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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mph who wrote (27148)	8/25/2006 9:37:31 AM
From: epicure	Respond to of 541604

Someone showed me some data on that- it showed that white students, and many Asians, are doing as well as all the other industrialized countries, our problem seems to be caused by our huge ever swelling base of recent immigrants (mostly Hispanic). If you take those folks out, our scores are fantastic. I don't think any other country is dealing with the kinds of numbers we are, wrt immigrants. In the suburban schools in our area, children are learning at a rate much faster than when I was a child. It's unfortunate the boys aren't learning to read, but the girls are kicking ass. Algebra, which I remember meeting for the first time in middle school, and taking as a class in high school, has been pushed in to elementary, and the class itself is taken in middle school by most students. Calculus is now common at high school. When I was in high school you had to go to the JC to take it. I am very concerned about immigrant children, and their problems in the educational system, but their problems reflect mostly on them, and do not really give you a true picture of our system. I don't see how not accepting failure is going to help you cure the problems of the immigrant child and his or her struggles in the educational system- unless you want to put it down to a failure to control immigration. "Disparities among subpopulations of students were evident when they started kindergarten. Mathematics performance was related to several student background factors, and the association between social disadvantages and performance was cumulative. Lower proportions of black and Hispanic students were proficient at each skill level compared with their white and Asian/Pacific Islander peers (appendix table 1-1 ).[3] Performance was also related to maternal education, with students whose mothers had less formal education demonstrating lower proficiency rates. For the kindergarten assessments, a family risk index was developed consisting of non-English primary home language, single-parent family, less than high school maternal education, and family receiving welfare assistance.[4] Students from families with no risk factors performed better than students from families with one risk factor, and students from families with one risk factor performed better than students from families with two or more risk factors. As students progressed through kindergarten, gaps in basic mathematics skills decreased, but disparities in the more sophisticated skills increased. For example, by the end of kindergarten, blacks and Hispanics narrowed the proficiency gap with whites and Asians/Pacific Islanders in recognizing single-digit numbers and shapes and in comparing the relative size of objects (figure 1-2 ; appendix table 1-1 ). However, they did not acquire more advanced mathematics knowledge and skills, such as addition and subtraction, at the same rate as whites and Asians/Pacific Islanders. This resulted in even larger disparities in the more sophisticated skills by the end of kindergarten." nsf.gov

To: mph who wrote (27148)	8/25/2006 11:25:20 AM
From: Mary Cluney	Respond to of 541604

What I do not sanction is the pretense that there is no such thing as failure and that trying is always equivalent to succeeding. We all want what is best for us. We all know that denial, pretending, cherry picking and outright distortion of facts will more often than not lead to bad results. Some people can get away with that kind of bad behavior for a life time and never pay any consequences, but that is still no reason for us to ignore it, not voice our disapproval, and try not to reinforce that kind of behavior in others. As far as success goes, we all want success for ourselves and for our families. In order to find success, we have to put in an effort - and this is where we may diverge. It is pretty clear that success will breed success, but if we put in the effort and fail - that is no reason to label ourselves as losers, get down on ourselves and quit trying. Some times it is just bad luck. Some times it may just be that we didn't inherit the proper genetics, but as long as we keep trying - we shouldn't be labeled losers - we have to be encouraged to keep on trying. It's great if you can inherit the proper genes, have successful parents and grandparents, have enough money to party your way through the best schools and tell people they are losers, that they have to earn their way into society, preach to people about personal responsibility and how they should compete to win. Most of us are not that lucky. We have to try harder.

To: mph who wrote (27148)	8/25/2006 2:36:38 PM
From: one_less	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541604

hi mph I agree with you about the pretense thingy. However, with my daughter, I approach failure as a stepping stone to success, rather than the alternative to success. Kids are remarkably resilient as long as they can still see the light they are reaching for. So, we should agree that the only real failure is 'giving up' or not trying at all. Success and failure are transitory markers, providing information about how effective your efforts are. Whether that information is positive and contributes to your productivity or a negative and destructive influence depends on your beliefs about your efforts. You can also think of success and failure as being like push ups; your muscles are being strengthened on the way down as well as on the up push. Both are necessary for the ultimate result. "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." ~Thomas Alva Edison~ Everyone who dares to take on challenges will fail occasionally. Children will accept challenges when they believe they can fail without ridicule or punishment. When their failures are attributed properly to the need to further develop capabilities, acquire or manage resources, environmental conditions and external factors; they will learn and grow from the experience … and most importantly they will keep trying. All efforts to achieve involve a certain amount of anxiety. The trick is to manage anxiety at a level that does not become debilitating.