The Fora: A Higher Education Community

Hi all, can't sleep and so I thought I'd just bop this out there.  Rambles a bit. 

I have a distinct memory of junior high.  Our algebra teacher, Mr. Ideal (obviously not a real name) was fond of the slogan "You'll use this everyday for the rest of your life" whenever the subject of homework or the perennial 'why-do-I-have-to-do-this' came up.  These days I recognize that he was trying to brand math.

One day Todd Smith (not real name) challenged Mr. Ideal with a "Like what?" 

In recollection, Todd was probably a sociopath----one of those antisocial kids whose constant high energy, fearlessness, disregard for rules, willingness to challenge authority, willingness to fight and steal stuff and hustle contraband, and inability to censure himself got him in a lot of trouble with students and faculty alike (and whose incredibly poor hygiene suggested negligent parenting)----and I happen to know that he went a bad way in life.

But on the day in question he had the teacher in a proverbial headlock.

Mr. Ideal said, "Oh, there are so many different jobs."

To which Todd retorted, "Like what?"

"Oh Todd, there are so many I can't even begin to list them."

"Like what?"

"Oh gosh, there are just a whole bunch of them.  So many I can't even count..."  (Shrugging.  Gesturing.)

"So name one."

"Oh there are just so many..."

"Just name one."

"I really couldn't.  There's so many..."

"Just one."

"There are too many..."

And so on.  Obviously this is not verbatim but it is very much the gist.

In hindsight, in addition to recognizing Todd's sociopathy, I now also recognize that Mr. Ideal didn't want to name a career path simply because Todd would have said, "I don't want to do that"; and/or then Mr. Ideal may have had to actually put the mathematics into context (providing he could), to which Todd would have said, "I ain't never gonna ever haff to do that" or something along those lines.

However, I suspect there was also another reason: Mr. Ideal was lying.

I think everyone in the classroom (that was paying attention anyway) caught on. 

There is very little need in life for junior-high-level algebra. Actually, there is very little use for any level of algebra for most of us, almost all us of really.  Nor for geometry.  Nor for trigonometry.  Or number trees.   Imaginary numbers.  Proofs. Etc.  Even if we take into consideration the blue-collar futures of most of my classmates (carpenters and machinists and construction workers and mechanics and factory workers and farm hands all potentially use math), it is doubtful what Mr. Ideal was teaching us would have any direct and practical use in our futures.

I even had a job for a number of years calculating premium overages and shortages---I memorized the formula and tatted it out on a calculator.   Of course, maybe I grasped the math because Mr. Ideal taught me algebra.  Or maybe, since most of this involved simple addition, subtraction, and decimals, I could have gotten by with grade-school level math training.  I will never know.

I can positively say that I have forgotten everything Mr. Ideal taught me.  Literally I've forgotten everything about algebra.
I can also positively say that my life has been more or less successful up to this point without ever having used algebra outside of a classroom setting.  Never used.  Not once.  Even back in junior high I knew I was not destined for blue-collar work or science----I always knew art and language and culture were my callings, even if I didn't know I would make a living off them.  It was instinctive.

Then I began thinking about the little classroom drama above because of some recent posting activity on another thread. I have resented math and the dictum "you'll use this everyday for the rest of your life" since I was a child.  Why was I forced to take that damn class? Math was difficult and embarrassing for me (and I never applied myself in the least, which probably accounts for my perceptions) and privately I celebrated Todd's little victory (pyrrhic on many levels---he was eventually sent to the principal's office; one day he would drop out before high school even; things went cinematically bad for him).  Sure, maybe I am better at problem solving and have a broader understanding of life in general-----but couldn't I have gotten those from a poetry or music theory or art or Latin class, subjects which would eventually relate to my life and career? 

Thing of it is, now I'm of-a-certain-age and I kind of find math...hypothetically interesting; I certainly find layman discussions of physics and astronomy fascinating.  I am alarmed when I see math removed from a curriculum.  And I fully believe in a well-rounded education as the best form of education, even if not everything we are taught directly relates to a practical concern. 

So...what to make of this itinerant recollection...?

Maybe, I wonder, might I have found algebra interesting if I weren't forced lock-step in line to study it at a pace mandated by a state agency?  Maybe I do like math, but the situation and context of my learning turned me away from it?

What is this need, so time-worn, to prove education's worth through job-placement?  Is it simply the cost?

Maybe we shouldn't force people to take classes they don't want to take?  Does browbeating a student into an alien subject lead to humiliation or erudition?

Do we really need math training?

What do we want from our schools anyway?

I don't know the answer, but some thoughts...
I had a ninth grade math, algebra teacher that we all loved to hate. Strict, humorless, used old fashioned slogans, dressed in an old fashioned way, everything our brilliant generation had taught each other to ridicule. She drilled us, lectured us, singled out bad actors for scolding, took no prisoners. I scored 100 on the final exam. In the end we did agree she was a great teacher. Sometimes you just can't deny the obvious.
Math is satisfying because things get solved. Whereas now I spend my time teaching students who never really get good enough and then wrack my brain with grading. Wondering if I've really done enough good. Fortunately, some of the former students say I did. But at the time I may have felt like I was giving them a root canal.
What I've forgotten about ninth grade, apparently, is not only the algebra, but how well do can do in life & self image when you apply yourself to a situation where people want a specific exact thing and you know how to give it to them. I should have gone into a field where you use a lot of math.
What I remembered about ninth grade math class I learned from the uppity students: you should question authority and distrust a tyrant. Doesn't always get you far.

The next year the geometry teacher told us the value of geometry extended to other areas. We had to be 'a textbook lawyer' (know the theorem). We were learning the art of logic. And now I know nothing about law or argumentation because I never took those specific courses.. Geometry could have been skipped over. something practical that also used logic could have been studied. Though I guess arguing is only practical when you're a lawyer. The rest of the time, probably a mistake.

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 23, 2019, 03:03:44 AM

Maybe we shouldn't force people to take classes they don't want to take?  Does browbeating a student into an alien subject lead to humiliation or erudition?

Do we really need math training?

What do we want from our schools anyway?

This seems odd, given this:

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 19, 2019, 09:54:03 PM

I was marched through a "box checking process" in basic science for my humanities degree.  I didn't want to take geology 101, but it was the only thing available. 

Did it change my life?  Yes.  It is a small change overall, but it was also profound for my understanding of the world and my appreciation for science.

Would I have been an unsuccessful lump of a human being had not taken geology 101?  No.  But it certainly helped my brain.  And it certainly helped my understanding of the scientific process----so when my consciousness is approached by some scientific controversy, like global warming, how and what I think has definitely been altered for the better.

This cookie cutter / box-checking business is far from perfect, but it works. 

I have a hard time reconciling these.

I always liked math and have indeed used it for many things in my career and in my personal life but understand that many don't like it and avoid using it.  However, I did have a similar experience in public school, except it was analyzing poetry etc., Things that I hated and have never used.  Likewise, perhaps it helped me develop reading skills etc, but like you stated with math, there are other ways I could have developed this skill.

So, I guess my point is that people come in all different stripes and you can never develop a program that appeals to everyone so you need a baseline level of various subjects.  In my schooling, as you got further, you could start choosing courses (outside the core requirements).  I chose a lot of math and science, others chose arts etc. 

I am of many minds when I read the original post.

1) Yep, many, many, many people hate math because they were marched through it as disconnected from the rest of their lives during K-12.  That's a known problem in education areas I frequent.

2) Algebraic thinking and estimation are the most useful parts of math to daily life.  One might not write the equations, but one is doing something to determine how to spend the grocery money to get enough food to feed one's family.  When money is really tight, people would probably be better off if they ran a bunch of scenarios on how to spend their home budget based on data collected from previous months/years of real spending.  Instead, people tend to rely on wishful thinking instead of applying the useful math to a concrete problem that matters to them. 

No one has to do the math, but individual lives might be better if one collected the data, analyzed the data, and then made decisions based on the data.  All those word problems in Algebra I that "everyone" hates?  Yeah, that's the math that's useful in everyday life to determine how long it will take to get somewhere traveling at constant speed with known interruptions or how to make the trade-offs to optimize the amount of fruit purchased when Steve hates apples and yet apples are cheaper than oranges and we can't afford passion fruit or oranges for all the kids.

3) Failure to really get algebra and the related algorithmic thinking does indeed lock people out of an increasing number of jobs.  Anything that can be programmed is being automated, like all those back office accounting and HR functions.  On a recent Twitter thread filled with physicists and related professors, the question of what job skill is most important to teach students came back with a nearly unanimous "SPREADSHEETS!"  I've been amazed in dealing with even faculty who cannot do any sort of analysis more complicated than putting numbers in a table and graphing as a bar chart.  One doesn't have to be a whiz at geometry or calculus to be able to do enough data analysis to make important decisions based on the numbers, which usually vary greatly from what they were expected to be once one starts asking the important questions.

4)

Quote from: mahagonny on October 23, 2019, 03:45:22 AM
What I've forgotten about ninth grade, apparently, is not only the algebra, but how well do can do in life & self image when you apply yourself to a situation where people want a specific exact thing and you know how to give it to them. I should have gone into a field where you use a lot of math.

The really, really, really hard part about math outside the classroom is that cranking through the algebra or any math through Calc III that gives one the correct answer is the easy part.  Anything with one right answer is easy--so easy at this point that we have computer programs do it out in the world.  I work with math all day long and I seldom do problems that are easy enough to teach in school because that's not worth my time to my employer. 

My time has to be spend on the hard part of all that math: figuring how to write equations in forms that can be solved, even if "can be solved" really means "add a few hundred lines to the million line computer code and then let the supercomputer crank on it for six months".  Just knowing the math is completely inadequate, because I need to know all the physics, chemistry, and engineering that relies on math as the language.  Someone asserted recently that you can't tell engineers to just "read up on it", but that's exactly how I learned several useful branches of mathematics when it turned out that's the language to tackle those problems at the intersection of chemistry and physics.  Calculus I and II really are equivalent to Foreign Language 101 and 102 for my job.

Those geometric proofs?  One tool to keep in one's back pocket desperately hoping that will reduce a complex problem down to something simpler to tackle with other math tools.

Those trig identities?  Again, a tool that one keeps in one's back pocket to hope it will make that equation that is currently a page long small enough to even think about programming up.

We can't skip those and hope to get all the way through differential equations (the fourth semester math class in college for many people).  People who drop off the math track early probably don't need them, but they are vital to have spent time with to the point that they are as easy to use as a hammer.  I've never written a sonnet in daily life, but I have used geometry and trig to avoid being on a windy roof.

5) If people could only have one math class in high school, then it should be algebra with sufficient computer programming (python is a good modern language that's accessible to "everyone") to let people do the useful spreadsheets for home budgets and statistics they will encounter in the world.  Unlike Mr. Ideal, I tended to keep a lecture in my back pocket about how algebra is useful in the world for when a smart aleck insisted on knowing.  Sure, you can get by without it, but you'll often be late or bizarrely early, likely to waste a lot of money through suboptimal choices, and be easily misled by the statistics in the media because you can't rerun the numbers yourself using different assumptions.

I don't remember much about my junior high math classes except I had a horrendous teacher in 7th grade but luckily got into a good teacher's class for algebra in 8th grade.  I agree with Mahagony that the satisfying thing was knowing there was a solution and trying to figure it out.  Never felt that way about my other classes in junior high.   I eventually took my math interest all the way to college and eventually to grad school.  I shudder to think what would have happened if I hadn't lucked out and gotten my 8th grade teacher.   It would have been hard to recover in high school because it was clear in high school that the better teachers (and classmates) were in the higher level math classes. 

Ideally, it would be nice for middle schools / high schools to have good math teachers at all levels so that students can achieve their math expertise at their own learning rate.  Maybe too much to ask. 

My high school math teacher threw erasers at people who were sleeping.

If that didn't work, he'd stalk over with his squirt bottle for the overhead projector and spray them on the head.

He also drove a bright red Fiero.

Coolest math teacher ever.

I've used algebra exactly once. I was using someone else's statistics, but there was no table. Basically, he had a percentage and a numerator, but I needed to know the sample size and he didn't give it. I'm not sure I've ever been as excited with my research as when I realized that this was an incredibly basic algebra problem where I needed to solve for X and it worked perfectly.

Quote from: polly_mer on October 23, 2019, 05:56:20 AM
2) Algebraic thinking and estimation are the most useful parts of math to daily life. 

Sure, you can get by without it, but you'll often be late or bizarrely early, likely to waste a lot of money through suboptimal choices, and be easily misled by the statistics in the media because you can't rerun the numbers yourself using different assumptions.

Obviously, Polly, you were on my mind when I typed this out.  And you've kind of made my point and I've kind of made yours.

I can figure travel times and do so frequently.  I can also estimate expenditures.  I can't computer program or do spreadsheets----but I've never tried, never had to, and probably never will; what I do do in life takes virtually all my time.  I've done all the adult things you suggest without algebra (including staying off windy roofs----does one really need math to figure that out?).  So have a great many people, a handful of whom have posted on this board.

Yet now that I am ed-u-ma-cated (as my contractor-sister's-now-ex-father-in-law said because he hated educated people [but was very good at math]) I think I see purpose and value behind learning something I have no practical use for.

What I think I resent is the insistence that to learn something one MUST justify learning it, particularly when that justification is bogus.

We learn stuff.  We are better.  Why pretend otherwise?

I'm in the humanities. I hated math, and was never good at it. I can do budgets and spreadsheets as part of my job, but otherwise math never made sense to me the way that literature did. I never thought of algebra as a way to get a job.

All that said, the one course that I took in those days that I truly did end up using for the rest of my life was...typing. Like now.

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 23, 2019, 12:53:10 PM
What I think I resent is the insistence that to learn something one MUST justify learning it, particularly when that justification is bogus.

We learn stuff.  We are better.  Why pretend otherwise?

OK, but how do you decide what students MUST take, in high school or after, since there are far more courses available than could be fit into anyone's schedule? (Given that unless a course is taught abysmally, everyone will, in fact, learn something from it.)

Quote from: Aster on October 23, 2019, 10:39:41 AM
My high school math teacher threw erasers at people who were sleeping.

If that didn't work, he'd stalk over with his squirt bottle for the overhead projector and spray them on the head.

He also drove a bright red Fiero.

Coolest math teacher ever.

We had one in junior high who was a football coach.  Not what I'd call a "cool" teacher, but I'll never forget the class where he allowed three guys to come up to the blackboard and attempt to disprove the Pythagorean Theorem.  Two of them were just clowning around and trying to waste time, but the third actually thought it might be possible.  After a bit you could see the light bulb come on over his head when he realized it wasn't possible, just like Coach kept insisting.  HE learned something in that class, at least.

My brother once found the teacher/coach worrying over numbers.  Specifically, 1 and 6.  By season's end it was 1 and 11.

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 23, 2019, 03:03:44 AM

[. . . ]

because of some recent posting activity on another thread.

[. . .]

I know the thread of which you speak. It's been difficult trying to keep it from turning into a total train wreck.

Quote from: polly_mer on October 23, 2019, 05:56:20 AM

[. . .]

people would probably be better off if they ran a bunch of scenarios on how to spend their home budget based on data collected from previous months/years of real spending.  Instead, people tend to rely on wishful thinking instead of applying the useful math to a concrete problem that matters to them. 

[. . .]

the question of what job skill is most important to teach students came back with a nearly unanimous "SPREADSHEETS!" 

[. . .]

Basically knowing how and when to use tools for modelling/forecasting.

While I still remember the joy I experienced when I successfully derived Maxwell's equations, I haven't used them since. I now wish I had far more nuts-and-bolts knowledge of statistics. It would help me with the job-related modelling/forecasting tasks that I now do.

Beyond that, I use basic geometry all the time for home repairs, etc. The kinds of processes that veteran carpenters or plumbers have so much experience with that they can just eyeball and know the answer to because of experience.

I would love to co-teach an undergraduate course on risk management with one of our math faculty -- teach students how to comprehend and generate exceedance probabilities, for example -- since I regularly teach a non-math course on a related subject. I think it's important for people to understand why it's so dumb to buy a house on a flood plain or in a wildfire zone. Or how to judge the effectiveness of different medical treatments.

Edited to add: I got what was a pretty good math education in junior high and high school -- for a rural public school district. Geometry, algebra, trig. In 9th grade I got to take the district's first ever class in programming -- BASIC -- which probably gave me some insight into logic. We didn't have an actual calculus course in high school, and this put me significantly behind when I got to college. Catching up to where I needed to be was very difficult. But since I eventually went in a very different direction, it wasn't something I ever really needed to know for "work" purposes.

In contrast, I've made a career out of something that essentially developed out of a childhood hobby (reading histories). Oddly though I never received formal instruction in some of the skills that I use daily in that capacity -- such as how to decipher the structure of an academic journal article.

Quote from: Aster on October 23, 2019, 10:39:41 AM
My high school math teacher threw erasers at people who were sleeping.

If that didn't work, he'd stalk over with his squirt bottle for the overhead projector and spray them on the head.

He also drove a bright red Fiero.

Coolest math teacher ever.

Our math teacher did that. Maybe it was the same guy. I think he got fired for his temper. Then one time we had a two week winter cold snap. Someone was nodding off. He opened all the windows. The temperature was -10 degrees. You never knew. Some days he was jolly. We had a kid named Lou Izzo. The math teacher would sing 'is you is or is you ain't my Izzo.' Next day he would be throwing stuff again. Erasers, hole punches.

Quote from: mahagonny on October 23, 2019, 02:26:25 PM

Quote from: Aster on October 23, 2019, 10:39:41 AM
My high school math teacher threw erasers at people who were sleeping.

If that didn't work, he'd stalk over with his squirt bottle for the overhead projector and spray them on the head.

He also drove a bright red Fiero.

Coolest math teacher ever.

Our math teacher did that. Maybe it was the same guy. I think he got fired for his temper. Then one time we had a two week winter cold snap. Someone was nodding off. He opened all the windows. The temperature was -10 degrees. You never knew. Some days he was jolly. We had a kid named Lou Izzo. The math teacher would sing 'is you is or is you ain't my Izzo.' Next day he would be throwing stuff again. Erasers, hole punches.

Bi-polar.

Quote from: spork on October 23, 2019, 02:16:03 PM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 23, 2019, 03:03:44 AM

[. . . ]

because of some recent posting activity on another thread.

[. . .]

I know the thread of which you speak. It's been difficult trying to keep it from turning into a total train wreck.

Agreed.  The condescending, unreasonably dictatorial, sometimes ridiculous and largely myopic comments by some posters simply generated heat.

Quote from: spork on October 23, 2019, 02:16:03 PM
Basically knowing how and when to use tools for modelling/forecasting.

Beyond that, I use basic geometry all the time for home repairs, etc.

Again, lots of us do these things without geometry involved.  Sure, it might be helpful but certainly not necessary to actually do the math in a great many if not most situations in life.

Which makes me think there are other reasons for math in an educational setting.

Quote from: spork on October 23, 2019, 02:16:03 PM
I think it's important for people to understand why it's so dumb to buy a house on a flood plain or in a wildfire zone.

Should not need math to figure these out.  You should only need Google and common sense.

Quote from: spork on October 23, 2019, 02:16:03 PM
Or how to judge the effectiveness of different medical treatments.

NO, NO, NO.  DO NOT SECOND GUESS YOUR DOCTOR.  If you want a second opinion, find another doctor, preferably a specialist.  Math in this context could kill you.  Cosmetic surgery for sheer vanity is always a bad idea.

Quote from: spork on October 23, 2019, 02:16:03 PM
I never received formal instruction in some of the skills that I use daily in that capacity -- such as how to decipher the structure of an academic journal article.

I think this is the whole point of education and why we take a wide sampling of classes----we gain elastic, multi-functional minds capable of formulating solutions without formal training.

That's actually a brilliant example.  Nice.

Every day of my life, I use that kind of knowledge to damp the echo in the halls of my brain.

I use algebra regularly in database macros.

Geometry is super useful in landscaping and general construction. It might not be complex geometry, but its geometry.
I actually have students that don't know what a 45 degree angle is. God only knows how they were allowed out of K-12. Maybe those are the folks that buy homes in floodplains. Having a basic knowledge of angles is what I would argue is most definitely a learned "common sense".

I love it when students google stuff but have no base knowledge of the topic. Copy/pasting useless garbage makes it real easy for me to detect plagiarism and assign automatic F's.

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 23, 2019, 03:39:23 PM

[. . .]

Quote from: spork on October 23, 2019, 02:16:03 PM
Or how to judge the effectiveness of different medical treatments.

NO, NO, NO.  DO NOT SECOND GUESS YOUR DOCTOR.  If you want a second opinion, find another doctor, preferably a specialist.  Math in this context could kill you.  Cosmetic surgery for sheer vanity is always a bad idea.

[. . .]

Assuming you're being serious here: Based on ongoing personal experience -- e.g., being told that I had liver cirrhosis due to a condition that would eventually kill me if I didn't get a transplant, and then being told that guess what? the original pathology report was wrong -- I could not disagree more. Most physicians are terrible at evaluating basic probabilities. Gerd Gigerenzer's book Risk Savvy has a whole chapter on this.

You know, folks, I think we can all agree that math is very useful and lots of people use it.  That's never been in contention.

And we can agree that doctors make mistakes; the cost of malpractice insurance is part of the reason our health care is so outrageous-----which is why we seek second opinions...from doctors preferably, not mathematicians.

What is under consideration is the way in which we approach academic subjects secondary to our ultimate goals.

Polly, how exactly do you keep that hr/sr hs math 'in your back pocket', when you never use math at that level?  I aced 11th grade trig, even did maybe A- work in geometry and AP calc, but I've never had to use any of this since I gave my hs valedictorian address.  Many moons ago.  I'm not ashamed to note that I for years now have had no bounden clue as to how to do a proof, figure out the cosine of anything, or differentiate a whatever... Indeed I've only the vaguest notion of what the trig and calc terms even mean.  Classicists just don't use these things, neither do historians, nor all but a handful of specialized librarians.  Obviously almost no one uses and most also don't recall their hs Latin either, but the real value, for the vast majority of hs students of advanced hs maths or Latin, lies not in the substance of the skills learned therein, but rather the logical, rigorous thinking and study skills learning these fosters.

Quote from: kaysixteen on October 23, 2019, 07:37:11 PM
Polly, how exactly do you keep that hr/sr hs math 'in your back pocket', when you never use math at that level?

I did use math at that level for decades.  Because of all that practice, I can do algebra more easily than I can write a compound English sentence and the most common trig identities are as readily available in memory as the state capitals or standard unit conversion.  Years of practice mean I can do a quick refresh on something like integrating by parts (something I have looked up in the past year).  It's much like knowing the plot and main points of literature that I haven't reread this decade, but are still there.  I know words that I have to look up because I don't use them all the time and I've even been known to consult a map when I return to an area where I used to be quite familiar, but I need to know something specific today.

Logical, rigorous thinking is not transferable and relies heavily on background knowledge in an area along with substantial practice in that particular area.  That's why calls to Google for math questions are misguided--you're assuming that whatever comes up is credible and won't have the background necessary to check that credibility.  Sure, the calculator for one equation with given values is probably correct for the one right answer.  I would bet folding money that the statistical analyses that are nicely prepped with clear, standard English explanations are generally done that way because someone has an agenda that will not be apparent until one starts poking at the assumptions underlying the models.

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 23, 2019, 12:53:10 PM
What I think I resent is the insistence that to learn something one MUST justify learning it, particularly when that justification is bogus.

We learn stuff.  We are better.  Why pretend otherwise?

Opportunity cost and limited resources immediately come to mind about why we (as a community/state/nation/world and individually as specific people) should allocate time and energy according to priorities.

Neglecting high priority areas for the general public in favor of things that are much lower priority for the general public is a short-sighted thing to do.  Yes, schools-in-the-sense-of-teaching-individuals-more-about-existing-human-knowledge are important.  So are roads, medical care, bridges, food, clean water, clean air, care for bitsy children, care for the elderly, and care for others who cannot currently care for themselves.  We need a certain amount of people keeping the systems of modern life running and ensuring domestic tranquility.  We need some people creating new human knowledge as research areas, but that's the smallest fraction of anything else mentioned and not the typical undergrad experience.

People's good will is another important consideration.  If we have demonstrable evidence that an eighth grade education is sufficient (and that's exactly what the case is when people assert they don't use specific subjects past that level), then that's all the standard education has to be before people specialize in other things the world needs.  Many people are not book-minded and it's just cruel to insist that people waste their time in areas that don't matter when those people could be polishing their skills in other areas, especially with the knowledge that rapid changes in what's important to know is better accommodated outside formal, extended education.

One absolutely does have to justify spending resources in such a way that few benefit when so many more would benefit from spending those resources in a different way.  We could provide a fabulous education for essential no money out of pocket to students if we limited higher education to those who can benefit and focus on true education instead of check boxing. 

Lack of prioritization and following through on the actual priorities tend to be parts of critical thinking that bites people in the ass repeatedly, regardless of amount of time in school or knowledge in other areas.  Knowing flat out that the justification is bogus for assigning a higher priority and yet insisting on assigning that priority anyway to preserve one's own job is unethical.

Quote from: kaysixteen on October 23, 2019, 07:37:11 PM
Polly, how exactly do you keep that hr/sr hs math 'in your back pocket', when you never use math at that level?  I aced 11th grade trig, even did maybe A- work in geometry and AP calc, but I've never had to use any of this since I gave my hs valedictorian address.  Many moons ago.  I'm not ashamed to note that I for years now have had no bounden clue as to how to do a proof, figure out the cosine of anything, or differentiate a whatever... Indeed I've only the vaguest notion of what the trig and calc terms even mean.  Classicists just don't use these things, neither do historians, nor all but a handful of specialized librarians.  Obviously almost no one uses and most also don't recall their hs Latin either, but the real value, for the vast majority of hs students of advanced hs maths or Latin, lies not in the substance of the skills learned therein, but rather the logical, rigorous thinking and study skills learning these fosters.

My memory works really differently for things I liked and things I didn't. Four years of Spanish is all but gone, but I still remember Great Gatsby and On the Road pretty well even though I haven't picked up either book since I was sixteen. I'm not good with languages, but I did fine in my sciences classes and still can't remember much. I think it just didn't pique my interest much and got stored in my brain as just a collection of discrete pieces that got dumped out at some point.

Quote from: polly_mer on October 24, 2019, 04:37:33 AM
Knowing flat out that the justification is bogus for assigning a higher priority and yet insisting on assigning that priority anyway to preserve one's own job is unethical.

Assigning nefarious motives to people who disagree with you isn't particularly conducive to a civil and productive conversation.

Quote from: Caracal on October 24, 2019, 05:42:16 AM

Quote from: polly_mer on October 24, 2019, 04:37:33 AM
Knowing flat out that the justification is bogus for assigning a higher priority and yet insisting on assigning that priority anyway to preserve one's own job is unethical.

Assigning nefarious motives to people who disagree with you isn't particularly conducive to a civil and productive conversation.

Oh, are we going to start having civil and productive conversations now?  When did that start and did someone hide the frying pan?

Quote from: Caracal on October 24, 2019, 04:54:56 AM
My memory works really differently for things I liked and things I didn't. Four years of Spanish is all but gone, but I still remember Great Gatsby and On the Road pretty well even though I haven't picked up either book since I was sixteen. I'm not good with languages, but I did fine in my sciences classes and still can't remember much. I think it just didn't pique my interest much and got stored in my brain as just a collection of discrete pieces that got dumped out at some point.

OK, with that realization (and you are far from the only one), what should we do about mandatory education?

Where's the line on how to allocate our limited resources so that we get the best return on investment, even if that return is social good, not more money?

Quote from: kaysixteen on October 23, 2019, 07:37:11 PM
Polly, how exactly do you keep that hr/sr hs math 'in your back pocket', when you never use math at that level?  (A) I aced 11th grade trig, even did maybe A- work in geometry and AP calc, but I've never had to use any of this since I gave my hs valedictorian address.  Many moons ago.  I'm not ashamed to note that I for years now have had no bounden clue as to(B) how to do a proof, figure out the cosine of anything, or differentiate a whatever... Indeed I've only the vaguest notion of what the trig and calc terms even mean.  Classicists just don't use these things, neither do historians, nor all but a handful of specialized librarians.  Obviously almost no one uses and most also don't recall their hs Latin either, but the real value, for the vast majority of hs students of advanced hs maths or Latin, lies not in the substance of the skills learned therein, (C) but rather the logical, rigorous thinking and study skills learning these fosters.

(A) Geometry and calculus develop spacial and conceptual understanding.
(B) Proofs develop logical thinking. Cosines and differentials develop pattern recognition.
(C) Which is why we study these things. To develop our thinking, to build knowledge in fields that may be useful in later careers, and to expose one to skills that we may not realize we had, and thus to careers we may not realize existed.

Quote from: polly_mer on October 24, 2019, 05:53:40 AM

Quote from: Caracal on October 24, 2019, 04:54:56 AM
My memory works really differently for things I liked and things I didn't. Four years of Spanish is all but gone, but I still remember Great Gatsby and On the Road pretty well even though I haven't picked up either book since I was sixteen. I'm not good with languages, but I did fine in my sciences classes and still can't remember much. I think it just didn't pique my interest much and got stored in my brain as just a collection of discrete pieces that got dumped out at some point.

OK, with that realization (and you are far from the only one), what should we do about mandatory education?

Where's the line on how to allocate our limited resources so that we get the best return on investment, even if that return is social good, not more money?

I'm not sure that it is really a problem. Or, to put it an other way, it is part of the nature of education. Some people, like me, suck at languages and also will be bad at applying themselves to things they aren't good at. But does that mean that language education isn't important? Or that we should ditch it as a requirement? Focusing on the utility of education is always going to be a trap, because it is impossible to know what skills, knowledge or ways of thinking about the world might be helpful to someone in the future. The more you focus on utility, the more you crush all the life out of the whole thing. For an example of this, just see the suggestion above about universal testing for each major, which I'm quite sure would make for deadly boring classes which taught to the test and were not about the things instructors and students were interested in.

Quote from: Caracal on October 24, 2019, 07:07:21 AM

I'm not sure that it is really a problem. Or, to put it an other way, it is part of the nature of education. Some people, like me, suck at languages and also will be bad at applying themselves to things they aren't good at. But does that mean that language education isn't important? Or that we should ditch it as a requirement? Focusing on the utility of education is always going to be a trap, because it is impossible to know what skills, knowledge or ways of thinking about the world might be helpful to someone in the future. The more you focus on utility, the more you crush all the life out of the whole thing. For an example of this, just see the suggestion above about universal testing for each major, which I'm quite sure would make for deadly boring classes which taught to the test and were not about the things instructors and students were interested in.

Fields like medicine, law, and accounting rely on universal testing because it means that people who pass have a definable level of knowledge of the material. By not having an external test to "teach to", instructors can just do their own thing, and may not even really cover their own syllabus, but rather focus on their own pet topics. It's a double-edged sword.

Quote from: polly_mer on October 24, 2019, 05:51:31 AM

Quote from: Caracal on October 24, 2019, 05:42:16 AM

Quote from: polly_mer on October 24, 2019, 04:37:33 AM
Knowing flat out that the justification is bogus for assigning a higher priority and yet insisting on assigning that priority anyway to preserve one's own job is unethical.

Assigning nefarious motives to people who disagree with you isn't particularly conducive to a civil and productive conversation.

Oh, are we going to start having civil and productive conversations now?  When did that start and did someone hide the frying pan?

Frying pan goes away when we are, in fact, civil and productive.  As now.

Quote from: Caracal on October 24, 2019, 07:07:21 AM

Quote from: polly_mer on October 24, 2019, 05:53:40 AM

Quote from: Caracal on October 24, 2019, 04:54:56 AM
My memory works really differently for things I liked and things I didn't. Four years of Spanish is all but gone, but I still remember Great Gatsby and On the Road pretty well even though I haven't picked up either book since I was sixteen. I'm not good with languages, but I did fine in my sciences classes and still can't remember much. I think it just didn't pique my interest much and got stored in my brain as just a collection of discrete pieces that got dumped out at some point.

OK, with that realization (and you are far from the only one), what should we do about mandatory education?

Where's the line on how to allocate our limited resources so that we get the best return on investment, even if that return is social good, not more money?

I'm not sure that it is really a problem. Or, to put it an other way, it is part of the nature of education. Some people, like me, suck at languages and also will be bad at applying themselves to things they aren't good at. But does that mean that language education isn't important? Or that we should ditch it as a requirement? Focusing on the utility of education is always going to be a trap, because it is impossible to know what skills, knowledge or ways of thinking about the world might be helpful to someone in the future. The more you focus on utility, the more you crush all the life out of the whole thing. For an example of this, just see the suggestion above about universal testing for each major, which I'm quite sure would make for deadly boring classes which taught to the test and were not about the things instructors and students were interested in.

Even if someone never uses their French or Spanish again, learning a language teaches cultural appreciation. And perspective - interesting to learn how languages are used and idiomatic expressions.

And maybe some humility and appreciation for those who have to learn a new language when they move to a new country.

Quote from: polly_mer on October 24, 2019, 05:53:40 AM

Quote from: Caracal on October 24, 2019, 04:54:56 AM
My memory works really differently for things I liked and things I didn't. Four years of Spanish is all but gone, but I still remember Great Gatsby and On the Road pretty well even though I haven't picked up either book since I was sixteen. I'm not good with languages, but I did fine in my sciences classes and still can't remember much. I think it just didn't pique my interest much and got stored in my brain as just a collection of discrete pieces that got dumped out at some point.

OK, with that realization (and you are far from the only one), what should we do about mandatory education?

Where's the line on how to allocate our limited resources so that we get the best return on investment, even if that return is social good, not more money?

It's a good and valid question.  The social good comes from people who have brains bigger than the mere precincts of their jobs.

One of our non-trads just took the LSAT.  To study for the LSAT hu practiced on some of the toughest prep questions I have ever seen covering logic, analytical stuff, reading comprehension, and writing.  The student-in-question did not know hu wanted to be a lawyer until consciousness pricked; the student seriously wants to do labor and civil rights law because of personal experience.  What the future holds for this person, who knows?  But hu's broadly defined liberal arts education in English is the stuff of the LSAT and the stuff that lawyers do.  A streamlined, singular approach to education would not have prepped this person.  In the broader practical sense, this is what education is all about----it is not job training, it is preparation to do new things that you may not have known you would be doing one day (see Spork's comment about diagnosing the rhetorical structure of academic journal articles).

My father was very upset that I wanted to study English until one of his partners explained why he loved English majors: they could write good memos.  Even back then I knew that dad and his partner had missed the point----yet this does point out something serious.

Routinely I teach business writing to accounting, marketing, and finance majors.  These folks have a good basic vocabulary, basic syntax, and good basic grammar (but they never understand the semicolon).  They can write a cogent email about a new printer or, say, new office hours-----but if they have to do anything that harnesses subtlety or argumentation or complexity then they are in trouble. 

Not important? 

When they graduate they will have a degree from a middling state school, an internship, and a job at MacDonalds or Walmart on their resumes.  They will have 300 words on a cover letter to make the case that they should rise above the other 100 candidates for that coveted job in nearby-big-city where they all want to go.  If they are ever faced with compiling a complicated research report covering, say, the eastern seaboard and explaining the intricacies of the market, it will be a tremendous struggle.  Part of my job is to get them ready for these sorts of tasks: only a few of them will end up in the careers they envision.  My big advice to them: read, read, read.  If it were up to me, they would all take a course in philosophy, creative writing, journalism, and Modernist literature as a routine part of their business degrees; they need just this kind of training to communicate better than they are doing. The acquisition of complex language-skills is not an easy task, but at some point it will be essential to them. 

You just acknowledged you can do an algebraic proof better than you can a compound sentence, Polly.  And frankly, I sometimes get lost in your diction.  With all due respect (as a guy who wishes he had paid more attention in algebra), maybe you should have taken more literature and journalism.

Quote from: marshwiggle on October 24, 2019, 07:25:36 AM



Fields like medicine, law, and accounting rely on universal testing because it means that people who pass have a definable level of knowledge of the material. By not having an external test to "teach to", instructors can just do their own thing, and may not even really cover their own syllabus, but rather focus on their own pet topics. It's a double-edged sword.

Sure, but these are all professional programs where someone is getting a certificate allowing them to practice. In fact, the exam is created and administered by professional bodies in the fields. Lawyers want to be able to control who can practice in their profession and set a minimum bar of knowledge and they've been successful at getting the state to ratify their authority and control over the profession. Outside of a few areas, college degrees don't have this kind of clear pathway to particular professions with professional bodies acting as gatekeepers.

Quote from: ciao_yall on October 24, 2019, 07:37:56 AM


Even if someone never uses their French or Spanish again, learning a language teaches cultural appreciation. And perspective - interesting to learn how languages are used and idiomatic expressions.

And maybe some humility and appreciation for those who have to learn a new language when they move to a new country.

Very good point. When I hear someone struggling to speak English, or speaking with a heavy accent, I often think about how terrible my Spanish is.

Quote from: Caracal on October 24, 2019, 07:55:55 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on October 24, 2019, 07:25:36 AM



Fields like medicine, law, and accounting rely on universal testing because it means that people who pass have a definable level of knowledge of the material. By not having an external test to "teach to", instructors can just do their own thing, and may not even really cover their own syllabus, but rather focus on their own pet topics. It's a double-edged sword.

Sure, but these are all professional programs where someone is getting a certificate allowing them to practice. In fact, the exam is created and administered by professional bodies in the fields. Lawyers want to be able to control who can practice in their profession and set a minimum bar of knowledge and they've been successful at getting the state to ratify their authority and control over the profession. Outside of a few areas, college degrees don't have this kind of clear pathway to particular professions with professional bodies acting as gatekeepers.

Yes, but the point is that it really matters that people know their stuff in these fields, because careers, businesses, and even lives depend on it. To say that it's more important that instructors can do whatever appeals to them implies that (in contrast to professional fields) there is no fundamental knowledge that a person should have after "studying" in that field. That invites the kind of criticism which says that graduates of certain programs learn nothing useful, if there is not any definite content that is guaranteed. An incompetent plumber can be identified by his/her inability to perform tasks that any plumber should be able to perform. If an entire degree program doesn't result in any objectively measurable knowledge or ability, then it's worth asking whether that is reasonable.

Quote from: marshwiggle on October 24, 2019, 08:08:04 AM


Yes, but the point is that it really matters that people know their stuff in these fields, because careers, businesses, and even lives depend on it.

To say that it's more important that instructors can do whatever appeals to them implies that (in contrast to professional fields) there is no fundamental knowledge that a person should have after "studying" in that field. That invites the kind of criticism which says that graduates of certain programs learn nothing useful, if there is not any definite content that is guaranteed. An incompetent plumber can be identified by his/her inability to perform tasks that any plumber should be able to perform. If an entire degree program doesn't result in any objectively measurable knowledge or ability, then it's worth asking whether that is reasonable.
[/quote]

The comparison just doesn't make much sense. This isn't how college majors are designed. Someone who majors in biology isn't progressing to some clearly defined career path. Thats what professional exams and tests are about, not a determination on how important we think the subject is. It is a form of professional gatekeeping. I'm not really sure you understand how we think about knowledge in the humanities. The model you have seems to be that knowledge of particular "stuff" defines expertise. But that isn't really how it works. Expertise in history isn't about knowing when Harry Truman was elected or exactly what the Marshall plan did. In effect, plenty of content is guaranteed. I promise you that nobody reputable teaching modern Europe just skips the French Revolution or WW1. But after that, survey courses are a constant tug of war between breadth and depth and there isn't some clear answer on what one should spend more or less time on. Is the Great Migration more or less important than Prohibition? Would it be more valuable to know about the Tulsa Race Riot or U.S foreign policy after the Spanish American War? If you choose both too many times you end up with a really boring class that doesn't allow you to look at anything with any nuance.

Also, instructors teaching things they are interested in is hardly a bad thing. I try to maintain a balance between teaching things I'm passionate about, things I think my students might find relevant and things that I think are important to know regardless.

So...I love this discussion. As someone with a PhD in the sciences, I was never good at math and felt I had to hide that fact somewhat. I rarely have needed anything I took through calculus (and somehow managed an A in that). Yet I've managed to comfortably get through several decades of a career. What all those "unused" courses did, however, was form some rather good study habits and a deep appreciation for folks who could do those things that I could not. Sigh...still don't like reading Shakespeare, however.

Oh, are we going to start having civil and productive conversations now?  When did that start and did someone hide the frying pan?
[/quote]

Hey, a shout-out! (Well, credit to Tom Robbins, but still.)

Quote from: waterboy on October 25, 2019, 06:09:42 AM
Sigh...still don't like reading Shakespeare, however.

Reading Shakespeare, (the plays, anyway), is like watching a music video without the sound. They're meant to be watched. I haven't read Shakespeare since high school, as I recall, but I've seen plays every year or two.

Just to say that not enjoying reading Shakespeare is perfectly reasonable, in my mind.

Quote from: waterboy on October 25, 2019, 06:09:42 AM
What all those "unused" courses did, however, was form some rather good study habits and a deep appreciation for folks who could do those things that I could not.

Seems like that's what general education requirements are supposed to do--make students aware of an array of different fields of knowledge, and of their importance.  When people are entirely ignorant of something, they tend to assume that it's useless.  If they can at least come away from gen ed with an understanding that discipline X has something worthwhile to offer--that expertise in it means something--that's an advance right there.  That it doesn't seem to be working in so many cases is troubling, but I'm not sure that's a reason to just stop trying.

Quote from: marshwiggle on October 25, 2019, 07:45:14 AM

Quote from: waterboy on October 25, 2019, 06:09:42 AM
Sigh...still don't like reading Shakespeare, however.

Reading Shakespeare, (the plays, anyway), is like watching a music video without the sound. They're meant to be watched. I haven't read Shakespeare since high school, as I recall, but I've seen plays every year or two.

Just to say that not enjoying reading Shakespeare is perfectly reasonable, in my mind.

That's true.  Kenneth Branagh's screen adaptation of "Henry v" is what finally made Shakespeare come alive for me.  At my old job we had a theater professor who made her Shakespeare students view multiple screen versions of several different Shakespeare plays.  She was adamant that they should be viewed and not merely read.  Did make for some interesting logistics at the library media center, back when video was almost all on VHS tapes.  Her students trying to cram in all their video viewing at the end of the semester made life awfully hectic for those of us who had to provide access to those videos.

Quote from: apl68 on October 25, 2019, 07:58:24 AM
When people are entirely ignorant of something, they tend to assume that it's useless [....] That it doesn't seem to be working in so many cases is troubling, but I'm not sure that's a reason to just stop trying.

Pearls, folks. 

Quote from: apl68 on October 25, 2019, 07:58:24 AM


Seems like that's what general education requirements are supposed to do--make students aware of an array of different fields of knowledge, and of their importance.  When people are entirely ignorant of something, they tend to assume that it's useless.  If they can at least come away from gen ed with an understanding that discipline X has something worthwhile to offer--that expertise in it means something--that's an advance right there.  That it doesn't seem to be working in so many cases is troubling, but I'm not sure that's a reason to just stop trying.

Perhaps not; but it is a reason to make some changes to try and determine what does work.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing you've always done and expecting a different result.

Quote from: marshwiggle on October 25, 2019, 09:12:27 AM

Quote from: apl68 on October 25, 2019, 07:58:24 AM


Seems like that's what general education requirements are supposed to do--make students aware of an array of different fields of knowledge, and of their importance.  When people are entirely ignorant of something, they tend to assume that it's useless.  If they can at least come away from gen ed with an understanding that discipline X has something worthwhile to offer--that expertise in it means something--that's an advance right there.  That it doesn't seem to be working in so many cases is troubling, but I'm not sure that's a reason to just stop trying.

Perhaps not; but it is a reason to make some changes to try and determine what does work.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing you've always done and expecting a different result.

Is there anyone out there who actually took a gen ed and decided there was nothing at all to be gained? Not even to decide that yeah, they really didn't like Shakespeare or Geology...

Quote from: ciao_yall on October 25, 2019, 10:12:35 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on October 25, 2019, 09:12:27 AM

Quote from: apl68 on October 25, 2019, 07:58:24 AM


Seems like that's what general education requirements are supposed to do--make students aware of an array of different fields of knowledge, and of their importance.  When people are entirely ignorant of something, they tend to assume that it's useless.  If they can at least come away from gen ed with an understanding that discipline X has something worthwhile to offer--that expertise in it means something--that's an advance right there.  That it doesn't seem to be working in so many cases is troubling, but I'm not sure that's a reason to just stop trying.

Perhaps not; but it is a reason to make some changes to try and determine what does work.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing you've always done and expecting a different result.

Is there anyone out there who actually took a gen ed and decided there was nothing at all to be gained? Not even to decide that yeah, they really didn't like Shakespeare or Geology...

I have a strong hunch that the majority of people who were forced into a course outside their "comfort zone" but who benefited from it were serious students who struggled with it and got something out of it. However, the apathetic students who make no effort beyond the minimum to pass who just want to get through probably don't get any appreciable benefit.

Quote from: ciao_yall on October 25, 2019, 10:12:35 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on October 25, 2019, 09:12:27 AM

Quote from: apl68 on October 25, 2019, 07:58:24 AM


Seems like that's what general education requirements are supposed to do--make students aware of an array of different fields of knowledge, and of their importance.  When people are entirely ignorant of something, they tend to assume that it's useless.  If they can at least come away from gen ed with an understanding that discipline X has something worthwhile to offer--that expertise in it means something--that's an advance right there.  That it doesn't seem to be working in so many cases is troubling, but I'm not sure that's a reason to just stop trying.

Perhaps not; but it is a reason to make some changes to try and determine what does work.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing you've always done and expecting a different result.

Is there anyone out there who actually took a gen ed and decided there was nothing at all to be gained? Not even to decide that yeah, they really didn't like Shakespeare or Geology...

Yes. This was a course that fulfilled a gen ed distribution requirement. In the discipline that I eventually got a PhD in. On a topic that I now teach at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. It made absolutely zero contribution to my eventual career or met any of my past or current interests.

Quote from: spork on October 25, 2019, 11:33:08 AM

Is there anyone out there who actually took a gen ed and decided there was nothing at all to be gained? Not even to decide that yeah, they really didn't like Shakespeare or Geology...

Yes. This was a course that fulfilled a gen ed distribution requirement. In the discipline that I eventually got a PhD in. On a topic that I now teach at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. It made absolutely zero contribution to my eventual career or met any of my past or current interests.
[/quote]

I'm confused, you teach the topic and got a PHD in it but it doesn't meet your interests and had no impact? Had you already taken it?

Quote from: marshwiggle on October 25, 2019, 10:30:44 AM


I have a strong hunch that the majority of people who were forced into a course outside their "comfort zone" but who benefited from it were serious students who struggled with it and got something out of it. However, the apathetic students who make no effort beyond the minimum to pass who just want to get through probably don't get any appreciable benefit.

Well people who are generally apathetic about college probably don't get much benefit out of any of it. I do think gen ed requirement should give people enough options so that they can choose something they care about. The class I got the least out of in college was a intro to statistics course. I'd already taken statistics in high school, but didn't do well enough on the AP exam to get credit, but it was the same course. I paid little attention, did as little work as possible and didn't learn anything. If I could have taken something on sociological data or use of ARC GIS or whatever it would have been a lot more helpful. Heck, those might have been options and I was just too dumb to take them.

Quote

Quote from: Caracal on October 25, 2019, 11:45:42 AM

Quote from: spork on October 25, 2019, 11:33:08 AM

Is there anyone out there who actually took a gen ed and decided there was nothing at all to be gained? Not even to decide that yeah, they really didn't like Shakespeare or Geology...

Yes. This was a course that fulfilled a gen ed distribution requirement. In the discipline that I eventually got a PhD in. On a topic that I now teach at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. It made absolutely zero contribution to my eventual career or met any of my past or current interests.

I'm confused, you teach the topic and got a PHD in it but it doesn't meet your interests and had no impact? Had you already taken it?

It was a terribly-taught course. An empty three credits on my undergraduate transcript.

I don't think this experience is that uncommon with required gen ed courses.

Quote from: spork on October 25, 2019, 12:14:43 PM

Quote

Quote from: Caracal on October 25, 2019, 11:45:42 AM

Quote from: spork on October 25, 2019, 11:33:08 AM

Is there anyone out there who actually took a gen ed and decided there was nothing at all to be gained? Not even to decide that yeah, they really didn't like Shakespeare or Geology...

Yes. This was a course that fulfilled a gen ed distribution requirement. In the discipline that I eventually got a PhD in. On a topic that I now teach at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. It made absolutely zero contribution to my eventual career or met any of my past or current interests.

I'm confused, you teach the topic and got a PHD in it but it doesn't meet your interests and had no impact? Had you already taken it?

It was a terribly-taught course. An empty three credits on my undergraduate transcript.

I don't think this experience is that uncommon with required gen ed courses.

So do you think your PhD is in a completely useless field and you would never recommend anyone take a class in it?

Sounds like the issue is a terrible instructor. We have all had terrible instructors but can separate the content from the delivery.

Quote from: spork on October 25, 2019, 12:14:43 PM

Quote

Quote from: Caracal on October 25, 2019, 11:45:42 AM

Quote from: spork on October 25, 2019, 11:33:08 AM

Is there anyone out there who actually took a gen ed and decided there was nothing at all to be gained? Not even to decide that yeah, they really didn't like Shakespeare or Geology...

Yes. This was a course that fulfilled a gen ed distribution requirement. In the discipline that I eventually got a PhD in. On a topic that I now teach at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. It made absolutely zero contribution to my eventual career or met any of my past or current interests.

I'm confused, you teach the topic and got a PHD in it but it doesn't meet your interests and had no impact? Had you already taken it?

It was a terribly-taught course. An empty three credits on my undergraduate transcript.

I don't think this experience is that uncommon with required gen ed courses.

We can use anecdotal evidence, of course, but my anecdotal evidence (which I've posted) is virtually antithetical to yours, including interactions with my own students.

Quote from: ciao_yall on October 25, 2019, 01:05:00 PM

Quote from: spork on October 25, 2019, 12:14:43 PM

Quote

Quote from: Caracal on October 25, 2019, 11:45:42 AM

Quote from: spork on October 25, 2019, 11:33:08 AM

Is there anyone out there who actually took a gen ed and decided there was nothing at all to be gained? Not even to decide that yeah, they really didn't like Shakespeare or Geology...

Yes. This was a course that fulfilled a gen ed distribution requirement. In the discipline that I eventually got a PhD in. On a topic that I now teach at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. It made absolutely zero contribution to my eventual career or met any of my past or current interests.

I'm confused, you teach the topic and got a PHD in it but it doesn't meet your interests and had no impact? Had you already taken it?

It was a terribly-taught course. An empty three credits on my undergraduate transcript.

I don't think this experience is that uncommon with required gen ed courses.

So do you think your PhD is in a completely useless field

No.

Quote

and you would never recommend anyone take a class in it?

I would never force a student to take a course in it if the student didn't want to.

Quote
Sounds like the issue is a terrible instructor. We have all had terrible instructors but can separate the content from the delivery.

I can separate content from the delivery too. I can get the content from books that I can check out from the library, from research in foreign archives, and from conducting interviews in other languages. But this says nothing about what happens when gen ed requirements are delivered primarily by grad students and adjuncts to classrooms full of uninterested students because the tenured faculty staff the upper-level courses required for the major.

I want to return to the question of resource allocation that looks at the big picture of needing much more in society than just education.  The discussion keeps turning back to which types of education instead of the trade-offs involved in having a functioning society in which education is just one piece of what we need to collectively fund and have people doing.

There's a big problem if we insist that everyone stay in school long past the point at which they are investing in their own broad education so they are just going through the motions.  That's wasted resources all around and is not resulting in the social goods of having more people with education upon which they are drawing either for the content knowledge or just the experience that more exposure to more areas brings.


Every dollar we spend on one thing is a dollar we don't have to spend elsewhere.  Every person who is working in education as a student, teacher, or support for students and teachers is a person who isn't doing something else that we also need.  We do need to invest in our young people, regardless of their circumstances of birth, but at some point, nearly everyone has to get out of formal education and start doing something else that society needs.  That doesn't have to be a paid position (shout out to stay-at-home parents and other caretakers) and what one does for money doesn't have to be one's whole existence (shout out to those who are creative as part of their lives while holding down a different job).

However, we do have to prioritize where the limited resources go (and that includes people's time) instead of always defaulting to "more education is better for everyone" with the net result that many people who should have been doing something else for their teens and twenties spend the time and energy in school spinning their wheels.

For example, In the US, we have aging infrastructure including unsafe bridges and highways that were never designed for this level of traffic.  (https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/americas-grades/)  California is currently experiencing the results of decades of neglect for the power grid.  Changing to a distributed generation system with renewable energy and converting to electric cars just puts more pressure on the already inadequate grid.

Healthcare, aside from any insurance issues, is in a dire state in many rural areas. (https://www.thinkncfirst.org/research/the-future-of-rural-hospitals)  While we could use more primary care physicians, a greater need in many cases is the certificate programs through RNs who can handle the  basics and then nurse practitioners are filling additional gaps.  That broad education is nice, but we absolutely need people who get a specialized education and we really can't wait for everyone to do four years of something then four years of nursing and then another 2-4 years to get that nurse practitioner degree.  Britain, for example, lets students with excellent A-levels start their college careers in medical programs at the bachelor's level (https://www.wikihow.com/Become-a-Doctor-in-the-UK).  Are we really going to claim that British doctors aren't well educated enough by not having a liberal arts background?

We have many, many people in the US who need daily, personal care including small children, the elderly, and the temporarily-or-otherwise disabled.  Insisting that everyone have both a liberal arts education and then specialized training in childhood development, geriatrics, or anything else to provide that care means we will continue to be short handed in ways that greatly affect real lives.  Recognizing that humans have somehow managed to provide this kind of care through personal experience for ten thousand of years and being realistic about matching needs with good enough providers means we could open admit the current situation isn't a miserable failure in many cases.

A continuing societal problem is the confluence of automation, efficiency gains through technology, and the changing nature of work so that we no longer need everyone who can work to work for pay.  That's especially problematic as the gap widens between what people can do by being broadly educated and being able to learn on the job and what specialized education is necessary to do jobs we need done.  Everything that's pretty straightforward to learn in a few weeks/months is being automated or pays practically nothing because any average person off the street can learn it in weeks/months.  While an individual may enjoy knowing more about the world, the fact remains that the jobs that are hardest to automate are the ones that require years of specific education and experience to become proficient. 

What happens to the middle class when we don't need them and can't provide jobs for all who want them, but continue to have scarcity in areas that need highly qualified professionals or are physical labor that cannot be automated?  The basic idea underlying the value of a liberal arts education loses a lot of appeal when it turns out we don't need those folks at all.  A rambling, but good explanation, is at https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/11/hipsters_on_food_stamps.html:

Quote
When we see a welfare mom we assume she can't find work, but when we see a hipster we become infuriated because we assume he doesn't want to work but could easily do so-- on account of the fact that he can speak well-- that he went to college.  But now suddenly we're all shocked: to the economy, the English grad is just as superfluous as the disenfranchised welfare mom in the hood-- the college education is just as irrelevant as the skin color.  Not irrelevant for now, not irrelevant "until the economy improves"-- irrelevant forever.

...

It's hard to accept that the University of Chicago grad described in the article isn't employable, that the economy doesn't need him, but it is absolutely true, but my point here is that not only is he not contributing, the economy doesn't need him to contribute.  Which is good, because there's nothing he can do for it. 1. Anything requiring science is out.  2. "He can work manual labor!"  I love how people assume economics doesn't apply to construction.  The demand for those jobs is very high AND hipsters suck at them.  At any wage, Gerry the hipster will always be outworked by Vinnie the son of a longshoreman, who will always be outworked by a Mexican illegal, i.e. the system will always be able to find someone who can do the job better AND with lower labor costs. 

Quote from: polly_mer on October 26, 2019, 06:03:40 AM
I want to return to the question of resource allocation that looks at the big picture of needing much more in society than just education.  The discussion keeps turning back to which types of education instead of the trade-offs involved in having a functioning society in which education is just one piece of what we need to collectively fund and have people doing.

There's a big problem if we insist that everyone stay in school long past the point at which they are investing in their own broad education so they are just going through the motions.  That's wasted resources all around and is not resulting in the social goods of having more people with education upon which they are drawing either for the content knowledge or just the experience that more exposure to more areas brings.


Every dollar we spend on one thing is a dollar we don't have to spend elsewhere.  Every person who is working in education as a student, teacher, or support for students and teachers is a person who isn't doing something else that we also need.  We do need to invest in our young people, regardless of their circumstances of birth, but at some point, nearly everyone has to get out of formal education and start doing something else that society needs.  That doesn't have to be a paid position (shout out to stay-at-home parents and other caretakers) and what one does for money doesn't have to be one's whole existence (shout out to those who are creative as part of their lives while holding down a different job).

However, we do have to prioritize where the limited resources go (and that includes people's time) instead of always defaulting to "more education is better for everyone" with the net result that many people who should have been doing something else for their teens and twenties spend the time and energy in school spinning their wheels.

For example, In the US, we have aging infrastructure including unsafe bridges and highways that were never designed for this level of traffic.  (https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/americas-grades/)  California is currently experiencing the results of decades of neglect for the power grid.  Changing to a distributed generation system with renewable energy and converting to electric cars just puts more pressure on the already inadequate grid.

Healthcare, aside from any insurance issues, is in a dire state in many rural areas. (https://www.thinkncfirst.org/research/the-future-of-rural-hospitals)  While we could use more primary care physicians, a greater need in many cases is the certificate programs through RNs who can handle the  basics and then nurse practitioners are filling additional gaps.  That broad education is nice, but we absolutely need people who get a specialized education and we really can't wait for everyone to do four years of something then four years of nursing and then another 2-4 years to get that nurse practitioner degree.  Britain, for example, lets students with excellent A-levels start their college careers in medical programs at the bachelor's level (https://www.wikihow.com/Become-a-Doctor-in-the-UK).  Are we really going to claim that British doctors aren't well educated enough by not having a liberal arts background?

We have many, many people in the US who need daily, personal care including small children, the elderly, and the temporarily-or-otherwise disabled.  Insisting that everyone have both a liberal arts education and then specialized training in childhood development, geriatrics, or anything else to provide that care means we will continue to be short handed in ways that greatly affect real lives.  Recognizing that humans have somehow managed to provide this kind of care through personal experience for ten thousand of years and being realistic about matching needs with good enough providers means we could open admit the current situation isn't a miserable failure in many cases.

A continuing societal problem is the confluence of automation, efficiency gains through technology, and the changing nature of work so that we no longer need everyone who can work to work for pay.  That's especially problematic as the gap widens between what people can do by being broadly educated and being able to learn on the job and what specialized education is necessary to do jobs we need done.  Everything that's pretty straightforward to learn in a few weeks/months is being automated or pays practically nothing because any average person off the street can learn it in weeks/months.  While an individual may enjoy knowing more about the world, the fact remains that the jobs that are hardest to automate are the ones that require years of specific education and experience to become proficient. 

What happens to the middle class when we don't need them and can't provide jobs for all who want them, but continue to have scarcity in areas that need highly qualified professionals or are physical labor that cannot be automated?  The basic idea underlying the value of a liberal arts education loses a lot of appeal when it turns out we don't need those folks at all.  A rambling, but good explanation, is at https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/11/hipsters_on_food_stamps.html:

Quote
When we see a welfare mom we assume she can't find work, but when we see a hipster we become infuriated because we assume he doesn't want to work but could easily do so-- on account of the fact that he can speak well-- that he went to college.  But now suddenly we're all shocked: to the economy, the English grad is just as superfluous as the disenfranchised welfare mom in the hood-- the college education is just as irrelevant as the skin color.  Not irrelevant for now, not irrelevant "until the economy improves"-- irrelevant forever.

...

It's hard to accept that the University of Chicago grad described in the article isn't employable, that the economy doesn't need him, but it is absolutely true, but my point here is that not only is he not contributing, the economy doesn't need him to contribute.  Which is good, because there's nothing he can do for it. 1. Anything requiring science is out.  2. "He can work manual labor!"  I love how people assume economics doesn't apply to construction.  The demand for those jobs is very high AND hipsters suck at them.  At any wage, Gerry the hipster will always be outworked by Vinnie the son of a longshoreman, who will always be outworked by a Mexican illegal, i.e. the system will always be able to find someone who can do the job better AND with lower labor costs. 

Really? You think we are overfunding education in the United States? Also you know we just had a whole thread about how, in fact, English majors are not unemployable. Compared to people who don't go to college they are far more likely to get jobs and make more money at those jobs. You keep accusing academics of ignoring evidence, yet you are willing to buy this whole story based around dumb cliches about hipsters and English majors which has no actual basis in reality. Also, I'm not really interested in an article that refers to a human being as a "Mexican illegal." I guess unlike Vinny the Longshoreman, he doesn't even get a name?

Summary:

1) We're funding the wrong things in US education and therefore certain areas are short-funded.  For example, funding remedial college courses instead of better K-12 education means we're doing it wrong if the goal truly is to have an educated population who have choices as adults and a good shot at a middle class life.

2) The big looming problem is what to do when we have more people who can do certain jobs than jobs that need to be done.  The idea that a smart enough person who has a good enough college education under their belt will get a good middle class job is going away in practice as those jobs are either automated or made into the jobs that require years of more specialized training.  We have far fewer of those jobs than we used to have and there's no reason to believe those jobs are coming back.

The concern is not that English majors are unemployable; the concern is that we continue to have the underemployment rate grow indicating we need far fewer people who are "only" college educated and that's a social equity problem.  People from certain socioeconomic classes tend to get stuck in underemployment, almost regardless of their college degree, while people with pretty good social and monetary capital have good outcomes regardless of whether they have a college degree.  That situation is expected to get worse as the middle class jobs continue to transition to either much lower level (i.e., anyone of average intelligence can learn them in a matter of weeks) or much higher level (i.e., if you can't do math through PDEs or the equivalent in other fields, then you are locked out of the market). The white shoe firms that only hire from a handful of universities is one indicator of how education itself matters less than one's place in the system.

The concern isn't a specific field, so much as we don't need all the generic college graduates we currently have, let alone the people still going through the system.  We need people with specific skill sets including the often neglected math and related programming far above algebra.  A true liberal arts education might include enough math (hence the hiring of all the liberal arts majors from elite institutions into banking and consulting); a college degree with checkbox "quantitative reasoning" from Compass Point State almost certainly does not.

What happens to those people who cannot get jobs and stay in the middle class?  Do we go full out dystopia or should we be making modifications to what constitutes paid work?

I think Poly has a point.  I'm pretty sure that the US funding per capital is quite high relative to many other nations, yet many places with lower funding rates out perform the US (obviously you can debate the validity of the metrics). I really think a lot of this has to do with inequitable distribution, but that is another story.  The main point is that it is not a 1:1 relationship between amount spent and educational outcomes.

As for people with humanity degrees getting better jobs, correlation does not mean causation.  It is very possible that they would have done as good or better without this education.

Quote from: Kron3007 on October 27, 2019, 09:18:53 AM
I think Poly has a point.  I'm pretty sure that the US funding per capital is quite high relative to many other nations, yet many places with lower funding rates out perform the US (obviously you can debate the validity of the metrics). I really think a lot of this has to do with inequitable distribution, but that is another story.  The main point is that it is not a 1:1 relationship between amount spent and educational outcomes.

As for people with humanity degrees getting better jobs, correlation does not mean causation.  It is very possible that they would have done as good or better without this education.

Polly has very good points.  The problem is that they tend to be edited to find a certain conclusion and/or are very Manichean in structure.

We can conjecture all day about correlation vs. causation or the future of employment; what we do know for a fact is that humanities degree holders tend to do just fine on the job market.  People who ignore this are using bad critical thinking skills and/or are looking for something to snipe at the lib arts with.

Quote from: polly_mer on October 27, 2019, 07:39:41 AM
Summary:

1) We're funding the wrong things in US education and therefore certain areas are short-funded.  For example, funding remedial college courses instead of better K-12 education means we're doing it wrong if the goal truly is to have an educated population who have choices as adults and a good shot at a middle class life.

Well, as Kron said, really this is about economic inequality and racial inequality and school isn't going to solve these problems alone.

Quote from: polly_mer on October 27, 2019, 07:39:41 AM


People from certain socioeconomic classes tend to get stuck in underemployment, almost regardless of their college degree, while people with pretty good social and monetary capital have good outcomes regardless of whether they have a college degree. 

Quote from: polly_mer on October 27, 2019, 07:39:41 AM

No, this isn't true. Actually mobility is pretty good for people who get a college degree. The problem is that people who come from poorer backgrounds rarely get degrees. They aren't as likely to go to college, and if they do they aren't likely to finish. I can pretty much promise you that this isn't going to change if you drop distribution requirements or give up on the idea of a liberal arts education.

Quote from: polly_mer on October 27, 2019, 07:39:41 AM

The concern isn't a specific field, so much as we don't need all the generic college graduates we currently have, let alone the people still going through the system.  We need people with specific skill sets including the often neglected math and related programming far above algebra.  A true liberal arts education might include enough math (hence the hiring of all the liberal arts majors from elite institutions into banking and consulting); a college degree with checkbox "quantitative reasoning" from Compass Point State almost certainly does not.

Oh, ok, so the math requirement can stay, its just that the humanities needs to go? Also I'm not really sure I think our world really needs all these people going into banking and consulting. One of the many bothersome things about your arguments is you seem to assume that the economy is some sort of arbiter of what is good and useful. High school teaching doesn't pay much and consulting does, so "we" need more consultants.

QuoteWe can conjecture all day about correlation vs. causation or the future of employment; what we do know for a fact is that humanities degree holders tend to do just fine on the job market.  People who ignore this are using bad critical thinking skills and/or are looking for something to snipe at the lib arts with.

I agree. The last articles I've read suggest that English majors are getting jobs at higher rates than biology majors. They also had great job satisfaction several years out.

Quote from: fourhats on October 27, 2019, 02:46:54 PM

QuoteWe can conjecture all day about correlation vs. causation or the future of employment; what we do know for a fact is that humanities degree holders tend to do just fine on the job market.  People who ignore this are using bad critical thinking skills and/or are looking for something to snipe at the lib arts with.

I agree. The last articles I've read suggest that English majors are getting jobs at higher rates than biology majors. They also had great job satisfaction several years out.

To be fair, biology isn't great to go by; it's the STEM discipline that is easiest to do with minimal math. (Yes, I know that there will all kinds of people in biology that are strong in math, and lots of sub-disciplines that use math, but getting through without  having to do much math is easier than in most other STEM disciplines.)

And to be blunt: The essence of the STEM/humanities divide is the presence or absence and relative importance of math.

Quote from: marshwiggle on October 28, 2019, 05:13:10 AM

And to be blunt: The essence of the STEM/humanities divide is the presence or absence and relative importance of math.

If that's true, it highlights the way a lot of this is about what people have the skills to do and where they should be putting their energy. I was pretty good at math all the way up to pre-calc junior year, which I just completely bombed. I'm sure I could have done better if I'd actually wanted to work at it, which I didn't, but basically the math became abstract in a way that I couldn't really visualize and understand. No good would have come of me taking more advanced math. My C- was a very clear signal that I had neither the skills nor the motivation to be a STEM major.

Of course, I had a good math education all the way up to pre-calc and it has been useful in my life in various ways, at least some of it. Lots of people don't have a good math education and I'm sure some of these people have the capability to understand advanced math and enjoy it if they had the background I had in it. Obviously, that sucks for them and for the world and we need to try to fix it. But, lots of people's skills are in other things, reading, writing, analyzing etc and those things are valuable for the world and generally lead to decent jobs. That majors relying on different skills lead to jobs that earn a bit more isn't a reason to think that fewer people should be majoring in the humanities.

Quote from: Caracal on October 28, 2019, 07:25:30 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on October 28, 2019, 05:13:10 AM

And to be blunt: The essence of the STEM/humanities divide is the presence or absence and relative importance of math.

If that's true, it highlights the way a lot of this is about what people have the skills to do and where they should be putting their energy. I was pretty good at math all the way up to pre-calc junior year, which I just completely bombed. I'm sure I could have done better if I'd actually wanted to work at it, which I didn't, but basically the math became abstract in a way that I couldn't really visualize and understand. No good would have come of me taking more advanced math. My C- was a very clear signal that I had neither the skills nor the motivation to be a STEM major.

Of course, I had a good math education all the way up to pre-calc and it has been useful in my life in various ways, at least some of it. Lots of people don't have a good math education and I'm sure some of these people have the capability to understand advanced math and enjoy it if they had the background I had in it. Obviously, that sucks for them and for the world and we need to try to fix it. But, lots of people's skills are in other things, reading, writing, analyzing etc and those things are valuable for the world and generally lead to decent jobs. That majors relying on different skills lead to jobs that earn a bit more isn't a reason to think that fewer people should be majoring in the humanities.

Suppose you exchange "math" for "writing" in that and see what happens; (It's not perfect but it gets the idea across.)

Quote
I was pretty good at writing all the way up to (English?) junior year, which I just completely bombed. I'm sure I could have done better if I'd actually wanted to work at it, which I didn't, but basically the writing became abstract in a way that I couldn't really visualize and understand. No good would have come of me taking more advanced writing. My C- was a very clear signal that I had neither the skills nor the motivation to be a humanities major.

Of course, I had a good writing education all the way up to (English?) and it has been useful in my life in various ways, at least some of it. Lots of people don't have a good writing education and I'm sure some of these people have the capability to understand advanced writing and enjoy it if they had the background I had in it. Obviously, that sucks for them and for the world and we need to try to fix it. But, lots of people's skills are in other things, calculating, analyzing etc and those things are valuable for the world and generally lead to decent jobs. That majors relying on different skills lead to jobs that earn a bit more isn't a reason to think that fewer people should be majoring in STEM.

Why is the case considered so much stronger for math-intensive courses being optional while writing-intensive courses are required?

Quote from: marshwiggle on October 28, 2019, 07:54:20 AM
Why is the case considered so much stronger for math-intensive courses being optional while writing-intensive courses are required?

Because of Bill Gates, Marshy.

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 28, 2019, 08:29:17 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on October 28, 2019, 07:54:20 AM
Why is the case considered so much stronger for math-intensive courses being optional while writing-intensive courses are required?

Because of Bill Gates, Marshy.

I haven't the slightest idea what you mean. Please explain. (Presumably Bill took some of both and eventually dropped out, so I don't get what that indicates.)

Quote from: marshwiggle on October 28, 2019, 07:54:20 AM

Why is the case considered so much stronger for math-intensive courses being optional while writing-intensive courses are required?

If you argued that students should have to pass a really basic test in which they demonstrate that they grasp basic math concepts to avoid having to take some sort of "math for college" course, I'd agree in principle.

The kind of writing taught in an intro writing course is much closer to fractions and percentages than to Pre-Calculus. Also, do science majors not need to be capable writers? It is different, but you guys write papers and other stuff don't you? I know at a lot of places that you can take writing courses taught by STEM faculty which focus on writing about science.

Quote from: Caracal on October 28, 2019, 09:45:49 AM

The kind of writing taught in an intro writing course is much closer to fractions and percentages than to Pre-Calculus.

Have you never heard a faculty member basically brag about not being able to figure out the tip on a restaurant bill without a calculator? Not being able to do "fractions and percentages" is considered quite acceptable. (And even kind of a badge of honour; "I'm an intellectual; I don't have to be able to do that kind of technical task.")

Quote
Also, do science majors not need to be capable writers? It is different, but you guys write papers and other stuff don't you? I know at a lot of places that you can take writing courses taught by STEM faculty which focus on writing about science.

And that's the point; STEM faculty don't pride themselves on being illiterate in the way some humanities faculty pride themselves on being innumerate.

Quote from: marshwiggle on October 28, 2019, 08:54:47 AM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 28, 2019, 08:29:17 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on October 28, 2019, 07:54:20 AM
Why is the case considered so much stronger for math-intensive courses being optional while writing-intensive courses are required?

Because of Bill Gates, Marshy.

I haven't the slightest idea what you mean. Please explain. (Presumably Bill took some of both and eventually dropped out, so I don't get what that indicates.)

I knew you wouldn't figure it out, my friend. 

Hint: It has something to do with the prominence of computers.

I acknowledge my comparative, emphasize comparative innumeracy, but only because I no longer know how to do calculus, trig, let alone any of the stuff math majors take in advanced seminars.  I can however figure out tips, grade percentages, etc.  Exactly which humanities profs brag about their inability to do such things?

Where is the indignity in forgetting things that are not needed? Seems to me more like throwing out old socks.

Quote from: kaysixteen on October 28, 2019, 07:11:22 PM
I acknowledge my comparative, emphasize comparative innumeracy, but only because I no longer know how to do calculus, trig, let alone any of the stuff math majors take in advanced seminars.  I can however figure out tips, grade percentages, etc.  Exactly which humanities profs brag about their inability to do such things?

Watch people trying to double a recipe, or, God forbid, have to convert between imperial and metric units. Things like this which require elementary school arithmetic are looked on by all kinds of people as Herculean tasks. Even in places where these are common tasks.

Now see how many STEM people view writing a grammatically correct one paragraph letter as an insurmountable obstacle.

To clear up some positions attributed to me that I do not hold:

1) People who have strong interests in the humanities should go to college and major in the humanities.  We do need people with those interests and skills in society.

However,

2) the current and projected situations is such that only people who have pretty good social capital as well as a humanities college degree tend to get middle class jobs.  That's a problem that is rapidly solving itself as the institutions catering to people with less social capital and inadequate K-12 educations cancel the humanities majors.  It's becoming hard to get a humanities degree if one isn't already in the social class that will do just fine whatever their college major.

3) marching everyone through the humanities basics again in college is a waste of resources.  People who are specializing in the humanities need those classes.  People who have excellent K-12 education and have decided they would rather specialize in something else should be allowed to specialize in their areas and toss the "old socks" parts of the humanities as they deem fit.  If educated people are making that case for the levels of math that people participating in modern society truly do on a regular basis (and no, your calculator is not a substitute for a solid math education), then educated people should also be making that case for the humanities as those of us without humanities college degrees use them.

4) The fix to people who can't do the equivalent of adding fractions in the humanities has to be done at the K-12 level.  Yes, writing is important.  The generically applicable parts of writing should be well in place by the time one graduates from high school.

5) Money isn't everything.  Someone who makes the trade-off to be, say, director of a small non-profit making middle class money when they could be VP of a large company is a successful outcome for society.  Being a clerk to support one's writing, art, or other intellectual activity is a good outcome.  Folding those jeans with no career ladder to climb and no interest in delving deeper into some intellectual pursuit, just like the people who didn't go to college, indicates waste in the system that could have gone to someone who would have appreciated an education.

Quote from: marshwiggle on October 29, 2019, 04:56:46 AM

Quote from: kaysixteen on October 28, 2019, 07:11:22 PM
I acknowledge my comparative, emphasize comparative innumeracy, but only because I no longer know how to do calculus, trig, let alone any of the stuff math majors take in advanced seminars.  I can however figure out tips, grade percentages, etc.  Exactly which humanities profs brag about their inability to do such things?

Watch people trying to double a recipe, or, God forbid, have to convert between imperial and metric units. Things like this which require elementary school arithmetic are looked on by all kinds of people as Herculean tasks. Even in places where these are common tasks.

Now see how many STEM people view writing a grammatically correct one paragraph letter as an insurmountable obstacle.

I know all too many people who can't do anything involving basic math.  But they're people who also don't have any higher education.  I don't recall ever meeting a prof in a humanities field (and I've met quite a few of them) who was a true mathematical illiterate.  In fact, I've known several whose work had a substantial quantitative component.  This "mathematically illiterate humanities prof" sounds like something of a straw man.

Marshwiggle, you give the impression that at some point you've been greatly insulted by somebody in the humanities who disrespected you and your field.  It's all too human to feel resentment over something like that.  Understand, though, that this sort of thing can go both ways.  A great deal of what you say on threads about this subject gives off a vibe--unintentional or not--of "STEM people know how to read and write and can do anything humanities people can do just as well if they want to, whereas humanities people are mathematical illiterates unable to do anything that STEM people do.  Therefore, STEM people are better than humanities people." 

Honestly, that's how you come across at times.  It rubs those on the other side of the debate just as much the wrong way as whatever it is they say that's offended you so much.  Add to that the fact that society and higher ed and funding agencies at least all profess to love STEM, while continually questioning the humanities' very right to exist, and you see why the humanities people in these debates can get kind of defensive.

Maybe people around here could try to offend each other and take offense less?

Quote from: polly_mer on October 29, 2019, 06:14:43 AM


2) the current and projected situations is such that only people who have pretty good social capital as well as a humanities college degree tend to get middle class jobs.  That's a problem that is rapidly solving itself as the institutions catering to people with less social capital and inadequate K-12 educations cancel the humanities majors.  It's becoming hard to get a humanities degree if one isn't already in the social class that will do just fine whatever their college major.

Can we have the evidence of this? Do students from poorer backgrounds who go to college and major in humanities actually have dispropriatonely worse outcomes?

Quote from: apl68 on October 29, 2019, 08:13:57 AM

Marshwiggle, you give the impression that at some point you've been greatly insulted by somebody in the humanities who disrespected you and your field.  It's all too human to feel resentment over something like that.  Understand, though, that this sort of thing can go both ways.  A great deal of what you say on threads about this subject gives off a vibe--unintentional or not--of "STEM people know how to read and write and can do anything humanities people can do just as well if they want to, whereas humanities people are mathematical illiterates unable to do anything that STEM people do.  Therefore, STEM people are better than humanities people." 

For reference:
My spouse has a humanities degree, and is quite successful.
Two of my kids have humanities degrees. The third is studying engineering.
The two who studied humanities knew from before they started what their professional goals were and how their degrees fit in.

I don't object to humanities degrees; I do object to the shotgun approach of "take anybody who doesn't know what they want to do, who may have a lousy high school background, and shovel them in here." All of my kids did IB in high school, so they were all well prepared for university.

I do not and would not advocate shoveling students who don't know what they want to do into STEM (or anything else), especially those with poor high school preparation. After high school people should work until they decide they want more education and why. Post-secondary education should be for people who know why they are there and why they're in whatever program they're in.

One other thing that does annoy me; humanities faculty often try to play both sides of the fence. They say how many CEOs are humanities grads, but if someone complains that their degree didn't get them a job they then throw up their hands and say "It's not job training!" You can pick one or the other, but not both. No degree is a ticket to a job, but some are more useful that way than others. Students have to apply themselves during school and after graduation, but faculty will often hide behind "the economy", or for people who went to grad school, "government underfunding of education" for the lack of academic jobs. Either stop recruiting by implying that humanities degrees are the ticket to a corner office, or tell students and graduates that they're going to have to work hard and adapt to be employed. I'll support either one, but not both. (And again, ANY program that implies it's the ticket to success is open to the same criticism.)

Quote from: marshwiggle on October 29, 2019, 08:47:43 AM

Quote from: apl68 on October 29, 2019, 08:13:57 AM

Marshwiggle, you give the impression that at some point you've been greatly insulted by somebody in the humanities who disrespected you and your field.  It's all too human to feel resentment over something like that.  Understand, though, that this sort of thing can go both ways.  A great deal of what you say on threads about this subject gives off a vibe--unintentional or not--of "STEM people know how to read and write and can do anything humanities people can do just as well if they want to, whereas humanities people are mathematical illiterates unable to do anything that STEM people do.  Therefore, STEM people are better than humanities people." 

For reference:
My spouse has a humanities degree, and is quite successful.
Two of my kids have humanities degrees. The third is studying engineering.
The two who studied humanities knew from before they started what their professional goals were and how their degrees fit in.

I don't object to humanities degrees; I do object to the shotgun approach of "take anybody who doesn't know what they want to do, who may have a lousy high school background, and shovel them in here." All of my kids did IB in high school, so they were all well prepared for university.

I do not and would not advocate shoveling students who don't know what they want to do into STEM (or anything else), especially those with poor high school preparation. After high school people should work until they decide they want more education and why. Post-secondary education should be for people who know why they are there and why they're in whatever program they're in.

One other thing that does annoy me; humanities faculty often try to play both sides of the fence. They say how many CEOs are humanities grads, but if someone complains that their degree didn't get them a job they then throw up their hands and say "It's not job training!" You can pick one or the other, but not both. No degree is a ticket to a job, but some are more useful that way than others. Students have to apply themselves during school and after graduation, but faculty will often hide behind "the economy", or for people who went to grad school, "government underfunding of education" for the lack of academic jobs. Either stop recruiting by implying that humanities degrees are the ticket to a corner office, or tell students and graduates that they're going to have to work hard and adapt to be employed. I'll support either one, but not both. (And again, ANY program that implies it's the ticket to success is open to the same criticism.)

I think you are misinterpreting "recruitment." Mostly this is just trying to combat this mistaken belief that humanities majors don't get jobs and that it is not a "useful" degree. The declining number of humanities majors isn't matched by declining earnings or rising unemployment, it is about perception. When you see that poster from the philosophy department about prominent people who got degrees in philosophy and the things that some majors do for a career, they aren't trying to persuade anybody that a philosophy degree is some sort of golden ticket. All they want to do is tell the student who is interested in philosophy that pursuing their interests isn't wasting their college tuition.

I think that strong knowledge of statistics and probability is important to all citizens. It helps people understand why vaccines are necessary. It could reduce gambling/lottery losses. It helps people understand the difference between correlation and causation. It helps them be an active participant in their own medical choices. It helps make better investments and retirement savings choices. It helps avoid logical fallacies and mitigate cognitive biases. And so on.

Quote from: polly_mer on October 29, 2019, 06:14:43 AM
The generically applicable parts of writing should be well in place by the time one graduates from high school.

They usually are.  Our high school graduates are generally literate, even in the worst circumstances.  But we, being human, will always be hyper-critical of young people.  Yeeeeeesss you can always find someone who has been failed by the system...that's not what I am talking about (and you should know that).

College is all about making good writers out of people, not just communicators.  We polish that general literacy.  Generally speaking, this is accomplished. 

And this is also why humanities majors exist: break perceptions from people who understand math but fail to use its logic in other areas.

Harvard started composition classes in the 1870s until the local high schools could get up to speed.  Look it up.  The above plaint is absolutely nothing new.

We always think 18 and 19 year olds are deficient in the areas we have taken years to master.  We always think adolescent education is sub-par.  It is just part of our nature.

We blame young people for being young people.

For instance:

Quote
NUMBER:   195

AUTHOR:   Socrates (469–399 B.C.)

QUOTATION:   The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.

ATTRIBUTION:   Attributed to SOCRATES by Plato, according to William L. Patty and Louise S. Johnson, Personality and Adjustment, p. 277 (1953).

Okay, now I really am out.

Quote from: zuzu_ on October 29, 2019, 12:46:28 PM
I think that strong knowledge of statistics and probability is important to all citizens. It helps people understand why vaccines are necessary. It could reduce gambling/lottery losses. It helps people understand the difference between correlation and causation. It helps them be an active participant in their own medical choices. It helps make better investments and retirement savings choices. It helps avoid logical fallacies and mitigate cognitive biases. And so on.

In theory, sure.

I am not sure I am seeing this dynamic in the real world, however.  Particularly the "cognitive biases" bit.

Random thoughts:
1) does the average hs grad have the intellectual chops, preparation, etc., to seriously study stats and probability?  I ask that because these maths are generally not taught in hs in the U.S., so presumably they must be at least somewhat challenging?
2)I also can't see how these subjects help with logical fallacies (except for the fallacy of lying with statistics) and cognitive biases?
3) Polly, I still wonder why it is you regularly assert that most of the standard gen ed type subject matter should be learned in hs?  Obviously some students in elite prep schools and top-line suburban public ones will acquire such skills (but only SOME kids at such schools), but it really has never been true that such skills acquisition has been normative in U.S. Hss.

Quote from: kaysixteen on October 29, 2019, 09:39:18 PM
Random thoughts:
1) does the average hs grad have the intellectual chops, preparation, etc., to seriously study stats and probability?  I ask that because these maths are generally not taught in hs in the U.S., so presumably they must be at least somewhat challenging?

Introductory statistics doesn't require anything beyond basic algebra. Higher-level stats uses calculus to prove stuff, but it's not needed before that.

Quote
2)I also can't see how these subjects help with logical fallacies (except for the fallacy of lying with statistics) and cognitive biases?

One of the most important ideas is that what happens in specific cases can vary from what happens in general. So many stupid arguments now days sound something like this:
"Statistically, members of X are more likely to Y."
"YOU'RE SAYING ALL MEMBERS OF X ARE Y!!!!!!!"

Sigh........

Quote
3) Polly, I still wonder why it is you regularly assert that most of the standard gen ed type subject matter should be learned in hs?  Obviously some students in elite prep schools and top-line suburban public ones will acquire such skills (but only SOME kids at such schools), but it really has never been true that such skills acquisition has been normative in U.S. Hss.

As I've pointed out many times, decades ago high school standards were much higher, and many people just didn't finish. (My mom HAD TO take Latin, trigonometry, etc.) As there has been a bigger push to make sure "everyone" can "finish" high school, the standards have dropped. If the goal is to eventually have "everyone" complete university, and they all have to take the same "general" things, then the standards for those will also have to drop.

The Bell curve is a real thing; different people have different abilities and interests, and so the only way to have everyone "achieve" something is to make "something" trivial.

Quote from: kaysixteen on October 29, 2019, 09:39:18 PM
3) Polly, I still wonder why it is you regularly assert that most of the standard gen ed type subject matter should be learned in hs?  Obviously some students in elite prep schools and top-line suburban public ones will acquire such skills (but only SOME kids at such schools), but it really has never been true that such skills acquisition has been normative in U.S. Hss.

It's not been normative for everyone to go to college, either.  I was disappointed every time I was at Super Dinky and some other professor said, Student X is really smart.  No, Student X was nearly always the one person in the cohort who was actually college-ready and diligent enough to do the work. 

Quote
Slightly fewer ACT-tested graduates were ready for college coursework this year than last year. The percentage of students meeting at least three of the ACT College Readiness Benchmarks in the four core subject areas was 38% for the 2018 US high school graduating class, down from 39% last year but the same as in 2016.

A higher percentage of students this year than in recent years fell to the bottom of the preparedness scale, showing little or no readiness for college coursework. Thirty-five percent of 2018 graduates met none of the ACT College Readiness Benchmarks, up from 31% in 2014 and from 33% last year.

Source: https://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/cccr2018/National-CCCR-2018.pdf

At my regional comprehensive in Appalachia, I spent my summers working with gifted and talented 6-12 graders who visited the campus for a week at a time as cohorts attending various summer schools.  Some of these were inner-city kids and some were from the most rural of anywhere.  Yet, the middle-schoolers could do math word problems, online research, and in classroom problem-solving that I couldn't give to the regular science for teachers  classes.  These were not knock-your-socks-off geniuses who tackle college at 12; these were kids who had good parents and good teachers who supported them in progressing through an education instead of keeping the youngsters off the street until they were old enough to legally work.

When we moved from rural cornfields in a town where sports was more important than academics even in third grade to a school where academics, music, art, and theatre are more important by far than athletics (mostly used as exercise), the quality of the other elementary students went way up in Blocky's classes.  The teachers here aren't any better than the ones in the school district we left because the salaries offered aren't enough to live in town.  However, the other students supported by their families are very good and support each other into doing well in school.

For example, doing algebra in sixth grade is only 80th percentile for the local comparison group.  Algebra is one level of math into which students place for seventh grade middle school math where the classes split for the first time.  However, seventh grade algebra is not the top level of math sorting because so many sixth graders are accommodated into doing it a year earlier.  From the NAEP and related tests, Blocky's school has the majority of students at proficient (i.e., above grade level) in all categories tested.  As several parents have pointed out, being average here means being top of the class in many other places that don't value education the way we do.

I will also again cite our First World friendly countries as providing evidence that good K-12 education means not having to do extensive breadth requirements in university and yet having an educated enough population.

Quote from: Caracal on October 29, 2019, 08:46:07 AM

Quote from: polly_mer on October 29, 2019, 06:14:43 AM


2) the current and projected situations is such that only people who have pretty good social capital as well as a humanities college degree tend to get middle class jobs.  That's a problem that is rapidly solving itself as the institutions catering to people with less social capital and inadequate K-12 educations cancel the humanities majors.  It's becoming hard to get a humanities degree if one isn't already in the social class that will do just fine whatever their college major.

Can we have the evidence of this? Do students from poorer backgrounds who go to college and major in humanities actually have dispropriatonely worse outcomes?

I will work on this later in the week since I have an early meeting today. 

Evidence of those specific outcomes is harder to find than evidence that people receiving Pell Grants or having family income of less than $35k don't tend to major in the humanities, don't tend to graduate, and don't tend to get middle-class, college-degree required jobs even when they do graduate, unless the specific individuals acquire the necessary social networks or a college degree for which employers advertise specifically.  The push for internships in fields that didn't use to have internships is partly a recognition of how to help students develop professional networks, especially for places that will hire known quantities who have the relevant experience instead of advertising for just college-degree-required and then training.

Other evidence that's easier to find is that people who succeed in having a middle-class job with only a BA in the humanities degree tend to have pretty good social capital in the form of attending good schools and having higher socioeconomic status.

The volume of personal narratives of the people who go to college, major in something that doesn't have a direct career track to a middle-class job in the rural areas or inner cities, and then end up with non-college-degree-required jobs is quite extensive and has been a recurring theme for decades in media and everywhere I've lived where education isn't valued at the K-12 level.  Whether it's actually true across the board, it's common enough for people to go to even a good college and come home to live without ever seeing any financial benefit from a college degree that doesn't lead to a specific career path like teacher or accountant.

Quote from: polly_mer on October 29, 2019, 06:14:43 AM


Money isn't everything.  Someone who makes the trade-off to be, say, director of a small non-profit making middle class money when they could be VP of a large company is a successful outcome for society.  Being a clerk to support one's writing, art, or other intellectual activity is a good outcome.  Folding those jeans with no career ladder to climb and no interest in delving deeper into some intellectual pursuit, just like the people who didn't go to college, indicates waste in the system that could have gone to someone who would have appreciated an education.

Quote from: polly_mer on October 30, 2019, 05:49:10 AM

The volume of personal narratives of the people who go to college, major in something that doesn't have a direct career track to a middle-class job in the rural areas or inner cities, and then end up with non-college-degree-required jobs is quite extensive and has been a recurring theme for decades in media and everywhere I've lived where education isn't valued at the K-12 level.  Whether it's actually true across the board, it's common enough for people to go to even a good college and come home to live without ever seeing any financial benefit from a college degree that doesn't lead to a specific career path like teacher or accountant.

I just don't think there are that many of these people, and I very much doubt the humanities has a higher share of them. As you say, a pretty low percentage of students at non elite schools are majoring in the humanities. What that should tell you is that these aren't majors that most students just fall into. Those majors are business, communications, Marketing, Psychology, etc. If we are going to do anecdotes, I teach at a non elite regional school and the majors I see are generally quite good and quite engaged. They are majors because they have a deep interest in the subject material and the issues around it. They are humanities majors because they don't want to be marketing majors. They are generally a quirkier bunch than the students in my gen-ed courses. Many of them are interested in secondary teaching, others are planning to go to law school, I suspect others might end up in the non profit sector. I'm sure some will get jobs that don't have much to do with the field, but as you say, that's not a great tragedy if they appreciate the education they got. For those who do get corporate jobs, they will come out with better writing skills than many of their peers with business degrees.

I have some weak students too, but I'm betting the marketing department would say the same thing. On average, are they going to make as much money as engineering majors? No, I'm sure they won't, but this is mostly about self sorting.

I also just find it confusing that you're willing to wave your hand and discuss fixing the K-12 educational system, yet don't see it as being a larger social problem if kids from poorer backgrounds don't feel like they can pursue degrees in the humanities, because you've decided that society really doesn't need humanities majors. After all, if there's one thing the last few years have taught us, it is that nobody needs to know much about race, class and history right? They can get all that in high school from the volleyball coach.

I think gen ed requirements often don't do what they are designed to do, mostly because they are basically unfunded. You could imagine lots of ways to make these sorts of courses more relevant and have them teach more skills, its just that you would need to actually spend money on it. The UVA program is an interesting example of people thinking about what that would look like. Again though, I don't think the lesson here is that because these programs aren't being well funded and well thought out that just means that there's no value to a liberal arts curriculum and we should just forget about the whole idea.

If we believe that students are being prepared well in K-12, then this article from yesterday is a wake-up call: "Reading Scores on National Exam Decline in Half the States."

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/30/us/reading-scores-national-exam.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/30/us/reading-scores-national-exam.html)

Similarly we're finding that students from (usually privileged) schools are loading up on AP classes in order to graduate earlier from college. Yet if they're given the test that freshman take after completing the introductory class at college, most cannot pass it. This from an economics professor who convinced his department to stop accepting AP credit for certain fields. Students who come out of high school having taken writing classes there, often find themselves floundering in first-year college writing.

Quote from: Caracal on October 31, 2019, 11:10:35 AM

I think gen ed requirements often don't do what they are designed to do, mostly because they are basically unfunded. You could imagine lots of ways to make these sorts of courses more relevant and have them teach more skills, its just that you would need to actually spend money on it.

I'm not sure how valid this is. Yes, funding for TAs and such matters, but if students are poorly prepared, there's just not time to fix years of problems. In first year calculus or physics, if students' algebra is weak, no amount of resources poured into calculus or physics will be sufficient, because they need to fix the algebra problems before they can even HOPE to do the more complicated stuff.

Students who can't write a grammatically correct sentence or read for comprehension aren't going to have a hope reading literature or discussing the causes of the Russian revolution.

Quote from: marshwiggle on November 01, 2019, 05:18:30 AM
Students who can't write a grammatically correct sentence or read for comprehension aren't going to have a hope reading literature or discussing the causes of the Russian revolution.

From a different discussion elsewhere on these fora, the students who somehow graduated from high school with zero study skills can't possibly have the background to benefit from the college general education that anyone would want them to have.  Being college ready means having a proficiency with the study skills to learn enough in high school to have the necessary background including reading proficiency and world knowledge to make sense of what they are reading.

Caracal seems to be making the case that the humanities require serious study and I agree with that.  People who major in the humanities at good enough schools will learn something worth learning. 

However, I'm still unconvinced the claims for a liberal arts education hold up against the realities of other forms of college education including engineering.  Everyone who is college ready and takes advantage of a good enough college education is going to have most of the soft skills.  Arguing the case for how much history/literature/philosophy one has learned and having that distinct way of thinking makes sense to me.  The evidence is pretty clear that smart people who go to good schools and have a good social network can major in anything and be OK; if their interests lie in humanities, then that's fine.

Is the impact really different for those who come from a lower SES and earn a humanities degree?  I don't know, but I do know that, with people opting out of humanities degrees, the overall number of people affected is not all that large per https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereknewton/2018/05/31/its-not-liberal-arts-and-literature-majors-who-are-most-underemployed/#2ecd8eaa11de.  The argument that certain degrees aren't all that valuable for the first job after college seems supported, especially for the degrees that are frequent choices by those who aren't college ready.

However, I also know that the comments on articles like https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/31/business/economy/long-term-unemployed.html and the related Twitter discussion https://twitter.com/PatcohenNYT/status/1189915884904681474 don't paint nearly as rosy a picture as the claims made for a humanities education that assert the value of the transferable skills learned.  When people list their degrees, seldom do recent graduates list being unable to find a job with their engineering degrees, although middle-aged people will sometimes cite age discrimination as having trouble getting a similar job after being laid off after age 50.

I know a huge problem in engineering is how few recent graduates then go on to work in engineering: http://shortsleeveandtieclub.com/what-percentage-of-engineering-graduates-actually-work-in-their-respective-fields/.  If engineering were merely job training like dental hygienist, then we'd have lots of stories about how all these engineering graduates were unemployed or underemployed instead of simply taking other jobs for which a college education is good enough.

Quote from: marshwiggle on November 01, 2019, 05:18:30 AM

Quote from: Caracal on October 31, 2019, 11:10:35 AM

I think gen ed requirements often don't do what they are designed to do, mostly because they are basically unfunded. You could imagine lots of ways to make these sorts of courses more relevant and have them teach more skills, its just that you would need to actually spend money on it.

I'm not sure how valid this is. Yes, funding for TAs and such matters, but if students are poorly prepared, there's just not time to fix years of problems. In first year calculus or physics, if students' algebra is weak, no amount of resources poured into calculus or physics will be sufficient, because they need to fix the algebra problems before they can even HOPE to do the more complicated stuff.

Students who can't write a grammatically correct sentence or read for comprehension aren't going to have a hope reading literature or discussing the causes of the Russian revolution.

Skills development goes hand in hand with skills application. Reading well-read, complex materials helps students develop their own reading, critical thinking and writing skills. Application of more complex math problems helps reinforce basic algebra skills by creating context and meaning.

Yes, I'm a big fan of Vygotsky.

Quote from: marshwiggle on November 01, 2019, 05:18:30 AM

Quote from: Caracal on October 31, 2019, 11:10:35 AM

I think gen ed requirements often don't do what they are designed to do, mostly because they are basically unfunded. You could imagine lots of ways to make these sorts of courses more relevant and have them teach more skills, its just that you would need to actually spend money on it.

I'm not sure how valid this is. Yes, funding for TAs and such matters, but if students are poorly prepared, there's just not time to fix years of problems. In first year calculus or physics, if students' algebra is weak, no amount of resources poured into calculus or physics will be sufficient, because they need to fix the algebra problems before they can even HOPE to do the more complicated stuff.

Students who can't write a grammatically correct sentence or read for comprehension aren't going to have a hope reading literature or discussing the causes of the Russian revolution.

Again, a lot of things are being conflated here. But, I really am bothered by the attitude towards students. Would it be better if students came into college more prepared? Yes, of course, but both Marsh and Polly seem to think schools are just overrun by this horde of the great uneducated masses who shouldn't even be in college. That isn't what I see.

1. I read a lot of student writing, including a mountain of response papers at my regional state school. Most of my students are not good writers, but it isn't that bad. They aren't polished writers, but they can write grammatically correct sentences. They make some mistakes, but they have the fundamentals. It isn't anything that some intensive writing courses couldn't fix. These aren't students who need remedial courses. I've taught writing and I'm always amazed at how much many students improve by the end of the course. They improve, though, because a good writing course involves lots of drafting and revision. You improve as a writer with practice and feedback. The cap on writing courses at my institution is 22. That is way too high. There's no way with that many students you can give your work the attention it needs. Worse, if you get a 4 or 5 on the AP writing you get exempted. Even well prepared students can still use a college writing course, maybe one focused differently, but it would still help a lot. I'm guessing this is about money just like the cap is.

2. Ditto for reading comprehension. Most of my students can read something and figure out what someone is saying. Where they get in trouble is all about context. Some of them don't know the difference between different kinds of writing and think that a writer of an academic article is promoting the movement or idea they are describing or analyzing. Again, though, this can actually be taught in college. Ideally this is the sort of stuff that a Gen-Ed course on the Russian Revolution or any other subject should be doing. I've been thinking lately about how to incorporate more of this sort of specific reading comprehension stuff into my course, but the problem, once again, is about resources. I have 50 person classes with no TA, which really limits my ability to assign the kind of work and give the kind of feedback which would really help.

Quote from: Caracal on November 01, 2019, 07:14:49 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on November 01, 2019, 05:18:30 AM

I'm not sure how valid this is. Yes, funding for TAs and such matters, but if students are poorly prepared, there's just not time to fix years of problems. In first year calculus or physics, if students' algebra is weak, no amount of resources poured into calculus or physics will be sufficient, because they need to fix the algebra problems before they can even HOPE to do the more complicated stuff.

Students who can't write a grammatically correct sentence or read for comprehension aren't going to have a hope reading literature or discussing the causes of the Russian revolution.

Again, a lot of things are being conflated here. But, I really am bothered by the attitude towards students. Would it be better if students came into college more prepared? Yes, of course, but both Marsh and Polly seem to think schools are just overrun by this horde of the great uneducated masses who shouldn't even be in college. That isn't what I see.

Just my perspective, since I'm in Canada which won't be quite the same as the U.S. However, I'd say I see about 10% of students in first year in my discipline who are beyond help. At the other end of the spectrum the top 10% or 20% could learn adequately no matter how bad the teaching is. Of the remaining 70 or 80 percent, the farther down people are the more help they need, and if they are struggling in all of their courses, then there just aren't enough hours in the day to get the extra help (even if it's available)  on top of the workload of their peers.

There's attrition from 1st to 2nd year, from 2nd to 3rd, and from 3rd to 4th. If the only problem were fixing a few cracks for some students when they arrive, so that then they're good, then there shouldn't be much attrition in the upper years. The reality is that some will squeak by "OK" from one year to the next, but over time the cumulative deficit catches up to them.

If the system were based on mastery rather than grades, then in principle this wouldn't be a problem; every student would just spend as long as they needed at a level until they were proficient enough to move on.  I'd love to see it tried, but it would require a tectonic cultural shift.

Quote from: polly_mer on November 01, 2019, 06:11:27 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on November 01, 2019, 05:18:30 AM
Students who can't write a grammatically correct sentence or read for comprehension aren't going to have a hope reading literature or discussing the causes of the Russian revolution.

From a different discussion elsewhere on these fora, the students who somehow graduated from high school with zero study skills can't possibly have the background to benefit from the college general education that anyone would want them to have.  Being college ready means having a proficiency with the study skills to learn enough in high school to have the necessary background including reading proficiency and world knowledge to make sense of what they are reading.

OMG Polly, I keep getting sucked back in by these sorts of egregious blanket-statements and unintentional hyperbole.

That is simply not true.

I don't know what your teaching experience was like but I've seen multiple examples of students leaving their bad home situations and sub-standard secondary education circumstances and (while it is a rather poetic term) blooming in college.  Sometimes people just need to mature a bit.  Sometimes people, like myself, find themselves actually engaged in learning for the first time when the enter the college atmosphere and all those old bad habits fall away.  Not always, of course, but enough.

There will always be tests "proving" that the students of today are failing at the lofty benchmarks of previous generations.  They make headlines.  They were around when I was a kid, and there will always be someone who says "Nu uh.  Look, it proves it right here in the NY Times!"  These will be around when your children have children.

As I posted before, we always think our students have substandard secondary education.  We always think that college freshmen should be much smarter than they are.  It's just what we do.

You'd think we would've learned this by this point in civilization's evolution.  Maybe WE aren't as smart as we think we are.

What exactly do those engineering grads who don't end up working in engineering do?  I suspect it's something that definitely allows them to take advantage of the math and science skills they did learn in college nonetheless.

Quote from: kaysixteen on November 01, 2019, 09:57:04 AM
What exactly do those engineering grads who don't end up working in engineering do?  I suspect it's something that definitely allows them to take advantage of the math and science skills they did learn in college nonetheless.

The original graphic (https://www.census.gov/dataviz/visualizations/stem/stem-html/) is interactive and shows that they are employed in everything from office support to sales to finance.

In the era when I was obtaining my bachelor's degree, Wall Street firms were sucking in huge numbers of college grads who had any kind of mathematical skills, and that included engineers. Also many of my roommates who went straight into the engineering work force upon graduation, instead of attending graduate school, complained that after about five years with any company they got shifted from the lab to management. Some did things like work for military contractors on satellite or weapons systems design before becoming high school math and science teachers. Others left corporate life to become entrepreneurs and consultants. In other words, career paths varied. But in no case did any of my friends have their lives altered by taking American History 101 in the first year of college. Given that this was a fairly elite slice of the general college-going population, I don't see how the "take one course in X" approach to gen eds -- whether X is a history, philosophy, math, or biology course -- delivers much benefit to the average college student.

Quote from: spork on November 02, 2019, 05:24:42 PM

Quote from: kaysixteen on November 01, 2019, 09:57:04 AM
What exactly do those engineering grads who don't end up working in engineering do?  I suspect it's something that definitely allows them to take advantage of the math and science skills they did learn in college nonetheless.

The original graphic (https://www.census.gov/dataviz/visualizations/stem/stem-html/) is interactive and shows that they are employed in everything from office support to sales to finance.

In the era when I was obtaining my bachelor's degree, Wall Street firms were sucking in huge numbers of college grads who had any kind of mathematical skills, and that included engineers. Also many of my roommates who went straight into the engineering work force upon graduation, instead of attending graduate school, complained that after about five years with any company they got shifted from the lab to management. Some did things like work for military contractors on satellite or weapons systems design before becoming high school math and science teachers. Others left corporate life to become entrepreneurs and consultants. In other words, career paths varied. But in no case did any of my friends have their lives altered by taking American History 101 in the first year of college. Given that this was a fairly elite slice of the general college-going population, I don't see how the "take one course in X" approach to gen eds -- whether X is a history, philosophy, math, or biology course -- delivers much benefit to the average college student.

OTOH, the thought that this group may never have had the chance to be exposed to history, philosophy, biology or literature at all is really scary.

Everyone in this group was required to complete the same gen ed curriculum, which was 1) based on a distribution model that included humanities and social science categories, and 2) larger, in terms of credit hours, than gen ed curricula at many self-proclaimed "liberal arts colleges" (where a large portion of undergraduates are in majors like business, nursing, and education that require 60-90 credits).

Being "exposed" to subjects on average does very little if anything, whether one is at an elite or non-elite institution.

Quote from: spork on November 02, 2019, 05:24:42 PM

Quote from: kaysixteen on November 01, 2019, 09:57:04 AM
What exactly do those engineering grads who don't end up working in engineering do?  I suspect it's something that definitely allows them to take advantage of the math and science skills they did learn in college nonetheless.

The original graphic (https://www.census.gov/dataviz/visualizations/stem/stem-html/) is interactive and shows that they are employed in everything from office support to sales to finance.

In the era when I was obtaining my bachelor's degree, Wall Street firms were sucking in huge numbers of college grads who had any kind of mathematical skills, and that included engineers. Also many of my roommates who went straight into the engineering work force upon graduation, instead of attending graduate school, complained that after about five years with any company they got shifted from the lab to management. Some did things like work for military contractors on satellite or weapons systems design before becoming high school math and science teachers. Others left corporate life to become entrepreneurs and consultants. In other words, career paths varied. But in no case did any of my friends have their lives altered by taking American History 101 in the first year of college. Given that this was a fairly elite slice of the general college-going population, I don't see how the "take one course in X" approach to gen eds -- whether X is a history, philosophy, math, or biology course -- delivers much benefit to the average college student.

Two quick, different points.

1. "Have their lives altered" is a weird metric to use. It speaks again to the weird ideas about what education does going around here. Altering lives is a bit ambitious for me, all I really try to do in my teaching is get students to think about things in different ways.

2. The first part of your post highlights what I've been saying. Majors just aren't all that important. The reason they do, to some extent, predict things like future earnings, is just because they reflect the interests and mentalities of the students. I know humanities majors making a lot of money at tech firms doing things that are as far away from their majors as these engineers managing people.

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on November 01, 2019, 08:15:20 AM
As I posted before, we always think our students have substandard secondary education.  We always think that college freshmen should be much smarter than they are.  It's just what we do.

Let's do some numbers again.

Only about a third of high school seniors are college ready (https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-04-27/high-school-seniors-arent-college-ready-naep-data-show) and yet 70% of high school graduates go to college within a year of graduation with about half those students attending community college (https://www.theclassroom.com/percentage-high-school-students-attend-college-after-graduation-1423.html).

One interpretation could be that many of the college-unready group simply don't finish high school and thus aren't in the category of high school graduates.  That's unlikely with the US high school graduation rate at 85% with a low of 71% (New Mexico) (https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_coi.asp)

We could quibble about what college ready means to move a numbers a bit.  However, more interesting is to look at historical trends of what percentage of the population went to college and who those folks were.  Yes, rich folks in the early twentieth century who were signaling probably weren't as qualified or motivated as the handful of scholarship students who really wanted to learn.  However, those rich folks probably were functionally literate and numerate.  Developmental classes didn't exist.

In recent years, many reports have come out indicating a substantial fraction of students are taking remedial courses in college.  Connecticut is one of those states that has commissioned a report with disheartening news of as many as half the students from struggling K-12 districts end up taking remedial classes in college. (https://www.courant.com/education/hc-state-board-education-college-remediation-20181107-story.html) 

The state of Colorado did a pilot that had literally 8th graders taking the same lowest level remedial math course in college to see if better math instruction at an earlier age would help. (https://www.denverpost.com/2012/01/05/two-colorado-middle-schools-offer-college-level-remedial-math-class/)  Colorado has been tracking remedial education for years now with the disheartening results that more than a third of the recent HS graduates need developmental education in college.  Having supplemental instruction for regular intro classes brought English pass rates up to 74%, but math still remains at 40% pass rates. (https://chalkbeat.org/posts/co/2019/07/15/more-than-a-third-of-colorado-high-school-graduates-need-extra-help-to-do-college-work/)  Similar results were found at Roxbury Community College in Massachusetts where supplemental instruction helped pass a credit-bearing course, but still had large math failures. (https://edsource.org/2016/remedial-courses-are-barriers-for-many-community-college-students-report-says/572483)

Unstated in those success stories is how many college-ready students attending selective or more elite institutions start in much higher math classes or skip many of the intro classes altogether by virtue of AP/IB/CLEP/dual credit/dual enrollment/CC summer credit.  Institutions only having college-ready students tend to not have developmental classes at all.  Instead, the underprepared, but highly motivated students who end up at somewhere like UT-Austin tend to need support that may or may not be available. (https://www.keranews.org/post/first-generation-college-students-getting-there-just-start)  Yes, those students can rise to the occasion given support, but again, it would be so much better to just have good K-12 education in the first place for everyone.

The research on food insecurity and related issues on college campuses give a big range of numbers depending on who is doing the research because the US higher ed landscape is so diverse. (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/04/30/new-research-finds-discrepancies-estimates-food-insecurity-among-college-students)  About half of college students start in community college and about 40% of the students enrolled in community college are low income. (https://nscresearchcenter.org/signaturereport13/)  The elite institutions that serve 4% of the college-going population likely do only have anecdotes about the 1% of their students from the 60% of the low SES (https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/03/privileged-poor-navigating-elite-university-life/585100/); the community colleges who have up to 80% of their new students in developmental education likely see much more food insecurity and related problems that hinder progress, not just academic problems (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/02/12/survey-asks-community-college-students-detail-their-challenges).

I will post again that college completion rate is up, despite a larger fraction of people enrolling who are college underprepared by any measure and self-reported study time continues to decline. (https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/07/has-college-gotten-easier/594550/)  Since the elite institutions already had nice, high graduation rates, that means places that are taking underprepared students are graduating them.  Now, that might be a fabulous success story like Coppin State or Morgan State who serve the poorest of the poor so that doubling the graduation rate to 20-30% is a huge victory all around  (http://news.wypr.org/post/closer-look-low-graduation-rates-maryland-universities#stream/0).  But I suspect that's not the case.

My personal experience has been that well-prepared students at institutions with standards are probably as good as they ever were.  However, once we get down to nearly open enrollment or actual open enrollment, a fair number of students would have been much better served by having better K-12 education instead of starting four levels below the first credit-bearing class in math and dropping out before they get to true college classes. (https://edsource.org/2016/remedial-courses-are-barriers-for-many-community-college-students-report-says/572483) 

In summary, the evidence indicates that more people are going to college, but a much larger fraction of them are unready and were ill-served by their K-12 education.  Decades ago, those folks simply would not have gone to college, but now "everyone" should go and it's a waste of effort for those who are unmotivated and a tragedy for those who were ripped off in K-12 and then have even more complicated adult lives with less support in college.

Quote from: polly_mer on November 04, 2019, 05:55:06 AM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on November 01, 2019, 08:15:20 AM
As I posted before, we always think our students have substandard secondary education.  We always think that college freshmen should be much smarter than they are.  It's just what we do.

Let's do some numbers again.

Only about a third of high school seniors are college ready (https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-04-27/high-school-seniors-arent-college-ready-naep-data-show) and yet 70% of high school graduates go to college within a year of graduation with about half those students attending community college (https://www.theclassroom.com/percentage-high-school-students-attend-college-after-graduation-1423.html).

One interpretation could be that many of the college-unready group simply don't finish high school and thus aren't in the category of high school graduates.  That's unlikely with the US high school graduation rate at 85% with a low of 71% (New Mexico) (https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_coi.asp)

We could quibble about what college ready means to move a numbers a bit.  However, more interesting is to look at historical trends of what percentage of the population went to college and who those folks were.  Yes, rich folks in the early twentieth century who were signaling probably weren't as qualified or motivated as the handful of scholarship students who really wanted to learn.  However, those rich folks probably were functionally literate and numerate.  Developmental classes didn't exist.

In recent years, many reports have come out indicating a substantial fraction of students are taking remedial courses in college.  Connecticut is one of those states that has commissioned a report with disheartening news of as many as half the students from struggling K-12 districts end up taking remedial classes in college. (https://www.courant.com/education/hc-state-board-education-college-remediation-20181107-story.html) 

The state of Colorado did a pilot that had literally 8th graders taking the same lowest level remedial math course in college to see if better math instruction at an earlier age would help. (https://www.denverpost.com/2012/01/05/two-colorado-middle-schools-offer-college-level-remedial-math-class/)  Colorado has been tracking remedial education for years now with the disheartening results that more than a third of the recent HS graduates need developmental education in college.  Having supplemental instruction for regular intro classes brought English pass rates up to 74%, but math still remains at 40% pass rates. (https://chalkbeat.org/posts/co/2019/07/15/more-than-a-third-of-colorado-high-school-graduates-need-extra-help-to-do-college-work/)  Similar results were found at Roxbury Community College in Massachusetts where supplemental instruction helped pass a credit-bearing course, but still had large math failures. (https://edsource.org/2016/remedial-courses-are-barriers-for-many-community-college-students-report-says/572483)

Unstated in those success stories is how many college-ready students attending selective or more elite institutions start in much higher math classes or skip many of the intro classes altogether by virtue of AP/IB/CLEP/dual credit/dual enrollment/CC summer credit.  Institutions only having college-ready students tend to not have developmental classes at all.  Instead, the underprepared, but highly motivated students who end up at somewhere like UT-Austin tend to need support that may or may not be available. (https://www.keranews.org/post/first-generation-college-students-getting-there-just-start)  Yes, those students can rise to the occasion given support, but again, it would be so much better to just have good K-12 education in the first place for everyone.

The research on food insecurity and related issues on college campuses give a big range of numbers depending on who is doing the research because the US higher ed landscape is so diverse. (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/04/30/new-research-finds-discrepancies-estimates-food-insecurity-among-college-students)  About half of college students start in community college and about 40% of the students enrolled in community college are low income. (https://nscresearchcenter.org/signaturereport13/)  The elite institutions that serve 4% of the college-going population likely do only have anecdotes about the 1% of their students from the 60% of the low SES (https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/03/privileged-poor-navigating-elite-university-life/585100/); the community colleges who have up to 80% of their new students in developmental education likely see much more food insecurity and related problems that hinder progress, not just academic problems (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/02/12/survey-asks-community-college-students-detail-their-challenges).

I will post again that college completion rate is up, despite a larger fraction of people enrolling who are college underprepared by any measure and self-reported study time continues to decline. (https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/07/has-college-gotten-easier/594550/)  Since the elite institutions already had nice, high graduation rates, that means places that are taking underprepared students are graduating them.  Now, that might be a fabulous success story like Coppin State or Morgan State who serve the poorest of the poor so that doubling the graduation rate to 20-30% is a huge victory all around  (http://news.wypr.org/post/closer-look-low-graduation-rates-maryland-universities#stream/0).  But I suspect that's not the case.

My personal experience has been that well-prepared students at institutions with standards are probably as good as they ever were.  However, once we get down to nearly open enrollment or actual open enrollment, a fair number of students would have been much better served by having better K-12 education instead of starting four levels below the first credit-bearing class in math and dropping out before they get to true college classes. (https://edsource.org/2016/remedial-courses-are-barriers-for-many-community-college-students-report-says/572483) 

In summary, the evidence indicates that more people are going to college, but a much larger fraction of them are unready and were ill-served by their K-12 education.  Decades ago, those folks simply would not have gone to college, but now "everyone" should go and it's a waste of effort for those who are unmotivated and a tragedy for those who were ripped off in K-12 and then have even more complicated adult lives with less support in college.

If we are doing links
https://www.medievalists.net/2015/09/the-long-history-of-teachers-complaining-about-students/

Meanwhile, in the fourteenth-century Álvaro Pelayo, who studied at the University of Bologna, commented "They attend classes but make no effort to learn anything....The expense money which they have from their parents or churches they spend in taverns, conviviality, games and other superfluities, and so they return home empty, without knowledge, conscience, or money." That sounds familiar...

Here is from the 50s, but could be Poly upthread.
James B. Conant, president of Harvard University and an influential spokesman for higher education, found the G.I. Bill "distressing" because it failed "to distinguish between those who can profit most by advanced
education and those who cannot." His ideal G.I. Bill would have financed the education "of a carefully selected number of returned veterans." Reflecting a common distrust of colleges' ability to maintain academic stan- dards, Conant feared that because of the G.I. Bill "we may find the least ca- pable among the war generation ... flooding the facilities for advanced education."

As could this...
Writing for a popular magazine in December 1944, Hutchins titled his article about the G.I. Bill and higher education "The Threat to American Education." Al- though he praised "the principle that there must be no relation between the education of a citizen and the income of his parents," Hutchins declared the G.I. Bill's educational provisions "unworkable." He predicted that colleges, in order to increase their incomes, would admit unqualified veterans and would not expel veterans incapable of doing college work. Colleges, he prog- nosticated, would keep students longer than "actually required" and would "train more men in a given skill than can get jobs in that skill." Hutchins,
who opposed in general the vocational orientation of higher education which he felt the Act accentuated, concluded that the G.I. Bill would "demoralize education and defraud the veteran."

Quote from: Caracal on November 04, 2019, 07:00:20 AM

Writing for a popular magazine in December 1944, Hutchins titled his article about the G.I. Bill and higher education "The Threat to American Education." Although he praised "the principle that there must be no relation between the education of a citizen and the income of his parents," Hutchins declared the G.I. Bill's educational provisions "unworkable." He predicted that colleges, in order to increase their incomes, would admit unqualified veterans and would not expel veterans incapable of doing college work. Colleges, he prognosticated, would keep students longer than "actually required" and would "train more men in a given skill than can get jobs in that skill."

Sounds like a pretty accurate description of what has happened in higher education, but not restricted to veterans.

Quote from: Caracal on November 04, 2019, 03:34:21 AM

Quote from: spork on November 02, 2019, 05:24:42 PM

Quote from: kaysixteen on November 01, 2019, 09:57:04 AM
What exactly do those engineering grads who don't end up working in engineering do?  I suspect it's something that definitely allows them to take advantage of the math and science skills they did learn in college nonetheless.

The original graphic (https://www.census.gov/dataviz/visualizations/stem/stem-html/) is interactive and shows that they are employed in everything from office support to sales to finance.

In the era when I was obtaining my bachelor's degree, Wall Street firms were sucking in huge numbers of college grads who had any kind of mathematical skills, and that included engineers. Also many of my roommates who went straight into the engineering work force upon graduation, instead of attending graduate school, complained that after about five years with any company they got shifted from the lab to management. Some did things like work for military contractors on satellite or weapons systems design before becoming high school math and science teachers. Others left corporate life to become entrepreneurs and consultants. In other words, career paths varied. But in no case did any of my friends have their lives altered by taking American History 101 in the first year of college. Given that this was a fairly elite slice of the general college-going population, I don't see how the "take one course in X" approach to gen eds -- whether X is a history, philosophy, math, or biology course -- delivers much benefit to the average college student.

Two quick, different points.

1. "Have their lives altered" is a weird metric to use. It speaks again to the weird ideas about what education does going around here. Altering lives is a bit ambitious for me, all I really try to do in my teaching is get students to think about things in different ways.

The claim often made about distribution model general education requirements is that they give students the opportunity to have some kind of life-changing experience (variously labeled in non-measurable terms like "ways of thinking," "life of the mind," etc.) because those students are forced to take one course per subject in subjects that they otherwise wouldn't take any courses in. I've never seen any data indicating that this outcome occurs frequently enough in the U.S. post-secondary education system to justify the practice.

Quote
2. The first part of your post highlights what I've been saying. Majors just aren't all that important. The reason they do, to some extent, predict things like future earnings, is just because they reflect the interests and mentalities of the students. I know humanities majors making a lot of money at tech firms doing things that are as far away from their majors as these engineers managing people.

The major gap in earnings is between those who obtain bachelor's degrees and those who don't. I don't understand your fixation with defending the worth of bachelor's degrees in the humanities when I have never claimed that those degrees are worthless or ought to be eliminated. As polly has pointed out, and I can't remember if it's in this or the other thread, on average graduates of elite institutions do exceptionally well in whatever careers they end up in because 1) they entered college extremely well prepared, 2) benefit from the prestige associated with holding a degree from such an institution, and 3) are able to use their college experiences to further enhance their social capital (e.g., networking with classmates who will also become successful). Those at the other end of the spectrum who arrive without basic skills in literacy and numeracy -- skills that they should have acquired before college -- face an uphill battle that makes it exceedingly difficult for them to acquire the knowledge and skills they should get from a college education in four or even six years.

Quote from: marshwiggle on November 04, 2019, 07:33:32 AM

Quote from: Caracal on November 04, 2019, 07:00:20 AM

Writing for a popular magazine in December 1944, Hutchins titled his article about the G.I. Bill and higher education "The Threat to American Education." Although he praised "the principle that there must be no relation between the education of a citizen and the income of his parents," Hutchins declared the G.I. Bill's educational provisions "unworkable." He predicted that colleges, in order to increase their incomes, would admit unqualified veterans and would not expel veterans incapable of doing college work. Colleges, he prognosticated, would keep students longer than "actually required" and would "train more men in a given skill than can get jobs in that skill."

Sounds like a pretty accurate description of what has happened in higher education, but not restricted to veterans.

Yes, that's why the US economy went into a long tailspin starting around 1950. It turned out that all these veterans were getting degrees in useless things and so many of them were underemployed or unemployed. Right?

Quote from: Caracal on November 04, 2019, 07:00:20 AM

Quote from: polly_mer on November 04, 2019, 05:55:06 AM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on November 01, 2019, 08:15:20 AM
As I posted before, we always think our students have substandard secondary education.  We always think that college freshmen should be much smarter than they are.  It's just what we do.

Let's do some numbers again.

Only about a third of high school seniors are college ready (https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-04-27/high-school-seniors-arent-college-ready-naep-data-show) and yet 70% of high school graduates go to college within a year of graduation with about half those students attending community college (https://www.theclassroom.com/percentage-high-school-students-attend-college-after-graduation-1423.html).

One interpretation could be that many of the college-unready group simply don't finish high school and thus aren't in the category of high school graduates.  That's unlikely with the US high school graduation rate at 85% with a low of 71% (New Mexico) (https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_coi.asp)

We could quibble about what college ready means to move a numbers a bit.  However, more interesting is to look at historical trends of what percentage of the population went to college and who those folks were.  Yes, rich folks in the early twentieth century who were signaling probably weren't as qualified or motivated as the handful of scholarship students who really wanted to learn.  However, those rich folks probably were functionally literate and numerate.  Developmental classes didn't exist.

In recent years, many reports have come out indicating a substantial fraction of students are taking remedial courses in college.  Connecticut is one of those states that has commissioned a report with disheartening news of as many as half the students from struggling K-12 districts end up taking remedial classes in college. (https://www.courant.com/education/hc-state-board-education-college-remediation-20181107-story.html) 

The state of Colorado did a pilot that had literally 8th graders taking the same lowest level remedial math course in college to see if better math instruction at an earlier age would help. (https://www.denverpost.com/2012/01/05/two-colorado-middle-schools-offer-college-level-remedial-math-class/)  Colorado has been tracking remedial education for years now with the disheartening results that more than a third of the recent HS graduates need developmental education in college.  Having supplemental instruction for regular intro classes brought English pass rates up to 74%, but math still remains at 40% pass rates. (https://chalkbeat.org/posts/co/2019/07/15/more-than-a-third-of-colorado-high-school-graduates-need-extra-help-to-do-college-work/)  Similar results were found at Roxbury Community College in Massachusetts where supplemental instruction helped pass a credit-bearing course, but still had large math failures. (https://edsource.org/2016/remedial-courses-are-barriers-for-many-community-college-students-report-says/572483)

Unstated in those success stories is how many college-ready students attending selective or more elite institutions start in much higher math classes or skip many of the intro classes altogether by virtue of AP/IB/CLEP/dual credit/dual enrollment/CC summer credit.  Institutions only having college-ready students tend to not have developmental classes at all.  Instead, the underprepared, but highly motivated students who end up at somewhere like UT-Austin tend to need support that may or may not be available. (https://www.keranews.org/post/first-generation-college-students-getting-there-just-start)  Yes, those students can rise to the occasion given support, but again, it would be so much better to just have good K-12 education in the first place for everyone.

The research on food insecurity and related issues on college campuses give a big range of numbers depending on who is doing the research because the US higher ed landscape is so diverse. (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/04/30/new-research-finds-discrepancies-estimates-food-insecurity-among-college-students)  About half of college students start in community college and about 40% of the students enrolled in community college are low income. (https://nscresearchcenter.org/signaturereport13/)  The elite institutions that serve 4% of the college-going population likely do only have anecdotes about the 1% of their students from the 60% of the low SES (https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/03/privileged-poor-navigating-elite-university-life/585100/); the community colleges who have up to 80% of their new students in developmental education likely see much more food insecurity and related problems that hinder progress, not just academic problems (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/02/12/survey-asks-community-college-students-detail-their-challenges).

I will post again that college completion rate is up, despite a larger fraction of people enrolling who are college underprepared by any measure and self-reported study time continues to decline. (https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/07/has-college-gotten-easier/594550/)  Since the elite institutions already had nice, high graduation rates, that means places that are taking underprepared students are graduating them.  Now, that might be a fabulous success story like Coppin State or Morgan State who serve the poorest of the poor so that doubling the graduation rate to 20-30% is a huge victory all around  (http://news.wypr.org/post/closer-look-low-graduation-rates-maryland-universities#stream/0).  But I suspect that's not the case.

My personal experience has been that well-prepared students at institutions with standards are probably as good as they ever were.  However, once we get down to nearly open enrollment or actual open enrollment, a fair number of students would have been much better served by having better K-12 education instead of starting four levels below the first credit-bearing class in math and dropping out before they get to true college classes. (https://edsource.org/2016/remedial-courses-are-barriers-for-many-community-college-students-report-says/572483) 

In summary, the evidence indicates that more people are going to college, but a much larger fraction of them are unready and were ill-served by their K-12 education.  Decades ago, those folks simply would not have gone to college, but now "everyone" should go and it's a waste of effort for those who are unmotivated and a tragedy for those who were ripped off in K-12 and then have even more complicated adult lives with less support in college.

If we are doing links
https://www.medievalists.net/2015/09/the-long-history-of-teachers-complaining-about-students/

Meanwhile, in the fourteenth-century Álvaro Pelayo, who studied at the University of Bologna, commented "They attend classes but make no effort to learn anything....The expense money which they have from their parents or churches they spend in taverns, conviviality, games and other superfluities, and so they return home empty, without knowledge, conscience, or money." That sounds familiar...

Here is from the 50s, but could be Poly upthread.
James B. Conant, president of Harvard University and an influential spokesman for higher education, found the G.I. Bill "distressing" because it failed "to distinguish between those who can profit most by advanced
education and those who cannot." His ideal G.I. Bill would have financed the education "of a carefully selected number of returned veterans." Reflecting a common distrust of colleges' ability to maintain academic stan- dards, Conant feared that because of the G.I. Bill "we may find the least ca- pable among the war generation ... flooding the facilities for advanced education."

As could this...
Writing for a popular magazine in December 1944, Hutchins titled his article about the G.I. Bill and higher education "The Threat to American Education." Al- though he praised "the principle that there must be no relation between the education of a citizen and the income of his parents," Hutchins declared the G.I. Bill's educational provisions "unworkable." He predicted that colleges, in order to increase their incomes, would admit unqualified veterans and would not expel veterans incapable of doing college work. Colleges, he prog- nosticated, would keep students longer than "actually required" and would "train more men in a given skill than can get jobs in that skill." Hutchins,
who opposed in general the vocational orientation of higher education which he felt the Act accentuated, concluded that the G.I. Bill would "demoralize education and defraud the veteran."

TLDR

"Ugh, kids today!"

Said, everyone in history...

Quote from: polly_mer on November 04, 2019, 05:55:06 AM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on November 01, 2019, 08:15:20 AM
As I posted before, we always think our students have substandard secondary education.  We always think that college freshmen should be much smarter than they are.  It's just what we do.

Let's do some numbers again.

Only about a third of high school seniors are college ready (https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-04-27/high-school-seniors-arent-college-ready-naep-data-show) and yet 70% of high school graduates go to college within a year of graduation with about half those students attending community college (https://www.theclassroom.com/percentage-high-school-students-attend-college-after-graduation-1423.html).

And yet the majority graduate and are generally successful...

...and yet, and yet, your numbers say they aren't ready to go to college...

...and yet the economy is strong and Democracy is safe...

...but your numbers can't be wrong, can they?  I mean, US News and some sort of national testing MUST be correct...

....right?  I mean, if can't be that standard testing is an indicator of jack***t, can it?

Naaaaah.  It's got to be that society is "screwed" because a large, amorphous governmental agency and a news magazine say so.

Fortunately civilization has never had exactly this perception before, so your perspective is unique and valid.

Very good thinking, Polly.  Glad to see you bring your scientific precision into your online discussions.

Quote from: ciao_yall on November 04, 2019, 09:13:46 AM


TLDR

"Ugh, kids today!"

Said, everyone in history...

There are these basic dynamics between students and their professors that never change. We are people who liked college so much that we made a career out of it. Most of us were so busy being excited about 15th century Spanish poetry or thermodynamics or whatever, that we never noticed that most of our classmates were just going through the motions. The people we were friends with were mostly like us. Then you have this job where you have to deal with all these people who don't care about this stuff as much as we do and are much worse at it. And you keep doing it for new students every year. And you can always find evidence to support the things you want to believe, because academics are good at that.

The percentage of high school students in my state is even  lower than the national average. Less than a quarter of the high school graduates are expected to be "college ready". And yes, like Polly posted above, at least half of the "not ready" attend non-selective community colleges first.

The non-completion percentages for community college students are often much higher than at most 4-year institutions.  A great many of those students do not complete an AA degree. A great many of those students never transfer to a 4-year university. But much of the U.S. community college mission is less about academic success and more about simply providing academic access for the *possibility* of success.

This inconvenient truth is often forgotten or ignored by political leaders and the general public.

High failure rates at my community college are regularly tracked. I'm at an open enrollment institution, and I've bench-marked most of my assessments to match up with R2-level academic standards from my discipline (from a previous university that I worked at). This allows me to do somewhat accurate comparative analysis between completion rates without wondering if my assessment quality is different.

For one example course.
Pass rates at R2 - at least 70%
Pass rates at community college - under 60% (and less than 50% passing is not unusual)

What is the transfer rate from CCs to 4 year colleges?  How many people begin at a CC and eventually graduate?  I can look that up when I am done teaching in a couple hours, but I figured someone around'yer parts has that at their fingertips.

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on November 04, 2019, 10:57:24 AM
What is the transfer rate from CCs to 4 year colleges?  How many people begin at a CC and eventually graduate?  I can look that up when I am done teaching in a couple hours, but I figured someone around'yer parts has that at their fingertips.

It depends...

At our CC, for students who state at the outset they intend to transfer and successfully complete transfer-level math, it's around 60%. We find it's pretty consistent across demographic and income groups.

The block is actually accessing transfer-level math - it's low-income, students of color who rarely take transfer level math in the first place.

Why don't 40% transfer? Good question. Some decide the AA or Certificate is enough for them to go into nursing or computer networking or whatever. Others decide school isn't for them and decide to travel the world for a while.

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on November 04, 2019, 10:57:24 AM
What is the transfer rate from CCs to 4 year colleges?  How many people begin at a CC and eventually graduate?  I can look that up when I am done teaching in a couple hours, but I figured someone around'yer parts has that at their fingertips.

One would think that such numbers would be easy to get, but they are not. Community colleges generally do not track what happens to students after they leave. And 4-year universities may not either. If they do, they may report transfers in very different ways. For example, AA transfers may be lumped differently from non-AA transfers that for some reason still got 60 credits from their community college. This is complicated in that some states award "automatic AA's" for students with 60+ credits while other states do not.

Or if there is a 2+2 agreement between certain institutions, that can result in over-reporting bias.

Or for another example, a 4-year university might count/not count students who just transferred a few courses over from a community college.

Or students with AP credit and/or HS dual enrollment may/may not be included.

Myself, between what I've looked up myself or received from previous CHE reporting, the metrics for transfer success range anywhere from 16% to 80% depending on who wrote the report.

Quote from: Aster on November 04, 2019, 11:39:49 AM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on November 04, 2019, 10:57:24 AM
What is the transfer rate from CCs to 4 year colleges?  How many people begin at a CC and eventually graduate?  I can look that up when I am done teaching in a couple hours, but I figured someone around'yer parts has that at their fingertips.

One would think that such numbers would be easy to get, but they are not. Community colleges generally do not track what happens to students after they leave. And 4-year universities may not either. If they do, they may report transfers in very different ways. For example, AA transfers may be lumped differently from non-AA transfers that for some reason still got 60 credits from their community college. This is complicated in that some states award "automatic AA's" for students with 60+ credits while other states do not.

Or if there is a 2+2 agreement between certain institutions, that can result in over-reporting bias.

Or for another example, a 4-year university might count/not count students who just transferred a few courses over from a community college.

Or students with AP credit and/or HS dual enrollment may/may not be included.

Myself, between what I've looked up myself or received from previous CHE reporting, the metrics for transfer success range anywhere from 16% to 80% depending on who wrote the report.

Somewhere I remember reading that the low CC completion rate is incorrectly calculated because it does not factor in the successful transfer rate.  That is, the 4-year graduation rate of students who transfer from a CC is actually quite high and therefore should be considered as a graduation rate for the CC, not as a "drop-out" rate.   I'll see if I can find that later tonight.

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on November 04, 2019, 12:31:14 PM

Quote from: Aster on November 04, 2019, 11:39:49 AM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on November 04, 2019, 10:57:24 AM
What is the transfer rate from CCs to 4 year colleges?  How many people begin at a CC and eventually graduate?  I can look that up when I am done teaching in a couple hours, but I figured someone around'yer parts has that at their fingertips.

One would think that such numbers would be easy to get, but they are not. Community colleges generally do not track what happens to students after they leave. And 4-year universities may not either. If they do, they may report transfers in very different ways. For example, AA transfers may be lumped differently from non-AA transfers that for some reason still got 60 credits from their community college. This is complicated in that some states award "automatic AA's" for students with 60+ credits while other states do not.

Or if there is a 2+2 agreement between certain institutions, that can result in over-reporting bias.

Or for another example, a 4-year university might count/not count students who just transferred a few courses over from a community college.

Or students with AP credit and/or HS dual enrollment may/may not be included.

Myself, between what I've looked up myself or received from previous CHE reporting, the metrics for transfer success range anywhere from 16% to 80% depending on who wrote the report.

Somewhere I remember reading that the low CC completion rate is incorrectly calculated because it does not factor in the successful transfer rate.  That is, the 4-year graduation rate of students who transfer from a CC is actually quite high and therefore should be considered as a graduation rate for the CC, not as a "drop-out" rate.   I'll see if I can find that later tonight.

It also doesn't factor in the many students who have no interest in a certificate, degree or transfer but are just taking a class to update/refresh their skills.

Quote from: Aster on November 04, 2019, 10:53:06 AM
The percentage of high school students in my state is even  lower than the national average. Less than a quarter of the high school graduates are expected to be "college ready". And yes, like Polly posted above, at least half of the "not ready" attend non-selective community colleges first.

The non-completion percentages for community college students are often much higher than at most 4-year institutions.  A great many of those students do not complete an AA degree. A great many of those students never transfer to a 4-year university. But much of the U.S. community college mission is less about academic success and more about simply providing academic access for the *possibility* of success.

This inconvenient truth is often forgotten or ignored by political leaders and the general public.

High failure rates at my community college are regularly tracked. I'm at an open enrollment institution, and I've bench-marked most of my assessments to match up with R2-level academic standards from my discipline (from a previous university that I worked at). This allows me to do somewhat accurate comparative analysis between completion rates without wondering if my assessment quality is different.

For one example course.
Pass rates at R2 - at least 70%
Pass rates at community college - under 60% (and less than 50% passing is not unusual)

This is one reason why the push for "free community college" (or at least "tuition-free community college") in some states is not going to suddenly jack up the rate of bachelor's degree attainment in those states. The "everyone should go to college" mantra needs to be replaced by "many are not going to succeed in college given current conditions in many K-12 systems."

Quote from: spork on November 04, 2019, 01:56:17 PM

Quote from: Aster on November 04, 2019, 10:53:06 AM
The percentage of high school students in my state is even  lower than the national average. Less than a quarter of the high school graduates are expected to be "college ready". And yes, like Polly posted above, at least half of the "not ready" attend non-selective community colleges first.

The non-completion percentages for community college students are often much higher than at most 4-year institutions.  A great many of those students do not complete an AA degree. A great many of those students never transfer to a 4-year university. But much of the U.S. community college mission is less about academic success and more about simply providing academic access for the *possibility* of success.

This inconvenient truth is often forgotten or ignored by political leaders and the general public.

High failure rates at my community college are regularly tracked. I'm at an open enrollment institution, and I've bench-marked most of my assessments to match up with R2-level academic standards from my discipline (from a previous university that I worked at). This allows me to do somewhat accurate comparative analysis between completion rates without wondering if my assessment quality is different.

For one example course.
Pass rates at R2 - at least 70%
Pass rates at community college - under 60% (and less than 50% passing is not unusual)

This is one reason why the push for "free community college" (or at least "tuition-free community college") in some states is not going to suddenly jack up the rate of bachelor's degree attainment in those states. The "everyone should go to college" mantra needs to be replaced by "many are not going to succeed in college given current conditions in many K-12 systems."

Disagree.

Free increases the access to community college to people who may not have considered it in the first place. And we expect that bringing these students in and exposing them to the possibilities a college education can provide will motivate them to change their goals to something that involves a degree and a career. 

Reverse disagree. Community college costs are absurdly low. A few hundred bucks for a 3-credit course is typical. Heck, we have more than a few folks who are homeless, but enrolled in classes with us. That's how cheap it is.

But community colleges pay a socio-economic price for being so cheap. The model is obligated to maintain a workforce primarily made up of part-time professors paid a pittance. Community colleges are not unlike the Family Dollar for keeping themselves operating. Only instead of relying on cheap chinese goods made in sweatshops, community colleges rely on cheap adjuncts paid $1800 a course.

If an institution is going to be brutally honest about significantly boosting their completion rates, there is really only one way that colleges reliably make that happen. They increase their incoming student selectivity. This is how nearly all elite SLAC's get their high reputational ratings. All R1's do this too. And many, many R2's. Our own president has publicly stated support for becoming selective. When a community college president acknowledges that it he is exploring selectivity of admitted students, you know something's seriously $@*& up.

Quote from: Aster on November 04, 2019, 04:23:40 PM
But community colleges pay a socio-economic price for being so cheap. The model is obligated to maintain a workforce primarily made up of part-time professors paid a pittance. Community colleges are not unlike the Family Dollar for keeping themselves operating. Only instead of relying on cheap chinese goods made in sweatshops, community colleges rely on cheap adjuncts paid $1800 a course.

The model isn't obligated to do anything. Models don't have agency State governments and other groups have chosen to consistently underfund community colleges, forcing them to rely heavily on tuition for their budget and then community colleges have responded to this by hiring lots of adjuncts and paying them a pittance, even by adjunct standards. It doesn't actually have to be this way...