>> in the past than they are now.
>
>And they definitely were, considering that this has been the century of science and
>technology. I can easily make the point that, except for science and technology, this
>century has seen a significant deterioration of human knowledge, attitude and belief. A
>century that saw two world wars, Nazism, Communism, widespread oppression, genocide,
>can't have a lot of claim to cultural progress.
If this case is easy to make, please make it.
I want real answers rising beyond anecdotes, and beyond descriptions
of possibly atypical small groups.
>
>> This test, which was given to a small
>> sample in the past, because in farm states of the past kids dropped
>> out to work the farms, would not be a true gauge of the abilities of
>> ALL kids of the past, while we think today of how ALL kids of today -
>> since all go to school now - would do on the test.
>
>That is no argument. Compare apples to apples: kids who *were* in eight grade then, to
>kids who *are* in eight grade now.
No. The kids in the eighth grade in the past were the brighter ones.
Any superior scores of those kids might be because of educational
methods, or it might be because the kids are just a group of smart
folks who would do better with any method of education.
If you weigh the fish actually in boats in the last century, when
fishing was primarily for salmon, and compare the average weight to
fish actually in boats today, when fishing for Peruvian anchovies is
common, then you will say: see, the aquaculture of the past produced
much bigger fish than the aquaculture of today does.
That is not a good way to test - limiting the test to those actually
in the boats. We need to compare all fish with all fish, in the boats
or not.
Only then can we gauge whether our current aquaculture regime is doing
a better or worse job than it did in the past.
Of course, you could argue that even with salmon, your methods are
superior, and that would be valid. But compare salmon to salmon. Not
boats of salmon with boats of anchovies.
We are focusing on whether the school system churns out better
educated kids then or now. From my perspective.
We are talking about comparative ability of EIGHT
>GRADERS. We are not talking about "all" kids, nor are we talking about dropouts. We are
>considering a SPECIFIC point about the relative readiness of eight graders to face their
>contemporary worlds, now and then.
I'm not. I am talking about the relative readiness of kids.
But if you can compare fairly comparable kids of yore with those
today, then you can persuade me that old methods of education are
possiblyc superior, and are worth testing to see if the superior
results with a subset will be superior for the masses as well.
>> That folks now are basically mentally retarded is not germane to the
>> real issue - does the modern world suck - because for all we now folks
>> were just as mentally retarded in the past - even though this test,
>> limited as it was to a subset of all kids - would imply retardation
>> was less common in the past.
>
>This is totally irrelevant to the issue, try to stay focused. The issue is a specific
>one: do eight graders today get evaluated to the same stern level that exam evaluated
>them back in 1895 ?
We are in different conceptual rooms.
>
>> I am not nihilistic. I am actually snooty.
>
>I don't know what you are, neither do I care. But I do see a nihilistic approach to
>education in your writing, and here you go again, the very use ot the word "snooty" in
>this context contributes to this.
It is sinful to feel as I do that my way is the best way, that I have
peculiarly superior high standards. But I can not deny my sinful ways.
So you are right in that you have detected an egalitarian prejudice in
one part of me, which makes me feel guilt, but you are wrong when you
conclude that I favor low standards. I want standard higher than we
have.
That is why I complain when this test is said to reflect proof that
education in the past was better than it is today.
That logic is beneath my high standards. I assert, in my snooty way,
that I logic better than you do. Forgive me for my sins, please.
>
>> I think people should read
>> good books, and I think that the inability to reason statistically is
>> a dreadful failing among us. For examples. But I think much of the
>> approach reflected in the ways of yore, shown in the posted test, are
>> not going to lead to well-educated kiddies. I think that THEIR
>> approach is below minimally acceptable standards - not that there
>> should not be standards.
>
>I'm sorry, statistics is a mathematical discipline, and there is no reasoning
>"statistically" without knowing a fair amount of the underlying mathematics and
>assumptions. You are right in that, outside of the mathematical sciences professions, I
>see virtually no one using statistics the way it should be,
We do not see appropriate statistical reasoning in everyday reasoning.
I am not talking about calculations of the statistical significance of
scientific results. Here is an example: comparing a test given to some
kids with the same test given to all kids, making conclusions about
the educational levels of all kids in the first universe with all kids
in the second universe.
That is a "statistical reasoning" error.
Thinking that Bill Clinton is a crook because Ken Starr finds eight
sins in his past is an error of everyday reasoning, which I think of
as an error in statistical reasoning. We must compare the number of
sins found in CLinton vs another person CONTROLLING for how much
effort was expended to find sins. Folks forget to do the CONTROL
adjustment.
Humans are incredibly flawed in some reasoning tasks. For instance, on
CSPAN I saw folks testifying that their kids took a measles
vaccination and then symptoms of autism appeared. I assume that that
is purely a coincidence, and does not reflect a causal relationship.
But these parents are convinced that the shot caused the autism.
and that happens because the
>underlying mathematical knowledge is sorely missing, and that maybe because teachers seem
>to be more worried about counting baseball cards or such other trifles than about
>learning real math.
>
>So, again, at least from where I'm looking at it, even 40 years seem to make a whole lot
>of a difference.
>
>> I assume you do not know how truly funny that sounds to my ear.
>
>And I don't care. You know, I really think you should try to use that "I" word a bit less
>frequently, it hinders communication.
>
>> Do you have the saying: a wet bird never flies at night?
>
>The cuteness is, to me, irrelevant. Running out of argument ?
No. I got bored and thought we might exchange pleasantries, to form a
human bond. I enjoyed your words and sought to get closer.
We continue to talk past each other.
>
>> To me the two are comparably humorously devoid of any sense, but sound
>> as if they are intended to be sensible. The contrast in tone and
>> substance - makes me laugh.
>
>Laugh as you will, your problem. But I'm here for solid argument, and I'm not sure I
>heard much of it as well.
My fault. Maybe I have done better this time.
>
>> >These are not rules. These are examples.
>>
>> An example is also a rule.
>
>Hello ?
>
>Now I really suggest you go back to your textbooks and read a bit more. Start with modern
>logic and mathematics, learn about rules, inference, clauses, propositions, and so on.
>Then come back and let's talk.
A rule can be an example in my mathematical book. This is a rule: the
set X contains one item: the country commonly referred to as Portugal.
We argue about definition, pointless.
>
>> It just has a narrow reach. The notion of
>> rule is a bit slippery. That is sort of my point.
>
>No, rules have nothing slippery about them. Some rules are a consequence of accumulated
>knowledge. Some are established by common culture and belief. Some are established by
>need.
Some rules are in this form: the set X contains one item: the country
commonly referred to as Portugal.
A word means what I want it to, nothing more and nothing less. Humpty
Dumpty said that, but his words were actually written by a
mathematician.
But now we now what we mean, so we can avoid further confusion.
>
>And here, again, that nihilistic approach.
I would prefer to put it this way: a good education teaches you to
pursue the truth, even if others disagree with you.
Follow logic, and not just consensus.
Look - I am sure that you and I actually agree on almost all of this,
and we are slipping past each other through sloppiness of defining our
terms.
Enough. I have had my fun.
George Leroy Tyrebiter, Jr.
jj, curmudgeon and tiring philalethist
Loren Petrich <pet...@netcom.com> wrote:
> What would you prefer? Some sort of "English Academy" that
>decides what is correct English? Sort of like the French Academy.
Yeah, let's call it the Acadamie Anglais, too, ok? :_)
--
Copyright j...@research.att.com 2000, all rights reserved, except transmission
by USENET and like facilities granted. This notice must be included. Any
use by a provider charging in any way for the IP represented in and by this
article and any inclusion in print or other media are specifically prohibited.
jj, curmudgeon and tiring philalethist
apart. I guess it depends on "what German" they mean.
> English's irregular verbs are almost all *native*, and many of
>them can be traced back to Old English without much trouble. Given the
>similar grammatical patterns of other Germanic languages, especially the
>older ones, one extrapolates that the ancestral Germanic language had had
>these irregularities also.
Quite true, this is what I'm saying, too. AT that level, you can
say it came from German, just not modern-day German. You may
agree with the other fellow yet :-)
jj, curmudgeon and tiring philalethist
George Leroy Tyrebiter, Jr. <tyre...@workOMITmail.com> wrote:
Yes, but I don't have to boil willow bark when somebody has
a fever any more, do I?
(I know GLT isn't disagreeing here, but it had to be said.)
jj, curmudgeon and tiring philalethist
Alberto <junk...@moreira.mv.com> wrote:
>Just rewind a bit further down in time. "Native" language in the British Isles
>came from Celtic, Latin, Germanic, roots. Take your pick. I don't know much
>Celtic, but many English verbs are definitely not Latin. If they're not
>Germanic either, then, maybe they come from northwestern France's Celts ?
Well, things with "gh", etc, are from the Gaels, very often.
The Saxons seem to have contributed an astonishing number of the
short, intensely descriptive words that are somewhat unwelcome
in polite society.
The number of words from the Anglic are pretty small if I remember
correctly, Latin, more modern German, Gael and Brythonic languages,
French, Manx (Can't recall if that's Gael or Brython), and all
sorts of languages from around the globe have worked their way
into modern "English". (of either UK or US variety)
lojbab
Alberto <junk...@moreira.mv.com> wrote:
> You can call whatever you want "rote", and it makes no difference
> whatsoever. What you cannot escape is, there are things in
mathematics that
> we MUST memorize, period, no ifs and no buts. Better memorize a few
rules
> than a lot of tables, even better if the rules are rational enough
that they
> agree with our mindset and we don't have to memorize them because we
rather
> intuitively interiorize them. And Herman notwithstanding, I do not
believe
> it is possible to learn math, specially in K12, without a healthy
dose of
> memorization. If there's one thing I definitely do not believe, is
this
> "concept" illusion that's in vogue in this ng.
Well, I sure the heck wish that you and herman would settle that one
between you, since he is the concept fanatic, and you are the one who
says that you see no place for applications in the math classroom. He
sees formulation of unfamiliar applications as being exactly
appropriate - you almost have directly opposite conceptions about how
to teach the subject.
Now how would a naive parent (under vouchers) or voter (seeking school
reform) choose between you?
> > You have now completely lost me with your comment on the last few,
> > Alberto. You more than anyone else have been the one who has said
that
> > application has no place in the mathematics class.
>
> Yes. But that's not what I'm arguing here.
>
> I'm arguing against an extreme, inflammatory, almost nonsensical,
> troll-tasting, point, that the test is "nonsense".
Please go back up through the thread. In context, the test is
"nonsense" because of the claim that however good a test it was for
1895 Kansas students, PhDs and Masters degree students today (depending
on which incarnation of the posting of the test) would not be able to
past it. As a test for students today it is nonsense; I think your
comments in response to me seem to agree with that. The tests and
standards used for students today, even if they are not what you would
like them to be, are much more difficult, and much more suited to our
times, than this test.
> So, what today is clearly needed, that is, a fundamental tilt towards
> science and technology, may not have been necessary then, because they
> didn't have much of the stuff. Times change, and need changes with
times.
Try the VA science exams on the sample test site I posted. I had to
think carefully about the genetics questions on the 8th grade exam
which was the only section I tried.
> And you know what, the amount of arithmetic manipulation demanded
from the
> student during those 75 minutes is something I feel our students today
> sorely need.
Again, try a current math standards test and while the test is multiple
choice, I suspect that you will indeed have to do a fair amount of
manipulation to get the answers, and the tests are usually more like 3
hours long.
> Again, that is far from the point I'm trying to make. What I'm saying
is,
> that exam seems to have had a decent fit to the needs of those days.
But it is not useful as a measure for how good or bad the schools of
today are, and those who post the test are trying to denigrate today's
schools because today's kids don't know those conversion factors and
rules of orthography and arithmetic, and THAT is what the other poster
called "nonsense".
>Today's
> exams, as I see them, have a very poor fit to today's needs.
I haven't seen much sign that you have looked at today's exams.
Herman Rubin
Alberto <junk...@moreira.mv.com> wrote:
>lojbab wrote:
>> Sorry, Alberto, but this is baloney. In another post I have referred
>> people to
>> http://demo.edutest.com/demo/
>I went there and took a quick look at the Florida 8th grade math test. I
>only looked at the first batch, I don't have much pacience for this sort of
>thing.
>Let me put it this way. By the end of the 8th grade, I had had one full year
>of algebra; one semester of proof-based geometry; I could solve equations of
>the first degree and systems of two or even three linear equations of two
>and three variables. I had studied proportions and could handle things like
>if a/b = c/d then a/b = (a+c)/(b+d).
This would correspond, around 1940, to the 10th grade in the
college preparatory program. That would have more geometry
and less algebra.
>So I look at the test. First question: naive extrapolation: two columns, the
>first increases by one, the second by minus three, what's the value of the
>second column if the first column goes to umpteen ? Zero math in it, just
>plain naive inference.
>Second question: pure arithmetic, last time I had done that kind of thing
>was in fifth grade.
>Third, fourth questions: same thing.
>Last questions: lots of pretty colors, green, yellow, little men, tables,
>and what not: plenty of snow to confuse the unwary. Mathematical content:
>near zero.
I also looked at the test. My opinion is not as low as that
of Alberto, but it is not high, either. And the test would
be far better if it was not multiple choice; too many hints.
On the last question, the equation should not have been
given. The question becomes routine manipulation.
>Is that the kind of exam you're proposing ? Sorry, no cigar. I didn't
>continue, if the rest is the same, I can do without it.
This is what is happening. The 1895 test had more thinking,
and an important part was that problems involved several
parts, and had no hints about the answers. Of course, it
could not be graded by machines.
Herman Rubin
Loren Petrich <pet...@netcom.com> wrote:
>In article <8hm45t$13...@odds.stat.purdue.edu>,
>Herman Rubin <hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu> wrote:
>>In article <8hllr6$te$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, lojbab <loj...@lojban.org> wrote:
>>>And many were not. The rules for orthography, definition of stanza,
>>>and complete listing of the republics of Europe probably had little
>>>relevance to a farm boy in Kansas.
>>The farm boys in Kansas were expected to be quite literate,
>>and that meant knowing the generally accepted as correct
>>English. At that time, even the ones not literate were in
>>agreement that there was such, not the present idea that
>>the language is whatever is spoken by those in the gutter.
> What would you prefer? Some sort of "English Academy" that
>decides what is correct English? Sort of like the French Academy.
We never had that, and we still had considerable agreement
about what was correct English. The rules of English do
not change that rapidly, except for some of the spellings
and pronunciations, and not even these. The French Academy
spends most of its time trying to keep out "foreign words",
which was never the case in English.
Immigrant parents, like mine, expected the schools to teach
us correct English. Foreign students do a rather mixed job
of this, as many have difficulties with pronunciation,
largely because our pronunciation involves sounds or sound
combinations they have not learned to produce, and some
grammatical problems, because their languages do not have
the distinctions. Yet they do better than at least a large
proportion of American college students.
Some of the parents of those Kansas farm children may not
have had this level of education, but they wanted their
children to be able to compete. Those who say that
children do not need something because they do not know
it are anti-educational.
mahabarbara
In article <8hn83j$95e$1...@slb0.atl.mindspring.net>,
pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) wrote:
>In article <8hlvcd$2d...@odds.stat.purdue.edu>,
>Herman Rubin <hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu> wrote:
>>In article <8hjv1s$hbk$1...@slb7.atl.mindspring.net>,
>>Loren Petrich <pet...@netcom.com> wrote:
>
>>Again, what is wrong with the question? Almost all of the
>>irregular verbs in English all come from German, and have
>>the same type of irregularity there, and the use of
>>"principal parts" comes from German. It reduces almost all
>>of irregular verbs to memorizing THREE parts, not all.
>
>
>them can be traced back to Old English without much trouble.
English is not a "native" language to Britain. The native
languages are the Celtic languages, and there's not that much
influence of Celtic in English. And I thought "old" English WAS
German, until the Normans showed up and Frenchified it. The
original English, the Angles and Saxons, were Germans.
I dimly remember from English Lit I (I think Beowulf had just
been
published <g>) that for a time English and German were so closely
related people speaking the two languages could understand each
other. That was way before Chaucer, of course.
Modern English is so bastardized, however, IMO there's no point
blaming anyone else for it. <g> It is what it is.
<snips>
>
>>>>7. Name all the republics of Europe and give capital of
each.
>>> And the monarchies?
>>Answer the questions. My knowledge of European history is
>>not fantastic, but I seem only to be able to come up with
>>two republics at that time, unless San Marino counts.
>
> The interesting question is what had counted as "republics" to
>the test designers. Did they mean nations in general, or did
they mean
>nations without a monarch?
>
> At the present day, the question would be complicated by
>constitutional monarchies, which are essentially de facto
republics.
Yes. Some of us have independently determined that in 1895
France,
Switzerland, and San Marino were honest-to-gosh republics, but I
haven't been able to come up with any more.
<snips>
Cymru am bydd,
Loren Petrich
Alberto <junk...@moreira.mv.com> wrote:
>That's not the issue. The issue is whether we're driving our students as hard as they
>used to drive us.
But what's the point? Work for the sake of work? Digging holes
and then filling them up again?
Some of the problems, IMO, are certainly worth testing on, even
if they need updating. For example, an up-to-date version of some of the
math problems would be:
The size of a six-pack of beer is #*#*#, and the size of a
certain truck trailer is #*#*# (fill in the numbers appropriately). How
many cans of beer can that truck hold?
[...]
One of the criticisms made of present-day education was reliance
on multiple-choice questions; however simplistic they may be, they are
relatively easy to grade in an automatic fashion. Testing for the ability
to write a coherent or meaningful essay is much harder to grade in such a
fashion, because Artificial Intelligence is far behind some of its earlier
goals.
However, there are still deficiencies in that 1895 test that
others have pointed out, such as relying on reciting rules at the expense
of demonstrating mastery of them. For example, with capitalization,
students could be shown some text with capitalization errors and be asked
to point out those errors.
Loren Petrich
>> English irregular verbs coming from German? ROTFL.
>> English's irregular verbs are almost all *native*, ...
>Just rewind a bit further down in time. "Native" language in the British Isles
>came from Celtic, Latin, Germanic, roots. Take your pick. I don't know much
>Celtic, but many English verbs are definitely not Latin. If they're not
>Germanic either, then, maybe they come from northwestern France's Celts ?
True, English has a lot of borrowed vocabulary, but its basic
vocabulary and grammar have solidly Germanic roots.
Herman Rubin
Loren Petrich <pet...@netcom.com> wrote:
>In article <8hlvcd$2d...@odds.stat.purdue.edu>,
>Herman Rubin <hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu> wrote:
>>In article <8hjv1s$hbk$1...@slb7.atl.mindspring.net>,
>>Loren Petrich <pet...@netcom.com> wrote:
>>Again, what is wrong with the question? Almost all of the
>>irregular verbs in English all come from German, and have
>>the same type of irregularity there, and the use of
>>"principal parts" comes from German. It reduces almost all
>>of irregular verbs to memorizing THREE parts, not all.
> English irregular verbs coming from German? ROTFL.
> English's irregular verbs are almost all *native*, and many of
>them can be traced back to Old English without much trouble. Given the
>similar grammatical patterns of other Germanic languages, especially the
>older ones, one extrapolates that the ancestral Germanic language had had
>these irregularities also.
Old English IS a version of old German. The larger part
of the English vocabulary, coming essentially from Norman
French, consists almost entirely of regular forms.
And it is still true that the three principal parts are
adequate to handle all the forms of verbs with very few
exceptions.
>>> English has a possessive suffix, and its pronouns have cases that
>>>could be called nominative (subject only) and oblique (everything else).
>>English does have a grammatical distinction, not in the
>>form of the word but in how it is used, between dative,
>>accusative, and prepositional. ...
> That's syntax, and not a "true" case system of morphology. That
>reminds me of something I once read, that there was some Italian
>grammarian who posited that (modern) Italian had all 6 of Latin's cases -
>constructed with prepositions, and the interjection "o" for the vocative.
It is not morphology, to be sure. But the cases are effectively
there, and there are rules about their usage.
>>>>3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
>>> Useful for lots of things.
>>This would certainly not be an acceptable answer.
> I was annoyed at what seemed like a silly question.
Is it a silly question? I do not see this at all. Students
then were expected to be able to list quite a few of the
uses of them. In those days, rivers and oceans were among
the main shipping arteries. And in Kansas, rivers were a
principal source of water supply.
>>>>7. Name all the republics of Europe and give capital of each.
>>> And the monarchies?
>>Answer the questions. My knowledge of European history is
>>not fantastic, but I seem only to be able to come up with
>>two republics at that time, unless San Marino counts.
> The interesting question is what had counted as "republics" to
>the test designers. Did they mean nations in general, or did they mean
>nations without a monarch?
I would surmise from the question that they meant the latter.
They did not delight in trick questions, and would have said
"countries" otherwise.
> At the present day, the question would be complicated by
>constitutional monarchies, which are essentially de facto republics.
There were constitutional monarchies then, and I very much
doubt that in those days they would have been considered
republics. Americans in those days considered tha absence
of a monarch to be important, and in none of the monarchies
were the monarchs mere figureheads then.
>>>>9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to
>>>>the sources of rivers.
>>> Evaporation and being blown in the wind.
>>You left out a very important part, precipitation.
> I concede my incompleteness. Not only rain and snow, but seeping
>into the ground.
--
jj, curmudgeon and tiring philalethist
mahabarbara <bobrien...@scholastic.com.invalid> wrote:
>English is not a "native" language to Britain. The native
>languages are the Celtic languages, and there's not that much
PICTISH. The native languages as far as anyone knows, at least
after the last ice age, are PICTISH, and that doesn't account
for the moundbuilders and the people who built stonehenge,
which came pre-pict.
The Celts first drove off, then assimilated the Picts. There were
two main branches of Celt, too, the Gaels (Scots, Irish, ?manx?)
and the Brythons (Welsh, Cornish, ?channel islands?).
I've got a decently researched book at home on all of this
language stuff.
Loren Petrich
>In article <8hm45t$13...@odds.stat.purdue.edu>,
> hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) wrote:
>> nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs,
>> prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections.
>That is the standard set that was used when you were a kid; I am not
>sure about 1895. It is also an incorrect description of English. It
>excludes gerunds and articles and modals among other possibilities, and
>conjoins verbs with auxiliaries and the copula, neither of which are
>really verbs.
I think that that's absurd. Modals, auxiliaries, and the copula
all act like verbs, as some simple conjugation demonstrates.
Articles are a kind of adjective, since they modify nouns. Geruns
are verbal nouns or adjectives or adverbs, depending on the context.
> ... . For example, English, contrary to what most of your generation
>were taught, has no future tense; it uses an auxiliary that does not
>act like the Latinate tenses.
How is having auxiliary verbs such a big difference? And on that
subject, Latin does have some auxiliary-verb use, and even some its
non-compound forms seem to have to have once been compound ones with the
auxiliary turned into a suffix (the tenses with -b-, for example).
And as to verb tenses, English has more than Latin does, though
most of them are compound and formed in a regular fashion.
>> The teaching of these conversion factors persisted well
>> into this century. And they also gave partial credit.
>Again, the latter is a claim without evidence. I'm sure they taught
>the conversion factors. So what? It is still rote memorization, and
>not the concepts that you insist are supposed to be taught in math
>class.
I think that Mr. Rubin is defending that test as part of some
imagined Good Old Days. However, it's clear that this Good Old Days, like
so many others, was far from good, even by his standards.
Loren Petrich
jj, curmudgeon and tiring philalethist <j...@research.att.com> wrote:
>In article <8hn83j$95e$1...@slb0.atl.mindspring.net>,
>Loren Petrich <pet...@netcom.com> wrote:
>> English irregular verbs coming from German? ROTFL.
>apart. I guess it depends on "what German" they mean.
I may have been too pedantic about what is and is not German.
>> English's irregular verbs are almost all *native*, and many of
>>them can be traced back to Old English without much trouble. Given the
>>similar grammatical patterns of other Germanic languages, especially the
>>older ones, one extrapolates that the ancestral Germanic language had had
>>these irregularities also.
>Quite true, this is what I'm saying, too. AT that level, you can
>say it came from German, just not modern-day German. You may
>agree with the other fellow yet :-)
However, I had been thinking in terms of modern German; I was
trying to make a clear distinction between it and ancestral Germanic.
Loren Petrich
mahabarbara <bobrien...@scholastic.com.invalid> wrote:
>In article <8hn83j$95e$1...@slb0.atl.mindspring.net>,
>English is not a "native" language to Britain. The native
>languages are the Celtic languages, and there's not that much
>influence of Celtic in English.
Celtic is also an import. It is an Indo-European language like
English itself, and the ancestral Indo-European homeland was not likely
to have been England -- the best guess for it is in the western Ukraine
and south European Russia about 6000 years ago.
> And I thought "old" English WAS
>German, until the Normans showed up and Frenchified it. The
>original English, the Angles and Saxons, were Germans.
It was a more pure Germanic language, yes, but to call it
"German" is to me rather confusing. More German-like in some ways, but
not German strictly speaking.
Loren Petrich
mahabarbara <bobrien...@scholastic.com.invalid> wrote:
>In article <8hn83j$95e$1...@slb0.atl.mindspring.net>,
>pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) wrote:
>> English's irregular verbs are almost all *native*, and many of
>>them can be traced back to Old English without much trouble.
>English is not a "native" language to Britain.
True, English had been brought to Britain by outsiders, but I had
meant "native" in the sense of being transmitted down the generations of
speakers, rather than being borrowed.
> The native
>languages are the Celtic languages, and there's not that much
>influence of Celtic in English. And I thought "old" English WAS
>German, until the Normans showed up and Frenchified it. The
>original English, the Angles and Saxons, were Germans.
Though English has numerous borrowings, its basic vocabulary and
grammar are recognizably Germanic -- there's essentially no Old French
influence there. The main exception seems to be some borrowed Latin
plurals, but they are treated as irregular English plurals, with most of
the Latin declension being ignored as not fitting English grammar.
Consider the verbs. English has a simple present and a simple past
tense -- and no other simple tenses. English also has "strong" and "weak"
ways of constructing verb forms. The former has vowel shifts, while the
latter has the familiar -ed suffix. All of these features are shared with
other Germanic languages -- and none of them with Latin or the Romance
ones.
So it's clear that English has not borrowed Old French ways of
constructing verbs -- and has fit borrowed ones into the -ed mold.
Bill Bonde
And, over time, the strong verb forms are lost and regularized.
> All of these features are shared with
> other Germanic languages -- and none of them with Latin or the Romance
> ones.
>
> So it's clear that English has not borrowed Old French ways of
> constructing verbs -- and has fit borrowed ones into the -ed mold.
>
It is more difficult to share grammar than words. English is clearly a
germanic language. Romanian, for example, is a Romance language with
massive slavic borrowings.
Alberto
"George Leroy Tyrebiter, Jr." wrote:
> ALberto, I know where this test fits into a political debate in this
> country, because I have been involved in thousands of political
> debates here, and I have heard similar references many times. I deduce
> the game from previous skirmishes. I imagine that Herman;s motive (if
> he posted it) was in fact to wage a cultural war, claiming that the
> old, more disciplined approach, makes kids learn more than our
> permissive, sinful modern ways. But I could be wrong about Herman. I
> do not know him. But I do not think I am wrong about where this test
> fits in the overall political struggle here.
Except that you're talking now to Alberto, not to Herman - and Alberto's a teacher and a
pragmatist, and politics comes real low in the order of his priorities. So, whatever political
role that test is playing, it is not relevant to me. I'm talking as a teacher of students,
period.
> In any event, my purpose was to undercut what I take to be the
> underlying argument - that kids learned more in the old days than they
> learn today. I also argue that an Authoritarian style of teaching in
> not necessarily the best route to learning.
Given that there's nothing whatsoever in that test that spells "authoritarian", maybe you're
throwing your own stuff into it ? Politics can blind our common sense, you know.
> If you don't like the way I construe the issue posed, then you and I
> are simply talking about different things. Sorry.
I'm talking about an exam and about academics. Nothing else; the politics around it is, to me
irrelevant.
> Well, again the only objective measure we have of how much kids in the
> old days learned, compared to kids now, would be scores on IQ tests.
Absolutely not. IQ is another of those irrelevant sacred cows that means nothing. Give them a
real exam, academically loaded, no multiple choice, and let's see.
> That is because they were the only tests given to representative
> samples. I know that answers to IQ questions is a poor measure of how
> much you have learned. But it may be related. And on that measure,
> kids today, contrary to common belief, are vastly superior to kids of
> old - a full two standard deviations better than long ago.
But that measure means nothing. IQ is irrelevant in learning.
> What would that prove?
That would prove that they demanded more from their kids than we do from ours.
> The two are not necessarily incompatible. I taught myself many things
> in high school which were not required because they were fun.
Fun and learning are orthogonal - and there's a time for both.
> I merely point out that our educational system today has NOT been
> shown to perform worse than it did in the past.
Let me put it this way. When I first got to this country, back in 1970, just about everything
I could buy anywhere - EVERYTHING - was made in America. The distance between this country
and the rest of the world was so astonishingly wide, that there was no possible hope of
anybody else catching up; or so we thought. Look at America today, and you can hardly find
anything that's still made in this country; we have become dependent on the rest of the world
for just about anything that's not fun and games. If this country hadn't accumulated such a
lot of money and military power, it would be broke today.
And one of the reasons is, there's a big difference between the generations that guided us
then and the generations that guide us now, as there was between the generations that did it
then and the generations that do it now. To me, it's clear as water.
> Posting this exam as proof of the inferiority of current schools shows
> a lack of rigorous logic.
>
> You like rigor - don't you?
No. I like pragmatic common sense, and quality. Like fun, rigor, whatever it is, is orthogonal
to learning.
> If this case is easy to make, please make it.
I already did, I fail to see even one major, revolutionary, advance in the second half of this
century, outside science and technology.
> I want real answers rising beyond anecdotes, and beyond descriptions
> of possibly atypical small groups.
You know, I do not believe in the kind of science you suggest. The very word "anecdote"
denotes, to me, a lack of understanding of the real process of gathering knowledge - and the
pretense that there's anything out there but a small group as far as statistical repeatability
is concerned is one of the great fantasies of our times. My criterion for acceptability is so
different from that, so far away, that I don't think I can even start debating it. One man's
anedocte is another man's life experience, and one ounce of real world pragmatic experience is
worth more than all the scientific methodology behind all the statistical data gathering in
this planet.
> No. The kids in the eighth grade in the past were the brighter ones.
Anyone can call them whatever they want - but academic success has little to do with being
bright. It didn't then, it doesn't now. It's like flying airplanes, your attitude determines
your altitude.
> Any superior scores of those kids might be because of educational
> methods, or it might be because the kids are just a group of smart
> folks who would do better with any method of education.
Speculation won't get you anywhere. I could just as well speculate that it was because of the
attitude instilled in them by their teachers - and I say that from the experience I myself
had, when I was a kid, of being exposed to that kind of wind. And the point still remains,
whatever the cause, the effect is still there - and good reasons don't efface bad
consequences.
> If you weigh the fish actually in boats in the last century, when
> fishing was primarily for salmon, and compare the average weight to
> fish actually in boats today, when fishing for Peruvian anchovies is
> common, then you will say: see, the aquaculture of the past produced
> much bigger fish than the aquaculture of today does.
It is obviously clear to anyone involved with nature conservation that we're wiping out the
fish from our seas at a record rate, so much so that indeed the fish are getting smaller and
smaller, we're not even giving them time to mature and reproduce properly. You see,
statistical data gathering means nothing here, what you need is to get out of that chair, away
from the ivory tower, go live with nature, dive into it, live it, then you might, just might,
have a clue or two about what really makes it tick.
> That is not a good way to test - limiting the test to those actually
> in the boats. We need to compare all fish with all fish, in the boats
> or not.
> Only then can we gauge whether our current aquaculture regime is doing
> a better or worse job than it did in the past.
I say that this sort of comparison is irrelevant, and tells nothing whatsoever, because it's
sorely out of context and it will be misusing mathematics and statistics well past the tearing
point. If you want to learn about what's happening to the fish today, you're going to have to
dive a whole lot, there's no other way. Armchairs, you know, are terrible teachers.
> I'm not. I am talking about the relative readiness of kids.
Again, that was not the point made, and that was not what we were talking about. This started
with a flame on the exam itself, then it got deflected into whether or not the exam is
relevant today, then it got to whether you as an individual liked the exam or felt whether the
questions were relevant - you know, it keeps shifting with the wind. I'm talking about the
exam and the relationship between that exam and the reality of 1895, against today's realities
and what would an exam have to be to be comparable to that exam.
Alberto.
Alberto
Loren Petrich wrote:
> In article <393FA192...@moreira.mv.com>,
> Alberto <junk...@moreira.mv.com> wrote:
> >Loren Petrich wrote:
>
> >> English irregular verbs coming from German? ROTFL.
> >> English's irregular verbs are almost all *native*, ...
>
> >Just rewind a bit further down in time. "Native" language in the British Isles
> >came from Celtic, Latin, Germanic, roots. Take your pick. I don't know much
> >Celtic, but many English verbs are definitely not Latin. If they're not
> >Germanic either, then, maybe they come from northwestern France's Celts ?
>
> True, English has a lot of borrowed vocabulary, but its basic
> vocabulary and grammar have solidly Germanic roots.
So, we come full circle, looks like Herman wasn't that wrong.
Alberto.
lojbab
This time around, it appeared in two separate places, once in
misc.education, initiated by "Best Sellers" a home-schooler is is
opposed to the existence of public schools at all. He responded to the
person you are talking with in a different thread as follows:
>George Leroy Tyrebiter, Jr. wrote:
>> Best Sellers wrote:
>
>> >The reason we do not fix the "public"
>> >schools is that they're not broken.
>
>> Most folks think the point of schools is to
>> teach stuff. On broad based measures of
>> stuff, given to groups representing all kids,
>> for which we can compare past to now,
>> this seems true. Kids today learn as much
>> stuff.
>
>Please give your eighth-grade child the
>1885 Kansas Elementary School exam.
>Then come back and tell me how well he did.
>I'm posting it separately in this thread.
Note that the request was to give the kid the same exam and not a
modern equivalent.
>(I have a master's degree, and barely
>passed it, not because it was out of date,
>but because I legitimately did not know how
>to approach the problems in all too many
>cases.)
And I responded to this with my standard post indicating that the test
was all rote, so it was silly "not to know how to approach the
problems" - you spit out the rote-memorized answer that the teacher fed
you and which you will forget the day after the test. If you missed
that day in class, you flunk.
In this particular thread, it started with a post in
alt.religion.unification. He gave the text of the exam, and then
closed with
>Imagine a college student who went to public school trying to pass
>this test, even if the few outdated questions were modernized. It
>certainly gives the saying of an early 20th century person that
>"she/he only had an 8th grade education" a whole new meaning!!
I believe that "Best Sellers" crossposted a reply to misc.education,
which is how most others got into it. I again gave my standard answer
to this post. My answer mentions Herman, who posted it 2 years ago, as
well as another guy named Kaz.
Hopefully Alberto, you can see that the way the test is discussed, it
is intended by the posters who talk about this test that people of
today take THIS 1895 test, with at most minor modifications for one of
the two posters, and that THIS is the standard by which they will be
judged to look bad, not some hypothetical modern culturally-rigorous
equivalent test.
It is clear from your comments in this thread that you don't like
multiple choice exams and think them too easy. Ah well. That is the
times, given the cost of preparing and grading the things, which runs
in the multi-millions per test. TIMSS has an 8th grade math test that
has both computational and multiple choice questions, and it was used
as an international standard; I think the NAEP has a non-multiple
choice section as well in each of the categories, but I have not yet
had time to dig up sample questions, and it doesn't cover as many
subjects as the 1895 exam, which is why I turned to the multiple choice
tests that actually are like those being used (and the science and
reading tests are probably a little harder for you than the math test,
I suspect, even in multiple choice format).
lojbab
hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) wrote:
> In article <8hjv1s$hbk$1...@slb7.atl.mindspring.net>,
> Loren Petrich <pet...@netcom.com> wrote:
> >In article <Pine.LNX.4.04.10006061408510.15009-
100...@www.unification.net>,
> >Damian J. Anderson <dam...@unification.net> wrote:
> >>5. Define Case, Illustrate each Case.
>
> > This reminds me of the Lithuanian linguist who recalled
learning
> >that English has no noun cases -- he wondered how English speakers
could
> >understand each other.
>
> All languages have problems like this. Those languages
> which have different forms for different cases and tenses
> can dispense with auxiliary words, and languages which have
> no different forms use more of them. But the cases and
> tenses are still there.
As I said, in 1895, people thought English had a future tense. In 8th
grade, >I< was taught that English had a future tense. I doubt that
you will find a linguistics book published after 1970 that says that
English has a future tense.
> > English has a possessive suffix, and its pronouns have cases
that
> >could be called nominative (subject only) and oblique (everything
else).
>
> English does have a grammatical distinction, not in the
> form of the word but in how it is used, between dative,
> accusative, and prepositional. It can help that these
> are fully regular in pronouns in English, and is usually
> easier, but often requires disambiguation, for nouns.
English has absolutely nothing that can meaningfully be called a dative
or prepositional case, and one would never think that there would be a
need to disambiguate between them, if one did not have the preconceived
notion that there were such cases cases. English has nominative,
accusative only for pronouns, and the possessive "'s" which some think
is a remnant of the genitive, though there is no direct historical
connection that can be traced to the Anglo Saxon genitive case.
> > All that's necessary is to know what unit is what, like how
many
> >cubic feet is a bushel.
>
> There are many who bemoan the lack of calculation. One
> difference between then and now is that units of measure
> were of considerable importance then. However, some of
> the problems would bother students today, even with such
> tables available.
My 8th grade daughter would be insulted by such a claim, despite being
a poor math student, especially on word problems.
Loren Petrich
>In article <8hlvcd$2d...@odds.stat.purdue.edu>,
> hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) wrote:
>> In article <8hjv1s$hbk$1...@slb7.atl.mindspring.net>,
>> Loren Petrich <pet...@netcom.com> wrote:
>As I said, in 1895, people thought English had a future tense. ...
How does English *not* have a future tense? I'm confused.
>English has absolutely nothing that can meaningfully be called a dative
>or prepositional case, and one would never think that there would be a
>need to disambiguate between them, if one did not have the preconceived
>notion that there were such cases cases. English has nominative,
>accusative only for pronouns, and the possessive "'s" which some think
>is a remnant of the genitive, though there is no direct historical
>connection that can be traced to the Anglo Saxon genitive case.
In my estimation, English pronouns (I/me, we/us, he/him, she/her,
it/it) have two cases: nominative (subject only) and oblique (everything
else). Nouns have no such distinction.
However, consider this "proof" that English has Latin's six cases:
Nominative: <word>
Vocative: O <word>!
Accusative: <word>
Genitive: of <word>
Dative: to <word>
Ablative: from <word>
lojbab
pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) wrote:
> In article <8hphuu$v39$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, lojbab <loj...@lojban.org>
wrote:
> >In article <8hlvcd$2d...@odds.stat.purdue.edu>,
> > hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) wrote:
> >> In article <8hjv1s$hbk$1...@slb7.atl.mindspring.net>,
> >> Loren Petrich <pet...@netcom.com> wrote:
>
> >As I said, in 1895, people thought English had a future tense. ...
>
> How does English *not* have a future tense? I'm confused.
From the sci.lang FAQ, just as an example, question 29:
<Whorf's analysis of what he called "Standard Average European"
<languages is also questionable. E.g. he claims that "the three-tense
<system of SAE verbs colors all our thinking about time." Only English
<doesn't have three tenses; it has two, past and present; future events
<are expressed by the present ("I see him tomorrow"), or by a modal
<expression, merely one of a large class of such synthetic expressions.
<And for that matter, English distinguishes more like six than three
<times ("I had gone, I went, I just arrived, I'm going, I'm about to
<go, I'll go").
For more information on this question, ask on sci.lang
> >English has absolutely nothing that can meaningfully be called a
dative
> >or prepositional case, and one would never think that there would be
a
> >need to disambiguate between them, if one did not have the
preconceived
> >notion that there were such cases cases. English has nominative,
> >accusative only for pronouns, and the possessive "'s" which some
think
> >is a remnant of the genitive, though there is no direct historical
> >connection that can be traced to the Anglo Saxon genitive case.
>
> In my estimation, English pronouns (I/me, we/us, he/him,
she/her,
> it/it) have two cases: nominative (subject only) and oblique
(everything
> else). Nouns have no such distinction.
Seems reasonable to me, but again, you'd have to run it by the
professionals, who may not entirely agree among themselves (which is
what I originally said).
> However, consider this "proof" that English has Latin's six
cases:
>
> Nominative: <word>
> Vocative: O <word>!
> Accusative: <word>
> Genitive: of <word>
> Dative: to <word>
> Ablative: from <word>
Yep. And if I want to coin names for them, I can say that English has
such a case associated with each of its other prepositions too:
Locative: at <word>
Proximal: near <word>
Penetrative: through <word>
It's all a game that has nothing to do with English, and everything to
do with our preconceived notions that we are trying to fit English to.
Again, ask this one on sci.lang for a better answer.
(or of course look in a modern linguistics text, since I suspect most
basic texts will address this topic).
gabor
Alberto <junk...@moreira.mv.com> wrote:
>
>
> Loren Petrich wrote:
>
> > English irregular verbs coming from German? ROTFL.
> >
of
the
> > similar grammatical patterns of other Germanic languages,
especially the
> > older ones, one extrapolates that the ancestral Germanic language
had had
> > these irregularities also.
>
British Isles
> came from Celtic, Latin, Germanic, roots. Take your pick. I don't
know much
> Celtic, but many English verbs are definitely not Latin. If they're
not
> Germanic either, then, maybe they come from northwestern France's
Celts ?
>
>
>
Alberto, over the weekend I'll try to do the Brazilian maths exam
you posted, just to see how well I can still do this kind of thing.
But comparative linguistics being one of my real fields, let me pull
rank on this one.
"Native" in this context does not mean native to the British Isles, but
native to English. That is to say, words that are native can be traced
back to Old English, and even further back, to Proto-Germanic, the
hypothetical ("reconstructed") language that is ancestral to English,
Dutch, German, long-extict Gothic and the various Scandinavian
languages (the latter, by the way, does not include Finnish and
Lappish, which are in an entirely different language family
altogether).
Irregular verbs (like: sing, sang, sung; think, thought; etc.) can all
be traced back to Proto-Germanic, and there are analogous
irregularities in all Germanic languages - the details of course vary.
Although most (but not all) common verbs in English are irregular, most
verbs are regular and take the dental -ed (occasionally spelt -d, -t)
ending in both the past and the past participle form (e.g. hate, hated,
hated). The very large number of verbs that English borrowed from other
languages (mostly from French, itself a descendant of Latin, but also
from Latin and Greek) are all regular:
descend (from French descendre), descended, descended
circulate (from Latin circulare), circulated, circulated
baptize (from Greek bapteizon, I believe - I don't have my dictionaries
handy to check), baptized, baptized.
As for the Celtic heritage, the Anglo-Saxon invaders in England in the
5th (or was it the 6th?) century pushed the native Celts back into
Wales and Cornwall very effectively, and borrowed practically no words
from them, maybe no more than a dozen or so. The word "hog" (for "pig")
is one that comes to mind.
On the Brazilian maths test, by the way, the word "aresta" in question
7 should, I think, be translated as "edge".
Hoping that this did not bore you,
With best wishes,
Gabor
gabor
hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) wrote:
> In article <8hn83j$95e$1...@slb0.atl.mindspring.net>,
> >>In article <8hjv1s$hbk$1...@slb7.atl.mindspring.net>,
> >>Loren Petrich <pet...@netcom.com> wrote:
>
> >>irregular verbs in English all come from German, and have
> >>the same type of irregularity there, and the use of
> >>"principal parts" comes from German. It reduces almost all
> >>of irregular verbs to memorizing THREE parts, not all.
>
>
> > English's irregular verbs are almost all *native*, and many of
> >them can be traced back to Old English without much trouble. Given
the
> >similar grammatical patterns of other Germanic languages, especially
the
> >older ones, one extrapolates that the ancestral Germanic language
had had
> >these irregularities also.
>
> of the English vocabulary, coming essentially from Norman
> French, consists almost entirely of regular forms.
>
Herman, as a linguist let me intrude here. The term "old German" does
not really mean anything to a linguist. If you mean the language from
which English, German, Swedish etc. descend, it is referred to as
"Proto-Germanic" (or, in some contexts, "Common Germanic"). See my
response to Alberto for more elaboration.
Earlier versions of modern German, still occasionally called High
German, are called Middle High German and Old High German. These
languages (with various dialects) were spoken in what is now the middle
and southern part of Germany, plus Austria and German-speaking
Switzerland. The dialects spoken in the northern third of Germany are
still called Low German dialects (they are on the point of
disappearance, by the way). Earlier versions, which were spoken by all
strata of society at the time, are referred to as Middle and Old Low
German (the latter also, occasionally, as Old Saxon, not to be confused
with Anglo-Saxon).
As to what is spoken in Northern Germany now - it is High German (call
it "German" for short) with a low German accent!
[snip]
>
> > At the present day, the question would be complicated by
> >constitutional monarchies, which are essentially de facto republics.
>
> There were constitutional monarchies then, and I very much
> doubt that in those days they would have been considered
> republics. Americans in those days considered tha absence
> of a monarch to be important, and in none of the monarchies
> were the monarchs mere figureheads then.
>
Not all were constitutional monarchies. Russia and Turkey were
tyrannical states with no constitution or parliament to restrain rule
by a small oligarchy. The Balkan kingdoms (Serbia, Montenegro, Romania)
didn't have much of a constitution either. Bulgaria was still
theoretically part of Turkey, although it had autonomy and its own
(Christian) Prince.
As for the other European monarchies in 1895, they were all
constitutional with parliaments, although Britain didn't then, any more
than today, have a written constitution. How much power the various
monarchs had changed from country to country, but at least in Britain,
Sweden-Norway (with a common king but separate parliaments), the
Netherlands and Belgium I don't think that the monarch could have gone
against the wishes of Parliament.
Pedantically yours,
mahabarbara
In article <FvuMv...@research.att.com>, j...@research.att.com
(jj,
curmudgeon and tiring philalethist) wrote:
>In article <0363bed7...@usw-ex0103-086.remarq.com>,
>mahabarbara <bobrien...@scholastic.com.invalid> wrote:
>>languages are the Celtic languages, and there's not that much
>
>after the last ice age, are PICTISH, and that doesn't account
>for the moundbuilders and the people who built stonehenge,
>which came pre-pict.
Oh, picky, picky. And before that there were probably
Neanderthals
who may or may not have had a language. We'll probably never
know.
Anyway, I guess we've established that English isn't exactly
"native" to England. <g>
>
>The Celts first drove off, then assimilated the Picts. There
were
>two main branches of Celt, too, the Gaels (Scots, Irish, ?manx?)
>and the Brythons (Welsh, Cornish, ?channel islands?).
Right.
>
>I've got a decently researched book at home on all of this
>language stuff.
>--
>Copyright j...@research.att.com 2000, all rights reserved, except
transmission
>by USENET and like facilities granted. This notice must be
included. Any
>use by a provider charging in any way for the IP represented in
and by this
>article and any inclusion in print or other media are
specifically prohibited.
>
Alberto
lojbab wrote:
[snip...]
> Hopefully Alberto, you can see that the way the test is discussed, it
> is intended by the posters who talk about this test that people of
> today take THIS 1895 test, with at most minor modifications for one of
> the two posters, and that THIS is the standard by which they will be
> judged to look bad, not some hypothetical modern culturally-rigorous
> equivalent test.
Bob, you should know me better by now. I care about the educational aspect
of the test, not about the context in the ng where it has been put, nor
about the ideological points being made. I jumped in when someone said the
test was nonsense, and I pointed out that no, the test is far from nonsense.
I then made the point that, the way I see this test and its relevance is,
the comparative level of the test, taken a presumed 1895 view, seems to be
way higher than the kind of testing we do today. The issue that test raises
to me is, we don't test our students like that any more.
> It is clear from your comments in this thread that you don't like
> multiple choice exams and think them too easy. Ah well. That is the
> times, given the cost of preparing and grading the things, which runs
> in the multi-millions per test. TIMSS has an 8th grade math test that
> has both computational and multiple choice questions, and it was used
> as an international standard; I think the NAEP has a non-multiple
> choice section as well in each of the categories, but I have not yet
> had time to dig up sample questions, and it doesn't cover as many
> subjects as the 1895 exam, which is why I turned to the multiple choice
> tests that actually are like those being used (and the science and
> reading tests are probably a little harder for you than the math test,
> I suspect, even in multiple choice format).
You know I don't see any reason at all to waste time and money with that
kind of test. Might as well not do it, and spend the energy in something
more profitable.
Alberto.
Gary Schnabl
and Low of it. The High refers to altitude, as in the Alps, where my
grandparents emigrated from (the Gau Tal of Austria, near Italy and
Slovenia). The Low is often referred to as Platt Deutsch. Platt for
flat, as in the Low Countries.
My study of comparative linguistics credits the major effects of the
change from "German" to "English" to the coming of the Scandinavians
(Northern "Germans") around 800 to 1000 AD) bringing with them their own
brands of "German." Having several variations of German became too much
to bear that a substitute was called for - English. The major problem
was with varying declensions and the like, so English rid itself of most
of them, and word order in a sentence became more important. Learning
languages that are similar but different is often harder than the study
of two vastly different languages. I'm sure that Alberto would agree on this.
gabor wrote:
> Earlier versions of modern German, still occasionally called High
> German, are called Middle High German and Old High German. These
> languages (with various dialects) were spoken in what is now the middle
> and southern part of Germany, plus Austria and German-speaking
> Switzerland. The dialects spoken in the northern third of Germany are
> still called Low German dialects (they are on the point of
> disappearance, by the way). Earlier versions, which were spoken by all
> strata of society at the time, are referred to as Middle and Old Low
> German (the latter also, occasionally, as Old Saxon, not to be confused
> with Anglo-Saxon).
>
> As to what is spoken in Northern Germany now - it is High German (call
> it "German" for short) with a low German accent!
--
Gary Schnabl
(Southwest) Detroit -- 2 miles NORTH of Canada
Alberto
gabor wrote:
> But comparative linguistics being one of my real fields, let me pull
> rank on this one.
I hear you, and I don't disagree. But the point was, I was trying to
address a deriding remark to the effect that "no, English does not have
Germanic constructs", without having to leave my computer to go find my old
historic grammar books to back me up with some better data.
> Irregular verbs (like: sing, sang, sung; think, thought; etc.) can all
> be traced back to Proto-Germanic, and there are analogous
> irregularities in all Germanic languages - the details of course vary.
And this is, right, what Herman said ?
> descend (from French descendre), descended, descended
> circulate (from Latin circulare), circulated, circulated
> baptize (from Greek bapteizon, I believe - I don't have my dictionaries
> handy to check), baptized, baptized.
As an educated Latin man, I am well aware of the mass of Latin borrowings
in the English language. What I'm not familiar with is the Celtic side,
because I failed to learn it while I was in England, I was too busy
surviving.
> As for the Celtic heritage, the Anglo-Saxon invaders in England in the
> 5th (or was it the 6th?) century pushed the native Celts back into
> Wales and Cornwall very effectively, and borrowed practically no words
> from them, maybe no more than a dozen or so. The word "hog" (for "pig")
> is one that comes to mind.
I lived in England for 10 years, and that was very obvious just about
everywhere I went. You don't see anyone in England calling his house "Tigh
na Craig" or something like it, but just cross the Scottish border and
you're in another world. Or drive a few hours from London to Wales to see
the difference. Or read Henry the Fourth, where Shakespeare repeatedly
pulls the leg of the Welsh on account of their accent.
> On the Brazilian maths test, by the way, the word "aresta" in question
> 7 should, I think, be translated as "edge".
I don't know if it can, because the sides of the base of a pyramid aren't
"arestas", and I didn't learn 3D geometry in this country, so my
terminology isn't that strong. But that's my kind of math exam: few
questions, each requiring insight, few numbers, and proof.
Alberto.
mahabarbara
In article <8hp79j$dld$1...@slb7.atl.mindspring.net>,
pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) wrote:
>In article <0363bed7...@usw-ex0103-086.remarq.com>,
>mahabarbara <bobrien...@scholastic.com.invalid> wrote:
>>pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) wrote:
>
>>> English's irregular verbs are almost all *native*, and many
of
>>>them can be traced back to Old English without much trouble.
>
>
had
>meant "native" in the sense of being transmitted down the
generations of
>speakers, rather than being borrowed.
>
>>languages are the Celtic languages, and there's not that much
>>German, until the Normans showed up and Frenchified it. The
>>original English, the Angles and Saxons, were Germans.
>
and
>grammar are recognizably Germanic -- there's essentially no Old
French
>influence there. The main exception seems to be some borrowed
Latin
>plurals, but they are treated as irregular English plurals,
with most of
>the Latin declension being ignored as not fitting English
grammar.
But then considerable English vocabulary comes from Latin, much
of
it filtered through French, and after that it seems to have gone
off on its own tangents, as languages do.
> Consider the verbs. English has a simple present and a simple
past
>tense -- and no other simple tenses. English also has "strong"
and "weak"
>ways of constructing verb forms. The former has vowel shifts,
while the
>latter has the familiar -ed suffix. All of these features are
shared with
>other Germanic languages -- and none of them with Latin or the
Romance
>ones.
>
> So it's clear that English has not borrowed Old French ways of
>constructing verbs -- and has fit borrowed ones into the -ed
mold.
>
>--
>Loren Petrich Happiness is a fast Macintosh
>pet...@netcom.com And a fast train
>My home page: http://www.petrich.com/home.html
>
>
mahabarbara
In article <FvuEx...@research.att.com>, j...@research.att.com
(jj,
curmudgeon and tiring philalethist) wrote:
>Alberto <junk...@moreira.mv.com> wrote:
>>Just rewind a bit further down in time. "Native" language in
the British Isles
>>came from Celtic, Latin, Germanic, roots. Take your pick. I
don't know much
>>Celtic, but many English verbs are definitely not Latin. If
they're not
>>Germanic either, then, maybe they come from northwestern
France's Celts ?
>
>The Saxons seem to have contributed an astonishing number of the
>short, intensely descriptive words that are somewhat unwelcome
>in polite society.
>The number of words from the Anglic are pretty small if I
remember
>correctly, Latin, more modern German, Gael and Brythonic
languages,
>French, Manx (Can't recall if that's Gael or Brython), and all
>sorts of languages from around the globe have worked their way
>into modern "English". (of either UK or US variety)
I don't speak the language, but I have a nodding aquaintance with
Welsh, and from my limited observation there doesn't seem to be a
lot of influence of Welsh (a Brythonic Celtic language) in
English. Certainly the syntax is utterly different, and there are
relatively few words in English that have a Celtish origin. The
only one I can come up with offhand is "bard." On the other hand,
one can find some words in modern Welsh that are taken from Latin
and English, although this is well disguised by creative
spelling.
<g>
B.
>--
>Copyright j...@research.att.com 2000, all rights reserved, except
transmission
>by USENET and like facilities granted. This notice must be
included. Any
>use by a provider charging in any way for the IP represented in
and by this
>article and any inclusion in print or other media are
specifically prohibited.
>
>
Gary Schnabl
would mean that either in 1895, or whenever (you didn't state any
concrete time), that they were some 30-32 IQ points lower or that
today's kids are that much higher, or some combination! I have
encountered dozens of non special ed 6th graders who still do not know
what an adjective or other parts of speech are even after years of
schooling in them. In my district, this begins in the second grade. You
would think that such intelligent kids would know this after several
experiences repeated year after year!
Hell! Many middle schoolers I've dealt with can't even follow simple
directions to their worksheets or lessons. They need them literally
spelled out for them. Of course, many don't give a damn or do anything
anyway. There's no penalties for failure today in school; that comes
later. But the piper will get his due at employment time, especially
when the economy softens!
Enter any major research or regional college or university. There you
will encounter a decreasing number of minority students. They are called
Americans! Not African-Americans, or Native-Americans, just plain
Americans. Foreign nationals are EVERYWHERE and out performing the
native Americans (non Indians, this is). I've read reports by MIT profs
stating that the median American high school graduate is some 4 to 6
years behind the median Asian graduate in math and the sciences. Don't
forget that most of our high schoolers are taking the near minimum of
credits required for graduation by the state in the sciences and math.
That's a doomed plan for eventual failure most elsewhere in this world.
The bulk of OUR computer specialists come from India and the
Phillipines. They outnumber the Americans. Some work in this country,
and those that cannot enter this country legally get work farmed out for
them as virtual employees via the internet. It's probably no coincidence
that some nasty computer viruses are concocted by rank amateurs in the
Phillipines in order to get noticed!
"George Leroy Tyrebiter, Jr." wrote:
>
> Well, again the only objective measure we have of how much kids in the
> old days learned, compared to kids now, would be scores on IQ tests.
> That is because they were the only tests given to representative
> samples. I know that answers to IQ questions is a poor measure of how
> much you have learned. But it may be related. And on that measure,
> kids today, contrary to common belief, are vastly superior to kids of
> old - a full two standard deviations better than long ago.
> >
> >>
> >Take that exam, translate to modern parlance. I don't care what you put in there, as long
> >as you keep the mathematical and scientific content at the same level: seven and a half
> >minutes per question, each involving a healthy dose of computation, no calculators or
> >computers, and a few key items of required memorization. Take the dates and names who
> >were relevant in 1895, replace by names and dates relevant to us today, try replacing
> >Morse by Churchill and inserting dates such as 1941 and 1945 into it. Try taking those
> >rules of punctuation and converting into something really necessary today - for example,
> >someone posted, as a professional editor, on the need to know a lot of that jazz, and
> >even more. Then give it to today's 8th grade students and see what happens.
>
> What would that prove? Today all kids are in the 8th grade. In the
> past only a subset of kids were in the 8th grade. You can not compare
> (all) kids of yesterday with (all) kids of today by comparing scores
> of (basically all) kids today with (some) kids of yesterday.
>
> At least, I can not think of a good way to do that.
>
> ....
> .....
> >
> >> This test relates to a cultural war between the traditionalists and
> >> the modernists.
> >
> >No, it relates to a cultural war between those of us who believe in strong academics and
> >cultural bias, and those who believe in fun and games and easy-street.
>
> The two are not necessarily incompatible. I taught myself many things
> in high school which were not required because they were fun.
>
> I am a big fan of rigor. I have not said we should have low standards.
>
> I merely point out that our educational system today has NOT been
> shown to perform worse than it did in the past. It is a love for rigor
> which leads me to be skeptical of the claim of the traditionalists. I
> insist on proof for the assertion that kids today learn less than did
> kids long ago. I have a hunch that this is one of those things that
> "everybody knows" but which is just wrong.
>
> Posting this exam as proof of the inferiority of current schools shows
> a lack of rigorous logic.
>
> You like rigor - don't you?
>
> So your complaints, at least as far as they might apply to me, are
> misguided.
>
> I for example am
> >in my fifities, I wasn't educated in this generation. But I had the good luck of getting
> >my children into top learning institutions in this country, so I know that strong
> >academics are alive and thriving, here and now, and because of the inevitable advance of
> >science and knowledge, those places will be teaching more and better than the places
> >where I myself was educated. But the problem is, those places are getting fewer and fewer
> >in proportion to the alarming growth of a permissive and nihilistic approach to education
> >where knowledge is derided and anyone can confront a knowledgeable person and say, "get
> >out of here, I don't need what you teach" - even while not having a clue not only about
> >what that teacher is trying to teach, but not even about where in the big picture that
> >subject fits.
>
> I am with you. I was lucky enough to go to the very best of those
> places you refer to, where students would scream in class at other
> students speaking in an intellectually sloppy way, forcing them to sit
> down. That was not cruel, because we all were talented. It simply
> sharpened colleagues to the ethic of rigor. I want MORE rigor, and
> HIGHER standards.
>
> But how we get there is perhaps debatable.
>
> We continue to talk past each other I think.
>
> >> so what?
> >
> >So, what I'm facing here is a nihilistic approach to learning. But you know what, this
> >is, or should be, a choice: if you don't think learning is important, just don't, and go
> >do something you find important. But when you try to deny the benefits of learning, and
> >come among teachers saying that learning is irrelevant, don't expect to get a cigar.
> >
> >> The issue is whether kids, as a whole, were better educated
> >> in the past than they are now.
> >
> >And they definitely were, considering that this has been the century of science and
> >technology. I can easily make the point that, except for science and technology, this
> >century has seen a significant deterioration of human knowledge, attitude and belief. A
> >century that saw two world wars, Nazism, Communism, widespread oppression, genocide,
> >can't have a lot of claim to cultural progress.
>
> If this case is easy to make, please make it.
>
> I want real answers rising beyond anecdotes, and beyond descriptions
> of possibly atypical small groups.
> >
> >> This test, which was given to a small
> >> sample in the past, because in farm states of the past kids dropped
> >> out to work the farms, would not be a true gauge of the abilities of
> >> ALL kids of the past, while we think today of how ALL kids of today -
> >> since all go to school now - would do on the test.
> >
> >That is no argument. Compare apples to apples: kids who *were* in eight grade then, to
> >kids who *are* in eight grade now.
>
> No. The kids in the eighth grade in the past were the brighter ones.
> Any superior scores of those kids might be because of educational
> methods, or it might be because the kids are just a group of smart
> folks who would do better with any method of education.
>
> If you weigh the fish actually in boats in the last century, when
> fishing was primarily for salmon, and compare the average weight to
> fish actually in boats today, when fishing for Peruvian anchovies is
> common, then you will say: see, the aquaculture of the past produced
> much bigger fish than the aquaculture of today does.
>
> That is not a good way to test - limiting the test to those actually
> in the boats. We need to compare all fish with all fish, in the boats
> or not.
>
> Only then can we gauge whether our current aquaculture regime is doing
> a better or worse job than it did in the past.
>
> Of course, you could argue that even with salmon, your methods are
> superior, and that would be valid. But compare salmon to salmon. Not
> boats of salmon with boats of anchovies.
>
> We are focusing on whether the school system churns out better
> educated kids then or now. From my perspective.
>
> We are talking about comparative ability of EIGHT
> >GRADERS. We are not talking about "all" kids, nor are we talking about dropouts. We are
> >considering a SPECIFIC point about the relative readiness of eight graders to face their
> >contemporary worlds, now and then.
>
> I'm not. I am talking about the relative readiness of kids.
>
> But if you can compare fairly comparable kids of yore with those
> today, then you can persuade me that old methods of education are
> possiblyc superior, and are worth testing to see if the superior
> results with a subset will be superior for the masses as well.
>
> >> That folks now are basically mentally retarded is not germane to the
> >> real issue - does the modern world suck - because for all we now folks
> >> were just as mentally retarded in the past - even though this test,
> >> limited as it was to a subset of all kids - would imply retardation
> >> was less common in the past.
> >
> >This is totally irrelevant to the issue, try to stay focused. The issue is a specific
> >one: do eight graders today get evaluated to the same stern level that exam evaluated
> >them back in 1895 ?
>
> We are in different conceptual rooms.
> >
> >> I am not nihilistic. I am actually snooty.
> >
> >I don't know what you are, neither do I care. But I do see a nihilistic approach to
> >education in your writing, and here you go again, the very use ot the word "snooty" in
> >this context contributes to this.
>
> It is sinful to feel as I do that my way is the best way, that I have
> peculiarly superior high standards. But I can not deny my sinful ways.
>
> So you are right in that you have detected an egalitarian prejudice in
> one part of me, which makes me feel guilt, but you are wrong when you
> conclude that I favor low standards. I want standard higher than we
> have.
>
> That is why I complain when this test is said to reflect proof that
> education in the past was better than it is today.
>
> That logic is beneath my high standards. I assert, in my snooty way,
> that I logic better than you do. Forgive me for my sins, please.
>
> >
> >> I think people should read
> >> good books, and I think that the inability to reason statistically is
> >> a dreadful failing among us. For examples. But I think much of the
> >> approach reflected in the ways of yore, shown in the posted test, are
> >> not going to lead to well-educated kiddies. I think that THEIR
> >> approach is below minimally acceptable standards - not that there
> >> should not be standards.
> >
> >I'm sorry, statistics is a mathematical discipline, and there is no reasoning
> >"statistically" without knowing a fair amount of the underlying mathematics and
> >assumptions. You are right in that, outside of the mathematical sciences professions, I
> >see virtually no one using statistics the way it should be,
>
> We do not see appropriate statistical reasoning in everyday reasoning.
> I am not talking about calculations of the statistical significance of
> scientific results. Here is an example: comparing a test given to some
> kids with the same test given to all kids, making conclusions about
> the educational levels of all kids in the first universe with all kids
> in the second universe.
>
> That is a "statistical reasoning" error.
>
> Thinking that Bill Clinton is a crook because Ken Starr finds eight
> sins in his past is an error of everyday reasoning, which I think of
> as an error in statistical reasoning. We must compare the number of
> sins found in CLinton vs another person CONTROLLING for how much
> effort was expended to find sins. Folks forget to do the CONTROL
> adjustment.
>
> Humans are incredibly flawed in some reasoning tasks. For instance, on
> CSPAN I saw folks testifying that their kids took a measles
> vaccination and then symptoms of autism appeared. I assume that that
> is purely a coincidence, and does not reflect a causal relationship.
> But these parents are convinced that the shot caused the autism.
>
> and that happens because the
> >underlying mathematical knowledge is sorely missing, and that maybe because teachers seem
> >to be more worried about counting baseball cards or such other trifles than about
> >learning real math.
> >
> >So, again, at least from where I'm looking at it, even 40 years seem to make a whole lot
> >of a difference.
> >
> >> I assume you do not know how truly funny that sounds to my ear.
> >
> >And I don't care. You know, I really think you should try to use that "I" word a bit less
> >frequently, it hinders communication.
> >
> >> Do you have the saying: a wet bird never flies at night?
> >
> >The cuteness is, to me, irrelevant. Running out of argument ?
>
> No. I got bored and thought we might exchange pleasantries, to form a
> human bond. I enjoyed your words and sought to get closer.
>
> We continue to talk past each other.
>
> >
> >> To me the two are comparably humorously devoid of any sense, but sound
> >> as if they are intended to be sensible. The contrast in tone and
> >> substance - makes me laugh.
> >
> >Laugh as you will, your problem. But I'm here for solid argument, and I'm not sure I
> >heard much of it as well.
>
> My fault. Maybe I have done better this time.
>
> >
> >> >These are not rules. These are examples.
> >>
> >> An example is also a rule.
> >
> >Hello ?
> >
> >Now I really suggest you go back to your textbooks and read a bit more. Start with modern
> >logic and mathematics, learn about rules, inference, clauses, propositions, and so on.
> >Then come back and let's talk.
>
> A rule can be an example in my mathematical book. This is a rule: the
> set X contains one item: the country commonly referred to as Portugal.
>
> We argue about definition, pointless.
> >
> >> It just has a narrow reach. The notion of
> >> rule is a bit slippery. That is sort of my point.
> >
> >No, rules have nothing slippery about them. Some rules are a consequence of accumulated
> >knowledge. Some are established by common culture and belief. Some are established by
> >need.
>
> Some rules are in this form: the set X contains one item: the country
> commonly referred to as Portugal.
>
> A word means what I want it to, nothing more and nothing less. Humpty
> Dumpty said that, but his words were actually written by a
> mathematician.
>
> But now we now what we mean, so we can avoid further confusion.
>
> >
> >And here, again, that nihilistic approach.
>
> I would prefer to put it this way: a good education teaches you to
> pursue the truth, even if others disagree with you.
>
> Follow logic, and not just consensus.
>
> Look - I am sure that you and I actually agree on almost all of this,
> and we are slipping past each other through sloppiness of defining our
> terms.
>
> Enough. I have had my fun.
>
> George Leroy Tyrebiter, Jr.
jj, curmudgeon and tiring philalethist
mahabarbara <bobrien...@scholastic.com.invalid> wrote:
>I don't speak the language, but I have a nodding aquaintance with
>Welsh, and from my limited observation there doesn't seem to be a
>lot of influence of Welsh (a Brythonic Celtic language) in
>English. Certainly the syntax is utterly different, and there are
>relatively few words in English that have a Celtish origin. The
>only one I can come up with offhand is "bard." On the other hand,
>one can find some words in modern Welsh that are taken from Latin
>and English, although this is well disguised by creative
>spelling.
There are quite a few modern words from the Gael side, a bunch of
the "gh" ending words (although Herman points out that a bunch of
those words are also in german, raising the point of which is the
chicken and which is the egg :-), and more, which have escaped my
memory, but it's rather more than I had initially thought, too.
Been a while since I studied this. The welsh in fact doesn't
contribute nearly as much.
mahabarbara
In article <FvwBu...@research.att.com>, j...@research.att.com
(jj,
curmudgeon and tiring philalethist) wrote:
>mahabarbara <bobrien...@scholastic.com.invalid> wrote:
>>I don't speak the language, but I have a nodding aquaintance
with
>>Welsh, and from my limited observation there doesn't seem to
be a
>>lot of influence of Welsh (a Brythonic Celtic language) in
>>English. Certainly the syntax is utterly different, and there
are
>>relatively few words in English that have a Celtish origin. The
>>only one I can come up with offhand is "bard." On the other
hand,
>>one can find some words in modern Welsh that are taken from
Latin
>>and English, although this is well disguised by creative
>>spelling.
>
>There are quite a few modern words from the Gael side, a bunch
of
>the "gh" ending words (although Herman points out that a bunch
of
>those words are also in german, raising the point of which is
the
>chicken and which is the egg :-),
Think also of the Vikings that invaded everybody in north Europe
awhile back. Maybe some odd words were transmitted to both the
Scots and the Germans from the Vikings. I don't know, but it's a
thought. One sees improbable spelling spreading like a virus. <g>
> and more, which have escaped my
>memory, but it's rather more than I had initially thought, too.
>
>Been a while since I studied this. The welsh in fact doesn't
>contribute nearly as much.
It's interesting that two peoples could have lived on the same
fool island all those centuries and share so little of their
languages.
B.
Bill Bonde
Gary Schnabl wrote:
>
> An IQ standard deviation is some 15 or 16 IQ points, I believe. That
> would mean that either in 1895, or whenever (you didn't state any
> concrete time), that they were some 30-32 IQ points lower or that
> today's kids are that much higher, or some combination! I have
> encountered dozens of non special ed 6th graders who still do not know
> what an adjective or other parts of speech are even after years of
> schooling in them. In my district, this begins in the second grade. You
> would think that such intelligent kids would know this after several
> experiences repeated year after year!
>
Teach the kids another language and they will instantly know all those
things you were trying to teach them in English.
Herman Rubin
Loren Petrich <pet...@netcom.com> wrote:
>In article <8hofnh$47r$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, lojbab <loj...@lojban.org> wrote:
>>In article <8hm45t$13...@odds.stat.purdue.edu>,
>> hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) wrote:
>>> nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs,
>>> prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections.
>>That is the standard set that was used when you were a kid; I am not
>>sure about 1895. It is also an incorrect description of English. It
>>excludes gerunds and articles and modals among other possibilities, and
>>conjoins verbs with auxiliaries and the copula, neither of which are
>>really verbs.
> I think that that's absurd. Modals, auxiliaries, and the copula
>all act like verbs, as some simple conjugation demonstrates.
One could make SOME argument that they are not "normal"
verbs, but one can find other distinctions as well. The
Semitic languages have "binyonim", which are not quite
the same as "moods" in Indo-European languages, but the
ideas are not totally different.
> Articles are a kind of adjective, since they modify nouns. Geruns
>are verbal nouns or adjectives or adverbs, depending on the context.
>> ... . For example, English, contrary to what most of your generation
>>were taught, has no future tense; it uses an auxiliary that does not
>>act like the Latinate tenses.
> How is having auxiliary verbs such a big difference? And on that
>subject, Latin does have some auxiliary-verb use, and even some its
>non-compound forms seem to have to have once been compound ones with the
>auxiliary turned into a suffix (the tenses with -b-, for example).
> And as to verb tenses, English has more than Latin does, though
>most of them are compound and formed in a regular fashion.
>>> The teaching of these conversion factors persisted well
>>> into this century. And they also gave partial credit.
>>Again, the latter is a claim without evidence. I'm sure they taught
>>the conversion factors. So what? It is still rote memorization, and
>>not the concepts that you insist are supposed to be taught in math
>>class.
> I think that Mr. Rubin is defending that test as part of some
>imagined Good Old Days. However, it's clear that this Good Old Days, like
>so many others, was far from good, even by his standards.
I would not call it the Good Old Days. I would call it the Better
Old Days, better than what we now have.
A large difference was the idea that there is a basic structure,
and that it could be used to provide general, not special,
knowledge, which could be applied. Also, that there were
non-trivial standards, which were not just what was supposedly
immediately applicable.
mahabarbara
In article <8hrbsq$16...@odds.stat.purdue.edu>,
hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) wrote:
>
>I would not call it the Good Old Days. I would call it the
Better
>Old Days, better than what we now have.
The Better Old Days, do you think? Did you know that a century
ago
only 3 percent of the population of the U.S. graduated from high
school? Today the graduation rate is about 83 percent.
This information is taken from an article in the November 1997
issue of American Heritage magazine, titled "What Happened to
America’s Public Schools? Not What You May Think," by Gerald W.
Bracey. Mr. Bracey is the author of Setting the Record Straight:
Responses to Misconceptions About Public Education in the United
States (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development,
1997). Bracey argues that the perception that public schools are
a
failure, and that public schools used to be much better than they
are now, is a false perception.
Excerpts:
"In 1890 we were a nation of 63,056,000, but only 203,000 of some
3,000,000 age-eligible children attended secondary school."
A committee of college presidents wrote in 1890 that "As things
are now, the high school teacher finds in the pupils fresh from
the grammar schools no foundation of elementary mathematical
conceptions outside of arithmetic. … When college professors
endeavor to teach chemistry, physics, botany, zoology,
meteorology, or geology to persons of eighteen or twenty years of
age, they discover in most instances new habits of observing,
reflecting, and recording have to be painfully acquired. … The
college teacher of history finds in like manner that his subject
has never taken any serious hold."
Historian Lawrence Cremin is quoted: "The popularization of
American schools and colleges since the end of World War II has
been nothing short of phenomenal, involving an unprecedented
broadening of access, an unprecedented diversification of
curricula, and an unprecedented extension of public control. In
1950, 34% of the American population twenty-five years of age or
older had completed at least four years of high school, while 6
percent of that populations had completed at least four years of
college. By 1985, 74% of the American population twenty-five
years
or older had completed at least four years of high school, while
19 % had completed at least four years of college. During the
same
35 year period, school and college curricula broadened and
diversified tremendously. …"
Bracey says that some of the false perception of the failure of
public schools came out of Cold War hysteria that the Russians
were going to beat us at everything, include space technology.
Then there were headlines about falling SAT scores in the 1970s
and 1980s. The stories about the falling SAT scores failed to
point out that larger and larger percentages of high school
students were taking the SAT tests. Whereas in earlier (high
score) years only a small number of the very best students had
taken the tests, in later (low score) years a great many more
low-
to average-ability students had taken the tests.
A Reagan Administration blue-ribbon panel created a report on the
public schools called A nation at Risk, which Bracey says "may
well rank as one of the most selected uses of data in the history
of education. … indicators seem to have been carefully picked to
give as negative a view as possible." For example, the report
emphasized a decline in science achievement scores of
17-year-olds
in 1969, 1973, and 1977. However, Bracey says, only the data for
17-year-olds support the "crisis rhetoric." For other age groups,
scores had not declined. Further, the reading and math scores of
the same 17 year olds had been either steady or rising. "Of nine
trend lines, " wrote Bracey, "only one supported the crisis
rhetoric. That was the one the commission reported."
Bracey also points out that the poor performance of American
students compared to students from other countries disappears
when
you compare only American students from suburban public schools
to
students in other countries. "Students in suburban schools
measured alone rank anywhere from first to fifth among nations,
depending on subject."
What we’re seeing is that there has been so much knee-jerk
rhetoric about failing public schools that people just assume it
must be true, without checking the facts.
>A large difference was the idea that there is a basic structure,
>and that it could be used to provide general, not special,
>knowledge, which could be applied. Also, that there were
>non-trivial standards, which were not just what was supposedly
>immediately applicable.
According to this article, pegagogy of a century ago was
dominated
by the idea that the mind consisted of "faculties" that were
strengthed with exercise. Students studied the curriculum of the
time for the exercise of it. Material was chosen for study not so
much to broaden the student's knowledge base but to force him to
apply discipline to exercise and strengthen his faculties.
Gary Schnabl
hand, foot, house, etc. The present British Royal Family is German,
having changed their name during WWII. Kings George spoke little
English. Only George III took the time to learn English, I was taught.
That's not too uncommon. The first king and queen of Russia were
Scandinavians- Helga or Olga and her sickly husband. Some of the other
tsars were Lithuanian, Polish or German!
I came across a book on English linguistics in the 1960s that stated
that the Norman days almost wiped out the use of "English." The author
stated that the English were fond of "name dropping" and eagerly took on
the French terms. Pig's flesh (German Schwein Fleisch) became porque, or
pork. The early kings sat on a stool (German Stuhl). Now he HAD to sit
on a throne! Most culinary terms in English usage are of a later French
derivation from the Norman time. After a few centuries, there was a
neo-Classical period, during which time most of our enormous store of
Latin terms were introduced.
Alberto wrote:
>
> Loren Petrich wrote:
>
> > English irregular verbs coming from German? ROTFL.
> >
> > English's irregular verbs are almost all *native*, and many of
> > them can be traced back to Old English without much trouble. Given the
> > similar grammatical patterns of other Germanic languages, especially the
> > older ones, one extrapolates that the ancestral Germanic language had had
> > these irregularities also.
>
> Just rewind a bit further down in time. "Native" language in the British Isles
> came from Celtic, Latin, Germanic, roots. Take your pick. I don't know much
> Celtic, but many English verbs are definitely not Latin. If they're not
> Germanic either, then, maybe they come from northwestern France's Celts ?
>
> Alberto.
Gary Schnabl
and/or political sway of the Austrian Habsburgs, even at the turn of the
century leading Europe into WWI. The Habsburgs were very prolific and
shared their daughters with virtually every kingdom in Europe over a few
centuries. The size of Austria-Hungary rivaled that of Russia before
WWI, being in Poland, the various parts of the Czech and Slovak lands,
most of once Yugoslavian countries, the northern 1/4 of Italy (the
Quadrangle necessary for its defense - ask the Germans during WWII),
the Ukraine, parts of today's Russia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Roumania, parts
of Macedonia, Spain's royalty (the murdered Maximillian of Mexico was an
Austrian), etc.
I once had a German language atlas from 1999, and the size of the
Hapsburg's realms were unbelievable to those virtually uneducated in
history and geography as is the current American norm.
mahabarbara wrote:
>
> In article <8hlvcd$2d...@odds.stat.purdue.edu>,
> hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) wrote:
>
> >>>7. Name all the republics of Europe and give capital of
> each.
> >
> >> And the monarchies?
> >
> >Answer the questions. My knowledge of European history is
> >not fantastic, but I seem only to be able to come up with
> >two republics at that time, unless San Marino counts.
>
> OK, now I'm going to be spending the rest of the day trying to
> figure out what republics existed in Europe in 1895.
>
> It so happens that I own a set of encyclopedias that were
> published in 1897. I actually look stuff up in them sometimes.
> They are very good if you want to know something about sailing
> ships, but otherwise a little out of date. But now I guess I'll
> have to dig them out and look up republics. I'll try to remember
> to do that this evening.
>
> What two do you have? Italy? France? Switzerland?
>
> >What proportion of public school students today know grammar?
> >We cannot teach that variables are essentially pronouns, because
> >they do not know what that means.
>
> Oh, pshaw, sir. My kids went to public school and write very
> well.
> My daughter is an honors English student in college. (I've tried
> to get her to switch majors, knowing she is looking at a life of
> underemployment, but no luck so far.)
>
> >What proportion of them know any geography? I doubt that those
> >Kansas students would have had any problem in locating Japan
> >or Egypt on a map or globe.
>
> My kids went to public school and could locate Japan and Egypt
> long before the 8th grade.
>
> B.
>
> * Sent from RemarQ http://www.remarq.com The Internet's Discussion Network *
> The fastest and easiest way to search and participate in Usenet - Free!
--
Herman Rubin
>Gary Schnabl wrote:
>> An IQ standard deviation is some 15 or 16 IQ points, I believe. That
>> would mean that either in 1895, or whenever (you didn't state any
>> concrete time), that they were some 30-32 IQ points lower or that
>> today's kids are that much higher, or some combination! I have
>> encountered dozens of non special ed 6th graders who still do not know
>> what an adjective or other parts of speech are even after years of
>> schooling in them. In my district, this begins in the second grade. You
>> would think that such intelligent kids would know this after several
>> experiences repeated year after year!
>Teach the kids another language and they will instantly know all those
>things you were trying to teach them in English.
That is true if you teach the language as it used to be
done, and occasionally still is. However, if you teach
is as primarily a spoken language, teaching it as if
they were children incapable of learning grammar, they
will not learn that much grammar, despite the evidence
that children are capable of this before they have much
vocabulary in their native language.
Gary Schnabl
Herman Rubin
mahabarbara <bobrien...@scholastic.com.invalid> wrote:
>In article <8hrbsq$16...@odds.stat.purdue.edu>,
>hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) wrote:
>>I would not call it the Good Old Days. I would call it the
>Better
>>Old Days, better than what we now have.
>The Better Old Days, do you think? Did you know that a century
>ago
>only 3 percent of the population of the U.S. graduated from high
>school? Today the graduation rate is about 83 percent.
The 3 percent increased considerably before the
educationists took over. In the northern cities, I suspect
it was in the neighborhood of 50%. Today the graduation
rate may be 83 percent, but I question that half of them
could come to the levels of the 30s.
I do not know what proportion are capable of getting
sound high school diplomas, but I do not see it as
corresponding to an IQ of 85, and most of them are
not college material.
Those who got high school diplomas a century ago were
mainly college material for strong college programs. In
the 30s, this only applied to a minority, although a larger
minority would have taken the college preparatory program
if they realized how easy it was for a good student to get
scholarships.
The massive growth in state-supported colleges brought in
the demand to pass and graduate at least the upper group,
usually half, of those whom the educationists had decided
should graduate high school. There are NOW some tests,
and while they are too low and inadequate they are running
into strong opposition, imposed to graduate high school.
The move to social promotion produced high school graduates,
but made the diploma a certificate of attendance.
In the early 50s, when student quality was at its peak,
some college presidents spoke out that, if we want everyone
to have a bachelor's degree, award them at birth, so the
schools could concentrate on teaching those who could and
would really learn. Times are worse; quantity is up, and
quality is down.
Donna Metler
special education would not have been in school at that time) and students
who were less than interested rarely went even to 8th grade, it is highly
likely that the average "intelligence" was significantly higher then.
Certainly, the average high school graduate would have been more
"intelligent" then, because you're comparing a society where under 10% of
students complete high school to one where over 80% do so. Assuming
"intelligence" has a standard distribution which has remained constant (a
dubious claim, if I remember my psychological assessments course
correctly-the Stanford-Binet and Weschler scales have both been renormed
several times, for various reasons) a sample which almost certainly comes
from the top 25%
is going to perform better, as an aggregate, than a fair sample distributed
over the top 80%.
This doesn't mean that the education system is better-only that more people
attend, to a higher level. Does this mean that society as a whole is more
intelligent? Not if you accept that intelligence tests measure what they
claim to measure, which is where a given individual falls compared to the
average member of a norming sample group. Does more intelligence coorelate
with more actual knowledge? Well, we try to teach a lot more now, but I
expect that the amount of knowledge is also a constant, with a distribution.
My inner city students had a lot of knowledge-but it didn't come from a
textbook. I would have difficulty surviving with the knowledge base I have in
their world, without some serious re-learning. Similarly, I doubt seriously
that I, as a reasonably well educated individual, would be able to transfer
smoothly to 1895, even if I can come up with fairly good (acceptable is in
the mind of the grader, who is not here to assess) answers for most of the
8th grade exam.
Bill Bonde wrote:
> Gary Schnabl wrote:
> >
> > An IQ standard deviation is some 15 or 16 IQ points, I believe. That
> > would mean that either in 1895, or whenever (you didn't state any
> > concrete time), that they were some 30-32 IQ points lower or that
> > today's kids are that much higher, or some combination! I have
> > encountered dozens of non special ed 6th graders who still do not know
> > what an adjective or other parts of speech are even after years of
> > schooling in them. In my district, this begins in the second grade. You
> > would think that such intelligent kids would know this after several
> > experiences repeated year after year!
> >
> Teach the kids another language and they will instantly know all those
> things you were trying to teach them in English.
--
Donna Devore Metler
dmme...@bellsouth.net
www.math.ttu.edu/~dmettler
www.funfelt.com/donna
Asst. Director, Educational Programming, Peabody Place Museum
Faculty, Academy of the Performing Arts, early childhood and applied music
Children's educational advocate
Bill Bonde
Herman Rubin wrote:
>
> In article <39412DB9...@mail.com>, Bill Bonde <std...@mail.com> wrote:
>
> >Gary Schnabl wrote:
>
> >> An IQ standard deviation is some 15 or 16 IQ points, I believe. That
> >> would mean that either in 1895, or whenever (you didn't state any
> >> concrete time), that they were some 30-32 IQ points lower or that
> >> today's kids are that much higher, or some combination! I have
> >> encountered dozens of non special ed 6th graders who still do not know
> >> what an adjective or other parts of speech are even after years of
> >> schooling in them. In my district, this begins in the second grade. You
> >> would think that such intelligent kids would know this after several
> >> experiences repeated year after year!
>
> >Teach the kids another language and they will instantly know all those
> >things you were trying to teach them in English.
>
> That is true if you teach the language as it used to be
> done, and occasionally still is. However, if you teach
> is as primarily a spoken language, teaching it as if
> they were children incapable of learning grammar, they
> will not learn that much grammar, despite the evidence
> that children are capable of this before they have much
> vocabulary in their native language.
>
Grammar is the most interesting part of languages, at least for me.
English is a peculiar language in that its speakers seem proud of their
ability to change a word from one part of speech to another without any
obvious external change to the word itself.
Alberto
Gary Schnabl wrote:
> Most of the English basic "gut" terms are of Germanic origin. Man,
> hand, foot, house, etc. The present British Royal Family is German,
> having changed their name during WWII.
Actually, I heard it at more than one occasion, when some Englishman or woman was
upset with the Queen, or with some member of the Royal Family, this would come out
in a jiffy, "Bloody Germans, who they think they are ? "
Alberto.
Alberto
Gary Schnabl wrote:
> What many do not understand about German is that concerning the High
> and Low of it. The High refers to altitude, as in the Alps, where my
> grandparents emigrated from (the Gau Tal of Austria, near Italy and
> Slovenia). The Low is often referred to as Platt Deutsch. Platt for
> flat, as in the Low Countries.
Like Highland and Lowland Scots. Interesting I thought the Platt and Hoch meant
more "uneducated" and "educated" German. There's always something new to learn!
> Learning
> languages that are similar but different is often harder than the study
> of two vastly different languages. I'm sure that Alberto would agree on this.
Yes, I have seen some interesting cases. When I was a kid, we had an Argentinian
pianist of my age living in our house, for a year. He quickly fell into an
intermediate form between Spanish and Portuguese, and he got along well. Then,
many months after he was in Rio, his parents came up from Buenos Aires, and you
should see that kid trying to switch to pure Spanish, it just didn't happen.
Shortly before we married, my (then future) wife spent some time doing graduate
music studies in Portugal. So she comes back, and in the beginning you hear the
purest Portuguese accent and vocabulary you could ever dream of! Then, as the
days passed, she gradually switched to Brazilian Portuguese - but then, all of a
sudden, and uncalled for, she would switch, sometimes midphrase, to Portugal
Portuguese. And that was quite a sight, and she had great difficulty handling it,
even within the same language.
My German teacher in Brazil awoke me to an interesting phenomenon, German
immigrants including snippets of Portuguese words into their German, things like,
for example, "auf dem Praia" to mean "on the beach", and so on.
It's tough, specially when the contact is at close quarters.
Alberto.
Alberto
lojbab wrote:
> English has absolutely nothing that can meaningfully be called a dative
> or prepositional case, and one would never think that there would be a
> need to disambiguate between them, if one did not have the preconceived
> notion that there were such cases cases.
The case is there, even if there's no declension, with a particle. For
example, I, me, mine, to me: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative.
Alberto.
Gary Schnabl
nothing where there are no actual standards for success/failure. Kids
get one year older, not one year smarter! They all pass to the next
higher level, ad nauseum. Where I work, some 30-40% do nothing in the
8th grade before being promoted into high school. What a messge that
teaches those youngsters. How are they going to get and keep a real job?
Their dropout rate last year was at 30%, almost twice the national average.
Furthermore, you equate "street smarts" with knowledge. That is not
learned in school anyway. So what do inner city kids learn in school?
The newer breed of teachers tend to be anti intellectuals who look upon
knowledge as trivia. Too many of them are essentially over-priced baby
sitters/playground supervisors, although well-intended.
I talk with the regular teachers occasionally about their students'
low scoring on the state's proficiency tests. They say that there are
only a few wrong answers between the three levels of proficiency! If
that's the case, why are they nearly always ensconced in the lowest
level? That's not a random occurrence; it's a trend.
Donna Metler wrote:
> This doesn't mean that the education system is better-only that more people
> attend, to a higher level. Does this mean that society as a whole is more
> intelligent? Not if you accept that intelligence tests measure what they
> claim to measure, which is where a given individual falls compared to the
> average member of a norming sample group. Does more intelligence coorelate
> with more actual knowledge? Well, we try to teach a lot more now, but I
> expect that the amount of knowledge is also a constant, with a distribution.
>
> My inner city students had a lot of knowledge-but it didn't come from a
> textbook. I would have difficulty surviving with the knowledge base I have in
> their world, without some serious re-learning. Similarly, I doubt seriously
> that I, as a reasonably well educated individual, would be able to transfer
> smoothly to 1895, even if I can come up with fairly good (acceptable is in
> the mind of the grader, who is not here to assess) answers for most of the
> 8th grade exam.
>
> Bill Bonde wrote:
>
> > Gary Schnabl wrote:
> > >
> > > An IQ standard deviation is some 15 or 16 IQ points, I believe. That
> > > would mean that either in 1895, or whenever (you didn't state any
> > > concrete time), that they were some 30-32 IQ points lower or that
> > > today's kids are that much higher, or some combination! I have
> > > encountered dozens of non special ed 6th graders who still do not know
> > > what an adjective or other parts of speech are even after years of
> > > schooling in them. In my district, this begins in the second grade. You
> > > would think that such intelligent kids would know this after several
> > > experiences repeated year after year!
> > >
> > Teach the kids another language and they will instantly know all those
> > things you were trying to teach them in English.
>
> --
> Donna Devore Metler
> dmme...@bellsouth.net
> www.math.ttu.edu/~dmettler
> www.funfelt.com/donna
> Asst. Director, Educational Programming, Peabody Place Museum
> Faculty, Academy of the Performing Arts, early childhood and applied music
> Children's educational advocate
--
Donna Metler
Gary Schnabl wrote:
> I noticed that you mentioned "attend" to a higher level. That means
> nothing where there are no actual standards for success/failure. Kids
> get one year older, not one year smarter! They all pass to the next
> higher level, ad nauseum. Where I work, some 30-40% do nothing in the
> 8th grade before being promoted into high school. What a messge that
> teaches those youngsters. How are they going to get and keep a real job?
> Their dropout rate last year was at 30%, almost twice the national average.
>
> Furthermore, you equate "street smarts" with knowledge. That is not
> learned in school anyway. So what do inner city kids learn in school?
> The newer breed of teachers tend to be anti intellectuals who look upon
> knowledge as trivia. Too many of them are essentially over-priced baby
> sitters/playground supervisors, although well-intended.
My question to you is: Could you, with all of your knowledge, survive in the
different environment which inner city students face? Ruby Payne's work on poverty
includes a survival test for different socio-economic levels, and the skills
required therein. By and large, the skills which children living in matriarchal
poverty, in an inner-city, need are not the essentially middle class skills taught
by the schools. In general, it is harder for such children to value school.
In the area of the country where I grew up, there is a sizeable old-order mennonite
population (old order mennonites, like amish, use no electricity or fuel power, and
live a very simple, agrarian lifestyle). Old order mennonites generally withdraw
their children from school at 8th grade, even now, unless the child is going to be
a teacher, doctor, or laywer. The skills which are valued in the old order
mennonite community are simply not those taught in schools.
I do not have the skills to live in an old order mennonite community. I cannot do
many of the things (sewing garments by hand, which need to be durable, farm using a
hand plow, build a building without power tools.) required. If I took an old order
mennonite aptitude test, I would fail.
The fact is, school attendance does not mean knowledge. I stated that in my post,
and I noticed you omitted this. But, 8th graders 100 years ago were generally those
students who were planning to go for higher education, because the push towards
"get these kids in school and keep them there until age 18" wasn't yet as common,
therefore were a more select group.
I would like nothing more than to see social promotion done away with. This is one
reason why I left my former teaching position. I don't like what I'm seeing, and
what teachers are being forced to do. My former district has embraced "Success for
All" with a passion. This is a reading program (now expanded into math and social
studies/science) where students are supposedly grouped by ability, not age. The
problem is, no child is allowed to fail. Therefore, children can be reading
miserably, and still be getting good grades. No child is allowed to get below a C.
What happens when these children get out of elementary school after years of
inflated grades without learning to read? When I took a low group of readers, threw
out the curriculum, and taught the basic skills, the kids learned to read-and my
principal chose to eliminate my position to remove me from the school because I
wasn't "with the program".
>
>
> I talk with the regular teachers occasionally about their students'
> low scoring on the state's proficiency tests. They say that there are
> only a few wrong answers between the three levels of proficiency! If
> that's the case, why are they nearly always ensconced in the lowest
> level? That's not a random occurrence; it's a trend.
>
> Donna Metler wrote:
>
> > This doesn't mean that the education system is better-only that more people
> > attend, to a higher level. Does this mean that society as a whole is more
> > intelligent? Not if you accept that intelligence tests measure what they
> > claim to measure, which is where a given individual falls compared to the
> > average member of a norming sample group. Does more intelligence coorelate
> > with more actual knowledge? Well, we try to teach a lot more now, but I
> > expect that the amount of knowledge is also a constant, with a distribution.
> >
> > My inner city students had a lot of knowledge-but it didn't come from a
> > textbook. I would have difficulty surviving with the knowledge base I have in
> > their world, without some serious re-learning. Similarly, I doubt seriously
> > that I, as a reasonably well educated individual, would be able to transfer
> > smoothly to 1895, even if I can come up with fairly good (acceptable is in
> > the mind of the grader, who is not here to assess) answers for most of the
> > 8th grade exam.
> >
> > Bill Bonde wrote:
> >
> > > Gary Schnabl wrote:
> > > >
> > > > An IQ standard deviation is some 15 or 16 IQ points, I believe. That
> > > > would mean that either in 1895, or whenever (you didn't state any
> > > > concrete time), that they were some 30-32 IQ points lower or that
> > > > today's kids are that much higher, or some combination! I have
> > > > encountered dozens of non special ed 6th graders who still do not know
> > > > what an adjective or other parts of speech are even after years of
> > > > schooling in them. In my district, this begins in the second grade. You
> > > > would think that such intelligent kids would know this after several
> > > > experiences repeated year after year!
> > > >
> > > Teach the kids another language and they will instantly know all those
> > > things you were trying to teach them in English.
> >
> > --
> > Donna Devore Metler
> > dmme...@bellsouth.net
> > www.math.ttu.edu/~dmettler
> > www.funfelt.com/donna
> > Asst. Director, Educational Programming, Peabody Place Museum
> > Faculty, Academy of the Performing Arts, early childhood and applied music
> > Children's educational advocate
>
> --
> Gary Schnabl
> (Southwest) Detroit -- 2 miles NORTH of Canada
--
Damian J. Anderson
Alberto wrote:
If you want to be pedantic about it, English has the same cases as Latin, but
uses prepositions to achieve the same meanings:
Nominative: I
Vocative: Oh me! (Oh my! :-) )
Accusative: Me
Genitive: Mine
Dative: To me, from me
Ablative: By me, with me, from me.
It was only in studying other languages that I came to understand English
grammar, as it was not so much taught in my schools either. Studying an
oriental language like Korean was another matter, where they have particles to
denote subject (I/ka), object (ul/rul), possessive (ui), emphasis (un/nun) and
so on.
And since I was the one who posted the test in the first place, I did not
really have any agenda in doing so. I just thought it was a neat curiosity,
and note that the educational system of the time emphasized English grammar,
spelling/orthography, punctuation, arithmetic, history and geography, and did
not emphasize such subjects as higher mathematics (algebra, trigonometry,
calculus), foreign languages, physics, chemistry, biology, music/art which are
taught today in high schools.
And for those who said that the one who posted the test scorns modernism and
modern education, let's just say that I have three graduate degrees, and if
you care to, look up my resume on the net. It's not hard to find.
--
Damian Anderson dam...@unification.net http://www.unification.net
"Outside of a dog, a book is probably man's best friend, and inside of a
dog, it's too dark to read." -- Groucho Marx
Loren Petrich
Herman Rubin <hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu> wrote:
>In article <3e58796b...@usw-ex0106-045.remarq.com>,
>mahabarbara <bobrien...@scholastic.com.invalid> wrote:
>>The Better Old Days, do you think? Did you know that a century
>>ago
>>only 3 percent of the population of the U.S. graduated from high
>>school? Today the graduation rate is about 83 percent.
>The 3 percent increased considerably before the
>educationists took over. ...
And when did these enemies of the American people first appear?
Gary Schnabl
WI. There were two main groups - one about 8 miles southwest of my home
in Brodhead and the others in Magnolia. Every other week, on Sunday, one
group would visit the others. So on Sundays their horses would be
continually going past my place on Hwy. 59. The Amish have their own
private school, it being a new clean one story building with an outside
outhouse and a parking lot for their carriages! The teaching would fall
usually to an unmarried (as yet) older teeanage woman. They received a
bilingual education, English and German, and they have a good business
sense. They live as dairy farmers and earn income from selling their
crafts and their bakery goods. Their knowledge of history and geography
is better than the non Amish due to their work/study ethics.
I knew a Mennonite research professor who was employed at the
University of Wisconsin. He was a computer expert and also authored a
fine book on instruction for the 5-string banjo while he lived in
Gainsville, FL. He also farmed in Dayton, WI a few miles northwest of my
farmhouse. The Amish and Mennonites are not backwards intellectually as
many believe.
Currently, I live in the Patton Park neighborhood of southwest
Detroit near the South End of Dearborn (the old Rouge Steel and Ford car
plants that are undergoing a $2 billion makeover). If some kids here
choose to drop out and not achieve during their school years, tough!
It's their life decision. They know what they're doing. I'm no
bleeding-heart radiclib, but a libertarian. Other kids living elsewhere
make these same decisions. Actually, I live in the only remaining nice
part of the city where the crime is non-existent in comparison. My
neighbors send their kids to school and do not tolerate the crap that
other parents in the city do considering education. I live on a quiet
dead-end street near the Livernois/Dearborn Conrail yards two blocks
away from an elementary school, and I hardly sense that it's there at
all as the kids are so well behaved.
Bob LeChevalier
>lojbab wrote:
>> English has absolutely nothing that can meaningfully be called a dative
>> or prepositional case, and one would never think that there would be a
>> need to disambiguate between them, if one did not have the preconceived
>> notion that there were such cases cases.
>
>The case is there, even if there's no declension, with a particle. For
>example, I, me, mine, to me: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative.
No dative, and the "genitive" is ONLY used for possession, hence is better
called a possessive.
If there is a dative, then per my other post, there is a case for every other
preposition: for me, through me, of me, in me, above me, unto me. It is only
because of Latin structure that we would attach any particular significance
to the preposition "to" in English among all the prepositions, and even there
the preposition is not always associated with what is a dative in other
languages (in Russian, that which is conveyed by English "to" is split
equally between the dative and the accusative).
lojbab
--
lojbab loj...@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org
Alberto
Donna Metler wrote:
> My question to you is: Could you, with all of your knowledge, survive in the
> different environment which inner city students face?
I think so. I'm Brazilian, I have lived in conditions far harsher than the average
American inner city. Now, the question is, could they survive up there ?
I doubt it, any Brazilian peasant living alone on the edge of the jungle will run
circles around American inner city dwellers as far as survival goes.
Remove the parasitism component, and let's see who's the fittest.
Alberto.
Alberto
"Damian J. Anderson" wrote:
> If you want to be pedantic about it, English has the same cases as Latin, but
> uses prepositions to achieve the same meanings:
>
> Nominative: I
> Vocative: Oh me! (Oh my! :-) )
> Accusative: Me
> Genitive: Mine
> Dative: To me, from me
> Ablative: By me, with me, from me.
Well, it's not pedantic, it's just precision. The cases are there, and in isolated
instances, vestiges of the declensions have stayed.
[snip...]
> And for those who said that the one who posted the test scorns modernism and
> modern education, let's just say that I have three graduate degrees, and if
> you care to, look up my resume on the net. It's not hard to find.
I hope you don't think I'm challenging your credentials. I'm just pointing out
something that to me, not being a native speaker of English, some oddities of the
language spring out pretty obviously, specially when taken at the light of the
orthogonality and predictability of your typical Latin language.
Alberto.
mahabarbara
pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) wrote:
>In article <8hrpho$6...@odds.stat.purdue.edu>,
>Herman Rubin <hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu> wrote:
>>In article <3e58796b...@usw-ex0106-045.remarq.com>,
>>mahabarbara <bobrien...@scholastic.com.invalid> wrote:
>
>>>ago
>>>only 3 percent of the population of the U.S. graduated from
high
>>>school? Today the graduation rate is about 83 percent.
>
>>educationists took over. ...
>
> And when did these enemies of the American people first
appear?
They've been around at least since Horace Mann (1830s, I think)
and before.
>
>--
>Loren Petrich Happiness is a fast
Macintosh
>pet...@netcom.com And a fast train
>My home page: http://www.petrich.com/home.html
>
>
mahabarbara
hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) wrote:
>In article <3e58796b...@usw-ex0106-045.remarq.com>,
>mahabarbara <bobrien...@scholastic.com.invalid> wrote:
>
>>hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) wrote:
>
>
>>>I would not call it the Good Old Days. I would call it the
>>Better
>>>Old Days, better than what we now have.
>
>>The Better Old Days, do you think? Did you know that a century
>>ago
>>only 3 percent of the population of the U.S. graduated from
high
>>school? Today the graduation rate is about 83 percent.
>
>it was in the neighborhood of 50%.
Rubin, give up. I have spent many, many years toiling away in
the field of educational and academic publishing, and have been
exposed to the "educationists" and the history thereof.
The 3 percent was a nationwide figure, Rubin. Yes, it probably
was higher in the northeast and lower in other places, but it
can't get much lower than 3 percent. Between 1910 and 1945 that
percentage went from 10 percent to 45 percent. And
the "educationists" have been with us all along. They were
around in the 1890s as much as now. They change names and
theories, but there they were.
Here's another quote for you: In 1943 the New York Times and
Columbia University did a study of the academic abilities of
college freshmen, and the results were appalling: "A large
majority of the students showed that they had virtually no
knowledge of elementary aspects of American history. They could
not identify such names as Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson,
Andrew Jackson or Theodore Roosevelt .... Most of our students
do not have the faintest notion of what this country looks
like....Hundreds of students listed Walt Whitman as being an
orchestra leader."
> Today the graduation
>rate may be 83 percent, but I question that half of them
>could come to the levels of the 30s.
See above.
>
>I do not know what proportion are capable of getting
>sound high school diplomas, but I do not see it as
>corresponding to an IQ of 85, and most of them are
>not college material.
I don't know where you pulled the IQ of 85 from. Nor were we
discussing who was college material and who wasn't.
>
>Those who got high school diplomas a century ago were
>mainly college material for strong college programs.
Yes, this is my point; that one of the reasons students overall
sometimes look bad in comparison to students in the past is that
we are comparing averages from nearly the total population of
today to averages of a college-bound elite from the past. If
anything, schools today may be doing an OVERALL better job, but
you can't tell that from skewed statistics.
In
>the 30s, this only applied to a minority, although a larger
>minority would have taken the college preparatory program
>if they realized how easy it was for a good student to get
>scholarships.
See above about Columbia University study of college freshmen.
>
>The massive growth in state-supported colleges brought in
>the demand to pass and graduate at least the upper group,
>usually half, of those whom the educationists had decided
>should graduate high school.
Oh, those nasty educationists again. What an evil group. There
was a massive growth in number of college seats in the 1960s and
1970s, fueld by the baby boom. But the state supported
university I went to was founded during the Thomas Jefferson
administration.
>There are NOW some tests,
>and while they are too low and inadequate they are running
>into strong opposition, imposed to graduate high school.
>The move to social promotion produced high school graduates,
>but made the diploma a certificate of attendance.
You are behind the times. There has been a strong move in recent
years to toughen up graduation standards in many states.
>In the early 50s, when student quality was at its peak,
>some college presidents spoke out that, if we want everyone
>to have a bachelor's degree, award them at birth, so the
>schools could concentrate on teaching those who could and
>would really learn. Times are worse; quantity is up, and
>quality is down.
so we should just let the hoi polloi remain ignorant, and focus
on our elite? And this will aid democracy and provide workers
for high tech industry how ....?
B.
>--
>This address is for information only. I do not claim that
these views
>are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
>Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette
IN47907-1399
>hru...@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)
494-0558
>
>
Herman Rubin
>Herman Rubin wrote:
>> In article <39412DB9...@mail.com>, Bill Bonde <std...@mail.com> wrote:
>> >Gary Schnabl wrote:
>> >> An IQ standard deviation is some 15 or 16 IQ points, I believe. That
>> >> would mean that either in 1895, or whenever (you didn't state any
>> >> concrete time), that they were some 30-32 IQ points lower or that
>> >> today's kids are that much higher, or some combination! I have
>> >> encountered dozens of non special ed 6th graders who still do not know
>> >> what an adjective or other parts of speech are even after years of
>> >> schooling in them. In my district, this begins in the second grade. You
>> >> would think that such intelligent kids would know this after several
>> >> experiences repeated year after year!
>> >Teach the kids another language and they will instantly know all those
>> >things you were trying to teach them in English.
>> That is true if you teach the language as it used to be
>> done, and occasionally still is. However, if you teach
>> is as primarily a spoken language, teaching it as if
>> they were children incapable of learning grammar, they
>> will not learn that much grammar, despite the evidence
>> that children are capable of this before they have much
>> vocabulary in their native language.
>Grammar is the most interesting part of languages, at least for me.
>English is a peculiar language in that its speakers seem proud of their
>ability to change a word from one part of speech to another without any
>obvious external change to the word itself.
What is interesting is, to a considerable matter, personal
taste. What is important about grammar is that it gives a
structure, which enables one to understand the language
better, and to even learn more vocabulary with less work.
Even in those days when English grammar was regularly taught,
students who took foreign languages, of course grammar based,
learned more about English grammar from them.
It is even difficult to use a dictionary in many languages
if one does not know the grammar.
Herman Rubin
>>In article <3e58796b...@usw-ex0106-045.remarq.com>,
>>mahabarbara <bobrien...@scholastic.com.invalid> wrote:
>>>The Better Old Days, do you think? Did you know that a century
>>>ago
>>>only 3 percent of the population of the U.S. graduated from high
>>>school? Today the graduation rate is about 83 percent.
>>The 3 percent increased considerably before the
>>educationists took over. ...
> And when did these enemies of the American people first appear?
These enemies of the American people seem to have managed
to gain power during the Depression; not at the same time
in all places. They did not change everything immediately;
the system had some inertia. And as social reformers
always do, they promised that their changes would increase
the knowledge of all. The first change was age grouping
and social promotion. Then came to move to teaching to
the test, with social studies replacing separate subjects,
and the move to objective tests. In the late 30s, the
policy of having young children not have homework or take
their books home to study started, together with the move
to the look-say approach to reading.
In large northern cities, and even in rural regions, there
was already at least a substantial proportion of high school
graduates. Programs not designed to prepare for college,
and even vocational programs, were in place.
Herman Rubin
Donna Metler <dmme...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>Gary Schnabl wrote:
>> I noticed that you mentioned "attend" to a higher level. That means
>> nothing where there are no actual standards for success/failure. Kids
>> get one year older, not one year smarter! They all pass to the next
>> higher level, ad nauseum. Where I work, some 30-40% do nothing in the
>> 8th grade before being promoted into high school. What a messge that
>> teaches those youngsters. How are they going to get and keep a real job?
>> Their dropout rate last year was at 30%, almost twice the national average.
>> Furthermore, you equate "street smarts" with knowledge. That is not
>> learned in school anyway. So what do inner city kids learn in school?
>> The newer breed of teachers tend to be anti intellectuals who look upon
>> knowledge as trivia. Too many of them are essentially over-priced baby
>> sitters/playground supervisors, although well-intended.
> My question to you is: Could you, with all of your knowledge, survive in the
>different environment which inner city students face? Ruby Payne's work on poverty
>includes a survival test for different socio-economic levels, and the skills
>required therein. By and large, the skills which children living in matriarchal
>poverty, in an inner-city, need are not the essentially middle class skills taught
>by the schools. In general, it is harder for such children to value school.
If the general student body does not value academic knowledge,
let those who do have their chance at it. By not doing so,
all are condemned to an education which is not compatible with
the needs of a society based on modern technology and its bases
is science and mathematics. If the present schools cannot
separate these out, we need those which can. If the situation
is as you state, it cannot be done with neighborhood schools
at all.
Herman Rubin
mahabarbara <bobrien...@scholastic.com.invalid> wrote:
>In article <8hrpho$6...@odds.stat.purdue.edu>,
>hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) wrote:
>>In article <3e58796b...@usw-ex0106-045.remarq.com>,
>>mahabarbara <bobrien...@scholastic.com.invalid> wrote:
>>>In article <8hrbsq$16...@odds.stat.purdue.edu>,
>>>hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) wrote:
...............
>> Today the graduation
>>rate may be 83 percent, but I question that half of them
>>could come to the levels of the 30s.
>See above.
>>I do not know what proportion are capable of getting
>>sound high school diplomas, but I do not see it as
>>corresponding to an IQ of 85, and most of them are
>>not college material.
>I don't know where you pulled the IQ of 85 from. Nor were we
>discussing who was college material and who wasn't.
The IQ of 85 comes from the 83% graduation rate.
The actual situation is probably worse, as there
are a fair number of gifted dropouts, and there
are gimmicks to get those of lower intelligence
through high school. What it means, in any case,
is that if 83% are getting a credential, the
credential must be woefully low.
Even if the dumbing down only slowed your progress,
the public schools have deprived you of several
years of your professional career.
Bill Bonde
And it is harder for grammar to be shared between non-related languages
then words or vowel sounds.
> Even in those days when English grammar was regularly taught,
> students who took foreign languages, of course grammar based,
> learned more about English grammar from them.
>
That's right.
> It is even difficult to use a dictionary in many languages
> if one does not know the grammar.
>
Although irregular conjugations and declensions are often included to
help.