December 9th, 2007
Catching some bs
On one hand, you have governments pledging to fight dyslexia, and on the other you have studies showing that dyslexics are more likely to succeed in business…
Is dyslexia the result of new environmental pressures?
As the importance of the written word as a form of communication is waning and the ‘creative’ era of data manipulation dawns, would it not be an advantage of some sorts to be more right-brain dominant?
And if that’s the case, shouldn’t we be changing the education system rather than trying to ‘cure’ dyslexic children?
Philip J Schadenfreude on 
The education system has needed changing forever.
I think dyslexia is exacerbated by the way we (don’t) teach kids to read today. The ‘look-say’ method sucks, and there seems to be a definite lack of import put upon correct spelling and–in fact–teaching spelling and grammar at all! English class has changed to ‘Literature and Composition’ class, and the importance is definitely on producing essays where the content isn’t as important as the MLA format and other fiddly details that really aren’t important to learning the subject of the essay, just following complex rules and regulations.
School seems to be moving more toward teaching how to follow rules and not question needlessly rigid and complex regulations. It’s not just ‘write an essay about this’; it’s become, ‘write an essay about this, like this, and you have to turn in your outline first, then your notes, then your first draft, then your second draft…’. Utterly ridiculous.
Yup.
Indeed, the school I went to was what could only be termed as an ‘exam factory’ – as a consequence I’m very good at passing exams… my education from that time is patchy at best though.
I’ve never really rated exams as a way of testing a person’s knowledge of any subject. To condense several years worth of learning a vast subject into a handful of questions seems arbitary. it could so easily be luck that you know the right answers… or not.
A good kid follows directions.
A great kid follows his better judgement.
I’ve had some classes like that, and some that weren’t. In my school, the way classes are run are pretty much completely up to the teacher. So some classes are pretty different than others in the way they’re run. The English teacher I had last year (who was also the best English teacher I’ve ever had, and, actually, the best teacher I’ve ever had period), taught us the format for an essay, and while that was a small part of the grade, nearly all of it was on the content. I think the overall Works Cited page, and general MLA formatting regulations could be worth, maybe, ten points, out of the 150-point essay. But there’s no way you’d lose them all unless you just plain quoted things without citing a single source. In which case you’d actually be plagiarizing and would probably fail the whole semester. I’ve had others, though, who force you to first turn in an outline, and then a rough draft, and then your final draft. I don’t do outlines or rough drafts, though. Generally, I ended up writing the essay, and then making the other stuff up from that.
I don’t know that I
can dream forwards
and backwards
without falling.
Dyslexics of the world, untie.
You know what DNA stands for, right?
“National Dyslexics Association”!
Um, depends if it is poorly educated ppl who are passing off their lack of intelligence as dyslexia, or if it is genuine dyslexics.
Most (not all) ppl I know that claim to have dyslexia are really just lazy and/or un-educated.
I think that the regular education system is ok, but it needs better funding and better teachers (or better paid). We should spend money in schools instead of wars.
Anyway, *hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work I go*
I agree. More money for teachers. That’d make me happy.
One problem I have with the study linked by Adam is that it doesn’t take into account the number of dyslexics who don’t end up as entrepreneurs. Is the high incidence of dyslexia among entrepreneurs evidence that dyslexia carries with it certain advantages, or merely evidence that people with dyslexia have fewer opportunities to succeed in established companies and so are forced to set out on their own? There’s also the issue of self-reporting, which as Ben mentioned is frequently unreliable.
I know, this is a webcomic, not a journal club. Insert gratuitous joke about “People with dyslexia can be useful, valued members of the community. Or, they can turn out like Tom Cruise”.
Throwing money at the education system will not fix the fact that the system does not work for everyone–and isn’t that the point of an education system? To have it be capable of teaching all the different styles of learning?
I think with more resources, better trained and more motivated teachers, it would be capable of teaching all student types.
Yeah but putting tax dollars into it wo’n't give more money to the teachers or help change the system. And there are people who simply don’t learn in a classroom setting, not to mention the way people act when trying to impress peers, which hampers learning in most cases. You can’t just say that flinging money at it will fix things. That’s been proven not to work, at least in the US. We don’t need money, we need changes.
I guess I should qualify what I said above. When I approved of more money for teachers, I was referring to myself personally. Likewise, when I said that this would make me happy, it wouldn’t be because of any improvement in the quality of education…
Oh I am not suggesting that we “fling” money around.
I am suggesting that we have better funding. More funding will allow for more resources, for more teachers, for better teacher training, for smaller class sizes, for more diverse/targeted education methods.
I feel that we need a unified education system that gives all graduates a comparable qualification. It shouldn’t matter what school or what method you learnt by. And it shouldn’t matter how rich your parents are.
The only way to achieve this is with more funding and more training, but training costs money.
Now I need to disagree with your post. The idea that all graduates should have a comparable education (by which I’m assuming you mean that most people should be learning the same things, albeit through different methods) strikes a particular nerve with me. There’s a certain set of education “reforms” that are now sweeping the area in which I live that are completely ridiculous. The people they affect don’t approve of them, experts don’t approve of them, and yet the politicians passed them anyways.
One particular idea of this reform is that everyone should be forced to take more advanced math and science classes, in order that we might “compete on the global market in the growing areas of science and technology,” which is a ridiculous and wholly unrealistic concept by itself, but the idea that forcing people who are BAD at math and DISLIKE math to TAKE MORE MATH seems to me a bit ridiculous. The worse thing is that these advanced, possibly pointless math classes must take the place of some other study that may actually have value for the student, like more English, or art or music classes, if they are particularly skilled in one of those areas. This “reform” also comes at the expense of students who are only barely staying in school, students in alternative education programs. Along with the new legislation, these students may need to drop out entirely.
I realize that this may not be what you were discussing at all, but it’s what a call for education reform could bring. In my opinion, this makes the educational system much, much worse, rather than better, but the politicians don’t seem to care.
Personally, I think the education system needs more flexibility. The same methods don’t work for everyone, and everyone should have the opportunity to find a way that works for them, even if, like Ben mentioned, they’re parents aren’t rich.
I agree with you there, easca, but I still have to staunchly disagree that more funding would help. It’s where the funding goes, not how much of it there is, that people should be paying attention to and thinking about.
As for method, I have a fond wish that Montessori was widely available for all kids, from pre-primary/pre-school to college.
I must say I agree with Easca on this one. Saying “a unified education system that gives all graduates a comparable qualification” made me cringe when I first looked at it, and it’s only gotten worse. I know your intentions are all for the best, but that method’s been tried and has proven itself to not work. In Virginia they’ve become obsessed with the idea in the last decade, and I’ve watched the new Standards of Learning (standardized tests given at end of each semester of school, from years 1 through 12) go into affect, and have seen the effects that they’ve had on the system and the students. The tests were in trial period for most of my high-school years, and when into full effect the year I graduated. Younger siblings of my high school friends have kept me posted on developments.
What it really amounts to is the politicians wanting to be seen as “for” education, and wanting “a unified education system that gives all graduates a comparable qualification.” So how do you do that? You implement tests that each student must pass that are the same, state-wide (keep in mind that a state in the USA is similar in size to the whole of England: this is a lot of people we’re talking about), then you take away the accreditation of any school that can’t pass a large proportion (I think it’s 80% now) of its students. Now, the wealthier districts have very little trouble with this: kids with monied parents in well funded school systems do better. But much of Virginia is poor, rural, farming hill-country. Those school districts do far worse. So the test gets revised down to the lowest common denominator, while at the same time teachers and administrators, fearing that their school will lose its accreditation, teach to the test. So the classes become about passing a test, which has been simplified so that a majority of schools can pass it (what would you do if on implementation half the schools in the state lost accreditation, eh?), and the educational value is lost.
Students that struggle in a subject struggle even more, and have less room for creative alternatives, and students that excel in a subject are held back to the ever lowering standards of the standardized tests, the end result being that the children coming out the educational system are less prepared than ever. And it costs a fortune.
We need schools that work, and that takes money, sure. But it also takes an understanding of how kids learn, of regional differences in socio-economic status and culture, and of human nature in general.
Thank you, Roo. You said that better than I could! The standardised testing nightmare is exactly what I think of when people start talking about education reform or fixing the system. The system can’t be fixed; it wasn’t designed to be a learning system. It was designed to train good little factory workers. I’m serious.
Hmmmm, you can crap on the idea of a unified education system all you want.
I have come out of a system that has different standards in every state and every school is slightly different.
I have spent considerable time studying a subject in one state, then gone to another state only to have my qualifications laughed at because there is no standard.
I see international students having a hella bad time trying to get there previous education recognised.
I think it is time to stop thinking like little villages and start looking at the world as one place, where everyone can have a comparable education, and therefore a better chance.
Having worked in an education institute, I know that more funding is needed. True that there needs to be better control over how that money gets spent, but still, more money means more resources, means better equipped teachers, means better taught students.
My biggest problem atm with the education system is graduates who need a calculator to cost their shopping list, who need a spell checker to type an email that is readable and who can’t work out a basic logic problem. These aren’t extreme examples, they are common.
I’m not a fan of private schools (that they get more goverment funding than state schools is another matter) or of niche/alternative schools.
I think it should all be run by one organisation. I do think that there needs to be allowances made for students who do not fit into the normal system, who have special needs or who have disabilities.
I do no think that every student needs to graduate with the same piece of paper, just with comparable qualifications, maybe a tiered system.
I am sick of applying for college courses or uni courses, arriving with my previous cert’s and having the admin asking “wassat mean??” when I show them what maths or english I have already completed.
I may be just a silly homeschooler here, but why on earth does everyone need a comparable education in the first place? I’ve known people that were incredibly clever with their hands, but couldn’t read to save their lives. Does that make them less worthy members of society? And I agree with you: a degree or certification should be equivalent (how many times have I been frustrated at the fact that the first two years of college are high school all over again??). It’s just getting there that I disagree with, as well as the attitude that everyone needs to get there, or will want to get there.
Thinking only globally, btb, is just as useless as thinking only locally. We need a medium of both, because we can theorise all we like but stuff still is little villages, as you put it. And that’s okay, furthermore. It’s good, because if you get people that only think in terms of the world, then you get mistakes like houses being built on firebreaks or buildings being contracted and designed by folks who know nothing about the weather in the region, &c. We need to think both ways.
That person that is good with their hands but not with their mind needs a qual that recognises that. No, they should not fail school because they don’t fit the right shaped hole to pass thru, but they also shouldn’t be given a qual that says that they are equal to me. Just like I shouldn’t be given something that says I can perform skilled manual tasks like that person can.
Maths doesn’t change anywhere in the world, nor does physics or chem, etc, so why should the standards to which it is taught change? English should be the same in all english speaking countries, excluding some local variations. And so on.
Of course local culture and what not should be taught in the relevant places. But some things are pretty universal, and those things are what need to be stanardised.
I got fucked over at school big time. So I quit, and tried home schooling. It was worse. The ppl who mark the work wouldn’t asses me as fast as I sent it in. They didn’t like that I might use different methods from what the text books outlined, etc.
Also, it just occured to me that an education system is only as flexible as the ppl that teach it.
I was thinking about the idiot at the local health food shop who only talks about products that are “natural”, “no salt”, “organic”, etc, he will only discuss alternative healing methods, he thinks that mainstream ideas are bad. This type of person is why I do not like alternative schools. Not that all ppl who attend or work at those schools are like that, but alternative venues attract some very messed up ppl, ppl who are close minded. These ppl are as bad as the worst in the normal education system.
I think alot would be done to improve things if this closemindness was removed.
Well of course a lot of good comes from not being closed minded. But a lot of bad comes from it too. Everything is about a happy medium.
I hear you about being screwed over at school. I was homeschooled for that reason though, and just took advantage of the High School Proficiency Examination they have out here to earn my diploma. After I learned that it meant nothing and I’d have to suffer high school all over again, just in two years instead of four, I said ‘WTF NO’ to school and never went back. I’m a writer and artist, though, so my career path lets me do that.
I still fret over the careers that I will/have missed out on because of the redundancy of school in the US, though. Interior Design, Architecture, Animation, Actor….
Interesting view points from everyone.
One thing that irritates me is that you dislike “alternative schools” simply because you dislike the way they’re run. It strikes me that your problem isn’t really with the concept of alternative schools so much as with their current manifestation. Is this really any different from me disliking standard public education simply because many of the teachers are idiots? I don’t think so. If you look a bit further into the issue, I think you’ll find that not all of these places are like that. And if some of these venues do attract some “messed up people,” is it not better that they’re at least getting an education, rather than just hitting the streets and working at McDonald’s? I’m of the opinion that education can really make a difference in the world, and it’s important to find methods that work for everyone, including “messed up people.”
And while math and physics may be the same the world over, the fact is that not everyone wants to go into those fields. Personally, I find physics fascination, but it would be rather ridiculous for me to assume that the rest of the world does as well, and I think forcing everyone to take physics–or advanced mathematics, as my current educational system has it–is a rather ridiculous concept. Everyone has different talents, everyone has different ways to learn, and the education system should reflect that. Certainly, there should be some standardization, so as to avoid the nonsense that Melanthios went through, as well as your own story, Ben, but this should not come at the expense of any student. Standardized testing and forcing all students to take identical courses is not the answer.
I think you missed my point easca. It wasn’t idiots studying at the alternative schools that worries me, it is the idiots that seem to want to teach there.
Of course not all are badly run and yes, some state schools are as bad. But I think that this would be partially alleviated by bringing all schools onto the same level.
I am not disagreeing with the idea of alternative teaching methods, I am having issues with the wide array of teaching outcomes that are supposedly equal.
No, I don’t think all students should learn advanced maths or physics. That would be a stupid idea. The 3 highschools I attended all had staggered math classes. Low levels thru to high levels. The problem was that the different levels were not equal at the other schools. So I could come out of a high level maths in one school and it be only equal to the mid level at another. These levels should be stanardised across all schools. And the subject matter should be stanardised as well. This is what I mean when I say standardised.
There are core subjects that need to be equal thru all schools.