From Mike: A Solid Discussion

[ReggaeMike]

If you by your delivery inculcate terrible habits...then your results shall reflect that. ...then you have those who were they recipients of those bad habits becoming the "new 'inclucaters". That puts the country on the 'down escalator'.

So now it is the teachers and policy makers who are responsible for the habits of children despite policy makers never seeing the children and teachers never having access to them until about the age of 4 or 5 (maybe 3 if they are in kindergarten)? Schools run from about 8 until 2 each day. So teachers access these students for about..6 hours a day, 5 days a week for a grand total of 30 hours a week (not even 2 full days combined). Parents though in theory should be around these children from before 8 (let's say an hour) and from 2 until say 8 in the evening. Even if they don't see the kids until 6 in the evening they would still have 15 hours in the work week and then all of 26 hours on the weekend (total 41 hours at a minimum and perhaps up to 61 hours maximum).

As you said though children will pick up bad habits...including the bad habit of never accepting any responsibility for themselves because grown-ups treat them like they are under 2-years of age for the entirety of their childhood. If children are not gradually and continuously given little bits of responsibility (and treated likewise including accepting blame) then they will never be able to break these terrible habits in the first place. How can it be possible for a 15 old not to be responsible for his performance on the exam? Just because he had bad teachers when he was 4? How does that explain the children who had terrible teachers (or in some cases no teachers) and who turned themselves around? Are they simply exceptional cases? If so, how does that square with the idea that all children have the same potential to be top of the class and with the idea that all children are alike? Blaming the general situation is a cop-out because none of his teachers are taking his exams for him and at the end of each school day he knows that he is supposed to take an exam and needs to do well on the exam and that he needs to know certain things in order to do well. If he doesn't wish to study, then that is his fault because like all human beings he is supposed to have free will and independence of thought (if not independence in the sense of living like an adult). Even rats, cats and dogs have independence of thought in many instances.

It is fact that the very young are always eager to learn ALL things around them. Not so as they get older.

Children are not made from cookie-cutters. Some have longer attention spans than others. And I've seen very young children within my own family ignore entirely new and alien objects because they had absolutely no interest in it.

I said this already but I shall repeat. Could it be that in the country's you reference that even as it is known that methods were inferior to what holds today those country's were 'miles' ahead of what we enjoyed (employed) in Jamaica? Would they not have had a head start on us...that even to this day puts them 'jumps' ahead in delivery of education and therefore results?

The answer is no. Firstly you were distinctly referring to methods and that they must grab the attention of the child (be "fun"). If the methods in those countries was inferior to what is employed around the world today then how on earth could they be "miles ahead" of Jamaica? That's illogical because "inferior" would mean they couldn't possibly be miles ahead. Do you honestly think any method employed in 1800s France when they were sending hundreds and thousands of able-bodied men (and thus potential teachers) off to die in the wastelands of frozen Russia, beheading people left, right and centre or having invading armies plunder and pillage their villages and fields would have been inferior to what is employed in Jamaica today? The very first primer (at least the very first known printed primer) was around in the 15th Century (1400s). Are we to believe that when printing and paper were still much more expensive in the 1800s in France (not helped by the wars) they were miles ahead of Jamaica today? All children below the age of 15 weren't even required to go to school in France until the 1880s yet illiteracy had been declining within each generation since the early 1700s (so almost 200 years). How do you account for that if not for the parents and children themselves taking responsibility?

...and why would they not if the policy makers, teachers and thus society had not improved on quality delivery - (methods awful...they bore the kids and turn them off plus they also were in many cases repeating the deep seated 'inaccurate knowledge' and marring the students with same) - reinforcement was sub-standard?

Because as I just explained, by the time you reach first form in high school you should already have a fairly good command of English and know how to spell and what is proper basic grammar as well as have some basic knowledge of nouns and verbs. High school only expands on that, so it is not about being unable to learn the basic material for CSEC since English (like Math) is among the very first subjects ever taught to children (it certainly doesn't start at the CSEC level). However, if a student doesn't practice it (as he must with all subjects) he will eventually lose it, so you can have a child who did well in pre- and prep-school in English who can get below III in CSEC English because they just don't practice English, don't read and become lazy in their speech habits.

I've already found the results for 2009 CSEC English Language. Why not find the results for GSAT English (or Language Arts I think it is called) for 2004 to see if the 2004/09 cohort really did fair as badly as 50% from prep-school?

...plus they also were in many cases repeating the deep seated 'inaccurate knowledge' and marring the students with same)...

Okay, you will need to explain this one to me because I am at a loss to see how spelling, grammar and identifying nouns, verbs, adjectives and their functions can be taught as deep seated inaccurate knowledge (remember we were speaking about English Language being "tricky" here so it must have been English Language you were referring to when talking about deep seated 'inaccurate knowledge'). To the best of my knowledge new discoveries are not made about the English Language to overturn the rules of grammar, the spelling of words or the functions and types of the parts of speech.
I think you are bogged down by thinking you are in an elite group. Your elite group is, in your mind, the can learn very well set. You think there is another group, not of the elite group, and in your mind that group is, the cannot learn very well set. You said it previously and that thread runs throughout your arguments.

We all at birth have the same capacity to learn...unless, as I previously pointed out, "wi drap pan wi ead"!

It's a bit more complicated than that. Some have autism. Some have syndromes or conditions related to unhealthy pregnancies (mothers smoking, doing drugs, drinking lots of alcohol, not eating right). So no we don't all have the same capacity to start with. We may all have a similar potential/capacity, but that's about it.

If you can overcome that bias that leads you to think some of us can learn and some of us cannot and accept we are all equal in ability to learn then and only then will you start questioning the 'delivery of education' as the problem. You will turn to making improvements in delivery - methods and environs.

It's not a bias, it's a fact unless you have proof which overturns years of medical knowledge relating to the link between what mothers (and even fathers) do during a pregnancy and what the child will turn out to be like.

Best environment - Has teacher in full command of the subject. Has teacher with great powers of observation - Need to be able to see when the student is 'troubled'...all instances when the student is 'troubled'.

And PE has this?

Well possibly since in PE being troubled in the subject isn't like being troubled in Math. After all PE is fairly easy. You don't have to do complex things like count or modify words in order to change their meaning. It's just using your brain for your muscles and remember what one does for a given sport. Plus it's harder to cheat in class so as to escape the attention of the teacher.

It would mean of course that PE teachers would probably fail dismally if they taught subjects like Math and English.

...and Physical manner! Needs as it relates to nutrition, adequate sleep,

So how is this the responsibility of anybody except the student and his parents? Nutrition at school I can understand but kids are only supposed to get 1 meal at school each day for 5 days. The other 2 meals a day for those days are supposed to come from the parents. Then the 3 meals on weekends are supposed to come from the parents. Teachers and policy makers also aren't supposed to put children to sleep since they don't live with the children. It's up to the parents and the child if the child wants to sleep to at night and eat properly for just over 75% of his weekly diet (since parents should be providing 16 out of 21 meals for the child).

and in every which way that has an effect on the student's mind-set ability to learn. Yes...that will also spill over into recognizing that the method which has, say 20% of the class having 'fun' and advancing at warp speed is inappropriate for the other 80% and the teacher then must do something about changing the method used to 'deliver' and move to finding the methods that make it 'fun' for all in his or her 'teaching environ'.

But if all children have an equal capacity to learn then why are different methods needed for different students? Surely that cannot be right if all students are equal in ability? In that case all the students should be having fun and advancing at warp speed or none should be at all.

If the child has not learnt, the teacher has not taught.

Overly simplistic.

If the child has not learnt then any or all of the possibilities has occurred:

1. the teacher has not taught

2. the child has no paid attention through their own volition.

3. the parent has not supported the learning process

4. the child has a problem

These possibilities are not exclusive and can have an effect on each other, but each can occur independently and also independently be the cause of the child failing.

If the child...the student never reads outside of the classroom the teacher is at fault.

Now I know you must be pulling my leg. So if the child has NO access to reading material outside of the classroom it is then the fault of the teacher? If the child asks daddy to buy him the car magazine and the popular mechanics magazine and his dad says no, but then takes him to say Stadium, what reading material (other than signposts) is the child going to have?

The reading in the classroom was not as stimulating as it should have been to 'grab' that child and lead the child to reading outside of the classroom.

That is definitely one possibility, but it is not the be all and end all. If the child is subconsciously but actively discouraged from reading outside of the classroom, what is the teacher supposed to do? Take the child up for adoption?

We know the total environment in which our students find themselves. If we do not work to...and in fact provide the solutions that have even the student who lives on the road (homeless)...or the one who lives in an area where guns bark all night...or the other where the parent (or parents) believe vast amounts of time must be used in the fields...

You see this is where your previous point doesn't hold water. What homeless kid is going to have access to supplementary reading material? What kid who hears guns all nights or whose parents put him in the field is going to have be able to concentrate to read or be given time to read?

or whatever deterrent to learning or the combination of deterrents that are the obstacles to 'delivering education' and encouraging learning...then we - policy makers, teachers, etc. have failed.

So education policy makers and teachers are responsible for giving kids homes, taking them away from their parents and apprehending gunmen? No, no, no.

Blaming the students is a cop out. It is a cop out perhaps rooted in our acceptance of the poor delivery of education we saw all around.

Who said students are entirely to blame? I'm under no illusion that other factors and players have to share some of the blame. I just don't believe students can be blameless. At least I can't believe that and at the same time believe that people are somehow advanced and not simply two-legged giant amoebas.

Perhaps selfishness that makes for thinking those born into wealth and those born in 'high status' are born with an ability to learn the mass were not born with.

It's not about wealth. A rich pregnant woman who smokes, sleeps late, does ecstasy, drinks grey goose, red wine and champagne every day and eats a highly unbalanced diet for her condition is going to have a child with learning problems, just as how a poor woman who doesn't do those things will have a child who has a greater potential to do well.

Perhaps it is the selfish and silly belief that we were born bright and Tom was born dunce.

It isn't selfish or silly. It can happen. However Tom in this case has the capacity to overcome the raw deal his mother gave him at birth provided his brain developed normally for the most part.

There is no compassion for Tom or consideration of the circumstance of his birth and its impediment to his use of his innate gift to learn.

But if it is silly to believe that Tom can be born dunce, why would Tom need compassion for the consideration of his birth? Unless you are referring to poverty.

There is no realisation of need to find policies, 'methods of delivery'...making best the environs within which he must learn.

Illiteracy declined in France in the 1700s and 1800s despite French folk being subject to hunger/famine at times as well as hallucinogens in their food (ergot poisoning for instance) and a medical environment in which doctors actually thought blood-letting was a cure for things like pneumonia and that hysteria (and later "female hysteria") was caused by the uterus. Not exactly the most ideal environment for learning, but somehow they learned.

There is not enough effort being put on creating an environment that is even close to the 'sports classroom'.

Yet, Singapore doesn't use a 'sports classroom'. Are we then to say that there is something innate in the majority of Jamaicans that makes them unable to learn with the same basic methods employed elsewhere in the world and in places like Singapore?

Yup! ...just as the delivery of 'sports' by the sports teacher 'grabs' the students...so the the 'delivery of academics' by the teacher of academics must be delivered in a manner that 'grabs' his/her students.

That actually doesn't prepare a child for the reality of life. Not everything in life will grab your attention, but a lot of things, even dull things, are necessary. If a child only responds to what grabs his attention instead of being encouraged and trained by society and parents in particular to concentrate even when things might not be exciting then they will only ever want to respond to exciting things and a lot of everyday tasks in the working world will be beyond them since they would lose focus and drift.

btw - We have moved from the saying on "more emphasis is placed on sports than on education".We have high-jacked the thread.

Well there is still reference to the sporting culture. Not totally hijacked.

The hard numbers though all still point towards sport being emphasized (even if subconsciously) over academics and up to this point no stats have been produced to show otherwise.

[ReggaeMike]

I think you are bogged down by thinking you are in an elite group. Your elite group is, in your mind, the can learn very well set. You think there is another group, not of the elite group, and in your mind that group is, the cannot learn very well set. You said it previously and that thread runs throughout your arguments.

Nope. That is how you interpret it. I know that people are all different. All humans are equal in their rights and dignity but not for not a moment will I fool myself into thinking everyone is equal in ability. Women are different from men - they do some things well that men do not do (multitasking for instance) and men do some things well that women do not do (visualising in three dimensions for instance). Likewise some men do some things better than other men (not everyone can be Usain Bolt and not everyone is cut out to be a brain surgeon or rocket scientist). Does it mean every is doomed (in the the sense of "fated") to only do certain things? Of course not. I'm no Usain Bolt or even an Asafa Powell, but if I put my mind to it and perhaps get a bit of assistance from a training I know I can run much better than I do now. The same holds for anybody. If Usain Bolt applied himself he could become a doctor. Does it mean that if he put in the same amount of work as someone else who has a long and sustained interest and experience in medicine (say someone who had parents who were doctors and frequently hung around nurses and doctors at the hospital and watched all sorts of medical dramas and documentaries on TV) that he will get the same grades and become a doctor at the same time? I doubt it.

Bolt is a tall man and runs a certain way to make efficient use of his height, stride and energy. Does it mean everybody should run like that? No. If I ran with his style I would probably trip. But I can run in a manner which is most efficient for me. This is one of the essences of being human; being able and willing to overcome physical and biological impediments. An amoeba with a given biological impediment will just have suck salt for the rest of it's short life, it will not go to the gym to overcome said impediment or beat the books to advance itself otherwise. It's obvious that some students will grasp certain subjects more than others (being from a family of educators, I'm sure you or someone else has experienced this). So if my nephew did super well at Math and Physics but was abysmal at Literature, whilst say....Mosiah's son did well at Literature and Painting but mediocre at Math does that make his son superior to my nephew or vice versa? No it doesn't. It makes them different. The fact that my fictitious nephew would have to apply himself a bit harder than Mosiah's son when it comes to painting or literature is just the way it is. I'm not going to blame the teacher if my nephew expects that Literature and Art to be handed to him on a platter and that if he doesn't apply himself then the blame can be laid squarely on the teacher. The undeniable fact is that it takes both the teacher and the student to have commitment for any knowledge to be passed on. An athlete has to apply himself and the coach/trainer has to also apply himself in order for results to be produced. If the coach does not apply himself the athlete will be impeded (but it doesn't doom the athlete because the athlete can simply view the coach as another impediment for him to overcome and redouble his own efforts). If the athlete does not apply himself then the coach can redouble his efforts to ensure that despite the athlete's unwillingness the goals set out at the beginning would mostly be achieved maybe by doubling the training hours to make up for the lack of self-training by the athlete on his own hours, or by instituting disciplinary measures in the case of military trainers, or by attempting to get the athlete to change his stance...the change in methods might be fun or it might not, why the same would not apply to other areas of self-advancement is puzzling.

[Karl]

I will not read more than the first paragraph.

It is a never ending process! ...poor policy makers/teachers/teaching/poor delivery of education...poor students...poor adults...poor policy makers.teachers/poor teachers/poor delivery of education.

You need to break the mold. You need to concentrate on your methods - policy and teaching...enviroment (all that goes to create that) in which you do the teaching and the kids the learning.

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Look if your mind is made up that all is great in the teaching environment and therefore those being (marred) taught are the problem...Why do you not just kill (give up on the kids - they cannot learn Right?) the kids? ...and ignore the obvious faults in the 'delivery of the service of education'?

Silly?

Damn right it is!

[ReggaeMike]

I will not read more than the first paragraph.

It is a never ending process! ...poor policy makers/teachers/teaching/poor delivery of education...poor students...poor adults...poor policy makers.teachers/poor teachers/poor delivery of education.

You need to break the mold. You need to concentrate on your methods - policy and teaching...enviroment (all that goes to create that) in which you do the teaching and the kids the learning.

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Look if your mind is made up that all is great in the teaching environment and therefore those being (marred) taught are the problem...Why do you not just kill (give up on the kids - they cannot learn Right?) the kids? ...and ignore the obvious faults in the 'delivery of the service of education'?

Silly?

Damn right it is!

A pity as I was really hoping to some answers for the questions I posed (seeing as I do make honest efforts to answer yours), especially in the second reply I made to your previous post. It would have been intersting if you had managed to find the 2004 GSAT results as well so we could have gotten a clearer idea of the where the downfall in English begins and whether or not it has to deal with the formative years of the child or the more responsible teenage years. However, if you aren't able to answer the questions or provide some facts for further discussion, it's no biggie. I can see that you still haven't gotten what I was saying even though I have long since acknowledged the correct points you have made (such as teachers being partly at fault).

Look if your mind is made up that all is great in the teaching environment and therefore those being (marred) taught are the problem...Why do you not just kill (give up on the kids - they cannot learn Right?) the kids? ...and ignore the obvious faults in the 'delivery of the service of education'?

Silly?

Damn right it is!

Well let' see how silly it really is by applying your rhetorical device on what you are supposing is my position to your openly stated position of the students being 100% blameless:

"Look if your mind is made up that all is great in with the students and therefore those doing the teaching (marring) are the problem...Why do you not just kill the teachers? ...and ignore the obvious faults in the 'attitude of the society and it's effects on the students'?

[Karl]

A pity as I was really hoping to some answers for the questions I posed (seeing as I do make honest efforts to answer yours), especially in the second reply I made to your previous post. It would have been intersting if you had managed to find the 2004 GSAT results as well so we could have gotten a clearer idea of the where the downfall in English begins and whether or not it has to deal with the formative years of the child or the more responsible teenage years. However, if you aren't able to answer the questions or provide some facts for further discussion, it's no biggie. I can see that you still haven't gotten what I was saying even though I have long since acknowledged the correct points you have made (such as teachers being partly at fault).

Would blame the infant for his/her learning environment?

Why would you 'screw up' an infant...then knowing what you had done...even as you continue to 'screw up' the child as it moves through to high school underprepared and thus no platform to stand and build on...apportion blame to that child a product of an increasingly vicious downward spiral?

Is that not what the majority of our children have to suffer?

Then these kids leave the formal education system and then are the new parents...these underprepared people...in many ways ignorant to what their kids...the new infants and later pupils...now need...?????

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Well let' see how silly it really is by applying your rhetorical device on what you are supposing is my position to your openly stated position of the students being 100% blameless:

"Look if your mind is made up that all is great in with the students and therefore those doing the teaching (marring) are the problem...Why do you not just kill the teachers? ...and ignore the obvious faults in the 'attitude of the society and it's effects on the students'?

Good one!

What's good for the goose...excepting I am proposing solutions - The policy makers and teachers must change their outlook and seek for themselves improved performances...i.e. better delivery of 'education' ...improve the environs within which the young ones must learn - policies and methods of delivery - physical structure and teaching. Improve such that they 'grab' the kids as do the Physical Education teachers. ...you forgot that part.
Right? (wry suh-mile!)