17 Comments
Jul 22, 2021Liked by Geary Johansen

I'm late posting on this, but another interesting read man. always it takes me a while to reply to you, given how detailed and thoughtful your writing is. I have to like read up and process. But you owe me a proper response this time. no more of just liking my comments.

For real, incompetent teachers are freakin kryptonite to students. I reconnected with a former student recently, and she reminded me of the time we were sitting on a bench in the office waiting to see the principal, since the poor kid had been sexually assaulted. and this was the moment when one of her teachers came in and made some shit comment about how she was up to no good again.

There aren't that many of these though. And frankly, I wonder if we have MORE of them up here in Canada, where the gig is genuinely well paid. The States though? Not sure about the UK.

as for kids 'discovering' knowledge, yeah, I agree in general with you, but you overstate the case. no competent teacher that I've ever met - and I've taught everywhere and everything in the 'arts' - - assumes that kids have to discover everything. personally, I'm not into the concept until the kids have a giant foundation of knowledge. but when they have that, and they get to discover? that's dope. some of the best student work I've ever seen comes from that.

when you talk about 'structured low-level discipline'? yeah, 1000%. full stop, controversial statement, but black kids are the primary behavioural problem at every school I've ever taught at, aside from my time in Japan. and i've said this to admin, to colleagues, to 'woke' experts doing BS inclusivity workshops. heck man, I said it to a class once, with like a third of the kids being black. and you know what? nobody disagrees.

"The main reason why progressive teachers complain about teaching for tests in because their inefficient methodology automatically means that there class will fall behind with their curriculum"

You must not know any teachers. the 'discovery' model and opposition to universal testing come from the same ideology. not, they suck and then they cover their asses, or whatever you are suggesting here. man, you and me are on the same side. honestly, you have influence my thinking more than anyone, and I've never even 'met' you. so cut out this BS conservative talking point stuff. you are way to smart to fall into that dynamic.

and standardized testing is awful, in many ways. you want to talk about that subject, I'm happy to provide evidence and references, but I want to finish commenting on your awesome post.

I had to look up 'the Ferguson effect'. can you back that up with some references? seems like it is still up for debate.

the basics of learning language? you nail that. here's an example ... my former principal, who just retired, was super delighted to tell me that she'd ordered bigger desks for the kids so they could form into groups more easily. she hated teachers teaching the classics. she wanted book clubs for everyone.

no fucking non-reader in grade 9 is going to talk about a book just because it's 'culturally relevant'. they don't talk because they don't know how to. and when you do book clubs, you can't teach all the kids at the same time. so the struggling kid struggles more, not less.

for real man. I taught a kid last year who couldn't read. literally. this is the first time in my career in high school that I met a kid who couldn't read. Referred him over and over again, to admin, to guidance - including my favourite all-time colleague. and nobody could help him, because the idea of a kid not being able to read was off the table. they didn't get it. I did my best to help him, but he needed more than one support. I referred him to the black focused support group after school, and he did better there. but they also have super low standards, so most of the time, it was snacks and hanging out.

The VARK stuff ... multiple intelligences is the phrase here- for sure. I mean, I'm a kinisthetic learner, so I need to learn how to read when I'm walking? I'm a verbal learner, so I will learn how to drive with a book? it's wrong. It's not wrong-headed - there is some real value in giving students a variety of ways to learn. but VARK is just simple-minded, convenient BS.

"Cognitive Load Theory"

Yup. "Crucially, it has a huge impact on the potential to enjoy reading for pleasure, because if you are constantly struggling with the basics of literacy it makes for a less enjoyable experience, and one in which the larger meaning of the text sails right over your head"

exactly. the main reason I know this i that my first decade of teaching was ESL based. in the ESL world, you need to master the 500 most commonly used words, and then the next 2000, and so on. (I forget the exact numbers here, so for illustrative purposes only, but I'm close).

English teachers teach literature, not English. generally. and this is a problem. literature is more engaging, literacy is hard to teach in an interesting way. Possible though. frankly, many english teachers don't know much ABOUT english. they were taught in the 'whole word' method, and can't understand people who can't learn that way.

"But if the question is how much influence does such a profoundly clear understanding of how we learn have on the educational theories proposed by academics in the education field have- the answer is very little."

the only prof i had when I did my masters in ed who talked about HOW to learn language? ESL. the most rigorous academic workload I had was in his class. I had a bunch of classes when we just talked about the stuff you describe - what do kids like, etc? I mean, that's important. but the foundation for learning, the fundamentals? man, I asked about grammar during my B ED. asked about behaviour. the answer? interest the kids, everything else will follow.

which is both dumb and impossible for most teachers. I'm a charismatic guy. I can interest kids. but the vast majority of people can't do this easily. how the fuck do you teach teachers charisma? we are essentially expected to be fascinating, not expert. at least in English.

"Under the Obama Administration, evidence of disparity between Blacks and whites in terms of discipline and expulsion rates was seen as evidence of racism"

yeah, and still. and here.

"It only takes modest and continuing disruption in schools to deprive a child of two full years worth of education by the time they leave K-12- and thanks to the perception that disparate discipline is a sign of racism, this disruption will fall most heavily on Black kids."

you've said this many times, I agree, and I think this is powerful. Hit me up with a reference or two, I intend to raise this idea in class in september.

"It's simply that poverty in the West quickly becomes two problems. One is the pure socio-economics of adversity and growing up in less advantageous conditions. The other is the corrosive effect that an intergenerational lack of economic opportunity has, paired with the poorly calibrated efforts of government to help. If the often astounding economic performance of desperately poor incoming migrants is anything to go by, then the latter is far more harmful than the former."

word. man, I hope you reply. I love the stuff you write.

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Jul 16, 2021Liked by Geary Johansen

Thought provoking article. Glad to see Dr. Sowell get a mention. Someone needs to explain why the black community was stronger during Jim Crow than they are now. You mention the growing black middle class, which is largely unnoticed because they are going on about life doing the things that allow for being middle class.

Democrats in America will never support real education reform, they depend too much on the support of Unions and the incompetent teachers they protect as well as the dependent classes created by poor culture and poor education.

Cheers

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Jul 15, 2021Liked by Geary Johansen

How about including, within your posts, some hyperlinks to the social science studies you're referring to? That would be immensely helpful.

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I'll start with the meaty part first then try to put some bread around it and make a sandwich.

Why should anyone care about "Closing the Gaps" ?

Anyone try to close a gap in education, wealth, health or incarceration is chasing a ghost. It's an illusion or phantasm of the mind. If one tries to close a gap the are not trying to improve the human condition by increasing wisdom, prosperity or vitality, they are just attempting to make one abstraction equal another abstraction.

Consider the gaps between different ethnic groups, why should closing these gaps (and there has to be more than one, as there are more than two ethnic groups) produce anything good ? It certainly MIGHT produce something good but there is no reason to presume it would. Equalizing one statistic with another statistic is not a good in itself.

The only reason that I can see why someone might believe that it is a good in itself is that it causes (or appears to cause) observed reality to conform to a predetermined ideology about human nature, probably something along the lines of "all men are created equal" which is an axiom of faith I do not subscribe to.

If your ideas don't match reality then it's you that needs to change not reality. Hammering round pegs hard enough to fit into your neatly cut square holes is running against the natural order of things (an axiom of faith I do subscribe to) and likely to cause terrible damage.

Let's get more specific and take the case in question, the gap of educational outcomes. Diverting resources from high a performing school where they are put to good use to a low performing school where they are wasted or even straight up stolen could close the gaps even more effectively than an overall increase in the education budget directed toward that under performing schools. The race becomes more even not by giving the slower runner vitamins and training but by starving the faster one. And as the first option is cheaper than the second that will be the one preferred.

The same thing would happen if a new powerful educational technique was developed. If it was applied to both the high performing and low performing schools the gap may reduce somewhat but the the gap closing would be greater if it was applied only to the under performing one. If gap closing is the goal of the bureaucracy then that's the option the bureaucracy will take.

In summary, equality of outcomes is not a worthy goal to pursue, what's the point of being equal if we are all equally shit ?

So that's my sandwich.

What do you think ? Too sloppy ? Too dry ? Too spicy or not spicy enough ?

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"if we were able to the change the culture of underperforming groups then racial IQ gaps would shrink substantially."

It would be quite astonishing if a lineage of people selected for ten generations or more to be strong but dumb did not end up strong but dumb. Take that lineage and put them in a welfare/gangsta culture where the less you do for yourself the more the government does for you, and where violence leads to top dog status (with all the money and all the chicks), and one should be astonished if there was no effect on the gene pool. One should expect a lineage of people who are disproportionately dumb, violent, lazy and athletically gifted. This is exactly what we see and it's exactly what we should expect. Change the traits that give advantage and expect the gene pool to migrate toward those more successful traits over several generations. Simple, really. Selection happens.

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