Teaching Kids to be Dumb Adults

[gavinmcinns]

http://www.parentingscience.com/critical-thinking-in-children.html

Great article about how we teach kids to think not critically about problems, but in a conforming way.

A taste; "How ?educational? experiences discourage critical thinking in children

You might think this sort of problem is rare. But I found exactly the same error in a book intended to teach math concepts to preschoolers. In this case, the reader is asked to find the right birdhouses for an assortment of (differently-sized) birds.

And of there are lots of other illogical or wrong-headed lessons that are kids are asked to absorb.

Want some school-based examples? Consider this story reported by educational psychologists Clements and Sarama (2000):

Young Leah is working on an educational computer game that teaches geometry. It asks Leah to choose a fish that is shaped like a square.

Leah picks a fish with a perfectly square body...one that is rotated so that one of its corners points straight down.

The program tells Leah that she?s wrong. That?s not a square. That?s a ?diamond fish!?

Oh dear. A square is only a square when two of its sides are aligned with the horizontal? "

There are better excerpts but they involve the use of diagrams which I am too lazy to put in here.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Why is this in the gaming section? I would agree that some of the things they teach are pretty stupid and I dont know how these things are marked but I would imagine they want black and white answers to make it easier on themselves and provide clear (if misguided) direction. Conformist thinking is done by almost everyone though I mean you are told something by a specialist say and odds are you will just believe them your unlikely to challenge it I mean they are the specialist and no one can be a master of everything and experiment and try things for themselves.

Many of our views are challenged when we grow up especially when we meet more people and visit different areas and even adapt different specilisations. Conformist thinking isnt so bad to help people at the start staying in that mindset is but for teaching it can be useful (to a point) although I dont think it applies in these examples sometimes you have to teach someone wrong at the start to be able to teach them right later gradually building on their knowledge/technique/whatever before finally setting them free to come to their own conclusions and figure things out by themselves and yes even challenge what you taught them in the first place.

 

[Weaver]

A real "diamond" is actually a parallelogram, not a square.

So I mean, maybe it told her the diamond fish wasn't a square fish because they aren't the same shape?

 

[Maximum Bert]

A real "diamond" is actually a parallelogram, not a square.

So I mean, maybe it told her the diamond fish wasn't a square fish because they aren't the same shape?

I think that was the issue in that what she had was a square it was just rotated so it was on its corner so she still had a square not a diamond but they told her because she rotated the square it was now a diamond even though it wasnt because as you pointed out squares and diamonds are different shapes. At least thats what I think the OP was getting at.

 

[gavinmcinns]

A real "diamond" is actually a parallelogram, not a square.
fish wasn't a square fish because they aren't the same shape?

The article specifically states that the body was perfectly square, so your condescension doesn't really fit in in this context.

 

[Weaver]

A real "diamond" is actually a parallelogram, not a square.
fish wasn't a square fish because they aren't the same shape?

The article specifically states that the body was perfectly square, so your condescension doesn't really fit in in this context.

Oh okay.
Well yes, we shouldn't be teaching kids things that are wrong.

 

[TWRule]

http://www.parentingscience.com/critical-thinking-in-children.html

Great article about how we teach kids to think not critically about problems, but in a conforming way.

A taste; "How ?educational? experiences discourage critical thinking in children

Unfortunately, it's not just children's education where this is a problem, but taken on its own, I agree the state of affairs is sorry. I still remember being a kid going through public education and having what seemed like an endless deluge of arbitrary facts about math, science, history, etc. imposed upon me.

And here I am in grad school, where little has changed...

 

[gavinmcinns]

http://www.parentingscience.com/critical-thinking-in-children.html

Great article about how we teach kids to think not critically about problems, but in a conforming way.

A taste; "How ?educational? experiences discourage critical thinking in children

Unfortunately, it's not just children's education where this is a problem, but taken on its own, I agree the state of affairs is sorry. I still remember being a kid going through public education and having what seemed like an endless deluge of arbitrary facts about math, science, history, etc. imposed upon me.

And here I am in grad school, where little has changed...

I'm in a similar boat............

They ought to make education compulsory, not indoctrination.

They ought to hire teachers, not bureaucrats.

Bureaucratization has ruined education in this country, because we can't have personalized, one on one education, that kind if thing is not "scalable". God forbid that we should allow parents the time and energy to teach their own kids.

Keynes predicted that we would have 15 hour work week by the end of last century, and yet here we are, 13 years later, working ourselves into depression and dysfunction.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

Mm, pretty unfortunate. We should be stupid-proofing texts so that we don't get blatantly false test answers, or at least make we specify what we want children to give us rather then try to imply it.

God forbid that we should allow parents the time and energy to teach their own kids.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahhaha, parents actually being competent enough to take time and energy to teach their kids.

 

[Batou667]

A real "diamond" is actually a parallelogram, not a square.

So I mean, maybe it told her the diamond fish wasn't a square fish because they aren't the same shape?

There's no such shape as a diamond. What we call a diamond is a rhombus, usually oriented with the longest axis vertical like on playing cards. All rhombuses are parallelograms, and squares are a special instance of a rhombus, so yeah, the diamond-fish could also be a square-fish.

Reading the rest of the article... I work in education and I'm happy to say that critical thinking teaching (and maths teaching in general) has come a fair way since the mid-'80s.

Yes, we do still tend to praise children for conformity and giving answers that are calculated to make adults happy, particularly among young kids (up to about 6 or 7). Some of that is sadly unavoidable as a lot of the knowledge kids pick up at this age will be arbitrary cultural conventions (why should M come before N in the alphabet? There's no reason. It just does, so sing the damn song until you've memorised the order) and rote learning (how to hold a pencil, how to tie shoelaces, how to write their own name, which toilet to use...). Even so, the kind of questions given in the article - that use real life as a reference but don't have any concession to real life, as in the Minnie Mouse example - would be considered very poor as learning aids.

When we teach kids geometry, current teaching practice is to deliberately show them non-stereotypical versions of shapes, to develop the idea that we're not looking for aesthetically-pleasing archetypes, we're going through a set of criteria to classify shapes. A square is a square even if it's been rotated. It's simultaneously a rectangle, a rhombus, a parallelogram and a trapezium, albeit very special instances of all of them (but it's not an oblong, those are all the rectangles that AREN'T squares). That weird irregular chevron shape? Count the sides, there are six, so it's a hexagon. Don't worry, contemporary maths teaching is all over this.

I agree with the the idea that parents try to improve their kid's thinking skills, though. You can never have too much of a good thing. A questioning child is a learning child.

 

[sanquin]

I tried asking questions in math and chemistry. I asked why certain numbers we were given, were those numbers. All I got told, in various words, was always 'because the book tells you so'. Luckily I never just accepted that. Sure I shut up in class and did my assignments, but I never accepted the assignments just because I was told to accept them.

I can understand how not everyone can do that all throughout school. 15 years or even more of hearing a constant 'conform or you're a disruption to our class!' from an authority figure, all throughout your most impressionable years, can really change the way you think.

Also, let's not forget that the current educational system teaches us to take tests, not actual practical skills. School is all about passing tests. If you don't pass them, you won't make it. Everything in between is done half-heartedly by both teachers and students. Luckily here in the Netherlands they've started to change that a little. Schools have started to incorporate more internships, and at least at the college I went to, we had a field trip or lecture from a professional once a week. Every week on Wednesday we would go to a place that had to do with our classes, or have a veteran in the field come and hold a 2 hour lecture. (And nothing else on that day.) I've learned more on those days than in all of the other classes combined.

 

[BeerTent]

Part of the problem is the educators.

My brother came to me, stating that most of his colleagues couldn't answer this question.

Last year, Joe was three times the age of his little brother Tom. This year, he is only twice as old as Tom. How old is Tom?

My brother is a substitute teacher. Has colleagues are actual teachers who couldn't figure this shit out. No fucking idea at all. Meanwhile, (God I hope) you can pick that answer out in seconds.

 

[sanquin]

Part of the problem is the educators.

My brother came to me, stating that most of his colleagues couldn't answer this question.

Last year, Joe was three times the age of his little brother Tom. This year, he is only twice as old as Tom. How old is Tom?

My brother is a substitute teacher. Has colleagues are actual teachers who couldn't figure this shit out. No fucking idea at all. Meanwhile, (God I hope) you can pick that answer out in seconds.

I tried it, and yea. After re-reading it once and thinking it over for maybe 3 seconds I had the answer. How the hell can anyone be allowed to teach when they can't even answer such a simple, basic school-grade question?

 

[Batou667]

Part of the problem is the educators.

My brother came to me, stating that most of his colleagues couldn't answer this question.

Last year, Joe was three times the age of his little brother Tom. This year, he is only twice as old as Tom. How old is Tom?

My brother is a substitute teacher. Has colleagues are actual teachers who couldn't figure this shit out. No fucking idea at all. Meanwhile, (God I hope) you can pick that answer out in seconds.

To be fair, if somebody came up to me in the staffroom with a sparkle in their eye and tried to get me to answer riddles (when I was trying to remember where I had put the science planning, what homework I was going to set for art, and I have to be in the playground in 3 minutes to get the kids back in) I'd probably be baffled too.

Spoiler: If you get to read the question and think about it in your own time it's a lot easier

Tom is 2

 

[Phrozenflame500]

I tried it, and yea. After re-reading it once and thinking it over for maybe 3 seconds I had the answer. How the hell can anyone be allowed to teach when they can't even answer such a simple, basic school-grade question?

Most trick questions work like this, where they imply a complex solution but really have a simple answer. Most people work it out in a couple of minutes, others... don't.

Ties into the "you shouldn't focus on the implication" part of the study. Kids tend to answer these questions better since they don't have preconceived societal notions that the question is misleading you to follow.

 

[Queen Michael]

Part of the problem is the educators.

My brother came to me, stating that most of his colleagues couldn't answer this question.

Last year, Joe was three times the age of his little brother Tom. This year, he is only twice as old as Tom. How old is Tom?

My brother is a substitute teacher. Has colleagues are actual teachers who couldn't figure this shit out. No fucking idea at all. Meanwhile, (God I hope) you can pick that answer out in seconds.

It took me about a minute.

 

[EternallyBored]

Part of the problem is the educators.

My brother came to me, stating that most of his colleagues couldn't answer this question.

Last year, Joe was three times the age of his little brother Tom. This year, he is only twice as old as Tom. How old is Tom?

My brother is a substitute teacher. Has colleagues are actual teachers who couldn't figure this shit out. No fucking idea at all. Meanwhile, (God I hope) you can pick that answer out in seconds.

Tom is 2 and Joe is 4, last year they were 1 and 3 respectively. To be fair our standards for teachers is hilariously low, and there's very little incentive to teach in the public education system. Teachers with high levels of education and the relevant skills to teach a field really well, tend to be in the higher education system (college) or are teaching for private institutions that charge the kid's parents a tuition. Also, the standards to get a substitute teachers license are also very low. In my state, it only requires a certain number of college credits to be able to test for a substitute teachers license, and the test itself requires no specialized knowledge to pass, not a bad gig though if your an unemployed college grad looking for work while you try and obtain a career in your field of study.

As for the public system itself, a lot of the problem comes with standardization, in an attempt to quantify everything, schools tend to leave kids behind because it adapts poorly to children who are below or above the average. No child left behind is one of the worst things to happen to the American public education system in a long time, and it's one of the Bush Jr. eras worst domestic policies, only really surpassed by the Patriot act.