"You'll Use This Everyday for the Rest of Your Life..."

[zuzu_]

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.

[Wahoo Redux]

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:

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.

[Wahoo Redux]

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.

[kaysixteen]

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.

[marshwiggle]

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.

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........

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.

[polly_mer]

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. 

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.

[polly_mer]

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.

[Caracal]

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.

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.

[fourhats]

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

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.

[marshwiggle]

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.

[polly_mer]

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.

[ciao_yall]

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.

[Caracal]

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.

[marshwiggle]

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.

[Wahoo Redux]

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.